Jakob the Liar (2 page)

It occurs to him to take off his jacket, simply take it off and leave it stuck in the door — what does he need a jacket for now anyway?

He has already slipped out of one sleeve when he remembers that he does still need the jacket. Not for the approaching winter — when you’re in the ghetto the oncoming cold doesn’t scare you — but for the duty officer, if Jacob ever finds him. The duty officer doubtless could stand the sight of a Jew without a jacket — Jacob’s shirt is clean and only slightly mended — but hardly the sight of a Jew without a yellow star on his chest and back (Ordinance 1). Last summer the stars were on the shirt, you can still see the stitch marks, but not anymore; the stars are now on the jacket. So he puts it on again, sticks with his stars, tugs more firmly, gains a few millimeters, but not enough. The situation is, one might say, desperate; he tugs with all his might, something rips, making a sound, and the door opens. Jacob falls into the corridor, a man in civilian clothes stands over him, looking very surprised; the man laughs, then turns serious again. What does Jacob think he is doing here? Jacob gets up and chooses his words very carefully. Not that he’s been out on the street after eight. No, the sentry who stopped him had told him it was eight o’clock and he was to report here to the duty officer.

“And then you decided to eavesdrop at this door?”

“I wasn’t eavesdropping. I’ve never been here before and didn’t know what room to go to. So I was just about to knock here.”

The man asks no more questions and nods his head toward the end of the corridor. Jacob walks ahead of him until the man says, “Right here”; it is not the bureau chief’s room. Jacob looks at the man, then knocks. The man walks away, but there is no answer from inside.

“Go in,” the man tells him, and disappears behind his own door after Jacob has pressed down the latch.

Jacob in the duty officer’s room: he stays by the door, he hasn’t put his cap back on since he got caught in the searchlight. The duty officer is quite a young man, thirty at most. His hair is dark brown, almost black, slightly wavy. His rank is not apparent as he is in shirtsleeves; his jacket is hanging from a hook on the wall in such a way that the shoulder boards cannot be seen. Hanging over the jacket is his leather belt with his revolver. Somehow this seems illogical; it should really be hanging under the jacket. Surely a man first takes off his belt and then the jacket, but the belt is hanging over the jacket.

The duty officer is lying on a black leather sofa, asleep. Jacob believes he is fast asleep; Jacob has heard many people sleeping, he has an ear for it. The man isn’t snoring, but he is breathing deeply and regularly; somehow Jacob must make his presence known. Normally he would clear his throat, but that won’t do here, that’s something you do when visiting good friends. Although actually, when visiting a very good friend you don’t clear your throat; you say, Wake up, Salomon, I’m here, or you simply tap him on the shoulder. But, even so, throat clearing won’t do, that’s somewhere between here and Salomon. Jacob is about to knock on the inside of the door but drops his hand when he sees a clock on the desk, its back to him. He has to know what time it is; there is nothing he has to know more urgently right now than this. The clock says 7:36. Jacob walks softly back to the door. They’ve been having you on, or not
they
, just that one fellow behind the searchlight, he’s been having you on, and you fell for it.

Jacob still has twenty-four minutes left; if they are fair, he actually has twenty-four minutes plus the time his stay here has already cost him. He still doesn’t knock. He recognizes the black leather sofa the duty officer is lying on; he has sat on it himself. It used to belong to Rettig, Rettig the broker, one of the richest men in the town. In the fall of 1935 Jacob borrowed some money from him, at 20 percent interest. The whole summer had been so cool that he could hardly sell any ice cream at all. Business had never been so slow; not even his famous raspberry ice cream had sold well. Jacob had needed to start selling potato pancakes as early as August but hadn’t yet made enough money for the potatoes, so he had to borrow. And he had sat on the sofa in February 1936 when he returned the money to Rettig. It had stood in the outer office; Jacob had sat on it for an hour, waiting for Rettig. He remembered how surprised he was at the extravagance; there was easily enough leather for two overcoats or three jackets — and in the outer office!

The duty officer turns on his side, sighs, smacks his lips a few times; a cigarette lighter slips out of his trouser pocket and drops on the floor. Jacob simply must wake him up now; it would be a bad thing for him to wake up without Jacob rousing him. He knocks on the inside of the door, the duty officer says, “Yes?” moves, and goes on sleeping. Jacob knocks again — how can anyone be that fast asleep? — he knocks louder, the duty officer sits up before being properly awake, rubs his eyes, and asks, “What time is it?”

“Just past seven-thirty,” says Jacob.

The duty officer has stopped rubbing his eyes, sees Jacob, rubs his eyes again, doesn’t know whether to be angry or to laugh: it’s quite incredible, no one’s going to believe him. He stands up, takes his belt from the hook, then the jacket, puts them on, buckles his belt. He sits down behind the desk, leans back, stretches both arms wide apart.

“To what do I owe this honor?”

Jacob tries to answer, but he can’t, his mouth is too dry: so that’s what the duty officer looks like.

“No false modesty, now,” says the duty officer. “Out with it! What’s the problem?”

A bit of saliva has collected in his mouth. This seems to be a friendly fellow; maybe he’s new here, maybe he isn’t even aware of this building’s terrible reputation. For a moment it occurs to Jacob that possibly he miscalculated the distance, maybe Bezanika isn’t that far, maybe barely two hundred miles, or even a good deal less; maybe the man facing him is scared, and the smart thing is to be prepared; there must be a natural explanation for everything. But then he remembers that the report has only just reached the announcer; the duty officer has been asleep and can’t have heard it yet. Then again it might be just as well if he hasn’t heard it. The report mentioned that the Russians had been halted, you Germans have succeeded in stopping the advance, you’ve had a success, but maybe this fellow thinks that the Russians are still advancing. Jacob has been speculating too long; that’s not smart, the duty officer is getting impatient; he’s beginning to frown. “Don’t you speak to Germans?”

Of course Jacob speaks to Germans, why wouldn’t he speak to Germans, that’s the last impression he wants to give, for God’s sake, we’re all sensible people after all, of course we can speak to each other.

“The sentry on the tower on the Kurländischer Damm told me to report to you. He said I was out on the street after eight o’clock.”

The duty officer looks at the clock in front of him on the desk, then pushes back his sleeve and looks at his watch.

“And that’s all he said?”

“He also told me I was to ask for a well-deserved punishment.”

That answer can’t do any harm, Jacob thinks; it sounds obedient, disarmingly honest. Someone who carries his frankness to such an extreme might be entitled to fair treatment, especially when the offense of which he is accused was never committed: any clock can bear witness to that.

“What’s your name?”

“Heym, Jacob Heym.”

The duty officer takes paper and pencil, writes down something, not only the name, goes on writing; he looks at the clock again, it’s getting later and later, he goes on writing, almost half a page, then puts the paper aside. He opens a little box, takes out a cigarette, and gropes in his trouser pocket. Jacob walks to the black leather sofa, bends down, picks up the lighter from the floor, and puts it on the table in front of the duty officer.

“Thanks.”

Jacob goes and stands by the door again; a glance at the clock on the desk has shown him that it’s already past 7:45. The duty officer lights his cigarette, takes a puff; his fingers fiddle with the lighter. He flicks it on a few times, then snaps it shut again; the flame is already quite small.

“Do you live far from here?” he asks. “Less than ten minutes.”

“Go on home.”

Should he believe it? How many people had the duty officer said that to without their ever getting out of here? What will he do with his revolver when Jacob turns his back? What’s out there in the corridor? How will the sentry react when he sees that Jacob has eluded his well-deserved punishment? Why should Jacob Heym of all people, that insignificant, trembling little Jacob Heym with the tears in his eyes, be the first Jew to describe what the inside of the military office looks like? It would take another six days of the Creation, as the saying goes; the world has grown even more chaotic than it was then.

“Come on now, beat it!” says the duty officer.

The corridor is empty again, which was almost to be expected; it’s one of the minor sources of danger. But then the door to the outside: had it made any noise when he opened it before, did it open without a sound, or did it squeak or creak or grate? Go ahead, just try to take in every detail, quite impossible — if only he’d known in advance that it would really matter! Matter? In practical terms it makes absolutely no difference whether it can be moved quietly or not. If it doesn’t squeak, Jacob will open it; and if it does squeak, is Jacob supposed to stay where he is? At ten minutes to eight?

Gently he presses down the latch. Too bad there’s no other word for gently — maybe
very gently
or
infinitely gently
, all equally far from what is meant. One might say, Open the door quietly; if he hears you, it could cost you your life, the life that has suddenly acquired meaning. So he opens the door. And then Jacob is standing outside: how cold it has suddenly become. The wide square lies before him, a joy to step into it. The searchlight has grown tired of waiting; it’s having fun somewhere else, it’s at a standstill, perhaps it’s resting up for new adventures. Keep close to the wall, Jacob, that’s it; once you’ve reached the corner of the building, grit your teeth for the twenty yards across the square. If he does notice anything, he’ll first have to swing the beam around and search, but here’s the corner already, only a measly twenty yards to go.

It is almost exactly twenty yards, I’ve measured the distance: to be precise, fifty-nine feet six and a half inches. I’ve been there, the building is still standing, completely undamaged, only the watchtower is gone. But I had someone show me the exact spot, right in the middle of the Kurländischer Damm, and then I paced off the distance — I have a pretty good feeling for a yard. But it wasn’t accurate enough for me so I bought a tape measure, then went back and measured it again. The children looked on and took me for an important person, and the grown-ups watched in amazement and took me for a madman. Even a policeman turned up, asked me for my identity card, and wanted to know what I was measuring. In any case it’s exactly fifty-nine feet six and a half inches, no doubt about that.

The building has come to an end; Jacob gets ready to take off. Almost twenty yards have to be covered a few minutes before eight; it’s a safe bet, and yet. A mouse is what one ought to be. A mouse is so insignificant, so small and quiet. And you? Officially you are a louse, a bedbug, we are all bedbugs, by a whim of our Creator absurdly overgrown bedbugs, and when was the last time a bedbug wanted to trade places with a mouse? Jacob decides not to run, he’d rather creep, it’s easier to control the sounds that way. If the searchlight starts moving, he can still speed up. Halfway across he hears the sentry’s voice — don’t panic, it’s not directed at him — the sentry says, “Yessir!” Again he says, “Yessir,” and again. There’s only one explanation: he’s on the phone. Maybe it’s a call from another sentry who is also bored. But he wouldn’t keep saying, “Yessir,” to him, of course he wouldn’t. So it’s the sentry’s superior giving him some sort of orders? Actually quite irrelevant, but, assuming the best, it’s the duty officer on the line: What the hell are you thinking of? Have you gone crazy, giving poor innocent Jews a scare like that? (“Yessir.”) Couldn’t you see the man was half out of his mind — his legs were trembling with fear! Don’t ever let me catch you at it again, is that clear? (“Yessir.”) At the fourth “Yessir,” Jacob has reached the opposite corner; let the fellow go on talking till he’s blue in the face. Then, in less than ten minutes, Jacob is home.

J
acob shares a room with Josef Piwowa and Nathan Rosenblatt. They met for the first time here, in this room. None of them likes the others much; cramped quarters and hunger make for discord, but in all fairness it must be said that even the very first meeting was quite stiff.

Rosenblatt died well over a year before Jacob’s safe return. He had eaten a cat that was careless enough to ignore the warning notices along the barbed wire, and one day there it lay in the yard, dead of starvation. Rosenblatt was the first to find it, and as I was saying, he ate it, and that’s what he died of. Piwowa has only been dead for three months. His passing was accompanied by certain mysterious circumstances; all that is known is that he was shot to death by a foreman in the shoe factory where he worked. He became insolent one day, uttered words that even in normal times are better left unspoken to a foreman, and predictably the enraged man shot him. Some said that Piwowa could never control his temper; he had always been subject to sudden rages and was bound to come to such an end. Others, however, maintained that a violent temper and emotions were no explanation here; they said it was a case of a perfectly ordinary though very skillfully provoked suicide. One way or the other, Piwowa has been dead for three months, Rosenblatt for well over a year. His bed went up the chimney last winter, while Piwowa’s bed, chopped into neat lengths, is still in Jacob’s basement waiting for the cold times ahead. So far no replacements for his roommates have appeared; the supply has been used up, damned or blessed be all cats and guards — in any case they hadn’t liked each other. At least Rosenblatt is silent when he is at home, sitting with closed eyes on his bed and praying; he is the last to go to bed and the first to get up because his debates with God consume all his time. Even after his death he didn’t give up this habit, but at least he is silent, sitting silently with closed eyes and only an occasional furtive glance.

Piwowa is quarrelsome. The last to move in, he behaves as if he were the first: he changes everything around, has to sleep with his feet toward the window; our bread rations have to be hidden from him. To be frank, Piwowa used to work in the woods, as a poacher. His father before him had been a poacher, but he himself was an even better one; he has no children.

So Jacob comes home. The day has been a great strain: many things experienced, endured, suffered, heard, with much trembling. Rejoice, brothers, go wild with joy, the Russians are twelve miles from Bezanika, if that means anything to you! Open your eyes, Nathan Rosenblatt; stop quarreling, Piwowa. The Russians are on their way, don’t you understand? Twelve miles from Bezanika! But Rosenblatt goes on praying; Piwowa goes on lying with his feet toward the window. Let them lie there and quarrel and pray and be dead. Jacob is home, and the Russians had better hurry.