The Empire of the Senses (28 page)

Lev sat down and ordered a glass of vodka, remembering the refreshing crisp taste he used to enjoy during the war. When he took a sip, the sharp clear liquid felt strangely comforting. From across the bar, Lev spied Benesh and immediately glanced away, not wanting to attract him. He had seen Benesh here many times, always closing deals, weaving between the tables, greeting customers as if he’d known them all his life, hoping they would prove lucrative in some way. He had tried to involve Lev in a moneymaking scheme a few years back—was it buying up tenement buildings in Hallesches Tor or investing in that revue near Potsdamer Platz? Lev couldn’t recall—he only remembered the distaste he’d felt when Benesh had pressed his fleshy moist palm into his own hand, swearing that Lev would regret missing out on such an opportunity.

Lev drained his glass and thought about getting another. But he sensed Benesh’s eyes on him, sizing him up, as he moved from table to table, inching toward Lev. As usual, he wore that same cream-colored suit, the same monocle. His shoes—lace-up oxfords, extremely shiny
ones, a deep mahogany brown—always appeared too small for his feet. The top of his balding head sported a sheen of sweat. “Hello, my friend,” Benesh said in Yiddish, pulling up a chair. “May I offer you a cigar?”

Lev stood up and signaled for the bill. The woman behind the bar stared at him blankly.

Benesh waved his hand in the air. “No one pays here. They just write it down on a ledger.” He gestured for Lev to sit. Lev said he was late to see his mother.

“Never keep your mother waiting!” Benesh called after Lev, who moved through the heavy blue smoke toward the open door. “The wrath of a mother is unparalleled,” he added and then laughed hoarsely.

His mother still looked like a refugee from Galicia. Even though she wore modern clothes, a knee-length burgundy skirt, stockings, stacked heels, a white blouse, her eyes continually peeked out from under her dark hair, suspicious, unsatisfied, restless. She smoked incessantly, despite her hacking cough. The small house was falling apart. Termites had eaten through the windowsills, leaving behind miniature mountains of fecal matter that looked like sand. The brass doorknobs were loose on the doors. The wallpaper was peeling in the bathroom. But she didn’t care and refused to leave, unmoved by Lev’s persuading or by the checks he regularly sent her. He suspected she donated the money to the KPD, the German Communist Party. Her three cats, Trotsky, Lenin, and Mayakovsky, white with splashes of brown, were old and didn’t move much, preferring the sun-drenched windowsills or the hot cobblestone pathway. As he approached the house, he thought he’d at least have a few last moments of reprieve before knocking on the door, but she was out front, shaking crumbs from a tablecloth. The heat of the day had subsided, promising a cooler evening. When she saw him, her eyes lit up, but then she barked, “I haven’t seen you in months. How is that shiksa of yours?”

“Josephine?”

“Who else would I mean? Or are you faithfully following in your father’s footsteps, keeping someone on the side?”

He kissed her on both cheeks, her skin still soft and smooth, dusted with a little rouge.

“And you arrive like this, on my doorstep, unannounced, so I don’t have time to prepare anything. You do this on purpose.”

“I can only stay an hour.”

“There’s herring, potato dumplings. A few marinated beets.”

Lev’s mouth watered even though she was a terrible cook. Still, he hadn’t eaten all day. One of the cats, possibly Mayakovsky, sidled up against his leg.

“How are you?”

She shook her head, coughing. “I’m not well. I’m not well at all. But you wouldn’t know the difference. The Angel of Death could have taken me two months ago, and who would know?”

“It seems as if you’re still here.”

“Barely,” she said, encircling his arm with a firm grip and leading him inside.

He sat down on the couch, which was partially covered in cat hair. Lev tried to sit on the cleaner end of it but then gave up. The late-afternoon sun filtered in through the windows, illuminating the golden dust particles. His mother sat in the reading chair opposite him, the chair where his father used to sit. She sat there triumphantly, nestled into the deep-seated cushions. His father had died of a heart attack before the war, or as his mother put it, Lev’s marriage to the gentile Josephine killed his father. Not that she missed him. He’d been an argumentative drunk as well as innately mercantile—there wasn’t a thing he couldn’t sell and he’d sold everything from prayer shawls to life insurance, and this, of course, disgusted her. Lev had always taken his mother’s side, witnessing her despair when his father left for days on end, only to return drunk. When he mysteriously came into money, he spent it recklessly, buying his mother a fur coat and Lev a sailor outfit, both of which they did not especially want. When his deals went badly, he would lie in bed and swear at the ceiling. He buried his head under a pillow and moaned over his mistakes. Lev brought him tea and cigarettes and pickled herring, but nothing cheered him. Once recovered, he tried to talk to Lev about his studies, to engage him, but the attempts
were paltry and halfhearted, and Lev came to view his father as a volatile unsettling presence.

And so when he suddenly died, Lev felt relief. Relief that he no longer had to listen to his mother’s tirades against his father or witness his father’s crippling depression, the world turning dark not just for him but for everyone. And Lev felt relief that money was no longer appearing and disappearing at a moment’s notice. He’d often had to advance his mother money for food and cigarettes only to come to dinner the next week, the table flush with vodka and meat, his father jubilantly playing the generous host. Yes, it was better now, even if the house felt overly quiet, hushed.

His mother stood up abruptly. “The tea. I nearly forgot.” She left the room.

Lev eyed the altar in the corner, alight with candles dedicated to Rosa Luxemburg. The fact that they shared the same birth date, March 5, and that his mother had been born precisely ten years before Rosa, in 1861, was only the starting point for her feelings of intense kinship with the Polish Jewish revolutionary. Apparently, Rosa also suffered from a volatile husband, Gustav, who drank too much, and both women endured physical ailments from an early age. Rosa had been born with a congenital hip dislocation, which caused her to limp, and Lev’s mother had a similar fate: her left leg was slightly shorter than her right. She believed the only way Jews would ever become equal citizens of the world was through revolution, which would do away with petty illusions of religion, nationality, gender, and class. Her favorite quote of Rosa’s had been recited so often Lev knew it by heart: “Why do you come to me with your special Jewish sorrows? I feel just as sorry for the wretched Indian victims in Putamayo, the Negroes in Africa … I cannot find a special corner in my heart for the ghetto. I feel at home in the entire world wherever there are clouds and birds and human tears.”

She returned from the kitchen carrying a tray with two tall glasses for black tea. In small bowls, she’d placed the dumplings and the beets. She lowered the tray of food onto the coffee table in front of them.

“No herring?” Lev asked.

She sat down and immediately started smoking a cigarette. “Gave
the little bit left to Lenin this morning. Plus, I didn’t know you were coming. And now you criticize me for being empty-handed.”

Lev leaned forward to pour the tea. “I’m not criticizing you, Mutti. I only wanted to see how you are doing.”

“How am I doing?” She threw up her hands, waving a cigarette through the air. “I’m perfectly fine. Except for the fact that I never see my grandchildren. How’s Vicki? She looks like me, that girl, but of course I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen her since May.”

Lev started to speak, but she held up her hand. “I already know what you’re going to say—the ride is too far on the tram. An hour, at most. But to see me, an hour always lasts too long.”

“It’s not that,” Lev explained, feeling guilty. “Franz is consumed by his studies. Every weekend he hikes with these nature groups. And Vicki has dance rehearsals for the fall performance.”

She dusted off some hairs from her skirt. “They prefer Josephine’s mother, who, by the way, still hasn’t realized the nineteenth century is over.” She puffed on her cigarette. “Oh, I forgot. She’s dead.”

Lev nodded. “It’s had quite an effect on Josephine.”

His mother sniffed. “Everything has quite an effect on her. Too fragile. Too delicate. I told you this before you married her. How can a woman like that endure even a fig of hardship? She can’t.”

“Well,” Lev hedged, taking a sip of the too-hot tea. “Since her mother died …” but he didn’t bother to finish the sentence. He didn’t have the energy to defend Josephine, especially since he agreed with his mother.

Lev sunk back into the couch, not minding the feeling of all those little cat hairs peppering his shirt. Now Leah—his mother would have loved Leah. He often asked himself what his life would look like if he’d brought her back from Mitau. Or if he’d met her before Josephine. Leah, who smelled like the fresh river, whose name reminded him of the full moon. He still had dreams about her, certain images spinning through his mind long after he woke; the apple orchard and her body under the trees, the shadow of leaves scattering across her bare torso. In the last dream, he found her in Berlin at the fruit seller. She was buying fresh figs. He embraced her. She smiled sadly and said, “Imagine the
children we could have made.” And Lev had replied, “We would have three children by now, at least!”

He woke up exuberant, until he felt the cool emptiness next to him in bed, the vacant space indented by Josephine’s long angular body.

When the sun started to set, his mother got up from the chair and lit the candles standing in their silver candlesticks.

“Are you keeping Sabbath?”

She smiled weakly. “A sentimental habit.”

The image of her standing there, match in hand, candles flickering in the setting sun, made his heart contract. How often had he admired Leah performing the same task on a Friday evening? In his own home, such rituals were not done. They ate fish on Fridays, and the smell always lingered well after dark.

“Do you want me to stay?” Lev asked.

For a moment she hesitated, and then she blew out the match. “Herr Schonemann and his cousin Gilda, who helped with the pamphlets last week, are coming for dinner.”

Lev held his hat to his chest. “So you won’t be alone?”

She clasped his face, her hands icy cold. “Solitude is a blessing, my son. With your father …” She blinked hard, then forced a smile. “You know how it was.”

He kissed her on both cheeks, and she followed him to the door, muttering the same stream of complaints that began and ended every visit: her back hurt, her right leg was acting up again, would Vicki ever visit her, and when was the next time she could expect him? Would he return before another six months passed?

“I’m sorry Lenin ate the last of the herring,” she added.

“It’s okay, Mutti,” Lev said, putting on his hat.

“You’ll come back before the High Holidays?”

“I’ll try,” Lev said, thinking she looked smaller than he remembered, standing there in the doorway, her shoulders hunched, her white face framed by her graying dark hair.

He rushed home, anticipating Josephine’s anger at his lateness. She would assume he’d been with a woman, disbelieving he had actually used the free summer afternoon to visit his mother. But then she would
reluctantly ask after Mara, feigning concern for her health and her leg when really Josephine wanted to wish that part of Lev away.

He walked briskly down the street filled with families making their way to synagogue. The stores had all closed early, candles lit in the windows. The door to the bar was finally shut after standing open all day. Lev saw Benesh lingering outside the bar, stretching himself, his plump body comic in the cream suit. Lev hurried on, not wanting to engage with him. The U-Bahn was just around the corner. The crowd thinned as he neared the end of the street. Not recognizing him at first, Lev saw Rabbi Landauer moving toward him in long mournful strides. The rabbi stared through Lev, his large eyes blinking as if continually startled.

“Rabbi Landauer,” Lev said, touching his tattered coat sleeve. The rabbi was an emaciated version of himself. He had once been well fed, heavily bearded, the learned Torah teacher of Berlin, a fixture of the community.

“Oh,” the rabbi replied, running a hand through his thinning hair. “I didn’t see you.”

“Rabbi Landauer—what happened to you?”

He motioned to his head. “As you can see, I’m uncovered before God. A walking disgrace.”

Lev only then noticed he was not wearing his signature black velvet skullcap. The rabbi shook his head, hooking his arm through Lev’s.

They walked some blocks while the rabbi told Lev his story. In a flurry of long tumbling sentences, he explained how he’d lost his faith after suffering from a series of depressive episodes. He was now in the midst of an existential crisis—a complete sea change. He’d turned to Buddhism. As he talked, he was clearly distracted, stopping midsentence to glance suspiciously over his shoulder. He looked half-starved, his hollow gray face having turned inward, his glassy brown eyes peering at Lev with an odd terror. On top of everything else, he’d recently become a vegetarian.

Lev almost smiled, but the intensity of the rabbi’s expression stopped him. “Keeping kosher is enough to kill a man’s appetite—wasn’t that enough for you?”

Landauer muttered that he felt healthier than ever, that his mind was as clear as crystal and he no longer wanted to be a rabbi. “I’ve felt like a fraud my whole life. I’ve never really been certain about the nature of God, even though I’ve taught countless boys, such as yourself, to believe in His existence while at the same time declaring how any attempt to even understand God is a pompous, arrogant act.” They’d walked for what seemed to Lev countless blocks. He felt empathy for the rabbi, but at the same time, he spotted a U-Bahn station out of the corner of his eye. And like all depressives, the rabbi remained unaware of time and the distance they’d covered. He continued the monologue of his spiritual breakdown, elaborating on details he’d already described, decrying his fallen place in life. The streetlights lit up, giving the rabbi’s long sunken face a ghostly pallor, something akin to an El Greco painting. As the rabbi reiterated the healing effects of consuming tea derived from tree bark, Lev took his arm, nearly forcing him to stand still.