Between Sky and Sea

by Herz Bergner

  ‘Be seated.’ With affected patience he would point out his chair. ‘If you’re so clever you may take over the game. Let’s see how good you are! Well?’

  But it was even worse when he was losing. Then he would quite forget himself. He would grab the king and put it in his pocket and nothing would make him return it.

  ‘I won’t give you the king,’ he would say excitedly, waving his hands, ‘you haven’t won the game as far as I’m concerned. The king is in my pocket. I won’t give it up!’

  Rockman played with everybody and it was a matter of life and death for him that Fabyash should play with him and forget some of his sorrows. But Fabyash did not even hear him when he spoke and did not know what he wanted. He was now so completely withdrawn into himself that he associated with no one. He was convinced that the ship would never arrive anywhere, that all their papers were false, that something was wrong somewhere so that no place would ever allow this little group of Jewish refugees to land anywhere. The captain must have taken a very big bribe for carrying us. He won’t admit anything, but God knows where that Jew-hating captain is taking us. Fabyash is certain that he is taking them right into the arms of the Germans.Why else do we always have to hide far out at sea? Then what is the use of their long journey? It would be better to make an end of everything quietly.

  Fabyash can no longer look his wife in the face. She always sits in the same spot and stares into space. He can’t stand her staring eyes. They give him no peace; they follow him wherever he goes and accuse him:

  ‘Murderer! It is your fault. You are responsible for everything.’ Her eyes seem to scream at him. ‘You killed my child. If not for you, everything would still have been all right! Your cowardice, your fear for your own skin, was the cause. Why did you allow the child to go around with the disease? Why didn’t you say something? It might have been caught in time and then everything would have been different. You killed my daughter and my son! You madman!’

  Fabyash avoided his wife. If only she were not always so silent. If she would have spoken one word to him! Her silence was worse than anything she could have said. Her silence was profoundly eloquent and it pierced him deeply, wounding and torturing him.

  Fabyash told no one about all this; he confided in no one. But it weighed heavily upon him. He was no longer afraid of anything; it was all the same to him now. If no one else showed any fear, why should he be an exception? Why should he disgrace himself before others? Nobody would listen to him anyway—no one wanted to understand him. Even his own wife didn’t want to understand him and seldom even looked at him.

  Everyone pitied him and it was just from pity that they still spoke to him. He felt it deeply for he knew what was going on. For as long as he could remember he had not been well liked and even as a youth the other boys had avoided him. There must be something about him that made people dislike him.

  He remembered that he had always gone his own way when he was a boy in Ger. When he grew up he was always quarrelling with his father. His father, Reb Fishel, had been an orchardist with some property and a strict Hassid disciple of the Gerer rabbi. For the rabbi he would have given his life; he would have made any sacrifice. He was ready to attack anyone who so much as uttered a word against the rabbi, to tear him to pieces. But he was far from being a learned Talmudist. In fact he was a long way from being a scholar at all.

  Fabyash’s father had been a small man, with an untidy beard, but he was full of self-assurance and audacity. He spoke with great familiarity to older men, preaching and shouting at them as if they were little boys. Yet he was extremely pious and was always ready to welcome into his house the poor Hassidim, the followers of the rabbi, who could not afford to go to lodgings and could not find a place in the rabbi’s courtyard. These Hassidim often slept on the hay in his barn and sometimes they even lay in the fruit sheds so that every corner was filled.

  They would quarrel amongst themselves, arguing over the scriptures, as they wandered, with their prayer-shawl fringes hanging loose, through the high grass of the orchard and amongst the trees whose branches were bent to the earth under the weight of fruit bursting with sweet juice. His father took pride in his own ignorance and would declare loudly that the only thing that mattered was fear of the Lord. He was suspicious of clever scholars and argued that those young men who were bookworms were the first to desert the faith. So he never felt comfortable when the Hassidim were arguing about the scriptures for he didn’t understand much of what they were saying.

  His son, Fabyash, did know what the arguments were about. He was a good scholar but even then he had moved away from all that. His faith in his father’s beliefs had gone long ago. He had even been out walking with a girl, secretly. He had used a powder to remove his soft, sprouting beard, so that his cheeks were always smooth. His father, who was always busy, noticed nothing until one day a Hassid opened his eyes.

  ‘Ha! Fishel, I’ve heard some nice stories about your Nehemiah.’ He spoke to his father, but he held Fabyash firmly so that he couldn’t run away.

  ‘Your pride and joy has been seen wandering around with a girl! It seems to me that he’s been possessed by the devil. He’s deserted his faith! Have a good look at him. His beard is not growing! What’s the matter with him, Fishel? And look at his crop of hair. There’s not even room for the phylacteries!’

  His father approached him and peered at him from close-up and he saw that the Hassid was right. He delivered two fierce blows that resounded loudly.

  ‘Here’s for the beard, and here’s for the girl!’ His father counted the blows. ‘I’ll tear you up by the roots, you larrikin! You heretic! I’ll kill you on the spot ! You rascal! You enemy of Israel! Get out of my house, you Christian! You…’

  Fabyash left the house immediately, taking the fiery marks of his father’s fingers on his cheeks. He and his father had remained enemies; he had even married without his father’s consent. But he had inherited his father’s assertiveness. He was always jumping at everybody and he thought he knew everything; there was nothing in the world that was new to him—he had heard everything before. But the self-assurance of his father he didn’t have in him. He carried around a constant fear, an unrest that never left him alone, as though someone was always standing behind his back.

  He had been certain that he would make a stir in the world as soon as he left his father, who had never permitted him to go into business. But his business hadn’t gone well and he had had to remain at a trade. He ran a little workshop where he made jackets and trousers for the peasants. And although he worked day and night he barely made a living. From all the scraps he made something which he took home for his wife and children. He would have had enough to eat and not had to work so hard in his workroom but for the unrest that stirred in him and the fear of the morrow that never left him.

  He struggled so hard all these years and finally worked himself up to something. But it was his fate to lose, at one blow, everything that he had scratched together with his fingernails through all these hard years. When the world was on fire around him and every minute was precious because all the time life was in grave peril, he piled in an open wagon all the goods that he had gathered together at such cost to his health and strength. He didn’t want to give them up and he wasn’t concerned for his life, for without his possessions the world no longer had any meaning for him. He worked to his last ounce of strength, bathed in sweat, his shirt wringing wet. He kept running in and out of the house, piling more and more domestic utensils onto his back until his small body was bent to the earth. He even wanted to take the furniture with him and by himself he carried out the big, heavy table, but he was hardly able to do anything with it, like an ant that carries too heavy a splinter. People laughed at him and treated him as a fool. The driver hurried him on, shouted at him and cursed him, threatening that he would leave him and all his goods behind. But Fabyash was deaf to the laughter and the shouts. His wife stood as if on hot coals and blocked the door of the house.

&nb
sp; ‘Madman!’ she exploded, not knowing what to do with him. ‘Where are you taking all these things? You are mad! Save your life first. What are you doing? What will you do with all these things? You are murdering your children! Oh people, I can’t do anything with him! Our lives are in danger. Every minute you waste is a great sin!’

  But he didn’t listen to her. He didn’t want to hear what she said and couldn’t make out what she wanted of him. His beady eyes stared at her and sped distraughtly from side to side like frightened mice.

  When at last he was ready to leave, it was too late. The Germans caught up with them on the way and they turned the loaded wagon over with the children on top. They stuck the naked shiny bayonets into his possessions, almost stabbing the children, and reduced everything to a mountain of rubble. He fell full length on the remains with both hands outstretched as though he wanted to die with all his goods. His wife just managed to pull him away, but it was the cries of his children who wept over him as over a corpse that tore him from the earth. For the rest of the journey his wife gave him no peace, continually reproaching him. She would remain silent for a little while only to begin scolding more strongly and more insistently.

  ‘It’s a good job that it happened to you!’ She derived some pleasure from his misery and resumed her scolding like a toothache that stops for a moment only to begin afresh to nag more sharply and stubbornly than before.

  ‘You’ve got a mad mind! What people say about you is only too true. I certainly fell in properly with you!’

  His wife’s justified reproaches and the fear in his children’s eyes when the gleaming naked bayonets passed so close to them, always pursued him, eating at him like a worm. Nor could his conscience ever escape from his daughter’s feverish face when she told him that she wasn’t well and he had not wanted to believe her and had shouted angrily at her, making her wander about with the illness. He could always see his daughter’s eyes, tired and sick with the high fever that had possessed her. They stare at him from the sea where the child’s body has rested for some time. He can still hear clearly the gentle splash of his daughter being lowered into the water. What had the child ever had in her life? No happiness had she enjoyed with him and now she was cut off from life. When he looks at the sea he hears that sound, no matter how quiet the water is.

  But he is no longer afraid of the sea as he was at the beginning of the journey. Then, when everyone was learning how to put on the lifebelts he hid as far away from them as he could. Now it doesn’t worry him any more; it is a game for him just as for the children. He looks indifferently at the lifeboat and no longer hides so that he has to be called or searched for.

  He stares at the sea that lies peacefully and complacently with only a slight swell, but has all the colours of the rainbow. Here the sea is green, here blue, here shimmering in the sun like mother-of-pearl. He forgets entirely that it is the sea he watches, forgets entirely where he is. He is on the banks of the Vistula at Ger, walking out with his wife. She is not his wife but his fiancée. His wife’s puffy, doughy figure becomes smaller and smaller. She is so thin that he can encircle her waist with his hands, just as he could do when she was his fiancée. His wife is again the slender young girl with long plaits twined round her head. The Vistula is lit by the sun and lies smooth and flat, gleaming like an iron roof amongst the thick green of gardens and fields. The orchards near the Vistula are fragrant and breathe forth a rich sweet-sour perfume. He is a little boy running with a group of school fellows to bathe in the river on a hot July day. Although it is quite a distance away the schoolboys are lured to bathe in the Vistula and it seems to them that they are doing something heroic. Flushed and serious, they run quickly and furtively so that no one should see them, especially their fathers who could punish them. He throws himself into the water which splashes in little glassy balls around his boyish body. It ispleasantly cool and slaps him delightfully as if with innumerable silver canes. He floats and sees above him the clean, blue sky, the water refreshes and gives him new life; it is so pleasant...like the sea around him. He is amongst the lifeboats, just where there are no rails. And just one step and the water will enfold his body and splash round him in a silvery dust just like the Vistula. He will again become a child and everything will be easy again, pleasantly easy...

  Fabyash suddenly awoke and he was overcome by fear. He stood on the edge of the deck and just one false step and he would fall into the sea. He was full of self-pity. His own emaciated, withered skin, at which he had never cast a glance became dear to him. His heart constricted.

  His head began to swim and a terrible fear gripped him so that he gave a cry. But no one heard his cry; all around was empty and not a person was to be seen. Only the sea rolled innocently and peacefully. He pulled himself away because he felt that some power was drawing him towards the water. He ran quickly to where there were people, mixing with them and nestling closer to them. His small eyes blinked fearfully and the brush-like stubble that he had grown stood out strange and prickly with a rusty-red colour in the middle. Until now, this strange, hard growth had not been noticeable but at this moment it was so obvious that it caught every eye. People moved away from him, and above all from his sprouting beard that seemed so different, as though it had grown overnight.

  Fabyash wandered amongst the people and noticed Reb Lazar reading out of a sacred book. He sat down next to him. Reb Lazar didn’t interrupt his reading, although he was conscious that Fabyash had sat down by him. He just moved a little to make more room, dumbly showed him where he was up to on the page, and went on murmuring as he had before, inviting Fabyash to read with him.

  Fabyash longed to immerse himself in the sacred book but he couldn’t absorb anything; nothing would enter his head. He moved quietly away from Reb Lazar. His place remained vacant for Reb Lazar did not move back, as if he was waiting for Fabyash to change his mind and return. Fabyash ran down to his wife in the cabin and for the first time since the misfortune had befallen her legs asked her if she would like to go up to the deck where it was not so close as down below. He would call someone and they would carry her up. But his wife didn’t answer him, not even turning her head.

  All alone Fabyash went back up the dark, winding stairs. His mind was in a fog, and only single thoughts tore through. Why didn’t people feel what was going on in him? Why didn’t someone try to come nearer to him? Nobody wanted to save him, to prevent him from doing what, at any moment, he was going to do. It tormented him, it hurt him. He could see that everything was lost. He had lost himself and he couldn’t find his way back. Nobody came to his aid. Nobody could see how bad things were with him. Why did everyone still repulse him? To the last moment people remained harsh to him.

  His mind was still in a fog; he couldn’t free himself from it. He didn’t see where he was going, nor did he feel what he was doing. He felt a chill in his bones and, looking around, he saw that he was standing near the lifeboats again, just where there were no rails. Some power had drawn him to that spot. Just one more step and he would feel sun-drenched water around his body, just as when he was a lad and bathed in the Vistula. It would become easy again, so easy; a heavy weight would be lifted from him.

  CHAPTER XI

  All night Mrs Fabyash tossed and turned on the bunk, unable to close an eye. Sleep had deserted her. She was constantly listening to the merest sound, to every creak that came from the steps, waiting for her husband to come in. She could feel in the dark the empty place where her husband slept. A heavy, sour odour from the sleeping bodies pervaded the air so that it was difficult to breathe. From a corner came snoring and whistling and from a far-off cabin floated the sad, reflective songs of sailors.

  Mrs Fabyash listened in the darkness, turning from side to side. She heard the movements of the ship, all its limbs throbbing, and the grunting, clanging engines breathed like human beings as the ship ponderously and bluntly cleaved the waves. Apprehension never left Mrs Fabyash and the empty space beside her made her more afraid. She wanted
to look for her husband and sat up on her bunk. She even tried to put her feet to the floor, looking around in every corner as if she was waiting for help from somewhere. But her feet were as stiff as wood and a sharp pain shot through her and gripped her whole body, draining her last ounce of strength. She fell back on the bunk in a cold sweat. Involuntarily she began to call to the people around her. But everyone was sunk in such a deep sleep that no one heard her calls. Someone woke for a moment, asked her something, said something disjointed and then immediately fell asleep again.

  Mrs Fabyash began to delude herself that everything was just a horrible dream, that her husband was sleeping in his place and that nothing had happened. In a weak voice she called to her husband, but no one answered her. She waited for daylight, persuading herself that she would find him in his bunk as usual. And when morning crept into the cabin slowly and sleepily, she was afraid to turn to her husband’s empty bunk, for she was now quite certain that no one was lying there. She gave a shriek and awakened everyone. Nobody knew what was the matter and she said nothing, but dumbly pointed to her husband’s empty bunk. Then she pointed to the door which was always left open so that there would be no panic in the event of the ship meeting with an accident that would necessitate the passengers hastening up on deck. The open door was like an evil omen that cast over everybody fear and anxiety as if a strange, angry sentry was on guard there. More than anybody else Fabyash had been afraid of the open door and had always wanted to close it. More than one quarrel had occurred with him over that door.

  Everybody was still drowsy and could not understand why Mrs Fabyash was pointing to the door and her husband’s empty bunk. But suddenly it became clear and sleep disappeared. In its place came clearheadedness and understanding, as if every separate person had been douched with a bucket of water. Cold shudders ran through their bones.