The Book of Dirt

by Bram Presser

  The packers went about their duties like drones, not a word exchanged between them. Georg crossed each item in turn from his list. One by one the packers disappeared, makeshift sacks slung over their shoulders. The hour was almost up, and only Jakub and Georg were left inside. Below, the foreman was standing alone in the street, guarding their cart.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ Jakub said.

  Georg shook his head.

  ‘There. Again.’

  Georg continued to wrap an old, leather-bound volume. ‘Rats,’ he said.

  Jakub headed to the empty bedroom. He looked around—door to the bathroom, door to the closet, door to…He gasped. Another door. Had it been hidden behind the dresser? It was small, granted, but how did they all miss it? Again, shuffling sounds from above. Jakub rushed to the door, put his ear against it. Louder. He turned the knob. Behind there was only blackness. Jakub reached inside and grasped something cold, metallic. A rod. He slid his hand up and felt a flat surface, coarse like sandpaper. His hand glided further, then reached another flat surface. Then another. Stairs. Impossible, he thought. I am already on the top floor. Jakub stepped inside; there was enough space for one person, no more. He edged his foot forward. A sudden flash of pain. He had kicked the first step with his shin. It was one of those spiral staircases: only the steps themselves and a twisted rail for support. Jakub waited for the pain to subside, then began his ascent. There was no light above or below and his eyes could not adjust. Outside, it might already have been dusk.

  At the top he gingerly poked his foot around to find solid ground. There were beams, boards slung between them. The sound of someone breathing, soft, shallow. ‘Hello?’ he said. No reply. ‘Hello?’ He ventured a step, steadied himself against the sloping surface of the roof. He stopped again, listened. A single breath, like water down a plughole. Then a loud rustle and he was thrown backwards by a terrible force. It took Jakub a moment to realise that he had been tackled to the ground. Something was on his chest, crushing him. Is it man or beast?

  ‘Who are you?’ said his attacker.

  ‘Jakub…Jakub R.’

  ‘What is your medium? Charcoal? Oil? Pencil?’

  ‘I—’

  ‘A sculptor? I knew it!’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘Who sent you? The guild?’

  ‘I can’t breathe.’

  ‘Don’t move.’ Jakub sensed it was a man’s hands running along his hips, slipping into his pockets. ‘All right,’ the man said. ‘You are not armed. Not even a chisel.’ Jakub was still trapped between the man’s thighs, but it no longer felt like a vice. ‘So you are not an artist at all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I take it you are with them?’

  ‘The Gestapo?’

  ‘No, the ones clearing out the Landsbergers’ place. I’ve been watching it all through the air vents. A real pity, I say. But they have no more use for it.’

  ‘You know the Lands—’

  ‘Of course. Every artist knows his benefactor, even if the opposite is not always true. Follow me.’

  ‘I—’ A sudden rush of air. Jakub felt the man’s knee brush across his sternum. A soft hand took his own and helped him to his feet. The two made their way across creaking boards. ‘Watch your head,’ the man said. Jakub reached up and felt the roof come in at a sharp angle before opening up again. After a few minutes, the man stopped, grasped Jakub by the shoulders and turned him to his left. ‘Here,’ said the man. Shafts of flat light came through cracks in the roof, and forms began to emerge from the darkness. In front of him, on an easel, was a huge canvas.

  ‘You weren’t meant to find this place.’

  ‘There was a door.’

  ‘Someone got lazy. Every entrance was supposed to be sealed off. We were quite content to be left alone.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Artists, my man! After the occupation, it was too dangerous for us on the streets. We came up here, to the crawl spaces in the roofs. They are all connected, you know. We colonised according to medium. This part of Josefov was for painters, though the various schools kept to themselves. Realists, Expressionists, Romanticists. We were spread out as far as Pařisžká, Kozí and Vězeňská streets. There was even one colony in Benedíktská. All satellites rotating around our last remaining sun, the gallery owner Avram Becher, God rest his soul.’

  ‘Across the street. The boards—’

  ‘Yes. It was inevitable, I suppose. When the army arrived, the city lost its colour. Only the Realists rejoiced. Their landscapes and fruit bowls would be the toast of occupied Prague because that’s all the new masters would permit. The rest of us just sat here, staring at our blank canvases. Then Becher lit the fuse of hope. Never fear, he insisted, there is another space for more discerning patrons. Let our presence there be an act of defiance, for artists do not take up arms. Or some rubbish like that; he always spoke as if hoping to be quoted. Still, it worked. His words halted the creative paralysis. The rooftop city sprang to life.’

  ‘But there’s no one else here.’

  ‘Yes. I owe that to one person: Yitzik Berenhauer. A tragic end.’ The artist let out a slow sigh. ‘And a debt I shall never repay.’

  (The Brief, Sad Tale of Yitzik Berenhauer)

  They came because of him and they left because of him. The mad modernist of Josefov. He appeared among us one day and set up his easel. What took shape on his canvas—a traditional manger scene—had been done a thousand times, and we were ready to dismiss him. Then we noticed a fourth wise man standing over the baby. In his hand was a dagger, its blade flushed crimson. At first we feared a blood libel. Was this painter trying to have us all killed? But, then, a daub of purple near the child’s lips. Wine. This was Christ at circumcision. The painter signed his name across the bottom: Yitzik Berenhauer.

  He painted them without pause, the others in his series: Jesus the Jew—Jesus at Bar mitzvah, Jesus under the Succah, Jesus prostrating himself before the ark on Yom Kippur—and when each was done he would turn around to find an ever-larger crowd gathered around him. By the time he set to work on the final canvas, a replica of Da Vinci’s Last Supper, Jesus at the Passover Feast, the roof space was full.

  Only I was not under his spell; my mind was elsewhere. In necessity I had found inspiration. While pushed up against the wall, I had moved aside a tile so I could breathe, and when I drew my hand back from the cold Prague night it was black: pages from our holy books, set ablaze on some distant pyre and returned to me as char on the wind.

  I gathered strips from the garments of the huddled mass around me, stretched them across a large wooden frame and began to paint. Layer upon layer of ash, it defied perspective, each scene disappearing into the next.

  Lost in exquisite blackness, I was interrupted by an ungodly cheer. Jesus the Jew was complete. I watched as Berenhauer put down his brush, rubbed his hands on a rag, and walked towards the exit. The carnival of acolytes followed, hooting and whistling as he led them out of this rooftop captivity and down into the streets. I perched on his plinth and pushed aside another tile so I could watch. A figure appeared in the door opposite: Avram Becher, arms out to greet them. That was enough for me. I put the tile back, stepped down and looked around. I was alone.

  I fell into a sleepless routine, painting the entire city. Occasionally I stopped to watch the scene at Becher’s gallery, the same every day. Visitors came to see Berenhauer’s pictures but Jesus the Jew was nowhere to be found. They begged Becher, chastised him, but he would not be moved. He was too cunning for that. There had already been a raid. Two. Three. They found nothing, but I knew it was inevitable. To the hum of the disappointment below, I devoted myself to my portrait of our city—I wanted to be hung alongside Yitzik Berenhauer before it was too late.

  First came the river, its waters turned to blood. On either side, the city sprawled outwards, its streets and buildings, castles and parks, covered in a dirty shroud. This cartographer’s nightmare would serve as a backdrop for the faces of those
trapped within. They came to me like revenants, demanding to be seen. Jan Kohout, a student of weak will and shifting passions who might just as well have stood at the bridge with armbands but instead mounted the barricades, now imprisoned in Oranienberg, waiting for the city to pay his ransom with its surrender. Our dear Mayor Otakar Klapka, blood oozing from his wounds like stigmata, executed at the Ruzyně Barracks for treason—for placing a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier, and for running a resistance cell from City Hall. Petr Bamberger, set upon by Nationalist thugs for failing to display his star in public, and for failing to vacate a tram at peak hour. The terminally serious Feliks Kral, sweating in an isolation cell, accused of making jokes about Hitler, wishing that he had not beaten the vindictive Marek Zalenka to that promotion. And so it went, the march of the damned. But behind each heroic moment was something less noble, something disturbing; it was only when I reached the end that I saw what it was. A loss of hope, of faith, of dignity. The betrayal: their society had been relinquished to the sympathisers, collaborators and opportunists.

  I sat against the wall and stared at the canvas. For all its horror there was still something lacking. At my first encounter with Becher, seven years ago, he glanced at my work then shook his head. ‘You have skill,’ he said, ‘but I don’t want architecture, I want soul!’ Yes, populated by so many souls, my grand portrait lacked one of its own. How was I to know that the ill-starred Becher would provide it?

  The screech of tyres, the slamming of car doors, a gunshot. A chorus of screams, then a terrible wail. The blood left my body. It was Becher. They had found the other gallery.

  I rushed to my perch, pushed aside the tile. Becher stood in the street as four Brownshirts boarded up the windows. And Berenhauer. Poor Berenhauer. Throwing his arms into the air. Screaming profanities. He tried to pull down the boards, only to be met with the butt of a pistol. That shut him up. The soldiers escorted the men back inside. Soon they appeared again: Avram Becher with his wife and their four children, dragging suitcases, pillows, blankets. The soldiers herded them all into the back of a waiting truck. And then Berenhauer and his last four apostles, carrying a stack of half-finished paintings. A few soldiers stepped forward. There was a scuffle, but it was no use. The canvases were stomped on by polished jackboots.

  The engine started, but there was still one more indignity in store. A Brownshirt dragged out little Chana Becherová by her scraggly hair and, to punish her for being her father’s child, to show her that anyone could paint, but that not all painting should be considered art, he made her daub the boards covering the entrance to the gallery with a giant Star of David. Then he grabbed the child by her leg and threw her into the truck. The engine revved and they were gone.

  The other cars drove off. A lone soldier stood over the broken canvases. He kicked the pieces into a pile, picked up a bottle from the gutter and splashed out its contents, fumbling in his pocket for a lighter. A flash. The canvases screamed the last testament of Yitzik Berenhauer. I reached out to pull the flames towards me, the embers scorching my fingertips. Before they cooled, I sketched what I had witnessed: God shutting His eyes.

  ‘But it’s—’ Jakub started. ‘It’s—’

  ‘Completely black. To the unknowing eye, yes, I suppose it is.’ The two men stood there, mute. A distant chime. Six. ‘Now take it. Tonight I’ll make my escape to the south, but I must know that it wasn’t all for nothing.’ The artist snatched the canvas from the easel and forced it awkwardly into Jakub’s hands. ‘Take it,’ he panted, pushing Jakub backwards. ‘Let it be among the things you confiscate from the Landsbergers. I’ve seen how your lists work. Add this, cross out that. What’s another painting? Give it life, let it be seen. Take it! Take it!’ he began to shout. ‘TAKE IT, JAKUB!’

  ‘JAKUB!’

  He woke to find Georg standing above him, shaking his shoulder. The room was empty, just as he remembered it. A door to the bathroom. A door to the closet. That was all. Jakub was lying where the other door should have been, but the wall was smooth. ‘I heard a sound. You collapsed,’ said Georg.

  ‘The door—’

  ‘Stay there, I’ll get you some water.’ Georg disappeared into the living area and returned with a glass. ‘Here. I think you’re dehydrated.’ Jakub took a sip, then gulped down the rest. ‘Today was long. Too long. We must get the cart back before curfew.’ Georg helped Jakub to his feet. In the entrance hall, a barrow was filled with clumps of paper. ‘I wrapped them all,’ said Georg. Jakub walked slowly down the stairs, holding on the railing for support. Georg followed, backwards down each step, dragging the barrow, wincing every time it landed with a jolt. At the bottom he shuffled around to the other side and pushed it towards the door with his foot. The barrow slid down the steps of the stoop and came to rest in front of the foreman.

  ‘Your friend is sick.’

  ‘He is fine.’

  ‘If he were a horse, he’d be shot.’

  Georg handed the man the folder. The foreman glanced over the pages, nodding. On the last page he signed his name with a flourish, gave back the folder, and headed off. Georg waited until he was out of sight then went over to Jakub, who was leaning against the back of the cart. ‘He’s right,’ said Georg. ‘You’re sick. Just wait there while I unload the barrow. We’ll get this to Jáchymova then get you home.’

  ‘You’ll break curfew.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me. I have my ways. Curfew is a game of strategy like any other.’

  Jakub slept a week, a month, maybe more, scarcely registering the presence of his mother as she tended to him. Georg came but Jakub did not understand what his friend was saying. There were sensations, hot, cold, a fever, and he feared that he was sinking beneath the surface, choking on his own sweat. It was all a haze until this: the sound of approaching footsteps and a knock at the door. He heard his mother speaking with someone, then crying out to the corridor. They had been summoned for transport.

  9

  Františka Roubíčková rode the tram towards the small civil registry office in Nové Město. She sat in the front carriage, peeking into her bag from time to time, checking that the papers were still tucked inside. It had not occurred to her that she ought to have been in the back. Snow muffled the clatter of the wheels as they chewed into the rusted tracks; beyond the pavement, the buildings anchored the streets to a bygone era. As each grand edifice gave way to the next, Františka considered her strange limbo. The occupation would continue, but for her soon it would be different. It is his idea. It’s what he wants. ‘I am the lens through which they will see you,’ he had said. ‘Please, for the girls.’

  The tram came to a halt at the corner of Jindřišská and Panská streets. Nobody paid the handsome woman any attention as she weaved her way through the carriage and out onto the pavement. At Nekázanka Street she picked up her pace. Again she said it to herself: It is his idea. It’s what he wants.

  The registry office was halfway down the street, hidden on the second floor of one of the smaller buildings. Františka made her way up the stairs and let herself in without knocking. ‘Yes?’ said the woman behind the desk. Františka didn’t know how to say it. An awkward beat, then: ‘I’m here about my marriage.’ The woman motioned to the one empty chair, against the wall. ‘Take a seat. You will know when he is ready.’ Františka sat down and looked around the room. The others did not acknowledge her presence. She understood. To be here was a capitulation, a disgrace. They sat together, in conspiratorial silence, waiting for a knock, a chime, the buzz of a phone, anything to signal the end of this purgatory. But there was only the faint whistle of the clerk’s breath, the scratching of her pen on the stack of paper.

  Františka saw the passage of time in the changing height of the stack. Every now and then, one of the other women would stand and go through a door marked ‘Private’. There was an order, to be sure, but Františka did not know her place in the queue. She tried, once, twice, shuffling forward on the chair, arching her back as if preparing to
rise, but the clerk swatted at the air. She sat back down, inspected her shoes. On her third try, the clerk did not stop her. Františka pushed open the door and stepped through.

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Roubíčková, Františka.’

  ‘Roubíčková…Roubíčková. A Jewess?’

  ‘Yes. No.’ Františka fumbled with her bag. ‘That is why I’ve come here.’

  The registrar put out his hand, took the papers. ‘Married to Ludvík Roubíček.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘In Žižkov. Not the ghetto. Children?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Four.’ And then, as if that was not enough, ‘Girls, sir.’

  The registrar leaned back in his chair and held the papers close to his face. His glasses remained on the desk near the ink pots. ‘For convenience, then?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Františka. ‘You don’t understand. It is a long time coming. He is a fine man, mostly. But there are problems. This…it is his idea. It’s what he wants.’

  ‘I am not here to judge you, Paní Roubíčková. How you choose to survive these times is your own business. There are consequences, of course.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I understand. He has already taken residence elsewhere. The address there, that is mine. Any correspondence to my husband should be forwarded to 20 Cimburkova Street. He stays with an associate. There is no point in renting, he says. His time in the city is short.’

  ‘Hmmm…it will take a while to stop using that term, husband.’ The registrar recoiled as if the very word was sour on his tongue. ‘You should forget him now. A pretty girl like you will have prospects when this all blows over.’

  ‘Yes, sir. It’s what he says too.’

  ‘But for now…well. Look, Paní Roubíčková. You mustn’t feel unfaithful. Our vows have been reduced to nothing. One cannot betray that which does not exist.’ He scribbled on his blotter. ‘And the children?’