The White House

by O’neil Sharma

  ‘Who is she?’ said Saul, referring to Isaac’s woman rather than the one who just left.

  ‘You agree to take over the debt? It’s three grand.’

  ‘I can pay.’

  ‘Early repayment will cost you a grand, I can’t afford to lose the interest.’

  ‘Done.’

  ‘Tina!’ Shouted Rudi and then to Saul ‘Give me your I.D.’

  Saul took his identification out of his wallet and handed it to Rudi, who, looking at the card, smiled once more.

  ‘Saul Cohen,’ he read aloud with amusement. ‘You Jews really stick together eh?’

  Tina walked into the room. It was the same woman that just kissed Rudi and Saul could this time see her pretty face, she must have been about twenty. He wondered if she worked here, if Rudi took pleasure in watching her strip for other men. Rudi held up the card for her.

  ‘Make a copy please, treasure.’

  ‘Sure,’ she said and smiled at Saul before spinning around on her toes to leave.

  Rudi took out a business card and wrote on the back, speaking like a doctor writing a prescription.

  ‘She works nights. Marie and she’s good.’

  He made to hand the card to Saul and as Saul attempted to take it Rudi let it fall to the table and in a lightning move, grabbed Saul by the wrist and dragged him half way across the table: they were face to face.

  ‘It’s concerning that you are not scared of me. I’ll give you a week to get the money together. I’m not a bank; there will be no warnings. Can I trust you?’

  Saul remained stoic and the two locked eyes. An understanding was reached and Rudi released him.

  ‘Good. I thought as much.’

  Saul left the strip club alone to find that he had missed a rain shower. It was almost a magical moment and for a split second he was not sure if he had jaunted: the sun shone brightly and there was a rainbow. The wet roads shimmered and the smell of summer rain was all pervasive.

  He walked in the direction of home turning often to see if a taxi was heading his way. It was now too late to get the film developed, but that could wait. He was starting to enjoy this detective work and for the first time in months he was looking forward to tomorrow. Right now the end was open and the only thing in sight were the myriad of possible outcomes that lay before him. His mind was filled with questions and speculation but no conclusions. This suited him fine. Conclusion meant the end of everything.

  CHAPTER 15

  Aisha watched transfixed as the witch sneaked up on the princess. Finally, she could hold back no more and shouted a warning to the hapless princess.

  ‘Behind you!’ she screamed.

  Mira, who had converted a segment of Aisha’s bedroom into a makeshift theatre, manipulated the glove puppets and at the sound of the warning made the princess run to the prince with the witch in hot pursuit. The prince, however, lay deflated, his body limp over the side of the stage. Mira swapped her hand out of the princess puppet and gave life to the price who, just in the nick of time grabbed the witch and threw her in an oven. Her left hand was now free to operate the princess once more for the final noisy kiss.

  ‘Again, again!’ cheered Aisha.

  ‘No, I’m tired. Don’t you want to play with uncle Aaron now?’

  Aisha shook her head.

  ‘Pleeeeeease.’

  Mira adopted the voice of the witch:

  ‘Well, it was you that warned the princess. I’m gonna get you!’

  Mira stood, witch glove puppet in hand and preceded to chase Aisha, who ran screaming out of the room.

  Hannah and Aaron were in the living room watching television when the screaming started. They exchanged knowing smiles as the sound of screaming and rapid footsteps approached. Aisha burst into the room without needing to take a breath and dived onto the sofa narrowly avoiding Aaron’s crotch.

  ‘Got you,’ said Mira as she tickled Aisha.

  Aisha began to laugh uncontrollably.

  ‘Stoooop! Stooooop!’

  Aaron entered the battle on Aisha’s side. He grabbed Mira’s hands and stopped her in mid tickle. Mira, feigning a struggle to continue.

  ‘Run, I don’t know how long I can hold her off,’ said Aaron.

  Aisha took the hint and sprang up running for the door. She would have kept running were it not for the fact that she found Saul was blocking her path. She grabbed his trouser leg.

  ‘Opa, save me!’

  Mira, having freed herself, stopped in mid stride and Hannah turned to greet her husband: the game stopped dead.

  ‘My God, your face!’ said Hannah.

  Aaron jumped off the sofa for a closer inspection.

  Hannah hit the remote and the television blinked off.

  ‘What? ..It’s nothing,’ said Saul.

  ‘Who hit you, Papa?’ said Aaron.

  ‘I said forget it,’ insisted Saul.

  From her point of view Aisha could not see Saul’s eye, but she thought they had missed the point.

  ‘Opa, what happened to your fingers? Were you painting?’

  #

  Much later, after Saul had apologised to Aisha for painting without her, and she had gone to bed, the truth had come out. Or at least as much of the truth as Saul could afford to tell. The core of his secret remained buried in the chest deep under the seabed of his mind.

  He had forgotten about his eye and was initially confused when they had made a fuss. Looking in the mirror he wondered how it could have slipped his mind and as was usually the case no sooner had he seen the bruised eye, the pain made itself known too. No wonder all those people had given him strange looks. The taxi driver had said jokingly that he hoped the other guy looked twice as bad and Saul had nodded and smiled uncertainly.

  Once Aisha was in bed the probing had continued until Saul had let the truth out. He had thought about lying: he wanted to say he had been mugged but was now glad he had not as they would have called the police.

  The more he spoke, the better he felt. The truth, then, had come easily. To a point. The more he spoke the more he was convinced he had made the right choice. If he could not trust his family whom could he trust? He also realised that he could not do this on his own; his black eye was testament to that. Despite the drugs he had time traveled and forgotten, allowed himself to be distracted and now the insecurity of his position beat at his door. He would need help and maybe he could convince his kin to help him.

  As he span his yarn it became clear that Hannah would be his major opponent. He was not sure if he could ever win her over so he aimed for the much softer targets. For them the war was history, something to be studied and written about; but as young Jews it was more than that: he could fan those flames of injustice that were already burning, especially in Mira. This was her chosen field, after all.

  Saul sat in his armchair facing the two women who sat on the sofa, Aaron on the floor between them showing Saul the dusty soles of his feet. In his hand he held the slip of paper that Saul had discovered at Isaac’s. They had all read it several times by now. When Saul had finished his tale they sat in silence and considered what they had just learned. It was Mira who was the first to speak and just as Saul had hoped, she spoke like the academic she was:

  ‘I’ve read about him, of course, but I thought he was dead.’

  ‘Isaac didn’t think so,’ said Saul.

  ‘Sure. It was chaos at the end. I’m sure it was easy to disappear,’ said Hannah.

  ‘True, but he would have a new identity now,’ added Mira.

  ‘Papa, would you even recognise him?’

  Thinking fast Saul answered.

  ‘I never saw him, I just heard about him,’ hoping that was the right answer. He was finding it hard to keep track of what he had said and consider all the possible outcomes at the same time: the life of subterfuge was relatively easy until he had to start letting it go piecemeal. He had the distinct feeling that he was trying to keep an increasing
number of plates spinning, knowing that sooner or later he would not get to one in time. By way of distraction he reached into his pocket and tossed the ball of toilet paper to his ally.

  ‘I found this too. Maybe he took a picture of him?’

  Mira unwrapped the bundle and held the plastic bag in her hands.

  ‘I’ll get it developed first thing tomorrow,’ she said.

  Hannah, who had been listening with a sense of growing horror, felt the need to share her concerns.

  ‘Wait. Why should we even get involved?’ she said as reasonably as she could. ‘Look at your face, Saul. It’s not our job to investigate war criminals. Why don’t we just tell the police or these Simon Wiesenthal people?’

  ‘Tell them what?’ said Aaron. ‘We can’t harass an innocent old man. How do we even know that Isaac was right? Could you recognise someone after forty years?’ he seemed to direct this at both Hannah and Saul.

  ‘Well, if he’s innocent he has nothing to hide,’ said Mira.

  ‘Aaron you forget: Isaac was murdered,’ as soon as he said it Saul wished he had not.

  ‘That’s right! I won’t allow you to do this,’ said Hannah.

  ‘What harm can there be in developing some film?’ Mira reasoned. ‘I can do some research on this man- it’s all in the archives, I don’t have to tell anyone what I’m doing. Even if we go to the police-‘

  ‘Even if?’ spat Hannah.

  ‘When we go to the police,’ corrected Mira. ‘It would be nice to give them something other that the name of a dead man.’

  ‘No we don’t! That’s their job. Saul?’ Hannah was exasperated and turned to him for support but before he could speak, Mira countered:

  ‘No. It’s my job. This is what I have devoted the last six years of my life to doing.’

  Saul looked between the two women and then fixed on Mira.

  ‘I’d like you to do it,’ he said to her.

  Hannah got up and left the room. Aaron started to give chase but Mira interjected:

  ‘Aaron, leave her.’

  Aaron returned to his spot on the floor at Mira’s feet. Mira combed his hair with her fingers and Saul immediately had the image of his son, the obedient dog, in his mind.

  ‘Sleep well,’ he said to them as he left the room to join his wife.

  As Saul walked the corridor to his bedroom he became acutely aware that he had gotten his way by trouncing on the wishes of his wife. He had manipulated them all into believing his story of half-truths and ignored the legitimate concerns of Hannah; but he simply could not have the police involved.

  Ashamed of this new low of barbarism he wanted to tell her that he had changed his mind and they would indeed go to the police, of course this would mean coming clean but perhaps it was time?

  On entering the bedroom he saw that Hannah was already in bed, pretending to sleep. This is what she did when she wanted to avoid a fight or when she wanted to sulk. In a way he was relieved by her farce and he decided to buy into it, pretending that it would be best not to disturb her.

  It was minus twenty outside and Saul was glad-

  CHAPTER 16

  -was minus twenty outside and Saul was glad to be back in the factory. It was always warm down here. The furnaces were too hot and their sleeping quarters despite being above the furnaces were not as comfortable as they might be. The freezing winter months penetrated everything down to the last atom; even with the furnaces burning twenty-four hours a day they could not fight back the extremes of nature. Down here was pleasant though.

  He was back against the solid metal door in the well-lit corridor.

  See nothing scary here, you’re safe.

  He knew he should be back in the changing rooms collecting up the clothes for Kanadakommando and seeing if there was anything worth organising; but lately he had been drawn here by some inexplicable force and as long as the Kapo did not see him why not?

  Something was wrong with the robot: An internal error in the cogs that worked his mind, drew him here when he knew better. Being caught not working could mean death and yet here he was. He would try and fix himself tonight, for even a machine is not ready to die if it can still be useful.

  The pellets must have dropped because just then the silence was broken by an eruption so sudden there was no time for escalation: It was simply born into existence at force ten. Two thousand people suddenly and simultaneously uncovered the lie and found out that they were to die here, now, in the next two minutes. There were no court proceedings and no appeal. They took the news of their sentence in the same way as all the others that had come before them: they screamed; they pounded on the door and they called to their Gods, but the door remained solid, the Zyklon B remained potent and one by one they realised the futility of their screams and stopped. And then they stopped.

  The robot; however, had not registered a thing that made its external façade even twitch: it was truly beyond repair. It did not help-

  CHAPTER 17

  -oil. A machine should not be standing in oil with its trousers soaked. The spinning ball of matter grew heavier in him and Saul already suspected it was not oil he was standing in. There was a smell like blood, he thought and yet his trousers were not soaked in blood. Nearly back from his jaunt he worked backwards from the hard tiled floor – where was the concrete? - where he could see the clear liquid – not blood then - he followed the trail up his trousers all the way to his…

  I pissed myself.

  Saul was back in his kitchen standing in a puddle of his own urine. His back was to the metal door of his walk-in freezer. A quick glance at the clock and he realised how late it was. He forced himself to move despite not feeling ready for action. He needed more time. His mind was back but his body still seemed to be in the past and not ready to accept the new reality of his present. At first he gave commands to his limbs that were simply not followed. For a moment the sheer mental exertion of requesting his legs to move seemed beyond his capabilities and he wondered if this is how babies felt when they wanted something but could not quite get their limbs to abide. The wet material of his trousers clinging to his leg had turned cold and even more unpleasant.

  Only now did his legs burst into life and it seemed like they were playing catch up with his brain because now he was moving so fast he almost lost control of where he was heading and what he wanted to do when he got there.

  Arriving at the cleaning closet, he grabbed a bucket, squirted some cleaner into it and filled it with hot water from the tap. He just had time to start mopping the floor when the door opened to reveal Timo and Anja, arriving together for a change, to start the day.

  ‘Morning, Saul,’ said Anja lightly as she hung up her gear.

  Saul responded by wringing out the mop and going over the surface again.

  ‘A mess already? Still nice that you-‘ but Timo did not have the chance to finish his sentence. Saul had put his mop down and walked out of the kitchen glad that his long dark apron was covering his source of shame.

  Timo and Anja exchanged looks of bewilderment.

  ‘Well, I guess that’s why he’s the boss,’ said Timo.

  The early morning air helped Saul somewhat. It was cool and the light breeze helped lower his skin temperature so that his trousers no longer felt so disgusting against him. Or perhaps they are simply drying, he thought. He was glad it was still dark. He felt safe in the dark and right now he wished it could swallow him whole and protect him from the stark absoluteness of a world that was an hour away.

  He got home without passing a soul and crept up the stairs to his apartment door. Closing his eyes, concentrating on the sounds of the sleeping building as he slipped the key into the lock. He turned the key, wincing at the grate of metal upon metal and waiting for the sounds of movement: nothing. Knowing the door would stick, he gave it a short sharp shove and then caught it, slowing it down. The pop of the door was short-lived and he detected no sign that they were aware of his presence. Step
ping over the threshold of his apartment he closed the door behind him, turning the door handle all the way down so as to make the whole operation as silent as possible.

  Ahead of him the long corridor to his room was a minefield of creaking wooden floorboards that he knew well after a lifetime of unsocial hours and hence this was the easiest part of his breaking into his own house. All he had to do was reverse the process.

  Undressing in the dark of his bedroom was also easy but as he fumbled around for a fresh set of clothes, the inevitable opening and closing of drawers had Hannah stirring. He waited until she had settled before leaving the room and heading for the shower.

  Hannah was awake. The sound of the shower had undone all of Saul’s efforts. Seeing it was five in the morning she knew that something was wrong. Saul was never late for work – the man hardly slept – and he always showered before bed to save time and spare his family in the early hours. She doubted the children would be up at this time, they probably had not even heard the shower.

  Of all the things she missed most in her life it was that: the ability to sleep through a concert. As child and young woman she could have happily spent all day in bed and would have were it not for her mother. On school days her mother would need to force her out of bed by opening the bedroom door, drawing the curtains, and making breakfast – noisily. She could sleep through all this and in general mother would have to throw the covers off and shake her into the waking world. On weekends there was no peace either. Mother would let her sleep in a little longer but would not allow her to waist the day.

  All that had changed with the birth of their first child, Abbie: from that day on the slightest sound had woken her and after Sara and Aaron arrived she could even tell which child it was. Saul was not much help even though she knew he was up. The children would not settle with Saul and so he got away scot-free, not that she resented him for it: she wished he could find peace in sleep but she recognised that Saul’s experience in the camps had hurt him more than he let on. She hoped one day he would talk to her about it.