The Enemy of the Good

by Michael Arditti

  The Rabbi’s door was opened by a surly teenager whose pallid face betrayed a mixture of bad diet, stale rooms and excessive study. He shifted uneasily while she spoke, twiddling the tassels on his shirt and gazing at his feet, as though listening to a chorus of ‘thou shalt nots’ in his head. Leaving her standing in the hall, he went in search of his mother. She shot an idle glance at the portraits plastered over the wall, torn between envy and dismay at renewing her acquaintance with the Rabbi’s seventeen children and fifty-four grandchildren, assembled as for a touring production of Fiddler on the Roof. This was a world in which the family reigned supreme and yet, as though conscious of its own deficiencies, it had expanded to the population of a small town.

  Spurred on by the sounds of revelry elsewhere in the house, she ventured through the nearest doorway and was instantly confronted with her error. Conversation stopped dead as the roomful of black-clad men stared at her with a hostility she had last met when she led a protest of desperate women into the Oxford Playhouse Gents. The memory bolstered her and she turned to her neighbour with a request for a drink. He mumbled into his beard, casting a panic-stricken look at Zvi who, moving close – but not too close – to his maverick mother-in-law, explained that the women were gathered in the dining room. ‘Where else?’ she said with a smile and excused herself, at which the talk started up as abruptly as if they had pressed Resume. She made her way to the dining room where Rivka greeted her warmly, berating her son for his failure to tell her that she had arrived.

  ‘Boys!’ she said in mock despair.

  ‘I know. I had two myself,’ Marta replied, before remembering Rivka’s ten. She moved to Shoana who was deep in discussion with Etta and Rachel. Kissing her daughter, she was aware of a change in her, which she initially attributed to an evening-after glow, only to realise that she was wearing a wig. Although the auburn bob had been carefully matched to her own hair, the difference in texture was plain to the practised eye. She was appalled by the thought that Shoana had spent the first day of married life having her hair shorn and longed for reassurance about the wedding night itself. So, with an apology to Etta and Rachel, she drew her daughter aside.

  ‘Well then, how does it feel to be Mrs Latsky?’ she asked lightly.

  ‘Bliss. Pure, indescribable bliss. What more can I say? It’s like we’ve been married for years… but in a special way, not predictable. Does that sound odd?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Marta replied, striving for conviction. ‘And last night…?’

  ‘Admit it, Ma,’ Shoana said with a grin. ‘That’s all you really wanted to know. Don’t worry! It was perfect. Everything you said about waiting too long and expecting too much… forget it! Your daughter has struck gold.’

  As Shoana returned to her guests, Marta made her way to the buffet. The food – herring, gefilte fish, pickled cucumber and cheesecake – took her back seventy years to the warmth of her grandmother’s kitchen and the traditional dishes that her mother refused to cook. For the first time her hopes of a grandchild were focused on a girl, who would enable her to honour the memory of her own Bubbe. Then, wondering whether those hopes might at last be fulfilled, she cast a furtive glance at Shoana’s stomach.

  At a signal from her son, Rivka collected Shoana, Etta and Marta and led them across the hall. Marta’s longing to break down barriers was thwarted again when, instead of entering the study, they sat on four chairs strategically ranged outside the door. Zvi stood next to them, while remaining firmly in the sanctum, and spoke a Hebrew blessing over a cup of wine.

  Marta used the opportunity to assess her new son-in-law. His resonant voice and powerful presence were undeniably attractive, but his earnestness and insularity were hard to bear. Although he did business around the globe, she had yet to hear of his showing an interest in anything beyond his own backyard. She was roused from her reflections by a burst of clapping as Zvi drank from the cup and handed it to Shoana, who followed suit to further applause. Zvi then hurried back into the room, leaving the women stranded. With Rivka announcing that she had to check on the food and Shoana that she should go back to her friends, Marta turned to Etta, with whom she felt a rapport that was independent of their children.

  ‘I feel as if I’ve travelled back in time,’ she said.

  ‘You have. We both have,’ Etta replied. ‘I find it very… what’s the word?… disconcerting. Zvi would say that it was the war that made me join the kibbutz: that I wished to live in a world where religion was not of importance, a socialist state that has been given the name Israel.’

  ‘Was he right?’

  ‘In parts. But my loss of religion was much bigger than what I saw in the camp.’

  ‘Which one were you in?’ Marta asked gently.

  ‘Mauthausen.’

  Marta trembled as the bond was reinforced. She was struck by the possibility that Etta had known her mother, that they had shared the same hut, even the same bunk, crammed in so tightly that they were forced to turn together when the night guards prodded them with their sticks. Suddenly, the remote chance became a certainty, and she yearned to know whether the bunk-mate had ever mentioned a daughter of about Etta’s age. But it was too great a burden to place on a new acquaintance. Besides, Etta had a story of her own which she began to relate.

  ‘Both my parents were gassed, then burnt in the crematorium from the camp. One day I was walking in the yard with my little sister when an old woman out of another hut came to us. If this was a fairy tale, she would be a witch… but she was not a witch; she was far too much broken. I clasped on to Sara’s hand so tightly. “See that smoke,” this old woman said, “it’s your mother and father.” Her words made no sense in my mind. I remember thinking: I am just a child; I cannot be understanding this well. But she went on. “They’re dead. It’s their bodies. They’re burning them.” Then she laughed like in pain and disappeared. Although not in smoke. This came later.’ Marta felt the fumes from the chimneys misting her eyes. ‘I’m sorry. You’re sad. I should not have spoken of it.’

  ‘No, don’t worry. It’s nothing you said. I have memories of my own.’ Etta’s confession spurred her to speak. ‘My mother and sister were also in Mauthausen. You might have known…’

  ‘Maybe I have. But the years… so many names… this old head. But we must not be sad, no? We are having a party! I once heard my cousin in Haifa speaking to another survivor. They did not cry or make complaints about what has happened. On the contrary, they made jokes about it. Bad jokes… terrible jokes. “What was your hotel like then?” my cousin asked. “Far too crowded,” her friend said, “they let everyone in.” “And the food?” “No taste, no taste at all. Although they had their own special dishes: grey water; green water.” I was angry. All the many dead people and they were laughing at them. Now I understand what they were doing. More, I am full of… what do you say when you do this?’ Etta clapped her hands.

  ‘Applause?’

  ‘That is right. I am full of applause for it.’

  Conversation was interrupted by Chanan, who had escaped to use the lavatory. ‘I have smiled and I have nodded and I have raised my shoulders like this, yes, when people talk to me about things that I do not understand and I do not care. I need you, Etta. I need you to tell me again who I am.’

  ‘And I need some air,’ Marta said. ‘Do you think anyone would notice if we sneaked outside?’

  ‘Good idea,’ Chanan said. ‘Fresh air! Oh yes, this is a blessing.’

  The three crept through the kitchen and into the garden like truanting children. Their delight in their daring faded in the face of overgrown grass, overrun borders and a ramshackle shed, the only splash of colour coming from a red plastic car seat upended on the wasteland of the lawn. Marta recoiled from a contempt for nature that made Clement’s unweeded flower beds look positively Edenic.

  ‘With all those children,’ she said, ‘you’d have thought one of them could have handled a mower.’

  ‘I think how my father would have hated this,
’ Chanan said. ‘It was because of this reason he left Poland.’ Marta pictured a street of slovenly neighbours. ‘He had the feeling we had become like jokes of ourselves… you understand?’ Marta nodded. ‘Everything was narrow. The world we lived in was narrow; the thoughts in our heads were narrow; the jobs we were given were narrow. Even the streets of our houses were narrow!’

  ‘Chanan’s father was one of the founding men of our kibbutz,’ Etta said, as proudly as if he had sailed on the Mayflower. ‘Chanan was the first of our childrens to be born there.’

  ‘I grew up living in a dream. Zvi, my son, accuses us with throwing away God. If this is a crime, then yes, I am guilty. But we did it for a reason – ’

  ‘We did it because we have reason,’ Etta said.

  ‘And because we had trust that children who were born with no God would give all their good faith to man.’

  ‘We believed we were bringing the path not just for the Jews but for the whole human beings,’ Etta said, effortlessly picking up Chanan’s theme. ‘In time – maybe not so soon but in time – all peoples, all countries would be like the kibbutz. Women would not take rules from their husbands. Childrens would not take rules from their fathers. We would not judge who we were by what we could buy… But we were wrong.’

  ‘Say rather “We were not yet right”,’ Chanan said.

  ‘We were wrong,’ Etta insisted. ‘We are living in a world with the spirit of a fitted kitchen. And my son, he is not happy with this. Good! But what does he do? He does not look forward, no. He does not try to change how things are working. Instead, he runs back into the Middle Ages.’

  Etta’s pain was so raw that Marta feared she would burst into tears. As Chanan took her in his arms and rubbed the small of her back, Marta had the disturbing sensation of seeing her parents. Dismissing it as sentimentality, she hurried to resume the conversation.

  ‘It isn’t the Lubavitch faith I find so hard to take but their certainty. I’ve lived among people of faith most of my married life. But they were people who dared to doubt… who declared that doubt made their faith stronger. Not in Edwin’s case, it’s true…’

  ‘Where is the Bishop?’ Chanan asked. ‘We have not seen him this whole evening.’

  ‘No, he’s resting at the hotel. Yesterday was quite a strain for him. He’s not a young man.’

  ‘We are none of us young,’ Chanan said. ‘Of course I make exceptions for you.’

  ‘You flatter me,’ Marta replied, raising her eyebrows.

  ‘And your dress,’ Etta said. ‘May I?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘It’s so delicate,’ Etta said, fingering the cloth.

  ‘Mousseline,’ Marta said. ‘I’m afraid that some of our fellow guests have me marked down as a scarlet woman, but I felt an intense desire to assert myself. Besides it’s cool.’ As if on cue, Chanan took out a handkerchief and mopped his brow. ‘But, to return to Edwin: I hope I didn’t make him sound glib. For years he struggled to reconcile his faith with the anomalies plain to a man of his intelligence and integrity. I blamed myself. It couldn’t have been easy singing All things bright and beautiful alongside a wife whose family perished in the camps.’

  ‘He must have loved you very much,’ Etta said.

  ‘Too much, I used to think. But not now. Over the years we’ve grown closer. It’s as though our minds have caught up with the rest of us. When I said Edwin had lost his faith, that was only half-true. He lost his faith in God, but not in humanity. And my own remains as strong as when my parents taught me how people – the people – would change the world. Of course my critics… my detractors regard it as perverse. They maintain that my sole concern in going to Africa, in “latching on to the Hadza”, in their phrase, has been to prove that what happened to me – what happened to us all – under the Nazis was an aberration and so put it behind me. To this end, I picked on a society as remote as possible from the modern world and claimed that they were alone in living authentically. Patronising drivel! Besides, why should I fabricate the evidence when it’s everywhere to see? And nowhere more compelling than in Germany itself. It’s been called a miracle that a country which had been devastated – and not just physically – was rebuilt so soon after the War. But, to my mind, it shows that, however far fascism may have spread, it didn’t run deep. The fundamental decency of human nature survived and took the first opportunity to reassert itself.’

  ‘I wish you would have spoken up at the town meetings,’ Chanan said. ‘Especially when the troubles came. In one minute you would have made ten people change their minds.’

  ‘But for how long would it last?’ Etta asked. ‘Oh, I do not question your thoughts, Marta. I know how important they are. I too have read The Eden Peoples when it is first published.’

  ‘1964. The same year the twins were born.’ Marta was warmed by the memory of her annus mirabilis.

  ‘No, it must have been after this – when it is first published in Hebrew. It will sound foolish to you, but I felt that you were writing this book directly for me… for us. You were writing about a justice society. We were living in it. Or we were trying. For this we have given up so much. I am not now speaking of shekels. We have given up so many happy things of family life, because we thought we were building for the future.’

  ‘And I’m sure you were,’ Marta said. ‘I can’t speak from personal experience; I only made two brief visits to kibbutzim to lecture. But I spent years, all told, with the Hadza, who bring up their children communally. It allows them to bond with the whole tribe, not just their parents, and to grow up far more securely, free of all the neuroses we’ve been taught, post-Freud, to view as universal.’

  ‘Maybe you are right,’ Etta said. ‘But even if these values are still true for the Africans, they have been lost for us. Little by little the hope of the kibbutz, it has vanished. The new kibbutznik, they have new ideas.’

  ‘No, they do not have ideas,’ Chanan said, ‘they have demands… is this how you call it?’ Marta nodded. ‘For them the kibbutz is just a place to live; it is not a way of life.’

  ‘It is not a way to change life,’ Etta said.

  ‘No, it is most certainly not this,’ Chanan said. ‘They make quarrels with giving up their children… as if they think it has been easy for us. They make quarrels with the way we run our farm. They make us start new businesses to bring money, and it destroys our dream.’

  ‘And they do it with much cunning,’ Etta said. ‘They have a revolution of language. What is once individualism is becoming choice.’

  ‘Worse, my Etta, it is consumer choice. And we make ours by moving far away.’

  ‘I can see that it must have been heartbreaking,’ Marta said.

  ‘We have come to Tel Aviv,’ Chanan said. ‘Our friends from abroad, they tell us we must leave Israel. They have been watching while this country gives up its dream the same as the kibbutz. But we are too old. We have lost too much blood here. These are our people. This is our home.’

  Marta recalled Shoana’s account of their daughter’s death in a bomb blast and marvelled at their equanimity. After securing their promise to visit Beckley on their next trip, she went indoors to say goodbye to Rivka and Shoana, who showed no signs of flagging either under the pressure of the present party or the prospect of repeating it in a different house but with the same guests, food and conversation, every night for the next two weeks. She returned to the hotel, where she tiptoed into the room to find Edwin snoring. Fumbling for her nightdress, she changed in the bathroom and slipped into bed.

  She lay back on the pillow, but exhaustion failed to induce sleep. Chanan’s story of his father’s flight from Poland had stirred up memories of her parents’ similar disaffection with their native country, although, as disciples of Marx rather than Herzl, they believed it their duty to stay and establish the new order in Europe rather than in Palestine, even after Hitler’s aggression had put the entire continent at risk. Their convictions cost them dear when, as Jews, they were herd
ed into the ghetto to share a foetid room with her aunt and, in the cruellest irony, her grandparents who, before the Occupation, had refused to so much as break bread in their non-kosher house. With a skill honed by twenty years in the print union, her father persuaded the guards to allow Marta and her aunt to work in a leather factory outside the ghetto. At twelve she was too young for the job but, overnight, he added three years to her age. Besides she was attractive. If the War taught her one thing, it was that even the most zealous official was prepared to bend the rules for a pretty face.

  At the factory, her aunt put her father’s escape plan into practice. The Nazis were fanatical about hygiene, a fact which, in later years, Marta suspected had left their victims so vulnerable to the offer of showers. Three times a week they marched the entire workforce from the factory compound to the communal baths. After familiarising herself with both the route and the timetable, which the well-drilled guards never varied, her aunt outlined the initial steps. Once she had washed and dressed, Marta was to hide in the lavatories until her aunt knocked on the door. Then, when the guards turned their backs, they would dash across the courtyard to the laundry, waiting for the main contingent to move away before making their bid for safety.