by Gwen Edelman
That long ago night in his tiny room in the ghetto, she had rolled toward him and pressed herself against him on the tattered blanket. Here we are in the Garden of Eden, he said. She took one of his dark curls between her fingers. Tell me, she said, what was it like, the Garden of Eden? Ha, he replied. What was it not like? Full of every tree and flower in creation, fruits hung from the trees in their fullness, eternally ripe. Birds sang, butterflies also sang. What happiness. Morning, evening, another day. Time without end. And then Adam extracted a rib and brought forth his misfortune. She pinched him. How can you say such a thing? He gripped her arm. Come here my sweetheart, let me touch your skin, smoother and sweeter than any pear or peach that hung in the garden. Come my angel.
Tell me more, she said, about the Garden of Eden. Why did Adam listen to her? he asked, his hand between her legs. What a madman. She comes up with a crazy scheme and he falls for it. Their skin glistened with moisture, her hair was wet at the temples. She pressed her face into his cheek. Where did they do it? she asked. Where did they do it? They did it everywhere.
The garden was theirs. Adam lay with her on soft ground, open to the sky. He didn’t yet know that God saw it all. Did they do everything together? she wanted to know. Everything, he replied. Everything there was to do in this situation. Show me, she whispered. Show me what he did to her in the heat of the day. He took a handful of her damp hair and kissed her mouth. He ran his hand along the curve of her waist. And then he climbed on top of her. I’ll show you, he said. I’ll show you what they did. Again and again. Until the snake came . . .
It was stifling in that little room, she said now. No air, no light. She dried her hands. But that night we forgot, didn’t we, where we were? I was madly in love with you, he said. But I didn’t want to show it. It’s not good to spoil women. They shouldn’t know their power over you. Do you think I couldn’t tell? she asked. When we marched to the hospital the next morning, I was in a daze. God forgive me, I didn’t see the dead and dying, I even forgot the terrible stench.
Have you been with your smuggler? my mother asked with disdain, and she turned away. What a foolish girl you are. Lilka shrugged. She wanted a Jewish policeman for me. Not a smuggler. The bitch, said Jascha. She understood nothing. Jascha! You mustn’t talk about her that way.
The bathroom was filled with steam. It fogged the mirror and floated above the tub and the sink. I can barely see, said Lilka, mopping off her face. It’s like a steam bath in here. An old Jewish tradition, he remarked.
In the ghetto, said Lilka, you couldn’t survive if you didn’t have someone to love. It was the only thing that could save you from despair. Everyone was getting together—old women with younger men, old men with young girls, scholars with former party girls, yeshiva boys with modern girls.
Before the war, said Jascha, two doors away from us was a pharmacy with a hunchbacked woman behind the counter. She was a famous matchmaker. Nearly invisible in the dim recesses of that little shop, she dispensed all kinds of medicine while sizing up her customers. She spoke in a small voice like a bird. Because of her hump she could not look up at customers directly, but had to incline her head slightly. She could read people in a moment. She cross-pollinated the shy with the bold, the plain with the dazzling. She saw something that others did not. It will work very well, she would say whenever her taste was questioned. Let the lion lie down with the lamb, the dove with the coyote, the rabbit with the hawk. You’ll see. Golda knows.
Would she have matched us, I wonder? Lilka wanted to know. Never, he replied. You’re not my type. And seeing her expression he stroked her cheek. Oh darling, I’m only joking. You’re still a beauty, he told her. I’m nearly sixty. Not to me, he replied. For me you’re still a young girl.
She reached over and touched his chest. What’s all this? he asked. I was afraid, she said softly. We were all afraid, he replied. I mean of you. With your strong arms and fierce dark eyes. I was only sixteen. You were twenty-three. I had kissed a few boys, nothing more. You were a man of the world. Of a small enclosed world, he replied, where everyone was about to die.
They needed the Poles to point out the Jews to Them, said Lilka. If they didn’t have hair and eyes as black as night, They couldn’t pick them out. She smiled. Except for you, my angel. With those dark curls and dark eyes. The water splashed as he sat up in the tub. I don’t look Jewish, he protested. No? she asked. Not at all, he said hotly.
She ground out her cigarette and stood up. She unfurled the white towel and held it up for him. He stood up and cockily pressed out his chest. She looked at his strong arms and chest, his muscular legs. You’re still handsome, she told him. I always was, he replied. And conceited, she added. You were always that, too. Not at all, darling, he said. I only pretended. And only with my own. How conceited, he asked, could a Jew in the ghetto be? The life of the handsomest, smartest Jew hung by a thread. She wrapped him in the towel. He pulled her against him. Come to bed. We’ll go back to the beginning.
He went into the room and lay down on the bed and pulled the eiderdown over him. Come darling, he said, lie down beside me. Don’t leave me alone in the city of Warsaw that is no more. She lay down beside him beneath the eiderdown. Like a law abiding Jewish couple, he said, and took her hand.
Late one night in the ghetto, she said, when we had already gone to bed, the doorbell rang. My mother crept to the door in the darkness. Through the door we heard someone whisper in Yiddish: It is I. My mother opened the door a crack. I stood behind her. My mother gave a small cry. There stood a ghost. His gray hair and sidelocks hung in wisps, his black caftan fell in tattered folds from his bony shoulders. His skin had a bluish tinge, his eyes were rimmed in red. One side of his forehead was discolored by a large purplish bruise. Dear God in Heaven, said my mother. It only needed this.
Grandfather, I cried out. It was my father’s father. How thin he was, his bones like a bird’s. He collapsed into a chair. I went to the kitchen and brought him water and bread and some marmalade. My mother watched him with a frown. Father, she said, how in the world did you get here? All the way from Lodz?
What bearded Jew in a long gabardine could survive? The black gabardines, the beards, the sidelocks of pious Jews drove Them into a frenzy. God looks after us, said my grandfather. My mother laughed mirthlessly. Here? In the ghetto? Now Grandfather reached underneath his caftan and drew out a small prayer book. I must recite the prayer for a safe arrival after a long journey. My mother groaned. Father, she pleaded. This is not a House of Prayer.
When he had eaten, my mother turned to me. Tell him, Lilka, she whispered. My grandfather placed his finger on the page of his prayer book. No need, he said. Three months ago my son appeared to me in a dream, wrapped in a shroud. That is when he disappeared, said my mother in surprise. Yes, replied Grandfather, in August. The month he was born. He bent his head and began to pray. My mother shook her head. When she had left the room, my grandfather put his hand on my arm. Everyone is trying to survive, he said to me. She too.
One day, said Lilka, I had to go to Nalewki on an errand for Grandfather. Nalewki was one of the worst. They were all the worst, said Jascha. We wouldn’t let him leave the house. Not with his beard, his black hat, his gabardine. I offered to buy him Polish clothes at the market.
Grandfather, I pleaded with him, shave off your beard. You know what happens to Them when they see a Jewish beard. They go even crazier. He pinched my cheek. Shave off my beard? he said. And then who would I be? God wouldn’t recognize me without my beard. And my eyes? What shall I do with my eyes? Grandfather, I said sharply, for God’s sake be practical. He looked at me sadly. Practical, my darling? Is that how we will survive?
I went to the man who sold old Hebrew books out of a broken down baby carriage on Nalewki Street. He always had plenty of browsers. Whether they bought or not I don’t know. People stole the books and ran off down the street. He was an old man and couldn’t pursu
e them. So he hired a young boy, he couldn’t have been more than six, to run after the thieves. I remember that boy. He had black eyes like olives and had lost all his teeth. But he could run, and panting, he would bring back a volume and the bookseller would give him a coin. How could the man make a profit? He was paying more to get back what was stolen.
The bookseller would give me a small list of volumes he thought would interest my grandfather. I would get money from my mother on some pretext or other and buy them for him. My grandfather kept them stacked up beside his mattress, old black books with Hebrew lettering in fading gilt.
Shall I teach you Hebrew? my grandfather asked me when he saw me looking. I shook my head. I wouldn’t have the patience. If you dip into these works, he told me, you forget the outer world. I can’t, Grandfather, I said. It’s the only way, he said. Otherwise how can one live?
Sometimes we sat side by side and a strange calm was transmitted to me. He stroked his beard slowly and sometimes he recited a psalm. His skin was like parchment, his long fingers were bony and white. His red rimmed eyes were always calm. He’s somewhere else, my mother would say irritably. He’s not of this world. Why must you treat him this way? I would ask her. He’s father’s father. Luckily your father was nothing like him, she said. Why didn’t he stay in Lodz? she asked. Why must he complicate everything?
I went into our secret hiding places and showed Grandfather our packets of sugar, sausage, even tea. He looked at me in surprise. It’s her smuggler, said my mother. A low type. In these times, even that is permitted, said Grandfather. Is that what it says in your books? asked my mother. What she was up to, said Jascha, made smuggling look like a fairy story. All right, all right, replied Lilka. Let’s not get into all that.
He drove my mother crazy. Dear God in Heaven, she said. Can one look more Jewish? That he arrived from Lodz is a miracle equal to the parting of the Red Sea. She was speaking like my father!
With Grandfather there the atmosphere in the apartment grew calmer. Neighbors came to see him. He makes me feel calmer, they said. A real tsaddik. Even my mother was softening toward him. I sometimes thought of my father, his son, who bought his suits in Paris, ordered his shoes from the finest boot maker in London. Who traveled to the capitals of Europe and never observed the Sabbath. Not long before my father was born, they had allowed the Jews to leave their shtetls. How quickly things had changed in one generation. The gates opened at last, said Jascha, and everyone rushed out. A few decades later they closed again. Your father was of the generation that could finally become European. Or so everyone thought. Gates open and close, he said. This time they closed forever.
There are no free miracles in this world, he observed. Not even from the Almighty. He turned in the soft bedding and reached for a cigarette. This miracle was paid for in hard cash. What do you mean? asked Lilka. The Accountant arranged it, said Jascha. He brought him in with another shipment from Lodz. We can squeeze one more in, he said. And this one, he added, is as small as a bird. What do you mean? How did he know about Grandfather? Jascha shrugged. I told him. And you? How did you know? You told me you had a grandfather you loved. I asked where he was. You told me Lodz. I asked you his name. We had contacts in the Lodz ghetto. We could find anyone. And for a small fortune we could get him to Warsaw. I had made money on a large shipment of kasha brought into the ghetto. Take it, I told the Accountant and handed him the cash. And let us bring her grandfather to her. Will you find him in that swarming hive? he asked me. I will find him, I replied. I had informers there, and I told them to locate him and get him on a truck we had coming back to Warsaw. Lilka stared at him. Why did you never tell me? she asked.
The Accountant swore me to secrecy. But the Accountant has been gone for more than forty years, she said. Why did you do it? Because I hated you. Because you loved me. Because I loved you, he agreed. His beard was soft as grass, said Lilka. He used to pull at it as pious Jews do. You’ll pull them out, I told him. He would smile at me and pinch my cheek. Lilkele, he said to me. Jews have been pulling at their beards since the world was created. They know how to do it so they don’t lose a single hair.
She turned to Jascha beneath the soft eiderdown. My sweetheart, she murmured, and wound her fingers into his hair. Be careful, said Jascha, you’ll pull them out. She laughed happily. Never has there been a more terrible man. She kissed his face and his mouth and the skin of his chest where his shirt was open. What else, she asked him, haven’t you told me?
He took her hand in his. We spend our years like a sigh, my sweetheart. Like a watch of the night. She clicked her tongue. Don’t be so morbid. You don’t know the psalm? he asked her. You engulf men in sleep, at daybreak they are like grass that renews itself; at daybreak it flourishes anew . . . And then? he asked. What comes next? She shook her head. By dusk it withers and dries up. Didn’t they teach you anything in that well-to-do household of yours? Where did you learn all this? she asked. Where? From the books the Jews left behind.
When they awoke, it was afternoon. Get up, cried Lilka, pressing his arm, we have to go out while there’s still some light left. Otherwise how will we see what Warsaw has become? Is it strictly necessary? he asked. Please, Jascha, she pleaded. He turned over. Let me sleep, he said. I’m exhausted.
She lay smoking, looking out at the fading light. What an unbearable stench, she said. Every morning we walked down Karmelicka Street to the hospital. And passed through those streets of indescribable filth. Everywhere they cried out to us nurses to help them. Their dark eyes seemed fixed with fear and starvation. What could we do? There were hundreds more like them at the hospital, three to a bed, lying in the corridors so you could barely walk. They had been beaten nearly to death, they had typhus, they were dying of starvation. And what could we do for them? Almost nothing. The only medicine left was hundreds of boxes of suppositories. Suppositories? They were dying of dysentery.
They lay three to a bed, and bodies lay crowding the corridors so you could barely get through. There was nothing to cover them with. One little boy who was sick with typhus cried out: I want to steal. I want to kill. I want to eat. I want to be a German.
One evening as I was going home an ancient woman came up to me. She was tiny, skin and bones, covered in layers of rags. The skin was stretched tightly across her face and her eyes were large and expressionless. She reached out a kind of claw. From her throat came a weak croak and she said my name. I stared at her and could not understand how she knew me. The stench was terrible. It’s Pani Rozen, she said hoarsely. I pulled back in disbelief. My old piano teacher. She had been pink and plump, with lively dark eyes and white teeth. Only a few years older than I. She was in love with Schubert. I’ve changed, she croaked sadly. She bent close to me and I forced myself not to recoil. I’m no longer human, she murmured.
Lilka, said Jascha, you mustn’t think about this now. Another time. Only not now. What has come over me? she asked. I thought it was over. Beneath the eiderdown he took her in his arms. Come my baby, he said. It’s all long ago. He stroked her hair. Only it’s not, she said.
Do you remember the din? she asked him. The endless crying out and moaning, the screaming, the shouting, the singers on every corner singing their different songs, hoping to get a few pennies. No sooner were you out on the street than this unearthly clamor assaulted you. I remember a little boy of about six who used to stand on the corner of Pawia and Zamenhofa. I used to see him on the way to the hospital. He was so tiny he might have been four. His name was Avi. Dressed in rags, he sang old Yiddish songs—his mother had taught them to him and sent him out on the streets to get a few pennies. No one could resist him. Tiny and birdlike, he stood straight and immobile and opened his mouth wide like a bird and sang. He had a high clear voice. Soon everyone was weeping. Anyone who could manage put a coin in his hand.
While he sang, nearby his mother sold a few loaves of bread which she kept locked in a rabbit cage. Bread behind mesh
bars so it wouldn’t be stolen. She spoke courteously to buyers, calling them her dear customers and thanking them for their business. They would look at her in disbelief. This kind of behavior belonged to another life.
When he was finished singing, little Avi used to take off his little cap and bow. Thank you, he would say, for attending a performance at the Karmelicka Open Air Concert Hall. Be careful going home. This always drew a laugh.
One day, he and his mother were no longer there. They had disappeared without a trace. They and everyone else, said Jascha. What else was new? Never mind. Let me tell you a joke.
He lit two cigarettes. Cheer up, my sweetheart. Did I tell you the one about Moishe’s wife? A hundred times, she replied. Oh darling, he said mournfully.
Jascha was full of jokes that he told again and again in bed and out. Soon she had heard them all a hundred times. Have you, he would say, heard the one about the Jew on the train. If she said no, he told it with great relish. Yes, she would say if she was in a certain mood, a hundred times. All right then, he would say, let’s hear it. A Jew got on a train . . . she would begin. What? Not—A Jew got on a train . . . You don’t know how to tell a joke. And he would tell her how the joke should begin. Carry on, he would say.
The Jew was hungry, she said. What?? He would shake his head sadly. She has no idea how to tell a joke. All right, she would say, throwing up her hands: you tell it. And happily he would begin.
Did you hear the one about the Jew crossing the border? Did you hear the one about the Jew on the train? In his jokes Jews were always crossing the border or taking a train. Their lives seemed to consist of this. Don’t Jews ever do anything else? she asked him. Ho ho, many things, he replied. But not all of them are funny.
