by Steven Uhly
97
The embrace. The kiss. Shimon, who does not want his father to lift him up. Sarah, who clings on to Peretz. All around them the city, the sea, and somewhere further in the distance, where they cannot see: war. If we’re unlucky, Peretz said, they’ll divide the south from the center. In the north too, Peretz said, enemy troops were everywhere. I’ve got to go away today, Peretz said, Back to my unit. I’ll bring you to my parents, Peretz said.
Anna let everything happen. She embraced when it was time to embrace, she kissed when it was time to kiss, but her head, just her head, remained a high-security wing which nobody had permission to enter, which she never left. She smiled, she said, We’ve finally arrived, she thought of her mother’s poem, it was far away, far from love a star shone in the sky, it was the nameless sun releasing its light onto everything, allowing nothing to remain hidden, not the tiniest crease on a face and in the mountains, nor the faintest regret in a heart and at the front.
Shimon! Come here and say hello to your father!
Leave him, he’ll get used to me again in good time.
Peretz smiled, he held fast onto Sarah’s categorical decision, which was written on her face like an exclamation mark, You are my father, she is my mother, I belong to you both!
Peretz had never thought that one day this would comfort him, he never thought that Sarah’s naïve obstinacy would be fruitful. And now she leaped in to replace the dead child that lay between Anna and him like a wall of guilt and accusation, Why didn’t you take better care? Why do you only give me another man’s son? Why did it have to turn out this way?
98
They drove through the city. Military everywhere, the people in uproar, in fear, in uniform, in arms. Vehicles, infantry, some signs on the vehicles had been painted over in makeshift fashion, Anna got the impression that the weapons too had made their way to Palestine via secret routes, as if they too had a life of their own, as if they too were homeless and forever in search of a place where they could be themselves, deadly, bringing death, the antithesis to life, its dark shadow, as if people were only complete with their own negation.
“Look,” Peretz cried as they drove through the city in his open jeep. “Look! The Jews are arming themselves for their battle for survival!” This filled him with pride, but a few seconds later his face was filled with worry. They did not have enough people and too few weapons.
“It may well be our final battle,” he said softly. Then all of them would be homeless again, and perhaps the Jewish people would be exterminated after all. He fell silent, now was not the time for faintheartedness and fear. Now was the time to give it one’s all, even one’s own life.
Anna watched the city go past from the passenger seat with Shimon on her lap. My new home town, she thought, everything turned on its head, she thought, what is foreign is now mine, while what is mine is lost.
Dusty streets, Bauhaus architecture, art nouveau villas, concrete boxes with small windows, magnificent chalets as in central Europe, proud synagogues, orthodox Jews acting as if there had been no mobilization. Little green, a lot of beige and brown, a lot of white and gray. A large vault of blue over everything. Is this country so beautiful that people have to fight over it? Anna sighed, perhaps I have to keep looking until I have all the forms and colors imprinted on my mind. Maybe it’s a question of will, maybe it needs to be contradictory to unleash all energies. And the war? Nobody knew what was going to happen.
The jeep bumped up and down over the uneven road surface, double-decker buses came toward them, motorcycles, donkey carts, armored vehicles. Anna saw signs in Hebrew she could not read, she saw people with exotic faces and Israeli uniforms, she saw children playing football in the street, she smelled aniseed, dust, diesel, sewage. The streets were littered with the detritus from the independence celebrations of the previous day, blue-and-white garlands festooning the fronts of buildings, small flags bearing the colors of the new state, fallen to the ground, Anna had still been on the ship and the captain had put the radio through the tannoy system, they had heard the voice of a man, The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
They turned into a street which looked different from the others. Black façades, windows without glass, a burned-out double-decker bus in the middle of the street, it reeked of rust and charred rubber. Soldiers with wheelbarrows, pickaxes and shovels were busy clearing away the debris.
Peretz steered the jeep slowly around the bus. Close up it looked like a large dead animal.
“That was the Egyptian air force,” Peretz said. “Yesterday,” he added. He pointed to a man in an officer’s uniform, who was standing behind the bus surrounded by soldiers.
“Wait here a moment!” he said to the women. He stopped the car, leaped out and went over to the men.
Shimon wanted to get down from his mother’s lap, she held him tight, he said, “Want to get out!” In shock at the fact that he had spoken, Anna let him go. Before she knew what was happening he had climbed out of the car.
“I’ll go,” Sarah said. She jumped down from the jeep and followed him. Anna watched them.
Shimon went over to the bus. He stood beside the vehicle and gave it a thorough inspection. Above the driver’s cab was a white sign whose red letters were still visible, on the left it read EGGED, then a 13 and then three Hebrew characters.
“Horrible, isn’t it?” Sarah said to Shimon, who glanced up at her, turned back to the bus, stared at the burned-out seats, the broken windows, the scorched paint that lent the bus a rather somber air, the steering wheel warped by the heat. Shimon shook his head.
“Just broken,” he said in his child’s voice, before looking Sarah in the eye again, and she had the uneasy feeling that he meant it.
“Hey, you two! Get away! No children here!” They turned around. The voice belonged to the officer who, along with Peretz and the soldiers, was looking in their direction and gesturing with his hands that they should move well away from the bus.
“Do they belong to you, Peretz? Just make sure they don’t get up to any mischief.” Peretz left the group and came over to them. He was furious.
“I told you to stay in the car!” he yelled at Sarah.
The girl gave a terrified smile. “Shimon said something.”
Peretz did not react.
“Take him and get back in the car!” He went back to the men.
They drove on. Anna stroked Shimon’s head. Shimon gazed out at the city. He did not say anything, but now Anna knew that he was keeping quiet.
99
Heinrich got to know Lena at Ronnie’s. Ronnie’s real name was Ronald, but he played banjo in a Hillbilly band. Lena’s real name was Lena, and yet she came across to Heinrich as so unreal and ethereal that he could not take his eyes off her the whole evening, and got drunk for the first time in his life. He had no idea what he was drinking, it was a transparent liquid that looked like water and tasted like bitter medicine. The bottle he had taken from the cabinet and not let go of since was now two-thirds empty.
“That’s white rum!” someone shouted in Heinrich’s ear over the din of the music. Nothing could shock Heinrich anymore, he just looked around in the dim light of the large hallway, which was so jammed with dancing people that from where he was sitting he could make out nothing but feet and legs.
With an effort he turned his head to the left and came across Lena’s face, up close to his glassy eyes. He grinned stupidly and said, “Too good to be true.”
Lena frowned. “
The rum?”
Heinrich was still grinning, but he shook his head and cried, “You!”
Lena got to her feet and looked down at Heinrich. Then she waved a friend over and together they managed to move him to a quiet room.
That night Heinrich vomited countless times, even when all that remained in his stomach was bile. Lena and her friend cleaned him, the sofa he was lying on and the carpet beside it, they emptied the bucket, washed the cloths, brought fresh water and listened to Heinrich, whose torrent of words was interrupted only by his retching.
The following day Heinrich awoke in a bed. He turned over. Lena was sleeping next to him. To his surprise he realized he was completely naked. Outside the sun was high in the sky, a fresh breeze wafted in through the open window. Heinrich felt good.
Lena woke up. She turned and gave him a dozy smile.
“Well, you fake Kruse, you kept us on our toes last night!”
“I can’t remember a thing.”
“Nothing at all?”
“No.”
Lena looked at him doubtfully, then shook her head. “Nutcase.” It sounded both reproachful and gentle, which confused Heinrich.
All of a sudden he remembered what Lena had called him.
“Did I talk?”
Lena nodded.
“What did I say?”
Lena shook her head. Before Heinrich could say anything else she gave him a kiss.
100
Gudrun dreamed that she was not dreaming, but maybe she had been having a non-dream about dreaming ever since she inhaled the smoke from the water pipe. Perhaps she was lying down, she was not sure, she tried to remember what she had been doing before she stopped knowing whether she was lying down or not. She looked down a long corridor that narrowed the further it went, and right at the end was a tiny square opening, it was like looking the wrong way through a telescope, beyond the end of which was what she had done before she stopped knowing whether she was lying down or not. Screwing up her eyes, she tried to fathom in greater detail what was happening over there. Aha, she said quietly when she realized that over there asphalt was sliding beneath her shoes. Right, she mused, either I walked or ran. If she managed to get to the end of the corridor she might see more. But as she had no clue whether she was lying down or not, she could make no decision about whether to get up or not, in order to try to get to the end of the corridor. It was tricky. Gudrun attempted to close her eyes, but as she did not know whether she was dreaming and had closed her eyes, or awake and looking, she could not decide whether to open or close her eyes. A movement in the distance diverted her attention. A face had emerged, Gudrun could see bad teeth, a scruffy beard, she saw a cigarette wandering up to the mouth and away from it again. The face seemed familiar and it almost looked as if the mouth was moving to speak. But how was someone going to speak to her if it was unclear whether she was awake or not? The movements must have another meaning, perhaps Bernd was eating something. Oh yes, Gudrun muttered when she heard the name. Who had uttered it? Gudrun debated turning around and looking behind her to see whether someone was standing there talking. But it was not clear that behind her existed at all. Why would she want to turn around? It would be like wanting to crochet a blanket out of time, she mused. Absurd. Suddenly she felt her body carrying out a movement, or was it the earth that had turned? She was just about to start contemplating it again when a new face popped up, this time very close. She smiled when she recognized her brother, What a strange dream, she mumbled, for she had never dreamed of him before or had a non-dream in which he featured. But now he was here and his face was so close to hers that she was surprised by all the details. The long hair, for example, she muttered, He never had long hair. She grinned because she suddenly felt like her mother and even sensed her mother’s words in her mouth like mutterings her tongue was playing with, Heinrich, what do you look like? Things moved around Heinrich’s head and even she herself seemed to be moving, but his face always remained in the same place, always right in front of her, and Heinrich’s mouth moved as continually as Bernd’s had just done. What’s going on? Gudrun mumbled, without being able to find an answer, but suddenly Heinrich’s face vanished and she was staring at a house, where on earth had this house come from? it looked so familiar to her, as if she had gone through that door once before. The houses began to move, they flashed past Gudrun’s eyes, nothing but houses inside which she may have been, or maybe not. Gudrun had the feeling that her head was being held tight, if she could have turned it she would have checked to see whether it was her hands holding it. Where are my hands? she muttered, but her hands were silent, her feet were silent, her entire body was silent, and this could only mean that Gudrun’s body did not exist, there was just Gudrun and these house fronts and the pane of glass between them. Gudrun became sad, for she realized that if this were the case then her life would be very lonely. At least I’ve got eyes, she thought, that I can see with, and thought that maybe nothing existed except for faces and house fronts and the car in which she was driving through the city with Heinrich beside her and someone at the wheel in front. Gudrun raised a hand, to indicate her surprise, but then her mouth moved and said, Where are you taking me? Heinrich said, You can stay with us to begin with and then we’ll see, O.K.? She was about to consider this, but her mouth was already saying, Who’s the woman driving? That’s Lena, Heinrich said, You’ll like her. Gudrun grimaced, What a prophecy, she thought, Lena doesn’t even have a face, just the back of a head with long hair and slim arms holding on to a steering wheel. But then the back of the head turned around, revealing a face, Gudrun tore her mouth open wide in astonishment and looked behind too, where there was another world.
“Tomorrow I’m going to crochet a blanket from time,” she told Heinrich. But she no longer believed her words, for the universe had put itself together again before her eyes, without hope and without illusion. Turning her head to the house fronts on the other side of the window, she muttered, “My non-dream is over.”
101
Tel Aviv, May 26, 1966
Dear Grandma
It’s been a week now since I arrived. It’s unseasonably cold; Nili Burg, who I’m staying with, even had to borrow a jumper from me. She’s very nice but quite old, definitely over eighty. She still does everything herself though: shopping, washing, cooking, mending her clothes. And her eyes are bright, they shine when she looks at me. Nili is a Yekke, which is what they call German Jews here. So I’m a Yekke too, not merely a Jew amongst Jews. She told me a joke: what’s the difference between a Yekke and a virgin? Answer: a Yekke will always be a Yekke. Not particularly flattering, is it? But Nili thinks it’s funny. She says it’s all very inconsequential compared to what Israel means. Even now, so many years after the state was founded, her eyes twinkle when she talks about it. Everybody pulled together, worked together, shared everything. It sounds so wonderful that I wish I’d been a part of it.
I’ve spent the last few days wandering though Tel Aviv. The city’s name means “spring hill,” isn’t that beautiful? I love Tel Aviv, I like the bright colors and the houses. But the people most of all! They’re not quiet and inhibited like at home; they talk loudly and wave their arms around, not in the least concerned if other people can hear them—quite the opposite, in fact. The moment you stop anywhere they’ll immediately look at you and you’ll be in the middle of a conversation! Hebrew is such a beautiful language to listen to; it’s a shame I can’t understand it.
This morning I took the first step toward accomplishing my mission. With Nili’s help I went through the Tel Aviv telephone book. But either they don’t live in the city or it’s like at home and they’re ex-directory. Nili told me there’s a national archive in Jerusalem with personal data going back to Ottoman times and the British mandate. It’s got all the data relating to immigrants since the foundation of Israel. Unless something surprising happens I expect I’ll have to go there. But I want to visit Jerusalem anyway.
Dear Grandma, I hope you’re well
and don’t feel too lonely. Sometimes I worry about that. I hope you understand how important this trip is for me. I feel as if my whole life has been a preparation for it.
You’ll always be in the very core of my heart, in the same place as my parents.
Love, Lisa
102
Peretz only understood when his mother opened the door, only when he started speaking and pointing with his hands, My mother, My wife, only when he hesitated, barely noticeable to the uninitiated, before adding, My son.
Lydia Sarfati stood there, smiling, gazing at the faces of the strangers, she came down the three steps and embraced her daughter-in-law. She had decided to smile, no matter what impression the wife of her youngest son made on her, A good start is everything, as her father always used to say, and this was one such moment, which is why she was only vaguely aware of who she was embracing, it could have just as easily been Avner’s wife, Lana, and she had ever so slightly made use of this thought to help her through the encounter. But when she hugged Anna Sarfati’s skinny body, a body offering barely any resistance and which seemed barely physical, Lydia Sarfati got a shock, for it felt as if she had just put her arms around nothing at all. She let the moment pass and turned to the girl. Poor child, she thought, she knew all about Sarah’s history and made sure she treated her exactly the same, for it was part of her plan to do right by Sarah.
But then she squatted next to Shimon and beamed at him and said something in Hebrew that Shimon did not understand. She laughed at his bemusement, took his head in her hands, planted a firm kiss on both cheeks and then hugged him so hard that his feet lost their grip.
Looking down at his mother, Lydia Sarfati’s son felt sympathy and regret, which stabbed into his chest like a physical pain.
