by Steven Uhly
“Are you prepared to fight?” Mrs. Vakar asked her.
Anna blew air through her cheeks, looked at Mrs. Vakar and thought about this.
Returning her gaze, Mrs. Vakar waited attentively.
Anna liked her, she was pleased to have found a woman, the only one in the telephone book. She thought of Peretz. Have I ever loved him? She could not say, was that enough of an answer? She nodded and said, “Yes.”
152
Shimon sat by the telephone, procrastinating. He procrastinated for so long that Lana, who had been watching him from the inner courtyard, came in and said, “Just call her!”
Shimon turned his head in surprise and smiled at his little sister. Lana went back out to the courtyard, lay down on the cool stones, looked up at the sky and threw him the occasional searching glance. She had no idea about Shimon’s options, she was unaware that he had already been in touch with his old guitarist to arrange a fix, she did not know about the methadone that had run out.
Shimon picked up the receiver, Now! But before he dialed the number he paused, What am I going to say to her? That I’m sorry I want to see her? Do I want to see her? He thought of how they had learned of the birth, a short letter addressed to his mother. Tears of emotion had filled her eyes when she showed him the letter. Shimon could not help but smile, mothers were so predictable, no matter what happened you could rely on their instincts. He dropped the receiver into his lap, What do I expect from life? He wanted something special, something extraordinary. Now he had become a father and he did not know his son, while he was a son who did not know his father, Nice tradition, that. But this was not what he had envisaged for himself. Singing? His head was full of music, full of lyrics, full of doubt. A real musician doesn’t let the situation get him down, a real musician is still a musician even when he’s not making music. He thought of his guitarist. All he had to do was call and say his name, nothing more. Then he would hang up and tell Lana there was something he had to do. He would take the bus to Medusa, because that was where the guitarist was playing with his new band. He would have something to drink, surely he would still get a discount there, and after the gig . . . Shimon put the receiver to his ear again and dialed the number. He waited. On the other end of the line a voice spoke, it passed through Shimon’s soul like a wind, he had not been expecting that.
“It’s me,” he said, then listened. “Fine. How about you?” he said. The voice at the other end spoke, then went quiet.
“What about your studies?” he said. The voice spoke again.
“I want to see you,” he said, “both of you.” He had not planned to say this, it was the voice, her voice, he was powerless against it, he wanted to hang up and crawl down the line to her, his hands felt her magic skin and he wanted to tear himself away before he grafted himself onto her. He heard what the voice had to say, the voice kept talking, he forgot his hands, he forgot her voice, he heard what the voice was saying, he did not like it.
“Not in Germany,” he said. “No way.” He listened, he shook his head, he lost patience, he raised his voice. “If you love me then come to the place I can come to.” He regretted raising his voice but could not take back his words, the voice at the other end did not grow louder, but softer, sadder, it spoke, he listened, he felt that he was shutting himself away inside, becoming inaccessible, he knew it, he could see the mechanism but was unable to resist.
“No, in that case,” he said. He hung up without saying goodbye, he was still sitting in the living room, he refused to believe that she could not leave Berlin, she had come to Israel, after all, had hung around with him for months, she had people behind her with money, he knew all about her, she could not pull the wool over his eyes, he did not believe her. Picking up the telephone, he dialed a number.
“It’s me,” he said, then listened.
A voice said something, he hung up.
“I have to go and do something!” he called out to Lana.
“When will you be home?” she called back.
She’s watching over me, he thought. He felt harassed.
“I don’t know!” he said, before leaving and walking to the bus stop.
As he waited in the balmy evening air he thought of Germany, What had his mother been doing hanging around with a German? A German! She had told him he was dead. Could he believe that, at least?
A V.W. bus came round the corner and stopped beside Shimon, the driver opened the door by hand and with the help of a fragile-looking lever system of metal rods, Shimon gave him a coin and sat in the narrow passenger compartment, in the darkness he saw only pairs of eyes, it reeked too strongly of people. With a rattle, the bus pulled away.
153
“The whole of life is the eye of a needle and you are an arrow shot through by a god who doesn’t care how you feel, who only wants to win back what is his, what others challenge him for, and because of it he will annihilate them all. You are a means to an end, you have no target, you must simply fly through the air as he has determined. At the end waits death, the great release, the vast domain that no one will take away from you, where you can settle. There you will suffer neither hunger nor thirst. Beyond hope and fear, and beyond good and evil you will find the peace you have been seeking for so long.
“And now imagine this: you are adjusting the eye of the needle yourself. The god drawing the bow is you. The arrow you are shooting is your passage through life. What you wish to win back is the heart inside your own breast. You must annihilate the enemies besieging your soul. Death is your victory over yourself.
“Which seems to make more sense, the first version or the second one?”
Lisa put down the book, Tom was lying asleep beside her. From outside the brief light of the December sun shone in. She could have gone ice-skating, it was that cold. She could have gone present-shopping or to buy a new dress that was only one size bigger than those she used to wear. Before Tom.
Instead she had stayed in Tobias Weiss’s old apartment, looking out of the window across the red roofs of the city they had wanted to leave forever. Sitting in her old place of exile, she felt like a snail in its house, safe and secure from the outside world.
There was only one person whose presence she longed for, but in a telephone conversation this person had told her that he would never come to Germany, anywhere but Germany. Lisa could have said, You’re German too, your father’s German, your mother’s German, your son’s German. But it would have been a lie because he would not have acknowledged it as the truth. And could she blame him? A Jew amongst Germans, she knew better than he did what that meant. She thought of the Schwimmers, they were like jugglers, forever tossing their two identities into the air and trying to catch them again, forever running the risk that one might crash to the ground. She thought, I couldn’t live like that. She thought, No wonder they talk so much, all the time they must be trying to hide the secret from themselves. She thought, Nonsense, Lisa, everyone must live their life the way they see fit. She thought of the phrases she had read in the book. She thought, If death is victory over myself, what happens if I achieve this victory before I die? She thought, Could there possibly be an existence that encompasses both life and death? She turned her head and looked at Tom’s tiny face which had grown since the first time she had set eyes on it five months ago. She thought of Mosche and Selma and Tobias, who had met in the hospital waiting room while she was having contractions next door. A former Wehrmacht soldier and two Holocaust survivors. They had got on well, indeed they had a lot in common, an entire war, Perhaps, Lisa thought, after a reasonable period of time it will be irrelevant which side people were on, because it was the war which created these sides in the first instance, they belong to it and they end with it too. Then she thought, Wars end slowly, this war is still in the process of ending. When will it be over? She smiled at Tom, unaware of all this, and wondered whether her son would outlive the war. Or would that only be for her grandchild?
154
Peretz was unable to co
ncentrate on the old man’s speech. He was sitting in the fourth of twenty rows at Beit Berl College, half an hour northeast of Tel Aviv, and David Ben-Gurion, the college’s founder, was standing at a slim lectern in front of him. Around Peretz in the large auditorium sat two hundred officers of the Israeli armed forces, it was an important speech, but Peretz was trying in vain not to allow other thoughts to distract him.
Ben-Gurion’s nose had grown bigger with age, by contrast the rest of his face seemed to have shrunk, the two tufts of snow-white hair, which grew above his ears from an otherwise totally bald head, looked like small angel’s wings, Peretz imagined them growing and growing until one day they carried him away, it could not be that much longer. Ben-Gurion was the image of a prophet, despite his advanced years his gaze was sharp and clear, he uttered phrases that made the soldiers shift uneasily in their seats, phrases saying that the captured areas must be handed back as quickly as possible, saying that an occupation of the Palestinian areas put at risk the support of the Western democracies, without whose help Israel’s existence was threatened, phrases making it perfectly clear that it had been a mistake to break the armistice with Syria, a mistake to seize the Golan Heights, he, Ben-Gurion, wondered whether this war would not bring other wars in its wake.
Peretz felt exactly the same as the other officers who themselves wondered what the old man was going on about, some suspected he was trying to maneuver back to the heart of power, while some saw him as yesterday’s man, and others listened to him as one might listen to a seer speaking in poetic analogies that do not have to be tested by facts. They all kept quiet, because they were being addressed by the father of their country, the man who for decades had stood as solid as a rock and without whom there might not even have been an Eretz Yisrael. The past was mythical, it had the face of the old man, the voice of the old man, all of them had grown up with him, to them he was more of a father than their own fathers, a stern, wise patriarch, who would look out for them until his death and who now was saying, We must keep East Jerusalem, I propose that the Arabs should be moved to new parts of the city and Jews settled in the old town, I propose that the old Jewish quarter should be torn down and habitable houses built there in its place. At last, phrases that everyone could agree with, there was applause, Peretz clapped too, but he felt like an extra placed there to occupy a chair that otherwise would have been empty. His thoughts strayed to other phrases, Anna’s phrases saying that she definitely wanted a divorce, phrases that made it clear to him she would fight for custody of Lana. Peretz was afraid of a legal battle, his family would find out, his father and—worse—his brother. His poor mother would hear the whole wretched truth, he would stand there like a weakling, he did not even have his own son, he had brought up someone else’s brat instead, Anna had laid a cuckoo’s egg in his nest. If he lied before court, saying he had known nothing, he would be shooting himself in the foot, if the truth came to light that he had even voluntarily allowed her to use him. If he consented to a divorce what should he say to his parents? We didn’t love each other anymore? He already knew what his father would think, he would think that he, Peretz, had made life too easy for himself, had lacked staying power to pull through the bad times together, he might suspect his son of having an affair. Again it would be pointed out that his brother had taken the better wife, had the more successful marriage. And what if he refused to divorce? Then he would be the fool who failed to understand that his wife no longer loved him, then all would suspect her of having the affair. And again he would be the weakling, the idiot.
He refused to believe it, he felt like the king on a chessboard who, having lost all his pieces, was now reduced to fleeing from one square to another. But he was too much of a soldier not to realize that he would lose this battle with Anna too.
Worst of all was that his feelings for Anna had not changed since that distant day when she had walked toward him out of the forest near Tulce. The pain of having failed to conquer her in all the years that had passed since burrowed its way deeper and deeper inside him, causing him to doubt whether what he felt really was love.
155
Berlin, 21st October, 1970
How time flies! Twenty-six years ago today the world was at war and still I wanted to enter this world. Seventeen years ago today I saw Maria Kramer at the door of our apartment. Four years ago today I celebrated my birthday with Shimon in his bassist’s apartment. A year ago today Grandma moved to Berlin to be with me. Today . . . what is today? I try not to think of Shimon, I go to work and dream of studying again. Every day Tom fills me with joy and every day I’m sad because he doesn’t know his father. It’s not the sort of weather I would have wished for on my birthday. I’m celebrating the day by writing in my diary again. Tobi came this morning, it was lovely to see him again. He’s got gray hair now and he still talks with endless filler words. But he’s well, he’s found a Hamburg woman who likes him, next time he’s going to bring her with him. Tom and he are best friends already, they sat for hours on the floor looking at picture books, well, maybe not for hours, but a long time anyway. Then he left and I was happy that there are a few people in my life who don’t simply disappear.
This evening I went to the cinema with Esther Schwimmer. Esther came to visit because she’s got another friend living in Berlin. She had tickets for Five Easy Pieces. The film was so sad, Jack Nicholson was Shimon, I cried the whole time. Esther wanted to leave, she said, It’s your birthday, you can’t spend it howling in the cinema! I had to laugh as the tears ran down my face and I missed Shimon so much.
Where’s my life going from here?
156
Tel Aviv-Jaffa, 14th July, 1971
Dear Tom,
Happy Birthday! You’re four years old now! That’s really quite big. I’m so happy for you and delighted to be your grandmother.
I hope you like the toy car I sent. It’s got a steering wheel on the top so you can really drive it!
I hope you have a wonderful day and a great party! Your father sends you birthday greetings too. He told me he’ll call you later if has a chance.
A big hug and kisses from Israel
Love, Grandma
Dear Lisa,
I hope you’re all well. I’m feeling better now. I finally moved out of the house in Jaffa. I never felt like the legal owner there in any case. After much dithering, which was partly down to Peretz’s endless deployments in Sinai, he decided not to go to court. Clearly it was too much for him to fight two wars of attrition at the same time. The issue of custody of Lana, thank goodness, will soon resolve itself as she comes of age.
I’d love to be able to say that Shimon’s in good shape, but I’m afraid he’s not. He keeps trying to get off the drugs and go on with his music, but he hasn’t managed it yet. He talks a lot about you, Lisa, and about his son. He always carries around with him the picture you sent me last winter, of the two of you. But he battles with you too, he doesn’t understand why you insist that he comes to West Berlin. Couldn’t you meet in a neutral place? Maybe you could think about it some time.
I’ll write to you again as soon as I can. I do have the time now, after all. According to Jewish tradition Peretz was obliged to surrender part of his assets to me, and he kept to this. I have put some money in an envelope, I’m sure you could use it.
Please regard me as your mother-in-law, who is most grateful that one day you entered her life.
Love, Anna
157
Peretz found the loudhailer in his parents’ garage. He had no idea how it had ended up there. Now he was sitting in their garden, his mother and her two Yemeni housemaids were making lunch. It was cool, the old jacaranda tree he used to climb as a child with Avner had already lost its leaves. The large mimosa growing beside it, whose leaves Peretz loved to tickle then watch as they folded up, was now entirely woody.
Peretz twirled the loudhailer in his hands, the area where he had scratched out the swastika beneath the imperial eagle was still clearly visible. Pu
tting the loudhailer to his lips he recalled all the transports it had accompanied him on. Doing good things had been his greatest desire. But the greatness of this desire was matched by the greatness he desired to achieve himself, something he now realized with painful clarity. And the loudhailer had sat in his memory like a bogus message.
Lydia Sarfati came out of the terrace door. When she saw the tears in her son’s eyes she was shocked. She sat next to him on the small bench, she put her hands in her lap to prevent herself from giving him a hug, from experience she knew that this impulse could meet with resistance.
“Is it still because of Anna?” she said softly.
Peretz shook his head. He looked into his mother’s eyes and said, “Mama, what was I like when I was younger, before I went to Germany, to war? I can’t remember.”
Lydia Sarfati was relieved, she smiled at her son and said, “You were a little dreamy, you were fun-loving.” She sighed. “You and Avner, sometimes you were the best of friends, at other times you argued horribly, but that was only because you were so different. He was pragmatic and you were . . . well, different. I always thought you might become an artist, a musician perhaps, you used to really enjoy singing.”
A film of moisture covered her eyes. She said, “You would rack your brains about everything, you always wanted to know exactly what something was like, not just how it worked. It made me so proud of you, but at the same time I’d be worried that you were asking too much of your head.” She wiped her eyes and looked at her son. Peretz took a deep breath. He spun the loudhailer in his hands.
“This used to belong to a German,” he said.
