The Iron Tracks

by Aharon Appelfeld

  “You doubted me,” she said provocatively. “But I haven’t forgotten my mission. My ears are always open, and I ask questions.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “You mustn’t thank me. I owe something to the Jewish people, don’t I?”

  That’s how Mrs. Braun is. In recent years it has been hard to rely on her, but when she’s sober, a kind of honesty returns to her eyes. This is a look that stores pain. Once she said to me, “My father was unhappy with me because I never finished high school. That hurt him a lot. Even on his deathbed it grieved him. I did make an effort, but I didn’t have the composure to concentrate. I was involved with boys and didn’t do my homework. In the end there was no choice but to send me to a vocational school. That was a day of mourning for my father. My mother, on the other hand, wasn’t very sorry. ‘If she doesn’t want to study, why force her? Work is nothing to be ashamed of.’ Father didn’t agree, but he didn’t quarrel. Now I feel his sorrow. He was a quiet man and neither my mother nor I was afraid of him.”

  Mrs. Braun wins me over, and I forgive her for the nonsense she serves up, for the loans that she will never pay back. Clearly, she is no angel from heaven. Still, there is a kind of light in her soul.

  The next day I go to the fair. The fair here reminds me of my hometown and the bright summertime lights that stayed lit until midnight. Here, too, the nights are lit up, but I feel nothing.

  Two hundred years ago Jews lived in this poor town. Their memory has been erased, but in the market I once found a few Jewish antiques that moved me very much. Since then I make sure to come here on a market day. Occasionally I remain in the area for a week or two, so I can return for the Tuesday fair. I’ve never revealed this to Mrs. Braun. I suspect that if she knew the value of the objects, she would be tempted to buy them out from under me. She’s no fool.

  In this remote fair, over the years, I’ve found wine goblets, candlesticks, menorahs, and even an old prayer book. When I showed the book to Stark, he was very moved. His eyes filled with tears. Stark is a creature of a very special sort, the kind of person that is now extinct in the world.

  This is my strange way of making a living. I buy antiques whose value no one here can estimate, and I sell them to collectors. I guard this secret zealously. I have eager competitors who sometimes get there first, but mostly I beat them to it. In my valise I keep a schedule of all the fairs in the region, and my life follows its dictates. Because of the fairs I am forced to drag myself to distant places, but it pays off. No pleasure is like that of discovering an antique.

  Once Stark told me, “Your work is holy. You mustn’t leave these precious objects in the hands of strangers. Marvelous memories are stored up in them.” Since he said that to me, my attraction to these godforsaken places has grown stronger. Sometimes my heart chides me for that devotion because it can distract me from my main goal: the murderer.

  CHAPTER

  12

  I know the town of Gruendorf and the surrounding villages like the palm of my hand. Here I sometimes stay until autumn. Occasionally I go as far as the mountains. True, I don’t always find what I’m looking for. The fairs are mostly wretched and depressing, but the landscape in this season makes up for them. Between one village and another is everything to nourish the soul: blue skies, green meadows, and oak-lined paths. The silence here envelops. I forget the ulcer that gnaws at me. But not Bertha’s face. Now that she is mortifying herself, far away on a riverbank, I find myself drawn to her with an irresistible force.

  Between one village and the next I take out my bottle of cognac. Thus I drive away the dismal clouds and the burning dread. Without cognac, the sights of Wirblbahn return to me. Once again I see the horrors of my rebirth, and life no longer has any meaning. But if fortune smiles upon me, I discover treasures wherever I turn. Seven years ago I returned to the station from here with two bulging rucksacks. What didn’t I find! Candlesticks, two Hanukkah menorahs, and many wine goblets. Most valuable of all: the books. An old peasant displayed a pile of antique books in an old basin. I immediately saw that they were treasures worth their weight in gold. So as not to arouse his suspicion, I also bought other things.

  Indeed I found a treasure trove, a prayer book from the seventeenth century among it. Its edges were frayed, but the letters were clear, the parchment binding well preserved, and on it, in clear handwriting, were written folk cures, memorial days of relatives, and even a few sketches, showing that children studied from this book. My Hebrew and Aramaic are limited, but my strange dealings over the years have forced me to learn them. At first I would buy and sell without knowing what I was doing. Then Rabbi Zimmel, of whom I will have more to say, sat me down in the schoolroom. That was many years ago, when I had just begun my searches, or rather when I was still blundering through mazes. Once, by chance, in an antique shop in an Italian village, I bought an illuminated Haggadah. Although the drawings had faded, the letters had retained their color. When I showed it to Rabbi Zimmel, he took his head in his hands and cried out, “From the thirteenth century!”

  Rabbi Zimmel then paid me a decent sum for the Haggadah, and I promised him I would learn Hebrew. But I haven’t made much progress, it’s hard for me to lug the heavy dictionary by Grozowski in my valise, and at night I’m tired. Though a few books are to be found in my valise, and I occasionally look at them, I truly study only with Rabbi Zimmel.

  The treasure trove contained valuable and rare books, Kabbalistic and homiletic works. When I piled them on his desk, Rabbi Zimmel hugged me and said, “These are treasures. I’ll write to Gershom Scholem in Jerusalem, and he will come to visit me.”

  Fortune does not favor me every year. There are years when I drag my feet from fair to fair and find only desolation. Tattered schoolbooks are displayed on the stands, and the storerooms are piled with rotten furniture.

  Old horses brought for sale droop near the fences, and their owners, in their boredom, whip them mercilessly.

  Having no other escape, I flee to the water and sit at the edge of the lake, observing the noisy flight of wild geese. That doesn’t always help. When melancholy attacks me in the field, I must drug it immediately. Sometimes I have no alternative but to down a whole bottle. I get drunk and crumple like a sack.

  After seven or eight hours of steady sleep I wake up, open my eyes, and a kind of clarity extends before me like a horizon. The whole area, its hills and valleys, is presented to me as if on an outstretched hand. Then I hear a voice saying to me, “Why don’t you go to Jugendorf? There’s no fair there, but books and objects are sold in the square in front of the local council. Get up and go there.” That voice has never fooled me. Two years ago I found a pair of candlesticks in Jugendorf. Though they weren’t antiques, their beauty touched my heart.

  Thus have I wandered for many years now. My rivals are also to be found in the region, and sometimes I run into one of them. They’re less knowledgeable than I. They go about in confusion, and in the end I see them looking discouraged, lying under an oak tree.

  It’s clear that the treasures grow scarcer from year to year, and it’s likely that in a few years there won’t be any left. But I’m not worried. What I find not only supports me, but fills me with excitement. My zeal to get to the right place, to discover and buy, completely overwhelms me. On this front I’m a perfect soldier. Over the years I’ve learned to heed myself, to listen to my senses, to rise and eagerly follow my feet, straight to the hiding place. This is a skill that I’ve developed on my own, and the results surprise me every time all over again. Thus in musty cellars I have found Passover dishes decorated with Hebrew letters, wine goblets, and candlesticks. In remote fairs that seem at first glance to be lacking anything cultural, I have found old books and manuscripts. Rabbi Zimmel once told me that the day would come when people will speak of my discoveries the way they speak of the Cairo Geniza. Certainly his enthusiasm was exaggerated, but the appetite for pursuing and finding these treasures draws me out of my gloom. When I do uncover some
thing, there is no limit to my joy.

  Years ago Rabbi Zimmel told me that if this region is emptied of its treasures, I would do well to turn to another territory, Germany perhaps. I hope that my experience, which I acquired by dint of hard work, will stand me in good stead there as well. Age, I see, doesn’t diminish that hidden sense. On the contrary, now I discover hiding places more easily. I have never discussed this ability with anyone, not even Bertha. Only Rabbi Zimmel, only he knows the secret.

  But in the end the darkness is greater than the light. Perhaps it would be better to say, longer. When darkness descends upon me, I am lost and sick in this green desert. There is a reason for this: the smell of the vegetation in this season, especially the poppies, stifles me. There seems to be no air like Gruendorf’s, and during my first stays here I didn’t even realize why. But now I know: it is the subtle fragrance that rises from the poppies. An odorless smell, a smell that has no obvious sign, but that directly works on the nervous system. In the past I used to try to flee from the place immediately, but I soon learned that flight was of no use. On the contrary, running away just increased the effect. So I choose a mountain ridge, a place the winds rush through, and only there does the smell abate. I have learned that everything is tied together. A season without poppies is a successful season. My senses aren’t disturbed; my senses and my feet are coordinated. I reach the places I have to reach.

  Sometimes, when the patches of darkness join together, I take the pistol out of my valise and fire a magazine full of bullets into the air. I found the pistol in Wirblbahn right after the war. If fate brings Nachtigel to me, I’ll shoot him calmly, without doubt or anger. I prepare myself for that moment even in my sleep.

  After shooting I sit quietly, clean the gun, and contemplate it for a long time. I feel that it will serve me at the right moment. By the way, I’ve told only one person of its existence. Once, in an odd moment, Bertha anxiously asked, “Why don’t you have a pistol? You wander the roads, and you ought to be able to defend yourself.” I was about to reveal the secret to her, but I held back.

  Years ago a tenant attacked Mrs. Groton. He spoke to her roughly and threatened to kill Mutzi, her little dog, because he had awakened him at night. Mrs. Groton turned pale and begged his pardon. Full of fear, she explained to him that Mutzi was a quiet, polite dog, and had only cried because of a wound on his foot. That explanation did not satisfy the tenant. He continued to speak rudely and threatened her again. As soon as I saw that he really intended to kill Mrs. Groton’s poor little creature, I headed for my room so that I could come back and threaten him with the pistol. Fortunately, he had changed his mind, paid, and left.

  The pistol is one of my precious secrets. I don’t have many opportunities to take care of it. Just here, in these uninhabited spaces, I unwrap it in the evening, take it apart, clean it with a soft rag, oil the delicate barrel, and put it back in its place.

  CHAPTER

  13

  When the season displeases me, I head north to the barren Graten Mountains. I go most of the way on foot, but if it rains hard, I hire a wagon and ride up. When I first told Rabbi Zimmel about my trips there, he remarked, “In that place, as far as I know, Jews never lived.” But I, for some reason, am drawn there. I readily obey my legs; never have they deceived me. Once they revealed Stark’s hiding place to me. By means of them I discovered the good fairs, and even my Bertha. My thoughts are always full of conflict, my feelings about to explode. Only my legs have composure.

  The Graten Mountains are high but not steep, and they extend over a large area. At the end of summer a dense silence hangs there, completely intoxicating me. I rent a room from a peasant woman, Gretchen, and I sleep. When I first came to her she still worked in the fields. Her married daughters would come from far away and visit her. They would sit together outdoors and chat late into the night. Occasionally I, too, would join them. Now she’s eighty, her face has shriveled, but when she wears her straw hat in the garden, her youth returns to her face, and she hoes the flower beds with spryness.

  In the evening she serves me cottage cheese in sour cream, a salad of garden vegetables, and fresh village bread. She is a simple woman, and her ideas are limited, but when she talks about her garden, about the cow that no longer gives milk in abundance, about the dog that died an untimely death, and about her daughters who no longer visit her as in the past, her words have a kind of hidden wisdom. I know that, unlike me, she has always been close to plants and animals, and from them she has drawn vitality. Now, in her old age, she speaks about her death in a natural way, as if she knows when her day will come. I ask her various questions because I like to hear her voice. There is nothing superfluous in her words. What she knows from her experience, she tells me, without affectation or pretense.

  A year ago, when I told her I was Jewish, she was surprised, but she didn’t burden me with questions. That evening I realized that the information had stunned her. Though she continued to serve me meals with the same care, she no longer sat beside me. A kind of sadness that I had not seen before began to register in her face. Gretchen, I wanted to tell her, if my presence disturbs you, I’ll look for another place. Your old age is precious to me, and I wouldn’t want to bring any distress to it.

  She apparently understood my expression, and at a certain point seemed about to apologize, but her aversion was obviously too strong for her to overcome. Jews, I had learned, are intimidating, and now that they are absent their memory arouses a kind of hidden panic. Once a whore on a night train confided to me that she was willing to sleep with any man, in any place, but not with a Jew. Jews cast a pall over her appetites, and it was hard for her to abide her body afterward.

  “How do you know who is a Jew?” I feigned innocence.

  “They’re circumcised, didn’t you know?” She betrayed her foolishness.

  Last year, when I left Gretchen, I didn’t say, “Until we see each other again,” and she didn’t see me out as usual. I knew that she didn’t want to see me again.

  But life is not only failures, it turns out. As I was leaving her house, I saw, as in a bad dream, a short, bearded man coming up from the valley. I couldn’t believe my eyes and drew closer to him. Indeed, he was a Jew.

  “What’s a Jew doing here?” I blurted.

  “I live here,” he answered quietly.

  It turned out that not far away, in an isolated house, he and his wife lived with their seven children. Later he told me their story. They had been brought here during the war, and here they had been saved. He hasn’t left since. They keep a little shop and an inn for travelers. His faith was embodied in all his manners, even in the way he looked at his children. His wife was short and thin, and it was hard to believe that her belly had borne seven children.

  “Do you come from an observant home?” I asked.

  “No.”

  Religious Jews frighten me. They are very conspicuous, and it is easy to identify them. More than once over the years, in remote railway stations, I wanted to approach one of them and whisper in his ear, Your appearance gives you away. Why wear a yarmulke? Why? But I didn’t feel this man was in danger. His movements were calm, and his face serene. The children surrounded him with softness and sheltered him. I told him that I came there once a year, that I stayed with Gretchen and hiked in the countryside. I was glad he didn’t ask about my business. When people do that, my insides shrivel up. His house reminded me of Grandfather’s house, which was also suffused with calm. Only a believer, it seems, knows tranquility.

  “How did you attain faith?” I ventured into his territory and immediately regretted it. He looked at his wife, and the two of them looked at me as if to say, We cannot answer that. If we say that we felt it was the only way we could live after the camps, would we have conveyed anything? And if we added that we felt this place was entrusted to us, and that we had to preserve it, would that be understood?

  Later he told me that he intended, in another year, to sell what he could and emigrate to Jerusa
lem. The period of isolation was ending, and the time had come to rejoin the Jewish people. The words were familiar to me, and I understood their meaning. Despite that a barrier descended between us, divided us in silence.

  Meanwhile, he told me that in the past year some hooligans had poured kerosene on his house with intentions of setting it afire. Had it not been for the brave dogs that attacked them, the house would have burned down. “You need a pistol,” I said.

  We talked until late at night. It turned out that they had been in the same labor camp I was in, they had worked in the same “pits,” but they remembered more than I did. They not only remembered Stark and Mina, but also my Bertha. When I told them that Bertha had gone back to her hometown, they weren’t surprised. They told me that she had spoken about her parents with great longing. The hospitality of these people showed me how cut off I was from this world, as if I had lost everything, even my few memories.

  That night I didn’t sleep. I was angry that Gretchen, whose ways I admired and still admire, had estranged herself from me, as if she had discovered in me an unforgivable flaw. Though she had made no insulting remark, all of her being had said, Something about you isn’t right. Maybe it’s not your fault, but still it’s hard to bear the presence of someone so hideously flawed within. It seemed that because of me her blue eyes had changed color and become metallic so as to have the power to drive me out of her life, which was nearing its end.

  CHAPTER

  14