Have I Got a Story for You

by Ezra Glinter

  The night was black, the moon had disappeared somewhere, and blackness was all around. The tents looked like demons, and the few soldiers who wandered among them looked like the amputated limbs of ghosts. On the distant horizon shined the light of a beacon, and he didn’t know if it came from the Russian or the enemy camp. The light gave him a pang in his heart, reminding him of the danger he was in. The fear of death, which he did not notice during the day in the camp or on the road, when among his fellow living soldiers, now fell upon him suddenly in the silence of the night with sleep all around him. He became terrified of this light that shone from the beacon. He closed the tent flap, fell back on the straw and tried to go back to sleep. But now he could not fall back asleep. Sleep was gone and he began to think. Random thoughts and recollections flew through his mind. He recalled the soldiers’ conversations, remembered scenes from his childhood, and his entire life went before his eyes in the dark of the night.

  He thought of his childhood, which had passed unhappily. He had loved no one because he had no one to love. His mother was busy bearing children her entire life. She birthed twelve children and had no time for any of them: she was taken up with her sickness, which the doctors were never able to properly diagnose, sending her from one expert to another. His father was an egoist, caring only for himself and his affairs.

  The children were left to take care of themselves. The parents’ duty of education and upbringing consisted of doing all they could to ensure their children were accepted into the gymnasium. But as soon as they happily saw their children dressed in school uniforms, they figured they had fulfilled their obligations. From time to time they would take interest in the marks he received in school, though not because they wanted to learn more about his abilities or his progress. No, they wanted to find out if he was going to receive a gold medal, which would then lead him through the gates of the university.

  And he remembered the unhappy day when he brought home from school a “2” in Russian grammar. His parents then used all their resources to procure a tutor for him in Russian language, even going so far as to hire his teacher from school.

  He had nothing in his childhood to love. Not his studies, which had quickly turned into a way to boost his career; not faith, since his father, the “liberal,” had kept his children far from religion, except on certain formal occasions when he brought them to the Reformed synagogue on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and they became bored by the Jews in prayer shawls making supplications in an incomprehensible language.

  He remembered that as a child he was fascinated by the heroes of Russian history. He devoured children’s books about the great deeds of Peter the Great, Mikhail Kutuzov, 47 the Cossacks. In his childish naïveté he was proud of them and often thought that when he grew up he would also become a hero.

  But then his father dashed this dream. He recalled the moment as if it happened yesterday.

  He was reading a book about Napoleon in Russia and how Kutuzov had defeated him. Asnat burst into his father’s office and exclaimed:

  “Papa, do you know who defeated Napoleon? Kutuzov, Papa . . .”

  His father looked at him, puzzled.

  “And why are you so pleased that Kutuzov defeated Napoleon?”

  “What do you mean, Papa? He saved Russia!”

  “Such good news. Did you hear, Chana,” he said, turning to his wife, “Kutuzov defeated Napoleon. Rejoice, Chana, rejoice.”

  Asnat remained standing in the middle of the room and felt strange . . . he would remember this moment for the rest of his life.

  Only when he was a little older did he begin to understand that there was little to celebrate about Kutuzov and the other Russian heroes who had beaten down the Poles, the Caucasians, and the Siberians. And it wasn’t his parents who told him any of this. He learned from his own experience that as a Jew he had nothing to celebrate in his life, nothing to make him proud. He had no history of his own, and foreign history remained distant from him. And even learning—the process of coming to know the world around him—became only a tool through which he could get a coveted mark of 5 in order to reach a higher class and from there go on to the golden medal.

  And so his youth passed without joy, without light, and without love. He recalled that he often had the feeling, especially in front of his classmates, that he had been born with a handicap, though he could not figure out what exactly his defect was. He was as young, healthy, and happy as the rest of his friends, and he lacked for nothing—and yet he felt ashamed in some way in front of them. He had no claim against anyone, apparently no one had been the cause of the defect. He was born this way, but he felt to this very day that he couldn’t forgive his father for it. He didn’t love his father as other children did, or as he would have wanted to. And then, he recalled, something in him changed. He became older. The teachers despised him and his fellow Jewish students and made things difficult for them. This bound him to his Jewish friends. And not just the students. He remembered that he began to take an interest in the old Jewish woman who delivered butter and eggs to their house, and with the Jews who came to his father’s office, though he could never understand them or love them.

  Then the tragic times came.

  He was just a small boy, but he felt it so deeply . . . the Jews were beaten . . . He heard wild and terrible things. The times left a deep impression on his whole life. From then on, life was more somber, though somehow more interesting. He began to love the oppressed and the downtrodden, seeing himself among them. His life and his learning took on a new meaning. One needed to live and learn for those who were beaten down. He became determined, no longer ashamed in front of his friends, no longer a cripple. The opposite—he had more than they did, he was stronger than they were. He was the oppressed one. From then on, his life had a purpose, he felt he had something to search for. He began to study in earnest—not for his father, not for the golden medal, but for himself. He read serious books and soon felt as if he had grown up. Though it remained unclear to him, he felt a responsibility, not for the golden medal, but for something deeper, something inside himself.

  He studied with the knowledge that he would not continue on to university. He cared little for the teachers and the other students and the entire school. When he finished the gymnasium without the golden medal, his parents now thinking that he was a failure, he went abroad. There he met others like himself, others who thought as he did, though he did not speak much with them. He went through everything for himself alone, living only with himself.

  He attended an Austrian university with many other Russian and German Jews. He had few friends and he did not join a party. He couldn’t find a place for himself among them. His experience of the world became incomprehensible to him.

  When in Russia he despised all things Russian. He could smell the dried Jewish blood wherever he went, and he waited impatiently for the day of revenge for all of the insults and misfortunes perpetrated against the Jews. But when hearing the speeches of the Austrian and Galician Jewish students, he would repeatedly feel hurt. An inexplicable stubbornness took hold of him to oppose their diatribes and instead praise Russia and present himself as a warmhearted patriot.

  To this day he doesn’t understand this stubbornness. In his heart he wished the worst for Russia, but as soon as he heard the foreign students’ pronouncements, he would feel sick and try to prove that Jews in Russia had it better than Jews in Austria. In the heat of debate he would start to praise the breadth of the Russian soul.

  This stance made him many enemies, separating him from everyone. He did not want to go back to Russia—he had nothing to return to. He wouldn’t have been able to attend university there and he would have had nothing to do. So he had to remain in Austria. His friends were aware of this weakness and took advantage of it.

  In time political friction developed between Russia and Austria. Often he heard the Austrian Jewish students express their yearning for a war with Russia. They saw in Russia not only their country’s enem
y, but also the enemy of the Jewish nation. But to Asnat, it all mattered very little. In those days he rarely showed his face, not knowing what to do. He also couldn’t just stay in his room. He was jealous of the Austrian Jewish students who could give speeches, who had someone to fight against. He felt as one who stands alone in the street. He had no one with him. Asnat was a nation unto himself, a nation of one.

  What happened next is what brought him to his current situation.

  It was in the halls of the university. Relations between Russia and Austria had become tense. There were rumors that war could break out at any moment. He saw how agitated and excited the students had become: everyone was singing patriotic songs and signing up to be drafted into the army, Jews included. He was jealous of them because they had a homeland, a land worth fighting for. He would have been so happy to be like them, and here he was, standing alone, while the world swirled around him. Everything was in motion and he felt unmoved.

  Didn’t he live on this Earth? Why did he feel so lost, so alone? He had no one by his side. And as he stood like this, a friend approached him, a Jewish student from Galicia—a good friend, a good Jew, and a Jewish nationalist like himself. He patted Asnat on the shoulder and said:

  “Asnat, we’re going to make them pay for everything: for the pogroms, for the shame of our daughters, for all of the bloody injustices, for the long war that they have waged against us, for everything. We’ll make them pay for everything. Asnat, the day of judgment has come.”

  His eyes gleamed with the joy of vengeance, and Asnat saw how his Jewish heart flamed within him.

  And Asnat shot back:

  “You will take your vengeance without me. You will find me on the other side.”

  “Asnat, what is wrong with you? Stay with us, we’re taking revenge as Jews.”

  “I also want to have a homeland. I also want to belong somewhere, I’m also made of something.”

  He got on the first train back to Russia. There he willingly gave in to everything. But that was all so long ago.

  THE DAWN EMERGED through the wet dew. The sun had begun to dry out the dampness of the night, and it had now become cold and brisk. Asnat came out of his tent, looked at the red morning sky and was happy that it was day. The camp had already begun to stir. Soldiers were spreading out their blankets in the sun to dry. Others were washing themselves and scrubbing their tin bowls. Their appetites had also awakened with the morning, but having nothing to eat yet, the soldiers had meanwhile turned their attention to their bowls.

  Since daybreak one could hear from afar the constant firing of cannons, whose echoes sounded dully in the brisk morning. For the first time, the shooting, now so near, made an impression on the soldiers. All were alert, and small circles of whispering soldiers had formed across the camp.

  The morning was so beautiful though, the sun warming the green countryside. The nearby shooting, combined with the calm and pleasant landscape, made a strange impression on Asnat. He had not gotten enough sleep and was now frozen from the cold, so he looked for a patch of sunlight and stood there to be warmed by the sun’s rays.

  Soon Levin came by with two soldiers from the same company in tow, Levinson and Kahanovski, wrapped in their still soaked and wrinkled coats. They also had not slept much, but they seemed worked up and agitated by the shooting. Levinson’s Jewish eyes showed fear, running like water into the caverns underneath them; his nose was pale and he pulled pensively at his short beard. Levin looked about dumbly and contemplatively, and one could almost discern a Hasidic smile on his thin, pale lips. The third one, Kahanovski, looked altogether different from the rest of them. The cannon fire had caused an excited curiosity to show on his healthy, dark face. His black eyes glowed, and his facial expressions and lively gestures betrayed a certain restlessness, like the impatience of a hunting dog who watches as his master reaches for his gun.

  “Do you hear it, Asnat, do you hear it?” Levinson asked, referring to the cannon fire.

  Asnat was silent.

  “Of course he hears it. Is he not a soldier?” Kahanovksi said with joy.

  “And why are you so happy?” Levinson asked Kahanovksi nervously.

  “You can hear the explosions,” Kahankovski curtly answered with a wink.

  Levinson was the company’s intellectual. He wrote all of the letters the soldiers sent home and read to them the letters they received. He kept them informed about politics and knew much about Judaism. Kahanovski was the opposite; he was known to be young and stupid and from an uneducated family. And Levinson had grown accustomed to Kahanovski obeying him and showing him respect. Now, with the cannon fire, which had scared Levinson, Kahanovski’s boldness unnerved him.

  “Why are you so happy? You’re going to your certain death. Look at how joyful he is when he hears the explosions. Be happy, be happy.”

  “I have no fear,” Kahanovski shouted. “I am a soldier and all of my brothers were soldiers. As soon as you become a soldier, you have to imagine yourself earning a ribbon or two, not like Aranovich, who knocked out his teeth because he didn’t want to serve, or like the little Jews of our town who stayed up nights before the draft saying Psalms and harming themselves so they wouldn’t be taken as soldiers. My father served Czar Nicholas as a soldier and so did all five of his sons. When I was drafted, my father bought me a sack, stuffed a pair of new boots in it, a few shirts, a needle and thread, added a few rubles for the road and told me: ‘Go serve the czar with honor and listen to your superiors. Be a good soldier and all will be well and everyone will love you. And when you come to a city, find yourself a poor young woman from a proper home, get engaged, and you’ll find what to eat. The girl will do your washing. But make sure not to make the girl unhappy, she’s a Jewish maiden after all.’ I’m doing what my father told me: I’m a good soldier, I’ve received a ribbon, and my superiors love me. That’s how it is, brothers! Once you’ve become a soldier, be faithful to the czar!”

  “But for what?” Levinson raged. “For the rights they’re supposed to give us? For the pogroms they wage against us? Because they drive us out of the villages and expel us from the cities like wild dogs? The gentiles make war, they fight for a reason—they have a fatherland, an emperor. What are we serving for? Why should we give up our lives? If we are victorious, will we get anything out of it? On the contrary, they won’t even let us live in the conquered territory.”

  Everyone was silent.

  “I don’t know anything about rights. I only know that I am a Jewish soldier and I need to obey my superiors. And when my superiors say go to war for the czar and for the fatherland, I go. I’ll fight as long as I have strength. If they give us rights afterwards or if they don’t—the responsibility is theirs. I do what I can—I fight for the fatherland.”

  “For the fatherland,” Levinson said with a smirk and turned to Levin. Levin had meanwhile washed his hands, taken out his tefillin, 48 which he had brought with him, and moved to a corner to pray.

  “Levin, do you want to fight for the fatherland?”

  Levin continued to pray and did not answer.

  Asnat looked at Levin with envy, saying quietly:

  “His life is better than all of ours. He has more than all of us.”

  “What do you mean?” Levinson asked.

  “He has a god. His god is his master, his god is his homeland! Levin,” he called to Levin, who was in the middle of the Eighteen Benedictions, 49 “what would you say, Levin, if they let you go home right now so you could sit and pray, day and night, in the study house? Hey, what would you rather do—look into some difficult passages in Maimonides or sacrifice yourself for the fatherland?”

  “So you see now who a Jew’s boss is, where his homeland is,” Asnat continued, turning to Kahanovski. “A Jew has no homeland—his homeland is the Jewish God, right, Levin?” Asnat then turned to Levinson, who seemed to suddenly have a religious look about him.

  “Of course,” Levin agreed. “All other peoples have kings of flesh and blood
and our king is God.”

  Kahanovski was silent a moment, not knowing how to respond. The youth’s whole body seemed to tremble with excitement. He then remembered something and called out:

  “But Levinson, how is it that you’ve suddenly become religious? You’ve always laughed about God.”

  “That’s not true,” Levinson replied. “I never laughed about the Jewish God.”

  Asnat mused for a moment: “But is it really true that a Jew has no homeland, only a spiritual and divine one? Is a Jew truly without a homeland? And what should a Jew who no longer believes in God do?” Asnat said all this as if to himself.

  Aranovich then arrived, pale and frightened. Aranovich was a tall and strong young man, but toothless, which made his healthy face look like a broken window. He approached the group quietly and spoke with the tone of one speaking of the dead.

  “Do you know they’re burying the dead from the battlefield just below our camp?”

  “Where did you hear this, Aranovich?”

  “The soldiers are all going to look now, but they won’t let them. Look, from that hill you can see everything.”

  They looked over and saw tens of soldiers standing on a hill and looking down into the valley.

  “It looks like we’ve come close to the front, and today or tomorrow our turn will come to fight. I didn’t think it would happen so quickly,” Levin said. “I thought there would be peace first.”

  “Brother, you’re going to go to the front to shoot Austrians!” Kahanovski answered, smacking him on the shoulder.

  “And why are you so happy?” Aranovich asked him.

  “Why shouldn’t I be happy? Our commander said that it’s a great honor for a soldier to go to the front. The emperor himself depends on the soldier that goes to the front and the emperor gives him his due. Why shouldn’t I be happy?”