The American movie of Tevye der milkhiker, though set in a Russian shtetl, didn’t have a single word of Russian and hardly a word of Yiddish. Americans with Semitic features had been dressed in caftans and shawls while, on stiff wooden chairs, sweating and fanning themselves in the Italian heat, a roomful of Russian Jews goggled at the screen.
—This is what the commotion is about? Samuil asked Emma.
—It’s a wonderful production, a middle-aged woman behind them offered. Believe me. This is my eighth time watching. I’d watch it another eight times. In Russia, God forbid they should ever have a Jewish character in a film. But in America they made a whole movie about us.
At the front of the auditorium, to the left of the screen, a paunchy, hirsute, mountain Jew held a microphone, and provided a simultaneous translation.
A fiddler! On the roof! Strange? Sure. But here in our little village of Anatevka every one of us is a fiddler on the roof, trying to play a song without breaking his neck. It isn’t easy. No, it isn’t easy. So you may ask why do we stay if it’s so dangerous? Well, we stay because Anatevka is our home.
—They could only get a mountain Jew for an interpreter? an elderly man near Samuil complained. That accent. You’d think there was no one available from Moscow or Leningrad.
And how do we keep from falling and breaking our necks? That I can tell you in one word: Our traditions!
On the screen Samuil watched a lurid, fetishistic montage of Jewish symbols: a Star of David, a menorah, Hebrew letters, the worn burgundy velvet cloth covering the bimah. He looked around and saw that his wife, his daughter-in-law, and many others were entranced by it. Somewhere in America, Sholem Aleichem was spinning in his grave. The filmmakers had taken his “goodbye” and turned it into “hello.” What Sholem Aleichem had meant as an acceptance of a new reality and a critique of the outmoded ways had here been transformed into sentimental Jewish burlesque. The movie encouraged a wistfulness and a mourning for the past, but what past? The filmmakers had no idea, but Sholem Aleichem could have told them. The old man had seen enough, even if he’d left for America and died there before the worst of the horrors.
Samuil had no appetite for the movie, but he stayed out of curiosity. He wanted to see, for the sake of comparison, the actors who played Tevye, Motl, Perchik, and Hodl. He remembered these characters well. Zachar Kahn had naturally been Tevye. Motl had been played by a real tailor named Froim Goldstein. Eudis Fefer, a young schoolteacher, admired for her looks, had the role of Hodl. Aron Zweig, the secretary of the local Komsomol, took the coveted role of Perchik, the fiery revolutionary.
These characters had captured Samuil’s childhood imagination. Months after the performance, he and Reuven were still reenacting what they’d seen, with Reuven assigning the parts. For himself he took that of Perchik and pretended accordingly that Eudis Fefer, as Hodl, was his wife. Samuil became Motl, the tailor, and Reuven allowed him to take Rochl Lieberman—a second cousin who hadn’t actually been in the play—for his imaginary wife. In their games, Reuven would typically set off to attack the bourgeoisie and launch the revolution. At the door he would have an impassioned exchange with Hodl/Eudis. She would declare her love and plead with him to stay, but he would resist heroically and fly out the door. Samuil would hear the piff-paff of rifles and he would rush out in pursuit. He would find Reuven mortally wounded, lying in the street or on a patch of grass beside their house. He would drag him back inside and lay him on their bed, whereupon Reuven would clutch a feather pillow to his chest and rasp his dying words to Hodl/Eudis. With his final breath, Reuven would exhort from Samuil a promise that he would take care of Hodl/Eudis and carry on the struggle for revolution. Then Reuven would expire and Samuil would run outside to exact revenge and tumble to his death in a hail of tsarist bullets. Sometimes, for variety, Samuil would get shot as he went looking for Reuven, and he would fall down beside him so they could die together.
In all of their doings, Reuven took the lead. One day he returned from Pioneers with a small oak-handled penknife and taught Samuil how to play “knives,” instructing him how to throw the blade between his feet so that it stuck in the ground. Another time he taught him the words to a dirty Russian song.
Hey, hey! Fuck your mother!
You’re a colonel, I’m a soldier,
Fuck your mother,
Hey, hey, I’m a soldier!
He remembered the conversation he had with Reuven after his kindergarten class was taught about class distinctions.
—Have you talked about this with anyone else? Reuven asked.
—No, Samuil said.
—Don’t.
—I won’t, Samuil said. Only with you.
—The Whites are burzhoois, Reuven said. They are the class enemy. The Whites killed Papa. In war you do not kill your own, you kill your adversary. So, since the Whites killed Papa, it means he was against the tsar and in favor of the revolution.
Samuil always found it hard to connect the word “White” with the men who had murdered their father and grandfather. When he thought of the men who had done the killing the colors that sprang to mind were the pale yellow and the cornflower blue of the rugs they wore across their shoulders. He had never seen anyone dressed this way before and, in spite of his fear, he had been impressed by how brash and adventurous it made them appear.
Before the soldiers came, their mother had hurriedly set the table with bread, sour cream, smoked fish, fruits, and vegetables. It was summer, and they had fruits and vegetables growing in a plot not far from their house. Their mother bustled about, gathering items from the cupboards and putting them out on the table. Meanwhile their father and grandfather frantically collected their dearest valuables: a leather pouch with gold coins, a fold of banknotes, and several pieces of jewelry that had belonged to their grandmother. They wrapped everything in a rag and concealed it behind a loose brick in the stove. From the street came fiendish, terrifying shrieks. When the soldiers burst through the door, a pot had been set to boil.
Samuil remembered their caps and their drooping mustaches. He remembered their drawn sabers. He remembered how the one wearing the yellow rug brought his saber down across his grandfather’s chest in a blur of violent force and the surprisingly feeble noise his grandfather made in response. He remembered quaking and then wetting himself as his mother shielded him and Reuven from the soldiers. He remembered his father’s groans and wheezes during the torture. He remembered his father’s face, and how he kept opening his eyes to gaze at them.
7
After her English class one afternoon, Polina came home to find Lyova at the kitchen table, hunched over the telephone. She heard him say, It’s good you can hold your breath for a minute and twenty seconds, but don’t upset your mother. Practice in the bathtub, not the sea.
Lyova raised his eyes and smiled weakly when he saw Polina enter.
—I don’t know how long I can hold my breath, he said. Probably not that long.
Polina crossed the apartment as quietly as she could.
—All right, I promise, Lyova said. I’ll try today and write you with the result. If you don’t hear from me, it’s because I burst.
Polina made to sneak into the bedroom, but Lyova gestured for her not to bother. She saw him glance down at the tabletop, where he’d laid his wristwatch.
—Okay, there’s thirty seconds left. I miss you. I kiss you. Let me say a few words to Mama.
Not knowing quite where to go, Polina went into the kitchen and began to carefully unpack the vegetables she’d bought at the round market.
She heard Lyova say, I’m glad he likes the shirt. And what about the shoes? Give me your honest word. Because if you don’t like them, you should sell them. They’re Italian leather, and many women wear your size.
There was some silence, and Lyova fiddled with his watch.
—All right. All right. Give my best to everyone, Lyova said and laid the receiver into the cradle. He rested his chin in his hands as if after a great exert
ion.
—I look forward to these calls all month, but they’re costly, and not just in money.
Then, instantly, as if he had thrown a switch, he flattened his palms on the tabletop and thrust himself up.
—I could use a walk, Lyova said. What do you say?
On the street, shop owners were beginning to open their doors after siesta. Lyova took Polina to a bakery in whose windows were trays ladened with assorted biscuits. The woman at the counter greeted him by name. Lyova filled a white paper bag with biscuits, and they walked along the streets, taking turns reaching into the bag.
—When I left, Lyova said, I thought everything would get sorted in a few months. You can say a few months to an eight-year-old boy without terrifying him. You turn three or four pages in the calendar. But after a year, he gets used to you not being around. For now he still lets me behave like a father for five minutes once a month on the phone.
On their way to Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, Lyova described, as he hadn’t before, the balancing act that was his life in Italy—the tours he gave to cover his expenses, to send money to Israel, to buy gifts, and to pay for the monthly overseas phone calls.
In the piazza, they found places on the steps that surrounded the central fountain. The crowds hadn’t yet arrived. The white paper bag stood open between them. Polina kept her shoulders square, but her bare knees, exposed below the hem of her skirt, were turned casually toward Lyova. Sitting this way, unhurriedly, on marble steps, reminded her of her student days, when she would unexpectedly fall into conversation with a male classmate. A fleeting, platonic intimacy would arise, and they would wind up speaking frankly and seriously about themselves. Then they’d go their separate ways and never speak like that again, or need to. She’d forgotten all about these conversations.
—You love your son, Polina said. Why don’t you go back?
—It’s for him that I left Israel, Lyova said. I want him to grow up in a different sort of country.
—What sort of country?
—A psychologically easier sort.
—My sister-in-law’s parents and brother are in Israel. She says they’re happy.
—I’m sure they are. Many people love it. To live there, you need to love it. The country asks a lot of you. If you don’t love it, you should leave. That’s me. I also loved it, but then I saw some things and I didn’t love it anymore. I said to myself, Time to go. I didn’t want to have to see those things again, and, even more, I didn’t want my son to have to see them.
—A year away from your wife and son is a long time. You must be sure that America doesn’t have those same things. Or other things just as bad.
—”Those things.” Lyova smiled. I don’t mean to be cryptic. How to explain it. I know it’s hard to believe, but I was a military man, a tank officer. I grew up on my father’s war stories and I also wanted to be a hero. But instead of a war, I drew Czechoslovakia. I was one of those poor bastards on top of a tank in Prague, pointing a submachine gun at a bunch of students. Pretty girls in raincoats spat at me. After that, I was done with the army and the Soviet Union. And when people started applying for exit visas, I didn’t think twice. We lived a very good life in Israel for three years. I had a job and a car. And then in ‘73 I even got my war. If you remember it.
In 1973, Polina hadn’t had any reason to pay attention to Israel. To the extent that she’d been aware of the country, it had seemed a tumultuous land forever at war.
—Well, there’s nothing good to remember about it, Lyova said. I was almost thirty then, with a wife and son. I no longer had any desire to be a hero. All I wanted was to get out in one piece. I was a tank man in the Sinai. I served with young boys from the kibbutzes who had never been anywhere. They’d never been on a train. They’d never seen a museum. They left life having barely tasted it. When the war ended, they sent us to Gaza. Once again I found myself on top of a tank pointing a gun at civilians. When they saw us coming, women clutched their children, and the men turned to face the walls. In Czechoslovakia, I had consoled myself with the thought that my people weren’t responsible. The Russians were doing it, and I was a Jew. In Gaza, I couldn’t think this. With me was an Israeli, another reservist with a wife and kids. He said, It’s shit, but it’s our shit. For me this wasn’t the excuse, this was the problem. I’m sure there’s much I don’t know about America, but I know that their sons don’t have to go and do this.
They left the piazza and headed back to the apartment. As they went, it occurred to Polina that she had never seen a photograph of Lyova’s wife and son. He hadn’t any up in the apartment. Early evening was approaching, and they were in the narrow Via Della Lungaretta with the growing ranks of tourists who loitered in front of the souvenir shops that lined both sides of the street. Lyova stopped in the middle of the street and withdrew a snapshot from his wallet. He showed it proudly to Polina.
—One month ago, he said.
His wife and son were side by side in front of an ice cream parlor, each holding a cone. Some distance behind them could be seen the crowns of palm trees. There was, in the light and the architecture, the intimation of a beach. Lyova’s wife stood not much taller than his son; in a sleeveless dress, her upper arms were soft, her shoulders round. She wore her brown hair cut short and she peered into the camera defiantly, her expression at odds with the backdrop and the ice cream. The boy, lanky like his father, but otherwise bearing a closer resemblance to his mother, beamed.
—People say he looks like his mother, Lyova said.
—The smile is yours.
—He’s a handsome boy, Lyova said. Good that he didn’t get my face.
—What’s wrong with your face? Polina asked.
—Mine is the archetypal Jewish face. Like something formed on the run and in a panic. Nose, eyes, ears, mouth: finished. He has a face for a new age, I hope. No more running, no more panic.
8
My dearest Lola,
Now I can finally reply! I will write you at least one letter a day for the next week. Just watch, you’ll get so many letters from me you’ll dread going to the mailbox. “Oh God, her again. How she babbles on.” You see, this way it will feel like we were never separated at all.
In case you were wondering, I think I’ve received all of your letters. I have four so far. Two from Vienna and two from Rome. I’ve read each of them a thousand times and could recite them by rote like verses from Eugene Onegin. It all sounds like a fantastic adventure, including the miserable parts. Not that you asked for my advice, but I’ll give it anyway: enjoy yourself and don’t spend any time worrying about me. I miss you terribly, but other than that I’m just fine.
It felt very strange waking up the morning after you left. I didn’t sleep well and when morning came I looked out my window and saw that it was raining. I thought that was fitting. It seemed perfectly reasonable that the weather should reflect how I felt. But after breakfast the sun came out and it turned into a brilliant morning. I thought that this had some kind of significance too. Maybe it meant that everything would turn out for the best? And then, when I went out, the sky darkened again and I was caught in a thundershower. It lasted no more than ten minutes and then cleared completely. So I read something into that as well. This was the way I felt all day—everything had to do with you and me. Outside our building, a boy rode past me on his bicycle, shouted something, took his hands off the handlebars, and plowed into a parked car. Going to meet a friend, I thought I would miss my bus; it passed me on the way to the stop and I didn’t even bother to run after it. But then, conveniently, it delayed at the stop for a long time. When I got there, the ticket taker was arguing with a drunk. People were shouting at the drunk and several men rose from their seats to physically remove him. When they put their hands on him he started to wail that they should have pity on him seeing as how he was a veteran who’d been heavily wounded in the battle for Berlin. As they pushed him out the door he struggled to undo his shirt and show everyone his scars. I’d never seen
this drunk before, but people on the bus said they were familiar with his act. Other times he’d claimed to have received his wounds in Stalingrad and in Kursk.
And finally, the strangest of all. When the bus reached the city center, at the stop across from the store, Children’s World, who should get on but Maxim? I could scarcely believe my eyes. I couldn’t have been more shocked had it been Jesus Christ himself. It had been so long since I’d seen him last and I was amazed by the coincidence. The bus wasn’t very full and so there was no way we could avoid seeing each other. But he said nothing to me and so I said nothing to him. All I could think about was whether or not he knew that you had left the previous day. I was so uncomfortable being on the same bus with him that I got off three stops early. Since we’d not said hello to each other, we also didn’t say goodbye. Not that it matters, but he looked well. It seemed like he’d gained some weight and, if I’m not mistaken, I think he was wearing a new shirt.
In other matters, the weather is fine. I go to Jurmala when I can. I’ve become friendly with your mailman, who is very courteous, funny, and energetic. I’d always thought someone in his position would be depressed, but he seems to be in better spirits than most. It could be that he’s just a happy idiot.
The Free World Page 11
