Mama and Papa are about the same. Papa spends more time reading the newspapers and has taken to clipping certain articles. He leaves these lying around the apartment for me to find, as a precaution, to discourage me from also committing a terrible mistake. Mama is as before, except that she’s started going on long walks in the morning. In short, we are managing. There isn’t too much more I can say on this subject …
9
At six o’clock on Sunday morning Alec and Polina walked briskly along the Lungotevere. The morning was cool and clear. Across the opposite bank, the rising sun spread more color than heat as it crept above the marble and terra-cotta of the Palatine Hill. Traffic was almost nonexistent on the Lungotevere, and down below, on the paved paths that ran along the river and under the vaults of bridges, Alec saw the slumped forms of drunks and heroin addicts, stirring groggily.
It was a great morning for a stroll. The sort of morning where he and Polina could walk linked arm in arm, but in this instance both of Alec’s arms were weighed down by merchandise. In one hand he held the notorious plywood suitcase that contained stereo LPs of Tchaikovsky, Mozart, and Beethoven—pressed by the Melodiya label in Leningrad, an “All-Soviet Gramophone Record Firm.” In his other hand he carried a satchel filled with the Latvian tooled leather goods, lacquered boxes, ballet shoes, and various toys and plastic knickknacks meant to appeal to children and imbeciles. Polina was similarly encumbered. With both hands she clutched the handles of a duffel bag packed with linens. Alec had tried to dissuade her from loading herself down this way, and from making this early-morning hike in general, but Polina had been resolute.
As Lyova had said, their apartment put them in ideal striking distance of the Americana market. While others were racing down from Ostia and Ladispoli, rushing to catch trains, loading and unloading their wares, then sprinting from Trastevere Station, Alec and Polina were a short walk away. They could stop and rest when they chose, knowing that they would still be among the first to arrive. Karl had set them the task of claiming two well-situated tables in the Russian section of the market.
Alec and Polina arrived at the market at half past six as the first vendors were starting to unload their goods onto the broad wooden tables. Most traded in clothing, either new or used: jackets and sweaters, pants and hats, shoes and bikinis, formalwear and army surplus. The vendors were mainly Italian, although there were also Arabs, assorted Bulgarians or Romanians, and Gypsies, who laid their miscellanies on blankets on the ground. More arrived with every passing minute, turning in from Viale Trastevere in trucks, sedans, motorized rickshawlike contraptions, bicycles, and scooters—many loaded to excess with goods lashed into place by methods that ranged from ingenious to hazardous.
For a long time, as the market took shape around them, they saw nobody who could have been confused with a Russian. Vendors went about the mundane business of preparations, like actors before a performance, talking little, working automatically, making silent calculations. Alec thought to study them for pointers. It was possible that good looks and charisma were not enough. Or a disadvantage, even. In Riga, the most successful black marketeer he knew was a seventy-year-old Jew named Alter Schlamm, a head shorter than Alec and with the face of a dour picture-book dwarf. He’d seen Schlamm on occasion at the apartment Karl shared with his in-laws. Schlamm dealt in various commodities, and Rosa’s father, though timid in business, would now and again buy fabric from him. Alec had seen him arrive one evening and remove his oversize raincoat. Underneath, he’d wrapped himself in several meters of fabric.
—This here could make a nice dress. Short at the hem, how they’re wearing it now. And here could be a dandy little suit for the big brother with still enough left over for the baby.
It was said of Schlamm that he had an iron pail full of gold coins. It was said he had a woolen sock stuffed with rubies and diamonds. It was said he’d anticipated the last currency devaluation and made a million dollars.
Alec saw in the eyes of the vendors at the market the same thing he had seen in the eyes of Alter Schlamm: the fire of inventory.
When they had walked nearly the length of the market, Alec noted the first, unmistakable Russian. A wide-shouldered, bearded man was building a pyramid out of packs of Soviet cigarettes. Laid out beside these were the familiar linens and, strangely, cans of Soviet coffee.
—I take it we’ve found the place, Alec said.
—You’ve found it, all right, the man replied. I’ve got these two tables.
Alec put his records down on the nearest table but one. The other bag he set as a placeholder for Karl. Polina dropped her duffel bag behind the first table and started to unpack.
—Can I ask you, Alec said to the man, does the coffee sell?
—I have three customers. Italians. They come every week. Don’t ask me what they do with it.
Just before seven o’clock, as Polina was putting the final touches on their display, Alec saw the unmistakable figure of his brother lumbering up the path. He carried two large duffel bags, immensely heavy, their canvas skins stretched taut. He plodded ahead, betraying no hint of struggle or pain. He’d always been like this. They had lived in Teika, not far from VEF, a predominantly blue-collar area with few Jews. While Alec had been sent to the Number 40 School, specializing in English and located in the center of the city, Karl had been enrolled at the local school. If somebody said Yid, Karl went after him. Though sometimes he also went after people who said Hey, you, or who, he felt, had looked at him the wrong way. There were many afternoons when Alec returned home to find their mother patching Karl up, her doctor’s bag agape on the kitchen table. Karl never cried or complained, only sat broodingly and tolerated their mother’s lectures and ministrations. At night, in their room, he recounted the details of the fights and methodically planned his strategies for attack and revenge. Alec had been thrilled by the stories, and amazed by Karl’s fearlessness, or his ability to suppress his fear. Secretly, though, he worried that Karl’s battles would spill over from the schoolyard and follow him home.
Not surprisingly, Karl earned the respect of his foes, who then became his friends. Up until his graduation, Karl preferred them to people whom he hadn’t punched in the face. They drank together, played soccer, beat up other people, and in the winter went on marathon cross-country ski excursions. Later, Karl became infatuated with physical culture, and started doing push-ups and sit-ups by the hundreds. That led to Roman Berman’s bodybuilding class at the Dynamo gym and Karl’s pride in developing a neck almost fifty centimeters around for which he had trouble finding suitable shirts. Since the official Party line on bodybuilding was that it was a vain and decadent bourgeois activity, their father condemned it. But Karl, who loved dumbbells more than the Party, continued to train until marriage and fatherhood put an end to it. Alec naturally assumed that such a love never completely died.
He thought something along these lines as he watched his brother come to a stop and lower the bags in the middle of the path. Karl was still some twenty-five meters shy of their tables, but he remained in place, his expression incredulous and sour.
—Unbelievable, Karl said when Alec came over.
—What? Alec asked.
Karl kicked one of the duffel bags, which received the blow inertly, like a fat, sleeping drunk.
—What? Karl sneered. You’d think I was carrying them for your amusement.
—You carried them this far, I thought you’d want to finish.
Karl shook his head disparagingly.
—When they make it an Olympic event, I’ll finish. For now, give a hand.
Alec nodded casually and heaved the bag onto his back. He followed Karl to his table and slid the bag onto it. Karl did the same.
Relieved of the bag, Karl’s mood improved.
—I dreamed of shit last night, Karl declared. Means we’re due to come into money.
In short order he unpacked his bags and spread out his almost identical wares. By nine o’clock all the stalls were fille
d and buyers congested the paths. From every side came the calls that Alec immediately learned and imitated: Una pezza, una lira! and Per bambino! Per bambina!
Early in the day, Alec fell in among the crowd to see what prices others were charging for comparable goods. Nobody was eager to reveal their prices to competitors, but it didn’t take much to realize that the prices didn’t vary greatly. The trick, Alec saw, was to use any possible means to attract a buyer to your stall. A man selling Soviet cameras—Kiev, Zorki, and Mir—demonstrated his products by pretending to snap a photo of the buyer and then, with primitive sleight of hand, producing a small photograph of Stalin. If he received a cool reaction, he shook the photograph as if to erase and develop it anew. He then showed the customer the corrected photo: Mussolini. If that failed to please them, he shook it again until it bore the likeness of Sophia Loren. Another Russian, selling pantyhose, waved a cardboard cutout of a shapely woman’s leg. A good-looking young man from Kaunas, in a smiling courtly manner, lavished his Italian customers with Yiddish curses. Ale tsores vos ikh hob, zoln oysgeyn tsu dayn kop! He was very popular. His customers smiled resplendently as they handed over their money.
There was every kind of distraction at the market. Gypsy women with small children roamed through the thick crowd begging and clasping on to people. Shoppers batted the children’s hands away like gnats. Alec saw a Gypsy woman pinch her infant to make it wail, then look imploringly at passing tourists. Like rocks in a stream, some vendors planted themselves in the middle of the path and brandished small items for sale: wristwatches, utility knives, cigarette lighters, batteries. At intervals, trucks were stationed from which sausages and pizza could be bought. More humble operators roasted corn on the embers of blackened iron grills. Lugging big aluminum coolers, boys sold ice cream and soda. Where a lane intersected the main path, a heavyset man with a gourd-shaped head, wider at the jaw than at the temples, presided over a shell game.
When Alec returned to their stall, Polina was calmly watching people sift through their goods. It seemed to Alec that there was a lot of touching but not a lot of buying. At Karl’s table, Karl was clapping his hands and boisterously calling out to every passing signore and signora.
—Anything so far? Alec asked.
Polina smiled a sketch of a smile.
—You sold something? Alec said.
—You can’t tell? Polina replied.
Alec scanned the table to take stock but he couldn’t identify what might have been sold.
—Three windup plastic chicks, Polina said proudly. A woman bought them for her grandchildren.
Polina reached into her pocket and drew out several bills.
—Our first sale, Alec said. We should spend it on something memorable.
—It’s only six mila lire, Polina said. I didn’t know how much to ask. Karl said ask for five and you’ll get two. So that’s what I did.
—Not bad, Alec said. Next we should try to unload something heavier.
As the day wore on, Alec discovered that he could concentrate on selling only for short periods before his mind wandered. There was so much activity, so much curious human traffic to contemplate. There were also many girls and housewives demanding to be noticed and admired. Even standing beside Polina didn’t deter him or inoculate him against a consuming interest in other women. Each time a new one appeared she temporarily obliterated the rest of the world. Everything blurred and receded, leaving only the tantalizing possibility. If she walked away unknown, mystery and regret trailed after her like the tail of a comet. The consolation was that she was almost immediately replaced by another woman. Who vanished trailing mystery and regret. And then again and again. It was repetitive but never dull. However, it made it hard to focus on selling windup toys, linens, and hand-tooled leather goods.
10
Samuil hadn’t felt any apprehension when their mother told them that they would move to Riga, he’d felt only the excitement of traveling to Kiev and riding on a train.
Reuven wanted to know if he would still be a Pioneer in Riga. When he learned he would not, he wondered what he should do with his red neckerchief. Their mother suggested that he wrap it nicely in newsprint and leave it behind as a present for the neighbors’ youngest daughter. Samuil had watched as their mother helped Reuven fold the neckerchief into a compact triangle. Like this and like this, she said, guiding his hand.
In the morning they climbed onto a hired wagon. Their driver was a burly Jew who wielded a long whip and kept a loaded pistol under an empty burlap sack. He uncovered it to show their mother before they left town. For the brigands in the forest, he said. They encountered no brigands, only Ukrainian boys who jeered at them as they rumbled past and pelted them with fist-size clumps of frozen earth.
In Kiev he saw his first tram. He saw golden spires and smokestacks taller than any tree.
In Kiev’s great stone railway terminal, he saw more people than he had ever seen in any one place and it had seemed to him that every other man was in uniform.
Three Red Army officers slept in their railcar. They let him and Reuven polish their boots and gave them a silver teaspoon.
—Don’t forget your native land, their mother said as the locomotive rattled through the towns and fields of the Ukraine. In this land your father is buried.
In Riga, their uncle Naftali had three small rooms on the second floor of a building in the Moskovsky suburb. The railway tracks separated the Moskovsky from the center of the city; Samuil heard the steam engines come and go in the night. They were eight people in the apartment; his uncle’s children were aged three, two, and a few months. His uncle had seemed old to Samuil, but he could have been no more than twenty-four. On his left foot, he had only three toes. In the mornings, he balled up old newsprint and stuffed it into his boot. When he saw Samuil and Reuven gawking, he called them over.
—Frostbite, he said. Nothing to fear. It’s a lucky man who goes to war and loses only two toes.
He had lost his toes serving in the tsar’s army. He still had a photograph of himself wearing a private’s uniform.
Trotsky had signed the armistice at Brest-Litovsk while their uncle was recuperating from his injury. He returned to Riga, opened his bookbinding shop, and had a second child before the next wars. From the next wars, their uncle also had photographs. He wore the same uniform, only with different hats. His uncle’s war stories were confusing. He fought with the tsar against the Germans, then with the Germans against the Bolsheviks, and then with the Latvians against the Germans again.
—I fought with the tsar because I was young and foolish. I fought with the Germans because the Bolsheviks tried to close the shops and the synagogues. And I fought with the Latvians because the Germans wouldn’t leave.
After a year, their uncle found them a two-room apartment in the neighboring building. Not since the murder of his father and grandfather had they had a place to themselves. It had been good to be alone with his mother and brother where he no longer needed to mind his every move.
Their mother took a job as a seamstress in a coat factory. He and Reuven were enrolled in a Yiddish school and in the Zionist youth group, Hashomer Hatzair. In the evenings, after their studies, their uncle took them to the bindery and showed them the trade. When they were older, he planned for them to join him.
—Books are the future, he said. Even the lowest peasant is learning to read. Novels, poems, textbooks, manuals: someone has to bind them all.
Samuil had liked the bindery. He liked the acrid, moldering smell of paper and glue—the smell of knowledge. In one corner of the shop sat two old bookbinders, pious Jews, who bound and repaired Hebrew holy texts. Everywhere else were books in Yiddish, Latvian, German, Hebrew, French, English, Russian, and Esperanto.
Sometimes their uncle would bind an extra book for himself. In his apartment, he kept a small library. He encouraged Reuven and Samuil to read these books, and it was the only one of his uncle’s prescriptions that Reuven accepted willingly.
&nbs
p; For a long time, Samuil did not understand why Reuven behaved the way he did. He excelled in his studies, he had many friends, but he never seemed happy. One time, after Samuil had won a prize for reciting a Hebrew poem, Reuven scolded him. Samuil had been too self-satisfied. As they walked home, Reuven asked if he knew what day it was.
—No, Samuil had said.
—Today is three years since the Whites murdered Father and Grandfather.
Samuil fell silent with shame.
—Do you remember how Grandfather said the Shema when they killed him?
—No, Samuil said weakly.
—A Hebrew poem never saved a Jew from a pogrom.
After that, Reuven came less and less to the Hashomer Hatzair club. He said he was having difficulty learning Latvian and he couldn’t spare the time from his lessons. Samuil went alone to the meetings. It was the last time they were apart until the war separated them permanently.
Reuven took his lessons at their next-door neighbors. They were a Latvian family, headed by a tall, bald, friendly man named Eduards. Because their mother was without a husband, Eduards offered to help with masculine chores. When he drew water from the well, he also filled a pail for them. In winter, he went with Reuven and Samuil to bring up their coal. And his eldest daughter, a schoolteacher, tutored Reuven in Latvian at no cost. Samuil would watch Reuven gather his books to go across the hall, promising their mother that he would behave himself and decline politely if they offered him treyf food.
One time, their uncle was at their apartment as Reuven prepared to leave.
—What do you know of these neighbors? he asked their mother.
—Only that they have been very generous.
—Where did the man learn to speak Russian?
—I don’t know, their mother replied. But his wife barely speaks a word.
The Free World Page 12
