The Empire of the Senses

by Alexis Landau

  “There was a great shortage of medics—I often had to—” but Lev stopped, seeing Otto had lost interest. He turned his back to Lev, whistling while he rolled up his last sketch.

  Through the thin walls, Uncle snored.

  Otto complained, “All night long, he never stops.”

  Startled by the heavy deep rhythm of his own breath, Uncle woke up shouting, “Siberia! Don’t send me back there, I beg of you.”

  Otto rapped on the wall. “No one’s going to Siberia. But if you keep snoring like an old bear, I’ll deliver you there myself.” In response, they heard the rustling of sheets followed by a sigh. The snoring, first light, then heavier, resumed.

  In darkness, Lev walked back to the barracks. He was drunk and filled up with the salty smoked fish and strong liquor Antonina had pressed on them. Inhaling the scent of burning leaves from nearby houses, he remembered autumnal nights in Berlin when the dense foliage would fall to the sidewalks and be gathered for burning. Marthe would do this at the end of the day, after sunset, when the children had been given their bedtime stories. Lev and Josephine would be leaving for a party, and through the windowpane of Franz’s room, after reassuring him that they would return before midnight, Lev would spy Marthe building a bonfire of leaves in the courtyard, and he would think of the three witches of Macbeth spinning havoc on the hillside, and how Marthe was a benevolent witch gazing whimsically into the fire and the smoke, as if expecting a seraphic form to arise from the burning leaves.

  Now, crunching through leaves, Lev walked toward candles blazing in the windows of homes signaling the beginning of Shabbat. And the Sabbaths of his childhood washed over him: his mother’s rituals of cleanliness and purification, as if she managed to wash away the week’s grime. Each Friday there were fresh sheets and fresh linens, and then she went to the Jewish markets for carp and kosher chicken and, lastly, to the bathhouse. In the evening, the scent of roast chicken, onions, freshly baked challah, and floor polish flooded the house. Even now, when Lev witnessed a woman lighting candles, even if there was no blessing, even if it was only Marthe holding the end of a lit match, waiting for the flame to catch hold of the wick while she hummed a Bavarian folk song, even then, he remembered Friday night, its safety, its purity.

  Walking past houses with lit-up windows, Lev spied a table strewn with the remains of the holy meal, the white linen tablecloth and the braided bread peeking out from under an embroidered cloth. In the adjoining kitchen, an old woman sat next to a sealed oven. She had fallen asleep, her cheek in her hand. At her feet, two children played, dressed in their best stiff clothing. What kind of game are they playing? Lev wondered, thinking how the games of children do not differ despite class and upbringing. At the back of the kitchen, Lev strained to see a woman standing in an open doorway, bathed in a pool of yellow light as she gestured to another woman standing in an opposite doorway across a shared courtyard.

  He made his way to the clearing where the little huts with the hanging fruit had been standing during Sukkot. Beyond the clearing stood more houses with candles in the windows. He felt like an animal that only shows itself at night, stalking the scents and smells of congregating humans. It was quieter here. There were no women conversing in doorways. An owl’s hoot echoed through the fir trees, and beyond this, silence. Through a wooden shutter left slightly ajar, he heard the sound of water washing over skin. An orange chink of light streamed from an otherwise dark house. Lev moved with stealth through the leaves until his line of vision was just above the windowsill into the house, and he saw, as if viewing a small framed photograph, a woman slowly washing her hair in the middle of the kitchen. She sat on a low stool next to a deep copper bin filled with steaming water. Sliding her hair over her shoulder, she dipped her thick flowing mane into the water. Lev could not see her face, but he gathered from the color of the hair and the undulating bare shoulder blades, which were scattered with the same rust-colored freckles, that he was watching Leah bathe, making herself pure and whole for the Sabbath, so when she went to temple, accompanying the stream of black-clothed Jews migrating toward the prayer house, her hair and her neck would smell of the mint leaves she had dropped into the steaming water. Lev held his breath, afraid even the shallow sound of his breathing would alert her to his presence and then the moment would be broken, and the next thing, whatever it was, would ensue: her fear as she moved toward the window pressing a cloth to her chest, his fleeing into the silent forest, the incessant barking of a dog sensing some disturbance, the kitchen flooded by women—her sister, her mother—asking, What has happened? What did you see? But this did not happen. She did not hear him, or maybe, she chose not to hear him, complicit in the revelation of her body, as it was from the waist up, unclothed, her delicate shoulders soft in the yellow light of the kitchen. From the steam’s heat, blood rose to the surface of her skin. Lev could see her forearms blushing, the rose color spreading. Her movements were fluid and smooth as she took her mane of hair and slowly twisted it to the left, then to the right. Water dripped from it as if she were wringing out a wet towel. She performed these actions with somnambulant deftness. He imagined her mouth slack, her eyes obscured as she thought of what? Her husband in the Russian cavalry? Why he had not written in months? He imagined her husband’s death, a terrible thing to do—these thoughts would probably secure his own death, but he couldn’t help himself willing her into widowhood. If he had the power of King David, Lev thought, he would have made the same mistake, overcome by the beauty of a woman bathing. The story was meant to remind him of covetousness and its consequences, but instead, it only made him feel strangely validated, grasping for a woman who did not belong to him. A common affliction, otherwise such a story would not have been written and studied and commented on through various layers of midrash. The image of Bathsheba bathing on the rooftops bled into the image of Leah, who now wound a dry towel around her hair, creating a makeshift turban, which balanced atop her head, crowning her. She turned to face him. He sunk lower, his nose pressed to the splintered damp wood of the windowsill. Her mouth upturned, almost smiling. Her collarbone, bare and gleaming with water drops, rose and fell in time with her breath. And her breasts were two luminous orbs. She lifted one and then the other, patting the skin underneath each breast dry. The careful way she handled herself reminded Lev of a mother nursing, suckling her young, positioning the nipple into the mouth. The sudden slam of the shutter made Lev fall backward, hurtling toward the ground. The wind was knocked out of his chest. A shrill voice cried, “What are you doing, trying to catch your death?”

  He scrambled to his feet. Someone pulled the shutter tightly closed, and then a lock bore down on it. “There, better,” the woman said.

  He heard Leah reply, “I didn’t realize it was open.”

  “Such a draft,” the woman wailed. “How did you not feel the icy air blowing in here, probably filled with dybbuks.”

  Leah sighed. “It wasn’t blowing. There’s not a stir of wind tonight.”

  “Haven’t you wondered why your womb keeps losing children?” the woman snapped. “The dybbuks, those little demons, have been spiriting away your unborn. One after another …”

  Lev remembered writing down zero after asking how many children Leah had and the way she had stared at the hollow number.

  “Enough!” Leah cried. “Last week, you said it was because I eat too many radishes, that the spicy root irritates the stomach.”

  Lev pressed his palms against the wood of the house as if this would help him hear more clearly.

  The woman’s voice softened. “I’ll take the pot. Go upstairs. Get warm.” After a few minutes, the light was extinguished. Then from the back of the house, Lev saw the old woman, Leah’s mother, emptying the copper pot. She poured the dirty bathwater into the vegetable garden, muttering under her breath. Before turning back inside, she peered into the darkness as if to catch wandering dybbuks or souls transmigrating among the still houses, traveling through chimney tops, windows left ajar, unatt
ended kitchens, loose floorboards, all due to the carelessness of women who were not as watchful and vigilant as she.

  Lev left his post under the window, transfixed by the image of Leah’s rising breasts, how they were shaped differently from Josephine’s—the areolas dark brown and large, as opposed to the pink tips of Josephine’s, which often reminded Lev of erasers on the ends of pencils. He imagined the swell of Leah’s breasts as he cupped them. The setting was a natural one; among the trees, under the sheltering canopy of branches heavy with new foliage, the sun shedding disparate rays onto their nakedness, he would plunge into her. Blood rushed to his groin. He considered going behind a nearby tree to release the mounting pressure. Stopping in the middle of the road, he gripped his growing hardness under his coat. The strong scent of bark and the wet dark night surrounded him, but if he closed his eyes, he could place himself in that imaginary summer’s day, Leah’s naked back pressed against his chest, his hands massaging her hips. Her skin warm from the sun. She would roll her shoulders back, and he would bite the smooth rounded brownness. Enough. It almost hurt to walk. Hurrying toward the woods, he felt feral. The moon was unusually bright, illuminating the deserted road. Just when Lev grasped onto branches, about to pitch himself into the darkness, into relief, an approaching soldier shouted, “Stop!”

  Lev, panting, sheepishly drew back from the inviting bushes.

  The soldier, his gun drawn, advanced.

  “I’m a German soldier,” Lev yelled. He could see him clearly now in the bright moonlight: wire-rimmed spectacles, a receding hairline, thin, reedy, with worried eyes darting left and right.

  He lowered his gun, shaking his head. “I thought you were a deserter. Rebel groups are forming in the woods, you know, raiding villages. Killing soldiers.”

  “It’s gotten that bad?” Reaching under his heavy coat, Lev readjusted himself. “I’ve heard of a few mishaps here and there, but nothing we can’t contain.”

  The soldier sighed. “I’ve been patrolling nights.” He looked defeated. “And it’s getting worse; more Germans are catching on, leaving to join the Russians. They don’t want to get sent to the Western Front, where they know they’ll die. Better to hide in the forest.”

  Lev noticed the tallith wrapped around the man’s knapsack. He was one of the Jewish soldiers. There were about twenty who did this, flaunting their Jewishness with the tallith, hesitant to eat sausage, acting overly modest in the urinals, their hands encircling their penises to shield how the foreskin had been removed, as if they were extra naked without that silly little cap an uncircumcised penis donned. Lev was not ashamed of his circumcised penis because it was exceptionally large. When other soldiers saw it, he wanted them to assume it was representative of the race.

  “But I understand deserting.” His spectacles glinted in the white light.

  “Because we’re losing the war and our children are starving at home?”

  “Well, that. Of course that.” He paused, studying Lev. “Haven’t you heard?”

  Lev shrugged.

  “The Judenzählung. It’s already started on the Western Front. They’re counting us.”

  Lev’s back stiffened. “All Jewish soldiers?”

  The man swiveled on his heel in what looked like the beginning of a folk dance, a dance to taunt him. “Yes. All. Do you believe you are somehow exempt?” He laughed, sharp and bitter. “Von Hohenborn signed an order sent to all German military commands at the front, behind the front, in German-occupied territory, and in the homeland to determine, by means of a census taken on November first, how many Jews subject to military duty were serving on that date in every unit of the German armies.”

  “It’s November ninth,” Lev said, breathing heavily. “Maybe they’ve abandoned the idea.”

  “Oh, no. The Germans are just behind on their administrative duties out here,” he said, drawing out a newspaper clipping. “You see, I have it here.” And then, adjusting his spectacles he read the order lit by the light of the moon: “The War Ministry is continually receiving complaints from the population that large numbers of men of the Israelitic faith who are fit for military service are either exempt from military duties or are evading their obligation to serve under every conceivable pretext. According to these reports, large numbers of Jews in military service are also said to have obtained assignments in administrative or clerical posts far away from the front lines, either with the rear echelon or in the homeland.” He stopped, panting, as if excited by the news. “You see, it’s done. They are counting each and every Jew.”

  Lev face burned with embarrassment, the same burning he had felt as a boy when the schoolmaster pointed out in front of the class, “Your ears are as large as an elephant’s. You would think with such large ears you would listen better.” And all the schoolchildren would grip their sides with laughter at the Jew with the big ears. And Lev would run home, tripping and falling over his stumbling feet, run home with torn knees. And his mother would say, while stroking his hair, “They will always turn on you. Always.”

  The soldier interrupted Lev’s thoughts, clucking his tongue like an old woman. “No matter where you fought, they’ll count you.”

  Lev’s heart beat quickly. “Where did you fight?”

  “Flanders. But”—he turned his head to the side—“my ear got blown off.” In the spectral light, the patch of swathed-over skin looked smooth and incandescent. “Thought I might get a Heimatschuss but no such luck. I was sent here instead for rehabilitation and when I got better, night patrol.”

  “It doesn’t matter you lost an ear.”

  “Nothing matters anymore,” the man echoed.

  His throat tightened. “How will they count us, do you think?”

  “How?” the man shook his head in disbelief. “Haven’t you seen how good they are at counting? From the eggs to the chickens to the amount of paper and pencils and coffee each unit consumes—they will count us the way they count everything.”

  Lev stared down the road, and beyond that, at the cemetery in the distance, an apparition of gravestones, row after row, glowing white under the moon. “There are many more graves than when we first arrived,” Lev said, pulling out a cigarette.

  The man nodded, fingering his moustache, the hairs wiry and frosted. “In the middle of the night, I saw a dead Jew carried on a board into the cemetery, wrapped in a shroud. But when they’d gotten to the farthest corner, where the graves are twisted and broken, he lightly hopped off the taharah bret. Two peasants emerged from an underground tunnel, and they did a deal, what looked like the exchange of a bottle of vodka for a dead chicken. And then the Jew got back on the board, his friend wrapped him up again, with the dead chicken hiding underneath the shroud, and off they went. I watched the whole thing.”

  “Trading among the graves,” Lev said.

  “It’s not a myth.”

  “Let’s walk back together,” Lev said, offering him a cigarette. “It’s safer.”

  It was almost dawn. The red sun slowly rose in the east, lending hints of light to the dark sky. “Palestine,” his companion whispered. “That’s where I’m going after the war.”

  The birds were waking up, rustling in the trees, their calls sharp and scattered.

  “Palestine,” Lev repeated, the syllables rolling off his tongue. “They manufacture cigarette cases there.”

  The soldier shielded his eyes from the rising eastern sun. It was too bright. Piercing. It made his eyes water behind his spectacles. “It’s the only place for us.”

  Lev wondered if this was true.

  “Where we won’t be rounded up and counted,” he added sharply. The insistence in his voice urged Lev to agree, to shout, Yes, on to Palestine we go! But no. He couldn’t picture Josephine in a desert among bronzed halutizim. The strong sun would burn her porcelain skin. She would shrivel up from a lack of moisture, from a lack of green. The olive trees, with their thin dry branches, would offer her no relief. But in Berlin, she often said how the heavy clouds rocked her
into a gentle calm. On days when the sun did not show itself, she rejoiced in the sky’s milky protection. Her eyes shone and her cheeks bloomed when she didn’t have to contend with the sun, as if the two were in competition. But when it grew hot in summer, she became agitated, bored. She snapped at the children and refused to eat. She fanned herself impetuously and dismissed the glasses of lemonade Marthe ferried to her—no, she would not survive Palestine.

  And Leah? Leah would survive. It was in her blood to cope, to make do. Unperturbed by her husband’s long absence in the Russian army, by the German occupation, by all the new rules and strictures, by the harsh winter and lack of food, she had merely folded her heavy shawl over her shoulders and smiled at him, mischievous and goading, asking with her eyes, What do you want from me?

  A funeral procession passed them on the road. A body wrapped in a white linen shroud was being carried, feetfirst, toward them. Two pieces of broken pottery, sharves, had been placed over the eyes. The two men leading the procession quickly looked up at Lev and then glanced away. Women trailed the tail end of the procession, wailing “Zdakah tazil mi-mavet” (alms for the dead). They rattled bulky charity boxes. There was no coffin because the use of wood for coffins had been forbidden. Bodies were buried only in cloth and lowered into the grave with nothing between the flesh and the earth. And recently, the Germans had outlawed the ritual washing of dead bodies in an attempt to maintain a certain level of sanitation.

  The soldier smiled sarcastically at the wailing women. Then he whispered to Lev, “Bottles of vodka are under that linen cloth.”

  Looking back at the slow procession, Lev thought he saw a small movement from under the shroud; an arm readjusting itself, or possibly it was only a bit of wind lifting up the shroud for a split second before it settled down again.

  When they got to town, hysteria tinged people’s faces. Peasants rushed through the streets, yelling loudly in multiple dialects. A priest lumbered past, his oblong gray face turned inward. The Jewish women were quietly packing up their stalls in the marketplace. The church bells rang. The soldier told Lev, before disappearing down a narrow side street, that today the Germans were rounding up all natives for delousing, followed by inoculations at the military bathhouse.