The Empire of the Senses

by Alexis Landau

  Vicki smiled, but the way she fidgeted with her gloves and gazed with longing at the steamer betrayed her—she couldn’t wait to leave him behind. It was so characteristic of youth, to rush into the future as if one’s present circumstances proved anachronistic to the point of embarrassment. A luxury, really, for life to feel so suddenly intolerable you could immediately alter it, whereas Lev, in middle age, tolerated a great deal, maybe too much, for the sake of constancy and calm. And yet the question burned within him: how much longer until he could leave for New York, now that he was delayed by a slow-healing wound, a son in trouble, a maze of legal questions, a hysterical wife?

  The fog cleared. Lev winced at the sharp sun breaking through the clouds, his eyes watering. The sun’s glare blurred the image of Vicki adjusting her hat. He blotted his eyes with a handkerchief and took a deep breath. Voices in the distance yelled, Vicki! Geza!

  Maya and Zev ran toward them, breathless, full of apologies: their car had broken down, and at the last minute, they caught a train; they never thought they would make it but here they were. “I left the car in the middle of the road,” Zev said triumphantly. “Whoever finds it can have the lemon.”

  “Thank God,” Geza said, embracing Zev.

  Vicki hugged Maya, and after a suspended breath, Maya asked, “Tell me honestly, am I wearing too much powder?”

  Vicki’s eyes pooled with tears. “You look beautiful.”

  The line of passengers waiting to board had diminished. From the railing of the ship, people waved scarfs and hats at those who’d been left behind. A fat grandmother wailed on the dock, her massive arms shaking. An older man, her husband, comforted her, which only agitated her further. A sister cried for her departed sisters; they promised to send for her once they settled in Gedera.

  Suddenly, there wasn’t any more time. Vicki and Geza embraced him. Maya and Zev argued about which satchel contained the dry bread and smoked fish. Geza said the tickets were in his inner vest pocket, and Vicki added, “We’ll be the last ones to board if we don’t hurry!” “Let’s go!” Zev roared, and in a whirl of kisses and mazel tovs, after one last embrace from his daughter, they left him standing on the dock.

  They disappeared into the ship. Lev couldn’t bear to stand there and wait for them to emerge onto the deck and wave. He couldn’t bear to wave back and watch the ship float down the Elbe until it grew smaller and smaller.

  The fat grandmother stared at him. She was crying and sweating, her face a porous mass of regret. Her husband, his back stooped over in what seemed to be his permanent position, smoked a cigar. Lev tipped his hat at her and started to walk away, over the floating pontoon that connected the dock to land. Even as he crossed the bridge, the lapping shores of the Elbe at his back, he could still hear her indignant cries from far off, the cries of an old, bitter woman who believed everything she loved was on that ship.

  49

  Together on the deck of the Mauretania, their bodies pressed up against other bodies, all of them strained to see Haifa Bay. The deck railing dug into her stomach as Vicki tried to get a better view. She leaned so far forward that if she wanted to, she could easily have pitched herself into the crystalline waters. But Geza held on to her. Maya’s damp arm pressed into hers, and she could feel the rise and fall of Zev’s powerful breath as he too took the measure of this place called Palestine.

  They were exhausted, with dark shadows under their eyes and dirty hair that smelled faintly of fish. They had not washed their clothing in weeks. Her skin felt tight with dryness. The air here carried no moisture compared to the humid summer air of Berlin. But they had survived the trip, she reminded herself, gazing up at the sky, saturated with such an intense blue that her eyes stung. Little white egrets flew overhead, squawking with relish.

  Geza squeezed her sweaty hand in his. “Look,” he said, pointing to the coastline. The view of the city from the sea: cerulean sky, gold sand, white houses gleaming on the hillside perched above the port. As they approached the harbor, illustrious ships lay anchored in the roadstead between Acre and the foot of Mount Carmel. Along the curve of the shore, purple flowers swayed in the wind. Palm trees were scattered across the hills. All the way from Acre to Mount Carmel stretched a green luxuriant park, which appeared to run on forever.

  There was no more complaining, as there had been for weeks on end, about the swarms of anopheles mosquitoes that carried disease, about the earthquake last July near the Dead Sea, or about how Tel Aviv was a brash and bourgeois city built on sand, no different from the capitalistic cities of Europe. When Geza and Vicki protested, explaining they were not going to Tel Aviv, the other passengers shook their heads and said eventually that’s where the exiles from Europe always ended up. “It’s too tough for them on the kibbutz,” they added. “Too lonely even though you are always surrounded by people.” And then a rabid argument would break out, between Zev, who proclaimed it was one’s national duty to work the land, and a man wearing a three-piece suit, who only wanted to find office work in either Tel Aviv or possibly Jerusalem, where he had relatives.

  As the ship floated into the harbor, there was no more energy left for such febrile disagreements. The whizzing sound of the anchor plummeting into the water sent a tremor through the crowd. Vicki stared at Geza, gripping his hand, and he smiled back at her. It was the smile he reserved for the most tense and worrisome moments. They saw Arab sailors pushing lighters out into the water from the shore; these barges would transfer them from the moored ship onto land.

  From the ship to the lighters, the sailors handled them as if they were discarded packages they would rather dump into the ocean. But even after the long, arduous journey, floating in this barge steered by hostile hosts, there was no misery, only joy when they saw the cliffs of Mount Carmel and the purple-blue mountains of Galilee. Some of the passengers spontaneously started singing Yiddish folk songs from the old country, about returning to Jerusalem, even though this was Haifa.

  Gripping the sides of the rocking lighter, she thought of her father. By the time they had reached the deck, he had vanished. She had called out his name, but the drone of the great ship departing the harbor drowned out her voice. The only person who seemed to hear her cries was the grandmother quivering on the dock. That grandmother wailed not only for her departed children and grandchildren but for everyone on that ship. And everyone on that ship had felt a communal sense of guilt for leaving behind a grandmother, whether living or dead, in the Ukraine or in Berlin. When they reached the open sea, people passed around a bottle of vodka, and it was one of those times when drinking with strangers was a blessing.

  At the port in Haifa, masses of people strained behind a barbed wire fence, desperate for news from home. The British policemen used their sticks and camel-hide whips to hold back the crowd. Vicki clung to Geza. They were waiting for Maya and Zev, who were on the next lighter.

  Geza told her they would go to the bathhouse, where they would be separated for a short time during the physical examination, after which they would be taken to the disinfection facilities to receive shots for typhus and smallpox.

  “Don’t leave me,” Vicki cried.

  He calmly reminded her of what they had discussed on the ship, about the entry procedures. A policeman blew a whistle. The crowd quieted for a moment.

  “It’s all right,” he said, wiping a smudge of dirt off her chin.

  To get to Beit Alfa, in the middle of the Jezreel Valley, they took a bus. Geza, Maya, and Zev were relieved and filled with euphoria that they had passed the entry procedures smoothly, even after their belongings had been searched, their skin pricked with needles, their naked bodies examined. Vicki wondered how they were immune to the worries that consumed her: How long would it take to reach Beit Alfa on this bus? When would she get to wash some clothing? Where would they sleep? Her feet itched and she desperately wanted a shower. But I mustn’t say this, she thought, swallowing hard.

  Passing through Haifa, she noticed all the construction. Skeletal
scaffolding shrouded buildings, soft-drink stands with the sign Gazoz stood on every corner. A woman sitting in the next row pointed out that they were passing through Hadar Hacarmel, a neighborhood where lots of Jewish immigrants lived. Vicki took in the bustling shops, the coffeehouses where women sat outside drinking from elegant saucers, fanning themselves. There was even a cinema—her heart leapt at the sight of the marquee rimmed with unlit bulbs.

  Behind them, Zev and Maya chatted with a pioneer who had arrived six years ago. He spoke about how, to Europeans, Palestine was all romance, and people who liked romance should stay home. “The instant they arrive here, such misty dreams evaporate and what’s left is a rough and rocky place, a hard life, unsuitable for the fainthearted.” He raised his fist and shook it. “We need soldiers, not frail refugees. Better not come at all than come only to run back home.”

  Geza patted Vicki’s knee. She managed to smile, and he grinned as if none of this mattered, what others said. She stared at the passing acacia trees. Through the open windows, the air felt bone dry. The pioneer droned on, saying that there would always be a war against the Arabs and the English, against the cold nights and the desert heat, the immovable rocks and the innumerable grains of sand, a war that could last for thousands of years.

  Geza whispered into Vicki’s ear, “He certainly loves the sound of his own voice.”

  Vicki squeezed his hand. He squeezed hers back in three short bursts, which meant: Don’t worry; I love you; it will be all right. The scent of eucalyptus trees and citrus groves filtered into the bus, and she inhaled these sharp clean smells, smells that were new to her.

  Beit Alfa, the kibbutz where they were going to live, was still off in the distance, nestled against the Gilboa Mountains. There, while plowing the fields, the pioneers had uncovered the mosaic floor of an ancient synagogue illustrating the lunar Hebrew months—a sign, Zev said, that Beit Alfa was a good and blessed place.

  They passed an Arab village with fields full of rocks. Vicki and Geza stared at the Arab children, who stood in front of ramshackle houses. The children stared back.

  Sitting nearby on the bus, an older man in oriental dress wearing a tarboosh and smoking a beedi coughed hoarsely.

  He must be an Arab, Vicki thought, and she self-consciously averted her eyes from the passing village.

  The man coughed again and then asked if they had recently arrived in Palestine.

  “Yes,” Geza said solemnly. “This morning. Via Berlin.”

  The man said he had been living in Palestine for thirty-five years. Originally, he was a Jew from L’vov, but now he had a big house in Tel Aviv and traded in cotton wool. He had just returned from a business trip to Beirut and was on his way to visit his sister in Safed. He owned a factory called Lodzia that produced cotton socks, which he informed them were quite popular, despite the heat. “People wear the socks under their sandals. They don’t like their toes getting dirty. Strange, but I’m not complaining.” Vicki and Geza nodded politely. As they exited the Arab village, the businessman muttered, “They live like pigs. The children are dirty, the adults more so.” He then pointed to the exact spot where Abraham had cast out Hagar and Ishmael from the land of Israel, as if he himself had witnessed it.

  Geza tilted his head in that particular way, which suggested debate. “But you see, the Arabs have been bought out by the Jews, who purchased the land from Elias Sursuq, an Arab and a businessman, like yourself, who didn’t mind selling Arab land for the right price. Of course they’re angry. Of course they’re poor. Their land has been sold out from under them by one of their own. You should not mistake poverty for ignorance.”

  The man shrugged. “They throw stones. They start trouble.”

  The terrain turned rocky and Spartan.

  They passed the rest of the ride in silence.

  The bus turned off the main road, traveling inland, when finally the valley revealed itself. Fertile, swaying with wheat and sunflowers, it was a green and cool reprieve. From a distance, Vicki and Geza gazed upon their new home. They saw rectangular huts scattered across the settlement. They saw cattle milling about, corralled behind wire fencing. They saw chicken coops and groves of pomegranate trees. They saw tractors plowing the fields. They saw a large white building in the center of town. They saw stout young palms sprouting up haphazardly, without much design or order to their placement.

  The bus stopped in front of the entrance to Beit Alfa, indicated by a rusty metal sign. Vicki gripped the seat in front of her. Young men, in caps and work boots, strode with purpose across the main square. A few women, working in the communal garden, peeked out from under their wide-brimmed hats at the bus. A line of children wearing bonnets and bloomers held bunches of wildflowers to welcome them.

  Vicki steadied herself against Geza. He squeezed her hand three times. Then he moved down the aisle of the bus, falling behind the other passengers. She followed him. Other people’s voices, some familiar, some not, floated behind her; they discussed the heat, their hunger, where they would put all the suitcases. She could only focus on the back of Geza’s neck—if she looked at the line of hopeful, dusty children holding flowers, if she turned around and saw Maya’s stained dress, if she glanced down at her own dirty feet encased in sandals, she knew something inside of her would break. And so she didn’t.

  Vicki stepped off the bus. The children squinted up at her, wildflowers skimming their delicate chins. She knelt down, her bare knees pressing into the dry earth. Cautiously, a little boy stepped forward from the line of children. She gave him a secret wave, as if they were the only two people in this great valley. He hesitated, his dark eyes scanning her face. She held out her hand. It trembled in the hot, dry air. He saw her trembling hand and he came closer. She sensed Geza standing behind her and the suspended breath of everyone watching.

  The boy thrust the flowers toward her. Her fingers brushed his small, warm palm when she took them.

  “Beautiful,” Vicki said in Hebrew.

  He beamed.

  The women hunching over their lettuce beds, the dusty travelers from the bus, the men who carried pickaxes over their shoulders—everyone clapped and laughed affectionately. The boy smiled shyly, tucking his chin into his chest.

  Vicki inhaled the sharp wild scent of the flowers; dirt, light, earth. Geza’s warm hands cupped her shoulders, capturing the heat beneath them, capturing the sun and all it gave life to. She closed her eyes and let her future begin.

  Epilogue

  Cementerio de la Recoleta, Buenos Aires, 1953

  It has become a kind of ritual, this communion with the dead. Lev roams freely here at dawn and avoids this place in the midday heat, when the tourists visit, commenting on how the graves, as palatial as miniature homes, are charming.

  Once a German woman had gasped, her platinum hair catching the sun, that these little houses were just so fascinating. So much money dedicated to the dead, she had said, pressing together her gloved fingers. Lev had pretended he did not speak German and merely nodded. He walked away, down the broad path that cut through the cemetery, littered with leaves and shadows. He had to stop and catch his breath, leaning on the stone knee of a seated soldier gazing at lost battlefields. Lev could still hear the German’s chirping voice reading the gravestones. She butchered the Spanish.

  The heavy January heat is getting to him. He loosens his tie and fans his face with a Panama hat. No, he decides, the dead are not fascinating. Nor are the dead truly dead. They haunt him without warning, and suddenly, his eyes smart when he sees Josephine’s long elegant back against the frosted living room window. She bends over, sewing a brass button onto Franz’s coat. Or he sometimes hears the rolling sound of his daughter’s voice when she used to sing in the kitchen, a popular love song—what was it, he wonders, in 1927? It must have been something imported from America, one of the jazz tunes Berlin went crazy for. He racks his brain, but only later, biting into the buttery fluff of pan dulce, will the melody resurface, and he’ll whisper the name: “Ich
bin von Kopf bis Fuss auf Liebe eingestellt,” “Falling in Love Again,” the English version, sung by Marlene Dietrich, whose face always reminded him of snow and loneliness.

  Lev leaves the cemetery and turns the corner, passing the old man selling flowers. The sharp sweet scent of gardenias wrapped in brown paper carries Josephine to him again, when he used to kiss her behind the ear and inhale the gardenia scent she sparingly sprayed there, in the nested darkness only available to a husband. And yet the whiteness of the flower, the purity of the color, reminds him of Leah.

  Lev returns to the cemetery the next morning, when the light-blue sky carries a purplish tint, the half-crescent moon still visible, a ghostly white outline of what the night had been. At this early hour, the cats rule. They luxuriate among the graves. They sulk and stalk Lev for food. Some find rectangles of morning sun hitting granite steps commemorating generals, and they lounge there, lapping up the heat. A black-and-white kitten is fond of sleeping on the marble foot of an angel. A calico sits upright at the entrance, pausing to lick her paws. Lev loves the old brown cat. This cat seeks him out, rubbing his knotted hairy back against Lev’s shoe. He rolls over, his paws dangling limply in front of his chest, white and soft with intermittent patches of pink skin. Bits of dead leaves hang from his whiskers. Lev has named him Der Puma because he has survived.

  After strolling down the aisles of shrines, Lev finds a bench in the sun and sits down, paper in hand, although he never reads the paper here. He places it next to his thigh, a tightly rolled-up baton of ink. What is there to know? He has already seen the worst of what humans are capable of. Anything that follows is merely a muted stream of regret. He would rather sit here, in his own square of sunlight, and think of how in January the streets of Berlin are bitterly cold and slick with ice, how the wind blows wetly through your overcoat, how the linden trees are stripped of leaves. Maybe Josephine is still there, among those linden trees. Ah, no—the trees have been blasted from their roots. Their street, Charlottenstrasse: a pile of rubble. He hopes she fled to the Bavarian countryside, where she could bake apples on Sundays and wear that glittering diadem he had once bought her. He pictures her walking among the farmhands, through the wheat fields, in one of those long sweeping black silk dresses she wore before the Great War, with the high collars and the billowing sleeves. And on her flaxen head, she wears the diadem with the shining yellow stone at its center. Pagan queen of the harvest.