The Inventory: A Novel

by Gila Lustiger

  In view of the present circumstances, immediate decisions must be made by the department. The department will endeavor to restructure itself from within; it is therefore obliged to supply each member with the enclosed questionnaire, and ask for an immediate response of yes or no, and your signature. Your response must be received by the Academy by the twenty-first day of March.

  2. Yes or No

  Dear Dr. Heillein,

  In recognition of the change in the historical situation, are you willing to continue dedicating your person to the Prussian Academy of Arts? An affirmative response to this question bars all public political antigovernment activity, and binds you to loyal cooperation with the national cultural duties accorded the Academy as defined by the changed historical situation.

  Yes No

  (Please strike whichever is inapplicable.)

  3. Classification

  Dear Mr. Bernstein,

  We are currently updating our members’ personal records, and require information about your religious denomination. I would be grateful if you would let us know your denomination as soon as possible.

  4. Membership

  Dear Mr. Bernstein,

  Due to the information gathered by the responsible authorities, I unfortunately have to inform you that, in line with the requirements of the restructuring of the Prussian state cultural institutes, you are no longer considered a member.

  5. Declaration

  Dear Colleagues,

  I, Bertolt Heillein, hereby declare: after careful investigation, there is to my knowledge, no reason to doubt that I am of Aryan parentage nor that my grandparents were Aryan; most specifically there is no cause to believe that my parents or grandparents at any time followed the Jewish religion. I am aware that disciplinary action may be taken in case of any false information in this declaration.

  The Sculptor’s Workshop

  1.

  He was awakened. There was some confusion about handing over the summons (stamped in a rush, the seal could not be read properly), then Volker Tilling, a high school student, was led to the car. It was to take him to his interrogation at 8 Prinz-Albrecht Straße. The inmates had been told that first thing after being awakened they should stand ready and waiting against the wall of the cell, but when the door next opened, Tilling was squatting on the stone floor, his hands in his lap. Brute force was required to drag him out to the courtyard. He had an obstinate look about him in the car, too, so he was handcuffed for safety’s sake.

  Tilling, together with five other high school students, stood accused of having painted antagonistic slogans on the wall of 112 Kurfürstendamm at two in the morning. Spotted by a neighbor, who immediately notified the police, three of the young men were caught and arrested after a ten-minute chase through the deserted streets. Although it was a minor offense, and none of the youths had been charged before, one of the students was to be taken to the infamous Gestapo prison in Prinz-Albrecht Straße to be interrogated with all the usual forms of intimidation, to nip any other protests in the bud. Whether because he confessed to the deed without hesitation, or because of random selection, seventeen-year-old Volker Tilling drew the lot.

  Tilling had a funny feeling that he knew the guard, who took his tie, belt, shoelaces, and wallet. He advised him in a paternal manner to cough up the names of those sons-of-bitches right away. By that he meant the young man’s friends at the Young Socialist Workers, disbanded a year ago, this being 1934.

  There were no cross-examiners at this early hour, so he was taken to a cell. He continued in vain to try and remember where those dark brown, short-sighted eyes had looked at him before. It was only when the guard brought him a cup of coffee, that it came to him suddenly. Intimidated by the unbearable silence of the cell, in stark contrast to his inner turmoil, he found no comfort in the thought that the enemy bore a human face: the eyes were the same sad eyes of his father.

  2.

  Tilling waited impatiently for his interrogation to begin. It was not pain that was eroding his courageous decision to say nothing; rather, it was despair. Punches would be preferable to this fevered waiting. He had laughed proudly in the face of the policeman who had handcuffed him. Where was this pride now, that pride that stemmed from his youth, and youth’s claim to immortality?

  He had already been told at the police station that he could expect something really special from the in-house prison. But what? Although he normally denounced the outpourings of swastika-sporting men as lies, he took the policeman at his word. Only, his usually fertile imagination was letting him down pitifully. When he heard the words special treatment nothing came to mind apart from a black, threatening Something: he saw its amorphous outline in the distance, creeping closer to him every expiring minute.

  He watched the door with an anxious heart. He heard the sound of steps approaching several times. Yet it seemed to him on that interminable morning that they would never stop in front of his door.

  Let us leave Tilling to talk briefly about the cell, not unaptly nicknamed the Purgatory by a well-read guard. What is so special about it that we give it priority over a description of our hero’s frame of mind? A dark cell, three meters long, two meters wide, and lit by a single bulb.

  Several years ago it had been part of a sculptor’s workshop. It was there the sculptor had made a plaster of paris model of a member of Parliament, fallen from grace in the meantime. Now industrious workmen had constructed walls and divided the room into nineteen cells. In these cells, nineteen men, among them Tilling, await their fate, embodied by an SS man, smoking three floors up.

  Perhaps the prisoners could still smell it, that bitter scent of metal, stone, wood, and paint that once pervaded this workshop. Perhaps they could sense something of the solemnity of the occasion when the father of German democracy, whom they all admired and looked up to, was sketched there. No, that is hard to imagine. They were in a state of extreme agitation, not open to impressions: they could only sense their own fear. They had no idea about the workshop’s history. To them it was simply the hallway to their suffering. And even if they had known that on that very spot their illustrious role model had once sat, albeit under different conditions and with different expectations, it would not have brought them any strength. They would have seen it as a cruel twist, a sign of life’s vanity. Even Tilling, who was craving some sort of sense of meaning, would not have granted it any significance.

  3.

  Toward eleven o’clock at night, two guards took Tilling up to the second floor. Tired, hungry, and disoriented by the abrupt change of surroundings, he stumbled several times, and was jabbed in the ribs by one of the guards. When he got up there he heard screams, audible in spite of the heavy felt hanging on the doors. He shuddered. When he was asked to remain standing, he felt a glimmer of hope for some reason. Tilling stood in the middle of the interrogation room. The light from the desk lamp was directed at him, blinding him, but he suppressed the wish to cover his eyes protectively.

  Out of the blue, someone offered him a cigarette and he was asked to relate all he had done since the disbanding of the YSW. After lighting the cigarette, Tilling recounted what he assumed was already common knowledge. He had been a member of the Young Socialist Workers from 1931, and had taken part in several campaigns. Not knowing what lay in store, he refused to give the names of his friends who had not been officially registered members of the organization. Tracking them down had proved more difficult than anticipated. Six men entered the room and positioned themselves behind him with truncheons and whips. Even then, Tilling stuck to his given statement. It was viewed as unsatisfactory by all concerned.

  In the course of the night, Tilling was beaten up several times. He tried to protect himself and covered his face with his hands and arms, but lost four teeth nonetheless and collapsed, exhausted by pain and hunger, three hours after the interrogation began. Violent, shaking movements took hold of him and Tilling found himself unable to sit down, even after a five-minute pain recess with some water t
o wash out his mouth. He was allowed to lie down. He experienced the next beating through a haze.

  Shortly before dawn, Tilling was put in his cell. His body was a single mass of swollen flesh. The hearing was postponed until the next day on the advice of a doctor concerned by the faint pulse. The men who held the schoolboy’s fate in their hands agreed to this as he was only reacting with the faintest of nods, and they could no longer make out what he said even when he really strained to be coherent.

  Toward noon, Tilling was shaken awake. Along with the stirrings of life came pain, which made him aware of his own body in a completely unprecedented manner. Tilling’s referral papers had not yet been drawn up. The Gestapo officials had not anticipated that a first-time offender’s interrogation could drag on so long. They were usually so easily manipulated. So his food was sent from the remand prison in Moabit, where he was still officially registered. It was an easy-to-digest gruel, specially prepared by the prison cook for those who had been given a “rougher interview” on the upper story of the Gestapo headquarters. Sometimes he added a sticky sweet milk-rice, which also slipped down without chewing. The whole ration was poured into him, and when he had regained some strength, Tilling was dragged up to the second floor again at roughly three in the afternoon.

  He seemed apathetic. He squinted at his torturers through swollen eyes. When answering his onlookers, he tried to fix his gaze on the face of a young-looking man, pale, with flaxen blond hair. He was the one who had given him the glass of water, and he had kicked him only tentatively, almost lovingly. As 6:00 P.M. drew near, and he had been tortured anew, he seemed to see reason. The information he gave was checked, and when it was proven true, he was sent off into a longed-for sleep with a morphine injection.

  4.

  All in all, Tilling spent three days under arrest. He did not face any criminal proceedings. With the exception of a leather briefcase — a present from his father with his initials stamped on the inside — all his belongings were handed back to him. He got back all the change he had on him when he was arrested. The briefcase, they said, smiling at him, could be picked up in a week’s time. They knew that no prisoner willingly entered the building a second time.

  To clarify the reason for his sudden, utterly unexpected change of heart — even after a farther beating, Tilling had withheld the desired names — one event cannot go unmentioned. On the second day of interrogation, one official had held up the photo of Tilling’s late father (the one he carried in his wallet), and torn it up in front of his eyes. In a fit of rage, Tilling jumped on the man. Surprised by the attack, the man was knocked over. The prisoner was then beaten and battered with truncheons until he sank moaning to the ground. Whether it was the tearing in two of the photo that broke the young man’s resistance, or whether he could not bear the physical torture any longer, Tilling seemed changed afterward, and answered all their questions without farther ado.

  There Will Soon Come a Time

  I WALKED ALONG THE CORRIDOR, trying to read my fate on the faces of the women who brushed past me, but my look rebounded off those pods of flesh, lifeless in spite of the red-painted lips. They were all feigning jollity. Embarrassed, they even averted their eyes as I came limping toward them. I could sense the curiosity I aroused, a repressed lack of respect to which I had grown accustomed. Only a child stared at my stick, shamelessly. He was whisked away quickly by his mother, her eyes begging forgiveness. Oh, that child did me such good! If only he had stayed a little longer I would have gathered courage again. I wanted to put an end to my journey, but did not know where. Was there somewhere a place I would be accepted, or was I damned to wander?

  My despondency did not stem from disappointment, but rather from my physical condition. I had spent too much time by myself, alone, and would have liked to converse with someone. The merest amicable exchange, even on the weather, would have sufficed.

  However, I knew all too well, though my brother may laugh at me: caution was imperative. In moments of exuberance, I had the tendency to tell all sorts of things. My ingenuousness in the art of dissimulation meant I often contradicted myself. Furthermore, I did not know what the prevailing opinion was, and could tie myself in knots making excuses as soon as I read disapproval on the face of my companion, and this was tiring in the long run.

  I pushed at the doors, which yielded with a whine, swung my head first to the right, then to the left, as though relaxing the muscles in my neck, and gingerly stepped into the restaurant car. I had trained my eyes to comb every place I entered, and had developed quite a talent for observation, so much so that a nod or rapid turn of the head sufficed to take in everything going on around me, without anyone noticing.

  The cutlery on the still immaculate tables sparkled up at me. There was only one elderly couple seated in the center of the area. The woman had discarded items of clothing that hung like dead leaves on the back of her chair. She was dressed too warmly for a winter’s day, but there was nothing unusual in that. It was a month in which the weather changed constantly and played tricks on you, getting the better of you if you had taken along a warmish jacket just in case. Even in colder seasons, the sun could beat down, forcing drops of sweat from your pores, which backed up my long-held theory: the low flight of birds does not always portend a storm, preplanning generally does not pay, and prophecies are to be taken with a grain of salt.

  The waiter motioned to me like a sleepwalker. Although the restaurant car was as good as empty, he had selected a corner table at the other end for me, next to the kitchen. I told myself he had probably chosen the table sensing I was a good-natured sort of fellow. I let him hang on to his belief and followed him along the narrow thoroughfare. Or was it his way of showing that my limp did not bother him? Was he teaching me some kind of lesson? Was he challenging me? I went through the carriage, head held high, listening to the tapping rhythm of my stick.

  I passed by the couple and wanted to smile at the lady, but instead nodded a greeting at the lump of meat swimming in brown gravy on the gentleman’s plate, which, I later discovered upon reading the menu, went by the name of “seasoned hunter sauce.”

  How apt, I thought, for the man bent over the plate resembled a hare, and it tickled me that the game occasionally ate up the hunter, although I knew in reality this was never the case.

  The waiter pointed to the table. He had reddened hands, which he rubbed on his trousers before giving the table a wipe with a cloth. Embarrassed, I looked away and when he had whisked out his pad I ordered scrambled eggs with bread and butter. It had been years since I had experienced any pleasure in eating. The sweet taste of meat made me nauseous. I thought I could taste the animals’ terror of death. And even without that, I had been a soldier for too long, had seen too many companions fall, not to be able to relate to how it feels to be sent to the slaughterhouse. Inevitably, my thoughts turned to one of them, a good fellow he was, who knew how to hold the position with a song on his lips.

  The waiter made a face and slunk away to the kitchen without gracing me with another look. I was not a good customer. I had not even ordered a drink. How easy life is for him, I thought. I would happily change places with him. My criteria for judging people were vague, even to myself. Slowly I unfolded my napkin. I could go via the mountains — very beautiful at this time of year — or via the sea. There was much in favor of the mountains, but also something to be said for the sea.

  Mountain dwellers are reserved. If a stranger comes by, they scarcely look up from their work, and let him go on without asking where he has come from and where he is going. Mountain dwellers have a hard life: the soil is far from rich at that altitude, and it is a race to get the hay mown in time, to bring in the harvest, and to drive the cattle back to the barn.

  With my finger I traced the route on the map I had spread out on my lap. It snaked its way through the fawn-shaded areas. The waiter put my plate down on the table. I looked up and thanked him. The restaurant car had gradually filled up. Slowly I moved the fork to my
mouth and observed the other guests. If it had not been for my mistrust, I would have noticed nothing out of the ordinary. I decided there was little point in conjecturing farther — where was I meant to hide here anyway — and conscientiously went on eating my eggs. My talent for premonition, highly praised in the war by my superiors, had proven itself disturbing upon returning to the city. Why deny it? I could not bear the teasing and mocking anymore, I could not bear watching desires turn people blind.

  My thoughts turned to the coast. I was very fond of it. How beautiful a coastal landscape can be, with its rolling hills and foaming surf. You lost yourself there in the face of that splendor. That was it, the decision was made. I would take the train that stopped at every village, and in between, too, should a goat or cow wander onto the track.

  The sky was a fiery red in the first throes of sunset, casting a magical light on the fields. Soon it would be night. I became restless. I finished my sparse meal and wiped my mouth. There was the question of the suitcases. Yes, it was a little tricky with the suitcases. Three of them in all. I always got someone to carry them for a small tip. I had traveled through the whole country with them, but we had not yet crossed the border together.

  The waiter brought the check. When he saw the tip I had left on the plate, he nodded several times approvingly. Would it not be clear to any official at the border control who saw me approaching with my suitcases that I was planning to leave the country with all my worldly goods? Was it not too much for a simple holiday-maker? Did not my suitcases announce my hopes of fleeing? The suitcases were dear to me, but they should not become an obstacle. I stood up. The waiter handed my stick to me as if it were a trophy. I thanked him, and he led the way. What a comical pair we made: the beggar king and his jester. Going through the door of the restaurant car, I looked back once more. The waiter waved at me. The tip had made him relentlessly attentive. I turned my back on him. Why should I concern myself with the benevolence of a waiter? I had serious problems at the time.