by Yoram Kaniuk
You don't sound sorry, said Samuel.
Give me the money you said, Lionel suddenly says furiously.
Samuel seeks in his pocket and gives Lionel a few pennies. Lionel takes them, counts each and every penny, and tosses them into the sea. The pennies are swallowed up in the water, and Samuel says: I worked hard for that money, sir!
He worked, says Lionel, and points at Ebenezer.
You're helping these miserable Jews? asks Samuel. You're an old miser who got medals of dead soldiers, I know guys like you. Lionel didn't an swer. For a moment, he looked to the side, fog started moving toward the port, people started making bonfires from tree bark they had gleaned.
You don't answer, said Samuel.
No, I don't answer.
Why didn't you give me money then?
Because you sold things that weren't yours, he said, and Ebenezer had no daughters.
Samuel looked to the side and he also looked at Ebenezer now. An amazement he didn't understand flooded him. He felt animosity and softness at one and the same time. Ebenezer looked like somebody who was finished here, on the edge of that water. Samuel, who started acting the poor soul, bent over a little and said: I've got something here that they made from my parents, this lampshade, you can't know what was there!
Lionel was tense at every word. Samuel's cunning stirred old memories in him. A boy standing at the window of Melissa's house and waiting for a signal. For some reason he was less furious now than he thought he'd be. Maybe suffering does have some reward, he said to Samuel, but I'm not the man who will give it to you. That lampshade you sell to the soldiers who believe you isn't your parents. You deserve a lot more, but you also deserve less than what you demand! Don't try to lie to me. I'm fond of you because of what you are, not because of what you can sell me.
I'll sell the truth, said Samuel angrily. In his mind's eye he now succeeded in seeing his naked parents.
You're lying, said Lionel.
Samuel measured Lionel, looked again at Ebenezer, and said: If we leave here, they won't let me back.
If you want, they'll let you, said Lionel. And he felt like somebody who steals a piece of bread from a pauper. And they started walking in the fog that thickened and covered the port and Ebenezer who sensed something, turned his face, saw Samuel's back far away in the fog and wanted to run after him, but he was afraid to lose his place in line and by the time he made up his mind, Samuel and Lionel had disappeared in the fog.
Tape / -
I don't remember, I sat there. Somebody who was me, he thought. What was he thinking about? About somebody he loves, he thought. Some yearning, to love somebody like that, without conscience or regret, and they would have destroyed him if not for my boxes. Bronya the Beautiful with an apple in her mouth, she connected us, held us, on what authority did he go, I didn't know, but I didn't know who's thinking what I say now, confused, lost and alone, without myself, my memories, no, his image in me, a lust to embrace him, to hold the hand, forgiveness from him for asking about all the things I didn't do.
In the cab, Samuel was silent. Lionel looked at the gray houses and next to them the bay spread out, gleaming in the dull light. They got out of the cab and climbed the stairs of Cafe Glacier, the big balcony was closed. They sat at a little table, the place was almost empty.
Now tell me, said Lionel and offered Samuel a cigarette. Samuel lit it with a little lighter Lionel handed him, he looked at the lighter and Lionel said, Keep it, and Samuel held onto the lighter, wanted to give it back but couldn't, buried it in his pocket, and started talking with the cigarette in his mouth. That American officer looked naive to Samuel, but also bold. For a moment, he thought about a possible love affair between his dead mother and the officer and from the recesses of memory rose a picture of his mother, dressed in festive clothes, next to a statue of a bearded poet and Samuel is eating candy wrapped in gold foil and afterward he would straighten the foil and bury it in his pocket. If only I could really understand his suffering, he thought. Lionel said: Look, man, for a long time now I've been interrogating people, I read you and you think, Ah, how naive is this Lionel Secret and don't know that my name is Lionel Secret, but I know that your name is Samuel Lipker, I don't know who your father was, who your mother was, I don't know exactly what world you came from. He bent over a little, the cigarette dropped its ash on the table, the place began to fill up, beyond the locked balcony, the sun began to set, the sea was transparent and gleaming.
What did you get the medal for?
I fought.
What did you do before?
I wrote stories.
Why?
I don't know, said Lionel.
So don't write them, said Samuel, and began drinking the wine they were served. Lionel tasted the wine. In the distance, fogs thickened even on the nearby boulevards, haberdashery salesmen seemed hidden in niches, he felt like hugging the fellow, stories that should be written-are written, he said, the rest don't matter, and you're right.
I'm not so sure I want to be right, said Samuel. But then the moment became soft and pleasant and Lionel looked confident sitting across from him, Ebenezer is simple and pure, said Lionel, you're not. You always divide everything into black and white, said Samuel, that's why I can defeat you.
Not me.
You're also them.
That's what I wanted to write about, said Lionel.
And do you have a car?
I have a lot with buses, cars and tractors, fire engines and pickup trucks. I used to play with them like toys.
I'll have a Mercedes, said Samuel. Part of my wealth stays with Ebenezer. He'll need it. The rest is with me. I'll wear nice clothes and drive a splendid car. Lionel advanced his hand and stroked Samuel's head. Samuel's eyes were glassy, he looked in despair at the stroking hand. Lionel wanted to explain to Samuel who he was and what his life had been. But Samuel kept his distance and when Lionel understood why he had waited all the time, why he had been searching for Samuel and didn't know he had been searching for him, why he was sitting with him now, he wasn't able to explain, he got up, begged his pardon, and said he'd come back. He found the telephone and Samuel called the tall maitre d' with watery eyes who was looking at him with wicked indifference, and said quickly: Pad the bill! Afterward we'll split it fifty-fifty! The maitre d' smiled, a gold tooth danced in his mouth. Samuel suddenly had a dreadful erection. Some tear duct he'd forgotten started pressing on his eyes, tears of people he didn't know wept in him, he didn't want to be caught again by those maitres d', and the maitre d' hissed between his teeth: It'll be fine, and he went off. Samuel sat and looked at the food he'd been served and for a moment it seemed to him that he was loved. He just didn't know by whom.
Lionel called his hotel and the old woman at the reception desk said one minute, Mr. Secret, and transferred the call to his room, where he had an extension because of his high rank and even from here he could smell the old woman's sly smile.
On his bed sat Lily. She wore a bathrobe she had brought from Cologne and was shaking with cold. She closed the windows but the cold didn't stop. She didn't know how to turn on the heat. The phone rang and she was afraid to answer. She had gone through a lot of trouble to get a travel permit. She even promised one of the officers she'd go out with him and that was how she found out where he lived and went to him and the old woman at the reception desk now became fussy, and Lily had to bribe her with the last of her money, and now, when she wants to surprise Lionel with or without his lovers, the phone rings. Her hand reaches for the receiver, but the hand doesn't manage to pick it up. The phone stopped ringing and she picked up the extinguished receiver and heard beeping. Then her eyes starting shedding tears and she tried to talk to the dead receiver. Lionel tried to dial again, but his line was busy. Lily dropped the receiver, put it on its cradle and stood up. Her body trembled, the window was covered with mist. She hugged herself. And then the phone rang again. She picked up the receiver and didn't stop weeping. Lionel recognized the sound o
f Lily's tears. He said to her, Don't cry, little girl, but she didn't stop. She tried to talk but only fragmentary syllables burst out of her mouth. All those tears piled up in her for years, she later told Lionel, at long last I was Melissa, maybe I died and your voice talked to a dead woman and I didn't know what to say. Only after a few minutes did she say, Yes my dear, I'm here, sorry.
I know you're here, he said to her.
His laugh was calming and offensive, but she had already learned what was in store for her, a whole year in a closed room she had acted at night the wife of a child thrown into the fire, learned in books what she could have known if only she had opened her eyes earlier while acting herself in another garb, and learned to hate in herself what Lionel loved in her. She knew he was searching for Ebenezer to try to forgive himself and she couldn't take part in the forgiveness. She had nothing to complain about. He called her. He heard her body rustling in the distance. She asked where are you and he told her, and she said: I need you here, and she blushed. And she told him she blushed. I'm dining with the fellow who appeared with the Last Jew in the nightclub, he said, Boulevard Canbiere, Cafe Glacier, upstairs.
I'm coming, she said.
And now Samuel Lipker is looking at her. The light in the hall dims, the erection still prevents him from standing up. A torn ad for Ritesma cigarettes waves on the wall. He knows the ad hung in the room of the guard who'd hug him and give him candy. On the ad for Ritesma or Koli cigarettes was a photo of a typist, maybe it was a drawing, the drawing was Lily. Now he could know how German guards' cigarettes create for him the Melissa that Lionel tried to tell about earlier. The guards in the camp loved her too, and that strengthened her unimaginably, now he could sit across from her, loathe her, understand her, he already teased Lionel who probably beat and tortured her to teach her what love is. She was and still is the girl of all our dreams he thought. Even of Leibke who was shot by the guard, and the man who castrated himself after Bronya the Beautiful refused him. Bronya the Beautiful with the apple in her mouth. No, they didn't look alike. Bronya looked like his mother, Lily was a wild song in the Tyrolean Mountains. With her he could capture stars or hunt electric rabbits. Beautiful only for herself. And the love she showered on Lionel made her forbidden. Like death, he thought, to sleep with her is to sleep with cancer, she looks at Samuel and at Lionel and recalls the frightening lad she saw in the nightclub, and when Lionel looked at her and caressed her with his eyes, Lionel thought: She may not know that a disaster happened, but she knows exactly who it didn't happen to. Lionel pronounced the names of the dishes he had ordered for her in a charming French accent that made Samuel measure Ebenezer against Lionel again, he also wanted to understand what they wanted from him and how much he had to pay, and what he would have to pay. The ships in the port hooted, the noise in the cafe grew louder, waiters tried to please Lionel, Samuel imagined himself sleeping with Lily and stroking Lionel's hair, and for a moment, his parents appeared to him walking arm in arm in the street, houses began falling on them and they vanished along with the pain in him whenever Ebenezer would recite the past that none of them knew. Lily tried to eat but had no appetite. Her lips were shaped like her eyes. The lines are clear, a slight flush rose on her cheeks, something in her image recalled not only ads for Ritesma cigarettes, but also pale northern twilights. Some total defeat melted in her. The struggle between himself, thrown into the fire, and the pallor of her face enchanted him, and he could understand things in her face that Lionel couldn't. Her hair was especially fair in the light of the lamp above her. When she fixed her eyes on Samuel, his erection stopped and he calmed down, as if he had met his mother's lover. He said: My mother was an actress in a house full of carpets and she'd act for me. Ebenezer's memories were enough for me, my mother also had a husband. He was an unsuitable lover for my mother, she wanted opera generals. I'm a corrupt angel and look like it. So do you. In her late youth, after she finished being a communist, my mother seriously thought of going to a convent or into international prostitution-I imagine from Ebenezer-her lover was an old man by then, made hundreds of children with weary women, Ebenezer sometimes recites some of his poems, once I was in love with them.
I know, said Lionel.
Samuel glanced wearily, laughed at Lily, and said: So will you marry me, Lily?
And she looked at him and decreed, No! and turned pale. He tried to pretend to weep, but he burst out laughing and they looked at him. Suddenly, maybe for the first time in years, he didn't know how to act himself.
And then he started telling Lily about the lampshade they made of his parents. He said those words while his eyes, where a rusty gray flash now sparkled, were fixed on Lionel. She stopped trying to eat the duck wing and Samuel measured her movements like a panther waiting to pounce. Lionel's hands moved, the smile was a mask for tension, Samuel smoked another cigarette and didn't want to light it with the lighter he had taken from Lionel before. He was afraid she'd recognize the lighter and despise him. The ash straggled until it dropped. When the ash dropped, Lily felt as if her belly were shriveling.
People wearing clothes too big for them, with berets and caps or shabby Hollywood hats on their heads, entered and sat around the tables and ate eagerly. The waiters ran back and forth. A woman in a sparkling red dress sang on a small stage, lighted with a beam that turned her face into an overcultivated mask. At the piano sat a pianist with a thin beard who looked bored and tired. Now and then, he sipped from a bottle standing on the piano. American, Swedish, and African sailors came in with their temporary, dyed women. They would all order cognac or calvados and slurp fish soup. The Bay of Marseille was lighted, a motorboat groaned rhythmically, drunken sailors banged on the tables and shouted demands for food. The light outside was growing dim, and the locked balcony was full of cigarette butts and papers flying in the wind. In the distance, the sea looked like a black mass.
Ebenezer, now looking for Samuel in the city, said to the investigator years later: I didn't look like a Muselman because Samuel Lipker and Kramer would bring me thin beet soup and bread.
Dear Renate,
You asked me why, back then in Marseille, that is, what impelled us, what exactly happened, I didn't know what to answer you then and today I don't either. Aside from my love, I don't find words that can convey the precise experience. But since you asked, I'll try. I sat facing the two of them, Lionel and Samuel Lipker, and longed with all my soul to die.
Lionel then looked toward the balcony, I don't know if we saw that sea. Samuel tried to steal me from Lionel. He also got up and recited to the diners an excerpt of Ebenezer they knew by heart, but they didn't applaud him. They were furious that he had disturbed their eating, and had disturbed the fat singer's singing. The sea was locked in the distance. A balcony full of cigarette butts. I wanted to go to the movies. They were then showing The Arch of Triumph with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer, who sat like us in Cafe Glacier, on Boulevard Canbiere and drank Calvados. Lionel sketched something on the white paper on the table, sipped the wine that Samuel gulped, and said sadly to Sam (Samuel): If you think you have to go back to the line you can. The two of you can open a war souvenir shop in Jerusalem named for Joseph Rayna. I heard that his songs became national anthems there. Sam looked at Lionel and Lionel looked at Sam. Those two men suddenly looked like two dead men fighting over me. I wanted to express my opposition, but I didn't know if I had it coming. I knew I had to perform Gretchen for them and not talk. I don't know if you've ever been for sale in the Jew market, Renate! I was an essential enemy to them, maybe (and this is ridiculous) a desired enemy, and Sam was so sunk in the moment, in the happening itself, that he had to measure it carefully since he wasn't used to it. I wanted so much to return things to their simple and human concreteness, to deviate from the tragicomic event, as Lionel put it later. Those two poets, great-grandsons of messiahs, didn't see me with flesh-andblood eyes, maybe not only with those eyes. They saw me as some substitute for an argument in order to gore one another. The singer s
ang in a nasal voice and Sam mocked her, maybe that was a certain response to his failure to make the drunken sailors laugh by reciting things Ebenezer remembered and that weren't important to them. The sailors tried to defend the play of their love with the wretched streetwalkers and would hit and shout and kiss, and Sam thought, I read his mind didn't I; I can't swindle this man anymore. Precisely in his weakness, he's strong! A weakness of supple and tense softness and Lionel said to him: But on the other hand, you can also stay with Lily (he didn't say "you can stay with me," he only uttered my name).
Then the haggling started. I was the payment, so they didn't ask me. Lionel said something about the possibility that Sam would live with me, and he said: Lily will be a mother to you, and Sam said, Mother? An ad for a fucking cigarette will be a mother to me? I've got enough dead mothers and fathers, and Lionel said: You've got a dead mother and two dead fathers, you'll have a new father and mother and I'm still not mentioned by name. Renate, nobody talks directly to me or with me, doesn't ask anything, but I deserve it, why did I come here? They were discussing payment and I'm hanging in front of them on a hook, unkosher meat in a Jewish market. They have to triumph over one another in a defeat that will of course be all mine and mine alone, I was silent, Renate, I was silent and suddenly had an appetite and I tasted the dishes Lionel ordered and that I couldn't eat before. Lionel talked about the fact that I wouldn't have children, the level of the execution of the castration had been so high that for a moment, I felt how all the children I was supposed to give birth to flowed out of me and died on my lips, and I felt blood between my lips and I licked them and they didn't know what I was doing with my lips, and Sam said: She's trying to be sexy like Hedy Lamarr. What children? asked Sam, and Lionel said: She won't give birth to children who will later have to defend the lost homeland of lampshades, and Sam said: There was no lampshade, and Lionel said: There were, but not yours, and then he laughed, and the singer was also offended, she turned her face away and sang in another direction, and a drunken sailor hit a whore, who dropped onto the floor. There was a thud, the bored pianist burst out laughing and played more excitedly, and the waiters ran and brought drinks and food and I was sold there, a few kilograms of Lily, a few liters of Lily juice is there juice of Lily? I was silent there. No Ingrid Bergman sat on the balcony of Cafe Glacier with yearning eyes and a great melancholy love for Charles Boyer. In the end, I was miserable German mincemeat, good for swindling themselves that I was somebody else, I shot them at low-flying airplanes.
