Jakob the Liar (4 page)

W
e know what will happen. We have some modest experience in the course events are apt to take; we have some imagination so we know what will happen. Mischa won’t be able to keep his mouth shut. Never mind that he has been forbidden to talk. It won’t be spite that will make him break his silence or make him not even try to remain silent; it won’t be some malevolent desire to get Jacob into trouble — it will be joy, pure and simple. Stop taking your own lives, you’ll soon be needing them again! Stop living without hope, our days of misery are numbered! Make an effort to survive, you’ve had plenty of practice, you’re familiar with all the thousands of tricks that can cheat death — after all, you’ve managed so far. Just survive the last two hundred and fifty miles, then survival will be over, then life will begin.

Those are the reasons why Mischa won’t be able to keep his mouth shut. He’ll be asked for his source; he will reveal it, what’s wrong with that? Soon even the children in the ghetto will know the big secret, in the strictest confidence of course, they will hear about it when their parents in their joy forget to whisper. People will come to Jacob, to Heym the possessor of a radio, and want to hear the latest news; they will come with eyes such as Jacob has never seen before. And what on earth is he going to tell them?

H
alf a day has passed, the big crates have been stowed away in the freight cars, now it’s time for the smaller ones, the kind that one man can carry alone, and Jacob has lost sight of Mischa. Well, not literally lost sight of him, they see each other every few minutes but always a few feet apart, in passing, with their backs under a load or on their way to pick up another crate. The opportunity for a word of explanation hasn’t come yet; he can’t just take Mischa aside and say, This is how things really are. Whenever they see each other, Mischa winks at him or smiles or makes a face or waves surreptitiously; whether carrying a crate or not, it hardly makes any difference, each time some confidential gesture: we both know what it’s all about. Once Jacob forgets himself and winks back, but he recovers immediately — that would be going too far, that would block the way to the opportunity. But he can’t help himself; each time they pass his anger subsides. After all, the fellow has a right to be happy. Why shouldn’t he be happy after all that has happened?

The day is bright blue, as if specially chosen for the joyous occasion. The sentry by the wooden shed is sitting on a few bricks, having taken off his rifle and placed it beside him; he is leaning his head against the wall with his eyes shut, basking in the sun. He is smiling; one could almost feel sorry for him.

As Jacob walks past he gets a good look at him. Walking quite slowly he studies that face with its closed eyes; he takes note of the smile, the prominent Adam’s apple, the wide gold signet ring on the sentry’s little finger. Jacob walks on and discovers, so he has told me, that he has changed. From one day to the next his senses are suddenly far more alert; he is beginning to observe. The apathetic despair has not survived the excitement of the previous night; nothing is left of that numbness. Now it is as if one must remember everything exactly as it was so as to be able to tell about it afterward. Afterward.

Jacob invents an innocent little game. On his way to the freight car or on his way back to the crates he always passes very close to the drowsing sentry. So close that he almost walks over his outstretched legs, each time depriving him for a brief moment of the sun. The sentry, of course, doesn’t notice, doesn’t even open his eyes although he is not asleep; he moves his head once slightly or twitches his mouth — in annoyance, it seems to Jacob — or does nothing at all. But each time Jacob passes him he loses a moment of sunshine. Jacob carries on his little game until he has to turn to another pile of crates. The sentry is no longer in Jacob’s path; he would have to make a detour, and for that the joke is too slight and the risk too great. Jacob sees with satisfaction that a few little clouds are carrying on his prank. Then it is noon.

A man in railway uniform emerges from the redbrick building, the same man ever since we’ve been working here. He has a stiff leg that makes a noise with every step like a pebble falling into water, obviously a wooden leg. We call him the Whistle, not at all disparagingly, for we know nothing about his human or professional qualities. The only thing we have against him is that he happens to be a German, which, strictly speaking of course, should not be reason enough for a low opinion, but that’s how unfair our plight can make us. As soon as he emerges from the building he pulls from his breast pocket a whistle fastened with a black cord to his buttonhole and proceeds to blow it at a remarkable volume, a signal that it is now noon. This is the only sound we have ever heard from him, apart from the
pit-pat 
 of his wooden leg. That’s why we call him the Whistle. For all we know he may be mute.

We form a line, very disciplined and with no jostling. That’s how they’ve taught us, under the threat of no food. It must look as if at the moment we had absolutely no appetite: What, already time to eat again? A fellow hardly has a chance to settle into the job before he is interrupted yet again by another of these many meals. So we form a line, without haste; we look around and make sure we’re all standing in an imaginary straight line. With outstretched arm you check the distance to the man in front of you, then correct it by a few inches to create the impression that you are among well-mannered people here. The spoon is taken out of the trouser pocket and held in the left hand against the left trouser seam. Then the handcart appears around the corner of the shed, with the tin bowls piled beside the two steaming green cauldrons. The cart stops at the head of the greedy line. The first man steps forward, opens the cauldron (invariably burning his fingers as he does so), and begins doling out the contents. The Whistle stands to one side, mute and staring fixedly, to see that everything is done fairly.

On this bright blue day I do the doling. I know nothing, I’m always the last to find out, the sun gets on my nerves, I’m furious. I’m annoyed at the extra work, my burned fingers are hurting, I’m the last to get my food. I slap the ladleful of soup into their bowls, the men move off, I discover nothing unusual in their faces, in none of them, but then I’m not paying attention. I don’t even see whom I happen to be giving soup to; I just look down at the bowls.

Jacob has drawn his ration, as they put it; he is looking for Mischa, who was far ahead of him in the line. Noon would be such a good opportunity for a private word with him, a little correction that does nothing to alter the actual facts. Mischa is nowhere to be seen; it is a large area, and the men have spread out with their bowls. The break is too short for a long search. Jacob sits down on a crate and swallows his hot soup. He’s only human, his thoughts roam far away from the bowl, what’s going to happen and how long will it take, and then what. The sun is shining on him, and no one is casting a shadow. Then Kowalski arrives.

Kowalski arrives.

“Is there a spot of room for me here too?” asks Kowalski.

He sits down beside Jacob and begins to spoon up his soup. Kowalski is marvelous. He thinks he is a real fox of a fellow who knows all the ins and outs, yet his expression can conceal nothing; it tells all. You only have to be slightly acquainted with him to know what he’s going to say before he has even opened his mouth. His words are always merely the confirmation of long-held assumptions, if you’re only slightly acquainted with him. At the freight yard everyone is slightly acquainted with Kowalski, and Jacob has known him since they were at school together. Here, in these grim times, they have rather lost sight of each other, which is easy enough to explain. Neither of them is one of the big fellows; a crate doesn’t get any lighter when the one at the other end is an old friend, so their estrangement is simply due to circumstances. And otherwise there is virtually no opportunity. Two people get thrown together, or they don’t. Jacob and Kowalski hardly ever did, and now here comes Kowalski with his bowl, saying, “Is there room for me here too?” and sits down beside Jacob and starts to eat.

Kowalski had been Jacob’s most frequent customer. Not his best, his most frequent. Every day, just before seven, the shop bell would tinkle and, sure enough, there was Kowalski. He would sit down in his usual place and eat potato pancakes until the sight made you dizzy. Never fewer than four or five, usually followed by a little glass from under the counter, since Jacob didn’t have a license for schnapps. Most shopkeepers would have been ecstatic over such a customer, but not Jacob, for Kowalski never paid, not a penny, not once. Being schoolmates wasn’t the reason for Jacob’s generosity — what kind of a reason would that be? — and generosity simply didn’t enter into it. In a stupid moment one tipsy evening they had made a bargain. Kowalski’s barber shop was only a few doors away; they met almost every day anyway, and the bargain had seemed advantageous to both of them. You don’t pay at my place, and I don’t pay at yours. Later they both regretted it, but a bargain is a bargain, and one man alone can’t ruin another man. Not that they didn’t try.

At first, potato pancakes were Kowalski’s favorite dish, a fact that probably accounted in part for his proposing the deal, but that soon changed. After a while he grew sick and tired of them, and the only reason he went on eating four at a time was that, out of habit,

Jacob set them down in front of him without a word. Much more important to him by this time was the little drink that followed.

Jacob, on the other hand, suffered at first from the inescapable fact that, although a fellow can eat potato pancakes every day, he can’t have his hair cut every day. After much thought Jacob hit on the idea of going regularly for a shave. He even sacrificed his sparse little beard, although he felt bad about that. His best times were the summers; fortunately Kowalski’s stomach could not tolerate ice cream, and for a while Jacob was the only beneficiary of their bargain. However, as time passed his ambition subsided; other worries were really more important. He let his beard grow again, and the whole thing quietly petered out except for an occasional flare-up.

But that’s old history. Kowalski is sitting beside him, spooning up his soup — how much longer in silence? — a single suppressed question imprinted in red spots on his gaunt cheeks. Jacob stares into his empty bowl, thinking. Perhaps it’s only a coincidence; funny coincidences do happen. How are you? would sound idiotic, he thinks. He carefully licks his spoon clean and puts it in his pocket. There’s no reason to get up yet; they still have a few minutes left on their break. The last men in line are just getting their soup. Putting his bowl aside he leans back, props himself on his hands, tilts his head back, and closes his eyes: to be a sentry for a few moments and enjoy the sun.

Kowalski stops eating; through his closed eyes Jacob can hear that his bowl is not yet empty; he hasn’t scraped the bottom yet. So Jacob can hear that Kowalski is looking at him. It can’t go on much longer; Kowalski just has to figure out how to begin.

“Any news?” he asks casually.

When Jacob looks at him he starts eating again, the ulterior motive still on his cheeks but his innocent eyes fixed on the soup. It sounds as if you’ve just entered his barbershop, sat down on the only chair facing the only mirror, while he shakes the black hairs of the previous customer from the cape and ties it around you — as always, much too tight. “Any news?” Mundek’s son has won his first court case; it looks as if he’s going to do well, but that’s no longer news, Hübscher was talking about it yesterday. But what you don’t know yet: Kvart’s wife has left him, no one knows where she’s gone, but then no normal person can get along with Kvart. It sounds so familiar that Jacob feels tempted to say: “Not as short in the back as last time, please.”

“Well?” Kowalski asks, his eyes threatening to drown in the soup.

“What do you mean, news?” says Jacob. “Why ask
me?”

Kowalski raises his face toward Jacob, that fox’s face that is like an open book. He turns it toward Jacob with an expression of mild reproach, of some understanding of Jacob’s caution, and the implication that in this particular case caution might well be considered misplaced.

“Jacob! … Aren’t we old friends?”

“What’s that got to do with it?” says Jacob. He’s not sure whether his attempt to play dumb is convincing; after all, Kowalski has known him a long time. And he can imagine that basically it doesn’t much matter whether he’s convincing or not: if Kowalski knows something, no acting talent in the world is going to help. If Kowalski knows something, he won’t let go; he can hound you almost to death.

Moving a little closer, Kowalski lets his spoon float in the soup and grabs Jacob’s arm with his free hand to prevent him getting away.

“All right then, let’s speak plainly.” Lowering his voice to the level at which secrets are discussed, he whispers, “Is it true about the Russians?”

Jacob is shocked at the tone. Not at the whispering: people whisper on all sorts of occasions, that doesn’t frighten him. He is shocked at the seriousness; he can see that it’s not going to be a picnic, nothing to be taken lightly; he is shocked at the quaver in Kowalski’s voice. It holds an expectation that will not tolerate ridicule; certainty is demanded here. A man is asking — a man who wants only this one question answered, and there’s no escape — just this one question, nothing else, for all time. And yet Jacob makes one last, vain attempt.

“About what Russians?”

“About what Russians! Do you have to insult me like that, Jacob? Have I ever done you any harm? Remember, Jacob, remember who’s sitting beside you! The whole world knows he has a radio, and to me, his only, his best friend, he refuses to tell anything!”

“The whole world knows?”

Kowalski backs down. “Not exactly the whole world, but one or two people do know about it. Has someone told me, or do I have second sight?”

In Jacob’s head, one annoyance displaces the other. Kowalski is upstaged by Mischa: that blabbermouth is going to land him in an impossible situation. Suddenly it is no longer necessary to take Mischa aside for a correction — totally superfluous. The fire can no longer be contained — who knows how many others would now have to be taken aside! And even if he were to try his best with every single one of them, try with the patience of an angel to explain to each individual the crazy route by which the glorious news has fluttered into the ghetto, into their very ears, what else could they do but not believe him, with all due respect and much sympathy for his situation? Or does anyone seriously believe that Kowalski could afford to be fobbed off with a story so manifestly full of holes?

“Well?”

“It’s true about the Russians,” says Jacob. “And now stop bothering me.”

“Are they twelve miles from Bezanika?” Jacob rolls his eyes and says, “Yes!”

He gets to his feet: that’s how they sour one’s joy, yet Kowalski is as entitled to it as all the rest of them. He would give anything for Kowalski to have been spotted by the sentry on the Kurländischer Damm, Kowalski or anyone else. What on earth made him go there? All good citizens are in bed, but at that dark hour he has to roam the streets because the walls of his room are closing in on him, because once again Piwowa and Rosenblatt have become unbearable, because a stroll after work seems to bring a strange, faint whiff of normal times. A stroll in a town you know, have known since they used to sit you up in your baby carnage with a pillow at your back. The buildings tell you about almost forgotten trifles: over there you once fell down and sprained your left ankle, at this corner you finally told Gideon the truth to his face, in that building there was once a fire in the middle of winter. A longed-for whiff of normal times, that’s what he had promised himself; he hadn’t been able to enjoy it for long, and now this.