Jewels and Ashes (3 page)

Alongside Yankel, to the right, is a photo with the caption: A Bialystoker urchin from the Chanaykes'. Wrapped in a ragged overcoat, he leans against a timber door, clutching a cigarette to his mouth. He squints at the camera defiantly from beneath a peaked cap that perches crookedly on his head — a little rascal from the alleys of the neighbourhood where my mother once lived.

On the lower half of the page there are three passport-size photos. One of them remains as sinister today as it appeared when I first saw it and began to realise that, at a certain point, the romance wore thin and there were darker forces that could obliterate it. On the face of the ‘Boy Layser', we are informed, the anti-Semite Dr Granowski had burned the words ‘ganev', ‘dieb', and ‘wor' — all meaning ‘thief'. The words can be seen clearly, tattooed several inches high, one plastered across the forehead, one etched into each cheek. This incident took place in 1888. Almost a century later the face of Layser stares out, frozen and trapped within a square-inch prison that bears witness to the day he had been irreversibly branded and bound to his fate.

For relief from the intensity of Layser's gaze, I would turn my attention to the photo of Faivel Lilliput. A turban wrapped around his head, a white robe draped over his shoulders, a hand held against his chest in a Napoleonic gesture — Faivel was a dwarf, a circus performer, and a distributor of theatre placards throughout Bialystok.

I knew Faivel. In the 1950s he resurfaced in Melbourne. His inflated head, muscular shoulders, and rolling gait were a familiar sight. He seemed to be everywhere: a jester at weddings; a guest at circumcisions; a mourner at funerals; an odd-job man in the run-down houses of newly arrived immigrants. He loved to play pranks and always put aside time to play with us, the children, as we darted about the communal functions that our parents often attended. He played with the abandon of someone who had long ago resigned himself to having no children of his own. And besides, he was our size, and saw the world from our perspective. He taught us how to mimic the gestures and antics of the grown-ups who towered above us, and to caricature their endless speeches. As my father used to say of him: even where he is not sown, he also manages to grow.

The fifth image is of an elderly man, balding at the temples, his beard neatly trimmed. He wears a white shirt, tie, and black jacket. The most striking family resemblance can be seen in the ears. I hated having the short-back-and-sides haircuts that were forced upon me as a child, because they exposed my big ears and made me look like a monkey. The fifth ‘memorable character' in the honoured company of Yankel the Organ-Grinder, the Urchin from the Slums, Faivel Lilliput the Circus Dwarf, and the Tattooed Boy Layser, is my paternal grandfather, Bishke Zabludowski — who, as the caption informs us, was the first newsboy in Bialystok and ‘disseminated culture for over forty years'.

When Bialystoker gathered at parties and concerts I would be introduced as the grandson of Bishke Zabludowski. ‘We all knew him', they would say. ‘A small man, with a red beard. He stood under the clock-tower, with piles of newspapers and journals. He was a familiar sight, trotting to and from his news-stand bent under the latest edition, his big ears sticking out to the sides.' And they would lean over to tweak my ears, while I squirmed and wriggled to get away from my tormentors.

Bishke Zabludowski: the bearer of news, town crier, raconteur, contact man, his big ears tuned in to gossip both local and from abroad, a familiar figure, one of the most memorable sights in the streets of Bialystok. In the grand tradition, he was a true master of the ephemeral.

In the weeks before my departure I have a recurring dream, the same fragments repeated with slight variations, each one suffused with a similar feeling of unease.

I am travelling through a town. Friends who live there have invited me to inspect the offices of the security police. When we reach the entrance of the towering grey building I become anxious, and refuse to enter with them. After they emerge from the building some time later, they tell me it has been an interesting experience and that there is nothing to fear. Since the doors are still open I cannot resist the temptation and I enter.

There appears to be no one in sight as I descend the stairs. In the basement there is a man seated behind a desk. ‘You have come too late', he informs me. There is still time for me to leave as easily as I have entered, and to ascend the stairs back into daylight. Yet I linger on, my curiosity aroused.

Unexpectedly, I am approached by several burly men who exude a sense of menace and brute strength. They escort me to a lower basement in which there are a number of interrogators seated behind a long table. Opened out in front of them are files within folders. They seem to know who I am. I realise now there is no escape; I am trapped in a cellar, hemmed in by guards. My inquisitors ask questions without a trace of feeling. They are clinical, detached. They want to know why I have come here, and it is clear they are not about to let me go.

Later I find myself in a prison cell. The guard is harsh and hostile. I envy him because, when he finishes work, he can go out into the sunlight while I will still be confined in a dark cell. I am overcome by a feeling of panic. Yet there is one saving grace. 1 have in my possession a large volume of stories about the Tzaddikim, the early Hasidic masters who, in the darkest of times, counselled their communities and tried to show them a way back to the light, to the source of Creation. I look forward to immersing myself in this book as a means of passing time and deriving some comfort while I am imprisoned. But on closer inspection I realise the book is moth-eaten, and that some of my fellow inmates have ripped out pages to use as cigarette paper.

I become aware that someone has smuggled themselves into the cell. It is a man who, in childhood, I used to know as the Partisan. He was a family friend who often visited us on Sunday afternoons. During the war years he had roamed the forests near Bialystok and fought in the Resistance. Many times he had narrowly escaped death and, eventually, in the wake of the Annihilation, he had made his way to Australia.

He passes me a note on which there are instructions about how to escape. But I cannot quite decipher the scribbled message.

CHAPTER TWO

THE BEIJING-MOSCOW EXPRESS hurtles northwards across the plains of Manchuria. Villages of clay cottages give way to grasslands grazing sheep, cattle, and horses. The cities of Harbin and Shenyang loom above swamps and flooded fields; high-rise complexes emerge from barren wastelands. As we cross a river that threads through central Harbin I glimpse a solitary strip of sand, an inland beach basking under a mild sun. Hundreds of bathers cling to this patch of sand: some spill out into the shallows and others burst beyond the pack, as if freeing themselves to swim alone and undisturbed. Waves ripple back to the shores from the wake of boats, while in the distance burn the flames of industry, modern-day infernos, fuelling a city that has for centuries oscillated between rival empires.

As we move I read a photocopy of my father's life story. It is handwritten in Yiddish, a lifetime telescoped into twenty pages of foolscap, eighty years at a glimpse, lived out in two halves, within two continents on opposite sides of the globe. Father had written it at my request, just days before my departure:

I was born in the city of Bialystok, Poland, although at that time, December 4th, 1905, it was a part of Czarist Russia. On the Jewish calendar it was the 23rd of Kislev, the 3rd day of Channukah in the year 5666. Bialystok began as a village which stood beside a rivulet called the Biale. The village belonged to a Count Branitski, and indeed, there was a Palace Branitski set within lavish gardens enclosed behind walls of stone and gates of steel…

Bialystok is thousands of miles to the west, a journey of eight days and nights by Trans-Siberian train. I read father's manuscript carefully — not only because I am on the way to the landscapes of his youth, but also because tomorrow at dawn we are scheduled to arrive at the Soviet border. Travellers I met in Beijing had warned me of the thorough searches that take place at this border. The territory we are approaching is linked within me to a deeply rooted suspicion; only now, on the eve of arrival, do I realise how strongly ingrained it is. Word associations emerge and impose themselves on the countryside rushing towards me — exile, prison camp, pogrom, interrogation: fragments of family legends and communal remembrances. It is an ancient fear, handed down through many generations, lying dormant and liable to be triggered off unexpectedly. Perhaps the Yiddish script of father's writing will arouse the suspicions of border police.

Towards evening we move past wetlands. Herons, coots, ducks, and rowing boats glide between thick clumps of wild grass and emerge occasionally into clearings where boatmen are harvesting reeds. Horses wade through muddy streams; a boy leads a bull along a dirt track; men on horseback drive a flock of sheep.

At Zhanlitan station I have my last view of China before nightfall. On the platform there are potplants, shrubs, flowers — an oasis of greenery. Several flower beds have been sculpted into Chinese characters, with slogans that proclaim: ‘Let the Trains serve the People and the Motherland'. One slogan, however, seems to have escaped the straitjacket of ideology and offers a true sense of welcome: ‘Let the People's Hearts be at Ease', it advises. Several hours later, while the passengers are asleep, I tear father's manuscript to shreds and fling it into the darkness.

Dawn in no man's land: a desolate flat stretch lit up by an amber glow which has wiped out all trace of night and ushered in an eerie silence. Passengers stand in the corridors and look through windows at a slow-motion ballet. Soldiers move along the tracks with dogs on leashes. Customs officials and military police board the snail-paced train to begin their inspection. There is a bond of sorts between us, the passengers. At this moment we are united by a shared apprehension. Will we run the gauntlet successfully? Will we be allowed safe passage? Everyone seems to be under the same spell, cast by the raw face of power that confronts us at the border of a closely guarded empire.

A young officer in knee-high leather boots and a crisp khaki uniform emerges from the mist, climbs the steps into our carriage, strides down the corridor, and orders out those who have remained seated in their compartments. He is accompanied by a teenage soldier whom he sends into the emptied compartments as one would send in a dog to pick up a scent. The soldier moves quickly — poking a torch under the seats, rummaging in every possible hiding place, his eyes darting in all directions.

The preliminary search over, the officer enters my compartment and motions to me, indicating that I should come in from the corridor and place my luggage in front of him. He goes through the contents of my bags slowly, meticulously, with a cold and clinical detachment. I try to find a point of contact, a glimmer of just the slightest warmth. The officer is completely unmoved. He pays particular attention to my diaries and books. Each one is handed to an official who scans them, putting two aside for closer inspection elsewhere.

The search is relentless. The seats are littered with my clothes, toiletries, intimacies. Fellow passengers stand passively in the corridors, some glancing casually in my direction. But for the most part they are distant. We no longer share a common bond of apprehension. They are now in another category, relieved to have been spared this ordeal, their passports approved and stamped. I am now apart, a suspect, an outsider.

So this is how it is when we are placed in situations of complete powerlessness. Most of us keep quiet, it seems, lest we unnecessarily draw attention to ourselves. An instinct informs us: remain invisible, avoid eye-contact, keep out of the way. And those who hold the reins of power, they know that in their hands lies the capacity to determine the fate of others. It is a lethal pantomime that has been repeated for millennia.

And another thought occurs during this interminable search: why was I the one, out of so many, singled out for such a thorough inspection? Was it because of a deeper anxiety? Did I give off the scent of an ancestral fear, the sort of scent which induces dogs to attack?

A day which dawned in one empire, within an amber mist hovering over a black wasteland, ends seventeen hours later on a train moving west through another empire. The search is over, the threat and menace gone, at least temporarily, and I am exuberant, set free to ride the landscape of my childhood imaginings.

Night becomes day, merges with night, and becomes one endless movement across Siberia. Black-clad babushkas, their hair tucked under brightly coloured kerchiefs, line the rails as we approach stations. They sell pickled cucumbers, boiled potatoes, blueberries, and salads from an array of makeshift tables and containers — from buckets, upturned boxes, wagons, and steel drums.

In the diner we are served by a plump woman. Her greying hair is tied back in a bun; her eyes are shrewd and watchful, yet always on the brink of a bemused smile. She is a no-nonsense woman who rushes from table to table, scolding and fussing over us, while exuding a maternal benevolence that inspires a childlike trust. It is as if we are in a warm kitchen, snug and protected from the alien terrain now veiled in darkness outside our moving household. It is a time for strangers to tell their tales, to spill out life stories and dreams while babushka feeds us beetroot borscht, beef and noodles, soup swimming with vegetables, and pieces of fish laced with sour cream. There is cherry compote for dessert and vodka with which to wash down our meals. The warmth spreads and envelops us; the light appears to grow brighter, our stories more fantastic and exaggerated, while occasionally we catch sober glimpses of dark forests, mist-laden fields, and the distant twinkle of a village huddling against the Siberian night.

The waitress is our protectress, our very own babushka — so unlike the witch that stood against a dark corner in the passage of the house I grew up in. We would creep towards her, three small children chanting:
‘Eins a zeiger die babushka shloft, zwei a zeiger die babushka shloft'
— one o'clock the babushka sleeps, two o'clock … Closer and closer we would come, our hearts pounding, our bodies tensing, daring ourselves to come within arm's length of the slumbering witch as we neared midnight; suddenly, she would turn on us from the shadows and chase us the length of the house, along the passage, through the living room, into the kitchen, and out to the backyard. We ran in fright and joy, laughing, falling over each other, sidestepping and dodging, pursued by the menacing babushka. It was one of the few times in early childhood that I clearly recall seeing the playful side of father.