Judenstaat (23 page)

“You haven't eaten,” Bondi said. “You haven't slept. You need to go back home and let your mother cook you something. Clear your head.”

“I will not clear my head,” Judit said. “This isn't what I signed on for.”

“It's not a fabrication,” Bondi said. The awful part was that Judit believed him. As though to seal the matter, he took her hand. “What do you want?”

“I want to meet him.”

“How much do you want to meet him?” He put her hand somewhere else.

The game they were playing cut against the grain of her integrity, and also his. She wanted to cry or wanted to laugh. They passed an hour letting things take their course, and afterwards, she felt so spent and lost that she pulled herself up and said, “That didn't clear my head, Joseph. I don't think anything will clear my head.”

He acknowledged what she said by lying on his back and closing his eyes. His profile was very beautiful, his face so peaceful that Judit envied him. He said, “You could do it, you know.”

“Do what?”

“Meet Stein,” Bondi said. “Why not? It could be arranged. But not before the film opens. Time is too short.”

The documentary would premiere in three weeks at a special screening in Parliament. The press would be there, and of course Judit was invited. She'd already received the invitation, an envelope inside an envelope that her mother propped against a salt shaker on the kitchen table. The stock of the paper was so thick that it could almost stand by itself. Judit said to Bondi, “I'm not the only one who'll want to see him. Wouldn't anyone? Wouldn't you?”

Bondi shook his head. “An old man, a man who's been dying for thirty-five years, who doesn't know when to die, that doesn't interest me.”

“It interests me,” said Judit.

He rolled over and surprised her by kissing her. The kiss was a tender one. “You interest me,” he said. He rolled back and closed his eyes. “We could take a trip after this is over. Surely, you've earned a vacation. I have time owed me. There's a spa. Mineral baths, that sort of thing. Bad Muskau. Right on the Polish border.”

“Something to look forward to,” said Judit.

“Don't sound so enthusiastic,” Bondi said, and then he laughed. “No, really, I can make arrangements through my office. It'll be off-season, so it won't be too crowded. I'll lease a car. It's a very pretty drive.” He added, “Why don't you invite your mother?”

“You're joking,” Judit said. “I don't think I ever heard you tell a joke before.”

“Maybe you have,” said Bondi. “Maybe you just didn't get the joke.”

“Maybe I didn't,” Judit said. She gathered her things and dressed. “I do believe you, Joseph. What choice do I have? But if he's there—” She hesitated, and then added, “When I meet him, I want to ask him certain things directly. About the years after the war. And what happened when he went to Stalin's funeral. He's an important witness.”

“That's up to you,” Bondi said. “I hear he's more than ready to field questions. He's a lonely old man.”

 

5

THESE
days, Judit was never sure what time it was. There was something animal about her habits now, eating when she was hungry, sleeping when she felt the need, traveling to that room in Johannstadt when her body told her it was necessary. Most often, she arrived there first, but she never had to wait for long. She'd look out the window at the milling black-hat schoolgirls who would cross to buy an ice cream at the dairy restaurant. She'd doze on the bed, and sometimes flip through the shelf of Yiddish books—mostly devotional material, but also a few surprises like a volume of poetry by Peretz Markish, a tattered German-Yiddish dictionary, and a notebook where someone had practiced writing Hebrew characters in neat columns like a schoolboy. The man who ran the restaurant must have had a system for contacting Bondi because he'd be there soon enough and lay his own heavy coat next to her new cashmere one. Then he would undress her.

No one in the office commented on Judit's midday disappearances, not even Sammy Gluck, but when she returned by taxi one afternoon, Mr. Rosenblatt rushed towards her. He laid a hand on her arm.

“You're needed out back right away.” He was out of breath. “There's a car—a driver's been waiting for two hours, a big Volvo.”

“I'm not expecting anyone,” Judit said. “I have work to do.” Then she took another look at the poor man's face and said, “Well, what does he want?”

“They want to take you to lunch,” said Mr. Rosenblatt. It was three o'clock.

“I've had lunch.”

“Mrs. Klemmer. Judi. Just humor me,” Mr. Rosenblatt said. “Go around the back. Then you'll understand.” He pretty much dragged her to the side of the building, and there was the car he'd described, a black Volvo with tinted windows and a government license plate, sitting in the space intended for delivery trucks. Its motor was running, and its hazard lights were on. Mr. Rosenblatt whispered to her, “Two hours, it's been like that. Can you imagine the waste of fuel?” Judit broke away and approached, and as she did, the back window rolled silently down. She recognized a shape more than a face, but knew it was Professor Lehmann.

The identity was confirmed when Lehmann's voice emerged. “Well? Where were you, child? At playtime?”

From the depths, a bass voice, faintly recognizable. “She's a player? Good!”

The driver stepped out, and with blank-faced efficiency, opened the door for Judit. She looked back over her shoulder at Mr. Rosenblatt, who watched with awe and relief, and then she steeled herself and got inside. The interior was so smoky and chaotic that her first instinct was to get right out again.

Then she was drawn towards something all the more smoky, perfumed and damp. Anna Lehmann was giving her a grandmotherly kiss on the cheek. Judit pulled back and caught her breath.

The cabin of the car was enormous. Two long, plush seats faced each other, and a table in the center was covered with ashtrays, bowls of candy and their wrappers, and a lot of opened envelopes and scattered papers. Lehmann took up most of one seat, and once Judit recovered from that kiss, she addressed her.

“You clean up very well, dear,” Lehmann said. “Good thing, too. You know, appearances do matter, in surprising ways.” Lehmann drew her own hand to her breast, which was encased in a thick boiled-wool cloak secured by a pearl brooch. “I let Helena dress me these days.” In case Judit hadn't followed, she said, “The prime minister, of course.”

By now, the car was moving, but Judit felt compelled to say, “Professor, I have to get upstairs. The final cut is due next week, and I can't afford the time right now—”

“That didn't stop you earlier, young lady,” Lehmann said. She pushed the clutter out of the way and reached for Judit's hand. “So,” she said. “Relax. Work can always wait. When you're my age, you realize there's time enough in life for both business and pleasure.”

“Where are we going?” Judit asked.

“Fish restaurant,” the other passenger said, and then she realized he was next to her on the other end of the enormous seat, a very old man whose battered face was topped by an elaborate gray pompadour that looked shellacked. He was nattily dressed, and he balanced a cane between his knees. “Best restaurant in the country. Missed lunch hour, but that's no problem. They'll do something up specially. Don't worry about the wait, kid. Always plenty to talk about with Anna, as you know.”

“You two haven't been introduced,” Lehmann said. Judit realized who the man was and felt yet another impulse to jump out of the car. “Anton Steinsaltz, Judit Klemmer, née Ginsberg, editor of the anniversary documentary, and, I'm proud to say, my former student.”

Steinsaltz grinned. His teeth were strong and yellow. His eyes looked young and crafty in his ancient face. “I'll bet you were the teacher's pet.”

“Oh, stop it!” Lehmann said, and she reached across the table to give him a playful slap. Through the open window, Judit would see the familiar landmarks—the bridge, the Yenidze, the very outskirts of Dresden. She genuinely did have work to do, piles of it, and her body was still smarting and reverberating in all kinds of ways from her time with Bondi, which made her feel even more displaced and vulnerable. Worse, Steinsaltz seemed to smell the sex on her like catnip, and he leaned deliberately over her to roll the window up.

“More privacy,” he said. “And of course, the glass is bulletproof.”

“Oh, who'd shoot you, you old pussycat!” Professor Lehmann said.

Watching Anna Lehmann flirt with Anton Steinsaltz caused Judit pain, but she suppressed it. Judit asked her, “When did you get back from Moscow?”

“Gracious, child, weeks ago. Of course, I would have paid you a visit sooner, but Helena had other plans for me, you understand. I had to take a look at the proofs of that book. She's quite pedantic, really, wanted every source checked again and again so we could present full documentation. It was all terribly tedious. But it's a beautiful book, isn't it?”

“A historic document,” Steinsaltz said, with some formality.

“The important thing,” Lehmann said, “is that it's beautiful. And the film will be beautiful as well, both startling and beautiful. As I said, appearances do matter, Anton. That's why we have Ginsberg on the project.” As though to forestall misinterpretation, she added, “I mean because you have a fantastic visual sense, dear. And yes, I know, it's Klemmer now, isn't it.” She settled back into her seat, and the gray of her cloak melted into the upholstery. “Tragedy. Well that's beautiful too, tragedy, if you'll forgive my saying so. I think you will.”

*   *   *

The fish restaurant turned out to be thirty kilometers north of the city, on the Elbe, a hideous flying saucer of a place that Judit suspected was chosen because no one would think to find them there, though when the Volvo pulled in, the door was immediately opened by a valet, who gave Judit a gloved hand and helped her out. Then the valet stood by as two men struggled with Lehmann before at last readying Steinsaltz for his wheelchair.

“Sorry for the floorshow,” Steinsaltz said for Judit's benefit. “I think I've grown old, my dear.”

Now that Judit knew the man was Steinsaltz, she was stunned that she hadn't recognized him instantly. He looked more or less the same since she had first seen him address the country on television when he'd been appointed prime minister in 1960, when she wondered why their leader was such an ugly man.

Once they'd finally gotten settled at a table, Steinsaltz had to urinate, and those same handlers reappeared and spirited him away. Judit's relief was evident. Lehmann smiled and said, “Dear, you'll have to get used to a few of those dinosaurs. They're almost extinct, mind you, but then, when you look at a swallow, it can claim a dinosaur as its ancestor.”

Judit said, “It's hard to believe, even if it's true.”

As soon as she said it, she felt foolish, until Lehmann passed her the basket of rolls and added, “You can see them all along the walkway now that they nest under the bridge again. Messy, but it makes for a better atmosphere on the whole. Take a roll. Take more than one. I want to ask you, how do you like what I've sent you from Moscow?”

Judit said, “It's hard to believe, even if it's true.” Now, she didn't feel foolish. She felt giddy. Sitting across the deliberately rustic wooden table was Grandmother Professor without a doubt, lighting yet another cigarette and smiling through her smoke at her pet student. Even in this strange environment, Lehmann managed to create real intimacy. Judit knew she was being clever when she added, “My role seems to be making facts believable, at least as I understand it.”

Lehmann buttered her own roll, and she drank a little of the white wine that the waiter offered. Then she leaned in closer. She still wore that strange over-dark lipstick, and maybe Prime Minister Sokolov dressed her now, but as she lapsed into her role as Grandmother Professor, even the new clothes turned into wallpaper from which her pale, broad face projected the old, wise cynicism. “Dear,” she said, “I have to say something before Anton returns. I'm quite impressed with your work. I've followed it since you left Leipzig, as I'm sure you are aware. But I did take the liberty of looking at some of what you sent up to Oscar. And I noticed a certain fixation.” She paused and dropped her voice. “I think you know what I mean.”

“You mean Leopold Stein?” Judit said. “You knew he was alive all this time, didn't you?”

“That's hardly who I mean,” Lehmann said. Then, with effort, she moved her chair closer until it actually touched Judit's, and said, “Now Stephen Weiss is not irrelevant. Far from it. No more than Birobidjan or Palestine or Uganda. In fact, he's fascinating. But you mustn't let yourself be pulled in. He holds a lesson for us, and as is the case with all failed experiments, the lesson is corrective.”

Judit felt her skin against her blouse and jacket. She said, “None of that's in the film, Professor.”

“Yet he still haunts you, doesn't he? Of course. Why not? He's in the air. It's a common error,” Lehmann said, “to confuse cosmopolitanism with globalization. And this is a global age, my dear, as we both know. Weiss was no pragmatist.”

Now, in a low voice, willing herself not to look over her shoulder, Judit asked, “What was Weiss then?”

“See? You want to know, don't you? It's really rather simple. Weiss was a mystic. All Cosmopolitans are mystics. They don't believe in global capital. They believe in something else.”

“What do they believe in?” Judit asked under her breath, and Lehmann quickly replied:

“You should know. You married one, didn't you?” Then she added, “That new young man of yours might answer as well, I think. Goodness, what a fixation!” She actually laughed then, a strange sound Judit seldom heard, almost like indigestion. “I suppose you've read the manifesto. No? Perhaps it's time for me to send you a copy.”