The Mascot (32 page)

One night I woke with a start. For a moment, as I lay in my bed, the house was quiet. I rose and tiptoed down the hallway. The door to my father's bedroom was open. The room was dark. I softly called his name, but there was no reply. I continued toward the kitchen, where I could see light coming from under the closed door. I gently opened it, just a fraction. My father was sitting at the table with his head in his hands. He was utterly still and was so absorbed in his thoughts that he had not heard me. I opened the door farther.

“Dad?” I whispered.

He gave a slight jump and turned toward me.

“Another nightmare?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Recall any of it?”

He shook his head. “But a memory came to me the instant that I woke up. In fact, I wasn't sure if I was awake or not.” He laughed darkly.

My mother suddenly appeared in the doorway and stayed, listening.

“For a moment I was back in the town where the synagogue had been set on fire with all those poor people inside. But this time everything was more vivid.”

My father stopped speaking and screwed up his eyes as if to avoid seeing what was in his memory.

“I could see the expressions on people's faces, the little children. And the cries as people burned. I can hear the screams even now as they clawed at the burning doors trying to get out. And then the silence that followed, apart from the sound of the wood crackling, I can still hear that, if that makes sense.”

For an instant my father seemed to struggle for breath, as if he, too, were being immolated inside the synagogue, deprived of oxygen.

“And there were other flashes of images. Men and women stripped naked and shot in the back of the head. I think that happened on that same day. I thought that it had gone from me, as you said, that I'd blocked it out, but there's no escape from it this time. It's like a film that plays itself over and over, and I cannot control it. Now that I remember I will never forget it…”

My father was silent for several minutes and then he seemed visibly to gather his spirit together.

“You still don't know where and when this was?” I ventured.

My father shook his head despondently. “I want to remember,” he said reflectively, “but not this. This is madness.”

I turned to my mother, who was still standing in the doorway. She was weeping quietly.

The strain of nights such as these eventually made it difficult to maintain even false cheer.

But the dreams were not always alarming. Ever since we found Koidanov, my father had gone through phases of excitability that opened up more pleasant and nostalgic memories and dreams of life in his village. Yet even then he sometimes found himself traumatized by a growing sense of what he had lost, and a growing bewilderment over why he alone had survived.

One night I made my way to the kitchen, where I found my father standing by the sink, waiting for the kettle to boil. He was staring at his own reflection in the kitchen window, and he must have heard me enter because he didn't startle as I came up behind him.

As I came closer, I realized that he was not staring at himself but outside. “Dad?” I whispered.

He raised his hand in the air, indicating that I should be quiet.

I waited expectantly and suddenly he spoke, or rather exclaimed, “An apple tree! I've just had a dream about one. It's jolted my memory. There was an apple tree in our back garden. I'd always be climbing it, playing in it, picking apples for my mother.”

My father was elated. “I can see my hands in front of me,” he continued, “trying to get a grip on the trunk as I climb it. Then suddenly I am in a fork of the tree and looking down through the branches and leaves to the earth, which seems miles below me.

“My mother is down there, looking up at me. I'm reaching out and plucking apples and then tossing them down to her. She catches some in her apron, but she misses others, which roll on the ground.”

I noticed that my father was recounting his dream to me in the present tense, as if it were happening at this moment, as if he had returned to a past more vivid and real to him than the moment I shared with him.

“I can see her lips breaking into a smile and then she laughs as her apron begins to overflow with apples. She is calling out to me ‘Enough! Enough!' But the eerie thing is that I can't hear her voice. I've no idea of how it sounds. Then she calls out my name, but again I cannot hear her. And, worst of all, I am looking at her face, but I can't see her features. They will not crystallize for me.

“I look away for a moment. Something has distracted me.”

My father gripped my forearm tightly. “It's below me and slightly to the left,” he said. “It's a shed and a man is moving about inside. I can't get a clear view of what he's doing.”

My father moved his head to one side as if trying to get a clearer view into the shed.

“Wait!” he exclaimed, raising his hand to silence me before I had even uttered a word. “The man has heard my mother's and my laughter and he's come to the doorway. He's looking up at me. It's my father, Mark,” my father said excitedly. “My father!”

“Can you see his face?”

“No. He's gone. He's turned away. But I can see inside the shed now. Skins! Skins of animals. They are hanging behind him. These are what he works with. He makes things out of them. People come to the shed to buy things from him. He must be a shoemaker or tanner of some sort.

“The dream didn't end there. Suddenly I was flying. I soared high into the sky so that I could see all the houses in my street. I caught sight of the house with the apple tree and the shed. It was wooden and there was a drive running alongside it, wide enough for a cart. I know that this house is where I lived.

“I descended like an angel so that I hovered just above the height of the roofs. I could see people—ordinary-looking village people, not dressed fancily or anything—walking, chatting with each other, and going about their business. But again it is deadly quiet.

“I wanted to look at their faces but I couldn't. I could only see the tops of their heads. But I'm certain I knew them.

“I had no control over my flight and suddenly I was back in the tree…”

My father rubbed his eyes as if he had only just now roused himself from his dream. His sadness was palpable.

I began to question him, hoping that he would remember more, even if only a single signpost that might help us both. My concern frustrated him.

“No,” he sighed wearily, “I didn't see the name of the street I was on.”

He gripped his head in his hands.

“Or the town or what country it was,” he added.

“It was a town?”

“I don't know,” he said tetchily. “I don't even know if the place was large or small. It seemed small but that was because I was high in the sky.”

He paused for an instant.

“But I'm absolutely certain that I would recognize the house and the area if I ever came across it.”

I was concerned. Was this simply a dream in which he had imagined how his life might have been? Or had sleep itself triggered a real memory of his past?

“I wonder if we'll find it in Koidanov…” I ventured.

My father didn't respond at first. He was lost in thought.

“I associate the tree with happiness. I climbed it all the time. That's where I played with my friends as well.” My father smiled.

I was grateful for his expression. I wanted him to recapture some sense of happiness, however tenuous.

“We'll have to wait and see what comes of the letter to Minsk,” my father said soberly, “before we can solve the mystery of this dream.”

He was right. Hard footwork alone would help us uncover the enigma of Koidanov.

Whenever Alice visited us during these weeks she, too, would quickly succumb to the solemnity that had pervaded the house. She would sit slightly hunched and frowning at the kitchen table, rolling herself cigarette after cigarette as my father recounted each and every memory that had come to him the night before.

She was galvanized by even the slightest of his recollections: she would fix him with her shrewdly observant gaze and pat his hand gently as he spoke.

My father told her about the dream of his home.

“We must send these details off to Frida Reizman immediately,” she said. “Who knows? With some luck…”

I voiced my concern. “Those little bits won't give an investigator much to go on. It could be any apple tree in any village anywhere. How many houses in Russia have apple trees in their back gardens?”

“You stay the pessimist,” she replied. “I'm sending a telegram to Frida Reizman with news of the apple tree and the man who might have been a tanner.”

Alice stubbed out the cigarette she'd been enjoying and placed its remains back in her tobacco pouch.

I
t had been more than six weeks since the letter and the follow-up telegram had been sent to Frida Reizman in Minsk.

One Saturday afternoon my parents and I were in Scheherazade when my father's cell phone rang. He pushed the answer button with his stubby, arthritic fingers.

“Yes?” he said. His face reddened suddenly.

“Truly?” he said excitedly. “We're in your neighborhood now. The usual spot. Okay, see you soon.” My father signed off.

“Alice,” he said. “She sounded breathless. She wants us to stay put. News from Minsk.”

Suddenly he seemed more apprehensive than excited. We sat in silence waiting for Alice. My father fidgeted with his phone while opposite me my mother tapped her fingers lightly on the table, staring into space.

Finally, Alice appeared at the glass door, grinning. She hobbled across to us and, before she'd even sat down, slapped a piece of paper down on the table.

“A telegram,” she announced with finality. “From Minsk.”

We each read it slowly, absorbing its few words.

“Regarding the man from Koidanov with the unusual fate. A possible family member living in Minsk. A letter to Alex Kurzem will follow.”

“Who have they found?” I exclaimed. “Who exactly? A cousin? An aunt? Who?”

My mother was slightly vexed too. “She should've included more information rather than leave us on tenterhooks like this.”

Alice nodded in agreement.

Typically, my father was the most pragmatic among us. “We'll just have to be patient,” he said stoically. “One step at a time.”

“Good God, Alex!” my mother said. “Don't you want to know as soon as possible?”

“It says ‘possible family member,'” he replied, reaching for the telegram. “As I said, all in good time.”

My mother and I rolled our eyes in frustration, but we both knew that my father was grateful for any delay allowing him to brace himself for whatever came to light.

A week later, just after my father had left the house on a repair job, the postman delivered a letter from Minsk.

“Should we open it?” I asked.

“Keep your shirt on,” my mother said, gripping the letter tightly. “Your father will be back shortly.”

But I could tell that she was as anxious and excited as I was.

We were in the kitchen when we heard my father come in.

“The mail is on the coffee table, luv,” my mother called out.

There was silence in the next room for several moments before my father joined us. He held the envelope aloft.

“From Minsk,” he said. “I guess you know that already.”

My mother and I waited with bated breath, like excited school-children, as my father fumbled with the envelope for several seconds before giving up.

“Here,” he said, thrusting it at me. “Read it to Mum and me.”

I objected. I thought he should be the very first to lay eyes on its content.

“But I can't find my reading glasses,” he protested, pretending to look for them. “Where did I put them?”

I was sure that he was stalling.

“I need a cup of tea,” he said, turning to my mother.

My mother hastily prepared tea and brought it over to him.

“Are you ready now?” I asked, reaching into the envelope.

“No,” he said. “One more thing. I must let Alice know at once.” He reached for the phone.

“Just a message for you, Alice,” he said. “Come over as soon as you can. A letter has come from Belarus.”

“We may as well get on with it,” I said, growing impatient.

When I tore open the envelope, something fluttered to the floor. It appeared to be a photograph. Before I could react, my father bent down and snapped it up, looked at it, and went deadly pale. He stuffed it into his shirt pocket without a word.

“What have you got there, luv?” my mother asked.

“Nothing important. I'll show you later.”

My father sat down and sipped his tea while my mother stood behind him, gripping the top of his chair, eager to hear the news.

I pulled out the letter and saw that it was written in Russian. We would have to wait for Alice to arrive. This time I called Alice's cell, and she picked up immediately.

“Yes,” she said. “I've heard your father's message. I'm already crossing the Westgate bridge. I'll be with you soon.”

I hung up and relayed the news of Alice's imminent arrival to my parents.

My father looked drained and decided to go to his room to rest.

“But Alice'll be here any moment,” I protested.

“Don't worry,” he replied. “I'll listen for her old bomb.”

My mother and I waited for Alice in the kitchen. Soon we heard the telltale rattle and bang of her car as it turned into our driveway. Moments later I heard my father greet Alice as he let her in.

“What's up?” I heard her reply as she hobbled into the kitchen. For an instant I was startled by her appearance: she could have easily passed for an eccentric private detective. She looked slightly disheveled in her raincoat and carried an oversized tote bag; a lit cigarette drooped from the corner of her mouth. For an added touch of eccentricity—deliberate or not, I am uncertain—she wore a large black fedora with a yellow feather tucked into its silk band.

Taking a long drag on her cigarette, Alice began to translate in a quiet voice.

“‘Dear Alex Kurzem. It is an act of G-D that has brought you to us in Minsk.

“‘My name is Frida Reizman. I am a historian at the Holocaust research center here.

“‘One morning, three weeks ago, I was at my desk at the center, reading through the manuscript of my book, when there was a knock at the door. It was a letter for me.'”

“Only three weeks ago?” my father interrupted. “That took some time to reach her.” Alice shushed him and continued.

“‘I opened the letter and soon I couldn't believe what I was reading with my own eyes. When I had finished learning your remarkable story, I had to sit and think about it for some time.

“‘Suddenly there was another knock at the door. It was my printer-publisher, Mr. Erick Galperin, with a printout of my book. Erick and I got down to business. After a while, we took a break. I had only recently become acquainted with Erick but had to tell somebody about your extraordinary letter.

“‘I told him that a man from Australia was searching for his identity. He remembered two words that might be clues, Koidanov and…before I could say another word, Erick interrupted me. “Koidanov?” he said, surprised. “I was born there! My family were from there.” We were both truly amazed by this coincidence.

“‘Erick's father's family all perished in the liquidation in Koidanov, and he was moved by your terrible fate and the fact that your family may have died alongside his own father's original family, and, worst of all, may share the same grave.

“‘Before the war Koidanov was not much bigger than a village. So if you were from Koidanov, Erick believes that your family may have known his father's first family. They might have been neighbors or visitors to each other's homes.

“‘According to Erick, if you were about five when the massacre happened, then you may have even known Erick's father's three children who died that day. His father's eldest was a boy about the same age. Ilya Solomonovich was his name. Who knows, perhaps you and Ilya played together when you were young. You may have been best friends.

“‘I told Erick not to be too hopeful. But still, you never know, do you?

“‘Then I told Erick about the second word, Panok. Erick thought he had heard this word, but he could not remember where.

“‘Erick wanted to know more about your family, and the only other thing I could tell him was that your father might have been a tanner. It was good fortune that Alice sent the telegram with the extra details…'”

Alice gave me a look of vindication.

“See,” she said. “I told you every little bit helps.”

I raised my hands in surrender.

Alice adjusted the reading glasses on the end of her long nose.

“Now, where was I?” she said. She began to read again.

“‘Again Erick interrupted me. He was surprised because his father, Solomon, was a tanner, too, who repaired shoes. Koidanov was a small place. It barely needed two tanners. Your fathers must have known each other, even if they were in competition.'”

“True,” my father interrupted. “Surely they knew each other.”

“Listen to this!” Alice said. “According to Erick, Solomon had a workshop next to his home, where he worked on the skins.”

Alice peered over the rim of her glasses. “Just like the little shed next to your house…”

“That's right!”

Alice put the letter down. My father's expression was a mixture of shock and pleasure.

“Shall I go on?” Alice asked.

“Please.”

Alice brought the letter closer to her eyes. “‘Erick had the idea of sending a photo of his father to you,'” Alice read. “‘He hopes you might recognize his father from when you were a child.'”

Alice examined the envelope. “It's not here,” she said, shaking it vigorously.

“I have it,” my father said, removing it from his pocket. After glancing at it briefly, he passed it to my mother. She was startled by what she saw and, with shaking hands, passed it to me.

I looked down at the picture of a man sitting with a small boy. I was stunned and passed it quickly on to Alice, who held it at arm's length and then drew it closer to her. She, too, was transfixed by the image in the photograph. She pulled out a tiny magnifying glass, held it up to the photograph, scanned it thoroughly, and finally looked up.

“I have never seen such a likeness before,” she declared.

The room was quiet for several moments.

“Does Frida give any more details about the photo?” I asked, breaking the silence.

Alice perused the letter.

“The man is Solomon Galperin, Erick's father. We know that,” she said. “The photo was taken in 1961. Apparently he lived all his life in Koidanov, apart from the war.

“‘Although you were only a small boy,'” Alice read from the letter, “‘do you remember his face?'”

My father examined the photo closely for several moments but then shook his head.

“What about the name Galperin?” Alice asked. “Does it ring a bell?”

My father shook his head.

I blurted out what was surely on all our minds: “I think the man in the photograph is your father.”

“Look at the resemblance,” my mother said. “You're almost identical.”

My father nodded without hesitation. “But I can't remember my father's face at all,” he said. “Nor my mother's. It bothers me that I can't when I do remember the faces of so many of the soldiers and scenes from the war. Why can't I remember my own family?”

The photo of Solomon Galperin, possibly Alex's father, that arrived unexpectedly in the mail in 1997.

Unexpectedly, my father had a change of heart. “How on earth could this be my father?” he snapped. “If the picture was taken in 1961, my father would have been long dead by then. My mother told me that he'd died long before she and the rest of my family had perished.”

Suddenly Alice raised her hand to quiet us. “Listen to this,” she said. “Erick states that his father, Solomon, survived the war. Solomon fled Koidanov to join the partisans but was caught and taken to Auschwitz and later Dachau. He survived because he was a good shoemaker. After the war, when he made it home, he learned that his entire family had perished. He remarried and he and his new wife had a son, Erick.”

“So Erick could be your half brother,” my mother concluded. “You might have the same father—Solomon.”