Warsaw (9 page)

It was not until Kleist had dipped into his records that he
realised that the Corporal and once academic wunderkind were one in the same
person. He had initially been interested in the Wehrmacht Corporal because of
his popularity with his men and the humane in way he tried to interact with the
Jews. Like Christian he had learned Polish. Corporal Abendroth first caught the
Lieutenant's attention because, although approaching middle-age, he considered
him a fine specimen of an Aryan man with an interesting, intelligent face. He
possessed a certain natural authority, a quality the officer admired. When
Christian eventually found the time to inspect his files he was intrigued to
uncover why and how "Young Goethe" had become a school teacher for
infants in some dung-filled backwater. And why was he but a lowly Corporal? He
was far from being Nietzsche's superman now Christian Kleist ruminated to
himself, slightly amused by Abendroth's apparent fall from grace.

Adam continued to follow Jessica and the superficial suitor
- who were holding hands like a couple of cloying teenagers - through the
sticky grey streets. His eyes were painfully fixed upon them as if Adam were
glaring at a corpse. Seeing how well fed and dressed the ex-policeman was a few
child-beggars disturbed him - those that had the energy to actively supplicate
Duritz - but they were brushed away like flies, their claw-like hands still
tickling the air as he rudely dismissed them.

"God has given you one face, and you make yourselves
another. You jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nickname God's creatures, and
make your wantonness your ignorance," Duritz fervently muttered underneath
his breath. His fall was felt all the more because of the high ideals and
colourful plans he had so recently formed. The Jewish Princess was just the
same, except that the flirt had now become a common whore. Now he understood
how she had obtained the jobs and work cards. Rather than he using her the
other month, Duritz fancied that had he not been used, manipulated, by her to
get her own way? And was she not now playing with and offering herself to the
fop Nelkin for something in return? Whereas once she had extracted her family's
protection from Adam, wrung him clean, she had abandoned him – but Andrzej it
still seemed had something to trade. Women were all the same, moths attracted
to the brightest flames.

The couple sat down at one of the only cafes still open for
Jews in the district. Andrzej was one of the privileged few to be able to
afford to eat there. His father had granted him a position in the Council's
administrative service. The position was utterly superfluous. Andrzej was a
young man of leisure and relative means, which obviously made him a catch in
the eyes of girls like Jessica - and their mothers. He smiled, akin to a
satisfied frog upon a lily pad, as he pulled the chair out for her. Carefully
positioning himself so as to be out of sight, yet close enough to discern the
torturous scenes in front of him, Adam sat upon a tenement step opposite the
cafe. Jessica's back was to him but he could all too clearly see the lust and
slime in the straw-man's eyes.

There was indeed love and hope in Andrzej Nelkin's eyes.
After some of the things Jessica had said - and having spoken to a couple of
his rivals himself - it appeared that he was her sole remaining suitor.
Satisfaction thus polished the ego of the son of the Judenrat official. He had
beaten off the competition. A sense of triumph was relished just as much as the
prize, albeit the promise of finally consummating his relationship with Jessica
also made Andrzej figuratively lick his lips that morning. He had begun to
think her a tease and not worth the effort, especially since growing cold
towards him during the last couple of occasions when they had spent time
together. But now it would all be worth it. Hadn't he earned it too, what with
the presents and favours that he had bestowed upon Jessica and her family?

The pallid youth's heart sank to the point where Duritz felt
physically sick. He tried but could not avert his eyes from his new world
crumbling down around him. History was repeating itself. He felt empty but yet
also consumed with resentment - towards her, him, fate, chaos. The ache was
similar yet different to that of when he had suffered starvation in the ghetto.
In the same way that he would have done anything for food back then, stolen a
crumb out of an infant's mouth, murdered for a bite upon an apple, Duritz felt
similarly desperate and hungry now for Jessica's love - anyone's love. It was
Thomas Abendroth who had rescued him from starvation before, bringing rations
in payment for his Polish lessons. But what could the good soldier do and say
now to proscribe a remedy? The German optimist could afford to be optimistic.
Adam reasoned sometimes that it would have been better if Thomas had just let
him curl up, waste away and perish all those months ago - be delivered.

 
There was little choice
on the menu. Jessica allowed Andrzej to choose for her. He invested in a bottle
of wine and poured out a generous measure in Jessica's glass in order to
animate the girl and get her in the mood. Again she was remote. Their last two
dates had ended prematurely with the girl, feigning illness, leaving early and
denying him a kiss and feel. This time he would force the issue. He reached for
her hand across the table but, seeing his sortie out of the corner of her eye;
Jessica retracted it and took another sip of her wine.

"Is something wrong? Have I done something wrong?"
Andrzej innocently exclaimed.

"No. Yes. Please don't be angry with me."

Adam - pained, numb - slumped upon his step, the model of
one of Turgenev's spurned and superfluous men. The youth attempted to smile
philosophically. The only true love is unrequited love didn't someone once say?
He could feel his forehead becoming sunburned for, though attempting to smile,
his brow was still rippled in grief. He didn't blame her. He shouldn't hate her.
He knew that obsessive hatred was just another reason to retain an attachment
to someone. Adam even had to laugh to himself somewhat as he recalled the
conceit that had coloured his reveries. He was John Rokesmith from "Our
Mutual Friend", secretly keeping a loving and protective eye over Bella
Wilfer and her family. One day she would discover who he really was, what he
had done - and realise that she was good enough for him and he good enough for
her. Folding up his old newspaper, which the voyeur hid behind to conceal
himself from his subject, Duritz willed himself to return home. Sad.
Despairing. Wistful. What little bread he had he gave out to the first child
that approached him as he retreated back down the moribund street.

"This is difficult for me. You've been such a good
friend - and I want to stay your friend. But I cannot see you so much anymore
Andrzej."

Andzrej Nelkin's face that not two minutes ago had expressed
sympathy and love now hardened like baked clay.

"What a lovely speech, it almost seemed prepared or
rehearsed. So, after providing for your family and keeping you alive by giving
you work cards, what you're saying now is that you don't need me anymore?"
Andrzej replied in a sarcastic tone that he too had played out before. Jessica
didn't know how to answer. Her right hand trembled slightly on the table next
to her glass. She looked distraught and vulnerable, a bird that could no longer
fly. But Andrzej hadn't finished with the girl yet. A couple of gun shots
hammered out from a few blocks away but, whilst Jessica flinched, the aggrieved
suitor ignored them.

"Is there someone else? Who is it?" the Jew
demanded, as though this was the most important piece of information in the
entire affair.

She briefly, potently thought of Corporal Abendroth, his
image idealised through the alchemy of attraction - but Jessica shook her head
to both shake the soldier out of her mind and express to Andrzej that no, she
had not found someone else.

Andrzej breathed heavily through his nose, half snorting and
half seething. His Slavic eyes ablaze he glared intently, accusingly, at the
skinny diffident girl. He too then shook his head. Was it in disbelief that she
could reject him? Was he just intensely disappointed in Jessica, or that it was
all ending? Or was Andrzej shaking his head because he didn't believe her? -
She who before the war always had a taste for goy. The black-haired, bony-faced
unrighteous youth suddenly grinned to himself though. The petty egoist didn't
want to show how much his pride had been tarnished. He came to the realisation
that Jessica was just after all another notch on his belt. For all of their
attempts over the past few months to try and cultivate a normal relationship in
the ghetto they were in the ghetto and nothing was permanent or rose above the
ghetto. Should she have even been unfaithful to him he couldn't complain that
much, after all he had other girlfriends in other districts and a clutch of
felicitous prostitutes he could and did visit at anytime it pleased him to do
so. Being in love with someone is not the same as wanting to make love with
someone. Andrzej Nelkin wasn't in love with Jessica Rubenstein, as much as
people might have thought that they would have made a good match. Despite this
new found philosophical attitude though the rejected suitor still wanted to
punish the ungracious harlot.

"The reward that you might think you're getting from
doing this will prove to be its own punishment so I'm not that bothered. Though
you might still want to see me I don't want to see you anymore after this. I
don't want some half-hearted friendship, like our half-hearted relationship.
This meal is the last thing you're getting out of this mark. And don't ever
come running back with your cup in hand, even when you realise that you've signed
you're own death warrant. If you sometimes wonder to yourself late at night
Jessica that there might be something wrong with you - there is!"

Still embittered, though experiencing some form of
exaltation through his speech, Andrzej calmly got up and searched for some
coins in his pockets.

"Feel free to finish the wine" he derisively
remarked whilst throwing a handful of coins at a wounded Jessica. The
bark-brown money scattered and landed on the girl's lap. Andrzej then marched
away, dismissively gesticulating with his hand - exclaiming "She's
unclean" - at the showy young woman, alerting the other customers that
there was a scene occurring. Jessica forced herself to hold back the tears that
welled in her already strained aspect, but she crimsoned and couldn't help but
appear ashamed and guilty in the eyes of her judgemental audience. Yet Jessica
had reason to feel neither shame nor guilt. Her chin sunk into her chest. She
glanced up once, briefly, to see Andrzej storming off down the street, taking his
buzz from the wine and erection off to Anna Weil, a high-priced prostitute who
would make him feel better and special.

Why did everything seem to go wrong for her? - despite or
even especially when she had good intentions - Jessica would wonder to herself
later that evening. As the sensible girl lay awake that sizzling night Jessica
murkily wondered again whether her past sins were returning to haunt her? Had
she not once been scornful of the policeman when young - and to a host of other
boys who thought they were good enough for her? Had she not played with their
feelings, teased them with hope and flirtation - and enjoyed it even more when
crushing those hopes with a cruel word or snub? Andrzej had called her
"unclean". Family and friends had turned on her years ago when she
went out with Polish boys and men. Her mother had been furious and said it was
a sin and what was wrong with this and that Jewish boy - not that she should
have been worrying about boys anyway but studying hard at school. Yet Jessica, as
proud and difficult as her mother, stubbornly disobeyed her parent's wishes and
dismissed what people thought of her. They were all just jealous of her, both
her girlfriends and more so the neighbourhood boys - who were quick to bad
mouth her behind her back but then smiled and tried to chat her up to her face.
Because she was pretty, because she could be sweet and manipulative, Jessica
usually got everything she wanted. She guessed she believed in God, but where
had been her prayers to Him? Her role-model in her late teens had been Scarlett
O'Hara in ‘Gone With The Wind’. Jessica all too easily could indulge and play
the puppy-dog suitors off each other (yet, unlike Scarlett, Jessica had no
Ashley Wilkes or Rhett Butler in her story; she saw not the tragedy in her own
life, so attracted was she to wanting to be the glamorous belle). She even went
to a party once and played with her fan and got all the men to sit around her
like Vivien Leigh would do in the film - which Jessica hadn't even seen. The
girl needed only to pout, look doe-eyed - and no one could say "no"
to her. Jessica Rubenstein had been spoiled, selfish, shallow she realised. How
desperately the woman now wanted to atone for her past sins.

The once heroine to her own once novel life sat at the cafe
for what seemed like an age. Jessica was now as pale as she had been red when
Andrzej had abused her. She nervously fingered the base and stem of the wine
glass but drank from it not. A breeze first cooled but then chilled her face a
little as she realised how much her brow, underneath her bonnet, had perspired.
Jessica took heart from the fact that it was a needful thing what she had just
done. A choking feeling of loneliness clouded around her but eventually it
mingled with a strange sense of liberation, renewal.

8.

When Duritz returned home that afternoon he tried to plough
himself into his work. Although he neither owned the concentration or strength
to translate long passages from his faded edition of Plutarch's ‘Moralia’ he
duly allocated himself the tasks of scanning the notes he had once made in the
book - and assembled a group of quotes he could put together as a selection of
aphorisms that could be inserted into the back of the book, which Duritz well
knew he would neither publish nor even finish.

"Do not speak of happiness to one less fortunate than
yourself."

"He who cheats with an oath acknowledges that he is
afraid of his enemy, but that he thinks little of God."

"To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult."

"For to err in opinion, though it be not the part of
wise men, is at least human."

"True virtue cannot be undermined by Fortune."

"Trust in speakers often causes us to take in false and
pernicious opinions without noticing it."

The room was fuggy. Such truth and eloquence had once
seduced Adam but it dawned upon him in the gloom how naive and worthless such
sententions were. Reality, chaos, meaninglessness (whether through the negation
of moral value or the negation of meaning through subjectivity and the
trappings of language) mocked and ravaged the noble sentiments of his
adolescence - of Plutarch, Rousseau, Spinoza, Emerson and the rest of the
authors he once idolised. There are no necessary and sufficient properties.
Words, words, words.

Mentally fatigued and sensing a presentiment of abandoning
the project, which he did not want to surrender to, Duritz put down his pen,
closed his book and decided that he needed some air. He ascended the stairs and
ventured out onto the roof of the tenement building. One could see for miles
around from the tall block and the air often seemed cleaner, fresher to Duritz
on his rooftop refuge. He used to visit here often before he became a
policeman. On a clear day one could see the juicy green fields and skirt of the
woodlands situated east of the charred city. He could also just make out the
silvery rivulet which separated the two, where Adam used to fish as a child. He
smiled, remembering his pride and the taste when he would catch a fresh fat
trout and bring it home for his mother to grill for him with some fried onions
and potatoes.

Cigarette smoke floated across his face and snapped Duritz
out of his reverie. He recognised the aroma. Without even having to look around
Duritz knew that Anna Weil had joined him on his (their) rooftop retreat.

Anna Weil had decided to seek some fresh air and solace
herself. She had just seen Andrzej Nelkin, a grunter and thankfully quickie. He
was also one of those customers who tried to make himself look like a big fish
by paying extra. Anna was all too willing to stroke his ego and act grateful,
all the while thinking to herself that he was a nebbish. She was surprised to
see Adam Duritz on the roof. There had been a time when they had frequently
arranged to meet here though. When he first became a policeman the smugglers
who Anna worked for had offered her to him for the night as a gift and form of
hush money. Duritz took them up on their offer but, realising that he had known
Anna from the neighbourhood and that she now lived in his building, he couldn't
go through with it for some reason. They had just talked. Adam soon lost his
modesty however and they became lovers for a brief time, although the sex and
relationship was casual. Both knew the trappings and disposable reality of the
ghetto. You couldn't invest too much emotion, time and energy in each other.
She thought him sweet, funny and intelligent - but also sad; pity and intrigue
as much as anything else attracted Anna to the policeman. Their relationship,
if one could have deemed it that, soon ended; Adam started to become just like
all the rest of them who used Anna or took her for granted. He changed. He
developed a callous streak. So too, Adam saw Jessica in the street one day.
Anna faded from view. There were no blazing arguments, no melodramatic scenes
and few regrets. They just drifted apart by mutual, unspoken consent. Anna had
thought about Adam Duritz occasionally though since their parting, particularly
lately when she had heard that he'd somehow been temporarily relieved from
being a policeman. How? Why?

Duritz's immediate unconscious reaction to seeing Anna was
one of pleasant satisfaction and he smiled at his ex-lover accordingly. As much
as he wanted to be alone he wanted company as well. Adam couldn't help but realise
how attractive, exotic, Anna had remained. As exploited as the prostitute was
in the ghetto in some respects she was also considered untouchable - or at
least very expensive. She was protected by the most powerful group of gangsters
in the district. She numbered German soldiers, Judenrat officials and policemen
among her patrons. The only group who Anna Weil refused to be used by were the
vicious and leering Latvians and Ukrainians employed by the SS to police the
ghetto. She despised them with a passion, more so than perhaps the Germans
even. Although Anna had told no one about the crime, she had been gang raped by
a group of them when she first entered the ghetto.

Her complexion was still pinkish and healthy, as her wavy
raven black hair still retained its body and shine. Such was her wealth and
diet Anna looked like no other Jewish woman in the district. She was like
royalty. Her face was plump, almost chubby. Her eyes were brown and warm,
almost sultry. Her full rich lips were ruby red with cheap lipstick, which was
in part made from red vegetable dye. A thin plume of smoke rose up from out of
the side of her sensuous mouth. She smoked casually yet addictively for
cigarettes were, for Anna, still easy to come by. A black leather overcoat, a
size too small, emphasised her voluptuous figure with her invitational hips and
large, shapely breasts.

Thomas thought long and hard upon whether to mention the
Jewish girl in his letter to Maria. He decided not to. What was the point? The
husband also refrained from writing those passages that a part of him was urged
to write, that of saying how much he loved his wife and that she should find
someone else if anything happened to him. But, as essential as he thought these
declarations were, Maria wouldn't want to read such pessimism. Again though,
what was the point? What was the point in anything? Weltschmerz. It had been
years since Thomas had last inhabited the term.

The mordant Corporal gazed out the window. Night had
stealthily descended. The German topped up the tumbler of vodka. He was
thankful for the small mercy of the cooling breeze which fanned itself through
the open door of the room. Yet Thomas felt mournful in thinking that this
cooling breeze could well herald the end of summer - the return of winter.

Thomas recalled what Adam had said the other day and tried
to understand and sympathise - although wasn't that what Adam was attempting to
hammer home, that the soldier could never fully understand and sympathise with
their plight?

"I've seen you observing what goes on and I know that
you're repulsed and saddened by what you see. But as abhorrent as you might
find it - watching every third man in a line get executed for a stranger having
broken curfew - you'll never have to stand in that line Thomas. For all of the
impotence and rage you might feel at being forced to witness such scenes, do
you actually know what it's like to nearly starve or freeze to death? I
remember watching you once at one of Kleist's feasts (where the Lieutenant
forced Jews to watch a herd of pigs eat the bloodied and charred remains of
executed corpses). I could see you all but weeping for them. But your wife and
child, your neighbours, were not among the victims. And what if you and some of
your comrades do weep for us? They are almost crocodile tears compared to our
oceans of sorrow. We haven't even the luxury anymore of thinking that we can
live day to day. I'm sorry, it's just the way I feel."

Although there was an unattractive conceited and condemning
strain to Adam's tone - there were occasions when he appeared to revel in
trying to personally shame Thomas for his country's sins - the thoughtful
Corporal had to admit that there was a kernel of truth to Adam's unsympathetic
attitude. Thomas was sympathetic enough however to forgive and understand the
Jew's outburst. He accepted the role of being a punch-bag for the angry young
man, as well as a shoulder for him to cry on.
 
Should the occupation and war never have occurred Thomas sensed that Adam's
temper would have still been the same though: depressed, irritable,
egotistical. He reminded the school teacher of himself at a younger age in some
respects, which is partly why Thomas understood and tolerated the youth's
contrary moods. Thomas flirted again with the idea - and began to draft
sentences even - of telling Adam his story. But he did not want to preach or
patronise the youth - and ultimately Thomas and Adam were different.

As much as the German liked to think that he made a
difference in Duritz's life in terms of the companionship he offered him,
Thomas was wise enough to know that the young man's frustrations and bitterness
were still married to a souring loneliness. He needed more than just his
friendship. Perhaps he could introduce Duritz to Jessica? No.

"I'm afraid all I can offer you is vodka."

"Vodka will be fine."

Duritz went to the cupboard and took out his remaining
bottle, pouring two large measures into a couple of champagne flukes.

"Sorry about the glasses."

Duritz sat upon the bed. Anna sat at his desk. Not two minutes
ago they had been talking freely and engagingly upon the roof but yet after
retreating into Duritz's room, where they had spent such intimate and carnal
moments together, a prolonged, almost comical silence fostered itself into the
atmosphere. They smiled politely at each other. Adam sipped from his glass as
though it were wine or champagne and brushed some crumbs off the blanket on his
bed. Anna had been one of the people who Duritz had thought of, while he
convalesced from his fever, who he desired to say sorry to in some heartfelt or
noble declaration. Yet, perhaps because he was absorbed in finding the right
words for his contrition and confessions, Duritz remained mute. He did not want
to sound ridiculous. Conversation ran not like dialogues from books. Meanwhile,
in this short but pronounced moment in time, Anna pretended to stare out of his
viewless window with interest. Did he invite her down here just to try it on?
Probably, the cynic inside of Anna answered. Men were men. Yet when he had said
that it would just be nice to catch up, that he just needed some company, he
seemed sincere. Although Anna knew only too well how callous and secretive
Duritz could be, she also knew him to be no liar. Indeed she remembered how she
had once said something of the like to him before as he got up to leave her bed
one morning. In reply Duritz had merely shrugged his shoulders. He done that
often, or said something to the same indifferent effect when Anna had tried to
analyse or even praise her lover. But if he expected to sleep with her now and
was forward, like a soldier or policeman, then she would leave. She didn't need
him. What could he offer? Yet Anna had long had a soft spot for the student.
She had known Duritz and admired him from afar in the old neighbourhood. He
worked hard and, in going to University, she respected that he had tried to
better himself. He was also handsome in a strange way. Like a girl taking pity
on a stray Anna also sensed his sorrow, that he was misunderstood, lost. His
aloofness, the scowl that he sometimes used as a substitute for speaking, was a
front for something else - something higher she believed.
 

"Do you mind if I take off my coat?"

"No, I'll hang it up."

Anna carefully unbelted her leather overcoat. Underneath the
garment the alluring prostitute wore a silk, full-sleeved pearl coloured blouse
with ruffled cuffs. The top buttons were undone and Adam was coyly attracted to
the glowing sight of the top of Anna's cleavage. A tight black skirt flattered
and showed off her figure, her round bottom and slender legs. Adam tried his
best but he couldn't help but stare at the striking woman in a certain way -
which is why he had to then look away. The woman, who never tired of feeling
beautiful and benefiting from the power that being desired brought, recognised
the look on Adam's face but thought his awkwardness sweet. Duritz kindly took
her coat and hung it up on a hook on the door. He was different out of his
uniform she mused, as were most of the policeman and soldiers she had relations
with. While his back was turned Anna quickly glanced into the small mirror on
the wall to check how she looked, puckering and moistening her soft lips and
running her hand through her hair to give it body.

Adam was suitably aroused. His aspect feasted upon the
glamorous prostitute. He forgot all about Jessica and the original promise he
had made to himself that he wouldn't try to bed Anna - for Duritz had indeed
invited her down out of a desire for some company. As he lay awake that night
he recalled the primitive pride that he had felt when they had been lovers
before, how out of all the men she knew it was he alone who she didn't charge.
Why had he ruined it? Jessica was but a romantic fantasy, a conceit. Anna was,
is, real he posited.

"I suppose it will just be me now that they talk about
in whispers in the block - and call a collaborator - now that you are no longer
a policeman," Anna said out of the blue, a playful smile on her lips.
Although Anna had been but a chambermaid before the occupation she was neither
unintelligent nor insensitive. She read whenever possible and was unassumingly
introspective, perceptive. She could understand the envy, hostility and disgust
which people felt towards her but, because she could understand it, Anna for
the most part could also forgive people’s cruelty and misjudgements. Secretly
though she enjoyed provoking a reaction from the prudes and jealous fish wives,
for how the roles had changed and the businessmen's and lawyer's wives could
now be employed as her errand women. Like Adam Anna had learned a long time ago
how to do anything that it took to survive, how to be centred and exploit one's
assets.