During the last raid, we got hold of a radio receiver and some batteries. The old man whose home we invaded begged us on bended knee not to take the radio from him. “Take what you want, take a cow, but don’t take my radio. I have no family, and the radio is like a mother and sister to me; I will die of loneliness.”
Felix spoke to him as a friend, politely explaining that for partisans who protect the homeland this equipment is as vital as oxygen. The war will soon be over, and we will return the radio with respect and appreciation. And as a sign of gratitude, Felix removed his wristwatch and told him, “Take this as a gift from me to you.” The old man was despondent; he wept and refused to part with the radio.
“If there’s good news, we’ll come and tell you.” Felix tried to appease him as he took it.
“What good is the news without a radio,” the old man wailed.
The return home did not go smoothly: we came upon a hostile patrol and attacked it. The very thought of our new radio empowered us. The patrol fled.
For months now we’ve been holed up in the hills. On each raid we tried to extract news of the front from farmers and landowners, but with little success. The bits of newspaper we found offered no good news.
When we returned to the base, the tents were shrouded in darkness. The guards welcomed us as we entered, and when they heard about what we had taken, they rejoiced. Their cries of joy woke the sleepers.
Sandwiches and steaming tea awaited us in the kitchen. Everyone surrounded the mess tent and wanted to know how we had acquired such a precious device.
At first light, a Russian voice boomed from the radio, announcing that the enemy’s lines had been breached at Stalingrad. The German Army has retreated in panic and is urgently calling for reinforcements. The war is at a critical phase, and all forces will be mustered to defeat the invader. We danced around the radio to the sounds of Russian military music. Happiest of all were the communists among us, and those who had mocked them were stunned by the power of their faith.
Kamil’s reaction was restrained. “We must learn loyalty and devotion from the Red Army, but most of all be true to ourselves. The time has come to be what we are.” The communists, of course, reject this argument. “The human being comes before the Jew,” they again insisted.
In honor of the radio, Tsila prepared a festive meal. Tsila continues to work miracles. She makes meals out of nothing. Miriam helps her. Most of the time, Miriam is busy doing laundry and repairing torn clothing. In the evening she helps Tsila cook the main meal.
Miriam doesn’t speak. Had Tsila not told us that her entire family had been sent to the camps, we’d have known nothing about her. She works from morning to late at night. She patched the trousers I brought from home, and I wear them on the base. During operations, I wear one of the gendarmes’ uniforms that we’d taken. The uniforms are awkward and hard to walk in. Unfortunately, there’s no alternative; they are made of a heavy fabric that protects us from the cold. But when it rains, they absorb water and are heavier than the loads we carry.
At one point Maxie turned to me and asked, “Edmund, what are you writing in that notebook?”
I was surprised; I hadn’t realized that people noticed I was jotting things down.
“I write down the day’s events so I can tell my parents when I return home.”
“Good idea. I don’t think at all about the future. You always shared your thoughts with your parents?”
“I shared them with my girlfriend, too,” I confided.
“What happened to your girlfriend? Were you separated from each other?”
“No,” I said quickly.
Maxie appeared to understand that this was a complicated and painful story. He stood up, nodded, and withdrew. I remained seated. The disturbing memories that I had buried resurfaced all at once, as if the walls containing them had cracked.
I went to the kitchen and asked Tsila for a drink. Tsila generously gave me a full glass of vodka. I drank it in one gulp. The liquid scorched my throat, and I saw what I had not seen for a long time: Anastasia, in full.
Since my escape, Anastasia had retreated from my thoughts and occupied a zone outside of me. Yes, once in a while I’d glimpse a bit of her face or one of her movements, or I’d hear a sentence she used to repeat: “You’re a bit different but very sweet.”
“You love me,” I would venture.
“How is it possible not to love you?”
I was sensitive to her every word but not sensitive enough to hear the reservations hidden within them. She seemed perfect to me then, and one does not protest perfection.
Suddenly, Anastasia emerges from hiding: It’s the end of June, summer vacation. The evening light is in shades of red as we walk along the river. The urge to embrace her is so strong that my fingers don’t obey me, they tremble.
Anastasia is a child of nature, and her true self is revealed in the outdoors: the way she skips, tilts her head, speaks words that don’t connect, tugs the cotton shirt that shows off her firm breasts. Suddenly, she asks, “Why don’t Jews play sports?” Even the gentle teasing has its charm. She knows that I’m one of the best at long-distance running and the high jump. And some of my Jewish friends are just as good, but the old stereotype pops up nonetheless.
But when evening falls and we are pressed tightly together under a willow tree and drinking greedily of each other, all the words lose their meaning. The bodies join and are one body, and when darkness grows thicker, we strip off the rest of our clothes and dive into the black water, rising and floating and shrieking like seagulls. The fragrant waters strengthen the desire. So it goes for hours till late at night.
“Anastasia,” I call out in a voice not my own.
“What?” she replies in a voice that sounds as though it’s coming from underwater.
I wanted to ask something, but the question has flown out of my mind.
Nothing seems to bother Anastasia. She is wholly devoted to her pleasures; she floats and dives. My pleasures are moderate, distracted by feelings of guilt. For good reason Anastasia remarks, “Jews are always thinking and worrying.”
“A person is not mineral or vegetable, and even animals apparently have thoughts, or something like thoughts,” I beg to differ.
This answer triggers her laughter, wild laughter that totally dismisses what I said.
Anastasia, my water goddess, held me captive. Everything that had been between me and my mother, between me and my father, the magic of the quiet conversations and subtle understandings between us collapsed all at once and was gone. And along with it, I lost my drive to excel in my studies and surpass those who tried to be better than me.
The gymnasium was an endless contest: you climb and you climb to reach the top. The parents watch with amazement, anxious yet proud, and suddenly, this desire is gone, and you are pulled away, enchanted by Anastasia, to wherever she wants to go: under the canopy of trees, into the black waters of the night, to the popular café where young workers sit after hours and let off steam, or just to wander the back streets and laugh, to smoke with affected gestures, to get crazy and spit on the ground. Suddenly, Anastasia says, spitefully, “I hate the math teacher, his bent nose, his little hands that run across the blackboard. He looks like the devil himself. Do you hate him, too?”
“Yes,” I feel compelled to say.
“So together we’ll defeat him, get rid of him. The world without equations is more beautiful. Why are all the math teachers Jewish?”
“Not all,” I correct her.
“You’re wrong.”
So it goes night after night. And when I come home after midnight, my parents are still sitting at the table waiting for me.
“Why are you waiting up for me?” I ask with suppressed anger.
“It’s very late,” my father says quietly.
“There’s no reason to sit and wait for me. I’m grown up,” I say, aware that I am hurting them.
“Where have you been so late?” my father asks.
“It’s not important,” I answer not in my voice but in a voice I picked up in the café.
I go to my room, take off my clothes, and dive into deep sleep.