CHAPTER TWENTY - EIGHT
WHEN THE ASPHYXIATED BODIES BEHIND HIM WERE removed, he fell. Before he crumpled completely onto the floor, two bloody teeth landed at his feet. When he saw them, he put his hand to his mouth and felt the sticky ooze of his own blood. He realized that the crossbar had knocked his teeth out while the swerving car bashed about the tracks. As sore as he was, he felt no additional pain at the discovery. It was irrelevant.
As they reached for his legs to drag him from the car, he raised his hand to signify that he was alive. With no facial response whatsoever, the Jewish slaves simply released his feet, reached for his arms, and mechanically hoisted him to a standing position. They guided him across the car to another worker, who sat him down in the doorway. Saying, “Easy now,” the man pushed him forward, and he stumbled out of the car and onto the ground.
The cool, fresh night air had a bracing effect, and to his surprise, he staggered without falling. A guard motioned him toward a railroad tie, where several other survivors sat huddled in exhaustion. Although none was bleeding, they were completely dazed, slumped over, staring vacantly at the ground. He dropped down, joining them on their low perch. He took several tentative breaths and, discovering that he could breathe the air, several deep ones. He quickly slowed down because of the soreness in his chest, but he had never known air to taste so light and sweet. In and out, he slowly continued to consume the precious treat. He purposely did so quietly so that his captors would take no notice of his enjoying their air.
Somewhat revived, he looked around. A powerful floodlamp bathed the open area around the damaged carriage in bright light. Behind him were several buildings, but they squatted quietly in the dark, surrounded by the ubiquitous barbed wire. Beyond the train he had been on, he could see lines of freight cars and a number of tracks. It seemed to be a transfer point along the main line. Apparently Warsaw trains stopped here only when there were problems. The military personnel in the transport unit certainly seemed to have had experience with previous Warsaw trains. The agitated commander, a middle-aged captain, hopped about as if he were standing over the hotbox in the smoldering car. Well, now it was his problem. Let him solve it.
When the final bodies were tossed out onto the ground, the two laborers jumped down from the carriage and were sent away under guard. He was surprised that the pile of corpses by the track did not increase, in spite of the plentiful number that had been flung from the car. Then he noticed why. A great quiet hulk of a Jew was picking them up with such lumbering ease that they appeared doll-like as he carried them away and stacked them in the shadows under a roofed area. The steady, diligent giant had been removing them as fast as the two in the carriage dropped them out of the car. Suddenly he wondered where “they” were. Since they had all been behind him, he knew they could not have survived the smoke. Only seven or eight hapless souls sat next to him on their makeshift bench; clean-shaven, not one appeared to be either of the rabbis. No, they were all dead. He stared at the dwindling pile of bodies to try to identify the boy’s small frame, but all he could see were the bodies of adults.
The mother had been right; the boy would have been better off remaining behind in the ghetto. But he couldn’t help believing that the rabbi had been right, too. Sometimes there was no choice. From their drama only he remained; they were only phantoms, if that. Only he and the prophet Elijah knew what had happened. He would have preferred more reliable witnesses. Shmuel Zigelboym was a reliable witness, but he couldn’t testify as to what had happened on the train. Poor Zigelboym, he had enough testimony to give without this. Strong Zigelboym, blessed Comrade Artur, knew without the dream; he had refused to lift a hand to help the band of goyim. Perhaps Elijah was appearing in Zigelboym’s dreams in London right now. He wondered whether Elijah would appear in the dreams of a Bundist; probably he could, but not in the same form that he did for Rabbi Yehoshua Ben-Levi in Lod. He had an inexplicable faith that the vision would be communicated.
A sharp, commanding voice interrupted his reverie.
“They must all drink. This is a transport unit, not a ghetto. We forward exactly what we receive, no more, no less. They come in alive; they go out alive. Those who arrived dead will present no problem. Neither will these,” the officer commanded.
“Yes, Herr Captain,” answered a dull voice.
The great large man had left his work with the dead for the time being and was working with the living. With a bucket and ladle, he was making his way down the line, doling out water. Some who sat were too stunned to drink. The man shook someone’s shoulder not unkindly.
“You heard the captain. You must drink.”
He put down the bucket and with one hand pried open the man’s mouth while slowly spooning in the water. At first the recipient gagged, but then, surprisingly, he drained the entire ladle and then another two. The surplus liquid dribbled down his chin. Watching the man’s animal reflex, he realized how thirsty he himself was and wished the hulking giant would hurry. As the bucket approached and his fellow passengers drank greedily, he had the panicky feeling that there wouldn’t be any water left for him. His eyes were riveted on the bucket; it was all he could do to keep from pouncing upon it and swallowing it all.
When his turn finally arrived, he tore the ladle from the man’s hand and uncontrollably swallowed it all in a single gulp. He pushed the ladle back to have it refilled and just as ravenously swilled the second. The man took back the metal spoon.
“I’ll bring more,” he said dully, turned, and shuffled sturdily away. At his side in his large hand the bucket looked ridiculously small and toylike. It also seemed very rigid and unbending; the large man’s head seemed somewhat flaccid by comparison, lolling slightly to one side as if he were some unfinished sort of Nazi automaton. Waiting for the bucket’s return, he wondered what they had done to make the giant that way. In spite of his dull looseness, he kept moving at a workmanlike pace that added to the impression that he was some kind of robot manqué.
In a few moments he reappeared, rounding the corner of one of the nearby buildings, water sloshing from the full pail. He stepped into the floodlit area and approached the group of survivors. The giant’s face seemed to possess hardly any more tension than the water. Although his body contained great strength and even awkward lumbering grace, his face was slack and witless. His mouth hung open, accenting the lack of control. He was balding, light puffs of blond hair clustered about his head. Unshaven blond hairs covered his face, but these, too, poked out like limp strands of hay. The spotlight found no expression to highlight in his dull eyes. It seemed as if the Nazis had even appropriated the Jewish golem for their diabolical purposes. As the retarded giant neared him, there seemed something achingly familiar in that blond imperfection.
Rising slightly from the log in amazement, the thirsting man rasped aloud in confounded disbelief, “Itzik Dribble?!”
In their hometown of Krimsk, this retarded giant had been both the hapless butt of a generation of malicious children and an essential participant in the most inspiring spiritual moment the community had ever witnessed. Cruelty to such an unfortunate child came as no surprise to anyone but the constant victim; heroic spirituality—that was a surprise, and it had occurred almost forty years ago.
After five years of complete and unexplained absence from the life of his hasidic town, the Krimsker Rebbe had casually strolled into his beis midrash one day as if he had never been gone for more than a few minutes. The hasidim gazed in astonished silence. In response to the childish gossip about the squat Krimsker Rebbe’s resemblance to a frog, Itzik had been led to believe that the rebbe was a frog. As the community stood in amazement, Itzik dashed forward and asked if it was true that the rebbe was a frog, and the Krimsker Rebbe calmly responded that indeed it was true. Poor Itzik then wanted to know if it was also true that the rebbe prayed by jumping like a frog. When the rebbe responded, How else would a frog pray? Itzik pleaded in expectant delight for the rebbe to show him.
To demonstrate, the saintly, reclusive Krimsker Rebbe took the dull-witted boy’s hand, and together, before the entire congregation, they climbed onto the reading table and leaped together in prayer. Then the rebbe told the poor child an inspired tale of a wondrous magical frog who helped a slow-learning but well-meaning child become a great success and perfect son. All who saw such a thing treasured those moments forever. You could forget your name in the Nazi hell, but you could never forget such righteous beauty.
And he had just now called him “Itzik Dribble.”
