6
Yesterday I turned fifty-five. I spent the day by myself on the local between Hofbaden and Salzstein. The train is always empty on that stretch. For a bribe of three schillings the waiter turned to the classical station, and I sat alone in the dining car while Brahms sonatas washed over me. Once, the years passed as though on their own. Then, on my fiftieth birthday, I felt a sudden pinch in my heart, and I knew immediately that those were the years accumulating within me. Since then I count them. I know this counting is pointless, and it would be better to refrain, but what can I do? On April thirtieth the pinch in my chest reminds me that a year has passed, and once again I stand in the place where I was. The distances that I have traveled have worked no wonders. Barring disaster, I’ll be on the same train in another year. I’m not complaining. I have learned to appreciate the small things that come my way. There are days when I leave the train drunk with visions and sights, walk into the hotel, and fall fast asleep, as if after a day of real exertion.
In Salzstein I am a welcome guest. The owner of the buffet in the station, Gizi, a converted Jew, is glad to meet me. We have an unspoken secret that binds us. Once he whispered in my ear a word in our language. Since then we’ve been friends—soul mates, I would say.
He prepares two sandwiches and some borscht for me and tells me a little about the goings-on of the year. Two of my enemies were in there drinking coffee. They too, it seems, have become weary. One of them has decided to emigrate to America. In the depths of my heart I hope that one day they’ll all clear out and leave me alone. True, their malice isn’t evident, and perhaps they don’t intend to harm me, but the thought that they are scurrying about the same way I do is enough to drive me mad.
As for Gizi, he has managed to do what I will never be able to do. He has changed. He looks like an Austrian in every respect, even his hair. Apparently, it’s due to his wife, with whom he lived for several years. Now they are separated and waging a mighty battle over their property. The struggle with her has become his life. She, of course, stops at nothing, as they say. When they separated she told everyone his true identity, and since then people have been conspiring against him. But he stands firm-always giving back as good as he gets.
Strangely, a couple of hours in his company restore my will to live. Perhaps because of his candor. Once he told me: “I converted because I loved my wife and because she saved me during the war. For six years I went to church with her, but in the seventh year I couldn’t any more. My knees felt weak. I asked her to remove the icons from the house, but she refused. Since then I’ve been sleeping in my buffet. I have a folding cot, and I sleep on it. I left her everything, but she also wants this station, which I built with my own hands. These planks are mine, and I’ll defend them with my life.”
“Aren’t you afraid of hooligans?”
“They don’t frighten me,” he said with a crude gesture that shocked me.
The short time I spend in his company leaves his features engraved in my mind. At times it’s hard for me to understand him. Once he said to me, “Then I had to convert to Christianity, but now I don’t have to do this any more. Now the time has come to love plainly and to look straight into the eyes of the living and the dead.” I was about to ask, What do you mean? But I didn’t ask. I have learned that answers clarify nothing.
From here I continue on to Upper Salzstein, a little village nestled in the forest. There, in a small cabin hidden away, lives Comrade Stark. Right after the war he arrived here, bought the cabin for nothing, and fixed it up. Since then he hasn’t budged. But don’t worry, he’s not cut off from the world. From here he sends out his articles, pronouncements, and amplifications. He stays in contact with the comrades, and the survivors, who will rebuild the movement.
Before the war, Stark was one of the well-known secretaries of the movement, but since then he’s been both leader and aide. He writes the letters and he mails them. Here the scattered few gather to celebrate anniversaries, commemorate the dead, and sit together over a drink. Once people spoke of sending Stark to the Soviet Union at the head of a delegation to gain recognition and funds, but for some reason, the plan was never carried out. That didn’t make him less loyal. On May Day we, the dispersed, gather here, some by train and some on foot, not more than ten. For a moment we bring to life what was and is no more.
Stark has aged. But on May Day he swallows two or three drinks, girds his loins, and goes forth to wrestle with ghosts and melancholy. He used to speak a lot about the future, about change and conquest. Now he speaks of the glories of the past, of the leaders who sacrificed their souls for their faith.
Several years ago in Stark’s cabin I met Jacob Kron, a childhood friend of my father’s. Together they spent more than a few years in prison. He told me that Father was once unanimously chosen by the Ruthenians to be their secretary and to lead their strikes. But at the last minute someone remembered that Father was a Jew, and pointed out that it wasn’t right for a Jew to lead Ruthenians. Father didn’t lose faith. He never returned to his origins, the Jewish quarter. Instead he remained loyal to the Ruthenians, speaking in their behalf and organizing their mass meetings. He outwitted the police and performed his service in poverty and devotion. Kron had also known my mother well. He called her a revolutionary in heart and soul, someone who did more for the revolution than any other comrade. He, of course, was referring to the famous assassination in which my mother took part.
Two days in Stark’s company restore a whole world to me. I sink into it as if into a drugged slumber. These aren’t easy times. Stark is moody. By turns, he chides and consoles, and when faith is rekindled in him, his face changes, he stands taller, and youth blooms again in his eyes.
Once Mina would fill the evenings with folk songs. For hours she would fan the fires of memory with her voice. In recent years she hasn’t been seen. Five years ago she married an Italian and moved to a remote village. The village, it seems, did not bring her peace. She dreamed about soil and the simple life, and she found liquor and sloth. At first she struggled against these vices, but she soon learned that the Italian village was deeply rooted in its traditions. The party headquarters was just a tavern where the men would gather for amusement at night. The lectures and discussions were of little interest, and if you couldn’t accept things as they were, in the end the village would expel you. And that is how it was with her. Since then she’s been shunted from place to place, and she avoids even her friends. At the time Stark made great efforts to bring her back. Those efforts brought nothing. She became one of the shadows that inhabit railway stations, slipping away whenever an eye lit on her. Here she is remembered fondly and her memory is evoked as if she had passed away. A year ago Stark declared, “My heart tells me that next year Mina will return to us. I miss her melodies. They are like fresh air.”
Last year no one came to him. Even the few, the faithful, have stopped sending him money for subscriptions to the party journal. But Stark is not one to sit idle. Besides the reproachful letters he sent to his associates, he prepared a pamphlet for better days. Now he is working on his masterpiece, “The War Against Melancholy.” That book, he believes, will bring people out of hiding. “Melancholy is a thrashing serpent,” he writes. “It must be fought to the death.”
I know what he means. I have witnessed its attack on my body. When melancholy grips me, I lose the power to move even a single meter. Once, in a small railway station, it gripped me in my sleep, and in the morning I couldn’t shake myself loose. Were it not for the owner, a kind old Italian woman, I would have remained stuck there for who knows how long. Since then I have been careful. As soon as I sense it approaching, I take out my bottle and fight back. Stark has gathered a lot of material from ancient and modern sources on this affliction, and now he’ll sit down and put them all together. I eagerly await his book.
I spent two days with Stark. He spoke for hours and kept silent for hours. On the second day, seeing that I was packing my valise, he raised his eyes to me and asked, “Where are you going?” His gaze was full of sadness, as if he had also seen in me his lost son.
“I have obligations,” I said, so as not to give in to my feelings.
“I’m tracking down the murderer Nachtigel,” I said in a voice not my own.
“That’s a great mission. You must cling to it with all your might.” He spoke to me the way he once must have spoken to his subordinates.
Thus it was, every year. But this year the parting was different.
I handed him a fifty-dollar bill and said, “Here’s my contribution to the place.”
“It’s too much,” he said.
“I made money this year. I have more than enough.”
“And what about the future?” he asked in a fatherly voice. His look shrouded me in silence for a moment. I saw how his broad shoulders had shrunk, how sorrow had made his brow pale. Why can’t we pray? I wanted to cry out, but I immediately realize how foolish that would have been. He showed me out, and I knew that this meeting was our last. If we saw one another again, it would not be in this world.