17
On October first I left Max’s fortress and set off on my way. The distance from here to Weinberg is about a hundred and twenty kilometers, and in Weinberg the murderer is about to move into his new home. The week in Max’s company made me forget my duty. Max always wins me over. He is easygoing and generous and makes me feel like his partner in a great secret venture. In truth, he subsidizes most of my journeys. Without Max, I would have settled long ago into some gloomy grocery store, counting pennies like a beggar. He pays me in hard currency and adds to the sum here and there. When I leave his fortress, my pockets are full of marks and dollars. I know I shouldn’t feel sorry for Max. He has a lot of property, and he is well protected. Still, his devotion to the collection touches my heart. It’s an absolute devotion.
This year the parting was hard for me. I could have stayed another week, but I didn’t dare. On the way to Weinberg I had a few obligations as well as preparations for the final struggle. As I stood in the railway station, I felt a weakening in my legs. It seemed that my life was approaching a dark alley. I suddenly felt sorry for the people who had been my hosts, especially Max, who had prepared a large, comfortable room for me. Now it seemed that he, too, was in danger.
While my thoughts grew darker, the train appeared and came to a stop. I got on as if in a dream. I went into the dining car. The waiter, who knows me, turned on the classical station.
I sat next to the window and saw Max’s face in the reflection. The last evening we were in the coffee house and sipped a few drinks. I told him about Bertha and about her longings for her native city. Max confided to me that years ago he had also suffered from relentless insomnia. He was about to travel to Sadgora to prostrate himself on his ancestors’ tombs to ask their forgiveness, but certain obstacles prevented him from making the journey. In the end, he never went. He fell ill, had an operation, and came through it well. Since then, his insomnia has gone away, but sharp pains sometimes awaken him at dawn. The words left his mouth softly. I saw then, for the first time, that he, too, though elegant in his dress, belonged to our family of wanderers, spending days and nights in this wasteland to drug his rebellious nerves. Still, with him, the struggle seems different. His mighty ancestors have declared war on him and caused him pain. That night he explicitly mentioned the spirits and ghosts who lie in ambush in every corner and conspire against him. The nights are especially difficult, for then their dominion is complete. He also told me about his wife, whose hatred for the Jews knew no bounds. In the first years of their marriage her hostility had a kind of defiant charm, but in the last year, she had become the incarnation of evil. She had even threatened to burn his collection.
Years ago, after a week with Max, I would board the local and ride straight to Brunhilde. But in recent years Brunhilde hasn’t been what she was. Her beauty has faded and she grumbles about her two husbands, who she says cheated her out of her property. She calls the Jews soft and threatens to expose Max’s dishonesty. The train passed by her house, and in my heart was neither regret nor sadness.
The train stopped at a few stations where I once liked to stay overnight. I restrained myself and didn’t get off. I said to myself, maybe I’ll find a devoted woman here or an antique, but that would put me off my course. I must reach Weinberg soon. But when the train stopped at Zwiren, I felt impelled to get off.
Until the middle of the last century there was a small but well-established Jewish community in Zwiren. Over the years it fell apart. The houses were abandoned, and the synagogue was deserted. But, wondrously, three houses still stand, and also the ruins of the synagogue. At the Monday fair years ago I found a ladle with the Hebrew word for milk engraved on it. Hebrew letters in these remote places move me, but my greatest discovery in Zwiren is August, a quarter-Jew. Because of that quarter he’s suffered all his life, and even now people haven’t stopped reminding him of his blemish. A tall, broad man, in all his gestures he resembles a peasant, the son of peasants. When he first discovered that I am a Jew, he was very pleased and invited me to his house. Since then, whenever I come to Zwiren, I stay with him. We sit and drink tea and cognac until late at night. During the war they had sent his aged mother, a half-Jew, to a camp in Germany to improve her character. She returned from there thin and withdrawn, and she didn’t speak again till the end of her life.
When the cognac warms his heart, he speaks about the quarter-Jew within him with a kind of secret admiration, as if it were an aristocratic disease. With disgust he dismisses all those who have conspired against him since his childhood. When he was a child his mother had protected him, and his father once beat two boys who called him names. During the war they hadn’t drafted him into a combat unit, but made him a warehouseman in a fire company garage in southern Germany, not far from the place where his half-Jewish mother had been imprisoned in the camp to improve her character.
Still healthy and erect, August is now seventy-five. In the evening we walked through the village. Again he showed me the Jewish houses and the ruin of the synagogue. He confided that his two sons don’t show much fondness for him, and only once a year, on Christmas, do they visit.
We sipped some more drinks. I told him about my travels, but said nothing about Nachtigel, only hinting that a critical year was before me. The gaiety drained from his eyes, and sorrow settled in. Finally, he turned to me and said in a half-serious voice, “We aren’t going to live forever. So I want to give you something of my own, even now. This vessel, or whatever you want to call it, belonged to my Jewish ancestors. My mother gave it to me, and I have kept it all these years. The truth is it has become a burden. The time has come to put it into reliable hands.”
“Why to me?” I tremble.
“Because you’re a Jew, aren’t you?”
“Not an observant one.”
“But still a Jew.”
I removed the wrapping and saw a kiddush cup engraved with the words “Holy Sabbath.” I wrapped it in its velvet cloth again. I wanted to say, I don’t have a house of my own, where shall I put it? But I was too moved to speak. He looked at me like a peasant who had sold his faithful animal to a cattle trader.
“Why are you giving me this now?”
“I don’t want to keep it in my house. That’s all.” He raised his voice a little. I lowered my head. “You understand,” he said. “I can’t keep it any longer.”
“Then I’ll watch over it,” I said softly.
“I’ve done my part. It’s no longer my responsibility, thank God.”
“I’ll watch over it,” I repeated, wanting to flee.
The train came early, and I left him hastily, as if the earth were burning under my feet.