I had only gone a few meters when I saw a dirty little man in rags jumping around on the street. It was Rubinstein.
Hundreds of thousands of people lived in the ghetto, but there were three people everyone knew. One was despised, one revered, and one made everyone smile. That was Rubinstein. He pranced about in the street like a clown or like a madman, maybe. He leaped in my direction and stopped right in front of me with a sweeping bow, as if he were a nobleman and me a princess. And he greeted me with his favorite words: “All the same.”
Of course, my common sense told me that people were not all the same in the ghetto, but every time I heard Rubinstein saying or shouting these words, I wondered if he might be right, after all. Especially now, after what Jurek had just told me. We all shared the same ghetto hell, the same fear of dying. Didn’t that make us all the same? Whether we were rich or poor, young or old, sane or insane?
And weren’t the Germans in the same boat, despite all their power over us? They could still lose this war they were fighting—they hadn’t conquered the whole world yet.
Anyway, Rubinstein was the only person in the ghetto who wasn’t afraid of the Germans. When he met SS men he jumped around them in just the same way he jumped around us. He would point at them and then at us and keep saying “All the same,” until the Germans started to laugh and joined in, chanting “All the same,” too. They probably thought it was funny, but perhaps deep inside they could sense that they were just as vulnerable as we were, although they would never admit it.
Perhaps Rubinstein wasn’t insane after all. Maybe it was wise not to be afraid of the Germans. Maybe our fear amused him in the same way that his madness amused us.
Now Rubinstein suddenly laughed out loud. I followed his gaze: At the end of the street a group of SS men were out on patrol. Rubinstein was the only Jew I knew who could laugh when he saw SS soldiers. He bounded on a few meters until he landed in front of Jurek’s shop and started shouting loudly enough for the old man to hear through the window. “Hitler stinks!”
I could see Jurek flinch behind his dusty till.
“Hitler,” Rubinstein shouted, “gave his dog a good old bone!”
Jurek started to panic. The pedestrians around us all hurried away from Rubinstein. I started to feel worried. What happened if the SS men heard this nonsense?
I looked around, but the patrol hadn’t noticed the madman yet—he must be mad; why else would he do something this insane? And so I stayed, wanting to see what would happen next, and forgot the most important rule of survival. It is never, ever a good idea to be too curious.
“Hitler is making love with his own hound.” Rubinstein wouldn’t give up. Jurek grabbed a load of food from the shelf: ham, bread, butter, and dashed out to Rubinstein. He thrust it all into his arms and hissed, “Shut up!”
Jurek was terrified that the Nazis would come and shoot Rubinstein, and then shoot him, too, because someone had been shouting obscenities outside his shop. Even though the old man believed that we were all going to die soon, he didn’t want to be executed today.
Rubinstein grinned at Jurek. “I like jam, too.”
“You little…” Jurek glared at him.
I understood what was going on here: What Rubinstein was doing was the most insane way to blackmail someone.
“I could tell everyone that you’d like to sleep with Hitler, too.” Rubinstein grinned even more broadly. The old shopkeeper couldn’t say a word.
Rubinstein turned around to face the soldiers, cupped his hands round his mouth like a megaphone, and started to shout. “Jurek wants to…”
The SS soldiers looked in our direction. Suddenly, I panicked. I was such an idiot. I should have been gone ages ago.
Jurek put his hand over Rubinstein’s mouth and hissed, “You’ll get your bloody jam.”
The blackmailer nodded happily. Jurek took his hand off Rubinstein’s mouth, and the little man pressed a finger to his lips, to show that he was going to be quiet now.
The SS men looked away. Jurek caught his breath, charged into his shop, and came back out with a large jar.
I had never been so happy to see a jar of jam in my life.
“Strawberry!” Rubinstein was delighted and opened the jar right away. He grabbed a handful of jam and stuffed it into his mouth with pleasure.
There are prettier sights in the world. Rubinstein smiled at me and offered me some, too. I looked at Jurek. I didn’t want to be rude, but I hadn’t had strawberry jam for ages; it cost almost as much as butter on the black market. The old man looked at me and sighed.
“It’s all right, Mira,” he said. “At least he’s stopped shouting.”
As soon as Jurek had disappeared into his shop, I put my hand into the jar and stuffed a huge helping of jam into my mouth. I didn’t care if Rubinstein had already stirred it with his filthy fingers. It tasted amazing.
While I was enjoying the glorious, sweet, fruity flavor, I realized that Rubinstein probably wasn’t mad at all, he was simply ingenious.
“Maybe I could be your apprentice,” I joked.
“Then,” the man joked back, “I’ll show you how to get the richest Jews to give you a five-course meal.”
“I’d really like to be able to do that,” I laughed.
A madman’s apprentice! And I’d wanted to be a doctor.
Rubinstein put his tongue into the jar and started to lick the sides. Now I didn’t think I’d have any more.
“Do you really think that we’re all the same?” I asked.
He took his face out of the jar and answered, while red blobs of red jam dripped down his chin.
“Of course I do, and we are all free, too.”
Was he being ironic?
“But that’s ridiculous,” I replied.
But Rubinstein turned dead serious all of a sudden. “No, it’s not!”
He wasn’t a madman anymore, or a clown. He was suddenly a man who saw the light.
“Everyone is free to choose what kind of human he wants to be,” Rubinstein said, looking straight into my eyes. “The question is, little Mira, what kind of human do you want to be?”
“One who can survive,” I answered quietly, fending him off.
“I’m not sure that’s enough to justify life,” he answered. He wasn’t laughing at me, but he was smiling. Then he bounded off with his bounty and left me wondering what kind of person I wanted to be.