Kaddish
Dr Josef Bernhardt—the brown leather briefcase with the succinylocholine and Librium under his left arm, his elbow crooked to secure it—raced across the campus of the University of Iowa toward his safety box in the vault of the First National Bank: across the green lawn of the hospital complex, down twenty-eight steps to the little landscaped ravine—a blur of October greens and browns, reds and yellows—and up and around the corkscrew pass over Riverside Drive; he, who in his youth had been a runner, squeaking and creaking like the ungreased wheels of a railway carriage. On the bridge over the Iowa River he slowed to a jog, then, feeling that his heart would burst and his lungs collapse, to a walking limp the last short block to the wide cement stairs leading up to Old Capitol—the heart of the Pentacrest. Wheezing and gasping, right fist pounding his chest to ease the substernal pain, Josef threw himself onto the lawn at the foot of the steps and dropped his briefcase beside him.
He was so obviously in distress that he attracted the attention of some of the students hurrying by and of others sprawled on the green grass enjoying the beautiful autumn day. Almost all, Josef noticed through the wavy distortion of his tears, were wearing the student uniform—faded and patched blue jeans, blue work shirts or colorful T-shirts—and carrying khaki knapsacks.
“Hey, mister. You O.K.?” A flat midwestern twang. The students formed a friendly ring about him, some on the sidewalk, others on the lawn.
“What is he? Having a heart attack or something?”
“Maybe he’s stoned.”
“People dressed like that don’t get stoned.”
“Maybe he’s drunk.”
“You O.K.?”
Prostrate on the green lawn, charcoal suit soaked through with sweat, mouth open to maximize air intake, eyes wide with the strain, lungs emitting rasping and gasping asthmatic counterpoint, Josef realized he must have looked like a lunatic and, hit by the irony of his maniacal race toward death, he twisted his yawning mouth into a crazy grimace and tried to laugh. But it came out as a convulsive, shuddering sound. Mitzka had been racing toward the apples when they got him.
The circle of concerned eyes watched Josef until, within a minute or so, the music in his lungs quieted, the chest pain waned to discomfort, and he tried to stand. Hands reached out and lifted him to his feet; a long-haired student picked up the brown leather briefcase from the grass and gave it to him. Josef doffed an imaginary hat and bowed as he had been taught in Dancing and Social Behavior class. Then, to aid his respiration, he hunched over and straightened—as though rowing a skiff—and sailed up the incline and around Old Capitol. Imminent death gave one the freedom of a madman. Correct? Or was he right? And what did it matter if he dropped dead on the spot from an infarct?
The First National Bank was two blocks farther, and he had five minutes before closing. He had gained two in the run and lost them again in the grass . . . Alas . . . There had been such speed in his little body and such lightness in his footfall, he could hardly believe he was so out of shape. He walked quickly across the Pentacrest toward Clinton Street and cut through a line of war protesters in patched denim uniforms passively picketing on the sidewalk, phlegmatically waving banners and posters, watched by two equally passive city police in dark blue uniforms with shiny buttons, sitting in a black- and-white parked at the curb right where Josef intended to jaywalk across Clinton.
“Dr Bernhardt!” A female voice.
Josef turned and looked at the line of war protesters.
GET THE TROOPS OUT OF VIETNAM
MAKE LOVE NOT WAR
FUCK THE DRAFT
FUCK ME
“Dr Bernhardt,” she cried, again, stepping out of the picket line.
It took him a moment to realize it was the nurse from Four North, Susan Ingram. She looked so different: instead of the stiff nurse’s cap and the white uniform, buttoned to the throat, she wore a blue work shirt, unbuttoned and tied at midriff, and jeans, hugging her hips well below the navel, revealing a firm, flat gut—an altogether attractive upper and lower quadrant. Her brown hair hung in two long braids.
Josef bowed slightly to her, pointed to his watch, turned again toward Clinton, and stepped off the curb right in front of the parked black-and-white.
“Look out for the police,” she yelled.
Josef looked up and down Clinton. No cars coming. He started to walk.
“Hey, fella!” shouted the officer out the squad car window.
Josef kept on walking. A capital crime? The officer jumped out. Josef heard the car door slam but did not stop.
“Hey, you there!”
“Pig. Pig. Pig. Pig. Pig,” chanted the war protesters.
The policeman grabbed Josef by his suit sleeve. “Hey! You can’t jaywalk here.”
Josef looked up at the tall young officer and then down at the huge pistol in his holster low on one hip. “Vot yay-vok?” he asked, smiling idiotically.
“Let me see your driver’s license,” said the officer as he pulled Josef by the sleeve toward the curb.
“Pig. Pig. Pig. Pig.”
There were cars now, and two bicycles and a motorcycle stopped by the obstruction, and their drivers honked and some joined the cantors: “Pig. Pig. Pig. Pig.”
Although he came along willingly, Josef’s suit jacket was pulled clean off one shoulder by the time they reached the curb in front of the squad car.
“Your driver’s license,” the officer repeated.
“Pig. Pig. Pig. Pig.”
Josef shrugged, smiled, and threw out a hand to indicate that he did not understand. With the other hand, he clutched the briefcase. The cantors cheered.
The other policeman, still in the car, stuck his head out the window. “Hey, you, where you from?”
“Ich bin ein Berliner,” said Josef in harsh Schweizerdeutsch.
“Oh, great,” said the arresting officer, “he don’t even talk English.”
“Let him go,” said the one in the squad car. “He’s just a dumb foreigner.” And he pulled his head in and shut the window.
Josef noticed Susan Ingram walking toward him, a look of concern on her face.
The officer tugged at Josef’s sleeve to get his attention. “Cross at the corners,” he said very loud and very slow. He pointed first to one intersection and then to the other while Josef, nodding vigorously, mimicked the action, pointing with index finger to one intersection, then to the other, then to himself.
“That’s right,” the officer articulated carefully. “Cross at the corners.” And, satisfied, he opened the car door, bent his long frame double, and slipped into the driver’s seat.
The cantors applauded, booed, and hissed. “sssssssssSSSSSSS pig!”
Josef, on the curb again in front of the black-and-white, looked at his watch. He had lost three minutes, leaving only two to cover the block and a half to the bank.
Susan Ingram was beside him.
“I’m late,” he said, looking down her cleavage. Kirsti Krupinsky. She wore no bra, and the peace symbol on the delicate gold chain rested between her full breasts. He glanced, then, to his left—no cars; to his right—a double-take. Carlos Borbon.
Still in hospital greens, mask dangling and flopping about his neck, Carlos was galloping across the intersection, without fear of Uncle Philip, against a red light, toward the First National Bank.
Josef made a diagonal dash to the left across Clinton. He could her the policeman hollering, “Hey. You. Fella,” and the students’ monotone, monosyllabic song, “Pig. Pig. Pig. Pig.” At the corner, he stepped onto the curb and found himself in a scene that looked like the day after Kristallnacht, a bookstore, the huge display windows boarded over, and also the doors where the glass had been. There was a placard on the door:
VARSITY BOOK IS OPEN
Without looking back to see if he was being followed, Josef slipped inside, panting and gasping, and leaned against the doorframe, his head thrown back, his eyes closed.
“You’ll have to park your bag,” said a flat male voice.
Josef, bewildered, opened his eyes and was startled to see a uniformed police officer—city police—with sidearm in holster.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’ll have to park your bag,” repeated the guard, pointing to the brown leather briefcase under Josef’s left arm.
Josef straightened up and looked around. There were lockers lining the walls in front of the boarded windows. Tightening his grip on the briefcase, he moved forward to the checkout counters, the guard following. There were no customers on this spacious first floor—and no books—only supplies: papers, pencils, greeting cards, calendars, mugs, cups, and other paraphernalia, T-shirts, sweatshirts, and other clothing, all in yellow with black lettering, all printed either with University of Iowa or with the university logo, an ugly beaked hawk. The Hawkeye State.
“Who broke the windows?” Josef turned to the guard standing at his elbow.
“Students.”
“When?”
“Every time they put them back in.”
“Why?”
The guard shrugged. “You can put it in one of the lockers and take the key.”
“Thank you very much, officer. I prefer to carry it with me.”
“You can’t. It’s the rule.” the man said peevishly, tugging at the briefcase.
“What do you mean, I can’t?” Josef snapped at him, pulling the briefcase and nudging the guard with his elbow.
“Can I help you?” A pleasant-faced man, young middle-age, in his uniform—a pale blue smock coat—monogrammed over the breast pocket, Varsity Book, underneath which was pinned an identification card, with the man’s name, his title, Mgr, and, so there could not possibly be a mistake, his picture. Apparently one needed more security clearance to enter a bookstore in Iowa in 1967 than to enter the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin-Hagen during the Second World War.
“I want to buy a book.”
“Books are downstairs,” said the manager obligingly. “Anything special I can help you with . . . uh . . . er . . . Professor?”
“Doctor. M.D.” Josef watched the manager’s eyes light up with dollar signs. Medical texts are expensive.
The guard, a sullen expression on his face, moved back to the lockers lining the front wall.
“We have a large selection of medical texts, doctor.” The manager was affable. “I’ll take you down myself and show you around. If you’ll just park your briefcase with the security man over there?”
“I’ll take it with me,” said Josef, agreeably, moving toward the stairs to the lower level. He was stopped by a restraining hand on his arm.
“We can’t make exceptions. You understand.” The voice was still congenial.
“No, as a matter of fact, I don’t understand.”
“Oh, come on now, doctor.” The manager slipped from affability to condescension, then slid halfway back to conciliation. “If we let them in here with their bags and sacks, they would steal us blind.”
“Do you mean the students?”
“Yes. And if you make an exception, even in the case of a fine citizen like yourself . . .”
“They would break your windows.”
“You’ve got it.”
“I see.” Josef nodded his head as though in agreement, reached in his back pocket for his wallet, from which he extracted his card, still with his Montréal address, and handed it to the manager. “Here’s my card. Give me a call when you put fresh crystal in those windows,” and he turned and strode to the entrance.
“Dr Bernhardt!” The manager’s voice was all sarcasm. “This is the only store in the state with any selection of medical books. There are no other medical schools in Iowa.”
“You’re breaking my heart,” said Josef.
“Of course, you could drive to Chicago, or, same distance, to Omaha, Nebraska. They have two medical schools in Omaha—only six hours each way.”
Josef enunciated each syllable clearly and distinctly. “I wanted to buy a po-et-ry book,” he said and opened the door.
“Try Epstein’s,” he heard the manager call after him. “It’s right up Clinton.”
He was a wanted man. Josef flattened himself against the boarded-up windows outside Varsity Book and stealthily scanned Clinton, his eyes coming to rest on Susan Ingram and the other war protesters mid-block across the street. The black-and-white was nowhere in sight, nor was that green prick Borbon. As he suspected, Elizabeth had not waited until two fifty en punto to telephone but had obviously reached Carlos at once and sent him stalking the streets of Iowa City. Josef curbed his impulse to run, for he did not want to draw attention to himself. Instead, he walked quickly three storefronts up Clinton to a bar-cafe which had large plate-glass windows—crystal still intact.
He stepped inside and surveyed: two empty tables in front of the windows; a long bar against the wall opposite the entrance extending halfway into the long, narrow room, also empty; the inevitable booths toward the back, one filled with four students. The predominant smell was of freshly popped corn.
Despite the brightness of the day and the large windows, the interior was dim, and Josef felt he would be safe at the far end of the bar with his back to the light. But the moment he settled himself on the barstool and laid his briefcase on the bar, he realized that he hadn’t the vaguest idea what to do next. The banks were closed now, and Carlos was, no doubt, still cruising the streets. He couldn’t get into his safety box until the next day: his mother’s jewelry; his father’s rings and studs, tie pins and cuff links and gold cigarette case—Josef patted his breast, then side pockets, for cigarettes; image of Carlos reaching across the desk for the pack of Camels—three pocket watches in gold cases, Swiss, one from each grandfather and one from his father, and underneath all the artifacts, in the back of the largest safety-deposit box he could rent, under the Swiss bank account books and stocks, under the wills, under the insurance policies and passport was the package he wanted. He would destroy it, make a fire and burn it. All the rest could be sent to Tatiana in Berlin. Josef felt blood rushing to his face. Trembling, flushed, he inhaled deeply and was able to push the air noisily from his lungs and breathe again. What is it one has to show for a lifetime? One potato peeler, first-rate; a schoolgirl’s love poem, in her own hand, on a tattered sheet of blue linen stationery; one tarnished silver napkin ring, engraved with an O for Otto or for O Lord, when will the Savior come to this land; one short, final letter from one’s mother, apropos of nothing that had to do with any reality he had ever wished to live; and one old Hebrew prayer book handed down from Grandfather Josef Jacoby to Uncle Otto Jacoby to him. Gold watches and prayer books. He found it on his desk, the prayer book, the day he returned to his father’s house after leaving Frau Doktor—Ruth—at noon, after loving her one more time in the basement of a collapsed house, in the safety of the British Sector, near the zoo. From Zoologischer Garten, he had taken a trolley, the main trolley of his childhood, No. 177, which was the most direct route from Gartenfeld to the pet shop in Steglitz, where he bought the semi-rotten meat for Dritt and Mies; to Uncle Otto’s original apartment buildings and furniture-manufacturing plant in Schöneberg; to his father’s office in Tiergarten; or to the zoo, which, when he was quite young, he and his mother often visited, a ride of half an hour in the late 1920s and early 1930s, but which in August 1945, with sections of rail still missing so that the passengers had, several times, to leave the tram car and walk a block or two, took twice as long—an hour. So after making love to Ruth one more time, after the hugs and kisses, the tears and lamentations, finally, he left her, and, an hour later, arrived at his father’s house, shortly after one in the afternoon, planning to pack a few things in a suitcase and leave immediately, without speaking to his father, this resolve reinforced when the next-door neighbor, that idiot Baron von Chiemsee, opened Josef’s front door.
Josef brushed past the chattering old man, up the stairs to the third floor, where he found his room intact, the prayer book on his desk where he’d left it, wrapped in newspaper, tied with twine, just as it was the day Uncle Otto had given it to him, the day he and Aunt Greta were taken. Josef unwrapped it—an old, black book, leather-bound, all in Hebrew, but Uncle had inserted a page in his own hand, a transliteration of the Kaddish so Josef could sound it out himself, and on the same sheet, the Jewish dates of the deaths of Grandfather and Grandmother Jacoby. Intermittently, outside the bedroom door, Baron von Chiemsee’s quavering voice, “You must see your father. He’s in his room. He calls for you.”
The Baron remained outside the door until Josef, suitcase in hand, emerged from his bedroom and headed down the stairs. Von Chiemsee ran after him and as Josef, without pausing on the second floor, where his parents’—his father’s—bedroom and study were located, took one step down toward the first floor, Von Chiemsee shouted, “He is a good man, your father. He saved my life.”
That stopped Josef dead in his tracks. He turned to face the Baron, “He saved your life?”
“Josef, Josef, is that you?” From behind the closed bedroom door, Father’s voice, but thin, without timbre.
Josef stepped up to the second-floor landing and moved menacingly toward Von Chiemsee, who shrank against the wall. He was an old man now, thin and small. Josef dropped his suitcase and knocked on the door.
“It is not locked.”
Father was in the bed, propped up against pillows, his green corduroy dressing gown over pajamas, covered, on that warm August day, with a down quilt. The glass was gone, the windows boarded over, and the only light was from a reading lamp over the bed. His slippers were beside the bed, which meant, most likely, that he was able to walk about. There were legal papers and newspapers stacked neatly on the bedside table. Their cat, Mies, slept at Father’s feet.
Josef stepped to the foot of the bed. Father was emaciated; his right eyelid sagged and the left side of his mouth drooped.
“I came only to pick up some things.”
Father looked down.
“I will not stay.”
“I ask you to hear me out before you leave.” He looked up at Josef. “You are well aware that the events of the recent past have proven me wrong.”
Josef did not answer, but, a jury of one, listened to the obviously rehearsed defense delivered in a voice without emotion but trembling from weakness.
“You must take into consideration, Josef, that you did not have the burden of my generation, which made the past epoch inconceivable. I say inconceivable because it was inconceivable that in a civilized country the government that had remained in power for twelve years was totally composed of criminal elements. I believed . . . I truly believed that the juridical system in Germany would have been strong enough to survive with integrity. But I was wrong.
“In my own defense, I must say that I stayed, hoping to do some good. But the elected leaders and spokesmen opposed to the Nazis just packed their suitcases and saved their own skins first, leaving behind the people who elected them—leaving them defenseless and without representation. The only ones who tried to stay were the Communists—and those who did not go underground were put in concentration camps.
“At the very beginning, when a resurrection of law and order and human decency within the German Reich still would have been possible from within, the surrounding countries—indeed, the entire world—turned a deaf ear—yes, even supported the Nazi government by flocking to the Olympics in Berlin in nineteen thirty-six. The treatment of the . . . the people of your mother’s background in Germany was considered by the rest of the world an internal German affair that had nothing to do with the world at large. That was the beginning of the end.
“I made the decision to stay and to do what I could. I was wrong. I made the wrong decision. I know that now. But before you go, I have something for you. There is an envelope on the desk in my study.”
“Von Chiemsee tells me you were most effective in saving his life.”
“His life? He said I saved his life?”
“That’s what he told me. He said that you are a good man because you saved his life.”
“The Baron is a fool. Shortly after the Russians liberated Berlin, he decided it would be a good idea to turn himself in. ‘I will tell them of my nominal Party affiliation,’ he said to me, ‘and they will treat me kindly if I volunteer.’”
“And you defended him?”
“Nothing of the kind. I merely advised against it and quoted a proverb to the old fool that made him change his mind: ‘Go not to your lord, if you’re not called.’ So he did not turn himself in—and the Americans came shortly thereafter. They are much easier on Nazis than the Russians.”
“I will be going,” said Josef. “I came only to pick up some things.”
“There is a motorcycle for you in the garage, a BMW.”
Josef was silent.
“It is not from me. It is from Reverend Duncan and his daughter, Elizabeth. Do you remember them?”
“They came here in nineteen thirty-six for the Olympics.”
“They sent twenty cartons of American cigarettes. One can buy anything with cigarettes. The motorcycle cost four cartons, the sailboat two. There are fourteen cartons left. Take them. I have for you, also, some papers which I have prepared. There are stocks and money in Zurich, in the Handelsbank and in Bank Leu.”
“I don’t need them.”
“Don’t be a fool. They are—were—your mother’s as well as mine.”
“How long is that Nazi going to stay in this house?”
“He’s leaving soon to go to his estate near Munich. As you no doubt saw when you came today, his house was destroyed.”
“He has been helpful to me. I . . . I was unable to . . . to walk after the stroke.”
“You can walk now?”
“Yes. I can make it to the bathroom by myself. And your friend Fräulein Backhaus comes each day, in the morning, to make order in this room.”
“And you have food?”
“Now I do. At first there was no food. But the Americans have been very kind to us. The kitchen is full of K rations. In the winter, however, we will have no fuel.”
Mies stood, stretched his long gray body, yawned, and looked at Josef, who gathered the cat in his arms. “Mies, Miesian,” he said. “How are you, old fellow?”
“Mies has enough to eat, too,” said Father. “He survived on mice and rats and birds. But Dritt. I didn’t have enough for Dritt.” His mouth twitched; his eyes filled with tears.
Josef looked curiously at his father. He had never seen him cry.
“I couldn’t even save little Dritt.” Father put his face in his hands and began to weep. “I had a little stone made for him, with his name. It is in the garden. Would you like to see it? I will show it to you.” Tears streaming, Father threw aside the quilt and stood. “Please, will you hand me that shawl?”
“It is quite warm outside.”
“I cannot get enough warmth.”
Father walked so unsteadily that at the top of the stairs Josef had to put an arm around his waist to support him and, halfway down, when Father’s knees buckled, Josef swept him into his arms—he was fragile as a bird, feather and light bone—and carried him down the rest of the stairs, through the house, and out into the garden. “There is an old motor or so in the basement, Papa. I will make you a little chair to take you up and down the stairs.”
Papa lived seven more years, spending most of his time writing useless letters and receiving useless answers in return:
AMERICAN JOINT DISTRIBUTION COMMITTEE KRONPRINZENALLEE 247 BERLIN-ZEHLENDORF
21 October 1946
Herrn Lothar Bernhardt
Kastanian Strasse 95
Berlin-Gartenfeld
Dear Herr Bernhardt:
Re: Otto Jacoby and Frau Margaret, née Braunstein.
In possession of your writings of September 23, 1946, we have established communications with our official offices. We have now received the report that the above-mentioned were deported to the East with the East Transport on September 22, 1944.
They have not returned and are not on our lists.
We regret that we cannot give you more favorable news and remain
Yours truly,
Larry Lubetski
Tracing Office
American Joint Distribution Committee
AMERICAN JOINT DISTRIBUTION COMMITTEE KRONPRINZENALLEE 247 BERLIN-ZEHLENDORF
21 October 1946
Herrn Lothar Bernhardt
Kastanian Strasse 95
Berlin-Gartenfeld
Re: Frau Dr Anna Bernhardt, née Jacoby.
In possession of your writings of September 23, 1946, we have established communications with our official offices. We have now received the report that the above-mentioned were deported to the East with the East Transport on October 13, 1944.
They have not returned and are not on our lists.
We regret that we cannot give you more favorable news and remain
Yours truly,
Larry Lubetski
Tracing Office
American Joint Distribution Committee
Josef had a file drawer filled with such answers, his favorite from the Bubonic Plague Man, Boris Ivanovich Ignatov, answered, in German, three years—three years—after Father’s inquiry.
15 May 1951
Comrade Lothar Bernhardt
Kastanian Strasse 95
Berlin-Gartenfeld
My dear Comrade Bernhardt:
I received your enthusiastic letter shortly after you sent it to me. As you know, I am happily engaged in very important work to benefit all mankind, and you will, therefore, excuse my delayed answer.
Let me assure you that our dear friends and comrades are in the best of health and spirit and are working happily and productively and undisturbed for the betterment and improvement of the human community.
Some of them have finished their important work and are taking their well-deserved rest. Others are well provided with all necessities of life and can dedicate themselves to nothing but their work. So they even get a visit from their barber once a week.
Contrary to what the Western Imperialist Propaganda claims, you can see that justice is fair and equal within the great Soviet Union.
As I am getting older, I experience more difficulty keeping my mind on the scientific problems which confront me, and I, therefore, ask you not to interrupt me again.
Boris Ivanovich
There was no return address.
Josef’s dark eyes brimmed with tears. He lifted his head from his hands, patted his pockets for cigarettes—Carlos—and scanned the entrance area for a cigarette machine: up front, in the corner. He took a deep breath—still musical, but better. He was better. There was just a remnant of the headache; his blood pressure must be slightly lower. The substernal discomfort was gone; probably it was just a muscle spasm from the unaccustomed running. He was slightly nauseated, and he was thirsty, terribly thirsty, dehydrated from the running and sweating. If he failed to keep up on fluids, he would form stones. Ordinarily, he was conscientious about drinking two or three liters a day.
He looked at the bartender, mid-bar, who was engrossed in counting the change in the cash register, then at the signs posted randomly on the mirror behind the bar:
BEER: PITCHER OR FROSTED MUG
NO CHECKS CASHED
NO CREDIT
TRY OUR REFRESHING LEMONADE
KITCHEN CLOSES AT 2:30
Bottles of hard liquor were arranged neatly on a counter behind the bar, and a mimeographed menu with plastic cover was stuck into a metal holder next to an ashtray on the bar.
“I’ll have a lemonade,”Josef called to the bartender. He was a young man, mostly likely a student, but out of uniform. Although he had long sideburns and a handlebar mustache, his moderately short hair was neatly combed, and he wore a black plastic bow tie, black slacks, and a white shirt with his name, Murphy, in spidery red thread over the pocket. Murphy was now writing on a form attached to a clipboard.
“Are you open for business?” Josef raised his voice.
Murphy dropped the clipboard with a clatter and, reluctantly, looked up.
“A lemonade.”
“Large or small?”
“Large.”
Murphy scooped a tall glass full of ice, slammed it on the bar. and before Josef could stop him, filled it from a pitcher with a pale yellow liquid.
“No ice, please.”
“You asked for a large lemonade?”
“I did.”
Murphy pointed to the glass. “That’s a large lemonade.”
“I want a large lemonade without ice.”
With one smooth movement. Murphy swooped up the glass and threw the contents into the sink. He then placed a smaller glass—half the size—onto the bar and filled it from the pitcher.
“This is a large lemonade?” asked Josef.
“Without ice.”
“I see.” Josef drank it in one gulp. “Another, please.”
Murphy, face devoid of all expression, refilled the glass. Josef, again, drank it in a swallow and ordered another.
“Where you from?” Murphy placed the small glass of lemonade on the bar.
“Iowa City.”
Murphy mopped the clean bar in front of Josef with a dry rag. “How long you been here?”
“Two weeks”
“Where were you before you came here?”
“Montréal.”
Murphy stopped polishing for a moment. “You at McGill?”
Josef nodded.
“Great school. I’ve got a friend goes up there.”
Josef drank the lemonade. He needed more fluid.
“Your accent doesn’t sound Canadian.”
“Most likely not.”
“How do you like it?”
“Like what?”
“Here. America.”
Josef leaned back on the backless barstool and fixed Murphy with his eyes. “There seems to be a war going on—at least in Iowa City. Why did the students break the windows in the bookstore?”
“You mean the Screw?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Varsity Book and Screw. That’s what we call it.”
“Why?”
“Well, you know, because they screw the students—you know, rip ’em off.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Rip off. You know, steal. They’ve got a monopoly, so the professors order textbooks there, and we have no choice. They way overcharge. It’s a rip-off.”
“There are other bookstores. Why don’t the professors order from Epstein’s?”
“A few do. But most of ’em are just motherfuckers.”
“Motherfuckers,” Josef repeated. “Tell me, why don’t the students break the windows here?”
“Here? Are you kidding?” Murphy was astounded. “They know we don’t rip ’em off!”
“What do you call this?” asked Josef, pointing to the small lemonade glass.
“I call that a large lemonade without ice. At least it was before you drank it.”
“I see. What do you think is the liquid capacity of this glass?”
“Five ounces.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure I’m sure.” Murphy reached under the counter and came up with a Pyrex measuring cup; he filled it to the five-ounce mark with water and then poured into the juice glass. “See? Five ounces, exactly.”
“And the large glass?”
“Ten ounces. Double.”
“May I have it, please? The large glass?”
Murphy slammed the large glass onto the bar, and Josef poured the contents of the juice glass into the taller one, motioned for Murphy to fill up the small one again, then poured the additional five ounces of water, filling the taller glass to the brim.
“Ten ounces, just like I said.”
“Now,” said Josef, picking up the ten-ounce glass, “pour out this water and fill it up to the top with ice and put exactly five ounces of water into the measuring cup.”
The young man did so, grinning slyly at Josef.
“And now pour five ounces of water over the ice.”
Murphy poured slowly. At one and one half ounces, the tall glass was half full. At three and one half ounces it began to overflow onto the bar and he stopped pouring and mopped up the water.
“Do you fill all soft drink glasses with ice?”
Murphy nodded affirmatively.
“If I were the students,” said Josef, “I would break the glass here, too.”
“They wouldn’t!” Murphy was upset now.
“And why not?”
“Because they know I’m one of them.”
“How do they know that?”
To Josef’s amazement, Murphy reached to the top of his head and pulled off his hair. “It’s a wig,” he explained, turning around so that Josef could see that his own long brown hair was pulled tightly back in a ponytail, fastened with a rubber band, and then looped about the top of his head and held in place with bobby pins.
Josef could not help but smile as he watched Murphy’s reflection in the mirror manipulating the wig back into place. “The management lets us have mustaches but no beards.” He tugged it this way and that, tucking up strands of his own hair which had escaped the rubber band and bobby pins, then grimaced at Josef’s smiling image in the mirror. “Go ahead! Laugh! I need this job to get through school.”
“Please excuse me,” said Josef. “You caught me off guard. I had no idea it was a wig.”
“Hey, Murphy,” called a voice from a booth in the back. “How about drawing us another pitcher?”
While Murphy filled a large glass pitcher with draft beer and delivered it to the booth, Josef studied the mimeographed menu. Despite the mild nausea, he was hungry. Forgetting again that he had stopped smoking, he patted his pockets for cigarettes. Damn. Carlos.
“Murphy? I’ll have a cheese sandwich on rye and French fries.”
“Kitchen’s closed.”
Josef looked at his watch. “It’s only two twenty. Sign says it closes at two thirty.”
“Can’t help it. Cook leaves early on Tuesday. Has a class.” He sighed. “How about some popcorn? Just made it fresh right before you came in.”
“O.K. Please—butter but no salt.”
Murphy filled a large glass bowl with the yellow popped corn and put it on the bar. “It’s already salted, and we use margarine,” he said, soberly. “But it’s free of charge. On the house.”
“Why?”
Murphy threw up his hands. “It’s so salty that it makes you thirsty so you’ll buy more to drink.”
“I see.” Josef tried the corn, three or four kernels, then pushed the bowl away. “Too salty.”
“All bars do it. Standard practice.”
Josef snorted and looked at the array of bottles on the counter behind the bar. “Is that vodka?” He pointed to a bottle of clear liquid half hidden behind the bourbon.
“That’s gin. But we’ve got vodka.”
“I’ll take some.”
“How do you want it?”
“In a glass, without ice.”
Murphy put a tiny shot glass on the counter and filled it to the brim with vodka.
“Good Lord. How much is that supposed to be?”
“Ounce and a half.”
Josef picked up the shot glass and dumped the contents into the empty five-ounce glass. “Another.” And then, “Another.” Murphy looked on, aghast, as he realized that the five-ounce glass was only slightly more than half full. “Your shot glass.” said Josef, “is only one ounce, not one and a half.”
“That does it!” shouted Murphy, reaching up to pull off his hair again.
“No! Stop! Don’t do that!”
Murphy dropped his hand. “Tell me one reason why I shouldn’t quit right now.”
“Because you need the job and quitting would just be giving in to those swine.”
Murphy nervously mopped the clean bar with the dry cloth. “You think we oughta break all the windows in town, don’t you?”
Josef shuddered. “No. Believe me. Murphy, that does no good.” He swiveled on his barstool and gazed absentmindedly at the large plate-glass windows of the bar front. Carlos.
Borbon was across the street talking to Susan Ingram, gesticulating wildly with his arms. Josef swiveled quickly and faced the back, his heart pounding.
“So what should we do?” asked Murphy.
Most likely there was an exit through the kitchen—into an alley, perhaps. Or he could hide in the men’s room.
“What do you think we oughta do about it?” Murphy repeated.
“I don’t have any answers,” said Josef.
“What are you, a nihilist or something? You come in here and tear the place apart and then you don’t do anything about putting it back together.”
“Murphy, do you see a man—right across the street—wearing hospital greens?”
Murphy turned and stared out the window for some time, but did not answer. Josef heard the entrance door open, and the hair stood up on the back of his neck. “Did he come in here?”
“No.”
“Is he coming over here?”
“No.”
“What’s he doing?”
“Talking to a little lady with boobs. No, wait, he’s leaving.”
Josef was afraid to turn his head. He contemplated a bolt into the kitchen. “Where is he going?” Josef inhaled a deep, musical breath and held it.
“He’s getting on the Cambus.” Pause. “He’s gone.”
“Good!” He exhaled in a loud wheeze. The Cambus would take Carlos back to the hospital. Josef turned toward the window. Customers—two women students—were settling at a table in front.
“Was he looking for you?”
“Yes. One thing you could do is pressure your professors to order books elsewhere—at Epstein’s—and get the university to open its own bookstore. Another thing—you could put less ice in the glasses.”
“But—”
“You’ve got customers.” Josef nodded toward the front.
Murphy sighed, dropped his cleaning cloth, and moved heavily to the end of the bar nearest the front. Josef swung his barstool about and stared through the windows at Susan Ingram across the street. What had Murphy called her? Josef patted his breast pocket, feeling for cigarettes, stood, searched through his pockets for change, and headed for the cigarette machine near the front entrance. Little lady with boobs. They reminded him of Kirsti Krupinsky. He dropped forty cents into the vending machine and pushed Camels. Little lady with boobs. Little lady with rod that made them rise from their noon apple-dreams and scuttle goose-fashion under the skies—that damned poem. Rise and skies . . . scuttle and . . . little . . .
. . . little
Lady with rod that made them rise
From their noon apple-dreams and scuttle
Goose-fashion under the skies!
While walking back to his end of the bar, he opened the pack, stuck a cigarette in his mouth, and cupping his hands, lit it, inhaled, and exhaled with a racking cough. Still he could close his eyes and bring forth the image of those breasts—and still that image aroused him. Kirsti. She, most likely, had made it—survived—but Krupinsky had not. Josef took another drag from the cigarette, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs, and began retching coughs so profound he almost vomited. He was dead. It was no good. He snuffed out the cigarette in the ashtray. Josef picked up the glass of vodka. “Lieber Herr Schtalin,” he whispered harshly, “fuck you,” and threw the three ounces of vodka down his throat, gasped, choked, coughed again, then shuddered all over. It was raw stuff. He took out his handkerchief, wiped his eyes, blew his nose, and then brought forth from the depths a belch that relieved the nausea. He found out about the Krupinskys and the others from the Roumanian Biologist George Treponesco, returned from the USSR to teach at the university. That was five months after the escape through the apples. The University of Berlin reopened in January of 1946, and in his first class after lunch, he sat high in the back row of the tiered benches, waiting, along with sixty-five other students, for the zoology professor to appear. The university was in the Russian Sector, and Josef was wondering what kind of an idiot they had found who would be willing to teach the biological sciences under the control of the Soviets, who denied Darwin and Mendel in favor of Lamarck, when in swaggered Treponesco, slammed his books onto the table, then tried to push it aside—the way the Chief used to do—but it was bolted to the floor. He tried to lift off the lectern, but it was screwed to the table. He began to pace, hands locked behind his back, looking at the students—just the way the Chief had done it. He hadn’t yet seen Josef.
“Ladies and gentlemen.” Treponesco paced as he talked. “This is a course in zoology; simplified for medical students. No credit will be given for majors in the sciences. Since you are medical students, you will probably have difficulty with it. Correct? Or am I right?”
Josef, his head pounding, hardly able to breathe, pushed his books and notebooks onto the floor, and then his pencils, sending them flying. Treponesco could not help but notice. He stopped pacing.
“Bernhardt, I want to talk to you. Come down.”
Josef stood and began to walk toward the front.
“Bring your books!”
Josef began to pick up his books, notebooks, and pencils. The two women seated on either side of him dropped down to help. Since there were very few men left in Berlin, his class was mostly women. Treponesco waited silently below until Josef was face-to-face, then, remembering the sixty-four other students, he turned to the class and, after two brief bows, said, “Excuse me, please. A long-lost friend. Excuse me a moment.”
Josef followed him into the hall.
“I do not want to see your goddam curly face in my classroom again!”
Josef stood, silent, and looked Treponesco in the eye.
“Oh, come on, Bernhardt. Read the book. You’ll pass the exam with flying colors. This stuff is so elementary you know it already. And anyway, what are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to be at M.I.T.? What’s the matter, weren’t you accepted?” He snickered.
“I was awarded a full scholarship, but I couldn’t get a visa.”
“The Americans wouldn’t give you a visa? Why not?”
“Because I’m a German. Weren’t you taken with the others?”
“We were all taken. They let me come back to teach.”
“Did any of the others make it back?”
“My wife. She’s divorcing me.”
“I don’t blame her.”
“Neither do I. What about Tatiana?”
“She’s enrolled here, unfortunately in biology.”
“Good!” He rubbed his hands together. “She’ll have to take my class. You two still going together?”
“We’re engaged.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you. What about the others?”
“I ran into Rabin in Moscow; that is, I went to his concert and caught him afterward, backstage. He was really glad to see me.” Treponesco shrugged. “Told me that the Yugoslav was dead.”
“Mitya? What happened?”
“Seems that the monkeys started dying—during the trip. So he just injected the rest of them—and then himself. He did himself in.”
“My God!”
“Ignatov’s O.K. Rabin says he got his old position back—you know, doing research on the plague—in Kiev, Soviet Academy of Science and Medicine.”
“What about the Chief and Sonja and Professor Kreutzer and the Krupinskys?”
“Look, Josef, I’ve got students in there. Meet me after class in that cafe on the corner. We’ll have a beer, and I’ll tell you what little I know.”
After the beer, Josef had gotten on his BMW and raced out to the Institute for the first time since his escape through the apples.
His body swayed, a momentary vertigo; he held on to the bar. He had small tolerance for alcohol and had done little drinking since the Institute. Dizzy, he turned slowly on his barstool and looked out the plate-glass window. There she was, the little lady with boobs, Susan Ingram, picketing against war:
MAKE LOVE NOT WAR
Josef reached for the little calendar note pad and pen he kept in the inside pocket of his suit jacket and wrote: Her wars were bruited in our high windows, and under that, in his illegible physician’s hand, he wrote the first four lines of the poem that had been plaguing him all day:
There was such speed in her little body,
And such lightness in her footfall,
It is no wonder her brown study
Astonishes us all.
He paused, then sketched in other words and phrases as they came to him. It was rhymed, or near rhymed, so he should be able to reconstruct it all once he found the words: Her wars were bruited in our high windows . . . apple orchards and beyond . . . Lazy geese who cried in goose alas! for the little lady with rod, that . . . harried unto the pond the lazy geese . . . dropping their snow on the green grass . . . Alas! To the little lady with rod . . . noon-apple dreams.
He had the first verse and much of the middle, but was having trouble with the end. He wrote “Bells for John Whiteside’s Daughter” by John Crowe Ransom and put the note pad and pen back into his pocket. He needed a little help with the ending and decided that he would wander up Clinton to Epstein’s and look up the poem in an anthology. It had been years since he had allowed himself the joy of browsing through the stacks—not since his youth, when his father gave him a charge account at the bookstore in Gartenfeld. Both Mutti and Papa encouraged him to buy as many books as he wished, and his third-floor bedroom was filled with them.
“Can I get you anything else?” Murphy’s voice seemed far away.
“No, thank you.” Josef stood. His lips were numb, fingers and toes tingling, and his legs lead. He was quite drunk.
“You leaving?”
“How much do I owe you?” Josef reached for his wallet.
“I have no idea what to charge you.”
Josef dropped a ten-dollar bill on the counter.
“That’s too much.”
“Keep your hair on,” said Josef and walked toward the entrance.
“Hey,” shouted Murphy. “You forgot your briefcase.”
Unsteady enough from the three ounces of vodka to be conscious of each careful step, Josef wandered up Clinton, his briefcase, held by the grip, swinging by his side. The city noises came from a great distance; the center of a quiet, glowing circle, he crossed the intersection with the light, aware that others, without fear of Uncle Philip, were ignoring the traffic signals, and that he, Josef, actually was enjoying the warmth of the beautiful October day. As he strolled along, studying the storefronts on both sides of the street—crystal intact—looking for the other bookstore, Epstein’s, his attention was captured by the colors in the window of a men’s clothing store, and he stopped to stare through the glass, mesmerized by the rich hues of a carefully arranged display of autumn leaves and matching wool sweaters—russet, gold, burgundy, brown.
“Buy it.” Susan Ingram had slipped up beside him. He could see her reflection in the glass.
He turned slowly, so that he would not lose his balance, and looked down at her—the open work shirt, no bra, her full breasts. “Miss Susan Ingram, R.N.” He slurred the words.
“I am surprised you remember my name.”
“You are quite memorable, Miss Ingram.” He pointed to the sweaters behind glass. “Which one? The brown?”
“The red! Your suits are too dark. You always look as though you’re going to a funeral.”
Josef cocked his head to one side and contemplated the wine-red sweater. Tanya would have said that he was too old to wear red.
“Look, Dr Bernhardt, what have you got to lose?” She slipped her arm into his and propelled him through the door of a store that, obviously, catered to the more conservative element of Iowa City. There were standard dark suits and quiet sport coats and slacks along one wall; shirts in proper boxy cubicles along the other; sweaters and other accessories neatly stacked on tables in the center. No blue jeans or work shirts here.
An odd couple: Susan Ingram, looking like a hippie, and Josef in prudent charcoal-gray, carrying a fine leather briefcase, with the only hint of improvidence the unbuttoned collar, the missing necktie which he had stuffed into his jacket pocket after Elizabeth’s examination; of course, he was drunk, but that, he assumed, would not be noticed by anyone.
The two sales clerks, men in quiet suits, surveyed them with lowered lids but did not rush to wait on them.
Susan pulled Josef along the stacks of wool sweaters and picked up a burgundy long-sleeved V-neck. “Dr Borbon was looking for you,” she said. “He stopped to talk to me in front of the Pentacrest. It was after you left the bookstore and went into the bar.”
“Why didn’t you tell him where I was?”
“It was obvious you were trying to avoid him.”
“But you knew where I was all along?”
She nodded. “Have you been drinking?”
“Is it noticeable?”
“Yes. Do you drink a lot?”
“Not recently. Tell me, Miss Ingram, how long have you been following me?”
“About a month. Will you please call me Susan?”
“Susan. I’ve been in Iowa City slightly more than two weeks.”
“I know. But I was interested in you even before you came. Dr Borbon talked about you a lot. Especially after you finally got your visa and were coming down soon.”
“Are you a friend of Dr Borbon’s?”
“Not exactly. I am . . . was a friend of a friend of his for a while. One of the writers over at the Workshop.”
“I see. Do you specialize in friends of Borbon?”
“I could do worse. He likes to collect brilliant people around him—like Dr Matsumoto, the biochemist, and some of the writers over at the Workshop.” She looked up at him, her face serious, her dark eyes wide. “He said you have an I.Q. of two hundred and five and that you’re separated from your wife, which is good because she was bad for you.”
“Good Lord,” said Josef.
“Is it true? About your marriage?”
Josef thought for a moment. “True,” he said.
“Do you want to try this on?” She waved the burgundy sweater at him.
“I’m too sweaty to put on clean clothes.”
“My apartment’s right across the street—above Burger Qwik. You could shower there . . .”
Josef looked down her cleavage. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Can I help you?” A thin-nosed, balding clerk, finally, approached them.
Josef bought the burgundy sweater.
He awakened in some confusion, dreaming of the cave in his back yard, of Papa standing there beside the hole looking down at him and at Petter, and he realized that he was a collection of symptoms: intermittent epigastric pain, distended abdomen, mild nausea, and urinary urgency—but his headache was gone, and he could breathe. Petter! He had not thought of his high school friend for years. To relieve the pain in his gut, he needed to flex his knees, to pull his legs up a bit, but he did not want to disturb Susan, who lay sweetly sleeping on his shoulder, her tousled hair hiding her face. He had asked her to unbraid her long dark hair, brush it, and let it lie free.
Another pain, sharper this time, lower, and the muscles in his legs involuntarily spasmed. Susan’s hand, resting on his belly, began to stroke lightly, moving down to his sex.
He stopped her, gently lifting her hand. “I don’t think I can,” he said.
She pulled her hand away abruptly and tried to sit up, but Josef restrained her.
“Don’t be angry.”
With one hand securing the towel he had tucked between her legs, Susan sat and pushed her back against the wall, the flowered sheet settling around her waist.
He sat, too, and looked at her—her face, her breasts. “Look,” he said, taking her hand and placing it only briefly on his stiffening sex before releasing it.
“Then what’s wrong?”
Josef shoved back against the wall. “Most likely, I’m working on a kidney stone.”
“Oh, no. Are you in a lot of pain?”
“Not yet, but if it’s true to form, I will be before long.”
She took his hand. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m the one who’s sorry. I so wanted to take you to dinner this evening.”
“Another time.”
“Of course.” He sighed. “I’m a stone maker,” he said. “Whenever I fail to drink enough fluid—become dehydrated—I can count on it.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t have made love.”
“No, don’t say that. You have no idea . . .” His voice trailed off. He had not so much as jumped on a black spot since Kristallnacht in Montréal in the spring—not with Tanya, who had left shortly thereafter, and not with anyone else.
“Can I get you anything?”
“Perhaps something to drink, if you don’t mind.”
“I’ve got some wine. Do you drink a lot?”
“You asked me that in the sweater store. Would it concern you if I did?”
“Yes. You said you hadn’t been drinking lately.”
“I said ‘not recently.’”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Not since the war.”
“Which war?”
Josef, startled, looked at her to see if she was serious.
She was not smiling.
“The Second World War, twenty-two years ago.”
“I don’t remember much about it. I was only six when it was over.”
“It would be fair to say that I was at least mildly drunk, at least once a day, each and every working day for the last two years of that war.”
“Not at work! You weren’t drunk at work?”
“That’s the only place I was drunk. My parents would not have permitted it at home.”
She laughed. “Where on earth was it? A winery?”
“Not quite,” he said. “It would take a long time to tell you. But except for those years, I have rarely been intoxicated.”
“Except for today.”
“Except for today,” he echoed. “Today, I drank vodka, which I did not tolerate very well. But to tell you the truth, I did have one bout with drunkenness slightly earlier in my life. Would you like to hear about that?”
Susan nodded.
“I was only six or seven, and for some reason I don’t understand, my father had taken me with him to a cafe in the village where he and a client celebrated winning some case or other. My father was a lawyer. They ordered a bottle of champagne and gave me a glass. I thought it quite delicious. They were involved in talking with each other and didn’t pay attention to me, so I helped myself to more champagne and then more—maybe three glasses in all.”
“Was your father mad at you?”
“At first. Then. I remember, they both began to laugh—my father and his client—and they half dragged, half carried me to my father’s car and shoved me into the back seat. It was the Duesenberg.”
“Duesenberg?”
“Yes. Duesenberg. A year or so later we had, also, a Willys Overland.” Josef stopped and gasped. A sharp pain shot from his kidney, down the ureter track into his groin and testicles.
“You O.K.?”
He nodded. “Sorry. I dozed off during the short ride home—our house was only twelve minutes’ walking from the village of Gartenfeld, so the car ride couldn’t have been more than two or three minutes—and I woke up to find myself being carried up the stairs in Papa’s arms. He thought I was asleep, but I was not.” Josef’s voice broke. He was, again, on the verge of tears. He took a deep breath, still musical, but he exhaled without difficulty. “Would you excuse me?” He swung his legs over the side of the bed.
“Water would be fine,” he said, his voice shaking. “I would like to try to float out this stone.”
“Are you in a lot of pain?”
He nodded, stood, and moved quickly toward the bathroom.
“I’ll make you some herbal tea.”
His mother’s and father’s voices had seemed to come from a great distance. “What happened to him?” Mutti said from the top of the stairs; she sounded so worried. Papa’s wool suit was rough against his face, and it smelled of the aromatic pipe tobacco he smoked before the war.
“He’s drunk,” Papa said.
“Drunk?”
“Champagne.” Papa laughed. “Hans Georg and I were talking, and Josef must have helped himself to several glasses before I noticed.”
Mutti laughed, too. “Better take him in the bathroom, or he’ll wet the bed.”
They pulled down his pants and Papa stood him at the bowl. “He’s heavier than he looks.”
“He’s wiry and much stronger than one would think.”
Josef let go a strong stream. His urine smelled pungently aromatic, fruity. He flushed the toilet and put down the seat and lid.
“We’ve got a doubles date with Kahns in the morning, eight o’clock,” Mutti said. “Our little tennis ball fetcher will, most likely, not be awake. That will make him very unhappy.” She laughed again. “Can he walk?”
Josef looked at the door. He could have walked, but he let his knees buckle—on purpose—so that Papa, once again, swooped him up. “He is so thin, one would think he would weigh like a feather.”
Chilled and nauseated, experiencing excruciating intermittent pain originating in the kidney area but radiating across his abdomen and down into his genitals and the inner side of his thigh, wearing, now, his new red sweater, Josef sat at the table in Susan’s tiny living room, before him a pot of herbal tea, a mug, a legal-size lined yellow tablet, his pen, the telephone, and the Iowa City telephone directory. Susan was in the shower; he could hear the water pinging hollow against the metal shower stall.
He turned to the Yellow Pages—C, Churches—and shivered. Churches-African Methodist Episcopal; Churches-Assemblies of God; Churches-Baptist—two and a half pages. He flipped back to the second page and ran his finger down the C’s, E’s, to the J’s: Churches-Jehovah’s Witnesses; Churches-Jewish, See Synagogues.
Synagogues |
|
Agudas Achim Congregation |
555–8818 |
B’Nai B’Rith Hillel Foundation |
555–8816 |
Rabbi David Brockman |
|
“Hello?” A child answered the phone. Josef couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl. He could hear other children shrieking and laughing in the background.
“Is this Agudas Achim?”
“What?” shouted the child. “Hey, you guys, shut up, I’m on the phone. Hello?”
“Is this the synagogue?” asked Josef.
“Yeah.”
“Is Rabbi there?”
Josef winced from auricular pain when the synagogue phone was dropped with a reverberating crash onto a tile counter. He could hear the youngster shout, “Hey, you guys, tell Rabbi Brockman telephone.” Then once again into the phone, “Hello? Just a minute, please. I’m in the kitchen and Rabbi’s upstairs.”
Josef held the phone away from his ear just in time to avoid the resounding of another crash. He listened to the riotous sounds of children playing for several minutes before the Rabbi picked up another phone.
“Hello?”
“Rabbi Brockman?” he shouted. “My name is Josef Bernhardt.”
The noise from the kitchen was so intrusive that Josef could barely hear the Rabbi’s voice. “Just a minute, please.” Rabbi Brockman apparently put his hand over the mouthpiece before shouting, “Robin, will you run down and hang up the phone in the kitchen? I can’t hear a thing.”
Finally, “Sorry.” A chuckle. “The children. I didn’t catch your name?”
“Bernhardt. Josef Bernhardt.”
“What can I do for you, Mr Bernhardt?”
“I . . . I was wondering if you were having a . . . a prayer service this evening.”
“We usually don’t have a minyan during the week, but I can get one together in a hurry. Do you have yahrzeit?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“A yahrzeit,” repeated the Rabbi, “the anniversary of a death?”
“Yes,” said Josef. “That’s it. I . . . I would like you to find someone to say Kaddish for my mother. It is . . .” He stopped.
“Is it the anniversary of her death?” asked the Rabbi, gently.
“Rabbi, I don’t know.” Josef’s mouth twisted, his eyes burned with tears, and he had difficulty speaking. “She was taken on this date. I know she’s dead. But I’m not sure how or when that death occurred.”
“When was she taken?”
“Nineteen forty-four. In Berlin. We lived in Berlin.”
“Are you new here, Mr Bernhardt? In Iowa City?”
“Yes. I . . . I joined the medical faculty just two weeks ago.”
“Dr Bernhardt, excuse me, but why is it that you want me to find someone else to say Kaddish? Why don’t you say it yourself?”
“I’m not sure I may. I am just half-Jewish. My father was not. And Rabbi, there were others: my uncle—that is, my uncles and aunt—and . . . others, my friends, many of them. Mostly, I know only when they were taken. I have few death dates.”
“Dr Bernhardt, it’s five o’clock. I’ll be teaching Hebrew school until six. Could you come over then? I’ll get a minyan together, no problem. Do you know where we are?”
“I’ll find it.”
“Wait! Before you hang up.” The Rabbi paused for a moment. “Dr Bernhardt, the old Rabbis were very wise. They tell us that there are only two ways to become a Jew: one is by conversion and the other is if one’s mother is a Jew. There is no other way, and there is no such thing as half a Jew. You are a Jew, Dr Bernhardt, and there is no reason why you cannot say Kaddish for your family and your friends.”
“Rabbi, some of them were not Jewish.”
“Why don’t you write down the names—all of them—and give them to me before the service. I’ll read a special prayer. Just a minute, please.”
Josef could hear papers rustling.
“Here it is. I’ll read it to you.”
“‘In this solemn hour, we reverently recall the martyrs whose ranks have been tragically augmented by untold numbers of our fellow men and women in our generation. Never shall we forget those who sacrificed their lives for the sanctification of thy name. We remember also the heroes and righteous men and women of all nations who lived and died for justice, truth, and peace.
“‘Though our departed are no longer with us, their memories are forever enshrined in our hearts and their influence abides with us, directing our thoughts and deeds toward the lofty purposes they cherished and for which they strived.’
“And then we say the traditional Kaddish. The whole service—Minha, Ma’ariv, and the memorial prayers—takes about twenty minutes. Does that sound all right?”
“Yes,” Josef whispered. “Thank you. Rabbi. I’ll be there at six, and I will bring a list.”
He had one hour until six. The synagogue was not far, only six blocks up Washington from Susan’s apartment.
Josef turned again to the Yellow Pages: Taxicabs.
SUPER CAB INC |
|
404 E. College |
555–0300 |
YELLOW CHECKER CAB CO INC |
|
404 E. College |
555–1313 |
“Super Cab.”
“Yes, please, could you please have a taxi pick me up on the corner of Clinton and Washington, in front of the Burger Owik, at five forty-five?”
“Burger-Owik on Clinton, quarter to six.”
“Can I count on it being on time?”
“Why not?”
Josef dialed again. Carlos would just be waking from his siesta and would be planning to take a twenty-minute swim in his indoor pool before shaving, showering, and dressing elegantly in a three-piece suit to head over to the hospital, arriving at exactly seven so that he could read for an hour in the anesthesiology library before making rounds.
His Spanish housekeeper answered. “Dr Borbon’s residence.”
“Doña Camila, this is Josef Bernhardt. May I speak to Carlos?”
“Don José,” she exploded. “Where you been? Don Carlos, he is half crazy looking for you. Don’t hang up. You stay.” She put down the phone, and Josef could hear her calling. “Don Carlos! Don Carlos!”
“Hello? Dr Borbon here.”
“Charley?”
“Seff? You goddamned sonofabitch, where the hell are you? Jenkins is ready to kill me, goddammit. He won’t accept your resignation. Jesus Christ!”
Josef held the phone away from his ear until the tirade subsided,
“I’m here.”
“Where the hell are you? Goddammit. Elizabeth says your blood pressure is astronomical. You’ve got her absolutely in pieces. Jenkins said he’ll give you a leave of absence—three months—but no more. Maybe six months. Why the hell—”
“Carlos, listen to me.”
“We’ve been so worried, we have the police looking for you. I even called your wife.”
“Tatiana? You called Berlin? Why in hell did you do that?”
“What else could I do? I’ve looked everywhere. The police even broke into your house to see if you were hanging in the basement.”
“Now that’s a novel idea.”
“What the hell is the matter with you? This is completely out of character.”
“Charley, I’m in terrible pain.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Kidney stone.”
“Again? How bad is it?”
“Bad. But it’s still intermittent, and I can feel it moving down. It should localize soon.”
“Where are you? Do you want me to come get you?”
“Yes. Charley, I am sorry to have been such a pain to you today—and to Elizabeth. It’s been an insane day. I . . . I blanked out in surgery this morning.”
“You blacked out?”
“No. I was not unconscious, but I lost track of what I was doing during the operation.”
“You’re just exhausted, Seff. You need a rest. I’ll take you to my house in the Canary Islands. It’s so peaceful there. You need time to think.”
“We’ll talk about it.”
“Look, it’ll take me five minutes to dress and about twenty to drive into town—if that’s where you are.”
“Yes. Please pick me up at Sixth and Washington. That’s the Agudas Achim Synagogue. I’ll be done there by six twenty or so.”
“I know where that is. Seff, why the hell didn’t you ever tell me that you were a Jew?”
Josef’s mouth curled in a paroxysm of pain.
With his black ink pen, on the legal pad, he built it carefully, printing in large block letters so that Rabbi Brockman would be able to read the list without difficulty. The names came easily, and the dates after only a minute or so of reflection. By the time he was done, Susan was out of the shower and in the bedroom drying her hair; he could hear the whirring of the small motor of her electric dryer.
Anna Jacoby Bernhardt, taken October 10, 1944, death date unknown
Otto Jacoby, taken September 21, 1944, death date unknown
Greta Braunstein Jacoby, taken September 21, 1944, d/d/u
Philip Jacoby, taken June 21, 1938, d/d/u
Maximilian Kreutzer, taken August 11, 1945, d/d/u
Nikolai Alexandrovich Avilov, taken August 11, 1945, d/d/u his wife, Madame Avilov, died in January 1945 his son, Mitzka Avilov, died August 25, 1944
Dieter Schmidt, taken August 25, 1944, d/d/u
Sonja Press, taken August 11, 1945, d/d/u
Abraham Morris Krupinsky, died August 16, 1945
Dmitri Varvilovovich Tsechetverikov, died in June 1945
Lothar Leopold Bernhardt, died November 2, 1952
Pen poised, Josef hesitated, then added another name.
Gunther Rathke, died April 21, 1943
“No.” he said aloud, crossing out Gunther Rathke.
But there were so many others, he could not begin to list them all. Josef added two more names, thinking for almost a minute before writing their date.
Frau Levy, taken July 1942, d/d/u
her grandson, Hans, taken July 1942, d/d/u
By the time the prayer service was over, there was no longer intermittency. The pain, constant, was the most exquisite Josef had ever suffered. Carlos and the Rabbi helped him out the door of the synagogue, down the steps, and into the back seat of Carlos’s BMW. Carlos slid in beside him, and his driver made a smooth fast acceleration. Down Washington, across Clinton, flying now, over the river, past the train station, the tiny village of Hagen, the little farms, the fields and small forest, through the guardless gate, and around the circular drive. There was no flagpole at all! They had taken even the flagpole. And the Y-shaped building was a shell. The Roumanian Biologist George Treponesco told him, over the beer in the café, that the NKVD loaded everything and everybody into the trucks, even the shelves and shelves and jars and jars of the brains of the fallen aviators, and the racks with the incubators containing the pure-bred Drosophila, and that en route all the happy little winemakers died; that Abraham Krupinsky had a fatal heart attack after four brutal days on the road and that his corpse and his wife were dropped in some small village in the Ukraine; that he was separated from the others in Moscow and had no idea what became of them; that the Security Officer, because he was obviously so ill, was the only one given the option to remain behind, in Hagen, with his wife and children, but that he elected to follow the linear accelerator into Russia, even though the Chief and Professor Kreutzer insisted that it never would be put together again.