The Train to Warsaw (10 page)

The next day, all those years ago, she had gone to his tiny London flat. I remember your flaxen hair and your blue eyes, he had said, your round arms and beautiful hands. I'm falling into a honeypot. Easy to fall into, difficult to climb out of. Through the open window the sunlight fell on her arms and her hair. She played with the thin bangles around her wrist. She saw the sunlight on his chest and watched his square fingers as they knocked a hard-boiled egg on the table and peeled off the white shell. Say my name, he said. I want to hear you say my name. I can't. Not yet. I don't know where I am, she said softly. No, he agreed. I thought I would never see you again, she had told him. Not me, he said. I knew I wasn't yet done with you, my sweetheart.

You got up from your seat and I watched you come toward me, said Lilka now. You pulled me to my feet and took me in your arms. Your skin was warm and smelled of tobacco. How strong you were. I had drunk too much and could barely stand up. Why did you give me so much, I murmured. Only a peasant drinks like that. I reached out a finger to touch your dark curls. I don't know where I am, I told you. You put your arm around my waist and led me down the hall to the bedroom. Then you carried me over the threshold. I'm going to undress you in Polish, you said, and make love to you in Polish. We'll go back to Warsaw together, my Polish sweetheart, Warsaw before the war. I was only a child, I told you. Never mind, you said. You're not anymore.

Several stars appeared in the darkening sky. The skyline grew fainter and the contours of the new Warsaw blurred. Your book came out, said Lilka, and created a sensation. You became famous overnight. Who was this handsome dark-haired refugee who had survived all this? Had these things really happened? Black as pitch, they said. Language and images so unrelenting you have to blink—or turn away. Translated into eighteen languages. Reviewed everywhere. And wherever I went there was
The Way Down
in the window of every bookshop. We had moved in together, but I barely saw you anymore.

And then you went to Frankfurt. I'm going to the Frankfurt Book Fair with Edward, he had told her, as they sat having breakfast one morning in London. It's the first Frankfurt Book Fair since the war. What better, says Edward, than to present a Jew who speaks to us from out of the ruins. Jascha bit into a poppy-seed roll. Edward says I'm going to make his name. My book, he proclaimed, will light up the night sky. I'm going to be a famous author. He didn't tell me you were going to Frankfurt, said Lilka. Does he tell you everything? Jascha wanted to know. No, she answered, of course not. And certainly not in this case because he knows what you will say. And what is that? You'll say: I want to go too. Well I do. But you can't, darling. It makes no sense. And you'll distract me. I have a job to do there. Jascha, she had said, everything will change. Yes, he agreed. It will. Don't be sad, darling, he had said. Nothing lasts forever.

I should be there too, Lilka had said. Aren't I the translator? They'll want to ask me about that, she went on. No, darling, he replied, they won't. They want to meet the author himself, not the translator. Well I could go unofficially. He shook his head. Not this time my angel. This is my moment. When I lay on my back on a hillside in Poland, with the cows chewing peacefully all around me, I dreamed of the moment when my words would fly up like a flock of birds and everyone would know my name. Although of course it's not really my name.

The streetlights came on and flakes drifted down over the smudged yellow globes of light. You went off to the Frankfurt Book Fair, she said to him now, and left me behind. How angry I was with you. I went to the office but I couldn't work. I could only think of the two of you at the Fair and me stuck at home. You didn't call. Edward didn't call. I sat at my desk, looking out at the bare trees, and remembered when you came the first time. Day after day I waited for news, waited for you to come back. And at last one morning Edward came. But you weren't with him.

Edward came into the office animated as I had rarely seen him. It was a triumph, he said. Even better than I imagined. They were comparing him to Kafka and Gogol. Brilliant, original, terrifying, black as night. He laughed happily. They're saying
The Way Down
might be the greatest wartime novel of them all. They couldn't praise it enough. He took out that black leather pocket notepad of his and began to read. Eighteen countries, he said. I've sold it in eighteen countries. He smiled. Not bad is it? I'm quite proud of myself.

Kroll was perfect, he said. The women fell in love with him—they all wanted to go to bed with him. And the men wanted to listen to his stories all night. He was funny and charming and just strange enough to excite them. What a character. Larger than life. He was interviewed by magazines, newspapers, even television. The man can talk. What a storyteller.

He emerged from the rubble of Warsaw, they wrote, armed only with a manuscript written on butcher's paper. It couldn't have been better. Edward's eyes shone. This is going to be Gloucester Press's biggest triumph. There's lots to do, he said. I'll want you coming in more often for the next few weeks. She had sat motionless, twisting a paperclip. Edward, she said at last, when is he coming back?

I was very angry with you, she said to him now. You didn't come home for ten days. I was out of my mind. And you slept with so many women when you were there. They saw, said Jascha, that not only did I have dark curls, but I could write. And last but not least, I had survived the war. The women thought of that boy on his own among the murderers. And immediately their breasts started dripping milk.

Did I tell you about my friend who survived Ausch­witz? he had asked her. His teeth were rotten from his years in the camp, and he was as pale as though he were still stuffed into a wooden bunk there. But women loved him. They couldn't wait to go to bed with him. Jascha my friend, he told me with a wink, women love nothing more than a Polish Jew who has survived the war. When all those women with their plump thighs and eager faces offered themselves to me, how could I say no?

I don't want to hear about it, she cried. They expect it, darling, he told her. I couldn't disappoint them. No? she asked. Why not? You could have been a success without sleeping with all those women. I was intoxicated, he replied. How well would you have resisted?

In Paradise, he said to her, with the snake, as always. I thought you would be happy for me, he said. Happy that I was a sensation, that they loved my book, that Edward had sold the rights in eighteen countries. I thought you would be proud that they called me the new Kafka. But instead I find all you're thinking about is that I had a few flirtations. It's part of the game, darling. Don't you know that? I wanted you to be a success, she had said quietly. I'm very happy for you. But why did you have to betray me over and over again? It meant nothing, he protested. Call it public relations. Ach, she said to him, stop it. All those years ago he had stood up and held out his arms to her. Don't leave me darling, he said. What will I do without you? You should have thought of that at Frankfurt, she had said.

The Way Down
came out in November. The reviews were ecstatic. She began to see photos of him all over the press, his dark eyes looking out slyly at the reader. He was invited everywhere. He went to parties, he spoke, he gave book signings, he was interviewed on television. He was animated by excitement all the time. Sometimes she watched him on television, in his black shirt and corduroy suit, his thick dark hair brushed back, his eyes aglow. She studied his face and his hands and looked at his eyes. He was far away. You should be happy, he told her. Your lover is a famous writer. Now he was never at home. A famous author has responsibilities, he told her.

He would disappear for days on book tours, and she didn't know when he would be back. One night she saw him on a TV talk show. She watched him, his energy too much for the small director's chair he sat in. She willed him to look at her but of course he couldn't. So Mr. Kroll, said the host, what was it like during the war? Jascha was smoking and she saw the familiar stream of smoke rising up. A picnic, a funfair, he replied. The most fun I ever had. Come come, Mr. Kroll, the host reproved him. Let's be serious. Could I be more serious? asked Jascha.

In the office Edward had said to her, if you're not happy with Kroll you can always come back to me.

Standing on Krakowskie Przedmie
s
´
cie, Jascha said: And you, what did you do in the end? You slept with that dreadful Rumanian writer. Only to pay you back, she said. My adventures didn't mean anything, he said. Neither did mine, she replied. Except that I found out it went on for another six months, said Jascha. What's good for the gander, she said, is good for the goose. Not at all, he cried. It's not the same. You're out of the Middle Ages, she said, if not earlier. You're out of your mind, he said. He reached out for her. Don't touch me, she said. He laughed. Come here, he ordered her. I'm going to take you to bed and spank you. I'm too old for that, she told him. Ho ho, not at all. He grabbed her. Come here, he said, and stop all this. What a crazy woman. It's all nearly forty years ago.

Now in the falling snow, he took her in his arms. And God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, said Jascha, and He took one of his ribs. And with the rib that God had taken from the man, He plaited the hair of the woman and brought her unto the man. This one at last, bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh, this one shall be called woman for from man was this one taken. You see that, said Jascha, stroking her cold face, you cannot leave me. You are part of me. Lilka looked up at him in surprise, her cheeks red with cold. Why would I leave you? she asked him. Where would I go? You are my only home. And she pressed her cold lips against his.

I'm going to write a book about you, he said. Where will you begin? she asked. I'll begin at the beginning, he replied. Once upon a time . . . she said. Not once upon a time, he replied. That's not the way to begin a story. It makes no sense. Where will you start then? she asked him. I'll start like this, he said. In the beginning Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden . . . You're crazy, she cried. You can't start all the way back there. But that's where it all began, my sweetheart. The first betrayal, the first exile, the beginning of old age, the end of eternal life. Everything. I'll start there, my angel. Where you forced me to eat the forbidden fruit. Where you robbed me of eternal life. That's where our story begins. In the Garden of Eden. Must you go all the way back there? she asked. He nodded. I'm afraid so. Why are we standing out in this cold? he asked. In a moment They will order us to shovel snow.

The streetlamps came on. I cannot go to this reading, he said. She took his arm. You must, she said. That's what we came for. It was you who talked me into this madness, he said. Why did I listen to you?

They arrived back at the hotel frozen to the bone. Get the vodka, he told her. Vodka was invented for frigid Polish nights. Only that can warm us up. She handed him the vodka and drew a chair up to the radiator. I remember when I translated the diary of the Kaminer girl, she said. She too had been in the ghetto. But she was younger than I. And as you know, she did not survive. They found her account buried in a tin can. The writing was so tiny it had to be transcribed with a magnifying glass. You wouldn't read it, said Lilka. But there was a paragraph where she described coming up the steps on the high wooden bridge over Ch
ł
odna.

It was always packed tight with hundreds of Jews crossing from the Little to the Big Ghetto. I too had climbed those steps. I would stop at the top of that rickety bridge and gaze out at The Other Side. How beautiful it looked.

They had parks and gardens, and shops full of food. And what did we have, locked up in this filthy deadly asylum like criminals?

How I longed to be a bird and fly over there. No guards, no armbands. Just endless skies. Get a move on, they shouted. Jews, I said, let us breathe in this view of freedom for a moment. Someone kicked me from behind. Stop this sentimental nonsense, they said, we have work to do. And they shoved me forward. They were right of course. What would it get us to gaze at that most beautiful and unattainable world? It was wartime everywhere, but Over There looked like a paradise.