Not Me (21 page)

She smiled up at me, her face alight, I supposed, with the memories of that happy childhood.

“So Mother wanted to help him in his later years,” she said.

But a strange thing happened. It was actually April who spent time with him. And each time she came to visit her mother, she found herself spending more and more time with him.

“At first I would bring your father something for dinner. But it seemed like every woman in Florida beat me to it. His freezer was always stuffed with roast chicken, flanken, brisket, you name it. I would come in, and there’d be deli trays, nova, layer cake. Apparently he was popular with the ladies,” she shrugged.

“Why didn’t you tell me you knew him?”

“To my parents he was a god,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard me. “When they told me my story, he was always the leading man. How I arrived, speaking no English, holding his hand. How my hair was in braids, and how I used to hide from everyone, except him. How I wouldn’t eat anything except noodles, until he taught me to eat plums. And always how the good Mr. Rosenheim had gone himself to find me, how he had brought me here, how he had arranged for my papers—not that I knew what that meant—how he had come to visit every time there was trouble with me, speaking to me in my language, just a little, to calm me down. I don’t remember any of it, really. I was five. I mean, I do have some memories, but they are so vague. Virtually all of my memories begin here in America, as if nothing happened to me before that. It’s remarkable really. I can’t remember speaking any other language. I don’t even know what language I spoke. It’s all gone. I asked your father. Where did I come from? What language did I speak? He would answer, ‘Who remembers?’”

“Well, you must have been speaking German, or Yiddish,” I said.

“Or Polish, or Hungarian, or French, or Greek, or Italian,” she said.

And it was true. My father knew many languages, at least a little. And the children came from everywhere. I remembered now that there were others among my parents’ friends—a girl from France, Michelle; a little boy from Poland, I couldn’t remember his name; another girl from somewhere…. Had hebrought them all over? Had he begun his long, pathetic attempt at absolution by saving the Jewish children of Europe?

I was lost in these thoughts when she said, rather desperately, “Perhaps he did actually do some research on me. Or maybe he already knew who I was. After all, he was the one who dug me up.”

She looked at me with bright, anxious eyes.

“I was thinking,” she said, “maybe he mentioned something about me in those journals you were looking at.”

“You haven’t read them?”

“Me? No,” she said.

“But you were the one who brought them to my father’s room at Lake Gardens. You’re the one who called Kaufman.”

She looked confused.

“You were the one who brought the box to my dad’s room, right?”

“No,” she said. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”

I slumped down in my chair. I had been thinking, assuming—and I was more and more sure of it with every word she spoke—that I had finally solved the riddle. That my answer was right in front of me—the box delivery, the inquiries to Kaufman, the invisible friends coming at odd hours. It was all April. But now I realized that all I actually had in front of me was another question.

And she was still waiting for her answer. She was hoping with all her heart that I had unlocked the key to her identity. That it was all there in those books I had been reading. That I was the one to answer
her
question.

I took her hand.

“No,” I said. “Nothing. He hasn’t mentioned you at all.”

She looked down at the table, then bravely up at me. The moisture from her lips seemed to have journeyed up to her eyes.

“Oh well,” she said.

When I got home I decided to take a rest. I made some space on my father’s La-Z-Boy and reclined it. From where I sat, I could see the clues on the dining room wall. My eyes found the flyleaf from April’s book. It had been a good clue, but not the right clue. I yawned and turned onto my side, cuddling into the chair. I opened my eyes a slit, just to situate myself, and there, on the table, where I had left it the day before, was one of my father’s journals lying two inches from my nose.

A few days after the fall of Yad Mordechai, the city of Ashdod was taken. The same day, the bombardment of Naor began.

The man who called himself Heshel Rosenheim sat in his foxhole behind the little concrete bunker that had been built a few days before and marveled at the weather. It was lovely. The skies were clear, the days a pristine, translucent blue, the nights starry and moonlit. The bombs came in waves, an hour of intense fire, an hour of silence. Then the bombing would recommence. Each wave was more violent than the one before, and soon most of the kibbutz was reduced to rubble. The watchtower was cut in half, and though the Bren gun had been saved, the operator was killed. He was the first to die. His body, without its legs, fell from the tower and landed near Post 4. In the hour of quiet they hastily buried him together with his legs, in the sand on the edge of the perimeter. Others tried to repair the damaged bunkers and reinforce what was left of the Bet Am in the center of the kibbutz
—
once it had been the dining hall, the meeting place, the school house, the movie theater
—
but now it was mostly a shell, though the blue-and-white flag still flew above it, tied to an exposed steel beam. Most people hid in the shelters during the bombings that followed, and casualties were fewer. Heshel Rosenheim remained in his foxhole, though, and it was assumed it was because his was the first line of defense. But the truth was, he was happiest there. It was not that he wanted to die
—
he still intended, in fact, to surrender to the Egyptians at the first opportunity. It was simply that he could no longer face being in such close quarters with all those Jews. He could no longer look them in the eye.

He rested his Sten gun across his knees and glanced over at Dovid, who would not leave his side, even when ordered. When the bombing stopped, Heshel would stand up and stretch, then commence to reinforce the bunker that protected his little round of turf. In the foxhole with him were some boxes of ammunition and a small supply of Molotov cocktails, and on his belt two real grenades
—
familiar ones, German M24s. From time to time he would send young Dovid through the trenches to bring back a little food and something to drink from the makeshift kitchen that had sprung up in the shelter. Once he even brought cold chicken. Another time some pita and a nice tomato and cucumber, which they ate in slices. The water tower had been pummeled into debris, so water was carefully rationed. Dovid sometimes brought juice or soda pop instead, which was fine with Rosenheim. He watched the boy march across the lawn which was now cratered like the moon, his arms full of booty.

“Are you still happy to be here, Dovid?” he asked.

“I am the happiest man on earth,” he replied. “Or the moon!”

When the bombs started falling again, they ducked down. Heshel ordered the boy back to the shelter, but he wouldn’t go. Or maybe he didn’t hear. It was so loud they both went deaf for minutes at a time. They played cards, cursing each other wordlessly when one or the other lost a hand.

In the evening, the bombing let up for quite a while. The Egyptians were having dinner, they supposed. An older fellow, Yitzhak, ran around trying to fix the electrical system so they could light the encampment, which, except for the shelters, had been thrown into darkness. Several Haganah teams built makeshift bunkers in the burned-out Bet Am, while others roamed the perimeter to repair the barbed wire. In the lull, a small group of reinforcements arrived, bringing with them the PIAT. Heshel watched as they leapt from the Jeep, one of them carrying the small rocket launcher on his shoulder. Moskovitz came up to him and shook his hand. It was obvious she was explaining that she was to be his assistant. The PIAT operator looked familiar.

Christ! he thought. Levin.

They brought the PIAT down to Post 5, which was about twenty yards from Heshel’s Post 4. Moskovitz, walking with Levin, listened carefully to his instructions. He looked up at her as he spoke, leaning into her. Watching their silhouettes move through the moonlight, Rosenheim bristled, but he did not stir. They disappeared into the trench, and he went back to contemplating the stars.

After a while there was a halfhearted barrage of mortar and small cannon fire, but then the night grew calm again. Ari and Pinchas came to relieve him, and he made his way along the trench line toward the Bet Am, smoking. He could hear voices coming from the shelter nearby; he could hear the plaintive cry of a cow in need of milking
—
they had set them free, but most had wandered back, and they waited among the ruins, mooing in distress.

He walked past the little detachment of reinforcements seated together round a small kerosene burner, drinking tea and eating black bread spread with jam. There were three of them, Irgunists. Probably no one else left to send, he thought. It was a matter of where to find a PIAT. It could be an effective antitank weapon from close range, but they were tricky to use, spring loaded, difficult to aim. You needed an experienced operator. He thought he felt Levin looking up at him, but he couldn’t be sure. He continued along in his leisurely way.

“Rosenheim!”

The voice was unmistakable. He turned.

“Who would have thought I’d find you here?”

“I live here,” Heshel replied.

“A kibbutznik!”

Heshel tried to look through him, but could not get past the jumpy, hungry eyes.

“To think we’d be fighting together!” said Levin in Yiddish.

“What do you want from me?”

Levin just smiled. “Since our last…conversation,” he replied, “I’ve been thinking.”

“Have you?”

“Yes, I have. I have. Racking my brains actually. Trying to place you. You may recall you made up a story about me. Do you remember? You made accusations, unfounded accusations. As if it were a crime to survive. Perhaps I did steal someone’s bowl, or someone’s shirt, so what? We all did. How many shirts did you steal, Rosenheim?”

“What do you want of me?”

“No one survived without stealing, without having friends in the kitchen, without smuggling contraband, without having patrons, without skills. So how did you survive? I wondered. I asked myself that, I thought about that.” He tapped his forehead with his finger to let Heshel know exactly where all this thinking had taken place. “You see what I’m getting at, Rosenheim? You said I was some sort of criminal, but really, I’m a hero, aren’t I? I survived. They couldn’t kill me! Of course, luck is part of it, certainly. Luck is always very important. But no, you needed more than luck, didn’t you? To survive more than a day, a month, more than three months, a miracle. Who survived more than three months, even in the work camps? One or two
—
the chosen ones. They did what they had to do. They were forced to do what they had to do. Who, after all, could remain human there? We were all reduced to some criminal state, some subhuman state. So I thought to myself
—
why this outburst from Lieutenant Rosenheim of the Palmach? I tested and retested my memory, I went down every little alley, looked both ways at every little crossing
—
Rosenheim, Rosenheim. Ah! I did know a Rosenheim! Yes, I told you that once. He was a shoemaker, so he was saved for a while by fixing the shoes that were sent to all those poor, needy Germans. But you know shoes
—
they just pile up! They filled the warehouses from top to bottom. So enough with fixing shoes! The shoe fixing was over! This Rosenheim, he knew what that meant. He knew it was shoes or gas. But he was smart, too, this Rosenheim, and he found another job. I couldn’t remember. I knew him only briefly, of course. What job did he get? I racked my brains! I remembered! They sent him across the highway. Outside the barbed wire. To work in an office. Every day he marched off with his little commando
—
two or three of them, I think
—
he even got a clean uniform, and shoes with leather soles, and a shave, once a week!
—
so he shouldn’t stink up the place, right? I remember watching him
—
it came back to me
—
watching him march off holding his bowl and his spoon
—
out in the morning, back in the evening
—
sitting all day in the warmth of the office, having his extra ration of bread and his soup from the bottom of the pot where all the cabbage was
—
and you know what? I hated that Rosenheim. I did. I hated him with every shred of my being. I regret that, but I did.” He shook his head sadly to indicate regret.

“Why are you telling me all this?”

Levin sneered, “Do you remember when you threatened me at Deir Yassin?”

“I remember.”

“I could not understand all your words, but I understood all that anger. You were at Majdanek, all right. But you were not that Rosenheim. So who were you?”

Heshel was acutely aware that he should not have stood there so long listening to this
—
it was an admission of something
—
but he found he could not pull himself away. Levin himself did not interest him. And his story was also nothing
—
he knew it all too well himself. He was not even afraid of jail or execution anymore. Something else terrified him. If he were exposed now, what would it mean? That’s what he asked himself. When he listened to Levin he barely remembered who that SS-Mann was in the office across the highway
—
he could not recall his voice, or his thoughts, or his desires any more than he had been able to recall even the slightest detail of the real Rosenheim’s face.

“So who am I?” he insisted.

“I’m still working on it,” replied Levin, with a sly wink.

“Perhaps I’m just who I say I am.”

“No. No, I don’t think so. You stole his name. I’m just not sure why. Were you in his commando? Were you a spy? A murderer? I can’t recall. But it will come to me. Because you see, I know your face. I just haven’t sent my brain down the right street yet.” He smiled again, his little threatening smile.

Heshel crushed out his smoke and walked away at last. His hands were shaking and his heart was pounding, but he felt compelled to turn around and face Levin once again.

“What happened to him?”

“Who?”

“Rosenheim. The Rosenheim you say you remember.”

“Who knows? I’m sure he’s dead.”

“Why?”

“He was soft.”

“Soft?”

“I saw him share his rations more than once.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Maybe some part of him had remained alive. Maybe he still had a soul.”

“Then he was better off dead.”

“Exactly,” said Levin, who went back to his comrades and poured himself some more tea.

He tried with all his might to recall one thing about the prisoner, Heshel Rosenheim, but he could not.

Perhaps a vague, dim face did appear before his eyes. The sunken cheeks, the dark, overgrown brows, shaven head, neck like twisted hemp, gaunt fingers with long, shit-colored nails
—
nothing special at all, nothing to particularize him, nothing.

But then creeping up from some dark hole in his fevered heart, a voice.

“But what should I say?” it seemed to cry. “About what in particular?”

It washed over him, thrilling and horrifying at the same time
—
this voice
—
for that was the one thing they could not burn out of them. Their voices
—
implacable, immutable, like fingerprints of their souls, holy in their absolute and irreducible separateness.

But it was less than air, less than a dream, and he could no more hear it than he could see the face, or the man behind the face. The voice simply melted into the lowing of the cows, the chatter from the bunkers, the flapping of the bats that sometimes swept like storm clouds across the fields.