The Testament (16 page)

An idea crossed my mind: Inge insisted on remaining in Germany not because of the Party but out of loyalty to
Hauptmann. I asked her, “Is it Bernard who keeps you here?”

“Not really.”

“Inge, when you say ‘not really,’ that means yes.”

“This time it may mean no.”

For the first and last time we spoke openly and honestly about our dead friend, that is, in relation to ourselves. Had we behaved badly toward him? Were we responsible for his despair, therefore his death? In spite of what Traub thought, Hauptmann’s suicide was not in character; it surely was not a solution for a revolutionary intellectual of rigorously logical bent. A man such as he, capable of resisting impulses and irrationality, of fearlessly confronting deepest despair and even integrating it into his own system of values, would not opt for suicide. And yet. How to explain an act that denied his very life? Could it have been Inge’s relationship to me, our love? I rather thought so, Inge did not. She leaned toward the obvious explanation: disappointed by the elections, betrayed by his “masses,” his illusions vanished, Hauptmann drew the most radical conclusion from the situation. Suicide: his way of saying to the German people and to German history, I’ve had enough of you, you’ve chosen to dance with the devil, go ahead, enjoy yourselves—without me.

The question still troubles me today in this cell, where everything seems more remote, yet closer at hand. There are men whose impact is greater dead than alive, and Hauptmann was one of them.

What causes an intelligent, dynamic and creative person to decide one evening to kill himself? Why this choice, this fascination with self-destruction? Why this refusal to live, this implacable, irrevocable refusal? So as not to suffer, not to debase oneself? To punish the survivors and make them retroactively responsible? A man like myself, imprisoned without reason and with nothing to lose, why
should I not play with the same idea? Why have I never thought of it? I might, like Atticus, Cicero’s great friend, refuse to eat, and so die hungry and alone, rather than in the presence of the executioner. Why have I not been tempted? Because I have a wife who …? Let us not speak of Raissa, Citizen Magistrate. She is not the one who binds me to life; it is my son Grisha. Will I see him again one day? Will I ever speak to him of my father, whose name he bears? Is it he, or my father, who keeps me from becoming my own executioner? Sometimes, during these interrogations—painful, to put it mildly—I find myself wishing to die—but never to take my own life. To kill myself means to kill; and I refuse, most emphatically, to serve death.

In our conversation—our last—Inge and I did not go to the bottom of the matter. She was reticent. She had had enough of tracking down words which, she said, proved hollow as she grasped them. To make up for this, she announced her intention of spending the night at my place. I was glad. I think I still loved her. She seemed more beautiful to me than ever; her melancholy made her more seductive, more reserved. I began undressing; she turned away.

“Would you rather not?”

She would rather not. She preferred to lie down on the bed fully clothed. Very well—I did the same. Silently we contemplated the night. Others haunted the room. My father was urging me to take along my
tephilin
, my mother to take care of my health. Ephraim was laughing. Chez Blum’s proprietor was asking for the seventy marks I had owed him for three months. Bernard was explaining that, speaking philosophically, history meant movement, hence change, hence … Hence what? someone asked. I did not hear the answer because I fell asleep. But I know that Inge did not close her eyes all night. Of what, of whom
was she thinking? That I do not know; that I shall never know.

My train was not leaving until the evening. Inge, preoccupied by who knows what, no doubt some clandestine errand, decided to leave me in the morning. It was better that way. Standing at the door, we embraced.

I renewed my invitation. “Come to France, Inge. You’ll be more useful there than here.”

She seemed not to hear.

I insisted, “If you change your mind, if you decide to come, will you know how to get in touch with me?”

She looked at me without seeing me.

“Inge! Will you know how?”

“The comrades will know,” she said, her face a blank.

She was already in another world, that of Bernard Hauptmann. She turned away and left without looking back.

And I, remembering her first visit to this very room, felt an almost physical laceration; I wanted to shout, to scream. I wanted to run after her, force her to come back, come with me, live with me, live, period: if I shook her hard enough, if I loved her hard enough, she might agree. But I could not move. The die was cast with irrevocable certainty. Inge would stay in Berlin and I would plunge into the surrealism of Parisian life. I reasoned with myself: Inge will come, you’ll see her again. Sooner or later, they will all come, Traub, Blum and all the other comrades, the liberals and the anarchists, the Communists and the Jews; they’ll suffocate here, they’ll push through to freedom.… Deep down I knew that it was a childish hope. Inge would stay in Berlin. Inge would die in Berlin. And I would live somewhere else, I would take another woman somewhere else. Let’s turn the page, Inge. Thank you for helping me discover love, thank you for initiating me into political action. Thank you for giving me pleasure and pain, thank you, Inge.

My last day in Berlin: farewell visits; debts to settle at Chez Blum; a last talk with Traub, who insists on paying for my coffee, and tells me he has written Paul Hamburger about me; a last letter to my parents. Next time, Father, I’ll be writing you from Paris, God willing, of course, God willing. Don’t worry, Father—your son will take his phylacteries along.

A last walk. A splendid April day. The crowded avenues pulse with life. Brown, gray, black uniforms. Countless swastikas. Happy faces. The city is at peace with itself. Hitler in every window: his people gaze at him with undisguised pride, with love. Poor Bernard Hauptmann: the masses do stupid things sometimes, but is that a reason to commit suicide? Poor Inge: these people have repudiated you; they spit on you and yours, and you persist in wanting to sacrifice yourself for them; do you really believe they deserve it—deserve you?

Suddenly, near the Zirkus, a strange figure emerges from the throng: a regal Jew. Dressed with austere elegance, he walks tall and with a firm step. Dignified, majestic, he moves forward in the crowd of pedestrians without fear or mistrust. What makes me think he is a Jew? I could not say. But I know that he is and that he is not from Berlin. He attracts attention. A Nazi, catching sight of him, looks outraged; people stop and stare; he seems to have come from another place, another time. Is he a prince of Israel? A messenger of God? Trimmed beard, eyes sparkling with intelligence, he projects such uncanny strength that it disturbs the passersby. Another second and the whole district will be petrified: all eyes are on this noble, haughty Jew sauntering through Berlin as if the capital were not under Nazi domination.

I catch myself trembling for him; he is in danger and seems unaware of it. What if some lout were to attack him? What if the crowd were to surround him and beat him up? Would I go to his rescue? I like to think so, but
who knows? In any case, my problem is purely theoretical. People are so stunned, they do not move; they let him pass. He turns the corner and by the time they recover, he has vanished. Should I rush after him? What’s the use? Besides, it’s getting late. I have to get home quickly. Quickly, Frau Braun, I am in a hurry. How much do I owe you? Will you be kind enough to forward my mail, I’ll send you my address, all right? Thank you in advance, thanks for everything, and so long. Ah,
liebe
Frau Braun, don’t look so sad, we’ll meet again some day—at home, my people say that only the mountains never meet. Quickly, the suitcase. Is everything inside? Shirts, books. The phylacteries. My briefcase. The passport, where’s my passport? Damn, I have lost it. No, it’s in my pocket. Where’s the ticket? Inside the passport. And I am holding the passport in my hand. I am getting all confused, I am losing my mind in this demented country. Quickly, a taxi. No taxi? Never mind, I’ll walk. There’s a taxi. “Quickly, the station.” “Which station?” “I am taking the Paris train.” “Paris?” asks the driver, startled. “You’re late.” But he adds with a laugh, “Wait a few years and we’ll all meet there.” Not funny, his joke. “Oh, well,” says he, “Oh, well,” say I. He steps on the accelerator. Hard. The streetlights are coming on. The traffic policemen wave their arms. The shop windows are blazing. In the prisons the torturers stretch, and their victims murmur, “It’s only a dream, a bad dream.” A dull uneasiness takes hold of me: Who will come to the station; who is there? Inge? Traub? I run to platform Number 11, the train is still there. I board; jostling the passengers, I find my seat, drop my suitcase on it and start looking for a familiar face. Of all my friends, all my companions, none has made the effort. I am somewhat disappointed. I shouldn’t be. They are afraid, and I am going to a world free of fear.
Will I ever see them again?
For days and days
this question has tormented me:
Will I see them again one day?
An impersonal, twangy voice answers, “Train for Paris, now departing.” My heart explodes, it hurts and I know why. There is a moment when a man knows everything, and I am living through such a moment now; I think of my comrades, happy and unhappy, wise and bold. I know they will be swept away by the tempest of blood and fire, while I, a lucky deserter, shall go on living.

The train tears itself away from Berlin. Leaning on the window, not daring to turn around, I look into the night. Finally, overcome by fatigue, I sit down. A man in the corner smiles at me: it is the mysterious prince I had seen that morning near the Zirkus.

Weary and drained, I close my eyes and at once open them again to return his smile. Suddenly I want to cry—to cry for Inge and her dark future, for Hauptmann and his buried illusions, for Traub and his comrades, for Berlin and its Jews. I want to weep but my traveling companion is smiling at me. And this is how I leave the Third Reich, holding back my tears and smiling against my will, like an idiot. Was it weakness, cowardice, desertion? I plead guilty, Citizen Magistrate. I plead guilty of having fled prison and death in Berlin.

Who are you, Zupanev, my friend? Where do you come from? What planet dropped you into my life? What have you done, whom did you see before taking charge of this district at night? What kind of man are you, watchman friend? What secrets, whose secrets are you protecting? On whose orders? These unpublished poems by Paltiel Kossover—how did you get them? Who gave them to you? You say someone entrusted them to you for me. How did that stranger know we were going to meet? You say so many things, Zupanev, and I wonder why? And will I ever know what you’re keeping from me?

More and more intrigued by the watchman, Grisha asked himself the same questions again and again. Zupanev must have known his father—in prison, maybe? Unable to put his questions into words, he implored him with his eyes, hoping the watchman would understand. Did Zupanev understand? His answers concealed as much as they revealed to his young visitor.

They met weekends or evenings. Sitting on his cot or on a stool, his notebooks on his knees, the watchman became the teacher: he taught Grisha things the boy had not learned at school. He explained the events of the day: the zigzags of Russian policy with respect to Jewish citizens, what was happening in Israel, the problems of emigration. He imparted to Grisha rudimentary Yiddish and some episodes of Jewish history. In sum, he was preparing him for the great departure.

“Me they won’t let out,” he said. “You they will. Some of the writers’ children have already left; your turn will come. Then you must be ready.”

Ready for what? Grisha wondered. But Zupanev changed the subject: no use insisting with him.

One day he surprised his young protegé. “I have a present for you. Some of your father’s unpublished poems. He wrote them in prison.”

Burning, incandescent verses. Grisha imagined his father, crouched in his cell, setting fire to a darkened world with simple everyday words; let loose upon a maddened age, they delayed redemption; the world does not deserve redemption.

“The sum of a lifetime,” said Zupanev. “Agonies, friendships, separations: words. Everything begins and ends with words.”

Soon, Grisha mused, soon I’ll know my dead father better than my mother ever did.

“You see?” said Zupanev. “Everything is possible.”

He repeated, “Yes, my boy. Everything is possible and always will be.” And he winked.