The Testament (6 page)

“It’s too early to rejoice,” said my father. “They may still come back.”

I fell asleep and awoke only after the pogrom was over. The sun, in all its glory, was shining on a spectacle of horror. The street was piled high with mutilated bodies. In their ripped-open homes men, women and children lay massacred, disemboweled, shriveled. Reb Gamliel: a cross of blood cut into his forehead. Asher the gravedigger: crucified. Manya, his wife: her throat slashed. Their eight sons and daughters: beaten to death.

Where to begin? What to do first? Whom to help?

The three Houses of Study that had graced our street had been desecrated and sacked. The holy scrolls, soiled and torn, littered the ground. Shimon, the beadle, lay in a pool of blood.

With my father, my sisters and the three students, I went from house to house, from family to family. I looked, I listened, I wept with rage and bitterness. I wept at being a child, at not being able to help the victims, at not being able to strike back at the killers. An immense love welled up inside me for the Jews of my town. I wanted to bring them back to life, to console them and make them happy; I longed to have them share the miracle God had granted us.

The funerals of the victims made a deep impression on me: a long procession of coffins covered with black cloth, carried by rabbis and scholars in mourning. The ceremony took place in the courtyard of the main synagogue in the presence of dignitaries who had come from as far away as Kharkov, Odessa and St. Petersburg. Under a gray sky, a dense throng listened to the funeral orations, then moved toward the cemetery. Three beadles, like living scarecrows, led the procession, shaking money boxes and crying out,
“Tzedaka tatzil mimavet
, charity will save you from death, charity is stronger than death.…” Everyone approached timidly to deposit a coin. My father had given me five or ten kopecks, but I couldn’t bring myself to come close. I know it’s stupid but those three tall thin men, walking ahead of the dead, of death itself, paralyzed me. I feel the terror to this day.

As for the murderers, the looters, I hated them, I wanted to see them on their knees, whipped, chained—yes, Citizen Magistrate, I felt a profound hatred, monstrous and without pity, for the population of Barassy, and thus for Krasnograd and its people, and for the Russian people and the whole of Russia.

Yes, Citizen Magistrate, I loved my people and I hated yours. Therefore, I, Paltiel Gershonovich Kossover, resident of Krasnograd at 28 October Street, I, a Jewish poet charged with subversion, deviation and treason, plead guilty: from the age of five—or was it four?—my love has
been centered on one people, my own, who obey only God, and that God is not yours. In other words: even at four or five I was already guilty of nationalist Jewish plots and agitations against your law, for your law is the enemy of mine.

Krasnograd after the Second World War—how can it be described? Those born there swear their city is a real metropolis. But in fact, Krasnograd is a provincial town, neither better nor worse, neither uglier nor more stimulating than any other.

Perhaps more picturesque. At night you can hear the distant roar of a waterfall. In the summer, young couples venture into the woods. The bolder ones climb the mountain, a mountain whose summit seems a challenge, especially to children. If you don’t care for either the mountain or the river, you can stroll through one of the five parks that are the pride of our municipality. Gorky Square is the finest spot. But it is often deserted. For good reason: the Security offices are nearby. People prefer the small romantically unkempt park that lies in the shadow of the Hill of the Seven Repentant Bandits, named in memory of seven eighteenth-century bandits who saw the light and changed professions.

Krasnograd numbers one hundred to one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants of very diverse origins. This is hardly surprising in this region, since Krasnograd is the third point of a triangle between Zhironev and Tosahin. Five languages are used here, plus two just for bickering.

Like all Soviet urban centers, Krasnograd boasts tramways, factories, daily newspapers and houses of culture, theaters, movie houses and all kinds of schools. The city has its share of heroes and villains, drunkards and whores. There are two churches and a synagogue: the aged must be kept busy, after all. The young people prefer the “special” clubs, most of them under the aegis of the Pioneers and
the Komsomol, notwithstanding the spate of lectures they must endure. They go there to play chess, to meet friends, or simply to hear the local news. It’s pleasant enough; the rooms are spacious, the canteen offerings passable.

As happens elsewhere, people live among their kind: old with old, young with young, and the same is true for engineers, war veterans, the sick, the retired, the bureaucrats and the Party members. Teachers socialize only with other teachers, members of the Secret Police associate only with other members of the Police, Jews see only Jews.

Not many Jews are left in Krasnograd. Large numbers were massacred at the beginning of the German invasion; others joined the partisans in the forest. The young people fought, the old took care of supplies. They had to defend themselves against both the invaders and the local inhabitants. The Jews had no friends at all at that time. Their isolation continued after the occupation. That Jewish aloneness tinges Grisha’s earliest memories; it comes back to haunt him whenever he thinks about the past.

He was very young when, on his own, he discovered the walls and limits of his world. His solitude was magnified by his mother’s. She seldom spoke to him, and encouraged his conversation even less. Mother and son lived as outcasts, pariahs of the community; people pointed at them and whispered as they passed. The father’s absence was enough to create a void around them: after all, you don’t rub shoulders with the family of a saboteur, a spy, an enemy of the people; you don’t smile at a schoolboy whose father has been involved in a political plot; you don’t shake hands with a woman whose husband has vanished.

Every morning Raissa left Grisha at the school gate and rushed to the factory where she worked as a bookkeeper. As he watched her being swallowed day after day by the morning crowd or carried off in a jammed streetcar, Grisha feared he would lose her forever. To hide his anxiety he had to conceal his happiness at finding her again in
the afternoon at the same spot. He did not let her out of his sight for the rest of the day, and followed her into the communal kitchen, the grocery store, even the bathroom. He left her only to get into his bed in the room they shared.

It was not much fun for a boy to grow up in an atmosphere of anxiety and rootlessness. He devoted his energy to comforting his mother—who spent her time comforting him. How did they bear it? They themselves did not know. There was no other way.

Then one day everything seemed to change for the better. Khrushchev, launching a policy of liberalization, opened the camps, the prisons, the universe of slow death. Files were reviewed, sentences reversed. And so Raissa Kossover received a visit from three solemn-looking officials.

“We have a communication of the gravest importance for you.”

“Please sit down.” She seemed agitated and anxious: “There aren’t enough chairs, I’ll run and borrow one from my neighbors.…”

“Don’t bother, the bed will be fine.”

Grisha was trying to follow the adults’ conversation, trying to understand: “What is it, Mommy? What do they want?”

They informed Raissa of the purpose of their visit—an official communication of rehabilitation—and she explained to her son, “It’s good news, Grisha.”

“But who are they?”

“They’re sent by … by the Central Committee,” said Raissa.

“Why?” said Grisha impatiently. At eight, he already mistrusted strangers.

One of the men, the spokesman, heavy-lidded, with a face that exuded kindness, drew Grisha close and gently explained their presence:

“We’ve come to talk about your father.”

Grisha became frightened. He cast a glance toward the bookshelf to see whether his father was still there, in his place, and breathed easier: the visitors had not discovered him. Suddenly, to his great surprise, his mother climbed up on a chair, took hold of the forbidden work and presented it triumphantly to the spokesman.

Grisha protested: “You mustn’t, Mommy! You mustn’t show them my father, you mustn’t take him out of his hiding place!”

The man smiled at him: “Why not, Grishinka?”

“It’s dangerous, you know that, don’t you?”

“Oh, no, my little Grisha Paltielovich, it’s not dangerous any more—times have changed.…”

He examined the book, passed it to his aide, who studied it seriously, conscientiously, before giving it to his colleague. All three shook their heads sadly, compassionately, and let out whistles of admiration and long sighs:

“Yes, yes, no doubt at all, a great work …”

“He was a real poet, that’s what we heard from high places, you know.”

“A martyr. What a tragedy, what a tragedy …”

“And what an outrage!”

Grisha was lost. Why these outbursts? His mother was drinking them in. Grisha had never seen her so joyful, so exuberant. The visitors took their leave, promising to return to discuss practical arrangements: pension, compensation.… Raissa showed them to the door. She came back, excited, almost in a trance:

“You see, Grisha, you see, they came! They spoke about your father, that means that from now on you too will be able to talk about him; it also means we can keep his book right here, in the open.”

For Grisha things also changed at school. His teachers and classmates no longer treated him as a nuisance. Still, whenever he mentioned his father, he was left alone again.

During that period of his childhood he made two important acquaintances: first Dr. Mozliak, and then the night watchman for the group of buildings they lived in, a strange fellow called Viktor Zupanev, who was to become his protector, his guide, his ally, his best friend.

Dr. Mozliak was a physician of sorts. Grisha was convinced he spent hours at a time in front of the mirror admiring himself, perhaps even talking to himself. Surely he thought himself irresistible, with his mustache, his hard, cold, piercing eyes, the eyes of a man who thought he knew everything and was entitled to everything.

Grisha couldn’t understand his mother: how could she become attached to someone like that? Of course, she was alone, she needed a man in her life, while he, Grisha, made her feel even more alone.

Grisha detested Mozliak and made no secret of it. Because of him Raissa would slip out in the evening and go up to the floor above. To make her feel better Grisha would pretend to be asleep. Besides, she would have left anyway. Often, eyes aching, sick with anxiety, he would wait for her return: when would he finally hear the door creaking? His anguish endured until the door opened. Then he would close his eyes and pretend to be fast asleep. On one occasion, he didn’t succeed. It was impossible to close his eyes: he tried and tried—in vain. Raissa turned on the bed light and saw her son’s twisted face.

“What’s the matter, Grisha?”

“Nothing, nothing at all.”

“Weren’t you sleeping?”

“Yes, I was. I just woke up, I had a bad dream.”

“I’m here now. Go to sleep.”

She put out the light. “You should spend more time with your classmates, make some friends,” she said in the dark. “Now it’s all right, it’s possible.”

“I know that,” he said spitefully.

She was startled. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing.”

She was silent a moment before going on: “Are you angry with me?”

“No.”

“Dr. Mozliak is a fine person, you know, you’d like him too, if …”

“If what?”

“If you’d meet him. In fact, he’d like nothing better.”

Grisha thought it over: “What do you do in his place when you’re together?”

“Nothing,” she answered quickly. “We talk, that’s all. We drink tea and chat. He’s a good talker, Volodya, I mean Dr. Mozliak.”

“And my father?”

“What do you mean?”

“Was my father a good talker?”

The hostile silence created an abyss between them.

“Your father didn’t talk much, Grisha. He was a poet. And poets, in order to sing, need silence. Your father was often silent.”

Grisha promised himself that one day he would be silent too. And that he would learn to understand words before they were born and after they had disappeared.

I have never laughed, said Viktor Zupanev, the night watchman. I have never laughed in my life
.

My parents tried to make me laugh; my neighbors tried to make me laugh; my adversaries tried to make me laugh. Life and death, intertwined like drunkards, did everything to make me laugh
.

My parents took me to doctors, who made me vomit; then to gypsies, who made me drink; then to fortune-tellers, showmen, monks, scoundrels, witches, acrobats, clowns, fakirs
—
I always left with a frown on my face
.

At boarding school, my teachers swore on their honor to make me laugh; they beat me and deprived me of food, water and sleep; they laughed, not I
.

My schoolmates persecuted me. Girls tickled me, their mothers caressed me and bubbled with laughter. Nothing worked
—
I didn’t laugh
.

I had no real friends, no real enemies, no mistresses, no illegitimate children
—
I had no one, I was no one. And all because I didn’t know how to laugh
.

At the office, I watched everything that went on, I observed, listened and took notes—but there, too, I had no desire to laugh
.

Soon afterward World War I broke out, but I had nothing to do with it, I swear. No doubt this will shock you, Citizen Magistrate, since you are convinced that everything evil that happens in the world is arranged, directed and willed by the Jews. Not this time. Sarajevo—not my fault.

To tell the truth, I was a little bewildered by it all. Those names, those titles, those thrones: too much for the head of a Jewish child. The adults were worried and so was I. It was dismal, distressing. Those church bells, ringing for hours across fields and mountains, were announcing to men and women that it was their turn to meet death, some as messengers, others as victims. The bells rang out, they chimed; would they never stop?