Alexander Brandel had achieved that state of heaven on earth which is called peace of mind.
It seemed paradoxical and almost humorous that it was the team of Brandel and Androfski that made the Bathyrans go. Andrei was fifteen years Alex’s junior and his opposite in temper and outlook. Andrei was an activist in thinking. Yet they recognized in each other a particular strength the other lacked. The symbol of strength ... the symbol of mind.
“You and Gabriela will stay for dinner,” Sylvia said.
“If you don’t go to any trouble.”
“What’s trouble? Wolf, the minute you are through with that game, you practice your flute. Money for flute lessons doesn’t grow on trees.”
“Yes, Momma.”
“Andrei, it’s a good thing your niece Rachael goes to the same conservatory. He would never practice a note.”
Andrei shot a glance at Wolf, who reddened.
So! he thought. You are one of those schmendricks looking over Rachael.
Wolf licked his lips, lowered his eyes, and made a move.
Andrei studied the boy. Gawky, a few straggling hairs on his chin, pimples ... What could Rachael possibly see in that thing? Not a man, certainly, but on the other hand not quite a boy. Known him since he was a baby. He is a good lad. He will respect Rachael ... I think.
“Your move.”
Andrei made an atrocious play.
“Checkmate,” Wolf said.
Andrei glared at the board for three full minutes. “Go practice your flute.”
He stretched and yawned and meandered over to Alex, who was writing in a large notebook.
“What’s this?” Andrei said, lifting the book and thumbing through it.
“Just a journal of events. Fulfilling my natural calling as a nosy person.”
“What do you expect to do with diaries at your age?”
“I don’t know if it has any use. Just a wild guess, Andrei, that it might have some importance someday.”
Andrei put Brandel’s journal back on the desk and shrugged. “It will never take the place of the Seventh Ulany Brigade.”
“I wouldn’t be too certain of that,” Alex said. “Truth used at the right time can be a weapon worth a thousand armies.”
“Alex, you’re a dreamer.”
Alex watched Andrei grow restless. He was really the only person with whom Andrei could speak from the inner reaches of his mind. Alex pushed his papers aside, took a bottle of vodka from his desk, and poured two glasses, a small one for himself and a large one for Andrei.
Andrei took the glass and said, “Le’chayim!—to life.”
“You were quiet at the meeting today,” Alex said.
“The rest of them did enough talking for me.”
“Andrei, I’ve seen you so unhappy only once before. Two years ago, B.G.—before Gabriela. You’ve had an argument?”
“I always have arguments with her.”
“Where is she?”
“In the church most likely, lighting candles and asking forgiveness of Jesus, Mary, the Apostles, and forty Polish saints for living in sin with a Jew.”
“It’s the coming war, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s the war and it’s Gabriela. There are things that a man wants answered before he goes out on a battlefield.”
“We talked about these things today for three hours. You weren’t with us.”
Andrei sipped his vodka and shook his head. “I am a bad Jew, Alex. I am not a Jew my father would have been proud of, may God rest his soul.”
Andrei walked to the window and pulled the curtain back and pointed to the great symbol of eastern Europe’s Jewry, the Tlomatskie Synagogue. “My father could find comfort for any problem in the words of the Torah.”
“But, Andrei, that is why we are Bathyrans and Labor Zionists and Revisionists. We could not find comfort in the Torah alone.”
“That is the point, Alex. I am not even a good Zionist.”
“My goodness, who’s been talking to you?”
“Paul Bronski. He sees right through me. I am a phony Zionist. Alex, now listen to me. I’m not a disciple of A. D. Gordon and that crap of love of the soil. I don’t want to go to Palestine, now or ever. Warsaw is my city, not Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. I am a Polish officer and this is my country.”
“You told me once very plainly that you don’t want anyone to steal your chickens. Isn’t that Zionism? Aren’t we merely in a struggle for dignity?”
“In dubious battle,” Andrei mumbled. Then he sat and his voice became very soft. “I want to live in Poland and I want to be a part of this country as though I belong. But at the same time I want to be what I am. I cannot accept Paul Bronski’s terms of giving up what I am. I have wanted to run to the synagogue and believe with my father’s faith. I want to believe in Zionism as you believe.”
Alexander Brandel tightened the muffler around his neck. He lifted his glass, revealing a big suede patch on his elbow.
“Did you ever read my article when I tried to explain the anatomy of anti-Semitism in Poland? Never mind, it was a bad article.” He closed his eyes to intensify his meditation and recited, “All of Poland is divided into three classes. The peasant class, the gentry—those who aim to keep them peasants—and the Jews. Ninety-five per cent Ukrainia and five per cent Paris with a few ethnic groups thrown in to make eternal trouble on our eastern and western borders. We Jews came to Poland at the invitation of a Polish king in the Middle Ages fleeing ahead of the holy swords of purification of the Crusades. We came to establish their merchant and professional class.”
“Well said, Professor.”
“Andrei, take that poor miserable peasant scratching out an existence on the land. He is driven to mysticism in his worship in order to justify being able to live in a world he cannot cope with. Now, he has a Jew in his village. The Jew is not allowed to own land, so the Jew makes magic with his hands. The Jew can sew, mend shoes ... The Jew can read. The Jew reads something in that mysterious script and keeps rituals that frighten the peasant. Or perhaps the Jew becomes the grain merchant. He has to use his wit and cunning to live. He may lend money—this makes him despicable. But what the peasant really does not understand is the Jew who pushes a cart and sells secondhand clothing in order to send his son through college. Now, our peasant goes out once a week to the town and he is very frustrated and confused and he gets drunk. He must hit someone, explode this accumulation of frustration. He cannot hit the nobleman who owns his land and steals half his crop as rent, so he beats up the little Jew who cannot fight back. The nobleman tells him that the Jew who lends the money and is the grain merchant and uses human blood in his rituals has brought him to this state of poverty. He is a victim of Jewish cunning. Now, our nobleman, who robs the peasants blind, does not give them education or medicine or justice, also hates the Jew who is his doctor or lawyer or architect or banker. We are the convenient scapegoat for the serfs and the ones who aim to keep them as serfs.”
Andrei grunted. “Wanting to be a Pole in your own land is as futile as wanting to be a Jew in your own land. I am not allowed the luxury of either.”
He looked out of the window and saw Gabriela walking toward the flat. At least there is another night with her before I must go back, Andrei thought. At least there is that.
Chapter Nine
THE DIVINE FEELING WHICH gripped Warsaw on Sunday was, unfortunately, not able to call a truce, to hold back those hands of fate moving toward the twelfth hour. The ministries, the war offices, and the newsrooms were open for business.
Chris turned the bureau over to Rosy and walked to the Foreign Ministry to check out any late announcements in the crisis.