— For Linka.
— Linka… are you listening?
— Give me some sign that you are… don’t keep so vindictively silent. There is — there was — no sign of dawn yet; the only illumination came from the lighthouse in Haifa, whose beacon revolved on a treeless hill in the dark shadow of a Carmelite monastery. The ship cast anchor at a distance from the city, whose little white houses, all neatly arranged in rows, were still swaddled in morning mist. The two of us stood on deck. Mani made me promise not to wake up Linka, and I thought: at long last we are saying good-bye! We waited for a launch that brought out some German Templars, each of whom the captain welcomed aboard in Austrian. Mani stood near him in his large overcoat, which made his dark silhouette look bigger and stronger, as if there were a second Mani inside it, embracing the first. The last of the Templars came aboard, and the deckhands waited for Mani to lower himself into the launch before raising anchor. All at once, though, he said to me: “You know, I have an urge to see Beirut. Of course, I haven’t been there for twenty-five years, but you still won’t find a better guide to it than me.” And that was when I felt my heart sink, Papa, because I realized that we were fated to have him follow us all the way to Europe — to Cracow — to Hasula — to Jelleny-Szad — to this corner — to the sofa by the fire — right into our beds. Are you listening? Give me some sign!
— In Beirut — it was noon now — all the passengers were invited to go ashore and enjoy the city until evening, when we would sail for Stamboul. Mani — his overcoat draped over one arm; the stubble of a beard on his cheeks; his hair looking grayer than ever — seemed — for the first time — to grow confused; his movements had become almost unrecognizably slow, as if he now were running on another — an infinite — time. We literally had to pull him ashore, where we stood by the wharves amid a crowd of passengers, many of them from other ships, looking for a cab. The hansoms kept trotting splendidly by, one after another, festooned with bright frills and bells; Mani, however, let all of them pass until at last he hailed one that was drawn by a coal-black horse. “Why, here is our lost steed,” he said with a smile, putting Linka and me in the back seat, which was spread with a colorful Persian rug, and seating himself up front by the coachman, his broad back facing us like a threat, although one that was aimed at himself. For the first time since leaving Katowice and taking the night train to Prague, I felt Linka clinging to me for protection. She had turned back into a girl — the jackknife, Father, that had sprung all its blades was now neatly folded again. Are you listening?
— We began driving through the city, which Mani was less interested in showing to us than in sating his memories with. It was for him a nostalgic reunion with places he had not seen for a quarter of a century; he discussed them intensely with the driver, who stopped from time to time to point something out to him or to dismount and pilot him into some little street or entranceway, leaving the two of us forlornly sitting in the hansom, parked in the middle of some marketplace or courtyard and surrounded by a lively motley of Arabs. We could not have known that our Mani had finished writing his drama — had added the stage directions — had cast the lead — had even picked his audience — and was now only looking for a place to set up his theater and put on the play. You are not listening to me! Will you listen?!
— Because when the carriage wheels raided at last over the rails of the railway line, he stopped the driver and got out wonderingly. You see, there had been no trains in Beirut when he had left it. At once he ordered the coachman to take us to the train station, as if it were there that the dispute between us would be settled. It was late afternoon now, and the first frail wisps of dusk streaked the sweet, strong Mediterranean light. When we reached the station, we saw that it was not far from the sea, in which our Austrian steamship was lolling regally. An unfamiliar flag was being run up on it. We entered the station house, which was as small as the one in Jerusalem but dirtier; in the space in front of the tracks some white-gowned Mohammedan pilgrims were hurrying to board a narrow-gauge train that was only a few cars long and still had no locomotive. There was no urgency, however; on the contrary, there was a sense of calm, which was heightened by the slow pacing of two Turkish sentries along the tracks. They had deep scabbards strapped to their sides and were lazily chewing on their mustaches while looking scornfully at the passengers. I could feel all eyes rest on us as soon as we stepped inside. A railway official came over to see what we wanted and Mani saluted him. “ Yahud,” I heard whispers around us, “yahud.” Yes, we were yahud, Mani assured the crowd at once. You could see that the place appealed to him, and when he heard that the train outside was bound for Damascus, he ran his glance over the soft clay hills as though someone important or beloved were waiting for him there and began to walk along the tracks in the wake of the Turkish soldiers. Only now, though, do I understand that — in the yellow squall of time closing in on us — the one passion left him was to set up the theater he had been traveling with for so long and to augment the audience brought by him from Palestine with the Turkish soldiers — the returning pilgrims — even the railway official, who had begun following him, determined to ferret out the true motives — were they really intending to take the train? — of the European tourists. But Mani was not about to tip his hand. “Well, well,” he said, coming back up the rails with a look of perfect composure, “so there is a railway line here now too. Who knows, perhaps in a few years you will be able to take a train straight from Jerusalem to that Oświ[ecedil]cim. of yours without having to brave the sea!” All of a sudden he stepped up to Linka and hugged her fiercely, then took her hand and kissed it front and back — you might have thought that the lust of that Polish pan from Basel had gotten into him. “Will you not leave her with me?” he asked me a last time, an odd, unrecognizable look on his face. I laughed nervously and said, “She is not mine.” “So you say,” he accused me bitterly, “and yet you are taking her from me. Let us say good-bye, then. The coachman will take you to your ship and I will take the train to Damascus. I never have been there. It is said to be a beautiful city.” And with that he asked us for money. He — who had never even spoken to us about money before: It was not clear how much he wanted, or if he was referring to a loan or a gift, and I began to hem and haw… are you listening?
— I began to hem and haw. I promised to send him a contribution for his clinic as soon as we got home — I promised to take the matter up with you too, Father — but he would not take that for an answer. With a hopeless look he insisted that he needed some cash at once, for his trip to Damascus. He knew we had lots of money. Linka, who could only guess what all this was about, because we had spoken nothing but Hebrew since the morning, squeezed my arm hard, and out of my pockets I began to produce Turkish bishliks — Austrian thalers — spare change from Italy — all of which he took before heading with it to the ticket office. He was gloomy when he rejoined us. “We shall never meet again,” he proclaimed, “and you are to blame. Do you not see that you are to blame?” I was still shaking my head when it flashed through my mind that I had made a terrible mistake — that the curtain had already risen — that before me no longer stood a doctor from Jerusalem but an actor forced to recite a script that he could not revise — one drummed into him immemorial ages ago — which — although he was the director and the theater owner too — he was not at liberty to leave unperformed and must stage to the bitter end. His expression had changed. He was staring at us with a thunderstruck, faraway look, through the telescope of his own contempt… and then he turned, slung the overcoat over his shoulders, and began to walk down the platform, alongside the crowded cars of Mohammedan pilgrims whose cigarette smoke spiraled out the windows like a first intimation of the locomotive that now could be heard whistling in the distance. Linka was overcome with horror. “Stop him!” she screamed in Yiddish. “Let’s take him with us!” “But how?” I asked. “He is going to Damascus and we must return to the ship.” She would not listen to me, though. She began to pull me after her, as if she wished us to board the train for Damascus too, just as we were. Mani had reached the last car by now. He let his overcoat drop to the platform — the thought struck me that he did not want to bloody it — and then — with a gentle movement — lowered himself onto the tracks. A Turkish soldier started to shout at him. But Mani just turned away his face, which — in the reddish light that drifted in from the sea — looked hard and vanquished, and resumed walking along the tracks, wagging a reproving finger at the black locomotive that appeared around the bend as if it were a child home late from school. The locomotive tore him apart instantly, like a sword stroke. Father, aren’t you listening?