He told me about good Germans, bad Germans. Good Poles, bad Poles. Good Jews, bad Jews. He told me about Landau, a Jewish collaborator whom the Gestapo used to drive proudly through the streets of the Bochnia ghetto. And Count Simon, who was a fool, not a bad person, a persistent collaborator. These were not the worst, he cautioned. And he told me about the Jewish Kapo Yehezkel Ingster, and the Jewish Kapo Yakov Honigman. I was Old Enough.
Effi was also Old Enough. “Mom, why do you cry?”
Some things were told. Some were not. Even though we were Old Enough, questions still remained.
Why don’t they spend time together?
Why is Mrs. Kopel infertile?
Why is Uncle Menashe from Netanya still a bachelor?
What about Mr. Bergman?
Suddenly, like a redemptive wave of nausea, we remembered: What did Grandpa Lolek do with Finkelstein’s gold?
The wave of nausea went off to ask Grandpa Lolek. We were Old Enough.
“I give it to people without food after war, I give so they make graves for families, make new graves that the goyim destroyed. Also my family I made graves. Everything I gave, I thought after war there will be world without money, that is what I thought.”
Grandpa Lolek’s ideological era.
“On that, I was much mistaken,” he admitted.
“You gave it all? All of it?”
“All of it.”
To believe, not to believe, to believe, not to believe, to believe, not to believe — an entire field of marigolds was picked, petals plucked off. Believe, not believe, believe, not believe.
A hurt look from blue eyes interfered.
We believed.
The years passed by, Moshe celebrated his fortieth birthday, still sailing away as he sat on the low fence. There were no more attempts to find him a framework. He had found his framework. Maturation had given his face a stamp of contemplation, a gravity which brought to mind an internal change, perhaps a thought about to burst through, finally erupt, a thought that had been stymied all his life by a mind too bureaucratic, too clerk-like, and now the dull era would be over and the sweeping thought would burst forth to make amends, to express with simplicity everything that had not been understood his whole life, had been hidden in a distorting mirror. Brandy at his feet, an old dog now, tired of lovers, knowing her duty, loving the essence of her existence. A heavy slumber had spread over her limbs. Over the years some of Grandpa Yosef’s qualities had poured into her. The altruism, mainly. When Moshe was resting in his room, if there was no urgent canine season, she could be seen hurrying to the pedestrian crossing nearby. She excelled at helping the elderly and children, granting confidence to those who lacked it. Every visit to Grandpa Yosef’s began with a thorough indulgence of Brandy. We scratched the soft spots behind her ears and the hard box of her forehead. Looked straight into her eyes, trying to find the nobility that lay behind that canine face. Whiskers straight as a wand. Open mouth. Dots of foam always on her tongue. Not a face to break hearts. But still, Brandy.
Over the years we could sense how even Brandy went through changes. Death, in particular, was reflected through her — it tried her on like a suit of clothes. When someone came close to her she perked her head up, wagged her tail and yawned, as dogs do. But if you concentrated you could pick up certain notes. Death was apparent in her. Something not yet issued, a license held up by a clerk dazed from the heat, subject to continuous delays and the capriciousness of a bureaucrat. She strode down the paths with exemplary steps, careful not to skip too far into the next world — bad enough the trees she sometimes forgot to circle and the walls she crossed distractedly. Fifteen years old in 1991, Brandy was a demonic and yet tranquil dog. A sober island of wisdom, only the scruffy face preventing her from taking on a saintly halo.
Sometimes, on Katznelson, we would run into Menachem the neighborhood kid. We would stop and smile. “How’s it going?” And in his eyes was wonder and astonishment. You left me here, he seemed to be accusing. You went off and I’m still here. I went to military school, got a job in Haifa, and I can barely make ends meet, and when we were kids we went to the woods together and climbed trees, even Gershon Klima’s bombax, and you left me here. We say goodbye, somewhat awkwardly. I head to Grandpa Yosef, Menachem makes his way to the parents who gave birth to him many years ago, in the neighborhood, with wonderment, with embarrassment, as if they were being accused — where did this child come from? After all, we barely have the strength to live, so how did you find enough joy to give birth?
I too am amazed. When we were kids — I am certain of this — he was called Nimrod. I remember everything, and he was called Nimrod. When we were kids, Nimrod. There were no other kids in the neighborhood, so it was easy to remember. Grandpa Yosef remembers Menachem, everyone remembers Menachem, and yet I am certain: Nimrod. After the birth, for a short while, the parents had been filled with a placental life force, they grew impudent and named their son Nimrod after the biblical hunting hero. But now suddenly it was Menachem. According to him it had always been Menachem. To his mother he was Nahche, with teary eyes, after her brother, Nahche Osterman, may God avenge his blood. Fourteen years old, sent to Belzec. The eyes are the same, but her Nahche is heavier set.
If Grandpa Yosef wrote down ‘Leibeleh’ for a boy’s name with L, we did not point out that for us ‘Leibeleh’ was not considered a boy’s name. We trusted him. Our game of Categories was played in a spirit of generosity, which came easily. Sometimes, though, disputes arose. Effi, a charming ignoramus, fanatical over every point, once insisted that marshmallow was a vegetable. A radical player, she spread her hands out to the heavens for proof that might spring from the evening night. “Isn’t marshmallow a vegetable?” Then she demanded points for Sodom. Sodom, she claimed, was a city!
Tasked with finding a country beginning with “B,” Effi got points for Britain, I for Bahrain, Grandpa Yosef for Bermuda, Feiga for Barbados. Grandpa Yosef commented, “Interesting, we all chose islands…”
Effi was astonished. “Britain is an island?” She looked around at us. Was she being mocked? “But Germany isn’t, right?” Just checking.
I consulted Grandpa Yosef’s eyes. Geographically, the answer was clear. But Effi’s question had raised a thought-provoking cultural image that could not be dismissed at hand. Could Germany be an island?
Grandpa Lolek interrupted our thoughts, manifested in his role as geographer. “What island?! Germany is connects nicely with Poland, and is connects nicely with Austria, where I have been when my Joyce got mixed up with the player on the piano in a café.”
He was sitting with us because his neighborhood game of rummy had been cancelled. And as long as he had dragged the Vauxhall all the way here (and now it needed to rest), why not sit with some company, smoke a cigarette, drink some tea? He could also dangle a tea bag in front of Grandpa Yosef and do his Selektion, deciding to let the bag live but regretful that it would live on at Grandpa Yosef’s. But not to worry, dinnertime was nearing, which might offer some prospects. He could browse Grandpa Yosef’s papers and circle some notices. Then we’d see. He often turned up at our meetings, where he existed alongside us without wasting his time on our games and conversations. We would find him sitting quietly, diluting his cigarettes with tea, thinking. He never allowed his thoughts to be revealed, only their shadow exposed, disguised as tea vapors or wisps of smoke.