Attorney Perl is animated, his voice changes as he talks about SS-Obersturmführer Jürgen Licht, who killed people with his pistols, of which he was extremely fond, without a second thought. But more than his pistols, he was enamored with puppet theater, and every time he was transferred to a new camp he would bring a little truck lined with shelves of marionettes. Puppet theaters were officially banned by the Nazi party, and Obersturmführer Licht never considered disobeying the law, but a lengthy correspondence with indifferent supervisors finally resulted in a personal authorization to engage in his beloved hobby, and so at every camp he set up a small but active puppet theater. He never took harsh measures upon arriving at a new camp before enquiring whether any of the prisoners might be of use. Carpenters, engravers, arts and craftsmen, tailors, painters, and perhaps even a rare gem — a puppet maker. Attorney Perl was none of these, which meant that by rights he should have joined the grey herd destined to die, the herd at which Obersturmführer Licht shot on its way to work, often out of mere curiosity, to see who would fall. Would it be the tall man he was aiming at, or the yellowing one hunched next to him? Or someone else? Pistol bullets were so unpredictable at times. Attorney Perl should have waited his turn to be hanged from the gallows in the center of the camp; they were painted red, and the rope that hung from them swayed constantly like a live snake. Or else he should have crouched down and knelt on the muddy ground. Or perhaps he should have survived by simply working day after day in the trenches, with a pick, without dying, without making any noise, without meeting the fate of being shot and having his body dumped into cold water. Except that during the first inspection, he lifted a trembling hand — a hand stronger than he himself — and whispered right in Obersturmführer Licht’s face that yes, he too could be of use. Of use? Yes. He offered his singular contribution, which was his voice. The clear, sometimes thunderous tone that he had used to great advantage when representing his clients in court. Even if in his private life his voice was soft, withdrawn, in the courthouse he was taken over by some sort of spirit, a devil that gave him tremendous oration skills. As his words were barely whispered to Obersturmführer Licht through the lips of a skeleton, in fluent German, the devil grabbed hold of him and awoke his voice, which grew clear and loud. He boldly proposed to be the voice of the marionettes in the puppet theater.
From the front of the shop, Yariv’s voice reaches me in a wail. One of the customers was joking around and told Yariv he would buy him along with his bag of nails. Yakov the assistant played along and together they staged a complex negotiation. How-much-for-the-sweet-little-mama’s-boy? At first Yariv sat quietly, following the negotiations in awe. But suddenly his sorrow broke through and he was washed over with great self-pity. He cried, “Where’s my daddy?” and shouted, and the customer apologized, red-faced, looking left and right to enlist other customers to attest to his innocence; he hadn’t meant any harm. There was no one on the right, and the two on the left nodded, trying to reassure Yariv, not knowing how difficult a task that would be. I arrive on the scene to find my son standing frozen on a bench, waiting for me helplessly. We have no choice but to leave the store. Off we go. Where to? Where do you want to go? To the lawn. We go to the big lawn at Memorial Park, with the white pillars. Yariv finds a line of ants and kneels down, enchanted. With a little twig he tries to pose dilemmas to the ants. I sit facing the sea. The bay of Haifa is spread out before us. I think about the beach, where they never go. Just over half a mile as the crow flies and yet never, never do they take their cheery flip-flops and varicose-veined legs onto the sandy shores. Only Grandpa Yosef, thanks to his righteousness and with the help of his bicycle (especially since returning from the Caribbean), dares to go that far. Later, he comes home from an idle hour at the beach with shells in his pockets.
One ant climbs onto Yariv’s twig. He shakes it, but the ant clings. Yariv lets go in a fright. He comes over to me, ready to go home. Already? Yes. Don’t you want to sit a little longer? No. We leave. People pass us by. They are happy here. The park assuages troubles, slows down the pace of life. People can come from downtown, from doing errands at City Hall across the way, from the army induction center, from the courthouse. Such a Haifa park, close to errands and shopping. You can walk around without feeling as if you’re wasting time, opposite Haifa’s round bay. You can sit on the benches, looking at the dirty pool and the swings that someone insists on constantly re-painting to make them look nice. (There’s always a patch of wet paint or a glossy new layer, and people know to check carefully before they put a kid down). Dad used to bring us here on Saturday afternoons in our good shoes, in the sixties. Thirty years apparently had to go by for me to notice the park’s name, “Memorial Park.” A strange name. I never paid attention to it before. We used to come here without thinking about names, to play and walk around. Once a year the park justified its name when the official memorial services were held here. First for Holocaust Remembrance Day, then for the IDF soldiers on Memorial Day. Then there would be fireworks set off for Independence Day. I remember people dancing in circles, and lots of people coming up to Dad, excited, shaking his hand as if they had won the Nobel prize together.
On Attorney Perl’s little cards there is mention of the Aktion in the small town of Koretz, on the holiday of Shavuot. When the Aktion was over, the Gestapo officer addressed the Jews whose family members had just been sent away in transports, saying, “The Aktion is over. Tomorrow morning all remaining Jews must arrive at their workplaces.” I think about the unbelievable passivity. To be a human being whose family has been sent to extermination and to be asked to show up to work on time the next day. Here, in Memorial Park, I think about the Aktion in Koretz and realize what it was that Dad was celebrating with us. The fireworks, the dances, the Nobel winners. The Independence Day I take Yariv to is not the Independence Day I went to with Dad. With us there is happiness, and wheeling and dealing among the various stalls — Yariv is only allowed to pick two things. But with Dad we would walk among the Nobel winners, everyone strolling happily, and a wild cry of joy — I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-C-E — rose up from peoples’ bones to the stars, just like the fireworks. Green, red and yellow trails bursting like little thoughts that run out on their way down, making way for a new idea that erupts and is soon forgotten. Six million prosecutors in our Memorial Park, and young people dancing in circles, and Dad watching with us, buying falafel and little flags, and a Bedouin man from the Negev selling rides on his camel, and eating pita with spicy humus. I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-C-E, I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-C-E. Nobel prizes bursting through the holes in flimsy pitas, pickles dying like heroes, pale-pale green, I take them out and very quietly drop them to the ground. Food is Not Thrown Out.
Even in Grandpa Yosef’s neighborhood they celebrated Independence Day. It was quiet, with only the state flags sneaking out of the windows. But Grandpa Yosef assured us, “Oh, believe me, it’s very joyous here.” To prove that something exciting was hiding beneath the surface, on the morning of Independence Day he would walk to synagogue and pray loudly for Israel. He would come back from prayers sparkling and festive, and tell us how he had gone to see the celebrations in the center of Kiryat Haim the night before. He had watched the fireworks that were set off from where we live, from Memorial Park.