Joseph Roth - Tarabas

“You let those other Jews, your brothers, be destroyed. If you had come forward, nothing would have been done to them! Even your own people you betrayed! You’re not worthy of the name of human being. I shall exterminate you!”

“Your Excellency,” answered Kristianpoller, “those others would have all been beaten just the same, and I should have been killed. I have a wife and seven children. When Your Excellency came I sent them away to Kyrbitki, because I knew that there was danger. A new regime is always dangerous for us Jews. You are a noble gentleman, Your Excellency, I’m certain of it. But …”

Tarabas looked up and Kristianpoller broke off. He was in mortal terror of that “But” which had slipped out. He bowed again, and stood there with his back bent so low that the eyes of Tarabas, seated at the table, were on a level with the silk skull-cap worn by all Jews in the house.

“‘But’ what?” asked Tarabas. “Out with it!”

“But,” repeated Kristianpoller, and stood up straight once more, “but even you yourself, Your Excellency, are in God’s hand. He guides us as He wishes us to go, and we know nothing. We do not understand His cruelty, nor His goodness either …”

“No philosophizing, Jew,” Tarabas shouted. “Say what’s in your mind, I tell you!”

“Well,” said Kristianpoller, “Your Excellency spent too much time in the barracks yesterday.” And after a while he added: “It was God’s will.”

“You’re hiding behind God again,” said Tarabas. “God’s not your screen! I’m going to hang you, just the same. But first I want to know where you hid. And you’re to hide again. I have orders from headquarters to see that all Jews are kept out of sight. A lot of peasants are on their way here; they want to see the miracle in your yard. You’ll be the first they’ll slaughter, if they find you. But I’m going to have you hanged, and I want to see to that myself. Take care that my pleasure is not spoiled!”

“Your Excellency,” said Kristianpoller. “The cellar is my hiding-place. My cellar is double-storied. I keep the spirits on the first floor. Underneath I have very old wine stored. At the bottom of the first staircase down there is a big flagstone, with a hook in it. I have an iron ring that fits into the hook, and an iron bar that goes into the ring. That’s how I lift up the stone. When I’m in the lower cellar, I leave the tip of the iron bar between the trapdoor and the floor. Your Excellency can have me fetched out of that hiding-place and executed.”

Tarabas said nothing. The Jew was not lying. But out of that mouth even the truth must contain some lie. Even the courage the inn-keeper Kristianpoller suddenly displayed must be a mask for some hidden cowardice, some devilish kind of cowardice. So Tarabas said: “You’ll be fetched. And now I want to know why you defiled the church in your yard, and the Madonna’s picture.”

“It was not I!” cried Kristianpoller. “This house is very old. It came down to me from my great-grandfather. I don’t know when they turned the chapel into a lumber-room. I don’t know. I am innocent!”

These protestations of Nathan Kristianpoller’s rang with such passion of sincerity that even Tarabas was moved to believe them.

“Very well! Now go and hide yourself,” the colonel said. “And I want another room; I have had Kontsev put in mine.”

“I have already seen to that,” Kristianpoller answered. “I have given Your Excellency my late grand-father’s room. It is on the second floor, next to the attic, I’m sorry to say. It is all ready. The bed is comfortable. The room is warmed. Fedya will show it to Your Excellency. I have put out a dozen candles for the late Sergeant-Major Kontsev. They are in the drawer of the pedestal beside the bed. The priest is upstairs, Your Excellency.”

“Call him!” commanded Tarabas.

THE priest of Koropta was an old man. For more than thirty years he had had the cure of souls in this community. A simple, humble, and ungrateful labour. His ancient soutane, shiny with grease, hung slackly on his bony frame. The years had made him very small and thin; they had bent his back, and dug deep moats around his big, grey eyes, and furrows to either side of his narrow, toothless mouth; they had uncovered his brow and weakened his simple heart. He had seen the war come and go, the vast anger of heaven, and hundreds of mornings on which he could not read the mass. He had buried men who, struck down by chance bullets, had not been able to receive the final sacrament, and comforted the grief of parents whose children had been killed or died of injuries. And now his own desire was for death. Feeble and meagre, with extinguished eyes and trembling limbs, he appeared before Tarabas.

It was important, the colonel expounded, that the peasants who were approaching Koropta in force, athirst to see the miracle, be prevented from becoming excited. The harm already done was great enough. The army counted on the influence of the clergy, and he, Colonel Tarabas, upon the help of Koropta’s priest.

“Quite so!” said the priest. In the course of the past few years many new commanders had marched into Koropta, and spoken to him in words almost identical with those of Colonel Tarabas, and he had given all of them exactly the same answer—“Quite so!”

For a moment his big, light eyes turned their dim and ancient gaze upon the colonel’s face. The priest felt pity for Colonel Tarabas. Yes, the priest was probably the only person in all Koropta who pitied Colonel Tarabas.

“I will speak to them tomorrow as you wish,” he said.

But to Tarabas he seemed to have said this rather: “I know how it is with you, my son! You are bewildered and confused. You are powerful and powerless. You are brave but frightened. You give me instructions, but you know very well that you would feel much better if I could tell you what to do instead.”

Tarabas said nothing. He waited for the old man to speak again. But he did not.

“Won’t you drink something?” asked Tarabas.

“I should like a glass of water,” said the priest.

Fedya brought it, and the old man drank a mouthful.

“Brandy!” called the colonel. Fedya brought this too; it was clear and colourless, like water. Tarabas tossed it off.

“Soldiers can stand a great deal of alcohol,” said the priest.

“Yes, yes,” answered Tarabas, absently. He felt strange and far away.

Both saw that there was nothing more to say. The priest was only waiting for a sign that he might go. There was much that Tarabas would gladly enough have said, for his heart was full; but it was also shut. A heavy sack, tied close about its secrets, so lay his heart in the breast of mighty Tarabas.

“What other orders have you for me, Colonel?” asked the priest.

“None, thank you,” said Tarabas.

“Praise be to Jesus Christ,” said the priest.

Tarabas too got up and whispered: “World without end, amen!”

ON that day, as so often before, there was drumming and commanding in Koropta that the Jews must not appear in the streets. Nor had they any desire to do so. They sat in the few remaining houses of their own people. They barricaded doors and windows. This was, as far back as any of them could remember, their saddest Saturday. But still they tried to console each other and hope that God would soon send help to them. They thanked Him for having at least left them their lives. Some had been hurt. They sat about with bound-up heads, with dislocated arms supported in white slings, with lacerated faces on which the purple lattice of the thongs was drawn, with naked chests and backs and shoulders, about which damp towels had been bound over the wounds. Even without these further injuries they were weak or crippled, and all of them old; the young and sound ones had been devoured by the war. They did not feel the indignity that had been put upon them, they were conscious only of their pains. For the people of Israel has lived for twice a thousand years under another indignity, compared with which the later scorn and insults of its foes are trivial merely — the indignity of knowing that there is in Jerusalem no temple. Whatever else of shame and ridicule and suffering may come their way is but the consequence of that bitter fact. Sometimes the Eternal One, as though the heavy cup of woe were not yet full, sends new punishments and plagues. Occasionally he employs the country-folk to serve His ends. There is no means of defence. But even if there were, ought one to take it? God willed that yesterday the Jews of Koropta should be beaten. And they were beaten. Had they not believed, in sinful exuberance, that peace was come again? Had they not ceased to be afraid? A Jew of Koropta has no right to be without fear.