Yoram Kaniuk - The Last Jew

Sam's watch was set well, fat men smoked giant cigars and drank whiskey and soda and sang a contemptible Hallelujah. We prepared a putsch, Sam directed in silence, maybe we were too drunk, earlier we had drunk seven glasses of beer, I wanted to pee, but I didn't dare get up, the woman wept, it was in 'twentyeight that she wept, and the number of unemployed was worrisome, inflation was rampant, the rubber snake dropped out. Another girl, whose name I even remember, Johanna, sang "Deutschland abet Alles" and then a fat woman got up, rolled up her dress and peed on the stage, wiped herself with a strip of old newspaper and the pee flowed on the floor, and the woman on the chair licked her lips, and Sam recited stock prices in June 'twenty-nine, the price of gas, the price of vegetables, the price of newspapers, yearnings were born and I don't know whether those were yearnings for what was or for what was after that, faces were crying for help, I stood on my knees, somebody sang: The shark has pearly teeth dear, and he shows them pearly white, just a jackknife has old MacHeath dear, and he keeps it out of sight, she yelled: He's a shark! And Sam said: Watch out for sharks! To catch a shark you have to grab him by the tail, make him lie on his back. He dies because his belly isn't connected to the walls of his body, he's got a moving belly and he sheds it, said Sam, and I muttered some of your words, Kramer, twenty-four thousand teeth every ten years. And I, I can't move, I try to understand Sam and I know, know that deep inside me I do understand him, but I'm ashamed precisely because I do understand. The bartender is now trying to return the clock to the present, outside, somebody's knocking on the window, reality penetrates inside with a wild daring and I want to get up and maybe I did, the woman comes close to him and he kisses her and then slaps Kramer and looks at him in amazement, smears his face with powder he took out of some woman's purse and my head drops, and the more I want to get up, the more I drop, and am covered with powder, spew foam, and somebody thrusts a bottle of whiskey into my mouth, and I drink, and then, I stood, me, I who once shot at low-flying planes, and I spoke about "paratroopers" brought down by the bullets of our soldiers, the heroes, when the ghetto was burning, and how nice to see you landing dead from the roofs, from the burned houses, and I shot in retrospect, according to Sam's clock, reluctantly I aimed and shot into a propaganda film of the burning ghetto shot by my father and I was ridiculous in my own eyes, a chorus of fake women sang with artificial voices the anthem of the Black Corps of paratrooper shooters, Herr Reichsfuhrer, the ghetto is no more says (inside me) SS Sturmbahnfuhrer Stroop, and my father shoots pictures of his son shooting at the "paratroopers," and then the giant fire. And how beautiful it is to photograph the lapping fire, the houses collapsing, and they're still singing, and then Sam cuts his hand deeply with a knife he found on the counter, and I understand that Boaz left him the knife he took from Rebecca who took it from the knife-sharpener in Jaffa, it's all mixed up in my brain, maybe I'm dreaming, I and Jordana in the bath, hugged by a dream girl of death, the blood flowing on Sam's hand, I hit Sam and the spotlight, it's dark and the voices fall silent all at once.

The next day I woke up with a sharp headache between my eyes. The phone didn't stop ringing. The morning newspapers were hidden by Renate and our cleaning woman under the closets. Sam came to breakfast, jolly. The call from Mr. Schwabe was one of the only ones that felt strange and I said to Renate, Answer that call, and she picked up the phone and gave it right to me and I heard the strident, furious voice of the man even before I put it to my ear. He yelled and I held the phone away while, in my other hand, I held a cup of miracle juice Renate concocted to cure my nausea. He yelled: That man of yours, sir, came to my house, or perhaps you don't know, if I hadn't known you were an honorable man I would have honored you with a duel worthy of the name, and you wouldn't have been left with one ear to cure and even your nostrils would disappear along with what wraps them. I was smoking a pipe, suddenly there was a knock on the door, I opened it, and he stood, he stood there, you hear me? He stood there and smiled, pushed me into a chair and picked up the phone, you hear? And he dialed, I heard distant voices in the receiver, I was scared, and he said into the phone: Talk to Himmler, and he gave me the phone. I heard shouts from the other end, what happened? What happened? She shouted there and I said: Schwabe here, and she said: Who? And I said Schwabe of Badenstrasse and my pipe fell down, it fell down, the pipe, and she said: You're Schwabe of Badenstrasse, where's Sam, I said to her: I'm here and Sam is standing next to me, you listening? And Sam pushed me and yelled: Talk to her! And I'm an old man, what could I do, I said Who is this? And she said Lily! What Lily, I said to her, what joke is this, and she said, A really bad joke, maybe she wept, and who is she, if she's Lily where was she all these years? And then Greta came in, she takes care of me and I love her, she fixes everything, sews, she said: What's happening? And she looked at that man with a hatred I didn't find where to search for it inside me, and Lily says What? What? Is this Schwabe and I yelled: American filth, shit of American soldiers, you left a father in prison, took me years to crawl here, I found your stinking stockings in the empty house, and she laughed, she laughed then too, and the old woman said: Enough, you'll get a stroke, and the phone went dead and that Sam counts out marks for the call, gives them to Greta and she took them, why shouldn't she, but the heart is shaking with shame and even more, I'm furious, eighty-one years old, what do they want, and from me, and I hear Sam or what's-his-name, laughing or yelling and Greta isn't scared of him, no, she's not scared, her they measured for a uniform of real Junkers, her they didn't take out of that music and the pop and the long hair, and Sam told her, Tell how many Reichsmarks you got, those Reichsmarks were brought to you by Jews, and Greta sneered: The Reichsmarks are better from your hand than from anybody else, and he told her the Jews were coming back, and she said, There was no Lily, as if he had asked, but she asked from inside me, And tonight, when she has no teeth in her mouth, and that made the swinish clown laugh, and then he took out a pack of lewd cards from Frankfurt, or Japan, showed me, and said: You see, here's Lily with Jews! You want to buy the pictures? And I, what can I do and even Greta was now yelling with shame, and I explain to him: I'm an old retired soldier, living on a small pension, what do you want from me, and I get mad: Lily? Where was Lily? And he said I came back home, Father, and kisses me, that filth, you hear?

I hear, I told him, and I drink another cup Renate gave me and my head is bursting. And he yells into the receiver, an old man with manly telephone power, I think for no good reason you were waiting for me, that Sam tells me, you sat in pajamas and waited, and I say: I wasn't waiting, I'm cheating death, I don't sleep at night because eighty-one-year-olds die at night, and he says, Waiting for death? Germans die standing up, sir, he told me, the filth, at three in the morning, nineteen seventythree, and he tells me: Your daughter is a whore of Jews, and I yell: I don't have a daughter because I really don't, and he says a mothball of a woman and I remember every word, mothball of a woman, with a pedigreed womb, sing! He orders me and pushes Greta into the armchair where she was sitting and can't get into any deeper, and that friend of yours, tells me Take the cards, and hits me and kisses Greta on her toothless mouth and goes…

After Herr Schwabe hung up, Sam said with a calm that drove me crazy: Afterward I left his house and waited until the police car came. And then, after he said that, he fell asleep in his chair. I looked at him and suddenly my headache vanished. There's nothing like the sight of a lost person to cure a headache after such a night of drinking and humiliation. Renate took off his shoes and together we dragged him to the sofa, and the cleaning woman covered him and he slept for five straight hours. And then the evening papers came. When he woke up, we were busy reading. I wouldn't say those were especially thrilling moments. The papers made it clear that, at long last, my real face was revealed. The would-be rightist papers hinted at bitter things about my past and my dubious morals, and the so-called leftist papers explained without a shadow of a doubt that in the war I played much higher roles than had been thought. Of course, it was all formulated so that I can't sue anybody, and if I protested the injustice and the empty charge, I would look even more foolish.