Yoram Kaniuk - The Last Jew

Then he called me from the Rome airport. He reversed the charges. He said: The journey has ended, Cafe Glacier isn't what it used to be, sometimes you have to destroy. He asked forgiveness, he asked me to ask forgiveness from Lily's father, from Renate, from everybody. From what he said, it was clear but not explicit, that he was in trouble, but managed to flee. I was freed by a person named Leopold Bardossi, he said, I don't know Italian. I'm flying to Israel in an hour, he said, got to erect a memorial to the greatest Italian poet.

As I write this letter, Sam is surely in Israel. Renate and I will come in a week. Don't tell anybody about our coming. Please find us a room in a hotel near you. The Israeli cleaning woman we recently hired just told me that last night they called about Samuel. I don't know what it is, but I'm in a hurry to send the letter and I'll tell you in person about what's in store for us from this episode.

Yours as always…

Tape / -

The General Consulate of Israel. Trieste.

Consul: Adam Navon.

Dear Mr. Henkin,

I'm writing you in reference to Samuel Lipker. Among the papers we found in his room was a letter addressed to you and your name also appears in several of his papers.

Aside from you, he had the address of a German writer we have tried to locate, but his Israeli cleaning woman did not understand the issue, and then we learned that he had taken off for Israel and on the way had stopped in Italy, but it is not known where. I hope Samuel Lipker will get in touch with you. If he does, please get in touch with Mrs. Hannah Aharoni, secretary of our department in the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. My deputy, who will investigate the episode of Samuel Lipker's visit to the city, writes in his report:

Samuel Lipker was searching for a ship that was to sail for the Land of Israel on January first, nineteen hundred [sic!]. When he did not find that ship (it is now nineteen seventythree [sic!]), he tried to burn down the only synagogue in the city. He provoked people, offended passersby, sold stolen goods at the port, and is wanted by the police. The press is going mad to take advantage of that man's behavior to gore Israel. The press says that Samuel was seen in the company of whores, a hashish dealer (the evidence here is confused), etc….

It's not that these are important articles, although they do not indicate a great deal of affection. But on the other hand, when people are hit, gold watches are stolen from passersby who refuse to buy, people are flogged until they bleed, and anybody who tries to intervene-including a policeman who was badly beaten-is punished…. Apparently we must act, since we're the representatives of Israel here and even without all that our work is not easy. Please, therefore, if you hear something, let me know, and I will be grateful.

Yours, Adam Navon

Tape / -

Ebenezer and Fanya R. are walking along the seashore. Fanya is hopping, picking up snails and examining them. Ebenezer is trying to estimate the distance between himself and the turret of the mosque in Jaffa, and says: Jaffa is a rock. Jaffa of sundown. Jaffa of magic. Jaffa of abandoned smells. Let go of the snails, the sea wept them, nothing will influence me anymore. I dreamed a war will break out, I read the dream in a book that hasn't yet been written. That's what they say! The sea will be filled with blood. There's no iodine for blood of the sea.

In the distance a woman stands and yells at a child: Don't go in the water, Boaz. I told you not to. Listen, if you drown, don't you dare come back home.

Tape / -

Henkin reads Germanwriter's letter to Hasha. Germanwriter is going to Italy and from there he'll come. Henkin says: What will we do with Friedrich? And Hasha is silent. Henkin says: How, how, and Hasha says Shhh, Henkin. You're disturbing the rustle of the waves.

Tape / -

Boaz Schneerson: It's not just Noga. I live in a world I wasn't prepared for. And I'm half an orphan. Do you pity me? You're laughing! Jordana is woven of silken death, what are you woven of? They taught you to forget where you came from. At night, before sleep, an old nun read you sayings in Latin. You spat green blood. What exactly happened? Did you really find your dead father? Did you write a letter to the judge? The judge wrote to me. He wrote: In terms of morality, Noga Levin is right. So here you are, proof that you're right! The Last Jew, not our "last Jew," let him go into that sea, when he's thrown out. Let him throw up his hands, let him yell "I was right," and let him drown. What does it help to be always right? I'm not always right, but unlike you, I don't make Boazes miserable. Germanwriter is coming, Henkin's waiting for him. Your father never waited for another daughter, when he waited, he waited for you. The writer comes here to buy guided missiles produced by the military industry, rifles started with clothespins, Jewish genius, plastic tank turrets, dream-penetrating laser beams, water from the Jordan to alleviate material exhaustion-like planes that lost their fighting ability-sea sand to pulverize limbs, Jewish grenades to disperse student demonstrations, a philharmonic orchestra with stainless steel spires, the German leopards are supplied with soap made in Israel and in exchange they send us gas masks. What battle are the lords Herod and Mendelssohn preparing for us? The German command will buy Hebrew tents, go to Henkin, loathe him in my name…

And Sam Lipp-

Tape / -

Sam Lipp came to the old Ben-Gurion airport. When the plane extinguished its engines, the stewardess woke him up and said to him with a smile: I think we've arrived. He picked up his valise, brushed his hair, and got off. After a short bus trip, he came to customs. A policewoman hidden in a giant wooden basin stamped his passport; he walked slowly to the exit. Except for the valise in his hand, he hadn't brought anything with him. When he went outside, a hot wind blew and the light was still clear. In the distance he could almost love the ugliness surrounding everything like a wreath of thorns.

He got into a cab, stretched out, and said: The Hilton, Tel Aviv. He peeped out and through the windshield, the trees started becoming clear, the narrow road became more familiar, barbed wire fences posted in his mind between houses and boulevards faded away, he recalled that when he slept in the plane he dreamed he was walking on Baron Hirsch Street in Tarnopol carrying two challahs. Now, awake, he seemed to see the roads to Tarnopol. The driver was listening to music and smoking a cigarette. Hebrew words on the radio became familiar. Syllables he didn't know before became a surer texture, for some reason he was afraid of history, the structure of time, the molecules of relative time as opposed to absolute time. He thought: Melissa is waiting for me at the corner.

At the entrance to the hotel, he paid the driver. The exorbitant price didn't surprise him. When he came to the counter and said his name, the clerk dialed and a few minutes later a tall beautiful girl appeared holding a bouquet of flowers. She called a boy, put the one valise on a cart, and said to Sam: Welcome to the Hilton! And she handed him the bouquet with a ceremoniousness that seemed a little clumsy yet practiced. The beautiful girl said she was the representative of the public relations department and that the Hilton was proud to host him. She led him to a small room. He apologized for the delay (she muttered to herself that they had expected him a few days before), and after he signed the guest book studded with the names of the world's great, beginning with the signature of Ben-Gurion and then Frank Sinatra, he asked why it wasn't the other way around and Frank Sinatra didn't come before Ben-Gurion, and she tried to smile, but her teeth were too beautiful to waste on a meaningless smile, and they went up together to the seventeenth floor and he was put into the big suite. In one of the two rooms of the suite were bouquets of flowers sent by the American cultural attache, the national theater, and a telegram from the Minister of Education and Culture on a silver salver.