Yoram Kaniuk - The Last Jew

Everybody eats, standing or sitting, talking, Germanwriter sits in a corner, in the green armchair, surrounded by human beings and he notices me and something strange, mysterious lights up in his eyes for a moment and goes out, I think of Jordana, look at her, I think of the German, of his look, is that regret? Is that vengeance? Is that an impossible measuring to see the condemned after what happened, to measure them for the death that is destined and withheld from them?

Here they are, all of them, the Davids, the Cohens, the Sackses, the Ilans, all the parents Jordana and I assemble, connecting their nights of terror to days of tours to the Golan, Sinai, Jerusalem, air force bases, to places where the great battles took place, I tasted the delicacies Mrs. Shimoni served me, naturally I was careful not to munch the plastic vegetables, not to open by mistake the pack of cigarettes from which a rubber doll jumps out with a sharp screech, the Shimonis' sense of humor was never to my taste, but I envied their ability to laugh even next to the picture of their son, to buy nonsensical objects together in all kinds of places in the world, to return to an imaginary and impossible childhood, and Jordana, as always, knows how to appease, to rout the pain, to organize a group dance of graves. They eat they laugh they drink, and I always inspire here the same respect everybody needs at special moments when a correct quotation of a biblical chapter or of Alterman or Bialik grants metaphysical meaning to a moment, to say solemnly: Maybe once in a thousand years our death has meaning, and to see how they become serious at Alterman's words, aware that they have lost beloved sons, to see a sublime vision beyond the yellowing bindings of the books they've issued in their memory and are now forgotten in dusty cases… Mrs. Shimoni asked me if I liked the food, I said I never ate a better mushroom pie and she smiled at me, tapped my back and so at long last I could sit. Jordana finished a round of handshaking and hugs in the enormous room, and I could see her stand alone a moment, belonging and not belonging, trying to be drawn out of herself, not to be seen, with her eyes shut she stood, as if muttering a prayer that was foreign to us, everybody was buzzing around her, and then she stepped toward me, her back bent, sat down next to me, pressed her foot and thigh and carefully put her hand on mine, like a secret bride, gently crushed my hand as if her hands were also muttering incantations, and then she opened her eyes that had been shut when she sat down, or perhaps landed on the sofa, and very slowly the flush returned to her face and the smile was stuck in its place and once again she was charming and necessary to everybody and lost to herself. For some reason, I recalled the first time we met, when I came to her on behalf of the Committee of Parents, which was then in its infancy, to help me finance a book about the son of the writer Aviram who wrote heartrending texts about his son and we sat then for long nights and pasted the photos and the writer Aviram compiled lines from various poems and then, at the front of the book, he quoted Alterman: Don't say I came from dust, you came from the stranger who fell in your stead! Jordana now asked me how was Hasha Masha and I knew that in fact she wanted to ask me how was Menahem, but she didn't ask, I said that Hasha Masha was eating vegetable soup and loathing, and she understood, and then when she started comparing my clothes to the clothes of her uncle who was always dressed with splendid restraint and never as an actor in a play like most Israelis, I felt for the first time, after many years, a physical attraction to a strange woman, her body clinging to my body, her thigh to my thigh, her foot to my foot, I can imagine what was going on through the dress, where the legs led, as Menahem once told me when I asked him why he peeped on the stairs toward the second floor of my uncle Nevzal's house where a young woman went up with her dress flying. The secret of our youth, Jordana, on both sides of life, is alien to Menahem, negates him and something rose in me, something that for the first time in years opposed Menahem himself, maybe envied him, not against myself, and the death that led him away from me. Germanwriter still sat opposite, I could see him through the bodies moving in the room. Corruption fills me beside Jordana, she sees me as the father of her lover and I'm surely betraying both of them.

And then I heard her say in English: Yes, this is Mr. Henkin, and I raised my face, and a big man (now that he stood up I saw how big he was) stood over me, his eyes like two clear lakes, caught in a kind of thin veil as sometimes on the eyes of an aging dog, his face smiled a smile that was forced but also innocent and perfect, a wise smile intellectuals sometimes have, I tried to stand up but my legs became stiff and he said: Sit, sit, and Jordana stood up carefully so as not to cut herself off from my foot too forcefully and she chuckled, a chuckle that was a mixture of sympathetic complaint, See you, Henkin, she said in her official voice, and from now on, the picture of Menahem facing him is a group picture with a Yemenite girl, and the man stood over me, still smiling, a pensive second passed, Jordana was now smiling her saccharine smile at the drinks table, unsheathing fingernails of dry and charming purity (and I surely know her wild lust, her eyes staring at photos of Menahem, staring at his dead flesh) and she disappears now, mingles in the crowd, at the window the crests of the trees of the boulevard can be seen, a moon is shining on them a silvery light and a pleasant chill blows from the window. I didn't know what to do, my hand seemed to reach out by itself, I said: Yes, nice to meet you, my body still bound to the storm taking place in me before my son's fiancee vis-a-vis the bearishness of the German's full body, and then he sat, introduced himself, as if hangmen also have to be polite.

With his king-size body he completely filled the empty space left by the thin Jordana. His long legs rose a little, stuck to one another, even his head was higher than mine, although when he leaned his head on the back of the sofa and the soft fabric touched his hair, we were almost the same height and now I could peep at his profile. Before his face looked like a hybrid of a giant dog and ancient trees, something soft, kind, but his profile was different, harsh and sharp, his nose that looked a little squashed from the front looked aggressive from the side, arrogant, in his cheeks more existential suffering than real suffering was obvious, something serious, devoid of softness. His profile had some blend of innocent nobility but also soft earthiness, for a moment he even shriveled and became tinier than he really was and instead of Jordana's delightful behind there was now the giant ass of a German, solid, heavy, a man who looked sated but full of remorse, and suffering was stamped on his face, a suffering whose nature I didn't know, my mind was empty.

I didn't know what to say, I didn't know what not to say, maybe because of the picture of Amnon, the Shimonis' son, hanging across from me, thoughts were contradictory, so maybe I told him: When I was a child we had a sexton who would wait in the corner until the women got up from the bench and would sit down on the bench quickly so his body would absorb the warmth of their bodies, and I tried to laugh, even though he didn't succeed either, the two of us thought about Jordana who had been sitting here before, he tapped me carefully on the shoulder, his hand was manicured, delicate though very big, I spoke broken English and he looked forward toward the backs that were now wildly hugging the girl of our sons' dreams. Mrs. Shimoni walked around with a tray from one person to another, her cleaning woman served drinks, Mr. Shimoni in an amusing Tyrolean hat was standing at the bar and pouring drinks as if the whole thing were a big joke. The sons are laughing at them, I thought, and the German pulled a cigarette out of a handsome silver case, a pleasant smell of good tobacco wafted from it, he offered me a cigarette, I refused politely, he lit it with a gold lighter that seemed to be swallowed up in his gigantic hand, I was afraid he'd be burned but then he put the lighter back in his pocket, inhaled smoke and I could see how nice his suit was, the vest, once I was an expert in such things, an English suit, not stylish, solid, and yet, maybe because of the beautiful scarlet tie, maybe because of the sky-blue shirt, he didn't look like a prosperous merchant but like an artist who doesn't really want to look like an artist, a man of change but he also had the tranquility of clarity, which unites everything into a pleasant unity. And surely that's what we all aspire to, it suddenly angered me that he was such a good writer, as a gift to my son I wanted him to be a bad writer, but some sympathy was ignited in me, a closeness to the man, the expression of his eyes, when he heard my stupid story about the sexton he was gracious and not evasive, looked straight into my eyes, inhaled smoke, and was with me despite the great tumult around us. A picture of a Lag b'Omer bonfire rose in my mind, a gigantic effigy of Hitler was burned, Menahem and his friends sang, Hitler's dead your mother's sick a German submarine, and a woman who declares on the radio: To punish Hitler he shouldn't be killed, he should be brought to the Land of Israel and shown a kibbutz, and how children plant trees. I wanted to laugh but the innocence in his look was greater than the innocence I was thinking about, and that annoyed me, the smoke curled, we were still feeling each other out, a thigh touched my thigh, I thought about the bomb shelter on Halperin Street where my son used to smoke the first cigarettes he'd hide in the first-aid box back then when we sat in the shelters. I thought: I'm drawn to vengeance, maybe because of Jordana, a vengeance that doesn't suit me. The force that came from him, obstinate and cultivated, his hands clasped his knees and the cigarette burning in his hand next to his left knee, he looked at my hand, silence prevailed, and then he said: Maybe you're perplexed, is it because I'm a German? I tried to say something but the words stammered in my mouth, and he went on almost in a whisper, if so I can understand. I'm perplexed, I affirmed, but that's not the issue…