Yoram Kaniuk - The Last Jew

Lionel, who was interrogating prisoners in various cities, got in touch with Jews who were busy sneaking across borders and ascending to the Land of Israel. He got them cigarettes and food and for a long time he'd hang around in places where roads converged of Jews fleeing from northern Europe and flowing south to get to the Land of Israel. Lily understood who he was seeking and once told him, When you find him come back to me.

Tape / -

That year, the wandering of peoples began, my friend Goebbelheydrich- himmel. People, like little ants, slipped across borders, through mountains, in forests, slowly slowly came to gathering places near Marseilles or Naples, in the forests of Yugoslavia, in many places they gathered. And I searched for Ebenezer.

Tape / -

Lionel travels. People start setting real clocks, no longer covering up sin. My mother was a lampshade, said Samuel, and Ebenezer now performed in a hundred and sixty nightclubs. Now he appeared on a list of professional nightclub entertainers. And one night in Marseilles Lionel Secret sees a long line of Jews. The Jews are waiting to board a small ship named Redemption. A small ship, like a Mississippi riverboat, says an American standing not far from it and goes off. A young man comes to Lionel, too short to be the thug who taught ourselves to be, his arms strong, he clasps Lionel's hands and thanks him for the cigarettes and food, asks Lionel to get weapons too. Emotionally, it's still hard for Lionel to smuggle weapons they'll use to fight the British. The British medals still flutter over his shirt pocket. The line to the ship winds around along a deserted and forgotten quay. The people sit or stand, buy, sell, hold onto their miserable belongings, scared of every stranger, and Lionel notices Ebenezer and Samuel. Ebenezer is sitting on a suitcase. At the sight of Lionel, Samuel takes off and Ebenezer points to an empty place and says, Sit down, take a place in line, we're going.

Samuel told me to go, he added, and I'm going. Samuel says I was born there. One of the Israelis announces on the loudspeaker that the boilers have broken down and there may be a delay of a few hours. Tea will be distributed to you, he added, but nobody got up, they're afraid to lose their place. There's room for four hundred people on the ship, and there are seven hundred people standing here. Sounds of strife are heard in the distance. Behind a destroyed enclosure, a battle rages between Samuel Lipker and another man. The man bought a defective camera from Samuel and is demanding his money back. Lionel leaves Ebenezer gazing at the water of the port striking the concrete wall, and stands not far from the enclosure, Samuel hits the man and then wants to go back to the line and then he looks at Ebenezer's back, Ebenezer is sitting up and dozing with his eyes wide open, Samuel discovers Lionel looking at him, shifts his eyes from Ebenezer to the American officer. The power coming from him annoys him, he says: You think you're an important person because you've got a house and money, I remember how you saved a few pennies! I've got a few francs, maybe you need a little money to buy some ice cream or chewing gum? Lionel, who looks from Samuel to Ebenezer, feels some calm, as if his whole life had been aimed at this moment, some moment when he had to know well how to act, and he said: Looks like I hoped you'd come back.

You don't sound sorry, said Samuel.

Give me the money you said, Lionel suddenly says furiously.

Samuel seeks in his pocket and gives Lionel a few pennies. Lionel takes them, counts each and every penny, and tosses them into the sea. The pennies are swallowed up in the water, and Samuel says: I worked hard for that money, sir!

He worked, says Lionel, and points at Ebenezer.

You're helping these miserable Jews? asks Samuel. You're an old miser who got medals of dead soldiers, I know guys like you. Lionel didn't an swer. For a moment, he looked to the side, fog started moving toward the port, people started making bonfires from tree bark they had gleaned.

You don't answer, said Samuel.

No, I don't answer.

Why didn't you give me money then?

Because you sold things that weren't yours, he said, and Ebenezer had no daughters.

Samuel looked to the side and he also looked at Ebenezer now. An amazement he didn't understand flooded him. He felt animosity and softness at one and the same time. Ebenezer looked like somebody who was finished here, on the edge of that water. Samuel, who started acting the poor soul, bent over a little and said: I've got something here that they made from my parents, this lampshade, you can't know what was there!

Lionel was tense at every word. Samuel's cunning stirred old memories in him. A boy standing at the window of Melissa's house and waiting for a signal. For some reason he was less furious now than he thought he'd be. Maybe suffering does have some reward, he said to Samuel, but I'm not the man who will give it to you. That lampshade you sell to the soldiers who believe you isn't your parents. You deserve a lot more, but you also deserve less than what you demand! Don't try to lie to me. I'm fond of you because of what you are, not because of what you can sell me.

I'll sell the truth, said Samuel angrily. In his mind's eye he now succeeded in seeing his naked parents.

You're lying, said Lionel.

Samuel measured Lionel, looked again at Ebenezer, and said: If we leave here, they won't let me back.

If you want, they'll let you, said Lionel. And he felt like somebody who steals a piece of bread from a pauper. And they started walking in the fog that thickened and covered the port and Ebenezer who sensed something, turned his face, saw Samuel's back far away in the fog and wanted to run after him, but he was afraid to lose his place in line and by the time he made up his mind, Samuel and Lionel had disappeared in the fog.

Tape / -

I don't remember, I sat there. Somebody who was me, he thought. What was he thinking about? About somebody he loves, he thought. Some yearning, to love somebody like that, without conscience or regret, and they would have destroyed him if not for my boxes. Bronya the Beautiful with an apple in her mouth, she connected us, held us, on what authority did he go, I didn't know, but I didn't know who's thinking what I say now, confused, lost and alone, without myself, my memories, no, his image in me, a lust to embrace him, to hold the hand, forgiveness from him for asking about all the things I didn't do.

In the cab, Samuel was silent. Lionel looked at the gray houses and next to them the bay spread out, gleaming in the dull light. They got out of the cab and climbed the stairs of Cafe Glacier, the big balcony was closed. They sat at a little table, the place was almost empty.

Now tell me, said Lionel and offered Samuel a cigarette. Samuel lit it with a little lighter Lionel handed him, he looked at the lighter and Lionel said, Keep it, and Samuel held onto the lighter, wanted to give it back but couldn't, buried it in his pocket, and started talking with the cigarette in his mouth. That American officer looked naive to Samuel, but also bold. For a moment, he thought about a possible love affair between his dead mother and the officer and from the recesses of memory rose a picture of his mother, dressed in festive clothes, next to a statue of a bearded poet and Samuel is eating candy wrapped in gold foil and afterward he would straighten the foil and bury it in his pocket. If only I could really understand his suffering, he thought. Lionel said: Look, man, for a long time now I've been interrogating people, I read you and you think, Ah, how naive is this Lionel Secret and don't know that my name is Lionel Secret, but I know that your name is Samuel Lipker, I don't know who your father was, who your mother was, I don't know exactly what world you came from. He bent over a little, the cigarette dropped its ash on the table, the place began to fill up, beyond the locked balcony, the sun began to set, the sea was transparent and gleaming.