David Bezmozgis - The Free World

He was reminded of it when he heard “Where Are You, My Garden?” played by a very different ensemble at Club Kadima. The man who sang it, Samuil had to admit, was as appealing in his own way as that Tatar surgical nurse of long ago. He was a small, bald man of Samuil’s age, a veteran, who sang and played the accordion. A girl, young enough to be his granddaughter, but a graduate of the Leningrad conservatory, accompanied him on the piano. The third member of the group was a cornetist from Riga, a fellow his sons’ age, who had played in the restaurants. They were an unlikely combination, but quite capable. The main credit had to be given to the singer, who had a sure, soulful voice. His repertoire included Russian and Yiddish songs, and, in either language, he tasted each syllable and didn’t go in for any melodramatic tricks.

Samuil had attended the concert reluctantly, at the persistent urging of his wife and of Josef Roidman. They had assured him it would be an evening of musical entertainment to suit his taste. Skeptical, he had arrived with low expectations, but the musicians had exceeded them. They had started with the old standard “Uner Erster Waltz,” and treated it not like some confection but like a task of honest work, each note precise as a rivet. This they followed with “Shpiel, Fidl, Shpiel,” performing that, too, as if they were closely aligned with the old feelings.

The evening had been advertised to appeal to people of their generation, and some two dozen had come. Couples like him and Emma, single men like Roidman, and widows who arrived in the company of other widows. Scattered among them were younger people, though not very many. The friends and families of the musicians, Samuil supposed. Of the older people, few remained seated for long, but reported purposefully to the dance floor. Samuil did his obligatory turn with Emma, taking some pleasure in executing the steps. Around them other couples danced as they did, cohesively, in marked contrast to the modern trend where all thrashed about like epileptics and it was uncertain who was dancing with whom. Was it any wonder, with such culture, that his sons had taken the wrong path?

But what did it matter in the end? he thought as he danced with Emma, surrounded by their dwindling cohort, who danced the steps from memory and nursed the infirmities of old age. They were all obsolete, a traveling museum exhibit of a lost kind: Stalin’s Jews, unlikely survivors of repeat appointments with death. And if he allowed himself to feel any kinship with these people, what was the good of it? It was a kinship with the past. And a kinship with the past was no kinship for a revolutionary. A revolutionary allied himself only with the future. But as it sickened him to even think about the future, his revolutionary days were over.

Samuil sat down when the band began “Where Are You, My Garden?” Roidman had requested the honor, and was now hobbling with Emma on the dance floor — one arm around Emma, the other on his crutch.

When they returned from the dance floor Emma and Roidman were joined by the rabbi. Samuil had noticed the man circulating around the room, approaching guests or being approached. People more than twice his age — people who should have known better — took his hand reverentially, and drew him near to mouth a joke or a confidence, which the rabbi received with the lofty humility of a sage. A Soviet education, the war, and decades of Soviet life, and still the kernel of religious servility hadn’t been eradicated. It had lain dormant, like a suppressed vice — a prejudice or superstition — waiting for an opportune moment to resurface. Now the moment had come, personified by this man with the pale, thin wrists and patchy beard — purveyor of discount chicken.

Emma led the rabbi to the table. Here was the generous rabbi who had shown such kindness to their grandchildren. He was a gem of a man and a holy person.

— Every Jew is holy before God, the rabbi said to Emma’s approbation.

— Rabbi, I am not a believer, Samuil said. This sort of talk doesn’t interest me.

— I understand, the rabbi said. Your wife has told me. You are not a believer, but you are still a Jew. You carry within you the holy spark.

— These terms are meaningless to me. I would never speak like this about my origins.

— But are these not your origins?

— You’re interested in an account of my origins?

— If you wish to tell me.

— I was born in 1913 in the town of Rogozna in the Kiev region. My father managed a woods and owned a general store. I am Jewish by nationality. I did not complete my higher education. When I was six years old, my father was murdered by the Whites. After his death, my mother became a seamstress, and remained a member of the proletariat until her death at the hands of the German fascists. At the age of fourteen I was trained by my uncle as a bookbinder. I worked at this trade until the war. At age sixteen I was a member of a Communist cell. In 1940, when the Latvian SSR was established, I joined the Party. During the war, I volunteered for the front and rose to the rank of captain in the Red Army. After demobilization I was finance director of the VEF radio-technical factory. Until six months ago, I was a member in good standing of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. I was never expelled from the Party and never had any Party penalties assessed. I have the following awards: Order of the Red Star, Order of the Red Banner, medal for bravery, and medal for Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War, 1941 to 1945. You will notice that I make no mention of any spark, soul, or God.

— Syoma, don’t get upset, Emma said. The rabbi means well.

— He means what he means, Samuil replied, and I mean what I mean.

— Your husband is right, the rabbi said. It is a shame that we mean different things. But I respect your husband as a man of his convictions. Samuil Leyzerovich, if you had applied the strength of your convictions to the torah, I don’t doubt that you could have been a great rabbi today.

— Nonsense. Had I applied myself to your torah, I would not be here today. The NKVD would have put me on a train, or the Germans in a pit.

— All the more reason to return now to the torah. Wouldn’t you say? Out of respect for our martyrs.

— There were many kinds of martyrs. You honor yours; I’ll honor mine.

Samuil excused himself and went outside. The rabbi had switched topics and begun to speak about Israel and the peace negotiations with Egypt. He spouted drivel about the age of redemption. For the first time since the destruction of the Second Temple, the Jews were once again masters over Greater Israel, the portion that the Almighty had promised to Abraham. All of this portended the imminent arrival of the messiah. Thus it was absolutely forbidden for Begin to surrender any of the sacred land to the Arabs. God’s covenant inhered in every stone and every shrub.

Outside Club Kadima, Samuil walked away from the building and leaned against the low wrought-iron fence. The security guard, a beefy middle-aged émigré, tossed a casual remark about the humidity inside the club. Samuil didn’t bother to reply. He rested his hip against the fence and waited for the coolness and quiet to act upon his thoughts. The rabbi’s remarks had agitated him too much and caused his blood pressure to spike. He’d become flushed and lightheaded and he’d noticed Emma appraising him. He’d felt a tremendous urgency to get free of both of them.

Alone in the street, he calmed down. The talk of religion, martyrs, and Begin led him to think of his cousin. Begin was in America meeting with Carter and the Egyptian Sadat. The entire civilized world attended his every move. But who was Begin? A simple Jew from Brest, a Betar activist and disciple of Jabotinsky. Like Yankl, he’d been deported to Siberia in the summer of ‘41. A year later, he was pardoned and allowed to join the Polish army. It was possible that Yankl had met with a similar fate. And so it was possible that he’d survived the war and found his way to Palestine. His biography, up to a point, was sufficiently similar to Begin’s or to those of many of the other Israeli leaders of the same generation. Ordinary Jewish activists like him had founded their country and were now international statesmen.