Paul Goldberg - The Yid

As Stalin’s world inverts, he grabs the left arm with the right, to keep it in its rightful place, beside him. He needs no medical advice to know that his shoulder should stay unmoved.

He will be rescued by the guards or, better yet, the children. Inverted but intact, and held together with his own arms.

The children do not move.

“Tear them to pieces!” Stalin cries.

The children weigh allegiances. Specters often do.

LEVINSON: Kogan, your lines …

KOGAN (reading) : It’s said that every generation, and every man, must find his freedom from his Egypt. Our times are cruel. We part one sea after another.

LEVINSON (holding up a flattened bullet) : With this I killed a man.

KOGAN: Our freedom is won in battle …

LEVINSON: Against the czars.

KOGAN: Against the Fascists.

LEWIS: Against our brothers.

KIMA: Against the tyrants.

KOGAN: Against our God.

He must remember to hold his arm, to ward off pain. Blood rushes to his head. He needs to stand upright, ward off the pain that’s setting in the living nerves above that cursed dead arm.

Why do the children keep their frozen postures?

* * *

The specter lets the bullet drop into the bucket and, reaching into the rucksack, raises two gutted leather boxes.

KOGAN: Tefillin ripped. Twice desecrated. First by us. The second time by thugs. We gutted God for freedom. They are gutting us for gold, for sport, or for no reason at all.

LEWIS: To kill a man is homicide. To kill a czar is regicide. To kill a demigod is demideicide.

OL’GA FYODOROVNA: What do you call the killing of a madman?

LEVINSON: You have no script!

OL’GA FYODOROVNA: And yet I dare to ask.

LEVINSON: Meshuge cide, let’s say!

KOGAN (reading) : To kill this man is a sin times three.

OL’GA FYODOROVNA: A sin times four, you mean. Meshuge cide brings it to four.

LEVINSON: Enough!

KOGAN (reading) : A sin times three will equal one redemption.

OL’GA FYODOROVNA: Redemption without God? Incongruent.

LEVINSON: I wrote Without god . Lowercase.

OL’GA FYODOROVNA: Such nonsense.

LEVINSON (raises a jar of syrupy brown liquid) : This blood is Kogan’s. Spilled by thugs, and mixed with snow and lard.

KOGAN: Let’s call it by its real name. A brown sauce mit shkvarkes.

LEVINSON: Consult your lines, old goat … please.

OL’GA FYODOROVNA: If your unleavened bread is called the bread of affliction, this sauce is something else.

KOGAN: Blood of affliction?

LEVINSON: Your lines! Your lines! Keep up the nign , Lewis.

KIMA: Let us rejoice at the wonder of our deliverance …

KOGAN: From bondage to freedom.

LEWIS: From agony to joy.

KIMA, LEVINSON, KOGAN, and LEWIS (reading together) :

From mourning to festivity,

From darkness to light,

From servitude to redemption.

LEVINSON: Without god.

OL’GA FYODOROVNA: No, comrades, with Him. Tovarisch Stalin, I come here with an ode of sorts. I come to tell you how rich my life has been because of you. With a firmer hand than any czar, you made the Russian verse a game of life and death. Each time you raised the stakes, I felt a twinge on lips I kissed, on heads that later rolled. The more displeased you were with their songs, the more these men and women pleased me.

LEVINSON: I didn’t write this.

KOGAN: Next Year in Jerusalem? Is that the conclusion here?

LEVINSON: This is my play, you fool! I am at home! No! Forever here!

Who are these spirits? What power do they have to get me — Stalin — under their control?

His right arm slowly lets go, the left one drops, its angle widens, and pain pours in from shoulder nerves.

The world’s polarity has changed, and that which was above is now beneath.

* * *

“Judges, read the verdict,” commands Levinson.

The judges read:

“The accused, Stalin, I., is sentenced to the highest measure of punishment: the extraction of all blood, drop by drop.”

The czar feels a light pinch in his left leg and, released, warm fluid comes down upon his belly, his chest, his chin.

He hears a voice: “Why isn’t there blood?” It is a judge … Mikhoels?

Another judge replies: “This is a catheter, not a drainpipe!” Zuskin?

“So get a drainpipe!”

“Where?”

“I don’t know! In your farkakte bag!”

“Am I a plumber?”

“Plumber? Worse! You are a goat, an old goat at that, an alte tsig !”

“This catheter is for shpritsing !”

“But our verdict is to drain!”

“I didn’t write it. It is your play, your verdict!”

“What do you want to do?”

“In principle, you could inject him.”

“Mit vos?”

“ Mit digitalis. Potassium, maybe. Even a burst of air in the veins will stop the heart.”

“Then get the digitalis!”

“Let me see…”

“A little faster … It’s almost dawn! The acrobats look tired!”

“I have no syringe.”

“A doctor without a syringe?”

“I thought I had it, but I don’t.”

“What good is your catheter without a syringe?”

“You have a point. Has anyone seen it?”

“We’ll cut his throat mit’n sword!”

“In the Temple, when it stood, the sacrifices were done with goats being held upside down.”

Inverted people spend their fury fast. The children stir. They dance like flames, in rapid, closing, spinning circles that keep the beat of drums that blast on the inside of Stalin’s skull. The world is red. It changes to purple, then red again. As their circles spin, the children, one by one, break out to look inside his upside-down eyes. Their faces show no grief, no joy. They don’t show anything at all.

“Fine! Fine! We hold him upside down, so — whack! How hard is that?”

How hard is that?

“Whack zhe , old goat, whack!”

“No.”

“No?!”

Many a man would bargain for that sword. For one swift strike, a lesser man would trade the conviction that murder-punishment is no cleaner than murder-crime. Beliefs, allegiances would fly like worn-out gloves, tossed in the rubbish.

“Nu-u…”

Forget commandments, oaths.

Kill, Dr. Kogan, kill! You’ve come this far! Think of your friends, your colleagues. Arkashka Kaplan, for example.

You know the truth. Accept your fate, old goat!

“Your symbolism is backward, komandir . If he is to be treated as a sacrificial goat, and if you cut his throat, you might make him kosher. That’s a wrong symbol. You’ll confuse God. The thing to do is stick him like a pig.”

“So, do!”

“Turn out the light.”

“Turn out the light!”

The lightbulb dims, yet darkness doesn’t fall. The tyrant doesn’t pray. His hands grow warm. His body swells and tingles. His breath grows faster, shorter. And he needs air, more, more, more …

His thoughts: “The world without Stalin … nonsense! This cannot happen, because it cannot happen — ever!”

He watches his spirit break out of the assassins’ grip, become upright, and join the khorovod of blank-faced children. “I’ll dance … I’ll twirl … I cannot leave.”

LEVINSON: Turn on the light!

(The light is turned on.)

LEVINSON: You didn’t stick him!

KOGAN: No.

OL’GA FYODOROVNA (crossing herself) : Thank God. It would have been appalling.

LEVINSON: Fine … I have had it, Ol’ga Fyodorovna, dear countess, or whatever you are. Your pursuit of dignity is getting in the way of our pursuit of justice!

OL’GA FYODOROVNA: So kill me, too.