Charles Lewinsky - Melnitz

Ruben was temporarily disconnected.

It was a phrase, the lady from the exchange had said, that she had never heard before. It wasn’t internationally customary either.

Herr Grün nodded gloomily. In Germany at the moment lots of things were customary that were unknown in other countries.

‘Wrong,’ said Uncle Melnitz. ‘It’s known everywhere. It’s also customary everywhere. Because it’s been the custom everywhere. It sometimes falls out of fashion, for a century or two. But then it comes back in, and then they enjoy themselves again, yes.’

They didn’t have to listen to him, because he was dead, after all. Dead and many times buried. No one had to listen to him.

‘Now sit down! Sit down!’

No one had to start the shiva just because he urged them to.

Ruben was disconnected.

What could that mean?

Adolf Rosenthal tried to explain that the telephone network in Germany was particularly efficient, he had been reading an article about it in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung only the day before.

‘Oh, shut up!’ Lea interrupted him. She had never spoken to her husband like that before.

They were all much more keen to hear Rosa’s opinion. She had, after all, just arrived from Germany and must know what was going on there. What could that mean, ‘Temporarily disconnected?’

Rosa didn’t want to scare anyone, far from it, but since the Nazis had been in power there it was never a good sign if something was suddenly different from the norm.

‘It’s no different from the norm,’ said Uncle Melnitz. ‘It’s exactly as it always is, yes.’ He rubbed his hands, not like someone who is cold, but like someone who has been proved right. ‘It’s as it always is,’ he repeated, ‘Because it has always been like that. We just forget it sometimes. So sit down, sit down!’

His smell had changed too, as the smell of a cellar changes when you clear it out to make way for new things.

But he was dead and buried, he no longer existed, once and for all he had ceased to exist.

He could not exist any more.

At shivas you don’t close the door.

Anyone who wants to bring condolences to the mourners doesn’t ring the bell, he just steps in and joins them.

But now someone did ring. Twice.

‘Ruben’s getting back to us!’ cried Hinda and ran outside. It was just the reply from the post office, saying that it had not been possible for her message, addressed to Ruben Kamionker, 16 Lichtwerstrasse, Halberstadt, to be delivered as normal.

Not known at this address.

Which was of course nonsense. Complete nonsense. Ruben lived there, had lived there since taking the job at the Klaus, lived there with his wife Lieschen and their four children.

Three boys and a girl.

He lived there. Something must have happened.

‘So sit down, sit down!’ urged Uncle Melnitz. ‘And let’s start mourning at last.’

Every time he died, he came back.

His shoes were coated with dust, as if from a long and strenuous journey, but he walked weightlessly, light-footed, a dancer who hears the music even before the instruments have been tuned. He came in on tiptoe like someone who doesn’t want to disturb, and drew the door closed behind him as carefully as someone who has decided to stay for a long time. He still kept his eyes closed, not like a sleeping man, but like someone who has enough pictures inside him. He didn’t have to see the way to find his seat. His chair was waiting. They had expected him even when they thought he was never coming back.

When they still hoped.

He sat down and was there again.

Had always been there.

Every time he died, he came back.

He inhaled the new air, searchingly at first, like something strange and forgotten that you first have to remember, then greedily, in quick, impatient gulps. His lung rattled, a long unused machine. He said ‘Ah!’ as if after the first cooling draught of water on a hot day, opened his eyes, looked round and recognised them all. Had never forgotten them. They avoided his gaze, and he noticed it and smiled. ‘This is my shiva,’ this smile said. ‘They’re mourning for me here. My own shiva, from which no one will drive me. I am Uncle Melnitz, who got his name from Khmelnitsky.’

Uncle Melnitz.

He cleared his throat and coughed, blew black stains into a handkerchief the side of a map, big enough for a list of all the countries in which he had experienced death. A white flag like that waved by someone surrendering.

He smelled of damp, of must, of memories. He brought alive the scent of distant lands, just as Janki’s first shop had held the scent of cardamom and nutmeg. But he brought no spices to them; he came from cold countries and carried with him only smells that choked the throat.

When one of them edged away he didn’t edge after them, he just sat where he was and waved after the departing one. He was already waiting for him at the next place, he had made himself comfortable at a table or in his favourite armchair under the lamp. Or else he lay in his bed, in a long white shirt that wasn’t a nightshirt.

He sat opposite them when they read their newspaper at the breakfast table, and when they gave a start as they read and said, ‘We didn’t know that’ — they said it every day and every day they gave a start again — when they didn’t finish reading and set the paper aside and didn’t want to know anything more about everything because they couldn’t bear the knowledge, then he patted their hands comfortingly and said, ‘You should have asked me. You should just have asked me.’

They hadn’t asked him because they were afraid of his answers.

He had never been away and now he was everywhere.

He sat on all the benches along the lake shore, he stared into the sun with his eyes wide open, for days, and yet his skin stayed pale as if he had never emerged from the shadow of his hiding place. He ran after all the prams, he bent his back low again and again to peer in and every time he was disappointed. He begged for bread at every door, only to let it go hard and say, ‘My teeth have been knocked out.’ Where someone laughed loudly, he stood in the room and put his finger to his lips, a bony finger with which he could also drum on the table, making it sound like the precise rattle of a firing squad. From all the family trees he drew names at random, kept them in big baskets, unripe fruits from which he distilled a brandy that no one could drink without their eyes watering. He sat in all the libraries and scribbled notes in the margins of the books. He wrote with red ink, dipped the old-fashioned quill in his own veins and became paler and paler. If a couple kissed, he stood behind them, if they made love, he lay down with them, whispered in their ears tender words that didn’t belong to them, he knew a different story for each couple and another and another, and in none of them did they live happily ever after. He gave the children names, and every time he knew how to name a thousand other children who had had exactly the same name, and who had also fared badly. He scraped the putty from the windows so that the panes came loose and the wind whistled into the room. He ate the window putty, stuffed it greedily into his mouth and chewed it toothlessly. He had a crudely carved flute in his pocket, and he took it out, played infinitely sad tunes and demanded that everyone hum along. He told of far-away countries in which it had been cold, oh so cold. Walked close behind people and wrapped his bony arms around them to show them how one had tried in vain to warm oneself there. He sat at all the tables; his plate was empty, however much was ladled into it. He stuck the fork through his hand, and he scratched notches into the spoon, a new one every day. He smiled from all the mirrors, pale and patient, let his face seep into that of his beholder like an ineradicable colour, infected him with an incurable illness, became an inseparable part of him. Soon no one knew which part was him and which part was them.