Charles Lewinsky - Melnitz

Nathan. Another name that belonged to her. Once upon a time she had also had a grandfather.

‘And if it’s a girl… You say, Sarah, my darling. What shall we call it if it’s a girl?’

‘Chanele,’ she said.

And he repeated: ‘Chanele.’

The soldier marched back and forth. Every time he stepped on the wooden floor on which Chanele stood she was lifted slightly into the air, because the boards had only been loosely laid and had shifted over the years, and underneath there was a very different floor, probably a much finer one, which no one had seen for a long time.

‘It will be a big simcha,’ said the old man. ‘A simcha that people will talk about. Eating and drinking and singing. We will invite everyone, and they will all come. Even Dr Hellstiedl. He is a goy, but a good man. We will invite him. Won’t we, Sarah?’

‘Yes,’ said Chanele. ‘We will invite him.’

‘You will still be weak.’ His hand lay on her cheek as if it had gone to sleep. ‘For the first few days one is weak, and that mustn’t alarm you. I will carry the child for you. I will hold it. I will never drop it. Nothing will happen to it. Nothing will happen. I know.’

‘No,’ Chanele said. ‘Nothing will happen to anyone.’

She will die, your Sarah that you loved so much, and you will lose your mind. A strange man will come, a beheimes trader called Salomon, and he will take your daughter away and bring her up in his own home. After many years he will write letters and look for you, and you will meet your daughter again and you won’t know.

Nothing will happen to anyone.

Suddenly and for no external reason the old man shouted out loud. His voice was suddenly much louder than it had been. He drew his hand away from Chanele’s cheek and stared wide-eyed at his fingers. Then he hid his hand behind his back. ‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ he said, and repeated twice more: ‘Means nothing. Means nothing.’

Chanele had never seen anything sadder than the reassuring smile he tried to put on.

With his eyes still on Chanele — but who could have said whom he really saw in front of him — he walked backwards, walked away from her on tripping little steps to the window and stuck his hand in the folds of the heavy curtain.

‘You mustn’t be afraid,’ he said, speaking faster and faster, someone using the last of his strength to run for help, and yet knowing that he won’t find it. ‘The blood means nothing. Nothing at all. It is quite natural. The doctor will come and make everything good again.’

His voice was fragmenting more and more. The wrinkles in his face waited for water like dried up river beds.

‘The doctor will come. He has already been sent for. He will come and say, “There is no need to be afraid.” He is a good doctor. He is called Dr Hellstiedl. He is the chief doctor. He can determine everything. Everything. Everyone has to obey him. He will determine that you are not dead. That you are not dead. That you are not dead.’

His body had disappeared into the curtain. Only his face was still visible, becoming older and older and stranger and stranger.

‘He will determine it,’ he repeated. ‘If I ask him to, he will determine it. You don’t need to be afraid. He is a good doctor. A good person. He gave me this shroud. He is a goy, but he gave me a sargenes. I have more need of it than he does, he said. Because I have already died.’

He cried, letting the tears flow down over him like rain. She would have given anything to know how to comfort him.

‘You will not die, Sarah. Dr Hellstiedl will heal you. You will not be dead. Only me. Only me. I gave my life for yours. Because it was meant to be.’

He had now crept all the way into the curtain. The endless, disembodied echo of his voice could only be made out in scraps.

‘Not die… means nothing… determine everything.’

A strange hand tapped Chanele on the shoulder. The two curious men were standing there, hand in hand now, two children egging one another on. With them was the man in the tailcoat.

‘He is dead,’ he explained kindly. ‘When they are dead they have to wear white shirts. That’s how it is with Jews.’

Chanele wanted to push him away, but her body wasn’t strong enough to move.

‘He will sing in a minute,’ said the man in the tailcoat. ‘They have to sing, even when they are dead.’

And true enough: behind the curtain Chanele’s father started singing in a high, thin voice.

‘I thought he would,’ said the man in the tailcoat and winked at Chanele. ‘I know all about them, but they don’t know me. I’m incognito here.’

‘Yisgadal,’ sang the old man. ‘Yisgadal veyiskadash shmey raba.’ It was the kaddish, the prayer for the dead that one speaks in memory of one who has died, sons for their fathers and fathers for their sons.

He sang it for himself.

He sang the whole long prayer, and in the places where the congregation has to join in, Chanele silently said the Amen.

The heavy fabric moved. The head of the man they called Ahasuerus here, and who was her father, became visible, not up where it had disappeared into the curtain, but down on the floor. He must have knelt down and lain on the floor and was now crawling, lying on his back, into the room, he pushed himself away from the wall and lay motionless on the raw floorboards, his arms by his sides, his sightless eyes wide open.

‘They put them on the floor when they have died,’ explained the man in the tatty tailcoat. ‘They wash them, and they lay them down, and then they put them in the coffin.’

Chanele crouched down by her father, by this strange man. She would have liked to pray, but none of the many blessings that Judaism keeps ready for every possible event and opportunity suited the situation. At last she murmured what people say when news of a death arrives: ‘Praise be the judge of the truth.’ The old man didn’t stir, but she had a feeling he was content.

She closed her eyes and would have crouched for a long time like that beside the motionless man, if there hadn’t been a sudden smell of wet potatoes, a smacking kiss on her forehead and a voice saying, ‘Nothing more can happen to you now.’

Then Dr Hellstiedl was with her. Perhaps he had arrived at that precise moment, but probably he had been watching the whole thing from somewhere. They must have had observation windows up here, where not even a nurse was paying attention to anyone.

The doctor took her arm and led her silently out. It was only when he had opened the grille and closed it again that he said, ‘I have found the old index card after all. His name is Menachem Bär.’

Menachem.

Menachem and Sarah Bär.

And their daughter Chanele.

When they were walking across the courtyard that already lay in the shade of the brick building, he asked her, ‘Is that your father?’ She didn’t reply, and he didn’t press the point.

They walked down the long corridor where there were no names on the doors, through the corridor with the windows that weren’t windows, down the other corridor where the arrow on the enamel sign still pointed into the void. There was something consoling about the chaos in his office, like a warm, untidy bed inviting one to climb in. Dr Hellstieldl lifted the cosy off a pot and poured a glass of tea. He did it clumsily with the pot in one hand and the cosy in the other. Chanele watched him, as one might observe an event in the street that doesn’t concern one. When he held out the glass, she had first to think before she understood his gesture.

He sat down opposite her and said nothing. Saying nothing was plainly a considerable effort for him. More than once he made as if to speak and then left his words unsaid.

The tea was hot, and Chanele was grateful for it. The sun was still shining, although lower in the sky, but her whole body was shivering with a kind of cold that she had never felt before. Old people sometimes complained that they could never get warm any more. For the first time Chanele understood what they meant.