some sense of the unholy brew of motives that lay behind my question…Of all the freedoms we had secured over the past eighteen months, the one that mattered most to me, I found, was the removal of the number from my back. The one that mattered to Lev was his right to correspondence.
His
right: not anybody else’s. He campaigned for it alone, and he won it alone; and for this too he was shunned. Now he was sitting on a tree stump in the copse behind the infirmary, Zoya’s first letter in one hand and his dripping face in the other. If you’d asked me whether I hoped that everything was over between them, the truth-drug answer would have been something like, Well, that would be a
start
. But I hope she hasn’t done it nicely. That might not do me any good at all.
“I’m crying…” He bowed his head, becoming absorbed by the task of returning the sheath of tissuey paper to its wrinkled pouch; but every time he neared success he had to raise a finger to wipe the itch off his nose. “I’m crying,” he said, “because I’m so
dirty
.”
I paused. I said, And all else is well?
“Yes. No. There is talk, in freedom, of Birobidzhan. They’re building barracks in Birobidzhan.”
Birobidzhan was a region on the northeastern border of China—largely, and wisely, uninhabited. Ever since the 1930s there had been talk of resettling the Jews in Birobidzhan.
“They’re building barracks for them in Birobidzhan. Janusz thinks they’re going to hang the Jewish doctors in Red Square. The country is hysterical with it, the press…And then the Jews will run the gauntlet to Birobidzhan. Now if you’ll excuse me. This will take about a minute.”
And for about a minute he wept, he musically wept. He was crying, he said, because he was so dirty. I believed him. Being so dirty made you cry more often than being so cold or being so hungry. We weren’t so cold or so hungry, not anymore. But we were so dirty. Our clothes were stiff, practically wooden, barklike, with dirt. And under the wood, woodlice and woodworm.
“Ah, that’s better. It beats me how the women stay so clean,” he went on, as if talking to himself. “Maybe they lick themselves, like cats. And we’re like dogs that just roll in the shit. Now,” he said and turned to me. “I have a dilemma. Perhaps you can help me resolve it.”
He focused and smiled—the pretty teeth. I found I still feared that smile.
“Here,” he said, “is no good. I can’t stay here. I’m leaving. I’m off. It’s no good
here
. Here, everybody’s going to die.”
I said, There comes a time when you have to—
“Oh don’t give me that. Every man in the camp can give me that. The thing is that I’m urgently needed in freedom. To protect my wife. So. Two choices. I can escape.”
Where to? Birobidzhan?
“I can escape. Or I can inform.”
I said, Today we go to the bathhouse.
“Come on, take me seriously. Think it through, think it through. If I inform, it’s conceivable I’ll be pardoned. With things as they are now. You know, give them a list of all the strike leaders. I could try that. Then you could kill me. And do you know what you’d get if you killed me?” He closed his eyes and nodded and opened them again. “You’d get a hard-on.”
I said, Today we go to the bathhouse.
He looked at the ground, saying, “And that’s another reason to cry.”
The two of us always went to the bathhouse together. Even when we weren’t speaking or meeting each other’s eyes. The thing had to be done in relay. Now you’d think that the bathhouse was where we all wanted to go, but many men would risk a beating to avoid it or even delay it. None of our innumerable agitations had any effect in the bathhouse. For instance, it was quite possible to come out even dirtier than you went in. One of the reasons for this was institutional or systemic: an absence of soap. There was not always an absence of water, but there was always, it seemed, an absence of soap. Even in
His
right: not anybody else’s. He campaigned for it alone, and he won it alone; and for this too he was shunned. Now he was sitting on a tree stump in the copse behind the infirmary, Zoya’s first letter in one hand and his dripping face in the other. If you’d asked me whether I hoped that everything was over between them, the truth-drug answer would have been something like, Well, that would be a
start
. But I hope she hasn’t done it nicely. That might not do me any good at all.
“I’m crying…” He bowed his head, becoming absorbed by the task of returning the sheath of tissuey paper to its wrinkled pouch; but every time he neared success he had to raise a finger to wipe the itch off his nose. “I’m crying,” he said, “because I’m so
dirty
.”
I paused. I said, And all else is well?
“Yes. No. There is talk, in freedom, of Birobidzhan. They’re building barracks in Birobidzhan.”
Birobidzhan was a region on the northeastern border of China—largely, and wisely, uninhabited. Ever since the 1930s there had been talk of resettling the Jews in Birobidzhan.
“They’re building barracks for them in Birobidzhan. Janusz thinks they’re going to hang the Jewish doctors in Red Square. The country is hysterical with it, the press…And then the Jews will run the gauntlet to Birobidzhan. Now if you’ll excuse me. This will take about a minute.”
And for about a minute he wept, he musically wept. He was crying, he said, because he was so dirty. I believed him. Being so dirty made you cry more often than being so cold or being so hungry. We weren’t so cold or so hungry, not anymore. But we were so dirty. Our clothes were stiff, practically wooden, barklike, with dirt. And under the wood, woodlice and woodworm.
“Ah, that’s better. It beats me how the women stay so clean,” he went on, as if talking to himself. “Maybe they lick themselves, like cats. And we’re like dogs that just roll in the shit. Now,” he said and turned to me. “I have a dilemma. Perhaps you can help me resolve it.”
He focused and smiled—the pretty teeth. I found I still feared that smile.
“Here,” he said, “is no good. I can’t stay here. I’m leaving. I’m off. It’s no good
here
. Here, everybody’s going to die.”
I said, There comes a time when you have to—
“Oh don’t give me that. Every man in the camp can give me that. The thing is that I’m urgently needed in freedom. To protect my wife. So. Two choices. I can escape.”
Where to? Birobidzhan?
“I can escape. Or I can inform.”
I said, Today we go to the bathhouse.
“Come on, take me seriously. Think it through, think it through. If I inform, it’s conceivable I’ll be pardoned. With things as they are now. You know, give them a list of all the strike leaders. I could try that. Then you could kill me. And do you know what you’d get if you killed me?” He closed his eyes and nodded and opened them again. “You’d get a hard-on.”
I said, Today we go to the bathhouse.
He looked at the ground, saying, “And that’s another reason to cry.”
The two of us always went to the bathhouse together. Even when we weren’t speaking or meeting each other’s eyes. The thing had to be done in relay. Now you’d think that the bathhouse was where we all wanted to go, but many men would risk a beating to avoid it or even delay it. None of our innumerable agitations had any effect in the bathhouse. For instance, it was quite possible to come out even dirtier than you went in. One of the reasons for this was institutional or systemic: an absence of soap. There was not always an absence of water, but there was always, it seemed, an absence of soap. Even in
Similar Books
