Zugzwang by Ronan Bennett Page B

could not be otherwise. His success in the world only reinforced hisbelief. He had the answer, and the answer was to stop being Jewish.
    â€˜What is on your head?’ I had asked Rozental during a session early in our analysis. He had been scratching his scalp, clawing at it with the nails of both hands.
    He uttered a groan. ‘It never leaves me alone.’
    His hair was very short, practically shorn. I examined it carefully. There was nothing, not even nits.
    â€˜It’s a fly,’ he said desperately. ‘Can you not see it? It follows me everywhere. It torments me day and night.’
    â€˜There’s nothing here.’
    â€˜I can feel it crawling over my scalp.’
    â€˜Would you like a mirror so you can see for yourself?’
    With some difficulty I induced him to stand before the mirror over the fireplace while I held a hand mirror (borrowed from Minna) behind him, as a barber does. Eventually I settled him sufficiently to be able to continue the session.
    My approach with my patients was generally the same: I began by asking for as full an account as possible of their life story. Rozental described his early years in Choroszcz, the destitute settlement in which he had lived until he went to yeshiva in Lodz. He was the youngest of twelve children and his father had died before he was born. I asked how his mother had managed.
    â€˜My brothers and sisters and I were parcelled out to relatives. I was sent to live with my grandparents.’
    â€˜Tell me about your grandparents.’
    He hesitated, then said, ‘They were good, kind people.’
    â€˜Were they religious?’
    â€˜Yes, of course.’
    â€˜Were you happy in their house?’
    â€˜They loved me very much.’
    Besides the obvious incompleteness of the answer, I thought I detected a trace of guilt. Here, plainly, was an avenue to explore. ‘Are your grandparents still alive?’
    â€˜They are both dead.’
    â€˜Were they still alive when you became famous as a chess player?’
    His reluctance to answer confirmed to me my suspicion that there was something of significance in his relationship with his grandparents.
    â€˜Avrom,’ I prodded my taciturn patient, ‘did they live long enough to hear of your successes?’
    â€˜Yes,’ he whispered, almost inaudibly.
    â€˜How did they react?’ He began again to scratch his scalp. ‘Were they pleased?’
    â€˜Yes …’ he said vaguely before immediately contradicting himself: ‘No – I don’t know.’
    â€˜Did they approve of your choice of career?’
    â€˜How could they?’ he retorted, this time forcibly and without vacillation. ‘When they sent me to the
heder
they said, “Learn, Avrom, learn! Purses of silver will fall to you from heaven.” But instead of learning, what did I do? I played chess. Haran, Padan, Hebron where Abraham buried Sarah? None of this mattered – I was consumed by chess. When the boys were imagining themselves following Moses out of Egypt or fighting with Joshua at Jericho, I had visions of myself a pawn up against Lasker in a rook endgame. How could my grandparents have approved?’
    Rozental had not spoken as many words in an entire hour as had just passed between us. I pressed on, ‘Were there arguments?’
    He did not answer, though I put the question three times.
    â€˜Do you feel you disappointed them?’ I ventured.
    â€˜I just want to play chess!’ he burst out. ‘I ask nothing of anyone – nothing! I do not interfere with anyone, I do notcriticise, I do not condemn. Why can’t I be left alone to play chess? Why?’
    â€˜Who is not leaving you alone?’
    â€˜Everyone.’
    â€˜Your grandparents?’
    â€˜Everyone wants me to be this, to be that. To do this, to do that.’
    â€˜What did your grandparents want you to be?’
    â€˜It’s not my grandparents, it’s not them!’