“Come home,” Hans said. Then, “I should have come along.”
“I didn’t want you to,” Judit said. “No need for both of us to go crazy. Besides, isn’t tonight the big audition? Where you step in?” That was the first of several times Hans would guest-conduct the Dresden orchestra.
“It was last night,” His voice sounded very far away.
“So are you a master conductor?”
“Lamb, come home.”
She did, although she had to pay for two nights in the hotel anyway. The report was mailed to her three months later, in an impressive-looking envelope, and when Judit looked back on that day in Leipzig, she couldn’t remember why she’d booked a second night. It might have been that she had intended to see Anna Lehmann. She suspected that she’d hoped the doctor would discover a problem that required urgent and immediate attention, and that would explain everything.
8
Transcript: CONFIDENTIAL. Dresden 1952. [Note: the following was recorded in the office of the Prime Minister of Judenstaat, Leopold Stein, via hidden mic. Soviet Diplomatic Mission re: Trade.]
MOLOTOV: Impressive, Stein, the Parliament. You Jews amaze me.
STEIN: I hope we will continue to work together in harmony for years to come.
MOLOTOV: It is a hope we share. I have a proposition for you, Mr. Stein. How much is a Jew worth?
STEIN: [Inaudible.]
MOLOTOV: In our country, we have tried for many years to come to grips with the National Question. Comrade Stalin offered Jews a homeland in the Crimea. They rejected it. He gave them a home in Birobidjan. It proved to be full of traitors. Now we give you Germany and we still have a million of your people within Soviet borders. What do you say to that?
STEIN: They are welcome here.
MOLOTOV: How much will you give me for them?
STEIN: Surely they can arrange for their own transportation should they choose to come home.
MOLOTOV: So you agree. Germany is their home. They are not Soviets. They are essentially without loyalty and without scruples. There are plans to transport these Jews to Siberia. Troops stand at the ready. He [Stalin] need only say the word. Yet I am here to see if other arrangements are amenable.
STEIN: With all due respect, why do you speak of a financial transaction? With some encouragements, they’ll emigrate. There is no need to send Jews to the ends of the earth and make another country for them.
MOLOTOV: Are you a literary man, Stein?
STEIN: [Inaudible.]
MOLOTOV: There is a story by our own Tolstoy called “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” It’s a small masterpiece. A man is told he can have as much land as he can cover on horseback in a day, and he rides himself into exhaustion. In fact, he rides himself to death because he doesn’t know his limits. In the end, the riddle has an answer. How much land does a man need? As much as it takes to bury him.
STEIN: Comrade, how is your wife?
[Note: Molotov had a Jewish wife with whom Stein corresponded. She had been arrested and executed after the war. A.L.]
MOLOTOV: [Inaudible.]
STEIN: And how are those young men, our officers in training? No one has heard from them in eighteen months. What is their status?
MOLOTOV: Stein, whose Jew are you? You’re playing both sides. It’s a dangerous game, and you can’t win it.
STEIN: It’s not a game. Children play games. We aren’t children.
MOLOTOV: Think carefully, sir. I can speak for both myself and for others when I say that our patience is not infinite, and that, pragmatic as we are, we have firm principles.
STEIN: You need us. You can’t admit it, but you need us. So does the West. Don’t burn your bridges.
MOLOTOV: How much will you give us for our Jews, Mr. Stein?
STEIN: [Inaudible.]
MOLOTOV: The arrangement must be a gentlemen’s agreement, and if you are to take action, you must do so without delay. We will expect an answer by the end of the week.
[END OF REEL. Transcript made available December 1987 for the National Museum of Judenstaat in preparation for that country’s 40th Anniversary celebration.]
9
“THEY just delivered that?” Judit addressed Sammy Gluck, who had watched her as she listened to the tape on an old-fashioned reel-to-reel machine they’d rigged up in the basement.
“It was delivered by parcel post, like an ordinary package. It’s really amazing, Mrs. Klemmer.” Gluck’s face was red, and he was sweating so heavily, his glasses steamed. “The Soviets are releasing all kinds of stuff these days.”
“And they just mailed it.” Judit’s voice was flat. “Parcel post.”
“The thing is, we need visuals. So Oscar wants to know if you can come up with something.”
“How on earth would I have footage of that conversation, Sammy?”
“Of course you wouldn’t. But don’t you have a picture of Molotov and Stein together? Or maybe Russian Jews in an old newsreel. We need it right away.”
He just stood there swaying. Judit let him sway. Then she said, “You realize what Molotov was saying? Buy our Jews—or we’ll deport them. This isn’t Nazi Germany. It’s Moscow—1953.”
“I didn’t study history in college,” Sammy said. “I guess it must have been the same year Leopold Stein had that stroke. It doesn’t sound like him, though, not like in the old newsreels. Maybe it’s the tape.”
“It was recorded in someone’s basement a month ago.”
“But it was sent parcel post,” Sammy said helplessly. “By Professor Lehmann. I still have the receipt, Mrs. Klemmer. Look.” He held up the slip of paper, and waved it around in a way that made Judit seasick. Or maybe she already felt that way. Her face was burning.
She leaned against the cabinet and tried to get her bearings. Lehmann would not send anything that hadn’t been verified. Yet what she heard was a reactionary fantasy out of an American spy novel. It felt stagey, grotesque. It made no sense. It was a piece of a puzzle that felt deliberately manufactured. And if it were true? She heard herself say, “If that’s the kind of thing they’re looking for, I’m off the project, Sammy.”
Sammy blinked. “You can’t mean that.”
“I mean it!” Judit said, and fiercely and abruptly, she did. “Take everything upstairs. Transfer it to video. Try to find that newsreel where Stein’s hooked up on life support with that male nurse. From ’53—same year: sixteen millimeter. Or there are photographs. You want explosive? That’ll do just fine.”
She pulled open a wide, heavy drawer and wrenched it from the cabinet. Then she opened up another, pulled and pulled, and when it would not come out, she stumbled, tried to right herself, and Sammy said, “Are you okay, Mrs. Klemmer?”
“You’ll need to bring down the cart,” Judit said. “The catalogue’s all self-explanatory except for some junk you won’t want anyway.”
“I’ll get you a glass of water,” Sammy said, and with hesitation, turned to go. He really seemed concerned about her, and she felt sorry for him. Then, before he closed the door, he had to turn and say, “Can’t you just take things on faith? You can’t always know.”
Take it on faith. You can’t always know. If Judit could strangle sentences, she would have forcefully taken both of them in her hands and snapped their necks. She’d heard them forever. They were unanswerable, because the people who said them had their answers ready. The arrogance—the empty-headed arrogance of people who believe in videos or heparin injections or Shabbos candles or the State. She would not take a lie on faith, never. She believed in facts. Facts matter. You can verify, and with great effort, if you take into account what is discarded, you can find the truth. It’s humbling work, but it’s the work that makes us human. And sometimes, you get tired, you despair, because there seems to be no explanation. That’s when it’s tempting to surrender to something that feels a lot like death.