It wasn’t just a matter of an anti-Semitic lunatic like Stalin. The problem goes far deeper. The fascists pursued policies that ultimately led to their destruction. The communists did the same. That your country has survived forty years and has—essentially—transcended its own history, that it has managed to overcome the terror and reached real stability and maturity, that is a true miracle. But of course, it was a country founded on resistance.
[Footage of schoolchildren wearing white blouses and red bandannas, circa 1960. They sing The Song of the Ghetto Partisans, in Yiddish. Subtitles are provided.]
[Though the children still sing on-screen, the audio swells and shifts to German, a loud male voice, not tuneful.]
Our greatest stronghold was in those standstone cliffs, those bunkers outside Rathen that they flushed us out of back in ’55. For years, we managed to sabotage the rail-lines between Prague and Dresden at least a few times a month.
[The speaker is revealed, a wizened man with cropped, rust-colored hair and bronze skin. Caption: “Arno Durmersheimer, Anti-Soviet Partisan.”]
They killed my brother one night. He was standing right next to me. Red sniper got him. And Fieffer buried him.
[Black and white photograph of Fieffer, half-torn, but easy to identify. Durmersheimer holds it.]
He fought beside me. There were hundreds of us, Jews, Saxons, all together. Those Jews had seen firsthand what those butchers had done to their own brothers. [Voice breaks.] There was real friendship in those days. For me, they remain the most precious of my life.
[Camera pulls back, and a man obscured by shadow stumbles across short grass. Durmersheimer turns, and we hear his throat catch as he takes a step forward and cries out:]
My brother!
[It is Fieffer. The two men fall into each other’s arms and weep.]
DURMERSHEIMER: That I would live to see this day.
FIEFFER: We have survived them! We have survived them!
[Voice rolls over this exchange, a voice with rich, warm intonation, though rough around the bass, implying age. It is a familiar voice.]
You begin with nothing.
[Footage of the Displaced Persons camp in Schmilka, those young men reaching for pairs of boots lined up on benches.]
From there germinates a need, to have a home. On any terms.
[Abrupt cut to a hospital room where an old man sits on the edge of a bed. He wears a gown unbuttoned just enough to show springing white tufts of hair, and his withered face looks like a balloon with half of the air pressed out. His eyes are vibrant, though, and he is the source of the voice that comes out of the concave throat, a voice that unmistakably identifies the man himself.]
After forty years, you ask me, would I do it all again? That is like asking a man if he regrets having a son. The son has a life of his own, and maybe—who knows—redeems the father.
[Now a characteristic gesture, tracing a circle with his hands and then the bridge below his chin. His eyes roll up as though to follow a thought across the room.]
Forgive the religious language. Sometimes you need to reach for that. As you well know.
4
“HOW can that be?” Judit asked Bondi. “How can Stein still be alive?”
“He’s surrounded by the most sophisticated medical team on earth,” Bondi said. “Why wouldn’t he be alive?”
“It doesn’t seem physically possible,” Judit said. She had just received the latest reel by courier, and had at once called Bondi. “I can’t do this. I can’t fabricate.”
“Of course you can’t. Neither can we,” Bondi said. “Too much is at stake.”
They were in their room above the dairy restaurant, both sitting on the daybed. It was midafternoon. Judit had been prepared to resign, but the physical proximity of Bondi and his clear sincerity made her feel seasick. “It could be an actor,” she said, although she knew very well it was no actor. Then, “It could be an illusion. It could be an old image someone manipulated. I’ve seen Gluck do that a thousand times.” Then, “It could be a ghost.”
“You haven’t eaten,” Bondi said. “You haven’t slept. You need to go back home and let your mother cook you something. Clear your head.”
“I will not clear my head,” Judit said. “This isn’t what I signed on for.”
“It’s not a fabrication,” Bondi said. The awful part was that Judit believed him. As though to seal the matter, he took her hand. “What do you want?”
“I want to meet him.”
“How much do you want to meet him?” He put her hand somewhere else.
The game they were playing cut against the grain of her integrity, and also his. She wanted to cry or wanted to laugh. They passed an hour letting things take their course, and afterwards, she felt so spent and lost that she pulled herself up and said, “That didn’t clear my head, Joseph. I don’t think anything will clear my head.”
He acknowledged what she said by lying on his back and closing his eyes. His profile was very beautiful, his face so peaceful that Judit envied him. He said, “You could do it, you know.”
“Do what?”
“Meet Stein,” Bondi said. “Why not? It could be arranged. But not before the film opens. Time is too short.”
The documentary would premiere in three weeks at a special screening in Parliament. The press would be there, and of course Judit was invited. She’d already received the invitation, an envelope inside an envelope that her mother propped against a salt shaker on the kitchen table. The stock of the paper was so thick that it could almost stand by itself. Judit said to Bondi, “I’m not the only one who’ll want to see him. Wouldn’t anyone? Wouldn’t you?”
Bondi shook his head. “An old man, a man who’s been dying for thirty-five years, who doesn’t know when to die, that doesn’t interest me.”
“It interests me,” said Judit.
He rolled over and surprised her by kissing her. The kiss was a tender one. “You interest me,” he said. He rolled back and closed his eyes. “We could take a trip after this is over. Surely, you’ve earned a vacation. I have time owed me. There’s a spa. Mineral baths, that sort of thing. Bad Muskau. Right on the Polish border.”
“Something to look forward to,” said Judit.
“Don’t sound so enthusiastic,” Bondi said, and then he laughed. “No, really, I can make arrangements through my office. It’ll be off-season, so it won’t be too crowded. I’ll lease a car. It’s a very pretty drive.” He added, “Why don’t you invite your mother?”
“You’re joking,” Judit said. “I don’t think I ever heard you tell a joke before.”