Again, Judit said, “You mean about the murder.”
A drawer slammed by the worktable.
Durmersheimer said, “That’s not me.”
Judit drew her hand over her mouth and looked back to that table. That’s where the ghost of Hans should have been, with its long legs hanging and its arms braced, gangling and relaxed, an unwound bow-string, with its mouth turned up on one side and its baleful eyes.
“It’s gone,” Judit said. “He’s gone.”
Then she was weak with longing, and she couldn’t get the words out. She would have given anything to see that ghost again, standing as he had in life, with a straight back and the stance of a conductor, conscious of his stature, but self-effacing in the way that secure people can be. But he wasn’t there. He’d crossed the border. He’d taken memory with him. Now she felt her own eyes glitter, maybe balefully, and she straightened and stepped forward. Now she could see herself from the outside, her face emptied of everything, and she was staring into what Hans knew, the inexplicable, the uncut version, layer after layer of those stories piled like bodies in an open grave.
That’s when she saw the reel. It was just where she had placed it in that dream she’d had a thousand years ago: camouflaged against the surface of the table.
“You’re sick again,” said Durmersheimer. “Oh, fuck. We don’t need trouble.” He was white as his dress shirt. He could have knocked her down, but some force seemed to hold him back, and he stood paralyzed as Judit reassembled the projector and switched on the audio.
She watched the footage. It was eight-millimeter, unmistakably the content she had seen before. But now the camera kept on going, from the moment Stein made that sweeping gesture with his hands. Even under these primitive circumstances, Judit could see enough and hear enough, and she didn’t turn away, even as Durmersheimer kept repeating, “It’s all a lie. It’s a mistake. It doesn’t matter. Turn off the damned machine!”
1946. A crater on the site of what was once the Great Synagogue of Dresden. A bearded Leopold Stein addresses a crowd of adolescents. His big, working-class boxer’s hands articulate a circle. Then, they turn upwards and cup his chin, an intimate gesture. He is about to address them, intimately, in Yiddish.
“I make no promises. But there are some who can. I only know what we want. The fire returns. This is our monument. This is our prayer-house. No one can bring back the dead. I can only speak in their name for all of us today, tomorrow, throughout the generations. Bring them here, all the guilty ones. Six million Germans. We will blot out even their memory, and we will make them bleed.”
7
HELENA Sokolov took Judit’s hand in both of hers. Those hands were manicured and very small. She looked just like her photographs, though up close, her face was mapped with tiny wrinkles. “The woman of the hour,” she said. “I can’t believe we haven’t met before.”
To be in close proximity to Sokolov was a little like being in front of a radiation lamp. Judit managed to say, “I don’t know.”
“Somebody’s been protecting you from me,” Sokolov said, maybe slyly. “Well, get yourself a drink. And do make sure to circulate tonight. People need to know who you are.” Then, lowering her voice, she added, “Keep this between us. In an hour, there will be two very special guests.”
Judit nodded. She managed to back away and find a glass of mineral water. Everything tasted lousy now, but she had to have something in her hand; she had to look occupied. Durmersheimer was somewhere in the crowd, ready to disavow whatever happened. The small reel didn’t quite fit in her evening purse, and it stuck out just enough to be conspicuous. At least one person said, “What’s that? A new project?” and she answered, “I don’t know.” She said “I don’t know” so many times that evening that she began to wonder if there were any other words left in her.
Fortunately, she didn’t have to say much of anything at all. Everyone present took Helena Sokolov’s advice; they circulated. Judit stood with her glass and her purse like a stone in midstream. The only one who paid Judit the least attention was Sammy Gluck, who made much of a formal introduction to Patricia and was solicitous of Judit, bringing her a plate of herring on toast, and asking if she needed to get off her feet. Judit tried not to read too much into it, but it didn’t help when Patricia said, “I love what you’re wearing. I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but that kind of blouse wouldn’t have looked good on you before. Now, you fill it out.”
“I don’t know,” Judit said, and then she hid her face in the glass of mineral water.
After a while, she searched for the bathroom. At least that’s what she told herself. Really, she just wanted to be alone with the film. If she could review each frame in her head until the end, then she could consider actions and consequences. Could she slip it into the projector and force those present to confront what she had seen? And what would follow? An investigation? Of whom? A formal and pedantic voice framed these obvious questions, a whole string of them, and Judit managed to find a glass door that led to a veranda. The air was cool and damp. She sat on a bench with her purse in both hands like a little girl.
That was how Anna Lehmann found her. Certainly, Judit looked less polished than when Lehmann had last seen her, hair in her face, her blouse too tight around the chest. Lehmann had dressed up for the reception. Her massive body was encased in an embroidered tunic. As a result, she looked more than ever like a big couch turned upright and propped on heels. She wore eyeliner, lipstick, and rouge. The effect would have been comic if she hadn’t been so monumental.
Judit was startled. “When did you get here?”
“Oh, I just arrived,” Lehmann said. “Nobody shows up on time. Seven-thirty is more appropriate. When one has gone to enough of these receptions, one learns to maneuver in such a way that one needn’t interact with other human beings. Unless,” she added, “you have a preference for interacting with human beings. I thought not.” She took out a cigarette and lit it.
“So tell me, how long did it take to dig that hole?” Judit asked. She’d been so certain that Lehmann would follow her train of thought that it took a while for her to realize that nothing in particular had passed across her old professor’s face.
“In general, it doesn’t take long, if one has a strong back and a willing spirit. Who knows what we’ll dig up next? The thought exhausts me.” She sank into the bench as though it were a divan and sucked on her cigarette. Smoke came out through her nose. “And off it goes into the marketplace of ideas. As though ideas were cabbages and one placed them next to other cabbages. Red, white, green, purple. In the end, it’s just a cabbage.”
“Professor,” Judit said, “I’m talking about the synagogue.”
“What do you mean, child?” Lehmann asked. Then, she glanced at Judit’s purse and added sharply, “Somebody’s been playing you for a fool.” And finally, “You’re not a fool. You check your sources. You won’t go forward on the basis of rumor and fabrication.”
It was a relief to talk to Lehmann, even as she smoked and made wry and dismissive comments. If Judit could describe what she had seen, surely Lehmann would know enough to confirm or deny, and as she outlined the contents, she could hear her own voice break. Lehmann nodded, and when Judit reached the point where Stein spoke to the crowd, she interrupted.
“You consider these materials important?”