I run after Grandpa Yosef, shouting, “Grandpa Yosef! Grandpa Yosef!” I explain to him, almost begging, and yet also commanding: “I’m taking the Vauxhall, I’ll bring it back in a few hours.” I run with the cake, the pie and the jam. I put them on the back seat next to the blender (I almost forgot about it, almost left it as prey for Hans Oderman). Forget about bridges and punishments. I’m going to Asher Schwimmer, a dung beetle rolling a ball of hatred, but I already know: everything’s all right with Anat, and with Yariv. An eighth of him — so what? That, I can forget. But I cannot rest inside. I have to keep going, to understand. To read everything I can about the Nazi criminals, the ideas, the acts committed by people who realized that everything-was-allowed-everything-was-allowed-no-one-would-punish-them. I have time. On the inside, I have time. But I must go on. Get help from Attorney Perl and investigate until I reach all the dead-ends. That is the goal, to reach every dead-end, to stop and realize that from there onwards only people like Hirsch can continue. Attorney Perl and I will stop at the dead-ends, we have no half-century-long theological journey, we do not have the strength not to die, to walk around Katznelson ill and injured, to be Mr. Hirsch-Who-Yells.
I drive the grumbling Vauxhall, lagging behind passing cars. I feel out of place — not spectacular enough, not as wonderful as Grandpa Lolek. Like an unwanted guest at the wheel. The Vauxhall carries me on and I try to imagine how it looks. (When Grandpa Lolek drove the Vauxhall it was always enveloped in velvety clouds and rings of cigarette smoke. The Vauxhall was a stormy tropical island. Something you could see only in the Tarbut encyclopedia and in Grandpa Yosef’s parking lot. When Grandpa Lolek drove the Vauxhall, cigarette butts rolled around on the floor, sometimes still lit, under the seats too, embers scheming with red eyes. Every time he took a sharp turn, sparks flew, a substitute for the bulbs of the turn signal lights which had burned out in 1976 and could not be repaired because Green the Mechanic could not figure out what the matter was with the electrical wires.) The Vauxhall greets me with a restrained grumble and drives on. I am a grayish figure, propelled towards the convalescence home.
It was afternoon when I arrived. A pleasant corridor of large windows stretched from the entryway to the wards, displaying lawns and shrubs on either side. A bright, clear, beautiful light shone in. You could see almost the entire valley, but it was doubtful that anyone here looked at it. I passed elderly people wearing morbid looking robes, strolling along to somewhere. Elderly people sat on armchairs. They looked at me.
I did not have to search for long. I saw him in the hallway, standing opposite a doctor. He was waving his hands and shouting something and a frail group of old people surrounded him, talking excitedly. Only when I got closer did I realize they were translating. Asher Schwimmer was making accusations in Polish, and they were doing their best to interpret into old-fashioned Hebrew while the doctor listened. The slap came, not hard, but the doctor did not lose his attentive look, as if both the translated words and the slap itself contained a hint. Asher Schwimmer turned around, walked feebly to a bench and sat down. A friend wearing a faded suit hurried to his side, supporting Asher Schwimmer and sitting down beside him. I went up to him, wondering if he would recognize me. I scanned him as he sat with his eyes closed.
“Oh, oh! He once had a head of hair! Wild hair!” said his friend, as if, having noticed my look, he had assumed I was not doing justice to Asher Schwimmer in my thoughts. He held out his hand. “Nice to meet you. Dov Ber.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Ber. I’m Amir. How is Mr. Schwimmer?” I addressed Mr. Ber as if he were Asher Schwimmer’s spokesman, a position that he clearly aspired to. He accepted my greeting for both of them, and his look seemed to indicate that he would, at the very first opportunity, convey my good wishes to Asher Schwimmer himself (and for a moment it seemed that the transmission of the greeting would be delayed due to the infinite distance of Asher Schwimmer, rather than his sealed, extinguished face here on the bench beside us). “Not many people come here. One could say we’ve been forgotten. And your honor is…?”
I told him about Grandpa Yosef, about the little poetry book in his library, Asher Schwimmer’s poems from the days when he knew Hebrew. I also sent warm regards from Grandpa Yosef to Asher Schwimmer. Asher Schwimmer opened his eyes. “Hello, Mr. Schwimmer. I said that Yosef Ingberg sends his warm regards!”
Asher Schwimmer replied, “Todah.” Thank you. In Hebrew. In Hebrew! I must have looked astonished.
Mr. Ber beamed. “I’m teaching him Hebrew.” Teaching him Hebrew! Asher Schwimmer closed his eyes again, but Mr. Ber would not let his prodigy disappear from our conversation. “Just like he taught me Hebrew! From him I learned! Everything!”
“Did you know him there?” I emphasized the last word and Mr. Ber nodded, confirming, but he did not understand what I meant. As far as he was concerned, there was Warsaw, before the war, where Asher Schwimmer had ruled the eager poetry circles, the lovers of the Hebrew language.
Mr. Ber called out, “He was born for great things! Tremendous! At nineteen, we all surrounded him! Worshipped him!” He pointed to Asher Schwimmer, whose eyes were shut tightly as if the memories that gripped him were too strong, as if the Hebrew he was learning was illuminating difficult things. Mr. Ber continued excitedly. “The Romantic style, that was his style. A Byronist! Roses! Pallor! Affairs of the heart! Then he began to take an interest in Eretz Yisrael and all his poetry became filled with carobs and sunshine! We loved the carobs and the sunshine too! He was not like us. We ran around trying to find someone who would agree to publish our verses. But him, they chased after him. And he? He only allowed the very best to publish him. If only you had been fortunate enough, such verses!”
“Yes, I know. My grandfather has a copy of his book at home.”
Mr. Ber ignored me. “A Zionist, he became! A Zionist! I was a Zionist too, but to go to Palestine? Being a Zionist was talking! Arguing! Proving a point! Big meetings! Good for the soul! But Asher Schwimmer? He was really bitten! He decided to go to Eretz Yisrael, to Palestine. To see with his own eyes the Carmel, and Jerusalem. Nu, such a young man! And where did he end up? The war broke out, and who knows? Neither in Polish nor in Hebrew, about that matter, he will not talk. But they said he was in Gräditz. Suffering! That’s what they said!”
(I pulled out the information easily. Gräditz. Yehezkel Ingster was there. The Jewish kapo who was tried in Israel and sentenced to death. Was it possible that Asher Schwimmer had lost his Hebrew in Gräditz? Did he know Yehezkel Ingster? Could I find out about Yehezkel Ingster from him? But no, I did not want to ask. I had to stop. Enough. Stop right now.)
But I asked Mr. Ber, “You weren’t with him?”
“Me? No! No! In Israel too, I didn’t see him for fifty years. Here, I found him. Right here, suddenly standing in front of me, Asher Schwimmer! Hebrew I teach him! And take care of him! I serve him gladly! If only you had seen him in Warsaw!”