“On my land no vegetable will to be grown!” he declared with ideological fervor. He would not stand for land being humiliated by such ridiculous things as kohlrabi. His land would be a piece of pure real estate.
Every time Grandpa Lolek came back from Gedera, he drove directly to Green the Mechanic, because the Vauxhall could not travel all those miles without a resuscitation service. There, sitting among the Arab laborers while the car was serviced, he was immediately provided with a chair and a glass of bitter coffee, for which he paid with war stories. The laborers loved him: a Jew who could tell of victories, but not over Arabs. They could relax around him, listen without pangs of guilt to stories of battles and ruses. For a wax-and-polish they were even treated to a good word about Salah a-Din.
The 1970 Vauxhall was a rare hothouse of now-extinct spare parts. The car, which had long ago driven off the standard path of licenses-insurance-tests, was patched up with any spare part that came cheaply. “The cheapest are chosen and the fittest survive,” was the modus operandi in the Vauxhall, to the point where all other garage owners had washed their hands of it. Only Green the Mechanic, a pure soul, agreed to touch the Vauxhall. He offered no warranties, no reports, no nothing. There was a mutual understanding between the two men, and Green the Mechanic had Grandpa Lolek’s blessing to explore every solution. He gave the Vauxhall a radiator from an old Volvo and a pump from a Saab. Screws that were no longer manufactured anywhere in the world found their way into the Vauxhall, as well as Fiat, Renault and DAF windows. The awe-inspiring jewel in the crown was concealed within the Vauxhall’s maze of pipes: a Chevrolet carburetor, the last of its kind.
Green the Mechanic did these favors for no one but Grandpa Lolek. He looked surprised when I took him my Subaru for repairs one day, and reminded me that his was a Volkswagen garage — How, in my opinion, was he supposed to repair my Subaru? He wanted to know when I would start driving a Volkswagen, at which point I explained that I was opposed to German cars on principle.
“Because of the price?”
“Because of the Holocaust.”
Green the Mechanic was very understanding. There are people who don’t buy Japanese because of their metal, on principle. The Holocaust was a principle too, but in that case, he said, I had to go to a Subaru garage. Grandpa Lolek and his Vauxhall were a special case.
Grandpa Lolek loved the Vauxhall dearly, and he always paid Green the Mechanic on time. Elsewhere he was stingy, refusing to follow through with the activity known as payment. He continually enhanced his debtism until the accumulation of debt became an art form. His debts were his fountain of youth. They gave him strength and energized his spirit. We could imagine no finer event than Grandpa Lolek setting off to discuss a debt. He met his creditors proudly, presented his demands, occasionally listened. The tougher and more well-to-do creditors who could back their demands more concretely only increased Grandpa Lolek’s grandeur. Sometimes he would orchestrate our attendance at the discussions, sitting us down in a corner of the room. The sweet presence of a child takes the sting out of many hostilities, he reasoned. We sat silently, somewhat aware of our function, watching as Grandpa Lolek pulled out thick binders full of papers and bills. He would leaf through them, examining them, and suddenly his eyes would light up. Looking up at the creditor, he would exclaim, “Here! We’ve found you!” He would display the papers, glowing with satisfaction, as if half the problem had already been solved. With quick fingers that were speckled with a few brown old-age stains, he would draw some papers from the thick pile and spread them on the table. “Here!” He would slap his hand on them. And the interlocutor was expected to ease up his demands a little. Not all the creditors were gullible. Some tended to be violent. But the hero of Anders’ Army would pierce them with his icy blue eyes and plunge them into a river of agreements, words, choices, debts, arrangements, restrictions and guarantees. Grandpa Lolek was a juggler. Dates were set, systems drafted, on occasion a payment date was even considered. Sometimes another loan would spontaneously materialize from the very force of the new agreement. Some of the creditors took Grandpa Lolek to court, where justice entered a dizzying series of wonders. Grandpa Lolek’s cases dragged on through delays and mistakes. The court reversed its opinions again and again. It set dates and then canceled them, summoned meetings and withdrew from them. The court’s transformation was incomprehensible, as if Doubt had sat down in the central office to translate pangs of conscience into cancelled hearings. Or else it was because Grandpa Lolek had found an old court clerk who admired his past in Anders’ Army. Not because of Grandpa Lolek’s own service, but out of reverence for another of General Anders’ soldiers, the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Admittedly, Begin, like many other Jews, had defected even before the battles began, when Anders’ Army passed through Palestine en route from Russia to England, and had joined the Zionist fight here. Nonetheless, Begin had been affected by his days in Anders’ Army, and in return for Grandpa Lolek’s recollections of him, the clerk would do his best with the court dates, arranging delays and postponements. Grandpa Lolek, regretfully, had not known Menachem Begin at all in those days, but as far as he was concerned a soldier was a soldier. And so he told stories upon stories, sometimes carelessly sweeping Begin along with Anders’ Army to Europe instead of leaving him here to lead the Etzel underground movement. He took him to the battles of Monte Cassino, Loretto, Ancona, to the river fordings in Italy. His interlocutor, rather than protesting, enthused, “And all this, while the Zionist struggle was raging here!”
Alongside his debtism, Grandpa Lolek perfected the art of opportunity. Whenever time, usually a galloper, made the mistake of slowing down to a trot, Grandpa Lolek immediately swatted it. His newspapers were always spread out, open to the classifieds and the obituary pages. He rapidly connected this notice with that announcement, put on his most appropriate tie, and set off in the Vauxhall to hunt down an opportunity. Grandpa Lolek, a foot soldier, did not discount minor gains. He nurtured small accounts, sometimes tiny, in every bank. He transferred pennies from one account to the other, bearing the pain of commissions, and waited for a surprising event on a cosmic scale that would hit the pennies en route and turn them into billions. His life was guided by special offers. He would purchase sixty packets of spaghetti on sale without a qualm and lie patiently in wait for ketchup prices to go down. He smoked remorselessly, with the enjoyment of those who know that cancer will not kill them. This was one area in which he was never thrifty. He bought fine imported cigarettes even in the hardest economic times, and smoked them lovingly without fear. He would not take a cigarette from anyone and he gave them freely to others. One cigarette, two. And once, right in front of my eyes, he gave a whole pack to a panhandler on the street.
His debtism, miserliness and frugality, coupled with his lust for business, gave rise to a large amount of property. We reminded him of the possibility that someone might someday inherit all of this. Grandpa Lolek avoided heirs like the plague. He thwarted any attempts at producing offspring, who were nothing but temporarily disguised successors. He was not of the opinion that “after his passing” would be an appropriate time to allow someone to enjoy his money. When the subject came up he became aggravated, waving his fist at non-existent sons to ward them off. He went to bed every night alive, and in the morning inherited his own property.