At that moment I had crossed some threshold between reality and fantasy. I stood on the brink of the Inferno with no Dante to guide me. I shouted for Maddy to help me, to pull me back into the familiar world. But my voice could not be heard. My mouth was full of swelling paper. Nothing would come out. I could barely draw in air. I struggled with the Jews. I beat at them. And from all sides came their laughter, cruel, rough voices, a prodding and pushing. I was buried in masks. I was drowning in masks. I screamed. My voice filled my body. I began to choke. ‘Please! No more!’
Again the masks dragged my head down. I lost my footing in something slippery. Again I fell. Now there was no one to catch me. The great weight of papier mâché dragged me to the cobbles. I was on my knees. I heard water. The Ghetto and its sinister denizens had claimed me. Suddenly I was back in the shtetl, with those hands, those clutching fingers, those eyes. There they had wanted to kill me. It was the same. I would die. And no poet to save me. No Jew from Arcadia.
‘Why are you afraid?’ asked the Jew in the shtetl.
They came out of the synagogue and they surrounded me. They put a piece of metal in my womb. You say that this is all my fantasy. But it was reality, then. We knew no other reality. A fantasy only for those of us who were not its victims.
It happened so suddenly. And then we were engulfed.
NINE
I fly no flag, I said. I am my own man. I felt weak. A chill had come to my stomach like a piece of cold metal that can never be warmed, even by blood. Blood alone could quench the fires. We drowned in it, and we were grateful.
The Jew said: ‘You idiots, I am a doctor. Quickly! The poor devil’s asphyxiating. Get those masks off him before they kill him!’
City of sleeping goats, city of crime, city of crows. The little boys sing untruthful songs. The synagogues are burning. You are alive, said the Jew. You are safe. He had a job on a newspaper in Odessa and lost it. But it was peaceful, he said, in Arcadia.
I find it impossible to understand the motives of such people.
I lay in a little white bed. The sheets were damp.
‘What is wrong with him?’ asked Maddy Butter in halting Italian.
I had no interest in this. I was sleeping over the stove while my mother ironed. My father had gone. I was glad of it. He brought only tension. I longed for my familiar food, for the honest warmth of home, and it seemed for a little while that I had recaptured everything I had lost. I was in one of the houses off the square, Maddy told me. I was in shock, she said. I had a fever. I had caught something from the water, perhaps.
I thought I noticed Esmé smiling at me from the dark curtains of the room. Everywhere I looked I saw a friend. Captain Brown brought me a drink. Esmé cooled my forehead. My mother prayed for me.
‘We must take him back,’ said Miss Butter. ‘He must be moved. You have been very kind.’
I did not want to leave. I was home. I wept for Kiev and the days of my greatest security. I wept for Odessa and my greatest happiness. I wept for the future that was stolen from us. They all had guns. They were all greedy. They had become nothing but appetite and they fed on destruction. ‘Let me stay,’ I begged. ‘We cannot allow it to begin again. This is our chance. This is our chance to change the story. Let me stay.’
They took me to an ebony barge swaying on scarlet water. It smelled of flour and blood. They laid me down on the sacks. I could not swallow my grief. Little birds flew out of my mouth; tawny rats gnawed at my genitals. They put a piece of metal in my womb. It is a Star of David. ‘You will be well soon,’ said the doctor. ‘You should rest. Your friend, signorina, is of a very highly strung disposition.’
‘He is a genius,’ she explained. ‘An artist.’
A figure rose above my head. He carried a long spear which he plunged again and again into the flowing marble around the barge. I wanted desperately to see his face, but he would not show it to me. Dante, I sought my Virgil.
They said it was Charon and the river was the Styx, but this could not be. I was freed, I said. I have been made whole in the Land of the Dead and Anubis is my friend. They should not force me to make that journey again. It was not fair, I said. I have paid the price. I have answered the questions. I have done the deed. I am clean. I have eaten only clean food. I have put on only clean garments. I have purified my thoughts. I have purified my loins. I am redeemed. Let me stay. It is my home. Let me stay.
The black marble waters were silent. I lifted my head and looked down. A thousand golden eyes stared back at me, the eyes of beasts, unforgiving, ungiving, unkind. I wept for my lost future, for my despoiled past. Gott herrscht, winkend, leitend, wie Wesen auch, die frei sind, handeln, herrscht für die Gegenwart uttd für die Zukunft! Spricht durch Tat auch, welche die Sterblichen tun, die Gottheit? Weg zur Freiheit? I do not think so.
I looked for mercy. I found none. Only sympathy. The little girls lifted their voices. Their skirts were like fresh fallen snow, they were so pure. Kyrie eleison! What more must I do? I yearned to kiss his long hands. I cannot deny it - he was a Jew. He showed me a line of poetry. It meant nothing. Love grows from within. There is a coil in my womb. It is copper. It conducts electricity. It is cold. They put it there. It forbids love. Ask me any scientific question. I am afraid of betrayal. There was never enough love. We walked into the twilight. They had pissed on Odessa. You could smell it all the way to Arcadia. From Moldavanka came the stench of old smoke. ‘You’re a hard one to read,’ I said. I could scarcely stop myself from touching him. I wanted his gentleness. I looked for my childhood. Everything was rubble. I decided I must go to the station.
I cry out. My voice is amplified by the bridges and aqueducts. It echoes across the rooftops and comes down the alleys. I must reach the station.
We will get you there soon, they said. Be quiet now. You will wake the city. But my buttocks were alive with ancient pain. Grishenko’s whip rose and fell. Brodmann watched in gloating triumph.
I must get to the station. I must get away.
Softly they reassured me but I could not trust those Jews. How could I?
The barge moved through darkness. Too late. We crossed a border. I heard distant laughter. The sky was full of flames and sparks.
They are burning us, I said. They are burning us to death. They have set fire to the shtetl.
Just a display, they said. A celebration.
I heard the shrieks and the bangs. I smelled the smoke. Not safe to stay, I said. I cried for my mother and for Esmé. I loved her so much. I wanted her with me. Why did she lie to me? They were all I ever wanted. But how I had longed to fly!
The city of Venus is destroyed. The city of Odysseus rises from the ruins of our common dream. The city of Venus sinks into legend but the city of Odysseus endures, a monument to the Age of Reason. Why could they not leave us alone? What was our crime? We are drowning in our own anger, I said. Nothing is solved. We are making fresh problems. Nothing is reconciled. Blood for blood, they said. Blood for blood. The black barges took the corpses to the coast. Black blood filled the rivers. The streams were viscous and became sewers full of entrails.
The Greeks wept for their stolen souls. They took our future to replace it with an illusion. So many false promises. The black barge carried me through tall canyons. Little birds filled my mouth. I could no longer tell them the truth. The spear thrust at the water. Cruel eyes stared back at me. I discovered no warmth in her breast. I told her that she must escape. She did not understand. It is no longer safe here, I said. Her white arms enclosed me. She tried to make me sleep but I struggled. I could not afford to sleep, I told her.