‘Why didn’t some humane doctor cut off my breath as soon as I came into the world?’ the rabbi said. ‘Who am I that God should demand this of me? Who’s going to say kaddish for me? Who will remember me?’
His head sunk even deeper between his shoulders. The old turtle was withdrawing. ‘But that’s not what you’re here for.’
‘No.’
‘You’re here for Herz.’
‘Yes.’
‘Where is he now, the old fraud?’
In two days’ time, they agreed, Eder would preside over Yehuda Herz’s funeral. That was much too late, according to Eder: a dead Jew should be buried immediately, but necessity knows no law. It would have to be an improvised service in more ways than one, for there hadn’t been a Jewish undertaker around here for a long time either.
Finally, Beg asked the rabbi whether he perhaps knew the song that had popped into his mind that morning.
‘Rivkele?’ the rabbi said. ‘I don’t know any Rivkele.’
‘No, a song about Rivkele,’ Beg said.
‘Why do you ask?’
Beg shrugged. ‘We used to sing it at home. I thought maybe you would know what it’s about, because I have no idea.’
‘What song was it again?’
Hesitantly, Beg spoke the first line, the words whose meaning he didn’t know. ‘Ay, Rivkele, ven es veln zayn royzn, veln zey bliyen.’
‘Louder! I can’t hear you!’
Beg repeated the words.
‘And the melody?’ the old man asked. ‘Sing it — maybe then I’ll recognise it.’
And so it happened that Pontus Beg sang a Yiddish song for the old rabbi.
‘Good! Very good!’ The old man crowed with pleasure. ‘You should keep practising — you’ve got talent!’
Beg lowered his eyes. Even his nails and his hair felt embarrassed.
‘Do you know what you’re singing? ‘O Rebecca, if there are roses, they will be in flower …’ A love song.’
He showed Beg to the door. The low, darkened corridors smelled of wet gypsum. Faint electric light shone on the walls. Beg thought he could still see the smoked cones left on the ashen plasterwork by old tallow candles. For more than two hundred years, with a few black-bordered interludes, this building had served as a house of prayer — and the final guardian, a love song on his lips, was leading him to the exit.
CHAPTER EIGHT. The comforter
They trudged in single file, heads bowed, eyes dull and unseeing. Once they had looked expectantly to the horizon, towards the land of hopes beyond that, but their gaze was drawn away less and less frequently now, until it no longer rose from the ground before their feet.
When the tall man fell, he blinked his eyes in amazement, as though he’d been tripped. The boy walked past him.
‘Help me out, would you?’ the tall man panted. ‘You can have my shoes. Okay?’
But the boy walked on, a fathomless contempt in his eyes.
One by one, the others passed him. He looked up at them like a dying animal.
‘Hey,’ he said weakly, ‘wait a minute.’
Their eyes swept over his body in search of what might still be useful. The shoes. His coat. His sweater full of holes. It was growing colder all the time.
Was he himself the one who had once robbed a laggard, the tall man thought with wavering conviction. So long ago now … So far away, as though it was someone else … He had twisted the man’s head forcefully to one side as the others stripped the clothes from his body and ransacked his pockets. He had pressed his hand so hard against the man’s mouth that he had felt the false teeth break.
That was how they looked at him now, too. Prey.
He tried to regain his footing, but his legs were so heavy. Heavier than they’d ever been, even though they were so thin.
Is this the end of me, is this what it looks like? he thought. A picture from a great height: his skin, his flesh, how it slowly became an impression in the sand, half-eaten by animals, half soaked into the earth; his bones being spread out over the steppe.
The place where he lay amazed him. Sand and tough, yellow grass; random as rain. This was how others died. He smelled the wet earth, his grave.
They had all left home on their own. Chance had brought them together; no one was responsible for anyone else. As long as you could walk, you belonged to the group; as long as you could walk, you made the group stronger. If the group had to care for its individual members, it weakened. Altruism would be the death of it. Strict self-interest improved the chances of survival. The boy, too, had understood that intuitively. He had walked past others before; he had remained deaf to the pleas, the shrieks behind him.
Sometimes there were little acts of mercy — quick, almost secretive, exceptions. Irrational. Unwise. The group disapproved of such breaches of naked self-preservation.
Panting, the tall man’s breath went in and out. The killing thirst. A primal memory of pain, when his whole being was a soundless scream for his mother, for reassurance. My sweet boy, she cooed, my sweet Mischa, where have you ended up this time? I can’t help you like this, can I? You’re alone, Mischa, alone.
A hand brushed his arm. He smiled through his tears. So she had come anyway … She hadn’t left him … So long ago, his dear mother, such an eternity.
He opened his eyes to see her.
Standing over him was the Ethiopian.
The tall man groaned in misery. He was pulled up by one arm to a sitting position. He feared the black man’s intentions. He wouldn’t put up a fight. He would simply close his eyes to the harm the other would do him.
The Ethiopian took a weathered blue bottle from his bag. He unscrewed the cap and pressed the opening to the tall man’s lips. The coolness of stone. Water dribbled into his mouth.
‘Maj,’ the black man said, and poured another trickle into his mouth.
‘More,’ the tall man said.
‘Maj,’ the black man said again. The tall man repeated it after him — maj, maj.
He took the bottle from his hand and drank greedily of the earthy-tasting water. When it was finished, he could smell the black man: his stale sweat, his bodily fat, and the spoiled smell that rises from an empty stomach. They had never been this close before. He felt shame and gratitude.
He tried to stand up, but sank back in the dust. His fingers tingled; his vision swirled before his eyes.
The Ethiopian’s hand disappeared into his satchel again. It reappeared, holding a miracle: a rusty can. Beans … goulash … it could be anything — the label was gone. He must have found it in the village, during his foray through the houses. The tall man couldn’t keep his eyes off the can. A can of food. A treasure. Perverse riches.
The black man knelt. He held the can between his knees and struck it with the point of a rock. He dented the can, but couldn’t open it. The agony was unbearable. The tall man leaned back and slipped his knobby, yellowed fingers into his pocket. Slowly, he righted himself again and handed his knife to the Ethiopian. Now he could murder him with his own weapon. The thought glistened behind his eyes for a moment, and then disappeared.
The tip of the knife bored its way into the flimsy can. Gouging and cutting, the blade ate its way through, revealing the jagged metal edge of the lid. The tall man leaned forward. He wanted to see what was in it — he would have yanked it out the Ethiopian’s hands if he’d been able to. When the hole was big enough, the black man bent up the edges. Now they took turns poking their fingers into the can, and ladling out the jellied substance. It had a vague taste of meat bouillon. They gobbled it down, licked their bleeding fingers, and scraped the remains from the sides and bottom. When the can was completely clean, their eyes met, big and charged, as though they were coming to their senses after having committed some ecstatic crime.