Authors: Jason Fields
The rabbi had apparently invented the trick. He might as well have been a painting of a revered religious figure.
Okay, then, Aaron thought, and gave in.
“Was Lev Berson a member of your congregation?” Aaron asked again.
“Yes.”
Silence returned.
Aaron decided to try another tack as he became uncomfortable under the old man’s gaze.
“I’m sorry, rebbe,” Aaron said deferentially, and using the more intimate form of the Jewish term for teacher. “I know nothing about your congregation — or you yourself for that matter. Could you tell me a little?”
“I think, first, it’s only fair to ask who you are, and why you want to know about us,” the man replied. “Excuse my caution, but … ”
The rest didn’t need to be said and the rabbi didn’t say it.
“I’ve just arrived here from Serca … At the Germans’ invitation,” Aaron said, with small, bitter laugh, which was met by a twitch of the rabbi’s lips. How else could a Jew travel anywhere, now?
“My family knew Berson’s, and I was hoping to find him in the city after I got here,” Aaron continued. “I was hoping that he might be able to help me set up here. There doesn’t seem to be much other help available.”
“No, not from the Judenrat,” the rabbi agreed, then said nothing further.
“Anyway, I haven’t been able to find him yet, and people spoke about his connection to your congregation, so I was hoping you might be able to help. And also that this would be the right place for me, as well.”
The rabbi sat back and pondered. It was obvious to Aaron that he was wonderful at it. After a few moments, the old man nodded to himself and turned his gaze back to Aaron and dropped a bomb.
“Thank you, Mr. Kaminski,” he said. “I enjoy stories very much. Much of how we learn is through stories, either those handed down to us from our fathers — or those told to us by our
friends
.”
Aaron looked into the cupboard of his mind where the words usually were, but found it empty.
“Some stories aren’t true, but they are parables that teach us something,” the rabbi said. “Some stories are just lies, like this one. We’ve known about Aaron Kaminski the smuggler for as long as you’ve been in business. We may not seem very worldly, we Hasids, but it’s always good to pay attention.”
“So why ask me who I am?” Aaron asked, both annoyed and embarrassed.
“As I said, all stories have value, even those without truth,” the rabbi said, raising his thick eyebrows a little. “Your story tells me both that you don’t want me to know the reasons that brought you to me, and that you have no idea who I am.”
Bold seemed the only way left to go.
“Okay then, who are you?” Aaron asked.
“Rav Schmuel Levinsohn of Krozni.”
The way the words dropped, Aaron was obviously supposed to have heard of the man, but he hadn’t. He did know enough about the Haredim — the Jews who had refused any invitation to join in the modern world — to know that many followed individual religious princes in their villages, and that the principality was usually passed from father to son. By including the town name in his title, the man was announcing himself to be an important figure, a tzadik, a righteous one.
Aaron, who had become almost entirely secular, had a hard time figuring out exactly how he felt about tzadiks. On the one hand, they seemed a little bit like cult leaders; on the other, he had been brought up to believe they were men of great knowledge and wisdom.
The man in front of him fit nicely into both categories, having wrapped an unwilling Aaron in a cocoon of charisma, and giving the impression of having read every word in all the books around him.
Frankly, Aaron was impressed.
“And, if I can be honest with you, I would greatly prefer to be in Krozni. But unlike the man in your story, I truly was “invited” here by the Germans some time ago,” Levinsohn said.
“And here, I have tried to continue to do what I have always done, which is study and, if I can, help others to do the same.”
“Thank you for that, rebbe,” Aaron said. “If I’d known who you were, I never would have … ”
“Oh spare me, Mr. Kaminski,” said the rabbi. “What do you want Lev Berson for? I assume it’s related to your work, since he’s a policeman?”
Bullshit was clearly getting him nowhere. Time for something else.
“Berson’s dead.”
“What?”
For the first time, the furry brows pulled back far enough for Aaron to see the clear blue of the eyes that lived under them.
“I’m sorry, rebbe. I hate to bring you such news.”
The rabbi’s head bowed toward the blotter on his desk in evident sorrow.
“I understand that this is difficult, but I need to know anything you can tell me about him,” Aaron said, careful to keep sympathy in his voice.
“Why would
you
need to know anything?” the rabbi said, once again meeting Aaron’s eyes. “I don’t understand. What happened to Lev?”
“He was found dead yesterday before first light. He was murdered, his head bashed in,” Aaron said. “I’ve been asked to find out who killed him.”
The rabbi shook his head.
“You? Why you?” he asked.
Aaron was surprised to find himself a little insulted by the rabbi’s tone.
“Before I became a smuggler, I was a gendarme,” Aaron said. “Unlike most of the so-called police around here, I’ve actually run a murder investigation. A few, in fact.”
“I see,” the great man said. “And you don’t know who did it?”
“That’s why I’m here. I need to know more about Lev; what he did when he wasn’t working; who or why someone would want to kill him,” Aaron said.
The rabbi looked down at his notebook where he had occasionally been jotting something down. It was a beautiful little thing, hand-bound, the paper thick. Aaron wondered if the rabbi was perhaps looking at the name of the murderer, but thought not.
“I can’t imagine anyone would want to kill him for any personal reason. He was a very reserved person. Very devout,” the rabbi said. “But he could smile sweetly, too. He was a good young man and would have been a good father, I think.”
Aaron nodded. Among the Haredim, it was the duty of every man to marry young and father many children.
“Did you ever speak with him outside of services, perhaps about personal things?”
“Sometimes, yes,” the rabbi said. “He was deeply concerned about how to perform his job as a Jew. Was he, at root, helping the Nazis or helping his people?”
“I can imagine that was quite a conflict,” Aaron said, shaking his head in sympathy.
“It’s not a Jew’s duty to stand against civil authority,” the rabbi said. “It’s his duty to listen to his God.”
Aaron could hardly have disagreed more, but he couldn’t see how saying so would help him with the rabbi.
“I worked hard to help him see the good he was able to do in his position, and that without order, people here would be far worse off than they are, even now,” the rabbi said.
“Was there anything in particular that bothered him?” Aaron asked.
“He felt ashamed of the privileges he was given for his work, the extra food rations. He hated having to turn men who seemed to have good hearts over to the Germans.”
The rabbi paused and shook his head.
“He did, though?” Aaron asked.
“It was his job,” the rabbi said, as if the explanation was a good one.
“And, of course,” he continued, “Lev hated the names he was called. It’s a hard thing to be hated by your own people.”
“I’m sure it can’t be easy,” said Aaron, thinking of his present assignment and the scorn he’d sometimes suffered as an officer in the Polish police.
“It was not. And Lev was a sensitive person. I’m sure if there had been a job open as a clerk, he would have taken it.
“Still,” the rabbi shrugged, “I told him, above all else, even the Laws, God values life. Like the rest of us, Lev had to eat.”
Aaron nodded sympathetically again.
“Did you give him any other advice?” he asked.
“Well, I suggested he could share his extra rations with others in need, if he was concerned. We work together among our community, doing our best to make sure everyone is taken care of.” The man paused. “I told him to bring whatever extra he had here, and I would help him distribute it.”
“And that helped ease his conscience?” Aaron asked, lifting one eyebrow.
“Well, with the amount of food he brought, I have no doubt it must have.”
“How much did he bring?” Aaron asked. “The police don’t get that much more in rations than the rest of us, do they?”
“I certainly don’t know any specifics as to what his work entitled him to, but I have no doubt that what he gave to our community was above and beyond that,” the rabbi said, raising a hand to show some large amount.
“Were you at all worried about where he might be getting that extra?”
“I assumed, Mr. Kaminski, that he came by the food much the way you come by your own living.”
The rabbi sighed and looked back down. When he spoke again, his voice was softer than Aaron had heard it.
“We were certainly in no position to turn it away, wherever it came from,” he said. “It is hard to bear God’s judgment.”
“Is that how you see this?” Aaron asked, meaning the war, the ghetto, the death all around them.
“Nothing happens without God’s hand,” Rabbi Levinsohn said with certainty. “Our people have been drifting away from God, becoming no different from the goyim. They have forgotten our unique covenant with the Lord.”
A sermon had brewed up in front of Aaron, and he steeled himself invisibly to weather the storm.
“Coming to the cities. Dressing as the goyim do, eating as they do! Even marrying their women, if the men marry at all! Turning to Karl Marx for their salvation, rather than the Torah and the rabbis who have always led them.
“This judgment comes as no surprise! It is the inevitable fruit of our actions!”
Aaron knew this was the time to shut up, to sit still, but it was simply impossible for him.
“And what about your followers?” he asked, acidly. “Those who eat and dress just the way you like them to? If this is God’s judgment, why are they dying, too? And they are dying. I see the bodies of the Haredim, same as everyone else. I see them stumble and limp and starve. Is that a fair judgment?”
The rabbi was back to his calmly contemplative form.
“It is God’s judgment.”
Aaron breathed deeply.
“May I smoke, rabbi?”
“Only if you’re willing to share,” the rabbi said. He raised the corners of his lips.
Aaron handed the old man a cigarette and then leaned in closely over the desk to light it. He stole a glance at the notebook. He couldn’t make out any words, though there was something about the binding that caught his eye.
“Lev was a good man,” the rabbi said reflectively. “I don’t know why someone would kill him.”
He exhaled smoke that was the same color as his beard.
“There was no one in the congregation who had anything against him?”
“He wasn’t here long enough for anyone to develop a grudge, I don’t think. Besides, most of his time with us was spent in study or prayer. Neither is much of a way to make enemies,” the rabbi said.
Aaron offered a slim smile.
“Back to the food. Do you know anything else about how he was able to get it?”
“I didn’t want to know. And he didn’t want me to know. I think he believed it would protect us somehow.”
“Nothing else?”
“Well, he once suggested I could offer a prayer for his partner, if I wanted to,” the rabbi said.
“Gersh?”
“I think that was the name.”
Right back where I started, Aaron thought to himself.
Having finished his cigarette, Aaron carefully snuffed out the butt. He made a habit of saving the ends in order to roll them together when he ran out of fresh cigarettes. He pushed his seat back a little, causing a squeak he wished he hadn’t, and stood, reaching his hand across to the holy man.
“Thank you, rabbi, for your time,” Aaron said. “I may have to come back with more questions.”
“You are welcome. And what Jew doesn’t have questions?”
Aaron couldn’t help chuckling, as he was meant to.
The rabbi saw him out to the street and bid farewell. No tea had ever been offered.
Aaron walked without direction for a while, not noticing the more purposeful small feet that followed him.
A
aron wandered slowly away from the stables and mortuaries, into the dying heart of the Jewish District. As he walked, he sifted through his conversation with the larger-than-life rabbi, trying to find some kernel of information that would count as progress in the case.
It wasn’t likely that his conflicted soul had bashed the young policeman’s head in. But knowing that Berson had struggled with his conscience helped Aaron to build a picture of the victim in his mind. Even if it wasn’t immediately helpful, he hoped the image might help him recognize clues later on.
It was also interesting to see what kind of group Berson had involved himself with. The rabbi had made an impression Aaron was unlikely to forget any time soon. He might look like a kindly grandfather, but there was no mistaking his zealotry. Aaron guessed unquestioning loyalty would have been one of Rabbi Levinsohn’s chief demands from his flock.
Did he also demand tribute? Is that how Berson had gotten himself involved in smuggling in the first place? The rabbi had made it sound as if it were the other way round, that Berson had already had a small piece of the action.
Aaron stumbled on a cobblestone, which forced back into his immediate surroundings. He discovered that his feet had dragged him toward one of the half-dozen official checkpoints between the ghetto and the world. Six men representing three nations stood around the small hut and pinioned barrier arm.
Two Jewish policemen huddled close together, their special armbands and other symbols of office marking them out. Two Poles, members of the Blue Police created by the Nazis, were clearly trying to ingratiate themselves with the final two, who wore the gray of the all-conquering Reich.
Aaron knew them all for what they were: tumblers in the lock that kept the door to the pantry closed. It was a lock easily picked with skeleton keys cut from gold. The Germans required the lion’s share, two-thirds of the bribe. Poles took two-thirds of what remained, leaving the Jewish Police with a crust, payable occasionally in literal form.