“Have you learned anything?”
“Have I learned anything? Maybe.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“Calm down, my friend, calm down. You’re in a country that requires iron self-control.”
He took a deep breath to get hold of himself.
“Let’s go have breakfast together,” she said. “In peace and quiet, all right? That’s a condition. Otherwise I’m through with you. I refuse to let you spoil my morning with your impatience.”
Malkiel would have liked to tell her what he thought of her, but that would have been counterproductive. And what was the meaning of her game? Maybe police surveillance had tightened around them. “This hotel isn’t famous for breakfast,” he said, forcing himself to be amiable. “But I have some good American Nescafé. Will you do me the honor of sharing it with me?”
“But of course, kind sir.”
By now used to Malkiel’s generous tips, the waiter brought them fresh bread, butter, eggs and cheese. Lidia ate with good appetite. Had her woman’s self-respect been wounded? Was she seeking revenge? She chatted about anything but the raped widow. The political economy under this regime, the Communist educational system, international current events as seen by Romanian commentators, literary analyses of the national folklore, funny stories about not so funny love affairs—for over an hour Malkiel played the game, never interrupting or betraying the slightest restlessness. And then with calculated nonchalance Lidia drew a folded sheet of paper from her handbag. “The whole works,” she said. “Name, address, personal data.”
Malkiel almost shouted, “Give it to me!” But he restrained himself. He stared at the folded sheet as if his life depended on it.
“Take it,” Lidia said.
He grabbed it, and stroked it for a moment before unfolding it.
“Will you translate for me?”
“Elena. Calinescu. Linden Street, number fifty-two. Lives with her daughter and son-in-law. There’s a granddaughter too.”
Malkiel tried to keep calm, or at least not to show his anxiety. “She’s alive,” he said.
“And you are going to meet her,” Lidia said.
“When?”
“Right away.”
Without admitting it, Malkiel was somehow afraid to stand before this woman who had haunted his father for so long. What if she hurled reproaches at him? What if she screamed her hatred in his face?
Lidia asked, “Shall we go?”
Outside, it was drizzling. The city was sinister; its colors seemed less friendly, and the trees, in yellow leaf now, more depressing.
It was a silent, disturbing walk of ten minutes to a handsome little two-story house. Lidia rang for the second floor. The door opened a crack. Lidia spoke a few words in Romanian; someone answered. Lidia argued. The door closed. Lidia pursued the argument vigorously. The door opened again. Lidia and Malkiel entered. A disheveled girl led them to the living room. So, Malkiel thought, they have living rooms under the Communists. He wondered which Jewish family the house had once belonged to.
“Good morning, miss,” a voice quavered. “Good morning, sir.” It was a sickly voice, and barely audible. A distinguished-looking woman was standing before them, her head tilted toward her left shoulder. “What can I do for you?”
Malkiel inspected her: short, slight, dressed in black, her features delicate and sad. Was she in mourning? Hollow wrinkled cheeks. Heavy lips and eyelids. “Lidia,” he said, “would you be good enough to explain … but carefully … kindly.”
Lidia explained.
As the old woman listened, or seemed to listen, her head drooped more and more toward her shoulder.
The girl brought them glasses of mineral water. Lidia broke off to take a sip.
“What have you told her?”
“Nothing yet. A few words about you. That you’re a reporter, that you live in the United States, that your father once lived here.”
“Nothing else?”
“That’s all so far.”
The old woman was watching him, and waiting. Where should he begin? “Ask her to excuse us for imposing on her.”
The old woman gave a barely perceptible nod. She picked up a glass of water and squeezed it with both hands.
“And forgive us for opening old wounds—I hope they’re long since healed.” The old woman’s gaze was penetrating and added to Malkiel’s anxiety. “Ask her if she understands what we’re talking about.”
Yes, she understood.
“Ask if she can recall the day of the liberation.”
Lidia translated. The old woman stiffened. She raised her head. “No,” she said. “I don’t remember it.” Was there defiance in this voice, weakened by the years?
“Ask her if she’d consider trying.”
Lidia translated. The old woman, still stiff and proud, answered that she was old, she had lived too many years, too many seasons, too many tragedies. No, she did not recall that day. Besides, it was all so long ago.
“Insist, Lidia. It’s important.” Again Lidia translated.
“To whom?” asked the old woman.
“To me,” Malkiel said.
“I don’t know you. And anyway at my age the things that may be important to you aren’t important to me.”
Lidia translated, turning from one to the other.
“Tell her not to be afraid, Lidia.”
“I’m not afraid,” the old woman said.
“Then why refuse to help me?”
“I don’t know you. So I fail to see how I can help you.”
“By remembering the day of—”
“I’ve forgotten so many things, so many things,” said the old woman. She dragged a chair closer and sat down. From then on Malkiel saw her only in profile. “So many things,” she repeated wearily. “Luckily I’ve managed to forget them.
God in His mercy has helped me erase them from my memory. You’re still young, sir. You can’t understand the virtues of forgetfulness. How could we go on if we remembered everything?”
Lidia translated in a neutral, professional voice.
“I’m not asking you to remember everything,” Malkiel said. “Let’s limit it to one day. The day of the liberation.”
“It was wartime, sir. So many things happen in wartime.”
“What sort of things?”
“Evil things, things that hurt us. Terrible things. Is there anything in war that isn’t terrible?”
“Please tell me more precisely what you mean.”
The old woman could not. She was very sorry. She was too tired and too old to pierce the mists that enveloped her memory. She was sorry, but he must understand that.…
“Forgive me, madam, but do you remember your husband?” Here we go, Malkiel thought, tense.
“What a question! Of course I remember my husband,” the old woman said. “How could I forget him? He’s right here in the next room. In bed with a bad cold.”
Then she had remarried? Lidia had not mentioned that. Unless he had misunderstood her. He had fixed on the one fact that she was still alive. “Children?”
“Three. All married. Two live far away. We have seven grandchildren. Maria lives here with her husband and their daughter.”
Three children, Malkiel thought. “How old is your eldest child?”
“It’s a daughter, Silvia.”
“How old is she?”
“Why do you want to know that? What do you care about my children’s ages?”
“I promise to explain, madam.”
“Well, let’s see. I married my husband when I was … when I was twenty-five, maybe a little younger. Silvia? Thirty-eight, if I’m not mistaken.”
Malkiel did some quick arithmetic and sighed with relief. No, Itzik the Long had no descendants in Romania. Yet how many times had it happened to how many others? “And your first husband, madam? Do you remember him?”
She stiffened again. Painful memories froze her bony face. Her silence became opaque. Her hands gripped the arms of her chair.
“He was an important man, wasn’t he? A Nyilas officer. Zoltan—remember his name? Remember his uniform? His weapons? His whip? Have you really forgotten him? He detested Jews and hunted them down. Did you know that? He stalked them and beat them and tortured them. Isn’t that true, madam—your husband killed Jews?”
In cutting, staccato tones Malkiel struck blow after blow. To hurt her? To rouse her from her torpor, to stir her up. But she, head high and gaze hard, sat mute.
Malkiel said, “Lidia, tell her I am not here to accuse her of anything, and even less to torture her, but …”
“But?” Lidia echoed.
“To understand. And that’s the truth. I came to see her so I could understand my father better.”
“What? In slashing at this poor woman you think you can help your father?”
“No, Lidia, it’s not that. It’s too late for my father.”
“Is he dead?”
“No, he’s still alive. Yes, my father is alive. But … never mind. I’ll explain it some other time. Just believe me for now: Madame Calinescu’s answers are extremely important to me.”
The old woman seemed to have sensed the meaning of
this exchange. She brought her hands forward and set them on her knees, and bit her lips before speaking again. “Tell him he’s right. My first husband was a bad man. He liked to do evil, and he hurt me often.”
“You? Why?”
“I used to beg him to break with his Nyilas friends. I wanted him to change. I wanted to live with a husband and not a hangman.”
They had been married six or seven months before the liberation. He was the son of a friend of her father’s. It was an arranged marriage, of course. She was young, very young, barely out of her adolescence. She dreamed of a Prince Charming. Her father said, “I’ve found your Prince Charming. He’s a Nyilas, but that will pass.” The man was called Zoltan. The girls liked him in his glittering uniform. “How could I doubt his character, his nobility of spirit? I was naive and stupid.” He was a handsome fellow, sensual, vain, and he treated people with contempt. Yes, he beat his victims. Yes, he hated them, Jews most of all. Yes, he went to the ghetto to “clean it out,” as he said. When he came back he radiated triumph. And she, his wife? While he was gone she stayed home with her many servants. Locked in her room, the shutters closed, she wept. “What are you crying about?” he asked. “You need everybody to be your victim,” she answered. Then he whipped her. And she stopped weeping.
“Yes. How could I have forgotten my first husband?” the old woman said.
Actually, she could have escaped, gone home to her parents and told them, “Zoltan is a monster. I don’t love him and he doesn’t love me.” Or, “We love each other at night, when we’re alone in bed. But we’re never really alone. His victims are always there; I can hear them groaning.” Or
again, “Yes, we still love each other sometimes, we love each other with a twisted love, a cursed love.” Yes, she should have, she should have.
Malkiel could not help sympathizing. How can anyone go through life in a constant state of remorse? Why hadn’t she left her jailer husband? Or fought back against the growing horror? She should have understood that such a refusal could have saved her—a refusal that ran with and not against life’s grain, which transforms a handful of dust into a human being. Now it is too late.
Malkiel understood why she would want to forget. The days of the ghetto, and the humiliation of a people. Days of tenderness, too. Days when she loved her monster of a husband, when she sulked without him, when she embraced him and sought to mingle his breath with her own. She wanted to erase those images—what could be more natural? Had Malkiel any right to impose them upon her? An inner voice said, “Stop. Leave this poor woman alone. She’s suffered enough, she has a right to rest, even if she can find it only in forgetting.” But he knew he had to go on with his quest. Why? Pure instinct; he knew he had to.
“Your first husband, madam. Do you remember his death?”
Yes, she remembered. They came to inform her one afternoon in spring. She was in her garden. An officer stood before her, solemn and somber. Erect and respectful. “Be strong, madam,” he said. “In the name of the minister of war and the commander in chief of the army, I must bring you sad news.” She heard only the first words, “Be strong,” and she guessed the rest. Wild thoughts tumbled in her mind. “He will never hurt anyone again.” “I will never be humiliated again.” “I am a widow. I am not yet twenty and already I am a widow.” And then? Then she must have fainted. Who killed her husband? She hardly knew now. Yes, she knew. Partisans. Jewish partisans. They lived in the forests and the
mountains. Young people, who had escaped from the local ghetto, and other ghettos. “I saw his corpse. It was unrecognizable. I remember it. I said to myself, ‘It is the dead who killed him. It is his own victims who punished him.’ I remember because my parents were there. They told me that during the funeral services I kept saying one word over and over: ‘Punishment, punishment.’ The Russians moved in a few days or a few weeks later.”
Lidia interrupted. “She’s telling the truth. I got confirmation. She wasn’t touched after the liberation. They said her conduct had been irreproachable.”
Malkiel tried to imagine her young. She must have been beautiful. Fine features. Innocence itself. He tried to imagine her as victim. Victim of Itzik the Long. Screaming. Begging for pity.
It was still raining outside. A bird flew suddenly into his field of vision and seemed to be carrying shreds of cloud on its wings.
“As a young widow,” Lidia went on, “she spent several weeks in a clinic not far from here. For mental disorders.”
Of course, Malkiel thought.
“Of course,” Lidia said. “Her husband’s death. The shame of having been a Nyilas torturer’s wife. The wild turmoil at the liberation.”
Malkiel stepped closer to the old woman. He needed to look directly into her face. He gazed into her eyes. He saw nothing. There was no expression in her eyes. “Lidia, ask her if she sees me. If she doesn’t see me, ask her what she does see.”
The old woman did not answer the question. Lidia repeated it. Still she did not answer. She’s tired, Malkiel decided.
“I’m tired,” the old woman said. “These memories are a great weight.”
Malkiel was not happy as an investigator. An inquisitor? All evidence points to this woman having also been a victim. Why add to her suffering by forcing her to relive the past? The same voice told him that this was enough. And again he did not heed it.
“Try to forgive me, madam,” he said, leaning forward. “It will be painful, but I have no choice. My motives are honorable.”