The Birthday Buyer (19 page)

I see the consul driving up at last, and say to myself, “Goodbye Frankfurt, goodbye hospital, goodbye century.” I make my escape via the car door. I’m going home. Really?

Primo Levi returned to Turin on October 19 in the same year that Hurbinek died. He writes that his house was just as he left it and that no one was expecting him. No one in his family recognized him at first when they saw him he was so changed. He took a long time to rid himself of the anguish in his dreams. I haven’t changed over these weeks, and my daughters will easily recognize me, I am sure, but deep down I
have
really changed. Perhaps it is a subtle change, as they say of men who suddenly grow old or mature. I have re-visited the last century, I have entered into its horrors and imagined its gray epicenter in the short life of little Hurbinek, the three-year-old Jewish boy. Thinking, researching and telling all that has changed me. Of course it has.

I now know for sure: I was going to Auschwitz, but not anymore.

This novel is dedicated to the memory of Scholomo Buczko, Belo König, Rubem Yetzev, Abrahan Levine, Elias Achtzehn, Ernst Sterman, Chaim Roth, Ira Roth, Prosper Andlauer, Franz Patzold, Jan Vesely, Ahmed Yildirim, Manuel Valiño, David Bogdanowski, Joseph Grosselin, Auguste Friedel, Konrad Egger, Berek Goldstein, Sofia Cèrmik, Yakov Pawlicka, Ari Pawlicka, Aaron Cèrmik, Stefan Cèrmik, Samuel Pawlicka, David Pawlicka, Gork Vigo, Sara Zelman, Mikaela Zelman, Gus Lazar, Ansel Block, Artur Sugar, Frankie Sugar, Simon Azvel, Josefina Luftig, Sara Ruda Malach, Barbara Breonka, Ada Neufeld, Gloria Monod, Moniek Swajcer, Anita Sachs, Ángela Pérez León, Ruchel Szlezinger, Miriam Szlezinger, Mosze Gold and Gavrilo Gold, who lived under other names.

The translation of Paul Celan is from
Paul Celan. Poet, Survivor, Jew
by John Felstiner, Yale University Press, 2001.

The translations from
If This Is a Man
and
The Truce
by Primo Levi are from the translations by Stuart Woolf, Penguin Books, 1979.

ADOLFO GARCÍA ORTEGA
has been involved in the world of books and literature since 1980, as a translator, editor, literary critic and journalist. He regularly contributes to the Spanish newspaper
El País
and is currently Associate Publishing Director of the Planeta Publishing Group. He has a distinguished reputation as a writer, and his diverse output includes poetry, fiction and nonfiction works. The novels
Lobo
,
Desolation Island, Café Hugo
,
The Birthday Buyer
and
Pasajero K
, have all brought him considerable public and critical acclaim, receiving major awards as well as being widely translated. His latest fiction work is the collection of stories
Verdaderas historias extraordinarias
.

PETER BUSH
is an award-winning translator who lives in Barcelona. His translations from Spanish include Valle-Inclán’s
Tyrant Banderas
, García Lorca’s
Sketches of Spain: Impressions and Landscapes
, and García Ortega’s
Desolation Island
. His translation of Quim Monzó’s
A Thousand Morons
is just out and other fiction from Catalan will soon follow: his wife Teresa Solana’s
The Sound of One Hand Killing
and Mercè Rodoreda’s
In Diamond Square
. His first translation was Juan Goytisolo’s
Forbidden Territory
. He has translated a dozen books by Goytisolo and is currently working on his poetry.

1
“Fast, fast, fast! Bear down, Jew!”

2
Death, in German.

3
“Outside! Outside!”