The Boxer (9 page)

Later the two sat alone at the table. Kenik smiled and said, “The idea with the hair is good.”

“With what hair?”

“Didn’t you dye it?”

Aron grimaced and felt uneasy, especially since he admitted to himself only now that he had come to look for work, even though he would never ask for it. He was sitting in front of Kenik like a supplicant in disguise and waited for an offer. Kenik didn’t let him wait long; he said, “Now, between you and me, Aron, how’s it going?”

“How should it go? It’s going fine. As you can see, I didn’t die, I wear a clean shirt, what more does one need?”

“One needs much more,” Kenik said. “What do you live off?”

“You were there when I picked up my money.”

“I picked up money, too. But that’s not what I live off.”

“I do.”

“That’s wrong, Aron,” Kenik sighed, “that’s absolutely wrong. We were the lowest dirt for long enough.”

“What exactly do you mean?” Aron asked.

“Don’t you think we deserve a better life? Haven’t we served our time? Don’t you think we have the right to a job with enough money to lead a decent existence? That others live miserably today, can that be an argument for us? Isn’t it our turn now?”

Apparently Kenik felt like philosophizing, but Aron wanted to hear concrete suggestions, a concrete offer, after which it would be easier to chat about claims and rights and human dignity. “And where should I get such a job?” he asked.

“That’s why we’re here.”

Kenik fetched more schnapps and then revealed the possibilities available. “We are dealers,” he said. “Our principle is, buy cheap and sell expensive.”

“An original method,” Aron said. “But what do you buy, and what do you sell?”

“Whatever people need. Nails, coffee, medicine, wood, cloth, shoes, everything.”

“Where do you get it?”

“We get it,” Kenik said. “That’s not your problem.”

“And what should I do?”

“You should help to sell.”

“To whom?”

“Anyone who wants to buy.”

“I should stand on the street and call out?”

“If you don’t have any better ideas, yes,” Kenik said.

“I can only tell you, you will be surprised how easy it is to sell these days. People tear everything out of your hands.”

Aron turned his glass and was disappointed; he knew that this wasn’t the right job for him. A pity, he would certainly make a lot of money, but it sounded like the kind of job you must be born to do or be trained for since youth, and he thought he fulfilled neither condition. To spend his days in the black market or in the back rooms of shops, then talk to Paula in the evening and lie with her at night, he didn’t feel up to such a double life.
Wherever you are, there is the black market
. “You mustn’t answer right away. Tomorrow I’ll introduce you to Tennenbaum; he’s not here now,” Kenik said.

“Who’s Tennenbaum?”

“An important man for us, but don’t ask so many questions.”

Then they talked about the old times. The following afternoon Aron appeared for the announced audience with Tennenbaum. He thought he could just as easily have stayed home; there was hardly any hope that this Tennenbaum would make him a different offer than Kenik had, but then again he might. He went with the firm intention to refuse any and all suggestions that sounded like the initial offer. Kenik was waiting in front of the bar and said, “Come on, he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

I
succeeded in luring Aron out of his apartment; the weather helped. I didn’t name a destination, just suggested a few steps out the door. To my amazement he stood up and put on his shoes. Had I foreseen his willingness, I would have thought of a destination, some small distraction for him. So we walk, as if it were obvious, to the neighboring park. He takes off his summer coat and hangs it over his arm; he hadn’t believed me that it’s warm. Swans maneuver on a pond; Aron sits on a bench without saying a word. I think he’s in pain. “Do you know what I think of all the time?” I ask.

He doesn’t reply, “What?”

I continue, “If anyone but you had told me about the Hessischen Weinstuben, I would have considered him an anti-Semite.”

“Why?”

“It can’t possibly be true that all the black marketers were Jews.”

“Did I say that?”

“Not in so many words. But in the Weinstuben there were only —”

Aron interrupted me. “Is it so hard to understand that I went to the Weinstuben only because Kenik invited me and that Kenik went there only because only Jews went there? There were definitely thousands of other Weinstuben, without Jews. But Kenik didn’t go there. And therefore neither did I.”

“Yes.”

“And something else,” Aron says. “I’m not telling you the history of the postwar years, I’m telling you what happened to me. There are bound to be differences. I understand that you have a certain vision and that you worry about contradictions. But that is your problem, my friend, not mine.”

He rolls up his coat, pushes it under his head, and stretches his legs. Within five minutes he’s asleep. I have never seen him sleep. I observe him and wait for flies to chase away.

A
ron had thought that he would meet Tennenbaum in the Hessischen Weinstuben, but Kenik steered him away from the bar, a couple of streets down to Tennenbaum’s apartment. On the way he drew a portrait of the chief: very clever mind, erudite, before the war a lawyer or something like that, in any case a jurist, outstanding relations with the Allies, not a friend of many words, strict but just. “The first time he might seem a little gruff, but that’s his personality.”

“Did you already talk to him about me?”

“Last night.”

“And?”

“I just announced that we would visit him today, nothing more. Only so he knows who’s before him.”

An elderly woman opened the door. Kenik said, “We have an appointment with Mr. Tennenbaum.”

The woman led them into a
rich
room, bookshelves all the way to the ceiling, Oriental carpets, draped curtains. Kenik let himself sink into a leather chair and made an inviting hand motion, as if all this were his property. Aron made an effort to appear relaxed; he felt that Kenik’s announcement and the peculiar room were having an effect on him. He was also starting to think of Tennenbaum as an important man, even though, until then, nothing spoke for or against that idea.

“Look here,” Kenik whispered. He stood near the door and pressed the light switch. A stunningly large crystal chandelier with perhaps thirty lightbulbs blinded Aron. Kenik immediately turned it off and sat down, so that he wouldn’t get caught by the owner of the house, a
big baby
. Aron thought, This Tennenbaum cannot have gotten this house any differently than I got mine; some Leutwein or other must have lived here once. With his good relationship to the Allies, the apartment was no proof of his true wealth.

“I don’t like to be kept waiting either,” he said. “He’s probably very busy,” Kenik said. “Please don’t be impatient.”

“I also have things to do.”

Finally Tennenbaum came, inconspicuousness personified, Aron found, average size, thin. The only notable thing about him was a certain gold tiepin with a red stone. “Don’t get up,” he said.

He sat down; the elderly woman stuck her head around the door and asked if she should bring something, tea perhaps.

“No,” said Tennenbaum, and then, “It would be better if we speak in private first.”

Kenik stood up immediately, said, “Naturally,” and then good-bye. As he left he winked, unnoticed by Tennenbaum; then they were alone.

“So, you want to start working with us?”

“That’s not exactly right.”

“What do you mean?”

“Kenik has made me an offer. He told me it’s better if you inform me of the possibilities. For now I can’t speak of wanting.”

“So you don’t want to work with us?”

“Let’s put it like this: First I must hear what kind of job we’re talking about, only then can I make up my mind.”

“Didn’t Kenik tell you?”

“A little. It didn’t sound very interesting.”

“What did he say?”

Aron repeated the contents of the previous day’s conversation and didn’t fail to tell him that he wasn’t suitable for such an occupation in any way, for buying and selling at a high price. That he didn’t think much of a training period. Because of his unsuitability, he also had no inclination. He intentionally chose self-confident words and an appropriate tone. Tennenbaum should know that he didn’t have an odd-job man in front of him;
the first impression is everything
.

“What’s your profession?” Tennenbaum asked.

“Before the camp I worked as a company secretary in a textile factory.”

“Did it belong to a Jew?”

“Yes.”

“What was his name?”

“You wouldn’t know him,” Aron said. He disliked the questions and answers game, he felt like he was under interrogation.

Tennenbaum said, “Don’t be rash, and above all, don’t be so sensitive. If we’re going to work together, I have to know certain things about you. So, what was his name?”

“London.”

Tennenbaum snorted. Of course he knew London, though only in passing. He knew who London was, he even knew about his move to the United States. And as he learned of Aron’s family relationship with London, he professed he even had a vague memory of a son-in-law. “I remember, there was a rumor about marriage. What was the daughter called, Rosa?”

“Linda.”

“Right, Linda London.”

Now Tennenbaum was apparently in the position of placing Aron in the picture. He became friendlier; he opened a hidden closet in the bookshelf and took out a cherry liqueur. “I must confess, I’ve been waiting for you for a long time,” he said.

“For me?”

“Not for you personally, but for a man with your qualifications. Of course, selling isn’t a job for you.”

The rest lasted barely half an hour. Tennenbaum outlined his future field of work. He was looking for someone who would keep his books, who would record all the incoming and outgoing movements — “Which is more than you think” — allowing a precise overview of the traffic. Until then, this had been done halfheartedly. He had taken care of this job himself, Tennenbaum said, as a bloody layman with a huge amount of effort and scarce success. “Do you trust you can do the job?”

“Who would I be keeping the books for?”

“For me, naturally. For who else?”

“You don’t understand,” Aron said. “I mean, for the internal revenue, for the tax office, for whom?”

“For me,” Tennenbaum said. “We have nothing to do with the authorities. For me and my overview.”

That simplified the matter enormously, Aron explains to me; there was no difference between gross and net amounts, a Sunday job for trained bookkeepers. Only the question of payment remained open. Aron had almost forgotten it, for him it had been secondary.

I
feel that’s exaggerated or understated, it could hardly correspond to the truth. I can’t believe that money was such a side issue. “Excuse me, you’re going to have to explain that,” I say.

“What is there to explain?” he asks, irritated as usual because of the interruption. “That’s the way it was.”

“The pay couldn’t have been secondary to you. On the contrary. I would understand if you had tried to get as much out of it as you possibly could. I keep hearing how anxious you were to catch up. How does that fit?”

“Who did you hear that from? From me?”

“If you like, not from you, but wasn’t that so? Didn’t you have an overwhelming desire to catch up?”

I mustn’t always get in his way with my assumptions, Aron says. And I should not bother him with what I pick up from others. “If you really want to know, it was the other way around. I didn’t want more and more; on the contrary, I was satisfied with so little that I thought I was touched in the head. In fact, I wasn’t right in the head; the last few years had muddled my sense of priorities. I felt as if I was in paradise. A good-looking woman, an apartment, a rediscovered child, enough to eat — had I dared to imagine such luck in the camp?” he asks. “And with all this, I would stand there and haggle over money?”

I
n the end, Tennenbaum got around to discussing the salary only just before they parted. That late, because he evidently expected Aron to bring up the subject, but he had no other choice. He made him two offers — his decision — one was two thousand marks a month, the other was a one percent share in the total profit. By his calculation, he said, they both amounted more or less to the same thing. “I want to earn a decent wage but not to your disadvantage, as you can see. Not on my people,” he said.

“I agree,” Aron said.

“With which option?”

“You choose.”

Tennenbaum smiled about his new bookkeeper, behind whose seeming lack of resolve refinement probably lurked. He opted for the percentage of profits. He gave Aron the existing documents — two books and many papers — pointed out the inadequacy of the previous bookkeeping, and asked if Aron needed some money up front, to get writing materials or for personal purposes.

“No,” Aron said. “But where should I work?”

“Can’t you work at home?”

“Not really.”

“Then I’ll try to find a room for you. It occurs to me that in the back of the bar there is a small room. Take a look at it, see if it’s suitable.”

“Actually, I can work at home,” Aron said after brief consideration.

T
he work was easy; it didn’t require particularly difficult bookkeeping tricks. After all, it was only for Tennen-baum’s overview. Child’s play, Aron says, that cost him hardly two hours a day; it would have been accomplished more quickly if it weren’t for incredibly small entries that would pop up time and again. Eighteen pins or twelve shaving mirrors; nothing was too great a loss for Tennenbaum, and success proved him right.

The one percent profit share never, except in the extremely slack months, fell below the two thousand mark barrier; on average it rose well above it. Tennenbaum had decided luckily or generously A further advantage for Aron was that Tennenbaum gave him the possibility of getting part of his salary in goods from the current stock of the firm and at the buying rate, which no one besides the two of them knew. In this way, Aron’s money was worth incomparably more than in the hands of
the Germans
.