The Jewish Dog (13 page)

CHAPTER 19

A
fter the officers' visit
,
Georg grew callous and distant
.
On the days that he went to school
,
he came home angry and grumbling
.
His mother tried to reach out to him
,
but he kept his answers curt and shut himself in his room
.
He would stay behind his closed door until his friends called him to join the youth movement activities
.
Only when he went with his friends to the youth movement did a spark of excitement appear in his eye
.
This spark grew when he'd unleash me on Gypsy children after the activities.

We went to the youth movement with Lars
,
Paul
,
and Richard
.
I enjoyed watching Georg marching with his friends
.
He was so graceful
,
swinging each arm and leg with perfect coordination
.
After the marching exercises
,
Georg and his friends would listen to their counselors.

“Who are we protecting ourselves from?” the counselor asked.

“From Jews and Bolsheviks,” the well-trained Lars replied.

“And what does the Führer demand of us?”

“Obedience and sacrifice,” Georg recited.

Later the boys would race and wrestle
.
The moments when I had to watch one of the older boys bring Georg to his knees were as painful for me as they were for him
.
I jumped
,
barked
,
and lost control
.
Each time
,
I tried to go to my owner's aid
,
but the chain attached to my collar held me fast
.
I almost choked myself in my attempts to intervene and help Georg.

The best part of the youth movement was the hunting
.
At the end of each activity
,
the little Hitler Youths would depart in small groups to hunt Gypsies and Judes
,
singing a chorus of hate as loud as they could.

Bringt uns her einen Jud

Auf dem Spiess ergeht ihm gut

Und dann singen wir laut

Haut den Schlangenkopf
,
haut!

Let's go find a dirty Kike.

We'll impale him on a spike.

Then together we will shout,

hit the snake head
.
Knock it out!

Armed with bludgeons
,
Georg and his friends released their anger on each Jew that crossed their path
.
Men and women of every age and size were struck, with no discrimination
.
The excitement of the hunt awakened repressed instincts
.
A slumbering voice was stirred by the sound of trumpets
.
The pack would not rest until it smelled blood
.
With flashing eyes I released my anger as I chased the dirty Jews
.
The smell of their fear ignited my dark side
.
The cheers coming from Georg and his friends were fuel for the fires of hell flaming inside me.

But as I lay me down to sleep
,
I was revisited by the gloom of that day long ago
,
when I had hunted the black kitten with Karl Gustav and the tag club
.
The burden of regret was unbearable
.
One day
,
I entered Georg's room and found his closet door open
.
I examined myself in the mirror before me
.
There was a strange glimmer in my eye.

On one of the many nights of vagrancy
,
Georg and his friends recognized a young Jew
.
Although the street was dark and the Jew had his back to the pack
,
his hunched stride and curved back exposed his ethnicity.

“A Jew
,
Wilhelm!” Georg shouted
,
and I shot toward the boy at the end of the street with my usual determination
,
racing like a wild beast
,
ready to bite fiercely.

“Go on
,
Wilhelm
!
Go on
,
Wilhelm!” The cheers reached my ears.

Once again
,
I thought to myself
,
once again I can make my dear Georg happy
.
He'll hug me and tell everyone how proud he is of my performance.

The distance between me and the Jew was just four feet and it was time for the final pounce
,
but suddenly my ears pointed and my nose trembled with fear.

“Lay not thine jaws upon the child,”
a voice spoke
,
and goosebumps rose on my flesh.

“Lay not thine jaws upon the child and do not harm him!”
My fur stood on end from tip to tail
.
I looked closely and the recognition struck me like lightning
.
The helpless Jew was none other than the child Moishe
,
Moishe
,
who was a guest at the Gottliebs' house for Seder night a lifetime ago.

“Get him
,
Wilhelm
!
Rip him up!”

“Shema Yisrael!”
Moishe shouted a prayer
,
shielding his face with his hands.

I bit Moishe's shirt sleeve and tried to pull him away from Georg and his friends
.
Moishe didn't recognize me as his childhood friend
,
and in his distress
,
he hit my head.

“He's hitting Wilhelm,” Richard shouted
,
and Georg and his friends ran toward us in order to exact revenge against the audacious Jew
.
I stood between Moishe and Georg
.
I growled as though possessed
.
Everyone looked at me
,
shocked into silence
,
as I walked in circles
,
barking and baring my teeth.

“What's wrong with him?”

“The Jude bewitched him!”

I ran like the devil had my tail
.

Georg and his friends followed closely behind.

“Stop
,
Wilhelm
,
stop,” Georg pleaded.

I looked back and noticed that Moishe had taken advantage of the fact that everyone was now chasing me
,
and he could escape from his pursuers.

Georg's calls didn't subside
.
He continued running after me even when all his friends gave up and stayed behind
.
Breathing heavily from effort
,
he continued shouting
,
“Stop
,
stop
,
Wilhelm
 . .
 
.
Wilhelm
,
please stop. . . .”

Georg's pleas tore at my heart
.
I couldn't listen to his broken voice any longer
.
I doubled my speed
.
My running was no longer the stumbling strides of a puppy
.
I ran like a powerful dog with well-formed muscles.

A new spirit uplifted me and I heard a loud noise from behind
.
As I ran
,
I shed my temporary names
.
“Your name will no longer be Wilhelm, nor Zelig will it be,”
an ancient voice echoed in my ears
.
“From now and forever, your name will be Caleb.”

CHAPTER 20

A
s my running wound down to a trot
,
I headed toward the Gottliebs' house
.
I wandered for hours
.
My paws became swollen from the prolonged walking
,
and the pads on the bottoms of my paws nearly wore through
.
The streets were covered in shards of glass
.
Pillars of smoke rose from every corner of the city
.
I took one wrong turn after another and followed paths that led me farther and farther from my birth home
.
Misleading voices had me walking astray
;
scents that seemed familiar led me off my path
.
And yet
,
each time I made a mistake
,
a higher power came along and set me straight on my way.

In a dark alley
,
I saw a group of young hooligans dressed in brown uniforms and armed with cudgels
.
They struck an elderly lady to the ground
.
One of them kicked her in the ribs
,
spat on her
,
and shouted
,
“You dirty
,
wrinkled Jewish whore.” The boys stood over her and urinated
.
One of the boys saw me staring and threw a stone in my direction
.
The stone missed and I quickly retreated
.
The god of abandoned dogs was on my side.

At midnight I stood on my four exhausted legs in front of my birth home
.
The curtains were drawn
,
and no light could be seen inside the house
.
I walked toward the entrance and climbed the familiar stairs
.
A dark fear of looming calamities snuck into my heart
.
I listened carefully and scratched at the door with my front paw
.
Not a sound was heard
.
Though I knew the house was uninhabited
,
I put my snout to the crack at the bottom of the door and tried to retrieve the trace of a scent
.
I couldn't smell anything but fresh paint
.
I barked
,
and immediately regretted doing so
.
I feared that angry neighbors would appear, to kick me away.

I waited for two more days
,
wandering the streets and gardens around the house
.
Those were my first two nights under the clear sky
.
On the third night
,
light emerged from the windows of the house
.
I saw that a new family had moved into the Gottliebs' home
.
I could feel goosebumps under my fur
,
and a sense of deep loss flooded my body
.
I would never see my dear family again
.
I realized I had become a stray.

A broch iz mir!
7
I couldn't stand my own scent
.
I could feel how my body was overtaken by the stench of fear
.
The blood drained from my face
.
I had just about adopted that ever-terrified face – the face of a persecuted Jew
.
Days dragged on in an ominous routine
.
Some people would grant me half a sandwich
,
a biscuit
,
or a bone
.
Others would throw a rock
,
or even a kick in my direction.

I learned the hard way that humans were divided into the good
,
the bad
,
and the indifferent.

I spent most of my hours hiding under a bush or in the shaded corner of an alley
.
Sometimes
,
when the hunger and frustration became unbearable
,
I would follow people I saw in the street
.
“Look at that dog,” a woman would say to her husband
.
“Look how he's following us
.
I think he's looking for a home.”

Most people ignored me
.
At first
,
I tried to keep track of the time going by
.
One day
,
two days
,
three
.
Eventually I lost count
,
and my entire existence became an amorphous blend of wandering and survival
.
From courtyard to courtyard
,
dumpster to dumpster
,
and trash pile to trash pile
.
Another desperate attempt at a child's sandwich
;
once again following a lady with a pleasant scent of home
,
and then frustration once more
.
Sometimes I would linger near a passerby and he would bend down and pet me
.
These were brief moments of false hope.

One girl pointed at me as I passed her on the street
,
her face mirroring the look of wretchedness in my eyes
.
“Daddy
,
look what a cute doggy
!
Let's take him home.”

Her father put a bit of sense in her head
.
“Leave him alone
,
he's just a dirty stray
.
When you grow up we'll buy you a real dog.”

That wasn't the only instance
.
I can easily remember five different cases when merciful children called me to join them
,
but when we got home
,
their parents instructed them to send me away.

During the day I longed for the protection cast by darkness
;
at night I yearned for the warmth of day
.
Food
,
which I had always taken for granted as a pup
,
was now a rarity
.
Each time I came across a makeshift meal
,
every time I was lucky enough to feel sated
,
the count began again
:
one day since my last meal
,
two days. . . 
.
At night
,
the horrible sights I saw came back to me
.
The bonfires
,
the tall flames
,
charred pieces of paper detaching from books and fluttering away in the wind.

I walked the streets
,
avoiding stick-wielding boys and municipal workers
.
But it was the house dogs I worried about most
.
Those well-kept dogs who had owners
,
homes
,
and a lot of luck
.
Almost every day
,
no matter how well I concealed myself
,
I was sniffed out and chased away by the house dogs
.
Luckily
,
they were usually on a leash
.
After barking vehemently at me
,
they would turn their heads to their owners
,
waiting to be petted
,
as though they had served them well in chasing away an unwanted
,
despicable intruder.

Once I saw a little boy holding a pair of leashes
,
attached to a pair of large dogs
.
The dogs looked alike and seemed to be brothers
.
One of them noticed me and barked menacingly at me
.
His brother quickly tried to outbark him
.
The boy
,
surprised by his dogs' violent reactions
,
slipped and fell
.
The dogs
,
now free
,
began chasing me
.
They were well-fed
,
healthy dogs
,
and I was poor and hungry
,
a nothing
,
alone and abandoned
.
If it weren't for one brave lady who stood between us and waved her umbrella at them
,
their sharp teeth would have made me into a sieve.

I had no place in the world
.
I asked myself how much longer I could go on like this
.
I wondered when the fall would come from which there would be no rising
.
How would it happen? I asked myself
.
What should I expect? Dehydration
,
stupor
,
helplessly collapsing . . 
.
and then the silent hope that it would end quickly
.
A relentless instinct forced me to be prudent
.
During the day
,
I made sure to stay in the shade
.
When I passed a puddle or a dripping tap
,
I drank all I could
.
I felt my energy slowly draining
.
I grew thinner and thinner each day
,
and it seemed that I would soon disappear
.
Little food found its way into my mouth during those weeks of wandering.

When the full moon was out
,
I would look at it
,
hypnotized.

The moon fascinated me with its magical bond.

One evening
,
I was walking by the Rosenpark
,
the park where I used to run and play tag with my friend Karl Gustav and the rest of the tag club
.
The park was empty
,
the benches deserted
,
and the grass bare
.
I walked through the park until my paws led me to the tree where the poor kitten had found his temporary refuge
.
I sat at the foot of the tree with my head held high and looked at the moon
.
The moon that governs the rise and fall of the ocean tides drew an age-old howl from my throat
.
My howl pierced the darkness and carried endless pain.

It was the way of the world – Esau hates Jacob
,
dogs hate cats
.
I tried to alleviate the heaviness of my heart but I was plagued by regret
.
The meow of that kitten was crying from the earth
.
If only I had stood between Karl Gustav and his friends and this innocent kitten
.
If only I had distracted them from the pointless hunt
.
If only I had chased away the boys. . . 
.
But the truth gripped me
:
I could have saved the kitten and I had not.

I lay down by the tree and rested my face on the grass
.
Was this a worthy existence? I looked deep into my soul and asked myself
,
am I living a life worth living?

I closed my eyes
,
putting all the strength I had toward ignoring my hunger pangs
,
and fell asleep.

At midnight
,
a vision was revealed to me in a dream
.
Humanity had destroyed itself
.
Fauna and flora had gone with it into the nothingness
,
and I alone was left
.
The only creature to walk on four
.
A poetic and withdrawn dog
,
wandering among the ruins of a lost world
.
I was walking in a narrow canyon – an endless
,
winding dry riverbed
.
I could see the faces of my forefathers among the rocks
.
The clouds joined together to form the face of the Dog in the Sky
.
A huge Dog
,
dotted and spotted and colored by the clouds and sun.

The Heavenly Dog barked in a deep voice
:
“Get thee out from thy country and from thy birthplace.”