See Under by David Grossman (famous ebook reader TXT) 📕

I could see that. They were still worked up. But what interested me now was the story. The story, and the way the writer had succeeded in “infecting Neigel with humanity,” clear and simple. But first I had to ask Anshel Wasserman to let me in on that “incident of a private nature” the German had alluded to; only, Wasserman was truly shocked by my request and he categorically refused. (“I cannot rush matters, you understand! After all, we have an obligation to our story, the story as a living, breathing creature, a mysterious, lovely, anddelicate creature we must not twist or break to suit our own impetuous whims, lest we bring forth a kind of zhibaleh, or fetus that drops out of its mother in the seventh month, making us murderers, murderers of a living story …”)

“And now, Herr Neigel,” pronounces Anshel Wasserman, “if you wish, I will tell you my story.”

Neigel grumbles that he isn’t sure he wants to hear it anymore, but he folds his arms and orders Wasserman to begin. The writer opens his notebook. I alone can see that there is only one word written there. One word. Nu nu, I tell myself, I have a feeling Neigel isn’t going to be satisfied with the rate of delivery.

“Begging your pardon, I will not read much to you this evening,” says Wasserman, and Neigel glances at his watch. “There’s not much time left anyway, after all your clever tricks!” he answers angrily, unable to refrain from asking Wasserman again, “Is Paula really dead?” And Wasserman replies, “Of course. Only, she is still among us, as I told you before.” “Tell me,” asks Neigel caustically, “how do you propose to bring it off? Artistically, that is—how can she be alive and dead at the same time?” And Wasserman answers, “What choice have I, Herr Neigel? Maybe you would understand better if you found yourself, heaven forbid, in my situation. Because when all your dear ones are dead and gone, you are forced to enlist them as they are.” “Is that so?” asks Neigel suspiciously, but he says no more. Wasserman coughs self-importantly, and takes a deep breath.

“We worked in the forest” (reads Wasserman from the empty notebook). “The mine was deep and musty, constructed with tunnel after tunnel full of strange mystery, which gave off a smell of mildew and the dung of foxes and rabbits. The tunnels led to the hall of friendship. There we would meet of an evening after the day’s work, to converse and enjoy each other’s company. Old friends were with us, as well as new companions, recently recruited by our good Otto. The years that have gone by since last we met—fifty years or more!—have greatly changed us, engraved bad tidings upon our faces, and sown the seeds of old age and death in the folds of our skin. But the most important thing of all remains unchanged, with all its charm and vigor, and time, it seems, has no dominion over it, that is, the desire to do good unto those who are in need, and to have compassion on those in need of compassion, to love those who need love. And with us were Otto andPaula and Albert Fried, ai, Fried had received the honor of a doctor’s mortarboard! He, it seems, has aged more than any of us, and ‘Golden Hands’ Sergei was with us, too, still aloof, always busy, with the same peculiar walk, as though his neck were made of delicate glass, and Harotian, too, is with us, ai, Harotian the Armenian, world-renowned magician and wonder-worker! From Ludwig van Beethoven’s loft to the banks of the Ganges in India. The same Harotian who had been miraculously rescued when the Turks fell upon his small village like a cloud of locusts, to slaughter and plunder, oy, Herr Neigel, see his sad visage, see the horrible sights engraved therein! …”

Neigel merely hums. Wasserman regards him briefly and continues: “Harotian, no longer a youth, has performed his magic everywhere. He was, it seems, the only member of the band lucky enough to amass a small fortune before the war … but when war broke out, it found Harotian in the city of Warsaw, and the gates were closed unto him, and he cursed his evil fate, ai, his magic was of no avail this time, and I will tell you a secret: for some years now Harotian has refrained from his truly wonderful magic, the magic he performed as a youth with the Children of the Heart, and now his tricks are naught but legerdemain, this for reasons of his own about which I will tell you presently. In short, Harotian was detained in Warsaw, in the Jewish ghetto, in other words, and was forced to lend a dissenting shoulder to the building of the wall round and round us, and he stood apart from us and despised us, I believe, but what choice was left him? And for his living Harotian performed his magic tricks in return for a feast at the weddings of the rich, or at the elegant Britannia Club. Our Harotian, you will recall, Herr Neigel, had captivated all his spectators in bygone days. Who could make a piano vanish together with the pianist? Harotian! Who could saw a maiden in half, heaven forbid, inside her bath? Harotian again! There is no summons of magic Harotian failed to answer. But in the ghetto, fortune did not smile upon him. Imagine, we had seen these performances so often we were sick of them. We knew all the folds in his red velvet jacket, and all the hidden pockets in his yellow tie, and the pouch with the double lining and the illusive saw. All these we knew till they tired us. But most fantastic of all was the trick with the vanishing piano, which Harotian refused to perform for us in the ghetto, his reason being that it would be wrong to show a person vanishing