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

or sighed,’ and she, too, would tell me about the wig shop, and little by little our life together blossomed with trifles, and at length the trifles grew very precious in our eyes, you see, in this way Sarah in her wisdom enlivened my humdrum existence …”

Neigel leaves the barracks now. Spruce and polished in his uniform, he walks out past Wasserman, pretending not to see him. He strides toward the platform, signifying that today he will choose fifty new workers for his camp to replace the present squad of blues. Wasserman watches the blues. They are watching Neigel. They know that if he approaches the platform there will be a selection and new workers will replace them. Yet all the same, they continue their work of greeting the arrivals with soothing words. “Oh, Lord,” whispers Wasserman. “Do you, Shleimeleh, understand why the blues do not rise up against their captors and barter their lives for the life of at least one of them, when everything is plain for all to see? I will explain the matter to you now …” But I’m not interested in hearing his explanation. I have my own ideas on this matter of “sheep to the slaughter.”

“And once, about two years after we were married”—Wasserman tears his eyes away from the platform and resumes his story—“I was plunged so deeply in self-pity that my Sarah went to a Hanukkah party at Zalmanson’s without me. It was the sort of party I had wearied of, the sort I had always attended for fear of giving offense to Zalmanson, who never noticed me in any case: he always had a new crowd around him to impress, ah, that Zalmanson was a shvitzeh.” “Yes, yes,” I presshim. “We’ll hear about Zalmanson another time. Now tell me what happened there.” “Do not rush me, Shleimeleh. It is a delicate matter … You see, Sarah went alone, as it happened. With tearstained eyes she went … and I was dour and let her go without restoring the harmony between us, wretch that I am … and at the party”—his voice sounded distant and gravelly—“you see, she let Zalmanson push her into the coat closet and kiss her on the lips. Nu, well, that is what happened. Now you know. I never told a soul …”

What? A thing like that, happening to them? In those days?

“And how did you find out about it, Grandfather?” He probably followed her around and tortured her with his suspicions, till she confessed. Or maybe he found a letter from Zalmanson. Or did someone tell tales?

“When she came home she told me everything. She did not ask for mercy and did not lay the blame on him. The rake! She said she saw he needed her, and she could not refuse. He needed her! Ah, the innocent child! How was she to know that Zalmanson was a lecher? Oh yes, the virtuous paterfamilias he seemed, devoted to his wife and three ugly daughters; only, I knew, from his own lips I knew, that any passing skirt was enough to ignite a spark, an all-consuming flame! Pardon.”

When she told him, little Wasserman trembled with rage and humiliation. All the noisome creatures of his psyche were let loose. He only wanted to know whether Zalmanson, after “dishonoring” her, had mocked him. Sarah gazed at him in doleful wonder and answered that Zalmanson had said nothing. That it was not a question of dishonor. She had submitted willingly and she would never do it again. Zalmanson knew that too, she said, “He was sad. I would not have believed a man like him could be so sad.” (Sarah always used such “gentle” words.) And Wasserman: “Sad, shmad! Like Jesus rose to heaven, like Muhammad soared to the Compassionate One, Zalmanson was sad!” Sarah said that Zalmanson had asked her not to tell Wasserman but that she had decided to tell him anyway, because since nothing really happened, the whole matter was of no importance to her, and she did not want a lie to stand between her and Wasserman. She only asked him never to raise the subject again. And he agreed, I imagine, in his own way. “Indeed, Shleimeleh, for a year after that I made her a little hell of my silence. Nu, that, too, is past, like the proverbial spilled milk! It was a long time before I could imagine the two of them there, in the coatcloset, without feeling the blood chum in my veins. A Jew, I tell you, is made of strange stuff …”

And meanwhile, Neigel sits in judgment on a folding chair, selecting his workers from among the new arrivals. His face is impassive, utterly blank. Himmler would be proud of him. He fixes his eyes on the people before him and nods left or right. Links, recht, links, recht. Wasserman: “And my head, too, choleria, moved with him, left, right …”

Neigel selects his new workers. The previous blues are pushed into the station to strip. Neigel returns to his work in the barracks. Wasserman studies the nape of the German’s neck. “Do you see? Not a mark there from nodding his head. Not even so much as a wrinkle!” The aged, the young, and the lame are taken to the Lazarett, where Staukeh’s revolver awaits them. Muffled shots are heard at short intervals. Hoppfler—his face like a wise, responsible child’s—pulls the shutters down over the small buffet so the sun won’t ruin the merchandise before the next train comes in. Wasserman says goodbye to the chocolate balls for another three hours. Wasserman: “And so it happened that from one end of the universe, a hundred paces away, my child, my darling Tirzaleh, brought her innocent young life, and from the other end came Death, and they met just as her little hand went out to touch the chocolate ball.” And sighing deeply he reflects, “it may be that I will never be able to die, heaven forbid, though I taste my