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

Let me clarify: he mumbled the epithet, scarcely moving his lips, in an effort to hide his discomfiture so conspicuous in the simple contours of his face. And Anshel Wasserman replied, “I do not understand either,sir. This is the fourth time already, and if your honor would be good enough to shoot me again in such a way that I can die, heaven forbid, because the pain is unbearable.” Neigel turned a little pale and stepped back, and Anshel Wasserman whined, “Does the commander think I enjoy this?”

The humming I’ve known since childhood fills the silence: Anshel Wasserman is talking to himself, arguing, writing his story. And now I offer my pen to one whose needs are greater than my own, who has waited these many years for his story to be written. “Nu,” he says. “So Esau was beside himself, beside himself, but I spoke the truth. Oh yes, I wanted death, may its bones rot. Why, even this morning, with the gas and the shooting and the truck, I desired it, choleria, and I wish it even now, but what happens? Nu, it seems I have a problem, perhaps I should consult a doctor? Ah well, I suffered, I tell you, and I tried to die. Zalmanson gazed at me wistfully in the gas chambers. He was already on the floor, nebuch, but he managed to give me a little sign, like, What is going on here, Wasserman? And, nu, what could I do? I stooped down and whispered so the others would not hear me—why vex them?—that I was sorry, but this was perhaps a defect from birth, may you never know. Nu, they were writhing and groaning, the dentists I had lived among for three months, and only I, Anshel Wasserman, was left standing like a lulav, and Zalmanson started laughing then, would that I had never heard him, snorting and weeping, such a laugh, till suddenly he died. He was the first to die! And it is important you should know this, Shleimeleh: Shimon Zalmanson the Jew, my only friend, editor of Little Lights, the children’s magazine, died laughing in the gas chamber, a fitting death for a man like him, who believed that God reveals Himself through humor.”

Now we are all three silent. I look at the old man: he looks just as I remember him, only thinner. Bald with brownish-yellowish skin and big, ugly moles, a bulbous nose, the sharp-chinned profile. As I live and breathe, Grandma Henny used to say, you look just like him. What are you talking about, Mama would scold her in Yiddish, examining the only existing portrait of Anshel as a child. Look at the nose on him and look at this one’s nose.

The German walks back to his wide desk and stands behind it, deep in contemplation. As he thinks he sucks his checks. “No!” he pronounces, pounding the desktop with his fist (Wasserman: “I almostdied, heaven forbid!”) and again: “No! This is impossible!” And later, frankly angry with Wasserman: “We have an important job to do here and we have never yet failed!” And Grandfather withdraws farther into his gorgeous, enigmatic gown. (Wasserman: “I was ashamed. What do you think? I did not enjoy this at all. Tempting fate is not a thing I enjoy, why make trouble?”) By way of encouragement he says to Neigel, “Commander, sir, if you would be good enough to view my little problem statistically perhaps; what, no?” But Neigel is alarmed. “Statistically?”

And Anshel Wasserman, taking alarm at Neigel’s alarm. “Oh no! What have I said! Such a fool I am! Ha! Nu, yes, I only had in mind that since your people have a natural inclination for, that is, your fondness for numbers is well known, inclining you to a statistical—nu, I myself have been the recipient of a most excellent number here, and I—ah, what does the likes of me know of such matters? Less than nothing. But common sense, you see, informs me that when you slay millions upon millions of people throughout the world, then is it not possible, heaven forbid, begging your honor’s pardon, that statistically speaking, one or two perhaps, yes, perhaps, would be unable? To die, that is.”

Neigel leans forward, squinting suspiciously. “Two? You mean there are two of you?”

“No, Commander, heavens! Not two. This was only by way of illustration. Let us suppose two.”

And he tries on a wry smile to pacify the German, but it’s clear that anything he says will only aggravate the situation. Neigel scrutinizes him a little longer, like a scientist inspecting a new breed, and exhales with annoyance, or wonder, or contempt—curling his upper lip and emitting a humph-like sound.

And then he sits down, his head in his hands, suddenly lost in the room. The military telephone rings and he barks something into the receiver and slams it down. (Wasserman: “This yekke was afraid, Shleimeleh. See what the Good Lord had sent his way! A Jew who cannot die! What if other Jews were to catch on to undying now? And the Führer, the little housepainter from Linz, was bound to fly into a rage when he received a report of the Jew who foiled his grand design, the apple of his eye.”)

Wasserman dares to raise his head and peer around. (Wasserman:“It looked like the room of a very important Offizier, with maps and placards and cabinets full of goods, and books by the score, bless me, documents with the picture of the eagle, too, and I rejoiced for Neigel that he had been awarded such a lovely decoration, like a pig’s nose ring, on his collar.”) And they are both startled by a knock on the door.

Hoppfler steps in. “What do you want?” asks Neigel, weary now and suddenly ashen-faced. Hoppfler looks at Wasserman and nods sympathetically to Neigel. But when Neigel does not respond and appears to be lost in thought, Hoppfler reminds him, “You ordered me to come back for the body, Commander …”

Now