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

we see Neigel decide to be angry, for a decision it is: he allows his minute-old anger to simmer. His chest turns into a pressure cooker, and the steam escapes through his shirt collar and spreads over his face, coloring it a bright red. (Wasserman: “Ai, I was familiar with this performance. Every day at five in the afternoon, Neigel would leave his office for a stroll in the garden … He was in the habit of attaching himself to one of the work squads just then returning to camp—before, on one pretext or another—is there ever any lack of pretexts?—selecting a prisoner and shooting him on the spot. This brought him the relief he sought. But in order to kill he had first to make himself so angry his face seemed to burst into flames! And then, how effortless it was! Nu, this is how I recognized the performance. And now this young genius Hoppfler was his target, holy lamb, and I saw that he was shocked or perhaps furious, understandably so, that Neigel had shamed him in front of a Jew like me, so while Neigel reprimanded him I looked away and pretended to have suddenly remembered ships at sea.”)

Hoppfler walks out in deep humiliation, and Neigel’s face instantly loses every trace of anger. It’s as though he’s peeled it off and thrown it away, which is of course all the more frightening to Anshel Wasserman, who starts to cringe, his collarbone protruding around the hump. Neigel strides angrily across the room. He stops behind Wasserman, and the old man, who has lost him for the moment, swerves frantically around, like a blind chick sensing a stranger approach the nest.

“Your name!” demands Neigel.

“Anshel Wasserman., sir.”

“Age?”

“Age? Ah, hmm … about sixty years old today.”

“To whom do you belong?”

“To Keizler, sir. The lower-camp commander.”

“And what is your work there?”

“Well, sir, you see, I used to live among the dentists who extracted the teeth of the dead. Nu, yes, but I myself was not a dentist. Whereas they were.”

Neigel stares uncomprehendingly. “You yourself were not?”

Wasserman, with strange humility: “No, I was not, sir.”

“So what were you, then, damn you?”

“Me? So what could I be? A Scheissemeister I was there, yes. So I was.” Neigel recoils and screws up his nose, and Grandfather, speaking softly, “Commander Keizler allows me to bathe once a week, sir. I am even allowed soap and soda, thanks to Keizler, so you needn’t worry about unpleasant smells.” The German grins sharply. That is, his mouth grins. His eyes remain aloof. “Interesting. A Scheissemeister who doesn’t know how to die? Here’s something I never heard before! Perhaps there is a wonder cure in shit?”

Grandfather Anshel, in other words, was in charge of the latrines in the lower camp. Bella, rest her soul, would have called this “yiches,” or prestige.

Neigel has a plan, but he is as yet unsure about it. This is evident from the way he says, “And if—if we were to tie you up to four SS jeeps and send them off in different directions?” and the Jew, sadder but wiser: “I am afraid, sir, you would be left with four of my very inferior type.”

“That, of course, is out of the question.”

They say this together in Polish. Strangely in earnest. For a moment their eyes meet and Neigel, with a vestige of childish superstition perhaps, touches the cuff of his sleeve, by the SS skull-and-crossbones, which must be how they cast out the evil eye in his native village when two people say the same thing simultaneously. Or maybe he is warding off an even greater danger. I don’t know: I know very little about Neigel. It was for Grandfather Anshel’s sake that I went into my White Room. I don’t have the strength for anything else.

Neigel jots something down in his little black notebook, and Anshel now notices the back of a framed portrait on the German’s desk. (Wasserman: “Naturally I tried to guess who the lucky one was—his Polish woman? A loving mother-father? Or perhaps a likeness of the painter from Linz himself? That this Esau had children, nu, I never for a moment imagined such a thing, I assure you.”)

Something has to happen now! Neigel will ask, “You say your nameis Wasserman? Wasserman!”—leafing through his black notebook, staring at the name—“I know I’ve seen that name before … ach well, you’re all named Wasserman … Tell me, though, were you ever—no, nonsense.” Nonsense, yes, but before the German, his wispy bearded face lights up the room like a drunken moon, an orange moon.

(Wasserman: “When he said this, a smile crept like a cat over my lips. Because I knew what this Esau was thinking. Yes, and I even knew what questions would follow upon my answer, but in truth I never did envision such a thing befalling me here?!”) And with unctuous false modesty he answers, “No, sir, we two have never met face to face heh heh, though if the commander would permit me an anecdote of sorts, uhm, I was a Hebrew writer once; that is, the stories I wrote for darling children were rendered into many a European language, including the eloquent German tongue, nu, yes.” But then something Neigel cannot hear: “Anshel, Anshel, you vain old fool!” And in reply, compelled to justify himself: Nu, how stupid of me to wish for such a thing though it is true my stories were greatly popular even in Germany! But to wish a murderer for reader? Feh, Anshel! Have you lost your wits? Or are you so vainglorious you allot yourself more than an eighth of an eighth of the pride conceded to scholars of the Bible? And to Neigel Wasserman says miserably, with a terrible thirst that is not so alien to me, “I, sir, my name, that is, the name I signed to my little books, you saw it once perhaps, sir—Scheherazade? Anshel Wasserman-Scheherazade?”

Is that a glimmer in Neigel’s eyes? Do they grow round with wonder, wonder too