The Yid Read online

  “Why’s there fat on top? And what’s this? Onions?”

  “A little shkvarkes from last night.”

  “You couldn’t wash it out?”

  “I didn’t know. How much?”

  “About three quarters. What was it like?”

  “What was what like?”

  “What was it like to stand on your stubborn, empty head and wear a leotard and tefillin? How did the world look?”

  “The world looked almost right.”

  The reader knows better than to believe old men. You should have seen Levinson then, in 1921, when proudly upside down he stood, in a hall painted black.

  The players who joined the troupe of Alexander Granovsky sought neither fame nor bread. If fame and bread were what you wanted, you’d surely escape from revolutionary Russia.

  But if you shared Granovsky’s vision of the modern world, as Levinson did, you’d dance amid the cataclysm of crumbling empires. His was the world of big equations. World equaled theater, Theater equaled World. Stage, orchestra, and seats merged into one, an entity of art, a modern unit, where acting equaled music, which was the same as props and pantomime. A leotard equaled canvas, which equaled cog, which equaled sword, which equaled turbine. All became one, a monolithic unit of justice, truth, and beauty.

  In those days, Levinson learned to get out of bed in a way that symbolized cubism, extending his left leg in the direction of the left corner of his mattress, the right leg in the direction of the right. And then he stretched his arms in the same manner.

  * * *

  In those days, Levinson didn’t give applause a thought. His modern world had no room for talent. Man’s goal was to become machine, an instrument of history and of production. As industry and art became the same, the loins of art would merge with propaganda, and propaganda, being the truth, would serve as the people’s education.

  Old God was lowercased to god, a cosmic, powerless dwarf of heaven. And upside down, Levinson held up his godless world, like an inverted Atlas. A leotard, tefillin, an ancient prayer to mock. Would anyone dare to ask for more?

  You should have asked him then, “What does the world look like?”

  “The world is good,” he would have said. “Because we gave it reason.”

  In those days, he reveled in the wholeness of an ensemble, the rush of being onstage, and—yes, of course—the laughs.

  Standing over a cauldron on the evening of February 27, 1953, Levinson is beyond pondering big equations.

  “It’s turning brown!” he shouts to Kogan.

  “What is?”

  “Your blood!”

  “My blood … oh, in your cauldron. The red blood cells are breaking down. They are weak.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Add butter.”

  “I don’t have butter!”

  “Then use lard. It’s better anyway.”

  Levinson lops off a thumb-sized piece of lard and throws it in the cauldron. Meanwhile, Kogan returns to the meditative state of a man who has sustained two blows to the head.

  “It’s still brown!” shouts Levinson.

  “What’s still brown?”

  “The blood!”

  “Which blood?”

  “The blood I’m boiling! Your blood, old goat!”

  “I guess that’s good,” says Kogan. “Let me see…”

  Kogan waves his right hand over the cauldron, driving the fumes toward his nose. The smell of the glue-like, brown substance works like a tonic.

  “It’s done,” he says.

  “But it’s still brown,” protests Levinson. “You told me to add lard! The blood did not turn red!”

  “I didn’t say it would. Why should it?”

  “What do I do with this? This dreck? I wanted red!”

  “Do what you want, mayn komandir.”

  * * *

  Theater historians haven’t understood that Levinson had to steal his sole artistic triumph.

  After the success of Kinig Lir, its translator, the playwright Shmuel Halkin, was commissioned to interpret the story of Bar-Kokhba, the leader of a Jewish rebellion against Rome.

  The timing infused the old story with urgency. Fascism was on the rise. Indeed, it seemed unstoppable. Young Jews, whether Communist or Zionist, were scouring history for strong leaders. The Maccabees made a triumphant return, as did Bar-Kokhba, a rebel who was pronounced the messiah by none other than Rabbi Akiva.

  Of course, Levinson loved the play and the komandir it glorified. Alas, due to his own history of rebellion—an effort to oust Mikhoels—he was relegated to being an extra. He had two parts: As a Roman soldier, he had to walk ominously and stand silently. Then he had to make an appearance as an old Jewish sheepherder who comes to swear allegiance to Bar-Kokhba.

  In this role, Levinson had to look mildly decrepit and carry a shepherd’s staff. It was a harmless part. He was contained, dissolved into the crowd as Rabbi Akiva blessed the rebels.

  At the premiere, as freshly blessed rebels stood in their assigned positions, Levinson threw down his ridiculous staff and grabbed a dagger out of the hands of an unsuspecting rebel, then another dagger out of another set of hands and, continuing on a mad trajectory, became airborne, then went completely motionless as the bottom of the velvet curtain touched the stage.

  This acrobatic feat triggered a standing ovation mid-play. It was noted in all the reviews. Mikhoels was furious. He would have used this act of insubordination as an excuse to fire the madman. Halkin, however, thought it was a brilliant interpretation that emerged organically after the dress rehearsal.

  “Eto nakhodka,” Halkin said to Mikhoels in Russian. “This is a find.”

  And a find it was. Is there a better way to portray the unfurling of hidden power than an unexpected pirouette with smallswords?

  The fact that many members of GOSET audiences were non-Jews is largely forgotten. They flocked to the theater because it was one of Moscow’s best. Levinson’s acrobatic feat transcended language.

  It worked so well that Halkin convinced Mikhoels to abandon his reservations about Levinson and move him to the part of Bar-Kokhba. This couldn’t happen in Moscow, but it did happen when the play was taken to the provinces.

  It is no small feat that during the summer of 1938 Levinson toured the former Pale of Settlement, portraying the strongest of strong Jews, a man whose name means Son of a Star, the defier of Rome, and a messiah to boot. The play had to be altered for Levinson. The singing parts had to be dropped, because Levinson was able to carry a remarkably narrow range of notes, had no notion of tonality or rhythm, and, overall, sounded goat-like.

  Spectacular stage combat beats hokey singing every time. The son of a whore made a fine Son of a Star.

  When Levinson uttered Bar-Kokhba’s final words—“The struggle isn’t over! Forward!”—the character’s and the actor’s experiences became one and the same. What difference did it make what came first? What difference did it make what trumped what? Who the hell was Mikhoels, who the hell was Stanislavsky, to pronounce themselves arbiters of right and wrong when it was the leap that told the story, the whole story? Halkin understood that, God bless him.

  This was Levinson’s final contact with the millions of Jews who inhabited the areas of western USSR. Within three years, the people who applauded Levinson’s Bar-Kokhba would think of his heroic leap as they met death at the edges of deep ditches, the omnipresent chasms where the stage ended.

  And—yes—other strong Jews remembered Levinson’s leap as they stormed the Nazi positions, spraying from the gut.

  Levinson’s battle continued as well.

  * * *

  A loud knock on the dacha’s door makes the three men take their battle positions.

  Has it begun?

  The choices they make reveal their inner selves and how they feel about inflicting death.

  Moisey Semyonovich reaches for a pistol.

  Der komandir lets his smallswords flash, retreating behind the door. He’ll
be the first to greet the intruders. Kogan takes no weapon at all.

  They wait silently for another knock. The person outside can surely see the smoke rising through the chimney and the flickering of the yellow, halting light of the kerosene lamp.

  Moisey Semyonovich throws open the latch, then stands aside.

  The door opens slowly, and, like a vision from her own youth, a woman in a shapely karakul coat strides into the center of the room, and with a smile that once could have been tragically misconstrued as seductive (it was, in fact, sarcastic), giggles. “Oy mal’chiki, mal’chiki … puglivyye vy u menya?” Now, my dear boys … aren’t you fearful?

  * * *

  “Ol’ga Fyodorovna, dear, to what do we owe the pleasure?” asks Kogan.

  “Vy pomnite, u Anny Andreyevny bylo takoye…” Do you recall, Anna Andreyevna wrote about this?

  Everything has been plundered, betrayed, sold out,

  The wing of black death has flashed,

  Everything has been devoured by starving anguish,

  Why, then, is it so bright?

  Kogan is familiar with the poem, from Akhmatova’s Anno Domini MCMXXI, and it takes considerable effort for him to refrain from reciting the rest.

  “Why, then, is it so bright?” he asks instead.

  “Otchego zhe nam stalo svetlo?” Ol’ga Fyodorovna repeats.

  “Are you personally acquainted with Anna Andreyevna?” asks Kogan, who, alas, is not.

  “Cooing like little birds,” Levinson whispers to himself. Onstage, this would be an aside. Around the table, it is rude.

  “Yes. She hates me with a passion.”

  “Something political?”

  “Something amorous.”

  9

  The night is overcast; the light from a quarter moon is filtered through the clouds. For half a kilometer, they pull the corpse-laden sled. With rope across their chests, they pull horse-like on trampled snow, with not a human soul in sight. Only the dogs howl.

  “Where did you learn to handle corpses?”

  “A morgue. Where else? After the orphanage, that was my job.”

  Compared to Tatyana, this girl seems as cold as the weather, except her bright eyes speak of something trapped within. An argument can be made that Kima is just like Lewis.

  After Tatyana’s death, Lewis had multiple interludes with Russian, Ukrainian, and Jewish nurses at a military hospital in Novosibirsk, but these women regarded love as a step that followed and preceded consumption of vodka, onions, and herring. It was a quasi-medical procedure, a brand of treatment for the human condition.

  The majority of able-bodied Russian men had gone to the front, and many of those who returned were able-bodied no more. As an intact male, Lewis could have all the vodka, onions, herring, and love he could possibly want. Being a Negro continued to be an advantage. He represented a new type of procedure for the curious nurses.

  * * *

  The layers of burlap are safeguard enough. He feels no cold. He doesn’t see their vacant eyes or their clear, pale skin.

  Kima’s movements are economical, tight. She opens the sacks and stuffs them with bricks she found in the shed next to the dacha. Four bricks for Kent, four bricks for Tarzan. Lewis takes her orders, lifting a sack onto the edge, giving a push.

  He listens for a splash, then, once again, the sack … the edge … a push …

  Two hapless thugs join Lieutenant Narsultan Sadykov and his soldiers, to stand eternal guard in frigid waters. After the second splash, Kima bows her head, not out of grief (she feels none), but as some mysterious punctuation.

  Lewis lacks remorse as well. His stomach does not constrict; his vomit has been cast upon these waters. He has no more.

  * * *

  As the waters close above Kent and Tarzan, Lewis stares down the well. Five corpses lie beneath him. This is his moment of reflection upon their death, upon his life. He can still feel. Or can he?

  The girl stands next to him in silence, so close. Her hands are on his back. He raises himself from his weird genuflection and turns around to face her. As their hips meet, her torso moves tensely back, as do her lips. He sees this as an invitation to follow her, and so he does, toward the dacha.

  A good strong yank is all it takes to open the dacha’s door. They are inside, their sheepskin coats still on. His hands move upward from her waist to her small breasts as her lips tremble against his. He stops the movement of his hands to let her trembling stop, and stop it does.

  If you have lived unscarred, you’ll have to go through some contortions to understand this, but understand you will. He feels her edge, her boundary of feeling, her shore of the unknown.

  And Kima knows the boundaries of Lewis’s knowledge. The void of feeling engenders feeling, too. That night, Kima Yefimovna Petrova, the daughter of a martyred Commissar, chooses to place her trust in a Negro named Lewis. A rootless Negro and an orphaned Jewess; can God conceive of a more equitable match?

  And so they stand in an embrace, their sheepskin coats on, and it seems hours pass before her trembling stops, before she knows she can accept his lips upon her neck, upon her breasts, and then beneath.

  The sheepskin coats are their sheets; the floor is their bed; the void is their bond.

  * * *

  “Why did you want me?” she asks.

  “Why did you want me?”

  They remain locked in an embrace.

  Why is he dumping corpses? Why did he kill a man? Why is he going on a mad suicide mission, pretending to believe that he will survive? Why is he saying Jewish prayers when Jews do not? Why her? Why anyone? Why anything? Why is he rootless?

  “Because you wanted me.”

  “How old are you?”

  “I’m twenty-one. And you?”

  “More than twice that.”

  “That old?”

  That old … yes, old enough at last to face the cursed mob that chased him out of Omaha, staying on his tail as he escaped around the globe. He’ll face it squarely now, with nothing held back.

  His caution vanishes suddenly, its final vestige purged, as tremors herald the arrival of courage, not a false bravado that will leave with the appearance of a lynch mob or the first volley of enemy fire. He’ll take what comes—his mob, his bullet, or his truck.

  “That old,” he thinks. “And when I die and face my God, I’ll say, ‘I held your sword. I fought for her. I fought for freedom.’”

  Her question brings him back from his meditation.

  “When do we strike?” she asks.

  * * *

  As Levinson fills the teapot with snow and places it on the wood stove, Moisey Semyonovich steps outside to smoke. He hates drinking tea and the tiresome conversations it engenders. He hates pretending, hates addressing her formally by name and patronymic—Ol’ga Fyodorovna, vy—instead of Olya, ty. Do they use patronymics in intimate situations? No, but as dawn nears, they grow more distant.

  He smokes Belomor, an unfortunate habit he picked up during the war. He smoked to warm up then, to feel something other than adrenaline or boredom, to ward off sadness and fear, to vacate the mind, to make the music stop. When he smoked, he thought of nothing but his smoke.

  He is out by the shed now, looking at the expanse of the cemetery, that majestic piece of Judaica in the heart of Russia. It is the physical manifestation of what he believes in, what he fights for. These are his Jewish roots, stretching deeply, intricately and far beneath a Russian landscape. This is a permanent mark, something no one will ever extract.

  He hears her footsteps. Why is she here? These aren’t her roots. This isn’t her battle. Moisey Semyonovich has never heard of Akhmatova; he doesn’t accept poetry as an explanation for anything at all.

  Her hands are on his shoulders now.

  “Pochemy ty zdes’?” he asks. Why are you here? He addresses her in the familiar now. He is tired of formality, tired of asking no questions, tired of secret intimacy, tired of fearing that she may not return.

  Instead
of an answer, her hands turn him toward her, and so they stand, like young lovers facing each other in silence for what seems like hours.

  10

  Militia Lieutenant Mikhail Petrovich Khromov is anything but a Gogolesque crook. Khromov, thirty-seven, is a bespectacled, independent-minded scholar of the role of opportunity in the context of the objective laws of history.

  His approach to history is both internally consistent and consistent with the traditions of Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism. He understands that the Party as a whole and Comrade Stalin personally can react to only the most global of challenges, such as the struggle against bourgeois imperialism, the struggle against Fascism, the struggle against wreckers. All of these struggles have one thing in common: they occur on the ground, on the level of the army and regional militia. His domain.

  War is the ultimate test of functionality of the systems of government. Did the Party and Comrade Stalin set the goal to sweep Germany clean, taking every diamond and gold watch as trophies? No. But an enterprising soldier on the ground could be more thorough, benefiting himself without jeopardizing the greater goal, or perhaps even advancing it.

  Was it necessary to rape every German woman in order to subjugate Germany? Probably not. But as long as rape and looting didn’t contradict the general line of the Party, it could strengthen enforcement of the laws of history.

  Now Khromov clearly sees another emphasis of the Party.

  The final action in the struggle against Zionism and cosmopolitism is scheduled to begin within days. The decision has been made on the appropriate levels, the lists mostly drawn up.

  As the official directly responsible for drawing up the Malakhovka lists, Khromov knows this conclusively. Certainly, some problems remain. The question of half-bloods, for example, is thorny but ultimately manageable.

  This insight opens extraordinary opportunities: considerable wealth is about to change hands, and from his vantage point, Khromov has the right to claim a portion of that wealth.

  He can be more thorough than the Party officials in Moscow and even those at the Regional Committee level. He can make the Jews give up the envelopes they keep under the floorboards and the jars they keep in the cellars.