The Sonderberg Case

  “Meanwhile, I notice how influenced you are by theater. Like certain playwrights, you don’t like to use the word ‘crime.’ You talk about passion and fate. But the court has to judge the intent and criminal act of a man who, up to now, has limited himself to making an odd statement. To put it plainly: How long will this little game of ‘guilty and not guilty’ last?”

  “There’s no way of knowing. We’re now at the end of the first week. For the time being, things are going badly for the defendant. What can you expect? The jury see things in simple terms: the two men left the hotel together and only one returned.”

  “And how’s the fellow going to explain that?”

  “If he knows the answer, he’s keeping it to himself. I have the feeling that something is stopping him from defending himself.”

  “What? Can’t he come out and say he had a moment of madness, an uncontrollable impulse, had slept badly, eaten badly, had too much to drink, or something? That the old man had tried to seduce his fiancée?”

  “I don’t see him saying that. It’s not his style.”

  “So what’s his style?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Paul stopped to think for a moment, then blurted out, “The man seems more and more interesting. We should find out more about him.”

  “I did think I should meet him, interview him. Not easy. Is it even possible? Is it allowed? What about asking a specialist? Your usual legal reporter, for example?”

  Paul asked Kathy to call him. She replied that he was out of the office. On vacation. Impossible to contact.

  “Contact Sonderberg’s lawyers,” Paul concluded. “Tell them an interview with their client could help him.” Can they make an exception?

  Yedidyah promised to explore the possibility.

  When the hearing resumed, the judge reminded Elisabeth Whitecomb that she was still testifying under oath. She seemed a bit nervous. Or worried. Maybe she was afraid of the defense lawyer’s cross-examination. Yet Michael Redford was not aggressive. In his own way, give or take a few fine points, he asked her questions to which she had already replied. Had she noticed any tension between the young traveler and his uncle? No, she said. Hadn’t Werner been concerned about his older companion’s well-being? No. Had she been informed, perhaps by a cleaning lady, that the two men had quarreled? No. Other innocuous questions followed, leading to the same negative responses. Then, to come full circle, the attorney asked her, “How many times did you see Werner Sonderberg at the hotel?”

  “Several times. When he went to the restaurant or went out for a walk, he stopped and chatted a bit.”

  “What did he like to talk about?”

  “About the weather. The news. The beauty of the mountains.”

  “What was your impression of him?”

  “Attentive. Courteous. Friendly.”

  And the cross-examination finished with a final exchange.

  “When the young German checked out of the hotel, did it occur to you that he might have killed his uncle?”

  “No. At that point, no one knew that the old man was dead.”

  “Did you think he was capable of committing a murder?

  “No,” she replied after hesitating.

  “Why no?”

  “Why yes?”

  She paused and then added, “Where I sit, at the reception desk, I greet a lot of people, men and women, Americans and foreigners. Giving them the once-over is a work tool.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Whitecomb, that will be all,” said the lawyer, taking his seat again.

  The judge was about to dismiss the witness when the prosecutor stood up.

  “Your Honor, may I submit one last question to the witness?” The judge nodded yes.

  He turned to Elisabeth Whitecomb.

  “Of all the guests, men and women, whom you observed in your hotel, did you ever have one who was later charged with murder?”

  “No,” the reception desk attendant replied. “I don’t think so.”

  The prosecutor sat down after gesturing with his hand in the jury’s direction: for him, things were clear.

  “Don’t forget, the reader doesn’t just want to watch the event, he wants to take part in it,” Paul often said to me. Fine with me.

  Late afternoon. I go back to the office and write up my account of the hearing. I’m not satisfied with it. Yes, I summarize the speeches of the prosecution and the defense. I describe the defendant’s behavior, the ambience in the hallways, the impassive attitude of the jury, the reaction of the public. But I feel that something is missing: I’m unable to convey the feeling that an entire life hangs in the balance, with all its mysteries, and a future of infinite possibilities. One carefully weighed sentence, or one word amiss, and life can tip down on the good or bad side. A feeling of frustration comes over me as I reread what I wrote. If an actor—me?—were to read my words onstage, I’m sure the audience would start to wriggle in their seats and cough gently to hide their impatience.

  Should I put an end to this experiment, ask Paul Adler to release me? I don’t dare disappoint him. Should I pass the burden on to Charles Stone, head of the city desk, and let him find someone to take my place? That would be the easy way out. As my grandfather used to say, it isn’t for us to begin; the beginning is the Creator’s privilege. But it is incumbent on us to begin anew. So, Grandfather, if that’s what you want, I won’t stop midway.

  Yet, I have to admit, if only to myself, that it wouldn’t be my only setback. At this point I felt I’d failed in almost all my endeavors. Even with Alika, the proof being our quarrels. I feel fragile, broken. Pinned down. I wonder why. But I don’t really want to know the answer.

  I go over the list of my most glaring shortcomings and my mediocre triumphs. More or less docile son, more or less acceptable student, failed actor, journalist with a still clumsy pen, inferior lover, troubled husband. So much for the negative. As for the positive: a kind of sincerity, courage, and a need for lucidity. When I throw myself into an adventure, I don’t accept half measures. When I love, I love with my entire body and my entire soul (though for how long?). When I have a friend, I’m completely devoted to him. I think I gave my close relatives all the affection I could. The person who most moved me? My grandfather; his image remains intact in my memory. Because he suffered? Rather because he knew how to channel his suffering and transcend it without betraying it. And my father? When I think of him, the same emotion wrings my heart. Because … what? Just because.

  This doesn’t mean that I don’t love my mother, my brother, Itzhak, his wife, Orli, or my uncle Méir. I love them all, but differently. To be more precise: it is my grandfather whom I loved differently.

  I recall a story that I read somewhere. A young girl is standing by the window and says to herself: I love my parents, I love my cousins, I love my friends, I love everyone except myself. It’s me I don’t love. And she throws herself out of the window.

  This image troubles me. To chase it away, I think of my grandfather again. He never demanded anything, never asked for anything, and never expected anything from me that wasn’t in harmony with the things I wished for myself in my dreams. My grandfather is a sage. Please note: I said a sage, not a saint. It is from him that I learned to be wary of saints.

  It is from him that I acquired the desire to delve, relentlessly, into the secret work of Kalonymus ben Aderet whose aphorisms nourish my thought, my quest, my need to believe in the other and in my own self.

  When the trial is over, I say to myself, I’ll go and meditate on his grave. May he guide me to vistas where—with a bit of luck and if I can prevent my audacity from slipping away—I’ll no longer be a failed person.

  THE NEXT DAY, THE TAXI DRIVER who had driven Werner to the station was called to the witness stand. This was the same driver who had picked him up at the train station when he arrived. A Mexican native, surly, clearly annoyed with this courtroom business, with the loss of his time and therefore income, he didn’t even look at the defendant. But h
e did look at his wristwatch constantly.

  The prosecutor asked him if he had already met the defendant. An affirmative reply. In what circumstances?

  “I drove him to the station.”

  “Did he talk to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “When we arrived at the station.”

  “What did he say to you?”

  “Two words. ‘How much?’”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all.”

  “What was he like?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Was he in a good mood? Worried? Morose? Preoccupied? Upset?”

  “I have no idea. I didn’t look at him. Not even in the rearview mirror.”

  “Was he deep in thought, as if something serious had just happened to him?”

  “I just told you: I didn’t look at him.”

  Other witnesses were called to the stand: waiters from the restaurant, chambermaids, other hotel guests, policemen, inspectors, forensic scientists. But the duels between the prosecution and the defense lacked vigor and passion.

  And that’s when the coup de théâtre occurred that would put an end to my career as a legal reporter.

  Two depositions shed a new light on the proceedings: that of the medical examiner and that of the superintendent of the New York apartment building where Werner had his studio. The dates and the facts didn’t match.

  At the time of Hans Dunkelman’s death, Werner Sonderberg was already at his home in Manhattan.

  In my last article I described the hubbub in the courtroom. The judge’s furious outburst: they had wasted his time. The jury’s contentment: they could return to their pleasures and occupations. The smiles of the defense attorneys. The fiancée’s happiness. But also the defendant’s lack of joy.

  Why?

  And why, when he first answered the judge, had he stated under oath that he was both guilty and not guilty?

  ACTOR, JOURNALIST, WANDERER, Yedidyah did everything to give himself a direction in life, and then he tried again to find a new goal. Whatever he was doing, he liked to throw himself into it with a feeling of complete freedom. When he was writing, or taking a walk in Central Park with his two sons, he thought only of them and their future. Even when he was doing nothing, he dismissed everything else from his mind so he could be fully conscious of his idleness. In confronting his inner void, he was eager to be its center.

  One day, he stood in front of the window, watching the clouds come together, drift apart, make holes in the sky, both large and small.

  “What are you doing, Daddy?” little Dovid’l asked him.

  “Can’t you see?” his father replied. “I’m working.”

  “Working on what?”

  “I’m studying the void.”

  Yedidyah explained: “In life, my son, everything has meaning. Even things that may seem meaningless to you. But then the meaning is harder to find.”

  Dovid’l didn’t try to understand and returned to his room.

  That, too, must be in the novel.

  IT MAY BE TIME TO REVEAL that my grandfather, the man whom I loved so dearly, is not my grandfather; Rabbi Petahia is not my ancestor; my parents are not my parents. Mine are dead. The enemy killed them when I was an infant. A strange story? Unusual? Not really. Literature abounds with such stories. When the Tragedy is referred to, the law of probability is scoffed at. In good and in evil, the imaginary creeps behind real-life experience. Many stories that we think are improbable and impossible are actually true. Only the details, the dates, and the names differ. The rest … My adoptive parents eventually revealed the truth about my early childhood.

  Once upon a time, in Central Europe, in a small city called Davarovsk, there was a Jewish couple, my real parents, who led a normal life. They had two children, a ten-year-old boy and an infant, me.

  My father worked with a textile dealer; my mother was a housekeeper. They were happy. I am convinced of that. I own a photograph that proves it. It was taken a short time after their wedding. They are young. And attractive. He has a serious look on his face. She has a half-tender, half-provocative smile. I imagine them absorbed in their love and in their faith. The photograph was taken when they were visiting my maternal great-grandfather. I found out that he lived in a neighboring village and was a tutor to the farmers’ children. My parents are sitting under a blossoming tree. Smiling. Do they believe in eternal love? I think so; I hope so. Such things weren’t flaunted at the time.

  An old Jew from the same town remembered them. I met him by chance at the Yiddish theater in Manhattan. I don’t recall how we began talking about Davarovsk; perhaps because of the play. It was about life in Brendorf, a small town, a now vanished shtetl among many, engulfed in the maelstrom of the Tragedy. “I’m from Davarovsk,” the old Jew said to me. I gave a start. My heart began racing. Had he known the Morgenstein family? I asked him. The textile dealer? Yes, of course. And what about Wasserman, was the name familiar to him? Yes, it was, he remembered him. A man who was always calm, almost withdrawn. He had married a girl who was a great beauty. My interlocutor continued speaking, but I no longer could hear anything. I was suddenly choked with emotion. Fortunately the bell rang, announcing the end of intermission.

  The fate of my parents and grandfather? As might be guessed, the same as that of so many other Jews. The ghetto. Fear. Hunger. My mother’s suffering: How was she to feed her husband and two children?

  I think of them often, I confide to them my secret fears about the state of my health, I try to imagine how they lived out their last hours, and I feel like weeping, and hiding in order to weep more freely. But then I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop.

  So I, too, lived for a time in the Davarovsk ghetto. Probably until it was liquidated. My adoptive parents explained this to me; they knew much more about my early days than the old man I had met at the Yiddish theater; he had been deported in the penultimate convoy. That’s how my real name was revealed to me: Wasserman. I wish I could put it on my parents’ tomb in heaven.

  But how was I saved? Oddly enough, I don’t owe my survival to a powerful lord or a dedicated humanist, nourished on moral principles, but to the innocent and sublime soul of an illiterate peasant woman, a decent, humble Christian from a humble nearby village who took care of me when I was born and helped my mother with the housework. Maria. Gentle Maria. That’s what they called her in my house, as I later learned. From then on she, too, would not leave my thoughts. Was there a way for me to summon a recollection of her? Some psychologists would claim that she is still buried in my unconscious; if they’re right, I’d like to find a way into it; perhaps I’d discover the traces she left there. Maria’s age? One elderly survivor describes her as svelte and youthful; another younger one says she was short and old. Did she have a family? Yes, of course. But she never spoke about them. It seems that she sent all her earnings to her parents. Devout? She often crossed herself. Even to bless me? No doubt. She went to church on Sundays. Taciturn, not very talkative. Sweet and, above all, honest. And loyal. Courageous in the face of danger? Let’s say intrepid, resolute.

  It was her idea to separate me from my parents. One night, a few days before the deportation, she succeeded in entering the ghetto and came to see her former employers. She offered to protect our house, if necessary, from robbers and vultures. They gave her permission. They trusted her. She then made a more surprising suggestion: that they entrust me, their baby, to her. Did she have an inkling of what would eventually happen to them? In our little community, though there were frightening rumors going around, no one knew. But she thought I might get sick from a long trip to an unknown destination, for as it was I was excitable, sensitive to the cold, and frail. She swore on her own life and on Christ’s that she would watch over me and look after me. They would get me back, safe and sound, as soon as they returned.

  Did they have a long discussion? Doubtless it was difficult and painful. Did my mother cry? Maybe. I imagine s
he did. Was my father the first to give in? There’s no way of knowing. But Maria’s logical reasoning and tenderness won the day.

  Maria took me home to her village and introduced me as her own son, though she wasn’t married. Hence, I was suddenly illegitimate. The father was said to be a drunken soldier who subjected her to horrendous physical abuse one night before leaving for the front. Did I suffer from losing my mother’s warmth and my father’s love? I really don’t know. Nor do I know whether Maria’s parents were brutal in their treatment of her or me. Did they punish me for the “shame” she had brought on their family? Everything I later learned about them filled me with bitterness and outrage. Maria was as magnificently kind and tender as her parents were ill-tempered, morbid, and cruel. They saw me as an intruder.

  I found out that shortly after the war, Maria took me to a big city where the agents from a Jewish charity were looking for Jewish children who had been hidden by Christians with compassionate hearts, while others tried to find adoptive Jewish parents for them. That’s how I came to America. My “parents” at the time knew only one thing: my name, which was written on a piece of paper by my father and given to Maria. Now that my “American parents” have given it to me, I never part from it: it’s my personal treasure. An unexpected discovery: I thought I was the child of survivors; I’m not. I’m a child survivor. In fact, I ought to mention this to Dr. Feldman. My past might explain my health problems. And then what? I decide to wait.

  Both outside and inside, I bear my paternal great-grandfather’s name, Yedidyah Wasserman. I cherish a photo of my real parents.

  Understandably, I wanted to track down Maria by every means possible. Not easy. I didn’t know her last name. I had only one desire: to go there. But how could I know if she was still alive? And if she was, how would I identify her? I opened my heart to Alika, hoping to appease the animosity she had been showing me since the Sonderberg trial. To my amazement, she encouraged me to make the trip, even if nothing were to come of it. That way, she said, you won’t be able to blame yourself for not having tried to thank the woman who made it possible for me to meet you. And she smiled faintly. Had we finally reached a truce?