Hostage

  Usually, when we played, we hardly spoke about the political situation and the war, about which, in any case, I understood virtually nothing. The count alluded to them occasionally. “The world,” he said one day, “is a huge chessboard. And we play for or against fate.”

  He was interested in everything that concerned me: my mother, who had become ill, my father’s past and the education of my cousin Arele. Once, when we were alone, he dropped a remark, as he moved a pawn, that seemed innocuous.

  “Apparently you have a brother, somewhere, who is older than your cousin.”

  I blushed. My heart began to beat very hard.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “His name is …?”

  “Pinhas … Pavel.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does your father know?”

  “No.”

  “So, who does know?”

  “No one.”

  He caressed his chin as though he were thinking about his next move. Then he played his knight and endangered my castle.

  “We know where he is,” he said

  I almost asked, Who is “we”? but restrained myself. Given how much time we were spending together, I had stopped worrying about his origins. Going by his name, he was surely German.

  “He’s in Russia.

  I bit my tongue.

  “We know a lot of things about a lot of people,” he continued.

  A sudden rush of fear made me commit an error—I took a pawn and lost my castle. I saw everything in a blur. No game had ever required so much concentration from me; it was both painful and exciting.

  He raised his head and looked at me.

  “I can see I frightened you. Fear is a luxury to which chess players are not entitled.”

  Interrupting the game, he took advantage of the fact that we were alone to confide in me: As a German, and thanks to his authentic aristocratic titles, he had been recruited by the intelligence services of the occupation authorities.

  “As long as I’m here,” he said, “you and your family have nothing to fear.”

  That evening, I told my father about this latest development. He was returning from work in the forest. My cousin hadn’t yet returned from the clandestine school where he was in charge of a dozen children younger than he.

  “I should have suspected it,” said my father, his face clouding over. “How else could he go freely in and out of the ghetto? And now that we know, how can we trust him? In fact, now that I think about it, I’m worried by what he just told you. As long as he’s here, probably we have nothing to fear. But that means that the other people here have everything to fear—that’s what his comments mean. There’s a new danger threatening our community. I’m afraid this foreshadows horrible events for the ghetto.”

  “Why do you see everything as so dire, Father? Yes, he’s German, but he’s not like the others!”

  “You say that because he likes to play chess?”

  “No, because he’s never been cruel with us. He never takes advantage of the situation to humiliate us. And you have to admit he’s always shown lots of consideration and even been generous with us.”

  “With us, yes,” said my father, looking more and more worried. “But with the other Jews? What do we know about his attitude toward them? Maybe he’s preparing to unleash even greater misfortunes on our people?”

  My cousin Arele joined us then, bringing bad news.

  “The Germans have learned of the existence of the schools in the ghetto,” he said. “They’re outraged. A member of the Jewish Council reported it to us. A German officer yelled, ‘What’s going on here? It’s unthinkable, intolerable, illegal and criminal! While German and Hungarian soldiers are fighting in Russia around the clock, gloriously serving the Nazi ideal, some little Jews are sitting here quietly studying the Bible as if nothing were happening!’ I’m afraid our schools are going to be banned.”

  My father looked at me. I had seldom seen him look so troubled.

  For one or two weeks, the count, even-tempered, came back for our chess games. As usual, he brought bread and sometimes even butter or plum jam. In principle we were equal opponents before the chessboard. He found my game increasingly daring; his was inspired. We always learned a great deal from each other.

  “When I was thirteen,” he remarked one day, “I was as good as you are. And then I lost my father. He was killed in action. For a whole year, I couldn’t look at a chessboard. The image of his mutilated body haunted all my thoughts. I swore I would take revenge.”

  I felt my opponent was becoming increasingly preoccupied, perturbed, melancholic. Could my father be right? Was the count a harbinger of turmoil and renewed harassments?

  Now, in the place where I am, between these four filthy walls, a toy in the hands of my torturers, I discovered that in life, though man doesn’t know it, he sometimes plays with or opposite Death. Is the choice in our hands?

  Yes, my father had been right in his apprehensions.

  • • •

  That afternoon we had expected Friedrich von Waldensohn at the usual hour, but he had not arrived. While we waited for him in our little room, Father boiled water and Arele studied the Midrash of the Psalms. I was in front of the chessboard trying to work my way through the game that had been left unfinished at our last meeting. At twilight, the count walked in without knocking, empty-handed. He didn’t take his place at the table, as was his habit, but remained standing and addressed my father.

  “Time is short. You’re going to leave this place and the ghetto. I’ve prepared a secure shelter for you. Take as few things as possible. Hurry up.”

  He looked at me and said, “We’ll finish our game some other time. Right now we’re playing against a common opponent, and he’s powerful.”

  A common opponent? I wondered if he was referencing a previous conversation when he had talked about destiny and death to my father. What if the two were the same?

  While my father looked around deciding which things to take, he asked the count what would happen to my mother: Her intestinal disorder had become worse, the pain unbearable, and the physicians had planned on surgery. “Don’t be afraid; we’re not going to prevent her being operated on! We Germans aren’t savages, sir!”

  And what was going to happen to the other Jews in the ghetto, our cousins and nephews and nieces, among others? Could we help them too? The count answered in a firm, steady voice.

  “Only one part of the ghetto will be evacuated at dawn. Unfortunately I can’t do anything for the other members of your family. I don’t have space for that many people. And eventually it would get around. You have to admit, the risk is too great, for you and for me.”

  “But where will they be taken?” my father asked. “And for how long?”

  “I repeat: Time is short. Don’t keep asking me questions that I can’t answer.”

  “And what about my mother? Are you sure she’ll stay here?”

  “And that we’ll see her again soon?” my cousin added.

  “There are some good surgeons in the ghetto. After all, don’t they say that Jewish doctors are the best?”

  The count was lying shamelessly. The Jewish hospital was about to be cleared of its occupants. And the patients, even my poor mother, even those unfit to be moved, were dragged into military trucks and driven to the freight station, among the first deported.

  But we didn’t yet know this.

  Night was falling. The sky had become gray and clouded, and a fine, slow rain streamed down as we left the ghetto, like shadows, preceded by the count.

  We were saved.

  We were the only survivors.

  My mother, Miriam, with her smile, her lullabies. My uncle Leib, a furrier; his wife, Tsirele, and their three children; my cousins Itzikl, Shloimele and Sorele; my aunt Revtsu, a sickly widow; my friends Oïzer’l, Shmulik, Naftoli and Hayimi—their laughter, their singing, the movements of their hands as they delved into an ancient text, their wa
rm gestures when they shared a piece of fruit with me …

  Evacuated, all of them, in leaden freight cars. Gone. Forever.

  Is it true that the count couldn’t have saved them? Or didn’t he want to?

  Were they doomed because they didn’t know how to play chess or because I played too well?

  The count housed us in the basement of a building next to his, which he owned. No one would have dared to enter without permission, or without being accompanied by the owner or his servant, Dorothea. She was an elderly woman, dark-haired and dark-eyed, silent. She had been his governess and later his secretary, carrying out the duties of a chambermaid as well. He trusted her and so did we. She took care of us as if we were members of the count’s family.

  Once or twice a week, in the evening, he came downstairs to check that everything was in order. Then he would bring me to his house and into his study, where we would play our chess games that sometimes lasted for several sittings. Sometimes he won. Often I let myself be beaten because, in spite of his warnings, something told me that it was better not to have too many victories.

  And life continued.

  Today, in my subterranean imprisonment, plunged in dark patches of eternity, I can only evoke my parents’ life in the past. As a child I already lived in my imagination on occasion: I “saw” blossoming trees or trees laden with snow; I “smelled” the odor of a horse; I “heard” the meowing of a cat; I “tasted” the butter or honey on the table; I “watched” with an almost happy feeling as the crimson clouds gently disappeared in a reddening sky.

  Did I think of God too, of His presence in history? Before the ghetto and during my parents’ first days there, I’m certain that they always led a Jewish life, conforming to the rules and customs of our religion. So did I. They observed the Sabbath and fasted on the designated fasting days. (I didn’t fast because I was still too young.) Later, in the hideaway where the count had moved us, this way of life became impossible. How can wine be blessed if there’s no wine? How can the Lord be thanked for His kindness, His mercy, His enlightenment when we were suffocating in a dark basement?

  My father, Arele, I—we all had to be cautious. My German protector—I’ll come back to this later—said this to me repeatedly, as he looked down on the chessboard, lit by candlelight.

  He said: “Without me you and your family would have been lost. That’s why I have to be extra vigilant too.”

  Sometimes, when German officers visited their comrade, my father and I were afraid of breathing too noisily.

  On the anniversary of my grandmother’s deportation—dressed like a peasant woman, she had thought she could get bread from the priest in the neighboring village, but was caught in a roundup—my father couldn’t hold back his tears.

  “It isn’t even possible to recite the Kaddish here in her memory.”

  He was seriously considering a brief return to the ghetto. “It’s easier to find a minyan there.”

  After Arele talked him out of it, he said, “These days I say to myself that perhaps the Lord was more charitable toward her by taking her away from us. She would not have lived through our misfortunes.”

  From time to time, our benefactor informed us of what was happening inside the ghetto. Hunger, overcrowding, disappearances.

  “Though I don’t believe in God,” he used to say, “a useless invention of the Jews, and in the end an evil one, I’m grateful to Him for not being born Jewish.”

  Later, my father said to me, “As for me, I’m grateful to the Lord for not being born German.”

  “As for me,” said Arele, “I’m just sorry I was born.”

  The following week, our benefactor told us, not without pride, how he had saved a Jewish adolescent.

  “A member of the SS caught him yesterday evening near the barbed wire: Either he wanted to sneak out to get to the Aryan side or he was sneaking back in. Naturally, the soldier gave him a thrashing and the authorities sentenced him to death. The public execution was scheduled for this morning. But when I saw the adolescent’s wounds, I don’t know why, I suddenly felt a kind of pity for him, something I usually don’t feel. I lied to the SS commander. ‘This young Jew,’ I said to him, ‘surely belongs to a resistance movement. So I must question him. It’s part of my responsibilities. Once I’ve pried his secrets from him, I’ll hand him over to you.’ It was an argument that even an SS commander can’t refute. Therefore, thanks to me, your chess opponent, a young Jew, is still alive.”

  “Alive for how long?”

  “For a few hours, a few days.”

  “And then?”

  “Then he won’t suffer anymore.”

  “Did you question him yet?”

  “Not yet. I told the SS that he was too badly beaten and not in good enough condition to undergo our questioning.”

  “And when he’s in a proper condition, then what?”

  “Right now, he’s alive, whereas he could have died this morning,” replied the count, looking annoyed. “Be happy with that.”

  My father, who was near me, intervened. “If the questioning lasts long enough, can’t we hope for a miracle?”

  Friedrich von Waldensohn didn’t bother to answer.

  The boy was hanged two days later. The count announced this to us while thinking about how to avoid a trap set by my bishop. He won the game.

  One evening, my opponent arrived in a friendly mood, sat down on a stool and asked me to put the chessboard away.

  “Not tonight. My head is elsewhere. I have bad news. The last Jews are going to be evacuated. The ghetto will be liquidated.”

  “Do they know?” asked my father, downcast.

  “No, they don’t.”

  “Why not warn some of them? They might be able to escape and save their lives. There are so few left.”

  “Perfectly useless,” said the count. “First of all, the ghetto is surrounded by SS and by the local fascists. It’s sealed. Secondly, because of my duties, I belong to a restricted circle of people who know the details of this kind of operation. If a single Jew is captured and says he knew of the upcoming liquidation, I would be in danger of being compromised. The investigation could lead to me. And then, what about your fate? Has that occurred to you? For my fellow officers, this is not a chess game; for them, the Jewish problem is not a game. It excites their passions. They won’t know the joy of victory, even temporarily, as long as there is a single Jew alive somewhere.”

  Nonetheless, shortly after the count left, Arele and my father went to the ghetto, first to warn the few friends who were still living there about the looming danger, and then, foolishly, in order to recite the Kaddish. Even young as I was, I tried in vain to dissuade them. In vain. My father was convinced that, knowing the area better than the enemy, he and Arele could make a quick round-trip successfully.

  It was reckless and absurd on their part. At four in the morning they still had not returned. I felt like screaming with despair. How could I contact the count? He alone could save my father and my cousin.

  He obviously knew about their initiative, for he came to see me very early in the morning and was furious, ready to punch me with his two lumberjack’s fists.

  “What got into them? How could they ignore my warnings? Why did your father put his life in danger? Was it a fit of insanity?”

  I didn’t bother explaining to him that my father couldn’t help wanting to come to the aid of the ghetto. And that he wanted to recite the Kaddish there.

  A crazy thought went through my mind: Why didn’t I offer to play a game of chess with the count, stipulating that if I won, he would bring back my father and cousin. It was crazy, but I summoned the courage to ask the question.

  The count’s face hardened; then he agreed.

  How can one entrust wooden pieces with the life and death of loved ones? A doubt crawled into my mind and it upset my concentration: Even if I won, wouldn’t the count go back on his promise brutally and with impunity?

  The question was beside the point. I los
t. The count was kind enough to comfort me instead of telling me the blunt truth.

  “First of all,” he said, “the deported are not going very far; they’ll be back. Secondly, even if you had won, it wouldn’t have changed anything. It’s too late to step in and do anything. The ghetto is already being emptied. The freight cars are filling up.”

  My father and Arele returned—after the war. Their empty eyes stared into space then, and they had numbers tattooed on their arms.

  Dorothea, the count’s governess, how old could she have been? I was too young to care. In fact, for a long time I remained convinced that women were primarily for others.

  Then Blanca chose me. It is a fact. Undeniable. Though she didn’t succeed in changing my life, she did change many things in my life. Even if it had been a long time since I expected love to bring happiness. I don’t feel like struggling to justify love anymore. But I admit that, thanks to Blanca, I’ve succeeded in getting closer to my truth. Or in simpler terms: After about twenty years, I was finally able answer a question that had troubled me for a long time. Was Blanca really the only woman in my life?

  Until the end of the occupation, I lived in the officially “empty” and dilapidated house of Count Friedrich von Waldensohn. Even though he was protecting me, I lived in anguish.

  With time, I wanted to believe that in spite of my Jewish origins, the German count liked me. Didn’t he pluck me out of the ranks because he discovered me in front of a chessboard? Was it that he appreciated my way of playing? What intrigued him most, I think, was my natural talent, a hereditary gift no doubt (was one of my ancestors a grand master?). As a boy, I owed nothing to the handbooks and their teachings, all based on the methods of the illustrious champions whose names I didn’t even know. I had told the count: I had never heard of Alekhine’s valiant gambit or Steinberg’s original defense. In fact, I didn’t need examples. I followed my intuition.

  I missed my family, of course. Sometimes, when I was lonely, I couldn’t prevent tears from streaming down my face. Sometimes I would cry silently even while I was considering my strategy as we played. The count would try to calm and console me.