Cold Sea Stories Read online

In short, matter-of-fact sentences she told him about Hanna and Ludwig. She had seen her brother-in-law that day, by the officer’s car. She had seen him fire a shot straight into Harmensoon’s temple. A couple of months later, when she saw the old man in the chapel, with the same, open wound, with the same blood-caked lock of grey hair, she was sure she had lost her mind, but Willman, whom she had quickly fetched, had seen the same thing. Harmensoon was looking for something in the books, but failing to find it, he had flown into a rage and screamed, ‘A mistake has been made!’ then vanished, only to appear in the chapel again a fortnight later, light another candle and throw the books to the floor again. She was afraid that one day he would appear in her house, so she had begged Willman to do it – yes, he had finally gone to the cemetery to dig up the grave, but there was nothing wrong: there lay the coffin, undisturbed, and there was the puffy, already decomposing corpse, the same one they had laid there together the day after the lorries drove away, so they couldn’t understand why he kept returning, what he was searching for in the books, or what ‘mistake’ he was on about. But later, with cruel clarity she had realised: what Harmensoon – or rather the thing that appeared in the shape of Harmensoon – meant was sin: common human sin, which could never be eradicated, not even in places like this one, not even with laws such as they had had here for centuries, and if that were the case, then the whole world was steeped in it, there was no hope left, and what it said in the Book about the coming of the Lord, heralded by signs and oppression, might simply never happen, for how could it occur, how was it meant to come about, if the unjust could no longer be distinguished from the just?

  He listened to all this with bated breath. The rage that flashed in her every word poured not just onto her or him, but onto the entire world as well.

  ‘In a couple of weeks,’ he said, ‘when the Russians drive away the Germans, we can get out of here, if you want to.’

  ‘Where will we go?’ she asked. ‘Is there a place for us?’

  ‘The world is enormous,’ he replied. ‘Bigger than we think.’

  A few days later they were woken at night by a deep, incessant boom. The ice was cracking on the river. And further off, beyond the dunes and the crests of the forest, heavy artillery was grumbling on the plain. That morning, with the rain came the thaw. The snow was damp and stuck to Jakub’s boots in heavy wedges that immediately matted together into frozen clumps. Every few steps he stopped to prise it off his boot soles with a pointed stick. Each time he did, his bundle fell onto the wet snow, and he muttered a curse, picked it up, threw it on his back again and continued on his way. And every time it happened he looked behind him, as if he couldn’t really believe that his requests, pleas and arguments were just the sound of empty words to her. As if he still had a hope that she would change her mind, and that he would suddenly see her on the road, wading through the dreadfully slippery slush and heading after him.

  But the road was deserted. Around the bend, when the familiar roofs of the houses and the rectangular block of the chapel disappeared from view, Jakub stopped to empty his bladder.

  The golden stream carved deep grooves in the snow and melted the ice, until finally it broke through to the earth in a small corridor, at the bottom of which lay one of last year’s grey pine cones.

  One final time he looked behind him, now regretting the forceful, impulsive words he had spoken in parting. Perhaps he was free to say: ‘And why do you talk such nonsense? No Messiah, neither yours nor mine, is ever going to appear!’ But did he have to add at once in a harsh, sneering tone: ‘We can only save ourselves – can’t you understand that?’ Now this remark was weighing him down like unnecessary baggage that he had to keep lugging around with him, like a stone put into his bundle. At last, when the dusk had laid long, purple shadows on the dingy grey snow, Jakub reached the spot where the road emerged from the forest.

  The narrow-gauge railway line was buried in snow, and on the platform – where, apart from a signboard with an illegible name, there was a wooden hut – lay a dead horse. Someone had cut a few long strips of meat from the corpse, and the rest must have been torn at by the hungry dogs of passing refugees, for several days at least. Along the tracks, which he followed onwards, he came across various abandoned items: a coffee mill, an army knapsack, a child’s sledge, a chamber pot, a travel rug full of holes, and then, as he passed deserted or burned-down houses, he found some abandoned bodies. Some in uniforms, others in civilian clothes; they stared at Jakub in amazement, as if asking him if he were really the victor. The living did not have this boldness: too horrified by their own catastrophe, silent, meek and obsequious, they dropped their gaze and answered in monosyllables.

  Only two days later, once in the suburbs, did Jakub run into a Russian patrol. When instead of documents he showed the number tattooed on his arm, the officer gave orders to let him through. The city reeked of burning, a corpse-like odour, early spring, the grease of armoured cars, wet dog fur, plunder, field-hospital carbolic, cheap tobacco, dust, blood, rape and hooch, and something indeterminate as well, something mysterious that Jakub only recognised and was able to name a while later, as he revolved like a beetle, wandering the chasms of burned-out streets. It was the very fine dust of Gothic bricks. Rising above the ruins of port warehouses, churches and tenements, it drilled into his nose and crept under his clothing; when he sat down on the melting snow it got into his hair too, tingeing it with the red glow of still smouldering embers.

  For a couple of hours Jakub roamed the gloomy labyrinth. It looked as if the address he had memorised was out of date, something that belonged to a different city. Finally he found the alley: two surviving houses amid the rubble. In the courtyard, behind the chestnut tree next to the cast-iron pump, he turned through the gate and went up the staircase that creaked with age, to the first floor. A smell of overcooked turnips floated from the cellars to the roof, and in the blink of an eye, from somewhere in the deepest recesses of his memory, the dull but unique flavour of prison-camp soup came back to him. He knocked bashfully, but heard no response at all from inside the flat.

  Sure he wouldn’t find anyone here, he took the letter from his pocket. The envelope was fat, but the slot with a flap and a sign saying Briefe was not that wide at all. As he was struggling with it, he was surprised to feel that someone’s hands – on the other side of the door – were helping him. Once the parcel had disappeared through the slot, Jakub knocked again. A chain grated, the door opened a fraction, and he saw Hanna. He had imagined the older sister quite differently. They were similar, of course, but if physical features had relevance here, it was secondary. Once she had reluctantly shown him into the living room, he closely watched her hand movements, the tilt of her head, and the look in her eyes as she read.

  ‘So you were there for all that time?’ she said, looking up from the page.

  He started to regret not having read the letter. What did she mean by ‘there’? Without speaking, he shrugged his shoulders flippantly. But for now she didn’t ask any more questions. The sentences in her monologue, long and not very clear, in which the distant past was mixed with the events of recent days, were as tiresome as the March dusk, which was just falling outside. What did he care about the death of Ludwig, a couple of months ago, on the heroic front? Or her fears about what she would do when the Russians handed this city over to the Poles? Her concerns about her younger sister did not sound very sincere. Nor did the comments she threw in here and there about the atrocities of war, which she must have been making on his account. He wanted to leave now, but at that she took offence: wasn’t her sister’s request sacred to her? Besides, it was the curfew now and the Russians shot without warning.

  ‘There’s a room here that’s perfect for you,’ she said. ‘Can you speak Polish at all?’

  He nodded, which could have meant: ‘Yes, very well,’ but instead of confirming the gesture verbally, he asked if her sister had said anything in her letter about Ludwig.

  ‘About Ludwig?’ sh
e asked in surprise. ‘Why should she? She writes about you, almost the entire letter, didn’t she tell you?’

  He was embarrassed. Especially when Hanna cast her eye over her sister’s screed again and asked him: ‘Do you love her? Did it come to intimacy between you?’

  And when he said nothing, at once she added: ‘Don’t be offended, I’m modern, and it’s best to be straight about things like that, isn’t it? Do you think they’ll return from resettlement? She tells me she’s going to wait until autumn, and then she’ll come here, to the city, and she hopes to meet up with you. It’s lovely that you’ve made an arrangement – am I to understand she’s all alone there now? Yes, she always was brave. You probably don’t know this, but when my people excommunicated me, she was the only one who came to see me. My God, it all seemed so simple then. But now?’

  Over supper Jakub told Hanna he wanted to go abroad. Maybe in a few months’ time there’d be liners setting sail from here? And if not, he was still determined to travel, even via Germany. He had an uncle in America; he would find him, and over there, on the other side of the Atlantic, he would start a new life. Because here, on the old continent, someone would always be wanting to excommunicate someone else, capture cities and burn down houses.

  Hanna was watching Jakub with discreet curiosity. Whenever he grew excited and spoke a little faster, sparks flashed in his eyes. It took her a while to notice the astonishing similarity: Jakub’s face, and the face in the holy picture given her by the parish priest, were literally identical. Just as if her guest had posed for the unknown artist. Of course it was impossible, but it made her feel the oddness of the situation all the more. Jakub caught the glance with which was she unknowingly steering his gaze towards the wall. Between a wedding photograph and a picture of Ludwig, A Holy Baptism Souvenir was hanging in a golden frame. Jesus had his hand raised, and his transfigured body was shining with the glow of an unearthly light.

  ‘Now I understand why you keep looking at me like that,’ said Jakub, laughing.

  She didn’t answer, so at once he added: ‘I never saw any icons there in the chapel, or in the houses.’

  ‘They regard them as a sin,’ she said, sighing. ‘Anyway, to them everything is sinful and immoral. They say they are emulating God. But can man even attempt such a thing? They’re aiming too high! Their life is a torment, because when they don’t succeed, they are cruel – please believe me, I’ve been on the receiving end of it.’

  He nodded, with understanding rather than sympathy. Later, as he lay in bed, he couldn’t fall asleep for ages. Now and then he heard a stray shot outside, soldiers calling, and the clatter of boots. On the wall above the bed a clock was ticking, and from the next room came Hanna’s gentle snoring. He longed for the roar of the sea, the dazzling whiteness of the dunes, and the scent of pine trees and juniper. He remembered that summer evening, when she had led him to the shed where the shipwrecks’ belongings lay untouched: an hour-glass with Greek lettering, a Swedish sextant, a Russian jeweller’s scale, an unknown sailor’s shoe, a bale of silk, a decimated whisky box, some French port, a silk shirt of unknown origin, and finally some candlesticks, cutlery and plates, two canvases by Dutch masters and the Belgian captain’s chest, in which he saw pistols, a handful of silver coins, some decaying maps and a violin, of Italian make, as it would soon turn out. Later she had explained to him that a hundred or more years ago, when the reign of the Polish kings had ended, they had stopped handing in the things they found to the officials. They were to wait here for their owners, until the Day of Judgement – so it had been decreed in the chapel.

  He remembered that autumn day, on the verge of October perhaps, when he had walked the length of the beach alone after a storm. Among the mussels, seaweed and amber he had found a shackle. It was not rusty, and he recognised it instantly: he and Willman must have forged it before completing the rigging. There was a piece of ragged rope protruding from the shackle like a fluffed-up tail. He shook the sand off his find, took a swing and hurled it far into the sea.

  Now the constant roar of the waves had lulled him to sleep. He dreamed he was on his way home. The moss coating the dunes was as soft as a carpet. On either side pine trees soared into the sky, with tall grass whispering in between them. She was waiting for him at the edge of the road, wearing her Sunday-best black dress with the little white collar.

  ‘It’s time now,’ she said. ‘Everyone is waiting for you.’

  There was a crowd of people in the chapel. He could feel the warmth of human breath and burning candles. Harmensoon handed him the violin and bow, and once he had taken hold of the instrument, the old man opened the Book. Instead of biblical verses it was full of staves, and instead of letters he saw the black swallows of notes. Never before had he read or played this music. It was as lucid as a fugue by Bach, as solemn as a phrase by Handel, as lively as a few bars by Vivaldi, and as melancholy as a song by Schubert. Before the coda had finished resonating, he caught sight of the two sisters’ faces: leaning over the gallery rail, they were following his playing in deepest concentration. When he stopped, there was no one in the chapel the King. The waves were beating against the walls. The Earth was shrinking. The wind was raging in the broken windows, turning the empty pages of the Book, and bringing in snow, withered leaves and grains of burning sand.

  Next morning when Hanna saw the empty bed and the half-open door, she wasn’t even surprised. But the bright mark on the wallpaper where the clock used to be and the missing silver candlestick made her feel confused. How would she tell her sister about it? The word ‘thief’ didn’t seem appropriate, nor was ‘swindler’ exactly right. Maybe she should keep quiet about it? She couldn’t imagine the two of them together, at any time or in any place. Nor could she forgive herself for so recklessly letting him in, and once it had happened, for keeping him here like a friend. But Hanna’s confusion proved far greater when around noon Jakub came back from the city. He put two cans of army food on the table, a chunk of bacon, some smoked fish, a bottle of vodka, some salt, a little bag of buckwheat and some matches. From his pocket he produced a handful of tea in a twist of paper.

  ‘I see you are resourceful in any situation,’ she said.

  ‘I’m afraid I am,’ he confirmed.

  They smiled at each other. Then Jakub showed her an official receipt; bearing the stamp of the city’s Soviet police headquarters, it looked quite ominous.

  ‘What does it say here?’ she asked.

  ‘That I live here legally, and as a result you are safe, at least for some time.’

  Only a man called Molke from the ground floor stopped bowing to her. But she didn’t have to take the slightest bit of notice, just like Jakub, who simply failed to perceive any of the neighbours.

  VI

  ‘Please take the D line and go as far as Bedford Park Boulevard. The lady will be waiting in the botanical garden. Have you got a map? What’s that? A guidebook, which one? Yes, perhaps. It’s called the Rhododendron Walk – do you know what those plants look like? The lady’s in a wheelchair, she’ll be holding the book, you are sure to recognise her.’

  I was amazed. Where did she get my phone number from? And what an idea, to make an appointment through your secretary or someone of the kind who pronounced the simple word ‘you’ with such reverence?

  I walked down 34th Street to Herald Square, and once at the station I wondered: maybe I shouldn’t go? But his words, after introducing himself as ‘Mr Hook’ and asking if he was talking to ‘Mr Helke, the writer from Europe’, that short sentence of his in which he said: ‘The lady read your story “The Table” and wants to tell you what it was really like’, that declaration of his in which there wasn’t the slightest doubt I would take up the invitation, had made my heart flutter. In the worst case I had disappointment ahead of me: a long monologue about an unsuccessful life, or questions such as: ‘Why did you write about the Mennonites?’

  In Greek rhodos means a rose, and dendron means a tree, and indeed – the rhod
odendrons were blooming just like rose trees, in shades of crimson, white and red. Just as Mr Hook had said, she was sitting in a wheelchair with the book in her hands. She must have recognised me from afar, for as I approached, she raised the white cover and waved it to greet me in a very friendly way.

  ‘Thank you for coming’ – those were her first words. ‘I’m going to die soon, and what I read in here,’ she said, raising the book, ‘leads me to imagine you will want to hear this story, and that one day you will write about it, back in your own country.’

  And at once, without any introduction, she started telling her tale. The English she spoke was coarse, but plain. Only occasionally did she put in a word in German, and then broke off at once, said ‘Excuse me,’ and went on with her story.

  After about an hour, when Jakub and Willman were building the boat, along came Mr Hook. He looked odd: in a huge fedora and a summer suit, he was more like a character out of a Chekhov play than someone who lives in the Bronx. He brought some sandwiches and hot chocolate, straightened the rug on her knees and walked away, discreetly glancing at his watch.

  My surprise was growing by the minute: how come no settlers were moved into the village once the Germans had deported everyone? Did Willman make a deal with Jakub that only the two of them would sail away together, or had there been a decision to escape as a threesome? Why couldn’t Jakub see Harmensoon in the chapel, when she claimed to have seen him many times after his death and burial? Was Ludwig, the one in the uniform, really her sister’s husband?

  There were more and more questions on my notepad, but not once did I dare to interrupt the flow of her narrative. Every sentence was uttered with an effort she did her best to conceal, and had something final about it, as if after each full stop, marked with a short pause, the end of the world had come.

  She had come to the city sooner than autumn. Hanna had greeted her warmly, Jakub coldly. Her idea of obtaining a Polish certificate for permanent residence had proved disastrous. Immediately she had those two and a horde of officials against her. How was she to prove she wasn’t a German? She had no documents, nor did she know Polish, and her statements that once, long ago, her ancestors - who were persecuted in the Netherlands - had come to this very place, prompted at best an embittered smile, more often irritation. Finally, one autumn day, amid a crowd of Germans, all three of them had turned up at the freight station. She recalled that there weren’t many men in the carriage. As soon as the train moved off, one of them started to hum a song, ‘Wer hat dich, du schöner Wald, Aufgebaut so hoch da droben?’1