lingered on in her dreams of ghost trains crowded with disembodied white hands, reaching out from behind iron bars; and of a Gypsy fortune teller whispering, âYou will not live long. A girl with such delicate white hands is destined to die young.â
IV
T he de facto Jewish parliament is assembling on the pavement outside Scheherazade, as it does every Sunday morning. In pairs, in groups of four or more, they lean on posts, against the parked cars, or prop themselves by the cafe door. While others stand, just so, like birds momentarily arrested mid-flight.
Listen to them argue. Idle by for an hour or two. Observe the hands and the arms. See them make circles and arcs. Theirs is a parliament of self-appointed ministers and speechwriters. There are many problems to be solved. One group analyses the money markets. A second argues over the fluctuating fortunes of rival political parties. A third group tears apart the weekend headlines. They pass judgment on countries near and far. They cast their eyes back to events long past. Their collective gaze extends from the first year of the twentieth century to the last.
Amidst this babble can be heard the voice of Laizer Bialer: âSo, you think you can save the world, you hero in underpants. So you think you know it all, you no-good bastard, you clever little philosopher, you fool.â
Yet when we sit alone, at a table inside the cafe, on this Sunday morning in late spring, the aggressive banter gives way to a haunting intensity. It can be seen in the eyes. They turn inwards, away from me. Laizer loses all sense of his surroundings; and, without warning, he has glided into another world.
It can come upon him any time, anywhere. He may be walking on the beach, on his daily stroll, aware of the traffic whispering on the foreshore, the waves nibbling at his feet. But Laizer is moving in his parallel universe: standing waist-deep in water beneath the arctic wilderness, or lying on his back, on the boards of a cattle truck, his body registering every bump and jolt.
Or he is being led along a dark passageway, handcuffed, driven by prison guards to a door. The same door night after night. The guards hurl him inside, and he is standing in front of an interrogator whose face is barely visible behind a single globe.
The globe moves back and forth, back and forth. Laizer is mesmerised by the swaying light; his interrogator is demanding: âConfess! Admit that you are a foreign imperialist! An enemy alien. A spy!â The lamp is swinging back and forth, and all Laizer can see is the glaring light, and all he can hear is the monotonous drip of a tap, an endless dripping, an endless swinging back and forth.
Again the waves are swirling about his feet; Laizer is back on the cusp of the bay. He makes his way along the well-worn route. Crosses The Esplanade to Shakespeare Grove. Turns right into Acland Street. Rejoins the âparliamentâ, the bustling crowds, the arguments which rage on the narrow footpath; and he enters Scheherazade, eager to see a familiar face, to find a table surrounded by friends, even if they are a bunch of no-good bastards!
This morning, however, we are seated alone, as prearranged, so that Laizer can recount his tale. âI cannot see any continuity in my journey,â he murmurs. âOnly broken lines.â
Laizer tells his story in fragments, and in the telling he moves from anxiety to light-heartedness, from obsession to banter, from one city to another. It is left to me to reconstruct the map and the chronology. A scribe, a no-good scribbler, I cannot turn back. What had begun as a simple newspaper story has exploded beyond my grasp. I listen. And I record. Driven by the knowledge that the old men are moving on, nearing the ends of their tumultuous lives; driven by a sense that it would be a tragic betrayal if their stories disappeared without trace.
In the final months of 1939 Laizer decided to forsake Wolfke's, and the interminable
IV
T he de facto Jewish parliament is assembling on the pavement outside Scheherazade, as it does every Sunday morning. In pairs, in groups of four or more, they lean on posts, against the parked cars, or prop themselves by the cafe door. While others stand, just so, like birds momentarily arrested mid-flight.
Listen to them argue. Idle by for an hour or two. Observe the hands and the arms. See them make circles and arcs. Theirs is a parliament of self-appointed ministers and speechwriters. There are many problems to be solved. One group analyses the money markets. A second argues over the fluctuating fortunes of rival political parties. A third group tears apart the weekend headlines. They pass judgment on countries near and far. They cast their eyes back to events long past. Their collective gaze extends from the first year of the twentieth century to the last.
Amidst this babble can be heard the voice of Laizer Bialer: âSo, you think you can save the world, you hero in underpants. So you think you know it all, you no-good bastard, you clever little philosopher, you fool.â
Yet when we sit alone, at a table inside the cafe, on this Sunday morning in late spring, the aggressive banter gives way to a haunting intensity. It can be seen in the eyes. They turn inwards, away from me. Laizer loses all sense of his surroundings; and, without warning, he has glided into another world.
It can come upon him any time, anywhere. He may be walking on the beach, on his daily stroll, aware of the traffic whispering on the foreshore, the waves nibbling at his feet. But Laizer is moving in his parallel universe: standing waist-deep in water beneath the arctic wilderness, or lying on his back, on the boards of a cattle truck, his body registering every bump and jolt.
Or he is being led along a dark passageway, handcuffed, driven by prison guards to a door. The same door night after night. The guards hurl him inside, and he is standing in front of an interrogator whose face is barely visible behind a single globe.
The globe moves back and forth, back and forth. Laizer is mesmerised by the swaying light; his interrogator is demanding: âConfess! Admit that you are a foreign imperialist! An enemy alien. A spy!â The lamp is swinging back and forth, and all Laizer can see is the glaring light, and all he can hear is the monotonous drip of a tap, an endless dripping, an endless swinging back and forth.
Again the waves are swirling about his feet; Laizer is back on the cusp of the bay. He makes his way along the well-worn route. Crosses The Esplanade to Shakespeare Grove. Turns right into Acland Street. Rejoins the âparliamentâ, the bustling crowds, the arguments which rage on the narrow footpath; and he enters Scheherazade, eager to see a familiar face, to find a table surrounded by friends, even if they are a bunch of no-good bastards!
This morning, however, we are seated alone, as prearranged, so that Laizer can recount his tale. âI cannot see any continuity in my journey,â he murmurs. âOnly broken lines.â
Laizer tells his story in fragments, and in the telling he moves from anxiety to light-heartedness, from obsession to banter, from one city to another. It is left to me to reconstruct the map and the chronology. A scribe, a no-good scribbler, I cannot turn back. What had begun as a simple newspaper story has exploded beyond my grasp. I listen. And I record. Driven by the knowledge that the old men are moving on, nearing the ends of their tumultuous lives; driven by a sense that it would be a tragic betrayal if their stories disappeared without trace.
In the final months of 1939 Laizer decided to forsake Wolfke's, and the interminable
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