Jewels and Ashes by Arnold Zable

of fear shudders through the room. An uneasy silence stretches the seconds, broken only by the sounds of a woman sobbing. ‘This is a cursed place’, she says repeatedly. But Greenbaum remains undaunted. He reaches out and touches her on the back: a gentle pat, a knowing smile. The woman dissolves into laughter. As her mirth increases, the spell she has cast is abruptly broken. The room spins back into the storm. The remnants of Warsaw Jewry, or at least a proportion of them, dance frenzied conversations on a naked timber floor in the garret of a synagogue. And the next moment they are gone, the room deserted, except for a woman who alternately weeps and laughs, and an exhausted Nathan Berman who stands among the abandoned chairs like an actor deprived of an audience.
    As we make our way down the spiral staircase we stumble across the last departing guests. They toil slowly, an odd couple, leaning often against the wall to grab another breath of air. The woman is wafer thin except for a leg, swathed in bandages, bulging out to elephantine proportions. Her eyes, in spite of their vein-ridden whites, are kindly and girlish. Her face tapers to a sharp chin that sprouts grey bristles. Her hair has withered to strands of decaying straw. A worn cardigan and cotton dress hang from a body that has barely enough substance to keep clothes afloat. Her companion hunches beneath his shoulders. He looks up just occasionally to glance at us timidly as we edge by. He wears a limp grey suit and huddles against the frail elf as he steers her down the stairs. They both carry plastic bags full of leftover food from the Kiddush.
    As we are squeezing past we are stalled, involuntarily, by a barely audible monologue that issues from the lips of the elf. Her lilting Yiddish takes us on a stroll to a cemetery in a village near Krakow, forty-five years ago. We are caught in her labyrinth, the four of us balanced on three stairs, Nathan’s massive frame swaying nervously, as a girl called Chanele Fefferberg hides for two years in a burial ground. She witnesses mass executions as she darts from stone to stone. One day her mother, father, brothers, and sisters are among those the SS drag to the cemetery. Chanele maintains her girlish smile, a set grin in eyes that are far distant. I realise this is her permanent tale, which she weaves without beginning or end. There is no need to intervene, or to do anything but gently disengage ourselves from her universe, and unwind out of the creaking folds of the synagogue into the fresh air.
    I accompany Nathan in search of a coffee shop. On Saturday afternoons central Warsaw is lifeless. The people are at home in their private domains or in the countryside to absorb the final few weeks of summer. Within the weekend emptiness the heart of the city is exposed as a curious mixture of boutiques with modern facades, supermarkets with emptied shelves, boarded-up foodstalls, and run-down buildings surrounding vacant lots given over to silence and the occasional solitary pedestrian.
    Nathan guides me through this wilderness to the Samantha coffee shop. Single men sit at laminated tables sipping drinks. Elvis Presley sings, ‘Come with me to Blue Hawaii’. When at last the caffeine stirs in his veins, Nathan winks at the waitress behind the counter and comes back to life with tales of Polish girlfriends, disapproving priests, and escapades to holiday resorts. ‘I come to Poland to have a good time, not to fall prey to the gloomy past. Life here is cheap. The dollar goes very far, especially on the black market. Time passes smoothly.’
    Like an apparition, the odd couple appear, struggling along the pavement, turtle-paced, in full view of the Samantha. Chanele drags her swollen appendage, inching her way through the street. Her escort pauses occasionally to examine objects lying in the gutter.
    Nathan registers their presence uneasily. Fatigue and sadness skitter beneath his surface gaiety. We