See Under, page 39
And Anshel Wasserman comes in and faces me. As before. Bowed, hunchbacked. His skin yellow and sagging. He wants to show me the way out. He knows the way. All his life he has been lost in this forest, scattering crumbs of words to help him find the way out. The man from the fairy tales, Anshel Wasserman-Scheherazade.
“Grandfather?”
“Write about the baby, Shleimeleh. Write about his life.”
“I want to get out of here. The White Room scares me.”
“The whole world is the White Room. Come walk with me.”
“I’m afraid.”
“So am I. Write about the baby, Shleimeleh.”
“No!!!”
I screamed and threw off the soft, warm hand where the story streamed in torrents. I flung myself against the smooth white walls, across the pages of my notebook, at the mirror, at my soul—there was no way out. Everything was blocked.
“Write, then,” said Anshel Wasserman patiently, gently. “Sit and write. There is no other way. Because you are like me, your life is the story, and for you there is only the story. Write, then, please.”
So be it. The baby. I have to fight against him. Against him, and against his creator. For that I still have a little strength left. Not much, it’s true, but anyone who tries to hurt me is going to pay with his life. That is, with his story. Pay attention, Wasserman, your story is now in jeopardy! Even the closeness between us won’t make me feel sorry for you, because in war there’s no mercy, and I declare war on you and your story.
Fried calculated. It was clear to him by now that every four or five minutes the child developed at the rate of three months in the life of a normal child. In other words, in half an hour the baby would be eighteen months old. Now Fried remembered: it was when the white butterfly flew out of the hall of friendship that the baby began to hyperventilate. In other words, his special time should be reckoned from approximately nine o’clock. (“Approximately??!” The doctor shuddered as he grasped how important every second was now.) Wasserman: “The doctor vigorously scratched the rash that had erupted above his navel that morning. He organized his thoughts: In one hour the tot would be three years of age!” Fried: “Bozhe moi! It can’t be! Have to check again!”
And he coolly checked again. His calculation proved correct. Fried bit his finger and tried to remember. Fried: “Wersus? Werblov? What was that name?” Wasserman: “And he leafed through his trusty encyclopedia, past the hundreds of crystallized fragments of destruction and devastation, the plagues and impairments of body and soul, may we never know, and in the end he stopped, out of breath and panting like a dog, under the heading—Fried:” ‘Werner, Werner’s syndrome. A process of rapid aging … beginning at thirty years … the deterioration of all systems … premature calcification … depression … rapid agonizing death … See under Progeria.’”
Neigel sits up. His face is stern, a little pale. Who would ever have believed he would take the story so personally? Or maybe there’s something we don’t yet know. “Please, Herr Wasserman. No.” He says quietly, “Don’t harm the child.” But Wasserman, who hears the words as though he heard them before somewhere, a long time ago, continues: “And with every hope laid low, the doctor journeyed to the land of doom he had been referred to by the book. Fried:” ‘Progeria. The childhood version of Werner’s syndrome (q.v.), process of rapid aging starting at age three … only a few cases recorded in medical history … development declines by the age of three, and acute symptoms of deterioration, retardation, and depression appear.’”
And Neigel: “Bitte, Herr Wasserman, listen to me for just one moment!” And Fried: “Dear God!”
Because the baby was standing up and smiling happily at Fried. Fried was overwhelmed by a wave of pity that instantly sank the iron armada in his heart. Pointing to his chest with a stiff finger, he gruffly said, “Papa.” “Papa,” said the baby.
Marcus: “Our good Fried felt a stabbing in his chest. He hesitated and then—curse the nasty trick life had played on him—said, You’re Kazik. And the baby repeated his name. Again and again he tasted the new name. “Kazik.”
Fried wanted desperately to protect him, to brandish his sword around the helpless young body and ward off the disease. But too late, the disease had already taken hold with all its grotesque power. Neigel shakes his head. Wasserman doesn’t stop to look at him. Wasserman is sure that Neigel’s objection is based on the fact that the baby has a dimple on his right knee. Neigel pounds the desk and screams, Enough of this warped story, but Wasserman will not yield. He boils. He screams that he can’t go on with these interruptions every minute. Now he is so beside himself that he waves his hand at Neigel, and the gesture shocks me, because I remember exactly when I first saw it: more than twenty years ago in my parents’ kitchen in Beit Mazmil the time the German tried to interfere, and Grandfather waved his drumstick at him and screamed. But back then I wanted Grandfather to win. “Don’t you dare touch that child!” screams Neigel, his face very red, and Wasserman’s face is terrible and grim as he chooses his words: “There are things you must not say to me, Herr Neigel. My life is bitter enough without you. And the child will live and die, heaven forbid, according to the story’s requirements. It shall be so.”
Wasserman is aware that he looks ridiculous when he’s angry. He freely admits that “anger is not always becoming.” But this time something in him convinces Neigel, who averts his eyes and waits patiently, pen in hand.
Fried breathed deeply. Life had picked up the glove he tossed it every day. There was no other way to interpret it. Only, life had chosen an unexpected battlefield. Through the child’s body he would be made to experience sufferings he never knew. Wasserman: “Oy, Fried, you might have guessed this is how life would answer the challenge you drew in the dirt.” Fried: “Don’t worry about me. Old Fried knows a trick or two.” Neigel unexpectedly, clearly contradicting Wasserman: “Hurrah, Fried! In war as in war!” Marcus: “For a minute our Fried was so filled with the lust for war that he almost reared and neighed. But then he realized how meager his chances were and grew sad at heart.”
He reviewed his calculations once more, as proof against the second wave of terror which even then was sweeping over him. There had to be some mistake. Perhaps this was not progeria in its acute form. And perhaps the rapid development would soon slow to normal. Yes. Fried reckoned in his head, moving his big bloodless lips. Then he wrote out a list of numbers and studied it. The itch on his stomach was becoming more intense, and he furiously scratched the stupid rash.
One last time he attacked the paper. A moment later he cooled off, looking very pale. Gone was the small hope that life would be merciful, after all, if only because of their long acquaintanceship. Carelessly he sniffed his fingers. Where did this fresh smell of rosemary come from? He gritted his teeth and stared at the page. There, under the bottom line, were two numbers.
Wasserman stops reading. Neigel’s eyes are fixed on his lips. Wasserman’s eyes are fixed on his empty notebook. For a moment he beams with a wild look of love, like an animal defending its young. And though he is no lion or panther, and more like a rabbit or an angry sheep, the wildness and love in his eyes are undiminished. I could have peeked in his notebook just then and finally seen the word written in his empty notebook, but I was afraid to. Wasserman nodded his head at the word, and inhaled deeply, about to continue.
“One minute, please, Herr Wasserman—let me try to persuade you—you mustn’t!” But Fried, obstinately, cruelly ignoring Neigel’s plea: “It’s like this, if the baby continues to develop at this rate, he’ll complete the life cycle of an average man in exactly twenty-four hours. Yes.”
Neigel is silent, brimming with bitterness and anger. But even now, he is trapped in the magic of the biological formula “twenty-four hours.” He starts to say something and thinks better of it. A few seconds go by. Neigel is calmer. Now I know what I must do. I have no choice. Poor Wasserman. But I, too, have a story writing me, and wherever it leads, I follow. And perhaps my way is the right way.
“This story of yours,” says Neigel bitterly, “I can’t decide what to make of it.” Wasserman, with tremendous relief: “You will approve it by and by, Herr Neigel.” And Neigel: “Ach, you’re just ruining a good story with all these strange ideas. Twenty-four hours, really!” And Wasserman: “A magnificent twenty-four hours, I assure you!” And then he turns to me and says, “Nu? I have trapped him now—What is it, Shleimeleh? How your face has changed! But—”
The baby toddled across the carpet, his hands held high, his eyes aglow with joy and triumph. When he reached Fried he stopped and looked up at him. “Pa-pa,” he said to the weeping doctor. “Pa-pa.”
The Complete Encyclopedia of Kazik’s Life
FIRST EDITION
READER’S PREFACE:
1. The following pages represent a unique attempt to compile an encyclopedia embracing most of the events in the life of a single individual, as well as his distinctive psychosomatic functions, orientation to his surroundings, desires, dreams, etc. Those normally “resistant” to analysis manifested their unfamiliar aspects and capitulated to the objective demands of an exhaustive study with their first introduction to this rigorous and (seemingly!) secure framework of arbitrary classification. Perhaps it is this very arbitrariness—i.e., the alphabetization of the entries—that transformed various illusive and equivocal figures into wieldy and effective raw material, and helped to reveal the simplicity of basic mechanisms animating all members of the human race.
2. Consequently the following pages will provide the reader with the most comprehensive biography available of Kazik, hero of Anshel Wasserman’s story, as told to Obersturmbannführer Neigel, during their stay in a Nazi extermination camp, on Polish soil, in 1943.
3. Since it was not always possible to sever Kazik’s biography from the circumstances under which it was recounted, the reader will find that Neigel, Wasserman, and their miscellaneous biographical accretions have left a mark here and there in the pages of this volume. The reader, of course, is free to skip these entries.
4. In an effort to preserve the authenticity of those characters who influenced the life of the subject of our study (Kazik), the monologues and fragmentary conversations of said characters are cited herewith. Admittedly such a procedure impairs the academic objectivity of the project and “popularizes” it to a certain extent, perhaps unavoidably so at the present time. We shall do our best to amend this in future editions of the encyclopedia.
5. In order to dispense with literary tension wherever possible and to avoid diverting interest from essentials, we shall do our utmost to remove any burden of knowledge likely to create this tension, this extraneous illusion of a purpose, as it were, at the root of things, toward which all “life” is supposed to flow. Accordingly we hasten to report that Kazik died at 1827 hours, twenty-two hours and twenty-two minutes after he was brought to the zoo as a newborn infant. He was sixty-five years old at the time, according to his own chronological frame of reference, that he killed himself. Unquestionably it is the fact that Kazik lived a full life in so short a span which justifies and motivates this modest scientific project, inasmuch as it offers a unique opportunity for a full encyclopedic transcription of one man’s life, from birth to death.
6. In view of the aforesaid, the reader should feel free to read the encyclopedia entries in any sequence he chooses, skipping forward and backward at will, though we wish to thank the disciplined reader in advance for taking the king’s highway of the Hebrew alphabetical order.
7. The editor’s deep sense of commitment to the facts has prompted him to include certain encyclopedia entries shedding light on the attitudes of Anshel Wasserman, some of which bear traces of a powerful struggle between Wasserman and the editorial staff before one side prevailed. Needless to say, the inclusion of these passages in no way signifies an endorsement of opinion on the part of the editorial staff. The wise reader will judge for himself.
And in dosing, some personal remarks:
The editorial staff is aware that certain readers are going to be put off. The editorial staff is quite familiar with those malcontents, those unruly heretics for whom nothing is sacred!
For instance, I’ve got to tell you this, I mean it nearly drove me insane! The first time I revealed my idea to Ayala, you know what she did? She laughed. No joke! She laughed in my face. Okay, at first I was pretty upset, but then I realized what was going on: She kept laughing and laughing, not with pleasure but with a look of total absorption and—possibly—fear. She stood there laughing at me, perversely, complacently. Her laugh sounded eerie as it rollicked and rolled and then fluttered away like a flock of colorful birds, like the waves of the sea, like—ah! Now I knew I had to put an end to it, because there’s no end to illusion, so I said, coldly and harshly:
EN-CY-CLO-PE-DI-A! And then it happened: Ayala was silent. The old anger flickered in her eyes, and turned to amazement. She recoiled and faded, then shriveled as though struck by lightning; in short, exactly like Bruno’s poor Aunt Retitia, by the mailbox in Trinity Square, she disappeared without a trace. The victory of the editorial staff was complete.
AHAVA1
LOVE
See under: SEX
ONNENUT
MASTURBATION
An activity for the purpose of achieving autoerotic gratification.
1. Kazik took to this practice after the unfortunate episode with HANNAH ZEITRIN [q.v.], which occurred at 0630 hours when Kazik—according to his chronological frame of reference—was about twenty-eight and a half years old. Kazik had “touched himself down there,” to use Fried’s awkward description, before the episode with Mrs. Zeitrin but now he added a dimension of overt enthusiasm and despair. He masturbated relentlessly. The Children of the Heart tried their best to ignore him but to no avail: the tip of his little sex organ discharged fine jets that exploded like firecrackers when they hit the black dome of the sky, and congealed into brilliant animal and human shapes, invariably flawed and sketchy; spermatozoa—full of life and brightness—shot through gloomy space, wiggling their little tails in an infinite stream of birds and fish, toddlers and graybeards, who shone fleetingly, and were swallowed up by the darkness, leaving only a vague sense of anguish in their wake. The members of the band had briefly cherished the hope that Kazik’s visions would show them a world more beautiful, more colorful and vivid than the one they were forced to inhabit, but they soon realized how tainted the visions were with the woes of reality as they knew it. Those visions offered no new departure, no love, but only their generative frenzy, which cooled from moment to moment till nothing remained except the compulsive rubbing, the sense of waste and emptiness, and the enigmatic anguish that instantly vanished. Kazik sensed this, too, of course. Only he couldn’t stop. He was humiliated.
2. The masturbatory feats of Yedidya Munin, which became his art: see under: MUNIN, YEDIDYA; also: HEART, REVIVAL OF THE CHILDREN OF THE
ACHRAYUT
RESPONSIBILITY
The sense of duty.
In the heat of an argument between Wasserman and Neigel about whether Neigel’s murders in the camp could be considered “crimes,” Neigel declared that he was not personally responsible for what happened, that he was only following orders from the “Big Machine,” and reinforced this by saying that “the extermination of Jews here will continue even if one person, like myself, should decide to drop out.” Wasserman: “But that is precisely the heart of the matter! And what can the matter be likened to, begging your honor’s pardon? It can be likened to the sentimental concerns of men and women. For if another man loved your wife, begging your pardon, nu, how shall I put it
… the human race would continue its course … What matters it to me, says Mother Nature, who carries the chain, so long as the big machine of existence keeps running, you see?” Neigel: “Humph. Yes. Of course. Because we have no control over the big things, right?” Wasserman: “Yes, you are right. All is foreseen, and scant indeed is the freedom of action given us!” Neigel: “Then why go on about responsibility all the time, if there’s no point to it?” Wasserman: “Perhaps because that is freedom, Herr Neigel. It is the one protest a coward such as I am is free to make.” Neigel: “Ach! It’s an illusion of protest.” Wasserman: “And what choice do we have?”
Also see under: CHOICE
OMANUT
ART
The expression of human creativity in the pursuit of aesthetic and functional objectives, in accordance with rules and techniques requiring skill and practice.
Throughout his lifetime, Kazik lived in a creative environment. In fact, the only people he ever knew were the artists collected by OTTO BRIG [q.v.]. Little wonder, then, that he sought in art a creative outlet for his depressions, impulses, and anxieties. First as a PAINTER [q.v.], and later, unwillingly, as a CARICATURIST [q.v.]. He came to see that not even art can promise salvation; that, at best, it augments human aspirations and intensifies longings while never actually fulfilling them, and that, in fact, it is his very freedom that deprives an artist of comforting illusions and brings him closer to acknowledging the limitation of hope.
Also see under: MASTURBATION
OMANIM
ARTISTS
Persons who express the creativity of mankind, in the pursuit of aesthetic and functional objectives.
Kazik’s sole acquaintances were the artists gathered by OTTO BRIG [q.v.] at the Warsaw Zoo between 1939 and 1943. These were: Paula Brig, Otto’s sister, whose art protested the narrowness and cruelty of nature; ILYA GINZBURG [q.v.], seeker of truth; HAROTIAN [q.v.], who waged war on the tyranny of sensory organs; MALKIEL ZEIDMAN [q.v.], artist of the frontiers of personality; AARON MARCUS [see under: FEELINGS], a man dedicated to enlarging the scope of human feeling; YEDIDYA MUNIN [q.v.], the great Orgasman, advocate of human transcendence, seeker of happiness, lover of the immanence of God; Albert Fried [see under: BIOGRAPHY], doctor: at first he resented Otto for collecting “these filthy maniacs” at the zoo instead of a reliable work force. Later, however, when Paula became pregnant with an imaginary child, Fried closed his eyes and allowed himself to believe. He, too, was awarded the title “artist.”
