Will, стр. 75

small children with them. A four- or five-year-old whines that he’s tired. His mother tries to hush him with a teddy bear. ‘I can’t believe they couldn’t organize this better,’ mutters someone. ‘Typical town hall,’ says someone else. ‘If the Germans arranged it, it’d be a lot better. You can take that from me,’ says yet another. The last voice is a little louder, but no one reacts. Other conversations are about the bloody wind that keeps blowing, the falling leaves, or that aunt with phlebitis in her leg who can’t get a proper doctor and yes, then you have to lend a hand, of course, even though she’s a right bitch, excuse my French, and it would be nice if it wasn’t always my side of the family doing the dirty work. Inside the building, people fall silent as if they’ve entered a cathedral with a dozen priests giving Communion at the front. Many keep their heads bowed, ready to receive some kind of blessing. I see Meanbeard appear at one of the tables. With a short bow he asks a man to come this way. I’m not close, but I can still make out his sarcastic smirk. Without hesitating the man follows him. By now I’m in the long second queue on the left. Time stretches out. I try to make out people I know from the countless backs in front of me, picking out one neighbour effortlessly because of the flamboyant wedge-shaped hat that marks her in my mother’s eyes as a woman of questionable morals. Then my attention is drawn by the ear of a man in the queue on the far left, four or five places ahead of me. Something tells me I know him, that I must know him, that it’s crucial I identify him. Discreetly I go up on tiptoes but still can’t see more than an ear and some black hair under a hat. You’d almost think… But that’s impossible. Then the hall stiffens. A sound comes from the room Meanbeard just led someone into. Everything goes quiet, only the imperturbable sound of the stamping of books continues. Something is hurled. A fist smashes down on a table. Now we can hear someone crying. The officials look at each other and promptly resume their name-checking and book-stamping. More crying and a loud ‘No!’ Now the crowd is getting restless. ‘What’s going on in there?’ People hiss, ‘Gestapo, Gestapo…’ Somebody curses. The curse moves quietly from line to line. ‘Bastards.’ ‘They’re at it again.’ ‘Is this really necessary?’ An official stands up, then sits down again immediately. Meanbeard comes back into the hall. His eye falls on a book that another official has slid to one side. Then he looks at the man at the very front who has just been wordlessly asked to move to one side. Again that sarcastic bow and a hand gesture in the direction of that small room. But this man, a giant of a fellow, an ex-military type with his hair shaved at the back and sides and a bulging bull’s neck, stands his ground. Meanbeard hardly comes up to his shoulders. The bull’s neck lets his vocal cords rip in the hall where bands played before the war, where the mayor gave his annual ball, where people waltzed and laughed, and men harassed women at the end of a drunken night. ‘Who’s asking? I’m not taking a step without seeing your papers! The idea of it.’ The man crosses his arms. Meanwhile I notice that the man in the hat I can’t quite place is unobtrusively letting others go first and taking stealthy steps back that bring him closer and closer to me. Meanbeard pulls his pistol. Everyone recoils. Some people, as far away from the weapon as they are, drop down with their hands over their heads. The people hiss. ‘Unbelievable… This is too much.’ ‘Who is that bastard?’ ‘Gestapo, Gestapo!’ A young chap in knickerbockers and a short leather jacket swears at the top of his voice, says, ‘I’m not having this!’ and tears back out through the doors to the Meir. By now the queues are swaying backwards and forwards as if on a ship in a storm. The confusion increases when Meanbeard points his pistol at the bull neck’s chest. ‘Now come with me, damn it!’ People crane their necks to see what’s happening up the front. The lines, previously neatly separated, are now jumbled together. Someone shouts, ‘Coward!’ A little old man tries to calm Meanbeard down, holding his hands out in front of him. I see the fist with the pistol go up into the air and come back down again. Cries of horror pass through the hall. Then I finally recognize the shadow on my left as he takes advantage of the confusion to make himself scarce. For less than a second our eyes meet. Chaim Lizke. I don’t know if he recognizes me and before I’ve had a chance to let it sink in, he’s gone. It’s almost incomprehensible. Then police whistles are blowing and two constables rush in, followed by the youth in knickerbockers, who seems to still believe that in emergencies you’re supposed to call in one of our boys in uniform. And as if someone up above is playing cards and laying down their trumps, I see that Lode is one of the constables, his face red with rage. People are shoving and pushing. Children screech. Lode and his partner’s whistles are answered by orders in German. As if in a bad melodrama, mein Freund Gregor appears from behind the curtains, a mob of field gendarmes in his wake, all with guns raised. Lode is immediately surrounded and carted off. Meanbeard has disappeared. Everyone’s shoving their way to the exit. Children fall over, people yell and I, like a bungler who’s accidentally stumbled through the gates of hell, fight my way out too.

It’s not till early evening that I summon up the