—
With a clear conscience, I reached the airport check-in with Marcus Rosner’s autobiography safely tucked in my suitcase. But my suitcase turned out to be overweight. By four kilos.
It’s only four kilos, I pleaded with the Aryan clerk.
That’s a three hundred Euro fine, she persisted.
Look, I said, pulling the book out in front of her, the only reason I’m over the limit is this book, I received it as a gift, I explained, and added, in a different, more subdued tone, the writer is…a survivor. The only one in his family to survive his wedding. They shot all of them right after the ceremony.
A three hundred Euro fine, sir, she repeated, or one of the following two options: Leave the book in the airport or board the plane with it.
From that moment on, Marcus Rosner’s autobiography was my constant companion. Although the security check separated us briefly—the autobiography slid under the scanner while I went through the physical check—we reunited immediately after that. Together, we wandered through the duty-free shops, only looking, not buying, and finally, we sat down together for a cup of coffee at one of the airport cafés. I put Marcus Rosner’s autobiography on the table, next to my cup. I thought I would browse through it a bit, maybe find some clue to the identity of the bride, who was absent from the wedding photo on the back cover, after all, Marcus Rosner couldn’t have married the head of the Judenrat, but the book was so heavy that the table began to wobble and I didn’t want the coffee to spill, God forbid, and stain the drawings inside—twisted limbs, twisted faces, piles of ears—so having no other option, I put the book on the floor, next to my right foot.
I drank my coffee and thought about the letter I was writing to Dikla. About its final paragraph. I knew it would surprise her to receive a real letter from me, with an envelope and a stamp—that hadn’t happened since South America—but I also knew it would not be enough by itself, that the final paragraph was crucial if I wanted that letter to be not a requiem but a turnabout. And finally, it began to play in my mind—after all those days, I realized how I wanted to end that letter. Not with lines from an Agi Mishol poem. With lines from a Jacques Brel song. “I will invent meaningless words for you, which you will understand.”
—
I could claim that that’s why I forgot the book.
But the truth is that I remembered Marcus Rosner’s autobiography the minute I walked out of the café.
The truth is that I still could have turned around, gone back inside, bent down, and picked it up from the floor. Five steps at the most, a quick bend of my knees—
But something inside me protested. One of my spite muscles stretched and made me leave. (Apparently the same muscle that had been at work in my senior year in high school when I had to write an essay entitled “My Thoughts on Joining the Army,” causing me to write that I wasn’t exactly thrilled about it. That I would go, naturally, but like a sheep to the slaughter. The literature teacher was shocked by my choice of words, justifiably so, and I was called down to the assistant principal’s office for an urgent talk.)
Several days after I returned to Israel, the doorbell rang. At the time, whenever that happened, I was afraid there was a messenger with divorce papers on the other side of the door. It’s true that Dikla isn’t like that, but ever since I answered a question in this interview by making up the story about a messenger with divorce papers appearing at the studio in Givat Chen, I’ve been afraid that it would become the sort of self-fulfilling prophecy that terrifies writers.
Standing at the door was a FedEx messenger.
He was holding a package with both hands.
Inside the package, along with Marcus Rosner’s autobiography, was a letter from the head of the Jewish community. Please note, he wrote, how exciting and unique is the fate of our people. A Jewish man forgets a book in an airport and boards a plane. What are the chances that the book will return to him from its exile? But lo and behold, another Jewish man sits down at precisely the same table. And it turns out that this Jew is a relative of the head of the community that had given the book as a gift. The relative reads the dedication, puts two and two together, and calls me. And so messengers and the angels of FedEx leave here and arrive there, and in the words of Jeremiah, the sons have returned home. The book has been returned to its owner in the Holy Land. Tell me—is it not clearly a miracle? Proof that our people are able survive the most terrible catastrophes and will endure for all of eternity?
I carried the book to the shelves that held my Israeli books.
There was no room for even a pamphlet on the shelf that held Holocaust books, second-generation Holocaust books, and third-generation Holocaust books. But then, with the imposing image of the head of the Jewish community looming large in my mind, I shoved some books on the shelf below it to the right, and a few Scandinavian thrillers to the left, and lost Marcus Rosner’s autobiography among them. For all eternity. In recent years, there has been a rash of thrillers, mainly Scandinavian, but not only. Are you tempted to write a thriller?
No. In a thriller, it’s clear that someone has sinned, and the only question
