They haven't exchanged a word for 36 years. And now Stein was waiting for his grandfather in the narrow corridor outside the purification rooms. A yellow light bulb illuminated a wall stained with strange bluish mold. The undertaker, a member of the Chevra Kadisha, emerged from the purification room carrying a brown plastic bag. When he closed the door, the bag fell out of his hand, and when it hit the floor, a thin wedding ring and a set of dentures splashed out of it.
The undertaker did not notice Stein standing in the dark watching him, and brought his teeth closer to the ring with his dusty shoe to spare himself a double prostration. As he approached, he noticed a grandson stepping out of the shadow. "My back is killing me," he apologized with an embarrassed smile.
"Are you waiting for him?" he shook his head into the room. Stein shook his head. "He's almost ready," he announced, handing Stein the bag. "Are you the old guy from home?" "No, that's my grandfather." "In old age," the undertaker shook his head. "94," Stein noted.
They haven't spoken for 36 years, 15 years they haven't seen each other, and here they were in two weeks, twice.
On the recommendation of his psychologist, Stein decided to reconcile with his grandfather. He still managed to get to the nursing hospital, to see the old man in all his human wretchedness, lying helpless on a filthy bed. His mouth drools, a foul-smelling diaper hugs his slender legs. A week later, the grandfather died. Since Stein suddenly appeared, the Mossad administration entrusted him with all the death arrangements.
Stein's father worked as a cook on a casino ship cruising the Adriatic Sea. The grandfather, his father, did not interest him as the garlic peel. Stein's sister, a hippie, lives in a commune in Costa Rica. Their mother died of a serious illness. He didn't know the grandmother. She committed suicide a year before he was born. She drank rat poison. His mother said she was a witch who made her grandfather's life miserable, implying that she survived because of her body in the camps. "Like a father," she would say with hatred for Stein and his sister, "he inherited evil and treachery from her."
The neighbors in the southern development town didn't really know how to eat the strange Ashkenazi family. The shouting at night. The silences. the language. The grandmother with the number on her arm hardly left the house. The grandfather was appreciated. Locksmith. Impressive man.
Large and muscular in a gray tank top, his scarred hand reddening in the heat of the workshop. He survived the camps and joined the partisans. Holocaust ceremonies at school were praised and he consistently did not come. Refused to talk about the past.
In general, he didn't talk much. A bit of obscure Hebrew with a Yaki accent. There is a grimace of contempt on his face, as if looking mockingly at everyone. Better than them. But age has taken its course. When he was 80, he collapsed and was placed in a nursing home. Every now and then he would say something incomprehensible in language incomprehensible to the auxiliary force that changed diapers.
For many years, Stein was afraid to go to the beach. He told the psychologist that he almost drowned once when he went to the beach with his grandfather, and it didn't look after him because he was busy talking to a woman. The psychologist urged him to close the affair behind him. Forgive. "You're stuck. Go out, go make friends with the sea. Reconcile with your grandfather."
Stein stood in the sand, took deep breaths and remembered that summer, in Tel Aviv, in '68. He scoffed at himself, how he lied to the psychologist. Everyone does, but it's always pathetic.
When he was 8 years old, his grandfather took him to the beach in Tel Aviv. They went into the deep water. Grandpa watched over him, held him. At the exit, he bought him a popsicle, held his hand, and so they walked together into a red sun. Pastoral picture. Then suddenly, the picture was torn. A lady, about the same age as his grandfather, stood in front of them, looking at the grandfather with examining eyes. Then she continued on her way and then back, her eyes mad. The challah cries out in an unfamiliar language. Pointing to the grandfather.
As people gathered, the woman lay down on the pavement, wailing, ramming the curb stones until blood flowed. The grandfather, who at first seemed captive to the situation, pale and shocked, came to his senses. He didn't answer, just grabbed his grandson's hand with tremendous force and began to leave quickly. Stein's hand burned with the pain of gripping. The popsicle dropped.
He cried, but the grandfather didn't stop. Breathless, they boarded the bus. With a trembling hand, the grandfather handed money to the driver. They sat down. Silent. They know from a deep understanding that the case should never be discussed.
From that summer, Stein and his grandfather, who were close, stopped talking.
Stein stood in the sand licking a popsicle. He felt pain in his hand. It was time to put everything behind, he thought. Still, he's already a man. High-tech. Married a second time, two children. Get out of it.
Already in his youth he understood what had happened there, but did not want to admit the truth. He didn't want to forgive. Grandpa was not a partisan.
Grandpa was not a hero. Grandpa was a Capo. That's what the lady shouted there. That was his secret. Because of this, of all places in the world, his grandparents chose to live in a North African immigrant town. Exiles and protected among strangers.
Now is the time to forgive, he thought, you can't judge the people who went through hell. who survived the inferno at all costs. Then he went to see his grandfather. Standing next to his bed, he stroked the hand of an unconscious man. "Forgive me, Grandpa," he whispered, "I forgive you." A week later, the grandfather died.
Stein entered the purification room. Small room. Naked except for a large sink with a water tap, and an iron bed, on which the grandfather lay partially covered with a shroud. The three were silent. "Take off the tattoo Grandpa, very well," the undertaker broke the oppressive silence. "Even though we bury with a tattoo too."
"How come a tattoo," Stein wondered, pointing to the scar on his hand under his armpit, "it's not a tattoo, it's an injury from the Great War. Burn from shell." "No, righteous," protested the undertaker, touching a spot in the middle of his left arm. "There was a tattoo. Burn it well. Small tattoo, not big. Not even an inch. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about. But what does it matter. The Jew died. We will bury him. He will go to eternal rest until the end of days."
Conduct a religious funeral. After the period of relocation in America, Stein felt closer to Judaism. He read Kaddish on the grave.
At night, after everyone had gone to bed, he googled in English "tattoo under the armpit".
Blutgruppentätowierung, for all Waffen-SS soldiers. An ace was on his left arm, 20 cm above the elbow, a small 7mm black ink tattoo, indicating their blood type in Gothic or Latin letters. After the war, that's how they were caught.
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