Tzili: The Story of a Life

34

NOW EVERYONE streamed to the beach. Fishermen stood by little booths and sold grilled fish. The smell of the fires spread a homely cheerfulness around. Before the war the place had evidently been a jolly seaside promenade. A few traces of the old life still clung to the peeling walls.

Beyond the walls lay the beach, white and spotted with oil stains, here and there an old signpost, a few shacks and boats. Tzili was weak and hungry. There was no familiar face to which she could turn, only strange refugees with swollen packs on their backs and hunger and urgency on their faces. They streamed over the sand to the sea.

Tzili sat down and watched. The old desire to watch came back to her. At night the people lit fires and sang rousing Zionist songs. No one knew how long they would be there. They had food. Tzili too went down to the sea and sat among the refugees. The wound in her stomach was apparently healing. The pain was bad but not unendurable.

“These fish are excellent.”

“Fish is good for you.”

“I’m going up to buy another one.”

These sentences for some reason penetrated into Tzili’s head, and she marveled at them.

Somewhere a quarrel broke out. A hefty man shouted at the top of his voice: “No one’s going to kill me anymore.” Somewhere else people were dancing the hora. One of the refugees sitting next to Tzili remarked: “Palestine’s not the place for me.”

“Why not?” his friend asked him teasingly.

“I’m tired.”

“But you’re still strong.”

“Yes, but there’s no more faith in me.”

“And what are you going to do instead?”

“I don’t know.”

Someone lit an oil lamp and illuminated the darkness. The voice of the refugee died down.

And while Tzili sat watching a fat woman approached her and said: “Aren’t you Tzili?”

“Yes,” she said. “My name is Tzili.”

It was the fat woman who had entertained them on their way to Zagreb, singing and reciting and baring her fleshy thighs.

“I’m glad you’re here. They’ve all abandoned me,” she said and lowered her heavy body to the ground. “With all the pretty shiksas here, what do they need me for?”

“And where are you going to go?” said Tzili carefully.

“What choice do I have?” The woman’s reply was not slow in coming.

For a moment they sat together in silence.

“And you?” asked the woman.

Tzili told her. The fat woman stared at her, devouring every detail. All the great troubles inhabiting her great body seemed to make way for a moment for Tzili’s secret.

“I too have nobody left in the world. At first I didn’t understand, now I understand. There’s the world, and there’s Linda. And Linda has nobody in the whole wide world.”

One of the officials got onto a box. He spoke in grand, thunderous words. As if he had a loudspeaker stuck to his mouth. He spoke of Palestine, land of liberty.

“Where can a person buy a grilled fish?” said Linda. “I’m going to buy a grilled fish. The hunger’s driving me out of my mind. I’ll be right back. Don’t you leave me too.”

Tzili was captivated for a moment by the speaker’s voice. He thundered about the need for renewal and dedication. No one interrupted him. It was evident that the words had been pent up in him for a long time. Now their hour had come.

Linda brought two grilled fish. “Linda has to eat. Linda’s hungry.” She spoke about herself in the third person. She held a fish in a cardboard wrapper out to Tzili.

Tzili tasted and said: “It tastes good.”

“Before the war I was a cabaret singer. My parents disapproved of my way of life,” Linda suddenly confessed.

“They’ve forgiven you,” said Tzili.

“No one forgives Linda. Linda doesn’t forgive herself.”

“In Palestine everything will be different,” said Tzili, repeating the speaker’s words.

Linda chewed the fish and said nothing.

Tzili felt a warm intimacy with this fat woman who spoke about herself in the third person.

All night the speakers spoke. Loud words flooded the dark beach. A thin man spoke of the agonies of rebirth in Palestine. Linda did not find these voices to her taste. In the end she could no longer restrain herself and she called out: “We’ve had enough words. No more words.” And when the speaker took no notice of her threats she went and stood next to the box and announced: “This is fat Linda here. Don’t anyone dare come near this box. I’m declaring a cease-words. It’s time for silence now.” She went back and sat down. No one reacted. People were tired, they huddled in their coats. After a few moments she said to herself: “Phooey. This rebirth makes me sick.”

That same night they were taken aboard the ship. It was a small ship with a bare mast and a chimney. Two projectors illuminated the shore.

“What I’d like now,” said Tzili for some reason, “is a pear.”

“Linda hasn’t got a pear. What a pity that Linda hasn’t got a pear.”

“I feel ashamed,” said Tzili.

“Why do you feel ashamed?”

“Because that’s what came into my head.”

“I have every respect for such little wishes. Linda herself is all one little wish.”

For the time being the sight was not an inspiring one. People climbed over ropes and tarpaulins. Someone shouted: “There’s a queue here, no one will get in without waiting in the queue.”

The crush was bad and Tzili felt that pain was about to engulf her again. Linda no longer waited for favors and in a thunderous voice she cried: “Make way for the girl. The girl has undergone an operation.” No one moved. Linda shouted again, and when no one paid any attention she spread out her arms and swept a couple of young men from their places on a bench.

“Now, in the name of justice, she’ll sit down. Her name is Tzili.”

Later on, when the commotion had died down and some of the people had gone down to the cabins below and a wind began to blow on the deck, Tzili said: “Thank you.”

“What for?”

“For finding me a place.”

“Don’t thank me. It’s your place.”

Afterward shouts were heard from below. People were apparently beating the informers and collaborators in the dark, and the latter were screaming at the tops of their voices. Up on the deck, too, there was no peace. In vain the officials tried to restore order.

Between one scream and the next Linda told Tzili what had happened to her during the war. She had a lover, a gentile estate owner who had hidden her in his granaries. She moved from one granary to another. At first she had a wonderful time, she was very happy. But later she came to realize that her lover was a goy in every sense of the word, drunk and violent. She was forced to flee, and in the end she fled to a camp. She didn’t like the Jews, but she liked them better than the gentiles. Jews were sloppy but not cruel. She was in the camp for a full year. She learned Yiddish there, and every night she performed for the inmates. She had no regrets. There was a kind of cruel honesty in her brown eyes.

The little ship strained its engines to cross the stormy sea. Up on the deck they did not feel it rock. Most of the day the passengers slept in the striped coats they had been given by the Joint Committee. From time to time the ship sounded its horn.

Linda managed to get hold of a bottle of brandy at last, and her joy knew no bounds. She hugged the bottle and spoke to it in Hungarian. She started drinking right away, and when her heart was glad with brandy she began to sing. The songs she sang were old Hungarian lullabies.