“Have you finished already?”
“They only took me a couple of hours. They’re both to a woman named Jana from her mother. I, uh, I’m e-mailing the translations to you, but they seem like maybe they should go to the Wiesenthal Center or something like that.”
I sat up straight in my chair. “They deal with Nazi war crimes?”
“Not in so many words. They’re mostly just the kind of thing a mother might write, but—well, when you’ve read them, you’ll see what I mean. The translations aren’t super-polished, but after I’d roughed them out, I thought you might want them now. I’ll do a better version in a day or two.”
I opened the e-mail before he’d finished speaking.
Dear Janushka,
So, this is a very strange idea [or perhaps better word choice: request], to find out information about this Jew who lived with your grandmother’s brother during the War. I looked at the ad you found and discussed it with your auntie, and she agrees, you want to be careful: ask who is wanting this information. Is it the Jew Salanter himself, wanting to do additional hurt to our family? Or is it truly someone who is seeking to expose the Jew?
He certainly betrayed the great generosity your great-uncle showed him. How strange that he [the Jew, she means] and you both ended up in Chicago together—it is as if the Fates had willed that you be there to balance the scales. If there really is money to be had from him maybe it will make up for your hardships in America.
Your brother is still not able to find work, but he comes every day to help me with my injection for the diabetes. Even though he complains greatly, still, he knows I will not give him any money unless he helps me here.
The rest of the letter went on in the same vein, with complaints about a granddaughter who couldn’t be bothered to visit her grandmother. How rude local people were in the shops when you spoke to them in Russian (Maybe there were difficulties under the Soviet Union, but at least a Russian was treated with respect. Your auntie writes from Kiev that it is much different there, although still many people are without jobs.)
The second letter began with another litany of complaints about the writer’s swollen legs and the disrespect of her son, her granddaughter, and the concierge in her apartment building, before moving on to the subject of Chaim Salanter.
I don’t know what this detective you found thinks we can give him in the way of proof. In the Second War, you were lucky to find a cabbage leaf to eat; you didn’t look for a piece of paper to write down every event that happened.
I took your letter to my cousin, hoping perhaps your great-uncle confided something more detailed to him, but your cousin’s mind is not stable [or perhaps reliable] these days. I mentioned the possibility that we could finally recover some money and live like kings, that my cousin could move out of that terrible room he lives in and reclaim our family’s farm, but he said the Jews have spies everywhere and he believes the man his father befriended is just trying to track us down to do us further damage.
Your great-uncle suffered because of his wartime work. You know this, you know he was sent to a Soviet forced labor camp, and he came back broken in spirit and more bitter than ever that he was betrayed by the Jewish boy he tried to protect. “I should have just sent him to Ponar with his mother,” he used to say. “There is no gratitude anywhere, especially not with the Jews, they’re only out for themselves.” And it is true that we were made to suffer after the war for our service to the Lithuanian Army, I was just a child, but I remember the bitter disgrace we all suffered, and all because of the Jews, really.
Of course, as my mother always said, your uncle was infatuated with the Jewess Salanter. They had enormous sexual powers, those Jewish women, and he fell under her spell, and when he heard of her death he was so infatuated, he took the boy and protected him. My mother and your grandmother both pleaded with him, the danger was enormous, even though your uncle was with the Police Battalion—if his comrades found out he was harboring the boy, the Commandant would not have protected him, but your uncle wouldn’t listen, the boy resembled his mother and Uncle never recovered from his infatuation with her. (Even when he married a Christian woman he would drool with longing for the dead Jewess). But despite all his care for the Jewess’s son, the boy stole Uncle’s savings and ran away. Which shows why we have always believed there are two sides to the story of the Nazi occupation of Lithuania.
Of course, as for proof—you will have to use this information and see what kind of bargain you can create. I will continue to talk vigorously to your cousin [she means her cousin, the son of the great-uncle—in Russian there’s a specific word that clarifies the relationship] and explain how our happiness lies in his hand—or in his mouth!