6.2. Aharon Handalman

It was only a sixty-two-kilometer drive from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, but Aharon came here as little as possible. Tel Aviv was a beach town, a secular city. Here one saw few, if any, haredim in the streets, but there was an abundance of bikini tops and torn-off shorts. In Aharon’s opinion, which he would happily relay should anyone ask, it was a modern-day Sodom. He’d chosen a Sunday to make the trip. He did not tell Hannah where he was going. Wasn’t today going to be bad enough without his wife making a fuss?

It was with a very glum face that he approached the apartments for the elderly on Ben-Gurion Street. It was not a cheap place, these apartments. Someone must be doing well. As he took the elevator up to the third floor, the sight of an old woman shuffling along with a mangy cat and the distinctive odor of the elderly did little to cheer him up. From dismal to more dismal—and he hadn’t even spoken to the man yet!

Steeling himself, like Joshua going into battle, Aharon knocked on the door. He had to look down on the man who answered. He was under five feet tall and frail-looking. What was left of his hair was so thin you could see the mottled scalp beneath. The face was pale between the discolorations, the lips slackened into a watery consistency.

The man blinked looking up at him, as if trying to place his face. “Rabbi Kaufman?”

“No. This is Rabbi Handalman. I called about coming today. Is it Karl Biederer?”

The old man held out a trembling hand. “Yes. I forgot a little, that’s all.” Then, “It’s not a crime.”

“May I come in?”

“Yes. Come in; come in.”

Biederer shuffled back into the interior and Aharon followed. He watched as Biederer looked out into the hallway—both ways—then shut and locked the door, putting on two dead bolts.

Biederer headed to what Aharon assumed was the kitchen. “Tea?”

“Herbal?”

“Of course, herbal.”

“Then, yes, I would like some. Thank you.”

While Biederer puttered in the next room, Aharon removed his coat and outdoor hat, placing them carefully on a chair. He put an automatic hand to the wool kippa still on his head, to check that it was in place. He looked around.

The room was a plain but modern apartment with white textured walls. The furniture was old, dusty, out of place in this architecture. The sofa looked continental, with faded silk brocade and ornate carved wood that was chipped and dull. Nothing else matched this eyesore, and the general air was one of clutter. The air was rancid.

The closed, smelly apartment did nothing to inspire comfort in an anxious soul. There was a large window on the far wall and the day outside was sunny, but Biederer had the blinds drawn tight as a fist against the light.

“Here.” Biederer brought in two cups of tea on a metal cookie sheet and put them ungracefully on the American West wagon-wheel coffee table.

“So sit,” he offered, lowering himself into a Biederer-shaped hollow on the sofa.

Aharon was at the blinds. “Would it be a bother if I…” He motioned to the window.

“No,” Biederer said in a reasonable tone. “If you don’t mind killing me.”

Aharon smiled faintly and took a seat. The tea smelled all right, but some crusted bits on the side of the cup put him off. He sighed. Just get it over with.

“Mr. Biederer, I wanted to speak with you about Yosef Kobinski. You were in the same barrack at Auschwitz.”

“So you said on the phone. See, I remember.”

“Yes. I’m looking for information about his work.”

Biederer studied Aharon with a pained expression. “What’s so important that I should dredge that all up again? What do you want with Kobinski?”

Aharon hadn’t expected the question, but he was a truthful man. Telling a little truth, however, as opposed to spilling one’s guts, was also perfectly acceptable. “I teach at the Aish HaTorah in Jerusalem. I also do Torah code research. You have heard of the Torah code?”

Biederer made a dismissive “of course” gesture.

“As it happens, I found some references to Rabbi Kobinski in the code, so I want to learn more about him.”

Biederer was plundering his lower lip with his tongue. Aharon resigned himself to a long list of questions about Kobinski and the code, but the old man only shrugged, “Nu,” as if he was not surprised, and began to talk.

“I was entombed in Auschwitz on September 18, 1942. That’s what I call it—entombed. My family was from Nuremberg. My father was a banker, a rich man, but even this couldn’t save us. Now, my son is also a banker.” Biederer waved a hand at the room. “He pays for all this.”

“I’m sorry, who?” Aharon had brought a tape recorder, in case the man said anything important about Kobinski, and he was fumbling to get it started.

“My son.”

“Oh. Yes. He must be a comfort.”

Biederer shrugged, but his eyes were warm. The warmth didn’t last. “I was only fifteen when I arrived at Auschwitz. You would not believe how old you can be at fifteen.”

The tape recorder safely churning on the wagon wheel, Aharon sat back a bit, breathing hard from the effort or from stress. He hoped Biederer wouldn’t go on too much about his own experiences.

“Didn’t Rabbi Kobinski also arrive at Auschwitz around that time?”

“He was in the barrack when I arrived. He and his son, Isaac.” Biederer had a distant look in his eye, his lips turned down. “Well, if it’s going to be like this…” He got up from the sofa, with clever positioning of strengthless limbs, and went to a little table. From a drawer he took a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and an ashtray.

“So open the window,” he said to Aharon as he crossed back to the couch. “But just crack it at the bottom; don’t open the shades.”

Aharon cracked it as much as he thought he’d get away with and pulled the closed blinds up an inch to free them from the draft. The room was a little lighter as a result, and there was a tiny bit of fresh air. The effect was soon ruined by the pall of cigarette smoke.

“Want one?” Biederer offered.

“No thank you,” Aharon said, stiffly enough to show his disapproval.

“Now. Kobinski.” Biederer pulled hard on his cigarette. “I was only fifteen and my family was not so religious. But even I knew that he was a great tzaddik—a saint. You should have seen the man…” He rolled the tip of his cigarette in the ashtray. “He looked different from the rest, like there was a kind of peace over him, you know? Like he was strolling down the nicest street you could imagine, as if there weren’t bedbugs the size of grapes infesting the urine-stained mattresses we had to sleep on, all crammed together, as if… ”

Biederer’s voice shook. He stopped himself, was quiet for a moment. “Everything, everything, he took in stride. It helped. You cannot imagine how it helped. You could look at that man, and while you saw his face, you could pretend there was still a God.”

Aharon shifted in the chair. He was warm in his long sleeves and black vest, and the apartment was getting warmer as the sun grew in strength in the sky. He was sweating. The mental effort of keeping his brain like a fortress, only letting in the information he wanted to hear, didn’t help. “Is there anything specific you remember about his background, maybe something he said about his work? Did he ever mention… Did he say anything about a weapon?”

“Who’s telling the story here?”

Aharon frowned. “I do understand the general conditions of Auschwitz. I’m only interested in Kobinski.”

Biederer squinted at him appraisingly, the way a father does, trying to figure out what his son has done that gives him such a guilty look.

“Uh-huh.” Biederer’s face melted into a knowing and not particularly friendly look. “In our barrack we had something like two hundred to two hundred fifty prisoners. We slept three in a bunk, with bunks three stories high.”