The Kiss

By Scott E. Blumenthal

WINNER: 2015 INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARD, HISTORICAL FICTION

GOLD MEDAL: 2014 INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER BOOK AWARD, HISTORICAL FICTION

November, 1941. War and genocide have plunged Europe into darkness. Then, a ray of sunlight: whispers of Aron Beckman, an extraordinary young Jewish musician in Poland who plays the harp that belonged to King David himself.

They say that Aron has formed a trio with two fellow prodigies, and that the music is like nothing ever heard before. That it is powerful. That it moves people to do great things. That it can bring the dead back to life.

They say the musicians can lift the darkness. And that they are on their way.

"This breathtaking novel, a musical story set against the backdrop of the Holocaust, filled with wonder and surprises...will stay with you long after you've read the last page. Blumenthal, a remarkably talented craftsman, hits all the right notes." —Ari L. Goldman, author of The Search for God at Harvard, The Late Starters Orchestra

• Language: English
• Publisher: TouchMark Press
• Release date: Jan 22, 2017
• ISBN: 9780998361710

Book preview

Author

To Susan

Interviews, Part One

From the interview with: Ester Solomirski

Place of Birth: Poznań, Poland

Date of Birth: July 15, 1924

Occupation: Professor emeritus, religious studies and mythology, Brown University and Smith College

Dr. Solomirski’s family was deported to the Warsaw Ghetto, along with thousands of other Poznań Jews, in 1940. She managed to survive not only the ghetto but also the Majdanek and Budzyn concentration camps. She emigrated to the United States in 1945.

Dr. Solomirski is the author of two books about the Rovner Klezmorim: God, Myth, and The Rovner Klezmorim, which compares the legends of the musicians to myths of antiquity, and Impossible Music: The Rovner Klezmorim and the Warsaw Ghetto, in which Dr. Solomirski recounts her personal experience of the legends of the Rovner Klezmorim.

Dr. Solomirski lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.

INTERVIEWER: Dr. Solomirski, would you say that the legends of Aron Beckman and the Rovner Klezmorim are, for lack of a better word, true?

ESTER SOLOMIRSKI: Yes. Unequivocally. As are the legends of Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and the Easter Bunny.

INTERVIEWER: So you are of the opinion that the legends are not true.

ESTER SOLOMIRSKI: You’ll forgive me, Mr. Decker. If you are who you say you are—and again, I am at best dubious, at worst concerned that this interview is an utter waste of my time—then my opinion on the matter must be offensive to you.

INTERVIEWER: Not at all. I am grateful for your candor and for your—

ESTER SOLOMIRSKI: Good—then I will continue. What you and others call truth, Mr. Decker, is beside the point. Read the scripture of any world religion alive or dead—read your Bible, for heaven’s sake—and tell me which are historical records and which are tales to justify our community’s own insular view of the universe. So no, I am not interested in true per se. Now, do I believe that the Rovner Klezmorim provided a momentary ray of sunlight in our hell? Yes, I do. Do I believe that we counted the stories that circulated about them among the reasons not to die? Yes, I do.

INTERVIEWER: Dr. Solomirski, if you would, please expound on your opinion on—

ESTER SOLOMIRSKI: Listen, you want to know if I believe that Aron Beckman and the other two Klezmorim were—and again, Mr. Decker, you’ll forgive me—actual historical figures. I understand that. That’s why you’ve requested this interview, and I intend to oblige. My answer is this: yes and no. We have corroborated enough second-generation testimony to convince us that yes, Aron Beckman was a real person who was born and raised in Rovno, Poland, and who was regarded as a facile musician and composer. Yes, we have reason to believe that he formed a trio with two other young men, and that trio came to be called the Rovner Klezmorim. And yes, we have reason to believe that these young men were talented—even exceptional—musicians. But if you want to confirm the veracity of Beckman’s magical harp [finger quotes] and musical powers [finger quotes]—be they messianic, supernatural, or extraterrestrial—then I refer you to my first book, which argues that the question marks on the subject outweigh the evidence.

INTERVIEWER: What would you say are some of those question marks?

ESTER SOLOMIRSKI: How much time do you have, Mr. Decker? Historical inaccuracies and contradictions of soi-disant eyewitnesses aside, where is one extant copy of the phonograph record they are said to have made? School records would have been impossible, yes, but why is it that the fabled Whale’s Belly has never been found? Or, if you prefer, the most nagging logical snag of them all: If Beckman were in fact the Messiah, where is the evidence of his presumably considerable influence? Six million Jews were still murdered.

INTERVIEWER: In your estimation, then, who were the Rovner Klezmorim?

ESTER SOLOMIRSKI: Oh, an amalgam of myth and folklore from that period. An embodiment of the desperation of the sufferers, if you prefer. Listen, what is myth—messianic legend in particular—but a collectively sanctioned fiction born of despair? As human beings, we fashion our heroes so that they suit us. It’s in our DNA. That’s what we do.

From the interview with: Tuvia Weiss

Place of Birth: Bjelaja-Zerkow, USSR (now Ukraine)

Date of Birth: January 30, 1918

Occupation: cantor (ret.)

All seventeen members of Mr. Weiss’ family were murdered by the Einsatzgruppen (Nazi mobile killing units) in a single aktion in August 1941. He spent three years as a member of a Lithuanian partisan unit before escaping westward to Spain, then to the United States.

Mr. Weiss became a devotee of the Rovner Klezmorim during the height of their influence. He went on to write and speak extensively on the musicians’ religious significance, earning renown among those who subscribed to this view.

The excerpts of interviews with Mr. Weiss are published courtesy of Ester Solomirski, who interviewed Mr. Weiss in 1993, five years prior to his death.

INTERVIEWER: Mr. Weiss, how did you come to learn of Aron Beckman and the Rovner Klezmorim?

TUVIA WEISS: I will tell you like this. It was August eighth, 1941. Through the whole day, there was talk that Hitler, y’mach sh’mo [Hebrew, may his name be erased], was sending his animals. Everyone was afraid. Some ran away, but most of us stayed. Where was there to go? That night, we pleaded with God. We made deals with Him. But the animals came anyway. We hid ourselves—in basements, in attics, under the floors—but they found everyone. Everyone but me. We were a small town, so it was not like in the cities. They did not bother to lie to us and send us away. It was easier just to take us outside and shoot us. From where I was, peeking from a window, I could see everything. My mother, my father, my wife, my sons, my daughter. Killed. [He waves dismissively.] Cousins, uncles, aunts. Everyone killed—right there in the street.

Now, to say this—for a man to say this—it is too much for one person. One person cannot know this all at once and still go on being a person, going to the store, laughing, resting at night. One person cannot think about all this and not be crazy. God knows this. [He raises a finger and looks upward.] He knows. But He also knows this: Only in darkness can we see sparks. That is why this unspeakable thing happened to us. Because He knew it was time to send Moshiach [Heb., Messiah]. You see? God had to make the world black so we could see him!

From the interview with: Chaim Margulies

Place of Birth: Rovno, Poland

Date of Birth: October 29, 1926

Occupation: orthopedist (ret.)

Mr. Margulies is the only known survivor of the Sosenkes massacre of 7–8 November 1941. He witnessed the storied performance of the Rovner Klezmorim on the first day of the killings, when he was selected by the Nazis to help dig and then fill the mass grave.

Mr. Margulies, who has suffered from multi-infarct dementia since 2009, is providing his testimony here for the first time. His daughter, Deborah Nathison, assisted her father during our interviews in their home in Brooklyn, New York.

As I will explain later, Mr. Margulies and Ms. Nathison played crucial roles in the writing of this book. Words cannot express my gratitude to both of them for their time and generosity.

INTERVIEWER: Mr. Margulies, you were 15 years old on that terrible day in November 1941. Is that correct?

CHAIM MARGULIES: You seem very smart, so if you say so—okay, it’s correct!

INTERVIEWER: Mr. Margulies, what do you remember about that day?

CHAIM MARGULIES: Okay. Tell me—we are here to talk about my grandfather, no? You seem very nice. I remember your grandmother. You look like her—I can see it.

INTERVIEWER: Actually, Mr. Margulies, I was hoping to learn more about you. Can you tell me what you remember about that terrible day in November 1941—in Sosenkes?

CHAIM MARGULIES: Sosenkes means pine trees. Did your grandmother tell you this? Everywhere—tall, tall pine trees. In the morning they took us to Moshsitsky Park. It was very cold. I said goodbye to my mama and my papa. [Mr. Margulies stops and looks at his hands, which are trembling. Ms. Nathison suggests that we pause, but her father shakes his head. He turns to look at The Kiss, his brother’s painting of the three musicians. He sighs and continues, his eyes still on the painting.] I was taken early, with other boys—my friends. They took us far into Sosenkes, to an open field. There was a pit there. It was very big, very deep already, but they gave us shovels and said, Dig! What could we do? There were many of them, with guns. Ukrainians, too. They took orders from the Germans. Everyone telling us to dig faster. It was very cold. Very cold in here today, Deborah. Deborah, it is very cold in here. I am cold today. [We stop while Ms. Nathison prepares tea for her father. During this break, Ms. Nathison shows us a photograph of her father with his beautiful family, taken in 1936, the mother and children with what Ms. Nathison called their famously wheat-blond hair.]

INTERVIEWER: Mr. Margulies, you said that you were ordered to dig inside a deep pit. Did you know why you were digging?

CHAIM MARGULIES: We knew. We knew. But we did not have any thoughts except fear and wanting not to cry. I told my mama and my papa that we were going to be shot—I told them, but they didn’t believe me! [Mr. Margulies presses his fists to his eyes. Ms. Nathison suggests that we stop, but Mr. Margulies insists we continue, to get it done already.] Then the people started coming. The sight was terrible. Terrible, terrible. The people were undressed—men and women together. Old people and children. They were all screaming and begging. They were lined up at the pit. It was a far drop down into the pit. Into the graves. We boys—we were told to come out of the pit and to stand to the side. [At this point, Mr. Margulies’ eyes begin moving back and forth, left to right and back again. They continue to move this way as he speaks.] And they shot them. One after the other after the other. They fell down into the grave. Some were dead, but some were not. Then, after each group of people, they made us throw earth on top of them. For hours we did this. The whole time I waited for my turn. I wanted my turn, so I would be taken away from this. Then the three klezmorim [musicians] came in. They were brought to the pit, with their instruments, close to where we boys were. People were in shock to see them. Some called out to them. They asked the klezmorim to save them. I remember. I remember this. I was thinking you are all crazy. You are going to die. We are all going to die. [Mr. Margulies turns back to the painting, and his eyes become still.] But then the klezmorim began to play.

Aron’s Gift

July 1930–May 1931

A worldwide economic crisis creeps across Europe, leaving three million Germans without work. Desperate for employment and direction, many Germans are attracted to extremist movements such as the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party. Led by Adolf Hitler, who had orchestrated a failed revolution against the German government in 1923, the Nazis promise work, freedom, and bread. Hitler assures Germans that the crisis is no fault of their own, but the result of a worldwide conspiracy fostered by Jews.

What are you writing, Mama?

Aron’s mother smiled at the coincidence; she had been writing the word treasure when he asked the question. A letter, she said, dimming the kerosene lamp on Aron’s writing table. To you. For you to read someday. She placed the pen into its well and stretched her fingers painfully. She had been writing for a long time, longer than she should have, certainly longer than Dr. Berenbaum—the old worrywart—would have allowed. Now go back to sleep, my treasure.

But I want to stay with you, Aron said.

Aron’s mother walked to his bed, sat beside him, and touched his cheek.

The familiar crack of pain behind her eyes. Then the steady, trickling pain through her bones. As she squeezed her eyes closed, a teardrop fell.

Why are you crying, Mama?

Because I love you so much, she said, embracing him. This body, this body that I made. For a moment, the pain receded.

My treasure, she whispered, squeezing him, rocking him, Mama has to go away soon.

Why, Mama? Where are you going?

My beautiful baby, God wants me in heaven.

"But I want you to stay here with me, Mama."

Can I start again? This is not how I meant to tell him.

"I will always be here with you," she said, placing her hand over his heart, pressing her forehead against his so that they saw only each other’s eyes.

My baby’s eyes. My baby’s beautiful eyes.

She kissed her son’s forehead.

They are eyes, but they are not, just as diamonds are not glass. I will take the memory of them with me.

* * *

My wife apologizes for not meeting with you herself, said Aron’s father. She is quite ill. He stood at the living room window, watching the rain speckle the cobblestones of Chichego Maya, already seeing ghosts of his wife along the cobblestone thoroughfare of their beloved city. A droshky lumbered past the bakery downstairs. Its driver urged the horse to hurry so that they might reach their destination before the downpour.

He turned to the music teacher, who sat on the sofa in the middle of the room, and spoke quickly. Berenbaum had just gone, having confirmed the imminence of his wife’s death—two, three months at best—and he was in little mood for conversation. It is my wife’s wish that you become our son’s music teacher, that he learn to play the musical instrument that she played, that her father played. She said that you would understand this, that you were a friend of her family’s when she was a child.

Yes, I understand, said the music teacher, his voice warm.

I cannot pay you much. This recession has little mercy, even for bakers. Aron’s father searched the man’s eyes for a hint of disappointment or, worse, the greed to which a musician who plays in the Birje—in the street!—was surely vulnerable. He saw neither.

It is not necessary to pay me, said the music teacher. It would be my honor to serve as the boy’s teacher.

Aron’s father smiled to Chichego Maya, bemused but disarmed by the teacher’s choice of the word serve.

I like this man, he thought.

I should tell you that our son is a serious child. More serious than a nine-year-old boy should be, I think. And, I fear, more unhappy. His mother’s illness has been difficult for him. He turned back to the window and focused on a group of children running along Chichego Maya, laughing and splashing in the shallow puddles. It is our hope that these music lessons will bring him happiness.

I believe they will, said the music teacher.

Good, Aron’s father whispered to Chichego Maya. Very well. I’ll show you the instrument now. If you’ll excuse me.

Moments later, Aron’s father placed an object the size and shape of a large washboard on the occasional table before the music teacher. A large black veil evinced the object’s contour but no detail. I cannot tell you what in the world this instrument is, he said. My wife tells me it has been in her family for generations. He removed the veil. It reminds me of the harp from the Bible—the one David played for Solomon. And as you can see, this looks old enough to have been the very one.

The music teacher smiled at the joke, his eyes watching the instrument, softening.

* * *

The sun beamed through the window above Aron’s writing table, bathing the small room in light. Teacher and student sat opposite each other on wooden stools. The teacher’s round face, framed by a wild tangle of black and gray hair, seemed to Aron to produce the light on its own.

The instrument’s gleaming new strings sliced the sunlight into eleven neat columns along the teacher’s round torso as he continued to silently tune its strings and polish its arches, which parted from each other in the attitude of a tulip in bloom.

Finally, the teacher spoke.

There is a reason for the saying, he said, leaning forward and pressing a short, fat thumb to his student’s forehead, ‘Ask advice from everyone, but act with your own mind.’

Aron smiled.

"My responsibility, the teacher said, returning to his tuning, is not to issue commands or directives. You will pass enough people along your path who will do that. My responsibility is to help you—he wiggled his pinkies as the rest of his hands continued tuning—find your fingers."

Aron looked at his own fingers as if for the first time.

Now, said the music teacher, sitting upright and slapping his thighs, "two introductions. First, me. I am Drummer. An unusual name, I know. Not enough days in the week for that story, so suffice it to say that it’s the name I’ll most likely answer to. You can call me Boris or Mordechai if you prefer, but if you do I will be very, very puzzled." Drummer squinted confusedly and scratched his head like a monkey.

Aron laughed hard, his mouth open wide.

Second, our friend here. Drummer turned the instrument so that it was parallel to his legs and firmly between his knees. This, Aron, is the kinnor. Drummer brought his hands to either side of the instrument and pressed his fingertips to the strings.

Then, he began to play.

The music teacher’s hands leapt impossibly from place to exact place. Music—energy, life—radiated from the strings, warming Aron, awakening him, uplifting him. He imagined himself running, leaping, soaring—above his house, above Chichego Maya, above Rovno, above the clouds, his body weightless.

For the rest of his life, Aron would remember it as his moment of purest joy.

Drummer called their second lesson for the next night, after the sun had set. To remind us not to look at the strings, he explained as he dimmed the lamp-flame to a marble-sized pellet. This is the way your grandfather Moshe learned. In the near-darkness, it seemed to Aron as if Drummer’s voice were coming from everywhere.

Place your left thumb on the first string, the string nearest your heart. This is A. Pluck it, but trust that it will ring without force. Aron traced the inside of the arced wooden column, his head upward, his eyes closed. The knuckle of his thumb, measuring, searching, finding the string. Eager, he plucked it—too hard—brushing the second and third strings also, creating a dissonant buzz. Drummer placed a finger on the second and third strings, muting them, leaving the A to ring alone. Try again. This time, imagine that the A string has the thinness of a thread, and your thumb the width of a chocolate babka.

Smiling, this time he got it—a strong, clear A.

Drummer’s left hand alternated between the cup of Earl Grey and the plate of mandelbrot Aron’s father insisted on bringing him before every lesson (Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday evenings, with the exception of days on which Jewish law forbade cooking), watching proudly as his student mastered yet another series of harmonic progressions.

No one along the storied line of musicians, Drummer realized, had attained this level of excellence at so young an age.

Within one month, Aron had learned the names of and tonal relationships between each of the twelve strings; aural identification of any natural note Drummer might hum or pluck; and the fingering of three chords—the tonic, subdominant, and dominant of C major, the instrument’s natural key.

Within two months, Aron had developed a facility with the instrument’s microtonal levers, lined like ten black pearls along its top bridge, thus allowing the full range of tones and semitones—as well as minor, augmented, and diminished chords—in every key.

Within three months, Aron had transformed the ascending and descending scales of his daily exercises into swirling arpeggios—and had developed an intuitive understanding of the relationship between melody, countermelody, and harmony, which most musicians, Drummer knew—even professional klezmorim—simply never approach.

Drummer placed his cup of Earl Grey into its saucer as Aron completed his progressions—demonstrating yet another level of proficiency—and looked to his teacher for acknowledgment. There is a reason for the saying, the music teacher said, ‘A craft is a kingdom.’

Aron practiced constantly.

In his sleep, he heard permutations of notes and chords that had not occurred to him during the day, intricate webbed patterns of sound he would knead into the kinnor upon waking.

At school, he thought of nothing but music. Arithmetic was its structure. Reading was its rhythm. History its memory. His classmates thought him odd, too serious and too old for his age. His teachers thought him aloof but too studious to correct. All regarded him with curiosity.

By the end of the school day, it was a question of how many minutes, how many seconds, until he could play again. He would envision himself racing across the cobblestones of Chichego Maya, bursting into the bakery, kissing his father’s flour-dusted cheek, running upstairs, embracing his mother, promising that he would play for only one hour before turning to his homework, and then, finally, the kinnor.

And every time he would place the instrument between his knees and bring his fingertips across the strings, the chords would be more crisp, the passing notes more subtle, the strings at rest more still.

* * *

During the final weeks of her life, Aron’s mother listened to Chopin almost every waking moment. The Great Frédéric, as her father had called him, had always been her favorite—his nocturnes in particular—and now she relied on the intimacy of his music as never before. The pain in her bones had become so intense that Aron’s father had moved the Victor gramophone from the living room to their bedroom so she could enjoy the Great Frédéric without having to stand.

Aron, come sit with me, she said as her son wound the gramophone crank and placed the needle onto the spinning disc. Nocturne no. 10 in A Flat Major crackled through the machine’s conical horn.

Aron sat in the chair next to his mother’s bed and took her hands in his.

My baby. My beautiful baby. How I love you.

My treasure, she said in a whisper. To speak with a full voice was to aggravate the pain at the base of her neck, which throbbed with the same relentless meter as the beating of her heart. "That is what my father—your grandfather Moshe—called me. ‘My treasure.’ How proud of you he would have been."

How I wish he could have known you, Papa. How he would have loved you. How I wish I could have seen the two of you together.

She took her hands from Aron’s and pressed hard against her temples. She closed her eyes, waiting for the shock of pain to recede.

Mama, you don’t have to talk. I know it hurts.

She forced herself to smile, so that he would not be afraid.

Play for me, my treasure, she said, her eyes still closed. I am ready to sleep now.

She was already asleep by the time Aron returned with the kinnor. He stood staring at her face, so peaceful now, the melody of Chopin’s Nocturne no. 10 blossoming in his mind into something new.

* * *

The evening after his mother’s funeral, Aron sat at the foot of his bed, the kinnor between his knees, watching the moon through the window above his writing table. A teardrop fell from his cheek onto the spiral, yawning column that pressed against his body. He strummed the first few chords of his new nocturne. It soothed him.

He played the piece throughout the night.

By midnight it had evolved again, its structure and melody so unlike Chopin’s original as to be something wholly new. With the exception of a finale, which he could not envision, Aron had his first original composition.

By morning, he had decided upon a title: My Treasure. My grandfather’s name for my mother, my mother’s name for me.

* * *

Ten months after his first lesson with the boy, as he sat listening to something I must play for you, Drummer, the music teacher witnessed Aron’s gift.

Drummer’s mind at once relaxed and sharpened as the music transported him—in a not unpleasant way—to a long-forgotten place in his memory.

Moshe, my best friend. Mein brüder. The two of us, walking through Sosenkes, the forest our sanctuary, our haven. The august pines our arbiters, presiding over debates beyond moment: The greatest composer who ever lived. The greatest piece ever composed. The most beautiful woman ever born.

Surely it was Ester Szostak, you said, even before you knew she would someday stand beside you beneath the chupah. No, I argued, it was Chana Kopelman, who would later stand beneath the wedding canopy with me.

How we agreed that Rovno must be a charmed city, having borne the world’s two loveliest daughters.

How we dreamt of the world we had yet to see and the journeys we would take together—to Austria, to America, to the Far East.

And how we pledged our friendship to one another: For as long as I live, each of us said, you will be mein brüder.

I have kept our pledge, Moshe, thought Drummer as Aron plucked the final, solitary note. You may be gone many years, but