Shoot Me, I'm Already Dead Read online

  “Hello, Father . . .”

  “Isaac . . . ,” Grandfather Elijah managed to murmur.

  After a few seconds of silence, it was the woman who began to speak.

  “So you must be Samuel. I’ve wanted to meet you for a while, your father never stops talking about you. He’s very proud of how much you study, he says that you’ll go far. And I suppose that you must be Monsieur Elijah. It’s an honor to meet you, I know that you are not only the best furrier in Paris, but a good man as well.”

  The woman smiled at them, and Elijah and Samuel both felt disarmed by the open expression on her face.

  “And you are . . .?” Grandfather Elijah began to ask.

  “Marie Dupont, I’m a dressmaker, I work in Monsieur Martel’s shop, I met Isaac there.”

  Marie was not beautiful, although her face was agreeable enough. You would have to look at her for a while to find her attractive, because her chestnut hair, chestnut eyes, and her plumpish figure were not obvious attractions. She managed to enchant men with the flow of her talk.

  When Elijah took his leave because he had to deliver the overcoats, Marie offered to come with them, and so the four of them spent a large part of the afternoon walking all over Paris. When the time came for them to say goodbye, Marie surprised them again when she suggested that they come to have tea with her the following Sunday.

  “I live in the Marais with my mother, it’s a modest little house, but nobody makes tarte tatin like she does.”

  They did not agree to go, but neither did they reject the invitation. Once Marie had left, Isaac tried to explain himself to his son and his father-in-law.

  “Marie is a good friend, nothing more.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” Grandfather Elijah said, without trying to hide his anger.

  When they reached their house after some time, Elijah locked himself away in his room and did not want to come out for dinner. Isaac and Samuel ate sitting next to each other, at first in silence.

  “Father, why is Grandfather angry?”

  “Probably because of Marie,” Isaac replied sincerely.

  “Is she . . . is she . . . Well, are you going to marry her?”

  “I’m not going to marry anyone; what I said is true, she’s a good friend, nothing more.”

  “But she had her arm in yours,” Samuel replied.

  “Yes, that’s right, but it doesn’t mean that we’re going to get married. When you’re older you’ll understand.”

  Samuel was annoyed by his father’s insistence that it was only in the future he would understand the present, so he dared to answer back.

  “I want to understand it now.”

  “You’re still very young,” Isaac said, drawing the conversation to a close.

  The days went by and Elijah scarcely spoke to Isaac. Samuel started to feel upset by the uncomfortable relation between his father and his grandfather. During Sabbath dinner, he plucked up the courage to ask them what was wrong, but he did not get an answer.

  “I don’t like being in Paris anymore,” he said suddenly.

  “You don’t like it? Since when?” Elijah asked.

  “Since you and father have started being angry with each other. You barely talk anymore. All three of us are unhappy. I want to go back to Saint Petersburg.”

  “Yes, it would be better. I’m about to finish my work here, and the summer is nearly over,” Isaac added.

  They fell silent and did not want to finish the meal. They were going to get up from the table when Elijah made a gesture with his hand.

  “Samuel is right, it’s better for us to be open with each other. I know that I don’t have any right to get involved in your life, that you are still a young man, but it’s the memory of Esther that’s clouding my mind. She was my daughter, my only daughter, and I will never recover from losing her.”

  “Esther was my wife, and Samuel’s mother. Do you think that we’ve forgotten her? There’s not a single day that goes by when I don’t pray for her, and I know that we will meet each other in eternity. I will never betray her, never.”

  “Grandfather, why are you so upset that Marie held my father’s arm? I don’t mind, I know that he hasn’t stopped loving my mother because of it. My father will love my mother, will love my brother and sister, will love me, forever. No one can take the place of my mother, ever. My father would never let it happen.”

  “That’s right,” Isaac agreed.

  “I’m sorry, it’s my fault that all this bad feeling came to the surface, I . . . I know that I don’t have the right to blame you for anything, but seeing that woman holding your arm was . . . was as if you were betraying Esther.”

  “But I was not. I was out walking with a friend, nothing more. I will not lie about Marie. She is a good woman, she is friendly and open, and life has been tough on her. Her father fell ill when she was a little girl, and she had to look after him and her little brother while her mother went out to find food for the family. Her brother caught the fever as well, and died a few months after her father. She didn’t want to leave her mother to fate and so she rejected several suitors. She earns her living honorably, she takes in sewing, and her mother makes cakes and pies and sells them in their neighborhood. She has nothing to blame herself for, and neither do I. It is true that we try to find time to meet and talk about our suffering, about what life has taken away from us, but both of us know that we don’t have a future together. My life is in Saint Petersburg, hers is in Paris, but even so we enjoy the time we are able to spend together. Should we be ashamed because of this?”

  “Of course not!” Samuel exclaimed, before his grandfather had a chance to speak.

  “You are right. Sometimes the fault is in the eyes that look, rather than in what they see. Forgive me, and you forgive me too, Samuel.”

  The next day, Samuel said he wanted to go to Marie’s house and try the tarte tatin that he had been promised. Elijah apologized for not going with them, but he said as they left that he hoped they would enjoy the afternoon.

  The attic that Marie shared with her mother in the Place des Vosges was small, but clean and tidy, and it smelled of apples.

  The two women made every effort for Isaac and Samuel to feel at home, and when evening fell they made the two of them promise to come back.

  When they got back home, Elijah was keen to know how the meal had gone, and Samuel felt calm to see his grandfather behaving as always.

  As time went by, Samuel also came to appreciate Marie, whom he saw every summer, and even Grandfather Elijah came around to liking her, this woman who looked for nothing more than what she was offered; Samuel felt that his grandfather’s defenses had been breached because Marie knew how to read, and not just that, but she showed great sympathy for those who fought for the emancipation of everyone who, like her, had nothing. Also, Elijah thought highly of the clothes that Marie sewed so neatly for Monsieur Martel’s shop.

  When summer was about to come to an end, Isaac and Samuel went back to Saint Petersburg carrying trunks filled with overcoats from Grandfather Elijah, as well as a good amount of women’s clothing, sewn by Marie, which Isaac was sure that he, with the help of Countess Ekaterina, would be able to sell for a good price to the ladies of the tsar’s court.

  Neither Isaac nor Samuel had felt the need to look for other lodgings away from the widow Korlov’s house, even though the room was so small. Raisa and Alina treated them as if they were family.

  It was Raisa’s idea to bring two old beds down from the attic: they were still in good shape and would do as substitutes for the double bed that father and son had shared until now.

  “It’s time for Samuel to have his own bed,” she said one day, ordering Isaac to accompany her up to the attic.

  And it was Alina’s idea to let the boy study in the living room, which was always empty until suppertime, because the two women
preferred the heat of the kitchen.

  “When Andrei leaves, you can have his room,” Raisa promised.

  But Andrei was not ready to leave. He was finishing his studies in botany and earned a little extra money helping out in the city libraries in his free time. He did not earn much, it was barely enough for him to look after himself and not depend on his father, who was so proud of his son.

  Samuel felt sympathetic toward Andrei and when no one could overhear them they discussed politics together. It did not take long for him to discover that the university student was a faithful follower of Marxist doctrine, although Samuel did not dare admit that he himself had read The Communist Manifesto.

  Isaac had told him to be prudent, and not to reveal his political leanings.

  “Be careful, remember they killed your mother because they accused the Jews of being behind the murder of Tsar Alexander.”

  But Samuel tended to be less prudent than Isaac would have liked, and soon after he had entered the university, to study chemistry, he started to meet with other students who, like him, dreamed of a world without social classes.

  It was thanks to Gustav Goldanski that Samuel was able to enter the university. He wanted to become a pharmacist, but Professor Goldanski convinced him to study chemistry.

  “If you are a chemist you will be able to be a pharmacist, but if you are a pharmacist then you will not be able to be a chemist, and who knows what life will offer you,” he said.

  So Samuel followed the professor’s advice and prepared to convert himself into a chemist. He wouldn’t have wanted to study anything else, such was the admiration he felt for his benefactor. Although the professor was now retired, he still made up medicines for some of his most intimate friends. On occasion his grandson Konstantin and Samuel had even helped in the laboratory he had set up in an annex to his house. Samuel was fascinated watching the professor preparing the plants to be macerated, which were then mixed with liquids that seemed to him almost magical, and then converted into pills or syrups to help combat pain. Konstantin was not so interested in his grandfather’s activities, and limited himself to doing what he was asked and little more, but Samuel never stopped asking questions, fascinated by what those distillations might help cure.

  “I have always been interested in curative substances. Doctors can make diagnoses, but then they need medicines to cure the disease. I could have dedicated myself to other branches of chemistry, doubtless even more profitable ones, but I was fascinated by what could be obtained by allying chemistry and botany. I haven’t stopped experimenting for a single day, there is so much still to discover . . .”

  Whenever he could, Konstantin escaped from his grandfather’s laboratory, but Samuel stayed with the professor and listened to him for hours, time that seemed to him far too short.

  His father was also grateful to the old professor.

  “I don’t know how to thank you for everything you have done for us; a thousand years would not be enough for me to pay you the debt I owe you and your family,” Isaac said to his benefactor.

  “You know something? Doing good for others is the same as doing good for yourself. It allows me to think that one day, when I stand before God, he will pardon all my faults because of the good I have been able to do for my fellow man.”

  “I know you do what your heart tells you.”

  “More than that, I do what my grandson Konstantin tells me. He would never forgive me if he were unable to share his time at university with his best friend, your son. You’ll see, they’ll turn into fine young men. I won’t deny that I would have liked my grandson to follow in my footsteps, but he prefers diplomacy, like my son Boris. So I am happy to at least be able to pass on to your son some of the knowledge I have gained over the course of my life. He has talent, let me tell you, and he is daring when it comes to experimentation. Who knows, maybe our families will one day be joined, my dear Isaac. Have you seen how my granddaughter Katia’s eyes shine whenever Samuel comes to visit?”

  “I don’t dare hope for such a thing. I give thanks to the Almighty that we have you as a friend. You have done more for me than a father would do for his son.”

  Gustav Goldanski died during Samuel’s first winter at the university. He couldn’t shake off an attack of pneumonia that he himself had tried to cure. For Isaac, it was like losing a father.

  “I don’t know what we’ll do without him,” he whispered at the funeral, trying to stop himself from shedding even more tears.

  “We owe him everything,” young Samuel replied, also feeling an unbearable gulf inside himself.

  In the days that followed Gustav Goldanski’s death, Samuel spent a lot of time with Konstantin. His friend had become the head of the Goldanski household, although he relied a great deal on the presence and advice of his grandmother, Countess Ekaterina.

  “Nothing will change. You will be a diplomat, in the service of Russia and the tsar; it’s the best way of showing your respect for your father and your grandfather, and you, Samuel, you need not worry, you will always have me to protect you, it’s what my husband would have wanted.”

  Both Konstantin and Samuel felt as though they had been orphaned. They had held Gustav Goldanski up as an example, and they thought there was no better man in the world. They obeyed the required mourning strictures for several months, and tended not even to leave their houses, but after a while they began to expand their circle of friends. To their surprise, they came into contact with young people who espoused ideas aimed at destroying the current regime. It was not that they did not agree that Russia needed a less oppressive government, but they had never imagined that people even existed who defended the need for a “revolution,” one that would go so far as to get rid of the monarchy.

  Samuel was to a certain degree fascinated with socialist ideas, but he held back from showing it, and kept clear of other young men who praised Bakunin’s theories. Of course, both he and Konstantin read banned books when they fell into their hands, but this was as far as their rebellion went.

  “Bakunin goes a step farther than Marx does,” Konstantin said to Samuel, “and says that the suppression of the State is necessary. There will be no freedom while the State exists. What do you think?”

  Samuel rejected Bakunin’s ideas. He supported an ordered State.

  “Bakunin’s ideas will never cohere, they will only provoke chaos. The people want things to change, but they need a direction.”

  He was surprised that Konstantin argued for the importance of change, that he was moved by the peasants’ suffering, that he was made indignant by the lack of liberty.

  He did not know what he would have thought if he had been Goldanski’s grandson . . . if it were he who was to inherit name and fortune and social position.

  “Don’t you realize that if socialism does triumph one day then you’ll lose your inheritance?”

  “Then I would have to show what I’m worth. Sometimes I think it’s not fair that some people have so much and some so little. What my grandfather earned by his efforts shouldn’t be mine. Anyway, we have too much. Do you think we need all that we possess? Of course we don’t. You share a room with your father, a room so small that you can scarcely move; I live in a palace that looks out onto the Baltic. Good old Raisa Korlov sews up your shirts; I have never had to wear clothes that have been mended. Why do I have more than you? What have I done to deserve it? We are equals, and we should live as equals, and both have the same.”

  “Yes, that’s what Marx calls for, but it is a utopia,” Samuel said, admiring Konstantin’s humanity.

  “Anyway, even if I wanted to I couldn’t give up what I have. My grandmother would never forgive me and I’m responsible for my sister Katia. All I can do is hope that the tsar realizes he has to make changes to help the people, a people that adores him and is loyal to him.”

  In spite of his words, Konstantin was a faithful subject of
the tsar, and acted and behaved like an aristocrat, even though he was not immune to the new ideas that had filtered into Russia.

  There was another young Jew, Joshua Silvermann, in Samuel’s circle of friends; Samuel had met him shortly after arriving in Saint Petersburg. Joshua’s grandfather was a rabbi, and taught Samuel Hebrew. Isaac didn’t want his son to forget that he was a Jew, so he sent him to the rabbi’s house every week, and Samuel had struck up a strong friendship with the rabbi’s grandson.

  The Silvermann family, like the Goldanskis or Isaac and Samuel Zucker, came from the Kingdom of Poland, although they had been settled in Saint Petersburg for several decades.

  In contrast to Konstantin and Samuel, however, young Joshua was a religious child, and tried to fulfill the precepts of Judaism with great care.

  “My grandfather would be offended if I didn’t go to the synagogue,” he said apologetically to his friends.

  In spite of his religious principles, Joshua shared with his friends a keen desire for Russia to change, although he rejected Marx and Bakunin.

  “The idea of socialism sounds all very well, but where will it lead us? I’m scared to see some of our friends promoting it without any doubt at all. I don’t know, but sometimes they seem to me to be fanatics.”

  “And why should they doubt?” Samuel asked Joshua. “Do you doubt any of the things you believe?”

  “The only think I don’t doubt is God,” Joshua replied.

  “But you obey all the strictures of our religion, even the most ridiculous ones! That’s what I would call fanaticism,” Samuel reproached him.

  “Let’s leave God to one side. Tell me, have you become a socialist?” Joshua asked his friend.

  “I think that their ideas make a lot of sense,” Samuel replied.

  It was normally Konstantin who made peace between Samuel and Joshua.

  Although the three young men were inseparable, they made different choices at the university: Samuel was studying to become a chemist, Konstantin was training to be a diplomat, and Joshua had decided to study botany, so as not to disappoint his grandfather. Even so, they still found time to get together, something that made Isaac happy, as he was convinced that the rabbi’s son would end up inspiring Samuel with some degree of religious feeling.