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My money. Mine.
The small black bankbook in the name of Jacob Schwart was so cleverly hidden away, wrapped in waterproof canvas on a shelf in the lawnmower shed, no one but Jacob Schwart could ever hope to find it.
Each week since his first salary check he had tried-oh, he had tried!-to save something, if only pe
You didn’t need to be a mathematical genius to know: pe
Soon, he would ask the Milburn township officials for a raise.
Very courteously in his second year as caretaker of the cemetery he’d asked. Very humbly he’d asked. Their replies had been stiff, guarded.
Well, Jay-cob! Maybe next year.
Depends upon the budget. County taxes, see?
Politely he pointed out to them that they had the unpaid labor of his elder son who helped him many hours a week now. Also his younger son, sometimes.
They pointed out to him, he lived in the caretaker’s cottage for no rent. And paid no property taxes, either.
Not like the rest of us citizens, Jay-cob. We pay taxes.
They laughed. They were genial jovial men. Those others who regarded him like a dog teetering on its hind legs.
Was he doing a satisfactory job as caretaker, well yes-he was doing a satisfactory job. Unskilled labor it was, maintaining the cemetery, except you had to have some skills, in fact. Except you could not belong to any union. Except you would receive no pension, no insurance, like other township employees.
Except you were fearful in the end of seeming to complain. You were fearful of becoming known in Milburn, New York, as Schwart-who-complains.
Schwart-the-Kraut they called him behind his back. He knew.
Schwart-the-Jew.
(For hadn’t Schwart a Jew nose? No one in Milburn had ever seen an actual Jew except now, Life magazine for instance, Collier’s, were reproducing Nazi anti-Semitic cartoons and caricatures side by side with amusing photographs of inept British civilians training for the defense of their homeland.)
Damn he vowed he would show them! Those others who insulted him and his family. Those others whose secret allegiance was with Hitler. He had secrets of his own, saving money for his escape. He had escaped Hitler and he would escape Milburn, New York. So carefully saving his pe
12
The day Gus came ru
“Never say it.”
13
It was one of the astonishing acts of his life in America.
From a tradesman in Milburn, in the cold wet spring of 1940, he bought the radio. He, Jacob Schwart! His impulsiveness frightened him. His absurd trust in a stranger’s integrity. For the radio was secondhand, and came with no guarantee. In this reckless gesture he was violating his principles of healthy distrust of those others he meant to inculcate in his children to protect them from disaster.
“What have I done! What…”
Like a random act of adultery, it had been. Or violence.
He, he!-who was assuredly not a man of violence but a civilized man, in exile now from his true life.
Yet the purchase had been premeditated for weeks. The quickening news in Europe was such, he could not bear to remain in ignorance. Local newspapers were inadequate. Nothing would satisfy him except a radio with which to hear daily, nightly news from as many sources as possible.
In a state of barely controlled agitation he had presented himself to the teller at the First Bank of Chautauqua. Shyly yet decisively he’d pushed his bankbook beneath the wicket. The teller, an individual of no earthly significance except he held Jacob Schwart’s bankbook in his hand, frowned at the inked figures as if poised to glance up sternly at him-this cringing troll-figure in the soiled work clothes and cloth cap, “Jacob Schwart”-and inform him that no such savings account existed, he was totally mistaken. Instead, as if this were an everyday transaction, the teller mechanically counted out bills, not once but twice; and stiff freshly minted bills they were, which pleased Jacob Schwart absurdly. As the teller pushed both money and bankbook back beneath the wicket he seemed almost to wink at his customer. I know what you’re going to do with this money, Jacob Schwart!
For days afterward Jacob would suffer stomach cramps and diarrhea, so stricken with guilt. Or so elated, and so stricken with guilt. A radio! In the caretaker’s hovel! A Motorola, the very best manufacturer of radios in the world. The cabinet was made of wood, the dial warmly glowed as soon as the radio was turned on. It was a miracle how, switching the knob to on, you felt immediately the vibrating life of the marvelous instrument inside the cabinet like a thrumming soul.
Of course, Jacob had bought the radio without telling A
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