It's been almost a week since I've arrived in Berlin. It's beautiful city, people are nice, though little cold for me, but I can handle it with Hashem's help.
I've got this really nice novel by Meir Levin, brother of the chief rabbi of Georgia Ariel Levin "Tefillin". I hope you'll like it too.
Translation by Shaul Gorgel
"Every Jew has a share in the world to come"
Tractate "Sanhedrin", ch.11
This one's been my first ever written and published short story. I thought it up on Saturday. Most of the facts were a work of fiction. A year on, a woman who was born in Tbilisi (the capital city of Georgia) rang me. She thanked me, as she was weeping, and told me that she'd heard the story from her father. I must've got it all wrong: indeed her father's name was David, but the surname was Kriheli and the policeman's name was Tzeitlin. Still, I left the surname as is. After all, didn't Jews do a whole lot of good things and their names cannot be altered for this very reason.
The story I'm about to tell you took place several decades ago in one of provincial townships in Southern Russia. Its chief landmark is a factory of building blocks. Building blocks were in short supply back then. Naturally, the only hotel in town always hosted dozens of sneaky characters - supply agents, otherwise known as "go-getters". Their favourite line was "Every paper needs a pair of feet 'cos it doesn't move around on its own". That was why all the workers at the building blocks factory as well as the local railway station fed off the supply agents - cash and booze. Still more, they received handouts too. All that the former Soviet Union had to offer: caviar from the city of Astrakhan, bottles of Georgian and Armenian cognac, honey from Bashkir republic... factory workers had it all.
David Abramovitch Adjiashvili was a gifted supply man. He lost his father early in his childhood and, as a Jew, David knew that in life you get what you pay for. He never learned Russian well, even after years spent working there, but no one could handle the marketing department of the factory better than he could. When necessary, he knew how to have a drink with the right man and inquire about his wife's well being at the most appropriate time. He could also be most charming when need be. David's superiors valued him a great deal and he was becoming increasingly well-to-do. He had a good house and his daughters, Lali and Tzitzino, were "helped" into a prestigious state medical school.
The only discomfiture was that the city council had recently reshuffled, so that local police started digging. David's operations became very risky because, apart from legal supplies, he was sending to Georgia so called "hot" merchandise, simply put, stolen. He would say to himself: "this is the last time I'm doing this".
One day, as he was sending some loaded freight cars on their way, two plain clothed men approached him. They flashed their police badges and asked him to come along. He was cursing himself vigourously for agreeing to come here despite his wife's pleas not to. Yet he had no choice but to come along to the police quarters. Chances of him being released soon were not lost altogether. David knew his associates on the outside would do everything to get him out. However, what complicated the matters was that they did not know what he was arrested for.
All he had to do now was to be quiet and give up nobody. "Make like an idiot, like you do not understand a word in Russian and cry your eyes out, he repeated to himself, otherwise, the "associates" will find a way to keep his mouth shut". A rogue blade or some other "sharp tool" in a detention cell, execution at a framed escape attempt, et cetera. Besides, if nothing works, G-d forbid, the cronies will help out his family. The family was for David the holiest. For truth's sake, working as a supply agent in Russia sometimes meant he could do some "fooling around". But back in Tebilissi, he would not look at other women.
He was led into a cell. An interrogator entered. "What a thug!", thought David. The interrogator began to examine his personal articles. First thing, he brought out some kind of purse, unzipped it and then raised his eyebrows in astonishment.
-What are these boxes? - he demanded - never seen anything like this! Must be they have foreign currency or papers in them. Ivanov, - he called to a policeman - get a hammer. Let's see what those Georgian bozoes have come up with.
It must have only been this Torah ordained commandment of tefillin that still connected David with his Jewishness. His late father had given him this pair of tefillin for his Bar-Mitzva and said: "Son, put these on every morning if you want your life full of blessing". Realising that this Russian's hands would now start breaking his father's present, he leaped up and shouted out with Russian and Georgian words intermixed: "Officer, officer, I'm Jewish, this is only tefillin! I put them on every morning and I swear by Lali and Tzitzino there's nothing in it!" He forgot that the officer did not know who Lali and Tzitzino were.
-Officer, don't touch the tefillin - he was crying now, - I'll come clean on everything.
The interrogator put to the side the tefillin purse. Presently, he sat over by a typewrite and was busy typing up some kind of letter.
-Ivanov! - he called - take this letter to the district prosecutor, at once.
Having waited till Ivanov left, the interrogator opened up a cell door and let David out. He said to him: "If you don't come back in two hours, I'll be in a big trouble".
David flagged down a cab and he was in a suite with his friends in twenty minutes.
-How much did you pay them? - the friends asked David.
He did not reply. Immediately, people were dispatched to the factory and the train station. There, they used the information obtained from David to fix all the paperwork necessary. The "hot" cargo turned "cool". David was back in his cell on time. The following morning he was set free and even received an apology. In one month, David returned to town, sought out the interrogator and brought him gifts: wine, cash and even some diamonds. However, the interrogater refused to accept any of them.
-You see, he said, I'm not clean. Sometimes I helped people out and took gifts for that, but this time round it was a whole different thing. I didn't do it just for you. I did it for a Jew, because you're Jewish. And now you should leave".
Soon afterwards, David and his wife left for Israel. There, he would tell his friends this story pointing out: "Listen, still I don't get it why he never took the cash. Must be them Russian Jews real righteous men!".
I wish I could round up this story on a brighter note, that David's children or grand children are all learning in the Yeshiva, and are married to the interrogator's children and grand children, and that the wedding was joyful and all felt good and happy. But in real life things aren't that simple, and I don't know how everything ended up. Too bad I'm not a prophet and I can't finish this story with an exclamation: "The chief police interrogator, comrade Rabinovitch and David Adjiashvili have a share in the world to come".
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