Tales of Grabowski by John Auerbach

Never mind: just think they’ve opened their eyes, and stare at you. What do they see? He remembered now the image in the hairdresser’s shop, not in the mirror facing the facing the chair in which he was sitting while the barber worked on his hair, but the other one, long, near the entrance door, which showed you full size.

You stood there, and looked at yourself critically while the barber brushed off the little hairs from your jacket with a tiny whisk. That’s how they would see you now if they opened their eyes: a young man of medium height, very slightly bent, bent only so much as to suggest negligence or relaxation. With long arms. Ashen blond hair. Green-blue, rather small eyes, a straight long nose, full lips. Square forehead. That’s all. They would not see anything else. Nor should they.

But this you have to push away, because eventually he can show somehow, in a subtle way: he might even give rise to a suspicion. To a shadow of suspicion, which is more than enough. This also is impermissible: it was not in the contract.

So what do you do with him now? You were not trained to exorcise the dead and you do not know how to deal with him.

Perhaps I should pull the handle and stop the train and let him jump off. No, it wouldn’t work. The only thing you can do, Grabowski decided, is to endure him, and take care that he does not show. Not in your eyes, and not anywhere else. I hope to God they won’t wake up. Also, it is rather dark here.

Pushing away won’t help. It will only upset both of us. Better endure, he said to himself. Show him that you can endure, and make sure you don’t show anything to anybody. Still, Grabowski thought, it was unfair. Unfair! Who the hell was thinking about fairness? Who gives a damn about fairness?

It was on the slow train from Warsaw to Danzig that David Gordon made his penultimate appearance. He would next materialize, in a sense, some time later, on the sea shore at Weischselmuende, which is near Danzig. But Grabowski could not anticipate it in the train. He was sufficiently annoyed with that first reappearance. The Jew was supposed to be dead: he was not supposed to bother Grabowski, who was his creation.

But here he was, and apparently quite confident that none of the four men in the train’s dimly lit compartment would notice his presence. A small bulb painted dark blue gave a very feeble light indeed.

David Gordon was concealed under Grabowski's skin. His skin, barely a few days old, was still correspondingly thin and tender, but it was growing rapidly, from minute to minute, in thickness and toughness, and David Gordon evidently considered the protection as sufficient.