Free Guided Tours of Hell by Francine Prose Page B

childish, and your smallness is so gigantic it blocks the whole horizon, blocks your view of history, of the world, and you won’t let go, you won’t let go, till you suck me into it, too—”
    Jiri’s fork is still stuck in the meat.
    Landau stands and glares at Jiri. He’s dimly conscious of Natalie’s steadying hand applying itself to his arm.
    “Liar,” Landau hears himself say.
    “Pardon me?” says Jiri.
    “You’re a liar,” Landau repeats. He can’t believe he’s doing this—he’s doing it for Kafka! This is what Kafka should have done, stood up to his father, that bully—and not just in a letter. Landau’s heart is pounding, a belt cinched round his chest. Is he having a heart attack? No, he feels terrific! He feels like a hero, gearing up to tell Jiri that his lies must stop, that having survived those years in the camp doesn’t put him above the truth, doesn’t let him appropriate and distort an event so profound and important, doesn’t let him turn the Holocaust into kitsch, into bad—terrible!—art….
    Jiri looks at Landau, long enough for Landau to shrink under Jiri’s chilly gaze.
    “And what have I lied about?” Jiri says evenly. “About the six million dead? Don’t tell me you’re one of those loonies who say the Jews are making it up, the whole thing never happened. Herr Professor Landau, the first Jewish Holocaust revisionist.”
    Of course, Landau doesn’t think that. But of course he can’t say so. He can’t say: I believe in the Holocaust. He’d feel like an absolute jerk. What did he think he was doing? Defending the six million against this dying mediocre writer? The dead no longer need Landau, nor do they need Jiri. They are way beyond caring about who’s telling the truth and who’s lying.
    As Jiri stares at Landau, blood rushes into his face: The bright red of a flashlight switched on beneath his skin. A blurry distraction fogs his eyes, as if he’s just remembered something; he opens his mouth, attempts to speak…and crashes forward onto his plate. Silverware clatters, tumblers spill. Landau jumps up to escape the rivulets of water and beer trickling toward him across the table. Eva also leaps to her feet and grabs Jiri’s wrist and starts screaming in Czech.
    Is she saying that she can’t find his pulse? Is Jiri dead? Landau backs away and nearly collides with a waiter, who curses at him and then joins the group of waiters converging on Jiri. The canteen’s patrons stand to watch this alarming drama in progress…. Landau backs farther away. No one turns to look. Eva doesn’t run after him the way she runs after Jiri. Not even Natalie notices or cares where Landau is going.
    Is his leaving an act of cowardice? Could Landau help save Jiri by staying? What is Landau thinking? He’s the one who may have killed him!
    Just outside the door, he stops. All right. Okay. What now? The sun has ignited the whole camp in a flare of nuclear white. Landau can’t go back in. He can’t go on. He can’t just stand here, frozen. His instinct is to get out of the camp. Okay. Fine. Follow that.
    But the camp isn’t making it easy. The heat and the cobblestone path conspire to make each step an effort. Imagine if there were guards here with orders to block his escape. But the guards are busy taking tickets, selling postcards and souvenirs.
    Landau was right not to want to come. This place truly is hell. Well, not hell, exactly. A former hell, remodeled. The smoldering pit where hell used to be has closed up like a wound, and crowds of people pay money to inspect the jagged scar. Jiri should have known better, too. He overestimated his powers if he allowed himself to think he was stronger than the camp. How foolish of him to imagine that he could outlive or outrun or outsmart it, when the camp was waiting all those years, biding time until it could claim him….
    Amazingly, Landau’s picking up speed, half-jogging toward the exit. The up-and-down motion is good for his