Whenever he was in Switzerland, he always went to the same
barber to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed. A tall,
good-looking man, Dovid was very particular about his
appearance. Although he was impatient by nature, he never
seemed to mind how long he had to wait for old Moishe the
barber to be free. He missed his family whenever he traveled,
and here in the cluttered barber shop, where last week's
papers shared the low round table with books of Tehillim and
the classic mussar volumes, he felt at home. He
enjoyed chatting with the other men as they awaited their
turn to sit on Moishe's throne. Although Dovid had lived in
Israel ever since he escaped from Europe, his work would take
him back to Lugano at least twice a year, and it was on one
of those occasions, when he was waiting for a haircut, that
it all happened.
On this particular day, there was only one man ahead of him,
and as Dovid looked in the mirror, he saw something vaguely
familiar. Dovid listened as the man spoke.
"Such a stroke of luck," he was saying. "A Talmudic scholar!
We're all so excited."
Moishe nodded as his scissors flew through the air. "I
remember him as a small boy coming in with his father. I'd
lift him up on my chair and he'd sit here with a faraway look
in his eyes. I once asked him what he was thinking about and
he told me he was trying to memorize Rashi's commentary on
the portion of the week!"
"Even then he already showed signs of being a great scholar,"
the man agreed in excitement. "Giza'le is so excited, she
spent all morning on the phone to her friends instead of
helping her mother in the house," the proud father beamed
indulgently.
The two continued to discuss the wonderful match the stranger
had secured for his daughter. Dovid's interest was piqued
because his own grandmother had been named Giza, and Giza was
by far not a common name. He listened more intently to the
conversation but did not hear anything more to interest
him.
It must be a coincidence, he thought, but he couldn't
quite get the other man out of his mind.
Finally, it was Dovid's turn, and he ensconced himself in the
huge padded chair. Moishe gave him a strange look and
proceeded to trim. Looking at Moishe in the mirror, Dovid
tried to glean some information about the other man but
Moishe, although talkative by nature, was not one to gossip
about his clients.
That evening, Dovid went to the local shul, hoping to
learn more about the father who had made such a spectacular
match for his daughter. He spoke with some of the men and
asked them about the community. Did the young people stay in
Lugano after they got married or did they move to larger
communities? Did they have many weddings? All his careful
questioning elicited the information that, yes, young couples
did stay in the community, the Jewish school had almost as
many children now as it did before the war, but the yeshiva
was not as good as it had been. That's why Hans Shpitzer's
girl, who was getting married to such a fine scholar, was
moving to Gateshead, which boasted a yeshiva with such a
wonderful reputation.
Dovid could hardly contain himself. Giza Shpitzer had been
his paternal grandmother's name. She had been Giza Kaplan
until she married his grandfather, Albert Shpitzer.
Back in his hotel room, Dovid pulled out the telepone book.
There were four Shpitzers listed. Any one of them could be
the man in the barber shop, but what of the other three? Had
he stumbled upon some long-lost relative who had somehow
survived the Holocaust?
He dialed the first number. A stern sounding woman with a
heavy accent announced that the Shpitzers were away and she
was renting their house for the summer. The second Spitzer
was not home. Preparing himself for yet another
disappointment, Dovid dialed the third number. He instantly
recognized the voice at the other end. "Hello, am I speaking
with Mr. Hans Shpitzer?"
"Who are you and what do you want?" came the gruff reply.
"I am Dovid Shpitzer from Jerusalem. I was the man waiting to
have a haircut by Moishe's earlier today."
"Moishe told me you were trying to find out about me. If
you've come for money, you can just go back where you came
from."
Dovid tried to interrupt, to explain why he was calling, but
the man kept on talking.
"I don't make donations to people I don't know for charities
I've never heard of. And why do you call yourself Dovid
Shpitzer? When you speak to Teitelbaum, do you call yourself
Dovid Teitelbaum?"
Dovid was stunned. He tried to explain who he was, but the
other man did not believe him.
"How dare you claim you're the son of my Uncle Max? My Uncle
Max died in Birkenau together with his brother Ignac. I don't
know who you are or what you want, but I know you're not who
you say you are."
"No! Please wait!" Dovid pleaded. "Uncle Ignac did die in the
camps, but my father, your uncle Max, escaped. Please, just
meet me once."
The two men agreed to meet the following day in a kosher cafe
opposite the barber's shop. Dovid spent the rest of the
evening drawing up a family tree, filling in as many details
as he could about the movements of various members of the
family during and after the war.
He reached the cafe first and waited anxiously, afraid that
Hans Shpitzer had changed his mind. From a distance he saw
him, walking slowly, as if he had not quite decided to keep
the appointment. Then, with a last few determined steps, he
reached the cafe.
The two men sized each other up. "Well," began Dovid, "I am
very glad you came. I was worried you might not and I've
brought you something to see."
At that moment, a tired-looking waiter arrived to take their
order. Dovid waited till he went back to the kitchen and then
took out the family tree he had put together the night
before.
"Look, here's our grandfather, Albert Shpitzer. I don't
really know when he was born, but I do know that he married
our grandmother Gizella in 1896 or 1897." Dovid stopped and
took a large gulp from his tea. He continued, "The uncles
were all born two years apart, starting with my father Max.
Then came Uncle Ignac and Uncle Dovid, who was bludgeoned to
death by a group of young thugs on his way home from yeshiva.
I was named for him. Then there was Aunt Hanna and Uncle
Moritz, born about five years after Aunt Hanna."
Hans Shpitzer pulled out a dog-eared envelope out of the
inner pocket of his coat. With shaking hands, he took out a
sketch not unlike Dovid's and the two men compared their
family trees, filling gaps for each other as they talked.
Wiping the tears from his face, Hans Shpitzer asked, "Do you
have any photographs?"
"I only have pictures of my own parents, and my wife and
children. Of course I have many old family photos at
home."
Halfway through their second glass of tea, the two men were
poring over the photographs that Hans had brought with him,
comparing faces in both families.
"Look, your daughter Adina holds her head to one side just
like Aunt Hanna does in this photo," Hans noted.
"Actually, her name is Adina Gizella. You see -- I also have
a Giza. That's what caught my attention in the first
place."
"Really? You know old Moishe was telling me that you reminded
him of my son, Shimon. Don't they say that children tend to
resemble their aunts and uncles more than their own
parents?"
The two men shared old family stories, each delighting in the
surprised expression on the other's face whenever another
missing detail was unearthed.
On and on they talked, laughing and crying together, until a
black-hatted, bearded head popped through the cafe door.
"Mincha! Mincha! Two more for a minyan at the
shteibel!"
The next evening, Dovid attended the engagement of Giza,
daughter of his cousin Hans, son of his Uncle Moritz and
grandson of Dovid's grandfather Albert Shpitzer from
Budapest.
In the company of family members, his loneliness left him as
he sang and danced and talked the night away.
