The Time of the Uprooted: A Novel

by Elie Wiesel

  “What became of the prosecutor, Pavel Borisovich?” Bolek asked.

  “As far as I know, he’s still on the job.”

  “You still hate him?”

  “Only when I hear poetry.” Yasha smiled. “And yet, they say poetry cures you of hatred.”

  Yasha never remarried.

  THE MAN WHO ENDEAVORED TO HEAL ME WHEN I no longer knew who I was—Gamaliel? Péter? Someone else?—was both gentle and strong. I don’t know why, but he reminded me of Maimonides, whom a Sage once described as “the Teacher who knows.”

  I spent privileged, unforgettable moments with him.

  I see myself facing him in his room so many years ago. He lived in the Jewish Quarter of Casablanca. I was young; I’d come there looking for a girl I’d fallen head over heels in love with. Esther, that was her name. She read palms, and cards as well; she was a fortune-teller. She was slender; her face radiant. She had an eager look, and was at times hotheaded but at others stubborn. Her parted lips were an invitation. She reminded me of Shulamit in the Song of Songs.

  I had met her on a boat going to Israel. It was two days before we were to arrive. I was deep in conversation with a blond widow whose eyes were demanding and inquisitive; she encouraged flirtation with a sharp, mischievous intelligence, suggesting untold pleasures. But I realized there was nothing there for me; in short, she was a tease. Just then, my eyes fell on a young Oriental woman, and I forgot the widow. It was Esther. I liked the way she cocked her head to one side. Her penetrating gaze took hold of mine. I wanted her with every fiber of my being. My body was hungry for hers. But we shared a puerile notion of innocence, which stood like a barrier between us. So instead of seizing the moment and enjoying it to the full, we sat up all night talking, telling each other our dreams and the disappointments to come. I would say to her, “I’ll tell you a story if you give me a kiss.” She replied, “I always look over the goods before I buy.” I said, “Do you like stories?” She replied, “Silly question. Of course I do. It’s part of my work. If you only knew the stories I have to tell the people who consult me. . . . Every palm has its own story; so does every star.” I took a deep breath, summoned my courage, and said, “All right, Esther, now hear a story whose ending I don’t yet know.

  “The dreamer was sitting and dreaming on a cloud; he was waiting for the woman he was preparing to love and whom he already loved. Had she encountered someone more handsome, younger? Had she lost her way in the alleys that led to the woods? Had she forgotten where he would be waiting for her? The dreamer’s anxiety grew so heavy, it almost made the cloud tip over. So he tried to think about something else, about other beings. About the birds, who were singing and mocking one another; their chirping was pleasant to hear. He thought about the trees—how delightful to sink his teeth into ripe fruit when he was thirsty! He could still remember the young Greek or Turkish dancer who had winked at him from the distant stage. Could he have fallen for her? Maybe so, but not like this. The one he now loved, here on this cloud, he loved more, and more passionately, than all the others. He loved her for her lips; they were his sanctuary. But she was keeping him waiting. He was tiring of it, and so was the cloud he was sitting on. Should he get off? But then he might lose the one who was coming to join him. She knew these clouds; she could tell you their names and describe every one of them. Let’s stay where we are, the dreamer decided. She’ll come. She won’t be much longer. Hadn’t she said she loved him, too? That she longed for him? But time was passing, the minutes stretching into hours, and the woman of his dreams had still not arrived. So, ready to give up in despair, the dreamer decided to leave his cloud and go where broken hearts went to drown themselves. He had already gotten down when he heard a voice, the sweetest voice in the world, the voice that harmonized with his when he told her things he could tell to no one else. The voice of the woman he loved. Her name was . . .”

  I paused. Should I go on? I wondered. Tell Esther I am grateful that she has convinced me I’m capable of dreaming, of making plans, of loving? “And the ending of your story, do you know it?” Esther asked. I said, “You’re the one who reads the future, not I.” Esther drew me to her and placed her finger on my lips. “To search for happiness is a greater gift than finding it.” I started to challenge that, but she interrupted, saying, “I know what you’re going to say. You’ll say that you’re confident of our love, that we can reaffirm it every night—but I prefer the desire to its satisfaction.” Then she asked me to kiss her. I took her in my arms and caressed her, hoping she would understand that because I loved her I was accepting the limits she had set for the time being, but only for the time being.

  Later on, I asked her to read our palms: Was it written there that we would meet? She demurred, saying, “That would be dangerous.” I didn’t understand why she was afraid. She explained that when reading a friend’s palm, she had predicted a tragic event in the coming months. “What happened?” I asked. She did not answer.

  The next night, I questioned her about what had happened to her friend. Again she closed herself off in an opaque silence. “I’m not afraid of dying,” I told her, without knowing if it was true. She read my palms by moonlight, punctuating her findings with little exclamations that were sometimes excited, at other times sorrowful. I tried in vain to get her to say more. All she would say was, “Don’t worry, you won’t die young.” “That’s not what interests me,” I said, irritated. “I want to know if we’ll have a future together.” She gave a deep sigh and gazed at the stars for a long time before saying in a tender, engaging tone, “You still don’t understand? For me, the present lives on in the future. You want to know what I see? I won’t tell you; I have no right to. It’s very clear: I don’t see what I would like to see, and what I see, I don’t like.”

  Then there were words of love, fresh and new, strange and as old as time. Let’s seek ecstasy together, Esther, dawn’s intoxication, with all its promises, and the other kind, the ecstasy of midnight and its mournings, let’s seek them out, too, Esther. Let us savor them side by side before the fall. All these words came to my lips, but I held my tongue.

  I didn’t stay long in Israel, nor did she. She went home to Morocco before we had a chance to meet again. I was in pain. I missed her even more than I did Ilonka and my mother. I had to find her, and as long as I was searching, there was a connection between us. But how could I go about it? I was poor and far from home. I asked Bolek if he could find me some work that would bring in enough to pay my way. Bolek wanted to know if it was urgent. Yes, it was, I told him. Everything that concerned Esther was urgent. “All right,” said Bolek. “I’ll see what I can do.” I told myself that if Bolek came back smiling, that meant Esther was waiting for me. Well, he was smiling.

  At the time, there was still a Jewish community in Morocco that, though very small, was bustling and relatively rich. I questioned one and all, but in vain. I didn’t know Esther’s family name, so no one could direct me to her. I told them she was a brunette, that she was gorgeous, especially when she cocked her head to one side, that her voice was beautiful when she sang that Hasidic tune about the Sabbath, about the day to come, when the Sabbath would never end. I said that she could read your palm and see in it both the immediate and the distant future. No one knew her. I followed several false leads: to an impoverished father who wanted to marry off his last daughter; to an aunt whose niece was looking for a husband so she could leave the country; to a rich man who was trying to rid himself of a mistress who was either too demanding or not demanding enough. Each such event left me more disillusioned.

  One morning when I was wandering alone by the sea, toting my misery like a familiar burden, a man stopped me and said, “You’re young and at loose ends; I’m older and want to help. May I help you?”

  His long, bearded face and his regal bearing inspired confidence, but what especially attracted me was the warmth of his voice. It sounded as if it could unlock the gates of invisible fortresses. “I’m searching,” I said, echoing the
words of the beggar of my childhood.

  “I, too, am searching.”

  “Are we seeking the same thing? The same person? The same path?” As he did not reply, I continued: “Is the man who seeks riches as worthy as the man who seeks the truth?”

  “It’s not the same. Riches imprison you; the truth liberates.” And after a moment, he added, “Still, what matters is the search. One may start out in search of money, but on the way one’s objective changes, for one’s been attracted to something else.”

  We strolled along the shore like two old companions who like to watch the waves. I told him about Esther, and he told me about Rebbe Zusya. Coming from some ill-defined part of Eastern Europe, this singular Messenger had settled in Casablanca, where he was known to a small intimate circle as a miracle worker. Digging deep in the hidden and forgotten writings of Rabbi Haim ben Atar, the great commentator who was a contemporary and correspondent of the founder of Hasidism, known as the “Besht,” this man was working in secret to hasten the coming of the Messiah. “Would you like to meet him?” he asked.

  “Why not? Since he seems to know the Messiah’s address, surely he’ll know Esther’s.”

  “Anything can happen,” Shalom said with a wink.

  The house he led me to consisted of several small rooms cluttered with disparate furnishings. Two windows gave onto a noisy street of the Jewish Quarter, but the calm that prevailed inside seemed to come from another world. In reality, it emanated from an old man, short but majestic in bearing, who sat at a large table, studying the yellowing pages of a thick volume. Had he heard us enter? His thin face was lined from many days of fasting; his shoulders were wrapped in a woolen plaid. Only his eyes seemed to move when he lifted his head to look at us with an expression of alert concern. No doubt we had interrupted his train of thought. His grimly stubborn manner intrigued me. Why did he seem so harsh and strict, this mystic who devoted his dawns and dusks to bringing the ultimate salvation to his people and to all humanity? He spoke to Shalom first: “What are you doing here at this hour? Couldn’t it keep till evening? And who is this man?”

  “He needs you, Rebbe.”

  “And how about me? You think I don’t need anyone?”

  He fell silent, and so did Shalom. Should I apologize for coming unannounced, for barging in? I wondered. My anxiety was such that I could not utter a word.

  “My friend is suffering,” said Shalom.

  “What’s he suffering from?”

  “He’s in love.”

  “So? He’s old enough to know that love is too much like happiness not to be akin to suffering. . . . Whom is he in love with?”

  “A girl from here.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Her name is Esther.”

  “Yes, our beloved queen . . . She saved our people, long ago, in Persia.”

  I spoke up just for the sake of saying something: “This isn’t the same one.”

  “What do you know about it? Suppose I were to tell you that your Esther carries in her the soul of ours. Would you love her any the less?”

  He seemed to be growing angry. Frightened, I stammered, “Yes, yes, I’d love her no matter where she came from.”

  The Rebbe calmed down. “Our Lord, blessed be He, is the matchmaker of souls. Your two souls may be apart now, but they will be joined one day. I promise you that.”

  “One day, one day!” I exclaimed. “But when?”

  “That day will be luminous and enduring; it will be forever and forever blessed. It will be the day of salvation.”

  I smiled, to my own surprise, and said, “But Rebbe, I don’t think I can wait that long.”

  “ ‘That long’?” Again his whole frame was shaking with anger. “Suppose it were to arrive tomorrow? What do you know of the mysteries that make time infinite?”

  “Rebbe,” I replied, emboldened, “what interests me at the moment is the infinite mystery of love.”

  “Well, it’s the same mystery,” he said.

  I took my leave with a feeling of regret, of missed opportunity: Had I met him too late or too early? My visa was running out and I had to leave Casablanca. Later, at the time of the Jews’ exodus from Morocco, he and Shalom went not to Israel but to the United States: The miracle worker was needed more by the diaspora than by the Jewish state. It was there, in Brooklyn, that our paths crossed again. I was working on a book for a Protestant theologian, whose search for his Jewish roots had led him to Hasidic circles. It was a holiday. Shalom was glad to see me. “And where is Rebbe Zusya?” I asked him.

  “Not far from here. Shall we go?”

  Not another word was said.

  “So, what about Esther?” said the Rebbe, teasing me as he held out his hand.

  “And what about the Messiah?” I shot back.

  “There was a Talmudic Sage who was convinced that the Savior’s coming would be brought about by accident. Not I. I believe that the Messiah’s coming will be the fruit of our prayers, of our anger, and also of our struggles. If you were to insist on it, I would be willing to take an oath by all that is most sacred to us that we will win this struggle, and that we will celebrate our victory by dancing with the most illustrious and most glorious of our forerunners!”

  “I don’t know how to dance, Rebbe.”

  “You’ll learn. Promise me you’ll come back. Often.”

  “I promise, Rebbe.”

  I became a faithful caller at his humble quarters. Like the Blessed Madman of my Book of Secrets, he initiated me in the study of both the revealed and the secret texts where the Lord, like His mortal creatures, overflows with a melancholy love for the Shekhinah, the spirit of God, which is in exile. He seeks to deliver His spirit and His people from their exile. Each time he saw me arrive, Rebbe Zusya would call out a command: “Come closer!” I went to him as one thirsting for water, and for life.

  Until the day came when my demons were too strong: They killed that thirst in me. I can see myself back then:

  Sick, at the end of my rope, I am no longer expecting anything or anybody. Alone and forgotten in my small room in Manhattan, near Harlem, I am convinced I am not suited for this world; I will slide gently into death. My bowels have emptied out and so have my spirits. Were it not for the pain, I would long since have lost consciousness; but the pain keeps me awake, if not lucid. Never would I have thought my own body would become my enemy, my torturer. What did I do to it that it should attack me so ferociously?

  In reality, it’s not my body that is sick; I am. And my body is not me. Nothing about me is still me. I disgust myself. I detest myself. I find myself repugnant. I want myself dead. I’ve done everything to bring that about. I’ve scorned my friends; I’ve allowed myself to sink into depression and gloom. Each passing thought draws me toward the abyss that yawns before me. Each breath I take fans my despair. All those I loved were torn away from me. What good would it do to create new bonds? Why go on searching for words in the wind? And wake up to a barren world? No longer have I any desire to seek out the beauty in a face, the majesty in a tree. A hundred voices are urging me to give up. Finally, I swallow ten little white pills, then five more; it’s all I have left. But Death wants no part of me. He punishes me for disturbing him. I hurt all over.

  A sudden knock at the door. I no longer have the strength to ask who it is, to tell the visitor to go away, because in my condition I don’t want to see anyone. The person knocks harder; then the door opens—I’d forgotten to lock it. Who can it be? “So, you like being sick?” a voice asks in a manner intended to be playful. It’s Shalom. “I brought you some food. Chicken soup and hot tea—the best medicine there is.” I feel like replying, Not for what ails me. But I’m too feeble to argue with him. Since I do not move, he comes over and helps me sit up, meanwhile talking about this and that, as if wanting to make sure I’m able to hear him, that I’m still alive. Slowly, I swallow a few spoonfuls of soup, a few sips of tea. Giddy at first, I then feel myself gaining strength.

  “Shalom,�
� I ask, “how did you know? Who told you? Or are you clairvoyant?”

  “Not at all,” he replies, laughing through his beard. “It was our Rebbe.”

  “How did it happen? Tell me.”

  Shalom clears his throat and explains: That same day, after the morning service, Rebbe Zusya asked if he had seen me recently. Shalom answered no, not for several weeks. “Last night, I had a glimpse of him,” said the Rebbe. “I sensed that he was preparing to go over to the other shore. He’s been avoiding me, and that’s likely to do him harm. He’s not well, not well at all. He’s in great danger.” The Rebbe ordered Shalom to go call on me immediately, and then to send me to him. It was urgent.

  My vision becomes strangely sharp. All of a sudden an immense light that is warm and gentle envelops everything that my thoughts touch on or set aside. It seems to me that at last I am able to lay bare what my soul has been trying to conceal.

  “When do you want me to go to the Rebbe’s?”

  “As soon as you feel better.” Then after a pause, he adds, “We’ll go together. Yes, yes. The Rebbe forbade me to leave you.”

  Shalom does as he is told: He does not leave me except to bring food, or hot water for tea. He recites the appropriate morning and evening prayers. When I am not dozing, he talks to me about various topics—political news of the day, the international situation, crises in Israel—but above all about what is happening in the Hasidic world, in Jerusalem, B’nai B’rak, and Brooklyn: the alliances, the intrigues in the various courts, their ambition, rivalries, marriages planned between the great dynasties. And, of course, all is intimately linked to Rebbe Zusya, the “Messenger.” Few truly know him, but all who have met him are aware that he is at the center of it all, every event, all the maneuvering, everywhere. Nothing escapes him, and there is nothing to which he is indifferent.

  “By the way,” Shalom says with a smile, “the Rebbe doesn’t understand why you don’t marry.”