Laish

by Aharon Appelfeld

  Old Avraham, my teacher, did not hide from them that the journey was by no means smooth, that there were quarrels and delays, and that we would sometimes stay in one place for weeks on end. The elderly men listened but asked few questions. The parcels at their feet were well packed, but I saw right away how the thieves would loosen them and rob the men of anything they could. I was moved by compassion for them.

  One of them did ask about the cage. When they heard the story, their eyes opened wide.

  “One supposes that is how it has to be,” they said rather naively. They had lived in a village not far from Czernowitz. Their wives had died many years before and their children were scattered in all directions. Until a month ago, they still worked by themselves in their orchards and kitchen gardens. Then, after harvesting their plums, they decided to sell their property and set off on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

  They were honest village folk, and their faces attested to this. When people warned them that there were thefts at night, they smiled as if they had been told a tall tale.

  “Jews who have been given the Torah do not steal,” one of them said.

  “They do steal, for our sins, and how they steal!”

  Not even after the first robbery did their naïveté vanish. They fought with the thief and thrashed him. No clouds of doubt or fear darkened their clear faces. They prayed, studied Torah, and in the afternoon they washed their clothes in the river. When one of the thieves came to them and returned what he had stolen, they did not forgive him or pretend to be offended or wretched.

  “Stealing is a crime. Even goyim have learned not to steal,” they said without equivocation.

  “But what can I do?” the thief asked. “My hands steal all by themselves.”

  “Hit your hands; you must have no pity upon them.”

  “I do hit them, but it doesn’t help.”

  “Just keep God in front of you, for He is the Judge of the World.”

  “How?”

  “Recite aloud: God commands me not to steal.”

  Country Jews constantly surprise me. Their way of believing is different from ours. They observe the commandments simply, and they give what they should to those in need. They do not lean toward sophistry and they do not exaggerate. There is a kind of clarity in what they do. Our old men love them and are devoted to them, as if they have qualities that the old men themselves do not possess.

  “What’s your melody for ‘Magen Avos’?” I heard one of our old men ask them. The old men question them closely about prayers and the rites of ritual immersion. In the Carpathian Mountains, the ancient traditions of the followers of the Ba’al Shem Tov have been preserved, traditions that in other places have been forgotten or become muddled. I loved them and the way they would listen and talk. They loathed thieves, and they called compulsive thieves “immoral destroyers.” There were compulsive thieves in our convoy who could steal with tremendous skill. Were it not for their own pangs of remorse, they could have been enormously rich. They could be easily swayed, returning either the entire haul or what remained of it. I would occasionally find them sitting and weeping by the banks of the river.

  I got to know one of them, Itcheh Meir, very well. He would sometimes make me a gift of a banknote or some coins and order me to immediately buy myself a meal at the corner store. Once he came over to me and said with the seriousness of a teacher, “Take this coin and buy yourself a package of halvah; don’t delay, do it quickly.” He had perfected the act of theft to a degree that no one in the convoy could approach. He must have been around fifty, and he seemed to have earned his livelihood from stealing since he was a child. He came to the Holy Man asking to be healed of this compulsion, and the Holy Man told him to join the convoy. On joining, Itcheh Meir immediately announced that he was a thief and that people should be on their guard against him. He stole that very first night. He was never caught in the act. Afterward, he would admit what he had done and return everything he had stolen, or some of it.

  More than once it was decided to banish him from the convoy, which would have been easy enough. He was neither strong nor the kind of person to make a huge fuss. But all the same, he wasn’t driven away. Among the dealers, from whom he would mainly steal, there were those who admired him and swore by the magic of his artistry.

  When they would ask him how he did it, Itcheh Meir would answer, “I don’t do anything; it’s just my fingers. They’re the pimps for my crime.” On hearing this reply, everyone would laugh. But it was, apparently, the honest truth.

  Sometimes one of the wagon drivers would attack Itcheh Meir and start beating him. Everyone would immediately rush to his defense, explaining that it was not from malice on his part, but compulsion. It is hard to satisfy the wagon drivers. Eventually they left him alone, but they would grumble and curse him and his weakness.

  The old men loved Itcheh Meir because he liked to learn. He knew entire portions of the Torah by heart. He particularly loved The Ethics of the Fathers, and at every opportunity he would cite verses from it. On the Sabbath he would pray with great piety, but as soon as the Sabbath was over, Itcheh Meir’s fingers itched for cigarettes and thievery. Occasionally, he would boast that he had never been caught and that his hiding places had never been discovered. The truth was that this wasn’t so much boastfulness as a kind of wonderment at all that had happened to him. When he would return what he had stolen, a smile would spread across his face—the clear smile of a child. It was hard to be angry with him, to condemn him, or to give him a thrashing. Even the strictest of us did not consider his thefts a crime.

  In Czernowitz one of the dealers betrayed him, and that night two gendarmes came to lock him away. As he was being handcuffed, the old men together went over to the gendarmes.

  “Good sirs, there must be some mistake,” my teacher said to them. “This is a convoy of pilgrims. We are bound for Jerusalem, and there are no thieves or criminals among us. We are all intent on just one thing: reaching the holy city as swiftly as we can, to pray and to beg for mercy on behalf of all God’s creatures.”

  The gendarmes were impressed by the old men’s bearing and by my teacher’s words. They immediately released Itcheh Meir from the handcuffs and stood as if rebuked. And when he offered them a bottle of liquor, they refused to accept it, since one doesn’t accept gifts from pilgrims. Everyone was satisfied with what my teacher had said and was happy that Itcheh Meir had been spared. But for some reason my teacher became sad; he curled up in his corner and refused to utter a sound.

  17

  Two weeks in Czernowitz, and the heat of commerce had not subsided. The old men were furious and threatened to declare a fast. The dealers tried to placate them by promising that they would trade no more and buy only the necessities vital for our journey. The moment they were ready and the wagons set up, we would be off.

  The old men didn’t believe them and demanded that we set out immediately. They said that if we did not, they would declare a fast and call all the Jews of Czernowitz to see the extent of the fraud with their own eyes. In the meantime, to placate the old men, the dealers distributed free loaves of bread, vegetables, and fresh fruit. On the Sabbath eve, two cooks prepared a Sabbath meal for the whole convoy. There was no trading, everyone ate to his heart’s content, and even the bitter women could not complain.

  “Czernowitz is a beautiful city; its Jews are rich. So what if we put aside a little money? Even in Jerusalem, one will have to make a living.”

  In this way, the dealers tried to win people over.

  —

  Ya’akov Yitzhak, the man who used to tell tall tales about Jerusalem and the graves of the righteous, has ceased doing this. The dealers now have him completely under their thumb, and he has also become money-crazy. Like everyone else, he sews whatever he earns into his coat, and it swells from day to day. A grin of foolish self-satisfaction is spread across his face. The little charm that he once had is all but gone. He has become completely submissive and seems lacking a will of his ow
n; he does whatever the dealers tell him to do. Fingerhut used to harbor an implacable hatred for him, but everyone else would lend an ear to his yarns. Now his soul has been emptied of all its imagining. I find its hollowness terrifying, and I’m apparently not the only one. Sometimes the old men talk to him and coax him to come to prayers. Until recently, he observed all the commandments, but he was always impressionable, like an overgrown child. Now there is no light in his face. He has adopted some of the dealers’ gestures and their perfunctory way of speaking, but not their happiness. A pensive bewilderment extends across his forehead.

  “So, how will it be in Jerusalem?” the wagon drivers taunt him.

  “Why are you asking me?”

  “Once you used to tell us stories about Jerusalem. Have you forgotten?”

  At that, he runs away from the wagon drivers and cozies up to the dealers. But the dealers do not treat him with respect, and he looks like a man who is hunted, whose pursuers will soon overtake him.

  —

  That evening I set off for the street called the Street of the Jews. Maya was sitting on the steps of an abandoned building, taking swigs from a bottle and uttering incomprehensible words. I was afraid to approach her. If anyone tried to come near her, she would throw him one of her drunken glances and curse him. I was about to suggest that she join our convoy. I rehearsed what I was going to say: Our convoy is quite unique. We are on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. But the angry way in which she was sitting put me off, and just as I was about to go over to her, the words vanished from my mouth. There are days when she is quiet, when people don’t bother her and she takes slow swigs from the bottle. It’s strange; she’s more frightening on these days. Finally, I summoned the courage and went over to her.

  “I’m Laish,” I said. “Perhaps you remember me.”

  “Who are you?” She fixed me with a scornful gaze.

  “My name is Laish, and I would like to invite you to join our convoy.”

  “What are you chattering about?”

  “Our convoy is encamped quite near here. If you wish to, you can join us.”

  “What convoy are you talking about?”

  “Our convoy, which is making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.”

  “Get out of the way. I’ve already heard these excuses.”

  “Our convoy is a good convoy.”

  “And what will you give me?” She suddenly embarrassed me.

  “I’ll be your helper.”

  She laughed a drunken laugh and wiped her face with her sleeve.

  “Move aside,” she said without looking at me.

  “I’ll willingly move,” I said, placing at her feet a bottle of cognac that I had brought with me. Apparently, she had not expected this tribute. She smiled and said, “The child has given me a bottle of cognac.”

  Again I invited her to join our convoy. My words must have irritated her, for she raised her voice and shouted, “Get out of here! Beat it!”

  After that, I wandered around the streets for several hours. When I returned to the convoy, the night was already dark and dense. People slept in their wagons and some dozed next to the flickering bonfires. The wagon drivers sat near the reeds, drinking and singing and imitating the lowing of the beasts. I tried to slip away from them, but this time I was not so lucky.

  “Laish, come here! What have you been up to outside so late?”

  “I took a walk.”

  “Tell that to the old men. Show us your pockets.”

  I took all my coins out of my pockets and showed them.

  “You shouldn’t be hoarding money in your pockets,” said one of the wagon drivers, and snatched it all away.

  “That’s all the money I have.”

  “Work, and you’ll have more.”

  I knew that all this had befallen me because I had not been careful about prayer. Since I saw Maya, my thoughts have been distracted. There were also my thefts—another black mark against me—and although I had returned what I had stolen from Blind Menachem, that did not absolve me of punishment. By the way, since Menachem has been appearing in Reb Pinchas’s performances, he has changed. Before each one, Reb Pinchas drums into him that he has to be quiet and pleasant and not get excited, and that he must receive any bad tidings without panic, since the great virtue of our forefather Jacob was his tranquillity. Reb Pinchas says that everyone is deceitful, everyone lies and slanders others, but our forefather Jacob was not overly hasty in his judgments because he knew that lies would be proven false and that the truth would come to light. Menachem’s blind countenance absorbs it all, and he does as he is told. And the next morning, in the light of day, his face reflects a spark of the nobility that his performance had bestowed upon him.

  18

  On the Ninth of Av we were still in Czernowitz. Toward evening, at the proper time, the old men prepared sackcloth and ashes, low stools and wax candles. Their faces were downcast and their white foreheads mournful. The fast of the Ninth of Av is a hard fast, perhaps because the skies are clear at this time of year, the trees are in full bloom, and gusts of wind carry the scent of blossoms; this hardly brings thoughts of disaster to a person’s mind. But, wonder of wonders, on the eve of the Ninth of Av, the clear horizon suddenly changed, and it became even grayer than the dejected twilight that surrounded it. The old men wasted no time and immediately began chanting from the book of Lamentations.

  It was like this every year, but this fast was clouded by an argument between the dealers and the old men. The old men said their lamentations quietly, but from the very silence a searing pain burst forth: Why are you cheating us? Why are you delaying us? Why do you leave us to die in the darkness of Exile? The dealers apparently sensed this great silent cry, and they sat dejected, with lowered heads.

  As the mourning grew more oppressive, long, drawn-out sobs burst forth from the reeds. They made the camp shudder. We immediately recognized Mamshe’s voice. That was how she used to cry out when her wrists would be handcuffed so she could be taken to the toilet or to be bathed. They were the yelps of a wounded animal.

  Everyone hurried to the reeds, fanning out around them. Barely a few moments had passed when a terrifying sight revealed itself. In a puddle of mud, sunk onto her knees, sat Mamshe; her face was deeply scratched and blood flowed from her bare arms.

  “What happened, Mamshe?” people asked as they approached her.

  “They killed me, they killed me,” she muttered audibly.

  “What did they do to you? Tell us. Don’t be afraid.”

  “They killed me,” she muttered again.

  The women pulled her up from the puddle and brought her to the wagons. She was wearing the same stained nightgown that we all recognized, her feet were bare, and she was taller than the women who had grabbed her. Gesturing with her thin arms, she tried to explain what had happened to her. The women washed her, served her soup, and offered her a pallet under one of the wagons. She did not resist and did not complain.

  Later, gesturing with her arms and stuttering, Mamshe related how two peasants had caught her and raped her. When she finished telling her story, a look of childish wonder spread across her face, as if she hadn’t been talking about herself but about a rumor that she had heard. The women wanted to know more, but Mamshe would add no more to what she had revealed to them. Her face stiffened, and she curled up on the pallet.

  “Let her rest,” said one of the women, and the others withdrew.

  Meanwhile, the old men returned to their low stools and resumed chanting lamentations. The wagon drivers, who usually don’t like to hear lamentations, sat at some distance and listened to the chanting voices. And for a moment it seemed as though they would stop the lamentations and hurry to Mamshe’s pallet to beg forgiveness for all the wrongs we had done to her. Now people remembered the Holy Man’s admonition: Look after this young girl, for a precious treasure has been entrusted into our hands and we must deliver her safely to Jerusalem.

  That night was not one of reconciliation. After the old
men had returned to their wagons, a loud argument broke out among the dealers. The quarrel was about Mamshe. Some insisted that she be returned to her cage immediately because she was dangerous. Others argued that there was no longer anything to fear from her, that she had changed and should be offered a place in one of the wagons. They spoke of compassion, and of how man is made in the image of God. But the influential ones held firmly to their opinion that Mamshe be returned immediately to her cage. It is impossible, they said, to know what goes on in the mind of a crazy woman.

  The following day, the wagon drivers did not slip away from the clearing but fasted, sitting alongside the wagons. They smoked cigarettes and spoke with longing about the distant, forgotten towns where they had been born and from which they had been uprooted years earlier, about their fathers and their fathers’ fathers, and about life’s twists and turns.

  “I don’t believe that I’ll reach Jerusalem. It looks as if I’ll die on the way or drown at sea. The Land of Israel does not admit criminals,” said one of the wagon drivers in a voice filled with pain as well as coarseness.

  On hearing this, Sruel went over to him and, in a voice that did not seem like his own, rebuked him and said, “What’s with you, you fool. We will all reach the Land of Israel. There’ll be no exceptions.”

  “Not me.”

  “You are a Jew like all the other Jews,” said Sruel in a peasant’s tone of voice.

  “Not me. I’ve murdered, and there’s no forgiveness for murderers, either in this world or in the hereafter.”

  “Do you think I’m so innocent?” Sruel cried out. “But the Holy Man commanded us to undertake this journey, and we will do as He commanded. Almighty God is great and has compassion for all His creatures.” Sruel’s eyes blazed with the glow of a man who was fasting.