by Elie Wiesel
“Fear? Shame? Why?”
“I have no idea, Doctor. You want me to say whatever comes to my mind, absolutely everything, including what's unclear, or has no meaning, so that's what I'm doing, understand? I'll let you guide me, but I'm also entitled to ask you if what comes out of my brain helps us progress; is that true or not? You say nothing? All right, then I'll keep quiet too.”
“What if we went back to fear and shame?”
“I also said the word truth. Remember? Do you know the Gaon of Vilna? He used to say that the goal of redemption is the redemption of truth. No, I see you don't know him. But Plato you know, right? Plato is dear to me, but not as much as truth.”
“Let's drop the Gaon. Let's forget about fear and shame. Let's talk about truth.”
“I see you don't understand a thing. All of this is connected. People like you surely think that truth causes shame, causes fear. But what if someone told you that's not it at all? That truth is fear as well as shame?”
She continues to provoke me with her monotonous voice, and for my part, I think she's afraid of the little cloud smiling down on the orphan. She wants to make me talk about the place of women in my life, and I don't feel like it. To tell her that they've always intimidated me? That I don't know what behavior to adopt with them? I prefer to stay on my cloud. The cloud is an orphan too, and it weeps. Its tears turn into flakes of snow and blood. I catch them in my mouth and out comes a howl; I'm afraid of strangling myself. It's that I imagine the strangler, his twisted face, his monstrously large hands, unwieldy and unclean; I imagine and visualize his conqueror's grimaces. As though he is announcing to whomever wants to hear it: I'm destiny, I'm above time and the heavens, I'm the force that crushes you. Have I actually seen him, or just seen him in a film or maybe in an illustrated book? A Jewish child in hiding, flushed out by shifty eyes, surrounded by murderers with gleaming daggers. He is alone, the future little orphan, so alone, my little brother. Who betrayed him? I know that I should run to him, take his hand, do anything to protect him, show him my solidarity and affection. He's frightened and I'm frightened; he's frightened and I'm ashamed. And that's the truth. To touch lightly on the truth without desecrating it, to wish for it without attaining it—if only I could. And what if I told you it may be time to unfasten the bonds tying man to his destiny and to expose the sham: Rina doesn't exist, the madman of this narrative doesn't confide in his therapist; he is simultaneously his own question and his own answer, and the rejection of both. Thérèse Goldschmidt exists only in my illness, and in me too.
“So, what is madness, Doctor, if not a dybbuk, in my case? A new form of asceticism? A divine punishment?”
She doesn't know.
But you, to whom I am writing, you're supposed to know everything, to foresee everything. So tell me what I will someday learn from you: What is human madness exactly? Falling into a trance? Denouncing reason until one is short of breath? Listening to the silence explode in one's brain and not being able to gather its bits and pieces?
Am I really me? And the other one, who is he when he says I? Is he still me?
You see? I tell you everything; at least I take pains to. It's important to me to know that you'll accept me in spite of all the obstacles. Your consent will make sense only if it is offered as a supreme act of lucidity.
Do you wish to follow me?
2
An image: A village somewhere in Poland. It is Sunday. The church must be full. The sound of its bells fill the countryside, as for a funeral. A room in a house at the edge of the woods. A bed, an old couch, two chairs. Books on a shelf, newspapers on the floor. A frustrated, unhappy little boy. Frightened, his senses on the alert. His father tells him to pay attention, to watch for the moment when, with a bit of luck, they'll have the right to go out into the street. And never to show he's frightened. Too many enemies, too many dangers threaten them outside. The sky is blue, cloudless. And under the fruit trees everything is so calm. The child wants to go out. Warm himself in the sun, play. Pluck an apple, some plums. No, says his father. Not today. Why not today? Because. When will he be able to go out? Tomorrow. “But tomorrow you'll say, Not today again.” “No, tomorrow I'll say, Let's wait.” The little boy is me. I'm six years old, I'm too young, I don't know how to respond. So I say, “If Mother were here …” I cut myself short: What if Mother were here? Would she be nicer with me?
“But she wasn't there,” remarks the doctor. “Did you resent her for that?”
No. But the little boy feels like crying.
Is it because of the incomplete memories and the many twists and turns I hide in, aging and tired, ever since I've been left all alone? The doctor is talking and I answer, but I'm thinking about something else; my mind is elsewhere. Will she help me? Will I hurt her? So many interlocutors I've met during my peregrinations sooner or later have lost hope or reason, and at the very least, part of their being. You'd think I was casting my shadows on those who talk to me and putting a curse on those who behold me. A retired physician and bewildered widower, a swindler released from jail without having disclaimed his crime, an unemployed actress, a former industrialist who cheated at chess—they have all been affected. There were young ones among them and not-so-young ones, foreigners and natives, intellectuals and ignoramuses, poets and technicians: they all experienced the same fate, each in his own way.
Could I be the last one?
Everything explodes within me: images, looks, noises and memories, chimerical angels and diabolical monsters. How can I find something to appease me? The man who pursues me has climbed up so many mountains and followed so many trails— how can I name him? Where does he come from? Who sent him?
One morning, a passerby heard my enemy howling like a beast at slaughter. When notified, the police had to break down the door to his apartment. They found him on his bed, his head covered with blood. Questioned as to the identity of his aggressor, he could only keep repeating the same sentences: “She had the smile of an innocent child. A shame. I would rather have said the smile of a frightened child.” But who is the enemy? Not me?
“I don't understand,” says the therapist.
“But it's simple: the child I see in my mind's eye always has a frightened smile.”
“But you mentioned a woman. Who is she? A sorceress? A lover? A stranger? Was she with a man? How could they get into your house since the door and the windows were shut?”
Like a blind man groping to find his way, or at least looking for something to lean on, the interlocutor preferred to think about his dream rather than the assailant; he could only mumble the same words: “She had a smile, the smile of an innocent child, but not frightened, not at all frightened.”
I remember the police inspector: a grandfather with a mustache and a wise and kindly smile; he nodded several times to let me know he understood me. Who did he think I was? An orphan abandoned in the middle of the fair? The idiot of Chelm, the legendary village whose inhabitants had a reputation for touching naïveté according to some, stupidity according to others?
“I remember,” said the wounded man. “We met on a cloud.”
“Is it she who put you in this state? Don't worry, we'll find her. She'll go to jail.”
“To jail? I'll go join her.”
“What was she like? We need a description.”
“Long hair, dark eyes. And the moving smile of a child who is waiting but isn't frightened. She didn't like my name.”
“Is that so? Your name. And what is your name?”
I remember:
After having reflected for a long time, Mother took on a solemn expression: “Who are you?” she asked.
“My name is Doriel.”
I no longer know why, but I was having trouble breathing.
You didn't like it. That's not a name, you said. I like it. It doesn't belong to anyone. It's an announcement, an ancient message, a new agenda. And yes, it's a name, my very own name, a name I sometimes hate or love for no good reason, but it's mine. Do you
hear me? Do all of you hear me? I'll have to keep it, even if I have to drag it around like a burden, a sack filled with shadows.
In my head, a scaffolding of noises and images, sniggering or blank faces, men running in all directions and soldiers advancing toward a bottomless cemetery. Then the building collapses and, from this thundering noise, my brain bursts. I look for something to lean on, and it proliferates into 144 points. I want to understand, and I become more deeply confused than ever.
What could be more natural, I take refuge where no one can follow me. First in my dreams, but the walls weren't solid, so I opted for madness.
From the many beginnings of my conscious existence or dream life, I never stopped astonishing my family circle. When still in the crib, I used to play with my mother by pinching her cheeks or bosom. I heard her boasting to visitors: “Just look at my big rascal. If he weren't so little, I'd say he's crazy about me.” My hair used to change colors suddenly. Brown in the morning, blond in the afternoon. Black in my dreams. I sometimes gulped my meal down in a flash, though I had taken four hours the previous day. “Oh, yes,” said an old Gypsy with wrinkled skin and a hoarse, unpleasant voice. “He's crazy, this little one. Crazy about life that death chases away, or conversely.”
In the evening, abandoned by my father, who used to quietly sleep in a corner of the barn, I visualized myself in a stranger's arms, or perched on his shoulder, while he ran toward the woods where priests, half naked, were celebrating ancient victories and defeats in a diabolical tribal ritual, by dancing around a blazing fire.
Yes, I visualized myself among them, silent and frightened, anticipating the moment when I would be carried to the altar to expiate some forgotten sins. I feared pain more than death, but deep down, something else happened: I was saved by a woman whose dark hair fell over her ample bosom. Was it the woman who had abducted me long ago and was now repenting? She put herself between the dancers and me; she whispered comforting and tender words in my ear—not to be afraid because she was there, to tell her when I was thirsty, for she would give me something to drink. I asked her who had sent her, my mother or my father. Then she looked deeply into my eyes with her dark gaze and shook her head. “Don't ask questions, my child, no questions, not yet. Learn to wait, it's an art—you'll understand that when you grow up.” In a flash, I see myself projected into the future: a young prince, almost an adolescent, I am lost among the dancers. Here again, it is a little boy they are preparing to sacrifice. I scrutinize him as hard as I can; then suddenly I turn my head away so as not to see his head anymore. Is it my little brother, Jacob? Is it me? I wake up with a start, frightened. But I'm not certain that my awakening isn't itself part of the dream. As for the woman, what color were her eyes when she smiled? Could I have forgotten the most important thing?
“Whom did she look like?” asks the therapist, curious, as always.
“I don't know, I don't know anymore. In the dream everything is distorted.”
“Did she look like Rina?”
“What do you know about Rina?”
“Nothing. Except the time before last, at one point you mentioned her name.”
“In connection with what? You must have misheard.”
“But the woman in the dream: Did she look like your mother?”
“Leave my mother alone.”
“You don't think about her anymore, is that it?”
“Leave her alone, I tell you.”
“Okay. Let's talk about the woman you loved.”
“Which one?”
“Any one of them.”
“I didn't love her.”
“Not even for a brief moment?”
“A brief moment of intoxication and delirium doesn't count.”
“Given what concerns us, everything counts.”
“I say no.”
“I'm talking about—”
“About whom? The woman I loved? She doesn't count. She doesn't count anymore. She never counted. I didn't even touch her.”
“But you wanted to.”
“Yes, maybe. Wanted to touch her, that's all. But that lasted only a split second. Nothing to do with desire.”
“But a split second—”
“Don't be so exacting. I've done lots of things in my life without really doing them. One fine morning, my features distorted, I woke up a troubadour; I visualized myself singing in the streets, palms outstretched, imploring passersby to listen to me and acknowledge my existence. Did I do it? Of course not. The same is true for Maya.”
I can't remember who put me in touch with her. A mutual friend who wanted to help me or play a trick on me? An enemy who hoped to see me sink into disgrace? A heavenly or earthly court, anxious perhaps to protect me from the dybbuk who was leading me to violate taboos by blaming others and myself? Certainly not. I met Maya by the strangest of coincidences. On my way to Israel in the 1950s, I stopped in Marseilles, where I wanted to meditate at my parents’ grave. And I found myself in this place where, according to a Brooklyn acquaintance, Jewish refugees from central Europe met for business or simply to pass the time. Why in heaven did I have to enter a room where a lecture was taking place, a lecture to which I hadn't been invited? I didn't know the lecturer; I knew nothing about his subject. Was it a colloquium of intellectuals or a political meeting? I didn't understand their language. Actually, I had seen well-dressed people go into a building with an elegant façade that looked like a theater or museum. Prompted by an uncustomary curiosity, I followed them in. Just to see. The room was jam-packed. The ambience rather sophisticated. Some people were sighing, from emotion probably, or possibly impatience; others were chatting to while away boredom. Suddenly, everyone stood up; the orator had just arrived. He mounted the small platform and began talking, and everyone nodded as he spoke. Since I couldn't understand a thing, not least what I was doing there, I was soon eager to leave, but being too shy to attract attention, I looked around me. I wanted to see if my neighbors also found the lecture obscure, which would not have been surprising since the lecturer's French was riddled with words and names in Yiddish and Hebrew, and his way of expressing himself was long-winded, terribly so, and his voice sugary in a way that I found boring.
A young dark-haired woman was sitting in front of me, perfectly still. Something about her intrigued me. I had the strange feeling that she wasn't alone, and yet no one was accompanying her. Solitary like me? And what if she was the unknown woman of my dreams, one of my first unfulfilled loves, whom I often thought about with remorse and shame, for I owed her so much? Just thinking about it, I felt the blood rush to my brain. Was it a memory or dream already stifled and consumed in a fog suddenly and even more quickly dispelled? Oh, Lord, let it be her. If only I could see her from the front. What if I touched her shoulder to make her turn toward me? Would I dare?
I dared. She turned around and looked at me with an expression more amused than angry. She wasn't the stranger from the bus. But she too smiled at me. A second later she stood up and went out. I followed her into the street. A light drizzle washed the streets and houses. The woman took my arm in silence. We went into a café and sat down at a table near the entrance to the terrace. She ordered tea for two. Her voice, deep and sensual, aroused me.
“Talk, I'm listening.”
I told her that I didn't understand French. Fortunately, she spoke Yiddish. She wanted to know why I had followed her; I replied that I didn't know myself.
Why was I spending time in this city?
I told her.
“Is it your first visit here?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Your first visit since the war?”
“Yes.”
“In other words, you don't know the city.”
“No.”
“How will you find the way to the cemetery?”
“I'm counting on you,” I answered in a serious tone of voice.
It was true. I didn't know her, but I was counting on her. Perhaps because I liked her melodious Yiddish.
“You have a strange way of staring at people,” she said.
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“I look at eyes that look at me. And what about me, how do you look at me?”
“I wonder if you're part of my past or my future.”
“I don't know the first, but you're in luck: the second interests me.”
We chatted for a long time. Good fortune smiled on me that day. She seemed older than me and worked in a Jewish organization. I convinced myself that she was going to help me.
“I have an offer to make to you,” I said. “Be my guide. Stay with me until my departure in two days. Take me to the cemetery . Show me the city. The Jewish neighborhood, if there still is one. I'll pay you well. Don't say no. Not yet. It's too soon. You'll tell me the next time.”
“You're a funny guy. When will the next time be? And where? In what city? In what lifetime?”
Should I tell her that I was staying at the Hotel Splendide?
“I have no idea. Let's leave it up to fate.”
Suddenly a feeling of panic came over me. I went on quickly: “But what if we don't see each other again?”
“It would still be a lovely romance.”
That's when I realized she had the smile of an innocent, peaceful child, and dark shadows under her eyes.
Like my mother?
Suddenly, I was embarrassed to realize I no longer remembered the color of her eyes.
But everything that I never dared to say or even think about my mother, I can now say about Maya.
Maya's eyes were dark, at least so I believed. Never in my life have I seen eyes like hers. Whoever saw them plunged into them as into a beckoning river promising dreams and adventure.
I never forgot those eyes and I never will. I'm emphasizing this because, even if I'm wrong, I think it's important for the story; they were cheerful, of a remarkable, uneven blue-black color, at once disquieting and soothing. Dark blue like a spring night over the ocean, or the sky over the desert. One minute, they seemed fiery to the point of pain; then, unperturbed, without transition, they opened up, under their delicate eyelids, like an offering. And you felt like searching them endlessly, caressing them with your gaze, attributing to them a secret meaning, kissing them. What poets and novelists say about eyes and their power is both true and untrue. Mirror of the soul? Window into the unconscious? Yes, without a doubt. But Maya's were more, far more than that: they stirred your stomach and shook your guts. She had only to look at me and say the word and I was prepared to take her to the ends of the earth. She had only to take my hand and I would have let death carry me off to the final ecstasy where no compromise is possible.
