by Elie Wiesel
“That's correct. How did you get that?”
“It's so simple, Doctor. Three times Sunday and four times Tuesday equals fourteen.”
Should I have a neurologist colleague examine him? A doubt crosses my mind. What if this is just a game for him? The patient starts laughing; he isn't exhausted, but I am. Perhaps because I don't feel like laughing.
12
At times, in an involuntary and unpredictable way, everything spins around and becomes dislocated in my mind. At the slightest little thing, and often for no apparent reason, I weep without shedding tears and I roar with laughter. I'm lonely, terribly lonely, though a crowd surrounds me and hems me in. I see men eat when they're thirsty and drink when they're hungry. They walk around naked in winter and too warmly dressed when it's stiflingly hot. The old men play with hoops and the children pray like old men. And the words in my mouth no longer like one another; dissonant, disfigured, bloody, they refuse to be grouped together. Taken in isolation, each one has a meaning, but together they have no meaning. As a result, I'm no longer stretched out on the therapist's couch but on the wing of an eagle that is carrying me to treetops high above the stars. Behind me, a huge crow is trying to catch us. He is holding my head in his beak. I feel like screaming, but no sound comes out of my tight throat. I feel like keeping quiet, and I hear myself speaking but in the language of birds. I ask the crow why he's pursuing me; he replies in the language of humans that I'm mistaken, he's the one fleeing, not me; I'm pursuing him. I ask the eagle where he's taking me, and he replies, in his own language, that he's bringing me to the place where all languages fuse into a beautiful, beneficial flame. I tell him I don't understand, so then he ruffles his wings and threatens to get rid of me if I keep bothering him with my childish talk. I challenge him: let him dare separate himself from me, let him dare; without me he would die. To punish me, he flutters and lo and behold he falls, while I keep flying like a king through the distant skies.
Frowning and looking absorbed, Thérèse is taking notes quickly so as not to miss anything. After a pause, she asks: “As you see it, which one is you: the crow or the eagle?”
“I don't see any difference.”
“Come on, seriously. Don't tell me that the two birds are alike.”
“No, I won't say that. All I'll say is this: for me it's the same whether I identify with one or the other.”
“Do you like birds?”
Her question is a slap in the face. She has a knack for touching a hidden wound.
“There was a time, Doctor, when I loved birds. Actually, I envied them.”
“You see? We're on the right track. It might lead us to an explanation of your … illness.”
She's getting on my nerves. I'm talking about birds and she about illness. If she persists along these lines, I'll say good-bye. What's the use of wasting my time, lying here like an idiot?
“Shut your eyes,” says her voice, and I can't decide if it's the voice of the eagle or the crow.
“Okay, my eyes are shut.”
“What do you see?”
“Good God, are you kidding me? What can I possibly see, since my eyes are shut?”
“Where are you right now?”
“In your office, if I'm not mistaken.”
“Think about the birds and tell me where you are. And why you envied them.”
Okay, she succeeded in bringing me back to the Polish village where I lived with my father. I see myself in the house that sheltered us. Most of the time, we had to remain inside. The tiniest slipup could attract an informant's attention. Summer, of course, was more dangerous than winter. People stayed outside longer and could be strolling around anywhere. Also, our host, Vladek, forbade us from going near the windows. “You never know who might see your reflection or shadow,” he said. But one morning we had a visitor anyway: a bird dropped in unexpectedly. He stood at the window ledge and watched us, very intently, as though he had no other occupation in life. A strange thought popped into my mind: he's a traitor, an informer; he wants his reward. That's the kind of world we live in; birds too are our enemies. In spite of Vladek's warning, I went up to the window and told the bird he was disturbing me; I begged him to leave us alone: we've done you no harm—be nice, little bird, go away. But instead of flying off and joining his flock, he smiled at me. So I told my father that I envied this creature. Looking up from the book he was engrossed in, he stared at the motionless bird, who stared right back.
“Because he's free?” my father asked.
“No,” I replied. “I envy him because he isn't human.”
I stop talking. The therapist doesn't reprimand me. She puts away her notepad and says today's session is over: “We'll try to find your birds again next time.”
Next time? The birds have never left me.
Their gazes are our prayers.
It is your gaze I like. It appeals to me. I am writing to it. I'm convinced, foolishly, that my words are inscribed in it. One day I'll read them back out loud. For you. To see you smile. And I will tell you—no, I'll tell you now: don't be too frightened of what will happen to us. I'm telling you about my past so you won't be frightened.
Those years of isolation, anguish, and exile, as you call the years I lived in that Polish village, you're asking me to describe them to you, is that it? The village noises used to come to us from afar: drunkards singing, neighbors quarreling, the moans of beaten wives and children, the drumroll preceding official decrees. Sometimes, all of this seems to me just one long night broken up by my mother's brief appearances. Like my father, I read a great deal, often with him. And I was even more silent, on our landlord's strict orders. Noise was another one of our enemies: to avoid making any, I acted mute for days and nights, especially when Vladek had visitors, so much so that I sometimes was afraid of having lost the power of speech. If I'd been asked what I planned to do on the day of liberation, I would have answered: shout, shout with all my might, tell the world that I'm me, and though the world may be deaf, I'm not mute.
During that whole time, my father took care of me. I don't know who taught him to sew the buttons on my shirt, to prepare cold meals, to nurse the colds I used to catch at the first winter winds.
He also watched over my education. Whispering in a calm but fervent voice, he taught me some Yiddish, Polish, and Hebrew texts. He read to me in the evening, by the light of an oil lamp. And when we were too afraid to light the lamp, he told me stories in the dark, stories in which the innocence of children and the madness of the sages helped God save His Creation.
Too long or too short, the seasons affected my mood. How does one live through a stretch of time where nothing happens? Between sleep and wakefulness, no event came to sustain my memory. In the beginning, to keep busy, I counted my respirations and blinks. Then I began to dream with my eyes open. I succumbed easily, too easily, to depression and anger. The songs of summer, the snowfalls of winter. The purity of spring, the autumn mud. The days came and went, chasing or embracing the fugitives of the night.
I remember, with nostalgia, the solitude shared with my father. I then feel gripped by a powerful though subtle emotion. He had only me, and I had only him. When I think of the succession of hours and nights, I see the traces on his face. The hunger that racked my stomach was his as well. He was the beginning and end for me. My unspoken dream? Becoming a child again so I would not have to suffer the shame of adults.
I remember a summer day when we were almost arrested. We were in the attic because our host was expecting relatives. “Be careful,” he warned us. “Don't move. Don't talk. Wait until the people are gone. But if a kid wanders into forbidden territory by chance, give him a thrashing and knock him unconscious. Got it? Afterward, I'll teach him to forget.”
Unfortunately, what he feared did come about. While the adults were feasting, a little imp came nosing around in the attic. I have no idea what he was looking for. Maybe he suspected something. He came in, sniffed left and right, poked the straw next to the door, and
left.
We had a narrow escape.
“What would we have done if he had discovered us?” I asked my father.
“We would have beaten him.”
“To death?” I whispered, holding my breath.
“No. Only enough to make him forget.”
Then he added: “I could never kill. And surely not a child.”
What about me, I thought in my foolish little head; could I?
“I know, Doctor, I'm aware of it: I talk a lot about my father and not enough about my mother. Don't conclude from that that I didn't love her. Don't try to put everything on her back or mine. Don't go searching in me—a person who hasn't studied Freudian or Lacanian theory—for complexes that exist only in your convoluted therapist's mind. I'll have you know I loved my mother and still love her. But, what can I say, the war and the accident amputated my life. Is it my fault that I lived for too brief a time with my mother? You ask me whether I feel I didn't see her often enough during the occupation? Indeed, she didn't visit often. And when she did, it was only for a few hours. She stayed one night, never more. Each time, she arrived late in the evening, exhausted. She knocked at the door, using the agreed-on signal: three knocks, then two, then four. She stopped at the doorstep to look at me before turning to my father. Whether summer or winter, she always wore the same coat and the same dress. At each visit, she seemed smaller and frailer. She kissed us both, me on my cheek, my father on his neck. I saw her cry only once. Sitting apart in a corner, my father was quizzing her about her activities; she explained that she wasn't allowed to tell him: if he was arrested, he might speak under torture. The Resistance would have to bear the consequences that it was best to avoid. My father reproached her, smiling: ‘So if I understand correctly, you're hiding some things about your life from us, right?’
“My mother burst into tears: ‘You suspect me of not being faithful to you two,’ she said, sobbing. My father managed to calm her, but for a long time I resented him for having made my mother so unhappy.
“I feel you're listening more attentively, Doctor. What interests you? My mother's grief or the worry I shared with my father? Don't tell me you sense a crack in our family life. And because of my mother's possible misconduct? I forbid you! True, I sometimes look like I'm losing my temper. But it's because you provoke me. I have no idea what you're driving at, what misdeed you're trying to uncover, and by whom. But I order you to stop this indecent game; I won't play it anymore. You'd like to know whom I'd like to protect, my father or my mother? Well, I'd answer that they both deserve my protection, and besides, it's none of your business.”
I raise myself on my elbows and glance at the therapist quickly; she seems pleased with herself. She is smiling.
Later, I learned many things about my parents. Of the two, my mother impressed people most. She knew what had to be done and how to do it. She was decisiveness itself. Most often, my father didn't even try to argue. No doubt because she had worked in the Resistance and he had not. But why had she? Because she was blond and attractive. She could easily pass for Aryan, whereas he, with his brown hair and sad brown eyes, looked more Jewish. But it was my father who found the peasant Vladek who agreed to house us for an exorbitant rent.
I remember the good man. Actually, Vladek was good only when he received his zlotys. He had a wife and two children, a boy and a girl. I never saw his wife full-face; I only heard her through the wall. As for the children, I used to see them playing in the courtyard. It was they who were the greatest threat to us; they were capable of unintentionally discovering our subterranean cubbyhole or the barn we used as a hiding place. For me, being little, this wasn't so painful; but for my father, it was. He was crouched for hours, and it was hard for him to move his head. For me, the silence was intolerable. In fact, after the war, my father remained slightly stooped, whereas I remain haunted by the silence.
We would hide in the storage room only when policemen, Germans, suspicious people, or nosy neighbors were in the area, no doubt searching for Jews like us. I've forgotten why, but this happened particularly in the spring.
One day, again I don't remember when, I saw an incident that could have turned into a disaster. Vladek appeared and started to argue with my father about raising the cost of our accommodations. “You have to understand,” he said, “your presence here endangers us all, my wife and my children too.” My father replied that he wasn't rich; he had just enough money to honor his commitment, no more. The peasant was annoyed: “And what if the war lasts for years, will you be rich enough to continue paying me?” My father answered that the war wouldn't last much longer; the Allies and the Russians were more powerful than Germany. The argument continued in this hostile vein until Vladek shouted: “If you don't accept my conditions next month, I can't guarantee anything.” It was clear: he was going to throw us out or inform on us.
By chance, my mother came to see us two or three weeks later. My father told her what had happened. Though worried, she reassured him: “Leave it to us.”
My father asked: “Who do you mean by ‘us’?”
As always, she gestured to convey what she used to repeat over and over: “It's best for you not to know.”
The important thing was that the peasant stopped making demands and threats. Later I learned what had happened: a comrade in the Resistance went up to him one Sunday as he was coming out of church and whispered in his ear to leave us alone. “If you start again or if your lodgers fall into the clutches of the Gestapo, we'll set your house on fire with you and your family inside it. You know we mean it.”
The comrade in question? Romek.
“Some human beings are born old. Others live and experience anguish and happiness before being born. Then they forget everything and spend their lives trying to remember. That's sort of what's happening to me, Doctor. Oh, I know what you're thinking: Lo and behold, my patient has gone stark raving mad! But I know that; I knew that long before you. Otherwise, what would I be doing here, stretched out on your uncomfortable couch like a lazy fool? However, the sentence I just cited isn't my own, it's from the Talmud. And I find it suitable, except for the last part: I try to forget sometimes, whereas you do everything to tear down the walls of oblivion. Who will win the fight? All I know for sure is the loser will be me.
“I've been a loser since the day I followed my parents’ coffins to the little country cemetery overlooking the sea near Marseilles. I was eleven years old. It was during the High Holy Days of 1947. The weather was still beautiful. Avrohom held my hand. The place radiated peacefulness. The wind rustled the fir trees, informing the golden leaves that the cold would be returning; trembling, they seemed to say to the wind: give us some respite, go away, allow us to enjoy the last rays of the sun. Sometimes the wind brushed against my face too, but I couldn't understand its message.
“One week after the funeral, in other words, after the shiva, there was a ceremony during which my name was mentioned more often than my parents’. When they spoke, the Zionist leaders thundered against the English: ‘It's because of them and their anti-Jewish politics that this innocent little boy is now an orphan,’ shouted Giora, their leader. A friend of Avrohom's, wearing felt hat and caftan, beseeched the Lord to take me under His protection, for wasn't He ‘the protector of widows and orphans’? This time again, the event ended with my reciting the Kaddish.
“The sky was light blue and reassuring. There was no wind that day. Appeased, the earth had welcomed my dead without wounding them; they had been wounded enough during the accident in their smashed-up car. Avrohom had stayed by my side every second during the week of mourning. Now time was going to become a thing that had to be weighed, examined, questioned, and that we would try to tame and love.
“When the week of mourning was over, I got up like an invalid in need of crutches. Avrohom questioned me on my recollections. He wanted to know everything. Everything about my parents, whom he had never met. Were they practicing Jews? Were they happy? When did they laugh heartily and
when did they think things over in a low voice? I described such moments as clearly as I could, but I didn't mention the incident that had made my mother cry.
“And I regret I told you about it, Doctor.”
“Why, Doriel? Why this fierce desire to leave a minor, insignificant incident shrouded in secrecy … except if it conceals something that frightens or shames you?”
Suffocating with anger, I remain silent until the end of the session.
“It's been almost three weeks since you last came to see me. Is it because you've been feeling very well or very ill?”
“I don't see anyone. I'm not myself.”
“I see you. Does that bother you?”
“An old man treading on his violin strings, that's what.”
“And he doesn't slip?”
“A child smiles and the rain answers him.”
“And he doesn't get wet?”
“A young woman becomes old, and the earth turns around her mangled body.”
“And she doesn't weep?”
“An acrobat goes down on his knees to pray, and the funeral continues.”
“And the dead man lets it go on?”
“A beggar collapses under the weight of his desires.”
“And he still has hopes?”
“The gods become angry, and the soul starts singing a song that makes the grass grow.”
“And the skies become clouded over?”
“The sun goes out, and the madman becomes drunk on its deadly rays.”
“And what do you do to find peace again?”
“I feel my destiny crumbling away.”
“And what else?”
“Someone is walking backward and I feel drained.” “But you came back. That's good.”
“Came back from where—who can tell me? Someone who wasn't with me, where is he now?”
13
Jonathan was my friend. A friend in whom I could confide my doubts and fears. But at one point, the complicity we shared vanished. What came between us? This will make you laugh: neither the ambition to succeed nor the intentional transgression of the daily commandments, but God—it was God Himself who suddenly intervened between my friend and me. And once again, a woman played a part as well.
