Benno noticed that there were few adjectives. Slobotsky treated that comment with respect and wondered whether they were necessary. When Slobotsky read, it was almost like singing, and he planted the melody in us. Some of the words were not understandable, and Slobotsky explained them with his hands or facial expressions. Sometimes it seemed he was trying to convey the meaning of the sentences to us without the mediation of explanations.
“Hannah spoke in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard.” There was voiced prayer and voiceless prayer. Eli the priest was old and blind and no longer distinguished between voiced and voiceless prayer. Voiceless prayer seemed to him like the mutterings of a drunk, like meaningless words. No wonder he didn’t understand what his two sons, Hofni and Pinhas, were doing.
What those words showed me was strange. Every word was a picture. In the filth where Hofni and Pinhas wallowed, Hannah and her son seemed like ministering angels. Interestingly, Hannah did not see the corruption; she saw only God. She prayed and swore an oath, and later she was to leave her only son in that polluted temple, as if it were a place where God dwelled.
Slobotsky read. Not everyone was as enthralled by his reading as I was. But each in his own way, Robert and Benno, who was always as sharp as a razor, were listening intently. Benno found the following verses to be light in the darkness: “And Samuel ministered before the Lord, a young boy girded with a linen priestly vest. And his mother would make him a little vest and bring it up to him from year to year, when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice.” Slobotsky also commented that only a child whose thoughts were pure and who was distant from the corruption could wear a child’s priestly vest. On the day of judgment, no priestly vest could protect Hofni and Pinhas.
“Why are we studying the Bible and not biology?” shouted one of the boys. Slobotsky didn’t respond to that remark, but that first chapter of the book of Samuel made my body tremble as it had not for a long time. It seemed that the words Slobotsky presented to us were carved out, each word individually, and laden with secret content. I felt something similar when I saw for the first time the blue of the inner Carpathians. I was so astonished that I wept. Mother didn’t know what to do and enfolded me in her arms.
Robert responded differently. A thin smile hovered over his lips all morning, as though Slobotsky’s reading had revealed to him combinations of forms whose beauty he had not imagined. Later he commented that Hofni and Pinhas, because of the similar sound of their names, became one; togetherness made their actions even darker.
“Now the sons of Eli were sons of Bihlee’al.” Here, too, the sounds link their parentage with their sin. Not only were Robert’s eyes wide open but his ears, too.
—
Slobotsky wore khaki clothes, like all of us. He was about fifty, but when he spoke, he seemed younger and like a musician or orchestra conductor. He repeated every verse several times, examining its musicality. Sometimes he repeated a single word. When he was enthusiastic, he did not seem like a local, but like someone who had come from far away. Indeed, he had come from far away. He was born in Shedlitz and studied in Berlin.
Slobotsky’s teaching style drove some of the boys mad. They called it hypnosis. But most of us were woven into his magic and listened to the details that he drew out of every verse.
“The Bible must be read attentively,” he sometimes said. “Many secrets are hidden in it. Too bad that my colleagues, the researchers, refuse to listen to its melodies. History and geography have their place, but the secrets are more important than they are.”
Sometime after that, I saw a man in the yard, scouting with his eyes. At first I didn’t recognize him, but when I approached him, I saw right away: it was none other than Dr. Weingarten.
“Where did you disappear to? I’ve been looking for you,” he said and walked toward me with open arms.
I didn’t know what to say except “They brought me here.” But I realized that this didn’t excuse me from my responsibility. I was ashamed that I hadn’t gone out to look for him.
He was wearing the same coat he had worn in Atlit. He was pale, and he walked cautiously, like a man who had been struck repeatedly. He had been in the hospital for about a month, and now he was living in a transit camp. His latest circumstances hadn’t erased the irony from his lips. Twice a week he guarded a building site. Up to now thieves hadn’t attacked him.
I brought him to the dining hall and asked for a late lunch for my uncle, who had come to visit me. I received a full tray. Dr. Weingarten ate, and I saw him sitting in our home with Father and felt the delicate silence that enveloped their chess games. I knew I ought to ask him many questions because only he remained to tell me everything that had happened to my father and mother. But that very necessity stopped my tongue. I sat next to him in silence. Finally, I began to speak.
“I didn’t know that Father had a strong voice.”
“He had a voice that touched every one of us,” Dr. Weingarten replied, “even those who didn’t understand the text he was telling us about. Sometimes it sounded like a voice calling from the depths, and sometimes like prayer. The tempo was uniform. Every word was well pronounced. That was the vital energy he gave us night after night, for many months.”
“They used to return the manuscripts that Father sent out.” The words tumbled from my mouth.
“They didn’t understand your father. Nor did I, after reading two of his books. I sensed that he had great talent, but it seemed tangled up; I hoped that someday he would emerge from this entanglement. I didn’t absorb the logic of his sentences. Only when he was telling us stories at night did I feel he was conveying his brilliant depths to us. After the war, I went back to our city and hoped to find at least one of his books, at least a few pages. I didn’t find a thing.”
I didn’t ask any more. I was afraid.
I accompanied Dr. Weingarten to the road leading to the transit camp, and I promised to come and visit him. I also told him I had a new Bible teacher named Slobotsky, a teacher of great stature.
“I know him,” he said. “We both studied in Berlin. How is he?”
“He’s teaching us the book of Samuel.”
“Give him my regards,” Dr. Weingarten said, and went on his way.
22
That night I felt very lonely. It seemed that the separation from my parents and their language, which began during the war and continued after the liberation and on the way to Palestine, had now come to its bitter conclusion. I knew it was my fault. I hadn’t tried to preserve the warmth of their speech. It occurred to me that Mark certainly felt something similar when he took his life.
I saw before my eyes the many feet that had trudged alongside me, heavy feet, swollen with too much walking. I knew those feet had found it hard to walk in that arduous way, but they carried me from place to place, as though they had sworn to bring me to safety. For some reason, the dining hall emptied fast. I took my notebook out of my folder and wrote:
My mother’s name: Bunia.
My father’s name: Michael.
My grandfather’s name: Meir Yoseph.
The city of my birth: Czernowitz.
The street where I lived: Masaryk.
My grandparents’ villages: Dratzintz and Zhadova.
The name of our housekeeper: Victoria.
The kind of coach that took us from the city to the country and back was called a fiacre.
My nickname: Ervinko.
For the first time I saw the names of my family, my city, and my grandparents’ villages in Hebrew letters. The names gleamed in my notebook, as though garbed in clothing that wasn’t theirs. For a moment I was sorry I had clothed my dear ones in strange garments, and I was about to erase the list.
After that I went outside and felt better. I met Benno. Benno didn’t usually reveal his emotions. No one knew where or how he had passed the war years. He caught on quickly. Before you even began to think, he had taken two steps forward. His thinking was logic
al and dazzling, but not without feeling. I didn’t restrain myself and told him that a short time earlier I had been struck by a feeling of deep loneliness.
Benno didn’t respond to that but spoke about Mark, who had prepared his body and mind for his daring act. I was surprised by the word “daring,” but I didn’t question it.
“There are people who can’t live with contradictions,” he said.
I knew every aspect of the word “contradictions.” Since the liberation, I had been living with it day after day, had been scorched by it at night, and had carried it with me everywhere. But for some reason I had never articulated it. Father didn’t like the word, but he occasionally used it.
“What contradictions are we talking about?” I wanted to hear Benno’s opinion. He lowered his head, as though he was going to draw the correct words out from within it. Then he raised his head and said, “All during the war, and even more so after the liberation, I prepared myself for life, not for death. My whole family—my parents, my brothers and sisters, my grandparents, my uncles and aunts, my cousins—all of them died, and only I remained. Why did I remain? What is the meaning of my survival? I still remember all of them by name, but I can’t prevent forgetfulness. Every day of training, every day of planting in the orchard, even every day of learning Hebrew makes me forget them. Change. Renewal. Didn’t we adopt those words in order to break loose and forget them? I and those like me do everything we can to live fulfilling lives in good health on this land. Is there no ugliness in this? Is there no arrogance? I don’t want to speak for everyone, but I don’t know how to live with their deaths. Maybe it’s impossible. Weren’t those Mark’s thoughts, which bore him to that great darkness?”
After a few moments of silence, he said, “Sorry,” and went on his way.
I stayed where I was. Benno’s clear words struck me. I was sorry I had missed the opportunity to get close to him but, on the other hand, perhaps I had done well by not asking more. One does not ask about deep wounds. I now sensed that his thoughts were teetering on the abyss. I was gripped with fear that he might do what Mark had done. I went to look for him. It turned out that he was looking for me, too.
We sat in the dining hall, spread jam on slices of bread, and drank tea. We spoke about the terraces and about life without books. A person rises in the morning and goes out to the hills, works for seven or eight hours, and returns home sodden with labor. He takes a shower, prepares a meal for himself, sits at the table with his wife, and sleeps the sleep of the righteous. But Benno’s parents were teachers in a secondary school, and their whole life was books.
“My father and mother, too,” I said, revealing just a bit.
23
That night I also returned to my city, and to the long avenue that led to my home in its outskirts. The house was empty, as happened sometimes when I returned from school early. I went from room to room. Everything was in its place, silent and with no discernible smell. The objects in my room were also in place, just as I left them: the bookcase, the briefcase, and the photograph of the Carpathians, which Mother had enlarged and hung on the wall. It was two o’clock.
“Father!” I called out. The sound lingered in the air for a second and then faded. I realized that Father wasn’t home at that hour, but Mother, if she had no special errands, was usually in the living room, waiting for me.
I touched my briefcase, which lay on the dresser, and it occurred to me that I had not gone to school for many years. Sweat covered my body. What would I tell Mother when we met? Mother didn’t appear, but the housemaid, Victoria, opened the back door and stood on the threshold. Upon seeing me, she called out in alarm, “He’s here. How did he get here?”
“I came home,” I said.
“There’s no one in the house,” she said, showing her tobacco-stained front teeth.
“Where are they?” I asked in my ordinary voice.
“Why are you asking?”
“I want to know.”
She frowned at me and said, “Go away. Go back to your place.”
“What place?”
“The place you came from.”
“This is my place,” I said, not moving.
“If you don’t go, I’ll throw you out.” The anger in her face grew more intense.
I gathered all my strength. “Victoria, don’t you recognize me?”
“Certainly I recognize you. But you don’t belong to this house anymore. Your home is in another place.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. You’d better clear out of here before I call the yardman.”
“Mr. Vilitsky will recognize me and won’t throw me out of my house.” I spoke in a conciliatory way.
“You’re wrong. He’ll sweep you out.”
“I don’t understand your behavior, Victoria. We were friends. When Father and Mother went out together, we would sit on the floor and play dominoes or hide-and-seek. You would tell me about the village where you were born. What’s changed since then?”
She contained her anger for a moment and then said, “You must understand; your place is no longer here. I don’t know where you live, but it’s not here. You haven’t been here in years. Apparently, you got lost and ended up here.”
“But everything here is as it was.”
“You’re mistaken.”
“Isn’t this my school briefcase?”
“If you open it, you’ll see that it’s not yours anymore.”
“Whose is it?”
“My nephew’s.”
Then the true face of the house was revealed to me. Everything was in its place—or, rather, most things were in their places—but the light wasn’t the same. The bedspreads were covered in blue, a color the peasants loved.
What is this? I was about to ask. But there was no one to ask. Victoria had disappeared. Most likely, I said to myself, she’s gone to bring our yardman, Mr. Vilitsky. No more than a few minutes passed before I heard his voice, hoarse from cigarettes.
“I’m coming.”
Soon Victoria’s voice was heard. “We have to get rid of him right away.”
It occurred to me to go out and look at the back stairs that led to the basement. It was dark, and the familiar smell of mildew, not unpleasant, filled the air.
“Where is he?” I heard the yardman’s voice.
“He was here, I swear.”
I knew that soon the door would open, and Mr. Vilitsky would grab me by my shirt and throw me into the air shaft. My body froze, but I did manage to say out loud:
“This is my house, my eternal house. No one can deprive me of it. You can grab me and throw me down the dark air shaft, but you can’t take this house from me. It’s planted in my body.” I wanted to add something else, but my voice was stuck in my throat.
The bell in the exercise yard woke me up and saved me. Everyone got up, and so did I.
—
In the afternoon, I received permission to visit Dr. Weingarten. The transit camp wasn’t far off, just a half hour’s walk. Dr. Weingarten was pleased to see me and hugged me. To avoid asking him what my parents’ fate had been, I told him about my work in the orchard and about the Bible studies with Slobotsky. He told me right away that Slobotsky was known as a genius in Berlin and had been appointed as a teaching assistant at an early age, and Martin Buber constantly praised him. He was well liked by Jews and non-Jews.
“How strange that he’s teaching Bible in a training course now.”
We sat on Dr. Weingarten’s bed in silence. His companions in the shed also sat on their beds, smoking and sipping coffee from thick cups.
“And Mother?” The question slipped out.
“She, too, was a wonder. She worked in the kitchen, and from the scanty supplies available to her, she made tasty, nourishing meals. She got thin, like all of us, but her beauty didn’t fade. She was the nourishing angel of the entire camp.”
I heard this, and shivers passed through my body, as though I had only now learned how my parents had left this
world. I didn’t ask anything else. The images before my eyes made me shiver again. Dr. Weingarten sensed my emotions.
“I won’t rest until I find your father’s manuscripts,” he said.
“Where are they, in your opinion?”
“With non-Jewish acquaintances to whom he gave them to read. I regret that I was tempted into emigrating prematurely. I should have stayed and gone from place to place to look. If I don’t manage to do so, you’ll do it, right?”
“You’ll manage,” I replied, in Hebrew for some reason.
Dr. Weingarten wasn’t surprised. He knew Hebrew. It was too bad he was in the immigrants’ settlement and had no one to converse with.
“I can’t forgive myself,” he said, “for not realizing until we were in the camp, when I heard his voice and his stories, the greatness of your father’s soul. Your father and mother were superior people,” he said, and fell silent.
I was also mute.
Then he rose to his feet and said, “Return to the training course, dear boy. They’re certainly expecting you. And I’ll go to the building site, to guard it.” I felt that he did not now wish to remain in the company of loved ones.
I hugged him and promised to come back. I realized that Dr. Weingarten had conveyed to me not only these scenes but also something of himself, and my heart ached.
24
We resumed building terraces. Yechiel improved the quality of the ten o’clock and four o’clock snacks beyond recognition. Each food had a new taste. Sometimes he made me think of young Samuel wearing the priestly vest, perhaps because of the checkered sweater he wore.
Some of the fellows picked on him. I reprimanded them. I usually didn’t comment, but when injustice cried out, it was hard for me to restrain myself. I inherited that trait from my father. Father was a pleasant man, but I observed him raise his voice more than once.
True, Yechiel wasn’t quick during our training and weapons exercises. Nor did he stand out in our studies. But he saw things that we didn’t see. He told me about his dreams with simplicity, as though there was no difference between nighttime visions and reality. Sometime earlier he’d asked me whether I also dreamed. I didn’t conceal the truth from him. He didn’t ask anything else. He was satisfied with what people told him and didn’t ask too many questions. I wouldn’t have been surprised if, like young Samuel, he told me that one evening he had heard an unidentified voice that had shocked him.
The Man Who Never Stopped Sleeping Page 7
