The Man Who Never Stopped Sleeping

by Aharon Appelfeld

  We lived in the trenches and at our posts. We didn’t work or study, and we hardly washed. The image of Yechiel, hunched over when he came with our meals, was that of a youth who had seen a lot of suffering in his life and who now wanted only to be devoted to people who were in danger. Because he wasn’t bearing arms, Yechiel felt inferior in ability to his friends, and he always scurried to satisfy us. His devotion didn’t make him the object of mockery, but neither did he receive special thanks. Slobotsky, who poured coffee for us with trembling hands, also failed to receive a warm welcome. But some of us, like Benno and Robert, didn’t forget that he was nearly fifty and a graduate of the University of Berlin. It was proper to respect his sensitivity, not to mention his erudition.

  So the days passed. If we had been permitted to take a break temporarily from our patrols and ambush positions, we would have stretched our muscles and overcome our fears. Lying on the ground for a long period stultified the mind. It would have been better to expose us to some risks.

  Robert told me that he had seen Stash, the man who had sheltered him, in a dream, selling the paintings his father had given him. He recognized the portraits of his mother, his sister, and himself.

  “I begged him in vain not to sell the paintings, but Stash stood by his decision. ‘I’ll sell them no matter what,’ he said. Since my pleading was of no use, I knelt down and said, ‘Please, by your mercy, don’t sell the eternal life of my father’s soul.’ Upon hearing that emotional appeal, he tightened his lips into an ironic smile and said, ‘Since when do the new Jews believe in the immortality of the soul? After all, they threw away their ancestors’ faith long ago.’ I rose to my feet and protested. ‘My father was a believing man,’ I said. ‘What did he believe in? In art that brings balm to the soul.’ ‘I beg your pardon, my young friend,’ Stash replied. ‘Modern art isn’t a faith, it’s a disturbance.’ ‘And won’t his soul live eternally?’ I asked. ‘Not unless he repents from the sin of his new beliefs,’ Stash said, and then disappeared into the darkness.”

  The dream unsettled Robert. Throughout his time with Stash, he had never conversed with him. Occasionally, Stash would express his opinion about the Jews and their way of life, but he had never voiced such an explicit judgment. Once, though, he told Robert he should accept the Catholic religion. A man without faith is like a driven leaf, he said. Robert, who was dependent on Stash’s kindness, was afraid he would eventually force him to convert, but in the end, he left him alone.

  —

  Our lives at our posts, with no changing of the watches, was one long, gray day. In daylight we alternated: one of us would remain on guard while the other slept curled up on an old mattress. At night both of us would be awake.

  Robert was certain a great war was on its way and that we would have to live at our posts not just for weeks but for months. That prediction was hard for me to bear. Something had to happen, I hoped, that would release us from this tedious lying down. Robert told me that the length of time he had spent in hiding with Stash had diminished his ability to concentrate. He had hoped that the training and the work in the fields would cure this, but now here we were dug into position and lying in place.

  Ephraim came to visit us with the news that we would soon leave our posts and join the regular soldiers. The high command had decided that the village across the way, which was firing on us day and night, had to be attacked. They had not yet decided what our task would be in the mission but, in any event, we had to be prepared.

  That night Robert turned to me and said, “I don’t know what will happen to us in the war. If my parents come to look for me, tell them that I thought about them all the time. Not only in hiding with Stash, but also when we were liberated. I love them a lot.”

  “We’ll get out of this the way we got out of earlier troubles,” I said, and was embarrassed by the shallow words that had come from my mouth.

  29

  The order to go into action was given. We had been preparing for this hour since Naples; now our bodies would speak in their full, strong language. I had often forgotten what we had been training for and had been mired in images and visions. Now the veil was lifted, and we were standing in the yard in front of the culture hall.

  Ephraim was delayed. We stepped in place and stamped our feet. I remembered the memorial ceremony for Mark, which had been held there. It seemed he was now observing us with a clear-eyed gaze, as if to say, I chose my death at a time and place that I found right. I couldn’t bear the thought that someone might shoot me.

  Yechiel went out with us, too. He had trained like the rest of us, but he still didn’t seem like a soldier. The cartridge belt was loose on his thin body, as though about to slip down. Ephraim, or who knows who, had decided to include him. Yechiel hadn’t objected. On the contrary, he was obviously pleased.

  The real soldiers had begun racing about in the early evening. For the first time, I saw them up close. They weren’t sturdy or tall, like the soldiers of our training course. But they moved with agility, and the rifles in their hands seemed to be tailored to fit them. They laughed and joked, imperceptibly soothing the fears that were lodged within us.

  Finally, Ephraim arrived, and he immediately quieted and reassured us. We wouldn’t attack or conquer positions this time. Instead, we would dig in at a distance from the battlefield, and if the enemy tried to flee or call in reinforcements, we would strike them with all our power.

  This was a task without glory, but it was still our first combat mission. Ephraim asked whether anyone had questions. There were two questions, which he answered at length. From his answers, we understood that the target this time was the village across the way, which was full of troublemakers and arms caches. Their positions were fortified, and it was important to surprise them and block their escape routes.

  The trained units, experienced in combat, would attack first, and we would wait. If there were surprises—and there were always surprises—and the attacking forces had to withdraw, we would have to cover them. Everything sounded clear, but was nevertheless wrapped in secrecy.

  Edward, one of the boys, asked me if by chance I had an extra bandage. I had one and gave it to him. He was glad and put it into one of the pouches of his cartridge belt. I asked him if he was nervous. He made a gesture with his hand, as if to say that ambushes didn’t fall within the scope of danger.

  Edward was one of those people you like at first sight, similar to the rest of us in every way, but still different. He was more than six feet tall and not outstanding in training or brilliant in studies, but the goodness of his heart was boundless. Because of that quality, everyone liked him.

  Edward’s mother tongue was Hungarian, and it would probably stay Hungarian forever, because every Hebrew word that came from his mouth was stamped with a Hungarian pronunciation and accent.

  “All of you will speak Hebrew with a decent accent someday,” he once acknowledged, “and only I will always speak Hungarian.”

  Pay attention and be careful, I wanted to tell him. Your height places you in constant danger. You have to be sure to walk hunched over. But I didn’t say it. Edward seemed calm and content that we had left our posts. Lying in those positions, especially because of his height, had shrunk him.

  “Now that torture is over,” he said. “Now my legs aren’t confined in a cast. Those gangs won’t dare leave their holes. If they come out, we’ll beat them hip over thigh,” he said, and we both laughed. In his last lesson, Slobotsky had spoken about the expression “hip over thigh” in the Samson story in the book of Judges and explained its meaning.

  We went out after midnight. Darkness and silence were melded together. I walked behind Yechiel, and I could see that it was hard for him to wear the loaded cartridge belt. It occurred to me that they hadn’t done well by subjecting him to this test. If, perish the thought, he was shot, we would all bear the guilt for the rest of our lives.

  We proceeded according to the rules of advancing by night. The way forward seemed long, as if
we wouldn’t reach the appointed place until much later. I was wrong.

  When we advanced a bit farther, we began to be pelted by a heavy rain of bullets. Whoever wasn’t hit clung to the ground and returned fire. But the ones who were hit groaned from pain and shouted, “Medic! Medic!” Fortunately for us, our ambush group came to our aid and eliminated the enemy unit. Everything began to quiet down within minutes, but for the ones who were hit—including me—our lives were cut in two: the seventeen and a half years before the shots and then the life after them.

  I apparently lost consciousness. My comrades carried me in their arms back to the kibbutz and from there to the hospital. The big operation, for which we had prepared ourselves for many days and with great thoroughness, had failed.

  30

  I was unconscious for two days, and when I woke up, I didn’t remember a thing. The place looked like the white storeroom where I hid during the last days of the war. I was sure then that I had reached the final stop of my escape, and I awaited my death. Fortune smiled upon me: the German Army was preoccupied with retreat and had stopped looking for people in hiding places.

  A young nurse approached me and asked my name. I told her. She looked at me and said quietly, “That’s a nice name.” I didn’t feel any pain. I closed my eyes, and it seemed to me that my friends’ names were being called out and that my name had been omitted from the list. I wanted to get up and ask to have my name restored, but my voice was stuck in my throat, and I sank back into the pillow.

  The nurse gave me spoonfuls of water, which I sipped. Then I saw for the first time the doctors and nurses standing around me, and I wanted to tell them, Don’t worry. I’m just tired. In an hour or two I’ll get to my feet and join my friends.

  The next day the nurses returned and looked at me with concern. I told them that in a little while I’d get my strength back and stand on my feet. I was pleased that the Hebrew words came easily to my lips. In the haziness of sleep, it had seemed to me that all the Hebrew words I had acquired in Naples, in Atlit, and at the training course had fallen away and that I would have to relearn what I had already learned. I was sorry for that loss.

  “I feel better,” I said. The doctors and nurses looked at me questioningly, but they didn’t ask me anything. I didn’t know at that time the seriousness of my injuries. Months of training had shaped my body and planted within me the feeling that I could withstand all required efforts, and even a serious injury. I didn’t know if my friends felt as I did. But I, in any event, was a mass of muscles, prepared to lift any load.

  Only that evening did I realize that I couldn’t move my legs. It seemed that my legs had fallen asleep, as happened to me sometimes. If I rubbed them, they would hurt me a bit, but then I’d feel them as before. That night I felt pain, and the nurse didn’t keep from me that I had wounds in both legs. But I didn’t believe her. I told her that my father had also been wounded on the front, in the First World War, and that the doctors hadn’t believed he would recover from his injuries, either.

  Benno came to visit me, and I was glad to see him, as though he had come from a familiar world. He knew things about my wounds that I didn’t know. I asked him about our friends, and he replied that everyone was all right. I sensed he was hiding things from me, but then I dismissed that suspicion. Benno was a man of truth. I had often heard him correct a friend who hadn’t told the truth. When he heard a lie, he would stamp his feet.

  The next day I learned that two of my friends had been wounded and that Ephraim himself had been shot in the right arm. Now I knew that Benno hadn’t wanted to add to my pain.

  That night the head of the department, Dr. Winter, came to speak with me. He promised me that the medical staff would do everything they could to save my legs. That promise, which sounded like an oath, did not soothe me. I looked at him, a tall man who spoke in decisive sentences, and asked him in my mother tongue whether there were miracles in medicine.

  “There are,” he said. “But we don’t call them miracles.”

  “And what is their medical name?” I challenged him.

  “Lack of knowledge that will be clarified in the future.”

  His speech in my mother tongue was soft, but at the same time it strove for precision. He explained things to me at length and in a leisurely way, as though speaking to a relative, and he demonstrated with his fingers what the surgeons had done and what they were going to do in the future. While he was talking, I noticed that he resembled my uncle Arthur. But he had a deep cleft in his chin.

  “Where are you from?” he asked.

  “From Czernowitz,” I didn’t hesitate to tell him.

  “I knew it,” he said. “Your German gave it away.”

  —

  That night I had a long dream. In my dream I was sitting with Mother in the kitchen, a place we both loved, and I was drinking cocoa. On such occasions Mother liked to describe a bit of her life to me. Usually, it was some detail of her daily goings-on, but in her telling, it sounded like something that she had brought up from the depths, wrapped in thrilling fragrances and colors.

  The hours in the kitchen were often laden with silence, with no loud laughter or lofty speech; they passed as though we were submerged underwater, with both of us swimming and enjoying every movement. At the time, of course, I didn’t know exactly what Mother was conveying to me.

  This time she sat and stared at me in wonder, without saying anything. I wanted to say to her, Mother, why are you quiet? But I didn’t dare. Her wonder was complete and intense, as when she told me about celebrating the bright and fragrant holiday of Shavuot with my grandparents.

  “Let me tell you everything that has happened to me since we were parted,” I said. I expected my words would attract her attention, but to my surprise she responded to them with a thin smile that made me fall entirely silent.

  “I won’t hide anything from you,” I added.

  When she heard that, she hugged me and kissed my forehead, and then the smile returned and parted her lips.

  “Don’t you believe me?”

  Her smile broadened, and she said, “So many things have happened to both of us, that if we came together to tell them, the nights at our disposal wouldn’t be enough.”

  “Everything here is in its place, Mother. That means that we didn’t hope for this in vain.”

  “You’re right, my dear. The kitchen is in its place, the house is in its place, Father is in the next room listening to music. But I’m a bit tired. Can’t you see that on me?”

  “It’s visible.”

  “And now I’ll tell you something that might surprise you: you don’t need to tell me. I know everything. We were never parted. I was always in every place you were. And now, at last, we’ve come back to our home.”

  31

  The next day I still refused to accept that my injury was almost fatal. The pain was intense, and the injections didn’t lessen it. But in my heart I believed that the diagnosis would soon turn out to be mistaken. In my sleep I saw Mother again. Her smile showed no worry. She did indeed know that I had been wounded but, like me, she also believed that it was a superficial wound and that I would soon rise to my feet.

  My friends came to visit me and brought me fruit and chocolate. They seemed worried. I asked them not to worry about me. My request didn’t erase the fear from their faces.

  My bed was rolled out to the glassed-in balcony. The lawn around it looked well cared for, and the flowers and bushes reminded me of the public park in the city of my birth.

  “How long will the treatment last?” I asked the nurse.

  She looked at me with alarm and said, “I don’t know. You must ask Dr. Winter.”

  The pain tormented me at night as well, but my instincts kept whispering to me that in a day or two I would surprise everyone and stand on my own. In my childhood they had taken out my tonsils, and I lay in bed for a week. Every day I gobbled up two portions of ice cream, as a cure. Now the taste of that pink ice cream returned to my mouth
. Suddenly, I saw Mother sitting next to me and looking at me. Her look contained everything that was buried within her: her endless love for Father and me.

  —

  For as long as I could remember, Father wrote at night. He had many ways of sitting at his desk. Sometimes his expression, or rather his pose, resembled that of someone who was blaming his father for not letting him study at the university.

  A fierce dispute had developed between those two sensitive men. I didn’t know all the details. Father never forgave his father, and his father, who tried several times to appease him, merely rekindled his anger.

  Father wrote incessantly. But when the packages came back from the publishers to whom he had sent his manuscripts, his face would fall and darken. Mother would quickly kneel at his side and reassure him that all the gates weren’t locked. Father’s face would close up, and Mother, in great despair, would run to the kitchen and make blintzes with cheese and raisins—a dish all three of us loved.

  Mother liked my father’s writing, and she kept saying that the day would arrive, and would not be long in coming, when the editors would admit their error and book after book would be published. Father was doubtful, and every time a good word was said about his writing, he would lower his head and blush.

  —

  That night I dreamed we were riding on a train. The train moved slowly, and I could look at the dappled landscapes of autumn. For a moment it seemed we were entering the railroad station of my city. But that was an error. We drew close to a bridge suspended over a deep chasm. We were about to cross the river below, and for the first time in my life I dared to look into the steep abyss. I saw the damp rock walls and the churning water and the foamy whiteness. I knew why in previous years I had been too frightened to lower my eyes and look down.