The train increased its speed. To my surprise, low houses topped with thatched roofs emerged from a fog, brindled cows grazed in broad fields, and thin smoke spiraled up from the chimneys of the houses. Now I knew that the train was returning me to the station of my city.
The pain yanked me out of my sleep, and the nurse rushed to give me an injection to ease it. They would operate on me at sunrise. I didn’t understand why they operated so early in the morning. They hang murderers at dawn. Patients should be operated on in daylight. I looked at the nurse and didn’t say anything to her. Dr. Winter was already dressed in his white gown, and his three assistants were also prepared. The clacking of the train still sounded in my ears, and before my eyes, the chasm opened up again.
Dr. Winter told me that in a little while they would put me to sleep, and he and his assistants would try to do everything to save my legs. The word “save” should have awakened me from my illusions, but it didn’t. On the contrary, I clung to my belief that in a little while they would announce that a mistake had been made in the diagnosis; my legs would once again belong to my body, and if I was allowed to sleep for two or three days, they would heal completely.
While those thoughts were racing around my head, they placed the anesthesia mask over my face. It felt deeply suffocating. I plunged into the abyss.
When I opened my eyes, I saw Dr. Winter, and he told me right away that the operation had been a success. But this was only the beginning. Further operations lay ahead of me in the coming months.
“Thank you,” I said.
“We don’t deserve it yet.”
“Will I be able to walk?”
“Let’s hope so.”
Dr. Winter was a cautious man, and whatever he let out of his mouth was weighed and measured.
“This is only the beginning,” he repeated, meaning that the journey to recuperation had just begun. Didn’t Dr. Winter see that I was pressed for time? I urgently needed to continue in Father’s path; this thought flashed through my mind.
“What did your father do?” asked Dr. Winter.
“He was an author.”
“And what was his name?”
“His name was like mine,” I said, and was glad that I came up with an answer to his question.
32
Benno came to visit me. I told him that, in contrast to the prognosis of the doctors, I felt the day was not far off when I would stand on my own two feet. Benno didn’t ask me what my feeling was based on, and we talked instead about classical music. I was glad I had the strength to distance myself from myself and draw close to him. My father and mother didn’t play any musical instruments, but they loved classical music. Sometime before the war, they bought a record player and records, and we used to sit and listen for hours.
Benno and I began speaking in Hebrew, but at a certain point we switched over to our mother tongue. Unlike in the training program, linguistic discipline was lax here. Homey words were heard in every corridor.
Benno excused our deviation. “A person recovering from an operation is permitted to speak his mother tongue.” Robert, too, when he came to visit me, ignored the prohibitions and spoke to me in our mother tongue. In the training program, these prohibitions were self-explanatory, and we barely noticed them. But here, among the patients and the white beds, a person returns to his home, and not only in his sleep.
One of the male nurses, a gray-haired man, asked Robert whether I’d been wounded at the front.
“Correct,” Robert confirmed.
“It’s wrong to send boys to the front who aren’t yet eighteen,” he said reproachfully.
“He did it of his own free will.”
“Undergrounds and armies don’t know what free will is,” he replied, and left.
After a few minutes, he returned and said, “It’s wrong to send boys who survived the Holocaust to the front. Even in the Red Army they didn’t draft boys of his age. They trained them, and only after training, which lasted for about a year, did they send them to the front.”
I didn’t pity myself. I was certain that my injury was just one episode in my training and that when I recovered, they would send me to officers’ school. My injury wasn’t a handicap, I repeated to myself. Important officers were wounded and continued to command.
Robert sat at a distance and sketched me. When he finished, he showed me the drawing.
“It’s a good drawing,” I said, and was pleased by it. Robert responded to my comment with a smile. I liked his smile, a mixture of softness and awareness of his own value; this also came through in the drawing.
After breakfast, the nurse took me out to the balcony and told me what was going on in the country: about the assaults on the roads and the settlements that were being attacked day and night. I was sorry that instead of fighting at the front I was lying in bed, and a nurse was taking me out to the balcony every day like an infant.
“You did your part, beyond what was demanded,” the nurse told me.
“I didn’t do a thing.”
“You fought.”
“You’re wrong. I didn’t manage to fight.”
“You were wounded at the front, right?”
I tried to remember the names of my friends who had been wounded, who were now lying in a hospital like me, but I couldn’t. Because of their new Hebrew names and the confusion this caused, I couldn’t picture them.
I asked the nurse’s name, and she answered simply, “Sabina.”
“You didn’t change your name?” I was surprised.
“No,” she said, smiling.
“Didn’t they tell you to change it?”
“They did,” she said, and her smile filled her face.
Unlike me, Sabina had stood her ground and had not changed her name, a sign that I should have done the same. A person doesn’t abandon the name that his father and mother gave him. I was angry at myself.
Sabina was two and a half years older than I, but her face was that of a grown-up. For the moment, she was a practical nurse, but she wanted to study for a diploma and become a registered nurse. The word “diploma” reminded me of my uncle, my father’s brother, Stefan, whom I hadn’t seen for years. Suddenly, I saw him. He had finished all the requirements at the university, but one of the professors had it in for him, so he hadn’t received a diploma.
—
That night I saw Father sitting at his desk and writing. It seemed to me that his efforts and my efforts to rejoin my legs to my body were shared. I wanted to call out to him, We’ll both do it, but I realized that this was erroneous. There was no connection between his writing and my injury.
“Will my legs be reattached to my body?” I asked Father fearfully.
“I have no doubt,” he replied as he raised his big eyes to mine.
“But the doctors…,” I said, and the words stuck in my throat.
“We are commanded to make the effort, and salvation will come in the blink of an eye.” That didn’t come from his treasury of sayings. Because of his many humiliations, he had lost faith in himself and was now pinning the rest of his hopes on a miracle from heaven. I was sorry that he had lost his faith in himself and in his way of thinking and had adopted once again the old faith that he had abandoned in his youth.
33
The days passed. Except for Dr. Winter, all the doctors said the paralysis of my legs was irreversible. Their whisperings gnawed at my hopes, but I didn’t despair. I swallowed the drugs they gave me, and when the pain grew more intense, the nurse gave me an injection.
My comrades were sent into action two or three times a week. They stopped building terraces, clearing land, and planting trees. I alone was sprawled out in bed, groaning in great pain and not doing anything useful. My friends weren’t coming to see me as often as they had in the first weeks after I was wounded, but they came at least once every two weeks. Each time, I saw how they had changed. They were tanner, they had developed their muscles, and they lived their lives wreathed with danger.
Occasionally, I asked the doctors if my condition had improved. The answer was always prompt, concise, repetitive. One of the hospital volunteers took the trouble to visit me once a week. She asked me how I felt and expected me to reply at length. I answered her briefly. She appeared to believe I was in despair and tried to encourage me. I kept telling her that I wasn’t discouraged, that I saw my future as a working man. I didn’t speak with her about my innermost feelings because she might think I was a prisoner of illusions.
Then one day, Dr. Winter informed me that they were going to operate on me again, at dawn on the following day. He sat on my bed and explained to me the importance of this third operation. I looked hard at him and saw that he worried about me like a father.
My recovery, he said, would move forward in stages. At every stage, my chances would improve somewhat. I observed his lips and the movements of his hands.
“How many years will it take?” I asked.
“Indeed, my friend, not in a day, but you must not lose hope. Hope is our most important asset.”
I noticed that Dr. Winter resembled my uncle Stefan, my father’s brother. He was also an easygoing man who always tried to help people.
—
That night I slept restlessly. Pictures of the war and of the time after the war passed before me. Nothing significant bound them together. I asked myself what they were showing me and why, and I had no answer.
Finally, I managed to tell myself, Connecting the parts and giving meaning to it all are my tasks. I was glad I had parted from the dream without depressing thoughts.
When I awoke from the operation, Dr. Winter was standing next to me. He asked how I was.
“While you were attaching my legs to my body, I was trying to put together what I saw at night into a single picture.”
“And did you manage?” Dr. Winter wondered.
“Partially.”
“I see that you’re walking in your father’s path.”
“Also my mother’s.”
I was surprised that my mind was clear, because after the second operation I felt blurred and didn’t recognize where I was.
—
I heard that one of my comrades had been wounded in action and was in the adjacent building. I asked the nurse to take me to his room. To my surprise, it was none other than Edward.
“What happened?” I asked as I approached his bed.
“I was wounded,” he said softly.
I saw that one of Edward’s arms was wrapped in a thick bandage.
Edward was a head taller than the rest of us, well over six feet. We looked like dwarfs next to him. He was also well formed. But he displayed an astonishing innocence. In Naples, the smugglers, thieves, and cheats would exploit this. They made him work like a dog and then gave him only a few bills. He would go out right away and buy pizza for the group. He never worried about himself. His clothes were too small and ragged, but he still looked handsome. The girls liked his height and his strength but not his innocence. A short, ugly refugee whose business was doing well captured their hearts faster than Edward did. Once, a woman refugee, a few years older than Edward, attached herself to him and wanted to live with him. If our group hadn’t opposed it strongly, he would probably have been caught up in her net.
I didn’t ask about his wound, but I could see the pain in his face. The injections were not working.
Edward eventually told me that two fingers of his right hand had been shot off. This wonderful fellow, whose tall good looks we had all admired, was lying in bed like a trapped deer. Unlike the other wounded men, he didn’t blame his comrades or his commanding officer. If you go to war and go on the attack, he explained to me simply, you will encounter danger. It was best not to think about it, because if you did, the attack wouldn’t take place.
“Victory is more important than my two fingers,” he concluded.
Edward then fell silent. I saw that his wound had carved thick lines into his face and neck, and the head on the pillow no longer resembled the handsome one that I remembered. I asked the nurse to take me out to the corridor. I was flooded with sorrow, but, as though in spite, tears would not come.
34
I went back to see Edward later that afternoon. He was lying on a wide pillow that a volunteer had brought for him. I told him that for now there had been no change in my condition, and they would soon transfer me to a convalescent home.
“I can’t go back into battle, either,” he said, and a pained smile filled his face. The new lines that had been stamped onto it stood out even more.
The friends who came to visit us toward evening stayed longer with Edward. Clearly, he was a new casualty, and they were already used to my injury.
—
That night I saw Father again, sitting at his desk. This time, his way of sitting was different, not bent over. He had apparently been encouraged by Mother’s words, and maybe by the writing itself.
“What are you struggling with, Father?” I dared to ask him.
Father raised his head from the papers. It seemed that he was about to scold me for pulling him out of his work. I was wrong. He looked at me with fatherly compassion and said, “Give me a moment to think.”
I now saw his face as it had never before been revealed to me. Surprise and disappointment stirred about on it. For years, he would return home each evening and rush to his desk. Mother would wait for him to finish his tangled efforts before sitting down to eat, but the struggle would usually last a long time. The meal she had prepared would get cold, and she would desperately try to improvise a new one.
“I’m struggling with the words,” Father answered objectively, without resentment.
I didn’t understand what he was talking about. His answer seemed like a riddle for me to solve. Mother didn’t quite understand his complexities, either. He never gave a full answer to her many questions about what he was struggling with, but she completely identified with his efforts. Her lack of understanding didn’t prevent her from following him.
“Why struggle with words?” I asked.
“Because they are easily falsified,” he promptly replied.
“How can we know what is true and what is counterfeit?”
“An example,” he said, “would be the word ‘I.’ It would seem that there is nothing simpler, but it holds many dangers within it. The ‘I’ loves to raise its head arrogantly. An arrogant ‘I’ is a grave flaw. An ‘I’ without modesty is a blemished ‘I.’ Even worse is the word ‘we.’ ‘We’ is a pretentious word, and you have to be cautious with it, too. ‘We’ without ‘I’ is a hollow word.”
“Thank you, Father,” I said, though I didn’t fully grasp his intention.
He turned toward me and said, “Son, I did what I could. I didn’t do a lot. In fact, very little. My fate didn’t bear me along the right paths. I don’t know what will happen to me and where time will take me. I see that God gave you an understanding heart, and you will do what I didn’t manage to do.”
“Father, I can’t take that burden upon myself.”
“It isn’t a burden; it’s holy work, if I may for once use that portentous expression.”
“Father,” I implored him, “I was wounded, and I don’t know whether I’ll be able to stand on my feet.”
“Son, unlike me, you inherited some of your grandparents’ faith, and they will instruct you in what to do.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Father.”
“The meaning will become clear to you as you work.”
I wanted to say to him, Father, don’t forget that I don’t have a language. My mother tongue, though I understand it, has been lost, and it’s doubtful that the new language has taken root in me.
I couldn’t hear his answer, but his trembling hand said to me, You have to gird yourself with patience, and God will watch over you. I was surprised by the word “God.” He was always careful about using it and had often scolded Mother for saying, “Thank God.”
35
In the hospital
I was able to sink back into the thick slumber that took hold of me after the war. Blood tests early in the morning, meals, and doctors’ visits did indeed awaken me, but, amazingly, the flood of sleep wasn’t halted. And I didn’t have to ask Ephraim for a sleep day and be ashamed of my request.
When I closed my eyes and plunged into sleep, I was reconnected with the first, fresh images of my childhood. After the war, I was able to touch these images, but then I was disturbed by the refugees carrying me on their shoulders and could no longer see them.
—
Summer vacations with my grandparents were always a pilgrimage, with the expectation of new sights. Unlike Father, Mother was not at odds with her parents, and every return to her first home was full of great excitement.
Grandfather would come out to greet us with his face aglow. He was always close to God, whether he was sitting at the table or standing alongside one of His sacred implements: the bottle of dark cherry brandy, the tall wax candles, the brass basin for washing hands.
Grandfather was present but also a bit distant from us. Our arrival would bring a bit of commotion to his sanctuary. Objects that had stood in place for months without being exposed to a stranger’s eyes suddenly seemed to be shrinking in their corners.
Mother didn’t worship God the way Grandfather did, but she knew the house and all its hidden places. In Grandfather’s house, prayer would return to her, and she would pray with her eyes shut. Father kept his distance from ceremonies and prayers, and at the Friday night welcoming of the Sabbath, he would sit next to Mother in silence. Grandfather was fond of him and accepted him as a son.
Marvels surrounded Grandfather’s sanctuary. Tall trees rose toward heaven, cliffs loomed between the trees, and animals would peek out from the shrubbery: a hare as white as snow, an astonished deer, a shiny brown colt. Down below, a stream burbled softly.
The summer nights in the Carpathian Mountains were long and bright and did not belong to either day or night. They were entities unto themselves. We would sit outside on mats, and Father would slice into a watermelon. He tended to keep a distance from the excitement, but on the white nights of summer, he, too, would emerge from his shell and take part in the festivities. Grandfather didn’t sit on a mat. He would sit in his room, perusing a book or praying. He appeared only when coffee was being served and would then sit with us for a short while.
The Man Who Never Stopped Sleeping Page 10
