The Man Who Never Stopped Sleeping

by Aharon Appelfeld

  I spent most of the day in bed. But when I lay down for an extended period of time, I was also taken to places I didn’t want to return to, such as Vaska’s cellar. After I fled from him, I almost never saw him in my imagination. I was imprisoned by him for seven hundred and twenty days. I said to myself then that when the time came, I would make an itemized list of every insult and bruise that he inflicted upon me, and this would serve as the indictment I would file against him.

  —

  Dr. Winter was sure that my life would change when I started walking. He always sounded optimistic. Now I felt a slight throbbing of the nerves in my legs.

  “A miracle has happened for me.” The words slipped out.

  Dr. Winter’s face tightened strangely every time I used the word “miracle.” This time he kept himself from saying what he usually said.

  “Your body is doing its job,” he said simply, “and in the coming days I expect it to show us what it knows how to do.”

  That night I dreamed that one of the patients suggested to Dr. Winter that he wrap himself in a prayer shawl.

  “You are mistaken, my friend. That’s not me,” he said. “You were most certainly thinking of someone else.” The patient was stunned by that answer and left him alone.

  —

  The practical nurse, who always lay in wait for me, appeared in the doorway and shut the door behind her. This time she didn’t say, Let me kiss you, but she looked at me with her big eyes. She apparently expected me to say something, but I was so astonished by her sudden appearance that I didn’t say a word.

  “I wanted to tell you, Erwin, that you look a lot like my son Walter,” she began by saying. “He’s your age and your height. During the war, in the fateful month of May, he broke his leg and was confined to his bed. I nursed him with everything I had. I sold clothing and jewelry to bring him nourishing food. But for some reason his leg didn’t heal.

  “When we heard in the ghetto about the coming Aktion, everyone whose legs could carry them escaped. My relatives and friends advised me to flee until the danger passed. Everyone thought that the sick people and the elderly wouldn’t be harmed. I hesitated. I didn’t want to leave Walter unattended. But my sister and brother-in-law urged me, and I ran away with all the young people.

  “That very night I regretted it and returned to the ghetto, but Walter was already gone. I looked for him everywhere, and finally I turned myself in so I could be with him. All trace of him was gone. In all the camps where I was—and I was in a lot of camps—I couldn’t find him. He’s exactly your age and your height. When the war was over, I traveled from place to place. There was no refugee camp where I didn’t look for him. I left messages in all the offices of the Joint Distribution Committee. I told him I was going to Palestine.

  “I kept waiting for him here, and when I saw you, my hopes were reborn. You can’t imagine how much you resemble him. You’re his messenger. He sent you to me to tell me that he’s alive and coming to me soon. God has punished me enough. I love you the way I love Walter. You’re twin brothers. Do you understand me?” She burst into tears and left the room.

  I couldn’t sleep that night. I wanted to write her a letter and apologize for my strange behavior, but in the end I wrote only jumbles of words. I tore what I had written to shreds, but doing that didn’t calm me down, either. I got up, harnessed myself to the crutches, and walked over to the dark dining hall. I went to the tea corner and made myself a cup of tea. The hot liquid seeped into me, and I shut my eyes and fell asleep in a chair.

  56

  The pain from the operation wouldn’t let up. If Dr. Winter hadn’t assured me that I would soon feel true relief, my nights would have been too hard to bear.

  The last time I was under anesthesia, or perhaps it was the time before that, I sat at my desk and gathered words. The words proved to be made of metal, but they could be moved. I weighed every word before moving it. This was hard work, and I got cramps in my arms. Still, I tried over and over to combine the words and form a sentence from them. I didn’t succeed. The words refused to combine.

  —

  Yechiel came to visit me. I tried to open my eyes. His quiet way of standing there brought to mind the days when I was together with my comrades, working in the orchard and training diligently. You remembered Yechiel’s thin sandwiches even when you were far from the place where they were served to you.

  “How are you?” he asked softly.

  “Better,” I said to make him happy.

  “God will help you,” he said, not stressing any of the words.

  If another person had said that to me, I wouldn’t have felt at ease. But from Yechiel’s mouth, the words sounded trustworthy.

  Yechiel brought with him not only his person but also his personality. Among the comrades, he didn’t stand out, but when he was alone, his face mirrored the light in his soul.

  I told him about my wish to become an author and that I was preparing myself for it.

  “How are you preparing yourself?” he asked.

  “I’m copying from the Bible.”

  “Wonderful,” he quickly replied, and I could tell right away that he was trying to create a closeness between us and to help me. “Is it hard?”

  “As I’m copying, I try to bond with the letters.”

  He appeared not to understand my words, but he didn’t continue questioning me. I tried to spare him from embarrassment.

  “How are things on the kibbutz?” I asked.

  “The same. This year everyone is mobilized for the harvest. The orchard produced plenty of fruit, and everyone gathered to pick it. But I’m doing what I always did.”

  Just a year and a half earlier, I had worked at building the terrace and brought loose brown earth up from the wadi. Now the training program seemed far off, living a life of its own, and it was as if I’d never been there.

  “How’s Ephraim?”

  He didn’t hide the truth. “They amputated his arm. We visited him.”

  “Good God,” I blurted out.

  “He spoke to us in his usual voice and asked us not to worry about him,” Yechiel told me.

  “He’s an amazing person,” I said and immediately realized that trite adjective didn’t suit him.

  “He asked me to leave the kitchen and prepare myself for other kinds of work. I didn’t know what to say. I’m glad to make sandwiches for the fellows, or pots of coffee and tea. But if the kibbutz asks me to do other work, I’ll gladly do it.”

  I remembered that fateful night when we went out on the ambush. I walked behind Yechiel. It seemed he was limping, perhaps because his cartridge belt was hanging loosely on him and wasn’t tightly fastened to his shoulder. I was afraid he would be among the first to be hit.

  “Yechiel,” I said, “do what you feel you must do.”

  “Thanks,” he said, nodding.

  “If you do so, you’ll be at peace with yourself.”

  Yechiel hung his head again, smiled, and took a few steps back, until he reached the doorway. He said goodbye and quickly left.

  The silence he left in his wake enveloped me for quite a while.

  —

  That night I felt that Dr. Winter’s efforts to restore my shattered legs and my attempts to bond with the Hebrew letters were a joint struggle. If the letters bonded with my fingers, my legs would also heal. I tossed that thought around in my head, but I didn’t dare reveal it to anyone.

  Meanwhile, the story “Tehila” by Agnon came my way. I was pleased by it and copied its opening sentences: “There was an old woman in Jerusalem. A fine-looking woman, like none you have ever seen in your life. She was pious and she was wise and she was charming and she was modest. The light in her eyes was kindness and compassion, and the wrinkles on her face, blessings and peace.”

  Again I felt a connection to the melody of this story. But in my heart I knew this enchanting melody wasn’t mine. The tempests that tossed me had taken away my inner peace. It was impossible to write about the ghet
to, the hiding places, and the forests with that kind of moderation.

  I heard the groaning of the refugees, and I knew that in their voices were buried all the places I’d been. It was too bad they were far from me now. If they were nearby, I could observe them again and learn from their body language. Without their voices, mine was hesitant, wandering, trying to grab on to voices that weren’t mine. Ultimately, I was greatly perplexed.

  It had been wrong for me to part from the refugees. I absorbed their music, the music of sorrow mixed with bitter irony, but not enough of it. I should have clung to them and not distanced myself. They would have told me more about my father and mother, and about my grandfather, who had been sent to one of the smaller, lesser-known camps, where he perished. I knew painfully well that without their music, I would have none of my own.

  —

  That night I saw my great-grandfather, Rabbi Michael, sitting on a tall chair. His face was white, and his eyelids fluttered. He sensed that I had entered his narrow room.

  “Who’s there?” he asked.

  I told him.

  “What are you doing, my dear?”

  I didn’t know how to begin, so I said, “I came to get a blessing from you.”

  “You’re wrong, my dear. I’m no saint.”

  “They told me that you pray marvelously. Or am I wrong about that, too?”

  “People exaggerate.”

  “And what will you give me?” I asked, like a beggar at the door.

  “I have nothing.”

  “I’m in great distress.” I didn’t keep it from him.

  “Come and sit next to me,” he said and took my hand. “How did you get to me? You’ve certainly come a long way.”

  “I wanted to get to you.”

  He turned to face me with his blind eyes and said, “I thank God that He brought you to me.”

  I woke up and knew that I had been submerged in a deep sleep and had seen sights that had until then been kept from me. I knew that the touch of my great-grandfather’s hand had conveyed precious speech to me, but I didn’t know what its nature was. I wanted to thank him, but I hadn’t dared. I copied Psalm 102, the one that begins, “The prayer of an afflicted man who has fainted and pours forth his complaints before God.”

  57

  The next day I felt that my legs were gradually connecting to my body. I didn’t know whether it was a false feeling or a true one. I wanted to get up and see what was happening to me, but any careless movements hurt me, so I stayed in bed.

  Dr. Winter came by in the morning, hugged me, and celebrated with me. On a piece of cardboard, he charted the future stages of my recovery.

  “A lot depends on you,” he said, “on your willpower and perseverance.” I was about to ask him if my effort to bond with the letters was having an effect on my legs. Of course I didn’t ask.

  Less than two years earlier, I stood on my legs and did everything my friends did; in Naples I even excelled in rowing. Then it all changed. I became dependent on the nurses and doctors, and on my friends’ visits. Hope deceived me. The deep slumbers took me to previously unknown regions. I was indeed an obedient patient and did what I was told, and I overheard with dismay the whispered consultations about whether to amputate my left leg or to try to save it. Dr. Winter stood fast in that battle like a lion.

  “Patience, my friend, patience,” he kept repeating. “Maybe you won’t be able to run, but you’ll walk.”

  But my mental efforts didn’t bear much fruit. Except for endless copies and a few feeble poems, I didn’t manage to write anything of value.

  “You’ll write yet,” said Dr. Winter, as though reading my mind.

  “I’m not sure. A person who is limited in his movement finds it hard to develop spiritual drive.”

  “I see you standing on your own two feet.”

  “Without crutches?”

  “With a wanderer’s staff,” he said, laughing.

  —

  Reality hit me in the face yet again. The next day the woman in charge of the war-wounded arrived and tried to convince me to stay on at the kibbutz training farm. She again listed all the advantages and then summed it up: “The doctors, the nurses, the staff of the training farm, not to mention your friends—everyone wants to see you living on the farm.”

  I knew there was some truth to her words, but what I needed was solitude, a withdrawal from everything, so that no one would see me writhing in pain. Solitude, I was about to cry out loud, is as necessary to me as air to breathe.

  She fixed me with her gaze and said, “Don’t be in a rush to decide.”

  “I want to live someplace where people won’t notice me and pity me,” I said in a voice that apparently sounded like a shout. Dr. Winter was also surprised by my stubbornness.

  “Without long stretches of solitude, I can’t live the life of a creative person,” I told him explicitly.

  It was hard for those practical people, however sensitive they were, to understand that need. Solitude for them was a gloomy mood that would depress you in the end.

  “What have you written up to now?” Good Dr. Winter tried to probe me.

  “Nothing.”

  “Are you sure that writing is your path in life?”

  “No, but I hope it is,” I said, to show him I was a well-balanced person.

  “A person has to prepare himself for a life of action. Imagination deludes us.”

  I didn’t respond.

  The day before, it had seemed to me that I had emerged from my injury. Now it was clear that this was only a stage in my recuperation. I would be bound to my crutches for a long time.

  Meanwhile, the country was in turmoil. People said Ben-Gurion was about to declare the establishment of the state. There was tension in every corner. I wanted to rejoice, to throw my crutches away and be together with my soldier comrades.

  The patients read the newspapers devoutly and were glued to the radio; there was an argument at every table.

  “All the Arab countries will attack us,” said one side.

  “If we don’t declare the state now,” the other promptly rejoined, “who knows when history will give us another opportunity like this.”

  The man who had owned the orange grove, whom the doctors had given two months to live, announced that he wanted to change his name back before he died. When he arrived in Palestine, he changed his name from Shainboim, which means “beautiful tree,” to Noy, the Hebrew equivalent. Now he wanted to return to his old name.

  “The name Shainboim may not have a grand lineage, but it was the name of my parents and of my ancestors for a few hundred years, and in my great arrogance I changed it. If anyone called me by my old name, I wouldn’t answer him. Perhaps they won’t lash me in the world to come because I changed my name, but my conscience lashes me every day. So I’ve decided to return to the name of my ancestors.”

  “We all changed our names,” one of the patients at the table replied.

  “I’m returning the name Noy to its beautiful garden and leaving it behind.”

  “You’re throwing away not only a name but also a people’s dream.”

  “The dream, if it’s to be fulfilled, will be fulfilled without me. I won’t demand my part in fulfilling the dream.”

  “For us you’ll stay Noy.”

  “I’ve already put in my will that if I don’t manage to change my name while I’m still alive, I want my heirs to do it for me. And on my grave will be written ‘Here lies Jacob Shainboim.’”

  “You’ll be sorry.”

  “I’m at peace with my soul.”

  “If everyone changes their names back, we’ll be back in the ghetto. We’ll be faceless again. People will speak Yiddish in Tel Aviv and on the kibbutzim. Be aware that a man who bears the name Shainboim plants the exile here.”

  “I’m not ashamed of my ancestors’ name.”

  “You’re trampling on the dream of many good people.”

  “In the end it’s a private matter.”

&nbs
p; “Nothing is private in our society. The private sphere is also public. In these difficult times, when a great war looms at our gate, you’re concerned with yourself?”

  “I want to leave the world with the name of my ancestors. That’s all. I’m not asking for anything more.”

  “I won’t argue with you any longer. Do what you want. I told you my opinion.” The other patient wanted to end the discussion, and so he did.

  —

  Toward evening one of the patients brought me a collection of stories by Franz Kafka in Hebrew. I hadn’t expected a surprise like that. I immediately saw Father before my eyes, holding the book in his hand and saying, “This is the way you’re supposed to write.” There was ice in his voice. Mother, who knew his pain, tried to talk sense to him, but he was resolute. “This is the way you’re supposed to write.” Even I, who didn’t understand his struggles, felt that the sentence was cutting into his flesh. After that, he didn’t sit at his desk for many days. Mother prepared the food that he loved, but it didn’t please him as before. His facial expression changed, and he gained weight.

  I didn’t dare open the book to read it. Only late at night, I sat and copied the beginning of the story “A Country Doctor”:

  I was in great perplexity; I had to start on an urgent journey; a seriously ill patient was waiting for me in a village ten miles off; a thick blizzard of snow filled all the wide spaces between him and me; I had a gig, a light gig with big wheels, exactly right for our country roads; muffled in furs, my bag of instruments in my hand, I was in the courtyard all ready for the journey; but there was no horse to be had, no horse. My own horse had died in the night, worn out by the fatigues of this icy winter.

  I read it again and again. I had never heard a story with that rhythm. The facts rushed out upon one another. The punctuation, the tension, built up. Then I heard Father calling out, “Franz Kafka broke through the barriers. His horses gallop, but he knows how to guide them.” At that time, I didn’t understand that a severe condemnation of himself was hidden in his praise.