Long Summer Nights

by Aharon Appelfeld

  He waited for an answer for a long time. When none came, he lowered his face to the ground and fell asleep.

  In the last watch of the night, Yanek woke up, and to his surprise a tall, thin wanderer was standing next to him, and he asked, “Who are you?”

  “I’m Grandpa Sergei’s grandson.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Yesterday he was shot in the forehead. Soon I’ll take him to his native village in this cart, and there he’ll be gathered with his ancestors.”

  “Was he a wanderer?”

  “He was a wanderer heart and soul. All his life he wanted to purify himself. What little he had he wanted to give to charity.”

  “May God preserve him in heaven,” the wanderer blessed him and turned to go.

  “Why are you leaving me?” Yanek was choked with tears.

  “I’m going to my fate.”

  “Why won’t you stay for a moment?”

  “My friend, I would sit with you, but I have to go. My father is very sick, and I haven’t seen him for many years. These are the last days when I can see him. Everyone bears a burden of guilt on his shoulders, and this is my burden now.”

  Yanek didn’t move. He was amazed by the man and his way of standing, by his laconic speech and his parting. A difficult mission, Yanek said to himself.

  Then he recovered, put his belongings back on the cart, grasped the shafts, and set out.

  The sky was bright and his head was free of thoughts. He was harnessed tightly to the cart and pulled it at a steady pace.

  Suddenly a road sign appeared: “Ivanov – twenty kilometers.” All during their wanderings, they had paid no attention to signs. Suddenly here was a clear one: Ivanov. Grandpa Sergei didn’t pronounce the name of his native village often, but every time he said it, his voice trembled. Now Yanek heard that trembling.

  He raised his eyes. The village in all its green splendor appeared to him, extending over a kilometer. This was Grandpa Sergei’s world. Here he knew every clod of earth and grove of trees. In his childhood he had run in the fields, helped his parents to pick fruit in the orchards, gone to school early in the morning and done his homework in the afternoon, and then he had gone swimming in the river with Tanya, his beloved. In just twenty kilometers, Grandpa Sergei would be home again.

  All during his wanderings with Yanek, he had regretted that he hadn’t returned to his native village after his army service, that he had broken his promise and not gone to visit his father in his old age, and he hadn’t taken care of his sister when she was ill. That sadness narrowed his soul, and instead of being connected with many people, he had restricted his world ever more.

  Grandpa Sergei’s mother kept saying, “Sergei has a great soul, but he narrowed it. The day will come when he will rouse from his apparent slumber and be the one he is supposed to be.”

  46

  In another twenty kilometers: Ivanov. If I make an effort, I’ll reach the village tomorrow.

  Grandpa Sergei used to say, “Everyone will return to his village some day, to his father and mother, and they will gather him up with them.” But in his lifetime he hadn’t been able to return. It seems he was very close to it several times, but he hadn’t dared to enter.

  A few months ago, after they lit the campfire in the morning, Grandpa Sergei told him that he was thinking of returning to his native village. Yanek was stunned and asked whether it was far from there.

  “No,” he answered with just one word.

  “Am I allowed to go with you?”

  “Allowed.”

  “I won’t get in the way?”

  “No.”

  Since that conversation, Grandpa Sergei hadn’t spoken about his native village. Sometimes it seemed to Yanek that Grandpa Sergei had lost the key to his dear ones and to his ancestors, and he was waiting for a miracle so he could go in among his loved ones without the key.

  For a moment he thought he would sit down where he was, but he realized immediately that he was forbidden to sit down at that time. He had to deliver Grandpa Sergei’s body to the elders of the village so they could prepare it for the upper world.

  While he was about to harness himself to the shafts, he saw a man approaching him. He appeared to be a soldier, but without uniform or a weapon.

  “What are you doing here?” he spoke to Yanek in a friendly way.

  “I’m taking my grandfather, Grandpa Sergei, for burial,” Yanek answered.

  “Where are your father and mother?”

  “In the war.”

  “Are you a Jew?” the stranger asked.

  Yanek held his breath and finally said, “No.”

  “Don’t be afraid. The war is over.”

  “I’m not afraid. Grandpa Sergei taught me not to be afraid.”

  “I wanted to tell you, the war is over. You can go home. What’s tying you to the man in the cart?”

  “I want to watch over him and accompany him to his village.”

  “I understand you. Do what your heart tells you to do. Just don’t be afraid to go home.”

  “I’m not afraid. But now I’m burdened with this obligation.”

  The man disappeared, and Yanek harnessed himself to the shafts and set out. First it was hard for him. It seemed to him that Grandpa Sergei was opposed to being transported. “Grandpa Sergei,” Yanek spoke to him. “Am I doing something you don’t approve of?”

  Grandpa Sergei didn’t answer. His face became more and more closed.

  While pulling the cart, Yanek felt that the burden was getting lighter.

  “Grandpa Sergei, I want to talk with you. During our wanderings, we had a special language. You were the only one I spoke to in that language. You were the only one who understood me, and I understood you. Actually, we didn’t speak a lot, but I never had the feeling of not speaking or of emptiness. During the long summer nights, you would sometimes ask me about the color of the sky, about the trees, and about the houses and the people in them. You were surprised by people’s empty talk. You used to say: ‘I pray that what you tell me and describe for me will abide with me forever.’” Without noticing it, he grew tired, pulled the cart under a tree, and decided to light a campfire right there. If he had come upon a grocery store or a fruit and vegetable stand, he would have taken a scarf or shirt and traded it for bread and a piece of cheese, fruit, and vegetables.

  “A month ago you asked me whether I remembered that I’m a Jew. I didn’t know how to answer, and I finally said, ‘Very little.’”

  “‘How is that?’ you wondered.

  “‘A few days before we left the house on our way to you, my father asked me to forget I was a Jew. It was a new way of speaking, and a new determination, that I hadn’t heard from him before. I didn’t understand what he meant. In the end he said, ‘You have to learn from Grandpa Sergei. He is a commander and a marvelous teacher. He’ll teach you to be a villager, but, no less important, to be a soldier. Grandpa Sergei was an important commander. He knows the ways of nature and the ways of the army.’

  “‘And what will become of me?’ I asked.

  “‘You’ll change.’

  “‘I don’t want to change,’ I said and started crying.

  “‘My dear, you have to change. With Grandpa Sergei you’ll change easily.’

  “‘Father, I don’t want to change,’ I repeated stubbornly.

  “‘If you don’t change, you’ll suffer a lot.’

  “Those were my father’s last words to me. He frightened me so much that at night I dreamed that Grandpa Sergei, in his desire to change me, pierced my ear.

  “For many days I couldn’t remember how I parted from my father.”

  47

  Night was falling, and Yanek slowed his steps. He heard and saw the peasants returning from the fields, the carts loaded with green and red cabbage. Yanek was familiar with this emergence of the evening, and he loved it.

  Suddenly a drunken song broke through that beauty. A tall peasant headed the band of drunks, singing a mud
dle of melodies. The songs fell away, and only a march remained. Rather, scraps of a march, and this is what they sang:

  “The Jews are gone. The Jews are smoke.

  “You won’t even find them in a cloud.”

  At first the drunken crew responded and repeated after him, word for word, but a short drunkard cast doubt on that march and composed other words, singing:

  “The Jews are alive, the Jews are alive.

  “They’re found in every hiding place.

  “In every garbage heap they swarm.

  “They’re alive. They’re alive.”

  The tall drunk didn’t accept the march of the short drunk, and he shouted at him, “They’re gone, they’re gone, not even in a cloud.”

  Yanek stood there. He didn’t understand that competition. He grasped the cart’s shafts and moved on. Only after he had gone some distance did he know that he had done something that was forbidden: flight wasn’t proper for a person who had been Grandpa Sergei’s pupil.

  Yanek remembered how Grandpa Sergei had fought against drunks, crazy people, proud people, who had approached him as if he weren’t a man but a shadow. In times of danger, Grandpa had filled with silence. His alertness was restrained, immobile. At the right moment he would grab his opponent and throw him down.

  Once he had pinned down a gigantic peasant. The giant was so embarrassed and ashamed that he called to him, “How did you do that? You should be ashamed of yourself. Next time I won’t let you touch me.”

  While he could see Grandpa Sergei in his full, alert silence, he lay the shafts on the ground and ran over to the short drunkard, and with a voice that was not his own he shouted: “Why are you happy at the misfortune of other people?”

  “It’s allowed to be happy at the misfortune of wicked sons of the devil,” said the drunk.

  “People should be judged as individuals.”

  “Sons of the devil are judged together.”

  “People are created in the image of God.”

  “Damn you!” The short drunkard cursed him.

  The other drunks tried to get close, but seeing Yanek and how angry he was, they realized they should keep their distance. The short peasant didn’t stop provoking Yanek, who didn’t respond to the provocations. He just said with huge contempt, “Shut your mouth.”

  Every minute one of them would pull himself up and threaten to hit Yanek, but that was just in appearance. They could barely stand up on their rubbery legs, and the more they shouted and cursed, the weaker they got, till they finally slumped down and fell asleep.

  Yanek looked them over from close up and let them be. When he returned to the cart he felt great closeness to Grandpa Sergei. Grandpa Sergei’s face had changed. Death had left its mark on it: it was gray, but all his goodness of heart remained intact.

  Suddenly he felt uncomfortable because he was about to deliver Grandpa Sergei to the elders of the village. It wasn’t for nothing that Grandpa Sergei hadn’t returned to his native village. If he had wanted to return, he would have returned. His relatives and the people of the village had something against him. Who knew whether they’d want to accept him, to forgive him.

  He pulled the cart under a tree and sat down. Hardly had he sat down when he heard Grandpa Sergei’s voice: “Don’t hesitate, my friend. Take me to my native village. Talk to the priest. He’s a decent man. He’ll recognize me easily. He’ll take care of my body and return me to my ancestors. It’s forbidden to leave a person unburied too long. The body has to return to the dust. Don’t hesitate. Eat and drink something, and slowly, but without hesitation, make your way to the village.”

  48

  From here on the road was paved. The sun shone between the clouds, and Yanek pulled the cart with ease. He felt he would reach the village soon. It occurred to him that Grandpa Sergei’s soul had long since gone up to heaven, and now his body had to be returned to the earth from which it was taken.

  In the evening Grandpa Sergei would sometimes forget he was blind. He would open his blind eyes and lean his body toward the breeze, trying to touch it. He used to say that in the evening a person’s soul expanded, and it wants to rise up.

  In the army, from your first day in basic training, they try to narrow your life, to command you what to do and what not to do. Not even the nights are your own. But, amazingly, Grandpa Sergei liked that severe restriction just as he loved to take flight in his mind and plunge into a broad world that was entirely clean.

  The army taught him to be stingy with words. Everything he did or asked his soldiers to do was marked by that restraint. Yanek felt, perhaps even more than before, that Grandpa Sergei had planted the roots of restraint in him. It was just too bad that he hadn’t managed to teach him the melodies he remembered from his time in the village.

  Once he asked Grandpa Sergei, “Did your mother sing you lullabies and shepherd’s songs?”

  “She did. They were planted in me like fruit trees. Unfortunately I’ve lost my singing voice. Lullabies and shepherd’s songs pacify the soul and restore it to its first home.”

  Still Yanek had tried several times to listen to Grandpa Sergei’s voice. Perhaps he would catch a song that his mother had sung to him in his childhood.

  From where he was he could see the approaches to the village of Ivanov. Grandpa Sergei used to pronounce that name with sweet emphasis and always with a tremor. It was clear that he was connected to every piece of furniture in the village, to every bench in a yard and to every tree and flowerbed in front of the houses. Not to mention the fields, the stream.

  Up to now it had seemed to him that Grandpa Sergei was with him. That’s why he spoke to him as when he was alive. Yanek was sure that he didn’t answer only because he was sunk into himself. Now, when the gates of the village opened to him, he knew that he had to leave Grandpa and stop bothering him with questions. He was sorry about their separation. He had often dreamed that when the war was over he would return to his home with Grandpa Sergei, and his former life, which had sunk inside him, would be restored.

  Once he asked Grandpa Sergei, “When will I be a Jew again?”

  “When you return home.”

  “And now where am I?”

  “You’re wandering with me.”

  Just then a calf came out of a grove of trees and stood in the middle of the road. Yanek put the cart shafts down on the ground and looked at it. For some reason it seemed to him that he was about to be slaughtered for someone’s dinner, and Yanek shouted, “Run away, run away.” But the calf was a friendly creature and wasn’t alarmed by Yanek’s shouts. It didn’t move. Yanek raised his voice and shouted louder, and the calf ran for its life.

  From then on he didn’t stop the cart. The first houses peaked out from the shrubbery. An elderly woman walked to the dairy. It was clear that the road was taking him to the center of the village. An old man leaning on a cane came out of one of the courtyards.

  “Good evening, Grandpa. Where does the priest live?” asked Yanek.

  “Go straight, and people will tell you.”

  Without putting down the shafts, he kept moving forward. Now the evening was full. Bluish smoke curled up from the chimneys of the houses. Housewives were preparing suppers, the men were coming back from the fields and stabling the horses. Yanek knew these sights very well, but he had always seen them from a distance. They had never tried to cross a village with their bundles and packs, not even in times when no one raised their voice against a stranger.

  A boy showed him the priest’s house.

  “Thank you,” said Yanek.

  The boy stood there and was surprised: you don’t have to thank someone for something like that. The longer he stood, the more the surprise showed on his face.

  Yanek knocked on the door. The priest shuffled in his slippers and appeared in the doorway: a tall man whose back was bent by the years, and his long hair had thinned.

  “What do you want, my lad?” He spoke cordially to Yanek.

  “My name is Yanek. I was Se
rgei Ivanovich’s errand boy.”

  “Our Sergei Ivanovich? What happened to him?” The priest’s hands shook.

  “The day before yesterday a stray bullet hit him and killed him on the spot.”

  Upon hearing that news, the priest’s watery eyes opened, and he called out, “Vera, Vera.” Immediately a tall woman appeared, took him by the arm and shoulder, and sat him down in a wicker chair.

  When he had recovered, he spoke to the woman and said, “Did you hear? Our Sergei has been hurt. A stray bullet hit him.”

  “Where is he?” asked the woman, as though she had been awakened from sleep.

  “He’s here in the cart,” said Yanek and removed the coat he had placed over Grandpa Sergei’s face.

  His face had changed a lot. It was gray, but its features were still lively.

  “Our Sergei. Look what happened to our Sergei,” said the priest with a weak, almost choked voice.

  “We have to cleanse him and dress him,” Vera spoke in a frighteningly practical tone.

  “Don’t hurry. Give us a moment to look at him,” he said and immediately spoke to Yanek. “Sergei went blind. He was wandering among the villages and was a wanderer of God. So I was told by a woman who met him.”

  “That’s true, sir,” Yanek confirmed.

  The priest looked at Grandpa Sergei’s face for a long time, and he wanted to be told about everything that had happened to him after leaving the village.

  In the end, without moving his face, he said to Vera, “Call the novice priests and tell them to bring a stretcher.”

  “Should we tell the family?” asked Vera.

  “No. Not until we’ve cleansed the body and dressed it.

  Then we’ll call the family. In any case, the funeral will be tomorrow morning.”

  Meanwhile two novices appeared, dressed in clerical robes, and bearing a stretcher. Without asking anything, they stepped over to the cart, looked around it and in it, lifted up the body, and placed it on the stretcher. Then they took it away.