by Elie Wiesel
“He was unlike anyone else.”
“Did he love you?”
It was important, urgent, for Grisha to know whether his father had loved Raissa.
“Yes, he loved me.”
“How do you know? Did he tell you?”
“He told me.”
“When?”
“I don’t remember.”
“How did he tell you?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Try. Think!”
“I don’t remember.”
Raissa had raised her voice as she said those last words. A neighbor came in, scowled at them, took a teapot and left.
“And you?” said Grisha. “Did you love him?”
“Why these questions? Why now?”
“Did you love him? Answer me. I have the right to know whether you loved my father.”
“What right? Who gave it to you? I will not allow you to …” Raissa spoke harshly.
She controlled herself: “You’re still young, Grisha. You can’t understand. Between man and woman there are many ways of loving.”
She took a deep breath. “You, it was you he really loved.”
She had finished putting away the dishes and dishcloths.
“You didn’t know,” she went on, “you couldn’t know, but he loved you so much … so much it made me jealous.”
And since Grisha didn’t respond, she hastened to end the conversation. “It’s all so complicated. Others besides me will be able to explain it to you. For instance …”
“You mean Dr. Mozliak?”
Grisha went out without waiting for his mother’s answer. An idea haunted him: his father had not been happy, not been happy, not been happy. And his son? Not happy, not happy either. Because of what? His mother, maybe?
Katya left the window and went to open the door.
“Oh, it’s you? Come in.”
It was a ritual: he rapped on the window, she opened the door. As usual, she looked him over carefully.
“You seem depressed,” she said. “Oh well, I forgot you may do everything, feel everything without explanation. You’re depressed and that’s that. All right, I’ll do without your explanation; I have no choice.”
Grisha sank into the sofa, his usual place.
“Are you thirsty?”
No, he wasn’t thirsty.
“Some fruit?”
No, he wasn’t hungry.
“Something else?”
She smiled at him. No, he didn’t feel like something else. Not this evening.
“You’re sure?”
Yes, he was sure.
“All right, let’s watch television.”
Politics, literature, gossip: everything was there. Orators of both the right and the left promised the citizens happiness and good fortune; skeptical journalists answered with “Oh, no! Oh, yes!” The daily news: eight hundred tourists arrived yesterday; twice as many were expected tomorrow for the Day of Atonement. Austria: the government is shutting down the transit camp for Russian immigrants. And those already there? Grisha jumped up. What about his mother? She’ll get here, don’t worry. Besides, Golda Meir is doing her best to get the decision rescinded. She went to visit Kreisky, who didn’t even offer her a glass of water. A spokesman for the government: Everything’s fine, things will improve; a spokesman for the opposition: Everything’s bad, things will get worse, money will lose its value and youth its faith, unless … The election campaign is at its peak. The people ridicule it. The speeches are just a joke. Start again, start all over again. Trust us; help us help you. The politicians, another joke. Only the army is serious: Remember the victory of ’67? The Israeli Army is always on alert. It is powerful, more powerful than ever. It sees everything, knows everything. The Arabs are lying low; they wouldn’t dare do anything foolish. Tomorrow is Yom Kippur.
“Happy holiday, Grisha. Are you fasting?”
Yes, he’s going to fast.
“What? Are you observant?”
No, he’s not observant, but he’s a Jew. If his people fast, he’ll fast. How explain this to her? Luckily she doesn’t ask for an explanation; she asks questions and answers them herself.
When Grisha makes her understand not this evening, she starts moving around the room, restless, sullen, dragging her feet. She’s always slow, Katya. Was she like that before? Probably not. Life stopped for her with Yoram’s death. No more plans, no more interests. Katya is listless; even when making love she’s slow.
“Sometimes I think I envy you,” she said. “You’re mute. People ask you questions and all you have to do is frown to let them know: Sorry, go to the next window, this one’s closed.…”
She comes and sits down beside him on the sofa. “I’m sorry, Grisha, are you sure you …?”
Yes, he’s sure. He writes something on a scrap of paper: “My mother’s arriving tomorrow.” As if that explained his behavior. Katya doesn’t see the connection, but she does not insist. Grisha continues: “I’d like you to go to the airport with me tomorrow.”
“Gladly, if that’ll make you happy.”
There she goes again, touching on her favorite subject—happiness. She clings to it and won’t let go.
“Yoram was happy,” Katya says thoughtfully. “Before him there was Eytan. He was serene, Eytan. And before him was my friend Miriam. Miriam—so delicate, so graceful, made for joy and happiness. All those I loved, all those who loved me … I speak of them, I think of them in the past. Death is jealous—the slut! She took from me all who were dear. You’re right to hold back, Grisha. You mustn’t … you mustn’t get too close. The Angel of Death is never far away, the bitch. I sense her, lying in wait, spying on us. I sense her, Grisha. Who will be her next prey? You or me? Maybe your mother? I feel she is armed and ready as in wartime.…”
She gets up and goes to look at herself in the mirror as if seeking someone else, an image of a lost image. She shakes her head with resentment.
“Tonight you don’t want to,” she says. “I understand, Grisha. You can’t make love in the presence of death.”
Is she offended? Does she feel rejected? Grisha doesn’t know her well enough; she knows him even less. All she knows is that he’s a Jew, a Russian Jew, and that he’s mute.
“Don’t try to be happy with me,” says Katya. “It’s dangerous for you. The slut is jealous, jealous of the happiness I give you.”
Happy? Grisha is hardly that. He thinks of his mother, who killed his taste for happiness. Has he ever been happy? Yes, in a way perhaps, in Krasnograd, after the accident. That was when he met the extraordinary old man, the one he looked upon as his father’s messenger, and who was to become his best and only friend. Oh, those evenings spent with Viktor Zupanev, the watchman with his tales of a thousand and one nights of solitude. The stories, the reminiscences he made Grisha learn by heart. The secret places they met. The mission suggested, defined and accepted. Yes, Grisha had been happy. His father’s unpublished poems, the chapters of his Testament, the agony of silence, the secret laughter and its liberating explosion. Grisha smiles as he recalls the various stages of the project. His victory over Dr. Mozliak and his mother. Can Katya understand why a mute young man feels the need to smile as she tells him about sad events?
Katya, too, reviews her own past, her own struggles and defeats. She brings to life for Grisha those bright years in the kibbutz with her parents—now dead—and the sunlit years with Yoram—now dead—and her idyllic liaison with Eytan—now dead—and her entertaining, scintillating, solid friendship with Miriam—now dead. And Grisha thinks of his own life, his parents, his mother. Is it normal to hate one’s mother? Normal to want to hurt her in the name of a dead man?
Outside it is night. And suddenly the city stretches toward heaven as though to wedge itself among the stars that see and retain everything.
“You understand, Grisha?” asks Katya as in a dream, and with maddening slowness. “You understand, my darling mute lover? Sometimes I wonder whether I’m not death’s accom
plice, whether I’m not being used to attract her chosen victims. First I make them happy, then I hand them over.… You’re in danger, Grisha. Tomorrow you’ll leave me. You’ll see your mother again. Make her stay with you. Your writer friend won’t object, I assure you. You need your mother, she needs you. And as for me, forget me. It’s safer that way. Far from me, you’ll be able to go on living.…”
Through the window the city appears unreal, suspended between the clouds and the hills, between nostalgia and premonition.
THE TESTAMENT OF PALTIEL KOSSOVER III
I continued my studies. There was no conflict between my mystic quest, the old debates about the cult in the Temple, and my “political” work with Ephraim.
My father seemed satisfied with his son and proud of him. If I persevered, I would soon receive my ordination; I would marry an intelligent and beautiful girl, well brought up and virtuous, and from a respectable family; we would have children who would grow up to be good Jews; and, God willing, we would all have the privilege of going to welcome the Messiah at the gates of Liyanov, and afterward—there would be no afterward.
In his naiveté my father congratulated himself on my friendship with Ephraim, which had become well known. Why not? Together we were exploring the dazzling texts of the Talmud. Nothing objectionable in that. Our sages urge students not only to select a master but also to find themselves a companion.
Appearances were kept up: Ephraim, a master at the seduction and corruption of the mind, carefully set about initiating me into profane reading. First he made me read the religious authors, then the free-thinkers. Poems, short stories, essays. Mapu, Mendele Mocher Seforim, Frishman, Peretz, Bialik, Shneur … Ephraim’s task was not easy. The Talmudist in me, deeply rooted in tradition, resisted him. I could not bring myself to get interested in the dramas and psychological conflicts of imaginary beings at a time when I found myself personally involved in every lesson formulated by Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai or Hillel the Elder. Memory fascinated me more than imagination. But Ephraim, a patient mentor, did not lose heart. We would attack a social novel as though it were a page of the Aggada, analyzing it from within. And finally I would succumb to its spell. And admit that there were indeed books worth discovering outside the “Tractate on Idolatry or Divorce.” I promptly set out to devour the Russian and French classics, in Yiddish translations of course. Victor Hugo and Tolstoy, Zola and Gogol: my horizon was expanding. I was abandoning Safed to stroll through Paris. I was following the path of emancipation.
The next phase was slower, more difficult. To liberate me completely, Ephraim brought me works of philosophy: Spinoza, Kant, Hegel—still in Yiddish translation. I balked: What, how dare they cast doubt on the existence of God, deny Biblical truth, the divine origin of Creation? Calmly, Ephraim set out to show me that blind faith is unworthy of man; that it is permissible to formulate questions: even Maimonides had done so. And Yehuda Halevy. And Don Itzhak Abravanel. In order to refute the unbelievers, one had to know their arguments. That is written in the Ethics of the Fathers. Does criticism of the Bible frighten you, Paltiel? But why? It’s just the scientific study of Scripture. Is it science you’re afraid of? But our greatest thinkers, our most illustrious commentators were scientists … Ephraim knew how to go about it. He drew me along, and I let him. He gave me copies of Schlegel, Feuerbach and Marx. We discussed the exile of the Shekinah less and less, and The Critique of Pure Reason more and more. You will not believe me, Citizen Magistrate, but that year I learned by heart entire passages of Das Kapital. And its commentaries.
Ephraim, in his methodical way, succeeded in awakening in me the love of the homeless for a homeland—I mean this one. And I, who had little sense of geography or economics, was obliged to learn everything about the cities and republics, the steppes and mountains of Soviet Russia, the Revolution, the government and its structure, its social system, its benefits to mankind. Newspapers, journals, schools, military heroes, revolutionary writers—I became better acquainted with the life of the Soviet Union than that of Romania, my adopted country. It became as familiar to me as celestial Jerusalem. If one were to believe Ephraim, the Messiah had left Jerusalem for Moscow.
“Do you understand?” he would ask me in a frenzied voice. “They’ve fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecies, they’ve justified Jeremiah’s consolation. No more rich or poor, no more employers or employees, no more persecutors or persecuted. No more ignorance. No more terror. No more poverty. Do you hear me, Paltiel? Over there all men are brothers in the eyes of the law: they don’t have the right not to be. Just think what that means. The Jews are no longer threatened with death; they no longer live in fear and uncertainty; they no longer have to buy their right to happiness or education. They are free and equal. Neither feared nor envied nor isolated. They live as they like, they sing in their own language, they build their homes according to their taste and shape their dreams according to their vision. That’s what counts, Paltiel: if there is a single country where Jews feel at home and live in security, it’s the Soviet Union. Why? Because the Revolution has triumphed. It has produced a new man—Communist man—who has overcome the power of capitalism, the dictatorship of the rich, the fanaticism of the superstitious.…”
Since at home in Liyanov and its environs anti-Semitism was rampant, and since the suffering and misery of its victims tore at my heart, and since Reb Mendel-the-Taciturn had died before teaching me how to hasten the coming of messianic times in accordance with mystical procedures, and since my soul yearned for romance as much as idealism and since my friend was as persuasive as he was seductive, I let myself be dazzled, tempted. I responded to what he described as the call of the Revolution.
One evening, at the home of a comrade from a bourgeois family, I met other comrades: two students from the Yeshiva, a seamstress, a barber, and Feivish, an employee of my father’s. On seeing the latter, I experienced a mixture of indignation and sadness. Like the others, Feivish condemned the greedy capitalists who drank the workers’ blood. And I felt myself blush: My father, a drinker of blood? My father? I raised my hand and asked to speak:
“You’re lying, Feivish! My father is gentle and kind. He works harder and longer than you or anyone. And he shares what he earns. He gives, he loves to give. And you know that perfectly well. You know we never celebrate the Sabbath meal without inviting poor persons to our table. And after the prayers, my father goes from one synagogue to the next to make sure no stranger, no beggar is left without lodging or food. And every Wednesday there is set up in our courtyard a kitchen for all the beggars of Liyanov, or for travelers who are hungry. You know all that better than anyone else, Feivish. So why do you slander him? Is that what your Communism is? Malice and lies?”
As we left that evening, Ephraim tried to set things straight. “It’s my fault. I was wrong to bring Feivish and you together.”
“That’s not what upsets me,” I said, getting upset all over again. “The point is that Feivish is telling lies, and you encourage him. Whether he lies in my presence, or when I’m not there, has nothing to do with the fact that he’s telling lies. And if Feivish tells lies, that means the other comrades are also lying. Is that what your Communist truth amounts to?”
“You’re furious, I understand,” said Ephraim. “But you’re exaggerating. Don’t take the general statements of one comrade as a personal offense. Communism is valuable only as an objective system; to individualize it is to distort it.”
He was right, but so was I. I was distressed for my father. As for Feivish, I nursed a grudge against him and never spoke to him again. I wished I could send him away: I found it difficult to live with him under the same roof. My mother was aware of my uneasiness; she would often look at me furtively, as if inviting me to confide in her. Did she guess the nature and gravity of my commitments? There was never a shadow of reproach in her eyes. Even the day I came to tell her I intended to go abroad, she gazed at me sadly but uttered no word of blame.
I had reached the age for military
service, and had not the slightest desire to find myself a soldier of His Majesty the King of Greater Romania. I therefore made a pact with Ephraim to slip away and go abroad: Berlin, Paris, and—God willing—Moscow.
“When are you leaving?” my mother asked, turning pale.
“In a few days.”
“Does your father know?”
“No, I’ll speak to him this evening.”
She shook her head. “Try not to cause him too much grief.”
What was she alluding to? I cleared my throat and asked her.
She answered with a question that seemed to have no connection with mine: “Where are your tephilin?”
“My phylacteries are in the House of Study.”
“You won’t forget to take them with you?”
The very fact that she asked such a question proved to me she had guessed my secret life: I was still observing the fundamental precepts of Torah, still practicing our religion, still studying sacred texts, but I was already moving away. My departure would mark an irrevocable break—and my mother knew it.
“Do you seriously think I’m going to stop being a Jew when I go away?”
“Nothing’s impossible, my son. Far from your parents, anything can happen. That’s why I tell you now: to chase away the Evil Spirit, remember your parents.”
She knew—my mother knew. She knew we would be living far apart from one another for a long time, but she managed to hide her grief. I remember that conversation as if it were yesterday. We were in the kitchen. My mother was straightening a drawer and arranging the dishes. There was a smile on her face, a smile I had never seen before, a smile that shattered me. I wanted to ask her forgiveness; I didn’t. I don’t know why.
That evening my father came home a little late, accompanied by Feivish.
“I’d like to speak to you, Father.”
“Right away,” he said. “I haven’t said maariv yet.”
Feivish looked panicky; he was afraid I would denounce him. He went out and left me alone in the kitchen with my mother.
