by Elie Wiesel
Grisha’s astonishment grew. Where did Zupanev get all these stories? Had he known the heroes he was talking about?
“One fine day,” Zupanev went on, “Makarov and Antonov meet in the prison courtyard. They fall into each other’s arms. ‘How did you manage to hold out?’ Makarov asks. ‘It’s simple. They were trying to persuade me that I ought to confess for the good of mankind. To which I answered, “How can I hope to work for the good of mankind if to do so I must become a traitor?” It wasn’t easy. The interrogations went on and on, but you see? I’m here. And how did you manage to hold out?’ ‘Oh that was even simpler: I kept staring and staring at the investigator’s pencil, telling myself, I’m not a pencil, a human being is not a pencil.…’ ”
Oh yes, that watchman knew a lot of things. About prisons and torture sessions, judges and clowns—as if he had forced open mysterious doors to bring back secrets no one dared name. But why was he revealing all this to his young friend? How did he get access to the forbidden memories of an entire people reduced to silence? What was it that those expressionless eyes of his saw when he sneered in the middle of a phrase or gesture? Zupanev sneered frequently, he kept on sneering, uttering sounds that seemed to want to turn into laughter. He would shake his head, moisten his lips, move his hands to sketch strange shapes, and then expel a forced guffaw: “Ha ha ha, you see what I mean?” Grisha did not always see, but he listened.
Sometimes he felt his mind reeling. “The prison world is a sort of hereafter,” Zupanev would say. “In it, nothing can be understood, nothing seems true. Often the condemned are joined by their judges. Prosecutors and prisoners, torturers and tortured, false and true witnesses, they are all there, pell-mell, reduced to subhumans.…”
Grisha and Zupanev met often. For Grisha, the watchman’s lodging had become a refuge which neither his mother nor Dr. Mozliak could invade.
Who are you, watchman? What prison do you hail from? How many languages do you speak? And why do you talk to me? Why are you teaching me Yiddish? And why are you so anxious for me to hear your stories?
“Did I tell you the story of Hersh Talner, you know, the historian? He kept working on his history in his cell; and as he was not allowed to write, he used to repeat, sometimes aloud, sometimes in a whisper, what he would have put on paper. One night a miracle takes place: someone slips him a pencil stub and a sheet of white paper. Try to imagine that, my boy, just try to imagine it: he’s finally going to compose his J’Accuse and set it down for eternity. He has so many things to say, too many for a single sheet. How can he sum up on its two sides the nightmares and agonies of a whole generation? Holding his head in his hands, he reflects; this is worse than torture. His memory is overloaded; too many facts, too many images. How can he convey them without mutilating them? Conscious of his mission, he weighs the haunted faces and broken bodies, the confessions and denials, the testimony of the dead and the appeals of the dying; he questions them, consults them, judges them: which should he rescue from oblivion? Dawn breaks; he has not yet written a single sentence. Then, gripped by panic, he bursts into sobs; will the historian fail in his task? He weeps so hard the warden enters his cell and confiscates pencil and paper. Unfulfilled the mission, the unique opportunity lost. Later the historian is led once again before the examining magistrate. In the raw light of the court, someone sees him and suppresses a cry: Hersh Talner’s red hair had turned completely white. Can you understand that, my boy? A single sheet of blank paper had turned him into an old man.”
The watchman’s eyes were moist; so were Grisha’s. And my father? the boy wondered. Did he too get old? Did the watchman know? Zupanev seemed to know everything.
“Listen, my boy,” Zupanev said to him in his monotone, bringing him back into his own era, his own world, where men pray and lose hope for the same reasons. “Try to understand what I’m telling you. Each generation shapes its own truth. Who will tell our truth whose witnesses have been murdered?” He paused and began grimacing again: “I know who. The crazy historians, the paralyzed acrobats. And do you know who else? I’ll tell you: the mute orators. Yes, my boy, the mute poets will cry forth our truth. Are you ready?”
And the adolescent could only nod: Of course I’m ready. I want to get old fast.
THE TESTAMENT OF PALTIEL KOSSOVER IV
Berlin 1928. I was almost nineteen and life was beautiful. The world was crumbling around me, but I didn’t mind. On the contrary: I felt alive—living, as the expression goes, intensely.
I had begun writing poems and more poems. They were not worth much, and I no longer like them; I prefer those I wrote later, here in prison. But what was important was to keep myself busy, to express myself, to say what I thought about people, what I felt for them—not for everyone, of course, not for the industrial tycoons with their pompous, sinister manners, but for their pitiful slaves, the wretches like myself—and there were a lot of us.
Life was funny. Though housewives no longer went marketing with suitcases stuffed with banknotes, and shopkeepers no longer went home pushing wheelbarrows filled with money, the poor were still poor and hungry.
I gave, I kept giving as much as I had, sometimes less, mostly more. The money I had brought from Liyanov still represented a veritable fortune. Compared with my new friends I was a Rothschild. Compared with Rothschild, to be sure, I was … But why should I have compared myself with Rothschild? That was the fashion at the time. People used to say, “Oh, if only I were like this one, or like that one.” It made me laugh. One day I quoted Rebbe Zusia, the famous Hasidic master, who told his friends and disciples, “When I appear before the celestial tribunal, the Prosecuting Angel will not ask me, ‘Zusia, why weren’t you Moses?’ Or, ‘Why weren’t you Abraham?’ Or, ‘Why weren’t you Jeremiah the Prophet?’ No, he will ask, ‘Now, Zusia, why weren’t you Zusia?’ ”
To which my new friends responded by laughing at me. “So now you’re quoting rabbis? Here? What’s the matter with you, poor Zusia?”
They all belonged to that phantasmagoric milieu in Berlin where intellectual and artistic clowns, political and antipolitical militants flitted from one pastime to another, from one profession, lover, mistress or confessor to another.
We would meet at Chez Blum, at the New Parnassus or at one of the other clubs and carry on noisily, going into artificial flights of ecstasy, getting into fights but being reconciled the same day. We discussed the Versailles Treaty, Rosa Luxemburg, Nietzsche’s madness and Plato’s homosexual tendencies. Politics, modern literature and philosophy, theories of art or Communism, Fascism, pacifism—we never stopped talking. We were drunk on words, invariably the same ones: progress, change, realism, the proletariat, the sacred cause, the cause that recalled into question all other causes.
I was happy, I’m not ashamed to confess. I was as happy, that is, as the next person. Berlin 1928: even the unhappy were happy.
Happy? I am exaggerating, of course. Let’s say, I was in a good mood. We were having a good time and we were amusing. We were living in the very midst of a farce. The cabarets, the humorists and caricaturists set the tone: those who did not join the laughter were laughable.
Germany in defeat gave the impression that on its soil everything was permissible except taking oneself seriously. Idols were smashed, clergymen defrocked, the sacred was ridiculed and, to get a laugh, laughter was sanctified.
My friends considered themselves Communists, some more so, some less—or at least fellow travelers. They admitted me into their circle, thanks to Bernard Hauptmann, the internationally famous essayist and specialist in medieval poetry, to whom my mentor Ephraim had written of my impending arrival. Where had they met? Had they friends or memories in common? Unlikely, unthinkable. Ephraim in his kaftan and Hauptmann with his foulard were so different. Still, the scholar received me as a friend.
“Oh, so you’re the one dear Ephraim has sent us from Liyanov? Welcome! Berlin needs you.”
Was he making fun of me? He took my suitcase and carried it into wh
at was to be my room. “Come,” he said, “A cup of bad coffee will do you good. A little sandwich too, I imagine.”
We had coffee in the living room. Hauptmann, elegantly dressed as if for the opera, inspected me from head to foot. “Your sidecurls,” he said a moment later, “I see them, or rather I see their traces. You were right to cut them off.”
I blushed. In Bucharest, before boarding the train, I had gone to a barber near the station: “What kind of cut would you like?” “Well, uh, modern, very modern.” A few snips of his scissors and I no longer looked like a Jew, that is, a religious Jew. I knew my father wasn’t going to see me, and still I felt guilty—I was betraying him. But I had no choice, Father; after all, I couldn’t get off the train in Berlin sporting beard and sidecurls, kaftan and black fur hat. I was not exiling myself to advocate Jewish orthodoxy or deepen my studies of Rabbi Shimeon Bar Yohai.
“Is it that obvious?” I asked, embarrassed.
“Oh, no! Your sidecurls aren’t visible, it’s just that I see them anyhow. Forget it, my dear traveler from Liyanov. We’ll soon see which gets the upper hand with you—Berlin or Liyanov.”
Astute and eloquent, Bernard Hauptmann, from adolescence on, had singlemindedly indulged his passion—to turn young religious Jews away from their faith—and he used his fortune, time and intelligence to further that end. With me, the task proved both easy and complex. In theory, I willingly accepted his Marxist atheist influence, but in practice I resisted; I had not forgotten the promise made to my father. The result was rather odd: at night Hauptmann would take me to hear Hayim Warshower thunder against God, but the next morning I would put on my phylacteries, pray to God to protect me from His enemies and bless me with a thirst for knowledge and divine truth, and, above all, to rebuild the holy and eternal city of Jerusalem in Jerusalem.
Why this split personality? Out of loyalty to Moses? Oh, no—I did not think of Moses; I had left him in the desert. But I did miss my parents. And a childlike voice in my head whispered that if I stopped putting on the phylacteries, they would be punished—a risk I refused to take. Hauptmann, of course, made fun of me, and logically he was not wrong. In his eyes I represented the kind of human weakness that stands as an obstacle between the individual and his salvation; my old attachments alienated me, I was unworthy of his friendship. I felt guilty toward him and toward my father. My conflict became deeper. Unable to cope with it any longer, I summoned up enough courage to flee. I moved to an attic in Asylum Street, where I could pray and chant as I liked without having to explain or defend myself.
However, Hauptmann, with the tenacity of a policeman, albeit a friendly policeman, did not let go. At Chez Blum or during gatherings with our cronies he often provoked me. I recall one incident at the café:
“So, Mr. Rabbi? Did you speak to your God today? What does He think of the situation? Don’t forget to keep us up to date.”
Intimidated, I shrugged my shoulders. I was familiar with his arguments about the nefarious power of religion, the sterility of superannuated rituals, the paralyzing effect of our customs and ceremonies, as well as with his ideas on the dangerous influence of the prophets, the sages and the righteous.
“I prefer not to discuss it,” I said.
“Do you hear? He prefers not to discuss it. And he calls himself a Marxist! And what about dialectics—did you ever hear of them?”
“I prefer not to discuss it,” I repeated stubbornly.
“You’re just running away. You refuse to see, you refuse to hear, you can’t bear being contradicted. And you consider yourself an intellectual? And pretend to sympathize with the Communist Party? Really, Paltiel, you are still in Liyanov with your blind, fanatical, ignorant Jews! Admit it, Paltiel. Admit that you’ve never left Liyanov, admit that you go to the synagogue morning and evening, that you admire the backward fools who put their faith in miracle workers! Admit it and stop putting on an act!”
He stopped to catch his breath.
“You lack understanding, Hauptmann,” I said in a choked voice. “And refinement. You’re free to offend God and insult the masters. But you’re wrong to poke fun at their poor followers who need a little warmth, a little hope. What do you reproach them with, Hauptmann? They’re unhappy and in exile, they haven’t read the books you feed on, they’ve never gone to the schools you teach in—they don’t even know of their existence. Is that their fault? Why poke fun at them, Hauptmann?”
“Hey, how about that, he really loves them!” Hauptmann cried. “He loves them with a passion. Didn’t I tell you? The train has left Liyanov, but our friend is still standing on the platform.”
A roar of laughter greeted this attack. As a speaker, as a polemicist, Hauptmann had no equal. I had to face him alone, I stood alone against all of them.
No, not entirely alone.
“Idiots! What are you all sneering at? You’re a bunch of decadent drunks. What’s happened to your sense of comradeship? Shame on you!”
Stunned, I took a moment to regain my composure. Someone was coming to my defense? I lifted my eyes—it was Inge, Hauptmann’s girlfriend. There was a silence.
“It’s one of two things. Either the God of these poor Jews exists, in which case they do well to address themselves to Him. Or He doesn’t exist, and it’s our first duty to pity them, then to enlighten them—they themselves exist, after all. By what right do you despise them? Since when do Marxists despise human beings?”
Everyone round the table looked at her incredulously but submissively. Challenging Inge entailed risks: no one but Bernard Hauptmann had enough stature to counterattack.
“You’d make a first-class Talmudist,” muttered Hauptmann, trying to hide his annoyance. “If only you spoke Yiddish you could go on a mission to Liyanov.”
This time the barb fell flat. Was this their first quarrel? It certainly was their last. It marked the split between them, and the beginning of a new couple. Inge, my first infatuation, my discovery of love, my first love. I think of her now and I smile. She must have been thirty, perhaps a little less. Beautiful enough—no, the most beautiful of women. Well, I had fallen in love—what else?
Why had she chosen me? Was it her maternal instinct that prompted her to protect a youth assailed by spiteful adults? No matter: I was grateful to her. I would never have dared take the initiative and court her. A rejection, however gentle, would have destroyed me. Inge must have guessed as much. Inge, my first guide, my first refuge, the angel and the demon of my adolescence. Cultured, headstrong yet feminine, she terrorized people; they were afraid of her explosions, her stinging repartee. As for me, I loved her long dark hair, her black eyes, her sensual lips; looking at her was to follow her into the primitive jungle where anything goes.
I liked the casual, almost untidy way she combed her hair and dressed. It would not have occurred to anyone to ever criticize or compliment her. She allowed no one to judge her. She considered herself free, and was. So was I. I did things with her that would have repelled me with anyone else. All she had to do was look at me, touch my hands or forehead, and every taboo was lifted. If anyone succeeded in making me forget Liyanov, it was she.
Hauptmann was to confide in me later that his former mistress had merely been carrying out the Party’s instructions. She supposedly had been given the mission of completing my political education, which, frankly, left much to be desired. Maybe so. Would I have been less enamored with her had I been aware of that? The fact is I loved her even when she was trying to instruct me in the theories of Engels and company. And I think, in her own way, she loved me. She loved my innocence, my ignorance, my total lack of experience. She loved making me do things for the first time.
The first time …
We had just left a political meeting where Bernfeld, the one with the silly little goatee, had been vehemently defending the revolutionary theories of Trotsky, whom, in fact, he emulated. Hauptmann had contradicted him. In that smoke-filled parlor floor at Chez Blum tension had mounted as in a circus when the acr
obat is about to slip and break his neck. Violence was in the air. Interruptions, catcalls, insults: both sides had become inflamed. And, Citizen Magistrate, take note: I was applauding Hauptmann. But when we had to shout to drown out Bernfeld’s answers, I was not up to it. I confess: my accursed timidity once again stopped me from doing my duty. Instead of bellowing along with the comrades, I murmured my indignation with a weak “No, no, enough.” Luckily the comrades were too busy to see or hear me. Suddenly I felt someone jabbing my ribs. It was Inge, her face alight with passion, obviously enjoying the brawl she seemed to be directing. She was shattering our opponents, making them give in, annihilating them.…
“Paltiel!” she commanded. “Louder! Go to it—louder!”
“I—I can’t.”
“Are you dumb? Shout—that’s an order. Shout, yell! Make some noise!”
“I can’t, Inge, I’m sorry, but …”
“You must! To keep quiet is an act of sabotage.”
Angrily she took my arm and squeezed it hard, very hard, as if to hurt me. But what I felt was pain mixed with pleasure. So confused was I that I could no longer utter even the slightest sound. Bernfeld was singing the praises of Leon Davidovich, Hauptmann those of Vladimir Ilyich, Inge those of Hauptmann. As for myself, I regretted having left my home, my parents, my small provincial town where men and women did not hate and fight one another over a word or a name. Inge kept squeezing my arm and I felt dizzy. Instead of encouraging me, Inge was weakening me. And then her hand slid over mine; our fingers intertwined, and what I felt then, Citizen Magistrate, is not your concern. I was, we were, at the core of the universe. Desire, violent yet soothing, pierced me, scorched me, roused me. And Inge went on shouting, and I went on being silent. My comrades and their adversaries were quarreling over history and human destiny; they were predicting torrents of blood, victory or death for the Revolution, and all I could feel was my own body and Inge’s. I did not dare look at her for fear of losing her. And because I was so afraid of losing her, I repressed my fear and my shame, I smothered my desire and began to shout louder and louder, like a wild man. Bernfeld could not finish his speech; he lost the battle and so did Trotsky. As for me, I discovered that evening the bond that can exist between the Revolution and a woman’s body.
