“At dawn, after visiting every empty home, after weeping over every vanished soul, they returned to the cemetery. Like a good beadle, I followed them at a distance. At the tomb of Rabbi Zadok son of Chaim they gathered in silence for a minute or an hour or more. Then Rabbi Zadok turned to Reb Malkiel and said, ‘Now then, Malkiel: is it really too late?’ And Reb Malkiel nodded his head, which was as it had been before the beating: Yes, it is too late. And all cried out, Woe unto us, it is too late! And Rabbi Zadok
son of Chaim said in a clear strong voice, ‘God of our fathers, there will be no more prayers to You from this city! The voices of children reading Torah will never again be heard within these walls! The hearts of these people will never again yearn for their Redeemer! Is that what You wished?’ I’m sure God heard him; I’m even sure God answered him, though I never heard God’s voice. I heard Rabbi Mordecai’s voice, murmuring, ‘Since the enemy has taken our children and their parents into captivity, since he has delivered them unto death, how can I find sleep again?’
“Now dawn was breaking in the east. ‘We must go back now,’ said Rabbi Zadok son of Chaim. ‘Stay where you are, Hershel, and as you are. You must deliver the sentence. Every night except the Sabbath and Jewish holidays, you must come here with my cane. You will knock at the tomb of Reb Malkiel the Martyr. And the sleep of this city’s burghers will be broken.’
“You may take me for a fool, but that’s just what I do, every night. Except once, when I decided to go and knock somewhere else: on the door of a real son of a bitch, the worst … I really wanted to put him to sleep for good.”
He swallowed another glass of
tzuika
and began laughing and sobbing at once. Malkiel thought, There we go, he’s drunk. I’m spending my day with a drunkard. Malkiel was sure he had made a mistake, as if someone at a crossroads had given him bad advice and sent him down the wrong road.
The gravedigger leaned toward Malkiel and breathed, “And you, Mr. Stranger—what are you doing in the cemetery at midnight?”
“But I’m not in the cemetery at midnight,” Malkiel protested.
“That’s what you think,” said the gravedigger, laughing
louder. “You can cheat the others, but not me, and not the dead. We’re keeping a close eye on you. Tell me, what are you looking for, at the grave of Malkiel the Martyr? What’s your mission? And who sent you on it?”
Tell him the truth? Admit everything? Tell him about Elhanan’s illness? Explain his true mission, his need to rescue Elhanan’s memory? Tell him the story he could not know, the story of Elhanan and his shrinking universe, a universe expiring from moment to moment, from memory to memory? “I don’t sleep well,” he said at last. “I have insomnia. So I take walks. I wander around.”
The gravedigger pounded the table with both hands, upsetting the glasses. “That’s a good one! You don’t sleep well! But in this damn town everybody sleeps badly. That was the wish of Rabbi Zadok son of Chaim. As long as this cane is in my hands, the people of this town will not sleep at night!”
Malkiel shuddered. “And later on? When you’re gone?”
“Don’t worry about it. Somebody else will take my place.”
“Who?”
“Well, aren’t you nosy! I have faith, I do. Rabbi Zadok will find someone, believe me. He can even do without someone if he has to. The cane will do the job all by itself.”
“And it will come and tap on your grave, too?”
“And on yours,” said the gravedigger. His face was visibly swollen, a clown’s face, the face of a monstrous, gleeful giant. And his eyes: red, wild, fierce. They were glaring at the tavern, the street, the whole town, from every tree, every roof. His eyes were the stars. If he closed his eyelids the whole town would sink into shadow. And not just the town. I am beginning to understand, Malkiel thought. And if forgetfulness was linked to fear?
A
n image: hunched over an ancient book, my father called to me. He was upset, and his breath was labored. I sensed that he was more distressed than usual. “Did I ever tell you the story about the Rabbi of Apt?”
“Which one?”
“The one about his promise.”
“No, Father.”
“Before he died, the famous Rabbi Abraham-Joshua of Apt made a strange promise to his weeping disciples: to do all he could, up there in heaven, to hasten the coming of the Messiah. ‘know,’ he added, ‘that other masters have made the same promise. The first, transported directly to paradise, naturally forgot his promise. The second, drunk on divine light, forgot it on the threshold of paradise. The third, knowing what had happened to his predecessors, swore to his followers, “I shall resist: I shall make my plea heard the instant I leave you here below, before I have even glimpsed the gates of paradise.” And indeed he held fast against the angels who wished to take him before the celestial court. “I will not move a step,” he said. “My people have suffered too much and too long, and they deserve deliverance. If the Messiah will not descend to earth, then too bad, I refuse to budge.” At that, the angels had an idea. They half opened the gates of paradise; that way the Rabbi could hear the other sages studying Torah in fervor and with love; what he heard
seemed to him so beautiful, so original, so true, that he ceased thinking about anything else, and he forgot his promise.
“ ‘I shall not forget,’ promised the Rabbi of Apt.
“Apparently, he too forgot,” said my father. “But he had a good excuse: he was already dead. I have no excuse; I’m not dead and yet I’m forgetting True, I made no promises. But you, my son, you made a promise to me. I’m counting on you.”
Have I been a good son? Malkiel stood before the house of his father. Most of the time surely yes, but not always. There were his affairs, his journeys, his mistresses. Inge. He shouldn’t have. Leila. He shouldn’t have. A wave of remorse broke within him. Was that why his father had sent him here? To repent?
Like all teenagers, Malkiel had had misunderstandings and disagreements with his father. He wanted to go out more often, and Elhanan tried to dissuade him: “Have you done your schoolwork? Did you revise that composition?” Malkiel would happily have gone to every baseball game of the season. Elhanan claimed it was too much. “You’re not of my generation,” Malkiel said. “You can’t understand.” How many times had Malkiel said those words? He remembered them now, and they seemed childish and wicked. I made my father suffer, he thought. I made him doubt his own authority. Not for long; but it was still too long.
A memory: father and son at dinner. Both silent. Loretta tried to start a conversation. No luck. Malkiel said something; he stared at his plate.
“What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why are you so moody?”
“I’m not moody.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
“Of course I do.”
“Why don’t you talk to me?”
“I don’t feel like talking.”
At that Elhanan’s eyes filled with night.
Another time: Malkiel put on his overcoat, ready to go out.
“Where are you going?”
“I have a date.”
“With whom?”
“A friend.”
“Who is he?”
“A friend.” A trace of hostility in his voice, Malkiel added, “Haven’t I told you that I don’t like questions about my personal life?”
Elhanan bowed his head. “And here I thought I was part of your personal life.”
Another scene: Elhanan was dressing, putting on his best suit. “Tomorrow is Rosh Hashanah. Are you coming to synagogue with me, Malkiel?”
“Maybe.”
“You’re not sure?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Were you expecting to pray somewhere else?”
“Maybe.”
“But you know how I like praying beside you.”
“I know.”
“Malkiel.”
“Yes?”
“Why do you go out of your way to hurt me?”
Now, in Feherfalu, Malkiel thought, That’s true. Why did I sometimes feel that perverse need—even if it was unconscious—to wound him? To be like the other kids? To
punish him for bringing me into a world that is ugly, unjust, stupid, doomed? To break free of his hold on me? To put a distance between his nightmares and me? Still, before he got sick he rarely talked about the past. I knew when he was thinking about it, though. He would grow peaceful, serene. He would rejoin my mother, and his eyes would become veiled. Then he would meditate on all things with a kind of primordial clarity. And me, did he see me at all?
Well, I know: all adolescents stumble over the same difficulties with their parents; but my situation was different. First, I had no mother. And my father? Didn’t he belong to my dead mother?
One day during a stormy argument Elhanan tried to explain the complexity of our relationship. “You’re the center of my life, Malkiel. It’s you who make me invincible. But it’s you who also make me vulnerable: if anything happened to you I couldn’t stand it—I’d die.”
“You have no right! You have no right to saddle me with a burden like that! Let me live my adolescent life. Don’t force me to grow up so fast!”
“Now it’s my turn to say you don’t understand me. You don’t understand that only you can make me happy—or make me give up all hope of happiness.”
“I refuse!”
“To understand?”
“No. I understand, all right. I refuse the role you want me to play!”
“You refuse to be my son?”
“I refuse to be anything
but
a son to you!”
“And you don’t see that your refusal is a repudiation?”
“Repudiation of what?”
“Of my whole life.” And gently, sadly, he went on: “How many times have I described my concept of a Jew, Malkiel? We are all cloaked in the memory of God.”
He went on talking, and I had a date with a charming young girl, the prettiest in my class. I stood up. So did he. He walked to the door with me, and for some unknown reason he dragged his chair after him, as if it were a corpse on a deserted battlefield.
Malkiel scrutinized a window in his father’s house as if he might find there an answer to his question. Why did I make him suffer? Of course that phase didn’t last. But the question does.
“Sleep well, Lidia?”
“Very well, thank you,” said the young interpreter. “Is my sleep so interesting?” Lidia was in a bad mood. Natural enough. No woman likes to be rejected. Even, or especially, if she’s working for
them.
It was early in the day, and the main square was bustling. Surly peasants, civil servants in a hurry, schoolteachers and housewives, still half asleep: the day’s whirl brought these men and women together before dispersing them.
Seated on the hotel terrace, Malkiel and Lidia discussed the day’s plans as they did every morning. Of course. To inform others she must inform herself. Like Satan, Malkiel thought. He, too, needs to be everywhere at once, to shatter alibis and excuses. Satan: the creature of a thousand traps. And Malkiel thought of Satan, which reminded him of Rosh Hashanah. When would it be? Soon, in a few weeks. And where would he be? Where would he go to pray? Was there a synagogue in this town? His father had told him of several, but Malkiel could not locate them. The Communist authorities had either closed them or changed the street names. Ask Lidia? She would then tell her superiors, who … what for? There was no Jewish community left in Feherfalu.
“What’s on the agenda?” Lidia asked. “The cemetery again?”
“Why not?” Malkiel said. “There are still plenty of inscriptions to translate.”
“And of course you don’t need my help.”
“Not unless you read Hebrew.”
Scowling, Lidia sipped her coffee, her mind far away.
“Are you mad at me?”
“No,” she lied. And then, “Yes, I am. Do you behave like that with all women? Attract them just to reject them?”
“That’s not it.”
“Then what is it?”
An answer came to his lips, but he held it back.
“Are you afraid of me?” she went on. “Suspicious of me? Do you think I belong to
them?
Is that why?”
He experienced a sudden, curious pity for her, as if for a defenseless child. As if it were she that the police were watching. “Give me your hand, Lidia,” he said softly.
Still pouting, her eyes hard, the young woman seemed defensive. Then she held out her hand, and Malkiel covered it with his own.
“I’ll explain everything someday,” he said.
“When?”
“Someday.”
“Someday is a long way off. And it’s vague, and I don’t like vagueness.”
Malkiel kept her hand in his. She made no effort to pull away.
“Last night,” she said.
“Yes?”
“Last night I wanted to love.”
She did not say “to love you” but “to love.”
“Why me?”
“That I don’t know. I felt as if you were in another realm. Walled off from love. A man who spends his life in cemeteries doesn’t love life. I thought I could help you. Cure you.”
Malkiel felt himself falter, ready to drop his guard. Lidia was no beauty, but there was something else. She was real. Mouth open or shut, brows arched or furrowed, whether speaking or listening, she did not lie. When she loves, she loves with her whole body; and when she is on the lookout, all her senses are on alert.
“And after love?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“What comes after love?”
She withdrew her hand. “I feel sorry for you,” she said harshly. “I pity everyone for whom love isn’t an end in itself. What is it to you? A game? Then what are the rules?”
Malkiel felt an unpleasant sensation. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“As you like.”
Love, love. Sooner or later you collided with it. Did his father endure the same trials? There was Vitka, and Lianka.… But after Talia died? In any case, he had never talked about it; and he never would. The truth was that Malkiel’s father had never known any woman but his own wife. A matter of fidelity? Not even that: only love. Which writer said that you could love two women but you could only be faithful to one? Malkiel’s father might have known an occasional surge of love, but he had loved only one woman. She was always present to him. Sometimes he spoke to her, asked her opinions. He missed her and told her so.