by Elie Wiesel
“That May 28th, was it a Friday? I can’t even remember. You’ll have to check it, son.… Is it important? Very important. Everything is important. Why that particular detail? Because … I don’t know anymore.”
Elhanan vaguely remembered women wailing. They were out of candles. How would they greet the Sabbath? He remembered men arguing, as if in a mist. Should we go on fighting? Even on the Sabbath? A wounded man said, in a feeble but clear voice, Let’s offer one more Sabbath to our eternal city. Other voices answered him, but Elhanan could not make them out. They mingled and fused. In the end they produced a bizarre medley of Hebrew, Yiddish, Arabic and other languages, which Elhanan could not identify. I’m delirious, he thought. He was not alone: Jewish history itself was delirious.
That afternoon the Old City’s Jewish life, uninterrupted since its founding, was extinguished. Three hundred forty soldiers, from fifteen to sixty years old, departed for a prison camp near Amman. One thousand four hundred civilians marched toward the Jewish city. The two hundred dead would be transferred later.
The battle was over. The dream was over. Glory gave way to humiliation and defeat.
“Listen, Malkiel,” his father said. “The Talmud tells the story of a wise man who dedicates his whole life to the study of the tractate Hagiga. After his death, they see a woman in mourning communing at his grave. She is the tractate. That’s a love story, Malkiel. So is the story of the Old City. But a lost love. Within those walls, we could not understand why the whole people of Israel had not come to her rescue. They told us to hold on, and we held on. They promised us salvation, and we waited. Were we wrong to expect something from a young nation fighting on a dozen fronts at once? Were we asking too much? When I think back to my short time there, I feel an overwhelming, ancient melancholy. Luckily, I was wounded. Pain kept me from thinking clearly. It kept me from thinking of your mother and you.… But I can remember the Jordanian Legionnaires bent over me, talking to me, asking who I was and how I felt. I remember wanting to answer and not being able to. I was lying on a stretcher, and I knew they were carrying me off. I murmured, Put me down, I want to walk, I can walk. The stretcher bearers set me down. Two comrades helped me walk. Slowly, very slowly, we walked toward the trucks that would transport us to Jordan. In my mind I saw myself walking toward the train station with my mother and the last Jews of my village. For years I had hated myself for leaving my mother. Well, I found her again in Jerusalem.”
(Elhanan was talking and Malkiel was listening. With a full heart he heard his sick father recall a time long gone, a world long gone. There was perfect harmony between father and son: the more the father let himself go, the more the son took in. In proportion as Elhanan felt his memory diminish, Malkiel felt his own expand.)
“I learned from the Red Cross that your mother was all right. In September they told me that I was the father of a son. Then I started to write letters to you in my head. I told you all about my life in the hospital and my life in the prisoner-of-war camp. I tried to make you laugh, because I was naive and believed my son was so intelligent, so precocious, that he’d understand my jokes. Oh yes, Malkiel, I was naive. I thought, Talia will read what I have not even written, and will laugh as only she can laugh when she’s happy. She’ll laugh so hard that our son, only a few weeks old, will laugh, too.
“It was in March of 1949, after I returned to Jerusalem, that Zalmen and Reuma, sicker at heart than the liberated prisoners, told me the truth. Your mother had died giving birth to you.
“The realization scorched my soul: I would never again be happy.”
A LETTER FROM
TALIA TO HER HUSBAND
You have been a prisoner for exactly one month. The Red Cross tells us not to worry. The newspapers here don’t write about you anymore. My parents, adorable as always and even more so, do their best to keep up my spirits. My mother tells me funny stories; every day my father, good civil servant that he is, brings me more documentation on the laws protecting prisoners of war. “Believe me,” he says, “the whole world is protecting Elhanan.” My mother adds, “And God, too, no? Are you saying that God isn’t protecting him?” You see how it is.
I’m angry with myself. I should never have let you leave for the Old City. I should have explained to your commanders that your health didn’t permit it. And that we were expecting a child. I should have, I should have.
Will you be home in time for the birth of our son? I know it will be a son. Hurry home, Elhanan. The doctor says it won’t be long.
In your absence, I talk to our son. I talk about you. And all we did together in Europe. Sometimes I burst out laughing. The look on your face, aboard the Cretan, when I announced our marriage!
I love you, and I want our son to know it. I love him, and I want you to know it. How happy we will be, we three together!
What is it that I love about you? Your excessive shyness? The attention you pay to other people’s fears and desires? The way you turn aside when certain memories force their way into your mind? You know what? I’m going to surprise you. What I love about you is myself. Don’t laugh; I love the image you receive of me. In you, thanks to you, I feel purer and more deserving. Because of you I feel closer to God. At breakfast this morning I even said so to my parents. Of course my mother wept. And naturally my father philosophized: “Normally it’s the opposite. Because of God we feel closer to others. But you’ve always had the spirit of contradiction.” After sighing, my mother said innocently, “What do you want from her? To me her vision and yours are the same.” She is wonderful, my mother. Her shortcuts are as good as the ablest thinkers’ eloquence.
I must tell you, for example, her comment about the Altalena. But I’m forgetting: do you know anything about that depressing and tragic story? Altalena is the name of a ship that the Irgun chartered in Europe to transport a thousand armed fighters and a lot of ammunition, which Israel needed, believe me. But our prime minister David Ben-Gurion claimed that the head of the Irgun, Menachem Begin, was in fact mounting a coup. How can we tell if he was right? At any rate, Palmach units shelled the Altalena and set it afire. The upshot was that twenty-odd Irgun fighters, survivors of the death camps, were killed by Jewish bullets. In a radio broadcast, a sobbing Begin ordered his troops not to retaliate: anything but a civil war, he said. For his part, Ben-Gurion told the Knesset that on the day the Third Temple is reconstructed, they would display the cannon that had shelled the Altalena. My mother’s comment: “I weep for the Jews who fired as much as I do for those who fell.” My father’s? A brief and angry, “They’re insane.”
We do live in crazy times. Count Bernadotte, the big shot from the Red Cross and the United Nations, says he’s strictly neutral, but everybody else says he’s pro-Arab. Our administration is organized along British lines: civil servants take themselves very seriously. We have a finance minister without finances. In the meantime, refugees are streaming in from Germany, and deportees from Kenya and Cyprus. Jerusalem is still under siege: the road is open only for huge convoys. You can imagine how they’re greeted—by general jubilation. Everything is rationed, meat, milk, bread. Our neighbor on this floor—you remember him? a skinny, distinguished-looking bachelor?—is leaving for Belgium, where he has family. By the way: to go abroad you need military authorization. You can’t do anything anymore without permits. You see? We’re finally a state like all the others.
Just the same, one thing surprises me: nobody talks about the Old City anymore. Abandoned? Poor thing. Since you left, I can imagine how demoralized it must have become. And yet, at the highest levels, they’d already decided on an operation to relieve it, involving combined forces of Palmach, Irgun and Lehi. With a reckless courage that everybody understood and was hoping for, the troops fought their way in. For ten hours the Old City was in our hands. And then, nobody knows how or why, they were forced to withdraw. An officer told one of our friends (Rafi, you know who I mean, a blond fellow, Yardena’s buddy) that an elite unit had been ordered to evacuate a key poi
nt, thus letting the Jordanian Legionnaires retake it without a shot fired. Who’s responsible for that mishap? In cases like that we always say, “History will judge.” Always blame it on history.
And if you become a historian? I’d give a lot to hear you discuss these times with your son. Am I talking foolishness? You’re right, Elhanan, my love. I’d give a lot to see you right now. And even more to see your face when you take your first look at our son, who will—yes indeed, my love—bear your father’s name.
I hope he loves you, and I hope he is loved. I hope he learns all about our common past and is proud of it. You’ll teach him his first lessons. Promise? It is your duty as a father. And I, poor woman, will hold my peace in the next room, or even in the kitchen, and listen to you; and if I weep, don’t be angry.
In the first lesson I want you to say this to him (I had it from my own father): “To learn is to receive, and then it is to give, and then it is to receive again.”
You gave me a son, my love.
You gave me life.
Bless me as I bless you.
“Why didn’t you go back to Jerusalem to live?”
“I was afraid.”
“Afraid to live there?”
“Afraid I wasn’t worthy of living there. Do you understand? Without your mother, how could I wake beneath the same sky that we blessed together every morning? Jerusalem. I can see it now, and I can see us when we first arrived. I was full of faith in your mother and myself. I turned to her and said, ‘I love you,’ and through her I was declaring my love for Jerusalem.”
“Tell me a memory of Jerusalem.”
“A blue cloud shot with red, almost incandescent. A silence full of melodious prayers.”
“Go on.”
“A beggar.”
“A beggar? Not my mother?”
“You’re right—your mother is Jerusalem. But when I recall the road to Jerusalem, it’s always a beggar that I see. He offers to share his meal with me.”
“And you accept?”
“I accept everything from Jerusalem. Only in Jerusalem can a Jew learn the art of receiving.”
The chambermaid knocked. “You’re wanted on the telephone, sir.”
“Me? On the phone?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who could be calling me here?” He went downstairs to the front desk. His heart racing, he picked up the receiver: let it not be about his father! “Yes?”
“Malkiel, is that you? How is everything?” It was the sage.
“Don’t shout. If you do, we don’t need the telephone.”
“I may have a little assignment for you.”
“I thought I was on leave.”
“It won’t take long.”
“What’s it about?”
“The head of state over there. There’s a lot of talk here.”
The fool! Didn’t he know that this conversation was being taped by the secret police? “No need to shout. I hear you perfectly well. Too well, maybe.”
“Will you do it, then? A thousand words on the man himself, his family, his public standing. There’s nobody better qualified than you.”
Malkiel was thinking, Come on, friend! You’re not a beginner! Do you want the secret police all over me?
Later the sage would explain: It was a way to protect Malkiel. The Romanian authorities would know that the Times was behind him.
“I’ll try. But I’m not sure—”
“Give it a shot. We’d really appreciate it. Incidentally, when are you planning to be back?”
“I don’t know yet. A few days more, maybe. There’re still a dozen inscriptions to work out.”
When he met Lidia an hour later, she knew all about it. “I hope you won’t write that article,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Don’t ask too many questions.”
They walked toward the cemetery. Malkiel had the feeling they were being followed. “Is that possible?” he murmured.
“You could even say it was probable.”
He turned: no one in sight.
“Listen to me,” Lidia said. “In this country, caution is the first rule. The man is mad. And dangerous. If you said anything bad about him he could have you killed in an accident. If you said anything good you’d be lying, and anyway no flattery would satisfy him unless you treated him like God. You concentrate on your dead friends. You’ll be better off, believe me.”
“All right.” The chief of state’s crimes were not a priority just then. Maybe later, when he was back in the States. The man would still be news.
“Can I tell them that?” Lidia asked.
“Yes.”
After a pause she went on: “I’m not sure I admire your good sense, but I approve of it.”
Good sense? Me?
Lidia was making tea in her tiny kitchen. She moved gracefully. Even her silence was graceful, even her prolonged silence. She must have been unhappy. He could see it, he could feel it. She had a way of looking at him and smiling that revealed inner distress. Divorced? A spinster? A widow? How to tell? What good would it do him to know? He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow, said the wisest king in the Bible. To hell with knowledge.
Malkiel and Lidia had dined at the hotel restaurant. There were few patrons. The service was slapdash. Conversation languished. Malkiel was not in a mood to chat, nor was Lidia. Malkiel wanted to go upstairs and sleep. Lidia suggested coffee or tea at her flat. “Don’t be afraid.”
“I can’t help it,” he said. “Beautiful women terrify me.” She didn’t crack a smile. Poor Malkiel. He wasn’t too handy with compliments. Or with women, for that matter. He became awkward in their presence. Why so shy? He must see a psychiatrist. Someday. Later. After he completed the mission his father had entrusted him with. In the meantime he could pretend. He could pretend to be a shy fellow or a conqueror. None of that mattered. What mattered was that he was not good at pretending.
“So? Tea or not?”
“Tea,” he said, wondering what he had let himself in for.
They had walked in silence to her flat. Why this sudden uneasiness between them? Malkiel could not explain it. Because she had finally lured him into a trap? Well, he thought briefly, here I am playing a spy taken in flagrante.
A modest apartment. Two dimly lit rooms. Living room, kitchen and shower. Malkiel sat on the couch and inspected the walls. A few pictures, naive landscapes. Where were the microphones? Under the lamp, perhaps. In the kitchen? No, inside the ashtray. Too bad he didn’t smoke.
Lidia came back with tea. Sugar. She sat on the carpet. Their legs touched. Where were the cameras? “Why aren’t you married, Lidia?”
She blushed. Her voice was husky. “It’s a long story.” She hadn’t said “an old story.”
“Where does it begin?”
“Are you really interested?”
“Everything interests me.” Someone had to fill the silences; just as well to let her do it. As long as she was talking about her own life, Malkiel wouldn’t think about his. His father: far, far away. The war: far away, farther still. Tamar: frustrated, drowning. Tamar, where was Tamar? “So, Lidia, your story?”
“We were young.” She bowed her head. “Students. He was finishing medical school, and I was in modern languages. We knew each other by sight, ate at the same student restaurant, went to the same plays and the same demonstrations, where student attendance was obligatory. We danced, we flirted. Things looked good. He invited me home, and I met his parents. His father was an officer, no less. Colonel. A man of stature. Open features. Open eyes, open arms. His mother was an honest peasant, simple and affectionate. Always moving about, always serving: fruit, drinks, cookies. It was a close family, and hospitable. The picture of happiness. And then …”
Lidia had learned one day that the colonel headed up the secret police.
“He had my family checked out, because I was his son’s friend and future fiancée. He had to be sure that there was nothing compromising in my background. I wil
l never know why, but he had my father arrested. And my older sister. They were tortured. Each in the presence of the other. My fiancé—”
She interrupted herself. Malkiel wondered, Where are the microphones?
“My fiancé killed himself. I sank into one of those nightmares … black, black. I ran off … I quit school: to hell with school.… I moved here, far from home, as far as I could. So I’m alone now. That’s the whole story. Are you satisfied?”
The tea had cooled. The apartment was cold. Malkiel was no longer thirsty and wanted to warm himself. He raised her chin. “Then tell me, why are you working for them?”
“You don’t understand. That’s perfectly normal. You can’t understand. Be nice to me: don’t judge me too harshly. Don’t start mistrusting me.”
Malkiel stared at his cold cup of tea. Should he believe her? Should he trust a woman working for the secret police?
“And you?” she went on, in the same confidential murmur. “Why aren’t you married?”
“What do you know about that?”
“It’s not magic. I went over your file.”
“It’s a long story,” Malkiel said.
“I have plenty of time.”
“I haven’t.”
“Too bad.”