by Elie Wiesel
Only when I perceived the silence of the boy, a silence eloquent in his eyes, did I decide to speak. He had a look of anxiety which made him seem older, more mature. I shall speak up, I said to myself. They have no right to condemn the little boy.
As I approached my father I saw the sorrow on his face. My father had stolen away a minute before the Angel of Death came to take him; in cheating the Angel he had taken with him the human sorrow which he endured while he was alive.
“Father,” I said, “don’t judge me. Judge God. He created the universe and made justice stem from injustices. He brought it about that a people should attain happiness through tears, that the freedom of a nation, like that of a man, should be a monument built upon a pile, a foundation of dead bodies…”
I stood in front of him, not knowing what to do with my head, my eyes, my hands. I wanted to transfer the lifeblood of my body into my voice. At moments I fancied I had done so. I talked for a long time, telling him things that doubtless he already knew, since he had taught them to me. If I repeated them it was only in order to prove to him that I had not forgotten.
“Don’t judge me, Father,” I implored him, trembling with despair. “You must judge God. He is the first cause, the prime mover; He conceived men and things the way they are. You are dead, father, and only the dead may judge God.”
But he did not react. The sorrow written upon his emaciated, unshaven face became even more human than before. I left him and went over to my mother, who was standing at his right side. But my pain was too great for me to address her. I thought I heard her murmur: “Poor boy, poor boy!” and tears came to my eyes. Finally I said that I wasn’t a murderer, that she had not given birth to a murderer but to a soldier, to a fighter for freedom, to an idealist who had sacrificed his peace of mind—a possession more precious than life itself—to his people, to his people’s right to the light of day, to joy, to the laughter of children. In a halting, feverishly sobbing voice, this was all that I could find to say.
When she too failed to react I left her and went to my old master, of all those present the least changed by death. Alive, he had been very much the same as now; we used to say that he was not of this world, and now this was literally true.
“I haven’t betrayed you,” I said, as if the deed were already done. “If I were to refuse to obey orders I should betray my living friends. And the living have more rights over us than the dead. You told me that yourself. Therefore choose life, it is written in the Scriptures. I have espoused the cause of the living, and that is no betrayal.”
Beside him stood Yerachmiel, my friend and comrade and brother. Yerachmiel was the son of a coachman, with the hands of a laborer and the soul of a saint. We two were the master’s favorite pupils; every evening he studied with us the secrets of the Cabala. I did not know that Yerachmiel too was dead. I realized it only at the moment when I saw him in the crowd, at the master’s side—or rather a respectful step behind him.
“Yerachmiel my brother,” I said, “…remember…?”
Together we had spun impossible dreams. According to the Cabala, if a man’s soul is sufficiently pure and his love deep enough he can bring the Messiah to earth. Yerachmiel and I decided to try. Of course we were aware of the danger: No one can force God’s hand with impunity. Men older, wiser, and more mature than ourselves had tried in vain to wrest the Messiah from the chains of the future; failing in their purpose they had lost their faith, their reason, and even their lives. Yerachmiel and I knew all this, but we were resolved to carry out our plan regardless of the obstacles that lay in wait along the way. We promised to stick to each other, whatever might happen. If one of us were to die, the other would carry on. And so we made preparations for a voyage in depth. We purified our souls and bodies, fasting by day and praying by night. In order to cleanse our mouths and their utterances we spoke as little as possible and on the Sabbath we spoke not at all.
Perhaps our attempt might have been successful. But war broke out and we were driven away from our homes. The last time I had seen Yerachmiel he was one of a long column of marching Jews deported to Germany. A week later I was sent to Germany myself. Yerachmiel was in one camp, I in another. Often I wondered whether he had continued his efforts alone. Now I knew: he had continued, and he was dead.
“Yerachmiel,” I said; “Yerachmiel my brother, remember…”
Something about him had changed: his hands. Now they were the hands of a saint.
“We too,” I said, “my comrades in the Movement and I, are trying to force God’s hand. You who are dead should help us, not hinder…”
But Yerachmiel and his hands were silent. And somewhere in the universe of time the Messiah was silent as well. I left him and went over to the little boy I used to be.
“Are you too judging me?” I asked. “You of all people have the least right to do that. You’re lucky; you died young. If you’d gone on living you’d be in my place.”
Then the boy spoke. His voice was filled with echoes of disquiet and longing.
“I’m not judging you,” he said. “We’re not here to sit in judgment. We’re here simply because you’re here. We’re present wherever you go; we are what you do. When you raise your eyes to Heaven we share in their sight; when you pat the head of a hungry child a thousand hands are laid on his head; when you give bread to a beggar we give him that taste of paradise which only the poor can savor. Why are we silent? Because silence is not only our dwelling-place but our very being as well. We are silence. And your silence is us. You carry us with you. Occasionally you may see us, but most of the time we are invisible to you. When you see us you imagine that we are sitting in judgment upon you. You are wrong. Your silence is your judge.”
Suddenly the beggar’s arm brushed against mine. I turned and saw him behind me. I knew that he was not the Angel of Death but the prophet Elijah.
“I hear Gad’s footsteps,” he said. “He’s coming up the stairs.”
“I HEAR Gad’s footsteps,” said Ilana, touching my arm. “He’s coming up the stairs.”
Slowly and with a blank look on his face Gad came into the room. Ilana ran toward him and kissed his lips, but gently he pushed her away.
“You stayed down there so long,” she said. “What kept you?”
A cruel, sad smile crossed Gad’s face.
“Nothing,” he said. “I was watching him eat.”
“He ate?” I asked in surprise. “You mean to say he was able to eat?”
“Yes, he ate,” said Gad. “And with a good appetite, too.”
I could not understand.
“What?” I exclaimed. “You mean to say he was hungry?”
“I didn’t say he was hungry,” Gad retorted. “I said he ate with a good appetite.”
“So he wasn’t hungry,” I insisted.
Gad’s face darkened.
“No, he wasn’t hungry.”
“Then why did he eat?”
“I don’t know,” said Gad nervously. “Probably to show me that he can eat even if he’s not hungry.”
Ilana scrutinized his face. She tried to catch his eye, but Gad was staring into space.
“What did you do after that?” she asked uneasily.
“After what?” said Gad brusquely.
“After he’d finished eating.”
Gad shrugged his shoulders.
“Nothing,” he said.
“What do you mean, nothing?”
“Nothing. He told me stories.”
Ilana shook his arm.
“Stories? What kind of stories?”
Gad sighed in resignation.
“Just stories,” he repeated, obviously tired of answering questions he considered grotesque.
I wanted to ask if he had laughed, if the hostage had got a laugh out of him. But I refrained. The answer could only have been absurd.
Gad’s reappearance had roused Gideon and Joab from their sleep. With haggard faces they looked around the room, as if to assure themselves they weren’t
dreaming. Stifling a yawn, Joab asked Gad for the time.
“Four o’clock,” said Gad, consulting his watch.
“So late? I’d never have thought it.”
Gad beckoned to me to come closer.
“Soon it will be day,” he observed.
“I know.”
“You know what you have to do?”
“Yes, I know.”
He took a revolver out of his pocket and handed it to me. I hesitated.
“Take it,” said Gad.
The revolver was black and nearly new. I was afraid to even touch it, for in it lay all the whole difference between what I was and what I was going to be.
“What are you waiting for?” asked Gad impatiently. “Take it.”
I held out my hand and took it. I examined it for a long time as if I did not know what purpose it could possibly serve. Finally I slipped it into my trouser pocket.
“I’d like to ask you a question,” I said to Gad.
“Go ahead.”
“Did he make you laugh?”
Gad stared at me coldly, as if he had not understood my question or the necessity for it. His brow was furrowed with preoccupation.
“John Dawson,” I said. “Did he make you laugh?”
Gad’s eyes stared through me; I felt them going through my head and coming out the other side. He must have been wondering what was going on in my mind, why I harped on this unimportant question, why I didn’t seem to be suffering or to be masking my suffering or lack of suffering.
“No,” he said at last; “he didn’t make me laugh.”
His own mask cracked imperceptibly. All his efforts were bent upon controlling the expression of his eyes, but he had neglected his mouth, and it was there that the crack showed. His upper lip betrayed bitterness and anger.
“How did you do it?” I asked in mock admiration. “Weren’t his stories funny?”
Gad made a strange noise, not unlike a laugh. The silence that followed accentuated the sadness which an invisible hand had traced upon his lips.
“Oh, they were funny all right, very funny. But they didn’t make me laugh.”
He took a cigarette out of his shirt pocket, lit it, drew a few puffs and then, without waiting for me to ask anything more, went on:
“I was thinking of David, that’s all.”
I’ll think of David too, I reflected. He’ll protect me. John Dawson may try to make me laugh, but I won’t do it. David will come to my rescue.
“It’s getting late,” said Joab, stifling another yawn.
The night was still looking in on us. But quite obviously it was getting ready to go away. I came to a sudden decision.
“I’m going down,” I said.
“So soon?” said Gad, in a tone revealing either emotion or mere surprise. “You’ve got plenty of time. As much as an hour…”
I said that I wanted to go down before the time was up, to see the fellow, and talk, and get to know him. It was cowardly, I said, to kill a complete stranger. It was like war, where you don’t shoot at men but into the night, and the wounded night emits cries of pain which are almost human. You shoot into the darkness, and you never know whether any of the enemy was killed, or which one. To execute a stranger would be the same thing. If I were to see him only as he died I should feel as if I had shot at a dead man.
This was the reason I gave for my decision. I’m not sure it was exact. Looking back, it seems to me that I was moved by curiosity. I had never seen a hostage before. I wanted to see a hostage who was doomed to die and who told funny stories. Curiosity or bravado? Perhaps a little of both…
“Do you want me to go with you?” asked Gad. A lock of hair had fallen over his forehead, but he did not push it back.
“No, Gad,” I said. “I want to be alone with him.”
Gad smiled. He was a commander, proud of his subaltern and expressing his pride in a smile. He laid his hand affectionately on my shoulder.
“Do you want someone to go with you?” asked the beggar.
“No,” I repeated. “I’d rather be alone.”
His eyes were immeasurably kind.
“You can’t do it without them,” he said, nodding his head in the direction of the crowd behind us.
“They can come later,” I conceded.
The beggar took my head in his hands and looked into my eyes. His look was so powerful that for a moment I doubted my identity. I am that look, I said to myself. What else could I be? The beggar has many looks, and I am one of them. But his expression radiated kindness, and I knew that he could not regard kindly his own look. That was how my identity came back to me.
“Very well,” he said; “they’ll come later.”
Now the boy, looking over the shadowy heads and bodies between us, offered to go with me. “Later,” I said. My answer made him sad, but I could only repeat: “Later. I want to be alone with him.”
“Good,” said the child. “We’ll come later.”
I let my look wander over the room, hoping to leave it there and pick it up when I returned.
Ilana was talking to Gad, but he did not listen. Joab was yawning. Gideon rubbed his forehead as if he had a headache.
In an hour everything will be different, I reflected. I shan’t see it the same way. The table, the chairs, the walls, the window, they will all have changed. Only the dead—my father and mother, the master and Yerachmiel—will be the same, for we all of us change together, in the same way, doing the same things.
I patted my pocket to make sure the revolver was still there. It was; indeed, I had the strange impression that it was alive, that its life was part of mine, that it had the same present and future destiny as myself. I was its destiny and it was mine. In an hour it too will have changed, I reflected.
“It’s late,” said Joab, stretching.
With my eyes I bade farewell to the room, to Ilana, to Gideon and his prayers, to Joab and his confused expression, to the table, the window, the walls, and the night. Then I went hurriedly into the kitchen as if I were going to my own execution. As I went down the stairs my steps slackened and became heavy.
JOHN DAWSON was a handsome man. In spite of his unshaven face, tousled hair, and rumpled shirt there was something distinguished about him.
He seemed to be in his forties—a professional soldier, no doubt—with penetrating eyes, a resolute chin, thin lips, a broad forehead, and slender hands.
When I pushed open the door I found him lying on a camp bed, staring up at the ceiling. The bed was the only piece of furniture in the narrow white cell. Thanks to an ingenious system of ventilation we had installed, the windowless cell was less stuffy than the open room above.
When he became aware of my presence John Dawson showed neither surprise nor fear. He did not get up but simply raised himself into a sitting position. He scrutinized me at length without saying a word, as if measuring the density of my silence. His stare enveloped my whole being and I wondered if he saw that I was a mass of eyes.
“What time is it?” he asked abruptly.
In an uncertain voice I answered that it was after four. He frowned, as if in an effort to grasp the hidden meaning of my words.
“When is sunrise?” he said.
“In an hour,” I answered. And I added, without knowing why: “Approximately.”
We stared at each other for a long interval, and suddenly I realized that time was not moving at its normal, regular pace. In an hour I shall kill him, I thought. And yet I didn’t really believe it. This hour which separates me from murder will be longer than a lifetime. It will belong, always, to the distant future; it will never be one with the past.
There was something age-old in our situation. We were alone not only in the cell but in the world as well, he seated, I standing, the victim and the executioner. We were the first—or the last—men of creation; certainly we were alone. And God? He was present, somewhere. Perhaps He was incarnate in the liking with which John Dawson inspired me. The lack of hate between executio
ner and victim, perhaps this is God.
We were alone in the narrow white cell, he sitting on the bed and I standing before him, staring at each other. I wished I could see myself through his eyes. Perhaps he was wishing he could see himself through mine. I felt neither hate nor anger nor pity; I liked him, that was all. I liked the way he scowled when he was thinking, the way he looked down at his nails when he was trying to formulate his thoughts. Under other circumstances he might have been my friend.
“Are you the one?” he asked abruptly.
How had he guessed it? Perhaps by his sense of smell. Death has an odor and I had brought it in with me. Or perhaps as soon as I came through the door he had seen that I had neither arms nor legs nor shoulders, that I was all eyes.
“Yes,” I said.
I felt quite calm. The step before the last is the hard one; the last step brings clearheadedness and assurance.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
This question disturbed me. Is every condemned man bound to ask it? Why does he want to know the name of his executioner? In order to take it with him to the next world? For what purpose? Perhaps I shouldn’t have told him, but I could refuse nothing to a man condemned to die.
“Elisha,” I said.
“Very musical,” he observed.
“It’s the name of a prophet,” I explained. “Elisha was a disciple of Elijah. He restored life to a little boy by lying upon him and breathing into his mouth.”
“You’re doing the opposite,” he said with a smile.
There was no trace of anger or hate in his voice. Probably he too felt clearheaded and assured.
“How old are you?” he asked with aroused interest.
Eighteen, I told him. For some reason I added: “Nearly nineteen.”
He raised his head and there was pity on his thin, suddenly sharpened face. He stared at me for several seconds, then sadly nodded his head.
“I’m sorry for you,” he said.
I felt his pity go through me. I knew that it would permeate me completely, that the next day I should be sorry for myself.