Laish

by Aharon Appelfeld

  The wagon drivers went on their way, and people hurried to revive Ephraim. Two old men brought a medic, who laid towels on his bleeding back. The towels absorbed the blood and grew red.

  “No one should be this cruel to human beings,” said the medic. They raised Ephraim’s head and rubbed his legs.

  “They murdered him,” a voice rang out from far off, hollow and grating. The medic got to his feet and the old men stroked Ephraim’s arms, which had scarcely been hurt. Someone said to open Ephraim’s mouth so that air would get to his lungs.

  “We murdered him and we’ll pay a heavy price for it,” said one of the dealers, who just hours before had been utterly convinced that Ephraim should be handed over to the wagon drivers. Meanwhile, sorrow had given way to fear. People trembled, as if they knew that their days upon the face of the earth were numbered. Even as they stood there stunned, as if waiting for the blow to come down upon them, Ephraim opened his eyes.

  “Ephraim!” the old men shouted.

  On hearing their voices, Ephraim closed his eyes.

  After that, he did not stir from where he lay. The old men took turns watching over him, and the women washed the red-stained towels in the river, dried them on lines, and returned them, white again. Ephraim did not complain and did not cry out. His appearance during the first days after his lashing was like that of a man who had undergone a difficult test and was pleased to have withstood it.

  “What should we get you, Ephraim?” people asked him. “Perhaps you’d like to drink?”

  Ephraim did not open his eyes. His closed eyes were now stronger than they had been when they were open. The guilt we felt was imprinted on his back, where scabs had formed from the dried blood.

  One night, Ephraim burst into little sobs, which shocked the entire camp. The whimpering was like Mamshe’s screams when she had tried to break down the door of her cage. The old men tried in vain to calm him. His body trembled. Then Sruel went over to him and said quietly, “Don’t be afraid, Ephraim. Soon we’ll hitch up the horses and be on our way.” It was strange how these words, which were quite beside the point, did the trick. He ceased whimpering.

  21

  “We must beg Ephraim’s forgiveness,” said the old men in their quavering voices. The clouds that had hovered over our departure from Czernowitz had not dispersed, and a heavy, dismal rain fell incessantly. The tarpaulins were too narrow to wrap over the wagons, and water seeped into every bundle and every piece of clothing. To our good fortune, we came upon an abandoned sawmill that was empty and spacious and, most important, still had a roof. Many of us, especially the old people, would otherwise have fallen ill.

  Ephraim lay at the front of his wagon, his face contorted by pain. People surrounded his bed but for some reason did not dare to ask for forgiveness. Shimkeh and Chiyuk, who had conducted the interrogation, walked sullenly between the wagons but did not apologize.

  “We did what we were told to do. It was no more and no less than we were asked. Let no one come complaining to us.”

  Three days after the lashing, the men from the prayer group gathered alongside Ephraim’s wagon.

  “Ephraim,” my teacher, Old Avraham, said, “we have come on behalf of this sinful community to ask your forgiveness for what we did to you. You do not have to forgive us. We are not worthy of forgiveness, but we would like you to know that our hearts are heavy. We feel tainted, and we wish to mend our ways. We implore you to help us, brother, and God who heals the sick will heal you along with all the Children of Israel who are sick.” After my teacher had spoken these words, he withdrew.

  Upon hearing all this, Ephraim opened his eyes. It appeared as though he hadn’t taken in my teacher’s words, or perhaps had not really understood what he said. Everyone waited expectantly for him to say something, but he remained silent. Finally he said, “I’m no longer sick.”

  “Thanks be to God,” said my teacher, without raising his eyes.

  The previous year, one of the old men had been abandoned because he hadn’t been able to control his bodily functions and had shamed the camp. He was left behind in a small town, in the hope that the Jews there would take pity on him. As it turned out, the Jews did not take pity on him, and he died in the gutter. The bitter tidings caught up with us on the road, and we retraced our steps to bury him. At that time, as well, the old men had surrounded the grave of the man who had died, and they asked for forgiveness. Now it seemed to me that the Ephraim we had known so well had passed away, and this silent, puny man on a pallet, with the look of a sick child, was all that was left of him. What remained was not frightening, because Ephraim himself had never been frightening. A look of wonder had settled onto his face, as if he marveled that his life had turned out as it had. Finally, he came out with a few words that took us all by surprise.

  “What happened?” he asked, as if he had awoken from a deep sleep.

  “We’re here to visit you,” said my teacher, happy to have been asked.

  “Me?” said Ephraim, and the familiar involuntary smile again creased his face.

  “You.”

  Ephraim closed his eyes, but people still stood there for a long time, remaining quietly beside him.

  That night, no one slept. The dealers sought out the old men, wanting to be near them, but the old men had withdrawn into themselves and would not speak. Only Sruel, after a few drinks and in a loud voice, spoke about our future life in the Land of Israel. A different and purified life. And when the falcon landed on his shoulder, he stroked it and spoke to it with great emotion, and promised it a purer life as well. The empathy between them stirred me deeply, and I wept.

  —

  I rise early, about an hour before the morning prayers, and record my impressions of our journey in the notebook. Who knows what will turn out to be important and what will prove trivial? Since Czernowitz, my life has changed beyond all recognition. The big city has sunk deep into me, and its dark alleyways leave me feeling unclean.

  Now dealers who never used to come to the prayer group have joined. They seek to draw close to the old men. One of the dealers turned to me unexpectedly and said, “Wake me for morning prayers and don’t leave me until I get up. Don’t let me sleep. Praying is as vital to me as the air I breathe.” I glanced at his eyes and I saw that the man spoke the truth.

  Once again, I’m at Sruel’s beck and call. We work in the fields, plowing and picking plums. Sometimes we bring logs from the groves to the warehouses, always as day laborers. Country Jews are like Ruthenian peasants. They bundle up their money in handkerchiefs, and when they pay Sruel his daily wages, their hands tremble. Sruel asks for more, but they refuse to part with more. In the end, we go our separate ways in peace, wishing them a long life.

  When we do not have any work in the fields, I go fishing with Sruel at the river. One of the old men gave us a present of two small nets and taught us how to spread them. In these parts of the river, the carp are long and narrow, and we sell them cheaply to the people in the convoy.

  The evenings are long and filled with twilight, and they spill out over the fields with many hues of purple. Small bonfires give off a scent of dry brushwood, and I pray in my heart that Ephraim’s wounds will heal quickly and that he will forgive us. His death and his return to life were very frightening. The old men do not stir from his wagon, as if his existence were a perpetual miracle to be marveled at. For his part, Ephraim blames no one, and does not speak badly of anyone. There is a quiet, deep sorrow in his eyes that flows to us.

  In a small village called Halenza, which is near a tributary of the Prut, Ephraim started to utter words the likes of which we had never heard before. He spoke of invisible lights in heaven, lights that nourish the sunflowers and the fruit trees. Were it not for these lights, which are concealed within the revealed lights, we would have neither sunflower seeds nor fruit. Therefore, he said, before every blessing, one should first bless the One who created the light, for without this light there would not be anything over which to say
a blessing.

  All of us, except for the old men, were astonished. They knew that the agony Ephraim was suffering had transported him to other worlds. In the days that followed, his visions grew even more detailed and more frightening. He spoke of tiny, flickering constellations that descend at night and shower human beings with loving-kindness. Were it not for the light they contain, there would be no healing in the world. These delicate little stars, deer-messengers sent by the angel Gabriel, must be welcomed with affection and gentleness because they intend only to heal. But for anyone who rejected them, and there were people who did so or who were suspicious of them, the living light they bestowed would change to a light of death.

  When the old men questioned Ephraim further about these mysteries, he replied simply, “I’ve seen them.” And there was a fearsome certainty in those three words. One morning he told us how he had asked the constellations to give his back more light, and how they had responded favorably and had done so.

  Ephraim’s pains had almost subsided. But the red welts on his body throbbed and discharged pus and blood. Ephraim blamed himself for not doing enough to appease the constellations that came to heal him during the night. The dealers were ready to take him to Storozhynets, where there was a famous Jewish doctor, but Ephraim refused, saying that it was forbidden to be ungrateful—the constellations would heal him discreetly at night.

  Once a day Ephraim would climb down from the wagon. Two dealers would take him to attend to his bodily functions, and he would thank them with little bows. The prayer group came each morning to his wagon. Ephraim had always woken early for morning prayers, but now his prayers took on a different aspect. He prayed without a prayer book, in a whisper and with his eyes open. Everyone stared at him, as if he knew some ancient secrets that had been forgotten. At night they would bring him vegetable soup, a slice of grilled fish, and potatoes. It was hard for him to eat, but to hearten those around him, he made an effort.

  22

  The convoy made its way slowly and almost aimlessly. In the fields summer crops were being harvested, plums were being picked, and at night the peasants slaughtered pigs with gluttonous joy. Screams and silence could be heard by turns. The broad plain, which had neither towers nor castles, was also full of hiding places, perhaps because of the waterfowl that nested alongside the banks of the Prut and near the marshes.

  Only a month earlier the journey had seemed like a chimera, but after the raid by the gendarmes and our own cruelty toward Ephraim, the old men talked openly about Jerusalem. The dealers no longer acted like smart alecks; they were practical men, and our precarious situation worried them. They had changed. This journey would no longer be just another purchasing trip, with its profits and losses. Lurking everywhere were gendarmes and robbers.

  Even the nights were no longer as they had been. True, the musicians still played and peasants still gathered around to listen, and we would occasionally receive a few provisions from them. But all the joy was gone. Everything went forward heavily. Even the thieves stole differently. If the truth be told, there was now nothing left to steal. They stole buttons, forks, and spoons, and the following day they would lay everything out not far from where it had been stolen. People no longer bothered to try to find the thieves, or even to reproach them. It was as if our lives were aimless in this regard as well.

  We grew poorer, and our food consisted mostly of potatoes and fish from the Prut. Tea was a rarity. We would drink a brew of dried herbs. Sometimes at night a continuous keening that was similar to Mamshe’s howls would burst forth from the plain. Everyone knew that sound, but no one spoke about it.

  Before we fled Czernowitz, an argument erupted over what to do with the cage. The wagon drivers thought that it should be discarded because it was heavy and useless, but the old men forbade them to do so. One had to admit that without Mamshe the journey was easier; her screams no longer filled our nights with terror. But her absence was felt. The empty cage bore stern witness to her life with us. One of the old men, one of the more silent ones, said with a sigh, “We will no longer have the privilege of seeing her ascend to Jerusalem.”

  It had not been forgotten that sometimes, on summer afternoons, Mamshe would sit on her pallet and sing. Her angry face would be filled with yearning, and she looked like a woman praying. No one knew her age, who her parents were, and who had brought her to the Holy Man. There were contradictory rumors. As for myself, I can’t recall the convoy without her; even now I imagine her curled up on the floor of the cage, dozing.

  From time to time, Mamshe would surprise us and ask to be let out.

  “Everyone is walking around outside, and only I’m caged in. Why am I the only one caged in?” There were moments when she was not in the grip of her madness, and she would talk and even tell stories. Were it not for her outbursts, she would have been let out, but then people remembered with fear how she had once attacked the two women who took care of her, scratching and biting them. Had it not been for the wagon drivers who rushed to their aid, it is doubtful the women would have emerged without serious injury.

  To distract her, people would tell Mamshe, “In Jerusalem you’ll be able to walk around to your heart’s desire.”

  “Why?” Her eyes would open wide in wonder.

  “Because there everything is holy and everything is good.”

  On hearing this her mouth would fall open, and her red tongue would dart between her lips.

  Even Ploosh’s wild laugh was not forgotten. The old men intended to visit him, they even prepared two packages of necessities, but the gendarmes’ robbery forced us to flee like criminals. All the same, one of the dealers, by way of his cousin, did manage to smuggle a small package into the prison.

  —

  If the truth be told, nothing is ever forgotten here. Our wagons groan beneath the weight of memories; whatever isn’t pushed inside has to be dragged along behind us. We remember all those who joined the convoy and abandoned it along the way: the innocents, the crazy ones, to say nothing of those who have slipped quietly out of this world and whom we will see no more.

  Now we were all intent on Ephraim’s condition. The prayer group gathered around his wagon three times a day. It was a quiet sort of praying, like a prolonged consolation of mourners. Ephraim did not complain, nor did he denounce anyone. He looked like the Ephraim that we knew, apart from his back, of course, where the welts were discolored, swollen, and terrifying.

  “How are you, Ephraim?” my teacher, Old Avraham, would ask again and again.

  “Thank God.”

  In a recent dream he had seen soldiers who looked like deserters hiding behind chimneys.

  “Were they close by?” asked one of the old men.

  “It seemed like it.”

  “Did they threaten you?”

  “I didn’t understand what they said to me.”

  His visions are fearsome, because he speaks of them simply, without exaggeration. Of something that he has not heard or has not seen clearly, he will say, “I didn’t hear that” or “I couldn’t see.” This forthrightness was also a mark of his previous life, but then it seemed like an affectation.

  Shimkeh and Chiyuk work for the local landowners during the day, and when they return to the wagons each evening they seem stooped and embittered; they are easily angered and threaten to abandon the convoy if everyone continues to cast blame on them.

  “We did what we were told to do,” they insist repeatedly. People keep a distance from them, and they spend their nights with the musicians, passing around a bottle and chain-smoking.

  23

  We straggled alongside the Prut, as if we had lost our way. From time to time the dealers would shake off their reveries and say, “Why don’t we travel to Zidova? To Stroznitz? All is not lost.” But they were empty words. A hidden despair had burrowed into them. We were at the mercy of the wagon drivers, who were working for the peasants as day laborers and who frittered away their money in the taverns every night. They gave little to chari
ty. “Hurry, kinderlach!” the old men would implore them. “Hurry while the rains are still held in the skies.” But the wagon drivers paid them no heed; they were arrogant and took no one else into consideration.

  Sruel frightened me once, when he asked, “What are you writing, Laish?”

  I told him.

  “I’ve forgotten how to write,” he confessed. “I forgot everything in prison.”

  At night, after a few drinks, the wagon drivers would speak of their lives in jail, about the customs and regulations, about the cruelty of the wardens, and about having to obey their slightest whim. There would be no anger in their voices; the years of suffering were buried deep in their large bodies. Now their exterior was just an impermeable blackness from which they would sometimes peek out, as if out of scorched earth, with a wild smile or a groan. Late into the night they stop speaking our language and speak the language of the Ukrainians. I have noticed that when they speak our language, they are terse. They swallow words, get the pronunciation all muddled, and eventually lash out. “The language of the Jews is more like grinding gravel than speaking!”

  Truth be told, Sruel belongs with their tribe. When he is in their company he talks like them, uses the words they use, and even gestures as they do. Sometimes it seems to me that he behaves as they do even with the horses. But when he is in the company of the dealers, his expression changes and there’s something of his trader forefathers in his eyes. Around the old men, he is bashful; he blushes and purses his lips. Sometimes he asks me about a custom or a law. “Why don’t I understand a word of anything the old men teach? I must be stupid.” At times he gets angry with himself.

  Animals are Sruel’s great love. Apart from the falcon that alights on his shoulder every evening and sleeps in his lap, he has two German shepherds who are utterly devoted to him. Any animal that encounters him will nestle against him. Even hornets are fond of him. A few years ago, a swarm of hornets landed on one of the wagons. By a ruse that seemed almost magical, Sruel managed to divert them. In Lemberg he saved us from a pack of stray dogs. He knows how to take care of sick horses, doves, and even snakes. The old men are fond of him, occasionally calling him up to read from the Torah. Were he not addicted to drink, they would be even fonder of him. But what can one say? It seems that he will never be cured of this weakness. As for myself, I have to admit that I love Sruel when he’s drunk because, unlike the other wagon drivers, he is very friendly when he’s in that condition. When he’s cheerful, he likes to make up little ditties. Once I heard Sruel say, “The Jews are my soul’s beloved. I’m ready to protect them with all my might. They’ve suffered so much. Now they deserve a little protection.”