A Mad Desire to Dance

by Elie Wiesel

  Martin stood up. “I'm going back to bed,” he said. “Aren't you? One piece of advice: don't get bogged down in his madness.”

  Disconcerted, I looked through my notes again. What did Martin mean? Was I really in danger? What danger? That of allowing my patient's transference of his love for his mother to me? And of his making me lose my reason, my intelligence, my sense of reality? Worse: Could I be in danger of cutting my ties with my surroundings? Of becoming estranged from my husband?

  11

  I sleep badly. More and more so.

  Do I have the right to disturb your sleep—you, whom I love?

  You, who have always been asleep and will be forever?

  I await the dawn, which will make all the demons return to their hells.

  And images to their asylum.

  And first among them, the image of that gray morning of the funeral.

  A huge crowd was there. I remember. Hundreds, thousands of men and women had come from the neighboring areas, and even from Paris, to accompany me to that cemetery near Marseilles. All of them angry with the English, whom they blamed for my parents’ death. That was absurd, and they knew it. My parents had died in a car accident in the mountains. My father was driving and the car skidded. Her Majesty's government had nothing to do with it. But it was because of England's policies that Jews like us had to get across borders clandestinely and bribe policemen and the captains of barely seaworthy old ships to get to Palestine illegally. It was because of the English that a new pitfall awaited us at every turn. Hence the wrath of the crowd. Women cried, men shouted, rabbis prayed, orators spoke—not about my dead parents but about the right of our people to have a state, a homeland, a sanctuary. I didn't cry. Had my tears dried up? No, there was another reason: the rejection of reality. And maybe the first sign of a crack in me, of illness. I didn't believe that my parents were no longer with me. In spite of everything I was told, in spite of what my uncle Avrohom kept telling me while trying to teach me the difficult burial Kaddish, something within me refused to accept that it was my parents, my father and mother, who were to be buried before my eyes. “Cry,” said my uncle. “Etch this gray and dark day in your memory just as it will be engraved here on this stone. Later you will think about it and your joy will no longer be unmixed. Cry, my child. You're an orphan now and will remain one all your life.” In front of the open tomb, I had trouble reciting the prayer for the dead. The crowd thought it was because I was choked with tears. Actually no tears ran down my cheeks. And for a long time I felt at fault for my lack of sorrow.

  The consequence of this tragedy was that I didn't leave for Palestine.

  My uncle Avrohom was against it from the beginning. And not for political or economic reasons but for purely religious ones. Like some anti-Zionist rabbis, he declared that tradition prohibited hastening the course of events: when the Messiah came, he would establish the Jewish state according to the law and the spirit of the Torah. Not before. For him and his group, whoever violated this Talmudic precept was in fact excluding himself from the community of believing Jews. This attitude prevented disciples of their persuasion, living in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, from being saved by accepting certificates allowing them to settle in the Holy Land.

  There were stormy discussions, both public and private, between Avrohom and the heads of the Brikha, the Zionist organization that opened frontiers and the doors of international offices as by an illusionist's magical gesture. I heard them shout without understanding their arguments. “But his parents were preparing for the Aliyah with their child. What right do you have to go against their wish?” yelled one of the Zionists.

  “If they were still alive,” said Avrohom, “I would have persuaded them.”

  This lasted for hours, night after night. The Zionists had called on their own religious teachers, whereas Avrohom received the support of his. The leader of the Zionists, a tall redhead, acted as if he was addressing the United Nations.

  “After what our people have gone through, at a time when the survivors of the worst tragedy no longer know where to go for a bit of rest and respite, you're going to tear this child away from his larger family?”

  “And what about God in all this? The God of Israel? Have you forgotten Him?” asked Avrohom.

  The redhead: “You dare to invoke God? Here? Now? But where was He when we needed His kindness, His justice, His power?”

  Avrohom: “He was with us. Like us, He suffered! Like us, He had had enough of the murderous secular humanity!”

  The redhead: “You must be joking! A God who is the prisoner of child murderers! And you still believe in Him!”

  “Ungodly person,” Avrohom said, beside himself with anger, “leader of the ungodly, you're blaspheming! And you want me to entrust my nephew to you? Never, do you hear me? Never! If you want a Jewish state, return to the faith of our ancestors; apologize to them for having deserted them! Implore them to intercede for us on high, and you'll have your national home!”

  It was discussed in the Yiddish newspapers, whose over-politicized readership got carried away for one side or the other. Here and there, rioting broke out between demonstrators and counterdemonstrators. No one had thought of asking me where I wanted to go. I didn't count. You'd almost think I existed as a mere prop, as a propaganda tool. But what if they had asked me? I think I would have opted for Palestine, but I'm not sure— I had no family there; I didn't know Hebrew. In fact, I had no will or consciousness. Alarmed, I floated in the air, with no friends, no ties, no security net whatsoever. In a way, I was absent, as if dead. Dead with my parents. Finally the authorities intervened. They decided that since Avrohom was my uncle, he had the law on his side. He took me to the United States, whereas I had left Poland to go to Haifa and Mount Carmel.

  And because of that too, I don't know why, I felt at fault.

  I often discussed religious faith with my uncle. Naturally, he wanted to give me the same education he received as a youth in Poland. A yeshiva in Brooklyn agreed to instruct me free of charge. But I wasn't ready. Avrohom insisted and I resisted. So he begged my aunt Gittel to argue his case. He knew that I liked her. There was an understanding between us that was hard to define. Discreet, timid, she had a gentle voice but a gaze that could become stern on occasion. I liked to watch her light the Sabbath candles. She told me to come closer, and for the first time, she stroked my hair.

  “Your uncle treats you like a son.”

  “I'm not your son,” I replied. “I had parents. They're dead, I know. But I'm still their son.”

  Her smile was so fragile that it moved me. “I didn't say we were your parents; I said you were like a son.”

  I lowered my head silently. She went on in the same intimate tone of voice. “Your parents are dead and I don't know why. Maybe we have no right to look for a reason.”

  “Would you be angry if I looked anyway?”

  “No, I wouldn't be angry. But your teachers will show you how and where to look. And most important, until when, so you don't go beyond the limit.”

  “Do you think they know?”

  “They probably know the question.”

  “Do you know it?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Tell it to me.”

  “Why were your parents killed? Why did the Lord—blessed be His name—punish them? For what sins?”

  “And the answer?”

  “I told you, I don't know.” She remained silent for a few moments. “I think that in the eyes of the Lord there's an answer; there must be one. But …”

  “But what?”

  “There's worse. Let's say they were punished for having sinned. But why were you punished? That I'll never understand.”

  She fell silent, and I noticed a tear running down her hollow cheek.

  It was because of my aunt, and for her sake, that I agreed, though halfheartedly, to go to the yeshiva.

  Wasn't that madness?

  From my few years of Jewish studies—intense at first and t
oo drawn out in the end, though never sufficiently fruitful—I retain a mixture of curiosity, weariness, and momentary bedazzlement. I remember my classmates better than my tutors. The latter, for the most part, were too interested in my literal studies and not enough in the frustration growing in me day after day. For them, only the distant past contained the meaning of life. The fleeting present was its shell or bark and to be rejected. The same applied to politics and fashion—puerile enterprises to be looked upon with disdain. Fortunately, my friends and I talked about everything. Current events, sports, vacation. Girls? Allusively, perhaps. Like the bygone prophets, I experienced the wrenching distress of living in two worlds. I can imagine you nodding: yes, the therapist must be right; schizophrenic is the suitable word for him. Like the sad and courageous Mr. Job, I cursed the day I was born. I resented the one responsible for dropping me down on this earth where everything begins in doubt and ends with the victory of death. Would I have preferred to be born somewhere else, in another family? Let's say I would have preferred not being born at all. But what about the soul, as the great teachers of the tradition would say, what about that? After all, it can't keep wandering in the invisible higher spheres until the end of time. That was its problem, not mine. I refused to suffer the consequences of the acts of my distant ancestors. Abraham didn't ask me whether he should obey the Lord and sacrifice his eldest son to Him. And King Ezekiel didn't ask my opinion before deciding to go to war with the Babylonians. And Don Itzhak Abrabanel didn't consult me as to whether he was right to go into exile rather than convert. My past had been their present; they alone were responsible for it, as far as I know. Well, I wanted to be responsible only for my present.

  I don't know what my aunt and uncle wanted me to become. (I'm not talking about the years that followed my meeting with Romek's brother, Samek; I'm talking about earlier, when I still had money worries.) A community rabbi, like their elder son, Shmouel? Copy editor in a publishing house of holy books? Son-in-law of a wealthy financier like their youngest son, Yaakov? The sons treated me like a privileged member of the family. I got along well with them. On holidays, they joined us for the services and the meals. I liked their young sister: petite, agile, with a ringing, slightly provocative laugh, Ruth had a biting sense of humor, though it wasn't offensive. Under other circumstances, if she hadn't been engaged to a brilliant Talmudist from a California yeshiva, I could have fallen in love with her. I had the impression she resembled my mother slightly from the youthful photos I had seen of her. I felt closer to her than to my paternal uncle. When Avrohom looked at me, he saw someone else, or in any case he didn't just see me alone. His eyes told me so. He constantly tried to find someone on my left, on my right, or in back of me. Was it my dead parents that attracted his attention? Sometimes I had a feeling he knew a secret that concerned me. Late one evening, when we were alone at the dinner table, he seemed about to reveal it to me. At the last minute, he changed his mind. I had to wait until he died to find out more.

  I had strange relationships with my classmates, particularly the first year. Sometimes I was too assiduous, sometimes much less so. I was already unstable and subject to unpleasant mood shifts. At the very beginning, probably to please my aunt and uncle, I devoted my days and evenings to prayer, meditation, and the study of the holy texts. “You need a friend,” Avrohom used to say to me. “You're not supposed to study alone in a yeshiva.” I found one: Jonathan. He was my age, clumsy, awkward, and looked permanently lost. In what way were we different? He adored the teaching of the laws and their interpretation, whereas I preferred the midrashic legends and their spare, concise, succinct style. Sometimes, in the evening, after dinner, we met at the study house. Inspired hours, shared dreams under the sign of friendship.

  “You and your stories,” Jonathan used to say to me in a tone of feigned exasperation. “You know too many of them; you become attached to them; they've already imprisoned you. Eventually they'll be the ruin of you. Stories are dangerous; even the most beautiful come with arrows, and you don't know that you're the target.”

  “You're exaggerating. My stories don't scare me at all. They come from anywhere, from somewhere or nowhere, and I catch them, that's all. Do you remember Rabbi Nahman's captivating words? He compares the yetzer hara, the spirit of evil, to a man who lives with a clenched fist. People think he's hiding a treasure inside it, and they try to pry it open. A long struggle ensues and the man finally opens his fist of his own will; it is empty.”

  “Another one of your parables,” said Jonathan. “Can't you live and express yourself like everyone else? Why do you try to be different, always distant, wrapped in a world that others don't have access to, not even me? You need only touch something and it catches fire. You just say good evening and the words take on I know not what mystery. Am I your friend or not? I'm afraid for your soul and also for your mental equilibrium.”

  In fact, Jonathan was right to worry about the salvation of my soul. But if I am endangering it, it isn't because of my stories. There came a time when I inevitably realized that I was wasting my time and, above all, my raison d’être by remaining on the yeshiva benches. Little by little, I realized that some rabbinical laws, though full of meaning for those who love them, leave me shockingly indifferent. Deepening the commentaries of rules concerning old-fashioned, antiquated rites, considered relevant even though the temple had been in ruins for centuries, its altar demolished, its priests scattered, its cantors idle and silent, the questions and moral dilemmas they posed no longer brought much stimulation to my mind.

  Several classmates and I—though not Jonathan—started going to the occasional daring film and reading forbidden secular books: novels, literary and philosophical essays, and various subversive works verging on Bible criticism. Was it the fault of my teachers? More likely it was my own. An inevitable crack in my faith? A badly healed childhood wound? My mind awakening to the practice of doubt? Excessively strict habits becoming shaky, old uprooted customs becoming loose and irresolute; more and more, I was drifting away, as they say, from some aspects of our ancestors’ religion.

  You know the arguments. How can one believe that the universe is no more than six thousand years old when there's scientific proof showing the opposite? How can one keep on thanking God for His blessings when His creatures are killing one another off in His name and proclaiming they love Him? And why would my prayers and praises be so important to Him? Whether I recite them or forget to recite a few, why would that so affect Him that he would inflict reprimands and sufferings on me? How is one to love a God who needs so much flattery? Was I already vulnerable, a victim of my questionings and my doubts?

  And besides, let's be frank. As always, as in every story, there was a woman. Yes, in spite of the stifling ultraorthodox ambience in which I was growing up, indeed perhaps because of it, my adolescent body found it difficult to resist desire. I blushed when my cousin Ruth talked to me. One day, we were alone for a short fifteen minutes. She had come to see my aunt Gittel, who had not yet returned from the market. Distraught, prompted by a sense of unknown danger, I felt my heart thumping as if it was about to burst. Ruth didn't notice. She asked me what I was doing. I replied that I was getting ready to go out.

  “To go where?”

  “To the study house,” I lied.

  “Is it that urgent?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “They're waiting for me.”

  “Who is waiting for you so urgently?”

  “Jonathan.”

  “He can surely wait.”

  “No … Maybe …”

  “Stay with me a little while.”

  “Wh … why?” I stammered.

  “What a question!” she answered with a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Just to keep me company.”

  This was my first time alone with a woman. We remained standing in the middle of the room, close to the table where I sometimes did my homework. She looked at me in her usual way, smiling. And I had no idea where to go to hide my feeling of helplessn
ess. More than ever my body asserted its rights: my chest, my eyes, my legs, my hands, my every limb wanted to participate in my inner upheaval. As for Ruth, she was relaxed and natural. “I hope I'm not disturbing you,” she said.

  “No, of course not.”

  “Are you always alone at this time of the morning?” Why this question? “Yes. Often,” I said, “when Aunt Gittel goes to market.” “So, every day?”

  Why this question? I couldn't understand. “Yes, I think so.” Should I remind her that she had a fiancé? Aunt Gittel's appearance put an end to our conversation. But now I know that my break with the teachings of the tradition coincided with the onset of the agitation I felt in my cousin's presence.

  EXCERPT FROM DR. THéRèSE GOLDSCHMIDT'S NOTES

  Doriel Waldman's crises and their language. Semantic jargon? Bouts of paraphasia?

  “Do you like to eat?” I ask.

  “The bark more than the tree,” he responds.

  “Do you like to drink?”

  “The tree is thirsty and I swallow the rain.”

  “And then what? What happens next?”

  “Time pursues the words; the words fall to their knees.”

  “Who is your enemy?”

  “The face of the faceless person has stolen mine.”

  “What do you hate?”

  “Two times three equals a baby's smile.”

  “Do you like to read?”

  “The clouds drift away and I'd like to follow them.”

  “Do you like music?”

  “Oh, the vagabond who winks at me is nuts.”

  “What about painting, are you interested in it?”

  “With my finger I am the clouds and I become a cloud.”

  “And the rain, do you like it?”

  “The angel that is tracking me down is black and dazzling.”

  “And the devil, what does he look like?”

  “Finally two times seven equals fourteen.”