by Elie Wiesel
One morning, contrary to her habit, Ruth burst into the dining room without knocking. I was there poring over an obscure passage in an ancient text; the passage was giving me trouble, and this irritated me. It concerned the suffering of the Messiah that only man could cure, in every generation. Jonathan and I had already discussed it the day before, and I said to myself that we would do well to discuss it again in the afternoon. A recent article on mysticism's predominant role in modern thought and fiction might be of help. A complicated hypothesis that was not necessarily convincing: noting the failure of Western culture as an ethical response, men living in the Auschwitz era inevitably turn to the other side, the side of mysticism. The unspoken attracts them more than the clearly articulated. They postulate that the mystery of the end is conditioned by the mystery of the beginning. Pure wisdom resides in the before, not the after. In trying to smash the very tools of literary expression, we formulate, on our own level, the Kabbalistic conception of shattered vases (Shevirat HaKelim) that accompanied the Creation. Such is the dreadful power of man according to a German mystic of the early Middle Ages; he can use it to understand and to stop understanding, seize the being locked inside the moment and also liberate him without realizing that this twin approach is always about his own self. He has been given the power of getting a step closer to heaven, but he can't prevent heaven from receding.
When I was interrupted by Ruth's arrival, my thoughts became muddled. Yet, unconsciously, I was waiting for her. Lately, she had been coming to her parents’ house several times a week and always when I was alone. Usually she stayed near the door, as if to preserve a certain distance between us. This time she came closer, stood by my side, gazed at me fixedly, and asked if she was preventing me from studying. I was about to mumble, “No, not at all,” but then said, “Yes, very much so.”
She gave a faint smile and said, “That's good,” in an almost inaudible voice, so intimate that it sent a shiver down my spine. She leaned toward me and whispered, “Let's see, what book are you so completely engrossed in?”
I stammered a few incoherent words; my chest felt crushed by an iron fist. I scanned my mind for an appropriate reply—to no avail. I felt myself blush as if my teacher had guessed that my soul was dangerously close to the precipice. In another second, Ruth's beautiful face would be close to mine. My breathing stopped. What would she do or say? One question, she asked me one tiny question: “And where does love fit in?” She wanted to know my thoughts on the subject. Nothing more. I felt clumsy and ignorant. What answer could I make up? True, love was mentioned in the texts I was studying, but only one kind of love. God commands us to love Him. But a woman? A woman can be innocent yet bewitching. As I wasn't answering, she pursued her cross-examination in a more and more pressing voice: “Have you ever loved, I mean loved a woman, a woman like me?”
I'm done for, I said to myself; I felt I was going to be spirited away by the thousand and one demons populating hell. Fortunately, I heard the front door. In a flash, Ruth stood straight and changed her expression to welcome her mother: “I was waiting for you,” she said. As for me, I plunged back into my book, hoping that all this had been nothing but a dream, soon to be dissipated, and whose effects would remain invisible. The two women retired to the kitchen. One second later I went out to meet Jonathan. Would he be able to guess what had just happened to me? I decided not to tell him anything.
But in the course of the afternoon, I interrupted our study and asked: “What do you think of sin?”
“Which sin?”
“Any sin. At which point does a thought gone astray or a repressed desire become a sin?”
“For example?”
In order to avoid mined territory, I answered: “The existence of God. Imagine someone who begins to doubt, who is afraid that he is losing his faith but continues to practice the mitzvoth; is he a sinner?”
“I don't know what to answer. To live without faith is inconceivable to me. God is God and He is everywhere, both in the stars and in the dust. How can one imagine His nonexistence?”
“But if God is everywhere, hence in our acts as well, and in our thoughts, how can our instincts, our failings be explained?” I asked.
“One day, we'll study Maimonides, the Prague Maharal, the philosophers. For the moment, I'll say to you that in my opinion God knows all the answers. Or better: God is the universal answer to all questions.”
I remarked to myself: there are men who have a thousand things to conceal; I have only one. Then Ruth burst into my mind again, and I decided to change the subject.
The next day, I sat down to work again alone in the dining room. But I realized that I was waiting for Ruth. And it was while waiting for her that I lost my innocence. It's so simple and obvious: as a result of waiting, I forgot God, and He too is supposed to be waiting for us.
Could He have forgotten too?
At that point, the door opened and Ruth entered, holding a basket of cherries. As usual, she remained standing, a faint smile on her lips. Aware that I was blushing, she lowered her eyes. I felt distraught, unrecognizable to myself. Every limb in my body disowned me. However, Ruth continued to look at me, while her smile became more marked and pensive. I felt like telling her that I thought she was beautiful, as beautiful as the biblical Sarah and Rachel, Jacob's beloved, King Solomon's Sulamite, my only points of reference when it came to beauty, but I didn't dare. I felt like telling her that she moved me, but I didn't know how to. The pregnant silence became unbearable. It was she who broke it. “What are you thinking about?”
Should I admit that I was thinking about her? That I'd thought of nothing else but her since the day before?
“I'm studying.”
“What are you studying?”
“The Midrash.”
“What part of the Midrash?”
“The problem of redemption.”
“I knew it was a promise; I didn't know it was a problem.”
“It's both.”
“Isn't it one or the other?”
“Oh, that would take too long to explain,” I said.
“We have time. My mother went to see a sick friend; she won't be back until the afternoon.” She stopped, breathing quickly. “We're alone,” she said.
All of a sudden, I was overcome with panic. Imperceptibly, Ruth's face came closer to mine. Stupidly, stammering, like a lunatic, I started repeating what Jonathan and I had learned those last few weeks: the goal of man isn't just to free himself of the evil that threatens him and entraps him; he must also end the exile of the Jewish people and all peoples by hastening the arrival of the Messiah. How is that to be accomplished? Nothing is easier: by restoring to Creation, through moral acts, its original equilibrium, in other words, its purity.
She gazed at me at length and started to laugh.
“And here I was, convinced you were thinking about me!” she said. “And what if I told you that I need to free myself too?”
I held my breath; it's better to keep silent. And Ruth went on. “You and your friend, and my father, and your teachers, you think you're the only ones who want to save the world? There are people who claim you're on the wrong track. I was told about a young Polish Jew, before the war, the son of a rich merchant, who worked toward the same goal. He was a Communist.”
“I don't understand: Jewish and a Communist? Can the two go together?”
“It seems that in the past, yes. This young Jew came home one evening and just declared that God did not exist and that the world would be freed when all men realized it.”
“Ridiculous,” I said. “For any society, denying the existence of God can only bring about even greater oppression, brutality, cruelty—”
“I agree with you. Only—”
“Only what?”
“If God's existence implies that we must obey His laws and if these laws forbid me to love, what should I do?”
What did she expect from me? That I cut myself loose from the discipline that binds me to Moses? That I free
her from her ties? From her fiancé, perhaps? I was more naïve than she, and weaker. Immersed in matters of the soul, I knew nothing of the mysteries of the body, mysteries that she must have known. Here she was leaning over me, and I didn't know how to behave. I didn't stand up and run away. She was very close and I remained seated. She came closer still, and my head burst. She extended her hand to me. Since I didn't react, she seized mine.
“We're alone,” she whispered in my ear. “Alone in the house. Alone in a world that tells us not to be afraid.” Still whispering, she pressed her lips against mine. “We're mad,” she said, “and that's good. Let's give thanks to this holy madness. It offers our bodies their due by making us free and triumphant.”
A thought stabbed me like the blade of a knife: if this continues, I'll have to suffer the trials of hell. But it didn't continue. It was Ruth who put an end to the ordeal. She released me and began to laugh.
“You see? Heaven isn't up there; it is here, and I can create it, with your body and mine.” She continued to laugh and handed me a few cherries. “Taste them; they too come from heaven,” she said.
Then she straightend up, ran her hand through her hair, and headed for the door. As for me, I was gripped by the old sensation of being abandoned. I thought of Ruth's parents. Being cursed by them or by God, I didn't know which would be worse. I only knew that I would be. I'd crossed a threshold, violated a taboo, and nothing would ever be the same. I was both the judge and the man condemned. I lost not only my innocence but also my self-respect.
And a voice rose within me, the voice of a madman waiting in ambush, already seized with panic: “Lord, may my guilt not tarnish you.”
“Well, Doctor, think about this question: Can man become mad because of God? You're not answering? Here's another one: Can man choose his madness?”
“Madness and choice,” says Thérèse, “an odd combination of words. I wonder why you've used it. And why when speaking of Ruth.”
“I have no idea; it just came to me.”
“Without thinking?”
“Yes. Without thinking.”
“By mere chance?”
“Yes. Pure chance.”
“The mind doesn't work by chance, believe me,” she says.
“Mine does.”
“Because it's exceptional?”
“I don't claim there's anything exceptional about me; I'm not narcissistic.”
“But you've just attributed an interesting dimension to chance.”
“Interesting? For whom?”
“For both of us.”
“Not for me,” I say.
“Does my being interested bother you?”
“No. But still I'd rather change the subject.”
“Because it concerns Ruth?”
“No. Yes.”
“Ruth is part of your illness?”
“Possibly. I'd rather not dwell on it.”
“She hurt you, didn't she?”
“By doing what?”
“By making fun of you. By first trying to seduce you and then rejecting you?”
“That's not how things went, not that way.”
“So how?”
“I told you. Let's change the subject.”
She asks me additional questions and repeats others in her professional, impassive, impersonal voice, as though she is filling out an administrative form; nothing I can say will make her change her rhythm or tone: a human machine, that's what she is. I withdraw into a gloomy silence. What drives her to submit me to this cross-examination? Who does she think she is? I know this kind of exercise. I no longer answer her. She brings it up again during subsequent sessions. I don't understand her obstinacy. Why is she so interested in this silly and humiliating adolescent episode? She clings to it; it's impossible to get her to drop it. As for me, all I want is to forget it. She wants the opposite. She wants me to go back in time, relive the seduction scene, and rummage around the dark and dirty areas. Might she be a bit lascivious, this charming therapist who requires payment for the pleasure my past provides her?
During our forty-fourth session, a few minutes before the end, she succeeds in catching me off guard—even worse: in shaking me up. She puts the question to me calmly, as though it is about the weather.
“There's a little detail here that escapes me: Are you sure of the truthfulness of your Ruth story?”
“I don't understand what you mean.”
“I'm talking about your memory. Surely it isn't perfect; no memory is. Do you really believe that the experience you described corresponds to reality?”
“I still don't understand what you're driving at,” I say, trying to contain my anger.
“This can happen even to people who are healthy psychologically. With the years, the past becomes blurred. We forget real events and ‘remember’ dreams or imaginary episodes.”
“And you think … I lied!”
“I think your memory may have lied to you. Isn't it useful and important, both for you and for me, to consider all the possibilities?”
She stands firm, whereas I stick to my guns. She insists; I don't give in. Yet, deep down, doubt creeps in. A victim of my present-day certainties, could I be mistaken about my past? Could I have taken my desires for shared promises? The therapist sees more clearly inside me than I myself. After several weeks, guiding me with a word or silence, she succeeds in making me rediscover the truth: there was nothing between Ruth and me. Our very last meeting, similar to the previous ones but shorter, took place in an uncomfortable, uninterrupted silence. There were no insolent questions or abstract answers. There was Ruth's beauty, which I acknowledged, admired, and loved, that's all. Had I desired her body? I'm not even sure. I think she shook my hand on arrival, but with a lowered gaze. Was I too shy or cowardly to take the initiative? Had I kissed her, would she have pushed me away and reminded me that she was engaged? There's no way of knowing. I was close to very few women in my life. Yet I'll always remember Ruth and our innocent relationship.
But … if there had been nothing between us, why did I portray myself as guilty? Why did I invent this role for myself?
She has driven me mad, if I wasn't already so, my brilliant, irascible therapist. With a wave of her magic wand, my knowledge has seeped away and my memory has grown dim. Swept up in a dreamlike whirlwind of aggressive dancers and shy warriors, oscillating between laughter and agony, the noise of the ocean and the tranquility of mountaintops, once again I lose all sense of identity. I talk to myself and can't decide whether I am the person talking or the person listening, the person who believes in God or the one who doesn't. Hounded by dark, demonic forces, I am running without making headway or even moving—as though I exist outside space and time. At one moment, I know that dawn is approaching, but right afterward I correct myself: it is midnight.
Shortly after the real or imaginary incident with Ruth, I left my family and its excessively strict environment. So as not to see Ruth anymore? More likely so I would no longer be exposed to the temptation. I knew that the next time around I wouldn't know how to resist. I gave my uncle Avrohom a more or less plausible explanation: I was about to turn twenty; at this stage in my studies, I felt a need to deepen my knowledge by going to a Bene Beraq or Jerusalem yeshiva. Sitting opposite him at the table, my hands on my knees, looking lost, I answered his questions. Still anti-Zionist, he wanted to be sure that I wasn't going to the Holy Land in order to fight the Arabs.
“They say there will be war over there,” he said.
“No doubt.”
“Do you want to die?”
“No.”
“To live?”
“No again.”
“What do you want?”
“I don't know. All I know is I have to get away.”
“Is it an escape?”
“Maybe.”
“An escape from or an escape to something?”
“Maybe both,” I said.
“You won't get involved in politics over there? You promise?”
“I promise.”
“Or in business?”
“I promise.”
“You're going solely to study the Torah, agreed?”
“Agreed, Uncle Avrohom.”
“And nothing else?”
“Nothing else.”
“Are you going alone?”
“Alone.”
“For how long?”
“For as long as it takes to fulfill myself in my studies.”
“That can take a lifetime.”
“I realize that.”
“When do you plan to leave?”
“In a few weeks or a few months. I haven't set a definite date.”
“And who will pay for your trip? I'm not very wealthy.”
“I know, Uncle Avrohom.”
“Bah, we have time to think about it. With God's help, we're bound to find a solution.”
“Yes. With God's help.”
Avrohom reflected for a minute, stroked his beard, and said, “I'm sure that up there your parents are proud of you.”
And me, recalling my failed affair with Ruth, I said to myself: I'm not so sure.
As for the sessions with Thérèse Goldschmidt, they continue. And they're going rather badly.
EXCERPT FROM DR. THéRèSE GOLDSCHMIDT'S NOTES
“I can't go on,” I say to Martin. “I'm at the end of my tether.” I inspect my nails with a vexed expression, as I do whenever I'm dissatisfied.
“Can you talk about it?” Martin asks.
“No … Yes … if you want. After all, you aren't a stranger.”
“Is it your Doriel burden once again?”
“Yes. I realize I can't possibly help him. He escapes me.”
“He refuses to cooperate? He clings to his illness, is that it?”
“He's an unhappy man no longer seeking happiness.”