The Oath

by Elie Wiesel

  “I don’t deny it. The idea was mine, I thought it was good. It was meant to help me gain time. Unfortunately, I am like you in this affair: alone and without accomplices. And the mob across the street is growing by the hour. Once it starts to move, nothing will hold it back.”

  For the first time since his arrest—that morning? only that morning?—Moshe experienced total, all-encompassing pain, overflowing and reaching into his consciousness. Thinking was as painful as breathing, as moving, as speaking. “The mob, you, me. What do you mean? That the ordeal is useless? My sacrifice in vain? That I am of no use living or dead? I am sent back and forth from one world to the other, from one role to the other—and every time it’s for nothing? Is that what you mean?”

  There was such sorrow, such despair in his voice that the Prefect, moved more than ever, leaned over him. He touched his shoulder and said reassuringly: “Nothing is lost as yet, the game is not over …”

  But Moshe stopped him. “The truth, I demand the truth, I deserve it! I don’t want to be soothed or pitied. I want the truth, only the truth!”

  The Prefect came closer, and at last Moshe could see him: his eyes, his chin, his high forehead. Anguish mingled with kindness. The Prefect meanwhile stood in the semi-darkness contemplating that bundle of flesh that wanted, that demanded. The truth. Which truth? The mob’s or the prey’s? The truth of the living or the truth of the dead? He smiled weakly.

  “Very well, Moshe. I have too high a regard for you to lie to you or spare you. You want to know everything? All right. The situation is bad. The beast is baring its fangs. The mob is screaming about plots and ritual murder. I fear the worst—I fear a pogrom. When? No idea. In a day, a week. A little more, a little less. The capital has been alerted, but it turns a deaf ear. The militia will not obey me. How can I protect you? You can count on no one. Let us hope that God remains on your side. He seems to be your only hope.”

  “Hope?” said Moshe. “Don’t speak to me of hope.”

  The pain crept over his skin, penetrated his flesh, his bones, touched the exposed nerves and transmitted a series of tremors of blinding force and violence to his brain. He had never guessed that he could feel such pain. Thus, at the end of pain, there waited greater, more intense, more naked pain.

  The Prefect gone, Moshe cowered in a corner, as though to offer the enemy the smallest possible surface. Then he lay down on the ground, half rose, lay down again. It was no use. There was no shelter anywhere.

  To restore circulation in his fingers, he tried to run them through his beard. Impossible. The blood had dried. His beard was as hard and cold as stone.

  “Woe unto me, wretched mother that I am! They have murdered him, those degenerates, they have killed him, those enemies of Christ. I feel it, I know it, my body tells it to me, my heart repeats it, I swear it. I swear it on the head of our Saviour. My little boy, my lamb. So sweet, so gentle, so respectful. Always ready to help me in the fields, at the stable. Mothers of this town, grieve with me …”

  The stableman’s wife was lamenting from morning till night, mostly in public, acting out to perfection the role of mourning mother. She roamed the streets, the marketplace, arousing wrath, indignation, the instincts for vengeance.

  “Woe to the poor mother of this poor martyr. Yes, he is a martyr, my lamb. He died for Christ, my little one. Killed by their common enemy. Christ has taken him back to heaven, body and soul …”

  So as better to be heard, she stood in front of the church, wrapped in her black shawl, and harangued the passers-by. Her husband, meanwhile, was at home drinking himself into a stupor.

  “You who suffer for the Saviour’s holy mother, weep for me …”

  The priest, shrewd and extremely punctilious in matters relating to Christian history, thought it best to appease her: “Don’t say that, my child.”

  “Why shouldn’t I? I’m suffering!”

  “I understand your sorrow, woman. But please leave Christ alone!”

  “Leave him alone? Did they leave him alone? And my only son, my lamb, did they leave him alone?”

  “Have you been drinking? Or have you taken leave of your senses? You dare pronounce Christ’s name and that of your worthless offspring in the same breath?”

  “If my son were not a Christian, they would not have killed him, right? So am I not entitled to shout that they murdered him because of Christ?”

  The priest grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to take her home, but she wouldn’t let him. Finally, seeing them holding on to one another, one was left with the impression that they were visiting the public places together and for the same purpose.

  “We have sent out appeals,” Davidov said calmly. “There has been no response. The various steps we’ve taken have been in vain. Friends cannot be reached, associates pretend disbelief.”

  In the course of the day the president had been admitted to see the Count. He had reminded him of the kindnesses and promises of his father, who had considered himself indebted to the Jews. Now that the latter lived in fear, they were requesting his hereditary protection. Any sign of friendship on his part would be helpful. A determined stand could result in a complete turnabout of the situation. Well? Would he follow in his father’s footsteps? The question, which remained in suspense, marked the end of his plea.

  The Count had listened patiently, courteously; they had drunk a toast. But in the end he had limited himself to advising the Jews of Kolvillàg against seeing the situation in too bleak a light. “I find your pessimism disconcerting,” he had remarked good-naturedly. “You try so hard to prevent disaster, you end up provoking it. What an odd people you are.”

  “You reproach us for our pessimism, Your Excellency. Others find fault with our optimism. In fact, we are the most optimistic and the most pessimistic people in the world. A matter of perspective: we are long-range optimists, but pessimists for the immediate future. History has proved us right in both instances.”

  The castle, situated on Uncle George’s Hill, dominated the villages of the valley. From the window overlooking the forest one could see the pointed steeple of Kolvillàg’s church in the distance.

  “Let us remain in the present,” the Count had said, comfortably settled in an armchair covered with yellow and orange tapestry interwoven with blue. “A Jew admits to having killed a young Christian. If one were to believe you, you are about to be taken to the slaughterhouse, all of you, to the last man.”

  “Moshe is not guilty. He has killed nobody. Nobody has killed.”

  “Not guilty? But hasn’t he confessed …”

  “The poor man is mad. Raving mad. He aspires to martyrdom: to suffer and die in style, in holocaust.”

  “One does not exclude the other. Homicidal lunatics are not uncommon.”

  “Moshe is not mad like the others. If you knew him …”

  “I wouldn’t mind … But it’s too late for that, or am I wrong? Perhaps after the tribunal has ruled on his case. You tell me he is innocent, and I would like to believe you. But then he has nothing to fear. And neither do you. He will be tried and acquitted. You see? You cannot keep yourself from painting too dark a picture.”

  Having made his point, he had accompanied the visitor to his coach waiting in the courtyard.

  “I am petrified” was Leizerovitch’s comment. “I know him and I can interpret his most insignificant statements. Now I understand why he has refused to see me. It all makes sense. He can’t use rhetoric on me. I know him too well.”

  “Let’s call a spade a spade,” Yossel the representative of the Young Workers cried out. “The Count is lying. He is lying like a horse trader five minutes before closing time. He is in cahoots with the mob. Under the knightly mask hides the grimacing face of the assassin.”

  Davidov motioned to my father. “This comment of our friend Yossel will have to be softened somewhat.”

  “What?” My father was indignant. “Distort the truth? Falsify testimony?”

  My conscientious father seemed outra
ged. I was watching him proudly from my corner.

  “Suppose the Book falls into their hands?”

  “They wouldn’t understand a word.”

  “Proceed,” said Davidov, resigned.

  The Council had been in session since early afternoon. The threat of a pogrom seemed imminent.

  It was Wednesday, market day. The town was swarming with peasants whose eyes gleamed as they stared at the Jewish merchants and paid without haggling over prices. They stifled their sneers whenever a Jewish woman of proud bearing strolled by. There was something in the air, a kind of foreboding. The woodcutters with their axes, the farm hands with their pitchforks, the forest wardens with their rifles—one would have had to be blind not to catch their significance. Old peasant women crossed themselves at the sight of an old Hasid with the face of an ancient prophet. A bloodbath was in the making, a celebration of death.

  “What do you think of it, friend Meltzer?” asked Davidov.

  The man he thus addressed, a shtadlan, a middleman by profession, had arrived the night before from Raibaram, the town where he lived. He had a reputation for dealing with the most diverse authorities, and so Davidov had entrusted him with an eleventh-hour rescue mission.

  “What I think of it?” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Not much good. In fact, I have decided to go home. I feel that there is nothing I can do. A wall—I feel I am up against a wall. This is the first time this has ever happened to me. I contacted some of my most reliable people. Some owe me their fortune, others their career, others still consider me their intimate friend. Make them talk, I tried to make them talk. They all dodged my questions and reacted with nothing but surprise, skepticism and outrage. Nobody knew what I was talking about. Protestations of loyalty, of comradeship. Each assured me of his devotion. Comedians, the lot. I tried my luck with some of the underlings, I sneaked them a few bills; they gave them back. I insisted, I doubled the sums; nothing helped. And yet they certainly do need money, I am in a good position to know. Wasted effort. Mouths are clamped shut, palms are closed. Their way of being honest, of serving me notice, warning? Their way of telling me that things are bad? That since they cannot be of service to me, they do not deserve a fee? How is one to know. I can only repeat: it looks bad, bad. I am going home with a heavy heart.”

  The chronicler stopped writing. His head was bent over the Book, his right hand was rubbing his temples; his migraine was giving him no respite. Outside, the wind was rasping in the trees, sweeping the windowpanes. Dumbfounded by Meltzer’s report, the councillors were staring into space. The only sounds to be heard were the agitated, jerky breathing of old Gimpel on the verge of an asthma attack and the irritating tick-tock of the old clock.

  “Thank you for your trouble, friend Meitzer,” said Davidov. “In your opinion, what should be our next step?”

  “To prepare yourselves, prepare yourselves for the worst.”

  He stood up and walked around the table, shaking hands.

  “Go in peace, friend Meitzer,” said Davidov. “Our wishes accompany you.”

  With Meltzer gone and Davidov seated again, the session resumed.

  “Do any of you have contacts with the underworld?” Davidov asked with mock amusement. And more seriously: “It is sometimes easier to find an honest man among horse thieves, in taverns of ill-repute, among hardened criminals than in so-called respectable circles.”

  Somebody forced a laugh, and my father, without a word, scrupulously recorded it in his thick notebook. His heart was pounding hard, harder than during the Kol Nidre service. And strangely, he heard an obscure voice ordering him to record that too.

  At the other end of town an eternally bereaved widow, Shifra the Mourner, opened the black gates of the cemetery and headed straight for her husband’s grave. In spite of the strong wind, she succeeded in lighting a funeral candle. She set it down on the ground, then burst into sobs.

  “You there, up above, come to our rescue. Move the heavens and those who dwell in them. Appeal to our ancestors, to the Just Men you have known and to the saints you have served. Tell them in your own words that we have been left to our fate. Tell them of our anguish. Let them be our interpreters with God, blessed be He, so that He may receive our prayers. Let them ask Him if He will be proud, if He will be happy to learn that the Jewish community of Kolvillàg—yours, theirs—no longer exists. Let them ask Him if it is His will, His glory to reign over a town without Jews, a world without Jews, a world peopled with killers …”

  Stretched out on the grave, the old woman was weeping with even greater sorrow than at the funeral of her husband, the dayan who had had the good fortune, the saintly man, of dying in his bed.

  Within the walls of the House of Study, lit by a row of candles, the faithful gathered behind Rebbe Levi-Yitzhak, a nephew of Rebbe Zusia of Kolomey by marriage and a great-grandson of the Great Maggid of Premishlan. The Rebbe was concluding the Minhah service. It was still early.

  Ordinarily people met at dusk and in lesser numbers. But this was a special occasion; the new scrolls of the Law, whose transcription had been commissioned by Reb Sholem, the richest Hasid at the Rebbe’s court, were arriving that very evening. Decided upon a long time ago, the celebration had excited the congregation. This kind of inaugural festivity was stimulating and rare. And yet, the times being what they were, would it not be advisable to announce a postponement of a few days?

  After services Reb Sholem could be seen whispering, consulting the Rebbe, who, looking concerned but determined, was shaking his head no.

  “The celebration will take place as planned,” proclaimed Reb Sholem. “We may not offend the Torah. We shall keep the appointment but we will advance it by two hours.”

  When the Rebbe opened the door to return to his private quarters, the wind swept in and blew out all the candles but one.

  For Shaike, leader of the militant youth, there was no question of preparing for a religious “wedding,” but for a battle. He had gathered fifty or so members in the school hall that served as their meeting place. This is what he had to say: “Our leaders’ policies are bankrupt and they admit it. The authorities no longer sell indulgences, they can no longer be bought, they no longer play at being benefactors. I say it’s for the best. Gone the era of hypocrisy, gone the era of illusions. Now we know the score. And so does Davidov.”

  He was employed by the president, who loved to tease him about his revolutionary ideas. Gone, the time for teasing.

  Shaike, a dynamic and muscular young man with fiery eyes, had gone through an apprenticeship in a vacation colony and had come back stuffed with ideology. A certain segment of the youth followed him. They liked the meetings, the singing, the dancing, the dreaming. They loved to recall the splendor of Galilee and of Jerusalem.

  “We are going to fight,” said Shaike, who was not adverse to grandiloquence. “The hour of truth has struck. The time for self-defense has come. It will be a difficult, heroic struggle. The chances of victory are slim, but history commands us to try, not to win.”

  “Pure suicide,” someone in the last row was heard to mumble.

  “Possibly,” Shaike retorted. “No, probably. No, certainly. What are the alternatives? To let ourselves be slaughtered like sheep, or to die with weapons in our hands. Perish as martyrs, or fall as heroes. Two categories, two extreme points of view in which our history abounds. With nothing in between.”

  Sitting on benches, the boys and girls, the latter a minority, looked more like well-behaved, interested schoolchildren than like warriors. An algebra problem covered the blackboard. Through dirty, dusty windowpanes one could see three poplars, a tall one and two small ones, their stiff branches stretched over the empty playground as if to watch over it.

  “Davidov and his colleagues consider us scatterbrains,” said Shaike. “They had better keep quiet now; their methods have failed. Let’s try ours. No more bargaining. No more servility. Gone, all ambiguity. Since the enemy is sharpening his sword, we shall forge our own. This p
ogrom will be unlike any other!”

  Words—the impotence of words. Inadequate but indispensable to fight a battle. Shaike used them not so much to win as to win over. Many of the members present had once occupied these very same benches. This was where they had studied history, grammar, geography. Now they were listening to him talking of pogroms.

  “But we are not armed,” a voice objected. “This sword you mentioned—where will you find it?”

  Many objections were raised: they lacked training, they were too few. If only we had more time, thought Shaike. We could learn to manufacture bombs in the manner of anarchists. But they lacked everything, including time. They had nothing but words:

  “We have nothing? Never mind. We are not soldiers? Never mind. And what about Jewish honor? And Jewish history? And Jewish dignity? Do they count for nothing? We have no weapons? We shall fight without weapons. With planks and clubs, hatchets and iron bars, stones and bricks. We lack training? We shall acquire it in battle. We shall resist the attack, we shall not submit. We shall no longer be passive onlookers. If die we must, let us die standing, in the open air, not in cellars with the rats. With dignity, not resignation!”

  Was it the speaker’s enthusiasm or his listeners’ naïveté? The atmosphere had changed. The ambivalence of words: helpless against the enemy, all-powerful for us. These boys and girls were transfigured; they saw themselves as disciples of the young General Bar-Kochba, occupying the Judean mountains, erupting into the legend of their people.

  Then Shaike confronted them with this superb biblical challenge: “If among you there is one who is afraid, let him go home.”

  They were all afraid, but none dared to admit it. Their first victory was over fear. Tasting his first triumph, Shaike gave orders: pass the word, be on the ready, close the shutters, lock the doors, erect barricades, transform every dwelling into a fortress, make the assassins’ task both difficult and costly.