“It's true,” I ventured, “it's true that I'm young. But age has nothing to do with it. Even if I were a hundred years old, I wouldn't understand. I would refuse to understand. Yet I'd like to continue listening to you.”
He recounted an episode that he described as one of the most excruciating in his life. On leaving the camps, since he didn't know whether his brother was alive, he went home. Along the way, he stopped in Bendin, the small town where he had lived with his parents. Strangers were occupying their home. Irate, they refused to let him in and yelled: “You're still alive, Yid? If you want to remain so, you'd better get away from here, far away.” At the police station, he was told that there were no more Jews in the town; most of them had been annihilated. As for the few survivors, they preferred to live in the capital, or in Lodz, Kraków, or Lublin. He was advised to leave too. What was the point of obstinately trying to live in such a hostile place? He should move to Warsaw. Which he did. Shortly afterward, he learned that his brother was still alive. And that he had become an important figure in the new government. Their reunion was very moving. No need to go into it. Samek was dying to go back to see the revolting occupants of their former house.
“I asked my brother to come with me, and we were treated to a different kind of welcome. We had the police chief as our personal protector and guide. When we arrived in front of our house, I wondered how the occupants were going to behave this time. I was due for a surprise. The house was empty. ‘Where are the “tenants”?’ I cried out. ‘Punished, chased away,’ replied the police chief. What he forgot to mention was that their punishment was of short duration. The day after we left, they were back, the new owners of my parents’ house.”
Samek took a deep breath as though he was inhaling cigarette smoke. His hands were trembling. “One must be both daring and humble,” he went on, forehead lowered. “One must be able to describe the most horrible things with the simplest words, in a calm voice, devoid of emotion. Some stories deserve more than the immediate emotion they arouse. That feeling only helps us appease our consciences, absolve ourselves, and persuade ourselves that we're not so wicked or blameworthy, proof being that we suffer with the victims.”
In Bendin, Samek found the last Jew from his city. How had he escaped the roundups and massacres before being informed on—by whom?—and then deported by the Germans to Auschwitz? No one knew. He alone could have answered. But he was beyond reach, in a hospital, suffering from aphasia.
“Symbolic, don't you think?” remarked Samek. “The only person in the world who could have testified about so many deaths was struck with aphasia. It's simple; the words just wouldn't come out. As if God Himself feared his deposition.”
“What do you expect from me?” I asked him. “Why am I here?”
“Patience, young man,” he said, slightly irritated. “Do you think I chose you? It's nothing to do with me; life decides, perhaps according to a logic whose meaning we grasp only much later. But first, if you don't mind, let's go back to the last survivor in my town. Do you know why and how he lost the power of speech? When he returned from the camps, he decided to roam the world and tell people about the unspeakable; he hoped to lift the world from its torpor and from an indifference that could lead it to its own annihilation. He spoke, he spoke everywhere, to the point of exhaustion. ‘You seek pleasure? Think of its futility. You dream of wealth? Over there a piece of bread was more valuable than a thousand pearls. Honors excite you? Where I come from, they were worth less than dust.’ At first, people listened to him and wept or kept silent. Then they turned their backs on him. And as he refused to become discouraged, they sought to humiliate him. Nevertheless, he pursued his mission. Then individuals with unsound morals began to accuse him of lying. They interrupted him and yelled: ‘You weren't even deported; you're inventing suffering that you never experienced just in order to arouse pity and earn money.’ He heard these calumnies even in a school where he had come to talk to a young audience. That's when he fainted. He was brought to the hospital. And since then, he has never uttered another word.”
Samek stared at me as if checking to see whether I understood him. Yes, I understood him. I had read enough witnesses’ accounts to know that the survivor's tragedy doesn't stop when his ordeal comes to an end. Just as a defiled woman remains one for life, or a tortured man stays one forever. But I still didn't understand why I was there.
Samek stood up, walked around the room again, poured himself a glass of water to clear his throat, and said: “As you can see, I'm ill too.”
Then he returned to his story. Unlike his brother, he had been fooled by the Germans and had lived in the ghetto with his parents before being deported with them; he was separated from them in front of the Birkenau ramp. Now I listened to him as I might have listened to a ghost, and I wondered if he wasn't the unfortunate aphasic survivor whose fate he had described to me and who might have eventually recovered.
“My elderly father, my mother, three uncles, and two aunts died that night,” he said in a calm, monotonous, impersonal voice. “I was lucky. I passed the selection and was declared fit for the painful, exhausting, inhuman work that isn't sufficiently talked about. Sometimes I said to myself, Thank God my parents can't see the kind of life their son is forced to lead. In fact, it wasn't a life. The cold and the hunger, the fear and the blows, the yelling of the kapos and the barking of the dogs gained the upper hand. Ill at liberation, I was a living dead man. And I still am. It may not be obvious, but I haven't much time left to bring this story to an end. For it remains unfinished. And that's where you come in.”
“Me? But I'm not a physician!”
“I know. I told you: I know everything about you—where you come from and what you've done with your life.”
Should I ask him for specifics, for details?
“But for the time being I would like to finish telling you about mine. It was very bounteous. Esteem, respect, authority: I could indulge all my wishes, for I could buy anything. Yes, I became wealthy. A multimillionaire. At first thanks to the black market, later because I learned how to invest in the stock market. I had a gift for speculation. I took care of my sick brother. I paid for everything: the best doctors, the most devoted nurses, the most expensive resorts. It's because of him that I remained in Poland for years. Actually, I offered to take him to France, Israel, or Florida, but he always refused. He had his own reasons for wanting to stay near his native city. That's where he's buried. Before dying he told me about his war experience. I knew only what I had read in the official or unofficial newspapers. His feats of arms, his political fights, his return to his origins: yes, as the end drew near, he became interested in Jewish culture and the Jewish tradition. He immersed himself in the sacred texts, and requested that the Kaddish be recited at his grave and during the year of mourning. For that, I hired the services of a Jerusalem yeshiva. But he also told me about his intimate life. Affairs, triumphs of desire followed by romantic disappointments. I was particularly moved by the last one. He was in love with a Jewish fighter his age, a woman who still had some youthfulness, much grace, maturity, and character, and an innocent quality in her words and behavior. But she was married. This left him with a feeling of frustration and failure; he resented destiny. In his final months, he thought only of that woman, imagining her at his bedside, a faithful and fervent wife. After his funeral, in order to fulfill his last request, though I wasn't sure I had understood it, I set about trying to find this woman to learn what she had to say about my brother or to talk to her about him. It was a difficult and thankless task. I went through government files and national archives; I moved heaven and hell— in vain.”
He fell silent, as if, at that point, it was better not to go on with revelations to someone who was, after all, a stranger. I took the opportunity to ask him, without hiding my nervousness, my own little question: What did he expect from me? Why was I there?
Suddenly, he became short of breath and blood rushed to his face. “Excuse me,” he said
. “I'm familiar with this kind of malaise. It's a sign I need to pause. Let's leave the rest for our next meeting. If you don't mind, we'll continue tomorrow. At the same time.”
He disappeared into the bedroom. I went home, my heart heavy with foreboding.
My uncle, to whom I described the meeting, was just as confused and perplexed as I. He wanted me to describe every last detail of our conversation. What kind of old or new accent did Samek have in Yiddish: Galician, Lithuanian, Romanian? I had no idea. Did he need reading glasses? He hadn't read anything in my presence. Did he seem to have other problems besides his health? Indeed, he said he was sick, but what illness did he have? He had been silent on the subject. My uncle and I talked far into the night. He wondered whether the strange fellow might be a crook (no), a fighter (no again), an international adventurer (perhaps) trying to find allies or naïve accomplices (no, that was going too far). As for me, even if I dismissed all those possibilities, I had to acknowledge that I had no alternative explanation. All that came to mind was that this Samek Ter-nover had a more fertile imagination than I.
“But then,” my uncle cried out, excited, “since we shouldn't be seeing him as evil, why not see him as good? What if this Samek—or Shmuel—Ternover is the prophet Elijah, protector of orphans, sent by God to help you establish yourself in life and start a family in accordance with the law of Moses and of Israel?”
Noticing my incredulity, he took another tack.
“Perhaps we're dealing with one of the thirty-six hidden righteous men thanks to whom the universe still exists. Perhaps he sought to meet you because he guessed you were a mystical soul who could help him overthrow the order of things? But in that case, may the Lord—blessed be His name—forgive my impudence; it would mean that we've entered the pre-messianic era.”
I tried to appease him. I told him not to worry; the following morning I would be seeing Samek again, and we would have all the answers to our questions—except, of course, as concerned the date of the last redemption.
The next morning, Samek was waiting for me in front of the elevator. How did he know I had arrived? Gesturing with his hand, he invited me to follow him. I sat on the same chair as the day before. A beam of sunshine came in through the window, as if to sweep away the shadows. I was grateful for it. Oddly, I felt less threatened. As he had the day before, Samek remained standing. Deathly pale, frail, his features drawn, tired-looking as after a sleepless night, he scrutinized me in a way that was disconcerting , but I held my own against his inquisitive gaze. At last he questioned me in a hoarse voice. “Have you thought about it?”
“About what?”
“About what is happening to you.”
“Yes.”
“So?”
“My uncle thinks you've come to test me because you're one of the hidden righteous men, working for the coming of the Messiah.”
“And what about you? What do you think of me?”
“I don't know what to think. I still have no idea what I'm doing in this hotel room.”
“And in life?” he asked.
“I don't understand.”
“Do you have any idea what you're doing in your life?”
“Same as you, our wise men would say: helping the Creator make His Creation more hospitable and His creatures more just, more charitable.”
He gazed at me for a long time without saying a word, then shook his head in denial. “If you believe in God, you should know that God addresses us in myriad ways, conferring on each of us a specific mission. You and I, the two of us and your uncle, he and every person in the street, each of us lives only for one instant, one event, one meeting. In my case, it's probable I lived, or rather survived, with the sole aim of being face-to-face with you yesterday, today, and for who knows how much longer.”
I told him I understood less and less. Why had he chosen me? What for?
He smiled faintly and awkwardly. “I'll tell you the rest of my story,” he said. “My brother still plays a major role in it, maybe his final role.”
In a low voice, his gaze lost in the distance, he described the love story his brother lived during and after the war. The courage and heroism of two young Jews fighting against oppression, humiliation, and death. Guardians of Jewish honor, they waged a desperate and merciless war against the Germans. For both, this was the most beautiful, vibrant and authentic period in their lives. The liberation separated them.
“My brother's suffering is hard to imagine. Because this woman was special, peerless, unique from every point of view. I alluded to her yesterday. She wasn't free. Her life didn't belong to her. She was married. Yes, married. This didn't prevent my brother from loving her. And like everything he did, he loved her with all his heart—to his last breath. In his final days, he asked me to try to find her. To give her his farewell.”
He stopped, as if to catch his breath, his face turning pale and bloodless, then red. And he went on: “I have no idea why this meant so much to him, but that's the way my brother was. Strange, hard to fathom. He often wanted and did things that we couldn't understand. But I gave him my word.”
“And did you ever find this special woman?”
“I looked for her for years, but when finally I tracked her down, it was too late. Yet I succeeded in finding her son. He will be very wealthy. Yes, he won't have to worry about money anymore. He'll be able to afford anything he wants. As I said yesterday: like my brother, I'm sick. I have very little time left. The son of that woman whom my brother loved so dearly will be my heir.”
“But what about his mother?”
His face clouded over. “She died a few months after last seeing my brother.” After a silence, he said, “In France. Leah died in France.”
It was as if I'd received a dizzying punch in the stomach. I was stunned, breathless. My memory was suddenly awakened and I was whisked back in time. I should have guessed.
“Leah … Leah … like my mother,” I said.
Samek inhaled deeply and whispered: “It was your mother.”
I closed my eyes, and saw myself again as a child, far away. I was in pain; my head was bursting. My heart was beating wildly. Now I understood everything.
“Your brother,” I said slowly, trying not to betray my emotion, “I remember him. I saw him.”
Samek smiled. “I know. Leah was his great love.”
“I think I guessed as much.”
Now I understood what I was doing in this room. However, I paused before adding: “But my mother didn't love him, not really.”
“That too, I know. She loved only you.”
“No. Not just me. She loved my father.”
Why was I so upset? Why were my eyes filling with tears? Samek smiled, but his smile had changed: it was buried in his quivering wrinkles. In a gentle, melancholic voice, he started to tell me about Romek, his brother. Describing the last years of his life. His illness, his fear of sinking from one day to the next, unaware, into a physical and mental decline, in short, of becoming an invalid, a “vegetable.” His sorrow about not having any descendants. At disappearing without a trace.
“Do you know whom he thought about just before … before passing away?” Samek asked.
“How could I know?”
“About you. He spoke your name. He named you as his heir. Theoretically, it was supposed to be me. He told me so. But he added that I wouldn't be his only heir.”
As I remained silent, he stared at me with his haunted gaze and mumbled: “You. Yes, you. You're in his will, like me. And since I have no one and my days are numbered, you'll be our only heir.”
He let out a small raspy laugh, a mixture of regret, remorse, and humor. “Do you realize what that means? Quite simply, it means your life has changed. You've become wealthy. You can indulge all your fantasies. All your dreams—you're free to fulfill them as you please. Quite a grand moment, isn't it? Admit it's miraculous. It was so I could experience it that I've been looking for you for so long. You won't forget us, will you? Promise you won
't forget what you owe us.”
“I don't understand a thing,” I said, blushing.
A strange feeling of guilt overcame me, and I wondered why. Was it because I recalled my dead parents? Or Romek, who was also dead? Perhaps because of my new wealth, undeservedly acquired?
My head was spinning and spinning. I saw myself at my parents’ funeral, surrounded by angry men and motionless women, silent in their grief. They all looked menacing. I was worried, but oddly I didn't know why or since when. What was Samek doing in all this? He has not the one watching out for me; it was his brother. I saw him again with my mother. They were close; that was certain. And he loved her, but this was obvious only now, thanks to this messenger of fate. And my mother, did she love him back? Not continuously, not even a week, but one night, one hour? My head wasn't spinning anymore; it froze and felt like it would burst any minute.
20
One morning, I'm walking down a snowy Madison Avenue and I stop in front of the window of my favorite pastry shop. I'm attracted by the distinctive taste of their cakes, and I've been coming here almost every day for the last few weeks. To pass the time, as a kind of entertainment. The warm atmosphere makes me feel good. Observing a silly ritual inherited from my sessions with Thérèse Goldschmidt, as soon as I enter, I allow myself free expression and request whatever crosses my mind: a piece of sky, a cheerful popular song, a white pen and blue paper, a multicolored dove, anything. Today, I'm in the mood for a hot chocolate and a croissant; I order a shirt and necktie. The young waitress doesn't look surprised anymore. She knows what to expect. She gazes at me for a minute, as if checking to see if I had become normal and serious again; then, without any sign of confusion, she agrees to take care of me, in a minute, she says, smiling, in a strictly professional tone of voice. But this morning, something utterly unexpected occurs. Had fate decided to reveal to me her most hidden face, I could not have been more surprised. For, as if she has occult powers, including the power to read my mind, the waitress brings me a hot chocolate and a croissant and says, straight-faced: “I'm sorry, I'm all out of shirts and neckties. But I have black gloves. You'll see, they're lovely, and they'll be perfect for you.”