ONE DAY, BOLEK INTRODUCED GAMALIEL TO A sturdy old shopkeeper from Brooklyn. The man kept looking around suspiciously, as if he thought every passerby might be an informer. He was more straightforward than Lebrun:
“They tell me you know how to write. I don’t. Matter of fact, I hardly know how to read. Not surprising. My school was the ghetto, the war, the camp. I was a partisan in Russia. In the forest. Saw a lot, did a lot. Fighting the Germans, of course. Also their collaborators. I had my reasons, twelve of them. Twelve members of my family butchered in one morning. Right in front of our home. So write my story as best you can, if you can; write it your way and, of course, put your name on it. I’ll pay you well.”
A tempting offer. But though peace can be told in words, war cannot. Words can incite the murderous hatred that is war, but words cannot describe it. In principle, one should not be able to put it into words, this horror that is war, this blasphemy that is war, this grotesque agony, this licensed slaughter, this glorified butchery that is war. James Joyce knew that, as did Franz Kafka; neither wrote about the First World War. War kills the dream along with the dreamer: It blinds the mind’s eye so it cannot see the horizon.
Thus it was that although Gamaliel was moved to write the man’s story, he had to tear it up. He told him by letter:
“I do not know how to write your story. I do not know how to revive those haunted faces, those silent voices who, through you, would summon us to hear them tell of their deaths and perhaps our own. All I can do is tell you that I can’t do it—and shake your hand.”
A few years later, he sent the Brooklyn shopkeeper this quotation from a book by Maurice Blanchot he had just read: “And how can we agree not to know? We read the books about Auschwitz. The last wish of those who were there, their last charge to us, was: know what happened here, never forget, and yet know that you will never know.”
HE THOUGHT OF CALLING DIEGO. HE STILL HAD time before his appointment at the hospital.
Diego, with his jutting chin and black forelock over eyes that opened wide, as if he were forever hearing an unexpected sound. There was an air of challenge about the short, stocky Jew from Lithuania who claimed he was Spanish. Right now, he was probably guzzling his lemonade the way he did his wine ration under the African sun, while recalling his adventures in the Foreign Legion in Morocco and the Djebel of Algeria, or the time he spent locked up in Franco’s prisons and France’s internment camps. At times, he would pretend to be drunk and shout, “I am a free man!” And then, as if sobered by his own frenzy, he would add, “I’ll lay down my life but never my freedom.” He loved to tell about his skirmishes with French bureaucracy. One such tale, punctuated as always with laughter:
Paris, 1958. On a lovely, tranquil day, Diego went to the Bureau of Missing Persons at police headquarters. One place he didn’t have to wait in line. “Yes?” the clerk said irritably, without looking up, while putting aside his pen and inkwell. Diego waited for the clerk to look up. He wanted to see the man’s eyes. He hated to talk to someone who would not meet his eyes, who would conceal his expression. “So?” the clerk asked. “You want something?”
“Yes,” said Diego.
“Go ahead. I’m listening,” said the clerk, still looking down at his record books. “Who’s missing?”
“I am,” said Diego.
At that, the clerk finally lifted his head. His eyes lit up, but for only a moment. “The insane asylum is around the corner,” he said, and he pointed to the exit.
“Fine,” said Diego with a shrug. “I’ll see you there.”
At that, the clerk jumped to his feet and grabbed his visitor by the collar.“Keep that up and I’ll have you thrown in jail!”
Once outside, Diego scolded himself: How could you, knowing what it is to be stateless, risk your freedom just for the fun of taunting the bureaucracy? A man without a country is someone to be despised. Don’t you realize that? People throw you exiles away like old clothes, turn aside as if you smell bad. . . . Only barely do they grant you the right to talk to the birds, to the trees, to the wind, to the rocks . . . no, not the rocks. I hate rocks. So cold, indifferent, mute, they make me feel inferior: They’ll still be around when I’m gone . . . and they’re not afraid of that clerk in Missing Persons. Suppose the clerk had asked you for your papers, those documents you left at home? All the police in every country on earth demand your papers, in the same hostile manner, as if that were the only thing in life that interested them . . . your papers, your papers! What a world this is, Diego reflected. . . . To take a human being with all his triumphs and failures, his memories of love and war, and reduce him to a grimy piece of paper—well, only a cop or a bank clerk thinks like that. And then he remembered he had even come across a border guard who, studying his travel permit, read as if in surprise: “ ‘Diego Bergelson . . . stateless.’ . . . That’s a funny name.” And Diego replied, deadpan, “Do you like it? I’ll sell it to you.”
When he was out on the street, Diego burst out laughing. He was laughing mostly at himself: Why hadn’t he asked for French nationality when he was being discharged from the Legion? It would have been his with a stroke of a pen. Was it from a feeling of solidarity with his Spanish comrades who were still stateless? A youth in a silver-lined black leather jacket accosted him: “Hey, you, why are you laughing?”
“Because it’s funny.”
“Who are you talking to?”
“To my comrades who disappeared in the desert. They’re the only ones I talk to. Only they know how to listen.”
“Is that why you’re talking to yourself?” the young man said snidely.
Diego wanted to shake his hand, but the youth had already moved on.
GAMALIEL AND BOLEK HAD MET WHEN THEY were both standing in line at that same police headquarters. Two men, one heavyset, the other scrawny, neither of them young, were quarreling over who was first in line at the window. A very tall, husky young man was trying goodnaturedly to separate them. “Why are you butting in?” exclaimed the fat one. “Is it any of your business?” “Yes, it’s my business,” the husky young man said. “You know that mangy character?” “No, but I’m making it my business anyway.” So began the friendship between Gamaliel and Bolek.
GAMALIEL ORDERS A SECOND CUP OF COFFEE. HE relaxes; it’s a pleasant day. Students come and go, gulping down coffee, orange juice, a banana. Some of them seem in good spirits, others gloomy. It’s exam week. Gamaliel’s thoughts are far away. He is in Europe, long ago. Who could forget springtime in Paris? The carefree air of women who have cast away their winter cloaks, exuberant and attractive, their eyes sparkling with mischief or invitation. A light breeze gently caresses the trees. In playgrounds, children are dancing around and munching their chocolate snacks. In parks, people smile and talk to strangers. Under the bridges of the Seine, the clochards serenely turn their backs on the cynical ambition so prized by a supposedly normal society. The sky, so high, so clear, beckons. Oh, if only I could go up there, Gamaliel says to himself. So many are expecting me.
THERE’S A WOMAN IN A RED KERCHIEF AT THE hospital information desk. Behind her is an untidy-looking man with a thin black beard, a high forehead, and a receding hairline. He is watching me on the sly through heavy-lidded eyes. If I catch his eye, he looks away. I don’t know this man; I’ve never met him. Why is he staring at me with what seems like disagreeable curiosity? Whom is he here for, and why: to judge, to amuse, to torment? Now he’s nodding as if he knows me. I pay no attention: He is not the person for whom I chose to live. He smiles at me, and suddenly I do think I recognize him: Is he not the wandering man, that first madman of my childhood? Hardly has the thought entered my mind than it disappears when the stranger turns away.
Well, never mind. As far as I know, he’s not the one my appointment is with. . . . I’m here for a wounded woman, virtually mute, who speaks only in Hungarian. Does she know me? The man who issues visitors’ passes earnestly wants to know; you’d think his professional future turned on this informa
tion. He questions me as if I’ve come to rob the management’s safe. Strange country, America, obsessed with anything having to do with security. Without a photo ID, God Himself would be denied admittance. Here, before the strait gate to paradise—or perhaps to hell—anyone is entitled to interrogate you about anything. Soon they’ll be asking you if you believe in the immortality of the soul, whether you prefer Mozart or Schubert, whether your mistress is cheating on you with her second husband.
“So you’re a visitor?” the man says in a tone of authority.
“Yes.”
“You’re here to see a patient?”
“Yes, she’s Hungarian. Her name—”
“Show me your ID.”
I search my pockets, but find nothing, not even a credit card or a library card. I left everything on my desk. Maybe a driver’s license? But I don’t own a car and I don’t like to drive. What can I say? The guard sounds impatient: “Come on, let’s see that ID.”
I feel around in my pockets, but still I find nothing. “I’m very sorry,” I say in a tone calculated to melt the hardest of prison guards’ hearts. “I must have left my wallet in my other suit.”
The guard despises and distrusts me—that’s obvious. He finds me offensive, or perhaps he fears me. What does he think I am? A lunatic maybe, or a criminal who’s come to kidnap a wealthy patient, or to take revenge on an incompetent doctor. Is it the way I’m dressed? This old gray suit I’m wearing is my favorite. It dates back to the time of Colette—my first wife, also my last. It’s missing a button and looks as if I’d slept in it. On holidays, like today, I’ll change my shirt, but that’s all. Do I look like a Gypsy, or some homeless man? I prefer to play the part of the absentminded professor.
“I’m sorry to say this,” says the guard, imperturbable, someone whose authority is second only to God’s, “but I must see proper identification. Those are the rules. You must understand why we”—who is “we”?—“must insist on those rules in times like these.”
Now the stranger comes to my rescue: “I know this man. I’ll vouch for him. He’s practically one of us.”
I gasp. Is this my guardian angel? Had our paths crossed in Hungary, in an Austrian hostel, in a shelter for refugees in France? Had he, too, been stateless? Had he, too, envied those fortunate enough to have the right papers, to be citizens of a nation that would protect them, while they sought to realize their dreams? Was there some sort of association across frontiers for onetime refugees, as there was for onetime soldiers?
“What is the patient’s name?” the guard asks, still sullen.
“I told you. She’s Hungarian.” I stop to catch my breath and search my memory. “Lili. Lili Rosenkrantz.” That was the name Bolek had mentioned when he gave me the message that had brought me to the hospital.
“I don’t see that name on the list.”
“I know her,” says my savior.
“But I don’t see her name. . . .”
“Don’t worry about it; I’ll see to it. You have your hands full.”
“Oh yes,” says the guard. “It’s not as if I don’t have anything to do.” He glares at me. Would he never cease suspecting me? “This patient, is she a relative?”
How could I answer that? Once again, the stranger comes to my rescue: “Yes, she’s his aunt.”
Now the guard hands me a slip of paper. “Building four, ward three.”
I go along a hall that leads to the courtyard, then to a garden. It’s nice out. A peaceful morning: Spring is arriving with a smile. Doctors come and go. Two male nurses are escorting a restless, babbling patient. His features are drawn; he looks undone, as if he has been howling in silence for so long, he can no longer hear the sounds and murmurs of the world.
I look around for my benefactor. He’s vanished. But he was there at the right time, as if he had lived only to appear at my side when I needed an ally. A helping hand from fate? The cynics are wrong; David Hume and Nikos Kazantzakis are right: Everything that happens in our human universe is mysteriously linked to everything else.
WHY IS THE PAST SUDDENLY WITH ME? AND WHY is my heart beating so? Gamaliel, sitting on a bench in the calm of the garden, is wondering while he waits for his appointment.
. . . A FRIGHTENED LITTLE JEWISH BOY IS CLINGING to the skirt of his distraught mother. It’s dark in the bedroom where they are hidden. “Mama,” whispers the small boy, who is mad about stories, “tell me a story. Tell me anything, even one I know. What matters is hearing your voice, not the story. I want to hear your voice.”
“Not now,” says his mother.
“But when? Tomorrow? But when is tomorrow? Are you sure tomorrow comes after now?”
His mother is weeping softly, very quietly, without tears, so as not to be heard by a suspicious neighbor or a passerby in the night. “Be a good boy, my love. Tomorrow will come; the night won’t last forever.”
The boy is trying to hold back his sobs. “But you . . . you won’t be here tomorrow.”
“I’ll come back, I promise you.”
“When? I want to know when you’re coming back.”
“Soon, my love, very soon, but now you must behave.” He’s willing to behave, but not to be parted from his mother. She strokes his hair, his eyebrows, his lips. “One day, you’ll understand, my precious. The world is a cruel place. It doesn’t want us; it condemns us.”
The boy whispers in his mother’s ear, “But what is the world? Where does it begin?”
“The world is a story.”
“Tell it to me.”
“First you have to discover it.”
“Where is it?”
“In the street,” his mother replies. “In the building across the way. In the passerby who looks at you suspiciously. But always you find the world in people’s hearts. When their hearts are good, the world is beautiful, but when their hearts are bad, the world is poisonous, and then . . .”
The child doesn’t understand the words, but he senses the menace in them. “I don’t care about the world. I don’t care if it loves me. It’s you I want. You’re my world.”
“And you, my child, you’re my life. Without you, the world would be a cold place.”
“I don’t want to live in that world if I can’t be with you.”
She is kissing him desperately while she struggles to explain that wars are always cruel to people, and this war is the worst of all, especially for Jews. “You must understand this, my dearest. Try very hard to understand. I know you’re only eight, but you’re a Jew, and today, when Death is on the lookout for him, a Jew even at eight has to understand like an old man who is three times thirty-three years old. . . . Do you hear me?” He hears, but he still doesn’t understand. She persists: “Together we’re lost, but if we separate, we have a chance.”
He is obstinate: “No, I won’t do it.”
“You won’t?”
“No, I won’t.” He has never said no to his mother. This first time leaves him feeling shame mingled with remorse. He swallows his tears: “You say I don’t understand? You’re the one who doesn’t understand. If you leave me, I’ll die.”
She takes the child’s head between her hands. “You’re so intelligent, my son, my only love. You’re clever beyond your years. But you’re saying things you don’t understand. What shall we do? What can we do in this awful, cruel time?”
A soft sound interrupts their whispered exchange. Petrified, mother and child hold each other without daring to breathe: It’s best to play dead when the enemy approaches. Someone is knocking at the door: several light taps repeated three times. “It’s all right. Relax,” the mother murmurs. “The Lord be praised! It’s Ilonka.”
She opens the door. Her little boy closes his eyes so he won’t have to look at the young woman who is entering. He decides he doesn’t like her voice, though all she has said is an everyday remark: “It’s nasty out, let me tell you.” Nor does he like her scent: too cloying. It’s an effort not to cough or sneeze. His mother says, “Here is my litt
le boy. You’ll take care of him, won’t you? Never will I forget you.” Ilonka replies, but he is too upset over their parting to hear what she says. His mother says again, “Say good evening to Ilonka.” He obeys without opening his eyes.
A long silence follows, until the newcomer says, “Rest easy, dear lady. I’ll look after your son. How handsome he is! And he looks so bright. Already I love him. And I’ll take good care of him, I promise you. This war will be over soon. We’ll all meet again, and we’ll be happy. And we’ll laugh, won’t we? How we’ll laugh!”
They are laughing already, but the boy does not join in. Someone inside him weeps.
And he knows this: It will be a long time before that someone stops weeping.
His mother is making tea. Their visitor has brought cakes and sweets. He cannot swallow anything. His mother tells him to try to sleep. He can’t. He doesn’t want to sleep. The hours pass. “It’s the curfew,” his mother explains. “I can’t go out now.” The two women are chatting. And the little boy is thinking, May the curfew last all day tomorrow, all the days of the week, and all the days of my life. Mama will talk to me in that voice like no other, and I’ll be reassured. I’ll wait for tomorrow without fear, and for Papa also. I’ll wait for him, too. . . .