The Testament Read online

  Books by ELIE WIESEL

  Night

  Dawn

  The Accident

  The Town Beyond the Wall

  The Gates of the Forest

  The Jews of Silence

  Legends of Our Time

  A Beggar in Jerusalem

  One Generation After

  Souls on Fire

  The Oath

  Ani Maamin (cantata)

  Zalmen, or the Madness of God (play)

  Messengers of God

  A Jew Today

  Four Hasidic Masters

  The Trial of God (play)

  The Testament

  Five Biblical Portraits

  Somewhere a Master

  The Golem (illustrated by Mark Podwal)

  The Fifth Son

  Against Silence (edited by Irving Abrahamson)

  Twilight

  The Six Days of Destruction (with Albert Friedlander)

  A Journey into Faith (conversations with John Cardinal O’Connor)

  From the Kingdom of Memory

  Sages and Dreamers

  The Forgotten

  A Passover Haggadah (illustrated by Mark Podwall)

  All Rivers Run to the Sea

  Copyright © 1981 by Elirion Associates, Inc.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Schocken Books Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Distributed by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Summit Books, New York, in 1981.

  Schocken Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  The author and the translator wish to thank Mrs. Natasha Gruzen for many hours spent researching, and Mr. Joel Carmichael for his generous help with the translation.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Wiesel, Elie, 1928-

  [Testament d’un poète juif assassiné. English]

  The testament / Elie Wiesel; translated from the French by Marion Wiesel

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-80644-4

  1. Jews—Persecutions—Soviet Union—Fiction. 2. Soviet

  Union—History—1925-1953—Fiction. I. Wiesel, Marion.

  II. Title.

  PQ2683.I32T413 1999 843’.914—dc21 98-46945

  Random House Web Address: www.randomhouse.com

  v3.1

  FOR PAUL FLAMAND

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  About the Author

  One of the Just Men came to Sodom, determined to save its inhabitants from sin and punishment. Night and day he walked the streets and markets protesting against greed and theft, falsehood and indifference. In the beginning, people listened and smiled ironically. Then they stopped listening; he no longer even amused them. The killers went on killing, the wise kept silent, as if there were no Just Man in their midst.

  One day a child, moved by compassion for the unfortunate teacher, approached him with these words: “Poor stranger, you shout, you scream, don’t you see that it is hopeless?”

  “Yes, I see,” answered the Just Man.

  “Then why do you go on?”

  “I’ll tell you why. In the beginning, I thought I could change man. Today, I know I cannot. If I still shout today, if I still scream, it is to prevent man from ultimately changing me.”

  From One Generation After

  I first met Grisha Paltielovich Kossover at Lod airport, one afternoon in July 1972. A plane, just landed, was rolling down the runway. Outside, groups of welcoming relatives, friends, reporters stopped chatting and stood waiting. Reunions here do not erase the past, woven as it is of uprootings, of absences, of yearnings.

  I often go to Lod to witness the most astonishing ingathering of exiles in modern times. Many of these men and women I had met before, in Soviet Russia, in the realm of silence and fear. Had I told them then that a few years later I would be welcoming them on the soil of our ancestors they would have looked at me reproachfully: “Don’t make fun of us, friend; false hopes are painful.…”

  In the crowd I would sometimes recognize a young student or a Pioneer girl with whom I had sung and danced, one Simhat Torah eve, in front of the Great Synagogue of Moscow. Once a shoemaker from Kiev burst into tears on seeing me. Another time, a university professor from Leningrad embraced me as though I were his brother, lost and found again; and, in a way, I was that brother.

  I like Lod at the hour when the Russian Jews are arriving. They have a way all their own of setting foot on the ground. As if awaiting a signal, an order, they do not dare move forward. For what seems an interminably long moment they stand rooted in front of the plane, gazing up at the blue sky laced with clouds; listening to the muffled sounds coming from the government buildings. They are looking, looking, seeking proof that this reality exists and that they are part of it. No scenes, no effusiveness—not yet; in an hour, perhaps, when the first couple locks in a first embrace, when father and son, uncle and nephew, camp-mates and battle comrades recognize each other. For the moment the two groups remain separate. Tense, nervous, the new arrivals restrain themselves: they do not cry out, they do not call—not yet. They hold back their silence before shedding the first tear, before pronouncing the first blessing. They are afraid, afraid to precipitate events; afraid to believe what they see. They seem to be clinging to their fear; it links them to the past just one last time before they can dismiss it.

  Then one lone figure detaches itself from the arriving crowd. A drawn-out cry reverberates, amplified by collective emotion: “Yaakov! Yaaakoov!” And suddenly nothing exists but this running shadow, this shout that rends memory. That memory, that day itself, will be called Yakov, will call to Yakov forevermore.

  Yakov, a young officer, trembles: he wants to leap toward his father, but his legs refuse to obey. Glued to the ground, he stands, waiting for time to flow, for the years to dissipate and turn him into the stubborn schoolboy he once was, able to hold back the tears that now flood his cheeks.

  As if in response to some mysterious call, the two groups break up and then re-form, ten times, a hundred times. People speak to one another, kiss one another, laugh, weep; they repeat the same words, the same messages, they shake the same hands, they caress familiar and unfamiliar faces. They say anything to anyone. It’s a celebration, what a celebration: “When did you leave Riga?” “The day before yesterday, no, a thousand years ago!” “I’m from Tashkent.” “And I’m from Tiflis.” “What about Leibish Goldmann—any news?” “Leibish is waiting his turn.” “And Mendel Porush?” “Waiting his turn.” “And Srulik Mermelstein?” “Waiting his turn.” “Will they ever come?” “Oh yes, they’ll come, they’ll all come.”

  A few steps away two young brothers stare at one another in silence. They are alone, without family: neither dares make the opening gesture. There they are, face to face, gazing at one another with steady, painful intensity.

  “Don’t ask me an
ything!” a stocky woman cries. “Don’t tell me anything, please; first let me have a good cry—these tears have been waiting a long time.”

  Farther off, a giant of a man lifts up a thin young girl with brown hair and twirls her over his head: “Is that you, Pnina? The little beauty smiling at me from the picture, is that you? And my son is your father?” Drunk with joy and pride, this grandfather dances with his memories. He has only one desire left—to be allowed to dance like this all day and all night, and tomorrow too, until the end of his days.

  A young man is standing to one side, forgotten on the runway. No one has come to welcome him, no one speaks to him. I address him in Russian and ask whether I can be of help. He does not reply. Too much emotion, no doubt. I extend my hand; he clutches it. I repeat my offer of help; he remains silent. No matter, he will answer later.

  The man in charge of greeting the newcomers ushers the group into a large room with tables covered with white cloths and flowers, masses of flowers. Waitresses bring orange juice, fruits, cookies. “We’ve got something better!” a man shouts, waving a bottle of vodka. Glasses are filled and clinked. One of the men proposes a toast: “I just want to tell you that …” His words tangle and clog his throat. He starts again: “What I want to say is …” Once more his voice breaks. He is choking, gasping for air: “I really want to tell you that …” His face contorted, he casts a hopeless look over the crowd, begging for help. And he collapses, shaken violently by a sob drawn from the depths of centuries: “I don’t know, I no longer know what I want to tell you … so many things, so many things.…” Lest they betray their emotion, people lower their eyes. “The devil with speeches!” someone yells. “Let’s drink, that’s worth more than all the speeches and commentaries put together, isn’t that so, friends?” And the cups are raised. And friends and strangers drink together: L’chayim—to life, to the future, to peace. Incredible what a glass of vodka can do.

  I notice the taciturn young man at the other end of the room. He has not joined in either the drinking or the eating. He is tall, slender, with fine features and dark hair; his eyes are somber, his mouth is set. Everything about him suggests suffering. I try to find out: Who is he? An official scans his list and tells me, “Grisha Kossover, his name is Grisha Kossover. A special case. He’s mute. Sick. You know what I mean.… Where he’s from? Some place in the Ukraine or White Russia. Krasnograd, yes, that’s it, Krasnograd.…”

  I hurry over to the boy. I know his city, I tell him. No, I’ve never been there, but I know a poet who used to live there—a melancholy, generous, obscure poet, unfortunately not well known—to be quite frank, not known at all. I get confused, I mention my passion for the sacred poetry and profane prayers of that Jewish poet-minstrel whom Stalin, in an explosion of hatred, in a fit of madness, ordered shot, together with other Russian-Jewish novelists, poets and artists of the time. I talk and talk and do not see the amused wrinkle around his lips, the gleam of recognition in his eyes; I talk, I talk, until I finally understand: How stupid can I be? I did not make the connection! Grisha Kossover, this lonely, mute immigrant from Krasnograd, is … yes … my poet’s son, the son of Paltiel Kossover. How could I have guessed? I didn’t even know the poet was ever married. The blood rushes to my head. I want to grab the boy and carry him on my shoulders in triumph. I feel like shouting, I am shouting: “Listen to me, listen all of you! Miracles exist, I swear it!” People around us don’t understand, don’t seem to care. I get upset: “You don’t know? You don’t know who just arrived? Paltiel Kossover’s son! Yes, yes, the son of the poet. You don’t know him?” No, they do not know him, they know nothing; they have read nothing. A bunch of ignorant barbarians.

  “Come,” I say to Grisha. “Follow me.”

  He will not go to the hotel with the others, that is settled. He will stay with me. I have a large apartment; he can have his own room.

  I push him past immigration, police and customs. I speak for him, I explain, I get his luggage—and there we are, outside. It is evening. My car is right there, the road opens up before us. We drive at high speed, in silence, pulled upward by the hills and the sky of Jerusalem.

  I think of Paltiel Kossover, whose poems I discovered by accident.

  Arrested a few weeks after the more illustrious Moscow writers, he was executed at the same time in the NKVD dungeons in Krasnograd. The rumor of his death made its way slowly, cautiously, through the Soviet Union until it reached the free world. It aroused neither anger nor consternation, for his work was unknown. Less famous than Dovid Bergelson, less gifted than Peretz Markish, he had so few readers that they all knew one another.

  Was he a “great” poet? Frankly, no. He lacked scope and vision, also ambition and luck. Who knows? If he had lived longer … His only published work—I Saw My Father in a Dream—is quite modest: memories of childhood and war, parables, poems and nightmares. His voice is but a murmur, yet his prose seems gently lit from within. There are but few of us who savor his taste for austerity; we like his nostalgia, his melancholy. Forever uprooted, he remained a refugee to the end. His life and his death: discarded drafts.

  Our memorial evenings in his honor draw only a limited audience. But while our circle is small, its enthusiasm is great. We had eight of his poems translated into French, five into Dutch, two into Spanish. We are diehards. I comment on his work in my courses and refer to it on every possible occasion. Nothing gives me greater satisfaction than to see one of my students turning into a Kossover devotee.

  And here I am, facing a task a thousand times more arduous: getting his mute son to talk. But I manage without difficulty. Actually it has nothing to do with me. The credit belongs entirely to his father.

  Barely settled in my place, Grisha pulls a book from his pocket. Without a word I go to my room and return with my own copy of I Saw My Father in a Dream. Yes, it is the same book. Astounded, Grisha takes it, examines the binding, reads a notation or two, and gives it back to me. I think he is just as shaken as I.

  “For a long time I thought I had the only copy,” I say to him. “As you did, no doubt.”

  Grisha then takes out his pen and scribbles a few words on my memo pad: “There is a third copy. It belongs to a certain Viktor Zupanev, a night watchman in Krasnograd.”

  From my window I show him Jerusalem. I evoke its past, and explain the passion that binds me to this city, whose every stone and cloud is familiar. I offer some practical advice for tomorrow and the weeks to come: where to go, where to buy what, and when. I describe our neighbors—government clerks, new immigrants, soldiers. And opposite us, on the ground floor, a war widow.

  “Grisha, you’re tired. Go to bed.”

  He shakes his head. Tonight, he wants to stay up.

  “Alone?”

  Yes, alone. He corrects himself: no, not completely alone.

  “I don’t understand.”

  Then he makes another gesture to indicate that he would like to write.

  “Are you a writer? Like your father?”

  No, not like his father. In place of his father.

  E.W.

  Grisha, my son,

  I am interrupting my Testament to write you this letter. When you read it, you will be old enough to understand it and me. But will you read it? Will you receive it? I fear not. Like all the writings of prisoners it will rot in the secret archives. And yet … something in me tells me that a testament is never lost. Even if nobody reads it, its content is transmitted. The call of the dying will be heard; if not today, then tomorrow. All our actions are inscribed in the great Book of Creation: that is the very essence of the noble tradition of Judaism, and I entrust it to you.

  I am writing you because I’m about to die. When? I don’t know. One month from now, perhaps six. As soon as I shall have finished this Testament? I cannot answer that question.

  It’s night, but I don’t know whether the darkness is in myself or outside. The naked bulb blinds me. The jailer will soon open the peephole. I recognize his step. I’m not a
fraid of him. I enjoy certain privileges: I can write as much as I like, and whenever I like. And what I like. I’m a free man.

  I try to imagine you in five or ten years. What kind of man will you be when you reach my age? What will you know of the interrogations and tortures that have haunted your father?

  I see you, my son, as I see my father. I see you both as in a dream, and the dream is real. My voice calls yours and his, even if only to tell the world of its ugliness, even if only to cry out together for help, to mourn together the death of hope and sing together the death of Death.

  I am your father, Grisha. It is my duty to give you instruction and counsel. Where can I draw them from? I haven’t made such a success of my life that I can arrogate to myself the right to guide yours. In spite of my experience with people I don’t know how to save them or awaken them; I even wonder whether they wish to be saved or awakened. In spite of everything I was able to learn—and I’ve learned a lot—I don’t know the answers that will have to be given to the grave, fundamental questions that concern human beings. The individual facing the future, facing his fellow man, has no chance whatsoever of survival. All that remains is faith. God. As a source of questioning I would gladly accept Him; but what He requires is affirmation, and there I draw the line. And yet. My father and his father believed in God; I envy them. I tell you so you will know: I envy them their pure faith, I who have never envied anyone anything.

  Perhaps you will find a way to read my poems; they are a kind of spiritual biography. No, that’s too pretentious. A poetic biography? It’s not that either. Songs—they’re simply songs offered to my father, whom I had seen in a dream. Among the most recent is one I intend to revise in my mind. Its title is both naive and ironic: “Life Is a Poem.” Life is not a poem. I do not know what life is, and I shall die without knowing.

  My father, whose name you bear, knew. But he is dead. That is why I can only say to you—remember that he knew what his son does not.

  I have tried. If I have time, I’ll tell you how. Let me at least tell you this: Don’t follow the path I took, it doesn’t lead to truth. Truth, for a Jew, is to dwell among his brothers. Link your destiny to that of your people; otherwise you will surely reach an impasse.