Legends of Our Time Read online

  Suddenly the train stopped. The conductor called out: “Taverny-y-y!” I shook myself to pull myself together. Ironically, the hobo imitated my gestures. I held out my hand: “I get off here.” He stood up and said: “So do I.” And he pretended not to understand my confusion.

  Below, near the exit, I asked him where he was going.

  “What a question! With you, of course!”

  “With me?” I cried out, horrified.

  “Yes, I’ve decided to accompany you.”

  But why? For what reason? He did not know yet.

  “I’ll know when we get there.”

  But for the love of heaven, who had invited him? No one, of course.

  “I consider myself a free man, I go where I please, when I please, with whomever I please.”

  “And what about me? How do I figure in your calculations?”

  “Too soon to tell, we’ll see.”

  After a silent walk of about twenty minutes, we arrived at the chateau, where the sight of my companion provoked general laughter. I was intending to return to Paris the same night. I stayed a whole week. So did he.

  My class was to meet outdoors, in the early afternoon. During lunch the old man watched me in silence; he was making me ill. I did not touch the food. Neither did he.

  My nerves raw, I discouraged conversation at the table. I had premonitions of disaster: with him here, my exposition was sure to be a failure. How to get him out of the way? Say to him: “I beg you, Mr. Unknown, please be so kind as to go for a walk and come back this evening”? Sooner bury myself alive. Besides, my request would have been in vain. This was too good an opportunity for him, he was not going to miss it.

  The director sent his charges outdoors for the lecture. With a heavy heart, I followed my pupils. I knew I was lost, there was nothing more to do: the die had been cast.

  My companion sat down at my left. Seated in a semicircle under a huge tree whose branches seemed about to collapse, the students scrutinized us with a mischievous look. The hobo intimidated me, that was clear, and they could hardly understand why. They chattered among themselves and exchanged unkind remarks about him, no doubt about me as well. I called for silence while realizing that I had forgotten everything: I no longer knew even which chapter we were supposed to discuss. Fortunately, at the last moment, just as I was about to open the session, the grotesque old man touched my arm and curtly announced his decision to speak in my place. The pupils roared with laughter. I have never felt so relieved. The speaker cleared his throat.

  “I know you are studying the tragedy of Job. I suggest we leave him to dress his wounds. I have the impression he has been badly mishandled here these past few weeks.”

  He gave me a side-glance: had I withstood the blow? I lowered my head. My loyal students appreciated the humor of my replacement; they were no longer laughing at him but at me.

  “Here’s a suggestion,” the speaker went on seriously. “Suppose each of you tells me what subject is closest to his heart: then I shall discuss them all in a piece. But one condition: make sure the subjects are all different. I hate repetition.”

  This rhetorical game became an unforgettable experience. Bible, Midrash, Zohar: the questions fused together. Some students, to carry the test to the point of absurdity, questioned him on international politics, on the atomic bomb, and even on superstition in the Middle Ages. The lecturer took no notes whatsoever; his eyelids lowered, closed, he waited until everyone had a turn. Then, without making a move, without preliminary remarks, he attacked the topics head-on, discoursing on each individually and on all together. His voice sounded harsh and unpleasant, but no one took notice. Spellbound, we listened to him, our minds burning, holding our breath, transformed, transported into a strange universe where all beings and objects ripped off their veils, where everything held together and strained toward an Absolute, no matter which, and where—by force of words alone, of nuance, too—man discovered his power and obligation to dispel the chaos which precedes and often follows all creation, to impose on it a meaning, a future. Suddenly each of us realized that all these themes, brought up by chance, pell-mell, were in reality linked to a center, to the same core of clarity. Yes, Cain’s act contains within it that of Titus. Yes, the sacrifice of Isaac prefigures the holocaust, the song of David calls to that of Jeremiah: hafoch ba vehafoch ba dekula ba, the Torah is a whole and everything is in the Torah. Why is the first letter of Breshit (the first book of the Pentateuch) Bet and not Aleph? Because man is too weak to begin: someone has already begun before him. Jacob had chosen exile in order to permit Moses to choose liberty. Whoever turns and looks at the summit of the mountain knows that the beginning prepares the end and that man can act upon his creator, who also studies Torah.

  In the distance, the village churchbell had long since sounded midnight, but the speaker, tireless, inexhaustible, was still holding forth, endowing his thought with a thousand sparks and as many shadows, and our common prayer was that his voice would never stop—not before the coming of the Messiah.

  The pale dawn surprised us, filled us with a strange happiness: together we had just traveled a long road and shared a rare, perhaps unique, experience: the victory of man over night. No trace of fatigue. Our faces radiated pride. Yet my pupils, fanatically pious, had just committed a sin: for the first time in their lives, they had forgotten to recite the evening prayer.

  The Master let himself be convinced to prolong his stay at the chateau. For a day, a week. As for me, I no longer counted, no one invited me to put off my return; but I stayed on anyway.

  From morning to night, often until midnight and sometimes later, the Master continued to fascinate us; we were at his mercy, he took possession of our beings, shaped them, made them unrecognizable.

  It was the month of Av and, out of respect for the tradition, he spoke to us primarily of the destruction of the Temple. I thought I knew all the legends on this subject, but in his mouth they acquired new meaning: they made us more proud to belong to a people which had survived its own history and still kept it so alive and so athirst.

  One day he talked to us about the secret war which was taking place in Palestine at that time: the English were going to execute a member of the Irgun. The Master spoke of him as of a saint, elevating him to the rank of a Rebbe Akiva (who, in Roman times, had gone to his death courageously, as a free man, to glorify the name of God). If later on, I decided to join the struggle in which Jewish youth was engaging for the independence of our people, I did so because of my master.

  Then came the day of departure. My pupils asked him if he intended to return. He answered: “Perhaps.”

  “Where are you going now? To what new adventure, what discoveries?”

  “That doesn’t concern you,” he said, annoyed.

  Then they turned toward me.

  “And you, you’ll come back?”

  I said no.

  My encounter with the Master had put an end to my career as lecturer. I became a pupil again. We left the chateau together; the students accompanied us to the station.

  In the train that took us back to Paris I informed him of my decision not to leave him. He opposed this, but I stood firm.

  I said: “I need you.”

  He retorted: “And who told you you’re capable of following me? Or that you’re worthy?”

  “I did.”

  “You?” he roared. “You think you’re your own master? You listen to your own voice? Where do you get such arrogance?”

  “From you.”

  Furious, he covered me with insults, but I did not give in. I finally won out. On our arrival, as we were leaving the Gare du Nord, I followed him with a determined step.

  “Where are you going?”

  “With you.”

  “And if I say no?”

  “I’ll follow you anyway.”

  I hastened to add: “It was you who taught me the meaning of freedom.”

  His ugly face turned red and for a moment I thought he was going to spi
t in my face. But he calmed down.

  “You’re obstinate,” he said disdainfully, “but I like Jews to be obstinate.”

  Then he made a gesture of discouragement. “So be it, you’ll accompany me for a while.” He caught himself at once: “But not now. Some other time. I’ll come to see you.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “When?”

  “Soon.”

  “In the morning? The evening?”

  “How do you expect me to know that now?”

  He left me near a subway station and disappeared.

  In my wretched little room, in Porte Saint-Cloud, I awaited him in doubt: would he keep his promise? I dared not leave, not even to go to the bakery. Three days later, he knocked at my door. He inspected the premises, cast a look of disgust at the books, and ordered me to sit on the bed. He took the only chair in the room for himself.

  “Look at me and listen without interrupting.”

  He came back twice a week, never the same day, never the same hour. Sometimes he came early in the morning, while the city was still sleeping; at other times, he seemed to draw the twilight in behind him. He stayed three hours, four, five, six. A day, a century, for him it was all the same: he denied time. As soon as he arrived he began to speak on whatever subject preoccupied him that day. And each time I felt the same sense of amazement.

  Later I learned that during this same period he had other disciples (Emmanuel Levinas was one), and that he devoted as many hours to them as to me. Where did he find the time and energy? I never saw him eat, sleep, or read; yet he was in the best of health and seemed well-informed about every realm of human activity. On several occasions he disappeared for a week or longer; he returned unchanged.

  I was his disciple for three whole years and I know no more about him today—probably less—than at our first encounter in the small synagogue, Rue Pavé, the night I went to celebrate the splendor of Shabbat.

  One day he learned of the arrival in Paris of a great Hasidic Rebbe, who was on his way to the United States. The faithful from London and Zurich, from Antwerp and Frankfort, were converging on the capital, some to greet him, some to ask his counsel and blessing.

  “You know him?” asked my master.

  “Yes, he comes from our region, from Transylvania. Before the war I used to see him from the distance. He wasn’t my rebbe; mine was the Rebbe of Wizsnitz.”

  “What have you got against this one?”

  “Nothing, except that he didn’t suffer—or rather, he didn’t suffer enough—during the war.”

  “And you? Did you suffer enough?”

  “No, not enough. But I’m not anyone’s rebbe.”

  “How do you know?”

  He was going to launch one of his poisoned darts, but he restrained himself.

  “You attach too much importance to suffering.”

  I waited for him to continue, he did not. That day, preoccupied by the Rebbe, he spared me.

  “I want to get to know him,” my master said.

  “That won’t be easy.”

  The Rebbe was staying at a luxurious hotel on the Right Bank. There were crowds in the corridors. People waited on line for hours, and an audience lasted no more than five minutes. Before penetrating the salon where the holy man was holding court, one had to give the secretary in the antechamber a pidyon, a banknote. This was the custom: before seeing the Rebbe in person, one had to perform a good deed—giving alms was an example—to earn such an honor.

  “Come with me,” the Master ordered.

  I feared the worst. Would the doorman let a hobo and his servant enter? That day no one stopped us at the entrance. A bellboy took one look at us and immediately said: “He’s on the second floor.” Three hundred people were packed into the corridor. My master cleared a passageway to the secretary: “I want to see him.”

  “Wait on line like everyone else.”

  “I’m not someone to be included with ‘everyone else.’ ”

  “Well, so you won’t see him.”

  “Really?”

  He tore a sheet of paper from my notebook, scribbled a few words.

  “I order you to give this message to the Rebbe, otherwise I’ll curse you.”

  The secretary obeyed. What is even stranger—the door opened and the Rebbe himself came out to ask my master to join him inside. They conversed several hours alone and the matters they discussed were never divulged. After having said good-bye to him, the Rebbe was content to murmur:

  “I realize a human being can know so many things, but how do you manage to understand them all?”

  Later, I asked my master: “What did you write in your message?”

  “That’s of no concern to you.”

  “It’s just that I’d like to know how to open certain doors.”

  He became angry.

  “That isn’t anything one can learn. You’d want to imitate me? It’s not by imitating anyone that you’ll open anything at all. One doesn’t buy keys, one makes them for himself. What makes up my strength may produce nothing but grief for you. The duty of a disciple is to follow his master, not to copy him.”

  Fortunately his fits of anger quickly subsided. They came over him and departed as quickly, bringing him, illuminated, back to himself.

  Only once did he go away foaming with rage, slamming the door behind him. That, too, was my fault. I had violated his sanctuary; I had asked him the question that kept coming back to me, even in my dreams:

  “Who are you? Whom are you hiding? Why do you make such a mystery of yourself? Do you really believe that it is man’s duty to withdraw into himself rather than to open himself up to others?”

  He stiffened. His breath became heavy, his face cruel. He scrutinized me in silence, looking for a way to wound me, to kill me perhaps. Panic-stricken, I tried to justify myself:

  “Don’t be angry with me. I’m not asking out of curiosity or indiscretion. I would simply like to know, for the future, for my children perhaps, who it was who exercised such an influence on their father.”

  He leaped to his feet and shook his fist at me. His wrath exploded.

  “And who tells you there will be a future? And who gives you permission to dissociate me from it and speak of me in the past tense?”

  No longer in control of himself, like one possessed, he began racing from one wall to another, uttering shrill cries.

  He disappeared for about ten days. I was sure I would never see him again. But he reappeared and took up his instruction again as if nothing had happened, at precisely the point where we had broken off. From then on, I was very careful not to trespass forbidden ground. I thought: “If he wants to confide in me, he will not wait for my questions.” Now I am inclined to think I was wrong; I should have persisted. Perhaps he was waiting for me to try him again. Sometimes I tell myself his fury was only comedy.

  At the end of 1948 he left me, without saying good-bye or farewell. His last lesson was like all the others. Nothing in his conduct would have betrayed his intention to sever our ties. He was neither more cheerful nor sadder than ever. As usual, I accompanied him to the subway station and as usual he advised me to go back.

  “Think over my lesson and try to destroy it.”

  He did not return.

  A week passed; he gave no further sign of life. Another week; no one knocked at my door. I set out to look for him in all the synagogues: to no avail. In the hospitals, everywhere, no patient answered his description.

  I knew it was hopeless. No use to go against his will, against his freedom. Our relationship had to be onesided.

  At loose ends, unprotected, friendless, I decided to leave France. They were fighting in Israel and I was burning to go there, I was restless. It was not until later, much later, that I learned that he too had responded to the same call, at just about the same time, a bit earlier.

  I did not remain long in the Holy Land, he neither. For no reason travel appealed to me; I was pursuing someone without know
ing whom. Now I tell myself it was him. But our paths never crossed again. Yet he too had taken up once more the pilgrim’s staff.

  From time to time I meet a friend who knew him in the thirties, the forties, the fifties, in Paris or Jerusalem, in New York or Algeria. We spend the whole night evoking his image. At times it is a stranger who speaks to me of him; then we become friends.

  Recently, in a plane taking me from Buenos Aires to New York, a passenger told me that a peculiar character had turned up, in the early sixties, in Montevideo. The Master was leading the same life there as in France. His physical appearance had remained the same, so too his intellectual enterprise. The passionate mystery surrounding him and which he harbored remained intact. He was believed to be the guardian of an unfathomable secret. One day he would demonstrate his superiority over the scholars and the rabbis; the next he would perform the beadle’s job and demand that he be subjected to servitude and humiliation. No one there, or anywhere else, ever knew what drove him to shake up so many souls and what powers he was defying. Everywhere, when he appeared, people grew silent, as if in the presence of someone who knew why we live and why we die.

  Often I am seized by the desire to take the first plane leaving for Uruguay, to see him one last time to confront him with the image I have kept of him. Then too I need him to rouse me again, to suspend me between heaven and earth and so permit me to see what brings them together and what separates them.

  But I am afraid. Would I find him identical with that person who overturned my life in that small synagogue in Paris, in the garden of the chateau in Taverny? Paris has changed, Taverny too, our pupils have changed: some have become rabbis in their turn, others have fallen on the battlefields of Galilee, the Negev, Jerusalem. I too, I have changed. Not he. Even the holocaust has left him intact.

  That is what troubles me and frightens me: are the events which have turned my life upside-down without scratching his, are they perhaps futile, devoid of meaning? Have I then lived under the sign of error?

  If, for him, the past is nothing, the future is nothing, then is death nothing either and the death of a million Jewish children? Perhaps God is dead, but he does not know it; and if he does know it, he acts as if it is of no concern to him at all.…