The Forgotten Read online

  It was my father who taught me to read and write. I remember a story he told me during our first lesson. “In my village there was a man, a porter, who refused to learn the alphabet. One day I asked him, ‘What have you got against the alphabet?’ And he answered, ‘Words say the same thing to everybody; I want them for myself.’ ‘But prayers,’ I asked him, ‘how then do you pray?’ And he answered, ‘That’s easy. I don’t like to repeat other people’s prayers. I prefer to make them up.’ ”

  Later he would hold me spellbound with his stories of other times. He often described his childhood to me, and his adolescence. The wise men, thugs, madmen, beggars—he remembered all in such detail that I was constantly amazed. “In those days,” he used to say, “the whole village meant a few people—a few relatives, a few friends, a few rivals. I knew the others existed, but only in a vague way. Now I love them all. The poor, I wish I could enrich them; the rich, I would like to save them.”

  I admired my father not only for his kindness and intelligence, but also for his memory. He could quote long passages of the Talmud and Plato, the Zohar and the Upanishads. He could recall in rich detail his visit to the ghetto in Stanislav, his first skirmish as a partisan, his arrival in Palestine. He envied the character of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, who remembered what he had done in his mother’s womb and even in his father’s desire.

  Immersed in his own past and the world’s, my father was nevertheless a man of his times, reacting to all its convulsions. Politics stimulated him, and so did the international situation. Famine in Africa, racial persecution in Indonesia, religious conflict in Ireland and India: what men did to other men they did to him. When someone said that as a Jew he was wrong to care about anything but Israel, he answered angrily, “God did not create other people so we could turn our backs on them.” And yet he loved Israel with all his heart and soul. Why didn’t he go back there to end his days? He did not know, and admitted that to me. “Maybe it’s cowardice on my part. Maybe in Jerusalem every stone and every cloud would remind me of your mother; I’d be too unhappy.” Another time he told me, “I know it’s convenient to love Israel from a distance. It’s even a contradiction, but I’m not afraid of contradictions. In creating man in his own image, didn’t God contradict Himself? Except that God is alone and free while man, still alone, is never free.”

  When he was already sick and felt himself going under, he said something that made me want to cry out, or die, every time I thought of it: “Soon I will envy the prisoner: Though his body is imprisoned, his memory is free. Whereas my body will always be free, but …” He never finished the sentence, but his face betrayed such anguish and sorrow that a lump came to my throat and I wanted to console him. “Soon,” he said, “I will be absent from myself. I’ll laugh and cry without knowing why.”

  Now nothing excites him. Nothing interests him. Everything happens outside him. And I, his son, take his hand in mine and no longer know what to do.

  Her name was Talia, and she trailed happiness in her wake. All she had to do was toss her thick head of hair, and her gloomy friends perked up. She rejected their gloom: “I refuse to see you like that. Cheer up or I go.” As if by a miracle, they felt better, uplifted. They promised the young tyrant any gift from any shop, any color from any rainbow, if only she’d stay. “All right, then, I’ll stay,” she said, “but make me want to stay. I want to see smiling faces. Understand?” Yes, they all understood. No more long faces when she was around.

  Elhanan Rosenbaum had also understood, but his sadness was stronger than he, stronger than the young girl. Elhanan was chronically depressed. The others sang; he withdrew. Boys his age found ways to amuse themselves, but not he. To please Talia he made an effort to appear happy, but he never succeeded.

  Germany, 1946, a camp for “displaced persons.” An orphan, alone in the world, Elhanan was waiting for his “certificate” to Palestine. Thousands of survivors were in the same position. Representatives of the Jewish Agency preached patience. Some refugees, at the end of their rope, applied for visas to the United States or Canada. Displeased at that, Zionist activists organized political meetings. Passionate oratory, popular songs and dances: the young people’s blood ran hot; they were seduced by the fascinating history embodied in the Zionist ideal. Of course there were quarrels between Weizmann’s followers and Jabotinsky’s. As they did everywhere, left wing and right wing waged interminable combat. Elhanan took no part in it all. A loner by temperament, shy by nature, he fled crowds and hated noise: he had endured enough during the war. He liked to read, to study. Books in Hebrew, Yiddish newspapers.

  One day when he was in line for his cigarette ration, he had the shock of his life: Talia, the princess with countless suitors, accosted him. “They tell me you speak Hebrew. Is that right?”

  “They’re exaggerating.”

  “We’ll find out. My name is Talia. Yours?”

  “Elhanan.”

  A smile came to the young woman’s lips. “Are you kidding me?”

  “No, not at all. That’s my name.”

  “Elhanan?”

  “Don’t you like it? It’s a very old name, and some very wise men have had it.”

  “I know, I know, but—it’s too old for you.” Her face became solemn. “If I’ve offended you, I’m sorry.”

  Elhanan nodded; he was forgiving her.

  “Are you a practicing Jew? I bet you are.”

  “My father was.”

  “And you?”

  “I used to be.”

  “And now?”

  “I still am. A little.”

  “Me too,” she whispered into his ear. “A little.”

  They had reached the counter. Elhanan picked up his ration, broke open a pack, tapped a cigarette free and offered it to Talia.

  “I don’t smoke.”

  They walked back toward the barracks in silence.

  “Do you know what I’m doing here?”

  “Yes,” Elhanan said. “The Zionists sent you.”

  “That’s right. They sent me here to shape the young people, to teach them Zionist ideals. And organize their departure to Palestine.”

  “You’re doing good work. I congratulate you.”

  “I never see you at the meetings.”

  “Not my kind of thing.”

  “Aren’t you interested in meeting other young people? Preparing for your future in Palestine, or at least dreaming about it?”

  “I dream better when I’m alone.”

  She stopped; so did he. “Would I be intruding on your solitude if I shared it now and then?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for trusting me.”

  They saw each other the next day, a Friday. At nightfall, after the service and before the Shabbat meal, everybody was dancing in front of the mess hall: in singing and in joy, Jews welcome the Queen of the Sabbath. As usual, Elhanan was watching the dancers from a distance. “Come,” said a familiar voice, in Hebrew. He had no time to resist. Talia was already whirling him into the dance.

  “I’m mad at you for this,” Elhanan said.

  “I love it,” she answered, laughing.

  “What do you love?”

  “Hearing you speak Hebrew.” And after a moment, “Even if it’s only to tell me that you are mad.”

  Elhanan realized that she had called him by the intimate “thou.” That is the rule in Hebrew: I and thou. I detest you, he thought, so as not to admit that he loved her.

  Talia Oren: twenty years of sun, laughter, a free and savage joy, were inscribed on her fine and angular Oriental face. Born of a Yemenite mother and a Russian father, she joined the mystery of the Orient to the intellectual pragmatism of the West. Her smile ironic but gentle, her eyes dark and glowing, she seemed forever alert, hearing music meant for her alone, forever meant to rouse men to happiness and love.

  “Your mother,” Elhanan said. “How I loved her! I may have had a premonition. I may have known from the start that I�
��d have to love her for you, too.

  “Did she suspect, during our first few meetings? We saw each other often. She was a year older than I but seemed younger. I’m sure she wanted to protect me, educate me, focus my life. But she wasn’t right for the role of big sister. And she was too clear-eyed not to know that I was in love with her.

  “Thanks to her, I adapted to the communal life of the camp—I, who since my time in the battalion and then with the partisans longed only to sleep alone, eat alone, keep my distance from the groups that inevitably multiplied in the camp. I adjusted to life. I spent less time thinking about the dead. I never talked to her about them. She would only have scolded me. She loved to do that—show men how immature they were. Make them understand that the past must bury the past. That suffering can and should be eradicated from Jewish existence. That redemption was not by divine work but by human hope.… We listened to her, we never dared contradict her. We feared her anger but even more her sadness. Because she became melancholy, your mother did, when anyone contradicted her. To bring back her good humor, we were ready to do anything.

  “And so was I, even more than the others. Ready for anything? Your mother insisted that I take part in celebrations, discussions, all their group activities. It was not my sort of thing. Even the beasts of the field don’t live alone, she told me. Have you forgotten the Bible? It’s in Genesis; read it again. It is not good for man to live alone.… I loved to see her that way—passionate, fervent; anger made her even more beautiful. Then when she calmed down I reminded her that the verse she’d quoted was about Adam before Eve’s creation. God wanted Adam to marry. I asked her, Do you want me to marry, too? Yes, she said. I asked, Who? dreading her answer. Me, she said. I was so stunned that she burst into laughter. So did I.

  “After the noon meal on the next Sabbath your mother suggested I come to a Zionist meeting with her. I tried to resist. She took me by the hand and said, It’s no use, Elhanan Rosenbaum; I want to be with you, and I have to go to that meeting.

  “The auditorium was jammed. The main speaker talked about the underground war that the three resistance groups were fighting against the British occupation.

  “He was an impressive man: in his forties, muscular, square jaw, abrupt gestures. He personified the fighting man’s implacable authority. He spoke in Yiddish. Talia’s Yiddish was not good, so I interpreted for her. It was a fiery speech, slightly demagogic. Short, explosive sentences, simplistic arguments. The Jewish people were persecuted because they had no state of their own. Scorned everywhere, the Jew was of interest only to his enemies. If we’d had a Jewish state in 1939, millions of men and women—‘your parents, your brothers, your sisters’—would have been saved.

  “It was like an oven in the hall; we were drenched in sweat. Unperturbed, the crowd applauded. The speaker—I think his name was Aharon—carried us away. Like him, we had just observed Sabbath in Jerusalem, whose light and silence are like nowhere else in the world; we breathed the perfume that gardens in the hills of Galilee gave off; we sang the beauty of the valley of Ezreel and prepared for the struggle that would join the Jewish people to the Jewish state. I remember a few of his phrases and expressions. For the first time in history, he said, a people would put an end to two thousand years of exile and wandering, and found a sovereign state on the land of their ancestors.…

  “Was it the magic of his speech or the strength of our longing? We swayed to a rhythm at once exotic and captivating, we moved through an ancient and revolutionary dream, we took part in imaginary operations beside the heroic characters who had nourished our people’s legends. If at the end of his speech Aharon had challenged us to move out now, hundreds of us would have done so.

  “All the more because no other country cared about us at all. Understand this, my son: the survivors’ tragedy did not end at their liberation. The world made them feel their inferiority. In a pinch, some would have treated us as invalids, but not as equals. In Palestine, Aharon said, you will be welcomed not as immigrants but as brothers returning home after a long absence. Any refugee was susceptible to that kind of argument.

  “And yet I hesitated. First of all, to leave for Palestine meant choosing illegal immigration and parting from Talia. And then there was something else: I wasn’t mature. I mean intellectually mature. No, I mean morally mature; that’s more exact. Was I worth redeeming? One afternoon I talked about that with your mother. She flew into one of her rages. ‘What is all this idiocy? A Jew’s place is in his history, in his own land, and that’s all there is to it! It’s there that you’ll find Jewish dignity! Or there you’ll create it! Don’t tell me you’d rather rot here and wallow in the memory of your humiliations.… Listen. They’re putting together a secret convoy, and you’re going to be part of it, all right? If not …’ ‘If not?’ I asked. She broke into sudden laughter: ‘If not, I’ll give you a kiss.’ Which she did. She kissed me full on the lips. It was the first time. ‘You’re leaving,’ she said. ‘And you’ll see: you’ll be happy in Palestine.’ I wasn’t so sure, so she quickly added, ‘I’ll see to it myself.’

  “Next morning I registered for the convoy.”

  The police officer seemed courteous and amiable. He rose to greet his visitor and the interpreter. He shook the stranger’s hand and begged him to have a chair. He went so far as to offer refreshment. A cup of coffee? A glass of tzuika?

  “Water,” said Malkiel.

  “Bravo. It pays to be careful, especially in the morning.”

  An orderly brought a bottle of mineral water with three glasses. The official, a perfect host, poured. Malkiel sipped at his; Lidia was not thirsty.

  “And how has your visit here gone along, Domnul Rosenbaum?”

  “Very well.”

  “No problems?”

  “None at all.”

  “Have you seen what you came to see?”

  Shrewd, this fellow. “Not everything,” Malkiel said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “They must have told you—my specialty is funerary inscriptions, epitaphs. You have an abundance of them here.”

  “They did tell me. But … why choose our cemeteries? Why not the ones at Cluj or Satu Mare?”

  “These are older.”

  The official consulted a file before going on. “You won’t tell me that the cemetery is the only part of our little town that interests you.”

  “Indeed I won’t. My charming interpreter was kind enough to show me other places.”

  The official turned to Lidia and said a few words that made her blush.

  “What did he say to you, Lidia?”

  “He suggested I persuade you that the living are more fun to be with than the dead.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “That’s all.”

  “Tell him I get the impression he doesn’t believe me.”

  The official’s face darkened. “Am I wrong?”

  “To suspect me? Frankly, yes. And anyway, what do you suspect me of?”

  “I don’t know yet. But rummaging through cemeteries strikes me as suspicious.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of my contacts with the dead.”

  “I’ll tell you whatever I like.”

  “Did I offend you? I was only joking.”

  The official inspected him for a moment and then brightened. “Well, so was I. Your health, sir.” He raised his glass of water.

  “And yours, sir,” Malkiel said.

  “How long do you plan to stay with us?”

  “That will depend.”

  “On whom?”

  “On my boss.”

  The official jotted a note in the file. “Do you plan to publish articles about your stay here?”

  “Of course.”

  “All on the cemetery?”

  “All for the obituary page.”

  The rest of the interview was devoted to the weather in New York and Bucharest, to the pleasures of world travel on an expense account, and to friendship among the peoples of t
he world.

  “Thank you for coming,” the officer said, extending his hand to Malkiel. “I hope your visit here continues to be pleasant and peaceful. See to it, miss.”

  Lidia refrained from translating her reply.

  Driven by his overwhelming need to tell all, to omit nothing, Elhanan spoke in breathless tones. “Are you listening to me, Malkiel my son? Do you remember our lessons in Talmud? And Rav Nahman? Before his final breath he begged his friend Rava to tell the Angel of Death to spare him pain. He feared suffering more than death.… You must tell him yourself, said Rava; isn’t your voice heard on high? I know nothing about that, Rav Nahman confessed, but I know that there is no defense against the Angel of Death. And the two masters went on talking, and then Rava said, I have a favor to ask: could you return from above to tell me if you did suffer in leaving this world below? Rav Nahman promised to do that. And after his death, he appeared to Rava in a dream. Rava asked, Well? What is it like to die? Is it painful? And Rav Nahman said, Not at all. It’s like when you pluck a hair out of a bowl of milk; that’s how the soul leaves the body. And yet, he added, if God, blessed be His name, asked me to come back to earth, I would answer, No, Lord; I am not strong enough for that; I would be too afraid of death.”

  Malkiel did remember that Talmudic legend but had forgotten its profound beauty. On first hearing, it had sounded more like an anecdote. Now it resonated within him.

  That occurred before the accident. His father was sick. But it was nothing serious, a chill, the flu. But running a high temperature, Elhanan feared death. “Do you understand me, my son?”

  “I understand you,” Malkiel said.

  “Right now, when everything hurts, what bothers me most is that I can’t see you clearly.”

  “I’m here, Father.”

  “And yesterday? Where were you yesterday? And the day before? And last week? I closed my eyes, opened them, looked for you. You were somewhere far away.”

  “I didn’t know you’d caught cold.”