The Fifth Son Page 7

  “Be proud of your father,” Bontchek tells me; “we all were. First he acted as our buffer, then he helped us not to forget who we were.”

  He gets excited, Bontchek, when he is singing my father’s praises. His warm voice throbs with emotion:

  “Thanks to your father we became conscious of our historical obligations. Do you understand that? I, Bontchek, son and grandson of Jewish peddlers from Poland, had never thought of my life, my work or even my Zionist activities in historical terms: I didn’t know what that meant: historical considerations. In the movement we discussed politics, pioneering, agriculture and illegal ‘excursions’ into Palestine. History, as a living crucible for mankind, was made tangible to us by your father. ‘One day books will be written about us.’ That was his favorite expression. And nobody said: ‘What do I care? One hour of joy, of pleasure, one instant of life is worth more than all the dead phrases.…’

  “On the contrary, we imagined that one day historians would pore over our chronicles, trying to understand, judging perhaps. We expressed our thoughts with greater sincerity, we acted with less carelessness. To accomplish a mission. To benefit by it. Everywhere and in everything, your father served as our role model.”

  Bontchek, who had become my friend, found in me a faithful and fervent audience. All that my father hides from me out of discretion, he will reveal to me. With him as my guide, I yearn to enter the ghetto and meet its quietly delirious inhabitants. I want to participate in their agony, to be one of them in their struggle. I am determined to hear their morning prayers, to be present at the “shows” produced by their “cultural services,” to endure the anguish of the night and the more oppressive torment of dawn. I want to accompany the hungry, the sick, the sad-eyed, wide-eyed madmen, the mute old men, the despairing gravediggers, I want to remember every face, retrieve every tear and every silence, I want to live, to relive my father’s experience; without that knowledge, without that fragment of memory acquired after the fact, I can never get close to him, I feel that. There would always be something ineffable between us.

  “Thanks to your father,” Bontchek continued, “we had learned to experience events in their totality. The daily misfortunes, the individual and collective ordeals, the perils, the threats but also the challenges, the prayers, the acts of solidarity and resistance: you could never imagine what our days were like. Every time there was a problem—meaning constantly—or a crisis erupted—which happened all the time—it was he who took charge. He was universally trusted. The rich feared him, the scholars respected him; as for the poor, they genuinely loved him, worshiped him: he was their powerful new brother, their loyal and generous brother. Sure, there were those who were dissatisfied, the chronically disgruntled, that’s normal: he could not please everybody. To be just with one meant being severe with another. That was the epithet applied to him in the ghetto: just. He was integrity personified. No little favors for his friends; no services bought or sold; no discrimination.

  “His parents who had been evacuated from their village received the same lodgings in the ghetto as their neighbors. Like everybody else, his in-laws stood in line for the various coupons distributed weekly by the Jewish Council. Oh, you should have seen them: assimilated former capitalists, dreadful snobs, thrown in with refugees in rags, whom just a few weeks before they would not have deigned to notice.… I know, sonny, I am speaking of your grandparents, I am being disrespectful.… Forgive me. But they really were ashamed of their Jewishness, they were Jews who made us feel ashamed.… Not so your father’s parents: they were a beautiful sight to behold, believe me. Never complaining. Never demanding their due. Never trying to influence their son on their own behalf. Funny, as I think of them I begin to smile.”

  What about my mother in all this? Why did he never mention her? I felt that in some obscure way her illness was profoundly connected with the ghetto and with my father’s refusal to speak of it. I felt that she held the keys to secrets that were not only her own. How to find out? How to uncover the first clue? After all, I could not question a stranger—all right, almost a stranger—about my parents’ past; it would have been indecent.

  If, at least, my mother were in good health, if she lived at home, with us, showered with attention and care, I might have dared rummage through her life; I might have found an opportune moment, a plausible pretext. But her illness demanded a certain respect, a fundamental reticence. One does not play detective with a mother under treatment in a clinic. After all, there are limits …

  And so I carefully chose detours. I opened many doors, showed myself interested in a thousand episodes, asked to learn everything about life in the ghetto. Who was in charge of food distribution? Of education? Of shelter?

  For example, my voice carefully controlled, I would ask: “Where did my father live?”

  “In a rather modest, not to say shabby apartment. And you should know that as president of the Jewish Council he was entitled to an official residence: living room, bathroom and all the rest. He did not want it. He preferred a dingy room. There too your peculiar father with his principles and his taste for justice was set on showing the way. If the president lived in comfort then the other council officials, from the highest to the lowest, would have demanded the same or more. No, your father opted for simplicity. Austerity. Running water, yes. Bathroom, no. He came to our house to take showers. Just like our other colleagues. With one exception: our Rabbi, who went to the mikva every morning for his ritual immersions and ablutions. Otherwise, he said, his prayers would lack purity. You won’t believe me, but in winter, in twenty to thirty degrees below zero, this astonishing character went nevertheless to plunge his emaciated body into the icy waters of the mikva which, since there was no wood or coal, was impossible to heat. Of course, he was not the only one. There were also some women, few it must be said, who went there to conform to Biblical law.”

  Since he mentioned women, I seized the opportunity: “You never speak of my mother, did …”

  “Pious, she? What a strange idea.…”

  “But … what did she do in the ghetto? How did she spend her time?”

  “She worked. Everybody worked, either for the Germans or for the Jews. Often it was not easy to distinguish between the two employers. The physicians who treated the sick to make them fit for work, were they not helping the Germans, however indirectly, however involuntarily? And yet … Could they refuse treatment to the Jews? Those were complicated times indeed.…”

  “My mother worked at the hospital?”

  “At the hospital, too. And in the communal kitchen. And with the staff in charge of shelter. She was treated with great respect as she was neither pretentious nor proud and never took advantage of her privileged situation.”

  “Did you see her often?”

  “Every day.”

  “Tell me.”

  “What would you like me to say? She was somebody special.”

  “More.”

  “What more do you want?”

  “Tell me all you know.”

  “All days resembled one another in the ghetto. So did the nights. And so did the people. Not so your mother.”

  “She was different?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “She suffered.”

  “Surely she wasn’t the only one who suffered? How was her suffering different from that of all the other ghetto dwellers?”

  Bontchek suddenly turned sullen:

  “All suffering is different.”

  And he changed the subject.

  “It’s your mother’s fault,” Lisa said primly. Her manner was both coy and scornful.

  “What’s my mother’s fault?”

  “Your shyness.”

  She looked me over with mock solemnity and with a laugh went on:

  “And everything else.”

  We were attending the same course at City College in New York. She was eighteen. I was much older. Twenty, almost twenty-one. She was the brightest student in clas
s. According to her I was the most reserved, the most inhibited, the most complex-ridden. She was dynamic, frivolous, frenetic, constantly on the lookout for action and adventure, bubbling with curiosity, with yearnings, taking part in every project, every exploit, on condition that it be offbeat. As for me? Just as in school and even in kindergarten before that, I was content to go unnoticed. Neither the professors nor the students knew who I was. More often than not, they were unaware of my very existence, which both troubled and reassured me. But there was Lisa. Lisa who saw everything. Heard everything. And minded everybody’s business. Lisa forced me out of anonymity as if she had caught me doing something wrong.

  “You are hiding,” she exclaimed triumphantly.

  “What nonsense,” I said blushing.

  “You are blushing! You are hiding and blushing! I can’t believe my eyes! Where do you come from? Who are you? My name is Lisa, Lisa Schreiber, yes, just like the banker, I am his only child and not a virgin.”

  All around us, her admirers were shaking with laughter. I didn’t know where to run. Awkward and bewildered I stood there stammering incoherently. That only heightened Lisa’s amusement. Why was she seeking to humiliate me? To prove she was the stronger? One more minute, one more word and I would have burst into tears. She must have realized it because she ended my agony by taking my hand.

  “Come. We are going to spend the evening together.”

  Disarmed, I let her do as she pleased. As we left, some boys called out to her; she responded alternately with a laugh or a scowl. Outside, the crowded street annoyed her.

  “Let’s take a taxi. You’re broke? I’m not. If you marry me, you’ll be making a good deal.”

  I had never met such a woman. Willful, insolent, brash, not beautiful, the typical sensual redhead, possessive yet endearing with her birdlike movements. Lord, why hast thou forsaken me?

  She lived in a town house on Ninetieth Street near Fifth Avenue, a four-story building, half museum, half palace, filled with antique carpets and silver.

  “Don’t worry,” said Lisa. “My parents are not home. My mother is traveling and my father is minding his investments. The perfect couple: he collects millions and she collects lovers. Do I shock you? What’s the matter with you, what century do you live in, anyway?”

  She pushed me into the kitchen, the bar, the library, opened bottles and jars, talking provocatively all the while, a true whirlwind, and I followed her like a robot or a sleepwalker, wondering what in the world I was doing here, in her home, with her, and also why God had condemned me to aberration and why was my heart pounding so wildly.…

  “And, in conclusion, the guide will show you the sanctuary: my room. Forgive the mess, but anyhow you and I will make it a little messier yet, all right?”

  And without granting me a moment’s respite, she challenged me:

  “You have a choice. We talk now and make love later or the other way round. You decide.”

  Earth and heaven collapsed and I felt my knees buckle. My head was swimming and I was gasping for air and all my past years became shrouded and opaque, weighing on me, crushing me.

  “I like you,” said Lisa as her fingers caressed my hand, my throat, and slowly inched up toward my lips. “I like you because you’re shy; you’re shy because your mother stuck you with a lot of complexes. We’ll make love and you’ll tell me about her, all right? No? Then tell me about her, we’ll make love later.”

  Heaven and earth changed places and, becoming one, sank into the same abyss.

  Bontchek, though reticent about my mother, seemed fascinated by the strange friendship that had bound my father to Rabbi Aharon-Asher of Davarowsk.

  “They were inseparable. The Rabbi had kept his word. He was constantly at his protégé’s side, advising him, guiding him, backing him. It was the Rabbi who encouraged your father to study the Law and its commentaries. ‘I am not asking you to practice your religion, only to know it,’ he told him. ‘Isn’t it too late to start?’ asked your father. ‘To his last breath, with his last breath, the Jew can and must pursue knowledge,’ answered the Rabbi. ‘The moment before he dies, man can still discover everything about creation and the Creator.’ And your father obediently began to study the Bible, the Prophets, the Midrash. Can you imagine your grandparents’ happiness? People once came to tell them of their son’s presence at a Shabbat service at the Rabbi’s home. ‘I’m going there,’ called your grandfather. ‘I want to see him, I want to embrace him in front of everybody, I want to tell him how proud I am!’ Your grandmother, a sensitive and very wise woman, succeeded in restraining him: ‘Our son wishes to pray? Let him pray; your presence there might embarrass him.’ A few days later I teased your father: ‘So, Reuven, you’re going to become a rabbi?’ He turned his face away as he whispered: ‘This is neither the time nor the place for you to mock our faith.’ And soon he began to haunt places of prayer and study, singing and drama groups; he began to live the life of a Jew in more ways than one.”

  The two friends often took walks together, exchanging ideas and impressions. Coming from widely different backgrounds, they reviewed and analyzed each situation from various perspectives without ever reaching total agreement: what was certainty for one became endless soul-searching and doubt for the other. They shared one preoccupation: how to spare the Jewish population not only the shame but also the persecution that caused it and to ensure, if not the survival, the safety of the greatest numbers possible, for as long as possible.

  “Teach me,” said my father, “give me vision and strength. From what point on and in what ways must my life change into an offering, into a sacrifice?”

  “Our tradition forbids despair,” answered the Rabbi. “Even as the sword touches your throat, turn your thoughts toward heaven: divine intervention is as quick as the blink of an eye.”

  “Shall I have the strength to hope, Rabbi?”

  “Our Law, since Moses, is opposed to human sacrifice and suicide is just that,” said the Rabbi. “Our Law, centered on life, is opposed to death, even when it is summoned for so-called lofty motives. To die in another man’s place is forbidden.”

  They walked the streets of the ghetto where everything seemed unreal. Death was everywhere and timelessness clung desperately to the present. They walked greeting the passersby who gathered wherever some food was being distributed and all the while, the Rabbi was telling my father a controversial story about Rabbi Akiba and Ben P’tura. The two Talmudic sages had quarreled over the following problem: two men are walking in the desert; they are thirsty but all they have is one jug of water: enough for one man, not for two. What to do? Said Ben P’tura: let them share it; friendship is worth more than water, more than life. But Rabbi Akiba decreed: let the jug’s owner drink the water and cross the desert and let him defeat death. Because, according to Rabbi Akiba, that is the Law: Khayekha kodmin, your life comes before any other life; though you may be able to save a life in the desert you may not do so by sacrificing your own.

  “I find this law shocking,” said my father. “It lacks generosity, compassion, brotherliness. I expected something else from our tradition.”

  “Let me explain,” said the Rabbi. “Khayekha kodmin simply means that your life is not your own. In other words, friend, you are not free to dispose of it. That is the basis of our tradition: one may not play with another’s life nor with one’s own; one may not play with death. And yet … there are times when we must choose death over shame. Over abdication.”

  “Teach me,” said my father.

  Spring arrived in New York with a huge splash. Rain, rain, rain. Specks of sun, ragged clouds, broken sidewalks and roads. The crowds in the streets no longer hurry, the schoolboys no longer play in the snow. One more week and the last storms will be gone. One more week and Central Park will be green.

  “Speak, Bontchek.”

  I am cold, he is not. He drinks and that warms him. I need to hear him talk to emerge from my lethargy.

  We are sitting on a wet bench. Not f
ar from us, nannies are watching a group of children yelling in the direction of another group of children who, for some unknown reason, do not yell back.

  Since our first encounter we spend much time together, Bontchek and I. I neglect my studies and my friends. Never mind, they’ll wait. There is no hurry, only a need to know the past of this man who knows my father’s past.

  “Tell me, Bontchek. The children, how did they live in the ghetto? Did they laugh? Did they have fun? What games did they play?”

  I think of my childhood, I see it flash by, a flame is lit and quickly goes out. Teachers’ faces, teachers’ voices: “Come on, let’s go, a little hard work never hurt anybody.” Moses and Washington, Jeremiah and Lincoln, Rabbi Akiba and Moby Dick, Mishna and algebra. “Come on, young man, you’re not paying attention.” Not so, I am paying attention. Sholem Aleichem and Mark Twain. “Your parents work hard to pay for your studies and you …” I know, I know. My father does not spare himself, he is exhausted, he works, he works from morning till night because tuition is expensive and so is the clinic and so is life. I know. High school, college, exams, I know, I know.

  “So, Bontchek, stop dreaming! Say something.”

  He takes another gulp from the bottle, just like a bum, but we are not on the Bowery but in Central Park, the largest, greenest park in the world, doesn’t he know that? Yes, Bontchek knows but doesn’t care. Here he goes again, evoking his memories; I was going to say our memories. Why does his voice mesmerize me? Is it the impact of his personality? My thirst for knowledge? My need for a presence, perhaps? The city and its seasons, the skyscrapers and their blinding reflections, life and its childish pursuits reach me only through a muffled and infinitely painful music.

  “In my mind I see the ghetto and I still don’t understand how I managed, how any of us managed, to endure its demands. When you entered it, you left the twentieth century. All reasoning, all habits, all social contracts with their advantages and constraints, all diplomas and titles were shed on the other side of the wall. For the first time in our history, knowledge and wealth became useless for the same reason: they no longer helped us, even to survive. Suddenly gripped by the unforeseen, you lived a life more real and yet less real than before: every hour could be the last, the sum of your existence. Listen, young man; even from a logistical point of view, what we were doing was slightly miraculous. In less than one week an entire community, that is to say an entire town, that is to say an entire world had to move and resettle. Families from vastly different social backgrounds suddenly found themselves thrown into the same building, what am I saying: into the same hovel. Do you know, young man, that a repugnant moldy hovel became home within a single morning? One soon became attached to it. Former homes: forgotten. Style, comfort: erased from memory. The children adapted themselves very quickly to the new rules that transformed the ghetto into a world of fantasy. We were living in a condensed time: people acquired instant habits. As soon as one arrived, one was a veteran. Strange: the structure and components of our centuries-old community were undergoing a radical change and yet, after the first tremors subsided, life once again became normal; men greeted one another in the street, women huddled in the kitchen, beggars begged, madmen sneered and history took its course.”