One Generation After (4 page)

Few came back. One who did was Moshe the Beadle. He was unrecognizable; gone were his gentleness, his shyness. Impatient, irascible, he now wore the mysterious face of a messenger pursued by those whose message he carried. He who used to stutter whenever he had to say a single word, suddenly began to speak. He talked and talked, without pity for either his listeners or himself. He had discovered a new vocation as public speaker and agitator.

He went from one synagogue to the next, from house to house, from store to store, from factory to factory, he spoke to passers-by in the street, farmers in the marketplace. He told and told again tales so heinous as to make your skin crawl. Accounts of his journey somewhere in Galicia, his escape, his experience of death. And his family? Left behind. And his children? Left behind. And his friends? Left behind, over there, at the bottom of a mass grave. Shot, all of them. In broad daylight. He too had been shot, falling only a fraction of a second before it would have been too late. Protected by those who followed, he alone survived. Why? So that he could come back to his town and tell the tale. And that is why he never stopped talking. But his audiences, weary and naïve, would not, could not believe. People said: Poor beadle, he has lost his mind. Finally he understood, and fell silent. Only his burning eyes revealed the impotent rage inside him. His muteness bordered on madness. But he maintained it until two years later, a few days before the last Shavuot, when the fate of our ghetto was already sealed. Then he burst into our house and informed my father of his decision
to run away. He left singing: “There is nothing, nothing left for me to do here, I am going, going, going back to Galicia. With a little luck, I’ll get there before the holidays, before the burial …”

And Leizer—have I told you about him? He had a last name, but it escapes me. I’m not even sure about his nickname. Leizer the Fat, or Leizer the Black—or was it Leizer the Giggler? For he was fat and dirty and used to laugh day and night, endlessly and—above all—without reason. But who ever needed a reason to laugh at the world?

His face was round and scarred, but his eyes twinkled. As he walked, his cumbersome body swayed and his enormous arms dangled back and forth. He slept in the
hekdesh
, the community asylum, and lived by charity. Strange, he never went inside a home, but waited in the courtyard or near the porch, until someone brought him a piece of bread soaked in oil, some boiled potatoes, a glass of fresh milk or a few pennies.

He enjoyed playing with the children as they came home from school. He encouraged them to throw rocks at him and fight. The more they mocked him, the happier he was.

On the other hand, the anti-Semitic ruffians refrained from scuffling with him. He was the only Jew who dared walk the streets on Christmas night. Sheer ignorance or desire to provoke? The fact is, he was never molested. And so I came to see in him a reincarnation of the Golem, that clay creature endowed with strength but not intelligence, invented centuries ago by legend to protect the Jews of Prague. Like them, we were intelligent but weak; we too needed a protector.

Stretched out before the stove just inside the Talmud Torah,
Leizer seemed, all through the long winter months, to be awaiting a call. At the approach of Passover, his laughter became nervous and abrupt. I thought I understood why: like the first Golem, the one of Prague, he had to be alert and on the lookout so as to ward off our enemies, who for centuries have hated and persecuted us, particularly during our holidays.

The last time I remember seeing him was the day the ghetto was liquidated. He was in the first convoy. That day he seemed gloomy and angry: someone was preventing him from fulfilling his mission, from confronting the killers head-on and trampling down the bearers of hate and death. He was breathing heavily, like a wounded animal.

I should have noticed that he had stopped laughing. And recognized it as a warning.

Another tale of another beggar, the last. Don’t worry: this one concerns the adventures of a prince. For there was one in our town. You’ll see. To each and everyone his prince. One prince is driven into hell, another is lifted on to a royal white stallion. The third flies away on the wings of legend. As for mine, he wore no crown, he promised neither moon nor stars, he exacted neither obedience nor honors: he sought nothing. Was he a symbol? If so, no one ever was privileged to find its meaning. Did he possess hidden marvels and treasures? No one ever was privileged to see them.

My prince distinguished himself by neither splendor nor elegance. He was old and his clothes were in tatters. His face was his: he had nothing else.

He was poor, the poorest beggar in our community. Like the
others, he slept near the stove in the synagogue. Each morning when I arrived for services, I found him sitting on the last bench, lost in dreams, his eyes reflecting nameless sorrow.

Taciturn and aloof, he rarely solicited alms, at least not by word. There he stood before you, watching you out of the corner of his eyes. Heeded or not, he smiled, stammered a word of thanks and went on his way. Something in his behavior, his awkward gestures, evoked affection more than charity, respect rather than compassion.

We called him Shmukler. Was that his last name or his first? I don’t know. Like everyone else, I did know that he had come from far away. He had arrived during World War I, wearing an officer’s uniform. Had he been victor or loser? Warden or prisoner? Opinions were divided and he himself refused to clarify the matter. He would listen absent-mindedly, not offering any comments.

Why had he decided to settle in our small town? Why did he not go home—and where was home? The mystery surrounding him gave rise to various theories. He was a business tycoon from Berlin, a celebrated artist from Vienna. His fiancée, in Budapest, was rich and famous for her beauty. Furthermore, she sang at the opera. She was younger than he. No, older than his mother. A drug addict at that. No, he was the one, not she. Was he at least Jewish? He did not understand Yiddish, which in our region was enough to make him suspect. One morning I surprised him in the synagogue, wearing phylacteries on his forehead and left arm: he looked like a different man. Some thought him a penitent, others were convinced he was a convert, an adventurer, a saint, a Lamed Vav, a poet, an escaped criminal: he might have been any of those.

As the years passed, we stopped badgering him. We were afraid he would tire of our curiosity and leave us.

Actually, he sometimes disappeared for several days and nights without forewarning or explanation. Did he go to see his family? His fiancée? His business associates? More likely he was hiding in some mountain cave nearby, or wandering aimlessly in the woods, a free man responsible to no one. But he always reappeared in the house of study before we had time to become worried.

One year I invited him to share our Passover meal. He thanked me effusively but insisted he had accepted a previous invitation. Whose?

“To tell you would not be good manners, right?” was all he said.

I had to acquiesce. But during the entire holiday he was not at the synagogue. In vain did I look for him in other places of worship; he was nowhere to be found. Then I had a startling thought: What if he had gone to celebrate the Seder in his own home. Could there be truth in what people were whispering about him? If not, why would he be so mysterious?

The day after Passover, I saw him sitting on his usual bench. Had he had a pleasant holiday? I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Where?”

“Oh, not very far from here.”

“Do I know the place?”

“No, I don’t think so. At least, not yet.”

“Could I go with you next time?”

“Of course, but you will need a proper invitation.”

By that time people had begun to treat him as a madman.
Even though he showed no signs of madness. He was not subject to irrational outbursts or abnormal impulses. He never caused scenes, showed no taste for violence and stayed away from disturbances. Rarely was he in anyone’s way; he lived silently, as in a shell.

More than that: he was clearly an educated and well-read man. He spoke several languages and understood literature and art. One had the feeling that he had grown up surrounded by comfort and had attended the university of his choosing. But he admitted to nothing. Why did we think he was mad? Because we failed to understand his motivations? Because he had forsaken the glittering life of the city for a remote dusty village like ours? No, I thought, he is not mad, his presence in our midst was probably connected with some secret purpose binding him to us.

In the beginning I saw in him a
tzaddik
in disguise, a saintly sage whose mission it was to gather sparks and wandering souls to unite them with the original and sacred flame, the flame that links the Creator to His creation. Later, I don’t know why, I found myself treating him like a prince belonging to the distant kingdom of the Ten Lost Tribes. One day, after a certain event, he would return to his castle. Then we would learn the truth. But it would be too late. The prince would never again visit our little town.

The event took place. Passover 1944 saw our synagogues closed, our houses of prayer and learning evacuated. A thousand burning questions troubled me, including: Where would Shmukler seek shelter? I tried in vain to get information. I questioned the other beggars, the other madmen. In the midst of
chaos, they had been too busy to worry about Shmukler, who had vanished, leaving no trace. I too had so many problems of my own I could not afford to linger on his case.

But once again I found him. The first convoy was ready to leave the ghetto. I noticed Shmukler from afar: he was standing by himself, calm, serene, in control of his body and eyes. I don’t recall whether he carried a suitcase or a bundle. I think neither; it was a bag belonging to the old woman shuffling along beside him. There was a smile on his face and even in his eyes.

It was as though he understood where they were taking him. He knew they were taking him home. Other victims were already waiting for him, over there, in the mysterious palace of the invisible king. He knew he would be riding a black steed, who would pull him higher and higher, until in the presence of the king he would point out the arsonists below. He would never see the town of my childhood again. That too he knew.

So, twenty-five years later, I ask you the question: How does one commemorate his death and that of an entire community? What must one say? How many candles should one light, how many prayers should one recite, and how many times? Perhaps someone knows the answer. I don’t. I am still searching and I still do not know what one must do to keep alive the image of a town which seems more and more unreal to me each day.

That is why I describe and embellish it so often, and often more than it deserves. I did not know it in its ugliness but at its most exalted, as it appeared to a young Jew for whom its outlines fused with those of his imagination.

I was too young to be aware of insinuations in people’s small-talk; I listened only to their prayers. I was too innocent to understand the hunger and misery of our beggars, the dilemmas faced by our dreamers, the tragedy of our madmen. Though I am less naïve now, I cannot help but remember them as I saw them then: creatures from paradise struck down by human malediction.

I see them still—and shall see them always—walking toward the station, heads bowed, their mouths twisted by thirst and grief. They walk and walk and never stop or rest, for the dead need no rest; they are tireless, the dead, and there can be no will powerful enough to impede their march. The Angel of Death himself is powerless, for they are stronger than he, stronger than anyone. All we can do is watch them walk and tell the story of their march, which is the story of an end, a story that has no end.

Their endless march seems to lead toward an encounter in time rather than space. An encounter with whom? So as not to offend them, someone should be waiting for them. Who? That does not matter. What matters is where: Sighet. No other place will do.

And that town they themselves invented they are now carrying farther and farther away, endowing it with a thousand names and a thousand faces. Look and you’ll see: it follows them, and so do I, keeping my distance, afraid to come too close. I follow their footsteps and murmur psalms, then I say
Kaddish
, once, ten times, a hundred times. How many times, I ask you, how many times should one say
Kaddish
for the death of a community buried in ashes, how many times must one repeat it for
the twenty-fifth anniversary of that death? I do not know, I shall never know. What I do know is that we shall have to invent new prayers for the body as well as for the soul. For whoever tells you that soul can attain greater heights than body, bid him hold his tongue, for he does not know what he is saying. He did not see the Jews of my town, the Jews of all the towns like mine; he did not see their bodies become light as fire, lighter than ashes, invading the sky and our memory, and God’s.