The Testament

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

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 anything!” 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.