The Time of the Uprooted (14 page)
ONE DAY, OUT OF PURE CURIOSITY, GAMALIEL asked Gad about the significance of his favorite saying, “Be careful.” They were alone at the cafeteria, waiting for their friends. “You’d think those two words express all your philosophy of life,” Gamaliel said.
“Why all of it? Isn’t part enough for you?” That day, the Israeli was in an expansive mood. “It’s because of my violin. If I’m not careful, it’s likely to do all sorts of crazy things. Sometimes it wants to go galloping off after who knows what ears and what hearts. You see, my violin has a life of its own. Sometimes it wants to weep and cry and mourn, while I’m in a mood to sing the happiness of children and get them dancing.”
Gamaliel was about to comment that Gad had all the makings of a ventriloquist, but he refrained, for fear of offending him. In any case, Gad continued: “Do you know why I come to this place?”
“For the food?” Gamaliel said, hoping to get a laugh.
“Don’t be silly. It’s for the people who come here. I like to hear them speaking Yiddish. I like to listen in on their conversations. They help me see into a world that for a long time was impenetrable to me—the world of my parents and grandparents.” On the surface, his seemed a simple everyday story. Gad Lichtenstein, whose name was later made into the Hebrew Even-Ezer, was the only son of German emigrants, quiet, reserved people who never spoke of their past. His father worked in high finance; his mother was a doctor. He was brought up as a Zionist, did his military service, was a commando officer, and then was recruited by the Mossad. “All my life, all day long, it was drilled into me: ‘Be careful. Watch out.’ One wrong move in Baghdad could get you killed; one word too many in Damascus could mean prison and torture.”
“You must have some great stories.”
“Like everyone else. But that’s just it: It’s better to keep them to yourself.”
“You don’t mean to say you don’t trust us?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Well then?”
“Then nothing. It’s better to listen.” When he saw Bolek at the entrance, he quickly concluded: “I’m speaking from experience.”
Bolek joined them, and it was the one time Gamaliel was sorry to see him.
THE DOCTOR IS TRYING TO CONSOLE ME, AND I’M grateful, but I’m barely listening to her. Can we let our minds dwell on two subjects at the same time? Yes, we can. My thoughts are still with my children and my parents, but she is reminding me of the sick woman upstairs. My intuition tells me there is some unknown connection between us, and that disturbs me. I think of the men and women whose paths have crossed my own. Some of them showed me the mystery of knowledge, others that of suffering. Whether they carried light or darkness, whether they were drawn to the service of good or attracted by evil, they all left their mark on me. It is because of them that I am who I am. The desire to share love was what inspired some, while others were determined to destroy it in favor of anger. Rebbe Zusya fascinated me with his faith in faith. But before him came the friendship of Bolek, Gad and his violin, Diego and his battles, Yasha and his regrets. . . .
Yasha was from Kiev. He came from a Jewish family that had been secretly Orthodox. His father had attended the yeshiva at Navarodok. They spoke Yiddish at home. At sixteen, Yasha enlisted in the Red Army. He was wounded and decorated; he mourned the fallen. When at war’s end he returned to the city of his birth, he discovered how alone he was, and how consumed he was by hate: hatred for the enemy’s occupying army, hatred for those who collaborated with them, hatred for the onlookers who let them have their way. Between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, soon after the Germans arrived, his entire family was massacred at Babi Yar. Where could he turn? He joined the Communist party. He did his university studies, was appointed a teacher in a secondary school, married Nina, an energetic and doctrinaire young Muscovite who had found work in an office that was part of the “organs”—that is, the internal security services. One day in early 1949, she told Yasha that her boss wanted to see him. His first reaction was to ask, “Should I be worried about this?” She assured him that it had nothing to do with him personally. She was right. Interrogator Pavel Borisovich questioned him about his knowledge of languages, particularly about his mastery of Yiddish. Simple questions, easy answers. Thus began an ordeal that would stay with Yasha for the rest of his life.
This was the time in the Soviet Union of Stalin’s anti-Semitic mania. The killing of the great actor and director Shlomo Mikhoels was followed by the arrest of well-known Jewish writers and poets who wrote in Yiddish: Dovid Bergelson, Peretz Markish, Itzhak Feffer, Der Nister, Leib Kvitko, and Dovid Hofstein, among many others. While in Moscow the police were arresting the big names, in the provincial cities they had to make do with lesser prey. In Kiev, destiny’s choice was Fishel Kleinman. Yasha knew him: They had fought in the same unit near Kharkov. He was a short, brave, quick-witted man, whose cheeriness made him popular; he had a funny story for every occasion. Kleinman called himself a poet, a writer, a journalist, and he swore with a laugh that the world would recognize his genius once victory was achieved. Not the world, in fact—that would be saying too much—but several journals had published articles and poems in which he sang his love for Stalin, of course, and for Russian Jews, loyal citizens of the Soviet Union and devoted admirers of their immortal leader. Did he know that the organs kept everything he wrote in their files? Kleinman had not yet been questioned when Yasha was asked to translate his writings from Yiddish into Russian. The meaning was clear: A case was being prepared at a higher level. “There is surely anti-Soviet material in there,” said Pavel Borisovich. “Be sure to highlight it.” And he added more sharply, “Be careful. This is a matter of national security! Not a word to anyone! Not even Nina, understand?” Yes, Yasha understood: You don’t fool around with the organs. That same evening, Nina asked him how the meeting had gone. “Just fine,” he said. “Can you tell me something about it?” “No.” “Then forget I asked.”
Yasha’s school granted him a leave of absence. He went to the office every morning, never knowing whether he would leave it. By dint of translating Kleinman’s articles and poems, he became in a sense his most faithful reader. There appeared to be nothing compromising in his writings. Denunciation of the fascist Germans, recitation of the martyrdom of Russian Jews under the occupation, fervent eulogies of the victorious Red Army, lyrical poems to the glories of the Russian countryside, the Russian character, the Communist sky, the Communist soul, the Communist gods. Pavel Borisovich, obviously dissatisfied, was getting exasperated. “You haven’t found anything that reveals the author’s secret intentions, his subversive thoughts? Nowhere a deviationist word, an implied criticism of our policies? Not even an example of holding back, of hesitating?” he asked. Both his voice and his face gradually grew threatening. “I’m warning you! Don’t try to protect him! Think about the risk you’re running!” Yasha was indeed thinking about it. But in whom could he confide? Nina? Why implicate her in a case with unforeseeable consequences? He tried to avoid Kleinman. The latter telephoned several times to invite him to some commemorative gathering or to a dinner in honor of a visiting Jewish writer, but he always told Nina to say he was sick or not home. Yasha felt vaguely guilty: What would the prosecutor read into his Russian translations of Kleinman’s Yiddish texts? All the more so since on rereading certain poems, he discovered an expression here or a misplaced comma there that could easily be misinterpreted. Then he came upon an unpublished prayer—or rather, a lament— addressed to the memory of the victims of Babi Yar, written the day after the liberation of Kiev in 1943. The author blamed the massacre on the silence of the non-Jewish inhabitants of the city, its Ukrainian Communists among them. Tears came to Yasha’s eyes the first time he read the poem. Then he caught himself; a signal went off in his head. This cry from the heart might seem like a criticism of the Party! It would become a deadly weapon in the hands of the prosecutor! What should he do? How could he protect his old comrade-in-arms? The prayer was already listed in the prosecution’s catalog of Kleinman’s writings.
“So,” Yasha told us one day when our group was recalling Stalin’s poisonous hatred of the Jewish writers, “like a fool, I decided I’d trick that temperamental investigator in order to protect the unlucky poet, who was guilty only of being naïve. I didn’t destroy the poem; I just set it aside without translating it.
“Of course I expected a violent reaction from Pavel Borisovich, but not the earthquake that shook the whole office. He accused me of conspiring with a traitor, of trying to sabotage Communist justice. He banged on the table with both fists and yelled, ‘Where did Prosecution Exhibit One twenty-two disappear to? Don’t tell me you ate it, or that it flew out the window!’ I replied that it was there, in the dossier. He demanded to see it. I showed it to him. ‘But it’s not where it belongs! Why did you put it at the end, out of order, hidden under the other documents? And why didn’t you translate it?’I had my answer ready: ‘I only translated his published writings. Weren’t those your instructions?’ ‘No, those were not my instructions! My orders to you were perfectly clear: Translate everything that the traitor Fishel Yakobovich Kleinman wrote!’ I answered that I’d misunderstood him, and that I was ready to translate the unpublished poem on the spot. ‘Never mind!’ he shouted. ‘I already have a translation! Here it is.’ That’s how I learned that he hadn’t put his confidence in me, but had obtained another translator, one who either didn’t share my scruples or else wasn’t afraid of the consequences if he deceived the prosecutor. Now it was I who feared those consequences. I was sure I’d never see my home again. Surely some notorious troika was waiting in the next room to pass judgment on me. How many years would I get? And Nina, what would become of her? Now the prosecutor changed tack: ‘You’re going to translate that poem anyway. I intend to compare your two translations. So go ahead, get to work.’ I finished the three pages in less than an hour. Later on, I was able to read the anonymous translator’s version, and I was stupefied to find that, thanks to a few minor changes, his was less compromising than mine. In the end, it was because of my blunder— I, who thought I was such a hero—that the brave warrior Fishel Kleinman, wordsmith in his spare time, was sentenced to death. . . . I got seven years in prison. Nina left me; maybe they made her do it. . . . What saved me was Nikita Khrushchev coming to power . . . but ever since, I’ve hated poetry.”
“What became of the prosecutor, Pavel Borisovich?” Bolek asked.
“As far as I know, he’s still on the job.”
“You still hate him?”
“Only when I hear poetry.” Yasha smiled. “And yet, they say poetry cures you of hatred.”
Yasha never remarried.
THE MAN WHO ENDEAVORED TO HEAL ME WHEN I no longer knew who I was—Gamaliel? Péter? Someone else?—was both gentle and strong. I don’t know why, but he reminded me of Maimonides, whom a Sage once described as “the Teacher who knows.”
I spent privileged, unforgettable moments with him.
I see myself facing him in his room so many years ago. He lived in the Jewish Quarter of Casablanca. I was young; I’d come there looking for a girl I’d fallen head over heels in love with. Esther, that was her name. She read palms, and cards as well; she was a fortune-teller. She was slender; her face radiant. She had an eager look, and was at times hotheaded but at others stubborn. Her parted lips were an invitation. She reminded me of Shulamit in the Song of Songs.
I had met her on a boat going to Israel. It was two days before we were to arrive. I was deep in conversation with a blond widow whose eyes were demanding and inquisitive; she encouraged flirtation with a sharp, mischievous intelligence, suggesting untold pleasures. But I realized there was nothing there for me; in short, she was a tease. Just then, my eyes fell on a young Oriental woman, and I forgot the widow. It was Esther. I liked the way she cocked her head to one side. Her penetrating gaze took hold of mine. I wanted her with every fiber of my being. My body was hungry for hers. But we shared a puerile notion of innocence, which stood like a barrier between us. So instead of seizing the moment and enjoying it to the full, we sat up all night talking, telling each other our dreams and the disappointments to come. I would say to her, “I’ll tell you a story if you give me a kiss.” She replied, “I always look over the goods before I buy.” I said, “Do you like stories?” She replied, “Silly question. Of course I do. It’s part of my work. If you only knew the stories I have to tell the people who consult me. . . . Every palm has its own story; so does every star.” I took a deep breath, summoned my courage, and said, “All right, Esther, now hear a story whose ending I don’t yet know.
“The dreamer was sitting and dreaming on a cloud; he was waiting for the woman he was preparing to love and whom he already loved. Had she encountered someone more handsome, younger? Had she lost her way in the alleys that led to the woods? Had she forgotten where he would be waiting for her? The dreamer’s anxiety grew so heavy, it almost made the cloud tip over. So he tried to think about something else, about other beings. About the birds, who were singing and mocking one another; their chirping was pleasant to hear. He thought about the trees—how delightful to sink his teeth into ripe fruit when he was thirsty! He could still remember the young Greek or Turkish dancer who had winked at him from the distant stage. Could he have fallen for her? Maybe so, but not like this. The one he now loved, here on this cloud, he loved more, and more passionately, than all the others. He loved her for her lips; they were his sanctuary. But she was keeping him waiting. He was tiring of it, and so was the cloud he was sitting on. Should he get off? But then he might lose the one who was coming to join him. She knew these clouds; she could tell you their names and describe every one of them. Let’s stay where we are, the dreamer decided. She’ll come. She won’t be much longer. Hadn’t she said she loved him, too? That she longed for him? But time was passing, the minutes stretching into hours, and the woman of his dreams had still not arrived. So, ready to give up in despair, the dreamer decided to leave his cloud and go where broken hearts went to drown themselves. He had already gotten down when he heard a voice, the sweetest voice in the world, the voice that harmonized with his when he told her things he could tell to no one else. The voice of the woman he loved. Her name was . . .”