The Time of the Uprooted (23 page)

“ ‘ “Come in, Mendel,” Hananèl said again.

“ ‘The beadle could hardly lift his aching limbs. He moved slowly forward, slipping on the wooden floor. Hananèl went to help him, and when he saw close up the ravaged face and bloodshot eyes, he cried out, “What did they do to you?” He led Mendel to a chair and helped him sit. Still laughing, Mendel began to speak.

“ ‘ “May the Rebbe forgive me; I can’t help it. There were three of them, three priests. Two young ones, and the old one who came for me. They wanted me to tell lies about the Rebbe. According to them, the Rebbe was a liar and his powers were a sham. I shouted at them that they didn’t know, they couldn’t know what they were talking about. That their ignorance proved they were serving the Devil. Then the old one pulled an ancient book from his pocket and showed it to me. ‘It’s a manual,’ he said, ‘a manual that dates from the Inquisition. It proved its value in Spain and Portugal. Thanks to it, you will answer all our questions. Who is this young “Blessed Madman”? From where does he derive his occult powers? Is he a sorcerer, a magician? Is he in league with Satan?’ Then I started laughing to overcome my fear. ‘I’m not afraid of pain,’ I told them. ‘I only fear the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But you, you do not fear Him, and that will cost you dearly, I’m telling you.’ May the Rebbe forgive me, but I cannot describe what I underwent at their hands. But one thing is certain, and that is that I never stopped laughing. Because I knew whom I was suffering for. It was for God and His servant, my Master. But they, my torturers, did they know why they were making me suffer? I told myself that in this life sometimes we have to choose between laughing and making others laugh. Well, I made my choice.”

“ ‘Now Hananèl kissed him on the forehead and said in a soft and gentle voice, “We’ve known each other a long time, Mendel. You’re closer than close to me. You’re part of my very being. But you came to me after the ordeals I underwent, after my defeat. Now for the first time you’re experiencing real pain. Know that it is as powerful as pleasure, if not more so. Woe to the man for whom it is the only reason for living, all he cares about; nothing on earth will tear him away from it. In time, it will take him over body and soul. It becomes a deity to him, devouring all conscience and all hope. But you, you defeated that deity by rising above it.”

“ ‘ “May the Rebbe forgive me,” Mendel said, “but he knows perfectly well that I’m only a beadle; my mind isn’t capable of rising to such heights, so I don’t understand the Rebbe’s thoughts.”

“ ‘Moved to tears, the young Master managed a smile. “Mendel, my dear Mendel. Right now, between the two of us, you’re the Rebbe.”

“ ‘The beadle’s face grew somber. “No, Rebbe, a thousand times no! Is the Rebbe saying that because I didn’t reveal any of his truth? But I don’t understand the truth he knows. I’m just a poor servant who lives in his Master’s shadow!”

“ ‘ “I’m saying it, Mendel, because you discovered the truth not of pain but of laughter.”

“ ‘Only then did the beadle grow calm.’ ”

Gamaliel stopped. Perhaps he expected Eve to ask him to continue, but she remained silent. Her eyes were half-closed, as if dozing, but she was breathing heavily, as though her heart were beating fast.

“Words,” Gamaliel said. “They’re just words.”

“What do they mean to you?”

“I don’t know. But I do know what I would like them to be. I would like them to be like fire, to leave scars on the memory of God, or at least of His creatures.”

“Those words,” she said very softly, “would you rent them to me?”

“It all depends.”

“On what?”

“On how much you’re willing to pay. Let me tell you that Georges Lebrun, that novelist of mine, who’s as arrogant as he is untalented, wants to buy them from me. And he’s offering me the moon.”

“I’ll pay better.”

“Really?”

“Come here and sit.”

From then on, they never quarreled. Even when Samaël’s diabolical influence forced them to part, their separation was not preceded by any misunderstanding.

LIKE IT OR NOT, GAMALIEL LIVED HIS WORK night and day. He had always been fascinated by words, by the silence within a word, to which that word gives meaning. Sometimes, even when he was writing his
Book of Secrets,
he would spend hours leafing through dictionaries, for no reason other than sheer pleasure. Had he to spend ten years on the proverbial desert island with a single book, that book would be a dictionary. He was convinced that to read two words, two little words, was as serious an action as the joining of two people. For the distance that separates one word from another is, in the world of words, as great a distance from earth to a star.

What’s more, each word has its own destiny. Words are born by chance, grow up, and die, drained of their blood, then can be reborn a century later, in some other place, for better or for worse, offering hope to some and sorrow to others.

A word may change in meaning and scope according to its context. The words
kadesha, kedosha,
and
kedusha,
in the Bible, are one example among many. Those same words can mean “whore,” “saint,” and “sanctity.” Sometimes we use the same words to glorify what is pure and to denounce what is not. Today more than ever, words transmit violence by describing it. It is when he masters the word that Satan becomes all-powerful.

Rebbe Zusya often spoke of
Galut hadibur,
the exile of the word. “When words lose their way, when they wander off and lose their meaning, when they become lies,” he would say, “those who speak or write them are the most uprooted of people. And surely the most to be pitied.”

WAS EVE HERSELF AMONG THE UPROOTED? NO. Despite the loss of her husband and daughter, she had kept her nature intact. Eve was upright, opposed to compromise. Eve the unyielding: She had adopted as basic unspoken principles her moral values, the rules of living in a society, of responsibility to others. No one could get her to come down from that lofty perch. She was often right, and Gamaliel conceded that her demands, never petty or malicious, did her credit—even when they entailed a sacrifice.

One day, a public official offered Gamaliel a particularly lucrative contract to write his political-philosophical autobiography. Gamaliel accepted, for the project presented no major problems. Interesting topic, unusual protagonist: poor as a child, brilliant law student, promising start as aide to the mayor of a medium-size city, career without blemish. Gamaliel could deliver the manuscript in a few weeks and be paid the rest of the advance. That was when Eve asked him, “Are you sure, absolutely sure, that this man has a clean record?”

“ ‘Absolutely sure’? No, I’m not. I can’t guarantee you that he never got his hands dirty one way or another. We mustn’t forget he’s a politician.”

“And what will you do if, after this flattering book he expects from you is published, you discover some unpleasant facts about him? Will you feel morally obliged to make a public apology? If so, you won’t be able to, because you’ve promised never to reveal that you wrote his book!”

Gamaliel tried to parry the thrust. “Intellectual honesty and moral courage aren’t necessarily the same. Did you know that the great Descartes was so frightened when he learned that Galileo had been found guilty that he postponed the publication of his own treatise
Traîté du Monde
?”

“You’re not Descartes. And since you know his story, you can’t use his excuse.”

“All right, I’ll try to explain it another way. Suppose I’m a shoemaker. I make a pair of shoes for a good customer. Is it my fault if he sells them to a criminal, who then wears them to rob a bank?” Seeing the look of distrust on Eve’s face, he caught himself and said sheepishly, “Forgive me. That example was unworthy of you, and of us.”

And he gave back the politician’s twenty thousand dollars.

There was another occasion on which Gamaliel refused a tempting offer. A rabbi, “spiritual leader” of a congregation in Detroit, asked him to write for him a refutation of the work of a certain “Rabbi Arthur.” The latter had written what he considered an exposé on a Jewish Communist sect in the Ukraine. Gamaliel asked for time to think it over. “On the one hand,” he said to Eve, “why should I get mixed up in the quarrel between two rabbis? On the other hand, it would pay the rent for six months.”

He went out to Rabbi Arthur’s town in Michigan. A quick investigation showed him that the rabbi was anything but popular. Some resented his arrogance; others mocked his ambition. But how much faith should be put in these nasty rumors? That he had been forced out of his post didn’t mean all that much. It happened everywhere; one could hardly find a religious community that was free of dissension. The illustrious Rabbi Israel Salanter used to say, “A rabbi without adversaries doesn’t deserve his position. But he deserves it even less if he lets them dominate him.” To get a better sense of the man before coming to a decision, Gamaliel attended a public meeting where Rabbi Arthur was to speak.

The speaker was impressive only in his mediocrity. Average height, flushed face of a delayed adolescent, slack-jawed, silver-rimmed glasses over pale eyes. A tense, screechy voice, jerky movements—a comedian. That, at any rate, was what people called him: “the comedians’ rabbi,” or “the rabbi’s comedian.” Vain, self-centered, he may well have had his talents, but ideas were not among them: In that field, his speciality was borrowing. He had stayed single because, people said, he could find no woman worthy of him; he was, in a sense, married—to himself. His speech was a series of banalities laced with an underling’s sense of resentment. He resented everyone—above all, his colleagues, who would not recognize his worth, his distinction, his supposed role in both Jewish and non-Jewish highbrow circles. He resented the community whose intellectual leader he aspired to be. The audience, used to his self-importance, listened with half an ear.

After the meeting, Gamaliel went to him and introduced himself as a correspondent for a major European magazine.

“You want to interview me?” the rabbi asked. “Of course, anytime, anyplace. Will you be bringing a photographer?”

The interview took place the following day in the rabbi’s study. There were many books on the shelves, but also photos of the rabbi alongside celebrities in the arts and prominent Israelis. Actually, it was a monologue, not an interview. The rabbi clearly loved the sound of his own voice. But, Gamaliel asked himself, is that reason enough to help his adversary demolish his reputation, especially since the rabbi himself seems to be doing such a good job of it? A vague feeling of pity came over him, and he decided to reject the Detroit rabbi’s offer.

Eve tossed her head back, and, laughing, she applauded him. “I’m richer than your rabbi. I’ll pay you back for what you lost by turning down his offer. But in return, you have to write a book that will be just for me.”

In Eve, a sense of humor went hand in hand with a sensibility that mingled sadness with an urgent need for tenderness and calm. A book just for her? There was one: the Song of Songs.

“Someday I’ll show you my manuscript,” Gamaliel told her. “The book will be my gift to you. You’ll read it, you’ll see. I hope you’ll like it. It’s a book that no one else could write or even imagine. A book whose words make you dream.”

In his book Gamaliel recounted his father’s last words, his mother’s caresses, Ilonka’s great soul.

He described the first woman who introduced him to love, the first time he saw the body of a woman ready for pleasure.

He related the somber and terrible event that befell the “Blessed Madman,” precursor to the Messenger, Rebbe Zusya.

He expressed what Gamaliel had heard around him: Under God’s creation, to paraphrase Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, the greatest of the Hasidic storytellers, everything that exists in this world has a heart, and that heart has a heart that is the heart of the world. According to this Sage, sound becomes voice, voice becomes song, and song becomes story. If only we lend an ear, we will hear what is all around us. The leaves of the trees speak to the grass, the clouds signal one another, and the wind carries secrets from one land to the next. One must learn to listen; that is the key to mystery.

And Gamaliel would discover that key, he promised Eve. He would find the voice and let it be heard.

“Perhaps I’m that key of which you speak so eloquently,” said Eve.

Yes, it was she.

He would use that key to unlock the nocturnal gates to her body and his soul. And they would attain a happiness rooted in humanity that would flow on forever.

GAMALIEL HAD A DREAM:

I am running like a madman through a town I’ve never seen, where everyone enjoys peace. The children speak like wise elders, the women are radiant with beauty, and the merchants are overflowing with generosity as they hand out their precious goods. Everything is free. Where have I come to, and why? I don’t understand what’s happening to me. Someone must have brought me here. As punishment, or reward? I stop a bearded man and ask, “What am I doing here among you?” He shakes my hand warmly and starts laughing. “Oh, how funny you are!” He stops other passersby and says, pointing at me, “See how funny he is, this visitor. Isn’t he funny? Let’s all thank him for being so funny!” I go to a young man and ask, “What do you think about my being here among you?” The young man reaches in his pocket, pulls out a gold piece, and hands it to me. “This is a gift for you, stranger, because you are a gift to us. But be aware that you can’t use it—it’s worthless here.” A woman dressed with disarming simplicity signals that she wants to talk to me. She looks familiar. I know those eyelids, those lips, those gestures. But who is she? “I’ve been waiting for you for a long time,” she says invitingly. “Yes, for a long time I’ve been dreaming of being in your arms. And you?” “As for me,” I say in my dream, “it’s a long time since I stopped dreaming.” At that, she bursts out laughing and leans toward me to touch my lips. “Don’t say anything, just listen. My name is Eve. I am the first and—”

Gamaliel started, then awoke, overwhelmed. Eve was sleeping restlessly, her sleep punctuated from time to time by a sigh of pain or perhaps fear; he had no way of knowing which. Should I wake her? he wondered. Better wait; maybe she’ll calm down. She murmured words he could not understand. Suddenly, she cried out, opened her eyes, looked around in the half-light. Their eyes met. She seemed surprised to find him by her side.