The Oath

  “The murderer is not Christian,” said Moshe.

  The sergeant froze, wondering whether he had not drunk too much, after all. This Jew, a gift from heaven—here he was denouncing one of his own. His confession could have no other meaning. The murderer is not Christian! That’s good. That’s wonderful. That smells of treason, of show trial. The murderer is Jewish, says a Jew. Better and better. Bravo, Pavel, Sergeant Pavel. You have unraveled a complex, obscure affair. Bravo, Lieutenant Pavel. Bravo, General. We are proud of you, my son, says His Majesty the King surrounded by his court. You have served justice, avenged Christianity. You have unmasked our hereditary enemies, punished the guilty—bravo, my dear Count. Now tell us how you did it. It must not have been easy. Jews have a reputation for helping each other. Tribal solidarity. Common front, shoulder to shoulder. Still, here we are; here is a Jew who states in the most natural way in the world that Yancsi’s assassin is Jewish. Go and figure it out. No doubt an exception. His motive? His purpose?

  “Come, Jew,” said the sergeant. “Let’s talk a little—you and I.”

  Moshe, his tallith and tephillin under his arm, let himself be pushed into the barracks courtyard and from there into the gymnasium. A faint smile played around his lips. As far as he was concerned, the matter was closed, or almost. He had played his part, done his duty. He had said everything. Another three words … three words and it would all be over. I did it. And the catastrophe would be avoided, averted. The power of words. I did it. One brief sentence, and the destiny of a Jewish community somewhere between the Dniepr and the Carpathian Mountains would be changed.

  Pavel closed the door behind himself, went over to sit on the edge of his desk and began scrutinizing Moshe. For a long moment nothing happened. Outside, the rain had started to come down thick and fast, splashing on the red-tile roof patched with blackened metal. A horse neighed. Hurried steps in the corridor. Vaguely aware of the dull sounds coming from the courtyard and street, Moshe focused his attention on the sergeant. He saw him raise his right leg slowly, deliberately, bend it and impassively kick him in the stomach. Moshe was thrown backward but managed not to fall. The sergeant ordered him to come close again, and he obeyed without protest or delay. Another blow to the same place. Panting, Moshe tried to catch his breath. Pavel immediately started all over again. Moshe doubled up with pain but remained standing. What was he thinking about? About the strange need, the strange passion that drives certain individuals to inflict pain on others. A funny kind of game which continues into death, a funny kind of death. What does it prove, being capable of causing pain or death to others?

  Moshe tried to study the sergeant’s face for a clue to what it meant and what was to follow, but he saw nothing. Nothing. Neither hate nor anger. Neither thought nor passion. Nothing. Moshe could not understand the indifference with which the blows were struck. Nor could he understand the need for this exercise, since he was going to tell all! He was about to comment on that point but was not given the chance. Pavel was now on his feet, slapping him with full force. Moshe clenched his teeth as he swayed back and forth and back again, glimpsing the sergeant only through a misty, dirty veil. Moshe looked surprised, bewildered. And sad, profoundly sad. What was he thinking about? A book he had studied long ago in a Yeshiva in Galicia. A book describing the first torments experienced by the body lying in its grave. The angels and their trials. The traps. The visions of punishment. The wait. The sergeant an angel? An angel in the service of Death?

  “Very well,” said Pavel. He went to fetch a chair, and straddling it, sat down. “You have had the appetizer. The meal will follow.”

  A sadistic brute, anti-Semitic in the extreme, he sometimes demolished his victims with his bare hands. Suspects went directly from him to the hospital. And usually on a stretcher. For hard-heads he kept, locked away in a drawer, a riding crop that was not only his favorite toy but also his friend—a living and demanding creature. Pavel talked to it as to a whimsical mistress to be seduced and worshiped. The angel and his fiery whip. Pavel, a part of a kingdom beyond the grave?

  “We are going to listen to him nicely,” said the sergeant, pulling his beloved riding crop out of its drawer. “Isn’t that so, my pet? This gentleman—this dirty, stinking rogue of a Jew—is going to tell us pretty stories. We love those pretty stories, don’t we, my pet? Stories of blood and treachery—oh, how we love them. So then, what are you waiting for?” he taunted Moshe. “We are dying of curiosity, aren’t we, my pet? Isn’t it true that we are dying of impatience?”

  Moshe felt a thousand needles piercing his chest. His head was bursting. Yet he did not take his bloodshot eyes off the seated figure. The sergeant was caressing his crop with both hands. Do the angel and the dead man in his grave have the same concept of divine and human justice? The problem is not as simple as I imagined, Moshe thought. I took death into account but not the executioner. That book he had read was incomplete; he would have to add his own chapter on the executioner. No, it wouldn’t be so simple. Moshe looked sad and bewildered. With his tallith and tephillin under his arm, he seemed to be waiting for a sign to go and pray, meditate, study by himself, far from society, sheltered from its debasing and cruel needs. He seemed surprised that no sign was forthcoming. Could I already be in my grave? he wondered. The angel and the fiery whip. The wait. However, the executioner does not follow the victim, not into the grave. The equation is no longer the same. Not so simple, the equation.

  “This gentleman is not very polite,” said the sergeant. “We speak to him and he does not answer. We invite him to entertain us and he declines the honor. He lacks manners, isn’t that so, my pet?”

  Moshe made an effort to listen, to follow the words and remember them, and to control his breathing, his own thoughts. “There is nothing I’d like better,” he said, trying to hold himself erect. “That was the purpose of my coming here. I came of my own free will. To beg you to … end the search. I … I know the murderer.”

  Three words … three words and order will be restored. But how was he to pronounce them? At what moment? In what tone of voice? How was he to present them? When the Messiah will come, said Rebbe Levi-Yitzhak of Berditchev, man will be capable of understanding not only the words but also the blank spaces of the Torah. Yes, yes, they are important, those blank spaces. Man is responsible not only for what he says, but also for what he does not say.

  “He knows the murderer,” said the sergeant. “Yancsi’s murderer, he knows him and it is … Who is it?”

  Moshe tried, tried with all his strength, to smile, but he failed. Much to his sorrow. It was important for him to smile at that particular moment, while answering that particular question, while stressing those particular words; three small incandescent words branded with a red-hot iron: “I did it.”

  It had come out a grimace, not a smile, which annoyed him. A bad omen, he was sure of it. Things would not work out only because he had not smiled while saying I did it, those three simple and primitive words meant to come between the executioner and his victims.

  “Do you hear?” said the sergeant tenderly. “He knows the murderer, he is the murderer. Simple as A, B, C. Right, little one? He is the murderer and he knows himself.”

  “Indeed,” said Moshe. “It was I. I did it. I can explain everything. Why. How. When. I did it …”

  Yes, he was ready to repeat it over and over, until the very end of this affair—and life: Yes, yes, I know the murderer, naturally, since I am the murderer. He, Moshe, was prepared to make a detailed confession. Yes, he had killed Yancsi. Yes, in the forest. Not far from the river, close to where the stream becomes a noisy, deafening whirlpool. He had made fun of him, Yancsi. Always. Always without provocation. Out of sheer malice. He had insulted him, cursed him, shouted obscenities. Just like that, for nothing. For no reason, without ever a response. Yancsi had thrown stones. Just like that, without motive. And that was when Moshe’s blood had begun to boil. Naturally. With one jump he had caught him and with one blow of his fist he ha
d knocked him down. Then he had struck him in the back of the neck with a rock and killed him. And then? Then he had carried and dragged the body to the river, to the spot mentioned earlier. It was dark. He was alone. A shove. Thrown in. Return to town. Dark, it was still dark. That’s it, that’s all. I did it.

  “You see?” said the sergeant, touching the tip of the crop with his lips. “I promised you a beautiful story, here it is. You heard it and it is beautiful, isn’t it, my pet? A Jew, who knows how to tell a story. Keep you in suspense. Deceive you. Bluff—a Jewish specialty. Now everything is clear. Let’s go home to sleep. The case is closed, goodnight. A good Christian child has been assassinated and the assassin is here, before us, and he looks at us, looks at us ironically, thinking that he fooled us, once again. That’s funny, my pet, don’t you think that’s funny?”

  As he spoke he caressed the crop with a sensual, voluptuous, almost religious tenderness, kissing it from tip to tip, rubbing it against his puffy cheeks, his drooping mustache. His voice was quivering, cooing. Suddenly he changed tone and peered at Moshe sideways. “All right. That takes care of your fable. What about you, who are you?”

  “My name is Moshe, I live …”

  A whiplash he had not seen coming cut a channel of fire across the left side of his face. Moshe staggered. Through a haze he heard the sergeant’s voice, condescending, calm, methodical.

  “Whether you live in hell or elsewhere is of no concern to us, right, my pet? Anyway, Jews have no homes except temporary ones. On the other hand, what does interest us a great deal is to find out who you are, who you really are. You must not lie to us.”

  “I told you. I am Moshe.”

  This time the blow struck Moshe full force. “You are lying, we don’t like that. You are not just Moshe. That would be too easy, too convenient. Surely you realize you’re not fooling me. Surely you have more than one name, more than one identity, thus more than one accomplice—and don’t tell me I am the one who is lying!”

  That buzzing in his head, those needles in his chest. Moshe’s mind was sluggish and getting more so: Where am I? Who am I? With whom?

  “My name is Moshe and I have no accomplice,” he said.

  No, dying would not be simple, he thought, wavering back and forth. He had not foreseen such a development, such digressions. He had counted too much on the Prefect, who would have been only too happy to have a culprit at last. He would not have tortured him. And now? I must go to the end, not give in, thought Moshe. Hold out, hold on. Repeat the same formula, a thousand times if need be: My name is Moshe and I have no accomplice. I have no accomplice. He did not see the crop dance over his head before it came crashing down on his forehead.

  “He is making fun of us, my pet. A Jew never operates alone. They taught us that at school and in church. As part of the catechism. Jews exist only in the plural. Together they plot their crimes and together they carry them out. Together they dream of our death and hope for our demise. Together they crucified our sweet Lord Jesus Christ. The Christians are alone just as Christ was. He was alone, Christ, alone and defenseless, and you killed him. As you killed Yancsi. But you were not alone. We know it, so why lie? We know everything. Why you murdered him. Not for the reasons you claim. Yancsi bothered nobody. He was kindness personified, little Yancsi. Good and innocent. You were jealous, that’s why you killed him. To rob him of his blood and youth. As always. You need Christian blood to please your cruel and thirsty God. You think we don’t know? We are well informed. You kill to live. You are cleansed by our blood. I know what you are hiding behind your Ark: the corpse of a Christian child. When you dance, it is around your poor victims that you dance …”

  All the slanders, all the fables accumulated in the course of centuries seemed to be part of the sergeant’s heritage. The Jews had nothing better to do than poison wells and souls, spread evil and pestilential disease, seduce Christian children and offer them in sacrifice to their Lord, who is none other than Satan. I must not listen, thought Moshe. I must not follow him. I must not absorb these senseless words. Escape. Change time and place. But not my name and not my self.

  “I have no accomplice and my name is Moshe.”

  His broken voice was fading into the distance. Follow it? Across the courtyard, the street, the town, life. And then? Then an angel knocks at the grave and asks: Who are you? Moshe. My name is Moshe and I have no accomplice.

  “Well, now he is calling us liars and imbeciles,” said the sergeant without anger or sadness.

  His thin, almost lipless mouth brushed against the crop before setting it gently on the table. He stood up and stretched, looked for something, didn’t find it, and then, for lack of anything more suitable, grabbed a chair and brought it down on Moshe’s head with such violence that Moshe collapsed, but did not let go of his ritual objects. For the sergeant this was only a prelude; he had just obtained confirmation that chairs had manifold uses and was somewhat annoyed with himself for not having guessed as much before. Very well, he would make up for lost time.

  For Moshe too, sprawled on the floor, his body bleeding and his mind on fire, this was no ordinary chair simply determined to dismember him—this was a throne, Satan’s. And thousands and thousands of demons were kneeling before him. So this is it, thought Moshe. This is Satan’s throne. Heavy. Crushing. My body lends it support, another dimension. Resist, I must resist. From then on he no longer felt pain. He had reached the limit, had gone beyond it. The sergeant could torture him till the day after doomsday, the pain could not increase. He had crossed the river, eluded the executioner. He had even succeeded in losing interest in him, in excluding him. Triumph of the imagination: Moshe beyond perception, free of his body, was running away in the rain and in the sun, all at once mute and singing, laughing and crying, alone and yet not alone, living in a time that was his very own. He relived certain dreams, certain encounters that had sustained him during his formative years. The lonely innkeeper whose drunkenness he shared so as to experience his downfalls and horrors. The unhappy vagabond he transformed into a preacher by teaching him three sermons suitable for every occasion. The young widow who one moonlit night appeared before him wrapped in a sheet, her eyes and lips silently, breathlessly yearning for him. He was afraid both to speak and not to speak, to look and not to look, afraid lest his voice betray him and become invitation rather than refusal. And the peasant woman who threatened to jump into the well if he, Moshe, would not promise her that she would be with child the following year. And Leah, so open and so secretive, so near yet so inaccessible in her outbursts of joy and pride.

  The sergeant could trample him, lacerate him, tear him to pieces. Moshe was roaming far away, too far for the executioner to seize him. And here he is at the court of the famous Rebbe Zusia of Kolomey. A Hasid was singing and the still youthful Rebbe was saying that whosoever wished to rise, rise toward the higher spheres, had but to follow his song, a song older than the world, older than the word. “And once up there?” asked Moshe. “What happens to the song at the end of its journey?”—“It comes down again,” said the Rebbe. “It sets out once more to find a voice that will give it a haven.”—“And man?” asked Moshe. “What happens to man at the end of his journey?”—“He looks,” said the Rebbe. “He looks below and helps others to come and join him.”—“And that is enough? He does nothing but look? He does not go down himself?” At that point the Rebbe offered him something to drink and smiled. “I know what you are pursuing, I guess what is attracting you. My wish is that you may find it in fervor or in serenity and not in sorrow.” Then the Hasid began to sing again and the Rebbe remarked: “Listen to him closely, for this song links us to another world; it deserves to be heard with all our being.” And the sergeant was shouting in a loud, much too loud voice. The sergeant? Moshe wondered. What was a sergeant of the Royal Police doing at the home of the Rebbe of Kolomey?

  “Fainted, gone, finished,” grumbled Pavel, out of breath. “You see these Jews, my pet? Very disappointing, all of them. You to
uch them, and pfft, they come apart.”

  He opened the door and summoned an orderly, who appeared carrying a pail of water. He dunked Moshe’s head into it, pulled it out, dunked it again, pulled it out. The sergeant and the Rebbe, Moshe thought. What do they have in common? Me, it’s me they have in common.

  “You see, my pet,” the sergeant resumed with the same affectionate intonation, “they think they can escape us. Not so easy. We get them back. Always. A little water does the trick. They’ll die when we are good and ready. Not before. Watch this one coming back. Slowly, slowly. We are waiting for you—come, we’ll start all over again. Systematically. Methodically. Cautiously. To prevent you from slipping away. Death will not be your ally, but ours. You will stay with us. And you will speak. We’ll see to that. Then you may die. Not before.”

  Through swollen, puffy eyelids Moshe perceived the outline of a figure bending over him. It’s Satan, he thought. That’s fine. Let him stay close to me; he’ll leave the others alone. As long as he is busy with me, mankind will be spared evil and pain. While he was playing with Job, Moses and his companions led their people out of Egypt toward freedom and the sun. Could suffering have a meaning, a justification? No, nothing justifies suffering. But then, how can one explain it? Except that nobody is required to explain it, only to fight it. Moshe tried to move. He could not. A frightening thought crossed his mind: If he breaks my arm, how am I going to lay tephillin tomorrow morning? Another thought superseded the first: Tomorrow? When is that? Could it be now?

  “His accomplices will hand them over to us,” said the sergeant. “You will see, my pet. In the end he will give them to us in such numbers that we will lack room in our prisons and fortresses. They will all end up here. Before us. Rich and poor, big and small, dead or alive, they will all fall into our hands, my pet, you’ll see.”