“A story about the dead? Another one?”
“If you like. Let’s say a murder.”
Malkiel stopped. Something in the gravedigger’s voice had excited his attention. “What murder is that?”
“It takes brandy to revive my memory.”
So there they were again at the table they occupied almost every afternoon. The gravedigger ordered a bottle and began his drinking. Malkiel did not touch the glass that the waiter set before him. He noticed suddenly that the gravedigger’s eyes were bloodshot.
“Did I ever tell you I killed a man? No? I really didn’t? Unforgivable. That’s how it is; I’m getting old. I forget things.… I really never told you that during the war, after the ghetto was liquidated, I joined a partisan group? Our job was to punish the bastards who got rich denouncing Jews, stealing from them, selling them to the enemy. We executed a few. Matter of fact, we were the ones who took care of the head Nyilas here—well, not we but me.”
Now Malkiel was all ears. The gravedigger was a missing piece of the puzzle. His story was part of the story.
“We sentenced him to death, you understand,” said the gravedigger. “He was the worst kind of sadist, believe me. I know Death; and I can tell you that Death itself detested that man. We knew he was in Stanislav the day the Germans massacred thousands of Jews. A survivor told us this bastard had tried to rape two girls before he killed them. They fought back, so he locked them in a barn and set fire to it. They burned to death.
“Well, I tracked him down, me, imagine that. One night we mounted an attack on a barracks. This fellow was humping a whore, and I knew the address. So with my famous rabbi’s cane—I was never without it now—I broke down the door, and there I was staring at two naked bodies locked together. The woman screamed, and the man was scared stiff. I shut the whore in a closet and ordered the bastard to his feet. As he was, stark naked. I took a good close look at him. So this was Death’s accomplice, I said to myself. All that ugliness, all that cowardice, all that flabby flesh: here’s a man who must be an enemy to man. Why is he trembling?
“I glared at him like a lunatic; my gaze scorched him. Yes, sir: my gaze can burn. But the son of a bitch refused to give in. I felt rage mounting in me, and I wondered if I ought to keep cool. I was blinking too fast: I got my eyelids under control. Now his were blinking. Right: he realized he was finished. The bastard was all alone, and solitude can breed courage, but it can breed cowardice too. He began to snivel. ‘I didn’t do a thing, I swear it. I swear it on my unborn children’s heads, on my sick mother’s head I swear it. My hands are clean and my heart is clean—I did nothing, nothing bad.’
“He was a wreck. In a few seconds his outlines blurred; he began disintegrating before my eyes. Was this an officer? A fighting man? A lord decreeing the life or death of his subjects? What happened to his pride and his power? ‘You’re making a tremendous mistake,’ he whimpered. His eyes and nose and mouth were dribbling, and his body was jerking and twitching. ‘I’m not the criminal, not me, not me, not me.’ And I thought, You little bastard, pretty soon you won’t be able to say ‘me’ at all. You’re about to die. I’m going to give you death, the death that suits you: I’m going to strangle you. You see these hands? They conceal death, your death.
“Why did I spend so long glaring at him? Sure, I could have gotten rid of him just like that, but understand, the relationship between death and its victims always intrigued me. Always. One defines the other. Neither can exist alone. ‘What are you going to do?’ this son of a bitch asks me. ‘Are you really going to kill me?’
“No need to answer. Death is silent. Death imposes silence. And respect.
“Oh, I knew what was running through his head. When somebody thinks about his death, I can follow his thoughts. The son of a bitch was clinging to life. He wasn’t offering it to his country or history or his family. He just wanted to hang on to it forever for its own sake. That was his nature and always had been. He wasn’t looking for trouble, or complications. If living in peace and denying death meant living in a wasteland of sensual pleasure, or in the sensual pleasure of nothingness, that was good enough for him.
“Yes indeed, I knew what he was thinking. And he knew I knew. He was overcome; he jittered, he was full of anguish. Life fled his eyes, death entered his skin. I said to him, ‘You’re going to die; you’re not dead yet but you’re going to die, so look behind you. What do you see? Your victims are waiting for you. You won’t get away. They’ll be waiting for you when you die.’
“His face flushed and immediately paled. ‘Don’t kill me,’ he begged. ‘I’ll say whatever you want. I’m a coward, I’m guilty, I’m whatever you like, only I want to live. I don’t deserve to die.’
“He was standing right there in front of me, with his hand on his stomach as if he was sick. I suddenly wanted to laugh. He didn’t deserve to die, he said. Nobody deserves it. But this pig killed people. Now he was really scared. My laughter terrified him. I was laughing. I asked him, ‘Do you know who I am?’ No, he didn’t. ‘A partisan?’ he said. ‘I’m your gravedigger.’ I corrected myself: ‘No, not yours. I’m your victims’ gravedigger. To you I’m just death. And you make me laugh.’
“A grimace made him unrecognizable. His eyes gleamed oddly. I said again, ‘I’m your death. No—I will be in a little while. First, I’m something else. For you, I’m God.’ Did he take me for a madman? He agreed with me: ‘Yes, you’re God,’ he said. ‘For me, you’re God.’ ‘You sincerely believe that?’ He believed it. ‘You’re sure I’m not playing games?’ He was sure. ‘In that case, repent.’ He had no idea how. I taught him. ‘I want to hear your confession. Say it.’ He beat his chest. ‘Harder, harder.’ He thumped it harder. ‘Say that you were vicious.’ He said it. ‘That you were cruel.’ He admitted it. ‘That you rejoiced in humiliating your victims.’ He admitted that too. ‘Say that you deserve to die.’ He deserved it. ‘Implore God to pardon you.’ He opened his mouth several times, but no sound emerged. Then he emitted a few groans that sounded like giggles. He beat his chest with both hands, as if to clear his conscience. ‘Pray to God,’ I told him. He prayed to me.
“But fortunately, God does not forgive.”
“Hershel—will you let me ask one question?”
“Why not? Go ahead, Mr. Stranger, ask your question.”
“The woman. His wife. What became of her?”
“I have no idea. I didn’t even know he was married.”
Malkiel’s mouth was dry; he sipped at his tzuika. His head was burning, spinning. A false trail? Let’s look somewhere else. The Nyilas was called Zoltan. Was it his last name or his first name? Hershel could not recall.
“Do you remember digging Malkiel Rosenbaum’s grave?”
“You bet I remember it!”
Malkiel sipped again, nervously. “You told me you were laughing as you dug. Why were you laughing?”
The gravedigger leaned forward, and his massive head almost butted Malkiel’s. “You’d rather I cried? It would have been easier, you know! You like things the easy way. Not me.” His fist slammed down on the tabletop; he upset the bottle, which fell to the floor. He scooped it up. “Damn them,” he said. “Damn them all. Him and his widow, too.”
And he howled with laughter.
When Malkiel left the tavern, he walked downtown and mingled with the crowd.
Dusk had fallen, and night lurked in the mountains, waiting to be summoned by some poor desperate wanderer.
Tamar, where are you? What secret are you probing? What will you tell your readers tomorrow morning? What scandal will you expose? Death is a scandal. And life, too? Life, too.
Father, what are you seeing for the last time? What image are you trying to cling to? The whole world is an image. The past, too? The past, too.
Hey, passerby, I’m walking alongside you. You with your sack filled with misery, I’m talking to you. Don’t look back.
You seem like a plainclothesman to me. Why are you following me? What d
o you expect to learn, tailing me through these city streets? Stop watching me.
A woman wrapped in a shawl slipped into the shadows: unknown. Another one, mute, fought the wind: unknown. And yet I am in such pain that I want to know; I want to know these women, to tear down their veils. I don’t do it, and I feel guilty, and I don’t know why. I give up. Resignation? No. Bad idea. My father needs me more than ever. And Tamar? She too, perhaps.
A project was taking shape in Malkiel’s head: not to go straight back to New York from Feherfalu. He would spend a few days in Israel, and leave in time to spend the high holy days with his father. Why this detour? He had no idea. Perhaps he simply wanted to visit his mother’s grave.
Malkiel knew Israel. His father had taken him there for his bar mitzvah. A sentimental gesture? Elhanan explained, “I celebrated my own bar mitzvah in exile; it would give me great pleasure to have yours in Jerusalem.” At the Wall, dozens of boys from France, Australia and, most of all, the United States made the same gestures, wound the tefillin onto their left arms and then onto their foreheads, recited the same benedictions and roused the same mingled pride and joy in their parents.
But Malkiel’s ceremony was less joyful. Only his father participated. Together they joined a Hasidic minyan and yet stayed somewhat apart as they prayed. “I have only you in the whole world,” Elhanan mused. I have only you in the whole world, Malkiel thought. Elhanan offered an energetic Hasid a few shekels to call his son to the Torah. When he heard the ritual invitation—“Let Malkiel son of Elhanan rise and approach”—Elhanan choked on his own sobs. He covered his face with his prayer shawl.
It was true. They were alone in the world. The last of a long line that tied them to the famous author of Tosafat Yom Tov. And on the maternal side to a great medieval mystic, Rabbi Elhanan the Ascetic. In the shadow of the Wall, Malkiel meditated with deep feeling. His paternal grandparents had died back there. His maternal grandparents had died a year after their daughter. On the eve of the ceremony, Elhanan took his son to the Safed cemetery to commune at their graves. Talia had discovered this cemetery while strolling with her husband shortly after arriving in the Holy Land. She was astonished at the serenity of the place. “When I die, I want to be buried here,” she told him. Elhanan teased her: “Not when you die, but if you die.” She didn’t smile. “Have I said something I shouldn’t have?” Elhanan asked. She bowed her head as if searching for something on the ground. Then she raised it: “Look at me and tell me you love me.” Why that pain in her eyes? Elhanan was surprised. “I do love you, Talia, you know that.” After a moment she smiled. “One never knows it enough, my love.”
In her agony, in the hospital, Talia murmured to her parents, “Elhanan promised me.” “What did he promise?” “To take me to Safed.”
In 1948 it was not easy to transport a dead body from Jerusalem to Galilee. Zalmen pleaded with an Irgun leader, who interceded with the army. An ambulance carried Zalmen, Reuma and the body of their daughter from Jerusalem to Safed. An eerie silence reigned in the cemetery; each tombstone was bathed in a blue-green light and caught the reflection of the copper-colored soil. During the burial, Zalmen repeated over and over, “Why, Talia, why?” And Reuma lamented, “And what will we do now, Talia?”
Elhanan told all this to his son, who, closer to him than ever, took his hand. “You must not weep, my son,” said the weeping Elhanan.
After his release from the prisoner-of-war camp somewhere in the Jordanian desert, Elhanan became sick. Aftereffects of the war? A refusal to live? The doctors couldn’t agree on a diagnosis. Some spoke of a general weakening; others, more romantic, shrugged: “He’s still in love with his wife. He’s heartbroken. It happens.” The psychiatrists of course offered their catchall phrase, “Psychosomatic symptoms.”
The indefatigable Reuma took care of the baby and the household. Zalmen took care of the rest. Elhanan was living on the fringes of his own existence. No one interested him, and nothing touched his emotions. Of battles, crises that flared, political tension, uncertainty, anguish, Elhanan knew nothing; he neither read the papers nor listened to the radio. The young people’s bravura, idealism, spirit of sacrifice, were all at work somewhere else, in a world that rejected him. He sometimes looked upon his own son as a stranger. “It can’t go on like this,” Zalmen said, betraying his despair. “Do you hear me, Elhanan? You can’t go on this way. If you don’t make an effort you’ll get really sick.” And Reuma: “Look at me, son. You’re destroying me if you destroy yourself, you’re destroying all of us. Is that what you want? Think of your son: he needs a father, not a ghost. And who knows how many years are given us? Zalmen and I are not young, and when we’re gone who’ll look after Malkiel?” And both together: “Why not take a rest … take a rest abroad? Your son is still small, and he won’t suffer much by your absence.” Around that time, the mail brought Elhanan another letter from his American cousin inviting him to New York. Zalmen replied for him: “Your cousin is sick.” The cousin: “Let him come here; our doctors are the best in the world.” In the end Elhanan agreed, on condition that he could bring along his son. The cousin: “Of course! Our schools are the best in the world!” A heartbreaking scene at the port in Haifa. “You’ll be back soon,” Zalmen said, “quite soon.” And Reuma: “Will you be careful? You promise?” They could not have guessed that they would never see one another again.
Elhanan had barely arrived in New York when he was rushed to a hospital: a serious relapse. The cousin and his wife smothered Malkiel with love. They kept murmuring, “So young and already an orphan,” as if the two were mutually exclusive.
Back on his feet, Elhanan spent a couple of weeks with his cousin, who soon found him a modest apartment. “Leave the boy with us,” they told him. “It will make life easier for you, and he can play with our Rita.” Elhanan would not hear of it. The cousin’s wife pleaded, “You’re in no condition to take care of a child!” She was worked up: “What are you worried about? Someone stealing him from you?” Elhanan would not bend. “How are you going to make a living?” the cousin asked. Elhanan had no idea; he had not thought about it. He only knew that his son must not grow up among strangers. “But we’re not strangers!” the wife protested. “Did you hear what he said?” she asked her husband. “He called us strangers!” The cousin calmed her down. “Let it go. He’s not really back to himself yet. Don’t upset him.” A generous man, he pressed five hundred dollars upon Elhanan, who thanked him and promised to repay him. For the moment his problem was to find a woman who could take care of the child and the household while he, Elhanan, looked for work. “Try The New York Times,” his cousin said. “The classified ads.” “Good luck,” the wife murmured. “When you see how hard this is, you’ll be banging on our door again.”
For once luck was with him. Elhanan dialed a number and asked for someone called Loretta. She showed up that same day. She was in her forties, a widow, poor and kindly, hardworking and openhearted; her melodious accent evoked the sunny hills of the South. “Oh yes, sir, I’m alone like you. Except that you aren’t, really. You have that angel asleep over there. What a beautiful boy! It’s a long time since I’ve seen a baby that beautiful.” Her own two children were married and had stayed in Virginia. “I must be honest with you,” Elhanan said. “I have five hundred dollars in the world, and that’s all. I don’t know how long it will take me to find work.” Loretta protested with a wave of the hand. “Don’t you worry about it, sir. You’ll treat me right, and God will treat you right.” “I admire your faith, Loretta.” “You just keep your faith.”
Loretta was wrong, and so was her God. Her employer got off to a rocky start. He pored over the classified ads and studied them as he had studied scripture in the old days. Which was better, to sell neckties or corkscrews? For a month he was a door-to-door salesman. People often slammed the door in his face. Sometimes charitable housewives bought one or two, even if they did not drink wine and didn’t need the ties. “I feel sorry for you,” they said. He muttere
d a thank you very much and went off in search of more dignified occupations: cantor in a small German synagogue (his German was not good enough), announcer on a Jewish radio station (his Yiddish was too Yiddish), presser in one of the last laundries left over from the Depression (his muscles were not developed enough), salesman of art books (his English was not refined enough). But he got along one way or another. He even enrolled for night courses at Brooklyn College. He studied everything, absorbed everything. He felt that there was not enough time; he wanted to make up for all the lost years and lost opportunities. He discovered Chaucer and Donne, Dickens and Thoreau, even as he deepened his knowledge of Maimonides and Crescas. He had never studied chemistry? He took chemistry. And physics. Nothing could keep him away from the theater of the Middle Ages. Mystical poetry, occult sciences, graphology, astrology. Ignoring advice from his physician, the young Dr. Pasternak, he worked hard, too hard: during the day giving private lessons in Hebrew literature to make a living, and at night preparing for his exams. His favorite courses: psychology and psychotherapy. Perhaps he hoped to cure himself by curing others.
He did not see his cousin too often. When Malkiel and Rita played together, Elhanan stayed home. His cousin was too rich. Too many secretaries, too many stocks and bonds, too many phone calls. In brief, too busy, too pretentious. Malkiel was more tolerant. Because of Rita? When he reached adolescence, he visited his relatives more often.
Malkiel turned out well, raised by Elhanan and Loretta. A gifted, alert child with no apparent problems. Coca-Cola and chewing gum, hot dogs (kosher) and baseball. He attended religious school, which took him in hand—a bit too rigorously—from kindergarten to high school. He was a good student and excelled at languages, mastering English, Hebrew and Yiddish. He made many friends and secretly loved to charm the girls in his classes.
Like his father, he was interested in everything; but he showed an obvious interest in literature.
His relationship with Elhanan was affectionate; he had not yet experienced the appeal of rebellion. That would come. For the moment they were close, friends and allies. At the end of the day they exchanged impressions and experiences. Malkiel described his friends and Elhanan his students, and later his patients.