The Time of the Uprooted: A Novel

  They had a daughter, Leah, whom they adored. Especially Bolek: A better father than a husband, he lived for his daughter. To watch them playing chess was an astonishing experience. At first, Bolek would try to lose; then later, he would have to try harder in order to win. But he lost more and more often, and then he was proud of his daughter, whose talent exceeded his own. Gamaliel was convinced that on awakening each morning Bolek asked himself, What can I do today to make Leah happier? She embodied both past and future for him. She made him both vulnerable and invincible. “If anything happened to her it would kill me,” he would say to Gamaliel. There was never any misunderstanding between them, never any resentment. How did Noémie manage not to be jealous of the bond between her husband and her daughter? Sometimes Gamaliel was. He disliked himself for envying his friend—not for Bolek’s good fortune but for his parental love. If he had married Esther, would he have been equally attached to their child, perhaps a son? But he hadn’t married Esther. Their encounter had lasted the time of a kiss, of a crest of passion between two waves. Colette? Yes, she had been his wife. The mother of his two daughters, his misfortune. But since his family had fallen apart, he was living a virtually celibate life, determined to avoid those precarious affairs where enticements turned out to be traps. When he was with a woman, particularly one who was seductive and available, he had only to remind himself of Colette to be on his guard. He would have no heir? So be it. He would die alone, and in the earth, forever buried, would lie his memories, his hopes, and his dreams. His journey through the remembrance of God would leave no mark on that of men.

  And now something in him was opening to admit a stranger.

  Eve and all his vows were in question. Fate’s amused wink of the eye. Eve, and the erupting of the sort of love he no longer expected.

  Gamaliel was impatient for the Seder to end so he could be with the young woman who had so captivated him. What would he say to her? That he liked her voice? That he found her dress too light or too dark? That blue was his favorite color? What could he offer her, what relationship, what promise? As it happened, this year the Seder lasted longer than usual because of the discussion set off by Eve’s statement. It was long past midnight when Bolek intoned the song of the Chad Gadya, that lovely, almost childish story that begins with the sale of one little goat and ends with God’s victory over Death—in other words, the death of Death.

  As soon as he was on his feet, Gamaliel crossed the dining room to Eve. “I’ll keep you company.”

  “To where?”

  “To the end.”

  “And then?”

  “I’m no prophet.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Would you like it if I were?”

  “Yes, only if you’ll always laugh while making prophecies.”

  “To entertain you?”

  “No, to make me dream.”

  They went to the door, where Noémie was awaiting them. “You’re leaving already? It’s early,” she said.

  “No,” Gamaliel replied. “It’s late.”

  They walked in silence, each reflecting on the meaning of the story they had just begun. Eve was the first to speak. “I know nothing about you except that you frighten me.”

  “I know a lot about you, and you’re helping me overcome my own fear.”

  “Since you know so much, do you also know that I bring bad luck?” He was silent, thinking, so she continued: “I bring bad luck to those I love.”

  Gamaliel recalled the tragic event she had lived through. “How did it happen?” he asked.

  “Who told you about it? Oh, I see—Noémie. . . . Well, they had gone out to buy me a present for my birthday. It was raining. The car was hit by a truck; it was crushed. . . . I see the flames in my nightmares. I scream. I shout to them, ‘Watch out. Watch out!’ ”

  Should he take her hand? Reassure her? Console her? Say to her that though love can never be replaced, it can be restored? Since she was now locked in her own silence, he asked in a more pressing tone, “When did it happen?”

  “Three years ago.”

  “And since then?”

  “Since then, nothing.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Alone.”

  “When will you agree to give up your solitude?”

  “Never.”

  “You’re afraid you’d be untrue to them, is that it?”

  “I’m afraid of being untrue to myself.”

  Then, without knowing why, he began telling her about his life—not about Colette, nor about Esther, but about his mother, his father, Ilonka.

  It was pleasant out, a mild spring night. The streets were quiet, almost deserted. The stars overhead were telling one another their secrets with brief irregular flashes. Occasionally, a taxi would slow down for them, but they preferred to walk.

  So began a singular encounter, one in which two lost souls thought they could rescue one another by calling on the love of those who were gone.

  “Tell me more,” Eve said as she took his arm.

  “Do you know the life and works of Rahel Varnhagen?”

  “No.”

  “She lived in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in what became Germany. She said, ‘My story preceded my life.’ Well, mine did, too.”

  “Will you tell it to me?”

  “While I’m laughing?”

  “While we’re walking.”

  “If you’ll help me find the words.”

  An old woman was sleeping on a doorstep. She was smiling. She seemed happy.

  7

  GAMALIEL COULDN’T HELP IT: HE HAD TO GO back to see the old Hungarian patient.

  At the hospital, he studies her ravaged features. Where did she get all those scars? Lili, the young doctor, spoke about an accident; no one knew where or how. It was a miracle that her life had been saved. Surgeons at a local hospital, more dedicated than qualified, had labored less to restore her health than to give her a semblance of a human face and a woman’s body.

  “She was surely very beautiful when she was young,” observes the doctor, who has just joined him. “She doesn’t look it now.”

  What can we know of a person who refuses to communicate with us? Gamaliel wonders. Someone knew this woman; someone had held her in his arms and thanked her for the happiness she brought him. Perhaps she had had a fond husband, lively children, lovers; days of mourning and triumph had shaped her existence.

  “There’s such a thing as hidden beauty,” he says at last.

  “What use is it if no one sees it?”

  “You’re wrong about that. There are those who can sense it.”

  She glances at him with interest. “What do you sense about this woman?”

  Once again, Gamaliel is back in his childhood. He had slept badly the previous night. Something was oppressing him: the uneasy feeling that signals danger ahead. Bizarre old dreams had haunted his sleep: children pursued by huge disfigured monsters. They’d all had the harsh voice and hard face of the Hungarian officer with the sour breath who had come so often and closed himself off with Ilonka in her bedroom. He had awakened with a start, his heart beating fast. He’d struggled to master his fright, and had finally been able to do so only by picturing his mother’s melancholy face, her delicate hands, her gentle eyes.

  A metallic voice jolts him back to the present: “Dr. Rosenkrantz, Dr. Rosenkrantz urgently wanted in ward five . . .”

  The loudspeaker repeats the summons several times. The doctor gets hurriedly to her feet. “Please wait for me, I’ll be right back,” she says.

  She’s fortunate, Gamaliel reflects. She matters to someone. She can provide help and solace. A doctor’s life is never useless. Not like his own: shriveled up, frittered away. He used to believe that he, too, could effectively intervene in the lives of others. Oh, yes: the years he could have made fruitful, the people whose days he could have enriched.

  It was all so long ago.

  When she returns, the doctor says, “A moment ago you were thinki
ng about a woman, but not this one.”

  “Yes, I was thinking of a woman whose beauty moved me. She’s dead now, but I can still see her beauty.”

  “You loved her?”

  “I love her still.”

  “She was your wife?”

  “No.” He gives her a brief smile. “She was my mother. I’m not married.” Then he corrects himself: “I was married. I’m not any longer.” He indicates the patient with a gesture. “What about her? Is she married? Was she ever happy?”

  “I’m afraid those questions will have to remain unanswered.”

  “Let’s imagine a happy Mrs. Sisyphus,” says Gamaliel.

  “Yes, let’s do it for her, since she no longer can,” says the doctor.

  Now the same burning question takes hold of him: What if it really is Ilonka on the hospital bed, already detached from the world of the living?

  “Once again, your thoughts are elsewhere,” the doctor says.

  “It’s because I’m from another world.” Then he thinks, That’s stupid. Anyone could say this.

  “And your wife, did she live in that world?”

  “No,” he admits after a moment.

  Colette never belonged to his world.

  GAMALIEL MET HER IN PARIS IN THE MOST ordinary way, at an outside table of a café in the Latin Quarter. It was a sunny morning in spring. The streets were crowded: students hurrying to their exams, florists hawking their wares to lovers, wide-eyed tourists admiring the places where the high priests of existentialism might be glimpsed.

  As he often was, Gamaliel was with his pal Bolek, whom he’d met a few months earlier, at police headquarters. Both were refugees, so they had the same problems: how to get a residency permit, how to earn a living, where to find inexpensive housing. The next day, they decided to share quarters in a cheap hotel nearby. Their favorite pastime was having a drink in a café and watching the pretty girls go by, alone or on their lovers’ arms.

  “Which one do you like?” Bolek asked.

  “The third one,” replied Gamaliel.

  “You’re crazy. There’re only two of them.”

  “That’s just it: I’m waiting for the next one.”

  “And suppose she’s not alone?”

  “Tough luck for whoever’s with her.”

  She was alone.

  Bolek dashed over to block her passage. “Wait, mademoiselle,” he said, taking her arm, as if out of breath. “My friend needs you.”

  “Who are you anyway?”

  “It’s not about me. It’s my friend. He’s in despair. Only you can save him.”

  “Go to the devil and leave me alone!”

  “Yes, but I am the devil.” Bolek came back, hanging his head. “Well, she’s not for you.”

  Gamaliel liked Bolek. His imagination would put the most gifted of novelists to shame. Tall, quick-witted, he would jump, eyes closed or open, at any chance to make a few francs. The two young men soon became friends. It would be for life. Gamaliel was entertained by Bolek’s far-fetched notions and preposterous stories. It was to Bolek that he turned for help in paying his way to Israel and later to Morocco.

  “Wait a minute!” Gamaliel exclaimed. “That’s too easy an excuse. You let me down. Admit it.”

  “Well, if you insist, but still . . .” His voice trailed off. The girl had turned around and now she was taking the seat between them.

  “Colette is my name,” she said in a brusque manner. “Go ahead and talk. I have twenty minutes to spare. I’m listening to you. Who am I supposed to save, and why should I do it?”

  “My name’s Bolek, but he’s the one who needs you. His name is Péter in Hungarian and Gamaliel in—”

  “In what?”

  “In Yiddish.”

  “So you’re Jewish?”

  “Why do you ask that question?” Bolek demanded. “We don’t like to be interrogated, unless . . . well, unless you’re with the police.”

  “Answer me.”

  “All right, if you insist on knowing everything. Yes, we’re Jews.”

  She made a face. “Well, so am I.”

  “We’re refugees. Don’t tell us you are.”

  “No, I’m French.”

  “You’re lucky,” said Bolek.

  “For you, being a refugee is a sort of disease.”

  Gamaliel was thinking, Yes, it’s a disease, a disease that afflicts the entire world. But it must be recognized that a refugee is a different kind of being, one from whom all that defines a normal person has been amputated. He belongs to no nation, is welcome at no one’s table. A leper. He can achieve nothing unless others help him.

  “But as far as I know, that disease is not incurable,” the young woman said.

  “Well now!” Bolek cried out. “Do you happen to be a doctor? If so, do tell us what’s the best remedy.”

  “Marriage,” Colette said with a burst of laughter.

  But her laughter, Gamaliel should have realized, was lacking in any gaiety or sincerity. He wasn’t really attracted to her. She wasn’t his type. In his fantasies, he imagined women whose beauty was concealed, who were radiant with grace, unattainable, like Esther, whereas Colette seemed available, even clinging. He was attracted to the shy ones, the dreamers; she was arrogant, businesslike. Bossy. Willful. She kept a tight rein on what she said, on what she did, and on her impulses. She wasn’t just looking at the two of them; she was sizing them up.

  “You,” she said, turning to Gamaliel. “Yes, you, the silent one, not your chatterbox of a spokesman. Cat got your tongue? Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”

  “No,” Gamaliel replied, “not now.”

  “Then I have to wait?”

  “Why not? It’s all I ever do.”

  At that, Bolek, tactful for once, got up. “I have a feeling you can manage very well without me.”

  Gamaliel wasn’t hearing the sounds of the busy street. He felt nonplussed. He wanted to say something, something novel or at least appropriate, but words failed him. Now the silence felt oppressive, and he had to say something. “Your twenty minutes are up,” he finally said.

  “I know.”

  Strange sort of woman, Gamaliel was thinking. Severe, hard. Who or what was she protecting herself from? She must have suffered a lot. When she was a child? Adolescent? At any rate, she seemed able to master all sorts of situations. And when did she learn how to dominate men? That meant she must be older than he. Twenty-five? In her thirties? That made her more interesting.

  “How about another coffee?” he suggested. “It’s on me.”

  Did she realize that a refugee is always short of money? Colette knew a lot about many things. She knew how to please, how to arouse desire. Her shoulders, erect but soft, invited caresses. Her expression was calmer now; her smile engaging, despite thin lips that scarcely parted to let out a word or a breath before closing with a deliberate slowness. She placed her hand on Gamaliel’s, and he blushed like a kid who has just discovered that women have bodies. Coming over him was an uneasy sensation. It made him ache with anticipated pleasure. He felt hot, and he was having trouble breathing. He feared what was about to happen, while at the same time he wanted it with all the ardor in him.

  “We’ll walk,” Colette declared. She looked him straight in the eye; she wouldn’t take no for an answer. “Do you know Paris? I bet you don’t. Well, like it or not, I’ll be your guide. And I don’t come cheap.”

  She paid for their coffees. Gamaliel didn’t object. She took his arm and led him to the banks of the Seine. She was talking and talking; he hardly said a word. She showed him the Sorbonne, the great libraries of the Latin Quarter, the medical school, as if he didn’t already know them.

  “I’m going to take you in hand,” she said. “Since you manage the French language so well, I’ll introduce you to our literature; you’ll have to read the books I get for you. We’ll go to the theater, to concerts, to the Louvre. I’ll make a star of the refugee you are, not in the universe of French culture,
to be sure, but a star in my circles, among my friends, some of whom are well placed.”

  Gamaliel felt he had to say something. “But all that costs money.”

  “Don’t worry about such things.” And she squeezed his arm more insistently.

  That same evening, she took him to her apartment near Parc Monceau. Gamaliel had never seen such luxury: from the living room to the dining room, from the kitchen to the bathroom. He thought she must be the daughter, sister, or niece of millionaires. What can she want with me? he wondered. What can I give her other than my awkward shyness? She offered him a drink; he dared not refuse. You never say no when you’re living a fairy tale, even if the princess could be more attractive, more feminine.

  “Do you like it?” she asked.

  “Yes, very much.”

  “And me, do you like me?”

  “As a guide?”

  “As a woman.”

  “I’ve always dreamed of having a guide like you.”

  She lifted her glass and drank. When she spoke, it was in a different, more intimate register: “Well, my boy, you’re in luck. This night you’re going to learn a few things. That I promise you.”

  Her voice was lost in the whirlwind of her body. They spent the night together. Where was Esther in this? She was erased, submerged in a swamp of shame. The night was throbbing, frenetic, with stifled laughter and breathless cries, delirium and abandon, ecstasy and discovery, a night of taking wing and falling to earth.

  For Gamaliel, everything was for the first time.

  BOLEK WAS THE MOST DISCREET AMONG HIS friends. Even though Gamaliel had told him about his ephemeral idyll with Esther, Bolek did not try to get him to talk about his adventure with Colette. He was bound to know that Gamaliel was spending his nights elsewhere, but did he suspect that things were getting serious? Bolek asked him only once. Gamaliel shrugged. “I don’t know what’s going on. Colette knows everything.” Bolek did not press him.

  BOLEK, LIKE GAMALIEL, DID NOT LIKE TO CONFIDE in others. Even in Paris his silences sometimes seemed so long and pervasive that they weighed on his refugee friends. His insistence on holding back had only increased by the time they were all reunited in New York. He married Noémie in the mid-1960s, but marriage did not make him any less moody. Sometimes he would flare up. Gamaliel and the others acted as if they did not notice and continued their conversation, waiting for him to emerge from his depression. And if he didn’t, they were understanding; after all, everyone has his nightmares. Everyone carries a burden, a secret burden that sets him apart and defines him. Everyone has his no-entry zone.