All Rivers Run to the Sea: Memoirs (22 page)

Shushani was unfazed. “Well,” he replied, “you can of course test my knowledge if you like. But I have a better idea. Let me pose a problem to you. If you can solve it, shoot me. If you can’t, let me go.” Released, Shushani slipped into Switzerland, where the chief rabbi became one of his most devoted admirers.

Later, having heard that the Rebbe of Satmàr had arrived in Paris, he decided to visit him at his hotel. The hallway was crammed with followers waiting to present their requests to the
tzaddik
. Before entering the room in which the Rebbe was enthroned, everyone lined up to give the secretary the traditional
pidyon
, a banknote. But Shushani tore a leaf out of his notebook, scribbled a few words, and told the secretary, “I order you to bring this message to the Rebbe; otherwise I cannot
be responsible.” The terrified secretary obeyed. Suddenly the door opened and the Rebbe himself emerged, looking for the visitor in vagabond’s garb. They spent several hours alone together, and the content of their discussion was never divulged. But the Rebbe was heard to murmur: “I grant that a human being can know so many things, but how do you manage to understand them?”

Yet I never actually saw him with an open book. Was that because he knew them all, even those he hadn’t read? Perhaps it was when he closed his eyes that he could read nonexistent books, or at least books not yet written.

It is difficult to describe our private sessions in Taverny, Versailles, and later in my room on the Rue Le Marois. His knowledge poured down upon me and I devoured his words. It was as though his words came to me from a distant sanctuary I could never approach. We would spend entire weeks on a single page of the Talmud, from the treatise exploring the problems of divorce, for instance, without ever veering from the subject. He spoke, and I followed him in a state of ecstasy and nostalgia. It is to him I owe my constant drive to question, my pursuit of the mystery that lies within knowledge and of the darkness hidden within light.

Why did Shushani accept—perhaps even choose—me as a pupil? Why did he think me deserving? What was it about me that interested him? I have no idea. In general, those are the words I speak most often when talking about him: I have no idea. His disappearances and reappearances, his changes of mood, his feigned or sincere outbursts of anger, all seemed incomprehensible. Why did he never talk about himself? Why did he shroud himself in so much mystery, concealing even his real name? Why did he hide his origins? Why did he live such a bizarre life? Why did he decline to reveal himself to the broader public he surely could have conquered?

I remember that, many years later, he refused to leave Montevideo and come to New York to give courses to a few dozen students. I had suggested it to him, and wealthy friends were ready to finance the project. “Out of the question,” he replied. “I swore I would never again set foot on American soil after I lost all that money in the stock market crash.” Was it true? Shlomo Malka, a French journalist, and I devoted some fifteen radio broadcasts to Shushani. The series generated voluminous mail from listeners claiming to know “the truth” about him. Now, an eternity later, I think I know the truth, or can at least roughly approximate it.

Born in Lithuania, young Mordechai Rosenbaum (his real name) dazzled relatives and teachers with his prodigious memory. He retained everything he read. Even before his bar mitzvah he could recite the entire Talmud by heart. People came great distances to listen to him, and his father took him even further afield, exhibiting him, for a fee, in various communities. That was how he got rich, and how he traveled the world. Everywhere he went he stunned and enchanted his audience, becoming a formidable acrobat of knowledge. Is there a knowledge that money can corrupt? Does the Torah contain unsuspected perils when turned into a money-making instrument? I have no idea. I still don’t know why he disappeared so often, or where he went, or why he left so abruptly for Uruguay. Did he fear another war in Europe? Was it his taste for uprooting himself or his constant need for new experiences? All I know is that he died one Friday afternoon in 1965 in Montevideo, where he was performing, according to some, as a sage, and according to others, as a beadle. I told the story in
One Generation After
. Seated under a tree, surrounded by pupils, he was teaching the Talmud. Suddenly, in the middle of a citation, his head fell upon a female student’s shoulder. An instant later he was gone. It happened shortly before the arrival of Shabbat. In Jewish tradition such a death is considered a
mitat neshika
, or gentle death: The angel comes, embraces the chosen one as one would a friend, and takes him away, sparing him every trace of agony and suffering. He was in full possession of his faculties. Since an essay I had written on his teachings was found in his pocket, I was asked to compose the Hebrew inscription for his tombstone: “The rabbi and sage Mordechai Shushani, blessed be his memory. His birth and his life are bound and sealed in enigma. Died the sixth day of the week, Erev Shabbat Kodesh, 26 Tevet 5726.”

To Shlomo Malka, who wrote a very good book about Shushani, I confided my conviction that this enigma must be respected. By what right would we seek to unravel it, thereby violating secrets of his personality that he himself protected so fiercely? I simply speak of him as a disciple speaks of his master—with gratitude. I am increasingly convinced that he must be considered one of the great, disturbing figures of our tradition. He saw his role as that of agitator and troublemaker. He upset the believer by demonstrating the fragility of his faith; he shook the heretic by making him feel the torments of the void.

Why was he so determined not to be known? From whom was he hiding, and why? Were his travels motivated by a taste for wandering or the need to flee? Perhaps he wanted to be able constantly to begin
anew, with new disciples. Why did he write these indecipherable manuscripts, some of which are in my possession? For whom were they intended? Was it to forge his own myth, as a genius of memory? What I know is that I would not be the man I am, the Jew I am, had not an astonishing, disconcerting vagabond accosted me one day to inform me that I understood nothing.

We didn’t stay long in Taverny. No one asked our opinion when we were transferred to Versailles. The new home, known as Our Place, was directed by Félix Goldschmidt, a former mining engineer and a cultivated man of great personal authority. His silent and contemplative wife suffered from a skin disease. They had three daughters, Batya, Eve, and Tilly, and a son, Jules. I got along well with the director. There was never an incident, never a misunderstanding.

This home was different from the others, for it included not only Buchenwald “children” but also other orphans, girls and boys, for the most part religiously observant, who had survived occupation either under false identities or by hiding with Christian families. We observed Shabbat and the holidays, sang the
Birkat hamazon
after meals in the Ashkenazic manner, and went to morning and evening services. But in the garden and cafeteria there was some rather innocent flirting—strolls, smiles, the sharing of secrets—which the counselors, probably for reasons both pedagogic and therapeutic, made no effort to discourage. Clearly we all needed affection, tenderness, and—why not?—love.

I went to Paris as often as possible. Hilda and her husband were living in a small apartment on the Rue Dussoubs, in difficult conditions. Freddo was a portraitist; his art brightened life but put little food on the table. I listened to his plans, and Hilda and I talked about Bea, who was still in a D.P. camp. I though about her a lot in Versailles, and wrote to her every week.

One morning there appeared in the dining hall a smiling young American Jew named Ted Comet who had just arrived from New York. He spoke a little French. He had come to serve a one-year internship in the children’s homes. He came up to me and said, “Incidentally, I’m looking for someone, a relative of a classmate of mine at Yeshiva University. His name … his name …” He looked in his notebook and said my name. I would meet his friend and my relative, Irving Wiesel, many years later in Manhattan. And Ted Comet—now a
high official with the American Joint Distribution Committee—and I still see each other to this day.

Every day for several weeks I took the train to the Lycée Maimonides. Sometimes I stayed Monday to Friday. And there I met two pupils who later became French television personalities: Marcel Mitrani and Josy Eisenberg. The German teacher assigned me a homework essay about my experiences. I wrote a paper explaining that I couldn’t describe them. This earned me some sort of prize, exactly what I don’t remember (probably an American chocolate bar). Mathematics lessons, on the other hand, left me cold. In secular schooling I was really only interested in French, and in this François Wahl continued to encourage me.

Marcus Cohen, the director of the Maimonides School, was an unusual character, austere as an ascetic, bearded like a prophet. Unbelievably reticent and slow-talking, he kept his eyes averted and his hands folded in front of him when he spoke to his pupils.

Sometimes he would invite me to his office to chat, but when we parted I always had the feeling that what was essential had not been broached. His brother Bo, educational director of the OSE, had spoken to him about me. I have no idea what he said, but the director was quite respectful to me, possibly because I spoke modern Hebrew. Cohen was a passionate linguist, the compiler of the first French-Hebrew dictionary. The pupils treated him with affection, though behind his back they made fun of his mannerisms, his self-conscious air, and his obstinate attempts to make them laugh.

I did not stay long at Maimonides. The OSE offered me the chance to move into a small studio in the Latin Quarter. A friend from Écouis, a few years older than I, had enrolled in the Sorbonne and did his best to teach me the facts of life. He introduced me to a young and pretty maid who was prepared to take charge of my apprenticeship, but after just a few days I decided to go back to Versailles.

Kalman, Nicolas, Binem, and I were among the “grown-ups” at Our Place. Nicolas dreamed of putting together a literary review; Kalman was about to set out for Palestine aboard the
Exodus
, Binem was on his way to an internship with Henri Milstein, a choir conductor in Moissac, site of another children’s home. As for me, I had all I could handle with Shushani for the Talmud and François for French. But I did find the time to organize a choir with the assistance of Israel Adler, a Palestinian emissary of the Jewish Agency. My childhood violin
lessons proved useful, my participation in the Sighet synagogue choir even more so.

My choir attracted quite a few people. The most beautiful girls in the home joined, and suddenly I had more boys than I needed. Some of them sang off-key but insisted on taking part anyway. Just because God gave them thin voices and tin ears, why should they be denied the right to sing? One of them, Nicolas, put forward a more elegant argument: He was hopelessly in love with Myriam, a superb blond choir member, who did not reciprocate his affection. If only I would let him in the choir, he would have a chance of winning her over. “But you sing completely out of tune,” I told him. He replied that he would make the effort of his life, that he would learn. “Learn what?” I countered. “It isn’t something you can learn.” But he was so crestfallen that I gave in, on one condition: that he not sing but only move his lips. He promised but occasionally got carried away and forgot, which was near-catastrophe. But he and Myriam saw each other often, and finally the god of love smiled upon them. Strangely, the boy stopped singing off-key.

As choir conductor I was stupidly and inexcusably severe, doing all I could to appear authoritarian, aggressive, and domineering. The reason was that I was, in fact, painfully shy. If one of the female singers cast a knowing glance in my direction, I lost my composure. If she smiled at me, my heart would pound as if in anticipation of committing a sin. I blushed when I spoke and when I was spoken to. So I raised my voice, striving to affect a stern expression and to project an image of irritability and inaccessibility. I lost my temper easily and reprimanded anyone guilty of the slightest infraction. I was even pleased to be considered harsh. If I aroused anger and hatred, so be it. Anything was preferable to unrequited love. For that’s what it was all about. I was convinced that no one I loved would love me back, that anyone I desired would reject me.

Three of the choir members troubled me especially: a brunette with a provocative laugh, a blonde with dreamy eyes, and someone I’ll call Hanna. Their mere presence made me lose control. Such was my nature: I dreamed of living on this unlivable earth neither poetically, like Hölderlin, nor piously, like my grandfather, but lovingly.

A need to love and be loved. It seems silly to admit it, but in those days I got crushes far too fast, on everyone at once and on one girl in particular. She was a soloist with an awful personality—Hanna. She was
the daughter of an OSE administrator, a fact that embarrassed and annoyed her no end. Rather than assume a false identity, she insisted on being treated like everyone else. She slept in a dormitory, took her meals in the common dining hall, participated in the various activities of the home, and was given the same pocket money as we were. In short, she had the same privileges, the same duties. But of course she added others. She worked more, demanded less, and never complained. She was always the first to show up for rehearsals and was always prepared. Yet we quarreled incessantly, with or without cause. It became second nature to both of us. She challenged most of my decisions and choices. Though friendly enough with the others, she stiffened at the very sight of me, barely deigning to smile hello. No matter what I said, she would grouse. She didn’t agree with the schedule, the program, the casting. She claimed I was both stubborn and lax, too authoritarian and too permissive. In other words, the chemistry between us was terrible. She didn’t like me. That was clear. The whole choir thought we were divided on everything; we always disagreed. When I said, “Yes,” she would roll her eyes and say, “Oy.” When I said, “You’re not concentrating,” she would reply, “How do you know?” When I said, “I can’t hear you,” she would say, “You’re not listening.”