The Oath (2 page)

Scenes of apocalypse, nightmares begotten by sleeping corpses—I wish I could describe them, I wish I could tell all there is to tell. I shall not. I am sworn to silence. They made me take an oath. To break it means excommunication. Such a vow is sacred. One’s commitments to God can be undone by a simple incantation. One’s commitment to man, and certainly to the dead, cannot. Your contracts with the dead, the dead take with them, too late to cancel or modify their terms. They leave you
no way out. Formidable players, the dead; they hold you and you are helpless.

That is why you will not succeed in making me talk. I will circle around the story, I will not plunge into it. I’ll beat around the bush. I’ll say everything but the essential. For you see, I am not free. My voice is a prisoner. And though at times words bend to my will, silence no longer obeys me: it has become my master. More powerful than the word, it draws its strength and secret from a savagely demented universe doomed by its wretched and deadly past.

And so it is to him I owe my experience of Kolvillàg. And much more. Mysterious messenger from an imaginary city, he showed it to me from afar, one autumn night, when the only call I could perceive came from the other side
.

You want to die? How can one blame you. This rotten world is not worth lingering in, I know something about it: I covered it from one end to the other. To repudiate it, you have chosen suicide? Why not, it’s a solution like any other, neither better nor worse. I myself have explored all the possibilities. Action, inaction. Penitence, escape. I turned friendship into a cult and the word into an adventure. I alternately preached faith, blasphemy and forgiveness. I made people cry, I made them dream. Vain attempts: the game is rigged since death wins in the end. I even made them laugh. The cripples, the unfortunate, the condemned, I made them laugh. Only to have death laugh louder still. I understand your invoking it. I followed all other avenues, ended up in every hell. I lived in cities, in forests, with men and away from them. I survived more than one war, took
part in more than one mourning. I tried oblivion and solitude, more than once was I ready to abdicate—but I did not: my life does not belong to me, neither does my death. All I can call my own is a forbidden city I must rebuild each day, only to watch it end in horror each night. You don’t understand? Don’t try. This invisible city exists only for me and subsists only in me. I cannot tell you more; to speak of it is to betray it.

And yet, the old man will speak. He doesn’t know it now, but before the tale reaches its conclusion, before the two strangers part ways, they will have traded their secrets. Each driven by his despair, his helplessness. In the final stage of every equation, of every encounter, the key is responsibility. Whoever says “I” creates the “you.” Such is the trap of every conscience. The “I” signifies both solitude and rejection of solitude. Words name things and then replace them. Whoever says tomorrow, denies it. Tomorrow exists only for him who does not seek it. And yesterday? Yesterday is Kolvillàg: a name to forget, a word already forgotten.

So you have had enough, the old man is thinking as he scrutinizes the young man’s profile. You prepare yourself to die and I inevitably become judge or witness. Except that I am tired, too tired to play destiny.

Above them, the streets and alleys have sprung alive with workers on their way home. Lovers are walking hand in hand, laughing and embracing. Below, the river succumbs to dusk. The reddish sky turns gray; soon it is dark. A chilly breeze blows through the barren trees. The buildings across the street seem dark and threatening. Here and there a window lights up,
mysterious and reassuring. And you, you are waiting for night, the old man muses. You wait so as to follow it. Never mind, don’t deny it, I see through you. Despair that sticks to the skin. Disgust that drives away curiosity. Thoughts that are heavy, opaque. And then this weight crushing your chest, this pasty tongue cluttering your mouth. Don’t deny it. I know those things. You are only waiting for night to come and swallow you. And it is up to me to hold you back. Why me? Because I am here. Because I have eyes to see, a mouth to protest. I could have been elsewhere, I could have been looking the other way.

In the distance, near the city hall square, there is bedlam. People milling about, shouting insults at one another. The electoral campaign is in full swing. Vote for this, vote for that. Vote for this one because he personifies promise. No, vote for that one because
he
personifies promise. Orators harangue the crowds. Applause, whistles. Trust me: I who this, I who that. There is no end to candidates. And each says the same thing. Each sacrifices his interests for those of the people: it should consider itself fortunate, the people, to have such defenders, such devoted friends. But the friends of the people are not each other’s friends. Provocations, fights, pandemonium. Accusations fly back and forth. Exhortations: Let us change society, let us change man. In the name of mutations, one does away with systems. Down with the Establishment, long live the Revolution. Disorders, riots. Coups d’état. Down with government, long live imagination. Down with life, long live death. I have heard these slogans before, in another place. Barcelona, Berlin. Men change, their cry remains. I am too old to let myself be taken in. These battles no longer concern me. Yet your particular choice does. Here I am, responsible for your next step. As though you were my son. As though I had a son.

The old man recalls Prague in the twenties, Berlin in the
thirties. The tragic gaiety of some, the sham devil-may-care attitude of others. For Azriel, death is an old acquaintance; he knows how to track it down, how to unmask it, fight it. To men in the throes of despair, he would say: “To face death lucidly is one thing, to surrender out of weakness or inadvertence is another. I don’t ask you to go back on your decision; I only tell you to act freely.” Freedom: the big word. Supreme temptation. In the name of freedom, I put you in prison. In the name of the future, I condemn you to capital punishment. Do people still kill themselves out of despair? How is one to know.

Here is twilight trailing its heavy, silvery shadows. And here are the first stars playing with the waves and reflections of another somber and silent world. You usually come here for walks with your girl, right? You speak to her, you tell her things, all sorts of things, right? Not tonight. Tonight you are alone as only a rejected lover can be. Foolish, but your heart is heavy. Foolish, but you don’t believe in love. Life? A huge joke you might as well be rid of. Your reasons? You have many, I wager. They never vary. One either loves too much or not enough. One either suffers or makes others suffer. One engages the whole world in battle; not easy to fight the whole world. It’s all foolish, so why cling to a barren existence? God committed an injustice by giving Himself a toy made to His own scale, and man must set it right, erase it by erasing himself, is that it?

The old man and the young man stare at each other for a moment, their eyes locked, unblinking, uncompromising.

“Who are you?”

The old man does not answer. Who am I? Azriel? Who am I? Moshe? Question of questions. When he opened his eyes, Adam did not ask God: Who are
you?
He asked: Who am
I?

“What do you want of me? I don’t know you, I have never seen you before.”

He thinks I am mad, the old man muses. With reason. One must be mad to want to speak to a stranger, to hope to save him. One must be mad to hope. Do I frighten him? Madness frightens him more than death …

Sky and river become one and suddenly Azriel understands that one may want to drown in darkness where all is beckoning and mystery.

“You must not,” says the old man. “You must not commit the irrevocable. You must not oppose despair to despair. Or fire to fire. One evil can add to another but not diminish it. If you kill yourself, you commit one more injustice. What will you have proven? I advise you rather to stay. And face night.”

“And life too?”

“Yes. Life too.”

“And death too?”

“Yes. Death too.”

And lowering his voice, the old man continues: “But you will never see Kolvillàg. So you have nothing to fear. You have been spared the worst.” And in an even lower voice, almost a whisper: “I am not telling you not to despair of man, I only ask you not to offer death one more victim, one more victory. It does not deserve it, believe me. The most beautiful of deaths is hardly that; there is no beautiful death. Nor is there a just death. Every death is absurd. Useless. And ugly. Is that your wish? To add to the ugliness of the world? I am telling you to resist. Whether life has a meaning or not, what matters is not to make a gift of it to death. All you will get in return is a corpse. And corpses stink—I know something about that. Stay, I tell you. Stay on the threshold. Like myself. And like myself you will avenge Kolvillàg …

“Kolvillàg: you don’t know what it is. A melodious, enticing
name, don’t you think? You wouldn’t think of a slaughterhouse. And yet, and yet. But I must stop. Don’t worry, my dead friends: I shall not repudiate you, I shall not allow a stranger to desecrate your sanctuary. I shall be careful. The event shall remain whole. I shall tell neither cause nor effect. I shall not reveal the enormity of the secret, I shall only indicate its existence. I shall show only the spark. One glimmer will be enough. If afterwards you still want to die, my young friend, you will at least know why.

“What I saw in Kolvillàg, not only during its last night, was the eruption of total violence, the rule of madness in the absolute sense, as though the absolute had become unhinged. As though the Creator, in a fit of joyous and destructive rage, had granted full freedom to His creatures, from the greatest to the most insignificant; and these creatures, crazed by their burden of divinity, driven to madness and nothingness, suddenly resembled one another in their passionate hatred and vengefulness.

“Caught in the turmoil, adolescents and parents, beggars and rich men, wise men and fools uttered the same unheeded cry. Slayers and victims foundered in the same well, condemned to the same anonymity. Good and evil fought over the same role, the same privileges. At one point, had I dared, I should have cried out: ‘Woe to us, God is not God! Woe to man, the Master of the Universe has gone mad!’ But I dared not. And then, there was my promise, my pledge. I tightened my lips, bit them till they bled; I did not shout. Sheltered by the woods, high above the valley, I watched the conflagration spreading, approaching by huge leaps. I didn’t run, I didn’t panic; I didn’t even move. I thought: What for? And also: Let him come, the avenger, I am expecting him, I’ll relinquish this tree, this
forest of trees to him, I shall give them to him as an offering, I shall gladly yield to him both the mountain and the valley. And the rest with it.”

Suddenly the old man shivers. “And you, aren’t you cold?”

“No.”

A foolish question, but the old man is always cold. Old age? Lack of sleep? Even in summer he wears two shirts.

“Are you hungry?”

“No.”

“Thirsty?”

“No.”

Speak, the old man thinks. The best way. Make him speak. Speak to him. As long as we keep speaking, he is in my power. One does not commit suicide in the middle of a sentence. One does not commit suicide while speaking or listening. Nor in the middle of a meal. Make him eat, drink, get drunk. But nothing interests him. And yet, and yet. He should be roused, shaken. Go on speaking? How long? On whose behalf, on behalf of what? On behalf of the dead. What business is it of mine? And yet, and yet. One must act, do something, anything, invoke a certainty, any certainty. To hell with principles, vows. The true contest must take place on the level of the individual. It is here, in the present, that the Temple is reclaimed or demolished. It is not by legitimizing suffering—and what is death if not the paroxysm of suffering—that one can disarm it. The mystery of the universe resides not in the universe but in man; perfection can be attained only by the individual.

So you hope to defeat evil? Fine. Begin by helping your fellow-man. Triumph over death? Excellent. Begin by saving your brother. Make him understand that escape into death is more senseless than escape into life. A man who does not fear death is a fool who wants to die. Fear is a healthy thing, it
implies a rejection of death. Proof: Kolvillàg was crumbling under fear. No connection? Wrong. If you are tired of living, young man, it is because in Kolvillàg death was victorious. The abyss inside you was opened there. In your own way, you are a ghost. A survivor. Except that you have no story to relate. You wish to take your life in order to give yourself a story. You’d like that of Kolvillàg, eh? And then you’ll live, eh? No blackmail, please.

I cannot give you that which is not mine. I don’t have the right. Don’t push me, I won’t relent. Others have tried with no success. A word of advice: chain your gaze, rein in your thoughts; they must not venture too far, beyond the accepted bounds. You risk stumbling over a people engulfed in silence and protected by it, and you would lose your mind.

There followed feverish days, filled with excitement. My involvement with Kolvillàg became deeper, more intense, turned into obsession. I ate little, slept poorly. How can I explain its hold on me? I couldn’t explain it to myself. Could I have seen in Azriel a personification of the prophet Elijah, the one the disinherited, the downtrodden dream about? Or of my grandfather, who died
over there
in the tempest? I couldn’t say. Did he help me to escape? Accept myself? Fulfill myself? Possibly. It hardly matters. Psychoanalysis is not my strong point. Azriel knocked down the walls I had erected around myself. Something important and genuine happened to me while I discovered the city that lived inside him. By allowing me to enter his life, he gave meaning to mine. I lived on two levels, dwelt in two places, claimed more than one role as my own
.

In one night he had me adopted by his entire community. So much so that I could find my way in his town. The streets, the gardens, the public buildings. Every chimney, every lamppost. The asylum with its dried-out wooden roof, where wanderers found shelter and food. Across the street, the big general store. The police station, the church. The House of Study with its crumbling walls, the old synagogue with its impressive entrance. The Jewish school where on Saturday afternoons Shaike and his exalted friends prepared the revolution, the victory of the oppressed in a world where poverty would be a virtue envied and bought by the rich. The rabbi who, it was said, slapped impertinent merchants but later had himself secretly whipped by an anonymous servant. The priest with his sanctimonious airs of pious martyrdom. The notables, the president. Moshe the Madman and his overly ambitious plans.
Kaizer the Mute, who cried himself into drunkenness. The beggars, amateur actors all, who on Purim eve succeeded in eliciting applause; as long as the festivities lasted, they were the unchallenged masters of the town. Leizer the Fat, Yiddel the Cripple, One-Eyed Simha, Avrom the Wise, Adam the Gravedigger; I watched them live, I was present at their discussions. I laughed at their intrigues, shared in their sorrows. The alliances, jealousies, complicities, daily adventures and secular traditions which together create the climate and the pulse of a town, well, Azriel had communicated them to me as a gift
.