The Oath (25 page)

At the sight of his son—suddenly grown-up, different—he
felt the urge to question him about his encounter with his grandfather: Where had it taken place? When? Under what circumstances? What had they said to one another the first time? But he did nothing of the kind. Ultimately it mattered little. What mattered was that it had taken place.

“So,” he said, trying to appear stern, “now we are listening at doors?”

“Forgive me, I couldn’t resist. When I saw the man enter your study, I was sure it concerned Grandfather.”

Well, thought Stefan Braun, the circle is closed. The race is over. The game of hide-and-seek with myself is finished. I repudiated my father to save my son; and now my son wishes to save my father. Damn it, why am I not flying into a rage? I failed all the way, I have no allies, no support. I wasted my past and ruined my future—yet somehow I don’t seem to mind. I don’t recognize myself any more!

“I know where he lives,” Toli was saying defiantly. “I have been there.” And after a slight hesitation: “In fact, quite often.”

Better and better, thought the father. He stared at Toli— so frail, so serous and obstinate—and was overwhelmed by an irresistible urge to laugh. Laugh about life and man, laugh about his people so foolishly determined to survive in a twisted, perversely evil world, and about himself most of all. But he must not. He must not make any noise; his wife was asleep. All right, he would laugh silently. Too bad Davidov had left. He would have invited him to laugh with him. Too bad his son could not guess how ludicrous the situation really was.

“Don’t you think that we should …”

“Go and warn him?”

“Yes, Father. And perhaps … bring him here … Here he will be safe, whereas …”

Father here, thought the lawyer. Father with his beard, his caftan, his ritual shawl, his prayers, his songs, his prohibitions—here, in the house! He imagined the scene: his wife, tomorrow morning, enters the drawing room and—horrors—sees an old Jew—he must be old by now—wrapped in his tallith, rocking to and fro. What a sight! Mentally he burst out laughing. Unbeatable, that scene: my father and my wife.

“Let’s not exaggerate, son.”

“But I am telling you I heard everything! Grandfather is in danger, all the Jews are in danger, all the Jews are in danger—except us!” He blushed with shame. “Except us,” he repeated.

“Tell me, are you that attracted by danger?”

“No, Father. Not by danger. Only by Grandfather.”

“Don’t worry. Jews like Davidov—that is the name of my visitor—tend to exaggerate, to dramatize. If one were to believe them, the whole world has but one thing in mind: to mistreat, persecute and annihilate the Jews. If the idea seems insane, so does believing it. You see, my son, in our day mankind and nations have rid themselves of many outdated rituals, hereditary taboos, savage and gratuitous hates. The era of crusades and pogroms is gone. Ours is dominated by humanism, liberalism. We no longer kill our fellow-man in the name of obsolete and absurd legends.”

“That is not Grandfather’s opinion,” said Toli, bristling.

“How would he know? It has been a long time since he gave up living in this world; he lives in an unreal universe, in unreal times. He knows more about Abraham than about his Christian neighbors. His king is David, not the one ruling this country. His law is the Talmud and not the law of the land. Don’t you think I’m right?”

He remembered the arguments he had used against his father,
long ago, before their break. The arguments were the same, only the tone was different. And the old passion, the old fervor were gone.

“Grandfather says … Do you want to know what he says?”

“Of course,” said the lawyer, swallowing hard.

“Grandfather says that when a Jew says he is suffering, one must believe him, and when he is afraid, one must assume his fear is justified. In neither case does one have the right to doubt his word. Even if one cannot help him, one must at least believe him.”

“And what if I, a Jew like him, say that he is wrong? That they are all wrong?”

“You are not a Jew … not like him …” Toli stood facing his father, stiff, vulnerable. He was looking at him, imploring him with his eyes. “Let’s bring him here, right now! Father … This Davidov whom you saw … he spoke of a massacre, he mentioned the word pogrom. Have we the right to doubt his words?”

Stubborn little fellow, thought the lawyer. Besides, he is not so little any more. How he has changed! His shy manners hide a mature will.

“Davidov,” said the lawyer. “The president of the community. The Jewish Prince of Kolvillàg. In his place I would be afraid too. Jews like him, people like him, have suffered so much, in so many places, for such a variety of reasons, that their distrust has become second nature for them, an instinctive defense. They see an enemy in every stranger, a killer in every passer-by. And yet, one day they shall have to free themselves, they shall have to adjust. I have told you over and over again, we are no longer living in barbaric times.”

Even while he was talking he thought: If something terrible
happens tonight, if their premonition comes true, I shall have lost both my father and my son. For Toli will not forgive me. What am I to do? Give in? Rush over there and bring back my old Jew of a father? Would he agree to come? After so many years, so many wars? Would he come alone? Without the tribe?

“I feel that even if Davidov’s fears are unjustified, or only partly justified, Grandfather should be taken to a safe place,” Toli insisted.

“You’ll make an excellent lawyer. You have almost convinced me. Here is what I propose to you. Give me, give yourself one night to reflect. Tomorrow we shall see more clearly. If the rumors persist, I shall accept your arguments. Your mother will become hysterical, but between the two of us we’ll calm her down. But all of this is academic, believe me. Christians are human beings like you and me; all men are the same. There are fanatics among the victims as well as among the murderers; both are driven by intolerance. The enemy is in intolerance and fanaticism, not in man. You should bet on man, not against him.”

“I’d like to,” said Toli, a faint smile on his lips.

This conversation had done him good. Never before had he spoken to his father at such length. And surely not so freely. Did I persuade him? he wondered. We shall see. He took a step forward, said goodnight and opened the heavy padded door. With his hand on the latch, he turned. “You know, I … Grandfather … he is somebody.”

Left alone, leaning against his desk, the lawyer felt a vague melancholy engulfing him. He would have been at a loss to say whether it linked him to the past or to the future. One or the other had just collapsed. For an hour he thought of nothing, letting himself sink into nothingness. Then he heard his son opening the door of his room, then the gate. He could have, he
should have, run after him and brought him back; he did not. Perhaps, he told himself, it would be in vain.

And so, his head slightly raised, he listened to his son’s vanishing footsteps, his son who left without informing him whether he planned to come home early or late, alone or accompanied, tomorrow or next year, as penitent or as avenger—or whether he planned to come home at all.

“Father, listen!” Azriel was shouting with amazement. “Am I going crazy or …”

Shmuel the Chronicler stood still and listened. “Or what?”

“Don’t you hear?”

Strangely festive noises pierced the hush that enveloped the town.

“Have you forgotten?” my father explained. “The Rebbe has decided not to cancel the celebration.”

“But the noise is not coming from the House of Study. Listen!”

It was coming from the direction of the asylum.

“Who is mad?” I asked. “They or I?”

“Let’s go and see.”

We were on our way home from one of our strolls. Rivka was waiting for us with dinner, she must be worrying—never mind, she would wait another hour. A celebration in the shelter was worth the trouble.

We had to use our elbows in order to get inside the overheated hall. Drenched with perspiration, breathless, the beggars were surrounding the Rebbe and his meager retinue, drinking to his health, encouraged by Adam the Gravedigger, who for the first time in his life seemed gay and exuberant.

Father inquired left and right, and finally found out what had happened.

The celebration could not take place in the House of Study simply because there had not been enough people. Shaike and his followers had carried out their mission well. Their warnings had brought results. In the face of a possible pogrom, the Hasidim, though filled with remorse, had felt compelled to stay home with their wives and children. And so, when the Rebbe, accompanied by a few disciples, among them Reb Sholem and the scribe Reb Hersh, arrived at the House of Study at the prescribed hour, they found the hall empty.

The Rebbe had staggered under the blow and had to be supported by Reb Sholem. “They didn’t listen to me,” the Rebbe whispered. “But I don’t hold it against them. What right have I to judge?”

“What if we postponed the celebration?” Reb Sholem asked, “Until the situation calms down and people are more at ease.”

“Yes, we have no choice. And yet … it’s an insult to the Torah. We are depriving her of her celebration tonight.”

“A private celebration just among ourselves would also be an insult,” said Reb Sholem.

“Out of the question,” decided the Rebbe.

A long silence followed. The Rebbe covered his eyes with his hands and, sighing, lost himself in meditation. After a while he said: “Since the people will not come to the celebration, we must take the celebration to them.”

“What do you mean, Rebbe?”

“Is there a place where Jews live together? In numbers?”

“No, not really.”

“Not one?”

“Not one, Rebbe. Except …”

“… the shelter, the asylum.”

The Rebbe shook himself. “Are those beggars not Jews like ourselves? Let us go there. What are we waiting for?”

There remained the task of convincing the beggars. To everyone’s surprise, the gravedigger took it upon himself. One-Eyed Simha seconded him; Yiddel applauded. Motke the Porter and his colleagues were dispatched to bring a table from the House of Study, as well as chairs, wine and food. Reb Hersh the Scribe went with them to carry the holy scrolls on this memorable evening; he did not trust anyone else. Scarcely a half-hour later the celebration was in full swing.

Presiding at the table, the perspiring Rebbe, dressed in his Shabbat clothes, was mopping his forehead with a red handkerchief and singing with all his might. His head was constantly moving up and down, up and down, wavering between the need to forget and the need to remember.

“Perils and persecutions come and go,” he cried out, “the Torah remains. Is that not reason enough to rejoice?”

“Let’s make room for joy!” roared the gravedigger. “Who needs sadness and fear! Let us sing! Show us, Rebbe, show us the true way to sing!”

“Through song,” said the Rebbe, “man climbs to the highest palace. From that palace he can influence the universe and its prisons. Song is Jacob’s ladder forgotten on earth by the angels. Sing and you shall defeat death, sing and you shall disarm the foe. Let us sing and we shall live, let us sing louder than ever before, with more fervor than ever before so that our very song may become our shield!”

He pounded the table, rattling the half-filled bottles and glasses. The gravedigger followed suit, and taking his task seriously, urged all those present to do the same.

And as the noise kept swelling, making the building sway, the
Rebbe’s face was lighting up more and more. At his right, Reb Sholem was clapping his hands wildly. His singing was out of tune but he was forgiven; his voice was drowned in the din. For once, the beggars had the Rebbe all to themselves, and they paid attention to nothing but the pure and savage passion he projected. Their most irrational, their most childish hopes were vested in him, and him alone. Successor and heir to a name dating back to the Maggid of Premishlan, he had the power to exorcise evil.

Legend has it that as long as he lived, the famous Maggid of Premishlan granted his protection to all those who came to bind their souls to his, then to all those who participated in his New Year services, then to all those who heard him welcome Shabbat on the threshold of his house, then to all those who offered him their gaze, and lastly to anyone who remembered a story about him.

And so, with such an ancestor, the Rebbe surely could countermand threats and decrees and impress his will on fate.

“Well then,” bellowed the gravedigger, “that justifies our gaiety! Let us drink, let us sing!”

Leizer the Fat was roaring with laughter. Yiddel the Cripple was hopping up and down. At the approach of the storm, all these beggars seemed to want to celebrate one last time, to kiss the Torah and go away drunk with ecstasy, dazzled and singed by a Jewish celebration unlike any other.

The Rebbe paused to catch his breath, and the noise subsided abruptly. All leaned forward to get a better view. The Rebbe poured brandy into his silver cup and offered it to Reb Sholem, who took it but did not raise it to his lips. The two men gazed at one another, sharing the wait heavy with memories and nostalgia of another age.

“Lehaim,”
said Reb Sholem, moved. “To life.”

“Lehaim,”
answered the Rebbe. “To survival.”

Reb Sholem took a sip. Unable to empty the cup, he set it on the table. He was not a Hasid in the usual sense of the word. He did not even live in Kolvillàg. His attachment to the Rebbe transcended his own life. It had been his great-grandfather’s custom to journey on foot to be with the Maggid of Premishlan every year on the particular Shabbat when the passage describing the exodus from Egypt is read. Once, at the Maggid’s insistent request, he had stayed another week so as to hear him read the next passage, the one that describes the spectacular and majestic scene at Sinai.

“You understand, Sholem?” the Maggid of Premishlan had said. “Thanks to the Torah, the oppressed have acquired the dignity of princes. From this moment on, you must behave like a prince, do you hear me, Sholem?” Shortly thereafter the Hasid’s fortunes rose like stars. As a token of his gratitude, he had a House of Study built in honor of the Maggid. Thus there were intimate ties between the two families. To express his own admiration and devotion, Reb Sholem commissioned a
Sefer Torah
from the most illustrious scribe, Reb Hersh, to be executed on the most supple parchment to be found, and to be set into an especially built Ark in the Rebbe’s study.