The Oath (7 page)

“That proves nothing.”

“What do you mean?”

“I recognized you. That is the best proof. I know who you are. Admit that I know.”

I shrugged my shoulders and wanted to be on my way, but the dreamy-eyed young man blocked my path. “Don’t go away, I am hungry. Come and share my meal. I am poor, but surely you like the company of the poor. Don’t turn me down. If you go away, my curse will accompany you, do you hear?”

One may not offend the insane; their voices rise to heaven, straight to the Throne. And then, they all remind me of my holy friend, my mad friend, Moshe. And so I sat down next to the young man, in the middle of the street, and was preparing myself to break bread by reciting the customary blessing, when suddenly he seized the pocketknife and with a swift move, wounded me, marking my forehead with a scar.

“May I ask you a favor?”

“Go ahead, try.”

“Promise not to refuse.”

“Oh no, I promise nothing. I am too old. I make no more promises; I couldn’t keep them. Past a certain age, man should no longer speak in the future tense.”

“Too bad. You would have given me pleasure.”

“By doing what?”

“By marking my forehead with a scar.”

Make him dream, that’s what I must do, the old man ponders. If I succeed, he is saved. One doesn’t kill oneself while dreaming, not even while dreaming to kill oneself. To dream is to invite a future, if not to justify it, and to deny death, which denies dreams. Not so simple. Today’s young people are choked by the sterile world that is theirs. For them, there are no more distances, everything is made easy; they no longer need their imagination, and so it atrophies. The past is too far removed, the future not far enough. What need is there to imagine distant places when they are within your reach? And how is one to worship a heaven splattered with mud? What is the good of prolonging a civilization wallowing in ashes?

And a poor world it is, with little room for either the young or the old. The former are born old, the latter are forever dying; too slowly for some. All are to be pitied. This century is cursed.

And why do you want to die? What mistake are you seeking to atone, to denounce? Oh, I know—everything disgusts you. The gilded altars and the false priests, the sullied sanctuaries and the corrupted sovereigns. Yes, I know, there are a few too many innocent men massacred in a few too many lands. And then, the cheating, the lying. Words lie, men kill and go on lying and go on killing. You want
your
death to be a genuine act in a world where all is fake.

Oh yes, I understand, you are so young, so desperate. Born after the holocaust, you have inherited the burden but not the mystery. And you were told: Go ahead, do something with it. Only it is too enormous, too heavy, it eludes and transcends you. A treacherous situation, one cannot possibly disregard it,
yet one cannot possibly continue without disregarding it. Dealing with it poses as many problems as turning away.

And yet, and yet. I must speak to you. Convince you that death, on all levels, is not a solution but a question, the most human question of all.

What if I told you about Kolvillàg? It contains a lesson that might benefit you, who are incapable of living simply, or simply of living. Kolvillàg: contagious hate, evil unleashed. The dire consequences of a commonplace, senseless episode. The importance of unimportant things. Breaking his chains, the Exterminating Angel has turned all men into victims. Moral: it is dangerous to use his services. Do you hear me? Despite the innumerable eyes that characterize him, he is blind; he will strike anywhere. In every family. Decimating every tribe. Filling every cemetery. And no one will know why he perishes or why he is spared. Kolvillàg: the culmination of fanaticism, of stupidity. The ultimate chastisement, affecting equally victims and executioners. Moral: whoever kills, kills himself; whoever preaches murder will be murdered. One may not accept any meaning imposed on death by the living. Just as every murder is a suicide, every suicide is a murder. Yes, the story must be told.

“I saw him again,” said my sick mother
.

She had just awakened, covered with sweat, frighteningly pale. As every morning, glassy-eyed, her voice slow and faltering. As at all her awakenings, she had once again parted with a ghost
.

“I can’t go on,” she said in a toneless voice. “I have reached the end. Next time I’ll go with him.”

We stood at her bedside, my father and I, and looked at one another in consternation. Lately the patient’s condition had worsened. These nightmares. These fits of remorse. Every night she plunged into the turmoil again
.

Her first husband. Their son. The war, the journey, the arrival at the camp. The selection. The refined and oh so cultured army doctor questioning the small boy: “How old are you? Five years already? Go and play over there, go quickly, like a big boy.” One tear, one shove later, my mother found herself separated from her husband and son. Forever
.

“I should have rushed forward, gone with him. He was so small, so far away.”

“Try not to think about it any more,” said my father
.

“I can’t.”

“Make the effort; you must. You can’t go on like this. You have no right to. What you did, others have done. By accusing yourself, you condemn all the mothers who did what you did. You are unfair to them.”

Her head was tossing on the pillow. “No, no,” she said. “I did not behave well. I should have understood. And refused to be separated from my little boy.” Though awake, she was still
following her ghost and her breath was halting. “He is five years old. He has not grown up. He will be five years old forever.”

I should have liked to know this little brother, both younger and older than myself. Whom did he resemble? My mother? I should have liked to see her the way she must have looked that night, surrounded by barbed wire. But even while I listened, I could not help thinking: And I, where do I fit in? I suffered with her and for her, but I could not understand. Where do I fit in, where?

Woe to those nameless orphans who believe in nothing but the brotherhood of the dead. Woe to those ghosts we keep expelling from our memories. Woe to this generation which sees everything and understands nothing. Woe to those who, like yourself, await death and expect nothing else. You have not yet lived and already you hate life. You have not yet confronted your fate and already you are bored. You want to die and you don’t know the reason. How can one help pitying you?

At your age I went from wonder to wonder, despite the ghosts pursuing me relentlessly, despite the proximity of the abyss. I fought with life every morning and with darkness every dusk. I explored every direction and intercepted every call. I spoke and I listened, I taught and I learned, I received and I gave, I yielded and I stood fast, I laughed and I cried—often for the same reasons—and I regret nothing. I could have not lived any of these experiences; I am glad I did. I could have not met any of my companions; I am glad I did. People, events, discoveries; I could have arrived a year earlier, a year later, I could have chosen the path leading to the right rather than to the left and not have known them. I am glad I did.

I remember: a winter night, a sleepy inn. Muffled up in my cape, stretched out behind the hearth in the spot reserved for impecunious travelers, I was reviewing, as I did every evening, the events of the day gone by: the people met, the words pronounced, the moments wasted. A balance sheet I imagined drawn up and inscribed in the
Pinkas
, the Book which never left my side.

It was dark. And so I had not noticed my neighbor lying at the other end of the hearth. I could not tell whether he was young or old. I only knew that he was
Na-venadnik
like myself.
Like myself, he was not asleep. Like myself, he barely moved. After a while we began to speak softly so as not to disturb the proprietor. We traded impressions and anecdotes, but no precise, personal information—such is the law of wanderers in exile.

His was a warm voice, inviting trust and comradeship. He claimed this was his last year of wandering. Had he had his fill of dusty roads, barking dogs and criminals infesting the woods? I asked. Was that why he wished to return home?

“No,” he said, “that’s not it. Some sinners prolong their penance because it links them to their sins a little longer. Penance can become a trap. I prefer to halt; I choose not to reach the goal.”

He confided to me the origins of what he called his “offenses.” Forbidden readings, mystical projects. Exorcism through fasting, mortification of the soul and invocation of the Names. Frankly, he had not been mature enough or sufficiently prepared for the task. Of course he had had a Master, but he had turned out to be a clandestine Sabatean who aimed to redeem the world through sin. His Master spoke of the Messiah but was really referring to the imposter; he glorified the Shekinah but described her in terms of a sensual and vigorous woman, his own. While ostensibly initiating his disciple into the splendors of the secret tradition, he was in fact awakening him to forbidden lust and sensual play. “I who aspired to purity, I who saw my body as an obstacle, here I was, letting myself be lulled by sinful visions …” I told him I envied him. He had set a goal for himself, I had not. His exile was limited, mine was not. Every day brought him closer to deliverance.

“How do you know?” he muttered impatiently. “Man’s goal is not defined by man. We are all too weak, too ignorant to foresee the outcome of our plans. True encounters are those set in heaven, and we are not consulted. Look, what if I told you
that the sole purpose of your wanderings was to hear me speak on this winter night in Dragmuresh?”

I started. “Dragmuresh? You say we are in Dragmuresh? And here I was thinking I was in Petrova.”

I am not sorry I mistook one village for another. Just as all suffering is a test invented by God, the sorrow of having been subjected to it is an invention of the devil.

Another encounter, elsewhere, with another kind of
Na-venadnik
. Abrasha, like myself, wandered from one Jewish community to the next, though not as a penitent but as an agent of the Komintern. His mission was to arouse the youth, organize and activate it, arm and integrate it into the international revolutionary movement. A speaker of talent, a born activist, Abrasha succeeded so well with his recruitment campaign that every police force of the region was at his heels. There was a price on his head; his description was posted on every wall. He slipped through their nets with the help of his sympathizers. But he still had to reckon with parental hostility. Pious for the most part, parents fought emancipation and assimilation as much as atheism. To them communism represented both aberration of the mind and repudiation of the holy tradition. Therefore, it had to be opposed with vigor; all the more since the young, yearning for freedom, eagerly listened to its message.

“You could be of real help to me,” Abrasha was saying. “You could take charge of a sector which as an outsider is closed to me: the Yeshivoth, the Talmudic schools. This is unbroken ground, unjustly so. My instinct is sure, infallible, in this domain. There are, inside the Yeshivoth, numerous, unsuspected comrades. They are waiting only for a signal, a first
contact, to join us and militate with us. They are waiting only for you.”

We had met at the outskirts of Batizov, a tiny hamlet in the mountains. Chased by an unfriendly dog, we were crossing the forest together. I had not disclosed to him who I was nor whence I came; as for my destination, I knew as little about that as he did. To him I was one of those mystical vagabonds he termed the true outcasts of the earth.

“You could keep up your way of life,” he said. “You would be my double. Together we would accomplish—I was about to say miracles, but no—useful, important things. We would help our fellow-men, transform them into free and happy creatures. We would abolish slavery and injustice. We would build a new society, create a new man …”

“All that?” I exclaimed. “Aren’t you overestimating my abilities?”

“Therein lies the beauty of the revolutionary ideal. You and I must change the world. You and I—that is a lot. You think we are alone? The movement has many comrades like you and me.”

Robust, energetic, dynamic and obstinate to boot, he impressed me.

“All that is very nice,” I said, “but …”

“But what?”

“You want me to be your double? You must be joking. Did you take a good look at me?”

“Appearances, you worry about appearances.” Abrasha was annoyed. “You surprise me. More than anyone, you should know they don’t count. It’s what’s behind the appearances, right? Take them away—and what remains, tell me? Two people. Equal. We eat when we’re hungry, sleep when we’re tired; we laugh when we’re amused, right?”

“No,” I said, thinking of Kolvillàg.

“What do you mean, no! Without your beard you would be me; and I with your beard would be you.”

“No,” I said.

“All right. The beard is not enough. Add the clothes. And the upbringing. And the faith. All these may be acquired. You see? I could easily be you.”

“No,” I said. “You will never be me.”

He assumed that I was indulging in dialectics and took pleasure in beating me at my own game. Excitedly he began to use a vocabulary strange to my ears. From time to time I would catch a more or less familiar word, which then remained isolated and opaque without becoming integrated into a complete sentence or an intelligible idea. Meanwhile Abrasha spoke on and on with a fervor not unlike that of a Talmudic student grappling with a difficult text. I waited for him to calm down before I mentioned that I had understood nothing of his tirade.

“All right,” he said. He was not discouraged. “Let’s start all over. I am a communist …”

“What’s that?”

“A communist is someone who states that all peoples, all men form one big community. Do you agree with that principle? Let us continue. The communist declares that man owes it to himself to abolish evil and suffering, hunger and poverty, social injustice and war.”