To the edge of sorrow, p.8
To the Edge of Sorrow, page 8
Once he told one of the farmers that we were a group of Jewish freedom fighters. The farmer was surprised and said, “You don’t look Jewish.”
“All the same, we are Jews.”
“Jews are businessmen, not fighters.”
“Wrong. They can be brave soldiers, but when it comes to the civilian population, they do not abuse them.”
“From me, you took everything,” said the farmer ironically.
“Not everything, sir. If you check you’ll see that we took in moderation, and later on, when we are well stocked, we’ll try to resupply you. This is not pillage for its own sake. We have to sustain ourselves so we’ll have the strength to fight a ruthless enemy.”
“I have nothing to say to you,” said the farmer, rejecting his apology.
“And I promise you that the Jews will not do you any harm.”
“You already looted us,” he insisted.
“You must admit, it’s considerate looting.”
23
At dawn’s first light we went out looking for Paul. It was a strange sort of search, as if he had fooled us and hidden somewhere we could not find him. The rain stopped and the visibility was sharp. We could see the slopes down to the plain, but no one was spotted in the area. Kamil, who led the squads, was taut as a bowstring.
After searching for two hours, we sat ourselves down. It seemed for a moment that Kamil was about to say something. But we were again mistaken. He, too, sat down, seeking a key to the mystery.
Finally, he spread out the map and pointed to the village of Holovka, about ten miles away, most of the area open and cultivated.
“Paul is an experienced soldier and would not risk walking in exposed fields,” said one of the fighters. “He must be hiding now, or lying down, camouflaged.”
These were just blind statements that groped in the dark. All we were left with was Paul’s face, that of a kind, gentle man who spoke little but listened much. But beyond this exterior we didn’t know a great deal about him—who his parents were, his grandparents, what he had studied.
Presumably he had graduated from gymnasium like the rest. Whether he continued at university we had no idea. In any case, he didn’t talk about himself.
Kamil had promised him repeatedly that if we got reinforcements, Holovka would be our first mission. Paul knew our manpower problem and assumed that the promise, made with goodwill, was ultimately unrealistic.
“His honor compelled him to take this step,” said someone.
We kept scanning the area and returned at dusk exhausted and empty-handed. The squad on duty greeted us at the entrance of the camp with a silent look.
That same night we learned that Paul’s wife, a well-known beauty, frivolous and egotistical, had always been attracted to non-Jews.
“How was this smart guy caught in her web?” somebody asked.
“No point in asking about witchcraft,” someone else replied.
Dinner was meager. Tsila wept and brought out the plates with trembling hands. But the soup was hot and the bread fresh, and the pain of Paul’s disappearance was alleviated slightly as we ate the meal.
People kept their distance from one another. Togetherness was oppressive. Paul was loved by everyone. You couldn’t help but love this thin, muscular young man, whose refined way of speaking made you think of poems by Rilke. Yes, the humiliation and disgrace bruised him and marred his beauty, but not his nobility.
“And we won’t see Uncle Paul anymore?” asked Michael.
“If we think about him, we’ll see him,” answered Maxie.
“Where is he now?”
“It’s hard to know, surely not far from here.”
“Is he alone?”
“I assume he is. But don’t worry; Paul is an experienced soldier, and he’ll come back to us one of these days.”
One of the fighters heard the conversation with Michael and whispered aloud, “Tricking the boy again.”
“I’m not tricking. I’m telling the truth,” Maxie replied coldly.
This testy exchange, clearly audible in the darkness, was the ending to an anxious day.
The feeling was that with Paul’s disappearance, the bright side of our togetherness had also vanished. From now on it would be difficult to heal the fractures.
Patrols and ambushes went out on time. Kamil saw the squads off without philosophizing. The password was tzedakah. Kamil made sure to explain that the root of the word was tzedek, justice. Tzedakah also means charity, kindness, generosity.
Felix, who led the fighters, was restrained as usual and did not add a word of his own.
24
The next day, with great effort, we began the climb toward the summit with all the equipment. Even on a foggy, cloudy day the visibility on the way to the top is not impaired. The ears, despite the roar of the water, are not deafened. The feeling here, it must be said, is transcendent.
Not everyone was in favor of this climb. Some argued that the haste after Paul’s disappearance was immoral. We should have waited a few days to see what became of him. He might have changed his mind, and if he returned and didn’t find us, he would think we were abandoning him.
“Paul knows us well and knows we would not abandon him,” said Hermann Cohen in his levelheaded way.
“We must not burden a suffering man with even the tiniest doubt,” someone replied.
Kamil had reasons of his own. “We cannot waste time,” he said. “Autumn is coming to an end; there are already signs of winter. If we don’t start building the bunkers, who knows if we’ll be able to complete them. Paul will forgive us. We are going to the summit not for ourselves alone. I anticipate that the war will be a long one, and we must prepare the place for the others who will join us.”
“On what do you base this prediction?” Again a skeptical voice was heard.
“On will and on justice,” Kamil replied at once.
* * *
—
AFTER WE UNPACKED the equipment and set up the tents, we built two fires for the soup pots. Soup is the elixir that saves us not only from the cold but also from gloom. After a bowl of soup, you feel that your body is filled with vitality. Kamil jokes that an army, as Napoleon famously said, travels on its stomach, but then adds, “Napoleon never tasted Tsila’s soup. If he had, he would have said, ‘Tsila’s soup is like fire in the bones.’ ”
We continue to canvass the area, searching for traces of Paul. Soon the patrols will go down to the orchards at the edge of the forests to collect information about Paul’s movements. Everyone believes that he is not far away and will soon be found. We need to be patient and enable him to return to us.
Our covenant cannot be broken. We are tied together with bonds of compassion. If a comrade leaves for a while, he must not be judged harshly. We are only human, and weakness must be respected. But the main job in the coming weeks will be climbing to the summit and digging the bunkers and the trenches that connect them. For this big project Kamil enlists Hermann Cohen, our quartermaster, who once owned sawmills. He knows the secrets of wood—which type will insulate and which will absorb water, which wood for flooring, and how to build walls that will stand up to stress. As the man responsible for food and clothing, he has worked wonders. Now he will make use of the knowledge he gained over the years at the sawmills.
I should mention that Hermann Cohen graduated from the gymnasium with honors and had begun his studies at the university. He studied Greek and Latin for two years and planned on an academic career, but the sudden death of his father forced him to abandon his studies and devote himself to the family business. He took over his father’s role and did very well. Hermann Cohen is a master at preserving our supplies. He utilizes rags and cardboard, sacks and ropes. All the while he takes care of the weak and the sick, as well as Grandma Tsirl. He sets aside specific foods that protect their health.
Based on his age, he counts as one of our old men, but he refuses to be exempt from duty. At night he sometimes takes part in patrols, and once he was even wounded. He does not get involved in matters of faith. “A man who has divorced himself from the faith of his fathers should not take sides in the argument,” he says. “In my youth we were certain there was nothing greater than the gymnasium and the university; we strove with all our might to go there. The study of Torah, not to mention ritual observance, we regarded as empty and useless. Our denial pained our parents and grandparents, but we showed them no mercy. This was naïveté. Or, if you like, the folly of youth.”
He speaks with a calm voice the rest of us lack. One of the fighters once asked him if he would act differently today. His answer was, “It is hard to fix what you have broken. If my elders were alive I would ask their forgiveness for hurting them, but I can’t do as they did. I remember the prayers, but I cannot stand and pray. Every person, I assume, ruined something in his life, in my case perhaps a bit more.”
* * *
—
“WHAT ARE YOU STUDYING?” Grandma Tsirl asked Michael, who had come to visit her.
“I’m studying arithmetic and geometry.”
“It’s also good to learn the prayers, my little bird.”
“What for?”
“Because prayer brings us close to God.”
“How?”
“Prayer leads our voice to him.”
“Is it possible to sometimes see God?”
“Not now and not openly.”
“How do we know he loves us?”
“The heart tells us.”
Ever since Paul disappeared, Michael has been uneasy. He asks Maxie what he should do to bring him back to us.
“We’ll think about him; maybe he’ll feel how we miss him and will want to return to us,” says Maxie.
“The thoughts can reach him?”
“I believe so.”
“Did he run away because we hurt him?”
“We loved him, but we couldn’t help him. He went to look for his lost daughter.”
Michael tries to understand the dilemma, but his questions lead to a blind alley. Maxie sees his confusion and decides not to complicate his mind further. From now on he will tell him, I don’t know.
Maxie is around forty and a pharmacist, but he has the face of a teenager. He looks at the world with a sort of perpetual amazement. He loves animals, and they are drawn to him. The birds hop onto his shoulders and peck bread crumbs from his hands. Even a stray dog clung to him and spent several weeks with us. In the end it died, suddenly.
Some say Maxie is naïve, but that’s not apparent when he speaks. Salo comes from time to time to consult with him on matters of illness and medication. Maxie is expert in concocting remedies and has considerable knowledge of medicine.
I once heard Hermann Cohen say, “Be heedful of the poor, for Torah goes forth from them.” He knows Maxie’s family; Maxie’s father worked in Hermann Cohen’s sawmill. He was a poor man who could barely support his family, but he sent his five children to the best gymnasiums, and all of them graduated from university.
25
We completed our shift. The squads who replaced us went out on patrol and ambush, and Karl, who after a shift usually closes his eyes and falls asleep, instead drank two cups of tea and shared a few incidents from his life. He began:
“I am more accustomed to autumn and winter than to seasons of light. We communists begin activity in the fall. In spring and summer we would hide in cellars and study political doctrine and propaganda. During those months, we would pay close attention to the commissars, make maps, and plan operations.
“With all due respect to theory, we wanted action, contact with great things, and real rivals. In other words: confrontation. Young people—seventeen, eighteen—who join the Party are trained to be single-minded and violent: to break down gates and doors, to rip out window bars. Violence not only strengthens the hands; it also makes you a hero. Well-bred young people, nice people to talk to, are turned overnight into a gang. We were convinced that everything we did was for the common good. The past and present were unimportant; what was important was the future. Rabbis and merchants are enemies of mankind, and whoever abuses them brings salvation to the world.
“We would attack religious institutions, tear charity boxes from the wall, set Torah scrolls on fire. We hated religious Jews: the way they stood, what they wore, how they talked. There was nothing about them we didn’t hate. Small wonder that we eagerly burned synagogues, religious courts, and ritual baths. But most of all we loved to interrogate rabbis, religious judges, and Talmud teachers.
“At night we would break into a rabbi’s house and inform him we were from the Department of Education and Culture of the Communist Party and had come to investigate how he teaches and preaches his defunct religion. The questions were listed in a notebook. The first question was, ‘What do you teach, and to whom?’
“ ‘I teach what my ancestors taught me. I add nothing and subtract nothing,’ the rabbi would answer right away.
“The second question was, ‘You undoubtedly know that your teaching corrupts the soul of the young people?’
“ ‘God’s Torah is pure.’ The rabbi would cling to that verse.
“ ‘You don’t know that times have changed?’
“ ‘Changed?’ The rabbi would be puzzled. ‘Changed for the better?’
“ ‘Science has advanced, thinking is broader, but your teachings stand in the way of progress and cause injury to mankind. You must stop at once, or our department will deal with you the way you deserve.’
“Some of the rabbis were undeterred by any threat. They would stand their ground and confuse the young investigators. Of course, there were also weak rabbis who quickly capitulated to the investigators’ threats. They were ready to plead guilty as charged, to sign documents, just to be left alone. Those we hated even more.
“One night we bullied a blind rabbi. The investigator demanded that he stop teaching the young. When he heard the demand, his eyelids fluttered and a kindly smile crossed his lips. ‘I’m not hearing you well, for surely a fellow Jew would never say such a thing to me.’
“ ‘I repeat the demand of the Party to immediately halt the teaching of Talmud,’ the young investigator said, leaving no room for doubt.
“ ‘Good God, what harm have I done to deserve such language? My dear boy, you surely mean well, but to my ears this sounds very harsh.’
“ ‘The demands of the Party are always for the common good.’
“ ‘If so, then thank God, I have done nothing wrong.’
“ ‘But the study of Torah is a crime, a crime against humanity.’
“As he heard the investigator’s explicit words, the blind old man’s face froze, but he quickly recovered and said, ‘You are surely speaking ironically.’
“ ‘What do you mean?’ The young interrogator flinched.
“ ‘You are surely saying the opposite of what you mean.’
“ ‘I do not mean the opposite. I am speaking in simple, direct language. You must stop this teaching immediately. And if you don’t, the Party will know how to deal with you.’
“ ‘Good God!’ The old man looked imploringly toward heaven.
“ ‘Leave God alone and do as you are ordered,’ continued the young, arrogant investigator.
“ ‘What is my sin, God Almighty?’
“ ‘You know your sins; there is no need to recite them again.’
“The old man pressed his hands to his forehead and said, ‘I thank you for your words and your warnings. You are a loyal messenger, it seems. From now on I declare a fast, a ban on food and on speech. God willing, I will hear only good and worthy things.’
“ ‘You are not just blind,’ the young investigator said with disgust.
“The rabbi’s expression changed to one of incredulity. ‘My blind eyes have been open for many years. Your sin will not be forgiven.’
“The interrogator continued to berate the rabbi, whose forehead furrowed in disbelief. The interrogator finally gave up, arose with contempt, and left the room. I followed him.
“I conducted investigations on my own and witnessed many others. Where we got the gall and arrogance to browbeat elderly rabbis in the middle of the night, I don’t know. Yes, the commissars prepared us for these interrogations. Their policy was never to take pity on benighted people. Anyone who takes pity on them harms the beating heart of the Party. They hold captive many people who must be redeemed. There was magic in the words ‘captive’ and ‘redemption.’ ”
“And you weren’t afraid?” asked one of the listeners.
“No. We were certain that we were doing what was good and right.”
“Who were the commissars?”
“Jewish university students.”
“And who were the investigators?”
“Young Jews from the gymnasium.”
Karl’s face grew still, and for a moment it seemed that he was asking his listeners not to bother him with more questions. But there were a few more queries that embarrassed him.
“That’s how it was,” Karl concluded. You couldn’t tell if he was referring to the sin that was hard to forgive, or if he was perhaps confessing to all charges in an indictment that he himself had composed.
Nearly every night, images and incidents that had been buried in our hearts come forth. I sometimes think that Kamil is distressed by these revelations, which take the place of the study of the texts.
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