Last night Kamil attached me to one of the squads that is soon to go on a raid. He’s noticed that in recent weeks I’ve gotten stronger. In training I’m often quicker than my friends, and my time has come to participate in a daring raid. Until now I’ve taken part only in patrols and ambushes and minor raids. This period of time, I must admit, prepared me for the trials ahead.
I went to Grandma Tsirl. Grandma Tsirl knew my parents personally, as well as my grandparents and even great-grandparents. She calls my mother “my little Bunya.” My mother was a late-in-life child, beloved by everyone. Her sisters were pretty and smart, but my mother, Grandma Tsirl told me, was beautiful. In addition, she graduated from the gymnasium with honors.
When you’re alongside Grandma Tsirl, it’s as if you’re back home, and life is not broken and arbitrary. Even our trudge through the mud is not meaningless.
“What are you doing, my son?” she asked.
“What everyone is doing.”
She looked at me and said, “You will tell future generations what these despicable people did to us. Don’t be caught up in details; get under the surface. Details, by their nature, confuse and conceal. Only the core endures.”
I was shocked and I said, “I don’t understand what you’re saying, Grandma Tsirl.”
“Did I say something that isn’t clear?”
“All the same, I don’t understand.”
“I will explain: Your grandfather, of blessed memory, was a sofer, a religious scribe, like his father. I remember him wrapped in a prayer shawl, bent over the parchment and writing with great devotion. I would stand outside his window and watch him work. As I did so, I understood the meaning of the Hebrew words hamavdil bein kodesh lekhol, the One who separates the holy from the mundane. When your grandfather was writing, he was totally holy. Your father, like most of his generation, did not walk in his father’s path, but the angel of poetry watched over him. He wrote poems of longing. Everyone was surprised that a prominent lawyer, who represented big companies, wrote poems of longing. I was not surprised. The soul of his holy father, your grandfather, sang within him. Those who looked at him closely could see that his eyes drifted into higher worlds, even when he worked on temporal matters. Four generations of writers have preceded you, my dear, but you have seen so much in your short life; you must tell future generations where they came from and where they are going. If one knows where from, one knows where to.”
“Grandma Tsirl, writing is very hard for me. Even writing a letter is hard.”
“A person doesn’t know what’s hidden inside him until he works at it.”
“I want to be a fighter, not a writer.”
“My dear, a person’s fate is not always in his own hands. Forgive me for telling you about the past and guessing about the future. Believe me, had I not been shown what I see, I would lock my lips with seven locks.”
I stood up.
“I see you’ve grown tired of my talking.”
I wanted to say, “I’m not tired,” but the words didn’t come out of my mouth.
THAT NIGHT ONE of the fighters read a few verses from the Book of Numbers. We spoke about the purification before entering the Promised Land. The idea of purification took hold in a few hearts, perhaps because of the words of Kamil, who spoke of purifying ourselves for the life awaiting us after the war. In his opinion, we will be privileged to witness the downfall of the enemy and the final victory. The question is whether we will be worthy of this. Doubt and despair must not be allowed to infect us with their poison. We have a great obligation. We are not fighting for the body alone.
“We are what we are,” remarked one of the fighters.
“We must be more than that; we have seen evil incarnate,” Kamil insisted. “To be silent means standing on the side. We have come here to fight against the worst evil, and we will not give up.”
One of the fighters again asked what the religious rites of ancient times had to do with us. Purification is not relevant to modern man. If a person believes in God, so be it. But as for us, faith does not dwell within us.
Kamil listened attentively. The fighter’s voice was clear and understandable and inevitably exposed a few of our hidden collective thoughts. For a moment it seemed that Kamil would rise to his feet, gather his words, and shape them into a manifesto, as he occasionally does. But this time he sat hunched over, like a man gone mute.
One of the fighters, who had never expressed his opinion publicly, suddenly burst loudly into tears. His wailing shook us all. What’s happened? What’s happened? Everyone reached out to him. But the man did not respond; his whole being wept. Even Salo, whose words are always soothing, stood beside him silently. The man’s weeping grew stronger, as if he had just realized what we had lost.
So it goes here from time to time. The weeping is usually pent up, but when it breaks out, it comes in great waves. One time Tsila, the strong and friendly woman who feeds us tasty food and lifts our spirits, broke down into muffled weeping and trembled all over. This happened on a day when nothing much was going on. Danzig went into the kitchen with Milio in his arms and asked for some soup. Tsila looked at Milio and said he was adorable and making progress, and that there was no reason for worry. He will speak not only in syllables but in complete sentences. Every child develops in a different way.
Suddenly, for no visible reason, Tsila burst into tears, a silent crying that shocked us. Salo and Maxie arrived at once, hugged her, and sat her down on a crate. She shook for a long time. Finally, she quieted down, opened her eyes, and asked, “What happened to me?”
And once, on the way back from a mission, one of the fighters began to cry, quietly, inaudibly. Only Felix, whose ear is alert to every sound, picked up his stifled weeping. He immediately ordered us to lay our packs and bundles on the ground, got down on his knees, and asked the fighter what happened. The man was unable to answer. It was good that Salo was with us. He took an empty medicine dropper from his pack and squeezed some air into the fighter’s mouth. After a few minutes, the color returned to his face.
What would we do without Salo? His tent is open day and night, and when a mission seems especially dangerous, he is included in the squad. Grandma Tsirl says to beware of doctors. But not of Salo: the angel Raphael, the healer, lives within him.