Pinkhus Kahanovich (1884–1950) was a philosopher, critic, and writer who wrote in Yiddish under the pen name of Der Nister (literally meaning: “The Hidden One”). He was born in the city of Berdychiv, in what is now Ukraine. In 1920 he went into brief exile, first to Lithuania and then Germany. He returned to the Soviet Union in 1925. In 1950, he was arrested in conditions of secrecy and died shortly thereafter in a prison hospital. His grave, near the Siberian city of Vorkuta, was only recently identified. To date the only book-length translations of his work into English are of the social-realist novel The Family Mashber and Regrowth, a collection of posthumously published short stories. His work was said to be inspired by the stories of Rabbi Nachman, a teacher of the kabbalah (Jewish mysticism). His style was considered unique for the Yiddish language, as it included Jewish mysticism alongside other world religions. Although he had several books published, his two-volume collection Gedakht (“Imagined”) was his first successful literary project. This story is from that collection, for the first time translated into English.
AT THE BORDER between the town and the desert, there is someone who keeps watchful guard on the desert boundary, who appears to be a sort of wild beast, and she is eternally watchful and guarding.
—What do you expect from the desert?
—Someone is coming from there, and will show himself—she says.
—Who?
—She holds herself back from responding….But it comes out, at the end of the day, when she is tired from patrolling, and worn out from always looking around; when she seats herself on a stone, and her face is marked by care and turns sorrowfully toward the desert; when you find yourself near her, and remain standing by her to give her a break from her watch, and you ask: “For whom are you waiting?” She takes a long, drawn-out look face-to-face with the questioner, then she takes in the questioner’s face and whole body in a glance, then she turns toward the desert and, looking down, she begins to speak:
—For whom am I waiting? For the two-humped camel from the desert.
—And what is the camel carrying?
—No rider and no herdsman. No merchandise and no travelers. Just two candles upon its humps…
—What do you mean?
—The beast begins her story:
Far out in the desert, beneath an enormous sand-dune, lived the last of the giants. The giant pledged to make his way back to the homeland of his ancestors, to excavate their temples and their gods, to bring them back to life and power. He had wandered over half the world, until he came to the desert and went to sleep beneath that dune….They say that he found the gods inside that dune, and the storytellers claim that on an evening when the dune is shrouded in darkness and is overtaken by the desert’s dusky winds, you can see his walking stick wrapped in his coat left resting at its peak. He put them up there, and forgot where he left them, and looked around the dune, never finding them. And he yearns, and he waits, impatiently; one night, when his legs stretch, and his head rises from out of the peak, the dune will explode to bits. He will open his eyes, and no shadow will pass over them. Not the slightest whistle of the winds will escape detection by his ears. But for a while, they did not hear and did not see. Only once, upon some evening, after great exertions and much seeking, did he hear a voice coming from the very peak of the dune, and this is what the voice said to him:
“Giant, you will not bring back the rule of your gods, nor shall the line of your ancestors be made powerful, for you shall find no mate and cannot bring a new generation into being.”
Hearing this, the giant thought to himself: Where could he find a mate, since he was the last of the line of giants? Where could he turn, when his race had nearly died out, and the people of the town were unlike him, and looked upon him as a monstrosity, a wild, primeval relic? Whenever he walked through the town, his head blocked out the sun, and whenever he ran through it, his feet brought accidents and catastrophes. He had devoured forests and flocks of livestock, destroyed cities and fields. People were like mites to him; they would hide themselves from him in holes in the ground and the cracks between stones. So he thought: To whom could he turn? Who could advise him? The voice of the dune had spoken to him only once, and would not busy itself with his troubles any more. He was furious. He looked all around him in the desert: Perhaps someone would come to him after all, perhaps something would be revealed to him in the distance. But the desert was desert, and nothing else, so he sat alone in his place. His eyes could find nothing beside himself in all that space, nothing beside the horizon and the skies, in which not even birds were to be seen. Again he waited for some time, sitting with care and attention, so worn down and saddened, until finally he noticed the noise of wings around his head. He lifted his head, and he saw a bird, a gigantic bird of great wingspan, wheeling over his head, flying around and around in a perfect circle. Then the bird descended from its heights and remained hovering near him, and began to speak to him:
“Giant, do not worry, do not be sad! Your mate is already waiting for you, but she is very far away from you. I have brought to you, from the place where she can be found, a letter from her.”
The giant saw a letter that the bird had dropped at his feet, folded and sealed, and fell to the earth to grab it. He opened it up to read it, and this is what he read:
“To the last of the Giants, wherever he may not be and wherever he may not be found, whether at sea or on shore, in a village or in the desert: I wish you great peace, blessings, and treasure! We should get to know one another. At the corner of the desert where the wilderness meets the sea, at the stony shore, we survive and remain. Our ancestors ruled as kings for a long time, until they died out, wiped themselves out by killing one another in battles, leaving us as the remainder of the race of giants only one daughter; she lives high in a tower, with three windows, of which one faces the sea, a second toward dry land, and a third faces up to the heavens above. And from there she rules and issues decrees, through one window, upon the sea and upon the fish of the sea, from the second, upon the land and upon the livestock and wild beasts of the land, and from the third, upon the winds and storms and all manner of birds in the air above. All the creatures hear her and obey her decrees, and she alone follows her gods and abides by their commandments. Thus have the gods commanded her: What she shall sit through and what she shall endure, for the tower of empire is getting old, and no one is repairing it; termites have been found in its walls, and holes have already been eaten through….She is still young, but her youth is passing without sweetness. Her body is strong, and she can give birth to a new generation of giants. So the gods have advised her: They know with certainty that there is still a male giant remaining, somewhere at sea or upon the land, but somewhere far away and thus in the same circumstance as her, living alone and searching for his other half. He searches, but has not found his mate—so she should seek after him, and bring him to her tower. She has followed the advice of her gods, turning to the birds and asking the swiftest, most skillful of flyers: who shall find the giant for me? One came forward to accept the mission. From the young empress he has taken a letter, to fly all over the world searching for the giant, at sea and on land, leaving no spot unexamined. And you, who now reads this letter that the bird has brought to your feet, you are the one, the only one, called upon to take the daughter of giants as your mate. She says to you: Come to me. Love and riches await you, you the only one, the long-awaited one.”
Having finished reading, the giant looked up again at where the bird was, and saw the bird once again flying above and around the spot. So he asked the bird:
“And how do you get to the daughter of giants?”
“By foot.”
“In which direction should I go?”
“This way, as the bird flies.”
The bird stopped looking down at the giant and lifted himself higher into the sky, then flew a few more circles around the giant’s head, and then, straightening himself out, pointed himself toward a horizon and flew away. The giant lifted himself from where he was seated, turned his face in the direction that the bird had flown, then turned his whole body in that direction, and with his very first step, departed the sand dune for the very last time. He turned to look at its peak, and addressed these words to the dune:
“Dune, I say to you, I swear to you, just as I rested beneath you and at your foot, so shall my gods rest upon your highest peak, and my firstborn, the first to issue from my loins, shall serve upon you as a High Priest, the first High Priest and most loyal servant of you, great mountain!”
So he said, and the giant took his first step, and with that step, covered what would be a day’s journey for a man; then with the other foot, another day’s journey, and once again the first foot. And then the giant made for himself, in the midst of the desert, a sort of tent, out of sticks and branches, sheets and rags, and the whole structure was weak as a hut and sagging toward the earth, which in the middle of the desert, in the great lonely expanse of the desert, was just pitiful. The tent was too small for the giant to see out of it, or else he would have seen, through the opening of the tent, a sort of a person, hidden by and rising from the earth. The person was wrapped in a dark cloak from head to toe, face and eyes invisible. When the giant finally noticed this person, he wondered: Who can that be, and what are they doing here in the desert? He bent over to yell downward:
“Who is there?”
“The leper,” came the answer in a voice from the ground, weak and dampened from being wrapped in a cloak.
“And what are you doing here in the desert?”
“There is no place for me in the town.”
“And where has the leper come from?”
“From the daughter of giants, who lives at the corner of the desert.”
“What did you say?”
“Please bend down lower, closer to me, I don’t have the strength to yell any louder.”
And the giant bent over, laying his head and half his body on the ground, while the leper stood up and began to tell this story:
—At the edge of the desert and the shore of the sea, there is a palace, where there lives the last daughter of giants, the remainder of the old race of giants, and she lives there alone, she has no mate. Her youth is passing in unhappiness and loneliness, she spends her time alone with the walls around her, day and night she has no joy in her life, and she doesn’t know what to do with herself. She has retained all her hereditary powers, though, and to this day she speaks to the birds as her ancestors did before her, and they serve her following all her commands. She called upon them and sent the best and swiftest, to go and to fly to the ends of the earth to find her destined one, her other half, her giant. He flew and he flew, searching for a long time, and he found nothing, no one, and finally he turned around to come back home, and he met me on the way. Back then I was young, and also a giant, and I was also searching for my mate, my other half. He was pleased to meet me, hailed me, showed me the way, and told me a great deal—about her life and her suffering alone in the palace. I stood up and made my way following the bird. I was coming to her, to her youth and her home, filling up with love for her. I spent some time with her, got to know her, and readied myself to become her lordly husband….And I did, finally, I became her husband. And one night, when the moon reigned in the sky and sea and shined in upon us through the window, and she and I were together, and there was not another creature in the palace besides us two, I saw her, lying in bed in the light of the moon, and I was terrified. She looked at me in total silence with her two eyes, and her eyes were cold. Her face looked as though there was nothing there to see at all, as if I were invisible, not there at all. So I turned to her and asked her: What are you thinking? What are you feeling? She did not answer me. So I asked her again: What is the matter with you? What are you looking at that way? Who are you thinking of? She looked down at me and answered, “Of another, a better one, not you who is lying there.”
“What do you mean?” I asked her.
“Enough!” she said, not looking at me, and as if she were speaking against her will.
“Why?”
“You are small and covered in running sores.”
And it was true: After her words I looked at myself and saw how small I was beside her, almost nothing, what a needless, alien, used-up remainder of a person I had become; she was beautiful and uncannily silent, while beside her I was covered over with pustulent sores….I got up, got down out of the bed, and left her lying there by herself. I looked at her once more, at her indifference, her alienation from me, her contempt and desire to be left alone, for me to leave. I thought a bit, thought and soon I understood: a witch! I was under the spell of a witch! I got out of the room as quick as I could, out of the palace, into the fresh air. I went to the sea and stood there in the power of the moon. From the sea, I could see, toward the shore, where the water was not deep, there was a camel standing on all fours with water up to its knees and a wound on its head. It stood silently, masticating nothingness, taken up with itself and whatever spell it was under. I went to the camel, as if I had found a friend, a companion in suffering, a neighbor in the water. I turned to it and asked it a question:
“What do you think, camel?”
“I think it is not the first time, and that you are not her first suitor.”
“What is to be done?”
“Go to the desert.”
“And do what?”
“Find others like you, and turn them around from the path they are taking.”
I listened to the camel and got on its back, and it carried me out of the sea and across the shore, onto the sand and into the desert, where I settled in a tent, and warned every passerby who was going that way of what awaited that way—and that is all.
And so the leper ended his story, and remained silently wrapped in his cloak, and in his going silent, standing with head bowed, with his body and his silent standing he waited upon the giant who was standing over him.
“And what do you say I should do now?”
“Don’t go.”
“And the bird who called upon me?”
“It is one of her messengers.”
After some more minutes of silence, the giant rose from his bent position and turned his head toward the horizon where the bird had flown before. He looked for the bird, seeking it out with his eyes, but did not find it, thus passing a bit more time. It flew back, returning to the giant.
“What do you want, giant?”
“I want to know the truth.”
“What truth?”
“About the daughter of giants, and your message.”
“It is the truth.”
“And what the leper has said?”
“The words of a leper.”
“Do you have a sign for me?”
“The camel.”
“Where?”
“There!”
And a camel had shown itself standing next to the giant, its back uplifted and its head and face turned toward a corner of the sky. It looked so thoughtful, ready, waiting at attention to answer any of the giant’s questions.
“And what do you say, camel, about the leper?”
“I don’t know him.”
“And who brought him here?”
“Not I, and none from my kind, none of those like me…”
“Leper!” The giant shouted, lifting his foot over the leper’s body and head, ready to plant it down upon him. “Leper!!” He raised his voice and then brought his foot down with great force….And the leper was annihilated. The giant returned to his makeshift desert hut and gathered the rags and sticks, and used them to build a gravesite, a memorial—“There he lies, the liar.” And the giant continued on his way.
So the giant traveled another day through the desert, and then a second, with no impediment, nor any sign of change, along his way. The desert remained desert, and no way out was to be seen. So at twilight he laid himself down upon the sand and called out to the bird, his wayfinder, leader, and his vanguard, and commanded: “Bird, show yourself!” The bird returned flying from a distant corner of the sky, his wings dull in the advancing darkness. Then holding himself humbly before the giant, in the last rays of sun cast upon the desert, he made his way toward the giant, asking:
“Giant, what is your command?”
“How far is it still to the giantess’s tower?”
“Not far now. You can get yourself ready.”
“For what?”
“For night and what comes after it.”
Since the giant had laid down, stretched out upon the desert sands with legs and limbs relaxed, his eyes closed and sleep cast its spell upon him soon enough. When he was fully asleep, he started to dream: The lost mountain of the gods, the dune that formerly sheltered him, had once again come to life. On top of the mountain, at its peak, there was a temple, a newly built temple, shining and renewed and open today for a holy day, a festival…and now it is night, and outside it is dark and tenebrous, but inside the temple all is illuminated, and the lights of the festival shine through the windows of the temple onto the slopes of the mountain outside….And the temple is empty; there is just one servant at its threshold, opening the treasures and readying the temple for pilgrims and entering priests. And the pilgrims can be seen approaching the mountain from all around, gathered around on every side at its foot, coming by foot and by caravan, all carrying candles in their hands, protecting the flames from being extinguished by the winds. They come up the mountain in groups and enter the temple, walking through its portal, stunned silent by its insides. And the pilgrims multiply, women carrying children, elders led by the young, and all enter the illuminated temple carrying their candles. Upon an altar against the eastern wall, opposite the entrance, an old High Priest reveals himself, dressed entirely in white. He stands silently before the congregation, stands silently and then begins to speak to them:
“In the name of the temple, and in the name of its gods, I declare the temple reopened and renewed! For this we have one of us to thank, who was one of the last remainders of our kind, he who strived for this, who worked for this renewal, and thanks to his will and his effort we are gathered here today, we have returned here once again. Come forward, and honor the temple.”
And the congregation heard the High Priest, and bent at the knees with their lights in their hands, and the High Priest lifted his hands in silent prayer, the congregation still kneeling silently, taking the prayer and the silence upon their heads.
“And now,” said the High Priest. “Rise and take heed.”
And the congregation rose from its knees and from the ground, and all were looking at the High Priest, and all were waiting for his word. And the High Priest called out again, saying:
“In the name of the temple and of its gods, we make this offering to our benefactor upon his wedding night, may there be two candles, unlit, for him and for his mate, for him and for the daughter of giants so long awaited.”
And from the podium of the altar, which was full of burning candles, the High Priest took two candles which had not been lit, which were not burning: large and long, waxen, and with brand-new wicks, he held one in each hand, his arms stretched forth toward the congregation, and he called out again, saying:
“May he continue and may he take strength, our benefactor and the builder of our temple, unto the wedding canopy and his first night with his bride, and as he finds his destined one and is reunited with his other half, so shall the two candles have their wicks alit, one shall burn the other and they shall become one fire, and a message shall go forth unto the people, and the people shall see the candles and they shall know: The ancient race has risen again, the old gods have come back to life, and the family of giants are once again in power.”
And the giant heard this for he was among the congregation. He came out from among the congregation and approached the old High Priest upon the altar, reached out his hand and took one of the candles away, carrying it to the back of the sanctuary.
And when the giant reached the back with the candle, he saw that the temple had gone completely dark. All the candles had been put out as at the end of the festival, and an air of mourning had come over the walls of the temple. It was as if the entire congregation had been wrapped and covered in a dark shadow, and remained in darkness, having extinguished each candle in their own hands. So, too, had all the candles on the altar begun to flicker out. The temple had gone silent. And he saw upon the altar that in place of the High Priest who had been there before, was instead a bent-over person, wrapped in a crude cloak completely covering both its body and head, and from beneath that covering its voice could be heard, weakly, saying:
“And the giant, he should not think, he should not imagine, that what he has seen here he has seen true, that what passes here before his eyes shall come to pass in truth….It is just a dream, a self-deception. He should accept what he does not want to accept, that he who now speaks, speaks the truth, and the leper spoke the truth. The giant has smashed the leper but not his truth! He does not want to hear it, but so it is….”
And then the temple and all that had filled the temple vanished before the eyes of the giant; the congregation was gone, and silence, emptiness, and night reigned once more upon the dune. At its peak, the memorial-tent of the leper stood in silence, and the leper beside it….The giant woke up, trembling.
“Bird!” he shouted. “Where are you?”
The giant had startled himself awake with his own shout, opening his eyes wide open. He looked around at his surroundings, near and far, on all sides. To his disappointment he found a gray dawn, silent and deserted, with nothing living in his surroundings, not a single creature showing itself all around. Everything was still asleep, or dead silent. The giant called again for the bird, and the bird shouted back. He came back flying out of the gray sky, drowsily, presenting himself to the giant like a sleepwalker, asking, “What do you want?”
“I had a dream.”
“I know.”
“What do you know?”
“It’s nothing.”
“And the two candles?”
“There they are!”
The bird pointed to the camel, who was coming from the direction of the rising sun. After some time had passed, the camel arrived next to the bird and the giant bearing two large, long, unlit, waxen candles, one on each of his two humps. They were resting against each other, crossed over the camel’s humps, and the camel bore them in camelian silence. The camel waited for the giant to rise from the ground, so they could resume their travels.
And the giant stood, having consoled himself from the night’s upsetting dream, and the bird was already flying in the distance once again to show the way, and the camel was also moving from his place, the giant following along, resolved upon another day of travel.
For the third and last time, the leper met the giant on his way, and this is how it happened: After the giant had been traveling for some time, and the desert was no longer all that could be seen, when he could finally begin to see a corner of the sea and the tower in the distance, a mirage appeared to the giant in the middle of the bright desert. In the sunlight reflected from the sand it appeared to the giant as though there were a large town, with walls and buildings and alleyways, full of the tumult of people in the streets. People rushing about and banging into one another, people making haste and shunning their fellows, and all bearing the burdens of business. Suddenly a plaza opened up within the city—a large, one might even say, gigantic plaza—where a great mob of people could assemble. But the plaza remained empty for the time being, no one gathering there, no one appearing. Only after it was completely emptied did people begin to trickle in; they came out from every corner, street, and alleyway and began to gather. Those who before were occupied with their solitary affairs were now gathered into masses, and gradually the plaza was filled completely by a great assembly, until it was completely crammed. The plaza was black with people, and a black mood had overtaken the crowd. In the middle an elevated platform could be seen, and one could not tell if it had been built from wooden boards, or was a pile of sand. From there, a person looked out and around from above the assembly. He waited a bit for everyone to settle down, a minute or two, looked around as he waited, and then, to grab the attention of the crowd, he stretched out his hand upward and began to speak:
“People of the great assembly, a festival has been proclaimed for us, great events are overtaking us, and it is this: A giant has been seen in the desert, one who has until now lived alone in the desert, the last remaining of his kind, so he thought, but now he has met his mate, and today the two of them will mate; that means a new generation, regeneration of his kind, the race of his ancient ancestors, and great giants going forth from their land. That means great giants coming to our town, and a new regime coming to rule over our heads. The giant’s throne will be built tall enough to reach the skies, so that his head will be crowned by the sun itself. And you shall be under the protection of the Crown of Giants, and no enemy shall attack you. Even the enemy’s pioneering scouts will not dare to cross the border….Hear the news and understand, hear it and rejoice in what you have been told!”
The audience heard him out, and then remained silent. After the man’s speech, the crowd did not budge a hairbreadth from where they stood; no one raised their voice, and no expressions of joy erupted from any portion of the audience. The audience was so silent, in such tense readiness, that suddenly when a voice did cry out, from outside the plaza, it echoed through it from every corner. The echoing shout: We don’t want him! We don’t need him! We are not waiting for him, and he should leave the sun alone!
“We don’t need him! We don’t want him!” It came from every wall and corner, and also from voices within the crowd itself. “We don’t need him! He is a stranger to us! The giant, he will trod on our heads! He will destroy our buildings! He will steal our sun and consign us to the darkness! We don’t need him!”
Each person in the crowd bowed to the ground to pick up handfuls of dirt, sand, dust, clods of earth, and stones, and waving their full hands at the person on the platform they turned toward him shouting:
“Where is he?” as if in one tremendous, bellowing voice.
“There!” The person pointed to the giant standing in the desert. “There he is, and do what you will to him! He is in your hands!”
The people tried throwing whatever they had, stones, dust, making a great tumult within the crowd. Some were trod underfoot by their fellows, others hit with stones, and all came to some sort of injury one way or the other, but they kept drawing closer and closer to the giant, until suddenly—the vision dissolved and nothing remained of the crowd, the plaza was completely emptied—completely cleared out, not a soul to be seen anywhere but one alone upon the platform, the town crier from before, who looked to the giant as though he were standing face to face with him. They were in the plaza by themselves, silently looking one another over. Now that he was alone, the town crier looked sad, a bit bereft, and turning silently toward the giant, he began to speak:
“Giant, where are you going? Where are your giant steps taking you?”
“Over there, where the bird is leading me,” answered the giant.
“Toward what?”
“To renew the ancient powers of the giants and bless the town with my might.”
“Who wants that?”
“I want it, and I must have it!”
“And the people?”
“The leper!”
The person had begun to remove the veils and clothing which had hidden his face and head from the giant…and truly it was his old acquaintance, the leper from before, standing in front of the giant, bent over and wrapped in a mantle. The giant beheld him with surprise, anger, and disgust….But the leper did not remain, nor any of the desert mirage, for it all dissolved around the giant—the city, the streets of the city, and every trace was soon gone—the sun was already setting in the desert, and the giant looked around himself in shock, looking for some trace of the leper. With his eyes wide open, he had lost track of the desert, his exit from the desert, and his destination….Then he caught a taste of the sea on the breeze, which turned his attention toward the sea and with it, he could soon detect a trace of the shoreline, and on the shore, the tower, an old, solitary tower with windows turned toward both sea and desert….It was darkening, and the flag on top of the tower was being lowered, and the giant saw it, and turned his footsteps toward the tower.
He saw that the bird had perched in one of the windows of the tower, and with a tired wing was knocking on a windowpane. The window opened. A head looked out of the window—a large head, belonging to the daughter of giants, whom his body had pursued from across the desert. He revealed himself, putting himself into a beam of light, so that she could see who was coming. And the sea was quiet, and the giant also saw, by the coast at the very start of the road, the camel from before, still carrying the large, waxen candles on his humps, candles that still had never been lit.
And the giant entered the tower. How he and the daughter of giants met, how they greeted one another and what they did with one another, no one has seen, for no one was there who can say. For she had a chamber within a chamber, and no one was allowed to enter that chamber ever, and it was always locked, only opened when she was ready. There were a table and lamp, and the lamp was never lit, not until this first meeting.
They were in that room together. For an hour, maybe, silence. And then another hour, and all that could be heard was a humming….Night had fallen, and stars could be seen in the sky—and the tower and its lamp were illuminated with a festive light….Then late night came, and the sea woke from its sleep, speaking, and the camel was still standing on the shore, listening to what the sea had to say. The camel stepped into the sea, and turned toward the tower, waiting upon the lamp. Finally, the lamp was extinguished….And all was again quiet there where the tower stood, old and decaying, but the darkness had been renewed, so that it was if it had never before been quite so dark before….The sea sighed, and then breathed out heavily. The camel remained standing, silently, looking out for signs of night’s end. This is how it spent the entire night. When the morning star appeared, it looked down again at the sea and the desert. It took them both in, in one glance, and said a blessing on each….Then the tower’s sea-facing window opened, and from the window a voice could be heard:
“The night is over and a fortunate night for us, and the time has come for the candles on the humps of the camel.”
This meant the candles that still leaned upon one another on the camel’s humps. When the morning star cast its light upon them, it lit both the wicks. Their flames united into a single fire, and the camel, startled, raced from the water onto the shore and passed the beach, and in this way, with a burning fire on its back in the silence of the dawn, it turned his face toward the desert. But it wanted to get out of the desert, to the town, to carry the light and the message, and set off on the road toward us.
And that is what I am waiting for, for that camel; I am looking for that camel at the border, and soon enough, when it has crossed the desert, the time will come.
So says the beast.