19
From here I know I should have gone straight to Weinberg. But I dreaded the thought that I was approaching the murderer. I wanted to see Rabbi Zimmel. Over the years I have spent many days in his company. The journey without his blessing now seemed like a disaster. I got off at Sandberg.
The station in Sandberg is like all the other small stations. The square is gray concrete, and the buffet is cramped. Rabbi Zimmel always sits with me until the train comes and then sees me off. Waiting in this deserted place has often been an hour of grace for me.
I was barely off the train when I knew something was wrong. The buffet’s only window was shut tight, and a sharp light flooded the square. Tethered horses were pulled from the rear cars. The horses advanced with short steps, flinching, as if they had been commanded to walk on coals.
I entered the buffet and asked to see the owner. He told me Rabbi Zimmel was very sick and no longer left his room.
“Since when, my dear fellow?” I asked the gentile like a fool.
“I don’t know,” he said in a dumb, arrogant tone.
“And where is the carriage?”
“At this hour there is no carriage. The driver has gone back to his village.” He turned away. I stood in the illuminated square and saw the tethered horses standing at the entrance to the storehouses. Their heads were bent and vapor streamed from their nostrils, as if they had climbed a mountain. On the spot I decided: though the valise was heavy, I would walk.
Until the end of the last century there was still a Jewish community in Sandberg. Over the years the young people moved to cities, and the old people departed one by one. Rabbi Zimmel, who was then young, remained to watch over the few old people, the synagogue, and its extensive library. During the war he was sent to the camps with the old people. First he was deported to Minsk, and then sent to labor camps. From there he was taken to a small extermination camp in Hungary. At the last minute he was saved. When he returned to Sandberg after the war, he was astonished to find the synagogue secured with the very lock he had placed there. The key was still in its niche. He had intended to come for a single day, to prostrate himself on his ancestors’ tombs, and then to join the refugees on their way to Palestine. But when he found everything in its place, he took pity on the synagogue and its books. So he stayed. It turned out that a woman who had worked for the Jews for many years had come every week and cleaned the synagogue and the adjoining rooms. Several times vandals had been about to set the place on fire, but the woman had threatened them with divine retribution, and they were deterred. She died a few days before his arrival.
Since his return, Rabbi Zimmel has not left the place. If a wandering Jew finds his way there, he feeds him, lodges him in one of his rooms, and shows him the many books in the library. I first arrived there in 1952, confused, weary, and lost.
I hurried to reach him before dark.
It’s good that you came, he told me with his eyes, from which a faint light glimmered. I sat next to his bed and tried to hear. With his eyes he gestured toward a letter on the table. Among other things, it said: In the adjoining room are iron boxes. Put the books in them and send them to Jerusalem.
To overcome my fear I revealed to him that I intended to go to Weinberg to take the life of the murderer. What would happen after that was not important. Hearing those words, his eyes opened wide. It was evident from them that he had caught something of my meaning. It was important that Rabbi Zimmel know I had not shirked my duty.
The doctor entered, and I retired to the next room. The doctor asked no questions of his patient, and the patient did not complain. That silence glued me to the wall. When the doctor left I asked, “How is the Rabbi?” He bowed his head and said, “God is our savior.” I wanted to chide him. A doctor is not a rabbi. From him we expect practical words. I restrained myself. The doctor went out into the darkness as I watched.
When I entered his room, Rabbi Zimmel’s eyes were open. I told him about Max and August, and asked him not to worry, because Max’s hand was open and generous, and the place remained dear to him. The rabbi apparently absorbed what I said, and a smile played on his lips.
I went out and lit the candelabrum in the synagogue. When I was a child, Grandfather wanted to attract me to prayer but didn’t know how. Grandmother would read the prayers with me, and I was certain that only women knew how to pray. For many days I sat here and read with Rabbi Zimmel. His way of reading was marvelous, as if he were touching a fruit and smelling its perfume. We read the Bible, Mishnah, and Midrash.
All these years Rabbi Zimmel sat and wrote the history of the place and of the Zimmel family, which hadn’t left Sandberg for about seven hundred years. His forefathers had written many books: about Jewish law, ethics, Biblical exegesis, and Kabbalah. A person could spend his entire life here and manage to study only a few of the treasures they had left behind.
It was a few years ago, when he had finished listing the books and preparing a full bibliography, that he decided to pack them up and send them to Jerusalem. But he was prevented from doing so from on high. First he fell ill, and when he got well, nightmares disturbed his sleep. His ancestors were not pleased with his decision. He struggled with them in his sleep, and in the end they prevailed: he did not ship the books to Jerusalem, nor did he himself go there.
It was hard to make him talk about that, but about other things he would willingly speak. In the beginning of the previous century about twenty Jewish families had lived here. Their solid stone houses still stand. On our nightly walks he told me many things about them, a marvelous group of merchants and sages. Mobs sometimes attacked them and drove them out, but they would return and rebuild the ruins. Now smoke rose from the houses; the peasants were eating supper, and a dense tranquility hung like mist over the meadows, as if this were how it had always been.
I telephoned Max and asked him to come. His devotion to Rabbi Zimmel was complete. Whenever he had a free hour, he came here and brought fruit, vegetables, and dairy products. Like his ancestors, Rabbi Zimmel was a vegetarian.
Meanwhile, the rabbi beckoned me. I approached his bed. He gestured toward the iron chests with his eyes, and I promised him that I would pack the books. Together with Max, I would send them to Jerusalem.
Then Max arrived. A new light shone in Rabbi Zimmel’s eyes. The three of us sat in silence. Suddenly Max turned to me and asked, “Did you practice?”
“I shot two magazines,” I answered, surprised by his question.
“You should practice every month.” He spoke in a language not his own.
“I don’t have many chances.”
“You must.”
He had never spoken to me like that before. I wanted to turn to him and say, Dear brother, why are you pressing me in this difficult hour? He looked at me angrily and said, “I practice once a week.”
That very night Rabbi Zimmel died. Max wept, and I didn’t know how to console him. Words that weren’t my own arose within me, and I said, “Rabbi Zimmel has completed his task in this world, and now he has been gathered unto his ancestors. His life was clear and unstained.” Max didn’t respond to my words. His face darkened, and his forehead became clouded. We buried Rabbi Zimmel in the cemetery next to his forefathers, and together we recited, “God, full of mercy.” Then we sat in the buffet and drank stale coffee.
I thought of telling him about Nachtigel, but I restrained myself. I felt that I must perform that duty without asking help from anyone. Max’s expression was frightening. Large furrows settled into his face and deepened, and his lower lip trembled. Suddenly he got up and said loudly, “I must go home.” I wanted to detain him, but he was determined.