34

I went back to see Edward later that afternoon. He was lying on a wide pillow that a volunteer had brought for him. I told him that for now there had been no change in my condition, and they would soon transfer me to a convalescent home.

“I can’t go back into battle, either,” he said, and a pained smile filled his face. The new lines that had been stamped onto it stood out even more.

The friends who came to visit us toward evening stayed longer with Edward. Clearly, he was a new casualty, and they were already used to my injury.

—

That night I saw Father again, sitting at his desk. This time, his way of sitting was different, not bent over. He had apparently been encouraged by Mother’s words, and maybe by the writing itself.

“What are you struggling with, Father?” I dared to ask him.

Father raised his head from the papers. It seemed that he was about to scold me for pulling him out of his work. I was wrong. He looked at me with fatherly compassion and said, “Give me a moment to think.”

I now saw his face as it had never before been revealed to me. Surprise and disappointment stirred about on it. For years, he would return home each evening and rush to his desk. Mother would wait for him to finish his tangled efforts before sitting down to eat, but the struggle would usually last a long time. The meal she had prepared would get cold, and she would desperately try to improvise a new one.

“I’m struggling with the words,” Father answered objectively, without resentment.

I didn’t understand what he was talking about. His answer seemed like a riddle for me to solve. Mother didn’t quite understand his complexities, either. He never gave a full answer to her many questions about what he was struggling with, but she completely identified with his efforts. Her lack of understanding didn’t prevent her from following him.

“Why struggle with words?” I asked.

“Because they are easily falsified,” he promptly replied.

“How can we know what is true and what is counterfeit?”

“An example,” he said, “would be the word ‘I.’ It would seem that there is nothing simpler, but it holds many dangers within it. The ‘I’ loves to raise its head arrogantly. An arrogant ‘I’ is a grave flaw. An ‘I’ without modesty is a blemished ‘I.’ Even worse is the word ‘we.’ ‘We’ is a pretentious word, and you have to be cautious with it, too. ‘We’ without ‘I’ is a hollow word.”

“Thank you, Father,” I said, though I didn’t fully grasp his intention.

He turned toward me and said, “Son, I did what I could. I didn’t do a lot. In fact, very little. My fate didn’t bear me along the right paths. I don’t know what will happen to me and where time will take me. I see that God gave you an understanding heart, and you will do what I didn’t manage to do.”

“Father, I can’t take that burden upon myself.”

“It isn’t a burden; it’s holy work, if I may for once use that portentous expression.”

“Father,” I implored him, “I was wounded, and I don’t know whether I’ll be able to stand on my feet.”

“Son, unlike me, you inherited some of your grandparents’ faith, and they will instruct you in what to do.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Father.”

“The meaning will become clear to you as you work.”

I wanted to say to him, Father, don’t forget that I don’t have a language. My mother tongue, though I understand it, has been lost, and it’s doubtful that the new language has taken root in me.

I couldn’t hear his answer, but his trembling hand said to me, You have to gird yourself with patience, and God will watch over you. I was surprised by the word “God.” He was always careful about using it and had often scolded Mother for saying, “Thank God.”