43
In about two months, on February sixteenth, I would turn eighteen. My years seemed long to me. Life before the war, in the ghetto, in the hiding place, wandering after the war, in Naples, sailing to Palestine, at Atlit, at work on the terrace and the orchards, at the advanced training—eighteen years couldn’t hold it all. Benno had a similar feeling. With him, the world was divided differently: the years when he played his music, practicing day and night and performing, and the years that followed, which stretched ahead like a yellow wasteland.
I had read the Hebrew Bible that the hospital rabbi gave me when I was still in pain and half asleep. His untidy appearance and the way he muttered as he handed the book to me clouded my spirit. It appeared to be the way one gave this type of book to a dying man, so that he would say his confessions before he died.
At the convalescent home, I read the Bible with my own eyes, and I was glad that I understood most of the words. The Binding of Isaac: the story was dreadful but was told with restraint, in a few words, perhaps so that we could hear the silence between them. I felt a closeness to those measured sentences, and it didn’t seem to be a story with a moral, because what was the moral? Rather, it was intended to seep into one’s cells, and there it would wait patiently until it was deciphered.
Mother didn’t like to interpret stories. She would read softly and say, “Now let’s put down the book and close our eyes.” Father liked to read whole chapters of his books to Mother. Mother had various expressions of attention: bending her head or lowering it entirely or cradling it in her hand.
I found myself back at home almost every night. Father received a letter from a well-known publishing house, saying they were willing to publish his books. Mother’s face brightened. Her hair regained its blackness She spoke in her happy voice. Father sat in his study, his face expressionless. Mother stood alongside him, reading the letter over and over, but the good news didn’t make an impression on Father. Sadness spread across his face and covered it.
“Dear, it’s wonderful news, believe me!” Mother implored as she knelt down beside him. Father turned to her but didn’t utter a word. With great sadness, Mother burst into tears. Father emerged from his silence.
“I hope you’re right,” he said. “But why not allow me to keep a pinch of doubt for myself. Disappointment has always been my lot. It’s hard for me to believe that the world has changed.”
Robert came to visit me and brought a bundle of oranges. Misgav Yitzhak had been mobilized for the harvest. The fragrance of the oranges reminded me of the smell of our pantry at home, where apples and pears lay in big wicker baskets, and there were always a few oranges in a net bag for an emergency, if one of us got sick.
Robert also brought some sketches. I saw right away that they were better than the earlier ones. This time I was careful and didn’t say they were excellent. Although the outlines remained unfinished, patches of light had been added around each of them, brightening the entire drawing.
Unlike most of our friends, Robert hadn’t changed. The work and the training hadn’t altered him. His body was well formed, but not exaggeratedly so. There was a balance between his inner self and his outward appearance. Now his inner self would be expressed through fine lines and tints, and I was pleased for him.
Robert asked me what I wanted to do. The question embarrassed me, and I was about to tell him, I don’t know, but instead I said something that I hadn’t even yet said to myself.
“I want to be an author.”
“When did that wish take shape?” he asked cautiously.
“Apparently, it was inside me.”
“I hope you’ll succeed.”
“All his life, my father wanted to be an author,” I said, and immediately realized that I wasn’t allowed to reveal my father’s pain.
“And what happened?”
“He didn’t manage to fulfill his destiny in writing,” I said, but then quickly added, “His talent was actually expressed in speech.”
“What language do you want to write in?” Robert’s question pained me without meaning to.
“In Hebrew, I assume. I feel that this language, whose outer shell is all that I’m touching now, will bind me to what I brought with me.”
“They say that you can express yourself well only in your mother tongue.”
“For years, I haven’t been connected to my mother tongue. Now I expect that the Hebrew letters will link me to what’s hidden inside me.”
“When did this become clear to you?”
“Just recently.”
Robert parted from me as though retreating, and I didn’t ask him to stay as I used to. I was ashamed of what had occurred to me about my father, and of the way I had given voice to it. I remembered that Mother used to say that the right things arrive unnoticed, when we don’t expect them. That idea amazed me, but I hadn’t understood it till now.
How could I be an author, when it was hard for me even to read a daily paper, not to mention the Bible, the Mishnah, and the many other books I had to read?
Benno came to visit me that evening.
“If you see Robert,” I said, “tell him to forgive me. Everything I said was totally stupid.”
Winter came. The rain didn’t stop, and it evoked images of the forests where I had been. I would have liked to spend more time looking at them, but the nurses and the volunteer women didn’t leave me alone with their questions.
I stopped asking the doctor at the convalescent home about my medical condition. When I asked him once, he gave me a look so full of pity that it shocked me. I was waiting for Dr. Winter to visit. He had operated on me, and he would rescue me from my pain.
I would spend half of each day in bed. Lying there nourished my imagination. The days carried me along. Sometimes I was rushing on a train, and sometimes in a military truck. One night I dreamed I was sailing with Mother on a raft that carried logs.
“Where are we sailing?” I asked Mother.
“Home, my dear,” she answered with a bright smile.
“And where will we stop?”
“That depends on the pilot of the raft. He knows the currents of the river and where to stop. He’ll stop at one of the nearby docks, and we’ll get off.” Her voice was quiet and full of comforting patience, as when we went on trips to the mountains together with Father.
I tried to control my excitement. “Are we far from home?”
“In my estimation, we’re very close. I hope the currents will allow us to stop at the next dock. I’m not worried.”
But I was afraid. The pilot’s oars seemed weak and about to break. The water surged and licked at the beams of the raft.
“Mother, is everything all right?”
“One hundred percent.” This time she spoke colloquially. “What are you worried about?”
“The currents.”
“No need to worry, my dear. We’ve been through worse. These currents are child’s play in comparison. I’m sure we’ll reach home at the end of the journey,” she said, and hugged me.
“And where’s Father?” I belatedly noticed his absence.
“He’s waiting for us at home, my dear.” But that reply, which was meant to calm me, actually increased my dread.
“He never left us alone before,” I said.
“This time he allowed himself,” said Mother, laughing in an unfamiliar way.
These frenzied dream journeys, during which I was tossed about, showed me clearly that many obstacles still stood in my path before I could reach my home. But what could be done? My lower body, in which I tried to inspire movement, refused to move, and I was stuck in place.
A new patient arrived, a boy my age whose right arm had been amputated. He raised a commotion right away. He had arrived from Hungary a few months earlier, was conscripted into the Palmach, and like me was wounded in his first battle. He blamed the army for sending him to the front without training. He was speaking volubly in Hungarian and spreading fear.
The day after his arrival, two sturdy men came and spoke with him in Hungarian. The boy was demanding to be sent back to Hungary. This isn’t a country of decent people, he said. The Hungarians are better.
The two men spoke to him earnestly, but he was boiling with rage, listing one after another all the injustices that had been done to him from the time he boarded the ship until he was sent to the front.
“Now I’m stuck without an arm,” he said. “What can I do in life without an arm? Who’ll hire me? Let me get out of here. This isn’t a convalescent home, it’s a prison.”
“It’s raining. Where will you go in the rain?” one of the men said, pointing at the window.
“The rain won’t hurt me.” The boy spoke stubbornly.
“You’ll catch cold.”
“You don’t die from a cold.”
In the end the boy stood up and headed toward the exit. The two men didn’t stop him. They followed him without touching him. Then he started to run. They ran after him until all three of them disappeared in the fog.
That night I read the end of the story of the Binding of Isaac again. I was amazed by the objectivity with which that dreadful trial ends. But, on the other hand, where was the morality of obedience to an inhuman command? What could Abraham say to himself? I’ve succeeded. I’ve obeyed the command of God. I stifled the compassion within me. I have served as an example to future generations. What could he say to his son? Thank you for standing with me. You did so with great daring. Your courage is greater than mine. The episode was a dark tangle that led to another tangle, so it was better for Abraham just to go to Beersheba with the donkeys and not say anything. Any talk about a test like that would be stupid. Abraham obeyed the command and did what he did. There was no doubt that he would be tormented by it all his life. And so the story falls silent there.