Elie Wiesel (7 page)

DEFENSE
: With an
i
or a
y
?

WITNESS
: With an
i
, I think.

DEFENSE
: But you’re not sure?

WITNESS
: Yes … yes.

DEFENSE
: I see that you hesitate. Perhaps you remember the defendant’s rank more clearly?

WITNESS
: I told you that before, too. A captain in the SS.

DEFENSE
: But the SS was formal and exact about its rank:
Scharführer? Sturmbannführer? Hauptsturmführer?

WITNESS
: I don’t know.… In the ghetto we called him captain.

DEFENSE
: Ah, I see.

Another pause.

DEFENSE
: So you saw the defendant in the courtyard of the synagogue and after at the station, is that right?

WITNESS
: Yes.

DEFENSE
: If you don’t mind, Mr. Neimann, recall for us the color of his uniform that day. Was it light gray? Dark gray?

WITNESS
: I think … dark gray.

DEFENSE
: And was his holster on his left side or his right side?

WITNESS
: The right side … I think.…

DEFENSE
: Was the belt of his jacket tight or loose?

WITNESS
: Tight. All the SS wore their belts—

The witness interrupted himself, embarrassed. He turned to the judge, then to the prosecutor, his eyes begging them for help. Then he shrugged, exhausted, beaten. He wept.

DEFENSE
: That’s all, as far as I’m concerned. I have no further questions for this witness.

A smirking defendant shook his head.

During the recess, Elhanan told his son he wanted to go home. Elhanan was sweating. He headed for the exit. Malkiel went out with him. Outside, whipped by an icy wind, Elhanan raged: “Did you see that? Did you see that bastard humiliate that survivor? Did you see the defendant snigger? That poor Neimann’s memory is a graveyard, the biggest in the world, and the defense attorney wants him to remember the color of a uniform!”

“It’s to be expected, Father.”

“Details, details! How can we remember them all? Major events, and everyday incidents? What remains of the life of Moses and David is a few moments, a few words. And the rest? Has all the rest just disappeared?”

Next morning Elhanan called Tamar at the newspaper. “I wanted to thank you for your piece this morning.”

She had written it in the first person and called it “The Tears of Memory.”

Malkiel loved his work. He threw all his talent and energy into it. Every day he felt like thanking God for his job on the
Times.
He liked his colleagues, the secretaries, the errand boys; the moment he stepped into the editorial offices he perked up. The irregular hum of the teletype machines, the constant shrill of telephones, the word processors lined up on desks like an army awaiting the signal to move out: Malkiel would not change places with the most exalted prince on earth.

He had never followed any other calling. As a student at Columbia, he had applied for a job at the
Times
, which took him on as campus stringer. Luck smiled upon him: it was the year of the student demonstrations. Malkiel phoned in his stories three or four times a week, then every day. They won him his boss’s friendship, his fellow students’ admiration, and the anger of the administration. And what was bound to happen happened: he devoted more time to his reporting than to his literary studies. His father seemed unhappy about that, but Malkiel reassured him. “Why do we study? To prepare ourselves for a good job, right? Well, I already have one.” Just the same, he promised to complete his degree before going to work full time. “Is that better?” Yes, that was better. Not best, but better. “What’s still bothering you?” Malkiel’s father seemed worried. Malkiel was used to his father’s anxieties. He knew how to deal with them. But when he seemed sad, Malkiel felt helpless. And he was sad now, Malkiel’s father was: He was no doubt thinking about the woman he had loved: If she had lived, she would have been proud of her son.

Malkiel lowered his voice: “Are you thinking of Mother?”

“I’m always thinking of your mother.”

“Is that why you’re so sad?”

“You’re why I am sad, too.”

“What have I done?”

“Nothing; nothing bad. On the contrary, you’ve justified
all the hopes we had for you. It’s just that … I wonder if a good journalist can in the end be a good Jew.” For Malkiel’s father, being a good Jew was at least as important as getting a good job.

Malkiel was aware of that. “Don’t worry,” he said. “In the old days all reporters were cynics; but no more. Trust me. I won’t let you down.”

The day came when he was awarded a diploma. Father and son sat on a bench on the banks of the Hudson. It was a beautiful evening in June. All around them students were popping corks out of champagne bottles. “Long live life!” they shouted. The students hugged and kissed. “Live it up!” “Aren’t you going to join them?” Elhanan asked. Malkiel replied that he had no desire to. Elhanan tilted his head back and stared up at the starry sky: “I’m proud of you, Malkiel.” He could not conceal his emotion.

Next day Malkiel started work at the newspaper. The atmosphere was invigorating. A newspaper was society’s nerve center; its problems, upheavals and aspirations were refracted through it as through great theater. A play two hours long could cover thirty years of existence; so thirty pages of a newspaper contained thousands of events, which could fill a hundred volumes. And then a newspaper was a brotherhood, too. Despite intrigues and feuds, camaraderie on a newspaper was unlike anything else. Anyone’s success was a credit to all. Any victory over injustice, won by reportage or an editorial, justified pride in the whole team. A newspaper was a living organism, pulsating with affection, determined to accept only truth. Of course there was often a gap between the ideal and reality. There were compromises, deals, someone was always passing the buck; all that was normal. But your eyes—at least at the beginning—were on the heights, even if they were unattainable. Even if you had to begin the climb again every day.

It wasn’t going so well this evening.

Malkiel was working on a story from the Buenos Aires correspondent but couldn’t seem to concentrate. His boss had praised him often for his powers of concentration: Malkiel listened well, read quickly and understood even more quickly. When an editor was in a hurry, he called on Malkiel.

But this evening it wasn’t the same Malkiel. He was trying to recall: what time did he see Dr. Pasternak? At eleven in the morning? Not earlier? He had known for only nine hours? Borne the weight of this curse for only nine hours?

Dr. Pasternak was treating Elhanan. Casually dressed, with a loosely knotted tie and horn-rimmed glasses. In his sixties. A hard, clipped voice: “Thank you for taking the time, Mr. Rosenbaum.”

“Tell me what’s going on.”

A routine question, but deep down Malkiel knew it was bad news about his father. He could not admit it to himself, but he was afraid the doctor would say, “Your father is sick. He has cancer.”

“Your father is sick,” said Dr. Pasternak, his hands clasped demurely before him on the desk.

“Is it serious?”

“Very.”

“Cancer?”

“No,” said Dr. Pasternak.

Thank God, Malkiel thought. If it isn’t cancer it can’t be too serious.

“It’s actually worse than cancer,” the doctor went on.

Impossible, Malkiel thought; I must have misunderstood. What could be worse than cancer? “I don’t understand,” he said in a changed voice.

“Cancer is not always incurable. Your father’s sickness is.”

“I don’t understand,” Malkiel repeated. His heart was
pounding, bursting. A migraine had struck again. Nausea rose in his throat.

“What we have here is an extreme case of amnesia,” said Dr. Pasternak. “Elhanan Rosenbaum has a sick memory; it is dying. Nothing can save it.”

Malkiel was drenched in sweat. He groped vainly for a handkerchief.

“Doctor, may I use your washroom?”

“The door to the left, behind you.”

He washed his face, took a few gulps of water, breathed deeply to overcome the nausea. In the mirror, a face pale and gloomy announced an approaching misfortune.

“Forgive me, Doctor.”

“Not at all, Mr. Rosenbaum. Perhaps I should apologize. I should have given you the news less brutally.”

“Go on, please.”

Dr. Pasternak explained that the nervous system was annihilating itself. Symptoms of senility, and even dementia. A loss of orientation. Of identity. An inexorable process that might take months or years: it was impossible to predict. And even more impossible to slow down. The doctor inspected his hands, his nails. Perhaps he was embarrassed; had he not just confessed his impotence? As for Malkiel, he was living through a scene outside reality. It is not true, it cannot be true, he decided. It can happen to anyone? Yes, but my father is not just anyone. “What are we going to do? What can we do?”

“Do?”

“I mean, about my father. Are we going to tell him?”

“I don’t think it’s necessary.”

Malkiel did not understand. Did his father already know? And had he said nothing? Once more he remained alone with his secret.

“Your father is a very intelligent man,” Dr. Pasternak
said. “For some weeks now he’s suspected what was happening. He came to see me, which was natural. I spoke frankly to him. I respect him too much to deceive him.”

“When was this?”

“Yesterday afternoon.”

Yesterday afternoon? Malkiel reproached himself: Why didn’t I go to see him then?

Tamar was standing at his desk, feverish, impatient. “What’s the matter with you, Malkiel? Are you sick? Good God, you look shattered.”

“It’s nothing.”

“I’ve been standing here—you haven’t even noticed me.”

“I’m sorry,” Malkiel said. “I’m hot.” He found his handkerchief, wiped his forehead and the back of his neck. “I’m almost finished. Do you want me to read your piece?”

“No; there’s no hurry. Come on. I need some coffee.”

Unsteadily he followed her to the cafeteria. Their friends were swapping newspaper jokes and political gossip.

“I’m worried about you. You look like it’s the end of the world. What’s wrong?”

Lie to her? “It’s my father. He’s a sick man. Very sick.”

She wanted to say “Cancer?” but asked, “His heart?”

“Worse,” Malkiel said. He repeated his conversation with Dr. Pasternak. Tamar listened in silence, her eyes filling with dread. Malkiel tried to compose himself. “Let’s go upstairs. We have work to do,” he said.

They rose, and Tamar took his hand. “Don’t let this change anything between us.” And after a pause, “Do you hear me? Don’t. Your father isn’t my father, but I, too, am struck by his misfortune; I, too, am pained by it. I need you more now than before. Promise me you’ll try?”

“I promise,” Malkiel said, wondering how he could think
about her article. A few words from the mouth of a doctor, and the whole world is upside down.

He finished rewriting the Buenos Aires story, read Tamar’s piece and sent it on to the political desk.

“Page twenty,” said the layout editor.

Ordinarily Malkiel argued with him, always after more prominence for Tamar’s pieces. But not this time. Too many words and pictures bouncing around inside his head. He could not even figure out whether he wanted to stay or go home.

“Shall I come with you?” Tamar asked him in the elevator.

Malkiel did not answer.

“I’d like to,” she insisted.

Malkiel remained silent. They walked up Eighth Avenue, with its shops full of exotic fruit and its sleazy bars and clubs. At the Coliseum they stopped for a red light.

“I think I need to be alone with him for a while,” Malkiel said. “But please, come and join us later.”

When the light turned green he walked on, leaving Tamar behind. A few taxis passed, but he preferred to make his way on foot. Loretta rushed to give him a hug. “He’s in the living room,” she said. “By the window. All he’s done since yesterday is look outside. He won’t sleep or eat or drink, and he won’t talk to me.”

For a long moment Malkiel stared at his father’s back. “Good evening, Father,” he said quietly.

Elhanan seemed not to hear him.

“Father, I should have come yesterday. Can you forgive me?”

Elhanan sighed and said, “Come over here.”

Together they looked out at the night, and the lights of the great city. How many fathers and sons confront their destiny at the same moment?

“Speak to me, Malkiel.”

What could he say, and how could he say it without breaking down?

“Speak to me. I need to hear your voice.”

“I saw the—”

“I know. I don’t want to hear his words, but yours.”

With his throat tight and his eyelids heavy, Malkiel had to lean on the table behind him to keep his balance. Overwhelmed, blinded by emotion, he saw himself walking a tightrope over an abyss: one false step, one awkward word, and he would fall, dragging his father with him. “Listen to me, Father. You’ve always been at the center of my existence; and you always will be, to the end of my days.”

A sob shook Elhanan. “God of my fathers,” he said, “let me remember those words when I have forgotten everything else.”

He extended a hand to his son, who took it in his own. An hour later, Tamar found them the same way.

Her name was Blanca, but she preferred, God knows why, to be called Bianca. Tamar had introduced her to Malkiel, as she had introduced Richard and his snooty friend Rhoda; and Max and Serge, two distinguished art dealers who thought no one was aware of their deeper relationship; and their rich clients Jean and Angelica Landman, who argued even when they said nothing.… Tamar knew a few people.

Dining with Tamar’s friends, Malkiel was really sitting in for her. She was in Washington. More investigative reporting on the Pentagon. That was what she did best: ferreted out secrets, turned them up and classified them, processed them and revealed them to the public—she loved all that as much as she loved love. I miss you, Tamar.