Hostage (18 page)

My heart is pounding so hard I’m afraid it could burst.

God of my forefathers, protect those who love me and whom I love.

We’re in the synagogue. It’s packed for Yom Kippur. My grandfather explains the prayers to me. God, the King of Kings, sits on His throne on high and judges the living: who will live and who will die; who will be brought down and who will be elevated. I ask, “Does He also judge the judges who have imprisoned so many Jews, Papa?” His finger on his lips, he lets me know that it is forbidden to talk during the solemn prayer. Afterward, he tells me, “God, blessed be He, is just; He is the source of all truths; His truth is the reward of good people and the punishment of the impious.”

Why this memory? What is truth doing in this cursed place, right now, on what is surely the last day of my life?

My father later told me how this litany had been composed and by whom. This is the medieval story of Rabbi Amnon of Mainz. It was three days before the New Year. When the local bishop ordered the Jewish inhabitants to convert to Christianity, the great scholar requested three days of reflection, which
he regretted with all his heart. He should have said no right away. He was tortured, his limbs amputated. Upon his request, he was carried into the synagogue, where the congregation was praying, observing the rites of Rosh Hashanah. He asked that the service be interrupted and, with his last breath, recited the prayer I just mentioned. What about me? What will I do with my last breath?

Later in the service, there is mention of the ten martyrs who were executed for their loyalty to the faith. They were summoned before the tyrannical emperor Hadrian, who questioned them: “What does the Jewish Law say about a person who abducts one of his fellow men in order to sell him into slavery?”

“The law would have him sentenced to death,” they say. “Freedom is no less important than life.”

“But weren’t your ancestors, the sons of Jacob, guilty of this crime when they sold Joseph into slavery? You shall be punished instead of them.”

Suddenly I understand why all these memories come to mind: so that I’ll think about my predicament as a hostage. Does it come up in the Bible or the Talmud? What misdeeds, and whose misdeeds, am I expiating? Could it be that I involuntarily offended, upset, hurt and put someone in danger?

Ahmed is very annoyed.

“Your Jewish friends here and in Israel are abandoning you. If you’re honest with yourself, you must take a stand against their cruelty to you. And, at the same time, against the atrocities of the Jewish occupation of Palestine.”

“No. I’m an American Jew tied to Israel by my soul. You can hit my body, you can wound it and even destroy it, but my soul will remain free, outside your reach. You’ll never imprison it.”

I don’t consider myself a hero. I never have been one. I live from the fruits of my imagination and memory. Storyteller, writer, that’s my profession. Words are my only possession. I entertain children on their birthdays. Sometimes I fulfill the duties of cantor at religious Jewish marriages. And here I am being tormented as if I were a courageous spy, the author of heroic exploits.

“Your soul, you dare speak of your soul! You’re Jewish, and Jews have no soul! The enemies of Islam have no soul!”

“I’m not an enemy of Islam.”

“All Yids are.”

“I’m Jewish, but I’ve never been an enemy of other religions. I don’t know how one becomes one.”

“You could at least admit you’re loyal to the Jewish state that despoils Arab lands! And you won’t sign a letter to your Jewish friends demanding they put pressure on the governments concerned?”

“No, I won’t sign anything.”

The Arab strikes me on my head, on the back of my neck, in my stomach. The Italian says and does nothing. Motionless, he stares at me fixedly and lets his comrade get his hands dirty. I hear myself moan and this humiliates me.

“You loathe us,” the Arab yells. “Your loathing makes you proud. But it will also make you sorry you came out of your mother’s belly.”

Why does the Arab speak of pride? Because I love Israel,
and my passion for Jerusalem has never died? If praying for David’s eternal city is an act of war, then, yes, I’m guilty. But not of anything else.

The Arab torturer pulls me out of my reverie brutally.

“Here’s something you wrote …”

He brings a sheet of paper up to my bloodied face. I can’t see well. It’s a newspaper clipping through the narrow slit. My torturer starts to read passages from the newspaper. He slaps me in the face systematically after each sentence. I pass out.

When I awake, I see my grandfather, with his soft white beard. He urges me not to cry; it’s too painful for him when I cry. Nor can God on high bear the tears of a good little Jewish boy crying. He knows I like stories, so he tells me one.

One day, the illustrious Hasidic Master, Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, gathers his closest disciples in secrecy to teach them the mysteries of the final Redemption: how and when to recite certain litanies; say the number for each of the heavenly angels; take the ritual bath and cite specific verses of the Psalms and the Zohar; practice an absolute asceticism of silence and chastity for a specific number of days and nights. All the things that had come down to him from his Masters—and to them from theirs, going back to Rabbi Hayim Vital and the Ari, and as far back as Moses, all the things concerning the advent of the Messiah—he passed on to them. And he arranged for the next meeting to be at the edge of the forest. Together, they would strike up a sad song and, thanks to their fervor and mystical power, it would change into a triumphal hymn that could reverse the course of history, and the Messiah would see the Jewish people suffering
in exile, and all of humanity, ill and severely wounded. Then, in an immense movement of compassion, he would announce the end of the wait.

Well, said my grandfather after a sigh, the Master and his disciples went home separately and, loyal to their common wish, they each followed the instructions to the letter.

The special day arrived. All the disciples, in ecstasy, met at the designated place in the forest. They waited for their Master, who was late. Agonizing hours went by. Finally, he appeared, exhausted, and more melancholic than ever. Do you know what he said to them? my grandfather asked me. “I’m proud of you, my young companions,” said the Master, “proud of being your link to your great ancestors, proud of having helped you move closer to the one who still has the mission of saving our people from despair and healing humanity of its illnesses. He was very near tonight. Everything was made ready for the unique moment. You were waiting for him and he was waiting for you. Yes, the Messiah too was waiting for the meeting. But on my way here, a few steps before reaching you, I heard a child cry in a hut near the edge of the forest. His cries were heartbreaking. His mother had probably gone to fetch wood for the hearth, or milk. So, brothers and friends, I couldn’t help opening the door to the hut, stepping inside, looking at the baby in his shabby cradle, singing a lullaby for him and consoling him. Do you understand? When a child cries like this, the Messiah can and must wait.”

And I, in the arms of my grandfather, cried, but he knew it was out of love.

Was it the third day or the thirtieth? Like any man doomed to despair, Shaltiel has lost all sense of time. Ever since his blindfold was removed, he knows where he is and why, but he doesn’t know how long death will wait before snatching him away from the living. Oddly, he wishes he could look at himself in the mirror. Has his beard turned white? Does he look like his grandfather? He notices that the lamp hanging from the sooty ceiling is swaying. Will it crash to the floor with a deafening noise that could alert a vigilant pedestrian in the street?

The Italian speaks to him gently. He’s cajoling.

“Don’t blame us. You’re really a victim of chance, not of us. You happened to be crossing our path at the wrong time. We had to take someone hostage. It could have been some other stranger, some other passerby. A young Protestant or an elderly Catholic. If you’d stayed at the library another hour, or at home, you would be with your family right now, listening to the news on television. A charming anchorwoman would be announcing the latest bulletin: Terrorists have just abducted … someone else. You’d be getting clever analyses from pundits. So far, the police are unable to determine whether this is a political act or
a criminal one. Oh, if only you had taken a taxi home. You know, I find you kind of likable, my friend.”

“You’re my torturer and I’m your prisoner. Will these always be our roles? I didn’t choose my role.”

“I did,” says Luigi, after a pause.

Shaltiel realizes the absurdity of the situation. He’s going to die, and here he is, taking an interest in his enemy’s inner life.

“Did you really decide to hurt me, to torture me? I don’t believe you.”

“Yet it’s the truth.”

“So, explain it to me … before performing your ‘duty,’ ” says Shaltiel, trying, unsuccessfully, to smile. “If I understand you correctly, you’ll accomplish this duty even if you’re loath to do so? Or am I wrong?”

“No, you’re not. You call me a torturer, an executioner, a murderer, and God knows what else, whereas I say I’m a revolutionary.”

“And this allows you to torture and kill human beings?”

“Didn’t you study the history of nations and mankind? The end justifies the means.”

“All means?”

“Yes. All means.”

“Are you sure that history demands this? What gives you the right to speak in its name?”

“Being a revolutionary means making a claim to this right, and obtaining it by having an effect and influencing history.”

“In other words, by submitting history to your own will, by making it your slave, though you say you want to free it. You say you’re obeying it, whereas, in the name of your theories,
you’re trying to eliminate it and substitute your own. But, admit it, your theories are not very pretty, for they lead to the ugliness of extreme violence that is the negation of life.”

Shaltiel summons all of his intellectual and physical powers in order to engage in this impossible debate, as if to proclaim that the torture wracking his body is an abstraction. Is there an example of an SS officer discussing his role of killer with his victim? Can murderers and executioners define themselves and make distinctions among themselves, under the pretext that they are acting in the name of different principles and obeying rules that have nothing in common, other than the shedding of blood of innocent people? Can one wonder about the place of innocence in the revolutionary venture? And what if the latter draws its strength from the very fact that it condemns the innocence of its victims more than their supposed guilt? And what if, ultimately, what is called revolution was merely a reflection of evil in the whole gamut of theories invented by men who use their power to dehumanize history?

“What am I to you?” Shaltiel asks. “A prisoner? A hostage? Just one more victim? A Jew? A human being?”

“All of these, perhaps.”

“How will my suffering and the suffering of my family advance your struggle?”

“Thanks to you, little storyteller, our enemies will take us more seriously.”

“But you claim to be fighting for society’s victims. Well, what about me? Aren’t I a victim too? More real, more palpable, more concrete than the others, who are far away and whom you’ve only seen on television screens or magazine covers?”

“There you’re mistaken. I’ve traveled to refugee camps in Asia, starving populations in Africa. People who are exploited everywhere in the West. I’m fighting for them as well.”

“But why choose terror, when there are other more honorable ways of coming to their aid? Did you give this any thought?”

“Yes, I did. But all those aid agencies, all those philanthropic organizations, are founded and manipulated by corporations that are responsible for the poverty and shameful conditions of the suffering victims. Not the revolution.”

“But it brings about its own injustices. Am I not a living example—I mean, a still living example? Isn’t communism a revolution that betrayed its own ideals? Didn’t your Mussolini use the same arguments as you to impose his fascist dictatorship? Didn’t Hitler shout that his mission was to help all of humanity?”

The lightbulb on the ceiling goes out. The basement is plunged into a kind of semidarkness. The Italian remains motionless and silent for a long time. Is he thinking about what he just heard or of what he will feel when this event reaches its epilogue? He seems less confident and gloomier when, for the first time, he answers in a more solemn voice.

“Your questions, or most of them, are not new to me. I’ve already weighed them in my mind, even though it was in other circumstances. What I’ll say to you is what I said to myself, many years ago. There’s no risk in admitting it to you: You’ll take what you have the right to call my confession into the hereafter. And, who knows, there you might meet someone who will tell you what to do in a world that disowns us, a world that self-destructs by spreading death all over, that suffers by causing
suffering, that chooses to ignore the meaning of its own cruelty and its consequences. These questions haunted me for a long time. My father was a despicable person. You should have suspected as much. Corrupt, pro-Mussolini and pro-Hitler, yes, fascist, Nazi. Seduced by the power and harshness of that ideology, he gave in to all its monstrous temptations. To put it plainly: He arranged to be assigned to very special SS units. I’m sure you know what I’m referring to, what kinds of people. I was born ten years later and was too young to understand his commitments and fully gauge how heinous they were. Why did he burden me with a past that I abhor and a fate that condemns me? He disgusted me. And being his son, living in his house, sharing his meals, just being alive, made me disgusted with myself too. I am living on the ruins of so many cultures destroyed by so many crimes; so many so-called noble and lofty passions producing so much rot. How could all of ‘that’ have happened? I wondered day and night. How could everything that was supposed to glorify truth have been swallowed up in a hideous, cruel and monstrous lie?”