The Story of a Life (11 page)

Everything that happened is imprinted within my body and not within my memory. The cells of my body apparently remember more than my mind, which is supposed to remember. For years after the war, I would walk neither in the middle of the sidewalk nor in the middle of the road. I always clung to the walls, always staying in the shade, and always walking rapidly, as if I were slipping away. As a rule I’m not given to crying, but even the most casual partings can reduce me to tears.

I say “I don’t remember,” and yet I still recall thousands of details. Sometimes just the aroma of a certain dish or the dampness of shoes or a sudden noise is enough to take me back into the middle of the war, and then it seems to me that it never really ended, but that it has continued without my knowledge. And now that I am fully aware of it, I realize that there’s been no letup since it began.

Because I spent a large part of the war in villages, in fields, by riverbanks, and in forests, this greenness is imprinted on me, and whenever I remove my shoes and step on the grass, I immediately remember the pastures and the dappled animals scattered over the endless space. And then a fear of these open spaces returns to me. My legs feel tense, and for a moment it seems to me that I’ve made a mistake. I’m still in the war, and I have to beat a retreat to the outer edges of the forest, running and ducking, because the outer edges provide more safety. At the edges of the forest you can see without being seen. Sometimes I find myself in a dark alley—as one can in Jerusalem—and I’m sure that the gate will soon be closed and I won’t be able to get out. I quicken my pace and try to get away.

Sometimes the very act of sitting down or standing up brings to mind visions of a railway station filled with people and baggage, with arguments and children being slapped, with arms and hands thrust out in continuous entreaty. “Water, water!” And suddenly hundreds of legs raise themselves, moving as one toward a water barrel that is being rolled onto the platform, and the sole of a large foot pushes into my frail chest, crushing the breath out of me. It’s unbelievable, how the sole of that same foot is still imprinted on me, how fresh the pain is, and for a moment it seems to me that I can’t move because of it.

Sometimes a month goes by without anything of what I saw during that time coming back to me. Of course, this is merely a temporary hiatus. Sometimes just an old object, lying on the roadside, is enough to draw up hundreds of feet from the depths, feet that are marching in a long column. And if anyone collapses under it, no one will help him get up.

IN 1944, the Russians recaptured the Ukraine. I was twelve years old. A woman survivor who noticed me and saw how lost I was, bent down and asked, “What have you been through, boy?”

“Nothing,” I replied.

My answer must have astonished her, for she didn’t ask me anything else. This same question was asked in different ways on my long journey to Yugoslavia. Even in Israel there was no end to it.

Someone who was an adult during the war took in and remembered places and individuals, and at the end of the war he could sit and recall them, or talk about them. (As he would no doubt continue to do till the end of his life.) With us children, however, it was not names that were sunk into memory, but something completely different. For a child, memory is a
reservoir that doesn’t empty. It’s replenished over the years, clarified. It’s not a chronological recollection, but overflowing and changing, if I may put it that way.

I’ve already written more than twenty books about those years, but sometimes it seems as though I haven’t yet begun to describe them. Sometimes it seems to me that a fully detailed memory is still concealed within me, and when it emerges from its bunker, it will flow fiercely and strongly for days on end. This is a fragment about a forced march that I’ve been trying to describe, without success, for years.

WE’VE ALREADY BEEN MARCHING for days, slogging through muddy roads, a long line surrounded by Romanian soldiers and Ukrainian militia who lash out at us with their whips and shoot randomly at us. Father holds my hand very tightly. But my short legs barely touch the ground, and the icy water cuts into them and into my small waist. Darkness surrounds us, and apart from Father’s hand, I don’t feel a thing. In fact, I don’t even feel his hand, for my arm is already partially numb. It’s clear to me that with only one small wrong movement I’ll sink down and I’ll drown, and even Father won’t be able to pull me out. Many children have already drowned like this.

At night, when the convoy stops, Father pulls me out of the mud and wipes my legs with his coat. My shoes were lost some time ago, and I bury my legs for a moment in the lining of his coat. The slight warmth hurts me so much that I quickly pull them out. For some reason, this rapid movement makes him angry. Father can get bitterly angry at me. I’m afraid of his anger, but I refuse to put my legs into his lining. Father never used to get angry at me. Mother would slap me from time to time, but never Father. If Father is angry, that means
that I’m going to die soon, I tell myself, and grip his hand tightly. Father relents and says, “This is no time to act spoiled.” “Spoiled”—a word that Mother would frequently use—now sounds strange. As if Father is wrong, or perhaps I am. Without letting go of his hand I drop off to sleep, but not for long.

While the sky is still dark, the soldiers wake up the convoy with whippings and shootings. Father grabs my hand and pulls me up. The mud is deep, and I cannot feel any solid ground beneath it. I’m still drowsy from sleep, and my fear is dulled. “It hurts me!” I call out. Father hears my cry and responds instantly, “Make it easier for me, make it easier.”

I’ve heard those words often. After them come a dreadful collapse and the futile attempts to save a child who has drowned. Not only children drown in the mud; even tall people sink into it, fall to their knees, and drown. Spring is melting the snows, and with every passing day the mud gets deeper. Father opens his knapsack and tosses some of the clothes into the mud. Now his hand holds mine with great strength. At night he rubs my arms and legs and wipes them with the lining of his coat, and for a moment it seems to me that not only my father is with me, but also my mother, whom I loved so much.

I MET MANY devoted people on the long route from the Ukrainian steppes to the Haifa coast. On the ship, or, more precisely, on the ship’s deck, where people and their belongings were all jumbled up together, I saw a man, no longer young, holding in his arms a little girl who was around five years old. She was a joyful child, and her shining face made everyone around her happy. Dressed in a nice wool dress, she didn’t seem like a survivor. She spoke Jewish German and sang in a pleasant voice. While everyone else became seasick or ill from the food, or stiff with weariness, her every movement was filled with grace. It turned out that the man taking care of her was not her father, but he was even more devoted than a father. He hung on her every word, gazing at her with astonishment.

The ship made its way through a stormy sea, its deck filled with hundreds of people: vulgar men and large, irritable women. Most of them became sick, moaning and vomiting, but little Helga alone did not complain. In fact, the greater
the commotion on the deck, the brighter her face became—not that anyone really paid attention to her. Everyone was absorbed in his own suffering. It brought to mind the train stations where, not so very long ago, people had been packed onto the cattle cars.

No sooner had the storm subsided than the sun came out. The sea calmed, and people emerged from the heap of bags and packages and stood by the railing. It was then that we saw that Helga’s right leg had been amputated above her knee. The amputation had apparently been done not too long ago. The stump was still bandaged.

The man who had adopted her removed the bandages and put on fresh ones. “Does it hurt?” he asked.

“No,” Helga answered, smiling, as if he were talking about some minor injury. Then she got up onto his lap. People gathered around them, staring. In a monotone, the man told how, some months earlier, he had found Helga lying on a pile of straw. She had smiled and stretched out her hand to him. “What could I do?” he said, smiling. “An angel, truly an angel. You can’t refuse angels, can you?”

“And why did they amputate her leg?”

“Because of the infection. The army doctors said that it was endangering not only the rest of her leg, but her life as well.”

“And what do you have to do now?” They kept asking him questions.

“Nothing in particular. The stump is healing. It looks a lot better now.”

“And will the girl be able to walk?”

“I have no doubt about it,” said the man. “In Palestine we’ll have an artificial leg made for her. Helga very much wants to walk.”

“Who were her parents?”

“That’s a riddle to be solved in the years to come,” he said dryly, in a voice that seemed out of place.

“And you have no clues?”

“I have, but they’re very slight ones.”

“Helga, my dear, don’t you remember anything?” A tall woman knelt down before her, astonishing everyone.

Helga smiled. “I remember the rain,” she said.

“What rain are you talking about, my dear?” the woman asked in a soft voice.

“The rain that fell without stopping.”

“And what happened then?” the large woman persisted.

“I got wet,” she said, more in wonderment than as a statement of fact.

“And weren’t you cold?” The woman continued to interrogate her in a soft voice.

“No,” said Helga.

“And who was with you?”

“The rain, only the rain.”

“And no one was at your side?”

“Perhaps there was, but I didn’t see.”

“Strange,” said the large woman.

Helga licked her lips and didn’t respond.

“And how long did the rain last?”

“All the time,” said Helga, lifting her head.

“Strange,” the large woman repeated.

People stood around in silence, as if they realized they were witnessing an extraordinary conversation.

“And what happened after the rain?”

“I don’t remember,” said Helga in a clear voice.

“And the rain continued falling all the time?” the woman mused.

“The pits filled up with water.”

“And you, what did you do?”

“Nothing,” said Helga, as if at last able to find the right word.

“She’s a very wise child,” the man who had adopted her intervened.

The large woman stood up but would not stop questioning Helga.

Then, for some reason, people expected the girl to tell her story. Helga hung her head and uttered not a sound. The light in her face seemed to fade.

“And you don’t miss the rain?” the large woman repeated.

“No,” said Helga in a clear voice.

“You shouldn’t be asking her,” an elderly man interrupted.

“Why?” wondered the large woman.

“Because you mustn’t confuse her.”

“I’m only asking,” said the large woman, blushing.

“Your questions are confusing. Leave her alone.”

“We love her,” said the large woman.

“Why are you speaking for everyone?” the old man asked aggressively.

“That’s what I feel.”

“Let everyone speak for himself.”

The last sentence left people feeling confused and dejected. They dispersed as if they had been reprimanded.

Helga sat on the lap of the man who had adopted her. The light returned to her face. She moved her lips, muttering softly. The man took her small hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed it. “Soon we’ll reach Palestine,” he said. “There we’ll have a house and a garden.”

FROM MY EARLIEST CHILDHOOD, I’ve had a tendency to approach both people and objects carefully, and with suspicion. Mother attributed this to the severe illnesses of my infancy; Grandmother claimed that only children are suspicious by nature. And, indeed, I was an only child, extremely attached to my parents. The area outside my house, particularly when I was there alone, seemed cold and threatening. Most of my childhood dreams (it’s strange to what extent I can recall them) are linked to a sense of abandonment. I hold out my hand and the hand remains suspended in the air. I am immediately gripped with fear. I would wake up in the middle of the night trembling all over, and Mother would hasten to reassure me that it was just “a mistake of a dream,” that she would never abandon me, that we would always be together. For some reason these promises only intensified my insecurities, and I would sob inconsolably until completely exhausted. My feelings of distrust intensified when I started going to school. I was one of two Jewish children in a class of forty. I
was puny, and well dressed, and Mother would walk me all the way to the school gate. This only increased the ridicule. During recess, everyone would be out in the yard, playing with a red rubber ball, kicking up dust and screaming. I would stand at the window and look out. Even then I knew: I would never be able to play like them. This was painful, but it was also amusing: a blend of feelings of inferiority and superiority. I was able to entertain myself with these feelings as long as I stayed out of the range of their hands; too near them, and I was an easy target for kicking, slapping, or pinching.

The non-Jewish children were taller and sturdier than I was, and I knew that even if I made a huge effort I wouldn’t be able to close the gap. They would always rule the long corridors and the schoolyard. Their whim dictated whether I would be beaten or left alone. Common sense told me to get used to it, but a feeling of outrage occasionally got the better of me. Sometimes I would stand on the stairs and scream at the top of my voice, more than anything to overcome the fear that gripped me.

Mother tried to intervene by seeing the headmaster, but it was useless. There were thirty-eight sturdy bodies against me, a tide of legs that swept away anything that happened to be in its path—myself included.

I did try to defend myself a few times. It made not the slightest impression on the gang. On the contrary, it gave them an excuse to beat me up even more, and to claim that I had started it. The other Jewish boy deserted me in this futile struggle. Within a short time he changed beyond recognition, and although he was thinner than I was, he fitted well into the playground games. His agility more than made up for his lack of strength. He eventually turned his back on me, as though he and I were no longer members of the same tribe.