The Testament (29 page)

At last I understood. Victims of the purges, they had disappeared without a trace. It was forbidden to remember them. Remembering them meant loving them, loving them meant being their accomplice.

I reeled with shock. The earth trembled, the heavens fell. I recalled my final conversation with Paul. Had he suspected what was awaiting him here? Possibly. Then why did he return? And why was I here? But it was too late for such regrets. I had to find some justification—imitate the others, sing of steel mills, the splendor of factories and the new man building them under the wise, infallible guidance of the Party—well, you see what I mean.

I got a modest job as a proofreader at the State Publishing House, French division. Lenin, Marx, Engels and, of course, Stalin: I read their works in French translation and corrected the proofs. I did my work conscientiously, as always, but without enthusiasm. After all, I am not a philosopher but a poet. There’s no need to understand in order to read, and vice versa.

One day I was overcome by the desire to meet some
real
Jews. I went to the synagogue—a complete fiasco. A few frightened old men looked at me with distrust. A short
hunchbacked fellow asked me bluntly, “What do you want?”

“Nothing.”

“You want to pray? Where are your phylacteries?”

I left, humiliated. Yes, humiliated—what other word could describe my state of mind at the time? I began to prefer the company of writers—Russian, Tartar, Bashkir or Uzbek. Their support of a policy flattering Hitler exasperated me less than the pleas made by Jewish writers following the same orders. In fact I was seeing the Jewish writers less and less. I kept out of their sight in order not to explode, not wishing to bring disaster to the “great,” whom I respected in spite of everything. For their welfare as well as mine, it was better to keep my distance.

I had rented a small room in the apartment of an old woman, who boasted of the advantages of her deafness. “In my place you’ll be able to snore, stamp your feet, break your neck, I’ll do nothing to stop you.”

It was a three-story building on General Komarski Street. The quiet made up for the lack of comfort. The room had neither running water nor heat, but it did have dust and dirt.

Living at the other end of the apartment was a young girl, Anna, just arrived from Tiflis. She was studying at the Institute of Modern Languages. We ran into each other on the staircase or in the salon—that was what our landlady called her own bedroom—and exchanged short, polite Good mornings and Good evenings. In other circumstances I might have attempted an affair with Anna. Tall but delicate, she reminded me of the romantic princesses of ancient Russia. But I was feeling too low to see a woman’s body as a source of desire. I did not feel like attaching myself to anyone.

Occasionally the landlady would shake her bony head disapprovingly; I would turn my eyes away. She would nag
me: “Ah, what a generation! Incapable of grabbing hold of a woman and … You’re young, you’re healthy; she’s young, she’s healthy, and … nothing? Nothing at all? Woe to me, that my eyes should have to see such shame. Why is the good Lord punishing me like this?”

I just had no head for that. It was a grim period, for Jews especially, and also for true Communists, that is, the men and women who set the Communist ideal above political considerations and diplomatic crises. We had no friends anywhere, no allies, no support. In the street we would slink rapidly along the walls.

One day I felt the need to read something besides official speeches. I went to the club to leaf through the Communist newspapers published abroad. I expected to find some reflection in them of my anguish and confusion. I said to myself: Out there they are free to speak the truth, and no doubt they do. My disappointment was total. The Yiddish newspapers in New York and Paris, published and distributed by the Jewish sections of the Party, merely echoed our official press editorials. It was painful—yes, it really was. I read Pinsker’s columns and the blood rushed to my face; the smugness of Schweber’s analyses made me blush.

One day Granek, my only friend, caught me reading; I had tears in my eyes. He put his hand on mine. “You must arm yourself with patience, little brother,” he said. “Think of our prophets, our sages. Is night coming? Day will come, darkness carries the promise of light.”

“They’re lying, Granek my friend, they’re lying. We’re all lying. Here and there.”

Did he know the Jewish Communist editors of the non-Communist world? Yes, of course he had met them long before, as had Markish, Bergelson, Der Nister. Isn’t Jewish Communist literature a closed circle? Willy-nilly, everyone knows everyone.

Der Nister and his novel,
The Mashber Family
 … I
would have liked to become better acquainted with that austere, reserved, almost ascetic man who radiated the knowledge and fervor of Rabbi Nahman. Where is he today, Citizen Magistrate? In the next cell, perhaps? No doubt you kept him in Moscow. How I miss him! I recall his slow gait, his frail look.

Among the Jewish writers one alone infuriated me: a young poet, redheaded, arrogant, opportunistic, who signed his poems Arke Gelis. Warmly and expensively dressed for winter, he took part, uninvited, in conversations. He was not trusted: voices dropped the moment he appeared. Granek suspected him of working for the “services.” I am convinced of it. During the war he wore the same uniform as you, Citizen Magistrate. He was a major, and among your people one does not become a major for nothing.

This Gelis looked happy and expansive, even on gloomy days. The more distressed we were, the more he harangued us, accusing us of timidity, passivity, hence skepticism, hence …

“Our policy is just and beneficial,” he bellowed, his chest swelling. “Furthermore, it’s moral, it defends the interests of the working class all over the world. Furthermore, it rejects the specter of war. You’d have to be an idiot or a reactionary not to see that!”

“And Hitler?” I asked him one evening, doing my best to contain my anger and disgust. “What do you make of his hatred for our people? And the cruelties suffered by Communists in his concentration camps?”

Gelis turned scarlet. “How dare you?” he cried. “You come from the decadent West to give us lessons? Hunted, dispossessed, you knock on our door, we receive you like a brother, and you thank us by sabotaging our peace policy! Is it war you want? The death of our youth? Will nothing else satisfy you?”

Embarrassed, everyone looked away. An unwholesome
silence hung over our group. I was lost, they must have thought; I had just signed my own death warrant. Granek seemed about to faint. There was a glint of reproach in his eyes: “I warned you, little brother.” I was seized by remorse and terror; by exposing myself I had put him in danger. I was about to retract, to correct myself, but Mendelevich, the great classic comedian, spared me that humiliation by coming to my defense.

“Comrade Gelis,” he said in his majestic bass, “allow me. Did you know Paltiel Kossover has seen the Hitlerites at work? Did you know he helped their victims? Did you know he fought the Fascists in Germany, in France, in Spain? Did you know he has put his pen, his soul, his life—I say advisedly—his life in the service of our people, the Jewish people?”

“That’s got nothing to do with it,” Gelis muttered.

He shrank away. Intimidated by the authority Mendelevich exercised on all the Jewish writers and intellectuals, the informer tried to beat a retreat. After all, Mendelevich had important admirers—people from the Kremlin came to see his performances.

“That’s got nothing to do with it?” Mendelevich continued in a higher voice. “And you claim to be a Communist? And a Jewish poet into the bargain? We Jewish Communists have learned to take an interest in the fate of all who suffer, to respect everybody who joins our struggle. A Jew who is indifferent to Jewish suffering is like a Communist who’s indifferent to the suffering of the proletariat. Just get that through your head, young man!”

Whereupon he approached me and put his powerful hands on my shoulders, as if physically taking me under his protection. “Come, Kossover. Let’s have a drink, and you’ll tell me what certain people do not deserve to hear.”

We left the Jewish Writers’ Club and went outside. It was a fine day. A June sun—clear, silvery—was sweeping away winter’s chills and fogs. Lighthearted, lightfooted, I
danced along, celebrating Gelis’s defeat. I didn’t know how to thank my protector. I would have done anything to please him. He took me to his place on October Street, sat me down in his study lined with books, drawings, costume sketches, and questioned me about my life, my work, my writing. I responded without fear or hesitation. I had rarely felt so grateful to anyone.

Later Granek was to confide how frightened he had been. He had been convinced that despite Mendelevich’s intervention, I would be made to pay for my audacity. Gelis had certainly reported the incident to his superiors. And since he had remained helpless in the actor’s presence, he must have accused me of every political misdeed that could bring about my arrest and condemnation, if only by way of example. Frankly, I was expecting that too; I had learned the ways of the country. At night I was prepared to hear a knock at my door, and I consoled myself in advance by thinking it was still June. At least I would not freeze in prison.

But a miracle took place. Excuse me, I retract that term. War broke out, and, if it did save me from prison, it cost the lives of twenty million men, women, children, and—as we know now—it permitted the annihilation of six million of my own people. No, it was no miracle.

Still, I welcomed the outbreak of hostilities with open relief. Nor was I the only one. Listening to Molotov’s speech, I felt a wild desire to shout for joy: Hurrah, at last we are going to give battle to Hitler and the Hitlerites! Hurrah, we are going to vent our wrath!

I ran to the club. Panting, overexcited, I joined my fellow writers, who were gathered around Mendelevich. At that moment I wanted to be among my own people, congratulating them, embracing them, weeping with them, laughing with them, emptying glass after glass, and aware all the while that this spontaneous celebration was the first and also the last that would unite us, the last for a
long, long time. Would there even be another?
Will I see them again one day?
Who would live, who would die?

In the midst of the festivities, I froze. I thought of my parents, my sisters and their children. From now on there stretched between us a bloody, murderous front; between us from now on there would be death with its countless arms and eyes—death who never loses, who never retreats, who is never sated.

Gripped by nausea, I put down my glass and shut my eyes.

You have accused me of cowardice, Citizen Magistrate. Jews, you have told me, are cowards: they always manage to let others fight in their stead. Well, that is both true and false. It is false about Jews in general; it is true about me in particular.

During the war, Citizen Magistrate, during our great patriotic war, I knew courageous, bold, intrepid Jews. I knew men such as Dr. Lebedev, who, under enemy fire, crawled on his knees to take care of the wounded, sometimes going deep into enemy territory to retrieve dying soldiers screaming for help. Or such as Lieutenant Grossman, who singlehandedly set fire to eleven Panzers. I knew a man—a man? no, an adolescent, almost a child—who slipped through the barbed wire, threw grenades under the tracks of tanks and waited there to watch them explode. They all fought valiantly, heroically, for Russian honor and Jewish honor, believe me. I say this not to praise myself, but, on the contrary, to demean myself. I was no hero. I did not fight this war as they did. I myself fought the war with the wounded.

And the dead.

War, war, what filth. What butchery. And, above all, what chaos.

In a single night, in the twinkling of an eye, the whole country is in turmoil. Total confusion. Nothing is where it should be. The entire machinery is out of gear. Words are replaced by shouts and orders. Yesterday’s allies are today’s enemies: implacable, savage, thirsting for blood. Yesterday’s enemies—the capitalists-imperialists-colonialists—have become today’s faithful comrades, exemplary friends. Instead of extending our frontiers, we draw them back; instead of advancing, the invincible Red Army retreats. Man? Fit only to kill, fit only to die.

At the risk of disappointing you, I shall not tell you the usual war tales animated by noble sentiments of sacrifice and valor. I claim no exploits—I won no battle, achieved no victory, saved not a single unit. Like everyone else, I answered the call for general mobilization and reported to the recruitment center; like everyone else, but no more, I wanted to enter the fray.

After the first shock, the entire country, deceived, manipulated, rushed to the defense of the invaded fatherland. With his grave, solemn “brotherly” speech, Stalin galvanized the nation. And the Jewish minority sevenfold more.

No war in history was ever greeted with so much enthusiasm. We Jews were ready to offer all, to do all, to vanquish the worst enemies of our people and of mankind. Finally we had the feeling of belonging to this country. We shared a common destiny: what was happening to others touched us viscerally. No longer the subjects or objects of some comrade or secretary-general, we were his compatriots, his brothers. Legally, politically, morally and practically, we were on the same side. We nurtured the same hatred for the soldiers of hatred. Like everyone else, we longed to sacrifice everything for victory. As for myself, I had nothing to sacrifice; I had nothing.

I can still see the scene. Kasdan, a cigarette holder between
his fingers, already imagines himself at the front, leading a regiment to attack. He is trembling with excitement. Someone says, “But you’ve never been a soldier. You’ve never carried a weapon.”

“So what?” he cries, infuriated at being denied a command because of such details. “Courage and patriotism, don’t they count any more?”

The most astonishing thing is that at that moment we were all thinking like Kasdan. To hell with dialectics, long live faith!

Feldring, disheveled, paraphrases some Biblical passages: Hitler, like Pharaoh, will drown in blood. Feldring already sees himself making a speech on militarism in Jewish poetry and vice versa.