Chapter sixty. In the Field
So that he should not return to the subject, I walked him off to the Beit Midrash. And so that he should not disturb me on the way, I stopped and talked to every man I met in the marketplace. And when I happened to meet Ignatz, I talked to him.
If you get accustomed to this Ignatz’s droning, you can hear some sensible things from him. Once the talk turned on Hanoch and his death, and Ignatz said, “All this hullabaloo all over the whole town on the day they found Hanoch dead in the snow — I don’t know the sense of it. During the war things like that happened every day, every hour, and we didn’t pay attention to them. Sometimes we found a soldier lying under his horse — he dead and the horse alive, or the horse dead and he alive. Before we could manage to separate them, we were caught by the enemy’s fire and most of our fellows were blown to pieces — a hand this way and a foot that way, a man’s head flying off and striking his mate’s, so that both of them fell together and sank in the blood and muck.”
Let us dismiss Ignatz and go to meet Daniel Bach. Daniel Bach hobbles along on his wooden leg, but his beard is trimmed and his face is happy. Let us go to meet him and shorten his way.
I have come to know many men in Szibucz, but I like Daniel Bach better than any, because I met him first on the day I came back to my town and because he does not weary me with futile talk that confuses the mind. Bach is not one of those who were born in Szibucz, but since he came to the town a few years before the war I look upon him as if he were a man of Szibucz; and since he was not born in Szibucz, he does does not regard himself as one of the Almighty’s favored children.
When I come across Daniel Bach, I make him walk on my right, and we stroll along wherever our feet carry us. As soon as we reach the forest, he immediately turns back to the town. It is not because the road is hard and the place distant that he does not go into the forest, but I imagine that the incident in the trenches, when he looked for the tefillin and came upon one of them bound to a dead man’s arm, took place in a forest, and that is why he avoids walking there.
What do we talk about and what don’t we talk about? About things that one talks about, about things that a man can bend to his will, or things that make a man bend to theirs. Once the talk turned on the Land of Israel. Said Daniel Bach, “I have every respect for old men who go up to the Land to die there, but not for those young men who go to make their lives there, for their lives are only a short cut to their deaths.” “And here,” said I, “do you live forever?” “Here a man lives without a program and dies without a program,” replied Mr. Bach.
And Mr. Bach went on, “These sanctities, the sanctity of life, and the sanctity of labor, and the sanctity of death, that you preach about, I don’t know what they mean. What sanctity is there in life, or in labor, or in death? A man lives and labors and dies. Has he any choice — not to live, or not to labor, or not to die?”
And Mr. Bach went on to say, “Those that live in sanctity do not know of it, and those who bear the name of sanctity on their lips are not aware of it. And that is not all. If a man does a thing from his heart, with conviction, what sanctity is there in the doing? That is what he was made for, that is what he wants, isn’t it? And in any case I do not want to judge things I have not been appointed to judge. A man like me — it’s enough for me that I keep myself alive, without bothering to judge the lives of other people.”
I remembered my comrades in the village and recalled that I had promised to go back to them. “Come with me,” I said to him, “and I will show you an example of Yeruham’s comrades.” “Perhaps it is worth seeing what the lads are doing there,” said Mr. Bach. “It is many years since I stirred from the town.” So we went out to the market and bought some food, as well as some knickknacks for the two girls, hired a cart, and set off.
It was three days since the rains had stopped, and it was still damp. The ground had not hardened and the journey was easy and pleasant. The rye was standing and a pleasant fragrance rose from the fields. The horses trotted by themselves and the cart followed them. The carter sat on his perch and sang a love song about a handsome young man who went to the wars and left his beloved in the village, while Daniel and I sat back in comfort like travelers who forget their troubles in the journey.
On our way, Bach asked me if I had heard anything about Aaron Schutzling. Since Schutzling had written nothing, I had nothing to tell, and since I had nothing to tell about Schutzling we talked about other people. About whom? About those that kept all mouths busy and those whom no one remembered, until we reached the village and went out to the fields.
We found our comrades standing in the fields and loading sheaves of hay. Two of them stood on top of a wagon, while two stood on one side and two on the other, with long forks in their hands, and the boys in the wagon stood up to the waist in hay, treading it with their feet to make room for what their comrades lifted up to them. Down below, on a sheaf of hay, sat the farmer, unlit pipe in his mouth, watching the work of his laborers. The lads were busy with their work and did not notice us, while we stood watching them and their work.
When the farmer saw Bach, he took his pipe out of his mouth, tucked it into his high boots, and ran to meet us joyfully. He gripped Bach’s hands and would not let them go. “Oh, Mr. Bach, sir, if it hadn’t been for you the crows would have eaten me,” he exclaimed. As he spoke, his wrinkles smoothed out, his face lost its angry expression, and something like a Jewish sadness filled his Gentile eyes. Finally he gazed at Mr. Bach’s artificial leg and said, “So this is what they have done to you, Mr. Bach, sir. And you came here with this leg of yours, and I didn’t go to you even once. A man is like a pig, he squats on his dungheap and scratches himself and eats. That is the whole of man.”
So the farmer stood in front of Bach, and talked, and talked again, and showed him every kind of affection, for Daniel Bach had saved him from death, as we shall tell below — or perhaps we had better tell the story at once, in case we forget. It happened that during the war both of them were serving in the same regiment. Once the officer ordered that farmer to do such and such, but the farmer violated his orders and did the opposite, so they sentenced him to death. But Bach came along and spoke up in his defense; he said the farmer had acted as he did because he did not understand German. So they exchanged the death sentence for a lighter penalty.
After the farmer had recalled this story, he went on to say, All the troubles come only because people’s languages are not the same. If everyone spoke the same language, they would understand each other. But people’s tongues are different: the German speaks German, the Pole Polish, and the Ruthenian speaks Ruthenian. Then the Jew adds Yiddish. And now go and tell me we are brothers. How can we say we are brothers, when one of us doesn’t know the other’s language, and can’t tell a blessing from a curse? And now the sons of the Jews come along and talk the Hebrew language, which I and even their fathers don’t know. Hello, Hebrews, don’t you see that you have guests? Stop your work and come to welcome your guests. That Jerusalemite from Palestine, he’s come too. He’s put on a new suit in your honor. Look out for him and his suit, and don’t let a scrap of straw fall on it.” When the lads heard him, they jumped down and came up to us, those from the two sides of the wagon and those from the top, greeting us and waving their hands in joy. Nor did they stop rejoicing until the farmer said to them, “You Hebrews, better stop work and get them some food, for I suppose they won’t want to eat with me.”