So, Ewa, he came into the house and greeted us with “Shalom.” He came to the table and gave the blessing in Hebrew. He did not cross himself, nothing like that. All I could think about was trying not to cry, but when Milka brought the soup terrine through from the kitchen, Daniel himself started crying. Then I did, too. If my elder brother was crying, so could I. I saw he had not changed at all. In the years that followed I can truly say he did not change a bit.
I am an atheist, Ewa. I have never been bothered about religion, or about God for that matter. All this talk about whether there is a God or there isn’t. Some have proof that God exists, others that he doesn’t, but to my mind, six million Jews buried in the earth is conclusive proof that there is no God. Well, fine, let’s just say it is a personal matter what anybody thinks about God, but if my brother needed God so much, what made him choose the Christian one? How many Gods are there anyway, one, two, four? If you’re going to choose one, wouldn’t you expect a Jew to choose the Jewish God? To be perfectly frank, when you think back on all that happened then, what difference was there between God and the Devil? What a man my brother was! He was a saint. Incidentally, he wore that vestment for a while but then took it off and looked like anybody else. He loved wearing my castoffs. He didn’t like new clothes and if you gave him something new he was always passing it on to another person. Look, this is our last photograph of him, taken a year before he died. My oldest daughter was here and she took it. No, that’s me, and that’s him. We look similar, of course, but there is a difference, a very big difference. Sit down, please. Milka will bring in the strudel now.
EWA. How did your children get on with such a strange uncle?
AVIGDOR. They adored him. He played with them. One moment he was a horse, the next an elephant or a dog. We had four children. You know how it is yourself, you’re too busy, other things to think about. We didn’t play with them all that much, and when Daniel came it was a real treat. If there was anything big in their lives they would go to him. Milka was sometimes a little offended.
MILKA. Stuff and nonsense. I was never offended. When we had that trouble with Alon I was even grateful to him.
EWA. What trouble was that?
AVIGDOR. Milka, bring those letters. I want to show them to Ewa. Alon was our youngest. He always had a strong personality. When he was sixteen he decided to move out and go and live with his sister. We only just managed to persuade him to come home. Then he went off to study somewhere, which means we almost never see him. It’s been four years since we last saw him. We don’t know where he is or what he’s doing, only that he’s abroad and that he’s alive. And we know that if he gets killed our Ministry will inform us. Here, you’ll have to read them right now. I can’t let you take them away.
9. 1981, Haifa
L
ETTER
F
ROM
D
ANIEL TO
A
LON
Dear Alon,
Happy Birthday! You are 16 and have performed your first adult act by leaving home and going to stay with your sister. Sooner or later everybody leaves their parents, but you have done it in an unusual way, not because you have got married and decided to start a family, or because you have gone away to study or work. You have left because your parents do not understand you and because you are dissatisfied with the way they see things in general. What kind of position have you put your sister in? She loves you, of course, she is giving you a place to stay, but she is in a awkward situation in respect of your parents. It looks as though she is egging you on.
You know, you are right. It is not easy to live in a family where there is no understanding, but the fact of the matter, my dear Alon, is that this is a two-way process. They do not understand you, but you do not understand them. In our world there are altogether major problems of misunderstanding. By and large, nobody understands anybody else. I would go so far as to say that very often a person does not understand himself. Can you say, for instance, why you told your mother she was only capable of understanding the chickens on the farm? Can you say why you told your father that he had a mechanical understanding of life limited to the structure of carburetors and gearboxes? How very foolish it was to say such things. Yes, Milka understands her chickens. Yes, Milka knows what they need. When there was a plague of parasites and all the chickens in the district died, hers survived! For centuries people believed that only witchcraft could protect animals in that way, but your mother’s straightforward understanding saved 5,000 chickens! Milka’s kind of understanding is a rare gift.
And what about carburetors and gearboxes? These are complex mechanisms and your father has a profound understanding of them. He has invented numerous little mechanisms, all those crazy devices he attaches to his tractors! If he was a businessman and knew how to sell them he would be rich by now! He has a very astute technical mind and you seem to think that is of no importance. This is precisely the way human understanding connects with the world of plants and animals, and even with the universe. It is understanding of the highest, not the lowest, order!
To be frank, you have hit me where it hurts. I have spent my life wondering why there is such a lack of understanding in the world, at every level! The old do not understand the young, the young do not understand the old, neighbors do not understand each other, teachers their pupils, superiors their subordinates. States do not understand their populations, or peoples their rulers. There is no understanding between classes. It was only Karl Marx who came up with the idea that some classes are bound to hate others. The reality is that they do not understand them. That is true of people who speak the same language , but what if they speak different languages? How is one people to understand another? So instead, they hate each other because of their lack of understanding. I won’t give examples, I’m sick and tired of it.
Man does not understand nature. (Your mother is a rare exception—she understands her chickens!) He does not understand the language in which nature is telling him as clearly as can be that he is harming the Earth, hurting it, and before you know it he will have destroyed it completely. Most important, man does not understand God, does not understand what He is trying to instil in him through texts which are familiar to everybody, through miracles and revelations and the natural disasters which periodically befall humanity.
I do not know why this is so. Perhaps it is because modern man considers it less important to understand than to conquer, to dominate, to consume. By tradition the confusion of languages came about when people tried to build a tower up to heaven, manifestly failing to understand how wrong, unattainable, and senseless the task was which they had set for themselves.
Now, where did I begin? Happy Birthday! Let’s meet up. I have a small present for you. Call the church and Hilda will tell you where and when to find me. Or tell me where to meet you. Your Dodo,