Irena doesn’t let the pain prevail. She gets into Ernst’s bed immediately and lies down next to him. Contact with her seems to soothe him. He turns to her and kisses her brow, and when he embraces her, she feels all of his gentle strength.
43
ONCE A MONTH ERNST RETURNS TO THE HOSPITAL FOR tests. Sometimes they keep him there for a few days. Ernst doesn’t complain — either about his pain or about the treatment. Irena feels that the doctors who are taking care of Ernst are always trying to evade responsibility and to place it instead upon him. Ernst doesn’t get upset. He lays his hand on his chest and says, “The responsibility is all mine.”
When Ernst is in a good mood and writing without pause, Irena returns to her house for a while; she dusts and lights two candles. Since she has started living at Ernst’s house, Irena has lost contact with her parents. She knows that they are used to coming to their own house, but that they wouldn’t dare come to a place that wasn’t their own. So she sits at home and waits for them. The tension brought on by this anticipation tires her.
In the mornings Irena washes Ernst, and if his skin is dry, she rubs his arms and legs with a moisturizing cream. Sometimes she also shaves him and pats rose water on his face. Ernst doesn’t flinch. He has full confidence in Irena’s hands.
Time is short, but Ernst does not feel under pressure. Irena envelops him with moderation and calm. Most of the time she is in her corner or the kitchen, and when she appears, her face is full of readiness to do his bidding.
Ernst gets deeper into his time in the Carpathian Mountains. He knows that what was revealed to him back then has been hidden away over the years. But thanks to Irena, he now has a key that opens the heavy doors. Sometimes he feels that Irena is from there herself, that she’s one of Grandmother’s young granddaughters, or perhaps a great-grandchild who lived with her for several years and learned the rules and customs for serving God, and all the little details that accompany them: how to walk, what to say and when, how to be silent, when to pray silently, and when to pray out loud.
One time Ernst asked Irena, “Weren’t you there?”
“No,” she said, “I was born in a displaced persons’ camp on the way to Israel.”
Irena has changed. She is prettier. Her gestures, which had been reserved, have blossomed. Her vocabulary has also changed. She still talks in the same jumble of languages that her parents had spoken in, but her voice has taken on a special charm. Irena tries to surround Ernst with things that please the eye, with fresh flowers and dried roses. A few days ago she bought a Chinese screen decorated with flowers so that he wouldn’t feel too exposed to the daylight.
At night, when Ernst closes his eyes, Irena is happy just to be at his side and watch over him. From his face she can tell whether his sleep is tranquil or he is being frightened by bad dreams. Once she heard him talking in his sleep in Russian, and it sounded like the recitation of a poem.
Ernst is actually dreaming about Irena. She is wearing an embroidered peasant blouse and a wide skirt that resembles the skirts that the Ruthenian women in the Carpathians wore. He tries to free himself from the bonds of the dream, but his body feels heavy and the bonds are tight. In great despair he tears the ropes with his teeth and runs toward Irena.
“We were together in the Carpathians,” he tells her when he wakes up.
44
THE PAINS ATTACK ERNST AGAIN, BUT HE PERSISTS AND writes every day. After supper he invites Irena to the table and reads to her what he has written. Several times she is about to ask how a little boy grasped so much and in such great detail. Ernst divines her thoughts and says, “I loved my grandparents. It was a hidden love, and I wasn’t aware of it until I started writing.”
“So the purpose of writing is to rescue things from oblivion?” Irena wonders.
“So it appears.”
“What else do we have within us that we don’t know about?”
“Who knows?”
Irena rereads Leyb Rochman’s The Pit and the Trap. Rochman, his wife, Esther, his sister-in-law, Zippora, and his brother-in-law, Ephraim, spent the war together in hiding. They were subjected to every fear that one can experience. Rochman wrote in detail about all of it.
Once a week the tall doctor comes, examines Ernst, and adds one or two prescriptions. Ernst usually doesn’t ask how much time he has left to live. This time he asks. The doctor loses himself in thought for a moment and then says, “Why are you asking?”
“I’m in the middle of important work,” Ernst replies.
Uncharacteristically, Ernst reveals to the doctor that for years he had tried to write, but the writing didn’t come out well. During the past year, he finally found a tunnel to the spiritual treasures that had been buried within him.
“Thank God,” says the doctor, in a way that doesn’t seem appropriate for a doctor.
“I’m in the midst of mining,” says Ernst. “I need more time.”
Ernst’s voice has taken on a strange quality, as though he were asking the doctor for a reprieve. The doctor, a bit embarrassed by his request, says, “You’ll surely manage. ‘If you will it, it is no dream.’ Who said that?” The doctor tries to remember.
The doctor’s equivocal words fill Ernst with new strength, and he writes all morning without taking a break.
Tranquility does not always reign in the Carpathians. Sometimes sudden storms arise from the heart of the forest. In their great rush, they uproot groves of trees, tear the roofs off houses, trample fields of grain and orchards, and kill peaceful animals. Worse than these are the tempests of the soul. A peasant returns from his work, certain for some reason that his wife has betrayed him. Without asking or investigating, he brandishes an ax and kills her. The news travels like lightning. Women and children freeze in fear, but not the murderer. He sits on a bench in the middle of his yard, the red ax in his hand, like a satiated beast of prey.
The priest, the medic, and two policemen are immediately summoned. The killer is asked if he committed the murder, and he nods. The policemen handcuff him, he gets up and begins walking, and they follow him. I did not witness the murder, but I saw the killer, his yard, and the people who stood at the fence of his house and watched with amazement what was happening.
I am shaken, but Grandfather and Grandmother don’t talk about that horror. They are immersed in preparations for Yom Kippur. Grandfather is getting ready to go from house to house and ask forgiveness, and I am to accompany him. Grandfather also intends to ask forgiveness of a non-Jew named Nikolai, who had worked for him for many years. A year ago a horse kicked him, and since then his health has been poor. Grandfather compensated him for the injury and continues to pay him half his salary. The peasant acknowledges this generosity and greets Grandfather warmly. Grandfather tells him that in two days it will be Yom Kippur and that it is important for people to accept the yoke of God without reservation. The peasant agrees with him and says, “Without God, life isn’t life.” They speak and are silent by turns. Grandfather eventually says, “If I’ve harmed you, Nikolai, pardon me.” The peasant bows his head and says, “You haven’t injured me, sir, not in word and not in deed, and may God judge us all for the best.”
Grandfather goes from house to house. His fellow Jews are standing in their doorways, tall and sturdy, and dressed in long smocks. Grandfather approaches each of them and asks for forgiveness. They invoke the name of God and forgive one another, asking for redemption for all the Jewish people.