Aharon Appelfeld - Suddenly, Love

“Who are you?” asked the rabbi, as though roused from a nightmare. He placed his pale hands on the table.

“That’s not important. This is not a personal matter. You have to stop this harmful hypnosis once and for all.” It was evident that the young interrogator had a good bit of talent for speaking. During the conversation, he had used the word “theology” several times, and a few other words that Ernst didn’t understand.

The old rabbi rose to his feet and said, “This is our holy Torah, and we are willing to give our lives for it.”

“We’ve already heard that stupid argument, and it doesn’t deter us.”

“Get out of my house!” The rabbi could no longer control himself.

“You’ve crossed the line.” The interrogator changed his tone. “The Party won’t forgive a sin like that. Until now you were a public nuisance; from now on you’ll be seen as an adversary. Adversaries are judged more harshly.”

“Get out of here. Get out!” The rabbi spoke as if the interrogator weren’t threatening but was just annoying.

“I could have eliminated you easily,” said the boy, pointing to the revolver in his belt. “I won’t do it, because the Party allows for repentance and for begging pardon. I’m giving you a week’s reprieve.”

The old man opened his eyes wide, as if the person talking to him were an evil spirit.

“I advise you to think carefully about what I said to you,” said the boy, as he and his two associates turned to the door.

Ernst was increasingly captivated by all these goings-on and became more deeply entrenched within the Party. The thought that he was freeing people from the prison of religion inspired him with the will to act. There was no limit to his devotion, to his obedience. Ernst believed that self-sacrifice was the highest expression of humanity.

ERNST WRITES EVERY DAY. AFTER THREE HOURS HE FEELS weak all over. He hadn’t written about his own life in years past but about the lives of others. He believed that cutting himself off from his personal experiences was necessary for accurate and truthful writing, just as it was important to sever himself from Jewish tribalism. Jewish tribalism felt like an oppressive anachronism to him.

From time to time Ernst reads a passage or a chapter to Irena. When he reads to her she lowers her head as though trying to absorb his words with all her might. This time she couldn’t contain herself and said, “It’s forbidden to set fire to yeshivas and synagogues.”

“But at that time people believed that this would bring salvation to humanity, including the Jews.” Ernst tried to put things in their historical context.

When Irena disagrees with Ernst, she closes her eyes and her body trembles. Finding words to express her feelings is not easy for her. A day or two might pass before she can draw out a few sentences. When she finally does, they always surprise Ernst with their simplicity and seriousness. Sometimes she utters a sentence she has already said. It’s impossible for Ernst to argue with Irena because, among other things, she doesn’t stand up for her opinions. He has often tried to draw her into an argument, but all his efforts have been in vain.

Irena is not like other women. He learns this anew each day. There is a kind of solid innocence about her that one cannot easily shake. “My neighbor, Mrs. Grossman, invited me to dinner,” she told him this morning. “She can hardly walk, but she hasn’t forgotten the day my mother died. ‘Everyone is an orphan on the day of their mother’s death, even if they’re fifty years old,’ she told me. That’s right, isn’t it?”

Irena’s “isn’t it?” is part of her charm.

Irena always finds something good in everyone, even in the neighbors who weren’t friendly to her parents. It’s apparently hard for her to be angry. For example, she doesn’t understand why some people hate those who pray.

“And do you pray?” Ernst surprises her again.

“Sometimes, but not regularly. But I light Sabbath candles. I love to look at the flames. They move me.”

Ernst knows there are things he can learn from Irena. What he’s concerned with now are the things people don’t talk about — what they cover up or cut off in silence. After reading Irena a passage or a chapter, he asks her opinion about it. But the direct inquiry embarrasses her; she withdraws into herself and is silent.

Sometimes, in response to his request for an opinion, Irena rises to her feet, and her whole body seems to say, Why are you bothering me with something I have no notion about. But at other times she wants to say to him, You must beg forgiveness of your parents. Don’t worry. They’ll forgive you. Parents always forgive their children. You mustn’t ignore them. A person who ignores his parents is an orphan forever .

Ernst trips himself up with a question he had asked before and stumbled over. “Are you religious?”

This time, too, she says, “I do what my mother did.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

What do you want from me? she says silently.

Seeing the look on her face, Ernst stops annoying her.

There’s a contradiction in what you say . That sentence is frequently on Ernst’s lips. Irena often imagines it as a sword that has come out of its sheath and is about to be thrust at her, but then she says to herself, Ernst wants to teach me something important, but since I’m not capable of absorbing it, he keeps saying the same thing over and over . Irena knows the word “contradiction,” but she doesn’t know how to use it.

One time he aimed another obscure word at her. She was wounded, and in her pain she burst into tears. Ernst didn’t imagine that a word could hurt so much. When he realized what he had done, he drew near to her and said, “Irena, I was just trying to make things clear, not to hurt you. Perish the thought.”

Irena didn’t sleep that night. It appeared as though Ernst had tested her, and she hadn’t passed. By now Irena ought to know: Ernst’s thinking wasn’t like hers. Ernst inquires, clarifies, entertains hypotheses, compares, constructs, and contradicts. If other people were around him, he would clarify things with them, but since only Irena is with him for most of the day, he tries to clarify things with her. After a sleepless night, Irena decided that from now on when she doesn’t understand something that Ernst says, she’ll tell him, I don’t understand; it’s beyond me. Why bother with me?

The next morning Irena found Ernst totally drunk. He mixed up languages, called her Ida, waved his arms, and was as embarrassed as a wayward child. Irena went over to the stove to make him toast and coffee. When he saw the steaming cup, he cried out, “You’re my redeeming angel.”

THAT NIGHT HIS WORDS WROTE THEMSELVES, INVOLUNTARILY, and in the first person.

More than we hated the religious Jews, we hated the rich Jews. Striking a blow against the owner of a factory who had withheld his workers’ pay was regarded as a good deed of the highest order. The owners of small factories, and even the owners of workshops that employed six or seven workers, were also regarded as exploiters, and their buildings were set on fire. “Justice must begin at home!” That was the slogan and the order.

At first every limb of my body rebelled against the violence, but in time I was convinced that if the rich and their armor bearers weren’t eliminated, injustice would never be corrected. Wealth and exploitation had to be rooted out.

During those years, I attended lectures in basements, and not only about Marx’s Das Kapital and about Freud on religion. I also read Gorky and Sholokhov and other works of Soviet socialist realism. This underground activity, which was most intense in those nighttime meetings, gave me the feeling that I was a partner in building a new world.