All Rivers Run to the Sea_ Memoirs - Elie Wiesel [109]
The Old Man soon put me at ease. He asked about my life, my studies, my plans. He talked about his own past, in Kalisz (whose Jewish cemetery, it seems, is the oldest in Poland) and in Lodz. I wondered what, if anything, he knew about me or my story. Suddenly he asked me a question that stunned me: Did I believe in God?—an intrusive inquiry that would have pained me coming from anyone else. I blushed as I answered, and a bond was forged between us—not professional, but personal and human. Then the Old Man changed the subject. We spoke of the Talmud, the Midrash, Hasidism. He cited a passage, which I timidly corrected. To demonstrate my error he rose, left the room, and returned with a volume. He opened it, glanced inside, closed it immediately—I was right. But he wasn’t offended; on the contrary, he seemed pleased. To use an ancient Hebrew expression, “I had found grace in his eyes.”
He insisted I stay at his home, which was a real help, since the hotel would have cost me three months of my wretched salary. I ate at his table and participated in the discussions after meals. While under his roof I formed a friendship with Dov, his nephew, also a camp survivor, and later with his son Noah. The Old Man took me to Jerusalem in a sherut (collective) taxi. On the way he told me of his childhood and youth and of his encounters with the poets Shneur and Bialik, the painters Soutine and Mane Katz, and one Mrs. Reid, former owner of the New York Herald Tribune. He shared with me his disappointments, joys, and aspirations, and I became a member of his family. The Old Man set the tone. Everyone feared him except his wife, but to me he was unfailingly courteous. Later he would sometimes phone me in Paris, often on a Friday afternoon to wish me a peaceful Shabbat, to share a Hasidic saying, or simply to chat. There were times when I wished he would give me the money he spent on those calls, but money isn’t everything, is it?
The Old Man encouraged my friendship with Dov, and to this day I wonder why. Perhaps he hoped it would make Dov more Jewish, more involved in Jewish life. At the time Dov was more interested in the latest issue of Time than in the Torah reading of the week. For a while Dov and I shared a room, and after his marriage to Leah they invited me to live with them. The Old Man magnanimously allowed me to accept their hospitality, or Noah and Paula’s, but no one else’s. When I happened to be in the country for the High Holidays, I had to go to services with him. I remember a Rosh Hashana in Jerusalem in his wife’s absence. I recall the solemn service with the Hasidim of the Rebbe of Guer. The Old Man wept as he recited certain litanies, and I averted my eyes respectfully. During meals we discussed liturgy and repentance.
The Old Man, I now realize, was not all that old. Today I have the strange feeling that the whole world is younger than I.
Foreign correspondents move around a lot, and I loved to travel. I was always ready to accept an invitation to go anywhere, to change habits and time zones, to discover new lands, court adventure, and seek impromptu encounters.
By chance in Paris I met an official of the Jewish Agency who invited me to accompany him on an automobile trip to Morocco. I hurried to the Préfecture for an exit visa, then to the Spanish consulate for a transit visa. Luckily, I had enough photos on hand and quickly obtained the necessary papers. But what about money? I had one month’s rent on my room saved up. I took the money, stuffed everything I owned into an old valise, and that was that.
There were three of us in the car. The first stop was Marseilles, where we stayed in the transit camp near Bandol. Things had changed since I had passed through the year before. Now it was Moroccans who were waiting to “ascend” to Israel. I questioned them about their abandoned homes and told them of the land