All Rivers Run to the Sea_ Memoirs - Elie Wiesel [204]
Eighteen years later I found myself at the Wall in Jerusalem. And there was Leibi Bruckstein. What was the atheistic Communist doing in the midst of this praying throng, stuffing a piece of paper into the interstices of the Wall? What could he be requesting? Only later did I understand: Both he and his wife were gravely ill.
I continued my rediscovery of Sighet. Walking down the Street of Jews—almost every town in Eastern Europe had one—I saw nothing but sealed shutters and doors nailed closed. All those apartments, with their tiny, gloomy, poorly ventilated rooms, now stood empty. How could my friends and their families have lived that way? It struck me how poor they had been, those Jews of Sighet so dear to me. That was true of all of us, though as a child I had been unaware of the poverty that prevailed in the Jewish neighborhoods. Fragments of memories resurfaced: a widow coming to the store on a Friday begging for more credit; an old man accosting me at the entrance to the synagogue on the morning of Tisha b’Av, a day of commemoration, saying, “You’re fasting today? Well, think of it. I fast every day.” I saw my father looking gaunt and anxious; and my mother, tenderness personified, her face lined by long days and evenings at the shop. There they were, late one winter night, huddled in a corner, whispering about a debt that had come due. From whom could they borrow? A wave of pity engulfed me. As for everything else, it was too late.
I set out to see the synagogues again. Most were closed. In one I found hundreds of holy books covered with dust. The authorities had taken them from abandoned homes and stored them here. In a frenzy, I began to look through them. I was rewarded when I discovered a few that had belonged to me. I even found some yellowed, withered sheets of paper in a book of Bible commentaries: a commentary on the commentaries I had written at the age of thirteen or fourteen. The handwriting was clumsy, the thoughts confused. I rushed out into the street, and in my madness I saw a scene of unkempt beggars—men with dazed expressions, ageless women with their hair hidden under black scarves, cripples leaning on crutches. They were all there, waiting for me, palms extended. Were they the last, the very last Jewish remnant of what had been the flourishing community of Sighet? Had they felt the presence of the writer whose every page welcomes them? Surely I was hallucinating. I gave them everything I had with me: cigarettes, candy, money. They murmured words I could not comprehend. Suddenly I felt in danger again. I began to run, like a fugitive.
THE HOLIDAY table is set. Is it Rosh Hashana? Probably, since my grandfather presides. I ask him to sing, but he seems not to hear. I ask my father to speak; absorbed in his thoughts, he refuses to listen. My little sister turns to me and says, “Go ahead, you sing.” I say: “Yes, I will sing for you.” But I realize with dread that I have forgotten all the songs I have ever learned. My little sister says: “Since you don’t want to sing, tell me a story.” I say: “Okay, I’ll tell you a story.” But I have forgotten the stories too. I want to shout: “Grandfather, help me, help me find my memory!” Did I shout? My grandfather looks at me, astonished: “But you’re not a child anymore. Look at yourself! You’re almost as old as I am.” I nearly choke. Me, old? I look for a mirror, but there isn’t one. That’s only natural: When a house is in mourning, the mirrors are covered with black cloth or taken down. But who died? I glance questioningly at my family. Their eyes seem filled with pity.
Several years later I returned to Sighet with an NBC television crew. Leibi, the Yiddish writer, was still there, not yet delivered