All Rivers Run to the Sea_ Memoirs - Elie Wiesel [33]
Back home the table was set: a white tablecloth, six candles, gleaming silver. My grandmother, in her holiday dress, was even more thoughtful than usual, as was little Tsipouka. My father made no effort to conceal his distress: “This is the first time in a long while that we’ve had no guest at our table.” Usually we found guests in the Houses of Study and Prayer, but they were now closed. My father, however, did not give up. “Wait for me,” he said, and disappeared. A good hour went by. We were just beginning to fear the worst when the door opened and my father came in with our guest: little Moishele, Moshe the beadle, his eyes gleaming strangely and full of pain. I had not seen him in weeks. Where had he been hiding? My father happily showed him to his place, on my right. Our guest didn’t say a word during the first part of the Seder service. Did he read the Haggadah, or follow the narration? My father took Tsipouka on his lap and announced: “This is the bread of our affliction.… Our ancestors ate it in the land of Egypt.” Why did our guests smile seem half-ironic, half-desperate? I asked the first of the four ritual questions. “Why is this night different from all other nights?” Here again, our guest seemed both amused and exasperated. My father replied: “… Because once we were slaves, under Pharaoh in Egypt …” I glanced at the man sitting next to me. No doubt about it, he was laughing, but it was a joyless laughter. Suddenly I thought: What if he was the Prophet Elijah disguised as a beadle? Wasn’t this the night Elijah was supposed to visit all Jewish homes, the night we remember and drink four cups of wine in honor of our deliverance? In the middle of the meal Moishele began talking in a soft, feverish voice. “Reb Shloime,” he said, “I thank you for inviting me. Everyone else forgot me. They’re afraid of me. You alone were not afraid. So I have a present for you. I would like to tell you what is in store for you. I owe you that.”
Around the table all eyes hung on his parched lips. My little sister, lovely and sweet, lovely and heartbreakingly grave, sitting quietly on my father’s lap, put her hand over her eyes as if to shield herself from a painful sight. My father stroked her hair, reassuring her. “Not now,” he said to Moshe the beadle. “Your stories are sad, and the law forbids sadness on the night of Passover.” “But this is important,” Moshe insisted, “very important. You don’t know what’s in store for you, but I do. Why won’t you listen to me, Reb Shloime? This concerns your future, the future of all of you.” “Not now, Reb Moishe,” my father repeated, “not now. Some other time.” We finished the meal in silence. We recited grace. As we were about to rise to open the door, glasses in hand, to greet the Prophet Elijah, our guest disappeared.
This was my last Passover, my last holiday, at home. Its sadness would weigh upon all those to come.
Let us linger for a moment with Moishele, or Moshe, as I call him in my books. Perhaps he plays such a central role in the world of my novels because he represents the first survivor. Sometimes he is confused—or I confuse him—with Moshe the drunkard or Moshe the madman. But Moshe the beadle is different, for he lived our destiny before any of us. Messenger of the dead, he shouted his testimony from the rooftops and delivered it in silence, but either way no one would listen. People turned their backs so as not to see his eyes, as though fearing to glimpse a truth that held his past and our future in its steely grip. People tried, in vain, to make him doubt his own reason and his own memory, to accept that he had survived for nothing—indeed, to regret having survived.
On the seventh day of Passover, which