All Rivers Run to the Sea_ Memoirs - Elie Wiesel [66]
Niny, Judith, and Mireille came with us, probably to reassure us, but they told us it was time to start thinking about the future. The “children” had choices to make. They could leave for Palestine (illegally if necessary), emigrate to America (or to Canada, Colombia, or Australia, if they had family there), or remain in France. But if they stayed, they would do well to learn a trade or to take some special courses before enrolling in the Lycée Maimonides in Boulogne. Many opted for Palestine. Others managed to come up with an uncle in Baltimore, a cousin in Melbourne, or an aunt in Johannesburg. Kalman and I decided to stay in France—for the moment. “Fine,” they said, “but in that case you must learn French,” which was fair enough. I liked the language, found it musical. But the agreement of tenses was still a source of immense irritation.
Fortunately, in 1947 the OSE arranged for a young teacher, François Wahl, to give me private lessons. Tall and slender, with delicate features, slightly distracted, his head always tilted, François was to play a significant role in my life. He was an excellent teacher, as intuitive as he was erudite, endowed with a vivid imagination. He initiated me into the field most beloved of French teachers: the explication of texts. It was thanks to him that I learned to savor the suggestive power of Racine’s poetry and the subtleties of Pascal’s thought. He took me to the Comédie-Française and to concerts and guided me through the Latin Quarter. It is to him I owe my passion for classical literature and French culture.
But not everything went smoothly at first. I could have happily forgone the endless, point-by-point analysis of Phaedra’s mood swings. Likewise for the Cid and Monsieur Jourdain, and as for Racine’s Esther, however much I respected her, I preferred the original. But François refused to give up. For him the beauty of a text was timeless; to turn one’s back on it was to renounce a great source of knowledge. “You sound like a Hasid,” I told him. He asked what that was, and I explained it to him. From then on we also talked of things Jewish.
At the time I didn’t know that François’s father had been deported to Auschwitz and never returned. “I didn’t know anything about you,” François explained years later. “I didn’t speak of it because you never talked about the camps.” Though only two years my senior, he seemed much older. I cannot define the nature of the bond between us, except to say that it was deep and true.
Our lessons were held at his mother’s apartment, which he shared. She was a physician. I can see her now: distinguished and gracious, with a sober beauty. One day, completely out of the blue, François asked her, “Why do you think I am so taken by Jewish subjects?” Her answer, which reflected her own passionate commitment to Jewish causes, surely affected his future. In 1947, as the underground war raged in Palestine, François performed important secret tasks for a Jewish resistance group. The following year our paths diverged. Later, much later, they would cross again.
It was in 1947 that Shushani, the mysterious Talmudic scholar, reappeared in my life. For two or three years he taught me unforgettable lessons about the limits of language and reason, about the behavior of sages and madmen, about the obscure paths of thought as it wends its way across centuries and cultures. But I learned nothing of the secret in which he enveloped himself.
I remember our decisive encounter. It took place on a Friday, on the train taking me back to Taverny from François’s. Still somewhat preoccupied by the conflict between Racine and Corneille, I plunged into the Book of Job, only because I was scheduled to give a talk the next day, after the service and before the Sabbath meal, on the problems it raised.
That was our custom. Each week someone gave a presentation on a subject of his choice, preferably biblical. My very first address was entitled “The Ghetto: Salutary or Destructive Experience for the Jewish People?” Kalman and I worked