All Rivers Run to the Sea_ Memoirs - Elie Wiesel [72]
Why was he so determined not to be known? From whom was he hiding, and why? Were his travels motivated by a taste for wandering or the need to flee? Perhaps he wanted to be able constantly to begin anew, with new disciples. Why did he write these indecipherable manuscripts, some of which are in my possession? For whom were they intended? Was it to forge his own myth, as a genius of memory? What I know is that I would not be the man I am, the Jew I am, had not an astonishing, disconcerting vagabond accosted me one day to inform me that I understood nothing.
We didn’t stay long in Taverny. No one asked our opinion when we were transferred to Versailles. The new home, known as Our Place, was directed by Félix Goldschmidt, a former mining engineer and a cultivated man of great personal authority. His silent and contemplative wife suffered from a skin disease. They had three daughters, Batya, Eve, and Tilly, and a son, Jules. I got along well with the director. There was never an incident, never a misunderstanding.
This home was different from the others, for it included not only Buchenwald “children” but also other orphans, girls and boys, for the most part religiously observant, who had survived occupation either under false identities or by hiding with Christian families. We observed Shabbat and the holidays, sang the Birkat hamazon after meals in the Ashkenazic manner, and went to morning and evening services. But in the garden and cafeteria there was some rather innocent flirting—strolls, smiles, the sharing of secrets—which the counselors, probably for reasons both pedagogic and therapeutic, made no effort to discourage. Clearly we all needed affection, tenderness, and—why not?—love.
I went to Paris as often as possible. Hilda and her husband were living in a small apartment on the Rue Dussoubs, in difficult conditions. Freddo was a portraitist; his art brightened life but put little food on the table. I listened to his plans, and Hilda and I talked about Bea, who was still in a D.P. camp. I though about her a lot in Versailles, and wrote to her every week.
One morning there appeared in the dining hall a smiling young American Jew named Ted Comet who had just arrived from New York. He spoke a little French. He had come to serve a one-year internship in the children’s homes. He came up to me and said, “Incidentally, I’m looking for someone, a relative of a classmate of mine at Yeshiva University. His name … his name …” He looked in his notebook and said my name. I would meet his friend and my relative, Irving Wiesel, many years later in Manhattan. And Ted Comet—now a high official with the American Joint Distribution Committee—and I still see each other to this day.
Every day for several weeks I took the train to the Lycée Maimonides. Sometimes I stayed Monday to Friday. And there I met two pupils who later became French television personalities: Marcel Mitrani and Josy Eisenberg. The German teacher assigned me a homework essay about my experiences. I wrote a paper explaining that I couldn’t describe them. This earned me some sort of prize, exactly what I don’t remember (probably an American chocolate bar). Mathematics lessons, on the other hand, left me cold. In secular schooling I was really only interested in French, and in this François Wahl continued to encourage me.
Marcus Cohen, the director of the Maimonides School, was an unusual character, austere as an ascetic, bearded like a prophet. Unbelievably reticent and slow-talking, he kept his eyes averted and his hands folded in front of him when he spoke to his pupils.
Sometimes he would invite me to his office to chat, but when we parted I always had the feeling that what was essential had not