All Rivers Run to the Sea_ Memoirs - Elie Wiesel [77]
Right. Probably to deliver more insults. Last night wasn’t enough for her.
“Sorry, but I really don’t have time. I’m leaving for Brazil on assignment”—that sounded good—“and I have a million things to do.”
She sighed and said, “It won’t take long. Give me half an hour.”
The voice of the princess was subdued. I dug in my heels. “I can’t.”
She insisted. “Give me half an hour.”
“What for?”
“To talk to you.”
“About what?”
“About … Not on the phone.”
When I said nothing, she went on, “All right, since you insist. I want to ask you a question.”
“A question you can’t ask on the phone?”
No, she couldn’t. And it couldn’t wait. I finally conceded: “At twelve-thirty tonight in the café near the Radio France office. Okay?” I chose that café because I dropped in at Radio France every night to send my cable to Tel Aviv.
“I’ll be there,” she said, and hung up.
All of a sudden I didn’t feel like working. The wire services could supply more information than I could about the siege of Dien Bien Phu and the predictable reactions in France. Hanna’s behavior was far less predictable. What could she possibly want to ask me? To pass the time I drafted a cable, tore it up, redrafted it, and tore it up again. My heart wasn’t in it. I didn’t care about the news that night. It was all the same to me if the planet was in good shape or bad, if politicians howled or fell silent. Hanna’s question was the only thing on my mind, but I couldn’t very well send Tel Aviv a cable about that, and in the end my professional conscience kicked in. I managed to piece together an article no worse than usual. I looked at my watch. It was time. When I got to the café, I found Hanna sitting in the back. She was the only customer, apart from one man who seemed half asleep. A cup of coffee was cooling on the table in front of her. I ordered one too, and then attacked.
“So what’s your question? Do you have it in writing?”
She shook her head. “No need for that. I know it by heart.”
“So what is it?” I was still trying to hurt her and succeeding so well it shamed me.
“Well,” she said, looking deep into my eyes, “it’s this: Will you marry me?”
I would have been less surprised had the ceiling collapsed, had I been named commander in chief of the Red Army, or had I won the Prix Goncourt for a book I hadn’t yet dreamed of writing.
The best I could come up with was, “But, but, you don’t love me.… In fact, you despise me. You’ve hated me since the day we met.”
She smiled sadly. “That’s what you thought?”
“Of course that’s what I thought. The whole choir thought so.”
A flash of tenderness brightened her face. “I can’t believe how stupid you can be,” she said.
The conversation went on for more than two hours. We left only when the waiter politely showed us the door. “Taxi?” Hanna preferred to walk. I walked her home, and …
But no. Let’s leave the rest for later.
Back at Our Place life went on: Shabbat meals and chance meetings, departures and arrivals, helios and goodbyes. As in Écouis and Ambloy, we talked about everything except the past. But it was the future that dominated our endless conversations: Learn a trade or go to school? Stay or go? The director did his best to help. His wise and silent wife did what she could, but we saw her only on Shabbat. Nicolas was studying for his baccalauréat. A great future in literature was predicted for him. Shimon they said had a great future too, but in science. Méno was interested in agronomy, Félix in biology. Israel Adler was already fascinated by Johann Sebastian Bach but not yet by Salomone Rossi. I was still undecided. Should I try to enroll in the Conservatory or the Liberal Arts college? I heard the call of the Holy Land, but felt I wasn’t ready yet. I was eighteen and living from day to day, unsure of what to do with my life and where to live it. I worked with François and with Shushani and read everything I could get my hands on. It’s funny, but before discovering Malraux, Camus, and Mauriac, I read The Critique of Pure Reason—don’t laugh!—in Yiddish. I read Das Kapital too, and Hegel and Spinoza. Philosophy