to refuse.”
“Oh no, I promise nothing. I am too old. I make no more promises; I couldn’t keep them. Past a certain age, man should no longer speak in the future tense.”
“Too bad. You would have given me pleasure.”
“By doing what?”
“By marking my forehead with a scar.”
Make him dream, that’s what I must do, the old man ponders. If I succeed, he is saved. One doesn’t kill oneself while dreaming, not even while dreaming to kill oneself. To dream is to invite a future, if not to justify it, and to deny death, which denies dreams. Not so simple. Today’s young people are choked by the sterile world that is theirs. For them, there are no more distances, everything is made easy; they no longer need their imagination, and so it atrophies. The past is too far removed, the future not far enough. What need is there to imagine distant places when they are within your reach? And how is one to worship a heaven splattered with mud? What is the good of prolonging a civilization wallowing in ashes?
And a poor world it is, with little room for either the young or the old. The former are born old, the latter are forever dying; too slowly for some. All are to be pitied. This century is cursed.
And why do you want to die? What mistake are you seeking to atone, to denounce? Oh, I know—everything disgusts you. The gilded altars and the false priests, the sullied sanctuaries and the corrupted sovereigns. Yes, I know, there are a few too many innocent men massacred in a few too many lands. And then, the cheating, the lying. Words lie, men kill and go on lying and go on killing. You want
your
death to be a genuine act in a world where all is fake.
Oh yes, I understand, you are so young, so desperate. Born after the holocaust, you have inherited the burden but not the mystery. And you were told: Go ahead, do something with it. Only it is too enormous, too heavy, it eludes and transcends you. A treacherous situation, one cannot possibly disregard it,yet one cannot possibly continue without disregarding it. Dealing with it poses as many problems as turning away.
And yet, and yet. I must speak to you. Convince you that death, on all levels, is not a solution but a question, the most human question of all.
What if I told you about Kolvillàg? It contains a lesson that might benefit you, who are incapable of living simply, or simply of living. Kolvillàg: contagious hate, evil unleashed. The dire consequences of a commonplace, senseless episode. The importance of unimportant things. Breaking his chains, the Exterminating Angel has turned all men into victims. Moral: it is dangerous to use his services. Do you hear me? Despite the innumerable eyes that characterize him, he is blind; he will strike anywhere. In every family. Decimating every tribe. Filling every cemetery. And no one will know why he perishes or why he is spared. Kolvillàg: the culmination of fanaticism, of stupidity. The ultimate chastisement, affecting equally victims and executioners. Moral: whoever kills, kills himself; whoever preaches murder will be murdered. One may not accept any meaning imposed on death by the living. Just as every murder is a suicide, every suicide is a murder. Yes, the story must be told.
“I saw him again,” said my sick mother
.
She had just awakened, covered with sweat, frighteningly pale. As every morning, glassy-eyed, her voice slow and faltering. As at all her awakenings, she had once again parted with a ghost
.
“I can’t go on,” she said in a toneless voice. “I have reached the end. Next time I’ll go with him.”
We stood at her bedside, my father and I, and looked at one another in consternation. Lately the patient’s condition had worsened. These nightmares. These fits of remorse. Every night she plunged into the turmoil again
.
Her first husband. Their son. The war, the journey, the arrival at the camp. The selection. The refined and oh so cultured army doctor questioning the small boy: “How old
“Oh no, I promise nothing. I am too old. I make no more promises; I couldn’t keep them. Past a certain age, man should no longer speak in the future tense.”
“Too bad. You would have given me pleasure.”
“By doing what?”
“By marking my forehead with a scar.”
Make him dream, that’s what I must do, the old man ponders. If I succeed, he is saved. One doesn’t kill oneself while dreaming, not even while dreaming to kill oneself. To dream is to invite a future, if not to justify it, and to deny death, which denies dreams. Not so simple. Today’s young people are choked by the sterile world that is theirs. For them, there are no more distances, everything is made easy; they no longer need their imagination, and so it atrophies. The past is too far removed, the future not far enough. What need is there to imagine distant places when they are within your reach? And how is one to worship a heaven splattered with mud? What is the good of prolonging a civilization wallowing in ashes?
And a poor world it is, with little room for either the young or the old. The former are born old, the latter are forever dying; too slowly for some. All are to be pitied. This century is cursed.
And why do you want to die? What mistake are you seeking to atone, to denounce? Oh, I know—everything disgusts you. The gilded altars and the false priests, the sullied sanctuaries and the corrupted sovereigns. Yes, I know, there are a few too many innocent men massacred in a few too many lands. And then, the cheating, the lying. Words lie, men kill and go on lying and go on killing. You want
your
death to be a genuine act in a world where all is fake.
Oh yes, I understand, you are so young, so desperate. Born after the holocaust, you have inherited the burden but not the mystery. And you were told: Go ahead, do something with it. Only it is too enormous, too heavy, it eludes and transcends you. A treacherous situation, one cannot possibly disregard it,yet one cannot possibly continue without disregarding it. Dealing with it poses as many problems as turning away.
And yet, and yet. I must speak to you. Convince you that death, on all levels, is not a solution but a question, the most human question of all.
What if I told you about Kolvillàg? It contains a lesson that might benefit you, who are incapable of living simply, or simply of living. Kolvillàg: contagious hate, evil unleashed. The dire consequences of a commonplace, senseless episode. The importance of unimportant things. Breaking his chains, the Exterminating Angel has turned all men into victims. Moral: it is dangerous to use his services. Do you hear me? Despite the innumerable eyes that characterize him, he is blind; he will strike anywhere. In every family. Decimating every tribe. Filling every cemetery. And no one will know why he perishes or why he is spared. Kolvillàg: the culmination of fanaticism, of stupidity. The ultimate chastisement, affecting equally victims and executioners. Moral: whoever kills, kills himself; whoever preaches murder will be murdered. One may not accept any meaning imposed on death by the living. Just as every murder is a suicide, every suicide is a murder. Yes, the story must be told.
“I saw him again,” said my sick mother
.
She had just awakened, covered with sweat, frighteningly pale. As every morning, glassy-eyed, her voice slow and faltering. As at all her awakenings, she had once again parted with a ghost
.
“I can’t go on,” she said in a toneless voice. “I have reached the end. Next time I’ll go with him.”
We stood at her bedside, my father and I, and looked at one another in consternation. Lately the patient’s condition had worsened. These nightmares. These fits of remorse. Every night she plunged into the turmoil again
.
Her first husband. Their son. The war, the journey, the arrival at the camp. The selection. The refined and oh so cultured army doctor questioning the small boy: “How old
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