doors and set the building on fire. Another instance of this kind of German “entertainment” is the story of the death of old Aron Mazor, whose profession was ritual butcher. The German officer who looted Mazor’s apartment ordered the soldiers to remove everything he had put aside. The officer stayed behind with two soldiers to “entertain” himself: he had found a big butcher’s knife and realized what Mazor’s profession was. “I want to watch you work,” he said and told the soldiers to go fetch the neighbor’s three little children.’”
And my grandfather added, “Poor Vassili Grossman, he is great and moving.” His narrative stops at this point. He doesn’t tell us what happened. Did Mazor obey the order to kill the children? Did he sacrifice himself rather than hurt them? But I’ll tell you: Mazor isn’t guilty. The Germans are. And I curse them. I will curse them to my dying day. I’ll curse them as I weep and as I hold back my tears. I’ll curse them by day and curse them by night. I’ll curse them in thename of the dead and in the name of the living. I’ll curse them for Mazor and for Vassili Grossman.
He put his fists on his eyelids. So I wouldn’t see his tears.
Then, after a long silence, he added, “I hope this kind of narrative breaks the Messiah’s heart and makes the heavens weep.”
As for my father, I rarely saw him weep. Usually when my brother and I lingered at the table after a meal, or in his study, he liked to listen to us with an impassive air. He’s a good listener. He says that’s the way he is: he expresses himself by listening. The first thing he always taught his students was the art of keeping their ears open. He would look at me, his head tilted and frowning, and I knew not a single word I said escaped him, even if I was telling him about my day at school or the latest baseball game. Sometimes he took advantage of a pause to ask for an explanation, usually with just one word, such as “Why?” or “When?”
My brother Itzhak loves him, too, of course. But in his own way: he loves him and at the same time he’s afraid of him, or afraid because of him. He admitted this to me one day. We were adolescents and on our way home from the hospital where our father had undergone elective surgery. “When I see him, my chest becomes heavy with anxiety. And I don’t know why,” he said. In my case, it’s different: when I think of him, I get a lump in my throat. I’m in pain for him.
Since I started working at the newspaper, he had gotten into the habit of reading it more attentively and withgreater curiosity than the other dailies. He shares with me his thoughts on given columns. He doesn’t particularly like the articles that proclaim their commitment in the name of truth: “The truth of the journalist,” he often says, “is not the same as the philosopher’s. The former looks for facts, the latter is interested in what transcends facts.” When he talks to me about my articles, there’s a faint smile in the corner of his mouth. “You don’t have this problem. You’re concerned with artistic truth. That’s
one
truth but not
the
truth.”
One day I devoted an article to a play set in an Eastern European ghetto. I was harsh on its author, who had included too many erotic elements in the play for my taste. When I walked into my father’s study, he was reading my review. I wondered, Should I ask him what he thinks? The sad look on his face was enough for me. But I still don’t know if it was the play or my article that had made him unhappy. Retired, he spent all his time looking for ancient documents related to the Apocrypha, the book of Jubilees, so dear to his father. Nothing gave him greater childlike joy than others showing an interest in it. He was convinced that countless parchments of this kind, perhaps even the “Maccabees,” lay buried somewhere in the mountain caves near Jerusalem. Who would be so fortunate as to find them? One day I saw him in
And my grandfather added, “Poor Vassili Grossman, he is great and moving.” His narrative stops at this point. He doesn’t tell us what happened. Did Mazor obey the order to kill the children? Did he sacrifice himself rather than hurt them? But I’ll tell you: Mazor isn’t guilty. The Germans are. And I curse them. I will curse them to my dying day. I’ll curse them as I weep and as I hold back my tears. I’ll curse them by day and curse them by night. I’ll curse them in thename of the dead and in the name of the living. I’ll curse them for Mazor and for Vassili Grossman.
He put his fists on his eyelids. So I wouldn’t see his tears.
Then, after a long silence, he added, “I hope this kind of narrative breaks the Messiah’s heart and makes the heavens weep.”
As for my father, I rarely saw him weep. Usually when my brother and I lingered at the table after a meal, or in his study, he liked to listen to us with an impassive air. He’s a good listener. He says that’s the way he is: he expresses himself by listening. The first thing he always taught his students was the art of keeping their ears open. He would look at me, his head tilted and frowning, and I knew not a single word I said escaped him, even if I was telling him about my day at school or the latest baseball game. Sometimes he took advantage of a pause to ask for an explanation, usually with just one word, such as “Why?” or “When?”
My brother Itzhak loves him, too, of course. But in his own way: he loves him and at the same time he’s afraid of him, or afraid because of him. He admitted this to me one day. We were adolescents and on our way home from the hospital where our father had undergone elective surgery. “When I see him, my chest becomes heavy with anxiety. And I don’t know why,” he said. In my case, it’s different: when I think of him, I get a lump in my throat. I’m in pain for him.
Since I started working at the newspaper, he had gotten into the habit of reading it more attentively and withgreater curiosity than the other dailies. He shares with me his thoughts on given columns. He doesn’t particularly like the articles that proclaim their commitment in the name of truth: “The truth of the journalist,” he often says, “is not the same as the philosopher’s. The former looks for facts, the latter is interested in what transcends facts.” When he talks to me about my articles, there’s a faint smile in the corner of his mouth. “You don’t have this problem. You’re concerned with artistic truth. That’s
one
truth but not
the
truth.”
One day I devoted an article to a play set in an Eastern European ghetto. I was harsh on its author, who had included too many erotic elements in the play for my taste. When I walked into my father’s study, he was reading my review. I wondered, Should I ask him what he thinks? The sad look on his face was enough for me. But I still don’t know if it was the play or my article that had made him unhappy. Retired, he spent all his time looking for ancient documents related to the Apocrypha, the book of Jubilees, so dear to his father. Nothing gave him greater childlike joy than others showing an interest in it. He was convinced that countless parchments of this kind, perhaps even the “Maccabees,” lay buried somewhere in the mountain caves near Jerusalem. Who would be so fortunate as to find them? One day I saw him in
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