The Torch in my Ear, page 9
The Final Danube Voyage. The Message
In July 1924, after my first semester at the University of Vienna, I went to Bulgaria for the summer. My father’s sisters had asked me to stay with them in Sofia. I didn’t plan to visit Ruschuk, where I had spent my earliest childhood. There was no one left there to invite me; in the course of time, all members of my family had moved to Sofia, which, being the capital, had gained in importance, gradually developing into a big city. This vacation was meant not for a return to my native town, but for visiting as many family members as possible. However, the highlight was to be the trip itself, the voyage on the Danube.
Buco, my father’s eldest brother, was living in Vienna. He had to go to Bulgaria on business, so we traveled together. This voyage was very different from the ones I recalled from my childhood, when we had spent a good deal of our time in the cabins, and Mother had deloused us with a hard comb every day; the ships were filthy, and you always caught lice on them. This time, there were no lice. I shared a cabin with my uncle, a jokester; he was the same uncle who used to mock me with his solemn blessing when I was an infant. We spent most of our time on deck. He needed people to tell his stories to. He began with a few friends he met, but soon he had gathered a whole circle; and, without batting an eyelash, merely winking now and then, he spouted his jokes. He had a huge repertoire, but I had heard it so often that it was exhausted for me. He couldn’t take a serious conversation for long. In the cabin, however, he felt put upon to give me, his nephew, who had just begun university, some advice on living. His advice bored me even more than his jokes; it was as annoying as his continual attempts at arousing laughter and applause were familiar to me.
He had no notion of what was really going on inside me; his advice could have been given to any nephew. I was fed up with the usefulness of chemistry. I had no older relative who wasn’t delighted at my choice of study: they all hoped I would open up a territory that was closed to them. None of them had gotten any further than business college, and they now gradually realized that, aside from the operations of buying and selling, in which they were abundantly experienced, they urgently required special scientific and technical knowledge, of which none of them had even a smattering. I was to become the family expert on chemistry, and my knowledge would expand the area of their business enterprises. In the cabin, my uncle always talked about this expectation whenever we went to bed; it was like an evening prayer, albeit a rather brief one. The blessing with which he made a fool of me in my childhood, always disappointing me all over again; the blessing, which I took so seriously that I placed myself expectantly under his opened hand each time, simply yearning for the beautiful words that began: “Io ti bendigo”; the blessing, which I had stopped wanting long ago, which had turned into my grandfather’s curse and my father’s sudden death—that blessing was now meant seriously: I was supposed to bring good fortune to the family and increase their prosperity with new, modern, “European” knowledge. My uncle soon broke off, however, because he had two or three jokes to tell before finally going to sleep. In the morning, he was anxious to get out early to his fans on deck.
The ship was full: countless people sat or lay on deck; it was fun winding along from group to group, listening to them. There were Bulgarian students going home for the holidays; there were people who were already professionally active; a group of physicians who had freshened up their knowledge in “Europe.” One physician had a gigantic black beard; he looked familiar. No wonder: he had brought me into the world. It was Dr. Menachemoff from Ruschuk, our family doctor, whose name always cropped up among us, whom everyone liked, and whom I hadn’t seen since before my sixth birthday. I took him no more seriously than anything or anyone in that supposedly “barbaric” Balkan period. And now—we quickly got into a conversation—I was astonished to see how much he knew, how much he was interested in. He had kept up with the progress of science, and not just in his own field. He answered critically, went into everything, didn’t automatically reject what I said merely because I was nineteen. The word money never once popped up in our conversations.
He said he had thought of me occasionally and had always been sure that, after my father’s sudden death, which no one could properly explain, I could only study medicine, for that death was an enigma that would have to haunt me till the end of my life. Although unsolvable, he said, it was an enormous incentive, a special kind of source; and if I went into medicine, he said, it would be impossible for me not to discover new and important things. He had attended me after my dreadful scalding [see The Tongue Set Free], when my father had saved my life by returning from England. I thus owed him my life doubly, said the doctor. I had been unable to save his life a year and a half later, in Manchester, and I now owed him this debt, too, and was obligated to pay it by saving other lives. The doctor said this simply, without rhetoric or bombast; yet from his lips, the word life sounded like not only something precious but something rare; which was peculiar, considering the countless people crowded on deck.
I was ashamed of myself, especially of my hypocrisy in justifying to myself my absurd study of chemistry. But I didn’t say anything to him: it would have been too ignoble. I told him I wanted to know everything that was to be known. He interrupted me and pointed at the stars—it was already night—and he asked: “Do you know the names of the stars?” We now took turns showing one another the individual constellations. I showed him Lyra with Vega, for he had asked me first; then, he showed me Cygnus with Deneb, for he had to demonstrate that he knew about the stars, too, when he asked me. Thus we showed one another the entire nocturnal sky, neither of us knowing what the other would hit on next. Soon, omitting no constellation, we exhausted the nightly heavens. I had never sung such a duet with anyone. He said: “Do you know how many people have died in the meantime?” He meant the short time in which we had been naming the stars. I said nothing; he offered no figure. “You don’t know them. It doesn’t matter to you. A doctor knows them. It does matter to him.”
When I had bumped into him, at twilight, he had been sitting in a group of people who were conversing animatedly, while, not far from them, a group of students were ardently bellowing Bulgarian songs. My uncle had told me in Vienna that Dr. Menachemoff would be on the boat; he’d be delighted to see me again after such a long time—thirteen years. I had given him no further thought, and now I was suddenly standing in front of the black beard. How deeply I had hated a black beard just like this one during the intervening years! Perhaps it was a remnant of that old emotion that had drawn me near this beard. I knew it was him: this was a physician’s beard. I stared at him with mixed feelings. He broke off in midsentence (he was involved in a conversation) and said: “It’s you, I knew it was you. But I didn’t recognize you. How could I have? You weren’t even six the last time I saw you.”
He lived in the old days much more than I did. I had left Ruschuk behind with some arrogance; those had been the days before I knew how to read. I expected nothing of the people who lived there and suddenly crossed my path in “Europe.” He, however, who had been there since I’d left, had kept an eye on his patients, and he expected special things of those who had left Ruschuk as little children. He knew that my grandfather had cursed my father when we moved to England; it had been the talk of the town; but it went against the doctor’s scientific pride to believe in the effect of the curse. My father’s death so soon afterwards was a mystery to him, and since it hadn’t been solved in time, he considered it natural that I would devote my life to solving such or similar enigmas.
“Can you remember your pains when you were ill?” he said. His thoughts had all returned to my scalding. “Your entire skin was gone. Only your head hadn’t submerged in the water. It was Danube water. Perhaps you don’t know that. And now we’re peacefully sailing on the same Danube.”
“But it’s not the same,” I said. “It’s always a different one. I don’t remember the pains, but I do remember my father coming back.”
“It was a miracle,” said Dr. Menachemoff. “His return saved your life. That’s how one becomes a great physician. If this happens to a man in his infancy, he becomes a doctor. It’s impossible for him to become anything else. That’s why your mother moved to Vienna with you little children right after your father’s death. She knew you’d find all the great teachers there that you need. Where would we be without the Vienna Medical School! Your mother was always an intelligent woman. I hear she’s rather sickly. You’ll take care of her. She’ll have the best doctor in her own family, her very own son. Make sure you finish soon. Specialize, but not too narrowly.”
And now he gave me detailed advice on my studies. He ignored all my—timid—objections when it came to this matter. We spoke about a lot of things. He would answer anything else, and he always thought a long time before speaking. He was flexible and wise, interested and concerned; and only gradually did I realize that there was something he hadn’t grasped and would never grasp. He couldn’t believe that I wouldn’t be a physician; after one semester, many things were still open. I was so ashamed that I gave up trying to tell him the truth of the matter, and I avoided this embarrassing point. Perhaps, I began to waver. When he inquired about my brothers, I, as usual, spoke only about the youngest, as proudly as if I had fathered him myself, crowing about his talent. The doctor wanted to know what he was going to study, and I felt relieved that I could say “medicine,” for this was settled. “Two brothers—two doctors!” he said and laughed. “Why not the third one, too?” But this was only a joke, and I didn’t have to explain why the middle brother wasn’t suited for medicine.
In any case, Dr. Menachemoff was clear about my vocation. We bumped into each other on deck a few more times. He introduced me to some of his colleagues, explaining simply: “A future luminary of the Vienna Medical School.” It didn’t sound boastful; it sounded like something natural. It became harder and harder for me to tell him the cruel and unmistakable truth. Since he talked so much about my father, since he had been present when my father returned and saved my life, I couldn’t bring myself to disappoint him.
It was a wonderful voyage. I saw countless people and talked to many of them. A group of German geologists, inspecting the formations at the Iron Gates, discussed them, using expressions I didn’t understand. An American historian was trying to explain Trajan’s campaigns to his family. (He was en route to Byzantium, the real object of his research.) But only his wife would listen to him; his two daughters, beautiful girls, preferred talking to students. Speaking English, we grew a little friendly; they complained about their father, who always lived in the past; they were still young, they said, they were alive now. They said this with such conviction that you believed them. Peasants brought baskets of fruits and vegetables on board. A longshoreman carried a whole piano on his back; he ran up the plank and put it down. He was small and bull-necked and bursting with muscles; but even today, I still don’t understand how he managed to carry his load all by himself.
At Lom Palanka, Buco and I disembarked. We were supposed to spend the night here and take the morning train for Sofia via the Balkans. Dr. Menachemoff, who was returning to Ruschuk, stayed on the steamer. When I took leave with a very uncertain conscience, he said: “Don’t forget what I expect of you.” Then he added: “And don’t let anyone talk you out of it, do you hear? Anyone!” These were his strongest words so far; they sounded like a commandment. And I breathed a sigh of relief.
Throughout our bedbug night in Lom, I didn’t sleep a wink. I kept thinking about the meaning of his last words. He must have understood after all that I had defected. He had dissembled. I had been ashamed of my deception, for I had given up the idea of explaining the truth to him plainly and irrefutably. But he had dissembled as well. He acted as if he didn’t realize what had happened. That same night, I went over to Buco, who couldn’t sleep in his bedbug room either, and I asked him: “What did you say to Dr. Menachemoff? Did you tell him what I was studying?”
“Yes. Chemistry. What should I have told him?”
So the doctor had really known and had been trying to bring me back to the straight and narrow path. He was the only one who did what my father would have done: give me the freedom of making my own choice. He had witnessed what had developed between my father and me, and he had preserved it, he alone. He had come to the boat carrying me back to that country, and he had transmitted the message to which, in the eyes of the world, he had no right. He had done so cunningly, by ignoring what had happened. He had cared only about the purity of the message, its unadulterated wording. He had paid no heed to my state of mind when the message reached me.
The Orator
During my first three weeks in Sofia, I lived with Rachel, my father’s youngest sister. She was the nicest of all his brothers and sisters, a beautiful, upright woman, tall and stately, warmhearted and cheerful. She had two faces. You could see them, whether she was laughing, or was convinced of something that she supported with spirit and warmth; and it was always something unegotistical, a faith, a conviction. She had an elderly, thoughtful husband, who was respected for his sense of justice; they had three sons, the youngest eight years old and, like me, named after our grandfather. Their home was a lively place, full of noise and mirth; people yelled to each other through all the rooms; no one could hide; anyone seeking peace and quiet ran outdoors, finding tranquility there rather than at home. However, the center of gravity in the home, the husband and father, remained an enigma. He almost never spoke; all you could get out of him was an ineluctable verdict. What then came was a “Yes” or “No,” a very brief sentence, and so calm that it was painstaking to listen. When he was about to speak, the place grew still, though no one ordered the family to keep quiet. For one moment, which was so short that it seemed eerie, the place was really silent; and then, soft and barely audible, in few and slightly gray words, came the verdict, the decision. Right after that, all hell broke loose again. It was hard to say which was noisier: the racket made by the boys or the loud demands, admonitions, questions from the mother.
Such a hustle and bustle was new to me. Everything about these boys focused on physical activity; they had no interest in books; but they were mad about sports. They were strong, active boys, who could never keep still; they were always trading belligerent punches. Their father, who was altogether different, seemed to want to encourage this excessively physical life. I kept expecting a “Ya basta!” (That’s enough) from him; I looked over at him in the midst of the worst tumult. He did notice it, he missed nothing, and he knew what I expected; but he held his tongue. The hubbub continued, stopping briefly only when all three boys went out at the same time.
This encouragement of sheer vital energy was based on conviction and method. The family was about to emigrate. They were planning to leave the city and the country during the next few weeks, with several other families. Palestine, they said, was their promised destination; they were among the first; they were regarded as pioneers, and were keenly aware of this. The entire Sephardic community in Sofia, or rather not only in Sofia, but throughout Bulgaria, had converted to Zionism. They weren’t badly off in Bulgaria: there were no persecutions of Jews, no ghettoes, nor was there any oppressive poverty. But there were orators, whose sparks had ignited, and they kept preaching the return to the promised land. The effect of these speeches was remarkable in more ways than one. They were aimed at the separatistic arrogance of the Sephardim: they preached that all Jews were equal, that any separatism was despicable, and by no means could the Sephardim be credited with special achievements for mankind during the most recent period in history. On the contrary, the Sephardim were trapped in a spiritual torpor; it was time they awoke and discarded their useless crotchet, their arrogance.
One of the fieriest speakers, a man who was supposedly working true miracles, was a cousin of mine, Bernhard Arditti. He was the eldest son of that legalistically possessed Josef Arditti in Ruschuk (who accused everyone in the family of being thieves and reveled in litigation) and beautiful Bellina (who had stepped out of a Titian painting and spent day and night thinking about presents to gladden everyone’s heart). Bernhard had become a lawyer, but his practice meant nothing to him; his father’s pettifogging might have destroyed his interest. He had converted to Zionism while very young, discovering his oratorical powers, which he put in the service of the cause. When I came to Sofia, everyone was talking about him. Thousands gathered to hear him; the largest synagogue could barely hold his listeners. People congratulated me on having such a cousin and pitied me because I wouldn’t be hearing him myself: in the few weeks of my visit, no lecture was scheduled. Everybody was moved by him, everybody was won over. I met very many people, there was no exception; it was as if an enormous tidal wave had grabbed them and carried them out to sea, making them part of the ocean. I never found a single opponent to his cause.
