Authors: Chaim Potok
I cleaned up the kitchen and turned off the light. The apartment was dim and still, deep shadows hovering in the hallway and in the corners near the door. I wandered into my parents’ bedroom and stood near my father’s desk. Suddenly I had a sharp image of him sitting there working at his special writing, brown wavy hair, pale blue eyes, ruddy complexion, a genial man working for a better world for everyone. Why did he run around so much? Why did my parents
care
so much? No one else’s parents seemed to care much about the world. Mr. and Mrs. Helfman
didn’t seem to care about the world; nor did the students in my public school class and their parents. Mr. Dinn cared a little about the world; he helped people who were in trouble over immigration laws. But most people had jobs and came home at night and played with their children. How could a single event like what happened in Centralia change a person so much? And what had changed my mother from an observant Jew to a Communist? I could not imagine events that would so change an individual.
The image of my father faded and was gone.
I went to my room, undressed, and got into bed. I fell asleep reading the book about Rabbi Akiva and his students and the plague and the revolt against Rome.
Through my sleep I heard someone enter my room and come quietly over to my bed. I didn’t know who it was and found I could not wake. I sensed the warmth of someone standing next to me and heard soft slow breathing. Then I felt a warm, moist kiss on my cheek, felt the dark sadness of the silent presence that was leaning over me, felt it clearly through my sleep but was still unable to wake. Then strange and musical words were said but I could not understand what they meant. Then whoever it was drew away from me and stood silent for a long moment and turned and went softly from my room.
Later my mother entered my room. She kissed my forehead, her lips cool and dry, and turned off my light and went out. I woke suddenly into the darkness and heard my room filled with whispers. I listened to distant talk and through the haze of dread and half-sleep thought I recognized the voice of Mr. Dinn. The harp sounded softly. I dropped back into sleep.
During breakfast the next morning I told my mother of my dream.
“I also dreamt of your father last night,” she said. “It isn’t unusual for that to happen.”
She looked down into her coffee cup as she spoke. She seemed not to have slept. She had on her pink housecoat. Her eyes were red and puffy, her long hair uncombed.
“Was Mr. Dinn here?”
“Yes. He came to tell me about Jakob Daw’s visa.” “When will Uncle Jakob come?”
“I don’t know. But when he does come he’ll have trouble remaining.”
“Why?”
“There are people in Washington who don’t like his politics.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It means there are powerful people in the government who won’t let him remain in America more than a few months because they think he’s a threat to the country.”
“Where will he go?”
“I have no idea, Ilana.” She paused and stared down into her coffee cup. “I’m so tired,” she said, quietly but clearly. “Why don’t they leave us alone?”
“Do we know where Papa is?”
“I called the newspaper. As far as they know your father is still in Bilbao. I think you should get yourself ready for school. I don’t want you to be late. Go ahead, darling. I’ll clean up the dishes. It will give me something to do.”
On my way to school that morning I went by the candy store and saw the headlines. With some of the money my mother gave me for candy I bought a copy of
The New York Times.
Crossing a street against the light, I was almost hit by a car. Sitting in the classroom and listening to the droning voice of the teacher, I kept looking down at the newspaper on my lap. During recess, I went off to a corner of the yard and stood alone, reading. A boy ran past, chasing a ball, saw me reading, and snickered. I glanced up for a moment and noticed my teacher, a graying middle-aged woman, standing with another teacher a few yards away near the schoolyard fence. They were both watching me. The yard was filled with the high happy sounds of playing children. I envied them and wished I could be like them. Playing in
the warm dusty late morning sunlight unaware of the dark world beyond the school and the neighborhood and the city and the country and the ocean. Unaware of Franco and Hitler and Mussolini. Unaware of Spain and Madrid and Bilbao. Unaware of the destruction by airplanes of the little town of Guernica a few miles from Bilbao where my father and Jakob Daw now were. Unaware of the headline that read
HISTORIC BASQUE TOWN WIPED OUT; REBEL FLIERS MACHINE-GUN CIVILIANS.
Unaware of the story beneath the headline: “
BILBAO
, Spain, April 27.—Fire was completing today the destruction of Guernica, ancient town of the Basques and center of their cultural tradition, which was begun last evening by a terrible onslaught of General Francisco Franco’s Insurgent air raiders. The bombardment of this open city far behind the lines occupied precisely three and one-quarter hours…. At 2
A.M.
today, when the writer visited the town, the whole of it was a horrible sight, flaming from end to end. The reflection of the flames could be seen in the clouds of smoke above the mountains ten miles away. Throughout the night houses were falling, until the streets were long heaps of red, impenetrable ruins.” I looked beneath the lower headline and saw the writer was someone called G. L. Steer. I wondered if my father had written about the bombing. My mother always brought home the paper for which he wrote; the candy store in our neighborhood did not carry it. I opened the newspaper and looked inside for the continuation of the story. The pages flapped in the cool April wind. The writer described the survivors who had fled from Guernica to Bilbao “in antique, solid-wheeled Basque farm carts drawn by oxen. The carts, piled high with such household possessions as could be saved from the conflagration, clogged the roads all night long.” I didn’t know what the word conflagration meant but thought it might have to do with destruction and fire. “Other survivors were evacuated in government trucks, but many were forced to remain round the burning town, lying on mattresses or searching for lost children or other relatives.”
A whistle signaled the end of the recess. I skipped down to the
next paragraph. “The object of the bombardment seemingly was the demoralization of the civil population and destruction of the cradle of the Basque race. This appreciation is borne out by the facts, beginning with the day when the deed was done. Yesterday was the customary Monday market day in Guernica for the surrounding countryside. At 4:30
P.M.
when the market was full and peasants were still coming in, church bells rang an alarm for approaching airplanes….”
I looked up. The yard was empty. I ran to my class and was late. I slid into my seat beneath the withering look of my teacher and amidst the grins and whispers of my classmates. Yes, how nice to be aware only of games and gossip, of dresses and parties, and not of airplanes, bombs, and Bilbao, and my father and Jakob Daw somewhere near the fires of Guernica.
The apartment was empty when I returned home. I sat in the kitchen and went on reading the newspaper. “The whole town of 7,000 inhabitants plus 3,000 refugees was slowly and systematically pounded to pieces. For a radius of five miles around, the raiders bombed separate easerios, or farmhouses. In the night these burned like little candles in the hills. It is impossible to state the total number of victims….”
I heard my mother come in the door. She had a copy of the newspaper for which my father wrote and there was a story in it by my father about the fighting around Bilbao. The story had been written the day of the bombing of Guernica. The paper also carried a story about Guernica that had not been written by my father.
“Mama, did you call the newspaper again?”
She had called the newspaper. No one there knew exactly where my father was. They assumed he was in Bilbao and were expecting additional stories by him from there.
Late that night I woke and heard my mother singing in the living room in a low haunting voice that chilled me. What strange music came from her, what soft yet piercing tones, a subdued rise and fall of minor-key melodies and wordless songs that held me
frozen to my bed. Then she stopped and began to talk in a language that sounded like Yiddish. And suddenly an image of Jakob Daw’s little black bird flew across my mind. I saw it clearly, flying and circling, searching for the source of the music of the world. And I asked myself: What would the bird do if he ever discovered that source? Would he swoop down and bomb it?
The next day after school I walked quickly beneath the spring trees along Eastern Parkway on my way home. The air was golden with sunlight, but I felt chilled. Passing the yeshiva, I saw a crowd of children in the open area in front of the building. I stopped for a moment. It seemed a festive crowd. The double door of the building was wide open and children kept streaming in and out, some carrying pieces of cake. I started to walk on, then stopped again. David Dinn had just emerged from the building with some of his friends, all with cake in their hands. I stood on the sidewalk near the curb, watching them talking and eating. Then I saw David look past his friends and notice me. He said something to his friends and came quickly toward me.
“Have you heard anything about your father?”
“No.”
“That was a terrible bombing.” “Did you see the newspapers?” “My father told me about it.” “Is today a holiday?”
“It’s Lag Ba’omer. The day the plague stopped. Do you know the story about Rabbi Akiva and his students and the plague?” “Yes. The revolt against Rome. Is it very cold?” “It’s not cold.”
“I should have worn my heavy sweater.” He gave me a look of concern. “Do you want me to walk you home?”
“Two nights ago I dreamed my father came into my room and kissed me. Do you ever have dreams like that about your mother?”
A shadow passed over his pale face. He did not answer.
“David?”
“Sometimes,” he said in a low voice, and glanced quickly around. “Look, let me tell my friends I’m walking you home.”
He went over to his friends. I saw them staring at me. The wind blew cruelly. The newspaper, folded and tucked under my arm, seemed strangely burdensome.
David Dinn came back to where I stood.
“I’m very cold,” I said.
“Come on,” he said.
We walked together along the parkway.
“Your father came over to my house the other day.”
“I know.”
“Your father helped my Uncle Jakob get a visa.”
“I don’t know anything about what my father does.”
“I know what my father does.”
David did not respond. He walked bent forward, a little stooped. We left the parkway and turned into the side street.
“Do you want some of this cake?” he asked.
“No, thanks. I’m very cold. Could I borrow your jacket?”
“It’s a man’s jacket,” he said, hesitating.
“I’m very cold, David.”
“You’re not—” He broke off and slipped the jacket from his thin body and draped it over my shoulders. “Let me carry that for you,” he said, and took the
Times
from under my arm.
“Do you celebrate Lag Ba’omer every year?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And it happened two thousand years ago?”
“That’s right.”
“I wonder if anyone will remember Guernica that long.”
“Jews would remember if it happened to them.”
“What do you study in your school?”
“All kinds of subjects.”
“There’s my house. Thanks for your jacket.”
One of our neighbors, a gaunt old woman with rheumy eyes and a lame leg, stood on the top step of her front stoop and regarded us curiously.
“David, do you still say Kaddish for your mother?”
“Sure.”
“Every day?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks for walking me home.”
“Ilana, will your parents be going back to Sea Gate this summer?” “I don’t know.”
He stood there a moment, looking down at the sidewalk. I had the feeling he was reluctant to leave.
“I’m very cold,” I said. “I’d better go up.”
He watched me climb the stone stairs and go inside. The lock clicked shut behind me. I went up to the apartment.
My mother was in the kitchen. She sat at the table, her head in her hands. She had on her light spring coat and her beret. She looked up at me as I came inside.
“Ilana,” she said. “I just got home a few minutes ago. Sit down. I have to tell you something.” She stopped. “Ilana,” she said again. Her voice broke.
“Mama?”
“Are you cold? Why don’t you take off your sweater?”
“Is Papa dead?” I asked.
She stared at me. The blood left her face.
“Mama?”
“No, darling. Of course not. Your father is not dead. But no one seems to know where he is.”
A cold hand seized my heart. “Was Papa in Guernica?”
“Yes. But no one knows how long or even if he was there during the raid.”
“Mama—”
“We will be very brave, Ilana. We will not act like hysterical women. We will be brave and calm. Won’t we? Won’t we, my darling?”
“Yes, Mama.”
“He could not have been so foolish as to go into such a bombardment. Not my Michael. Oh, no.” She stopped and blinked
her eyes a number of times. Then she noticed her arms. “Look at me, darling. I’m still wearing my coat. How silly! Let me hang it up and I’ll make us supper. It will be all right. We mustn’t worry. Will you help me make supper? Don’t cry, Ilana. You promised me you wouldn’t cry. Please, Ilana. Please.”
My father had disappeared.
The headlines in his newspaper read
OUR CORRESPONDENT PRESUMED LOST IN GUERNICA RAID.
Guernica lay in a valley about fifteen miles east of Bilbao. Correspondents in the Bilbao hotel where my father had been staying remembered having seen him leave with a car and a driver about two hours before the raid had begun. He was doing a background story on Basque culture and needed to find in Guernica a six-hundred-year-old tree and the parish church of Santa Maria. Jakob Daw had left Bilbao a few days before and was presumed to be on his way to Lisbon for his visa and steamship ticket to the United States.