Of the two torturers, which one is more dangerous? Luigi with his provocative, intelligent remarks, or Ahmed with his temper tantrums? The former, calm, unflappable, ghostly, tries to appeal to one’s humanity; the latter, on the contrary, fiery and on edge, plays at making one feel useless, weak and scorned.
Through an opening somewhere—the small basement window or a door left ajar to let some air in—comes the noise from outside: the racket of garbage collectors, kids playing, adults running, the complaints of some, the laughter of others, birds chirping. Yes, there are still free human beings who exercise their freedom and humanity for good or ill.
The hostage keeps his swollen eyes open. Time flows, but its rhythm changes radically. Therein lies the tragedy: In order to break with the present, from which there is no present means of escape, he tries to recapture the recent or distant past, elusive as it is, moving within a personal time frame that sometimes heeds him, sometimes slips away from him. Time drags on, then suddenly, for no apparent reason, speeds forward, rushing with an implacable yet hidden logic.
The hostage invents his own clock, his own measuring system. He recites the first chapter of the Psalms; that must take
a minute. For the fifth, he needs four. The biblical story of the
Akedah
, or the near sacrifice of Isaac: three minutes. The commentaries: an hour and a half.
Antigone:
eighty minutes. A hundred for Aesop’s fables. A few of Satan’s monologues in Milton’s
Paradise Lost:
thirty-two.
What does Maimonides say about the legal problem of hostages? What is the duty of the community when it comes to paying a ransom?
His brain is working, his memory too; Shaltiel is reassured. But is this an advantage in his situation? Wouldn’t it be better to be all mixed up, or for his memory to be blank? No. Anything is better than chaos or amnesia.
So what does Maimonides say?
“No commandment surpasses the one concerning the liberation of hostages, for they are among the starving, the thirsting, the stripped, always in danger of death.”
In other words: If he, Shaltiel, has been abducted, the Jews of New York and Jerusalem are morally and legally obliged to pay whatever is demanded of them.
As his thoughts wander in the nebulous future, Shaltiel draws away from the physician philosopher of Cordoba and latches on to a visionary from Galilee. Specifically, he focuses on the decision in the
Shulchan Aruch
, or
Guide to Behavior
, by the famous Rabbi Joseph Karo of Safed in the fifteenth century: Even the building of a study house or synagogue should be stopped for the deliverance of a prisoner. Every delay is tantamount to a murder.
Shaltiel likes this mystic and his celestial dreams. A great
Sage took the trouble of coming down from the heavens to teach him the secrets of Creation in his sleep. I’m lucky, the hostage says to himself. My dreams are wounds; his were made of light. Could he assist me in my nightmare here?
Be careful, Shaltiel says to himself. Let’s not run too fast. I need to stop and catch my breath to probe my memories from yesterday. But when was yesterday? And where? In what school? There was the Maharam of Rothenburg. Arrested in 1286, he tried to escape from Germany but was sentenced and imprisoned. From his cell, he sent his decision to the Jewish community: Do not pay a ransom, for it would encourage other abductions. He drew his last breath in jail, after seven years of captivity.
But then, if a shining light like the Maharam, one of Israel’s Sages, the author of essential volumes on the foundation of religion, had to be abandoned to his fate, why would anyone care about a minor Jewish storyteller like me, who has only jotted down a few simple words on paper, a few sad and entertaining stories here and there, which probably no one has ever read, much less remembers?
Caution, Shaltiel. You’re going offtrack. You’re becoming too impassioned. Memory, which lurches forward and backward, has its own traps, its own breaks and cracks. You’re tracing concentric circles, keeping yourself continually in the center. If you think too much about yourself, how will you stand up to future questioning? So, Nirvana no longer appeals to you? Dissolve the self in order to remain whole. This is not a Jewish attitude, true, but for the time being, the point is to survive. Isn’t everything allowed in order to defeat death? Don’t you want to live for those close to you, to take part in their joys and
to help the new generation of young people struggle against the demons that assail them?
He decides to take a different approach. In his mind he lines up the men and women whose paths crossed his, and questions them about what to do or not to do in his situation.
His father, with a solemn air, advises him to stand fast. His stepmother says he should be careful and not give in to despair. His brother advises him to play deaf and dumb. One-Eyed Paritus says he should laugh even through tears. The musician from Kraków urges that he guard the tremulous song that haunts him.
Shaltiel questions them: Why this suffering? What is the meaning of this ordeal? Could it be a punishment for something? Could it be for having said too much, or not enough, in my stories? Or again—and nothing could be worse—for having said it badly? He doesn’t realize that the torturer scores a victory over his victim when the latter, in the grip of doubt, begins to torture himself.
Torture is the act of making someone die a slow death, making the prisoner die several times.
Thoughts arise in the hostage’s tormented brain. In the hospital, patients feel they are returning to childhood; in prison, they age. The gods blind themselves.
Shaltiel remembers a story:
A very young child is dreaming. I want to grow up, I want to sing of the joy of the world, I want to celebrate the dark beauty of the mountains, I want to kiss a woman, the most beautiful woman in the world, but …
“But what?” asks his would-be girlfriend.
“But I don’t know how,” says the little boy.
So she caresses his hair, his lips, his eyelids, which she closes, and says to him: Come, I’ll show you how.
And his heart, the little boy’s heart, begins beating violently.
And the young woman’s too.
Shaltiel, though prone to migraines, has never before awakened with such a bad headache. Even his teeth are throbbing. And he feels as though he were inside a heated iron vise. Is it just a nightmare? He’s in pitch darkness. His hands and ankles are tied, his body numb. Moving his head, formulating an image, are painful. Everything aches. Just keeping his senses alert so that nothing will escape him is an exhausting effort. He’s short of breath and his head is empty. He’s alive, that’s already something. He remembers Yankel, a survivor, who used to say to him, “When I wake up in the morning and have no aches and pains, I wonder if I’m still alive.” Shaltiel doesn’t wonder. Voices come to him from very close, amplifying his pain. Questions are burning his lips, but he knows they will be hard to answer. His mouth is swollen. What a predicament, he thinks. One day, I’ll have to write a short story about it.
“Where am I?” he stammers.
Exhaustion has caused him to forget everything.
“Far away,” says a voice.
The European accent gives him a start: Is he dreaming?
“Who are you?”
“None of your business.”
“I have a right to know.”
“We couldn’t care less about your rights.”
“Why am I here?”
“To help us.”
“But who are you?”
“You know that already: We’re freedom fighters.”
The accent is guttural; it’s the Arab.
“I can’t help you. I’m Jewish,” says Shaltiel, more in a dream than reality.
“What other revelations do you have for us?”
“I’m Jewish. My name is Shaltiel Feigenberg.”
“As though we didn’t know.”
“I’m the son of Jews. The descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The disciple of Moses, Isaiah and …”
The Arab slaps him on the right cheek.
“We’re fighting for the liberation of Palestine. Keep your history lessons for your own people.”
“So tell me why I’m here.”
Another slap, on the left cheek. This is not a dream.
“Did you really forget everything?”
“I have a dreadful headache.”
“You’re here precisely because you’re Jewish.”
Oddly enough, Shaltiel feels slightly reassured. He had been trying lately to imagine the irrational, absurd fear that his father must have felt during the war, far away, over there.
He hears his abductors opening the two books he had borrowed from the library and had under his arm when they captured him; then he hears them throw them on the ground. They empty his pockets—a few dollars, a handkerchief, his library card.
“Why do you refuse to help us?” the Italian asks.
“I’m a storyteller. If you want, I’ll tell you a story.”
“Storyteller isn’t a profession.”
The Arab cuts in. “Where we come from, it is. Arab storytellers are respected. But you’re Jewish. Do Jews also respect them?”
“That depends on the storytellers.”
“You,” asks the Italian, “are you respected?”
“I respect those who listen to me,” says Shaltiel.
“Do you also write your stories down?”
“It all depends on the stories. Some I write down.”
Another slap from the Arab.
“Tell me,” says the Italian, “do you know any wealthy and influential people?”
“The only wealth I’m interested in is a wealth of words. The people I know are different, you might say.”
“Different in what way?”
“Today’s wealthy are poor though they don’t know it. They can’t bring their possessions to where we’re all going.”
Shaltiel feels he has less to fear from the Italian than the Arab. The Italian must have doubts about this exploit. He must have some education; he must know Nietzsche, Hölderlin, Wittgenstein. He must know that philosophers don’t turn into executioners; they’re incapable of it. A crazy and slightly ridiculous idea surfaces in his seething mind: In other circumstances, could they have become friends? And what about in these circumstances? Oh my heavens, the famous Stockholm syndrome! Oh no, says the prisoner to himself, not that.
“I imagine you’ve published some of your stories,” says Luigi.
“Yes,” says Shaltiel. “But very few.”
“In what language?”
“In Hebrew, in Yiddish and in English. But I also speak French.”
“Where could I find them? I mean the writings in English.”
“In the New York Public Library. In fact, if you want, I’d be glad to go there with you.”
The Arab shouts an obscenity and punches him for the first time. “Oh, and he thinks he’s being funny!”
And he thinks he’s a revolutionary! Shaltiel says to himself, surprised that he’s beginning to collect his thoughts again.
A face flashes before the prisoner’s swollen eyes:
Piotr. Where are you, my friend? Come and help me!
The torturers interrupt the session. They’re not getting anywhere.
Revolution, thinks Shaltiel, it’s a noble concept, but a blood-drenched word. Its results are violence and transformation. It sparks the most human hope and the cruelest loss of hope—Robespierre and Saint-Just, Lenin and Trotsky, Bakunin and Stalin; scaffolds, guillotines, jails, the Gulag, concentration camps.
With the years and convulsions of history, the word—as reductionist as the dictionary itself—has undergone absurd metamorphoses. In some countries, they prefer the word “destabilization.” “Poor” countries no longer exist, just “disadvantaged” or “underprivileged” ones. We say “brainwashing” instead of “propaganda.” And now we refer to revolutions in fashion, music and electronics, where ink flows but not blood. The point is profit, not truth.
Shaltiel remembers the “1968 Revolution.” He was spending a few weeks alone in Paris; Blanca had to take her exams in New York. In Germany, America, England—everywhere—young people were in rebellion, eager for change, every type of change. In Paris, the students occupied the Sorbonne; in New York, they invaded Columbia University. The postwar generation berated its recent history. It had had more than enough of the wealthy class, the overlords, the decision-makers.
Shaltiel was happy. He was giddy with hope, exhilarated by life and humanity. The enthusiasm in the Latin Quarter, the rioting—it was like a celebration. A celebration of freedom, of happiness. Strangers kissed each other, vowing eternal love that lasted only an hour, an instant, a glimmer. There was magnificent sexual liberation. It was forbidden to forbid. The power of imagination and imagination in power! Long live anarchy, the liberator!
It was a struggle of the “people” against authority, battling the establishment, repudiating everything that had been taken for granted, accepted, respected and admired. The police, the tear gas—driven back, the students came back yelling, chanting, laughing. Idols were abolished, glories repudiated. Friends, it was said, let’s start all over again, from Creation! Down with the rich, the great, the master thinkers, comrades! Down with matter, long live poetry!
Shaltiel had joined the crowd. Sometimes he didn’t know why they were fighting or whom they were denouncing. He hadn’t mastered French, but he felt at home among friends and accomplices on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. He didn’t really understand what he saw, but he participated in it with a juvenile enthusiasm.
Oh, to sing the praises of the body and its areas of mystery—that was called loving. Suddenly everything became possible, vivid and within reach. They were at the seat of action. It was a destructive novel of acquired ideas. To finally wake up in a state of creative anguish, to lose oneself in order to find oneself again, to sleep in the arms of a beautiful student whose name one didn’t know, to fall back to sleep over a love poem—that was called existence. The harmonics of artistic creation, of fertile sensibility, of anticipated events—history in movement—that was called a privilege.
A happy, peaceful man is walking in the street, holding two books. Some strangers seize him and imprison him. That is called a hostage taking.
He had remained faithful to Blanca, in his own way. She had continued to exist in his mind. Even when his body was overwhelmed by desire, his passion went to her.