While talking, he took out a cigarette and asked for a light. A child came over to light a match, but it went out. He took another match and gave it to me, saying “Give it to that gentleman there.” I told Isaac Euchel, “Your generation, with all its expertise in grammar, didn’t know how to adorn this splinter with a word as suitable as ‘match.’” And when I had said this it occurred to me he would answer that since there had been no matches in his day there had been no need for this word. Euchel took the match and said, “Now, then, we can make a flame with this metch” (he said “metch,” with an “e” not an “a”). “But what good is a metch which goes out before serving its purpose?”
Alas, I tried to outsmart him and I was outsmarted.
3
I do not remember how we took leave of each other. When I left him, I found myself standing in a large room which had a set table, with bottles, jars, and glasses on it. And two women were standing there, one old and one young. And a candle was suspended in the air in a bottle, like the one I had seen in the courtyard of the House of Prayer. Or perhaps there were two candles which seemed to be one. The room opened directly onto the street, with two doorways facing each other. I turned to the doorway facing my father’s house and started to leave.
The old woman said, “Is that the way it’s done, coming in and going out?” I realized that I had come upon an inn and that they had made no profit from me. Placing my hand over my heart as an oath and a promise, I said, “Believe me, I’ll come again.”
The old woman’s face lit up. “I know, sir, that you will keep your promise.” I nodded my head, saying to myself, “I only hope I don’t forget, I only hope I don’t forget,” even though it is difficult to keep such a promise. First of all, I had come to my father’s town and my father certainly would insist that I stay at home, and not allow me to go to inns or hotels. And second — I’ve forgotten the second reason.
When I took leave of the old woman I started to run, for it was Father’s custom to sit down to the Passover meal immediately following services. While I was running, it occurred to me that I might have passed his house. I raised my eyes to see. My eyes shut themselves firmly, and I did not see a thing. With great effort I opened them just a narrow crack, and saw three or four men running in haste and confusion. I meant to ask them where my father’s house was, but they were strangers, even though they were dressed like the men of my town. I let them pass, without asking them.
Time does not stand still, but I was standing still, seeking my father’s house, not knowing where it was. For I had not been in the town in many years and I had forgotten many of its roads, and the town itself had changed somewhat. Then I remembered that Father lived next to a man who was known by everyone.
I looked for someone who would tell me where the house was. My eyes shut themselves again. With all my might I struggled to open them. They opened just a narrow crack again. The moon came out, to shine upon them dust and ashes. I saw a little girl. Pointing with her finger, she said, “That’s it.” I wanted to ask her, “How do you know what I am looking for?” My eyes opened and I saw Father, holding his cup of wine, about to chant the blessing over the wine, hesitating, waiting.
Afraid that I might disturb the quiet of the house, I wanted to explain to Father, letting my eyes speak for me, telling him why I had delayed coming for so long. My eyes closed again. Struggling, I opened them. Suddenly I heard a noise like that of a sheet being torn. Actually, no sheet was being torn, but one small cloud high above was being torn, and once it was torn the moon came out, splitting the clouds, and a sweet light shone upon the house and upon Father.
The Document
Three days I spent in the office of the gray bureau. A certain relative, whose name I didn’t even recognize, had written to me from a certain city I’d never heard of, asking me to go to a certain office and obtain for him such-and-such a document on which his whole life depended.
My throat was sore — and my whole body. Just the same, I got up very early and went to get my relative’s document — thinking all the time that I would find it immediately and then go back to bed. I was fighting a cold which had troubled me all winter and which had returned that day with renewed force. I entered the office humbly and timidly. As I had gotten up early and not a soul was there before me, I was sure there would be no long delay before they gave me the document.
At that hour the cleaning woman was sweeping the building and raising clouds of dust. My lungs became blocked and my voice choked off. I said to myself, I’d better wait a minute until my throat clears; otherwise the official won’t know what I want, and all my efforts will be wasted.
As I was standing, the office suddenly filled with hordes of people pushing one another, standing in angry, sullen compliance, and looking avidly toward the men and women clerks who sat at their battered desks scratching away with gray pens on pads and ledgers. I too was pushed first to this clerk and then to another, and I kept my head lowered timidly in the hope they would turn to me and ask what I want. But they paid no attention to me and of course asked me nothing. This was all to the good, for had they asked I doubt whether I could have said a word with all that dust clogging my throat.
So one day passed and so a second. From dawn to dusk I stood in that office. My feet became leaden and my spirit exhausted. Occasionally I was moved from one spot to another, from one room to another; I stood before this clerk or that clerk; I was pushed again and returned to the room from which I started. The clerks sat on — their faces bent over their papers and their pens writing automatically, incessantly. The clock ticked gloomily away. Its hand moved slowly, and a dead fly was stuck to it and moved along with it.
On the third day things got a little better for me. A new clerk came in to replace one of the clerks who had died. This new clerk, by the name of Nahman Horodenker, was a blond, well-built youth with clear spectacles over his good eyes. From his name and facial expression, as from his bear-like movements, I could tell that he was a countryman of mine. All I had to do was announce publicly that he was a Galician Jew, and immediately I would have had the upper hand. But some indefinable misgiving, something like conscience, stopped me. I swallowed my words and was silent.
Meanwhile I was getting sicker and sicker, and I could think of nothing else. I had been ill twice that winter, and each time the first symptoms had been the same — a swelling of the tongue, a tickle in the throat, dry and cracked lips. Now the symptoms were appearing again. My eyes blurred, my forehead began to sweat, and my throat became hoarse. I took a cigarette from my pocket and lit it. Without waiting to finish, I lit another. I had already forgotten why I had come to this office, and why I was standing here, and why I was being pushed and was running from room to room and from clerk to clerk.
Suddenly I heard a noise and felt my left foot expanding in its shoe. I looked down and saw that the shoe lace had snapped, but before I had a chance to tie it, they called my name. Looking up, I saw a man sitting alone at a small table covered with a soiled black oilcloth, and with files of papers to his right and left; his eyes smiled in his bent head.
I relaxed and rejoiced as one does in recognizing a man one knew before the war. It was the druggist of the municipal hospital in my home town, who always had a glass of soda to offer me whenever I came to visit a sick friend. The druggist looked up and motioned me to be seated. This gesture of compassion touched me, yet I didn’t feel right about sitting down because of the papers that were on the chair. He took out a bar of chocolate and offered it to me.