— When? How?
— What, all over again?
— No, no. I have already been there — I have had enough — it is someone else’s turn…
— But what? In what language? What could I write? What could I say that would not make his anguish only worse?
— No, Father, no. It is a bad idea.
— Money? What kind of money?
— For what? It would be an implicit admission of guilt… why should I make it?
— But what guilt? What are you talking about, Father? I ask you: what? You have taken leave of your senses! What guilt?
— No, wait — wait — don’t leave me, Father. Father… wait — wait — I beg you — don’t leave me to toss and turn in bed all night as I did that first night in Jerusalem — a Jerusalem I already was in and had not even entered yet. All I had seen of it was that lone, amazing clinic and the stars in its sky — which nevertheless were enough to make me realize that I too — but why should I not be? — was almost happy, even if I would never have admitted it to Linka — happy that the earth was not rocking beneath me and that I could turn my thoughts away from my heaving insides and back to the world again — to the voices I now heard — to the quiet steps and whispers above me — to the soft, barefoot movements of the Swedish midwife — who, it seemed, never slept — as she made the rounds of her sleeping prepartums to see which of them would be next. I lay there for a while like a doctor on night duty; rose to ask the Swede for a stethoscope to listen to the newborn baby’s heart; returned to my bed; gazed out the window at the fading stars while watching the darkness slowly lift; and listened to the unexpected sounds of the dawn — at first the sweet ring of a church bell, as if the little church of St. Jodwiga of Oświ[ecedil]cim. had followed us to Jerusalem, and then, close on its heels, the clear voices of the muezzins…
— Those are the Mohammedan cantors who call the faithful to prayer. And although I was no Mohammedan, I jumped at once from my bed with the realization that — even if it was more heard than seen — dawn was breaking. I washed my face, feeling very hungry, and made up my mind to discover Jerusalem on my own and get to know it for myself rather than as a hostage of my doctor, whose intentions had begun to seem even more nefarious since crossing the threshold of his house. I stepped outside into broad daylight, pointed myself in the direction of some sounds that I heard, and struck out across the fields, passing some little house now and then until I arrived at the gray ramparts of the city and disappeared through a gate into its narrow streets. From that morning on, I walked the old city’s streets every day, my feet skipped along by its cobblestones. It was a city that from the very first I understood perfectly — which is more than I can say of any of your other Jews, Zionists or not. I was there.
— I was. And I got to know that stone womb that is the mother of us all.
— No, not so much the inhabitants. Jews are the same everywhere. The only difference is that there the Mohammedans take the place of the Poles; the Turks — of the Austrians; the donkeys — of the horses; and the nimble black goats — of the hogs. Sometimes, with their little beards, they made me think that they were ancient Jews who had disguised and shrunk themselves after the destruction of the Temple in order to stay on in Jerusalem…
— I wandered from place to place, footloose and missing nothing, thoroughly learning the city, in which the distances are astonishingly small. From our Wailing Wall to the great mosque with its two domes is no more than a few steps; from there a short walk will bring you to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; and not far from that are the synagogues and the holy places of the Armenians, the Eastern Orthodox, and the Protestants. Everything is jumbled together — it is a bit like entering a large shop for religious artifacts whose shelves are piled high — the believer can choose whatever catches his fancy…
— It is quite simple. You walk down a street that is no more than a few feet wide and there it is — a large wall — or buttress — however you wish to call it — grayish and covered with mosses. It is quite amazingly like the photograph you have hung on the wall of your office, Father. Perhaps the same Jews even pray there. I found it most appealing, Papa dear.
— Its formal simplicity — its improvised originality — its refusal to make any false promises or foster any illusions. It is a last stop of history, no less than that board in the train station — a blank wall with no open-sesames or hidden crypts. What more can I tell you, Father? What else? It is perhaps the ultimate dam, built to hold back the Jews in their restless proclivity to return to their past. “Halt!” it says. “No Passage Allowed Beyond This Point.”
— Only at first. I won’t deny that I stood there dismayed for a moment — even stunned — gawking in disappointment. But soon enough I got over it, stepped up to the large, cool stones, and — ha ha ha — even kissed them, would you believe it? A lazy atheist like myself ardently kissing not just one stone but two! The Jews and Jewesses praying there saw that my head was uncovered and sought to comment but did not; and so I tarried for a while, thinking of this and that, until I stopped an Arab boy carrying a tray of golden little loaves and bought them all for a thaler. I stood there eating one after another — they were wonderfully tasty — I shall never forget the taste of them. From that moment on — as if I had chewed the stones and they were made of dough — my memories of the Wailing Wall do not come without the fragrant taste of freshly baked bread…
— A narrow lane. The approach is dark and dank, very intimate. On one side of you is the ancient, holy relic with its huge stones, and on the other, a cluster of homes with flapping laundry and crying babies. It is an impossible but quite real combination. I would have lingered there longer had not the ram’s horns begun wailing all around me, which made me think of you in the gray fields of Poland, waiting for some sign of life from us. I was directed to the sarwiyya, the Turkish governor’s house in the Christian Quarter, and from there I sent you my second telegram — the one that Mama says only made you even more worried. But why?
— But what did it say, for goodness’ sake?
— What was unclear about it? I was even given a Turkish telegraph operator who knew German, and we made up the message together. I remember it word for word: We are well. Will start home after Yom Kippur.
— We are happy?
— But I expressly wrote “well”! Who could have changed it to “happy”? Perhaps it was that Turk’s own idea. But even if it said that, why be so alarmed by it?
— What do you mean, that was all?
— Let me see it. This is what you received?
— But the last words are left out. I paid good money for them — that postal clerk made off with them! Unless they fell out of the wires along the way — or else the Poles were too lazy to copy them…
— How do you know?
— I had no idea you could do that.
— And when you traced it back to its point of origin, what were you told?
— They confirmed it? But how could they have? What a scoundrel! Why, I paid for every word of it…
— Two piastres.
— Of course. I would never have kept you in the dark like that, without even letting you know…
— What a devilish business — he went and shortened it on his own! And he thought my visit in Jerusalem was too short — he could not stop telling me about the wonders of the city…
— But…
— My dears — you had every reason to worry — We are happy — an odd telegram indeed! A person might have thought… oh, my poor loves… and yet even then…