Legends of Our Time Read Online Free PDF Page B

Elijah. Moreover, I had proof of this soon afterward.
    Tradition requires that after the meal, before prayers are resumed, a goblet of wine be offered the prophet Elijah, who, that evening, visits all Jewish homes, at the same moment, as though to emphasize the indestructibility of their ties with God. Accordingly, Father took the beautiful silver chalice no one ever used and filled it to the brim. Then he signaled my little sister to go to the door and ask the illustrious visitor to come taste our wine. And we wanted to tell him: you see, we trust you; in spite of our enemies, in spite of the blood that has been shed, joy is not deserting us, we offer you this because we believe in your promise.
    In silence, aware of the importance of the moment, we rose to our feet to pay solemn tribute to the prophet, with all the honor and respect due him. My little sister left the table and started toward the door when our guest suddenly cried out:
    “No! Little girl, come back! I’ll open the door myself!”
    Something in his voice made us shudder. We watched him plunge toward the door and open it with a crash.
    “Look,” he cried out, “there’s no one there! No one! Do you hear me?”
    Whereupon he leaped out and left the door wide open.
    Standing, our glasses in our hands, we waited, petrified, for him to come back. My little sister, on the brink of tears, covered her mouth with both hands. Father was the first to get hold of himself. In a gentle voice he called out after our guest: “Where are you, friend? Come back!”
    Silence.
    Father repeated his call in a more urgent tone. No reply. My cheeks on fire, I ran outside, sure I would find him on the porch: he was not there. I flew down the steps: he could not be far. But the only footsteps that resounded in the courtyard were my own. The garden? There were many shadows under the trees, but not his.
    Father, Mother, my sisters, and even our old servant,not knowing what to think, came out to join me. Father said: “I don’t understand.”
    Mother murmured: “Where can he be hiding? Why?”
    My sisters and I went out into the street as far as the corner: no one. I started shouting: “H-e-e-y, friend, where are you?” Several windows opened: “What’s going on?”
    “Has anyone seen a foreign Jew with a stooped back?”
    “No.”
    Out of breath, we all came together again in the courtyard. Mother murmured: “You’d think the earth swallowed him up.”
    And Father repeated: “I don’t understand.”
    It was then that a sudden thought flashed through my mind and became certainty: Mother is mistaken, it is the sky and not the earth that has split open in order to take him in. Useless to chase after him, he is not here anymore. In his fiery chariot he has gone back to his dwelling-place, up above, to inform God what his blessed people are going to live through in the days to come.
    “Friend, come back,” my father shouted one last time. “Come back, we’ll listen to you.”
    “He can’t hear you anymore,” I said. “He’s a long way off by now.”
    Our hearts heavy, we returned to the table and raised our glasses one more time. We recited the customary blessings, the Psalms, and, to finish, we sang
Chad Gadya
, that terrifying song in which, in the name of justice, evil catches evil, death calls death, until the Angel of Destruction, in his turn, has his throat cut by the Eternal himself, blessed-be-he. I always loved this naïve song in which everything seemed so simple, so primitive: the cat and the dog, the water and the fire, first executioners then victims, all undergoing the same punishment within thesame scheme. But that evening the song upset me. I rebelled against the resignation it implied. Why does God always act too late? Why didn’t he get rid of the Angel of Death before he even committed the first murder?
    Had our guest stayed with us, he is the one who would have asked these questions. In his absence, I took them up on my own.
    The ceremony was