One Generation After Read Online Free PDF Page A

bench, lost in dreams, his eyes reflecting nameless sorrow.
    Taciturn and aloof, he rarely solicited alms, at least not by word. There he stood before you, watching you out of the corner of his eyes. Heeded or not, he smiled, stammered a word of thanks and went on his way. Something in his behavior, his awkward gestures, evoked affection more than charity, respect rather than compassion.
    We called him Shmukler. Was that his last name or his first? I don’t know. Like everyone else, I did know that he had come from far away. He had arrived during World War I, wearing an officer’s uniform. Had he been victor or loser? Warden or prisoner? Opinions were divided and he himself refused to clarify the matter. He would listen absent-mindedly, not offering any comments.
    Why had he decided to settle in our small town? Why did he not go home—and where was home? The mystery surrounding him gave rise to various theories. He was a business tycoon from Berlin, a celebrated artist from Vienna. His fiancée, in Budapest, was rich and famous for her beauty. Furthermore, she sang at the opera. She was younger than he. No, older than his mother. A drug addict at that. No, he was the one, not she. Was he at least Jewish? He did not understand Yiddish, which in our region was enough to make him suspect. One morning I surprised him in the synagogue, wearing phylacteries on his forehead and left arm: he looked like a different man. Some thought him a penitent, others were convinced he was a convert, an adventurer, a saint, a Lamed Vav, a poet, an escaped criminal: he might have been any of those.
    As the years passed, we stopped badgering him. We were afraid he would tire of our curiosity and leave us.
    Actually, he sometimes disappeared for several days and nights without forewarning or explanation. Did he go to see his family? His fiancée? His business associates? More likely he was hiding in some mountain cave nearby, or wandering aimlessly in the woods, a free man responsible to no one. But he always reappeared in the house of study before we had time to become worried.
    One year I invited him to share our Passover meal. He thanked me effusively but insisted he had accepted a previous invitation. Whose?
    “To tell you would not be good manners, right?” was all he said.
    I had to acquiesce. But during the entire holiday he was not at the synagogue. In vain did I look for him in other places of worship; he was nowhere to be found. Then I had a startling thought: What if he had gone to celebrate the Seder in his own home. Could there be truth in what people were whispering about him? If not, why would he be so mysterious?
    The day after Passover, I saw him sitting on his usual bench. Had he had a pleasant holiday? I asked.
    “Yes,” he said.
    “Where?”
    “Oh, not very far from here.”
    “Do I know the place?”
    “No, I don’t think so. At least, not yet.”
    “Could I go with you next time?”
    “Of course, but you will need a proper invitation.”
    By that time people had begun to treat him as a madman.Even though he showed no signs of madness. He was not subject to irrational outbursts or abnormal impulses. He never caused scenes, showed no taste for violence and stayed away from disturbances. Rarely was he in anyone’s way; he lived silently, as in a shell.
    More than that: he was clearly an educated and well-read man. He spoke several languages and understood literature and art. One had the feeling that he had grown up surrounded by comfort and had attended the university of his choosing. But he admitted to nothing. Why did we think he was mad? Because we failed to understand his motivations? Because he had forsaken the glittering life of the city for a remote dusty village like ours? No, I thought, he is not mad, his presence in our midst was probably connected with some secret purpose binding him to us.
    In the beginning I saw in him a
tzaddik
in disguise, a saintly sage whose mission it was to gather sparks and