And the Rat Laughed - By Nava Semel Page 0,62

but her spiritual existence as well.

The last Jewish child.

And as I write those words, I am overcome with nausea, as if I had written a name-tag over the reliquary. If all of my efforts are aimed at preserving her as a mere relic, then I am no different from those who are trying to annihilate them. Even they leave an isolated exemplar on display, protected in a precious vessel behind glass. It would be their way of signaling their triumph, and making certain that it lives on.

15 September 1944

Day of Our Lady of Sorrows

She has been with me for a year now. Let this be your birthday, I told her. The date on which a person arrives in this world is a cause for celebration for those who cherish him. I place a candle upright in the dust and ask her to put it out. She plunges her hand right into the flame, puts it out, and asks: how old am I?

My grandmother never told me when I was born. I suspect I came into the world on St Stanislaw’s Day. Perhaps the old woman did not want to hurt me, or maybe she wanted to drive out the anguish I had caused her daughter. In the villages they call a woman who is with child “a woman with hope”, but my mother was “a woman with despair” – a hereditary sin.

Disappointed, the little girl overturns the candle. Some children are old people, and some old people are children, and maybe they are a mixture of both. Had I not been prevented from bearing children, I might have been able to tell them apart.

I open the Scriptures. She reads the Psalm, and I listen to her clear voice. “Yea, the darkness shall cover me; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.”

A king wrote those words, Child. His name was David and he was a wonderful musician. On gloomy nights he would sing to his predecessor King Saul to drive out his despair, but in the end he was defeated by it.

“I was wrought in secret.”

The little girl is struggling with the words, and I do not bother to correct her. I tell her: One day you will travel to a land both far and near. There is a city there, a real city and not a heavenly one. A place of dubious beauty, but it is yours.

And some day, when you visit the mountain where the Holy Mother sank into eternal slumber, walk down the steps to the crypt and place a small stone there. Direct it towards the light, and it will swallow the memory and set out on the long journey from your past to my future.

I am the bearer of memory, placing my own memory at your disposal because you will not be able to carry the cross by yourself. I am your remembearer.

“We were wrought in secret.”

A Psalm to the children of David.

14 October 1944

The echoes of the shooting are very near. I spot some movement in the bushes at the edge of the forest. The wind carries the thundering of cannons. At twilight the Red Army tanks enter the town square. The villagers grovel before the soldiers, offering up vodka and pork sausage. The farmer’s son is riding on the first tank, and the soldiers are patting him on the back and filling his pockets with cigarettes. In the evening I hear that there is a Jewish officer among them. All day long he went from house to house asking whether there are any Jews among us. Even when people laughed in his face – they’re all dead! – he did not give up.

I went looking for him. Entered the inn even. Into the church he refused to come, as if I were setting a trap for him. Two Hebrew words surfaced suddenly in my mind. I don’t know what memory they came from.

Shma Yisrael – Hear O Israel.

The Jewish officer followed me to the churchyard and waited at the gate. I took the little girl to him.

Don’t be afraid. This man is your brother.

She clutched the edge of my robe, started tugging at my body.

Make him leave, she cried.

The officer put his hand on the butt of the gun and turned to go.

I knelt before her. I said: I am a Jew too. Forever a Jew.

Frantically she kissed the cross around her neck. I removed my own and put it on the ground.

The officer