The Jerusalem Inception - By Avraham Azrieli Page 0,13
and threw me in the back of a truck. A field hospital, full of wounded, dying soldiers.” He fumbled with the buttons of his white shirt. “It stunk of rotting flesh and gangrene, the ground muddy with blood.” His shirt parted, exposing the scars—crests and cavities, red and blotchy. “But I wouldn’t die!”
Tanya placed the palm of her hand on his rutted skin.
“I wouldn’t give up,” he said. “I was certain you were coming for me.”
“My God,” she whispered, moving her hand on his disfigured chest, “how terrible!”
“Through high fever and torturous chills, lungs filled with my own blood, I saw your face, felt your hand on my forehead. She’s coming! She’s coming!”
“But I—”
“Every time they cleaned my wounds, every time they squeezed the pus from my chest, I screamed. She’s coming! My Tanya is coming!” His rabbinical facade was gone, his face twisted with agony. “But you didn’t! Why?”
“You’re blaming me?”
“Blame?” He groaned. “It’s not about blame.”
“Yes, it is! Why did you go with him that morning? To kill a few more Germans? They were losing the war anyway. You left me in the forest, and he came back. I was at his mercy!”
“You should have given Elie that bloody ledger.”
“It wouldn’t have satisfied him. I had to escape.”
Abraham stepped closer, his head leaning forward to look down at her face. “Oh, God Almighty, you’ve remained the same.
So beautiful.”
Tanya stepped backward. “Elie told me. They turned Abraham into a bloody sieve. Those were his words: Bloody sieve. And the image has stayed with me since.”
“So you ran away.”
“What was I supposed to do?”
He seemed hurt by her very question. “Search for me!”
“For another rotting body among thousands?” She breathed deeply. “Why didn’t you search for me?”
He used the handkerchief to wipe his eyes. “How I missed you. All these years!”
“Your loyalty wasn’t to me.”
“True.” He buttoned up his white shirt and black coat. “I was filled with hate.”
A lifetime had passed since she had last seen him, a youth with blond hair, walking off into the forest with Elie Weiss, fearless, eager to hunt down the retreating Nazi troops. Bloody sieve. But he had somehow survived and now, not yet forty, he looked like a biblical prophet, his beard long and gray, the odd, spiraling side locks dangling by his face. His blue eyes, still young, were set in wrinkles that didn’t originate in smiling.
She fought back her tears, then gave in, letting them flow down her cheeks.
He took her hands and began to sing. “Let’s run in the fields, in the farms, explore the vineyards.”
She couldn’t breathe. His voice was the same—deep and solid, like the roots of a strong tree.
“Have the vines flowered? Have the poppies reddened? Have the pomegranates sprouted?”
She cried, and he cradled her face in his big hands. “There,” he sang, “there I shall give myself to you, my beloved.”
Tanya’s hand reached up, the tips of her fingers on his moist forehead.
“I did search for you,” he finally said, his voice cracked. “But I found Elie instead, and he showed me your boots and blanket, all chewed up, encrusted with your blood. He said there were bones too, even some hair, which he buried in the forest.”
Tanya sighed. “I ran from him. The front was getting close, but the wolves, they smelled my fear, my desperation, and attacked me. American soldiers heard my screams. They shot some wolves, and the pack attacked the wounded.” She shuddered. “I don’t remember the rest.”
His shoulders sank, deflated. “It’s my fault. I left you defenseless. And for what? To hunt down Germans—an infantile revenge when the ultimate payback would have been us!”
“Us?”
“A family. Children. A new life. Isn’t that what the Nazis had set out to destroy?”
She looked at him, finding traces of her Abraham under the untrimmed beard and premature wrinkles.
“When I saw those boots, the blood,” he cleared his throat, as if the memory was choking him, “I lost hope, felt like I was dead, but still alive.”
“So you rediscovered God?”
He sneered. “There’s no God.”
“But—”
“You of all people should know. You saw their assembly-lines of death, the factories of extermination, whole families, whole villages.”
She nodded.
“You saw the innocent children. Pregnant women. Rabbis whose lives had been dedicated to worship, to the glory of God. How could He exist? It makes no sense, unless He is ruthless and evil and a menace, a graceless Almighty, who deserves neither undue recognition, nor unanswered prayers!”
Tanya glanced at the volumes of Talmud and other holy books lining the bookshelves.