Psalm 44

“Danijel,” Jakob said as he grabbed the boy by the upper arm. Danijel still had a trace of a smile on his face, and he was staring at Jakob. “Have you ever watched someone be resurrected?”

Now Danijel’s little smile was mournful.

“No? Watch me, then. . First a person starts to cry, as you can see. Then he drops his letter. It’s like when someone has gone hungry for a very long time. You can’t gorge yourself right away. Then one lights a cigarette,” Jakob said, and he offered the pack to Danijel. “There you have it. This, this is what it’s like. You see. . It’ll be you one of these days.”

Dr. Leo too expressed his surprise.

“How are you feeling, compatriot? You’re an American now. . Aren’t you?”

“Excellent, Doctor,” Jakob said. “I’m imagining my trip across the ocean. . But, of course, I’m not alone. . Do you know what I mean?”

“Bravo,” Dr. Leo said. “But you’ve forgotten again that you aren’t allowed to smoke.”

“Indeed,” Jakob said. “Forgive me, but I thought that, on the deck of a transatlantic liner, smoking was permitted.” Dr. Leo smiled contentedly.

That same day, in the early evening, Jakob left his room unobserved. Most of the patients were asleep. Out on the terrace he ran into no one but Danijel.

“Farewell, Danijel,” Jakob said in a low voice. They shook hands.

“Where to, Doctor?” the kid asked.

“Do me a favor, Danijel,” Jakob said. “Give Dr. Leo my apologies and tell him I said thanks for everything.”

The boy looked as if he understood, so Jakob added only: “But not until tomorrow. No earlier. . Understand?. . Not before then.”

“Have a good trip, Doctor,” the boy said and began to row his wheelchair across the smooth parquet floor.

Chapter 5. Epilogue

It was on a humid day in summer that Jakob and Marija paid another visit to the camp. Jan had turned six years old, and he was wearing short pants of white linen and a light-colored shirt. He was a thin boy, with a look of curiosity and mild anxiety on his face. He had Jakob’s demeanor and the shapely, intelligent eyes of his mother. Usually an especially lively and inquisitive boy, he was now tight-lipped and furtive — perhaps just fatigued from the journey. But, ever since the bus stopped at the edge of the camp (it was a special tourist bus from a Warsaw company and it had been rented by the association of former prisoners for the commemorations of the anniversary of the liberation) and since the ceremonies and speeches had begun, accompanied by stifled tears and audible sobs, he had suddenly fallen silent. This left Marija worried. Without waiting for the ceremony to conclude or for the choir to intone its set of mournful songs, among them “The Girl I Adore,” Marija took the child by his hand and led him away from the crowd. She did this as a bus carrying American tourists drew up and, with its loud honking, drowned out the solemn invocation of “The Girl I Adore.” The eyes of the former camp inmates dimmed with reproach at this failure to respect the suffering and memories of others. Nevertheless their agitation grew even greater when the bus’s horn stopped blaring and was replaced by a hoarse bass voice from its radio. A man was singing in raspy tones about how great it was to be alive: “C’est si bon. .” This brief, unpleasant confusion was sufficient for Marija, Jan, and Jakob to slip away unobserved. Marija noticed just then that Jan was crying quietly. “Didn’t my little man promise me he’d be a hero and not do any crying?” she asked. She already felt a touch of regret at having brought the boy along. Although the two of them had decided to show Jan everything that wasn’t too upsetting, she was sorry now that she had talked to him about the camp, even though what she had said was mild and sanitized, like some kind of fairy tale. But she had wanted to impress on Jan’s very brow the stamp of martyrdom and love: the same symbol that she and Jakob had made of their suffering. But Jan was meant to profit from all that. And Marija was proud of this mission of hers: to transfer to Jan the joyousness of those who were able to create life out of death and love. To bequeath to him the bitter happiness that had resulted from suffering that he had never felt and would never personally experience, but suffering that needed to be present in him as a warning, as joy: like a memorial obelisk.