Sunrise West Read Free Page B

my Jewish grandmother’s cooking. It’s a very fortunate old silver spoon.’
    He pointed to a tiny inscription engraved on the spoon. ‘ Promise and Exile ,’ he whispered, pronouncing the message with passion. Then, like a fading vision, he slowly retreated into a crevice in the barrack wall, to merge into the grim ether of Birkenau’s night.

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    Â  The Library of Imagination  
    Raymond and I were among the 180 lucky slaves sold or donated by the camp authorities to a German roadmaking company.
    I clearly remember that sunny autumn morning of our departure from Auschwitz-Birkenau — sixty slaves to a wagon, and at the end of each wagon a concealed steel enclosure that aroused our suspicions. How did we know that this wasn’t a gas container, some of us argued. ‘They’re not to be trusted,’ Raymond muttered. ‘We shouldn’t forget for even one moment that this world is governed by a gang of criminals with a criminal ideology, inventors of novel methods of murder.’ He went over to investigate but returned with a smile: the enclosure turned out to be a toilet.
    We travelled for hours deep into the heart of a mountainous terrain. The wagon’s huge shutters were wide open, our young German guard sat on a chair (the only chair) looking bored, leaning on his gun. As the day aged, an unwelcome chilly white fog enveloped the train: ‘We’ve run in such panic from the advancing Russians,’ the guard complained (what music to our ears!), ‘that I didn’t even have time to pick up my winter coat. I’ll never forgive them that.’
    The train moved at a soothing pace, passing through a panorama of forests, fields and well-cultivated orchards. How oblivious, I thought, was this beautiful landscape to war, to human pain. Perhaps it was the momentary tranquillity which made me mention something about my mother’s incurable love for nature. Raymond cautioned me. ‘Don’t, friend! Don’t even try to think of the past. You cancry later, much later. Start now, and soon there’ll be one voice less to testify to what we’ve witnessed.’
    â€˜What do you reckon about Rudolf?’ I asked. ‘And how do you understand the inscription on the spoon he gave me? Promise and Exile .’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘There’s something strange about that young fellow. I can’t really work him out, his brashness in the face of danger. But the engraving on the spoon — it has a definite biblical echo.’
    Raymond adjusted his position (we were lying on the floor). ‘I read a story somewhere about Moses,’ he went on. ‘When his people, whom he had led out of Egypt, chose religion over God and made a golden calf, the Almighty was angry and wanted to destroy these idol-worshippers — but Moses interceded on their behalf, so God spared them and made of Moses a great and powerful nation. Its inhabitants are reputed to have dwelt beyond the river Sabatyon, so called because on weekdays it flowed with a furious current, but on the Sabbath it came to a standstill. And there, as the story goes, Moses instructed one of his poet-architects to build the Library of Imagination.’
    Raymond smiled mysteriously, as if he had forgotten the purpose of our journey. He was clearly enjoying his tale.
    â€˜The library had a vaulted roof of blue ivory, and was lined with massive shelves. Every book was bound in black leather, with pure gold emblazoned on its spine. And one of these books contained a startling revelation. The calf had not been the Chosen People’s first act of defiance against their Master, for there had once occurred a far more sinisterrebellion. You see, Adam was expelled from Paradise not for eating the apple, but for tipping off the Jews about what lay in store for them! Because of this, the Jews refused to be created. God was beside Himself — to whom would he