The Story of a Life by Aharon Appelfeld Read Free Book Online

had changed beyond recognition. It was filled with people. Victoria was serving coffee in small cups, and the living room was full of smoke. Father stood apart. He wore a
kippah
on his head, and his body was swaying like a drunkard’s. Mother sat on the floor wrapped in a blanket, surrounded by unfamiliar people. People talked not about Grandfather’s death, but about practical matters; perhaps they did so to divert Mother’s attention, but Mother would not be diverted. Her eyes were large and wide open.
    Suddenly it seemed to me that everyone was pleased that death had gone away, that now it was possible just to sit and drink the coffee that Victoria was serving. This sense of things going on as if nothing had happened hurt me, and I fled to my room. To my surprise, even my room was full of people.
    This time, Father did not hold back. Then and there, in front of everyone, he derided what he called the tribal burial customs that did not respect the dead and that lacked all good taste. In particular he blasted the Burial Society for rushing through the prayers and for being in such a hurry to hand out spades to the mourners—and then demanding donations on top of their fee. I knew that he didn’t approve of Jewish burial customs, but this time he vented his anger and held nothing back. He concluded his tirade by saying, “I, at any rate, will not abandon my body to them. Better to be interred in a lepers’ graveyard than to be buried in a Jewish cemetery.”
    People dispersed soon after this, and Father’s voice echoed in the empty house. I didn’t know if Mother agreed with his words. She sat on the floor, and not a sound issued from her mouth. In the way she sat there was something of Grandfather. Perhaps in the way she rested her hand on her knees.

5
     
    IN THE GHETTO, children and madmen were friends. All the social frameworks had collapsed: there was no school, no homework, no getting up early in the morning, and no putting out the lights at night. We’d play in the courtyards, on the staircases, between trees, and in all kinds of gloomy corners. Sometimes the madmen would join in our games. The new chaos worked to their advantage as well. The Mental Institution and the Hospital for the Mentally Ill had been closed down, and people who’d been let out of those places wandered through the streets, smiling aimlessly. Their smiles also carried more than a trace of gloating, as if to say, “All these years you laughed at us for mixing things up, confusing things, confusing time; we weren’t precise, we called places and things by strange names. But now it’s clear that we were right. You didn’t believe us, you were all so damned self-righteous that you thought us completely worthless. You packed us off to institutions and you shut us away behind lock and key.” There was something frightening in the gaiety of their smiles.
    They celebrated their freedom in strange ways. In the park they would lie stretched out on their backs, singing, and the young men among them would call out compliments to girls and young women. But most of the time they would sit on the benches in the public parks and smile. They treated children as their equals. They would sit cross-legged and play five stones, dominoes, and chess. They would play catch, and even football. Anxious parents, at their wits’ end, would swoop down on them. The insane learned to spot the parents early and would run away in time.
    There were some dangerous ones, too, among the insane—madmen who’d menace us with real fury. We children also learned to spot them coming, and we’d run away. But most of them were quiet and polite and would make sense when they spoke. There were even those who you would never think were insane—ones you could question about math, geography, or a book by Jules Verne. Also among the insane were doctors, lawyers, and rich people; and there were some whose property, as soon as they’d been institutionalized, was appropriated