11
Our unit has a great treasure: Grandma Tsirl. She’s ninety-three years old and weighs about as much as a ten-year-old girl, but her memory is as long as her life. The fighters constructed a sedan chair to carry her from place to place. She knows things that no one else in the group knows: the laws of Sabbath and the festivals, the laws between man and man, the laws between man and God, and of course the prayers. Moreover, she remembers the ancestors of each one of us.
Tsirl does not intervene in our activities, but if someone comes with a question, she will answer—not at length, but as necessary. She revealed to Kamil things he did not know: His grandfather’s pharmacy was open on the Sabbath and festivals. He did not observe religious law and did not go to the synagogue. But in matters of charity he was scrupulous. The poor got medicine from him for free, and if a poor person needed a medical specialist, he would take him to Vienna or Prague. He was well-off but not wealthy. The poor, especially the sick ones, were welcome guests at the pharmacy. He himself, not his assistants, took care of them. When he died, there was no funeral, since he had instructed that his body be cremated outside the city. The poor and the sick came to that dreadful ceremony and stood crying for hours.
Kamil was astounded. He had never been told about the cremation. Tsirl, who generally does not interpret things, said, “Don’t be shocked, my son; your grandfather wished to replace all the commandments with one commandment, which he observed with enormous devotion. One must not cast blame.”
Kamil treats Grandma Tsirl with respect. When he takes time off from his many activities, he comes to sit with her. Everyone feels that she is connected to worlds we have no access to.
“My sons and daughters were gathered unto their forefathers, and I was left as a survivor. It got all mixed up; they are in the World to Come, and I’m in this world.” Grandma Tsirl states this fact but does not complain. Sometimes she’s sorry to be burdening us and depriving young people of food. The boy Michael also likes to sit with her. She tells him about her childhood in the village, about her parents who were farmers and strictly tithed their crop. Emperor Franz Josef would sometimes ride through town in his carriage, and Jews and non-Jews would stand at the roadside and wave.
Michael once asked her if she can see his parents.
“Why do you ask, my dear?”
“I miss them.”
“If you miss them, it means they are thinking about you and will surely appear to you soon.”
Most people dream; Grandma Tsirl has waking visions. Not everything she sees is uplifting. About a month ago, in the middle of the night, she asked to wake up Kamil and told him that she had just seen the wicked ones, as she called our enemies, drawing nearer to us.
Kamil did not doubt or hesitate. In a matter of minutes the camp split into three and prepared to counterattack. In under an hour their patrol was caught in a trap we had set for them. Two of them were killed, leaving us a fine haul: two automatic rifles, grenades, and many bullets.
When Kamil came to thank Grandma Tsirl, she said to him, “I’m not the one to thank. I’m nothing. What God shows me, I see.”
Although everyone loves Grandma Tsirl, not everyone believes her visions. They say she has a telepathic sense, but that one mustn’t rely on what she imagines. We have to know the facts, weigh them, and draw conclusions. Anyone who relies on telepathy makes blindness into a guide.
Grandma Tsirl knows that not everyone relies on her visions, and more than once she’s been heard to say, “Why does God show me visions that I don’t know how to convey to others?”
Most of the day she sits in her sedan chair and looks around, or naps, or blesses the wonders that surround her. If she sees visions that offer hope or a moral lesson, she tells us. About the bad ones she says, “Dreams mean nothing.”
We look at her and connect with the lives we left behind. She calls me “my boy.” Once she told me that in her youth my mother had been beautiful and all the male students wanted her, but she chose my father because he was quiet and not pompous. “Don’t worry, my boy; your good forefathers are watching over you.” Ever since she told me that, I see my grandfather Meir Yosef at night.
Once Michael asked Grandma Tsirl if she is angry with us.
“Why angry? Anger is indecent. We are commanded to love and not be angry.”
“But we do not say the blessings or pray.”
“The ways of the Torah are peaceful ways. He who protects widows, old people, and children observes all the laws of the entire Torah.”
She’s easygoing with adults and warmly welcomes children but is hard on herself. Two days a week, on Monday and Thursday, she fasts. Salo lost his temper and warned her that a woman of her age, under our trying conditions, must eat. Fasting is dangerous for her.
Grandma Tsirl took his hand in hers and said, “I have been fasting for many years and nothing happened. Fasting is like prayer.”
Salo was amazed by her strong will and let her be.
Danzig brought Milio to her and asked her the meaning of his muteness. Grandma Tsirl looked at him and said, “His eyes show that he sees sights and hears sounds. It can be assumed that he saves the words and sights in his heart and won’t let them go to waste. Whose child is he?”
“We found him.”
“Our lawgiver Moses was also a foundling.”
Danzig bowed his head, and his large body fell silent.
“Be wary of silent children; they are destined to reveal the mysteries of the earth,” she said and smiled.
“What should I do?” asked Danzig quietly.
“Read him a chapter from the Book of Psalms every day.”
“He doesn’t understand Hebrew.”
“Prayer does not require understanding, my dear.”
Grandma Tsirl keeps surprising us with astonishing statements.
Ever since Grandma Tsirl told him what to do, Danzig reads Milio a psalm every day and sings him a Yiddish lullaby about a little goat. Milio pays attention to Danzig’s facial expressions, and sometimes a smile crosses his lips. Now and then, to encourage him, Danzig jumps up, claps his hands, and softly sings, “Milio is a big boy; soon he will speak and sing and everyone will say, ‘See how Milio speaks and sings.’ ”
12
The rains are devastating. The canvas tents are no defense against the wetness, but someone is watching over us. One of our patrols discovered a ruin with a roof a mile from our encampment. Kamil and Felix checked it and determined that the ceiling should be reinforced with supporting beams. But, all in all, we could find shelter there.
It appeared to be the abandoned summer home of the landlord of the forest. Some faded paintings still hung on the walls, and there was a stove in the corner. We labored all day to clean it up, and by the evening we were sitting alongside it, enjoying the warmth.