Hostage by Elie Wiesel Page B

delirious.
    “Leibele, my friend,” said Haskel in a very low voice.
    There was no reply.
    “It’s me, Haskel. Can you hear me?”
    No response.
    Haskel didn’t dare scream, but he certainly wanted to, at the top of his voice.
    He wanted to wake up his friend, keep him alive, have him stay with him for another hour, for eternity. But Leibele couldn’t hear anything.
    Haskel wished he could touch him, or get close to him, but his two chaperones wouldn’t let him. So he had to content himself with leaning closer to the patient.
    “Leibele, Leibele, I want to pray for you. I have to know your mother’s name, Leibele; tell me your mother’s name.”
    As Leibele started mumbling something, Natasha stifled a small cry, her hand over her mouth.
    “He’s talking to me,” Haskel cried out, with joy.
    He began moving closer to the patient, but Ilya stopped him. He put a white handkerchief over his mouth.
    “Go ahead, my friend,” said Ilya. “But only for a minute.”
    Haskel bent over his friend’s parchment-like face and heard him whisper, “My mother’s name … is Rachel, Rochele. My mother’s … name is Rochele.”
    Haskel straightened up and stepped back.
    “God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, among all your sick, heal Leib, son of Rachel, of all his ills.”
    “My mother,” Leibele said in a trembling whisper, “sheleft before me. She’s waiting for me up there. And I’m waiting for her.”
    He knows, Haskel said to himself. The anguish he felt was almost overwhelming.
    “You’re going to get well, Leibele. I promise in the name of my dear ones. We’re going to study together, pray together, tell the world about the dangers of forgetting … together.”
    “Yes, yes, my friend … Haskel. My mother …”
    He was drawing nearer to her, that was certain. Soon he would be with her, just as Haskel would one day be with
his
mother. A tear trickled down his cheek.
    Suddenly, Leibele tried to lift himself up. As his eyes met Haskel’s, his speech became stronger.
    “If your prayer is answered, the first thing I’ll do is pray with you. I’ll wear tefillin and so will you.”
    He fell back on the drenched pillow. He was drifting away.
    Natasha looked at him tenderly. Months later, after she and Ilya had to return to the Soviet Union, Ilya asked her to marry him. The last time Haskel saw Ilya, he asked his Russian savior to get him a pair of tefillin.

    Shaltiel has discovered that his worst enemy is not his memory overflowing with events and faces, or his exacerbated sensitivity, but his body, his whole body, strained and enfeebled. The Arab torturer is weakening Shaltiel’s resistance and undermining his spirit by punishing his body. Deprived of food and sleep, his eyelids are as heavy as lead. His tongue sticks to his palate. His lips are gashed. His head and lungs are bursting. He has shooting pains in his shoulders, hands and fingers. Breathing is an ordeal.
    Is it daylight outside or dusk? He’d very much like to know, though it really doesn’t matter. He doesn’t know anything, except that hell exists.
    “Confess, you louse!” the Arab commands. “You’re Jewish, you’re a spy, you belong to a criminal group. Confess that you support your Jewish brothers in Palestine, that you love them, the murderers of my people. We know it.”
    He has lowered his voice, as if people on the street outside might hear him. There is daylight now. The hostage strains to hear noise from the outside—any noise from a cityscape that is no longer.
    Shaltiel nods his head, his nose covered in blood. Yes, he says, he loves the people of Israel, but, no, he’s never been a threat to the Palestinians. From where does he get his courage? Is it because he’s innocent? He doesn’t know. He only knows, between two fainting fits, that the Arab is torturing him and that torturers are never right. Worse than the physical suffering is the powerlessness in the face of humiliation. Still, it’s his body that’s