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to tell him any more about Kazik’s life. Neigel lost control and gave Wasserman a beating. Later, when he broke down and asked the Jew’s forgiveness, his ugly secret was revealed [see under: PLAGIARISM].

And so Neigel went away on leave without hearing the rest of Kazik’s story. By the time he returned to the camp, in a state of shocked and anxious remorse over what he had done at home, Wasserman, Fried, Otto, and the others had become Neigel’s family, his near and dear, his entire world. Neigel—if one may say so—had dissolved into the imagination of Anshel Wasserman.

(HA) CHAZIRUYOT HAELEH

(THIS) SWINISHNESS

What Paula called the Nuremberg Laws.

Also see under: HITLER, ADOLF

CHAYIM, MASHMAUT HA

LIFE, THE MEANING OF

CHAYIM, SIMCHAT HA

LIFE, THE JOY OF

A unique or prolonged sense of identification with Being.

At 0425 hours, Kazik experienced the joy of life full-force. Twenty-seven years old at the time, he had gone out with Fried to wake Otto and break the news that he was ephemeral. Together they made their way to Otto’s pavilion, as one by one the other ARTISTS [q.v.], the living-dead who never shut their eyes, joined them from every corner of the zoo. The zoo was dark and the moon shone brightly, and Kazik saw dusky shadows everywhere that folded gently as he approached; he saw mysterious paths stretching through the darkness into the future; he saw the fresh grass sparkling with dew, the vast night sky strewn with thousands of slowly breathing stars that brushed his face with their veils … and though the shrill, metallic sounds of loudspeakers and the rattle of machine-gun fire could be heard in the distance, and the horizon was red because the Germans had set the ghetto on fire, Kazik did not understand this, nor did he want to understand this, or the sadness and despair on the faces of his companions. Because suddenly his heart swelled, till he could barely contain it, and his body was light, full of a bubbly effervescence and the murmurings and cracklings of joy, yes and he began: (1) to tumble over the wet lawn; (2) to hop on one foot and wave his arms; (3) to scream, drunk with happiness because (a) look, here he is! (b) he’s alive as can be! (c) and this is where he will stay! The eternal emperor of the moment! Divine singer of his own beating heart! Artist, painter of grass and the night sky! Yes! Alive! Alive! There was no deeper or simpler explanation for it than this! To hell with the sad sounds of trudging behind him! To hell with everything we know about this lousy life and about the inevitable end of KAZIK [see under. KAZIK, THE DEATH OF]!!! And Fried, seeing Kazik’s euphoria, was filled with dark dread, because how infinite was the great stream of time in which Fried was only a comma, a brief pause, a caesura in the flow; seventy years ago, Fried had not yet been steeped in time, and soon he would be out of it forever, and he and his world and everything he loved and deemed important would be extinguished then, and he saw the artists walking beside him and reflected, this was what was in store for each and every one of them, they would be erased as fast as footprints in a swamp. There was nothingnew to this, and yet it shocked him, because for a moment he could feel how strange and lost and hopeless they all were, and then suddenly, for no particular reason, sensible old Fried was also filled with this feverish, fearful joy, and he spread his arms and stifled a small happy sob, and felt a thousand tiny fragrant rosemary flowers budding all over his body, filled with nectar.

CHINUCH

EDUCATION

A process of instruction that forms, changes, or develops the character in a certain direction.

As soon as Fried realized how brief Kazik’s allotted time was, he decided to devote himself entirely to his son’s education, and to make good use of every moment of childhood while Kazik’s brain was still alert and receptive. He led him by the hand—that small architectural wonder!—around the room, bending over to point out objects and call out their names. Fried: “Carpet. Lamp. Table. Chair. Another chair. Another chair …” and the child repeated the words and remembered everything. Fried told him frantically about the house full of rooms made of bricks, and about the zoo made up of cages and about the people who come to look at the animals, made up of limbs and organs, but his description immediately seemed to him lacking in truth somehow, not the truth of simple facts but the living truth behind them, and so he stopped and reproached himself. Fried: “Nu, really! What nonsense you’re filling his mind with! Don’t you see that first you have to tell him the important things!” And he crouched down, holding Kazik firmly by the arms, and lectured him warmly and fluently about the people of the world, and their division into nations and religions and political parties … He stopped himself here again and added hesitatingly, “And ideologies,” but he could taste the dry, bland flavor of division, and when he named them—Poland, Germany, Christianity, Communism, Britain, Judaism, etc.—he felt as he had felt some fifty years before in the middle of his examination at the faculty of medicine in Berlin, when he was obliged to rattle off, to a full hall, a list of incurable diseases, and again he stopped and reproached himself. Fried: “Nu, really, what nonsense you’re talking, first you have to teach him what to be, that is—” But despite his noble intentions, Fried could nothold back slapdash advice, like: Beware of strangers, and doubt your friends, and never tell anyone what you really think, never tell the truth unless there’s