Part 1

The Story of a Life
by Aharon Appelfeld

When Aharon Appelfeld was seven years old the Nazis occupied Czernowitz, his hometown. They penned the Jews into a ghetto and eventually sent whoever had not been shot or starved to death on a forced march across the Ukraine to a labor camp. As men, women, and children fall away around them, Aharon and his father miraculously survive, and Aharon, even more miraculously, escapes from the camp shortly after he arrives there.

The next few years of Aharon's life are both harrowing and heartrending: he hides, alone, in the Ukrainian forests from peasants who are only too happy to turn Jewish children over to the Nazis; he has the presence of mind to pass himself off as an orphaned gentile when he emerges from the forest to seek work; and, at war's end, he joins the stream of refugees as they cross Europe on their way to displaced persons' camps that have been set up for the survivors. Aharon eventually makes his way to Palestine; once there, he attempts to build a new life while struggling to retain the barely remembered fragments of his old life, and he takes his first, tentative steps as a writer. As he begins to receive national attention, Aharon realizes his life's calling: to bear witness to the unfathomable. In this unforgettable work of memory, Aharon Appelfeld offers personal glimpses into the experiences that resonate throughout his fiction.

Chapter 1

At what point does my memory begin? It sometimes seems to me as if it began only when I was four, when we set off for the first time, Mother, Father, and I, for a vacation into the heart of the shadowy, moist forests of the Carpathians. But I sometimes think that memory began to bud from within me before that, in my room, next to the double-glazed window that was decorated with paper flowers. Snow is falling, and fleecy soft flakes are slowly coming down from the sky with a sound so faint that you cannot hear it. For hours I sit and gaze in wonder, until I merge with the white flow and drift off to sleep.

A clearer memory is linked for me to one word, too long and rather hard to pronounce, Erdbeeren, which means "strawberries" in German. It is spring. Mother is standing at the open window. I am perched on a chair next to her, and suddenly, from a side alley, there appears a young Ruthenian girl. She is carrying a broad, circular wicker basket full of strawberries on her head. "Erdbeeren!" Mother calls out. Her call is not directed at the girl but at Father, who is in the back garden and very near the girl. Father stops her, she lifts the basket off her head, and they speak for a moment. Father laughs, draws out a banknote from the pocket of his jacket, and presents it to the girl, who, in exchange, gives him the basket with all the strawberries inside it. Father comes up the steps and enters the house. Now one can see it close up: the basket is not deep but extremely wide; the berries are tiny and red and still alive with the scent of the forest. I so want to put out my hand and take a handful from the basket, but I know that this is completely forbidden, and I restrain myself. Still, my mother understands me, and she takes a handful from the basket, rinses them, and serves me them in a small bowl. I'm so happy that I can hardly breathe.

Here the ritual begins: Mother sprinkles powdered sugar on the tiny fruit, adds cream, and serves up the delicacy to each of us. There's no need to ask for another portion: Mother ladles it out, more and more, and we feast on it with great relish, as if we are about to finish the strawberries. But there is nothing to worry about, the basket is still full, and even if we go on eating all through the night, it won't get any emptier. "A pity there are no guests," says Mother. Father laughs quietly, as if a partner to a conspiracy. And the following day, too, we eat more overflowing portions, though distractedly and no longer with a ravenous appetite. Mother puts the remaining strawberries in the pantry. Later I saw, with my very own eyes, how the glorious berries had turned grayish and had shriveled up; for the rest of the day, I felt sad whenever I remembered them. But the woven basket, made of simple twigs, remained in our home for many days, and every time I glanced at it, I would remember how it had looked like a red crown when it rested on the head of the Ruthenian peasant girl.

Clearer memories are the walks along the banks of the river, on the paths by the fields, and on the grassy meadows. I see us climb a hill, sit on top of it, and gaze around. Speaking little, my parents listen attentively. With Mother it is more obvious. When she listens, her large eyes are wide open, as if trying to take in everything around her. At home, too, there is more quiet than talking. Nothing spoken-no phrases-remain in my memory from those distant days, only Mother's gaze. It was filled with so much softness and tender solicitude that I feel it to this very day.

Our house is spacious and has many rooms. One balcony faces the street, and the other one, the public park. The drapes are long, trailing on the parquet floor. When the maid changes them, a scent of starch fills the whole house. But even more than the drapes, I love the floor-or, rather, the carpet that covers the floor. On its floral patterns I construct streets and houses from wooden blocks and populate them with stuffed bears and tin dogs. The carpet is thick and soft, and I sink into it for hours, pretending that I'm traveling on a train, crossing continents, and eventually arriving at my grandfather's village.

In summer we will travel to Grandfather's village, and just thinking of it induces a sort of drowsiness, as memories of the previous visit surface. But the images I see in my memory have become so hazy since then that they are more like a dream. All the same, one word remains, and that is mestameh-"presumably." The word is strange and incomprehensible, yet Grandmother repeats it several times a day. Many times I was about to ask what this strange word meant, but I didn't. Mother and I speak German. Sometimes it seems to me that the way Grandfather and Grandmother talk makes Mother uncomfortable, and that she'd prefer for me not to hear their language. All the same, I summon up the courage and ask, "What's the language that Grandfather and Grandmother are speaking?"

"Yiddish," Mother whispers in my ear.

Days in the village are long, stretching deep into the white night. In the village there are no carpets, only mats. Even the guest room has a mat. At the touch of a foot, the mat makes a dry rustling sound. Mother sits next to me and carves into a watermelon. In the village there are no restaurants and no cinema; we sit out in the yard till late, watching the sunset that goes on till the middle of the night. I try hard not to doze off, but eventually I fall asleep.

Copyright © 2004 by Aharon Appelfeld.

About the Author

Aharon Appelfeld received the Prix Médicis Étranger for The Story of a Life. The author of more than twenty acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction, he lives in Jerusalem.