A Tale of Love and Darkness

ALMOST SIXTY years have gone by, yet I can still remember his smell. I summon it, and it returns to me, a slightly coarse, dusty, but strong and pleasant smell, reminiscent of touching rough sackcloth, and it borders on the memory of the feel of his skin, his flowing locks, his thick mustache that rubbed against the skin of my cheek and gave me a pleasant feeling, like being in a warm, dark old kitchen on a winter day. The poet Saul Tchernikhowsky died in the autumn of 1943, when I was little more than four years old, so that this sensual recollection can only have survived by passing through several stages of transmission and amplification. My mother and father often reminded me of those moments, because they enjoyed boasting to acquaintances that their child sat on Tchernikhowsky's lap and played with his mustache.

They always turned to me for confirmation of their story: "Isn't it true that you can still remember that Saturday afternoon when Uncle Saul sat you on his lap and called you 'little devil'? It's true, isn't it?"