Read Elie Wiesel for Free Online

only Malkiel was authorized to edit Tamar. No trespassing. They were an elite team, blessed from on high. Inseparable. Tamar’s style, Malkiel’s editing, a real lesson for beginners. So much so that the sage, always ingenious, suggested they cover a story together. They took the shuttle to Washington, stayed at the Madison Hotel, and went to work. Tamar knew everybody in the Senate and the House. She had a contact in the White House. They called her by her first name, they teased her, they invited her to lunch, dinner, the “reception of the year.” “Sorry.” Sheshrugged. “I’m not alone.” Malkiel blushed. Was he a burden to her, heavy baggage? “Are we doing the story together, or not?” Tamar asked. “Are we going to win the Pulitzer together or not?” Malkiel could only agree: “Of course, of course.” She laughed ironically: “You
are
stupid. Look at these people—they’re dying of jealousy. I love that.”
    Actually Malkiel was thrilled to be with her. He liked everything about her: the way she dressed, did her hair, gave orders—she knew how to make herself heard. Naturally, he was in love with her; naturally, he hoped she wouldn’t notice; naturally, he was wrong. Too bright, Tamar. A penetrating intelligence. And beneath her professional cool she was rather romantic.
    Why was she showing such an interest in her colleague? Because he wasn’t competing with her? Or trying to impress her? Because he behaved like a lost boy with her? The others on the editorial staff were men and women of the world; they knew how to open doors. Not Malkiel. Shy and retiring, he listened in silence like a good boy, observed in silence, retreated into silence. Tamar suspected a secret within him. And Tamar loved secrets. She knew he had grown up without a mother. The poor boy. Tamar loved the sufferings of others. She came from a family where humor drove out sadness. Ah—she recalled that she had never heard Malkiel laugh. Never mind that; she’d teach him.
    Their first night in Washington. After a long dinner with a local reporter, who boasted of keeping his ear to the ground, they went up to their rooms, but she paused at her door. “Are you sleepy?” Tamar asked. “Not really,” Malkiel said, and averted his eyes. “We could work a little,” she said. “Do you want to?” He did want to; he wanted whatever she wanted.
    She opened the door; they went in. Sitting side by side ona couch, they went over their notes, elaborated on various strategies for the investigation, compared impressions, uncertainties, possibilities; it was midnight, and they couldn’t seem to finish. It was two in the morning, and they lay in an embrace.
    How did it happen? Who dared take the first step? Malkiel. He rose above his inhibitions and took the initiative. He had never in his life felt so whole or so real. Simply, without a word, he took her in his arms; and she submitted. Neither spoke. Yet he felt a powerful urge to talk, to dissipate silence and doubt. He had to make an enormous effort not to say what men always say in that situation: “I’m in love with you, Tamar, and always have been. You’re the woman of my life. I’ve waited for you since I was born; only now am I starting to live.” Other times, at the edge of abandon, at the heart of ecstasy, he knew a faintly bitter taste of farewell, of nothingness. At the eye of the storm, he sensed death guarding all the exits; as soon as one dipped beneath the surface of things, death was there, with open arms. Sadness heralded it; joy disguised it and staved it off.
    Tamar asked, “What are you thinking about?”
    Tell her? Tell her that he had a father who’d never recovered from the death of his wife, whose whole being was suffused with melancholy, who helped others triumph over theirs by listening, just by listening? “I’m thinking of my father,” he said.
    His father was not yet ill. He was passing through cycles of depression, that was all. Was his disease