A Khokhem

     Khokem.

     When my mother said this word she used to huck it out, like she was coughing up phlegm.  A khokhem, she said, enjoying both the sound and the spray, was a wise one, a learned person.  Or maybe, in the way that Yiddish works and has served us so well over the eons, the exact opposite.

     The story she had in mind was about a distant cousin of hers, a dancer named Adina.  She was famous in Letz before the invasion for her brisk turns and floating motions.  She was graceful and subtle, thin as a rail, but also very savvy about people.  A famous saying at the time was that a fool sees a man in his clothes but a khokhem sees the spirit in the man.  And in this way not only could teachers be wise but dancers could too.  Anyone for that matter.

     When the first bombs hit there were terrible injuries and Adina was one of those casualties.  She was crippled in fact, both legs smashed, and taken to a bed where she was forced to stay for the rest of the occupation until the inevitable end.

     At first she accepted her fate with the serenity of…well…a khokhem.  How could this happen, everyone asked?  Not just about Adina but about all the victims then and later.  Why would the Almighty allow this to take place…again?  It was all so unfair, so inexplicable.  But the Jews of Letz were philosophers too – they had to be, you see? – and they understood very well when Adina waved the cries away as though fanning smoke.  It was merely, she said, an example of zumzum, of god’s limitation.  We could not very well destroy ourselves, she said, and then turn around and blame God.  No more than a dancer can look to the floor for the slip. 

     What took place was up to us alone, in other words.

     But lying there for so long with her career finished, her longing squashed, her beautiful legs bashed, Adina struggled with her rage.  She tried to overcome her resentment, to think grandly, and made a valiant effort to stay serene.  She had always known that life was a tragedy with joy as a mere flourish but unable to move her feet she began to sink into a kind of stiffness of the soul.  After a time, she lost her will to survive and began to drink heavily because she said it killed the worms of despair.  And she began to love her enemies as brutally as possible.

     Yet life, the little delicacies and endeavors of ordinary life, went on in Letz.  This is the way, after all, that people outlast their ruin.  This is the story of the Jews.  And the sounds of chat from somewhere and the smells of freshly baked bread and the giggle of girls in the street began to filter up to Adina in her room.  And this was a lot like life being lived in spite of everything and it seeped into her almost against her will.

     One day, her caretaker was bringing her some soup she knew that she would not eat and was astonished to find Adina dancing.  There was no music, no sound at all, but Adina was hearing the tune in her own head.  And she was dancing to it.  Lying in bed, legs still as boards, unmoving from the waist down, yet dancing with only her arms and her shoulders and her head.  Her delicate hands moved through the air with the lightness of clouds and the strength of an ocean and in their light but sensual movement, she seemed to express the entire history of Letz.

     Soon people were coming to see her perform there in that room and she was giving lessons again and composers were again making music for her to dance to and this inspired other wounded artists to return to their passion.  The one-armed painter thought to make a mural of the history of the town; the deafened musician had a symphony of hope in mind; the damaged poet saw something in a morning fog. 

     And Letz came alive again even though it was only for a short bright time.

     Maybe it is true what they say…that blood is wiser than the mind and that veins know more than scholars.  Because somewhere inside of her beyond the curtain of reason, Adina knew that she was a dancer and would always be.  No matter what.  Not in her body only, but in her essence, her being.

     And as long as we are dancing we are not dead and every gesture brushes the skin of immortality.