Yisrael-Chaim Bilecki
The Noose Pulled Tight...
On the grave of my friend, a suicide
That day was foggy. And it seemed the fog had an intention in it: do not see what is happening around... The surroundings are terrible and fearful, and do not look with your eyes. You must not do it, because you must live and rejoice. That is the highest meaning of existence: to live! The fog already knew: there, in an attic room, a young man had pushed the little bench from under his feet and pulled a rope tight around his neck... But the surroundings did not know: why? For what? Always silent, almost melancholy, a passive nature, phlegmatic, eyes extinguished, weariness on his face. Young, and already exhausted. And in his heart something seethed. Waves stormed and wrestled, but the timidity with which he had been endowed stifled the storm within, and the cry did not ring out in reality. And there was created what is called: a deficit... And the tall blond young man could not bear any deficit. Who could have covered the deficit? Without any doubt: surroundings that would have understood him and compelled him to cry out what he needed to cry out... But his surroundings were average young people whose gaze reaches no further than their noses... So he was a stranger among them, like one lost, not of this world. Ah, how carelessly dirty hands sometimes scratch in the soul of a lost one! How brutally one sometimes sticks unclean nails into another's wound! The blond M. loved life, though the impression could have been the opposite. But people did not understand one another; that is a lie. No one used to be drawn to the café like the blond M. A proof that he loved life is also the fact that he committed suicide... It is a paradox, but a psychologically grounded, a correct one. Because he loved his life, he could not bear any obstacles on its way.
Because he wanted to live, he carried the thought around for a longer time, and no change occurred in the ever pensive M. Two days before the horrifying deed he stood on the pavement with his friends, and one of them told how today a Jew had been rescued from the gallows... And the melancholy, pensive M. burst out laughing loudly, and in that laughter lay hidden the secret of tomorrow; it was the laughter of a raving madman who must be buried alive; the laughter rang with contempt and mockery for the whole world, for everything that breathes and exists. Such laughter also recalls abandon, and mockery of oneself in fiery hatred of one's surroundings; such laughter freezes the blood in the veins, because it means: here, tomorrow I too will prove that whoever does not want to strike the pose of a suicide will not be taken down from the rope alive... [unclear], one can be forewarned... And as though nothing lay hidden there in his brain, as though the thought of perishing tomorrow did not concern him at all, he was calm, composed, not nervous. A day before the tragic end he even settled accounts with the Master of the Universe. No, today he will no longer pray. If one breaks with life, then also with God. At least in the last minutes to be true to oneself... Enough mumbled prayers... And I will deny it if anyone should want to say that his every deed, born after the thought of death by his own hand had soaked into his brain, was the product of a psychically abnormal state. No and no! With his constant calm he had an inner deficit, which causes suffering, which shakes one up. Yes, he struggled with life, and therefore his remaining testament consists of the two words: "Chafatzti bachayim"... "I wanted to live"... But... ah, but my view of life is different, but my train of thought is different, not like my surroundings, but grey and dark is the outer world in comparison with the great richness of my heart. But... but... I am a falling star, which strays and wanders and knows no rest... And such a one is entirely superfluous in the world. So thought the blond M., and then he decided: to commit suicide. At the same time he thought: how great will be the revenge on those who may perhaps feel guilty for my death. And how will my surroundings judge me: for good or for bad? Will it affect them? What will they think when the news of my death reaches them? Will anyone react with a tear? They will say: "Yes, something was seething in him. You remember: here and there he spoke hinting words. You remember how he once defended a suicide and expressed himself that it is heroism, a courageous deed. You remember how he once said that he would have the boldness to look the Angel of Death in the eyes without trembling"... So the blond M. thought about the minutes after his death, and he himself burst out laughing... Ha-ha! And he fell silent. The thought of suicide had been warming itself in him for a long time like a snake. He had
still, a short while before his death, fulfilled a social duty. How then should one think of such a man, whose gallows had been ready for two days, and yet he controlled himself so until the last minute of his life? What did he think during those two days? How did he look at his friends? No, he was not an average suicide, of the kind we read about daily in the press. His hands surely did not tremble when he cast his last glance at his father and went up to the attic room to pull the rope tight. He did not want to stupefy himself in order to soften the pain of his young death by his own hand. He had the same thoughts as always. Over twenty years this deficit had accumulated, which brought him to that minute... In his melancholy glance at life the tragic secret of his tomorrow was already lodged. But we could not read it. We average people, who can endure every war between the "I" and reality; we who pay no attention to the torn pieces of our soul and patch them with dirty patches, could not understand the nirvana-like calm of his extinguished eyes, from which burst forth the cry: understand me!... It is clear: every suicide, if he is a little more than average, dreams of being woven into the fabric of eternity. And therefore it is understandable that the blond M. pulled the rope tight around his neck on that evening when a memorial gathering was to take place in memory of a fallen hero. From the dead gaze cried out the phrase: I wanted to live... But do not weep, I beg you, over my death by my own hand... But understandable, very, very understandable to me was the heart-rending weeping of the father in the middle of the Kaddish, who could absolutely get no answer to his "why" and "for what".