Mr. Mani (30 page)

—I was beside myself too, Father. All that gorgeous red hair lying on the floor with those mortified Turkish lice—perhaps even a louse from Palestine—running about in it ... for a moment I almost picked it up and saved it, but by then I was afraid of it myself—and that whole train ride back with her, with everyone staring at her cropped hair—I tell you, it made her more attractive than ever—they were walking up and down the aisles for a look at her! The devil knows why it made her so beautiful—perhaps the way it brought out those high cheekbones—or her eyes...

—Why, nothing, of course. What could I say? Nothing is all I have been able to say for many days now. She has become a different person: wild, bitter, heedless, morose ... I have made up my mind—I have had enough—I want nothing more to do with her—I am leaving. I shall go live with Grandmother...

—I am leaving ... oh, just wait until you hear about it all, dear Papa!

—Yes, but only there—in that hotel in Stamboul—while we were waiting for the train to Europe...

—We had no choice. My word, Father, we had no choice! Wait one minute—listen, Father—we were running low on money...

—I had no idea how we would ever get out of there ... my word...

—Yes. That was my promise and I kept it. Everywhere—even in Venice—everywhere...

—In Palestine too. Naturally. There especially. The first night I slept a floor below her, surrounded by parturient women ... and after that, in a hostel miles away...

—I will tell you about it soon enough.

—A clinic of sorts.

—Aboard ship too. Of course. We had private berths everywhere. And if none were available, we asked for a partition...

—Yes. But that was only toward the end of our journey. And we reached Stamboul in the dead of night. I did not want to leave the station, because I was afraid we would miss the train for Europe in the morning—we had had quite enough of the Turks—and there was only one room left there—not to mention the expense...

—What I am saying, Father, is—but listen to me, will you!—why must you be so damnably suspicious?—that we entered Turkey with exactly one hundred bishliks...

—About thirty thalers. I did not want to touch the gold coins—not until I knew where we stood. Look—they are still strapped to my waist—not a coin less than you gave me...

—I know exactly. Everything can be accounted for. You will have an account of every penny.

—Of course, Father, of course. It's not the money but the principle. I know that. But there were mishaps. There was a tragic accident in Beirut, where we had to stay an extra night—and our ship sailed for Stamboul without us, with all our luggage aboard—by the time we caught up with it, it was gone—even the gifts we bought in Jerusalem had been pilfered...

—Later ... one thing at a time...

—A man was killed. A good friend.

—But for heaven's sake, Father, I am telling you. I was afraid we would run out of money, and we—

—No. I am not shouting. Forgive my asking, but what exactly is it that you want?

—In mourning? In mourning for what? For Linka's hair? That much at least is retrievable.

—Other things are not.

—For example ... for example ... no matter...

—No. I do not wish to frighten you.

—For example ... suppose, Father, I were to say innocence ... or happiness...

—Happiness. Yes.

—In no special sense. Happiness. Innocence. I do not wish to distress you, but we were close to losing her there—she wished to remain—I pulled her out of the vortex with my last strength...

—Of Palestine, dear Papa. Your Eretz-Yisro'el...

—I am skipping around, that is so—you will have to excuse me—but not now, because I see you have not the patience. You are falling off your feet. Go to sleep, Father ... tomorrow ... just fetch me a cigarette first, because the ones I have are no better than straw...

—From Palestine. They smoke like the blazes there too.

—Not at all. Here, take the whole pack—how stupid of me not to have brought more—I should have realized what a cigarette from there would mean to you...

—This? The devil knows. I suppose it's some sort of camel.

—Perhaps a Jewish camel.

—They are actually grayer, more sand-colored—rather patient beasts—perhaps because they have such small brains...

—Thank you.

—The Mohammedans, of course.

—Some wander and some do not.

—Most? Most live in cities and villages.

—Yes, real cities.

—Where? Nowhere...

—I did not count, but there are some.

—No, dearest Papa, I am not cross. The wheels of the train are simply still spinning in my head. For five whole days we have been on rails: Europe is quite overrun by them. A young German engineer who came aboard at Salonika and shared our compartment for two days told me that in ten or twenty years it will be possible to cross the entire Continent in a single coach without having to step out onto a platform...

—So he said. But through the window, Father, Europe looks ablaze with unrest, with the profoundest gloom. The wagons are packed—in the villages you see great bonfires—the peasants are leaving their plows and turning into itinerant pilgrims—you see fires in all the fields. Everyone is talking about the
fin de Steèle,
the last days of this century. There is a sense of exultation, but also of great anxiety, and everywhere there are seers and prophets. It is one great carnival, I tell you! Most of all, the Russian muzhiks, whom you see singing and kneeling and lighting candles all over. And everywhere there are Greeks and Turks out to swindle you, and wherever you look, Father, in every railroad coach, our shifty-eyed Jews too. Some are heading west, some south—very
practical
pilgrims, you may be sure—not a God-seeker among them—no,
Him
they carry around on their backs, along with their bundles and their children, quite crushing them—you have no idea how many unwashed Jewish children are underfoot wherever you go...

—We left Palestine two weeks ago. By the Feast of Tabernacles we were already in Beirut...

—With that man.

—The same physician who lured us to Jerusalem ... did not Linka write you about him before we sailed?

—Dr. Mani.

—A Jew, of course. What did you think? You wouldn't happen to have any brandy around, would you?

—I am suddenly shaking all over.

—Well, never mind ... as long as we can get this fire going again ... I can't tell you how I dreamed of it ... the colder the nights, the more I pictured myself coming home and making straight for it...

—It's the Sabbath? So it is ... I have totally lost track of time ... well, then, let's call for Mrazhik and have him poke some life into the coals...

—Are you sure that you want to hear about it? That you feel up to it?

—I believe I do ... but first let's see to the fire ... where is Mrazhik? Don't tell me he's become an observant Jew too. How quiet it is up there! Do you think she has fallen asleep? Or is she telling Mama her story in a whisper? Perhaps, Father, you would rather go upstairs and hear it directly from her—don't let me keep you—my feelings won't be hurt...

—Very well, then...

—Very well. Let there be two stories, an upstairs and a downstairs one. As for the truth, it can run up and down between them...

—From the beginning? And where, I ask you, is that?

—Don't be angry. No, don't; I am not being coy. Incidentally, I met your Herzl, although I had no chance to give him regards from you ... it was too hurried and confused an encounter...

—From the beginning? But you already know all that. Linka wrote you three letters.

—All right ... all right ... but where does the beginning begin? I fear distressing you.

—To Palestine? But what sort of question is that? I mean, for a Zionist like you ... or have you forgotten that you sent us to a Zionist congress, ha ha?

—Well, then, we simply took the next logical step...

—But what do you mean, what has that to do with it? Does not Palestine have everything to do with it?

—My apologies. All right, then: from the beginning. The beginning—the journey there—was wonderful. Everything about it. Even the warm weather and clear skies. Already in Katowice you could see delegates gathering in the train from all over Galicia and Poland—a totally Zionist train, except for the invisible driver. Toward evening a second train arrived from Moscow and flooded our car with a large group of youngsters who made a great impression on me. They're another breed of Jew, Father: full of life—earnest—simply dressed—unashamedly Jewish yet freethinkers, every one of them. They are different from us—self-assertive—the children of pogroms and Pobedonostsev—the bearers of bright hopes. All had brought parcels of food with them to save the expense of eating in the dining car. I could see at once that Linka was drawn to them. Oh, she tried not to show it—but not enough to keep them from noticing her and striking up a conversation. At first of course in Yiddish—and yet it did not take long to find someone who spoke a little French—and someone else who could jabber in English—at long last Madame Zwitowska's language lessons were bearing fruit! And from then on, Father, everywhere we went—in Switzerland, in Palestine—every one of those languages went with us ... although it was only in Palestine—and in English—that the real, the worst damage was done...

—I'll get to that. Let me tell it in order. From now on it will all be in order, the painful parts too. There will be no avoiding them—they will grow harsher and harsher as this story outgrows its cradle—this story, Father, which—

—Precisely. We are still in that railway car, which by now was all Jewish, the Christians having fled long ago—still in that night that was so full of promise that it made Zionists out of us all, even out of me, who, as you know, has my grave doubts about the matter. Yes, even I was all ears. There was a young couple there from the Ukraine, a big bearded fellow in an embroidered peasant blouse and a girl he had with him. They could not get close to Linka, because she was already surrounded, and so they threw themselves on me—it has always struck me how couples are attracted to me most extravagantly—I am irresistible to them—and began explaining their “political position,” because they had a “program” of their own. Each kept finishing the other's sentences. And they were not, I soon realized, even delegates, but only “observers,” although terribly revolutionary and conspiratorial ones, with a detailed plan of action. They considered your Dr. Herzl to be as big a tyrant as the Czar and not at all a mere spinner of fantasies...

—A spinner of fantasies.

—There is nothing wrong with fantasy.

—I never said that.

—Of course, Father.

—Nothing is impossible ... In any event, dawn broke over the marvelous spires of Prague to find Linka laughing merrily—she laughed her way through the forests of Germany and past the reddish houses of Munich—and there, toward evening, the train spewed us out to stretch our limbs while the locomotive was restoked with coal and the cars were de-jew-migated ... And so we went for a walk through the streets and lanes of that most beautiful city, although by now Linka was less walking than floating on air with all those young Russians while I brought up the rear with my couple—which had taken possession of me entirely—thinking that her beauty was far greater than had ever occurred to us here, in our remote little Jelleny-Szad. Apparently, dearest Papa, we had misinterpreted the silence of the flour mills...

—I am saying that that extraordinary, redheaded concentrate of femininity that I had always thought could be understood only by me now had everyone eating out of her hand, which left me imbecilically wondering how I could ever have doubted her powers of communication...

—It does not matter.

—It does not matter.

—Yes, I suppose that I do have a way of saying it does not matter when it does...

—Let me tell it in my own good time.

—I do feel up to it, but let me take my time. You know me: in the end even I always manage to get to the point...

—I did not betray a trust, Father. But even if I did not stick to our plan, don't you want to know why? There has to be a reason, does there not? Because at first everything went according to schedule. The train left at midnight for your Basel, and we arrived at noon, and took a deep breath of your Swiss air, and went straight to your boardinghouse exactly as you told us that you did last year, where waiting for us were two clean and agreeable rooms...

—So they were. Three flights up.

—Yes, Frau Kuralnik remembered you, as did Herr Frisch.

—And the old man too, of course, the old man too. Everyone was most sorry you could not come, and when I told them about Mama, they were most sorry about her too. And they were all quite taken with Linka, who curtsied to them very prettily. They tried so hard to make the kitchen kosher that there were separate shelves for dairy and pork. Some delegates from England and Belgium had already arrived—everywhere you heard the hubbub of Jews—and suddenly I fell into such a black mood that I went up to my room and threw myself on the bed, quite unable to understand what I was doing there. I must have fallen asleep at once—in fact, I could have slept through that entire congress if Linka had not woken me toward evening, all flushed and excited, with two fancy-looking delegates' cards that she had gotten hold of in the front office
Dr. Efrayim Shapiro and Linka Shapiro, Delegates to the Third Zionist Congress ...
the devil only knows how she managed to talk them into it...

—So it would seem.

—They were expecting you—and when you did not show up, your only son was recognized as your heir apparent—and for good measure the inheritance was doubled to let your little daughter in too—in such a fashion does our Jewish democracy grow by leaps and bounds...