The Family Moskat (18 page)

"What a race of people!" He bent down and picked up the chair that Hilda had overturned in her flight.

The only one who remained sitting at the table as though nothing untoward was happening was Dr. Messinger. His tall, lean -108-figure seemed

to have frozen into a fixed position. His long arms hung down.

His small eyes, half-hidden behind folds of flesh, looked toward the window, past the curtains. He seemed to be gazing beyond the room, totally unaware of what was happening inside it.

" Messinger, are you asleep?" Abram shouted at him.

And Messinger answered, in a Germanized Yiddish: "
Ja! Nein! Um
Gotteswillen
, be good enough to leave me alone!"

4

"Madness! Lunacy!" Abram remarked to himself and the room at large. "What difference does it make to you, Gina, if the children amuse themselves?"

"It makes a lot of difference. Intelligent people should devote themselves to something sensible, not playing around with fortune-telling like a bunch of old midwives. It's a shame and a disgrace.

And I don't want that woman around here! I'll tell Hertz straight out. It's either her or me. I'm not going to have any brazen females hanging around."

The door opened and Hertz Yanovar came back. His small face was bloodless. The perspiration stood out in beads on his high forehead. He looked at Gina with his sad eyes and his lips turned down, as though he were on the point of tears. "A shame, Gina," he said. "To drive her out! A shame!"

"I warned you that this is what it would come to. It's all your fault.

First it was hypnotism, and then automatic writing, and now it's pulling ghosts out of your sleeves. Listen to me, Hertz. I've suffered plenty on your account, but there's a limit to everything. I'm the one that's being put to shame. I'm the one they talk about as though I were a slut. I won't have it, you heart! That woman makes my flesh crawl. Either go off with your fine medium and spend your time with black magic or sit down and attend to your work. I can't stand it any more."

She bent her head, covered her face with her hands, and started to cry. Abram took his silk handkerchief out of his pocket and held it out to her. Messinger got up from his chair and drew himself up to his full height.

"Good night, professor," he said. "
Adieu
."

"Please don't go," Hertz begged. "These things happen. I thought you'd demonstrate for us."

-109-"Not

tonight. I'm not in the mood.
Au revoir
." He went out with long strides.

"I think I'd better go, too," Dembitzer remarked.

"Why are you all running away?" Gina asked. She took Abram's handkerchief and blew her nose. "None of you is to blame. It's all my fault. I'm to blame--for everything."

She ran out of the room, letting the door bang after her.

"I really don't know," Yanovar sighed. "It's nothing but nerves --no more than that. It's true that she gets it from all sides. Nothing but trouble--" He went out after Gina.

"It's nothing but hysteria," Finlender remarked.

"It's not hysteria," Dembitzer said, rolling a cigarette. "Oh no.

She's jealous--and not without reason."

"You hear that, Asa Heshel?" Abram remarked. "Trouble and trouble, wherever you go. Come here, I want to talk to you. I think you and I had better leave. The two of them'll make up without us."

"Very well. I'm ready."

They went out into the corridor. Abram put on his long sable-collared coat and tall fur hat. He hooked his umbrella over his arm and lit a cigar. Asa Heshel put his coat on, and they both went out into the street. Abram sniffed the air. "A bit frosty," he said.

"Everyone makes a fool of himself in his own way," he continued after they had walked along a few yards. "One chases money, another chases women, and a third makes faces at ghosts. Well, the devil with 'em. Let's change the subject. Tell me, did Hadassah come to visit you?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"Today."

"What did she say? What did you talk about?"

"She's going to keep on giving me lessons. At my place."

"She looks bad, eh?"

"A little pale."

"I tell you that girl's life is a tragedy. The family's running wild.

Trying to talk her into a match--with a snotnose, a worm. All he's thinking of is the dowry, nothing else. He's as worthy of being Hadassah's husband as I am of being chief rabbi. The girl can't stand the sight of him. But her grandfather's bailiff--a bootlicker, a fawner, a hypocrite, the dirtiest dog in Warsaw--he's -110-become the judge and jury for the family. And they get that other one to help them--Zeinvele Srotsker--that specimen, with his rupture dragging on the ground. And all of them--every one of them--against one weak child. I'm so furious about it, I tell you, I have to bold myself back from running to that old bastard and breaking his bones."

Abram lifted his umbrella and began to wave it furiously in the air.

"But I don't understand," Asa Heshel said. "They can't drag her to the canopy."

"What? That bunch can do anything. Hadassah was practically born in my hands. I love her as though she were my own child.

That father of hers, that Nyunie, is a yellow-livered coward, a pinhead, an idiot. He trembles at the thought of his father. The old man is constantly threatening to disinherit him. He's been scaring the whole family that way for the last thirty years. The damn fools have talked themselves into thinking that he'll leave millions to 'em. I know what he'll leave them--he'll leave 'em his fingers to his nose. He'd rather throw his money into the Vistula.

So to hell with him. But what's the good of talking? He's gone to the rabbi, the Bialodrevner! And they've made the preliminary arrangements. Didn't Hadassah tell you about it?"

"Yes, she told me something."

"I must tell you that you've made a great impression on her.

Something unusual. I really don't understand it myself. Piff-paff!

That you're intelligent and accomplished--that I can see for myself. But I suppose girls see other things in a young man. I'll speak frankly--and I want you to answer me truthfully. What do you think about her? Do you like her--or not?"

"I--I like her very much." It was all Asa Heshel could do to keep his teeth from chattering.

"Come on, don't be ashamed. And don't tremble! Or go ahead and tremble if you like. It was my opinion, I must tell you, that they shouldn't be discussing matches now at all. She's a delicate girl--a hothouse flower. One touch from a coarse hand and she'll perish. And rather than have her fall into the clutches of that pipsqueak, Fishel, and that grandfather of his, the usurer, I'd rather see her dead! You'll think I'm crazy, but I tell you I'd sooner follow her coffin to the cemetery than dance at that kind of a wedding."

-111-Abram came

to a halt and clutched his left side. His big eyes became soft and tear-rimmed. Asa Heshel felt a moistness in his own eyes.

"And what is there to do?" Abram said reflectively, as though talking to himself.

"Oh, I would do anything--anything. Even if I knew that my whole life--"

"Yes, brother. I know--I know. I see how it is. Well, good night to you. We'll be talking to each other." Abram raised his umbrella and waved toward a passing sleigh. He held out his hand and pressed Asa Heshel's fingers. The sleigh moved off swiftly, its bells jingling. Asa Heshel walked along with a strange lightness, as though he were suddenly buoyant. His elongated shadow ran on before him. The icy wind blew against him, bil-lowing out the skirts of his coat. He had the feeling that he was not walking, but flying with the unimaginable speed of one who was being borne along to meet his destiny.

WHEN
Abram climbed into the sleigh after leaving Asa Heshel, he ordered the driver to take him to his apartment on the Zlota.

Halfway there he poked the driver between the shoulders with his umbrella and commanded him to turn around and go to the Stalova in Praga, on the other side of the Vistula. The driver halted his horse and scratched his head under the peak of his cap.

He did not feel up to making so long a trip on a cold night. But when he turned around and took another look at his passenger, elegant in his fur coat and fur hat, he wheeled the sleigh around, flourished his whip, and shouted: "Vyeh, little one, giddap!"

-112-The horse

galloped forward, clumps of snow flying from beneath its hoofs.

The sleigh slid along, bounced and careened, its bells jingling.

Abram leaned his shoulders against the back of the seat. He knew that Hama would shout to the high heavens when he got home.

She had warned him that if he stayed away from the house all night once more, she would take the two girls with her and go to her father's. But Abram could not resist the temptation of going to his one love, his true love, Ida, who had divorced the rich Leon Prager on his account, and had taken a flat in a mean section of the city to be near him, Abram. Over the telephone he had given her all sorts of excuses for his long absence, and only the day before he had sent her a bouquet of flowers and a box of bonbons by messenger. But Ida was not the kind who could be fobbed off with presents.

The sleigh turned in on the Senatorska. The clock in the tower of the city hall showed five minutes before midnight. Soon the sleigh emerged on Platz Zamkovy. On the left stood the palace, where in the old days Poland's kings had lived and where the Russian Governor-General now had his residence. At the gate greatcoated sentinels stood on guard, bayonets fixed to the barrels of their rifles. A single window on an upper floor was brightly illuminated. At the right, down the slope, stretched streets dimly lighted with gas lamps, the midnight sky stabbed here and there by factory chimneys.

The bridge, which by day was thick with tramcars, wagons, trucks, and automobiles, was now half empty. The Vistula lay frozen, the snow that covered it obliterating its banks. In the blue mistiness the landscape took on the appearance of a painted canvas. It was difficult for Abram to believe that only a few months before he had cavorted around the men's bathing pavilion, showing off, doing tricks. In Praga there was a suburban tang in the air. He smelled the smoke of the locomotives that whistled and puffed their way from the two railroad stations to the distant Russian provinces.

It was close to one o'clock when the sleigh pulled up at a four-storied house on a small street. Abram handed the driver a silver ruble and waved the change away. He pulled the doorbell. The janitor appeared, opened the gate with an enormous key, and bowed low over the twenty-kopek piece that Abram put into his hand. He passed by two enclosed courts and entered the last of the buildings, near a stable from which came the whinnying of -113-horses. It was on the fourth floor of the building that Ida had her flat and studio.

Abram climbed the stairs, halting at every landing to rest. He could hear cats mewing and there was the acrid odor of lard and carbolic acid. His legs felt heavy and his pulse was pounding. The dinner he had eaten earlier at a restaurant--brandy, fish, and roast goose--lay heavy on his stomach. "Ai, ai, I'm killing myself," he muttered. "If Dr. Mintz could see me now."

He found the doorbell in the darkness. He heard its strident ring.

He thought he would have to wait for a long time before Zosia, the servant, opened the door, but he heard her footsteps the moment he rang. When she saw Abram she squealed.

"Pan Abram! As I love my grandmother, it's Pan Abram!"

"Is your mistress sleeping?"

"Not yet. Come in. What a welcome visitor!"

Zosia was in her thirties, but she looked younger. She was the widow of a sergeant who had died ten years before in Siberia. She was more than a servant to Ida Prager; she was her friend and confidante. Whenever Abram brought a gift to Ida he was sure to bring something for Zosia too. She was plump, with a large bosom, a wide face, and a snub nose. Her blond hair was combed back on each side of her head and coiled over her ears. She did the cooking, washed the clothes, scrubbed the floors, sewed, darned, and always seemed to have plenty of time on her hands.

In her leisure she devoured crime stories issued in serial pamphlets and pored over a thick book that gave interpretations of dreams, keeping it under her pillow at night. Now she helped Abram off with his coat, took his fur hat, and put away his umbrella. Abram was breathing heavily, but he was not so far gone as to forget to give her a playful poke in her plump side.

"Where's your mistress?" he inquired.

"She's in the studio."

Abram pushed open the studio door. On the walls hung an array of Ida's canvases, among them a portrait of Abram. Tropical plants stood in tubs near the windows. Carved figures and figurines stood on tables and small taborets. Magazines and books were scattered on the bookshelves. Red candles were stuck in an ornamental glass stand. Abram knew that this bohemian disarray was all carefully planned to the minutest detail. Ida was sitting -114-on a low easy chair. She was wearing a black silk house dress, a wide embroidered sash around her waist, and red sandals on her feet.

She was puffing at a cigarette with a long mouthpiece. In the old days she had been renowned as a beauty and had won prizes at balls. Now she was close to forty. Her black hair, bobbed short, was beginning to show traces of gray. There were dark rings under her eyes. When she saw Abram she raised the corners of her mouth in a vexed smile.

"So, he's here at last! My great hero!" she said in Polish.

"God's miracle!"

"Good evening, Ida darling. How beautiful you look! How lucky that I find you still awake!"

"I've been to bed and I got up again. What kind of cigar is that you're smoking? It stinks!"

"Are you crazy? It's a pure Havana! Half a ruble each!"

"Throw it away. What evil spirit brought you here?"

"Are you beginning to quarrel? You know very well what brings me here."

"You could have telephoned. After all, I'm not your wife."

The door opened and Zosia appeared. She had put on a fresh blouse and around her waist she wore a tulle apron with lace edges. A comb was stuck in her hair. She smiled at Ida and asked: "Shall I make something to eat?"