The Family Moskat (22 page)

"You'll drive me crazy. Dear God! I'm not accustomed to this fanaticism any more. You wait here. The sin'll be on my shoulders."

She went into the hall. There was the sound of a key being turned in the outside door. Asa Heshel entered. Gina threw a frightened glance at him and blocked his path.

-135-"Please

excuse me," she said. "Someone's in your room." "Did she come back?" Asa Heshel exclaimed.

"Who? Oh, you mean the pharmacy student. No. It's this way.

You'll have to sleep somewhere else tonight. I'll tell you what--

take the tramcar over to Hertz Yanovar's. I'll telephone him. Something's happened here, something unexpected. My husband arrived. As you know, I've been waiting for a divorce, and now, all of a sudden--he must have gone out of his head. There was no place to put him. One moment--"

She went quickly to the telephone, hastily banged the hook up and down, then gave the number. "Hertz? I'm glad I got you. When I tell you what happened you'll faint. Imagine, Akiba's here! He agrees to a divorce. Tomorrow. . . . What? . . . Of course; unexpected. Charged in, like a bull in a china shop. I thought I'd die. . . . What? . . . In Asa Heshel's room. I was afraid to let him out of my sight. Today he got the idea and tomorrow he might-- . .

. What? . . . I don't suppose he's got a grosz. We'll have to pay the rabbi and the scribe and the lot of 'em. . . . What? . . . Then you'll have to go and borrow some. . . . What? . . . No, I can't borrow from anybody. The pawnbroker doesn't open until late in the day and I've got nothing left to take there anyway. How much? I don't know; at least twenty-five. . . . What do you say? . . . Hertz, I'm pleading with you, don't make things worse. You've got to get it.

Maybe Abram--Oh God, if only I'd never been born!"

She flung the receiver down, leaving it dangling on the cord; then she reached for it and hung it on the hook. She turned and went back to Asa Heshel. "Tell me, I beg of you," she half sobbed. "Why should unfortunates like me have to drag out a tortured existence?"

"I can lend you twenty-five rubles," Asa Heshel said. He put his hand in his pocket and took out the banknote that Rosa Frumetl had given him some days before.

"Dear God. Where did you get such a fortune? An angel must have sent you." She blew her nose violently. "You're a noble youth. You'll get the money back soon, before the week's over.

Ride over to Hertz's. Dobbie'll prepare a bed for you. What is it I wanted to tell you? Yes. Someone called you twice. Hadassah, I think."

"What did she say?" Asa Heshel's face flushed a deep red.

"She did say something, but I don't remember exactly. That -136-you should call

her, or go over to see her, or--forgive me; I can't seem to think.

But don't worry; she'll call again, I'm sure. And thank you, and God bless you."

2

On the Gnoyna, not far from the house where Hertz Yanovar lived, Asa Heshel caught sight of Abram. He was standing in his fur coat and tall fur hat and was poking with the point of his umbrella into the trodden snow on the sidewalk. When he saw Asa Heshel he threw him a relieved glance and shouted: "At last you're here. I've been waiting for you."

"For me?"

"I know about everything--about Akiba and the twenty-five rubles. Gina told me everything; I called her on the telephone. She said you were coming to Hertz's for the night. So that's what you are. A philanthropist. Don't go up there. The place is a madhouse.

That Hilda Kalischer's just started to carry on. Plates are flying through the air like birds. It's a great life, I tell you."

"I don't understand," Asa Heshel said in bewilderment.

"It's easy enough. She's jealous. Like two cats tied up in a sack, that's the way it is. That I got out of there without a cracked skull is God's miracle. I tell you she's got her claws into him, that Kalischer woman. Either she's in love with him or she needs a professor for that black magic. Who knows? It's probably a mixture of both. You should hear the things she said. And that pinhead--weeping like a beaver. It was something, I tell you.

You'll stay at my place tonight. You can sleep in my wife's bed.

Don't get excited. She's left me. She's a virgin again and I'm a bachelor. I'm going abroad to raise money for a journal we're starting. I think I told you about it. It's a grandiose project. For youths like you--so that they won't have to rattle around without hope in the big cities. We'll prepare them for the universities. The brainy ones well arrange to send abroad. It's even likely that I'll be able to do something for you. And very quickly, too. And now tell me how you're getting along. Have you seen Hadassah? They've given me orders to keep away from there; not even to telephone."

"Me too."

"Who? When did it happen?"

-137-"I

telephoned her, and her mother told me not to dare call up again."

"So you see, we're both in the same boat. Look, it's late, I've had a few drinks, my tongue is loose--so I'll spill it out straight. The way it looks to me, you're in love with each other."

Asa Heshel was silent.

"Silence is confession. I'm an old-time woman-chaser myself. All this stuff is an open book to me. I can spot it before the victims themselves know what's happening. But what's the good of it if they're going to tie her to that snotnose?"

"She telephoned tonight. Twice. I wasn't in the house."

"She did? You see, I know what I'm talking about. She doesn't want him, that Fishel, with the whole business of the mikvah, and wearing a matron's wig, and his grandfather, and his lousy oil business, and the whole stinking mess. The damn fools. First they send their daughters to decent, modern schools and then they expect them to forget everything they've learned and suddenly become old-fashioned, orthodox, meek Jewish housewives. From the twentieth century straight back to the Middle Ages. Tell me about yourself. Is your health all right?"

"I don't know. Sometimes I think I'm not so well."

"What bothers you?"

"My head hurts. And my heart. I seem to be always tired."

"At your age you don't have to worry about your heart. You're such an unbeliever that you don't even believe in your own en-ergy. I don't have to flatter you, but I'm telling you that there's no reason you can't get to be a doctor, a professor, a philosopher, anything you want. You look like one of these rabbi-worshippers from the provinces, but just the same there's something about you that makes a hit with a woman. I tell you that if I were in your shoes I'd turn the world upside down."

"I'm grateful for your encouragement. If I hadn't run into you here, I'd be finished."

"You're talking things into yourself. Your destiny wouldn't change.

I believe in destiny. What does Hadassah see in you? It's an astonishing combination."

"I don't think anything'll ever come of it."

"Why not? Throw away the gaberdine and you'll be a regular European. Hadassah has an intuition. Don't worry. You'll be falling into each other's arms and you'll be tearing each other apart.

-138-But that's the

way love is. If I were in your place I'd be running off with her--

anywhere."

By this time they had reached Abram's house. The janitor opened the courtyard gate. There was a strong smell of liquor about him.

Abram inquired if Stepha had come home, but the janitor could not remember whether or not he had let her in. The stairways were dark. Abram struck a match. He opened the door and let Asa Heshel enter ahead of him. There was a shrill ringing; it was the telephone in the study. Abram hurried through the dark corridor. By the time he picked up the receiver his head was spinning and he felt on the verge of a faint. He could hardly catch his breath.

"Hello, hello. Who is it?" he panted into the mouthpiece.

"This is Abram Shapiro."

But there was nothing but silence at the other end of the wire.

Whoever had been calling had apparently hung up.

3

While Abram Shapiro was fixing the beds, Asa Heshel went into the study. Near the writing table stood a glassed-in bookcase. In the lower section was a set of volumes of the Talmud bound in leather, the backbone stamped in gold--a wedding gift from Meshulam Moskat. The upper shelves were filled with works of commentaries, a Pentateuch, volumes of Maimonides, a Code of the Law, a Zohar, and collections of sermons. To Asa Heshel it seemed like years since he had held one of these volumes in his hand.

He took down a copy of the First Tractate of the Talmud, put it on the table, and opened it. The opening initial was lavishly bordered, decorated with scrolls and fancy designs. He began to chant the words to himself.

"Look at that," Abram's voice interrupted. "Reading the Talmud! The forest calls to the bear."

"It's so long since I've looked into a Jewish book."

"As true as I'm standing here, I was once a student myself. When I was married to Hama I remember I recited a whole section by heart. The old man beamed all over."

"Then he's learned in these matters too?" "He knows--but not too much. He's half Chassid, half anti--139-Chassid. The scholar in the family is Moshe Gabriel, my brother-in-law, Leah's husband.

And Leah, I must tell you, makes his life a torture. If he happens to come home late from the prayerhouse, she won't let him through the door. And the oldest daughter, Masha, is her mother all over again."

"It's a large family?"

"An army. All kinds, like in Noah's ark. But what's the good of numbers. We Jews, I'm telling you, are building on sand. We live in the air. They don't give us a chance."

"Do you really believe in Palestine?"

"Why? Don't you believe in it?"

"What'll we do if the Turks refuse to hand it over? You can't force them."

"They'll have to turn it over. There's such a thing as the logic of history. Let's go to bed. It's half past one already. I can't imagine who telephoned so late."

In the bedroom Abram began to take his things off. Asa Heshel stooped for a long time over his shoelaces, ashamed to undress in front of the older man. It was only when Abram had left the room for a few minutes that he found the courage to undress hastily and climb into Hama's bed. The beds stood at right angles to each other, in the old-fashioned manner. Abram sighed and tossed around so that the bedsprings groaned.

"A mad idea of that Akiba's--to fall in at Gina's practically in the middle of the night," he said. "Did you see him, the dolt?"

"No."

"I know him from back in Bialodrevna, when he was living with his father-in-law, the rabbi. Everything we Jews do we do lopsided. We match a flea with an elephant. And what comes out are cripples, schlemiels, lunatics. Ah, the Exile, the Exile! It's demoralized us."

In less than five minutes Abram was snoring. Asa Heshel squirmed in bed, pushed away the pillows, pulled them back again, covered and uncovered himself with the blanket, and was unable to fall asleep. It seemed to him that the clock in the other room ticked away at a furious pace. Abram was right. The only thing to do was to leave Poland, to go abroad. She too would have to leave--if she wanted to avoid clipping her head, putting on the matron's wig, immersing herself in the ritual bath.

He turned to the wall and dozed off. Suddenly he started up.

-140-He heard a

key turning in the lock of the outside door. "It's Abram's daughter," he thought; he had heard Abram asking the janitor about her when they came in. He listened, all his senses alert. He could hear her firm steps advancing along the corridor. She yawned and then murmured something to herself in Polish.

Through the partly opened door he could see a light go on in another room, then go out again. The door of the bedroom opened wide and he saw her image in the doorway. She had taken off her dress and was standing in a bodice and petticoat.

She called: "Papa, are you asleep?"

Abram stirred. "What? Who is it?"

"Papa, I waked you. I'm sorry."

"What do you want? What time is it?"

"It's not so late. Papa, what'll I do? I have no money."

"Do you have to bother me now? Can't you wait till morning?"

"I have to leave early."

"What for? I haven't a grosz."

"I owe the dressmaker. My shoes are torn."

"Quiet! I'm not alone. There's a young man sleeping in the other bed. What's his name--the one who lives at Gina's."

"So what? I have to have ten rubles."

"I haven't got ten kopeks."

"Unless you want me to go to grandfather's."

"Nothing makes any difference to me any more. I'm leaving the country. I'm bankrupt in more ways than one."

"Papa, you're drunk."

"Who's that student you're dragging around with?"

"How do you know he's a student?"

"I saw him."

"You manage to see everything. Well, he's a wonderful fellow. He's finishing medicine. A very interesting talker."

"They all talk fine, but when it comes to the real thing, they run like hares."

As Stepha started to answer, the telephone rang. Abram heaved himself out of bed and ran barefooted to the other room, brushing past Stepha. Asa Heshel could hear him shouting into the mouthpiece, but could not make out what he was saying. In about fifteen minutes Abram returned.

He went over to Asa Heshel's bed. "Young man, are you asleep?" he asked.

-

141-"No."

"Hadassah didn't come home tonight. Nyunie, the idiot, slapped her. The damn fool."

4

When Asa Heshel opened his eyes the sun was shining in through the window curtains. Abram was up, wearing a colored robe, half open and revealing a hairy chest.

"Get up, brother," he shouted. "It's the day of judgment. The fish in the water tremble."

"How late is it?"

"What difference? Dacha telephoned again; Hadassah has disappeared. She's probably spent the night with her friend, Klonya --she lives in Praga. They have no telephone there. What a girl!"

Asa Heshel knew that he should get up, but having neither slippers nor robe, he was ashamed to go into the kitchen. He wondered whether Stepha was still in the house, but he was too embarrassed to ask. When Abram left the room, he dressed and looked at himself in the mirror on the commode. A stubble of beard had sprouted. In spite of all his troubles he seemed to have put on some weight since his arrival in Warsaw. There was a glint in his blond hair. He raised his arms, flexed them, and smiled. He had developed muscles. The night's sleep, broken though it was, had refreshed him.