The Family Moskat (23 page)

"Well, what are you gaping at? Go into the kitchen and wash up,"

came Abram's voice at the door. He went into the kitchen. Stepha was there, in a petticoat and a short-sleeved white blouse, her bare feet stuck into bedroom slippers. She was washing some stockings in a pan, rubbing so energetically that bubbles arose. She looked curiously at Asa Heshel, measured him from top to toe, and said: "So it's you."

"A thousand pardons."

"Go ahead and wash. I won't look. My name is Stepha. I saw you at my grandfather's, but you looked different. Here's the soap."

"Thank you very much."

"My father's been talking about you day and night. Don't let him lead you around by the nose. Whatever he tells you, you do the opposite."

-142-Asa Heshel

washed hurriedly and went out of the kitchen. In the hallway Abram stopped him. "We'll have a quick bite," he said, "and then well go to look for Hadassah. We'll ride out to Klonya's.

Though Dacha'll get there before us, I suppose."

He led Asa Heshel into the dining-room. On the table there was half a loaf of bread, some cheese, some herring. They ate quickly, Abram chewing fast with his strong and powerful teeth. Stepha kept coming in and going out. She looked at Asa Heshel curiously, as though she would have said something to him if her father had not been there. Then she disappeared into the kitchen, where they could hear her singing a Polish song in a high, strong voice. When the meal was finished, Abram went into his study to telephone. He called Ida, Dacha, a lawyer he knew, Hertz Yanovar, and Gina.

Akiba had had a bad attack during the night and they had had to call a doctor. They were not sure yet whether it was acute indigestion or a fit of some kind. The divorce had had to be put off. Hertz Yanovar told Abram that Hilda Kalischer had left Warsaw early in the morning to go to visit her mother in Otwotsk.

"I just don't know what to do," he said into the telephone. "There's such excitement that I can't think." Dacha was not in the house.

Shifra, the maid, had answered the phone. She told him that Dacha had already left for Praga; the telephone had rung earlier, but when Shifra had picked up the receiver, whoever it was at the other end had hung up; it must have been Hadassah. "Such nonsense," Shifra complained.

"She'll catch her death of cold and get inflammation of the lungs."

Ida had gone down to do some marketing. Zosia told him that her mistress had come home early the previous evening, about ten o'clock, and she had been very nervous. She already knew that Hama had left Abram and was waiting impatiently for him to telephone her or come over to see her.

Abram came out of his study bouncing with energy. "Things are going on," he murmured. He loved nothing so much as excitement, days and nights full of motion. He even enjoyed the knowledge that he did not have a grosz in his pocket and that the law might be at his very heels. The lawyer he had called had told him that the penalty for forging a note might be as much as three years. No matter, he thought, the old man wouldn't go so far as to let him go to prison. "It wasn't from a stranger I took anything--

from my own children's grandfather." Any decent man of his age would have died long ago and given -143-his heirs a

chance to have a little pleasure out of his money. "Come on, youngster, let's go," he said to Asa Heshel. "First I'll have to borrow fifty rubles somewhere. Someone promised me a loan yesterday. Then I want to take you to get a decent suit on credit.

We'll get you a new hat too. Then we'll go on the search for the lost princess. I have a plan, wait till you see. I'll cook up such a stew that all Warsaw will be laughing in their sleeves."

The two went into the street. The day was mild and sunny.

Housewives were shaking out pillows in red ticking at the windows opening on the courtyard. Servants were splashing water against window panes. There was an aroma of milk and fresh-baked bread in the air. Abram asked Asa Heshel if he had any money.

"Three rubles."

"Hand 'em over."

Abram summoned a droshky and the two climbed in. They got off at the Elektralna, where an old friend of Abram's had a ready-made clothing store. The road was crowded with automobiles, droshkies, and bicycles. A funeral procession made its way along.

At its head marched a stout priest in a lace-trimmed sur-plice, murmuring from an open prayerbook. After him came four men in silver-edged coats, wearing triangular hats, and with lanterns in their hands. A bell rang; passers-by took off their hats and crossed themselves. A flock of pigeons flew over the procession, swooping down to pick at the horse-droppings.

Abram's clothing-store friend was a short, stout man, with a high round belly. He embraced Abram and kissed him on both cheeks.

Abram whispered something in his ear. Asa Heshel left the store in a brand-new suit. The store-owner wrapped the old clothing in a bundle and put it behind the counter. Abram borrowed a couple of rubles from his friend and bargained for a hat for Asa Heshel at a store a few doors away.

Then the two went to a barber's, where Asa Heshel was shaved, given a haircut, and even doused with cologne, while the master barber himself trimmed Abram's beard. Asa Hesbel looked at his reflection in the long mirror. He hardly recognized himself.

"Count Pototski, or my name isn't Abram! You look like a
goy
," Abram boomed.

He was right. With the doffing of his Chassidic garments Asa Heshel had also doffed his Jewish appearance.

-144-

5

It was close to noon when the droshky came to a stop at the house in Praga where Klonya lived. Abram sent Asa Heshel up to call the girl, while he remained in the carriage. Klonya's family lived on the second floor. Asa Heshel climbed the well-scrubbed, sand-covered steps. He knocked at the door. It was opened by a stout girl whose flaxen hair was plaited into two large braids.

She was wearing an alpaca smock. There was a thimble on her finger and she was holding a needle and thread.

"Does Miss Klonya live here?" Asa Heshel asked.

"I'm Klonya."

"Hadassah's uncle is waiting downstairs in a droshky. He would like you to come down for a minute."

"Which uncle? Abram?"

"Yes."

"Hadassah spent the night here, but she's gone now. Are you--"

"I'm the one she was tutoring."

The girl's eyes smiled. "I recognized you right away. She described you to the life. Too bad you didn't come an hour earlier.

Her mother was here. It isn't the first time that she's spent the night with us. Come inside for a while."

"I'm sorry. Mr. Shapiro is in a hurry."

"It'll only take a minute. I'll just introduce you to my mother." She took his arm and drew him inside, along a small corridor and into a large room. In the middle of the room was a table with chairs around it. On one of the walls hung a deer's head with twisted horns, an ancient double-barreled hunting rifle, and gilt-framed portraits of a young man with wide mustaches and a high-bosomed woman with her hair up in a coil. Against the window hung a canary cage and below it stood a sewing-machine. Over a dresser hung a picture of Jesus, the beard curled and a crown of thorns on the head. Below it a small red lamp was burning. On a sofa, from whose broken sides tufts of horsehair protruded, lay a big sheep dog, his paws extended. When Asa Heshel entered, the animal began to growl, but a smallish woman, fat and round, with a generous double chin, called out: "Quiet! Lie down!"

"Mamusha, this is the young gentleman who's taking lessons from -145-Hadassah.

Hadassah's Uncle Abram is downstairs in a droshky."

"Why doesn't he come up? This is a respectable house. Very honored to meet you. Hadassah is like my own child. She's not a girl; she's a flower. Clever and beautiful like the sun in the sky.

Lucky man who gets an angel like that. And you, young man?

They tell me you came to Warsaw to study."

"Yes. I just started."

"There's nothing better than an education. Whatever you are, Jew or Christian, as long as you've got some learning in your head, everybody'll lift his hat to you. Hadassah isn't for one of those gaberdines, one of those Chassids. She's too delicate. That specimen from the Gnoyna, in the oil business, with the sidelocks, isn't the man for her."

"Oh, Mamma, you talk too much."

"I'm the kind of woman who tells the truth. Straight out. She told me everything, although she's got a discreet nature. I told her plain, parents have to be obeyed, but first of all comes your own heart."

While her mother talked, Klonya fixed her hair, put on a coat, and picked up a shiny pocketbook with a brass handle. Asa Heshel said good-by to the older woman. She held out a fat hand, scarred from housework, and asked him to come again. The dog jumped down from the sofa, sniffed at Asa Heshel's ankles, and wagged his tail. On the stairway Klonya said: "Hadassah will be here again at one o'clock."

"Where did she go?"

"To apply for a job. It was advertised in the papers."

He stood at the yard gate while Klonya talked to Abram.

Abram was gesturing with his hands, tugging at his beard, striking his forehead. He called Asa Heshel over.

"She'll be back at one o'clock. It's now twenty past twelve. You wait for her. Don't let her get away. I'll be back in about an hour."

Abram spoke in Polish so that Klonya should understand, in a voice so vehement that passers-by paused to stare. It was decided that Asa Heshel would wait in the restaurant on the opposite side of the street; Klonya would send Hadassah over to him the moment she came, then both would wait there for Abram. The droshky-driver began to show signs of impatience, snapping his whip and cursing at the horse. Soon the carriage rolled away with Abram inside. Klonya said something to Asa Heshel, but al--146-though he understood each word separately, he did not seem to be able to fit them together. The stone floor of the restaurant was sprinkled with sawdust. A sharp odor of beer and frying food assailed his nostrils. The place was empty, the tables were covered with soiled cloths. Asa Heshel sat down. A short, squat man came over to him. His shirt sleeves were rolled up above the elbows.

"What would you like?"

Asa Hesbel wanted to say "A glass of beer," but instead he said: "Some tea."

"This isn't a tea house."

"Then a glass of brandy." His own words surprised him.

"Something to eat with it?"

"Yes."

"Some sausage?"

"That will be all right."

He immediately regretted it. Of course the sausage wouldn't be kosher, but now it was too late. The man came back with a glass and two thick sausages on a plate. He looked at Asa Heshel with his keen gray eyes.

"Where are you from?" he asked.

"I'm staying in Warsaw."

"What street?"

"Shviento-Yerska."

"What do you do for a living?"

"I'm a student."

"Where? In a school?"

"No. Private."

"With a rabbi?"

"With a teacher."

"Why don't you go back to Palestine?"

The saloonkeeper apparently was ready to carry on his cross-examination, but a barefooted young girl, her face thickly freckled, called him from the other room. Asa Heshel took a sip of the raw liquor. It burned his throat and brought tears to his eyes. He picked up the sausage and bit off a piece. "I'm lost anyway," he thought. "Yes, Abram is right. I've got to get out of Poland. If not to Palestine, then to some other country where there's no law against Jews going to college. If only Hadassah would come with me. I've got to think it all out."

He drained the glass of brandy, feeling a simultaneous wave of warmth and dizziness sweep over him. He did not hear the -147-door open or

see Hadassah come in. She stood at the open door in a long, fur-collared winter coat, a black velvet beret on her head. She was holding a newspaper under her arm. Her face, in the few days since he had seen her, had become even paler, as though she had just got up from a sickbed. She nodded and smiled shyly, her gaze fixed on him. The new clothes had changed him beyond recognition. Only the black string tie un-der his collar reminded her of the green youth of a few days be-fore.

6

When Asa Heshel told Hadassah of his decision to go to Switzerland, her eyes moistened.

"Take me with you. I can't stand it here any more." There was a rush of blood to her cheeks. Her small hands, in the black gloves, played nervously with the tin ashtray on the table. She kept glancing at him and then turning her eyes away. It seemed to Asa Heshel that in the last couple of days she had become maturer. She talked on, telling how her father had gone into an uncontrollable rage, how her mother was siding with her grandfather, and how everyone in the family had now taken a hand in the affair--uncles, aunts, cousins, her stepgrandmother--even Koppel. Nothing was right. Even the job she had applied for had turned out to be no good. The woman had expected her to wash clothes, besides taking care of the child.

There was a long pause. Then she said: "Are you really going? Or is it just something you're thinking about?"

"If you would come with me I'd go today."

"You've just put on city clothes and already you're talking like a man of the world."

"I mean it with all my heart."

"But you need a pass or something to cross the borders."

"There are ways of going without it."

"I just don't know. Everyone in the house is furious at me. Even Shifra. They don't let me alone for a minute. Not even to read a book. But I don't care. They can't force him on me. I'd rather die.

I've even thought of putting an end to it."

"Hadassah, don't say such things!"

"You said yourself that suicide was the greatest affirmation of man's freedom."

-148-"But

I didn't mean in a case like this."

"I'm not afraid. When I was in the sanatorium I made my peace with death."

The saloonkeeper came in. Seeing a girl at the table, he twirled one end of his mustache and said: "What will you have?"

"I--I don't know," Hadassah said nervously. "It's so cold in here."