The Family Moskat (66 page)

Tuesday
.--Today it's been raining all day. He's supposed to come this week, but everything is so indefinite. I can't stand Otwotsk any more, but all doors are closed to me in Warsaw. In her letter Adele calls me "harlot." Probably I am, in everybody's eyes.

He could help me a lot. His love could make up for everything.

Other women are so sure of themselves and of their husbands.

But I, who have sacrificed so much, am always in doubt.

ON THE
third evening of Channukah, Bashele fried some pancakes. Chaim Leib, the coal dealer, whom she married after Koppel divorced her, went off to play cards with a neighbor after supper. Bashele had put too much oil in the Channukah lamp, -431-and a single

wick still spluttered. She grated the raw potatoes and put fat in the frying-pan. The kitchen soon became heavy with the sizzling and the smell of burning fat. No matter how earnestly Bashele begged the children to stay in the living-room they preferred the coziness of the kitchen. Manyek, her married son, who worked as bookkeeper in a vinegar factory, sat on the edge of the cot where Yppe and Teibele slept. Next to him sat Rita, his wife.

Manyek was a dandy. His hair was parted and smeared with pomade. In his stiff collar he wore a tie with a diminutive knot.

When he sat down, he carefully pulled his trousers up above his ankles, so that the crease might not be disturbed. He had something of a reputation for his elegant manners. The women of Praga adored having him as a partner for a tango, a shimmy, or a fox trot. It was precisely for these reasons that Rita kept a watchful eye on him. She herself was tiny and dark, a little on the plump side, with fleshy lips and small, flashing eyes. Up to this very day the other Praga girls could not understand what Manyek had seen in her.

"What's she got?" the girls used to wonder. "No features and no figure. A stuffed doll."

Shosha, Bashele's oldest daughter, was now twenty-four. She was going with a chalutz, who was preparing to emigrate to Palestine. That was Shosha's lot; the youths who were attracted to her were always idealists. She herself was a domestic girl. She read no newspapers and hardly knew the difference between a Socialist and a Zionist. She had left school when the war started and had stayed at home, helping her mother with the affairs of the household. Now she had taken a job in a chocolate shop on Senator Street. It had looked as though Shosha would grow up to be quite a beauty, but there was something missing. Her features were too childish and her bosom was too big. When she had nothing else to do, she would read aloud from her school books--

stories about kings, forest spirits, and hunters. Bashele would complain: "Just look at her! Like a seven-year-old!"

It was nothing short of a miracle that a young man had happened to come along. His name was Simon Bendel, from Dinev, in Galicia. He was a giant of a youth, with thick, curly black hair, a narrow face, pointed chin, and lean long throat. His customary attire was a blouse, a military belt and breeches, puttees wrapped around his legs above the heavy shoes. His father owned some land. Simon knew how to plow, sow, milk cows, and -432-ride horseback.

On the chalutzim farm in Grochov they had told him that there was nothing more they could teach him, that he was ready without any further instruction to go to work on a settlement in Palestine. All he needed now was his certificate. Whenever he came from the Grochov farm to Warsaw, he spent all his time with Shosha. He taught her to speak Hebrew with the Sephardic accent, and took her with him to the young pioneer gatherings.

Shosha would come home late at night and Bashele would ask her: "Did you have a good time?"

"So-so."

"What did they talk about?"

"All sorts of thing."

"And you really want to go to Palestine?"

"Why not? It's our own country."

For the Channukah holiday Simon had brought Shosha a gift. It was a silver Star of David on a chain to be worn around the throat. Now he was sitting on the edge of a chair in the kitchen, never taking his big dark eyes off Shosha. Manyek looked at him curiously, wondering what on earth he could see in Shosha. To him it was a constant source of surprise that his sister had sense enough even to sell chocolates.

Rita kept glancing at Simon, asking him questions like: "Is it true that the sand in Palestine is very hot?""Is it true that the Arab men are very handsome?""Is it true that you have to buy water there by the quart?"

Simon answered all questions like an authority. He took a map out of his pocket, spread it out, and, pointing with his finger, showed how the earth could be irrigated artificially and how desert land could be transformed into fertile soil. He reeled off a lot of Hebrew names of colonies and settlements, talking like one who was a native Palestinian.

Shosha kept on smiling all the time. "Simon," she said, "tell them about the Arab with six wives."

"Why? I told that already."

"Tell it again. Oh, Mamma, it's so terribly funny."

Yppe, who was younger than Shosha, was crippled. She had had one leg, thin as a stalk, in a brace since childhood. She was small, dark, ugly, and bad-tempered. She worked in a bead factory. Now she was seated on a low stool, pawing through a pile of corals she had brought home to work on. The beauty of the family was Teibele, the fourteen-year-old. She was in the fourth -433-class. She was seated at the table in the living-room, working from a mathematics textbook. She had a talent for the subject; she took after her father in that respect. Whenever her mother was angry with her she would complain: "The spit of her father!"

As Bashele stood at the stove, turning the pancakes, she heard familiar steps outside the door. She pricked up her ears. It wasn't Chaim Leib; his steps were heavy. There was a knock at the door. "
Kto tam
? Who is there?"

There was no answer. She unlatched the door and turned white as chalk. Koppel stood at the threshold. Over the years he had got somehow both younger and older. He was wearing a light-colored coat, a cream-colored hat, and tan shoes with wide heels and pointed toes. A cigarette dangled from his lips. He looked around, half curious, half frightened. Bashele brought her hands together.

"Don't faint. I'm not dead," Koppel said in his impudent manner. "Good evening, children."

The smile disappeared from Shosha's lips; her face lengthened.

Yppe opened her mouth wide. Manyek stood up. "Good evening, Papa," he said.

"Let me see--that's Shosha. That's Yppe. Where is Teibele?"

Teibele came in from the other room, a pencil in one hand and an eraser in the other.

"Teibele, it's Father," Manyek said.

"I know. I remember." she said in Polish.

Bashele at last found her tongue. "To come in without warning.

You never let us know--"

"I didn't know myself that I was coming. I managed to get on a boat at the last moment. Where is Chaim Leib?"

Bashele stared. In her confusion she forgot for the moment who Chaim Leib was.

Manyek answered: "Uncle is out."

"Oh. Well, I didn't come to cause any trouble. I wanted to see the children."

"Papa, this is my wife."

Rita blushed. "
Bardzo mi przyjemnie
," she murmured in Polish. "Honored to meet you."

"So you're my daughter-in-law. Yes. You look just like the photograph."

"And this is a friend of Shosha's."

-434-Koppel

measured the stranger with his searching eyes. "A soldier, eh?"

"I'm not a soldier. I'm a chalutz."

"A Zionist, eh? You want to send us all to Palestine."

"Not all."

Bashele took the frying-pan off the stove. She had just remembered the law that a divorced woman was not permitted to remain under the same roof with her former husband. Red flecks showed in her cheeks. "So sudden--"

"Don't be so terrified, Bashele. I'm not spending the night here. I'm staying at the Hotel Bristol."

"Take your overcoat off. You'll catch a cold."

He unbuttoned his coat, revealing a checked jacket, the kind one saw only in the movies. The collar of his shirt had long points, and his tie was a blinding mixture of red, yellow, and gold.

"Go ahead. Eat your supper. I won't disturb you."

"Mamma was making pancakes. For Channukah," Shosha said.

"Ah, pancakes. I thought they made them only in America.

Well, my children, here I am. A divorced father is still a father.

You, Teibele, you've probably forgotten me altogether."

"No, I remember. You used to wear such long boots."

"What boots? Everything looks the same. Tell me, what are you doing? Do you go to high school?"

"She goes to the Gymnasium," Manyek answered.

"Gymnasium, high school, the same thing," Koppel said. "Yes, nothing's changed. The same courtyard, the same janitor. He recognized me. Panie Koppel, he said. He's become a real old tramp. I gave him half a dollar. He wanted to kiss my hand."

"He's nothing but a drunkard," Shosha remarked.

"What? Well, what else has he got to do? Over there they've got prohibition now. But people find ways. New York is full of drunks."

Koppel stopped short. He was surprised himself at the things he was saying. "What am I babbling about?" he wondered. What would they know about all that? "That Yppe--she looks terrible.

Shosha hasn't grown up. Bashele is an old woman. Hard to believe that she's six years younger than me." He felt a lump in his throat. He took a lighter from his pocket and lit his cigarette, which had gone out, lowering his face as he did so.

-435-

2

Koppel stayed only an hour. Before he left he handed Manyek thirty American dollars--Bashele refused to take the money--

and announced that he would be back again the following day.

He went downstairs and walked along Mala Street. He turned up his coat collar and pulled his hat over his forehead. Was Isador Oxenburg still alive, he wondered. And Reitze? Were they still living in the same flat? And what about that peppy little woman, Mrs. Goldsober? Koppel walked along, stopping every once in a while to peer around. After New York, Paris, and Berlin, Praga looked like some small town. It was only ten o'clock, but a midnight quiet seemed to hover over the streets.

Strange, he had forgotten a good many things in the six years he had been away--the rows of gas lamps, the gutters, the scattered telephone booths, on whose walls theater and opera notices were posted. He passed by a half-fallen house, the red brick walls supported by planks. Through the lighted windows he could see lines of wash hanging on ropes. In New York a building like that would have been condemned.

As Koppel approached, the janitor was about to close the gates of the court in front of the house where the Oxenburgs had lived. He handed the janitor a silver coin. "Do the Oxenburgs still live here?"

"Yes, panie."

"Are they both alive?"

"Where does the gentleman come from?"

"From America."

The janitor took off his cap, scratched his head, and put the cap on again. "Yes, they're both alive. The Pan Isador is sick."

The janitor was holding a box of smoky naphtha lamps. Be-hind the gate was a bunk covered with a sheepskin. Koppel now remembered that this was where some Warsaw janitors slept at night, so that they would be on hand to admit latecomers. "How are things here? Bad?"

"Bad? Couldn't be worse. When the tenants haven't got a grosz, what can the janitor expect?"

Koppel handed him another coin; then he made his way into the courtyard. He walked by a pile of refuse, an unharnessed wagon with its shafts sticking up in the air, and a toilet, the door smeared with tar. The stench made Koppel screw up his -436-nose. They

wouldn't believe a thing like this in America, he thought. He climbed the dark stairs, knocked at the familiar door, waited. In a moment he heard footsteps and the door opened. He saw a huge mass of flesh. It was Reitze. Over the years she had grown twice as vast. Her shapeless body blocked the doorway.

"Reitze!"

"I can't believe it! Koppel!"

She stretched out her enormous arms and drew him within their clasp, kissing and cooing. Then she half dragged him through the long corridor to the living-room. He saw a familiar sight. A table, chairs, playing-cards. They were all here: David Krupnick, Leon the Peddler, Itchele Peltsevisner, Motie the Red. At the head of the table sat Mrs. Goldsober. Then Koppel saw Zilka, the Oxenburgs' older daughter.

Reitze made a flourish with her hand. "Everybodyl Everybody! Look who's here! It's Koppel."

"As true as I'm alive. Koppell" Motie the Red shouted.

David Krupnick stared at him in astonishment. "Did you fall out of the sky?"

"A real American," Itchele Peltsevisner exclaimed.

"What are you standing at the door for?" Leon the Peddler inquired. "Are you too swell to talk with us?"

He came up to Koppel and kissed him. Itchele Peltsevisner also wanted to kiss him, but he had forgotten that he still had his cigarette in his mouth, and he almost burned Koppel's nose.

Zilka embraced Koppel without saying a word. Koppel noticed that she was wearing black.

"Where is your husband?" he asked.

Zilka broke into tears. "In the cemetery."

"When? How did it happen?"

"Three months ago. From typhus."

"Yes, God poured out His wrath on us for good," Reitze rasped.

"He died like a saint. I pleaded with them: 'Don't drag him to the hospital. They only poison people there.' Half of Warsaw came to his funeral."

"Mamma, Mamma, please stop."

"What have I said?" She turned to Koppel. "You didn't even write us a letter. A man goes off to America and disappears."

"Where's Isador?"

"Bedridden--may you be spared. You won't recognize him.

-437-Well, what

are you standing for? Here, sit down. Zilka, bring him something to eat."

"I'm not hungry."

"In this house you've got to be hungry. It's my living now. I've begun to serve meals. Don't you even ask about Regina?"