The Family Moskat (69 page)

Strange that this was his mother, a lady in a hat--and that her husband was Koppel the overseer. "It's like something they describe in the newspapers," Aaron mused. He was afraid that he wouldn't know what to say to her; afraid that she might make fun of him, or want to take him with her to America. He threw a glance toward Lottie. She met his eyes, put two fingers to her lips and threw him a kiss. He felt his ears burning. He turned to his father.

"Good day."

"Where are you running?" Leah shouted. "We'll go together.

You'll come with us. I'm your mother--not a strange woman."

Nevertheless Aaron left before the others. He hurried through the doorway, catching a fold of his capote on a nail and tearing it violently. It was growing very cold outside, yet his forehead was covered with perspiration. Unbalanced, Leah decided.

Worse than his father. She felt the tears start to her eyes. "It's all his fault," she brooded, not sure herself whom it was she meant, Moshe Gabriel or Koppel. She hurried along to catch up with Aaron. When she reached him she took his arm, but he tried to free himself. She held on tighter. Yes, she had lost her youth. Now she was an old woman, the mother of a bearded Jew. But here, in Bialodrevna, there was no reason to be ashamed of it. Leah and Aaron walked on, Mendy stepping along in advance. He had been eager for this trip to Europe, but now he was fed up. He was tired of everything--the family, the hotels, the filth, the monotonous food, this constant talking and listening to Yiddish. He longed to be back in New York or in Saratoga Springs, where his mother took him during the summers. Mendy's mind was full of thoughts of baseball, football, horse races. He had been in the middle of a serial about Buffalo Bill. He and a friend of his, Jack, would sneak into a burlesque show once in a while. It was fun to sit in the balcony, a cigarette between your lips, chewing gum, and watch the strip-teasers take off one piece of clothing after another and finally stand there naked. He was bored by all of them--those queer uncles and aunts, who, even though he stood a head taller than any of them, kept on pinching his cheeks as though he were a baby. He made up his mind that when he got back to New York he'd never look at those greenhorns again. He'd never come to Europe again, except maybe to England.

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When the others had left, Lottie turned to Moshe Gabriel.

"Can we go, Papa?" she said.

"Let it be so."

Moshe Gabriel went out into the courtyard, Lottie following him.

She was his daughter, true, but just the same Moshe Gabriel tried to keep at a distance from her. Somebody might think that he was transgressing the law by walking with a strange female.

Lottie had almost to run to keep up with him. She reached him and put her hand on his arm. "Papa," she said, "are you in a hurry?"

The courtyard was unpaved. The snow was unswept. She had left her galoshes in Warsaw. Soon her stockings were wet. Moshe Gabriel glanced about him on all sides. A little distance off, there was a tree, but to his misted vision it suddenly seemed to be a man. He said, low but audibly: "It's my daughter."

"Papa, who are you talking to?"

"Never mind. I imagined for a minute--"

The flight of stairs that led to Moshe Gabriel's room was thick with mud. It had been months since the servant girl had bothered to sweep here. The room was cold; only seldom was the stove lighted. A pile of manuscripts lay on a table, with bricks placed on them to keep the pages from turning in the breeze. On a reading-stand a pile of open books was heaped, the upper-most one covered with a kerchief, for it is not proper to leave a holy volume exposed. On a small coffer lay a long pipe. Against the wall stood an iron cot, covered with a blanket, an uncovered pillow lying on it. Moshe Gabriel made a gesture with his hands. "A mess."

"It's not so bad," Lottie said.

"I'm used to it by now. Most of the day I spend in the study house. Well, how are you, my daughter? In America you speak, I suppose, what do you call it--English?"

"Oh, I speak Yiddish, too."

"I hear that you are quite a scholar in their things. Do you go to the university?"

"Yes, Papa, in my second year."

"And what do you study there? To be a doctor?"

"No, Papa, Science."

"What's that, electricity?"

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453-"Some of everything."

"Do you at least remember that you're the daughter of a Jewish house?"

"Don't worry, Papa. The anti-Semites don't let you forget it."

"True, true. Even if a Jew is a sinner, he's still a Jew. He is still of Jacob's seed."

"They say that there are too many of us in the colleges."

"About that they're right. 'What has a priest to do in a cemetery?' What has a jew to do with their schools?"

"But I can't study in a synagogue."

"A Jewish daughter's duty is to marry, not to run around in the Gymnasia."

"What is there in marrying? I want to learn, to get knowledge."

"To what end?"

"I want to be able to earn my living."

"The right way is for the husband to provide the livelihood and for the wife to attend to her wifely duties. 'The king's daughter is all glorious within.' The Jews are called children of kings."

"The men in America nowadays want women to have jobs."

"So that they may philander?"

Lottie's face turned red. "Yes, Papa," she said. "That's what it is."

"And I hear, too, that you're betrothed."

Lottie nodded, then bowed her head. "That's what I want to talk to you about," she said.

"Then speak."

"Ah, Papa, I just don't know how to begin. We're two different kinds of people. I'm like you. I like to read. I want to have a quiet life. He isn't that way; all he wants is to run around."

"Who is he? Where does he come from?"

"His father is a doctor. A rich man."

"And the boy? What is he? A charlatan?"

"No. But--but he likes to enjoy himself, to go to cabarets. He says he loves me, but just the same he goes around with other girls."

Moshe Gabriel sighed. "Run away from him as you would from a fire."

"Oh, Papa, if you'd only come to America!"

"What would I do in America? Still, who knows? What was it -454-the rabbi of

Kotsk said--the Torah wanders." One day it may even come there."

"Oh, yes, Papa. There are plenty of synagogues in America, too.

And I miss you so, Papa. Oh, Papa, let me kiss you."

Moshe Gabriel felt his face flush. "Why? It's not necessary."

"Just because I love you, Papa."

"If you love me, my daughter, then follow in my path. If you yourself have become so estranged, think of how your children will be."

"No, Papa. I'll not have children."

Moshe Gabriel looked at her, baffled. "Why not? The prophet said: 'He created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited.' It is God's will that man should exist."

"But mankind suffers so much."

"All good comes only through suffering."

"Jews have special problems. They call us names. They don't let us into hotels. We can't belong to their clubs. So many are Zionists."

"It's an old story. 'It is known that Esau hates Jacob.' The more the Jew follows in the footsteps of the gentile, the more he is despised."

"Then what is there to do?"

"Penancel 'And repent and be healed.' God gave us a law, a way of life. If not for the Torah, then the nations--God forbid--would long ago have swallowed us up."

"Ah." Lottie was silent for a while. "Papa, there's something else I want to ask you. But don't be angry. Do you--do you ever see Masha?"

Moshe Gabriel felt the blood rush away from his face. "That apostate! May her name be blotted out!"

"Papa!"

"Don't utter her unclean name. Faugh!" Moshe Gabriel stopped his ears with his fingers and spat. He got up from his chair and began to pace back and forth. He shook his head from side to side. "I am no longer her father and she is no longer my daughter. Rather she die than that she bring forth new enemies for Israel."

Lottie bent her head. The tears streamed from Moshe Gabriel's eyes and remained trembling on his beard.

"Mine is the fault," he suddenly groaned, and thumped his fist over his heart. "I should not have been silent. The moment -455-your mother

began to send you to the schools of the gentiles, I should have taken you and the others and fled. Fled far away. Saved you while there was yet time."

He covered his eyes and remained standing in silence for a long time. When he dropped his hands, his face showed naked grief.

The sacs under his eyes seemed to have grown larger. To Lottie it seemed that old age had suddenly descended upon him.

SIMON BENDEL, Shosha's boy friend, received a notice from the chalutzim organization that a certificate had been issued in his name for emigration to Palestine. Nine other young men and two girls had also received certificates. There was much excitement at the training farm at Grochov. Since the Palestine certificate was good for an entire family and it would be a shame to waste it on a single individual, the young men had to get married right away.

Simon Bendel put on his jacket and took the country line to visit Shosha in Praga. He came to tell her the news that he was preparing for the trip to Palestine. He spoke to Bashele plainly and to the point.

Although Shosha had told her mother several times that she was ready to go to Palestine with Simon, Bashele had taken it for little more than idle talk. For surely it was absurd to think that Shosha would actually go off, travel away more than a thousand miles, over seas and mountains; it was more than Bashele could imagine. But now here was the young man in person, sitting in front of her, showing her a piece of paper, a certificate, black on white. From his heavy boots rivulets of water dripped onto the kitchen floor. His face was red with cold. A cloud of vapor -456-steamed from his bushy hair. He looked like a soldier to Bashele, in his tight breeches and the puttees wrapped around his calves and the heavy leather belt around his waist. He appeared like an ogre who had suddenly come to carry off her daughter to the very ends of the earth. His remarks were studded with the names of strange places and cities--Lemberg, Vienna, Constanta, Tel Aviv, Haifa. He was talking about the sea, ships, barracks. He was asking them to procure a copy of Shosha's birth certificate and a copy of the registration books so that her passport could be prepared in time. Every word he uttered dropped like a stone into Bashele's heart. As for Shosha, she smiled and brought tea and bread and butter to Simon. She telephoned to Manyek in the vinegar factory where he was employed as bookkeeper, and Manyek called his father. It certainly would have been wrong to marry off Shosha without her father's knowledge. Koppel was not at the hotel, and it was Leah who came to the telephone.

"Who's there?" she asked. "Koppel isn't home."

"Do you happen to know when he's coming back?" Manyek asked.

"That's something nobody knows," Leah shouted.

And it was true. Koppel would disappear to be gone all day, and sometimes not come home at night. There was much confusion among the visitors from America. Lottie had received a letter from her fiancé informing her that he was breaking their engagement. When she read the news, she had pulled off her diamond engagement ring and had thrown it out of the window.

Mendy had chased outside to try to recover it, but he came back to report that he had been unable to find it. Leah suspected that the boy had actually found the ring and was hiding it somewhere or had sold it. Mendy had been quick to make acquaintances in Warsaw among a crowd of boys and girls whom he took to the movies. In order to conceal her miserable lot from her family, Leah kept away from all of them. Queen Esther and Saltshe had finally made overtures and invited her to their homes, but Leah had managed to avoid the visits. She ate alone in restaurants, and went out on long walks, from the hotel to the bridge and from there back to Three Crosses Place. She was as lonely in Warsaw as in New York. She would stop in front of a shop window, gaze vacantly at the things on display, and murmur to herself: "Koppel, the thief. Yes, I got what was coming to me."

-457-Koppel spent

most of his time at the Oxenburgs'. Reitze prepared a room for him and fed him all the dishes he fancied: tripe, marinated fish in sweet and sour sauce. The Polish mark was dropping in value daily and the American dollar was climbing. No matter how extravagantly Koppel scattered his money, living still was dirt cheap. He bought for Zilka, the widow, a fur coat and a gold watch. He saw to it that a doctor visited Isador Oxenburg, and paid a masseur to massage his ailing legs. He helped the younger daughter, Regina, to get a flat, paying key money to the vacating tenant. He was even lavish in his favors to his old cronies, Itchele Peltsevisner, Motie the Red, and Leon the Peddler. David Krupnick had stopped visiting the Oxenburg apartment ever since Koppel had installed himself there. His wife,, however, the former Mrs. Goldsober, was there frequently and stayed late. She smoked her asthma cigarettes and played poker with Koppel. He must have forgotten all he knew about the game while he was in America, the others decided, because hardly an evening went by when he did not manage to lose at least a few marks. Mrs. Krupnick would always make the same comment: "You certainly must have a lot of luck in love."

Koppel made a regular business of searching out all his old friends and acquaintances. He learned that Naomi, Reb Meshulam's housekeeper, now ran a bakery on Nizka Street. One evening he went there to look for her. Koppel learned from Naomi what had happened to Manya. She had married, but was not living with her husband. She was working in a crockery store on Mirovska Street. She lived at the home of her employer somewhere on Ptasha Street. There was no telephone in the house, and Koppel took a droshky. It was already late and he had some hesitation whether or not he should call on her at such an hour.

He passed a dim court that gave off odors of garlic and rotten apples. In a small Chassidic prayerhouse a group of the devout was dancing. Koppel stood watching the ecstatic Chassidim forming in a circle, separating, stamping with their heavy boots, shaking their bearded faces. He felt an urge to go inside and make some sort of contribution, but he overcame the impulse.