The Family Moskat (89 page)

The train reached Krakow towards evening. A cool wind came from the near-by mountains. The setting sun's light was reflected from the golden crucifixes of the church spires, in the Gothic windows of stained glass, in the gilded faces of the old-fashioned clocks. Pedestrians did not hurry, as they did in War-saw, but walked leisurely. The streetcars rolled along quietly. The horses drawing the droshkies seemed to trot as though in the measures of a dance. The bells of the churches pealed, calling worshippers to take account of their immortal souls. A nun strolled along, leading a group of children in alpaca smocks. Seminarists in long coats and wide-brimmed hats were carrying large volumes, like the Jewish Gemaras. Pigeons hopped about, picking for kernels. A blind man walked by, led by a dog. A tranquillity seemed to hover about the castles of the ancient Polish kings, the monuments, the towers and cathedrals. Stars began to appear in the sky. Near by was the Jewish quarter, Kasimir, with its ancient synagogues and the old cemetery, the resting-place of generations of rabbis, holy men, leaders of the Jewish community. Asa Heshel took a deep breath. He had not realized himself how much he needed a spell of rest.

The hotel they were to stop at was on a street planted on either side with trees. Their room was large and had two beds. There were flowerpots at the windows, and tapestries on the walls. The towels were embroidered with homely Polish proverbs: "He who rises early, God will treat him fairly"; "Where a guest is, there is God." In a corner there was a washstand with a copper dipper and an earthenware jug. Here in this room -587-everything else seemed to Asa Heshel far away and unreal; Hitler, the war, the school where he taught, the Moskat family, Barbara took off her dress without bothering to put on the light and washed in the soft twilight glow. Asa Heshel, dressed as he was, lay down on the bed with the high posts and the carved knobs. He listened to the quiet that came into the room through the open window ventilators. There was only one thing he wanted now: to rest, to forget for a while all worries and burdens.

For the evening meal the two went to a coffee house where the Polish writer and painter Wyspianski had been a steady patron.

Even now drawings of his hung on the walls. At first Asa Heshel had felt a reluctance to go to the places that were tourist haunts.

Barbara had to persuade him to enter. Chinese lanterns threw a soft glow. There were two other couples whispering to each other over their food. The waitress in her white apron walked on tiptoe. After they had eaten, Asa Heshel and Barbara strolled over to the Jewish quarter. Here the streets were narrow and crooked, cobbled with large stones. In the dimly illuminated alleyways they saw an old Jew in a skullcap, with long sidelocks.

Behind the counter of a food store stood an old woman with a matron's wig on her head. To the right of her were bundles of wood and stacks of coal. At her left hung strings of dried mushrooms. A small girl with a shawl around her shoulders was buy-ing something, which was being weighed on an ancient scale with a long tongue. In another street the two came across a group of men and young boys who were intoning a prayer in honor of the new moon. They were dancing about, calling to one another: "
Sholem aleichem! Aleichem sholem!
"

The boys had long, dangling earlocks and wide-brimmed hats, like little rabbis.

Barbara stopped to stare at them. The light of the moon fell on the pale faces and black beards and was mirrored in the dark eyes.

The boys skipped like goats, sometimes chanting from the prayerbooks they held and sometimes pushing against one another frolicsomely. Through the open window of a prayerhouse could been seen shelves of books, the Ark of the Law, gilded lions, memorial candles. Barbara thought of her father, who on his deathbed had cried out that he wanted to be laid to rest in a Jewish cemetery.

In the hotel room they did not put on the light. Thank God, -588-they were

alone at last. Tomorrow they would travel on to the mountains.

Let them ruin everything. This night no one could take from them. Barbara stood at the window. She looked out at the clear sky, at the rows of crooked rooftops. Asa Heshel took a drink of cold water from the pitcher. He suddenly recalled his parting from Haddassah the previous evening, when she had walked with him from Shrudborov to the Otwotsk station. She had kissed him three times when they parted and said: "If I die, I want to be buried near my mother."

Asa Heshel now suddenly realized the strangeness of her behavior. What had happened? Had she known that he was going away? A terrifying thought occurred to him: he would never see her alive again.

IN THE PRAYER and study houses, this year as every year in

the month of Elul, the Jews sounded the shofar, the ancient ram's horn, as protection against Satan. The Polish government was taking defense measures in its own fashion. In the parks and squares trenches had been dug to serve as shelters against a possible bombardment of the city. Priests and rabbis turned the first spadefuls of earth. Substantial citizens, Chassidim, yeshivah students, voluntarily reported to help with the digging. Because of the fear of a sudden onslaught by German planes, the work went on at night in complete darkness. All windows were hung with black sheets of paper or blankets. The Polish army was partly mobilized. It was an open secret that the generals and colonels who had really ruled the country ever since the Pilsudski uprising were far from being prepared for a modern war. For all Marshal Smigly-Rydz's assurances that every inch of Polish soil would be defended, it was expected that the Polish army would retreat to the river Bug.

Pinnie Moskat kept a map folded in his pocket and took it -589-with him

wherever he went. Every day he carefully demonstrated to the others in the Bialodrevna prayerhouse that Hitler was nothing less than insane. Nyunie wrote a postcard to Hadassah in Shrudborov urging her to come back to Warsaw. He would take her and Dacha into his house. But Hadassah did not want to go back to the city. The fighting would start near Danzig, not near Shrudborov. Aaron, the Bialodrevna rabbi, planned to spend the high holy days in Falenitz. Leah was straining at the leash to get back to America, but Koppel would not listen to any suggestions about leaving. He spent all his time at the flat of David Krupnick's widow, the former Mrs. Goldsober. He brought her gifts and sat playing cards with her. She cooked his favorite dishes. Leon the Peddler and Motie the Red also frequented the house. The old cronies would have a drink of brandy, nibble at some jellied calves' feet, and smoke the American cigarettes that Koppel provided. Koppel treated them all to pineapple, sardines, and caviar. They talked about the Anshe Zedek Society, of which the departed Isador Oxenburg had long ago been president; of the gang wars between the lads of Warsaw and Praga; of the Revolution of 1905; and of the fights between the strikers and the underworld. What had happened to those wonderful days?

All gone. Gone Itche the Blind, Shmuel Smetana, Chatskele Shpigelglass. Gone the racketeers, the pimps, the drivers of horse trucks. The pickpockets of the Krochmalna and the Smotcha had become party and union men. The urchins of Janash's Court were now busy organizing Communist demonstrations. All of them had become intelligentsia.

Motie the Red shook his head dolefully. "Gone for good, the old Warsaw. Dead and buried. You can say Kaddish after it."

"Do you remember how Baruch Palant made a bet he could gorge three dozen eggs?" Leon the Peddler asked.

"Ah, the old days."

Koppel told the others that the Americans did not know how to eat. All they knew about was a sandwich. They liked to fight, but always according to the rules. If one of them wore glasses, he had to take them off. And there was a rule against punching below the belt. He also told them about the horse races. Why, there was one horse that had brought its owner more than a million dollars.

Leon the Peddler smacked his lips. "That's money."

"You said it," Motie the Red agreed.

-590-"And you

think you have to be there?" Koppel went on. "No. You sit down like a king in a Turkish bath, and you know everything that's going on. The numbers come over--by electricity. And in the meanwhile a woman is giving you a massage."

"Ha, ha, Koppel," Mrs. Krupnick laughed. "The same old Koppel."

"Do you think that just because a man's old he stops being a man? The eyes can see and the heart can yearn. But that's all. As for the rest, it's true, you get played out."

"You can say that again."

"I'm telling you, Koppel, you'll hang around and hang around until Hitler marches in, and then you'll never be able to get out."

"What can Hitler do to me? Put salt on my tail?"

"He says that hell finish off all the Jews."

Leon the Peddler flared up. "So did Haman. When he saw that Mordecai wouldn't bow down to him he wanted to kill all the Jews. So what happened? Esther came and he dangled at the end of a rope."

" Hitler won't need an Esther."

"So hell drop dead just the same."

"Have you already bought a place in the synagogue for Rosh Hashona and Yom Kippur?" Mrs. Krupnick asked.

"I'll pray in Falenitz, with the rabbi. After all, I'm supposed to be his stepfather."

The day went by and Koppel hardly knew where it had gone.

After the evening meal the old cronies sat down to play cards.

Then, before they could look around, it was twelve o"clock. It was difficult to get a taxi in the Praga section, and Koppel stayed overnight. Mrs. Krupnick gave him her late husband's bathrobe and slippers to put on. She made the bed soft and comfortable. Koppel lay down in the darkness, all his senses alert. It was hard to believe that he was in Warsaw again. Could he be the same Koppel who had once been Meshulam Moskat's bailiff? Was he the man who had once been Bashele's husband?

Everything seemed like a dream. He began to think about death.

How long could he keep on going? Two or three years, no more.

They'd bury him in Brooklyn. On the way back from the cemetery the
landsleit
would stop off at Delancey Street or on Second Avenue for a drink. Leah would get the insurance money, -591-twenty

thousand dollars. What did she need all that money for? She was an old dog herself. No, he'd make a new will and leave everything to his children. As soon as he got back to America.

Well, what else? The worms would feast on him.

A little time would pass by and there'd be nobody to remember that there ever had been a Koppel. Could it be possible that there was really a soul? What sort of thing could it be? What could it do, wandering around without a body?

He fell asleep. A few hours later he started up. He put out his hand and felt for his traveler's checks in his trousers pocket, and the passport in his coat pocket. Leah was right. The best thing would be to get out of Poland as soon as possible. Wars were too much for him. A welter of thoughts gave him no rest. The gravestone on Bashele's tomb had fallen. He was to have put up another, but he had forgotten to attend to it. Her second husband, Chaim Leib, lay without anything to mark his grave at all. He began to think about Leah. In America, whichever way it was, she was his wife; here in Poland she was practically a stranger to him. Her daughter Lottie never said a word to him.

And his own son, Manyek, also had his nose up in the air, just because he had a job as a bookkeeper. In America a bookkeeper was a nobody; here in Poland every little snotnose thought himself the cock of the walk. He began to cough.

Mrs. Krupnick woke up. "What's the matter, Koppel? Can't you sleep?"

"In your bed I could sleep."

There was a silence. Mrs. Krupnick sighed and giggled.

"You're crazy, I'm an old woman."

"I'm an old man."

"Don't make a fool of yourself."

Koppel lay sleepless until dawn. Then he fell asleep, but he had a bad dream. When he got up he could not remember what it was, but it left a bitter taste in his mouth. He felt an urge to get dressed and get out as quickly as possible. Mrs. Krupnick brought him some tea and milk, but he only took a sip of the brew. He dressed and went outside, saying that he would be back later in the day. Mrs. Krupnick still lived on Mala Street. In the same house, on the floor below, lived Isador Oxenburg's daughter, Zilka. Koppel did not want to be seen leaving. He pushed his hat forward and put on a pair of smoked glasses. He tried to hurry down the stairs, but his legs did not serve him.

-592-Finally he

got out on Stalova Street and waved with his stick at the passing taxis, but none of them stopped. At last he got into a streetcar.

A longing to be with Leah overwhelmed him.

He wanted to tell her that they were both old people now and that it was foolish to keep on quarreling. The conductor handed him a ticket. Koppel looked in his pocket for some small change, but all he had was a twenty-zloty note. The conductor grumbled, but after a while thrust his hand into his leather purse and counted out the change into Koppel's palm, fifty-groszy pieces, twenties, tens. Suddenly Koppel's hand fell and the coins scattered on the floor of the car. A fierce pang darted through the left side of his chest and his arm. He fell backward. The passengers started up. The conductor rang for the motorman.

"I'm dying," the thought flashed through Koppel's mind. "It's the end." There was a single fragment of thought still hovering somewhere in his consciousness--that what was happening now had something to do with the dream he had had during the night.

Koppel never woke up again. He was not aware of being carried out and put down on the sidewalk. He did not hear the ambulance drive up. He had no knowledge that they had taken him off to a Catholic hospital and laid him in a ward. He did not see the young doctor who put his stethoscope to Koppel's chest and gave orders for an injection.

Two days passed and no one in the family knew what had happened to him. Leah was in the pension at Otwotsk. It was only on the third day that the police found out that the dead man with the American passport had a son, Manyek Berman.