The Glatstein Chronicles (22 page)

“What are you, a fortuneteller?” I asked. But she didn’t hear me and repeated her remarks in a forlorn and faraway voice, looking off into the distance, almost to my America. I stood over the rotting barrel, my reflection floating on the black water. I filled the dipper and poured water over my fingernails, once, twice, and as I performed the ritual I recalled the story of the Jew who goes to Egypt to study magic. On the way, he stops at an inn, and when the innkeeper learns the purpose of his guest’s journey, bids him first to wash his hands before eating. As the traveler is standing over the barrel, dipper in hand, the innkeeper casts a spell on him, conjuring up the Jew’s whole future—marriage, great wealth, capture by pirates, deliverance, descent into poverty. The innkeeper, in stunning detail, leads the traveler through scores of years, into misfortune, old age, and decrepitude, until, as he is approaching his death, the innkeeper breaks the spell, and the Jew realizes that he has been standing over the barrel for only a few moments, during which he experienced his entire, frightening life to come.

I imagined that this girl, too, would cast a spell on me that would keep me here forever. Who needs America? Why go off on so long a journey? Stay here, I fantasized, marry the smuggler’s daughter, wear a satin dressing gown, sit at the Sabbath table with its savory braided loaf, sweet fish, beans mixed with farfel, a fat portion of meat with horseradish, carrot compote, stewed prunes, and a golden glass of Wissotzky tea. And as the fantasy candles flicker in their tall, silver candelabrum, I, half-asleep in the semidark stillness, kiss my young, bashful, pregnant wife … Drip, drip … I saw my face floating in the black water of the barrel.

I sat sipping my hot drink, as the girl stood over me, looking as lonely as only a Jewish daughter can who has suddenly grown to maturity and whose mother and father have yet to take this new fact into account.

“You’re really to be envied,” she said again.

The smuggler entered, still in his prayer shawl and
tefillin.
He touched the arm phylactery, the head phylactery, kissed his fingers, then silently pointed to his mouth, as if to say, “Have you eaten?” I indicated, also in pantomime, the glass of hot water and milk.

He pursed his lips in a grimace. “Rokhl!” he barked at his daughter. “Nyah, bring some sour cream, a green onion. Oh, that girl”—he pointed to his head—“no sense at all.” Young Rokhl, slippers flapping, fetched the sour cream. The father then touched his phylacteries, by way of asking if I had prayed yet. When I hesitated to answer, he gave another quick snort—“Nyah”—pointed at his behind, then at the ceiling, and shook his head, meaning “No.” The message was clear: he wouldn’t be whipped in heaven for my transgression. He stationed himself for the silent recital of the Eighteen Benedictions, and after rushing through the prayer, took the customary steps backward, treading heavily, as if he were being released from a yoke.

Later that day, after it turned dark, a young man arrived who was to be my guide, dressed in hip boots with tops that reached over his knees. Then another young man showed up, a deserter from the Russian army. He quickly threw off his uniform and changed into civilian clothes, including a pair of glasses. The soldier sat there impatiently, like on hot coals. “When will we finally get moving?” he cried out. “You want to kill me here? Do you have any idea what can happen?”

The young man with the boots was in no hurry. He first asked for some herring and some whiskey. He kept stuffing his mouth with rye bread and pouring one drink after another down his gullet. After each glassful, he tried putting the soldier at ease. “Don’t worry,” he said, “you’re in good hands.”

At last, the smuggler reminded him of his duty, saying, “Rakhmiel! Let go of the bottle. You’ll need all your wits about you.” Only when it grew very dark did the smuggler settle his accounts with us. He wished us a pleasant journey and reminded our guide to keep his head on his shoulders. “Go in peace,” he bade us farewell, putting on a devout, priestly face, as if he were about to make the sign of the cross over us. The girl suddenly appeared at my side, extending a cold hand. I groped for a warm reply, but my tongue was tied.

“Are we ever going to get out of here?” the soldier began to complain like a woman. “You’re killing me. I may as well hang myself.”

“Go in peace, in peace,” the smuggler repeated.

The girl scurried off to a corner like a cat. The guide threw open the door and we stepped into the darkness.

“Rakhmiel, you devil,” the smuggler called after us, “remember, a head isn’t the same as a behind.”

We passed through backstreets. A dog barked in the distance. The night was very dark. We trod with soft steps on soft ground. The young man with the boots walked ahead of us, somewhat unsteadily, muttering to himself, “He gives me a herring head, a lick of whiskey, and half a ruble and thinks he’s making me rich. That cheapskate! He should burn in hell!”

The soldier kept blabbering that if the operation, God forbid, didn’t go off smoothly, he’d kill himself. We walked and walked, not looking at one another, until things began happening as in a fairy tale. First, the guide disappeared, then the soldier. I began to walk faster. I seemed to be the victim of a ruse, tricked out of my money and left stranded between a black sky and the desolate earth. I walked faster and faster, holding my head rigid, like someone on the verge of a breakdown.

The muddy ground soon gave way to tidy, narrow sidewalks. I kept plunging forward, never veering from the main road, until I came to a cluster of neat little houses with occasional lighted windows. Before long, I found myself in the center of town, with wagons and trolleys rushing by. Everywhere I looked I saw the same Gentile faces, Gentile mustaches, and Gentile mouths as in any Polish city, but the surprise came when those mouths opened to speak. I looked at the coarse faces and couldn’t stop marveling when I heard the sounds
ja, ja
coming from their lips. I approached a policeman, who looked like one of our own policemen, but even before I came near, he greeted me, “At your service.” I mingled with the crowd in the street and it began to dawn on me, that, yes, I had made it safely across the border.
Ja, ja,
the geography had changed. No bells had rung, no cannons had fired, nevertheless, I had crossed over from Poland, where every second word was
pshakrev,
“son of a bitch,” into Germany, the land of
ja, ja.

Most of the people were tipsy. A peasant, not much older than I, pulled me into a smoke-filled bar. I drank thick, foamy, dark beer from a tall, slender glass. There was much singing and spitting. I was afraid to ask point-blank where I was, but through some sly maneuvering, I finally discovered that I was in Mislowitz and that there was a streetcar that ran directly to Katowitz. I managed, though not without difficulty, to tear myself away from the friendly drunks, dashed from the tavern, and reached Katowitz that same night.

Trains … trains … and more trains. Hanover … Frankfurt … a few hours in Berlin … another train, filled with happy, singing students in green Tyrolean hats. I was exhausted, my head dizzy from lack of sleep. At last I got to Bremen, where my vagabond appearance identified me as an immigrant, and things were taken out of my hands. I came under official scrutiny, but this didn’t bother me much because, in my sleepy state, I saw everybody through the wrong end of a telescope. I could hear what people were saying, but their words oozed by like soft tar, devoid of meaning.

That night I slept on a stone ledge that called to mind a stair in a cold bathhouse. Each time my face or my hand touched the chilled stone, I awoke with a start. It was pitch black. Men and women were speaking some kind of incomprehensible Yiddish, of which I couldn’t make out a word. There was a woman sleeping next to me, breathing into my face. One of her heavy, bare legs lay sprawled across me all night long. I was afraid to move. Only in the morning did I discover that all those men and women with whom I had bedded down, and whom I assumed to be Jewish, were actually speaking Flemish.

I was made to undergo an official interrogation and given a shower, and before I knew it, I found myself on a salt-encrusted boat, reeking of pitch, old rope, rusted iron, and disinfectant. The deck was strewn with sacks and barrels. The food was unspeakable, and following the meals, everyone retreated into his own, private hell. After a day and a half of this agony, your bowels feel about to come spilling out of your nose and mouth. I looked around for a sympathetic face but saw myself surrounded by what appeared to be only enemies. It ceased to matter whether it was day or night.

At last we landed safely in Hull, on the east coast of England, and all the Jews, men and women, were immediately rounded up for a blessing by a Reform rabbi, who held forth about the wandering people of Israel and Jacob’s feet grown weary from his travels. We were then taken to a damp hall and fed at long, dark tables. My stomach was still churning from the short sea-crossing. I chewed with trepidation on a hard crust of bread, taking care lest each bite bring on a catastrophe, and sipped cold, weak tea.

Again a train … Liverpool … a hostel with several rooms that were really one, the spaces divided from each other by steps—a few steps down and to the right, a dormitory set up with beds; a few steps to the left, a dining room. I met a young man there, who introduced me to his sister Liza, a redheaded girl with freckles, and to her friend Sonya, who was toying with two long, black braids, braids so black that they practically glistened. The young man struck me as peculiar, since he was headed not for New York but for Connecticut. He and his sister sang heart-melting Russian love songs. The four of us chattered away in Russian and spent our three days in Liverpool together, prowling the streets.

We boarded the
Aquitania
and stood on the deck, watching the baggage being hoisted aboard by big-muscled stevedores who joked as they worked. Next to me stood a tall man of about sixty, with a sizable shaved head and a clean-shaven, somewhat hermaphroditic face, without a trace of hair, only a maplike network of reddish veins. He was trading quips with the stevedores, calling down to them and sending them into peals of laughter. They called back to him and he let out a boom, like thunder. I didn’t understand a word of their exchange but took in the tonalities of the new language. The tall, big-headed man was a German-American farmer, returning to the United States after a trip to visit his birthplace.

Later, he and I chatted and he made good-natured fun of me and of Jews in general. Every Jew in the world, he said, seemed to be headed for New York, where each had an uncle who worked in a factory that manufactured either cigars, shirts, or pants. He advised me to forget about my uncle and go with him to the open land, where he raised horses, cows, pigs, and chickens. He was prepared to take me with him and would even pay my fare from New York. I was still a young man, he said, and there was no need for me to end up in a miserable sweatshop when I could lead a wholesome life, doing healthy work. He talked to me of the American prairie, of clean air for shriveled Jewish lungs, of restful nights, of strange birds that call out “whippoorwill” all night, and—this with a knowing wink in acknowledgment of my youth—young girls not averse to a romp in the hay.

A Jewish cook in a white chef’s hat didn’t let the Jewish passengers forget that it was Shavuoth, the Festival of Weeks, and favored us with excellent dairy dishes, the foods customary to the holiday. My young friend and I, along with the two girls, strolled on deck until late in the night, singing Russian songs. Liza, who was slightly anemic, turned in before us, but the black-haired Sonya was made of sterner stuff. She kissed both me and my friend, who paid her the compliment of calling her a Nietzschean superwoman. Sonya swore eternal love for me and I for her, my friend bearing solemn witness. She then swore sacred and devoted love for my friend, with me as witness. We could barely tear ourselves away from her to go our separate ways to our cabins. Upon debarking, Sonya, my shipboard soulmate, fell right into the arms of a butcher, an American cousin, who had brought her over to be his bride. Later, I would often see her peering out of a butcher shop in Harlem, standing at the window among the sides of beef, looking like a tearful calf, with large, foolish, yearning eyes. As for me, I didn’t go off to the prairie with its whippoorwills but settled in New York with my uncle the cigar maker, who never even came to the boat to claim me, afraid of losing a day’s wages.

I felt sick at heart, my entire pose of worldliness suddenly crumbling in the face of the warm commotion around me, the kissing and embracing, the joyful welcomings. My entry into America was hardly triumphant. A man wearing a badge from a Jewish immigrant-aid society shepherded me around all day in search of my uncle, who had moved several times since sending me the steamship ticket. Fortunately, the official was a patient man, but nevertheless I watched him like a diamond, afraid that at any moment his patience would give out and he would abandon me. The German farmer’s mockery, as it had issued from his gold-filled mouth, followed me all that day: “Every Jew is looking for an uncle.”

Overhead, gloomy elevated trains clattered. Heavy wagons rumbled by. A gramophone in a store sent a Yiddish song wheezing into the street: “The prayer shawl is my only consolation.” A sob froze in my throat. That cruel welcome to America hibernated within me for many a year thereafter, leaving its ice-cold imprint.

The Bessarabian Jew from Bogotá spotted me on the deck and practically kissed me. “You have no idea how I’ve been looking for you,” he said, “like hunting for a treasure. Since this is the last night of our trip, I can allow myself to confess that I love you like a brother. Why do you think I love you so much? Because you’re such a great listener, you have golden ears. Your ears are worth a million dollars. You sit there and listen and listen and listen. You could bury me six feet under, my words could be going in one ear and out the other, and still you’d be sitting there, listening with your pair of golden ears. I’m a broken man and when my heart grows too heavy, I have to talk it out, but go talk when nobody is listening. I open my mouth to speak and see that there’s another mouth about to open and speak too. This talking at one another is a disaster. Do you think I’m any better? I’ve no patience either when somebody’s yakking away at me. But when I talk to you, I know that I’m talking to a real pair of ears. You hear that? You’re not the best judge of your own worth. If I had your ears, I’d have them insured.”