The Glatstein Chronicles (23 page)

From off in a corner came the lilt of a Hebrew song, starting with a young female voice, soon flanked by two tenors.

“Do you know who they are?” the Bessarabian asked. “They’re fine Jewish children, Hebrew teachers, a young couple and a friend. They had good jobs, but they gave everything up and now they’re on their way to the Land of Israel. You can’t imagine how jealous I am. Ah, the Land of Israel! The Machpelah cave, where the Patriarchs and the Matriarchs lie buried … Rachel’s Tomb … the Western Wall. Ah, when I think about the Land of Israel, my mind begins to spin. I remember my first Hebrew teacher, a pious Jew with a long, gray beard, who himself looked like one of the Patriarchs. Do you remember the scene of the aged Jacob lying in bed, surrounded by his twelve sturdy sons, each capable of striking a blow if necessary? They’re all standing there, and Jacob addresses Joseph in his weak voice, ‘Bury me with my fathers and their wives in the land of Canaan, in the Machpelah cave, something I was unable to do for your mother, Rachel, whom I had to bury by the wayside.’ It’s a beautiful story, as you may recall. For me, though, it’s as if everything was poured into a sieve and the Yiddish words sifted right through. But those young people over there, they’re speaking Hebrew as if they’d just stepped out of the Bible. Well, excuse me, I have to go change. Tonight’s the last night and everybody’s going to be on late watch. I want to catch a dance. You hear? I believe in grabbing what you can, since you only live once before they push you under. But, for God’s sake, let’s make sure we see each other in the morning before we leave the ship. I must shake your hand and thank you for those golden ears of yours.”

The ballroom was jammed, the dancers were one on top of the other. The reek of perspiration assaulted anyone who stepped into the room, but nonetheless the dancers glided elegantly across the packed floor. The tall pianist wandered about, looking bewildered, trying to reach the door leading to the bar. “
Et tu?
” he exclaimed when he saw me. “You’re also here in this Turkish bath, with all these women?” He grabbed my hand and deftly maneuvered us out of the ballroom.

The bar, too, was crowded. The pianist found us an empty corner somewhere and we sat ourselves down. This well-bred Englishman had already had one glass too many and his laughter rang out louder and looser than usual. Yet piercing through his noisy cackles, I could hear the crooning baritone of the blond, young Russian: “
Sonyetchka, ti otsharovatelna,
you are absolutely bewitching.” The large center table was occupied by the Russian colony, with the queen bee, Sonya Yakovlyevna, presiding. For the occasion, she was decked out in a Turkish shawl, wrapped around a colorfully embroidered dress. She wore heavy, black drop earrings that made her large head look even larger. “
Sonyetchka, ti otsharovatelna,
” the blond Russian kept purring.

At a second large table, youth was having its fling. Three unusually beautiful girls, aged fifteen or sixteen, with rouged cheeks and mascara-touched lashes, sat drinking with several young men. The girls wore absurdly long dresses, cut low front and back. They flirted with their companions, making good use of their bared shoulders and the quicksilver path that trembled between their three-quarters-uncovered breasts. They played with the high-heeled shoes they wore on bare feet, revealing long, slender, almost boyish-looking legs. Their chaperone was sitting nearby, a woman with a hard, shrewd face and wiry silver hair. Her watchdog duties notwithstanding, on the very first night out, she had found herself a tall, elderly man and became so taken up with her conquest that her three charges were left free to dance, get drunk, and disappear into strange cabins. Now the girls were sitting with five or six young men in tuxedos. The whole group looked as if they were very capably imitating their elders, dressed in Father’s trousers and Mother’s gowns. The chaperone was already quite tipsy. Every so often one of the girls would get up and go over to her, give her a peck on the forehead, exclaim, “Darling!” and return to the group. The chaperone, drunk as she was, was still in sufficient command of her senses to comment to her elderly swain, after another swig of her glass: “I have to watch over those young bitches, but who knows if there’s anything left that’s worth guarding. Take a look at those tall, magnificent whores. Well, you should see the three of them in the shower. I simply cry just looking at those taut, glistening bodies and those delicate feet. I say to myself, ‘Goodnight, Mary, it’s time to go to sleep.’”

“I could live, but they won’t let me”—suddenly I heard Yiddish sounds, the lyric of a popular song, no less. It was the prizefighter, whispering into my ear and pointing at the three girls. “For a threesome like that I would consider converting, as sure as I’m a Jew,” he said with a conspiratorial wink, as he was led away by his Man Friday, still dogging his every step.

The bar was growing more stifling and crowded. Overheated couples spilled in from the ballroom. My pianist friend, who had already downed more than a few glassfuls, began to stare at me with glazed eyes. “You hate me!” he shouted. “You, too!” He stood up on his shaky legs and stumbled out of the bar. Only now, left alone, did I feel the slight movement of the floor underfoot, and it struck me full force that this was the last night we would be spending on the water.

“No sleeping tonight. Tonight we’ll guide the boat to shore with wide-open eyes.” It was the Wisconsin teacher, who had tracked me down. “Am I disturbing your solitude?” she asked. “You know? The young musicians have shown up, they’re waiting on deck. It’s such a beautiful night. Let’s get out of here, it’s suffocating.” She took me by the hand and led me away, without waiting for an answer. As we passed the Russian table, the young, blond Soviet jumped from his seat and called out, “No, no, this won’t do. This is no time for individualism. Tonight we are a collective. No private love! No private passion! Tonight we all love one another.” To illustrate his point, he started a song in his booming voice, the entire Soviet colony joining in, including the earnest Khazhev. “
Vsamom dyelye,
” said Sonya, “stay with us.” We made our excuses and barely managed to escape their friendly clutches, telling them that we’d meet later on deck.

On one of the steps leading to the upper deck, the Wisconsin teacher came to a stop. After a moment, she buried her head in her hands and began to sob. It all happened so quickly that my throat choked up and my hands began to tremble helplessly. I tried to calm her, in a quivering voice close to tears that betrayed my own distress. She stopped her crying as suddenly as she’d begun. “Pardon me,” she said, wiping her eyes like a little girl. “I’m just an overgrown fool. But, I warned you, didn’t I, that I was going to cry.” We continued in silence. She clung to me and I had the feeling that something significant had just taken place between us, that she had confided something of importance, though what exactly I wasn’t sure.

It was cool and spacious on deck, but my heart jumped at my first glimpse of the water. The sea’s vastness, its terrifying expanse, had shrunk into something much narrower. Small islands, some round, some square, and some shapeless, appeared on the water as if great chunks of sea had been bitten off and transformed into land. Also gone was the sea’s bottomless depth, the turbulent abyss. The water was now calm and smooth. Our ship moved like a rowboat, its engine no louder than the slap of oars. Red and green lights blinked from afar. Not only did everything look as it did when our journey began, it even smelled the same, the shoreline aromas of pitch filling the air. Our ship moved slowly, with the leisurely strokes of a confident swimmer.

Everyone spoke in hushed tones. The tall Haitian diplomat promenaded with his Latvian lady, bending down every now and then to whisper something into her ear and plant a kiss. The young book publisher walked arm in arm with a heavyset woman whose large, cheerless cat’s eyes shone in the dark, almost as though illuminating her companion’s impatient expression. The young musicians stood at the railing, staring into the water. A narrow band of light appeared in the distance, warming a stretch of the sea and indicating where the sun would rise. I felt a sudden weariness in every fiber of my being. Our ship’s whistle sounded, and its echoing call was answered by several nearby ships. I brought the Wisconsin teacher over to the musicians and excused myself.

Sleepy deckhands were washing down sections of the deck, barely moving and not exchanging a single word. The soapy water brought out the musty smell of the wooden planks. The deckhands swayed back and forth as if in their sleep. I asked one of them how much time we still had before docking. Several replied in unison, like automatons, “A good six hours.”

I felt that I had to stretch out on my bunk and close my eyes for a few hours. The passageways, already barricaded with piled-up suitcases and heavy trunks, looked darker than usual. Couples were slinking along the walls, crawling over the mounds of luggage. Three tall youths were leading, practically carrying the three tall girls through the obstacle course. The girls’ heads were thrown back, resting on the boys’ shoulders. A cabin door opened and they all disappeared inside. The blond Russian escorted the middle-aged Englishwoman, pulling her faster, as if afraid that the ship would be docking any moment. She trailed him like a calf, with bold, little steps. She was drunk and murmured between belches, “Darling, no one has ever treated me like this before. I have sons almost your age. Where are you taking me?” To which the Russian kept replying, “Yes, yes,” as he continued to drag her to his door. Stewards sat atop the heavy trunks like Buddhas, puffing on their pipes and impassively observing the scene.

My neighbor, an elderly schoolteacher of about sixty, was standing at the door of her cabin, fiddling with the lock. When she saw me, she began to speak, as if to herself: “This year I’ll be in Spain. I was in Spain last year, too. For the past thirty years I’ve been going only to Spain. We are all creatures of habit, and Spain is Spain. Anyway, what’s the difference? Is Italy any more interesting? I’m a Spanish teacher, so I go to Spain. If I were a German teacher, I would probably have gone to Germany. Going to Spain in that case would have been remarkable. My fate is bound up with Spain. But what kind of fate is that, when even after thirty years, I still don’t have hold of it? Are you married?” She yawned and fiddled some more with the lock. “
Buenos noches,
as they say in Spain.”

I lay on my bunk, rocking, trying with all my might to keep my eyes open, as if I were afraid of missing something … When I awoke, I felt strange. My entire body had suddenly become heavier and had lost the sea rhythm to which it had grown accustomed. I sensed a physical change in all my parts and realized, instinctively, that the ship had docked.

As the passengers debarked, their separation from each other took effect almost immediately, far faster than the bonding that followed embarkation. We all stood before our open suitcases in the huge customs shed and avoided looking at one another. If by chance any eyes made contact, we smiled guiltily, as if ashamed of the bacchanalia of friendship and intimacy that had raged among us for five whole days. Each one of us now stood alone, reverting to a previous order of things, to the social standings that prevailed on the other side of the Atlantic, with their attendant privileges, responsibilities, and prejudices—all of which had been suspended for the short duration of the voyage. People were embarrassed at having indiscriminately entered into friendships that must now be severed. The more tenderhearted exchanged what-is-there-to-say smiles, implying: “Don’t hold this against me. The ocean’s the ocean, and land is land. Now we are no longer thrown upon each other’s friendship and must behave accordingly, politely and properly.” The hard-hearted types broke off the shipboard relationships with an arrogant abruptness, casting icy looks, as if at a stranger. Their expressions bore something of the air of Cain after he had done away with his bothersome brother. The very sensitive types (male and female) felt themselves used and discarded. They experienced an aftertaste as of some bitter cigar. For them the cold cessation of friendship was a painful bit of surgery.

The faces of the passengers were now as cold and drawn as those of the customs officials rummaging through the suitcases. Everyone had changed into different clothing and looked oddly overdressed. A strange hat had sprouted on a head you’d previously known only as a mass of red hair blowing in the sea breeze. You never expected that a new hat, or overcoat, or other article of clothing could so change the countenance and spirit of someone you had seen daily in more casual, intimate attire. The easygoing shipboard interlude, which the majority of the passengers now wished to forget, lay packed away in suitcases, along with snapshots and other mementos. The customs officials mechanically inspected every item twenty-five times over, and each time the small reminders of the voyage were fingered, the more detached from them you became.

Yet despite our splintering into discrete individuals, we still retained something in common, a feeling of helplessness, of immigrant anxiety. The strange uniforms of the customs officials and the porters, the rapid patter of a different tongue, gave everyone the feeling of knocking in vain at the gate of a foreign land. We proud Americans felt ourselves dazed, even somewhat criminal, under the suspicious glare of the French officials. As certain as we were that we were not bringing in contraband cigarettes, we still answered their question with a shaky “No.” I was reminded of the stringent border search of Father Jacob’s sons and of the silver goblet that had been surreptitiously slipped into Benjamin’s sack. Who knew what lay in our own suitcases!

Not until we were on the train, racing to Paris past ugly, sooty villages and scraggly fields, did a slight bit of bonding recur. The porter had tossed all the baggage into the first carriage he saw, and in the scramble to reclaim our bags, a selection began to take place. It opened with a question: “Where is a Jew headed?” The answers came fast and furious. “Poland.” “Romania.” “The Soviet Union.” “Lithuania.” What had happened to all the passengers who were on their happy way to Paris, Italy, England, Switzerland, and Spain? “Where is a Jew headed?” Where did all these Jews suddenly come from? One had never seen them aboard ship. Now here we all were sitting together, as if herded into the Pale of Settlement. The Jewish faces were troubled. The rich, smug uncle on his way to visit an impoverished relative had already begun to resemble the unfortunate kinsman he would soon be meeting. He was remembering how it was. Twenty, thirty, forty years of Americanization were dropping away. Once again the returning Romanian Jew, Polish Jew, Russian Jew, Lithuanian Jew reverted back to who they had been when they left home. Other carriages carried pleasure seekers; the passengers in ours were burdened by what awaited them at their destination.