The Glatstein Chronicles (41 page)
Was this not a monstrous injustice, if there ever was one, a case for smashing the windows of Heaven? What mockery, to have climbed onward and upward, while all the time paralysis was following him like his own shadow. And then, at just the right moment, at the very moment the world was within his grasp, it was the shadow that took over, and rendered him a martyr.
After such misfortune, what is there to say? The poor man just stood there, nothing but “Ai-ai, ai-ai” escaping from between his tight-closed lips. It is a great wrong, and you should be ashamed of yourself, Lord God. What kind of a way to act is that? Don’t raise me up just to hurl me down!
“Ai-ai,” he kept muttering there on the hilltop, and none of it surprised me. But then I noticed his feet. I suppose I expected a pair of strongly built, mud-spattered feet, perfectly white under the mud. But what I saw was a pair of calves’ feet, the kind mother used to give us on Friday nights—pickled calves’ feet. This man was standing there, jiggling, on feet which had been cooked and pickled. I began to feel quite uneasy.
I made up my mind I must get up. I pulled on my socks, but I could not find my shoes. I was wearing my dark blue suit, but how could I go around dressed like that in my stocking feet? But no matter how hard I looked for my shoes, I couldn’t find them. There was only one thing to do: I set out in my stocking feet. A number of couples were strolling around, paying no attention to me, but I knew that their indifference was a pretense, and this made me dash about wildly. Somehow I was sure that right around here in the dark I had left one of my shoes. Yes, it was the left one—I grabbed it and put it on, but as I did so my right sock fell off the other foot. Now as I dashed and hopped about, one of my feet was bare and the other shod.
Then it flashed through my mind that I might just well resign myself to the ridiculousness of the situation, because all that was happening was just a dream.
It was about time I realized this—for the same dream had come to me many times before. Never in my life had I ever run around barefoot, nor been obliged to do so for lack of shoes, and yet this dream recurrently disturbed my sleep. The moment I realized I was dreaming, I began to walk more slowly. It was still embarrassing to be wearing my good suit with one foot bare, but I was no longer so upset about it.
Suddenly I came into a dark place. There were many doors, and all of them, but one, were closed. Through the one open door a column of light streamed in. There was a mighty wind blowing through, but though the light wavered, it stayed bright. I concentrated on that light with every ounce of my strength, as my salvation from terror. All at once, to my enormous relief, I heard voices coming through the open door.
I stared, fascinated. A stage had been set up diagonally across one corner of the room, rather than in the usual place. I could tell that the play being performed was not the Purim play which I had written at the age of eight, and which I, dressed in mother’s best clothes, performed for my friends who paid a penny each to see me. Nor was it
The Manhunters,
a play our local amateur theater group had presented in the “Rusalka,” a real theater, before a real public. I had been the prompter for that production, and from the prompter’s box I shouted the cues so loudly that I could be heard in the gallery. I had been given a baton, and it was with that I was supposed to signal the orchestra to begin playing, at the point where a friend of mine, in the part of an unhappy lover, victim of the manhunters, breaks quavering into song,
The sun goes down in flames,
The sun we can scarcely see.
Nor were they performing
The Vow,
another play we had put on at the “Rusalka,” with Esther Rachel Kaminska in the leading role. We had had red posters made to inform the public that Esther Rachel Kaminska was giving a guest performance, and all of Lublin flocked to see it, even though it wasn’t a comedy, and had no songs or dances.
I ruined that great occasion. Once again I was the designated prompter—devil knows why, but my friends in the theater group would never give me so much as a walk-on—and this time I became so engrossed in Kaminska’s heartrending performance that I forgot to give the cues. Poor Kaminska—she was playing the part of Ronia the postmistress—kept inching down to the prompter’s box and kicking it, to remind me of my duties. She would hiss at me, “Give me the lines, you fool!” and when she walked past the prompter’s box, she would aim a kick at my head or at least manage to step on my hand. The other actors, too, kept banging against the prompter’s box to make me give them their lines, but I was in a trance. I forgot completely that I was prompter and simply turned into one more enraptured member of the audience. Gradually the whole performance slowed down and stopped like a clock that has not been wound. There wasn’t a single tick more out of the actors, and the stage fell shockingly still. On his deathbed, Ronia’s husband forgot to ask for her solemn vow, and she forgot to give it. They had to bring the curtain down to break the spell and wake me up.
No, it was not
The Vow
that was being performed on the oddly placed stage just visible through the open door. I could make out some of my own words in the play, but I had never seen the actors before. As each actor spoke in turn, he would glare at me savagely.
We were all sitting on long wooden benches; behind me sat my father with my mother next to him, but they were seated in armchairs, as though in a private box. Mother was all dressed up and radiant with joy at being off her feet and away from the kitchen and the dining room for once. Father was taking it all in critically, as from a great distance. He might have been saying, “Well, it’ll be pretty bad, I expect, like so much of this fuzzy new Yiddish writing. Why can’t he write so that his own father can understand it, at least?”
I was annoyed—I felt that to please my mother they should have given a performance of Goldfaden’s adored operetta
The Witch,
with a rendition of the song “Hot Cakes.” Suddenly a cat ran across the stage, the sure sign that this must be Goldfaden’s other classic,
Shulamith.
Would its hero, Absalom, appear, too, I wondered hopefully, would Mother after all have an opportunity to hear its lullaby that mothers have been singing ever since, “
In beys hamikdesh, in a vinkl-kheyder …?
”
Saba was sitting next to me, chattering steadily, keeping up a continual stream of critical remarks. “You call this a drama? Where is the conflict?” A drama, she said, must have a plot, complications, counterplots; only Chekhov was a good enough writer to do without all that. She had me on the ropes, and she quoted great critics from memory. One said this and the other said that, and when you put them all together they spelled out the fact that I wasn’t a playwright. Her every well-turned aphorism was a warning to me to give it up. I was holding her hands in the dark, and they were hot. She talked so much that the people around us began to shout, “Shuddup! Shuddup! Shut your trap!” The vulgarity of the expression shocked me. How would anyone call so pretty, so eloquent a little mouth, a trap? I was ready to take them all on, but she went right on chattering. “I pay no attention to them,” she said, “their yellow press and their shuddup! This is Europe!”
After this things seemed to go better. The actors, God knows why, kept looking at me angrily. Often they vanished completely and the performance seemed to go on without them, following my script exactly, not missing a single stage direction, a single line or emphasis.
BASIA
: After all, I’m just a poor Jewish woman, heavy-hearted, but if it’s no sin to say so, God works in mysterious ways. To one he gives too much, to another a pain in the belly. As my grandmother, rest her soul, used to say—it doesn’t add up.
GNENDL
: You didn’t go to the synagogue?
BASIA
: No, I stayed away on purpose. When I’m at odds with God I can’t go to His house and wish Him a merry Sabbath. Right now, if I may say so, I’m good and angry with Him.
GNENDL
(
her mind elsewhere
): With whom?
BASIA
: With whom? With God in person.
GNENDL
(
taken aback
): May the punishment fall on my enemies! Honestly, Basia, it’s a sin a talk like that. You don’t sound like a Jew.
BASIA
: I’ve kept quiet long enough. Itche Scab and his saintly wife, the whore who sleeps with every soldier, wriggling her fat you-know-what—they get the places of honor at the east wall of the synagogue, and I have to go scrounging for a bit of food for the Sabbath. (
wiping her eyes
) Why should I keep quiet? Because God might strike me with a thunderbolt? For all the pleasure I get out of life, I should care!
“You know, for an amateur she plays very well, that Basia,” Saba said pressing closer to me.
GNENDL
(
with animation
): I bought a pike today, you’ve never seen anything like it. Maybe you’ll take a few pieces of fish? My word, it’s too big for me. Who is going to eat it at my house anyway? The children I don’t have? And as for my Nahman, he nibbles like a bird.
BASIA
: My husband has stopped eating altogether. He sits all day with his red-rimmed eyes, digging away at the Talmud—he’ll end up putting a hole through it. He sits like that day and night, studying and thinking, and between one thought and another he makes me children. A big help!
(
Sound of bells from a Catholic church, echoed shortly afterward by the heavy Orthodox bells. Through the open door the chants of the worshipers mingle with the chiming bells.
)
BASIA
: They’re ringing in honor of the Christian God. They even begrudge us our Sabbath. Just listen to the awful noise they’re making.
GNENDL
: As for me, whenever I hear church bells, a shudder runs through me.
BASIA
: The young priests bleat. They sit by their stained-glass windows and stick out their tongues, like little devils, when Jews go by on their way to the synagogue. They’re having a good time with the Yoshke we gave them.
GNENDL
(
sadly
): May God forgive me for saying so, but on Saturdays and holidays my heart tightens with anxiety. It’s all right the rest of the time. The Sundays and the Mondays pass quickly, but the Saturdays and the holidays drag on and on, and the candles throw shadows on the walls.
(The church bells grow louder, drowning out the chanting in the synagogue.)
BASIA
: Jewish life is sad. It scrapes on and on like a fiddle at a poor man’s wedding.
GNENDL
: Sometimes when I’m all by myself at home I dance and sing like the untouched girl I once was. My dress feels ablaze and my blood is on fire—and then my Nahman shows up on the doorstep unexpectedly, and makes me feel ashamed of myself.
BASIA
: That’s the way it is. A shikse stays a shikse till the day she dies, but once a Jewish girl puts on her bridal veil she takes on the whole burden of Jewishness.
GNENDL
: No wonder they used to call me the Jewish shikse in Tarnow. My steps danced like flames when I was a girl, but now I’ve become a matron.
(
Enter Nahman with a dinner guest.
)
NAHMAN
: Good shabes.
GUEST
: Good shabes.
BASIA
: O my goodness, here I’ve been standing talking …
(
Gnendl runs after her with a few pieces of fish on a plate and comes right back.
)
GUEST
: (
reciting the traditional song of Sabbath greeting
)
Sholem Aleichem,
ministering angels, messengers of the Most High! (
pointing to Gnendl.
) Your wife? Lovely!
NAHMAN
: My “woman of valor,” may she be safe from the evil eye.
GUEST
: (
looks at Gnendl
) A real fortune of gold, silver, diamonds.
(
Gnendl, embarrassed, moves more quietly as she sets the table.
)
(
Nahman strokes his wife’s head while the guest wanders around, turning frequently to bow to his hosts.
)
GUEST
: What’s your name, young man?
NAHMAN
: Nahman.
GUEST
: You listen to me, Nahman. The Rizhin rabbi once recited, “
sholem aleichem,
” and at once angels and seraphim appeared in the room so that the ceiling took fire and burned until the Rizhin rabbi escorted them out personally. And I, sinful mortal that I am, as I greet my hosts here, I feel that angels are at rest in every corner. It’s a great thing, the peace of the Sabbath.
GNENDL
(
shuddering with fear
): One shouldn’t speak of the angels.
GUEST
(
stopping
): What’s the matter with you, silly woman, what are you frightened of? (
to Nahman
) That’s right, young man, stroke her head—ai! ai! Gold and silver and diamonds, a real treasure.
(
Guest says the Kiddush with fervor, Nahman mutters it quickly and pours Gnendl a bit of wine. They wash their hands. The guest uncovers the hallah, cuts off a piece and eats calmly as though not really hungry.
)
GUEST
: How are the Jews doing in this village, are they getting by all right?
NAHMAN
: It’s a poor village. Everybody’s penniless, we barely keep alive. The Gentiles even begrudge us our poverty—they think we’re all Rothschilds.
GUEST
: That so! And what do you do, young man?
NAHMAN
: I trade a bit, I work part-time as a goldsmith. I fix broken springs, locks, I make gold crosses, we somehow manage. When there’s a fair we’re always afraid the Gentiles will get out of hand, but at least it brings in a few złotys. All in all, there’s great poverty here, ai, real misery! I can tell you, it tears your heart.
GUEST
(
with emotion
): Is that so?!
GNENDL
: Now take that Basia who was just here, the poor thing is badly off. The way she was talking! Such language should never be heard in a Jewish house.
GUEST
: What do you mean?
GNENDL
: About God—she was speaking against God! May her words be scattered to the empty fields!
GUEST
: A Jewish woman who dares such things! Is that so! Is that so!
NAHMAN
: The poor woman is having a very hard time. They’re very simple people, not a piece of bread in the house, so the words just spill out. And what is your business?
GUEST
(
snapping awake
): You mean me? I’m a traveler. I travel from place to place—I’m not to be envied. A lonely widower, my wife died ten years ago, she was childless, and I was left all alone like a stone. Thank God I’m not a beggar, but I’m penniless, no money at all.
NAHMAN
: And what’s new in the world?
GUEST
: Oh, nothing much. (
eats slowly, speaks carefully, measuring his words, as if weighing the risk
) Jews aren’t too happy. The young people are looking for God. It’s sort of a new fashion they have—searching for God.
NAHMAN
: Not very Jewish, that. That’s the Gentile way. Jews should never reason too much about God. We know there’s a Creator of the Universe, and that’s that.
GUEST
: I see you’re a sensible young man. That’s my opinion, too. But the searching for God isn’t the worst. There’s also subversive politics. Secret meetings, boys and girls together.
GNENDL
: Oy! That’s very bad, very bad!
GUEST
: It certainly is! What business have we got meddling in their affairs? They can worry themselves to death. Not to mention that Judaism itself is being threatened, let alone true piety.
NAHMAN
: Too bad the situation of Jews is so miserable. I think it’s high time for the Messiah to come and redeem us. We’re at the end of our tether.
GUEST
: True, true! (
chews calmly
) There are Jews who behave like Gentiles, and others, may their names he cursed, who baptize themselves and their children. They run away from the Jewish flock. (
glances at Gnendl
) But you’re a very lucky man to have a pearl like that in the house. She spreads warmth into every corner. (
Gnendl walks softly, bringing in and removing plates.
) Just look at her, how gently she walks, such dear, lovely legs, may God pity me, a poor wandering soul.