The Lion Seeker (7 page)

It's all right, Mame is saying in a whisper. It will be fine. You'll see.

FROM HIS COT ON SATURDAY MORNING
Isaac hears Rively sing a song of Dusat:

 

Let us go / The woods and the flowers are calling / Let us go

The smells and the birds / Will confuse our senses

The sparkling waters / Will make us drunk

It doesn't matter / Doesn't matter

Let us go

Today let us go

 

The back door whines opens and Mame says, Where did you learn that song?

Tutte taught me.

Mame sniffs. —Better you learning sings from Sud Afrika.

Mame, can you teach me to make ingberlach?

—Vhy?

Tutte said—

—Ach!

What's wrong Mame?

Isaac puts the pillow over his head and pretends sleep. In a while his father and Rively, already dressed in their Shabbos bests, come to rattle his cot to get him to move.

—Ach Da, why do I have to?

Why does God have to keep you alive? Is one day so much that you can't even say a thank you to Him?

—Get up Isaac, says Rively.

—But Ma doesn't go.

His father's face tightens. —Don't cheeky you father!

—She doesn't, she
never
does, so how come I have to?

—Just get up hey Isaac, says Rively. Don't make him upset. You've caused enough this week hey. We waiting.

 

On the way to shul, something odd happens. Isaac sniffs fishy business and straight away takes some quick action. Nobody's ganna put anything over on him.

But before then he first got up and got dressed with Rively still nagging, his body moving slowly because of the way the idea of shul weighs down on him even more than any school ever did, the gruelling boredom in that gloomy place always like a marathon trial for his jumping nerves (if he ever prays for anything it is for an end to the service).

Then, shlumping along behind them, he got irritated with himself for doing what he doesn't want to. Old enough to find work and earn full-time now, he should be old enough to decide what to do with his Saturdays. Tutte's walking stick was stabbing ahead, his useless right foot scuffing grit behind, and the sun kept flashing off the buckles on Rively's fine shoes and was bright on the clean ribbons so blue against her frizzy hair. As always she was walking with her head up and turned to Tutte, bouncing a little on her steps as if she's small again, excited for shul. All her bright adoration concentrated in that little freckled face, watching the old man while he went on and on about the old times. Her tutte and God and His temple: it's what makes her come alive. She always does her homework so carefully, her sums and her neat underlining ruler, the goody-goody. Wants everything proper and exact, like the perfect neatness of her room. In shul they tell you how to live every bit of your life, and it makes her happy to be doing what she should be, and doing it perfectly. He pictured tripping her fancy shoes, shoving her flat down on her excited face.

Meanwhile, Tutte telling them all about ingberlach, how his mother, their late bohbee, their grandmother, rest in peace, used to make the best in Dusat, boiling up pounds of mashed ginger and sugar and leaving it to cool into hard slabs on the windowsill while outside the snow hung on the pines and the birches. That beautiful cold fresh weather that keeps a face young, not the rotting heat of this place that ages everything before its time. And how the goyim used to race their handsome horses on the lake once a year, with bells on the reins, the people dressed up to the nines (—oys geputzt). And how the cold wind off Lake Sartai would cut you like a knife (—uzay vi a mesher!) if you didn't dress yourself warmly and properly. Not like here where there are no real seasons, a little bit of frost in winter the people are complaining of, they don't know real cold . . . 

Tutte always talks this way when they're away from Mame. One time he was going on about Dusat, saying to them it's our village and
your
village also
always
, because it's where you come from never forget. About how in the autumn when the trees change colour that it's such a pretty place by the lake that you will never see another if you walk for a hundred and twenty years . . . And Mame walked in and shushed him. Said to him in front of them that he mustn't talk about yesterdays to them. Said all they need to know about Dusat is how poor we were, how we suffered. And don't ever talk about the goyim, the wonderful goyim. What we only had of goyim in our lives, the poor poor Jews (—der oremer oremer Yiddin). What they did to us, what they came and they
did
, no one will ever know the suffering, no, better to be quiet about such yesterdays and let our children sleep nicely in their beds . . . 

Maybe it's cos Tutte moved to the village and married Mame there that he thinks of it the way he does, running there after his own family had died in the war. Not like Mame with her sisters that she must still bring to Africa.

 

And now they reach Pearse Street and the fishy-odd thing is happening. No, nothing gets past Isaac. What, does Tutte think he's a Stupid all of a sudden? Because as they're walking and Tutte is going on about backhome, Tutte is also quietly crossing the street all casual, leading them as if it's the most natural path in the world. Rively doesn't even notice. Isaac keeps looking backwards to the other side. Then he sees there's a man on a cart parked there, sitting behind the reins of a piebald dray horse. (Less and less are there carts to be seen in Doornfontein; automobiles, Isaac's great passion, have almost taken over, so different when he was a barefoot kid and the manure filled the gutters.) Isaac squints: maybe he recognizes the side of the man's face, even at a distance. A block farther, they cross back. Again Rively doesn't even notice, all the while she's been in rapture to the words of their father, and now Isaac also tunes into the voice:

 . . . This old man Platt, he was a very special gentleman, believe me. A tzaddik, a holy man. He was the kind who on Shavuos does not sleep but is learning Torah all through to the dawn. The kind who will close up his shop and lose business to get to shul early. Backhome in Dusat everyone must greet everyone, not like this madhouse. So when they greeted old man Platt on Milner Gass by the well, the people, they would stand still if they weren't on their way to shul, so that he would not see they weren't going, because they were ashamed. That is why it is written, A holy man is he who makes everyone else want to be holy. That is the blessing they give . . . 

He turns. You hearing me Isaac?

—Ja Da.

—You hear vut I'm say, Yitchok?

—I just said I did.

—Isaac, says Rively.

—Ja, ja.

Abel starts to talk about their late bohbee's voice, what a singer she was, the birds would come out of the trees to sit on her shoulders . . . 

By now they are veering left onto Seimert Road and can see the Lions Shul ahead on the right, with a bit of a crowd in the front there.

Isaac stops. —Da, Da. Riv. Sorry, I gotta go back. I forgot summin. My yarmy.

Before they can speak, he turns and runs, hears Rively's thin cry and looks back to lift his arm. —I'll catch up! Go on. I'm coming.

As soon as he's halfway down the block, he puts his hands in his pockets and makes himself saunter. Like this, he comes up to Pearse Street and sees the cart is still there, the presence on it his father avoided. Isaac studies his profile for a while, considering, confirming his suspicion, then he walks up straight behind so the driver can't see him coming. He steps round and reaches up, slaps the man's tall boot where the trousers tuck in. Looks up into his face. Ja, it's him. Same pouchy crags of unshaved stubble. Same belly only larger. No need for a saucer at your left foot when all the world's your spittoon. He's no longer smoking, apparently; no tobacco smell and he has only a toothpick wiggling in his teeth. He regards Isaac's synagogue clothes. What are you collecting for, young monarch? Palestine? Tell them don't send you out on a Shabbos. It's a sin.

Not if you go to the sinners who're working, Isaac says, smiling, glancing at the load in the back: sacks of potatoes with the red sand still clinging to their skins.

Listen, you cheeky savage, a man has to make a living. It's in the Torah, to save life's the most important, go look it up. If you have to eat, you can work on a Shabbos, but I only do what I have to. The rest kisses me in arse. So away you run with your piggish charity box.

Isaac shows his palms. I don't have any boxes, Lazer Kaplan.

—Ah vos?

You heard me, Lazer Kaplan.

The toothpick gradually becomes still; the flesh crinkles around the watching eyes. I know you?

Abel Helger's boy.

Ahhh.

You remember I used to sit on the table in the workshop, in short pants with no shoes and my feet swinging. And you and the others on that couch.

That couch. Ai, that couch. How's your dear mother?

Isaac grins. She's well.

Send my best.

Best curses don't you mean.

Hoy! Don't talk like an animal and disgrace yourself. Your own mother.

Yes, but you.

Me what?

You still think well of her?

He takes the toothpick out. Why shouldn't I? That mother of yours . . . 

What?

He hunches his shoulders. The hand with the toothpick turns over and lifts as if pricking at the sky. Who could condemn?

The other hand strokes at the side of his own face, the cheek and chin, where Mame has her scar, that lightning streak of melting pink solidified. His dense eyebrows wiggle in a coded way, a meaning that seems to try to take Isaac in close like an embrace of understanding. If it's an embrace it's an illicit one, filling Isaac with confusion he tries to shake free of with a quick wiggle of his head and shoulders.

It's not
that
bad, he says. Dr. Graumann fixed her and all.

Kaplan shakes his head slowly, full of mourning. Thing like that happens to a person—
boom
. But it can't be fixed so quick. It's not like one of your father's broken watches.

For a couple seconds Isaac thinks the man is talking about Dr. Graumann's surgery, and then he sees no. For some reason his heart picks up and his mouth dries itself.

Youngster, what?

What are you saying man? A thing like what happens?

Hey hey. Don't boil, be easy. I only mean how sad it is. I'm a Dusater also. I understand, believe me.

Understand what?

Listen, all I'm saying, you can forgive anything. Yes? Anything.

Isaac stands there thinking for so long that Kaplan says, So? Youngster? Are you all right?

—I'm ukay, he says.

Now I'm sorry for bringing up such a thing. Better my mouth should be sealed. Once a word jumps out it can't be pushed back in, not even after Messiah comes.

Isaac leans in. Puts his hand on Kaplan's arm. No, you're wrong. It's good to hear. Tell me the whole story.

What?

Isaac taps his own chin with his free hand.

 . . . What's the matter with you?

Tell me
.

Hoy! Let go, youngster. That hurts. What's the matter with you?

You tell it to me what happened to her.

 . . . You'll get this whip on your cheek you don't let go.

Maybe you'll get worse.

I'm not worried, little pisser. But from your mother is another story. Maybe that axe won't miss next time. I'm saying nothing. I see it's not my place. I'm sitting shtum.

Isaac has a moment of paralysis, of trembling. He'd come only to see who his father would avoid, and then to greet an old coucher when he recognized him. Now what is this? Some shameful concealment. All his life he's known Mame was sick before, when she wore that cloth on her face, then Dr. Graumann fixed her, that's all. But now—what's Kaplan saying? He's not talking some illness. Or is he?
Happens to a person—boom
.

Kaplan has dropped the brake and is touching the whip to the piebald mare. I have to go, youngster.

It's not fair, Isaac hears himself say. His nose is running, his eyes are moist. He draws his wrist under the nostrils.

The cart has started to roll but Kaplan eases the reins back. One hand fiddles with the crown of his hat. Why don't you take a sack potatoes. Lovely potatoes. Take it free for a present home.

—Stuff your bulbiskes, says Isaac. I don't need your bladey charity, man.

Kaplan hunches. I'm sorry, youngster. He looks down for a while, sucking his teeth. His chin twitches sideways while his eyebrows go up. Nobody's at fault. Uy-yuy. That seventeenth of April.

—Hey?

He leans over and spits, not the black jelly of the old coucher days but a pale fleck meant only to dispel some unnamed evil in the words.

Isaac frowning: —What's that what you said?

Kaplan grimaces, looks away, looks back. Listen, when you're older, you'll know.

The whip stirs. Isaac watches the cart moving down Beit Street.

The hell does it all mean? He stands there muttering the date to himself again and again.

 

He walks back to the Lions Shul slowly, his head down and stomach tight, a hard and tingling feeling like a poison stone in his chest. He comes up on the shul hardly noticing there is still a little crowd even though the important part of the service—bringing out the Torah—is about to start (he can tell by the chuzun's nasal chant through open windows of yellow glass). The crowd is mostly youngsters. Isaac sees Rodney Epstein and them. There's Shimmy Kahn, Noam Levinson, Big Benny Dulut. Then he sees past them that one of the two gold-painted cast iron lions by the pillars in front is down on its side. Black paint on its muzzle, its mane, black paint on the wall above showing the word
Jood
and other Afrikaans mostly filth words, and then four big twisted crosses. He stands there numb, trying to take this in with his thoughts still on his ma.