“Rabbi, he’s a human being, not a wild beast. We met, we struck up a friendship, my wife invited him over. He comes, he talks, we drink a glass of brandy together. We play cards. He owns flat wagons and has people working for him. Mine is a strange line of work, Rabbi. There’s income, but we just barely manage. The men who do the burying receive a big salary. I dig out the grave and they get the money. Among normal folk a man comes home, tells his wife what he did during the day and how it went. What can I tell her? As soon as I come into the house she shouts, ‘Wash your hands!’ But my hands are clean! My children are ashamed of how I make a living. What should I do? After all, it’s a sure way of making a gulden. Nu, so we sit down together and have a bit of fun.”
“What do you mean ‘together’?”
“Me, she, and him.”
“Well, so then you yourself are responsible.”
“One can’t always be alone.”
“Don’t you have any family?”
“I have family, but I can’t talk to them.”
“Why not? Do you go to shul?”
“Sometimes, on a Sabbath.”
“A Jew has to pray three times a day! When you go to a shul or a study room, you’re already among people. A woman has neighbors. How do all Jews live? The Gemara says that when a person goes into a tannery, a stench envelops him. And since you are taking a libertine into your house and you and your wife play cards with him, it can only lead to sinning.”
“Rabbi, I’m not a fanatic.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Like people say, we don’t live today the way they lived one hundred years ago.”
“The Master of the Universe is the same as He was one hundred and one thousand years ago, and the Torah is also the same. That is how goyim behave, not Jews. A Jewish daughter must be modest.”
“So what should I do, Rabbi?”
“So you have actually seen her—how did you put it?—kissing him?”
“Yes, Rabbi. Not once, but a hundred times.”
“And since she behaves with such chutzpah right in front of you, what do you think she does later?”
“Rabbi, it’s an open secret.”
“Divorce her! Divorce her! You’re not allowed to stay with her even a minute longer. She’s also forbidden to marry that other one. That’s the law!”
“Rabbi, he has a wife.”
“Really? … Nu …”
“She won’t give me the children.”
“First of all, you yourself must get rid of her. Every minute you continue to live with her is a sin. Let her think it over and repent. Such things don’t happen to Jews who follow the right path. It all stems from modern behavior. A Jew must have a beard and sidecurls; he must go to shul and pray, study a chapter of Mishnah, or whatever he can. A Jewish wife must shave her head and follow the laws of family purity and other mitzvahs. The things you’ve described do not happen to upright Jews. They happen only to promiscuous people.”
“Yes, Rabbi, my mother, may she rest in peace, never even looked at anyone else. For her there was only one God and one man.”
“Well, so you see for yourself.”
“But still, I can’t be like my father.”
“Why not? The Torah is not in heaven. Everybody can be a Jew.”
“Yes, but …”
Silence fell. Father covered his eyes with his hand and held it there for a while. His mild face became stern. A wrinkle appeared on his high forehead. Aside from hating sins and licentiousness, Father apparently couldn’t understand how a man could permit his wife, the mother of his children, to dally with another man. Father continued, saying that this went against the natural order. Only sinners turn the natural order upside down. As the man listened to Father, he became even more stooped over. He looked as though he might break in two.
“What should I do, Rabbi?”
“Call her to a rabbinic judgment.”
“She won’t come.”
“Let a divorce bill be written and hand it to her. Do you have a civil marriage license?”
“Marriage license? No.”
“Divorce her and never again look at her defiled face!”
The gravedigger began to make faces and cough. He cast a questioning look at me, the little boy. Father was as decisive as this man was full of doubts. The man looked both vexed and overflowing with a kind of softness I couldn’t grasp. It seemed that he had not revealed everything. There were some untold secrets and that’s why we couldn’t make head or tail of his story. He began speaking partly to Father and partly to himself.
“Such things can’t be done quickly. After all, we’ve been living together sixteen years. We have two nice children. How are they to blame, the poor things? She’s fallen in love, fallen in love. He’s a braggart the like of which you can’t find in Warsaw. He’s a handsome young man with a smooth tongue. People say that a woman is long on hair and short on brains. She doesn’t want to think about it. She chased him away once, but then she asked me to go and apologize to him.”
“And you went to apologize to him?!”
“It’s gloomy at home and when he comes he brings some joy into the house. He brings us a bottle of brandy, this, that, and the other thing. He has lots of stories to tell. Maybe none of them are true, but meanwhile, we laugh and joke around. He also sings well and my wife likes to sing, too.”
“Enough! I don’t want to hear any more! You’re to blame for everything!” Father shouted. “If one plays with fire, one gets burned. You’re a stubborn rebel! And you’re not even repentant or prepared to change your behavior. So why did you come to me? I can only tell you what the law states!”
“Rabbi, I’m miserable.”
“In the next world you’ll be even more miserable, God forbid. A person does not live forever. She’s an adulteress—and you’re the cause of it! This is one of the three sins of which it is said: ‘It is better to be killed than to sin: forbidden sex, idol worship, and murder.’ For any other sin one is forbidden to give up one’s life, because the Torah holds a person’s life precious. And since the Torah has ordained that one should let oneself be killed for this type of conduct, you can readily understand how heinous is this sin.”
“Yes, Rabbi, I know.”
“So if you know, why do you remain silent?”
“It’s just that I think things over. All of this. All along I thought perhaps she would change her mind. I spoke to her about it. What will people say? People are laughing into their fists. The children are growing up and they understand everything. My younger daughter is quite smart. She has a mature outlook. Every word of hers is a delight. She loves me. Him she can’t stand. He brings her little chocolates, but she refuses them. She’s my daughter and she takes after me. So I say to my wife, What’s the upshot going to be? But she hasn’t got the faintest idea. If he doesn’t show up one day, she’s totally out of sorts. The only thing she’s afraid of is that he’ll find himself another woman. The truth is, Rabbi, that he has ten others. That’s the sort of nature he has. Seeing a skirt gets him all excited. I, Rabbi, I’m a settled sort of person. I, if I have a wife, I don’t run after anybody else. So I say, What’s going to be? It’s like talking to the wall! All he has to do is say the word and she’d run off to America with him. She’s been seduced by him, Rabbi. Completely seduced!”
“All the wicked are seduced! But you are forbidden to live with her.”
“Perhaps we can still make peace. For the sake of the children.”
Father made a motion as if to stand. “You’re killing your children, too. When the children see that you know all this and remain silent, they assume that everything is fine.”
“Does that mean it would be better for me to leave home and abandon everything?”
“Is that what you call a home? The Gemara says that a person may not live with a snake in one basket—”
“Yes, Rabbi, that’s how it is: a snake … Good night, Rabbi.”
“Wh
at? Oh, good night. A good year!”
“I’ll think everything over.”
“Well …”
When the man left, I came out from behind the bookcase.
“You were here all along?”
“I was looking for a book.”
“And you heard everything?”
“I didn’t pay attention.”
“It’s better that way. Better that way. Unfortunately, sinners are very stupid!”
And Father removed the narrow black cord from the Gemara and resumed studying.
BACK FROM ABROAD
The door opened and a couple came in. The young man was tall with a short, trimmed beard. His neatness and modern garb had the look of someone who usually dressed more traditionally but was now on his way to America or to a spa. With his black fedora and parasol in hand he looked like a matchmaker or a cantor. Next to him stood a short woman. Her marriage wig, adorned with a broad hairband, was so small it looked like her own hair. She had a young girl’s rosy cheeks and was rather chubby and round; it seemed she was all flesh and no bones. She clung to the tall man like a little girl.
“Do you perform marriages here?” he asked.
“Yes,” Mother replied.
“How long does it take?”
“As quickly as you wish.”
“Well, how much does it cost?”
“Five rubles.”
“All right.”
The young man smiled at the woman. Apparently he had expected it to cost more.
“Who are the bride and groom?” Mother asked.
“I am the groom and she is my bride,” the young man replied. “Bride and groom are usually shy, but we have no reason to be. We were once married for six years already.”
“You’re not a Kohen4?” Mother asked.
“No, I’m an Israelite.”
“And she has never remarried?”
The young man laughed. “Rebbetzin, do you think I’m an ignoramus? I know the law. I once studied in a yeshiva. The man who stands before you, even though he is wearing modern clothes, was close to getting rabbinic ordination. But I wanted to go abroad and she didn’t want to leave her mama. So we divorced and I went to Antwerp, where I became a diamond cutter. But what good are diamonds to me if I left the true diamond in Poland? I couldn’t sleep at night. I tossed and turned like someone with a high fever. Then I did a foolish thing while there and got married …”
The short woman grimaced coquettishly and said, “Why do you have to tell them all this?”
“So what! She didn’t bite off a piece of me. It didn’t work out and that’s that. Her father was a slaughterer and made a good living over there. He wanted to make me a shochet as well. But how could I slaughter other creatures when I had already slaughtered myself. I missed her so much I thought I’d go out of my mind. I would occasionally hear about love and I just considered it the kind of nonsense written up in the papers. But I’m in love with this little woman standing next to me. I can’t live without her, and that’s the truth!“
“Oh, you’re talking too much,” the short woman said flirtatiously. “What difference does it make to them?”
“It makes a difference,” Mother said. “There’s a moral teaching that counsels that one must not rush into a divorce. What would you have done if, God forbid, she had gotten married, too? That would have been the end of it.”
The short woman spoke up. “Me marry? I swore to myself that once is enough. People suggested matches to me. The matchmakers ran after me. My good mother even arranged a meeting with one of the men. But as soon as I took one look at him I thought, He’s nothing like my husband, Berish, and I ran away!”
“Do you hear, Rebbetzin?”
“Well, it’s good that a young couple is in love,” Mother said. “That’s how it should be. Still, one should not be in a hurry …”
But the young couple was in a hurry. Father wanted to postpone the wedding for a day, but the young man refused to consider it. He went out to buy sponge cake and brandy. I went down to look for a minyan. In the meantime, Father began filling out the printed marriage contract. As the woman sat on the chair her face changed colors. Someone loved her. Because of her someone had divorced his wife and cast aside a life of working with diamonds to return to her. She played with the stones of her amber necklace. On one finger a diamond sparkled.
Mother asked, “Is the diamond from here?”
“From there,” the woman answered. “He brought it as a present.”
“What do your parents say?”
“To tell you the truth, they don’t want him,” the woman began hesitantly. “Why did he run away so quickly? I love him, but I also love my mama and papa. I didn’t want to put hundreds of miles between us. But once an idea gets into his head, it drives him crazy. So he ran and divorced me. What do you think? You think the shochet’s daughter accepted a divorce for nothing? He probably had to pay her off quite handsomely. Everything he saved up during the couple of years he was away went to the devil.”
“Do you have any children?”
“We have an eight-year-old girl.”
“And doesn’t he have children with the other woman?”
“He says no. But who knows? He began writing letters, but I didn’t answer them. My mama used to grab the letters and tear them up right away! She told the mailman to return all letters from Antwerp. But then he began sending the letters to his cousin, who brought them to me. I read them and saw at once that he had fallen into a pit. He missed me so much it was awful. And I longed for him, too. And the child kept asking, Where’s Papa? Rebbetzin, I tell you, it was terrible. When Mama heard he was coming back, she made such a tumult you could hear it all over town. But I still don’t have a hankering for anyone else. Papa is a mild-mannered man. He understood everything, but somehow it wasn’t appropriate to get married again in our hometown. How would you put it? Father married Mother again? … They even sang a ditty about us in town.”
“Things like that happen,” Mother said.
“Yes, anything can happen. Rebbetzin, I forgot to ask you—someone told me that he can use my ring. I don’t have a new wedding ring.”
“If you give it to him as a gift, he’ll be able to use it.”
“How do I give it to him?”
“You declare that you’re giving it to him as a gift.”
“Well, that’s fine with me.”
The young man returned with surprising speed. He had bought much more sponge cake and brandy than a minyan could eat or drink. Meanwhile, I had scratched together part of a minyan: a porter with a rope around his hips, an old man who sat in the shtibl and recited psalms, a youth wearing torn boots and disheveled sidecurls, a short man who sold hot chickpeas and beans on the street, and an ordinary Jew with a yellow beard whose sunburned face was full of freckles. But these men did not suffice for the quorum of ten. So I went off to round up some neighbors. The tailor, whose daughter had died and whose son-in-law had married her sister, came in white shirtsleeves, wearing glasses on the tip of his nose and a measuring tape around his neck. Father told him to put on a gaberdine and he returned wearing someone else’s garment from which the basting threads had not yet been removed.
I also called in the goose dealer from the third floor. While I was gathering the minyan, the young groom had already told every one of them his story. He looked half dizzy with joy. He didn’t stop talking, narrating, pointing to the short woman for whom he had dragged himself from one train to another, crossed borders, and brought ruination upon himself and others.
Then he remarked, “I’ll be darned if I know what I’ll do the morning after the wedding … I’m flat broke.”
“You could have taken a young girl and gotten another dowry,” the woman interjected.
“A dowry certainly wouldn’t have poisoned me, but I don’t need a young girl. In my eyes you are far better than the most beautiful girl. After all, I’m not the high priest who must marry a virgin. With God’s help we’ll scrape
up a livelihood.”
“That’s exactly what I say.”
“I always thought that a foreign country would be paradise,” he said. “No small thing—being abroad! But once I crossed the border and saw that the sky is the same, the earth is the same, and the people are the same, I began to feel sad. That’s how it is with everything. I thought that polishing diamonds would be clean work. No small thing—diamonds! But your hands get so filthy you can barely wash them clean. It’s not much better than being a tanner. I’d be fine if at least there were steady work throughout the year. But no! It’s seasonal. One day you’re working and the next you’re out of a job. There’s a café in Antwerp where the jewel merchants meet. They gather at the little tables, and one man shows the next some sample diamonds wrapped in paper. The other man takes out his loupe, examines the gem, rubs it, and gives it to a third one. That one gives it to another. And so that little piece of paper goes from one hand to the next. These businessmen make a living, but the worker is afraid to buy a cup of coffee, for he may not have enough money for the tram ride home. Meanwhile, the shochet’s daughter sidled up to me. The shochet is a Polish Jew, one of our own, but over there he was already wearing a modern fedora. He wanted to make a shochet out of me. I had already started studying Tevuos Shor, but even as I sat with that book in my hands I was thinking about this woman …”
“Nu, that’s quite enough!” Father said.
“What’s the matter? Is it forbidden to love? Jacob also loved Rachel …”
“That story is an allegory!”
“The Talmud states: ‘A verse in Scripture must be read in its literal sense.’ Jacob simply loved her. When he woke up in the morning and saw Leah, he felt the disappointment down to his belly button.”
“Come now, that’s no way to talk!”
“Rabbi, I’ve taken a drop of brandy. I’m drunk—that’s why I’m talking like that. Now that I’ve lived to see the day that I marry her, I feel it’s Simchas Torah.”