‘If all this could only be transported to America!’ Betty said.
I asked her to wait outside and opened the door to the Neustat prayer house – empty, but the holy ark with the two gilded lions on the cornice, the pulpit, the reading table and benches gave witness that Jews still came here to pray. On shelves the holy books lay and stood in black rows, old and ragged. Since no one was inside, I called Betty to join me. I shouted and an echo responded. I pulled apart the curtain before the ark, opened the door, and glanced at the scrolls in their velvet mantelets and the gold embroidery tarnished with the years. Betty and I thrust our heads inside. Her face was hot. We shared a sinful urge to desecrate the sacred and we kissed. At the same time I excused myself before the scrolls and reminded them that Betty was not a married woman.
We left the prayer house and I looked around the courtyard. Shmerl the shoemaker once lived and had his workshop here in a cellar. He had been given the nickname ‘Shmerl not today.’ If you came with shoes or boots to be soled or heeled, he always said, ‘Not today!’ He died while we were still living in Warsaw. A cart drove into the courtyard and took him away to the Hospital for Epidemic Diseases. On Krochmalna Street it was believed that they poisoned patients there. The wags in the courtyard joked that when the Angel of Death with his thousand eyes and sharp sword came for him, Shmerl said, ‘Not today,’ but the Angel replied, ‘Yes, today.’
At No. 10 the balcony of what had been our apartment was hung with wash. It had once seemed so high to me, but now I could almost reach it with my fingers. I glanced into the stores. Where were Eli the grocer and his wife, Zeldele? Just as Eli was tall, quick, agile, sharp, and argumentative, Zeldele was small, slow-moving, dull, and good-natured. Zeldele had to be told twice what it was a customer wanted. For her to put out her hand, take a piece of paper, slice off a chunk of cheese, and weigh it could take a quarter of an hour. If you asked her the cost, she began to mull it over and scratch under her wig with a hairpin. If the customer bought on credit and Zeldele marked down the amount, she couldn’t make out later what she had written. When the war came and German marks and pfennigs came into use, she grew completely bewildered. Eli abused her in front of the customers and called her ‘Cow.’ She became sick during the war and they didn’t manage to get her to a hospital. She lay down in bed and went off to sleep like a chick. Eli cried, wailed, and beat his head against the wall. Three months later, he married a plump wench who was just as slow and tranquil as Zeldele.
3
We entered Yanash’s Court and went to the slaughterhouse. The same blood-spattered walls, the hens and roosters going to their deaths shrieking with the same voices: ‘What have I done to deserve this? Murderers!’ Evening had fallen and the harsh light of the lamps reflected off the slaughterers’ blades. Women pushed forward, each with her fowl. Porters loaded baskets with dead birds and carried them off to the pluckers. This hell made mockery of all blather about humanism. I had long considered becoming a vegetarian and at that moment I swore never again to touch a piece of meat or fish.
Outside the slaughterhouse, the lamps used to illuminate the courtyard only intensified the darkness. We passed tubs and basins containing live carp, tench, and pike, which the housewives would clean and chop in honor of the Sabbath. We walked on straw, feathers, and slime. The storekeepers scolded and swore the familiar old curses: ‘A black plague on you!’ ‘A fever in your guts!’ ‘You should lead your daughter to a black wedding canopy!’
We left the bazaar and went into the street again. Before gates and lamp posts stood streetwalkers – some fat with huge bosoms and flowing hips; others slim, draped in shawls. Workers coming from factories and shops on Wola and Iron Streets stopped to talk to the whores and haggle over prices.
Betty said, ‘Let’s get out of here! Besides, I’m hungry.’
Suddenly I saw the No. 7 building, where Bashele and her three daughters had moved. Even if the family was still alive, they would have left their apartment years ago. Well, but suppose they hadn’t moved out? And Shosha still remembered the tales I used to tell her, our playing house, hide-and-seek, tag? I stopped in front of the gate.
Betty asked, ‘Why are you standing there? Let’s go.’
‘Betty, I have to find out if by any chance Bashele still lives here.’
‘Who is this Bashele?’
‘Shosha’s mother.’
‘And who is Shosha?’
‘Wait, I will explain.’
A woman walked into the gate and I asked her if Bashele lived in the courtyard.
‘Bashele? Does she have a husband? What’s her surname?’ the woman asked.
I couldn’t recall, or perhaps I had never known the family’s last name. ‘Yes, her husband has a round beard,’ I answered. ‘He used to be a clerk at some store. She has a daughter, Shosha. I hope they’re alive.’
The woman clapped her hands. ‘I know the one you mean! Basha Schuldiener. They live on the first floor opposite the gate to the left. You’re an American, eh?’
I pointed to Betty. ‘She is an American.’
‘Family?’
‘Just friends. I haven’t seen them for almost twenty years.’
‘Twenty years? Go straight ahead, but be careful. The kids dug a hole in the middle of the yard. You can fall and break a leg. It’s dark there. The landlords grab the rent money but they don’t believe in lighting a lamp at night.’
Betty began to grumble, but I exclaimed, ‘It’s a miracle! A miracle! Many thanks!’ I called after the woman. I stood in the courtyard of No. 7 and looked across it into a window with a burning gaslight behind which I might possibly soon meet Bashele and Shosha. As if she finally realized what I was going through, Betty grew silent. I took her arm and led her along. Despite the darkness I spotted the hole and we avoided it. We came to the short flight of unlit stairs that led to the first-floor apartment, I felt about for a doorknob, pushed the door open, and a second miracle unfolded before me. I saw Bashele. She stood at the kitchen table peeling an onion. She had aged little in all this time. Her wig was still blond; her wide fair face had wrinkled slightly, but her eyes looked up with the amiable half smile I remembered from my childhood. Her dress might have come from those days, too. When she saw me, her upper lip lifted – she still had her broad teeth. Her mortar and pestle, the cooking utensils, the closet with the carved molding, the chairs, the table – all were familiar.
‘Bashele! You don’t recognize me, but I recognize you!’ I said.
She put down the onion and knife. ‘I do recognize you. You’re Arele.’
In the Pentateuch, when Joseph recognized his brothers, they kissed and embraced, but Bashele wasn’t a woman who would kiss a strange man, not even one she had known as a child.
Betty arched her brows. ‘Is it true that you haven’t seen each other for almost twenty years?’
‘Wait – yes, almost as long,’ Bashele said in a common woman’s voice, kind, motherly, and yet unique. I would have known it out of a million other voices. ‘Many years,’ she added.
‘But he was only a child,’ Betty protested.
‘Yes. He and Shosha are the same age,’ Bashele said.
Betty asked, ‘How can you recognize someone who left here as a child?’
Bashele shrugged. ‘As soon as he started speaking, I knew him. I heard you became a writer for the papers. Don’t stand there in the doorway. Come in and be welcome. This is probably your wife,’ she said, nodding toward Betty.
Betty smiled. ‘No, I’m not his wife. I’m an actress from America and he’s writing a play for me.’
‘I know,’ Bashele said. ‘We have a neighbor who reads your things. Every time your name appears in the paper he comes and reads to us. Once it said that a piece by you will be played in the theater.’
‘Where is Shosha?’ I asked.
‘Went to the store for sugar. She’ll be right back.’
As Bashele spoke, Shosha came in. God in heaven – what surprises this day had bro
ught, each greater than the other! Were my eyes deceiving me? Shosha had neither grown nor aged. I gaped at this mystery. After a while, I did observe a slight change in her face and in her height. She had grown perhaps an inch or two. She wore a faded skirt and sleeveless jacket that I could have sworn she wore twenty years ago. She stood holding a paper cone used by grocers to weigh out a quarter pound and looked at us. In her eyes was the same childish fascination I remembered from the times I told her stories.
‘Shosha, do you know who this is?’ Bashele asked.
Shosha didn’t answer.
‘It’s Arele, the rabbi’s son.’
‘Arele,’ Shosha repeated, and it was her voice, although not exactly the same.
‘Put down the sugar and take off your jacket,’ Bashele said.
Slowly Shosha put the cone of sugar on the table and took off her jacket. Her figure had remained childlike, although I detected signs of breasts. Her skirt was shorter than those in style and it was hard to tell by the gaslight whether it was blue or black. This was how garments looked that had passed through the disinfection station during the war – shrunken, steamed, faded. Shosha’s neck was long, her arms and legs thin. Everyone in Warsaw wore sheer, glossy, colored stockings, but Shosha’s appeared to be made of coarse cotton.
Bashele began, ‘The war, the miserable war destroyed us. Yppe died shortly after you moved to the country. She caught a fever and took to bed. Someone snitched and the hospital wagon came for her. For eight days the fever consumed her. They let none of us into the hospital. On the last day I went to ask about her and the guard at the gate said, “Bardzo kiepsko,” and I knew that she was gone. Zelig wasn’t in Warsaw. He didn’t even go to his daughter’s funeral. Four years went by before we could put up a tombstone. Teibele grew up a young lady, God spare her, smart, pretty, educated – everything you could want. She went to the Gymnasium. She is a bookkeeper now in a mattress business. They sell everything wholesale. On Thursdays she figures out what’s coming to all the employees and gives the slips to the cashier. If she doesn’t sign them, nobody gets paid. The boys run after her but she says, “I’ve got plenty of time.” She doesn’t live here with us, comes only on Sabbaths and holidays. She has an apartment with a roommate on Grzybowska Street. If you tell people you live on Krochmalna Street it ruins your chances for a good match. Shosha lives at home, as you can see for yourself. Arele, and you, young lady, take off your coats. Shosha, don’t stand there like a clod! The lady is from America.’
‘From America,’ Shosha repeated.
‘Have a seat. I’ll make tea. Have you eaten supper?’ Bashele asked.
‘Thanks, we’re not hungry.’ Betty winked at me.
‘Sit down. Arele, your parents still live in the provinces?’
‘Father is no longer living.’
‘He was a dear man, a saint. I used to consult him on questions of religious law. He wouldn’t even look at a female. The moment I came in he turned away. He was always at the lectern. Such big books, like in a studyhouse. What did he die of? There are no such Jews any more. Even the Hasidim dress like dandies today – cutaway gabardines, polished boots. Mother still living?’
‘Yes.’
‘And your brother, Moishele?’
‘Moishele is a rabbi.’
‘Moishele a rabbi? You hear, Shosha? He was such a tiny thing. Didn’t even go to cheder then.’
‘He did go to cheder,’ Shosha said. ‘Here in the courtyard at the crazy teacher’s.’
‘Eh? The years go by. Where is Moishele a rabbi?’
‘In Galicia.’
‘In Galicia? Where is that? There are such faraway towns,’ Bashele said. ‘When we lived in No. 10, Warsaw was Russia. All the signs had to be in Russian. Then the Germans came, and with them the hunger. Later, the Polacks raised their heads and shouted, “Nasza Polska!” Some boys around here went to join Pilsudski’s legion and were killed. Pilsudski went with his men to Kiev; then they were pushed back to the Vistula. The people thought the Bolsheviks were coming and the ruffians began to talk about knifing all the rich and taking their money. Then the Bolsheviks were driven back. They were driven here, driven there – the shortages grew. Zelig is never at home any more. Things happened I will tell you about some other time. People have become selfish. They stopped caring even for their nearest. The zloty is falling, the dollar rises. Here they call dollars “noodles.” And everything is dearer, dearer. Shosha, set the table.’
‘With the tablecloth or the oilcloth?’
‘Let it be the oilcloth.’
Betty signaled that she wanted to tell me something in private. I leaned toward her and she whispered, ‘I can’t eat here. If you want to stay with them, I’ll go back to the hotel alone.’
I said, ‘Bashele, Shosha, the fact that I lived to see you again is a great joy to me, but the lady has to leave and I can’t let her go alone. I’ll come back later. If not tonight, then tomorrow.’
‘Don’t go away,’ Shosha said. ‘You went away once and I thought you were never coming back again. One time, our neighbor – Leizer, his name is – said you were in Warsaw and showed us your name in the newspaper, but it didn’t say your address. I thought you had forgotten all about us.’
‘Shosha, a day didn’t go by that I didn’t think of you.’
‘Then why didn’t you come over? Something you wrote – it had your name on it – was printed in a paper. Not a paper but a book with green covers. Leizer reads everything. He’s a watchmaker. He came and read it to us. You described Krochmalna Street accurately.’
‘Yes, Shosha, I didn’t forget anything.’
‘We moved to No. 7 here and after that you never came over. You got big and you put on phylacteries. I saw you pass by a few times. I wanted to go over to you, but you were walking so fast. You became a Hasid and didn’t look at girls. I was shy. Then they said you left the city. Yppe died and there was a funeral. I saw her lying there dead and she was all white.’
‘Shosha, be quiet!’ her mother snapped at her.
‘White as chalk. I dreamed about her every night. They made her shroud from my shirt. I got sick and stopped growing. They took me to Dr Kniaster and he gave me a prescription, but it didn’t help. Teibele is tall and pretty.’
‘You are pretty, too, Shosha,’ I said.
‘I’m like a midget.’
‘No, Shosha. You have a nice figure.’
‘I’m grown up and I look like a child. I couldn’t go to school. The books were too hard for me. When the Germans took over they began to teach us German. A boy is a Knabe to them and how could I remember all that? We were supposed to buy German books and Mama didn’t have the money for it. Finally, they sent me home for the second time.’
‘It’s all from not getting enough to eat,’ Bashele added. ‘They mixed the bread with turnip or sawdust. It tasted like clay. That winter the potatoes froze and got so sweet you couldn’t eat them. I cooked potatoes three times a day. Dr Kniaster said that Shosha had no blood and he prescribed some brown medicine. She took it three times a day, but when you’re hungry, nothing helps. How Teibele – the evil eye spare her – managed to grow up so pretty is God’s miracle. When will you be back?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Come to lunch tomorrow. You used to be fond of noodles with beans. Come at two. You can bring the lady along. Shosha, this lady is an actress,’ Bashele said, indicating Betty. ‘Where do you perform? In the theater?’
‘I played in Russia, I played in America, and I hope to appear here in Warsaw,’ Betty said. ‘It all depends on Mr Greidinger.’
‘He always could write,’ Shosha said. ‘He bought a notebook and a pencil and filled three pages. He drew figures, too. One time he drew a house on fire. Flames shot out of every window. He drew the house with a black pencil and the fire with a red pencil. Fire and smoke poured from the chimney. Remember, Arele?’
‘I remember. Good night. I’ll be here tomorrow at two.’
‘Don’t stay
away so long again,’ Shosha said.
4
I wanted to walk but Betty hailed a droshky. She told the driver to take us to the restaurant on Leszno Street where we had had our first meal in company with Sam Dreiman and Feitelzohn.
In the droshky, Betty put her hand on my shoulder. ‘The girl is an idiot. She belongs in an institution. But you’re in love with her. The moment you saw her, your eyes lit up in a strange way. I’m beginning to think you aren’t in your right mind yourself.’
‘That may be, Betty.’
‘Writers are all slightly touched. I’m crazy, too. All talents are. I once read a book about this. I forget the author’s name.’
‘Lombroso.’
‘Yes, maybe. Or maybe the book was about him. But since each of us is crazy in a different fashion, one can observe the other’s madness. Don’t start up with that girl. She is sick. If you promise her something and don’t keep your word, she’ll crack up altogether.’