Only Mendel didn’t sleep. His eyes wide open, he looked at the window, behind which the dense blackness of the night finally began to thin out, then turned gray, then whitish. Six strokes sounded from inside the clock. Then his friends awoke, one after another. And without their having arranged it, they grasped Mendel by the arms and led him downstairs. They brought him into the Skovronnek’s back room and laid him on a sofa.
Here he fell asleep.
XIV
From that morning on Mendel Singer stayed with the Skovronneks. His friends sold his scanty furniture. They left only the bedding behind and the red velvet sack with the prayer utensils, which Mendel had almost burned. The sack Mendel no longer touched. In the Skovronneks’ back room it hung gray and dusty on a mighty nail. Mendel Singer no longer prayed. True, he was sometimes used when a tenth man was missing, to complete the prescribed number of worshippers. Then he let his presence be counted. Occasionally he also lent this man and that his phylacteries for a small fee. It was rumored that he often went over to the Italian quarter to eat pork and anger God. The people in whose midst he lived took Mendel’s side in the battle he was waging against heaven. Even though they were devout, they had to concede that the Jew was right. Jehovah had dealt with him too harshly.
Still war was in the world. Apart from Sam, Mendel’s son, all the residents of the neighborhood who had gone into the field were alive. Young Lemmel had become an officer and had been lucky enough to lose his left hand. He came on furlough and was the hero of the neighborhood. He granted all the Jews the right to a homeland in America. He only remained on the base to put the finishing touches on fresh troops. As great as the difference between young Lemmel and old Singer was, the Jews of the neighborhood placed the two of them in a certain proximity. It was as if the Jews believed that Mendel and Lemmel had divided between themselves the sum total of misfortune intended for all. And Mendel had lost more than just a left hand! If Lemmel fought against the Germans, Mendel fought against heavenly powers. And even though they were convinced that the old man was no longer in full possession of his faculties, the Jews nonetheless could not help mingling admiration with their sympathy, and reverence before the holiness of madness. Without doubt, Mendel Singer was elected. As a pitiful witness to the cruel power of Jehovah he lived in the midst of the others, whose laborious weekdays no terror disturbed. For long years he had lived his days as they all did, observed by few, not noticed at all by some. One day he was distinguished in a dreadful way. There was no one left who did not know him. He spent most of the day in the street. It was as if it were part of his curse not only to suffer misfortune without precedent but also to bear the sign of sorrow like a banner. And like a guard of his own agonies he walked up and down in the middle of the street, greeted by all, given small coins by some, spoken to by many. For the alms he did not give thanks, the greetings he rarely returned and questions he answered with yes or no. Early in the morning he rose. No light entered the Skovronneks’ back room, it had no window. He only felt the morning through the shutters, the morning had a long way to go before it reached Mendel Singer. When the first sounds stirred in the streets, Singer began the day. On the spirit stove the tea boiled. He drank it with bread and a hard-boiled egg. He cast a shy but angry glance at the sack with the holy objects on the wall, in the dark blue shadow the little sack looked like a still darker outgrowth of the shadow. “I don’t pray!” Mendel said to himself. But it hurt him that he didn’t pray. His rage pained him, and the powerlessness of that rage. Even though Mendel was angry with God, God still ruled over the world. Hate could grasp him no more than piety.
Filled with such reflections and others like them, Mendel began his day. Once, he remembered, his awakening had been easy, the joyful anticipation of the prayer had roused him and the desire to renew his conscious closeness to God. From the cozy warmth of sleep he had entered the still more homelike, still more intimate glow of prayer, as if it were a splendid and nonetheless familiar hall, in which the mighty and yet smiling father dwelled. “Good morning, Father!” Mendel Singer had said – and believed that he heard an answer. It had been a deception. The hall was splendid and cold, the father was mighty and angry. No sound passed his lips but thunder.
Mendel Singer unlocked the shop, put the sheet music, the song lyrics, the gramophone records in the narrow display window and pulled up the iron shutters with a long rod. Then he took a mouthful of water, sprinkled the floor, grabbed the broom and swept up the dirt of the previous day. On a small dustpan he carried the scraps of paper to the stove and made a fire and burned them. Then he went out, bought a few newspapers and brought them to some neighbors’ houses. He met the milk boy and the early bakers, greeted them and went back “to business.” Soon the Skovronneks came. They sent him on this errand and that. All day it was: “Mendel, run out and buy a herring,” “Mendel, the raisins haven’t been soaked yet!” “Mendel, you’ve forgotten the laundry!” “Mendel, the ladder is broken!” “A pane is missing in the lantern,” “Where is the corkscrew?” And Mendel ran out and bought a herring and soaked the raisins and fetched the laundry and repaired the ladder and carried the lantern to the glazier and found the corkscrew. The neighbors sometimes asked him to watch the small children when a movie house had changed its program or a new theater had come. And Mendel sat among the strange children, and as he had once rocked Menuchim’s basket at home with a light and tender finger, now he rocked, with the light and tender tips of his toes, the cradles of strange infants whose names he did not know. Meanwhile he sang an old song, a very old song: “Say after me, Menuchim: ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,’ say it after me, Menuchim!”
It was in the month of Elul, and the high holy days were beginning. All the Jews of the neighborhood wanted to set up a temporary temple in Skovronnek’s back room. (For they did not like to go to the synagogue.) “Mendel, we will pray in your room!” said Skovronnek. “What do you say to that?” “Go ahead and pray!” replied Mendel. And he watched as the Jews gathered, lit the great yellow wax candles with the overhanging wick clusters. He himself helped every merchant roll down the shutters and lock the doors. He saw how they all put on the white robes, so that they looked like corpses that had risen again to praise God. They took off their shoes and stood in their socks. They fell to their knees and rose, the great golden-yellow wax candles and the snow-white ones of stearin bent and dripped hot tears on the prayer shawls, which encrusted in no time. The white Jews themselves bent like the candles, and their tears too fell on the floor and dried. But Mendel Singer stood black and silent, in his everyday clothing, in the background, near the door, and didn’t move. His lips were closed and his heart a stone. The singing of the Kol Nidre arose like a hot wind. Mendel Singer’s lips remained closed and his heart a stone. Black and silent, in his everyday clothing, he stayed in the background, near the door. No one paid attention to him. The Jews took pains not to see him. He was a stranger among them. This one and that thought of him and prayed for him. But Mendel Singer stood upright by the door and was angry with God. They are all praying because they are afraid, he thought. But I am not afraid. I am not afraid!
After everyone had left, Mendel Singer lay down on his hard sofa. It was still warm from the bodies of the worshippers. Forty candles were still burning in the room. He did not dare extinguish them, they kept him from falling asleep. Thus he lay awake all night. He thought up unprecedented blasphemies. He imagined going out now, to the Italian quarter, buying pork in a restaurant and returning to consume it here, in the company of the silently burning candles. He even untied his handkerchief and counted his coins, but he didn’t leave the room and ate nothing. He lay with his clothes on, with large wakeful eyes, on the sofa and murmured: “It’s over, over, over for Mendel Singer! He has no son, he has no daughter, he has no wife, he has no money, he has no house, he has no God! It’s over, over, over for Mendel Singer!”The golden and bluish flames of the candles trembled softly. The hot, wax tears dripped w
ith hard blows on the candlestick bases, on the yellow sand in the brass mortars, on the dark green glass of the bottles. The hot breath of the worshippers was still living in the room. On the temporary chairs that had been set up for them, their white prayer shawls still lay and waited for the morning and for the continuation of the prayer. It smelled of wax and charred wicks. Mendel left the room, opened the shop, stepped outside. It was a clear autumnal night. No one was in sight. Mendel walked up and down in front of the shop. The broad, slow steps of the policeman sounded. Then Mendel went back into the shop. He still avoided men in uniform.
The time of the holidays was over, autumn came, the rain sang. Mendel bought some herring, swept the floor, fetched the laundry, repaired the ladder, looked for the corkscrew, soaked the raisins, walked up and down in the middle of the street. For alms he rarely gave thanks, greetings he didn’t return, questions he answered with yes or no. In the afternoon, when people gathered to talk politics and read aloud from the newspapers, Mendel lay down on the sofa and slept. The talk of the others didn’t wake him. The war had nothing at all to do with him. The newest records sang him to sleep. He awoke only when it was silent and everyone was gone. Then he spoke for a while with old Skovronnek.
“Your daughter-in-law is getting married,” said Skovronnek once.
“Good!” replied Mendel.
“But she is marrying Mac!”
“I advised her to do that!”
“The business is going well!”
“It is not my business.”
“Mac has let us know that he wants to give you money!”
“I don’t want money!”
“Good night, Mendel!”
“Good night, Skovronnek!”
The terrible news flared up in the newspapers, which Mendel customarily bought each morning. It flared up, he perceived against his will its distant reflection, he wanted to know nothing about it. Russia was no longer ruled by the Tsar. Fine, let the Tsar cease to rule. About Jonas and Menuchim, in any case, they had nothing to report, the newspapers. They bet at Skovronnek’s that the war would be over in a month. Fine, let the war end. Shemariah wasn’t coming back. The head of the insane asylum wrote that Miriam’s condition had not improved. Vega sent the letter, Skovronnek read it to Mendel. “Fine,” said Mendel, “Miriam will not recover!”
His old black caftan shimmered green on the shoulders, and like a tiny drawing of the spine the seam became visible down the whole back. The skirts of his coat grew longer and longer and no longer touched, when Mendel walked, the shafts of his boots, but almost his ankles. His beard, which had once covered only his chest, reached down to the last buttons of the caftan. The visor of the cap of black, now greenish, rep had grown soft and pliable and hung limply over Mendel Singer’s eyes, not unlike a rag. In his pockets Mendel Singer carried many things: packages people had sent him to pick up, newspapers, various tools with which he repaired the damaged objects at Skovronnek’s, balls of colored string, packing paper and bread. These weights bowed Mendel’s back still lower, and because the right pocket was usually heavier than the left, it pulled down the old man’s right shoulder too. Thus he walked slanted and stooped through the street, a dilapidated man, with buckling knees and shuffling soles. The news of the world and the weekdays and holidays of the others rolled past him, as carriages past an old remote house.
One day the war was really over. The neighborhood was empty. The people had gone to see the peace celebrations and the homecoming of the regiments. Many had asked Mendel to watch their houses. He went from one apartment to another, checked the latches and locks and returned home, to the shop. From an immeasurable distance he believed that he heard the festive roar of the joyful world, the explosion of fireworks and the laughter of tens of thousands of people. A small quiet peace came over him. His fingers stroked his beard, his lips curled into a smile, even a tiny giggle came in brief bursts from his throat. “Mendel will celebrate too,” he whispered, and for the first time he approached one of the brown gramophone boxes. He had already seen how one wound up the instrument. “A record, a record!” he said. That morning a returned soldier had been there and had brought half a dozen records, new songs from Europe. Mendel unpacked the top one, laid it carefully on the instrument, reflected for a while, trying to remember exactly how it worked, and finally put the needle on. The apparatus coughed. Then the song sounded. It was evening, Mendel stood in the dark next to the gramophone and listened. Every day he had heard songs here, comical ones and sad ones, slow ones and fast ones, dark ones and light ones. But never had there been a song like this one. It ran like a little stream and murmured gently, grew great as the sea and roared. “I am hearing the whole world now,” thought Mendel. How is it possible that the whole world is engraved on such a small disk? As a little silver flute came in and from then on never again left the velvety violin and edged it like a faithful narrow seam, Mendel began for the first time in a long while to weep. Then the song was over. He put it on again and a third time. He sang along, finally, with his hoarse voice and drummed with timid fingers on the box’s stand.
Thus Skovronnek, returning, found him. He turned off the gramophone and said: “Mendel, light the lamp! What are you playing here?” Mendel lit the lamp. “See, Skovronnek, what the little song is called.” “Those are the new records,” said Skovronnek. “I bought them today. The song is called,” and Skovronnek put on his glasses, held the record under the lamp and read: “The song is called: ‘Menuchim’s Song.’”
Mendel was suddenly weak. He had to sit down. He stared at the shining record in Skovronnek’s hands.
“I know what you’re thinking,” said Skovronnek.
“Yes,” answered Mendel.
Skovronnek turned the crank again. “A beautiful song,” said Skovronnek, leaned his head on his left shoulder and listened. Gradually the shop filled up with the tardy neighbors. No one spoke. All listened to the song and rocked their heads in time to it.
And they listened to it sixteen times, until they knew it by heart.
Mendel remained alone in the shop. He carefully locked the door from inside, cleared out the display window, began to undress. Each of his steps was accompanied by the song. As he fell asleep, it seemed to him that the blue and silver melody merged with the pitiful whimper, with Menuchim’s, his own Menuchim’s only, long unheard song.
XV
The days grew longer. The mornings already contained so much brightness that they could even break through the closed iron shutters into Mendel’s windowless back room. In April the street awoke a good hour earlier. Mendel lit the spirit stove, put on the tea, filled the small blue washbasin, plunged his face in the bowl, dried himself with the corner of the towel that hung on the door latch, opened the shutters, took a mouthful of water, carefully spat it on the floorboards and gazed at the winding ornaments that the bright spray from his lips drew in the dust. Already the spirit stove hissed; the clock hadn’t even struck six yet. Mendel stepped outside. The windows were opening in the street, as if of their own accord. It was spring.
It was spring. People were preparing for Easter,* in all the houses Mendel helped. He planed the wooden tabletops to rid them of the profane remains of food from the whole year. The round, cylindrical packages in which the Easter bread was stacked in crimson paper he placed on the white shelves of the display windows, and the wines from Palestine he freed from the cobwebs under which they had been resting in the cool cellars. He took apart the neighbors’ beds and carried them piece by piece into the courtyards, where the mild April sun lured out the vermin and delivered them to extermination with gasoline, turpentine and petroleum. In pink and sky-blue decorative paper he cut with scissors round and angular holes and fringes and attached the paper with thumbtacks to the kitchen racks as an artful covering for the dishes. The casks and tubs he filled with hot water, great iron balls he held in the stove fire on wooden rods until they glowed. Then he submerged the balls in the tubs and casks, the water hissed, the vessels were
purified, as the rule commanded. In gigantic mortars he pounded the Easter bread into flour, poured it into clean sacks and tied them with blue ribbons. All this he had once done in his own house. Spring had come more slowly there than in America. Mendel remembered the aging gray snow that lined the wooden pavement of the sidewalk in Zuchnow at this time of year, the crystal icicles on the edge of the faucets, the sudden gentle rains that sang in the gutters all night long, the distant thunder that rolled away behind the pine forest, the white frost that tenderly covered each light blue morning, Menuchim, whom Miriam had stuck into a roomy barrel to get him out of the way, and the hope that finally, finally this year the Messiah would come. He didn’t come. He isn’t coming, thought Mendel, he will not come. Let others wait for him. Mendel wasn’t waiting.
Nonetheless, this spring Mendel seemed to his friends and neighbors to have changed. They observed sometimes that he hummed a song, and they caught a gentle smile under his white beard.
“He’s becoming childish, he’s already old,” said Groschel.
“He has forgotten everything,” said Rottenberg.
“It’s a pleasure before death,” declared Menkes.
Skovronnek, who knew him best, was silent. Only once, one evening before going to sleep, he said to his wife, “Ever since the new records came, our Mendel is another man. I catch him sometimes winding up a gramophone himself. What do you think about that?”
“I think,” Mrs. Skovronnek replied impatiently, “that Mendel is getting old and childish and will soon be useless.” She had already been dissatisfied with Mendel for some time. The older he became, the less sympathy she had for him. Gradually she also forgot that Mendel had been a wealthy man, and her compassion, which had been nourished by her respect (for her heart was small), died away. She also no longer addressed him as she had in the beginning: Mr. Singer – but simply: Mendel, as almost the whole world did. And if she had formerly given him orders with a certain restraint meant to show that his compliance at once honored and shamed her, she now began to command him so impatiently that her dissatisfaction with his obedience was already visible from the outset. Even though Mendel was not hard of hearing, Mrs. Skovronnek raised her voice to speak with him, as if she feared being misunderstood and as if she wanted to show through her shouting that Mendel often carried out her orders incorrectly because she had spoken to him in her usual register. Her shouting was a precautionary measure; the only thing that affronted Mendel. For he, who was so humiliated by heaven, made little of people’s good-natured and careless mockery, and only when someone doubted his ability to understand was he offended. “Mendel, hurry up,” thus began every order from Mrs. Skovronnek. He made her impatient, he seemed to her too slow. “Don’t shout so,” Mendel replied occasionally, “I hear you.” “But you’re not hurrying, you’re taking your time!” “I have less time than you, Mrs. Skovronnek, for I’m older than you!” Mrs. Skovronnek, who did not immediately comprehend the answer’s connotation and the rebuke and only believed herself to have been mocked, turned immediately to the nearest person in the shop: “Well, what do you say to that? He’s getting old! Our Mendel is getting old!” She would have gladly maligned him for entirely other qualities, but she settled for the mention of his age, which she regarded as a vice. When Skovronnek heard that sort of talk, he said to his wife: “We’re all getting old! I am just as old as Mendel – and you’re not getting any younger either!” “You can go ahead and marry a young woman,” said Mrs. Skovronnek. She was happy that she finally had a ready-made reason for a marital dispute. And Mendel, who knew the development of these quarrels and comprehended from the beginning that Mrs. Skovronnek’s rage would ultimately be vented against her husband and his friend, trembled for his friendship.