I walked to the synagogue and took part in the early service. After the service, some men came over to me and greeted me warmly. Welcome, Asher Lev. Welcome. How was I? Where had I been? How was it in Europe? You look thin. Have you lost weight? Welcome, Asher Lev. Welcome.
I heard someone call my name. I turned and saw Rav Yosef Cutler, the mashpia. He was a little stooped now, and his long dark beard had begun to gray. He shook my hand. His hand was white and dry. Welcome, welcome. He coughed. His voice rasped. How was I feeling? When had I returned? He kept shaking my hand. He looked really happy to see me.
I handed him a sealed white envelope from his son Avraham in Paris.
“How is my son?” he asked eagerly. He coughed again. “A cold,” he said. “A bad cold.”
“He is well.”
“I have not seen him in a very long time. We hope that for Pesach he will come to America to be with us and the Rebbe. He was helpful to you?”
I thought of Avraham Cutler helping me up five flights of stairs laden with art materials. “Yes.”
“I am glad.”
I thought, Some of those materials are in the crucifixions.
“You will stay for a while?” the mashpia asked.
“Yes.”
He coughed again. He waited a moment, breathing deeply, then said, “Perhaps you will come to the office and we will talk. I would like to know what is happening to my Asherel.”
He bundled himself into his long dark coat and went out into the street, his shoulders a little bowed. I watched him go out the doors of the synagogue. He had grown old so quickly.
I put on my galoshes and coat and fisherman’s cap and left the synagogue. I bought milk and rolls and eggs in a grocery store. Snowplows were moving through the parkway now, cutting wide lanes for the morning traffic. I went back to the apartment and made myself breakfast. I washed and dried the dishes and put them away. I went into the living room and looked out the window at the parkway. The street was struggling into life, slowly shaking off its entombing snow.
The phone rang. I went quickly into the hallway and picked up the receiver.
“Mr. Asher Lev?” the operator said. “Long distance calling.”
“Yes, my name is Asher Lev.”
“One moment. Go ahead, please.”
“Asher?” It was my mother. Her voice was faintly tremulous.
“Mama?” I felt my heart pounding.
“Asher, you’re home. We thought you were coming Thursday. Rav Dorochoff called us this morning. How are you, Asher?”
“I’m fine, Mama.”
“Why didn’t you tell us when you were coming? Are you all right? Did you have breakfast?”
“Yes, Mama.”
“It’s good to hear your voice, Asher. Wait. Your father wants to talk to you.”
There was a momentary pause.
“Asher?” His voice was deep and strong.
“Yes, Papa.”
“Welcome, welcome, Asher. I apologize for the confusion. We thought you wrote and said you would be home right before the exhibition. I apologize, Asher. Are you well?”
“Yes, Papa.”
“We’re flying back late this afternoon. Has the snow stopped in New York?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll see you, God willing, in the evening. It’s good to talk to you, Asher. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye, Papa.”
“Goodbye, Asher,” my mother said into the phone.
“Goodbye, Mama.”
I hung up the phone. I stared at the phone. I stood there and stared at the phone. Then I found myself trembling. I leaned against the wall and could not stop trembling. I put on my galoshes and coat and cap and went out of the apartment into the cold snow-filled street.
It was a little after nine in the morning. The parkway was choked now with slow-moving struggling rush-hour traffic. There was a cold wind. It blew the powdery surface of the snow against the houses and cars. I felt the snow on my face and in my eyes. I walked, and thought of my parents. I felt the wind through my coat. My beard was encrusted with snow. Where was I? What corner was this? I had come to a corner that looked familiar despite the hills of snow that had changed its appearance. The street sign was covered with snow. I turned up the street. Solitary figures walked the street along a narrow path cut into tall drifts. I saw a man with a shovel. He wore a dark coat and galoshes and a cap with earmuffs. He pushed the shovel through the snow, bent, lifted, threw snow into the street, and pushed the shovel again. I came up to him. He did not see me. His wide eyes were wet with cold and exertion. His beaked nose was red. His gray beard was stiff with frozen snow.
“Sholom aleichem, Reb Yudel Krinsky,” I said.
He stopped and turned slightly and peered at me. He stood very still for a moment, peering at me intently. Then his mouth fell open and his eyes blinked and he let the shovel fall to the snow.
“Asher Lev,” he said in his hoarse voice. “Asher Lev.” He shook my hand. He embraced me. I felt his cold wet face and his frozen beard against my cheek.
“Welcome, Asher Lev. Welcome, welcome. You were away so long. How long was it? Come inside the store where it is warm. It is good to see you again. Come, come inside. What a surprise. On such a bitter cold day to find Asher Lev.”
The store had not changed. It was warm and smelled of clean paper and new pencils. The metal stand with the oil colors was still there near the door. I looked around slowly. It was like returning to a warm dry sheltering cave.
He made us some coffee and we talked. He had a daughter now. Yes, the Master of the Universe had been good to him. And they were expecting another child soon. Perhaps a boy this time. He seemed more tired than I had ever remembered him being before. His voice was very hoarse and his eyes blinked wearily. Do we really all grow old so quickly? There is so little time.
Later, I came outside with him and took the shovel from his hands and cleared the snow from the sidewalk in front of the store. He thanked me.
“The bones are growing old,” he said into the wind. “I am surprised the bones are still with me after the years in Siberia. Today is a little like Siberia. It is good to see you again, Asher Lev. You have made my day happy.”
He went back into the store. I walked up the street toward the parkway and went past a large store window. I looked inside and found myself staring directly at my uncle, who was standing behind a counter staring back at me. His round fleshy face took on a look of enormous astonishment. I saw him start around the counter toward the door.
He had grown fat. He wore a dark suit and a white shirt and dark tie. His gray hair was covered with a small dark skullcap. He smelled vaguely of cigars. He embraced me and could not stop telling me how glad he was to see I was back. There were two salesmen in the store. They watched us and smiled warmly. What a shame my parents were not yet back from Chicago, my uncle said. Where was I eating tonight? Had I made any more good paintings? Did I think he should see the exhibition? When was the opening? Sunday? Were there any paintings of naked women? He would go if there were no paintings of naked women. There were no naked women, I said. What could I tell him? To stay away? He would want to know why. Because you will see crucifixions, Uncle Yitzchok. You will see strange crucifixions painted by a Ladover Hasid who prays three times a day and believes in the Ribbono Shel Olom and loves his parents and the Rebbe. There were no naked women this time, I said.
It was almost ten-thirty when I got back to the apartment. I called the gallery and asked for Anna Schaerfer. She came on the phone immediately.
“Hello, Asher Lev,” she said. “How is my Brooklyn prodigy?”
“Fine.”
“Fine? Only fine?”
“On a day like today, fine is a good thing to be.”
“Where are you now?”
“In Brooklyn.”
“Come to the gallery.”
“Today?”
“Yes. We have business together.”
“Are the pictures hung?”
“We will begin to hang them tomorrow.”
“I was thinking about the crucifixions.”
“Yes? What were you thinking?”
“I was—thinking.”
“The crucifixions have been sold, Asher Lev.”
“Sold?” I felt a coldness move through me.
“Yes.”
“To whom?”
She told me.
I leaned heavily against the wall.
“We will open with much of the show sold, Asher Lev. My Brazilian industrialist has been in to see me. The Munich nightclub owner is coming Sunday afternoon. There will be a splendid opening this Sunday with many red labels already on pictures.”
I said nothing.
“Hello,” she said. “Are you still there?”
“Yes.”
“You have nothing to say?”
“I’ll see you this afternoon if the subways are running.”
“Good,” she said.
“Anna, are you still using ‘Brooklyn prodigy’ in your publicity?”
“This will be the last time.”
“I never liked it.”
“The very last time,” she said.
“How is Jacob Kahn?”
“He has had major surgery on his stomach. But he is recovering. Still, there are days when he is not certain he will reach ninety. Come at about three o’clock, Asher. Yes? I will have time to talk to you.”
I hung up the phone and went into my room and lay on the bed. I felt tired. I lay very still, trying to look into the week. It seemed a bleak menacing tunnel. I thought I would get off the bed then and go to the desk and do a drawing. But I was tired and found I could not get up. I lay in bed with my eyes closed and thought of the dark tunnel of the coming days. Then I thought of Jacob Kahn, and again I wondered: Do we all get old and sick so quickly? Then there is almost no time left at all. Suddenly I was very tired. A moment later, I fell asleep.
He came to me then, my mythic ancestor, through the tall moist trees of his Russian master’s forest, old, bent with grief, his hand trembling on the cane that supported his wasted frame. His beard was white and wild and his eyes were ash gray in the dark hollow sockets of his head. He opened his mouth to speak. His lips were parched and his teeth were black. Do you hear the pain carried on the wind? It is the cry of wasted lives. Who dares add to that cry? Who dares drain the world of its light? My Asher, my precious Asher, will you and I walk together now through the centuries? He smiled sadly and beckoned to me and disappeared into the trees.
I woke in a trembling sweat and felt hot and dizzy. I lay still on the bed. When I woke again, it was close to two o’clock. I had some coffee and came outside. I felt the air as an icy shock on my burning face. I took the subway to Manhattan.
I remember the train was cold and damp and filthy with wet dirt. People stared sullenly at the blackened floors, looking defeated by the snow-choked day. I remember a blind man playing an accordion and tapping his way through the train. I stared at my reflection in the train window. Come, journey with me through the centuries, my eyes said. One learns to walk decades. I remember the coins clinking in the blind man’s metal cup. I gave him a coin. Thank you, sir. God bless you, sir. I looked at myself in the window. Red hair, dark eyes, red beard, fisherman’s cap. We will journey through the centuries. Will you need a cane, Asher Lev?
I got off the train and climbed the stairs to the street. It was cold and wet and gray. A bitter wind blew against the tall buildings. I walked along Madison Avenue, peering into the windows of galleries. Pop art. Zombie art. Garish. Cold. Non-art. Du-champ’s Fountain overflowing onto the world. I came off the street and took the elevator to the fourth floor. There was Anna Schaeffer, dressed in a dark-blue woolen dress, white beads, earrings, her face powdered and old and elegant. She came toward me exultingly, holding out both her hands. She kissed my cheek.
“Asher Lev, welcome, welcome. Give me your coat. You look pale. It is a bad day for a subway ride. Can I give you a coffee? John, a coffee in a paper cup, black with no sugar. We are packing away Rader’s pieces. It was a fine show. Come into the back away from the madness, and we will talk.”
The gallery floor was crowded with packing crates. Sculptures were being carefully crated. Some of my canvases were already out, standing against the walls. I did not see the crucifixions.
We sat in a small back room near tall deep wooden cases stacked with canvases and talked about the cost of putting together the show, the prices she had placed on each canvas, the canvases that had been sold, prospective buyers, new collectors she had found, federal taxes, city taxes, taxes for this, and taxes for that. I would need a tax lawyer. She knew someone. I was not listening, she said. I had better listen. Was I feeling well?
“Where are the crucifixions?” I asked.
She pointed to a wooden case.
“Where will they hang?”
On the wall before the turn to the elevator. The last paintings one will see. The climax.
“I’m worried, Anna.”
“I know you are worried. But I cannot afford to indulge your worry, Asher Lev. You are now an event.”
“Those paintings are going to hurt people.”
“Yes? So? Olympia hurt people, he Déjeuner sur l’Herbe hurt people. The Impressionists hurt people. Cézanne hurt people. Picasso hurt people. What do you want me to do, Asher Lev?”
“These are people I love.”
“Asher Lev, you had better pay attention to this matter of taxes and forget for now about hurting people. Indulge your Jewish sentimentality when you return to Brooklyn.”
We talked for almost an hour. I tried to listen as she explained things. But it was difficult. On the wall before the turn to the elevator. I saw my mother and father moving toward that wall.
We were done. I got up to leave.
“Is Jacob Kahn home?”
“Yes.”
“Is he permitted visitors?”
“Yes.”
“Does he know I’m back?”
“Yes. He has seen the transparencies.”
I waited.
She smiled. “He says you are a great artist. He says the crucifixions are masterpieces. He says the second crucifixion is greater than the first. Will you go to see him?”
“Yes.”
“You will find he is changed. Let me walk with you to the elevator. Yes, you will find he is changed. No, I do not want you here when we hang the pictures. Yes, we will be working late Saturday night. Yes, you may bring your parents Saturday night. No, we are not serving kosher food at the opening. Anything else? Goodbye, Asher Lev. Be careful in the snow. Brooklyn does not produce an abundance of painter prodigies.”
I rode back home in a cold crowded subway. The ride seemed interminable. I came out of the subway station. The parkway was dark. I walked beneath the trees. The snow had frozen to ice along the branches and trunks. The ice glistened coldly in the light of the lampposts. There was a sharp wind. I looked up as I came to the apartment house and saw my mother framed in the living-room window, looking down at me. I waved to her. She waved back and went away from the window. I took the elevator up. She was waiting for me at the elevator door.
She embraced me and held me to her tightly and cried. She was so small and slight. I felt her thin lips on my cheek. Her eyes were wet. She could not stop crying. How was I feeling? Why was I so pale? Oh, it was good to see me. They had missed me. They had thought of taking a trip to Europe in the summer to see me. “Let me look at you, my Asher. Let me look at you, my son. Why are your eyes so red? Come inside. Your father will be home soon. He went to make a report to the Rebbe on the Chicago trip.” Did I know what was taking place on campuses today all over the country? Chaos. Nihilism. The generation of the Flood. And so many young Jews were involved. Their parents had not taught them Torah. Now their heads were filled with the ideas of the sitra achra. “Why are you so pale, Asher? Is it the snow? You’re unaccustomed to so much snow, yes?”
Ye
s.
“Why didn’t you tell us when you were coming? You didn’t want to worry us?”
Yes.
“Would you like something hot to drink? Coffee?”
Yes.
“Did you make a lot of good paintings in Paris?”
Yes.
“It’s a lovely city, Paris, yes?”
Yes.
“Your father built a beautiful yeshiva in Paris.”
Yes.
“Will there be any nudes in your exhibition, Asher?”
No.
“Then your father will be able to come.”
I said nothing.
“Asher?”
I said nothing.
“Your father can come?”
Yes, I said. Papa can come. Of course he can come. There are no nudes. Certainly he can come.
I saw her give me a strange look. “Drink your coffee, Asher. Your hands are so cold. I worry when I see you so pale and so cold.” She sat next to me at the kitchen table, her delicately boned hands clasped together near the pot of coffee she had prepared. She watched me drink. She could not stop talking—about me, about my father’s new work with college students, about her teaching. She talked and talked in her soft voice. I was barely listening. I saw the wall in the gallery before the turn to the elevator. I saw my mother and father moving toward that wall. I saw my mythic ancestor. Come with me, my precious Asher. You and I will walk together now through the centuries, each of us for our separate deeds that unbalanced the world.
I heard the apartment door open and close. Then I heard my father’s deep voice. “Rivkeh? Asher is home?” Then he was in the kitchen doorway, still in his dark coat, his narrow-brimmed hat tilted on the back of his head. I stood and felt his strong arms around me and his beard against my face. His beard was cold. There was the clean cold odor of the outside on his coat. “Asher,” he murmured. “How good it is to see you again. Let me look at you. How pale you are. Isn’t he pale, Rivkeh?” Then he took off his coat and hat and put on his small dark velvet skullcap. The three of us sat at the table, drinking coffee and talking. They talked of their work for Russian Jews, for Jews on college campuses, for Ladover communities in this and that country. I talked of Florence and Rome and Paris. They are nice yeshivos, aren’t they? my father asked. Yes, I said. Creation out of nothing, my father said. Yes, I said. Ah, those years when I was alone in Europe. I never thought I would survive those years. Let me look at you again, Asher. We see the advertisements for your exhibition in the Times. A major exhibition. My little Asher. A major exhibition. It’s difficult for your father to hate something the world seems to value so much. Perhaps your father was wrong. Perhaps such a gift is not from the sitra achra. Why are you so pale? Are you well? There will be no nudes at this exhibition. I spoke to your Uncle Yitzchok on the phone before and he said he saw you and you told him there would be no nudes. Then your mother and I will come. No, Saturday night there is an important meeting with the Rebbe. We will come Sunday. We will see the crowds that come to see our son’s paintings.