My Name Is Asher Lev

  I saw a picture in the Times the following day of Stalin lying in his coffin. Behind the coffin were mounds of flowers. I could not take my eyes off the picture. This was the man who had killed tens of millions of people. Now he lay in his mustache and uniform in front of a mountain of flowers, dead, as dead as the millions he had slain, as dead as Yudel Krinsky’s wife and children. I could not stop staring at the picture of Stalin dead in his coffin.

  I went over to Yudel Krinsky’s store that Monday and helped him wait on some customers. We were alone for a few minutes between customers and he said to me, glancing around quickly, “The others who follow him will be just like him. There are many Stalins in Russia.”

  I helped him stack packages of paper. I was beginning to understand the differences between grades of paper. Often now I could tell the weight and quality of a piece of paper by holding it in my hands.

  My mother said to me that night, “No, Asher. I don’t think there can be another Stalin now in Russia.”

  “Reb Yudel Krinsky said there are many Stalins in Russia.”

  “Yes, your Reb Yudel Krinsky is right, Asher. Russia is full of Stalins. But the time of Stalin in Russia is over for now.”

  “Mama, does it make a difference for Jews that Stalin is dead?”

  “Yes, Asher. I think it makes a difference.”

  The following Shabbos afternoon, my father went to the synagogue to hear the Rebbe’s talk. My mother asked me to come into the living room. She wanted to talk to me, she said. We sat on the sofa. I looked out the window at the winter trees.

  “Asher, do you know where Vienna is?” my mother said softly. “We may move to Vienna.”

  I stared at her and could not respond.

  “Your father asked me to tell you. There’s certain work he has to do now, and he can only do it if we live in Vienna.”

  “What work?” I heard myself ask.

  She was silent a moment. Then she said, “It has to do with the Jews in Russia.”

  “Papa has been doing that here for years.”

  “This is different work, Asher.”

  “I don’t want to go to Vienna, Mama.”

  “The Rebbe has told your father that he may ask us to go.”

  “Why now? Why all of a sudden now?”

  “Because Stalin is dead, Asher. Things can be done now that no one could have done before.”

  “I don’t want to go.”

  “We’ll go if your father is asked to go.”

  “No,” I said.

  “Asher, please.”

  “I don’t care,” I said.

  “Asher,” my mother said softly. She leaned forward. “Asher.” I felt her hands brush across my face in a caress. “My Asher, my baby, I don’t know what else to tell you. We’ll go if the Rebbe tells us to go. We must help your father. If the Rebbe tells us to go, we’ll go.”

  Later, I lay on my bed in my room and covered my eyes with my hands. I felt tired. I thought of Yudel Krinsky. I saw his bulging eyes glancing nervously around. Stalin should have died thirty years ago, Yudel Krinsky had said. Yes, I thought. Yes, yes, thirty years ago. Not now. Not last week. Thirty years ago or ten years from now. But not last week. I hated him for dying last week.

  My father returned home very late that night. The next morning, he flew to Chicago.

  I was ill that week. I lay in bed with a sore throat and a fever. By Wednesday, the sore throat was gone but the fever remained. Our doctor came on Thursday, called it a low-grade infection, and left a prescription.

  All through that week, my mother went to school. My father returned from Chicago on Monday and spent the remaining days of the week in his office. Each night, they came into my room together. I saw them standing together by my bed, looking down at me. I saw them as through a fog, distorted, my father tall and strong, his features framed by his red hair and long red beard, all of him rigid and shimmering; my mother short and wraithlike, a being of smoky clouds shaped by changing winds. My uncle Yitzchok came into the room one day. He leaned over the bed and gave me a broad smile. I could see his round face and the streaks of gray hair in his beard. He smelled strongly of cigars. “Listen to me,” I heard him say. “Listen to your Uncle Yitzchok. Get well and I’ll buy your drawings. You hear me, Asher? I’ll buy your drawings.” I turned my head away. Yudel Krinsky came to see me. His eyes looked around nervously. He scratched his beaked nose and said in his hoarse voice, “The son of Reb Aryeh Lev must get out of bed. Asher and Yudel have to talk some more. And there is paper to stack. Yes, this is cold-pressed paper and this is hot-pressed paper. This is twenty-pound paper and this is forty-pound paper. This is paper for charcoal and this is paper for watercolor. On this canvas board you can use oil color, and on this heavy paper you can use pastels. How do I know these things? I learned. If you want to survive in this world, you have to learn to learn quickly. Vienna? I was only a few hours once in Vienna. Before the war, it was known as a city of cafés and waltzes. It is a city that hates Jews.”

  I lay in bed with my eyes closed and did not want to leave my room. I thought at one time during that week that a violent snowstorm raged outside; but I was not sure and I did not care. I did not want to leave my room. I did not want to leave my street. I knew the boys in my class and the men in my synagogue; I knew the women on the benches and the owners of the shops. I knew the trees and the buildings and the cracks in the sidewalk: I knew the lampposts and the fireplugs and the shrubs on the lawns. And I was frightened of traveling. I hated taking the subway. I hated taking the bus. I was terrified of taking an airplane, terrified. Vienna. The name conjured up distorted horrors: dark foreign streets, evil shadows, incomprehensible words, menacing laughter at my sidecurls and skullcap. I would not go to Vienna. But what would I say to the Rebbe? I did not know. Maybe the Rebbe would change his mind. Ribbono Shel Olom, help the Rebbe to change his mind. Please, Ribbono Shel Olom. Please.

  By Shabbos morning, the fever was gone. But my mother would not permit me to go to the synagogue. I moved slowly about the house in my pajamas and robe, feeling very tired.

  Sometime during the afternoon, I asked my mother, “Did Uncle Yitzchok and Reb Yudel Krinsky visit me when I was sick?”

  She gave me a tired worried look. “No.”

  “I must have dreamed it,” I said.

  That Monday evening, my father came home and told us we would be moving to Vienna next October, immediately after the holidays.

  I told Yudel Krinsky the next day, “My papa said we’re moving to Vienna after Simchas Torah.”

  “Ah,” he said in his hoarse voice. “That is why you asked about Vienna.”

  “Do you know about Vienna?”

  “Vienna is the center of Europe. Many people and many things move from Western Europe to Eastern Europe through Vienna. And many people and many things move from Eastern Europe to Western Europe through Vienna.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Asher, I was one who came from Eastern Europe to Western Europe through Vienna.”

  I stared at him.

  “They told me it was once a city of happy waltzes. I did not see its happiness. I saw that it hates Jews.” He glanced around briefly. “Where are Jews not hated? But somehow one feels Vienna should be different. It is not different. Hand me the box of oil colors, Asher. Thank you. It is not different. This is soft charcoal, Asher. It is good to use on this paper. In Russia, I made hatpins. You see what a man can learn in order to survive? The only charcoal I saw in Russia was in the Jewish houses that were burned by Petlyura and his madmen. Ah, how we felt when we heard Petlyura had been shot in Paris. But you do not know about Petlyura.”

  “I don’t want to go to Vienna.”

  He looked at me sadly. “I understand,” he said.

  I said to my mother that evening, “I don’t want to go to Vienna.”

  “I know,” my mother said softly.

  I said to my father that night, “Why did the Rebbe choose you to go to Vienna?”
>
  “The Rebbe chose me to be head of a new office that is being organized. We are going to teach Ladover Hasidus all over Europe. We are going to open Ladover yeshivos in Paris, Geneva, London, Zurich, Bucharest, Rome, in Sweden and Norway, wherever the Ribbono Shel Olom will give us the strength to go.”

  “But why do we have to go to Vienna?”

  “Because this work can’t be done from Brooklyn, Asher.”

  “But why Vienna, Papa?”

  “Because it’s the center of Europe. From Vienna, I’ll be able to travel all through Europe.”

  I stared at my father. “You’re going to travel in Europe?”

  “Of course, Asher.”

  “I don’t want to go to Vienna, Papa.”

  “Asher.”

  “I don’t want to leave here. I like it here.”

  “Yes,” my father said quietly. “I’ve noticed you like it here. But we’ll go anyway, Asher. And you’ll learn to like it there.”

  I saw my Uncle Yitzchok outside our synagogue after services the next Shabbos, and I said to him, “My papa is taking us to Vienna after Simchas Torah.”

  He smiled down at me and his watery brown eyes crinkled. “I know, I know. What an honor. You should be proud of your papa.”

  “Uncle Yitzchok, I don’t want to go.”

  “Of course you don’t want to go. What little boy wants to leave his neighborhood and his school and his friends and go off to a strange land? But it’s for Torah, Asher.” His round face beamed at me. “Your papa will be spreading Hasidus. That is what our papa, olov hasholom, did when he traveled for the Rebbe’s father. You will get used to Vienna, Asher. I hear it’s a nice city. Don’t look so unhappy. Listen to your uncle. You should be proud of your father.”

  I turned away from him.

  “Asher,” he said.

  I turned back.

  “I see you all the time in Yudel Krinsky’s store. Why don’t you come in and say hello sometimes?”

  I was quiet.

  “Come in and say hello to your uncle sometimes,” he said. “Yes, Asher?”

  I nodded.

  “Asher, not to speak of it on Shabbos, but have you drawn anything lately?”

  I shrugged a shoulder.

  “Come in and say hello sometimes.” He took a step away from me, then looked back. “The Rebbe must think your father is a very great man to have given him such a responsibility.” He said it quietly, with a distant look in his eyes. “My little brother is now a great man.” He walked slowly off into the crowd in front of the synagogue.

  I said to my father during our Shabbos meal that afternoon, “Where will I go to school in Vienna?”

  He had just finished singing one of the zemiros. He was holding his head in his hands.

  “There is a small yeshiva in Vienna,” he said.

  “Is it a Ladover yeshiva?”

  “No. In a year or two, we’ll begin to build a Ladover yeshiva. You will be one of its first students.”

  “What language do they talk in Vienna?”

  “In the yeshiva they talk Yiddish.”

  “But what language do the people talk?”

  “German. And some French.”

  “I don’t know German and French, Papa.”

  “You’ll learn. Now let’s sing zemiros.”

  “I don’t want to learn German and French, Papa.”

  He began to sing softly, his head in his hands. My mother looked down at the top of the table.

  “I’m frightened,” I said to my father. “I don’t want to go away.”

  “Sha,” my father said, interrupting his song. “Everything will be all right, Asher.”

  I sat there in rigid silence, listening to him sing.

  “Will we have to fly to Vienna?” I asked my mother later that day.

  “I don’t know, Asher.”

  “I’m frightened of flying, Mama.”

  She said nothing.

  “There won’t be anyone for me to talk to in Vienna.”

  “You’ll find someone to talk to.”

  “Papa said he was going to Vienna to teach Hasidus.”

  “Yes.”

  “You said Papa was going to Vienna to help Jews in Russia.”

  “Yes.”

  “Which is Papa going to do?”

  “Both,” my mother said.

  “Mama, I don’t want to go. I’m afraid to fly. I can’t talk German.”

  “Asher, there are more important reasons for us not to go than whether or not you like to fly or can speak German.”

  “What reasons, Mama?”

  “Reasons,” she said. “But it makes no difference, Asher. We’ll go anyway.”

  He came to me that night out of the woods, my mythic ancestor, huge, mountainous, dressed in his dark caftan and fur-trimmed cap, pounding his way through the trees on his Russian master’s estate, the earth shaking, the mountains quivering, thunder in his voice. I could not hear what he said. I woke in dread and lay very still, listening to the darkness. I needed to go to the bathroom but I was afraid to leave the bed. I moved down beneath the blanket and slept and then, as if my moment awake had been an intermission between acts of an authored play, saw him again plowing toward me through giant cedars. I woke and went to the bathroom. I stood in the bathroom, shivering. I did not want to go back to my bed. I stood listening to the night, then went through the hallway to the living room. It was dark and hushed and I could hear the sounds of night traffic through the window. I opened the slats of the Venetian blind and peered between them at the street below. It was a clear night. I could not see the moon, but a clear cold blue-white light lay like a ghostly sheen over the parkway and cast the shadows of buildings and trees across the sidewalks. I saw a man walking beneath the trees. He was a man of medium height with a dark beard, a dark coat, and an ordinary dark hat. I saw him walking in the shadows of the trees. Then I did not see him. Then I saw him again, walking slowly beneath the trees. Then he was gone again and I did not know if I was seeing him or not, if I had been asleep before and was awake now, or if I had been awake before and was dreaming now. Then I saw him again, walking slowly, alone; then he entered a shadow and was gone. I do not remember going back to bed. I only remember waking in the morning and staring up at the white ceiling of my room and feeling light and disembodied, as if I were floating on the shadows cast by dark trees beneath a moon.

  “Asher,” my father said to me at breakfast. “Drink your orange juice.”

  I was barely listening.

  “Asher.”

  “I dreamed of the Rebbe last night.”

  I saw them glance at each other.

  “I think I dreamed of the Rebbe. I dreamed—I think—He was very loud and there were woods.”

  “Asher,” my mother said. I felt her fingers on my arm. My father put down the orange juice and looked at me.

  “It’s not a pretty world, Mama.”

  I saw her lips tremble. Her fingers tightened momentarily on my hand.

  “Will you walk with me to school, Mama?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I don’t want to walk by myself under the trees.”

  “I’ll walk with you, Asher.”

  The mashpia came into the classroom and spoke to us in a soft voice. I made a point with my dark pencil in the center of a clean page in my Hebrew notebook. About three inches to the right of that point, I made another point. I connected the two points with a single straight line. The mashpia spoke softly. I made straight lines and curved lines. The pencil moved as part of my hand across the page of the Hebrew notebook. The mashpia waved his hands gently. I made circles and short choppy lines. The mashpia rose and went slowly from the room. The teacher sat down behind the desk. I put down the pencil and closed the notebook. I opened the notebook and looked at the page. I closed the notebook very quickly. I watched my fingers trembling on top of the notebook. I put my hands under my thighs. I could feel them trembling. A while later, I opened the notebook and looked agai
n at the page. I had drawn a picture of Stalin dead in his coffin.

  Four

  I drew him dead in his coffin surrounded by flowers. I drew his closed heavy-lidded eyes, his thick straight hair, his walrus mustache. I drew it all from memory into that Hebrew notebook and later that day I drew him again from memory into my English notebook. In the days that followed, I drew him over and over and over again. I drew him empty and hollow; I drew him swollen and bloated. I distorted his face and twisted his eyes. Over and over and over again, I drew him disfigured, ghoulish, a horror of a face in front of that mountain of flowers.

  My father went into my room one night that week and found my desk strewn with drawings. There were drawings on the dresser and on the floor. I saw him peering at the drawings on the desk when I came in from the bathroom.

  “What is all this?” he asked.

  “Drawings.”

  “Don’t be disrespectful to me, Asher. I see they’re drawings. You can’t study Chumash, but this you have time for.”

  “Aryeh,” my mother called softly. She was standing in the doorway.

  “I’m talking to our son, who is an artist again.”

  “Aryeh,” my mother said again.

  The two of them went from the room. I sat at my desk in my pajamas. I used one of the charcoal sticks I had bought from Yudel Krinsky earlier that day. Drawing on a sheet of heavy paper in one continuous line, I did the contour of Stalin’s face, then his eyes and nose and mustache. Slowly, I shaded the area around his eyes and along the side of his head. I had never used charcoal before. I watched the dead face take on depth. I darkened the area directly beneath the cheekbones and in the ears. I ignored the thick straight hair and the mustache, except for a few quick lines. Now he was a man on the paper, with volume and depth, and he was dead. Then I erased the closed heavy-lidded eyes and redrew them open and staring, eyes wide and dead-staring out onto the world.

  I moved back my chair and saw my mother standing behind me. She was looking at the charcoal drawing of Stalin.

  “It’s a good drawing, Asher,” she said softly.