I tried to think of some one at whose house we could be certain of getting a good meal. (Most of my friends ate out.) The ones that came to mind lived too far away or else were not the sort you could bust in on unannounced. Mona of course was all for eating in some excellent restaurant, eating until we were ready to burst, after which I was to sit and wait until she could find someone to pay for the meal. I didn’t relish the idea at all. Had done it too often. Besides, it had happened to me once or twice to sit like that all night waiting for some one to show up with the dough. No sir, if we were going to eat well I wanted the money for it right in my pocket.
“How much have we, anyway?” I asked. “Have you looked everywhere?”
About seventy-two cents was all that could be mustered, it seemed. Payday was six days off. I was in no mood—and too hungry—to start making the rounds of the telegraph offices just to gather in a few shekels.
“Let’s go to the Scotch bakery,” said Mona. “They serve food there. It’s very simple but it’s substantial. And cheap.”
The Scotch bakery was near Borough Hall. A dismal place, with marble table tops and sawdust on the floor. The owners were dour Presbyterians from the old country. They spoke with an accent which reminded me unpleasantly of MacGregor’s parents. Every syllable they uttered had the clink of small coin, the resonance of the bone yard. Because they were civil and proper one was supposed to be grateful for the service they rendered.
We had a concoction of horse’s hocks and bloated porridge with buttered scones on the side and a thin leaf of unseasoned lettuce to garnish it. There was no taste to the food whatever; it had been cooked by a sourfaced spinster who had never known a day of joy. I would rather have had a bowl of barley soup with some matzoh balls in it. Or fried frankfurters and potato salad, such as Al Burger’s family indulged in.
The meal had a most sobering effect. But it left me with the aura of intoxication. Somehow I began to get that light, extra-clearheaded feeling, that hollow bones and transparent veins setup, in which I knew an insouciance that was always extraordinary. Every time the door opened a hideous jangle and jumble assailed our ears. There were two sets of trolley tracks in front of the door, a photograph shop and a radio shop just opposite, and at the corner a perpetual congestion of traffic. The lights were just going on as we rose to leave. I had a toothpick in the corner of my mouth which I was chewing complacently, my hat was cocked over one ear, and as I stepped towards the curb I was aware that it was a wonderfully balmy evening, one of the last days of summer. Queer fragments of thought assailed me. For example, I kept harking back to a summer’s day about fifteen years previous when, at that very corner where all was now pandemonium, I had boarded a streetcar with my old friend MacGregor. It was an open trolley and we were headed for Sheepshead Bay. Under my arm was a copy of Sanine. I had finished the book and was about to lend it to my friend MacGregor. As I was ruminating on the pleasurable shock which this forgotten book had made upon me I caught a burst of strangely familiar music from the loudspeaker in the radio shop across the way. I stood there as if rooted to the spot. It was Cantor Sirota singing one of the old synagogue tunes. I knew it only too well because I had listened to it dozens of times. Once I had owned every record of his which was available. And I had purchased them “at a price!”
I looked at Mona to see what effect the music had produced. Her eyes were moist, her face strained. Quietly I took her hand and held it. We stood thus for several minutes after the music had ceased, neither of us attempting to say a word.
Finally I mumbled—“You recognize that?”
She made no answer. Her lips were quivering. I saw a tear roll down her cheek.
“Mona, dear Mona, why hold it back? I know everything. I’ve known for a long time.… Did you think I would be ashamed of you?”
“No, no Val. I just couldn’t tell you. I don’t know why.”
“But didn’t it ever occur to you, my dear Mona, that I love you more just because you are a Jew? Why I say this I don’t know either, but it’s a fact. You remind me of the women I knew as a boy—in the Old Testament. Ruth, Naomi, Esther, Rachel, Rebecca… I always wondered as a child why no one I knew was called by such names. They were golden names to me.”
I put my arm around her waist. She was half-sobbing now. “Don’t let’s go yet. There’s something more I want to say. What I tell you now I mean, I want you to know that. I’m speaking from the bottom of my heart. It isn’t something that’s just occurred to me, it’s something I’ve wanted to broach for a long time.”
“Don’t say it, Val. Please don’t say any more.” She put her hand over my mouth to stop me. I permitted it to rest there a few moments, then I gently withdrew it.
“Let me,” I begged. “It won’t hurt you. How could I possibly hurt you or wound you now?”
“But I know what you’re going to say. And… And I don’t deserve it.”
“Nonsense! Now listen to me.… You remember the day we got married… in Hoboken? You remember that filthy ceremony? I’ve never forgotten it. Listen, here’s what I’ve been thinking.… Suppose I become a Jew——. Don’t laugh! I mean it. What’s so strange about it? Instead of becoming a Catholic or a Mohammedan I’ll become a Jew. And for the best reason in the world.”
“And that is?” She looked up into my eyes as if completely mystified.
“Because you’re a Jew and I love you—isn’t that reason enough? I love everything about you… why shouldn’t I love your religion, your race, your customs and traditions? I’m no Christian, you know that. I’m nothing. I’m not even a Goy.… Look, why don’t we go to a rabbi and get married in true orthodox style?”
She had begun to laugh as if her sides would burst. Somewhat offended, I said: “You don’t think I’m good enough, is that it?”
“Stop it!” she cried. “You’re a fool, a clown, and I love you. I don’t want you to become a Jew… you could never be one anyhow. You’re too… too something or other. And anyway, my dear Val, I don’t want to be a Jew either. I don’t want to hear anything about the subject. I beg you, don’t ever mention it again. I’m not a Jew. I’m not anything. I’m just a woman—and to hell with the rabbi! Come, let’s go home.…”
We walked home in absolute silence, not a hostile silence but a rueful one. The wide, handsome street on which we lived seemed more than ever prim and respectable, a thoroughly bourgeois Gentile street such as only Protestants could inhabit. The big brownstone stoops, some with heavy stone balustrades, some with delicate wrought iron banisters, gave a solemn, pompous touch to the buildings.
I was deep in thought as we entered the love nest. Rachel, Esther, Ruth, Naomi—those wonderful old Biblical names kept flitting through my head. Some ancient memory was stirring at the base of my skull, trying to voice itself.… “Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” The words rang in my ears, but I couldn’t place them. The Old Testament has this peculiar lilt, this repetitive quality so seductive to the Anglo-Saxon ear.
Suddenly there came this phrase: “Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldst take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger?”
With this I saw myself again as a tiny boy seated in a little chair by the window in the old neighborhood. I had been ill and was slowly recuperating. One of the relatives had brought me a large, thin book with striking illustrations. It was called Stories from the Bible. There was one I read over and over again—about Daniel in the lions’ den.
I see myself once more, a little older now, wearing short pants still, sitting up front in the Presbyterian Church where I had learned to be a soldier. The minister is a very old man named the Reverend Dr. Dawson. A Scot, but a warm, tenderhearted soul beloved of his flock. He reads long passages from the Good Book to his congregation before starting his sermon. He takes a long time to begin, too, first blowing his nose vigorously, then tucking the handkerchief away in the tail of his frock coat, then t
aking a deep draught of water from the pitcher beside the lectern, then clearing his throat and looking heavenward, and so on and so forth. He is not much of an orator any more. He is aging and he rambles a good deal. When he loses the thread, he picks up the Bible and rereads a verse or two to refresh his memory. I am very conscious of his failings; I twitch and turn in my seat during his moments of forgetfulness. I encourage him silently as best I can.
But now, sitting in the soft light of the immaculate love nest, I suddenly realize where all these phrases which have come to my lips stem from. I go to the bookcase and get out the battered old Bible which Crazy George left with us. I skim the pages absent-mindedly, thinking tenderly of old man Dawson, thinking of my little pal, Jack Lawson, who died so young and such a horrible death, thinking of the basement of the old Presbyterian Church and the dust we raised drilling in squads and battalions every night, all fitted up with stripes and chevrons, with epaulettes, with swords, leggings, flags, the drums deafening us, the bugles splitting our eardrums. And as these memories pass to and fro there ring in my ears the melodious verses from the Bible which the Reverend Dr. Dawson spooled off like an eight-reel film.
The book is lying open on the table, and behold, it is open at the chapter called Ruth. In large letters it reads: THE BOOK OF RUTH. And just about it, the last and 25th verse of Judges, a glorious verse whose source lies far behind childhood, so far back into the past that no man can remember anything but the wonder of it:
“In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”
In what days? I ask myself. Whenever was this glorious period and why had man forgotten it? In those days there was no king in Israel. This is not from the history of the Jews, this is out of the history of Man. That is how man began, in high estate, in dignity, honor and wisdom. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes. Here in a few words is the secret of a decent, happy human society. Once upon a time the Jews knew such a condition of life. Once upon a time the Chinese knew it, too, and the Minoans, and the Hindus, and the Polynesians, and the Africans, and the Eskimos.
I began reading The Book of Ruth, wherein it speaks of Naomi and the Moabites. At the 20th verse I was electrified: “And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.” And in the 21st verse it continues: “I went out full, and the LORD hath brought me home again empty.…”
I called to Mona, who had once been Mara, but there was no answer. I looked for her but she was not there.… I sat down again, with tears in my eyes, thumbing through the worn and tattered pages. There would be no bridge, no heavenly synagogue music… not even an ephah of barley. Call me not Naomi, call me Mara! And Mara had disowned her people, had disowned the very name they had given her. It was a bitter name, but she had not even known what it meant. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. She had left the fold and had been afflicted by the Lord.
I got up and walked about. The atmosphere of the place was one of elegance, simplicity and serenity. I was deeply roused but not in the least sad. I felt like the chambered nautilus walking the sands of time. I threw back the rolling doors which separated our apartment from the vacant one in the rear. I lit a candelabra at the far end of the vacant apartment. The stained glass windows gave off a smoldering glow. I moved about in the shadows, letting my mind wander freely. My heart was at rest. Now and then I wondered dreamily where she had gone. I knew she would return soon and be at ease. I hoped that she would remember to rustle up a bit of food. I was in a mood to break bread again and sip a little wine. It was in such a mood, I thought to myself, that one ought to sit down to write. I was mellow and open, fluid, solvent. I could see how easy it was, given the right ambience, to pass from the life of a paid employee, a hack, a slave, to that of an artist. It was such a delicious thing to be alone, to revel in one’s thoughts and emotions. It hardly occurred to me that I would have to write about something; all I thought of was that one day, in just such a mood as this, I would write. The important thing was to be perpetually what I now was, to feel as I did, to make music. From childhood on that had been my dream, to sit still and make music. It was just dawning on me that to make music one had first to make himself into an exquisite, sensitive instrument. One had to stop living and breathe. One had to take off the roller skates. One had to unhitch all connections with the world outside. One had to speak privately, with God as his witness. Oh yes, that was it. Indeed yes. Suddenly I became unalterably certain of what I had just quietly realized.… For the Lord thy God is a jealous God.…
The strange thing was, I reflected, that most everybody I knew already considered me a writer, though I had done little to prove it. They assumed I was not only because of my behavior, which had always been eccentric and unpredictable, but because of my passion for language. From the time I learned to read I was never without a book. The first person to whom I ventured to read aloud was my grandfather; I used to sit at the edge of his workbench where he sat sewing coats. My grandfather was proud of me but he was also somewhat alarmed. I remembered him warning my mother that she would do better to take the books away from me.… Only a few years later and I am reading aloud to my little friends, Joey and Tony, on my visits to them in the country. Sometimes I read to a dozen or more children gathered around me. I would read and read until they fell asleep one by one. If I took the trolley or the subway I would read standing up, even outside on the platform of the elevated train. Leaving the train I would still be reading… reading faces, reading gestures, reading gaits, reading architecture, reading streets, passions, crimes. Everything, yes everything, was noted, analyzed, compared and described—for future use. Studying an object, a face, a façade, I studied it in the way it was to be written down (later) in a book, including the adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, parentheses and whatnot. Before I had even planned the first book my mind was teeming with hundreds of characters. I was a walking, talking book, an encyclopedic compendium which kept swelling like a malignant tumor. If I bumped into a friend or an acquaintance, or even a stranger, I would continue the writing while conversing with him. It was the work of only a few seconds to steer the conversation into my own groove, to fix my victim with a hypnotic eye and inundate him. If it were a woman I encountered I could do it even more easily. Women respond to this sort of thing better than men, I noticed. But with a foreigner it went best of all. My language always intoxicated the alien, first because I made an effort to speak clearly and simply to him, second because his greater tolerance and sympathy brought out the best in me. I always spoke to a foreigner as if I were acquainted with the ways and customs of his country; I always left him with the impression that I valued his country more than my own, which was usually the truth. And I always planted in him a desire to become better acquainted with the English language, not because I deemed it the best language in the world but because no one I knew used it with its full potency.
If I were reading a book and happened to strike a wonderful passage I would close the book then and there and go for a walk. I hated the thought of coming to the end of a good book. I would tease it along, delay the inevitable as long as possible. But always, when I hit a great passage, I would stop reading immediately. Out I would go, rain, hail, snow or ice, and chew the cud. One can become so full with the spirit of another being as to be literally afraid of bursting. Everyone, I presume, has had the experience. This “other being,” let me observe, is always a sort of alter ego. It isn’t a mere matter of recognizing a kindred soul, it is a matter of recognizing oneself. To come suddenly face to face with yourself! What a moment! Closing the book you continue the act of creation. And this procedure, this ritual, I should say, is always the same: a communication on all fronts at once. No more barriers. More alone than ever, you are nevertheless glued to the world as never before. Incorporated in it. Suddenly it becomes clear to you, that when God made the world He did not abandon it to sit in contemplation—somewhere in limbo. God
made the world and He entered into it: that is the meaning of creation.
2
It was only a few months of bliss we enjoyed in the Japanese love nest. Once a week I paid my visit to Maude and the child, brought the alimony, went for a stroll in the park. Mona had her job in the theater and from her earnings took care of her mother and two healthy brothers. About once every ten days I ate at the French-Italian grocery, usually without Mona because she had to be at the theater early. Occasionally I visited Ulric to play a quiet game of chess with him. The session usually ended in a discussion of painters and how they painted. Sometimes I simply went for a stroll in the evening, generally to the foreign quarters. Often I stayed home and read or played the gramophone. Mona usually arrived home about midnight; we would have a little snack, talk for a few hours, and then to bed. It was getting more and more difficult to get up in the morning. To say good-by to Mona was always a tussle. Finally it came about that I remained away from the office three days handrunning. It was just a sufficient break to make it impossible for me to return. Three glorious days and nights, doing exactly what I pleased, eating well, sleeping long, enjoying every minute of the day, feeling immeasurably rich inside, losing all ambition to battle with the world, itching to begin my own private life, confident of the future, done with the past, how could I go back into harness? Besides, I felt that I had been doing Clancy, my boss, a great injustice. If I had any loyalty or integrity I ought to tell him that I was fed up. I knew that he was constantly defending me, constantly making excuses for me to his boss, the right holy Mr. Twilliger. Sooner or later, Spivak, always on my trail, would get the goods on me. Of late he had been spending a great deal of time in Brooklyn, right in my own precincts. No, the jig was up. It was time to make a clean breast of it.