by Susan Taubes
“Do you see Mother sometimes? Are you in contact with her at least?” he asks worriedly.
“She came to see the children on Thanksgiving. She is fine.”
He is reassured and does not pursue the subject further.
On their evening walks he speaks about his experiences as a soldier. She listens enviously. It’s the only period of his life he really likes to talk about.
“You had a great time in the war,” she points out to him.
“It’s true,” he admits, “but I did not kill.”
He condemns violence. Once more he raises the old question, “Is war necessary? Will mankind find other ways for their aggressions? Unlikely,” he muses aloud, and entertains the possible destruction of mankind with a certain satisfaction. “The Lord made a great mistake; he should have stopped after he created plants...” Evangelical, and with compassion for God whose grief over the bungled experiment must infinitely exceed his own, he praises the trees.
Sitting in his consulting room later in the evening, they look through old photographs he keeps in a silver box. There are over a hundred, some taken on the Serbian front, some in the Budapest baths, on the street, in restaurants, rooms and gardens in Budapest, Vienna, Paris, New York; family pictures, the oldest taken ca. 1860, shows Simon of Nyitra, regal in his fur kaftan and collar, his fine, forked beard, seated in the pose of a Renaissance prince, his hand rests on the large tome in his lap, the face with its haughty slanted brows and cheekbones emerges absolute, unconditioned, from the dark background. Another, taken fifty years later, shows Moses Landsmann sitting at his desk in his Budapest apartment in a gray suit and tie, his fair beard trimmed short, blond, blue-eyed, blandly handsome, the benign expression on his face, with a suggestion of a pained smile, conveys official serenity. Pictures of her father as a moustached, swaggering provincial, young soldier, cynical analyst, happy grandfather; her mother in a variety of seductive poses; beautiful Rachel, regal in high lace collar with her two daughters, who perished in Auschwitz. Uncle Joske (the bum) in Vienna, standing stiffly in a striped suit, looks like a Chicago gangster. More pictures of dreamy young girls in the romantic manner.
“Is that Mother?” she asks with surprise; the picture with her mother’s name written on the back shows a shy young girl with long hair, seated in a pensive pose.
“Yes, she looked like that,” her father affirms with unexpected feeling, “That’s what she looked like when I married her,” he sighs, and puts the photograph back in the box hastily; she is disappointed that he refuses to reminisce about her mother when he loved her, before she turned into the would-be femme fatale of the later photographs.
“And what happened?” she asks.
“She became totally different,” he says, in a tone of incomprehension. “She changed—” and decides not to pursue this painful subject.
It’s ten-thirty, he notes; time for his nightcap.
She watches him check the icebox, make up the grocery list for tomorrow. “Will you stay downstairs?” he asks. He would like to put out all the lights before retiring. “What will you do?” he asks. “If you use the kitchen—”
“You’re a tyrant,” she says. “Do you know that?”
“I know,” he smiles, “I’m pleased you realize at last...” he adds, leaving.
If he had had a son, it would have made him into a different man; the fathers of daughters, not of sons, turn into petulant Lears, and Prosperos. If he had had a son...she reflects.
The house oppresses, its ghost surrounds her, settles on her with increasing weight; she dissolves into the ghost. Herself, as a young girl in her father’s house? But she doesn’t feel like a young girl at all. The phantom is her absent mother, whose place she must fill. The absent mother whose absence was never discussed.
It’s her mother’s ghost that haunts this house: the young woman her mother was before Sophie was born, whose life she was reliving, put in the same circumstance, a young woman living with a man who had no time for her, who did not take her seriously, who joked about sex and insulted her with his indifference. The phantom presence of the woman of whom her father disapproved, the wife who failed and lost her place, was more potent than anything the young girl could remember of her mother or imagine as her mother’s present reality; the phantom was more powerful than the young girl. It was her mother’s phantom, not she, who lived in her father’s house in Garfield, oppressed and fearful and in secret, concealed behind the mask of the young girl.
They walk along Clinton Avenue. She is leaving this afternoon; he is gloomy, complains about her lack of interest in psychoanalysis, and of how little he sees her. “I have lost a daughter,” he says to himself.
“As an analyst you should understand,” she tries to argue; he shakes his head. His look says everything.
“I’m here; I came,” she tries again; the feebleness of her protest dismays her. They walk in silence back to the house. She has decided to abandon her chronicle. Reb Simon of Nyitra watching the birds, young Moses Landsmann on the train to Pazdics to tell his parents, couples strolling down the corso before she was born, Rosa and Rudolf, Kamilla and Count Csaba-Csaba, they are story people from a lost book of which only a few random pages remain. And father and daughter walking side by side, their words and silences caught in some dead space, they are story people too.
“What kind of book are you writing?” he asks her at the airport. They have arrived an hour early; she has checked her suitcase, filled mostly with fine Paul Revere pots and pans, the wedding presents he kept for her while she was traveling. They stroll along the hall to the gate and back to the lobby; “It’s not really fiction,” she is trying to explain to him, “it should please you—” But he hasn’t the patience to listen and interrupts to tell a story by the Hungarian humorist Karinthy. He shrugs and they laugh.
“You were crazy about me when you were three years old,” he says unexpectedly; “Do you remember that?”
Her admission does not relieve him. It’s too late to comfort him, his hand clutching hers insists, as he recalls those happy days when she was three years old. “And it was pure sex,” he adds, “Do you know that?”
“I know.” She laughs, but he hasn’t heard, or felt her kiss. He stands alone before the gate, his eyes grieving, unreconciled to the ancient loss; he sets his mouth bitterly, bravely.
She cannot please her father; perhaps no person had or could ever please him. He is a priest after all.
“What kind of book are you writing?” he asks, as they continue walking. “Can you explain to me what kind of book this is?”
(The courtroom is filled with orthodox Hungarian rabbis and their families. EZRA, a skullcap lying insecurely on unruly hair, stands by the Judge’s table with his father-in-law, RUDOLF LANDSMANN. LANDSMANN is wearing a gray fedora. A rabbi is delivering vehement invectives in Hebrew. The CROWD roars in approval.)
LANDSMANN. Why are they screaming? The place stinks. My God! Dissolve the marriage!
EZRA. They’re your people, Landsmann, these Hungarian fanatics. In Poland we called them Calvinists.
LANDSMANN. (Sighing) It’s true. The disciples of my grandfather, the holy Reb Smuel of Nyitra. We called them the Dushensky gang. My beautiful sister married to one of those brutes, gassed in Auschwitz. She is there, I see all of them: Papa, Mama, Grandfather. But why do they want my daughter?
EZRA. They want your daughter because she is the great granddaughter of the holy Reb Smuel, your mother’s father.
LANDSMANN. But why? What has she done? What are they screaming? I don’t understand. What! They charge her with uncleanness, holding heretical doctrines, practicing abominations, loathsome and abominable forms of copulation. (He laughs) My daughter? Ezra, did you know about this? Are we back in the Middle Ages? My daughter practicing loathsome and abominable forms of copulation? With you perhaps!
EZRA. Narrischkeit. The point is your
wife—I mean my wife, your daughter—has no legal status. (Furiously) These people mean business, Landsmann. If you had listened to me we wouldn’t be in this mess.
LANDSMANN. (Offended; bitterly) You’re crazy. Everybody is meshuga. I’m taking my daughter out of here. All I need is the signature of two analysts to have her declared insane and placed under our professional custody.
EZRA. Landsmann, you agree the most important thing is the marriage.
LANDSMANN. The marriage must be saved. That’s why I insist on having her under my custody. A divorce at such a moment! It’s terrible. I refuse to be present at marital squabbles. I am not going to listen to any more “he says” and “she says”—I can’t stand it. All my life, in my marriage, in your marriage, in my consulting room, in fifty years of analytic practice that’s all I hear. People should learn to live with each other and devote themselves to science.
EZRA. Landsmann, where did your daughter get money to run away with the children?
LANDSMANN. I didn’t approve of what she was doing.
EZRA. You can’t handle her.
LANDSMANN. She married you without my approval—I’ll never forget that three a.m. long-distance call confronted with a fait accompli.
EZRA. There you have it. And I took a plane to visit you the same week. Alone. Your daughter was in a play, you recall? And did I get her out of the theater?
LANDSMANN. You did.
EZRA. And did I see that she finished college? And got a doctorate? Did I show her half the world? And did I give her children?
LANDSMANN. With my money.
EZRA. Landsmann, you didn’t know what to do with your daughter or your money.
(The coffin is brought in)
LANDSMANN. Oh my God...
(They remove the lid. SOPHIE, in a white gown, stands up in the coffin)
EZRA. You have to admit she looks good. Fifteen years married to me; you can’t say she isn’t well preserved. As good as the day I married her. How many husbands do you think—
LANDSMANN. (Weeping) My beautiful daughter. The tragedy! She is my daughter.
RABBIS. We want her.
(Everybody approaches the coffin. There is a commotion as KAMILLA DE VITHEZY, Sophie’s mother, enters, making her way to the coffin carrying a fur coat on each arm. Everyone is scandalized. The rabbis and their wives jeer with disgust at her perfume, jewelry and the fur coats.)
KAMILLA. I have come to take my daughter home. My poor darling! Why do I always find her in a rag! Sophie, aren’t you going to kiss me!
EZRA. For this I’m not responsible. Whatever you might blame me for, Landsmann, I am not responsible for your ex-wife.
LANDSMANN. We all make mistakes.
KAMILLA. Aren’t you glad to see me? Look, I brought you my three best fur coats and my swan feather wrap. I saved them for you through the Nazi occupation and the Russian occupation. (SOPHIE tries on the wrap) Sophie, have you no feeling for your mother!
(She bursts into tears and runs out screaming. SOPHIE scandalizes rabbis with obscene gestures and postures, showing her naked behind, etc. RABBIS spit and jeer.)
RABBIS. Witch. Whore. Jezebel. Babylon. Mitzraim.
EZRA. (Sighing) She doesn’t know how.
LANDSMANN. Please Sophie, that’s your uncle, the chief rabbi of Transylvania—
SOPHIE. A sanctimonious bastard! He led his congregation to death trains, torture, gas chamber, typhus. His own wife and daughters. They could have saved themselves. A fanatical brute. A murderer. Burn him!
EZRA. Na ja. They did.
LANDSMANN. Can’t this be stopped? Where is the judge? This is terrible.
EZRA. Well do something!
SOPHIE. My father do something!
(She laughs sarcastically)
LANDSMANN. That’s right. I failed you. (To EZRA) She has never forgiven me for not shooting down the biggest bear in the Budapest amusement park when she was five years old. We know what that means. (Recalls Lear) “A serpent’s sting is not sharper than a daughter’s ingratitude.”
SOPHIE. Have you ever thought of becoming a character actor in Hollywood?
CLERK. (Announces) Blind vs. Blind. Lawyer for the prosecution: Bloom. Lawyer for the defense: Miss Evelyn von Koenighof. Silence in the courtroom.
(The members of the jury enter and take their places. The LAWYERS enter, followed by the JUDGE.)
JUDGE. The court is in session. Will Mr. Bloom present the case for the prosecution.
RABBIS. We claim the deceased. We protest this trial.
EZRA. She is mine. My legal wife. You have no case.
RABBIS. She is a whore. We declare her unworthy of the honor of bearing her husband’s name. You have no case.
EZRA. As her husband I protest the charge that my wife was unchaste. I have brought fifty witnesses to testify to my wife’s chastity. They are all young men of high standing. Native Americans, my best students. All have at some time tried to seduce my wife and failed. (The fifty young men rise) Your Honor, in view of limitations of time, ask any one of them to testify in behalf of all.
RABBIS. We protest. They’re his disciples. They swear by him. Their testimony cannot be accepted as valid.
EZRA. Your Honor, I object. I may teach my disciples that love transcends the law. But not perjury!
(The rabbis move up and surround the coffin)
RABBIS. We charge you with acts of sacrilege, blasphemy, uncleanness and with practicing sodomy, buggery and other forms of loathsome and unnatural copulation.
SOPHIE. It’s true.
EZRA. I protest. My wife is very naive.
SOPHIE. I’m sick of all this fuss. Go ahead, you dodoes, and condemn me for eating fried octopus, cock sucking, animal worship. I touched the mezuzah when I was menstruating, put that down. I confess to all your charges. I recommend to all Jewish women semen drunk straight or mixed with beef blood. Now feed me to the dogs as is your custom. (She lies down in the coffin and invokes the gods of the deep) Gorgons, my sisters. Poseidon, where are you? Homer, Heraclitus, Nietzsche, Joyce, comfort me! I am on fire Apollo, come!
EZRA. (To LANDSMANN) Na ja. You told me she was meshuga. I didn’t believe you.
RABBIS. She has condemned herself by her own mouth.
JUDGE. (Bangs) Overruled. Her confession cannot be accepted. The death certificate presented at our preliminary hearing was shown to be invalid. Since then the court has had no further proof of her death, nor any evidence for her existence.
RABBIS. We are not impressed by your sophistries. The marriage is void. We take her.
EZRA. Then take us both.
(He steps into the coffin)
SOPHIE. If you don’t get out of my coffin this instant, I’ll tell them everything. I’ll tell them with all the details.
(JUDGE bangs for order)
EZRA. My wife is distraught. I appeal to the rabbis. The great granddaughter of Reb Smuel deserves a fair trial. Sophie was raised by an atheist father. She read the books of Moses for the first time in a literature course at Bryn Mawr. When I met her she had left college to be an actress. She lived on tea bags and Ritz crackers in a confused revolt against the hollowness of the secular world. She was a virgin. I read to her the book of prophets Hosea: the parable of the sacred marriage between God and Israel, spoke of the sanctification of life, explained to her the paradox of the law Credo quia absurdum. Sophie Landsmann took the leap into Judaism when she became engaged to me. I promised her an orthodox Jewish wedding with fiddlers and dancing and the ceremony of the bride walking around the groom seven times—she insisted on all the archaic details. But I couldn’t go through with it in this age of ambiguity and the eclipse of God. I short-changed her on the wedding: I arranged a mishmash compromise package at the Jewish Theological Seminary. She had to listen to an anthropological lecture on the smashing of the wine goble
t by the groom—the one traditional element I managed to sneak in. The reception was a banal cocktail party with cheese sandwiches from a kosher caterer. (He weeps, then collects himself) I am not ashamed to confess. I am prepared to take the witness stand and speak under oath. The court must wonder what abominable acts my wife performed. It’s...
MISS KOENIGHOF. As Ezra Blind’s lawyer, I protest.
EZRA. Please, Evelyn, let me...
JUDGE. Protest overruled.
MISS KOENIGHOF. I urge that the jury take note that sodomy and buggery do not constitute grounds for divorce except in the state of Virginia.
EZRA. It’s all written in sacred texts (from which all pornographic handbooks are copied). It is depicted in the masterpieces of Hieronymus Bosch. I asked her to assume obscene postures. To crawl on all fours and lift her leg like a dog pissing; to bark, moo, bray, bleet, hoot—I wanted her to howl like a demon. I wanted her to be a sacred whore. She was magnificent in her moments of complete abasement. I confess I was not equal to the highest sacrilege. One night when she was performing the sacred office of fellatio I ordered her to say the Pater Noster in my arse hole. Or a Hail Mary at least. Instead she started bellowing the S’ma Yisrael up my bowels. I couldn’t go through with it. “Shame on you,” she said, “doing sacrilege with other people’s religion. Isn’t yours holy enough?” She was a great woman. Sophie Blind remains my wife till the Messiah comes. Brothers, sons of the Torah, we are all awaiting the day of Judgment, united in the hope of the coming of the Messiah. We are children of calamity. What has been joined in this world cannot be sundered in heaven or hell before the coming of the Messiah and Judgment.