More Stories From My Father's Court

by Isaac Bashevis Singer

  “Everything will be as it is destined to be,” Mother replied.

  Despite the fact that we did our best to keep the wedding a secret, people on the street and in the courtyard learned about it. On the evening of the wedding, youngsters tried to break into the apartment. Father went out to meet them.

  “So you’ve come to mock, eh? What is there to mock here? Reb Zanvele is a scholar.”

  “But he’s missing something!” one of the youths yelled.

  “Everything he has is a gift of God,” Father responded. “Go home. The world is not under the rule of chaos!”

  But the street youths and the low-class girls who had gathered at our steps apparently thought that the world was indeed ruled by chaos. When the groom passed by the steps, they greeted him with catcalls and katzenjammer music. One of the youths hooted, “Toom …” and another concluded, “toom!” Girls laughed lasciviously.

  A shoemaker came running and yelled at the youths: “With one slice of a knife we can make you just like him … You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!”

  Making fun of a person with a defect has vexed me terribly ever since I was a little boy. I thought it grossly insensitive and indescribably cruel. But most boys my age could not comprehend this. They would run after a hunchback. They would shout nasty nicknames at every cripple. They would chase a madman and pull all kinds of terrible tricks on him. Woe, I myself was not totally innocent of this sin. I would make fun of fools. But isn’t a fool also a human being with a defect? Can a fool make himself wise? And why does an ox deserve to be slaughtered? Can an ox transform itself into a human being?

  The shouts and catcalls directed at Zanvele the toomtoom continued throughout Father’s entire reading of the marriage contract and the wedding ceremony, too. Even the men who had been called in to complete the minyan made jokes and winked at each other. The woman, the rebbetzin, nodded her bonnet-bedecked head. Reb Zanvele wore the white kittel grooms wear to remind them of the day of death. By the light of the kerosene lamp his beardless face was white as chalk. In fact, he looked very much like a priest. His eyes shone with both chagrin and laughter. It seemed as if his eyes were asking, Is this what human beings are?

  The quorum of Jews departed after the ceremony, but Reb Zanvele and his new wife sat in Father’s courtroom for a long while, because they didn’t want to pass through the crowd that awaited them. In the meantime, Reb Zanvele told stories about Hasidic rebbes. I no longer remember about which rebbe he spoke, but he said, “Standing by the mezuzah, he prayed that large numbers of people would not come to him.”

  “Really?”

  “Relatively few people came. Even on Rosh Hashanah the study house was half empty.”

  “He didn’t take any money either, did he?”

  “God forbid!”

  “Every Hasidic rebbe has his own way,” Father stated. “The Rizhiner Rebbe used to ride on a coach with silver wheels … The Rimanover Rebbe used to sniff snuff from a golden box.”

  “Don’t you think I know that? But why does a rebbe need a golden snuff box?”

  “The Holy Temple was also made of gold.”

  “And so was the golden calf, forgive the comparison.”

  Soon the street youths and the low-class girls tired of waiting. They dispersed and silence reigned. Reb Zanvele and the former rebbetzin bade us good night. The rebbetzin had her own apartment and Reb Zanvele went to sleep there.

  I lay in bed until late at night unable to fall asleep. By then I already knew some of the secrets pertaining to the sexes. I recalled the shoemaker’s words: “With one slice of a knife we can make you just like him.”

  What kind of strength was it that could be sliced away with a knife? A knife could make a thousand men toomtooms and eunuchs. One pin could blind a thousand seeing eyes. One stone could break a million people’s heads. So how then can a human being consider himself so high and mighty? I liked the rebbe who took no money better than the rebbe who rode in a coach with silver wheels.

  That night I wanted to become a rebbe to whom only a select few would come. And I wouldn’t take money from them. God forbid! And I would sniff snuff from an old little wooden box, just like the one my father had.

  THE BRIDE

  When our kitchen door opened and a man dressed in a long gaberdine entered, it by no means meant that the visit would elicit any income. Such a man might have come to ask a question about ritual, or for some advice, or just to chat with Father. Quite often, respectable men would come requesting a contribution for a bride’s dowry, a Visit the Sick fund, or to sell Father an advance subscription for some scholar’s religious commentary. There were many reasons why a Jew would come to see the rabbi.

  But the situation was entirely different when a young man dressed in modern clothes visited. Someone in Western dress did not come to ask for favors or contributions. A young man like that came in to either break an engagement, get a divorce, or for a like matter which brought in a few rubles.

  The modern young man who came in one time looked particularly engaging. He wore a derby, a stiff collar, a striped tie, and held a walking stick in one hand. He wore spats over his low-laced boots. A little mustache grew above his upper lip. His jacket was unbuttoned and from his vest dangled a watch chain. He brought into the house an aroma of chocolate and perfumed soap. He came in smiling and gave a little bow.

  “Is the rabbi at home?”

  “Yes, please go into the next room.”

  Father stood next to a prayer stand over a sacred text, writing a commentary on a sheet of paper. He was composing a treatise in defense of Rashi, covering the entire Talmud, where he refutes Rabbenu Tam’s assertions that there are contradictions in Rashi’s commentary.

  “Good morning.”

  “And a good year! What can I do for you?”

  “Can we arrange a wedding here?”

  “Of course.”

  Father asked the young man to be seated. In such cases Father immediately asked if the bride and groom had parents. But it turned out that both were orphans on both sides.

  Father sighed. “Well, everything is fated.”

  From poor people Father asked three rubles to perform a wedding, but this time he requested five. The young man immediately took out a crisp five-ruble bill and paid in advance. Then he took out a silver cigarette case and offered Father an aromatic cigarette. He did everything quickly and gently.

  Father bore a grudge against the modern secular types, the dandies, the heretics, but I saw that he was favorably disposed toward this young man, who didn’t talk much and who wasn’t a pest. Having said what he had to say, he stood up and stretched out his hand to shake my father’s. Among pious Jews it was not customary to shake hands prior to departing, but my father was aware of secular customs. At the doorway the young man once again bowed his head to my mother. Then he did something totally unexpected: he gave me a six-kopeck copper coin. I blushed and did not know whether to take it or not. He patted my shoulder and whispered, “Buy yourself some jellybeans.”

  The young man left behind an aura of affection. The wedding was to take place in a couple of days, and Mother was already curious to see what the bride of such a fine young man looked like. My parents discussed this at home.

  Imagine, then, our astonishment when the young man came with his bride and several other young folk, his good friends, and we saw that she had only one leg. Everyone was astounded, except, of course, my father, who never looked at women.

  The bride was not only lame, she wasn’t much to look at either. She was wide-set, stooped over, not young, and stood on her one foot holding a crutch. The young man introduced his bride to my mother, who, confused and embarrassed, wished her mazel tov. Then everyone went into the other room. One young man had brought a bottle of brandy and a cake in a paper bag. These types of weddings were over quickly. Father had already prepared a printed marriage contract and had only to enter the names of the bride and groom. I ran down to the Hasidic shtibl and called in a co
uple of men to complete the minyan.

  The wedding canopy with the four poles was always placed next to our oven. The white robe that the groom wore, the kittel, lay in a drawer. Father did everything demanded by Jewish law and tradition. According to custom, the bride has to circle the groom seven times, following the Biblical verse in Jeremiah: “A woman shall go around a man.” For the limping bride this was not an easy task. The banging of her crutch on the floor echoed dully throughout the apartment. Even a blind man would have been able to see that the bride was lame, but my pious father neither saw nor heard. He recited the blessings; the groom declared the bride to be his wife; then Father recited the concluding blessings and congratulated the couple.

  After the ceremony the gathered guests celebrated at the table with sponge cake and brandy.

  After everyone had gone, Mother entered the study. “Well, what do you say?”

  “What should I say?”

  “Why would such a young man marry a cripple, poor thing?”

  Father shrugged. “A cripple?”

  Then Mother said to Father what she usually did under such circumstances: “Oh, are you naïve!”

  Then she described the bride. Father did not consider it so bizarre. “So what’s the big deal, marrying a cripple? Doesn’t the hymn ‘A Woman of Valor’ state: ‘False is charm and beauty is vanity’? What difference does it make if the bride has two feet or one? The body is only a body.”

  But Mother rebuked him: “If you didn’t see her then at least you should have heard her banging with her crutch.”

  But with a wave of his hand Father made naught of the entire situation. First of all, he hadn’t heard any banging. Second, how could he tell what was banging? “Oh, what nonsense!” Father said, returning to his study of the Talmud and other holy texts. Rabbenu Tam, the great scholar and grandson of Rashi, had posed a very difficult question—one as strong as a stone wall—about a Rashi commentary, and Father had to show that the holy Rashi was correct.

  Mother returned to the kitchen. She walked about agitated. Mother liked to grasp things logically. Puzzles annoyed her. What did such a good-looking young man see in such an ugly woman? How could such a match have been made? A woman neighbor came in and claimed it all stemmed from love. People who fall in love are blinded, dazzled; they lose their head. Then she began to tell all kinds of stories about love affairs—how girls were passionately in love with men who were blind, mute, hunchbacked, and who-knows-what. The truth of the matter was that my mother knew of more examples than did the neighbor, but all these incidents still could not answer her question.

  “Perhaps she has lots of money,” the neighbor declared.

  “How much money could she have? To spend your entire life with such a cripple! … Something is wrong here.”

  I too was astounded. I listened to all the neighbor’s clever explanations, but I paid scant attention to them. After a while she left and Mother said to me, “How come you’re spending all your days in the kitchen? Better pick up a holy book and study.”

  And she chased me into Father’s study. I opened up the bookcase and began rummaging among the books. I looked for one with blank inside covers, and with a pencil began drawing all kinds of little men, animals, flowers, and grotesques. I was still a small boy then, so I was permitted to look at women. I had already had my fill of seeing all kinds of mystifying things in this room, and my head was full of ideas and fantasies. It struck me that perhaps the bride and groom were not people but demons. And perhaps the bride had once been a princess who was now disguised as a lame woman. Perhaps the young man was a wizard from Madagascar who had cast a spell on her. In the storybooks I had read I had come across many such tales. Even then I felt that the world was full of great mysteries.

  I don’t know how much time passed, perhaps four or five days, perhaps a week, when suddenly I heard a heavy banging on the staircase. I pricked up my ears. Mother listened attentively, too. Someone was knocking on the door. I opened and saw the lame bride. God Almighty! She had become years older. She was bent over, seemingly broken, and her face was red and swollen. I backed away and she limped in, thumping dully with her crutch.

  “What happened?” Mother asked.

  “Rebbetzin, he’s killed me! Slaughtered me without a knife! … Woe unto me and woe unto my life! That thief, that murderer, that killer, that wretch!”

  “Sit down here. What happened?”

  “He cheated me out of everything, that ganef, that crook, that louse! … Rebbetzin, it would’ve been better if he had killed me. What should I do now? Where can I go and who can I turn to? Dear rebbetzin, that was no man but an Angel of Death!”

  The door was open and neighbors came streaming in. The lame woman was sobbing bitterly, pinching her swollen face, wringing her hands. Her words tore at your heart. She was an orphan, she said, had no mother or father. All her life she had been working as a maid in other people’s homes. He had sidled up to her with smooth talk and sweet words. He loved her, he said. He would carry her in his hands. She would be the crown of his head forever. How could she have known that he was just sweet-talking and bluffing? She believed him, woe unto her senses. She gave him everything she had, down to her last penny. For a couple of days after the wedding he was as good as an angel to her. She was happy, in seventh heaven. Then suddenly he fled, that murderer, that hangman, that skunk, that apostate! He stole everything from her. Even her wedding band. Even the presents that he himself had given her, even her wedding clothes. He left her absolutely naked … Oh, Mother! He’d gone to America, crossed the sea, gone off to the far edges of the world! And now she was a deserted wife, a bleak and hapless agunah! Wouldn’t it be better if she were a corpse lying with her feet toward the door and shards on her eyes?

  The woman yelled, wailed, cursed, and the neighbors cursed along with her. They heaped upon that charlatan all the maledictions, plagues, ulcers, blisters, and afflictions that Warsaw Yiddish possessed. Mother stood there white as a sheet with an expression of utter sorrow in her blue eyes. One puzzle had been solved, but an entire pack of new ones had overtaken her: How could this young woman have believed him? And above all, how could a young man who seemed to be so fine and sensitive have such a murderous heart? Didn’t he know that she was an orphan? Didn’t he see she was, alas, a broken cripple? How lowdown and mean could a person be? What thoughts ran through that wicked man’s head as he sailed across the ocean at night? How could he sleep after having committed such a grievous wrong? How can one sully one’s soul in such a manner? Ah, woe, how great is the evil impulse!

  Later, Mother came into the courtroom and told Father the entire story. He turned pale and for a long while could not say a word. Finally, he remarked, “Well, what can one expect? That’s what happens when one does not believe in the Creator!”

  He turned and looked at the Holy Ark, which was always covered with a curtain. There were two open-mouthed little lions with small tongues at the ledges and between them the two tablets of the law with the Ten Commandments. All day long these tablets proclaimed: I am the Lord your God … Thou shalt not murder, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not covet …

  Whosoever does not hearken to this voice lives in a lawless world, a world of absolute chaos.

  HAD HE BEEN A KOHEN

  The door opened and a bareheaded woman came in. It was rare for a woman to enter our apartment with her head uncovered; even those women who went about bareheaded would don a kerchief before coming in. But this woman was apparently too upset, too agitated to think about anything else besides her shame and utter disgrace. She was of average height, rather chubby, with a florid face and blondish hair combed back in a bun and held together with hairpins. This woman had surely once been a beauty, but now she looked disheveled, bitter, and angry. She had already begun yelling in the kitchen.

  “He’s a murderer! A bandit! I can’t take it any longer! I want a divorce! A divorce!”

  Evidently, Mother knew her.
She lived across the street from us at 15 Krochmalna Street. Amid shouts and curses, she described what her husband, that outcast, that scoundrel, was doing. He wasn’t supporting the family, he paid no attention to the children, he spent days on end in the tavern at 17 Krochmalna drinking with hooligans and loose women. But the trick he had pulled the other day went beyond all bounds. This she wouldn’t keep quiet. This she wouldn’t forget even when she lay with her feet toward the door and shards on her eyes.

  “What did he do?”

  “Rebbetzin, he gambled away our stove!”

  “The stove? How can one gamble away one’s stove?”

  This man apparently didn’t have a built-in tile stove in his apartment like we did; he had a removable iron stove. And it was this stove that he had lost at cards. Men had come into the apartment and removed it.

  The woman was shrieking away in an unearthly voice. Mother usually attempted to make peace among couples, but this incident touched her to the quick. Embarrassed at how low a man could sink, she stood there silent. The woman began enumerating an entire list of flaws, one worse than the other. Mother was so preoccupied with the woman she didn’t even notice me there. Under different circumstances she would surely have chased me away. I had already known that people commit all kinds of wrongs, but I had never heard of such abominations. Who could have imagined that such evildoers were living so close to us?

  Father sent me to summon her husband, and I went with great curiosity. I climbed up to a high story and found a half-opened door. Several children were playing, yelling, screeching. On a broken sofa lay a man, fat, unshaven, with a thick yellow mustache, wearing a shirt with a studded collar and boots with matching high bootlegs, the sort that were worn by hooligans and common riffraff. He was bareheaded and his sandy-colored hair was closely cropped. He looked sleepy, drunk, and angry.

  “What do you want?”