The Collected Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer

by Isaac Bashevis Singer

  “Bendel, I cannot do it.”

  “Is this your last word?”

  “I cannot play such a farce.”

  “Well, no is no. I will have to do it, then—I’ll tell him that I am a distant cousin, a poor relation. She even supported me. What name should I take? Lipman Geiger. I had a partner in Vienna by that name. Wait, I must make a telephone call.”

  Liebkind Bendel jumped up and ran to a telephone booth. He stayed there about ten minutes. I could see him through the glass door. He was turning the pages of a notebook. He made strange grimaces. When he returned, he said, “I have gotten a hotel and all the rest of it. What did I need the whole meshuggas for? I’m going to close down the magazine. I will go to Palestine and become a Jew. All these writers—empty heads, they have nothing to say. At fifty my grandfather woke up every night for the midnight prayers; Dr. Walden wants to seduce an heiress at sixty-five. His last letter was simply a song—the Song of Songs. And who needs his encyclopedia? That Frau Schuldiener is a fool, and in addition she plays the fool.”

  “Perhaps he would marry Frau Schuldiener.”

  “She’s over seventy. Already a great-grandmother. She was once a teacher in Frankfurt … in Hamburg—I have forgotten where. She copied her phrases from a book of standard love letters. Perhaps what I should do is get hold of a female who could play the role of Eleanor. How about the Yiddish actresses?”

  “All they can do is weep.”

  “Somewhere in New York there may be a true admirer of his—an old spinster who would be eager for such a match. But where do you find her? As for me, I’m tired of everything. That Friedel is educated enough but without any imagination. All she thinks about is Schlegel. Sarah is completely absorbed by her crazy daughter. They have a new custom—they send the patients home from the institutions and then they take them back again. One month she is there and the other with her mother. I sit with them and I begin to feel that I am not all there myself. Why am I telling you all this? Do me a favor and come with me to the airport. I will always remember it. Do you agree? Give me your hand. Together we’ll manage somehow. Let’s drink to it.”

  III

  I stood behind the glass partition and watched the passengers arriving. Liebkind Bendel was jittery, and the smoke from his cigar almost asphyxiated me. For some reason I was sure that Dr. Walden was a tall man. But he was short, broad, and fat, with a big belly and a huge head. On that hot summer day he wore a long coat, a flowing tie, and a plush hat with a broad brim. He had a thick gray mustache and was smoking a pipe. He carried two leather valises with old-fashioned locks and side pockets. His eyes under his heavy brows were searching for someone.

  Liebkind Bendel’s nervousness was contagious. He smelled of liquor, he purred like a tomcat. He waved his hands and cried, “Certainly that’s he. I recognize him. See how fat he has gotten—broader than he is long. An old billy goat.”

  When Dr. Walden came up on the escalator, Liebkind Bendel pushed me toward him. I wanted to run away but I couldn’t. Instead, I stepped forward. “Dr. Walden?”

  Dr. Walden put down his suitcases, removed the pipe from between his blackish teeth and set it, still lighted, in his pocket. “Ja.”

  “Dr. Walden,” I said, in English, “I am a friend of Miss Eleanor Seligman-Braude. There was an accident. Her plane crashed.” I spoke hurriedly. I felt a dryness in my throat and palate.

  I expected a scene, but he just looked at me from under his bushy brows. He cupped his ear and answered me in German. “Would you mind repeating that? I cannot understand your American English.”

  “A misfortune has happened—a great misfortune.” Liebkind Bendel began to speak in Yiddish. “Your friend was flying from California and her plane fell down. It fell right into the sea. All passengers were killed—sixty persons.”

  “When? How?”

  “Yesterday—seventy innocent people—mostly mothers of children.” Liebkind Bendel spoke with a Galician accent and singsong. “I was her near friend and so was this young man. We had heard that you were arriving. We wanted to telegraph you, but it was already too late, so we came to greet you. It’s a great honor for us, but it’s heartbreaking to have to bring such terrible tidings.” Liebkind Bendel waved his arms; he shook and screamed into Dr. Walden’s ear as though he were deaf.

  Dr. Walden took off his hat and placed it on top of his luggage. He was bald in the front but at the back of his head he had a shock of graying blond hair. He took out a soiled handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his forehead. I had the feeling that he still did not understand. He seemed to be considering. His face sagged; he looked dusty, crumpled, unshaved. Clumps of hair protruded from his ears and nostrils. He smelled of medicine. After a while he said in German, “I expected her here in New York. Why did she go to California?”

  “For business. Fraulein Seligman-Braude was a business lady. It concerned a big sum—millions—and here in America they say, ‘Business before and later pleasure.’ She was hurrying back to meet you. But it wasn’t destined to be.” Liebkind Bendel delivered this in one breath and his voice became shrill. “She told me everything. She worshipped you, Dr. Walden, but man proposes and God imposes, as they say. Eighty healthy people—young women and tiny babies—in the primes of their lives—”

  “May I ask you who you are?” Dr. Walden said.

  “A friend, a friend. This young man is a Yiddish writer.” Liebkind Bendel pointed at me. “He writes in Yiddish papers and all the rest of it—feuilletons and what have you. Everything in the mother language so that plain people should enjoy. We have many landsleit here in New York, and English is a dried-up tongue for them. They want the juiciness from the old country.”

  “Ja.”

  “Dr. Walden, we have rented a hotel room for you,” Liebkind Bendel said. “My sympathy to you! Really, this is tragic. What was her name?—Fraulein Braude-Seligson was a wonderful woman. Gentle, with nice manners. Beautiful also. She knew Hebrew and ten other languages. Suddenly something breaks in a motor, a screw gets loose, and all this culture is finished. That is what man is—a straw, a speck of dust, a soap bubble.”

  I was grateful to Dr. Walden for his dignified behavior. He did not weep, he did not cry out. He raised his brows and his watery eyes, full of red veins, stared at us with astonishment and suspicion. He asked, “Where can I find the men’s room? The trip has made me sick.”

  “Right there, right there!” Liebkind Bendel shouted. “There is no lack of toilets in America. Come with us, Dr. Walden—we just passed the washroom.”

  Liebkind Bendel lifted one valise, I the other, and we led Dr. Walden to the men’s room. He looked questioningly at us and at his luggage. Then he entered the washroom and remained there for quite a long time.

  I said, “He behaved like a fine man.”

  “The worst is over. I was afraid that he might faint. I am not going to forsake him. Let him stay in New York as long as he wants. Perhaps he will write for Das Wort after all. I would make him the main editor and all of that. Friedel is tired of it. The writers ask for royalties and send angry letters. If they find a misprint or a single line is missing, your life is in danger. I will give him thirty dollars a week and let him sit and scribble. We could publish the magazine half in German, half in Yiddish. You two together could be the editors. Friedel would be satisfied to be the editorial—how do you call it?—superintendent.”

  “You told me yourself that Dr. Walden hates Yiddish.”

  “Today he hates it, tomorrow he will love it. For a few pennies and a compliment you can buy all these intellectuals.”

  “You shouldn’t have told him that I am a Yiddish writer.”

  “There are a lot of things I shouldn’t have done. In the first place I shouldn’t have been born, in the second place I shouldn’t have married Friedel, in the third place I never should have begun this funny comedy, in the fourth place … Since I haven’t mentioned your name, he will never find you. It’s all because of my admiration for great men
. I always loved writers. If a man had something printed in a newspaper or a magazine, he was God. I read the Neue Freie Presse as if it were the Bible. Every month I received Haolam, and there Dr. Walden published his articles. I ran to lectures like a madman. That is how I met Friedel. Here is our Dr. Walden.”

  Dr. Walden seemed shaky. His face was yellow. He had forgotten to button his fly. He stared at us and muttered. Then he said, “Excuse me,” and he went back into the washroom.

  IV

  Dr. Walden had asked for my address and telephone number, and I gave him both. I could not cheat this learned man. The day after his arrival in New York, Liebkind Bendel left for Mexico City. Lately he was always flying to Mexico. I suspected he had a mistress there, and most probably business, too. In a strange way, Liebkind Bendel combined the roles of merchant and art connoisseur. He went to Washington to try to get a visa for a Jewish writer in Germany, and there he became a partner in a factory that produced airplane parts. The owner was a Jew from Poland who was in the leather business and had not the slightest knowledge of aviation. I had begun to realize that the world of economy, industry, and so-called practical matters was not much more substantial than that of literature and philosophy.

  One day when I came home after lunch, I found a message that Dr. Walden had called. I telephoned him and I heard a stammering and a wheezing. He spoke to me in Germanized Yiddish. He mispronounced my name. He said, “Please come over. I am kaput.”

  Liebkind Bendel had put Dr. Walden in an Orthodox Jewish hotel downtown, though the two of us lived uptown. I suspected that he wanted to keep him as far away as possible. I took the subway to Lafayette Street and walked over to the hotel. The lobby was full of rabbis. They seemed to be having a conference. They strolled up and down in their long gaberdines and velvet hats. They gesticulated, clutched at their beards, and all spoke at the same time. The elevator stopped at each floor and through the open doors I saw a bride being photographed in her wedding dress, yeshiva boys packing prayer books and shawls, and waiters in skullcaps cleaning up after a banquet. I knocked on Dr. Walden’s door. He appeared in a burgundy-red bathrobe down to his ankles. It was covered with spots. He wore scuffed slippers. The room reeked of tobacco, valerian drops, and the rancid smell of illness. He looked bloated, old, confused. He asked, “Are you Mr.—what is the name—the editor of Jugend?”

  I told him my name.

  “Do you write for that jargon Tageblatt?”

  I gave him the name of my newspaper.

  “Well—ja.”

  After Dr. Walden tried again and again to speak to me in German, he finally changed to Yiddish, with all the inflections and pronunciations of the village he came from. He said, “What kind of calamity is this? Why all of a sudden did she fly to California? For years I could not make up my mind whether to take this trip or not. Like Kant, I suffer from travel phobia. A friend of mine, Professor Mondek, a relative of the famous Mondek, gave me pills but they prevented me from urinating. I was sure my end had come. A fine thing, I thought, if the airplane arrives to New York with me dead. Instead, she is gone. I just cannot grasp it. I asked someone and he had not heard of this plane crash. I called her number and an old woman answered. She must be deaf and senile—she sounded incoherent. Who was the other little man who met me at the airport?”

  “Lipman Geiger.”

  “Geiger—a grandson of Abraham Geiger? The Geigers don’t speak Yiddish. Most of them are converted.”

  “This Geiger comes from Poland.”

  “What was his connection with Miss Eleanor Seligman-Braude?”

  “Friends.”

  “I am completely bewildered.” Dr. Walden spoke half to me, half to himself. “I know English from reading Shakespeare. I have read The Tempest in the original a number of times. It is Shakespeare’s greatest work. Each line is deeply symbolic. A masterpiece in every way. Caliban is actually Hitler. But here they speak an English that sounds like Chinese. I don’t understand a single word they say. Did Miss Eleanor Seligman-Braude have any family?”

  “Distant relatives. But as far as I know she kept away from them.”

  “What will happen to her fortune? Usually rich people leave a will. Not that I have any interest in such matters—absolutely none. And what about the body? Isn’t there going to be a funeral in New York?”

  “Her body is somewhere in the ocean.”

  “Do they fly from California to New York over the ocean?”

  “It seems that instead of east the plane flew west.”

  “How could this be? Where was this crash reported? In what newspaper? When?”

  “All I know is what Lipman Geiger told me. He was her friend, not I.”

  “What? A riddle, a riddle. One should not go against one’s own nature. Once, Immanuel Kant was about to take a trip from Königsberg to some other town in Prussia. He had traveled only a short distance when there was rain, lightning, and thunder, and he immediately gave orders to turn back. Somewhere I knew all the time that this trip would be a fiasco. I have nothing to do here—absolutely nothing. But I cannot fly back to London in my present condition. To go by ship would be even worse. I will tell you the truth, I brought almost no money with me. My great friend and benefactor, Dan Kniaster, is now a refugee himself. I worked on an encyclopedia, but we left the plates in Berlin—even the manuscripts. The Nazis had placed a time bomb in our office and we just missed being torn to pieces. Does anybody know that I am in New York? I traveled, as they say, incognito. As things are now, perhaps it would be useful to let the newspapers know. I have many enemies here, but perhaps somewhere a friend might be found.”

  “I think Lipman Geiger notified the newspapers.”

  “There is no mention of me anywhere. I asked for the papers.” Dr. Walden pointed to a pile of Yiddish newspapers on a chair.

  “I will do my best.”

  “At my age one should not undertake such adventures. Where is that Mr. Geiger?”

  “He had to fly to Mexico but he will be back soon.”

  “To Mexico? What is he doing in Mexico? So, this is my end. I am not afraid of death, but I have no desire to be buried in this wild city. True, London is not much quieter but at least I have a few acquaintances there.”

  “You will live, Dr. Walden,” I said. “You will live to see the fall of Hitler.”

  “What for? Hitler still has something to spoil on this earth. But I have already committed all my blunders. Too many. This unlucky trip is not even a tragedy. Just a joke—well—ja, my life is one big joke, from the beginning to the end.”

  “You have given much to humanity, to the Jewish reader.”

  “Trifles, rubbish, junk. Did you personally know Miss Seligman-Braude?”

  “Yes—no. I just heard of her.”

  “I didn’t like that Geiger—a buffoon. What do you write in the Yiddish newspapers? What is there to write about? We are returning to the jungle. Homo sapiens is bankrupt. All values are gone—literature, science, religion. Well, for my part I have given up altogether.”

  Dr. Walden took a letter from his pocket. It was stained with coffee and ashes. He scrutinized it, closing one eye, wincing and snorting. “I begin to suspect that this Miss Seligman-Braude never existed.”

  V

  Late one evening when I was lying on my bed fully dressed, brooding about my laziness, neglected work, and lack of will power, I got the signal that I was wanted on the pay telephone downstairs. I ran down the three flights of steps, lifted the receiver, which dangled from a cord, and heard an unfamiliar voice saying my name. The voice said, “I am Dr. Linder. Are you a friend of Dr. Alexander Walden?”

  “I have met him.”

  “Dr. Walden has had a heart attack and is in the Beth Aaron Hospital. He gave me your name and telephone number. Are you a relative?”

  “No relative.”

  “Doesn’t he have any family here?”

  “It seems not.”

  “He asked me to call Professor Albert Einstein, b
ut nobody answers. I cannot be bothered with such errands. Come tomorrow to the hospital. He is in the ward. That’s all we could give him for the time being. I’m sorry.”

  “What’s the situation?”

  “Not too good. He has a whole list of complications. You can visit him between twelve and two or six and eight. Goodbye.”

  I searched for a nickel to call Friedel but found only a fifty-cent piece and two dollar bills. I went out on Broadway to get change. By the time I had it and found a drugstore with an unoccupied telephone booth, more than half an hour had passed. I dialed Friedel’s number and the line was busy. For another quarter of an hour I kept on dialing the same number and it was always busy. A woman entered the next booth and lined up her coins. She looked back at me with a smug expression that seemed to say, “You’re waiting in vain.” As she spoke, she gesticulated with her cigarette. From time to time she twirled a lock of her bleached hair. Her scarlet, pointed claws suggested a rapaciousness as deep as the human tragedy.

  I found a penny and weighed myself. According to this scale, I had lost four pounds. A slip of cardboard fell out. It read, “You are a person with gifts but you waste them on nothing.”

  I will try once more, and if the telephone is still busy I will go home immediately, I vowed to myself. This scale told the bitter truth.

  The line wasn’t busy. I heard Friedel’s mannish voice. At that very moment, the lady with the bleached hair and scarlet nails hurriedly left the booth. She winked at me with her false eyelashes. “Mrs. Bendel,” I said, “I am sorry to disturb you. Dr. Walden has had a heart attack. They have taken him to Beth Aaron Hospital. He is in the ward.”

  “Oh, my God! I knew that nothing good would come of that joke. I warned Liebkind. It was a crime—absolutely a crime. That is the way Liebkind is—a trick occurs to him and he doesn’t know when to stop. What can I do? I don’t even know where he is now. He was supposed to stop in Cuba. Where are you?”