The Collected Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer

by Isaac Bashevis Singer

  “So-so,” the rabbi muttered.

  “Do you have a wife and children?”

  The rabbi didn’t answer.

  “What is the name of your village?”

  The rabbi remained silent. He felt as timid as a cheder boy. He said, “Thank you,” and left.

  VI

  The rabbi continued to walk the streets. Dusk was falling, and he remembered that it was time for the Evening Prayer, but he was in no mood to flatter the Almighty, to call Him a bestower of knowledge, a reviver of the dead, a healer of the sick, a freer of the imprisoned, or to implore Him to return His holy presence to Zion and to rebuild Jerusalem.

  The rabbi passed a jail. A black gate was opened and a man bound in chains was led in. A cripple without legs moved about on a board with wheels. A blind man sang a song about a sunken ship. On a narrow street, the rabbi heard an uproar. Someone had been stabbed—a tall young man with blood gushing from his throat. A woman moaned, “He refused to be robbed, so they attacked with their knives. May hell’s fire consume them. God waits long but punishes well.”

  Why does He wait so long, the rabbi wanted to ask. And whom does He punish? The stricken, not the strikers. Police arrived, and the siren of an ambulance wailed. Young men in torn pants, the visors of their caps covering their eyes, rushed out from the gates, and girls with their hair disheveled, worn-out slippers on their bare feet. The rabbi was afraid of the mob and its noise. He entered a courtyard. A girl with a shawl over her shoulders, her cheeks as red as though painted with beets, said to the rabbi, “Come in, it’s twenty groschen.”

  “Where shall I go?” the rabbi asked uncomprehendingly.

  “Come right downstairs.”

  “I’m looking for a place where I can lodge.”

  “I will recommend you.” The girl took his arm.

  The rabbi started. For the first time since he had grown up, a strange woman was touching him. The girl led him down dark steps. They walked through a corridor so narrow that only one person could pass at a time. The girl walked ahead, dragging the rabbi by his sleeve. A subterranean dampness hit his nostrils. What was this—a living grave, the gate to Gehenna? Someone was playing on a harmonica. A woman was ranting. A cat or a rat jumped over his feet. A door opened and the rabbi saw a room without a window, lit by a small kerosene lamp, its chimney black with soot. Near a bare bed that had only a straw mattress stood a washbasin of pink water. The rabbi’s feet stuck to the threshold like those of an ox being led into the slaughterhouse. “What’s this? Where are you taking me?”

  “Don’t play dumb. Let’s have fun.”

  “I’m looking for an inn.”

  “Hand over the twenty groschen.”

  Could this be a house of ill repute? The rabbi trembled and withdrew a handful of change from his pocket. “Take it yourself.”

  The girl picked up a ten-groschen coin, a six-groschen coin, and a four-groschen coin. After some hesitation she added a kopeck. She pointed to the bed. The rabbi dropped the remaining coins and ran back through the corridor. The floor was uneven and full of holes. He nearly fell. He bumped into the brick wall. “God in Heaven, save me!” His shirt was drenched. When he reached the courtyard, it was already night. The place stank of garbage, gutter, and rot. Now the rabbi deplored that he had invoked the name of God. His mouth filled with bile. A tremor ran through his spine. These are the pleasures of the world? Is this what Satan has to sell? He took out his handkerchief and wiped his face. Where do I go now? “Whereto shall I flee Thy countenance?” He raised his eyes, and above the walls hovered the sky with a new moon and a few stars. He gazed bewildered, as if viewing it for the first time. Not even twenty-four hours had passed since he had left Bechev, but it seemed to him that he had been wandering for weeks, months, years.

  The girl from the cellar stepped out again. “Why did you run away, you silly yokel?”

  “Please forgive me,” the rabbi said, and he walked out into the street. The crowd was gone. Smoke rose from chimneys. Storekeepers were locking their stores with iron bars and locks. What had happened to the young man who was stabbed, the rabbi wondered. Had the earth swallowed him? Suddenly he realized that he was still carrying his valise. How was this possible? It seemed as if his hand clutched it with a power of its own. Perhaps this was the same power that created the world? Maybe this power was God? The rabbi wanted to laugh and to cry. I’m not even good at sinning—a bungler in every way. Well, it’s my end, my end. In that case there’s only one way out, to give back the six hundred and thirty limbs and sinews. But how? Hanging? Drowning? Was the Vistula nearby? The rabbi stopped a passer-by. “Excuse me, how do you get to the Vistula?”

  The man had a sooty face, like a chimney sweeper. From under his bushy, coal-black eyebrows, he stared at the rabbi. “For what do you need the Vistula? Do you want to fish?” His voice barked like a dog’s.

  “Fish, no.”

  “What else, swim to Danzig?”

  A jester, the rabbi thought. “I was told there is an inn in the neighborhood.”

  “An inn near the Vistula? Where do you come from, the provinces? What are you doing here, looking for a teaching job?”

  “Teaching? Yes. No.”

  “Mister, to walk the Warsaw cobblestones, you need strength. Do you have any money?”

  “A few rubles.”

  “For one gulden a night, you can sleep in my place. I live right here in number 14. I have no wife. I will give you her bed.”

  “Well, so be it. I thank you.”

  “Have you eaten?”

  “Yes, in the morning.”

  “In the morning, huh? Come with me to the tavern. We’ll have a glass of beer. A snack, too. I’m the coal dealer from across the street.” The man pointed with a black finger to a store whose doors were barred. He said, “Be careful, they may steal your money. A man from the provinces has just been taken to the hospital in an ambulance. They stabbed him with a knife.”

  VII

  The coal dealer walked up the few steps to the tavern. The rabbi stumbled along after him. The dealer opened a glass door and the rabbi was struck by the odor of beer, vodka, garlic, by the sounds of men’s and women’s loud voices and of dance music. His eyes blurred. “Why do you stop?” the coal handler asked. “Let’s go.” He took the rabbi’s arm and dragged him.

  Through vapor as dense as in the bathhouse of Bechev, the rabbi saw distorted faces, racks of bottles on the wall, a beer barrel with a brass pump, a counter on which sat platters of roasted geese, plates of appetizers. Fiddles screeched, a drum pounded; everyone seemed to be yelling. “Has something happened?” the rabbi asked.

  The coal dealer led him to a table and screamed into his ear, “This is not your little village. This is Warsaw. Here you have to know your way around.”

  “I’m not used to such noise.”

  “You’ll get used to it. What kind of teacher do you want to be? There are more teachers here than pupils. Every schlemiel becomes a teacher. What’s the good of all the studying? They forget anyhow. I went to cheder myself. They taught me Rashi and all that. I still remember a few words: ‘And the Lord said unto Moses—’ ”

  “A few words of the Torah are also Torah,” the rabbi said, aware that he had no right to speak after having violated so many commandments.

  “What? None of it’s worth a cock’s crow. These boys sit in the study house, shaking and making crazy faces. When they’re about to be drafted, they rupture themselves. They marry and can’t support their wives. They breed dozens of children, who crawl about barefoot and naked …”

  Perhaps he is the real unbeliever, the rabbi thought. He asked, “Do you believe in God?”

  The coal dealer placed a fist on the table. “How do I know? I was never in heaven. Something is there. Who made the world? On the Sabbath I go to pray with a group called ‘The Love of Friends.’ It costs a few rubles, but how does the saying go—let it be a mitzvah. We pray with a rabbi who barely has a piece of bread. His wife comes t
o me to buy ten pounds of coal. What are ten pounds of coal in the winter? I add a piece just for good measure. If there is a God, then why does He allow the Poles to beat up the Jews?”

  “I don’t know. I wish I did.”

  “What does the Torah say? You seem to know the fine points.”

  “The Torah says that the wicked are punished and the righteous rewarded.”

  “When? Where?”

  “In the next world.”

  “In the grave?”

  “In Paradise.”

  “Where is Paradise?”

  A waiter approached. “For me, light beer and chicken livers,” the coal dealer ordered. “What do you want?”

  The rabbi was at a loss for an answer. He asked, “Can one wash one’s hands here?”

  The coal dealer snorted. “Here you eat without washing, but it’s kosher. They won’t serve you pork.”

  “Perhaps I will have a cookie,” the rabbi muttered.

  “A cookie? What else? Here you have to wash everything down. What kind of beer do you want? Light? Dark?”

  “Let it be light.”

  “Well, give him a mug of oat beer and an egg cookie.” After the waiter left, the coal dealer began to drum the table with his sooty nails. “If you haven’t eaten since morning, that isn’t enough. Here, if you don’t eat you’ll drop like a fly. In Warsaw you have to be a glutton. If you want to wash your hands for the benediction, go into the toilet. There’s a faucet there, but you’ll have to wipe your hands on your coat.”

  “Why am I so unhappy?” the rabbi asked himself. “I am sunk in iniquity just like the rest of them—even worse. If I don’t want to be Jacob, I have to be Esau.” To the coal dealer, he said, “I don’t want to be a teacher.”

  “What do you want to be, a count?”

  “I would like to learn some trade.”

  “What trade? If you want to be a tailor or a shoemaker or a furrier, you have to begin young. They take you as an apprentice and the master’s wife tells you to pour out the slops and to rock the baby in the cradle. I know. I learned to be a carpenter and my master never let me touch the saw or the plane. I suffered with him for four years and when I left I had learned nothing. Before I knew it, I had to go serve the czar. For three years I ate the soldier’s black bread. In the barracks you have to eat pig, otherwise you have no strength to carry the gun. Did I have a choice? When I was discharged, I went to work for a coal dealer and this has been my trade since. Everybody steals. They bring you a wagon of coals that should weigh one hundred pood but it weighs only ninety. Ten pood are stolen along the way. If you ask too many questions, they knife you. So what can I do? I pour water on the coal and that makes it heavier. If I didn’t do it, I would go hungry. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  “So why chatter about a trade? You most probably warmed the bench in the study house all these years, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I studied.”

  “So you’re good for nothing except to be a teacher. But you have to be fit for that also. There’s a Talmud Torah on the block where they had a softy of a teacher. The boys who study there are all hoodlums. They played so many tricks on him he ran away. As for the rich, they want a modern teacher who wears a tie and knows how to write Russian. Do you have a wife?”

  “No.”

  “Divorced?”

  “A widower.”

  “Shake hands. I had a good wife. She was a little deaf but did her job. She prepared my meals, we had five children, but three died when they were babies. I have a son in Yekaterinslav. My daughter works in a hardware store. She boards with her employers. She doesn’t want to cook for her papa. Her boss is a rich man. Anyhow, I’m alone. How long have you been a widower?”

  “A few years.”

  “What do you do when you need a female?”

  The rabbi blushed and then became pale. “What can one do?”

  “For money, everything can be had in Warsaw. Not here on this street. Here they’re all infected. You go to a girl and she has a little worm in her blood. You get sick and you begin to rot. There’s a man in the neighborhood whose whole nose has rotted off. On the better streets the whores have to be inspected every month at the doctor’s. It cost you a ruble to be with one of them, but at least they’re clean. The matchmakers are after me but I can’t make up my mind. All the women want is your rubles. I was sitting with one right here in the tavern and she asked me, ‘How much money do you have?’ She was an old hag and ugly as sin. I said to her that how much money I had saved up was none of her business. If for one ruble I can get a girl who is young and pretty, why do I need such an old bag? Do you follow me? Here’s our beer. What’s the matter? You’re as pale as death.”

  VIII

  Three weeks had passed, but the rabbi still wandered about in Warsaw. He slept at the coal dealer’s. The coal dealer had taken him to the Yiddish theater after the Sabbath meal. He had also taken the rabbi with him to the races at Vilanov.

  Every day except Saturday, the rabbi visited Bresler’s library. He stood at the bookshelves and browsed. Then there was a table where one could sit and read. The rabbi came in the morning and stayed until closing time. In the afternoon he went out and bought a roll, a bagel, or a piece of potato kugel from a market woman. He ate without a benediction. He read books in Hebrew, in Yiddish. He even tried to read German. In the library he found the book that he had first seen in the shop window, How the Universe Came into Being. “Yes, how was it created without a creator?” the rabbi asked himself. He had developed the habit of talking to himself. He tugged at his beard, winced, and shook as he used to in the study house. He muttered, “Yes, a fog, but who made the fog? How did it arise? When did it begin?”

  The earth was torn away from the sun, he read—but who formed the sun? Man descended from an ape—but where did the ape come from? And since the author wasn’t present when all this happened, how could he be so sure? Their science explained everything away in distance of time and space. The first cell appeared hundreds of millions of years ago, in the slime at the edge of the ocean. The sun will be extinguished billions of years hence. Millions of stars, planets, comets, move in a space with no beginning and no end, without a plan or purpose. In the future all people will be alike, there will be a Kingdom of Freedom without competition, crises, wars, jealousy, or hatred. As the Talmud says, anyone who wants to lie will tell of things that happen far away. In an old copy of the Hebrew magazine, Haasif, the rabbi read about Spinoza, Kant, Leibnitz, Schopenhauer. They called God substance, monad, hypothesis, blind will, nature.

  The rabbi clutched at one of his sidelocks. Who is this nature? Where did it get so much skill and power? It took care of the most distant star, of a rock in the bottom of the ocean, of the slightest speck of dust, of the food in a fly’s stomach. In him, Rabbi Nechemia of Bechev, nature did everything at once. It gave him abdominal cramps, it stuffed his nose, it made his skull tingle, it gnawed at his brain like the gnat that plagued Titus. The rabbi blasphemed God and apologized to Him. One moment he wished death upon himself and the next he feared sickness. He needed to urinate, went to the toilet but couldn’t function. As he read, he saw green and golden spots before his eyes and the lines merged, diverged, bent, and passed over one another. “Am I going blind? Is it the end? Have the demons already got hold of me? No, Father of the Universe, I will not recite my confession. I’m ready for all your Gehennas. If you can be silent for an eternity, I at least will remain dumb until I give up my soul. You are not the only man of war,” the rabbi spoke to the Almighty. “If I am your son, I too can put up a fight.”

  The rabbi stopped reading in an orderly fashion. He would take out a book, open it at the middle, run through a few lines, and replace it on the shelf. No matter where he opened, he encountered a lie. All books had one thing in common: they avoided the essential, spoke vaguely, and gave different names to the same object. They knew neither how grass grew nor what light was, how heredity worked, the
stomach digested, the brain thought, how weak nations grew strong, nor how the strong perished. Even though these scholars wrote thick books about the distant galaxies, they hadn’t yet discovered what went on a mile beneath the crust of the earth.

  The rabbi turned pages and gaped. He would lay his forehead on the edge of the table and nap for an instant. “Woe to me, I have no more strength.” Every night, the coal dealer tried to persuade the rabbi to return to his own village. He would say, “You will collapse and they won’t even know what to write on your headstone.”

  IX

  Late one night when Hinde Shevach slept, she was awakened by steps in the corridor. Who creeps around in the middle of the night, Hinde Shevach wondered. Since her brother had left, it was as silent in the house as in a ruin. Hinde Shevach got up, put on a house coat and slippers. She opened a crack in the door and noticed a light in her brother’s room. She walked over and saw the rabbi. His gaberdine was torn, his shirt was unbuttoned, his skullcap was crumpled. The expression on his face was entirely altered. He was bent like an old man. In the middle of the room stood a satchel.

  Hinde Shevach wrung her hands. “Are my eyes deceiving me?”

  “No.”

  “Father in Heaven, they’re searching for you all over. May the thoughts that I had be scattered over the wastelands. They’re already writing about you in the newspapers.”

  “So, well.”

  “Where were you? Why did you leave? Why did you hide?”

  The rabbi didn’t reply.

  “Why didn’t you say you were leaving?” Hinde Shevach asked despondently.

  The rabbi dropped his head and didn’t answer.

  “We thought you were dead, God forbid. I telegraphed Simcha David but no answer came. I wanted to sit the seven days of mourning for you. Heaven save me! The whole town is in an uproar. They invented the most gruesome things. They even informed the police. A policeman came to ask me for your description and all the rest of it.”