“She was so pure that the things I forced her to do shattered her. I have a large bundle of her letters and they are stained with her tears—not false ones but true. A time is coming when no one will believe that such women existed. Meanwhile, years passed, she grew older and her hair became white, but her face remained young and her eyes shone with all the illusions of romanticism. I had less and less time for her. The rich Jews of Warsaw slowly lost their interest in German culture and Theresa earned less and less. But I could not completely sever our relationship. I always had the feeling that, if everything went wrong and I was forsaken by everyone, I could depend on Theresa to be my mother, my wife, my protector. She had developed the tolerance characteristic of such natures. I was allowed to do anything. I never had to defend myself. In my situation one has to be a chronic liar, but to Theresa I could tell the truth no matter how brutal. She always had the same answer, ‘You poor boy! You great artist!’
“The years, meanwhile, did their job. Theresa became bent and wrinkled. She began to suffer from rheumatism. She had to lean on a cane. I was ashamed of myself for my charity, if it could be called that, but to leave her completely meant killing her. She clung to me with her last strength. At night in bed she became young again. Sometimes in the dark, words escaped her which astounded me. Among other things she promised me that after her death she would appear to me, if it were possible. I don’t want to disappoint you, so I am telling you in advance that she never kept that promise. But my story is just beginning.”
Max Persky signaled the waitress and she came over at once, as though she had been waiting impatiently for this call. He spoke to her with caressing familiarity, “Panna Helena, I am beginning to get hungry.”
“My God, today we have what you like—tomato soup.”
“What are you going to have?” he asked me.
“Tomato soup, also.”
“Panna Helena, make it two.” He winked at her and I understood that he had the same conspiratorial relationship with her that he had had with Theresa Stein. Max Persky was in his own way a philanthropist—not with money but with love.
After the soup Max Persky lit a cigarette and asked, “Where did I stop? Yes, she grew old. She had to move out of her apartment and become a boarder with other people. This was a real tragedy, but I could not help her. You know, I never had a penny. I could not even lend a hand with the packing and moving, because Theresa Stein had a spotless reputation in Warsaw and the slightest gossip would have caused her to lose her last lessons. To tell the truth, no one would have really believed that Theresa was capable of doing what she actually did. The older she became the more guilty she felt about it and, nevertheless, shamefully asked for her due. As long as she had her private apartment, it was not difficult to keep the conspiracy. I always came to her early in the evening, and never failed to carry a book with me to pretend I was her pupil. If the neighbors ever saw me, they certainly did not suspect that I was Theresa’s lover. But when she boarded with other people, I could not visit her any more. This should have been the end, but with women such as Theresa it’s as difficult to end as to begin. She kept calling me and writing me long letters. We began to meet in cafés in the faraway Gentile streets. Every time I met her she brought me some kind of present—a book, a tie, even handkerchiefs and socks.
At this time I was having an affair with a niece of the Biala Rabbi whose name was Nina. I think I’ve told you already about this Nina. She ran away from the rabbi’s court and tried to become a painter in Warsaw. She kept threatening her uncle the rabbi that if he refused to help her with money, she would convert. She was half crazy. The love between us was what pulp novels call stormy. She burned with jealousy and always suspected the women who were most innocent. Every few weeks she attempted suicide. Until then I had never hit a woman, but Nina’s hysteria was the kind that could be quieted only with blows. She admitted it herself. When she began her wild antics, tearing her hair, crying, laughing, and trying to throw herself out the window, there was no other remedy but to give her a few fiery slaps in the face. It worked like a charm. After the slaps she usually started to kiss. Until then I knew well how to manage my women. But Nina harassed me with her jealous behavior. If she caught me with another woman, she grabbed her hair and tore at it like a fishwife. She drove all my girls away. To get rid of Nina was impossible. She carried poison with her. I fell into such despair that I began to write a play—the one they ruined later in the Central Theater.
“One night, it was in the winter, Nina had to go to Biala to see her uncle. Whenever she went on a trip, she waited to let me know at the last minute to prevent me from making other rendezvous. The insane are very sly. This evening when she told me she was leaving, I began to telephone all my victims. But it was one of those nights when everyone was either busy or sick. There was an epidemic of grippe. Since I had been promising Theresa for weeks and months that I would meet her, it occurred to me that this was the right opportunity. I telephoned her and invited her for supper in a Gentile restaurant. Then I took her to my home. Even though we had been lovers for years, each time she behaved like a frightened virgin. She had to find an explanation for her landlord about not coming home to sleep. She was so alarmed and she stammered and sighed so on the telephone that I regretted the whole business. She was never much of an eater, but that evening she could not swallow a bite. A withered old woman sat opposite me at the table. The waiter thought she was my mother and asked, ‘Why isn’t your mother eating?’ I felt awful. After supper she wanted to go home. But I knew that if I consented she would be bitterly disappointed. I also noticed that she had a nightgown in her bag. To make it short, I persuaded her to go to my apartment. When a young girl fusses too much it’s bad enough, but when an old woman behaves like a frightened virgin, it’s both comical and tragic. We climbed up the three flights of stairs and a few times she stopped to rest. She had brought me a present, a suit of woolen underwear. I made tea. I tried to cheer her up with a glass of cognac. But she refused to drink. After much hesitation, many apologies, and quotations from Faust and Heine’s Buch der Lieder, she went to bed with me. I was sure that I wouldn’t have the slightest desire for her but sex is full of caprices. After a while we both fell asleep. I had already decided that this night was the end of our miserable affair. Even she had hinted that we shouldn’t make fools of ourselves any more.
“I was tired and fell asleep soundly. I awoke with an uncanny feeling. At first I did not remember with whom I was in bed. For a moment I thought it was Nina. I stretched out my hand and touched her. At that instant I knew the truth: Theresa was dead. To this day I don’t know if she became sick and tried to wake me, or simply died in her sleep. I have gone through many tragedies, but what I experienced that night was sheer terror. My first impulse was to call an ambulance, but all Warsaw would immediately have known that Theresa Stein had died in Max Persky’s bed. If the Pope had been caught stealing from an attic in Krochmalna Street, it would not have created a greater sensation. A man fears nothing as much as ridicule. Half of Warsaw would have cursed me, and the other half jeered. When I lit the lamp and looked at her face, I was frozen with horror. She appeared not sixty but ninety. I wanted to run to the end of the earth so that no one would ever learn what had happened to me. But I had spent all my money in the restaurant and for the droshky. I realized that coming home with me and walking up all those steps had killed her. I had actually committed a murder and I had done it out of pity.
“I lit all the lamps, covered the corpse with a blanket, and began to look for a way to end my own idiotic life. To die near her would create the impression that it was a double suicide. One is ashamed of what people will say and think even after one has gone. Prestige, not love, is stronger than death. I looked at my watch and it was ten minutes after three. As I stood there bewildered, cursing the day of my birth, the doorbell rang. I was sure it was the police. They could easily have accused me of murder. I did not answer, but the ringing soon became insistent and
loud. I was sure that the next step would be breaking down the door. I did not ask who it was and opened. It was Nina.
“She had missed her train. Nina was an expert at being late for trains, theaters, rendezvous. She said there was no other train that night and she had gone home. But in the middle of the night she was assailed by the desire to be with me. Or perhaps she thought she would catch me with someone else and scratch out her eyes. How strange that I felt overjoyed to see Nina. To be alone with a corpse in such circumstances is so painful that all other suffering and shame is pallid by comparison. Nina said, ‘Why are all the lamps burning?’ She looked at the bed and exclaimed, ‘There is no use hiding her!’ She ran to the bed and wanted to tear off the blanket, but I held her hands and said, ‘Nina, a corpse is lying there.’ She saw from my face that I was not lying. I expected her to make a terrible rumpus and to wake the neighbors. Nina could be thrown into a panic at the sight of a little mouse or a beetle. But at this moment she became calm and seemed cured of all her madness. She said, ‘A corpse? Who is it?’ When I told her it was Theresa Stein, she began to laugh, not hysterically but in the way a healthy person would break out laughing at a good joke. I said, ‘Nina, this is no joke. Theresa Stein died in my bed.’
“Nina knew Theresa Stein. The whole of intellectual Warsaw knew her. She still did not believe it, until I opened Theresa’s pocketbook and showed Nina her passport. With the Russians everyone had to carry a passport, even women.”
“How does it happen that you never wrote about this?” I asked Max Persky.
“No one has heard the truth until now. There are still too many people who knew Theresa Stein.”
He lit another cigarette. It was now night. The moon was as yellow as brass.
“What a story it would make,” I said.
“Perhaps I will write it someday, but only in my old age, when no one in Warsaw remembers Theresa Stein. It’s still too soon. But let me tell you the rest. Nina was ready to help me, and even had a plan. We could easily have ended up in Siberia or on the gallows, but at such moments one becomes strangely courageous. We dressed the corpse in all her clothes. We decided to tell the janitor that the woman had had an attack of gallstones and we were taking her to the hospital. This janitor was an old drunkard and he never turned on the light when he opened the gate. Taking off Theresa Stein’s nightgown and dressing her in her bloomers and other things almost killed us. Her body was a ruin. When she was dressed I lifted her and carried her down three dark flights of stairs. She did not weigh much but still I almost ruptured myself carrying her. Nina helped me by holding her feet. How Nina the hysteric could do all this is still a riddle to me. Never before or since was she so normal—or perhaps I should say supernormal. In the dark passageway to the gate, I stood Theresa up, propping her against the wall. Her head fell on my shoulder and for a moment I imagined she was alive! Nina knocked on the janitor’s window and we heard a squeaking door and the typical growling of a man awakened in the middle of the night. He opened the gate, sighing and cursing, as Nina and I dragged the corpse along upright, holding her under the arms. I even managed to tip the janitor. He asked no questions and we told him nothing. If a policeman had happened to come along, I wouldn’t be sitting here with you. But the street was empty. We pulled the corpse to the nearest corner and set her carefully on the pavement. I put her pocketbook near her. The whole business did not last longer than a few minutes. I was so dazed that I didn’t know what to do next. But Nina took me to her home.
“There is an old saying that there is no such thing as a perfect murder. What we did that night had all the elements of a perfect crime. If we had actually strangled Theresa, the whole thing could not have gone more smoothly. It’s true we probably left fingerprints, but the technique of discovering fingerprints was not known then in Warsaw. Little the Russian police cared that an old woman had been found dead in the street. She was taken to the morgue. When the Jews learned that Theresa Stein had been found dead, the community leaders arranged for her to be taken to the cleansing room at the Gęsia Street cemetery without an autopsy. Of course I learned all this later. You will not believe it, but that night—or what was left of the night—I slept with Nina and everything went as usual. At that time I still had good nerves. I also drank half a bottle of vodka. There is really no rule about how nerves will react.
“I don’t have to tell you that Warsaw was shocked at the details of Theresa’s death. Our Yiddish newspapers gave the event full coverage. Theresa had told her landlady that she was spending the night with a sick relative. But who was that relative? No one ever learned. My janitor could have told the police we carried out a woman in the middle of the night, but he was half blind and never read the newspapers. Since her pocketbook was found near her, it was assumed that she had dropped dead from natural causes. I remember that the feuilletonist of Today developed a theory that Theresa Stein went out to help the poor and the sick. He compared her to the saint in Peretz’s story who, instead of going to night prayers, went to heat the oven of a sick widow.
“Our Warsaw Jews adore funerals. But such a funeral as Theresa Stein had, I never saw before. Hundreds of droshkies followed the hearse. Women and girls cried as if it were Yom Kippur. Countless eulogies were spoken. The rabbi of the German synagogue preached that the spirits of Goethe, Schiller, and Lessing were hovering over Theresa’s grave, as well as the souls of Judah ha-Levi and Solomon Ibn Gabriol. I wasn’t too sure about Nina’s power to keep a secret. Hysteria and denunciation often go together. I was afraid that at our first quarrel Nina would go to the police. But a real change had taken place in her. She stopped bothering me with her jealousy. We actually never again spoke of that night. It became our great secret.
“Not long afterward the war began. Then Nina developed consumption, which she had really had for years before. Her family put her in a sanatorium at Otwock. I often visited her. Something in her character seemed to have altered. I never needed to stifle her hysteria with a slap again. She died in 1918.”
“She never tried to appear to you?” I asked.
“You mean Nina or Theresa? Both had promised, but neither kept her word. Even if such an entity as a soul exists, I don’t believe it cares to come down with messages from the other world. I really hope that death is the end of all our nonsense.
“I forgot to add one fact. It has no real connection with my story but it is interesting just the same. During all these years Nina had threatened her uncle, the Biala Rabbi, with conversion. The rabbi was terribly afraid of having a convert in his family and sent her money. After her death, when the family was going to bury her and documents were necessary, they learned that she had been a Catholic for years. It created a commotion among the Hasidim. Warsaw was already under German occupation. They bribed the authorities and buried her in the Jewish cemetery. As a matter of fact, she is lying not too far from Theresa Stein, in the first row. Why she converted I will never know. She often spoke about the Jewish God and mentioned her holy ancestors.”
Max Persky became silent. The night grew cool. Around the lamp above the door flies, moths, butterflies, and all kinds of gnats had a summer night’s orgy. Max Persky nodded his head over a truth that hung on his lips. “In love you don’t do favors,” he said. “You have to be an egotist or else you destroy yourself and your lover.”
He hesitated awhile and then he looked at the waitress. She came to the table at once. “More coffee?”
“Yes, Helena. Tell me, how late are you working today?”
“As usual we close at twelve.”
“I will wait for you outside.”
Translated by the author and Dorothea Straus
A Dance and a Hop
HOUSES sometimes bear a strange resemblance to those who inhabit them. Leizer, my uncle Jekhiel’s former brother-in-law, owned such a house. Beila, Leizer’s sister, was Uncle Jekhiel’s second wife. She was no longer alive and my uncle had married for the third time after my parents brought me to Shebrin.
/> A man in his sixties, Leizer was tall and broad-boned. In his youth he was a giant, but in his later years he became bent and broken from troubles. His wife was dead. He was plagued by a hernia, and a bad leg caused him to walk with a limp. The granary he possessed had burned down and his grain business was gone. His two older daughters baked bread and flatcakes, and from their meager earnings he maintained himself. Actually, all his misfortunes stemmed from his three daughters, Rachel, Leah, and Feigel, who remained spinsters. How was it possible for three girls in a Jewish village not to be married? Everyone in Shebrin asked the same question, and I think that Leizer and his daughters were as baffled as the others, perhaps more so.
But let us go back to the house. Its brick walls were unusually thick, its roof green from moss, and the chimney, no matter how often it was swept, always spewed forth a mixture of smoke and flames. Grzymak, the chimney sweep, swore that he once saw an imp in the chimney: a creature black as soot, hunched both in front and in back, with an elflock in the middle of his skull and a nose that reached to his belly. He seemed to live there. A neighbor’s daughter had also seen this monster. In the middle of the night, when she went to pour out the slops, she heard him giggling. As she glanced up at Leizer’s roof, the creature, crouching on the tip of the chimney, beckoned her to come to him and stretched out his tongue that was the length of a shovel.
The Collected Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer Page 53