The Collected Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer

by Isaac Bashevis Singer

  According to schedule, we were to stop over a few days in Tel Aviv to give the women time to shop. They would observe Yom Kippur in Jerusalem and on the next day fly from Lod airport for America. I had intended to surprise Dora at the end of the tour, and before leaving New York I had demanded from Lily Wolfner an open ticket so that I would not have to return with the group. I told her I had some literary business to take care of in Israel. To avoid complications, I had not mentioned this to Margaret.

  Following breakfast on the day before the group was to go to Jerusalem to pray at the Wailing Wall, I had to reveal my secret. I wanted to remain in Tel Aviv for the holiday, at the very hotel where we were now registered. I was weary from the constant traveling and the company of others, and I yearned for a day by myself.

  I had been prepared for resentment, but not for the scene that Margaret kicked up. She wept, accused Lily Wolfner and me of hatching a plot against her, and threatened me with retributions by the higher powers. A mighty catastrophe would befall me for my duplicity.

  Suddenly she cried, “If you stay in Tel Aviv I’m staying, too! I don’t have to pray at the holy places on Yom Kippur. My job is finished as much as yours is!”

  “You must go along with the group; otherwise you’ll forfeit your ticket,” I pointed out to her.

  “The morning after Yom Kippur I’ll take a taxi to Lod straight from here.”

  When the women heard that their two guides would be in Tel Aviv for Yom Kippur, they made sarcastic remarks, but there was no time for lengthy explanations; the bus was waiting in front of the hotel. Margaret assured the women that she would meet them at the airport early on the day after Yom Kippur, and she saw them off. I was too embarrassed even to apologize. I had done damage not only to my own prestige but to the Cabala’s as well.

  Afterward, I showed Margaret my contract, which stated that my job had ended the night before; I had every right to stay on in Israel for as long as I wanted.

  Margaret refused to look at it. “You’ve got some female here,” she pronounced, “but your plans will come to naught!” She pointed a finger at me, mumbled, and I sensed that she was trying to bring the powers of evil down upon me. Baffled by my own superstition, I tried to soothe her with promises, but she told me she had lost all trust in me and called me vile names. When she finally went off to unpack her things, I used the time trying to call the kibbutz near the Golan Heights where Dora was staying. I wasn’t able to make the connection.

  So many guests had gone to Jerusalem that no preparations for the pre-holiday feast were being made at the hotel. Margaret and I had to find a restaurant. Although I am not a synagogue-goer, I do fast on Yom Kippur.

  “I will fast with you,” Margaret announced when I told her. “If God has chosen to castigate me with such humiliations, I have surely sinned grievously.”

  “You say you’re half a Gentile, yet you carry on like a complete yenta,” I chided her.

  “I’m more Jewish in my smallest fingernail than you are in your whole being.”

  We had in mind to buy provisions to fill up on before commencing our fast, but by the time we finished lunch the stores were closed. The streets were deserted. Even the American Embassy, which stood not far from the hotel, appeared festively silent. Margaret came into my room and we went onto the balcony to gaze out to sea. The sun bowed to the west. The beach was empty. Large birds I had never seen before walked on the sand. Whatever intimacy had existed between Margaret and me had been severed; we were like a married couple that has already decided on a divorce. We leaned away from each other as we watched the setting sun cast fiery nets across the waves.

  Margaret’s swarthy face grew brick-red, and her black eyes exuded the melancholy of those who estrange themselves from their own environment and can never be at home in another. She said, “The air here is full of ghosts.”

  IV

  That evening we stayed up late over the Ouija board, which told one woeful prophecy after another. From sheer boredom, or perhaps once and for all to end our false relationship, I confessed to Margaret the truth about Dora. She was too weary to make a scene all over again.

  The next morning we went for a walk—along Ben-Yehuda Street; on Rothschild Boulevard. We considered going into a synagogue, but those we passed were packed with worshippers. Men stood outside in their prayer shawls. Around ten o’clock we returned to the hotel. We had talked ourselves out, and I lay down to read a book on Houdini, who I had always considered possessed mysterious powers despite the fact that he opposed the spiritists. Margaret sat at the table and dealt tarot cards. From time to time she arched her brows and gave me a dismal look. Then she said that because of my treachery she had had no sleep the night before, and she left to go to her room. She warned me not to disturb her.

  In the middle of the day I heard a long-drawn-out siren, and I wondered at the military’s conducting tests on Yom Kippur. I had had nothing to eat since two the afternoon before and I was hungry. I read, napped, and indulged in a bit of Day of Atonement introspection. All my life I had chased after pleasure, but my sweethearts became too serious and acquired the bitterness of neglected wives. This last journey had degraded and exhausted me. Not even my hay fever had been alleviated.

  I fell asleep and wakened after the sun had set. According to my reckoning, the Jews in the synagogues would be concluding the services. One star appeared in the sky and soon a second and then a third, when it is permitted to break the fast. The door opened and Margaret slithered in like a phantom. We had fasted not twenty-four hours but thirty. Margaret looked haggard. We took the elevator down. The lobby was half dark, the glass door at the entrance covered by a black sheet. Behind the desk sat an elderly man who didn’t look like a hotel employee. He was reading an old Yiddish newspaper. I went over to him and asked, “Why is it so quiet?”

  He looked up with annoyance. “What do you want—that there should be dancing?”

  “Why is it so dark?”

  The man scratched his beard. “Are you playing dumb or what? The country is at war.”

  He explained. The Egyptians had crossed the Suez Canal, the Syrians had invaded the Golan Heights. Margaret must have understood some Yiddish, for she cried, “I knew it! The punishment!”

  I opened the front door and we went out. Yarkon Street lay wrapped in darkness; every window was draped in sheets. Far from the usual gay end of Yom Kippur in Tel Aviv, when restaurants and movie houses are jammed, it was more like the night of the ninth day of Ab in some Polish shtetl. Headlights of the few cars that moved by slowly were either turned off or covered with blue paint. We walked the few steps to Ben-Yehuda Street hoping to buy food, but the stores were closed. We went back to my room and Margaret discovered a radio set into the night table. The news was all of war; civilian communication had been suspended. The armed forces had been mobilized. The broadcaster appealed to the people not to give in to panic. I found a bag of cookies and two apples in my valise, and Margaret and I broke our fast. Margaret had engaged a taxi to take her to Lod airport at five this coming morning, but would the taxi come? And would there be a plane leaving for America? Based on the news from the Golan front, I had a feeling that the kibbutz where Dora was now lay in Arab hands. Who knew if Dora was alive? There was a possibility that the Syrians or Egyptians would reach Tel Aviv tomorrow. Margaret urged me to go with her to Lod if the taxi showed up, but I wasn’t about to while away my days and nights at an airport where thousands of tourists would have congregated from every corner of the land.

  Margaret asked, “And to perish here would be better?”

  “Yes, better.”

  We listened to the radio until two o’clock. Margaret seemed to be more shocked by what she called my base conspiracy than by the war. Her only comfort, she told me, was the fact that she had known it in the depths of her soul. She now forecast that Dora and I would never meet again. She even maintained that this war was one of the calamities Providence had prepared for me. Since time is an illusion and
all events are predetermined, she argued, judgment often precedes the transgression. Her life was filled with examples—enemies prevented from accomplishing their evil aims by circumstances her guardian angel had arranged months or years in advance. Those who did succeed in hurting her were later killed, maimed, or afflicted with insanity. Before going to her room, Margaret said she would pray that I be forgiven. She kissed me good night. She hinted that though the Day of Atonement was over, the doors of repentance were left open to me.

  I had fallen into a deep sleep. I opened my eyes as someone shook my shoulder. It was dark, and for a moment I didn’t know where I was or who was waking me.

  I heard Margaret say in a solemn voice, “The taxi is here!”

  “What taxi? Oh!”

  “Come with me!”

  “No, Margaret, I’m staying here.”

  “In that case, be well. Forgive me!”

  She kissed me with rusty lips. Her breath smelled of the fast. She closed the door behind her and I knew that we had parted forever. Only after she had gone did I realize the motives behind my decision. I didn’t have a reservation, as she had, but an open ticket. Besides, I had told the women of the tour that I would be staying on; it would not be right in their eyes or mine to flee like a coward. Once, Dora and I had toyed with the notion that we were stranded together on a sinking ship. The other passengers screamed, wept, and fought to get to the lifeboats, but she and I lingered in the dining hall with a bottle of wine. We would relish our happiness and go under rather than push, scramble, and beg for a bit of life. Now this fantasy had assumed a tinge of reality.

  It was dawn. The sun had not yet risen, but several men and women were performing calisthenics on the beach. In the dim light they looked like shadows. I wanted to laugh at these optimists who were developing their muscles on the day before their deaths.

  I thrust my hand into the pocket of my jacket hanging on the chair and tapped my passport and traveler’s checks. I had had no special reason to bring along a large amount of money, but I had—more than two thousand dollars in traveler’s checks and a bankbook besides. No one had stolen them, and I went back to bed to catch up on my sleep. I had a number of acquaintances in Tel Aviv and some who could even be described as friends, but I was determined to show myself to nobody. What could I say I was doing there? When had I arrived? It would only entangle me in new lies. I turned on the radio. The enemy was advancing and our casualties were severe. Other Arab nations were preparing to invade.

  I tried again to put through a call to Dora’s kibbutz and was told that this was impossible. The fact that the telephone and electricity were working and that there was hot water in the bathroom seemed incredible.

  I rode in the elevator down to the lobby. The day before, it had been my impression that the hotel was empty, but here were men and women conversing among themselves in English. All the male employees of the hotel had been called up and their places had been taken by women. Breakfast was being served in the dining room. Bakeries had baked rolls during the night—they were still warm from the oven. I ordered an omelette, and the waitress who brought it to me said, “Eat as long as the food is there.” Even though the day was bright, I imagined that layers of shadows were falling from above as at the beginning of a solar eclipse. I did not approach the other Americans. I had no urge to speak to them or listen to their comments. Besides, they talked so loudly I could hear them anyhow—at Lod airport, they were saying, people hovered outside with their luggage and no help was available. I could see Margaret among them, murmuring spells, conjuring up the spirits of revenge.

  After breakfast I strolled along Ben-Yehuda Street. Trucks full of soldiers roared by. A man with a white beard, wearing a long coat and a rabbinical hat, carried a palm branch and a citron for the Sukkoth holiday. Another old man struggled to erect a Sukkoth on a balcony. Emaciated newspapers had been printed during the night. I bought one, took a table at a sidewalk café, and ordered cake with coffee. All my life I had considered myself timid. I was constantly burdened with worries. I was sure that if I were in New York now reading about what was happening in Israel I would be overcome by anxiety. But everything within me was calm. Overnight I had been transformed into a fatalist. I had brought sleeping pills from America; I also had razor blades I could use to slit my wrists should this situation become desperate. Meanwhile, I nibbled at the cake and drank the thick coffee. A pigeon came up to my chair and I threw it a crumb. This was a Holy Land pigeon—small, brown, slight. It nodded its tiny head as if it were assenting to a truth as old as the very land: If it is fated to live, you live, and if it is fated to die, it’s no misfortune, either. Is there such a thing as death? This is something invented by human cowardice.

  The day passed in walking aimlessly, reading the book about Houdini, sleeping. The supermarket on Ben-Yehuda Street had opened and was crowded with customers. Waiting lines stretched outside; housewives were buying up everything in sight. But I was able to get stale bread, cheese, and unripe fruit in the smaller stores. During the day, peace seemed to reign, but at night the war returned. Again the city was dark, its streets empty. At the hotel, guests sat in the bar watching television in tense silence. The danger was far from over.

  About eleven I rode up to my room and went out onto the balcony. The sea swayed, foamed, purred the muffled growl of a lion that is sated briefly but may grow ferocious any moment. Military jets roared by. The stars seemed ominously near. A cool breeze was blowing. It smelled of tar, sulphur, and Biblical battles that time had never ended. They were all still here, and hosts of Edom and Amalek, Gog and Magog, Ammon and Moab—the lords of Esau and the priests of Baal—waging the eternal war of the idolators against God and the seed of Jacob. I could hear the clanging of their swords and the din of their chariots. I sat down in a wicker chair and breathed the acrid scent of eternity.

  Sirens wailing a long and breathless warning wakened me from a doze. The sound was like the blast of a thousand rams’ horns, but I knew that the hotel had no shelter. If bombs fell on this building there would be no rescue. The door to my room opened as if by itself. I went in and sat on my bed, ready to live, ready to die.

  V

  Eight days later, I flew back to the United States. The following week Dora arrived. How strange, but on Yom Kippur Dora had escaped with her daughter and the newborn baby to Tel Aviv, and they had stayed in a hotel on Allenby Road only a few blocks from my hotel. The circumcision had been performed the day before Sukkoth. I told Dora that I had spent a few weeks as writer-in-residence at some college in California. Dora had the habit of questioning me closely whenever I returned from a trip, probing for contradictions. She believed that my lectures were nothing but a means to meet other women and deceive her. This time she accepted my words without suspicion.

  I went back to feeding the pigeons every day, but I never met Margaret. She neither called nor wrote, and as far as I knew she did not visit me astrally.

  Then one day in December when I was walking with Dora on Amsterdam Avenue—she was looking for a secondhand bookcase—a young man pushed a leaflet into my hand. Although it was cold and snow was falling, he was coatless and hatless and his shirt collar was open. He looked Spanish to me or Puerto Rican. Usually I refuse to accept such leaflets. But there was something in the young man’s appearance that made me take the wet paper—an expression of ardor in his black eyes. This was not just a hired distributor of leaflets but a believer in a cause. I stopped and glanced down to see the name Margaret Fugazy in large letters above her picture as she might have looked twenty years ago. “Are you lovelorn?” I read. “Have you lost a near and dear relative? Are you sick? Do you have business trouble, family trouble? Are you in an inextricable dilemma? Come and see Madame Margaret Fugazy, because she is the only one who can help you. Madame Margaret Fugazy, the famous medium, has studied yoga in India, the Cabala in Jerusalem, specializes in ESP, subliminal prayers, Yahweh power, UFO mysteries, self-hypnosis, cosmic wisdom, spiritual healing, and rein
carnation. All consultations private. Results guaranteed. Introductory reading $2.”

  Dora pulled my sleeve. “Why did you stop? Throw it away.”

  “Wait, Dora. Where has he gone?” I looked around. The young man had disappeared. Was he waiting just for me?

  Dora asked, “Why are you so interested? Who is Margaret Fugazy? Do you know her?”

  “Yes, I do,” I answered, not understanding why.

  “Who is she—one of your witches?”

  “Yes, a witch.”

  “How do you know her? Did you fly with her to a Black Mass on a broomstick?”

  “You remember Yom Kippur when you went to the Golan kibbutz? While you were there I flew with her to Jerusalem, to Safad, to Rachel’s Tomb, and we studied the Cabala together,” I said.

  Dora was used to my playful chatter and absurdities. She chimed in, “Is that so? What else?”

  “When the war broke out the witch got frightened and flew away.”

  “She left you alone, eh?”

  “Yes, alone.”

  “Why didn’t you come to me? I am something of a witch myself.”

  “You too had vanished.”

  “You poor boy. Abandoned by all your witches. But you can get her back. She advertises. Isn’t that a miracle?”

  We stood there pondering. The snow fell dry and heavy. It hit my face like hail. Dora’s dark coat turned white. A single pigeon tried to fly, flapping its wings but falling back. Then Dora said, “That young man seemed strange. He must be a sorcerer. And all this for two dollars! Come, let’s go home—by subway, not by psychic journey.”