These words were a clear indication to me that my stock had fallen with her as well. Nevertheless, she agreed to meet me at the Steward Cafeteria on Twenty-third Street. I could already read English and I bought an afternoon paper. Another paper, a morning edition, had been left on the table. In the works on mental hygiene that I had read in Warsaw, like Payot’s The Education of the Will and a similar book by Forel, it was written that reading too many newspapers was poison for someone who aimed to achieve some intellectual goal. The authors compared the reading of newspapers to cardplaying, smoking, drinking, and other such habits that kill time and offer no benefit. But lately I had come to the conclusion that a writer can learn much from the newspapers, particularly from the so-called yellow press. They were a treasure trove of human idiosyncrasies and quirks. The day-by-day parade of news mocked all the philosophical theories, every effort to seek out a basis for ethics, all sociological and psychological hypotheses. I had not forgotten that, of all the modern philosophers, Schopenhauer was the only one to quote events gleaned from newspapers.
I drank coffee and read. A combination of a slaughterhouse, a bordello, and an insane asylum—that’s what the world really was. From time to time I cast a glance at the revolving door. Would Zosia show up? What would I do that evening if she didn’t?
She came late and even from a distance I could see that she was distressed. Her hair didn’t look properly combed. In the brief time we hadn’t seen each other, she had lost weight and her cheeks appeared sunken. I asked her what I could bring her from the counter and she replied, “Absolutely nothing!”
Her tone was stern and expressed the annoyance of one no longer able to control her emotions. Abruptly, she said, “I’m going to be married!”
I didn’t answer and we sat silent for a while. Then she said, “I can no longer go back to that woman professor of mine with her spirits and the whole mishmash. Those things, as long as they last, they last, but the moment you tear yourself away from them, they become sheer nonsense. She herself is still to be endured, but the guests who come to her with all their brazen lies are more than I can stand. The books that I read to her are complete fakes. Spirits do exist, but they don’t appear to those fakers on command. I had occasion to read Houdini’s book and in a sense it opened my eyes. I happened to come across it accidentally in a bookstore on Fourth Avenue that sells books from outdoor bins for a quarter each. Have you read it?”
“Yes, I got it out of the library and I think that he was more of a medium than those he opposed. This man demonstrated things that can’t be explained in rational fashion.”
“Odd, I have the very same feeling.”
“Who are you marrying—Reuben Mecheles?”
“Yes, him.”
“Well, congratulations.”
“Don’t congratulate me yet. I’m not sure that I’m going to go through with it. He suddenly decided to give his wife what she’s been demanding and she went off to Reno, Nevada, to get the divorce. He is apparently filthy rich since he is giving her forty thousand dollars plus a three hundred dollar weekly alimony. How he made so much money isn’t clear to me. From the way he speaks, you can never tell what he is doing. Apparently, back in 1929, in the Wall Street crash, he bought up stocks for pennies, and those stocks later rose and began paying dividends again. He also owns houses, and paintings by the greatest French masters. He has a huge apartment on Riverside Drive and all the walls are covered with masterpieces. I shouldn’t say this, but I don’t love him and I know that I never will. Actually, I have told him this, maybe not as directly, but he knows it himself. He is definitely not my type, but then again, who is? What he sees in me, I don’t know. He showers me with compliments but somehow they don’t ring true. If I were rich and offered him a huge dowry, I could understand his purposes. But since I am penniless, why would he deceive me? I resolved not to meet with you again. I’m simply ashamed of my lack of character. But when you phoned me, I had to come meet you. You are actually the closest person I have here in America. I could never talk to my father since he was forever shouting and preaching to me and I didn’t believe in his religiousness. My mother, on the other hand, can do only one thing—cry. The moment she begins to speak, the tears come pouring out. Weren’t you supposed to go to Toronto today or tomorrow?”
“It was postponed for a week.”
“What’s with your sweetheart? Is she really going to marry someone else?”
I told Zosia the whole situation. Nesha was poor. She had to support a child. She was ten years my senior. She had no strength to go on working. She had actually been the breadwinner even when her husband had been alive. I myself lived off the one weekly column, which the editor was liable to cancel at any time.
“Can’t your brother help you?”
“He helps me enough. I can’t take a wife and let my brother support her. What’s with the prophet from Egypt?” I asked.
A smile formed on Zosia’s lips. “The prophet is on Ellis Island. They won’t let him into America. Funny, eh?”
Eight
1
That night after Zosia had gone home, I was convinced that she would change her mind about the plan we worked out that evening at our table in the cafeteria. The entire matter struck me as nothing more than one of my fantasies with which I killed time instead of thinking about my work. But when I telephoned her the next morning, I detected in her voice that senseless inspiration I often evoked in those who had the misfortune to know me. Besides, the forces that favor adventurers had done me a service. Reuben Mecheles was due to leave for Reno within the next few days to see his wife, who was awaiting her divorce, and Zosia now had the time and the opportunity to accompany me to Canada.
Had Mrs. Mecheles gotten sick, or had the couple decided to enjoy a sort of last honeymoon before parting forever? Zosia did not know, but I knew that anything was possible between a man and a woman. I had observed the very strangest and most incredible occurrences even among those simple couples who had come to my father’s courtroom to marry, to divorce, or to settle a dispute. Love turned to hate overnight. Hate flared up again into love. Powerful affection sometimes went hand in hand with shameless betrayal. I often heard critics employ such words as “implausible” and “unrealistic,” but I learned that many things that some consider impossible occur daily.
The quiet, reticent Zosia had turned energetic overnight. She was ready to accompany me to Toronto and go on a trip with me to some other Canadian places—“just for the sake of doing something before I expire from boredom,” she explained. I had proposed it to her without believing for a moment that she would agree. Only after she consented did I realize how many complications—financial, legal, psychological—this little venture would bring about.
Zosia told me that an immigrant who has first papers requires only permission to leave the country, and she went to a lawyer to help her obtain this permission. She hadn’t brought along enough clothes to New York, she told me, and she went shopping for the garments she would need on her journey. The whole thing had to remain a secret not only from my brother but from my lawyer as well. According to his schedule, I was to come back to New York the day after obtaining my visa, but why couldn’t I remain in Canada longer? Even if the Canadian police nabbed me for being an illegal entrant, they wouldn’t deport me to Poland after my getting the visa, but would send me back to the States.
My urge for conspiracy was, it seemed, even stronger than my cowardice. I became a sudden daredevil. Was I hoping that I would overcome Zosia’s fear of sex and transform my trek to Canada into an erotic triumph? Was I looking to take on a new mistress in case Nesha should decide to marry? It was all these things, but chiefly a hunger for suspense. I had made up my mind a long time ago that the creative powers of literature lie not in the forced originality produced by variations of style and word machinations but in the countless situations life keeps creating, especially in the queer complications between man and woman. For the writer, they are potential trea
sures that could never be exhausted, while all innovations in language soon become clichés.
We had planned everything down to the last detail. We would take the train to Detroit together. There I would meet the guide who would escort me across the bridge to Windsor. Zosia would cross this bridge legally at the same time. Since she had an immigration visa, she was as good as an American citizen. We would then meet at the bus station in Windsor and buy our tickets to Toronto. Zosia was supposed to telephone the King Edward Hotel, where I would be staying, and reserve a room for herself. After I had obtained the visa, we would go on to Montreal. Zosia would tell Reuben Mecheles that during the time he was in Reno, she had to go back to Boston for her clothes, books, and other possessions. The half-blind professor had had her telephone disconnected while she was visiting her brother in Lenox so that Reuben Mecheles couldn’t try to contact Zosia. Zosia suspected that he had gone to Reno in an effort for a reconciliation with his wife. She said to me, “For all his slyness, he is a fool, and for all his daring, he is a slave.”
Among other things, Zosia told me that Reuben Mecheles’ sudden trip to Reno had evoked bitterness among the followers of the Egyptian messiah, for it had been he, Reuben, who had sent the affidavit to the prophet as well as the fare to America. Only such a scatterbrain as Reuben would have abandoned a second Moses on Ellis Island and flown off to a wife who had filed for a divorce from him.
On the night before Zosia and I were to leave for Detroit, I didn’t sleep a wink. The day had been a hot one and my furnished room was like a sweatbox. Although the water from the tap wasn’t clean, I kept drinking it. I lay in bed naked and the sweat poured from me. My stomach had grown inflated and I had to urinate every few minutes. The same voice within me that had predicted all my other troubles now warned me that my enterprise would end in a dismal failure—jail, deportation, even death. It argued, “It’s not too late yet to shake loose of the entire madness.” I knew somehow that Zosia was experiencing the very same turmoil. In my imagination, I could hear her toss in her bed, muttering, sighing, seeking some pretext for getting out of the situation. By the time I dozed off, dawn was breaking. I awoke late with an ache in my spine. My mattress was torn and its springs protruded. Zosia and I had agreed to share the expenses equally, but even so, the trip would eat up a huge portion of my little savings. I owed money to the lawyer. I wouldn’t dare to dip into the money my brother had deposited into my bank merely for me to be able to show the counsel that I wouldn’t become a public charge.
I couldn’t take along any luggage, but since Zosia was traveling legally, she had agreed to carry the most necessary things for me.
The train was leaving in the evening but that morning I wanted to stop at Zosia’s hotel with my shaving equipment, a sweater, some underwear, as well as my passport. Mr. Lemkin had advised me to mail my passport to the King Edward Hotel, but I considered this too risky. What if it got lost in the mail? Without a passport, one couldn’t get a visa. It was much safer for Zosia to carry it for me.
Thank God, the bathroom in the hall was empty—all the neighbors on my floor had gone to work—and I could take a bath without fear of someone pounding on the door or trying to force his way in. I had taken a huge dose of a laxative but my nerves were so taut that even this didn’t help. I had forgotten to bring soap to the bathroom, but I found a piece someone had left there. Sitting in the bathtub, I thought that my adventure could be a theme for a story or even a comedy. Who knows? Maybe Casanova and all those other boasters had been just as frightened and befuddled as I was. I dressed, packed the belongings I intended to turn over to Zosia, and went to her hotel on Fifty-seventh Street. What if she announced to me that she had changed her mind? I both wished for it and feared that this would happen. The day was hot and humid. I didn’t take the subway but walked. We were supposed to have lunch together at the Fifty-seventh Street cafeteria and later meet at Grand Central Station to buy the train tickets to Detroit. We planned to be there two hours before the train left to allow sufficient time for any eventuality.
I knocked on Zosia’s door and it was a long while before she opened it. My imagination promptly began to work. Maybe she had moved out? Maybe she had committed suicide? Maybe she was nothing but a phantom? She opened the door and I saw that her night had been as nerve-racking as mine. She looked pale, sleepy, drawn. Two huge valises stood in the center of the room in addition to a small satchel. I wanted to ask why she was taking along so much luggage but I decided it would be best to keep silent. I saw in her eyes the resentment of someone who has allowed herself to be snared in a trap from which there is no escape. She said, “I’m sorry, but I haven’t the room for your things. The valises are filled to bursting.”
“Why do you need so many things?”
“Eh? I’m a woman, not a man. I can’t go somewhere without clothes. In such hot weather, you have to change your underwear, your dresses, your stockings. And since I am vacating the room at this hotel, I can’t leave my things here. They don’t want to be held responsible for them.”
“Yes, I understand.”
2
Everything appeared to go smoothly for the time being. I was anxious lest I run into someone who knew me at Grand Central Station or that it might occur to my brother to see me off, but neither of these events happened. I had been forced to leave my sweater and underwear behind, but Zosia had managed to pack my shaving things in the small satchel and my passport in her bag.
We spent the night sitting up in the coach car. We had rented pillows for a quarter apiece and, since I hadn’t slept the night before, I dozed the entire night. The car was half empty and Zosia found a bench on which to stretch out. I slept and worried. In my sleep I heard the conductor announcing the stops. In the novels I had read in my young days, the lovers were one hundred percent monogamous, certain of their love. They suffered only from external obstacles—ambitious parents, a wife or a husband who refused to grant a divorce, social objections or superstitions. They were seldom as poor as I was, burdened with problems of passports, lawyers, precarious jobs, sick nerves. But I had never read about any person whose emotions kept on changing, literally every second. It occurred to me more than once to write about myself as I really was, but I was convinced that the readers, the publishers, and the critics (especially the Yiddish ones) would consider me a pornographer, a contriver, mad.
Mr. Lemkin had written down for me the name of the hotel in Detroit where I was to await a man whom I would address as Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith was to leave a message with the desk clerk giving the time of our meeting. I would not need to rent a room at the Detroit hotel since I would be spending the coming night on the bus from Windsor to Toronto. I was simply to sit in the hotel lobby until Mr. Smith contacted me. But the fact that Zosia was to come along with her two heavy valises and the satchel posed unforeseen difficulties. It would look suspicious to arrive at a hotel with a lady and baggage, then sit for who knows how many hours in the lobby with her and wait for a message from a Mr. Smith. On the other hand, I couldn’t afford the luxury of renting a room for merely a few hours. And what about Zosia? Was I to take a double room for Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so? Would Zosia consent to it? And what if the clerk asked for our passports?
I had fallen into a deep sleep before we reached Detroit and Zosia was waking me. She looked sick, faded, disheveled. We got into a taxi and we were taken to a hotel that seemed to me fancy and expensive. Two porters fetched Zosia’s luggage and we were led to the desk where new arrivals registered. When the clerk asked me if I wanted a room with a double or twin bed, I hear Zosia say, “We aren’t married.”
“In that case I’ll give you two adjacent rooms,” the clerk said gallantly. He gave me a sidelong look and handed another card to Zosia for her to fill out. I was too shocked to remember to ask for the price.
Mr. Lemkin had assured me that Mr. Smith would call me not later than 11 A.M., but it was already 3 P.M. and he had not called. Zosia had gone to sleep in her room and, although I
was overcome with fatigue, I could not doze off. These spacious hotel rooms, complete with rugs, tapestried walls, and luxurious furniture, would eat up my budget like locusts. I was afraid to leave the hotel to look for a cafeteria or a cheap coffee shop outside for fear that I would miss the call from Mr. Smith, and the prices for our breakfast and lunch in the hotel restaurant were terribly high. Why didn’t Mr. Smith call? Every minute or so I glanced at my wristwatch. Maybe the employees of the hotel were in cahoots with this Mr. Smith and informed him that I brought a female with me? Maybe Mr. Smith called Mr. Lemkin to pass along this information and Mr. Lemkin in turn had informed my brother? Someone like Mr. Smith was even capable of denouncing me to the police.
Zosia and I had realized it would endanger our plan if we were seen together by Mr. Smith and so we decided that she would cross the bridge before Mr. Smith took me there, and she would wait for me at the bus station in Windsor. I was about to fall asleep when the telephone rang. It was Zosia. She was ready to go down and take the cab to the bridge to Windsor. I wanted to carry down her valises and wait with her until she could get a taxi, but Mr. Smith was liable to telephone me any minute. Besides, if both of us were seen carrying valises outside, the hotel employees were liable to suspect that we were running out without paying our bill. It appeared also that she wanted to avoid being seen with someone who was preparing to cross the border illegally, and she had to call for a man to take down her luggage. I stayed in my room and sat down to wait for Mr. Smith. Six came and six-thirty and still he didn’t show up. What if he didn’t come at all? Since he was a smuggler, it was quite feasible that he had been arrested. A person could also suddenly fall ill or be run over, God forbid. I realized now that I had committed a folly in entrusting my passport to Zosia. I should have followed Mr. Lemkin’s instructions exactly, and mailed the passport to the King Edward Hotel in Toronto. Why had I gotten involved with this Zosia in the first place? Of all my lunacies, this was the most dangerous.
Love and Exile Page 33