by Ilan Stavans
But by that point he had no more patience left and began to shriek: “I don’t want to talk to you . . . Leave me alone. Nothing to say, I’ve nothing to say.”
I took a step back and just then, by a bizarre synchronicity, the local train arrived. As I boarded it, I saw Staflovitch turn around and move in the opposite direction, toward the station’s exit.
A week later the tabloid headlines read “Copycat Nightmare” and “Xerox Man: An Authentic Thief,” and the New York Times carried the scandalous news about Staflovitch on its front page. He had been put under arrest on charges of robbery and destruction of a large array of invaluable Jewish rare books.
Apparently he had managed to steal, by means of extremely clever devices, some three hundred precious volumes—among them editions of Bahya ibn Paquda’s Sefer Hobot ha-Lebabot and a generous portion of the Babylonian Talmud, an inscribed version of Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus published in Amsterdam, and an illuminated Haggadah printed in Egypt—all from private collections at renowned universities such as Yale, Yeshiva, Columbia, and Princeton. His sole objective, so the reporters claimed at first, was to possess the rarest of Judaica, only to destroy the items in the most dramatic of ways: by burning them at dawn inside tin garbage cans along Riverside Park. But he destroyed the literature only after photocopying it in full. “Mr. Staflovitch is a xerox freak,” an officer was quoted as saying. “Replicas are his sole objects of adoration.”
His personal odyssey slowly emerged. He had been raised in Buenos Aires in a strict Orthodox environment. At the time of his arrest, his father was a famous Hasidic rabbi in Jerusalem, with whom he had had frequent clashes, mainly dealing with the nature of God and the role of the Jews in the secular world. In his adolescence Staflovitch had become convinced that the ownership of antique Jewish books by non-Orthodox institutions was a wrong in desperate need of correction. But his obsession had less to do with a transfer of ownership than with a sophisticated theory of chaos, which he picked up while at Berkeley in a brief stint of rebellion in the early 1980s. “Disorder for him is the true order,” the prison psychologist said, and added, “Ironically, he ceased to move among Orthodox Jews long ago. He is convinced God doesn’t actually rule the universe. He simply lets it move in a free-for-all cadence. And humans, in emulation of the divinity, ought to replicate that cadence.”
When the police inspected his Columbus Avenue apartment, they found large boxes containing photocopies. These boxes had not been cataloged either by title or by number; they were simply dumped haphazardly, although the photocopies themselves were never actually mixed.
Staflovitch’s case prompted a heated debate on issues of copyright and library borrowing systems. It also generated animosity against Orthodox Jews unwilling to be part of modernity.
“Remarkable as it is,” Morris told me when I saw him at Foxy Copies after the hoopla quieted down somewhat, “the police never came to me. I assume Staflovitch, in order to avoid suspicion, must have enlisted the services of various photocopy shops. I surely never saw him xerox more than a dozen books out of the three hundred hidden in his apartment.”
Morris and I continued to talk about his most famous client, but the more I reflected on the entire affair, the less I felt close to its essence. I regularly visualized Staflovitch in his prison cell, alone but not lonely, wondering to himself what had been done to his copy collection.
It wasn’t until the Harper’s profile appeared, a couple of months later, that a more complete picture emerged—in my eyes, at least. Its author was the only one allowed to interview Staflovitch in person on a couple of occasions, and he unearthed bits of information about his past that no one else had reckoned with. For instance, his Argentine roots and his New York connection. “I hated my Orthodox Jewish education in Buenos Aires,” Staflovitch told him. “Everything in it was derivative. The Spanish-speaking Americas are pure imitation. They strive to be like Europe, like the United States, but never will be . . .” And about New York he said,
I supported myself with the bequest I got after my mother’s death. I always thought this city to be the one closest to God, not because it is more authentic—which it isn’t, obviously—but because no other metropolis on the globe comes even close in the amount of photocopying done regularly. Millions and millions of copies are made daily in Manhattan. But everything else—architecture, the arts, literature—is an imitation too, albeit a concealed one. Unlike the Americas, New York doesn’t strive to be like any other place. It simply mimics itself. Therein lies its true originality.
Toward the end of the profile, the author allows Staflovitch a candid moment as he asks him about “his mission,” and reading this portion, I suddenly remembered that it was about his mission that he talked to me most eloquently at the subway station.
“Did the police ever notice that the xerox boxes in my apartment are all incomplete?” he wondered. “Have they checked each package to see that they are all missing a single page . . . ?”
“Did you eliminate that single page?” he is asked.
“Yes, of course. I did it to leave behind a clearer, more convincing picture of our universe, always striving toward completion but never actually attaining it.”
“And what did you do with those missing pages?”
“Ah, therein lies the secret . . . My dream was to serve as a conduit in the production of a masterpiece that would truly reflect the inextricable ways of God’s mind—a random book, arbitrarily made of pages of other books. But this is a doomed, unattainable task, of course, and thus I left these extricated pages in the trash bins of the photocopy shops I frequented.”
When I read this line, I immediately thought of Morris’s genizah and about how Staflovitch’s mission was not about replicating but about creating. I quickly ran downstairs to Foxy Copies. Morris surely must have been the only savvy shop owner to rescue the removed copies. I still had the Maimonides page with me, but I desperately wanted to put my hands on the remaining pile of documents, to study them, to grasp the chaos about which Staflovitch spoke so highly. “Paralipomena: This is the legacy the Xerox Man has left me with,” I told myself.
Morris wasn’t around, but one of his employees told me, as I explained my purpose, that the recycling company had come to clear the back-room closet just a couple of days before.
URUGUAY
The Bar Mitzvah Speech
SALOMON ZYTNER (1904–1986)
Translated from the Yiddish by Debbie Nathan
Born into a Hasidic family in Bialystok, Salomon (Shloyme) Zytner arrived in Uruguay in 1925. He participated in Labor Zionist organizations and wrote for Folks-blat and Haynt in Montevideo, Di Prese in Buenos Aires, and Naye Tsaytung in Israel, where he moved later in life. He is the author of three collections of stories, Der gerangl (The Struggle), Di mishpokhe (The Family), and “Tsvishn vent” und andere dertseylungen (“Within Four Walls” and Other Stories), all published between 1955 and 1974. “The Bar Mitzvah Speech” is a study of social mores.
IN BERNARDO TZALKIN’S impressive glassware shop, one can purchase as well all manner of religious images, plaster figures of various dimensions, each of which shows the mission and rank assigned to the particular guardian of humankind on this sinful earth. One can also acquire the finest gold and silver picture frames, variously decorated. The shop is as silent and tranquil as a church. The holy statues are placed on shelves at the very front, in diverse poses. Some stretch their arms out in prayer. Others have worried countenances, full of pain, which remind those who enter that earthly existence is meaningless and that true rewards and punishments will be dealt out only in the world to come.
The decorative frames, sparkling in gold and silver on the walls, can hardly bear to see the sorrowful faces and stooped, bowed, shrunken bodies of the saintly figures, who attract the glances of the passersby. When a customer shows up, a silent, bitter struggle breaks out among them. Each icon wants all the newcomer’s attention and spreads about a godlike serenity,
meant to calm the soul in travail. Simultaneously, the brilliant picture frames use their ornaments—flowers of the most diverse shapes, etched in relief—to charm the new arrival. When the shop is empty, the frames look shimmeringly at the oil paintings and reproductions displayed in the great show window and await impatiently the acquirer who will deliver them from the suffocating atmosphere.
The oil paintings do not perceive the tumult of the street, the deafening shrieks and roars of motors. They yearn to be covered with glass, surrounded with decorative frames, and hung in dark, commodious rooms with draped windows, around which hovers an air of hospitable tranquility.
Bernardo Tzalkin’s shop, his present social position, is the product of a dream come true. Years before, he had gone around with a crate of glass. From door to door he went, asking with a timid voice, blushing all the while, “Maybe you need a windowpane?” He trod the streets entire days, hardly managing to cover his expenses, mechanically repeating those few words at every home, every doorway. His thin, drawn-out cheeks, his subdued gaze, his entire demeanor clearly belonged to a man beaten down, who labored hard for each bit of bread, and who lived from one day to the next.
After several years of peddling in the streets, he saw his efforts were fruitless. He sought out a location in a downtown street and set up a glass shop. In addition to glass, he brought in some religious pictures, plaster figures, and frames of various sizes. At first, he himself was shocked by his dealing in icons; as a child, he would carefully avert his glance whenever he saw one. As time wore on, he became accustomed to them. They seemed to him even quite ordinary.
The business grew day by day. The religious items were the quickest- moving of all, especially before the holidays. He soon amassed a small fortune and had an appearance to go along with it. His thin, drawn cheeks filled out, his cautious gaze became audacious and even arrogant. Standing long days behind the counter, he acquired a round, well-fed belly, proudly projected outward, as if exclaiming impudently: “Show respect to Bernardo Tzalkin, the big glass dealer! He’s no longer the poor glazier who would pace the length and breadth of the city, begging with a meek voice for a little livelihood. Nowadays, people come to him. In the business world his name is uttered with honor and dignity!”
Bernardo Tzalkin was consumed by his shop. Nothing existed for him except glass, frames, and holy images bought by Christian neighbors in honor of their shmolidays . . . He wanted people to know just how comfortable he was, how lavish he could afford to be. He had been too involved in business to notice, slowly creeping up, special birthdays of his two children, born before his good fortune. His son was about to turn thirteen, and his daughter fifteen. The time was right to display his largess.
Bernardo Tzalkin had originally wanted to throw two parties: a bar mitzvah for his son, and a quinceañera for his daughter. But his wife so upbraided him that he saw stars. She warned him against letting so much money slip through his fingers and accused him of not knowing the value of a peso. After several evenings of strife and recriminations, they came to an agreement. They would celebrate their son’s bar mitzvah and their daughter’s quinceañera simultaneously, thereby guarding against useless expenses while attracting twice as many gifts.
Preparing their daughter would not require great effort. They would simply have a white silk gown custom sewn for her, her hair done up in nice curls, and deck her out for the party. With their son it was a different matter. They would have to drum a bar mitzvah speech into his head, which was not about to enter easily. And as though that were not enough, Bernardo Tzalkin demanded that his only son go up to the Torah, pronounce the blessings, and chant the haftorah portion taught to him by a teacher.
Bernardo Tzalkin also wanted a picture of his only son, in his little prayer shawl and skullcap, to appear in the newspaper for one and all to see. That seemed to him a compensation for all the years he had dealt in holy images.
His only son—a hefty boy, with full, round cheeks—was completely taken with soccer. He would come home ruddy and perspiring after playing outside with his friends and would burn with anger at his parents and teacher who demanded he learn the bar mitzvah speech. Most of all, he was annoyed by the haftorah, of which he understood nothing. The strange words frightened him. He would mechanically repeat them after his teacher, all the while thinking that he could be outside having fun, playing ball with his friends. He would break into a cold sweat as he recited word after word. His teacher gazed at him sympathetically, blaming him less than his father. Upon leaving the house, he would remind the boy to practice his speech on his own, lest he shame himself in front of everyone. The boy would breathe more easily when the teacher was gone, as though he had been freed from a heavy burden, and would escape quickly to his friends outdoors.
Bernardo Tzalkin now kept close watch on his only son. Whenever the boy disappeared from the house, he would go find him in the street, pulling him away from the soccer match just as he was about to score a goal. The boy was angry at having to stop playing and with bowed head would listen morosely to his father’s scolding remarks, the eternal litany: “Did you forget that you have to rehearse your bar mitzvah speech and the haftorah? There isn’t much time left.”
The big day was drawing near, and Bernardo Tzalkin had gone all out. He rented the fanciest, most luxurious hall. He arranged with the caterer for a lavish banquet, lest the guests feel cheated. It was, as he whispered to the caterer, a double party, for both his children, and each and every guest should feel satisfied with what was being offered.
He hired a band to entertain the guests, to warm their hearts with the melodies they knew from home. He had invitations engraved in golden letters, which clearly announced that Mr. and Mrs. Bernardo Tzalkin had the honor to invite their friends to a double celebration: the bar mitzvah of their son and the quinceaiiera of their daughter. On each side of the invitation stood a picture of one of the honorees. The boy, with the prayer shawl on his shoulders and a holy tome in his hand, stared dull and discontented; the girl, in her white silk gown, had a smile that suggested that her childhood had come to an end and a new period of life was about to begin.
A day before the celebration, with all the invitations out and everything in the offing, the boy fell ill. Bernardo Tzalkin paced desperately, anxiously, not knowing what to do. He glanced at his son, who lay in bed with a high fever, shivering. His sunken red cheeks, his glassy eyes, his dry lips made it clear that he had a bad cold and would have to stay in bed. Bernardo Tzalkin walked to and fro, wringing his hands in irritation and chagrin, stiffening them as he went over to his son, who lay breathing heavily, almost choking. He threw terrible glances at the boy and hissed into his face, “It’s all because of that accursed ball-playing of yours!” Then he added, beside himself, “What are we supposed to do now? What will become of your speech? The guests we’ve invited? The food that’s been prepared?”
His wife sat on the edge of the bed. She glanced anxiously at her son, from whose side she did not stir, as she placed cold compresses on his forehead. She hazarded an idea: “Perhaps we could put off the party until a later date? You see how bad off the boy is. He’s burning like fire.”
“What do you mean, put it off?” exclaimed Bernardo Tzalkin. “What do you think this is—a game? How can you stay calm when so many guests are coming! We won’t be able to show our faces in public.” His voice cracked into a sob.
She made another attempt: “Maybe we could just celebrate the girl’s occasion? And put off the bar mitzvah until the boy is better . . .” He dismissed her suggestion with a wave of the hand, as though no response were necessary. He ran over to the telephone and spoke into the receiver with a broken, nervous voice. Have the doctor come immediately! One of his children has a high fever, and he is very worried! Having gotten a reassuring answer, he hung up the phone and began pacing the room again, looking at the door repeatedly, starting at the slightest noise, anxiously awaiting the doctor’s arrival.
At the first ring of the be
ll, Bernardo Tzalkin ran into the entryway, opened wide the door, and welcomed the doctor in. The doctor sat down calmly by the bed and began a lengthy examination of the patient, checking his throat, feeling his pulse, tapping the boy’s back with his fingers, listening to his lungs. The parents stood near the bed, following nervously with their eyes the doctor’s movements, waiting impatiently for him to utter some word, offer a diagnosis. The doctor shrugged his shoulders, as though to allay their unfounded fears, and said in sparse terms, “There’s no danger. The boy has a bad cold and will have to stay in bed a few days to sweat it out.”
Bernardo Tzalkin stood there as though he had just been drenched with a bucket of cold water. Perplexed, at a loss for words, he tried to ask the doctor whether the boy could possibly get out of bed the next day for just an hour. It was his thirteenth birthday . . . He attempted to explain that there was to be a big party. All the guests had been invited. Everything was ready. The boy would have to make a speech or otherwise the whole celebration would be ruined.
The doctor refused, shaking his head. He could not understand how it could matter so that the boy give a speech and thereby risk his health. Bernardo Tzalkin interrupted the doctor with a small voice, begging his authorization, trying to make him understand: “For us Jews, it’s a big occasion. He’s been practicing the speech for a long time.” Maybe the doctor could prescribe some penicillin shots, for example, a high dose, so that the next day the boy would feel well enough to be taken to the hall, just to recite the speech before the guests. Then they would bring him back home to bed.
The doctor, a good-hearted man of Spanish ancestry, smiled and patted Bernardo Tzalkin on the back, showing he now understood. He uttered a quick “Está bien” and left the room.
The next day Bernardo Tzalkin stood outside his house, waiting nervously as his wife helped their daughter arrange her hair and gown before a mirror. The white silk drew tightly at the waist, before falling into slight pleats. With each movement the gown rustled, as though expressing the dreams and longings of the girl, about to take leave of her fifteen childhood years.