by Ilan Stavans
Perhaps because I was visiting a restaurant without being interested in any of the men who came for the platters of food, I began to dream about a customer who, in the middle of noon’s torrential heat, would make his majestic entrance, suited in a black tuxedo and wearing soft patent leather shoes. A man with massive shoulders and gallant manners, with a mustache and graying temples like the actor Arturo de Cordoba.
He would snap his fingers in command and say to Berta and her husband, “Do you see my beautiful suit? Take my order. What dish do you recommend today? I want wine for everyone. But, for the love of God, no more potato salad with beets. I have triumphed. From sunrise on it’s a constant party. For Leybele, our unfortunate brother, as well. In his memory. After all, Berta, what are we, anyway? Commerce and memory. One last favor: bring me some shoeshine boys from the corner to shine my shoes. That way they’ll realize I don’t crawl in the gutters and the streets anymore. I would like everyone to notice that my shoes are made of patent leather, fit for a ballroom.”
Berta and Bernardo would appear, surrounded by waiters in starched uniforms like members of an army. In homage to the courteous diner, my fantasy transplanted itself to the great hall of the Paris restaurant, with its vast cemetery of a dining room. The elegant diner chose a filet mignon.
Olinda, in the shoe store Odessa, was always on her feet, a party hostess with no parties, attending to the door and maneuvering the cash register. Her hair was a fuzzy, fat gold cloud. She reigned over the store with a petulant and virtuous grace, dressed in a silk blouse adorned with exquisite designs of delicate lace and pleated Scotch plaid skirts. But in her white complexion, in her mouth painted a surprisingly shameless red, she was a woman of daring. Capable of taking on the whole night as if it were a big house, something unknown, with thick curtains of velvet surrounded by gilded railings. A mansion where it was necessary to break down all resistance, something that had to be possessed in full youth and vigor, when strength for the attack and the decision still remained.
The rotund housebound despot would snivel with spite when she saw her little one arrive with a bag containing shoes bought at Odessa. She also sobbed bitterly on seeing Papa enter with packages of olives and mortadella, purchased in the shop where Lydia worked, or with socks bought in haste at Amelia’s bazaar. But for Mama the visits to Odessa were the most mortifying.
Olinda, the manager of the store, was a woman sufficiently audacious to have embarked alone for America. Customers at the store (especially on the days when prices were raised) would whisper: in Havana she stood up her boyfriend, who, it was said, had purchased the ticket for her long voyage. While she was there she had spent all her time dancing the rumba, and between dances she had met the Russian shoemaker who now crafted his wares at Odessa.
But to go to Olinda’s shop was like becoming attached to an expensive lover. That was why some Saturdays Papa took me to Susana’s shoe store, a less pretentious one next to the market.
Susana was voluminous and large. But the emphasis of her nose offered certain inroads into her character. She herself, without calling for one of the employees (all of melancholy faces and dressed in dark clothes, as if celebrating a burial), sat on a small stool to try the shoes on me. She was generous, complacent, and clever. Her knees, like juicy oranges recently brought in from the field, brushed up innocently against Papa’s legs while concealing the arduous struggle with my shoe.
But I think he preferred Olinda, high-priced Olinda, along with the doves who found treasures beneath the bow of a silk blouse. Those doves that the Havana night sent off to hover over the body of the Russian artisan.
Over the years, it seems I have become Lydia, Berta, Olinda, and Susana.
In moments of vain coquetry, I am Amelia. The fugitive illusions of the Saturdays of their youth are my longings today.
An affable and timid man runs in brief and affectionate spells from his frigid marriage to my house; he pops up by chance, like the playing card that a blind man chooses. And then from my comfortable home back to the cold and imposing marble of his conjugal domicile, where, at the cocktail hour, they feed on shriveled peanuts.
The comings and goings of my lover are so rapid and so forced, so that he can return exactly on time to the gloomy castle of his marriage, that last spring he tripped and for months wore his right arm in a sling. Another time, in the winter, he tore his Achilles tendon. The plaster cast, enemy of action and adventure (mountains of snow in the garden, the neighboring park, illicit paths), has him waylaid in the failed throne of a wheelchair.
I adore in my lover the exquisiteness of his manners, the sublime freshness of his body sprinkled with Loewe cologne. As for the rest of it, these fractures have become part of the custom of our passionate love.
He will return next spring on crutches (his suitcases of disability), ready to lose one leg or another as if in some ancient war. Because he will never stop running between his matrimony of solitary eiderdown and the love that we—Lydia, Amelia, Berta, Olinda, Susana, and I—offer him.
Cláper (excerpt)
ALICIA FREILICH (b. 1939)
Translated from the Spanish by Joan E. Friedman
Alicia Freilich’s novel Cláper (1987), from which the following segment is taken, deals with the entrepreneurial spirit of Jewish immigrants to Venezuela. A prominent journalist, she moved to the United States during the Hugo Chávez regime, which targeted the Jewish community. She is also the author of Colombina Descubierta (1991) and Viaje Verde (2000).
I’M HAPPY. THROUGH the clean mirror, as through pure crystal, I see that at last, yes, at last the sun is setting and the first evening star has come out. Shabbat ends but my night begins. All I want to do is walk and walk . . .
I’m leaving you, my dear village, and you’re seeing me off without knowing it. There is such excitement in your shabby narrow streets. This time Isaac and Pesha are the ones being led to the house of prayers. She will have to dance around him seven times before they shatter the glass in remembrance of the destruction of the temple in the Holy Land by the evilness of Titus the Roman. Cursed be his name! After hearing the noise and seeing the shards of glass, then and only then will they be man and wife according to the laws of our Arbiter, Creator of the Universe.
You know something? It’s unusual for a month to go by without a wedding in my village. Nu? I guess even in paradise it’s not good to be alone. Why did I decide to leave at the end of this Shabbat and not another? I’ve waited long enough, and the moment of destiny we forge for ourselves has arrived for me . . .
But I have to pretend and hurry without rushing. Thank God nobody notices as long as my mouth laughs and my legs dance by themselves, which is of course what happens to everyone in my village when there is a wedding. If I let myself be dragged into the merriment and forget my trip, I’ll have to wait until next fall, and that’s too far away; after all I’m no longer a boy.
Is it true what they say, that a person’s nature changes every seven years? If it is, then I’ve already shed my skin three times and I have reached the perfect age to break out of the shell forever. Forever? Do any of us ever really abandon forever the place where we’re born and play as children?
A little while ago, on Yom Kippur, as I circled my head three times with the sacrificial rooster—and yelled out the exorcism louder than a crazy man would—I offered God this animal as a substitute for my sins. The bird will go to its death, that’s what kapparot is, after all, while I shall live a long and peaceful life in America. Amen!
Oy yoy yoy! Here comes Meilaj the mute. Whew! He just passed. Thank you, my sweet little God, for your help. That good simpleton has very sharp eyes and with this full moon . . . Luckily he didn’t see me. He was so absorbed with his whistling, announcing the wedding and inviting all Christians to come and see the beautiful bride. Have you ever seen an ugly bride? Everyone praises such beautiful happiness! So, while performing his assignment with virtuosity, the whistler didn’t notice me, leaving with a knapsack over m
y shoulders.
As I pass the temple, I’ve got to walk more slowly. Awaiting the predestined couple, the wide open main door allows me to see the Ark, which holds its treasure, the Holy Scrolls, on the very same dais where—oy yoy yoy!—so often I’ve accompanied my Pappinyu at sunrise and sunset prayers.
God sits above and arranges it so that here, below, male and female may be joined at a chosen time. I know that all weddings are parties, but today the room looks more glittering than ever before. A couple of weeks ago, from nobody knew where, came a strange painter who decorated these blessed walls. And he never even charged us a cent! And, what’s even more unbelievable, the drawings are intact!
I would look at him in silence because he was a man of few words. But one afternoon I took him some cider and sweet dough with raisins, and he spoke! He was fleeing France. He just wanted to breathe once again the air of Liozno, in Russia, where his family lives. But when he realized how far away it was, he chose to remain in Lendov with us—“almost the same,” he said, smiling, never once taking his eyes off the enormous rooster he was coloring blue.
Magical! That’s what it was. Magical! Without any books, he knew exactly how to draw the feathers of all kinds of different creatures! From his brushes emanated a violin with wings, and green priests suspended in midair above roofs, and a seven-branched candelabra flying like a burning bramble, and a yellow lion and red cows, and gigantic moons, without a single word. Colored shapes with soul!
The entire town was shaken. So? Nu? Who was this stranger? Marcus Chagalovich or Sagalij he called himself; I no longer remember. Of course, the village divided into two irreconcilable camps. One accused him of being a profligate and a sinner because of the irreverence with which he depicted the sacred commentaries. “Downright pagan!” The other said he had given a false name. They pointed him out as one of the anonymous Just Men, who in every era come to redeem the world. Of course, that would explain why he knew more about the laws than our own venerable teacher, Aaron.
Anyway, the artist was scared off by the whispers and all the gossip. After three days, probably to avoid being cursed by them—God forbid!—without even saying good-bye, or even leaving a single footprint, he disappeared into the night, just as I am doing now, along the very same long road . . .
Luminous was the morning of her inauguration into the world! Without crossing checkpoints or oceans, and while living under the same familial roof, she took the road that divided neighborhood from Milky Way.
She was not moved by her parent’s objections; nor, for that matter, did she share their mourning over the distant yet to them ever-present news about the Suez Canal situation. Goodness, the way they moaned and carried on! You’d think these were their very own personal problems or something . . .
The tree-lined path that leads to the main building, with its high oval clock, is both border and path to her liberation. There is a lot to see and many to be seen by. In order to accomplish this, she’ll have to sway her hips and get rid of that skinny slouching profile, that “good girl walk,” Mom would say. A brave heroine, she had dared to break out of the family padlock, the collegiate gates, and the community fences in order to go beyond this door and enter the foremost university. God, does that sounds great! Now she must walk proudly and provocatively in keeping with the mood of her deed.
At last! Left behind are those gaudy reproductions of Marc Chagall that hang all over the living and dining room walls. Where does Father get this obsession for buying any trinket that imitates the painter? Must be his small-town taste; like all hicks, he mistakes junk for real art. Real art is these stained-glass windows, which, on this particular morning, shed a special light, bringing them into harmony with the modern architecture all around it. What beauty! A splendid open gallery offers her famous muralists, painters, and sculptors in quantities that go far beyond her artistic appreciation, yet it is a most fitting place in which to experience this radical moment dividing her existence.
And the school building? Is it really this two-storied gray box? It looks more like a convent. What cold and penumbral classrooms! Ah, but behind the building, what a glorious field of furry green grass! Why are the walls so bare? No color, not even a line. In fact, nothing hints at the presence of young bright students everywhere.
“They put us up here in this dorm run by nuns, but it’s only temporary,” explains Cristina Doglio.
The animated voices of the freshmen break the still silence:
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Schedule’s out . . .”
“Who’s teaching philosophy?”
“We get to choose from English, Italian, French, and German!”
“Wow! Look at the syllabus for Intro to Literature. That’s a lot of work.”
Yes, it’s a new and exciting pleasure. Left behind is the daily, cloistered existence of her home in San Leopoldina. Here is an open universe without walls, so varied, it offers itself unconditionally to her every wish. No wonder the school motto is “This lighthouse is here to conquer darkness.”
Oy gottenyu! When will I finally be able to leave Lendov? From afar I see Pinchas Gros, the only one of us who lives among the gentiles and in the very center of town. He’s a common man, who doesn’t even know how to write his name and celebrates the Sabbath alone. I must admit he sure has a great talent for fixing watches and glasses. So why does he live alone? And with a big goat in his backyard? They even use him to threaten children and sinners; after all, who could bear being locked up with that enormous beast and all the noise he makes?
I still have to cross the worn-out wooden bridge, where young lovers walk arm in arm, until around midnight, when Don Josú lets loose his dogs and the lovers rush back to the drugstore. From the street, the lovers look through the open window and enjoy the concert. Oh, I forgot to tell you, the drugstore houses the only piano in town, a treasure that none of us ever really saw but guessed was there. We all managed, at some point, to hear its notes. Standing in front of the colored containers of the drugstore, each heard a different melody. Know what I mean? Only the town priest could enter that house of enchantment. Dressed in priestly garb, he used to go very often to the house with the piano. What did the priest do there? Was he by any chance a privileged cherub? Tell you the truth, I always thought that what interested him was the pharmacist’s wife . . . And now where do I hide? Out of Guitzer Street comes Batcha and her crude husband, that chicken guzzler. Oy vey iz mir! That’s all I need! Bitter as bile that woman is. Why, she’d cut off my hand with her kitchen knife if she so much as suspected that I had said they’re not among the best of families. Save me, sweet God! And please don’t let the lovers of the mill see me either . . . Ay, ay! One night, I too, dreamed of love while caressing Janala’s blond braid, inhaling her clean dress, her knotted kerchief, and her bare lips! From that intimacy at the mill, thank God, not one was ever left pregnant, God forgive! . . .
Farewell, Pappinyu and Mommala! May no evil ever befall you. Without saying good-bye, without hugs or kisses, your son goes away but does not leave you . . .
She got rid of them. She never felt they were real men anyway. Little Jacobs, Moisheles, young Reubens. Always together since primary school. No comparison to these university hunks! Those others were sexless siblings. Angels and seraphs. Soul mates. Was any of them ever like these guys here? Machos with their meaningful glances and provocative gestures? That one over there, for instance, he could be in a Hollywood movie. He’s got a Gregory Peck air about him! Ah! And the one next to him! Wow! He’s the spitting image of Victor Mature! And what about that hunk of a professor? Exactly like Jorge Negrete! Slim, dark, elegant mustache, reminds me of my Charro singing:
Allá en el Rancho Grande
allá donde vi-vií-a.
Había una ranch-er-iita
que alegre me decí-aa,
que alegre me decí-aaaaaaa
Back there in the big raa-anch,
back there where I once liiii-i-ved.
There was
a rancherita
who joyfully would saaaaaa-ay,
who joyfully would saaaaa-ay . . .
All this guy needs is a pistol and a big sombrero! My Mexican charm’s got nothing on him . . .
Ahhh, those matinee movies at the Rex and the afternoon ones at the Anuaco! Great, but lasted barely ninety minutes, whereas university life will be four years of handsome men parading deliciously before her. Farewell, my old-fashioned parents! At last I’m a free little bird!
Some hours earlier, during the pause between afternoon and evening prayers, as I counted the minutes, anguished by my upcoming departure, our humble house of god was a boiling caldron. The faithful were gathering in small circles, as if they were still at their market stalls. They were busy arguing: How many had actually died in the Great War? How many had we lost when General Pilsudski repelled the Russian army at the battle of Vistula?
“We should not have participated. That was a big imperialist war, and some of our people sympathized with the Bolsheviks.”
“That’s nonsense! Didn’t we give the Polish legions a Henry Barwinski?”
“Yes, we did, so what? They paid us well for that one, didn’t they, idiot?”
“Did you already forget that we were accused shortly after, and still to this very day, of spying for the Russians? Have they quit calling us rightists and anti-Polish?”
“You’re the one who’s an idiot. You don’t even know that the Polish parliament protested that falsehood.”
“Nu, so it protested, so? Did anything change? Why? Why do we have to serve in an army where we are always watched and never trusted?”
“Friends, friends. Don’t insult each other, please, it’s Shabbos!”