The End of Everything (New Yiddish Library Series)

by David Bergelson

  This was very odd:

  In unyielding silence this elderly, taciturn, stubborn creature had always loved her preoccupied husband and yearned for him. Now, evidently, she was greatly excited that he was coming back, had passed a restless night, and by pacing about, was hoping to shorten the time remaining until his return.

  2.7

  For the whole of that Sabbath, Reb Gedalye Hurvits had every reason to be content with his home. On Saturday night he peered cheerfully over his gold-rimmed spectacles at neighborhood acquaintances and former partners who’d called to see him, and even in his distracted frame of mind he shared a witty remark with them:

  —Yes, while he was abroad they’d taken him for a young bachelor … they’d even wanted to arrange marriages for him over there.

  In reality, while he’d been abroad he’d lost a great deal of weight, acquired the shadowed complexion of the terminally ill, and had brought back with him many bottles of medicine, a small nickel vaporizer, and the diagnosis of a dangerous, progressive illness. The bottles stood in a tedious row on the windowsill of his study as a silent reminder of the indifference of the foreign professors:

  —Do I know? … Do these doctors really place any value on human beings?

  About the diagnosis, the well respected local feldsher,* normally grimly uncommunicative, remarked among some of his convalescent patients:

  —Obviously Reb Gedalye has cancer. What else?

  In Reb Gedalye’s presence, people genuinely felt awkward and said too little for too long. Surreptitiously, they spat to one side every time someone mentioned his disease by name* and mused:

  —He’s still a young man, Reb Gedalye; I mean, after all, he’s only fifty.

  But Reb Gedalye continued to pay no attention to any of this. Preoccupied as he was, he wanted once more to take control of his unfortunate business affairs, and spent several successive evenings drawing up balance sheets in his study with his relative the bookkeeper.

  Every time he broke off his work there late at night and went out into the well-lit dining room in company with his bookkeeper, his face was anxious and his red eyes troubled as he agitatedly gnawed one of his knuckles and kept interrupting his own thoughts:

  —Well, it’s certainly bad … There’s nothing to discuss.

  And later still, in his bedroom, he would linger unusually long over the recitation of the prayer before retiring, paying no attention to the reproaches that Gitele, already in her nightgown, heaped on him from her bed, but then always hurriedly and distractedly asking her:

  —Eh? What did you say?

  By this time Gitele had already mentioned her jewelry and diamond earrings far too often, had far too often tried to persuade Reb Gedalye that it would be sensible for her to take them with her on a trip to her rich great-uncle in a distant shtetl, and had far too often complained venomously against their relative the bookkeeper:

  —But she’d told him … She’d continually warned him that he was projecting too substantial a balance, that’s what he was doing.

  Little by little the chaos of impending bankruptcy began breaking loose again, and once more awakened in Mirel a sense of disgust coupled with a detestation of the house and the strangers who created such uproar within it. From day to day, the conviction grew stronger in her:

  —The chaos of bankruptcy … Surely there’ll soon be an end to it?

  Misfortune, it seemed, was about to overwhelm all the members of their household, the Jewish agents who worked in the Kashperivke woods and in the Tarnov mill, the bookkeeper, and even their cook, that overgrown girl who was now in the eighth year of her service with them.

  But to Mirel herself all this was a matter of indifference, and at bottom …

  At bottom, all this would leave her neither better nor worse.

  For hours on end she lay in her room with this thought, took it with her when she called on the midwife Schatz, and brought it back with her a short while later, when, without glancing at the numerous creditors and their delegated arbitrators who choked the dining room with the smoke of their cigarettes, she shut herself up in her own room where she began turning it over in her mind yet again:

  —The chaos of bankruptcy … Surely there’ll soon be an end to it?

  In the house, many sleepless, agonized nights filled with frantic searches for advice dragged by. No one but Mirel undressed or had any thought of rest at that time. Every now and then she’d start awake in her darkened room and become aware that everyone else was still awake; that, apart from the bookkeeper and Avreml the rabbi, the local solicitor was also present; that they were conferring furtively together, carefully whispering so that neither she nor the maid who slept in the pantry should hear; and that the solicitor’s advice was clearly audible:

  —The chief concern was to pay the interest on the Kashperivke woods and the Tarnov mill by the due date, because as soon as the title deeds were legally transferred, there’d be no force in any of the bank’s threats.

  Wearily and with the ease of a sick person she dozed off in the darkness and saw in her dreams a multitude of furious strangers who filled the house to overflowing, felt a little afraid again, started awake, and yet again heard the solicitor giving his advice:

  —For her part, Gitele must transfer everything to the bookkeeper’s name—what don’t you understand about this? The chief concern is to have a third party in this matter.

  Once more she dozed off, and in her light sleep she heard Gitele continually urging Reb Gedalye:

  —Gedalye, go to bed, Gedalye … You’re not well enough to be sitting up, Gedalye.

  But Reb Gedalye paid no attention, and again sat up until dawn. As a result he looked very ill and under his gold-rimmed spectacles his sharp nose looked as ashen as that of a corpse.

  One day during the week before Purim he came into Mirel’s room with this ashen nose, stopped not far from her bed with his face toward the window, and there distractedly began fiddling with the knick-knacks on the tulle-covered dressing table.

  Eventually he began complaining to her about Gitele and the bookkeeper:

  —During all that time he’d begged them in his letters: for God’s sake, don’t touch Mirele’s five thousand rubles … He’d pleaded with them as though pleading with robbers.

  But at the very moment she’d turned her face a little toward him wanting to ask him something, the stubborn, embittered Gitele began repeatedly calling to him from the dining room:

  —Gedalye? Please come here, Gedalye.

  —Gedalye? I want to tell you something, Gedalye.

  Since this obdurate, unfeeling summons was maddening, he eventually went back, displeased and a little irritated, but for some reason before he left he promised Mirel, who’d stayed in bed from early morning on with a headache and a heightened temperature:

  —He’d come back to see her … In half an hour he’d come back to her room.

  That day some new blow, some new misfortune, was expected in the house, so the maid was deliberately sent out for several hours, a paroxysm of stifled fear held constant sway, and in anxious haste all the family silver in the salon’s old glass-fronted cabinet was carried o. for safekeeping somewhere. Finally, Reb Gedalye permitted the stubborn Gitele to make the trip to her great-uncle in his distant shtetl. Even from Mirel’s room she could continually be heard, driving Reb Gedalye out of his senses with her importunity and forcing him uncharacteristically to raise his voice:

  —Well, well … What was she making such a commotion for? She’d go in the end … She’d go there with the agent of the Kashperivke woods.

  But everything happening around her made little impression on Mirel.

  In the debility of her illness she experienced another bizarre, feverish dream in which late at night Lipkis was telling Libke the rabbi’s wife that for three consecutive weeks typhus had left him hovering between life and death, that he’d called now to see not Mirel but her, Libke; and at the very moment he was speaking, her former fiancé, Vel
vl Burnes, was standing not far from her bed in deep despondency, looking not at her but respectfully down at the floor while he tried to explain himself:

  —He wasn’t at fault for coming to her. She certainly ought to pardon him. He’d recently married that dark-haired young woman and had simply come by for no particular reason.

  When she’d at length roused herself from this restless doze, the window panes looked like black ink. The ambience of deep night hovered over the lamp burning in a distant corner of the room, and there seemed to be no living soul in the entire lifeless, deserted house. Only some time later, from far away in the entrance hall, did she hear footsteps come running swiftly into the house from outside and just as swiftly go running out again with a slam of the door and a loud, hurried shout:

  —The shawl! … Gitele’s forgotten to take her thick shawl …

  At that moment, apparently, everyone had gone out to see Gitele off on her journey to her great-uncle in his distant shtetl; by the light of the lamp that had been carried out, they stood about in the courtyard watching her seat herself next to the agent of the Kashperivke wood in the ready-harnessed family sleigh.

  Now Mirel remembered:

  Something had taken place in the house earlier … She didn’t want to think about what would happen to her the next day … And that morning … . That morning, it seemed, someone had sat there and related:

  —Velvl Burnes was shortly to marry that dark-haired girl … even now serving-maids were doubtless crushing almonds and cinnamon for pastries, and it was said that soon after the wedding the young couple would go abroad somewhere.

  —Abroad?

  She lay in bed, her eyes huge and suffused with mourning as though at that very moment she could see the dark, distant night with the long express train that was bearing the young couple toward the border. She stared into the burning lamp and thought:

  —It wasn’t so very bad, perhaps, to travel abroad as a couple through the darkness of night … But for her, Mirel, this was now totally impossible, and at bottom, this wasn’t actually the central, overriding concern … There was no point in thinking about this now. She felt unwell, and that five thousand rubles of hers … and her future life, ah! … She might as well curl up into a ball and go to sleep … to sleep …

  And how long she slept!

  Throughout the night, the solitary tread of Reb Gedalye’s nervous pacing rarely died away in the dining room. Pouring boiling water from the samovar, he even drank his tea alone there, and for some reason he tried several times to open the door of her room. But in her semiconscious state she was floating about somewhere in a darkling world of chaos, forgetful of the distress she endured daily. Only toward the hour of the third watch, lying in bed, did she tremblingly awaken, notice narrow, barely blue streaks of night peering into her room through the cracks in the shutters, and see Reb Gedalye sitting on her bed apologizing:

  —He was afraid he’d woken her … He’d been unable to restrain himself and had woken her.

  He felt wretched, but with no understanding of how to speak of this with Mirel, he sat for a long time here on the bed and once again began complaining about Gitele and the bookkeeper:

  —He’d pleaded with them as though pleading with robbers: he hadn’t wanted to go abroad … He should never have dared to leave home …

  Abruptly she turned to face him and asked:

  —Father, how much money do you have left?

  Immediately she saw Reb Gedalye shrug his shoulders, hunch himself up in a peculiar way like a small child about to be smacked, and begin gesticulating:

  —Nothing … not a kopeck.

  —Nothing? …

  For no discernible reason she repeated this after him, and for no discernible reason her heart began pounding. Previously there’d been something she’d wanted to understand and couldn’t, and subsequently she wanted nothing at all, stared at him with unblinking, somewhat astonished eyes, and couldn’t understand why he was still sitting next to her on the bed.

  Now she had nothing more to ask him … now she knew everything. She was afraid to think about anything, and felt it essential, absolutely essential to fall asleep again. So immediately after Reb Gedalye’s departure she turned her face to the wall with her eyes tight shut, buried her head more deeply in the pillow, pressed her folded arms more closely to her breast, and called Nosn Heler’s face to mind:

  —Like that … just like that … Now she was falling asleep again.

  The next day she awoke with a ready though undeveloped plan, and she lay in bed for some time in a state of semiconsciousness and attempted to grasp this plan:

  —Once, it seemed to her, she’d had an opportunity to leave this house … wait … What opportunity had this been?

  Reb Gedalye had already returned from the Sadagura study house with his prayer shawl and phylacteries, and with Gitele absent, felt very lonely in the empty house. He found Mirel standing all alone in her room, and once again distractedly began fiddling with the knickknacks on her dressing table.

  He said:

  —The bailiff… . It’s possible that the bailiff might call here today … It’s not yet certain, but in any case … in any case, she needn’t be alarmed.

  —Ah, the bailiff? … Very well.

  She responded quietly and without looking round at him, and almost immediately took her jacket and black scarf and left the house.

  —Where would she go now? It made no difference.

  The main thing was that she could no longer stay in that house, and for a few days …

  —For a few days she could even live with the midwife Schatz.

  And for a few days she did indeed live with the midwife Schatz. For the most part she lay cheerlessly in bed, her eyes filled with intense sorrow, staring down in silence at something on the earthen floor. And sometimes, lying in bed without raising her eyes from the floor, she began speaking to the midwife with the quiet, slow enunciation of a mourner:

  —She’d spent all twenty-three years of her life in that house.

  She regretted neither the house nor the years … What else could she have done with those years? And the house …

  —People born in such houses cannot laugh, just as she, Mirel, cannot.

  On one occasion the midwife was obliged to slip into town to attend a woman in childbirth and was delayed for some hours. Remembering that she’d left Mirel, she hurried back home, and saw on her return: With her hands behind her head, Mirel lay in bed in exactly the same place in which she’d left her. She was still staring up at something on the ceiling, and suddenly began articulating some of the thoughts that had absorbed her in the time that had passed:

  —Such people as she, Mirel … either they became cabaret singers or they took their own lives.

  Such talk made the midwife uneasy. Bustling about with household chores, she began gathering up all the small handkerchiefs:

  —What did Mirel think? Might she be pardoned for mentioning it, but it would certainly not be out of place if the midwife were now to wash these handkerchiefs herself.

  But Mirel, paying no attention to this remark, continued to pursue her own line of thought:

  —But she was of no use for cabaret work, since she could neither sing nor laugh.

  —And in order to commit suicide …

  Lying in bed, she flung her slender, supple body so far back that all the blood rushed to her face; exposing her arms to the shoulders, she slowly examined them from all sides and equally slowly began caressing them.

  —Such beautiful arms … She felt so sorry for them every time she thought of suicide.

  At this, the midwife suddenly remembered that she’d forgotten to buy a box of sardines in town. She abandoned the soaking handkerchiefs and once again dashed off:

  —How thoughtless she’d become lately! … Mirel would simply starve to death, living with her!

  In her rush into town, she found time to pop in to see the pharmacist’s assistant Safyan for a moment to pick up
a new, recently published book for Mirel to read. But Mirel was wholly indifferent to it, took it up apathetically, and from where she lay in bed read the opening two sentences aloud in a monotone. Almost at once she let the book fall from her seemingly nerveless hands, and with curious despondency began yet again staring at the window as she spoke:

  —All these writers love starting their books with the sorrow-filled springtime of someone’s youth and so intensify everyone else’s sorrow. And after a pause, and a sigh, more in the same vein:

  —When one’s heart was light, one forgave them and read them. But when one found oneself in so depressed a mood as hers now was, every phrase seemed like an unrelenting fly that settled on one’s nose and persistently irritated one with the reminder: “But you feel awful … awful … . awful …”

  One evening, though, the midwife took up the small, ancient copy of Dicta sapientium* that an elderly Catholic noblewoman had given her as a gift not long before, sat down with it on the bed next to Mirel, and began reading a chapter from the yellowed, tear-stained pages, translating and explaining one sentence after another:

  —Omnis felicitas mendacium est† …

  The two young women suddenly seemed like mourners, and it looked as though they were drawing comfort from reading to each other from the Book of Job: there were, if one reflected, greater sorrows to be found elsewhere in the world.

  Nevertheless, this reading made the illuminated room a little more cheerful and lifted the mood of depression for a time. With a smile, the midwife Schatz even rolled herself a cigarette at the box of tissue papers, returned to smoke it sitting next to Mirel on the bed, and recalled her acquaintance, the writer:

  —He’d told her once: Nowadays, happiness is only to be found among traveling salesmen. This would be deplorable if it didn’t have its own consolation: such people were always so busy playing cards that they were unaware of it.

  And both kept silent for a while, taking their revenge on these traveling salesmen: