The Glatstein Chronicles

by Jacob Glatstein

  “That’s not very chivalrous, Mr. Steinman,” said the youngest female present, coquettishly.

  “Papa, what’s the matter with you? What are you celebrating?”

  “Today’s a holiday, didn’t you know? Sabbath is only two days away: just think—only two days away, our ‘lovely Queen.’” He turned to me. “Let’s go, young man. My name is Steinman. What’s yours? I think I saw you arrive about lunch time, didn’t I?” He took my arm and suggested a stroll in the park, only a short walk from the hotel.

  “Don’t forget, Papa, I’m right here. You’re not on the loose for long.”

  “I’ll turn you over on my knee and spank you, if you try to keep your old father from talking to another person.” Again, he threatened his middle-aged daughter with his stick, and then leaned down and kissed her.

  He readjusted his overcoat, putting one arm into the sleeve, and wrapped the rest of it around him. His free right arm now looked younger, and the stick was given a rakish twirl. As he walked along, with me in tow, he turned his head to speak to his daughter, who was trailing us. “Let me have half an hour, Frania dear, just half an hour. Don’t shadow me, like a detective.”

  2

  People were streaming toward the park from every direction. They walked with controlled impatience, as though restrained by propriety from actually running. They were just able to keep from bumping into each other.

  Past the gate, where the guard inspected us casually, we were enveloped by the wholesome smell of the thick foliage lining both sides of the paths. Most people kept to the dusty main avenue. The last colors of sunset were beginning to blur and fade away. The water in the little lake around which the main promenade divided was blue black.

  From a bandstand partly hidden by the trees came the brassy music of a small but vigorous group of musicians. A card with a large number five was posted on the bandstand, indicating that the orchestra had reached that piece on the program. It was L’Arlésienne, and it was almost over. The newcomers, as they closed in, seemed to fall in step with the music. Even had one been obsessed with one’s private thoughts, the music must surely have penetrated them. And when the music stopped, everything slipped from memory—the thoughts with the music.

  People were wandering around the little lake and all over the park. Even on the other side of the lake you could hear the band. From over there the music served as a bridge, a guarantee that you were not striking out on your own, but still at one with the community.

  Just opposite the leafy bandstand was a wooden structure built out of logs, but not exactly a log cabin. You went up a few steps and found yourself on a shaky floor, only a scaffolding, really, where people sat in pairs or alone, doubtless dreaming the same musical dreams—dreams that a single note of the trumpet dispels or a drumbeat frightens away. This was the outdoor café. Just to walk past was to taste the cookies. Couples sat at tables looking into each other’s eyes. Around the little lake, more like a pond, were elaborate flower beds, severely patterned with respect to both color and shape. Little clumps of flowers sprung up every few steps as you walked, but they had begun to lose their vivid reds, yellows, and greens. In the twilight all colors were blending into a common color, a dormant, latent color. The flowers now looked like wildflowers, there was dew on them, and they were losing their sharp, shrill, carefully cultivated individualities. The surface of the water was settling to a jelly—a thin film over a dense darkness.

  The band was playing the “Blue Danube” waltz. The electric lights in the trees were turned on, and the whole area was drenched with a brightness that made the side paths look darker still. As the waltz played on, it more than ever seemed that those who walked around were dancing. And indeed, in the café couples actually got up to dance, leaving only a few solitary drinkers at the tables. It was the end of August, and these melancholy men were probably the first to become aware, in the midst of summer pleasures, that winter was on the way.

  “If I were Rothschild, do you know what I’d do?” my companion said, interrupting my private train of thought. “I’d arrange for the entire Jewish people to spend a month or two in this atmosphere. This is just what our people needs to restore its shattered nerves.”

  We had taken one of the side paths and come to a little bridge. Under it couples were scooping up water in tin cups and drinking.

  “This is the Fountain of Love,” Steinman said. “I tried the water, too, but it gave me a stomachache. I am too old, I guess; it seems to agree with the young people.”

  A smallish man wearing a rabbi’s velvet hat came up. “Good evening, Mr. Steinman,” he said.

  “Good evening. How are you?”

  “All goes well with me, praise the Lord. How are things in the higher spheres?”

  “So-so. And there you have it in a nutshell.”

  The other walked away perfectly happy, as though this reply had solved all problems for him.

  He was followed by a slightly taller man, also in a rabbi’s hat, which, however, shone less in the artificial light. It was rather battered, in fact. A little boy the man was leading by the hand was squirming to get away from him.

  “No, you don’t, Zalman,” the man said with feeling. “Have you forgotten what happened yesterday when you ran away and got lost?”

  The boy still struggled to get free. In a hoarse voice like that of a grown-up he protested: “So what? Nothing happened, did it? Wild animals didn’t tear me to pieces.” He shook his head vigorously, revealing long earlocks. His little velvet cap slipped, and we could see that there was no danger he would ever go bareheaded. Under the velvet cap he was wearing a skullcap. He could have been no more than six or seven, but his face looked much older.

  At some distance beyond them was another wearer of a rabbi’s hat. It was hard to say how old this stroller was—he might have been seventeen, but he might also have been no more than thirteen. He was alone, and his feet were encased in white socks and patent-leather low-cut shoes. From the absorbed way he walked, you could suppose he was performing a rite, an Old Testament patriarch.

  Two young women, both a little taller than average, were on the path behind him. They had shawls around their shoulders—one red, the other green. They were talking in low voices, almost whispering. Now and then one of the two craned her neck to see whether the little boy had managed to get free. “Zalman dear!” she called after him. She was quite some way behind the little boy, but from her voice it was clear that she was someone near and dear.

  Behind the two women came a group of ten or twelve men, all with beards, red, black, and gray. They walked in no particular order, strung out across the whole width of the promenade, and talked in loud voices. When they had caught up to us, they seemed momentarily taken shy, and everyone of them said “Good evening, Mr. Steinman,” in a very respectful voice, rather as though chanting, turning their heads toward my companion who now stood leaning the whole weight of his body on his stick.

  “Did you notice them?” Steinman said after the little troop had passed. “I know the whole history of that family, better than they do themselves. I could tell you stories about their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, all the way back to Ba’al Shem, stories to make their hair stand on end. They don’t begin to suspect.” After a pause, he added in a mocking tone: “We’re lucky the young prince didn’t see us. He’s a terrible bore. He likes to argue and we’d never have gotten rid of him. How about sitting down for a bit?”

  He led me to a bench that stood wholly in shadow under a big tree, some way from the promenade. I reminded him that his daughter had said he must be back early. He sat down unhurriedly, made himself comfortable, and spread his coat around him like a blanket.

  “Oh, I don’t pay any attention to her,” he said. “She doesn’t run my life. I’ve been here for three weeks, and I’m fed up with being pushed around. I’ve done everything you can think of—I’ve taken salt baths, mud baths, sulfur baths; I’ve drunk waters that tasted like deadly poison; I’ve gone to
bed with the chickens. Once in a while a man has to celebrate.” He leaned over, as though to impart a secret. “The fact is, I overindulged a bit at supper tonight. When I have one drink too many, I feel it at once in my feet. My head is clear, but my feet are as though paralyzed.”

  “Everybody here seems to know you,” I said.

  “It’s high time they should know me,” he replied. There was a note of pride in his voice, although he did his best to conceal it. “This is the seventh year I’ve come to this resort for treatment of hardening of the arteries.”

  He went on in great detail about how “arteriosclerosis” actually has two meanings. In the medical sense, the term indicates that the arteries are calcified, that the pipes are getting rusty. But in this resort, he said, the word is used in a different sense, to signify a hardening of the brain. The people who first came here did actually suffer from hardening of the arteries, but gradually the news got around that the place was good for the nerves, and real mental cases began to come. Only the quiet kind, of course, not the violent ones. Thus here you find people in full possession of their faculties alongside madmen: kind of a microcosm of life. You never know whether you’re talking to a mental case, and everyone looks at you suspiciously, too. It drives you to drink. “As for the lot that just went by, I know a bit about them,” he concluded, waiting for me to ask him for details.

  “Relations?”

  “No,” he said, waving his hand. “I come from Jews of a different kind, Jews who earned their living by the sweat of their brows. There were some great scholars in my family, but still they worked hard for a living. I am a writer myself. I write Hasidic stories for newspapers. Only in that sense are we a bit related. There was a time when there were Jews of a different mettle, really great men who truly saw themselves as the Lord’s representatives on earth, and, no mistake about it, they were real prophets. They knew all the tricks of the Almighty, and He knew theirs. For years on end they wouldn’t be on speaking terms with God—nothing personal, you understand, the argument was about the people of Israel. They would make up with Him on the Sabbath and on holidays. At those times, the Jews would forget all the troublesome things and make their peace with the Lord. Do you follow me? I have a Hasidic soul myself, I am a hundred percent Hasid. But there is no saintly rabbi for me to make my pilgrimage to.”

  He proceeded to tell me about the rabbi’s family we had just seen. “The old man travels about from city to city and village to village. He works hard. He is the sole support of the entire family; none of the others lifts a finger. The old man was a fine Jew, but when you have to support such a big crowd, bless them, you have no time to pray for yourself, you’re kept too busy praying for others. A man like that has no time to look at a book. He told me once that if it weren’t for the dignity of his ancestors, he would feel that he was an out-and-out fraud. For what is he himself? What has he got to sell? Has he the time to take stock of himself? To intercede with the Lord that the Jews may be more prosperous? Has he the authority to give orders to those on high? How long can he depend on his grandfather’s favor with God? There is a limit to everything. You can’t forever hide behind your grandfather’s skirts.

  “The old man used to tell me all this himself. The burden of earning a living weighs heavily on his shoulders. You should see how well his family lives—like kings. But recently he has become embittered, taciturn. When I run into him, I can see that he is dying to pour his heart out to me, but he just shrugs his shoulders as though to say, ‘What’s it matter? My days are numbered anyway.’

  “Did you notice the one who walked ahead of the others, with the elegant hat, the unkempt beard, and the rosy-red complexion? They brought him all the way from America. And he, too, is of noble descent. Did you see his wife? She was the one with the green shawl. A real beauty, though that’s not her own hair—she wears a wig. She is pregnant at the moment—you see how much gossip I know?

  “Shall I tell you what went on when the pampered young man came over from America? It’s almost beyond my powers. It was arranged that the young people should meet in Vienna. The future bride came from Poland, her fiancé from America. They feasted their eyes on each other, and parted—she went back to Poland, and he to America. Did they like each other? That is beside the point—they had been betrothed long before this. A year later they were reunited in Poland, and the wedding was celebrated. I’ll be brief, but you must have read about it in all the newspapers. Fifteen thousand Hasidim carried on for days on end in an outdoor celebration. They were lodged like gypsies in tents, there were theatrical performances every day, the masters of ceremony cracked jokes and made up funny poems. The men dressed up in women’s clothes and wrapped kerchiefs around their beards. They rode horses, too—just like real Cossacks. This went on for all of two weeks. I myself attended the wedding—and, well, I’ve seen quite a lot, a lot of things during my lifetime, but I’ve never seen anything like that. There were about a thousand shnorrers—beggars—it was as though all the Jewish poor were holding a convention. The quarrels and brawls at their tables were indescribable. The waiters, the cooks, the helpers, the supervisors—you should have seen how hard they worked: they were really run ragged. And all the different orchestras, the magical violinists, the singers with their special accompanists, and the little boys whose voices hadn’t changed yet, each of them with his own instrument and really God-given talent. Whole oxen were slaughtered, not to mention the chickens, the capons, the geese, and even the turkeys that were consumed. They ate and drank and danced—they danced until they dropped from exhaustion, and all this because it’s a great merit before God, a sacred duty. They really did their best to observe this commandment at least—I wish I could say they were as careful about all the other 613 commandments.

  “During all this, the old man wandered around looking like a ghost. He knew that he’d have to pay for it all in the end, that he was now getting another mouth to feed, and another household. None of his sons has achieved anything of the slightest importance. When one of them loses his position as rabbi in a small town, he doesn’t hesitate a moment but moves back, lock, stock, and barrel, with wife and children, to his old father. More than once during the wedding celebration, the old man stopped near me and was just about to tell me what he was really thinking, but then he would sigh, make a resigned gesture, and walk away.”

  Suddenly we heard someone close to our park bench, panting hard. It was Steinman’s daughter, out of breath. She had found us despite the dark. “You’ve played a trick on me, father. How could you do such a thing?”

  “What’s the matter? What happened?”

  “I’ve been sending out search parties. I myself have been all over the park trying to find you. You should have been in bed two hours ago!” She dropped onto the bench, breathing heavily. “My own father is going to give me some serious condition—heart or lungs, or some other ailment. And it’s all your fault,” she said to me. “He behaves so long as he has no one to talk to. But the moment he makes a new acquaintance, there’s no holding him.”

  “Frania dear,” Steinman said, stroking his daughter’s head. “You won’t have to suffer much longer, you know—another fifty years at most.”

  3

  “Cheep! cheep! cheep! Come, come, chickens, ducks, geese! Come and get it! Cheep! cheep!”

  I opened my eyes and looked out the window. Everything was still, except for the Gentile girl of the night before who was calling the barnyard to breakfast. The little chicks, still unsteady on their feet, fought over every grain of corn. She teased them by throwing the grain as far as possible, but they were all over the yard, clucking angrily. I don’t know what it was that had wakened me—the noise from the poultry yard or the quaint kind of Yiddish the hired maid spoke. She darted barefoot among the fowl, like some older sister of theirs. The pullets looked like children wearing shorts next to the fully feathered adults, but they were the most arrogant in their greediness, and no matter how much they got, they wanted more.
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br />   “Chickens! Ducks! Geese! Cheep, cheep!” The girl went on with her quaint accent, stressing the last syllable of every word. Then she noticed my head at the open window. Seeing my surprise, she proceeded to dazzle me by wishing me “a good awakening” in Yiddish, and before I could reply, she burst out laughing. Her big, slightly irregular teeth laughed more than her voice did. Then she went back to her chickens, now fluttering angrily around her, as though to reproach her for not giving them her full attention. As she nimbly threw bread crumbs to them, she sang:

  There was a little shepherd

  In the land of Canaan.

  He sold sheep and cattle with horns,

  Till he was a wealthy man …

  She sang lustily, all the time eyeing me to observe my astonishment.

  The morning was still damp with the freshness of dawn. The fowl kept running in and out of some sheds, next to which was a privy. You could see through its closed door where golden strips of light slanted, and big yellow and green flies getting in through the larger cracks, buzzing angrily a moment inside, and then coming out again. The buzzing was the only sound, apart from the servant’s young voice.

  The ducks stood around a big basin that held soaked bread. Buchlerner was already up and about, turning over the chairs which been piled upside down for the night.

  “I see you’ve gotten up early your very first day here,” he called, and stopped what he was doing for a moment. “Today, God willing, we’re going to have really superb weather. Just look at it—a sight like this is a real treat. Look at that hill over there—it’s not going to be too hot a sun today, just a nice, gentle, caressing sunshine.”

  On the hill he pointed to there was a little wood which, from where we stood, looked like a clump of five or six trees. It was a serene hill, and the sun was just crowning the few trees at the top with its first rays. The patch of sky immediately above glowed copper, but to left and right the sky dimmed gradually to a less brilliant light.