“I’m afraid I should get started packing. Tomorrow morning I begin my trip back home.”
“Is that so? Tomorrow you’ll be gone. Well, then we ought certainly to take a walk in the park, as a farewell.” He said nothing for a few moments, standing where he was. “Home—if you only knew how proud that word sounds! How I wish all Jews had a home like yours! Tell me, are you taking anything back with you—I mean something that has given you food for thought?”
He became pensive, and we began to walk slowly in the direction of the park. Clearly, he was not expecting an answer. Then he lifted his head, and I looked into his large eyes.
“Personally, I don’t envy you. May I ask one thing of you? Don’t suppose that a little boy is talking to you. If you ever come back here in later years, you’ll see for yourself. And even if you don’t come back, you’ll still have heard—the Jewish world will resound with my fame. My ideas aren’t ready yet, or rather, everything is still simmering in a big pot. You can make out the parsley, the vegetables, the beans, the mushrooms—it’s all bubbling and seething, but before long it will be ready, a finished dish. I can already taste it. Believe me, I’m not boasting. Jews from every corner of Poland will gather around me, and I shall minister to their spirits with the joy of discovery. Every Jew will become a seer, a thinker, a sage. I won’t just carry them on my own shoulders the way my grandfather did. I’ll make them stand on their own feet. Nor will they just love one another—everyone will have to earn that love. They will have to rise above themselves, like climbing a ladder. You know how the rabbi of Kozhin interpreted the commandment to love thy neighbor as thyself. ‘Is love of oneself such a simple matter?’ he used to say. ‘You value your eyes more than your legs, and you value your head more than your you-know-what. So if your neighbor is a head, love him as you would your head, and if he is the opposite—well, you get the point. Love him as you love yourself.’ That was what the rabbi of Kozhin said.”
A man was approaching, very unsteady on his legs. When he got closer, I saw it was my driver. “I’m glad I ran into you,” I said. “I want you to take me to the station early in the morning.”
“Woe is me,” he said. As he opened his mouth the reek of vodka hit me. “And here I am walking around as if the world be damned. You want to make the six o’clock train?” He began to run. “I’m going to get a few hours’ sleep,” he yelled back. “But don’t worry, you can count on me.”
I called after him not to forget because I’d be waiting all ready and packed.
“Look not upon me, that I am swarthy,”—he quoted Scripture—“I mean, look not upon me because I’ve taken a drop or two. After two hours’ sleep I’ll be a new man. I’m like a horse, I never sleep, I just take naps!”
“Let no one tell you,” my companion went on as if he had not been interrupted, “that we Jews need not be better and nobler than our neighbors. Our neighbors do not ask themselves what they are living for, but this is a question we do ask ourselves, and we ask it angrily. Until the great reckoning takes place, we’ll be tormenting ourselves with it. We must be in a position to say clearly what is the purpose of our being in this world. In the meantime it is their world, and they let all their Christianity out on us.
“Yes, even my grudging brother,” he went on with a happy smile, “even he will have to come and bow to me. Sweet, sweet, is the dream of Joseph—all the others will cross my threshold with their heads held high, but he will have to bow and pay homage before me. No matter how much recognition you get from strangers, it means little until your own come to bow to you. Joseph wanted to break the pride of the envious.”
At the entrance to the park, the guard tried to persuade us that it was not worthwhile to go in because he would be closing the park in half an hour anyway, but we assured him that we’d be out before then.
We took a quick walk along the main avenue and sat on a bench near the entrance so as to keep an eye on the guard. He blew his whistle several times and came over to us, obviously pleased at the fact that we had kept our word. “No matter how nice one is to them, it is not enough,” he complained, fingering his mustache. “Everyone is out of the park now, except for the young couples. For them the night is always too short.”
He blew his whistle again. “My word, I’m going to shut that gate, they can stay on here all night like cats. What can I do?”
Couples began to appear as if crawling out from among the trees around us. It seemed that every tree had sheltered a couple, and every dark and grass-covered path as well. They might all have been playing hide-and-seek. None of them spoke a word. They walked with lowered heads, as though ashamed to have made the guard wait for them till the last minutes.
“Now there’s only one couple left. I remember them—I have a good memory. She’s a redhead. I’ll whistle three times, and if that doesn’t fetch them, well, they can have several pairs of twins for all I care.”
But before he had whistled the third time, the last couple emerged. Even in the dark I could see the girl’s flaming hair and her embarrassment. The tall man who held her arm guided her as though they were passing through a gauntlet of soldiers ready to bring down their whips on sinners who dallied in the park.
When the couple had passed through the gates, the guard looked at us triumphantly. “You see, I did remember them. I keep a mental count of all of them. They can’t hide from me.”
He gave one last whistle, to be on the safe side. The park now looked the way a synagogue does at night. He wished us a courteous good night, treating us as two decent men whom it had not been necessary to flush out of the bushes to get rid of.
“Don’t think that I have nothing to say to you about all those couples, about the evil thoughts they inspire. When I watch them parading out of the park like that, I sometimes have strange dreams afterwards. You must think that I am only half a man. How do I hold my desires in check? How do I tame them? I do just what the Jews did with Solomon’s Song of Songs when they transformed it into a song of praise for the community of Israel. So I take my desire to task and transform it into an allegory. It tries to get the upper hand, but I give it an allegorical meaning, to shame it. And what will I do if this fails to work? I’ll find myself a wife, and get the better of the temptation that way!”
“Will you be stopping in Paris on your way home?” the rabbi’s son asked me when we were close to Buchlerner’s hotel. “Tell me, are you taking some important insight back with you, some ideas at least? An ignoramus travels like a horse, but a man, a rational being, must learn something when he makes a long trip. Some people go abroad and then come back home, and in a few weeks it’s as though they had never been away. But when travel gives one some new insights, that’s different. Then it’s profitable.”
“If you want to know,” I said to myself more than to him, “what I am taking back with me is a riper sadness that comes only after years of looking and listening. There is a sadness that you can hold by the hand like a good companion, not afraid to look it in the face. It is not a terrorizing fear, but a sorrow you can understand. When you look into your eyes in the mirror, you see the talk that has stayed with you, that has left its mark—a groan, a sigh, a smile. You feel that you have finally become your own sorrow that matures, and grows a little wiser from year to year.”
“Well, in that case, farewell, and have a good trip.” He extended his hand. “Remember me occasionally. Think of your brothers here. Let us look forward to good news from both sides of the ocean.”
One window only was still bright among all the dark windows of Buchlerner’s hotel. Buchlerner was standing in front of the hotel as if he had been waiting for me all this time.
“Blessed be the true Judge,” he said, accenting all the words equally.
“Blessed be the true Judge,” the rabbi’s son repeated piously and walked away.
“When?” I asked Buchlerner.
“Just now, perhaps a quarter of an hour ago.” I walked slowly up the stairs, trying to make as litt
le noise as possible. Finkel came out to meet me. “Have you heard the terrible news? He passed away like a great saint. Blessed be the true Judge.”
“So you’re really going tomorrow?” Buchlerner asked me the moment I opened the door to my room. I had not even heard him following me. He sat down on the rocking chair and began to rock violently.
“Yes. You may give me my bill.”
“Ah, God be with you, who has a head for that? Maybe you’d like a snack? A glass of vodka? I’m starved myself. Let’s have a drink—you know it helps the soul of the deceased to ascend to Heaven. And let’s eat something too. Believe me, the dead won’t have anything against it.”
When he saw he couldn’t persuade me, he said that he’d be getting up long before me, and that there would be plenty of time for settling my bill.
A tall man with a pointed beard opened the door and stuck in his head. “Is the owner here?” he asked.
“Yes. What can I do for you?”
“Mr. Buchlerner,” the other said with piteous expression. “I am here to recite Psalms. I am supposed to stay with the dead the whole night, and I’m simply starved. It will be worse later on. Could I have a piece of herring? And a glass of vodka to pick me up?” He remained standing in the doorway.
“How about a piece of fish, some bread, and a vodka?” Buchlerner asked.
“Ah, ah!” The man smacked his tongue.
“And where shall I serve you?”
“Downstairs, in the dead man’s room.”
“Downstairs? In his room?” Buchlerner made a face.
“Why not? What is there to fear? The dead man won’t take it away from me.”
“All right, all right. I’ll have it brought to you soon.”
The man’s head vanished, and Buchlerner got up and left my room. I began slowly to pack my things.
There was a knock at my door, which opened before I had time to say “Come in.” It was the driver, his eyes red and sleepy. “I’ve come to tell you that you need not worry. You can go to bed and sleep at least four hours.” He drew an enormous watch from a pocket. “You can sleep for exactly four hours,” he said. He opened his worn jacket, unbuttoned his shirt, and began to scratch his hairy chest, like someone who had just gotten up from sleep.
“Ah, Friday I’ll go to the bathhouse,” he said with anticipated pleasure. “Then I’ll go home and during the Sabbath I’ll be a man like others. What’s the purpose of all the turmoil? Vanity of vanities. You can see now.” He pointed with his finger at the door. “The end of all flesh.” He scratched himself with greater gusto. “I’ll take you to the station, then I’ll go to Kazimierz to bring back Neifeld, and I’ll go home for the Sabbath with złotys in my pocket and nothing to complain of, thank God.”
He sat down on the rocking chair. “You won’t mind, will you, if I take a little nap here. Listen to me, take your clothes off and get some sleep.”
From below came the sound of quiet sobbing.
“Hear that? Steinman’s daughter, poor thing. She’s been left all alone, an orphan. No husband, no children, no relatives. Poor, poor thing.”
He loosened the rope around his waist and soon began to snore loudly, with hoarse, throaty noises.
It was only half-past two, but a faint blue tinted the skies, the herald of an impatient Polish summer dawn. A bird, as if stirring uneasily from sleep, uttered a few notes and fell silent again. I switched off the lamp: The pale light filtering through the window settled on the half-opened suitcases near my bed, leaving the rest of the room blurred and insubstantial. They were the starkest and most sharply defined objects in the room.
Notes
BOOK ONE. HOMEWARD BOUND
p. 8 The Sholem Aleichem story in question is “Home for Passover” (Af peysakh aheym, 1903). See Introduction, note 5.
p. 9 The Yiddish term for Lithuanian, Litvak, is associated with a number of stereotypical qualities. The reference here is to his reputation for learning and ratiocination rather than physical labor.
p. 9 Steinmetz (1865–1923) was a scientist famous for his research on alternating electric currents. Born in Prussia, he migrated to the United States in 1889 and was employed by General Electric in Schenectady.
p. 11 Barney Ross (1909–1967), born Dov-Ber Rasofsky, world boxing champion in lightweight, junior welterweight, and welterweight divisions.
p. 11 Tsitsit are ritual fringes on the undergarment worn by Jewish men in obedience to the biblical injunctions of Numbers 15:38: “Speak to the children of Israel and you shall say to them that they shall make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments, throughout their generations, and they shall affix a thread of blue on the fringe of each corner.” A similar injunction appears in Deuteronomy 22:12.
p. 14 Richard Dehmel (1863–1920), German poet, whose lyric “Der Arbeitsmann” (The workingman) contains three stanzas, each of which concludes with the words Nur Zeit—the workingman has everything but time.
p. 16 The British poet John Masefield (1878–1967) was known for his seafaring poems.
p. 17 Lovestonism was an American offshoot of Communism. Jay Lovestone (b. Jacob Liebstein, 1897–1990), originally a Communist and national secretary of the Workers’ Party of America, was expelled from the Communist Party in 1929 and formed his own oppositional branch of the movement.
p. 21 Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881), British Conservative statesman, author, and twice prime minister of Britain.
p. 22 In Germanic legends, Lohengrin comes to the rescue of Princess Elsa of Brabant.
p. 23 Night of the Long Knives was the term used to describe Hitler’s purge of potential Nazi rivals on the night of June 30–July 1, 1934.
p. 24 Haman: villain of the Book of Esther, who urges the killing of the Jews of Persia. Tomas de Torquemada (1420–1498), first grand inquisitor of Spain, notorious for his persecution of Jewish communities. Bogdan Chmielnicki (ca. 1595–1657), Cossack leader who instigated pogroms of Polish Jews as part of his struggle for Ukrainian independence. Pavel Krushevan (1860–1909), anti-?Semitic Russian journalist and publisher of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Jozef Haller (1873–1960), Polish general some of whose units attacked Jewish civilians during World War I.
p. 25 Rabbinic dictum of Rabbi Tarfon from Ethics of the Fathers, chapter 2 (trans. Judah Goldin): “The day is short, the work is plentiful, the laborers are sluggish, the reward is abundant, and the master of the house presses.”
p. 25 Lao-Tse (b. 604 BCE), Chinese philosopher, author of Tao Te Ching—a foundational work of Taoism centered on the principle of “non-action.”
p. 26 According to Jewish folk tradition, the unheralded virtue of thirty-six righteous souls in every generation keeps the world in existence. They are referred to as the lamed-vov (thirty-six) tsadikim.
p. 33 Diapason: in music, an interval of one octave.
p. 34 Jeremiah 31:15.
p. 34 The River Sambatyon, or Sabbath River, in Talmudic literature said to flow with dangerous currents on weekdays and to lie still on Sabbath. The Ten Lost Tribes were believed to have disappeared from history after the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel in the eighth century BCE.
p. 34 Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman (1720–1797), known as the Gaon, or Luminary, of Vilna, was the leading rabbinic scholar and authority of his age. His name is invoked as the epitome of Jewish learnedness.
p. 38 The Kol Nidre prayer opens the service on the eve of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year.
p. 42 The Haggadah (which means “telling”) is the story of the exodus from Egypt, read during the Passover seder.
p. 45 The ceremony of Tashlikh, in which sins are symbolically thrown into a body of water, is observed on the first day of the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, or on the second day if the first falls on the Sabbath.
p. 50 Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin (1873–1938), famous Russian opera singer.
p. 54 Berek Joselewicz (1764–1809), Jewish merchant who became a colonel in the Polish army during the
Kościuszko uprising against Russia, commanded the first Jewish military unit in modern history, and was hailed by the Poles as a hero in their struggle for independence.
p. 57 The Maccabees waged a successful guerrilla war against the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes in 168 BCE. The holiday of Hannukah celebrates their victory.
p. 58 There are three traditional calls for the ram’s horn: a regular blast, tekiyah; a long undulating wail, truah; and three staccato blasts, shvorim.
p. 62 Deuteronomy 19:19.
p. 64 One of the derogatory terms Jews used for Jesus.
p. 65 Abraham Goldfaden (1840–1908), founder of the first Yiddish language theater, in Romania in 1876, and composer of popular operettas.
p. 66 Family Tsvi (1904), by the Yiddish dramatist and novelist David Pinski (1872–1959), written following the pogroms in Kishinev and other Russian cities, sympathetically portrays the younger generation’s creation of Jewish self-defense.
p. 66 Dovid Edelstadt (1866–1892), Yiddish poet whose early death from tuberculosis enshrined him as a literary martyr.
p. 70 The Russian journal Niva was edited by Vladimir Galaktyonovicz Korolenko (1853–1921), Ukrainian-Russian critic of tsarism, who took a public stand against the 1911 trial of the Jew Mendl Beilis, charged with the ritual murder of a Christian child.
p. 72 The Swan of Tuonela is a tone poem by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, based on a legend from the Kalevala epic.
p. 78 Shereshevsky, etc., families noted for their wealth.
p. 85 The Hebrew expression the doctor uses is kema’ayan hamitgaber.
p. 87 The phrase “and the still, small voice is heard” appears in the High Holidays prayer “Unetaneh Tokef,” attributed to Rabbi Amnon of Mainz. The Liebestod, or “love-death,” is the final scene of Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde. “Blessed be the true judge,” Borukh dayan emes, is shorthand for the prayer that is pronounced at the moment of death, or on learning of someone’s passing.
The Glatstein Chronicles Page 46