His teeth. It's the first thing I notice whenever I examine his baby portrait. It's not my dandruff. It's not a smudge of gesso or white paint. Between my grandfather's thin lips, planted like albino pits in those plum-purple gums, is a full set of teeth. The physician must have shrugged, as physicians used to do when they couldn't explain a medical phenomenon, and comforted my great-grandmother with talk of good omens. But then there is the family portrait, painted three months later. Look, this time, at her lips, and you will see that she wasn't entirely comforted: my young great-grandmother was frowning.
It was my grandfather's teeth, so admired by his father for the virility they declared, that made his mother's nipples bloody and sore, that forced her to sleep on her side, and eventually made breastfeeding impossible. It was because of those teeth, those wee dinky molars, those cute bicuspids, that my great-grandparents stopped making love and had only one child. It's because of those teeth that my grandfather was pulled prematurely from his mother's well, and never received the nutrients his callow body needed.
His arm. It would be possible to look through all of the photographs many times and still miss what's so unusual. But it occurs too frequently to be explained as the photographer's choice of pose, or mere coincidence. My grandfather's right hand is never holding anything—not a briefcase, not any papers, not even his other hand. (And in the only picture taken of him in America—just two weeks after arriving, and three before he passed away—he holds my baby mother with his left arm.) Without proper calcium, his infant body had to allocate its resources judiciously, and his right arm drew the short straw. He watched helplessly as that red, swollen nipple got smaller and smaller, moving away from him forever. By the time he most needed to reach out for it, he couldn't.
So it was because of his teeth, I imagine, that he got no milk, and it was because he got no milk that his right arm died. It was because his arm died that he never worked in the menacing flour mill, but in the tannery just outside the shtetl, and that he was exempted from the draft that sent his schoolmates off to be killed in hopeless battles against the Nazis. His arm would save him again when it kept him from swimming back to Trachimbrod to save his only love (who died in the river with the rest of them), and again when it kept him from drowning himself. His arm saved him again when it caused Augustine to fall in love with him and save him, and it saved him once again, years later, when it prevented him from boarding the New Ancestry to Ellis Island, which would be turned back on orders of U.S. immigration officials, and whose passengers would all eventually perish in the Treblinka death camp.
And it was because of his arm, I'm sure—that flaccid hang of useless muscle—that he had the power to make any woman who crossed his path fall in hopeless love with him, that he had slept with more than forty women in Trachimbrod, and at least twice as many from the neighboring villages, and was now making standing, hurried love with his new bride's younger sister.
The first was the widow Rose W, who lived in one of the old wooden ramblers along the Brod. She thought it was pity that she felt for the crippled boy who had come on behalf of the Sloucher congregation to help clean the house, pity that moved her to bring him a plate of man-delbread and a glass of milk (the very sight of which turned his stomach), pity that moved her to ask how old he was and to tell him her own age, something not even her husband ever knew. It was pity she thought she felt when she removed her layers of mascara to show him the only part of her body that no one, not even her husband, had seen in more than sixty years. And it was pity, or so she thought, when she led him to the bedroom to show him her husband's love letters, sent from a naval ship in the Black Sea during the First World War.
In this one, she said, taking his lifeless hand, he enclosed pieces of string that he used to measure out his body—his head, thigh, forearm, finger, neck, everything. He wanted me to sleep with them under my pillow. He said that when he came back, we would remeasure his body against the string as proof that he hadn't changed ... Oh, I remember this one, she said, fingering a sheet of yellowed paper, running her hand—aware, or not aware, of what she was doing—up and down my grandfather's dead arm. In this one he wrote about the house he was going to build for us. He even drew a little picture of it, although he was such a bad artist. It was going to have a small pond, not a pond really, but a little thing, so we could have fish. And there would be a glass window over the bed so we could talk about the constellations before going to sleep ... And here, she said, guiding his arm under the hem of her skirt, is the letter in which he pledged his devotion until death.
She turned off the light.
Is this OK? she asked, navigating his dead hand, leaning back.
Taking an initiative beyond his ten years, my grandfather pulled her to him, removed, with her help, her black blouse, which smelled so strongly of old age he was afraid he would never be able to smell young again, and then her skirt, her stockings (bulging under the pressure of her varicose veins), her panties, and the cotton pad she kept there in case of the now regular unexpecteds. The room was soaked with smells he had never before known together: dust, sweat, dinner, the bathroom after his mother had used it. She removed his shorts and briefs, and eased onto him backward, as if he were a wheelchair. Oh, she moaned, oh. And because my grandfather didn't know what to do, he did as she did: Oh, he moaned, oh. And when she moaned Please, he also moaned Please. And when she fluttered in small, rapid convulsions, he did the same. And when she was silent, he was silent.
Because my grandfather was only ten, it didn't seem unusual that he was able to make love—or have love made to him—for several hours without pause. But as he would later discover, it was not his prepubescence that gave him such coital longevity, but another physical shortcoming owing to his early malnutrition: like a wagon with no brakes, he never stopped short. This quirk was met with the profound happiness of his 132 mistresses, and with relative indifference on his part: how, after all, can one miss something one has never known? Besides, he never loved any of his lovers. He never confused anything he felt for love. (Only one would mean anything to him at all, and a problematic birth made real love impossible.) So what should he expect?
His first affair, which lasted every Sunday afternoon for four years—until the widow realized that she had taught his mother piano more than thirty years before, and couldn't bear to show him another letter—was not a love affair at all. My grandfather was an acquiescing passenger. He was happy to give his arm—the only part of his body that Rose paid any real attention to; the act itself was never anything more than a means to get closer to his arm—as a once-a-week gift, to pretend with her that it was not a canopy bed in which they were making love, but a lighthouse out on some windy jetty, that their silhouettes, shot by the powerful lamp deep out into the black waters, could serve as a blessing for the sailors, and summon her husband back to her. He was happy to let his dead arm serve as the missing limb for which the widow longed, for which she reread yellowing letters, and lived outside herself, and outside her life. For which she made love to a ten-year-old. The arm was the arm, and it was the arm—not her husband, or even herself—that she thought about seven years later, on June 18, 1941, as the first German war blasts shook her wooden house to its foundations, and her eyes rolled back in her head to view, before dying, her insides.
THE THICKNESS OF BLOOD AND DRAMA, 1934
UNAWARE OF the nature of his errands, the Sloucher congregation paid my grandfather to visit Rose's house once a week, and came to pay him to perform similar services for widows and feeble ladies around Trachimbrod. His parents never knew the truth, but were relieved by his enthusiasm to make money and spend time with the elderly, both of which had become important personal concerns as they descended into poverty and middle age.
We were beginning to think you had Gypsy blood, his father told him, to which he only smiled, his usual response to his father.
Which means, his mother said—his mother whom he loved more than himself—that it's good to see yo
u doing something good with your time. She kissed him on the cheek and mussed his hair, which upset his father, because Safran was now too old for that kind of thing.
Who's my baby? she would ask him when his father was not around.
I am, he would say, loving the question, loving the answer, and loving the kiss that came with the answer to the question. You don't have to look any farther than me. As if that were something he truly feared, that she would one day look farther. And for this reason, because he wanted her to look to him and never elsewhere, he never told his mother anything that he thought might upset her, that might make her think less of him, or make her jealous.
Likewise, perhaps, he never told a friend of his exploits, or any lover of her predecessor. He was so afraid of being discovered that even in his journal—the only written record I have of his life before he met my grandmother, in a displaced-persons camp after the war—he never mentions them once.
The day he lost his virginity to Rose: Nothing much happened today. Father received a shipment of twine from Rovno, and yelled at me when I neglected my chores. Mother came to my defense, as usual, but he yelled at me anyway. Thought about lighthouses all night. Strange.
The day he had sex with his first virgin: Went to the theater today. Too bored to stay through the first act. Drank eight cups of coffee. I thought I was going to burst. Didn't burst.
The day he made love from behind for the first time: I've given much thought to what mother said about watchmakers. She was so persuasive, but I'm not yet sure if I agree. I heard her and father yelling in their bedroom, which kept me awake most of the night, but when I finally did sleep, I slept soundly.
It's not that he was ashamed, or even that he thought he was doing something wrong, because he knew that what he was doing was right, more right than anything he saw anyone do, and he knew that doing right often means feeling wrong, and if you find yourself feeling wrong, you're probably doing right. But he also knew that there is an inflationary aspect to love, and that should his mother, or Rose, or any of those who loved him find out about each other, they would not be able to help but feel of lesser value. He knew that I love you also means I love you more than anyone loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that no one loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that I love no one else, and never have loved anyone else, and never will love anyone else. He knew that it is, by love's definition, impossible to love two people. (Alex, this is part of the reason I can't tell my grandmother about Augustine.)
The second was also a widow. Still ten, he was invited by a schoolmate to a play at the shtetl theater, which also served as dance hall and twice-a-year synagogue. His ticket corresponded to a seat that was already taken by Lista P, whom he recognized as the young widow of the first victim of the Double House. She was small, with wisps of thin brown hair hanging out of her tight ponytail. Her pink skirt was conspicuously smooth and clean—too smooth, too clean—as if she had washed and ironed it dozens of times. She was beautiful, it's true, beautiful for the pitiably meticulous care with which she attended to every detail. If one were to say that her husband was immortal, insofar as his cellular energy dissipated into the earth, fed and fertilized the soil, and encouraged new life to grow, then so did her love go on living, diffused among the thousands of daily things to do—such a magnitude of love that even when divided so many ways, it was still enough to sew buttons onto shirts that would never again be worn, gather fallen twigs from the bases of trees, and wash and iron skirts a dozen times between wearings.
I believe..., he began, showing her his ticket.
But if you look, Lista said, showing him her own, which clearly indicated the same seat, it is mine.
But it's also mine.
She began to mutter about the absurdity of the theater, the mediocrity of its actors, the foolishness of its playwrights, the inherent silliness of drama itself, and how it was no surprise to her that those morons should botch up something so simple as providing one seat for each patron. But then she noticed his arm, and was overcome.
It seems we have only two options, she said, sniffling. Either I sit on your lap or we get out of here. As it turned out, they reversed the order and did both.
Do you like coffee? she asked, moving through her immaculate kitchen, touching everything, reorganizing, not looking at him.
Sure.
A lot of younger people don't care for it.
I do, he said, although in truth he'd never had a cup of coffee.
I'm going to move back in with my mother.
Excuse me?
This house was supposed to be for when I was married, but you know what happened.
Yes. I'm sorry.
Would you like some, then? she asked, fingering a cabinet's polished handle.
Sure. If you're going to have some. Don't make some just for me.
I will. If you want some, she said, and picked up a sponge, and put the sponge down.
But not just for me.
I will.
Two years and sixty-eight lovers later, Safran understood that the tears of blood left on Lista's sheets were virginal tears. He remembered the circumstances of the death of her soon to be husband: a scaffolding collapse that took his life the morning of the wedding as he walked to kneel before the Dial, making Lista a widow only in spirit, before the marriage could be consummated, before she could bleed for him.
My grandfather was in love with the smell of women. He carried their scents around on his fingers like rings, and on the end of his tongue like words—unfamiliar combinations of familiar odors. In this way, Lista held a special place in his memory—although she was hardly unique in being a virgin, or a one-episode lover—as being the only partner to inspire him to bathe.
Went to the theater today. Too bored to stay through the first act. Drank eight cups of coffee. I thought I was going to burst. Didn't burst.
The third was not a widow but another chance theater encounter. Again he went on the invitation of a friend—the same one he had deserted for Lista—and again he left without him. This time, Safran was seated between the schoolmate and a young Gypsy girl, whom he recognized as one of the vendors from Lutsk's Sunday bazaar. He couldn't believe her audacity: to show up at a shtetl function, to risk the humiliation of being seen by the unpaid and overzealous usher Rubin B and asked to leave, to be a Gypsy among Jews. It demonstrated a quality he was sure he was lacking, and it stirred something in him.
At first glance, the long braid that hung over her shoulder and spilled onto her lap looked to my grandfather like the serpent she would make dance from one tall woven basket to the next at the Sunday bazaar, and at second glance it looked the same. As the lights went down, he used his left arm to plop the dead one onto the rest between himself and the girl. He made sure that she noticed it—observing with pleasure the transformation of loose pitying lips to tight erotic grin—and when the heavy curtains parted, he was certain he would part her thin skirt that night.
It was March 18, 1791, echoed an authoritative voice from offstage, when Trachim B's double-axle wagon pinned him against the bottom of the Brod River. The young W twins were the first to see the curious flotsam rising to the surface...
(The curtain opens to reveal a provincial setting: a babbling brook running from upstage left to downstage right, many trees and fallen leaves, and two girls, twins, approximately six years old, wearing wool britches with yarn ties and blouses with blue-fringed butterfly collars.)
AUTHORITATIVE VOICE
...three empty pockets, postage stamps from faraway places, pins and needles, swatches of crimson fabric, the first and only words of a last will and testament: "To my love I leave everything."
HANNAH
(Deafening wail.)
(CHANA wades into cold water, pulling up above her knees the yarn ties at the ends of her britches, sweeping TRACHIM's rising life-debris to her sides as she wades farther.)
THE DISGRACED USURE
R YANKEL D
(Kicking up shoreline mud as he hobbles to the girls.) I ask, what are you doing over there, fatuous girls? The water? The water? But lo, there is nothing to see! It is only a liquidy thing. Stay back! Don't be so dumb as I once was. Life is no fair payment for idiocy.
BITZL BITZL R
(Watching the commotion from his paddleboat, which is fastened with twine to one of his traps.) I say, what is going on over there? Bad Yankel, step away from the Rabbi's twin female daughters!
SAFRAN
(Into GYPSY GIRL's ear, under a blanket of muted yellow stage lighting.) Do you like music?
CHANA
(Laughing, splashing at the mass forming like a garden around her.) It's bringing forth the most whimsical objects!
GYPSY GIRL
(In the shadows cast by the two-dimensional trees, very close to SAFRAN's ear.) What did you say?
SAFRAN
(Using his shoulder to push his dead arm onto the GYPSY GIRL's lap.) I was curious as to whether or not you liked music.
SOFIOWKA N
(Coming out from behind a tree.) I have seen everything that happened. I was witness to it all.
GYPSY GIRL
(Squeezing SAFRAN's dead arm between her thighs.) No, I do not like music. (But what she was really trying to say was this: I like music better than anything in the world, after you.)
THE DISGRACED USURER YANKEL D
Trachim?
SAFRAN
(With dust descending from the rafters, with lips probing to find GYPSY GIRL'S caramel ear in the dark.) You probably don't have time for music. (But what he was really trying to say was: I'm not at all stupid, you know.)
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