After a performance like his, even I was inspired. I became a disciple and played dumb.
“Oy, a little bread for the children,” he moaned.
“Okay,” I said to Bluma, “be well.”
“You be well,” Bluma responded.
“Oy, the children aren’t well and no medicine. A little bread at least.” He paused and then took up his wail, “God should curse anyone who would let a sick child starve.”
The fire returned to Bluma’s eyes. All the DiMaggios have been dynamite in the clutch. Waving her cane, she stepped forward. And from there, it was all Elijah and the Prophets of Baal. And the Prophets of Baal were even blind to what they could see.
“God should bless you.” Bluma raised her voice.
“A curse on a man who lets the innocent starve.”
“God bless you and your wife!”
“Oy, letting children die. Letting a baby die!”
Bluma screamed, “God bless your baby! The baby should be healthy, that’s the main thing.”
“No bread for a baby. A curse, a curse.”
Bluma, still staring at me, asked frantically, “Is it a boy baby or a girl baby?”
“A girl,” I answered.
Back on the track, she started rolling now. “A good healthy, happy, sweet year for your little girl!”
“Oy, what kind of year can it be when the Jews let children starve?”
“Feh! Feh! Feh! The devil should starve — but the Jews and your little girl baby should have a good year.”
“A curse on such Jews.”
“A blessing on such Jews, all the Jews. A curse on our enemies, may they rot.”
“Oy, the Jews bring on their own suffering when they are not good to other Jews.”
“God is good, so are His people. He’ll save us. God knows the trute! God loves the trute! God searches for the trute! He knows the hearts of everyone. God is good and so are His people and that’s the trute. A happy New Year!”
No contest. The phony, uninvolved and unenriched, turned to hustle some other worshipers. What a day for him! The poor faker ran into the Bill Russell of pushkes and the Dom DiMaggio of blessings in the same hour. (Could that Dom field those long, center-field curses and get the blessing back to the infield!) What a day. He turned into a flying pretzel only to smash himself into crumbs against the Western Wall of Bluma’s passion.
“A happy New Year,” Bluma calmly remarked to me. “Say, what is your name?”
“Harold.”
“Say, Hal darling, I gotta talk to you.”
“Bluma, I’m late for work,” I begged off.
“Nobody’s got time for Bluma. Run! Run! Run!”
“I’ll see you Thursday.”
“No, Thursday is no good. I gotta go to the butcher. I gotta million things to do.... Okay, Hal darling, be well.”
When I reached the sidewalk, a voice called after me. “Take care of that girl baby.”
As I passed the OTB parlor on Broadway, it looked as if everyone inside was taking the rest cure. Staring at a sheet, what kind of action is that? They don’t even see the horses! Maybe one is missing a leg. Every gambler thinks it’s his lucky day. How did I know it was my lucky day? The phony one left the field. The blessings remained. Nothing is new. Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal — the mount of blessings and the mount of curses, and as usual the Jews in the middle. It was a heady experience, all right, but I grew up in a family where everybody was alway yelling. No, I was impressed by Bluma’s svora: you give and the rich don’t give. That’s a svora, logical analysis! Svora is kop, a good mind. Knowledge is power and svora rules the world. The mind is the true reality. It is written, “God gave man dominion over all creation,” yet the lion is king of the jungle. But only Adam knows why the lion is king, even while he is being eaten. That’s svora. I ask you, who is really the king of the jungle? Kissinger. Kissinger is a practitioner of svora. He practices power politics, yet he would get a hernia if he had to carry his own briefcase. Kissinger made it on svora. Not a Jew was at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Not a Jew orchestrated the Concert of Europe. Metternich was there. Talleyrand was there. But not a man understood the score until Henry Kissinger put down his soccer ball and became a professor. Who is really the conductor of Europe? It’s nothing new. Look at Einstein, who knew more about the world than any other man. There was a master of svora. Relativity, light, gravity, the atom. He knew it all. Einstein understood how to split the atom, turn matter into energy. Who cares if he had to flee Europe to prevent the Nazis from splitting the atoms of his head on the anvil of Auschwitz? Who is the master of the world? Einstein or Hitler? Einstein — svora rules the world. Einstein is a kop, a great intelligence. Hitler was a wolf in lion’s clothing. Ah, svora, it is a great consolation for those who don’t own anything. What does an animal or an owner have to understand? “Mine” is his total understanding. It’s mine: ownership — that’s it. Who has to understand? Adam the outcast, the oppressed, the cursed, the poor, the Jew — Kissinger, Einstein, and Bluma the Beggar. Oh, that Bluma! The body of a DiMaggio, the head of an Einstein, the heart of a.... That I didn’t discover until after Rosh Hashanah.
I saw Bluma one more time before Rosh Hashanah. She told me that enough was enough. She couldn’t accept any more money from me. And then she told me what she wanted to talk to me about. She was going to bring me a few things — clean, like new — for the wife and baby, too.
“But I don’t know about your arms,” she said. “Maybe your arms aren’t as long as they look.”
“Bluma, that’s kind, but we don’t need anything, really.”
“Everybody needs something!”
“Bluma, please don’t. We don’t need it.”
“Don’t be stubborn. I don’t like it. I’m stubborn; Bluma’s stubborn. You’ll be here Tuesday after Rosh Hashanah?”
We made it through the month of Elul to that Rosh Hashanah. Had I prepared? A little, I guess. Not enough. We dipped slices from the round holiday loaves into honey for a sweet year. We ate the head of a fish. “May it be God’s will to make us the head and not the tail.” Powerful but perfunctory. Then I didn’t understand that Jewish fish do not have a middle. Talk about threads! Nor did I understand that goyish fish are all middle, without either head or tail. But I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. I had prepared, and progress is not altogether obvious at the time. The entire month of Elul, I seemed to hear nothing but mangled, miskeyed, strangled failures on the shofar. How could it be otherwise on the Day of Judgment? But it was. The same man. The same shofar. But a different day, and a different sound. A full-throated sound whose staccato cries and low-sighing wails did not assail the ear, but, rather, through the ear infused the listener with the venerable mystery of anguished joy, comforted sorrow, penitence, and hope. The tones are not of the mind. We hear them, but we do not listen so much as we feel them. The shofar forms its notes in its own image. The curved creatures invisibly penetrate and hook our hearts. The hooked messengers tug upon our insides to heed the call: their presence and our receptivity. A call from past Rosh Hashanahs: the creation of Adam, the Binding of Isaac, our own actions. A call from future Rosh Hashanahs: the redemption of the Messiah. But the shofar curves upward, its mouth to heaven. Talk about threads! The shofar’s timeless supplication rises to heaven, where the angels, whose names it is even forbidden to mention, weave the ethereal filament — threads of penitence — into the Holy Veil. Talk about threads! Some threads — the heavenly Garment District.
And the Ten Days of Penitence had fallen, Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur. And the Jews in the middle. Also in the middle was my appointment with Bluma. She sat in the back.
“How are you?” she asked, and without waiting for an answer she continued, “Wait here a minute, I got some things out there in the hall for you. It’s not their business. They don’t have to know.”
Bluma moved away to take her professional post. As the congregation filed by, she wished each of the minyan, “Be inscribed in the Book of Life
on the impending Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur.” She put the change into her pocket. I offered her a five-dollar bill.
“Will you stop it!” she snapped.
“Here, Bluma, it’s before Yom Kippur for me, too.”
“You gave and you need it.” She looked at me with a smile. “You work and your wife works. She teaches.”
Bluma paused to savor my reaction. I was surprised. She smiled widely.
“I’ve been doing some checking on you. You’re not dealing with a fool. Come, I’ve got some good stuff for you. You’ll see about the arms.”
We stepped into the narrow hall. Two enormous shopping bags bulged with neatly folded clothes. The two, double-bagged, almost blocked the passage.
“Listen, Bluma, I just can’t take this.”
“What’s wrong with you?” she snapped.
“It’s not right.”
“Don’t you understand? I’m giving you something. See! You give me money, right? It comes back at you. It comes back at you, doesn’t it? Whaddaya say?”
“It sure does.”
“Whaddaya say?... I’ll help you with it. I know it’s heavy. I could hardly shlep it up on the bus.”
“Bluma, where do you live?”
She looked up in aggravation.
“Feh! Feh! Feh! Right away he wants to know where I live. I live. I live. That’s all.”
“No,” I said reaching for the bags. “I’ll get them.”
As I picked them up, we heard someone coming. Mr. Isaacson had stayed behind to recite Psalms. He clattered down the corridor toward us.
As he approached, she barked at me, “Boy! Help me with these packages!” And as an afterthought: “I have to take them to a poor old woman.”
The sharp command stunned me into my past, and out of a respectful St. Louis boyhood I mumbled, “Yes, ma’am.”
Mr. Isaacson smiled as he squeezed past. As I lugged the bags down the steps, I was grateful that I didn’t have to shlep them up on a bus. I looked over at Bluma hobbling down the hard, stone stairs. Boy, help me with these packages. And I wave five-dollar bills in her face like Yankee Doodle on the Fourth of July. Some charity. Can’t I give it in private?
“Bluma, you know this isn’t fair.”
“Hal darling, what’s fair got to do?”
“I gave you a little and you gave me a lot. I have to give you more.”
“Now shut up! You don’t argue with your wife, do you?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“You do? That’s no good. She’s more intelligent than you. She won’t like it.”
“She doesn’t.”
“See! Bluma knows.”
We walked up Broadway together. I stopped to turn off at Ninety-third.
“Thank you.”
“Be healthy. That’s the main thing. There’s good stuff in there for the baby. I folded it neatly. I don’t know about your arms. You’ll see.”
“Where did you get so many nice things?”
“Leave it to God and Bluma,” she beamed.
I left it to God and Bluma — and my arms were too long. The only item in both bags for me was a maroon sportscoat. It wasn’t bad at all, but I didn’t even have to look into a mirror. I knew I was in trouble when the sleeves didn’t reach down to my elbows. Nu, God and Bluma make better friends than tailors. My wife was amazed to see my bundles. She couldn’t believe it. But she couldn’t refuse Bluma’s gift either, until the roaches walked out. The roaches didn’t walk out, however, until she already had chosen a green coat for herself and a dark blue pullover for the baby. After the roaches appeared, I had to take the bags down to the basement since nothing, according to my wife, can atone for roaches. Although the little creatures had destroyed much of the charm for her, she was fascinated at my departing to make a minyan at seven-thirty in the morning and my returning at eight-fifteen with a pile of used clothes. She saw in this occurrence some strong atavism exhibiting itself. Immediately before Yom Kippur, we called my folks in St. Louis to wish them an easy fast. My wife spoke first and introduced me as the competition. At the end of the conversation I asked:
“Say, Pop, how’s business?”
“Slow.”
“What’s slow mean?”
“Slow means we have a million pounds of used clothes, winter goods, that should be moving by now.”
“Yeah, I know the feeling,” I said.
Bluma the Prophet. In the first grade, the roving reporter for the George Washington Bugle asked me what I wanted to be. “A ragman like my father,” I answered, embarrassing the family. You never know when you leave it to God and Bluma.
THE next time I left it to those two, I found myself in an even stranger situation. Several weeks after Yom Kippur, Bluma announced that she wanted to give me some “nice things.” My wife suggested that they couldn’t come into the house without her leaving it. “We paid to get rid of our roaches. It’s insane to accept hers.” She had a point. Bluma said that she was smarter.
“Bluma, I can’t.”
“Feh! Feh! Feh! Whaddaya mean, ‘I can’t’?”
“I can’t.”
“Did I give you good stuff?”
“Yes.”
“Did your wife like the coat?”
“Yes.”
“Sure. It’s a good coat. Wasn’t the baby’s stuff nice? I folded it special.”
“Very nice.”
And then she softened, and said quietly, “Hal darling, don’t be so proud. It’s no good. I know.”
I had an inspiration.
“Bluma, I’m not, but it’s too far for you to shlep!”
“That’s the trute,” she conceded.
“So it’s not fair. We’ll manage.”
“Are you busy Sunday?”
I trembled. “What time?”
“Any time. How about the morning?”
“I have to take the baby to the park.”
“The afternoon then.”
“We may have to go somewhere.”
“When does the baby nap? She’s gotta nap.”
“Around one.”
“I’ll meet you in front of Two-fifty West Ninety -nint’.”
“Is that where you live?”
“Live. Live. Live. That’s where I’ll be.”
That is, of course, where I was. My wife wanted to know why I couldn’t say no. I couldn’t. And I didn’t want to say no. How many people can you respect these days? Very few. Bluma was one. And Elul is only one month of the year. We always need to hear the shofar at Rosh Hashanah, but that doesn’t mean we should prepare for the rest of the year by becoming deaf. On the contrary, it means that we must prepare by improving our hearing the rest of the year so that we can hear it better. And what was I supposed to tell Bluma? “Happy New Year, kiddo! See you next time round!” Of course I enjoy Elul. I also fear it. Elul is the homestretch, the final games of the season that can decide a pennant. Elul-Rosh Hashanah-Yom Kippur is the name of the game. Judgment-Atonement-Life. The final games are more dramatic, but all the games count in the standings, even the ones played in April, cold and rainy. And what about God? We relax a little after Yom Kippur. Why not? We have to, we’re only human, but He’s not. Does God go to Florida for the winter and the mountains for the summer? Of course not! And there was another consideration. I had started it. I was responsible. I gave her the five dollars. It was my corny Yankee Doodle stunt. I played friend and hero. Didn’t she have a right to reciprocate? Couldn’t she be a hero and friend? It could come back to me, see! Reciprocity is the trute! How can I give, if I can’t receive? Righteousness, like Broadway, is a two-way street. Let it be well traveled. If you can shlep it downtown, you can shlep it uptown. And anyway, I liked her. And I feared her.
I turned the corner on Ninety-ninth Street and for a moment I didn’t see Bluma. She was almost halfway down the block, seated on a standpipe projecting from the building. If not her residence, at least her office. The bright red of the standpipe perfectly matched her socks. All wer
e the same height, too, as if they were a matched set. Bluma saw me and waved her cane to attract my attention.
“Good. I didn’t think you were coming.”
“I said I would be here.”
She leaned on her cane and stood up.
“Here,” she said, “you sit down.”
“Oh, no, Bluma, you sit.”
“No,” she insisted as hostess, “you had a long walk. You must be tired. Sit.”
“I’ll stand. It’s good to stretch my legs a little.”
“Sit. You’ll see, you’ll like it. And I have to get the bags.”
I noticed that there weren’t any bags. None. Just Bluma and the standpipe, which I now could see was a Siamese fitting; at the top, the seat of Bluma’s chair, the pipe branched out into a V-shape. I sat down. It was surprisingly comfortable. I leaned my back against the building and relaxed. A little low, but after all, if my arms are too long, why not my legs, too?
“It’s nice, no?” she smiled.
“Yes, it really is comfortable.”
“When it’s hot and the days are long, I like sitting here. It’s nice. There’s a breeze sometimes.”
“Yes, I can see.”
“Okay, relax. Wait here. I’ll get the things. You like tea?”
“Bluma, can I help you get the stuff?”
“Bluma can manage. It’s not for you.”
“Bluma, you live in the Whitehall?”
“Feh! Feh! Feh! My dear man, could I live in a place like that?”
“You’re sure I can’t help?”
“I’ll be right back.”
Bluma slowly hobbled to Broadway and turned uptown. Just before she turned the corner, however, she turned back and waved. She smiled, but I suspected that she was happy to find that I wasn’t following her. I wasn’t. I was sitting on the standpipe watching Ninety-ninth Street. I felt foolish all right. Bluma, at least, had the legs and the socks that matched the pipe.
Sitting there, I saw Ninety-ninth Street in a way I had never seen it before. A cousin of mine used to live at the corner in the building with the letters missing — THE AL NDA E. I must have looked at that sign a dozen times. If the building’s owner would sit here for a minute, he would fix that in an hour. We are all running with our eyes wide open, but until we are forced to stop, we really never see anything. I saw the shapes of the building and the texture of the entire block. I looked the other way and saw a clock on a church steeple. An enormous, gargantuan clock was up there, and suddenly it seemed a peculiar thing for a church to own. An incredible, monstrous clock! What were they doing with it? Advertising? What? I wasn’t even sure such a large clock could be so benign. Certainly it was strange. I saw green plants in a window across the street. I wondered who watered the hanging vine and if they spilled water on the floor when they did so. And I saw where the old, tired cement of the sidewalk had buckled and fled on an incurable slant toward its weathered, crumbling edges.
Kagan's Superfecta: And Other Stories Page 17