Now what’s going to happen up there? A voice can come down at any moment and Gabriel hollers, “Shmuck, you yell at Isaacson who doesn’t need it and you don’t take a nectarine from Steimatzky who doesn’t need it either. Shmuck, you don’t know how to give and you don’t know how to take.” It’s true Mr. Steimatzky’s custom-made shirts have quite a bit of cloth in them. What can you do? Go home and eat yourself sick?
Mr. Isaacson and I descend the stone steps onto the sidewalk. We turn left toward his building. Respect!
Ninety-first Street glows pink under the high-crime street lights. Cars are bumper to bumper alongside the curbs. Heavy brownstone staircases crowd down onto the quiet sidewalk. The buildings small (a bay window, a fancy balustrade), the garbage cans few, the trees scraggly. And all is soft and close in the pellucid pink of the sodium arc. You could touch it and it wouldn’t be rough. It is unreal and very intimate. Mr. Isaacson takes my arm. Behind us we hear a stammering of farewell. We turn to acknowledge Mr. Sobel’s third goodnight. “A gute nacht.” And Mr. Sobel plunges off down the street in a stuttering motion, for every step taken, three starts.
We return to our direction, but Mr. Isaacson pauses. The mood has been broken. Mr. Sobel has limped into the night trailing shreds of Rumania, fibers of time, moans of agony. We stand exposed on Ninety-first Street. Mr. Isaacson the righteous and I.
“Let me walk you home.”
“No, you live right here.”
“You must be hungry,”
I must be hungry. And not you? Could it be Mr. Isaacson didn’t fast? The righteous? But in years he is an old man. I look at my old friend. It has been over fifty years since he turned the Little Father’s weaponry into bullet-choked kindling. Why should I be disappointed that he didn’t fast? Will it affect the purity of his message? Must righteousness exclude common sense? Over seventy! Until a hundred and twenty! I take his arm to guide him.
“Let me show you a little kuvid,” I implore.
It is the night of threes. Three offerings. Three goodbyes. Three weeks. Three “kuvids.” And in the street my kuvid, my call for respect, is heard and does not sound strange. And why should it? What are the upright founts channeled above us bathing the scene in a sea of pink but respect? Pellucid preventive pink: respect for the power of evil. Kuvid for the gonif. The wall has been breached; the sea enters. Arm in arm we negotiate the floodlit street. We make our way to the refuge of shadow near the corner. One tree on the block is capable of shelter. We are under it. The pinkish rays do not bounce; refuse to diffuse. Incapable of dusk, unable to dawn, how dull is their reflection. Like their inspirers, the evildoers, they leave nothing after them; powerful but shortsighted, they wither against the simple green leaves of our shelter. And we stand in darkness. Unable to see each other, steadfastly we gaze together upon the sea of carnage. We are returned.
“THE bugs. It must have been the bugs around my face that woke me. I was alone, lying there in the dark on my back. I knew I was injured, but I didn’t know where. I checked my hands — I brought them together. No, they were all right. I felt my legs; no, it wasn’t them. I felt my face; it was all right. Then I felt my stomach. It was okay, but as my arm came down from my stomach, it felt something soft and sticky on the side. I knew where I was hurt. In the side toward the back. I took my hands away. I didn’t know what would be. I lay there. After a while I thought to myself, ‘There’s no tachlis in this,’ so I tried to get up. It hurt but I managed. I took my coat and cigarettes and a kit like kids have now and started climbing out.”
“How did you know where to go?”
“I didn’t, but there was a well nearby and I heard a bunch of Rumanian soldiers singing, so I thought I would go there and they could help me. I got my things together and I took a few steps. I was uneasy.”
Mr. Isaacson balances himself delicately using the darkness for support.
“But I saw I could make it, so I kept going. And when I got near, crossing a field — boom! Shells started coming in and I was knocked flat and I went out again.”
In the darkness Mr. Isaacson must be shrugging his shoulders, what can you do?
“After a while, I came to again and I didn’t hear any more singing. They must have left if they didn’t get killed. I knew I wasn’t getting anywhere in the middle of the field, so I got up again and tried walking. Same thing — I felt unsteady but I went very slowly. After a while I got to the well, but there was no one there. I took a drink. I felt a little better. I was leaning against the well and I thought I could use a smoke, so I reached for a cigarette.”
“But you didn’t have any.”
“No, I had my cigarettes. I left my gun. What did I need that for? I didn’t feel like shooting anyone and they were lousy guns. But I took my cigarettes. So I lit it and inhaled....”
I hear Mr. Isaacson inhaling and relishing the sweet smoke after crawling around for half the night like a wounded beast.
“And….”
Although it is very dark, my eyes have been adjusting and I can see Mr. Isaacson. He is standing next to me, his chest uplifted inhaling the cigarette — his act of life, returning to normal. A well in a deserted field, a cigarette in the hot, summer night.
“And….”
MR. ISAACSON’S hands rise to his shoulders and as he exhales they choreograph in quick wavy descent consciousness sinking away, below the surface. Mr. Isaacson’s head has bobbed and sunk onto his chest, his lungs empty even of smoke. We leave him there, but my Mr. Isaacson, the one I know, slips out from behind the collapsed one and tells me, “I was weak and I wasn’t used to it.”
He laughs. Some cigarette ad! He laughs and stops speaking. We stand there silently. The Surgeon General should have spoken to Mr. Isaacson, he could have told him. And yet, I know his daughter. I don’t really know his daughter, but I have seen her. A beautiful woman, a model. Mr. Isaacson once told me with pride that she was in one of the most popular cigarette ads. You saw her everywhere. You couldn’t avoid her. Was it Marlboro? Kent? What difference does it make? But there she was gaily smiling on this seesaw from the back of slick magazines, down from tall buildings, inside subway cars. Young, beautiful, refreshed, and alive! Amazing! After what a cigarette did to her father! Did she even know? Could this be what Mr. Isaacson is musing about? His daughter on that smoky seesaw and the cigarette that almost killed him? No, ridiculous! Mr. Isaacson can’t be thinking of that. The righteous don’t tie knots, they untie them.
“I lay there I don’t know how long. I was lying there and they came around and found me.”
“How did they know you were alive?”
“I guess I was moving a little or something. I had some dreams.”
“Do you remember them?”
“Like it was today. Like it was now,” he answers fervently.
“What were they?”
“I dreamt I was lying there worried and frightened. I didn’t know what to think. It was like the world disappeared. And then my grandfather appeared, a big, handsome man with a beard. A religious man, a saintly man. I remember him very well. A good person. He was standing in front of me.”
And he is standing there in front of me, too. Mr. Isaacson is straight and tall with his right arm raised and his curved but open hand rocks forward and back ever so slightly in benediction, strength, and forbearance. And Mr. Isaacson’s face has become firm. Capable of joy and comfort, but now it is set firmly. We must wait for another day, it is saying. And to wait for another day we must live through this night. Benediction, strength, and forbearance. Yes we will.
“And he said to me, ‘Moishe, it will be all right, don’t worry.’ And I knew I would be all right. I opened my eyes and I saw a figure where he had been standing. It was very dark, but I could see it had an arm extended and in the hand it held a gun. It said, ‘Nyemetz or Rooski?’ German or Russian? Since it said Nyemetz or Rooski I thought I’d better say Rooski, so I said, Rooski.’ — ‘Rooski?— ‘Da! Rooski.’ And he put the gun down and they ca
me forward to help me.”
“Who were they, soldiers?”
“No, they weren’t soldiers. They worked for the army. For two weeks the battle was going on and the bodies were just lying there. When the battle ended, the army hired men to go around and collect the bodies and the equipment that still might be good. They were looking for the dead, but found me instead.
“They came over to me and saw that I was wounded, but by then I couldn’t walk, so they took my overcoat. They gave us great, heavy overcoats, very strong, so they took that and I was lying on it like a stretcher. I couldn’t keep conscious. I was going in and out and we were moving slowly. It wasn’t easy for them.”
Under their heavy burden — a wounded man on a Russian greatcoat without handles or rods, the rough wool tearing at tired hands fighting to maintain a grip — we pause. They came seeking death but found life and it’s enough to kill them. See what happens when you don’t follow orders. Hired to collect the dead, they freelanced a little and slipped a live one in on the Czar. Little Father, we heard you say dead, but look at him with your Holy Russian eyes, he’s as good as dead, isn’t he? Merciful Patriarch, and if he lives, you won’t have other wars to swallow him alive, like a frog, a beetle? And the Czar of all the Russias, irate, all his hemophilia genes dancing a kazatzke in Slavic disgust, squeals, “Fools, if you wanted to take something broken, take the Holy Russian rifle Isaacson broke, and if you want to give me a present, why give me a suffering Jew? Of those I have plenty.” And the human garbage collectors quake in fear, but a voice comes clapping down like a shofar from the heavens above. “These will eat nectarines in the World to Come with the righteous!” Justice! It is Gabriel! He has spoken! The nectarines are redeemed. Mr. Isaacson is saved. The day has turned. It is time to say amen.
“And so you were saved,” I return in a response of faith, God is a faithful King.
Mr. Isaacson does not answer.
“They took you to the field hospital?”
My wife must be worried by now.
“It must have been something to know it was over.”
“I woke up in the forest,” Mr. Isaacson is saying. “The light was coming through the trees; it must have been dawn. They had stripped me bare. They even took my boots. I didn’t have a thing. No coat, no cigarettes, nothing. They did a good job all right. They took everything.”
Everything? I draw further under the tree to avoid falling nectarines. Their crash will bury Ninety-first Street, beating the high-crime lights into the ground like mangled hangers writhing in darkness among fluorescent shards on a closet floor. Everything.
“Gonovim!” Thieves! I spit accusingly at those two who have stripped Mr. Isaacson. But Mr. Isaacson doesn’t share my bitterness.
“Weren’t they gonovim?” I ask intensely.
“No, I don’t know. I guess they thought I was dead, so they left me,” he says understandingly.
I feel confused and foolish. If they thought he was dead, they shouldn’t have let him go. They were sent to collect the dead. That was their job! With all the Hitlers in the world, I get mad at two foolish, doddering old drunks (they must have been drunks! Weren’t they goyim?). Two old drunks who tried to save a man’s life, and when they found that impossible they rescued his valuables. Dust to dust was not decreed on valuables, just flesh. Yes, just flesh, but I feel something else. I feel anger. Yes, anger.
Why shouldn’t I feel foolish, I am angry at Mr. Isaacson. I want to ask him, Mr. Isaacson, how can you be so naive? All right, they were exhausted, they could carry you no farther, their hands raw and bloody from the unequal tug-of-war with your coat, all that may be true.... Mr. Isaacson, hate them! Hate them as I hate them; it will do your heart a world of good. Oh, torn confusion, a world of good? I feel my heart constricting, mean and small within me. Of course, one should have a big heart. A big heart to live. A big heart like Mr. Isaacson’s. And maybe, that is why he is here now. The day has turned, but what about the Three Weeks? The day had entrapped me, but what about the night? The Three Weeks have nights, and I feel the dark, invisible cords circling about me. I who would run home to supper am held by the night to a dawn. Mr. Isaacson’s dawn. I cannot struggle against the unseen cords of night. I am resigned, but I am not righteous.
A part of me wants to race down the street. I raise only my eyes to glance down the still street. I can see Mr. Isaacson on the prowl for our minyan. Mr. Isaacson collecting bodies all up and down Ninety-first Street, and I know what they feel when they encounter the holy collector, enmeshed in his net of righteousness. I know their torn hearts. Part screams, “Isaacson, drop dead!” But part fervently petitions, “O Lord, make me like Mr. Isaacson.” Part pumps like mad for the subway on Broadway, but part beats with fervor, “Where are my brethren? Let us pray together, ‘May-His-Great-Name-Be-Praised-for-Ever-and-Ever.’” And so a minyan is made as an IRT express slides out of the station with one fewer passenger than it would have carried. But even at that the subway car is jammed; people mashed together like the bullets in the rifle that wouldn’t shoot. So where should he be? The refugee? Number ten, the minyan. I turn toward Mr. Isaacson but over his shoulder I glimpse my phantom local disappearing down Ninety-first Street. Part of me hungers for that frantic train and not for heaven where the angels remark on weekdays that the righteous can drive you crazy.
Yes, they can drive you crazy. The righteous do whatever they want with you. They control you. Who knows where his story is going? Where his tale is leading us? But his story has become my story, so I take his hand and ask, “What happened?” What happened to you? What happened to us? To all of us? And I am fearful, for I am not sure we will make it.
And we stand together under the nocturnal shade tree to discover our fate. He talks and I listen. He was discovered and carried through the deserter-filled forest on an empty gun carriage to a dressing station in an orchard where his wound was cleaned. I hear of the journey to the field hospital by wagon, too painful — by ambulance (“a real automobile”), too painful — and a roadside conference that elects to carry him all the way by stretcher. And so he arrives at the hospital in the hands of men, but fears to place his fate in their hands again after a young Jewish soldier dies under the knife. An ugly nurse begs him to consent, but he refuses. For days the world has been conspiring to destroy him, but never with his consent!
That night a Russian Orthodox priest appears in the ward and bed by bed draws near with his huge uplifted cross. Mr. Isaacson, exhausted, lifts the fringes on the corners of his garment and the priest halts. The others he blesses with his cross, but Mr. Isaacson he kisses.
“I got through the night all right, but the next day was bad. I couldn’t keep it from hurting. No matter how I lay, no matter how I turned, it hurt. They wanted to operate, but I wouldn’t let them. And how that nurse cared for me and comforted me. What a good person! But she was ugly! Ugly as sin. She cried over me and begged me to let them operate. Oh, she was good to me. What a good person. Finally, it hurt so bad, I figured it didn’t make much difference, so I told her they could operate.
“The doctors had finished, so she ran to find one. I thought that was the end, but it wasn’t. They opened up the wound and found a piece of shrapnel stuck between two ribs. They just took a pliers and pulled it out. It was simpler than anybody had guessed. As soon as they pulled it out, I began feeling better.”
“I bet the nurse was happy, too.”
“She was thrilled. How she cried over me! What a good person — ugly as sin.”
Mr. Isaacson smiles, enjoying the paradox. And what did she think of Mr. Isaacson? Could she see into his heart where he called her a good person? Could she for once see her inner beauty mirrored in his eyes instead of the ugly-as-sin glances that well men unceasingly cast? Or was she herself the righteous and in her eyes Mr. Isaacson learned?
“Without her you might have been lost,” I venture in appreciation of her good deed.
“Yes, and not just then,” he answers.
“It must have been the next day or the day after. The Germans started shelling the hospital. The bombs were falling right into the building. I thought I was going to get killed. I begged her to save me. She ran and got an officer’s jacket and put it on me. And when they came running in to evacuate the officers, she shouted at them, ‘He’s an officer!’ ‘Officer?’ they ask. ‘Yes,’ I answer, ‘officer!’ They look at my jacket — an officer’s — and carry me right out of there as fast as they can. She saved me.”
“What was her name?”
“I don’t know. We just called her Nurse.”
“Did you ever see her again?”
“No, a few days later they moved me farther back and I never saw her again.”
“Was she Jewish?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he answers. “I don’t think so. I think she was Russian.”
She is what she is — and that is righteous. And I am curious about the righteous. The righteous are not just nice; they are essential. Thirty-six Righteous sustain the world. If it weren’t for them the world couldn’t keep going. It would stop right in the middle of no place — like a Yo-Yo with no more energy-feeding string to tumble down. Kaput—finished! And since they are righteous they are anonymous; otherwise, they would never get any sleep. Anonymous, but when I come across one of them, I am curious to find out who they are. What is her name? Who is she? The righteous, it turns out, are who they are. I confess I wouldn’t mind her being Jewish, but whoever she is she does her good deeds anonymously, the Yo-Yo spins, the world turns, and we go from year to year lurching like a blind man at noon. For at noon, the righteous can help the sightless find the path. At night we are lost. The righteous aren’t cats; even they can’t see in the dark. But she is not entirely anonymous. We know what she looks like. She is ugly as sin. The nectarines are served in the World to Come in an ugly green bag. Ugly as sin and never sins. Ugly? No, unscarred by beauty.
Kagan's Superfecta: And Other Stories Page 21