Shosha

by Isaac Bashevis Singer

  I remember that evening and the things Celia said to me, because this was the beginning of our intimacy. I suspected that she had decided to revenge herself upon Feitelzohn through me for his affairs with other women. There was a minute when I was ready to embrace her and whisper those smooth lies that come to the lips on such occasions. But I was sure that Feitelzohn possessed clairvoyant powers. Often when I was about to say something, he plucked the words right out of my mouth. I switched the conversation with Celia to a different topic and her eyes seemed to ask, ‘You’re scared, eh? Yes, I understand.’

  A while later the doorbell rang. It was Haiml. The conference had been canceled because a quorum wasn’t present. Winter had set in and Haiml wore a fur coat, fur boots, and a fur hat resembling a rabbinical shtreimel. He looked so funny I barely kept from laughing.

  Celia said, ‘Haiml, our young friend here is as bashful as if he had left the yeshiva only yesterday. I tried to seduce him but he wouldn’t cooperate.’

  ‘What is there to be bashful about?’ Haiml said. ‘We’re all created from the same protoplasm, we all feel the same urges. Don’t you find Celia attractive?’

  ‘Both attractive and intelligent.’

  ‘So what’s the problem? You may kiss her.’

  ‘Come here, yeshiva boy!’ Celia said, and she gave me a mighty kiss. She said, ‘He writes like a grown-up but he’s still a child. Truly a mystery.’ After a while she added, ‘I have a name for him – Tsutsik. That’s what I’ll call him from now on.’

  3

  Dr Morris Feitelzohn had spent the years between 1920 and 1926 in America, where he had been on the staff of a Yiddish newspaper in New York and had given courses at some local college. I never found out exactly why he left the Golden Land. Each time I questioned him about it, he gave me a different answer. He said that he couldn’t stand the New York climate because he suffered there from hay fever, rose fever, and other allergies. Or he said that he couldn’t bear American materialism and reverence for the dollar. He hinted at romantic entanglements. I had heard that the writers at the newspaper conspired against him and got him fired. Also, he had problems at the college where he lectured. In his conversations with me, he often referred to the Yiddish theater in New York, to the Café Royal where the Yiddish intellectuals of the city gathered, and to such Zionist leaders there as Stephen Wise, Louis Lipsky, and Shemaryahu Levin.

  In spite of his frequently expressed antipathy toward America and Americans, Morris Feitelzohn never severed his connections with them. He was a friend of the director of HIAS in Warsaw and was known at the American consulate. From time to time, tourists who had either known Feitelzohn in New York or to whom one of his American friends had recommended him came to Poland and Feitelzohn brought them up to the Writers’ Club and played the role of guide. He assured me he never took any money from these Americans, but I knew that he went with them to first-class restaurants, to the theater, to museums, and to concerts, and they often left him ties and other gifts. He confided to me that one of the higher officials at the Warsaw American consulate could be bribed to help obtain visas for alleged rabbis, professors, and bogus relatives beyond the quota. The way of transmitting the bribe was to play poker and allow the official to win a large amount. The intermediary was a foreign correspondent in Warsaw who took a percentage for himself. The fact that despite all these contacts Feitelzohn remained a pauper who had to borrow a few zlotys from a poor slob like me seemed proof that he himself was basically honest.

  For me that winter in the 1930s was one of the hardest I had known since I left my parents’ house. The literary magazine where I read proof two days a week was on the verge of folding. The publisher who printed my translations was facing bankruptcy. I had sublet a room from a family who now wanted to be rid of me. More than once when people telephoned me they were told that I was out, even though I was right there in my room. In order to go to the bathroom I had to walk through the living room, and the door to this room was often locked at night. I had been planning to move for weeks but hadn’t found a room for the little rent I could pay. I was still involved with Dora Stolnitz – I didn’t want to marry her, yet wasn’t willing to let go.

  When I met Dora she had said that she considered marriage a vestige of religious fanaticism. How could you sign a contract for lifelong love? Only capitalists and clerics were dedicated to perpetuating such a hypocritical institution. Although I had never been a leftist, in this I concurred with her. Everything I saw and read bore witness to the fact that modern man didn’t take family responsibility seriously. Dora’s father, a widower, had gone bankrupt in Warsaw and, to avoid imprisonment, had fled to France with a married woman. Dora had a sister who lived with a journalist, a married man who used to frequent the Writers’ Club. Through him I came to know Dora. But in the very first months of our affair she began to insist that we marry. She said she wanted this for the sake of some aunt, a sister of her deceased mother, who was a pious woman.

  On that winter day I looked for a room from ten in the morning until nightfall. The rooms I liked cost too much. Others were too small or stank of insecticide and bedbugs. The truth was that the way my affairs were going I couldn’t afford even a cheap room. Around five o’clock, I headed for the Writers’ Club. It was warm there and I could have a meal on credit. Going to the club gave me a feeling of shame. What kind of writer was I? I hadn’t published a single book. It was a cold, wet day. Around evening, snow began to fall. I walked along Leszno Street, shivering under my thin coat, and imagined I had written a work that would startle the world. But what could startle the world? No crime, no misery, no sexual perversion, no madness. Twenty million people had perished in the Great War, and here the world was preparing for another conflagration. What could I write about that wasn’t already known? A new style? Every experiment with words turned quickly into a collection of mannerisms.

  I opened the door to the club and saw Morris Feitelzohn with an American couple. The man was short and stout, with a wide, ruddy face, a headful of hair white as foam, and a bulging belly. He wore a light-colored coat – a shade of yellow not seen in Poland. The woman was no taller, but young, slim, and dressed in a short fur coat I guessed to be sable. She wore a black velvet beret over her red hair. I wasn’t in a mood to meet the Americans and tried to avoid them, but Feitelzohn had already seen me and called out, ‘Tsutsik, where are you going?’

  He had never called me Tsutsik before – obviously he had talked with Celia. I stopped, my eyes bleary from the cold. I tried to dry my palms on the soaked tails of my overcoat.

  Feitelzohn said, ‘Where are you running? I want you to meet my American friends. This is Mr Sam Dreiman and this is Betty Slonim, an actress. This young man is a writer.’

  Sam Dreiman’s face seemed to have been pasted together from clay. He had a broad nose, thick lips, high cheekbones, and small boring eyes beneath thick white brows. His tie was yellow, red, and gold, pierced with a diamond stickpin. He held a cigar between two fingers and spoke in a loud, grating voice. ‘Tsutsik?’ he bellowed. ‘What kind of name is that? A pet name, what?’

  Betty Slonim might have had the figure of a schoolgirl, but behind the makeup her face revealed maturity. She had hollow cheeks, a narrow chin, and eyes that by the dim glow of the overhead lamps seemed to be yellowish. She reminded me of trapeze artists in the circus. Her voice was that of a boy.

  Sam Dreiman shouted at me as if I were deaf. ‘You write for the papers, eh?’

  ‘For magazines, from time to time.’

  ‘What’s the difference? In this world we need everything. On the ship I met a man and we played a little pinochle – that’s a kind of card game. We got to talking and I asked him, “What do you do?” and he told me he was going to Africa to capture lions and other wild animals for the zoos in the States. He had a group of hunters with him, and cages, nets, and the devil knows what. This lady, Betty Slonim, is a great actress who has come to Poland to appear in the Yiddish theater. If you hav
e a play, we can do business immediately—’

  ‘Sam, don’t talk nonsense,’ Betty Slonim interrupted him.

  ‘A young man like this could have just the play you’re looking for. But before we get down to business, let’s first go somewhere for a bite. Come along, young man. What’s your real name?’

  ‘Aaron Greidinger.’

  ‘Aaron what? That’s a hard name. In America we don’t go for long European names. There, time is money. A Russian came into our office and his name was Sergei Ivanovich Metropolitansky. You could get asthma just from trying to pronounce a name like that. We called him Met, and that’s how it stuck. He’s a plumber, a specialist. He puts an ear to a pipe in the basement and he knows what’s going on on the top floor. I didn’t have any lunch today, and I’m hungry as a dog.’

  ‘You can get a bite here,’ Feitelzohn said, pointing to the lunch counter.

  ‘I’ll tell you something. I never trust a writers’ restaurant. I ordered dinner at the Café Royal and they gave me a steak as tough as leather. I noticed two restaurants down the street and they both looked pretty good to me. Come, young man, come along with us. May I call you Tsutsik?’

  ‘Yes, of course. But I’m not hungry. I ate not long ago,’ I lied.

  ‘What did you eat? You don’t look like somebody who’s overeaten. We’ll have a drink of whiskey, too – maybe even champagne.’

  ‘Really, I’m not—’

  ‘Don’t be so stubborn,’ Feitelzohn interjected. ‘Come with us. I think you told me you’d written a play?’ he went on, changing his tone.

  ‘I only have the first act and it’s just a first draft.’

  ‘What kind of play is it?’ Betty Slonim asked.

  I had stopped blushing when a woman addressed me, but now I felt the blood rush to my face. ‘Oh, it’s not for the theater.’

  ‘Not for the theater?’ Sam Dreiman shouted. ‘For who is it then – King Tut?’

  ‘It wouldn’t draw an audience.’

  ‘What’s the subject?’ Feitelzohn asked.

  ‘The Maiden from Ludmir. She was a girl who wanted to live like a man. She studied the Torah, wore ritual fringes, a prayer shawl, and even put on phylacteries. She became a rabbi and held court for Hasidim. She covered her face with a veil and preached the Torah.’

  ‘If it’s well written, it’s exactly what I’m looking for,’ Betty Slonim said. ‘Can I see the first act?’

  ‘Something will come of this meeting,’ Feitelzohn observed as if to himself. ‘Come along; we’ll eat, drink, and talk business, as they say in America.’

  ‘Yes, come, young man!’ Sam Dreiman shouted. ‘Keep your wits about you and you’ll be swimming in gravy.’

  4

  We sat in Gertner’s Restaurant and Sam Dreiman spoke of his and Betty Slonim’s plans. He had lost over a million dollars in the Wall Street crash, he said, but only on paper. Sooner or later the stocks would rise again. The economy in Uncle Sam’s land was healthy. A good many of the stocks still paid dividends. Besides, he owned houses and was a partner in a factory. The manager was his brother’s grandson, Bill, a lawyer. He himself was far from being a young man, so what need was there to worry? God had blessed him with a great love in his late years – he indicated Betty – and what he wanted was to enjoy himself and to provide her with enjoyment. She was a marvelous actress, but the hams on Second Avenue were jealous of her talent. They wouldn’t even accept her in the Hebrew Actors Union, but the few times she managed to perform in spite of them, her reviews were sensational – not only from the Yiddish but from the English press as well. She could have appeared on Broadway, but she preferred to act in Yiddish. That was the language that really brought out her talent. Money was no problem. He would rent a theater for her here in Warsaw. The main thing was to find a play that suited her. Betty required dramatic roles. Her first choice was tragedy. She was no comedienne and despised the ‘dance, song, and strut’ of the Yiddish theater in America.

  He turned to me. ‘If you come up with the right goods, young man, I’ll give you a five-hundred-dollar advance. If the play goes well, you’ll get royalties. If it becomes a hit in Warsaw, I’ll take it over to America. The first act is ready, you say? Have you started the second? Betty, you talk to him. You know better what to ask.’

  Betty was about to speak but Feitelzohn beat her to it: ‘Aaron, you’ll be a millionaire. You’ll become my patron and my publisher. Don’t forget that I was the broker who brought it all about.’

  ‘If it comes to anything, you’ll get your broker’s fee from me!’ Sam Dreiman bellowed. Each time he spoke he spread his hands, and I noticed a big diamond ring on his finger. He also wore a gold-banded wristwatch and jeweled studs.

  Now that Betty had taken off her fur coat and sat there in a sleeveless black dress, I could see how thin she was. She had an Adam’s apple like a boy’s; her arms were like sticks. Warsaw was already talking about how healthy and fashionable it was to be thin, but this Betty seemed to me emaciated. It had become the style for Warsaw women to let their nails grow and cover them with red polish, but Betty’s fingernails were uncolored and it was obvious that she bit them. Hair cut à la garçon was passé, but Betty still wore hers short. She barely tasted the food before her, and between bites she puffed on a cigarette. She wore a huge diamond bracelet on her left wrist and around her throat a necklace with smaller diamonds.

  She leaned toward me and asked, ‘When did this girl live? In what century?’

  ‘In the nineteenth. She died only a short while ago in Jerusalem. She may have been a hundred years old.’

  ‘I never heard of her. Was she that pious?’

  ‘Yes, very pious. Many Hasidim felt that she had been possessed by the dybbuk of an ancient rabbi who uttered the Torah through her lips.’

  ‘What else did she do? Is there any action in this play?’

  ‘Very little.’

  ‘A drama has to have action. The heroine can’t just spout Torah through three or four acts. Something has to happen. Did she have a husband?’

  ‘If I’m not mistaken, she married later on, but it seems she divorced her husband.’

  ‘Why don’t you write in an affair for her? If a woman like that fell in love, it could create a strong conflict.’

  ‘Yes, that’s an idea worth considering.’

  ‘Have her fall in love with a non-Jew, a Christian.’

  ‘A Christian? That couldn’t be.’

  ‘Why not? Love knows no restrictions. Suppose she were to get sick and go to a Christian doctor. A love might very well develop between them.’

  ‘Why couldn’t she fall in love with one of her own kind?’ Feitelzohn asked. ‘I’m sure that the Hasidim who sat around her table and swallowed her leavings and listened to her Torah were all mad about her.’

  ‘Absolutely!’ Sam Dreiman roared. ‘If I was one of those Hasidim and didn’t have my Betty – may she outlive me – I would be mad about her myself! I admit to being an ignoramus, but I love educated women! Betty studied at the Gymnasium. She reads books by the hundreds. She performed in Stanislavsky’s theater. Tell them, Betty, who you played with. Let them know who you are!’

  Betty shook her head. ‘There’s nothing to tell. I did perform in Russia in Yiddish and in Russian too, but it’s just my luck that even before I got going, a whole network of intrigue formed around me. I’ll never know why. I don’t want power, I’m not rich, I’ve never tried to steal anyone’s husband or lover. The men were attentive to me at first, but when I kept them at a distance, they became my enemies overnight. The women were all ready to drown me in a spoonful of warm water, as the saying goes. That’s how it was in Russia and that’s how it was in America, and it will be the same here, too – unless there’s no competition to conspire against me.’

  ‘If anyone dares say a word against my Betty, I’ll poke his eyes out!’ Sam Dreiman shouted. ‘Here, they’ll kiss your feet!’

  ‘I don’t want anyone to kiss my feet. All
I want is to be left alone so that I can play with peace of mind.’

  ‘You’ll play, Betty darling, and the whole world will learn how great you are. They kept all the great ones down. You think Sarah Bernhardt’s path was strewn with roses? Well, and what about the others? That one from Italy – whatever her name was. And Isadora Duncan, you think she didn’t have trouble? Even Pavlova had it. When people sense the presence of a talent they turn into wolves. I once read in the paper – I forget the writer’s name – about Rachel and how the anti-Semites in Paris tried to push her out of—’

  ‘Sam, I want to talk about the play with the young man.’

  ‘Talk, darling. I like this play even before I’ve read it. I feel it was made for you. I bet a dybbuk sits inside you too, Betty darling.’ He turned to me. ‘At times when she begins to yell at me, she acts possessed herself—’

  ‘Will you stop or not? Stop it.’

  ‘I’ll stop. I’ll only say one thing more to this young man. I’ll give you a few hundred dollars so you can work without worrying where your next meal is coming from. Just make the play so that things happen. Let her fall in love with a doctor or a Hasid or a dogcatcher, you name it. The main thing is, the audience should be curious to know what’s going to happen next. I’m no writer, but I would have her get pregnant and—’