‘I know.’
‘What do you see in her?’
‘I see myself.’
‘Well, you’ll fall into a net you’ll never be able to untangle yourself from. I don’t even believe that such a woman is capable of living with a man. She surely can’t have a child.’
‘I don’t need children.’
‘Instead of your raising her up, she’ll drag you down to her level. I know of such a case – a highly intelligent man, an engineer, and he married some unbalanced woman who was older. She bore him a crippled child, a piece of flesh that could neither live nor die. Instead of placing it in an institution, they dragged it to all kinds of clinics, spas, and quacks. It died finally, but the man was ruined.’
‘I won’t have such a freak with Shosha.’
‘It’s typical that the moment something interesting presents itself to me, fate thumbs its nose in my face.’
‘Betty, you have a lover who is goodness himself, rich as Croesus, and ready to turn the world upside down for you.’
‘I know what I have. I hope this won’t spoil our plans for the play.’
‘It won’t spoil anything.’
‘If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed such a thing possible.’
I leaned my head against the back of the droshky and looked up above the tin rooftops at the Warsaw sky. It seemed to me that the city had changed. There was something festive and Purim-like in the air. We passed Iron Gate Square again. All the windows of the Vienna Hall were illuminated and I could hear music. Someone must be getting married there this evening. I closed my eyes and put my hand on Betty’s lap. The smells of spring came to my nostrils along with the stench of garbage wagons transporting the day’s refuse to the fields.
The droshky stopped. Betty wanted to pay but I would not allow it. I helped her out and took her arm. Normally I would have been self-conscious about escorting such an elegant lady to a restaurant, but my encounter with Shosha had dazed me. In the restaurant an orchestra was playing American jazz and hits from Warsaw cabarets. All the tables seemed to be taken. Here they ate the chickens, ducks, geese, and turkeys that had been slaughtered earlier that day. It smelled of roasting, of garlic, horseradish, beer, and cigars. The older men had tucked the huge napkins into their stiff collars. Bellies protruded, necks were thick, and bald pates gleamed like mirrors. The women chattered vivaciously, laughed, and dug their red fingernails into the portions of fowl that couldn’t be got at by a fork. Their rouged lips drank from foaming mugs of beer. The headwaiter offered us a table in a niche. They knew Betty here. Sam Dreiman left dollar tips. Skillfully waiters maneuvered among the tables, balancing trays from which steam rose. I sat not facing Betty but alongside her.
The menu didn’t feature a single dish that wasn’t fish or meat, and I had just vowed to become a vegetarian. After some deliberation I decided the vow would have to wait another day. I ordered broth and meatballs with farfel and carrots, but I had no desire for food. Betty ordered a cocktail and a steak, insisting that it be rare. She took little sips of her drink and looked at me sharply.
She said, ‘I don’t intend to hang around this stinking world too long. Forty years is the maximum. I don’t want to live a day longer. What for? If it works out that I can perform a few years the way I want, all the better. If not, I’ll put an end to it sooner. Thank God for one gift – the choice to commit suicide.’
‘You’ll live to ninety. You’ll be a second Sarah Bernhardt.’
‘No. Also, I don’t choose to be a second anything. It’s first or nothing. Sam promises me a huge inheritance, but I’m convinced he’ll outlive me, and I hope that he does with all my heart. They don’t know how to mix a cocktail here. They try to copy America but imitations are always false. The music’s a poor imitation, too. The whole world wants to copy America and America copies the whole world. Why should I be an actress? Actors are all monkeys or parrots. I tried to write once. I still have a bundle of poems lying around – some in Yiddish, some in Russian. Nobody wanted to publish them. I read the magazines and I see that they print the worst rubbish, but from me they demand that I be another Pushkin or Yesenin. Why are you looking at my steak like that? What you said about vegetarianism today is nonsense. If God created the world this way, then that is His will.’
‘The vegetarians only express a protest.’
‘How can a bubble protest against the sea? It’s arrogant. If a cow lets herself be milked, she must be milked, and if she lets herself be slaughtered, she should be slaughtered. That’s what Darwin said.’
‘Darwin didn’t say that.’
‘No matter, someone said it. Since Sam gives me money, I must take it from him, and since he goes to Mlawa and leaves me alone, I must spend time with someone else.’
‘Since your father let himself be shot, then—’
‘That’s vile!’
‘Forgive me.’
‘Basically, you’re right. But man must have regard for his fellow man. Even animals don’t devour their own species.’
‘In my uncle’s house a tomcat killed his own kittens.’
‘A tomcat does what nature tells him. Or this could have been a mad tomcat. You’re a mad tomcat yourself, and you too will devour somebody. You looked at that stunted girl today with the eyes of a tomcat looking at a canary. You’ll give her a few weeks of happiness, then you’ll abandon her. I know this as well as I know it’s night now.’
‘All I did was promise her I’d come for lunch tomorrow.’
‘Go to her tomorrow and tell her you’re married. Actually you do have a wife – that Communist you told me about. What’s her name? Dora. Since you don’t believe in marriage, then the woman you’re with is your wife.’
‘In that case, every modern man has dozens of wives.’
‘Yes, every modern man has dozens of wives and every modern woman has dozens of husbands. If laws no longer have meaning, let the lawlessness apply to everybody.’
The music stopped and we grew silent. Betty tasted a piece of her steak and pushed the plate away. The headwaiter noticed and came over to ask if he could bring her something else. She said that she was not hungry. She complained that the cook used too many spices. Our waiter came over and the two men began to discuss the chef. The headwaiter said, ‘He’ll have to go.’
‘Don’t fire him on my account,’ Betty said.
‘It’s not a question of only you. He’s been told a hundred times not to use so much pepper, but it’s like a madness in him. Because he likes pepper he’ll end up without a job – isn’t that madness?’
‘Oh, every chef is half mad,’ the waiter said.
Both he and the headwaiter lingered around the table while we ate dessert. They were apparently afraid of losing their usual tip, but Betty took out two dollars and gave one to each of them. Both men began to bow and scrape. In Warsaw a family could have eaten for half a week on that sum. A millionaire’s mistress apparently had to act like the millionaire himself.
‘Come, let’s go,’ Betty said.
‘Where?’
‘To my place.’
5
I got home at eight in the morning. On the way to catch my trolley I glanced in a mirror – a pale face, a bristly beard; I had had to leave the hotel early, before the maid brought breakfast. The trolley was full of men and young women going to factories and shops, with lunches under their arms. I yawned and tried to stretch, but there was no room to extend my legs. It had rained during the night and the sky hung overcast and dark as dusk; in the trolley the lights had been turned on. All the faces appeared grim and preoccupied. Everyone seemed to be taking account, wondering at the start of another day, what’s the sense of all this effort, and where does it lead to? I imagined that by some common sensitivity they all realized the same mistake and were asking, ‘How could we have missed something so obvious and why is it too late to correct it?’
At home Tekla let me in. In the corridor her eyes expressed a reproof
that seemed to say, ‘You wild man!’ She asked if I wanted breakfast and I told her thanks, but later.
She said to me, ‘A glass of coffee would be good.’
‘So be it, dear Tekla.’ And I handed her a half zloty.
‘No, no, no,’ she protested.
‘Take it, Tekla, I like you.’
Her cheeks flushed. ‘You are too good.’
I opened the door to my room. My bed stood made and untouched, the shades were lowered – a bit of yesterday lingering and demanding its due. I stretched out on the bed and tried to snatch a few moments’ rest. Never had a night seemed as long as this. Once my mother told me the story of a bewitched yeshiva boy who bent down over a water tub to wash his hands before supper and in the second it took him to obtain a pitcher of water lived through a reincarnation of seventy years. Something of this kind had happened to me. During one night I had found my lost love and then succumbed to temptation and betrayed her. I had stolen the concubine of my benefactor, lied to her, aroused her passion by telling her all my lusty adventures, and made her confess sins that filled me with disgust. I had been impotent and then turned into a sexual giant. We got drunk, quarreled, kissed, insulted one another. I had acted like a shameless pervert and an ardent repentant. At dawn, some drunkard tried to break open our door and we were both convinced that Sam Dreiman had come back to surprise us, punish us, perhaps even put us to death. I dozed off and Tekla wakened me with a tray of coffee, fresh rolls, and fried eggs. She no longer paid attention to my wishes but, like a sister or wife, acted on her own initiative. She looked at me knowingly. When she put the tray on the table, I took her around from behind and kissed her nape. She made no move for a moment. Then she turned and murmured, ‘What are you doing?’
‘Give me your mouth.’
‘Oh, it’s forbidden!’ She brought her lips to mine.
I kissed her long. She kissed back and her breasts pressed against me. She kept glancing at the door. She risked her reputation, her job. She tore from my arms, panting. She seized my wrists, held them with a peasant’s strength, and hissed like a goose, ‘The mistress could come in!’ She shuffled toward the door, dragging her legs with their broad calves. I recalled the phrase from the Ethics of the Fathers: ‘One sin drags another.’ I sipped the coffee, bit into a roll, tasted the eggs, and took off my shoes. The play lay on my desk, but I couldn’t write now. I lay down on the bed and I neither slept nor stayed fully awake. In all the novels I had read, the heroes desired only one woman, but here I was, lusting after the whole female gender.
Finally I dropped off, and in my sleep I wrote the play. The writing became increasingly harder. The pen blotted, ran dry; it scratched the paper and I couldn’t make out my own handwriting. I opened my eyes and glanced at my watch – ten past one. I had slept for hours. I was supposed to be at Shosha’s at two, and I still must wash and shave. I had decided to take Shosha a box of candy. I no longer needed to steal a groschen or six from my mother to get Shosha chocolate – my pockets were stuffed with Sam Dreiman’s banknotes.
I did everything in a hurry. It would take too long to walk to Krochmalna Street, and when I left the confectionary I hailed a droshky. As it pulled up before No. 7, my wristwatch showed five minutes past two. I could feel the mother’s and daughter’s anxiety. I rushed through the courtyard and nearly fell into the hole I had sidestepped in the dark the evening before. When I opened the door, I walked into a holiday household. The table was set with a tablecloth and china. Shosha wore a Sabbath dress and high-heeled shoes. She no longer looked like a midget, merely a short girl. Her hair was set differently – high, to make her appear taller. Even Bashele had fixed herself up in honor of my visit. I handed Shosha the candy and her blue eyes gazed at me in embarrassed bliss.
Bashele said, ‘Arele, you are a real gentleman.’
‘Mama, shall I open it?’
‘Why not?’
I helped her. I had asked the confectioner for his best candy. The box was black with little gold stars. The chocolate lay in fluted paper cups, each of a different size and in its own niche.
The color changed on Shosha’s face. ‘Mama, look!’
‘You shouldn’t have spent so much,’ Bashele protested.
‘Remember, Shosha, how I used to steal money from my mother to buy you chocolate and was lashed for it at home?’
‘I remember, Arele.’
‘Don’t eat any chocolate before lunch. It’ll spoil your appetite,’ Bashele said.
‘Just one, Mama!’ Shosha pleaded. She studied which piece to select, pointing to one and then another, but she couldn’t make up her mind. She stopped, bewildered.
I had read in a book on psychiatry that the inability to decide about even small things was a symptom of a spiritual disorder. I picked out three pieces, one for each of us. Shosha held the candy between her thumb and index finger and lifted her pinky with the gesture of the poseurs of Krochmalna Street. She took a bite. ‘Mama, it melts in your mouth! How delicious!’
‘Say thank you, at least.’
‘Oh, Arele, if you only knew—’
‘Give him a kiss,’ Bashele told her.
‘I’d be ashamed.’
‘What’s to be ashamed of? You’re a young lady – may the evil eye spare you.’
‘Not here, then. In the other room.’ She held out her hand. ‘Come with me,’ she said.
I followed her into the other room, which was crowded with bundles, sacks, and old furniture. There was a metal cot, with a straw mattress but no sheet. Shosha stood on tiptoe and I bent down toward her. She took my face in her childlike hands and kissed me on the lips, on both cheeks, on my forehead, and on the nose. Her fingers were hot. I took her in my arms and we stood there clinging to each other.
I asked, ‘Shosha, you want to be mine?’
‘Yes,’ Shosha replied.
Five
1
It was early summer, the month of May, and Sam Dreiman had rented a cottage for himself and Betty in Swider, not far from Otwock. It wasn’t the villa we had seen in March. He had hired a maid and a cook. Every morning, after breakfast, Sam went to bathe in the Swiderek River. He stood under the low waterfall with his round shoulders, white-haired chest, swollen belly, and let the water pour over him. He screamed with pleasure, sneezed, gasped, and barked out his gratitude to the cool stream. Betty sat on the beach on a folding chair under a parasol and read a book. Like me, Betty avoided all sports. She could not swim. In the sun, her skin became sickly-red and developed blisters. In the attic, a room with a balcony had been set aside for me, and I used it several weekends. But I stopped going there. There were constant visitors from Warsaw or America – guests came even from the American consulate. The majority of the visitors spoke English, and then when Sam knew I was coming he invited actors and actresses who were scheduled to appear in our play and demanded that I read scenes to them. They were all old, but they dressed like young people – the men in narrow pants, the women in gaudy trousers over their broad hips. They kept praising me and I couldn’t stand the excitement and even less the undeserved compliments. I had paid another two months’ advance on my room on Leszno Street and wasn’t about to let it stand empty. Besides, each time I went, Sam complained because I wouldn’t bathe in the little river. I was embarrassed about undressing before strangers. I had never freed myself from a notion inherited from generations: the body is a vessel of shame and disgrace, dust in life and worse in death.
But what really kept me in Warsaw was Shosha. I went to see her now daily. I had laid out a program and tried desperately to stick to it. It required me to rise at eight and wash at the stand. The hours from nine to one were to be spent at my desk with the play. But I had also started a novel, which I shouldn’t have done. Besides, the few hours of work were full of interruptions. Feitelzohn phoned every day. He had prepared the first soul expedition, which was to take place at Sam Dreiman’s summer house. He was planning to read a paper there, to defend his theory that jeal
ousy was about to vanish from human love and sex and be supplemented by a wish to share libidinous enjoyments with others. Celia called me every other day from Jósefow. Each time, she asked the same thing: ‘Why do you sit in hot Warsaw? Why not enjoy the fresh outdoors?’ She and Haiml both described how balmy the air was in Jósefow, how cool the nights, how sweet the song of the birds. They begged me to come to them. Celia argued, ‘Let’s snatch a little peace before another world war breaks out.’
I admitted that they were right and promised them, as I promised Sam Dreiman and Betty, that I would come out that very day or the next, but the moment the clock showed one-thirty I headed for Krochmalna Street. I would enter the gate of No. 7 and see Shosha standing at her window watching for me – a blond girl, blue-eyed, with a short nose, thin lips, a slender neck, her hair braided in pigtails. Thank God, she had all her teeth. She spoke the Yiddish of Krochmalna Street. In her own fashion she denied death. Although they had all died, in Shosha’s mind Eli and Zeldele still ran the grocery store, David and Mirale still sold butter, raw and boiled milk, as well as sour milk and cottage cheese, Esther still kept the candy store where you could buy chocolate, cheesecake, soda water, and ice cream. Each day Shosha surprised me with something. She got out her old school textbooks with the familiar pictures and poems. She had kept the notebooks in which I began my literary career and attempted to paint as well. I noticed that when it came to drawing I hadn’t made the slightest progress.
Whenever I was with her, I asked myself, How can this be? How can it be explained? Had Shosha found a magical way to stop the advance of time? Was this the secret of love or the power of retrogression? Oddly, Bashele, like Shosha, showed no surprise at my reappearance. I had come back and I was here. I gave Bashele money to prepare meals for me, and when I arrived at two or a bit later, the house already smelled of new potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes, cauliflower – whatever she had bought that day. She set the table and the three of us sat down and ate as if we had never been parted.
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