‘Is he in love with you?’
‘In love with me? I don’t know. He’s fifty years old, maybe more.’
A droshky came up and I hailed it.
Shosha trembled. ‘Arele, what are you doing? Mama—’
‘Step up.’ I helped her and got in beside her. The driver in the oilcloth cap with the metal number in back turned around suspiciously. ‘Where to?’
‘Ujazdow Boulevard,’ I said.
‘That’s a double fare.’
We rode out before Iron Gate Square. Each time the droshky made a turn, Shosha fell against me. ‘Oh, I’m dizzy.’
‘I’ll bring you home again.’
‘See how the street looks from a droshky! I feel as if I were an empress. When Mama hears about this, she’ll say you’re a spendthrift. Arele, I’m sitting with you in a droshky and it seems like a dream to me.’
‘To me, too.’
‘So many streetcars! And how bright it is here! Like daytime. Are we going to the elegant streets?’
‘You could call them that.’
‘Arele, since that time I went to The True Mercy I’ve never been out of Krochmalna Street. Teibele goes everywhere. She goes to Falenica, to Michalin – where doesn’t she go? Arele, where are you taking me?’
‘To a wild forest where demons cook little children in kettles full of snakes and naked witches with teats on their navels eat them with mustard.’
‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, my darling.’
‘Oh, one never knows what can happen. Mama always teased me, “Nobody will take you except the Angel of Death.” I thought, They’ll put me next to Yppe. And then I came home with a cone of sugar and there you were. Arele, what’s that?’
‘A restaurant.’
‘Look how many lamps!’
‘It’s a fancy restaurant.’
‘Oh, see the dolls in that store window! Like alive! What street is this?’
‘The New World.’
‘So many trees grow here – like a park. And the ladies with the hats, how tall they are! You smell sweetness? What is it?’
‘Lilac.’
‘Arele, I want to ask you something, but don’t get mad.’
‘What do you want to ask?’
‘Do you really love me?’
‘Yes, Shosha. Very much.’
‘Why?’
‘No whys about it. Just because.’
‘So long as you weren’t there, you weren’t there. But if you went away now and didn’t come back, I’d die a thousand deaths.’
‘I’ll never leave you again.’
‘Is that the truth? Leizer the watchmaker once said that all writers are like bums, they walk near the soles of their shoes. Leizer doesn’t believe there is a God. He says everything came from itself. How can that be?’
‘There is a God.’
‘Look, the sky is red, just like from a fire. Who lives in these beautiful buildings?’
‘Rich people.’
‘Jews or Gentiles?’
‘Mostly Gentiles.’
‘Arele, take me home. I’m afraid.’
‘There’s no reason to be afraid. If it comes to it that we must die, we’ll die together,’ I said, startled at my own words.
‘Is it permitted to put a boy and a girl in the same grave?’
I didn’t answer her, and Shosha leaned her head on my shoulder.
4
I rode back in the droshky to the gate of No. 7, having decided to walk from there to Leszno Street, but Shosha clung to my arm. She was afraid to go through the dark gate, the dark courtyard, and to climb the half flight of stairs alone. The gate was locked and we had to wait some minutes for the janitor to come and open it. In the courtyard, we bumped into a short little man – Leizer the watchmaker. Shosha asked him what he was doing out so late and he told us he was taking a walk.
‘This is Arele.’ Shosha introduced me.
‘I know. I understand. Good evening. I read what you write – including the translations you have done.’
It was hard to see him clearly, but in the dim light coming from a few windows I could make out a pale face with big black eyes. He wore no jacket or hat. He spoke in a soft voice. He said, ‘Mr Greidinger – or should I call you Comrade Greidinger? It’s not that I’m a socialist, but it says somewhere that all Jews are comrades. I know your Shosha since they moved into this building. I used to visit Bashele at a time when her husband was still a respectable man. I don’t want to keep you, but she began talking about you the day we met and she’s never stopped. Arele this and Arele that. I knew your father, too, may he rest in peace. I was in your house once. It was during a din torah – I came to give testimony. A few years ago when I saw your name in a magazine, I wrote you a letter addressed to the editorial office, but there was no answer. They don’t generally answer in editorial offices, I know. It’s the same with publishers. Once, Shosha and I went to look for you. In any case, you showed up eventually, and I hear that Romeo and Juliet have found each other again. There are such loves, yes, there are. In this world, there is everything. Nature has a pattern for every piece of goods. If you look for madness, there’s no lack of that, either. What do they say in your circles about the world – I mean Hitler and Stalin and that scum?’
‘What can they say? Man doesn’t want peace.’
‘Why do you say “man”? I want peace and Shosha wants peace and so do millions of others. I still maintain that most people in the world don’t want wars, even revolutions. They would choose to live out their lives the best way they could. With more, with less, in palaces, in cellar rooms, so long as they had a piece of bread and a pillow to lay their heads on. Isn’t that true, Shosha?’
‘Yes, true.’
‘The trouble is that the quiet, patient people are passive and those in power, the malefactors, are aggressive. If a decent majority would decide once and for all to take power in their hands, maybe there would be peace.’
‘They’ll neither decide nor will they ever get power,’ I said. ‘Power and passivity don’t mix.’
‘Is that your view?’
‘It’s the experience of generations.’
‘Then things are bitter.’
‘Yes, Reb Leizer, it isn’t good.’
‘What will become of us Jews? Evil winds are blowing. Well, I won’t keep you. I sit all day in the house, and before going to bed I take a little stroll. Right here in the courtyard, from the gate to the garbage bin and back again. What can you do? Maybe there are better worlds somewhere else? Good night. For me it was an honor to meet you. I still have respect for the printed word.’
‘Good night. I hope we meet again,’ I said.
Only now did I become aware that Bashele was standing at the window watching us. She was obviously worried. I would have to go in for a moment. She opened the door, and as we walked up the stairs she exclaimed, ‘Where have you been! Why so late? I thought the worst!’
‘Mama, we rode in a droshky.’
‘In a droshky? Why, of all things? Where to? How do you like that!’
Shosha began to tell her mother of our wanderings – we had ridden down the boulevards, gone into a confectionary, eaten cake and drunk lemonade.
Bashele arched her eyebrows and shook her head reproachfully. ‘For the life of me I can’t see the sense of squandering all those zlotys. If I’d known you were going to those streets, I would have ironed your white dress. These days you can’t be sure of your life. I stopped at the neighbor’s and we heard a speech on the radio by that madman Hitler. He screamed so, you could go deaf. Since you haven’t eaten supper, I’ll make something.’
‘Bashele, I’m not hungry. I must go home.’
‘What? Now? Don’t you know it’s almost midnight? Where will you go so late? You’ll spend the night here. I’ll fix the bed in the alcove. But you have to eat, too.’
Immediately Bashele began to pour water into a pan of flour. She lit the stove. Shosha led me
into the alcove to show me the iron bed where Teibele used to sleep. She lit a small gas lamp. There were clothes and laundry piled here, along with baskets and boxes accumulated from the time Zelig was a traveling salesman.
Shosha said, ‘Arele, I’d like you to spend every night here. I’d like to be with you always – eat with you, drink with you, walk with you. I won’t forget this night, not till the day they put shards over my eyelids – the droshky, the confectionary, all of it. I want to kiss your feet!’
‘Shosha, what’s the matter with you?’
‘Let me!’ She fell to her knees and began to kiss my shoes. I struggled with her and tried to pick her up, but she kept crying, ‘Let me! Let me!’
5
Although I was no longer accustomed to a straw pallet, I fell into a deep sleep in Bashele’s alcove that night. I opened my eyes in fright. A white image stood at my bed, bending over me and touching my face with thin fingers. ‘Who is this?’ I asked.
‘It’s me – Shosha.’
It took me a while to remember where I was. Had Shosha come to my bed as Ruth went to Boaz?
‘Shosha, what is it?’
‘Arele, I’m afraid.’ Shosha spoke in a wavering voice, like a child about to burst out crying.
I sat up. ‘What are you afraid of?’
‘Arele, don’t be angry. I didn’t want to wake you, but I have been lying there for three hours and I cannot fall asleep. May I sit on your bed?’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘I was lying in bed and my brain turned like a mill. I wanted to wake up Mother, but she would have yelled at me. She’s busy with the house all day long and at night she collapses.’
‘What were you thinking about?’
‘About you. Crazy thoughts came into my head – that it wasn’t you, that you were already dead and had disguised yourself as Arele. A demon screamed in my ear, “He’s dead, dead!” He made such a racket I thought everybody in the courtyard would hear and there would be a riot. I wanted to recite the Shema, but he spat in my ear and spoke queer words.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Oh, I’m ashamed to repeat them.’
‘Tell me.’
‘He said that God is a chimney sweep, and that when we marry I will wet the bed. He butted me with his horns. He tore off the cover and whipped me you-know-where.’
‘Shoshele, it’s all your nerves. When we are together, I’ll take you to a doctor and he will make you healthy.’
‘Can I still sit a little?’
‘Yes, but if your mother wakes up she will think that—’
‘She will not wake up. Dead people come to me the moment I close my eyes. Dead women tear at my hair. I’m old enough to be a mother but I still haven’t gotten my period. A few times I began to bleed and my mother gave me cotton and rags, but then it all stopped. Mother talked about it to a woman peddler – she sold shirts, kerchiefs, bloomers – and this woman told everyone that I’m not a virgin any more and that I’m pregnant. Mother began to pull my hair and call me ugly names. Bullies in the courtyard threw stones at me. This was years ago, not now. When my daddy heard what happened, he gave Mother ten zlotys to take me to a women’s doctor, who said it was all a big lie. A neighbor came to us and said that I should be taken to a rabbi, to get a paper saying that I am a mukasetz. This means a girl who lost her innocence without a man, by accident. Your father had left Warsaw years before and we went to a rabbi on Smocza Street. He ordered me taken to a mikvah and examined there. I didn’t want to go, but Mother dragged me. The woman in charge undressed me until I was naked, and I had to show her everything. I almost died from shame. She touched me and fumbled around. Then she said that I was kosher. The rabbi had asked thirty zlotys for the certificate and we could not afford it, so we let it go. Now that you’re here, I’m worried that someone may come and tell you bad things about me.’
‘Shoshele, no one will come, and I will listen to no one. I didn’t know there were still such fanatics in Warsaw.’
‘Arele, strange things come into my head – perhaps this, perhaps that. Until I was three, I used to wet the bed. Even now, sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night. The room is cold, but I’m soaked with sweat. The pillow is wet. I never drink before I go to bed, but when I wake up I need to go so badly that until I reach the chamber pot I make on the floor. In the daytime, I go to the outhouse in the yard and it is as dark as night, and there are rats as big as cats. You can’t sit down. Once a rat bit me. The doors don’t close – where there’s a chain, there’s no hook; where there’s a hook, there’s no chain. I try not to go, and I’ve gotten so used to it that days and weeks go by and I don’t go. Porters come there from Yanash’s Bazaar, and hoodlums, too. When they see a girl, they begin to say nasty words. In some apartments there are water closets. You pull a string and the water flushes. There is light also and toilet paper. Here, there is nothing.’
‘Shoshele, we are not going to live here forever. I don’t earn enough now, but I’m writing a book. And then there’s my play for the theater. If I don’t succeed this time, I will succeed another time. I will take you away from here.’
‘Where will you take me? Other girls can read and write, but I never learned how. Maybe you remember when they sent me home from school. I was sitting in class, and the teacher read something to us, but it didn’t go into my head. I always saw funny faces. When they called me to the blackboard, I knew nothing and began to cry.’
‘What did you see?’ I asked.
‘Oh, I’m afraid to tell you. A woman combing her daughter’s hair with a fine comb and putting kerosene on it to get out the lice. Suddenly, lice came from all over – bedbugs, too – and the girl began to scream like mad. I don’t remember now if she was a Jewish girl or a shiksa. In a minute the lice ate up the mother and the girl, and only their bones were left. When I walked on the street I thought, What will happen if a balcony falls down on my head? When I passed by a policeman I thought, Perhaps he will say that I stole something and take me to prison. Arele, you will think that I’m out of my mind.’
‘No, Shoshele, it’s nothing but nerves.’
‘What are nerves? Tell me.’
‘Fear of all the misfortunes that can happen and do happen to human beings.’
‘Leizer reads the paper to us, and awful things happen every day. A man crossed the street and was run over by a droshky. A girl from No. 9 tried to get into the trolley car before it stopped, and she lost her leg. Only last week, a tinsmith fixing a roof fell down and the gutter was red from blood. With such things in my head, I could not pay attention to my lessons. When Mother sent me to buy something, I held the money tight in my fist – then when I got to the store it was lost. How can this be?’
‘Every person has an enemy inside who spites him.’
‘Then why doesn’t Teibele have one? Arele, I want you to know the truth so that you won’t think that we are fooling you.’
‘Shoshele, no one has fooled me. I will help you.’
‘How? If it’s so bad now, what will happen when Hitler comes? Oy, Mother is waking up!’ Shosha ran from the alcove. I heard the sound of her shirt tearing as she caught it on a nail in the door.
Six
1
Each day – no, each hour – brought a new crisis, but I had become accustomed to the dangers attending my lot. I compared myself to a criminal who knows that he will be punished but until he is seized he squanders his loot. Sam Dreiman had given me a new advance and Betty had reconstructed my play to suit her whims. She had introduced new characters, even edited my language. I realized with amazement that the passion to write can strike anyone capable of holding a pen. Betty had introduced more action into the drama and added ‘lyrics,’ but the play no longer held together. Though Betty mocked and mimicked the American Yiddish, she anglicized mine. The blind musician now declaimed like the villain in a melodrama. Fritz Bander, who had been cast to play a wealthy Hasid in love with the Ludmir Maiden, demanded that his role be
larger, and Betty gave him permission to extend it with lengthy monologues. He still retained some Galician Yiddish mixed with German. Fritz Bander also demanded a part for his German mistress, Gretel, who knew no Yiddish. He pointed out that Jews often employed German maids and this was a part she could handle.
Betty had several copies of her version of the play typed up – one for her, one for Sam Dreiman, one for Fritz Bander, one for David Lipman, one for me, and for others. Each person made changes, and the text was typed again and the revisions commenced all over. Sam Dreiman had rented a theater on Smocza Street and ordered the sets, though basic decisions about the production were still to be settled. The Actors Union demanded that jobs be introduced for additional actors as well as for extras. I was forced to write in parts for a beadle, a madman, and an anti-Hasid who berated the Hasidim. The cast grew so large that dialogue essential to its content had to be deleted.
At first, I resisted. I rewrote Betty’s and Bander’s revisions, corrected their grammar and spelling, but I soon saw that the contradictions, the different styles, and grotesqueries grew faster than I could repair them. I couldn’t believe it, but Sam Dreiman also took a hand in the writing. It reminded me of a story I had heard as a child from my mother about a band of spirits who seized a village and turned everything upside down – the watercarrier became the rabbi, the rabbi a bathhouse attendant, the horse thief a scribe, the scribe a teamster. A hobgoblin posed as head of a yeshiva and in the studyhouse preached a sermon filled with blasphemies. The leech, a demon, prescribed goat droppings and calf feathers for the sick, along with moon juice and turkey semen. A devil with the legs of a rooster and the horns of a buck became a cantor and turned the rejoicing of Simchas Torah into the lamentations of Tisha Bov. Such a mystic comedy could have been created from my play.
Shosha Page 11