‘Tsutsik, Betty loves you and I gather you don’t hate her, either. I’m going to leave her a lot of money – exactly how much I’ll tell you another time. I want to make a deal with you – a regular business transaction. I don’t know yet what’s going to happen to me. It’s possible I’ll leave this world soon, though if God is willing, I may be around for another few years yet. If they remove my prostate I may not be left a whole man in the true sense of the word. Here is my plan: I want you two to marry. I’ll establish a trust fund. A lawyer will explain it all to you. You won’t be a parasite supported by his wife but just the opposite – you’ll support her. I only ask one promise from you – that as long as I live she can remain my friend. I’ll be your publisher, your manager, anything you like. If you write a good play, I’ll produce it. When you have a book ready, I’ll publish it or give it to another publisher. In America, writers have agents to represent them, and I’ll be your agent. You’ll be my son and I’ll be a father to you. I’ll hire people who’ll see to it that everything is in order.’
‘Mr Dreiman—’
‘I know, I know what you want to say. You want to know what will happen to the girl – what’s her name? Shosha. Don’t think I would leave her to God’s mercy in Warsaw so she should starve. Sam Dreiman doesn’t do such things. We’ll bring her over to America. She is sick and should have help – a psychiatrist maybe. The consul is my friend, but he can’t issue a permanent visa. There is a quota and not even the President can get around it. But I’ve figured how we can manage. We’ll take her along as our maid. She won’t be anyone’s maid, but saying she is can get her a visa. If she’s cured there, this would be a hundred times better for her than if she becomes your wife and starves to death here. You have only to agree that Betty can remain my friend and not leave me alone when I’m old and sick, and she won’t take you to court if you should want to give your Shosha a kiss or whatever. Isn’t that so, Betty?’
‘Yes, Sam darling, anything you say is all right with me.’
‘Do you hear? So that’s my plan. It’s her plan, too. We talked frankly. Just one thing more – I must leave for America soon, so everything has to be done fast. If you say yes, you’ll have to marry at once. If not, we’ll say goodbye, and may God help you.’
Sam Dreiman closed his eyes. After a while, he opened them and said, ‘Betty, take him to your room. I have to …’ He mumbled a few words in English that I didn’t understand.
3
In the hallway between her room and Sam’s, Betty began to kiss me. Her face was wet from crying, and within a moment my face was drenched. She whispered, ‘My husband, that’s the way God intended it!’
She opened the door to her room for me and immediately went back to Sam’s side. She hadn’t put on the lights and I stood in the dark. After a while, I lay down on the sofa, my mind blank. I assumed that Betty would come right back, but she was away a long time. The shade was drawn over the window, but it seemed to me that day had started to break. Gradually, I began to take account of the situation. After I had given up on everything, a perspective had opened such as I never dared dream of – a visa to America and the chance to write without worrying about money! I could take Shosha along, too. Something inside me both laughed and marveled. From the time I reached manhood, I had told myself I would marry a girl just like my mother – a decent, chaste Jewish daughter. I always felt pity for men with dissolute wives. They lived with harlots and could never be sure that their children were their own. These women sullied their homes. Now I was considering taking one of this ilk for my own. What Betty had told me about her adventures in Russia and in America stayed in my mind. During the Revolution she had carried on with a Red Army man, with some sailor, with the director of a traveling actors’ troupe. She had sold herself to Sam Dreiman for money. Not only did she have an ugly past, but Sam Dreiman had now stipulated that as long as he lived she would remain his friend – which was to say his lover. ‘Run!’ a voice cried within me. ‘You’ll sink into a slime from which you’ll never be able to get out. They’ll drag you into the abyss!’ It was my father’s voice. In the light of dawn I saw his high brow and piercing eyes. ‘Don’t shame me, your mother, and your holy ancestors! All your deeds are noted in heaven.’ Then the voice began to abuse me. ‘Heathen! Betrayer of Israel! See what happens when you deny the Almighty! “You shall utterly detest it and you shall utterly abhor it, for it is a cursed thing!” ’
I lay there shaken. Since my father had died, I had been unable to conjure up his face. He never appeared in my dreams. His death had brought with it a kind of amnesia. Often, before going to sleep, I implored him to reveal himself to me wherever he might be and to give me a sign, but my pleas had not been answered. Suddenly here he was beside Betty’s sofa, and on the Day of Atonement. Glowing and awesome, he shed his own light. I recalled what the Midrash said of Joseph: as he was about to sin with Potiphar’s wife, his father, Jacob, appeared before him. These apparitions come only in the height of distress.
I sat up, my eyes wide open. ‘Father, save me!’ As I pleaded, Father’s image dissolved.
The door opened. ‘Are you asleep?’ Betty asked.
It took a while before I could answer. ‘No.’
‘Shall I turn on the light?’
‘No, no!’
‘What’s the matter with you? Today is more than Yom Kippur for me. Before you came, I took a nap on the sofa and my father came to me in a dream. He looked just as I knew him in life, only handsomer. His eyes glistened. The murderers shot him in the face and crushed his skull, but he stood before me unmarked. Well, what’s your answer?’
I could only say, ‘Not now.’
‘If you don’t want me, I won’t throw myself at you. I’ve still retained some pride. One has to be a saint to treat us the way Sam Dreiman is offering to do. But if it’s a disgrace for you to become my husband, say so and don’t leave me dangling. I’ve done some ugly things in my time, but I didn’t have anyone then and I owed nothing to anyone. My blood burned like fire. Those men weren’t even real to me. I swear to you that I’ve forgotten them all. I wouldn’t recognize them if I saw them on the street. Why was I fool enough to tell you about them? I’ve always been my own worst enemy.’
‘Betty, Shosha would die if I did this to her,’ I said.
‘Eh? The truth is, she’d be cured in America, but here she’ll starve to death. Already their house reeks of decay. She looks ready for the grave. How long can she go on like that? I don’t have to get married – not to you or to anybody. That was purely Sam’s idea. A real father wouldn’t be as good to me as he has been. I’d sooner cut off my hand than just leave him. I’ve already told you he is barely a man now. All he needs is a kiss, a pat, a kind word. If you can’t even let him have that, then be on your way. If I am ready to take Shosha into my house – that ninny – then you needn’t act so superior toward Sam. He has more insight in his little finger than you have in your whole body, you goddamn idiot!’
She went out and slammed the door behind her. A moment later she was back. ‘So what shall I tell Sam? Give me a straight answer.’
‘Well, all right, we’ll marry,’ I said.
Betty paused a moment. ‘Is this your decision or are you just trying to make a fool out of me? If you’re going to go around burning with jealousy and thinking of me as a whore, we’ll call the whole thing off right now.’
‘Betty, if I can look after Shosha, you can be with Sam.’
‘What do you think – that I’d post a guard by your bed like that sultan in the Thousand and One Nights? I realize you feel close to her. I’m prepared to accept it. But I demand the same from you. The times when a man could indulge all his swinish urges while the woman remained a slave are over. So long as Sam lives – and may God grant him the years he deserves – we must all live together. Try to think of him as my father. That’s what he has become. I haven’t given up on the theater – I still plan to make another try at it. In America we can revise t
his play. There no one will harass us or rush us. The fact that you’ll be diddling around with your Shosha bothers me as much as last year’s frost. I doubt if she’s even capable of being a woman. Have you got her started yet?’
‘No, no.’
‘Well, a lion can’t be jealous of a fly. All I can tell you is that in a hundred and twenty years, when Sam is no more, I won’t be looking for anyone else. This, I could swear to before black candles.’
‘You don’t need to swear.’
‘We must get married at once. Whatever happens, I want Sam to be there.’
‘Yes.’
‘I know that you have a mother and a brother, but this can’t be put off. If things go well, we’ll bring your family over to America, too.’
‘Thank you, Betty, thank you.’
‘Tsutsik, I’ll be better to you than you can imagine. I’ve already had enough filth in my life. I want to wipe the slate clean and start fresh. What it is I see in you I’m not sure myself. You have a thousand faults. But there is something about you that draws me. What is it? You tell me.’
‘I wouldn’t know, Betty.’
‘When I’m with you, things are interesting. Without you, I’m miserable and bored. Come here, wish me mazel tov!’
4
I had fallen into a deep sleep on Betty’s sofa. When I opened my eyes, I saw her standing beside me. It was day. She looked bedraggled and upset. She said, ‘Tsutsik, get up!’
I had wakened with a headache. It was a few seconds before I could remember what I was doing here.
Betty bent over me with maternal concern. ‘They’re taking Sam to the hospital. I’m going with him.’
‘What happened?’
‘He has to be operated on immediately! Where shall I look for you? You’d better stay in this room so I can call you.’
‘I will, Betty.’
‘You remember our agreement?’
‘Yes.’
‘Pray to God for him! I don’t want to lose him. If, God forbid, something should happen, I’d be left in the cold.’ She leaned down and kissed me on the mouth. She said, ‘The ambulance is downstairs. If you need to go out, leave the key with the desk clerk. If you want to go to Shosha’s, you can, but you have to break off with that Celia once and for all. I won’t stand for a fifth wheel on the wagon. I would have liked you to say goodbye to Sam, but I don’t want him to know you spent the night here. I told him you went home. Pray to God for us!’
She left and I stayed on the sofa. I glanced at my wristwatch. It had stopped at the hour of four. I closed my eyes again. From what Betty said, I couldn’t understand whether Sam had already made a new will or was planning to. Even if he had, his family would destroy it. I was dismayed at the trend my thoughts were taking. Money matters had always been alien to me. In none of my fantasies had it ever occurred to me to marry for money or for any practical reason. It’s the visa, not the money, I justified myself – the fear of falling into the hands of the Nazis.
Suddenly I felt as if something had bitten me. Break off with Celia? Betty had no right to make such a demand on me while she remained Sam’s mistress. I’d go straight to Celia’s! I rubbed my jowls – a heavy stubble had sprouted. I stood up, but my legs had grown wobbly from sleeping on the sofa. A mirror hung over the washstand. I raised the window shade and gazed at my reflection: withered face, bloodshot eyes, a wrinkled collar. I went to the window and looked out. There was no vehicle of any kind at the hotel entrance. The ambulance had already carried them to the hospital. Betty hadn’t even given me its name. From the slant of the sun’s rays, I estimated that it was not early.
‘What shall I tell Shosha?’ I asked myself. ‘All she would understand was that I married someone else. She wouldn’t live through it.’ I stood looking out at the street, the empty streetcars and droshkies. Even the Gentile neighborhoods seemed deserted in honor of Yom Kippur. I took off my jacket and washed my face, even though it was forbidden on this sacred holiday. I went out. I walked downstairs step by step. There was no reason to hurry. For the first time I felt close to Sam. He wanted the same as I – the impossible.
I passed a barbershop and went in. I was the only patron and the barber treated me with particular politeness. He wrapped me in a white sheet, like a corpse in a shroud. He stroked my beard before he began to lather. He said, ‘What kind of city is this Warsaw? It’s Yom Kippur by the sheenies and the whole city acts dead. And this is supposed to be the capital, the crown of our Polish nation. It’s really funny!’
He had mistaken me for a Gentile. I wanted to answer him, but realized that the moment I spoke more than a word or two my accent would give me away. I nodded, grunting a single word that wouldn’t compromise me: ‘Tak.’
‘They’ve taken over all Poland,’ he went on. ‘The cities are lousy with them. Once, they only stank up Nalewki, Grzybowska, and Krochmalna Streets, but lately they swarm like vermin everywhere. They’ve even crawled as far as Wilanów. There’s one consolation – Hitler will smoke them out like bedbugs.’
I barely kept from trembling. The man held the edge of the razor at my throat. I looked up, and his greenish eyes briefly held mine. Did he suspect that I was a Jew?
‘I’ll tell you something, dear sir. The modern Jews, those who shave, who speak a proper Polish, and who try to ape real Poles, are even worse than the old-fashioned Hebes with their long gabardines, wild beards, and earlocks. They, at least, don’t go where they aren’t wanted. They sit in their stores in their long capotes and shake over their Talmud like bedouins. They babble away in their jargon, and when a Christian falls into their clutches, they swindle a few groschen out of him. But at least they don’t go to the theater, the cafés, the opera. Those that shave and dress modern are the real danger. They sit in our Sejm and make treaties with our worst enemies, the Ruthenians, the White Russians, the Lithuanians. Every one of them is a secret Communist and a Soviet spy. They have one aim – to root out us Christians and hand over the power to the Bolsheviks, the Masons, and the radicals. You might find it hard to believe this, dear sir, but their millionaires have a secret pact with Hitler. The Rothschilds finance him and Roosevelt is the middleman. His real name isn’t Roosevelt but Rosenfeld, a converted Jew. They supposedly assume the Christian faith, but with one goal in mind – to bore from within and infect everything and everybody. Funny, don’t you think?’
I emitted a half grunt, half sigh.
‘They come here for a shave and a haircut all year, but not today. Yom Kippur is a holy day even for those that are rich and modern. More than half the stores are closed here and on Marshalkowska Street. They don’t go to the Hasidic prayer houses in fur-edged hats and prayer shawls like the old-fashioned sheenies – oh no, they put on top hats and drive to the synagogue on Tlomacka Street in private cars. But Hitler will clean them out! He promises their millionaires that he’ll protect their capital, but once the Nazis are armed he’ll fix them all – ha, ha, ha! It’s too bad that he’ll attack our country, but since we haven’t had the guts to sweep away this filth ourselves, we have to let the enemy do it for us. What will happen later, no one can know. The fault for it all lies with those traitors, the Protestants, who sold their souls to the devil. They’re the Pope’s deadliest enemies. Did you know, dear sir, that Luther was a secret Jew?’
‘No.’
‘It’s an established fact.’
The barber had gone over my face twice with the razor. He now splashed me with eau-de-cologne and dusted me with powder. He brushed off my suit and with two fingers removed some stray hairs from my shoulders. I paid him and left. By the time I closed the shop door my shirt was soaked. I began to race, not knowing in what direction I was going. No, I wouldn’t stay in Poland! I’d leave at any price! I crossed the street and a car nearly ran me down. This was the most tragic day of my life. I, too, had sold my soul to the devil. Maybe go to a synagogue? No, I would desecrate the holy place. My stomach churned and I felt an urge to urinate. Sweat ran from me, and pain st
abbed my bladder. I knew that if I didn’t void immediately I would wet myself. I came to a restaurant and tried to enter, but the glass door wouldn’t give. Was it locked? It couldn’t be – I could see diners inside and waiters carrying trays.
A man with a dog on a leash came up and said, ‘Don’t pull, push!’
‘Oh, many thanks!’
I asked the waiter for the way to the restroom and he pointed to a door. But when I walked in that direction the door vanished as if by magic. People looked up from their breakfasts and stared at me. A woman laughed aloud.
The waiter came up. ‘Here!’ And he opened a door for me.
I ran to the urinal, but just as with Sam Dreiman, the urine had become blocked inside me.
Nine
1
I didn’t go to Celia. I spent Yom Kippur with Shosha. Bashele had gone to the synagogue. The big commemorative candle she had lit the day before still burned, casting almost no light. I lay on the bed next to Shosha in my clothes, dulled by the sleepless night. I dropped off, began dreaming, and awoke. Shosha spoke to me, but even though I heard her voice I didn’t follow what she was saying. It had to do with the war, the typhus epidemics, the hunger, Yppe’s death. Shosha placed her childlike hand on my loins. We both had fasted.
Shosha Page 16