The Last Demon

by Isaac Bashevis Singer

  It was customary for the young men boarding with their in-laws to travel to nearby cities during the half-holidays in the middle of Passover week. They enjoyed the change, refreshed themselves, looked around for business opportunities, bought books or other things a young man might need. Bechev was not far from Lublin and Anshel persuaded Avigdor to make the journey with her at her expense. Avigdor was delighted at the prospect of being rid for a few days of the shrew he had at home. The trip by carriage was a merry one. The fields were turning green; storks, back from the warm countries, swooped across the sky in great arcs. Streams rushed toward the valleys. The birds chirped. The windmills turned. Spring flowers were beginning to bloom in the fields. Here and there a cow was already grazing. The companions, chatting, ate the fruit and little cakes that Hadass had packed, told each other jokes, and exchanged confidences until they reached Lublin. There they went to an inn and took a room for two. In the journey, Anshel had promised to reveal an astonishing secret to Avigdor in Lublin. Avigdor had joked: what sort of secret could it be? Had Anshel discovered a hidden treasure? Had he written an essay? By studying the Cabala, had he created a dove?

  Now they entered the room and while Anshel carefully locked the door, Avigdor said teasingly: ‘Well, let’s hear your great secret.’

  ‘Prepare yourself for the most incredible thing that ever was.’

  ‘I’m prepared for anything.’

  ‘I’m not a man but a woman,’ said Anshel. ‘My name isn’t Anshel, it’s Yentl.’

  Avigdor burst out laughing. ‘I knew it was a hoax.’

  ‘But it’s true.’

  ‘Even if I’m a fool, I won’t swallow this.’

  ‘Do you want me to show you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I’ll get undressed.’

  Avigdor’s eyes widened. It occurred to him that Anshel might want to practice pederasty. Anshel took off the gaberdine and the fringed garment, and threw off her underclothes. Avigdor took one look and turned first white, then fiery red. Anshel covered herself hastily.

  ‘I’ve done this only so that you can testify at the courthouse. Otherwise, Hadass will have to stay a grass widow.’

  Avigdor had lost his tongue. He was seized by a fit of trembling. He wanted to speak, but his lips moved and nothing came out. He sat down quickly, for his legs would not support him.

  Finally he murmured: ‘How is it possible? I don’t believe it!’

  ‘Should I get undressed again?’

  ‘No!’

  Yentl proceeded to tell the whole story: how her father, bedridden, had studied Torah with her; how she had never had the patience for women and their silly chatter; how she had sold the house and all the furnishings, left the town, made her way disguised as a man to Lublin, and on the road met Avigdor. Avigdor sat speechless, gazing at the storyteller. Yentl was by now wearing men’s clothes once more.

  Avigdor spoke: ‘It must be a dream.’

  He pinched himself on the cheek.

  ‘It isn’t a dream.’

  ‘That such a thing should happen to me!’

  ‘It’s all true.’

  ‘Why did you do it? Nu, I’d better keep still.’

  ‘I didn’t want to waste my life on a baking shovel and a kneading trough.’

  ‘And what about Hadass – why did you do that?’

  ‘I did it for your sake. I knew that Peshe would torment you and at our house you would have some peace.’

  Avigdor was silent for a long time. He bowed his head, pressed his hands to his temples, shook his head. ‘What will you do now?’

  ‘I’ll go away to a different yeshiva.’

  ‘What? If you had only told me earlier, we could have …’

  Avigdor broke off in the middle.

  ‘No – it wouldn’t have been good.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’m neither one nor the other.’

  ‘What a dilemma I’m in!’

  ‘Get a divorce from that horror. Marry Hadass.’

  ‘She’ll never divorce me and Hadass won’t have me.’

  ‘Hadass loves you. She won’t listen to her father again.’

  Avigdor stood up suddenly but then sat down. ‘I won’t be able to forget you. Ever …’

  VI

  According to the Law, Avigdor was now forbidden to spend another moment alone with Yentl; yet dressed in the gaberdine and trousers, she was again the familiar Anshel.

  They resumed their conversation on the old footing: ‘How could you bring yourself to violate the commandment every day: “A woman shall not wear that which pertaineth to a man”?’

  ‘I wasn’t created for plucking feathers and chattering with females.’

  ‘Would you rather lose your share in the world to come?’

  ‘Perhaps …’

  Avigdor raised his eyes. Only now did he realize that Anshel’s cheeks were too smooth for a man’s, the hair too abundant, the hands too small. Even so he could not believe that such a thing could have happened. At any moment he expected to wake up. He bit his lips, pinched his thigh. He was seized by shyness and could not speak without stammering. His friendship with Anshel, their intimate talk, their confidences, had been turned into a sham and delusion. The thought even occurred to him that Anshel might be a demon. He shook himself as if to cast off a nightmare; yet that power which knows the difference between dream and reality told him it was all true. He summoned up his courage. He and Anshel could never be strangers to one another, even though Anshel was in fact Yentl …

  He ventured a comment: ‘It seems to me that the witness who testifies for a deserted woman may not marry her, for the Law calls him “a party to the affair.” ’

  ‘What? That didn’t occur to me!’

  ‘We must look it up in Eben Ezer.’

  ‘I’m not even sure that the rules pertaining to a deserted woman apply in this case,’ said Anshel in the manner of a scholar.

  ‘If you don’t want Hadass to be a grass widow, you must reveal the secret to her directly.’

  ‘That I can’t do.’

  ‘In any event, you must get another witness.’

  Gradually the two went back to their Talmudic conversation. It seemed strange at first to Avigdor to be disputing holy writ with a woman, yet before long the Torah had reunited them. Though their bodies were different, their souls were of one kind. Anshel spoke in a singsong, gesticulated with her thumb, clutched her sidelocks, plucked at her beardless chin, made all the customary gestures of a yeshiva student. In the heat of argument she even seized Avigdor by the lapel and called him stupid. A great love for Anshel took hold of Avigdor, mixed with shame, remorse, anxiety. If I had only known this before, he said to himself. In his thoughts he likened Anshel (or Yentl) to Bruria, the wife of Reb Meir, and to Yalta, the wife of Reb Nachman. For the first time he saw clearly that this was what he had always wanted: a wife whose mind was not taken up with material things … His desire for Hadass was gone now, and he knew he would long for Yentl, but he dared not say so. He felt hot and knew that his face was burning. He could no longer meet Anshel’s eyes. He began to enumerate Anshel’s sins and saw that he too was implicated, for he had sat next to Yentl and had touched her during her unclean days. Nu, and what could be said about her marriage to Hadass? What a multitude of transgressions there! Wilful deception, false vows, misrepresentation! – Heaven knows what else.

  He asked suddenly: ‘Tell the truth, are you a heretic?’

  ‘God forbid!’

  ‘Then how could you bring yourself to do such a thing?’

  The longer Anshel talked, the less Avigdor understood. All Anshel’s explanations seemed to point to one thing: she had the soul of a man and the body of a woman. Anshel said she had married Hadass only in order to be near Avigdor.

  ‘You could have married me,’ Avigdor said.

  ‘I wanted to study the Gemara and Commentaries with you, not darn your socks!’

  For a long time neither spoke. Then Av
igdor broke the silence: ‘I’m afraid Hadass will get sick from all this, God forbid!’

  ‘I’m afraid of that, too.’

  ‘What’s going to happen now?’

  Dusk fell and the two began to recite the evening prayer. In his confusion Avigdor mixed up the blessings, omitted some and repeated others. He glanced sideways at Anshel, who was rocking back and forth, beating her breast, bowing her head. He saw her, eyes closed, lift her face to Heaven, as though beseeching: You, Father in Heaven, know the truth … When their prayers were finished, they sat down on opposite chairs, facing one another yet a good distance apart. The room filled with shadows. Reflections of the sunset, like purple embroidery, shook on the wall opposite the window. Avigdor again wanted to speak but at first the words, trembling on the tip of his tongue, would not come.

  Suddenly they burst forth: ‘Maybe it’s still not too late? I can’t go on living with that accursed woman … You …’

  ‘No, Avigdor, it’s impossible.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ll live out my time as I am …’

  ‘I’ll miss you. Terribly.’

  ‘And I’ll miss you.’

  ‘What’s the sense of all this?’

  Anshel did not answer. Night fell and the light faded. In the darkness they seemed to be listening to each other’s thoughts. The Law forbade Avigdor to stay in the room alone with Anshel, but he could not think of her just as a woman. What a strange power there is in clothing, he thought.

  But he spoke of something else: ‘I would advise you simply to send Hadass a divorce.’

  ‘How can I do that?’

  ‘Since the marriage sacraments weren’t valid, what difference does it make?’

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’

  ‘There’ll be time enough later for her to find out the truth.’

  The maidservant came in with a lamp, but as soon as she had gone, Avigdor put it out. Their predicament and the words which they must speak to one another could not endure light. In the blackness Anshel related all the particulars. She answered all Avigdor’s questions. The clock struck two, and still they talked. Anshel told Avigdor that Hadass had never forgotten him. She talked of him frequently, worried about his health, was sorry – though not without a certain satisfaction – about the way things had turned out with Peshe.

  ‘She’ll be a good wife,’ said Anshel. ‘I don’t even know how to bake a pudding.’

  ‘Nevertheless, if you’re willing …’

  ‘No, Avigdor. It wasn’t destined to be …’

  VII

  It was all a great riddle to the town: the messenger who arrived bringing Hadass the divorce papers; Avigdor’s remaining in Lublin until after the holidays; his return to Bechev with slumping shoulders and lifeless eyes as if he had been ill. Hadass took to her bed and was visited by the doctor three times a day. Avigdor went into seclusion. If someone ran across him by chance and addressed him, he did not answer. Peshe complained to her parents that Avigdor paced back and forth smoking all night long. When he finally collapsed from sheer fatigue, in his sleep he called out the name of an unknown female – Yentl. Peshe began talking of a divorce. The town thought Avigdor wouldn’t grant her one or would demand money at the very least, but he agreed to everything.

  In Bechev the people were not used to having mysteries stay mysteries for long. How can you keep secrets in a little town where everyone knows what’s cooking in everyone else’s pots? Yet, though there were plenty of persons who made a practice of looking through keyholes and laying an ear to shutters, what happened remained an enigma. Hadass lay in her bed and wept. Chanina the herb doctor reported that she was wasting away. Anshel had disappeared without a trace. Reb Alter Vishkower sent for Avigdor and he arrived, but those who stood straining beneath the window couldn’t catch a word of what passed between them. Those individuals who habitually pry into other people’s affairs came up with all sorts of theories, but not one of them was consistent.

  One party came to the conclusion that Anshel had fallen into the hands of Catholic priests and had been converted. That might have made sense. But where could Anshel have found time for the priests, since he was always studying in the yeshiva? And apart from that, since when does an apostate send his wife a divorce?

  Another group whispered that Anshel had cast an eye on another woman. But who could it be? There were no love affairs conducted in Bechev. And none of the young women had recently left town – neither a Jewish woman nor a Gentile one.

  Somebody else offered the suggestion that Anshel had been carried away by evil spirits, or was even one of them himself. As proof he cited the fact that Anshel had never come either to the bathhouse or to the river. It is well known that demons have the feet of geese. Well, but had Hadass never seen him barefoot? And who ever heard of a demon sending his wife a divorce? When a demon marries a daughter of mortals, he usually lets her remain a grass widow.

  It occurred to someone else that Anshel had committed a major transgression and gone into exile in order to do penance. But what sort of transgression could it have been? And why had he not entrusted it to the rabbi? And why did Avigdor wander about like a ghost?

  The hypothesis of Tevel the musician was closest to the truth. Tevel maintained that Avigdor had been unable to forget Hadass and that Anshel had divorced her so that his friend would be able to marry her. But was such friendship possible in this world? And in that case, why had Anshel divorced Hadass even before Avigdor divorced Peshe? Furthermore, such a thing can be accomplished only if the wife has been informed of the arrangement and is willing, yet all signs pointed to Hadass’s great love for Anshel, and in fact she was ill from sorrow.

  One thing was clear to all: Avigdor knew the truth. But it was impossible to get anything out of him. He remained in seclusion and kept silent with an obstinacy that was a reproof to the whole town.

  Close friends urged Peshe not to divorce Avigdor, though they had severed all relations and no longer lived as man and wife. He did not even, on Friday night, perform the kiddush blessing for her. He spent his nights either at the study house or at the widow’s where Anshel had found lodgings. When Peshe spoke to him he didn’t answer, but stood with bowed head. The tradeswoman Peshe had no patience for such goings-on. She needed a young man to help her out in the store, not a yeshiva student who had fallen into melancholy. Someone of that sort might even take it into his head to depart and leave her deserted. Peshe agreed to a divorce.

  In the meantime, Hadass had recovered, and Reb Alter Vishkower let it be known that a marriage contract was being drawn up. Hadass was to marry Avigdor. The town was agog. A marriage between a man and a woman who had once been engaged and their betrothal broken off was unheard of. The wedding was held on the first Sabbath after Tishe b’Av, and included all that is customary at the marriage of a virgin: the banquet for the poor, the canopy before the synagogue, the musicians, the wedding jester, the virtue dance. Only one thing was lacking: joy. The bridegroom stood beneath the marriage canopy, a figure of desolation. The bride had recovered from her sickness, but had remained pale and thin. Her tears fell into the golden chicken broth. From all eyes the same question looked out: why had Anshel done it?

  After Avigdor’s marriage to Hadass, Peshe spread that rumor that Anshel had sold his wife to Avigdor for a price, and that the money had been supplied by Alter Vishkower. One young man pondered the riddle at great length until he finally arrived at the conclusion that Anshel had lost his beloved wife to Avigdor at cards, or even on a spin of the Hanukkah dreidl. It is a general rule that when the grain of truth cannot be found, men will swallow great helpings of falsehood. Truth itself is often concealed in such a way that the harder you look for it, the harder it is to find.

  Not long after the wedding, Hadass became pregnant. The child was a boy and those assembled at the circumcision could scarcely believe their ears when they heard the father name his son Anshel.

  The Cafeteria

  I

&n
bsp; Even though I have reached the point where a great part of my earnings is given away in taxes, I still have the habit of eating in cafeterias when I am by myself. I like to take a tray with a tin knife, fork, spoon, and paper napkin and to choose at the counter the food I enjoy. Besides, I meet there the landsleit from Poland, as well as all kinds of literary beginners and readers who know Yiddish. The moment I sit down at a table, they come over. ‘Hello, Aaron!’ they greet me, and we talk about Yiddish literature, the Holocaust, the state of Israel, and often about acquaintances who were eating rice pudding or stewed prunes the last time I was here and are already in their graves. Since I seldom read a paper, I learn this news only later. Each time, I am startled, but at my age one has to be ready for such tidings. The food sticks in the throat; we look at one another in confusion, and our eyes ask mutely, Whose turn is next? Soon we begin to chew again. I am often reminded of a scene in a film about Africa. A lion attacks a herd of zebras and kills one. The frightened zebras run for a while and then they stop and start to graze again. Do they have a choice?

  I cannot spend too long with these Yiddishists, because I am always busy. I am writing a novel, a story, an article. I have to lecture today or tomorrow; my datebook is crowded with all kinds of appointments for weeks and months in advance. It can happen that an hour after I leave the cafeteria I am on a train to Chicago or flying to California. But meanwhile we converse in the mother language and I hear of intrigues and pettiness about which, from a moral point of view, it would be better not to be informed. Everyone tries in his own way with all his means to grab as many honors and as much money and prestige as he can. None of us learns from all these deaths. Old age does not cleanse us. We don’t repent at the gate of hell.