The Collected Stories

by Isaac Bashevis Singer

  The woman said, “You don’t have to make excuses. A man is a man.”

  “I’ve grown old.”

  “A man is never old. I had an uncle in Wloclawek who was eighty when he married a twenty-year-old girl, and she bore him three children.”

  “Wloclawek? That’s near Kowal, my hometown.”

  “I know. I’ve been to Kowal. I had an aunt there.”

  The woman glanced at her wristwatch. “It’s one o’clock. Where are you having lunch?”

  “Nowhere. I only eat breakfast and dinner.”

  “Are you on a diet?”

  “No, but at my age—”

  “Stop talking about your age!” the woman scolded him. “You know what? Come over to my place and we’ll have lunch together. I don’t like to eat by myself. For me, eating alone is even worse than sleeping alone.”

  “Really, I don’t know what to say. What did I do to deserve this?”

  “Come, come; don’t talk nonsense. This is America, not Poland. My refrigerator is stuffed with goodies. I throw out more than I eat, may I be forgiven.”

  The woman used Yiddish expressions that Harry hadn’t heard in at least sixty years. She took his arm and led him to the door. He didn’t have to go more than a few steps. By the time he had locked his door she had opened hers. The apartment he went into was larger than his and brighter. There were pictures on the walls, fancy lamps, bric-a-brac. The windows looked out directly at the ocean. On the table stood a vase of flowers. The air in Harry’s apartment smelled of dust, but here the air was fresh. “She wants something; she has some ulterior motive,” Harry told himself. He recalled what he had read in the newspapers about female cheats who swindled fortunes out of men and out of other women, too. The main thing was to promise nothing, to sign nothing, not to hand over even a single penny.

  She seated him at a table, and from the kitchen soon issued the bubbling sound of a percolator and the smell of fresh rolls, fruit, cheese, and coffee. For the first time in years Harry felt an appetite in the middle of the day. After a while they both sat down to lunch.

  Between one bite and the next, the woman took a drag from a cigarette. She complained, “Men run after me, but when it comes down to brass tacks they’re all interested only in how much money I have. As soon as they start talking about money I break up with them. I’m not poor; I’m even—knock wood—wealthy. But I don’t want anyone to take me for my money.”

  “Thank God I don’t need anyone’s money,” Harry said. “I’ve got enough even if I live a thousand years.”

  “That’s good.”

  Gradually they began to discuss their finances, and the woman enumerated her possessions. She owned buildings in Brooklyn and on Staten Island; she had stocks and bonds. Based on what she said and the names she mentioned, Harry decided that she was telling the truth. She had, here in Miami, a checking account and a safe-deposit box in the very same bank as Harry. Harry estimated that she was worth at least a million or maybe more. She served him food with the devotion of a daughter or wife. She talked of what he should and shouldn’t eat. Such miracles had occurred to him in his younger years. Women had met him, grown instantly intimate, and stuck with him, never to leave again. But that such a thing should happen to him at his age seemed like a dream. He asked abruptly, “Do you have children?”

  “I have a daughter, Sylvia. She lives all alone in a tent in British Columbia.”

  “Why in a tent? My daughter’s name was Sylvia, too. You yourself could be my daughter,” he added, not knowing why he had said such a thing.

  “Nonsense. What are years? I always liked a man to be a lot older than me. My husband, may he rest in peace, was twenty years older, and the life we had together I would wish for every Jewish daughter.”

  “I’ve surely got forty years on you,” Harry said.

  The woman put down her spoon. “How old do you take me for?”

  “Around forty-five,” Harry said, knowing she was older.

  “Add another twelve years and you’ve got it.”

  “You don’t look it.”

  “I had a good life with my husband. I could get anything out of him—the moon, the stars, nothing was too good for his Ethel. That’s why after he died I became melancholy. Also, my daughter was making me sick. I spent a fortune on psychiatrists, but they couldn’t help me. Just as you see me now, I stayed seven months in an institution, a clinic for nervous disorders. I had a breakdown and I didn’t want to live any more. They had to watch me day and night. He was calling me from his grave. I want to tell you something, but don’t misunderstand me.”

  “What is it?”

  “You remind me of my husband. That’s why—”

  “I’m eighty-two,” Harry said and instantly regretted it. He could have easily subtracted five years. He waited a moment, then added, “If I were ten years younger, I’d make you a proposition.”

  Again he regretted his words. They had issued from his mouth as if of their own volition. He was still bothered by the fear of falling into the hands of a gold digger.

  The woman looked at him inquisitively and cocked an eyebrow. “Since I decided to live, I’ll take you just as you are.”

  “How is this possible? How can it be?” Harry asked himself again and again. They spoke of getting married and of breaking through the wall that divided their two apartments to make them into one. His bedroom was next to hers. She revealed the details of her financial situation to him. She was worth about a million and a half. Harry had already told her how much he had. He asked, “What will we do with so much money?”

  “I wouldn’t know what to do with money myself,” the woman replied, “but together, we’ll take a trip around the world. We’ll buy an apartment in Tel Aviv or Tiberias. The hot springs there are good for rheumatism. With me beside you, you’ll live a long time. I guarantee you a hundred years, if not more.”

  “It’s all in God’s hands,” Harry said, amazed at his own words. He wasn’t religious. His doubts about God and His providence had intensified over the years. He often said that, after what had happened to the Jews in Europe, one had to be a fool to believe in God.

  Ethel stood up and so did he. They hugged and kissed. He pressed her close and youthful urges came throbbing back within him.

  She said, “Wait till we’ve stood under the wedding canopy.”

  It struck Harry that he had heard these words before, spoken in the same voice. But when? And from whom? All three of his wives had been American-born and wouldn’t have used this expression. Had he dreamed it? Could a person foresee the future in a dream? He bowed his head and pondered. When he looked up he was astounded. Within those few seconds the woman’s appearance had undergone a startling transformation. She had moved away from him and he hadn’t noticed it. Her face had grown pale, shrunken, and aged. Her hair seemed to him to have become suddenly disheveled. She gazed at him sidelong with a dull, sad, even stern expression. Did I insult her or what? he wondered. He heard himself ask, “Is something wrong? Don’t you feel well?”

  “No, but you’d better go back to your own place now,” she said in a voice which seemed alien, harsh, and impatient. He wanted to ask her the reason for the sudden change that had come over her, but a long-forgotten (or a never-forgotten) pride asserted itself. With women, you never knew where you stood anyhow. Still, he asked, “When will we see each other?”

  “Not today any more. Maybe tomorrow,” she said after some hesitation.

  “Goodbye. Thanks for the lunch.”

  She didn’t even bother to escort him to the door. Inside his own apartment again, he thought, Well, she changed her mind. He was overcome with a feeling of shame—for himself and for her, too. Had she been playing a game with him? Had malicious neighbors arranged to make a fool of him? His apartment struck him as half empty. I won’t eat dinner, he decided. He felt a pressure in his stomach. “At my age one shouldn’t make a fool of oneself,” he murmured. He lay down on the sofa and dozed off, and when he opene
d his eyes again it was dark outside. Maybe she’ll ring my doorbell again. Maybe I should call her? She had given him her phone number. Though he had slept, he woke up exhausted. He had letters to answer, but he put it off until morning. He went out onto the balcony. One side of his balcony faced a part of hers. They could see each other here and even converse, if she should still be interested in him. The sea splashed and foamed. There was a freighter far in the distance. A jet roared in the sky. A single star that no street lights or neon signs could dim appeared above. It’s good thing one can see at least one star. Otherwise one might forget that the sky exists altogether.

  He sat on the balcony waiting for her to possibly show up. What could she be thinking? Why had her mood changed so abruptly? One minute she was as tender and talkative as a bride in love; a moment later she was a stranger.

  Harry dozed off again, and when he awoke it was late in the evening. He wasn’t sleepy, and he wanted to go downstairs for the evening edition of the morning paper, with the reports of the New York Exchange; instead he went to lie down on his bed. He had drunk a glass of tomato juice before and swallowed a pill. Only a thin wall separated him from Ethel, but walls possessed a power of their own. Perhaps this is the reason some people prefer to live in a tent, he thought. He assumed that his broodings would keep him from sleeping, but he quickly nodded off. He awoke with pressure on his chest. What time was it? The luminous dial on his wristwatch showed that he had slept two hours and a quarter. He had dreamed, but he couldn’t remember what. He retained only the impression of nocturnal horrors. He raised his head. Was she asleep or awake? He couldn’t hear even a rustle from her apartment.

  He slept again and was awakened this time by the sound of many people talking, doors slamming, footsteps in the corridor, and running. He had always been afraid of a fire. He read newspaper accounts of old people burning to death in old-age homes, hospitals, hotels. He got out of bed, put on his slippers and robe, and opened the door to the hall. There was no one there. Had he imagined it? He closed the door and went out onto the balcony. No, not a trace of firemen below. Only people coming home late, going out to nightclubs, making drunken noise. Some of the condominium tenants sublet their apartments in the summer to South Americans. Harry went back to bed. It was quiet for a few minutes; then he again heard a din in the corridor and the sound of men’s and women’s voices. Something had happened, but what? He had an urge to get up and take another look, but he didn’t. He lay there tense. Suddenly he heard a buzzing from the house phone in the kitchen. When he lifted the receiver, a man’s voice said, “Wrong number.” Harry had turned on the fluorescent light in the kitchen and the glare dazzled him. He opened the refrigerator, took out a jug of sweetened tea, and poured himself half a glass, not knowing whether he did this because he was thirsty or to buoy his spirits. Soon afterward he had to urinate, and he went to the bathroom.

  At that moment, his doorbell rang, and the sound curtailed his urge. Maybe robbers had broken into the building? The night watchman was an old man and hardly a match for intruders. Harry couldn’t decide whether to go to the door or not. He stood over the toilet bowl trembling. These might be my final moments on earth flashed through his mind. “God Almighty, take pity on me,” he murmured. Only now did he remember that he had a peephole in the door through which he could see the hall outside. How could I have forgotten about it? he wondered. I must be getting senile.

  He walked silently to the door, raised the cover of the peephole, and looked out. He saw a white-haired woman in a robe. He recognized her; it was his neighbor on the right. In a second everything became clear to him. She had a paralyzed husband and something had happened to him. He opened the door. The old woman held out an unstamped envelope.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Bendiner, the woman next door left this envelope by your door. Your name is on it.”

  “What woman?”

  “On the left. She committed suicide.”

  Harry Bendiner felt his guts constrict, and within seconds his belly grew as tight as a drum.

  “The blond woman?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did she do?”

  “Threw herself out the window.”

  Harry held out his hand and the old woman gave him the envelope.

  “Where is she?” he asked.

  “They took her away.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yes, dead.”

  “My God!”

  “It’s already the third such incident here. People lose their minds in America.”

  Harry’s hand shook, and the envelope fluttered as if caught in a wind. He thanked the woman and closed the door. He went to look for his glasses, which he had put on his night table. “I dare not fall,” he cautioned himself. “All I need now is a broken hip.” He staggered over to his bed and lit the night lamp. Yes, the eyeglasses were lying where he had left them. He felt dizzy. The walls, the curtains, the dresser, the envelope all jerked and whirled like a blurry image on television. Am I going blind or what? he wondered. He sat and waited for the dizziness to pass. He barely had the strength to open the envelope. The note was written in pencil, the lines were crooked, and the Yiddish words badly spelled. It read:

  Dear Harry, forgive me. I must go where my husband is. If it’s not too much trouble, say Kaddish for me. I’ll intercede for you where I’m going.

  Ethel

  He put the sheet of paper and his glasses down on the night table and switched off the lamp. He lay belching and hiccuping. His body twitched, and the bedsprings vibrated. Well, from now on I won’t hope for anything, he decided with the solemnity of a man taking an oath. He felt cold, and he covered himself with the blanket.

  It was ten past eight in the morning when he came out of his daze. A dream? No, the letter lay on the table. That day Harry Bendiner did not go down for his mail. He did not prepare breakfast for himself, nor did he bother to bathe and dress. He kept on dozing on the plastic chaise on the balcony and thinking about that other Sylvia—Ethel’s daughter—who was living in a tent in British Columbia. Why had she run away so far? he asked himself. Did her father’s death drive her into despair? Could she not stand her mother? Or did she already at her age realize the futility of all human efforts and decide to become a hermit? Is she endeavoring to discover herself, or God? An adventurous idea came into the old man’s mind: to fly to British Columbia, find the young woman in the wilderness, comfort her, be a father to her, and perhaps try to meditate together with her on why a man is born and why he must die.

  Translated by Joseph Singer

  The Admirer

  FIRST she wrote me a long letter full of praise. Among other things, she said that my books had helped her “find” herself. Then she called and arranged a meeting. Soon afterward she called again, since it turned out she already had an engagement that day, and she proposed another. Two days later a long telegram came. It seemed that she would be visiting a paralyzed aunt on the new meeting day. I had never received such a long telegram, with such fancy English words. A call followed, and we settled on a new date. During an earlier telephone conversation I had mentioned that I admired Thomas Hardy. In a few days a messenger brought a luxuriously bound set of Thomas Hardy’s works. My admirer’s name was Elizabeth Abigail de Sollar—a remarkable name for a woman whose mother, she told me, came from the Polish town of Klendev, the daughter of the local rabbi.

  On the day of the visit I cleaned my apartment and put all my manuscripts and unanswered letters in the laundry hamper. My guest was due at eleven. At twenty-five past eleven the phone rang and Elizabeth Abigail de Sollar shrieked, “You gave me a phony address! There is no such building!”

  It seemed she had mistaken East Side for West. I now told her precisely how to find me. Once she got to my street on the West Side, she should enter a gate bearing the number she had. The gate opened onto a courtyard. There she would find an entrance with a different number, which I gave her, and I explained that I lived on the eleventh floor. The passenger elevato
r happened not to be working and she would have to use the service elevator. Elizabeth Abigail de Sollar repeated all my directions and tried to find a pencil and a notebook in her handbag to write them down, but at that moment the operator demanded a nickel. Elizabeth Abigail de Sollar didn’t have a nickel, and breathlessly she uttered the number of the phone booth from which she was calling. I called her at once, but no one answered. I must have dialed the wrong number. I picked up a book and began to read from where I opened it in the middle. Since she had my address and phone number, she would show up sooner or later. I hadn’t managed to get to the end of the paragraph when the telephone rang. I picked up the receiver and heard a man cough, stammer, and clear his throat. After a while he regained his voice and said, “My name is Oliver Leslie de Sollar. May I speak to my wife?”

  “Your wife made a mistake and went to a wrong address. She should be here soon.”

  “Excuse me for disturbing you, but our child has suddenly got sick. She started coughing violently and choking, and I don’t know what to do. She suffers from asthma, Elizabeth has drops for these emergencies, but I can’t find them. I’m distraught.”

  “Call a doctor! Call an ambulance!” I shouted into the mouthpiece.

  “Our doctor isn’t in his office. One second, excuse me …”

  I waited a few minutes, but Oliver Leslie de Sollar didn’t come back and I hung up the receiver. “That’s what happens when you deal with people—right away complications arise,” I said to myself. “The deed itself is a sin,” I mentally quoted an Indian sacred book—but which one? Was it the Bhagavad Gita or the Dhammapada? If the child choked to death, God forbid, I would be indirectly responsible.