The Brothers Ashkenazi

by I. J. Singer

  In the meantime, streets, alleys, and buildings sprouted on the sandy flats like mushrooms after a rain. The construction was chaotic, promiscuous, slapdash. Before the lime on the walls had even dried, people moved in. Peasants brought in bricks, dug ditches, uprooted stumps, slaked lime, sawed boards, nailed roofs. Jewish carpenters, joiners, masons, tinsmiths, and glaziers bustled, sweated, cursed. While the legal documents gathered dust in the courts, there rose over the sandy flats a city that no legal decision could abolish.

  Before the municipality of Baluty, which the Jews promptly shortened to Balut, could even consider official names for its streets, the workers promptly named them after the surnames or occupations of their inhabitants or after the synagogues or studyhouses standing there. Thus, there soon appeared a Synagogue Street, a Feiffer Lane, a Jonah Feltmaker Place, a Grossman’s Alley, and so forth.

  On isolated corners there still remained a peasant hut or two, complete with straw roof and livestock, but all vestiges of rusticity vanished as the city engulfed the countryfolk and transformed them into true cosmopolites who wore ready-made clothes and earned and spent money. Their children learned Yiddish, which enabled them to earn a groschen or a slice of bread for lighting or dousing a candle in a Jewish home on the Sabbath, heating an oven, and performing other such tasks forbidden the Jew on the holy day. Poor German weavers moved into abandoned peasant huts, and recruiters went out into the country to hire peasants for the steam factories that began to appear in Lodz, their tall chimneys poking up into the murky skies.

  In Wilki the German master weaver Heinz Huntze, who had grown rich from handlooms, built a huge steam plant with walls painted red and a bank of high windows. In the early dawn its whistles shattered the stillness as they summoned the men to work.

  Soon after, Solomon David Preiss, who had realized a fortune from his holdings in Balut, ordered a new rep gabardine, a silk top hat, and an umbrella. Armed only with his Yiddish and the roll of banknotes that he had sewn into the pocket of his velvet vest and that he never removed even when he slept, he traveled to England. There he purchased machinery and hired an English engineer and a chemist, whom he brought back with him to Lodz.

  On a huge lot that he bought for a song he built his own steam mill, the chimneys of which topped even Huntze’s. Because his English assistants refused to take Saturdays off and work on Sundays, he hired no Jewish workers, and since it was a sin for a Jew to own a factory that operated on the Sabbath even with gentile help, Solomon David Preiss contrived a little subterfuge with his rabbi. He had him draw up a bill of sale in Hebrew and Aramaic and “sold” the factory to his Polish porter, Wojciech Smoliuch.

  The terrified gentile stood trembling in the rabbi’s study, his straw-colored mustache drooping, in dreadful fear of the fraud the Jews were perpetrating upon him. Even after it had all been explained to him, he still didn’t understand it. “Sir, how can I buy your factory when I don’t have a kopeck to my name?” he pleaded.

  “Dummy! Do as you’re told, and give me a ruble,” Preiss insisted.

  “But I don’t have a ruble,” the frightened Pole whined.

  “Here is a ruble. Now give it back to me, and the sale is completed. When you have another ruble, you can pay back the loan.”

  Wojciech was sure that he was selling his soul to the devil or worse, but he was afraid to cross his boss, and he gingerly touched the tip of the red kerchief the rabbi extended to him to signify the sealing of a bargain. The rabbi then told him to sign the bill of sale, and the gentile made three crosses since he was illiterate.

  Preiss and the rabbi grimaced at the sight of the despised symbols, but it was the only way. Preiss handed the bill of sale to Wojciech along with a ten-groschen tip, and the porter stuck the paper in his cap and dashed to the tavern for a badly needed drink.

  Now Preiss could operate his factory on the Sabbaths with impunity and a clean conscience. Its machinery clattered away at full blast, shaking the red walls and belching black smoke into the skies. The poor German weavers gazed at the plant’s towering chimneys that dehumanized them and rendered their skills meaningless. They looked down with despair at their veiny hands that would one day be obsolete.

  The German master weavers incited their workers against Preiss’s steam factory as a Jewish instrument of the devil. The workers grumbled into their beer and swore revenge.

  One Saturday evening they gathered with torches, crowbars, and axes in front of the Jew’s factory. Led by their masters, who displayed the standards of their guild, they smashed the machinery, doused the walls with kerosene, and set the factory on fire. Afterward, drunk and riotous, they raced through the Jewish quarter, and with skills honed by generations, they smashed, robbed, raped, and assaulted, shouting the ancient battle cry, “Hep, hep Jude!”

  The Cossacks herded them toward the Ludka Pond with swords bared and nagaikas flying.

  But Solomon David Preiss’s chimneys soon belched even denser smoke into the skies, and his whistles shrilled with unabated fury. Acknowledging the way the wind was blowing, the German master weavers, who were swamped with orders for goods, borrowed from Polish banks and put up steam factories of their own, and the wealthier Jews followed.

  Like strange fruit, red brick steam factories sprouted in the fields around Lodz. They emitted slimy pools of sludge and poisoned the land, air, and water. Construction of residences, stores, workshops, and factories continued at a furious pace. Jewish artisans from all over Poland poured into Lodz. Peasants with too many children and too little land flocked in to take jobs in factories. Merchants from Russia arrived to snatch up goods for their own textile-starved country.

  The end was nowhere in sight, and as Lodz flourished, so did the House of Abraham Hersh Ashkenazi.

  Four

  LONELY, WITHDRAWN, alienated from his parents, from other children and even from his sisters and his twin brother, little Simha Meir grew up in his father’s house in Old City.

  He had always gone his own way, never playing with children his own age. The courtyard of his father’s house was like all those in the neighborhood—large, forbidding, closed off on all sides. From the section of it adjoining the smaller, poorer flats echoed a constant clatter of looms. Dust and lint issued from windows where waste was recycled. A roper twined cord the length of the yard. He and his three sons raced to and fro twisting the hemp, shouting harshly, “Pull, pull harder. Stop!”

  The children loved the yard, no one more so than Jacob Bunem.

  “Simha Meir,” he would cry in a loud voice that expressed his lust for life, “come play tag.”

  “I don’t want to,” Simha Meir would say brusquely and turn away.

  The twins didn’t get along.

  Jacob Bunem would have preferred it otherwise. He was bigger, stronger, full of laughter.

  “Jacob Bunem, why do you always laugh?” others asked.

  “ ’Cause I feel like it,” he would say, and laugh again so that the others felt compelled to join it.

  He put his whole heart and soul into the childish games. No one could run faster, or find better hiding places in the foundation when they played hide-and-seek, or catch the ends of the cord the roper dragged through the courtyard. He could excavate the biggest rocks and raise them overhead. He never grew tired of the games. Not only did he enjoy playing, but he wanted everyone, especially his brother, to do the same. But Simha Meir would have none of it.

  He was very ambitious, little Simha Meir. He wanted always to be the first, the best, the leader. But he wouldn’t compete in the courtyard where he was clumsy and weak and helpless beside his brother. If he tried anything physical, he invariably tripped and bloodied his nose, and if there was one thing he feared, it was blood. He screamed in panic at the very sight of it.

  In his own way, Jacob Bunem tried to help. He picked up a piece of glass, purposely cut his own hand, and laughed as the blood dripped out. “See, it’s nothing,” he said. The children, particularly the girls, oohed and ahed,
and this irked Simha Meir even more. Jealousy and envy seethed within him.

  When they were alone in the house, Simha Meir persuaded his brother to get down on all fours, and he mounted him like a horse. He kicked his ribs and whipped him with a whisk plucked from the broom as Jacob Bunem lumbered through the house.

  Sarah Leah, who favored Jacob Bunem, grew annoyed. “Dummox, you’ll tear your guts out!”

  “I could carry two of him!” Jacob Bunem boasted, as Simha Meir laid on with a fury.

  But Jacob Bunem was king of the courtyard. All the children, especially little Dinele, the daughter of the Ashkenazis’ neighbor, Haim Alter, looked up to him. A plump, sweet, pretty child with curly chestnut hair tied in a big bow, she was infatuated with Jacob Bunem. He carried her piggyback and put her in the barrow the janitor used to collect refuse and pushed her around the yard.

  Sarah Leah beamed each time she brought Jacob Bunem a slice of bread with honey. “Who would you like as your bridegroom?” she would ask the little girl.

  “My daddy,” the child said, bobbing her curls.

  “And who else?”

  Dinele pointed a chubby finger at Jacob Bunem. “Him!”

  Sarah Leah sniffled into her apron from joy.

  Simha Meir burned with rage and frustration, and he threw sand in the girls’ hair. They came shrieking to Jacob Bunem for protection and then began a chant:

  Simha Meir is a liar,

  Watch him jump into the fire.…

  The courtyard was a circus of wonders. Snatches of cantorial chants and ballads issued from open windows. Girls whose bowed heads were covered with lint and fluff sang of princes and princesses from storybooks, of star-crossed affairs between Jewish maidens and officers which inevitably ended in suicide, of female converts eloping with gentile lovers and ending up as drudges or prostitutes.

  All this was fun to listen to, but the greatest attraction of all was the roper. A bruiser with tangled whiskers much like the hemp he worked with, with beetling brows and tufts of hair sprouting from nostrils and ears, legs bared to the knees and hairy as a bear’s and hemp clinging to his dangling ritual garments, he worked with his sons who were every bit as bulky and powerful as their father. But big as they were, so jolly were they too. They didn’t chase the children. If a boy asked to give the wheel a turn or run the length of the yard with a strand of rope, they didn’t take the strap to him the way the other grown-ups did.

  “Pull, pull,” they urged the youngsters, hairy bodies shaking with laughter. “Don’t let go of the rope or it’ll grab you by your earlocks.…”

  The children wouldn’t leave the courtyard even to eat. The floor here wasn’t completely cobbled; there were places where you could dig down deep enough to reach yellow sand and even water. The boys built pretty sand castles; the girls used tin box tops to make mud pies, mud cookies, cakes, breads. On the low roof of the janitor’s shack there was a pigeon coop, and birds of all colors flew in and out, fluttered their wings, pecked crumbs, and cooed. Cats lurked within inches of them, but each time one seemed about to snare a pigeon, the bird would elude him indolently and land on the roof.

  Jacob Bunem was enraptured with it all. “Simha Meir,” he would cry, “let’s feed the pigeons. They’ll eat out of your hands, you’ll see.”

  “Don’t want,” Simha Meir would say, and go off by himself.

  He was slight, lightly freckled, with sharp features, very red, thin lips, and gray eyes that seemed to turn green when he became querulous. He always kept his hands inside the pockets of his black rep gabardine. His silk hat was shoved back on his head so that the high forehead fringed with thinly shorn hair and flaxen earlocks was exposed. His ears seemed forever cocked like a hare’s, alert to every sound. His eyes seemed at first glance, mild, but a closer look revealed the mistrust with which they darted everywhere at once, suspicious and maybe a little mad. Nothing in the courtyard, no matter how trifling, escaped him. He saw and catalogued everything the children and even the adults did and said, as intently as the cats stalked the pigeons.

  “Meirl,” his mother urged from a window, “why don’t you play with the other children, my precious?”

  “Don’t want,” he replied curtly. “I don’t like playing.”

  The pleasure of self-denial was stronger than the urge to join the others. This perversity even made him exult inwardly when one of them fell and skinned a knee.

  He preferred being alone. He collected the colored tags that he tore off the bolts of goods in his father’s storehouse, wound string onto bobbins, counted the coins he kept in a bank shaped like a rooster. The merchants who called on his father slipped him kopecks and even an occasional silver gulden, and he hid these in the clay rooster which had a slot in its tail. He loved to count his collection again and again. He would shake the clay rooster vigorously so that the other children would hear the coins clanging and be jealous. He would empty the bank, total the amount on the fingers of both hands, then refill it.

  He couldn’t relate to the others on an equal basis. He could only play with younger boys he could boss around or try to ingratiate himself with the older youths, who wouldn’t have anything to do with him. If loneliness forced him to join the others, he demanded they appoint him their leader, their king. He then duped them out of their playthings, trampled their sand castles or mud pies, or grabbed things from their hands and ran away.

  Most of all, he tormented his sisters and their friend Dinele. He loosened the bows in their pigtails; he heated a hairpin over the stove and held out the heated end to them so that they would burn their fingers; he tried to force flies and worms down their throats, knowing that they were terrified of insects. And if he bought himself candy, he wouldn’t give anyone else a lick.

  “Oh, it’s so good,” he teased, smacking his lips and watching their faces slyly.

  Jacob Bunem, who had a sweet tooth and a longing for all of life’s pleasures, succumbed. “Give us a lick, Simha Meir,” he asked.

  “Won’t,” Simha Meir said, and sucked even louder.

  Jacob Bunem lost his temper. “How come I give you my candy and you don’t give me any of yours?” he asked with feeling.

  But Simha Meir didn’t care and taunted some more. “You give me yours, but I don’t give you mine.… Do me something!”

  At this, Jacob Bunem snatched the candy from Simha Meir along with several flecks of skin. His sense of righteousness had been affronted. He wanted others to be as fair with him as he was with them, but he was ready to fight anyone of any size at any time when he felt he had been wronged.

  Simha Meir rolled on the ground hurt and humiliated in front of the others. Since he couldn’t retaliate against his younger brother with force, he vented his rage upon his sisters and tripped them up.

  Jacob Bunem’s rage passed as quickly as it came, and he held out his pinky to his brother to make up. He even extended a peace offering of two military buttons. When even this didn’t work, he emptied his pockets of all his treasures in an effort to smooth things over.

  But Simha Meir would have none of it, and ran to tattle to his father.

  Abraham Hersh lived by one rule—children are always wrong, and a father is always right. He, therefore, used the strap on both his sons. Jacob Bunem took his punishment in stride as if it were something coming to him, but when it came Simha Meir’s turn, he stretched out on the floor and kicked his feet as if in a fit. The mother came running, picked him up, fondled him, and put him to bed.

  “Meirl, treasure of mine,” she crooned, “may it be my life instead of your tiniest fingernail.…”

  She gave him her gold watch to play with, all her diamond rings and earrings.

  The father didn’t whip him, but he was highly suspicious.

  “How come he gets these fits only when I’m about to spank him?” he asked.

  The mother fluffed up the boy’s pillow and glared at her husband. “Brute,” she whispered under her breath, “a heart of stone.”

  Fi
ve

  THE THICK WALLS of Heinz Huntze’s luxurious office were covered with portraits, plaques, and decorations.

  In a prominent position just above the massive oak desk hung the portraits of two emperors; on the right, that of Alexander II, Autocrat of All the Russias, King of Poland, Grand Duke of Finland, etc., etc.; on the left, that of Kaiser Wilhelm I. Centered just beneath the two portraits hung the one of the founder of the mighty Huntze dynasty himself.

  His portrait was not as elaborate as those of the two monarchs. His breast didn’t glitter with as many crosses and medals, nor was his face as smooth and sleek as those of the pampered rulers. His round bullet skull with its brush of closely cropped pig-bristle hair vividly recalled Huntze the weaver, who had arrived with two handlooms from Saxony, rather than Huntze the industrialist. The creases in his face, which the photographer had done his best to retouch, suggested years of effort, worry, and backbreaking toil. His black frock coat and starched linen, particularly the high, stiff collar, called to mind a common workman all dressed up for some fancy occasion. For all its majestic size, the portrait wasn’t at all imposing, a factor emphasized by the two royal visages looming just above it. Still, the man with the common face wasn’t without his marks of distinction.

  True, his breast didn’t glitter with many crosses and medals, but it wasn’t totally bare either. First, an Order of St. Anne, wangled for him from Petersburg by the governor-general of Piotrkow in recognition of the huge flow of moneys he had brought into the country, draped his white vest. Not that this ribbon came cheaply—it cost Heinz’s daughters a bundle in gifts for the governor-general and a string of pearls for his wife. But it was worth it. Huntze, who himself wouldn’t have laid out a plug pfennig for this alleged honor, had to concede that his daughters hadn’t been entirely wrong; the medal looked very handsome against the snow-white vest.