The Brothers Ashkenazi

by I. J. Singer

  Brown-haired, blue-eyed, pretty, pampered, she was very popular with her gentile classmates. Barely thirteen, she already read German and French novels about princes, duels and love affairs, and she dreamed of a knight who would carry her off to his castle on top of a mountain.

  She found it amusing to watch the little Hasid who couldn’t sit still a moment and who cast his eyes everywhere at once, as if eternally searching, probing, sniffing.

  Dinele put the glass of tea before the boy, then hurried away, eager to get back to her books.

  Her father tried to detain her. “Don’t you recognize him, Dinele?” he asked. “This is Reb Abraham Hersh’s Simha Meir. He is a brilliant fellow—writes a beautiful letter.”

  He turned to the boy. “Show her how you write a letter in German, Simha Meir. Let her not think that only gentile schools can train a person. You can learn much more from the Gemara, beg the comparison, than all the goyish schools put together.…”

  Employing his finest script, Simha Meir composed a business letter addressed to an imaginary Mr. Goldman in Leipzig, just as his father’s bookkeeper, Goldlust, had taught him.

  “Hochwohlgeboren Herr Solomon Goldman,” he began anxious to show off to the girl, but she—barely able to contain herself—raced to her mother’s bedroom and flung herself into her mother’s arms with such maniacal laughter that Priveh’s artificial blond curls began to bob.

  Haim Alter admired the boy’s handwriting. He clapped his fleshy hands and decided to send for Samuel Zanvil of Alexander to propose the match to Abraham Hersh Ashkenazi before it was too late.

  The next day he acted on his decision. “Samuel Leibush,” he ordered his man, who was still struggling with the account books, “tomorrow, God willing, you’ll go to Reb Samuel Zanvil of Alexander and ask him to come see me. I need him for something important, you hear?”

  “I’ll do it first thing in the morning, Reb Haim,” the servant replied.

  “Add, ‘God willing,’ you boor!” Haim Alter cautioned him. “How can sinful man be sure that there will be a tomorrow?”

  “God willing,” Samuel Leibush said, appalled at his own ignorance.

  Nine

  PRIOR TO THEIR BAR MITZVAH, which happened to fall on Passover, Abraham Hersh went to present his twin sons to his rabbi. The Warka Rabbi was no longer living, and Abraham Hersh had transferred his allegiance to the Rabbi of Alexander, a town close to Lodz.

  As usual, his wife wept about being left alone on the holiday, and as usual, Abraham Hersh ignored her. He was anxious to have the rabbi meet the boys and instill within them a love and respect for Jewishness. He remembered the Warka Rabbi’s prophecy that his sons would grow up men of wealth, and he brooded about the omission of any reference to their piety. For all his absorption with business, Abraham Hersh knew that wealth and business were temporal, while God, the Torah, and heaven were eternal.

  Thus, he asked God—whom he deeply feared—that if indeed it was destined that his sons be wealthy but impious, He take them before they reached manhood.

  Now that they were about to be confirmed, he wanted to discuss and resolve this issue with the Alexander Rabbi. He also wanted to consult the rabbi about Simha Meir’s education. Even Baruch Wolf of Leczyca was too limited for the boy. He would have to be placed into the hands of a more learned master. Abraham Hersh was sorely tempted to send him to a yeshiva, a talmudic academy, where he would be forced into contact with poor youths, forced, like the very poorest, even to take his meals at the homes of affluent householders. This would take him down a peg or two and make a true Jew of him. Abraham Hersh knew that it was better for a boy to go out on his own, as his father had compelled him to do. Only through hardship did a youth arrive at true faith and the fear of God.

  His wife had already gone on record that she would never subject her little Meirl to the mercy of strangers, but this didn’t concern Abraham Hersh. When, however, his fellow Hasidim dissuaded him, contending that a boy should live at his father’s house, he reconsidered. Now he wanted to hear what the rabbi had to say. And whatever the rabbi decided, Abraham Hersh would do.

  Then there was the matter of the match. Haim Alter had sent Samuel Zanvil with a proposal of a match between his daughter and Simha Meir, but Abraham Hersh felt no compunction to respond. He wouldn’t say yes, and he wouldn’t say no. There was plenty of time to decide.

  But Samuel Zanvil wouldn’t be put off, and he plagued Abraham Hersh’s existence. A learned man, once considerably wealthy and still brimming with arrogance toward one and all and not in the least awed by affluence or status, he kept calling on Abraham Hersh, demanding an answer. He knew everyone in Lodz; he knew what was cooking in everyone’s pot; he was able to bring mountains together and wasn’t afraid to fling the truth in anyone’s face.

  “I want you to agree to this match,” he commanded rather than urged Abraham Hersh. “I’m no lackey of yours to be shunted aside. Sign the articles of engagement, and let me earn my fee because I have a daughter of my own to marry off and I can’t wait.…”

  Abraham Hersh couldn’t evade him—not at home, not at the prayerhouse, not even at business. Samuel Zanvil would push his way into his office, bowling over the clerks who tried to stop him. “The gall of those flunkies!” he raged. “Who do they think you are, the governor-general?”

  Actually it wasn’t a bad match. Haim Alter was wealthy; the girl was his only daughter; the dowry would be substantial, the gifts lavish, the groom’s board generous. Because Haim Alter was simply dying for the match, he would allow himself to be squeezed. True, his wife was said to wear a wig instead of a bonnet like a truly pious Jewess, and to put on airs, but the household was run in proper Jewish fashion and was always full of Hasidim. Still, it would be up to the rabbi. He, Abraham Hersh, wouldn’t make a move without the rabbi’s recommendation.

  He ordered the German coachman to hitch up the carriage and to drive him to Alexander.

  He packed his finest clothes and the new satin gabardines and velvet hats he had ordered for the boys’ confirmation. Into three brand-new red kerchiefs he placed a quantity of matzos specially baked of black flour—hard crooked matzos to last each of them through Passover. He also brought baskets containing several bottles of good Passover wine for the rabbi.

  He picked up so many poor Hasidim along the way that the driver seemed on the verge of apoplexy. “Ah, sweet Jesus,” he groaned, “my poor horses will croak from all these Jews.… Off with you, you rabble!”

  But the Hasidim kept piling on, tasting Abraham Hersh’s Passover whiskey, and chanting hymns. “Who cares what a dumb gentile says?” they observed with contempt.

  Throughout all Passover Abraham Hersh didn’t let his sons out of his sight, particularly Simha Meir. He made him listen to the Hasidim quoting the rabbi’s wisdom and relating past and present miracles performed by saints. He drew him into the circle of dancing men. He placed his thick, tanned hand on Simha Meir’s narrow shoulder, seeking to permeate him with the Jewishness seething and foaming all around.

  “You see how Jews serve their Creator?” he lectured his son. “Be a Jew, Simha!”

  As they were leaving, the rabbi jovially pinched Jacob Bunem’s cheek, but he spoke at length to Simha Meir, the prodigy. He tried to catch him in a tricky question, but the boy wouldn’t allow himself to be tripped up, and the rabbi praised him highly to his father. “You have a fine boy there, Abraham Hersh,” he said, stroking the youth’s cheek. “He’s got a head on his shoulders. Bring him along whenever you come. And I approve of the match. But don’t send him to any yeshiva. Take him to Reb Nuske in Lodz. He isn’t a follower of any court, but he is a great scholar and a saint of a Jew.”

  Abraham Hersh left a donation of thirty-six silver rubles and started out for home, satisfied that his problems were solved. He treated the men to cake and whiskey, and they toasted Simha Meir. “Congratulations, bridegroom. May the match be a successful one. To your health!”

  They held out their han
ds to Jacob Bunem. “To the bridegroom’s brother! May you be next, boy.”

  Jacob Bunem was deeply depressed. For the first time in his life he tasted despair. He had been miserable the entire holiday. The Hasidim barely glanced at him and concentrated on Simha Meir, conversing with him as if he were an adult. The rabbi himself paid no attention to him, Jacob Bunem. He merely pinched his cheek as if he were some child and lauded Simha Meir to their father. And this left Jacob Bunem feeling unworthy and embarrassed. This wasn’t the courtyard where children appreciated his strength, fleetness of foot, and agility. Here the emphasis was placed on intelligence, and Simha Meir took full advantage of the situation and lorded it over his younger brother.

  But what really made Jacob Bunem’s heart lurch was the match between Simha Meir and Dinele. Already at home he had heard hints of it, but he had never believed that it would happen. Now he saw that it was a fact, and he wanted to die.

  “Why the long face, boy?” the Hasidim taunted him. “With God’s help, it’ll be your turn next. Shake the bridegroom’s hand, and wish him well.”

  Jacob Bunem held out his hand to Simha Meir and mumbled “good luck.” A single meaningful glance passed between the brothers—they understood each other better than anyone.

  It wasn’t the gold watch or the new set of the Lemberg Talmud that Simha Meir would get that aroused Jacob Bunem’s envy—it was Dinele, his brother’s intended bride. To accentuate his anguish, he bit his lip until it bled.

  He had always loved Dinele, ever since they had been children. He loved the feel of her plump arms around his neck as he carried her piggyback and she clung to him like some frozen little bird seeking warmth from a human hand.

  Later, when they were older, she would visit their house, and although it was no longer proper, he still played with her. He would bribe Simha Meir with his most prized possessions not to tattle to their father. But it was all worth it to feel the soft, warm touch of her. Each time Sarah Leah said, “What a fine couple you’d make,” his heart would lurch and a flush would spread over his cheeks.

  Later they stopped seeing each other. Dinele made new friends, and she felt it beneath her to associate with the Ashkenazi girls. But Jacob Bunem never stopped longing for her, and he hung around her house for hours, hoping for a glimpse of her coming home from school in her brown skirt and blue cape and carrying her books, so that he might tip his silk hat to her. Jacob Bunem at thirteen was already a man. Unlike the other boys, he didn’t subvert his masculine stirrings with leering allusions to sex or by mouthing the forbidden words, but longed with healthy yearning for Dinele, the girl with the brown ringlets that gleamed like copper and gold.

  When Samuel Zanvil called on his father for the first time, Jacob Bunem was sent from the room. His heart pounded with barely suppressed expectation, and Sarah Leah winked at him knowingly. But as it soon turned out, he wasn’t the one to rejoice.

  No one in his family took any notice of his anguish. He couldn’t verbalize his feelings to his parents, nor would it have done any good. His father considered him a near dolt; his mother was concerned only about her favorite, Simha Meir, who was puny, delicate, and forever down with some children’s disease. He, on the other hand, was never sick. The only one who shared his grief was Sarah Leah, whose favorite he had always been.

  “Don’t fret, Jacob Bunem,” she comforted him, bringing him a glass of milk, “lots of things can happen between now and the wedding.”

  But he only lost his temper and slammed the door in her face because she knew his feelings.

  He hated his father for favoring his brother; his mother for bringing him into the world a few minutes later; the Hasidim for shining up to Simha Meir; and ultimately himself for being so stupid. “Dummox!” he castigated himself. “Peasanthead!”

  But most of all, he hated his brother with a passion that was totally foreign to him.

  Dinele wept her own tears when her father took her on his lap, as he had done when she was a little girl, stroked her cheeks, fingered her curls, and told her softly, “You know, daughter, you have congratulations coming for being betrothed to Simha Meir? Aren’t you overjoyed, Dinele?”

  She sprang from his lap and ran screaming to her mother, who turned pale in alarm. “What is it, child?”

  “I don’t want it!” Dinele shrieked.

  The mother took her daughter in her arms and showered her with kisses. “Silly goose, we only want your happiness. People will envy you such a bridegroom.”

  For eight days running, Haim Alter’s house was in a state of turmoil. Dinale firmly refused to be engaged. She was deeply ashamed to have her new friends discover that she was marrying a Hasidic youth in a long gabardine. She had already confiided to them that she would wed only a knight, a nobleman. She couldn’t stand the Jews who came to her house. They amused and repelled her. She couldn’t stand her own brothers—blowsy dullards who pulled her braids and looked down on her for being a girl. Her mind was far away in a world of castles, balls, and duels. She couldn’t abide her Jewish name, and she called herself Diana.

  When she launched her campaign against the match, her father looked at her with disbelief. “Silly girl,” he chided her. “Do you know what you are getting—a prodigy?”

  He had no hint of her inner feelings. He knew that a girl had no intellect, and could spend her childhood idling away her time, but as soon as she reached maturity, she had to marry a scholar, be given a handsome dowry, bear her husband sons, and provide her parents with grandchildren. This was the way God had intended it, and this was the way it would be.

  “Wait till you see the presents you’ll get,” he consoled her.

  The girl ran to her mother. Priveh was a worldly woman, well read and sophisticated, but she, too, scoffed at the maidenly tears.

  “I cried the same way, too, Diana,” she said, employing her daughter’s gentile name. “I was a bright girl who could speak French. Still, I’ve had no regrets. May you only have such luck with your husband as I’ve had with your daddy.”

  “But I don’t love him!” the girl said with feeling.

  The mother laughed until all the curls of her blond wig quivered. “After the wedding, you’ll come to love him.”

  Realizing that her fate was sealed, Dinele asked but one concession. “Mommy, I’ll become a bride … but not his. I hate him!” She bowed her head and barely mumbled, “His brother … talk to Daddy.…”

  And between tears she rained kisses on her mother.

  The mother dried her daughter’s tears with a tiny embroidered handkerchief and went to talk things over with her husband. “The girl prefers the other brother, Haimshe.”

  Haim Alter stuffed up both his ears with his fingers to avoid hearing such drivel. “Privehshe, what are you saying? Simha Meir is a prodigy. People envy us. And the other is a nothing, a blockhead.…”

  When Priveh tried to say something else, Samuel Zanvil intervened. “It’s not the custom to marry off the younger sibling before the elder,” he said. “Just as Laban told Jacob when he chose Rachel over Leah.”

  “Younger by five minutes,” Priveh added.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Samuel Zanvil barked. “I wouldn’t even propose such a thing to Abraham Hersh. He’d throw me out on my ear.”

  Priveh dropped the matter. Within days a horde of aunts, grandaunts, nephews, nieces, and cousins from both sides of the family descended upon the house. They didn’t stop talking, praising the prodigy, pleading, blessing, and preaching to Dinele—urging, nagging, and adjuring her until she weakened and gave in.

  Eyes red from crying, she sewed a velvet phylactery bag for her intended, embroidered upon it a gold Star of David, the groom’s two names, and the Jewish date of the creation of the world. Her father bought her many costly presents, and her mother ordered a long pretty dress for her betrothal.

  The engagement was celebrated with great pomp at Haim Alter’s house. The town’s magnates, scholars, and Hasidim from the Ashkenazi and Alter sides a
ttended. Haim Alter even dispatched Samuel Leibush with cake and whiskey for his workers and let them go home right after the afternoon prayers.

  Upon the occasion the prospective father-in-law deposited 5,000 silver rubles in the bridegroom’s name in the bank and signed a pledge for an additional 2,000 to be paid prior to the wedding. These had been Abraham Hersh’s terms, and Haim Alter had had no choice but to comply. An additional 3,000 rubles would come from Abraham Hersh. He didn’t have to pay the full 3,000 since the groom’s side was obligated to pay only a third of what the bride’s side paid, but Abraham Hersh preferred round figures, and he pledged the 3,000 so that the full amount would total 10,000 rubles.

  The bride signed the articles of engagement in every language she knew—Yiddish, Polish, Russian, German and French—so that she could receive a present for each signature. She was showered with diamond rings, earrings, brooches, and a heavy necklace. The wedding was deferred for several years.

  Right after the betrothal had been sealed, the Hasidim ripped down the flowers Priveh had set out upon the tables, swept away the costly glassware and china, and commenced dancing on the tables. Priveh was enraged, but Haim Alter encouraged them. “Dance, Jews! On the tables and on the chairs.…”

  Jacob Bunem sat at the foot of the table like a mourner amid the festivities. He paid no attention to the sweaty palms held out to him, the wishes for his speedy betrothal. He didn’t taste the fancy foods the waiters in silk skullcaps served him; he didn’t answer the loutish Alter brothers, who whispered snatches of law relating to marital conduct in his ear, their pimpled faces beaming with drunken vulgarity.

  He fixed his eyes on the other side of the room, where through the opened door the bride-to-be could be seen surrounded by women. He yearned to look into her eyes, but she kept them lowered. Only once their glances met, and they both looked swiftly away.

  Ten

  THE DAY AFTER THE PARTY Abraham Hersh turned Simha Meir over to Nuske as his rabbi had instructed him. Haim Alter took his own sons out of Baruch Wolf’s classroom and enrolled them with Nuske so that they might study alongside Simha Meir.