The Brothers Ashkenazi

by I. J. Singer

  Simha Meir sliced himself a piece of cheese, laid it on the roll, and waved away his father-in-law’s suggestion. “Daddy insisted I not take IOUs. Daddy wants me to take a mortgage on Father-in-law’s house.”

  “A mortgage?” Haim Alter bristled. “What favor are you doing me with a mortgage? I can go to anybody with a mortgage.”

  “Then why doesn’t Father-in-law do so?” Simha Meir asked, looking ingenuously into Haim Alter’s eyes.

  For a full day Haim Alter worked on his son-in-law. He tried to impress him as to his solvency; he pointed out how unseemly it was for a son-in-law to distrust his own father-in-law’s promissory notes, particularly a man of his reputation, to whom people had always been eager to entrust their money.

  Simha Meir remained adamant. “What can I do?” he said. “My hands are tied.”

  Even when Haim Alter finally agreed to the mortgage, Simha Meir was in no rush to conclude the transaction and explained that he must again talk things over with his daddy.

  Haim Alter exploded. “Again with the daddy? It’s becoming a story without an end already.…”

  Simha Meir washed his hands and didn’t answer. From his gambling days at Shillem the baker’s, he knew that when an opponent was at his most frantic, that was the time to play a waiting game. No, he hadn’t been able to catch his daddy at home; yes, he had found him, but he had been too busy to talk.…

  Haim Alter fumed until Simha Meir finally came to him with an answer. “Daddy says that I shouldn’t settle for anything but a first mortgage. Otherwise, it’s no deal.…”

  Haim Alter raged and ranted. He couldn’t let Simha Meir have a first mortgage for the simple reason that someone else already held it. Naturally Simha Meir had known this all along. He had made inquiries into his father-in-law’s affairs, and in a city where everyone knew everybody else’s business, people were only too delighted to transmit the bad news. The fact that he knew about the first mortgage was the very reason he had demanded it. He was after bigger game.

  Ever since childhood he had had his eye on Haim Alter’s factory. Not that he had any use for handlooms, for his sympathies lay with the New Lodz, with modern Lodz, with steam. He had always been intrigued by the huge mills with their sky-high chimneys. Nothing smelled so sweet to him as the smoke pouring from these chimneys. The shrieking sirens were like music to his ears.

  The ancient handlooms, with their bearded, skullcapped operators, repelled him. They reminded him of the despised studyhouse. He was always drawn to the newest, the latest, the biggest and best. He envisioned himself as one of the magnates of Lodz, attended by mobs of flunkies awaiting his every command.

  But he also knew that Rome hadn’t been built in a day. All of Lodz’s industrialists had started with handlooms and worked their way up to steam.

  He was also keenly aware that his own progress need not be so gradual. Lodz was no longer what it once had been. Everything moved more quickly now. And he would skip the first step. He was, after all, the son of Abraham Hersh Ashkenazi, the son-in-law of Haim Alter, and the possessor of 10,000 rubles (plus interest). With such a start, you could do something, assuming you grasped the essence of business. With such a sum, you could begin with fifty, not five handlooms.

  He had already deduced the full measure of his father-in-law’s character. He was soft, weak, lazy—devoted to luxuries and comfort and wholly under his wife’s thumb. Even as a boy Simha Meir had known that Haim Alter wouldn’t fit in the New Lodz. He also knew that eventually, he, Simha Meir, would somehow become part of the factory. He had observed it in all its disorder, and he knew that one day it would fall upon someone of business sense, innovation, and daring to turn it into the profitable venture it could be. It was for these reasons that he had refused to accept notes in lieu of cash as part of his dowry. And the wisdom of his judgment was becoming evident now.

  Clearly his chance had come. He was sick of hanging around the house, swaying over the Torah like some schoolboy. He knew that the season had been a disastrous one for the weaving industry and that cash was short. He, therefore, expected little opposition to the terms he now broached to his father-in-law.

  At first, Haim Alter blustered, accused his son-in-law of having a heart of stone and of being totally corrupt.

  Simha Meir kept silent. He suddenly grew inordinately devoted to his studies. Haim Alter avoided him, but as his creditors began to grow more and more insistent and Samuel Leibush could no longer keep them at bay, Haim Alter came around and agreed to all of Simha Meir’s conditions.

  For the sum of 10,000 rubles, Simha Meir became a one-third partner in the factory. At his insistence, a contract was drawn up between the pair which was filled with provisions, clauses, and various “whereases.” It took so long to complete that Haim Alter was slavering by the time the money flowed into his fat, eager hands—money that had been his in the first place, money for which he had gone into hock to purchase a brilliant scholar and prodigy for his only daughter.

  “You’re a hard man, Simha Meir.” He sighed as they left the musty notary’s office and shook hands on their new partnership.

  Having gotten what he wanted, Haim Alter now sought to keep his son-in-law out of the factory and to send him back to his studies. But Simha Meir had other plans. “If we’re partners, then we’re partners in fact, not in name only,” he said with assumed righteousness. “I wouldn’t let Father-in-law carry the entire burden. I’ll hold up my end of the bargain.”

  When Abraham Hersh learned of his son’s actions, he promptly sent Jacob Bunem to fetch him. Jacob Bunem was anxious to get the errand over with. In the Alters’ dining room, he chanced upon Dinele sitting as usual with her legs tucked under her on the ottoman and reading one of her novels.

  “Good evening,” he said in a reserved tone.

  She seemed taken aback and began to tremble. He grew confused as well, and his fingers flew to the peak of his cap, as they used to in the past when he encountered her in the street. She, in turn, blushed.

  “How is Jacob?” she asked in the formal third person.

  “How is Dinele?” he responded.

  They both dropped their eyes and kept silent.

  Simha Meir didn’t greet his brother too warmly. He knew that his visit boded trouble.

  His father laid the kerchief between the pages of the Gemara, as was his custom, and let his son stand for a very long time.

  As always when in a rage, he spoke softly. “Simha, did you ask me if you could withdraw the money?”

  “No, Father.”

  “Then why did you do it without my knowledge?”

  “Father-in-law was pressed for money,” Simha Meir replied piously, “and I took pity on him.”

  “You wanted to perform a good deed, was that it?” Abraham Hersh asked with narrowed eyes.

  “Yes, Father,” Simha Meir replied naïvely.

  “Well then, and obeying your father is not a good deed?”

  Simha Meir didn’t answer.

  Abraham Hersh pushed the skullcap back on his head and regarded the youth. It would have helped if his son had at least lowered his eyes as he lied to him, but he didn’t even blink and kept the same sanctimonious expression on his face until his father lost his tightly controlled composure.

  “Listen here, saint of mine, I order you to go back to your studies!”

  “I will study whenever I find the time,” Simha Meir said. “That’s a promise, Father.”

  “No, you will study the full five years of your board!”

  “I can’t lay the whole burden on Father-in-law. Is it not written: ‘Though shalt not see thy brother’s ass or his ox fallen down by the way, and hide thyself from them; thou shalt surely help him to lift them up again’?”

  The blood rushed to Abraham Hersh’s head. “Despoiler of Israel, don’t you dare set one foot inside the factory until your five years are up! I want your word on it now!” And he extended his hairy, sinewy hand.

  Simha Meir let his father�
�s hand dangle in the air.

  It grew so quiet in the room that the only sound heard was Jacob Bunem’s heavy breathing. Abraham Hersh endured his humiliation for a full thirty seconds; then he raised his hand high and let it fall with all its might against Simha Meir’s cheek.

  “Out of my house, reprobate!” he exclaimed.

  Silently Simha Meir picked up his silk hat which had been dislodged by his father’s slap, rubbed his reddened cheek, and left the house. Outside of the physical pain, he felt fine. He even smiled, walking home.

  What was a father’s slap to the junior partner of the firm of Alter and Ashkenazi, to an independent businessman about to take on Lodz not with five, but with fifty looms right from the start and aiming at the very highest smokestacks? …

  With wide, eager nostrils Simha Meir drew in the sooty air of Lodz and walked confidently across the ill-paved sidewalks.

  Sixteen

  WITH ALL THE FERVOR of his energetic youth, with the same zeal with which he had manipulated the cards at Shillem the baker’s, Simha Meir threw himself into the task of taking over the factory that adjoined his father-in-law’s house. He was everywhere at once—ears cocked like a hare’s for every sound; deceptively mild, darting gray eyes observing everything; long, thin nose sniffing everywhere.

  First, he tackled the books, the messy ledgers that had sent the Litvak bookkeeper into such a tizzy. To Simha Meir they presented no mystery. He added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided in highly unorthodox but eminently practical fashion until everything balanced to the groschen.

  After he had concluded, he forbade everyone, including his father-in-law and Samuel Leibush, to touch the books again.

  Next, he addressed himself to the pile of letters, misplaced orders, overdue bills, and receipts that lay scattered everywhere and usually ended up forgotten in his father-in-law’s pockets.

  He knew no other languages except a scattering of German he had picked up from Goldlust the bookkeeper and from primers. His Russian was even more fragmentary, only the few words he had picked up from the Litvak traveling salesmen at his father’s house. But he had the native ability to use one word to explain ten and with it, supreme self-confidence. He pitched right in and wrote replies to customers’ letters, letters that were misspelled and ungrammatical, yet concise and to the point.

  When he was through with the paperwork, he focused his attentions on Samuel Leibush. First, he took over the safe that Haim Alter had entrusted to his servant for all the years. Samuel Leibush didn’t give in easily. He was used to taking full charge of the factory and supplying his employer with cash on demand, and he was loath to yield to a new authority—a callow youth who plucked at his sprouting beard as if seeking to hurry its growth, a snotnosed boy with his mother’s milk still fresh upon his lips.

  He flatly refused to listen to Simha Meir or to surrender the keys to the safe. “I’ll pay the boss myself,” he insisted. “Don’t let it become your concern, Simha Meir.”

  His tone indicated that the only boss he would accept was Haim Alter, regardless of any private arrangements the old man might have made with his son-in-law. Haim Alter silently backed his man’s revolt all the way and relished his resistance against his new and unwelcome partner.

  Simha Meir launched his campaign. He made sure to get to the factory before Samuel Leibush, arriving with the workers before dawn and staying long into the night. He ignored all calls to lunch and dinner, and Hadassah had to come running to fetch him to the table.

  He distributed the work to the workers. He saw to it that the work wasn’t botched. He counted the threads through a magnifying glass. He kept an eye on the shirkers and made sure the men didn’t weave the yarn too loosely.

  The workers acknowledged his expertise as a born manufacturer who knew his business and wouldn’t allow himself to be deceived, and they learned to depend upon him. They obeyed his orders and ignored those of the ineffectual Samuel Leibush, who would make a brief appearance and fall into senseless rages for reasons he himself didn’t fathom.

  “Be off with you,” Simha Meir dismissed him. “I’ve got things under control here.”

  Samuel Leibush turned away in a pout and, after a while, stopped coming to the factory altogether.

  In no time Simha Meir relieved him of his other duties. He began to meet personally with the merchants and buyers, he took over the correspondence, and he oversaw the shipment of the goods.

  The merchants and buyers, who for years had been compelled to give kickbacks to Samuel Leibush, welcomed the chance to speak directly to a principal of the firm who conducted business on the up and up. Besides, he was sharp, agile, and understood a problem before it was even verbalized.

  Simha Meir quickly let it be known that henceforth Samuel Leibush was to be skipped over and that no money was to be paid into his hands. Only he, Simha Meir, was empowered to accept payments.

  Samuel Leibush went on as before, but at every turn he was informed that young Ashkenazi had already taken care of the matter. Seeing the way things were going, Samuel Leibush decided to get in good with the new boss, who obviously had his wits about him, but Simha Meir kept him at a distance. He sent him out on simple errands until Samuel Leibush put his foot down.

  “I’m no errand boy,” he griped. “I’ve been running the factory all these years by myself, Simha Meir!”

  Simha Meir stuck his hands in his pants pockets, rose on tiptoe to appear more impressive, and snapped, “If you don’t like it, go get a better job. And while we’re at it—where do you come off calling me by my first name? I don’t recall us having slopped hogs together.…”

  Samuel Leibush promptly climbed off his high horse. “No need to take offense, Reb Simha,” he said, bowing his head. “I’m leaving straight off!”

  Simha Meir enumerated what his tasks would be henceforth, and Samuel Leibush stood trembling in his new boss’s presence. Haim Alter felt mortified for his retainer, but there was nothing he could or would do about it. He was simply too timid to confront his strong-willed son-in-law, and his solution was to show up less and less frequently at the factory. Whenever he did show up, Simha Meir came running up with affected concern. “Father-in-law can go lie down. I’ll take care of everything already.”

  And the older man gratefully accepted the suggestion. He napped, read Hasidic storybooks about squires who assumed the guise of werewolves in order to harm Jews and about the saints who used sacred blessings to frustrate these wizards and transform them into dogs and tomcats.

  Reclining on his soft ottoman, he kept chastising his good-for-nothing sons for their laziness and lack of will, traits that were exactly his own.

  “You should follow Simha Meir’s example,” he bleated at them as they smirked in secret knowledge of their brother-in-law’s intentions. “He never rests, like the River Sambation.…”

  Simha Meir no longer showed up in the studyhouse except on rare occasions. He spent more and more time in the cafés among the merchants, traveling salesmen, brokers, moneylenders, and others who loitered on the fringes of the Lodz business establishment. They sat over glasses of beer and plates of hard-boiled eggs, talking business, making deals, figuring, scheming, trading information, quoting the price of wool and cotton, discussing everyone’s joys, sorrows, gains, and losses.

  By the hundreds they scribbled figures on beer-stained tabletops, enveloped in the noise, smoke, and dust of the city the fortunes and fate of which were their lifeblood.

  Here it was known who was accumulating a fortune and who was losing his shirt; who was really solvent and who only presented a front and couldn’t be trusted with a bundle of goods. Here cotton fields thousands of miles away were bought and sold. Here the prices of goods were fixed and manipulated. Here yarn was unraveled and graded.

  In this vortex of Hasidic catchphrases, Lithuanian street wisdom, and salesmen’s jokes, the fruit of the toil of thousands was transformed into cold figures scrawled swiftly over dirty tabletops.

  An
d amid it all skulked Simha Meir, ears and eyes alert for every useful tidbit of information, every morsel of gossip. He wasn’t well known yet, this puny youth, who kept tugging the hairs on his chin as if to hurry their growth, and the others paid him scant attention, but he didn’t let this disturb him. He knew from experience that one must force oneself to wait for the opportune moment to throw the trump card.

  So he kept his lips sealed for the present and didn’t mix in, merely hovered around the edges, absorbing everything like a sponge.

  Gradually he began to toss in a word or two, inquire about some deal, feel a swatch of goods, unravel a thread. He acquired the appropriate jargon and mannerisms. He learned when to speak and when to keep silent, when to play dumb and when to avoid an answer. He even learned to seize a man’s lapel and finger the material of his garment, in the way of the Lodz merchant. People began to take notice of him and to ask about him.

  “Abraham Hersh Ashkenazi’s son,” they informed one another, “Haim Alter’s son-in-law.” And they turned their heads to catch a better glimpse of such a privileged young man.

  Before they knew it, he had already insinuated himself into their circle and was joking, quipping, and joshing with the best, cleverly countering the sallies of the old-timers, who tried to initiate the fresh young upstart.

  “He’s got no flies on him, the little twerp,” they said admiringly. “He doesn’t need anyone to take up for him.…”

  And word spread in the dingy restaurants that the young fellow wasn’t only well connected but quite a shrewd little operator on his own.

  “He’s the real goods, all right,” Jews said with a wink, and welcomed him with open arms. He fitted right in, and in no time, men twice his age were taking him aside to discuss some juicy deal to be pulled off on the sly.

  “A shrewdie, sharp as a tack,” they said. “But you’ve got to watch him like a hawk.… The guts of a burglar and crooked as a corkscrew.…”