The Brothers Ashkenazi

by I. J. Singer

  The factory pastor made frequent visits to the workers’ quarters. He escorted their children to their final rest with prayers to the Eternal. The police came to search for chickens and piglets appropriated from neighbors. Even dogs started disappearing. It was rumored that the weavers trapped them for their Sunday dinners.

  More than usual now the weavers came for loans to the two factotums. Because of the rapid rise of business the usurers raised their rate of interest by several groschen. Melchior didn’t stop blowing his clarinet for the stunning young women who visited his rooms and served them wines left over from the baron’s parties. Old Jostel had all the little girls he wanted for his peculiar games.

  The mill worked around the clock to make up its losses. Just as Albrecht had predicted, it was curing itself without resorting to outside means.

  “By the end of the year things will be back to normal,” he assured his employer. “Possibly even sooner.”

  “You’re a clever rascal, Albrechtschen,” Huntze grunted, treating him to a cigar. “Just don’t break my couch with that fat behind of yours.…”

  “Oh, I won’t, Herr Baron,” the director assured him, his bulk quivering over his employer’s joke.

  Twenty-Five

  EVEN SOONER THAN the young barons had anticipated the “old shithead,” as they called their father, departed the world, leaving them his huge inheritance along with the title.

  So long as he was able to wander through the factory, peering everywhere and sticking his nose and half-deaf ears into every corner, feeling the goods, dipping his fingers in the dye, trying to make sense of the complicated ledgers, giving advice on designs, correcting plans, haggling with merchants, puffing away on his pipe, arriving with the first workers and leaving after the last—so long as he was able to do all that, his health held.

  Doctors warned him not to walk on the cold stone factory floors lest he become rheumatic. They predicted that the dust and lint would damage his lungs, that the fumes from the dyes would be bad for his heart, that the roar of the machinery would shatter his nerves. They advised him to leave town, particularly in the summers. But he would have none of this. His response to all the medical advice was Quatsch, bunk.

  The older he grew, the more he was drawn to his beloved factory and the better and more energetic he felt. But now that he was a baron, his children no longer allowed him near the factory. They wouldn’t let him smoke his pipe—only Havana cigars. They kept urging him to go to doctors and spas.

  This evoked all the weaknesses of old age, and his bones began to ache, his legs swelled, his skin dried up, his spine hurt. He suffered constant headaches. He would doze off in the midst of a conversation or lose his train of thought. He raged at people for interrupting him even though they hadn’t uttered a word.

  He became unbearable at home. He drove the servants to distraction, insulted his wife, hurled plates and glasses on the floor, and didn’t stop spitting on the Persian rugs and tiger skins covering the parquet.

  At first, he fought against his indispositions. Racked with pain, his legs wobbly, he dragged his body through the huge factory, giving advice, muttering, losing his temper, tormenting the help, and supervising everything as before.

  Albrecht would try to reassure him. “Herr Baron, we will take care of everything already. Herr Baron should stay in bed.”

  “Shut your snout,” the old man snarled, “and take your hands off me—I can walk perfectly well by myself!”

  Often the doctors and his children would put him to bed by force. But he refused to take medication, spit it into the doctors’ eyes, and spilled it on the floor. The designers, chemists, engineers, and managers had to come to his bedside. He rambled, blabbered, interfered with the running of the factory. Then, quite abruptly, his mind would clear, and he’d come up with solutions so brilliant and incisive that people were astounded.

  From time to time he rallied sufficiently to tear off his covers, drive away the nurses, and—dressed in his bathrobe and slippers—pad to the factory. This would throw everyone at the plant into a stew since he shouted and caused scenes, claiming that the plant was being run into the ground and that he had no one to depend on. “Stop the machines!” he roared. “Who started the machines without my permission?”

  The people knew that his mind was affected, yet no one dared stand up to him. For all his advanced age, physical debilitation, and senility, he was still the king. And when his children forced him back to bed and locked his doors, he would toss, tear his clothes, and shred the pillows like some wounded caged beast.

  “I want my factory people here!” he roared, foaming at the mouth. “Why aren’t my people here so that I can give them the orders for the day?”

  The sons kept everyone away. They knew that his days were numbered, and they wanted him isolated. They knew the extent of his authority, and they feared lest he direct some final shattering catastrophe. Most of all, they were afraid that he would change his will. The old man understood, and he tossed in rage.

  “Murderers!” he screamed when they came to his bedside. “You want to poison me!”

  In the nights he was frantic from the pain. He threw whatever came to hand at those looking after him and strained only to go to his factory.

  His elderly wife pleaded with him. “Heinzschen, what do you want?”

  “To burn down the factory!” he told her. “I want to leave nothing behind me … let everything go up in smoke!”

  Abruptly he would fall into an apathy, not utter a word or get out of bed even to perform his natural functions. He whimpered like a child and allowed himself to be used at will.

  On his last night the doctors wanted to shut down the factory to spare him the noise of the machinery, but despite his deafness, he detected the unaccustomed stillness, and he raised himself up from his pillow. “Why isn’t the factory running?” he asked in distress. “It’s no holiday today.”

  The doctors informed him of his condition.

  “I’m ready to die,” he said, “but I want to hear the factory running. Otherwise, I can’t die in peace.”

  They did as he asked. The whistles commenced to blow wildly; the machinery hummed and buzzed.

  The dying man cocked his ears, a lopsided smile formed on his face, then froze forever.

  The sons knelt around his bed, then rose quickly, smoothing the creases in their trousers. “Well, finally,” they said with a sigh, as if a heavy burden had fallen from their shoulders.

  They sent for Albrecht to arrange a handsome funeral. All the factory sirens and whistles screamed the passing of the King of Lodz into the grimy, smoke-filled skies.

  Right after the funeral, which bored the young barons to distraction, they summoned Albrecht and ordered him to discard everything that didn’t fit in with the modern methods of factory operation. Everything was changed, from the ponderous furniture in the old man’s office to the factory help.

  “Youth, bring in youth!” the barons insisted. “Enough of tradition … we’re not running some old folks’ home here.”

  Along with all the other changes was the one replacing Abraham Hersh Ashkenazi with his own son. This was the latter’s reward for lending money to the heirs with which to purchase the barony.

  Abraham Hersh didn’t react as Haim Alter had when Simha Meir had deposed him in his old age. Very calmly he heard out Albrecht, who came to inform him of the developments.

  “I’m very sorry to have to be the bearer of such news, Herr Ashkenazi,” the ponderous director apologized. “But the young barons want to be rid of all the old employees. They believe your son will serve them better.”

  “Koheleth, who was King Solomon, said that there is a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to build up and a time to break down. Nothing occurs without the will of God, Herr Director, not even the tiniest scratch of a fingernail,” Abraham Hersh said in Yiddish.

  “Yes, and my turn will come next, Herr Ashkenazi,” the director said wearily
. “There’s nothing we can do.”

  The two old men shook hands mutely.

  Abraham Hersh quietly put his records in order, locked the office safe, and turned the keys over to the director. The only thing he took from the office was the volume of the Gemara that he kept there. He thought about removing the doorpost amulets, but he decided against it. He kissed them for the final time and said good-bye to his associates.

  They wept, but he shed not a tear.

  The very next day Simha Meir brought in a crew to remodel the office from top to bottom. He even installed gas illumination, something seen only in the wealthiest Lodz palaces.

  On the new signs, which already carried the Huntze crest, the name of the new sales representative, Max Ashkenazi, was printed in gilt in three languages—German, Russian, and Polish. The same new name was also imprinted on all the factory stationery.

  When Jacob Bunem heard what his brother had done, he took the first train to Lodz and went straight to Simha Meir’s office.

  “Herr Ashkenazi is busy,” a skinny clerk said, trying to block Jacob Bunem’s way. He pushed him aside and stormed his way inside the office.

  “Greetings, Jacob Bunem,” Simha Meir said, extending a hand.

  “Where is Father?” Jacob Bunem asked.

  “Am I my father’s keeper?” Simha Meir joked.

  Jacob Bunem moved closer to his brother, who retreated as far as he could go.

  “Is it for this you wheedled money out of me—so that you could throw Father out into the cold in his old age?” Jacob Bunem asked, spitting the words into Simha Meir’s face.

  Simha Meir turned white and began to stammer. “Your money is yours any time you want it.… I swear it.…”

  Jacob Bunem raised his hand and slapped Simba Meir’s cheeks, one after the other. “This is for Father,” he said as he dealt slap after deliberate slap.

  Simha Meir made no move to fight back. He merely picked up his hat that had fallen off during the scuffle and wiped his inflamed cheeks.

  “You’ll pay for this!” he warned, waving a finger at his brother’s retreating back. “Just you wait! And this is what you’ll see of your money!” And his fingers formed the fig.

  Out of rage, he shouted at the clerks, who had gathered to see what all the fuss was about, “Get back to work! You’re not being paid to gawk.”

  They fled back to their cubbyholes.

  Just as if nothing had happened, he turned back to the books, determined to wipe away every trace of his father’s influence.

  Along with his old name, Max Ashkenazi discarded his Hasidic garb and donned the attire of the man of the world. He shaved off what was left of his beard, leaving the barest tip at the point of his chin. He exchanged cigarettes for thick cigars and Yiddish for a broken Lodz German. He retained the Yiddish only for counting money so as not to make a mistake, God forbid.

  Learning of his son’s deeds, Abraham Hersh took off his boots and tore the lapel of his gabardine. He ordered Sarah Leah to fetch him a low stool, and he sat down to observe a period of mourning for a son who had left the faith, which was tantamount to dying.

  He sat on the low stool and studied the Book of Job.

  II

  CHIMNEYS IN THE SKY

  Twenty-Six

  THE TSAR’S COURT IN PETERSBURG was torn by unrest and intrigue.

  Following the assassination of Alexander II, the tsar who had freed Russia’s serfs and been inclined toward liberal reform, two opposing factions of the court locked horns in an effort to exert influence over the new tsar, Alexander III.

  The liberals advised the new tsar to follow in his father’s ways and to institute even more liberal policies which would win him the support of the people and stifle the revolutionary spirit, while the reactionaries under Pobedonostsev urged him to be stern and root out all the enemies of the monarchy and the church. The minister of the interior, Ignatiev, belonged to the liberal faction, but he lived on a grand scale and spent far beyond what his estates earned him. He assembled the Jewish millionaires of Petersburg and proposed that they raise a half million rubles in his behalf, for which he would serve as an advocate for the Jews at court. If his demands weren’t met, he would go over to the side of Pobedonostsev.

  The Jewish millionaires could have raised the sum, large as it was, but they were reluctant since once the precedent was established, the courtiers would keep bleeding them under the threat of depriving the Jews of the few rights they now had. This view was shared by the rabbis.

  Out of rage, Ignatiev did just as he had threatened, and he persuaded the tsar to bar the Jews from Moscow.

  Moscow Jews by the thousands were expelled from the city, along with their wives and children. Some of them went to America, a greater number took refuge in Warsaw but most went to Lodz, the center of Polish industry and commerce.

  Bringing along cratefuls of furniture, bedding, Sabbath candelabra, iron safes, huge samovars, and Russian abacuses, they settled on Piotrkow, Wschodnia, Poludniowa, and surrounding streets.

  They promptly opened shops, offices, agencies, and commission houses and brought much Russian trade into the city. Lodz soon grew overcrowded with the strangers, whom the local residents called Litvaks even though they weren’t from Lithuania.

  Accustomed to a broad, free-spending Russian life-style, they took over the city’s best establishments, creating a shortage of residential and commercial quarters. Their wives didn’t haggle in the markets, serving to turn the grocers, butchers, and fishmongers against their old customers, who, in turn, grew even more resentful of the newcomers.

  They were even more disturbed by their non-Jewish ways. Russian-Jewish boys and girls paraded boldly through Jewish neighborhoods in school uniforms. They conversed in the alien language of the police and the bureaucrats. And the Polish Jews’ animosity was not untinged with envy.

  “They’ll grow up gentiles,” the Lodz parents said. “Primed for conversion.…”

  But even the older Litvaks who spoke Yiddish and attended synagogues weren’t accepted by the natives. Their Yiddish was queer, unintelligible, particularly when they spoke fast. Their praying and studying lacked the true Jewish flavor. The Lodz synagogues and studyhouses grew very crowded on account of the influx, and services were conducted from before dawn until late evening. The moment the last quorums concluded the morning prayers, other Jews were already beginning afternoon services.

  Traditional Lodz Jews were outraged. The elder Litvaks wore short gabardines, derbies, and fedoras. The younger were clean-shaven. They didn’t sway at prayer. They were more like gypsies than Jews. It was rumored that they could cast spells. When a Litvak moved into a house, all those who could afford to moved out. The Lodz men wouldn’t include a Litvak in a quorum. The Lodz women wouldn’t lend a pot to a Litvak neighbor lest she render it impure. Lodz youngsters taunted Litvak children:

  Litvak swine, choo choo choo

  Go to hell, do, do, do.…

  But when it came to business, all distinctions were forgotten. The newcomers had excellent connections in Russia. In spring and fall, swarms of wide-trousered, broad-bearded Russian merchants descended upon Lodz, and they preferred to deal with their fellow countrymen. They sat drinking gallons of hot tea, snacking on jam, playing cards, and closing deals. Litvak salesmen sold Lodz goods from the Persian to the Chinese borders and boosted the local economy.

  But even though the Lodz Jews did business with the Litvaks, they avoided social contact with them. The feeling was mutual. Litvaks mocked the natives’ old-fashioned dress and accents and referred to them as Itche-Mayers, hicks who still reckoned money in groschen instead of in rubles and kopecks.

  The local resentment grew even more intense when a new wave of settlers arrived from the towns and cities of Lithuania to compete for a livelihood. In contrast with their profligate Muscovite cousins, the Lithuanians were dour, dry, and notoriously tightfisted. All they brought with them to Poland were their teapots and razors with which to shave
once a week.

  They did everything possible to make a living—sold needles, shoelaces, soap, cheap shoes. They bought up every remnant and scrap at the factories and hawked them in the streets in grating Lithuanian accents.

  The poorer Lodz women rented them living space in corners of their kitchens. Squeezing every kopeck, the Lithuanians existed on bread and herring only.

  They couldn’t understand Polish Jews, who thought nothing of eating meat daily. They stared in disbelief when local housewives roasted a goose for the Sabbath and baked trays of cookies. They wondered how the Polish Jews could go to a restaurant to drink beer or whiskey, munch on chick-peas, order chopped liver. They gaped when grown women went into a confectionery for a bar of chocolate.

  “Polish gluttons,” they sneered, “savages.…”

  “Lithuanian onionheads,” the Polish Jews responded. “Borscht with herring.…”

  What’s more, the newcomers looked down on factory work and waited for better things. Local employers hired them for their stores and offices because of their knowledge of Russian and bookkeeping, and they gradually pushed out the native employees. But what irked the Polish women most was that the newcomers had no compunction about fooling around with their daughters, but when it came to marriage, they sent for their sweethearts to join them—plain, hard-faced girls, nothing like the soft, pampered Lodz maidens.

  The strangers swiftly overran the city. As soon as they moved in, the local residents fled, offended by the Litvaks’ habits of going bareheaded, singing Russian songs on the Sabbath, and generally behaving in rude, rowdy fashion. They took over house after house, street after street, and soon dominated the city. They built their own synagogues and brought in a rabbi who seemed more like a priest than a rabbi.

  A struggle for supremacy evolved. The old settlers’ cause was weakened by the fact that their wealthiest and most influential members gravitated to the Lithuanian rabbi, who fulfilled their yearnings for an enlightened, contemporary spiritual leader. Foremost in this campaign was Maximilian—formerly Mendel—Flederbaum, the town’s leading magnate and community leader.