by I. J. Singer
There was talk in the street of members of the new regime who were only too happy to trade in goods they requisitioned in the name of the revolution. Ashkenazi had never doubted that it would be so. The only trouble was locating the shrewd man who appreciated the value of the ruble as opposed to the fool who believed all the slogans and propaganda. And being Jewish no longer mattered either—the Jewish Reds were worse than the gentile. Religion meant nothing to them, only who was bourgeois and who proletarian.
Max Ashkenazi huddled in his bed and asked God to help him. Lately he had found God again. He even went to the synagogue for evening services and convinced himself that his devotion would earn him deliverance from a lonely death among strangers. He pulled the covers over his head like a frightened child and listened to the cracking of frozen pipes, to mice scurrying in search of food, to the grunts and groans of the lovers next door, to the rumble of trucks in the street which made the remaining windowpanes rattle.
Sixty
THE PERSON MAX ASHKENAZI had been seeking showed up at the House of God like the Redeemer. As Max was leaving the little synagogue where Jews gathered to pray, deplore the falling rate of currency, the shortages, and the demise of Jewishness, a round little man with a smiling face, a curly black mustache, and black eyes that were both sly and ingenuous came up and made a deep, ingratiating bow. He wore a derby, something seen rarely those days in the proletarian city.
“Delighted to see you again, Mr. Ashkenazi!” he said with the deference Max had been accustomed to in prerevolutionary days, when a man’s wealth entitled him to certain considerations.
Ashkenazi glanced at the fellow and tried to recall who he was. The round little man didn’t stop beaming, revealing pearly teeth beneath a coal black mustache. At the same time he tried to prod Max’s memory. “Well, now, take a long look,” he urged. “You couldn’t have forgotten me already.…”
Had this been before the upheaval, Ashkenazi wouldn’t have wasted even a second on such a pipsqueak. He was forever being pestered by all kinds of petty hustlers, small-time operators, go-betweens, and sundry opportunists, and he gave them all short shrift. But now that he was alone and desperate, anyone’s attention was welcome, and he racked his brain, trying to identify the queer little man.
Finally, the fellow came to his rescue. “Miron Markovich Gorodetzky, commis voyageur at your service,” he announced grandly. “I should have but a part now of what I’ve bought from you over the years.… But no use crying over spilled milk.…”
Something about the little man’s costume and manner alerted Ashkenazi that here was someone who might be of use to him, and he decided to encourage the relationship. “You’re from around here?” he asked.
“Oh, no, from Odessa. Actually I’m from no one place—I’ve lived all over Russia—but you might call me a fellow townsman since Lodz has been my base ever since I’ve been this high.” And he held his palm some three feet off the ground. “I came there as a boy and worked for the biggest firms. Ah, a lovely little place, Lodz! Had myself a devil of a time there. The Lodz women—simply exquisite—a beauty each and every one.…”
Gorodetzky stuck out the tip of a rosy tongue and licked his lips lasciviously in memory of the Lodz beauties. He began elaborating on his experiences, but Ashkenazi cut him off. He had never been one to appreciate accounts of traveling salesmen’s amatory conquests. He was eager to talk about practical matters, to sound the man out and determine if he could be of use to him.
“The seven years of great plenty are over, Mr. Gorodetzky,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “No more traveling salesmen. No more business.…”
Gorodetzky stopped, gazed carefully at Ashkenazi as if making a decision, then put his lips to his ear. “Pavel Szczinski should have as many boils on his neck as Miron Markovich Gorodetzky has irons in the fire,” he whispered conspiratorially, his mustache tickling Ashkenazi’s cheek.
“And what does Szczinski say to that?” Ashkenazi asked, pointing to one of the commandant’s orders, which covered every wall of Petrograd.
The little man looked at Ashkenazi with the pity reserved for the village idiot. “Szczinski gives orders, and Gorodetzky listens like that lamppost there,” he said, first making sure to look to all sides. “Only yesterday I disposed of a shipment of goods for a nice piece of change, the devil take him.…”
Ashkenazi felt a shiver of excitement course through him. Providence itself had sent him the very person he had been waiting for. He pondered how best to express his urgency, but the little man didn’t give him time to think.
“It was a delight to meet you again, Mr. Ashkenazi. I must confide that I’m not much for praying, but I do manage to squeeze in the mourner’s prayer despite my busy schedule. That’s one thing that must be observed no matter what.…”
“Of a certainty, of a certainty,” Ashkenazi agreed, comforted by the importance the fellow ascribed to the mourner’s prayer. He went so far as to take his arm, as he had once done with important Russian merchants.
“You’re the real goods, all right,” he assured the other. “You’ve got your head screwed on tight.…”
Gorodetzky took this as a compliment. “All my life I’ve thumbed my nose at laws,” he confided. “For years they had regulations forbidding Jews to live or travel wherever they wanted, but I’ve been all over Russia. There isn’t a corner of the land that hasn’t seen Miron Markovich Gorodetzky. And I slept right in the police stations. That’s the best way, the surest way. Now you can live anywhere you want, but you can’t do business. So I thumb my nose at them again, and I do just as I please. And right under their very noses too. That’s the best way, believe me.…”
He stopped again, gazed at Ashkenazi as if seeing him for the first time, then traced a wide arc with his fat little hand. “I’ve got them all in the palm of my hand, yes sir. Live and let live.…”
With each minute, Ashkenazi’s hopes soared higher. This was the answer to his dreams. He deliberated for a moment, calculating how best to make his approach. He could have used this fellow from the very start. He seemed one of those people to whom nothing in the world was impossible.
He remembered this opportunistic breed from the old days. With their energy and drive, they could move mountains. They carried the goods of Lodz to the farthest reaches of the empire, and in the process they made the city wealthy. They were loved by everyone, especially the lusty Russians, who appreciated their gaiety, their endless font of jokes, their ability to get the job done. All these fellows needed was one whiff to sniff out the one person in authority who was corrupt and who would help them pull off whatever sleazy transaction was required.
Ashkenazi thought and thought how to make the approach, but the other beat him to the punch. “How did you come out of the catastrophe?” he asked abruptly with a rather devious glance.
Ashkenazi remained noncommittal. “So-so,” he said, keeping his tone neutral.
Gorodetzki caught right on and became all business. “It seems to me we might do a little business, Mr. Ashkenazi,” he said. “Frankly, you don’t strike me as the kind who would surrender everything to those gangsters. Shrewd businessmen usually manage to put something aside. Goods are like gold these days. I can get all the buyers one could want. As for delivery, that needn’t concern you either. Just leave everything to Miron Markovich Gorodetzky. As for my commission, we won’t have to call in a rabbi to arbitrate.…”
Ashkenazi didn’t bite immediately. He preferred not to rush into things, but the fellow wouldn’t give him time to consider. “If you’re worried about the money, I can give you a deposit in any amount and in any currency you want—tsarist, Kerensky, whatever.… Or maybe you’d prefer foreign currency? That wouldn’t be a problem either. Miron Markovich Gorodetzky has it all. I know that when one is going abroad, it’s best to have some foreign currency in your pocket.”
Ashkenazi moved a few steps away. “Who said anything about going abroad?” he asked with suspicion.
Before Ashkenazi could ge a word out, he drew a large stack of papers from a breast pocket and began to riffle through them. He selected one and began to read aloud: “My dear Miron Markovich—”
Ashkenazi held up a trembling hand. “Stop, God save you!” he pleaded. “Why are you reading this to me right here in the street?”
Gorodezky replaced the papers and raced after Ashkenazi on his fat little legs. “Mr. Ashkenazi, God Himself brought us together. We’ll do something yet! And if you want my deposit, you’ve got it.… As much as you want and in good Kerensky money, not that Soviet trash.…”
Ashkenazi didn’t want a deposit, and he held out his hand. “Good day to you. We’ll talk again.”
“In the synagogue where I say the mourner’s prayer,” Gorodetzky suggested. “I’m there every day.”
He tipped his derby, waved a plump hand, and threw in a phrase in Lodz German. “An honor and a privilege, Mr. Director!”
Ashkenazi parted from him, feeling hopeful and uneasy at the same time. For some reason, Petrograd seemed more alien than ever. The cobblestones burned his feet like hot coals.
Sixty-One
IT ALL HAPPENED EVEN FASTER than Ashkenazi had hoped for. Apparently there wasn’t an obstacle in the Red capital the round little man couldn’t surmount and Ashkenazi grew simply enthralled by his resourcefulness.
First, he bought the goods Max had hoarded in his cellar. Amazingly enough, it was the men in the leather coats themselves who came to take the goods away in their trucks. Ashkenazi was delighted, and he paid Miron Markovich a handsome commission, which the latter tucked away in his pocket without even bothering to count it. Next, he arranged for Ashkenazi to leave the country.
It all went off without a hitch. He introduced him to a pair of hulking, weather-beaten men, who merely puffed their pipes as he chattered away, then nodded to indicate their agreement. Ashkenazi felt uneasy around the taciturn gentiles, but Miron Markovich reassured him. They had already spirited more than one person across the Gulf of Finland. He, Gorodetzky, had the letters to prove it anytime Ashkenazi cared to read them. The men smuggled food and goods into Russia and went back with an empty boat. They were excellent seamen, and they had never yet failed him. What’s more, they were in cahoots with the commissars, with whom they split their take, and he, Ashkenazi, couldn’t have been in better hands if his own mother were taking him out of the country.
Afterward Gorodetzky performed a number of other services for Ashkenazi. He exchanged his rubles for foreign currency at the best possible rates; he helped him pack and secrete his valuables in plain gunnysacks.
On the day of departure Gorodetzky and Ashkenazi stopped at the little synagogue for a final prayer. Max Ashkenazi prayed with particular fervor, repeating the eighteen benedictions word by word. He raised his eyes piously heavenward as he recited the passage concerning the evildoers from whom he asked God’s protection.
Everything went off on schedule. Gorodetzky had a droshky waiting to take them to the Finland Station, from which the train left for the seashore. It took a long time for the train to be hooked up, and its departure was delayed for hours.
Ashkenazi was on pins and needles the whole time. Each minute was for him an eternity, but Miron Markovich was as calm and cheerful as ever. “It’s an old story already,” he confided. “Don’t fret. It’ll all go as smooth as butter.”
When the train doors were finally thrown open, a rush ensued. Despite the cold weather, many people lived in the summer bungalows at the seashore, and men, women, and children dressed in sundry cold-weather gear stormed the train, boarding it through doors and windows. Ashkenazi was like a man lost. Never in his life had he been forced to fight for a seat or to carry his own baggage. But Miron Markovich artfully wormed his way through the throng and found a place for them and the packages in the car. Within moments, he made friends with all the passengers, parried witticisms with one and all, and made himself perfectly at home.
“A bit more room there, Comrades.… That’s it, Comrades, thank you!” he urged and cajoled as he arranged himself and his companion, rolling his Rs extravagantly in his Odessa accent.
The train panted, whistled, and jerked as it chugged along with surly sluggishness. Like an incontinent dotard, it stopped for long rests at every tiny station.
Ashkenazi huddled within his coat to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. The seemingly endless journey gnawed at his nerve ends. He was deeply apprehensive about the jewels sewn inside his elegant sable coat. Miron Markovich comforted him and even found him a seat.
“Hey there, beauty,” he said to a red-cheeked, snub-nosed girl. “How about being a good child and giving my father your seat? You have young, strong legs, and he’s a sick old man.…”
The girl blushed at the compliment and started to get up, but Ashkenazi wouldn’t take her place. He was doing his best to blend into the crowd, but that fool of a Miron Markovich simply wouldn’t stop calling attention to them. He repeated anecdotes and told suggestive salesmen’s jokes that sent the passengers into gales of laughter.
By evening they had come to the end of the line. Ashkenazi reached for his bundles, but Miron Markovich wouldn’t allow it. He picked them up and escorted Ashkenazi to the very edge of the sea. A gust of wind nearly bowled Max over. The air was raw, acrid, salty. The trees bowed as if straining to uproot themselves and flee the desolation. The waves pounded the beach and rinsed the dark shore. Somewhere dogs barked.
Out of the darkness, a figure materialized. Ashkenazi cringed, but Miron Markovich touched his shoulder lightly. “One of ours,” he whispered.
The dark figure took the bundles and moved ahead with giant strides. Gorodetzky started to say something, but Ashkenazi clamped his lips. “For God’s sake, Miron Markovich!”
Soon they came to a small shack. Their escort knocked, the door opened, and they stepped inside a room illuminated by a dim lamp. Sacks, hides, barrels, and crates stood and lay on the floor. Sheepskins hung from hooks on walls. The two smugglers didn’t exchange a word, merely puffed their pipes in silence. One fussed with a broken lantern, trying to repair it with huge, awkward fingers.
Gorodetzky promptly stretched out on one of the sacks and closed his eyes. He slept the way he did everything else—with sound and gusto. Ashkenazi tried closing his eyes, but his excitement wouldn’t let him sleep.
For hours he lay awake, awaiting the hour of sailing. The wind howled; the waves pounded against the shore. He kept glancing at the gold watch given him as a wedding present by his father-in-law. The hours crawled like worms. The night was endless. Finally, after many hours weariness overcame him, and he dozed off. The dingy room was suddenly transformed into the bright dining hall in his palace. All the lights were lit, and the table was lavishly set. He sat at the head of the table with his wife beside him, not his present wife, but his first, Dinele. She was as young and beautiful as at their wedding. But even though she was young, their children were already full-grown. They sat at the table with beaming, glowing faces. Gertrud on one side, Ignatz on the other. Haim Alter and Priveh were there, too. Jacob Bunem sat next to him, Max. Everyone ate, drank, and celebrated his return. He told them of his travails, of the hardships he had endured to get home. He opened his valise and gave everyone a present. Soon they vanished, leaving him alone wi
th his wife. She donned a silk nightgown and called him to their pink-lit bedroom.
“I’m coming, Dinele,” he whispered. “Wait for me, my love.…”
He reached out his hand to douse the night-light, but as if out of spite, it grew brighter and glared into his eyes. He opened his eyes a slit. Two men in leather coats were shaking him roughly by the shoulder. “Enough sleep! On your feet!”
He rubbed his eyes and dazedly stood up. The men wore holstered pistols around their waists.
“Miron Markovich!” Ashkenazi bleated. “Miron Markovich!”
The men laughed. “Miron Markovich was suddenly called away to a wedding, but he sends his regards,” one of the men taunted. “Well, get a move on! The truck is waiting.”
With sudden, terrible insight Ashkenazi gathered what had happened—Gorodetzky had sold him out! He wanted to scream, to protest the injustice of it all, to decry the wickedness of man and deride his own naïveté, but no sound would issue from his lips. His tongue felt like a slab of leather glued to his palate.