A Blessing on the Moon

by Joseph Skibell

  I can’t help laughing, so painfully ticklish is the experience. Kicking with my legs, I force myself down, away from the dull sky, and towards the river’s bottom, curious about its substance. It seems to be of ordinary mud and I let the handful I’ve lifted float between my fingers.

  The burlap bag with the German’s head falls to pieces in these stinging, electric waters. The head sinks to the bottom of the river floor, its eyes closed, its hair floating upward. Before I can grab it, a jolt of searing pain courses through my chest, knocking me back and away. My lungs have expanded within me! I struggle not to breathe the river in and swim blindly towards the surface. A flurry of hanging legs blocks my way. They dangle in the water like thick river weeds. I can’t get through and am drowning!

  Hands break the silvery surface, but I am too slippery. Like a fish, I slip continually from their grasp. More hands grapple for me, bracing me, hauling me up. My head, finally, cleaves through the light and a thick knot of peasant women drops me, naked and dripping, onto the shore.

  I cough and sputter, vomiting up lines of liquid light, the salty air caustic in my nose.

  Smirking through his plump and golden-ruddy face, the Direktor kneels in the snow and slaps me on the back.

  “Too much of a good thing, old man?” He laughs. “Eh? Too much of a good thing!”

  The peasant women swaddle me roughly in their towels, rubbing them across my face.

  “Careful of my wounds!” I shout, but I can tell by the way their towels caress my face that they are gone. I hold up my hand and see that the wolf bite has healed.

  38

  My suite is spacious, with warm cream walls above a coffee-brown wainscoting. Bouquets fill the rooms. Lilies, white roses, an explosion of chrysanthemums. From the hotel’s greenhouse, or so the attached note says. A woven basket in the shape of a whale holds fruits and chocolates, wheels of cheese, and a bottle of plum brandy in its mouth, all tied with ribbons and fancy strings. There are two shot glasses, next to the brandy, and I wonder if I will be sharing the suite with someone else. Perhaps Reb Elimelech. If so, there is much, I’m afraid, that needs saying between us.

  In the spirit of experimentation, what will it hurt if I take a taste, I remove a red pear from the wicker whale and shine it on my sleeve. Reciting the blessings for the first fruits, I take a bite, not too large, in case I have to spit it out. Since my death, food has been like wood pulp in my mouth. Hard, tasteless, dry. Impossible to swallow, it blocks your throat, until you must painfully cough it up.

  And so the bite of pear I take is small and of a manageable size. I allow my teeth to caress the outer skin, ripping the barest hemisphere of meat. This I lay, provisionally inert, upon my flat tongue. Slowly, the juices leave the small coin and drop bitingly across my tongue, filling my mouth with its searing delights. Unable to keep still, the tongue lifts itself, pressing the fruit against the roof of my mouth, and I am stunned by the sweetness flowing into my throat, where the taste now explodes. Impossible to restrain, my unprepared tongue shifts the fruit between my teeth, which pulverize it into gritty paste, extracting every ounce of its flavor. The tongue rolls in this paste, like a delirious bridegroom in his wedding bed.

  But my mouth can take no more and my gullet lurches forward, greedily pulling at the pap, and causing a drop to spill onto my chin.

  I nearly have to sit down, and grab hold of the table for support. Tears flow from my eyes. I wipe them on my sleeve, unable to catch my breath.

  “Well,” I say to myself. “Oh, but the things we forget!”

  Another bite and I am dancing about the room, but that is all that I can take. I lay the nibbled pear onto a silver pear-shaped tray, which seems to have appeared from nowhere. It’s just as well. There is a knock at the door. With a napkin I daub the juices from the corners of my lips and my beard, and quickly dry my fingertips.

  As I walk towards the door, my tongue flicks through my teeth, searching out the threads of pulp that have lodged in the spaces between them. Adjusting my robe, girding its belt around my girth, I run a quick hand through my hair and clear my throat.

  “Yes?” I say, leaning against the door.

  “Herr Skibelski?”

  “Yes?”

  “Chaim Skibelski?”

  “Yes, I am Chaim Skibelski.”

  “We have your suit, sir.”

  “My suit?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I open the door a crack. The small bellman is dressed in a stiff white uniform with two rows of golden buttons running, in parallel lines, up and down his chest. He holds a woolen suit before him on a wooden hanger.

  “I don’t understand,” I say.

  “For dinner, sir. For this evening. You’ll find socks and undergarments, everything else you need, in your wardrobe and the chest of drawers.”

  “In my wardrobe and drawers?”

  “In your suite, sir.”

  I must stare at him in complete incomprehension, until he raises the hanger even higher, indicating that I should take the suit, which I eventually do.

  “Thank you, sir,” he says.

  I’m completely bewildered.

  “If there’s anything else you need …”

  “No, no,” I say, patting the empty pockets of my robe, searching for a gratuity.

  He clicks his heels, bowing from his chest.

  “Very well, then. Thank you, sir.”

  And he pushes his wheeled cart, with its evening suits and its formal dresses, to the door across, where he also knocks. Glancing over his shoulder, he nods at me quickly. A small, polite gesture of dismissal.

  “Herr Lipinski,” he says.

  “Yes?” comes the nervous voice.

  “Nahman Lipinski?”

  “Yes, I am Nahman Lipinski.”

  “Sir, we have your suit.”

  I shut my door and lean against it, holding the suit at arm’s length, the better to inspect it. Nothing should amaze me anymore, and yet I am quite unprepared to see that not only does the coat seem the perfect size, but it looks exquisitely tailored. Indeed, I peel back the front lapel and read: Custom tailored for Chaim Skibelski by Schwartz & Schneider, Fine Tailors of Germany. I remove my robe, tossing it across the large bed in the next room, and have barely managed to slip into the pants and jacket, when someone else is at the door. I make my way through the suite, my grizzled chest bare beneath the coat.

  “Yes?” I say, speaking again through the wood.

  “Herr Skibelski?”

  “I am Chaim Skibelski,” I say, opening the door.

  “With the compliments of the staff, sir.”

  Another bellman, in an identical uniform, stands against the white wall and offers me an open humidor filled with large, oily cigars.

  “These are for me?” I say.

  “With the compliments of the staff.”

  “Danke,” I say.

  “Bitte sehr,” he nods, acknowledging my use of his language. “You’ll find matches in your coat pocket, I believe.”

  “Thank you again,” I say, a cigar between my teeth.

  “Dinner is in the main ballroom. And you’ll be taking the steam afterwards?”

  “The steam?”

  He consults a list pinned to a board with a large metal clip.

  “My mistake, sir. Your name is not on for the steam tonight.”

  “No matter,” I say, brightly. “It’s just as well.”

  “A pleasant evening then.”

  “And for yourself.”

  He steps back, clicking his heels, and disappears into the white corridor. I clutch the humidor to my chest, lost not in thought but completely outside of it, my head as empty as the Holy Ark on Simchas Torah.

  I place the humidor upon the table, near the wicker whale. Engraved on the brass plate around its keyhole are my initials, C.S. Well, why should it surprise me to find my old humidor in this hotel, after all the many years it sat, like a faithful djinn, upon my desk?

  I reopen the box, it�
��s unlocked, and its various perfumes rise about me in pungent clouds. I inhale deeply, astonished that I can. What a magnificent place the Rebbe has brought us to! The suite fills with the tobacco’s marvelous, acrid scents, bringing with them a host of memories. My days in the forest, inspecting lumber and buying acres of trees, are returned to me, like a parcel lost at a railway station. Excuse me, sir, but I believe you dropped this. Where was I going that day when I dropped my package on the railway platform? Oh yes, to Warsaw for a grandson’s bris. Was it Solek’s or Izzie’s or perhaps even Kubuś’?

  Lowering two fingers into the jacket pocket, I bring them together and raise the box of matches concealed there by some conscientious tailor. Thank you, Messrs. Schwartz & Schneider. A scratch against the side, a sulphurous spark, I bite the nib and the cigar is alight and in my mouth. I draw the flame of the match up through the cylinder, puffing, and turn it to inspect its fragrant tip. Its leaves are as red as a hot coil. I inhale shallowly, the wet end against my tongue. My neck relaxes, the tension disappears from behind my eyes. I could easily sit here on the bedside all night, but soon it will be evening, and I must hurry to dress.

  So, with the cigar in my mouth, I remove the coat and pull on the shirt they have provided, fastening the square cuff links into the starched white sleeves. I put my arms into the wool vest, threading my gold chain, with its fobs, through its little holes. I tuck my watch into a pocket. Nearly four o’clock. It’s already dark outside.

  I stand before the mirror and tie the tie, my hands working nimbly beneath my chin, my cigar jutting into the air, so that I resemble a clarinetist in a klezmer orchestra. I put on the jacket, adjusting its sleeves, and flick a bead of lint from its lapel. I brush my hair and remove the cigar from my mouth to comb my beard. I spit a scrap of tobacco from my mouth, positioning it on the tip of my tongue with my teeth.

  A splash of cologne, a diamond stick pin for my tie, one more puff, and with my cigar between my fingers and my cane against my palm, I brace myself for a look into the mirror.

  My face is, once again, itself, my eye no longer a milky opal. A small smile caresses my lips. But is it me? Or a photograph from my late middle age? So hale and hardy do I seem, dashing even, in these wondrous clothes.

  “Chaim Skibelski,” I lean towards the silvered glass. “Where in the name of God have you been?”

  39

  I have often thought how pleasant it would be to live in a hotel, to live as a guest, and have everything provided you. Your furnishings, your meals, all of life’s dreary chores seen to by a large and helpful staff, many of whom are experts in their fields. If you want tea, you press a button and a boiling samovar arrives. After a long day of work, perhaps you feel the need to relax. And so, with a discreet word in the concierge’s ear, a horse is saddled and, within the hour, you are flying across the grounds in the whorling light of dusk, not a care in the world. Your stomach is empty, but so what? You may eat in the restaurant or have the meal sent up to your rooms. There is no hurry, no schedule to keep. You may change into your clothes leisurely, taking time, if you wish, for a massage, before meeting a friend or two in the bar while your table is prepared.

  Outside my window, the sun lowers itself into the forests. Dark silhouettes move against the pattern of the trees. The figures call out to one another, carrying long poles.

  I close the light in my room. The hallway outside my suite is bright and humming with activity. Porters scurry about, whitecapped chambermaids and pageboys rush quickly by, offering the briefest of nods, inquiring with only a look whether you are in need of anything.

  A white carpet covers the stone floors, muffling my steps and the tap of my cane. I pass familiar men and women dressed elegantly for dinner with their children. We greet each other with appreciative nods and tart, concealed smiles. To look at us now, who would imagine that only this afternoon we were wandering through the snows, worm-eaten and morose? The corridors are hung with intricate tapestries, depictions of hunting parties and scenes of courtly love. Glittering mirrors cover the walls between them. These we pass, looking secretly into our own bedazzled eyes.

  Is it possible that we actually belong here?

  “Going down!” the liftboy sings and we squeeze into the lift, a thick gaggle of us, drawing ourselves in tightly so as not to crease each other’s clothes.

  In the foyer, a rush of languages flies about our ears. The Direktor can be heard barking orders in German, the Maître d’Hôtel welcoming new arrivals in French. At a telephone station behind the reception desk, the head chef, a tall man in a white stove-pipe hat, screams in Italian, perhaps to a negligent wholesaler. The waiters address each other in either Rumanian or Greek.

  In the alcoves of the bar, beneath the arches and the great porticos, and all along the staircases with their winding iron rails, guests converse in English, in Spanish, in Czech, and, God knows, in seventy other languages.

  A child falls and cries for its mother in Serbo-Croatian and is picked up and comforted by a stranger speaking Dutch with a Turkish accent!

  In the bar, men in evening jackets press their heads together. One finishes speaking and the others lean back, roaring in laughter. A woman in furs puffs on a slender brown cigarette. She nods at her companion, who replies with a mouthful of smoke.

  Murals cover every wall, cloudlike horses leaping over curly fields of heather, their riders pursuing a dancing fox.

  I close my eyes and listen to the pleasing din of bottles ringing, jewelry clinking, cash registers clanging, coins falling like raindrops onto silver trays.

  “Nu, Chaimka?” a warm voice whispers into my ear. I open my eyes.

  Reb Elimelech stands before me, in a white caftan. His long beard, newly trimmed, spills like milk across his narrow chest. We kiss each other and sit on stools, our backs against the bar.

  “Not bad, eh?” he says, and what a joy it is to add the small spice of our Yiddish to this simmering stew of sounds.

  A dark-faced waiter inquires after our drinks. We settle on kvass, which he ferries from another bar at the far end of the room. We watch him, winding through the crowd, balancing the tall glasses on a tray held, with one hand, high above his head.

  “L’chaim,” we toast, and the first sip goes down quite smoothly to the bottoms of our empty stomachs.

  “I’d forgotten all about this,” Reb Elimelech says, stunned in a moment of serene joy. “Drinking!” he says. “An amazing thing!”

  A quintet of musicians serenades us from a corner of the room.

  Reb Elimelech passes his lucent eyes over the glowing wall lanterns and the hanging chandeliers, across the murals and the smooth-faced barmen standing beneath them in starched jackets and purple-black bow ties, their hair combed back and gleaming with pomade.

  “Chaim,” he says, pausing long enough for me to look him in the face. “Forgive me.”

  The musicians finish to indifferent applause.

  “No, if only I had thought to help you,” I begin to stammer, reaching for his knee, but suddenly, the Maître d’Hôtel is before us, pressing his hands together as though he were rolling a knish.

  “Pardon, pardon, messieurs,” he says. He wears a grey flannel cutaway with swallowtails and a foulard folded perfectly, like a royal blue rose, in its breast pocket. On his other chest blooms a dainty boutonniere. A miniature chandelier and our faces, slightly convexed, are reflected in his twinkling monocle. “Allow me to escort you to your tables.”

  With a final pull of kvass, we set our glasses on the bar and follow the little fellow into a brightly lit hallway. Out of sheer joy, Reb Elimelech links his arm into mine, patting my hand, and we walk together down the long corridors, like kings, smiling into each other’s beaming face, fully reconciled.

  Stopping briefly, and only once, to peruse his reservation book, the Maître d’Hôtel leads us into a banquet hall the size of an ocean liner. White linens float before us, like broken cakes of ice in an Arctic sea spreading endlessly to the horizon. It’s
an illusion. Ceiling-high mirrors in the many tall archways stretch the room to infinity. Even without the mirrored replication, the hall must actually be quite large, although it’s impossible to tell. Already Jews from our town are seated at many of the tables, sneaking bits of bread and butter while waiting for the rest of us to arrive and be guided to our seats.

  “This way, this way,” the Maître d’Hôtel says to Reb Elimelech. “Wait here, Monsieur Skibelski, and I will return for you in a nonce.”

  “But why can’t we sit together?” I say, feeling suddenly abandoned. “We are old friends.”

  “Alors, monsieur,” he says, burnishing with a raised knuckle the twin wings of his mustache. “I have thousands of people to seat. Your Rebbe has established the order. We must follow it to the letter, I’m afraid. Understand. For nothing has been left to chance.”

  It is my first meal in I don’t know how many years. How good and pleasant it would be to share it with a friend. But the Maître d’ insists, and I must watch as Reb Elimelech is led away to a table in the middle distance. There, he is welcomed with handshakes and light kisses. They make a space for him, adjusting their chairs. A carafe of water is passed to him, which his nearest neighbor intercepts, pouring until Reb Elimelech’s glass is full. He lifts the goblet to his lips with his long tapered fingers, staining his mustache a slightly deeper white.

  “Monsieur Skibelski, if you will.”

  I follow the strutting Maître d’ through the crowd, greeted variously on all sides. The tables are filling up. How splendid and fashionable we all look, even the town’s poor and its beggars. With bright eyes and rosy cheeks, we have the faces of the newly born.

  The Maître d’Hôtel approaches a large round table with an empty chair. This, he pulls out for me. Wistfully, I search the room one last time for Reb Elimelech. There he is, laughing and joking, cracking his knuckles at his table of friends. Perhaps there is some mistake. Why must I be seated with a group of strangers, although they seem pleasant enough, while everyone else is matched with dear comrades and old friends?