“And with my next week’s pay” – Isaac, unable to contain himself any longer, followed suit – “I will invest in a chair for you, Pa.”
Abraham looked at Isaac searchingly. “You’ll have to sell a lot of papers,” he said slowly, “to buy me a chair.”
Isaac looked at his glass nervously. “If I have time after work I’ll keep on with my paper route. But I think” – Isaac steeled himself to raise his eyes to his father’s – “I might be able to give lessons in Yiddish and Hebrew in the evenings. My friend tells me that there are not many here who have studied as far as I have. I think I could even prepare boys for Bar Mitzvah if I keep on studying myself.”
“You want” – Abraham picked his words carefully – “to quit going to the English school? What sort of work will you do?”
“The season is beginning now in the clothes factories. They are calling for boys to learn machining.”
“A tailor.”
“But I can study and teach in the evenings.” Isaac trembled, and his heart beat more quickly, as it had begun to do at times ever since those days in the old country. “I can’t” – Isaac gripped his glass violently and, leaning forward, looked full into his father’s face, his voice unnaturally high and dramatic – “I can’t let you go on carrying me on your shoulders. It’s not as though you were – as though things were –” Isaac choked on his words and rushed on. “I’ve already been to a place. I start work on Monday.”
In spite of his displeasure at their content, Abraham heard the intensity in his son’s words with a sensation of pleasure. My son, he could not help thinking with a flash of pride. Underneath the shyness, underneath the timidity, was the voice of strength that he could raise up. “On your shoulders” – he knew the right, the singing words.
Isaac had subsided but had not taken his eyes from his father’s face. I’m old enough to make my own decision – he held these words in readiness, these and others, to back him up in his first big clash with his father. His face was slightly twisted from excitement and the feeling in his heart.
Sarah looked anxiously first at Isaac then at Abraham. But she said nothing and waited.
“Well,” said Abraham after what seemed like a long time. “Well, I never thought that my son would be a tailor.” Somehow he had known that the question would arise. How much could he do for them – alone, in the second half of his life, in a new country, working for another man? But he would have tried; he would have gone on working and hoping. He felt a bitterness arising in him again. After all his plans his son was to become a tailor in a sweat shop. But then, the Chassidim too had to work at other crafts while they studied. It was nothing new, this struggle. How ardent his eyes were, and stubborn. All his children were stubborn.
“It’s nothing, nothing,” said Abraham. “We don’t have to be ashamed of having to work. My mother used to say, ‘Work will sweeten your life.’ ‘It’s a good thing that we have these sayings to remind us,’ I used to tell her sometimes when I was tired, God forgive me.
“So you feel you must help? Well, this too is something fine. We will have a double celebration – a new house, and a new man in the house. What sort of place is it where you will work? You’ve been to see them, eh? Without consulting your father. Well, a new world. You knew I might not like it. What could I say? A man must make his own decisions, with God’s help. They say, though, that there is much vulgarity in these shops. I don’t know if you will like it. And shut in – they say it’s hot working over those machines. See that you don’t get to drinking too much cold water when you’re sweating inside. But then in the evenings you will continue to study? Ah, there are many ways to reach an end. But your teachers in the English school will be very sorry to see you go. Who knows what they had planned for you? Such a promising student.”
Isaac was surprised that the ordeal had passed, and so smoothly. He had braced himself as against a firm wall, and it had given way very easily, allowing him to fall into a new territory, a new part of his life. In his father’s voice there was a new tone that Isaac heard with pleasure. He had done the right thing. Neither of his brothers could have done a more proper thing at this moment. He moved with a light step to comfort his mother, who was weeping silently. She always wept now, he thought dispassionately, laying his hand on her head. Whenever anything new happened, whether it was a good thing or a bad, she wept. It seemed to be the only answer that she had left to give to life when it made a gesture in her direction. But Sarah raised her head and smiled at him. “A new man in the house.”
In the evening they had guests. Mr. and Mrs. Plopler and their family brought a honey cake. Polsky arrived with his wife, which turned the occasion into a major social event for Mrs. Plopler. She plunged joyously into a minute description of the composition of her honey cake and an intimate account of her own movements during the time she had been making it. The Polskys had brought a bottle of sweet red wine, and Mrs. Polsky, at the earnest request of Mrs. Plopler, described how she had prepared it. Chaim Knopp arrived. His wife, he explained, was visiting their daughter-in-law, who was sick in preparation for having her baby, but she had sent along a box of sweetmeats.
Sarah, flustered, ran into the landlord’s next door to invite them to share the celebration and to borrow some cups and chairs. It turned out that Mr. Plopler and the landlord were business acquaintances. Plopler, Polsky, and the landlord wanted to play a game of cards, but since neither Abraham nor Chaim Knopp played they contented themselves with describing hands they had held. They went on to discuss card-playing mutual acquaintances, and from there to fights that they had seen develop over the cards. Chaim Knopp too told a story and soon the house was filled with animated conversation. Mrs. Plopler was in particularly good spirits, for several times she got the chance to make what she later described as “little thrusts” at Polsky, designed to put him in his place. But he, barefaced rogue, responded by practically flirting with her – how else to describe it?
Isaac’s friend came over on his bicycle, and the two boys sat with the Plopler girls out on the front steps and took turns riding them around the block.
Abraham, when he got up to thank his guests, announced with pride Isaac’s decision to share in the responsibility of the household. The guests congratulated him, and Mrs. Plopler especially was certain that the boy would make a girl a fine husband some day.
After the guests had gone the new house closed its silent walls around them. Sarah cleaned up. “Well.” Abraham followed her into the kitchen. “So we have had a little party.” There was surprise and something like apology in his voice. Sarah didn’t answer but turned on the kitchen tap and began to wash the cups. “They wanted to wish us well,” continued Abraham gently. “It was really very fine of them.”
“Do you know what I fancied all evening?” Sarah smiled vaguely into the sink. “Singing. When was there a party in the house without singing?”
“My friend knows some people who might want their son tutored for his Bar Mitzvah,” said Isaac quickly. “I told him sure I would do it. How do you like that?” They discussed the prospect of Isaac’s first pupil, and Abraham advised his son in great detail until the time came for them to go to bed. Then Abraham lay helplessly beside his wife, waiting for her spasms to wear themselves out in exhaustion.
—
Chaim Knopp and Abraham were members of the same synagogue, the old white synagogue that was close to where Abraham lived. Chaim’s wife preferred the new brick synagogue, which was attended by the more fashionable, but he was loyal to the synagogue that he had prayed in when he had first come to the country more than twenty-five years before. After the Friday-night service the two men sat on the bench outside and talked for a while. Chaim was not as happy as he might have been. He had reason to be happy – a son who was a manufacturer when he was only in his early thirties; two daughters married, one to a doctor, and one to a rich man’s son; the third daughter already with a boy friend, not a doctor and not a rich man’s son but a good,
hard-working boy. His wife, of course, was not satisfied with the boy; he came under the water mark that the other girls had established; but this, Chaim felt, would straighten itself out. It was not this which made him unhappy.
It was his son the manufacturer. Things did not seem to go right with him. He was a good boy, although of course he was a boy no longer, but a man. Perhaps his trouble was that he was too clever, and of course he had got in with friends who were not friends but other rich men who knew too many pleasures. Not that his son did any wrong. People were always quick to say things about people who did a little better in the world than they. He was sure that his Ralph was not unjust to the workers – not the sort of boss, for instance, that Isaac had. He himself had heard Ralph mention Isaac’s boss in a derogatory way. But Ralph grew richer. And this growing richer is a thing a man should do carefully. Not that he, Chaim, had any complaint. He was always welcome in the home of his son, and Ralph often asked him if there was anything he needed. Not that he would take anything while his own two hands could earn him a living.
It was really the friends Ralph had. Of course in his business one had to have plenty of liquor in the house. He entertained buyers and influential people. If the others played cards – well, he had to play too. It was understandable with a businessman. But he won a lot. It was said that he had even won a share in another man’s business. But he had not said anything about it to his father, and there were a lot of jealous people in the world who had nothing to do but talk. Not that he discussed any of his business dealings with his father any more. What would a shoichet know about finance?
It was really quite remarkable what being a businessman involved. He often had to make trips out of town. They sometimes took him a week – even longer. It was hard work, when you considered it. And going to various places, stags with other businessmen; places where they played cards and had entertainments to keep them good-natured when they did business with each other. It was not the sort of life that he had lived himself. Chaim’s wife, of course, thought it was fine. She liked to go to their house up in the heights and be driven in their car. He liked to be driven in their car himself, though not on Saturdays.
But lately this sad thing had happened, which Abraham already knew about. His son’s wife had lost her baby. And the doctors did not think that she would ever be able to have another. Well, it was true that they already had a little girl, a precious little thing. Still, the news that they might never have a son was a blow to Ralph, a blow to all of them. Of course, he, Chaim, personally did not believe the doctors, but still, it was hard.
Abraham felt honored that Chaim had confided in him. Some of what he said was not quite clear, although it was obvious that if the son drove his car on Saturdays he was already one of those who did not observe the rules of his religion as strictly as he should. For the rest – well, if Chaim expressed himself so vaguely perhaps he wanted it so, to talk about it a little while without any disloyalty. Once a feeling has been expressed too clearly it can’t be snatched back by the tongue. It becomes something else – an accusation, perhaps. And Chaim would not, Abraham knew, accuse his son in front of a stranger. Abraham, somewhere, had heard something about Chaim’s son. But that didn’t matter now. It was the other that was the sad thing, to lose a child and lose the chance of a son.
“I don’t believe the doctors either,” he told Chaim emphatically. “No one can make me believe it. What right have they to say it? Just because she had one difficult time. No, who can say that a son won’t be born into the world? Only death is irrevocable.” The feeling was in Abraham now, strongly, to talk. He had held off so far because he had not wanted to share it promiscuously with someone who might not care, who might change the subject afterward as though it were nothing and talk about the heat of the day. But Chaim had confided in him.
“Not for nothing,” Abraham began, “did my mother use to say that everything in one is the property of none. A wise woman she was. Here you see it in your own life. Another man would say to you that you have every reason for happiness. And yet – there it is.”
Chaim nodded his head and sighed.
“And yet” – Abraham made the plunge – “and yet there was a time, I think, when I had everything. Then I did not even think about it, but now, when I look back, I had at least the beginning of everything. God saw this and said it was too much. Chaim, I’ve never told you what happened, why we came over here as we did, nearly naked as we were.”
“No,” said Chaim. “I have often wanted to ask you. But I thought to myself, No; maybe it’s something he doesn’t want to talk about.”
“It is a hard thing to talk about, just like that. Once I had three sons.”
“Yes, I have gathered this.”
“A small nothing, three sons. Well, you have probably imagined what happened. It is not hard for a Jew to imagine. It is only hard for a father to believe.”
They sat on the bench outside of the synagogue. Isaac had already walked home with some friends, and the other men had long ago dispersed. They would be late for supper, but supper was always late on a Friday evening. Abraham felt a reluctance now that he had committed himself to telling, and at the same time a fierce desire to talk.
“They were not ordinary boys, my sons. I say this not because they were mine but because it was so. This was recognized by everyone. I have always known that something extraordinary was going to happen in my lifetime. I was born with this feeling, as though it had been promised to me in another place, another lifetime. If this were not so, why would I be alive to feel it? I had a difficult time in my youth. I was not a child for very long. But that does not matter. In my sons it seemed as though some augury were beginning to fulfill itself.
“Moses was the eldest. To tell you the truth, I cannot remember whether he sang in his cradle. It has always seemed so, but I do not wish to exaggerate where there is no need. He sang from the time when it is first possible for a child to sing, in a voice always so sweet and sure of itself that people would stop what they were doing and listen and wonder. He picked up tunes – it was almost as though he had gotten them himself, directly from the source of all music.
“Jacob was our second. As Moses was stocky, he was lean, with Sarah’s slimness. He had – people said that his eyes were like mine. Before he was a few months old I can swear that he understood what we were saying. And before long he was answering us, talking almost like a man. To tell you the truth, we were a bit frightened. We did not know how much that child really understood. From day to day he learned more. Before he could walk properly we had to try to talk – When we spoke in front of him of things that a child shouldn’t know, we had to speak in Ukrainian. Everything he saw and heard he had to know about. It did not stop him long, our speaking in Ukrainian.
“They were scarcely two years apart in their ages. They were very close to each other. Everywhere they went, two little men together. When Moses was five we wanted to send him to Chaider. It was time for his studies to begin. When the time came Moses wouldn’t go without Jacob, and the two of them set up such a wailing that we thought, for a few days, just to quieten them down, we would let Jacob go with his brother. Well, at three years Jacob took to the books. He learned so quickly that the rabbi had to put him in a separate place to learn by himself. Not that they didn’t have time for mischief too, my boys. When the rabbi fell asleep and the boys glued candy into his beard, whose boys were caned when the truth came out? To give you an idea of the kind of head that Jacob had, I must mention that by the time he was five he was already well in the Histories. The Histories – how many rich men celebrate with parties because their sons at the age of eight or nine have finally reached the Histories?
“These were the sons of Avrom the butcher. Isaac wasn’t born until Jacob was three years old, nearly four. He was – Well, you see him now, a listening child, a wonderer. How he worshiped his brothers! To them he was a toy, to be taught, to be fooled with. He too learned quickly. Things go into him. He likes
to consider. He does not let them out so easily. But when he does say something, then you can see the kind of a head that he’s got. He is older than his years. But then, who wouldn’t be?”
Abraham paused. It seemed to him that he had said much but told little of what really was. Words sounded like hollow boasts. He was thankful that Chaim said nothing.
“Well, the two boys studied until there was no more for them to learn in our small town. Moses was already known for miles around as a cantor. Still, he wanted to learn more music, to develop his voice. Jacob taught in order to continue his studies. They wanted, both of them, to go to the big city, where there was a seminary. Here Jacob could teach and continue to study, and Moses could continue to sing as a cantor in a big synagogue, and continue to study as well. They were willing to work, my boys. They did not just expect that their father should, in any way that he could, pay for them. They worked hard.
“After Isaac had his Bar Mitzvah they set out for the big city. They had been gone before to study and work, but only to the neighboring small towns and cities. They had always been home for the high holidays. Whenever Sarah felt lonely I could always send them a message and they would come – young boys, on foot if they had not the money for the carriage, to see their mother. We never felt that they were really gone.”
Abraham looked about him. The sky was beginning to darken around the edge of the mountain. How long ago was it? Four years? More? Less? It was as now. He was beginning to find it more difficult to talk. Something was beginning to pull painfully at the back of his throat. He leaned forward and scrutinized the ground in front of the bench, without seeing it.
“This year it is different. The house is more quiet. No ringing laughter and snatches of song. Isaac reads a good deal and is often by himself. Pesach is approaching, and we are preparing to celebrate the Passover. But it is to be a different Passover. It will not be such a celebration this year with the boys away for the first time. It is too far away for them to come back this year. There is not enough money. In the house it is beginning to be lonely. My wife goes about the house sighing because her children are growing up. Where will they celebrate? Who will take them in and make them at home?
The Sacrifice Page 6