“Let’s forget about the flower and the wind for a minute, Papa. That much is true, but the difference is not that great. Nowadays a woman can think about the same things that a man thinks about. She can go out and make a living too. We don’t think about women as our inferiors any more. Marriage is a partnership. Each one gives what he can.”
“Just so, just so, precisely so. And a man can’t have children. And yet a man is physically stronger than a woman, and because he can’t concentrate on having a child he must put his strength and his thoughts to something else – isn’t it true? Who talks of inferiority? It is a wonderful thing to be able to have a child. You will see. The woman becomes busy, her womb fills out. Her breasts become milky, and on her face there is a look – you’ll see, you’ll see. What is he to do then? What feeling fills him when he looks on this, when he sees life working in her? Something must work in him too. So you read and you work even harder. Always you want to do a little more. You try to reach into all four corners of the earth at once. Like the wind, you would shake down the stars. Don’t tell me no, my son. I know what’s in you.”
And they would go on with their discussion, sometimes not understanding each other very well at first, so that one of them would maybe shout a little – not so much Isaac. Well, it was because Isaac was never satisfied to take a statement in the way it was meant that Avrom sometimes lost his temper. It was infuriating to find himself arguing about something that he had not even had in mind at all at the beginning. He started out with a beautiful thought like that about the wind and the flowers, and before he had fully explained himself Isaac was brushing away the wind and the flowers and was telling him something else altogether. Of course after all the shouting he would end up by seeing the truth in much of what Isaac said. And Isaac would as often as not end up by admitting that Avrom’s idea was a very fine one, really. It went to show what a scrupulously careful thinker Isaac was, how fair he tried to be, even though, as in this case, he was not even a woman himself.
Abraham would have to remember, when he told Chaim of his idea, to mention that he meant to imply no insult to women. They were certainly not inferior to men. Who knows but Chaim might disagree? In some ways he was a bit old-fashioned in his ideas, having been educated in an old-country Yeshiva. A man must keep up with the ideas of the times. He himself was lucky that he had a son like Isaac to discuss them with.
—
It was only natural, Abraham felt, that he should expect a grandchild soon. All about him he could see the visible proofs of the movement of time. Look at Chaim, who was surrounded by grandchildren. Seven grandchildren he had already. What a wealth of story they made. Of course each one was a prodigy. Every day there was a new proof of it. Today it was the doctor’s boy – five years old, and there was distinctly another doctor in the making. Hadn’t he been found by the kindergarten teacher behind the shed in the back of the kindergarten, playing doctors and patients with two little girls? Of course they had had to punish him, as children can’t be allowed to play together in such a manner, but still, in spite of the child’s mistaken idea of what doctors and patients do together, it was obvious that he had the urge in him to be a doctor.
And then there was the marriage of Sonya Plopler’s eldest daughter. She had been married for scarcely two months, and here she was, carrying what looked like a five-month child in her belly. And Sonya Plopler running about from house to house, denying everything and telling everyone that she too had grown very big very quickly, so that everyone, even those who didn’t normally go around counting months, expected a premature birth.
Even Polsky’s children seemed to have shot up suddenly. After school Polsky’s eldest son came in to help around the place and to do deliveries. Hymie, who was getting to be a strapping lad, like his father, was not even out of grade school yet, and he was already beginning to talk about quitting school. And Polsky didn’t seem to mind, although in front of people like Abraham and Chaim Knopp he liked to make a little show as though he cared.
“I don’t care what kind of old bats your teachers are,” he would shout at Hymie. “You’ll damn well keep on going till you finish your grade eleven if it takes you ten years!” But at the same time he would encourage Abraham to teach Hymie how to be a butcher in the old style, how to pickle meat, how to cut it. The other children, if they wanted to, might go on to study more, but this oldest son would come into the business with him someday.
Abraham could not help trying to encourage Hymie to stay in school. Polsky had money. He had more than one source of income; this he did not hesitate to boast about. Why shouldn’t the boy at least continue to go to school and try to make something of himself? But it was impossible to talk to him seriously about anything. He was still a child in his mind. Try to speak to him reasonably. “Why do you want to stop going to school? Do you think you will ever have another chance to learn?”
And Hymie would shrug his shoulders – “Ahh-h-h-h” – and talk about his teachers, or tell about how he got out of doing his homework. Well, it takes a kind of mind to be able to get out of doing homework, too – crafty. He would make a good partner for his father someday.
It was an interesting question. Had he, Abraham, carried on the kind of business that Polsky boasted about, business in the shade, then he too would have been able to send his son to study. There were many thieves who sent their sons to the universities, and these sons became honorable men sometimes. Was it worth it, then, to become a thief? And how did one go about it? One needed a stomach for everything. God should forgive him for even thinking about such questions.
An uncouth boy, that son of Polsky’s, full of smut and back-talk, too, when he thought he could get away with it. Still, he was not on the whole ill-natured. Just mention Isaac to him, and Hymie was all amiability. Ever since Isaac had coached him for his Bar Mitzvah – which had involved getting right up there with him when the time came, because Hymie could not remember his lessons, and whispering the words from behind a prayerbook when Hymie forgot them – Hymie had been Isaac’s big friend.
This was something that he might point out to Chaim Knopp, who had taken such a dislike to the boy. He might be a ruffian, but he was a good-natured ruffian. A good-natured ruffian is better than an ill-natured gentleman. This was a true thought.
Chaim Knopp had his own opinion of the kind of man Hymie Polsky would grow up to be. “A no-good,” he told Abraham. “Feh!” And when the boy came into the shop when Chaim was present you could see that Chaim could scarcely bear to look at him. What kind of madness is it when an old man wishes to carry on a feud against a young boy? True, Hymie was not as clean as he might be. Dirtiness was something that Chaim could not stomach. When he had to slaughter fowl he wrapped himself in a huge apron and afterward scrubbed himself thoroughly. In spite of his precautions he often complained that he smelled chicken everywhere he went. And here was Hymie. How many times had Abraham himself told him that the customers would not have any confidence in a butcher who kept his fingers in his nose? A filthy habit.
It was true, too, that the boy was disrespectful sometimes. But this disrespect was not directed solely at Chaim. Didn’t he talk about “my old man” in front of the customers? Who had taught him better? And if his mind was already tainted with vulgarities – well, whose mind was it had given him the example? This was no reason for Chaim to speak the way he did, especially on that day when he had caught Hymie up in front of customers and told him what a no-good he would be someday.
Even a young ruffian can have his feelings hurt. Abraham had seen this by the way the boy stood there with his mouth hanging open and his jaw hanging down. But Chaim had been blind to it. The boy’s slack face, in which his eyes shifted sideways from Chaim to the customers, who were laughing and nodding at what Chaim said, and finally to the floor, had only seemed to irritate the shoichet further.
“A Jewish son,” he had continued angrily, “a young shneck like you, running around in the poolhalls already. And what are you h
anging your head for with your mouth open, eh?”
This was no way to do things, to make fun of him in front of people like this, somebody else’s son. It actually hurt Abraham to see Chaim behaving in this way – Chaim, who was such a philosophic man, who had really such a kind heart, who was a man full of goodness. It was as though Chaim had in his heart a boil of bitterness that had pussed up suddenly and had to be let out somewhere. Why on Polsky’s son? God only knew. It would pass; Abraham was sure of it.
Things did not go well with Chaim at home. His wife, ever since her long ailment, was not so strong as she used to be. Although she herself tried to ignore this fact, there it was. She had to stay at home and rest more. Other women took her place in the societies – women who, she was now sure, had always been her enemies. Every few months she had to go to the hospital to be checked up. She was restless and cranky. It was lonely for her, Chaim admitted, to have to stay home so much, crossing off her list of friends those society women who now no longer came to visit her as often as before. So she got notions into her head.
Bassieh’s big notion was that they should give up their home and move in with Ralph and his wife. Ralph had returned to his wife, and for a while all had run smoothly. Then again the troubles had started. Bassieh had the theory that her daughter-in-law deliberately refused to have any more children, just to spite Ralph because she knew he wanted a son and heir. She was convinced that her own presence would straighten out the marriage.
At first she did not even bother to pay any attention to Chaim’s refusal to consider the idea. He had tried a tentative “No” before. It was when Chaim for the first time in their life together said, “No,” and said it continually that Bassieh sharpened her arguments.
What was he afraid of? Didn’t Ralph have enough room for them? If he had enough room in the house to entertain her parents for weeks on end when they came in from the country, then he had enough for his own. In fact, Ralph would be happy to take them in, just to show his wife, whose parents were so dear to her, that his parents were just as dear to him. Of course they need not stay with Ralph permanently, unless he really wanted them to – just for a little while. Hadn’t Ralph held his father to his promise and made him stop working in the abattoir when he returned to his wife? Weren’t they finding things harder now that that money wasn’t coming in? So they would give up their house, which was too big for them anyway now that all the children were married. They would move in with Ralph until they could find a smaller suite.
Chaim continued to refuse. Her arguments became recriminations. All of Chaim’s shortcomings as a husband, father, and provider were dragged out and reviewed. It got so that, when he was through with his work in the shack where he slaughtered the chickens, Chaim took to wandering about instead of going home. Sometimes he dropped into the synagogue to have a conference with the shamus. Or else he would come to the butcher shop and sit on the barrel that Abraham kept especially for him. At other times he would get an impulse to visit one or the other of his children, to see the grandchildren. But these surprise visits were not always successful. Children are children. When they see you so often they do not notice you so much. As he explained to Abraham, grandchildren are wonderful to think about and talk about and play with sometimes. But you can’t follow them out on the street when they want to play with their friends.
“I wish I had a grandchild already,” said Abraham, “that I could see playing with his friends someday. That would be naches.”
“Yes, it’s a pleasure to have them,” Chaim agreed with a sigh. Abraham went on to talk about his future grandchildren, conceiving prodigies. When he noticed that Chaim looked sad and far away, as though he were thinking of his troubles, he, for the sake of naches, invented for Chaim, too, a special grandchild, a boy, who would be the late-born of Chaim’s son Ralph. This Abraham knew was Chaim’s secret woe. But it could still happen. It was not an uncommon thing for ten or even fifteen years to pass between the birth of two children. Why shouldn’t it happen? Abraham, whose heart was heated with the thought of his own grandchildren to come, talked in such a way that he soon had Chaim, too, relaxed and chuckling over the very thought. They would be close friends, those boys whose birth meant so much. They would walk the surface of the earth together, the rich man’s son – the rich man who still honored his father, Abraham amended – and the poor man’s son – the gifted, scholarly poor man, Chaim amended. Yes, it was entirely possible, Chaim agreed. Indeed it had a good sound to it. Time, Chaim agreed, the future.
—
“They won’t like it.” Sarah followed Ruth to the open door of the summer kitchen.
“Close the door, Mother,” Ruth called back, her words billowing frostily out of her mouth. “Do you want to be laid up again? Close the door; you’re not dressed. It’s cold out here.”
Neither was Ruth dressed, Sarah noted, but it did not occur to her to take up this fact in argument. She swung the door gently without closing it, so that Ruth could push through a moment later, her arms full of wood for the stove.
Sarah coughed. “You see,” said Ruth, brushing herself off beside the stove, “one little draft will start you coughing again. You mustn’t go near the summer kitchen. It’s no good for you.”
“They’ve never liked that kind of food,” Sarah repeated. “They won’t eat it.”
“They’ll have to eat it.” Ruth began to explain again, wondering how many times she had already explained this. “The doctor told Isaac that he needs more of this kind of food. Besides, the way I’ve dressed it they’ll like it. They didn’t like fish either, but they’ve eaten it every time I’ve cooked it.” Ruth laughed. She enjoyed housekeeping, and she rather enjoyed disproving all those odd little notions that her mother-in-law clung to about the tastes of the men. Not that it helped. No matter how often Abraham ate fish that Ruth had prepared, no matter how obviously he enjoyed what he was eating, when Ruth suggested fish again her mother-in-law would object that the men didn’t like it. But Ruth had found a way around Sarah’s objections that involved very little fuss. Since the time of Sarah’s illness Ruth had done much of the household shopping. She merely went ahead and bought the fish, or the vegetables that Sarah regarded so suspiciously, and then they had to be used. Sometimes there was a moment of irritation on the part of her mother-in-law. But from irritation she could easily be diverted. Ruth felt a sentimental tenderness for Sarah when she thought of her ways about the house – so gentle, so absent-minded, so absolutely sure that it was not she who had left the saltshaker in the linen cupboard, so gently indignant when Ruth suggested that she might yet recall what had happened to the eggbeater. Of course it could be irritating, too.
In a way it was a good thing that she had lost her job. Sarah was still not strong enough to do all of the housekeeping. Leave her alone and she would be wandering in and out of the summer kitchen, inviting the bronchitis back.
Ruth began to sing as she busied herself about the woodstove. She had the sort of pleasant, somewhat resonant contralto voice that sounds especially good to the singer himself, resounding melodiously in his head and giving him a gratifying sense of dramatic power as he builds up to the particularly forceful notes. Abraham liked to hear her sing. This song he had taught her himself. It was good to be able to sing whenever you liked, in your own home. At her sister’s it had always been a question of waking the children or bothering her brother-in-law. Ruth felt her voice swelling within her. The kitchen was just small enough to bring out the roundness in her tones. She gestured with the arm that held the soup ladle.
The notes vibrated in Sarah’s head. There was a shrill, childish screaming as though someone were calling her. Her heart started, and she stood, grasping the edge of the table, looking anxiously toward the door. Wild-eyed and frightened, Jacob came clattering into the room. What had the child got himself into? A mother needs eyes in the back of her head! From top to bottom he was stained with berries. His face was smeared with purple, etched with rivulets of tears.
From his chest dripped the juice of squashed berries that he had stuffed into his shirt front.
“The Wolf!” he screamed. “He’s got Moishe!”
The Wolf! She dropped her work. What’s he done to my child? She seized the baby in her arms. She ran, leaving the house, leaving everything. With Jacob running and wailing behind her, she flew to the butcher shop. Avrom!
Together, Avrom stalking grimly ahead, to the home of the Wolf, to the high-walled orchard. Why? Why? Had they wanted berries she would have given them the kopek to buy at the market. Was this the wall? Had they climbed this wall? Her heart stood still to look at it. And the dogs – those baying hungry dogs that were chained to the trees inside. Sometimes at night, when they set up a howling, the whole town could hear them. And he beat them, too, the children, sometimes when he caught them stealing from his orchard. God, what’s that black monster doing to my child?
From the gate they heard him. Abraham’s expression as he turned to her was as a mirror of her own astonishment. They paused for a moment outside the gate to listen. Then the clear soprano, like a silver thread, wound them through the gate and into the orchard. Fat little Moishe, his whole face stained with blackberries and dry tears, singing in the orchard. With his knees dirty in front of the great landlord! And the Wolf sat with his wife and his dogs, ears so drawn to the child’s open mouth that he didn’t even hear them approach. Even the dogs, as Abraham told about it later, had sat as though they were entranced.
“You have a singer here,” the Wolf, Phillip Gregor Molinikov, said with admiration. “A real singer.”
The Sacrifice Page 13