The Sacrifice

by Adele Wiseman

  “Abraham grew very old. But he and his wife Sarah did not have any children. And Abraham longed for a son. He thought that if he had a son his son would carry on his work. So Sarah, when she saw that her husband was sad, told him to get a child from her servant Hagar.”

  Abraham hurried delicately through this part, for the child need not yet be bothered with the whys and wherefores of having wives and children.

  “He named the child Ishmael, and he thought that his son would go in his steps. But he was disappointed again. For Ishmael grew up to be a hunter, and the words of his father went in one of his ears and out the other. He was interested only in roaming through the fields.

  “So finally Abraham prayed to God and asked Him what he should do.

  “And God said to him, ‘Do not worry, for Sarah will yet have a child, and you will name him Itzhok, and he will go in your steps.’

  “And it was so. At ninety and nine years Sarah bore a child, and they named him Itzhok.”

  “I knew,” said Moses.

  Abraham smiled. “And his father loved him very much, for he grew just as Abraham had wished him to grow.”

  There was a momentary silence, and Ruth seized the opportunity to empty her basin and splash fresh rinsing water into it.

  “But that’s not the end,” said Moses.

  “No.” Isaac stirred slightly.

  Abraham waited till the tap was turned off again.

  “For a while they were happy together. But God had decided that He would test Abraham, to see if he was really as faithful as he should be. So He said to him, ‘Go up into the hills; I wish you to make a sacrifice.’

  “And Abraham asked Him, ‘What shall I sacrifice?’

  “And He replied, ‘Take with you your son Isaac.’

  “When Abraham heard this he said, ‘Very well.’ ”

  His grandfather’s voice had slowed to a pause again, and Moses leaned forward, his mouth rounded as though to catch the words from his grandfather’s lips.

  “So he took the boy and went with him to the top of the hills. When they reached the top of the highest hill Isaac said to him, ‘What will be your sacrifice, Father?’

  “And Abraham said, ‘You will, my son.’

  “So Isaac looked about him at the blue sky and at the hills and the fields, and at the sun which shone down on him, and he said to Abraham, ‘Then bind me tightly lest I struggle and spoil your sacrifice.’

  “Then Abraham bound him and laid him down and prepared to do as he had been commanded. And just as he had raised his hand to strike, God called out to him, ‘Abraham, look behind you.’

  “He looked behind him, and there was a young ram with his horns caught in the bushes.

  “ ‘Sacrifice the ram,’ God commanded.

  “So he sacrificed the ram, and Isaac was saved.”

  Moses let out his breath slowly. His grandfather was frowning, nodding his head over the words that he had just finished speaking.

  “And so,” said Isaac, “as a proof of his faith his one God asks him to do the one thing that all his life has seemed most dreadful to him. What had turned him from idol worship? What had he fought against all his life? He finds himself near the end of the circle of his days with his own God asking him if he is willing to make even this surrender. And was he aware of the irony when he said, ‘Very well’?”

  “What was he not aware of?” said Abraham. “Can you imagine what he felt, with his hand raised to strike? What they all felt? In that moment lay the future of our people, and even more than that. In that moment lay the secrets of life and death, in that closed circle with just the three of them, with Abraham offering the whole of the past and the future, and Isaac lying very still, so as not to spoil the sacrifice, and the glint of the knife and the glare of the sun and the terror of the moment burning into his eyes so that when the time comes many years later when he must in turn bless his sons he is too blind to see that Jacob has again stolen the march on Esau. And God himself is bound at that moment, for it is the point of mutual surrender, the one thing He cannot resist, a faith so absolute. You are right when you say that it is like a circle – the completed circle, when the maker of the sacrifice and the sacrifice himself and the Demander who is the Receiver of the sacrifice are poised together, and life flows into eternity, and for a moment all three are as one.

  “That was the moment that even God could not resist, and so He gave us the future.”

  Isaac shook his head.

  “Well, isn’t that right?” Abraham laughed, excited, aggressive, as when he was satisfied with the sound and the feel of his words. “He said, ‘Kill the ram and let your son live. In him is your future!’ ”

  “Yes.” Isaac smiled. “I suppose it’s as right as anything else I know.”

  “What about Ishmael?” Moses interrupted. “You forgot to tell about Ishmael.”

  “You’ve heard enough for tonight,” said Ruth. “And you’ve got your bath to take yet.”

  “But it’s not finished.” Moses turned to his grandfather pleadingly.

  Abraham held up his hand to Ruth. “I’ll tell him about Ishmael. It’ll only take me a minute, and then I’ll throw him into his bath myself. All right?

  “Ishmael” – Abraham turned to Moses quickly before she could answer, and Ruth glanced at Isaac, who shrugged – “was a man of the fields, more used to action than to speech. When Abraham and Isaac were coming home from the hills Ishmael, who had heard of all that had happened, rode ahead of them to bring home the news. When he arrived home he ran straight to Sarah. And instead of saying, as a sensible man might have done, ‘Abraham has almost killed Isaac,’ he cried out to her, ‘Abraham has killed Isaac.’ And Sarah dropped dead before he could say ‘almost.’ ”

  The old man and the little boy stared at each other, shaking their heads at the stupidity of it. “That just goes to show,” said Abraham. “That just goes to show.”

  “What?” asked Moses hopefully.

  There was a sound from Ruth.

  “That it’s time you had your bath,” sang Abraham. He seized the child’s hand, and the two of them made a hasty exit.

  “But who’s to say,” Isaac began when he and Ruth were alone and they could hear sounds of water splashing in the bathroom, “that it’s not just an excitement of the imagination? Killing children is a brutal and wasteful habit, as Abraham realized, just as any killing is. So, being a clever man, he evolved a method of convincing his credulous people in terms that would excite their imaginations and make them take notice. And, earlier on, maybe Terach wasn’t so anxious to kill his son; maybe he wanted Abraham to win the respect of the people and become their leader – provided, that is, that all this actually happened, which is questionable. Maybe the furnace was not stoked as properly as it might have been, so that a brisk run through could be arranged that was not at all fatal. And in the end humanity is served, animal sacrifice takes the place of human sacrifice, and eventually all sacrifice ceases except for the ritual killing of creatures for food. Abraham has plotted well. How’s that?”

  “He must have been a clever man,” said Ruth. With one ear she was listening to the splashing and the hectic noises from the bathroom – I’ll have a whole lake to clean up. I should go in and take a look.

  “And yet,” Isaac went on, speaking musingly, a little ruefully, “it’s strange how, whether or not you believe it, there’s something in the idea itself. You try to imagine a scene like that, in spite of yourself, with the three of them bound together in their awful moment, and the knife poised between them, its blade flashing in the sun…”

  —

  “Hey, that’s no way to hold a knife!” In his haste to get off the high stool behind the cash register, which now occupied a small desk of its own in the archway between the delicatessen and the butcher shop, Hymie almost brought the stool down with him. “You could goose somebody that way.” Hymie took the knife from Laiah’s hand. Laiah surrendered it with a surprised little gesture that
gave Hymie complete mastery of the situation.

  “A knife’s a dangerous thing,” said Hymie, holding the bread knife by its handle and making an illustrative thrust forward. “That’s why when you hand it to someone you hand it like this.” He handed the knife to Abraham, pointing the blade away from both of them.

  Laiah shuddered expressively and ran her hand through her thick auburn hair, from which gleamed exotic orange highlights, the result of the rinse she used to touch up the graying parts. “I don’t like knives,” she drawled in her pleasantly husky voice. “Only this one hardly cuts anyway.” She addressed herself to Abraham. “The other day I noticed you were sharpening knives on a whetstone in there. I thought perhaps…” She let her voice trail off in delicate uncertainty.

  “Oh sure,” Hymie broke in cockily, “anything for a good customer. But it’ll be sharp now; you’ll have to be careful.”

  Laiah smiled slightly, moving her full lips. “Don’t worry, I’ll be sure I won’t” – she hesitated for a fraction of a second – “prick anyone.”

  Hymie caught the pause in her words and the playful rebuke that seemed to imply a bond between them. He tried to catch her liquid eyes again, but she had already turned in response to Abraham’s question.

  “Do you need it right away?” asked Abraham.

  “Well, Avrom” – Laiah made a little helpless fluttering gesture with her hands and smiled – “before supper. I’m sorry to be such a nuisance.”

  “It’s all right.” Abraham took the knife and was about to turn away with it. It disturbed him to watch a grown woman, filled out with middle years, trying still to move to the rhythms of spring. Behind it there was something frightening.

  “Oh, and Abraham” – Laiah called him back – “while you’re at it would you get me two chops and a half-pound of salami sliced? I’ll pick them up on my way out. And Avrom –” Abraham turned again. Laiah smiled. “Thank you.”

  Hymie climbed back on the high stool, where with a turn of his head in either direction he could survey both sides of the business. Laiah paused beside the register. “Anything going on in back?”

  “Pa’s in there with Mandelknaidel and somebody else. Go ahead.” Hymie flushed slightly as he spoke and watched her slantwise. It was said that she was living part-time with a lawyer and part-time with this Mandelknaidel, though both were married men with families. Laiah merely nodded and pulled out a package of cigarettes. Cool one, thought Hymie. The things she probably knows.

  Laiah offered him a cigarette. Hymie fumbled clumsily in his pants pockets for a match. Laiah waited. Finally he lit their cigarettes. Laiah thanked him with a glance from her wet eyes that gave him a feeling of moist places and warmth. She turned then and undulated lazily toward the back room. Hymie remembered to blow out the match.

  It was a pastime with the older guys to boast that they had slept with her. Mandelknaidel claimed that he was now her one and only. But she didn’t act like it. There was no percentage, as his father said, in making a one and only out of a shlemiel like Mandelknaidel. He probably hadn’t got past the front door.

  Hymie watched her, craning his neck till her figure disappeared sideways behind the curtain. Had any of the boys been present there would have been giggles at her exit. Someone would have made a crack about antiquated red-hot mammas, and Hymie would have joined in their laughter. But alone he allowed himself the luxury of certain speculations. He was, after all, a young man of the world, having long since acquired a certain number of addresses that he had tucked away, because his mother liked to go through his things, in a secret compartment in his wallet, with cryptic comments attached to each address.

  Oldish she was, if you looked at her face, and dressed to play up too much figure. But you didn’t have to be seen in the street with her. And the things she could probably do – The more he thought about it the more pleasantly certain did he become that Laiah had really been acting very friendly toward him under cover of the semi-motherly manner she adopted in public. Take, now, this cigarette, for instance, and the glance from the auburn eyes with their secret amusements. Hymie saw himself already stealing the march on Mandelknaidel and the other old boys. “Always the killer,” his friends would say with admiration.

  Someday, Hymie promised himself, he would find out. She would betray herself, what she really wanted and was willing to do. What if he actually did something? He could put out his hand accidentally. What would she do? He would know by the way she responded. Hymie shifted about restlessly on the high stool.

  His speculations were interrupted temporarily by the entry of several people into the delicatessen. For the next little while he was busy making sandwiches and serving the customers. Still, within him there was a certain excitement.

  Chaim Knopp pushed open the door of the butcher shop and held it open for a moment, looking about him while the bell flew back and forth overhead. He let the door fall to again, and the bell set up a clamoring anew. Nowadays he liked to look in first, to make sure the place was not too busy before he came forward to make his visit. Sometimes the place was so full of people wandering back and forth from the delicatessen and making so much noise that there was no chance of catching Abraham for a few moments of conversation. Abraham would be busy then, taking orders in the butcher shop, and, if Hymie or Polsky didn’t happen to be around, making sandwiches and serving drinks in the delicatessen as well.

  They’re turning him into a waiter in his old age, Chaim would tell himself sadly and try to think of someone else he might visit.

  For Chaim’s life in retirement had become a routine of visits. In the mornings he got up early through force of habit. He dressed carefully and quickly so as to be out of the apartment before Bassieh awoke. After he had said his prayers and drunk some tea, he slipped out to inspect the world.

  At the synagogue he discussed the latest news about the newest Haman, name of Hitler. For Chaim, being a thinking man, had lately become interested in politics. It was an interest which could give him little pleasure. As he complained to Abraham, “Between Hitler and my Bassieh I find it hard to get a good night’s sleep.” This was something of an exaggeration, however, for Chaim was so saturated with fresh air from walking about and visiting all day that he was tired enough to be able to ignore his wife’s complaints and fall asleep soon after the evening meal.

  He found Abraham in the small kitchen partitioned off from the kibitzarnia, sharpening a knife on the whetstone attached to the table. When he was finished, they came back into the shop and Abraham wrapped the knife carefully in paper and tied it about with string. Chaim sat himself down fastidiously on his barrel.

  Abraham could not help noticing, as they talked, how well Chaim looked in his glossy black clothes and carefully shined shoes. Old age had used its most delicate tints on him. There were none of the harsh, grim changes that add themselves, layer on layer, year by year until in the end an entirely new person appears and is greeted with surprise by those who knew him once, who exclaim internally, How he’s aged! Time had used another technique on Chaim, softening and rounding, printing in the little wrinkles and stretching them gradually longer, tinting in the pink cheeks with a loving delicacy, with little coursing veins of the color of ripe plums. His beard, white and soft as cashmere, was clipped and combed neatly around to a point. Retirement must be a very fine thing.

  Hymie, his customers disposed of, was about to climb onto his high stool when he realized that a vague irritation that he felt was traceable to the voice of Chaim Knopp. He glanced around toward where Chaim was earnestly engaged in conversation with Abraham and grimaced. With noisy, irritated movements he banged on the cash register.

  “Abraham,” he called out authoritatively, “you won’t forget to put up those chops and that salami, will you?”

  Abraham glanced up and Chaim turned to look at Hymie, who swung on his heel and, moving as though he were being driven from his natural haunts by an unpleasant presence, made his way to the curtain that concealed the ki
bitzarnia. But the sullen expression slipped from his face as he listened for a moment before pushing aside the curtain.

  Inside, Hymie saw that Laiah was already seated at a table with his father and the other two. Hymie hitched up his trousers, came over to the table, stationed himself behind Laiah, and pretended to look over her hand in the manner of a kibitzer. Laiah threw him a tolerant smile and continued to play her hand. Hymie leaned forward and brought his face close to her ear to whisper some advice. Laiah nodded and laughed, and Hymie drew slowly back, his nostrils charged with the heavy scent of her perfume. He shifted slightly closer, planting his large hands on the back of her chair so that when she leaned back he could feel the softness of her back. Though she appeared only casually aware of his presence, Hymie was sure that he could feel the bond of a stronger awareness tightening between them. He looked over her shoulder and down to where her rather extravagant bosom heaved gently as she breathed. Hymie’s heavy lower lip had parted company with its mate. The back of his neck had begun to sweat, and a curious impulse began to tingle in his right hand. All he had to do was lean over and point out something about the cards. Instead, with a great effort of resistance, he raised his hand and scratched the back of his neck. He shifted his feet again uncomfortably, but could not bring himself to move away from her chair.

  In the butcher shop Abraham was telling Chaim about the child. “You know, lately I have gotten into the habit of lying down for a little while when I get home, before supper. It gets so busy here nowadays, like a ship without wheels, everybody running around. So the other day Moishele asks me, ‘Grampa, why do you lie down now when you come home?’ You understand he likes it better that I should play with him, instead of lying down.

  “So I said to him, ‘I like to lie down for a few minutes to wash the shop from my head.’