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The door opened and two men and two women entered. I knew three of them. One was a scribe who lived in our courtyard, a man reputed to be a saint. It was said of him that every time he wrote God's name he went to the ritual bath. Writing a mezuzah or a couple of passages for a set of tefillin took him days or weeks. He was, alas, dirt-poor. Poverty was visible on his pale and wrinkled face; his yellow forehead was lined like parchment. His beard was dirty gray and sparse; his sidecurls hung down disheveled. A profound piety glowed in his eyes. This man was a tzaddik, a righteous, saintly man who never forgot his Creator for one moment. He lived in perpetual need, obeyed the commandments, and did good deeds. Father stood up the instant he saw him, just as one rises before a great rabbi. Father would often say that this scribe always had the name of God before his eyes. He seemed to have stepped out of an ancient time.
The scribe was a widower. His daughter, an old maid of forty, accompanied him. She was short, fleshy, with a milky face and two large, calflike eyes. She was cross-eyed, and half-blind to
boot. She managed the scribe's household. Ah, woe unto such household management! They lived in a garret. The scribe was always observing fast days and his gaberdine was full of patches. His finest garment was his set of ritual fringes.
I knew the other woman as well. She was tall, thin, dark as a shovel. She worked at the baker's at 12 Krochmalna Street and often stood outside holding a basket of rolls. She was forty as well and was considered a fool, a simpleton.
The second man was about sixty, with a round, grayish beard. He had on a small cap, the sort worn by common folk, and a short jacket spotted and stained with glue. I didn't know him. He looked like someone who glued sacks.
After Father had offered a chair to the scribe, he asked him how he was, and the scribe replied, “God be praised.” When he uttered these words, he began shaking and quaking. It was no trifle, mentioning the Creator of the Universe, the One who had created heaven and earth! The man seemed enveloped in holy texts.
“What can I do for you?”
It turned out that all four had come for a Din Torah, a rabbinic judgment, and that the plaintiff was none other than the scribe. Here is the story:
The poor scribe had longed to bring his daughter under the wedding canopy, and this sixty-year-old man, a divorce, had come along. The scribe had an engagement contract drawn up, promised the man a couple of rubles dowry, and the match was concluded. But what was the upshot? It turned out that the man also had another fiancée; indeed, it was the swarthy old maid who worked for the baker. The scribe did not want to humiliate the
other man, God forbid, his daughter's fiance. He accused and defended him simultaneously. The gist of his remarks was that this man had made a mistake and had been tempted to transgress. But errors must be corrected, and so the scribe was demanding that the other fiancée step aside and that his daughter, God forbid, not be humiliated and made into a laughingstock. One could see that the scribe was terribly upset. He stammered and was in constant fear lest he say words one was forbidden to utter, and lest, God forbid, he unwittingly shame the other man. The scribe's awe of God hung over him like a sword, for every bad word can bring down upon a person the fire of hell and the nether depths.
After the scribe had finished speaking, the swarthy old maid found her tongue. “Rabbi,” she said in a hoarse voice, “I don't know this man and I don't know his daughter. This man here wanted to marry me and he gave his word. He told me nothing about this other one. I've slaved away enough at the baker's. I too want to come to an agreement. I'm not a young girl and I've knocked around bakeries and kitchens long enough. I'm a human being, too! I should drop dead right here if I knew anything about her. I swear to God I don't know her from Adam. And what does he need a wife like that for? She's not for him. He needs somebody who can help him in his line of work. What can she do? Just look at her, Rabbi. She's blind.”
Father banged the table, signaling her not to speak in such a vulgar manner. But she continued spewing fire and brimstone. She called the scribe's daughter a slattern, a hunk of dough, a blind cow, a filthy slob, a fool, and other such names.
The scribe's daughter began to weep. The scribe bent his head, murmuring through his bluish-white lips. He was probably
whispering that he forgave this woman the humiliations she was causing him and prayed that she also be forgiven in heaven. Father pulled out his pocket handkerchief and wiped his moist eyes. Yes, such was the destiny of the righteous: they have to suffer here on earth.
Then Father addressed the other man. “You became engaged to the daughter of a scholar. Your future father-in-law is a tzaddik. His daughter is a respectable young woman, and God willing she will be devoted to you. So what made you think of bothering to turn someone else's head? What are you? A youngster? Do you think the world is lawless? There is a God in heaven who sees everything! A person does not live forever! Someday you'll have to give an account of yourself ⦔
Father was angry. He threatened the man with all the measures of hell. He even told him he would have to apologize to his future father-in-law and recalled the saying in the Ethics of the Fathers: “The bite of scholars is like the bite of a fox, their sting is like the sting of a scorpion, and all their words are like fiery coals.”
Hearing Father's praise, the scribe shrunk into himself. He began to sway back and forth and shake his head from side to sideâhe was not a scholar and he was being undeservedly praised. The scribe was afraid that all those words might cause him to forfeit his share in the world to come.
The common Jew tried to justify himself. He said that he had had no dealings with the swarthy woman. She had approached him, not he her. He had come to buy rolls from her for breakfast and she had started chatting with him. This led to that, and they went to a café for some cheesecake and coffee.
Well, after some more of this and that, she talked him into marrying her. He told her that he was already engaged, but she didn't want to hear about it. After more this and that, he made his promise. What should he do? If the rabbi says that he has to send her away, he will send her away. After all, one cannot have two brides at once.
“What do you mean, you're going to send me away?” the swarthy old maid yelled. “What am I, some kind of rotten apple that can be thrown around? You didn't tell me about another fiancee. If I had known that you had a fiancée, I'd have left you and sent you to the blazes so quickly all your bones would've broken. You thief, you liar, you sweet-talker, you heretic! And this cost me money, too, Rabbi ⦔
The woman began to reckon up all the expenses she had had and the other men who had wanted her. Because of this heretic, this old roué, she had lost many precious bridegrooms.
My father heard her out. He shut his eyes and rested a fist on the kerchief which was used to signify agreement among the litigants. For years he had been the rabbi on this street, but he still could not get used to these people. I felt I could see his thoughts behind his forehead and in the little veins in his temples, and how he was trying to stand up for these ignoramuses who, poor things, wanted to be Jews but did not know how. After a while he seemed to wake up. The contenders had run out of arguments. He let each of them touch the kerchief. Finally, he rendered his opinion: the swarthy bakery woman must step aside, because the man had already been engaged to the scribe's daughter. But since she had had expenses and perhaps felt humiliated as well, she would have to be paid two
rubles in compensation for stepping aside. I remember feeling ashamed after hearing this decision. Two rubles was so insignificant a sum even for such paupers. I felt myself turning red, but I saw at once that, as usual, my father had had a better grasp of the situation than I.
The swarthy old maid tried to bargain, saying that the sum was too small, but I saw that she was amenable. The fiance with the gray beard immediately stated that he had no money. Where would he get two rubles from? He had to marry and rent an apartment, and he didn't have two rubles to throw around. Then the scribe raised his head and mumbled that since he wanted his daughter's situation resolved, he would pay the two rubles.
And with a shaking hand he began to dig into his pockets and take out groschens, kopecks, coins of various denominations. He counted, made errors, didn't recognize the coins, swayed, and never stopped praying. And that's how he counted out those two rubles. The swarthy woman gathered up the coins and left in a huff, cursing and slamming the door, as if to say she was still dissatisfied and could not be bought off with two rubles.
This Din Torah in and of itself was bizarre, but a couple of days later we heard someone fiddling with our door handle. Mother went to open the door and the scribe came in. With tears in his eyes, he told Father that the man who planned to marry his daughter was not even divorced. Father was incensed. He summoned the man and called him a scoundrel, a sinner, a heretic, and other names that rarely passed my father's lips. The man listened with a guilty look on his face and responded, “I'm in the process of getting a divorce.”
“You troublemaker! You said you already were divorced!” said the scribe.
“I didn't say that.”
“You
did
say it,” the scribe bore witness. “Would I have arranged a match with a married man?”
The fiance tried to deny it, but my father drove him away. It seems to me that he even cursed him. The scribe remained in Father's study. Father wanted to repay the two rubles, but under no circumstances would the scribe accept them. Both men sat there for a long time discussing holy texts and sighing at the state of the modern world.
“Ah, woe and alas, it's the end of the world. It's high time for the Messiah to come!” Father exclaimed.
“Well,” the scribe sighed. It seemed as if he was mutely saying, We can't offer our suggestions to the Master of the Universe.
After a while the scribe passed away. His daughter remained a spinster. She became totally blind and sat on a doorstep collecting alms. For a long time thereafter I used to buy rolls from the swarthy old maid. She, too, never married.
When some years later I became a bar mitzvah, my father gave me a set of tefillin made by that holy scribe, and I always seemed to feel on my forehead the sanctity that exuded from the Torah verses he had written.
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Krochmalna Street was packed with houses of ill repute. In Yiddish they were called “little houses,” but the streetwalkers lived in cellars whose windows looked out from under the entrance steps. The men who patronized those places had to crawl through dark, cave-like corridors. At the square, thieves and pimps hung out. Even in those years I knew that there were prostitutes and that it was forbidden to look at them, because a single glance could make one impure. But I didn't give much thought to precisely what they were or what they did.
I often saw them standing by the gate or at the square, their cheeks rouged and their eyelashes mascaraed, wearing flowered scarves and red or blue shoes. Occasionally, one of them smoked a cigarette.
When I passed by, they would call me names: “Hey, you little jerk! Hey, you sneaky little Hasid! Hey, you dummy!”
But now and then, when one of them gave me a little piece of chocolate, I would run off and throw it into the sewer. I knew that whatever they touched was defiled. Once in a while they would
come into our house to ask questions pertaining to religion. Mother would be embarrassed, unable to utter a word. But it made no difference to my father. He turned his glance aside from all women in any case. Their questions always pertained to the
yortzeit,
the anniversary of a loved one's death, the only
mitzvah
the streetwalkers observed. They could never figure out the precise day on the Jewish calendar to light the memorial candle.
Once, a young man came in who looked like an artisan. He wore a little Jewish cap but a short jacket and buttoned shoes. His shirt had no collar, just a paper dickey from which a tin collar stud stuck out. He was unshaven and his cheeks were hollow. His aquiline nose was pale as though from an illness. His big black eyes shone with a mildness that reminded me of fasting and funerals. This is how mourners looked who came in to ask questions about sitting shiva and observing the thirty days of mourning.
Mother happened to be in the courtroom, and I sat over a Talmud and pretended to study.
“What can I do for you?” Father asked.
The youth began to stammer and turned red, then pale. “Rabbi, is it permissible to marry a prostitute?”
Mother was shocked. Father asked the young man a question and looked at me sternly.
“Leave the room!”
I went to the kitchen, and the young man remained in the courtroom for a long while. Afterward Mother came into the kitchen and said, “There are all kinds of lunatics in this world!”
Father decided that he could marry the prostitute. Not only was it permissible, but indeed it was a
mitzvah
to rescue a Jewish
girl from sin. The young man needed no more. He immediately requested that Father officiate at the wedding. He left in high spirits and gaily slammed the door. Father came into the kitchen.
“What kind of madness is this?” Mother asked.
“He hasâhow do they say it over there?âfallen in love.”
“With a prostitute?”
“Well ⦔
Then Father returned to his holy text.
I don't recall how much time passed before the wedding took place. The girl had to count the prescribed number of days after her menstrual cycle and then go to the ritual bath. All kinds of women helpers began swirling around her. Everyone on the street knew what was happening and they discussed it in the grocery, the butcher shop, even the synagogue. Usually, only a few people attended a small wedding. My father would almost always have to send me to the Hasidic
shtibl
to gather enough men for a minyan. But this time our apartment turned into a Viennese salon. Every minute our door opened and in walked a thief or a pimp. But most of the guests were promiscuous girls fancied up in silk and velvet, and wearing hats with ostrich feathers. The madams came, too.
The fact that an honest young man had fallen in love with a whore was a victory for the underworld, especially the women. They saw it as a sign that there was hope for them, the rejected ones, too. The madams donned their marriage wigs and shawls, which they wore to the synagogue on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The streetwalkers wore long-sleeved dresses without corsets. They kissed the mezuzah upon entering and politely
greeted my mother. Mother stood there pale and disheveled. Our neighbors encircled her like a guard so that, God forbid, none of the impurity would rub off on her. But no change was visible on my father, who wasn't bothered by any of this. He stood by his prayer stand studying a text and even wrote some comments on a sheet of paper. Everyone was waiting for the bride and groom.
From the balcony I could see people waiting on the sidewalk and by the gate. Several girls and madams joined me on the balcony. Suddenly there was a commotion. The couple had emerged from some courtyard, accompanied by an entire entourage. The bridegroom was spruced up in a new summer jacket and lacquered shoes. The bride, small and swarthy, looked like a girl from a fine middle-class family. The women on the balcony pulled out little hankies and began wiping away their tears.
“Look how pale she is!”
“Is she fasting?”
“She's pretty as a picture!”
“I wish it'd happen to me!”
“God willing, may it happen to you!”
“Here they come! Here they come!”
“One should never lose hope!”
A huge pimp, blind in one eye and with a jagged scar on his forehead, kept order. A madam wearing a wide marriage wig shouted angrily at the girls and told them to stand near the wall. A girl with a face as pockmarked as a grater laughed with one eye and cried with the other. This wasn't just a wedding but a show worthy of Kaminsky's Yiddish Theater. Usually we didn't
need a sexton, but the pimps brought one of their own, a short man who mingled with the crowd. When the bride entered the apartment, all the women threw kisses at her. They grabbed her, they hugged her, they didn't want to let her go. They showered her with good wishes. To each one she said the same thing: “God willing, may it happen to you.” Each time she said this, all the girls choked back a sob.
Father sat down to write the marriage contract, but then came a tense moment. He began whispering to the sexton. He consulted a holy text. It was senseless to write that the bride was a virgin, but neither was she a divorcee or a widow. Exactly what was done and whether they wrote into the document that the bride was to receive one hundred gulden or two hundred I do not remember.
Four pimps held the staves of the wedding canopy. Since both bride and groom were orphans, they were led to the wedding canopy by the brothel owners and the madams. Everything was done according to Jewish law and tradition. The bridegroom wore a white linen robe, as was the custom. The bride's face was covered by a veil. Father recited the blessings and let the bride and groom sip some wine. When the groom put the ring on the bride's outstretched index finger, saying, “Behold thou art consecrated unto me â¦,” all the prostitutes burst into tears. Even as a child I was amazed by how quickly women start laughing and crying.
After the ceremony everyone kissed and exchanged good wishes. The table was covered with wines, cognac, liquors, all kinds of drinks. Slices of sponge cake were offered as well. The women gingerly picked up pieces of cake with two fingers, pinkies out, taking small bites and little, sips like high-class
ladies. Today was their day. Today they weren't just whores who lived miserable lives in cellars but friends who had been invited to a wedding. The pimps drank brandy out of tea glasses and began stammering as men do when they become tipsy.
One pimp ran over to Father and yelled, “Rabbi, you are a precious Jew!”
“It's enough just to be a Jew,” Father replied.
“Rabbi, I'll take whatever punishments are destined for you!”
“Oh, God forbid ⦠one must not talk that way.”
“Rabbi, I'm not worth the mud on the soles of your shoes.”
Father began looking into his holy books. He wanted these people to leave so he could resume studying. But they were in no rush. They drank and drank. One of the brothelkeepers kept insisting that Father have a drink, too.
“I'm not allowed to drink,” Father said. “I have a stomach virus, may it not happen to you.”
“Rabbi, it's only forty proof, not ninety proof.”
“I can't. The doctor forbade it.”
“What do they know? Doctors don't know a thing!”
After a lot of talk, Father finally tasted one solitary drop. The women wanted to take Mother into their circle, but she had already left the apartment. Mother had no intention of mingling with that crowd. I got wine, whiskey, and so much cake and cookies that I stuffed my pockets with them.
The apartment eventually began to empty I went out onto the balcony and watched the bride and groom being escorted in parade-like fashion back to the courtyard from which they had been led out earlier.
Only when everyone had left did Mother return. It wasn't warm outside, but she opened all the windows to air out the rooms. She threw the leftover cakes and drinks into the garbage. For days afterward Mother went about agitated.
“I'd like to see the day when I can tell this street goodbye,” she said.
I heard people discussing this couple for a long, long time. Wonderful things were said about them. A former prostitute was leading the life of a decent wife. She went to the ritual bath every month. She bought glatt kosher meat at the butcher's. She went to the synagogue every Sabbath and holiday. Then I heard that she was pregnant, and then that she had given birth. The women neighbors said that she never even looked at other men. From time to time I saw her husband. The glitter of the wedding day had left him, and he went about once more without a collar, wearing only a paper dickey. Once in a store I heard a woman ask, “But how can a man live with her when he knows where she has bounced around?”
“Repentance helps for everything!” a woman wearing a bonnet replied.
“Still, it's disgusting ⦔
“Perhaps he loves her,” another woman called out.
“What's there to love? She's as thin as a stick.”
“Every man has his likes.”
“May God not punish me for my words!” the woman shopkeeper said. “Mouth, be quiet!” And she slapped her lips with two fingers.
From that time on I paid more attention to the girls who stood at the gates and by the lampposts. Some looked vulgar, fleshy,
mean; their heavily mascaraed eyes snickered with a depraved impudence. Others seemed to be so quiet, sad, and shrunken. One of the prostitutes spoke Yiddish with a Lithuanian pronunciation, which was an absolute novelty for us. She came into Esther's candy store and said, “What have you got that's delicious? How about a piece of cheesecake! I've got a hole in my stomach a yard long!”
I heard housemaids in the courtyard saying that the pimps rode around at night in coaches grabbing innocent girls, orphans, and girls from the provinces. They were forced into prostitution and then put aboard ships bound for Buenos Aires. There they had flings with black people. Then a worm would enter their blood and pieces of flesh would fall from their bodies.
These stories were sweet and appalling at the same time. Things were happening in this world. There were secrets not only in heaven above but also down here on earth. I had a burning desire to grow up all the more quickly so I could learn all these heavenly and earthly secrets, to which little boys had no access â¦