The Family Moskat (13 page)

"So we've got a scholar here, eh?" the old man said. "Tell me, young man, do you think you can fix the book up?"

"I think so."

"Myself, I don't hold with this writing business. Everybody in the world thinks he's a writer. But I promised her to have it printed, so-- How much do you expect for your trouble?"

"Whatever you like. That isn't the principal thing."

"What do you mean? You don't expect to do it as a favor?"

"Yes; that is--no."

"Tell me about yourself. What are you--one of these 'modern'

Jews?"

"Not exactly."

"If a young man like you runs away from home--from his parents--he's certainly no saint of a Jew."

"I don't aspire to be a saint."

"What then? A sinner?"

"All I want to do is to study."

"Study what? How to answer ritual questions? When some frightened woman gets worried because a pig's shadow passed over her milk bucket--"

"No. That I know already."

"I hear that my granddaughter's giving you lessons--what's her name?--Hadassah."

Asa Heshel flushed. "Yes," he answered, stammering. "She's giving me Polish lessons."

"What good'll Polish do you? In the first place Russia's the ruler here. And in the second place Hadassah will be betrothed this Saturday night. It won't do for a bride to be giving lessons to anyone."

-75-Asa Heshel

wanted to say something, but he had lost his voice. He felt a dryness in his throat. His face turned white, and the tea glass he held in his hand trembled.

"Do you really mean it?" Rosa Frumetl brought her hands together. "Mazeltov!"

"She'll marry Fishel Kutner. His grandfather, Simon Kutner, has a business in oil on the Gnoyna. Not much learning, but an honest man, a follower of my rabbi--the Bialodrevner. The groom studies in the prayerhouse, and in the afternoons he keeps the books in his grandfather's store."

"What wonderful news!" Rosa Frumetl exclaimed. "Dacha didn't say a word about it."

On the old man's face a sly smile showed. "Next Saturday night,"

he said. "You'll be invited. You'll eat honey cakes." He peered at Asa Heshel from beneath his heavy eyebrows and made a motion with his mouth as though he were swallowing his own mustache.

4

For a while there was silence in the room. Asa Heshel picked up a cake from the tray and then put it back again. Rosa Frumetl played with the string of pearls she was wearing around her throat. Meshulam sat down, picked up a page of the manuscript, and held it close to his eyes. He turned to Rosa Frumetl.

"Where's my magnifying glass?"

"I haven't any idea."

"Is there anything you do know? What kind of thing is this?" he asked Asa Heshel.

"Biblical commentary."

"Ha! Everybody brings me new books--rabbis, peddlers--but I've no time to waste. The office is full of books."

"Why don't they bring them here?" Rosa Frumetl inquired.

"And who's going to take care of them? Koppel's an ignoramus.

Bundles of letters, from rabbis, teachers, God knows who else. And no one to answer them."

"Ts, ts, ts! Rabbis write to you and they get no answer."

Meshulam gave his wife a wry look. "What's to stop you from answering them? You're supposed to be an educated woman. Besides, my eyesight's not so good."

"Suppose you ask this young man. He's a learned youth."

-76-"What? That's

an idea. Come to see me in my office, on the Gzhybovska. My bailiff has a shrewd head, but in such matters he's a peasant."

"When shall I come?"

"Any time, any time. And you can tell me what they're all writing about. In two words."

Meshulam went out. Rosa Frumetl turned to cast a triumphant glance at Asa Heshel. Instead she met her daughter's gaze and left without another word. Silence fell again. From a corner came a faint squeaking, as though a mouse were scurrying along back of the woodwork. Adele shifted on the ladder. Asa Heshel wanted to raise his eyes, but his eyelids hung heavy. He had a queer feeling that the chair he sat on was keeling over.

"Why are you so disturbed?" Adele asked. Her eyes were fixed on him, measuring him deliberately.

"I'm not disturbed."

"You're in love with her. What else can it be?"

"In love? I don't know what you mean."

"She's superficial. Everything's on the surface. She knows practically nothing. She never passed her examinations."

"She became sick."

"All bad students somehow manage to get sick before the examinations."

"She had to go to a sanatorium for her health--for almost a year."

"Yes, I've heard about those cases before. They've a way of fooling themselves and others."

From the living-room came a muffled ringing. Nine o'clock.

"It was my first impression that you were a serious person,"

Adele said.

"What have I done?"

"When a man starts to study--at your age--you have to apply yourself day and night, not run around after girls."

"But I run after nobody."

"And you certainly don't go to live in a house like that."

"Who told you about it? There's nothing wrong with the house."

"Oh, I know. That Gina is just a wanton woman. And Abram Shapiro is a fraud. Fine company for a student."

Asa Heshel made an involuntary movement. The manuscript fell from his hands and spilled onto the floor. He bent down to -77-pick the pages

up, but could not grasp them. The helplessness that had suddenly overwhelmed him had something of a dreamlike quality.

"I don't want to hurt you," the girl continued. "It's only that you've got something in you; otherwise I'm sure I wouldn't bother to speak to you about it at all."

Asa Heshel murmured a faint "Thank you."

"Don't bother to thank me--and look straight at me. You're not such a pious Chassid that you have to be afraid to look at a girl.

And don't hunch down with your shoulders bent that way. You're not eighty years old."

Asa Heshel straightened up and turned his eyes toward her.

Their eyes met. A quick smile passed over her sharp features.

"You're a queer combination," she said. "The small-town yeshivah student and the cosmopolitan."

"You're making fun of me."

"No, I'm not. The ones I met in Switzerland are the dark and curly-headed kind. Beggars, every one of them. What you need is someone to be a real friend to you--and you need a lot of discipline."

"Yes, I think that's true."

"If you're really serious about studying, I can help you. I can be more help to you than Hadassah."

"I thought you said you were going away."

"I am. But not immediately."

She got up from the ladder and bent down to help gather the scattered manuscript. Her fingers touched his. He felt the sharp stab of her filed fingernails. As he straightened out the manuscript on the desk, she leaned over his shoulder; the feminine odor of her body and the perfume she used filled his nostrils.

She walked away from the table. "Well, I'm going now," she said. "Good night."

"Good night," he answered.

"If you want, I can give you your first lesson tomorrow."

"Well--yes--thank you."

"And please don't be so bashful all the time. It isn't becoming. Certainly not for a cosmopolitan."

-78-

TO THE COURT of the Bialodrevna rabbi on this Channukah more than a hundred of the faithful came to make the pilgrimage.

The rabbi did not have more than two thousand followers, and these were scattered all over Poland. Even on Rosh Hashona, the New Year holiday, not more than two or three hundred of the devout had forgathered. Since the rabbi's daughter, Gina Genendel, had left Akiba, her husband, the son of the Sentsimin rabbi, and was carrying on with that heretic Hertz Yanovar, some of the rabbi's followers had fallen away. The resident students and permanent attendants at the rabbi's court had hardly reckoned on a Channukah attendance of more than a score.

The train, which made a stop at the station five versts from Bialodrevna, brought Chassidim who had not shown their faces at the court for several years. They came from as far as Radom and Lublin. The drivers waiting at the station with their sleighs could not pile all the visitors in; the overflow had to wait for the return trip. A few set off on foot, in the manner of the old days. They took swallows of brandy from flasks, sang Chassidic chants, and cut a few Chassidic capers. On these lonely roads a peasant was seldom seen. The fields on both sides of the road, sown with winter wheat, stretched to the distant horizons, like a frozen sea. A solitary crow flew low over the vastness, emitting its lonesome caw.

With the news that a crowd of the faithful was approaching, the town-dwellers broke out into a rash of excitement. Inn and lodging-house keepers made haste to prepare more beds; storekeepers got ready for a rush of trade. The butchers had the ritual slaughterer slit the throat of a cow they had been fattening in its stall for the following Sabbath week. The fishermen went out to the lake on the near-by estates of Count Dom--79-browski and bargained with his manager for a catch of fish. What impressed the townsfolk most was the news that Reb Meshulam Moskat had arrived from Warsaw. It was his custom to come only for the Rosh Hashona holiday; if he was coming on Channukah it meant that at last Bialodrevna would be lifted up from its low estate.

By Thursday afternoon the prayerhouse had an entirely altered appearance. Young boys who had been brought along by their fathers were busy studying or playing at holiday games. The older men peered into volumes of commentaries or strolled about, chatting. The pale light of the winter sun shone through the tall windows, touching the tops of the long tables, reflecting back from the pillars that set off the reader's platform. Newcomers were constantly arriving, and there was a continual exchange of greetings. Aizha, the old sexton, who had served the original Bialodrevna rabbi, the grandfather of the present incumbent, was the first to greet each newcomer. "Welcome and peace to you, Reb Berish Izhbitzer!" his hoarse voice could be heard through the length and breadth of the prayerhouse. "An honored guest!"

"
Sholem aleichem
, Reb Motel Vlotzlavker!"

Although it was nearing time for the late afternoon services, several of the Chassidim were still putting on phylacteries for the morning prayer. The Bialodrevna rabbi was known for being unconventionally late in the synagogue routine. Some of the worshippers were standing for the recitation of the Eighteen Benedictions, others were sipping brandy and nibbling at honey cakes.

One old man had brought with him a large teapot of boiling water and was brewing tea. A lanky youth had stretched himself out on a bench near the stove and was dozing. It was all right for those stultified Jews, opponents of the Chassidim, to study the Law in luxury, and sleep on feather beds; a true Chassid could make do with any hardship so long as he was near his rabbi.

The moment they arrived, the faithful wanted to catch a sight of their blessed rabbi and receive his greeting, but Israel Eli, the beadle, passed the word along that the rabbi was receiving no one.

Ever since the trouble with his daughter the rabbi had practically secluded himself, spending his time in his own chamber. His room was a sort of combination library and chapel. Shelves -80-of volumes

stretched along the yellow-papered walls. There was an Ark of the Law, a reading-stand, and a table. The window, hung with white draperies, looked out over a garden, now snow-covered. Through the panes could be seen terraced fields, stretching into the distance, toward the west. The rabbi liked to stand and look for hours at the ranging landscape.

"Ah, sweet Father in heaven," he would sigh, "what will the end of it be! Woe and woe and woe!"

The rabbi's tall figure was bent. The skirts of his green silk sleeping-robe with the yellow girdle reached to his heels. Through the front opening of the robe could be seen his knee-length breeches, the wide four-cornered ritual fringed garment, white hose, and low shoes. The rabbi was in his late fifties, but his thin beard was still black; only here and there a few white hairs gleamed. He took a sudden step forward and just as suddenly stopped. He stretched out his hand, as though about to take a book from the shelves, and then let it drop to his side. He glanced at the square-faced clock on the wall, with its long spring-weights and the Hebrew characters on the dial, the wooden framework carved with clusters of pomegranates and grapes. It was a quarter past four; soon the early winter darkness would descend.

The stove was burning, but a chill ran along his spine. Every time he remembered that his daughter, his Gina Genendel, had departed from the paths of virtue, had left her husband and was roaming about somewhere in Warsaw among heretics and mockers, he felt a bitterness in his mouth. It was his fault. His. Whose else could it be?

Tired from pacing up and down, he seated himself in his leather-upholstered chair. His eyes closed and he half dozed, half brooded. The paradise of the world to come was not to be his portion. Where was it written that Yechiel Menachem, the son of Jekatriel David of Bialodrevna, must eat of Leviathan in the dining-halls of heaven? There were hot coals, too, that had been decreed as the sinner's portion. But what of Israel, what of the people Israel! Heresy was growing day by day. In America--so he had heard it said--Jews violated the Sabbath. In Russia, in England, in France, Jewish children were growing up in ignorance of Holy Writ. And here in Poland, Satan roamed openly through the streets. Youths were running away from the study -81-houses, shaving off their beards, eating the unclean food of the gentile. Jewish daughters went about with their naked arms showing, flocked to the theaters, carried on love affairs. Worldly books were poisoning the minds of the young. Never had it been as bad as this, even in the times of Sabbathai Zvi and Jacob Frank, may the names of the false messiahs be blotted out for eternity. Unless the cursed plague were halted, not a remnant would be left of Israel. What was He waiting for, the almighty God? Did He want to bring the Redeemer to a generation steeped in sin?