The Family Moskat (15 page)

"Meshulam, what kind of talk is this?" Rosa Frumetl broke in.

"Quiet, woman! I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to the wall,"

Meshulam rumbled. "What are you shivering about? I'll roast in hell, not you!"

"Matches are made in heaven," Rosa Frumetl protested weakly.

"Sure, it looks that way, doesn't it! That Abram--an idolator and a heretic, a lecher, a breaker-up of homes. He's slandered me and robbed me. Now he's breaking his neck to spoil
her
life --what's her name?--Nyunie's daughter--Hadassah. Or take Moshe Gabriel, Leah's husband--a beggar. And my daughters-in-law--useless, worthless--except maybe Pinnie's wife."

Rosa Frumetl made an effort to comfort him. "At least," she said, "you'll rejoice in your grandchildren."

"Good-for-nothings! The same as their parents!" Meshulam shouted. "Those fancy schools have turned my granddaughters into
shikses
, every one of them. And the boys--pumpkin-heads!

Give 'em Channukah money--that's all they're interested in! Bribe them with presents! The moment they leave the cheder they're through with learning."

"You can change it, Meshulam," Rosa Frumetl said. "You've got the power. You can dictate to them."

"You talk like a fool! What sort of power have I got? I'm nothing but an old man, an old Jew of eighty. Soon it'll be time for me to die and leave them to haggle over everything I've got.

They can hardly wait for it. They'll swarm around like locusts and devour whatever they find."

-89-"You ought to

make provision, Meshulam," Rosa Frumetl sighed softly.

"When there's six feet of earth over you, you can't make provision. But while I'm alive I'm the master, do you hear?" He raised his voice to a roar. "I'm alive and I'm the boss!"

"That's what I've been telling you, Meshulam."

"Hadassah will marry before the winter's over. That's final.

Nothing they can do will stop it." He lowered his voice to a growl. "And what about that daughter of yours? What's she sitting around for? How old is she already? Thirty?"

"What are you saying, Meshulam! She's not even twenty-four yet--I can show you the birth certificate! May He whose name I'm not worthy to mention only send the right man."

"God isn't a
shadchan
. Zeinvele Srotsker has been to see her time and again, and she refuses to talk to him. Another aristocrat!

Nose in the air!"

"Excuse me, Meshulam, my Adele comes from a finer family than--you'll pardon me--Hadassah."

"That'll look good on a gravestone. I'll give her a dowry, only for God's sake let there be an end to it! I don't want any old maids moping around the house."

Meshulam suddenly knew that there would be no sleep for him.

He wanted to get up and go into the library; there was a sofa there where he would manage to get through the night somehow.

But his legs felt heavy, his head ached, and there was a bitter taste in his mouth. Disconnected thoughts chased each other through his mind. He wanted to sneeze and at the same time to yawn. His nightcap had fallen from his head. He swung his legs off the bed and got his feet into his slippers.

"Where are you going?" Rosa Frumetl asked.

"Don't worry. I'm not running away. Stay where you are and go to sleep."

He poured a few drops of water over his fingers from the pitcher that stood beside the bed--the orthodox ritual on ris-ing--put on his robe, and with unsteady steps went out of the bedroom. In the darkness of the corridor he could not see the library door. He put out his hand, clutched a doorknob, and pushed against it. It was Adele's room. She was sitting at the edge of the bed in a blue house robe and plush slippers reading a book. Meshulam took a step backwards.

-90-"Oh,

it's you! A mistake! Excuse me." "Is anything wrong?"

"Nothing. Don't be afraid. I wanted to go into the library.

Why aren't you asleep? What is it you're reading so late?"

"A book."

"What kind of book? Maybe you've got a match. I want to put the light on in the library."

"One minute." Adele, holding on to the book, lifted the lamp and preceded the old man out of the room. For a moment the shadow of the old man's head hung motionless on the wall, with a long nose and pointed beard, like a wedge. The two went into the library and Adele lit the lamp.

"Maybe you'd like me to make you some tea," she said.

"No, no. Tell me, what is the book you're reading?"

"It's just a book--by a man called Swedenborg."

"Who is he? I never heard the name."

"A Swedish mystic. He describes Paradise and Gehenna."

"Idiocy! You can find it in our own books. Isn't there enough time in the day for you to read?" he asked, and looked at her curiously from under his shaggy eyebrows.

"I couldn't sleep."

"Why not? What makes you so restless?"

"I don't know."

"Listen to me. It's true you're a smart girl, an educated girl. But you're not practical. From all these books you'll get nothing. All they'll do is drive you into a melancholy. A girl like you should be a bride--get married."

"It doesn't depend on me."

"Who, then? Zeinvele Srotsker has suggested a couple of good matches."

"I'm sorry. But that way of getting married is not for me."

"Why not?"

"I can't go in for an arranged match."

"That means, I suppose, you want to fall in love."

"If I happen to meet someone and I like him--"

"Nonsense! You're liable to wait around till your hair's gray and never find anyone. Or maybe you've taken a fancy to that greenhorn that's fixing up your father's manuscript."

"He's from a fine rabbinical family--and he's cultured and intelligent. If he fell into the right hands he could become a--"

-91-"A what? A

starving Hebrew teacher somewhere! A beggar in rags! From what I hear, he's a heretic, a
goy
. They say he's turning Hadassah's head around."

"It isn't his fault. She's got some sort of notion in her mind.

He's not for her and she's not for him."

"Good! Exactly what I think. Come here, sit down--here on the sofa. Don't be embarrassed on my account--I'm an old man--"

"Thank you."

"Hadassah's going to marry Fishel. Nyunie has already agreed and Dacha will give in. I'll see to it that the wedding takes place before Passover. So far as you're concerned, do what you think is best. I'll put aside two thousand rubles for you, and I won't forget you in my will either. But take my advice; marry a businessman. All these budding geniuses go around with the toes sticking out of their shoes."

"I'll see. I have to feel that a man is sympathetic to me.

Otherwise--"

"All right, all right. And don't read in the middle of the night.

Something new in the world--young girls, and they have to know about everything. What'll you do when you're old? Ah, the world's turned upside down."

"Life's not easy if you don't have some understanding about things."

"And do you think knowing is going to make it easier? And in the next world it won't help either. A human being's got to give an accounting. Well, go ahead. And tell that young genius to come to me in my office. I want to talk to him."

"But, please, don't scold him. He's proud."

"Don't be scared about him. I'll not eat him up. Still water, I tell you, but he runs deep."

"Good night."

"Good night. A simple life, I tell you, that's the best. No questions, no philosophy, no racking your brains. In Germany there was a philosopher, and he philosophized so long that he be-gan to eat grass."

The old man took a book down from the shelves and tried to read, but the letters seemed to change color--first green, then gold. The lines bobbed up and down and in the center of his vision there was a yawning emptiness on the page, as though the type had suddenly flown away. For a moment he closed his -92-eyes. The book

he was holding was a commentary on the laws relating to death and mourning. He picked up the spectacles lying on the table, settled them on his nose, and read:

Know that before he expires the Angel of Death comes to the man
in the agony of dying, a thousand eyes blazing on his fearful
image, the unsheathed sword in his hand. And he tempts the
moribund to blaspheme God and worship idols. And because the
man is frail, and the fear of death is upon him, he may stumble
and lose his world in a single hour. Therefore it is that in the olden
times, when he fell upon his bed in his final anguish, he called in
ten witnesses and made void and annulled the words he would
utter before the parting of the soul and the wicked thoughts that
come from the Evil One. And it is a fitting custom, meet for the
God-fearing man
.

Meshulam closed the book. That he had chanced to pick this volume out of all the books on the shelf was a bad sign. Yes, his time had run out. But he was not ready. He had not yet made his repentance, had not distributed his money to charity, had not properly executed his testament. Somewhere in his iron safe there were a few sheets of paper with some directions written on them, but they had not been signed by witnesses or sealed with sealing wax. He tried to recall what he had written, but he could not remember. He lay down on the sofa and rested his head on the raised end. A single snore escaped his lips and he fell into a deep sleep. When he awoke, the bright light of early morning was shining through the misted window panes.

2

On that same night Hadassah, too, was sleepless. The wind, blowing against the window, had awakened her, and from that moment she had not been able to close an eye. She sat up in bed, switched on the electric lamp, and looked about the room. The goldfish in the aquarium were motionless, resting quietly along the bottom of the bowl, among the colored stones and tufts of moss. On a chair lay her dress, her petticoat, and her jacket. Her shoes stood on top of the table--although she did not remember having put them there. Her stockings lay on the floor.

-93-She put both

hands up to her head. Had it really happened? Could it be that she had fallen in love? And with this provincial youth in his Chassidic gaberdine? What if her father knew? And her mother--and Uncle Abram? And Klonyal But what would happen now? Her grandfather had already made preliminary arrangements with Fishel. She was as good as betrothed.

Beyond this Hadassah's thoughts could not go. She got out of bed, stepped into her slippers, and went over to the table. From the drawer she took out her diary and began to turn the pages. The brown covers of the book were gold-stamped, the edges were stained yellow. Between the pages a few flowers were pressed, and leaves whose green had faded, leaving only the brittle veined skeletons. The margins of the pages were thick with scrawls of roses, clusters of grapes, adders, tiny, fanciful figures, hairy and horned, with fishes' fins and webbed feet. There was a bewildering variety of designs--circles, dots, oblongs, keys--whose secret meaning only Hadassah knew. She had started the diary when she was no more than a child, in the third class at school, in her child's handwriting, and with a child's grammatical errors. Now she was grown. The years had gone by like a dream.

She turned the pages and read, skipping from page to page. Some of the entries seemed to her strangely mature, beyond her age when she had written them, others naïve and silly. But every page told of suffering and yearning. What sorrows she had known!

How many affronts she had suffered--from her teachers, her classmates, her cousins! Only her mother and her Uncle Abram were mentioned with affection. On one page there was the entry: "What is the purpose of my life? I am always lonely and no one understands me. If I don't overcome my empty pride I may just as well die. Dear God, teach me humility."

On another page, under the words of a song that Klonya had written down for her, there was: "Will he come one day, my destined one? What will he look like? I do not know him and he does not know me; I do not exist for him. But fate will bring him to my door. Or maybe he was never born. Maybe it is my fate to be alone until the end." Below the entry she had drawn three tiny fishes. What they were supposed to mean she had now forgotten.

She pulled a chair up to the table, sat down, dipped a pen in the inkwell, and put the diary in front of her. Suddenly she heard footsteps outside the door. Quickly she swung herself onto -94-the bed and

pulled the cover over her. The door opened and her mother came in, wearing a red kimono. There was a yellow scarf around her head; her graying hair showed around the edges.

"Hadassah, are you asleep? Why is the light on?"

The girl opened her eyes. "I couldn't sleep. I was trying to read a book."

"I couldn't sleep either. The noise of the wind--and my worries.

And your father has a new accomplishment; he snores."

"Papa always snored."

"Not like this. He must have polyps."

"Mamma, come into bed with me."

"What for? It's too small. Anyway, you kick, like a pony."

"I won't kick."

"No, I'd better sit down. My bones ache from lying. Listen, Hadassah, I have to have a serious talk with you. You know, my child, how I love you. There's nothing in the world I have besides you. Your father--may no ill befall him--is a selfish man."

"Please stop saying things about Papa."

"I have nothing against him. He is what he is. He lives for himself, like an animal. I'm used to it. But you, I want to see you happy. I want to see you have the happiness that I didn't have."

"Mamma, what is it all about?"

"I was never one to believe in forcing a girl into marriage.

I've seen enough of what comes of such things. But just the same you're taking the wrong road, my child. In the first place, Fishel is a decent youth--sensible, a good businessman. You don't find men like him every day. And in the second place, his grandfather is stuffed up to here with money, and one day--though I wish him long life, dear Lord--it'll all go to Fishel."