The Family Moskat (31 page)

Meshulam compared the two to a dog and a bitch stuck together.

3

It was close to noon the next day when Abram left Ida. He decided to take a tramcar instead of a drosbky; he had only three rubles in his purse, and he did not know where he might be able to borrow any more. But the moment he emerged from the courtyard a droshky rolled up. He got in and told the driver to take him to the Zlota. He lit a cigar. A spring sun was shining; rivulets of water ran along the gutters. A mild breeze blew from the Praga woods. When the drosbky crossed the bridge, Abram could see that the ice on the Vistula was breaking up. As Abram looked at the icy flocks it seemed to him that the bridge was speeding along. The Warsaw side had even more of a springtime look about it. King Zygismund stood on his tall pedestal waving his bronze sword. The sculptured mermaids drank thirstily from their empty goblets. Columns of soldiers stood in formation in front of the castle. A military band was blaring. Officers called out -196-commands in piercing voices. A Catholic funeral wound its way through the crowd that had gathered to watch the drill, the coffin covered with wreaths.

"A fine time to die," Abram reflected. "When everything is coming back to new life."

The droshky stopped near his apartment. Abram got out and went upstairs. He went into his bedroom, lay down on the bed, and dozed off. Through his heavy sleep he heard the outside door open. He struggled to his feet. Hama came in. He stared at her.

Her face was a greenish hue, deep bags stood out under her eyes.

There was an angry red blotch on one cheek, as though she had been slapped. She started to say something, but no sound issued from her lips. Then she began to sob: "He's dead! Father's dead!"

Abram's jaw fell. "Where? When?"

"This morning. He fell asleep--like a child."

She swayed as though she were about to fall. Abram rushed over and held her.

"All right, enough crying," he muttered. "He was an old man."

"He was my father." Hama broke out into a fresh flood of wailing.

"Dear God, what will become of me now! I'm alone in the world!

Like a stone."

"Hama, quiet yourself. Here, sit down."

"What good will anything do me? Dear God, if only I were ly-ing there with him!"

Abram got her into a chair. He paced back and forth across the room. "Yes," he said. "That's the way it is. Everything has an end."

Hama blew her nose. "And you--you quarreled with him," she wept. "And now he's there, stretched out with his feet toward the door."

"May God punish me if I was ever his enemy."

"Dear Lord, what'll I do now? I'm alone!"

"Foolish woman! You'll be rich! What nonsense are you talking?

You'll have houses and a couple of hundred thousand in cash besides."

"I don't want it! I don't want anything! If I were only lying there beside him!"

"What are you talking about? You've got daughters to marry off."

"What's my life? Nothing! Worse than a dog's." Suddenly she -197-tore from the

chair. "Abram! You've shamed me enough!" she howled.

"Enough of it! It's got to come to an end!"

She made a motion as though to throw herself at him. Abram took a step backwards.

"I don't know what you want," he muttered, half afraid.

"Abram! I can't go on this way! Kill me, beat me, tear pieces of flesh off me, but don't leave me alone!" She stretched out her hands to him. "For God's sake, have pity on me!"

Now she was sobbing with convulsive spasms. Then, unexpectedly, she cast herself down on the floor and threw her arms around his legs, almost throwing him off his feet.

"Hama, for God's sake, what are you doing!"

"Abram, please, I beg, I plead! Let's start again--I can't stand it."

"Get up!"

"Let it be a decent home again. Let the children know what it is to have a father."

Abram felt a wave of heat rise to his face. Tears began to pour from his eyes.

"All right, all right."

"And you'll come to the funeral?"

"Yes. Get up from the floor."

"Oh, Abram, I love you, you know it. I love you."

He bent down and helped her up. She held on to him. He felt her tears moisten his face. There was a strange warmth exuding from her. Abram suddenly felt a long-forgotten desire toward this broken woman, the mother of his children. He bent his head and kissed her brow, her cheeks, her chin. It was suddenly lightning-clear to him that there could be no talk of divorcing her, whatever might be the consequences. They would have to finish what was left of their life together, especially now that the old man was dead and that a royal inheritance would be her portion.

4

The funeral of Meshulam Moskat was not held until two days after he had passed away, although it was the Jewish custom to perform the final rites on the day of death. The reason for the delay was that the officers of the Jewish community insisted on canceling the purchase through which, by virtue of payment of -198-two thousand rubles, Reb Meshulam had acquired possession of a double burial plot in the Gensha cemetery. The officials of the burial association complained that Meshulam had tricked them out of the plot for a trifle and, according to the Talmud, a mistake annuls an agreement. They demanded now that the heirs pay an additional ten thousand rubles.

Joel flew into such a rage that he made wild threats: he would sue them, he would have them arrested; but the officials laughed at him.

"Let him go ahead," they said. "If that's what he wants, it's all right with us."

After much wrangling a compromise was reached; the family agreed to pay an additional three thousand rubles. The quarreling and negotiating lasted for more than a day; all of Warsaw's Chassidic circles discussed the affair. A large crowd stood in front of the community building. Every once in a while a droshky would drive up and an elder or some other important official would descend. The people in the crowd would shrug their shoulders.

"No, it doesn't pay to be a millionaire!"

"The way I look at it, when something's sold it's sold."

"A decent man doesn't try to find a bargain at the kehillah."

When the affair with the kehillah was settled, a dispatch came from Bialodrevna that the rabbi was at once boarding a train and that the funeral should be held up until his arrival. In all the excitement the family had forgotten to inform him of Meshulam's death. This meant another delay.

During the time the body lay at the Moskat apartment, the house was a bedlam. Naomi and Manya did what they could to keep out strangers, but the curious almost tore the doors down from their hinges. The corpse lay on the floor of the living-room, in a black shroud, and resting on scattered straw, two candles in silver candleholders burning at its head. The mirror was covered and the windows half-opened. Vigil-keepers from the organization, "Watchers of the Dead," sat on low stools chanting the Psalms.

Those who had ever had a difference with him came to ask the dead man's pardon. Against the black shroud Meshulam's head seemed small, almost like a child's. Rosa Frumetl went about weeping and sniffling. She had taken off her matron's wig and wore a shawl over her close-cropped head. Adele stayed in her room. The old man's sons, daughters, in-laws, -199-and grandchildren kept wandering in and out of the flat. The safe in the study had been sealed. The family kept a wary eye open to see that nothing was stolen by the hordes of visitors.

"Look at the mob," Naomi complained. "A person would imagine someone sent for them."

"It'll be impossible to clean up after that bunch," Manya commented. "A gang of nobodies!"

When word got about that the Bialodrevna rabbi was on his way to the funeral, the Gzbybov became black with people, surg-ing back and forth like a sea. The tramcars could not force their way through the Gzhybov and detoured along the Mirovska off in the direction of the Jewish hospital. A disgruntled passenger shrugged his shoulders. "What is this? Palestine?"

In addition to the Bialodrevna rabbi, other Chassidic rabbis came to the funeral--the Novominsker, the Amshinover, the Kozhenitzer. Akiba, who had only shortly before divorced Gina, was in a carriage with his father, the Sentsimin rabbi. He was sitting on a cushion he had brought along with him, to make sure that his person would have no contact with the linsey-woolsey material of the upholstery, a cloth mixture forbidden by the Mosaic law. Policemen were on hand to keep the crowds in order.

They shouted at the tops of their voices and laid about them with the sheaths of their swords. Some of the Talmud Torahs to which the dead man had made contributions sent their pupils to march at the head of the procession. Women wept as though the dead man had been a close relative. Most of the storekeepers on the Gzhybov had closed their shops. Because a funeral of this size would demand a lot of droshkies, coachmen from all parts of Warsaw descended on the neighborhood. A couple of doddering ancients complained to each other that the dead man had not deserved these honors.

At around two o'clock the hearse began to move. The horses, draped in black cloth, with holes cut out for the eyes, paced slowly. The carriages stretched along the whole length of the Gzhybov, the Tvarda, the Krochmalna, and the Gnoyna. The horses reared and neighed. Young boys tried to catch a ride on the sides of the coaches, but were treated to a lash of the whip. There was no event the Jews of Warsaw enjoyed so much as a grand funeral. Long before the hearse reached the cemetery a mob was waiting. Youngsters were perched on tombstones to get a better view. Every balcony along the Gensha was packed. Cem--200-etery attendants in caps with shiny peaks and coats with polished metal buttons were carrying planks of wood and shovels. Beggars and cripples besieged the gates and the path to the burial plot. The spectators from the balconies and windows were afraid that the crowd pressing forward in the cemetery would overturn the hearse, or that some of the rabble would be pushed into the open grave. But Warsaw's Jews were used to handling themselves in mobs like this. For all the confusion, everything went along according to law and custom. The corpse was prepared for the interment, arrayed in its shrouds, and wrapped in a prayer shawl.

Shards were placed on the eyes. A twig was thrust between the fingers, so that the dead man, when Messiah came, would be able to burrow his way to the Holy Land. The onlookers heaved a sigh. The women broke into noisy lamentations. The gravedigger recited the passages tradition required: "He is the Rock, His work is perfect; for all His ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He."

After the earth was thrown back into the grave, the Moskat sons recited the Kaddish. Those gathered around the grave tore up clumps of the withered grass from the ground and tossed them over their shoulders. Abram was standing near Hama and their two daughters. While the body was being lowered into the grave, tears fell from his eyes. Hama sobbed convulsively all through the ritual.

Moshe Gabriel was standing silent and a little away from the others. His gaze was fixed toward the cloudless sky. "He is up there already," he was thinking. "He's rid of the burden of the flesh. He'll go through the ordeal of purification, alas, but he'll find paradise.

Already his eyes can see what no one of us can see." Stepha, Masha, and the other "modern" Moskat granddaughters all wore black dresses, hats draped with black crepe, and veils, in the modish manner. They looked fresh and charming in spite of the somber attire, and the younger men around threw glances at them.

Leah dropped her handkerchief; Koppel picked it up. Some of the crowd left the cemetery to go to the prayerhouses. Others went into restaurants or delicatessen stores. When the crowd thinned out, those who remained had a chance to gape at the visiting rabbis; some black-bearded, others red-bearded; in sable hats and fur-lined silk coats. Their dangling sidelocks fluttered in the wind. Their throats were wrapped in woolen scarves.

-201-Each of them

was surrounded by a protective circle of beadles and retainers.

They sighed, took pinches of snuff from enormous snuffboxes, extended courtly greetings to one another, but spoke little. There were long-standing differences between the various Chassidic courts. When the Bialodrevna rabbi saw the Sentsimin rabbi, he turned his face away; now that Akiba and Gina were divorced, the relationship they had shared by virtue of the marriage of their children had vanished. Nevertheless Akiba, naïve fool that he was, went over to the Bialodrevna rabbi and said: "Peace to you, father-in-law."

And the other shrugged his shoulders impatiently and muttered: "Peace to you."

5

The Moskat sons sat out the
shiva
, the prescribed week of mourning, at the flat where the dead man had lived. The four of them, Joel, Pinnie, Nathan, and Nyunie, sat in their stockinged feet on low benches. The mirrors on the walls were still covered, on the windowsill stood a small basin of water with a linen rag soaking in it, so that the soul of the dead man would be able to perform its ritual ablutions. A memorial wick burned in a glass holder. Early in the mornings and late in the afternoons a quorum of men gathered to hold prayer services.

For the Sabbath the Moskat sons went to their own homes, and on Saturday evening, with the appearance of the first three stars, they came back to finish the mourning period. But after the interruption it was not quite the same. Joel and Nathan began to discuss practical matters: the property their father had owned, his will, his bank deposits, the contents of the safe. Koppel came over from Praga, and all were busy making computations on sheets of paper. Pearl, Leah, and the in-laws, Esther and Saltsha, went into another room to talk in private. The jewelry that had belonged to Meshulam's first two wives had disappeared; they suspected Rosa Frumetl of having taken it.

"It's her work. No doubt about it. She's got the eyes of a thief,"

Leah remarked.

"Where could she have hidden it?" Saltsha asked.

"There are those who would help her."