The Family Moskat (38 page)

They smiled and giggled, trying to push each other forward, their cheeks flushed. In their expressions there was an embarrassment as well as a warmth he had seldom noticed in the outside world.

"Don't let me interfere with what you were doing," he said. "I just happened to drop in."

"Oh, it doesn't matter at all."

"Has the library been here long?"

"Tell him, Jekuthiel," David Katz said.

"Why me? You're the director."

"You know the troubles we've had better than I do."

"What's the difference? It's a bit of a library, that's all. Your grandfather thunders to the heavens, but, to tell the truth, no one pays any attention to him any more. The Chassidim have lodged complaints against us with the authorities three times, but so far we've been able to manage."

-241-"Tell him

about the time they broke in and burned all our books."

"It's true. The fanatics broke in through the windows. Now we have heavy shutters. But if it isn't one trouble it's another. Just now it's factions: Hebrew versus Yiddish, Zionism versus Socialism, God knows what else. Making fools of themselves--just as in the big cities."

Asa Heshel looked over the shelves of books. Most of the volumes were well worn and thumbed, the stamping on the covers faded. He opened a book or two at random; there were sentences underlined and copious marginal notes. Some of the names of the authors he was not familiar with; apparently a few new writers had emerged since he had been away from Poland. On a table lay magazines and a literary anthology in paper covers, its pages stapled together. He leafed through it, and saw poems with lines consisting of only a couple of words and many dots--a sort of European quality penetrating the Yiddish characters. In an article under the title
"Jews with a Mission"

one author had written:

We Jews are tired of all these metaphysical missions which the
German rabbiners and the other Jewish leaders have saddled on
our weak shoulders. We reject the argument that we must turn
back the clock of history and return to Palestine. The Jewish
masses love their homes. They want to live in brotherhood with
their neighbors and to fight shoulder to shoulder with them for a
better world, where there will be neither nations, classes, nor
religions, but only one united, advancing humanity
.

It was nearly midnight when the library closed. Asa Heshel, Jekuthiel, and David Katz walked on ahead, the others trailing behind them, the men and women arm in arm. There were loud conversations and laughter. One of the girls began to sing a song; the men joined in.

Their footsteps echoed sharp and clear on the cobbled road. Shadows moved on ahead of them, the shapes con-verging, mingling, and separating as in the rounds of a dance. Jekuthiel smoked a cigarette and smiled.

"If your grandfather could see this!" he said.

"There are worse sins than this committed in Tereshpol Minor,"

someone commented.

The others left Asa Heshel at the entrance to the Shulgass. He shook hands with each one of them; a girl in spectacles pressed -242-his hand with

special fervor, her glasses blinking in the moonlight. Soon they were gone and Asa Heshel was left alone. He took a deep breath and listened intently. Somewhere an owl hooted, a mournful wail as though over some unbearable sorrow. Asa Heshel knew that Adele would be lying awake waiting for him, ready to welcome him with accusations, complaints, and nagging. He already knew by heart what she would say and what he would an-swer. Then there would come the making up, the caresses in the dark, and the lies.

ONE EVENING, when Hadassah was home alone and sat reading a book on the porch of the summer cottage in Usefov, she heard someone cough. She looked up. Rosa Frumetl was standing on the lawn below, her hand resting against the trunk of a pine.

She was wearing a flowered dress and white shoes. Her wrinkled face was burned from the sun, her nose was red, and her lips were pressed tightly together. She stared at Hadassah with the determined look of one who has come bent on some mischief.

Hadassah let the book fall from her hands.

"I'm not the guest you expected, eh?" Rosa Frumetl said in a harsh voice. "I've come to tell you that we know all your carryings-on.

The truth comes out like oil on the top of water."

"What is it you want?" Hadassah stammered.

"You know all right. You're not the saint you make yourself out to be. Don't think that the world's gone crazy altogether. There's still a God in heaven who sees everything and hears everything. The Almighty takes His time, but He punishes with a heavy hand."

"You'll pardon me-"

-243-"I didn't

come to pay you a neighborly visit. I'll talk plain words. You're false to your husband. And you're stealing someone else's husband. I just want to warn you that you're playing with fire. Whatever you do with yourself is your affair. If you choose to run around with your naked hair showing, like any slut, well, I'm not God's Cossack. In God's good time you'll get His punishment. But I'll not allow you to break up my daughter's life. I tell you I'll raise such an alarm that people'll come running from all over the neighborhood."

Hadassah felt the blood leave her face. "I don't know what you mean.

"You write him love letters. You make a mock of everything decent in a Jewish woman. You're getting ready to run away with him and be his mistress. Do you think that people's eyes are blind? In the first place it'll only take a few weeks before he gets sick and tired of you. And in the second place--do you hear me?--

I'll not let it get as far as that. I'll let your husband know and I'll let your mother know. God help us, she's a sick woman, and what you're doing'll send her to her grave. And besides, it's against the law. In Poland whores must carry a yellow pass.

"You'll be good enough to go."

"I'll go when I'm good and ready. You keep on acting like a wanton and I'll pull the hair out of your head! Don't forget, you're no stranger to the inside of a prison."

Hadassah tore herself up from her chair and started to run into the house. Rosa Frumetl ran after her, taking short, mincing steps, and shouting out: "Wanton! Prostitute! Help!"

Hadassah closed the glass-paned door. Rosa Frumetl started to bang with her fists against the framework. The caretaker's dog awoke and ran toward her, barking. There was a stick leaning on the rail of the veranda. Rosa Frumetl picked it up and waved it at the dog.

"Away! Away! So you turn your dogs on me. There is still a world to come, dear Father in heaven! May the plagues of Egypt afflict you! May the epilepsy toss you as high as the roof!"

The caretaker's wife came out of her cottage and quieted the dog.

Rosa Frumetl said something to her in Polish. Hadassah went to the closet, snatched an overcoat, hat, and bag, rushed through the kitchen door, and ran to the gate that opened on the meadow. She hurried to the Usefov station. Every once in a -244—

while she stopped to look back, as though afraid that Rosa Frumetl was behind her. There was a train waiting at the platform.

She climbed in without buying a ticket. It was only when the train started that she found it was bound for Otwotsk. Near Shvider some men and women were bathing in the river. The sun had gone down, and purple shadows lay on the smooth surface of the water. A big bird flew low. Phonographs could be heard grinding out music in the cottages near the tracks. Couples strolled along the wooded paths. A venerable-looking Jew stood near a tree, piously shaking his body back and forth, reciting the evening prayers. At the Otwotsk station Hadassah got out and bought a ticket to Warsaw. There was a train already in, but it wasn't due to leave for another twenty minutes. She climbed into the dark coach and sat down. She was the only one there. She closed her eyes. Ahead of her the locomotive emitted a muffled puffing and snorting. The smoke from its stacks came in through the window. A deep calm seemed to have fallen on Hadassah's spirit. The blow she had suffered was so cataclysmic that it was as though she were left without the possibility of pain. But at the same time she was aware that the real anguish would come later.

She felt cold and put up her coat collar. If he had been there to hear all that! the thought flashed through her mind. If only he knew how much she was paying.

In the last letter she had written to him she had given him detailed instructions for finding her. He was to come to meet her at the cottage; Fishel was never there during the week, and she had so arranged matters that there would be none of the usual visitors around. And now all the plans were shattered, and she didn't know what to do next. Maybe she should go to Klonya's.

But how would he know that she was there? No, she would have to go home to the apartment on Gnoyna Street. But what sort of excuse would she be able to give to Fishel for coming back to Warsaw in the oppressive summer heat? And what would Shifra say when she returned to the cottage and found her gone? What would the caretaker think? Rosa Frumetl must have told her everything, and now the busy tongues would spread the news throughout the region. Besides, how could she be sure that Rosa Frumetl wouldn't tell Fishel? She might even call him on the telephone from the country. No question but that she had gone straight to Hadassah's mother, and then Mamma'd get another at-tack.

-245-The

common-sense thing would be to go back to Usefov at once.

What was the use of running away? The secret was no secret any longer. But how was it possible for her to go back?

Rosa Frumetl's insults, her banging on the door, her calls for help, had thrown Hadassah into a panic. The whole thing had the aspect of one of those childish nightmares which came back every time something frightened her, the same gnawing in her stomach, the chill at her ribs, the tingling at the roots of her hair.

The train started. The conductor came in and lit the lamp. He took Hadassah's ticket and punched two holes in it. Hadassah looked out of the window. The Shvider River lay still in the night. The woods around were bathed in darkness. At Falenitz, Hadassah caught a glimpse of the inside of an inn, with porters and draymen playing dominoes. At Miedzeshin, where Klonva lived, Hadassah got to her feet, as though to get off, but she sat down again. After the train passed Vaver, factory buildings could be seen near the tracks. Smoke rose from chimneys. Workers moved about behind barred window panes. Soon the train passed the Praga cemetery. A strange envy gripped Hadassah. What was it like under those mounds of earth? Did they know, those people who lay there, that they were dead? A lighted tramcar rumbled past the cemetery tailings. A raised signal light changed color, from red to green. In a few moments the train reached the bridge.

The Vistula flowed clear and limpid between its banks. A divine peace lay upon the waters, like the silence before Creation.

The train came to a stop. Hadassah got out. Where was her valise? Yes, she remembered, she hadn't taken one with her. How oppressive it was here in the city! The heat beat up in waves from the concrete platform. Hadassah walked past the locomotive, huge and black, emitting a foul stench of coal fumes. Oil dripped from the massive wheels and axles. The chimney still coughed hoarsely. Through the window could be seen a half-naked man in front of the open furnace. His face was covered with soot. His eyes reflected the flames of the fire, like a devil in Gehenna.

Outside the station, droshkies darted along. Newsboys were calling out extras; Hadassah caught a phrase, something about a note that Austria had sent to Serbia. So apparently all the talk about war had not been idle. And it was at such a time that Asa Heshel was coming! Because of her he would fall right into the maw of disaster.

-246-She stopped at

a store on the Muranov and telephoned Abram's house. There was no answer. He was apparently out of the city with Ida or maybe hanging around somewhere with the actress of whom Hadassah had heard talk. Then she telephoned her Aunt Leah. She wanted to talk to Masha, but Masha wasn't at home; she must be with that painter, that gentile boy of hers. Dear God in heaven, was there no one she could talk to? She picked up the telephone again and called her father. There was no answer there either. She went out of the store and hailed a droshky. She climbed in and told the driver to take her to her flat on Gnoyna Street.

2

It was Wednesday evening of the next week. The telephone in the corridor rang. Hadassah got up to answer it. She picked up the receiver, her fingers trembling. "Proshen," she said in Polish, "Please." There was no answer; all she could hear through the receiver was a hoarse scratching and whistling. Then suddenly a low voice came through clearly.

It was he. Hadassah tried to speak, but there was a tightness in her throat. It was as though the power of speech had left her. Her teeth chattered. "It's me, Hadassah."

There was silence for a few moments, then she said: "Where are you?"

"In a druggist's, on the Krochmalna."

"When did you come? Dear God in heaven."

She heard him murmur something, but she did not make out what he was saying.

"Speak louder."

He again said something, but although she heard every word separately, she could not grasp the meaning. She could hear him saying: "Last night--I mean the night before--from Shvider."

What was he doing in Shvider, she wondered.

Aloud she said: "Wait for me. At the corner of Krochmalna and Gnoyna. Do you know where I mean?"

"Yes."

"I'll be there soon. I'm leaving now."

She tried to hang up the receiver, but her fingers were powerless to release it; it was a second or two before she could put it on its hook. Thank God Fishel wasn't at home! She went into -247-her room and

opened a closet. Dear God, the day had come at last! She looked over the row of clothes. They were all winter things; her summer dresses were in Usefov. She opened a cupboard and took out a black belt. She put on a broad-rimmed straw hat. Where was her key? And her bag? She wanted to turn off the gaslight, but she couldn't reach it. Well, never mind, let it burn.