The Family Moskat (41 page)

"Sons of dogs! Unbelievers! Spies! German swine!" Some of the soldiers spat into the faces of the Jews; others -261-smashed their

fists into the pleading mouths or aimed kicks with their heavy boots. Most just stared passively at these long-coated, disheveled, frightened people. At every roadside shrine the drivers crossed themselves and murmured prayers to Mary and Jesus that they be permitted to return home safely with their horses and carts.

The sun was beginning to set, but no village was yet in sight. The soldiers sang savage-sounding songs in their untamed voices. The cavalry shouted and cursed, waving their unsheathed swords.

Horses stumbled and fell. Already some of the wounded were being brought back from the battlefront. They lay on the bare ground, their yellow faces agonized, with bloodstained bandages wrapped around them. The air stank with the smell of sweat, urine, and cart grease. Rabbi Dan sat huddled on the straw packing of the wagon. He had never doubted that Israel was a lamb among the wolves, surrounded by idolaters, murderers, lechers, and drunkards. This was the lower world, where Evil reigned. Where else would Satan build his fortress? Where else would the hosts of darkness lie in wait? But he comforted himself with the knowledge that everything came from God. Even the Devil had his roots in the divine creation. The important thing was that man had free will. Every blemish would find its purification. Uncleanliness was in reality an illusion.

Here, stumbling along the wanderer's path, the rabbi met the powers of evil face to face. It was as though the noise and the stench of corruption and death had extinguished in him the spark of godliness. He had lost the pillar he leaned against for support.

He wanted to pray, but his lips were powerless to form the words. He closed his eyes. He felt that he was falling into an abyss. He gripped the sides of the wagon and began to recite the afternoon prayer, but in his confusion he for-got how the words went. Over and over he found himself repeating the same phrase: "Happy are they that dwell in Thy house."

In the evening the procession reached the village of Modly-Bozhytz. Here there was no sign at all of war. The market place was still and empty. Oil lamps glowed through the windows. In the study house boys and older men sat at the tables studying.

The local rabbi and some of the elders came out to greet Reb Dan and his sons, and escorted them into the synagogue, while the women went into the rabbi's house. Reb Dan stood against -262-the eastern

wall to murmur the evening prayers. It was good to stand again near an Ark of the Law. From the tables came the low voices of the devout, reading the Talmud. Reb Dan breathed deep the familiar prayerhouse fragrance. Outside there were foul-ness and uncleanliness; here there was the odor of holiness and piety.

"Forgive us, O our Father, for we have sinned; pardon us, O our King, for we have transgressed." He murmured the words and pounded his fist against his chest in repentance for the doubts that had assailed him.

A youngster with long sidelocks and big dark eyes came up to the rabbi and asked for an interpretation of a difficult passage in the Commentaries. There seemed to be a contradiction in an analysis of the renowned Rabbi Tam. Reb Dan took the candle from the boy's hand and peered at the open volume with its yellowed pages, dotted with melted wax. "There is no contradiction," he said. "The Rabbi Tam is correct," and he explained to the youth the complications of the passage.

It had been Reb Dan's intention to establish the family in Lublin until things became more settled. But Levi, who fancied himself an expert in political matters, declared that the battle would soon be shifting in that direction. It would be better, he argued, to go on to Warsaw. After some discussion Reb Dan dispatched two letters, one to his grandson, Asa Heshel, and the other to a former disciple of his, Godel Tsinamon, who had become wealthy in the capital city. The letters requested that lodgings be arranged for him and the family. The others added postscripts to the letter to Asa Heshel--his grandmother, mother, sister, uncles and aunts, and cousins as well, greeting his wife, Adele, with warmth and affection, and, even though she was not known to them, they sent their respectful wishes to his mother-in-law, Rosa Frumetl, and to his stepfather-in-law, Reb Wolf Hendlers.

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MOST of the well-to-do Warsaw Jews who maintained cottages along the Otwotsk line usually stayed on in their summer places until the Rosh Hashona holidays began. Others remained until the New Year period was over. But this year all of them returned to Warsaw early. This was wartime. There was a dearth of food, and the scarcity grew from hour to hour. The German armies were winning victory after victory; the Russians were steadily retreating; the fighting was coming closer. In times like these who had the peace of mind to loll about in the country?

As in the years past, the Moskat women had put on some weight and the men were tanned by the sun. They came back to find their apartments in need of painting and overhauling, but all such activities were postponed. The women immediately went to the market places to stock up with food, but it was hard to find any substantial supply. The stores were for the most part shuttered, the storekeepers standing outside the doors in their long coats. They held whispered conversations with steady customers and let them in through rear doors. Some of the storekeepers refused to accept paper money and insisted on being paid with silver or gold coin.

The tenants of the Moskat houses, as though they had conspired together, stopped paying rent. The Moskat family found itself without any income.

Nathan, Pinnie, and Nyunie went to call on Koppel at the office, but Koppel could not be of any help. It was impossible to attach furniture or start eviction proceedings. The young men were being mobilized. Meshulam's estate had not yet been divided among the heirs. Nathan, who was inclined to be most optimistic when things looked blackest, insisted that the war could not last long.

-264-"They'll

beat each other black and blue, the stubborn fools," he said, "and then they'll have to come to an understanding."

But Pinnie, who read all the newspapers and fancied himself shrewd in political affairs, maintained that the war could well last a year, or even two.

"They're not short of soldiers," he declared. "The rulers have plenty of time."

"So what is there to do?" Nathan asked.

"Pull in your belt and wait for it to be over. It won't harm you if you lose a few pounds."

While the others talked, Koppel paced back and forth. The war wasn't doing him any good, either. He owned two houses himself, one in Praga and one in Warsaw proper. He bit his lip and blew out thin puffs of cigarette smoke. The old man had been right, he reflected. Most people were thieves, frauds, and scoundrels, a curse on their corrupt souls!

Koppel had reached the goal to which he had long aspired. He was to all intents and purposes the trustee and guardian of the Moskat wealth. Queen Esther, Joel's wife, complained that she was left without a copper; Joel was sick and there was not enough money in the house for a sack of flour or a bag of potatoes.

Hannah, Pinnie's wife, demanded that a family meeting be called and the estate be divided up without delay; she was ready, as a matter of fact, to sell her share. Nyunie talked in a way that told no one where he really stood. The fact was that he had ten thousand rubles in cash put safely away, and besides, his son-in-law, Fishel, was a wealthy man.

Reb Meshulam's oldest daughter, Pearl, the widow, did not come to call on Koppel. She had her own properties and business interests. Besides, she was a sick woman and the doctors had warned her to avoid any excitement. Leah did not put in an appearance, either; Koppel would not let her go under. What was it they said?--"Old love doesn't get rusty."

Hama wanted to rush to Koppel and plead for help, but Abram warned her sternly that if she dared to humble herself before his blood enemy he would never again set foot in the house.

"I'll not ask that bootlicker for any favors," Abram yelled. "Not as long as I live!" He pounded his fists on the table until the lamp shook.

-265-"But, Abram,"

Hama complained, and blew her nose, red with catarrh, "it's getting worse and worse. We'll be left without a piece of bread."

"Then we'll eat cake."

He went out banging the door behind him. He could not understand her panic. Suppose she went hungry for a while? Anyway she ate less than a bird, and Stepha was hardly ever home, always hanging around with that student of hers. With Bella it was different; she was nursing a child; she needed milk for her breasts. Ah, what a grandchild that was!

For all that he did not fancy being classified as a grandfather, Abram simply could not help adoring the infant, the very image of himself-two drops of water. The only thing that annoyed him was that the family insisted that the child be called Meshulam, after his great-grandfather. What a name for a helpless baby! When it came to children, the women were the ones who managed everything. After all, they had to carry them and bear them and rear them. A man could get to be a parent without any bellyaches.

In the street Abram lit a cigar and started to walk slowly toward Marshalkovska Street. He reminded himself that he still had not seen Asa Heshel. The outbreak of the war, the hurried journey home from the country, the mobilization, the scurrying around for food, the trouble with Koppel, had driven thoughts of anything else out of his mind. Besides, Bella had had a difficult childbirth.

For three days she had been in labor. Hama had run to pray at the graves of her parents. The grandmother on the father's side had run to the synagogue. The doctors had talked of taking the child with instruments. At such a time how could he, Abram, have had in his mind the affairs of Hadassah and Asa Heshel? But now that Bella and the child, thank God, were all right, he could take an interest in things again. The world had to go on, even if the war was between Gog and Magog. He went into a druggist's and telephoned to Gina.

"Gina, darling, it's me, Abram."

"What? You're still talking to common people?" Gina exclaimed scornfully. "I thought you were too high and mighty for that.

After all, a grandfather! It's no small thing. Well, anyway, congratulations and good luck. How's the child?"

"Ah, what a boy! Never anyone like him since they started to spawn 'em. A voice like a lion. He takes one look at me with -266-those eyes

and I'm done for. I don't envy the girls who'll fall into his hands."

"Shame on you. An infant, a dove, and you're talking about such things already. You must be crazy."

"You're crazy yourself. Just wait fifteen or sixteen years and you'll see what this nursling can do. Tell me, Gina, I hear that Asa Heshel is back in Warsaw."

"My God, Abram, have you just thought of it? What an ego-tist you are! The young man's been searching all over for you. He's called a thousand times, but go and look for the wind in the fields."

"Where is he?"

"You ask me that? And you were at one time his patron! Any-way, he came running in on me--that was before the war broke out--pale as chalk, as though he were being led to the gallows. I tell you, he was terror-stricken. 'What's the matter?' I asked him, and, to make a long story short, he had quarreled with his wife and run away from her."

"Where is he? What's he doing? Where's he living? Has he seen Hadassah?"

"How do I know? I haven't been spying on him. He lives here, in this building. All of my rooms were taken and I got him a place at those seamstresses', the socialists. He has a hole of a room, but it's better than wallowing around in the gutter."

"What? That's fine. Fine. Has he got a telephone?"

"Are you out of your mind? How would paupers like that get a telephone?"

"Listen to me, Gina. Don't think for a minute that I forgot about the young man. Abram Shapiro doesn't forget his friends. I've been thinking about him day and night. But when a man's got a daughter in labor and she's shrieking to the rooftops, it's a different thing. This business of having a baby is no joke. And I've been thinking of you, too, Ginusha. Tell me, how are you?"

"Me? The world's forgotten me."

"Fool. There's only one Gina in the world. All I have to do is think of you and I feel warm all over."

"Never mind the flattery."

"Well, all right. Anyway, I'm coming to see you soon."

The tramcars had stopped on Marshalkovska Street. Columns of soldiers marched by toward Mokotov. Troops of cavalry rode by.

-267-Fully equipped

infantry companies plodded along shouting out some piece of doggerel about a girl who went gathering mushrooms. Horses went by, drawing cannon after them. Machine guns stood on wagons, covered with waterproofing. A military band trumpeted away. Yes, this was war. Abram followed the tramping soldiers. His feet, of their own volition, began to march in time to the music.

"What sort of business is this?" Abram thought. "Men are marching off to be killed, and they serenade them to their death.

Ah, dear Lord, what a mess You've made of things! A fine world You've managed to turn out. I'd give anything to know what You're thinking of up there on Your throne of glory in the seventh heaven.

Do You know, I wonder, that there's a man called Abram Shapiro here on the earth? Ah, Father in heaven, You've got the heart of a bandit."

Near Iron Gate Square Abram climbed into a droshky and told the driver to take him to Shviento-Yerska Street. He could hardly wait now until the carriage reached Gina's address; he had an urgent need to speak to her and find out all about Asa Heshel. "How could I have waited so long?" he wondered. "He must surely think that I don't want to have anything to do with him any more.

The cursed war--it's responsible for everything."

"Hey, driver, faster. I'll give you a good drink."

He felt ashamed at his own words. When the war had started, the government-controlled liquor stores had been given orders to pour their stocks into the gutters. Old Nicholas had probably become afraid that a drunken population might get a notion to topple him off his throne, together with that Czarina of his, and Rasputin, too.