The Family Moskat (42 page)

2

The droshky came to a halt Abram paid the driver and went into the building in which Gina had her flat. For a while he stood at the gate looking out toward the Krashinski Gardens.

Whether it was only a trick of his imagination or it was really happening, Abram seemed to hear in the distance the blowing of a shofar, the traditional ram's horn, going through all the customary staccatos and glissandi. "The Day of Atonement is getting close," Abram thought gloomily. "The fish in the water tremble. The day of judgment approaches. And what will the -268-end of everything be? What judgment will be inscribed for me for the things I've done this year? My God, the way I've been behaving, who would know that I'm a Jew?"

A ragged beggar came up to him, hand outstretched. Abram handed him a silver forty-kopek piece. The beggar stammered: "I have no change.""It's all for you," Abram told him, and listened while the beggar fervently wished him a blessed new year and the merit of always having something to spare for the poor.

He went inside the gate, the tears starting to his eyes. At the entrance door he hesitated. It had been his intention to call on Gina, but now he decided to visit the flat of the seamstresses first. Maybe Asa Heshel would be there.

He called to a little girl playing in the courtyard.

"Where's the apartment where the dressmakers live? Franya, one of them's called."

"You mean the dark one? The pretty one?"

"Yes."

"And the other is lame?"

"Yes."

"In the last house over there. On the third floor."

"Tell me, little girl. Would you like to have a ten-groszy piece?"

"I don't know."

"Here's ten groszy to buy caramels."

"My mamma told me I mustn't take anything from strangers."

"I won't tell anybody. It'll be a secret between us."

He pushed a coin into the child's hand. She looked at him in bewilderment and said: "Thank you."

"God bless you, my child," Abram answered.

He watched as the girl hurried away, noticing her pitifully thin legs and the ribbon bound in her little pigtails. He put a match to his cigar. "Ah, how easy it is to do good! Dear God, why do I do nothing? I've given myself over altogether to material things. I've completely forgotten that a man has a soul. Dear Father in heaven, forgive me."

Struggling up the three flights of stairs was difficult. He had to stop frequently to rest and catch his breath. The stairs were covered with dust and refuse. On one of the landings a girl sat grating horseradish. From the doors of the flats came the smell of fried foods, beet soup, and groats. Apparently some artisans lived in the flats; Abram could hear the sound of ham--269-mering and sawing, and the whir of a machine. On the third floor, not knowing which door led into the seamstresses' flat, he listened for the sound of a sewing-machine. His nostrils caught a whiff of the charcoal used for heating the pressing iron and of burnt wool. It must be there, through that door.

He knocked, opened the door, and entered a large room. Yes, this was it. Not only were the two girls, Franya and Lila, there, but a third woman, occupied in trying on a dress. She was wearing only bloomers; the corset around her enormous hips reminded him of a suit of armor. When Abram entered, she squealed and ran behind the screen. Franya went out. Lila stopped the machine and looked at him questioningly.

"Excuse me," Abram said. "I knocked but no one answered."

"What can I do for you?"

"I'm looking for a young man who lives here. Asa Heshel."

"Over there, on the left."

Abram went toward the indicated door. Behind him he could hear the whispering of the women. "I charged in like a bull in a china shop," he thought with chagrin. He put out his hand to knock at the latch, but his touch thrust it open. He gaped at what he saw.

Asa Heshel and Hadassah were seated on the bed, Asa Heshel in his shirt sleeves. Hadassah had taken off her hat, and her hair was drawn back in a Greek knot. She was wearing a white blouse and a striped skirt. A gas lamp was burning. Asa Heshel started up from the bed, almost overturning the small table near by. Hadassah started up too.

Abram began to shout--his custom whenever he found himself in an embarrassing position. "So you don't recognize me, eh? So you've got too high and mighty to recognize me!"

"Uncle!"

"Who else? I'm at least thankful you know me."

He closed the door behind him, seized Asa Heshel by the shoulders, and kissed him fervently on both cheeks. Then he pushed him away and grabbed hold of Hadassah.

"Yes, me! Your Uncle Abram!" He kissed her on the lips.

Hadassah held him tightly and pressed kisses on his cheeks and beard.

"Well, all right, enough! First you forget that I'm alive and then you make a fuss over me!"

His cigar had fallen to the floor. His stick stood upright, leaning against him. It clattered and slid to the floor.

-270-"Well, all

right," Abram growled. "Don't be afraid. Call me anything you want--murderer, swindler, rascal. But even a villain wouldn't harm his own flesh and blood."

"I've looked all over for you," Asa Heshel said.

"None of that or I'll let you have this stick over your head! When you came back, the first thing you should have done was to call on me. My God, here I am thinking and talking about him day and night--and here he is, in Warsaw all the time, hid-ing away God knows where, like a mouse in a hole. I was so furious that if I'd run into you I'd have torn you apart. But now I've calmed down. The devil with you. If you don't give a damn for me, then I return the compliment. That's the first thing. And so far as you're concerned"--he turned to Hadassah--"I've got a different kind of reckoning to make with you. If you weren't a female, one of the weaker sex, look-at-me-but-don't-dare-touch-me, I'd let you have it so hard you'd have to go crawling around to collect your teeth."

"If that's the way you feel, then go ahead."

"Mind your business. I'll do as I like. Consider yourself whatever you like--a beauty, a
grande dame
, a pish-pash--to me you're nothing but a child, a baby in diapers."

"Uncle, they can hear every word in the other room."

"Let them hear. I'm telling the God's truth. What's the idea of spending your time in this stinking hole? My God, the world's bright and sunny outside, and here the two of you sit in the darkness! Let's get out! Come with me! Let's carry on and paint Warsaw red! Well yowl and shout till the houses fall in like the walls of Jericho!"

"Oh, Uncle, if you only knew--" Hadassah stopped short.

"What is there to know? I don't know a thing. I'm an idiot. Look at him! Look how he's grown, that bargain of yours! A regular
boulevardier
, a European dandy! My God, how the years fly by!

Come here, closer to me. I must kiss both of you!"

Abram grabbed both of them and began to shake them back and forth. The table fell to the floor. The door opened timidly and Franya looked in, smiling.

"What's going on here? A pogrom?"

"So you know me, eh? I thought you didn't recognize me when I came in."

"It's easy to remember you, Mr. Abram."

-271-"If I

knew he was living here with you I'd have been here day and night."

"Please excuse him," Hadassah said. "My uncle has no control over his feelings. I'll put everything right."

"Oh, don't bother about that at all," Franya replied. "There's a woman asking for you," she continued, addressing Asa Heshel.

"For me?"

"I took her into the kitchen. You can go out to see her there."

Franya went out, closing the door behind her. Asa Heshel flushed a painful red. Abram shook his head meaningfully.

Hadassah sat down on the edge of the bed and got up again.

"Who is it?" Abram asked. "My God, do all the women chase you?"

"I don't know. Nobody's visited me here. I can't understand."

Maybe it was Adele, or her mother! How had they found out where he was?

"Well, go and see who it is. Well wait here."

Abram walked over to the window and stared out at the blind wall opposite. Hadassah picked up the overturned chair and table. Asa Heshel put on his coat and straightened his tie.

"The whole thing doesn't make sense," he murmured.

He went out. Hadassah picked up a book and sat down, turning the pages with trembling fingers. The gas lamp flickered. Abram kept staring out of the window, looking up to the rectangle of sky visible between the rooftops. That Asa Heshel and Hadassah would be meeting each other Abram knew. But that she would come to him in this dark hole in a house where they were known, that was more than he could have imagined. If Dacha heard about it! he thought. It would finish her off!

He shook his head. All of a sudden he felt a strong distaste for this new generation. He remembered that his own daughter Stepha had been dragging around with that student of hers for the last four years and nothing seemed to come of it. It occurred to him again that Yom Kippur was not far off, that he had a bad heart, and that the time when he would have to make his final reckoning was drawing closer and closer.

-272-

3

It was his mother whom Asa Heshel found waiting for him in the other room. She was wearing a long wide-sleeved coat, and her matron's wig was covered with a net scarf. In one hand she was carrying a satchel and in the other a cloth-wrapped bundle. Asa Heshel was so astonished that it was several moments before he could find his voice.

"Mamma!"

"My child!"

She embraced him, still holding on to the bundles.

"When did you come? How did you get here?"

"I came on the train. Your grandfather wrote you a letter. Why didn't you answer? I thought--God knows what."

"I couldn't find any lodgings."

"Is that a reason not to answer? My God, to survive what I've gone through I must be made of iron. Where are you living? Where's your wife? Who's that girl that opened the door?"

Asa Heshel felt his mouth go dry. "I don't live here. I just have a room here," he managed to say.

"What do you need a room for?" His mother looked at him, her gray eyes wide open. Her beaked nose was pale; her chin sharp.

"I'm studying here. Wait a second."

He left his mother and went back to his own room.

"It's my mother. My mother is here," he announced in a forlorn voice.

Abram and Hadassah were seated on the edge of the bed; they had apparently been talking about him.

"Your mother?" Hadassah repeated.

"Yes."

"Well, an exciting day," Abram remarked, and struck his hands together. "Where did she come from? Did you expect her?

Where are you going to talk to her? You can't bring her in here."

"I'll go down with her somewhere. The whole thing's so unexpected."

"All right, all right, brother. Just don't lose your head. Your mother's more important than anything else. I'll tell you what: tonight I'll be at Hertz Yanovar's. Come over there if you can. You too, Hadassah."

-273-Hadassah did

not answer. She got up and put on her hat. Her face was pale, and her expression as she looked at Asa Heshel was a mixture of doubt and fear.

"I should like to meet her," she ventured after some hesitation.

"When? Now?"

"No. Maybe not."

"It's all so mixed up. I can't understand it. My grandfather wrote to me. I was supposed to find lodgings for them. And now, all of a sudden--"

"Is the family coming here?" Abram asked.

"They've been driven out."

"A fine complication!" Abram said. "Ah, brother, now you're in trouble. Where are you going to take her? You go down first, and we'll wait here for a while."

"I'm sorry. I really don't know how to--"

"Don't worry about it. A mother's a mother."

"Good-by, then. I don't know how to thank you for coming."

"All right, all right, brother. You better hurry along."

"Good-by, Hadassah. I'll telephone you. I really--" He went out. In the few minutes he had become bathed in perspiration.

His mother was waiting for him, standing up and facing the door.

"Mother, let's go downstairs," Asa Heshel said to her.

"Where'll we go? I'm dead tired. I've been walking around all day. The streets are so long. Where is Adele?"

"Give me the package. We'll take a droshky."

"Where to? Well, all right."

He took the bundle from her and they went out.

"What kind of a place is this?" his mother inquired. "So many steps. Enough to give you heart failure."

"This is Warsaw. The buildings are tall."

"Walk slower."

Asa Heshel took his mother's arm. She was walking unsteadily and holding on to the banister carefully as she went down.

"I'll take you to get something to eat. There's a kosher restaurant near here."

"How do you know it's kosher? How can you be sure?"

"The owner's a pious Jew." "What do you know about him?" "He's got a beard and sidelocks." "That's no guarantee."

-

274-"He's got a rabbinical license."

"Today's rabbis! They give out certificates to anyone that asks."

"What do you expect to do? Fast?"

"Don't worry. I'll not starve. I've got some cookies in the bundle. Tell me, is it always so crowded and noisy here, or is it on account of the war?"

"It's always this way."

"I walked the whole way, and the din was enough to make you deaf. It's impossible to get across the streets. Some strange woman helped me. How can people live in a Gehenna like this? The moment I stepped off the train I got a headache."

"You get used to it."

"Your grandfather wants to come here. Godel Tsinamon--maybe you've heard of him, an old disciple of your grandfather's --found a flat for us. He promises we'll be all right. The minute we wrote to him he answered. And a stranger."

"I don't know what to say, Mamma."

"Not to write a line! And at a time like this. The things I've gone through. As though I haven't suffered enough in my life. I haven't closed an eye for God knows how long. All sorts of bitter thoughts--I don't even want to mention them. You can imagine how things were if they let me travel here by myself. The train was full of soldiers. Tell me the truth, what's going on between you and your wife? I'm suspicious about the whole thing."