The Family Moskat (43 page)

"We've separated."

His mother's cheeks showed red flecks.

"So soon! A fine thing! The joy I have out of my life."

"We couldn't get along with each other."

"Do you think that explains anything? What's the matter with her?

What have you got against her? My life! First Dinah's husband gets lost somewhere in Austria and now you run away from your wife. What's the use of being born?"

"Mamma, I'll tell you everything."

"What's there to tell? Where are you taking me? My bones ache all over."

"I'll get a room for you in a hotel." "I don't need your hotels. Where is she, your wife?" "What's the difference?

You don't want to see her." "Why not? She's my daughter-in-law." "There'd be no sense to it."

-

275-"What do you think you're going to do? Hide her?" "I can't go to where she is."

"Then I'll go myself. I suppose it's my fate to be shamed and degraded. Give me her address."

"She lives on Sienna Street. Number eighty-three."

"Where is that? How will I find it? God help me, I'm all alone."

Asa Heshel tried to persuade her again to go into a restaurant, but she refused. He reconciled himself at last to taking her to Wolf Hendler's house, but there was no droshky in sight. His mother looked about her, shaking her head in bewilderment.

"What's this garden right here in the middle of the streets?"

"Krashinski Gardens. A park."

"My, the heat. Let me take another look at you. You don't look so good. What do you eat? Who takes care of you? Your wife is a decent, intelligent woman. And an orphan. You've caused her enough anguish. She tried to hide it, but I could tell. Your father's son, God help me!"

"Mamma!"

"How much can a human being stand? Ever since I've been old enough to face anything it's been nothing but misfortune. I've got no more strength left. I come to visit my own son; like a fool I expect to have a little joy in my life, and what do I find? She's a decent Jewish girl, a girl of a fine family. May God forgive you for what you're doing."

Asa Heshel started to answer, but just then he saw Abram and Hadassah on the other side of the street. He was holding on to her arm, and her head was lowered. Abram raised his cane and waved it. Asa Heshel noticed for the first time that he seemed to be aging; his shoulders were bent and his beard was graying. He felt a sudden surge of love for Abram, for Hadassah, for his mother.

The tears rose to his eyes. He saw Abram talking earnestly to Hadassah. He must be warning her not to throw her life away, he thought. Ah, God, what a dilemma to be in! He watched them.

They seemed so near and yet so distant, like close kin to whom one bids good-by before one sets out on a long journey. He turned toward his mother and kissed her cheek.

"Don't worry, Mamma," he murmured. "Everything will turn out all right."

"When? In the next world, maybe."

Asa Heshel sat with his mother in the droshky he had hailed to -276—

take them to the Hendlers' flat. With one hand she held on firmly to the side bar, and with the other to Asa Heshel's elbow. For years and years she had been accustomed to apologizing for him to his grandfather, his grandmother, his uncles and aunts. She had forgiven him all his irregularities. She had deprived herself of necessities to send money to him in Switzerland. Now he was dragging her over the streets of a big city, telling her stories that made no sense, bringing her nothing but shame and aggravation.

But how could she find her way alone? What would she do if she found Adele's door closed to her? In big cities anything was possible.

The droshky came to a halt. Asa Heshel paid the driver and led his mother into a doorway. In front there was a panel of nameplates and bells. He pressed a button and waited until he heard the answering buzz. Then he kissed his mother, saw her in through the door, and hurried away.

He wanted to go along Tvarda Street, but instead he found himself walking on Iron Street. He passed by Panska, Prosta, Lutska and Gzhybovska and emerged on Chlodno Street. Near the church he stopped. How could he be sure, it occurred to him, that Adele was at home? Maybe the servant had not let her in.

Maybe she was standing at the door this very moment, not knowing what to do next. "Dear God in heaven, what has become of me? I'm sinking deeper and deeper." The thought suddenly flashed through his mind that there was a profound connection between the fourth and the seventh commandments. He resumed his aimless walking. He kept his eyes open for a delicatessen store where there might be a telephone he could use. On Solna Street he went into a store, but the telephone was in use.

The proprietress, a woman in a white apron, wearing a wig piled high with braids, was holding a long conversation with someone.

She was laughing, showing a mouthful of gold teeth, apparently talking to a man about some business matter, but at the same time making frequent references to her husband. Every once in a while he heard her say: "And what about my husband? Do you think he'll keep quiet?"

Asa Heshel wanted to stalk out of the store, but all at once the woman ended her conversation with a request that the other send her ten pounds of liver and five pounds of turkey. The moment Asa Heshel picked up the phone, the operator asked him for the number. He gave it to her and waited. Who would answer the -277-phone? The servant? Wolf Hendlers? Rosa Frumetl? Adele? He heard Adele's voice.

"Who is calling?"

"It's me. Asa Heshel."

There was silence at the other end. Then she said: "I'm listening."

"My mother came to Warsaw. She insisted I take her to your house."

"She's here."

"I suppose you understand that--"

"The least you could do is have enough decency not to carry on this comedy in front of your mother," she said in Polish. "Maybe it makes no difference to you, but the servant thought she was a beggar. She wanted to give her a coin."

Asa Heshel felt a pang of pain.

"I couldn't--that is, I didn't have the time. I was ashamed."

"You needn't be ashamed of your mother. She is an honorable person and intelligent, too. My mother liked her at once. So did my stepfather."

"You don't understand. I didn't say I was ashamed of my mother. I was ashamed because of the situation."

"You ought at least to have the courage to face things. Please don't imagine for a minute that I want to get you to come back.

When you ran away from Shvider you showed the things you're capable of. You can imagine what my mother and stepfather thought. I tried to look for you, but you hid somewhere like a thief. And without a clean shirt to your back. But anyway, nothing surprises me now. If a son can abandon a woman like your mother, then-- How are you getting along? I hope you're happy with her."

"What are you talking about? She's married. She's with her husband."

"You mean she's disgracing her husband. Your mother's going to stay here with us. If you've got an ounce of honor in you, you'll come to see her."

"How can I?"

"There's nothing complicated about it. You can't go on hiding.

People have to face each other, even to get a divorce."

"When shall I come?"

"Now if you want. My stepfather is going out soon. The others will be taking a nap. We'll be able to discuss things privately."

-

278-"I'll be there in an hour." "I'll be waiting.

Good-by."

Asa Heshel had shaved earlier, but he went into a barber shop and had his hair cut and his face shaved again. Then he stopped at a restaurant and had some food. He boarded a tramcar and rode to Sienna Street, instead of walking the short distance. He would get there cool, clean, and composed-looking. He would tell them all the naked truth. He climbed the stairs to the flat slowly. The moment he pressed the bell, the door opened and Adele stood facing him. She was wearing a blue skirt and a white blouse. At her throat was the medallion that his mother had given her in Tereshpol Minor. He saw the flash of the gold wedding ring on her finger. She seemed to him somewhat stouter. The scent of caraway-seed perfume pricked at his nostrils. She said: "Come in," and held the door wide open.

She led Asa Heshel into her own room, which had once been the study of her stepfather's son, a surgeon. She indicated a chair, and Asa Heshel sat down. She herself sank down on the couch, tucking her feet under her. She looked at him with a curious glance.

"Well, my fine hero, how are things with you?"

"Where is my mother?" he asked.

"She's asleep."

She wanted the whole truth from him with no concealment, she said. He admitted everything. He had been with Hadassah, at her father's apartment, at Klonya's in Miedzeshin, in an unoccupied flat in Fishel's house. She demanded all the details, her pale eyes never abandoning their faint smile. How could she feel any anger at this awkward youth, with his Chassidic gestures--this strange mixture of embarrassment and shameless confession? She could see now that he would never change. That quick brain, behind that high forehead, would find a justification for any transgression.

"At least you have the decency to tell me the truth," she said at last.

She got up and went out, returning presently with a tray of tea and cakes.

"I don't want anything," Asa Heshel said.

"What are you afraid of? I won't poison you."

He drank some tea while she watched him. His thin lips sipped the liquid, like a child. A cake fell from his hand. He bent down -279-to pick it up,

but instead let it lie. She could see the blue veins in his temples pulsing and his face twitching. "The poor fool," Adele thought.

"I'll not divorce him. Why make her respectable? Let her stay the whore." She got off the couch and said: "What's the use of concealing things. You're going to be a father."

The tea glass shook in Asa Heshel's hand.

"Are you serious?"

"It's the truth."

"I don't understand."

"I'm in the fourth month."

He involuntarily dropped his eyes and looked at her stomach.

"What's the matter? You're pale as a ghost. I'll be the one to bear the child, not you."

In the corridor outside the door there was the sound of footsteps.

Both mothers had awakened from their naps.

IT WAS Fishel's custom to go back to his store after the evening

services at the prayerhouse. On this evening, however, he had decided to go directly home. Under wartime conditions there was little to do at the store anyway. Oil, soap, and fats were getting scarcer by the day, and Fishel was not eager to sell what he had.

At the prayerhouse the youths who would soon have to present themselves to the military for recruitment huddled together and talked in low tones of doctors who might be bribed, of a barber-surgeon who was adept in piercing eardrums, bringing on a rupture, pulling out a mouthful of teeth, or stiffening finger joints. They told one another about some official who was willing to supply forged birth certificates and identification papers. Most of them were already doing what they could on their own: eating herring, drinking brine and vinegar, and smoking countless cig--

280-arettes, all reputed to result in losing weight. When Fishel joined

the group they stopped their talk, not because they were afraid of him--he certainly wasn't an informer--but because, just the same, he wasn't one of their own. Fishel had a blue ticket of rejection from the army, a handsome wife, a store, a house of his own in the country, a gold watch, a rich father-in-law. How could a man like that know what went on in the heart of someone who couldn't buy his way out of the Czar's uniform?

Fishel left the prayerhouse and turned homeward. He walked along slowly. What would Hadassah be doing now, he wondered. Still running around? "Her mother is sick, and her father wastes his time with that fool Abram. He'll probably marry again the moment his wife dies. Who knows, he might still father half a dozen children." Fishel knit his brow. That's the way it always is, he reflected. All these inheritances fritter away to nothing. With God's help, he'd manage to hold on to what he had. Who was it had told him that that student had come back from Switzerland?

Was it possible that she was meeting him somewhere? No, she was not a loose woman. And she certainly was not a liar. She had told him the whole truth about everything right after they were married.

He climbed the stairs to his flat and knocked at the door.

Hadassah came to open it. He murmured: "Good evening" as he went in.

"Oh, it's you."

The telephone, which hung on the corridor wall, began to ring.

Hadassah hurried to pick up the receiver.

"Yes, it's me. What's that? Please talk a little clearer. What? My Uncle Abram? We just walked around for a while and then had lunch together. Where did you go? Oh, yes, I understand. I guessed it. The tickets? Please wait at Nyetsala Street near the Saxon Gardens, at quarter past eight." She hung up the instrument.

"Who was it?" Fishel asked.

"A girl friend of mine. Someone I went to school with."

"What does she want?"

"Nothing. Just to talk."

"You said something about tickets."

"Tickets? Oh, yes, we're going to the theater."

"Again?"

"'Why not? What else have I to do?"

-281-

"Lately you've got the habit of running around. It's lunch with Abram in the afternoon and theater in the evening. Our sages call such women gadabouts. According to the Talmud, they can be divorced without a settlement."

"Then divorce me."

"I'm just joking. The weather's getting colder. It's best for you to stay home. You might catch cold."

"Then I'll die."

"That's childish. You've got plenty to live for. We'll be rich. Oil is worth its weight in gold these days."

"I suppose that should make me happy."

"Why not? Money is an important thing. When will supper be ready? I'm hungry."

Hadassah went into the kitchen. Some pots stood steaming over the small flames on the stove. Shifra was away; her sweetheart had been taken into the army, and she spent her time running around to the other servant girls in the neighborhood to see if the letters they received contained any news of him. And now she had left the kitchen alone and the food had burned. Hadassah poured a cup of water into one of the pots. There was a cloud of steam and a noise of seething. No matter how diligently Hadassah followed the instructions in the cook book, she could somehow never manage to learn. She stood at the stove, the cup in her hand, and thought of Asa Heshel's mother's unexpected arrival. Now he'd gone over to Adele's, and his mother would patch things up and make peace between them. Shifra charged into the room.