The Family Moskat (48 page)

In the intermission he had taken a drink, as is the custom on the Day of Rejoicing, and now he felt dizzy. In previous years he had joined with the rest, dancing and drinking with his fellows, leading them along to his own house. Hadassah and Shifra had set out refreshments and wine. His father-in-law, his mother-in-law, and the whole family had joined them. Old and young had envied him his good fortune. But now he was going home alone. He hurried furtively along the streets. The door was not locked. He pushed it open and went inside. Neither Hadassah nor the servant was there. He took off his glasses and wiped them with a corner of his scarf. Things had come to a pretty pass when they went out and left the doors open. It was getting late. He was hungry. After some hesitation he went into the kitchen, took some white bread, fish, and a leg of the roasted goose in the oven. He was faint with hunger, but the moment he took a mouthful of food his appetite seemed to disappear. He tried to chant a ritual song as he ate, but it came out a mournful wail. A wanton --that's what she had become.

A loose woman. In the ancient days they would have let her drink the bitter water. If she had been defiled, her belly would swell and her thigh would rot. Feh,

-309-what

thoughts were these! "I'm not her enemy. There's a dear God in heaven. He sees the truth."

Fishel heard the outside door open. Hadassah? he wondered. Or maybe Shifra? He raised his eyes and saw a strange woman. She had a shawl over her shoulders. Did he know her? There was something vaguely familiar about her.

The lady isn't home?"

"What is it you want?"

"I work over at your father-in-law's, Nyunie Moskat's--"

"Oh, yes. What is it? What have you come for?"

"My mistress wants you both to come over, right away."

"What's the matter? My wife isn't in the house."

"My mistress says to come right over. She's very sick."

"What happened?"

"I don't know. Suddenly she felt very sick. She's a little better now, but--"

"All right. I'll come right away."

He put on his things and went out with the girl, locking the door behind him and putting the key under the mat outside. The two walked in silence along the street. "A ruined holiday," Fishel thought. "But what is there to do?" He felt a sense of satisfaction that he had been called, that he had not become entirely estranged from the family. In the differences between him and Hadassah, Dacha sided with him. He hurried along after the girl. Strange and unexpected thoughts kept crowding his brain. How would it be, he thought, if he divorced Hadassah and married this servant? She was probably an orphan. She would be loyal. And what if, instead, he just asked her to sin with him? He felt ashamed at his own thoughts and tried to drive them away; they persisted. And no wonder, he thought. Hadassah had not been to the
mikvah
for purification in months. After all, a man was made of flesh and blood.

He hurried after the girl, who was walking rapidly ahead of him.

"Better to walk behind a lion than behind a woman. . . ." He suddenly remembered the Talmudic injunction. They reached the house and went upstairs. The girl opened the door and let him in.

The moment he stepped inside he knew that his mother-in-law was very ill. The odor of medicines and the sickroom came pungently to his nostrils. He went into the living-room. His father-in-law stood in the middle of the room. He was smoking a cigarette and staring into space.

-310-"Go

inside. She wants to see you. But don't talk too much." "What happened?" "It looks very bad."

The sickroom opened directly off the living-room. One of the two beds was made up; in the other Dacha lay. Her face was pale and jaundiced. Fishel hardly recognized her.

"Come here. Don't be afraid." Dacha's voice was surprisingly loud and healthy. "Sit down near me. I suddenly felt very bad. A heart attack or something. They had to send for Dr. Mintz."

"What did he say?"

"I don't know. All I know is it's not good. Where's Hadassah?"

"She happened not to be in the house."

"Where is she?"

"Visiting a neighbor, or somewhere."

"Is the door closed?"

"Yes."

"Please lock it with the key."

Fishel did as she asked.

"Now come here. I want you to promise something. I want you to say Kaddish for me."

"But--but--you'll soon be well. You'll be all right."

"If it pleases God. Come closer. It's true you're a Chassid, but a sick woman's not a woman any more. I know everything.

Hadassah's traveling a false road. Oh, God, that I should have lived to see it!"

"Please--don't excite yourself about it."

Tears began to fall from Dacha's big black eyes.

"It's all his fault. He's dragged me to my grave and he's ruined his daughter. I forgive him. But whether God will forgive him, only He knows."

"Please, Mother-in-law, it's a holiday. With God's help, you'll be all right."

"Whatever happens between you and Hadassah, promise me you'll say Kaddish after me when I'm gone. I'll see that you get my share of the properties. I'll make the papers out tomorrow."

"Please. I don't want them."

"I sacrificed my life for her. Day and night I thought only about her welfare. And this is how she pays me back. I'll not find any rest in the grave."

"She's young. She doesn't know what she's doing."

Dacha began to sob convulsively. Fishel felt a lump gather in -311-his throat,

and his eyes filled with tears. He started to say something, but he heard hurried steps in the other room, a knock at the door, and Hadassah's voice: "Mamma, Mamma, let me in."

"Let her in," Dacha said.

Fishel went to the door, but his fingers trembled so that it took a few moments before he managed to turn the key. The door pushed open and Hadassah almost stumbled over him as she burst in. She glared at him angrily. Fishel thought he had never seen so much hate in her eyes as now. He stepped aside and Hadassah went over to the bedside.

"Mamusha--"

Dacha opened one eye. "What do you want?" she said. "I'm still alive."

"Mamusha! What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing. A little pain in the heart, that's all. It'll pass."

Hadassah turned to Fishel. "Go into the other room," she said. "Leave us alone."

"Let him stay here. I sent for him," Dacha interrupted.

Dacha closed her eyes again. For a few moments there was silence. It was difficult to tell whether she was sleeping or thinking. Faint tremors passed over her forehead. Her lips were queerly curled in a smile. Hadassah bent over the bed. She lifted a bottle of medicine from the table at the bedside and sniffed it. "If this were only poison," she thought. "I can't stand it any more. It's all my fault." Dacha opened her eyes, as though she divined what her daughter was thinking. She spoke.

"Come here. Give me your hand."

Hadassah put her hand in her mother's bony fingers. Dacha wanted to get the girl to give her solemn oath that she would give up Asa Heshel. Instead she was silent. "She'll not keep her promise anyway," Dacha thought. "I'll only be making her add to her sins." She dozed off. The bed seemed to be flying off with her into space. "Is this death?" she wondered. "Is this what people are so much afraid of? No, it can't be as simple as this."

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THE FAMILY kept nagging at Asa Heshel: if he did not want to be conscripted and sent to the front he would have to make himself defective in some way. Asa Heshel's mother had already taken to reading the Psalms, bedewing every page of the Psalter with her tears. His Uncle Zaddok thought that the easiest way out would be for Asa Heshel to have all his teeth extracted. Uncle Levi advised him to have an eardrum punctured; Dinah, his sister, was of the opinion that if Asa Heshel starved himself he would be underweight and would be released. Every day Adele came to her mother-in-law on Franciskaner Street, complaining and lamenting. Her mother and her stepfather, Reb Wolf Hendlers, talked openly about a divorce. Adele kept on saying that if Asa Heshel would give up that vile woman, she, in turn, would give him enough money to buy himself out of the service. But Asa Heshel would neither make a cripple of himself nor remain with his wife. The fear of military service that had come over him during the first few days disappeared. The more Adele's pregnancy advanced, the stronger was his desire to run away. He could foresee the whole frantic mess: the confinement, the midwife, the hospital, the doctors. He had to find protection in the army, like a murderer in a city of refuge.

Asa Heshel's days were a confusion of festival and impending disaster. His grandfather had stopped talking to him. He passed the holidays with the seamstresses. For the New Year, Fishel went to Bialodrevna, to be with his rabbi. Her mother wanted Hadassah to attend synagogue with her on Panska Street, but Hadassah had bought a ticket for another synagogue on Granitchna Street.

Immediately after the blowing of the shofar she left. Asa Heshel had got his overcoat, his suits, and his laundry back from Adele.

He met Hadassah at the Saxon Gardens.

-313-They got into a

droshky and Asa Heshel told the driver to pull down the top. They had found a little café on a side street not far from Lazhenki Park. There they drank coffee, ate cakes, chatted. Shifra had prepared a festive meal, but Hadassah had telephoned her to eat alone and gave her permission to stay overnight in Praga with her relatives.

Returning to the city, they took separate paths. They met at the gate of Hadassah's home on Gnoyna Street. Hadassah led Asa Heshel upstairs, then left him to go to the festival dinner at her mother's. Asa Heshel sat in the darkness and waited for her. The telephone rang, but he did not answer. He went to the window and looked out at the starry sky. He was filled with despair and hope. He was not going to the front yet. And even if he was killed, that might not mean the end. Was it possible that the whole cosmos was dead, and that life and consciousness were contained only in the cells of protoplasm? He began to walk back and forth. His eyes became accustomed to the darkness. How dramatic life was! She had a husband, he had a wife. She had gone to her father and mother to eat the holiday bread and honey. He was waiting for her body. Well, and what about the fetus in Adele's womb? That was going through its preordained process. The centrosomes were dividing, the chromosomes were winding up; every turn and fold carried the inheritance of countless generations.

During the Ten Penitential Days, Hadassah and Asa Heshel met daily. Hadassah came to the seamstresses'. Asa Heshel came to Hadassah's house. Shifra knew all their secrets. Fishel was busy all day long with his transactions. Even if he had turned up suddenly at the house, Asa Heshel could have left by a back door. The blinds of the bedroom were pulled down all day long. Hadassah had lost her sense of shame. She had learned to undress without hesitation.

Her body was girlishly slender; her nipples were of a fiery-red color. She had strange desires. She would pretend that Asa Heshel was her lord and she his slave. He had bought her in the slave market and she had fallen at his feet. She was forever asking him about Adele. Why did he not love her? Why had he married her?

What did she, Hadassah, have that Adele had not? Sometimes she talked about Fishel: how he had shivered during their wedding night, how he had come to her and gone away, had said magic formulas, and had wept.

-314-For the Kol

Nidre prayer Asa Heshel went to the same synagogue as Hadassah. She took her place upstairs, in the women's section; he stood downstairs. Every now and again he would raise his eyes to the grating round the women's balcony. The candlelight fused with the electric lights. The cantor intoned the traditional roulades and appoggiaturas. The sighing of the worshippers broke in on his artful singing. Old frequenters of the synagogue, in white ceremonial robes, with prayer shawls on their shoulders and gold-embroidered hats on their heads, alternately prayed and wept. From the women's section came a continuous wailing. The war had torn husbands from their wives, children from their mothers. At the door of the synagogue there was a throng of homeless men who had been expelled from the towns near the battlefront by Grand Duke Nicholas. These Jews prayed after their own fashion, in loud voices, with extravagant gesticulations. Asa Heshel stood speechless. He had gone to his mother's before nightfall in order to take his last meal before the fast. His grandfather had left for the Chassidic chapel. A big candle had been stuck in a pot of sand. His mother had already put on the gold-shimmering dress she had made for her wedding, the silk shawl, the satin headeover. She had run up to him, embraced him, and cried: "God guard and protect you from the hands of gentiles."

And she had been seized by spasms. Dinah had poured a couple of drops of valerian on a piece of sugar and had given it to her mother, to bring her to.

After prayers Asa Heshel and Hadassah met outside the synagogue. They went into the Saxon Gardens and sat down on a bench. A three-quarter moon hung over the fleecy clouds. Leaves pattered down between the branches. Their shadows were etched with queer sharpness on the ground. Asa Heshel and Hadassah sat in silence. They rose and went to Gnoyna Street. Shifra was not at home. Hadassah locked and bolted the door. She had committed the greatest crime. She was ready for her punishment.

Having profaned the holiest day she yielded to all his impulses.

She gave herself to him on the chair, on the carpet, on Fishel's bed. Asa Heshel dozed off and awoke, frightened by a dream, blazing with passion. Hadassah sighed in her sleep. Asa Heshel got up from the bed and stood at the window. Yes, this was he, Asa Heshel. His father, half insane, had died somewhere in a filthy little hamlet in Galicia. Generations of rabbis, saints, -315-rabbinical wives, had purified themselves in order that he might be born.

And here he was spending the night of Yom Kippur with another man's wife! And he would probably finish up somewhere in a trench, with a bullet in his heart. He was not sad; he was only filled with wonder. Was this God's plan? Was it possible that he was a part of God, body of His body, thought of His thought?