The Family Moskat (59 page)

Polish passengers bolted the doors, refusing to allow admittance to the Jews who wove helplessly back and forth, laden with luggage and bundles. A woman carrying a child wept, begging for mercy. She had lost her matron's wig in the shuffle and stood about with her close-cropped head. A soldier picked up the wig on the point of his bayonet.

In one of the second-class cars sat a young man with a high forehead, deep-set eyes, and blond hair, already thin at the top.

His gray suit was creased with the journey, his collar turned up at the corners, his tie awry. His pale face was streaked with dust from the train's smoke. He was reading a magazine, from time to time gazing out of the grimy windows. The train had stood at rest for more than an hour. Locomotive and freight cars jammed the wide rails. Conductors ran up and down the platform, swinging the lanterns, which gleamed palely against the daylight. From the window of a first-class compartment a broad-shouldered general, with the square beard of a Great Russian, looked out. His cold eyes gazed stonily with the look of one who was free -383-from all human anxieties. Although Poland had just assumed its statehood, his broad chest was already covered with Polish medals.

In the second-class coach, apart from the young man with the magazine, there were an officer, two women accompanying him, an old woman in black, with a veil on her hat, a landowner with a goat's-beard tuft on his chin, dressed in an old-fashioned Polish caftan, with two rows of buttons and loops. Bags and valises were piled on the rack. The officer, a lieutenant--a short, fair-complexioned specimen, with a red face, watery eyes, and his hair close-cropped-had hung up his jacket, his four-cornered hat, and his sword. He sat with his legs crossed, puffing at a cigarette, gazing down at his reflection in the toe of his polished boot. "What are they waiting so long for--the bastards!" he grumbled.

"Only the devil knows," commented one of the women with him.

"Satan's spawn," the lieutenant complained. "Didn't close my eyes all night. Polish officers have to spend days on these cursed trains, while the place is lousy with Jews. A fine state of affairs."

The landowner sat forward in his seat. "If the lieutenant will forgive me," he said, "where I come from they didn't stand on any ceremony with the Jews. They drove 'em out, and--finished!"

"And where do you come from, sir?"

"Not far from Torun. The Germans call it Thorn." He spoke with a German accent.

"Oh, yes. In Posen and Pomerania it's different. Here the cursed swine are all over."

They say on the Lithuanian border they side with the Lithuanians, and in eastern Galicia with the Ukrainian bandits."

"They got a lesson in Lemberg," the lieutenant said. He turned his head and spat through the open window.

The young man with the magazine huddled a bit deeper into his seat. It was the beginning of May, but the sky above the station was a deep summer blue. Mixed with the smell of coal and oil, the wind bore a faint tang of forest and river. Someone was playing a harmonica or a concertina. From the upper shelf the landowner lifted down an ancient traveling bag. He untied its straps, opened several locks, and fumbled inside, finally bringing out a bag of cookies. "If the lieutenant would deign to--

-384-"Thank you."

The officer lifted a cookie between two fingers. "And the gracious ladies? "Many, many thanks."

The landowner looked toward the blond youth in the corner seat, hesitated, and then said: "Would the gentleman like one?"

The young man sank even further into the seat. "No, thanks,"

he said. "Thank you very much."

All the others turned to look at him at the same time--the officer, his two women companions, even the old woman in black. The landowner withdrew the box of cookies. "Where are you from?"

he asked suspiciously.

"I? I'm a Polish citizen. I served in the Czar's army until Kerensky."

"And after that--with the Bolsheviks, hah?"

"With the Bolsheviks, no."

"How can a Polish citizen get out of Russia?"

"I managed."

"You smuggled yourself into Poland?" the landowner persisted.

The young man did not answer. The officer's brows drew together.

"Are you a Jew?" the officer asked, using the insulting second-person singular.

"Yes, a Jew."

"Why didn't you say so when you were asked?" the officer yelled at him angrily.

There was a momentary silence. The two women with the officer looked at each other, faint smiles on their faces. The old woman's head shook and the white hairs on her chin quivered. The young man's face turned chalk pale.

"What were you doing in Russia?" the officer asked.

"I worked there."

"Where did you work? In the Cheka? Been a commissar?

Robbed churches?"

"I've robbed nobody. I've been a student, a teacher."

"A teacher, ha? What did you teach? Karl Marx, Lenin, Trotsky?"

"I'm not a Marxist. That is why I left. I taught children Hebrew, as long as they allowed it."

"None of your tricks, now! Who sent you here, Comrade Lunacharsky?"

-385-"Nobody

sent me. I was born here; my mother lives in War-saw."

"In what part of Russia were you?" asked the officer.

"In Kiev, Kharkov, Minsk."

"What are you, an agitator or propagandist?"

"Sir, I told you I am not a Marxist."

"You son of a bitch, what you told me isn't worth a pinch of powder. You're all liars, thieves, and traitors. What is your name?"

The young man's face became ashen. "Are you from the police, sir?" he asked, terrified by his own words.

The lieutenant moved as though to rise. "Answer, you cursed Jewl You're speaking to a Polish officer." He glanced at the curved sword hanging from the rack.

The young man closed the magazine. " Asa Heshel Bannet," he said.

"
A-sa-he-shel-ban-nett
," the lieutenant repeated ironically, dragging out the Jewish-sounding syllables. One of the women broke into a loud titter. She took a lace-edged handkerchief from her pocketbook and held it to her mouth. The other woman made a grimace of disgust.

"Oh, Stashu. Leave him alone."

"Who do they think they are, these Trotskys--riding second-class?" the officer continued, half to her and half to himself.

"Decent Polish people have to hang on to the sides and the roofs, while these cursed traitors spread themselves out easy. Where are you going to, eh?"

Asa Heshel got to his feet. "It's none of the lieutenant's business,"

he said, again surprised at his own courage. The officer started, his thick neck flushed red. The blood rushed to his cheeks, to his low forehead, and to his ears, which lay close to his head.

"Whatl" he shouted. "We'll soon find out." He thrust his hand to his pants pocket and brought it forward again, holding a revolver, small, toy-sized. The old woman's jaundiced face turned white.

The two younger women made an attempt to grab his elbow. He shoved them away with a heave of his shoulders. "Talk up," he roared, "or Ill shoot you like a dog."

"Go on and shoot."

"Conductorl Policel" the lieutenant began to yell. He knew that the revolver wasn"t loaded. The landowner shouted with him. Asa Heshel reached up and grabbed his valise, whether to -386-hurry away or

to use it as a weapon it was hard to tell. The women began to shout for help. A crowd immediately gathered on the platform outside the car. A helmeted policeman came up, his sword in a black sheath.

The lieutenant opened the car door and leaped out.

"This Jew's insulted me. He comes from Russia. A Bolshevik. I've witnesses."

"Come along to the station," the policeman said immediately.

"I've not insulted anybody. I'm on my way to Warsaw to my family."

"Well see about that."

Asa Heshel took his bag and climbed out of the train. The policeman asked some questions of the officer, making notes in a small notebook. At that moment the station master blew his whistle loudly. The lieutenant darted over to Asa Heshel and, standing behind him, hit him a hard blow with his clenched fist.

Immediately after that he jumped onto the train. One of the women threw out a crumpled hat at Asa Hesbel's feet. The policeman took Asa Heshel by the wrist.

"What's been happening?" he said. "Don't you know enough not to start any trouble with officers?"

He moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue, rubbed his thumb against his first two fingers, and whispered something in Asa Heshel's ear. Asa Heshel put his hand in his pocket. It all happened very quickly. The train had already started to move. Asa Heshel handed the policeman a banknote. The policeman grabbed Asa Heshel's bag, put it on the steps of the moving car, and Asa Heshel seized the handrails and leaped up, bruising his knee against the iron stair. He held on to a side rail while the train gathered speed, puffing and squeaking along the tracks. There was an alarmed cry from inside and the car door opened. Asa Heshel pushed himself in. He found himself in a third-class car. The car was crowded. A tall Jew picked up his bag and helped him in.

"A narrow escape, eh?" the tall Jew said. "You can thank God."

-387-

FROM Byalistok Asa Heshel had sent Hadassah a telegram, but he was not sure that she had received it. He had heard that in Poland the censorship held up letters and telegrams. Now he stood in the railroad station and stared about him. Red-capped porters scurried through the cars, squabbling over the baggage.

There was a dazzle of electric lights, intensifying the darkness. In the main hall of the station long lines stood before the ticket windows, guarded by Polish police. Soldiers lay snoring on the floor, the soles of their shoes thickly studded with nails. Others stood at the lunch counter drinking beer out of steins. It took Asa Heshel quite a time to find the baggage room, to deposit his suitcase. He had intended to come out on Marshalkovska Street, but found himself, instead, in a square at the rear. Issuing from the square, he ran into a wild confusion of droshkies, automobiles, and pushcarts. He turned right and almost collided with a horse's head; there came to him a blast of equine sweat and breath. He turned left and was dazzled by the headlights of a car, which passed so close that he felt the heat of it and was almost bowled over by the sharp smell of gasoline. When he finally emerged on Marshalkovska Street he found it densely crowded. He stood still for a moment and took a deep breath.

Yes, this was it! Warsaw!

He looked up at the glowing sky. He had come through everything: the barracks, the war, the Revolution, hunger, typhoid, pogroms, arrests. He was back in Warsaw, the city that had woven about him the mysterious nets of love, hope, and happiness and then had flung him forth, as Asmodeus had flung forth King Solomon in the fable. Was it possible that he was not even thirty?

Was it conceivable that here, in these streets, there were his -388-mother, Dinah,

Abram, Hertz Yanovar, Gina, Hadassah? Was she actually here, in the flesh? Whereabouts was Sienna Street, where Adele lived? His child was there, his, Asa Heshel's, son, whom he had never set eyes on. Cood God! He had put forth roots in this metropolis: he was someone's father, someone's son, brother, husband, lover, uncle! No ruffianly little army officer could change that fact, which was part of the history of the cosmos.

He hastened on without knowing whether he was making for Krulevska Street or for Mokotov. Perfumed women in bright-colored dresses, with flowered hats, walked with dancing steps.

Students of various fraternities, in braid-embroidered caps, marched three and four abreast, taking up the whole sidewalk. Newly created army officers with long swords dangling at the waist saluted one another. Music poured from the cafés. Mannequins stood in the shop windows. Asa Heshel stopped under a lamp, drew out a little notebook, and looked through the faded addresses. His head began to ache. He was filled with impatience.

At the corner of Krulevska Street, not far from the stock exchange, Asa Heshel saw a little café. Excited voices came through the open door. Inside, at marble-topped tables, merchants argued and gesticulated; they were of all kinds: some wore the long Jewish coat, others wore jackets; some wore soft hats, others hard derbies; there were the clean-shaven, the long-bearded, the short-bearded.

Many of them were engaged in examining, through a magnifying glass screwed into the eye, diamonds that were passed rapidly from hand to hand; it seemed quite extraor-dinary that the stones did not get lost. Foreheads perspired, eyes sparkled joyously. There was a glint of gold-filled teeth. A perverse thought came into Asa Heshel's mind, born of the sheer spirit of confusion: "Here they are, the famous international Jews, the Ahasuerusesl How like the caricatures of them drawn by the anti-Semites!" He entered and began to look through the telephone book. There was a clear plan in his mind. He was not going immediately to his mother's; it would not do for Adele to know that he was back. He had to see Hadassah first. He kept turning the pages and could not find Fishel Kutner's name. Was it possible that he had no telephone? Then suddenly he perceived that Fishel Kutner's name occurred not just once, but three times: the home, the store, the office. "How on earth did I miss it?" He took out a pencil and noted the home number. Then he lifted -389-the receiver, but there was no answer from the operator. Somewhere in the distance two stifled female voices were carrying on a conversation. It occurred to him that the talk of ghosts must sound like that. At last the exchange girl answered and he gave her the number. His heart began to thump painfully, and his throat contracted. He heard a high-pitched man's voice. "Hello! Who is that, Please?"

"Is this the home of Hadassah Kutner?"

"What do you want?"

"Can she come to the telephone?"

"She's not in town. . . . Who is that?"

"I'm--oh, a friend of hers."

There was a brief silence, and then the high-pitched voice--it was Fishel's--repeated: "She's not in town." The receiver was replaced.

Now, when it was too late, it occurred to Asa Heshel that he ought to have asked where she was. He began to make his way out of the café, stumbling against the tables as he walked. So the road to Hadassah was closed off. She was somewhere in the country, on holiday. The last postcard he had received from her had taken half a year to reach him. At the door of the café a young man with a little yellow beard, and in the clothes of a Chassid, stopped him.