The Family Moskat (60 page)

"Anything to exchange?"

Asa Heshel heard the words distinctly, but did not grasp their meaning. "What shall I exchanger?"

"Dollars, pounds, kroners, marks. You'll get more than at the bank."

"I'm sorry; I've got nothing. I've just come from Russia."

The young man scrutinized him from head to foot. "From Bolshevik-land, eh?"

"Yes, from there."

"Things are bad, aren't they?"

"They're not good."

"They don't let Jews remain Jewish, do they?"

"It's hard."

"It's not good here, either. They've all got one idea--to make life impossible for the Jews."

The young man turned and clumped away in his heavy boots.

-390-

2

Abram was not at home. A young woman's voice answered the telephone, speaking Polish.

"May I know who's calling?"

"Oh, I don't think the gracious lady will remember me. I've been away from Warsaw quite a number of years. My name is Asa Heshel Bannet."

"Oh, but I do remember you. I'm Abram's daughter, Stepha."

"Yes, we met once."

"Father isn't home. If you need him urgently I can give you a telephone number where you can reach him. Would you like to write it down? He speaks of you often."

"Thank you. How have things gone with you?"

"Oh, not badly. I'm married, you know. Are you staying in Warsaw?"

"For the time being."

Asa Heshel thanked the young woman, hung up, then made another call. Again a woman's voice answered, but not a young one this time. Asa Heshel waited. There seemed to be some sort of discussion or celebration going on in the room. There were loud voices and laughter. Suddenly Abram's voice thundered into the telephone, so that Asa Heshel had to snatch the receiver away from his ear.

"What? Is that you?" bellowed Abram. "Good God! Am I actually seeing your face--I mean, hearing your voice? Praised be God, who resurrects the dead! I was absolutely certain you weren't above ground any more. A man picks himself up and vanishes, and not a word from him, year after year! Somebody must have rubbed the magician's lamp! Where are you? Where are you talking from? Where the devil have you kept yourself? I thought maybe you'd become a commissar, or a Cheka agent. Well, what are you waiting for? Why don't you come over? And why don't you say something? God, what a sensation you're going to make!"

"I just arrived this evening. I'm in a café on Krulevska Street."

"Oho, on the black market! Where's your baggage?"

"I left my suitcase at the station."

"Well, what are you standing there for, like a graven image?

Grab a taxi and come over. I mean, if you have the money for one.

Or else take a streetcar. I'm on Holy Cross Street, number -391-seven. Ask for

Mrs. Ida Prager in the studio. You don't even have to ask. You'll see it yourself. It's got a skylight. Who gave you my phone number?"

"Your daughter, Stepha."

"No, that's impossible. Anyway, come on over. And how on earth did you find Stepha? I've been looking for her all over. Gets married and forgets she ever had a father. What a rascal you are, not to have written me even once! I mean, before the Revolution."

"The mail wasn't going through."

"Oh, yes it was. You wrote to Hadassah all right, damn your eyes. So what's happened? Have you become a Bolshevik?"

"Not yet."

"Scoot over here at once."

Asa Heshel left the café. His feet were lighter now. He asked a bystander what streetcar to take and then rode slowly down from Krulevska Street. The gate to the courtyard into the house on Holy Cross Street was not closed. Asa Heshel looked up and saw a lighted skylight on the slanted roof. He went up. He did not need to knock; Abram was standing at the door, tall, broad-shouldered, stooping a little, his beard half gray, his face a deep red, as if sunburned. Behind the bushy brows two young black eyes sparkled. "You!"

Abram threw himself at Asa Heshel and embraced him. His breath was heavy with the smell of cigars.

"Look at him! Here he is, right out of hell. What's the matter?

Have you grown taller or have I shrunk? Brother, I'm an old man now, that's all there is to it! What are you standing at the door for, like a beggar? Come on in. It's our own crowd. Where the hell have you been? Look at him! He's still wearing a hat and an overcoat! I thought you'd be wearing a cap and blouse. So Czar Nicholas got his! We lived to see the end of him! And the bourgeoisie are street-sweepers now, eh? The Messiah's come--

Judah Leon Trotsky himself. And here in Poland we're getting it in the neck."

"I know."

"Oh, you do? Did you get your share yet? How the devil did you get here? What train did you take? I suppose you don't give a damn for us any more, but we haven't forgotten you. You have a son here, haven't you? Well, let me tell you, he's too damn good for you. I saw him a little while ago, I don't remember where. A -392-big lad. Looks just like his father, two peas in a pod. A clever brat. Tell me, brother," and for a moment Abram lowered his voice, "have you seen Hadassah yet?"

"No."

"Well, you'll be seeing her. She's more beautiful than ever. Become a grand lady. She's been living in Otwotsk for several years.

She was sick; the doctors sent her to a sanatorium. Then she stayed on--what's she got in Warsaw, anyhow? In Otwotsk she's got not a house but a palace. Fishel's made a terrific amount of money. He got the Moskats into his hands and gobbled them up.

Money just rolls toward him. But what's the good? She hates the sight of him. Where are you living? I mean, are you going to stay with your mother? Let me see now, you have a mother, haven't you?"

"Yes, on Franciskaner Street."

"Have you been there yet?"

"No, not yet."

"Eh? The same old Asa Heshel! What's the sense of it? Don't think I'm going to lecture you. What I say is, to hell with everything, to hell with the whole world! I'm still the same Abram. I've had my ups and downs, too. I nearly became a millionaire, and now I haven't a penny to my name. I'm too trust-ing, that's what it is. I've had influenza and I've had inflammation of the lungs; the burial society was already licking its chops, but you know how it is when God wants to work a miracle. Seems they've got as much use for me up there as down here. You know what I'd like to do?

Pack up and go to Palestine. Not to die, like the old pious Jews, but to take a look at the Jewish country. What d'you think of the Balfour Declaration? They were dancing in the streets here. This studio is Ida Prager's. I think I told you once--a great artist. Well, why don't you come in? They won't eat you up."

"Could you come down with me for a little while?"

"What? Whom are you scared of? Nobody's going to report you."

"My record's all clean. It's something else. You see, I want to be in Warsaw a couple of days before Adele finds out about it."

"Oho, is that the kind of bird you are? I get the idea. Come in --none of the family's here. I'll introduce you to Ida. That's all rubbish about your being found out. Nobody here knows your wife. I tell you there isn't another woman like Ida anywhere in -393-the world. You

can laugh, if you like, but it's only now, when I'm getting on in years, that I'm beginning to understand the real meaning of love."

Abram took Asa Heshel by the elbow and led him down a corridor to a large room with a skylight. The walls were covered with canvases stretched on wooden frames. Here and there a piece of sculpture wrapped in burlap stood on a pedestal. There had apparently been anexhibition of some sort. The paintings were in every genre: realist, cubist, futurist. Some figures were standing on their heads and others floated in the air. The studio was filled with young men and women. Couples talked secretively in corners. Two women wrapped in one shawl sat on a chaise-longue and shared a cigarette.

A little man in a velvet coat, with a huge shock of hair and no neck, was speaking loudly, emphasizing his remarks with a stubby finger. "Forms are like women. They grow old, wrinkled, withered. What meaning has a Matejko for us today? What can we, in our stormy, revolutionary age, get out of a Poussin, a David? The old art is dead!"

" Rappaport, you can say anything you like, but please don't insult old women," called out a woman. "I hope you understand why."

There was laughter and applause. Abram stamped his foot impatiently.

"Hey, loud-mouth, have you still got your trap open? Once upon a time, painters used to paint; now all they can do is gabble. Matejko's no good and you're a first-rater! Why, you idiot, you can't even draw a radish!"

"There he goes! Gets offensive right away."

"Ida, darling, I want to introduce you to a young man. We've often spoken about him--Asa Heshel Bannet, Hadassah's friend."

Ida Prager, a gray-haired woman in a black dress, with a string of pearls on her throat and diamond studs in her ears, lifted a lorgnon which hung on a chain. "So you're Asa Heshel. I know you, of course, I've heard so much about you. When did you get here?"

"Today."

"From Russia?"

"I got here from Bialystok."

"That's really sensational! What's the news over there? You -394-know, one who

comes from these parts is like one who has returned from the other world."

"Just what I said!" broke in Abram. "Ida, darling, I want to tell you something," and he took her aside to whisper to her.

"Why, he can sleep here."

"That's not a bad idea. And what about eating? Wouldn't do you any harm to gain ten pounds, Asa Heshel."

"I'm not hungry."

"Where you come from, everyone's hungry. I'll make you something to eat," Ida said.

"Wait, Ida darling. We'll go downstairs. We've got to have a good talk. After all these years. I was the one who introduced him to the family. Who'd have thought it would lead to this mess? Hey, you, Rappaport"--Abram threw his voice across the room --"tear the old masters down, make mincemeat of them. Some day they'll throw the Leonardos, Rubenses, and Titians out of the Louvre and put in your long-nosed caricatures."

Ida made a gesture of indignation. "Abram, shame on you! You can't talk like that. You forget he's my guest. Don't pay any attention to him, Rappaport. He really doesn't mean it."

Rappaport came over. "I've got nothing against him. He represents the viewpoint of his class."

"Come on, Asa Heshel. If I stay a minute longer I'll tear out a handful of his curls. What's your class? You're just as much of a bourgeois as I am."

"You've still got their psychology."

"Dauber! D'you think that because they shot Nicholas that makes you a master? David is old and you're new. You ought to wash your mouth before you dare mention his name!"

"Abram, I won't stand for that," cried Ida, angrily.

"All right, all right, we're going. Every tenth-rater jumps on the revolutionary band-wagon and sets himself up as a genius. Bun-glers! Fakers! My grandson paints better than you!"

Abram flung out of the room. Asa Heshel turned to say good-by to Ida. She held out a slender hand and smiled at him. The corners of her eyes were filled with wrinkles, and a double chin showed above her throat. Here and there the rouge had cracked, like whitewash on a wall. There was a deep sorrow in her look, the despair of one whose life had become entangled in an error that it was now too late to set right.

-395-"You'll come

back, won't you? Don't let him run around. He should be in bed by now."

Ida shook her head, as if intimating that Abram was much sicker than he knew.

3

As they emerged from the courtyard Abram came to a halt and banged on the pavement with his cane. "And now, my lad, let's have the truth. It's five years since you disappeared as if the devil had swallowed you up. And how about eating? Or did you lose the habit? There's a restaurant across the way."

It was a non-Jewish place, a combination of a saloon and food shop, with red hangings on the walls. To the right as they came in was a large poster showing a Bolshevik with a little goatee--half Judas, half Trotsky--thrusting a bayonet into the back of a blonde Polish woman with a snub nose, a cross on her breast, and a child in her arms. Behind the counter, on which were ranged roast ducks and cakes, stood a thickset little man with a shining bald head and upturned, beer-colored mustaches.

"Good evening, Panie Marianie," shouted Abram in Polish.

"Where's Joseph? I'm dying of hunger. And this young fellow here also wants to eat."

"Good evening, gentlemen. Please sit down. I'll serve you myself. Today we have sausages and sauerkraut--first class! Or perhaps the gentlemen would prefer a soup?"

"I'd like soup, please," said Asa Heshel.

"As for me, Panie Marianie, be good enough to give me a glass of brandy and a sausage."

"Certainly, Panie Abram. A good one. I understand."

"And now talk," said Abram to Asa Heshel. "You can be quite open with me. Hadassah has told me everything--I mean she told me some time ago. Now her father confessor is Hertz Yanovar. He married Gina. I guess you know that. That Kalischer woman is gone, thank God. When you left, Hadassah fell very sick. Her mother died about that time, and her father got married to some poisonous sort of creature. He was always a half-wit; the woman walks all over him. His own daughter avoids him. She never visits him and he never visits her. And as for Fishel, somebody really ought to put him in a book. He's as pious as all hell and makes loads of money. When the Germans came, he made himself -396-useful to them.

Now that the Poles have a government of their own, he makes money from them. The moment he buys, the exchange goes up; the moment he sells, it drops. Hausse and Baisse, bulls and bears!

We've got a new lingo here. Anyway, that man bought and sold and juggled until he'd stripped everybody. And he's really not a bad kind of fellow. As a matter of fact he's the only support of the Bialodrevna rabbi. Nobody understands why he hangs on to Hadassah--he gets absolutely nothing out of her. There's something crazy between you and Hadassah. If you were so mad about her you shouldn't have let yourself be drafted."