The Family Moskat (7 page)

"He has a letter, from Zamosc."

"Where is it? Let me see it."

Asa Heshel took from his pocket the creased sheet of writing-paper. Abram snatched it out of his hands and turned it from side to side. Then he began to read out loud the pompous, flowery Hebrew phrases, cantillating them in the synagogue style. His face shone, his beard quivered, his eyebrows lifted and fell, his cheeks puffed in and out. The words as he mouthed them with his Polish intonation had a bedraggled sound, with deep echoes and overtones. After every word in praise of Asa Heshel, Abram darted a glance at him from his large and blazing eyes. When he finished he gave the table a mighty pounding with his fist. The inkwell almost leaped off to the floor.

"Then there's something to go on living for!" he cried out. "We still have Torah, Jews, sages, enlightenment! And I, idiot that I am, thought that we were through. Come here, young man. You'll not eat your meal at the free kitchen tonight!"

He grabbed Asa Heshel by the shoulders and pulled him to his feet.

"Tonight you'll eat at my house," he shouted. "I'm Abram Shapiro. Don't worry, it'll be kosher. Even if you want pork you'll get kosher food."

He started to laugh, a throaty gurgle that tore out of him in -35-a mighty,

almost unearthly echo. The tears poured from his eyes. His face took on an apoplectic hue. He snatched a silk handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose, remembering that Dr.

Mintz had warned him to stop going into a frenzy over every petty occurrence if he didn't want to get another heart attack.

4

The steps that led down from Shmaryahu Jacobi's office were broad and newly scoured. Below on the landing, cuspidors reposed at either side. Through the tall window a pale winter sun shone. The air was dry and frosty outside. In the synagogue courtyard, around a garden plot enclosed by iron railings, sparrows hopped about on their fragile legs and picked at seeds. From the rabbiner's window, hung with blue curtains, came the soft tinkling of a piano. Abram took a few long strides and pounded his cane into the asphalt. He stopped dead for a moment, clutching at his left side.

"Do you know anything about these things? Here I am walking slowly and my heart's galloping. Wait a few minutes. I'll take a rest."

"I have plenty of time."

"What's your name?"

" Asa Heshel Bannet."

"Yes, Asa Heshel. Well, look, the situation's this way. I would like to take you to my house, but I just had an argument with Hama, my wife. A shame! And I have two fine daughters. Too good for me. But don't worry. A quarrel can't last forever. In the meanwhile I've been invited for dinner to my brother-in-law's; Nyunie his name is. He's a brother of my wife, a dear fellow, a character. His wife, Dacha, is a pious woman, strictly orthodox, a rabbi's daughter. Maybe you've heard of my father-in-law, Meshulam Moskat."

"No."

"A Jew with a head on him, but no heart. A robber. Rich as Crœsus. Well, we'll take a droshky and ride over to Nyunie's.

You'll be welcome. Come to think of it, there's a sort of gathering there today, a few guests. My father-in-law--may the law catch up with him--took it into his head to get married again--some woman from Galicia. That makes her my stepmother-in-law. She's got a daughter, that makes her--let's see--my wife's step--36-sister. Yes, the whole thing's finished--wrapped up and knotted with a double knot. Wife number the--"

"Please forgive me," Asa Heshel ventured after a slight hesitation.

"Maybe I'd better not go with you."

"What? Why not? Are you embarrassed, or ashamed? Listen to me, my boy, Warsaw isn't that one-horse village of yours--what do you call it, Tereshpol Junior? This is a place where you've got to show your face. And my brother-in-law is a simple man, and a bit of a scholar. And his daughter, Hadassah--she's a beauty. One look at her and you're finished. Believe me, if I wasn't her uncle, I'd go after her myself. Besides, maybe she'll be able to give you some tutoring. Just let me see how late it is. Exactly half past one. They eat dinner at two. They live on the Panska. A droshky'll take us there in no more than fifteen minutes. First I'll go into the restaurant over there and make a telephone call. I want to find out why that female kept me sweating. Come along and wait for me."

They crossed over to the other side of the street and through an all-glass door entered a large eating-place with red-painted walls and a profusion of mirrors. From the carved ceiling an elaborate crystal chandelier hung. Waiters with white napkins draped over their arms hurried back and forth. Their reflections repeated themselves on and on in the opposing mirrors. Someone was playing a pianoforte. There was the smell of brandy, beer, roast meats, and spices. A tall, heavy man, with a bald spot round as a plate and a smooth, red neck, was dipping his mustaches into a froth-topped mug. A little man with a serviette tucked in his collar bent over a plate of meat, making a clatter with his knife and fork. A girl with blond hair, in a white apron, her eyelids blued and her cheeks rouged, stood behind a buffet loaded with a variety of bottles, glasses, trays, and plates, pouring a greenish liquor from a carafe into a goblet. Abram went off somewhere.

Asa Heshel felt his head spinning, as if the mere vapors were making him drunk. The room seemed to sway and his vision dimmed. Suddenly a figure materialized in front of him, horrify-ingly familiar and at the same time puzzlingly strange. It was his own face, his own features he was seeing in a mirror near by.

"You!" he murmured to the reflection. "Beggar!"

The night before, he had shaved his face clean. But now a faint growth again covered his chin. The collar of his shirt was wrinkled. His Adam's apple moved about under the skin of his -37-throat. He had

bought an overcoat just before he left Tereshpol Minor, but in the brilliant light of the restaurant it seemed shoddy, too tight for him, with awkwardly fitting shoulders. The toes of his shoes curled upwards. Asa Heshel knew that it was only common sense to establish contact with the wealthy families to whom this stranger wanted to take him. Timidity, according to Spinoza, was an emotion one must struggle to overcome. But the longer he remained in this ornate restaurant, the meaner he felt himself. It seemed to him that everyone was looking at him, winking and smiling contemptuously. A waiter brushed against him. The girl at the buffet grinned, showing a mouthful of brilliantly white teeth. A mad impulse swept over him to open the door and run away. At that moment he saw Abram walking rapidly toward him, his approach reflected in the mirrors.

"All right, let's go!" Abram said. "It's getting late."

He took Asa Heshel's arm and went out with him. A droshky drew up. Abram pushed Asa Heshel before him, climbed into the carriage, and dropped onto the seat, the springs groaning un-der his massive posterior.

"Is it far?" Asa Heshel asked.

"Don't worry. They won't eat you up. Don't be a greenhorn."

Abram pointed out the streets and houses as the carriage drove on. They passed a bank fronted with pillars; stores with show windows displaying gold coins and lottery tickets; a row of shops, in front of each of which were a sack of garlic, a case of lem-ons, and hanging strings of dried mushrooms. At Iron Gate Square there was a confusion of sights: a garden, an open space lined with benches, a wedding hall, a market place. Janitors swept together piles of refuse. A poultry dealer's apprentice, with bloodied sleeves, struggled with a flock of turkeys. They were trying to scatter, and another man blocked their flight by waving a stick.

Through the bedlam a funeral procession wound its way. The horses pulling the hearse were draped in black; through the eye-holes the eyes peered, with their enormous pupils. Abram made a grimace.

"I don't mind anything in the world, brother," he remarked, "except to be a corpse. Anything but that."

He held a match to his cigar, but the wind puffed out the flame.

He half stood up and struck another match; the droshky almost overturned with the shifting of his weight.

He blew a cloud of smoke and turned to Asa Heshel. "Tell -38-me, young

man," he said, "were you carrying on some sort of love affair in that town of yours?"

"Oh, no!"

"What's the idea of blushing? When I was your age I chased after every
shikse
."

As the droshky drove through the Gzhybov, Abram pointed out his father-in-law's house. A baker's girl standing in front of the gate with a basket of fresh loaves nodded her head at him; Abram good-naturedly waved his hand. On the Tvarda he nudged Asa Heshel and pointed with his finger.

"Over there used to be the Bialodrevner prayerhouse. That's where I go."

"Then you're a Chassid?"

"On the holidays I even wear the Chassid's fur hat."

A cold gust of wind blew into the carriage. Heavy clouds hid the sun. The sky turned a greenish blue. There was a tang of hail and snow in the air. Asa Heshel put up his coat collar. He had not yet got over the fatigue of the journey. There was a tight feeling in his nostrils, and his head ached. It seemed to him that he had been away from his home for years. "Where am I letting myself be dragged to?" he thought. He closed his eyes and held on to the iron side handle. In the darkness before his eyelids he saw the image of a phantom flower, dazzlingly sunlit, half opened and unsubstantial. It was an apparition that always came to him in moments of perplexity. He felt a longing to pray--but to whom should he pray? The divine laws would not be altered for his sake.

The droshky came to a halt. Asa Heshel opened his eyes. He climbed out of the carriage in front of a four-story building on a narrow, irregular street cobbled with round-surfaced stones.

Abram took a silver coin out of a deep chamois purse. The horse turned his head with the queer appearance of curiosity with which animals sometimes seem to imitate human gestures. The two men entered Nyunie Moskat's house through a front door with frosted glass panels. They climbed a flight of marble steps, dust-covered and unswept. From a dentist's office on the second floor there was a strong smell of iodine and ether and in a spittoon on the landing there was a wad of bloodstained cotton.

On a mahogany double door on the third floor was a brass plate with a name engraved on it in Polish and Yiddish--"Nahum Leib Moskat." Abram pressed the bell; there was a shrill ringing.

-39—

Asa Heshel set his hat on straight and glanced back over his shoulder, as though he might make a dash for it at the last minute.

5

The door was opened by a stout servant girl with an enormous bosom and with a flowered scarf over her shoulders. Her bare feet were stuck into a pair of plush carpet slippers. There were dimples in her cheeks. Seeing Asa Heshel, she threw a questioning glance at Abram. He nodded his head.

"This young man is with me," he said. "You don't faint with ecstasy that I'm here, Shifra, my dear? After I went to the trouble of bringing you a present."

He took a little box out of his pocket and handed it to her.

Shifra wiped her hand with her apron before taking it, so as not to soil the gaily colored cover.

"You never forget to bring something," she said. "And you shouldn't."

"Never mind that female babble. Tell me, is her ladyship from Galicia here already?"

"Yes, she's here."

"And that daughter of hers?"

"They're both in the salon."

"What are you cooking there? I can smell it all the way out here."

"Don't worry, it won't poison you."

Abram took off his cape. His white starched cuffs protruded from his sleeves; diamonds twinkled from his gold cuff-links. He took off his hat and stood before a wall mirror to comb his long hair carefully over his bald spot. Asa Heshel got out of his overcoat, too. He was wearing a gaberdine, and a thin string tie was knotted around his soft collar.

"Come along with me, young man," Abram said. "Nothing to be afraid of."

The salon they entered was large. It had three windows. Gold-framed portraits of bearded, skullcapped Jews and their bewigged and bonneted wives hung on the walls. Wide easy chairs with long golden fringes stood about. In a corner there was a wall clock, elaborately carved. Rosa Frumetl was seated on a sofa covered with brocade. In one hand she held a small glass of brandy -40-and in the other a tiny cake. Near her was a low table with a telephone. Dacha, Nyunie's wife, an emaciated woman, dark as a crow, wearing a matron's wig, with a silk shawl over her shoulders, was talking into the mouthpiece.

"What? Talk louder!" she was saying, in a flat accent, drawing out the vowel sounds. "I don't hear a word. What?"

Adele sat at the piano at the other side of the room, wearing a pleated skirt and an embroidered white blouse with lace at the wrists, and a wide, old-fashioned starched collar. The sunlight shining through the curtains and hangings was reflected in her hair.

Abram took Asa Heshel by the elbow as though to assure himself that the bashful youth would not flee.

"Good morning, good day!" he called out. "Where is Nyunie?"

Dacha, at the telephone, waved her hand. Adele put down the music score she had been leafing and stood up. Rosa Frumetl turned toward them.

"What's the good of standing on ceremony?" Abram addressed Rosa Frumetl and her daughter. "My name is Abram--Abram Shapiro, Reb Meshulam Moskat's son-in-law."

"I know, I know," Rosa Frumetl hastened to say, in her strong Galician accent. "He told me about you. This is my daughter, Adele."

"Very honored," the girl murmured, in Polish.

"This young man is someone I just met, Asa Heshel Bannet. A friend of the secretary of the synagogue on Tlomatska, a great Talmud scholar--very learned. Maybe you've heard of him. Dr.

Shmaryahu Jacobi."

"I think I have."

A door opened and Nyunie came in. He was a small man, with a round belly and a huge head of hair on which a tiny skullcap was perched. The blond beard on his chin was carefully combed. He was wearing a wine-colored dressing-gown. Abram let go of Asa Heshel's elbow, leaped across the room to Nyunie, grabbed him by the waist, and lifted him up in the air, up and down, three times.