The Family Moskat (70 page)

He climbed a few flights of dark stairs and knocked at a door on the third floor. He heard footsteps at once, and then Manya's voice asking: "Kto tam? Who's there?"

"It's me. Koppel."

-

458-"Who? The old man's not here." "Open the door, Manya. It's me. Koppel the overseer."

There was silence, then the sound of the chain being un-hooked, and the door opened. In the dim light of the corridor Koppel saw her, older but still with a girlishness about her, in a fashionable dress, wearing earrings and a necklace of imitation coral. Her flat features were powdered, her Kalmuk eyes pen-cried. "Koppell It's really you!" she shouted.

"Yes, it's me."

"Mother mine, if a thing like this can happen, then I don't know what--" She clapped her hands and broke into a peal of laughter.

"I knew. I always knew that you'd show up again."

"What made you so sure?"

"Oh, I knew all right. I know everything."

She led him into the kitchen. The householders were not at home. The room was spacious, with a tried floor and copperware basins on the walls. A deck of playing-cards lay on a stool. The cot against the wall bore an indentation where Manya had been sitting on it. She began to fuss about Koppel, sniffing with her wide nostrils. "The same Koppel. No change."

"And you, too, Manya," Koppel had reverted to the familiar second-person singular. "You're the same."

She looked at him suspiciously and again broke out laughing.

"I'm a nobody," she said. "You're the one that got to be Reb Meshulam's son-in-law. That's something."

"It's not worth a grosz."

"Just listen to him. How did you find out where I was?"

"From Naomi."

"How did she know?"

"That you'll have to ask her."

"Koppel to the bone. Not changed a hair. When did you come?

Is Leah in Warsaw too?"

"Yes, that bargain is here."

Manya made a grimace. "So that's the way it is, eh?" She was silent for a moment. "Here. Don't stand at the door, you're not a beggar. Sit down on the bed."

"I hear that you got married."

"My God, the man knows everything. Yes, I got married. I fell in like a blind horse in a ditch."

"So. No good, eh?" Koppel lit a cigarette.

"Look at the man. He's here less than five minutes after God -459-knows how

many years and he expects a complete report. Here, I'll give you a glass of tea. The night is still young."

Manya flitted over to the stove and put on a kettle of water.

2

At about half past eleven there was a ring at the door. Manya's mistress and master were returning. Manya quickly turned off the gaslight in the kitchen and ran to open the door. Koppel stayed alone in the dark room. As he sat there in this strange room, on the edge of Manya's cot, he suddenly had the feeling of being a youngster again, a little clerk on Bagno Street, chasing after servant girls. Smells he had long ago forgotten came to him from an open pantry door: chicory, green soap, citric acid, washing soda. He had to use all his self control to avoid sneezing. In the corridor he could hear the master of the house muttering something or other and shuffling his feet on the mat. The mistress was laughing. He took a cigarette out of his pocket and put it between his lips, in readiness to light it as soon as it was safe.

That idiot, that Manya, he reflected. Why had he bothered to get mixed up with such an ignoramus, with her belief in dreams and her constant fortune-telling with playing-cards? Valuable time wasted. He could have spent the evening with Zilka. He bit his lower lip. Go and figure out that a lump like that would take it into her head to play the lady. Marriage, children, respectability --she had the gall to talk about things like that! To divorce Leah and marry her!

He stretched and put a hand up to his mouth to stifle a yawn.

"Why the devil did I have to plead with her?" he reflected.

"Shell get a swelled head." There was only one thing he wanted now--to go home and sleep.

Manya opened the door and came in. "Koppel, you're still here?"

"What did you think? That I'd get out through the window?"

"They've gone to sleep. The old lady almost walked in here."

Manya started to giggle.

Koppel took a deep breath. "Well, never mind. I'm going now."

"You don't have to rush if you don't want to. I'll walk down with you."

-460-"Don't do me

any favors. I'm asking you for the last time. Yes or no?"

"No."

"A hundred dollars."

"Not even a thousand," Manya murmured.

He put on his coat and hat and stuck his feet into his overshoes, which stood near the kitchen door. He could see Manya's glowing Kalmuk eyes. He took her by the shoulders. "Well, let me at least give you a kiss," he said.

"Sure. No charge for kissing."

He pressed his lips against hers and she kissed him back ardently, even pinching his lips with her teeth. He had a strange feeling. He wanted neither to stay there with her nor to go away.

There was an obstinacy in him, as in a man in the middle of a card game stubbornly trying to win back his losses. "All right,"

he said. "What is it you want? What exactly do you want?"

"I told you already. I want to live a respectable life."

"What's to stop you from getting married any time you like? I'll give you a dowry."

"I've got a dowry of my own."

"Then good-by, my high-toned friend."

"Good-by. And don't be angry with me."

She opened the outer door and he went down the steps. He walked slowly and wearily. In his pocket he had steamer passage back to America. First-class cabins for himself, Leah, and the two children. But as he felt now, he was far from sure that he would not postpone the journey back. Leah was getting worse from day to day. She cursed him, shrieked, created all sorts of scandals. Ever since she had had her change of life she was half crazy. How could he go on living with a woman like that? What good was the Riverside Drive apartment in New York to him?

Suppose he brought the whole thing to an end, once and for all?

He started to do some quick figuring. Even if he gave her twenty-five thousand dollars, he'd still have plenty left. He'd marry Zilka. Maybe they'd even have a child. No, he wouldn't marry her. He wouldn't marry a woman who was willing to go to bed with another man, and her husband not three months dead.

Bashele, on the other hand, had married a coal dealer. My God, how could a woman spread clean sheets for such a dirty creature?

-461-Koppel

wanted to take a droshky, but he waited for fifteen minutes without seeing one. Nor did he see a taxi. A streetcar went by, but he could not tell what its route was. He started to walk toward the hotel, tapping at his back pocket where he carried his traveler's checks. But what good was money? Even Manya, the servant, threw it back at him.

Not far from the hotel entrance he saw a girl, hatless and with a creased jacket much too big for her, in a too long, old-fashioned skirt. He stood and looked at her. One of those streetwalkers?

No, they did not dress like that. Maybe she was a beginner out for the first time. He crossed the street toward her, strange thoughts blundering through his mind. Suppose he should go over to her and help her. She looked like a gentle child. And why was she staring at him so curiously? Suddenly he froze in his tracks. There was something familiar about her, though he could not say exactly what. She was waving to him and running toward him. It was Shosha. Koppel felt a sudden dryness in his throat. "What are you doing here?" he stammered.

"Oh, Papa, I've been waiting for you--"

"Why? Why didn't you go upstairs?"

"I didn't want to. Your wife--" she stopped abruptly.

"What's happened? Speak clearly."

"Papa, he got a certificate to go to Palestine. He wants to get married right away."

Koppel rubbed his hand against his forehead. "Well-well--what's that got to do with your hanging out here in the street?"

"I've been looking for you for the last three days and--"

"Well, why didn't you write me a letter?"

Shosha shrugged her shoulders. The tears came into Koppel's eyes. He took his daughter by the arm and then glanced up along the front of the hotel building. There wasn't even a place he could take his own flesh and blood to. And, God almighty, the way she was dressed. He remembered with shame that he had not given them more than fifty dollars since he had come to Warsaw. "What was the sense of staying out here in the street?" he muttered. "Where's that boy of yours, that what's-his-name?"

"He lives with the chalutzim."

"Where? He's probably sleeping already."

"Oh no. He's waiting for me. We have to fill out papers."

"Just a minute. I'm tired. Hey, driver!" A droshky was passing -462-and Koppel

hailed it. The two climbed in. Koppel leaned back against the seat. He asked Shosha to tell the driver where to go. Then he turned to his daughter. "What's the hurry about getting married?

Do you at least love him?"

"The certificate will soon expire--"

"And what'll you do there in Palestine?"

"Well work."

"You can work here too."

"But Palestine is our own country."

"Well, anyway, that's your affair. Only he looks to me like a kind of wild man."

"That's only his way."

Koppel put up his coat collar and lapsed into silence. Anything was possible, he thought, but that he would be traveling in a droshky with his daughter to some chalutzim somewhere, that very night, he had not imagined. He was only half awake.

The droshky came to a halt. The two climbed out and Koppel paid the driver. Shosha pulled the bell at the gate. The rooms of the chalutzim were on the street floor. They were brightly lighted, as though it were still early in the evening. Boys were packing bundles, driving nails into crates. A girl was sew-ing up a canvas duffel bag with a heavy needle and a length of rope. On the walls there were a map of Palestine and a portrait of Theodor Herzl. An uncovered table at the side of the room was strewn with Hebrew books and newspapers. Koppel stared around him in astonishment. He had read vaguely here and there about Zionism, the Balfour Declaration, chalutzim, but he had never given any special thought to these things. And now Shosha was one of them.

A short girl with heavy legs came over and whispered something to her. Shosha knocked at a side door. Simon Bendel came out, in a shirt open at the collar and showing his wide, hairy chest.

"What's going on here?" Koppel asked. "What's all the rushing around?"

"We're leaving in two weeks."

"For Palestine, eh?"

"Where else?"

Koppel scratched his head. "Well," he said, "I'll give her a dowry. It will be all right."

"We don't need a dowry," Simon said after some hesitation.

-463-"Why not?

Money comes in handy anywhere." The youth dropped his head and did not answer; after a while he left the room. Koppel looked at Shosha. "It's late," he said.

"Aren't you going to sleep tonight?"

"I'm going home right away. In just a minute."

She disappeared also. Koppel sat down on a bench near the table and picked up a book that lay there. It was in Hebrew. He turned the pages. There were pictures of agricultural colonies, girls milking cows, chalutzim guiding plows. Things were going on, he reflected. Things were going on with the Jews that he knew nothing about. He had no control even over his own children.

What would happen to Teibele and Yppe? What would become of them with that coal dealer for a father? He had lost everything--his wife, his children, the world to come. A strange notion possessed him. Suppose he should go along with these youngsters. Suppose he should go to Palestine. After all, what they were building there was a Jewish home.

SHOSHA received from her father a dowry of five hundred

dollars, a diamond ring, and a gold chain. The wedding was held at the home of an official Warsaw rabbi. Koppel provided money for new clothes for Bashele and the girls and gave presents to his son and daughter-in-law. At first Bashele's husband declared that he would not go to the wedding; why was it necessary for a stepfather to be there, when the girl had her own father and mother present, thank God? But Koppel insisted that he come.

He visited Chaim Leib in the coal store, extended his hand, and said: "You belong there more than me, Chaim Leib."

And the two talked so long and warmly together that finally they went over to the near-by inn for a drink.

The wedding canopy was not to be set up until nine in the -464-evening, but

by eight o'clock the guests had already begun to gather. On the groom's side there assembled a group of chalutzim in sheepskin jackets, broad-peaked caps, and heavy boots. They dragged mud onto the rabbi's polished floors, dropped cigarette stubs and ashes. They spoke in a mixture of Yiddish and Hebrew. The beadle scolded them and told them to observe a little decorum.

The rabbi's wife, an elegant lady with a ma-tron's dyed wig, opened a door to glare at them. It was difficult to believe that such a nondescript group could talk so easily in the holy tongue.

Bashele's sister, from the Old City, brought her wedding gift with her wrapped in a kerchief. Shosha's cousins and the girls she had gone to school with whispered to one another in Polish, throwing curious glances at the chalutzim. The beadle complained that there was too much of a crowd. "What do they think this is?" he asked. "A wedding hall?"

Simon Bendel wanted to go through the ceremony in his military breeches and puttees, in the chalutz manner, but Koppel insisted that he wear a suit, a hat, and a tie. The chalutzim constantly kept up a play of pulling him by his necktie. Shosha was wearing a black silk dress and patent-leather shoes, a tulle scarf over her hair. Her mother flanked her on one side; her sister-in-law, Manyek's wife, on the other. Koppel arrived late. He had had himself carefully barbered for the occasion and had put on a dinner jacket, patent-leather shoes, and a starched shirt with gold cuff-links. In one hand he carried an enormous bottle of champagne and in the other a box of honey cakes and cookies. He shook everybody by the hand, his remarks peppered with English words. When Bashele saw him she began to cry; her sister had to take her into another room until she could compose herself. Now that Koppel had made up for all the offenses he had committed against her, her anger was gone. Chaim Leib had washed and soaped himself over and over again, but the grime of the coalyard still lay deeply encrusted on his face and his thick neck. His fingernails were framed in black. His gaberdine was too short. His boots, freshly polished, had muddy uppers. He stood apart from the others, watching reverently as the white-bearded rabbi wrote out the marriage certificate. "Is the bride a virgin?" the rabbi asked.