The Family Moskat (75 page)

"No. I was converted when I was four."

For a long time there was silence. Asa Heshel now remembered that Hertz Yanovar had once told him about some convert, Fishelsohn, who had been a rabbi in a Talmudic brotherhood and who had written some book or other. The girl beside him had lowered her head and was glancing at her well-manicured hands. "Mr. Yanovar used to visit our home. At one time my papa wanted me to know Hebrew. He used to give me lessons."

"I hope that you managed to learn something."

"Only a little, I'm afraid. Instead of studying, we used to chatter all the time. I've heard about you ever since I was a little girl.

How you ran away from the provinces, how you came to Warsaw, the whole story."

"Oh!"

"He even told me that you were writing a book."

Asa Heshel bit his lip. "It wasn't a book," he said. "It was to have been my dissertation. I never finished it."

"As I recall it, what you proposed was the establishment of a research laboratory for experimentation in pure happiness. I remember how the theme interested me at the time."

"I've almost entirely forgotten it myself."

"The only problem is where such a laboratory should be erected. Unless in a vacuum."

"Why in a vacuum?"

"Because any concrete place is tightly bound up in the sur--493-rounding social standards, and of course in the ideological sup-erstructures that--"

"A Marxist, eh? I never really talked about pure happiness."

"Philosophers always seem to be in love with purity--with pure reason, pure morals, pure happiness. By the way, do you dance?"

"Unfortunately, no."

"Have you a cigarette?"

"Sorry, I don't smoke."

"So. Tell me, what do you do?"

"I worry."

"Well, that's a fine occupation. While you're worrying, the world is being captured by the Mussolinis, the Pilsudskis, the MacDonalds--"

"Let the world go to the devil."

Panna Barbara emitted a short laugh. "A decadent, eh? You have all the symptoms. Would you come with me? I'd like to watch the dancing."

The two got up. The waitress behind the buffet table ran after them. Asa Heshel had forgotten to pay for his beer.

4

The music had stopped when Asa Heshel and Barbara reached the ballroom. The center of the floor was still crowded. The dancers were standing in pairs, all eyes fixed on the stage. The entertainment was going on. The strong man was performing feats of strength, breaking chains, bending iron staves, allowing his naked chest to be thumped with a hammer in the hands of a youth. After he had left the stage, a magician made his appearance. He was a smallish man in a frock coat and white cravat. He made some flourishes with a handkerchief over a glass, a candle, and some coins, talking in a high thin voice. From the back of the room it was difficult to make out what he was saying. When he left, rows of chairs were placed on the stage, and the men who were to choose the beauty queen took their seats. Asa Heshel tried to pick out Abram among the judges, but he was not there. He looked about him in the crowd for Hadassah or Masha or Gina, but he could not make out a single familiar face.

Panna Barbara made a grimace. "All of Nalevki Street is here," she said.

-

494-"Nalevki Street also has the right to live."

"I don't say no." She opened her pocketbook and took out a little mirror and a powder puff. "You seem to be in a bad mood," she said. "It's peculiar, but I also get into a bad mood whenever I go to balls, especially Jewish balls."

"Why don't you go to Polish balls, then?"

A shadow passed over her face. "I'm in the position of being suspended between the two peoples--Poles and Jews. Because of his missionary work, Daddy was always involved with young Jewish men. I once studied in an Evangelical institute, but I lost all contact when I left for France. You, too, seem to be something of an outsider."

"I have been an outsider all my life."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I've always lacked the kind of faith that holds people together."

"When did you come back from Russia?"

"In 1919."

"Well, didn't the Revolution have any influence on you?"

"I never was a Marxist."

"What, then? An anarchist?"

"Don't laugh at me, but I still believe that the capitalist system is the best. I don't mean that it's good; it's very cruel, but it's human nature and the economic law."

"What nonsense! At least you're sincere. The others hide behind false theories. What about Zionism? Aren't you a Zionist?"

"It's hard for me to believe that they'll ever give the Jews a country. They never give anything to anybody."

"That's true. That's why one has to fight."

"Fight for what? What has been the result of all the wars? What have we got from revolutions? Hunger and a flood of silly speeches."

"If that is all you saw in Soviet Russia you're really to be pitied.

If I had such a viewpoint I would have hanged myself long ago."

"Skeptics want to live, maybe even more than believers."

"For what? I heard you have a child. How can anyone with such an attitude bring up children?"

"I never wanted them."

"So you were raped! You should be ashamed of yourself. You -495-hide behind a

screen of cowardice. May I ask you a personal question?"

"Ask anything you want."

"I have heard so much about you that I feel as if we were old friends. Is your wife also like you--I mean antisocial?"

"Yes, but in a different direction. She is by nature a believer. One of those for whom love is God."

"Well, so she has achieved her god."

"A bad god. A god who keeps on deserting."

"Poor woman! I should like to know her. Hertz Yanovar speaks of her in superlatives. Didn't you say she's here tonight?"

Yes. We lost each other."

"Oh! Maybe I'm inquisitive, but that's my nature. If you don't want to answer, just tell me."

"Please, ask me. I'm glad to have someone talk to me."

"Why did you interrupt your studies? Why didn't you finish your book? Have you lost ambition?"

"Oh, it's a long story. I came back from Russia, and I had to assume responsibilities. I have to provide for my mother. My sister is very poor. I have a son by my first wife. I have a little daughter by my present wife. You cannot imagine how I have to struggle just for the barest essentials."

"I can imagine it very easily. I myself had quite a struggle in France. What about your book? Have you given it up completely?"

"First, it's written in German. Second, it's a bad German. And third, it's not finished."

"I'd like to read it."

"Why bother? It's just a waste of time."

"I'll decide that."

"It's full of mistakes and erasures. My handwriting is bad."

"I have a typewriter home. I could type it for you."

"But why should you?"

"Ah--just because. The revolution won't suffer. When are you free?"

"Evenings."

"Come and visit me. Give me a ring. We're in the telephone book. Pastor Fishelsohn. Don't worry about Papa. He's a very tolerant man. Besides, lately he's been quite sick. On what is your system built?"

"On Spinoza and Malthus."

-

496-"A peculiar combination. What do you preach?" "Sex-control, in the broadest sense of the word." "What's that supposed to be?"

"More sex and fewer children. The bedroom is the key to all social and individual problems."

"You seem to laugh at your own theory. My father is like that, too. He speaks seriously, he even screams, but to me it seems that he's fooling. Why don't you try to find your wife?"

"How could I find her? A needle in a haystack."

"You have an answer for everything. Hertz Yanovar also had a philosophy once. The darkness, or something. It made quite an impression on me. When are you going to call met?"

"Very soon."

"I'm going now. I just came out of curiosity. I have a headache. Will you take me to the cloakroom?"

At the cloakroom Barbara collected a caracul coat, a pair of fur-lined boots, an amber-handled umbrella with a silk tassel At a counter near by she stopped to buy a pack of gold-tipped Egyptian cigarettes. She lighted one, letting the smoke drift out of her nostrils. She looked at herself in the wall mirror and handed the girl twenty groszy.

"Maybe you will help me get a droshky."

"Of course."

A light snow was falling, swirling and drifting in the wind. At the corner of the building stood a droshky, with a convertible top. The horse was shaking its wet head, arching its ears. The driver was seated on his perch, his shoulders hunched in, a hood over his hat. The candle in the droshky's glass-enclosed lamp flickered and spluttered. In its light the walls of the building shook, like decorations in a theater.

"A nasty night," Barbara said. "When shall I hear from you?"

"Very soon."

"Don't make it too long," she called from within the coach.

"Good night."

The driver pulled at the reins, and the droshky rolled off. Asa Heshel stood looking after the carriage. Flakes of snow melted on his hair, hung on his eyebrows. The wind whipped at his jacket. Far away in the purple sky chimneys and church steeples cut against the heavens. Asa Heshel followed the coach with his eyes until it rounded a corner.

He went back into the ballroom. The crowd was applauding -497-something.

Someone was shouting hoarsely. A broad-shouldered man, swarthy as a Turk, with a shock of black hair, was talking in a throaty voice. "Everything is politics with that bunch. Truth and justice--that they spit on."

"What's happened?"

"They chose a beauty queen, and they picked an ugly ape.

Someone with influence, I suppose."

"What do you care?"

"The law is the same for a penny as for a hundred gulden, as the Talmud says."

At that moment Asa Heshel saw Hadassah. She was standing looking at the stage. He had never seen her so beautiful. He suddenly remembered Abram's promise that she should be queen of the ball. A wave of pity rushed over him. Here she stood, his beloved wife, the mother of his child, a woman who had thrown away a fortune to be with him. What a disappointment he must be for her! How many angry words had he spoken to her!

How bankrupt was his life, his career, his love! He approached her and put a hand on her shoulder. Hadassah trembled. She looked at him, frightened, and then her face lit up. "It's you.

Where were you? I've been looking for you all evening. I thought that--" and her eyes became moist.

"What did you think?"

"Nothing. Such noise! What cheap people! We shouldn't have come. You were right. Have you seen Masha?"

"No, my dear. Come, let's sit down somewhere. You look beautiful."

Hadassah became serious. She could not understand his sud-den warmth. She had expected a rebuff. She took his arm. "Come, let's leave. Let's go home."

-498-

ABRAM started up from sleep in the middle of the night with a sharp pain in his left arm and a pressure around his heart. It was dark. Beside him in the bed a woman lay asleep. Who was she, he wondered. Could it be Ida? No, Ida was in the hospital. Hama was dead. He tried to remember what had happened dur-ing the evening, but could recall nothing. His head felt heavy on the pillow. His brains were like sand. He remembered his digitalis pills and tried to get up, but he could not seem to raise his back.

He could not see a door in the darkness, nor a window. "Dear God in heaven, I'm finished," he thought. He wanted to nudge the woman to wake her up, but he could not seem to raise his arm.

For a while he dozed off again. He dreamed he was in a slaughterhouse. A butcher was binding an ox, preparing its throat for the knife. How strange! He, Abram, was the ox! He tried to shriek, but someone held his jaws firmly together. The flayers came toward him, with their bloodied boots. "Murderers!

Villains! I'm a man, a human being!" Abram shuddered violently and started awake, drenched in a cold sweat. The bed was trembling beneath him. There was a taste of blood in his mouth.

He lay silent and tense. Dear God, this was the end.

The woman beside him woke up. "Abram! What's the matter?"

"Who are you?" Abram managed to grunt.

"It's me. Manya."

"Where am I?"

"What's the matter? Are you sick or something? We came here from the ball."

"Ah."

"Does something hurt you?"

-499-He hardly

knew what to answer her. Suddenly the electric light was turned on. Manya was standing beside the bed, barefoot, in a long nightgown. Her face had become faded, flaccid, and wrinkled.

Under her chin another chin wobbled. The narrow Kalmuk eyes stared at him in a kind of dull terror. "What is it? Is it your heart?"

"A little--pressure--"

"What shall I do? The master and mistress will be here soon."

Abram looked around him and saw that he was in a kitchen. The floor was tiled. Pots and pans hung from hooks on the walls. On the stove stood a teakettle. A strand of withered flypaper hung from the overhead lamp. Abram had an urge to laugh. Of all places he had to pick out this place to die in. "Pills--I have pills--

in my trousers pocket--" he managed to get out.

Manya turned quickly to the trousers, which lay on a chair. The pills were not there. She became entangled in the suspenders.

From the vest pocket an enormous watch fell to the floor. Manya picked it up and held it to her ear.

"Did it stop?"

"Yes."

"Ah." Yes, it was an omen. He was dying. In five-and-thirty years the watch had never stopped. He closed his eyes. Warsaw would have plenty to talk about. Manya walked aimlessly back and forth, wringing her hands. "Abram!" she whispered frantic-ally. "You'll have to go home."

"Yes, yes. I'll get dressed."

She hurried to the bed and pulled the covers back. Abram lay in his undershirt. He shivered, trying to huddle his legs up. She helped him to dress, putting on his trousers, socks, and shoes.

She made him get up and put on his vest, coat, overcoat, fur hat.