The Story of a Life (23 page)

After the club closed, whenever I ran into Hirsh on the street I would invite him over for a cup of coffee. He invariably carried a pocket chess set with him, and he would immediately suggest that we play. He was never arrogant and never
played the part of the grandmaster. During a game he would cradle his head in his hands, lost in thought, as if you were his most challenging opponent. But you knew in your heart that he was doing this only for your benefit, to show a little respect for your efforts. For his part, he had no need to make any effort at all.

People did not treat Hirsh with respect. He earned his living as an accountant, preparing annual reports for the income-tax authorities. He did his work with professionalism, honesty, and discretion, but all these excellent qualities did not bring him much money. People cheated him or didn’t pay him on time, and he, out of pure goodheartedness, did not chase them. He lived in a cramped room next to the old central bus station.

In recent years, although Hirsh’s economic situation improved, his loneliness deepened. He began to look shabby and stooped. Once I asked him if he had ever gone back to visit the club.

“No,” he said bashfully.

“Why not?” I asked.

“What would I do there?” he replied.

Hirsh had come from a very assimilated family, and whenever he was asked about something pertaining to Judaism, he would blush, flinch, and stammer that this was foreign territory to him. He would occasionally summon the courage to ask me about a custom or a commandment, but it would sound as if he were asking about something that was forbidden.

SOMETIMES IT SEEMS to me that all my writing derives not from my home and not from the war, but from the years of coffee and cigarettes at the club. The joy I experienced
when it was in its heyday and the pain that I felt when it collapsed—these feelings are still very much alive within me.

Every member carried within him a double and sometimes a triple life. I borrowed a little from each of their lives. In the club there were all types of people: fat and thin, tall and short. Hirsh Lang stood head and shoulders above everyone else, but his height gave him no advantage. He would walk stooped over, as if he was trying to be no taller than the other members. By contrast, our vice-chairman, who was also tall, invariably used his height to dominate everyone and to prevail on every issue.

Those members who were close to me read my work and offered intelligent comments. There were also members who were expert poker players, among them businessmen who routinely conducted secret deals worth many thousands of dollars. These men were skilled entrepreneurs who had raised their profession to a fine art, amassing fortunes along the way. And there were the arrogant, insincere, and empty types who had not been affected at all by the war and its horrors, who would say, almost in spite, “We won’t change. That’s how we lived before and that’s how we’ll always be.”

Among the rest were the silent ones, those who barely uttered a word. The steam from the coffee and the haze of the cigarette smoke enveloped us for years and brought us to where we are today.