More Stories From My Father's Court

by Isaac Bashevis Singer

  “Your wife is summoning you to the rabbi.”

  “To the rabbi, eh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does she want a divorce?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fine. I won’t keep her!”

  The man stood up. He told the older girl to keep an eye on the little children. A couple of minutes later he was in Father’s courtroom. His wife greeted him with curses, shouts, and balled fists.

  But he let out a roar and drowned her out: “Be quiet! If you want a divorce, there’ll be a divorce! Just stop shrieking!”

  Father called Mother aside for a private chat. Mother maintained that the quarreling couple should not be divorced because they had children. Father agreed. When he returned to the room where the couple was waiting, he told them what he usually did in such cases: A divorce is no small matter; such things should not be done rashly. One should give it serious thought; one must consider the children.

  The woman started fuming. “In that case, I’m going to go to another rabbi.”

  “No other rabbi will give you a divorce on the spur of the moment.”

  Father smiled slightly as he said this. He had lied in order to keep the peace. There were indeed rabbis in Warsaw who didn’t stand on ceremony and performed quick divorces for whoever wished one. One rabbi in our street, whom I will not name, especially excelled in these instant divorces. Who knows, perhaps he was driven by need. That rabbi actually had a divorce factory—on occasion there were several scribes sitting in his apartment simultaneously writing bills of divorce. Warsaw rabbis had often spoken of proclaiming his divorces invalid.

  For a long while husband and wife sat in our apartment insulting and cursing each other. The racket could be heard in the street. The woman recounted all her husband’s nasty deeds and all the trouble and humiliation she had suffered at his hand from the day her horrible luck had driven her to marry him. At one point she cried, at another she yelled at the top of her voice; now she spoke softly, as though pleading, and then once again she became wild. Her hands were always groping for something. Had she found an object in our apartment with which to hit her husband or throw at his head, she certainly would have done something wild in her murderous rage. But there was nothing for her to grab except books. The man hardly said a word. When he did open his mouth, he spoke like a boor who was both afraid of and prepared for battle.

  After lengthy arguments and complaints the couple departed. Warsaw was a huge metropolis and even Krochmalna Street was a big city. Several days passed, perhaps even a few weeks, and we heard no news about the couple. A quarreling couple was no big deal! It happened every day, even ten times a day. Indeed, there were couples on Krochmalna Street who would go out to the street when they wanted to fight and wait for a crowd to gather. What sense was there fighting in one’s own apartment in front of the four walls?

  Suddenly one day the door opened and the man who had gambled away the stove at cards entered. He seemed thinner, rumpled, neglected. His cheeks were hollow, his formerly ruddy face now pale. His mustache wasn’t twirled upward like a spring but drooped miserably like that of a down-and-out janitor. Even his boots had lost their former shine.

  “Is the rabbi here?”

  “Yes, in the next room.”

  For a while the man was silent. Mother was silent, too, but I sensed that both of them wanted to talk. Finally, Mother asked what had happened.

  “Oh, Rebbetzin, things are bad.”

  “What? Tell me.”

  “They divorced us.”

  “Where?”

  The man mentioned the street.

  Mother clapped her hands in dismay. “Shame on them! For a couple of rubles they’re ready to destroy people!”

  Silence fell once again. Then Mother asked, “What are you? A Kohen? A Levite? An Israelite?”

  “Me? Um, I don’t know.”

  “Did your father ever give the priestly blessing in the synagogue?”

  “My father? Give the priestly blessing? No. Why do you ask?”

  “Go in to see my husband.”

  Mother, a rabbi’s daughter, knew very well what she was asking. A Levite or an Israelite is permitted to remarry the woman he has divorced. But a Kohen is forbidden to marry a divorcee, even if it is his own ex-wife.

  The man was filled with regrets and he poured his bitter heart out to my father. He had been angry, his wife had been in a foul temper, too, and a rabbi had coveted those couple of rubles. And so he divorced them, one two three. But their anger passed. The children were crying and longing for their father. His wife was beside herself. He, too, longed for his wife and kids something awful. Yes, he knew that he had behaved badly, but he wanted to become a decent person once more. He had vowed never to touch cards again. He would stop drinking. He loved his wife and he was a devoted father. He was ready to give up his life for his children. And he wanted to remarry his loyal wife.

  “You are not a Kohen?” Father asked quickly.

  The man said no, but Father sent me to get the man’s ex-wife and tell her to bring either the divorce document or her marriage certificate. Father confirmed that the man was not a Kohen. He was happy. Mother’s mood improved as well. Now that the harm could be rectified, Father began preaching to the man: Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? How can one be so deeply involved in sensuality? Man’s soul stems from the Throne of Glory. It is sent down into this world to be improved, not spoiled. One does not live forever. There comes a time when a person must give an accounting …

  The man nodded in agreement to everything that Father said. The woman stood there wringing her hands—not in the courtroom, but in the kitchen doorway. In the interim she had also become pale and melancholic. She showed Mother that she had lost so much weight her dress was falling off her shoulders. She could not sleep at night. There was a knot in her throat and she couldn’t even cry …

  Suddenly she began wailing in a voice so fearsome it was hard to imagine it could be human. I understood then that husband and wife loved each other with an enormous love and were bound to each other with a force that no divorce could rend asunder.

  Yes, that rabbi, the manager of that divorce mill, had taken those couple of rubles. But the wedding took place in our apartment. Bride and groom laughed and wept under the wedding canopy. The next Sabbath, husband and wife were strolling arm in arm on Krochmalna Street, accompanied by their little children. A terror comes over me when I think what would have happened, God forbid, had that man been a Kohen …

  ONE GROOM AND TWO BRIDES

  The door opened and two men and two women entered. I knew three of them. One was a scribe who lived in our courtyard, a man reputed to be a saint. It was said of him that every time he wrote God’s name he went to the ritual bath. Writing a mezuzah or a couple of passages for a set of tefillin took him days or weeks. He was, alas, dirt-poor. Poverty was visible on his pale and wrinkled face; his yellow forehead was lined like parchment. His beard was dirty gray and sparse; his sidecurls hung down disheveled. A profound piety glowed in his eyes. This man was a tzaddik, a righteous, saintly man who never forgot his Creator for one moment. He lived in perpetual need, obeyed the commandments, and did good deeds. Father stood up the instant he saw him, just as one rises before a great rabbi. Father would often say that this scribe always had the name of God before his eyes. He seemed to have stepped out of an ancient time.

  The scribe was a widower. His daughter, an old maid of forty, accompanied him. She was short, fleshy, with a milky face and two large, calflike eyes. She was cross-eyed, and half-blind to boot. She managed the scribe’s household. Ah, woe unto such household management! They lived in a garret. The scribe was always observing fast days and his gaberdine was full of patches. His finest garment was his set of ritual fringes.

  I knew the other woman as well. She was tall, thin, dark as a shovel. She worked at the baker’s at 12 Krochmalna Street and often stood outside holding a basket of rolls. She was forty as well and was considered a fool, a sim
pleton.

  The second man was about sixty, with a round, grayish beard. He had on a small cap, the sort worn by common folk, and a short jacket spotted and stained with glue. I didn’t know him. He looked like someone who glued sacks.

  After Father had offered a chair to the scribe, he asked him how he was, and the scribe replied, “God be praised.” When he uttered these words, he began shaking and quaking. It was no trifle, mentioning the Creator of the Universe, the One who had created heaven and earth! The man seemed enveloped in holy texts.

  “What can I do for you?”

  It turned out that all four had come for a Din Torah, a rabbinic judgment, and that the plaintiff was none other than the scribe. Here is the story:

  The poor scribe had longed to bring his daughter under the wedding canopy, and this sixty-year-old man, a divorce, had come along. The scribe had an engagement contract drawn up, promised the man a couple of rubles dowry, and the match was concluded. But what was the upshot? It turned out that the man also had another fiancée; indeed, it was the swarthy old maid who worked for the baker. The scribe did not want to humiliate the other man, God forbid, his daughter’s fiance. He accused and defended him simultaneously. The gist of his remarks was that this man had made a mistake and had been tempted to transgress. But errors must be corrected, and so the scribe was demanding that the other fiancée step aside and that his daughter, God forbid, not be humiliated and made into a laughingstock. One could see that the scribe was terribly upset. He stammered and was in constant fear lest he say words one was forbidden to utter, and lest, God forbid, he unwittingly shame the other man. The scribe’s awe of God hung over him like a sword, for every bad word can bring down upon a person the fire of hell and the nether depths.

  After the scribe had finished speaking, the swarthy old maid found her tongue. “Rabbi,” she said in a hoarse voice, “I don’t know this man and I don’t know his daughter. This man here wanted to marry me and he gave his word. He told me nothing about this other one. I’ve slaved away enough at the baker’s. I too want to come to an agreement. I’m not a young girl and I’ve knocked around bakeries and kitchens long enough. I’m a human being, too! I should drop dead right here if I knew anything about her. I swear to God I don’t know her from Adam. And what does he need a wife like that for? She’s not for him. He needs somebody who can help him in his line of work. What can she do? Just look at her, Rabbi. She’s blind.”

  Father banged the table, signaling her not to speak in such a vulgar manner. But she continued spewing fire and brimstone. She called the scribe’s daughter a slattern, a hunk of dough, a blind cow, a filthy slob, a fool, and other such names.

  The scribe’s daughter began to weep. The scribe bent his head, murmuring through his bluish-white lips. He was probably whispering that he forgave this woman the humiliations she was causing him and prayed that she also be forgiven in heaven. Father pulled out his pocket handkerchief and wiped his moist eyes. Yes, such was the destiny of the righteous: they have to suffer here on earth.

  Then Father addressed the other man. “You became engaged to the daughter of a scholar. Your future father-in-law is a tzaddik. His daughter is a respectable young woman, and God willing she will be devoted to you. So what made you think of bothering to turn someone else’s head? What are you? A youngster? Do you think the world is lawless? There is a God in heaven who sees everything! A person does not live forever! Someday you’ll have to give an account of yourself …”

  Father was angry. He threatened the man with all the measures of hell. He even told him he would have to apologize to his future father-in-law and recalled the saying in the Ethics of the Fathers: “The bite of scholars is like the bite of a fox, their sting is like the sting of a scorpion, and all their words are like fiery coals.”

  Hearing Father’s praise, the scribe shrunk into himself. He began to sway back and forth and shake his head from side to side—he was not a scholar and he was being undeservedly praised. The scribe was afraid that all those words might cause him to forfeit his share in the world to come.

  The common Jew tried to justify himself. He said that he had had no dealings with the swarthy woman. She had approached him, not he her. He had come to buy rolls from her for breakfast and she had started chatting with him. This led to that, and they went to a café for some cheesecake and coffee. Well, after some more of this and that, she talked him into marrying her. He told her that he was already engaged, but she didn’t want to hear about it. After more this and that, he made his promise. What should he do? If the rabbi says that he has to send her away, he will send her away. After all, one cannot have two brides at once.

  “What do you mean, you’re going to send me away?” the swarthy old maid yelled. “What am I, some kind of rotten apple that can be thrown around? You didn’t tell me about another fiancee. If I had known that you had a fiancée, I’d have left you and sent you to the blazes so quickly all your bones would’ve broken. You thief, you liar, you sweet-talker, you heretic! And this cost me money, too, Rabbi …”

  The woman began to reckon up all the expenses she had had and the other men who had wanted her. Because of this heretic, this old roué, she had lost many precious bridegrooms.

  My father heard her out. He shut his eyes and rested a fist on the kerchief which was used to signify agreement among the litigants. For years he had been the rabbi on this street, but he still could not get used to these people. I felt I could see his thoughts behind his forehead and in the little veins in his temples, and how he was trying to stand up for these ignoramuses who, poor things, wanted to be Jews but did not know how. After a while he seemed to wake up. The contenders had run out of arguments. He let each of them touch the kerchief. Finally, he rendered his opinion: the swarthy bakery woman must step aside, because the man had already been engaged to the scribe’s daughter. But since she had had expenses and perhaps felt humiliated as well, she would have to be paid two rubles in compensation for stepping aside. I remember feeling ashamed after hearing this decision. Two rubles was so insignificant a sum even for such paupers. I felt myself turning red, but I saw at once that, as usual, my father had had a better grasp of the situation than I.

  The swarthy old maid tried to bargain, saying that the sum was too small, but I saw that she was amenable. The fiance with the gray beard immediately stated that he had no money. Where would he get two rubles from? He had to marry and rent an apartment, and he didn’t have two rubles to throw around. Then the scribe raised his head and mumbled that since he wanted his daughter’s situation resolved, he would pay the two rubles.

  And with a shaking hand he began to dig into his pockets and take out groschens, kopecks, coins of various denominations. He counted, made errors, didn’t recognize the coins, swayed, and never stopped praying. And that’s how he counted out those two rubles. The swarthy woman gathered up the coins and left in a huff, cursing and slamming the door, as if to say she was still dissatisfied and could not be bought off with two rubles.

  This Din Torah in and of itself was bizarre, but a couple of days later we heard someone fiddling with our door handle. Mother went to open the door and the scribe came in. With tears in his eyes, he told Father that the man who planned to marry his daughter was not even divorced. Father was incensed. He summoned the man and called him a scoundrel, a sinner, a heretic, and other names that rarely passed my father’s lips. The man listened with a guilty look on his face and responded, “I’m in the process of getting a divorce.”

  “You troublemaker! You said you already were divorced!” said the scribe.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You did say it,” the scribe bore witness. “Would I have arranged a match with a married man?”

  The fiance tried to deny it, but my father drove him away. It seems to me that he even cursed him. The scribe remained in Father’s study. Father wanted to repay the two rubles, but under no circumstances would the scribe accept them. Both men sat there for a long time discussing ho
ly texts and sighing at the state of the modern world.

  “Ah, woe and alas, it’s the end of the world. It’s high time for the Messiah to come!” Father exclaimed.

  “Well,” the scribe sighed. It seemed as if he was mutely saying, We can’t offer our suggestions to the Master of the Universe.

  After a while the scribe passed away. His daughter remained a spinster. She became totally blind and sat on a doorstep collecting alms. For a long time thereafter I used to buy rolls from the swarthy old maid. She, too, never married.

  When some years later I became a bar mitzvah, my father gave me a set of tefillin made by that holy scribe, and I always seemed to feel on my forehead the sanctity that exuded from the Torah verses he had written.

  AN UNUSUAL WEDDING

  Krochmalna Street was packed with houses of ill repute. In Yiddish they were called “little houses,” but the streetwalkers lived in cellars whose windows looked out from under the entrance steps. The men who patronized those places had to crawl through dark, cave-like corridors. At the square, thieves and pimps hung out. Even in those years I knew that there were prostitutes and that it was forbidden to look at them, because a single glance could make one impure. But I didn’t give much thought to precisely what they were or what they did.

  I often saw them standing by the gate or at the square, their cheeks rouged and their eyelashes mascaraed, wearing flowered scarves and red or blue shoes. Occasionally, one of them smoked a cigarette.

  When I passed by, they would call me names: “Hey, you little jerk! Hey, you sneaky little Hasid! Hey, you dummy!”

  But now and then, when one of them gave me a little piece of chocolate, I would run off and throw it into the sewer. I knew that whatever they touched was defiled. Once in a while they would come into our house to ask questions pertaining to religion. Mother would be embarrassed, unable to utter a word. But it made no difference to my father. He turned his glance aside from all women in any case. Their questions always pertained to the yortzeit, the anniversary of a loved one’s death, the only mitzvah the streetwalkers observed. They could never figure out the precise day on the Jewish calendar to light the memorial candle.