by Frank Wynne
After a while the telephone began to ring. It was the captain’s wife. The good woman had somehow got word of their failure to cope with the little misadventure mentioned by him that morning. She said she was going to pop over and see whether she still had the lucky knack she had sometimes had before—wasn’t the kitchen door open? After a short interval the captain’s wife entered the house, encased in all the corsets that serve to enhance the honour of a plump middle-aged woman. She walked with firm, confident steps and the kind of rustle of silk that went with them, while her shoes squeaked in a distinguished way. After twenty-five years both mother and daughter seemed to be as familiar with the entries to this house as with those of their own.
“How do you do. Thank you so much for your kindness. Please sit down,” said the master of the house, and he led her to the settee, which was no more than adequate for her, though designed for two. She affected not to notice the chicken on its dish and enveloped him in the sort of atmosphere that sometimes rises from hot, heather-covered dales on calm summer days.
“I am rather shy by nature,” said this big woman; “but I thought there might be something else I could do for you. If nothing more, I could transmit my current to you.”
‘It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that I’m at my wits’ end,” he replied, “and more than that. It would take a full sixty working days, at the very least, to put this right. My wife may come home tomorrow; at the latest, the day after. I’ve tried everything. Beautiful young girls have been here: they could do nothing. I’ve been to a furniture-maker and offered to sell him the whole suite: no, thank you! I’ve offered to give it away to a young married couple: no, thank you! I’ve been to a travel bureau and asked for an immediate flight to America, but of course that was no good, either. Last of all, I went out to the whale jetty to find myself a place there. Tell me the truth, madam, do you think I’m mad?”
“As you can see, I’m a woman in her fifties, the mother of eight and a grandmother many times over. All my days have been spent in the midst of the green valley of life. I have neither the knowledge, the wisdom, nor the looks to solve any man’s problems, to say nothing of my own. But I am a little psychic. I have a current. Sit down in my aura and don’t be afraid. Women of my age are long past doing any harm. I shall hold your hand; we’ll talk quietly together, and I’ll give you what I have to give.”
“What would you say to your husband if you were to return home and find your best room in ruins?” he enquired.
“I have never had a best room,” she replied. “On the other hand my husband often forgot to provide for the home when the children were small; he kept mistresses; sometimes three at once, beside those he had abroad. And he often came home drunk. But I loved him, however often he left the house in ruins. I only needed a night to build it up again. Though there was never any best room; and nothing but potatoes and swedes grew in the garden.”
“My wife grew flowers,” said the master of the house. “And not only was she a Good Templar and confirmed non-swearer, but also by her efforts the churchyard, with its glory of flowers, became the pride of the community. She dusted the pictures every day—though Microbe laughs at them. And once a quarter she would beat the furniture, which she had brought with her as a wedding portion and which is now done for.”
“Heaven knows I look up to this woman also, as a true model of feminine virtue,” said the visitor.
“That she was, and will always be, in life or death,” said the man. “This is why my misadventure in the drawing-room has completely finished me.”
“I hope you will never think of this woman otherwise than with gratitude,” said the visitor. “Nor may we forget to thank her for the comfortable churchyard she has prepared for us all.”
He said, “Some think this woman has gone south to betray me. Others believe she has gone to do away with herself. What do you think?”
“The worst is yet unspoken,” she said.
“But if she comes back, what am I to do?” he asked.
She enclosed one of his hands softly between her palms and answered, “Trust me.”
“I think you are a good guest,” he said, using the familiar form of speech.
“We must not be familiar,” she said. “It would be misunderstood.”
“There’s no one to hear,” he said.
“For that reason, too, it would be a sin,” she said. “And beware of leaning your forehead against my eyebrows. Once I found some eyebrow-black on my husband’s handkerchief. A man can have no enemy as diabolically cunning as a woman. But you may lay the palm of your hand on the small of my back, where the snake Kundalini sleeps coiled up—that serpent-fire that some call the World-Mother. When woken, it uncoils and climbs up the spine towards the brain, endowing the soul with infinite powers and enabling the human being to perform miracles.”
“You are too widely read in esoteric books for me to follow you,” said the man. “All I ask is how I am to get the hooks out of the plush.”
“You have at your back a house that has been ruined and rebuilt many times; my house,” said the woman. “So long as you remember that, nothing you need fear will ever happen. A woman in possession of knees like mine is past sinning; at least in thought, word or deed. If anything goes wrong, it will be enough to call me on the phone. And now that time of night is come when those in the churchyard begin to stir—and we mortals go to our beds and turn out the light.”
The venerable matron had risen to her feet.
“You should take me across with you, madam,” he said.
“It could be misunderstood,” said the woman.
“You won’t go without saying goodnight, though,” said the man.
“I shall leave the current behind,” she said, and was gone.
This great, good woman walked away with firm steps in her squeaking shoes, out through the kitchen, unemotionally and most virtuously closing the back door behind her. All at once the man had quite forgotten about the hooks and was wondering how a woman who had spent so long in the midst of the green valley of life could vanish like smoke the very moment she had redeemed a man.
After he had gone to bed and sunk into a gentle, easy slumber, he suddenly started up at a noise in the outer room, switched on the light and asked, “Who’s there?”
“Could it be original sin in felt slippers?” came the answer from outside. “At all events, there’s no need to be switching on the light. I began thinking about a little something, all of a sudden, after I had gone to bed: my daughter’s good name. I wouldn’t want this chicken to foul your wife’s dustbin; she might think someone had sneaked in to you from that confounded brothel of a churchyard, where all lie together divinely, in single sex, without morals. I am going to slip that chicken into my dustbin.”
Then the woman bade the man goodnight.
GIMPEL THE FOOL
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Translated from the Yiddish by Saul Bellow
Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904–1991) was a Polish-born American writer of novels, short stories, and essays in Yiddish. He was the recipient in 1978 of the Nobel Prize for Literature. His fiction, depicting Jewish life in Poland and the United States, is remarkable for its rich blending of irony, wit, and wisdom, flavoured distinctively with the occult and the grotesque. Singer was a prominent Jewish vegetarian for the last thirty-five years of his life and often included vegetarian themes in his works. Singer’s birth date is uncertain; it is widely reported that he presented himself as being younger to authorities to avoid the military draft.
I
I am Gimpel the Fool. I don’t think myself a fool. On the contrary. But that’s what folks call me. They gave me the name while I was still in school. I had seven names in all: imbecile, donkey, flax-head, dope, glump, ninny, and fool. The last name stuck. What did my foolishness consist of? I was easy to take in. They said, “Gimpel, you know the rabbi’s wife has been brought to childbed?” So I skipped school. Well, it turned out to be a lie. How was
I supposed to know? She hadn’t had a big belly. But I never looked at her belly. Was that really so foolish? The gang laughed and hee-hawed, stomped and danced and chanted a good-night prayer. And instead of the raisins they give when a woman’s lying in, they stuffed my hand full of goat turds. I was no weakling. If I slapped someone he’d see all the way to Cracow. But I’m really not a slugger by nature. I think to myself: Let it pass. So they take advantage of me.
I was coming home from school and heard a dog barking. I’m not afraid of dogs, but of course I never want to start up with them. One of them may be mad, and if he bites there’s not a Tartar in the world who can help you. So I made tracks. Then I looked around and saw the whole market place wild with laughter. It was no dog at all but Wolf-Leib the Thief. How was I supposed to know it was he? It sounded like a howling bitch.
When the pranksters and leg-pullers found that I was easy to fool, every one of them tried his luck with me. “Gimpel, the Czar is coming to Frampol; Gimpel, the moon fell down in Turbeen; Gimpel, little Hodel Furpiece found a treasure behind the bathhouse.” And I like a golem believed everyone. In the first place, everything is possible, as it is written in the Wisdom of the Fathers, I’ve forgotten just how. Second, I had to believe when the whole town came down on me! If I ever dared to say, “Ah, you’re kidding!” there was trouble. People got angry. “What do you mean! You want to call everyone a liar?” What was I to do? I believed them, and I hope at least that did them some good.
I was an orphan. My grandfather who brought me up was already bent toward the grave. So they turned me over to a baker, and what a time they gave me there! Every woman or girl who came to bake a batch of noodles had to fool me at least once. “Gimpel, there’s a fair in heaven; Gimpel, the rabbi gave birth to a calf in the seventh month; Gimpel, a cow flew over the roof and laid brass eggs.” A student from the yeshiva came once to buy a roll, and he said, “You, Gimpel, while you stand here scraping with your baker’s shovel the Messiah has come. The dead have arisen.” “What do you mean?” I said. “I heard no one blowing the ram’s horn!” He said, “Are you deaf?” And all began to cry, “We heard it, we heard!” Then in came Rietze the Candle-dipper and called out in her hoarse voice, “Gimpel, your father and mother have stood up from the grave. They’re looking for you.”
To tell the truth, I knew very well that nothing of the sort had happened, but all the same, as folks were talking, I threw on my wool vest and went out. Maybe something had happened. What did I stand to lose by looking? Well, what a cat music went up! And then I took a vow to believe nothing more. But that was no go either. They confused me so that I didn’t know the big end from the small.
I went to the rabbi to get some advice. He said, “It is written, better to be a fool all your days than for one hour to be evil. You are not a fool. They are the fools. For he who causes his neighbor to feel shame loses Paradise himself.” Nevertheless the rabbi’s daughter took me in. As I left the rabbinical court she said, “Have you kissed the wall yet?” I said, “No; what for?” She answered, “It’s the law; you’ve got to do it after every visit.” Well, there didn’t seem to be any harm in it. And she burst out laughing. It was a fine trick. She put one over on me, all right.
I wanted to go off to another town, but then everyone got busy matchmaking, and they were after me so they nearly tore my coat tails off. They talked at me and talked until I got water on the ear. She was no chaste maiden, but they told me she was virgin pure. She had a limp, and they said it was deliberate, from coyness. She had a bastard, and they told me the child was her little brother. I cried, “You’re wasting your time. I’ll never marry that whore.” But they said indignantly, “What a way to talk! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? We can take you to the rabbi and have you fined for giving her a bad name.” I saw then that I wouldn’t escape them so easily and I thought: They’re set on making me their butt. But when you’re married the husband’s the master, and if that’s all right with her it’s agreeable to me too. Besides, you can’t pass through life unscathed, nor expect to.
I went to her clay house, which was built on the sand, and the whole gang, hollering and chorusing, came after me. They acted like bear-baiters. When we came to the well they stopped all the same. They were afraid to start anything with Elka. Her mouth would open as if it were on a hinge, and she had a fierce tongue. I entered the house. Lines were strung from wall to wall and clothes were drying. Barefoot she stood by the tub, doing the wash. She was dressed in a worn hand-me-down gown of plush. She had her hair put up in braids and pinned across her head. It took my breath away, almost, the reek of it all.
Evidently she knew who I was. She took a look at me and said, “Look who’s here! He’s come, the drip. Grab a seat.”
I told her all; I denied nothing. “Tell me the truth,” I said, “are you really a virgin, and is that mischievous Yechiel actually your little brother? Don’t be deceitful with me, for I’m an orphan.”
“I’m an orphan myself,” she answered, “and whoever tries to twist you up, may the end of his nose take a twist. But don’t let them think they can take advantage of me. I want a dowry of fifty guilders, and let them take up a collection besides. Otherwise they can kiss my you-know-what.” She was very plainspoken. I said, “It’s the bride and not the groom who gives a dowry.” Then she said, “Don’t bargain with me. Either a flat ‘yes’ or a flat ‘no’—Go back where you came from.”
I thought: No bread will ever be baked from this dough. But ours is not a poor town. They consented to everything and proceeded with the wedding. It so happened that there was a dysentery epidemic at the time. The ceremony was held at the cemetery gates, near the little corpse-washing hut. The fellows got drunk. While the marriage contract was being drawn up I heard the most pious high rabbi ask, “Is the bride a widow or a divorced woman?” And the sexton’s wife answered for her, “Both a widow and divorced.” It was a black moment for me. But what was I to do, run away from under the marriage canopy?
There was singing and dancing. An old granny danced opposite me, hugging a braided white chalah. The master of revels made a “God ’a mercy” in memory of the bride’s parents. The schoolboys threw burrs, as on Tishe b’Av fast day. There were a lot of gifts after the sermon: a noodle board, a kneading trough, a bucket, brooms, ladles, household articles galore. Then I took a look and saw two strapping young men carrying a crib. “What do we need this for?” I asked. So they said, “Don’t rack your brains about it. It’s all right, it’ll come in handy.” I realized I was going to be rooked. Take it another way though, what did I stand to lose? I reflected: I’ll see what comes of it. A whole town can’t go altogether crazy.
II
At night I came where my wife lay, but she wouldn’t let me in. “Say, look here, is this what they married us for?” I said. And she said, “My monthly has come.” “But yesterday they took you to the ritual bath, and that’s afterward, isn’t it supposed to be?” “Today isn’t yesterday,” said she, “and yesterday’s not today. You can beat it if you don’t like it.” In short, I waited.
Nor four months later she was in childbed. The townsfolk hid their laughter with their knuckles. But what could I do? She suffered intolerable pains and clawed at the walls. “Gimpel,” she cried, “I’m going. Forgive me!” The house filled with women. They were boiling pans of water. The screams rose to the welkin.
The thing to do was to go to the House of Prayer to repeat Psalms, and that was what I did.
The townsfolk liked that, all right. I stood in a corner saying Psalms and prayers, and they shook their heads at me. “Pray, pray!” they told me. “Prayer never made any woman pregnant.” One of the congregation put a straw to my mouth and said, “Hay for the cows.” There was something to that too, by God!
She gave birth to a boy. Friday at the synagogue the sexton stood up before the Ark, pounded on the reading table, and announced, “The wealthy Reb Gimpel invites the congregation to a feast in honor of the birth of a son.” The who
le House of Prayer rang with laughter. My face was flaming. But there was nothing I could do. After all, I was the one responsible for the circumcision honors and rituals.
Half the town came running. You couldn’t wedge another soul in. Women brought peppered chick-peas, and there was a keg of beer from the tavern. I ate and drank as much as anyone, and they all congratulated me. Then there was a circumcision, and I named the boy after my father, may he rest in peace. When all were gone and I was left with my wife alone, she thrust her head through the bed-curtain and called me to her.
“Gimpel,” said she, “why are you silent? Has your ship gone and sunk?”
“What shall I say?” I answered. “A fine thing you’ve done to me! If my mother had known of it she’d have died a second time.”
She said, “Are you crazy, or what?”
“How can you make such a fool,” I said, “of one who should be the lord and master?”
“What’s the matter with you?” she said. “What have you taken it into your head to imagine?”
I saw that I must speak bluntly and openly. “Do you think this is the way to use an orphan?” I said, “You have borne a bastard.”
She answered, “Drive this foolishness out of your head. The child is yours.”
“How can he be mine?” I argued. “He was born seventeen weeks after the wedding.”
She told me then that he was premature. I said, “Isn’t he a little too premature?” She said, she had had a grandmother who carried just as short a time and she resembled this grandmother of hers as one drop of water does another. She swore to it with such oaths that you would have believed a peasant at the fair if he had used them. To tell the plain truth, I didn’t believe her; but when I talked it over next day with the schoolmaster he told me that the very same thing had happened to Adam and Eve. Two they went up to bed, and four they descended.
“There isn’t a woman in the world who is not the granddaughter of Eve,” he said.
