“For what purpose?”
I didn’t know how to answer him and he snarled through clenched teeth:
“Best get out of here! …”
2
After a while I got permission to go up and I began to climb the stairs because the elevator was for tenants only. The steps were of marble. I stopped before a massive carved door painted red. A brass name plate bore the inscription: Isidore Janovsky.
I rang and it took a while for the maid, a woman with a red face and white hair, to answer. The foyer was big and wide with many doors leading from it. The maid went off to announce me and I had to wait a long time. There wasn’t a stick of furniture in the foyer. The walls bore traces of removed paintings like in a vacated apartment. A chain used to hold a lamp hung from the ceiling, but without a lamp. I suddenly recalled the official’s comments that Grabski had brought Miss Stefa’s father to ruin. Grabski was the Minister of Finance who had imposed such taxes upon the Jews that they were unable to pay, and after a while a wagon or wagons would come from the tax collector’s office and remove all the householder’s belongings. These wagons had been nicknamed “hearses.”
A door opened abruptly and Miss Stefa came out. She wore a knee-length dress and her blond hair cut boyishly short. She was tall for a woman, light-skinned and snub-nosed, and her face had the expression of one who is deeply preoccupied and had been called away from an important task. She looked me up and down and asked:
“Were you sent here by the Palestine Bureau?”
“Yes, the Bureau.”
She glanced at the slip of paper which I handed to her and pronounced my Jewish name in a Polish accent.
She asked: “Have you a birth certificate? A passport? Are you registered here in Warsaw? Are you ready to go to Palestine in the next few weeks? Are you deferred from conscription?”
I answered all her questions briefly. She stood away from me as if anxious to get the whole interrogation over with right then and there. Her gaze was stern and it occurred to me that she behaved not unlike those bureaucrats who had ruined her father.
After a while, she asked: “Is it true you write in the jargon?”
Her calling Yiddish a jargon irked me. Usually in such cases I would try to impress upon the other that all languages had been so disdained at first. French, Italian, and English had been branded as the vulgar languages of the rabble while the upper classes had employed Latin. I would point out that as long as the language of the aristocracy in Russia and Poland had been French, the Poles and Russians hadn’t produced a single work of art in that language. But as soon as they started writing in Russian or Polish, there had emerged a Pushkin, a Mickiewicz, a Slowacki, and many others. But I simply replied:
“Yes, in the jargon.”
“What do you write about?”
“Oh, about Jewish life here in Poland.”
“And what do you intend to do in Palestine? Also write?”
“If they’ll let me.”
“Do you know Hebrew?”
“I can read it and write it, but not speak it fluently. I’ve never spoken any Hebrew.”
“When I was a child, a rabbi used to come to the house and teach me a little Hebrew—how to read from a prayer book—what is it called? ‘I give thanks.’ But I’ve forgotten everything. I no longer even know the alphabet. Such strange characters—they all look alike to me. Well, and the reading from right to left is bewildering. I’m afraid I’ll never get used to it. But it has turned out so that I must get to Palestine. Come in. Why do you stand there in the doorway?”
She opened the door for me and I followed her into a room which contained a folding cot, a small table on which a few books and papers lay, and two kitchen chairs—one white, one blue.
She looked around as if she herself were startled by the changes wrought here. She indicated to me to take one of the chairs while she herself sat down on the cot, which was covered with a faded bedspread. She lit a cigarette, crossed her legs, and it struck me that her knees weren’t round as most girls’, but pointed.
She asked: “That young man—what’s his name? Margolis—explained the situation to you?”
“Yes, more or less.”
“I must get to Palestine and the sooner the better. My fiancé and I were supposed to get married here in Warsaw. Everything was already set for the wedding when suddenly something happened that spoiled our plans. The Palestine Bureau won’t issue a certificate for a single person. They generally discriminate against the so-called weaker sex. In this respect, they are full-fledged Asiatics.”
She went on. “I know languages—French, German, even a little English, but I know no Yiddish and not a word of Hebrew. I’ll be frank with you, but don’t tell Margolis—I have no intention of staying in Palestine for long. Margolis is a fervent Zionist. If it were up to him, every Jew in the world would pack his bag and head for Palestine. When it comes to Poland, he may well be right. But Poland isn’t the world. What will the Jews do there? It’s still half desert. You’re undoubtedly a Jewish nationalist, but to me the whole Jewishness is a paradox. What does my Jewishness consist of? I don’t believe even marginally in God or all those miracles described in the Old Testament. I haven’t the slightest notion of what’s in the Talmud and all the rest of it. I was raised in the European culture but the World War has stirred up a kind of nationalism—that is beyond me. No, I don’t want to stay there but it’s hard to get a visa to a European country, and America has closed her gates. You’ve certainly read about what’s going on in Russia. Did you say you were free of your military obligations?”
“I’ve been given a ‘B’ classification. I have to present myself again in a few months.”
Miss Stefa snatched the cigarette from her lips and crushed it in the ashtray on the table.
“Oh really? But according to Margolis you were freed for good.”
“No. He knew I must present myself again shortly.”
“Has he lost his mind or what? Already he has sent me three or four candidates and each turns out worse than the last. I’m really beginning to suspect he’s acting out of spite. But why would he? What are your chances of being rejected?”
“I hope they won’t take me; I’m not altogether well.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
I wanted to say something but the words wouldn’t leave my lips. Miss Stefa measured me with a sidelong, mocking gaze.
“You don’t want to go in the army, that’s all. Not that I blame you. I wouldn’t want to myself if I were a man. What kind of pleasure is it? But someone has to defend the country in case of attack. My fiancé, Mark, is Jewish but he served in the army and worked his way up to officer. He fought in the war against the Bolsheviks and was highly decorated. He is an outstanding horseman and marksman. He once took part in a military horse race and he received a commendation. Were you born in Poland?”
“Yes, in Poland.”
“Your pronunciation sounds foreign. The Polish-Jewish press keeps fighting anti-Semitism but the Jews here behave in such a way that the anti-Semitism must exist. Thank God not all Jews are like this. You were undoubtedly raised in the cheder and in the yeshivah, on those ancient, moldy volumes. I believe you when you say you feel sick, but it’s only because you’ve never breathed any fresh air and never done any physical labor. You’re barely twenty-one or two but your spine is bent like an old man’s. Why are you so pale? Are you anemic?”
“Yes. Maybe.”
“What does your father do?”
“He’s a rabbi.”
“A rabbi, eh? Every third Jew is a rabbi. They walk the streets in their long caftans, disheveled beards, and flying earlocks and when I see them and their wild gestures I’m ashamed that we share a heritage. They are total savages.”
“You’re wrong, Miss Stefa, they are highly civilized.”
“In what sense?”
“They want to live, not to be heroes. What the Christians merely preach, they have been practicing for two thous
and years.”
“Oh, you’re a strange young man. I’m beginning to believe that this Margolis from the Palestine Bureau is having fun at my expense. You know what? Since you’re here you can show me the Hebrew alphabet. At least I’ll be able to read a sign when I am there. Wait, I have a Hebrew book. I left it in the living room. I’ll be right back.”
3
From the way Miss Stefa spoke I gathered that her parents were thoroughly assimilated, but a moment after she left, the door opened and in minced a tiny individual with a minuscule white goatee and brown eyes smiling with Jewish familiarity. He had a pinched, hooked nose, a high forehead as wrinkled as parchment, and sunken cheeks. He wore a stiff collar and a black silk tie.
He said: “I hope I am not disturbing you. I am Isidore Janovsky, Stefa’s father.”
He spoke Polish in the very same accent as I. He smiled, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth. I hurried to say that he was in his own house and that it was my pleasure to meet him, but Isidore Janovsky countered in singsong:
“What’s the big pleasure? These days a father is no authority. There has grown up a generation that’s ashamed of its own parents. You’re undoubtedly one of the bridegrooms Margolis from the Palestine Bureau keeps sending us. Forgive me, I don’t mean to sound insulting. Since my daughter has elected to drop everything and go to Palestine, she has to go through all this. There is a saying: ‘Once you say A, you must also say B.’ But who told her to say ‘A’ in the first place? … So, you’re actually going to the Land of Israel? What will you do there? You have to work hard there and the climate is harsh. I’m not just talking through my hat—I’ve been there. I visited the colonies and all the rest of it. Before the war I was a rich man and could afford to travel. When it gets hot there and the chamsin starts blowing you can go mad. I became very sick there. The colonies, Rishon le Zion and Petah Tikvah, are certainly an accomplishment, but outside of the piece of bread they provide nothing, and when the crops are meager they don’t even provide that. The Zionists claim things are better now—but I’m no heretic if I choose not to believe them. At one time a lie was a lie. Today, they’ve given the lie a fancy name—propaganda. May I ask your profession?”
“I’m a proofreader for a literary magazine.”
Isidore Janovsky clapped his ear.
“From this you make a living?”
“Yes.”
“And what will you do in the Land of Israel? Be a proofreader too? What’s the name of the magazine? What is it in—Hebrew or jargon?”
“In Yiddish.”
“Over there they look down on Yiddish. My dear young man, since you’re a proofreader you are probably something of a writer too. I used to read the older writers—Mendele, Shalom Aleichem, Peretz, Dinesohn. It had a kind of flavor. Once, one of the current crop of writers gave me his book. I didn’t understand a single line. Such difficult words and one had no connection to the next. They’re all Communists. In Russia it’s hell—people are starving to death and if one utters a word against their rulers they send him to Siberia. Here it’s bitter too. Without the Russian market Poland is like a head without a body. They want their taxes paid but how can you pay taxes when the factories have no customers to supply? What’s the name of that magazine?”
I told him its name.
“Never heard of it. I shouldn’t say this to you but I’m going to say it anyway. We have one daughter who is very precious to us. There was another, a younger, a girl of seventeen, wonderful child—pretty, smart, devoted to her parents, a treasure, but she got the crazy urge to dance. She danced and danced till her appendix burst and before the doctors, those quacks, could diagnose her ailment it was too late. It’s no tragedy when a girl dances but everything has to have a limit. There has evolved a generation that knows no restraints. They want to drink in all the pleasure all at once, and if you tell them that this isn’t the way, they’re ready to tear you to shreds. Anyhow, she passed on and took our hearts with her. It almost killed her mother. Her every moment is torture. How she goes on living is one of God’s miracles. I say this in connection with the fact that Stefa—her real name is Sheba Leah—is all we’ve got left now. Once she leaves, her mother won’t last a month. The story is this: If she were only going to someone worthy of her, it would be at least some consolation for me. It’s accepted that a daughter has to be given away. We wouldn’t want her to remain an old maid, God forbid. Maybe we would even follow her to Palestine or wherever she might settle. But she’s mixed up with the worst charlatan in Warsaw. To begin with, he had a wife who refused to divorce him and it cost a fortune to buy her off. He had a rich father who left him a large inheritance but he, Mark, lost it all. Yes, he literally gambled it away at cards, roulette, and other such games whose names I don’t even know. He has a gambling mania. He’ll bet on anything and he hasn’t won a bet yet. I discussed this with a doctor, a psychiatrist, and he told me that this is a sickness. He must constantly be risking something. He became a regular big shot in the Polish Army, a real hero. Each time they needed someone for a dangerous job he was the first to volunteer. He has jumped horses over fences and he has already killed several of them. It was a miracle he didn’t kill himself or become crippled. How a Jew could be born so reckless is beyond me. Such lunatics existed among the old Polish gentry. They would risk their fortune on the turn of a card or in lawsuits that dragged on for years and bankrupted both the litigants. I didn’t know his father, he died during the war, but he has an old bitch of a mother who is just as crazy as he is. She was left a lot of money but her son got it away from her, although they say she still has a bundle salted away somewhere. She never leaves her house since she lives in constant fright of thieves. He, that Mark, had to flee Poland because—”
The door opened and Stefa appeared holding a book.
“So, Papa, you’re baring your soul to him? You’re confessing already? The moment a person walks into the house he assails him with his tales of misery. Papa, If you ever again—”
“Hush, daughter, hush, I’m not doing anything to harm you. Believe me, you don’t have a better friend than me ….”
“God protect me from such friends.”
“You should be ashamed to talk this way to your father, daughter. We gave our lives for you and look how you repay us.”
“What am I doing to you, Papa? What harm am I causing you? I love someone and I want to be with him. Is that such a crime?”
“You know very well that your going to Palestine thousands of miles away will finish your mother. About me, you needn’t worry. I’ve lived long enough as it is. What else can life offer me—that the ‘hearse’ come again and snatch the pillow from under my head? But I can’t stand to watch your mother suffering and I feel for you too, daughter, because the man you’re going to will—”
“Papa, be quiet!”
4
Isidore Janovsky went out and Stefa said:
“He’s my father and I love him but he is an exhibitionist. He likes to bare all wounds and not only his own but my mother’s, mine, and everybody else’s as well. Is this a specifically Jewish condition? Why deny it? We’re a shattered family in every respect, but we aren’t yet beggars to display all our sores in public. Show me the alphabet and how to read it.”
Stefa opened the book and I showed her the alphabet.
She interrupted to complain: “Why did they make the nun and gimel so much alike? Also the mem and the tet … and the daled and the resh? I can’t understand this. It’s the same in the Gothic script too. In English, on the other hand, you never know how a word should be pronounced. In Hebrew it’s even worse. I was already reading Hebrew, but I’ve forgotten it. I’m beginning to believe that those who developed scripts and languages were all idiots. I’d like to hide on some island without culture and languages and live like a bird or an animal. But where do you find such an island? Is there really such a thing as Yiddish literature?”
“Yes, there is.”
“What is it?”
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“A literature like all the others—ninety-nine per cent bad and one per cent good.”
“You’re a funny young man—you speak the truth. I’ve turned into a half anti-Semite. I can’t stand Jews. They’re always running, bustling, mouthing endless complaints against everyone and only striving to create a better world. Mark is that way too. I love him, yet I see all his faults. Why am I telling you these things? I never talk to anyone, but since you are a writer—or wish to be a writer—you should possess some understanding. My father undoubtedly blabbed everything to you. He does this with whoever comes into the house, even the man who collects the money from the gas meter. Let’s read on.”
We resumed and it didn’t take Stefa more than fifteen minutes to begin reading faultlessly. She had already gone through this book with someone else before. She read and smoked. She even remembered the meaning of some of the words. She read to the bottom of a page and said:
“You lack strength because you don’t eat. It’s just that simple, and you don’t eat because you don’t want to be conscripted. But that won’t help you. The doctors are on to these tricks. When they classify a person ‘B’, it means he is organically sound. Why can’t you smuggle yourself across into Germany or Rumania and catch a ship from there to Palestine?”
“I don’t know how to go about this.”
Stefa closed the book.
“Listen to me. I must depart as soon as possible. I can’t put things off for the future. My fiancé is waiting for me with impatience. Neither can I stay away from him. Each day without him is for me like hell. According to the letters with which he showers me, he yearns for me too. My father probably managed to malign him, but he is the most interesting person I’ve ever met. I have the exact amount needed to pay the fare for two people. We must get to Constantsa and board a ship there. That’s the cheapest route. I have everything figured down to the very last groschen. If they get the notion to raise the fare, it’s all over for us. We have relatives and so-called friends here, but no one can nor wants to help us. What did Father say about Mark?”
Love and Exile Page 14
