I had reached the official issuing the cards and informed him that I understood only German. He began speaking German to me, but in such an accent that I couldn’t figure out what he was saying. How is this possible? I had translated a half-dozen books from German. Was he speaking in slang? Or had I lost my mind? He considered a moment, then handed me a card: “second sitting.” He might have been a Nazi who had signed on this ship to spy on the passengers and, possibly, to torment Jews. This card might be a signal to the waiter to poison my food. Suddenly, I recalled the number of my cabin. I went to look for it and located it immediately. The door was not locked. I had left the key on the table. My two valises stood where I had left them. I grasped what was meant by the term “sittings”—the time at which breakfast, lunch, and dinner were served. It was good that he gave me the second sitting. Otherwise, I would have been forced to get up at 7 A.M.
I changed my clothes—I had only one other suit—then went out on deck. Cherbourg had vanished from sight. To the best of my recollection, the moon wasn’t out that evening, but the sky was thickly sprinkled with stars. They appeared to me lower than on land and somehow bigger. They didn’t remain fixed, but bobbed and swayed with the ship. Somewhere a lighthouse cast beams of light.
Here, heaven and earth weren’t separate and distant from each other but merged into a single cosmic entity, endowed with an otherworldly light. I stood in the center of the universe, the ferment that hadn’t abated since Genesis and perhaps even long before that, because according to the Bible the abyss and the divine breath had preceded Creation. A solemnity hovered over it all, blue, prediurnal. The sound of the waves fused into a monotonous roar, a seething, a foaming, a splashing that didn’t weary the ear or the brain. God spoke a single word, awesome and eternal.
The waves assaulted the ship in an arc, locked it in a watery dance, ready to suck it in within their vortex, but at the last moment they retreated like maneuvering armies, prepared to commence their war games again. Creation played with the sea, the stars, the ship, with the little human beings bustling about within its innards. My despair had begun to fade gradually. There was no room for suffering in the midst of this celestial frolic. All my worries were insignificant and groundless to begin with. Who did it concern whether I managed to accomplish anything or nothing? Nothing itself became an essence. I stood there until my watch showed that it was time for the second sitting.
I went down to my cabin and headed for the dining hall. The people in the first sitting hadn’t yet finished eating, but a crowd already stood by the door, ready to rush inside and grab their places the moment the first sitting was concluded. Were all these people really so hungry? And which of them would turn out to be my dinner partners? How would I communicate with them? I was the last to enter. The headwaiter, or whatever his title may have been, glanced at my card and his face expressed something akin to astonishment. He flipped the card over and looked at its other side as if expecting to find there the solution to the puzzle. He arched his brows and shrugged. Then everything appeared to have become clear to him and he said in a clear German, “There is only one single table in the whole dining room and it’s been assigned to you. If you’re reluctant to sit alone, we can ignore the card and seat you with those close to you. Maybe you’d prefer the kosher table? You’d surely find agreeable companions there.”
“I thank you very much,” I replied, “but a table for one is actually what I’d like.”
“You prefer isolation, eh? Your table is in a corner. We occasionally have passengers who choose to eat alone. On the last trip, there was a priest, a missionary, or God knows what he was. He demanded his own table and we accommodated him. Come.”
He led the way through the crowded hall and I noticed that hardly anyone here was alone. English was spoken, French, Italian, German. How long ago was it that they had waged war? How long ago did they drop bombs on each other? But all that was forgotten. Some passengers were already seated, with that air of assurance of those who always belong where they are. I didn’t see one shy face. Women laughed that world-affirming laughter that has no connection with humor but rather with something bosomy, fleshy, abdominal. The men seemed as earthy and as anxious to strike up friendships as the women. Finally, we reached my table. It stood in a corner and somehow off balance, crooked, between two walls and two tables, the diners of which stared at me in a kind of amazement that seemed to ask, “Why was he picked as the victim?” My chair was a narrow one and I barely managed to squeeze myself into it. From where I sat I could see practically the entire hall, but my eyes had grown so bedazzled that I saw everything as if through a dense mist. After a long while a waiter came over and said, “Your order, please?”
Oddly, I had for years contemplated becoming a vegetarian. I had actually gone through periods during which I had eaten no animal flesh. But I often had to eat on credit at the Writers’ Club, and I lacked the courage to demand special dishes. I had put it all aside for the time when I could act according to my convictions. Abruptly now, I blurted, “I am very sorry, but I’m a vegetarian.”
The waiter shook his head. “We don’t have a special vegetarian kitchen. You were told that you could eat at the kosher table, but you refused.”
“Those who are kosher aren’t vegetarians,” I told him. My voice had grown so weak that he had to bring his ear close to my lips to hear me.
“Eh? But there is some kind of connection there.” His tone grew more genial. “I understand all your motives, but our kitchen simply isn’t geared for such exceptions.”
“You needn’t make any exceptions. Be so good as to bring me whatever you want and I’ll eat only those things I’m allowed.”
“Do you eat eggs? Milk?”
“Yes.”
“Well, in the eight days you’re aboard the ship, you won’t starve. We have bread, butter, many good cheeses and egg dishes.”
“I’ll be satisfied with whatever you bring me.”
Immediately, questions came at me from the tables among which I was squeezed. Some people addressed me in French, some in English, some in German. What was the reason for my vegetarianism? Was it on account of my health? On doctors’ orders? Did it have to do with my religion? The men appeared insulted that I had introduced a sort of controversy into their presence. They had come here to enjoy themselves, not to philosophize about the anguish of animals and fish. I tried in my mangled German to explain to them that my vegetarianism was based on no religion but simply on the feeling that one creature lacked the right to rob another creature of its life and devour it. I turned momentarily and against my will, propagandist.
“What right have we to curtail a life that God has granted? The animal in the forest and the fish in the water have done us no harm.”
A man with a stern face said to me, “If you allowed the animals and birds to multiply, they’d eat up all the grain in our fields. I myself live in a region where deer roam. It’s forbidden to hunt them out of season and it’s happened not once but ten times that they ate all the plants in my garden. You’re allowed to hunt them a few months in the year only, but no matter how many are shot, it isn’t enough. Well, and what would you do about the hares and rabbits and birds? The Department of Agriculture has just now advised that the hunters should shoot at least thirty crows a day. Otherwise, America would become a land not of plenty but of famine. Do you know all this? Did you ever read a book about such matters?”
“No, I don’t know. But at least we should leave the fish alone. They stay in the water in their own element. They don’t come out on land to devour our crops.”
“They don’t, eh? In certain lakes in America, the fish have multiplied to such a degree that they allow themselves to be caught with bare hands. Creatures have instinct and they know that when they overmultiply they must perish …. Here is our waiter.”
One waiter brought a magnum of champagne and another a tray that he balanced overhead. They seemed as excited as the people they served. One opened the ch
ampagne with a pop, let a man taste it before pouring for the ladies. The other served the plates of appetizers. For a while it appeared that the waiter would ignore me completely. He didn’t even glance into the corner where I sat. But soon he seemed to have reminded himself and he remarked, “There will be something for you too.”
And he ran off with his tray.
Four
1
In past years I had grown accustomed to meeting strangers. Once in a while readers approached to pay me compliments for an article or a story. I had girl friends and a few other friends among the writers. I had established the minimum contact necessary for existence. But aboard this ship my sense of solitude came flooding back in all its magnitude. My neighbors in the dining hall had apparently resolved to leave me to myself. I greeted them but they didn’t respond. I don’t know to this day if it was my vegetarianism that put them into a hostile mood or the fact that I chose to sit alone. The waiter did bring me food but it seemed to be made up of leftovers he had collected: mostly stale bread, an occasional chunk of cheese, an onion, a carrot. I had committed the sin of isolating myself from others, and I had been excommunicated. Each diner was served a carafe of wine daily, but I got no wine. Much as I brooded about this treatment, I could never come to accept it. One thing I knew for certain, I was at fault, not they. Eating in the dining hall became so annoying to me that I proposed to the waiter that he serve me in my cabin. He grew angry, glared, then told me to go to a certain office with a name I couldn’t pronounce. This must have been on the third day of my trip, but I felt as if I had been already swaying on this ship for weeks.
After lengthy questioning and straying, I made my way to the office where a small man sat scratching away at a sheet of paper with a pen that reminded me of my days in cheder. It consisted of a wooden holder, a ferrule, and the steel pen itself. The point looked old, rusty, broken. Every few seconds the writer dipped the pen in an inkwell that seemed nearly empty. The ink appeared dense and it kept spotting. Even in Warsaw such a pen would have been an anachronism. The sheet of paper was unlined and the writing emerged so crooked that each line rode piggyback upon the next. I cleared my throat and spoke some of the French words I knew—“Monsieur, s’il vous plaît”—but the other didn’t react at all. Had my voice grown so quiet or was he deaf? This, I told myself, was a French Akaki Akakevich, a throwback to Gogol’s times. I forced myself to wait patiently, but a good half hour went by and he still didn’t give the slightest indication that someone was waiting for him. I noticed that he was coming close to the bottom of the long sheet and this gave some hope. And that’s how it was. The moment he had written the last crooked line and blotted it with an ancient blotter, he raised his head and looked at me with eyes that could have belonged to a fish, totally devoid of expression. They were spaced far apart. He had a short, broad nose and a wide mouth. He appeared to have just wakened from a deep sleep or a trance. I started explaining to him in German, in Yiddish, and with my few words of French, the nature of my request, but his pale eyes gazed at me without any comprehension.
I said several times, “Je manger en cabine, no restaurant.”
He gathered my meaning finally, for after protracted searching he handed me a card and asked me to sign it. Then he gave me another card. The ship had agreed to provide me board in my own cabin. I asked him in sign language what to do with this card and as far as I could determine the answer was, “Hold on to it.”
From that day on I was going to America as if on a prison ship—a windowless cabin with little air—and with food brought by a man who could be a prison guard. He never knocked but barged right in, kicking the door open with his foot. He slammed down the tray without a word. If a book or a manuscript was lying on the little table, he inevitably drenched it. I tried several times to speak to him, at least to learn his name, but he never responded. He looked to me to be a native of the French colonies.
The food he brought me was always the same. In the morning—bread with black coffee. For lunch—some groats with no wine or dessert. For dinner—he threw me a piece of stale bread, some cheese, and a kind of white sausage I had never before seen in Poland. My order for vegetarian food was ignored. He never even glanced at me. I tried to give him a tip but he wouldn’t touch the bank note.
I knew already how impossible it was to explain the human character and its whims. Still, as I lay nights on the hard mattress, which was apparently located directly over the ship’s engine, I tried to deduce the reason for his surly behavior. Did he despise the white man and his civilization? Was the act of bringing me food three times a day too strenuous for him? Did he resent those who demanded special privileges? Because I threw away the meat he brought me, I actually subsisted on stale bread and cheese. The black coffee was never more than a half cup, cold and bitter. I knew that I would arrive in America (assuming they let me in, considering my appearance) looking wasted.
I had a number of choices of how to improve my lot. First, I didn’t have to spend all my time inside my dark cell. The steward on deck rented folding chairs and I could sit all day sunning myself in the fresh air. Second, the ship had a library. True, most of the books were in French, but there were several in German. But some force kept me from doing what was best for me. Somehow, I had acquired a fear of the sun and its light. The deck was too crowded with people. There was a place to play badminton, and young men ran, shouted, often put their arms around the women. I had taken from the ship’s library a German translation of Ilya Ehrenburg, but somehow I couldn’t take the impudent style of one who assumed that only he was clever while the rest of the world was made up of idiots.
It was the fifth day of the journey. In three days I would be landing in New York. I had finally dared to rent a chair on the deck and I had another book from the ship’s library that I was anxious to read. It was a German translation of Bergson’s Creative Evolution. I also carried with me a Yiddish magazine in which I had published my latest story before I left Poland. I was so engrossed in Bergson’s work that for a while I forgot about my spiritual crisis. One didn’t have to be a professional philosopher to realize that Bergson was a talented writer, a Schöngeist, not a philosopher. This was an elegant book, interestingly written, but lacking any new concepts. “Élan vital” is a pretty phrase, but Bergson didn’t even try to explain how it came to be a creative power. I had already grown accustomed to works that evoke a sensation of originality at the beginning only to find that when the reader reaches the last page he is just as wise as he had been at the first. There had been many vitalists among biologists prior to Bergson, even prior to Lamarck.
As I sat there reading, a steward came up escorting a young woman. There was an empty chair next to mine and he seated her in it. He carefully covered her legs with a blanket, then brought her a cup of bouillon. He offered me the same but I declined. It was hard to determine my neighbor’s age. She might have been in her late twenties or early thirties. She also held a book—Baudelaire’s Fleurs du Mal bound in velvet. She wore a white blouse and a gray skirt. Her dark complexion was pitted from acne. I read on for a long time. I didn’t have the slightest urge to talk to her. She probably spoke only French. I still tried to grasp how the élan vital could have created or formed the sky, the stars, the sea, and Bergson himself and his beautiful phrases and illusions. For a long time we each read our books. Then she turned toward me and said in a halting Warsaw Yiddish, “You’re reading a book I always wanted to read but somehow I never did. Is it really as interesting as it seems?”
I was so surprised that I forgot to be embarrassed. “You speak Yiddish!”
“I see that you read Yiddish.” And she pointed at my magazine.
“Yiddish is my mother language.”
“Mine, too,” she said in Polish. “Until I was seven I knew no other language but Yiddish.”
“You undoubtedly come from an Orthodox home.”
“Yes, but …”
I sat quietly and waited for her to go on. For the fi
rst time in five days, someone was speaking to me. I said, “You speak Polish without a trace of a Jewish accent.”
“Do you really think so? My feeling is that my Polish sounds foreign.”
“At least your parents had the wisdom to send you to a secular school,” I said. “My father sent me to cheder and that was the only source of my education.”
“What was he—a Chassid?”
“A rabbi, a moreh horoah, if you know what that means.”
“I know. I was brought up in the same kind of household as you, but something happened that turned everything upside down for us.”
“May I ask what happened?”
She didn’t answer immediately and seemed to hesitate. I was about to tell her that she need not reply when she said, “My father was a pious Jew. He wore a beard, earlocks, and a long gaberdine like all the others. He was a Talmud teacher. My mother wore a wig. I often demanded of my father that he send me to a Polish school, but he always postponed this with all sorts of pretexts. But something was going on in our house. I was an only child. My two brothers and one sister died before I was born. At night I often heard my father screaming and my mother crying. I began to suspect that my parents wanted to divorce. One evening when I came home and asked Mother where Father was, she told me that he had left for England. I had often heard that men on our street—we lived in the very midst of poverty, on Smocza Street—went off to America. But England seemed to me even farther away than America. On Smocza Street if you wanted to say that someone was acting strange, you said he was acting ‘English.’ I’ll make it short—my father converted, became a member of the Church of England and a missionary. Strange, isn’t it?”
Love and Exile Page 26
