Love and Exile

by Isaac Bashevis Singer

  “What’s my alternative?”

  “Marry this woman, since this is a mere formality.”

  “With her, it wouldn’t be a mere formality. Let us better speak about you. What’s been happening with you in all this time?”

  “Oh, a lot and nothing. I received a grant to conclude my studies at Radcliffe. This isn’t some minor achievement, mind you. They aren’t so generous with grants. I never knew that my father could be so energetic. He established connections with missionaries in Boston as well as in New York. I have often told my father that once I was in New York I would revert to Judaism—if this is possible for an agnostic—but the missionaries in Boston sought me out and tried to block my road back to Jewishness. They invited me to their homes, they began seeking subsidies for me, jobs, even marriage partners. Jews remain forever Jews with their energy and their rage to mind everybody’s business. One of them, an elderly man, fell in love with me, or so at least he said, and wanted nothing else but that I become his mistress. He couldn’t marry me since he had a wife who suffered from multiple sclerosis and was bedridden or confined to a wheelchair. If we have the time and you’ll have the patience, I have not one story for you but a great many. Here in the cafeteria is no place for this. The plain facts are that I have given up my studies. I simply lost my patience for all those exams, the professors, and the girls with whom I shared the house. I had seriously considered putting an end to the whole tragicomedy when I met an elderly woman, a retired professor who was forced to give up her position at the university because she had lost her sight. She isn’t totally blind, but she no longer can read. She couldn’t exist on what the university paid her. She has a wealthy brother.

  “I’ll cut it short. I have become her eyes. She taught psychology at the university and also gave a course in religion. After the trouble started with her eyes, she got involved in psychic research. Actually, she dabbled in psychic research even before. She reads—that is to say, I read to her—almost all the literature on this subject, and although I’m far, far from convinced about all those miracles these books and she talk about, this is much more interesting than the religion that I studied in Poland and here as well. At least it has to do with the present, not with wonders that occurred in Palestine two thousand years ago. Even if all those visions or revelations of theirs are inventions, they are at least interesting from a purely psychological standpoint. The professor herself is a strange blend of intelligence, a critical mind, plus fanaticism and credulity that border on madness. I must mention that I have witnessed things at her home and with herself that couldn’t be explained. She literally reads my mind. I had never told her of my Jewish extraction, but one day she told me that I had been born a Jew and that I must return to my Jewish roots.”

  “She probably opened a letter from your parents.”

  “She doesn’t open my letters and my parents have never written to me about my Jewishness. Besides, I just told you she’s blind. Do me a favor and let’s get out of this cafeteria. It’s so noisy in here I can barely hear you. I noticed a park near the library.”

  We went outside and found an empty bench in the park. Zosia said, “Here, I can breathe. Yes, about my Jewishness. At that woman’s house I had time to think things over. I ate there, slept there, I learned to cook, and for the first time in my life I seem to have enjoyed the taste of rest. The problem is—what is Jewishness? Of what would my Jewishness consist? I thought that you would be able to tell me, but you are here, not in Boston, and you have your work. Some two months ago I happened to read in the paper about a lecture in a synagogue. It was announced that a guest from New York would speak on the subject ‘What Does the Jew Want?’ and I decided to go hear what he had to say. It just so happened that it rained all that day and it poured in the evening. My professor had gone away to her brother’s—he has a house in Lenox—and I took the bus to the synagogue. I got there soaking wet and found exactly five people. Who goes to hear a lecture in such a storm? After a while, they left too. My impression was that the speaker was a rabbi. Actually, he had only called himself by that title. I soon learned that he was a businessman and quite wealthy. The money from the admissions was supposed to go to the synagogue. He seemed to me younger, yet he turned out to be a man in his late fifties. I don’t want to overburden you with my problems. It’s because of this speaker that I am now in New York.”

  “What is it—a love affair?”

  “Oh, I don’t know myself what to call it. We were together until late that evening. He took me to a restaurant and he spoke to me for hours. I had come, so to speak, to pour my heart out to him, although it ended with him pouring his heart out to me. He told me his whole life story. I forgot the main thing—he knows your brother and he knows about you, too. He reads that newspaper for which you two write, and he had met you in Warsaw in that club for writers.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Reuben Mecheles.”

  “I’ve never heard of him.”

  “He knows all the rabbis, all the writers. He even knew my father. He told me that he received your book in the mail. They send him all the works in Yiddish from Warsaw. He married a rich woman here in America, but he is separated from her. They were incompatible, she was too bourgeois for him. I was interested in him for a short while, but such is my nature apparently that I get over my infatuations quickly. I’m afraid that I wasn’t created for love even though I’m always enamored of some ideal. The thing that I want to tell you is so complicated that it appears even to me a fantasy, but I’ve convinced myself that it’s true. He is involved with some sect—or how shall I describe it? The leader of the sect is a young man from Egypt, a cabalist who presents himself as no less than having had God appear before him and dictate a new Bible to him, one that is four or five times longer than the Old Testament. It isn’t exactly clear to me how that so-called prophet is also connected with some people in New York, not only among Jews but among some Christians as well. They even write about him in the newspapers. Mr. Mecheles assured me that he, I mean Mr. Mecheles, is terribly in love with me and that the leader of his sect wrote him of me long before I ever came to hear his lecture! He says that I look exactly the way he described me. Mr. Mecheles wants me to marry him after he has divorced his wife, but she demands a large settlement and a huge alimony. It just so happened that my lady professor went to spend six weeks of this summer with her brother in Lenox and she granted me leave. Mr. Mecheles sent me a train ticket from Boston to New York and he settled me here in a hotel. The leader of his sect will be arriving in New York any day now. Mecheles wants us to marry according to the law in the new Bible. I tell you beforehand that I won’t do it. First of all, I’m not anxious to marry him. And secondly, I don’t want to do anything that’s against the American law. The whole thing is crazy from beginning to end, but I’ve already met so many madmen that I’m beginning to think that lunatics are the majority and the so-called normal people a small minority. What do you say to this?”

  “Yes, man is mad, and from the ten measures of madness that God sent down on earth, nine measures were received by the modern Jew.”

  “Yes, yes, right! Right! Why am I drawn to such people? I’m beginning to suspect that I’m crazier than they are.”

  “In your case it’s circumstances.”

  “You’re trying to be nice. I shouldn’t say this, but I’ll tell it to you anyway. I might not have come to New York, but I wanted to see you. Mr. Mecheles isn’t my kind of person. He is an optimist and an extreme extrovert. He must constantly be with people, and in the brief time that we’ve know each other he has introduced me to so many so-called friends that I’m dizzy from them all. I don’t think he really believes in that prophet from Egypt, but he constantly seeks ways to avoid being alone. Even if I did love him, I still couldn’t be with him.”

  For a long while we were both silent. Over the din of New York I could hear the chirping of birds. From time to time, a cool breeze blew. I bowed my head and gazed down a
t a worm crawling on a newspaper someone had discarded beside the bench. The tiny creature crawled forward, backward, in zigzag fashion. Then it stopped. Was it hungry? Thirsty? Did it want to be free of the paper surface and go back to the grass where it had been born? Or did it feel no desire, no need, no suffering, no joy? I would have liked to do something for this lost particle of life, but I knew that whatever I attempted in its behalf would only kill it.

  As if Zosia had read my mind, she asked, “Are you still a vegetarian?”

  “Of course.”

  I wanted to point out the speck of life to her, but it had vanished.

  3

  A few days had passed. Zosia had promised to call but I hadn’t heard from her. One night as I groped in the mail compartment on the ninth floor of the Forward, I found there a letter from Warsaw and an unstamped envelope that someone had left me. I went down with the elevator, and in the half minute that it took to get from the ninth floor to the lobby, I managed to note that Stefa had sent me the document I had requested of her so many times and that the unstamped letter was from the managing editor of the Forward. My brother had told him that Washington had declined to extend my visa beyond three months, and this noble man had written to say that he had found a lawyer for me who specialized in helping immigrants. He gave me the man’s name, address, and phone number. For all my heresy, I considered both these events acts of Providence. The document confirmed that I had committed no crimes in Poland. Stefa’s letter was long and I read it carefully only after I had gotten home. One half of the eight-page letter described in detail the troubles she had encountered in obtaining this document. The red tape and the laziness of the officials was worse than ever. The other half concerned the situation in Poland and her, Stefa’s, plans for the future. Her husband, Leon Treitler, had finally decided to liquidate all his holdings and to go to England or maybe to America, if he could obtain a visa. Of course, Stefa would not leave without her little daughter, Franka. The German woman in Danzig who was raising the girl had grown old and sick and she no longer had the strength to devote herself to the child. Besides, if her neighbors ever learned that the child was Jewish and if Hitler invaded Danzig, she could be severely punished. The child was now with Stefa in Warsaw and learning Polish, although she wouldn’t be in need of this language soon. Of course, she was taking lessons in English. There was a photograph of Leon Treitler with Stefa and the little girl and a few words from Leon in Yiddish with hints about our uncommon friendship.

  The next day I went to see the lawyer, a Mr. Lemkin. I brought along all the documents that I possessed. The managing editor had already spoken to him about my problems on the telephone. Lemkin was tall, blond, and youthful. His entire presence exuded the competence and energy of those for whom life with all its troubles and miseries is nothing but the kind of a challenge one encounters in solving some easy crossword puzzle. He received me standing up, eating an apple. He took one glance at my documents and said, “It’s not enough, but we’ll proceed with what we have.”

  I witnessed something that astounded me, the frightened Polish Jew. He picked up the telephone and asked to be connected with the American consul in Toronto or perhaps with one of his aides. He called him by his first name and told him about me and my documents. I would never have believed speed like this possible. My previous lawyer, an immigrant himself, had delayed everything for weeks and months. He always began his conversation with the words “We’re having a problem.” But Mr. Lemkin accomplished everything in minutes. In him I had found the very epitome of the American notion that time is money.

  The party in Toronto informed him right then and there that, among other things, I required a bank book to show that I had money in the bank and wouldn’t become a public charge. After Mr. Lemkin hung up, he asked a fee of fifteen hundred dollars for obtaining my visa. This was more than I had managed to save up from the novel, but I knew that my brother would help me out. Mr. Lemkin asked for my brother’s telephone number; he called him and told him what I required. He demanded a five-hundred-dollar advance and my brother’s assurance of the fee that would be coming to him when I returned with the visa. Then he handed me the receiver and my brother told me that he would deposit the money into my account the next day. Then Mr. Lemkin said to me, “You are already as good as an American. However, the Canadian bureaucrats won’t grant you permission to enter Canada. Even if such permission could be obtained, it would take too long to get it and in the meantime your right to remain here would expire and complications might ensue.”

  “What can I do?”

  “You’ll have to smuggle yourself into Canada.”

  Although I had a theory that life in general, human life in particular, and Jewish life especially, was one long attempt to muddle through, smuggle oneself past the forces of destruction, the word “smuggle” made my throat dry.

  Mr. Lemkin continued, “Don’t be so timid. It’s all a matter of a few bucks. You’ll take the train to Detroit and meet a little man in a hotel lobby. He’ll lead you across the bridge into Windsor, which belongs to Canada. Thousands of Americans and Canadians cross this bridge daily and the officials haven’t the time for long formalities. The man who will take you across has his connections and his fee is one hundred dollars. When you get to Windsor, you’ll take a bus to Toronto. You’ll carry no documents on you. You will forward your passport and the other documents to the King Edward Hotel in Toronto by mail. I’ll make a reservation for you there for a couple of days because it takes a while to obtain the visa. In case the Canadians should catch you, you mustn’t tell that you are a Polish citizen. You can rest easy, this hasn’t happened till now to any of my clients. Everything goes smooth as glass.”

  My throat was now so dry that I could barely speak.

  “What happens if I am caught?”

  “Why speak of failure? It’s entirely superfluous.”

  “I want to know.”

  “They’ll surely not hang you. In such a case, they’ll put you in jail, then try to deport you to wherever you come from. But if you won’t say where you are from, they can’t very well deport you. In the meantime, we would have learned what had happened to you and would have begun proceedings to free you. Don’t think about this for even a minute. The chances of this happening are as slim as of having a meteor fall on your head. If the bureaucrats in Canada weren’t what they are, they would grant you the transit visa in a hurry and you’d avoid having to smuggle yourself across. They make difficulties so that the poor immigrants have to break the law and they, the bloodsuckers, can take bribes. I once thought that things in Russia are better, but there you have to steal to keep from starving to death. An uncle of mine came over from there and he told us things that made my hair stand on end. Don’t carry any luggage with you to avoid any confrontation with the customs people. Take nothing along, not even a toothbrush. In Toronto, you can buy pajamas or sleep naked, as I do. I’ll give you all the addresses. The main thing is not to display any fear when you’re crossing the bridge into Windsor. Behave with the assurance of the native. The consul won’t keep you there for long. Two or three days. How is your health? A doctor will examine you.”

  “I hope I’m not sick.”

  “How about your eyes?”

  “Not bad.”

  “Don’t be such a pessimist. Sign this paper.”

  He handed me a sheet of paper, which I signed without bothering to read it.

  4

  Everything transpired in a hurry. My brother deposited money in the bank where I had already saved up my thousand dollars. He also gave me money for the fare to Canada and paid the lawyer his advance. But the fear of being arrested at the border didn’t leave me. At night I dreamed of being captured, bound, dragged off to jail. Mr. Lemkin’s advice to keep silent as to my place of origin went totally against my nature. I knew that if I were arrested I would make a confession complete with all the details.

  When Nesha heard that I was on the verge of obtaining a permanent vis
a, she congratulated me, but I detected a note of disappointment in her voice. Somewhere within, she might have been hoping for a situation in which I would be forced to marry her in order to obtain American citizenship. When I told her of my fear of being arrested at the border, she said half in jest, “If worst comes to worst, I’ll come to save you.”

  In the last few weeks there had evolved between us a coolness that we could neither admit nor deny. The urge we had felt toward one another had left us. Nesha began to mention the fact that she would have to make some sort of change—the work was growing too hard for her and she was neglecting her son. She still loved Boris, but sooner or later she would have to remarry—not in order to provide someone with a visa but to a man who would love her and whom she could possibly love as well. She complained that the late-night visits to my furnished room exhausted her so that all the following day she walked around sleepy and made mistakes in her work. At times during the height of our sexual fantasies she would emit a sigh that seemed to say, Where can all these dreams lead to? This is all fine and good for a thirty-year-old bohemian, but not for a woman of forty and poor to boot.

  In the next few days I was supposed to go to Detroit, but when I phoned Mr. Lemkin he told me that my trip would have to be delayed by a week. I was expecting Nesha that evening, and she called to say that our meeting would have to be postponed, and that if I was leaving in the interim, she wished me a pleasant journey. Zosia was still in New York, and although I had resolved that meeting with her was a waste of time, I phoned her and caught her in. She said to me, “I thought you’d be in Toronto already.”