Although it was too late for lunch and too early for dinner, the restaurant we entered—a kind of Jewish Polish coffeehouse—was crowded with young men and women. They all conversed—or rather, shouted—in Yiddish. The tables were strewn with Yiddish newspapers and magazines. I heard the names of Jewish writers, poets, and politicians. This place was a Canadian version of the Warsaw Writers’ Club. Its patrons engaged in the same kind of conversations one always hears among Yiddishists: Could literature ignore social problems? Could writers retreat to ivory towers and avoid the struggle for justice? I didn’t have to listen to their talk—their faces, voices, and intonations told me what each of them was: a Communist, a Left Poalei Zionist, or a Bundist. Hardly anyone here spoke with a Litvak accent. These were boys and girls from Staszow, Lublin, Radom, each one hypnotized by some social cause. I could tell by the way they pronounced certain words from which bank of the Vistula the speaker came, the left or the right. I imagined that even their gestures had unique meanings. Zosia and I found a table and sat down. She said, “Here you are in your element.”
“Not really.”
It was odd that having crossed the Atlantic and smuggled myself over the border I found myself in a copy of Yiddish Poland. I told myself that there had been no need to consider suicide when Zosia vanished with my passport. All I would have had to do was come to Spadina Avenue. Here, I could have become a teacher, a writer for the local periodical, or at least a proofreader The Yiddishists would have hidden me here, provided me with documents, and sooner or later obtained Canadian citizenship for me. One of the girls sitting at these tables and smoking cigarettes would probably have become my wife and, like Lena had long ago, would have tried to persuade me to harness my creative powers to the struggle for a better world.
A waiter came over and I let Zosia order the coffee and the rice pudding for both of us. Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to address this youth in English, nor could I speak to him in Yiddish, since he would start questioning me about who I was, where I came from, and what I was doing in Canada. Some of those sitting at the tables had already cast curious glances at me. My picture had been printed in the rotogravure section of the Forward and all the New York newspapers were read here. I had even noticed a Yiddish Warsaw paper on one of the tables. Nor did I care to draw Zosia into a conversation that would be boring to her.
Zosia asked now, “Is it possible to go directly to Boston from here?”
“I believe so. Why not? You have nothing more to do in New York?”
“No, my dear. Absolutely nothing.”
“Is your lady professor back home yet?”
“No, but she left me a key.”
We grew silent. I reminded myself of my passport, my visa, and the paper affirming my right to return to America and to take out my first papers leading to full citizenship. I stuck my hand inside my breast pocket and tapped both the passport and this paper. I had an urge, for the countless time, to read it over, but I was ashamed before Zosia and of my own weakness. Though it seemed that all my immigration worries were over, some force warned me that a new crisis was looming over me, although I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it might entail.
“What are you searching for?” Zosia asked. “Have you lost something or what?”
I had forgotten to take my hand out of my bosom pocket and I quickly withdrew it as my mouth replied of its own volition, “I have lost a woman with whom I might have been happy.”
3
I had persuaded Zosia to go to Boston via New York, telling her that in spite of our sexual defeat I had become attached to her and without her my trip would be lonely and dismal. After a while, she consented. We checked out of the hotel and went by taxi to the railroad station. Evening had fallen. We had already gone through customs, showing the officials our papers, and they had passed us through without any difficulties. I had sneaked like a thief into Canada but I left it like a free man. We had traveled some distance, but I was still not completely at ease. Suddenly, the train stopped and two men who might have been policemen, border guards, or customs men entered the car. All the passengers appeared startled by this unexpected stop, or at least it seemed so to me. Maybe they are looking for me? the coward within me asked. Immediately afterward, I heard my name called. I rose and all the passengers, perplexed and not without pity, gazed at me. I confirmed my identity and one of the officials said, “Come with us.”
The frightened Zosia had risen too and she made a gesture as if to indicate that she wanted to accompany me, or perhaps to argue with those who were arresting me, but I shook my head at her to desist. For all of my distress, I enjoyed a measure of satisfaction—my intuition hadn’t failed me.
The moment we stepped off, someone signaled the engineer, and the train pulled away. The night was a dark one and all I could see was one lighted house. It was there that I was led. I entered an office where a card hung on the wall. It contained rows of letters, each smaller than the ones above—the eye chart seen in an eye doctor’s reception room and, occasionally, in an optical shop.
An elderly man said to me, “The doctor at the consulate expressed some doubt about your eyes. I’ll test them again.”
As he spoke these words, I began to see spots before my eyes. I glanced at the chart and I could barely distinguish the very top row of letters. Soon even they had grown misted over. The doctor showed me to a chair and asked what I could see on the chart. I strained in an effort to guess at the letters behind the whirls of diffusion, but I knew that I was failing.
Behind my back I heard the doctor’s mumbling. From time to time he helped me with a letter. He shone a lighted instrument into my eyes. A lump had formed in my throat and my palate and lips grew dry. Still, I managed to say, “It’s not my eyes. I’m nervous.”
“Yes, yes, yes. You are a bit nervous.”
He tested me again and this time I saw better. He called to someone and the two officers who had arrested me came in. Only now did I notice how tall they were—a pair of giants.
The doctor said, “When is the next train?”
They replied, but I didn’t hear what they said. Not only my eyes but my ears too had ceased functioning.
The doctor gave me his hand. “Don’t worry. Your eyes are better than mine.”
“I thank you, Doctor, I thank you very much.”
“Have a good trip.”
The two officers led me outside toward the tracks. They stayed with me for about three quarters of an hour and chatted about horse races, hunting, forest fires, and other things in which Gentiles are interested. From time to time they also addressed a few words to me. One of them asked, “How did you get into Canada?”
Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to tell the lie that I had had permission to enter that country. Had I said this, they might have asked to see this permission or ask who had issued it. Then again, I couldn’t admit that I had crossed the border illegally. I, therefore, said, “I believe that I had permission.”
I had already long since perceived that, when necessary, the brain could function remarkably fast. The officer apparently gathered my insinuation for he dropped the subject. After a while, a train came and the officials put me aboard it. Just like the doctor before them, they offered me their hands and wished me luck in America.
I was fully aware that these officers and the officers in the Windsor bus station could have easily detained me. The law was on their side, not on mine. How would Stalin’s NKVD men have behaved in such an instance? Even the officials of democratic Poland didn’t display too much consideration in such instances. I had been raised to believe that a man with brass buttons, a badge, an insignia on his cap knew little compassion, particularly when his victim was a Jew. But Americans and Canadians seemed different. Why were they different? Did it bear on the fact that Americans and Canadians were richer? Was it the upbringing? Were Anglo-Saxons by nature more inclined to be understanding of another person’s dilemma than Slavs or Germans, for instance? I was by then
mature enough not to seek reasons and explanations for the conduct of individuals or even of groups.
The forces worked in such fashion that my return, after I had overcome all dangers and driven off all demons and evil spirits, was completely joyless. The car that I had occupied with Zosia had been new, with plush seats, clean, bright, resembling a second-class coach in Poland or France. The passengers were young and well dressed. It was my impression that many of the couples there were going to the United States on their honeymoons. The coach in which I traveled now was old, and its passengers struck me as just as dowdy and shabby. The panes hadn’t been washed in such a long time that I could barely see anything through them, not even the darkness outside. I was left with no choice but to lean my head against the dirty seat and force myself to doze off. I didn’t believe in true sleep. I had always considered sleep a sort of make-believe, not only among people but even among animals.
I slept and even dreamed, yet at the same time I thought about Zosia and the troubles she had endured during her few days with me. She was probably ashamed before the other passengers that her companion was the kind of person who had been removed from the train by armed guards.
4
I was back in New York, back in my furnished room on Nineteenth Street. Once again I read my visa in my passport and the card I would present when I took out my first papers, then I put them away in the drawer of my wobbly table. The day was hot. The sun baked my face and I lowered the torn shade over the window. Through its vents and holes, the sunlight painted a mural on the opposite wall, a brilliant network against a background of shadow which shimmered and vibrated as if reflecting the waves of a river.
I had failed in many areas, yet I now found myself on a continent where neither Hitler nor Stalin could threaten me. I had eaten a satisfying meal at the Automat opposite Grand Central Station and I was ready to get some sleep after the restless nights on the train to Detroit, on the bus to Toronto, on the train back to New York, and with Zosia at the King Edward Hotel.
I had called Nesha at the factory from the Automat, and from the way she answered me—curtly, impatiently (she wouldn’t even try to arrange a meeting with me)—I gathered that everything between us was over. She congratulated me halfheartedly. I had phoned my brother at his home and at the Forward, but there was no one at his home and someone at the Forward office shouted, “Not here!” and hung up. My attorney, Mr. Lemkin, wasn’t in his office either and his secretary advised me to call the next day since he would be tied up in court all that day. I had fallen asleep, and when I opened my eyes, the solar hieroglyphics on the wall across the window had vanished. My shirt and the pillow beneath my head were wet. Suddenly, I became aware that someone was knocking on my door. It was undoubtedly the exterminator because it couldn’t have been Nesha and no one else ever entered my room. Although I needed him to spray since toward evening the roaches began to crawl out from under the cracked linoleum, I decided not to let him in. He always left behind a stench that lingered for days. Nor did I want to begin my first day of American citizenship, or precitizenship, by condoning the poisoning of innocent cockroaches. I called out, “Not today!”
At that moment the door opened and I saw the superintendent of the house, Mr. Pinsky, as well as my brother, Zosia, and a small man in a checkered suit and with a pointed potbelly. He wore a Panama hat and a colorful tie with a pearl stickpin inserted into its broad knot. His shoes were yellow, and although it was blazing hot outside, he wore spats over them. A long cigar stuck out of his mouth. He reminded me of the caricatures of capitalists in Socialist and Communist brochures and the labor union publications. For a while, the three of them stood silent, staring at me, then Mr. Pinsky said, “What did I tell you? I saw him pass with my own two eyes. I’m in this business thirty years already and when I see a face once, I recognize it years later. I can see through my little window everyone who comes in or goes out. You can’t hide from me. I hear the telephone downstairs. Good-bye!”
“Thank you, thank you!” my brother and Zosia called out together.
So deep had been my sleep that it took moments for me to orient myself as to what was happening. I had been convinced that Zosia had gone straight to Boston after she returned by herself to New York. Instead, she had notified my brother that I had been detained at the border. The small man in the Panama hat exclaimed, “So that’s him, eh? Yep, that’s him. I’ve seen his picture in the Forward rotogravure. The caption read, “Two brothers and both writers.’ My name is Reuben Mecheles. Very, very nice to make your acquaintance!”
“Oh, my God, on account of you I had a wretched night!” Zosia said to me. “Everyone in the car thought they had captured Al Capone and that I was his moll. I explained to them that it had to do with immigration and formalities. I didn’t want to disturb your brother, but I decided that under the circumstances somebody had to be notified. I went back to the hotel where I had stayed before. Luckily, my room was still vacant. All I knew was that your brother works at the Forward. At first, they wouldn’t give me his phone number. But I told them that it was a matter of life and death—”
“Why did they detain you?” my brother asked.
“The doctor at the consulate wanted my eyes retested.”
“That’s exactly what I thought,” Reuben Mecheles piped up. “I’m an old hand at such things. I’ve helped, and I still help, Jews to come to America. I’ve brought over my whole family and strangers as well. I’m known at the HIAS. A week doesn’t go by that I don’t come to them on some matter. I have already sent out perhaps a hundred affidavits. The things we Jews have to do—rather than curse Hitler, which does as much good as giving a corpse an enema—is to bring over all those we can. Not everyone wants to come here. There are such fools who still think Hitler is bluffing. They’re afraid to abandon their stores and their Polish zlotys. If Hitler should come to Poland, the zlotys will be worth what the marks were in 1919—toilet paper, if you’ll forgive me.”
“It’s terribly hot in here. Where is the heat coming from?” my brother asked. “Why is the window closed?”
“Let’s go down, let’s get out of here,” Reuben Mecheles said. “I came back from a trip yesterday. I flew back from Reno, Nevada. I don’t have the time or the patience for trains. I tried being good to a person who is doing everything possible to destroy me and herself. Suicides are terribly obstinate. I shouldn’t say it but I made the same mistake as our allies are making with Hitler. I tried to appease a person who knows war only and nothing else and who considers human goodness as nothing but weakness. If I could write a book about this woman, I would become a multimillionaire overnight. I came back from the trip dead tired and I lay down for a nap. All of a sudden, the phone rings. And who is it? Our good friend, Zosia, and she tells me you’ve been arrested at the border and that you must be instantly rescued or else the world will come to an end. You don’t know me, but from reading, I know your brother and you too. Someone sent me your book from Warsaw. I told myself that something must be done. What’s the sense in sleeping? A bear sleeps all winter and he remains a bear. So that was how I got the opportunity to meet your brother in person and now you as well. I simply telephoned the big shots at the border. America isn’t Russia. Here when you phone, you get information. Our greenhorns are afraid to call an office, but a telephone doesn’t bite. Here in America, I’ve already spoken to governors, senators. Such calls cost money, but money was made to spend, not be kept under a pillow. What I’m getting at is, now that you’re back in America and a free man, thank God, a celebration is in order. There is a restaurant here with a roof garden. That’s America for you. They plant a garden on a roof and the garden is a restaurant offering the finest food, entertainment. Our fathers and grandfathers wouldn’t have eaten there, but as far as I know, none of you is that pious. I propose that you accompany me there as my guests. It would be a great honor and a pleasure as well for me—”
The whole time Reuben Mecheles was talking, my brother was casting
questioning glances at me and at Zosia. From time to time, he nodded to Reuben Mecheles. He said, “I thank you, Mr. Mecheles, but I’m having company tonight at home. Maybe some other time. I’ll be glad to reimburse you for all the money you spent on the calls—”
“No, no, no! I’m not dunning you for any money. Simply to meet you is worth everything in the world to me. When do we, common people, have the privilege to be with writers, and with talented writers at that? I truly hope we will meet again. I have things to tell you that, when you heard them, they would stand your hair on end, that is, if you had hair. Not fabricated things but facts that I myself have witnessed and experienced, in my own case and with other people—some as good as angels and others vicious devils. Allow me to present you with my visiting card. I’m no writer, but from what I would tell you, you could write the greatest works. Do our writers know what goes on in the world? They sit in the Cafe Royal and gossip and this to them is the world. Promise me that you’ll call!”
Reuben Mecheles seized my brother’s hand in his small hands. My brother promised to phone him. He nodded to Zosia but he ignored me completely. He left and the three of us remained momentarily silent. Zosia had revealed the secret that she went with me to Toronto and my brother probably assumed that I had conducted this adventure on the money he had deposited in the bank in my name. Until I managed to withdraw the money from the bank and return it to him, he would consider me a swindler.
5
Neither Zosia nor I wanted to go to the roof-garden restaurant. Zosia explained that she wasn’t properly dressed and that she wasn’t hungry besides. She hadn’t slept all night and she wanted to retire early. I had slept a few hours and I was hungry, but I didn’t have the slightest urge for amusement and roof gardens. I proposed that we go instead to the Steward Cafeteria, but at the very word “cafeteria,” Reuben Mecheles grimaced and said that it couldn’t be otherwise but that I was trying to insult him. After a while, he proposed that we go up to his apartment on Riverside Drive. He didn’t even wait for an answer. He took Zosia’s arm and led her out into the corridor. I closed the door and followed them down the narrow stairs. It wasn’t until I was downstairs that it struck me that I should have taken along my passport with the visa and the card. I had read in the Forward about thieves who specialized in stealing passports and other documents and using them to bring in illegal aliens. But I didn’t want to detain Reuben Mecheles, who had lost sleep, time, and money on my account.
Love and Exile Page 35
