by Robert Mayer
Isidor was staring at his plate. Half his food remained. His mother stood and began to collect the empty plates of the others. As she passed behind Izzy’s chair she wanted very much to rumple his hair. But she didn’t do so; her husband might get upset.
“What I don’t understand, Papa,” Eli said, “is why can’t they tell the difference between a chicken and a baby?”
“Because they’re Christians,” Izzy said. “They can’t even tell the difference between a man and God.”
Almost choking on his wine, Otto Kracauer nodded vigorously, and slapped the table with glee. He’d never said the boy wasn’t smart.
The Liebmann family also had finished dinner. Yetta and Leo had eaten sparsely; they rarely ate much, especially in the evening; a full stomach undermined sleep; an empty stomach didn’t cost much. The boys had devoured most of the food that Frau Schnapper had brought from the market. Pushing himself away from the table, Hiram motioned that he was going to wash his face and change his shirt. Frau Liebmann pulled Hersch into a corner of the kitchen, where Leo with his failing ears wouldn’t hear them.
“What’s with your brother?” Yetta asked, speaking softly. “He’s going to the funeral, and then to evening services? Why is today different? He hardly ever goes to schul.”
”Why ask me? Why don’t you ask him?”
“Because I’m asking you.”
Hersch looked around the kitchen, as if for a place into which he could disappear. “I don’t know,” he said.
“You do know. I’ve never seen him so excited. Tell me why.”
Hersch’s parents seemed unusually old to him today. During dinner Yetta had told the story of the overcoat. Sadness pressed him like a vise as he watched his father shuffling off to his room.
“Hiram’s going to be disappointed tonight. He might be hurt badly.”
“Hurt?” Her hand moved to her sunken cheek, her lips. It hovered there, shaking slightly, like a baby bird. Also like a dying one. “What do you mean, hurt?”
“Not physically hurt, Mama. Hurt inside.”
“How could he hurt more than he already does?”
“He’s gotten a strange idea into his head, I think. After the funeral, the Chief Rabbi is going to name the new Schul-Klopper.”
“So nu? What has this to do with Hiram?”
“I think Hiram wants it to be him. He wants to be the new Schul-Klopper. No, it’s worse. I think he expects to be the new Schul-Klopper.”
“He told you this meshuganah thing?”
“He didn’t tell me.”
“Then why do you think such nonsense?”
Hersch picked up a plate from a shelf beside him, studied it front and back, put it down. Through an open window across the room he could hear a shuffling sound, the muffled noise of people beginning to move down the lane to the schul.
“When we were starting to dig the grave today, Hiram motioned to Rabbi Simcha. He pointed to the grave for the Schul-Klopper, then he knocked in the air, as if he held a hammer. And he pointed to his own chest. What the Rabbi took it to mean was Hiram saying he was digging the grave for the Schul-Klopper. As if Hiram was a simpleton, saying the obvious. I think what Hiram was telling him was that he wanted to be the new Schul-Klopper. And because the Rabbi nodded, he thinks he’ll be chosen.”
“Didn’t you say anything to Hiram? Tell him the truth?”
“I was going to. But I changed my mind. It’s bad enough he won’t be chosen. He doesn’t need to be embarrassed, too, by us knowing this notion of his. Not unless he wants to tell us.”
Frau Liebmann pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her eyes. “My poor baby,” she said.
Hersch had been a normal, happy infant when he’d been born to Leo and Yetta, a first child, late in their lives. Though poor, they doted on their little bundle of smiles. Often they went without to make sure the robust boy had milk and bread. Two years later another child arrived. Hiram at first appeared to be as healthy as his brother, but in time they realized to their terrible distress that the boy could not hear, and could not speak. The doctors at the hospital said nothing could be done. The baby would grow up a deaf mute.
The Liebmanns felt like ancient sinners from the Torah. Yahweh had punished them for the sin of being greedy, for not being satisfied with their first born, for having another child when Yetta was past her forty-seventh year. For months they could hardly eat; they shriveled.
At first, Hersch welcomed the birth of his brother. He accepted with his usual smiles the attention the new baby required. Unlike most children his age, Hersch was patient. He was awaiting the day when he and his brother could romp together, could wrestle, could run, shouting, up and down the stairs and along the lane, could share secrets. What a good boy Hersch was, the neighbors said. Until one day, when he was four years old, or five, he changed. He began hitting his little brother, shoving him across the floor. His smiles were replaced by wails of anguish. When Yetta sat him down and sought an explanation, his words erupted through wrenching sobs. Hiram wouldn’t play with him. Hiram wouldn’t listen to him, wouldn’t speak to him. Yetta thought they had explained the situation to him long ago, to prepare him for this. But clearly they had not done a good job. Now, as his mother tried to calm him, and stroked his hair, he understood for the first time that Hiram would never change: would never listen, would never speak. It was as if he had no brother at all. It was worse than having no brother at all.
Inconsolable, Hersch became uncontrollable. He became like an animal, people said. He would run from the house at night and hide. He would scream for no reason, embarrassing Leo and Yetta, irritating the neighbors. At heder, when he started there, he would suddenly shove his books to the floor and run from the room. Often the place they found him hiding was the cemetery. He was always in the oldest section, where the lettering on the tombstones had been worn flat across the centuries by wind and rain that sometimes whipped across the river below and swirled inside the gate. The cemetery, too, was the one place where the sun wasn’t blocked by gabled houses. Perhaps here, hugging himself, he was finding warmth. The parents encouraged the brothers to be friends. But when little Hiram tried to hug his big brother, or kiss him on the cheek, Hersch pushed him away. The other children shunned the silent boy altogether.
The Rabbis saw this from afar and pitied the Liebmanns. Hersch, that precious little boy, once always smiling, became known as the wild one. The deaf mute — no one seemed to know his name — was assumed to be mentally slow.
In time, however, as the boys grew older, their relationship changed. Hersch began to understand and accept that Hiram’s shortcomings were beyond his or anyone’s control. He began to reach out. Alone together in the small bedroom they shared, they began to communicate. Hiram did not go to heder because of his deafness; he could neither read nor write. But little by little the boys worked out simple hand motions with which to converse. Hersch did not understand that his former rage at his brother’s infirmities had been misplaced love. Hiram seemed to have known it all along.
The changes at first were hardly noticed in the lane. But now the two strong young men who looked so much alike were as close to one another as any brothers in the Judengasse. The aging of their parents, who were nearing seventy, was bringing them even closer.
Yetta squeezed her handkerchief into her hand. “How could he think such a stupid thing? To be the Schul-Klopper?”
“When you think about it, Mama, it’s not so stupid. He’s got strong legs. He’s got strong arms. He could knock on doors as well as anyone. He wouldn’t have to speak, he wouldn’t have to hear. It’s a job where those things don’t matter.”
“But he’s so shy. He’s frightened of people.”
“That’s the point. All those hours he looks out the window, thinking, timing things. Timing even the Schul-Klopper. But separate from everyone, except me and you and Papa. He must have realized he would be perfectly able to knock on doors with a hammer. And that if he were the Schul-Kl
opper, he would earn respect. He would be serving the lane. People would give him glasses of milk, of tea. Who knows, maybe some pretty girl would give him a glass of juice. I don’t know for sure what he’s thinking. But he wouldn’t be useless anymore, the way he sees himself now. The way everyone sees him. And he would bring home a few kreuzer each week to help you and Papa. That would make him proud.”
Yetta turned to the wall. Her shoulders began to shake like a cart on cobbles. When she turned back, her handkerchief was translucent. “It‘s a good idea,” she said.
“It’s a wonderful idea. But it’s not going to happen.”
“Why not? Anything is possible.”
She pressed her wet handkerchief to her quivering lips. The image of a new life for her youngest danced in front of her eyes like sunlight.
“Mama, if we never thought of it, why would the Chief Rabbi think of it?”
“Because he’s the Chief Rabbi! Who knows, maybe Yahweh will give him a nudge.”
Hersch put his arms around his mother. She was so thin; she really must eat more.
“Mama, don’t you go off that way, too. Hiram’s going to be very upset. We’ll have to comfort him. So don’t you start expecting a miracle. If Yahweh cared a chicken liver about Hiram, He wouldn’t have made him deaf and dumb.”
The words were like a slap. But Yetta knew he was right. She leaned her cheek for a moment against Hersch’s sturdy chest. If only the lane knew what a good son he had become.
“I’d better go to your father,” she said, disengaging herself. “See if he feels well enough to go to the funeral.”
Guttle stared into the candle flames. They were the eyes of God. That’s why you lighted two each Sabbath Eve — to invite His eyes into your home. To let Him observe closely. To show Him you were not ashamed.
This was not what the Rabbis said. The Rabbis said the candles symbolized the joy and lightness of the day that was beginning. Guttle believed they were more than that.
In the flames there was yellow and orange, blue and white. There were curves and points, and an inner shape that echoed the outer — just like the human eye, made in His image. There was a reaching and a settling back, a stretching and a shriveling. The candle flames did not crackle and devour, like the flames in the woodstove. They did not heat water or cook meat or warm the room. They accomplished nothing useful you could specify.
Stare into them long enough and they stayed with you. When you looked away the flames remained in your eyes and on the candles, both. Only the eyes of Yahweh could do that.
Here was the difficulty. Try as you might, you could not see with them. Eyes open or eyes closed, you saw nothing but flame. To see with His eyes was forbidden.
Guttle turned away from the candles. She closed her eyes and saw flames still. Quietly she breathed, waiting for them to disappear. She murmured a small prayer in the darkening — that Jacob Marcus would not approach her Papa this night to arrange her marriage to his son.
Madame Guttle, the famed Viennese chanteuse, is on stage in Paris, at the Comedie Francais. She raises her bright orange skirt — and reveals that beneath it she is wearing men’s breeches. The audience, which includes King Louis XV and his grandson the Dauphin, roars with laughter
Holding a candle, she begins to sing, in a coquettish coloratura voice:
If I’d been born a man
I’d be a scholar,
I’d learn a dozen tongues
In which to holler,
In which to pledge my love
To my sweet bride-to-be.
If I’d been born a man —
(She lifts her skirt to reveal the breeches)
Would I choose me?
(She lowers her skirt)
I learned to cook and sew,
But I would rather read.
The thing I do not know
Is how to plant a seed
That in nine months will grow
To look the same as he.
If I‘d been born a man—
(She shows her breeches — then the skirt again)
Would I choose me?
If I’d been born a man
I’d teach the girls to love,
But I am just a girl
And so by God above
I am not ready yet
To bare my private parts
Until I teach myself
(She plunges a hand deep under her skirt)
The manly arts!
The audience roars with laughter; the people clap and cheer. Madame Guttle is about to blow out her candle when she hears a female voice from stage right . . .
“Guttle, what are you doing? We’ll be late for schul!”
6
The cupola atop the synagogue, much higher than the ghetto walls, was flashing refractions of the descending sun. Guttle admired its beauty most at moments like that. She envisioned the cupola as a beacon, reminding Yahweh not to forget His children who were locked behind the walls.
The synagogue was the largest structure in the Judengasse. Situated on the east side of the lane, half way between the north and south gates, it exceeded the width of sixteen houses. Front to back it extended from the cobbled lane three quarters of the way to the ghetto wall. Attached to the rear were the chamber of the Judengasse Council and the rooms of the yeshiva. Large as it was, however, Guttle knew it could not contain the crowd of men, women and children, all dressed in their Sabbath best, who were moving toward it like an incoming tide for the Schul-Klopper’s funeral.
Inside the temple, the Aron Kodesh, the holy ark, stood two stories high against the eastern wall. It held twelve Torah scrolls, each one clothed in an embroidered velvet cover of white or blue or maroon. Sparkling gold and silver threads wove Hebrew letters into bright designs. Engraved gold or silver plates hung from the polished wooden handles, like jewels around the necks of queens. Further attempts, when they flashed in the lamplight, Guttle thought, to catch the eye of Elohim. Two of the Torahs, on the top shelf, were so fragile they were kept behind glass; they were two of the three original Torahs belonging to the synagogue, dating back centuries. The third had disappeared long ago.
Females were permitted, if not encouraged, to attend services, but they had to keep to themselves. They had to stand in the rear. Guttle had mixed feelings about this arrangement. Sometimes she accepted with equanimity the assurance of the Rabbis that this was what the Talmud prescribed. At other times she chafed that she could not sit in front with the men.
As the hour for the funeral neared, Guttle watched them enter the schul. All wore black coats or cloaks, and black yarmulkes. The regulars, who attended services every day, or at least every Sabbath, filled the specific seats they had come to think of as reserved for them. Each became silent, grim, as he saw on the platform the plain spruce coffin, resting on velvet. It was not far from where they sat. They could see the grain of the wood.
As the men straightened their talises and took their seats, the women, wearing muted dresses of black or gray or brown, and simple hats, gathered in the rear. But as more and more men crowded in, and all of the seats became filled, late-arriving men had to stand in the back. Because the genders could not mingle, this forced the women out through the wide doors into the street. Rabbi Simcha, assaying the situation, whispered into the ear of the Chief Rabbi. At once Rabbi Eleazar ordered that the doors be kept open, so women and children might follow the proceedings as best they could from the lane.
The service began with late afternoon prayers. This was standard, and since most of the women could not hear anyway, some of them began to talk among themselves while waiting for the funeral. Children began to play quietly on the cobbles. As Guttle tried to listen to the prayers, a group of her friends pulled her away from the door, eager to tease her with the latest gossip. Among them were her sister Avra, Dvorah Schlicter, and Sara Greinz, who worked at the bakery.
“So,” Dvorah asked Guttle, “when will you be stepping out with the handsome Doctor?”
“W
hat are you talking about?”
“Don’t be coy, Guttle.” Dvorah tucked under her mob cap a lock of auburn curls that had crept out. “Sara told us all about it. How Lev Berkov came to the bakery to speak to you. And took you into the lane where no one could hear. And when you came back he had his arm around you, and a big smile on his face.”
“You told them that?” Guttle asked Sara.
“It’s the truth, isn’t it?” Sara had a narrow face, pale brown hair, and what Guttle felt was a whiny disposition not unlike Avra’s.
“You want to know what we talked about?” Guttle asked. “We talked about spilled milk.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Avra asked.
“I have no idea,” Guttle said. “I won’t be ‘stepping out’ with the Doctor any time soon. He never said anything like that.”
“That’s too bad, then,” Sara said. “Maybe he’s just trying to make someone else jealous. Which won’t work, of course. But at least it will make the coffin maker happy.”
“The coffin maker?” Dvorah asked. “What’s he got to do with Guttle?”
“You don’t know? You should see the way he looks at her whenever she’s at the bakery. He can’t take his eyes off her.”
Guttle decided she must be talking with Izzy too much, because for an instant she wondered if girls had gossiped this way in ancient Egypt, while they worked as slaves, or in Babylon. Probably they had. In Sodom and Gomorra for sure.
“Where do you get these ideas, Sara?” she said.
