Big League Dreams (Small Worlds)

by Allen Hoffman

  His wife and child were fine, thank God. Both in Krimsk and in St. Louis, his marriage to Golda was a source of satisfaction and pride. She was a quiet, religious woman who kept a good home, cared for her family, and cooked the traditional dishes. Golda wasn’t from Krimsk itself, but from Sufnitz, the largest town in the region—according to Sufnitzers, the only town. They thought themselves cosmopolitan and viewed Krimsk as a hapless backwater on the River Nedd. In Sufnitz, Golda’s father and grandfather had been teachers, and Golda was very well educated; she could read and write both Yiddish and Hebrew. In the old country her family never would have consented for Boruch Levi to stand under the marriage canopy with her. Although he did not descend from a line of scholars, he had inherited poverty in abundance. In America he had acquired wealth if not education, whereas Golda’s family retained their impressive scholarship, their disabling poverty, and their numerous daughters. So in St. Louis the match had been made. In the old country, poor scholars were matched with rich men’s daughters, whereas in America rich men married poor scholars’ daughters. The Krimsker wags said that it was the complete Old World–New World match and that Boruch Levi should have paid the matchmaker double, because he was as rich as she was poor, and she was as educated as he was ignorant. Golda was a worrier and a bit timid; Boruch Levi attributed those blemishes to her having grown up as a child too close to so many books, but after all she was only a woman, so it didn’t matter. He did not appreciate such traits in his son Sammy, but he knew that Yitzhak Weinbach thought the boy sensitive and intelligent. Yitzhak even thought that Sammy would make a good lawyer. That might not be bad at all.

  Only the thought of his sister made Boruch Levi scowl. Malka had phoned his secretary to say that she would be coming by to see him. If she was driving down to the levee and not dropping by the house on Saturday night, as she had when she greeted him on his return from Krimsk, she must want something very substantial. He couldn’t imagine that her problem was financial. Junk prices were up, and anyone with any sense was making a few dollars. No doubt Malka, even with her sloppy management, was making her fair share. She could buy and sell all right, and on the scale she was a real operator, even if she didn’t always open the yard early enough or know exactly what she had in inventory. She had her business talents, thank God, but the things she could say! His sister had a mouth like a torn pocket.

  The memory of the insult she had delivered earlier in the summer, before his trip back to the old country, still rankled. With Barasch and the children she had come by on a Saturday afternoon to say good-bye, and as usual she had started a quarrel. This time she suggested that had Boruch Levi really been a decent son, he would have managed to visit Krimsk while Mama was still alive and not five years after her death. He had answered that it had been Malka who had left their mother in Europe to suffer during the war; he had sent enough money for her to come to America with Malka and Barasch. Malka replied that she was sure Mama had heard about Boruch Levi’s violating the Sabbath in St. Louis and didn’t want to see her beloved son carrying on like a goy. He had answered that the Sabbath was only one day, while Mama had had to suffer Malka’s flying skirts seven days a week.

  Flushing crimson, Malka had turned away; Boruch Levi had called to his eight-year-old son Sammy that it was time to go to the synagogue for the afternoon prayers. They had been wrangling on the second-floor balcony, and Malka remained there with the rest of both their families. When he had reached the street, she called his name in a voice loud enough for the whole street to hear. He stopped and turned to watch his sister raise her skirt above her waist and thrust her backside down at him, calling with derision, “Brother, dear, you can kiss my ass!”

  Had his child and wife not been watching, he would have rushed upstairs and given her a few slaps worth remembering. As it was, he turned his back and continued on to the synagogue.

  Boruch Levi’s trip to Krimsk had gone very well. Distributing almost fifteen thousand dollars in charity—half of it his personal gift, half raised from other successful former Krimskers—he had been received as a prince. Everyone had come running to welcome him the first night at Beryl Soffer’s. He delivered letters, gifts, and personal greetings from the Krimsker community in the New World, but he also talked, listened, and observed.

  Krimsk, now Kromsk, was part of the proud new Polish republic, since the Polish general Pilsudski had succeeded in repelling the invading Bolshevik forces. Fortunately for both Krimsk and Kromsk, the ravaging warfare had occurred across the River Nedd, so that except for the name of the town, very little had changed. Without being asked, on the very next day Boruch Levi imperiously summoned the Krimskers for private audiences and began donating money for dowries, business loans, grants to take chronically ill children to see specialists in Warsaw, stipends for talented young boys to pursue secular or religious studies, and a substantial donation to repair the decrepit but wellpopulated old folks’ home. Krimsk insisted that he sit on the beis midrash’s eastern wall, and when he entered the old folks’ home, the residents, struggling with crutches and canes, all rose with tears in their eyes and blessed him as if he were a baron like Rothschild of Paris or Gunzburg of Moscow. He for his part responded aristocratically by shaking hands and exchanging a few words with every individual. He left with tears in his eyes and decided that while in Krimsk he must show himself worthy of their praise by wearing a suit and tie every day and not playing cards.

  Originally, in addition to distributing charity, Boruch Levi had hoped to indulge himself in those luxuries that he had not been able to afford but had dreamed of as a boy: leisure, play, rich food, and strong drink. His newfound dress and decorum, however, created an unanticipated seriousness of presence and purpose. He visited with many people, and although the discussions contained the sweet, romanticized remembrance of his unhappy youth and the equally satisfying glorification of his successful present, they often focused on the difference between Krimsk and St. Louis. If everyone was so wealthy in St. Louis, why did they work on the Sabbath? If kosher meat was so good and plentiful, why didn’t they eat it rather than the food of the goyim? And the most basic question: if Jews were not persecuted for being Jews, and there was no problem living like a Jew, why didn’t they live like Jews? In Poland, as in Russia, there were economic and social rewards for surrendering one’s Jewishness, and yet few did so; in America, where the rewards seemed meager, so many did!

  Sweating in his suit and tie—Kromsk summers proved no cooler than Krimsk’s had been—he sweated more when asked these troubling questions. He had never stopped to think about them before. Everything seemed so obvious standing in Krimsk’s dusty, unpaved streets, and everything had seemed equally obvious while motoring along in his Hupmobile at thirty miles an hour down the broad boulevard that bordered on St. Louis’s Forest Park. He just didn’t know, and when they asked him why he had returned to religion—the earliest Sabbath violations had been excoriated in the mails back to Krimsk; later the subject discreetly disappeared from most correspondence altogether—and why only he had bothered to visit them, he told the truth. His mother had appeared to him in a dream requesting him to become religious. Boruch Levi didn’t tell them, however, that in St. Louis he had told almost no one of his dream. Just as he felt comfortable, even proud, to relate so miraculous a dream in Krimsk, he had been uncomfortable and embarrassed to reveal such an odd, mystical event in St. Louis.

  It all seemed to come back to the same problem: Krimsk was Krimsk and America was America, even though the two seemed to be inhabited by the same people. As for why he had returned to Krimsk, he did somewhat better answering that; he had come to visit his mother’s grave. After such a dream, it seemed the obvious and appropriate thing to do. And, too, he told them that he wanted to show off in his hometown, which knew him as an impoverished, uneducated half-orphan, what a success he had become by giving large amounts to charity. He surprised himself with his honesty, but he could not resist giving some of the few answers he happened to
know.

  Initially he had feared questions about the Krimsker Rebbe, since he had lost touch with him, but he confidently answered queries about where the rebbe lived, whether he gave interviews and bestowed blessings, and the state of health of the rebbe and the rebbetzin. Boruch Levi even told them proudly about the rebbe’s selection as a member of the Governor’s Council on Indian Affairs and his rejection of the prestigious position. Krimsk enjoyed and understood that, too, all right; who was more talented than their wonder-working rebbe, and who had ever fled from all honors and wealth as their holy rebbe had?

  Strolling through Krimsk, Boruch Levi found himself thinking about the Krimsker Rebbe. Only the rebbe remained constant. He had been an enigma in Krimsk, and he was an enigma in St. Louis. Why had he secluded himself for five years in Krimsk? Why had he left for America? Why did he study and live among the Indians in the Osage reservation? No one knew, but at least he had remained the same. In both Krimsk and St. Louis he had excelled intellectually, and in both places he had refused honors and wealth. Boruch Levi intuitively felt that the rebbe and only the rebbe knew why Krimsk and St. Louis were so distant that when a man stood in one he could not imagine or remember standing in the other. No wonder they did not ask more penetrating questions about the rebbe. What was there for them to ask? But there was something for Boruch Levi to ask—the difference between Krimsk and St. Louis. Only the rebbe, the constant, harmonious, and holy rebbe seemed capable of integrating the two worlds.

  With these surprising and admiring, almost worshipful feelings toward the rebbe, Boruch Levi began to ponder the events of that last fateful Tisha B’Av in Krimsk. The rebbe had counseled him not to go to America. But then the rebbe had suddenly decided to go to America himself! The rebbe appeared to have lied to him, and in response Boruch Levi rebelled against God, the rebbe, and his mother, may she rest in peace. But now Boruch Levi thought that something must have happened that night of the rebbe’s return to his congregation, or perhaps at the moment when the rebbe witnessed the Angel of Death synagogue burning and the Torah being rescued—something that led the rebbe to change his mind about America. If that was so, the rebbe had not betrayed him but had been faithful to his newer prophetic insights.

  Boruch Levi’s stay in Krimsk lengthened, and he tarried at leisure in the shade of old walls near which he had played and under trees he had climbed. As he skimmed stones in the pond and prayed in the beis midrash on the eastern wall—there were limits to his reflective humility—he was struck by his affinity for Krimsk. After all, only he had returned. Although he relished his success in America and was growing anxious to return to the world of paved streets, trucks, trains, Victrolas, telephones, and indoor plumbing, he could not deny that Krimsk was part of him and part of him was Krimsk, even if he could not integrate or even understand the relationship between the two. In that sense, he was as different from all the others who remained in Krimsk as he was from those in St. Louis. Perhaps Boruch Levi really did belong in Krimsk, and the Krimsker Rebbe had recognized that unique quality when he had commanded Boruch Levi to stay. Boruch Levi felt a growing need for the rebbe but feared that the rebbe might not welcome him again, since Boruch Levi had not taken his advice earlier.

  Such reflective analysis made him uncomfortable. Krimsk offered other revelations that were less painful and often fascinating. Boruch Levi delivered gold watches from Barasch to Beryl and Faigie Soffer’s two sons. Their healthy, normal younger boy was a source of great pride to the parents, but it was their older son, Itzik Dribble, who interested Boruch Levi. Itzik had developed into a tall, broad -shouldered man, but anyone who had seen him seventeen years before would still have recognized him instantly as Itzik Dribble. He had been limp along the edges as a child, and now that his edges had expanded so considerably, his dribble and droop were more pronounced. When he was a child, his spineless blond hair had hung limp upon his head; as a man he had a yellow beard that hung slack and meaningless from his face. Everyone knew that this idiot was the reason Beryl had remained in Krimsk, and for many who had gone to America, Itzik Dribble typified Krimsk, languishing hopelessly cursed and deficient through no fault of his own. Suddenly, seeing him in Krimsk, Boruch Levi was reminded of America’s incredible mindless physical growth. Why? For what purpose? Itzik Dribble and America seemed like some child’s balloon, inflating to grand proportions but without an inner structure to give it definition.

  Both Beryl and Faigie expressed intense interest in their former watchman Barasch. Beryl cried when he heard how his “pure brother” had gone astray. He literally collapsed into a chair, and Faigie ran to bring him a glass of water. Beryl begged Boruch Levi to try and guide Barasch back to the religious path that he had walked in Krimsk. Wasn’t Barasch a fine person? Beryl asked Faigie, and although she certainly agreed, Faigie, in her quiet way, seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when she heard of Barasch’s scandalous carryings-on. Boruch Levi didn’t know what to make of either reaction.

  Dressed as an American—and therefore invisible as a Jew—Boruch Levi had strolled one afternoon across the bridge to the Polish town of Krimichak, which seemed as tired and unchanging as Krimsk. Perhaps even more so, because no one had left. On the way back over the River Nedd to Krimsk, he met a tired herdsman leading his cattle back to Krimichak from the meadows. The elements had tanned and parched his face into a leathery surface that made him look older than his forty-five or fifty years, but his carriage was still erect and his body strong; Boruch Levi greeted Wotek by name. The herdsman stopped in amazement and after some difficulty—and much encouragement—he recalled Boruch Levi, the junk peddler with the hopelessly swaybacked nag.

  Wotek carefully eyed Boruch Levi’s clothing and wondered aloud whether he had been made a baron in America. Then he wondered how long he had been gone. Boruch Levi mentioned that he had left soon after Grannie Zara had died and the large synagogue had burned. Those events Wotek remembered very well: the flaming devil with burning coals for eyes rushing straight from the flames. He spat three times in recollection of such a frightful apparition and then three more times in remembrance of the witch Grannie Zara. Then he added, “You know, they burned Zloty and the other cats. We didn’t know that then. That was wrong, too.”

  Boruch Levi walked back to Krimsk, but that night he didn’t sleep even though he had the softest featherbed in town. Was he afraid his recurring dream of the burning cats would return? It didn’t, but Wotek’s information seemed to confirm his suspicions that in the night of Tisha B’Av the rebbe had told him the truth about the seductive dangers of the Evil Inclination. At the time of his interview with the rebbe, the two fateful fires had not occurred: later that night the witch’s home and the cats burned—and it wasn’t until the following afternoon that the Angel of Death synagogue had gone up in flames as the young man miraculously emerged with the holy Torah intact. Boruch Levi suspected that in Krimsk the rebbe had not betrayed him so much as fate had surprised them both. The rebbe had informed him correctly that Boruch Levi would always make a good living. The question, the rebbe had said, was “not what kind of living, but what kind of life?” And here, once again back in Krimsk, Boruch Levi was wondering what kind of life. He thought that the rebbe would not be surprised if he knew that Boruch Levi was lying in bed in Krimsk pondering such things. Still, he wondered who the “they” were who had burned the dead witch’s house with her cats inside; “they” had ignited both Krimsk and Krimichak.

  In Krimsk, Boruch Levi persistently inquired about the “flaming devil with flaming coals for eyes,” the man named Grisha to whom the rebbe had presented his daughter, Rachel Leah. They had married and departed from Krimsk not long after everyone else, but no one knew where they had gone or what had happened to them. There were rumors: they had gone to the Holy Land, they had been killed in the World War, Grisha had become a high-ranking Bolshevik and a friend of none other than that madman, Lenin. But nothing had been heard from them since their departure, and no one really knew anything
for sure.

  The night before Boruch Levi was to leave, Beryl Soffer gave a party in his honor. Everyone came, many with letters for him to deliver, and all blessed him as the most wonderful benefactor Krimsk had ever known. Later, when he was packing in his room, he heard a soft knock and opened the door to find Froika Waksman. On his visits to his old house, he had met Froika, who now lived alone in his family’s old home and worked as a shoemaker, just as his late father had. Froika was saying kaddish for his mother, who had died in the winter. As an orphaned bachelor, Froika had time, and Boruch Levi had had some searching talks with the young man. Froika had a good head on his shoulders and wasn’t lazy; a man like that could go a long way in America, and Boruch Levi had offered to sponsor him. Froika had hesitated and said that he would let Boruch Levi know.

  “Have you decided to leave?” Boruch Levi asked now.

  “Yes,” answered Froika somewhat reluctantly.

  “But you don’t seem certain.”

  “I am certain that I want to leave Krimsk,” Froika said definitely.

  “Then what’s the problem? I’ll certainly help you.”

  “I don’t want to go to America. I would appreciate your help in going to the Land of Israel,” he answered.

  Boruch Levi was slightly surprised. They had discussed St. Louis and Krimsk; Palestine had never been mentioned.

  “The Land of Israel?” Boruch Levi queried.

  “Yes, I think sooner or later the goyim will destroy Krimsk. If not the Bolsheviks, then the Poles themselves—or someone else. I know you disagree, and I hope you’re right, but that’s what I believe, and that’s why I want to leave Krimsk. Until you came, I had hoped to go to America like everyone else, but after talking with you, I don’t think I want to,” Froika said with a trace of embarrassment at disparaging his potential benefactor’s new homeland.