by Joseph Roth
Mendel closed his eyes and let the misfortune pass by in the darkness. Had he not been afraid of revealing himself, he would have liked to plug his ears too, so that he wouldn’t have to hear. But as it was he had to hear: terrible words, the silver rattle of the spurs, soft mad giggling and the man’s deep laugh. Longingly he now awaited the yapping of the dogs. If only they would howl loudly, they should howl very loudly! Murderers should emerge from the grain to beat him to death. The voices receded. It was silent. All was gone. Nothing had been. Mendel Singer hastily stood up, looked all around, lifted with both hands the skirts of his long coat and ran toward the little town. The window shutters were closed, but some women were still sitting outside their doors, chatting and rasping. He slowed his run to avoid attracting attention, he merely took great hurried strides, his coattails still in his hands. He stood before his house. He knocked on the window. Deborah opened it. “Where’s Miriam?” asked Mendel. “She’s still taking a walk,” said Deborah, “she can’t be stopped! Day and night she goes walking. She’s in the house for barely half an hour. God has punished me with these children, has anyone ever in the world –”“Be quiet,” Mendel interrupted her, “when Miriam comes home, tell her: I was asking for her. I’m not coming home today, but only tomorrow morning. Today is the anniversary of the death of my grandfather Zallel, I’m going to pray.” And he departed without waiting for his wife’s reply.
It could scarcely have been three hours since he’d left the temple. Now that he entered it again, he felt as if he were returning there after many weeks, and he stroked with a tender hand the lid of his old prayer desk and celebrated a reunion with it. He opened it and reached for his old, black and heavy book, which was at home in his hands and which he would have recognized without hesitation among a thousand similar books. So familiar to him was the leather smoothness of the binding with the raised round islets of stearin, the encrusted remains of countless candles burned long ago, and the lower corners of the pages, porous, yellowish, greasy, curled three times over through decades of being turned with moistened fingers. Any prayer he needed at the moment he could open to in no time. It was engraved in his memory with the tiniest features of the physiognomy it bore in this prayer book, the number of its lines, the nature and size of the print and the exact shading of the pages.
It was twilight in the temple, the yellowish light of the candles on the eastern wall next to the cabinet of the Torah scrolls did not dispel the darkness, but rather seemed to bury itself in it. He saw the sky and a few stars through the windows and recognized all the objects in the room, the desks, the table, the benches, the scraps of paper on the floor, the candelabra on the wall, a few golden-fringed little covers. Mendel Singer lit two candles, stuck them to the bare wood of the desk, closed his eyes and began to pray. With closed eyes he knew where a page ended, mechanically he turned to the next. Gradually his upper body slipped into the old customary regular swaying, his whole body prayed with him, his feet scraped the floorboards, his hands closed into fists and pounded like hammers on the desk, on his chest, on the book and in the air. On the stove bench slept a homeless Jew. His breaths accompanied and supported Mendel Singer’s monotonous song, which was like a hot song in the yellow desert, lost and intimate with death. His own voice and the breath of the sleeper benumbed Mendel, drove every thought out of his heart, he was nothing more than one praying, the words went through him on the way to heaven, a hollow vessel he was, a funnel. Thus he prayed into the morning.
The day breathed on the windows. The lights became scanty and dull, behind the low huts one already saw the sun rising, it filled the two eastern windows of the temple with red flames. Mendel snuffed out the candles, put away the book, opened his eyes and turned to go. He stepped outside. It smelled of summer, drying swamps and awakened green. The window shutters were still closed. People were asleep.
Mendel knocked three times with his hand on his door. He was strong and fresh, as if he had slept dreamlessly and long. He knew exactly what was to be done. Deborah opened. “Make me some tea,” said Mendel, “then I want to tell you something. Is Miriam home?” “Of course,” replied Deborah, “where else would she be? Do you think she’s already in America?”
The samovar hummed, Deborah breathed into a drinking glass and polished it. Then Mendel and Deborah drank steadily with pursed slurping lips. Suddenly Mendel put down the glass and said: “We will go to America. Menuchim must stay behind. We must take Miriam with us. A misfortune hovers over us if we stay.” He remained silent for a while and then said softly:
“She’s going with a Cossack.”
The glass fell clanging from Deborah’s hands. Miriam awoke in the corner, and Menuchim stirred in his dull sleep. Then it remained silent. A million larks were trilling above the house, below the sky.
With a bright flash the sun struck the window, reached the shiny tin samovar and lit it into a curved mirror.
Thus the day began.
VII
To Dubno one travels with Sameshkin’s cart; to Moscow one travels by railroad; to America one travels not only on a ship, but also with documents. And to get those one must go to Dubno.
Thus Deborah pays a visit to Sameshkin. Sameshkin is no longer sitting on the stove bench, he’s not home at all, it’s Thursday and the pig market, Sameshkin won’t return home for an hour.
Deborah walks up and down, up and down outside Sameshkin’s hut, she thinks only of America.
A dollar is more than two rubles, a ruble is a hundred kopecks, two rubles are two hundred kopecks, how many kopecks, for God’s sake, are in a dollar? How many more dollars will Shemariah send? America is a blessed country.
Miriam is going with a Cossack, in Russia she can do that, in America there are no Cossacks. Russia is a sad country, America is a free country, a joyful country. Mendel will no longer be a teacher, he’ll be the father of a rich son.
It doesn’t take one hour, it doesn’t take two hours, only after three hours does Deborah hear Sameshkin’s nailed boots.
It’s evening, but still hot. The slanting sun has already turned yellow, but it doesn’t want to disappear, it’s setting very slowly today. Deborah is sweating from heat and excitement and a hundred unfamiliar thoughts.
Now that Sameshkin is approaching, she becomes even hotter. He’s wearing a heavy bearskin cap, shaggy and in some places mangy, and a short fur coat over dirty linen pants, which are tucked into the heavy boots. And yet he’s not sweating.
The moment Deborah sees him she already smells him too, because he stinks of brandy. She’s going to have a tough time with him. It’s no small matter to bring around even the sober Sameshkin. On Monday the pig market is in Dubno. It doesn’t help that Sameshkin has already visited the pig market at home, he’ll probably have no more reason to go to Dubno, and the journey will cost money.
Deborah steps directly into Sameshkin’s path. He staggers, the heavy boots hold him upright. “Lucky that he’s not barefoot!” thinks Deborah, not without contempt.
Sameshkin doesn’t recognize the woman blocking his way. “Away with the women!” he cries, and makes a motion with his hand, half grabbing and half striking.
“It’s me!” Deborah says bravely. “Monday we’re going to Dubno!”
“God bless you!” Sameshkin cries amiably. He stands still and leans with his elbow on Deborah’s shoulder. She’s afraid to move, lest Sameshkin fall down.
Sameshkin weighs a good seventy kilos, his whole weight now rests on the elbow, and this elbow rests on Deborah’s shoulder.
It’s the first time a strange man has been so close to her. She’s frightened, but at the same time she thinks that she’s already old, she also thinks of Miriam’s Cossack and how long it’s been since Mendel has touched her.
“Yes, my sweet,” says Sameshkin, “Monday we’re going to Dubno, and on the way we’ll sleep together.”
“Phooey, you old man,” says Deborah, “I’ll tell your wife, maybe you’re drunk?”
“D
runk he is not,” replies Sameshkin, “he has only been drinking. What do you want in Dubno anyway, if you won’t sleep with Sameshkin?”
“To get documents,” says Deborah, “we’re going to America.”
“The journey costs fifty kopecks if you don’t sleep with him and thirty if you do. He’ll make you a little child, you’ll have it in America, a memento of Sameshkin.”
Deborah shivers in the midst of the heat.
Nonetheless, she says, but only after a minute: “I won’t sleep with you and will pay thirty-five kopecks.”
Sameshkin suddenly stands back, he’s pulled away his elbow from Deborah’s shoulder, it seems that he’s become sober.
“Thirty-five kopecks!” he says with a firm voice.
“Monday morning at five.”
“Monday morning at five.”
Sameshkin turns at his farm, and Deborah walks slowly home.
The sun has set. The wind is coming from the west, on the horizon violet clouds are piling up, tomorrow it will rain. Deborah thinks, tomorrow it will rain, and feels a rheumatic pain in her knee, she greets it, her old faithful enemy. A person grows old! she thinks. Women age faster than men, Sameshkin is just as old as she and still older. Miriam is young, she’s going with a Cossack.
The word “Cossack,” which she had said aloud, frightened Deborah. It was as if only the sound had made her aware of the dreadfulness of the situation. At home she saw her daughter Miriam and her husband Mendel. They sat at the table, father and daughter, and were stubbornly silent, so that Deborah knew as soon as she entered that it was already an old silence, a domestic, firmly settled silence.
“I’ve spoken with Sameshkin,” Deborah began. “Monday morning at five I’m going to Dubno for the documents. He wants thirty-five kopecks.” And because she had been seized by the devil of vanity, she added: “He takes only me so cheaply.”
“You can’t go alone anyway,” said, weariness in his voice and dread in his heart, Mendel Singer. “I’ve spoken with many Jews who know all about it. They say I must appear before the uriadnik myself.”
“You before the uriadnik?”
It was indeed not easy to imagine Mendel Singer in an office. Never in his life had he spoken with an uriadnik. Never had he been able to encounter a police officer without trembling. Uniformed men, horses and dogs he carefully avoided. Mendel was going to speak with an uriadnik?
“Don’t concern yourself, Mendel,” said Deborah, “with things that you can only ruin. I’ll sort everything out on my own.”
“All the Jews,” Mendel objected, “have told me that I must appear personally.”
“Then we’ll go together on Monday!”
“And where will Menuchim be?”
“Miriam will stay with him!”
Mendel looked at his wife. He tried with his glance to meet her eyes, which she hid fearfully under her lids. Miriam, who was gazing from a corner at the table, could see her father’s glance, her heart quickened. Monday she had a rendezvous. Monday she had a rendezvous. The whole hot period of late summer she had a rendezvous. Her love blossomed late, among the high grain, Miriam was afraid of the harvest. She already sometimes heard the peasants preparing, sharpening the sickles on the blue whetstones. Where would she go when the fields were bare? She had to go to America. A vague idea of the freedom of love in America, among the tall buildings, which concealed still better than the grain in the field, consoled her about the approach of the harvest. It was already coming. Miriam had no time to lose. She loved Stepan. He would stay behind. She loved all men, storms broke from them, their powerful hands nonetheless gently lit flames in the heart. The men were named Stepan, Ivan and Vsevolod. In America there were many more men. “I’m not staying home alone,” said Miriam, “I’m afraid!”
“We should,” Mendel blurted out, “put a Cossack in the house for her. To guard her.”
Miriam turned red. She believed that her father saw her redness, even though she stood in the corner, in the shadow. Her redness must be shining through the darkness, Miriam’s face was inflamed like a red lamp. She covered it with her hands and burst into tears.
“Go out!” said Deborah, “it’s late, close the shutters!”
She felt her way out, carefully, her hands still before her eyes. Outside she stopped for a moment. All the stars of the sky stood there, near and alive, as if they had been waiting for Miriam outside the house. Their clear golden splendor contained the splendor of the great free world, they were tiny mirrors, in which the glow of America was reflected.
She went to the window, looked in, tried to discern from her parents’ facial expressions what they might be saying. She discerned nothing. She removed the iron hooks from the wood of the open shutters and closed both wings like the doors of a cabinet. She thought of a coffin. She was burying her parents in the little house. She felt no melancholy. Mendel and Deborah Singer were buried. The world was wide and alive. Stepan, Ivan and Vsevolod were alive. America was alive, on the other side of the great water, with all its tall buildings and with millions of men.
When she entered the room again, her father, Mendel Singer, said:
“She can’t even close the shutters, it takes her half an hour!”
He groaned, rose and went to the wall on which the small petroleum lamp hung, dark blue container, sooty chimney, bound by a rusty wire to a cracked round mirror, which had the task of enhancing the sparse light at no cost. The opening at the top of the chimney was higher than Mendel Singer’s head. He tried in vain to blow out the lamp. He stood on tiptoe, he blew, but the wick only flared up more strongly.
Meanwhile Deborah lit a small yellowish wax candle and put it on the brick stove. Mendel Singer climbed with a croak onto an armchair and finally blew out the lamp. Miriam lay down in the corner next to Menuchim. Not until it was dark would she undress. She waited breathlessly, with closed eyelids, until her father had finished murmuring his bedtime prayer. Through a round knothole in the window shutter she saw the blue and golden shimmer of the night. She undressed and touched her breasts. They hurt her. Her skin had its own memory and remembered in every place the large, hard and hot hands of the men. Her smell had its own memory and retained the fragrance of men’s sweat, brandy and Russian leather incessantly, with tormenting faithfulness. She heard her parents’ snoring and Menuchim’s rattling breath. Then Miriam rose, in her shirt, barefoot, with her heavy braids, which she brought forward and the ends of which reached her thighs, unbolted the door and stepped out into the strange night. She breathed deeply. It seemed to her that she breathed in the whole night, all the golden stars she swallowed with her breath, still more kept burning in the sky. Frogs croaked and crickets chirped, the northeast edge of the sky was lined by a broad silver streak in which the morning seemed already to be contained. Miriam thought of the grain field, her marriage bed. She walked around the house. The great white wall of the barracks shimmered from afar. It sent a few meager lights toward Miriam. In a large room slept Stepan, Ivan and Vsevolod and many other men.
Tomorrow was Friday. Everything had to be prepared for Saturday, the meatballs, the pike and the chicken broth. The baking already began at six in the morning. As the broad silver streak turned reddish, Miriam crept back into the room. She didn’t fall asleep. Through the knothole in the window shutter she saw the first flames of the sun. Father and Mother were already stirring in their sleep. Morning was there. The Sabbath passed, Sunday Miriam spent in the grain field, with Stepan. In the end they went far out, into the next village, Miriam drank schnapps. All day they looked for her at home. Let them look for her! Her life was precious, the summer was short, soon the harvest was beginning. In the forest she slept with Stepan again. Tomorrow, Monday, her father was going to Dubno to get the papers.
At five in the morning, on Monday, Mendel Singer rose. He drank tea, prayed, then quickly took off the phylacteries and went to Sameshkin. “Good morning!” he called from a distance. Mendel Singer felt as if the official business had alread
y begun here, before climbing into Sameshkin’s cart, and as if he had to greet Sameshkin as he would an uriadnik.
“I’d rather go with your wife!” said Sameshkin. “She’s still good-looking for her years and has a decent bosom.”
“Let’s go,” said Mendel.
The horses whinnied and struck their hindquarters with their tails. “Hey! Whoa!” cried Sameshkin, and cracked the whip.
At eleven in the morning they arrived in Dubno. Mendel had to wait. He stepped, his cap in his hand, through the large portal. The porter carried a saber.
