Shosha

by Isaac Bashevis Singer

  ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER

  Shosha

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Contents

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  PART TWO

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Author’s Note

  Epilogue

  PENGUIN MODERN CLASSICS

  SHOSHA

  Isaac Bashevis Singer was born in 1904 in a village near Warsaw, Poland, and grew up in the city’s Yiddish-speaking Jewish quarter. Although he initially considered becoming a rabbi like his father, Singer abandoned his religious studies in his twenties in favour of pursuing a career as a writer. He found a job as a proofreader for a Yiddish literary magazine and began to publish book reviews and short stories. In 1935, as the Nazi threat in neighbouring Germany grew increasingly ominous, Singer moved to the United States of America. He settled in New York, where he worked as a journalist for a Yiddish-language newspaper and, in 1940, married a German–Jewish refugee.

  Although Singer published many novels, children’s books, memoirs, essays and articles, he is best known as a writer of short stories. In 1978, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and he died in Florida in 1991.

  PART ONE

  One

  1

  I was brought up on three dead languages – Hebrew, Aramaic, and Yiddish (some consider the last not a language at all) – and in a culture that developed in Babylon: the Talmud. The cheder where I studied was a room in which the teacher ate and slept, and his wife cooked. There I studied not arithmetic, geography, physics, chemistry, or history, but the laws governing an egg laid on a holiday and sacrifices in a temple destroyed two thousand years ago. Although my ancestors had settled in Poland some six or seven hundred years before I was born, I knew only a few words of the Polish language. We lived in Warsaw on Krochmalna Street, which might well have been called a ghetto. Actually the Jews of Russian-occupied Poland were free to live wherever they chose. I was an anachronism in every way, but I didn’t know it, just as I didn’t know that my friendship with Shosha, the daughter of our neighbor Bashele and her husband, Zelig, had anything to do with love. Love affairs took place between worldly young men who shaved their beards and smoked cigarettes on the Sabbath and girls who wore blouses with short sleeves and dresses with a décolleté. Such follies did not touch a cheder boy of seven or eight from a Hasidic house.

  Still, I was drawn to Shosha and I passed through the dark hall that led from our apartment to Bashele’s as often as I could. Shosha was about my age, but while I was considered a prodigy, knew several pages of the Gemara and chapters of the Mishnah by heart, could write in Yiddish as well as in Hebrew, and had already begun to ponder God, providence, time, space, and infinity, Shosha was considered a little fool in our building, No. 10. At nine, she spoke like a child of six. She was left behind two years in a class in the public school to which her parents sent her. Shosha had blond hair that fell to her shoulders when she undid her braids. Her eyes were blue, her nose straight, her neck long. She took after her mother, who had been known as a beauty in her youth. Her sister Yppe, two years younger than Shosha, was dark, like her father. She wore a brace on her left leg and limped. Teibele, the youngest, was still a baby when I began to visit at Bashele’s. She had just been weaned and slept in a cradle.

  One day Shosha came home from school crying – the teacher had dismissed her, with a letter saying there was no place there for her. She brought home two books – one in Russian, one in Polish – as well as some exercise books and a box with pens and pencils. She had not learned any Russian but could read Polish slowly. The Polish schoolbook had pictures of a hut in a village, a cow, a rooster, a cat, a dog, a hare, and a mother stork feeding her newly hatched offspring in their nest. Shosha knew some of the poems in the book by heart.

  Her father, Zelig, worked in a leather store. He left home early in the morning and returned late in the evening. His black beard was always short and round, and the Hasidim in our building said that he had it trimmed – a violation of Hasidic practice. He wore a short gabardine, a stiff collar, a tie, and kid shoes with rubber tops. Saturday he went to a synagogue frequented by tradesmen and workers.

  Though Bashele wore a wig, she did not shave her head as did my mother, the wife of Rabbi Menahem Mendl Greidinger. Mother often told me it was wrong for a rabbi’s son, a student of the Gemara, to be the companion of a girl, and one from a common home at that. She warned me never to taste anything there, since Bashele might feed me meat that was not strictly kosher. The Greidingers came from generations of rabbis, authors of sacred books, while Bashele’s father was a furrier and Zelig had served in the Russian Army before they married. The children in our house mimicked Shosha’s speech. Shosha made silly mistakes in her Yiddish; she began a sentence and rarely finished it. When she was sent to the grocery store to buy food, she lost the money. Bashele’s neighbors told her she ought to take Shosha to a doctor because her brain didn’t seem to be developing, but Bashele had neither time nor money for doctors. And how could they help? Bashele herself was as naïve as a child. Michael the shoemaker said about her that you could make her believe she was pregnant with a kitten and that a cow flew over the roof and laid brass eggs.

  How different Bashele’s apartment was from ours! We had almost no furniture. The walls were lined with books from floor to ceiling. My brother, Moishe, and I did not have toys. We played with my father’s volumes, with a broken pen, an empty ink bottle, or pieces of paper. Our living room had no sofa, no upholstered chairs, no chest of drawers – only an ark for scrolls, a long table, and benches. People prayed there on the Sabbath. My father stood at a lectern all day long and looked into large books that lay open in a great pile. He wrote commentaries, trying to answer the contradictions that one commentator found in the works of another. He was short, had a red beard and blue eyes, and he smoked a long pipe. From the time I can first remember, I heard him repeat the phrase ‘It is forbidden.’ Everything I wanted to do was a transgression. I was not allowed to draw or paint a person – that violated the Second Commandment. I couldn’t say a word against another boy – that was slander. I couldn’t laugh at anyone – that was mockery. I couldn’t make up a story – that represented a lie.

  On Sabbaths we weren’t allowed to touch a candlestick, a coin, any of the things we amused ourselves with. Father reminded us constantly that this world was a corridor in which one had to study the Torah and perform virtuous deeds, so that when one made one’s way to the palace that was the next world, rewards would be waiting to be collected. He used to say, ‘How long does one live, anyhow? Before you turn around it’s all over. When a person sins, his sins turn into devils, demons, hobgoblins. After death they chase the corpse and drag it through forsaken forests and deserts where people do not go or cattle tread.’

  Mother occasionally got angry at Father for talking so depressingly to us, but she was a moralizer herself. She was lean, with sunken cheeks, a pointed chin, and large gray eyes that expressed both sharpness and melancholy. My parents had lost three children before I was born.

  At Bashele’s, before I even opened the door, I could smell her stews, roasts, and desserts. Her kitchen contained rows of copper and brass pots and pans, painted and gold-rimmed plates, a mortar and pestle, a coffee mill, all kinds of pictures and knickknacks. The children had a crate filled with dolls, balls, colored pencils, paints. The beds were covered with pretty bedspreads. Embroidered cushi
ons lay across the sofa.

  Yppe and Teibele were too young for me, but Shosha was just right. Neither of us went down to play in the courtyard, which was controlled by rough boys with sticks. They bullied any child younger or weaker than they. Their talk was mean. They singled me out in particular because I was the rabbi’s son and wore a long gabardine and a velvet cap. They taunted me with names like ‘Fancypants,’ ‘Little Rabbi,’ ‘Mollycoddle.’ If they heard me speak to Shosha, they jeered and called me ‘Sissy.’ I was teased for having red hair, blue eyes, and unusually white skin. Sometimes they flung a rock at me, a chip of wood, or a blob of mud. Sometimes they tripped me so that I fell into the gutter. Or they might sic the house watchman’s dog on me because they knew I was afraid of it.

  But inside Bashele’s I received neither teasing nor roughness. The moment I arrived Bashele offered me a plate of groats, a glass of borscht, a cookie. Shosha took down her toy box with her dolls, doll-sized dishes and cooking things, her collection of human and animal figurines, shiny buttons, gaudy ribbons. We played jacks, knucklebones, hide-and-seek, husband and wife. I made believe I went to the synagogue and when I returned Shosha prepared a meal for me. Once I played the role of a blind man and Shosha let me touch her forehead, cheeks, mouth. She kissed the palm of my hand and said, ‘Don’t tell Mama.’

  I repeated to Shosha stories I had read or heard from my mother and father, embellishing them freely. I told her of the wild forests of Siberia, of Mexican bandits, and of cannibals who ate their own children. Sometimes Bashele would sit with us and listen to my chatter. I boasted to them that I was familiar with the cabala and knew expressions so sacred they could draw wine from the wall, create live pigeons, and let me fly to Madagascar. One such name I knew contained seventy-two letters, and when it was uttered the sky would turn red, the moon topple, and the world be destroyed.

  Shosha’s eyes filled with alarm. ‘Arele, don’t ever say the word!’

  ‘No, Shoshele, don’t be afraid. I will make it so that you’ll live forever.’

  2

  Not only could I play with Shosha, but I could also tell her things I dared not speak of to anyone else. I could describe all my fantasies and daydreams. I confided that I was writing a book. I often saw this book in my dreams. It was written by me and also by some ancient scribe in Rashi script on parchment. I imagined that I had done it in a former life. My father had forbidden me to look into the cabala. He admonished me that anyone who indulges in the cabala before the age of thirty is in danger of falling into heresy or insanity. But I believed that I was a heretic and half mad anyhow. There stood on our shelves volumes of the Zohar, The Tree of Life, The Book of Creation, The Orchard of Pomegranates, and other cabalistic works. I found a calendar where many facts about kings, statesmen, millionaires, and scholars were set down. My mother often read The Book of the Covenant, which was an anthology packed with scientific information. There I could read about Archimedes, Copernicus, Newton, and about the philosophers Aristotle, Descartes, Leibnitz. The author, Reb Elijah from Wilna, engaged in long polemics with those who denied the existence of God, and so I learned their opinions. Though the book was forbidden to me, I used every opportunity to read it. Once my father mentioned the philosopher Spinoza – his name should be blotted out – and his theory that God is the world and the world is God. These words created turmoil in my mind. If the world is God, I, the boy Aaron, my gabardine, my velvet cap, my red hair, my shoes were part of the Godhead. So were Bashele, Shosha – even my thoughts.

  That day, I lectured to Shosha about Spinoza’s philosophy as if I had studied all his works. Shosha listened while she laid out her collection of gilded buttons. I was sure that she didn’t grasp a single word, but then she asked, ‘Is Leibele Bontz also God?’

  Leibele Bontz was known in our courtyard as a hoodlum and a thief. When he played cards with the boys, he cheated. He had all kinds of tricks and excuses to beat up a weaker boy. He would approach a little boy and say, ‘Someone told me that my elbow stinks. Do me a favor and smell it.’ When the little boy obliged, Leibele Bontz punched him in the nose. The idea that he could be part of God destroyed my enthusiasm for Spinoza’s philosophy and I immediately developed a theory that there were two Gods – a good one and a bad one – and Leibele Bontz belonged with the bad one. Shosha accepted my new version of Spinoza willingly.

  Every day there used to come to the Radzymin studyhouse, where my father prayed, a man called Joshua the herring merchant. He also had a nickname – Joshua the philosopher. He was short, slight, with a beard that had all colors: yellow, gray, brown. He sold marinated herring and smoked herring, and his wife and daughters pickled cucumbers. He prayed late and with great speed after the other worshippers had left. One minute he put on his prayer shawl and phylacteries; a minute later – or so it seemed to me – he took them off. I had stopped going to cheder because my father could not afford the tuition; besides, I was now able to read a page of the Gemara by myself. I often went to the Radzymin studyhouse to converse with this man. He dabbled in logic and told me about the paradoxes of the Greek philosopher Zeno. He also told me that even though the atom was supposed to be the smallest particle of matter, from a mathematical point of view it could be divided infinitely. He explained the meaning of the words ‘microcosm’ and ‘macrocosm.’

  The next day I spoke about all this to Shosha. I told her that each atom is a world in itself, with myriads of tiny human beings, animals, and birds. There are Gentiles there and Jews. The men build houses, towers, towns, bridges, without realizing how infinitely small they are. They speak many languages. ‘In one drop of water there may be myriads of such worlds.’

  ‘Don’t they get drowned?’ Shosha asked.

  In order not to make things too complicated, I said, ‘They all know how to swim.’

  A day did not pass without my coming to Shosha with new stories. I had discovered a potion that, if you drank it, made you as strong as Samson. I had drunk it already and I was so strong I could drive the Turks from the Holy Land and become King of the Jews; I had found a cap that, if you put it on your head, made you invisible. I was about to grow as wise as King Solomon, who could speak the language of birds. I told Shosha about the Queen of Sheba, who came to learn wisdom from King Solomon and brought with her many slaves, as well as camels and donkeys bearing gifts for the ruler of Israel. Before she came King Solomon ordered that the palace floor be replaced with glass. When the Queen of Sheba entered, she mistook the glass for water and lifted up her skirt. King Solomon sat on his golden throne, and when he saw the queen’s legs, he said, ‘You are famous for your great beauty, but you have hair on your legs like a man.’

  ‘Was this true?’ Shosha asked.

  ‘Yes, true.’

  Shosha lifted up her skirt to look at her own legs, and I said, ‘Shosha, you are more beautiful than the Queen of Sheba.’ I promised her that when I was anointed and sat on Solomon’s throne, I would take her for a wife. She would be the queen and wear on her head a crown of diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and sapphires. The other wives and concubines would bow before her with their faces to the earth.

  ‘How many wives will you have?’ Shosha asked.

  ‘Together with you, a thousand.’

  ‘Why so many?’

  ‘King Solomon had a thousand wives. It is written so in the Song of Songs.’

  ‘Is this allowed?’

  ‘A king may do anything.’

  ‘If you have a thousand wives, you will have no time for me.’

  ‘Shoshele, for you I will always have time. You will sit near me on the throne and rest your feet on a footstool of topaz. When the Messiah comes, all Jews will mount a cloud and fly to the Holy Land. The Gentiles will become slaves to the Jews. The daughter of a general will wash your feet.’

  ‘Oh, it will tickle.’ Shosha began to laugh, showing her white teeth.

  The day that Zelig and Bashele moved from No. 10 to No. 7 Krochmalna Street was like Tisha Bov for me. It h
appened suddenly. One day I stole a groschen from my mother’s purse and bought a piece of chocolate for Shosha in Esther’s candy store; a day later movers opened the door of Bashele’s apartment and carried out the wardrobes, the sofa, the beds, the Passover dishes, the all-year-round dishes. I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye to the family. Actually, I had become too old to have a girl for a friend. I was studying not only Gemara now but also Tosaphot. The morning they moved, I was reading with my father Rabbi Chanina, the Assistant of Priests. From time to time I glanced out the window. Bashele’s possessions were loaded on a platform harnessed to two Belgian horses. Bashele carried Teibele. Shosha and Yppe walked behind the wagon. The distance from No. 10 to No. 7 was only two blocks, but I knew that this meant the end. It was one thing to sneak out of the apartment, pass quickly through a dark hall, and knock on Shosha’s door, and quite another thing to pay a visit in a strange building. The members of the community that paid my father his weekly remuneration were watchful, always ready to find some sign of misconduct in his children.

  It was summer 1914. A month later, a Serbian assassin shot the Austrian Crown Prince and his wife. Soon the Czar mobilized all the armed forces. I saw men who worshipped in our living room on the Sabbath pass by our house with round shiny buttons on their lapels as a sign that they had been called up and would have to fight against the Germans, the Austrians, and the Italians. Policemen entered Elozar’s tavern at No. 17 and poured all his vodka into the gutter – in time of war, citizens should be sober. The storekeepers refused to sell merchandise for paper money; they demanded silver coins or gold pieces. The doors of the stores were kept half closed, and only customers with such coins were allowed in.

  At home we soon began to go hungry. In the time between the assassination in Sarajevo and the outbreak of the war, many wealthy housewives had stocked their larders with flour, rice, beans, and groats, but my mother had been busy reading morality books. Besides, we had no money. The Jews on our street stopped paying my father. There were no more weddings, divorces, or lawsuits in his courtroom. Long lines formed at the bakeries for a loaf of bread. The price of meat soared. In Yanash’s Bazaar the slaughterers stood with knives in their hands, looking out for a woman with a chicken, a duck, or a goose. The price of fowl went up from day to day. Herring could not be bought at all. Many housewives began to use cocoa butter instead of butter. There was a lack of kerosene. After the Succoth holiday the rains, the snow, the frosts began, but we couldn’t afford coal for heating the oven. My brother Moishe stopped going to cheder because his shoes were torn. Father became his teacher. Weeks passed by and we never tasted meat, not even on the Sabbath. We drank watery tea without sugar. We learned from the newspapers that the Germans and Austrians had invaded many towns and villages in Poland, among them those where our relatives lived. The Czar’s great-uncle Nikolai Nikolaievitch, the chief commander, decreed that all Jews be driven from the regions behind the front; they were considered German spies. The Jewish streets in Warsaw teemed with thousands of refugees. They slept in the studyhouses, even in synagogues. It wasn’t long before we began to hear the shooting of heavy guns. The Germans attacked at the river Bzura, and the Russians launched a counterattack. In our apartment the windowpanes rattled day and night.