Shosha

by Isaac Bashevis Singer

  ‘What letters? I got just one letter from you and you didn’t even include a return address.’

  ‘How is that possible? I wrote several times. I cabled you, too.’

  ‘When? I swear on everything that’s holy to me that I received nothing but one letter.’

  ‘What’s holy to you? First I wrote to the address on Leszno, and when you didn’t answer I wrote you in care of the Writers’ Club.’

  ‘I no longer go to the Writers’ Club.’

  ‘But that was your second home.’

  ‘I decided to stop going.’

  ‘And you’re capable of sticking to a decision? Maybe my letters are still lying there?’

  ‘What was the cable about?’

  ‘Oh, it’s no longer important. Life is full of surprises. If a person thinks no more surprises await him, it’s only because he has shut his eyes and doesn’t want to know. What about you? Did you break up with that freak Shosha?’

  ‘Break up? Where do you get such notions?’

  ‘How is it you’ve kept your old room? I didn’t call there believing I’d find you – I only hoped they might know your new address.’

  ‘I work there. It’s my study.’

  ‘You have an apartment with her?’

  ‘We live with her mother.’

  A trace of laughter showed in Betty’s eyes. ‘On that foul street among the thieves and brothels?’

  ‘Yes, there.’

  ‘What kind of life do you lead with her, if I may ask?’

  ‘A kind of life.’

  ‘Do the two of you ever go anywhere?’

  ‘Rarely.’

  ‘You never go out of the house?’

  ‘Sometimes. We take a turn around the garbage bin at night. To get a little air.’

  ‘Well, you’ve remained the same. At least you’re crazy in your own fashion. In New York I was stopped in the street by an actor who made guest appearances here and he told me that you’ve become a big success and have published a novel everyone is reading. Is this true?’

  ‘I’m having a novel printed in a newspaper and I barely earn enough to feed us.’

  ‘You’re probably running around with ten others.’

  ‘That’s not true, either.’

  ‘What is true?’

  ‘How about you?’ I asked. ‘Surely, you’ve had affairs.’

  ‘Are you jealous? I could have had. Men still chase after me. But when you’re deathly ill and each day isn’t one crisis but a thousand, you don’t want affairs. Is that hocus-pocus Elbinger still in Warsaw?’

  ‘Yes. He fell in love with a Gentile woman who was the mistress of the famous medium Kluski.’

  ‘I think I heard of him once. What did he do?’

  ‘The dead came to him and left impressions of their hands in a pail of paraffin.’

  ‘You’re scoffing, eh? I really believe that the dead are all around us somewhere. What has happened to that short, rich fellow – I’ve already forgotten his name. His wife was your sweetheart.’

  ‘Haiml and Celia. They are here.’

  ‘Yes, them. How is it they’ve stayed in Warsaw? I hear many rich Jews have escaped abroad.’

  ‘They want to die.’

  ‘Well, you’re in one of those moods today. I’ve missed you. That’s the truth.’

  4

  I couldn’t believe my ears, but after all those angry words about theater in general and Yiddish theater in particular, Betty Slonim had come to Warsaw with a play and was seeking a producer. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Many of my colleagues, the writers, behaved precisely this way. They announced that they were laying aside (or breaking) their pens, and soon afterward they launched a novel or a long poem – even announced plans for a trilogy. They heaped invective upon a critic, maintained that he had no conception of literature, and the next day they begged him to write a few kind words about them. The play Betty brought was her own. I stayed the night, and we read it. It was the drama of a young woman, an artist (Betty had made her a painter) unable to fit into any environment. She couldn’t find the right husband or lover, or even any interesting girlfriend. The play featured a psychoanalyst who tried to convince the heroine that she hated her father and was jealous of her mother, while in fact the woman worshipped her parents. There was a scene in which the heroine searches for an end to her loneliness by trying to become a lesbian and fails. The play contained possibilities for humor, but Betty handled everything in tragic fashion. The long monologues were packed with clichés. It ran some three hundred pages and was full of observations about painting by someone who knew nothing about it.

  Dawn had begun to break by the time I got through with the fourth act. I said to Betty, ‘The play is good in essence, but it’s not for Warsaw, just as mine wasn’t for any place.’

  ‘What is for Warsaw?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m afraid nothing is for Warsaw any more.’

  ‘It seems to me this play is just right for the Polish Jews. They are like my heroine – they cannot fit in anywhere, neither among the Communists nor among the capitalists. Certainly not among the Fascists. At times I think nothing is left them except suicide.’

  ‘Whether that’s true or not, the Warsaw Jews don’t want to hear it. Certainly not in the theater.’

  I was so tired from reading that I lay down on the bed and fell asleep in my clothes. I wanted to tell Betty that she herself was proof that no person or collective has the strength fully to resign, but I was too exhausted to bring out the words. In my sleep I reread the play, gave Betty advice, even wrote new scenes. Betty had left the lights on and from time to time I opened an eye. She was busy in the bathroom. She had put on a magnificent nightgown. She came over to the bed and took off my shoes and pulled off my shirt. In my sleep I laughed at her and her urge to seize all the pleasures at once. That’s what suicides are, I thought – hedonists who attempt to enjoy more excitement than they are capable of. This possibly was the answer to my own riddle.

  I opened my eyes and saw that it was day. Betty sat at the desk in her nightgown and slippers, cigarette in mouth, writing something on a sheet of paper. My wristwatch showed a few minutes before eight. I sat up. ‘What are you doing? Rewriting the play?’

  She turned her head toward me. Her face was ashen, her eyes had become strangely stern and determined. ‘You slept but I couldn’t shut an eye. No, not the play. For me the play is dead. But I could save you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The Jews here are all going to perish. You’ll sit with that Shosha until Hitler marches in. I’ve been reading the paper half the night. What sense does it make, eh? Does it pay to die on account of such a moron?’

  ‘What do you suggest I do?’

  ‘Tsutsik, after I see my aunt I have no reason to stay here, but I want to help you nevertheless. Aboard ship I met an official of the American consulate and we spoke of various things. He even began flirting with me, but he wasn’t my type. A military man, a drinker. They drown everything with whiskey – it’s their answer to all problems. I asked him about bringing someone to America and he told me that outside the quota this is impossible. But it’s easy to obtain a tourist visa if you apply with some goal in mind and can prove that you won’t become a public charge. In America, when a tourist marries a citizen, he immediately gets a visa outside the quota and is allowed to remain. I want to tell you something. I see in advance that all my plans and hopes will come to nothing. But if I can help someone who is close to me before I die, I want to do it, and even though you told me cold-bloodedly last night that I have nothing to hope for from you, I consider you somebody close. As a matter of fact, you are the closest person I have outside Sam – may he rest in peace – and my sisters and brothers lost somewhere in the Red hell – I don’t even know if any of them are still alive. Tsutsik, since you assure me the play is worth a kick in the ground, as the Litvaks say, I have nothing more to do here, and I can’t go back to America all by myself. Between a yes and a
no I could arrange a tourist visa for you and you could go with me. Do you have official papers with Shosha? Were you married in court?’

  ‘Only by a rabbi.’

  ‘Is it written on your passport that you’re married?’

  ‘Nothing is written on the passport.’

  ‘You can get a tourist visa immediately if I give you an affidavit. I’ll say you’ve written a play and we want to put it on in America. I’ll say I will be appearing in it. There is even a chance that this might really happen. I can show them a bank book and whatever they require. I don’t consider death a tragedy. It’s actually a release from all trouble. But to live day in, day out with death is too much even for a masochist like you.’

  ‘But what could I do with Shosha?’

  ‘They wouldn’t give Shosha a tourist visa. If they took one look at her, they wouldn’t give one to you.’

  ‘Betty, I can’t leave her here.’

  ‘You can’t, eh? That means you’re ready to give up your life for her.’

  ‘If I have to die, I’ll die.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were so madly in love with her.’

  ‘It’s not only love.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I can’t kill a child. I cannot break my promise either.’

  ‘If you go to America, there might be a chance you could send for her. You’d at least be able to send her money. As it is, you will both perish.’

  ‘Betty, I can’t do it.’

  ‘If you can’t, you can’t. According to what you’ve told me, you never had such consideration for women. When you got tired of one, you found another.’

  ‘Those were adults. They had families, friends. Shosha—’

  ‘Well, you don’t have to justify yourself. When a person stands ready to offer his life for another, he obviously knows what he’s doing. I wouldn’t have believed you capable of such a sacrifice, but you never know what a human being is capable of. Not that those who make the sacrifices are always saints. People sacrificed themselves for Stalin, for Petlura, for Machno, for every pogromist. Millions of fools will give their empty heads for Hitler. At times I think men go around with a candle looking for an opportunity to sacrifice themselves.’

  Neither of us spoke for a while. Then Betty said, ‘I’m leaving now to visit my aunt and we may never meet again. Tell me, why did you do it? Even if you lie to me, I want to hear what you’ll say.’

  ‘You mean marrying Shosha?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I really don’t know, but I’ll tell you, anyway. She is the only woman I can trust,’ I said, shocked at my own words.

  Betty’s eyes lit up with laughter. For an instant she became young again. ‘My God, this is the truth. As simple as that!’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘You’re both a godless lecher and a fanatical Jew – as bigoted as my great-grandfather! How is it possible?’

  ‘We are running away and Mount Sinai runs after us. This chase has made us sick and mad.’

  ‘Don’t include me. I am sick and mad, but Mount Sinai has nothing to do with it. As a matter of fact, you’re lying. You are no more afraid of Mount Sinai than I am. It’s your miserable pride, your silly fear of losing your filthy male honor. You once told me what one of your cronies said about the impossibility of always betraying and never being betrayed. Who was it – Feitelzohn?’

  ‘I don’t remember. Either Feitelzohn or Haiml.’

  ‘Haiml couldn’t have said it. Well, it doesn’t matter. You’re crazy, but a good many other idiots of your kind went to their deaths to save the reputation of some whore. No, Shosha won’t betray you – unless she is raped by a Nazi.’

  ‘Goodbye, Betty.’

  ‘Goodbye forever.’

  5

  I had left the hotel without breakfast – I couldn’t have stayed because the room-service waitress would have seen me. For the second time I had given up the chance to save myself. I walked without a definite direction. My legs led me by themselves from Trebacka Street to Theater Place. I didn’t have the slightest doubt that to remain in Warsaw this time meant falling into the hands of the Nazis, but somehow I didn’t feel any fear. I was tired from so little sleep, from reading Betty’s play, and from her talk. I had given her the opportunity to scold me and so made our parting less solemn. Only now did it occur to me that she had never before mentioned her aunt in Poland and that she never had gone to see her. She certainly would not have come to Poland especially to see her now. Like me, Betty was ready to perish. A passage of the Pentateuch came to my mind: ‘I am at the point of dying and what profit shall this birthright be to me?’

  I had thrown away four thousand years of Jewishness and exchanged it for meaningless literature, Yiddishism, Feitelzohnism. All I was left with was a membership booklet from the Writers’ Club and some worthless manuscripts. I stopped at store windows and stared. Any day the destruction might begin, but in the meantime, here they displayed pianos, cars, jewelry, fancy nightgowns, new books in Polish, as well as translations from German, English, Russian, French. One book had the title The Twilight of Israel. Well, but the sky was summery blue, the trees on both sides of the street were lusciously green, the ladies wore the latest styles of dresses, hats, shoes, purses. The men looked them over with expert appraisal. Their legs in nylon stockings still promised the never-realized delights. Although I was doomed, I too glanced at hips, calves, breasts, throats. The generations that will come after us, I said to myself, will think that we all went to our death in repentance. They will consider all of us holy martyrs. They will recite kaddish after us and ‘God Full of Mercy.’ Actually, every one of us will die with the same passions he lived with.

  They still played the familiar operas in the opera house: Carmen, Aida, Faust, The Barber of Seville. They were just unloading from a truck the faded sets that in the evening would create the deception of mountains, rivers, gardens, palaces. I went to a café. The smell of coffee and fresh rolls whetted my appetite. With my coffee a waiter brought me two newspapers. Marshal Rydz-S´migly again assured the nation that the Polish armed forces had the means to repulse all attacks from the right and the left. Foreign Minister Beck had received new guarantees from England and France. The old anti-Semite Nawaczynski attacked the Jews, who, together with the Masons, the Communists, the Nazis, and the American bankers conspired to destroy the Catholic faith and to replace it with pagan materialism. He still quoted the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Somewhere I had had a trace of faith in free will, but this morning I felt sure that man possessed as much choice as the clockwork of my wristwatch or the fly that stopped on the edge of my saucer. The same powers were driving Hitler, Stalin, the Pope, the Rabbi of Gur, a molecule in the center of the earth, and a galaxy billions of lightyears distant from the Milky Way. Blind powers? Seeing powers? It did not matter any more. We were fated to play our little games and to be crushed.

  6

  Usually when I didn’t spend the night at Shosha’s I came home the day after for lunch, but this morning I decided to go back to her early. I was too tired to try to work at my desk on Leszno Street. I paid for my breakfast and went by way of Senator Street to Bank Place and from there to Gnoyna and Krochmalna. In the Jewish streets they bustled and rushed as every day. In the brokerage houses on Przcehodnia they figured the value of the zloty against the dollar. Those on the black market paid a few pennies more for the dollar. In the yeshivas they studied the Talmud. In the Hasidic studyhouses they conversed on Hasidic topics. That morning I had the feeling I was seeing all this for the last time. I tried to engrave in my memory each alley, each building, each store, each face. I thought that this was how a condemned man would be looking at the world on his way to the gallows. I was taking leave of every peddler, porter, market woman – even of the horses of the droshkies. I saw in each of them expressions I had never noticed before. Even the horses seemed to know that this was their last journey. There was knowledge and consent in their large eyes, dark with pupil. />
  On Gnoyna Street I stopped for a moment at the large studyhouse in No. 5. The walls were blackened, the books stained and torn, but young men with long sidelocks still swayed over these ancient volumes and chanted the sacred words with the same mournful chant. At the lectern by the Ark the cantor was praising God for his promise to resurrect the dead. A little man with a yellow face and a yellow beard sold boiled chick-peas and beans that he doled out in a wooden cup. Is he the eternal Jew? One of the thirty-six saints that are the pillars of the world? A disguised Elder of Zion in secret pact with Roosevelt, Goebbels, and Léon Blum to bring about the kingdom of Satan?

  I entered Krochmalna and the gate of No. 7. The baker’s daughter stood there with large baskets of warm bagels. She must have been one of my readers, because she smiled and winked at me. I imagined that she was saying to me: ‘Like you I must play my game to the last minute.’ I passed through the yard, opened the door to Bashele’s apartment, and what I saw was so bewildering that I stood in the doorway staring. Tekla was sitting at the table drinking tea or coffee with chicory from a large cup. Shosha sat beside her. Something has happened to my mother, I thought. A telegram must have come announcing that she died! Tekla saw me now and jumped to her feet. Shosha rose, too. She clapped her hands. ‘Arele, God Himself sent you!’

  ‘What’s going on here? Am I already in the World of Delusion?’

  ‘What? Come in. Arele, this Gentile girl came and said she was looking for you. She called you by name. She brought a basket with her belongings. There it is. She said something about a fiancé – I don’t know what she’s talking about. It’s a good thing Mommy went shopping or she might have thought who knows what. I told her you wouldn’t be home till lunchtime, but she said she’d wait.’

  Tekla stood there obviously eager to speak, but she waited respectfully until Shosha had finished. Tekla looked pale and disheveled, as if she hadn’t slept. She said, ‘Forgive me, sir, but something bad has happened to me. Last evening someone knocked on the kitchen door. I thought it might be a neighbor returning a glass of salt she had borrowed, or one of the maids from the courtyard. I opened the door and in came a lout – one of our kind, a Christian. He was dressed in city style. He said, “Tekla, don’t you recognize me?” It was Bolek, my ex-fiancé. He’s come back from France from the coal mines and he says he wants to marry me. I was scared to death. I said, “Why didn’t you write all these years? You went away and it was as if the earth swallowed you.” And he said, “I can’t write, and neither could any of the other miners.” Well, between this and that, he sat down on my bed and started talking as if nothing had passed since we last saw each other. He brought me a present, too – some trinket. It’s God’s miracle I didn’t die on the spot. I said, “Bolek, since you didn’t write so long, we are no longer engaged and everything between us is finished.” But he started yelling, “What’s the matter? Got somebody else? Or are you in love with that Jew who wrote those letters to me for you?” He was drunk and grabbed a knife. My mistress heard the commotion and she came running, and he started cursing the Jews and threatened to kill us all. The mistress said, “So far, Hitler isn’t here yet. So get out of my house.” Wladek called the police, but a policeman didn’t show up till three hours later, after Bolek had gone. He swore he would come back again today, and he warned me that if I didn’t go with him to a priest straight off and marry him, he’d kill me. After he left, the mistress came in and said, “Tekla, you’ve served me faithfully, but I’m old and weak and I don’t have the strength for such goings-on. Take your luggage and leave.” I persuaded her to let me spend the night. This morning she paid me what was coming to me, added five zlotys, and sent me on my way. You once gave me your address on Krochmalna Street, so I came here. The young lady said she’s your wife and that you’d be back for lunch, but where could I go? I know no one in Warsaw. I was sure you wouldn’t throw me out.’