by Ezra Glinter
“What do you need my German for?” Hecht asked with a smile.
“Did I say I need it? What do I need German for? I only mean for my Goldele. Polish she knows not too badly, but she wants to learn a little German. She goes through different streets after work and it’s good to know German also. Do you think she could learn?”
“Oh, with great pleasure,” Hecht agreed. Living in the same house, he wouldn’t even ask for money.
He left to get his things.
II
FEELING HAPPY AND full of high hopes, Hecht went back to his old dwelling to get his small suitcase. It was a winter afternoon; in spite of the frosty weather, the sun, which stood very high in the sky, shone on the snow, which lay in heaps by the sides of the street. Under the sun’s rays the snow glistened with a mild submissiveness, and the streets smelled like the onset of spring.
Hecht went through the noisy Jewish thoroughfare, whose clamor made him even happier. With sure steps he walked farther and farther, looking at the face of each girl he passed. Some glanced back at him, some acted as though they didn’t notice him, and a few looked at him with a friendly expression. One even smiled at him, and his heart melted. He felt the need to touch a girlish hand. As soon as he met the right girl, he would, with heated sincerity, declare his pure, everlasting love.
In front of his eyes appeared the image of that unknown girl named Golde, with whom he would live in the same house. In his old apartment he had felt so out of place. The mistress was always angry and her husband was a fanatic. He always lectured Hecht for not being religious. He had lived there for two months and it felt like he was in prison. On top of that, the man snored loudly at night.
Now he was going to live with simple, everyday folk. Their house was not especially well decorated, but for that reason it was much more comfortable. And the little room was so pleasant . . . a person could really feel good in that room. Sunk in these thoughts, he came at last to his old lodging.
He entered the house, went up the stairs, and picked up the suitcase he had already packed the day before, and which was standing in the kitchen. “Be well!” he shouted through the house. The mistress came out. An old woman in a thick wig, she cast a suspicious glance at him and answered coldly: “Go in good health . . .” and waited until he was gone.
Hecht wasn’t bothered by the coldness of his former landlady. She was already so far off and so foreign to him—as though she was dead! Going down the stairs, he looked in the direction of his former spot and murmured to himself: “Two months of life gone.” He looked back as if he wanted to bid farewell to those two months, and then left the courtyard, forgetting about them forever.
Turning into the crowded street, he ran into a porter standing at the intersection, wearing a thick rope belt. “Young man!” the porter called out. “Perhaps I can carry that heavy suitcase for you?”
“No thank you, it’s not heavy,” Hecht answered pleasantly.
“You, young man, don’t thank me,” the porter said, insulted. “It would be better if you gave a Jew some way to earn a pound of bread.”
Hearing the porter’s brazen but justified words, Hecht looked at him and, noticing his wrinkled, worn-out face, said guiltily, “Actually, take it.”
The porter’s face cleared up like a cloudy sky and he smiled broadly. “For a young man like you it’s not appropriate to carry a suitcase by yourself.”
“What do you want for it, my friend?” Hecht asked warily, fearing a high price.
“We won’t have to go to court over it,” the porter joked. “How far is it?” Hecht told him the name of the house. “I won’t fleece you,” the porter assured him.
Hecht already regretted what he had done. Who knows how much the porter would ask for? In total he possessed exactly one ruble. And the first day in a new house without any money would be terrible. But the thing was already done, and he couldn’t take it back. He reassured himself that the man seemed to be honest and that he wouldn’t cheat him. The porter could see that Hecht was no wealthy young man. At last they arrived in the courtyard.
“Here it is,” Hecht said, and tried to take back his bundle, so that the porter couldn’t hold it hostage. The porter was no fool, however. He became stubborn and insisted on taking it all the way to the door.
“It’s not right for you to carry it yourself,” he said.
Hecht decided to give him a twenty-five kopek piece. “If only he’ll take it!” he worried. But he remembered that when he took a droshky 33 it cost him a forty-groschen coin, and this couldn’t possibly be more than a droshky. A fifteen-kopek coin would be enough, he decided, and rejoiced over the ten kopeks he would save.
When they entered the house it was already dark, and the mistress had lit the lamp. “Where should I leave it?” the porter asked, holding onto Hecht’s bag the entire time.
“Leave it where it is,” Hecht answered, and started digging around in his pocket. “What do I owe you, my friend?”
“Do I know?” the porter scratched his temple. “I’ll say, for you, ten kopeks.”
“Five would be enough,” the landlady butted in.
But Hecht, happy at the low price, took the porter up on the offer. “I’ll give him the ten kopecks. Here you are—go in good health.”
The porter took the coin and looked at it from all sides. “Thank you, good sir,” he said, and left.
“You gave him too much,” the landlady muttered in a motherly way. “It was only worth five kopecks.”
Hecht was moved by her friendly tone, which he had not heard in a long time. “Oh, so what?” he said. “What is five kopecks worth to me?”
“Don’t say that,” the landlady said, sticking to her position. “Money is money. My Golde is also like that, she always wants to give more. She never bargains, never. I always fight with her about it.” With those words the woman looked at the clock. “It’s already five o’clock, she should be home from work soon.”
Hecht perked up with interest. He stood in front of the small mirror and straightened his whiskers, and then his tie. He noticed that his collar was not especially white, and excused himself.
“Might I go clean up a little?”
“Yes, why not. You can do it here in the house, or in your room . . .”
Hecht took his suitcase with him to the room, opened it up, and from a small paper package took out a clean white collar. Before the trip he had already combed his youthful black hair. He went back into the big room and looked at himself in the mirror. His ears glowed from excitement. He noticed this and was pleased.
Going back into his little room, Hecht lit a candle that he took from his suitcase and went through some of his books. He laid them out by the room’s only window, which, as luck would have it, had a wide sill. A few of the books he put on the little table. He also set up an inkwell with a pen, and put out a few long, blank pieces of paper. That was how he decorated his room.
III
FIFTEEN MINUTES PASSED. Hecht sat in his room and looked out through the window onto the small, square courtyard. A single gas lantern was already lit and it shone on him weakly. He looked at everyone who entered, and if it was a young girl his heart beat fiercely—until she turned towards another house and Hecht realized that he had been mistaken.
At last he noticed a young woman, wearing a small hat with a feather on its side, enter the courtyard. She was smartly dressed but with modest taste. She looked in the window and saw the strange young man and, as it seemed to Hecht, took note and walked faster. A few seconds later he heard from his bedroom the sound of a fresh, ringing young voice, though he couldn’t make out the words. “She has arrived!” he said happily to himself, getting up off the spot.
Entering the rest of the house seemed unfitting, however. After all, he didn’t know yet who she was. Chasing after her before the time was right wouldn’t be helpful. Instead, he would do the opposite—play the role of an indifferent, cold-blooded man, and if it turned out to be worth it, he wouldn’t
run away.
While considering how to best conduct himself at the first encounter, he heard soft footsteps near his room. Hecht cautiously pulled aside the curtain and saw her. He looked at her in fright. She looked at him pleasantly and curiously. Then she smiled and her big, black and somehow dreamy eyes twinkled good-naturedly.
“You are our new lodger?” she asked, taking hold of the conversation with a smile and not finding anything else to say.
“Yes,” Hecht answered curtly and, heartened by her friendly glances, asked back: “And you are the daughter of the house?”
“Yes, I am the daughter,” she presented herself, giving him her hand in sister-like fashion.
He grabbed it thirstily, pressed it, and exclaimed, “It cheers me know such a fine girl as yourself!”
She took a step forward and laughed.
“I already please you?”
The question made Hecht feel lost, but he quickly recovered himself and answered with a smile, “I didn’t say that you please me, only that you cheer me.”
“What’s the difference?” she laughed.
“There’s a big difference.”
Golde wanted to say something in response, but her mother called her suddenly from the kitchen.
“Golde! Come here, daughter!”
Golde, smiling sweetly, excused herself, saying that she would come right back.
Hecht remained in the little room, feeling very happy. A smile stretched across his face, and his ears glowed and stuck out from happiness. He wanted to go into the house and continue the conversation but was held back by the thought that it had been enough for a first meeting. Golde, he thought, wasn’t going anywhere.
But Hecht couldn’t sit still for long. He decided to go down to the street, and to the restaurant where he could get something to eat and could share his new experiences with his friends. He put on his old, but not overly tattered, coat and went out. No one was in the main room anymore; it was half-dark, and Hecht heard the ringing of spoon on a plate coming from the kitchen. He guessed that Golde was eating now.
He went into the kitchen. Golde seemed embarrassed to see him. She put down the spoon and said with a smile, “You’re going already?”
“Yes . . . I still have a lecture to give . . .”
“The gentleman gives lectures,” Golde’s mother said, butting in from her seat on a kitchen stool.
“A teeeecher,” Golde said, stretching out the word with a mixture of respect and impudence, looking at Hecht and smiling the whole time.
“You don’t like teachers?” Hecht said, smiling back.
“Oh, just the opposite,” Golde said. “A teacher is a very fine profession. A teacher is also an intelligent person,” she laughed.
Hecht felt like he should be insulted, but the mother interrupted.
“She’s starting up already with her little bits of wisdom. She’s already that sort of person—for her there’s no difference between an elder and a youth, no simple person and no scholar.” Becoming more vociferous, the mother went on, “You don’t know so well the gentleman who allows you to speak this way. This is no Chaim!”
“And who is this Chaim?” Hecht asked with feigned indifference.
“Also a lodger of ours. We set up a little bed for him here at night. He comes in at nine o’clock.”
“Chaim is an ordinary tailor,” Golde declared with finality. “You surely don’t like tailors?” she asked, lifting her gaze searchingly to Hecht.
Instead of answering, Hecht asked back: “And you?”
“Me? I am a tailor myself.”
“A fine comparison,” the mother chimed in. “A woman tailor could be the mistress of a household also. But the young man is a tailor the son of a tailor.”
“And you have a greater pedigree?” Golde said with a chuckle, needling her mother.
The mother smiled back, looked over at Hecht and asked earnestly, “Were your parents workers or householders?”
Hecht swelled up at the thought of his lineage, and answered proudly, “My parents were fine householders, and my grandfather was a rabbi.”
“Te-te-te,” the mother twittered and picked herself up from the stool. “Indeed, an impressive pedigree.”
Golde also looked at him earnestly and opened her big eyes wide and child-like.
“You must know Hebrew, too?”
Hecht smiled. “Yes, but so what? I know Gemara 34 also, and could have been a rabbi, if I had wanted.”
“But you are a nonbeliever,” Golde said thoughtfully.
“Ah, that’s another question. Now I must go.”
“And when are you coming back?” Golde asked earnestly, giving him a friendly look.
Her questions and her glances made Hecht bold. “In a few hours from now,” he said. And, almost involuntarily, asked, “Will you still be here?”
“Yes, certainly!” she assured him.
“In the meantime, Adieu!”
“Adieu! Adieu!” She repeated the word, which she didn’t often have an opportunity to use. But she also shook her head from side to side, as if she was joking.
Hecht went to the door and left. On the other side he heard Golde say to her mother, “An intelligent one.”
He smiled happily and went down the stairs.
IV
IN THE LITTLE café where Meir Hecht was a regular, he met a few of his friends sitting at a small table. He sat down, ordered something to eat and with a gleam in his eye announced: “I moved into a new place today.”
“Mazel tov!” roared his friend Bloch, a mystically disposed little man with a small freckled face.
“Indeed, mazel tov!” Hecht sang out.
“And what’s the big deal?” asked a second friend, Shapiro.
“No big deal,” Hecht answered. “A small room, poor people . . . but there’s a girl there who is a complete wonder. A simple child, but very interesting.”
“So, a girl,” Bloch murmured. “No wonder you’re so pleased . . . you don’t want to have a minute’s peace!”
“There’s no harm done,” Hecht answered. “It’s just more pleasant to live in the company of the fairer sex. A house without a beautiful woman is like a ruin.”
“So put up a mezuza 35 then,” Bloch joked ill temperedly.
“A pretty girl is better than a mezuza!” Shapiro laughed.
Hearing the comparison made Hecht lively. “I wouldn’t want to kiss a mezuza these days, but this girl in my place, I want to do more than kiss . . .”
“A great find!” Bloch joked. “But she would be beneath my station.”
“Yes, perhaps!” Hecht said, and his eyes sparkled. “But I’m of a different opinion. Ach, if only there was money. Money! Money! Money!” he shouted.
One of the customers at the café turned towards the little table in shock. Bloch got angry and mumbled, “Don’t scream like that. People are staring.”
Hecht was embarrassed and excused himself. He called to the waitress, paid for his meal, put the leftovers securely in his pocket, and went to the door. Bloch called out after him, “Give us your address, so we can come by sometime.” Hecht turned around, wrote his new address on a scrap of paper and left.
When he got back to his new home, it was already ten o’clock at night. At the table he found a few new people, along with Golde and her mother. There was her father, the two boys, and the other tenant. Hecht wished them a good evening, not knowing exactly how to behave.
“Daddy! This is our tenant!” Golde said cheerfully, presenting Hecht to her father.
“So it is,” said the father, a forty-year-old Jew with a worn-out but ruddy, healthy-looking face. He held out a broad, strong hand. “How do you do?”
Hecht stuck out his small white hand, which seemed to be swallowed up by the father’s. At the same time, he noticed how the first tenant stared at him unceasingly, and he felt uneasy.
“And I’d like to introduce myself!” the other tenant finally exclaimed, with simple modesty. “My name is C
haim Kulka.” A little man with a wild name like “Kulka” made an unpleasant impression on Hecht. With a feeling of revulsion he held out his hand, before turning back to the father.
“You’ve just come back from work?”
“Oh, I’ve been here for an hour already,” the father answered happily. “I always come home at nine o’clock. Nu . . . you little rascals!” he said, turning towards the two boys, who were sitting at the table with their eyes fixed on the new tenant. “Time for bed!”
“Bedtime! Bedtime!” Golde urged them.
The boys complained, and eventually one of them, getting angry with Golde, threatened her:
“I’ll tell on you!”
Golde went red. “What will you tell?” she demanded.
“I’ll tell that on Saturday Chaim kissed you!” her brother chattered innocently.
Golde went red as fire. Hecht looked at Chaim with anger, then at Golde with reproach, and finally said to the boys with a smile, “Now, one mustn’t tell tales . . .”
“Whatever he’s babbling about, let’s hear it!” the mother chimed in.
“And if yes, so what?” the father said, taking up the issue. “Chaim is no stranger . . .”
“But it’s a lie!” Golde defended herself, and turned redder.
Chaim looked at her with scorn.
Hecht stayed seated for a few minutes and finally, saying good night, went to his little room. He sat down on the bed, moved the table closer, lit the lamp and began leafing through a book.
But he could not read. The letters jumped here and there, up and down, and trailed behind them the image of the pretty, fresh young Golde . . .
V
TWO HOURS LATER, everyone in the house was asleep. But Hecht was still sitting by his table, reading, writing, and rubbing his brow. At last he heard a quiet whisper. His blood flamed up. He could hardly control himself and strained to catch a word.
“Leave, Chaim, leave . . . I don’t want to,” Hecht heard Golde whisper.
“Why not tonight?” Chaim whispered back.
“Just because . . . I don’t want to. Take your hand away. Don’t touch me.”
Hecht’s face glowed. He strained his ears again, but once again the house was silent. He stuck his head out between the curtains of his room, looked furtively around the house, and saw Chaim standing by the table like someone who had been struck. Golde was sitting, holding in her hand a little book. Hecht stayed still and waited. Eventually, Chaim went off in the direction of the kitchen, where he had his bed. Golde was alone.
