Collected Stories (102 page)

“What became of Mindle?” Mottke asked.

“Oh, her father married her off to some dummy, a son of a rich Hasid, a follower of his rabbi’s. My little kitten stood with him under the canopy pure and veiled as if she had never been touched. Why she would allow herself to be used this way is a riddle to me. Such females sometimes marry a fool so that they’ll have someone to dupe easily. There is a great thrill in cheating—almost as much as in stealing. But you pay for everything. She died two years later in childbirth.”

“So that’s how it turned out?”

“Yes. Her husband, the lummox, had gone to his rabbi’s and he lingered there for months. I was doing time in the Janov jail. Later, they transferred me to Lublin. That time I was innocent. I had been falsely accused. When I finally got out, Mindle was already in the other world.”

“It was surely a punishment from God,” Mottke said.

“No.”

It grew silent. Even the cricket had ceased its chirping. After a while Zeinvel said, “I haven’t forgotten her. If there is a Gehenna, I want to lie next to her on one bed of nails.”

I
BEGAN
to plan my escape from civilization not long after learning the meaning of the word. But the village of Bilgoray, where I lived until I was eighteen, didn’t have enough civilization to run away from. Later, when I went to Warsaw, all I could do was run back to Bilgoray. The idea took on substance only after I arrived in New York. It was here that I started to suffer from some kind of allergy—rose fever, hay fever, dust, who knows? I took pills by the bottleful, but they didn’t do much good. The heat that early spring was as intense as in August. The furnished room where I lived on the West Side was stifling. I am not one to consult with doctors, but I paid a visit to Dr. Gnizdatka, whom I knew from Warsaw and who faithfully read anything that I managed to get published in the Yiddish press.

Dr. Gnizdatka inserted a speculum into my nostrils and a tongue depressor into my mouth and said,
“Paskudno.”
(“Bad.”)

“What should I do?”

“Move somewhere near the ocean.”

“Where is the ocean?”

“Go to Sea Gate.”

The moment Dr. Gnizdatka spoke the name, I realized that the time had finally come to escape from civilization, and that Sea Gate could serve the same purpose as Haiti or Madagascar. The following morning, I went to the bank and withdrew my savings of seventy-eight dollars, checked out of my room, packed all my belongings into a large cardboard suitcase, and walked to the subway. In a cafeteria on East Broadway, someone had told me that it was easy to get a furnished room in Sea Gate. I carried a few books to be my spiritual mainstay while away from civilization: the Bible, Spinoza’s
Ethics
, Schopenhauer’s
The World as Will and Idea
, as well as a textbook with mathematical formulas. I was then an ardent Spinozist and, according to Spinoza, one can reach immortality only if one meditates upon adequate ideas, which means mathematics.

Because of the heat in New York City, I expected Coney Island to be crowded and the beach lined with bathers. But at Stillwell Avenue, where I got off the train, it was winter. How surprising that in the hour it took me to get from Manhattan to the Island the weather had changed. The sky was overcast, a cold wind blew, and a needle-like rain had begun to fall. The Surf Avenue trolley was empty. At the entrance to Sea Gate there was actually a gate to keep the area private. Two policemen stationed there stopped me and asked who I was and what business I had in Sea Gate. I almost said, “I am running away from civilization,” but I answered, “I came to rent a room.”

“And you brought your baggage along?”

These interrogations in a country that is supposed to be free insulted me, and I asked, “Is that forbidden?”

One policeman whispered something to the other, and both of them laughed. I received permission to cross the frontier.

The rain intensified. I would have liked to ask someone where I could get a room, but there was no one to ask. Sea Gate looked desolate, still deeply sunk in its winter sleep. For courage I reminded myself of Sven Hedin, Nansen, Captain Scott, Amundsen, and other explorers who left the comforts of the cities to discover the mysteries of the world. The rain pounded on my cardboard suitcase like hail. Perhaps it
was
hailing. The wind tore the hat off my head, and it rolled and flew about like an imp. Suddenly through the downpour I saw a woman beckoning to me from the porch of a house. Her mouth moved, but the wind carried her voice away. She signaled me to come over and find protection from the wild elements. I found myself facing a fancy house with a gabled roof, columns, an ornate door. I walked onto the porch, dropped my suitcase (books and manuscripts can be as heavy as stones), wiped my face with a handkerchief, and was able to see the woman more clearly: a brunette who seemed to me in her thirties, with an olive complexion, black eyes, and classic features. There was something European about her. Her eyebrows were thick. There was no sign of cosmetics on her face. She wore a coat and a beret that reminded me of Poland. She spoke to me in English, but when I answered her and she heard my accent she shifted to Yiddish.

“Who are you looking for? I saw you walking in the rain with that heavy suitcase, and I thought I might …”

I told her I had come to rent a room and she smiled, not without irony.

“Is this the way you look for a room? Carrying your luggage? Please come inside. I have a house full of rooms that are to let.”

She led me into a parlor, the like of which I had seen only in the movies—Oriental rugs, gold-framed pictures, and an elaborate staircase with carvings and a red velvet bannister. Had I entered an ancient palace? The woman was saying, “Isn’t that odd? I’ve just opened the house this minute. It’s been closed for the winter. The weather turned warm and I decided perhaps it’s time. As a rule, the season here begins in late May or early June.”

“Why is the house closed in the winter?” I asked.

“There’s no steam. It’s an old building—seventy or eighty years old. It can be heated, but the system is complicated. The heat comes through here.” She indicated a brass grate in the floor.

I now realized it was much colder inside than outside. There was a staleness in the air characteristic of places that have been without sun for a long time. We stood silent for a moment. Then she asked, “Are you wanting to move in immediately? The electricity isn’t turned on yet and the telephone hasn’t been connected. Usually boarders come to make arrangements, pay a deposit, and move in when the weather has become really warm.”

“I gave up my room in the city.”

The woman looked at me inquisitively and after some hesitation said, “I could swear I’ve seen your picture in the newspaper.”

“Yes, they printed my photograph last week.”

“Are you Warshawsky?”

“That’s me.”

“God in Heaven!”

Darkness had fallen and Esther Royskes lit a candle in a copper candlestick. We were sitting in the kitchen eating supper, like man and wife. She had already told me her whole story: the trouble her ex-husband, a Communist poet, gave her; how she finally divorced him; and how he ran away with his lover to California and left Esther to take care of their two little girls. Two years ago, she had rented this house with the hope that she could earn a living from it, but it did not bring her enough income. People waited until after the Fourth of July and tried to get bargains. Last year, a number of her rooms remained empty.

I put my hand into my pocket, took out the seventy-eight dollars, and offered to give her a down payment, but she protested. “No, you are not going to do that!”

“Why not?”

“First, you have to see what you are taking. It is damp and dark here. You may, God forbid, get a cold. And where will you eat? I would gladly cook for you, but since you tell me you plan to become a vegetarian it may be difficult.”

“I will eat in Coney Island.”

“You will ruin your stomach. All you get there is hot dogs. A man who packs his valise and comes to Sea Gate without any forethought is not practical. It’s a miracle that brought you to me.”

“Yes, it is a miracle.”

Her black eyes gazed at me half mockingly, and I knew that this was the beginning of a serious relationship. She seemed to be aware of it, too. She spoke to me of things that are usually not told to a stranger. The shadows cast on her face by the candlelight reminded me of a charcoal sketch on a canvas. She said, “Last week I was lying in bed reading your story in the paper. The girls were asleep, but I love to read at night. Who writes about ghosts nowadays, I wondered, and in a Yiddish newspaper to boot! You may not believe me but I thought that I would like to meet you. Isn’t that strange?”

“Yes, strange.”

“I want to tell you that there is a romantic story connected with this house. A millionaire built it for his mistress. Then Sea Gate was still a place for the rich and American aristocrats. After his death, his mistress remained here until she died. The furnishings are hers—even the library. She seemed not to have left any will, and the bank sold everything intact. For years it remained unoccupied.”

“Was she beautiful?”

“Come, I will show you her portrait.”

Esther picked up the candlestick. We had to pass through a number of dark rooms to get from the kitchen to the parlor. I stumbled on the thresholds and bumped into rocking chairs. I tripped over a bulge in a rug. Esther took me by the wrist. I felt the warmth of her hand. She asked me, “Are you cold?”

“No. A little.”

In the flickering light of the candle, we stood and gazed at the portrait of the mistress. Her hair was arranged in a high pompadour; her low-cut dress exposed her long neck and the upper part of her breasts. Her eyes seemed alive in the semidarkness. Esther said, “Everything passes. I still find pressed flowers and leaves in her books, but there’s nothing left of her.”

“I’m sure her spirit roams these rooms at night.”

The candlestick in Esther’s hand trembled and the walls, the pictures, and the furniture shook like stage props in a theater. “Don’t say that. I will be afraid to sleep!”

We looked at each other like two mind readers. I remember what I thought then: A situation that a novelist would have to build up slowly, gradually, through a number of chapters, over months or perhaps years, fate has arranged in minutes, in a few strokes. Everything was ready—the characters, the circumstances, the motivations. Well, but in a true drama one can never foresee what will happen the next instant.

The rain had stopped and we were back in the kitchen, drinking tea. I thought it was late, but when I looked at my wristwatch it showed twenty-five past eight. Esther glanced at her watch, too. We sat there for a while, silent. I could see that she was pondering something that required an immediate decision, and I knew what it was. I could almost hear a voice in her mind—perhaps it was the genius of the female species—saying, “It shouldn’t come to him so easily. What does a man think when he’s able to get a woman so quickly?”

Esther nodded. “The rain has stopped.”

“Yes.”

“Listen to me,” she said. “You can have the best room in this house, and we will not haggle about money. I will be honored and happy to have you here. But it’s too early for you to move in. I intended to spend the night here, but now I am going to lock up the house and go home to my children.”

“Why don’t you want to stay over? Because of me?” I asked, ashamed of my own words.

Esther looked at me questioningly. “Let it be so.”

Then she said something that, according to the rules of female diplomacy, she should not have said: “Everything must ripen.”

“Very well.”

“Where will you sleep now that you’ve given up your room?”

“I will manage somehow.”

“When do you intend to move in?”

“As quickly as possible.”

“Will May 15th be too long for you to wait?”

“No, not too long.”

“In that case, everything is decided.”

And she looked at me with an expression of resentment. Perhaps she expected me to implore her and try to persuade her. But imploring and persuading have never been a part of my male strategy. In the few hours I spent with Esther I had become somewhat surer of myself. I figured that she was about ten years my senior. I had girded myself with the patience necessary to one prepared to give up civilization and its vanities.

Neither of us had removed our coats—it was too cold—so we didn’t have to put them on. I took my suitcase, Esther her overnight bag. She blew out the candle. She said, “If you hadn’t mentioned her spirit, I might have stayed.”

“I’m sure that her spirit is a good one.”

“Even good spirits sometimes cause mischief.”

We left the house and Esther locked the door. The sky was now clear—light as from an invisible moon. Stars twinkled. The revolving beam from a nearby tower fell on one side of Esther’s face. I didn’t know why, but I imagined that it was the first night of Passover. I became aware that the house stood apart from other houses and was encircled by lawns. The ocean was only a block away. Because of the howling wind I couldn’t hear its sounds earlier, but the winds had subsided and now I heard the waters churning, foaming, like a cosmic stew in a cosmic caldron. In the distance, a tugboat was towing three dark barges. I could barely believe that just an hour away from Manhattan one could reach such quiet.