Job (10 page)

Indeed, Mendel Singer's journey to America had already begun. All the people gave him advice against seasickness. A few
buyers came to view Mendel's little house. They were prepared to pay a thousand rubles for it, a sum for which Deborah would have given five years of her life.

But Mendel Singer said: “You do know, Deborah, that Menuchim must stay behind? With whom will he stay? Next month Billes is marrying his daughter to Fogl the musician. Until they have a child, the young people can keep Menuchim. For that we will give them the house and take no money.”

“Is the matter already settled for you, that Menuchim is staying behind? There are still at least a few weeks until our departure, by then God will surely perform a miracle.”

“If God wants to perform a miracle,” replied Mendel, “He won't let it be known beforehand. One must hope. If we don't go to America, a misfortune will occur with Miriam. If we go to America, we leave Menuchim behind. Shall we send Miriam to America alone? Who knows what she will do, alone on the way and alone in America. Menuchim is so sick that only a miracle can help him. But if a miracle helps him, he can follow us. Because America is indeed very far; but it doesn't lie outside this world.”

Deborah remained silent. She heard the words of the rabbi of Kluczýsk: “Do not leave him, stay with him, as if he were a healthy child!” She was not staying with him. Long years, day and night, hour after hour, she had waited for the promised miracle. The dead in the beyond didn't help, the rabbi didn't help, God refused to help. She had wept a sea of tears. Night had been in her heart, sorrow in every pleasure, ever since Menuchim's birth. All festivals
were torments, and all holidays days of mourning. There was no more spring and no summer. All seasons were winter. The sun rose, but it did not warm. Hope alone refused to die. “He will remain a cripple,” said all the neighbors. For no misfortune had befallen them, and he who has no misfortune does not believe in miracles.

Nor does he who has misfortune believe in miracles. Miracles happened very long ago, when the Jews still lived in Palestine. Since then there have been no more. And yet: hadn't people told with good reason of strange deeds of the rabbi of Kluczýsk? Hadn't he made blind people see and saved the lame? How was it with Nathan Piczenik's daughter? She had been mad. They brought her to Kluczýsk. The rabbi looked at her. He said his words. Then he spat three times. And Piczenik's daughter went home free, light and rational. Other people have luck, thought Deborah. For miracles one also has to have luck. Mendel Singer's children have no luck! They're a teacher's children!

“If you were a reasonable man,” she said to Mendel, “you would go to Kluczýsk tomorrow and ask the rabbi for advice.” “I?” asked Mendel. “Why should I go to your rabbi? You were there once, go again! You believe in him, he will give you advice. You know that I think nothing of all that. No Jew needs an intermediary to the Lord. He hears our prayers if we do nothing unrighteous. But if we do something unrighteous, He can punish us!”

“Why is He punishing us now? Have we done wrong? Why is He so cruel?”

“You blaspheme Him, Deborah, leave me in peace, I can't talk with you any longer.” And Mendel buried himself in a pious book.

Deborah reached for her shawl and went out. Outside stood Miriam. She stood there, reddened by the setting sun, in a white dress that now shimmered orange, with her smooth, shiny black hair, and looked straight into the setting sun with her large black eyes, which she held wide open, though the sun must have blinded them. She is beautiful, thought Deborah, I was once that beautiful, as beautiful as my daughter – what has become of me? I have become Mendel Singer's wife. Miriam is going with a Cossack, she is beautiful, perhaps she is right.

Miriam seemed not to see her mother. She observed with passionate concentration the glowing sun, which was now about to sink behind a heavy violet bank of clouds. For a few days this dark mass had stood every evening in the west, had portended storm and rain and had disappeared again the next day. Miriam had noticed that, at the moment the sun went down, over there in the cavalry barracks the soldiers began to sing, a whole
sotnia
began to sing, always the same song:
polyubil ya tebya za tvoyu krasotu.
Their duty was done, the Cossacks greeted the evening. Miriam repeated, humming, the lyrics of the song, of which she knew only the first two verses: I've fallen in love with you, because of your beauty. The song of a whole
sotnia
was meant for her! A hundred men were singing to her. Half an hour later she was meeting one of them, or even two. Sometimes three came.

She caught sight of her mother, remained standing calmly, knew that Deborah would come over. For weeks her mother no longer dared call Miriam. It was as if part of the terror that surrounded the Cossacks emanated from Miriam herself, as if the daughter already stood under the protection of the strange and wild barracks.

No, Deborah no longer called Miriam. Deborah came to Miriam. Deborah, in an old shawl, stood old, ugly, anxious before the gold-gleaming Miriam, stopped at the edge of the wooden sidewalk, as if she were following an old law that commanded ugly mothers to stand half a verst lower than beautiful daughters. “Your father is angry, Miriam!” said Deborah. “Let him be angry,” replied Miriam, “your Mendel Singer.”

For the first time Deborah heard the name of the father from the mouth of one of her children. For a moment it seemed to her that a stranger was speaking, not Mendel's child. A stranger – why should she say “Father”? Deborah wanted to turn around, she had made a mistake, she had spoken to a stranger. She began to turn. “Stay!” commanded Miriam – and it struck Deborah for the first time how hard her daughter's voice was. “A copper voice,” thought Deborah. It sounded like one of the detested and feared church bells.

“Stay here, Mother!” repeated Miriam, “leave him alone, your husband, come with me to America. Leave Mendel Singer and Menuchim, the idiot, here.”

“I've asked him to go to the rabbi, he refuses. I'm not going
alone again to Kluczýsk. I'm afraid! He has already forbidden me once to leave Menuchim, even if his illness should last for years. What should I tell him, Miriam? Should I tell him that we have to leave on your account, because you, because you–––”

“Because I run around with Cossacks,” Miriam completed, without moving. And she went on: “Tell him what you please, it won't matter to me at all. In America I'll do what I want all the more. Because you married a Mendel Singer, I don't have to marry one too. Do you have a better man for me, huh? Do you have a dowry for your daughter?”

Miriam didn't raise her voice, even her questions didn't sound like questions, it was as if she were saying unimportant things, as if she were giving information about the prices of greens and eggs. “She is right,” thought Deborah. “Help, dear God, she is right.”

Deborah called all the good spirits to her aid. For she felt that she had to admit that her daughter was right, she herself spoke out of her daughter. Deborah began to be afraid of herself as much as she had been afraid of Miriam a short while ago. Threatening things were happening. The song of the soldiers wafted incessantly over. A small streak of the red sun still shone above the violet.

“I have to go,” said Miriam, separated from the wall against which she had been leaning, light as a white butterfly she fluttered from the sidewalk, walked with quick coquettish feet along the middle of the road, out toward the barracks, toward the calling song of the Cossacks.

Fifty paces from the barracks, in the middle of the little path between the great forest and Sameshkin's grain, she waited for Ivan. “We're going to America,” said Miriam.

“You won't forget me,” Ivan admonished. “At this hour, when the sun goes down, you'll always think of me and not the others. And perhaps, with God's help, I'll follow you, you'll write to me. Pavel will read me your letters, don't write too many secret things between the two of us, or else I'll be ashamed.” He kissed Miriam, strongly and many times, his kisses rattled like shots through the evening. A devilish girl, he thought, now she's going away, to America, I have to find another. No one else is as beautiful as she, four more years I have to serve. He was tall, strong as a bear and shy. His gigantic hands trembled when he was to touch a girl. And he was not at home in love, Miriam had taught him everything, what ideas had she not already had!

They embraced, as they had yesterday and the day before, in the middle of the field, embedded among the fruits of the earth, surrounded and overarched by the heavy grain. The stalks lay down willingly when Miriam and Ivan sank to the ground; even before they sank, the stalks seemed to lie down. Today their love was fiercer, briefer and, so to speak, frightened. It was as if Miriam already had to go to America tomorrow. The parting already trembled in their love. As they merged together, they were already far apart, separated from each other by the ocean. How good, thought Miriam, that he's not the one leaving, that I'm not the one staying behind. They lay for a long time exhausted, helpless,
mute, as if they were seriously wounded. A thousand thoughts reeled through their brains. They didn't notice the rain that had finally come. It had begun gently and sneakily, it was a long time before its drops were heavy enough to break through the dense golden enclosure of stalks. Suddenly they were at the mercy of the pouring water. They awoke, began to run. The rain confused them, transformed the world completely, deprived them of their sense of time. They thought it was already late, they listened for the bells from the tower, but only the rain roared, heavier and heavier, all the other voices of the night were uncannily hushed. They kissed each other on their wet faces, squeezed each other's hands, water was between them, neither could feel the body of the other. Hastily they said goodbye, their ways parted, already Ivan was enveloped and invisible in the rain. Never again will I see him! thought Miriam, as she ran home. The harvest is coming. Tomorrow the peasants will be frightened, because one rain brings others.

She arrived home, waited awhile under the overhang as if it were possible to get dry in a short minute. She decided to enter the room. It was dark, everyone was already asleep. She lay down softly, wet as she was, she let her clothes dry on her body and didn't move. Outside the rain roared. Everyone knew already that Mendel was going to America, one pupil after another stopped coming to the lessons. Now there were only five boys left, and they didn't come at regular times either. The papers Kapturak had not yet brought, the ship tickets Sam had not yet sent. But the house
of Mendel Singer already began to decay. How rotten it must have been, thought Mendel. It has been rotten, and we haven't known it. He who cannot pay attention is like a deaf man, and is worse off than a deaf man – so it is written somewhere. Here my grandfather was a teacher; here my father was a teacher, here I was a teacher. Now I am going to America. My son Jonas the Cossacks have taken, Miriam they want to take from me too. Menuchim-what will become of Menuchim?

On the evening of that same day he visited the Billes family. It was a happy family, it seemed to Mendel Singer that they had much undeserved luck; all the daughters were married, down to the youngest, to whom he now wanted to offer his house, all three sons had escaped the military and gone out into the world, one to Hamburg, another to California, the third to Paris. It was a happy family, God's hand rested over it, it lay cozily bedded in God's broad hand. Old Billes was always cheerful. Mendel Singer had taught all his sons. Old Billes had been a pupil of the old Singer. Because they had already known each other so long, Mendel believed he had a small right to the luck of the strangers.

The Billes family – they did not live in affluence – was pleased with Mendel Singer's proposal. Good! – the young couple will take over the house and Menuchim with it. “He's no work at all,” said Mendel Singer. “And he does better from year to year. Soon, with God's help, he will be healthy. Then my older son, Shemariah, will come over or he will send someone and bring Menuchim to America.”

“And what do you hear from Jonas?” asked old Billes. Mendel hadn't heard anything for a long time from his Cossack, as he inwardly called him – not without contempt, but also not without pride. Nonetheless, he answered: “Nothing but good things! He's learned to read and write, and he has been promoted. If he weren't a Jew, who knows, maybe he'd already be an officer!” It was impossible for Mendel to stand there in the face of this lucky family with the heavy burden of his great misfortune on his back. That's why he stretched his back and feigned a bit of joy.

It was arranged that Mendel Singer would turn over the use of his house to the Billes family before simple witnesses, not before officials, because that cost money. Three or four respectable Jews sufficed as witnesses. In the meantime Mendel got an advance of thirty rubles, because his pupils no longer came and the money at home was running out.

A week later Kapturak rolled once again in his small light yellow wagon through the little town. Everything was there: the money, the ship tickets, the passports, the visa, the head tax for each of them and even the fee for Kapturak. “A punctual payer,” said Kapturak. “Your son Shemariah, known as Sam, is a punctual payer. A gentleman, they say over there . . .”

Kapturak would accompany the Singer family as far as the border. In four weeks the steamer “Neptune” was leaving from Bremen to New York.