Everyday Jews: Scenes From a Vanished Life (48 page)

“Take a good look,” he said. “There are men sitting with girls. I once saw a soldier put his arms around a girl and kiss her. That’s what all soldiers do. It’s in their nature.”

I don’t know what exactly happened to me at that moment, but I began to feel hot. It must have been this heated state that made me say what I did.

“Oyzer,” I blurted out, “would you want to give Rukhtshe a kiss?”

“Have you gone crazy? You think she’s just anybody?”

“God forbid! Who said that? You think I don’t know who she is?”

“You don’t know her at all,” Oyzer replied, with a toss of his head. “She’s something special, not just any girl.”

Oyzer said this with such confidence that it seemed to me that he and Rukhtshe must already have been acquainted—who knows for how long?—that they had spoken, that he had taken her out for walks, maybe even kissed her.

That night I left Oyzer with a heavy heart. Something kept nagging at me, though I wasn’t sure what. Why did Oyzer toss back his head like that? Had he really gone for a walk with Rukhtshe? Had he actually spoken with her? If so, why, then, was he so guarded with me? If he had done all those things, why was he standing at the window and not going inside?

It was all a big riddle to me. The riddle grew larger when Oyzer once asked if he could come with me to the tea shop when I went there on a Sabbath. For Sabbath was when I wielded the power, when it was I who had total say. Sabbath was the day when I was able to get a full view of Rukhtshe, close up.

All this came about because on the Sabbath, after the meal, Mother sent me over to Khantshe’s tea shop for a kettle of boiled water. Oyzer’s mother never had him do this. Firstly, because as a gymnasium student, he had classes on Saturday, and secondly, they had a Gentile maid who did all the cooking and baking on the Sabbath. I therefore arranged with Oyzer for him to return from the gymnasium earlier than usual the coming Sabbath, when I would take him along to the tea shop.

Oyzer hid his books behind the staircase and stuffed his cap into his pocket. We proceeded to Khantshe’s tea shop—Oyzer bare-headed, with his disheveled mop of black hair, I wearing my Sabbath kapote, kettle in hand. Oyzer gave a proud shake of his forelock and remained standing by the door, while I, even though my heart was pounding like a thief ’s, headed straight for the two brass faucets.

Rukhtshe herself did the honors. Tall, with a dimpled chin, wearing a white blouse smelling of Sabbath fruit and honey cookies, she leaned forward, waiting for the kettle to fill up. Young men and girls were sitting at the tables, flushed and excited. Rukhtshe’s mother, Khantshe the widow, was also there, sitting next to a young man and laughing into his face. However, I saw nothing of this, only Rukhtshe’s dark hair and her small, white hands. I also noticed that, while the boiling water was running into the kettle, Rukhtshe turned her face several times in the direction of the door, where Oyzer was standing. Were they winking at each other? Did they actually know one another? My eyes began to burn. As through a mist, I saw a soldier with a closely cropped head shuffling toward Rukhtshe. He must have been drunk, otherwise he wouldn’t have been staggering or have had the audacity to put his arm around her waist and to shove his black whiskers into her face.

“Come here, my beauty,” he said in Russian and laughed, showing his mouthful of teeth, “let’s have your lips.”

I was already holding the full kettle with both hands. It was as heavy as if it were filled with sand, but even heavier was the feeling that gripped my throat. Had I not been so scared, I would have taken the kettle and poured it over the head of that cheap little soldier …

Oyzer must have felt even worse. He was standing by the door, his long face inflamed. He seemed even taller than usual. That was how he had looked the time he recited the
stikhi
.

I don’t know how it happened, but suddenly there was Oyzer, standing by the boiler, his face as white as the pitchers on the table, his upper lip beaded with perspiration.

“You good-for-nothing!” he cried out in Russian, throwing his arms into the air. “You filthy pig!”

There was the scraping sound of benches being pushed back. Someone gave a long, lazy snort, “Wha-a-t?” and started toward Oyzer and me with bearlike steps. Khantshe grabbed Oyzer from behind and quickly shoved him outside. I tumbled out on my own. Scalding drops of water splashed from the kettle. I barely saw where I was going, afraid that at any moment I might fall, that in yet another moment I’d be burned to death.

Once outside, I couldn’t see Oyzer anywhere. I heard laughter behind me, strange, cackling hoots, which scalded me even more painfully than the splashes from the boiling kettle.

For the rest of the Sabbath I was afraid and ashamed to venture outside. Only at night, after the
havdole
, did I sneak out.

When I caught sight of Oyzer he seemed to me to have gotten shorter. He told me that he had come to within an inch of strangling that little soldier, and he might still do so. What gave that Lithuanian pig the right to put his arms around Rukhtshe’s waist?

That night Oyzer was given to long silences. His disheveled mop of hair didn’t seem like his own. He told me that he felt sorry for Rukhtshe. Had he the money, he wouldn’t care what anyone said, he would marry her and take her away to a far-off land. Then she wouldn’t have to serve any more tea. He would recite to her by heart all of Pushkin’s
stikhi
. It would have been so good …

I agreed that it would have been good. But what good would it have done me, being left all alone by myself? Besides, what did Oyzer mean that he wanted to marry Rukhtshe? Was he already of an age to stand under a wedding canopy? How would he earn a living? And what would happen with the gymnasium?

I, too, felt sorry for Rukhtshe. But had I the money, I wouldn’t have married her. It was foolish to talk about that. I would have given it all to her so she could move out of the tea shop and into a nicer street. She could live there, have everything she needed, and that would be it …

But Oyzer said that I was a fool and an idiot. What would she do in her new place, all by herself?

“Do?” I replied. “She’d eat and drink and all will be well with her.”

“Just like it’s written in the Haggadah?” Oyzer sneered. “That’s nothing. The important thing is that somebody love her.”

“Who would that be?” I asked.

“Me,” Oyzer declared, and punched his chest with his fist.

Again I felt a tightening in my throat, an even stronger constriction than on the day when the little soldier grabbed Rukhtshe around the waist. At that moment I could have smacked Oyzer.

“Will you be going for hot water again next Sabbath?” Oyzer asked very softly.

“I don’t know. Probably.”

“Tell Rukhtshe,” he said thoughtfully, “that I’d like to see her.”

“Won’t you be coming with me?”

“No, tell her that I’ll be waiting for her Saturday night on Warsaw Street, next to the prison.”

Oyzer took his farewell and left me sitting all alone on the ledge. He walked away with slow, measured steps, like a grownup burdened by many worries.

There was still a whole week remaining before the next Sabbath. Just counting the minutes and hours up until then could drive you crazy.

In any case, I hardly knew what I was doing. Wherever I went, I was followed by Rukhtshe and Oyzer. I saw them in my open Bible, in my Russian grammar book, in the blackboard, everywhere.

Teacher Mattias tugged my ear even more forcefully and jammed his iron fist into my chin. Reb Dovid began to teach us Hebrew grammar, conjugating verbs:
pokadeti
… “I remembered,”
pokadeto
… “you remembered” … I broke my teeth reciting the tables. Oyzer’s words rang constantly in my head.

“Tell her I’ll be waiting for her Saturday night”—
pokadeti
,
pokadeto
—“on Warsaw Street, next to the prison.”

The following Sabbath, I again went over to fetch the boiled water. The floor of the tea shop had been sprinkled with dry sand. Freshly washed tablecloths hung down from the two long tables. Today the room looked as if it were awaiting family guests.

Sitting at the edge of the tables were a young man and a girl, talking quietly and gazing into each others’ eyes. There were no other customers. From behind a red, flowered curtain, concealing a dark, little alcove, came stifled sounds of pleasurable giggling.

“Stop it,” the giggling voice said. “What’s your hurry?”

From the sound of the voice, I assumed it was Khantshe the widow. Rukhtshe looked pale that day. As she was filling my kettle, she kept turning her face restlessly toward the flowered curtain.

The water ran slowly into the kettle. I stood there, as if on hot coals. After all, today I had something to tell Rukhtshe. But how was I to do it? How should I begin? Then again, maybe I wouldn’t say anything. Was I Oyzer’s messenger?

Just then, Rukhtshe glanced at me with half-lidded eyes, but perhaps it wasn’t me she was looking at, but the door.

My whole body ached. I wanted to tell her that Oyzer wouldn’t be coming today, that he’d never be coming again, that he had died. In the midst of these thoughts, I again heard a voice from behind the flowered curtain.

“What are you doing, Felek? Now stop it …”

Rukhtshe gave a shake of her body.

“What’s your name?” she asked loudly.

“Mendl.”

“Whose kid are you?”

“Frimet’s, Dovid-Froyke’s daughter.”

“Do you live here?”

“Yes.”

“And the one who was here with you last week, with the mop of hair, he’s your friend?”

“Yes, that’s my friend Oyzer.”

“Why didn’t he come with you today?”

“He attends the gymnasium. He has no time, he’s studying.”

“What’s he studying?”

“
Stikhi
.”

“What?” Rukhtshe’s whole face crinkled and laughter erupted from every tiny fold.

I didn’t understand what was so funny, nor why, a moment later, Rukhtshe said, “Tell that friend of yours that I like him.”

At that instant, I couldn’t tell what was going on with me, whether it was the kettle that had become too heavy, or I myself. I just stood there, as if rooted to the spot.

“Did you want something else?” Rukhtshe asked.

I had the feeling that something terrible was about to happen, that either I would drop to the floor and burst into tears, or else bash someone in the head with the kettle.

Rukhtshe looked at me with a warm, wide-eyed gaze. There was also a warmth rising from her white blouse. She bent down to me and asked again, but in a soft, conspiratorial tone, “Did you want something else?”

“Oyzer,” I stammered, “Oyzer wants to say …”

I couldn’t finish the sentence.

“He said,” I finally continued, almost choking on every word, “that he’d wait for you tonight near the prison.”

The girl sitting at the table was laughing. All was now quiet behind the flowered curtain. I no longer saw Rukhtshe, only felt the touch of a hand under my chin, a touch, warm and smooth like velvet.

“I’ll come. Tell Oyzer that I’ll come,” said the owner of the touch.

I don’t know how I managed to get outside. I think someone threw the kettle after me.

I ran into Oyzer on the stairs.

“Did you tell her?” he asked, as he almost fell on me.

“I did,” I answered angrily.

“Nu?”

“She said she’d be there.”

His face turned red, his eyes even redder, and he started hopping up and down.

“Mendl, you’ll see,” he said, “you’ll come with us. We’ll take you along.”

His joy was no joy to me. On the contrary, I was seething, just like the boiling kettle. I suddenly ran up the stairs and, just before I got to our door, shouted down, full of rage, “
Goy
! Heretic! I don’t want to come with you! To hell with you and your Rukhtshe!”

He ran up after me, calling out, “Mendl! Mendl! What’s gotten into you?”

But, at that moment, I hated him so much, that I wouldn’t have cared had he fallen down the stairs and broken both legs.

I stayed home all that Sabbath afternoon. I had decided that I wouldn’t go downstairs that evening either. Altogether, I wasn’t going to show myself in the courtyard any more, nor would my feet ever cross the threshold of the tea shop again. This was it—an end to Oyzer and an end to Rukhtshe. Who needed them!

In the late afternoon, toward dusk, a blue shadow passed across the window on our roof. I thought it might be Oyzer. The house smelled of herring from the shaleshudes repast. Mother and a neighbor were sitting by the oven, talking about this and that.

I gazed up at the sky, looking for the appearance of the stars that would bring an end to the Sabbath. I was merely looking. There was no need to light the lamps for my sake, and besides, I wasn’t going downstairs anyway.

But after the
havdole
prayer, when Father himself removed the Sabbath tablecloth and put down a piece of chalk on the bare table, and Mother was getting ready to go over to Aunt Miriam’s, I couldn’t sit still any longer. I grabbed my coat and made for the door.

“Where are you running?” Mother stopped me in mid-passage.

“I’m not running. I’m going down to see Oyzer.”

“Look who’s in such a big hurry! He won’t run away, that Oyzer of yours.”

“He’s waiting for me downstairs.”

“So he’ll wait another minute. Button your coat all the way up, and don’t run. You hear?”

“Who’s running?”

I actually stepped out very slowly, but then ran down the stairs so fast and with such force that I could hear, up above me, our door swinging open.

The moon seemed especially bright that night. Surrounded by a faint, blue ring, it moved across the roofs and streets like a torch. The windowpanes were blue, the gutters white, the cross on top of the Russian church blue.

All the stores were open. Jews riding in droshkys were hurrying to catch the eight o’clock train. I slunk from store to store, making my way to the prison. I completely forgot what I had decided earlier that day and never even gave it a second thought. I only wanted to find out whether Rukhtshe and Oyzer were actually going to meet.