Job (9 page)

Tomorrow was Friday. Everything had to be prepared for Saturday, the meatballs, the pike and the chicken broth. The baking already began at six in the morning. As the broad silver streak turned reddish, Miriam crept back into the room. She didn't fall asleep. Through the knothole in the window shutter she saw the first flames of the sun. Father and Mother were already stirring in their sleep. Morning was there. The Sabbath passed, Sunday Miriam spent in the grain field, with Stepan. In the end they went far out, into the next village, Miriam drank schnapps. All day they looked for her at home. Let them look for her! Her life was precious,
the summer was short, soon the harvest was beginning. In the forest she slept with Stepan again. Tomorrow, Monday, her father was going to Dubno to get the papers.

At five in the morning, on Monday, Mendel Singer rose. He drank tea, prayed, then quickly took off the phylacteries and went to Sameshkin. “Good morning!” he called from a distance. Mendel Singer felt as if the official business had already begun here, before climbing into Sameshkin's cart, and as if he had to greet Sameshkin as he would an
uriadnik.

“I'd rather go with your wife!” said Sameshkin. “She's still good-looking for her years and has a decent bosom.”

“Let's go,” said Mendel.

The horses whinnied and struck their hindquarters with their tails. “Hey! Whoa!” cried Sameshkin, and cracked the whip.

At eleven in the morning they arrived in Dubno. Mendel had to wait. He stepped, his cap in his hand, through the large portal. The porter carried a saber.

“Where do you want to go?” he asked.

“I want to go to America – where do I have to go?”

“What's your name?”

“Mendel Mechelovich Singer.”

“Why do you want to go to America?”

“To earn money, I'm doing badly.”

“You go to number eighty-four,” said the porter. “Many are already waiting there.”

They sat in a large, arched, ocher-washed corridor. Men in
blue uniforms stood guard outside the doors. Along the walls were brown benches – all the benches were occupied. But whenever a newcomer arrived, the blue men made a hand motion; and those who were already sitting moved together, and each newcomer took a seat. They smoked, spat, cracked squash seeds and snored. Here the day was no day. Through the milk glass of a very high, very distant skylight, a pale intimation of the day could be glimpsed. Clocks were ticking somewhere, but they went, so to speak, alongside time, which in these high corridors stood still. Sometimes a man in blue uniform called out a name. All the sleepers awoke. The one who had been called rose, staggered toward a door, adjusted his suit and stepped through one of the high double doors, which instead of a latch had a round white knob. Mendel considered how he would handle this knob so as to open the door. He stood up; from sitting for a long time wedged between the people, his limbs were hurting him. But no sooner had he risen than a blue man approached him. “Sidai!” cried the blue man, “sit down!” Mendel Singer no longer found a seat on his bench. He remained standing next to it, pressed himself against the wall and wished he could become as flat as the wall.

“Are you waiting for number eighty-four?” asked the blue man. “Yes,” said Mendel. He was convinced that they now intended to throw him out for good. Deborah will have to come here again. Fifty kopecks and fifty kopecks make a ruble.

But the blue man had no intention of sending Mendel out of the building. For the blue man the most important thing was that
all the people waiting kept their seats and that he could survey them all. If one stood up, he could throw a bomb.

“Anarchists disguise themselves sometimes,” thought the doorkeeper. And he beckoned Mendel over to him, patted down the Jew, asked for his papers. And because everything was in order and Mendel no longer had a seat, the blue man said: “Listen! See the glass door? Open it. There is number eighty-four!”

“What do you want here?” shouted a broad-shouldered man behind the desk. The official sat directly under the picture of the Tsar. He consisted of a mustache, a bald head, epaulets and buttons. He was like a beautiful bust behind his broad inkwell of marble. “Who permitted you to enter here just like that? Why don't you announce yourself?” a voice roared from the bust.

Mendel Singer meanwhile bowed deeply. He had not been prepared for such a reception. He bowed and let the thunder glide away over his back, he wanted to become tiny, level with the ground, as if he had been surprised by a storm in an open field. The folds of his long coat parted, and the official saw a bit of Mendel Singer's threadbare pants and the scuffed leather of his boot shafts. This sight made the official milder. “Come closer!” he commanded, and Mendel moved closer, his head bent forward as if he wanted to push his way to the desk. Only when he saw that he was approaching the edge of the carpet did Mendel Singer lift his head a little. The official smiled. “Give me the papers!” he said.

Then it was quiet. One heard the clock ticking. Through the
blinds broke the golden light of a late afternoon. The papers rustled. Occasionally the official mused for a while, gazed into the air, and suddenly snatched a fly with his hand. He held the tiny animal in his gigantic fist, opened it carefully, pulled off a wing, then the other, and continued to watch a bit as the crippled insect crawled on the desk.

“The application?” he asked suddenly, “where's the application?”

“I can't write, your Excellency!” Mendel apologized.

“I know that, you fool, that you can't write! I wasn't asking for your school certificate, but for the application. And why do we have a clerk? Huh? On the ground floor? In number three? Huh? Why does the state employ a clerk? For you, you idiot, just because you can't write. So go to number three. Write the application. Say I sent you, so that you don't have to wait and are attended to at once. Then come to me. But tomorrow! And tomorrow afternoon, as far as I'm concerned, you can leave!” Once again Mendel bowed. He walked backwards, he dared not turn his back to the official, the path from the desk to the door seemed to him infinitely long. He believed he'd already been walking for an hour. Finally he felt the nearness of the door. He turned around quickly, grabbed the knob, turned it first left, then right, then he gave another bow. Finally he stood again in the corridor.

In number three sat an ordinary official without epaulets. It was a musty low room, many people surrounded the table, the clerk wrote and wrote, he pushed the quill impatiently each time
into the bottom of the ink container. He wrote nimbly, but he was never finished. New people always came. Nonetheless, he still had time to notice Mendel.

“His Excellency, the gentleman from number eighty-four, sent me,” said Mendel.

“Come here,” said the clerk.

The people cleared the way for Mendel Singer.

“One ruble for the stamp!” said the clerk. Mendel fished a ruble out of his blue handkerchief. It was a hard, shiny ruble. The clerk didn't take the coin, he expected at least another fifty kopecks. Mendel understood nothing of the clerk's rather clear wishes.

Then the clerk became angry. “Are those papers?” he said. “They're scraps! They crumble in one's hand!” And he tore one of the documents, as if unintentionally, it ripped into two equal pieces, and the official reached for the gum arabic to stick it together. Mendel Singer trembled.

The gum arabic was too dry, the official spat into the little bottle, then he breathed on it. But it remained dry. He suddenly had an idea, one saw by looking at him that he suddenly had an idea. He opened a drawer, put Mendel Singer's papers into it, closed it again, tore from a pad a little green slip of paper, stamped it, gave it to Mendel, and said: “You know what? Tomorrow morning at nine o'clock, you come here! Then we'll be alone. Then we can talk calmly with each other. Your papers are here with me. You fetch them tomorrow. Show the slip of paper!”

Mendel left. Sameshkin was waiting outside, he was sitting next to the horses on the stones, the sun was setting, the evening was coming.

“We're not leaving until tomorrow,” said Mendel, “at nine o'clock I have to come back.”

He searched for a temple where he could spend the night. He bought a piece of bread, two onions, put everything in his pocket, stopped a Jew and asked him about the temple. “Let's go together,” said the Jew.

On the way Mendel told his story.

“In our temple,” said the Jew, “you can meet a man who will deal with the whole matter for you. He's already sent many families to America. Do you know Kapturak?”

“Kapturak? Of course! He sent my son away!”

“Old clients!” said Kapturak. In late summer he stayed in Dubno, he held his meetings in the temples. “That time your wife came to me. I still remember your son. He's doing well, eh? Kapturak has a lucky hand.”

It turned out that Kapturak was willing to take over the matter. For the time being it cost ten rubles per head. Mendel couldn't pay an advance of ten rubles. Kapturak knew a way out. He got the address of young Singer. In four weeks he'll have a reply and money, if the son really intends to bring over his parents. “Give me the green slip of paper, the letter from America, and rely on me!” said Kapturak. And the onlookers nodded. “Go home today. In a few days I'll come by. Rely on Kapturak!”

A few onlookers repeated: “You can rely on Kapturak!”

“It's lucky,” said Mendel, “that I met you here!” All offered him their hands and wished him a good journey. He returned to the marketplace where Sameshkin was waiting. Sameshkin was just about to lie down to sleep in his wagon.

“With a Jew only the devil can arrange something certain!” he said. “So we're leaving after all!”

They set off.

Sameshkin tied the reins around his wrist, he intended to sleep a little. He actually nodded off, the horses shied at the shadow of a scarecrow that some rascal had carried out of a field and put on the roadside. The animals broke into a gallop, the cart seemed to rise into the air, soon, Mendel thought, it would begin to flutter, it seemed to him as if his heart was galloping too, it wanted to leave his breast and leap into the distance.

Suddenly Sameshkin uttered a loud curse. The cart slid into a ditch, the horses' forelegs were still jutting into the road, Sameshkin was lying on Mendel Singer.

They climbed out again. The shaft was splintered, a wheel had come loose, another was missing two spokes. They had to spend the night here. Tomorrow they would see.

“So your journey to America begins,” said Sameshkin. “Why do you people always roam around so much in the world! The devil sends you from one place to another. Our sort stays where he's born, and only when there's a war, we move to Japan!”

Mendel Singer was silent. He was sitting on the roadside next
to Sameshkin. For the first time in his life Mendel sat on the naked earth, in the middle of the wild night, next to a peasant. He saw above him the sky and the stars and thought, they conceal God. All this the Lord created in seven days. And when a Jew wants to go to America, it takes years!

“Do you see how beautiful the country is?” asked Sameshkin. “Soon the harvest will come. It is a good year. If it is as good as I imagine, I'll buy another horse in autumn. Do you hear anything from your son Jonas? He knows something about horses. He's completely different from you. Has your wife ever deceived you?” “Everything is possible,” replied Mendel. He felt suddenly very light, he could comprehend everything, the night freed him from prejudices. He even snuggled up to Sameshkin, as to a brother.

“Everything is possible,” he repeated, “women are no good.”

Suddenly Mendel began to sob. Mendel wept, in the middle of the strange night, next to Sameshkin.

The peasant pressed his fists against his eyes, because he felt that he too would weep.

Then he put his arm around Mendel's thin shoulders and said softly:

“Sleep, dear Jew, sleep well.”

He stayed awake for a long time. Mendel Singer slept and snored. The frogs croaked until morning.

Two weeks later a small, two-wheeled wagon rolled in a great dust cloud in front of Mendel Singer's house and brought a guest: it was Kapturak.

He reported that the papers were ready. Should a reply come from America in four weeks from Shemariah, known as Sam, the departure of the Singer family would be assured. That was all Kapturak had wanted to say; and that an advance of twenty rubles would be more agreeable to him than having to deduct the money later from Shemariah's sum.

Deborah went into the storeroom made of rotten wooden boards, which stood in the courtyard, pulled her blouse over her head, took a knotted handkerchief from her bosom and counted eight hard rubles into her hand.

Then she pulled the blouse back on, went into the house and said to Kapturak: “This is all I could scrape up from the neighbors. You have to be content with it.”

“For an old client one lets some things pass,” said Kapturak, jumped onto his small feather-light yellow wagon, and disappeared immediately in a dust cloud.

“Kapturak was at Mendel Singer's house!” cried the people in the little town. “Mendel is going to America.”