Collected Stories (55 page)

Friedel never wrote more than the one letter; she protested that the whole business was an ugly trick and would have nothing more to do with it. But Liebkind Bendel got hold of an old refugee from Germany, a Frau Inge Schuldiener, who was willing to collaborate with him. A correspondence began that lasted from 1933 to 1938. During these years, only one thing kept Dr. Walden from arriving in New York—the fact that he suffered severely from seasickness. In 1937, Dan Kniaster, his property in Berlin about to be confiscated, his business taken over by his sons, had moved to London. He took Dr. Walden with him. On the short trip across the Channel, Dr. Walden became so sick that he had to be carried off the boat at Dover on a stretcher.

One morning in the summer of 1938, I was called to the pay telephone downstairs in my rooming house at seven o’clock. I had gone to sleep late, and it took me some time to get into my bathrobe and slippers and to go down the three flights of stairs. Liebkind Bendel was calling. “Did I wake you, huh?” he screamed. “I’m in a jam. I haven’t slept a wink all night. If you won’t help me, I’m ruined. Liebkind Bendel is a goner. You can say Kaddish for me.”

“What happened?”

“Dr. Walden is arriving by plane. Frau Schuldiener got a telegram for Eleanor from London. He sent her a thousand kisses!”

It took a few seconds for me to realize what was happening. “What do you want me to do?” I asked. “Disguise myself as an heiress?”

“Oy! Have I made a mess of things! If I weren’t afraid that war would break out any day, I would run away to Europe. What shall I do? I am crazy. I should be shut up in a madhouse. Somebody has to meet him.”

“Eleanor could be in California.”

“But she has just assured him she was staying in the city this summer. Anyway, her address is a furnished room in the West Eighties. He will know immediately that this is not the apartment of a millionairess. He has her telephone number, and Frau Schuldiener will answer and all hell will break loose. She is a
Jaecki
and has no sense of humor.”

“I doubt if even God could help you.”

“What shall I do—kill myself with suicide? Until now he has been afraid to fly. Suddenly the old idiot got courage. I am ready to donate a million dollars to Rabbi Meir, the miracle worker, that his plane should fall into the ocean. But God and I are not pals. The two of us have until eight this evening.”

“Please don’t make me a partner in your adventures.”

“You are the only one of my friends who knows about it. Last night Friedel was so angry she threatened me with divorce. That schlemiel Dov Ben Zev is in the hospital. I telephoned the Hebraists, but Dr. Walden slighted them so long they have become his bloody enemies. He didn’t even make hotel reservations. He most probably expects Eleanor to lead him to the wedding canopy straight from the airport.”

“Really, I cannot help you.”

“At least let’s have breakfast together—if I can’t talk to someone, I’ll lose my mind. What time do you want to eat?”

“I want to sleep, not to eat.”

“Me, too. I took three pills last night. I hear that Dan Kniaster left Germany without a pfennig. He’s an old has-been of eighty-five. His sons are real Prussians, assimilationists, half converted. If war breaks out, this Dr. Walden will become a burden on my neck. And how can I explain things to him? He may get a stroke.”

We left it that we would meet at eleven o’clock in a restaurant on Broadway. I returned to bed but not to sleep. I half dozed, half laughed to myself, playing with a solution—not because of any loyalty to Liebkind Bendel but in the same way that I sometimes tried to solve a puzzle in a newspaper.

II

At the restaurant, I hardly recognized Liebkind Bendel. Even though he wore a yellow jacket, a red shirt, and a tie with golden dots, his face looked as pale as after an illness. He was twisting a long cigar between his lips and he had already ordered cognac. He sat on the edge of his chair. Before I managed to sit down, he called to me. “I’ve found a way out, but you must help me. Eleanor has just perished in an airplane crash. I spoke to Frau Schuldiener and she will back me up. All you have to do is wait for that old skirt chaser at the airport and get him into a hotel. Tell him you are Eleanor’s friend or nephew. I will take a room for him and pay the bill for a month in advance. After that I am not responsible. Let him go back to London to find himself a daughter of a lord.”

“You could pose as Eleanor’s friend as well as I.”

“I can’t do it. He’d cling to me like a leech. What can he get from you—your manuscripts? You will spend a few hours with him and he won’t bother you any more. If worst comes to worse, I’ll pay his fare back to England. You will be saving my life and I will never forget it. Don’t give him your address. Tell him you live in Chicago or Miami. There was a time when I would have given a fortune to be in his company half an hour, but I have lost the appetite. I am afraid of him. I’m sure that the minute I see him and he utters the name Eleanor I’ll burst out laughing. As a matter of fact, I have been sitting here laughing to myself. The waiter thought I had gone out of my mind.”

“Bendel, I cannot do it.”

“Is this your last word?”

“I cannot play such a farce.”

“Well, no is no. I will have to do it, then—I’ll tell him that I am a distant cousin, a poor relation. She even supported me. What name should I take? Lipman Geiger. I had a partner in Vienna by that name. Wait, I must make a telephone call.”

Liebkind Bendel jumped up and ran to a telephone booth. He stayed there about ten minutes. I could see him through the glass door. He was turning the pages of a notebook. He made strange grimaces. When he returned, he said, “I have gotten a hotel and all the rest of it. What did I need the whole meshuggas for? I’m going to close down the magazine. I will go to Palestine and become a Jew. All these writers—empty heads, they have nothing to say. At fifty my grandfather woke up every night for the midnight prayers; Dr. Walden wants to seduce an heiress at sixty-five. His last letter was simply a song—the Song of Songs. And who needs his encyclopedia? That Frau Schuldiener is a fool, and in addition she plays the fool.”

“Perhaps he would marry Frau Schuldiener.”

“She’s over seventy. Already a great-grandmother. She was once a teacher in Frankfurt … in Hamburg—I have forgotten where. She copied her phrases from a book of standard love letters. Perhaps what I should do is get hold of a female who could play the role of Eleanor. How about the Yiddish actresses?”

“All they can do is weep.”

“Somewhere in New York there may be a true admirer of his—an old spinster who would be eager for such a match. But where do you find her? As for me, I’m tired of everything. That Friedel is educated enough but without any imagination. All she thinks about is Schlegel. Sarah is completely absorbed by her crazy daughter. They have a new custom—they send the patients home from the institutions and then they take them back again. One month she is there and the other with her mother. I sit with them and I begin to feel that I am not all there myself. Why am I telling you all this? Do me a favor and come with me to the airport. I will always remember it. Do you agree? Give me your hand. Together we’ll manage somehow. Let’s drink to it.”

III

I stood behind the glass partition and watched the passengers arriving. Liebkind Bendel was jittery, and the smoke from his cigar almost asphyxiated me. For some reason I was sure that Dr. Walden was a tall man. But he was short, broad, and fat, with a big belly and a huge head. On that hot summer day he wore a long coat, a flowing tie, and a plush hat with a broad brim. He had a thick gray mustache and was smoking a pipe. He carried two leather valises with old-fashioned locks and side pockets. His eyes under his heavy brows were searching for someone.

Liebkind Bendel’s nervousness was contagious. He smelled of liquor, he purred like a tomcat. He waved his hands and cried, “Certainly that’s he. I recognize him. See how fat he has gotten—broader than he is long. An old billy goat.”

When Dr. Walden came up on the escalator, Liebkind Bendel pushed me toward him. I wanted to run away but I couldn’t. Instead, I stepped forward. “Dr. Walden?”

Dr. Walden put down his suitcases, removed the pipe from between his blackish teeth and set it, still lighted, in his pocket.
“Ja.”

“Dr. Walden,” I said, in English, “I am a friend of Miss Eleanor Seligman-Braude. There was an accident. Her plane crashed.” I spoke hurriedly. I felt a dryness in my throat and palate.

I expected a scene, but he just looked at me from under his bushy brows. He cupped his ear and answered me in German. “Would you mind repeating that? I cannot understand your American English.”

“A misfortune has happened—a great misfortune.” Liebkind Bendel began to speak in Yiddish. “Your friend was flying from California and her plane fell down. It fell right into the sea. All passengers were killed—sixty persons.”

“When? How?”

“Yesterday—seventy innocent people—mostly mothers of children.” Liebkind Bendel spoke with a Galician accent and singsong. “I was her near friend and so was this young man. We had heard that you were arriving. We wanted to telegraph you, but it was already too late, so we came to greet you. It’s a great honor for us, but it’s heartbreaking to have to bring such terrible tidings.” Liebkind Bendel waved his arms; he shook and screamed into Dr. Walden’s ear as though he were deaf.

Dr. Walden took off his hat and placed it on top of his luggage. He was bald in the front but at the back of his head he had a shock of graying blond hair. He took out a soiled handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his forehead. I had the feeling that he still did not understand. He seemed to be considering. His face sagged; he looked dusty, crumpled, unshaved. Clumps of hair protruded from his ears and nostrils. He smelled of medicine. After a while he said in German, “I expected her here in New York. Why did she go to California?”

“For business. Fraulein Seligman-Braude was a business lady. It concerned a big sum—millions—and here in America they say, ‘Business before and later pleasure.’ She was hurrying back to meet you. But it wasn’t destined to be.” Liebkind Bendel delivered this in one breath and his voice became shrill. “She told me everything. She worshipped you, Dr. Walden, but man proposes and God imposes, as they say. Eighty healthy people—young women and tiny babies—in the primes of their lives—”

“May I ask you who you are?” Dr. Walden said.

“A friend, a friend. This young man is a Yiddish writer.” Liebkind Bendel pointed at me. “He writes in Yiddish papers and all the rest of it—
feuilletons
and what have you. Everything in the mother language so that plain people should enjoy. We have many
landsleit
here in New York, and English is a dried-up tongue for them. They want the juiciness from the old country.”

“Ja.”

“Dr. Walden, we have rented a hotel room for you,” Liebkind Bendel said. “My sympathy to you! Really, this is tragic. What was her name?—Fraulein Braude-Seligson was a wonderful woman. Gentle, with nice manners. Beautiful also. She knew Hebrew and ten other languages. Suddenly something breaks in a motor, a screw gets loose, and all this culture is finished. That is what man is—a straw, a speck of dust, a soap bubble.”

I was grateful to Dr. Walden for his dignified behavior. He did not weep, he did not cry out. He raised his brows and his watery eyes, full of red veins, stared at us with astonishment and suspicion. He asked, “Where can I find the men’s room? The trip has made me sick.”

“Right there, right there!” Liebkind Bendel shouted. “There is no lack of toilets in America. Come with us, Dr. Walden—we just passed the washroom.”

Liebkind Bendel lifted one valise, I the other, and we led Dr. Walden to the men’s room. He looked questioningly at us and at his luggage. Then he entered the washroom and remained there for quite a long time.

I said, “He behaved like a fine man.”

“The worst is over. I was afraid that he might faint. I am not going to forsake him. Let him stay in New York as long as he wants. Perhaps he will write for
Das Wort
after all. I would make him the main editor and all of that. Friedel is tired of it. The writers ask for royalties and send angry letters. If they find a misprint or a single line is missing, your life is in danger. I will give him thirty dollars a week and let him sit and scribble. We could publish the magazine half in German, half in Yiddish. You two together could be the editors. Friedel would be satisfied to be the editorial—how do you call it?—superintendent.”

“You told me yourself that Dr. Walden hates Yiddish.”

“Today he hates it, tomorrow he will love it. For a few pennies and a compliment you can buy all these intellectuals.”

“You shouldn’t have told him that I am a Yiddish writer.”

“There are a lot of things I shouldn’t have done. In the first place I shouldn’t have been born, in the second place I shouldn’t have married Friedel, in the third place I never should have begun this funny comedy, in the fourth place … Since I haven’t mentioned your name, he will never find you. It’s all because of my admiration for great men. I always loved writers. If a man had something printed in a newspaper or a magazine, he was God. I read the
Neue Freie Presse
as if it were the Bible. Every month I received
Haolam,
and there Dr. Walden published his articles. I ran to lectures like a madman. That is how I met Friedel. Here is our Dr. Walden.”