My Name Is Asher Lev (13 page)

“Why are you studying Russian history, Mama?”

“To help your father in his work.”

“Was your brother supposed to go to Europe and do what Papa will be doing?”

“No. Your Uncle Yaakov”—her lips trembled—“was going to teach Russian history in New York University. He was also going to be an adviser in the government.”

“The American government?”

“Yes, Asher.”

“Will you be an adviser in the American government, Mama?”

“No,” she said. “I will not be an adviser in the American government. I will graduate from college in June and go with you and your father to Vienna in October. Are you ready to say your Krias Shema, Asher?”

I said the Krias Shema.

A while later, I sensed them through dim and restless sleep standing by my bed, whispering. I felt a hand straighten my blanket. Then I felt fingers move across my face and forehead in a caress, my father’s fingers. Then I felt nothing, but I knew they were standing there in silence. Then they went from the room.

I saw my mythic ancestor again that night, moving in huge strides across the face of the earth, stepping over snow-filled mountains, spanning wide and fertile valleys, journeying, journeying, endlessly journeying. I saw him traverse warm villages and regions of ice and snow. I saw him peer into the windows of secret yeshivos and into the barracks of Siberian camps. “It’s colder inside than outside,” I thought I heard him say. “And what are you doing with your time, my Asher Lev?” I thought I heard him say. He said it thunderously, and I woke and lay in the darkness. Then I got out of bed and went to my desk and turned on the light. I looked at the drawings of the brother and sister. They seemed a scrawl, an absurd and childish movement of the hand, a small-minded frivolity. There were prisons of stone and wastelands of snow and night. What was a drawing in the face of the darkness of the Other Side? What was a pen and paper, what were pastels, in the face of the evil of the shell? I felt myself suddenly entombed and I snapped off the light and got back into bed. Even in the dark, I could see the different kinds of blackness in the room and the way the slit of pale light between the bottom of the window shade and the window sill played on the wall near my desk and glinted off the drawings. What do You want from me? I thought. I’m only a ten-year-old boy. Ten-year-old boys play in the streets; ten-year-old boys chase back and forth through the hallways of apartment houses; ten-year-old boys ride up and down elevators for afternoon entertainment; ten-year-old boys run after cars along New York Avenue. If You don’t want me to use the gift, why did You give it to me? Or did it come to me from the Other Side? It was horrifying to think my gift may have been given to me by the source of evil and ugliness. How can evil and ugliness make a gift of beauty? I lay in my bed and thought a long time about what was wanted from me. Then I was tired and began to drift off to sleep. I thought I would see my mythic ancestor again
and I fought to stay awake. But I felt myself moving off. It was only then that I realized I had violated the Shabbos by turning on the light to look at my drawings, and by turning it off again. Then it was a while before I was able to sleep.

During that Passover, the new Soviet government announced that the doctors arrested under the Stalin regime had been released; the announcement said that the accusations had all been lies. My father was informed by telephone that two of the Jewish doctors had been beaten to death by the police while in prison.

The announcement said that fifteen doctors had been released. I remembered having heard that nine had been arrested. I did not ask about the difference in numbers. I was tired, very tired.

On the Thursday after Passover, I went with my parents for our passports.

    I remember drawing a building burning, a large marble building set in a green glade and surrounded by gentle hills. I drew it in pastels and made the marble of the building pale blue and veined with small wandering rivulets of white. There was a golden dome with a trim of purple arabesques; there were tall arched windows, somewhat like the windows of the Ladover building. I drew flames pouring from the windows and swirling around the roof and eating into the marble. My mother asked me what it was, and I said it was the library in Alexandria, the one the Moslems had ordered burned because its books could not be as important as the Koran. Did my mother remember telling me that story? My mother remembered. Why had I drawn such a picture? I didn’t know. What did the picture mean to me? I shrugged a shoulder.

I drew a book burning. Then I drew piles of books burning. Then I drew houses burning. Then I drew the Ladover building burning. And my mother was no longer asking me what it all meant.

Sometime during those weeks, my mother took me to our family doctor. He prodded and poked and tapped. What is our Asher Lev drawing these days? Ears are fine. Chest is fine. Have you ever been in the museum? No? An afternoon in a good museum is good for the soul—he used the Hebrew word “neshomoh.” You’re skinny but healthy. Yes, I’ll send you to someone for the eyes. How is your husband? You heard about the
doctors? Give my regards to your husband. Tell him this American-born Jewish doctor thinks of him often. Goodbye, Asher. Are you using oils? No? When you use oils, be careful of flake white. It contains lead and can hurt you if it gets into your body. Advice from one artist to another. I paint on Sundays. Goodbye, Asher. Goodbye, Mrs. Lev.

A few days later, I went to an eye doctor. He took a long time. My eyes were fine. I did not need glasses. No, there was absolutely nothing the matter with my eyes. Then I went to another kind of doctor. He was a young doctor with thick glasses and a fixed smile. There were games I had to play and questions I had to answer and drawings I had to make. A few days before, I had seen a large gray cat struck by a car on Kingston Avenue. It had run off into an alleyway dragging the lower half of itself in a queer way and leaving behind drops of glistening blood. I drew that cat for the doctor. I drew the cat under the wheels of the car and I drew the cat as I imagined it later in the alleyway. He stared at those drawings a very long time, without smiling. I do not know what he told my mother, but she was very subdued all the way home from his office. My father was in Montreal that day.

The next day, the boy sitting to my right in class leaned over and whispered in Yiddish, “Asher, what are you doing?”

I heard him but could not understand what he was saying and went on working with the pen.

“Asher,” I heard him say, still in a whisper but a little louder than before. “How could you do that?”

I felt the boy sitting behind me lean forward and look over my shoulder. The one sitting at my left looked, too. There were gasps and murmurs of surprise. Then the one sitting in front of me, a thin pimply-faced boy with an endlessly running nose and a high nasal voice, turned around, looked, and said in Yiddish in a voice that could have been heard on the other side of the parkway, “You defiled a holy book! Asher Lev, you desecrated
the Name of God! You defiled a Chumash!” He seemed horrified and looked as if he were witnessing the sudden appearance of a representative of the Other Side. He moved out of his desk and backed away from me.

The class had been studying the Book of Leviticus. The teacher, a young dark-bearded recent graduate of the Ladover yeshiva, had been explaining concepts of holiness. Now, with the sudden invasion of the nasal voice, the class was instantly silent. There was a faint stirring as bodies pivoted and heads focused upon me.

I looked at my hand. I saw the old Waterman fountain pen my father had once given me. On the way out of my room earlier that morning, I had put the pen into one of my pockets. Now I held it in my hand. I had drawn a face with it across an entire printed page of my Chumash. I had drawn the face in thick black ink. It was a bearded face, dark-eyed, dark-haired, vaguely menacing. On top of the face, I had drawn a head of dark hair covered by an ordinary dark hat.

The teacher was standing at my desk looking down at the drawing. He said quietly in Yiddish, “What did you do, Asher?”

I did not know what to say. I could not remember having drawn it.

“What would your father say if he saw this?” the teacher asked softly. He did not seem angry. He looked hurt. His voice was patient and gentle.

I felt hot and suddenly very tired. I wanted to go home and go to bed.

“I am surprised and upset,” the teacher said, “that the son of Reb Aryeh Lev should do such a thing. I do not know what to say. Please be so good as not to do it again, Asher. Drawing in a Chumash is a desecration of the Name of God.”

“Especially what he drew,” said the boy with the running nose and nasal voice.

The teacher turned to him. “Thank you,” he said softly.
“But I do not need your help. Now everybody please be so good as to look back into your Chumash and let us continue with our discussion. You, too, Asher, put down your fountain pen and look into your Chumash.”

I looked into my Chumash. I stared at the face staring back out at me from the page. I had slanted the eyes somewhat and given the lips beneath the beard a sardonic turn. The Rebbe looked evil; the Rebbe looked threatening; the Rebbe looking out at me from the Chumash seemed about to hurt me. That was the expression he would wear when he decided to hurt me. That was the expression he had worn when he had told my father to go to Vienna. I looked at the framed photograph of the Rebbe on the front wall near the blackboard. The eyes were gray and clear; the face was kind. Only the ordinary dark hat was the same in both pictures. I was frightened at the picture I had drawn. I was especially frightened that I could not remember having drawn it.

I went to Yudel Krinsky’s store later that day and found him sorting tubes of oil colors, taking them from their boxes and putting them into the compartments of the metal cabinet near the door.

“Sholom aleichem to the son of Reb Aryeh Lev,” Yudel Krinsky said cheerfully. “Put down your books and take off your coat. You can help me sort the brushes.” He looked at me closely. “How do you feel, Asher? You do not look very good.”

“How do you use these colors?” I asked.

“These? The oil colors? You want to use the oil colors?”

“How do you use them? Is there a special way they are used?”

“Oil colors is an entire Torah, Asher. I know nothing about oil colors.”

“Why is it called oil color?”

“They mix the original color with a certain oil. With
watercolor, they mix the color with water. That is all I know.”

“I put the color on a brush and I paint with it?”

“You paint with it on something like this.” He reached behind the counter and came up with a small canvas board. “This is the easy thing to paint on. Others paint on canvas they prepare themselves. But this is even beyond Torah already. That is Gemorra and Tosefos.”

“I drew on my Chumash today,” I said.

“Ah?”

“I drew the face of the Rebbe on my Chumash and I did not even know I drew it until others saw it.”

He glanced around the store, scratched his beaked nose, and sighed.

“I made the Rebbe look like a being from the Other Side.”

“Asher!” He was horrified.

“And I did not even know,” I said. “I did not even know I was drawing it.”

“You should talk to your mother and father,” Yudel Krinsky said.

“The doctors said I was all right. There was nothing the matter with me, they said. How could I do something like that if there is nothing the matter with me? How much does oil color cost?”

He told me.

“I do not have enough money. I would need at least three—no, at least five—colors, and I do not have enough money. How much will brushes cost? I will need one or two brushes.”

He told me.

“What else will I need? I will need something to clean the brushes. I will need a canvas board. How much will it cost to buy something to clean the brushes—turpentine, yes—and to buy a canvas board?”

He told me.

“I will never have enough money to paint in oil colors. How can anyone paint in oil colors if it costs so much money? I do not feel well. I think I will go home now and lie down. Did I tell you I drew the face of the Rebbe in my Chumash today? I told you. Goodbye, goodbye.”

It was a warm evening. There was a pale film of light in the sky. Soon it would be summer. And then Rosh Hashonoh and Yom Kippur. And then October. And then Vienna. So I’ll go to Vienna. I can draw in Vienna, too. I’ll draw the cafés and the strange streets. I’ll learn the language. What is so terrible about going to Vienna? I felt myself trembling. I love this street. Yes. I don’t want to go into exile. But I’ll draw another street. Streets are all the same. Oh, they’re not. They’re not the same. I don’t know enough about this street to really draw it yet; how can I draw a strange street in a foreign land full of people who hate me? Why should I even want to draw such a street?

I walked beneath the trees looking at the people of the street. The parkway was busy with traffic. People were coming out of the subway tunnels. There were green buds on the trees. The benches were empty. Cats scratched through garbage cans. Car horns blared. It seemed to be getting dark. I thought it had become dark very quickly. There were stars. I took the elevator up to our apartment.

My mother was at the door. Her small face was pale and frightened.

“Asher, do you know what time it is?”

I did not know.

“It’s after seven o’clock.” Her voice was very high. There was that strange look in her eyes. “Where have you been?”

“Walking.”

“Walking? Until after seven o’clock? Asher, what am I going to do with you? I was ready to call the police.”

“I’m very tired, Mama. I think I’ll go to sleep.”

“Don’t you want supper? Are you all right, Asher? Are you sick?”

“I’ll never have enough for the oil colors. How does anyone buy all he needs?”

She stared at me.

“I didn’t know, Mama. Is it wrong if you do something when you don’t even know you did it? How could that be wrong?”

She stared at me, open-mouthed. I could feel her looking at me as I went through the hallway to my room. It’s a nice street, I was thinking. Why do they want to take it from me?

I put on pajamas and got into bed. My mother came into the room. She was telling me I could not go to sleep without supper. She sounded frightened. I wondered why she was frightened. She hadn’t drawn the Rebbe’s face in a Chumash. Why was she frightened? She kept pleading with me to get out of bed and eat supper. I was barely listening. After a while, she looked ready to cry. She turned and started from the room. She was almost at the doorway when the phone rang. I heard her hurrying through the hall to the phone. She was talking into the phone. How can I get money to buy the oil colors and the canvas board and the brushes and the turpentine? Maybe I can sell a picture to my Uncle Yitzchok. My mother came back into the room and stood by my bed.

“The mashpia called.”

I turned my face to the wall.

“The mashpia asked you to see him in his office tomorrow morning at nine o’clock.”

There was a crack in the wall I had not seen before. I liked the way it sent out spidery fingers along the surface of the paint.

“What did you do in school today?” my mother asked.

I closed my eyes. Then I opened my eyes very slightly and
peered out through my lashes. There were spidery fingers there, too, moving in and out across my eyes. I liked seeing them that way, moving back and forth and in and out like a concealing fog across my eyes. I was slanting my eyes. Do the Rebbe’s eyes see spidery fingers in my picture?

I welcomed the fog and fell asleep.

Almost immediately, as if he had been waiting for the moment of sleep the way ancient guardian armies waited for the blast of warning trumpets, my mythic ancestor thundered through the enshrouding fog, his dark-bearded face trembling with rage. There was the roar of moving earth and the rolling sound of his anger. I could not hear what he was saying but I felt his words push against me. I woke and went to the bathroom. I thought I heard my parents talking in their room. I went back to bed and slept. I woke again in the night, feeling very hungry. How can I get money for the oil colors? I must try the oil colors. I fell back asleep and woke in the morning to the sound of rain on the window.

My father was preparing the orange juice. My mother was at the stove. They looked at me when I came into the kitchen and stopped what they were doing.

“Good morning, Asher,” my mother said very quietly.

“The mashpia called me in my office late yesterday,” my father said, without preliminaries. “Did you know what you were doing?”

“No, Papa.”

“You did it and didn’t know you were doing it?”

“Yes.”

“How can I believe you?”

“Aryeh,” my mother said softly.