My Name Is Asher Lev (21 page)

“Yes.”

“It is in my nature to be blunt and honest. I shall ask you a question. You are entering the world of the goyim, Asher Lev. Do you know that?”

“Yes.”

“It is not only goyim. It is Christian goyim.”

“Yes.”

“You should better become a wagon driver,” he said, using the Yiddish term. “You should better become a water carrier.”

I said nothing.

“All right,” he said. “The Rebbe asked me to make it clear to you. I have made it clear to you. It is time to go home.”

We went together down the stairs and along the walk to the street.

“Tell me,” he said. “Have you been to the Parkway Museum?”

“Yes.”

“Have you seen my paintings?”

“Yes.”

He waited.

“I didn’t understand them,” I said.

I thought I heard him sigh. He had his big hands deep in the pockets of his coat. He shrugged his shoulders. The night wind blew against his lined face.

“You are only thirteen years old,” he said. “Yet it disturbs me to hear you say that. You will call me in March. Which way are you walking?”

“Toward New York Avenue.”

“I go the other way. Good night, Asher Lev.”

We shook hands. He went on up the parkway.

I walked home quickly beneath the stars and the trees.

Neither my father nor my mother appeared surprised by what I told them. My father would not look at me as I talked. He seemed to cringe in pain. My mother wavered apprehensively between my father’s pain and my dazed joy and seemed not to know what to say.

“I’m not reconciled to this, Rivkeh,” my father said with bitterness in his voice. He was talking to my mother as if I were not in the room. “I can’t reconcile myself to such a decision.”

“Aryeh,” my mother said quietly. “It’s the Rebbe’s decision.”

“Only because everyone is afraid the boy will break and go his own way. Why should everyone be afraid the boy will break away? Why? He is my son. I want to raise my son in my own way.”

My mother was silent. Her eyes were dark.

“I am not reconciled,” my father said. “I will spend my life traveling for the Rebbe, and my son will spend his life painting pictures. How can I reconcile myself to this, Rivkeh? Tell me. How? There will be trouble from this. When a son goes so far away from a father, there can only be trouble.”

“I don’t want there to be trouble between us, Papa,” I said.

He looked at me and slowly rubbed the side of his face. I had a sudden memory of the way his beard used to feel against my cheek when I had been very young. “Asher, I know you don’t want trouble. I am not accusing you, God forbid, of being an evil person. But there is something inside you I don’t understand. It will bring trouble. Look at the trouble it has already brought. I don’t know what you are. You are my own son, and I don’t know what you are. I am ashamed of my own son.”

“Aryeh,” my mother said softly. She seemed about to cry.

My father closed his eyes. He kept his eyes closed a long time. He said softly, “There are many things in this world I do not understand, Rivkeh. But this—this is the biggest mystery of all. And I can’t reconcile myself to it.”

My father carried his burden of pain all through the celebration of my bar mitzvah. People knew of the Rebbe’s decision. No one dared question it. For the Rebbe was the tzaddik and spoke as representative of the Master of the Universe. His seeing was not as the seeing of others; his acts were not as the acts of others. My father’s right to shape my life had been taken from him by the same being who gave his own life meaning—the Rebbe. At the same time, no one knew how to react to the decision, for they could see my father’s pain. I had become alien to him. In some incomprehensible manner, a cosmic error had been made. The line of inheritance had been perverted. A demonic force had thrust itself into centuries of transmitted responsibility. He could not bear its presence. And he no longer knew how to engage it in battle. So he walked in pain and shame all through the Shabbos of my bar mitzvah and all through the following day when relatives and friends sang and danced their joy. And he carried that pain and shame with him through the glass doors of the waiting room and into the aircraft that took him back to Europe in the third week of January.

    Our school day on Sunday ended at one o’clock in the afternoon. On the last Sunday in January, my mother took me by subway to the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. The following Sunday, my mother went with me again. She bought me a large reproduction of
Guernica.
I studied the reproduction during the week, then went alone to the museum the following Sunday. I went every Sunday for the rest of February and the first two weeks of March. At the end of the second week of March, I called Jacob Kahn.

    “This is Asher Lev,” I said into the telephone.

“Hello, Asher Lev.”

“It’s the middle of March,” I said.

“You saw
Guernica
?”

“Yes.”

“How many times did you see it?”

I told him.

“You studied
Guernica
?”

“Yes.”

“What else did you do?”

“I drew each section of it at least twice.”

“What else?”

“I can draw it from memory.”

“What else?”

“I studied the drawings he made before and after he painted it.”

“Come to my studio this Sunday in the afternoon.” He gave me an upper Manhattan address. “Can you come?”

“I can come at two o’clock.”

“You will stay until dinner. We do not keep kosher. I will see you Sunday.”

“Yes.”

“Asher Lev.”

“Yes.”

“You are familiar with the story about the massacre of the innocents?”

“No.”

“Then you will read about it, please, for Sunday. You will find it in the New Testament, the Book of Matthew, chapter two, verse sixteen.”

I did not say anything.

“The New Testament,” he said. “The Bible of the goyim.”

“Yes.”

“You will find it and read it.”

“Yes,” I said.

“You are familiar with the painting
Massacre of the Innocents
, by Guido Reni?”

“No.”

“You will go to the library and find a reproduction of it and study it. If you cannot find Guido Reni’s
Massacre of the Innocents
, then find Poussin’s. But study one of them at least. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“I will see you Sunday at two o’clock.”

“Yes. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Asher Lev.”

I went to the library after school the next day and read the passage in the New Testament about King Herod ordering his soldiers to kill all the children of Bethlehem who were two years old and younger, after having been told that a child had been born who would become king of the Jews. It felt strange holding and reading a copy of the Christian Bible. I could not understand what the story had to do with
Guernica.

I found a small reproduction of
Massacre of the Innocents
, by Guido Reni, in a thick volume on the history of art. I looked at it closely. I had my reproduction of
Guernica
with
me. I opened it and compared the two pictures. The faces of the women in the Reni painting intrigued me, especially that of the woman in the upper left of the picture. I found the Poussin painting in another volume and studied it carefully. After a while, I closed the books and went out of the library.

It was dark and cold. I took the subway home. My mother had a class on Thursday nights. Mrs. Rackover gave me supper. I went into my room and thought about
Guernica.
Mrs. Rackover came in to say she was leaving. I heard the apartment door close behind her.

I was alone in the apartment. I sat at my desk and looked at the reproduction of
Guernica
, which I had put on the wall near my bed. The city of Guernica had been destroyed by the German air force in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War. Picasso had painted the mural for the Spanish Pavilion of the International Exhibition in Paris that year. I knew that painting by heart and could draw it in my mind. I had dreamed about the bull and the horse. I had drawn the screaming pain-filled faces of the women in my notebooks during classes. I had put the anguished women with the dead child into the back of an English exam book, and had gotten it back with a written remark from the teacher about this being an English, not an art, examination; he gave me a D on the test. I did not understand what
Guernica
had to do with the Christian Bible; I did not understand what it had to do with the
Massacre of the Innocents.
I felt upset and uncomfortable at having read from the Christian Bible. I thought of my father. I thought of the mashpia. I wondered if the Rebbe really knew what Jacob Kahn was doing. I felt vaguely unclean.

I had some homework. I started working on it, quickly, perfunctorily. In the middle of an algebra problem, I found myself drawing from memory the head of one of the screaming women in Guido Reni’s
Massacre of the Innocents.
I looked at the head. Then I went back to the algebra problem.

I heard the apartment door open and close. My mother was home. She came into my room a moment later, carrying a book.

“There was no mail from your father?” she asked.

“No.”

“Did you have supper?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you all right? Do you have a fever?”

“No.”

She glanced at the notebook with the algebra problem and the Reni head.

“Her child was massacred,” I said.

She looked startled.

I told her about the painting. Then I told her about the account of the massacre in the Christian Bible.

“I didn’t like reading from that book. I saw where it said Jews killed Jesus. I feel guilty reading the Bible of the goyim.”

She gazed at the head in the notebook and did not respond.

“Why did he ask me to read that?”

“When you see him Sunday, ask him. Do you want something to drink before going to sleep?”

“No, Mama.”

“Have you had milk today?”

“Yes.”

“I brought you this book. You said to me once that you liked the paintings of Robert Henri. A professor in the art department gave me this for you to read.” She put the book on my desk. “Good night, Asher. Don’t stay up late.”

“You told the professor about me?”

“I said my son is interested in art and likes Robert Henri. He told me to tell you to read this book. He also told me that Jacob Kahn is one of the greatest artists alive today. He worked with Picasso in Paris before the First World War. He was a
little astonished that you’re being taught by Jacob Kahn.” She smiled wryly. “Everyone seems astonished by that. Good night, Asher. I have a meeting early in the morning with the Rebbe’s staff. Khrushchev’s speech about Stalin also has everyone astonished.”

She went from the room. A moment later, I heard her moving about in the kitchen.

I looked at the book she had put down on my desk. It was called
The Art Spirit.
I finished my homework quickly.

In bed, I leafed idly through the book, reading passages at random. I liked this man. I liked the warm and honest way he wrote. I lay in bed leafing through the book, and I read:

I was not sure I understood what the phrase “the play of forms” meant. I continued reading, skipping the passages on technique which I was determined to read later.

I read:

I read:

I read:

I read:

I read that again. Then I read:

I began to read the book from the beginning, slowly. I woke in the night and found the book in my hands and the reading light on. I turned off the light, and slept.

In the morning, my mother said, “You didn’t sleep last night.”

“It’s a good book, Mama.”

“Sit down and have your breakfast, Asher.”

“Did you read the book?”

“I looked through it quickly on the subway.”

“Did you read what he said about an artist having to free himself?”

“No. I don’t remember that.”

I told it to her. “I don’t think I want to free myself that way,” I said.

“In what way do you want to free yourself, Asher?”

“I don’t know.”

“Eat your breakfast,” she said softly, “and I’ll walk with you to school. I have the meeting to go to.”

There was no mail from my father that day. Nor was there any mail from him the next day, which was Shabbos.

My mother and I were in the living room late that Saturday night when the phone rang. I went to answer it.

“Asher Lev?” It was Jacob Kahn.

“Yes.”

“Bring all the drawings you made of
Guernica.
Bring other drawings, too. Any you want.”

“I’ll bring them.”

“You know how to travel?”

“Yes.”

“I will see you tomorrow at two o’clock.”

My mother was at her desk, reading.

“No,” she said when I told her about the phone call. “I think I ought to go with you the first time.”

“I want to go alone.”

“Asher, it’s easier to get lost on the New York subway than it is to walk from here to your yeshiva.”

But I insisted, and in the end she consented. I would go alone. I was to be back by seven o’clock. If I could not be back by seven, I was to call her.

I stayed up late that night, drawing sections of
Guernica
from memory. I spent a long time thinking about the faces of the women in the Reni and Poussin paintings and about the story of the massacre in the Christian Bible. My mother was still at her desk when I finally went to bed.

I had an algebra test the next day that I had forgotten to study for; I did not do well. I came out of the school building at one o’clock and walked quickly to the subway. It was a cold cloudy March day. I had left my books in school and carried
with me only the sketchbook filled with my
Guernica
drawings and another sketchbook filled with drawings of my street. The subway was not crowded. I watched carefully for the stations where I needed to change trains. I noticed that the farther I traveled from Brooklyn, the more frequently I was stared at. In my dark-blue winter coat and hat, and with my thin pale features and red hair and dangling earlocks, I was not exactly a typical New Yorker. At one point in the journey, during a particularly long ride between stations, I opened my
Guernica
sketchbook and began leafing through the drawings. I saw the eyes in the round face of the elderly woman sitting next to me slowly grow wide with astonishment. I closed the sketchbook and looked out the window near my seat. We were in underground darkness outside the window and I could see only my reflection. I spent the rest of the journey looking at my reflection in that dark window of the train.

I got out at the Ninety-sixth Street and Broadway stop. The wide street was crowded with people and traffic. I walked some blocks along Broadway and turned down a street toward the Hudson River. I found the address he had given me. It was an old gray brick loft building. I had to press a button outside the metal-and-glass front door. An old man with white hair and rheumy eyes opened the door.

“Yes?” he said. He had a hoarse voice.

“Jacob Kahn,” I said.

He looked at me out of the rheumy eyes, waiting.

“My name is Asher Lev,” I said.

He nodded and stepped aside to let me in. He pointed to a book on a stand near the door.

“Sign,” he said. “And sign out when you leave. Building regulations. Fifth floor for Mr. Kahn.”

He shuffled off toward the elevator. I followed. It was a slow, lumbering elevator.

“You one of them artist fellers?” he asked.

“Which?”

“They come in and out all the time.” He peered at me closely out of his wet eyes. “You don’t look like one of them,” he said. His hoarse voice had begun to remind me vaguely of Yudel Krinsky.

The elevator lurched to a halt. He pulled open the metal door.

“Mr. Kahn’s place is the last door on the right. You need the elevator when you’re through, you push this button here and I’ll come up.”

He pulled the metal door shut. The noisy whine of the elevator faded quickly. I walked down the corridor. It was dimly lighted and smelled vaguely of strong disinfectant cleanser. I stopped outside the door to Jacob Kahn’s studio and waited. I was sweating heavily, and I removed my hat and coat; I left my skullcap on. I heard voices inside. I recognized Jacob Kahn’s voice; the other was the voice of a woman. I stood there hesitating. I stood there a long time. I looked at my wrist watch; it was a little past two o’clock. I knocked softly on the door. The voices did not stop. I rang the bell. The voices ceased abruptly and I heard footsteps. The door was opened and Jacob Kahn stood there, broad-shouldered, white-haired, wearing paint-smeared dungarees and a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. A cigarette stuck out from beneath his walrus mustache. With the sleeves of his shirt rolled up, I could see the muscles of his arms; they were powerful arms, and they looked sculpted from stone.