My Name Is Asher Lev (23 page)

“At twenty-five, you had been through two pogroms,” the woman said to him.

He looked at her. “The eye inside a man is not improved by pogroms.”

“You underestimate yourself, Jacob.”

“No,” he said. “I know about eyes. I have lived and worked with some of the best eyes of our century. You have seen the drawings of his street. That is an eye drawing, Anna. Hands alone do not draw that way.”

“First you frighten him too much. Now you praise him too much. You are an impossible man, Jacob Kahn.”

“No,” he said. “It is not Jacob Kahn who is impossible.” He turned abruptly to me. “Listen, Asher Lev. I cannot teach you too much more about how to see. I will teach you some tricks. Then you will throw the tricks away and invent your own. I will teach you composition. I will teach you how to create tension. I will teach you how to handle rage in color and line. You draw with too much love. No man can love as much as you and survive as an artist. You will become sentimental. And sentimentalism is death to art. Do you understand what I am saying? No, of course not. How can you understand that? You are thirteen years old. I must remember that you are only thirteen years old.”

“Jacob,” the woman said. “I must go.”

“Wait. I want you to hear what I have to say.”

“I will miss my flight.”

“You will not miss your flight. It is not yet four o’clock.
Listen to what I say to the boy. He will be as much yours as mine.” He turned to me. “Asher Lev, I will give you five years of my time. If at the end of those five years you are not ready for Anna, we are finished and it will all have been a waste. If, however, you are ready for Anna, I will make suggestions as to how we are to proceed. I want you to understand something. It is not in my nature to begin a relationship with a lie. I am not doing this as a favor to the Rebbe. I have respect for the Rebbe, but I have passion for my art. The Rebbe asked me to guide you and to keep you from evil ways. Those were his words. I do not know what evil is when it comes to art. I only know what is good art and what is bad art. Those were my words to the Rebbe. The Rebbe trusts me and will rely on my honest heart. Those were the Rebbe’s answering words to my remarks. I will not teach you on the basis of that trust. Artists should not be trusted. If an artist is not deceitful every so often in the cause of his art, then he is a poor artist. Those were my remarks to the Rebbe. Still, he trusts me. So be it. He trusts me. But it is of no real consequence to me whether the Rebbe does or does not trust me. I am taking you on not as a favor to the Rebbe but because you have greatness. I am selfish. All artists are selfish and self-centered. I am taking you on because I will derive pleasure in molding your greatness, just as I derive pleasure in molding clay and marble. For five years, I will sculpt you and bring out of you what is already inside you. I will work with your faults and flaws and genius, as Michelangelo worked with the flaws and power of the marble that became his
David.
Are you listening to me, Asher Lev? Do you hear me, Anna? I am seventy-two years old. I do not have five years to give to anything that is less than a marble for a
David.
” He looked at the woman. “Do you have anything you wish to say, Anna?”

“Yes,” the woman said. “I have a plane to catch to London.”

“Go catch your plane. Give Oskar my good wishes. Tell him
I will be in London in June for his retrospective. Tell him prune juice is good for old age if used in moderation.”

“You are an impossible old man,” the woman said. “Do not let him frighten you, Asher Lev. I have a stake in you. Your art will one day make you famous and me and you rich.”

“You are already rich,” Jacob Kahn said.

“It can never hurt to become richer.”

“Go catch your plane. There are men here with work to do.”

“I wish you luck, Asher Lev. Everything else you already have.” She offered me her hand. I took it without hesitation. “Goodbye, Asher Lev.” Her grip was warm and firm.

Jacob Kahn took her to the door. They talked quietly for a moment. Then he opened the door for her and walked with her along the hallway to the elevator. They continued talking quietly. The elevator came and she stepped inside. Then she was gone and Jacob Kahn was back in the studio. He closed the door softly behind him and stood there, his hands jammed into his dungaree pockets, looking at me.

“She is a great woman,” he said quietly. “She found me in Paris when I was starving. You are fortunate. I do not think you will ever starve.” He moved away from the door and came slowly toward me. “You have a gift, Asher Lev. You have a responsibility.” He stopped in front of me. “Do you know what that responsibility is?”

I did not say anything.

“Tell me what you think that responsibility is,” he said.

I was quiet. I did not know what to say.

“Do you feel you are responsible to anyone? To anything?”

“To my people,” I said hesitantly.

“What people?”

“To Jews.”

“To Jews,” he echoed. “Why do you think you are responsible to Jews?”

“All Jews are responsible one for the other,” I said, quoting the statement from the Talmud my father had years ago quoted to me.

“As an artist you are responsible to Jews?” He seemed angry. “Listen to me, Asher Lev. As an artist you are responsible to no one and to nothing, except to yourself and to the truth as you see it. Do you understand? An artist is responsible to his art. Anything else is propaganda. Anything else is what the Communists in Russia call art. I will teach you responsibility to art. Let your Ladover Hasidim teach you responsibility to Jews. Do you understand? Yes. I think you understand. You did not do what you did to your family without understanding that. It is not weakness to feel guilty at having done it. But the guilt should not interfere with your art. Use the guilt to make better art. Now come with me to this canvas. I am going to teach you that painting is not storytelling. If you want to tell stories, become either an illustrator or a writer. If you want to be a painter, you will learn to use line and color and shape and texture to create paintings, not stories. Now look at this canvas and tell me what you see.”

We spent the rest of the afternoon talking about line and color and shape and texture. Then he watched me make a pen- and-ink drawing of a little boy and a girl walking hand in hand along my street. Then I watched him make a pen-and-ink drawing of a row of low houses around a small cobblestone square. One of the houses was very dilapidated. Narrow winding streets led away from the square. There were trees and benches in the square and old dark metal lampposts.

“This is my street,” he said. “It is called Place Émile-Goudeau. When I lived in this old building here, the street used to be called Rue Ravignan. It may still be called that today. I have not been back in a very long time. Do you see this old building? We called it the Bateau Lavoir. Max Jacob named it.
You have never heard of Max Jacob? He was a poet. He was a Jew who became a Catholic out of conviction. But the Nazis killed him anyway. Picasso lived here. God, how poor we were. And how hard we worked. We changed the eyes of the world. This is my street, Asher Lev. The street where I was born does not exist. It is a park now in Kiev. But this street is where I was truly born.” He was silent a long time, his shoulders bowed as he sat over the drawing. “The things we talked about,” he murmured. “Who will ever know of the things we talked about?” He was silent again. Then he raised his head and looked at me, his eyes very narrow. “I wondered a long time who would ever know of the things we talked about.” He was silent once again. He resumed drawing. He drew a room with a window facing a sloping hill and rooftops. He drew a short man painting strange faces and figures onto a huge canvas. He drew a tall man painting square and rectangular objects onto a small canvas. He drew himself carving sharp wedges into a block of stone. He seemed lost in his drawing. I sat and watched him work. His huge hand grasped the pen and gave life to the lines that flowed from it. I saw his street alive, saw its shops, its cafés, its poverty, its bitter winters, its artists. I do not remember how many drawings of that street he made that day. But before he was done I felt the street as part of my own parkway, its trees and benches and lampposts part of what I saw each day as I gazed through the window of my living room onto the world I wanted to create anew with line and color and texture and shape.

Later, as we stood at the door, he said to me, “You will come every Sunday afternoon, yes? We will work and talk. Can you come next Sunday afternoon?”

I told him I could not come because next Sunday was two days before Passover and my father would be home. I would not want to come again until my father left, I said.

“Your father knows about us, Asher.”

I did not want to hurt my father unnecessarily, I said. I would wait until after he left.

“I understand. But I am disappointed. You will bring more drawings with you next time. And bring an oil painting. A new painting, one you will make between now and next time. Remember what we talked about. Do not paint me a story. Paint me a painting. Goodbye, Asher Lev. Have a good Pesach.”

I walked along the dim empty corridor to the elevator. The building seemed to echo faintly. A short man painting a huge canvas and, nearby, a tall man painting a small canvas. I heard the whine of the elevator. Bateau Lavoir. Laundry Boat; like the laundry boats on the Seine. It was built on the side of a hill and you came in on the street floor, as you would onto the deck of a ship, and went down its dark corridors and stairways to the rooms below. Named by Max Jacob, a Jew who became a Catholic and died as a Jew. The elevator door opened. I stepped inside. The door closed. I felt the elevator start down.

“You been there a long time,” the old man with the rheumy eyes said.

I barely heard him.

“Four hours,” he said in his hoarse voice.

I looked at my watch. It was almost six o’clock.

“You studying to be a painter?”

I nodded.

He looked at me closely and shook his head. The elevator stopped. He opened the door.

“Sign out in the book there,” he said, and shuffled off toward a room near the end of the elevator corridor.

I put “5:52” in the out column next to my name. I noticed the signature directly above mine: Anna Schaeffer. I stared at it for a moment. Then I put on my hat and coat and came out of the building. The door closed shut behind me.

A cold wind blew through the street. I stood alongside the
metal-and-glass door of the building and prayed the afternoon service. Then I took the subway home. I was back a few minutes before seven.

The apartment was dark. On the kitchen table I found a note from my mother. My supper was on a plate in the refrigerator. My mother was at an emergency meeting with the Rebbe’s staff. She did not know when she would be back.

I ate supper alone in the silent apartment. Then I went to the living room and looked out the window at the street. “This is my street,” I heard Jacob Kahn say. “This street is where I was truly born.” I stood at the window and stared out at the trees and lampposts and rushing cars. I saw rushing cars and small shops and outdoor cafés and old lampposts. I saw cobblestones and the cement of our sidewalk. I saw the wide parkway and the benches. I saw people walking beneath the bare trees. I saw my mother walking beneath the bare trees. She was walking very quickly. Coming toward the house, she looked up and saw me in the window and made a gesture of greeting. I was at the door to the apartment when she came out of the elevator. I helped her take off her coat. She was pale. I followed her into the kitchen. She put the kettle on the stove.

“How was your day with Jacob Kahn?” she asked.

“Very good. Mama?”

“Will you be able to learn a lot from him?”

“Yes. Mama, is anything wrong?”

“Yes,” she said. “Your father will not be home for Pesach.”

I stared at her.

“No one knows where your father is,” she said.

“Papa isn’t in Europe?”

“No one knows.”

“The Rebbe knows.”

“The Rebbe told me to have faith in the Ribbono Shel Olom.”

“The Rebbe doesn’t know where Papa is?”

“The Rebbe didn’t tell me whether he does or doesn’t know. He only told me to have faith in the Ribbono Shel Olom.”

“Papa’s in Russia,” I said.

My mother said nothing.

“He’s in Russia,” I said, feeling cold with horror.

My mother did not respond. Her face was sallow. Her hands trembled faintly as she poured boiling water from the kettle into a cup.

“Do you have homework?”

“Yes.”

“Go do your homework, Asher. I have to prepare for my classes tomorrow.”

“When will Papa be home?”

“No one knows.”

“He won’t be home until Rosh Hashonoh?”

“No one knows.”

“Mama—”

“Go and do your homework, Asher. Please. Please.”

I left her sitting at the table over her cup of coffee. I could not do my homework. I lay in my bed and thought of my father in Russia. I saw him at secret meetings of Ladover Hasidim, conveying the Rebbe’s words of hope and faith. “The Rebbe remembers you,” I kept hearing him say. “The Rebbe blesses you. The Rebbe asks you not to forget the Master of the Universe. The Rebbe has you always in his mind and heart.” I saw him journeying through small mud-caked towns and large stone-and-steel cities, meeting two Hasidim here, ten Hasidim there, teaching, praying, urging that faith not be abandoned despite the dark and awesome power of the sitra achra. I saw him establishing yeshivos in basements and cellars. I saw him watched by the thousand eyes of secret police. I saw him arrested and beaten and sent to—

I slept and had horror-filled dreams. The next morning, my mother looked as if she had not slept at all.

We heard nothing more about my father the rest of that week. Everyone in school seemed to know he was missing, though no one said anything openly to me. Teachers left me alone. Classmates became kind. The mashpia called me into his office and talked to me about the need to have faith in the Ribbono Shel Olom. Mrs. Rackover moved about the apartment in gentle silence. My Uncle Yitzchok invited us to his Seder and my mother accepted. Yudel Krinsky sighed repeatedly as he filled a small box with the tubes of oil colors I had bought, then told me he was adding three brushes at no cost—a Pesach gift, he said in his hoarse voice. He seemed deeply sad and fearful.