The Glatstein Chronicles (21 page)

My grandfather had a fine travel routine. En route, he would untie his kerchief and take his refreshment—a hard-boiled egg, a hunk of bread, a purple plum, and a golden pear that dripped juice down his beard, all the while conducting a conversation with me: Why in the world was he dragging along a rascal like me to meet the Chofetz Chaim, the great rabbi he was planning to see, and why had he wasted a half-ruble to buy me a sacred book, when I never looked into it? But Grandfather was by no means angry. This was merely pleasant chitchat, because “a person has to let off a little steam” before dropping off to sleep. The train wobbled and Grandfather likewise, until he began to snore into his beard. As the train chugged along, I would drink in the passing fields, the forests, and rivers. When night fell, the passengers stretched out on all the benches, even under them. The silence was broken only by the conductor, with his smoking lantern, calling out, “Have your tickets ready.”

Sprawled on one of the benches lay an impressive-looking young man with black whiskers, patent-leather boots, and a cap with a shiny visor, his nose pressed against the dark window, humming a sad, heartrending tune. Heads rose from all sides, feet wrapped in rags stirred, and people shouted, “Quiet!” But when they saw the sort of person they were dealing with, the passengers turned over, sighing and groaning, as if to say: “Oy, dear Father in Heaven! Some fine specimens You’ve filled Your earth with! But we had better keep our thoughts to ourselves.”

The young man, who looked like a pimp, sang with his nose pressed against the window:

A few taps on the train window were followed by Feygele’s reply, in a high, thin, plaintive voice:

Clickety-clack, clickety-clack … The wheels of the train vibrated on the rails in the rhythm of the refrain, “A whore I shall always remain.” The young man continued with his song, tapping his fingers against the window each time he paused between the man’s importuning and the woman’s replies. He sang his ditty all through its many verses, to the very end, to Feygele’s final plaint: “A whore I shall always remain.” (A Feygele of this description was soon to appear among us in Lublin, circling the town clock, with her shawl drawn over her head, jingling her keys.)

As the train approached the city, the lights on the bridge over the Vistula River seemed not to be moored on metal supports, but rippling in the water. More green and red lights … and then we were in the Warsaw station. Now Grandfather and I began to drag ourselves through the dark streets until we came to a gate, where we rang a rusty bell and waited to hear the clatter of the porter’s wooden shoes over the cobblestones, and his cursing that continued until Grandfather proffered a coin. Grandfather then led me by the hand across a long courtyard and up a set of stairs, and knocked on a door. My aunt appeared, kissed me with a sour-smelling mouth, as if she had just risen from sleep, and rolled me into bed, covering me with a heavy quilt. I could scarcely fall asleep, filled as I was with the excitement of the train ride and of finding myself in a strange city, far from home.

In the morning, I began to orient myself to the wonders of the big city. The first marvel was the water closet in the hallway, a space with peeling walls and a drain that gurgled but did little else. Then there was the large courtyard, with its four or five separate entrances. It reeked of tar, lime, urine, a malodorous white disinfectant, and sewage. My aunt’s kitchen boasted a gas stove that emitted a smell so nauseating that it felt as if one were being choked by poisonous green fumes, or vapors from the kerosene rubbed into braids as a remedy for nits. There must have been a leak in the gas pipe, but no one thought to fix it.

My uncle, a dealer in oxen, knew that he had to bring home some tripe from the slaughterhouse because about fifty years ago in a local dispute a rabbi had declared tripe not to be kosher—a prohibition that remained in effect in Lublin while elsewhere it was permissible to eat tripe to one’s heart’s content. And even though I had no taste for those tough chunks of meat that were as hard to chew as fried goose skin and that curled up like pages in an old prayer book, nevertheless I devoured them with relish, intrigued by the notion that simply by getting on a train and traveling a few miles, I was able to indulge in a food that was taboo in one place and permissible in another. In my honor as guest, my uncle also brought home pieces of udder, a delicacy calling for special preparation in an earthen pot that was destroyed immediately after the cooking, because udder is a sort of mixture of both milk and meat, rendering the utensil unfit for further use. My mother under no circumstance would let herself be lured into the adventure of cooking udder, but my uncle wanted to show me Warsaw and all its wonders. I ate the udder, too, with particular interest, because I wanted to experience a forbidden drop of milk in meat.

My aunt actually lived not in Warsaw but in the suburb of Praga. The lantern outside bore the house number 12, stenciled in tin. The huge building, containing perhaps a hundred families, was managed by a Jewish lawyer who lived in the building, a man with waxed, pointed mustaches in the Polish style, who also had a side business writing petitions. He wore a greenish-black frock coat, was tall and thin, and sought to give the impression of being an aristocrat who had fallen on hard times. In the manager’s house everybody spoke Russian and Polish. The eldest son gave English lessons. He had spent several years in America and returned home threatening either to commit suicide or to convert. The second son, because of restrictions on the number of Jewish students allowed to attend Polish schools, to his misfortune ended up in the Krinski Business School. He roamed about in his school uniform, complaining that he had to attend a Jewish-run school, where, in addition to everything else, he was made to study Bible and Hebrew. The mother of the family waddled around like an infirm member of the nobility. The manager liked his drop of whiskey and when he was drunk, took to taunting his wife with the information that while she, the old battle-ax, darkened his days at home, the famous cabaret singer Kevetska was helping him pull on his socks in her dressing room. This frequently led to pitched battles, the sons siding with their mother and physically attacking their father, who was agile and could give as good as he got.

Outside the house, the young commercial student was the very picture of refinement, walking with measured steps, doffing his hat and bowing, as if he were descended from generations of Polish nobility. The hands that had just pummeled the father now made graceful, studied gestures. Their owner lectured me on manners, warning me never to speak with my hands. The primary function of manners was to mesmerize one’s public, because the born aristocrat aims to be a leader, and a person without manners cannot aspire to authority. He confided that it had taken him a full year of practicing before a mirror to perfect the smile he offered in greeting, which must never be too intimate or effusive, not even when encountering one’s closest friends. To show that one was well disposed, a smile should reveal only a glimpse of the teeth—of which this young man had a fine set, with tiny gold fillings, the ultimate in dental artistry of the day. He taught me the tricks of hat-doffing for all occasions: greeting an acquaintance (hat turned toward or away from oneself, depending on whether one wanted to stop and chat or effect a quick dismissal), greeting a girl, an old woman, a friend, an elderly gentleman, a person of indeterminate station, as well as how to avoid a greeting, because deliberate disregard was also part of good manners.

When I told him that I had taken a correspondence course in hypnotism, that I owned a crystal for use in hypnosis, that I had put my brother into a trance in which he could barely pull apart his hands, the student became my devoted friend. We took long walks down St. Petersburg Boulevard, across Walenska Road, and in the small park by the bridge, not far from the tracks, where a toylike little trolley chugged along, taking on real passengers. As we walked, we talked about hypnotism, mesmerism, and the occult. We crossed the bridge from Praga into Warsaw proper, into the packed Jewish neighborhoods filled with pickpockets, secondhand stores, old-clothes sellers, food vendors, and peddlers, where the streets stank of dry leather from all the tanneries. We continued all the way to Nalewki Street and Simon’s Arcade, location of my friend’s place of learning, the Krinski school. We stopped in at Friedman’s for their special mustard-covered sausages—hot, fatty, salty, juicy—that popped in your mouth.

In addition to these walks, I also had social obligations imposed on me by my grandfather, who, wanting to show me off, dragged me to visit his rich Warsaw relatives, leather merchants, men with huge haunches and long beards, married to wives with goiters, pudgy hands and feet, wide hips, thickly rouged cheeks, many chins, and heavy earrings that pulled at their ears—a distant branch of the family, belonging to that special class of Jews, wealthy-Hasidic, with polished boots. The men of this class would engage in important commerce, while the women developed rich-lady ailments and went off to spas, seeking cures. My grandfather even arranged a visit to a relative who was a traveling salesman, a tall, clean-shaven, well-turned-out man, who wore a derby and was the repository of so many vulgar traveling-salesman jokes that he had to share some of the latest, hot off the griddle, with me. His house sparkled, his clothes were in the latest style, his children sweet smelling, his wife tidy. Yet, the family name was Schmutz—in Yiddish, “filth.” A brass plate proclaiming “I. Schmutz” was attached to the door, unmindful of its irony.

My grandfather and I scoured the stalls in the market until we found Shloymele the Busybody, who sat there conducting his trade. Shloymele knew about all the doings of our family in Lublin. In his squeaky voice he had a ready disparagement for everyone after whom he inquired: “How’s that prick of a teacher? How’s the thief? He’s not in jail yet? How’s that intellectual?”—all said with a pious look and a saccharine tone.

Warsaw nights … the distinctive nocturne of the clang of the trolleys, with their cheap wooden benches and their worn plush seats, separate sections to accommodate the segregation of the populace, five kopeks for the plebeians, seven for the aristocrats … the wooden omnibuses rattling over the cobblestones, that seemed about to break apart, like barrels … tall, lit street lamps, like slender trees heavily laden with fruit … the walk there and back on Walenska Road … flirting in the courtyard with the high-school daughter of the neighboring Tyomkin family, slim and freckled, with spindly legs and thin, strong hands, a not too pretty face but with a dear mouth that offered delightful kisses in the dark, who squirmed out of my embrace and still had the audacity to wish me, in Polish, “A peaceful night.”

The train ride back to Lublin … street lamps floating in the distance … long dark stretches of night, a far-off whistle … the rising sun tinting the windows rosy-red … the sun high above a meager field, a village sun that called to mind dairy foods, sour milk, noodles with cottage cheese and cinnamon … a cow lazily raising its head toward the rushing train, contemplating a moo and then thinking better of it … shuddering rails under wheels that clacked out the rhythm, “I’ve turned down my bed … a whore I shall always remain” … the Tyomkin daughter’s warm hands … a peaceful night … I sat up with a start. It seemed that the train had passed over a ditch, lurched momentarily, and then quickly righted itself. Apparently, I had dozed off and was just beginning a dream whose full action had not yet begun to unfold, and all I had managed to dream were the unraveled possibilities.

Then, that other train journey, the first leg of my emigration to America … I kissed my little sister goodbye, and took off for the station. It was just before midnight. Everything looked like a soot-blackened lamp. Everyone seemed to be nodding off, on the verge of falling asleep. The station was filled with my friends, family, young men and women. I was waiting for a certain someone. It was already a year since we had spoken, and though I couldn’t break through my stubbornness to bid her farewell, I nonetheless had hoped she might come to see me off. Her appearance would have meant something, exactly what, I wasn’t sure. I kept searching for her in the dark, but it was getting late, and becoming very clear that she wouldn’t be showing up.

My father pretended indifference and cracked a joke. His lip trembled, to the point of twisting his mouth. My mother wrung her hands. The stationmaster, in a red cap, came out to meet the approaching train. I was soon aboard, my bags smelling of my mother’s pastries—rugelach, egg cookies, and strudel. “Goodbye, goodbye!” sleepy voices called in the dark. “Goodbye … goodbye … ” The calls grew fainter, like fading farewells to departing troops, until they could be heard no longer, as the train, gathering speed, began to huff and puff, like bellows blowing on a flame.

At Sosnowicz I got off and took a public carriage to the house of the smuggler who would be arranging the next stage of my journey. “Hello, young man!” he greeted me. “What’s your name?” He took out a letter and compared its contents with what I told him. Everything was in order. I lay down to sleep on a hard bench, and only after daylight broke could I make out my surroundings, a large room set up with old wooden benches and plank tables. A young girl of about fifteen or sixteen entered, her bare feet in loose slippers that kept flapping against the floor. As she walked, she plaited a braid and, when done, threw it back over her shoulder. She was pale, with large black eyes, and her half-uncovered arms, bare feet, and bit of revealed neck were enough to arouse my desire. “You’re the American?” she said. “My father’s davening and will be in right away.” She handed me a battered copper dipper and pointed to the water barrel, indicating where I could perform the ritual washing of hands. She brought me hot water and milk and several buttered rolls. Each time she drew near, I sensed the aroma of a warm bed, or kneaded dough redolent of sweet-sour yeast. “You’re really to be envied,” she sighed, tears forming in her eyes. “You’ll do well in America.”