Two Tales: Betrothed & Edo and Enam (3 page)

Perhaps this story about Rechnitz reading Homer, with all that followed in its wake, is little more than a legend. But after all it would seem to be less unlikely than other explanations of how he began his career. In any case, when he had finished his studies he left for the Land of Israel; a prize received from the university and a gift bestowed on him by Herr Gotthold Ehrlich defrayed his expenses.

III

This Herr Ehrlich who assisted Jacob Rechnitz on his journey, and who had previously helped him to enter high school, was a wealthy merchant and the honorary consul of a small country which does not take up much space on the map. The garden of his villa adjoined the house of Rechnitz’s father, and when Jacob was small he used to play with Shoshanah, the Consul’s only daughter. She was a capricious child, who took a special fancy to the boy and would not allow any of the other little girls to join in their games. “Jacob is all mine,” she used to say, “and when I’m grown up I am going to marry him.” To confirm this, she cut off one of her curls, as well as one of his, and mingled them together. She burned them and they ate the ashes and took a solemn vow to be faithful to each other.

Jacob was treated kindly by Shoshanah’s parents. She was an only child, so that whoever won her affections won theirs as well; besides which, the boy’s own intelligence and good manners made him a favorite. Frau Gertrude Ehrlich, a lady whose health was delicate, took to him especially. She would give him presents that suited the occasion and so did not cause embarrassment; as for the Consul, he helped Jacob’s father to meet the cost of his son’s schooling, Rechnitz’s income not being enough to educate the boy according to his talents. With the Consul’s aid Jacob entered high school, and later on, the university.

In his first school year, Jacob spent a good deal of time with Shoshanah. On summer days they made flower chains for one another, which they fitted out with butterflies’ wings. In winter they went sliding on the ice-covered pond in the garden. Jacob helped Shoshanah with her lessons, and she taught him to walk on tiptoe and similar accomplishments. In the second year they grew rather more distant.

This was chiefly because Jacob’s father had sold his house to satisfy his creditors and rented an apartment in another neighborhood. All that year Jacob was much occupied with his studies, while Shoshanah turned to the more usual pursuits of the daughters of the rich, to music and painting and outdoor sport. Even so, they were not truly separated, for the Consul’s wife would invite Jacob to lunch on the first Sunday of every month, as well as on Shoshanah’s birthday. This continued until Frau Ehrlich fell sick, and the house was closed to guests, and Shoshanah was sent to a boarding school for girls in another city.

After that, the Consul would invite Jacob twice a year to visit his office. The walls were covered with silk hangings, to which were attached two large portraits, one of his wife and the other of his daughter. Frau Ehrlich wore a long dress whose hem swirled all around the base of the picture. The color of the dress was sky blue, and it fell to the frame fold on fold, so that she seemed to move in a mist. On her head was a small bonnet made up like a kerchief, whose laces lay along the back of her neck. Shoshanah’s dress, however, reached only to her knees and her legs seemed to tremble lightly. When the sun lit up the picture she appeared to be on the point of running. Besides these pictures on the wall, two more stood on the table, again of mother and daughter, and before them was set a moist rose in a glass of clear water. The Consul was a man of tidy habits; before receiving visitors he would clear away all papers and ledgers not needed for the occasion, so that it seemed to Jacob, on entering, that the office was built solely in order to house the pictures, with the Consul like an old attendant seated constantly on guard. This impression was confirmed when, after Jacob had sat down, the Consul stood up from his chair and added water to the glass. The boy was always reluctant to raise his eyes above the level of his host’s head, as if he had no right to look at the portraits. All the same, they imprinted themselves on his mind, and took on a life of their own: sometimes, he saw Frau Ehrlich vanishing into the mists, and Shoshanah running on and on with a wet rose in her mouth. As for the Consul, he would greet Jacob kindly, remark how he had grown, and address him as if he were another adult.

In winter he would take Jacob to a coffee house where the tableware was of silver and the seats were soft. As soon as the waiter saw the Consul enter, he brought him his coffee, for the Consul was known there and everyone could anticipate his requests. “What shall we order for our young friend?” asked the Consul, beaming at Jacob; he would then call for cocoa with whipped cream and a tray of cakes. They would sit together until dark, and when they parted the Consul would bid him convey greetings to his father and mother.

In summer he took him riding in a jaunting-car with rubber wheels. They drove out of the city for an hour or so till they reached Katharinenhof, which was fenced round with thick hedges whose fresh green shoots were beginning to darken. They entered a great park with circular flower beds and a statue of the Emperor. Somewhere about there were cows and cattle sheds, but you could neither see them nor smell them; behind the park was a view of mountain peaks, with the odor of pine trees drifting down, and the whole park seemed on holiday. They would sit down with the new-mown grass like mats at their feet and drink the excellent coffee for which this place was famous. The cream stood on it like a dollop of snow just ready to melt; and with the coffee there were little cakes to eat, made with cheese and poppy seeds and raisins; or else there was rye bread whose very smell made you hungry, and whose taste made you strong. They served it with fresh, creamy butter glistening with drops of water. Afterwards, the Consul lit a cigar and talked to Jacob about his studies; then, when the cigar was smoked, he lit a fresh one, rose from the table and said “Let’s go,” in a tone implying that enough time had been spent on pleasure, and now business called. Jacob got up hurriedly, watched the proprietor help the Consul on with his coat and blushed with embarrassment as the man came over to assist him too. He looked down at the ground, asking after the health of Frau Ehrlich. The Consul removed the cigar from his lips and was silent for a moment; then he said, “I wish I could tell you that she is well.” Since he could not quite say that, yet did not wish to leave Jacob sad, he added, “Shoshanah, though, as I see from her letters, does very well.” And Jacob, duly inclining his head, replied, “Please convey my best wishes to the gentle Fräulein.” – “I shall do that,” Shoshanah’s father replied, in a tone suggesting that this was a task not lightly performed, but one which he would see carried out.

IV

In time Jacob left high school for the university. His father’s financial affairs had improved, and he himself could now earn his keep by tutoring. He no longer needed the Consul’s aid, but his affection for the older man still kept the twice-yearly meeting a fixture. When they parted the Consul would take out his pocket book, note down the next date and time, and remark, ‘So, in another six months! However, you must telephone my office beforehand.” Lest that should sound like a veiled intention to put Jacob off, he would pause, add the months up, and conclude, “Well, in another half-year!”

Once, when Rechnitz telephoned on the prearranged day, he was told that the Consul was engaged and would not be available. Instead, he was asked to call a day or two later. Next day, when he was teaching one of his pupils, the boy’s father asked Jacob to repeat the name of the consul he had once mentioned in conversation, and then showed Jacob a newspaper, pointing to an obituary notice. “Tomorrow,” he added, “you will be going to the funeral of the Consul’s wife.”

All that night Jacob Rechnitz lay awake. Days that had gone now stood before him, days in and out of the Consul’s house, when the Consul’s wife had shown him so much kindness, in her ways and in her words. Jacob’s mother, too, had loved him as a mother should love her son, and he had returned her love in a son’s normal way; but his affection for Frau Gertrude Ehrlich was something apart. It was a love that could be accounted for by no natural cause, though there was reason for it, no doubt, as there is reason for all things; yet the reason was forgotten, the cause was lost and only the effect remained. He had known, indeed, that Frau Ehrlich was an invalid, and this had troubled and saddened him; but never had he been so grieved as on that night, in his awareness of her death. Shoshanah was now orphaned of her mother. That Shoshanah’s mother was dead, that she herself was an orphan, did not evoke in him any feeling of pity; it was rather like a new motion of the soul, when the soul attaches itself at once to one who is absent and another who is present, and is taken up into both as one.

Before daybreak Jacob Rechnitz had risen and made his way to the cemetery. In the press of his nighttime thoughts Jacob was sure that he had missed the funeral, though if he hurried he might yet arrive in time to see the last of the actual burial. The cemetery gates were open and he could hear the sound of digging among the graves. He ran forward between the trees and the tombstones in the direction of the sound. Two men were at work, standing up to their waists in the earth; a third was pacing out the length of the grave. When the diggers noticed Rechnitz, they looked up. “Do you want to see if it fits you?” they asked, indicating with their spades that he was free to step into the grave. Rechnitz did not understand them and did not move. The man pacing out the grave asked him what he had come for. Rechnitz looked at him in amazement: how could he ask such a question! When at last he realized that Frau Ehrlich’s body still lay in the house, it was almost as if he had heard good news. Though she was dead, she was at least above ground.

Before the entrance to the Ehrlichs’ villa men and women stood in silence. There are times and places when the tongue is tied even in company. Jacob’s mother stroked his cheek and wiped away a tear; his father pressed his foot into the ground as though testing for a foundation. Suddenly the gates opened and men in black mourning clothes brought out the bier, laying it in a black hearse to which four black horses were harnessed. The scent of flowers floated across from the wreaths on and about the bier. The sound of muffled weeping mingled with the scent; an old servant had covered her mouth with a handkerchief so as not to be heard. While the hearse was being made ready for the journey, Shoshanah and her father came out. Shoshanah wore black, with a black veil over her face, her arm in her father’s arm. Both walked as if set apart from this world. Involuntarily, Jacob took a step forward that she might see him, but then as quickly stepped back. Along that funeral way Shoshanah did not once raise her eyes from her mother’s bier. And since the bereaved had requested in newspaper notices that there should be no condolence visits, Jacob sent a letter of condolence instead.

V

As we have said, Jacob Rechnitz set out for the Land of Israel, financed in part by the prize he had won from the university, in part by the Consul’s aid; for when his course was completed and his doctorate granted, Ehrlich invited him to dine out in celebration, and presented him with a sum of money which saved him from the immediate necessity of seeking a post. The gift was made to seem not a matter of financial aid but rather a token of affection and esteem. It was in keeping with all that the Consul had done for him, and touched him so deeply that a refusal was out of the question. Rechnitz put the two sums together, and joined a party traveling to the Land of Israel; there he found work as a schoolteacher, and settled in Jaffa.

He did not forget his benefactor. Twice a year, at the Jewish and the Christian New Year, Rechnitz sent greetings to the Consul. And when his first article was published, he sent him a reprint. But he never wrote to Shoshanah, for the things that had bound them in childhood no longer counted, now that they were grown.

In brief, Jacob Rechnitz was now teaching at his Jaffa school, shaping the minds of many pupils and playing his part in meetings of teachers and parents. For there were already a few schools which encouraged parents to join in their deliberations, while the teachers in turn were given a chance to have their say in communal affairs. Indeed, when it came to public meetings and discussions, there was not a man in Jaffa who neglected his duty. And yet Rechnitz found time to keep up his special study of marine vegetation, and occasionally to write an article on the subject. There is a time for all, and a season for every desire. All the more so in the days before the Great War, and all the more so in the Land of Israel; for then the days were many times longer than ours, and a man was able to do much more, with hours left over in which to take stock of his world. Ordinary people were tolerably contented, and since they were not obliged to give too much thought to themselves, they had time to spare for other matters.

Rechnitz would frequent the homes of the town intelligentsia, where he was given a warm welcome. If there was a pleasing daughter, that was good; if there were two, better still. There were in fact girls of breath-taking beauty who did not belong to such homes. These, who had come to the country by themselves, without their parents, had set their caps at poets and writers, whereas the daughters of the middle class preferred teachers and scholars, who could make a living by their occupations.

Jacob Rechnitz, as a teacher and scholar, thus came to be acquainted mainly with girls of this type; girls who, like most true daughters of Israel, were graced with good looks and comely bearing and winning ways. Jacob never spoke to them about his work. But he would tell them about other lands and seas, about strange peoples and tribes, their customs and habits, their poetry and myths. So it came to pass that if you heard a girl in Jaffa speaking of Greece and Rome, of Sappho and Medea, you could be sure that she had learned all this from Jacob Rechnitz. Until his arrival, no Jaffa girl had ever heard things of this sort, even though the town was full of men with university degrees who had learned of such matters in their time; for their minds had let it all slip, just as their minds had turned away from what they had studied before that in the yeshivas. But Rechnitz had gained his knowledge in childhood, when the things of the imagination and the works of nature go hand in hand, so that even with the passing of time and the growth of the mind they do not come into conflict. Furthermore, Jacob Rechnitz was a native of Austria, where one is less conscious of the Exile and where one’s thoughts are drawn to happier things; and it is the way of these happier thoughts that they give pleasure not only to oneself but to others.