Job (15 page)

“I can't go to the war, unfortunately!” sighed Mr. Glück. “I have a serious heart valve defect, the only thing I inherited from my blessed father.” Mendel observed Gluck's rosy cheeks, his small brown eyes and his coquettish downy mustache, which he wore against the fashion and with which he often played. He sat between Miriam and Vega. Once, when Mendel stood up from the table in the middle of a conversation, he thought he noticed
that Mr. Glück had his right hand in Vega's lap and his left on Miriam's thigh. Mendel went out into the street, he walked up and down outside the house and waited until the guests had gone away. “You're behaving like a Russian Jew,” said Deborah, when he returned.

“I am a Russian Jew,” replied Mendel. One day, it was a weekday in early February, while Mendel and Deborah were having lunch, Miriam entered.

“Good day, Mother!” she said, “Good day, Father!” and remained standing. Deborah put down her spoon and pushed her plate away. Mendel looked at both women. He knew that something extraordinary had happened. Miriam came on a weekday, at a time when she should have been in the store. His heart beat loudly. But he was calm. He believed he could remember this scene. It had already occurred once before. There stood Miriam in a black raincoat, and was silent. There sat Deborah, she had pushed the plate far away from her, it's almost in the middle of the table, outside it's snowing, soft, lazy and flaky. The lamp burns yellow, its light is greasy, as is its smell. It fights against the dark day, which is weak and dull, but powerful enough to paint the whole room with its pale gray. This light Mendel Singer remembers clearly. He has dreamed this scene. He also knows what's coming. Mendel already knows everything as if it had happened long ago and as if the pain had already years ago turned into grief. Mendel is completely calm.

It's silent for a few seconds. Miriam doesn't speak, as if she hoped that her father or mother would free her, through a question, from the duty to deliver the message. She stands silently. None of the three moves. Mendel stands up and says: “A misfortune has occurred!”

Miriam says: “Mac has come back. He has brought Sam's watch and his last greetings.”

Deborah sits, as if nothing had happened, calmly on the armchair. Her eyes are dry and empty, like two dark little pieces of glass. She sits opposite the window and it looks as if she were counting the snowflakes.

It's quiet, one hears the hard ticking of the clock. Suddenly Deborah begins, very slowly, with creeping fingers, to tear out her hair. She pulls one plait of hair after another over her face, which is pale and motionless, like swollen plaster. Then she tears out one strand after another, almost in the same tempo in which the snowflakes are falling outside. Already two or three white islands appear in the middle of her hair, a few coin-sized spots of naked scalp and very tiny drops of red blood. No one moves. The clock ticks, the snow falls, and Deborah gently tears out her hair.

Miriam sinks to her knees, buries her head in Deborah's lap and stops moving. In Deborah's face not a feature changes. Her two hands take turns pulling at her hair. Her hands look like pale, fleshy five-footed animals that feed on hair.

Mendel stands, his arms folded over the back of the armchair.

Deborah begins to sing. She sings with a deep, manly voice that sounds as if an invisible singer were in the room. The strange voice sings an old Jewish song without words, a black lullaby for dead children.

Miriam rises, straightens her hat, goes to the door and lets Mac in.

He is larger in uniform than in civilian clothing. In both hands, which he holds in front of him like plates, he has Sam's watch, wallet and coin purse.

These objects Mac lays slowly on the table, directly before Deborah. He watches her tearing out her hair for a while, then he goes to Mendel, lays his large hands on the old man's shoulders and weeps soundlessly. His tears stream, a heavy rain over his uniform. It's quiet, Deborah's song has ceased, the clock ticks, the evening sinks suddenly over the world, the lamp no longer glows yellow but white, behind the windowpanes the world is black, one can see no more flakes. All of a sudden a wailing sound comes out of Deborah's breast. It sounds like the rest of that melody she was singing before, a ruptured, shattered note.

Then Deborah falls from the armchair. She lies, a contorted soft mass, on the floor.

Mac flings open the door, leaves it open, it grows cold in the room.

He comes back, a doctor accompanies him, a small nimble gray-haired man.

Miriam stands opposite her father.

Mac and the doctor carry Deborah to the bed.

The doctor sits on the edge of the bed and says: “She is dead.”

Menuchim too is dead, alone, among strangers, thinks Mendel Singer.

Seven round days Mendel Singer sat on a stool next to the wardrobe and looked at the windowpane, on which a white scrap of canvas hung as a sign of mourning and in which day and night one of the two blue lamps burned. Seven round days rolled away in succession like large black slow wheels, without beginning and without end, round like grief. One after another came the neighbors: Menkes, Skovronnek, Rottenberg and Groschel, brought hard-boiled eggs and bagels for Mendel Singer, round foods, without beginning and without end, round like the seven days of mourning. Mendel spoke little with his visitors. He scarcely noticed that they came and went. Day and night his door stood open with the unlocked, pointless bolt. Whoever wanted to come came, whoever wanted to leave left. This visitor and that tried to begin a conversation. But Mendel Singer avoided it. He talked, while the others spoke of living things, with his dead wife. “You have it good, Deborah!” he said to her. “It's only a shame that you
left behind no son, I myself have to say the prayer for the dead, but I will soon die, and no one will weep for us. Like two little specks of dust we were blown away. Like two little sparks we are extinguished. I've begotten children, your womb has borne them, death has taken them. Full of need and without meaning was your life. In young years I enjoyed your flesh, in later years I spurned it. Perhaps that was our sin. Because the warmth of love was not in us, but between us the frost of habit, everything around us died, everything wasted away and was ruined. You have it good, Deborah. The Lord has taken pity on you. You're dead and buried. For me He has no pity. For I'm a dead man and live. He is the Lord, He knows what He is doing. If you can, pray for me, that I may be effaced from the book of the living.

See, Deborah, the neighbors come to me, to console me. But though they are many and they all strain their heads, they nonetheless find no consolation for my situation. Still my heart beats, still my eyes see, still my limbs move, still my feet walk. I eat and drink, pray and breathe. But my blood freezes, my hands are limp, my heart is empty. I am no longer Mendel Singer, I am the remains of Mendel Singer. America has killed us. America is a fatherland, but a deadly fatherland. What was day at home is here night. What was life at home is here death. The son who at home was named Shemariah was here named Sam. In America you are buried, Deborah, I too, Mendel Singer, will be buried in America.”

On the morning of the eighth day, when Mendel stood up from his grieving, his daughter-in-law Vega came, accompanied by Mr.
Glück. “Mr. Singer,” said Mr. Glück, “the car is waiting below. You must come with us immediately, something has happened to Miriam.” “All right,” replied Mendel indifferently, as if someone had informed him that his room had to be wallpapered. “All right, give me my coat.”

Mendel crept into the coat with weak arms and went down the stairs. Mr. Glück rushed him into the car. They drove and didn't speak a word. Mendel didn't ask what had happened to Miriam. Probably she is dead too, he thought calmly. Mac has killed her out of jealousy.

For the first time he entered the apartment of his dead son. He was pushed into a room. There lay Miriam, in a broad white bed. Her hair flowed loosely, in a sparkling blue-black, over the white pillows. Her face glowed red, and her black eyes had wide round red outlines; circled by rings of fire were Miriam's eyes. A nurse sat next to her, Mac stood in a corner, large and motionless, like a piece of furniture.

“There is Mendel Singer,” cried Miriam. She stretched out a hand toward her father and began to laugh. Her laughter lasted a few minutes. It sounded like the ringing of the high-pitched incessant signals at train stations and as if someone were striking with a thousand brass mallets against a thousand thin crystal glasses. Suddenly the laughter broke off. For a second it was silent. Then Miriam began to sob. She threw off the blanket, her naked legs writhed, her feet kicked with a swift steady rhythm on the white bed, ever swifter and steadier, while her balled fists swung in the
same rhythm through the air. The nurse held Miriam down with force. She grew calmer.

“Good day, Mendel Singer!” said Miriam. “You are my father, I can tell you. I love Mac, who is standing over there, but I've deceived him. I've slept with Mr. Glück, yes, with Mr. Glück! Glück is my Glück, Mac is my Mac. I like Mendel Singer too, and if you want –” Here the nurse held her hand over Miriam's mouth, and Miriam fell silent. Mendel Singer was still standing at the door, Mac was still standing in the corner. Both men stared intently at each other. Because they couldn't communicate with words, they spoke with their eyes. “She is mad,” said Mendel Singer's eyes to those of Mac. “She couldn't live without men, she is mad.”

Vega entered and said: “We've called the doctor. Any moment now he should be here. Since yesterday Miriam's been speaking incoherently. She went for a walk with Mac, and when they returned she began to behave in this incomprehensible way. Any moment now the doctor should be here.”

The doctor arrived. He was a German, he could communicate with Mendel. “We will bring her to the asylum,” said the doctor. “Your daughter, I'm afraid, has to go to an asylum. Wait a moment, I will anesthetize her.”

Mac was still standing in the room. “Will you hold her down?” asked the doctor. Mac held Miriam down with his large hands. The doctor pushed a syringe into her thigh. “Soon she will be calm,” he said.

The ambulance came, two carriers entered the room with a
stretcher. Miriam was asleep. They bound her to the stretcher. Mendel, Mac and Vega drove behind the ambulance.

“You didn't live to see this,” Mendel spoke to his wife Deborah as they drove. “I'm still living through it, but I've known it all along. Ever since that evening when I saw Miriam with the Cossack in the field, I've known it. The devil has entered her. Pray for us, Deborah, that he leaves her again.”

Now Mendel sat in the waiting room of the asylum, surrounded by others waiting in front of small tables, on which vases full of yellow summer flowers stood, and thin racks laden with illustrated magazines. But none of the people waiting smelled the flowers, none of them leafed through the magazines. At first Mendel believed that all the people sitting here with him were mad and he himself a lunatic like the rest. Then he saw through the broad door of shining glass, which separated the waiting room from the whitewashed corridor, people in blue-striped gowns being led past in pairs. First women, then men, and occasionally one of the patients cast a wild, pinched, deranged, evil face through the pane of the door into the waiting room. All the people waiting shivered, only Mendel remained calm. Yes, it seemed strange to him that the people waiting weren't wearing blue-striped gowns too and that he himself wasn't. He sat in a broad leather armchair, the cap of black silk rep he had put over his knee, his umbrella leaned, a faithful companion, next to the chair. Mendel glanced alternately at the people, the glass door, the magazines, the lunatics, who were still passing by outside – they were being led to the
bath – and the golden flowers in the vases. They were yellow cowslips, Mendel remembered that he had often seen them at home on the green meadows. The flowers came from his homeland. He recalled them happily. Those meadows had been there, and those flowers! Peace had been at home there, youth had been at home there, and familiar poverty. In summer the sky had been very blue, the sun very hot, the grain very yellow, the flies had glistened green and hummed warm little songs, and high below the blue sky the larks had trilled, without cease. Mendel Singer forgot, as he looked at the cowslips, that Deborah was dead, Sam fallen, Miriam mad and Jonas missing. It was as if he had only just now lost his homeland and in it Menuchim, the most faithful of all the dead, the farthest away of all the dead, the closest of all the dead. If we had stayed there – thought Mendel – nothing at all would have happened! Jonas was right, Jonas, the dumbest of my children! He loved horses, he loved schnapps, he loved girls, now he is missing! Jonas, I will never see you again, I won't be able to tell you that you were right to become a Cossack. “Why do you people always roam around in the world?” Sameshkin had said. “The devil sends you!” He was a peasant, Sameshkin, a shrewd peasant. Mendel hadn't wanted to go. Deborah, Miriam, Shemariah – they had wanted to go, to wander around in the world. They should have stayed, loved horses, drunk schnapps, slept in the meadows, let Miriam run around with Cossacks and loved Menuchim.

Have I gone mad, Mendel thought, that I'm thinking this way? Does an old Jew think such things? God has confused my
thoughts, the devil is thinking in me, as he is speaking from my daughter Miriam.

The doctor came, drew Mendel into a corner and said softly: “Brace yourself, your daughter is very ill. There are many such cases these days, the war, you understand, and the misfortune in the world, it's a bad time. The medical field doesn't yet know how to cure this illness. One of your sons is an epileptic, I hear, I'm sorry to say that something like that runs in the family. We doctors call it degenerative psychosis. It can pass. But it can also turn out to be an illness that we doctors call dementia, dementia praecox, but even the names are uncertain. It is one of the rare cases that we can't cure. But you are a pious man, Mr. Singer? God can help. Just pray diligently to the good Lord. By the way, do you want to see your daughter once more? Come with me!”