The Dogs and the Wolves (2 page)

At the town square, she stopped for a moment to admire the horses. In winter, they wore green or red blankets decorated with pom-poms, so that the snow they kicked up didn’t fly on to their backs. The square was the heart of the town – there were beautiful hotels, shops, restaurants, lights and bustle – but soon she and her father descended once more down the narrow, steep streets that sloped towards the river, had gaps in the paving stones, and were poorly lit by lanterns, until finally they stopped in front of the home of some potential client.

In a smoke-filled, half-lit room with a low ceiling, five or six men were screaming, like chickens whose throats were being slit. Their faces were all red; their veins throbbed on their foreheads. They raised their arms and pointed to the heavens or beat their chests.

‘May God strike me dead on the spot if I’m lying!’ they said.

Sometimes, they pointed to Ada. ‘I swear to God on the life of
this innocent child that the silk wasn’t torn when I bought it! Is it
my
fault, me, a poor Jew with a family to feed, if the mice got at some of it while it was in transit?’

They argued, they walked out, they slammed the doors; on the doorstep, they stopped, they came back. The buyers drank tea from large glasses in silver holders, feigning an air of indifference. The go-betweens (there were always five or six of them who showed up at the same time once they’d caught wind of a deal) accused each other of cheating, theft, fraud or worse; they looked as if they might tear each other to pieces. Then everything calmed down: a deal had been struck.

Ada’s father took her hand and they left. Once in the street, he let out a long, deep sigh that ended with a nod of his head and a mournful, heavy moan: ‘Oh, my God, my dear God!’ Sometimes he groaned because the
gescheft
, the deal, hadn’t worked out, and all his efforts, the weeks of endless discussions and schemes had been in vain; sometimes because he’d actually managed to win out over his rivals. But he had to sigh or moan no matter what happened: God was immovable and ever-present, like a spider at the centre of its web, stalking man and ready to punish anyone who seemed proud to be happy. God was always there, fervent and jealous; it was necessary to fear Him and, while simultaneously thanking Him for His goodness, also to make sure that He didn’t believe He had granted all of His creature’s wishes, so that He didn’t lose interest and continued to provide protection.

Afterwards, they visited another house, and then another. Sometimes they even went up to the wealthy homes. Ada would wait in the entrance hall, so overwhelmed by the magnificent furniture, the number of servants and the thickness of the carpets, that she dared not move. She sat dead still on the edge of a chair, staring wide-eyed and trying not to breathe; sometimes she pinched her cheeks so she wouldn’t fall asleep. Finally, they would return home on the tram, in silence, holding hands.

‘Simon Arkadievich,’ said Ada’s father, ‘I’m like the Jew who went to complain to a
zadik
, a holy man, to ask his advice about his poverty . . .’

Israel Sinner mimed the encounter between the poor man and the saint:

‘“Oh, Holy One, I am poverty stricken; I have ten children to feed, a difficult wife, a mother-in-law in perfect health, with a hearty appetite and plenty of energy . . . What shall I do? Help me!”

‘And the holy man replied: “Get twelve goats and let them live with you.”

‘“But what will I do with them? We’re already piled one on top of the other like herrings in a barrel; we all sleep on thin straw mattresses. We’re suffocating. What will I do with your goats?”

‘“Hear me, ye of little faith. Take the goats into your house and you will be glorifying God.”

‘A year later, the poor man returned: “Well, are you happier?”

‘“Happy? My life is a living Hell! I’ll kill myself if I have to keep those damned animals!”

‘“Well, now you can get rid of them and you will appreciate the happiness you didn’t realise was yours before. Without their
stench and their butting horns, your poor hovel will seem like a palace to you. Everything on this earth is relative.”

‘In the same way, Simon Arkadievich, I complained about my Fate. I had my father-in-law to lodge and my daughter to feed. It was hard to find work and they had little to eat. But it is natural for man to sweat a great deal to earn a little bread. I was wrong to complain. Now I find that my brother has died and my sister-in-law, his widow, is coming to live with me with her two children. Three more mouths to feed. Work, toil, pitiful man, poor Jew: you can rest when you are deep beneath the ground . . .’

That was how Ada learned of the existence and imminent arrival of her cousins. She tried to picture their faces. It was a game that kept her occupied for hours on end; she saw and heard nothing of what was happening around her, then seemed to wake up as if out of some dream. She heard her father say to Simon Arkadievich:

‘Someone told me about a shipment of raisins from Smyrna. Are you interested?’

‘Leave me in peace! What would I do with your raisins?’

‘Don’t get angry, don’t get angry . . . I could get you some cotton from Nijni cheap?’

‘To hell with your cotton!’

‘What would you say to a batch of ladies’ hats from Paris, just a tiny bit damaged after a railway accident? They’re still being held at the border and would cost half what they’re worth.’

‘Hmm . . . how much?’

When they were in the street, Ada asked: ‘Are my aunt and cousins going to live with us?’

‘Yes.’

They were walking down an enormous empty boulevard. As a result of ambitious planning, a number of new avenues intersected the town; they were wide enough for a squadron to march between the double row of lime trees, but only the wind rushed from one end to the other, swirling the dust around with a sharp,
joyous whistle. It was a summer’s evening, beneath a clear, red sky.

‘There’ll be a woman in the house,’ Ada’s father finally said, looking sadly at her, ‘someone to take care of you . . .’

‘I don’t want anyone to take care of me.’

He shook his head. ‘Someone to stop the servant from stealing, and I won’t have to drag you around with me all day . . .’

‘Don’t you like me coming with you?’ asked Ada, her little voice trembling.

He stroked her hair gently: ‘Of course I do, but I have to walk slowly so your legs don’t get tired, and we brokers earn our living by running. The faster we run, the quicker we get to the rich people’s homes. Other brokers earn more than me because they run faster than me: they can leave their children at home, where it’s nice and warm.’

‘With their wives . . .’ he thought. But you weren’t supposed to speak of the dead, out of a superstitious fear of attracting the attention of disease or misfortune (demons were always lying in wait), and so as not to upset the child. She had plenty of time to learn how difficult life was, how uncertain, how it was always poised to steal the things you cherished most . . . And anyway, the past was the past. If you dwelt on it, you lost the strength you needed to keep going. That was why Ada had to grow up barely ever hearing her dead mother’s name, or anything about her or her brief life. There was a faded photograph in the house of a young girl in a school uniform with long dark hair spilling down over her shoulders. Half-hidden behind the heavy curtain, the portrait seemed to watch the living with a look of reproach: ‘I was also once like you’ those eyes seemed to say. ‘Why are you afraid of me?’ But no matter how shy, how sweet she may have been, she was still frightening, she who lived in a realm where there was no food, no sleep, no fear, no angry arguments, nothing, actually, that resembled the fate of humans on this earth.

Ada’s father feared the arrival of his sister-in-law and her children, but really, the house was too neglected, too dirty, and his little girl needed a woman to look after her. As for himself, he was resigned to never being anything but a poor man, uneducated, even though he’d dreamt of better things when he’d got married . . . But his own desires, he himself, in the end, counted for little. You worked, you lived, you had hopes for your children. Weren’t they your flesh and blood? If Ada managed to have more than he had on this earth, he’d be happy. He imagined her wearing a beautiful embroidered dress with a bow in her hair, like the rich children. How could he know how to dress a child? She looked old-fashioned and sickly in her clothes; they were too big and too long. He’d bought them because the fabric was of good quality, but sometimes the colours didn’t go well together . . . He glanced over at the Tartan dress she was wearing with the little black velvet bodice that Nastasia, the cook, had made. He didn’t like his daughter’s hairstyle either, that thick fringe on her forehead that came right down to cover her eyebrows, and the uneven dark ringlets around her neck. Her poor little thin neck . . . He put his hand around the back of her neck and gently squeezed it, his heart bursting with tenderness. But since he was Jewish, it wasn’t enough to dream of his little girl with plenty to eat, well cared for, and, later on, making a good marriage. He would love to find within her some talent, some extraordinary gift. Perhaps she could one day be a musician or a famous actress? His desires were modest and limited out of necessity, since he only had a daughter. Ah, vain wishes, hopes dashed! A son! A boy! It hadn’t been God’s will, but he consoled himself with the thought that the sons of his friends, far from being the delight of their twilight years, were the affliction, the disgrace and the obvious punishment inflicted by the Lord: they were involved in politics; they were imprisoned or exiled by the government; others wandered from one place to another, far away, in foreign cities. Not that he
would object to sending Ada to study in Switzerland, Germany or France when she was older . . . But he had to work, tirelessly save money. He looked at the filthy little notebook where he made notes on the various merchandise he had to sell, and walked faster.

In the evenings they drank tea, squeezed together on the leather settee in the narrow dining room, one glass after another of strong, hot tea, with a slice of lemon in it and a sugar lump to nibble, until Ada fell asleep in her seat. The kitchen door was always left open, allowing the smoke from the stove to pour into the room. Nastasia rummaged through the dishes, stirred the wood in the stove, sometimes singing as she went, or muttering, her voice sounding tipsy. Barefoot, wearing a scarf on her head, she was fat, heavy, flabby and smelled of alcohol; she suffered from chronic toothache, and an old faded shawl framed her wide red face. Nevertheless, she was the ‘Messalina’ of the neighbourhood, and rare were the nights when there wasn’t a pair of boots belonging to one of the local soldiers standing in the kitchen, just in front of the dirty, torn curtain that screened off her bed.

Ada’s maternal grandfather lived with his son-in-law. He was a handsome elderly man, his face adorned with a white beard; he had a long thin nose and a receding hairline. His life had been strange: when he’d been a very young man, he’d escaped from the ghetto and travelled in Russia and Europe. He hadn’t been motivated by a desire for wealth, but rather a thirst for knowledge. He’d come home as poor as when he’d left, but with a
trunk full of books. His father had died and he had to support his mother and find husbands for his sisters. He had never spoken a word to anyone about his travels, his experiences or his dreams. He had taken over his father’s jewellery business: he sold moderately priced silver, along with rings and brooches decorated with gemstones from the Urals which newlyweds from the lower town liked to buy. But even though he spent his days behind a counter, when night fell, he padlocked and chained his door closed and opened the trunk of books. He would take out a wad of paper and the old quill pen that made a scratching sound and work on his book, a book that Ada would never see completed; all she would ever know was its incomprehensible title: ‘The Character and Defence of Shylock’.

The shop was on the ground floor of the Sinners’ house. After evening tea, it was her grandfather’s habit to go down into the shop, the manuscript under his arm and carrying a small pot of ink and his pen. An oil lamp burned on the table, while the stove, filled with logs, roared, spreading warmth and casting a reddish glow throughout the room. Ada, whose father had gone back to town, would leave Nastasia in the arms of her soldier, and go downstairs to sit beside her grandfather, rubbing her heavy, tired eyes. She would slide silently on to a chair next to the wall. Her grandfather would read or write. An icy draught slipped through the crack in the door and made the end of his long beard flutter. These winter nights, full of tranquil melancholy, were the sweetest moments of Ada’s life. But they were about to be lost because of the arrival of Aunt Raissa and her children.

Aunt Raissa was a thin, energetic, dry woman with a pointy nose and chin, a scathing tongue and eyes as sharp and shining as the point of a needle. She was rather vain about her slim figure, which she made look even slimmer by wearing a narrow buckled belt and the full corset popular at the time. She was a redhead; the contrast between her flamboyant hair and her thin, aging body
was strange and painful to behold. She wore her hair like the French cabaret singer Yvette Guilbert, with thousands of tiny red curls falling on to her forehead and temples. She stood up very straight, her small bosom thrust slightly back in her effort to stand tall. She had thin, tight lips, darting eyes beneath half-closed lids, and a piercing, frightening expression that missed nothing. When she was in a good mood, she had a peculiar way of puffing herself up and slightly moving her shoulders that made her look like a long, thin insect flapping its wings. Because of her slimness, her vivacity and jaunty maliciousness, she resembled a wasp.

In the days of her youth, Aunt Raissa had had many admirers – at least, that was what she implied with her little sighs. She was an ambitious creature; her husband had been the owner of a printing works, and she felt that her widowhood had forced her down into a lower social class.
She
, who had met intellectuals, she would say with a proud little scornful smile hovering about her lips, she was now no more than a poor relation! She’d been taken in out of charity. She had to live, supreme indignity, in the Jewish quarter, above a miserable shop.