This is how that man’s troubles started. On the day he went off to war his wife went out to the fields to survey her property. She saw that the crops were standing ripe and scorching in the sun, for there was no one to take up the sickle and reap. She was still waiting there when they came and told her that her two sons had fallen in battle. In her grief she pulled off her kerchief and threw it on the ground. So the sun beat down on her head and touched her mind.
There is nothing new or out of the ordinary in this story, and I tell it only to show how welcome I am to the people of the hotel, which has such poor guests.
Krolka laid the table and brought in supper. I must say to my hostess’ credit that the meal was tasty as usual; but to my own discredit I admit that I did not touch it, much to her distress. I noticed that distress and said, “There is one kind of food that I should like, namely olives.” “Olives!” said the innkeeper’s wife. “But they are salty and bitter.” I nodded my head and said, “Yes, salty and bitter.” “Look,” said Rachel, “you say ‘salty and bitter’ and you look as if you were eating something sweet.” “When I was in Hungary,” said the mistress of the house, “I was served with olives. I thought they were plums, so I took a handful and ate them. What shall I tell you? They twisted my lips and I wanted to spit out my tongue — they were so salty and bitter.” “In your mouth they are salty and bitter,” I replied, “but to me they are sweet. Until I left the Land of Israel I never sat down to a meal without olives. Any meal without olives was not called a meal.” Said Babtchi, “Every man to his taste. If anyone served me figs, I’d eat them.” Said Dolik, “I like one of our pears and apples better than all the figs and dates and carobs and all the other kinds of fruit the Zionists boast about.” “Figs are tasty and fragrant,” said I to Babtchi, “but they cannot compare with olives. Now let us hear what Mistress Rachel has to say.” Rachel blushed. “I have never eaten olives,” said she, “but I can imagine they’re fine food.” “What makes you think they’re fine food?” asked Babtchi. “Look, she is blushing.” Her mother spat and said, “May all my enemies’ faces go green! What made you start on her all of a sudden?” “What did I say?” said Babtchi. “I only said she was blushing. And if her face was red, what of it? I think red is just as nice as black, for example.” “I don’t see that I was blushing,” said Rachel. “And is there any reason why I should blush?” And as she spoke she blushed still more. Babtchi laughed. “Dolik,” she cried, “did you hear? She doesn’t see she’s blushing and she doesn’t know the reason. Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps you will explain the reason.” Rachel rose, saying, “Am I blushing? I’ll go and see in the mirror.” Dolik put out his tongue at Babtchi and laughed. The innkeeper looked at his son and daughter, pushed his thumb angrily into the bowl of his pipe, and asked, “Where is Lolik?” “Lolik? He’s gone to his lady.” Said I to myself: You did well that night to let Rachel vanquish you. Now, not only does she follow what you say, but she agrees with you even about things of which she knows nothing. I was so puffed up with myself that I forgot what had happened to me with that young fellow, Yeruham Freeman.
Chapter thirteen. The Overcoat
Schuster’s house is in King’s Street behind the well, one of a few scattered houses that have survived the war. It is close to the street and a little below street level, so there is a smell of damp about the place; but at night there is just the smell of damp and by day there is a smell of dust as well. The whole house consists of one square room and is no higher than an ordinary man, for it was built long ago, when people were lowly in their own eyes and content with small houses. High on the wall, near the ceiling, to the right of the door, is a long, narrow window, through which you can see the heads of the passers-by but not their faces, though you can hear their voices and see the dust they raise with their feet. One broken shutter hangs over the window outside, and when the wind passes the shutter knocks on the window and shuts out the light. Apart from the paraphernalia of the tailor’s craft, such as a sewing machine, a long table, two irons, a mirror, and a wooden, cloth-covered dummy shaped like a woman without head or feet, on which the clothes are measured, there is not much furniture in the room. And for this reason the plush-covered chair that stands near the fireplace stands out particularly; they brought it from Berlin, where they used to live before they came back to Szibucz.
This chair has had many adventures. During the war some people grew rich and built themselves mansions, which they adorned with antique furniture, like nobles with long pedigrees. They used to go to old peasants in distant villages to buy old furniture, and pay with good money. In order to have something to sell, the peasants commissioned the craftsmen in town to make furniture of the kind that was sought after. When a rich man came to buy, the peasant would be struck with amazement and say, “Mother of God, a piece that my great-grandfather’s great-grandfather in the time of the Great Prince put aside as unfit for use, and the city folk come and want to buy it!” It seems reasonable that they would sell such things cheap, but not at all. First, because professors had already proposed putting them in a museum; and second, how can a man let out of his house a piece like this which has been standing there for four hundred years without even asking once for food or drink? When the rich people heard this they would give the peasant as much as he wanted; sometimes they gave him a new piano for a chair like this. When the plague of inflation came and the rich men lost their property, they sold their mansions to foreigners. These foreigners did not have the Gemiit of the Germans; they threw all those things out or sold them for next to nothing, so the tailor was lucky enough to buy that chair, and the newspapers made the whole of Germany ring with the story: a chair on which German princes used to sit, a Polish Jew now sat on. It was a blessed thing Schuster did not read the papers and did not know that he had helped to add to the malice of Israel’s enemies.
Whenever I come to Schuster, I find his wife sitting on the chair, with a stool at her feet and two sticks at her side, one propped against her knee and the other on the floor. She is not thin like her husband; on the contrary, she is fat and thick, for most of the time she lies on her bed behind the curtain that divides the room, or sits on this chair with a long pipe in her mouth filled with fragrant herbs, smoking to ease her breathing, for she suffers from asthma. It was because of this sickness that they left Berlin and came back to Szibucz, although they made an ample living in Berlin and here they really don’t have enough for a proper meal. And why did they move? Because the walls of the houses in Berlin reach up to the sky and block the air one breathes.
At first the tailor used to boast to me that all the nobles flocked to his door, as they were great connoisseurs and knew that he was an artist. But as soon as he started to make my coat he forgot the nobles and they forgot him, and not a man turned up to have a patch put on. And this was really a surprise: here was a skillful tailor, expert in making clothes, and he was left to sit in idleness.
Schuster stands bent over the table, arranging the cloth, pursing his lips but leaving them slightly open, as if he meant to whistle, examining the cloth again and cutting it. There is something marvelous about this cloth, which the tailor has cut. Yesterday it was formless; now he has passed the scissors over it, and cut it, and given it a form. The form is still latent, but you can guess that he is making an overcoat. He is a great craftsman, this tailor. You have one advantage over him, because you have the money, but between ourselves, does money do anything? If you put together all your banknotes could you make an overcoat with them? You have another advantage over him: he is dressed in rags, while you cover yourself with a fine, whole overcoat. But this joy the tailor feels when he produces something well made is greater even than the joy of the overcoat’s owner.