Schuster stood by the table doing his work, his head bent and one shoulder jutting up. Whenever I tried to look at him, his wife started her talk and prevented me. “This sickness isn’t like the other diseases, which spoil the blood vessels,” the woman said, “but there’s a certain evil spirit in the world that attacks a person who has gone far away from where he was born; it comes and sits at the entrance to his heart, and there’s no remedy but smoking. It’s done this way: they bring herbs from that person’s town, of the kind that grow near the house he was born in, and put them in a pipe — it makes no difference where the pipe was made — and he smokes it, and the smoke dulls the brain of the evil spirit and eases the breathing.” She, too, had been greatly relieved. But the relief was not sufficient until she herself found out the secret. “And of course, my friend, knowledge of the disease is half the remedy.” In fact she was already half healed, for at the beginning she used to cough, cough, cough three or four at a time, and now only three, and sometimes even two. “And you, my friend,” she said, suddenly changing the subject, “were in the Land of Israel and came back here. I’ll tell you why you came back: because you felt a longing to eat the fruit of the trees in our town. Wait, my friend, wait till summer, when the trees are covered with fruit, and you stretch out your hand and pick, today a bunch of cherries and tomorrow an apple or a pear. That pleasure, my friend, no one fully enjoys except in the town where he was born. And just then you hear the singing of a bird that was also born in the same tree, in that same tree where you are eating the fruit. And the girls in the field answer the song of the bird. Now, my friend, the cold days are coming and all the world is cold. But never mind that — if only the Jewish exile would last no longer than the winter! — the summer will soon be back again to its nest.”
The Almighty distributes His cold according to a man’s clothes. Once I had covered myself with my overcoat, the whole world was filled with cold. The overcoat was handsome and warm, and very well made. I was surprised they didn’t call me the Man with the Coat. That was a fitting name for me, and I was fitting for it, for I was the only man in the town with this fine, warm coat. I hold myself straight and have no fear of the cold. If there is any question of fear, it is the cold that is afraid of me. If only you could see how it humbles itself before me, how hard it tries to warm itself in my coat. But I pretend I do not notice it, and the cold shrinks into itself, as if it were nothing at all.
The overcoat has somewhat changed the character of this man. When a poor man comes up to me, I do not put my hand in my pocket as before to take out a copper; I find it troublesome to pull up the skirts of my coat and put in my hand to take out my purse. Since it is troublesome, I turn my eyes away from the poor man, and I feel angry at the poor, born to make trouble for people. Since the day I first saw Ignatz, I have been in the habit of giving to him generously. But now, when he stands before me and cries “Mues,” I hide both my eyes from him, and at that moment the Almighty has only the two eyes of this invalid and the hole in place of his nose, where a grenade splinter pierced him.
But here let me leave the matter of the overcoat for a moment, and justify myself for not acting properly toward Ignatz. Now he is like an innocent lamb, but in the days of the war he was like a ravenous wolf. Decent people told me that he used to go from place to place, with friends as empty and nasty as himself, breaking into houses, robbing and plundering, and leaving people with nothing.
Let me come back to the matter of the overcoat. There is another thing about this new overcoat: I feel as if I were wearing a mirror, and when I go out into the marketplace this mirror blinds people’s eyes.
I have compared my overcoat to a mirror, and indeed it is like that, for by means of it I can see the people of the town. The whole town is dressed in rags, and through the rags I can see their wearers. So long as a man is dressed in whole garments he is not completely seen, but when his clothes are torn you can immediately see him as he is. It is the way of a garment to deceive, for it covers the body. It is only a man’s holes that reveal him. And it is not only his body they reveal, but his soul also. The flesh that peeps out through the holes sometimes looks like a poor man’s hand asking for charity, and sometimes like the hand of a poor man who has despaired of charity. And it is not only the owners of the rags I see; I see myself too, whether my heart is good and whether I have compassion for the poor.
There are some holes that do not reveal a man’s flesh but only another torn garment, which is in no better shape than the torn garment over it. It is whole in one place and torn in another. Poverty does not fly like a pistol bullet, which scorches the garment right down to the flesh; it twists and turns like a tangle of thorns, winding its way into one place and leaving another alone.
Why do people not repair their clothes? Surely they could use the time it takes them to cover their holes with their hands to pick up a needle and thread and a patch to sew up the holes. But since their hands are occupied in covering their holes they are not free to repair their clothes.
Chapter fourteen. Rachel
It is hard to make out my host’s character. He sees Dolik and Lolik and Babtchi doing whatever they like and he says nothing, but when he sees his younger daughter going about like a mute lamb, he is angry. Whenever she comes into the room, he immediately puffs at his pipe as if his anger were blowing through him. Is she worse than her brothers and sisters? I am not telling tales or revealing secrets if I say they have no spark of Jewishness in them.
Babtchi, the innkeeper’s eldest child, has her hair cut like a boy’s, wears a leather jacket, and is never without a cigarette in her mouth. She behaves like the young men, and not like the best but like the worst of them. She was the girl I saw smoking on the eve of the Day of Atonement. Lolik is fat and heavy, his jowls slack and ruddy, hanging down to his chin. His shoulders are thin and round, and his chest bulges upward toward the Napoleonic forelock that hangs over his forehead and shades his eyes, which smile like a country girl’s. When you see Babtchi and Lolik, you wonder whether this one is the brother of the other or the other is the sister of this one. Perhaps I have exaggerated slightly, but in the main I have not. Their brother Dolik is no better. He is a mocker and a rude fellow. If he jested at those who are well off I would say he benefits from it and they lose nothing. But he mocks at wretches, who are insulted all their lives, like Hanoch and his wife, and his horse. Hanoch and his wife do not mind, but the horse turns his head aside whenever he sees Dolik and droops his tail dejectedly. There is that pauper in the town, left over from the Austrian armies, Ignatz, who was struck by the judgment of God and had his nose blown off in the war. Once he came to the hotel to beg for charity. Dolik poured him out a glass of brandy. The poor man put out his hand to take it, but Dolik said, “No, no — only if you drink it with your nose.” And he has no nose, for it was struck by a grenade splinter, which left him nothing there but a hole. I said to Dolik, “How can a man born of a Jewish woman be so cruel to his brother? He too was created in the image of God. And if for our many transgressions his image is defaced, does he deserve to have you jest at him?” Dolik laughed and said, “If you like the look of him, send him to the kvutzot as a model to the girls, so that they should bear children as handsome as he is.” At that moment I felt like doing to Dolik what they had done to Ignatz, but I said to myself: One man’s wound is enough for us. Now that I have told you something of the way they behave, is it not surprising that my host leaves them alone and quarrels only with Rachel?