Rustling newspaper.
The day, the time, the building that looks like any other.
Rustling newspaper.
If she doesn’t want anyone to hear of this, he says, she should keep the appointment.
Silence.
Child, can you give me a hand here?
Yes, Mother.
Admit it, you enjoyed it too.
What a disaster — child, where are you? My hand’s about to fall off.
Coming!
19
After the inspection of the immigrating flesh, the mind, too, is checked; man, woman, and child must answer thirty questions, and only persons giving acceptable answers will be allowed to cross over to the mainland. Madness, melancholia, anarchism — all these and others like them will be rejected. Were you ever in prison? Do you practice polygamy? In his now rumpled coat, the Austrian asks himself whether in America, as a result of this strict examination at the border, there are no longer deficiencies of any sort, no longer any cripples or incurable diseases, no madness, no insubordination, perhaps even no death?
20
So that’s how it was when you fell off the edge of the palatschinke, a grain of sugar, and disappeared. Already after her second customer she started using the money to buy something for herself, a pair of stockings, after all it was her own body she was offering up for sale. After the third, a scarf — leave the curtains open, I want to look at you — after the fourth — listen, can’t you struggle a little — and the fifth — bring your mouth here — and the sixth — you Jewish sow: four, five, and six together, a new pair of shoes. It hurt, it disgusted her, it was ludicrous, sometimes her skin felt like it was cracking open in delicate spots and burning, but bit by bit taking leave of her senses became her job. Now she knew what the men were hiding from their families, and the ones she ran into on the street wearing their uniforms, or in top hats, or work smocks — never again was she able to see them as anything other than what they all finally were: naked. What she could buy with the money she earned in this way — considering that she would never again be at one with any person in the world, not even with herself — was absurdly little. But the less a dress, a hat, or piece of jewelry stood in any sort of relationship to what she was giving of herself, the easier it became for her to sell herself the next time. Eventually her true worth, which now only she would know, would be impossible to measure. How delightful the gods find these penitent sinners; / lifting prodigal children in arms made of fire / with jubilant cries up to Heaven above. Her mother never asked where all the new things she wore came from, but even without being asked, she told her she had found the shoes for a good price here or there, already used, or that a girlfriend had given her one or the other trinket, that she found the ring in the street. Hadn’t her mother also lied to her about the death of her father throughout her childhood and youth?
21
Waiting for the results of the examination, a thousand or two thousand people sit in the gloomy light of the great hall, and new ones are constantly coming to join them. These people squat, lie on the ground, or sit on benches: people with bundles, bedding, and crates, with samovars, people without any baggage at all, children running about, crying babies, people who have lain down on the floor and gone to sleep, people with frail parents, people who understand not a word of English, people who don’t know whether the person who’s supposed to pick them up here is really coming, people who are filled with hope, with despair, people who are homesick, frightened, people who don’t know what’s in store for them, people who are wondering where they’ll find the twenty-five dollars for their immigration fee, people who suddenly want to go back, or who are just glad that the ground beneath their feet is no longer swaying, people with long or short pants, with headscarves, skirts, suits, hats, with fringe, shoes, or slippers, gloves or cuffs, with braids, beards, mustaches, curls, parted hair, people with many, few, or no children — countless people, all of whom are waiting for the moment when eventually their names will be called and they will learn whether they are allowed to stay or will be sent back to Europe. The young man, who is also one of those waiting, thinks: This is probably more or less the way it’s going to be one day at the Last Judgment.
And then, suddenly, a loud clattering and jangling fills the hall; everyone falls silent for a moment, looks over, and sees a large Chinese vase lying shattered on the ground — a girl has dropped it in one of the very few places in the hall not covered with people or clothes or bundles, but only with stone tiles, she has dropped this vase that she carried in her arms ever since her departure from a small town outside Bucharest or Warsaw, or outside Vienna or Odessa or Athens or Paris — all the long way via Bremen, Antwerp, Danzig, Marseille, Piraeus, or Barcelona: The vase has shattered into bits here in the arrival hall, the final stop before New York, for the girl has just — for the first time in her life — seen a man with dark skin, who happened to be walking across the room with a broom in his hand, and she must have thought it was the Devil. The girl’s mother now looks as if she would like best to strike her child dead, and the girl looks as though she wishes she were dead. Then the noise recommences — the crying, talking, and shouting — the children go back to running around, the adults wait, and a boy, having been given an ice cream by a relative who got permission to visit him, places the ice cream on the bench, and there it melts, because the boy doesn’t know what ice cream is.
Hey look, the inspector wrote a letter on your back in chalk — mine too?
The boy turns his back to his friend so he can see whether he too has a mark on him, one that may possibly decide if he will be permitted to stay or be sent back to Europe.
No, there’s nothing on your back.
What sort of letter is it, do you think?
Dunno.
So do I have to go back now, or do you?
No idea.
Two little girls are crouching on the floor.
I’m thirsty.
Grandmother says that when you get to Battery Park, there are a lot of fountains there.
Good, I’ll have a drink then.
No, you mustn’t drink, whatever happens.
How come?
She says that then you’ll forget everything you ever knew about where you come from.
Then I’ll forget the garden?
Yes.
And the fireplace?
Yes.
And Grandfather?
Yes.
And Grandmother?
Yes.
And the cat?
Yes.
Everything?
Yes.
How does Grandmother know?
Someone told her.
22
One evening, after one day, there is no dinner on the table; when mother and daughter try to open the door to Grandmother’s room, it isn’t possible, because her body is lying in front of it. Vos iz mit dir? Mamele, vos iz mit dir? Mamele, what’s the matter? Simon the coachman is called, and he breaks open the door with an axe, with Mother standing beside him, one hand pressed to her mouth; her daughter calls her grandmother’s name, but no one answers.