Success Story (fiction)
Ravel, Aviva
Until recently I'd been earning a living translating the holocaust. Although Yiddish is my mother tongue and I had three or four years of afternoon Jewish school—mostly spent plaguing the teachers—I...
...Please, if you are not busy, may I talk to you...
...He held a manila envelope with the veneration of one making an offering at the Temple...
...You see, it's like I tell Monsieur Ostrowsky, the language is very important...
...He asked me to translate something...
...Yes," I said, amused by the appellation...
...The declining enrollment in English classes obliged our school to amalgamate with another in an adjacent neighborhood...
...He laughed heartily as he pocketed his sizable fare...
...Bloomberg's grocery, that repeatedly cut off my parents' credit for being delinquent in our weekly payments, was still on the other side of the street under new management...
...One man had recorded his experiences on tape...
...Ten cents a word...
...Are you Bella Solomon, the translator from the holocaust...
...a curtain over one narrow window coated with dust was fastened to the sash with thumbtacks...
...I'm an English teacher...
...She knows all the old...
...Instead of Jewish mothers calling their kids off the street in Yiddish—a chorus that could waken the dead—I heard fragments of conversations in incomprehensible Greek, Portuguese and Italian...
...I wondered how Ostrowsky survived...
...He jingled the keys and watched for my reaction...
...They never published his work...
...I was From the very first line it bore no resemblance to any account that had come into my hands...
...Even a smile costs...
...He seemed satisfied that I was no impostor...
...I pounded on the door and shouted, "Mr...
...each word represented another kind of pain, at ten cents a pang...
...What do you mean 'heavy...
...He grasped the second box between his arms, puffed and cursed its weight...
...So, what is your profession...
...In the kitchen, a battered table and chair with two of the back rods missing...
...There was an odd smell of rotting vegetables or mold...
...I was about to say as much . but he raised a policeman's traffic hand barring further speech until he had examined the card and checked my name against the one on his paper...
...It's written like a child would write it...
...You can't suffer a little nightmare when we suffered the real thing...
...Suddenly, a strange sensation swept through me...
...I told you, a madman...
...I fumbled in my briefcase for my S.I.N, card wondering why I should "go in" at all...
...He was a presser with grand illusions...
...My father, may he rest in peace, was editor of Der Keneder Adler for a time...
...You'll have to type it...
...He directed me to the magazine rack and pointed out several leading articles ("How to Start Your Own Business," "How To Cope with Depression," "Everything You Wanted to know About Landing a Job...
...The only obstacle that occasionally impeded my work was "Ying-lish...
...Everything costs nowadays...
...this job exacted a double fee...
...Mr...
...My Life in the Lodz Ghetto.' " "Ah, the holocaust...
...Scattered Yiddish words----" "death," "joy," "tomorrow is forever," "now is lost...
...When the library was down on Esplanade, he used to come in every day and read...
...I see Nazis coming out of the walls . .." "So what's wrong with that...
...And hardly legible...
...Transcribing the horrors into words made them easier to bear—at least temporarily—but the catharsis was greater when the words were rendered into the language of the gentiles...
...I nodded sympathetically...
...Barbara, I got better things to do with my time...
...Show me identification...
...One afternoon I approached Barry, an old friend who had been working for years at the Jewish Public Library...
...The taxes go up, the money is worth nothing, the liquor commission is on strike, every day there is more unemployment, so what can you do...
...So they explain and justify: a stroke of luck, a kind neighbor or stranger, eluding death by virtue of their wits and a hair's breadth...
...Excuse me, Mr...
...I had sat down already and tossed him several blatant facial hints to buzz off but he was one of those obstinate types that don't vanish with just a mere hint...
...Better to speak in French, so they come right away...
...What's important is the English should be good...
...What do you know about him...
...No family...
...What you want, eh...
...You're a sensitive person...
...And that's how I began to translate the holocaust...
...The translation wasn't merely a job, but a duty to mankind...
...If you want the precise year, I'll ask my mother...
...Ostrowsky live here...
...Don't waste your time...
...Klein hummed a vaguely familiar SUCCESS STORY AVIVA RAVEL melody...
...Luc, and telephone number...
...Yes, yes," he said impatiently, and scurried out the door muttering his good-bye and thank-you on the way...
...I don't have a typewriter machine and I don't know anybody...
...Every Nazi boot was a sword in the heart...
...He bent over, grunted, and heaved a box off the floor...
...Last week Ostrowsky says, 'If I am not home'—sometimes he goes for a walk on the mountain—'you let Miss Barbara Solomon go in...
...Solomon...
...Although there was no doubt in my mind as to the merit of the holocaust story, it would be some time before I'd be able to decipher several other pieces and evaluate them...
...But to my deep satisfaction the years had not obliterated a certain crack on the fifth sidewalk square and secret coded marks on a particular brick wall...
...Against one wall, three large cardboard cartons filled to the brim with handwritten sheets of paper...
...Never mind the money...
...My Yiddish is rusty and it's the first time...
...Settled," he said with a hard pound on the table...
...This time the manuscript was written in a neat, legible hand on uniform lined sheets, every letter scrupulously formed, all the vowel-dots, usually omitted on the printed page, painstakingly inserted...
...It seemed impossible...
...I thought of him sitting alone in that miserable flat, day after day, season after season, years—without any assurance that one day the work would reach the public...
...Trois jours...
...Maybe afterwards I will publish it in an English paper so the whole world should also know...
...No openings now, Barbara, but if I hear of something...
...Yeah, the holocaust...
...When I read about that period, I identify and have terrible nightmares...
...Because of Quebec's controversial language law—Bill 101—I lost my job as Grade Six teacher in an English elementary school...
...He opened and shut his hands rapidly as though he were pumping the blood through his veins...
...This man's diary was important, I thought...
...How do you do...
...Stubborn like the people that speak it and foolishly continue to write in it...
...After he had carried down the third box, I asked if I might use his telephone to summon a taxi...
...Heart attack...
...For years he had come in contact with every literate person in the community...
...He don't have much...
...He can't write and he doesn't have a nickel...
...But whom could I ask...
...I labored almost continuously for three days and nights, hardly pausing to eat, drink or sleep...
...An intriguing cover Montreal playwright and short story writer A viva Ravel has won numerous awards for her writing, most recently for her play, "The Dispossessed...
...He is a philosophe...
...I try my best...
...He pumped my hand heartily...
...Although Yiddish is my mother tongue and I had three or four years of afternoon Jewish school—mostly spent plaguing the teachers—I had not read or spoken the language in years...
...I slipped the translated narrative in an envelope with a SASE and sent it to Atlantic...
...The waitress brought a double scoop of icecream smothered in hot chocolate sauce but it seemed sacrilegious to tackle the dessert now...
...A madman...
...He smiled with the slight deferential bow of a new immigrant applying to the bank manager for a loan...
...Went like that...
...Yes...
...Not nice a girl should be so skinny...
...Sometimes people say they are from the Hydro and they turn out to be crooks...
...A lense of his silver-rimmed spectacles was cracked...
...A three-year-old with glassy eyes sat on the sidewalk and solemnly sucked his thumb...
...Moreover, I was faced with a moral dilemma...
...This is how I earn my living...
...I tell him many times...
...He extended a delicate hand, all vein and bone, then followed me into the living room, treading lightly, and sat tentatively at the edge of an armchair...
...I might even make the Guiness Book of Records for unusual occupations, I thought...
...Finally, a burly heavy-jowled French-Canadian in an undershirt, baggy pants, Molson in hand, materialized at the foot of the stairs...
...Anything else...
...They would be glad to give his extraordinary work due consideration...
...If you want something else, take it...
...Me and Ostrowsky are good friends, we talk every day for twenty year...
...It is a crazy world...
...I beautified and refined the words, reconstructed sentences and paragraphs...
...Now I only translate Ostrowsky...
...And you'll be a rich man...
...It came soon enough...
...I had nothing better to do...
...Miss Solomon, you want something more from the house...
...Didn't he tell his landlord that I, Barbara Solomon, was to inherit the boxes...
...Any time at all...
...But if Ostrowsky were flesh and blood, it would be useful to learn something about him before our meeting...
...Nothing ventured, nothing gained...
...That's him...
...You don't understand something...
...My English speech acquired an even stronger Yiddish inflection than it had before and I found myself interspersing Yiddishisms when I spoke to unsuspecting gentiles...
...Take a few more days if you need it...
...As though a wider reading public sharing the pain, lessened it, and simultaneously served as a "j'accuse" as well...
...To make a good impression on the children...
...I am requesting you should translate this Yiddish article into nice Canadian English...
...They carried their memories with a mixture of pride and guilt: proud to have endured and survived, yet with uneasy consciences, searching for a rationale to have been among the chosen few...
...Translating is an art...
...To remedy the ailment, every morning before setting down to work, I read some Jane Austen or Thomas Hardy...
...Yes, there might be a decent living wage in a translating career...
...Perhaps Mr...
...Last night I started translating one of the novels...
...it was fiction...
...As we headed for the Brown Derby, Mr...
...Ostrowsky was dead—it was the end of a relationship that had hardly got off the ground...
...Lived next door to my parents on Marie-Anne...
...You need a dictionary...
...In his lifetime, Ostrowsky was rejected and mocked by his own community...
...NikolopoulOs also commanded a big black ledger where every bread and tea bag was meticulously recorded in long rows...
...which might interest or amuse me if I had nothing better to do...
...The going rate is a dollar a page...
...Ostrowsky was an educated man and in order to do justice to his material, the translator must be totally familiar with it...
...Barbara Solomon, correct...
...From the very first line it bore no resemblance to any account that had come into my hands...
...Nobody can read that Yiddish...
...When the writer's emotions prevented him from depicting the event clearly and succintly, I clarified the text, inserting the absent noun or verb, often deleting an episode that had been described earlier...
...The writing was straightforward, in unembellished narrative style...
...You mean he didn't come here after the war...
...Two weeks later I received an acceptance from Atlantic with notice of a forthcoming fat check and a special request...
...My heart pounded with excitement...
...His clothes were worn, and hung loosely from his shoulders as though they belonged to another person and another era...
...others had been typed years before, the creases on the folded yellowing sheets brittle with age...
...She wants them to know what she lived through...
...Do not disturb yourself, mademoiselle...
...Klein...
...Terror leaped from the pages and made the blood run cold...
...at times my English and Yiddish construction blurred into one cockeyed linguistic catastrophe...
...the Apex Wholesale Dry Goods on St...
...A flower...
...For the first time I felt there was a purpose to my existence...
...He also thrived on gossip—he knew everything about everybody and what he didn't know he made it his business to find out...
...Me and the old man are friends...
...He took the stairs one at a time...
...Ostrowsky's writing was too good to be the work of an ordinary mortal...
...Although it was fraught with pain, there was no self-pity, but an overwhelming affirmation of life...
...Moishe Chaim Ostrowsky...
...When...
...Klein...
...it recalled the sonorous and resonant quality of Lome Greene...
...a matted bathrobe hung in the closet, on the floor several piles of old hard-covered books...
...Me and him have lots of good conversation...
...If only he had hung on a little longer, he'd have enjoyed some satisfaction...
...a small overturned crate which served as a night-table, an old pair of slippers...
...Under the window facing the lane, a sturdy office desk and lamp in good condition...
...Not sure exactly...
...Yet, for all that, a wave of optimism surfaced from the lines...
...The handwriting seemed hastily scrawled gibberish...
...My old friend, Barry, of course...
...I exerted every effort to camouflage my enthusiasm...
...Yes, but I never work from longhand...
...No sooner do I translate a story (I don't bother with the SASE anymore) when it's accepted by the most prestigious literary publications in America...
...And at the moment I was the only person in the world who knew it...
...No...
...Yes, but how...
...The atmosphere was shattering...
...A man lives his life and everything finishes in the Salvation Army...
...he gallantly placed himself on the outer side of the pavement, maneuvered me protectively across the road and made small talk about the mild spring weather and uncivilized drivers...
...At first I did dream about Nazis, but I called it a hazard of the trade...
...Prison, Liberty, and Delusion respectively...
...The three rooms were dark, dingy and practically void of furnishings...
...My clients were pleased and the cheques came in regularly...
...He took a small sheet of paper out of his pocket, unfolded it and read at arm's length...
...I easily located Ostrowsky's number, climbed the warped wooden stairs and rang the bell...
...Phone me and I'll explain...
...Say, why do you want to know...
...But this is neither published nor typed...
...His voice, however, astounded me...
...I read the first paragraph...
...Perhaps if you'd rewrite it clearly, without joining the letters...
...His dog-brown eyes gleamed with undisguised satisfaction...
...he was unknown in Poland, the land of his birth, and in Canada where he made his home for over 50 years...
...I unplugged the lamp and took it...
...The pause was brief...
...As they say, one man's poison is another man's summer vacation...
...First you eat," he had said, "then we talk business...
...He called it his "duty as an archivist...
...The landlord pointed a thick finger...
...You are married...
...I dialed the JPL number...
...I myself go with him to the hospital...
...Tomorrow I call the Salvation Army...
...I let it go and waited for him to proceed...
...I will carry the boxes downstairs...
...You are my last hope...
...I recognized the return address on Marie-Anne—the old neighborhood where I grew up...
...Sometimes to his face...
...Show her the boxes...
...The former self-asserting manner had completely dissipated...
...Since the library moved out of the old neighborhood, haven't seen hide nor hair of him...
...maybe that funny little man didn't exist at all...
...I don't know how long I sat like a statue, my hand frozen to the receiver, maybe a few moments, maybe an hour, until the truth which had first hit me like a ten-ton Mack finally penetrated...
...There isn't much to know...
...I intend to to make him famous, with no small side benefits to myself...
...When we reached Queen Mary, I offered the driver another $3 to carry the boxes into my apartment...
...Lawrence had been crossed out and replaced by D. Klein, an address in Cote St...
...He rose from the chair...
...That goes back many years...
...And unabashedly I thanked God aloud for favoring me: I hadn't thanked Him for anything since I received a second-hand bicycle on my thirteenth birthday...
...I slipped the manuscript into my briefcase and boarded the bus...
...There was only one way to unearth the truth—pay him a visit...
...A stream of motorcyclists in black gleaming jackets, goggles and helmets zoomed by whipping up a trail of dust...
...I shall sell the film rights only to the producer who promises in writing not to alter a single word or thought...
...I cash it for him, take the rent and give him the rest...
...You see from the title...
...Poulin and I bid each other farewell...
...It is only ten pages...
...Au fond, I think he is a little mad...
...I made a few swift mental calculations...
...By now the readers in the library were shushing us so he retrieved his newspaper and declared with the assurance that doesn't take no for an answer...
...So get yourself a typist...
...There was no answer...
...Where others had evoked pity, Ostrowsky's narrative elicited pain...
...I made no reply...
...And to think none of this would have happened if not for Bill 101...
...Sure...
...He wrote my name slowly and laboriously on the back of the envelope...
...I was surprised to see his lips curve in a smile...
...Each word is written in blood...
...They were all the same: each one's story was "important...
...Ostrowsky hadn't written a diary...
...Although the account was fraught with pain, there was no self-pity, but an overwhelming affirmation of life...
...I'm not an anglais millionaire...
...I'll buy you a meal too...
...Ostrowsky trusted me with his life's work and I must make good that trust...
...It will cost...
...I assumed a pose of "I'll do you a big favor and take the junk off your hands...
...Perhaps he hadn't always been so frail, timid, vulnerable...
...Miss Solomon, I have a proposition to make you...
...Miss Solomon, you will translate this for me...
...Still no reply...
...I had no secretarial skills, the business world repelled me and I flunked an audition with the CBC as radio announcer—the voice was mellow but the intonation unacceptable...
...Hello, it's me, Barbara...
...Please try, Miss Solomon," he said in a bare whisper...
...Cockroaches roamed over the rusted sink...
...Besides, my unemployment insurance was running out, the rent was due, my mother was plaguing me to move back home so she could supervise my eating, sleeping and cultural schedules, and I yearned for two weeks at the Tamarack Hotel where, they say, eligible single males abound...
...He withdrew a large grey handkerchief, mopped his face and breathed with effort...
...Walked over to a shelf with his eyes closed and picked a book at random—anything from raising geese in Peru to Maimonedes' Guide to the Perplexed...
...To leave it to them for a legacy...
...So, I was the lawful heir and had a witness to prove it...
...But the skills you acquire in early childhood remain a dormant legacy, so Yiddish apparently remained with me...
...What you have in them...
...Like those horrible things were happening to me...
...True, I submitted the work as Ostrowsky's—I made it clear I was only the translator—was I then entitled to the entire fee...
...I gasped, leaned weakly against the railing and looked at him incredulously...
...He never married, no relatives, a loner...
...Some of them are crazy...
...I listened to him stomp down the stairs...
...When he spoke again the tone was soft but urgent...
...Ostrowsky, are you home...
...Are you acquainted with a Moishe Chaim Ostrowsky...
...I examined a page and tried...
...Then and there I lay my other work aside and set about translating Ostrowsky...
...I don't consider myself an artist...
...I withdrew about a dozen odd-sized sheets of paper and stared at them incredulously...
...A parting gift from a mother to her children...
...50 minutes later I was at the corner of Marie-Anne and St...
...Can you afford it...
...I'm not a translator, Mr...
...I was accustomed to preambles: every translating request was generally accompanied by a philosophical dissertation...
...May the Ostrowsky spirit guide me on the path of artistic integrity...
...I waited for him to speak...
...I located hundreds of short stories...
...I really appreciate...
...Yeah, who are you...
...After some painful hours under the newly-acquired desk-lamp, I began to unravel bits and pieces of Ostrowsky's writings...
...The Dead Sea Scrolls...
...Curiously, I began to read the diary...
...I could be fairly certain their English was the untainted genuine article...
...And thank you very much...
...determined to get each word right...
...I'm as dedicated to his work as he, the original author, was...
...Yes," I said, raising my voice, "and would you please . . ." "What is your profession...
...Oh, but he knew how to tell a story...
...If you blew on him, I thought, he'd fall over...
...He transmitted a friendly wave at the door and disappeared among the Van Home shoppers...
...What if some relative showed up, a relative who had called him mad, like Barry and Mr...
...it's approximately 900 pages and should keep me occupied for many months...
...The account encompassed the whole range of human emotions—from darkest passion to paradisiac selflessness...
...I hadn't eaten all day and if this grandpa wanted to buy me a meal, what did I have to lose...
...I have to rent the flat...
...He never spoke about nobody...
...Probably in the late twenties...
...Yes, that's fine...
...The translation will cost you about $250...
...Poulin raised and dropped his shoulders...
...Lawrence...
...No matter...
...I thought so, I thought so...
...My wife is not in such a hurry to die...
...The expression in his eyes changed from anticipation to despair...
...Soon enough, the horrifying incidents I translated became mere words...
...His eyes welled tears...
...He lives very poor, on the old-age pension...
...The secretary summoned Barry to the phone...
...He trusts me...
...Sure I know him...
...Some of the prose was set in Montreal...
...I felt sorry for him and swallowed the tears that threatened to rise in sympathy...
...It will cost," I said firmly, to make certain he understood that my good nature wouldn't supply the service free of charge no matter how sympathetic I was to the subject matter...
...Perhaps the address is false...
...Even the tragic evinced a sort of black humor: once he draped a white sheet over his body, stood on a rooftop under the full moon and howled psalms—the Nazi patrol scattered in all directions like frightened rabbits...
...How much...
...perhaps he's a messenger from a supernatural power in the name of the six million...
...Come in, Mr...
...I felt an indefinable sympathy for this funny little man...
...All the day and night he writes and puts the papers in the boxes...
...I will call for you...
...The price is okay...
...If something happens to me, you give them to her.' He is not feeling so good lately...
...Then he drew an old Yiddish newspaper out of his breast pocket and shoved it at me...
...Give me two weeks...
...poems and fragments thereof...
...I'd like some information...
...To this I had no answer...
...You mean the little guy with the big ears, red face, bald head and big nose...
...Look, mister...
...You will see...
...He proffered the manila envelope...
...Two young adolescent girls in tight jeans and T-shirts glanced up in my direction, giggled and arm-in-arm pattered away to Fletcher's Field...
...When can you have it ready...
...the bulk in various parts of Europe or fanciful countries like "Urchadia" and "Achorzama...
...I was in the dry goods business...
...A good translator is hard to find...
...You think I don't know...
...After completing the translation, I tried to phone Ostrowsky, but he was neither listed in the book or with the phone company...
...Each time I took a sentimental journey to the old neighborhood I was surprised all over again by the narrow streets, small shops and houses which once seemed as big and wide as the world itself...
...I'm only a friend...
...I told you he lived next door to my parents until they moved to Durocher in 1946 or was it '47...
...I had all but forgotten Ostrowsky when an envelope arrived.in the mail the following week...
...Come, we'll talk over a cup of tea...
...Poulin retraced his heavy steps...
...I'll buy you a dictionary...
...In a week...
...His florid, pockmarked face and big ears, squinting eyes, bald head and long, curved nose gave the impression of a hobgoblin out of a child's fairy-tale book...
...Yeah...
...He inhaled deeply and sighed...
...I don't see what that...
...Did you ever read anything of his...
...How uncanny that he presumably lived just around the corner from my old street...
...I don't type...
...Write in French or English...
...A drop is only worth ten cents...
...There were no pictures or photographs anywhere...
...I can't possibly read it...
...Some diaries were published in the local or American Yiddish press...
...But he says he only writes in his own language...
...the brown suit, dark complexion, busy eyebrows and hairy hands seemed to belong to an oversized spaniel begging a favor...
...Hi...
...I need to make sure...
...It's nice such a young woman knows Yiddish...
...three completed novels entitled...
...I was 16 years old when the Germans marched into Poland .. ." "I understand this well enough," I said, "but it's heavy stuff...
...Far from being elated, I was gripped by an overwhelming sadness...
...He withdrew a ring of keys, selected one and unlocked the door...
...Starved, tormented people screamed for revenge, the screams grew into a mighty roar which thundered in my head like unremitting explosions...
...Perspiration formed on his forehead...
...Ostrowsky, it's a lot of money...
...Do I have any other stories by Ostrowsky...
...Simple...
...He was a genius...
...Poulin might think there were valuables buried beneath the papers and change his mind...
...the narrative evoked a chorale of human voices in a composition which obliterated evil and our earth became a utopia of bliss as envisaged by the great poets and philosophers...
...At that moment, a stout, elderly man in a brown suit, one of the numerous male golden-ager passing time in the library, lumbered over and said in a thick accent, "You know Yiddish...
...My wife wrote it and she is dying...
...Mr...
...Are you kidding...
...Yes, in the last analysis, the memories never dimmed, they remained part of them, like the color of their eyes and shape of their noses...
...I wondered if Mr...
...You're born in this country...
...He seemed to scan the room for male artifacts...
...A person should be completely dedicated to his art," he said reflectively...
...What can I do for you...
...As they loaded the boxes, the cab driver forewarned me that he'd add $3 to the fare, he wasn't in the transport business, he was doing us a favor, everybody thinks cab drivers are public servants and so forth...
...Everybody laughed at him...
...He handed me an old business card...
...How much...
...Do you know if he's home...
...In the bedroom: a single bed with sagging mattress...
...I wasn't in the mood for small talk with elderly men...
...I don't think I can...
...Vous ?tes...
...He didn't mention his "proposition" until I was well into my Spanish omelette...
...You will take them...
...There isn't much about our community I don't know...
...Poulin...
...What extraordinary faith...
...For ten*cents you used to be able to buy a bread, now all you get is a word...
...The "livingroom" was entirely bare...
...Mr...
...How do you do...
...I wept at the heroism of a five-year-old who crawled through a mined field, bringing food to Ostrowsky's dugout—later the child, a gentile, diverted the attention of the guard, sacrificing himself to effect Ostrowsky's escape...
...Ostrowsky," I said firmly, notwithstanding the compassion I felt for the man...
...Okay, okay...
...You see, everybody is mad nowadays...
...Sure it will cost...
...Does Mr...
...Perhaps he could use an assistant librarian...
...Sure, shoot...
...So if there are 5000 words in that article, it will cost you . .." "I know arithmetic, Miss Solomon...
...Perfect, perfect," he said, rubbing his hands...
...My father said each story was crazier than the one before...
...What boxes...
...Now I'm obliged to devote several hours a day to Biblical Studies, Judaic philosophy, Kabalah, Talmud...
...I have something for him...
...I had spent many tiresome months searching for employment—a challenging, creative, inspiring job—but either I didn't suit the situation or the situation didn't suit me...
...Well, thanks for the information, Barry...
...You read Yiddish, no...
...One afternoon my bell rang and a shabby little man in his seventies stood at the door...
...You cannot see Ostrowsky because he is dead...
...The news circulated and work kept pouring in like the dam broke...
...Klein, I don't____" "And what is your name...
...Ten cents a word...
...I lifted a top sheet and recognized the Ostrowsky scrawl...
...Every week Ostrowsky used to submit a story...
...When did he come to Canada...
...He must have heard I "translate the holocaust" so he either dug up an old story on the subject or wrote one for the occasion...
...design on a Yiddish quarterly had attracted my attention...
...Here, I want you should look at this...
...When an anglais calls, they make him wait...
...He elbowed me out of my chair and steered me toward the front entrance...
...And the residents, to my annoyance, acted as though the street had always belonged to them...
...Therefore, I rationalized, don't I, the discoverer of new territory, have the right to claim it...
...The desk lamp cast a pool of yellow light on the table marked with arcane doodles and Hebrew letters...
...I hear you do good work," he said kindly...
...I followed him down to the street...
...You look hungry...
...Very smart man," Poulin said, tapping his forehead...
...A bit," I answered curtly and moved toward a carrel, magazine in hand, although I had no intention of reading it...
...And my house is not for storage...
...Besides, I was eager for an objective opinion...
...I thanked him profusely for his kindness to his old tenant and jumped into the taxi...
...Ostrowsky had a relative who would like his things...
...You mean like this...
...While Barry hurried off in response to an urgent request from someone exploring the Canadian Jewish Writers Archives, I picked a journal off the rack...
...Ostrowsky didn't live to see even a small portion of his work in print...
...Moreover, he never begrudged information...
...Please, Miss Solomon, this is very important to me...
...I swallowed and took a deep breath...
...Ah, what a pity the author did not live to witness the miracle...
...Crazy stories, without rhyme or reason...
...numerous philosophical essays...
...It would take hours to read a page...
...Then I will write it again and mail it to you...
...The nudnik grabbed a chair, moved in on me, drummed his fingers on the table and practically breathed down my neck...
...Me, I'm Poulin, the landlord...
...Then I let you go in...
...I was one of several hundred English teachers in the province whose contract was not renewed...
...I'm sure about that...
...A dead language that refuses to be buried...
...He gives me your address so I wait for you and if you do not come, I mean to telephone today before they collect the garbage...
...I've no doubt it will be a best seller...
...Famous too...
...These...
...My children don't read Yiddish...
...I wanted to say "decipher" but thought better of it...
Vol. 5 • June 1980 • No. 6
