Lost In America
SINGER, ISAAC BASHEVIS
LOST IN AMERICA ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER A few days had passed. Zosia had promised to call but I hadn't heard from her. One night as I groped in the mail compartment on the ninth floor of the...
...A waiter came over and I let Zosia order the coffee and the rice pudding for both of us...
...But Mr...
...Really, you needn't have done this...
...She herself is still to be endured, but the guests who come to her with all their brazen lies are more than I can stand...
...Love turned to hate overnight...
...She was probably ashamed before the other passangers that her companion was the kind of person who has been removed from the train by armed guards...
...In the meantime, we would have learned what had happened to you and would have begun proceedings to free you...
...The day was hot and humid...
...I seemed to have missed the question...
...Come in and we will celebrate...
...He is apparently filthy rich since he is giving her forty thousand dollars plus a three hundred dollar weekly alimony...
...If the bureaucrats in Canada weren't what they are, they would grant you the transit visa in a hurry and you'd avoid having to smuggle yourself across...
...During the whole time, he didn't speak a single word to me...
...Lemkin in turn had informed my brother...
...Zosia had gotten information about her return to the U.S.A...
...I assumed that the policeman would continue his interrogation and I even considered the fact that it would be a waste of money to buy a ticket if I was to be arrested, but the officials began to discuss other matters among themselves and seemed to have forgotten about me...
...Had something happened to the cab and she was in a hospital...
...He helps me enough...
...From time to time they also addressed a few words to me...
...We avoided looking into each other's eyes...
...Come in...
...I went down with the elevator, and in the half minute that it took to get from the ninth floor to the lobby, I managed to note that Stefa had sent me the document I had requested of her so many times and that the unstamped letter was from the managing editor of the Forward...
...Hate flared up again into love...
...Zosia and I had realized it would endanger our plan if we were seen together by Mr...
...Lemkin had admonished me repeatedly not to give my name in such an instance, I immediately revealed my full name along with my address both in Warsaw and in New York, even though the other hadn't asked for it...
...I asked with a choked voice...
...The doctor said, "When is the next train...
...After a long while she came back...
...I stayed in my room and sat down to wait for Mr...
...Two of the policemen burst out laughing, but one who was older and apparently of a higher rank kept a solemn face and asked me, "You're from the States, eh...
...He yelled at me so loud that I was afraid you would hear it next door...
...My previous lawyer, an immigrant himself, had delayed everything for weeks and months...
...But Americans and Canadians seemed different...
...Somehow, I couldn't bring myself to tell the lie that I had had permission to enter that country...
...Sitting in the bathtub, I thought that my adventure could be a theme for a story or even a comedy...
...It was postponed for a week...
...He handed me a sheet of paper, which I signed without bothering to read it...
...The party in Toronto informed him right then and there that, among other things, I required a bank book to show that I had money in the bank and wouldn't become a public charge...
...Not really...
...I heard Zosia say, "I've read nothing of yours, but for some reason I believe in your talent...
...Smith was even capable of denouncing me to the police...
...Yes, if you want...
...Why were they different...
...Maybe she had moved out...
...I didn't answer and we sat silent for a while...
...He shone a lighted instrument into my eyes...
...I decided to buy the ticket to Toronto...
...How he made so much money isn't clear to me...
...The managing editor had already spoken to him about my problems on the telephone...
...After a while, a train came and the officials put me aboard it...
...The document confirmed that I had committed no crimes in Poland...
...I entered an office where a card hung on the wall...
...This was no longer the same Zosia who admired Baudelaire for being the only poet and thinker who could tell the world the full dismal truth, but an aging female who had decided to lose her virginity at any price...
...I'll test them again...
...Make it snappy...
...It would look suspicious to arrive at a hotel with a lady and baggage, then sit for who knows how many hours in the lobby with her and wait for a message from a Mr...
...Behave with the assurance of the native...
...Since she had an immigration visa, she was as good as an American citizen...
...There I would meet the guide who would escort me across the bridge to Windsor...
...Don't congratulate me yet...
...You will forward your passport and the other documents to the King Edward Hotel in Toronto by mail...
...This morning I bought a bottle of champagne especially for this occasion...
...The chances of this happening are as slim as of having a chimney fall on your head...
...She had no strength to go on working...
...I knew somehow that Zosia was experiencing the very same turmoil...
...I asked her what she was searching for but she didn't give me a clear answer...
...When Nesha heard that I was on the verge of obtaining a permanent visa, she congratulated me, but I detected a note of disappointment in her voice...
...She said to me, "For all his slyness, he is a fool, and for all his daring, he is a slave...
...The day had been a hot one and my furnished room was like a sweatbox...
...I both wished for it and feared that this would happen...
...What he sees in me, I don't know...
...Only such a scatterbrain as Reuben would have abandoned a second Moses on Ellis Island and flown off to a wife who had filed for a divorce from him...
...You will grow...
...The chambermaid saw me come in with it, and she brought me a bucket with ice...
...Odd, I have the very same feeling...
...I did not answer...
...I'm psychotic to boot...
...We were supposed to have lunch together at the Fifty-seventh Street cafeteria and later meet at Grand Central Station to buy the train tickets to Detroit...
...I'm a woman, not a man...
...Instead of asking for a ticket to Toronto I had been asking for a ticket to Windsor...
...The car that I had occupied with Zosia had been new, with plush seats, clean, bright, resembling a second-class coach in Poland or France...
...Night had fallen when we finally returned to the hotel...
...Had I addressed the ticket seller in Yiddish instead of English...
...What's with your sweetheart...
...But when you phoned me, I had to come meet you...
...To forget my troubles momentarily, I began to add up my remaining money...
...This man demonstrated things that can't be explained in rational fashion...
...She still loved Boris, her late husband, but sooner or later she would have to remarry—not in order to provide someone with a visa but to a man who would love her and whom she could possibly love as well...
...Maybe they are looking for me...
...I myself lived off the one weekly column, which the editor was liable to cancel at any time...
...I wanted to ask why she was taking along so much luggage but I decided it would be best to keep silent...
...I could already read English and I bought an afternoon paper...
...I was still a Yiddish writer who hadn't made it, estranged from everything and everybody...
...And she hung up...
...Lemkin he told me that my trip would have to be delayed by a week...
...It was Zosia...
...I was told that Spadina Avenue was the center of Yiddishism in Toronto, and there we went...
...This was more than I had managed to save up from the novel, but I knew that my brother would help me out...
...I often heard critics employ such words as "implausible" and "unrealistic," but I learned that many things that some consider impossible occur daily...
...It seemed that I had a great talent for suffering, but no positive achievement could ever satisfy me...
...Yes, I understand...
...I wanted to carry down her valises and wait with her until she could get a taxi, but Mr...
...I believe so...
...The coach in which I traveled now was old, and its passengers struck me as just as dowdy and shabby...
...I had been forced to leave my sweater and underwear behind, but Zosia had managed to pack my shaving things in the small satchel and my passport in her bag...
...After a while, she consented...
...How about your eyes...
...The trouble is that what a human being is, no one will ever be able to describe...
...He called him by his first name and told him about me and my documents...
...From time to time he helped me with a letter...
...Had they come to arrest me...
...Smith contacted me...
...In the novels I had read in my young days, the lovers were one hundred percent monogamous, certain of their love...
...We had traveled some distance, but I was still not completely at ease...
...At least I would be in a big city...
...Who knows...
...My mother, on the other hand, can do only one thing—cry...
...And since I am vacating the room at this hotel, I can't leave my things here...
...In one way or another I had to inflate her confidence in me and in my masculine prowess, and I said, "I don't think that you made such a fuss when you got your visa...
...From time to time I cast a glance at the revolving door...
...I stood up and Zosia said to me, "They detained me at the frontier...
...After much brooding, I decided to take the bus to Toronto...
...And what if the clerk asked for our passports...
...I shouldn't say this, but I don't love him and I know that I never will...
...I was anxious to keep my silent promise both for her sake and my own male vanity, but from the very beginning of our journey I was aware that something like an antisexual dyb-buk had taken hold of me...
...It's entirely superfluous...
...A spiteful spirit was telling me that agreements of this kind are not only morally wrong but physiologically precarious as well...
...I rose and all the passengers, perplexed and not without pity, gazed at me...
...Of course, she was taking lessons in English...
...She had armed herself with that weapon that had never yet conquered anyone...
...Smith and we walked along...
...She spoke to me, to herself, and mostly in order to show that her mind could be occupied with things other than with our common disgrace...
...I saw in her eyes the resentment of someone who has allowed herself to be snared in a trap from which there is no escape...
...We spent the night sitting up in the coach car...
...The doctor showed me to a chair and asked what I could see on the chart...
...Smith as being tall, but he turned out to be a runt...
...You can rest easy, this hasn't happened till now to any of my clients...
...I was anxious lest I run into someone who knew me at Grand Central Station or that it might occur to my brother to see me off, but neither of these events happened...
...A combination of a slaughterhouse, a bordello, and an insane asylum—that's what the world really was...
...Don't carry any luggage with you, to avoid any confrontation with the customs people...
...On the other hand, I couldn't afford the luxury of renting a room for merely a few hours...
...We checked out of the hotel and went by taxi to the railroad station...
...Lemkin to pass along this information and Mr...
...The cabalists called this organ "the sign of the holy covenant...
...I happened to come across it accidentally in a bookstore on Fourth Avenue that sells books from outdoor bins for a quarter each...
...All the passengers appeared startled by this unexpected stop, "or at least it seemed so to me...
...Zosia and I had agreed to share the expenses equally, but even so, the trip would eat up a huge portion of my little savings...
...You'll take the train to Detroit and meet a little Jew in a hotel lobby...
...I had persuaded Zosia to go to Boston via New York, telling her that in spite of our sexual defeat I had become attached to her and without her my trip would be lonely and dismal...
...The policemen stared at me too and also seemed to be holding back laughter...
...According to my calculations, Zosia should have been here more than an hour ago...
...In case the Canadians should catch you, you mustn't tell that you are a Polish citizen...
...Although Mr...
...Was I looking to take on a new mistress in case Nesha should decide to marry...
...It apparently had nothing to do with me...
...He showers me with compliments but somehow they don't ring true...
...I imagined that I heard the singsong of cheder boys reciting the Pentateuch and the wailing of women at a funeral...
...One night as I groped in the mail compartment on the ninth floor of the Forward, I found there a letter from Warsaw and an unstamped envelope that someone had left me...
...He seized me by the throat and tried to strangle me...
...We checked out from the hotel after lunch, leaving our luggage in the storage room—partners to a disenchantment we could never forget...
...I occurred to me that this might have been Zosia's aim in buying this gift—to make me drunk as the daughters did to Lot...
...We planned to be there two hours before the train left to allow sufficient time for any eventuality...
...There was a photograph of Leon Treitler with Stefa and the little girl and a few words from Leon in Yiddish with hints about our uncommon friendship...
...The frightened Zosia had risen too and she made a gesture as if to indicate that she wanted to accompany me, or perhaps to argue with those who were arresting me, but I shook my head at her to desist...
...Yes...
...I had already long perceived that, when necessary, the brain could function remarkably fast...
...Somewhere within, she might have been hoping for a situation in which I would be forced to marry her in order to obtain American citizenship...
...But if you won't say where you are from, they can't very well deport you...
...The moment we stepped off, someone signaled the engineer, and the train pulled away...
...Besides, if her neighbors ever learned that Lost in America, by Nobel Laurate Isaac Bashevis Singer, from which this is excerpted, was translated from the Yiddish by Joseph Singer and will be published later this month by Doubleday...
...If I were rich and offered him a huge dowry, I could understand his purposes...
...I went right out into the corridor and began searching for the elevator, but it had vanished...
...I got up to take the bucket from her and my hands trembled so that I almost dropped it...
...For all my heresy, I considered both these events acts of Providence...
...Maybe she was nothing but a spirit, a phantom...
...The little desire I had for Zosia that evening when we planned our trip together had vanished almost immediately and I began to feel something akin to hostility for that old maid who was clinging to me like a parasite...
...She dallied longer than would have been necessary to bring the bottle from one room to another in the same corridor...
...I stuck my hand inside my breast pocket and tapped both the passport and this paper...
...My brother deposited money in the bank where I had already saved up my thousand dollars...
...I counted the bills and even my small change several times and each time I came up with a different total...
...What shame, I thought, to have to depend on the little blood and the few nerves that evoke the erection...
...Zosia asked...
...He suddenly decided to give his wife what she's been demanding and she went off to Reno, Nevada, to get the divorce...
...I sat down again, and after a while the policemen left and the station began to fill up with passengers who were apparently bound for Toronto, too...
...Behind my back I heard the doctor's mumbling...
...You know the Talmud and all the rest...
...On the other side of the threshold stood Zosia in a black nightgown (or was it a negligee...
...Soon even they had grown misted over...
...The bill came to over forty dollars...
...Don't think about this for even a minute...
...Were Anglo-Saxons by nature more inclined to be understanding of another person's dilemma than Slavs or Germans, for instance...
...How dark the city was...
...If she had gone to the ladies' room, her suitcases would be out here...
...I had made up my mind a long time ago that the creative powers of literature lie not in the forced originality produced by variations of style and word machinations but in the countless situations life keeps creating, especially in the queer complications between man and woman...
...The resolver in me had resolved that I owed her nothing...
...Lemkin...
...I remained tense, cannily sober, attentive to the slightest variation in my moods...
...Apparently, I was far from ready for suicide...
...Perhaps it could be opened without a corkscrew...
...I could live neither with God nor without him...
...I was expecting Nesha that evening, and she called to say that our meeting would have to be postponed, and that if I was leaving in the interim, she wished me a pleasant journey...
...I'm simply ashamed of my lack of character...
...I told Zosia the situation...
...He tested me again and this time I saw better...
...I again strolled on Krochmalna Street—the same shabby buildings, the same pushcarts and vendors of half-rotten fruit, the familiar smells of the sewer, sour kitchens, freshly baked bagels, smoke from the chimneys...
...She said to me, "I thought you'd be in Toronto already...
...I got mine at a time when I wasn't even sure if I wanted to go to America...
...It's all my cursed nerves, I told myself...
...I dressed, packed the belongings I intended to turn over to Zosia, and went to her hotel on Fifty-seventh Street...
...I had barely begun to unwrap the foil when I heard a pop...
...Though it seemed that all my immigration worries were over, some force warned me that a new crisis was looming over me, although I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it might entail...
...the child was Jewish and if Hitler invaded Danzig, she could be severely punished...
...How was this possible...
...Zosia was supposed to telephone the King Edward Hotel, where I would be staying, and reserve a room for herself...
...My father had a sister who went insane in her later years...
...We were supposed to celebrate...
...Why didn't Mr...
...It was much safer for Zosia to carry it for me...
...As he spoke these words, I began to see spots before my eyes...
...He called to someone and the two officers who had arrested me came in...
...We had eaten a combination of lunch and supper in a noisy little restaurant and then walked all the way back to the King Edward Hotel...
...Zosia had gone to her room to lie down for half an hour, and I tried to do the same in my room but I could not even doze, let alone sleep...
...He demanded a five-hundred-dollar advance and my brother's assurance of the fee that would be coming to him when I returned with the visa...
...I could no longer return to the States...
...Perhaps the champagne would help me, flashed through my mind, as I poured one glass for Zosia and one for myself...
...He always began his conversation with the words "We're having a problem...
...Weren't you supposed to go to Toronto today or tomorrow...
...The half-blind professor had her telephone disconnected while she was visting her brother in Lenox so that Reuben Mecheles couldn't try to contact Zosia...
...I had fallen into a deep sleep before we reached Detroit and Zosia was waking me...
...Another paper, a morning edition, had been left on the table...
...In such a case, they'll put you in jail, then try to deport you to wherever you come from...
...I repeated my request for the third time and the ticket seller asked, "Where do you think you are...
...I, therefore, said, "I believe that I had permission...
...The ticket seller asked, "Do you want a one-way ticket or a round trip...
...Even if the Canadian police nabbed me for being an illegal entrant, they wouldn't deport me to Poland after my getting the visa, but would send me back to the States...
...Could nerves render someone blind...
...Two porters fetched Zosia's luggage and we were led to the desk where new arrivals registered...
...Thank God, the bathroom in the hall was empty—all the neighbors on my floor had gone to work—and I could take a bath without fear of someone pounding on the door or trying to force his way in...
...From the way he speaks, you can never tell what he is doing...
...The telephone rang and it was Mr...
...I went outside with Mr...
...You'll carry no documents on you...
...I was impatient for her to come in—not in order to fulfill my self-imposed obligation but to void it once and for all...
...After I gave up all hope and had had an hour of sleep, my potency came back as strongly as ever but then Zosia become possessed by the same dybbuk...
...Maybe she had committed suicide...
...I owed money to the lawyer...
...I envied this tramp...
...I heard her say, "Today should be a holiday for us...
...I could tell by the way they pronounced certain words from which bank of the Vistula the speakers came, the left or the right...
...I'm seriously afraid that I will soon be committed to an asylum...
...I am a total stranger here...
...Let me imagine, I said to myself, that they actually arrested me in Windsor that late afternoon and that I am in a Canadian prison now...
...Lemkin said to me, "You are already as good as an American...
...For the writer, they are potential treasures that could never be exhausted, while all innovations in language soon became cliches...
...Only after she consented did I realize how many complications—financial, legal, psychological—this little adventure would bring about...
...Had Mrs...
...Thousands of Americans and Canadians cross this bridge daily and the officials haven't the time for long formalities...
...They let me pass without a word...
...I was simply to sit in the hotel lobby until Mr...
...In him I had found the very epitome of the American notion that time is money...
...I want to know...
...The German woman in Danzig who was raising the girl had grown old and sick and she no longer had the strength to devote herself to the child...
...A lump has formed in my throat and my palate and lips grew dry...
...I witnessed something that astounded me, the frightened Polish Jew...
...Of all my lunacies, this was the most dangerous...
...She looked pale, sleepy, drawn...
...I had an urge, for the umpteenth time, to read it over, but I was ashamed before Zosia and of my own weakness...
...The valises are filled to bursting...
...The consul won't keep you there for long...
...My urge for conspiracy was even stronger than my cowardice...
...What could I have expected to find in America besides extreme loneliness...
...He received me standing up, eating an apple...
...Did they possess such hypnotic power...
...I was afraid to leave the hotel to look for a cafeteria or a cheap coffee shop outside for fear that I would miss the call from Mr...
...Smith took me there, and she would wait for me at the bus station in Windsor...
...I murmured to my self...
...The skeptic in me, the nihilist and protester, quoted the words of Ecclesiastes: "Of laughter I said it is madness and of mirth what doeth it...
...I began searching for the stairs, but at that moment a door opened and someone stepped out of the elevator...
...The first half of the night Zosia was willing but I was impotent...
...The stopper sprang off and the wine began to fizz over its neck and my hand...
...Your eyes are better than mine...
...They suffered only from external obstacles—ambitious parents, a wife or a husband who refused to grant a divorce, social objections or superstitions...
...All the stores were closed...
...She intended to travel directly from Toronto to Boston and I was to take the train to New York...
...Just come over from Detroit...
...I suspect that my father's conversion was an act of lunacy, too...
...Have you lost something or what...
...Not bad...
...Lemkin had advised me to mail my passport to the King Edward Hotel, but I considered this too risky...
...I could neither lie nor sit and I began to pace back and forth...
...The man who will take you across has his connections and his fee is one hundred dollars...
...Sign this paper...
...She said, "Here you are in your element...
...Lemkin's instructions exactly, and mailed the passport to the King Edward Motel in Toronto...
...Is your lady professor back home yet...
...Besides, the stores were closing...
...What's with the prophet from Egypt...
...I had forgotten to bring soap to the bathroom, but I found a piece someone had left there...
...He said, "Come right down...
...It was my impression that many of the couples there were going to the United States on their honeymoons...
...Smith and informed him that I brought a female with me...
...An elderly man said to me, "The doctor at the consulate expressed some doubt about your eyes...
...Funny, eh...
...I was fully aware that these officers and the officers in the Windsor bus station could have easily detained me...
...Did it bear on the fact that Americans and Canadians were richer...
...Zosia told me that ah immigrant who has first papers requires only permission to leave the country, and she went to a lawyer to help her obtain this permission...
...Actually, I have told him this, maybe not as directly, but he knows it himself...
...I was still sitting on the edge of the bed and Zosia on the chair opposite...
...In the brief time we hadn't seen each other, she had lost weight and her cheeks appeared sunken...
...Sex, like art, cannot be made to order—at least not in my case...
...Zosia would tell Reuben Mecheles that during the time he was in Reno, she had to go back to Boston for her clothes, books and other possessions...
...Can I bring it in...
...For all of my distress, I enjoyed a measure of satisfaction—my intuition hadn't failed me...
...Had Zosia been detained at the border...
...In that case I'll give you two adjacent rooms," the clerk said gallantly...
...Have a good trip...
...Could writers retreat to ivory towers and avoid the struggle for justice...
...What are you searching for...
...My picture had been printed in the rotogravure section of the Forward and all the New York newspapers were read here...
...I began to mumble a prayer to the Almighty, assuming He existed, "Father in heaven, help me...
...She was ten years my senior...
...I glanced at the chart and I could barely distinguish the very top row of letters...
...No one expected anything of him...
...A doctor will examine you...
...Come, let's have a cup of coffee...
...I did this, first, because it isn't my way to deny my identity...
...How would Stalin's NKVD men have behaved in such an instance...
...In the last few weeks there had evolved between us a coolness that we could neither admit nor deny...
...Maybe I should leave everything and go to Palestine...
...Lemkin asked for my brother's telephone number...
...A smile formed on Zosia's lips...
...Without a passport, one couldn't get a visa...
...Today I don't want to hear this...
...Here, I could have become a teacher, a writer on the local periodical or at least a proofreader...
...In the next few days I was supposed to go to Detroit, but when I phoned Mr...
...Maybe Mr...
...All right, I will dress...
...The next day I went to see the lawyer, a Mr...
...Then I realized what she had said, and I answered, "A caricature of God, a parody of the spirit, the only entity in Creation which could be called a lie...
...The night was a dark one and all I could see was one lighted house...
...The same voice within me that had predicted all my other troubles now warned me that my enterprise would end in a dismal failure—jail, deportation, even death...
...Even if such permission could be obtained, it would take too long to get it and in the meantime your right to remain here would expire and complications might ensue...
...What was there to rejoice about...
...Zosia would cross the bridge legally at the same time...
...I once thought that things in Russia are better, but there you have to steal to keep from starving to death...
...Smith...
...Second, there was a bit of logic behind this...
...When I told her of my fear of being arrested at the border, she said half in jest, "If worst comes to worst, I'll come to save you...
...An uncle of mine came over from there and he told us things that made my hair stand on end...
...They replied, but I didn't hear what they said...
...You are a bit nervous...
...But when I telephoned her the next morning, I detected in her voice that senseless inspiration I often evoked in those who had the misfortune to know me...
...They won't let him into America...
...Oh, I am lost...
...A little rag dealer with a yellow face and a yellow beard was leading a cart harnessed to an emaciated horse with short legs and a long tail...
...I waited what seemed to me a long time and she still did not appear...
...These were boys and girls from Staszow, Lublin, Radom, each one hypnotized by some lunatic cause...
...In a way, I was disappointed that I hadn't been detained on the spot...
...Smith was liable to telephone me any minute...
...I was by then mature enough not to seek reasons and explanations for the conduct of individuals or even of groups...
...I had the anxious premonition that when I got to the bus station Zosia wouldn't be there...
...They don't want to be held responsible for them...
...They make difficulties so that the poor immigrants have to break the law and they, the bloodsuckers, can take bribes...
...there was not a trace of an elevator...
...She looked sick, faded, disheveled...
...They were a treasure trove of human idiosyncracies and quirks...
...After Mr...
...Of course, Stefa would not leave without her little daughter, Franka...
...The Yiddishists would have hidden me here, provided me with false documents, and sooner or later obtained Canadian citizenship for me...
...For some reason Zosia kept on stopping at shop windows...
...The car was half empty and Zosia found a bench on which to stretch out...
...The panes hadn't been washed in such a long time that I could barely see anything through them, not even the darkness outside...
...The moment she begins to speak, the tears come pouring out...
...In my imagination, I could hear her toss on her bed, muttering, sighing, seeking some pretext for getting out of the situation...
...I didn't want to dip into the money my brother had deposited into my bank merely for me to be able to show the counsel that I wouldn't become a public charge...
...I was about to fall asleep when the telephone rang...
...Zosia must have read my mind, my phone rang and it was she, stuttering and asking, "What became of our plan...
...The child was now with Stefa in Warsaw and learning Polish, although she wouldn't be in need of this language soon...
...Smith...
...Both of us were tired from the long walk and we decided to take a rest...
...My throat was now so dry that I could barely speak...
...Immediately afterward, I heard my name called...
...Although it was too late for lunch and too early for dinner, the restaurant we entered—a kind of Jewish Polish coffeehouse—was crowded with young men and women...
...Smith...
...I had to remain completely passive, not to take the slightest initiative...
...She pressed her legs together and my bony knees could not separate them...
...I had even noticed a Yiddish Warsaw paper on one of the tables...
...I had not forgotten that, of all the modern philosophers, Schopenhauer was the only one to quote events gleaned from newspapers...
...Besides, the forces that favor adventurers had done me a service...
...The bridge was crowded with pedestrians...
...We passed two officials and it seemed to me that Mr...
...Smith would call me not later than 11 a.m., but it was already 3 p.m...
...Why do you need so many things...
...Can't your brother help you...
...A single man, seemingly drunk, passed by on the sidewalk...
...What if he didn't come at all...
...Absolutely nothing...
...I strained in an effort to guess at the letters behind the whirls of diffusion, but I knew that I was failing...
...I offered to wait until she got herself a pair of shoes but she assured me that she had comfortable shoes in her luggage...
...The other half concerned the situation in Poland and her, Stefa's, plans for the future...
...Maybe the employees of the hotel were in cahoots with this Mr...
...I clinked my glass to hers and gulped it down like medicine...
...The main thing is not to display any fear when you're crossing the bridge into Windsor...
...I reminded myself of my passport, my visa, and the paper affirming my right to return to America and to take out my first papers leading to full citizenship...
...On the night before Zosia and I were to leave for Detroit, I didn't sleep a wink...
...They stayed with me for about three quarters of an hour and chatted about horse races, hunting, forest fires, and other things in which gentiles are interested...
...She had actually been the breadwinner even when her husband had been alive...
...What plan...
...Not only my eyes but also my ears had ceased functioning...
...Nor did I care to draw Zosia into a conversation that would be boring to her...
...He winked at me to follow him...
...I tried to imagine what might have occurred...
...If there is no God and if the Bible is a lie, in what way is a Jew a Jew...
...That night after Zosia had gone home, I was convinced that she would change her mind about the plan we worked out that evening at our table in the cafeteria...
...I would never have believed speed like this possible...
...She smiled, half-frightened, with that naivete that sometimes shows up in even the most shrewd woman...
...Two huge valises stood in the center of the room in addition to a small satchel...
...Yes, I got it out of the library and I think that he was more of a medium than those he opposed...
...Had she changed her mind at the last minute and ordered the driver to take her to the train going back to New York...
...The passengers were young and well dressed...
...He also owns houses, and paintings by the greatest French masters...
...But since I am penniless, why would he deceive me...
...Lemkin accomplished everything in minutes...
...Lemkin was tall, blond, and youthful...
...I could never talk to my father since he was forever shouting and preaching to me and I didn't believe in his religiousness...
...It occurred to me more than once to write about myself as I really was, but I was convinced that the readers, the publishers, and the critics (especially the Yiddish ones) would consider me a pornographer, a contriver, mad...
...Then he handed me the receiver and my brother told me that he would deposit the money into my account the next day...
...Still, I managed to say, "It's not my eyes, I'm nervous...
...No, Zosia, our so-called nerves are not madness but a true realization of the many misfortunes that lurk before us and of all the barriers that stand between us and our notions of happiness...
...I drank coffee and read...
...I shouldn't have started up with him in the first place...
...Stefa's letter was long and I read it carefully only after I had gotten home...
...For the first time she wore a trace of makeup, discreetly applied, her nose powered, and a redness in her cheeks that might have been rouge...
...I no longer recall whether the distance to the bus station was long or short...
...at the desk...
...What if it got lost in the mail...
...In such hot weather, you have to change your underwear, your dresses, your stockings...
...But this time I wanted to get drunk...
...Why speak Qf failure...
...Nor could I obtain a visa without a passport...
...At night I dreamed of being captured, bound, dragged off to jail...
...Zosia suspected that he had gone to Reno in an effort for a reconciliation with his wife...
...I can't go somewhere without clothes...
...Suddenly, I spotted Zosia...
...I was waiting for my drunkenness to ascend from the stomach to the brain, but I felt that the opposite was happening—it descended from my brain to my stomach...
...Spirits do exist, but they don't appear to those fakers on command...
...The two officers led me outside toward the tracks...
...Usually when I drank an alcoholic beverage, even wine, I had to eat something with it—a cookie, a pretzel, a piece of bread...
...She hadn't brought along enough clothes to New York, she told me, and she went shopping for the garments she would need on her journey...
...Or does she mean undress...
...But would they give me a room there without a passport...
...Six came and six-thirty, and still he didn't show up...
...You are actually the closest person I have here in America...
...I thank you, Doctor, I thank you very much...
...Yes, him," "Well, congratulations...
...They suspected me of being a Communist agitator, those idiots...
...Among other things, Zosia told me that Reuben Mecheles' sudden trip to Reno had evoked bitterness among the followers of the Egyptian messiah, for it had been he, Reuben, who had sent the affidavit to the prophet as well as the fare to America...
...Zosia asked...
...Who are you marrying— Reuben Mecheles...
...Those things, as long as they last, they last, but the moment you tear yourself away from them, they become sheer nonsense...
...It contained rows of letters, each smaller than the ones above—the eye chart seen in an eye doctor's reception room and, occasionally, in an optical shop...
...Then she said, "I can no longer go back to the woman professor of mine with her spirits and the whole mishmash...
...Each time the door opened, I trembled...
...Then again, I couldn't admit that I had crosssed the border illegally...
...I have told you already, I had someone who I thought I could love and who loved me...
...Even the officials of democratic Poland didn't display too much consideration in such instances...
...What would I do that evening if she didn't...
...I imagined that even their gestures had unique meanings...
...He gave me a sidelong look and handed another card to Zosia for her to fill out...
...Although the water from the tap wasn't clean, I kept drinking it...
...I can't take a wife and let my brother support her...
...I hope I'm not sick...
...At that moment I realized my error...
...What does she have to dress for...
...From somewhere, a black maid appeared...
...I quickly raced inside it...
...I had already learned that our genitals, which in the language of the vulgar are synonyms of stupidity and insen-sitivity, are actually the expression of the human soul, enemies of lechery, the most ardent defenders of true love...
...So-and-so...
...After I had obtained the visa, we would go on to Montreal...
...Maybe Casanova and all those other boasters had been just as frightened and befuddled as I was...
...It was there that I was led...
...One of the girls sitting at these tables and smoking cigarettes would probably have become my wife and, as Lena had long ago, would have tried to persuade me to harness my creative powers to the struggle for a better world...
...Nesha began to mention the fact that she would have to make some sort of change— the work was growing too hard for her and she was neglecting her son...
...These words were a clear indication to me that my stock had fallen with her as well...
...Smith was to leave a message with the desk clerk giving the time of our meeting...
...All I would have had to do was come to Spadina Avenue...
...Two or three days...
...You see already that love and sex aren't for me...
...Her husband, Leon Treitler, had finally decided to liquidate all his holdings and to go to England or maybe to America, if he could obtain a visa...
...We would take the train to Detroit together...
...The law was on their side, not on mine...
...The door opened and several policemen (or maybe these were border guards) entered...
...I had sneaked like a thief into Canada but I left it like a free man...
...I'm not sure that I'm going to go through with it...
...We had planned everything down to the last detail...
...I had been raised to believe that a man with brass buttons, a badge, an insignia on his cap, knew little compassion, particularly when his victim was a Jew...
...As always _when something propitious happens to me, I asked my inner I, my ego, superego, id, or whatever it should be called, if I was Finally happy...
...he was free to spend the night as he pleased...
...They'll surely not hang you...
...I had always considered sleep a sort of make-believe, not only among people but even among animals...
...I was left with no choice but to lean my head against the dirty seat and force myself to doze off...
...and Mrs...
...Don't let me perish...
...Only now did I notice how tall they were—a pair of giants...
...One half of the eight-page letter described in detail the troubles she had encountered in obtaining this document...
...I sat down on my bed and I offered her the chair nearby...
...Was I to take a double room for Mr...
...The moment we had crossed it, Mr...
...In my sleep I heard the conductor announcing the stops...
...The red tape and the laziness of the officials were worse than ever...
...She came late and even from a distance I could see that she was distressed...
...Abruptly, she said, "I'm going to be married...
...Smith vanished...
...Would Zosia consent to it...
...I stopped at the window and looked out at the street seven flights below...
...The master of spite, as I call the special adversary of lovemaking, had his way...
...I heard the names of Jewish writers, poets, and politicians...
...I'll go back to Boston to my professor and maybe I'll get through the few years left to her and to me...
...My stomach had grown inflated and I had to urinate every few minutes...
...They say that he came here on a false passport...
...Was I hoping that I would overcome Zosia's fear of sex and transform my trek to Canada into an erotic triumph...
...Both of our trains were leaving in the evening and we had the whole day to ourselves...
...My mattress was torn and its springs protruded...
...These spacious hotel rooms, complete with rugs, tapestried walls, and luxurious furniture, would eat up my budget like locusts...
...The books that I read to her are complete fakes...
...I resolved not to meet with you again...
...I sat down on a bench and everything within me was mute...
...Don't worry...
...I slept and even dreamed, yet at the same time I thought about Zosia and the troubles she had endured during her few days with me...
...Don't be such a pessimist...
...Although I had a theory that life in general, human life in particular, and Jewish life especially, was one long attempt to muddle through, smuggle oneself past the forces of destruction, the word "smuggle" made my throat dry...
...He is a Jew by virtue of the fact that he isn't a gentile," I said, just to say something...
...The tables were strewn with Yiddish newspapers and magazines...
...I raced up and down the lengthy corridor...
...Copyright © 1981 by Isaac Bashevis Singer...
...Some of those sitting at the tables had already cast curious glances at me...
...I was too shocked to remember to ask for the price...
...The station was small...
...Even to kill oneself it was easier in a hotel than in a bus station...
...Someone like Mr...
...What...
...But you are a writer, you have a brother here, a newspaper that publishes you, a milieu...
...It was all in the past—the examination by the American consul in Toronto (not unlike the examination by the American consul in Warsaw), Zosia's congratulations, her wishes and kisses...
...What had happened to me...
...Smith, and the prices for our breakfast and lunch in the hotel restaurant were terribly high...
...What I really felt now was a kind of negative erection, if one may use an expression like this...
...I didn't believe in true sleep...
...Someone carried in her valises and she handed the man a tip...
...Preparing like a bride...
...The authors compared the reading of newspapers to card-playing, smoking, drinking, and other such habits that kill time and offer no benefit...
...She crossed her legs and for a split second I saw she was naked under her fancy garment...
...Apparently, back in 1929, in the Wall Street crash, he bought up stocks for pennies, and those stocks later rose and began paying dividends again...
...I awoke late with an ache in my spine...
...According to his schedule, I was to come back to New York the day after obtaining my visa, but why couldn't I remain in Canada longer...
...Why not...
...The train was leaving in the evening but I wanted to stop first at Zosia's hotel with my shaving equipment, a sweater, some underwear, as well as my passport...
...He swayed and gesticulated...
...and he had not called...
...I closed my eyes but they too had become autonomous and opened by themselves...
...I walked over and asked for a ticket, but the seller gave me a questioning look and his lips formed something like a smile...
...Zosia and I found a table and sat down...
...The entire matter struck me as nothing more than one of my fantasies with which I killed time instead of thinking about my work...
...And what about Zosia...
...Would Zosia show up...
...But lately I had come to the conclusion that a writer can learn much from the newspapers, particularly from the so-called yellow press...
...She said, "I'm sorry, but I haven't the room for your things...
...Smith...
...and silver slippers...
...It was clear to both of us that our planned journey together was over...
...It was odd that having crossed the Atlantic and smuggled myself over the border I found myself in a copy of Yiddish Poland...
...What is a human being, eh...
...Unconditonal surrender," the phrase so often used at the end of World War II, went through my mind...
...Zosia screamed and ran to the bathroom, coming back with two glasses, while the champagne kept on running over my hand and onto the rug...
...We would then meet at the bus station in Windsor and buy our tickets to Toronto...
...In the works on mental hygiene that I had read in Warsaw, like Payot's The Evolution of the Will and a similar book by Forel, it was written that reading too many newspapers was poison for someone who aimed to achieve some intellectual goal...
...he called him and told him what I required...
...The urge we had felt toward one another had left us...
...You are lost, too, but at least you received a Jewish upbringing...
...What is she doing in there...
...Her feet must have been hurting because she lingered at windows displaying ladies' shoes...
...I had occasion to read Houdini's book and in a sense it opened my eyes...
...Lemkin's advice to keep silent as to my place of origin went totally against my nature...
...Lemkin continued, "Don't be so timid...
...I would not need to rent a room at the Detroit hotel since I would be spending the coming night on the bus from Windsor to Toronto...
...I heard a knocking on my door and I rushed to open it...
...Somehow, I couldn't bring myself to address this youth in English, nor could I speak to him in Yiddish, since he would start questioning me about who I was, where I came from, and what I was doing in Canada...
...What...
...It has already melted but the water is still cold...
...If Zosia lived, it would be easier for her to phone or wire me at the King Edward Hotel than to reach me here at the bus station...
...Zosia had my passport...
...Everything appeared to go smoothly for the time being...
...His entire presence exuded the competence and energy of those for whom life with all its troubles and miseries is nothing but a joke, the kind of a challenge one encounters in solving some easy crossword puzzle...
...I didn't have to listen to their talk—their faces, voices, and intonations told me what each of them was: a Communist, a Left Poalei Zionist, or a Bundist...
...The officer apparently gathered my insinuation for he dropped the subject...
...But the fact that Zosia was to come along with her two heavy valises and the satchel posed unforeseen difficulties...
...We grew silent...
...He picked up the telephone and asked to be connected with the American consul in Toronto or perhaps with one of his aides...
...Nevertheless, she agreed to meet me at the Steward Cafeteria on Twenty-third Street...
...She opened the door and I saw that her night had been as nerve-racking as mine...
...Take nothing along, not even a toothbrush...
...If there is such a thing as Nirvana, let me try it right now, I decided...
...They understand as little about men as men understand them, I thought...
...But there were no suitcases in sight...
...But the fear of being arrested at the border didn't leave me...
...I knew that if I were arrested I would make a confession complete with all the details...
...I am waiting for you in the lobby...
...Every minute or so I glanced at my wristwatch...
...I told myself that there had been no need to consider suicide when Zosia vanished with my passport...
...I could see that it was not corked but sealed with a foil wrapper that could be easily removed...
...I brought along all the documents that I possessed...
...I didn't have a piece of luggage with me...
...Its patrons engaged in the same kind of conversations one always hears among Yiddishists: Could literature ignore social problems...
...For some reason, I had pictured Mr...
...the coward within me asked...
...Hardly anyone here spoke with a Litvak accent...
...Her tone was stern and expressed the annoyance of one no longer able to control her emotions...
...We had rented pillows for a quarter apiece and, since I hadn't slept the night before, I dozed the entire night...
...Smith called Mr...
...The writer within me observed, Literature hasn't even touched on the fantastic tricks that sick nerves can play on people...
...My penis tried to steal into hiding, to become shrunken, to sabotage and punish me for daring to make a decision without its consent, to become a benefactor on its account...
...We had emptied the bottle...
...I had gotten so accustomed to the games of the joy-killer in me and in those near to me that I stopped being surprised...
...You'll have to smuggle yourself into Canada...
...although I hadn't yet checked out...
...Why had I gotten involved with this Zosia in the first place...
...We got into a taxi and we were taken to a hotel that seemed to me fancy and expensive...
...In the morning we had breakfast in the dining room of the hotel, trying to make conversation about Hitler, Mussolini, the civil war in Spain...
...How is your health...
...I knocked on Zosia's door and it was a long while before she opened it...
...I slept and worried...
...Zosia did not know, but I knew that anything was possible between a man and a woman...
...Besides, if both of us were seen carrying valises outside, the hotel employees were liable to suspect that we were running out without paying our bill...
...What kind of surprise...
...I took the bottle out of the bucket and let the water drip back in order not to wet the rug...
...I should have followed Mr...
...I couldn't take along any luggage, but since Zosia was traveling legally, she had agreed to carry the most necessary things for me...
...He took one glance at my documents and said, "It's not enough, but we'll proceed with what we have...
...They surely had to understand that I had crossed the border illegally...
...Wait, I have a surprise for you...
...And if they did, could this power perhaps be turned into a force that worked miracles...
...Leaving for America was actually more my father's plan than mine...
...She complained that the late-night visits to my furnished room exhausted her so that all the following day she walked around sleepy and made mistakes in her work...
...I didn't take the subway but walked...
...At times during the height of our sexual fantasies she would emit a sigh that seemed to say, Where can all these dreams lead to...
...I'll make a reservation for you there for a couple of days because it takes a while to obtain the visa...
...She had even changed her hairdo...
...I had forgotten to take my hand out of my bosom pocket and I quickly withdrew it as my mouth replied of its own volition, "I have lost a woman with whom I might have been happy...
...A day like this happens once in a lifetime...
...Mecheles gotten sick, or had the couple decided to enjoy a sort of last honeymoon before parting forever...
...Lemkin had assured me that Mr...
...I paid the fare and was handed my ticket...
...He'll lead you across the bridge into Windsor, which belongs to Canada...
...I'm wearing a hat with a little brush in it and I'll be holding a copy of the Saturday Evening Post...
...My imagination promptly began to work...
...Give it to me...
...I had never read about any person whose emotions kept on changing, literally every second...
...I lay in bed naked and the sweat poured from me...
...Smith call...
...A mixture of resignation and wisdom looked out of its dark eyes, as old and as humble as the never-ending Jewish Exile...
...It bore the name of one of the ten spheres of the divine emanation...
...You have nothing more to do in New York...
...They were seldom as poor as I was, burdened with problems of passports, lawyers, precarious jobs, sick nerves...
...It would be better for me to be arrested and deported to Poland than to remain in a strange country without papers and with just enough money to last me one week at most...
...Everything goes smooth as glass...
...He gave me the man's name, address, and phone number...
...He also gave me money for the fare to Canada and paid the lawyer his advance...
...She was ready to go down and take the cab to Windsor...
...She said, "Where do you get a corkscrew in a place like this...
...It seems to me that the station was right on the other side of the bridge...
...I said, "Unless you were to shave your head, don a bonnet, and marry some yeshiva student from Mea Shearim, all your problems would remain unresolved even in Palestine...
...Evening had fallen...
...By the time I dozed off, dawn was breaking...
...She went out and did not close the door, but left it half open...
...Well, this is my finish," I told myself...
...Her hair didn't look properly combed...
...Just like the doctor before them, they offered me their hands and wished me luck in America...
...Since he was a smuggler, it was quite feasible that he had been arrested...
...A catastrophe had occurred...
...Last night, after I had fallen asleep in my room, I heard my father's voice...
...It appeared also that she wanted to avoid being seen with someone who was preparing to cross the border illegally, and she had to call for a man to take down her luggage...
...I was convinced that they would do this later, before I boarded my bus...
...I asked her where the elevator was and she shouted something I couldn't understand...
...Smith nodded to one of them...
...Powerful affection sometimes went hand in hand with shameless betrayal...
...I realized now that I had committed a folly in entrusting my passport to Zosia...
...Everything transpired in a hurry...
...In Toronto, you can buy pajamas or sleep naked, as I do...
...What can I do...
...The day-by-day parade of the news mocked all the philosophical theories, every effort to seek out a basis for ethics, all sociological and psychological hypotheses...
...It's all a matter of a few bucks...
...The policemen exchanged brief glances, as if mutely consulting on their next move...
...Yes...
...Yes, yes, yes...
...Day was breaking when we both gave up and Zosia went back to her room...
...For one fraction of a moment my mind remained blank...
...Lemkin hung up, he asked a fee of fifteen hundred dollars for obtaining my visa...
...No, my dear...
...I asked...
...We had already gone through customs, showing the officials our papers, and they had passed us through without any difficulties...
...The armed men spoke to the ticket seller...
...He has a huge apartment on Riverside Drive and all the walls are covered with masterpieces...
...What if she announced to me that she had changed her mind...
...One-way," I said...
...My brother had told him that Washington had declined to extend my visa beyond three months, and this noble man had written to say that he had found a lawyer for me who specialized in helping immigrants...
...A person could also suddenly fall ill or be run over, God forbid...
...I'll give you all the addresses...
...I had no faith in the institution of marriage, neither could I stand my bachelor's loneliness...
...Suddenly, the train stopped and two men who might have been policemen, border guards, or customs men entered the car...
...The quiet, reticent Zosia had turned energetic overnight...
...This is all fine and good for a thirty-year-old bohe-mian, but not for a woman of forty and poor to boot...
...I had proposed it to her without believing for a moment that she would agree...
...One of them asked, "How did you get into Canada...
...The forces worked in such fashion that my return, after I had overcome all dangers and driven off all demons and evil spirits, was completely joyless...
...Was it the upbringing...
...Zosia was still in New York, and although I had resolved that meeting with her was a waste of time, I phoned her and caught her in...
...The doctor gave me his hand...
...I had taken a huge dose of a laxative but my nerves were so taut that even this didn't help...
...Have you read it...
...You belong to these Yiddishists whether you want to or not...
...It was all these things, but chiefly a hunger for suspense...
...She was ready to accompany me to Toronto and go on a trip with me to some other Canadian places—"just for the sake of doing something before I expire from boredom," she explained...
...Eh...
...He is definitely not my type, but then again, who is...
...The prophet is on Ellis Island...
...The whole thing had to remain a secret not only from my brother but from my lawyer as well...
...When you get to Windsor, you'll take a bus to Toronto...
...They may lead to insanity...
...Zosia was saying to me, "Oh, I was determined and I still am, to return to Jewishness, but of what shall my Jewishness consist...
...Zosia had gone to sleep in her room and, although I was overcome with fatigue, I could not doze off...
...I reproached her contradictory behavior but she said to me, "I can't help it...
...Reuben Mecheles was due to leave for Reno within the next few days to see his wife, who was awaiting her divorce, and Zosia now had the time and the opportunity to accompany me to Canada...
...She had to support a child...
...Nesha was poor...
...How beautiful you look...
...When the clerk asked me if I wanted a room with a double or twin bed, I heard Zosia say, "We aren't married...
...Zosia asked now, "Is it possible to go directly to Boston from here...
...Had I said this, they might have asked to see this permission or ask who had issued it...
...No, but she left me a key...
...I became a sudden daredevil...
...She informed me that exactly the same thing happened to her on that night when she had tried to give herself to that professor in Warsaw...
...They all conversed—or rather, shouted— in Yiddish...
...And that's how it turned out...
...This thing with Reuben Mecheles is finished...
...This place was a Canadian version of the Warsaw Writers' Club...
...Is she really going to marry someone else...
...What happens if I am caught...
...I had observed the very strangest and most incredible occurrences even among those simple primitive couples who had come to my father's courtroom to marry, to divorce, or to settle a dispute...
...It argued, "It's not too late yet to shake loose of the entire madness...
...Lemkin had written down for me the name of the hotel in Detroit where I was to await a man whom I would address as Mr...
...She convinced herself that her husband was trying to poison her...
...However, the Canadian bureaucrats won't grant you permission to enter Canada...
...In all the excitement of getting the visa I had almost forgotten that Zosia and I had come here with an unspoken agreement to deliver her from the disgrace of remaining a virgin at an age when other women had husbands or lovers or both...
...No Zosia, I'm completely alone here...
...Smith and so we decided that she would cross the bridge before Mr...
...I confirmed my identity and one of the officials said, "Come with us...
...I asked her what I could bring her from the counter and she replied, "Absolutely nothing...
...But they kept diplomatically silent...
...Unlike the other limbs of the body, the penis has the autonomy to function or not to function according to its ethical and aesthetic likes and dislikes...
Vol. 6 • June 1981 • No. 6
