52

I Can’t Get Unstuck

Finally!

Finally I am free of that nudnik and the German lady and her room, and the patchwork quilt, and the icons, and the horrible feeling that I was going to fall into a net with my soul chained to “enlightenment”!

Now I feel like things are looking up—up to the fifth floor! I’m in a small but clean room in the home of a good, simple, poor Jewish family. My new landlady, Mrs. Kotik, is an old woman with a kind, motherly face and soft, youthful eyes. She views me with pride. I’m just the sort of girl she wanted to have stay with her. So quiet and composed—like an angel!

That’s how I am now. I can feel it. My whole self is filled with longing to be quiet and composed, to hardly be anything at all. From my room I look down at the street and the people seem so small. I look up and I wish I were even higher. I hardly understood my landlady as she said, “It’s hard to climb up here, but once you’re up it’s nice. No one to bother you. No dirty water to fall on your head from the clothesline above. There’s plenty of air here. It’s bright too. Such a pleasure!”

The noise of the street barely reaches here. I feel disconnected from the world. I’ll be able to read here, and think, and dream . . .

Now that I’m here I’m going to write more often to my relatives who are far away. I’ll go to lectures, I’ll attend night school. I won’t waste my time anymore.

No, once something gets stuck on me, I can’t get unstuck!

It happened when I ran into my landlady one day. I was coming home from work one evening and Mrs. Kotik greeted me with a motherly smile, telling me that she had something to say to me. She would come see me in my room. She came in. “What’ll you give me if I tell you something?” she asked with a playful smile.

“It depends on what you have to say,” I answered, returning her smile.

“It’s something good. Guess!”

“I can’t guess.”

“Can’t you? The long and short of it is that I met your fiancé here today!”

“My what?!”

“Yes! He wants to make up with you. He told me everything. Absolutely everything. You argued over something or other and won’t talk to him anymore. He’s happy to do whatever you want, he says, as long as things can be as they were. There’s no need to hurry with the wedding. You can wait until he finishes school. He says that you should wait a little. He says it’s for your sake—things will be better for you that way. He seems like a fine young man. Educated, modern, and he even speaks Yiddish. How is it that you’ve been staying with me for two weeks now and you never once told me that you’re engaged? Young men are not like girls, you know, they don’t hold back.”

She was so eager to talk about my young man that she practically accosted me for—not being like a man. I didn’t know how to respond, so I pretended to rummage around for something that I didn’t really need. She continued, “In my foolish opinion, a girl shouldn’t let herself get so angry. You should make up with him. Of course, it’s always better when more people know that you’re a couple. If one person wants to split up and the other doesn’t, it can be useful, legally speaking—I’d be the first to act as a witness to vouch that you’re engaged to him, that he told me himself that he’s your fiancé.

“I’ll tell you, just like a mother would, that it’s better to have the wedding over and done with and to take yourself off the market. If you end up waiting awhile too bad! What can you do? But you shouldn’t be a fool, and you should know how to behave until that lucky hour. Surely, you must know what I mean, that waiting is—waiting. Other girls sit alone with their fiancés until late at night. That’s no good. First, it’s not healthy when you have to get up early and you didn’t get a good night’s rest. Second, you’ll get bored of one another. There’s nothing new to find out about each other. Everything is good in moderation. I can talk with you more about that later. Now I have to go serve supper.”

My “fiancé” came to see me.

Actually, he didn’t come to see me directly—he came to visit Mrs. Kotik.

Mrs. Kotik came to me and asked if I wanted to go out to see him or whether he could come into my room. Because he told her that he’s happy with either: I can come to him or he can come to me. Although, of course, I am the guilty party, but since he’s such a gentleman, he’ll give the lady some deference. He’ll be the first one to try to set things right.

“Good evening,” he began, speaking in English. Unable to wait until Mrs. Kotik brought him an answer from me, he spoke to me from outside my room, where I’d left the door somewhat ajar. I closed the door tightly.

“What are you doing?” my landlady scolded, as though insulted on his behalf. “How can you slam the door in a man’s face like that? Whatever you have to say, you should at least say something to him! Give him a chance to speak.”

She ran after him to excuse my behavior, begging him to have a seat. She told him I wasn’t dressed yet, and that I’d come down to see him when I was ready. He had completely won her over.

They say that “the world loves a man in love.” And so it is. The world loves him, and especially women love him. Mrs. Kotik, seeing how in love he was with me, the poor sweet man, told me that I must give him a chance to speak his heart. She was afraid he wouldn’t survive his heartache. “Only one of two things can come of this,” she argued, “and whether it goes one way or the other, the least you can do is talk to him!” Eventually, she prevailed upon me to go out and speak to him. She left us in the front room and retreated to the kitchen.

C. stood up from the rocking chair. “Good evening,” he began in English again, bowing slightly. “I see that you’re still mad at me . . .”

“What do you want from me?” I asked tersely.

“Forgive me!”

“Will that make you go away? If you’ll go away after I forgive you and you won’t come back again, then I’ll gladly forgive you.”

“Is that an ultimatum?”

“It is what it is.”

“I understand it differently. Your current behavior is obviously an expression of your love for me. Yes, your love. The more you try to drive me away from you, the more you show me that you aren’t indifferent to me after all!”

“Fine. Our conversation is closed. I need to go now.”

“I’ll come along.”

“Not with me.”

“Then I’ll follow you.”

“Goodbye!” I called, returning to my room and closing the door behind me.

“So, did you make up?” Mrs. Kotik asked, returning from the kitchen to the front room.

“Yes!” he said. “But I can’t stay any longer today. I have to go, but I’ll be back tomorrow. Goodnight, Madame, and thank you very much.”

“Oh, you’re very welcome,” answered Mrs. Kotik, moved by his gratitude. “You can thank me by dancing with me at your wedding, God willing.”

My landlady thanks her lucky stars that she has me. She’s never seen such a lovely girl in her life. So well-behaved, so reliable. And with a fiancé, to boot!

“He’s crazy about you!” she teases. “Just one smile from you makes an ordinary day into a holiday for him. You’ll make it so that he won’t be able to wait until he graduates. He’ll soon be begging you to marry him right away.” She advises me, “Just keep on doing what you’re doing. Make him keep his distance. Don’t sit together in the dark. Never mind about the cost of gas. We’re talking about something far more important here. You know what I mean.”

I know what she means. I like to listen to her talk and see how proud she was that I follow all of her advice. “These days, a child doesn’t follow her own mother’s advice so closely as she follows mine. It’s because she is a dear girl, so dependable and good. You should have such good fortune!”