A few doors from us there was an apartment whose tenants were dissolute. It wasn’t a house of prostitution, God forbid, but the people who lived there were decidedly low-class. The man probably dealt in stolen goods; in Warsaw lingo he was called a fence. He may have had another profession which wasn’t too kosher either. His wife went about bareheaded. In my parents’ view, everything about that apartment was loud and brazen. The walls were colored rose and red. They had a gramophone that squeaked out all kinds of theater songs from early in the morning until late at night. They had a cage with canaries and a parrot. And as if that wasn’t enough, they also kept a dog.
The man’s wife was chubby, with big breasts, a short neck, and a round face. She didn’t speak; she sang. Her Yiddish was a kind of Warsaw slang; she added letters to words and changed prefixes. She also spoke Polish. She had a baby girl whom she took out on walks in a stroller. We considered all these things gentile ways.
In that apartment they were still asleep at 10 a.m., for they went to bed at three in the morning. Aside from breakfast, lunch,
and supper, they also took a second supper at midnight. Their gentile maid would go down late at night to bring them crackly fresh rolls, salami, turkey breast, liver, roast meat, goose, or a platter of cold cuts, all of which they dipped into mustard and washed down with beer. Sometimes they would eat hot sausages. And during this meal the men—the owner of the apartment and his guests—spoke loudly and shouted. The women’s laughter could be heard in the entire courtyard.
Every manner of evil was imputed to them. The man shaved his beard. He didn’t even attend synagogue on Sabbath. The woman did not go to the ritual bath. They had a balcony next to ours and on it they did all kinds of forbidden things. Men kissed women. They used uncouth expressions. My mother once saw the mistress of the house kissing her dog. “How low can people sink?” Mother asked. “That’s what happens when people turn away from the Jewish path.”
Once, they threw a party and invited the police. Father immediately removed his rabbinic hat and put on a velvet one with a high crown, for he did not have a permit to be a rabbi. He was afraid that while they were celebrating, the police might decide to inspect his apartment. The thought that Jews were sitting at one table with peasants, eating and drinking and having a good time, struck him as wild. How could one enjoy one’s food when a peasant was sitting opposite you? How could the grandchildren of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob be fraternizing with the enemies of Israel?
Father said, “Alas, it’s all because of this dark and bitter exile that we’re in. It’s high time for the Messiah to come. It’s time, high time!”
Mother also walked about the house upset. We heard men shouting, women laughing, and after a while the gramophone played a march and we could hear them dancing. Men and women were dancing together, and all of this was happening no more than a door or two away.
One day I saw some policemen going up to that apartment. I thought that our neighbors were having another party, but it was something entirely different. The owner of the apartment had been arrested. I saw him coming down, a tall man with a long face and a long neck, wearing a shirt without a collar. Strangely, a pair of brand-new boots bound by a string was hanging from his shoulders. The new boots fascinated me more than the fact of his arrest. One boot dangled over his chest, the other over his back. Was he going to stay in jail for years? Did he know in advance that he would be imprisoned? And if so, why didn’t he run away?
His wife followed him, as did many others. Once outside, the policemen and our neighbor boarded a droshky and off they went—to prison, no doubt.
For a couple of days the apartment was quiet. Not a sound came from the gramophone, the dog, the parrot, or the canaries. A weird silence emanated from the rooms from which the owner had been taken. Father insinuated that perhaps now those people would repent, for if they were already being punished in this world, what had they gained? But he was mistaken.
Soon the gramophone was heard once again playing the same merry little tunes and ditties as before. Once again we heard the dog and the birds. And if that was not enough, a rumor circulated in the courtyard that the woman had taken a
lover. A man began visiting. He wasn’t as tall as the apartment owner, but he was broad-shouldered. He had a wide nose, a thick mustache, and the eyes of a libertine. He wore a Polish jacket and a pair of baggy riding breeches. His boots had such narrow uppers it was hard to imagine how a man’s foot could slip into them. He always came with presents in hand: all kinds of small packages tied with colored ribbons and held with little wooden handles.
Mother came into Father’s study and said, “These things are unheard of even among respectable gentiles … an adulterous woman!”
“I don’t want to hear about it! Enough!” Father replied.
“It’s like getting slapped in the face when I look at them!”
“So don’t look! What’s there to look at?”
“Perhaps you should summon her to your courtroom.”
Father sighed. First of all, he knew that anything he said would do no good; second, he didn’t want to hear the voice of such a wanton. He said, “She would defile the apartment.”
“One must warn someone before imposing punishment!” Mother answered, quoting the Talmud.
Father placed his handkerchief on the Talmud he was studying. “Who should summon her?”
“Mama, I’ll go.”
Father cast an angry glance at me. “I don’t want you to have anything to do with such people.”
But there was no one else to go. Furthermore, if a stranger went, the woman would surely pay him no heed. I heard Mother telling Father, “What does he know? He doesn’t know a thing …”
“Well then, all right.”
They told me to summon the woman, and I went off at once. I was a bit afraid of the dog, but my curiosity to see this dissolute apartment was greater than my fear. As soon as I knocked on the door, I heard the dog barking. Then I saw the mistress of the house. She wore an unbuttoned, lace-decorated housecoat and a pair of wide bloomers also adorned with lace. I could see her breasts, too. She stood next to me, a hunk of evil impulse, Rehab the prostitute, a Biblical harlot, a half-naked piece of riffraff. All kinds of unkosher smells emanated from her. The entire woman was one chunk of trayfness. My nose was subjected to such awful smells I couldn’t even speak.
“Papa is summoning you!” I barely managed to say.
“And who’s your papa?”
“The rabbi.”
“What does the rabbi need me for?”
And she began to laugh, displaying a set of broad teeth. Here and there a piece of gold glinted. Her lover came into the room; he wore no jacket but had on a gold, polka-dotted little vest. The parrot began screeching. The dog began barking again.
The man asked, “What does the little jerk want?”
“I’m being summoned to the rabbi.”
“Tell his father to go fly a kite,” the man responded, slamming the door in my face.
I left, stung to the core. I told my parents what I had seen. Father said in Aramaic, “Since he has so much impudence, it’s obvious that he’s a bastard.” In this fashion Father took his revenge upon the wanton by quoting a line from the Gemara.
Nevertheless, half an hour later the neighbor came to our apartment. Father began lecturing her, but the woman denied everything.
“Never mind what people say,” she said. “People have big yaps, so they shoot off their mouths. Let ‘em babble, let ’em blab with their behinds. Let ’em spit up blood and pus. Sure, as if I’ve got nothing better to think about when my husband is sitting in the clinker than another man! … May their bones rot! A fire in their kishkes!”
“One is forbidden to curse.”
“Rabbi, it’s the truth.”
“One is forbidden to curse even if it’s the truth.”
“Rabbi, I’m a kosher wife. It’s all a lie. There’s not one bit of truth in it. He’s my husband’s good friend, so he comes into the house to hear news. What should I do? Throw him out?”
“God forbid.”
“Then what?”
“It is written that one is forbidden to give people the opportunity to be suspicious.”
“Is it my fault that people have big eyes? May their eyes go blind, dear sweet Father in heaven!”
Father apparently believed her, because he went on: “Why do you keep a dog? It’s not a Jewish trait.”
“Rabbi, the street is full of thieves. If not for the dog, I’d be in the poorhouse.”
You’re full of baloney! You’re talking through your hat, I thought to myself. You can pick a pocket just by looking. But Father became milder and milder. He said, “One doesn’t live forever. It is written that when a person dies, God forbid, neither
silver nor gold accompanies him. Not precious stones and pearls but only mitzvahs and good deeds.”
“Don’t you think I know this? I have a little charity box hanging in my kitchen. I light candles every Friday night. Every day I put in a couple of coins. May my husband come back to me in good health! …”
Before she left Father wished her well.
As soon as she had departed, Mother came in. “Well, what have you accomplished?”
“She denies everything.”
“And do you believe her?”
“People dream up all kinds of stories.”
Mother was annoyed with Father, saying that anyone could fool him. Then she quoted a Biblical verse to him that was hardly complimentary. He sat there with his head bent. By nature he trusted people and didn’t like to delve into sins and wickedness. He had but one wish: to return to studying his sacred text.
A couple of months later the woman’s husband was released from jail, but her lover—that’s what they still called him on the street—kept coming to the apartment. The gramophone played on, the dog barked, the parrot screeched, and the canaries trilled. Again they gave a party and, evidently, once more invited the police. It was summertime and hot in our apartment, but Father ordered me to close the windows and said, “Why are you wandering about? Go study a Gemara.”