The door opened and a young man entered. He was bent over like an old man, beardless, wearing a black suit with tin buttons and a hat with a leather brim. His eyes shone with suffering and stubbornness. His face was bronze-colored and his cheeks hollow. His entrance frightened my mother a bit, for his footfalls were not heard on the steps. He just stood there and did not say a word.
“What do you want?”
“Is the rabbi here?”
“He’s in the study.”
“What’s the good word?” Father asked unceremoniously.
“Rabbi, my wife is a whore,” the newcomer called out.
Only now did Father raise his eyes from the Gemara he was studying. Confused, he placed a narrow black cord on the page, then took out his handkerchief and wiped his brow.
“What are you talking about?”
“Rabbi, I’m not making it up. She’s got a lover who spends days and nights in our house. She kisses him right in front of me. When I leave, he creeps into her bed …”
“Nu, nu, nu … tsk tsk tsk,” Father muttered. He looked around, apparently suspicious that I was in the room. But I was standing behind the bookcase, which was perpendicular to the wall, and he couldn’t see me. And besides, he was nearsighted. For a while he sat staring into his text as though ashamed. Then he said, “Why do you let such a person into your apartment?”
“She takes in anybody she wants. She wears the pants in the family, not me.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a gravedigger. Not in the cemetery on Genshe Street but in the one in Praga. That’s where I work.”
Father wiped the perspiration from his forehead. “Nu …”
“I’m not home all day long. Sometimes I go out early in the morning and don’t come back till very late at night. Sometimes there are a lot of dead people. So she does what she wants. She lives with him openly and makes a laughingstock of me!”
“Stick her with a divorce!” Father shouted. “You are not allowed to remain under one roof with such a promiscuous woman!”
“Rabbi, she denies it completely.”
“What do you mean, she denies it? You yourself just said you’ve seen it with your own eyes.”
“I saw them kissing, but not—like they say—not the real thing.”
“That is enough. A married woman who kisses another man is a whore!” Father raised his voice again. “She deserves to be divorced without a settlement.”
“She doesn’t want to divorce me.”
“Put the bill of divorce in her hands. You are not allowed to be with her one minute longer.”
“Even if she only kisses him?”
“Yes. One thing leads to another. Even if a woman is just running around, one may divorce her. The Gemara calls someone like that a prostitute. A Jewish girl doesn’t run around and doesn’t consort with strange men. Woe unto us, it’s awful!”
“Rabbi, we have two children. Two decent girls.”
“Take the children away from her. With such a mother the children will grow up to be licentious, God forbid. Why didn’t you speak up before?” Father was roused again.
“I always thought she would come to her senses. After all, it’s not easy to destroy one’s home.”
“In such matters there’s no such thing as ‘coming to one’s senses,’” Father said. “Of course, one can repent any deed, but when a married woman has dealings with a strange man, she becomes defiled. Who is he, this sinner of Israel? Why did you let him into your home in the first place?”
“Rabbi, he’s a human being, not a wild beast. We met, we struck up a friendship, my wife invited him over. He comes, he talks, we drink a glass of brandy together. We play cards. He owns flat wagons and has people working for him. Mine is a strange line of work, Rabbi. There’s income, but we just barely manage. The men who do the burying receive a big salary. I dig out the grave and they get the money. Among normal folk a
man comes home, tells his wife what he did during the day and how it went. What can I tell her? As soon as I come into the house she shouts, ‘Wash your hands!’ But my hands are clean! My children are ashamed of how I make a living. What should I do? After all, it’s a sure way of making a gulden. Nu, so we sit down together and have a bit of fun.”
“What do you mean ‘together’?”
“Me, she, and him.”
“Well, so then you yourself are responsible.”
“One can’t always be alone.”
“Don’t you have any family?”
“I have family, but I can’t talk to them.”
“Why not? Do you go to shul?”
“Sometimes, on a Sabbath.”
“A Jew has to pray three times a day! When you go to a shul or a study room, you’re already among people. A woman has neighbors. How do all Jews live? The Gemara says that when a person goes into a tannery, a stench envelops him. And since you are taking a libertine into your house and you and your wife play cards with him, it can only lead to sinning.”
“Rabbi, I’m not a fanatic.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Like people say, we don’t live today the way they lived one hundred years ago.”
“The Master of the Universe is the same as He was one hundred and one thousand years ago, and the Torah is also the same. That is how goyim behave, not Jews. A Jewish daughter must be modest.”
“So what should I do, Rabbi?”
“So you have actually seen her—how did you put it?—kissing him?”
“Yes, Rabbi. Not once, but a hundred times.”
“And since she behaves with such chutzpah right in front of you, what do you think she does later?”
“Rabbi, it’s an open secret.”
“Divorce her! Divorce her! You’re not allowed to stay with her even a minute longer. She’s also forbidden to marry that other one. That’s the law!”
“Rabbi, he has a wife.”
“Really? … Nu …”
“She won’t give me the children.”
“First of all, you yourself must get rid of her. Every minute you continue to live with her is a sin. Let her think it over and repent. Such things don’t happen to Jews who follow the right path. It all stems from modern behavior. A Jew must have a beard and sidecurls; he must go to shul and pray, study a chapter of Mishnah, or whatever he can. A Jewish wife must shave her head and follow the laws of family purity and other mitzvahs. The things you’ve described do not happen to upright Jews. They happen only to promiscuous people.”
“Yes, Rabbi, my mother, may she rest in peace, never even looked at anyone else. For her there was only one God and one man.”
“Well, so you see for yourself.”
“But still, I can’t be like my father.”
“Why not? The Torah is not in heaven. Everybody can be a Jew.”
“Yes, but …”
Silence fell. Father covered his eyes with his hand and held it there for a while. His mild face became stern. A wrinkle appeared on his high forehead. Aside from hating sins and licentiousness, Father apparently couldn’t understand how a man could permit his wife, the mother of his children, to dally with another man. Father continued, saying that this went against the natural order. Only sinners turn the natural order upside down. As the man listened to Father, he became even more stooped over. He looked as though he might break in two.
“What should I do, Rabbi?”
“Call her to a rabbinic judgment.”
“She won’t come.”
“Let a divorce bill be written and hand it to her. Do you have a civil marriage license?”
“Marriage license? No.”
“Divorce her and never again look at her defiled face!”
The gravedigger began to make faces and cough. He cast a questioning look at me, the little boy. Father was as decisive as this man was full of doubts. The man looked both vexed and overflowing with a kind of softness I couldn’t grasp. It seemed that he had not revealed everything. There were some untold secrets and that’s why we couldn’t make head or tail of his story. He began speaking partly to Father and partly to himself.
“Such things can’t be done quickly. After all, we’ve been living together sixteen years. We have two nice children. How are they to blame, the poor things? She’s fallen in love, fallen in love. He’s a braggart the like of which you can’t find in Warsaw. He’s a handsome young man with a smooth tongue. People say that a woman is long on hair and short on brains. She doesn’t
want to think about it. She chased him away once, but then she asked me to go and apologize to him.”
“And you went to apologize to him?!”
“It’s gloomy at home and when he comes he brings some joy into the house. He brings us a bottle of brandy, this, that, and the other thing. He has lots of stories to tell. Maybe none of them are true, but meanwhile, we laugh and joke around. He also sings well and my wife likes to sing, too.”
“Enough! I don’t want to hear any more! You’re to blame for everything!” Father shouted. “If one plays with fire, one gets burned. You’re a stubborn rebel! And you’re not even repentant or prepared to change your behavior. So why did you come to me? I can only tell you what the law states!”
“Rabbi, I’m miserable.”
“In the next world you’ll be even more miserable, God forbid. A person does not live forever. She’s an adulteress—and you’re the cause of it! This is one of the three sins of which it is said: ‘It is better to be killed than to sin: forbidden sex, idol worship, and murder.’ For any other sin one is forbidden to give up one’s life, because the Torah holds a person’s life precious. And since the Torah has ordained that one should let oneself be killed for this type of conduct, you can readily understand how heinous is this sin.”
“Yes, Rabbi, I know.”
“So if you know, why do you remain silent?”
“It’s just that I think things over. All of this. All along I thought perhaps she would change her mind. I spoke to her about it. What will people say? People are laughing into their fists. The children are growing up and they understand
everything. My younger daughter is quite smart. She has a mature outlook. Every word of hers is a delight. She loves me. Him she can’t stand. He brings her little chocolates, but she refuses them. She’s my daughter and she takes after me. So I say to my wife, What’s the upshot going to be? But she hasn’t got the faintest idea. If he doesn’t show up one day, she’s totally out of sorts. The only thing she’s afraid of is that he’ll find himself another woman. The truth is, Rabbi, that he has ten others. That’s the sort of nature he has. Seeing a skirt gets him all excited. I, Rabbi, I’m a settled sort of person. I, if I have a wife, I don’t run after anybody else. So I say, What’s going to be? It’s like talking to the wall! All he has to do is say the word and she’d run off to America with him. She’s been seduced by him, Rabbi. Completely seduced!”
“All the wicked are seduced! But you are forbidden to live with her.”
“Perhaps we can still make peace. For the sake of the children.”
Father made a motion as if to stand. “You’re killing your children, too. When the children see that you know all this and remain silent, they assume that everything is fine.”
“Does that mean it would be better for me to leave home and abandon everything?”
“Is that what you call a home? The Gemara says that a person may not live with a snake in one basket—”
“Yes, Rabbi, that’s how it is: a snake … Good night, Rabbi.”
“What? Oh, good night. A good year!”
“I’ll think everything over.”
“Well …”
When the man left, I came out from behind the bookcase.
“You were here all along?”
“I was looking for a book.”
“And you heard everything?”
“I didn’t pay attention.”
“It’s better that way. Better that way. Unfortunately, sinners are very stupid!”
And Father removed the narrow black cord from the Gemara and resumed studying.