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. The entire matter struck me as nothing more than one of my fantasies with which I killed time instead of thinking about my work. 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. Besides, the forces that favor adventurers had done me a service. 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.
Had Mrs. Mecheles gotten sick, or had the couple decided to enjoy a sort of last honeymoon before parting forever? Zosia did not know, but I knew that anything was possible between a man and a woman. I had observed the very strangest and most incredible occurrences even among those simple couples who had come to my father’s courtroom to marry, to divorce, or to settle a dispute. Love turned to hate overnight. Hate flared up again into love. Powerful affection sometimes went hand in hand with shameless betrayal. I often heard critics employ such words as “implausible” and “unrealistic,” but I learned that many things that some consider impossible occur daily.
The quiet, reticent Zosia had turned energetic overnight. 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. I had proposed it to her without believing for a moment that she would agree. Only after she consented did I realize how many complications—financial, legal, psychological—this little venture would bring about.
Zosia told me that an immigrant who has first papers requires only permission to leave the country, and she went to a lawyer to help her obtain this permission. 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. The whole thing had to remain a secret not only from my brother but from my lawyer as well. 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? 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.
My urge for conspiracy was, it seemed, even stronger than my cowardice. I became a sudden daredevil. Was I hoping that I would overcome Zosia’s fear of sex and transform my trek to Canada into an erotic triumph? Was I looking to take on a new mistress in case Nesha should decide to marry? It was all these things, but chiefly a hunger for suspense. 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. For the writer, they are potential treasures that could never be exhausted, while all innovations in language soon become clichés.
We had planned everything down to the last detail. We would take the train to Detroit together. There I would meet the guide who would escort me across the bridge to Windsor. Zosia would cross this bridge legally at the same time. Since she had an immigration visa, she was as good as an American citizen. We would then meet at the bus station in Windsor and buy our tickets to Toronto. Zosia was supposed to telephone the King Edward Hotel, where I would be staying, and reserve a room for herself. After I had obtained the visa, we would go on to Montreal. 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. The half-blind professor had had her telephone disconnected while she was visiting her brother in Lenox so that Reuben Mecheles couldn’t try to contact Zosia. Zosia suspected that he had gone to Reno in an effort for a reconciliation with his wife. She said to me, “For all his slyness, he is a fool, and for all his daring, he is a slave.”
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. 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.
On the night before Zosia and I were to leave for Detroit, I didn’t sleep a wink. The day had been a hot one and my furnished room was like a sweatbox. Although the water from the tap wasn’t clean, I kept drinking it. I lay in bed naked and the sweat poured from me. My stomach had grown inflated and I had to urinate every few minutes. 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. It argued, “It’s not too late yet to shake loose of the entire madness.” I knew somehow that Zosia was experiencing the very same turmoil. In my imagination, I could hear her toss in her bed, muttering, sighing, seeking some pretext for getting out of the situation. By the time I dozed off, dawn was breaking. I awoke late with an ache in my spine. My mattress was torn and its springs protruded. 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. I owed money to the lawyer. I wouldn’t dare 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 couldn’t take along any luggage, but since Zosia was traveling legally, she had agreed to carry the most necessary things for me.
The train was leaving in the evening but that morning I wanted to stop at Zosia’s hotel with my shaving equipment, a sweater, some underwear, as well as my passport. Mr. Lemkin had advised me to mail my passport to the King Edward Hotel, but I considered this too risky. What if it got lost in the mail? Without a passport, one couldn’t get a visa. It was much safer for Zosia to carry it for me.
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. I had taken a huge dose of a laxative but my nerves were so taut that even this didn’t help. I had forgotten to bring soap to the bathroom, but I found a piece someone had left there. Sitting in the bathtub, I thought that my adventure could be a theme for a story or even a comedy. Who knows? Maybe Casanova and all those other boasters had been just as frightened and befuddled as I was. I dressed, packed the belongings I intended to turn over to Zosia, and went to her hotel on Fifty-seventh Street. What if she announced to me that she had changed her mind? I both wished for it and feared that this would happen. The day was hot and humid. I didn’t take the subway but walked. 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. We planned to be there two hours before the train left to allow sufficient time for any eventuality.
I knocked on Zosia’s door and it was a long while before she opened it. My imagination promptly began to work. Maybe she had moved out? Maybe she had committed suicide? Maybe she was nothing but a phantom? She opened the door and I saw that her night had been as nerve-racking as mine. She looked pale, sleepy, drawn. Two huge valises stood in the center of the room in addition to a small satchel. I wanted to ask why she was taking along so much luggage but I decided it would be best to keep silent. 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. She said, “I’m sorry, but I haven’t the room for your things. The valises are filled to bursting.”
“Why do you need so many things?”
“Eh? I’m a woman, not a man. I can’t go somewhere without clothes. In such hot weather, you have to change your underwear, your dresses, your stockings. And since I am vacating the room at this hotel, I can’t leave my things here. They don’t want to be held responsible for them.”
“Yes, I understand.”
Everything appeared to go smoothly for the time being. 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. 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.
We spent the night sitting up in the coach car. We had rented pillows for a quarter apiece and, since I hadn’t slept the night before, I dozed the entire night. The car was half empty and Zosia found a bench on which to stretch out. I slept and worried. In my sleep I heard the conductor announcing the stops. In the novels I had read in my young days, the lovers were one hundred percent monogamous, certain of their love. They suffered only from external obstacles—ambitious parents, a wife or a husband who refused to grant a divorce, social objections or superstitions. They were seldom as poor as I was, burdened with problems of passports, lawyers, precarious jobs, sick nerves. But I had never read about any person whose emotions kept on changing, literally every second. 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.
Mr. 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. Smith. Mr. Smith was to leave a message with the desk clerk giving the time of our meeting. 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 was simply to sit in the hotel lobby until Mr. Smith contacted me. But the fact that Zosia was to come along with her two heavy valises and the satchel posed unforeseen difficulties. 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. Smith. On the other hand, I couldn’t afford the luxury of renting a room for merely a few hours. And what about Zosia? Was I to take a double room for Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so? Would Zosia consent to it? And what if the clerk asked for our passports?
I had fallen into a deep sleep before we reached Detroit and Zosia was waking me. She looked sick, faded, disheveled. We got into a taxi and we were taken to a hotel that seemed to me fancy and expensive. Two porters fetched Zosia’s luggage and we were led to the desk where new arrivals registered. When the clerk asked me if I wanted a room with a double or twin bed, I hear Zosia say, “We aren’t married.”
“In that case I’ll give you two adjacent rooms,” the clerk said gallantly. He gave me a sidelong look and handed another card to Zosia for her to fill out. I was too shocked to remember to ask for the price.
Mr. Lemkin had assured me that Mr. Smith would call me not later than 11 A.M., but it was already 3 P.M. and he had not called. Zosia had gone to sleep in her room and, although I was overcome with fatigue, I could not doze off. These spacious hotel rooms, complete with rugs, tapestried walls, and luxurious furniture, would eat up my budget like locusts. 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, and the prices for our breakfast and lunch in the hotel restaurant were terribly high. Why didn’t Mr. Smith call? Every minute or so I glanced at my wristwatch. Maybe the employees of the hotel were in cahoots with this Mr. Smith and informed him that I brought a female with me? Maybe Mr. Smith called Mr. Lemkin to pass along this information and Mr. Lemkin in turn had informed my brother? Someone like Mr. Smith was even capable of denouncing me to the police.
Zosia and I had realized it would endanger our plan if we were seen together by Mr. Smith and so we decided that she would cross the bridge before Mr. Smith took me there, and she would wait for me at the bus station in Windsor. I was about to fall asleep when the telephone rang. It was Zosia. She was ready to go down and take the cab to the bridge to Windsor. I wanted to carry down her valises and wait with her until she could get a taxi, but Mr. Smith was liable to telephone me any minute. 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. 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 stayed in my room and sat down to wait for Mr. Smith. Six came and six-thirty and still he didn’t show up. What if he didn’t come at all? Since he was a smuggler, it was quite feasible that he had been arrested. A person could also suddenly fall ill or be run over, God forbid. I realized now that I had committed a folly in entrusting my passport to Zosia. I should have followed Mr. Lemkin’s instructions exactly, and mailed the passport to the King Edward Hotel in Toronto. Why had I gotten involved with this Zosia in the first place? Of all my lunacies, this was the most dangerous.
The telephone rang and it was Mr. Smith. He said, “Come right down. I am waiting for you in the lobby. I’m wearing a hat with a little brush in it and I’ll be holding a copy of the Saturday Evening Post. Make it snappy.”
I went right out into the corridor and began searching for the elevator, but it had vanished. I raced up and down the lengthy corridor; there was not a trace of an elevator. It’s all my cursed nerves, I told myself. The writer within me observed, Literature hasn’t even touched on the fantastic tricks that sick nerves can play on people.
From somewhere, a black maid appeared. I asked her where the elevator was and she shouted something I couldn’t understand. I began searching for the stairs, but at that moment a door opened and someone stepped out of the elevator. I quickly raced inside it. How was this possible? Could nerves render someone blind? Did they possess such hypnotic power? And if they did, could this power perhaps be turned into a force that worked miracles?
For some reason, I had pictured Mr. Smith as being tall, but he turned out to be a runt. He winked at me to follow him; however, I hadn’t yet checked out. The bill came to over forty dollars. I went outside with Mr. Smith and we walked along. During the whole time, he didn’t speak a single word to me. The bridge was crowded with pedestrians. We passed two officials and it seemed to me that Mr. Smith nodded to one of them. They let me pass without a word.
I no longer recall whether the distance to the bus station was long or short. It seems to me that the station was right on the other side of the bridge. The moment we had crossed it, Mr. Smith vanished. I had the anxious premonition that when I got to the bus station Zosia wouldn’t be there. And that’s how it turned out.
The station was small. If she had gone to the ladies’ room, her suitcases would be out here. But there were no suitcases in sight. A catastrophe had occurred. Zosia had my passport. I could no longer return to the States. Nor could I obtain a visa without a passport. According to my calculations, Zosia should have been here more than an hour ago. “Well, this is my finish,” I told myself.
I sat down on a bench and everything within me was mute. To forget my troubles momentarily, I began to add up my remaining money. I counted the bills and even my small change several times and each time I came up with a different total.
Each time the door opened, I trembled. I tried to imagine what might have occurred. Had Zosia been detained at the border? Had she changed her mind at the last minute and ordered the driver to take her to the train going back to New York? Had something happened to the cab and she was in a hospital? After much brooding, I decided to take the bus to Toronto. 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.
The door opened and several policemen (or maybe these were border guards) entered. Had they come to arrest me? I began to mumble a prayer to the Almighty, assuming He existed, “Father in heaven, help me! Don’t let me perish!”
I decided to buy the ticket to Toronto. Even to kill oneself it was easier in a hotel than in a bus station. But would they give me a room there without a passport?
The armed men spoke to the ticket seller. It apparently had nothing to do with me. I walked over and asked for a ticket, but the seller gave me a questioning look and his lips formed something like a smile. The policeman stared at me too and also seemed to be holding back laughter. What had happened to me? Had I addressed the ticket seller in Yiddish instead of English?
I repeated my request for the third time and the ticket seller asked, “Where do you think you are?”
At that moment I realized my error. Instead of asking for a ticket to Toronto I had been asking for a ticket to Windsor. 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?”
“Yes.”
“Just come over from Detroit?”
“Yes.”
Although 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 did this, first, because it isn’t my way to deny my identity. Second, there was a bit of logic behind this. 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. Apparently, I was far from ready for suicide.
The policemen exchanged brief glances, as if mutely consulting on their next move. The ticket seller asked, “Do you want a one-way ticket or a round trip?”
“One-way,” I said.
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. I paid the fare and was handed my ticket. In a way, I was disappointed that I hadn’t been detained on the spot. I was convinced that they would do this later, before I boarded my bus. They surely had to understand that I had crossed the border illegally. I didn’t have a piece of luggage with me.
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. Suddenly, I spotted Zosia. Someone carried in her valises and she handed the man a tip. I stood up and Zosia said to me, “They detained me at the frontier. They suspected me of being a Communist agitator, those idiots.”