29

Lessons

When I responded to the landlady’s inquiry about my visitor by telling her that he was a teacher, she smirked and winked at me.

“I know all about teachers. Why do you need to bother with English?” asked the landlord, who was sitting nearby. This was in the morning, when I came in to wash up. Both of them looked disheveled, but they didn’t seem to notice their own appearance. Instead, they looked at me and told me that I look like I don’t sleep enough, and that I shouldn’t stay up so late.

“How much time is he giving to you?” asked the landlady.

“What’s it to you?” asked the landlord. “He’ll give as much as he wants. You’re not laying anything out for it.”

“You must be paying him something for it, or doesn’t he ask for money?” she asked, laughing.

I thought about it. If I took her seriously, I’d have to argue with her. But, out of self-respect, I didn’t want to do that. I just told her and her husband that we’d negotiated a price.

“Without mediation?”

“That’s right.”

“That young man is in love with you,” she said, “and you’re taking lessons from him. You should be giving him the lessons!”

“He should marry you,” the landlord asserted. “If you want, I’ll stick my oar in and arrange the shidukh. A girl is like an ox. She has a long tongue, but she can’t talk.”

I laughed at his witticism, and he liked that. They feel very comfortable with me because I let them speak their minds. Should I feel guilty about that? I’m not doing anything wrong. Maybe I’m already feeling guilty for what will inevitably come later? I can tell that something is bound to happen and it’ll take all my strength to keep from having a serious fight. My indifference toward myself sometimes leads me to let myself have a go at people that I can’t stand.

He’s given me three lessons already. When I think of all that he’s taught me about life, it’s enough to make me completely forget everything that he’s taught me about English. As much as I’m skeptical of him, I have to admit that a lot of what he says is true. And it’s very hard to hear someone tell you the truth about yourself.

He’s dismissive of the way I live my life. He tells me that I should embrace as much life as I possibly can. I can live without being lively if I want to, but he can’t see any reason why I should go on this way, living without really living.

I watch him while he talks and think, “Did bitter Fate send him to me to tell me the truth and to bring me something of life for a while? Or did he come to ensnare me in his net?”

Who is he? What is he? Why don’t I tell him to leave me alone? Am I really so lonely that I’m starting to like someone I hate? Am I my own enemy, fooling myself by searching for meaning in his words? Or do I want to make him believe that I believe everything he’s saying to me so he’ll keep talking and drive the shadows of loneliness from my bedroom walls? I don’t take ninety-nine words out of a hundred seriously, but I still let him go on speaking. I press the pain into my heart, like a mother holds a sick child to her breast. She cries out over her love, though her cries are not meant for anyone to hear.

If only A. had spoken to me this way! My God! How happy I would have been! And here a man wanders into my house with his mouth full of wisdom, spouting his assessment of all that a person, that two people could want to do, and I listen to him like I’m made of stone and have no spirit, no soul. And I refuse him.

“I will never tire of explaining to you what we are and what we were created for,” said C., “until you understand and come around to my point of view. You’ll say: ‘Here I am. I live for today. I won’t hold anything back for tomorrow. Let anarchy, full anarchy reign here, where until now only dark thoughts ruled. My young body will no longer serve my old spirit. Let me separate from myself, or let my spirit follow my body, as science decrees it must.’”

“That’s ridiculous. I’ll never say that,” I replied skeptically.

“Yes, you will,” he said with a certainty that didn’t permit me to respond. “You will have to say it.”

“Why will I have to?”

“Science says so.”

“Science can say what she likes. I don’t know her, and she can’t hurt me.”

This is how our lessons began and ended. The landlady, who was often listening at the door, must have heard some of it, and that’s why she doesn’t feel the need to be tactful with me.

My landlord tries to be friendly with me. He feels obligated to tell me about his life experiences, so that I can learn from them.

I don’t like his daughter’s “gentleman friend.” He says I’m not pretty. He likes a girl to be a “peach,” a lively thing, and I’m pale and moody. It’s a good thing he doesn’t like me, or he’d want me to learn something from him too.

Yesterday the daughter, foaming at the mouth, spoke of long-haired intellectuals. All that they want to do is have love affairs. Let others marry, they say.

I’ve decided to give up the lessons. I forget more than I learn with them. And why should I to be the talk of the house? They all see the lessons as a pretense hiding a love affair. I would have stood up to all of them if I cared for him. But my heart does not beat for him. No, not for him. I just find him a little interesting, that’s all.

I told him that he could stop teaching me, and he told me that he expected I would say so. He doesn’t want to be my teacher anymore. He would rather be my guest, my friend.

I accepted his friendship for an hour or two at a time, and not in my room but out in the street.

“That’s a cold friendship,” he said, looking at me with his glossy, resentful eyes.

“Well, that’s all I have.”

“No, you have much more. But you don’t want to give it. How did you get to be so stingy?”

“I was born this way.”

He was silent for a while. Then he tried to explain to me with facts that one is born with neither stinginess nor warmth. He had gathered these facts from himself and from others he knew. You develop stinginess over the course of your life by not giving others what they want. Scientifically speaking, this is absolutely not ingrained. If I just tell myself to act differently, then I will be different.

“I’ve told myself to be different before, but I don’t want to listen to myself. What can I do? Should I punish myself? I can’t force myself to be worse than I am.”

“That’s because you call it worse.”

“And you’d call it better?” I asked.

“Of course it’s better.”

“Fine, it’s better. Even so, I can’t be any better than I am.”

“You don’t want to be better,” he said accusingly.

“Maybe not.”

“Why not?”

“Maybe I’m afraid that by being better I’ll allow myself to be worse. From all you’ve said as long as we’ve known each other (and I must add that you’ve certainly said your fair share), I gather that you believe a woman must give over her entire self to a man. Her own will must—what? I forget.”

“She must give up her own will and desires, and then she will be happy,” he supplied.

“You see, and I’m someone who can’t get on without her own will. So, for example, I don’t want to talk about these things anymore. We’ve already exhausted them. I just want to rest and be alone with my books, with my own shadow. Why can’t I be allowed to do this small thing?”

“How old are you?”

“You’re counting up my years again. I’ve already told you many times.”

“Yes, but you look older than you are.”

“That’s sad, but what can you do? Older is older.” I shrugged.

“You have to live!” he insisted.

“So I’ve heard. You’re not the only one concerned with my living. There are those who want to force me to live to death!”

“How much are you paying for your room?”

“Nine dollars. Why do you suddenly want to know?”

“The other girl paid ten. Let me advise you to rent another room. Firstly, this room doesn’t have up-to-date improvements. Secondly, the people are intellectuals. You won’t be able to stand them. They’re slaves to fashion. And the stairs and hall are dark and dangerous.”

“In that case maybe you’d better not come and see me. And if you do come, don’t stay so late, since you’re so concerned about the stairs, and the landlords.”

“Are you afraid of them?” he asked.

“I’m not afraid. You know what they say, ‘The wolf is not afraid of the dog—he just hates his bark.’”

“I’ll stand above their gossip. I’ll spit on them!” He spat.

“If you don’t mind, please stand above them in your own room, and spit there where they can’t hear you and make me answer for it.”

He spoke louder, saying that I didn’t have to answer for him. He could do it himself, and if I’d only let him, he’d make those people lording themselves over me eat dirt. He’s a lawyer, and he’ll show them that if I’m paying for something they have no right to tell me what I can or can’t do with it.

In order to make him stop carrying on that way on my account, I grabbed my hat and coat and headed out to the street. He followed me carefully down the stairs. When I laughed at him for being such a fraidy-cat, he told me that stairs call up bad memories for him and make him feel like he’s being set on fire.

It would be easier to free myself from a rope I was already hanging from than to free myself from C. My God, where does he get the stamina to talk so much? Everything is a lecture for him. He talks about everything, and always from a scientific standpoint!