The following Sabbath, I again went over to fetch the boiled water. The floor of the tea shop had been sprinkled with dry sand. Freshly washed tablecloths hung down from the two long tables. Today the room looked as if it were awaiting family guests.
Sitting at the edge of the tables were a young man and a girl, talking quietly and gazing into each others’ eyes. There were no other customers. From behind a red, flowered curtain, concealing a dark, little alcove, came stifled sounds of pleasurable giggling.
“Stop it,” the giggling voice said. “What’s your hurry?”
From the sound of the voice, I assumed it was Khantshe the widow. Rukhtshe looked pale that day. As she was filling my kettle, she kept turning her face restlessly toward the flowered curtain.
The water ran slowly into the kettle. I stood there, as if on hot coals. After all, today I had something to tell Rukhtshe. But how was I to do it? How should I begin? Then again, maybe I wouldn’t say anything. Was I Oyzer’s messenger?
Just then, Rukhtshe glanced at me with half-lidded eyes, but perhaps it wasn’t me she was looking at, but the door.
My whole body ached. I wanted to tell her that Oyzer wouldn’t be coming today, that he’d never be coming again, that he had died. In the midst of these thoughts, I again heard a voice from behind the flowered curtain.
“What are you doing, Felek? Now stop it …”
Rukhtshe gave a shake of her body.
“What’s your name?” she asked loudly.
“Mendl.”
“Whose kid are you?”
“Frimet’s, Dovid-Froyke’s daughter.”
“Do you live here?”
“Yes.”
“And the one who was here with you last week, with the mop of hair, he’s your friend?”
“Yes, that’s my friend Oyzer.”
“Why didn’t he come with you today?”
“He attends the gymnasium. He has no time, he’s studying.”
“What’s he studying?”
“Stikhi.”
“What?” Rukhtshe’s whole face crinkled and laughter erupted from every tiny fold.
I didn’t understand what was so funny, nor why, a moment later, Rukhtshe said, “Tell that friend of yours that I like him.”
At that instant, I couldn’t tell what was going on with me, whether it was the kettle that had become too heavy, or I myself. I just stood there, as if rooted to the spot.
“Did you want something else?” Rukhtshe asked.
I had the feeling that something terrible was about to happen, that either I would drop to the floor and burst into tears, or else bash someone in the head with the kettle.
Rukhtshe looked at me with a warm, wide-eyed gaze. There was also a warmth rising from her white blouse. She bent down to me and asked again, but in a soft, conspiratorial tone, “Did you want something else?”
“Oyzer,” I stammered, “Oyzer wants to say …”
I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“He said,” I finally continued, almost choking on every word, “that he’d wait for you tonight near the prison.”
The girl sitting at the table was laughing. All was now quiet behind the flowered curtain. I no longer saw Rukhtshe, only felt the touch of a hand under my chin, a touch, warm and smooth like velvet.
“I’ll come. Tell Oyzer that I’ll come,” said the owner of the touch.
I don’t know how I managed to get outside. I think someone threw the kettle after me.
I ran into Oyzer on the stairs.
“Did you tell her?” he asked, as he almost fell on me.
“I did,” I answered angrily.
“Nu?”
“She said she’d be there.”
His face turned red, his eyes even redder, and he started hopping up and down.
“Mendl, you’ll see,” he said, “you’ll come with us. We’ll take you along.”
His joy was no joy to me. On the contrary, I was seething, just like the boiling kettle. I suddenly ran up the stairs and, just before I got to our door, shouted down, full of rage, “Goy! Heretic! I don’t want to come with you! To hell with you and your Rukhtshe!”
He ran up after me, calling out, “Mendl! Mendl! What’s gotten into you?”
But, at that moment, I hated him so much, that I wouldn’t have cared had he fallen down the stairs and broken both legs.
I stayed home all that Sabbath afternoon. I had decided that I wouldn’t go downstairs that evening either. Altogether, I wasn’t going to show myself in the courtyard any more, nor would my feet ever cross the threshold of the tea shop again. This was it—an end to Oyzer and an end to Rukhtshe. Who needed them!
In the late afternoon, toward dusk, a blue shadow passed across the window on our roof. I thought it might be Oyzer. The house smelled of herring from the shaleshudes repast. Mother and a neighbor were sitting by the oven, talking about this and that.
I gazed up at the sky, looking for the appearance of the stars that would bring an end to the Sabbath. I was merely looking. There was no need to light the lamps for my sake, and besides, I wasn’t going downstairs anyway.
But after the havdole prayer, when Father himself removed the Sabbath tablecloth and put down a piece of chalk on the bare table, and Mother was getting ready to go over to Aunt Miriam’s, I couldn’t sit still any longer. I grabbed my coat and made for the door.
“Where are you running?” Mother stopped me in mid-passage.
“I’m not running. I’m going down to see Oyzer.”
“Look who’s in such a big hurry! He won’t run away, that Oyzer of yours.”
“He’s waiting for me downstairs.”
“So he’ll wait another minute. Button your coat all the way up, and don’t run. You hear?”
“Who’s running?”
I actually stepped out very slowly, but then ran down the stairs so fast and with such force that I could hear, up above me, our door swinging open.
The moon seemed especially bright that night. Surrounded by a faint, blue ring, it moved across the roofs and streets like a torch. The windowpanes were blue, the gutters white, the cross on top of the Russian church blue.
All the stores were open. Jews riding in droshkys were hurrying to catch the eight o’clock train. I slunk from store to store, making my way to the prison. I completely forgot what I had decided earlier that day and never even gave it a second thought. I only wanted to find out whether Rukhtshe and Oyzer were actually going to meet.
Now, in the distance, on the sidewalk of the Russian church, I discerned a large, blue-white blotch, bisected every now and then, by a pair of black legs. The little garden surrounding the prison concealed me. I could see everything. Nobody could see me.
And what I saw, clearly, emerging from the blotch in the sidewalk, was a pair of long legs. Nobody else in town, other than Oyzer, had such long legs.
He stood there, peering in all directions. When I moved a bit away from the garden, I could even see Oyzer’s face, raised skyward. He resembled a large bird on the lookout, standing on a mountaintop.
For the first time since I’d known him, Oyzer was carrying a small cane. He twirled it in the air, walked back and forth on the sidewalk, and stretched his face even higher toward the moon.
I looked up, too. Surely, from way up there, is where Rukhtshe would be descending to earth.
Oyzer himself no longer bothered me. At that moment, I didn’t even hate him. I only felt a burning under my heart because of that stylish little cane of his and the way he twirled it in the air.
Rukhtshe, it would seem, had failed to show up. But then, why should she have come? To the prison, of all places?
I now had my revenge on Oyzer. So much for his daring to talk about marrying Rukhtshe and about reciting all those stikhi to her by heart after the wedding!
My revenge, however, was short-lived. Rukhtshe showed up after all.
There she was, crossing Warsaw Street, not walking but running.
She didn’t see me, though she walked right past the little prison garden. Oyzer was no longer standing in the middle of the blotch, but had moved a bit aside. He was no longer waving his little cane.
It seemed to me that the closer Rukhtshe approached, the further he moved away, as though walking backward.
I crept along behind Rukhtshe’s back. She came to a halt within the blue-white blotch where Oyzer had been standing not long before. He was now turning to go into the promenade, and Rukhtshe followed him there.
However, all of a sudden, Oyzer turned his back on Rukhtshe, flung his little cane into the middle of the street, and began to run as fast as he could into the nearby park. Either he saw somebody there, or else he’d gone completely mad.
I must have gone mad, too, otherwise I wouldn’t have run after him, shouting with such alarm, “Oyzer! Oyzer!”
“Stop! Where are you running to?” Rukhtshe caught me by the collar and began to shake me like a palm branch on Sukkoth.
She was running herself.
The spot where Rukhtshe had grabbed me was pitch black. I couldn’t see her face, but I felt her hot fury.
“Stop running,” she said, breathing heavily. “He’s a lousy rat, that friend of yours. You don’t have to run away. You like me, don’t you?”
I didn’t know what to say. Her words made my feet swelter. As God is my witness, I wanted to run off, too.
“Come, walk with me a bit,” she said, putting her hand under my arm.
Now my head was beginning to turn hot as well. I walked beside her, thinking that I would never get home that night, that, for sure, some calamity was about to befall.
“Why did he run away, that shithead?” she hissed angrily through her teeth.
I didn’t know myself. He must have caught sight of his father, or maybe somebody from the gymnasium.
“What was he afraid of, that rat?” Rukhtshe persisted, still furious.
I wanted to ask her whether Oyzer had really said he would marry her and take her away with him to far-off lands. I also wanted to know if they were having a love affair. In the midst of these musings, Rukhtshe stopped short, let go of my arm, and asked, “How old is that friend of yours?”
“He already puts on phylacteries.”
“And what about you?”
“I’ll soon be doing the same.”
The moon rose from behind the high prison fence. The entire promenade turned blue.
“Let’s sit down,” Rukhtshe said and led me to the German church.
A blanket of blue-lit snow lay all around. We sat down on the broad steps leading into the church. Rukhtshe put her arm around my shoulders and leaned her cheek against mine.
I was frightened and didn’t know what to do. But I fervently wished that Oyzer would pass by to see what was happening.
“Have you ever kissed a girl?” Rukhtshe asked.
“No.”
“Would you like to kiss me?”
I don’t know if I answered. Actually, there was no time for an answer. Rukhtshe had already put her warm mouth on my lips, or maybe it was the other way round. Nor was I aware of any particular thoughts. My head fell back and I heard only a soft, urgent voice saying, “Go slow. Don’t bite, you little bastard. Who taught you to kiss like that?”
Nobody had taught me. This was the first time in my life that I had ever kissed a girl.
“Do you love me?” Rukhtshe asked, as she wrapped her hands around my neck and face.
She now seemed to have not just two hands but a hundred. These hands were everywhere.
“I love you,” I blurted out.
“Will you marry me?”
“I’ll marry you.”
“What will we do after we get married?
“We’ll go away to a far-off land,” I parroted Oyzer’s words. “We’ll go to America, and I’ll recite stikhi to you by heart …”
“What? You’ll do what?”
“I’ll work,” I at once caught myself. “I’ll rent us a place to live. You won’t have to do anything but eat, drink, and enjoy.”
Rukhtshe inched away from me, like a cat, slowly and indolently.
I tried to pull her back, to give her one more kiss. But within a split second, a strange change had come over her. She stood up abruptly. When I tried to pull her back to me, she pushed me away and, in a harsh, angry voice, like that of some old peasant woman, snarled at me, “Scram, you bastard!”
I didn’t understand. To this day it’s not clear to me what all this was about. Maybe it was the accursed word stikhi that had shattered my dream of Rukhtshe forever.
She never even said goodbye. She ran away from me, just as Oyzer had done.
I was now the only person on the promenade. Behind me stood the dark church. Before me lay the sleepy prison, across which the moon moved in a veil of haze.
All that night long, Rukhtshe kept kissing me in my dreams. In the morning Mother inspected my eyes and worriedly asked me why I had cried out in my sleep and why I had cursed Oyzer.
I went on cursing Oyzer, not only in my dreams, but awake as well. I no longer wanted to see him. The only thing that that mattered to me was Rukhtshe. I even ran over to the German church, hoping that she might be there.
On the following Sabbath, when I went to fetch the boiled water, it wasn’t Rukhtshe who filled the kettle. She wandered around the tea shop, her hair disheveled, her arms bare. She went right by me, without seeming to see me.