He was struggling for breath. He relit his cigar.
“As I understand it the young gentlemen are not yet acquainted with the lives of adult men. So a little bird tells me. Never mind. I must stress that the man we are talking about is a big man with big appetites. Give him a decent meal and a nip of brandy and he can’t pass a skirt without chasing after it. He spends four months practically in cramp. I once saw a hunting dog out in the yard. It was in a crate that had been misdirected so the dog had arrived a day late, but it never once messed the crate where it slept, if I may so put it, it would rather suffer cramps, and that was how it arrived. The doctor had to lift it from the box and give it a dose of salts. Now imagine a human being. At long last he goes out into the street, it’s the end of October, afternoon, he is a little unsteady on his feet, he waves a carriage down and says, take me to the best brothel, the nearest brothel, and be quick about it. The rain is falling. He takes his hat off and sits like that in the open carriage, his face up to the rain, wishing for more rain, heavier rain, let it pour, he thinks, his tongue licking at the rain, never having realized before just how good rain tasted. The carriage rolls along the cobbles, a woman has stopped at the side of the road, she holds an umbrella, she wears brown shoes and black stockings, in four months hers is the first female face he has looked on, the woman laughs and shouts out: Hey,
meshugener.
Do the young gentlemen find this difficult to understand? He is taken to a high-quality house. There are palms in the salon. Yes, madame, he says, one, two, whatever you have available; the ladies only arrive in the evening, will a brunette do? The woman is indeed brunette, she has gold teeth and a mole at the side of her nose, but she’s quite pretty. He doesn’t even see her. He takes his coat off and sees that prison leaves a man with a certain smell on his skin. On the mirror is written
Happy New Year,
in gold.
“Now please to imagine,” he continued and raised his hand as if for attention, “that after all these preliminaries nothing happens. I am not sure if I am making myself clear. Nothing. He slowly gets dressed, his clothes are almost dry by then, the warm smell of rain and the smell of prison emanating from them. What’s going on? he thinks. The girl is sitting at the mirror in her nightdress, smoking a cigarette, looking at him over her shoulder. Ahem, he says. Pardon. It can all be explained, the man has come a long way. A long, long way. Next time then. He is already standing by the door. Idiot, he thinks. You are forty-two years old, what’s this to you? Can’t you dance on the billiard table till six in the morning, drink two or three bottles of bubbly by yourself, and top it with half a bottle of cognac, plus a stick of dry salami and four or five hard-boiled eggs? He turns his hat round and round in his hands. He doesn’t understand. He can’t find it in himself to leave. He can neither leave nor stay, he is worried that he’ll make a nuisance of himself, that he is going to hit somebody. The girl moves towards him, every part of her body swaying as she approaches, looks at him with desire, throws her cigarette away, puts both hands behind his neck, rises on tiptoe, closes her eyes, and kisses him, very gently. Come here, she says quietly. They move back into the room, the girl with her arm round his neck, keeping close to him. He sits down and looks around. He feels like a fool. He understands nothing. The girl silently goes about her business, flitting here and there in the room, puts on some perfume, adjusts her hair, applies some powder, takes off her nightdress. She is wearing black stockings and red suspenders. She is very attractive. Drink has ravaged her face a little but she is still attractive. Her body has a yellow tinge, is very cold to the touch, her body hard, in fact just as you like them, he thinks, not an ounce of fat. She comes up to him, close your eyes, she says. He closes his eyes, the girl leans over him and kisses him: flesh is simply a kind of mechanism, he thinks, and she is a good mechanic. Think of something, he tells himself. Something cheerful. The patriarchs. David. Solomon. Solomon had a thousand wives. No, that’s not a particularly cheerful subject, he thinks. He reaches for the girl’s neck.”
He held his hand out. They backed away. His arm described a circle in the air.
“The girl throws herself on him, all of her. That’s the kind of girl she is. She embraces him, kisses him while he continues shaking his head like an idiot. The girl’s body is seized by a cramp: the smell of mouthwash, cigarettes, and something a touch sour emanates from her mouth, she hasn’t eaten a thing all day, she’s working on an empty stomach. He will never forget that. The girl kisses his eyes, throws herself this way and that. Time passes. He removes the girl’s hands from his neck, he must sit up, he feels he is drowning. The girl slowly withdraws. She is wearing lacquered shoes, little half shoes. She pulls at her stockings and sits at the edge of the bed, and never stops staring at him. How long haven’t you been able to do it? asks the girl. He shrugs. It is always somehow comical when a supine figure tries to shrug. I don’t know whether the gentlemen have noticed that?”
He waited anxiously for them to answer for a moment as if it were a matter of the utmost importance to him.
“Somewhere along the line you have made a mistake, he thinks. But when? Where? It occurs to him that his mother used to have a black brooch that she wore on a black ribbon round her neck and when she leaned over him the brooch swung to and fro. Isn’t it strange, gentlemen, how at the most important moments of life a person thinks of the most irrelevant things? For example, how they made a party coat for him out of his father’s black coat, and how the sleeves were too long for him. The girl keeps her eyes on him, never looking away. That’s the kind of girl she is, he thinks, she’s a living creature like him. She is sitting at the head of the brass bed, wrapped in a piece of scarlet silk, her hair over her forehead, slowly raising the long cigarette-holder to her lips, solemnly watching his every movement, saying nothing, only staring. What are you looking at? he asks her. You want me to give you a smack? The girl just continues staring, her two elbows propped on the brass bed frame.
“You’re impotent, she says.
“He moves in her direction and raises his hand but she is already at the door, and says it again, loudly, just imagine it, gentlemen, as if she were passing sentence: You’re impotent.
“Then she’s through the door. The madame is waiting, it’s a top-notch house, we hope you may favor us with another visit, she says. We offer an unparalleled range of girls. He goes down the steps, why of course, he’s sure to come back. The rain is beating on the pavement. Nice town. A little dull perhaps for a longer stay. He calls in at a café to drink a glass of tea. The place is full of Polish Jews. He drinks his tea with brandy and eats a meat pancake. In the evening he returns to the brothel. He is going nowhere for a week yet. He returns every night, calling for different girls, for the same girl. By now they are all laughing at him. The girls stand in the hallway in their chemises, waiting for him, pointing and laughing at him. He can’t bear to leave. He grinds his teeth, beats his head against the ground, weeps, gets more money. He stalks the streets like a maniac during the day, looking round, perhaps even talking to himself. He doesn’t understand. It is as if suddenly, for no reason at all, he were utterly paralyzed. It is like suddenly going blind. Like losing an arm. I hope I am not boring the young gentlemen?”
Rain beat against the glass and thunderclaps continued to shake the window. He spoke more loudly, as if wanting to outshout the thunder, not moving.
“Lemberg is bad for his nerves, he thinks. One night he steals out to the railway station. You had a home once, he thinks. Frida cried a lot when she was alive, because you led a riotous life, a big man with big appetites, but at least you had a home, you were somebody, you used to have visitors on winter evenings. You could have been on the town council. Now you are nobody, you are less than a flea. Why? He doesn’t understand. He feels like dying. The dead find a home in the bosom of Abraham. I don’t know whether the young gentlemen are acquainted with the scriptures? The train moves forward in the rain, two Polish peasants at his feet, they smell of garlic and cheap spirits. He looks down and shakes his head like someone who has been knocked down, he mumbles. People look at him. A pity his daughter ran away two weeks ago. The young gentlemen might not be aware how far everything is connected. Trouble never travels alone, they say. His only daughter has run off with a crippled Uhlan lieutenant. He tears up her clothes, won’t say a word about her to anyone. You’re only human, he tells himself, you only want to enjoy your brief time on earth. No, you are a louse, a flea, he says to himself, a nobody, nothing. A piece of dirt under God’s foot. What did the girl in Lemberg say? Just thinking of her he begins to tremble, he feels dizzy, he sees the girls sitting on the stairs in their chemises, pointing at him and laughing. Months go by like this, he comes and goes, says nothing to anyone, but he won’t visit the girls any more. When he thinks of that specific Lemberg girl he sees red, the blood pounds in his temples, he wants to smash and break things, and wants nothing more than to get on a train again, go back to Lemberg, find the girl, and beat her head against the wall. When he is alone he prays or drinks or curses. You’d hardly recognize him. You didn’t have a good word to say to your Frida while she was alive, he tells himself: God gave you the cell as punishment, he has bound your strength, you feel the curse of your fathers on you when you remember what the girl in Lemberg said. Nothing is as it was. He goes to the rabbi, gives him money, talks with him. Rabbi, he says, God has punished me, I can’t make love any more. The rabbi looks at him, saintly man that he is, what does he know of life? Be patient, he says. God is putting you to the test for your sins, be patient and wait. Yes, God, I am waiting, he says. You were an impulsive man, says the rabbi. You didn’t keep the feasts or the laws, you cheated and chased skirts and drank as if there were no tomorrow, you were a lush, a coxcomb, what do you want of God now? There is a season for all things in life, says the rabbi. There are ups, there are downs, there’s plenty and starvation, do you think the scriptures and the law mean nothing? Go to the temple and pray. So he goes to the temple and prays. He feels so miserable that he can’t look anyone in the eye, he just stands by the pillar like a leper. And he doesn’t understand the prayers, he just stands and bends this way and that, and mumbles to himself, but he is no longer capable of crying or wailing, and there’s no improvement. He spends a whole year like this. He doesn’t talk to anybody. He goes around town but once he is on the street he fears that he might suddenly start running and knock over anyone in his way. He says nothing, is silent, he bites his tongue, that’s how he goes round. A year of this. A whole year.”
He fell silent, nodded, and grasped the table with both hands. A thunderclap.
“That was a close one,” he said respectfully, but did not turn his face to the window.
“The gentlemen would do well to realize that things are never simple,” he said slowly, his voice loud now. “You never know what you will find the next morning. He no longer wants to wander around the town. The fury builds in him until he is like a walking bomb, an explosive device in his chest, and he is afraid, afraid of being alone with another man because he fears he might strangle him, fears he might be a danger to people, to the town generally; he feels such fury and power he thinks he could set the town on fire, to cover it in salt and plow it all up. The girl in Lemberg, he thinks, she told him. How could such a girl know something he himself didn’t know until fairly recently? Does someone like him bear a visible mark? Can others see it too? God, oh God. It’s impossible to live like this, he thinks. He walks the street with his eyes on the ground, he dare not look young girls in the face, no, not the young men either. He hates young gentlemen, the healthy vigorous ones who can go with girls. One day I shall have them in the palm of my hand, he thinks. He weeps like an old woman, blaming himself. One can live neither by the stomach nor by any other appetite, he thinks. The patriarchs were right to lay down the law, but you, you laughed at their laws. You were a lecher, a lush, a glutton, you wronged your friends and acquaintances, that is why God is punishing you. That’s how he talked to himself. Impossible to live like this, he thinks. The Lord rained fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, he burned both flesh and bone. We are all sinners, he thinks, and God has sent his rain of fire on me too for my sins.”
He raised the bottle, put it to his mouth, and drank as if choking, in loud gulps.
“One day he is sitting in the shop and a cripple comes in, a man with a great long false-looking beard. He wants to pawn a cuckoo clock with a chain. Rejected, he slowly hobbles to the door where he stops and says: We are all sinners. The very thing you said a moment ago, he thinks. He calls the other back. The man comes over to the counter and starts preaching. Only sinners may be cleansed, he says, and mutters something about the brazen serpent. He listens, a fool at last after all those clever people. Miss, he says, write down
one cuckoo clock,
but secretly he thinks, another thing connected with birds, a bad sign. The bearded man goes away but not before leaving his name and address and offering his friendship. When it comes to money he is not such a fool. Meanwhile the man goes on living but he can’t taste his food, his drink is bitter, sometimes he has trouble with his vision, and whenever he sees a woman he turns away and hangs his head. It is the hand of God that smites you, he thinks. One afternoon he picks up an old pair of shoes and thinks of the fool down fishmongers’ alley. He calls in. The man immediately rises from his three-legged stool and as soon as he sees him hobbles over and begins a rant about the exodus from Israel and about sitting by the fleshpots in the land of Egypt. How does this man know I am a lover of flesh? he wonders. The bearded man sits down on the stool, continues his oration, his speech somewhat confused but perfectly amusing. A little boy is sitting in the corner reading by candlelight, paying no attention to them; my son, says the bearded man, one day he will be one of the gentry, stand up, Ernõ, say hello to the gentleman.”