The Collected Stories

ear. I heard Liebkind Bendel’s nasal voice. He was telling of antiques to be got in Havana and explaining the difference in the exchange. Friedel leaned over to me so that our ears touched. Her hair tickled my cheek. Her ear almost burned mine. I was ashamed—like a boy. In one moment, my need to go to the bathroom became embarrassingly urgent.
    Next morning when Friedel called the hospital, they told her that Dr. Walden was dead. He had died in the middle of the night. Friedel said, “Isn’t that cruel? My conscience will torture me to my last moment.”
    The following day the Yiddish papers came out with the news. The same editors who Liebkind Bendel told me had refused to announce Dr. Walden’s arrival in New York now wrote at length about his accomplishments in Hebrew literature. Obituaries also appeared in the English-language press. The photographs were at least thirty years old; in them Dr. Walden looked young, gay, with a full head of hair. According to the papers, the New York Hebraists, Dr. Walden’s enemies, were making arrangements for the funeral. The Jewish telegraph service must have wired the event all over the world. Liebkind Bendel called Friedel from Havana to say that he was flying home.
    Back in New York, he talked to me on the telephone for almost an hour. He kept repeating that Dr. Walden’s death was not his fault. He would have died in London, too. What difference does it make where one ends? Liebkind Bendel was especially eager to know whether Dr. Walden had any manuscripts with him. He was planning to bring out a special number of
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dedicated to him. Liebkind Bendel had brought from Havana a painting by Chagall that he had bought from a refugee. He admitted to me that it must have been stolen from a gallery. Liebkind Bendel said to me, “Well, if it had been grabbed by the Nazis, would that have been better? The Maginot Line isn’t worth a pinch of tobacco. Hitler will be in Paris! Remember my words.”
    The chapel where the funeral was to take place was only a few blocks from Liebkind Bendel’s apartment, and he, Friedel, and I arranged to meet at the chapel entrance. They were all there—the Hebraists, the Yiddishists, the Anglo-Jewish writers. Taxis kept arriving. From somewhere a small woman appeared, leading a girl who looked emaciated, disturbed. She stopped every few seconds and tapped with her foot on the sidewalk; the woman urged her forward and encouraged her. It was Sarah, Liebkind Bendel’s mistress. Mother and daughter tried to go into the chapel, but it was already filled.
    After a while, Liebkind Bendel and Friedel arrived in a red car. He was wearing a sand-colored suit and a gaudy tie from Havana. He looked fresh and tanned. Friedel was dressed in black, with a broad-brimmed hat. I told Liebkind that the hall was full and he said, “Don’t be naïve. You will see how things are done in America.” He whispered something in an usher’s ear and the usher led us inside and made room for us in one of the front rows. The artificial candles of the Menorah cast a subdued light. The coffin stood near the dais. A young rabbi with a small black mustache and a tiny skullcap that blended with his shiny pomaded hair spoke a eulogy in English. He seemed to know little of Dr. Walden. He confused facts and dates. He made errors in the titles of Dr. Walden’s works. Then an old rabbiner with a white goatee, a refugee from Germany, wearing a black hat that looked like a casserole, spoke in German. He stressed his umlauts and quoted long passages in Hebrew. He called Dr. Walden a pillar of Judaism. He claimed that Dr. Walden had come to America so that he could continue publishing the encyclopedia to which he had devoted his best years. “The Nazis maintain that cannons are more important than butter,” the rabbiner declaimed solemnly, “but we Jews, the people of the Book, still believe in the power of the word.” He appealed for funds to bring out the last volumes of the encyclopedia for which Dr. Walden had sacrificed his life, coming to America in spite of his illness. He took out a handkerchief and with a corner dabbed away a single tear from behind his misty glasses. He called attention to the fact that among the mourners here in the chapel was present the universally beloved Professor Albert Einstein, a close friend of the deceased. A general whispering and looking around began among the crowd. A few even rose to get a glimpse of the world-famous