The Collected Stories

line of weaving looms where girls with bits of cotton in their hair deftly knotted threads. On the higher stories, holes gaped in the plastered walls and the smell became stifling. Suddenly the rabbi saw Simcha David. He had emerged from a dark corridor, capless, in a short jacket spattered with paint and clay. He had yellow hair and yellow eyebrows. He carried a bundle. The rabbi was amazed that he recognized his brother; he looked so much like a Gentile. “Simcha David!” he called.
    Simcha David stared. “A familiar face, but—”
    “Take a good look.”
    Simcha David shrugged. “Who are you?”
    “Your brother, Nechemia.”
    Simcha David didn’t even blink. His pale blue eyes looked dull, sad, ready for all the bizarre things time might bring. Two deep wrinkles had formed at the corners of his mouth. He was no longer the prodigy of Bechev but a shabby laborer. After a while he said, “Yes, it’s you. What’s wrong?”
    “I’ve chosen to follow you.”
    “Well, I can’t stop now. I have to meet someone. They’re waiting for me. I’m late already. I’ll let you into my room so you can rest. We’ll talk later.”
    “So be it.”
    “ ‘I had not thought to see thy face,’ ” Simcha David quoted from Genesis.
    “
Nu,
I thought you had already forgotten everything,” the rabbi said. He was more embarrassed by his brother’s quoting the Bible than by his coolness.
    Simcha David opened the door of a room so tiny it reminded the rabbi of a cage. The ceiling hung crookedly. Along the walls leaned canvases, frames, rolls of paper. It smelled of paint and turpentine. There was no bed, only a dilapidated couch.
    Simcha David asked, “What do you want to do in Warsaw? These are hard times.” He left without waiting for a reply.
    Why is he in such a rush, the rabbi wondered. He sat on the couch and looked around. Nearly all the paintings were of females—some nude, some half nude. On a little table lay brushes and a palette. This must be the way he makes a living, the rabbi thought. It was clear to him now that he had acted in folly. He shouldn’t have come here. One can suffer pain anywhere.
    The rabbi waited for an hour, two, but Simcha David didn’t return. Hunger gnawed at him. “Today is a day of fast for me—a heretic’s fast,” he told himself. A voice inside him teased, “You deserve what you’re getting.” “I don’t repent,” the rabbi retorted. He was ready to wrangle with the Angel of God as he once struggled with the Lord of Evil.
    The rabbi picked up a book from the floor. It was in Yiddish. He read a story about a saint who, instead of going to the Evening Prayer, gathered kindling for a widow. What is this—morality or mockery? The rabbi had expected to read a denial of God and the Messiah. He picked up a pamphlet whose pages were falling out, and read about colonists in Palestine. Young Jews plowed, sowed, dried swamps, planted eucalyptus trees, fought the Bedouins. One of these pioneers had perished and the writer called him a martyr. The rabbi sat bewildered. If there’s no Creator, why go to the Holy Land? And what do they mean by a martyr?
    The rabbi grew tired and lay down. “Such Jewishness is not for me,” he said. “I’d rather convert!” But where did one convert? Besides, to convert, one had to pretend belief in the Nazarene. It seemed that the world was full of faith. If you didn’t believe in one God, you must believe in another. The Cossacks sacrificed themselves for the czar. Those who wanted to dethrone the czar sacrificed themselves for the revolution. But where were the real heretics, those who believed in nothing? He had not come to Warsaw to barter one faith for another.
    V

    The rabbi waited for three hours, but Simcha David didn’t come back. This is how the modern ones are, he brooded. Their promise is not a promise; they have no sense of kinship or friendship. Actually, what they worship is the ego. These thoughts perturbed him—wasn’t he one of them now? But how does one curb the brain from thinking? He gazed about the room. What could thieves find of value here? The naked females? He went out the door, closed it, and walked down the stairs. He took his valise with him. He was dizzy and walked unsteadily. On the street, he passed a restaurant but was ashamed to enter. He didn’t even know how to order a meal. Did all the patrons sit at the same table? Did men eat together with women? People might ridicule his appearance. He returned