The Collected Stories

out his handkerchief and wiped his face. Where do I go now? “Whereto shall I flee Thy countenance?” He raised his eyes, and above the walls hovered the sky with a new moon and a few stars. He gazed bewildered, as if viewing it for the first time. Not even twenty-four hours had passed since he had left Bechev, but it seemed to him that he had been wandering for weeks, months, years.
    The girl from the cellar stepped out again. “Why did you run away, you silly yokel?”
    “Please forgive me,” the rabbi said, and he walked out into the street. The crowd was gone. Smoke rose from chimneys. Storekeepers were locking their stores with iron bars and locks. What had happened to the young man who was stabbed, the rabbi wondered. Had the earth swallowed him? Suddenly he realized that he was still carrying his valise. How was this possible? It seemed as if his hand clutched it with a power of its own. Perhaps this was the same power that created the world? Maybe this power was God? The rabbi wanted to laugh and to cry. I’m not even good at sinning—a bungler in every way. Well, it’s my end, my end. In that case there’s only one way out, to give back the six hundred and thirty limbs and sinews. But how? Hanging? Drowning? Was the Vistula nearby? The rabbi stopped a passer-by. “Excuse me, how do you get to the Vistula?”
    The man had a sooty face, like a chimney sweeper. From under his bushy, coal-black eyebrows, he stared at the rabbi. “For what do you need the Vistula? Do you want to fish?” His voice barked like a dog’s.
    “Fish, no.”
    “What else, swim to Danzig?”
    A jester, the rabbi thought. “I was told there is an inn in the neighborhood.”
    “An inn near the Vistula? Where do you come from, the provinces? What are you doing here, looking for a teaching job?”
    “Teaching? Yes. No.”
    “Mister, to walk the Warsaw cobblestones, you need strength. Do you have any money?”
    “A few rubles.”
    “For one gulden a night, you can sleep in my place. I live right here in number 14. I have no wife. I will give you her bed.”
    “Well, so be it. I thank you.”
    “Have you eaten?”
    “Yes, in the morning.”
    “In the morning, huh? Come with me to the tavern. We’ll have a glass of beer. A snack, too. I’m the coal dealer from across the street.” The man pointed with a black finger to a store whose doors were barred. He said, “Be careful, they may steal your money. A man from the provinces has just been taken to the hospital in an ambulance. They stabbed him with a knife.”
    VII

    The coal dealer walked up the few steps to the tavern. The rabbi stumbled along after him. The dealer opened a glass door and the rabbi was struck by the odor of beer, vodka, garlic, by the sounds of men’s and women’s loud voices and of dance music. His eyes blurred. “Why do you stop?” the coal handler asked. “Let’s go.” He took the rabbi’s arm and dragged him.
    Through vapor as dense as in the bathhouse of Bechev, the rabbi saw distorted faces, racks of bottles on the wall, a beer barrel with a brass pump, a counter on which sat platters of roasted geese, plates of appetizers. Fiddles screeched, a drum pounded; everyone seemed to be yelling. “Has something happened?” the rabbi asked.
    The coal dealer led him to a table and screamed into his ear, “This is not your little village. This is Warsaw. Here you have to know your way around.”
    “I’m not used to such noise.”
    “You’ll get used to it. What kind of teacher do you want to be? There are more teachers here than pupils. Every schlemiel becomes a teacher. What’s the good of all the studying? They forget anyhow. I went to cheder myself. They taught me Rashi and all that. I still remember a few words: ‘And the Lord said unto Moses—’ ”
    “A few words of the Torah are also Torah,” the rabbi said, aware that he had no right to speak after having violated so many commandments.
    “What? None of it’s worth a cock’s crow. These boys sit in the study house, shaking and making crazy faces. When they’re about to be drafted, they rupture themselves. They marry and can’t support their wives. They breed dozens of children, who crawl about barefoot and naked …”
    Perhaps he is the real unbeliever, the rabbi thought. He asked, “Do you believe in God?”
    The coal dealer placed a fist on the table. “How do I know? I was never in heaven. Something is there. Who made the world? On the Sabbath I go to pray with a