The Collected Stories

attributes? The Monad of Monads? Blind will? The Unconscious? Can He be sex, as the cabalists hint? Is God an orgasm that never ceases? Is the universal nothingness the principle of femininity? I wouldn’t come to any decision now, I decided. Maybe at night, in bed …
    I opened my eyes and walked toward Brighton. The girders of the el threw a net of sun and shade on the pavements. A train from Manhattan zoomed by with a deafening clatter. No matter how time and space are defined, I thought, it is impossible to be simultaneously in Brooklyn and Manhattan. I passed by windows displaying mattresses, samples of roofing shingles, kosher chickens. I stopped at a Chinese restaurant. Should I go eat lunch? No, in the cafeteria it might be a nickel cheaper. I was down to almost my last cent. If my sketch, “After the Divorce,” didn’t appear in the Sunday edition, nothing remained but suicide.
    Walking back, I marveled at myself. How could I have allowed my finances to dwindle this way? It was true that a tourist wasn’t permitted to work, but how would the Immigration and Naturalization Service know if I washed dishes in a restaurant, or if I got a job as a messenger, or as a Hebrew teacher? It was crazy to wait until you were completely broke. True, I had convinced myself that I could be sustained by the leftovers on cafeteria tables. But sooner or later the manager or cashier would notice a human scavenger. The Americans would rather throw food into the garbage can than let it be eaten without payment. Thinking of food made me hungry. I remembered what I had read about fasting. With water to drink, a man can live for sixty days or so. I had read somewhere else that on an expedition to the South or North Pole Amundsen had eaten one of his boots. My present hunger, I told myself, was nothing but hysteria. Two eggs and a roll contain enough starch, fat, and protein for days to come. Just the same, I felt a gnawing in my stomach. My knees were weak. I was going to meet Esther that night, and starvation leads to impotence. I barely reached the cafeteria. I entered, took a check, and approached the buffet counter. I knew that those who are condemned to death order last meals; people don’t even want to be executed on an empty stomach. This, I thought, was proof that life and death have no connection. Since death has no substance, it cannot end life. It is only a frame for living processes that are eternal.
    I had not yet become a vegetarian, but I was brooding about vegetarianism. Nevertheless, I picked out flanken in horseradish with boiled potatoes and lima beans, a cup of noodle soup, a large roll, a cup of coffee, and a piece of cake—all for sixty cents. Holding my tray, I passed tables littered with the remains of meals, but I stopped at a clean one. On a chair lay the afternoon tabloid. Although I wanted to read it, I remembered Payot’s words: intellectuals should eat slowly, chew each bite thoroughly, and not read. I glanced at the headlines just the same. Hitler had again demanded the Polish Corridor. Smigly-Rydz had announced in the Sejm that Poland would fight for every inch of territory. The German ambassador in Tokyo had had an audience with the Mikado. A retired general in England had criticized the Maginot Line and predicted that it would be broken at the first attack. The powers that rule the universe were preparing the catastrophe.
    After I finished eating, I counted my money, and I remembered that I had to call the newspaper and ask about my sketch. I knew that a call from Coney Island to Manhattan cost ten cents, and the Sunday editor, Leon Diamond, rarely came to the office. Still, I couldn’t leave everything to fate. One dime wouldn’t change the situation. I got up resolutely, found an empty telephone booth, and made the call. I prayed to the same powers preparing the world catastrophe that the operator wouldn’t give me a wrong number. I pronounced my number as clearly as I could in my accent, and she told me to put in my dime. The girl at the switchboard answered and I asked for Leon Diamond. I was almost sure she would tell me he wasn’t in the office, but I heard his voice on the line. I began to stutter and excuse myself. When I told him who I was, he said brusquely, “Your story will be in on Sunday.”
    “Thank you. Thank you very much.”
    “Send me a new story. Goodbye.”
    “A miracle! A miracle of Heaven!” I shouted to myself. The moment I hung up, another miracle occurred;