The Collected Stories

here.”
    “I’ve rented a room at Esther’s. You know who she is—the crazy poet’s ex-wife. Why don’t you come over? The whole Yiddish press is there. They mentioned you a few times.”
    “Really? Who?”
    “Oh, the writers. Even Esther praises you. I think myself that you have talent, but you choose themes no one cares about and nobody believes in. There are no demons. There is no God.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Absolutely sure.”
    “Who created the world?”
    “Oh, well. The old question. It’s all nature. Evolution. Who created God? Are you really religious?”
    “Sometimes I am.”
    “Just to be spiteful. If there is a God, why does He allow Hitler to drag innocent people to Dachau? And how about your visa? Have you done anything about it? If you haven’t, you’ll be deported and your God will worry very little about it.”
    I told him my complications, and he said, “There’s only one way out for you—marry a woman who’s an American citizen. That’ll make you legal. Later, you can get the papers and become a citizen yourself.”
    “I would never do that,” I said.
    “Why not?”
    “It’s an insult to both the woman and to me.”
    “And to fall into Hitler’s hands is better? It’s nothing but silly pride. You write like a ripe man, but you behave like a boy. How old are you?”
    I told him.
    “At your age, I was exiled to Siberia for revolutionary activities.”
    The waiter came over, and I was about to pay when the writer grabbed my check. I’m too lucky today, I thought.
    I looked toward the door and saw Esther. She often dropped in here in the evening, which was the reason I avoided the café. Esther and I had conspired to keep our affair a secret. Besides, I had become pathologically bashful in America. My boyish blushing had returned. In Poland, I never thought of myself as short, but among the American gaints I became small. My Warsaw suit looked outlandish, with its broad lapels and padded shoulders. In addition, it was too heavy for the New York heat. Esther kept reproaching me for wearing a stiff collar, a vest, and a hat in the hot weather. She saw me now and seemed embarrassed, like a provincial girl from Poland. We had never been together in public. We spent our time in the dark, like two bats. She made a move to leave, but my companion at the table called out to her. She approached unsteadily. She was wearing a white dress and a straw hat with a green ribbon. She was brown from the sun, and her black eyes had a girlish sparkle. She didn’t look like a woman approaching forty, but slim and youthful. She came over and greeted me as if I were a stranger. In the European fashion, she shook my hand. She smiled self-consciously and said “you” to me instead of “thou.”
    “How are you? I haven’t seen you for a long time,” she said.
    “He’s hiding.” The writer denounced me. “He’s not doing anything about his visa and they’ll send him back to Poland. The war is going to break out soon. I advised him to marry an American woman because he’d get a visa that way, but he won’t listen.”
    “Why not?” Esther asked. Her cheeks were glowing. She smiled a loving, wistful smile. She sat down on the edge of a chair.
    I would have liked to make a clever, sharp reply. Instead, I said sheepishly, “I wouldn’t marry to get a visa.”
    The writer smiled and winked. “I’m not a matchmaker, but you two would make a fitting pair.”
    Esther looked at me questioningly, pleading and reproachful. I knew I had to answer right then, either seriously or with a joke, but not a word came out. I felt hot. My shirt was wet and I was stuck to my seat. I had the painful feeling that my chair was tipping over. The floor heaved up and the lights on the ceiling intertwined, elongated and foggy. The café began to circle like a carrousel.
    Esther got up abruptly. “I have to meet someone,” she said, and turned away. I watched her hurry toward the door. The writer smiled knowingly, nodded, and went over to another table to chat with a colleague. I remained sitting, baffled by the sudden shift in my luck. In my consternation I took the coins from my pocket and began to count and recount them, identifying more by touch than by sight, doing intricate calculations. Every time, the figures came out different. As my game with the powers on high stood now, I seemed to have won a dollar and some cents and to have lost refuge in America and a woman I really loved.
    Translated by