The Collected Stories

for me.”
    “Converted?”
    “Yes, converted.” Rivkele made a sound that was something like laughter.
    I pulled the string and lit the naked bulb that was half covered with paint. I didn’t know myself why I did this. My curiosity to see Rivkele in the role of a Gentile must have outweighed any shame I felt about my poverty. Or maybe in that fraction of a second I decided her disgrace was worse than mine. Rivkele blinked her eyes, and I saw a face that wasn’t hers and that I would never have recognized on the street. It seemed to me broad, pasty, and middle-aged. But this unfamiliarity lasted only an instant. Soon I realized that she hadn’t really changed since the last time I had seen her in Warsaw. Why, then, had she seemed so different at first glance? I wondered.
    Apparently Rivkele went through the same sensations, because after a while she said, “Yes, it’s you.”
    We sat there, observing each other. She wore a green coat and a hat to match. Her eyelids were painted blue and her cheeks were heavily rouged. She had gained weight. She said, “I have a neighbor who reads the Yiddish paper. I had told her a lot about you, but since you sign your stories by another name, how could she know? One day she came in and showed me an account of Old-Stikov. I knew at once that it was you. I called the editorial office, but they didn’t know your address. How could that be?”
    “Oh, I’m here on a tourist visa and it’s expired.”
    “Aren’t you allowed to live in America?”
    “I must first go to Canada or to Cuba. Only from the American consul in a foreign country can I get a permanent visa to return.”
    “Then why don’t you go?”
    “I can’t go on a Polish passport. It’s all tied up with lawyers and expenses.”
    “God in heaven!”
    “What happened to you?” I asked. “Did you have a child?”
    Rivkele placed a finger with a red, pointed nail to her lips. “Hush! I had nothing. You know nothing!”
    “Where is it?”
    “In Warsaw. In a foundling home.”
    “A boy?”
    “A girl.”
    “Who brought you to America?”
    “Not Morris—somebody else. It didn’t work out. We split up and I went to Chicago, and there I met Mario …” Rivkele began to speak in a mixture of Yiddish and English. She had married Mario in Chicago and adopted the Catholic faith. Mario’s father owned a bar that was patronized by the Mafia. Once, in a quarrel, Mario stabbed a man and he was serving his second year in prison. Rivkele—her name was now Anna Marie—was working as a waitress in an Italian restaurant in New York. Mario had at least a year and a half left to serve. She had a small apartment on Ninth Avenue. Her husband’s friends came by, wanting to sleep with her. One had threatened her with a gun. The owner of the restaurant was a man past his sixties. He was good to her, took her to the theater, the movies, and to nightclubs, but he had an evil wife and three daughters, each one more malicious than the next. They were Rivkele’s mortal enemies.
    “Are you living with him?”
    “He is like a father to me.” Rivkele changed her tone. “But I never forgot you! Hardly a day goes by that I don’t think of you. Why this is I don’t understand. When I heard that you were in America and read that article about Old-Stikov, I became terribly excited. I called the paper maybe twenty times. Someone told me that you sneak into the pressroom at night and leave your articles there. So I went there late one night after work, hoping to find you. The elevator man told me that you had a box on the ninth floor where I could leave a letter for you. I went up and all the lights were on, but no one was there. Near the wall a machine was writing by itself. It frightened me. It reminded me of what they recite on Rosh Hashanah—”
    “The Heavenly Book that reads itself and everyone inscribes his own sins in it.”
    “Yes, right. I couldn’t locate your box. Why are you hiding from the newspapermen? They wouldn’t denounce you.”
    “Oh, the editor adds all kinds of drivel to my pieces. He spoils my style. For the few dollars he pays me, he makes me look like a hack.”
    “That article about Old-Stikov was good. I read it and cried all night.”
    “Do you miss home?”
    “Everything together. I’ve fallen into a trap. Why do you live in such a dump?”
    “I can’t even afford this.”
    “I have some money. Since Mario is in jail, it would be easy for me to get a divorce. We could go to Canada,