The Collected Stories

nickname—Diogenes.
    Kava lived on pennies. His only income came from substituting for the proofreaders of the Yiddish press when they went on their summer vacations. However, the typesetters completely ignored his corrections, since he had his own concepts about grammar and syntax. He brought entire encyclopedias, lexicons, and various dictionaries to the composing room. The editors maintained that if all of Kava’s corrections were to be followed up, the daily newspapers could appear only once in three months.
    Needless to say, Kava was an old bachelor. What woman would have married one such as Vanvild Kava? Summer and winter he wore a faded derby, a coat down to his ankles, a stiff collar which used to be called “father murderer.” I was told that in his vest pocket he kept a chronometer instead of a watch. If someone asked him what time it was, he would say, “A minute and twenty-one seconds to five.” When he read proofs, he used a watchmaker’s eyepiece. Kava lived in a tiny fifth-floor walk-up attic room, all the walls of which were lined with books. On his visits to the Writers’ Club he ordered nothing from the buffet, not even a glass of tea. He had discovered a bazaar where he could buy stale black bread, cheese, and fruit for next to nothing. It was said that he washed his own linen and pressed it by laying it under the heavy volumes of his library. Still, there was never a stain on his clothing. He had a system of sharpening razor blades on a glass. Vanvild Kava was an ascetic—not in the name of religion, but in the name of his version of worldliness.
    Suddenly one day the Writers’ Club was shaken by a sensation. Kava married. And whom? A young and beautiful girl. One had to know the Yiddish Writers’ Club and its passion for gossip to realize the uproar this piece of news created. At first, everyone considered it a joke. But it soon became clear that it was no joke. The proofreaders and typesetters had already published their congratulations in their newspapers. One day Kava brought his new wife to the Writers’ Club at exactly the time he came every day—seventeen minutes after eleven. She seemed in her late twenties, was dressed fashionably; had dark, short hair and polished nails. She spoke both Polish and Yiddish well. All that those who were present that day in the club could do was gape. Kava ordered two glasses of coffee for himself and his beloved and some cake. When the pair left, exactly seventeen minutes after twelve, the club began to buzz with excitement. A number of explanations and theories were created on the spot. I remember only one of them—that Kava was a kind of Yiddish Rasputin, a sexual miracle worker. But this theory was immediately dismissed as sheer nonsense. Every man in the Writers’ Club considered all the other male members as impotent. Kava could not be the exception.
    For days and weeks the Yiddish Writers’ Club was busy solving this riddle, but as quickly as a solution was found, it collapsed. Some of the writers knew that I was friendly with Kava; I had also gone up in his ratings a few fractions of a point, and they insisted that I provide them with some insight. But I was just as bewildered as the others. No one would have dared to approach Kava and ask him any personal questions. There was a pride in this little man that did not allow for intimacy.
    Then something happened. A girl whose home I visited had a friend from the town of Pulava. Pulava had a large printing shop where some Yiddish books were printed. The townspeople also boasted about having a few writers and translators. This girl from Pulava was a friend of Kava’s wife, and one evening they both visited my girlfriend while I was there. It was an unexpected stroke of luck. I ate supper with a person who was part of a mystery. She seemed clever and tactful, and there was nothing enigmatic about her behavior. We discussed politics, literature, the literary group in Pulava. After supper, Mrs. Kava lit a cigarette and chatted with me while the other two girls washed the dishes. I said to her, “I would like to ask you something, but don’t be offended if it is too personal. You really don’t have to answer me if …”
    “I know what you want to ask me,” she interrupted. “Why I married Kava. Everybody is asking me the same thing. I will tell you why. I wasn’t born yesterday, I know men, but all the men I had the misfortune of meeting bored me stiff. Not one of them had an opinion