The Collected Stories

not stop speaking to me after that incident. Neither of us ever mentioned it. For many months I got up in the middle of the night and pondered: Was this an act of masochism? Was it some form of insanity? If so, what kind? Schizophrenia? Paranoia? Premature senility? One thing was clear: Kava had put a huge amount of work and study into this useless essay. No one in the Yiddish circle had the slightest interest in horses. Young as I was, I had already come to the conclusion that there are multitudes of human actions for which there is no motivation. As a matter of fact, in fiction motivations always spoil the story.
    In 1935, when I left for America, the Yiddish section of the P.E.N. club published my first novel,
Satan in Goray
. The executive board hired Kava to do the proofreading and to write a preface. I was afraid that he would find myriads of errors in my book and use the preface for some of his freakish conceptions. But he made no special difficulties in the proofreading and his preface was short and to the point. No, Kava was not insane. I had the feeling his treatise on horses was his last spree into the absurd. Just then I left for America.
    Once in a while I still try to fathom what might have been the meaning of Kava’s bizarre act, but I know that if there was any, it dwells there where Vanvild Kava is now—in the so-called Great Beyond.

The Reencounter

    T HE telephone rang and Dr. Max Greitzer woke up. On the night table the clock showed fifteen minutes to eight. “Who could be calling so early?” he murmured. He picked up the phone and a woman’s voice said, “Dr. Greitzer, excuse me for calling at this hour. A woman who was once dear to you has died. Liza Nestling.”
    “My God!”
    “The funeral is today at eleven. I thought you would want to know.”
    “You are right. Thank you. Thank you. Liza Nestling played a major role in my life. May I ask whom I am speaking to?”
    “It doesn’t matter. Liza and I became friends after you two separated. The service will be in Gutgestalt’s funeral parlor. You know the address?”
    “Yes, thank you.”
    The woman hung up.
    Dr. Greitzer lay still for a while. So Liza was gone. Twelve years had passed since their breaking up. She had been his great love. Their affair lasted about fifteen years—no, not fifteen; thirteen. The last two had been filled with so many misunderstandings and complications, with so much madness, that words could not describe them. The same powers that built this love destroyed it entirely. Dr. Greitzer and Liza Nestling never met again. They never wrote to one another. From a friend of hers he learned that she was having an affair with a would-be theater director, but that was the only word he had about her. He hadn’t even known that Liza was still in New York.
    Dr. Greitzer was so distressed by the bad news that he didn’t remember how he got dressed that morning or found his way to the funeral parlor. When he arrived, the clock across the street showed twenty-five to nine. He opened the door, and the receptionist told him that he had come too early. The service would not take place until eleven o’clock.
    “Is it possible for me to see her now?” Max Greitzer asked. “I am a very close friend of hers, and …”
    “Let me ask if she’s ready.” The girl disappeared behind a door.
    Dr. Greitzer understood what she meant. The dead are elaborately fixed up before they are shown to their families and those who attend the funeral.
    Soon the girl returned and said, “It’s all right. Fourth floor, room three.”
    A man in a black suit took him up in the elevator and opened the door to room number 3. Liza lay in a coffin opened to her shoulders, her face covered with gauze. He recognized her only because he knew it was she. Her black hair had the dullness of dye. Her cheeks were rouged, and the wrinkles around her closed eyes were hidden under makeup. On her reddened lips there was a hint of a smile. How do they produce a smile? Max Greitzer wondered. Liza had once accused him of being a mechanical person, a robot with no emotion. The accusation was false then, but now, strangely, it seemed to be true. He was neither dejected nor frightened.
    The door to the room opened and a woman with an uncanny resemblance to Liza entered. “It’s her sister, Bella,” Max Greitzer said to himself. Liza had often spoken about her younger sister, who lived in California, but he had never met her. He stepped aside as the woman