Charles Reznikoff

“The lamps are burning in the synagogue, in the houses of study, in dark alleys. . .” This should be the place. This is the way the guide-book describes it. Excuse me, sir, can you tell me where Eli lives, Eli the katzev— slaughterer of cattle and poultry? One of my ancestors. Reb Haskel? Reb Shimin? My grandfathers. This is the discipline that withstood the siege of every Jew; these are the prayer-shawls that have proved stronger than armor. Let us begin then humbly. Not by asking: Who is This you pray to? Name Him; define Him. For the answer is: we do not name Him. Once out of a savage fear, perhaps; now out of knowledge—of our ignorance. Begin then humbly. Not by asking: shall I live forever? Hear again the dear dead greeting me gladly as they used to when we were all among the living? For the answer is: if you think we differ from all His other creatures, say only if you like with the Pharisees, our teachers, those who do not believe in an eternal life will not have it. In the morning I arise and match again my plans against my cash. I wonder now if the long morning-prayers were an utter waste of an hour weighing, as they do, hopes and anguish, and sending the believer out into the street with the sweet taste of the prayers on his lips. How good to stop and look out upon eternity a while; and daily in the morning, afternoon, and evening be at ease in Zion.

I saw him walking along slowly at night holding a tray of candy and chewing-gum: a Jewish boy of fifteen or sixteen with large black eyes and a gentle face. He sidled into a saloon and must have been ordered away because he came out promptly through the swinging doors. I wondered what he was doing far from a Jewish neighborhood. (I knew the side streets and the roughs standing about on the corners and stoops.) What a prize this shambling boy with his tray! I stepped up to warn him against leaving the brightly-lit avenue. He listened, eyed me steadily, and walked on calmly. I looked at him in astonishment and thought: has nothing frightened you? Neither the capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, by the Romans, by the Crusaders? No pogrom in Russia; no Nazi death-camp in Germany? How can you still go about so calmly?

His mother stepped about her kitchen, complaining in a low voice; all day his father sat stooped at a sewing machine. When he went to high school Webber was in his class. Webber lived in a neighborhood where the houses are set in lawns with trees beside the gutters. The boys who live there, after school, take their skates and hockey sticks and play in the streets until nightfall. At twelve o’clock the boys ran out of school to a lunchroom around the corner. First come, first served, and they ran as fast as they could. Webber would run up beside him and knock him against the wall. He tried not to mind and thought Webber would tire of it. One day he hit Webber’s side; his fist fell off Webber’s over- coat. Webber turned with a glad shout and punched him as he cowered. His home was in a neighborhood of workingmen where there were few Jews. When he came home from school he walked as quickly as he could, his head bowed and cap pulled low over his face. Once, a few blocks from home, a tall lad stopped him. “Are you a Jew? I knock the block off every Jew I meet.” “No,” he answered. “I think you’re a Jew. What’s your name?” He told him, glad that his name was not markedly Jewish and yet foreign enough to answer for his looks. “Where do you live?” He told him and added, “Come around any old time and ask about me.” So he got away. When he was through high school he worked in the civil service as a typist, taken on until a rush of business was over. He took the test for a steady job, but his standing on the list was low, unlikely to be reached for a long time, if ever before the new list. Looking for work, he always came upon a group waiting for the job. He was short and weak-looking, and looked peevish. He could not get work for months. At last an old German storekeeper wanted to hire him and asked at what he had been working. He told him. “It doesn’t pay me to break you in, if you are going to leave me. Have you taken another civil service test? Are you waiting for a new appointment?” “No,” he answered. In a few months a letter came to his home from the civil service board, asking him to report for work as a typist, a permanent appointment. There was no hurry, but his father did not know and so brought the letter to the store. There had been a boy in his class at school whose name was Kore. Kore was short, too, but he had the chest of an old sailor and thick, bandy legs. He shouted when he spoke and was always laughing. Kore moved into the block. With Kore he was not afraid to stand on the stoop after work or go walking anywhere. Once they went to Coney Island and Kore wanted to go bathing. It was late at night and no one else was in. They went along the beach until they came to the iron pier the steamboats dock at. Kore boasted that he would swim around the pier and slid away into the black water. At last the people were gone. The booths were long darkened. He waited for Kore at the other side of the pier, watching the empty waves come in.

His father carved umbrella handles, but when umbrella handles were made by machinery, there was only one man for whom his father could work. The pay was small, though it had once been a good trade. They lived in the poorest part of the ghetto, near the lots where people dump ashes. His father was anxious that his son should stay at school and get out of the mess he himself was in. “Learning is the best merchandise,” he would say. His father died; there was his mother to be taken care of. He taught in a school in the ghetto. Some pupils came at nine and stayed until three; others came after public school and stayed until evening; most of the pupils came in the evening. The courses were crammed, lasting a few months, pupils and teachers anxious to be rid of the matter as soon as possible. So he worked day and night, week-days and Sunday. His mother was dead. It was cold in the street and windy. A dry snow had fallen and the feet of the walkers were turning it into brown sand. He was forty. Now he was free. To do what? He knew no one whom he cared to marry. And who would go into his poverty? If he were to give up this work he knew so well, to what else could he turn? He would just keep on. He had lost this world and knew there was no other.

Followed by his lodge, shabby men stumbling over the cobblestones, and his children, faces red and ugly with tears, eyes and eyelids red, in the black coffin in the black hearse the old man. No longer secretly grieving that his children are not strong enough to go the way he wanted to go and was not strong enough.

They landed and could see nothing but meadows and tall trees— cypress, nearly three fathoms about at the roots, rising straight for sixty or eighty feet without a branch. In the woods were cedars, oaks, and walnut trees; some beech, some elm, black walnut, ash, and sassafras; mul- berry trees in groves; honey-suckle and other vines hanging in clusters on many trees. They stepped on violets and other sweet flowers, many kinds in many colors; straw- berries and rasp- berries were on the ground. Blackbirds with red shoulders were flying about and many small birds, some red, some blue; the woods were full of deer; and running everywhere fresh water— brooks, rundles, springs and creeks. In the twilight, through the thickets and tall grass, creeping upon all fours—the savages, their bows in their mouths.

During the Second World War, I was going home one night along a street I seldom used. All the stores were closed except one—a small fruit store. An old Italian was inside to wait on customers. As I was paying him I saw that he was sad. “You are sad,” I said. “What is troubling you?” “Yes,” he said, “I am sad.” Then he added in the same monotone, not looking at me: “My son left for the front today and I’ll never see him again.” “Don’t say that!” I said. “Of course, you will!” “No,” he answered. “I’ll never see him again.” Afterwards, when the war was over, I found myself once more in that street and again it was late at night, dark and lonely; and again I saw the old man alone in the store. I bought some apples and looked closely at him: his thin wrinkled face was grim but not particularly sad. “How about your son?” I said. “Did he come back from the war?” “Yes,” he answered. “He was not wounded?” “No. He is all right.” “That’s fine,” I said. “Fine!” He took the bag of apples from my hands and groping inside took out one that had begun to rot and put in a good one instead. “He came back at Christmas,” he added. “How wonderful! That was wonderful!” “Yes,” he said gently, “it was wonderful.” He took the bag of apples from my hands again and took out one of the smaller apples and put in a large one.

1 It was nearly daylight when she gave birth to the child, lying on a quilt he had doubled up for her. He put the child on his left arm and took it out of the room, and she could hear the splashing water. When he came back she asked him where the child was. He replied: “Out there—in the water.” He punched up the fire and returned with an armload of wood and the child, and put the dead child into the fire. She said: “O John, don't!” He did not reply but turned to her and smiled. 2 Late at night, their sow rooted open the door of their cabin, and husband and wife quarreled over driving her out. His wife knocked him down with an iron shovel. He started for his breeches and said, “If I had my knife, I'd cut your throat,” and she ran out the door. He shut the door after her and propped it closed with a stick of wood. When she was found, she was lying on her face, frozen to death. The weather extremely cold and where she lay the snow was about eighteen inches deep. When she left the cabin, she was barefoot and had very little clothing. The way she took led through briers and there were drops of blood on the snow— where the briers had torn her legs from the knees down— and bits of clothing that had been torn off; at one place she had struck her ankle against the end of a log and it bled freely. 3 Mrs. Farborough went into her brother's house, leaving her husband a short distance from it— he was the best man of the neighborhood for strength— and, without speaking to anyone, seized a tin cup. Her sister-in-law said it seemed as if she took a good deal of authority there. Mrs. Farborough replied she took enough to get her things, and would also take her teakettle. Mrs. Eller told her to take them and get out of the house and stay out. Mrs. Farborough did go out but soon returned with a stone— as large as her fist— which she held under her apron, and sat down, remarking that she intended to stay a while just for aggravation. Farborough then approached the house with a stone in each hand and, when near it, sat on a log. After a moment or two, he sprang into the house, the stones still in his hands. At this, his wife threw the stone she held under her apron at her sister-in-law: missed and struck the side of the house near her head. The women clinched and fell to the floor, Mrs. Farborough on top, hitting Mrs. Eller in the face with her fist. Eller went up to Farborough and said: “Brother Martin, take your wife out of here, and I will take care of mine. Let us have no fuss!” And he started forward to part the women, still fighting. Farnborough pushed him back: “God damn you, stand back, or I will kill the last Goddamn one of you!” and lifted his right hand, holding the stone. He turned to look at the women, and Eller shot him in the back with a pistol, just where his suspenders crossed. 4 He and his wife were members of a society known as Knights and Ladies of Honor. The life of each member was insured for two thousand dollars— to go to widow or widower. He had to borrow money to pay his dues and had just been defeated for town marshal; and now his wife was sick. The Knight of Honor was seen in a saloon with a Negro who used to work for him; then the two were seen going into an alley. Here he gave the Negro a quarter and asked him to go to the drugstore and buy a small bottle of strychnine. If the druggist asked the Negro why he wanted it, he was to say to kill wolves on a farm. The Negro asked him what he really wanted it for and he said to poison the dogs belonging to a neighbor where a girl was working whom he wanted to visit at night. The Negro bought him the bottle, and he told the Negro that if questioned about it he must say that he put it in the pocket of his overcoat and left the coat hanging in a saloon, and that the bottle was taken from his pocket by someone. When his wife asked for the quinine she used as a medicine, he went to the mantelpiece where he had placed a package of quinine bought the day before and poured some of the strychnine into a spoonful of cold coffee. She thought the powder had a peculiar look, and tried to dissolve it by stirring it with her finger. He assured her it was quinine bought where he had always bought it; and she drank it.

Their new landlord was a handsome man. On his rounds to collect rent she became friendly. Finally, she asked him in to have a cup of tea. After that he came often. Once his mouth jerked, and turning, she saw her husband in the doorway. She thought, One of the neighbors must have told him. She smiled and opened her mouth to speak, but could say nothing. Her husband stood looking at the floor. He turned and went away. She lay awake all night waiting for him. In the morning she went to his store. It was closed. She sent for his brothers and told them he had not been home. They went to the police. Hospitals and morgues were searched. For weeks they were called to identify drowned men. His business had been prosperous; bank account and all were untouched. She and their baby girl were provided for. In a few years they heard of him. He was dead. He had been making a poor living in a far off city. One day he stepped in front of a street-car and was killed. She married again. Her daughter married and had children. She named none after her father.

So proudly she came into the subway car all who were not reading their newspapers saw the head high and the slow tread— coat wrinkled and her belongings in a paper bag, face unwashed and the grey hair uncombed; simple soul, who so early in the morning when only the poorest go to work, stood up in the subway and outshouting the noise: “Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, I have a baby at home who is sick, and I have no money, no job;” who did not have box or cap to take coins— only his hands, and, seeing only faces turned away, did not even go down the aisle as beggars do; the fire had burnt through the floor: machines and merchandise had fallen into the great hole, this zero that had sucked away so many years and now, seen at last, the shop itself; the ceiling sloped until it almost touched the floor— a strange curve in the lines and oblongs of his life; drops were falling from the naked beams of the floor above, from the soaked plaster, still the ceiling; drops of dirty water were falling on his clothes and hat and on his hands; the thoughts of business gathered in his bosom like black water in footsteps through a swamp; waiting for a job, she studied the dusty table at which she sat and the floor which had been badly swept— the office-boy had left the corners dirty; a mouse ran in and out under the radiator and she drew her feet away and her skirt about her legs, but the mouse went in and out about its business; and she sat waiting for a job in an unfriendly world of men and mice; walking along the drive by twos and threes, talking about jobs, jobs they might get and jobs they had had, never turning to look at the trees or the river glistening in the sunlight or the automobiles that went swiftly past them— in twos and threes talking about jobs; in the drizzle four in a row close to the curb that passers-by might pass, the squads stand waiting for soup, a slice of bread and shelter— grimy clothes their uniform; on a stoop stiffly across the steps a man who has fainted; each in that battalion eyes him, but does not move from his place, well drilled in want.