Isaac Bashevis Singer, born in Poland in 1904, emigrated to New York in 1935, when he began writing in Yiddish for the Jewish Daily Forward. He is the author of many novels and stories and winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize for literature. Translated by the author and Dorothea Straus.
4
‘Why go on? There grew up a great love between us. I saw to it that the house remained untouched. I visited her each week, and some weeks I took the Canarsie line to Brownsville two or three times. Whenever I went there, I wore a shabby suit and an old hat. I brought her presents of the kind that a sewing-machine salesman might bring: a pound of farmer cheese, a basket of fruit, a box of tea. The neighbors knew me and they wanted to buy sewing machines on the installment plan. I soon realized that if I sold them such bargains all of Brownsville would run after me, and I told Channah Basha that I had changed to the insurance business. I have forgotten the main thing: I called myself by another name—David Vishkover. It wasn’t invented; I had a cousin of that name.
‘For some time I managed to avoid her father, the beadle. As for Channah Basha, she fell in love with me with such passion that no words can describe it. One day I was a stranger and four weeks later her whole life hung on me. She knitted sweaters for me and cooked for me every dish I like. Whenever I tried to give her a few dollars she gave the money back and I had to beg her to accept it. I was a virtual millionaire, but on Blake Avenue I became a poor insurance agent, starving schlemiel whose wife bled him of his last penny. I know what you want to ask; yes, Channah Basha and I became like husband and wife. She was a pure virgin. How a girl like that could be talked into an affair is a story in itself. I know a little Jewish law, I persuaded her that according to the Torah a man is permitted to have two wives. As far as she was concerned, since she was unmarried she was not committing adultery. If I had told her to stand on her head, she could have done that too.
‘As long as Channah Basha’s father did not learn what was going on, everything went smoothly. We lived like two pigeons. But how long can such an affair remain a secret? When he found out that a married man was visiting his daughter and she had accepted him like a bridegroom, all hell broke loose. I assured him that the moment my vixen of a wife divorced me I would stand under the wedding canopy with his daughter.
‘Just as Channah Basha was beautiful, her father was ugly, sick, a broken shard. He warned me that I would be excommunicated. As time went on he grew more violent; he even hinted that he might have me thrown into prison. I was frightened, all right. One shouldn’t say it, but luck was on my side. He became mortally sick. He had bad kidneys and God knows what else. I sent him to doctors, took him to the hospital, paid for nurses, and I pretended that he was getting all this care for nothing. He lingered a few months and then he died. I erected a tombstone for him that cost fifteen hundred dollars and I made his daughter believe that it came form the landsleit of Wysoka. One lie leads to another. How is it written in the Talmud?
‘One sin drags another after it,’ I said.
‘Right.
‘After her father’s death, Channah Basha became even more childish than before. She mourned him as I never saw a daughter mourn her father. She hired a man to recite the Kaddish for him. She lighted candles in the synagogue. Every second week she visited his grave. I told her that my business was going well and I tried to give her more money. But no matter how little it was, she insisted is was too much. All she needed, she said, was a loaf of bread, a few potatoes, and once in a while a pound of stripe. Years passed and she still wore her same shabby dresses from the old country. I wanted to giver her an apartment on Ocean Avenue and furnish it. She refused to move. She kept on dusting and polishing her old junk. She read the Yiddish papers, and once she found my picture there. I had become the president of an old-age home and it was written up. She said, ‘See here, that Sam Palka looks just like you. Is he a relative or something?’ I said, ‘I wish he was a relative. In my family were all paupers.’ If I had told her that I was Sam Palka, our love would have been finished. She needed a poor man to look after, not a rich one to pamper her. Every time I left her to go home she offered me a bag of food so that I wouldn’t starve on my wife’s rations. Funny, isn’t it?
‘The years passed and I scarcely knew where they went. One day I had dark hair and it seemed that I turned gray. Channah Basha too was no longer a spring chicken. But her thoughts stayed those of a child. The house on Blake Avenue became so ramshackle I worried that the walls might cave in. I had to bribe the inspectors not to condemn it. The storybooks that Channah Basha brought from Wysoka had finally fallen apart, and she now read the books of the Yiddish writers in America. There was no lack of that merchandise in my house! Every time I went to Brownsville I brought her a stack, and she admired them all no matter how bad they were. She loved everyone except my wife. On her she poured sulphur and fire. She never tired of hearing about the troubles Bessie made for me, and I had plenty to tell. She had gotten herself a gigolo, a faker, and she traveled all over Europe with him. My children gave me no joy either. My son didn’t even graduate from high school. I have three daughters and none of them married happily. Their mother planted hatred of me in them. I was good for only one thing—to write checks. Still I had a great happiness: Channah Basha. She was always the same. In all those years she learned only a few words of English. Most of the Jewish tenants had moved out of the house and Puerto Ricans had moved in. Only two old women—widows—stayed, and Channah Basha watched over them. One had cataracts and later became blind. The other one had dropsy. Channah Basha took care of them like the best nurse.
(continued)
I love this story. This hilarious portrait of everyday Main Street characters rings as true today as it did when it was first published back then. The basics are the same and how little things change.
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