The Spinoza of Market Street - Isaac Bashevis Singer [59]
For a while it was quiet again. Leibush could be heard cracking the chicken bones and sucking the marrow. Then he asked:
"I wonder how late it is?"
"I sent my watch for repair," joked Jonah the Thief.
"Once upon a time I had no need of watches. In the daytime I could tell the hour by the sun. At night I looked at the stars, or sniffed the wind. But you can't tell anything in this stench. Why are no roosters crowing?"
"All the roosters were slaughtered for the wedding," said Bashe.
"Tell us a story, Reb Leibush," asked Jonah the Thief.
"What story? I've told you everything. Old Getsl makes up his stories, but I don't like to make them up. What's the good of that? I can tell you that I was Count Pototsky once upon a time, or that Radziwill used to heat the bath house for me. What will come of that? Did I ever tell you about the mannikin?"
"In the glass of whiskey? With the magician?"
"Yes."
"You told us that one."
"And about the hail?"
"The hail too."
"And the ox?"
"The way the ox attacked you on the way to night prayers?"
"Yes."
"You did, you told us that one too."
"Well, what can I tell you, then? You are a thief, you have many stories to tell. I spent my life over the grindstone."
"Hey, you, Bashe, why don't you ever tell us anything?" asked Jonah.
Bashe was silent. They no longer expected her to answer. Suddenly her voice was heard:
"What can I tell you?"
"Tell us how you became a whore, and all the rest of it."
"The moment I open my mouth, the women begin to curse."
"The women are asleep."
"They'll wake soon enough. They don't let me live. God has forgiven long ago, but they won't forgive. What harm have I done them? I am not from these parts. I have never sinned with their husbands. I lie here and never hurt a fly, but they eat me up alive with their eyes. They spit into my face. Whenever anyone brings a plate of soup or a bowl of kasha, they begin to hiss like snakes: 'Not for her! Not for her!' If it were up to them, I would have died of hunger long ago. But kind people have pity. If I had my legs, I'd not be lying here. I'd run from here to where black pepper grows."
"But you have none."
"And that's my bitter misfortune. I long for death, but it doesn't come. Healthy people go, but I lie here and rot alive. It's lucky they put me here. The women used to pinch me, they used to tear out lumps of my flesh. They threw garbage at me. They spilled their night slops over me. . . ."
"We know, we know it all."
"You don't know one thousandth of it. When a man hits someone, everybody sees it and there's a hullaballoo. But women can dig your heart out on the sly. Now they cannot reach me with their hands, so they stick needles into me with their eyes. They can't forgive me that I lie here among the men. When I lie dead, with my feet toward the door and a straw under my head, they will still envy me."
"I thought you were going to tell us a story."
"What have I to tell? I've had troubles from my childhood on. My mother, may she intercede for me, had three daughters before me. My father wanted a boy. He made a journey to a rabbi, and the rabbi promised him a boy. When the midwife told him it was a girl, he would not believe her. He demanded to be shown. . . . My father was a Hasid, and it was a custom in the study house that a man whose wife gave birth to one daughter after another was given a whipping. The Hasidim stretched my father out on the table, and whipped him with their sashes. He never wanted to look at me. He would not even call me by my name. He never hit me either. Just as if I were a step-child. When I called him 'father,' he pretended he did not hear me. Was it my fault? My mother used to say: 'You were born in a black hour.' When I was nine, I left home."
"Why did you leave home?"
"Because I slaughtered three ducks."
"What? You slaughtered ducks?"
"Yes, I was growing up a wild thing. Whatever I saw,