Joseph Roth - The Leviathan

Finally, the hour of parting came. Nissen Piczenik embraced young Komrower, he bowed to the lieutenant and then to the sailors, and he left the battle cruiser.

He had intended to return to Progrody straight after saying good-bye to young Komrower. But he remained in Odessa. He watched the battleship sail off, the sailors waved back to him as he stood on the quay side, waving his red and blue — striped handkerchief. And he watched a lot of other ships sailing away, and he waved to their passengers as well. He went to the harbor every day, and every day he saw something new. For instance, he learned what it means to “lift anchor,” “furl the sails,” “unload a cargo,” “tighten a sheet,” and so forth.

Every day he saw young men in sailor suits working on ships, swarming up the masts, he saw young men walking through the streets of Odessa, arm-in-arm, a line of sailors walking abreast, taking up the whole street — and he felt sad that he had no children of his own. Just then, he wished he had sons and grandsons and — no question — he would have sent them all to sea. He’d have made sailors of them. And all the while his ugly and infertile wife was lying at home in Progrody. She was selling corals in his place. Did she know how? Did she have any appreciation of what corals meant?

In the port of Odessa, Nissen Piczenik rapidly forgot the obligations of an ordinary Jew from Progrody. He didn’t go to the synagogue in the morning to say the prescribed prayers, nor yet in the evening. Instead, he prayed at home, hurriedly, without proper thought of God, he prayed in the manner of a phonograph, his tongue mechanically repeating the sounds that were engraved in his brain. Had the world ever seen such a Jew?

At home in Progrody, it was the coral season. Nissen Piczenik knew it, but then he wasn’t the old continental Nissen Piczenik any more, he was the new, reborn, oceanic one.

There’s plenty of time to go back to Progrody, he told himself. I’m not missing anything. Think of what I still have to do here!

And he stayed in Odessa for three weeks, and every day he spent happy hours with the sea and the ships and the little fishes.

It was the first time in his life that Nissen Piczenik had had a holiday.

WHEN HE RETURNED home to Progrody, he discovered that he was no less than one hundred and sixty rubles out of pocket, with all the expenses for his journey. But to his wife and to all those who asked him what he had been doing so long away from home, he replied that he had concluded some “important business” in Odessa.

The harvest was just now getting underway, and so the farmers didn’t come to town so frequently on market days. As happened every year at this time, it grew quiet in the house of the coral merchant. The threaders went home in the afternoon. And in the evening, when Nissen Piczenik returned from the synagogue, he was greeted not by the melodious voices of the beautiful girls, but only by his wife, his plate of radish and onion, and the copper samovar. However, guided by the memory of his days in Odessa — whose commercial insignificance he kept secret — the coral merchant Piczenik bowed to the habitual rules of his autumnal days. Already he was thinking of claiming some further piece of important business in a few months’ time, and going to visit a different harbor town, Petersburg, for instance.

He had no financial problems. All the money he had earned in the course of many years of selling corals was deposited and earning steady interest with the moneylender Pinkas Warschawsky, a respected usurer in the community, who, though pitiless in collecting any outstanding debts owing to him, was also punctual in paying interest. Nissen Piczenik had no material anxieties; he was childless and had no heirs to think of, so why not travel to another of the many harbors there were?

And the coral dealer had already begun to make plans for the spring when something strange happened in the small neighboring town of Sutschky.

In this town, which was no bigger than the small town of Progrody, the home of Nissen Piczenik, a complete stranger one day opened a coral shop. The man’s name was Jenö Lakatos, and, as was soon learned, he came from the distant land of Hungary. He spoke Russian, German, Ukrainian, and Polish, and yes, if required, and if someone had happened to ask for it, then Mr. Lakatos would equally have spoken in French, English, or Chinese. He was a young man with slick, blue-black, pomaded hair — and he was also the only man far and wide to wear a shiny stiff collar and tie, and to carry a walking stick with a gold knob. This young man had been in Sutschky for just a few weeks, had struck up a friendship with the butcher Nikita Kolchin, and had pestered him for so long that he agreed to set up a coral business jointly with this Lakatos. There was a brilliant red sign outside with the name NIKITA KOLCHIN & CO.

In its window, this shop displayed perfect shining red corals, lighter in weight than the stones of Nissen Piczenik, but also cheaper. A whole large coral necklace cost one ruble fifty, and there were smaller chains for eighty, fifty and twenty kopecks. The prices were prominently displayed in the window. Finally, to prevent anyone still walking past the shop, there was a phonograph inside turning out merry tunes all day long. It could be heard all over town, and in the outlying villages, too. There was no large market in Sutschky as there was in Progrody. Nevertheless — and in spite of the fact that it was harvest time — the farmers flocked to the shop of Mr. Lakatos to hear the music and buy the cheap corals.

One day, after Mr. Lakatos had been running his business successfully for a few weeks, a prosperous farmer came to Nissen Piczenik and said: “Nissen Semyonovitch, I can’t believe the way you’ve been cheating me and everybody else these past twenty years. But now there’s a man in Sutschky who’s selling the most beautiful coral chains for fifty kopecks apiece. My wife wanted to go over there right away, but I thought I’d see what you had to say about it first, Nissen Semyonovitch.”

“That Lakatos,” said Nissen Piczenik, “is a thief and a cheat. There’s no other way to explain his prices. But I’ll go over there if you give me a lift in your cart.”

“Very well,” said the farmer, “see for yourself.”

And so the coral merchant went to Sutschky. He stood in front of the shop window for awhile, listening to the music blaring from inside the shop, then finally he stepped inside, and addressed Mr. Lakatos.

“I’m a coral seller myself,” said Nissen Piczenik. “My wares come from Hamburg, Odessa, Trieste, and Amsterdam, and I can’t understand how you are able to sell such fine corals so cheaply.”

“You’re from the old school,” replied Lakatos, “and if you’ll pardon the expression, you’re a bit behind the times.”

So saying, he emerged from behind the counter — and Nissen Piczenik saw that he had a slight limp. His left leg was obviously shorter, because the heel of his left boot was twice as high as the one on his right. Powerful and intoxicating scents emanated from him — and one wondered what part of his frail body could possibly be home to all these scents. His hair was blackish-blue as night. And while his dark eyes appeared gentle enough, they glowed so powerfully that a strange redness appeared to flare up in the midst of all their blackness. Under his curled black mustaches, Lakatos had a set of dazzling white and smiling mouse teeth.

“Well?” said the coral merchant Nissen Piczenik.

“Well,” said Lakatos, “we’re not mad. We don’t go diving to the bottom of the sea. We simply manufacture artificial corals. I work for the company of Lowncastle Brothers, in New York. I’ve just had two very good years in Budapest. It doesn’t bother the farmers. It didn’t bother them in Hungary, it’ll never bother them in Russia. Fine red flawless corals are what they’re after. And I’ve got them. Cheap, competitively priced, pretty, and wearable. What more do they want? Real corals don’t come any better!”