David Bezmozgis - Natasha and Other Stories

Despite this, my grandfather had yet to accept any of Herschel’s invitations. He would go, he said, it was only that every time he was invited something needed to be done. Once he had been salting pickles, another time he had needed to mend a pair of shoes, yet another time he had had an appointment to get his toenails cut. But when the time was good he planned to go. Other people said things about Herschel and Itzik, but he had lived a long life without listening to those kinds of people. Who can know about the truth between two people? Both had had wives. Itzik had two children. What’s to say that they aren’t even cousins? Who knows? Would someone think to say a word if two cousins shared an apartment?

The following Saturday I noticed how, when Itzik coughed, Herschel placed a hand on his shoulder. I also noticed an undercurrent of disapproval emanating from the back of the room. After Herschel read from the Torah the other men took his outstretched hand without enthusiasm. Previously undetected signals were everywhere. It seemed less like a coincidence when Itzik and Herschel were the last to receive their paper cups of wine. It was evident that the one-armed man barely acknowledged Herschel as he happily made an observation in Yiddish. Itzik sat alone at a table, his thick chest spasmodically wracked by terrible hacking. Young person, he said, could you bring me some water? The devil has me by the throat.

When I returned from the water fountain with a paper cup, Herschel was standing beside Itzik. At the front of the room Zalman was announcing a Chanukah party. I handed the cup to Itzik. Herschel asked me how tall I was. In his shtetl I would have been a giant. You can only get so big on cabbage, he said. His brother, a Communist before it was a good idea to be one, had been big for a Jew. He’d broken the arm of a Pole who had cracked Herschel’s skull. The Pole was a blacksmith’s apprentice. He had arms like legs. Herschel wondered if I would be able to come to their apartment and change a lightbulb. Itzik used to do it but it wasn’t such a good idea for him now that he wasn’t feeling well. And even standing on their tallest chair, Herschel wasn’t big enough to reach. You could only sit in the dark for so long. Herschel spoke to me in English. Itzik, when he spoke, spoke to me in Russian. They spoke Yiddish to each other.

While beating me twice at checkers, my grandfather told me what he knew about Herschel and Itzik. They had been neighbors in another building. Their wives had been friends. Herschel had come to Canada in 1950. During the war Herschel’s wife hid in a cellar; Herschel was sent to Auschwitz.

Like our family, Itzik left the Soviet Union in 1979. He had been a successful man in Odessa. He drove a cab. He had his own car. Sometimes he went for long trips with a full trunk and when he came back the trunk was empty. People said he brought dollars with him from Odessa. How else could he have bought his own taxi so soon after coming to Canada? Later he had three cars and rented them out. He wasn’t like my grandfather and the other old men. On the first of the month he didn’t have his nose in a mailbox sniffing for government envelopes.

Four years ago Itzik’s wife died. He put himself on a waiting list for a subsidized apartment. The next year Herschel’s wife also died. Herschel also put himself on a waiting list. But unlike Itzik, Herschel couldn’t sit and wait. Even though he was no newcomer to the country, he had no money. He was an intellectual, a man of ideas. Not a practical man. Without his wife’s check he could barely afford to pay for the apartment. So Herschel moved into Itzik’s apartment. Maybe Itzik did it as a mitzvah, because everyone knew he didn’t need the money. But then again, a man loses a wife, another man loses a wife — this is an unimaginable loneliness. Who knows who is helping who? One hand washes the other.

So when Itzik finally got this subsidized apartment Herschel came too. Again, what choice did he have? To pay for Itzik’s apartment was no different than paying for his old apartment. In other words, impossible. And by then they had been living together for two years. They move in here and people talk. Two men in a one-bedroom apartment. Old people are no better than children. Worse, because they should know better. But what can you expect from old Jews? We come from little villages; we come from poor families. What kind of education did we get? How many of us finished school? By fourteen you start working. You get maybe eight years of school. The rest you learn from life.

I knocked and Herschel opened the door. He was wearing a white cotton undershirt and a pair of faded trousers. His body showed the effects of prostate treatment. The hormones had atrophied his muscles and made his breasts grow. They hung loosely beneath his undershirt. He invited me in. He had a pair of slippers ready for me. The slippers were probably a little small, Herschel said, they weren’t accustomed to giant visitors. Itzik sat on the couch in front of the television. He was seized by another fit of coughing and then strained to catch his breath. Look, the workman is here, he said. He is joking with you, Herschel said, this is how he jokes. When you’re done with the light, Itzik said, you could take a look at the toilet.

I helped Herschel carry a chair from the kitchen. He held it as I removed the fixture and unscrewed the dead bulb. Can you believe we had no light here for three weeks, Herschel said. If you can do something, it only takes a minute, but if you can’t do it, it stays like that forever. He threw the switch and marveled at the light. Wonderful, he said.

I trailed after Herschel as he went into the bedroom. There were two night tables flanking the queen-size bed. Each one supported a night-lamp. A small stack of books was piled on one of them. A glass of water rested on the other. Herschel went over to the one with the books and retrieved his wallet. He returned to me holding a five-dollar bill which I refused to take. It was late in the afternoon and I could also not accept his offer of tea. He thanked me repeatedly as he escorted me out into the hallway. As Herschel closed the door Itzik clutched his knees and steadied himself against another barrage of coughs.

The next Saturday was Chanukah and Itzik did not come down for the service. Without Itzik there were only nine men and so Zalman stood in front of the building and attempted to convince Semitic-looking passersby to come inside. He spent a half hour in the cold before two blackhats, a father and son, agreed to come in and help. When Zalman returned the three Russians in the back were already putting on their coats. Zalman glared at them and they sat back down. Because of the delay everyone was anxious. The service lurched, Zalman stumbled through the Torah reading, the women kibbitzed behind their partition, the Russians in the back complained about the time. When it was Herschel’s turn to approach the Torah he asked Zalman to say a prayer for Itzik. He pledged eighteen dollars to the synagogue and stood solemnly, his hands shaking, as Zalman asked God to deliver Itzik from his illness and provide him with a full recovery.

The events of the morning put a damper on the Chanukah party. Nevertheless, Zalman’s wife brought jelly donuts and the women passed them around on greasy napkins. I sat with my grandfather and Herschel as Zalman sang Chanukah songs. A few of the women joined in, although some could only hum the melody. Most of the others sat in their coats, their lips gleaming with oil and speckled with sugar, waiting for the opportunity to leave. Herschel asked if he could have a second donut to take upstairs to Itzik. Not that Itzik could eat it. It was hard to imagine, Herschel said, such a man. A real Odessa character, right out of the pages of Babel. He had even grown up on Babel’s street. As a young boy Itzik had carted watermelons for Babel’s uncle. What hadn’t he done in his life? At thirteen he was working two shifts in a munitions factory. At seventeen he was at the front. He fought the Germans, he survived the Communists, he had an appetite for the world — and now, he didn’t even have the strength to eat a donut.