Ghita Schwarz - Displaced Persons

Could Kuba really believe that Pavel owed him something? That he, Pavel, kept the whole family down? It was impossible. The steam seeped into his chest, warming his body. Yes, that was what Kuba thought, that Pavel kept the family down, that Fela kept the family down, that by having this accident and being forced to stay even longer in Europe, by doing all this-all this trading in Europe, even trading that had helped Kuba and Hinda live here when they first came, that this too seemed to make the family illegitimate. Pavel shook in the shower with the outrage of it. His fist made an involuntary movement in the air, into the water, and the shower turned cold.

He cried out in surprise and almost slipped, grasping the faucet with one hand for balance. Shampoo still in his hair. The water was cold as ice! God in heaven, was there no end to his torments on this earth? Was there no end?

Pavel? he heard Fela’s voice calling from the bed.

The water! The water again! That swindler! That thief!

I’ll call him now.

Don’t call him! he shouted through the door, shivering as he rinsed off the soap from his body, wrapped his shoulders in a towel. I want to speak to the thief myself!

Teeth knocking in the cold, he sat on his side of the bed with his robe untied and dialed the number. Nancy answered.

“ Nancy,” said Pavel. “It’s Mr. Mandl. Six-E. I want-”

“He’s in the shower.”

“Ah, of course. So! Could you tell your father that I wish to speak with him?”

“All right.”

“No, Nancy, wait, not to speak with him, to show him something. He should come up to my apartment. Before I go to work. Please.”

“All right.”

“Please.”

Pavel breathed out. He would show Weisenfeld, he would show him, that what Weisenfeld could provide for his own daughter, warm water, Pavel could not provide for his children. The home-what kind of father was he if he did not make his home secure for his children, here in America, of all places? Fela made the apartment beautiful with her cleaning and cooking, and the children made the apartment alive with their games and their studies. Pavel would make sure the home was strong and secure, something the landlord, any landlord, should respect. Pavel would show him, he would be calm, he would explain, he would demand that the problem be fixed. He went into the children’s room to wake them up for breakfast.

“WHAT WILL IT BE TODAY?”

“A butterfly,” said Helen.

Pavel cut a triangle out of an untoasted bagel, then sliced it open to make wings.

“With cream cheese,” she added.

“Same for me, please,” said Larry. He still liked the game.

“Coming right up.” Pavel put two butterflies on the center plate, then cut straight cylinders, giving Larry one, so he could spread the cream cheese on his own.

“How come he gets the drum first?”

“I’m older,” said Larry.

“It’s true,” said Pavel. “But also he knows how to butter. See?” He took his daughter’s wrist, moved it along the bagel.

“I like it better when you do it,” said Helen.

“So, Helcha, for this Larry gets his first. There’s extra wait for the service.”

“What is it called when you cream cheese something?”

“What?”

“She means, Dad, you know, is there a word for it-like there is for butter-you know, you put butter on something, you say you are buttering, but you also say it when you put cream-”

“I know what she means. I was just thinking.”

“There is no word, Hell-face.”

“Larry!”

“Sorry.”

“Do you know what a beautiful name her name is? Her name is after my mother, just like yours is after your-”

“I know, Dad, I know. Sorry. I said I was sorry.”

“All right.”

“I said I was sorry!”

“All right, Liebl, all right.”

The doorbell rang. Larry ran to get it. Pavel heard the landlord move his heavy feet through the hall, Larry pattering after him in his socks. Pavel stood as the landlord entered the kitchen, and Larry slid back into his seat, shoved a butter-smeared drum into his mouth.

“Good morning,” said Weisenfeld.

“Good morning,” Pavel made himself say. “But actually, Mr. Weisenfeld, it is not a good morning.” He looked Weisenfeld straight in the eye, the landlord’s hair still matted from his shower, his jacket hanging loose around his broad shoulders. “It is not a good morning because I, and my children, are not able to bathe in hot water.”

“So, is that what you have to show me at this hour? The same complaint?”

Pavel breathed in. Keep calm. But he felt his words rising inside him. He kept himself speaking in English, so he would be forced to speak slowly and with care. “What I have to show you,” he answered, “what I have to show you is this.” Pavel stretched his arms above Helen’s head and pushed open the window. “It is almost twenty degrees. Fahrenheit.”

“Ah, so I am responsible for the weather now?”

“I have never called you responsible,” Pavel said.

Weisenfeld turned to leave. “I did not come up here to be insulted. If you have some emergency for me to fix, that is one thing, but to be-”

Don’t you go! called Pavel, his voice in Yiddish strong but not loud. I don’t have just the air to show you. I have the water. Come!

“Daddy, I’m cold.”

Come, Weisenfeld, come! I want to show you what kind of water we have in this apartment, where I have to shiver with cold as if I am in a hovel in Kazakhstan, and where I cannot trust the water enough to bathe my children in the morning!

I’ve already told you, Weisenfeld answered in his gutter Yiddish, we’re having the boiler repaired next week. There is nothing that can be done. There’s a few minutes of hot water every morning, you shouldn’t waste!

Waste! Waste! How you dare! Do you think I don’t know what waste is? Do you think I do not know?

How I dare? How I dare? You call me up here in the early morning, waking my wife and daughter-

I wake you because I cannot sleep! I cannot sleep because I throw money at you for nothing, to have my wife, and my son and my daughter, frozen in the morning, to have my own body like ice! If you want waste, that is waste!

What a tenant I have! No one is like you, no one complains like you, no one rages like you-

Maybe the others are too afraid, but Mr. Weisenfeld, I am not! What do you want? That I should tremble before you? That I should be a refugee in my own house? That my wife should be a refugee? My children, refugees?

Ah, now you blackmail me with your guilt!

Blackmail? Pavel’s voice ripped through his throat at the word. Blackmail? I? It is you who blackmail us! You are a thief! The worst kind of thief, who steals heat from women and children!

And you, a rager! You let your children see you-

Don’t bring my children into it! Don’t bring my children into it! You so much as mention their names, I-I-! You are here because I want to know, Weisenfeld, I want to know, what do we need to do to get hot water from you? Beg? Steal? Scream in the middle of the night?

Already you scream in the middle of the night! Everyone hears you!

Pavel felt the cold wind behind Helen’s head push at his cheek. His heart was burning, his face was bitter cold. I will bury you, Weisenfeld. I will have you under the earth. I will bury you, bury you, bury you!

“Stop screaming! Stop!” A noise was filtering through the fog around Pavel’s head, it was his son, his mouth open and red, his small arms grasping his sister, holding her head to his chest, a tiny adult with a tinier child clasped to him, protecting her, and shouting his little boy’s voice at the landlord. “Please stop screaming!”

Or was Larry shouting at him?