Charles Lewinsky - Melnitz

‘Who is the man?’ asked Mimi.

Désirée swore that she would never give it away, never in her life, and yet she knew that she didn’t have the strength to resist her mother.

‘Is it a goy?’ asked Mimi.

Désirée nodded and said at the same time: ‘No, no, he’s not a goy,’ but he was one and he wasn’t one, and now everything was broken, destroyed for all time.

‘What’s his name?’ asked Mimi.

Désirée cried and pleaded and then said the name after all.

Mimi locked her daughter in her room and set off for François’s house. If someone had himself geshmat and made himself unhappy for the rest of his life, that was his affair. But if his son, this goy Alfred, wanted to destroy Désirée’s life as well, that was something quite different. Something for which she would never, ever forgive him.

The whole flat smelled of the cheesecake — Mother Pomeranz’s old recipe — that Hinda normally only baked on Shavuot. She hadn’t let them take that away from her, although Zalman shook his head disapprovingly and said, ‘They’re not coming for coffee.’

‘Still,’ Hinda said and fetched the yontevdik tablecloth out of the cupboard. It was so heavily starched that its folds cracked slightly when it was laid out. ‘The whole family is meeting at our house! Do you want them to think they’re at a poor person’s house?’

If it had been up to Zalman, they could have sat at the empty table, with a glass of water in each place and nothing else. He had taken part in lots of negotiations as a trade unionist, and it was his experience, he said, that one reached an agreement more quickly if the circumstances were niggardly. ‘You think better on an empty stomach.’

‘You’re more peaceful with a full stomach,’ Hinda replied and of course she was right again.

Lea and Rachel were unusually helpful out of pure curiosity and, as on Seder evening, they carried in chairs from all the rooms.

‘Too many,’ said Zalman. ‘There are only nine of us. Janki and Chanele aren’t coming.’

‘There are still eleven of us,’ Lea contradicted him and started counting: ‘Three Meijers, Uncle Arthur makes four, three Pomeranzes makes seven and four Kamionkers…’

‘Two Kamionkers,’ Zalman corrected her. ‘You’re going to stay in your room. This is nothing for children.’

Lea protested, as outraged as one can only be outraged at the age of eighteen to be described in those terms, and Rachel, who out of sheer high spirits often talked more quickly than she wished she had in retrospect, tried to support her sister. ‘If we aren’t allowed to then how come Désirée…?’ And wished she could have swallowed the sentence straight away.

‘Exactly,’ said Zalman.

Then Arthur rang breathlessly at the door, had in his haste already taken his coat off on the step, and to his own surprise he was still the first. ‘And I thought… I couldn’t get away from the practice. Everybody’s got a cold in this weather. And it was summer only a moment ago. Can I go and wash my hands again, Hinda?’ At work he didn’t notice the smell of carbolic on his hands, but in any different surroundings he felt as careless as if he were bothering his fellow men with private matters.

They all wanted to postpone the unpleasantness that awaited them, which was why no one wanted to sit down first. They remained standing very formally behind their chairs, and talked about all kinds of things, but not about what vexed them.

‘Have you heard anything about Ruben?’ asked Arthur.

‘He writes every week.’

‘Are things going well for him in Kolomea?’

‘He has become even more pious.’ It was impossible to tell from Zalman’s tone whether he was pleased or annoyed about this.

‘Good,’ said Arthur, and then, after a pause, again. ‘Very good.’ Like an old man, he reflected irritably, who has to keep his own company and fills his empty days with pointless scraps of language. He coughed with embarrassment, pulled out his watch, which he wore on an old-fashioned chain from his waistcoat pocket, and let the cover spring open. ‘They’re all late.’

‘There are two methods in negotiations,’ Zalman lectured. ‘Either you come first and are to some extent the balebos who determines the rules, or you keep the others waiting to demonstrate that you don’t need to be on time.’

‘This isn’t pay bargaining, Zalman!’

‘You’re right there, Frau Kamionker. In pay bargaining each side knows what it wants. Today they’ll just know what they don’t want.’

The Pomeranzes appeared next. Mimi, all in matronly black, was breathing heavily, in a reproachful way, as if it were a personal affront to her that the Kamionkers could only afford a flat on the third floor. ‘You should lose some weight,’ Arthur thought, ‘then climbing the stairs wouldn’t be so hard for you.’

Pinchas’s beard had turned greyer over the previous few weeks, but perhaps Hinda was only imagining that. He rested his hand on Désirée’s shoulder the whole time, either to bolster her courage or just to hold on to her.

Désirée had parted her hair in the middle again, which gave her the girlish appearance of someone who needed protection, and she was wearing a very plain white dress that must have been freezing for her in the street. She held herself very straight, like someone who is afraid of a fight and yet doesn’t want to show any weakness. She greeted her relatives with a certain formality — ‘Hello, Uncle Arthur, hello, Uncle Zalman’ — shook hand with each of them and avoided everyone’s eyes. ‘She’s decided not to cry,’ thought Hinda.

The new arrivals didn’t sit down yet either, and also stood behind their chairs. Désirée gripped the back of hers so firmly that her knuckles turned quite white. For a few moments no one said a word. As in the service, when the whole congregation waits for the rabbi to bring the Shema to an end.

And now, out of nowhere, Arthur couldn’t help laughing.

‘I’d like to know what’s supposed to be so funny here!’

‘I’m sorry, Aunt Mimi. But I was just thinking: we’re standing around here like…’

‘… like at a wedding sude,’ he had thought, ‘where no one is allowed to sit down before the bridal couple have taken their seats.’ And he hadn’t been able to hold back the laughter, because the comparison that presented itself to his head was so odd. This family meeting on the neutral terrain of the Kamionkers’ flat had been organised not to celebrate a chassene, but on the contrary to prevent one.

‘The Meijers will be here at any moment,’ Hinda said into the embarrassed pause. ‘Would anyone like a piece of cake in the meantime?’

No one answered. Only Mimi reached her hand out towards a plate with what was almost a gesture of longing, and quickly lowered it again.

The place where Hinda and Zalman lived wasn’t exactly a slum, but no one had ever seen a Buchet here before, let alone the latest model. The car hadn’t even come to a standstill before a group of children had gathered at the side of the road, commenting expertly on the vehicle and its occupants. When Landolt wanted to open the car door for his employers, a boy of about fourteen got in ahead of him. His knees were scraped bloody from some adventure or other, and a cigarette behind his ear demonstrated his premature masculinity. He opened the car door, dramatically pulled the cap — wherever he had learned the gesture — from his head, wedged it under his arm and held out the hand thus freed in a demanding manner. The three Meijers got out, François very correct in top hat and grey Ulster greatcoat, Mina in her usual over-sized skirt, and Alfred in a suit with such an adult cut that it made him look particularly young. Ignoring the outstretched hand, they walked through the cordon of curious faces to the front door. The disappointed tip-hunter nodded as if he had expected nothing else, and said, ‘Typical Jews — they’re all tight.’