Charles Lewinsky - Melnitz

‘You’re not boring us at all,’ said Pinchas.

‘Not at all,’ thought Hinda.

‘So they had founded a union in New York as well, but this time a real one, the Jewish Cloak Workers Union, and because all the stitchers were in it, whether they wanted to be or not — ‘We weren’t friendly to scabs!’ — because everyone was pulling together, they didn’t even have to strike, just threaten to strike — ‘which I preferred, I’m a peaceful person.’ Because of his experiences in Kolomea he was elected onto the committee, and then when the International Socialist Workers’ Conference was called in Zurich, the Jewish cloak makers had chosen him as their delegate. They were proud because of their victory, and they wanted to have a say. ‘I didn’t push to come,’ said Zalman Kamionker, ‘but what are you going to do?’

Pinchas nodded. The community kept making similar demands on him.

The Congress itself, Kamionker said, getting more and more into his swing, the whole event so far had been a big disappointment. Even the room where they met was far too elegant. As solemn as a church. There was even an organ on the stage — ‘What do we need an organ for? Have we come to pray?’ Although on the walls in sixteen different languages — ‘Even in Yiddish!’ — was the motto of the proletarians of the world about how they should unite, ‘but they don’t want to unite, they just want to be right, each one individually, like in a little shtetl, where there are three different prayer rooms and each one has a different minhag, and each one is broyges with all the others, and even if Khmelnitzky in person came riding in with his Cossacks, they would all go on arguing, instead of pulling together and defending themselves.’

The German delegates above all, Kamionker said contemptuously, had nothing in their heads but debates about first principles and amendments to the rules of procedure. For a whole day, and this was just one example among many, for a whole long day they had argued only about the admission of delegates, who they wanted to have there and who not, and in the end only the majority socialists had been allowed to stay, the decent, orderly ones, and the independents, who were all a bit meshuga, but who at least wanted to do something — ‘There don’t need to be barricades in all the streets’ — had been sent home, as had the anarchists. But they wouldn’t accept it, so the first fights of the Congress had broken out, and they hadn’t been the last. ‘They could ban them from the big hall, but the Palm Garden is a public place, they’re still sitting there every day.’

Meanwhile everything at the Congress was running like clockwork, but it was a soup without pepper, they all delivered their well-phrased speeches and applauded one another, they had even taken — ‘Typical!’ — the big cowbell from the chairman, the one he had had the beginning, to drown out any dissent, and instead given him a delicate little bell that tinkled so delicately that no one could hear it, and the whole Congress was like that! Now the only people who had the floor were the ones who always had the same opinion anyway and admired one another; if Friedrich Engels walked past — yes, he was there too — they were inches away from falling on their knees and crossing themselves like goyim when they carry the Yossel Pendrik through the streets on his cross. Engels, of all people, who was a manufacturer and not even a worker! And anyway, if you asked him, they were none of them socialists anyway, they were all bourgeois in disguise, who wouldn’t last a season in New York, twelve or fourteen hours at the sewing machine and then a mattress that you had to share with two others in shifts! August Bebel even had a villa on Lake Zurich! Need he say more? With gas heating!

Nothing would come out of this Congress, said Zalmon Kamionker, nothing at all, apart from a pile of resolutions and decisions. All just paper. ‘You are a shochet, Herr Pomeranz, are you not? If you go to the slaughterhouse and stand beside a cow and say, “Dear cow, we have democratically decided that you are to give up your meat for the Shabbos roast” — will you then have anything to eat? Will you hell! You have to take the knife and slaughter the cow, it’s the only way. I am a peaceful man, but all that talking brings up my bile!’

‘When he gets worked up, there’s something of the hero about him,’ thought Hinda. And she had never thought before about what a hero might look like.

‘What I’d really like to do is let the Congress be the Congress. But that wouldn’t be the decent thing. I’ve been sent here at great expense, so I sit on my seat every day. I listen to the speeches, and they go in one ear and out the other. If someone has any money, I allow him to buy me a beer…’

‘And then do you fight there?’ It wasn’t a reproach, just something that interested Pinchas.

‘What are you going to do? For example today—’

But he didn’t get round to saying what had happened today, because the Neuenberg clock that hung on the wall beside the misrach panel was already striking half past nine. Zalman Kamionker glanced at the fine timepiece, not because he was shocked by the lateness of the hour, just matter-of-factly, as if he wanted to buy the clock — ‘Or steal it,’ thought Hinda — and quickly stuffed another slice of smoked meat in his mouth, he really did have no manners, wiped his moustache, just like that, with the back of his hand, even though there was a napkin beside his plate, and explained, as he got up, that the door of the ‘Eintracht’ was unfortunately open only until ten o’clock; and that if you wanted to get into the dormitory after that you had to pay five rappen key money. He thanked them for the food, not extravagantly, but with a certain formality, a guest of state who knows the importance of etiquette, even though he is entitled to the most generous hospitality, and then said to Pinchas, ‘If you’re really interested in the Congress, I’m happy to give you a guided tour. The session doesn’t start till two the day after tomorrow. The committees meet in the morning and decide what’s to be voted on in the afternoon. Most delegates will be there at about twelve. We can meet in the Palm Garden if you like, and I’d like you to meet a few people.’

‘That would be very kind of you.’

‘I even know which delegates I have to introduce you to. You’ll have loads to talk about, since you’re a shochet. Dr Stern from Stuttgart.’

‘Is he a Jew as well?’

Kamionker spread his arms and moved his torso back and forth as if trying to keep his balance on a narrow plank. ‘Ask him yourself,’ he said. ‘He will give you such a thorough answer that you won’t get a word in for an hour. He likes the sound of his own voice.’

He turned to the two women and held out his hand to them. ‘So, Fräulein Hinda Meijer, are you moichel?’

‘If it matters so much to you.’

‘It matters a great deal.’

‘Well then, if you wish.’

‘Fine, then that’s everything sorted out.’ He took Hinda’s hand and held it tightly for a long time. And then, before he let go of it again, he said quite surprisingly, ‘Yis’chadesh!’, the blessing for a new dress or a new flat, which seemed totally out of place.

‘And you, Frau Pomeranz?’

‘ Alors je vous pardonne .’

Kamionker laughed at Mimi — an impudent laugh, in fact — and said, ‘Don’t talk French to me. Otherwise I’ll talk English to you, and then you won’t understand.’

Mimi raised a threatening finger, but then she said, ‘I forgive you.’ She held out her hand so that he had no option but to bend down and press his moustache to it.

‘He didn’t kiss my hand,’ thought Hinda.