Son of a Smaller Hero Read online

  The speaker seized his crowd, held them with his heated eyes and shook them in his clenched fists. They watched. Laughing when he laughed, cursing when he cursed, glaring when he glared. He hated, and they hated right back.

  “Worse even than the Germans are the ones who think they can become of them by shortening their names or their noses. Have you seen them? They say that anti-Semitism isn’t directed against them. It is directed against the obvious ones. They go to good schools. Even when the Gestapo broke into their houses it wasn’t their fault. It was your fault. You’re the ones with accents. Big noses. Millions in the bank.”

  Noah watched. He looked into the wanting eyes of his friends. Duddie Felder, Gitel Shub, Gas Weiner, Faigie Rosenblatt, Yidel Kogan, Zalman Seigler, Hoppie Drazen. He looked, and they slipped away from him. Strangers in a smoky room. He turned to the speaker. A monkey-faced man with burning eyes. The leaders. Old men on fading paper. A magnificent black beard, a balding head, a swirl of white hair. Strangers. Old men.

  All eyes were on the speaker. Noah touched his forehead, his hair was soaking wet. He had an idea of what was slipping away and gripping his hands together he tried to hold on. We’re all of us Jews in this room, he thought. But a voice came back: All Jews and all strangers. He forced the conventional anguishes on himself. Quotas, Cyprus, Eretz, gas chambers. Gritting his teeth, he turned askingly to the speaker, demanding that he too be saved.

  “Do you know what they are saying in the Foreign Office? The Jews are mad dogs. That’s true, you know. Poor Mr. Bevin. Poor Mr. Churchill. The sheep have turned into dogs. Funny, isn’t it? They want land. Aren’t you amazed? I am. Poor Mr. Bevin. We were all right when we fought for him on the desert. Heroes when we died in the Warsaw ghetto. Now they’ll read a new chapter.…”

  That’s when Noah began to laugh. Yidel Kogan poked him hard and Noah sobered up briefly. He stared at his friend, the stranger. We used to play ball together in Outremont Park, he thought. But Yidel could no longer be reached. He had already been committed to memory.

  The speaker banged his fist down on the table conclusively. The deal had been made. The man, orphaned by a furnace, and swindled by memory, had drained away the innocence of others. From now on explanations, curiosity, intelligence, could be done without. The enemy, so long elusive, had been shaped.

  “Comrades, let us join in and sing.”

  They came to their feet fast, answering him in full voices. Then they joined hands for the folk-dances. In the intense heat of the horah they seemed to shed their individuality like unwanted skins, trading in anguish and abandoning freedom for membership.

  “Israel lives! Israel lives! Israel lives!”

  Clammy hands, lolloping breasts. Arm in arm, locked in a circle ferociously, to and fro, this way, that way, they went, blurring themselves. One whoop between them, two took eyes, a shared soul.

  “Who am I?”

  “YISROAL.”

  “All of us?”

  “YISRO-YISRO-YISROAL.”

  Noah smoked. He thought it obscene, ugly, to be watching but not taking part. Several times he started towards the dancers, but each time he turned back embarrassed. Finally, desperately, he tried to break into the circle. But they were whirling past too fast, and he was spun back and away from them defiantly, like a counterfeit coin from a cashier. The voices of strangers shouting, the boots of strangers trampling the floor. He watched, they danced. He slipped out and walked up to Park Avenue, where there were always crowds. Many of the coldly-lit store windows had been done up enticingly. He stopped for a long time in front of the 5¢ to $1.00 store, where he read the luncheon menu and the price tags on toys and an appeal for the blind. Then, working his way towards Bernard Street, he looked at lingerie, shoes, and hardware. Nobody he knew was in the Park Bowling Alley, but there were several free tables, so he played two games of snooker with a stranger. Upstairs, he watched them bowl. The loud clacking of the balls and the tumbling pins had a restful effect on him. Most of the bowlers were young couples. Several of the girls were pretty and when they ran up the alley their buttocks strained against their skirts. Outside, the snow came floating down in big lumps. He wandered back absently to the hall. The light from the window made a cold yellow block on the snow. From where he stood he could see the crepe-paper decorations around the light bulbs and a part of Theodore Herzl’s head.…

  The voices in the next room returned Noah to the present.

  “How would you like it if I punched you on the nose? Not hard. Just enough to knock you out.”

  “You and what army?”

  Stars began to spark in the deepening sky. Street noises were muffled, but when big trucks rolled by below, the yellow bulb shook in its socket and shadows swayed, swept towards him, and shrank back on the walls. Anger consumed him. He had expected that by moving away from home something wonderful would happen whereby he would end up a bigger and freer man. Instead, there was only this anguishing. He saw himself like that yellow bulb overhead, weak, nameless, and swaying amid rented shadows. At home his indignation had nourished him. Being wretched, and in opposition, had organized his suffering. But that world, that world against which he had rebelled so vociferously, was no longer his. Seen from a distance, it seemed full of tender possibilities, anachronistic but beautiful. Melech, at worst, was a dedicated man, not without love for his family. He had descended from a long line of scribes. Men who, if they were not quite rabbis, required a certain artistry and some nobility to proceed with their holy work – creating Torahs by hand on parchment. The house on St. Dominic Street, stifling as he had found it, was also rich in warmth and humour. All the dictums of the ghetto seemed unworthy of contempt in retrospect. I’ll miss them, he thought.

  Did I need them, he thought, the way my grandfather needs the Goyim? He wiped the sweat off his chest with a towel. It’s not enough to rebel, he thought. To destroy. It is necessary to say yes to something.

  Noah looked at his watch again. It was time to go to work. His taxi was parked round the corner. Perhaps I’ll go and see Melech tonight, he thought.

  III

  Wolf Adler – Melech’s first-born son and Noah’s father – married Leah Goldenberg in 1927. Melech Adler had been pleased. The Goldenbergs were well known in the ghetto. Jacob Goldenberg, who had also approved of the match, died in 1936. He had been a Talmud Torah teacher and a Chassid. Everybody had read his wild, yearning poems written in Yiddish that had celebrated fields and forests that he had never known. Both families had been satisfied with the match.

  Only Wolf and Leah weren’t satisfied.

  Leah’s brother, Harry, was a doctor. One day she had told him: “We’re a family of strangers.”

  Sometimes Wolf went to two different movies on Sunday nights. Other times he went to an early movie and then to Panofsky’s, where he played pinochle with the boys. Occasionally Noah played pinochle with him. Leah was vice-president of the Ladies’ Auxiliary. She liked the poems of Byron and Keats, and some nights, when she was feeling lonely, Noah would stay home and read them to her in the kitchen.

  The Adlers, who lived in a cold-water flat on City Hall Street, spent most of their time in the kitchen. There was a big damp blotch on the ceiling (Mr. Twersky, the landlord, was too cheap to fix the pipes properly) and from time to time flakes of plaster spiralled downwards, but it was warm and cosy there all the same. Leah, however, was particularly proud of the parlour, which was restricted to guests and meetings. A deluxe chesterfield set, end-tables and antique chairs, a Persian rug and wine drapes, two bookcases with glass doors, and a breakfront had all been crammed into this room. The breakfront, which had taken two years to pay for, was a kind of solace to her. She polished it often and felt every scratch like a wound to her own person. The shelves swarmed with tiny china figures and gold-trimmed plates and silver trays and china flowers. She arranged and rearranged, and arranged again, her collection of odd cups and saucers. She enjoyed looking after these possessions even more than she did waterin
g the Japanese gardens on the various end-tables, something that she did every day. The bedroom which she shared with Wolf was simply furnished. There were two beds. She would have enjoyed doing more about Noah’s room but he had objected to her fussing with the furnishings. The desk in his room, though, had been her father’s and that gave her plenty of satisfaction. Showing friends about the room, she would say: “He uses my father’s desk. You remember my father, don’t you?”

  The dishes cleared away, Wolf and Leah sat opposite each other at the kitchen table. They had just returned from his father’s house about an hour ago. The door to Noah’s bedroom was shut. Wolf, she knew, was impatient. This was Sunday evening and he would be late for the movies. The window that looked out on the lane was opened because of the heat. The cotton net that had been tacked up on the window frame to keep the flies out had been blackened by grit and smoke many seasons ago. Upstairs, Mrs. Ornstein’s baby was crying. And downstairs, just below them, the Greenbergs were gathered in the back yard. Mort Shub was telling them jokes. Wolf could hear him.

  “You haven’t even got the spunk to talk back to your father,” Leah said. “ ‘He isn’t coming, Paw. It’s not my fault.’ You should stick up for your boy. You call yourself a man?”

  Waiting for her to begin always unnerved Wolf, even after all these years. But once she had begun he felt easier. He knew his role and played it without fault. The argument was constant. She said this, he said that. Neither of them cheated.

  “Why should I talk back to Paw? He left so he left. Should I chain him to the door?”

  “He left because you’re common.”

  “Common. I worked like a nigger so that –”

  “Don’t say ‘nigger.’ Noah wouldn’t like it. He recognizes the niggers!”

  “Recognize. If you saw five niggers walking down the street you could recognize? A nigger is a nigger.”

  A voice came up from the back yard. “Hallo, hallo! HEY, ADLER. You got maybe by you a bottle opener?”

  Wolf looked at Leah and Leah nodded.

  “Waddiya think this is – Woolworth’s?” Wolf yelled. “And you. You got maybe a bottle?”

  “We got Jack Benny in person living upstairs yet,” Mort yelled back.

  Wolf got the opener off the hook and stepped out onto the balcony and tossed it down to Mort. All the Greenbergs were sprawled out in the yard. They had a watermelon and a case of cokes. They’re having a lot of fun, Wolf thought. Mort winked, and motioned for him to join them. Wolf shrugged his shoulders, and returned to the kitchen. They’re having a lot of fun, he thought.

  “All right,” Wolf said. “Have it your way. But he’ll be back. Don’t you worry. He’ll find out that money doesn’t grow on trees. It’ll be an experience for him. Let’s go to bed.”

  “Bed, bed, bed. He won’t be back. He’s got a job driving a taxi nights.”

  “You mustn’t tell Paw.”

  “Look at him, afraid of his own shadow. I’m a lady. He left because you’re common. You know what Mrs. Leventhal said to me at the Mizrachi meeting last Tuesday? You’re a lady, she said. My Jack had one look at you and he said to me: ‘She’s a lady.’ Some lady! I’m married to a coal dealer.”

  “If war was declared tomorrow I’d be the villain.”

  Leah tightened her fists. She stared at him, this man who epitomized all the injuries of her years, who had become the injustice and the hardship – stared, her eyes hardening, and was nourished. My father could see what he was, she thought. Why did he marry me to him? “For two cents even I’d leave you. Noah would take care of me. You bet your life he would. He’s not afraid of your father.”

  “Noah’s a fresh kid. He has no respect. I should have taken the strap to him long ago.… Leah – don’t … Leah … Leah.…”

  “I’m not crying!”

  “I didn’t say that you were crying!”

  “If my father was alive I wouldn’t have to go through this. If … He was a man! Not like you. A – a …”

  Again from the yard. “Wolf! HEY, JEW-BOY. What, tell me, is de definition of an Eskimo with a hard-on?”

  Leah scowled. It’s not my fault, Wolf thought.

  “Nu. Speak! YOU DEAF AND DUMB?” Mort yelled.

  “I don’t know,” Wolf said weakly.

  “A rigid midget with a frigid digit.”

  A burst of laughter followed. Wolf tried not to grin, but he made sure to remember the joke. And, from upstairs, Mr. Ornstein yelled: “Hey, Mort. We got minors up here. Keep it quieter. You want my missus should wash out your mouth wid soap?”

  “Listen, Wolf, why don’t you leave your father? You could start on your own like Max. I’d help. I could hold my head up when we walked down Park Avenue. Did you know that Max is going to buy a duplex in Outremont.”

  “Max married into the Debrofskys. What did you expect? He should live on St. Dominique? He had the breaks. Paw would have made me a partner if not for the depression.”

  “A partner! You should live to see the day. You’re a truck driver for him.”

  “What’s the good, eh? Okay, let’s say I leave Paw. So what happens? I go to a Goy for a job. Go ahead and tell me that a Goy is gonna hire a Jew. So I go to a Jew for a job. Right away he thinks what does this Jew want to work for me for? In two months he’ll be in business for himself. A wiseguy. I should teach him the tricks! The hell with him I should give him a job. So I go into business on my own. You can be a lady. Hold your head up. Comes the first depression and bang goes your head on the floor. Not me. No, sir. Did you read in the Digest last week what General Whats-his-name said? ‘When I was twenty I thought my father was a fool. But when I was thirty I …” ’

  “Noah says the Digest is hooey.”

  “Noah says. If Noah knew better than the Digest he’d be a general too. Do you know how many million people read the Digest? Noah says. Pish-pish. I’m smarter than you think. I play it safe. Besides, look, not that I … But how long is Paw gonna … Well, you know. He has to leave the business to me … to us.…”

  “You could start out on your own. Look at Max.”

  “Max? You should have half of what he owes on his factory. As soon as the slump comes bang goes Max’s credit. That’s a proven fact. I’m not so dumb.”

  “Excuses and excuses. You …”

  “HEY! Here’s one for you, ADLER. YOU LISSN’N, ADLER? This here guy meets his old pal, Cohen let’s say, who manufactures brassières. Hey, Cohen, he says, how’s business? Looking up, Cohen says.…”

  Wolf pretended not to hear. He turned to Leah. “Why can’t I do anything right? Do I beat you? I drink? I go with other women?”

  “I wouldn’t pester if Noah was with us. If – if Noah thought that I was sick he would come back. He loves me like anything.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Go. Go to the movies. There would be another flood as sure as I’m sitting here if you missed a double-feature. Go play cards. I’m going to lie down with a book.”

  “ADLER. YOU LISSN’N? Answer a man a question, eh?”

  Wolf retired to the den. He was a short, skinny man, and his head was crowned by a mass of black curly hair which was forever in need of cutting and always falling over his forehead. When he was nervous or afraid he pushed his hand through his hair, looked at his hand, then pushed it through his hair again. But he was seldom nervous or afraid in the den. The den was his. Wolf wore glasses. When he had to contend with the big drunken Irishmen who came into his office, haggling over prices with them, when he talked back to Leah, or when he was about to ask his father for more pay, he had a trick of wiggling his ears and raising his eyebrows and making his glasses go up and down on his nose. That way, if the others took what he said in the wrong spirit, he could always reply that he had been joking. He worried a lot, but the den was his. It was a clean, well-ordered room with many shelves and a nice smell to the wood. One corner was devoted to his hobby. Woodwork. That wall was lined with tools. The cabinet, which had been nailed to the wall,
had many drawers. The drawers were all labelled and contained various sizes of nails, screws, and blades. He had made the cabinet and workbench and tool-chest himself. He knew a lot about construction. Whenever he visited a house that was new to him he asked for a glass of water and set it down on the floor. Later, he would glance at it surreptitiously. That’s how he could tell whether the foundation had settled in a level way. One wall of the den was completely taken up by his bookshelves. Here he kept his old copies of Life, Popular Mechanics, Reader’s Digest, True Crime, and several volumes of scrapbooks. One series of scrapbooks contained his record of the war years, another his collection of data on coins and stamps clipped from the pages of various Montreal newspapers. Most of the drawers to his desk were locked. His diary was kept in the bottom drawer, which also had a false bottom where he kept personal papers and letters. Except for prosaic entries, such as family birthdays, dates of operations and graduations, the diary was kept in a code of his own invention.

  Very often Wolf would lean back in his chair and brood about how much money there must be in the locked box that his father kept in the office safe. That box was very important to him and represented many things. Other times he would worry about the possibilities of another depression or of Noah doing something that would get him in trouble with his father. A depression would not be such a bad thing. A small one, anyway, would certainly fix bigshots like Seigler and Berger who had made a lot of fast money on the black market during the war years. From time to time he fiddled with various ideas for household gadgets. And then there was always the possibility that he might pick up a small packet soon on one of his investments – coins.

  Two of the coins issued to commemorate the coronation of King George VI in 1937, a dime and a nickel, had caught Wolf’s attention. Studying them with a magnifying glass, Wolf had discovered that the King’s nose was slightly crooked on the nickel. So he had invested twenty dollars in the faulty coins. He kept them locked in his desk where, he had decided, they would stay until 1960. I might make a fortune on it, he often thought. And if I had money I’d be good. Not like them. Wolf rubbed his jaw. Business was slow. Well, what could you expect? The summer was always like that. Things would pick up in the fall.