Ghetto Comedies Part 54

'I'm afraid my engagements will not permit me to return this autumn,'

he replied tactfully.

'Do you take sugar?' she retorted unexpectedly; then, as she handed him his cup, she smiled archly into his eyes. 'You can't shake me off, you know; I shall follow you about Europe--to all your concerts.'

When he left her--after inscribing his autograph, his permanent Munich address, and the earliest possible date for his Chicago concert, in a dainty diary brought in by her red-haired maid--his whole being was swelling, expanding. He had burst the coils of this narrow tribalism that had suddenly retwined itself round him; he had got back again from the fusty conventicles and the sunless Ghettos--back to s.p.a.cious salons and radiant hostesses and the great free life of art. He drew deep breaths of sea-air as he paced the deck, strewn so thickly with pleasant pa.s.sengers to whom he felt drawn in a renewed sense of the human brotherhood. _Rishus_, forsooth!

SAMOOBORONA

SAMOOBORONA

I

Milovka was to be the next place reddened on the map of Holy Russia.

The news of the projected Jewish ma.s.sacre in this little Polish town travelled to the _Samooborona_ (Self-Defence) Headquarters in Southern Russia through the indiscretion of a village pope who had had a drop of blood too much. It appeared that Milovka, though remote from the great centres of disturbance, had begun to seethe with political activity, and even to publish a newspaper, so that it was necessary to show by a first-cla.s.s ma.s.sacre that true Russian men were still loyal to G.o.d and the Czar. Milovka lay off the _pogrom_ route, and had not of itself caught the contagion; careful injection of the virus was necessary. Moreover, the town was two-thirds Jewish, and consequently harder to fever with the l.u.s.t of Jewish blood. But in revenge the _pogrom_ would be easier; the Jewish quarter formed a practically separate town; no asking of _dvorniks_ (janitors) to point out the Jewish apartments, no arming one's self with photographs of the victims; one had but to run amuck among these low wooden houses, the humblest of which doubtless oozed with inexhaustible subterranean wealth.

David Ben Amram was hurriedly despatched to Milovka to organize a local self-defence corps. He carried as many pistols as could be stowed away in a violin-case, which, with a music-roll holding cartridges, was an obtrusive feature of his luggage. The winter was just beginning, but mildly. The sun shone over the broad plains, and as David's train carried him towards Milovka, his heart swelled with thoughts of the Maccabean deeds to be wrought there by a regenerated Young Israel. But the journey was long. Towards the end he got into conversation with an old Russian peasant who, so far from sharing in the general political effervescence, made a long lament over the good old days of serfdom. 'Then, one had not to think--one ate and drank.

Now, it is all toil and trouble.'

'But you were whipped at your lord's pleasure,' David reminded him.

'He was a n.o.bleman,' retorted the peasant with dignity.

David fell silent. The Jew, too, had grown to kiss the rod. But it was not even a n.o.bleman's rod; any moujik, any hooligan, could wield it.

But, thank Heaven, this breed of Jew was pa.s.sing away--killed by the _pogroms_. It was their one virtue.

At the station he hired a ramshackle droshky, and told his Jewish driver to take him to the best inn. Seated astride the old-fashioned bench of the vehicle, and grasping his violin-case like a loving musician, as they jolted over the rough roads, he broached the subject of the Jewish ma.s.sacres.

'_Be!_' commented the driver, shrugging his shoulders. 'We are in _Goluth_ (exile)!' He spoke with resignation, but not with apprehension, and David perceived at once that Milovka would not be easy to arouse. As every man thought every other man mortal, so Milovka regarded the ma.s.sacres as a terrible reality--for other towns.

It was no longer even shocked; Kishineff had been a horror almost beyond belief, but Jew-ma.s.sacres had since become part of the natural order, which babes were born into.

II

The landlord shook his head.

'All our rooms are full.'

David, still hugging his violin-case, looked at the dirty, mustard-smeared tablecloth on the long table, and at the host's brats playing on the floor. If this was the best, what in Heaven's name awaited him elsewhere?

'For how long?' he asked.

The landlord shrugged his shoulders like the driver. 'Am I the All-knowing?'

He wore a black velvet cap, but not with the apex that would have professed piety. Its square cut indicated to the younger generation that he was a man of the world, in touch with the times; to the old its material and hue afforded sufficient guarantee of ritual orthodoxy. He was a true host, the friend of all who eat and drink.

'But how many rooms have you?' inquired David.

'And how many shall I have but one?' protested the landlord.

'Only one room!' David turned upon the driver. 'And you said this was the best inn! I suppose it's your brother-in-law's.'

'And what do I make out of it, if it is?' answered the driver. 'You see he can't take you.'

'Then why did you bring me?'

'Because there is no room anywhere else either.'

'What!' David stared.

'Law of Moses!' corroborated the landlord good-humouredly, 'you've just come at the recruiting. The young men have flocked here from all the neighbouring villages to draw their numbers. There are heathen peasants in all the Jewish inns--eating _kosher_,' he added with a chuckle.

David frowned. But he reflected instantly that if this was so, the _pogrom_ would probably be postponed till the Christian conscripts had been packed off to their regiments or the lucky ones back to their villages. He would have time, therefore, to organize his Jewish corps.

Yes, he reflected in grim amus.e.m.e.nt, Russia and he would be recruiting simultaneously. Still, where was he to sleep?

'You can have the _lezhanka_,' said the host, following his thoughts.

David looked ruefully at the high stove. Well, there were worse beds in winter than the top of a stove. And perhaps to bestow himself and his violin in such very public quarters would be the safest way of diverting police attention. 'Conspirators, please copy,' he thought, with a smile. Anyhow, he was very tired. He could refresh himself here; the day was yet young; time enough to find a better lodging.

'Bring in the luggage,' he said resignedly.

'Tea?' said the host, hovering over the samovar.

'Haven't you a drop of vodka?'

The landlord held up hands of horror. '_Monopolka?_' (monopoly), he cried.

'Haven't they left any Jewish licenses?' asked David.

'Not unless one mixed holy water with the vodka, like the baptized Benjamin,' said the landlord with grim humour. He added hastily: 'But his inn is even fuller than mine, four beds in the room.'

It appeared that the dinner was already over, and David could obtain nothing but half-warmed remains. However, hunger and hope gave sauce to the miserable meal, and he profited by the absence of custom to pump the landlord anent the leading citizens.

'But you will not get violin lessons from any of them,' his host warned him. 'Tinowitz the corn-factor has daughters who are said to read Christian story-books, but is it likely he will risk their falling in love with a young man whose hair and clothes are cut like a Christian's? Not that I share his prejudices, of course. I have seen the great world, and understand that it is possible to carry a handkerchief on the Sabbath and still be a good man.'

'I haven't come to give lessons in music,' said David bluntly, 'but in shooting.'

'Shooting?' The landlord stared. 'Aren't you a Jew, then, sir? I beg your pardon.' His voice had suddenly taken on the same ring as when he addressed the _Poritz_ (Polish n.o.bleman). His oleaginous familiarity was gone.

'_Salachti!_' (I have forgiven), said David in Hebrew, and laughed at the man's bemused visage. 'Don't you think, considering what has been happening, it is high time the Jews of Milovka learned to shoot?'

The landlord looked involuntarily round the room for a possible spy.