Free More Stories from My Father's Court by Isaac Bashevis Singer Page B

little.”
    â€œHas he married?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œWho knows. He’s not a man, he’s an angel.” The woman bit into a big slice of honey cake and drank some sweet liqueur.
    â€œMay we continue to meet at happy occasions!” was her wish for Mother and herself, too.
    More time passed. Father again returned from the Hasidic shtibl discomfited.
    â€œWhat happened now?” Mother asked.
    Father told us that the rabbi who had divorced his wife in our apartment had died.
    â€œWas he sick?”
    â€œWho knows!”
    Mother lowered her head. It’s an old story: the gluttons, the guzzlers, the swindlers, the thieves live long lives. The righteous ones die before their time—but why should this be so? Well, one can’t ask questions of the Master of the Universe.
    Father said, “He was buried last Friday. He won’t have to undergo the suffering in the grave.”
    Father and I went into the study. “What is this world of ours? The years fly by. How long has it been since I was a little boy? It seems only yesterday. Man takes nothing with him except Torah and good deeds.”

    â€œWill the rabbi be in Paradise?” I asked.
    â€œThat’s some question you’re asking!”
    â€œAnd will the rebbetzin go to hell?”
    â€œGod forbid. Why should she? … But you should know that even Paradise has various levels.” Father spoke at length with me about the sanctity of the Land of Israel. He said that according to the law, we are all impure, but the Almighty above has compassion upon us—for it’s not the poor Jews’ fault. Our exile is as long as the night, but salvation will come, it will come.
    â€œWhen, Father?”
    â€œWhen we are worthy.”
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œIt depends on you.”
    â€œOn me?”
    â€œYes, on you and me, and every Jew individually. The poor Messiah is pleading that he wants to come, but he’s not allowed to because Jews are sinful. Repent, and the Messiah will come!”
    The former rebbetzin lived another couple of years; then she, too, died. People discussed this in the Radziminer shtibl. I thought that the woman would certainly be ashamed to appear in the world to come. What would she say to her ex-husband, that righteous man? Wouldn’t she be ashamed to stand in his presence?

HE WANTS FORGIVENESS FROM HER
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    The door opened and into the room came a fashionable, beardless young man wearing a stovepipe hat and a short jacket. He seemed to be in his late thirties. His appearance and manner of dress, indeed his entire bearing, radiated importance—that of a doctor, a lawyer, or, at the very least, an accountant. Especially authoritative were his pince-nez, which sat low down on his nose and were fastened to the buttonhole in his lapel by a thin black cord.
    â€œWell, what’s the good word?” my father said.
    The young man spoke half shyly and hesitantly. He began with these words: “Rabbi, you’re going to laugh …”
    It turned out that some twelve years before, the young man had been the fiance of a respectable Warsaw girl. Then he met another girl and married her. People warned him that when someone breaks off an engagement, a letter of forgiveness is required from the other party. But he was in love with his new wife and was ashamed to return to the first one to request the letter. He was especially ashamed before his in-laws. In short, he went off to live
with the second girl, moved to another city, and hoped that time would smooth everything over. So a match dissolves, big deal!
    However, bad luck tagged after the young man. He opened a shop, but it failed. He established a factory: that, too, did not succeed. His wife had one child, a second child, a third child, but all of them died. The young man was not religious; still, these misfortunes reminded him of the wrong that he had done to his first fiancée. He