Lévy

“You come from Poland, Monsieur David . . . ?”

“Davidovich.”

Lévy, his host, looking with desperation at the traveling salesman, supplied the name. Still sweating from fear, Lévy was now sweating for his guest to feel, with the same horrible precision, the anguish his host was experiencing and to see as clearly that Lévy’s fellow Jews were misunderstood.

“I am not originally from Poland, no, not from Poland,” the old man replied, stroking his crown of white hair.

“I was born in Kiev, under the Kiev government. Poland, I only came there later, when I was run out of Kiev. Run out like a beggar, like a dog. The pogrom! And all my merchandise confiscated and my two sons conscripted. Yes, Monsieur. That’s Russia for you.”

“Holy Russia,” the albino mumbled as he slurped his soup, making a terrible racket.

“Your manners aren’t very . . . refined,” the traveler noted coldly. The old man shrugged with disgust.

“And then my trade you don’t see in the south. In Poland, on the contrary—it was in Łódź. Right, Sarah? So one day, the police chief showed up, a wretch who played the ladies’ man—it was the pogrom, the fires they set. We ended up in Kraków. My two kids, never seen again. No passport. Not a kreutzer to my name.”

“You haven’t been lucky,” said the traveler.

“Not a kreutzer,” Davidovich continued, paying no attention to the Christian’s comments. “But I was in the Jewish Workers Bund. I found work with one of our own people, a big furrier. And there was the boy, the third one who left, for the Austrian army, the way things were done then. Then there was the strike. The boss turned me in, but he was one of our own; when money is involved, religion flies out the window. He turned me in for being in The Bund. They put me in prison. And then I came to Paris with Sarah and my youngest, to the Saint-Paul quarter. I was still in The Bund. I wanted to go to London. But people said France, that’s the Republic, you must go to France. I went. I stayed. Twelve years ago. And here I am, because you won’t find anyone better at this trade than Davidovich. And my last boy has gone off for three years in your army. France, and that’s the Republic?—ha! no communities, and a country of bandits like you don’t find in Kraków? Death to the Jews? And the rocks? In Kraków, twelve thousand we were, with the Levite and the locken.¹ And you do what you want. I’m still in The Bund. But here, nothing! nichs nutz!² Zero! Is this the Republic? This?”

He bent down, picked up the sandstone block that had broken the trivet, and placed it in one swift movement on the oil cloth. The glasses wobbled. Lévy nervously searched the face of the traveler.

Sarah had cleared the table and was serving a couple of carp in a green sauce with capers. The traveler was moved by people who were feeding him so fastidiously. He was looking for a chance to steer the conversation in another direction.

“My God! Here’s a simple dish that outclasses hotel food. How have these fish been prepared?”

Since the start of dinner, the young woman with the thin nose and thick, curly hair had been leaning on her elbows, her head in her hands. She came out of her sad contemplation and smiled at this remark. The traveler saw two beautiful black eyes in a tired face.

“Just taste it,” she said. “These are our family recipes.”

He exclaimed with pleasure, manners forgotten. Lévy glanced at him with his different-colored eyes, rimmed in red, a look overflowing with gratitude. Then indicating in turn the old man fallen into a deep reverie and the silent children, he said, “Do you understand why they must know?”

The traveler sensed that his host was somehow annoyed, but did not know why. He replied evasively, pushing aside the fish bones, “Of course. One must be prepared for anything.”

“Anything!” came the tailor’s violent rejoinder. The traveler had noticed his heavy face and tender eyes and could not help thinking, “What is this character on about!”

The sight of him was intolerable. The albino suddenly stopped moving: “Do you hear it?”

They became motionless, their ears straining to hear something outside in the night. It was a brief, desperate attempt to hear something through the silence.

A rhythmic groaning came in answer. It was getting noticeably closer. The young woman suddenly seized her two children and drew their heads violently against her breast. Lévy rose straight up with a jerky motion, like an automaton.

The traveler at first had only one vague notion: “Enough!”

Then he foresaw that it would be only over his dead body that the revolver would be fired again. In any case, his nerves were shot and could not endure such an ordeal a second time. He had just eaten these people’s food. Whatever might happen to them, both they and himself, for this evening at least he was one of them.

He turned around in his chair and angrily pulled the napkin from his vest, growling, “Again!” He raised his eyes to the old Russian with a gleam of terrified hope. He distractedly contemplated his large polished cranium where shimmering gaslight was reflected. The fatalism of these people was winning him over. But this was only his second round.

The brroum was coming faster. The spasmodic footfalls could be felt in the floor. The riotous crowd was approaching at a regular pace.

“Death to the Jews! Long live Esterhazy! Long live the army!” The noise swelled. Everything began to vibrate. The crowd arrived in front of Lévy’s shop. After reaching what had to be its peak, the clamor suddenly crescendoed to a terrible pitch. And the piercing cry of a very young child rose above it all. But before it even seemed possible, the noise began to ebb. The Platonic demonstration was moving away, its participants content to bellow and shout, without daring to do worse.

It was over so fast that it seemed merely a breath exhaled, and already the tumult, once again a low droning sound, was quickly being swallowed up at the end of the street.

The traveler’s teeth were chattering. Bewildered, he was looking at his hands, which were trembling as they tried to hold on to the edge of the table. An unbearable fatigue turned his legs to jelly. The small dining room, the smoke, the heads, the circular light falling from the pink porcelain lampshade were swirling before his eyes.

The old woman shook her fist at the door, addressing guttural insults to the crowd. Her bony wrist stuck out of a dirty sleeve. Lévy sat down again with an apologetic smile on his face, as if that futile scare had had a funny side for which excuses must be made. The Russian had not flinched. The two men lowered their heads like beaten dogs. Beside herself, the young woman was sobbing in her little ones’ hair.