Authors: Philip Roth
“You must work a full day,” Tzuref said, steering the attorney and his briefcase into the chilly hall.
Eli’s heels made a racket on the cracked marble floor, and he spoke above it. “It’s the commuting that’s killing,” he said, and entered the dim room Tzuref waved open for him. “Three hours a day … I came right from the train.” He dwindled down into a harp-backed chair. He expected it would be deeper than it was and consequently jarred himself on the sharp bones of his seat. It woke him, this shiver of the behind, to his business. Tzuref, a bald shaggy-browed man who looked as if he’d once been very fat, sat back of an empty desk, halfway hidden, as though he were settled on the floor. Everything around him was empty. There were no books in the bookshelves, no rugs on the floor, no draperies in the big casement windows. As Eli began to speak Tzuref got up and swung a window back on one noisy hinge. “May and it’s like August,” he said, and with his back to Eli, he revealed the black circle on the back of his head. The crown of his head was missing! He returned through the dimness—the lamps had no bulbs—and Eli realized all he’d seen was a skullcap. Tzuref struck a match and lit a candle, just as the half-dying shouts of children at play rolled in through the open window. It was as though Tzuref had opened it so Eli could hear them.
“Aah, now,” he said. “I received your letter.”
Eli poised, waiting for Tzuref to swish open a drawer and remove the letter from his file. Instead the old man leaned forward onto his stomach, worked his hand into his pants pocket, and withdrew what appeared to be a week-old handkerchief. He uncrumpled it; he unfolded it; he ironed it on the desk with the side of his hand. “So,” he said.
Eli pointed to the grimy sheet which he’d gone over word-by-word with his partners, Lewis and McDonnell. “I expected an answer,” Eli said. “It’s a week.”
“It was so important, Mr. Peck, I knew you would come.”
Some children ran under the open window and their mysterious babble—not mysterious to Tzuref, who smiled—entered the room like a third person. Their noise caught up against Eli’s flesh and he was unable to restrain a shudder. He wished he had gone home, showered and eaten dinner, before calling on Tzuref. He was not feeling as professional as usual—the place was too dim, it was too late. But down in Woodenton they would be waiting, his clients and neighbors. He spoke for the Jews of Woodenton, not just himself and his wife.
“You understood?” Eli said.
“It’s not hard.”
“It’s a matter of zoning…” and when Tzuref did not answer, but only drummed his fingers on his lips, Eli said, “We didn’t make the laws…”
“You respect them.”
“They protect us … the community.”
“The law is the law,” Tzuref said.
“Exactly!” Eli had the urge to rise and walk about the room.
“And then of course “—Tzuref made a pair of scales in the air with his hands—”The law is not the law. When is the law that is the law not the law?” He jiggled the scales. “And vice versa.”
“Simply,” Eli said sharply. “You can’t have a boarding school in a residential area.” He would not allow Tzuref to cloud the issue with issues. “We thought it better to tell you before any action is undertaken.”
“But a house in a residential area?”
“Yes. That’s what residential means.” The DP’s English was perhaps not as good as it seemed at first. Tzuref spoke slowly, but till then Eli had mistaken it for craft—or even wisdom. “Residence means home,” he added.
“So this is my residence.”
“But the children?”
“It is their residence.”
“
Seventeen
children?”
“Eighteen,” Tzuref said.
“But you
teach
them here.”
“The Talmud. That’s illegal?”
“That makes it school.”
Tzuref hung the scales again, tipping slowly the balance.
“Look, Mr. Tzuref, in America we call such a place a boarding school.”
“Where they teach the Talmud?”
“Where they teach period. You are the headmaster, they are the students.”
Tzuref placed his scales on the desk. “Mr. Peck,” he said, “I don’t believe it…” but he did not seem to be referring to anything Eli had said.
“Mr. Tzuref, that is the law. I came to ask what you intend to do.”
“What I
must
do?”
“I hope they are the same.”
“They are.” Tzuref brought his stomach into the desk. “We stay.” He smiled. “We are tired. The headmaster is tired. The students are tired.”
Eli rose and lifted his briefcase. It felt so heavy packed with the grievances, vengeances, and schemes of his clients. There were days when he carried it like a feather—in Tzuref’s office it weighed a ton.
“Goodbye, Mr. Tzuref.”
“Sholom,” Tzuref said.
Eli opened the door to the office and walked carefully down the dark tomb of a corridor to the door. He stepped out on the porch and, leaning against a pillar, looked down across the lawn to the children at play. Their voices whooped and rose and dropped as they chased each other round the old house. The dusk made the children’s game look like a tribal dance. Eli straightened up, started off the porch, and suddenly the dance was ended. A long piercing scream trailed after. It was the first time in his life anyone had ran at the sight of him. Keeping his eyes on the lights of Woodenton, he headed down the path.
And then, seated on a bench beneath a tree, Eli saw him. At first it seemed only a deep hollow of blackness—then the figure emerged. Eli recognized him from the description. There he was, wearing the hat, that hat which was the very cause of Eli’s mission, the source of Woodenton’s upset. The town’s lights flashed their message once again: “Get the one with the hat. What a nerve, what a nerve…”
Eli started towards the man. Perhaps he was less stubborn than Tzuref, more reasonable. After all, it was the law. But when he was close enough to call out, he didn’t. He was stopped by the sight of the black coat that fell down below the man’s knees, and the hands which held each other in his lap. By the round-topped, wide-brimmed Talmudic hat, pushed onto the back of his head. And by the beard, which hid his neck and was so soft and thin it fluttered away and back again with each heavy breath he took. He was asleep, his sidelocks curled loose on his cheeks. His face was no older than Eli’s.
Eli hurried towards the lights.
The note on the kitchen table unsettled him. Scribblings on bits of paper had made history this past week. This one, however, was unsigned. “Sweetie,” it said, “I went to sleep. I had a sort of Oedipal experience with the baby today. Call Ted Heller.”
She had left him a cold soggy dinner in the refrigerator. He hated cold soggy dinners, but would take one gladly in place of Miriam’s presence. He was ruffled, and she never helped that, not with her infernal analytic powers. He loved her when life was proceeding smoothly—and that was when she loved him. But sometimes Eli found being a lawyer surrounded him like quicks and—he couldn’t get his breath. Too often he wished he were pleading for the other side; though if he were on the other side, then he’d wish he were on the side he was. The trouble was that sometimes the law didn’t seem to be the answer,
law
didn’t seem to have anything to do with what was aggravating everybody. And that, of course, made him feel foolish and unnecessary … Though that was not the situation here—the townsmen had a case. But not
exactly,
and if Miriam were awake to see Eli’s upset, she would set about explaining his distress to him, understanding him, forgiving him, so as to get things back to Normal, for Normal was where they loved one another. The difficulty with Miriam’s efforts was they only upset him more; not only did they explain little to him about himself or his predicament, but they convinced him of
her
weakness. Neither Eli nor Miriam, it turned out, was terribly strong. Twice before he’d faced this fact, and on both occasions had found solace in what his neighbors forgivingly referred to as “a nervous breakdown.”
Eli ate his dinner with his briefcase beside him. Halfway through, he gave in to himself, removed Tzuref’s notes, and put them on the table, beside Miriam’s. From time to time he flipped through the notes, which had been carried into town by the one in the black hat. The first note, the incendiary:
To whom it may concern:
Please give this gentleman the following: Boys shoes with rubber heels and soles.
5 prs size 6c
3 prs size 5c
3 prs size 5b
2 prs size 4a
3 prs size 4c
1 pr size 7b
1 pr size 7c
Total 18 prs. boys shoes. This gentleman has a check already signed. Please fill in correct amount.
L. T
ZUREF
Director, Yeshivah of
Woodenton, N.Y.
(5/8/48)
“Eli, a regular greenhorn,” Ted Heller had said. “He didn’t say a word. Just handed me the note and stood there, like in the Bronx the old guys who used to come around selling Hebrew trinkets.”
“A Yeshivah!” Artie Berg had said. “Eli, in Woodenton, a Yeshivah! If I want to live in Brownsville, Eli, I’ll live in Brownsville.”
“Eli,” Harry Shaw speaking now, “the old Puddington place. Old man Puddington’ll roll over in his grave. Eli, when I left the city, Eli, I didn’t plan the city should come to me.”
Note number two:
Dear Grocer:
Please give this gentleman ten pounds of sugar. Charge it to our account, Yeshivah of Woodenton, NY—which we will now open with you and expect a bill each month. The gentleman will be in to see you once or twice a week.
L. T
ZUREF
, Director
(5/10/48)P.S. Do you carry kosher meat?
“He walked right by my window, the greenie,” Ted had said, “and he nodded, Eli. He’s my
friend
now.”
“Eli,” Artie Berg had said, “he handed the damn thing to a
clerk
at Stop N’ Shop—and in that hat yet!”
“Eli,” Harry Shaw again, “it’s not funny. Someday, Eli, it’s going to be a hundred little kids with little
yamalkahs
chanting their Hebrew lessons on Coach House Road, and then it’s not going to strike you funny.”
“Eli, what goes on up there—my kids hear strange sounds.”
“Eli, this is a modem community.”
“Eli, we pay taxes.”
“Eli.”
“Eli!”
“
Eli!
”
At first it was only another townsman crying in his ear; but when he turned he saw Miriam, standing in the doorway, behind her belly.
“Eli, sweetheart, how was it?”
“He said no.”
“Did you see the other one?” she asked.
“Sleeping, under a tree.”
“Did you let him know how people feel?”
“He was sleeping.”
“Why didn’t you wake him up? Eli, this isn’t an everyday thing.”
“He was tired!”
“Don’t shout, please,” Miriam said.
“‘Don’t shout. I’m pregnant. The baby is heavy.’” Eli found he was getting angry at nothing she’d said yet; it was what she was going to say.
“He’s a very heavy baby the doctor says,” Miriam told him.
“Then sit
down
and make my dinner.” Now he found himself angry about her not being present at the dinner which he’d just been relieved that she wasn’t present at It was as though he had a raw nerve for a tail, that he kept stepping on. At last Miriam herself stepped on it.
“Eli, you’re upset. I understand.”
“You don’t understand.”
She left the room. From the stairs she called, “I do, sweetheart.”
It was a trap! He would grow angry knowing she would be “understanding.” She would in turn grow more understanding seeing his anger. He would in turn grow angrier … The phone rang.
“Hello,” Eli said.
“Eli, Ted. So?”
“So nothing.”
“Who is Tzuref? He’s an American guy?”
“No. A DP. German.”
“And the kids?”
“DP’s too. He teaches them.”
“What? What subjects?” Ted asked.
“I don’t know.”
“And the guy with the hat, you saw the guy with the hat?”
“Yes. He was sleeping.”
“Eli, he sleeps with the
hat?
”
“He sleeps with the hat.”
“Goddam fanatics,” Ted said. “This is the twentieth century, Eli. Now it’s the guy with the hat. Pretty soon all the little Yeshivah boys’ll be spilling down into town.”
“Next thing they’ll be after our daughters.”
“Michele and Debbie wouldn’t look at them.”
“Then,” Eli mumbled, “you’ve got nothing to worry about, Teddie,” and he hung up.
In a moment the phone rang. “Eli? We got cut off. We’ve got nothing to worry about? You worked it out?”
“I have to see him again tomorrow. We can work something out.”
“That’s fine, Eli. I’ll call Artie and Harry.”
Eli hung up.
“I thought you said
nothing
worked out.” It was Miriam. “I did.”