FICTION
Isaac Bashevls Singer
LOSHIKL
In the jail cell dusk had fallen . Everyone's face was hidden
in shadows.
It
was too dark for card playing. The guard wouldn't be
bringing in the kerosene lamp for yet another hour.
It
was brought
in late, it was allowed to burn for only half an hour and then taken
out. Three prisoners, Berele Zwaniak, Yankel Dezma, and Shmuel
Kluska were sitting around, talking.
Berele Zwaniak said: "They know, they know, but they play
dumb. Not all husbands are alike. One is ready to stab you if you so
much as give his wife a smile or a wink. But some other sucker takes
you in as a boarder and leaves you with his wife all day long and
sometimes all night to boot. I knew such a couple. His name was
Getzel and his wife's name was MaIka. He rented an alcove in his
apartment to a good pal of mine, a safecracker, Hershel Shmirer, a
giant of a man. Getzel himself, a small fellow, had a little workshop
two blocks away where he made paper bags. All day long he sat at
his workbench and glued together the paper bags. In the evening,
instead of coming home, he would grab a bite in the corner cafe and
take off with his chums to play cards. He wouldn't get home until
two o'clock in the morning and sometimes he played 'til daybreak.
How much could you possibly win at cards? Monday he would walk
away with a ruble, Tuesday he would lose it back . But it's a kind of
obsession. Something gets in your head and sticks there like a nail.
Look at us. Stealing will never make you rich. But you get used to it
and you think that without it you couldn't survive. It draws you like
a magnet. The other day I swore to my mother by all that's holy that
I would go back to shoe-making. She took a Bible out of her dresser
and made me swear on it. But as soon as I walked out on the square
I forgot everything I promised her. A friend of mine came along and
Editor's Note: This story is translated from the Yiddish by Rina Borrow. It will
appear in
The Image and Other Stories
by Isaac Bashevis Singer, to be published by
Farrar, Straus
&
Giroux this spring.
