ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER
23
he had a deal for me. He gave me no time to think it over. We pulled
it off, slick as butter. Hard cash, not merchandise that needs to be
sold through a fence on Wolowa Street. Then we dropped into La–
zar's Tavern and hit the bottle. But why do I tell you all this? Once
you become addicted you see nothing else. At two o'clock in the
morning, when Getzel, the husband, finally dragged himself home
dead tired from a whole day's work and a half a night's gambling, he
fell into bed more dead than alive. You want to tell me that he didn't
know? Card playing just came first with him."
"What would have happened if Hershel Shmirer had made her
pregnant?" Shmuel Kluska asked.
"The sky wouldn't have fallen," Berel Zwaniak answered.
"What happened to them?" Yankel Dezma asked.
"It just so happened that Hershel Shmirer was caught red–
handed stealing and they threw him in jail. MaIka used to bring him
packages to the cage."
In love with the safe safecracker, huh?" Shmuel Kluska asked.
"A female, if you keep her happy, she latches on to you," Berele
Zwaniak said.
There was in the same cell another prisoner, Itche the Blind or
Itche the Accurate. He was called Itche the Blind because he had
only one eye; the other one had been gouged out many years back.
The name Accurate was given to him because of his proper bearing.
Itche the Blind didn't go out on the street himself any more. He
taught young punks the trade and got a percentage of every take. He
was also part owner of a bordello. For almost fifteen years Itche the
Blind had stayed on the loose. But he was arrested because of a
run-in with a police commissar, and got entangled in a trial. He was
soon supposed to be free on bail. The guards in the jail held Itche in
high esteem. He received from the outside packages of chocolate,
cigarettes, even cans of sardines to which he treated everyone.
For Itche the Blind it would have been degrading to involve
himself with the petty thieves who were his cellmates. He was now
stretched out on a bunk and smoking one cigarette after another.
But the conversation apparently had captured his interest. From
time to time he mumbled to himself. Suddenly, he drew himself up
to his full height, a huge man, wide-shouldered, with a shock of hair
beginning to gray at the temples. He took a stride toward the others
and asked: "May I say something too?"
For a while all three thieves were speechless. Berele Swaniak
was the first to find his tongue.
