24
PARTISAN REVIEW
"Have a seat, Itche, you're like a rabbi to us ."
Itche the Blind sat down.
"Have a smoke ."
He offered each of the prisoners a cigarette. He took out a
lighter and passed it around for them to light up. In a deep voice, he
said, "A rabbi, huh? We in Warsaw had only one rabbi, Chazkele,
may he intercede for us . His word was gold. A day didn't go by with–
out his hitting on some scheme. He had a mind like a trap. The chief
of police himself respected him.
If
Chazkele hadn't become what he
was, he could have been a big shot in Petersburg. I was listening to
what you were saying. Men, women, whores, not-whores . Each
woman has her own ways of hooking a man . In my youth I had my
share ofloving, I can't complain. I slowed down when I realized that
one good female can satisfy a man better than five dozen tramps who
are only after a pair of stockings or a mug of beer. You all are still
bagel snatchers, wet behind the ears , and what can you know? We
have no Chazkele these days . No, and does anyone today remember
Red Reitzele? That was what they called her. You've probably never
heard of her. But there'll never be another Reitzele either. Reitzele
was a smart cookie . She had a husband, a businessman, not a crook .
His name was Antshel, a real estate broker. Those were the days
when Warsaw was being built up with paved sidewalks, market–
places, high buildings . The banks had a lot of money and extended
credit .
If
you could show that you had five thousand rubles in cash,
you could borrow an additional twenty or thirty thousand ruble on a
mortgage. Our Jews began wheeling and dealing and the time was
ripe for a lot of brokerage business .
"Overnight paupers became millionaires . Antshel knew how to
open up doors, where and who to offer bribes . He was a shrewd
bastard. But he wasn't any good with women. For Reitzele he was
barely enough for a snack, not a full meal. The likes of him have to
be helped along. He wasn't one to begrudge others, like a dog on a
haystack who can't eat himself and won't let others near it. As to
Reitzele she wasn't just a tease . When I met her I was eighteen and
she a good thirty-six and maybe even a bit older. My parents had at
first wanted to make of me a yeshiva student. But I didn't have a
mind for the Gemara . When they saw that I would never turn out to
be a scholar, they wanted me to become a tailor. However, in those
days an apprentice had to spend three years in his master's house
pouring out the slops and rocking the baby.
It
took a long time be–
fore he was allowed to sew on a button or make a buttonhole. When
