26
PARTISAN REVIEW
with those teeth. I told her that Chazkele had sent me, and a little
smile lit up over her face . I looked at her hands and I felt a twinge of
desire. Some men boast that they can tell a woman by her eyes,
others claim that you can tell it all by the shape of the mouth . I can
tell everything from hands . In the theater, when they want to flatter
a woman, they rave about her long fingers. Nonsense! I like short
fingers and short nails too . She stood before me in a knee-length
apron, a short housedress and in slippers with porn poms. Her knees
were pointed like those of a boy. I took one look at her and knew that
she'd be mine .
"A half an hour later we were kissing. We fell upon each other
with thirst. She pressed her mouth to mine as if she were trying to
swallow it. In bed, she asked: 'What's your name?' I told her : 'Itche, '
and she said: 'I don't like Itche. I'll call you Loshikl, because you are
young and strong and you jump like a colt,' and that's how it was . It
lasted eight years. I would say to her: 'Reitzele , I'm an old horse
already, not a colt,' and she would reply : 'To me you'll always be a
loshikl even if you're ninety.'
"That she was a good piece and that she loved men Antshel her
husband knew quite well. For a couple of years he played dumb with
me. Once when he ran into me at Lazar's tavern and we had a drink ,
he became talkative. He said to me : 'What do you call two husbands
of the same wife?' I said to him: 'Brothers-in-law,' and he says:
'That's a silly name. We're more like brothers.' He went on: 'Loshikl ,
now that the cat is out of the bag, what do you say to our little wife?
Have you ever had anything better?' And I said: 'Never had , never
will have.' He said: 'She talks the same way about you. There's only
one God and one Loshikl. Last year when they threw you in the
slammer, she wanted to teach me your tricks, but I have no patience
for such games. Jealous? How can I be jealous? She told me at the
very beginning: "I'm not a rebbetzin, I like men." We are not her
only ones. When she meets a man, right away she wants to try him
out.
If
King Solomon, she says, could have a thousand wives,
Reitzele can have a thousand husbands.'
"That evening, we became so close that we drank to
brotherhood. Just the same when you're in love with someone you
can't be above it all. A man is not a stone, no matter how much of a
front he puts up . It burns you up when you know that your beloved
is sleeping around with others . But if you have no choice, you grin
and bear it, as they say. You can get used to anything. You can live
and love with an ulcer in your gizzard. You can dance with a tooth–
ache.
