‘To have my shop destroyed by drunks!’ He took a great axe from his display. ‘To bring the police down on my poor head! Wonderful! Cossacks in the Moldovanka! Let’s have a new pogrom, eh! Stand back, both of you, or I’ll give the police fair cause to visit me. I’ll split your heads and hang myself rather than let you in.’
Katya’s orange-haired sluttish mother appeared behind him. She was pulling on a grubby Chinese robe. ‘Shura? Maxim? What’s the matter with you? Where’s Katya?’
‘We have come to see her,’ I said. ‘She has to choose between us.’
‘But she left half-an-hour ago.’
‘Where did she go?’ asked Shura.
‘To Esau’s, I thought.’
‘Was she laughing?’ I asked significantly.
‘Not that I noticed. What do you want with her? You boys shouldn’t quarrel over a girl. She likes you both.’
‘She’s a deceiver,’ I said. ‘A liar.’
‘She’s a bit weak, that’s all,’ said Shura. ‘I told her...’
‘I won’t have such discussions in my street, outside my shop.’ The Jew advanced with the axe. We retreated.
Katya’s mother shook her head. ‘Calm down. Go for a walk together. Go for a swim.’ She seemed unaware that it was winter.
‘She was not frank with me,’ I said.
‘Frank? What is frank?’ asked the shop-keeper. He gestured with his huge axe. ‘Jews are not the bogatyrs of Kiev. They have no room for such podvig luxuries.’
‘They have a great penchant for hypocrisy instead,’ I retorted.
He smiled, ‘If we are here to indulge in some rabbinical discussion, some orgy of self-criticism, let us settle down around the book, my young Litvak.’
Did he think I was a Jew? I was shocked. I looked at his dirty skin, his stringy beard, his hooked nose and thick lips and realised what a terrible mistake I had made. To believe that Jews could be my friends, that I could exist in their company without some of their traits rubbing off on me! I backed away. I began to run through the alleys of the ghetto, knocking aside old men and children, treading on cats and dogs, breaking down washing lines, kicking cans of milk, until I was back at Uncle Semya’s house, bedraggled, my coat flapping, my hat missing, my ivory cane lost in the struggle at Katya’s. Straight up the steps and into the front door. Up the stairs and into my room. I lay on my bed weeping and swearing never again to have anything to do with Jews, with the Moldovanka, with my cousin Shura, with coarse, corrupt, vulgar Odessa.
When Wanda came in, she found me recovered from the worst of my rage but still weeping, still dressed in what was left of my finery. ‘What happened, Maxim? An accident?’
I looked up at her warm, fat body, her plain, concerned face. I decided that Wanda was the girl I needed. Wanda would never make herself available to more than one man. She would be grateful that she had a man at all.
‘Only in love,’ I replied heavily. ‘A girl turned out to be unfaithful.’
‘That’s terrible. Dear Maxim!’ Feminine sympathy seeped from her pores like sweat. ‘Who on earth could do such a thing to you? What a bitch she must be.’
I remember a pang or two at this description, but when I considered the situation I decided Katya had been more cynical than I had guessed. I made some attempt to defend her, remembering Shura’s words. ‘She’s just weak ...’
‘Don’t you believe it, Maxim dear. Not a word. Weakness is a wall women hide behind. And it’s a wall, I assure you, as strong as steel. You’ve been deceived.’
‘By a Jewish harlot,’ I said.
This seemed to make her hesitate. I think she was a little upset that I had been sleeping with a Jewess.
‘Never again,’ I said.
‘She didn’t give you anything ... ?’
I shook my head.
Wanda sat on the bed and began to stroke my dusty hair. She helped me off with my overcoat and my jacket.
In time, as these things go, she helped me off with the rest of my clothes. Then she undressed and climbed into the narrow bed beside me. Her soft, yielding flesh, her massive breasts, her great, warm private parts, her bottom, like two comfortable cushions, her strong, engulfing legs and arms, her wide, hot mouth, all brought immediate relief to my anguish. I began to congratulate myself that I had not only recovered from my pain but that I would always have another woman waiting. So different was Wanda from Katya that it was almost like making love to a different species. Slender, boyish girls like Katya and huge, peasant girls like Wanda, each has her virtues. To know a hundred women is to know a hundred different forms of pleasure. I was lucky to understand this while still so young.
