through the only narrow channel left open to him—the story. Wasserman admits he was briefly alarmed by the “strange powers” emanating from Neigel: “Who was a prophet to know that this pitiful tale of mine would suddenly become a cornerstone of faith for this poor goy? Oy, Anshel Wasserman, with your own hands you wrote a Third Testament for Esau!” The two were sitting in Neigel’s room, as usual, though not quite as usual: Neigel carried the burden of weaving the story: he spoke and smoked incessantly, and drank. His eyes were very red, and his face shone with perspiration. His movements were no longer controlled and measured; even his blinking was rapid and nervous. He and Wasserman were searching for the ART [q.v.] best suited for Kazik. Something to alleviate the terrible hunger he felt after his discovery of LOVE [q.v.] and his discovery in consequence—and in the consequence of the VOYAGE OF THE LUNATICS [q.v.]—of the depth of his FEELINGS [q.v.], and the powers of grief and joy enveloping man. Something to help him, explained Neigel, to help him recover quickly from the wounds of love and disillusionment. “To help him change SUFFERING [q.v.] into CREATION [q.v.],” agreed Wasserman, adding that Kazik was now a little man in full potency who loudly declared his love of life despite its bitterness. Life still seemed to stretch ahead, secure and full of happiness and pleasure, for which he was willing to pay the occasional price of pain. It was now 1030, and Kazik was forty-seven years old. It was a beautiful clear blue morning, and Kazik’s voice resounded. He talked a lot: about his “eternal love,” about his life and hopes for the future. There was something metallic and forced about the way he tried to convince himself that life is good and worthy of being lived. This new talkativeness was a bitirritating, but perhaps it was his way of healing his wounds. Neigel, in any case, did not perceive these little contradictions in Kazik. He listened longingly, eager to believe. Wasserman therefore added a description of how even the old, disillusioned artists were tempted to believe Kazik, of how a wave of ecstasy caused Fried to sprout more fragrant foliage. Neigel nodded agreement. He poured himself another glass from the almost empty bottle. Wasserman waited for him to gulp the drink before admitting that he couldn’t decide which métier to choose for Kazik to express his happiness. Neigel, Neigel of all people, was brimful of suggestions. Wasserman: “Esau sparkled with ideas. Not all of them would make a kosher shtrcimel, but a new spirit evidently filled him.” “A painter!” cried Neigel in a slurred voice, and tried his ideas out: “A silhouette painter? A painter of deserts? Oceans?” In a fever he unbuttoned his shirt. “He was, Herr Wasserman, a painter of the imagination!” Wasserman: “Please explain.” And Neigel set his glass down, leaned back, put his feet up on the desk, and folded his hands behind his head. A smile appeared on his face. A smile the likes of which Wasserman had never seen: a smile of resignation to bad news. The smile when all is said and done. He explained to the Jewish writer that Kazik would be a painter who required neither brush nor easel. He would be able to paint without canvas. “Over there, Herr Wasserman, do you see?” Neigel smiled, pointing a finger. “To the cast, please, between the bear cage and the leopard cage.” (“Ah? What? Has he lost his mind?”) “Do you see the woman lying on the path? Do you recognize her?” Wasserman, squinting suspiciously to the east, snarled with repugnance at the sight and smell of Neigel, but then, in a flash, he understood the German, and his eyes grew wide. (“Ai! It has happened! I have succeeded, do you hear me, Shleimeleh? Shleimeleh?!”) And aloud he answered, “But of course, Herr Neigel, sir! She is the lovely Hannah Zeitrin, is she not? The most beautiful woman in all the world.” And Neigel began to describe in a whisper how the sky over Hannah lying on the ground opened up and a cloud was rent by a bolt of lightning, and how Kazik used the power of his imagination to describe God’s feet descending, first one and then the other, to stalk the earth, and then God lay with the most beautiful woman in the world, and she, Hannah, was so dizzy with love and passion that she completely forgot her hidden knife. She was attuned solely to His love agony and His need for her. And then Neigel took the astonished Wasserman to themound near the bird cages, the site of Paula’s grave, where she gave birth in joy and travail to her only child, the fetus of the scream, and he lived, and she lived, and Fried’s eyes brimmed with love for the woman and the child, and when Neigel pronounced the words LOVE [q.v.] and “woman,” words which on his lips are redolent with pleading and hopelessness, he began to talk a blue streak, as though he feared time would run out before he could express what had always been, all that he had “suspended,” sent away “on a leave of absence,” yes. “And now look north, my dear Herr Wasserman, and see Mr. Munin lying with the beautif—” But when Wasserman turned in the direction of Neigel’s cloudy bloodshot eyes, he saw that the barracks door was open and on the threshold stood—who knows for how long—Sturmbannführer STAUKEH [q.v.], his head shaven, his black hat in his hand, and the thread of a smile upon his lips. “Continue, please continue,” he said gently, stealing into the barracks on cat paws. “Real Thousand and One Night I’ve been hearing behind the door these few minutes, Herr Neigel.” And because he had addressed Neigel by his civilian title and not his military rank, Wasserman bowed his head and joylessly congratulated himself on his victory.
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