Issue 19

Fradl Shtok
Translated by Jordan Finkin and Allison Schachter

People are strolling in and out of the park, each and every one of them taking even strides, while May limps just a little.

It’s hot. The white clothing and floral hats intensify the heat. Hearts burn for cool water, for flirtations. They burn with longing to fly far away to some unknown hideaway.

They burn with longing. It makes one ashamed to look them in the eye.

May had sewn her own dress the day before. She had tried it on maybe fifteen times because one end of the collar was a tenth of an inch too long. Who would notice what a serious effort it took to make the ends of the collar even.

Today she went to see Annie to ask if she wanted to go to the park with her. Why shouldn’t she go and ask Annie … She’d hear excellent music there, classical music. Annie said, “Classical music?” and still didn’t feel like going. May had barely dragged Annie out last Sunday, after May had spotted a young man through the window. Was it so terrible that she dragged Annie away … After all she had spent half the summer sitting at home and no one asked her out. People did come to visit her. Isn’t she educated and clever and a good conversationalist … But no one wants to go out with her—she limps a little.

For the music. That’s why she has gone to see Annie. Come now, what’s so urgent? To see Waldman?—Nonsense!

She went to see Annie and she knows Annie’s parents aren’t happy about it. Different young men are always coming to May’s house and then nothing, neither seen nor heard from again. Even that Waldman, the penniless “writer,” whom people took it upon themselves to feed, even he eventually cast her aside, can you imagine! Was this an appropriate example for their child?

May knew what they were thinking. But after all, that limp had been of some use to her. It had certainly sharpened that mind of hers and put it through its paces.

While Annie stood indifferently in front of the table asking May to wait until she had something to eat, and saying she did feel like going and then she did not feel like it anymore, and when Annie’s father asked, “Where are you going? Where, I’d like to know,” furrowing his brow, as if May were trying to corrupt Annie, May’s blood drained from her face. Still she stood there joking and laughing, and she gestured with her hand against a glass next to the knives and spoons and forks, a gesture that made her finger hit the knife blade causing her blood to flow for real. But she didn’t make a big deal of it. She went on laughing, despite the distress in her heart. But when the others got frightened and started dousing her with peroxide, she knew the wound was actually in her heart, not her finger, and no dressing could stop that blood from spilling.

And all this because she limps just a little …

Now she treats Annie like a treasure, as she drags her to the park. One must be stubborn to achieve one’s goals, to be nobody’s fool …

They arrive at the statue of Beethoven. As the pleasant swells of music hit them, they both ask at once, “What are they playing?”

If she could just extend her foot a little, just a little, her left heel would reach the ground completely. She hasn’t exercised putting that foot down enough. And she is responsible for that. This is an example of what her life is like, just a little one …

With a smile May pulls out the program she had gotten from a neighbor. The neighbor had told her, “They’ll be playing William Tell.”

“William Tell?”

Waldman stands there between a couple of girls. Waldman—“My dear Miss, a poet cannot become attached to one woman …”

Those girls have been standing there by the statue of Beethoven for five years already, waiting for a husband … just like her …

No, not like her …

They doused peroxide on her.

There were so many forks and spoons, and she found the blade of a knife. Precisely the blade of the knife she needed to find… “William Tell is lovely!”

“Yes, William Tell is lovely!”

Of course Annie is thinking about the young man who might show up there today. Annie is an ignorant girl, who can barely sign her name. But even she can feel the music in her head.

Oh, May understands what Annie is thinking! But after all, that limp had been of some use to her. It had certainly sharpened that mind of hers and put it through its paces …

“William Tell is really lovely!”

May looks at the text of the program for William Tell and thinks about how much more lovely it would be to sit in a field somewhere with a faithful dog and have a good cry about something.

How many forks and spoons there were, how many forks and spoons, and then the blade of a knife …

That dog should lie quietly in the field and not speak any fine words of consolation over the fact that she limps a little.

They doused her with peroxide …

And let the earth be calm and quiet, and let its grass grow tall and soft so she can cover her bare feet in it, the foot that limps a little, and cry softly.

Waldman approaches.

“Oh, how interesting you are today, the devil’ll get you for it!”

And she smiles coldly, but her eyes, embarrassed by their own happiness, look to the side. They look to the side and defend themselves to everything they find: “We are not responsible. We didn’t come here because we wanted something. We don’t want anything, we don’t want anything … We just want to go cry quietly in a corner. No, we don’t want to laugh …”

Waldman regards her with the look of one who has just read The Ego and Its Own and Zarathustra. It is a forceful, “compelling” look.

To Annie he also pays a compliment and Annie smiles. Then he returns back to those girls.

And the music scolds, rises into the air and threatens, gnashing its teeth and suppressing its fury.

But from time to time a quiet voice, a sob, breaks through: “Only a little cut in my finger, only a little cut … But I’m not crying, I’m not crying … William Tell … William Tell …”