Love and Exile by Isaac Bashevis Singer

Author:Isaac Bashevis Singer
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780241350423
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2018-01-30T16:00:00+00:00

3

When Sabina heard what I had done, she said that I wasn’t merely deranged but also suicidal. The most important thing for a young writer was to have a clear head, not to have to constantly fret about money. Well, and what would I do with two rooms? I didn’t have any possessions outside of my few books and manuscripts. I had nothing to move out and nothing to move in. The whole thing sounded like a bad joke. Sabina was ready to give me back the few zlotys I had given her as a deposit, but I wouldn’t hear of it. My only fear was that my brother shouldn’t find out what I was doing. He would have scolded me like a father. He would tell his fellow writers and they would have something to laugh at. Well, but I had already had two residences when Gina was still living in Warsaw. It seemed that my type of conspiracy required two addresses.

I awaited a miracle and a miracle came. I walked into the Writers’ Club and the woman at the door told me that the editor of the afternoon paper, Radio, had telephoned me. He had left a number where I was supposed to call him right back. Had my brother again tried to get me a job? No, this time it wasn’t my brother but someone else who had told the editor of Radio that I had displayed a talent for writing. He had also mentioned that I could translate from the German. The Radio, like the other Yiddish newspapers, printed suspense novels. The editor had just acquired an exciting novel from Germany, where it had enjoyed a huge success. The problem was, however, that the Yiddish reader wouldn’t accept a novel with a locale as alien as Berlin with its strange-sounding streets. The novel didn’t have to be merely translated but adapted in such a way that the action was shifted to Warsaw and the heroes and heroines became familiar Jewish men and women.

On the telephone the editor proposed this revision to me. He told me to come to his office and I didn’t walk but ran. I’ve forgotten his name, but his image is fixed in my mind—short, stout, with a round face, ruddy cheeks, and amiable, half-sleepy eyes. He was a favorite of the newspaper’s owner, perhaps a relative of the owner.

He smiled at me with the geniality of one who wants to grant a favor and rid himself of a burden at the same time. He took a thick German book out of a drawer. It appeared to be a thousand pages long.

He handed it to me and said: “Glance through it!”

I read the first page and asked: “Will my name have to be used?”

“No names.”

“Oh, this is a stroke of luck for me!” I gushed, knowing the whole while that it is poor business to show how eager you are for a job. I came from a house which knew of no diplomacy.

The editor said: “We’ll give you sixty zlotys a week.

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