Vienna Secrets

22

NAGEL’S GENERAL STORE WAS situated in a narrow alleyway that connected two roads on opposite sides of the old ghetto buildings. It was paved with yellowish flagstones-many of them cracked and loose-and the air was suffused with a pungent, penetrating dampness. The alley was so narrow, and so inauspiciously positioned, that it received direct sunlight only for a few hours a day in the summer months. For the rest of the year it existed in a perpetual twilight that intensified to become a precocious night by mid-afternoon. This gloom was relieved by a single naked gas jet, mounted on one of the walls.

The general store was sandwiched between two other shops. A secondhand book dealer’s, occupied by an old man whose moldering stock added another harmonic of decay to the musty melange that tainted the air, and a cardboard vendor’s, run by a cadaverous Pole who spoke only Yiddish.

In the window of the general store were various items intended to attract the attention of passersby. However, such light as there was passed through the grimy little panes of glass enfolded the goods in a greenish murk and made the boxes, candles, tins, string, and bottles look like the kind of detritus that collects on the bed of a slow-flowing river.

Nahum sat behind the counter, toying with the weights and his scale. He was arranging the small weights on one side, to counterbalance a large weight on the other. The scale seesawed indecisively on its fulcrum-falling neither one way nor the other. Through the ceiling came the sound of Nahum’s father coughing, a horrible bark that crackled with phlegm the color of pus. Nahum knew this because he had inspected the contents of his father’s spittoon and noticed the change. The old man’s chest problem had obviously gotten much worse. They had scraped together a little money to pay for a doctor, but all he had said was that it would be better for Hayyim if they moved out of their rooms above the shop and away from the damp alleyway. But how were they going to do that?

The stockroom-really a cupboard-was empty, and there were still some of the suppliers who hadn’t been paid. Nahum tapped the smaller weights, and watched them descend, slow to a halt, and rise up again. The shop had never made much of a profit, but now it was running at a loss.

Rebbe Barash had promised change. He had held Hayyim’s hand and promised the old man that life would be better, very soon. But if things went on like this, it would be too late.

From outside, Nahum recognized the heavy tread of hobnailed boots on the flagstones. The door flew open, and the little bell chimed. Two thickset men stepped into the shop. Their broad shoulders and lumpy features became all that Nahum could see. One had a distinctive scar that cut through his left eyebrow and continued as a white weal down his cheek. The other had the broken nose and grazed knuckles of a pugilist.

“You came only last week,” said Nahum.

“Open the cash box,” said the man with the scar.

“But we’ve hardly sold anything…”

The man swung his fist over the counter and knocked Nahum’s hat off.

“Next time it’ll be your head.”

Nahum, with trembling fingers, took the cash box from under the counter and, taking the key from his pocket, opened it up. Inside was change amounting to no more than three kronen.

“Where’s the rest? I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.”

“There isn’t any more!”

The man grabbed Nahum by the collar and pulled him over the counter. He pressed his face up close.

“Go and get it.”

“There isn’t any more!”

The man lifted Nahum off his feet and threw him against the shelves. A bottle fell off and smashed on the floor.

“Nahum… Nahum?” It was the old man.

Nahum looked up and shouted, “It’s all right, Father… It was nothing… an accident.”

“Be careful, why don’t you?” the old man croaked.

“I will, Father.”

The two men looked at each other and smirked.

“Please,” said Nahum, lowering his voice. “I beg you. He’s very ill.”

The man with the scar scooped the coins out of the cash box and put them into his pocket.

“Listen. You get us the rest of the money by next time, or we’ll give you a beating to remember. Do you understand?”

They stormed out of the shop, accompanied by the innocent tinkling of the bell. Nahum collapsed onto his stool and wiped the perspiration from his brow.