Joseph quickly made friends with a boy from Prague, who like him came here fleeing the severe figure of Mars. His name is Moses, but he tells people to call him Leopold. He has not been baptized, and in the beginning he still recites his Jewish prayers, but soon gives that up. It is with him that Joseph spends the most time, and it is a good thing—he has someone in whom to confide his ever-stronger sense of the absurdity of this city, country, even the big river that observes their lazy life here with indifference.
Yet Joseph enjoys a special status, which he figures is not only because he is a distant relative of the beautiful woman, but also thanks to his uncle. Several times he is invited to the table where she sits with her brothers. They ask him questions about his family—the woman knows his aunts well. She asks him about the clock in his grandmother’s living room, whether it’s still running. This emboldens Joseph at the table. He tells them anecdotes about Brünn, mentions merchants, wineries, and confectionaries, though in fact he has very few of these recollections, he rarely went to see his grandmother. One day, tears come to the woman’s eyes, and she asks him for a handkerchief. Her dog looks at him with an inhuman calm, yet suspiciously. When, however, he is left alone with her, he loses all his confidence. It seems to him that a particular kind of goodness flows from this lady, mixed with an indefinite sadness, so that he comes back from seeing her with a muddle in his mind, defenseless.
Moses-Leopold is quite a bit more critical.
“This is all one big make-believe,” he says. “Look, nothing is real here, it’s like everyone’s acting out a play.”
They gaze down at the carriage readied to go. The horses have great plumes on their heads. On either side of the carriage, boys in motley uniforms line up; they will run alongside it. Moses is right.
“And these elders, they’re just funny, they repeat the same things over and over, and when you try and actually find something out, they hide behind some secret. Those wise faces of theirs . . .”
Moses imitates their faces and gestures. He squints, lifts up his head, and recites some nonsense blends of words. Joseph bursts out laughing. He, too, has the ever-increasing suspicion that they have wound up in a great theater that extends all across the city, where everyone plays the role in which they have been cast, yet without knowing the contents of the play they are performing, or its significance, or its end. The drills, boring and tiring, are like practice for a ball: they form two rows, which are then supposed to connect with each other, then separate, like in some sort of contredanse. He gets lucky in a way that Moses does not—he is chosen by the general for horse-riding lessons. And this is the sole concrete and useful thing he learns in Offenbach.
Of women soaking their legs
Eva had to consent long ago to marry off Anusia Paw?owska. Despite the fact that she has a husband and children in Warsaw, Anusia still comes every year to Offenbach. She did not go far to marry—her husband is her cousin Paw?owski, she didn’t even have to change her last name. Her husband is an officer; he is often away from home. Now Anusia Paw?owska has come with her daughter, Paulinka, who will stay with the Lady through the lovely winter in Offenbach, fortunately no longer in the castle, which it has not been possible to maintain, but rather in a solid house on the main street. The Czerniawskis purchased it under their name, to help Eva give her creditors the slip.
Paulinka has gone with the maid into town, while they, the older women, have arranged a soak for their legs. The bones of Eva’s big toe have swollen, and it hurts her a great deal. When Anusia takes off her white stockings, Eva sees her friend suffers from the same affliction. Healing salts have been dissolved in the warm water. Their tucked skirts reveal their legs; Eva’s are all red from varicose veins. On the little table next to them the ladies have put a pitcher of coffee and a saucer with little wafer cookies. Eva especially likes the ones with pistachio filling. They are wondering how many children Jacob might have had, and who they could be. Eva is actually happy that she might have all those brothers and sisters, which would mean she has all kinds of great-nephews and -nieces in Warsaw, in Moravia, in Wallachia. Perhaps one of the little Kaplińskis, whom Jacob baptized with such emotion not long before his death. Remember, Anusia? Remember? Or Magda Jezierzańska? Remember? Or Ludwiczek Wo?owski? He always looked like him. Or Basia Szymanowska? Certainly, Janek Zwierzchowski.
And suddenly Anusia asks:
“Or me?”
Eva looks at her kindheartedly and suddenly pats her hair, as if consoling her.
“Maybe you, too. I don’t know.”
“Either way, we’re sisters.”
They embrace over their basins of water. Then Eva asks:
“What was your mother like?”
Anusia ponders this, putting her hands under her head.
“She was good and clever. She had an instinct for business. She was so involved in everything, until the end. My father would never have made it without her. The way she got the shop going, and brought up my brothers. And now we have that shop.”
“She was called Pesel, wasn’t she? My father spoke of her that way: Pesel.”
“I know.”
“What’s it like being married, Mrs. Paw?owska?” Eva asks her later, when they are wiping off their legs with soft towels.
“Good. I married too late. I got too attached to you.”
“You abandoned me,” says Eva, as if teasing.
“Well, what can a woman do if she doesn’t marry well?”
Eva ponders this. Then she bends down and rubs her swollen bones.
“She could become a saint. You could have stayed with me.”
“I’m here now.”
Eva leans back, rests her head on the chair, and shuts her eyes.
“But you will leave,” she says, and with some difficulty she leans over to pull on her stockings. “I’ll stay here alone with my brother who is a drunk and my other brother who is a libertine.”
“Wait, I’ll help you,” says Anusia, and she leans in over Eva’s stockings.
“I have debts everywhere, I’m not allowed to leave the city. The Czerniawskis have dropped everything and gone off to Bucharest, or Budapest—who knows. They abandoned me to deal with it on my own. All these people I have around me now are total strangers.”
Anusia manages to pull Eva’s stocking onto her leg. She knows what Eva’s talking about. She has seen posters hung around the streets of Offenbach informing everyone that the Frank siblings promised to pay off all their debts to the local craftsmen and merchants, and that with this goal the younger Baron Frank is heading to Petersburg for money.
“Why to Petersburg?” asks Anusia.