Read Online The Last Demon by Isaac Bashevis Singer - Free Book Online

escaped to Russia, but I’m a victim of the Nazis just the same. Besides, they don’t know my biography so exactly. I could get a pension plus a few thousand dollars, but my dislocated disc is no good for the purpose because I got it later – after the camps. This lawyer says my only chance is to convince them that I am ruined psychically. It’s the bitter truth, but how can you prove it? The German doctors, the neurologists, the psychiatrists require proof. Everything has to be according to the textbooks – just so and no different. The lawyer wants me to play insane. Naturally, he gets twenty percent of the reparation money – maybe more. Why he needs so much money I don’t understand. He’s already in his seventies, an old bachelor. He tried to make love to me and whatnot. He’s half meshugga himself. But how can I play insane when actually I
am
insane? The whole thing revolts me
and I’m afraid it will really drive me crazy. I hate swindle. But this shyster pursues me. I don’t sleep. When the alarm rings in the morning, I wake up as shattered as I used to be in Russia when I had to walk to the forest and saw logs at four in the morning. Naturally, I take sleeping pills – if I didn’t, I couldn’t sleep at all. That is more or less the situation.’
    ‘Why don’t you get married? You are still a good-looking woman.’
    ‘Well, the old question – there is nobody. It’s too late. If you knew how I felt, you wouldn’t ask such a question.’
IV
    A few weeks passed. Snow had been falling. After the snow came rain, then frost. I stood at my window and looked out at Broadway. The passers-by half walked, half slipped. Cars moved slowly. The sky above the roofs shone violet, without a moon, without stars, and even though it was eight o’clock in the evening the light and the emptiness reminded me of dawn. The stores were deserted. For a moment, I had the feeling I was in Warsaw. The telephone rang and I rushed to answer it as I did ten, twenty, thirty years ago – still expecting the
good tidings that a telephone call was about to bring me. I said hello, but there was no answer and I was seized by the fear that some evil power was trying to keep back the good news at the last minute. Then I heard a stammering. A woman’s voice muttered my name.
    ‘Yes, it is I.’
    ‘Excuse me for disturbing you. My name is Esther. We met a few weeks ago in the cafeteria – ’
    ‘Esther!’ I exclaimed.
    ‘I don’t know how I got the courage to phone you. I need to talk to you about something. Naturally, if you have the time and – please forgive my presumption.’
    ‘No presumption. Would you like to come to my apartment?’
    ‘If I will not be interrupting. It’s difficult to talk in the cafeteria. It’s noisy and there are eavesdroppers. What I want to tell you is a secret I wouldn’t trust to anyone else.’
    ‘Please, come up.’
    I gave Esther directions. Then I tried to make order in my apartment, but I soon realized this was impossible. Letters, manuscripts lay around on tables and chairs. In the corners books and magazines were piled high. I opened the closets and threw inside whatever was under my hand: jackets, pants, shirts, shoes, slippers.
I picked up an envelope and to my amazement saw that it had never been opened. I tore it open and found a check. ‘What’s the matter with me – have I lost my mind?’ I said out loud. I tried to read the letter that came with the check, but I had misplaced my glasses; my fountain pen was gone, too. Well – and where were my keys? I heard a bell ring and I didn’t know whether it was the door or the telephone. I opened the door and saw Esther. It must have been snowing again, because her hat and the shoulders of her coat were trimmed with white. I asked her in, and my neighbor, the divorcée, who spied on me openly with no shame – and, God knows, with no sense of purpose – opened her door and stared at my guest.
    Esther removed her boots and I took