Moshe Mendelssohn Falls In Love
Moshe Mendelssohn was not a handsome man. In fact, he was the ugliest little man any woman could ever meet, as far as he was concerned. He had a wart on his nose and a hump on his back, and he was certain that no woman would ever want him. But what does any man know about what women really want? Nothing, my friend! Nothing.
And Moshe Mendelssohn longed for Signe Larsson. Signe Larsson, whose heart no man could touch – not with flowers, not with heroics, not with poetry. She was as tall as he was short, as moody as he was constant and as aloof as he was friendly. So, Signe Larsson and Moshe Mendelssohn did not look to be a likely match!
Yet, never was there a day, when she marched by his Jeweler’s and Watchmaker’s shop, that heart-hungry Moshe did not watch her all the way from one end of the long window to the other. Sometimes, she would stop to admire the watches and necklaces and rings in the jewelry case, and Moshe, in turn, would shyly hide behind his worktable and lift the lid of his toolbox so that Signe could not see his face. He was so certain that she would not like him watching her, that his face grew red and he pressed his hands to his cheeks, ashamed.
One day, in spite of his fears, when she passed by, he got up and rushed out of the shop and followed her halfway down the street until she suddenly turned and almost saw him, just after he ducked behind a rain barrel (which was large enough to hide him easily). Almost, he slipped and nearly went down, but he caught himself against the rain barrel. Unfortunately, when he put his hand on it, he cut himself against the sharp edge of the banding and a big drop of blood swelled from the heel of his thumb. Quick-as-a-snake, he whipped out his handkerchief and pressed it against the wound, but this motion caught the attention of Signe Larsson, and she flew like a butterfly down the boardwalk.
“Mister Mendelssohn! Mister Mendelssohn! Oh my, oh my! What has happened to you?” she cried.
But Moshe Mendelssohn, terrified by this sudden and close attention from the object of his long desiring, turned and fled.
Pounding down the boardwalk, breaths heaving in and out – Moshe had scarce run, ever, in his life – he reached the door of the jewelry shop at last, yanked it open, and shut himself firmly in, twisting the knobs that engaged the seven locks two-at-a-time. What he did not see, was Signe Larsson, behind him, waving in consternation. Motherly instincts aroused, she was determined to see to this strange little man who had scuttled from her presence like a bug, and make certain that he was all right. Often, she had seen him, watching her when she stopped to examine the beautiful things that lay in the velvet cases just inside his long window. She was sure that he did not know that she had noticed his shy observation of her, and she now realized, if she disclosed the fact of it, he would only be all the more embarrassed.
Embarrassed, he was! His heart was hammering, the veins in his head were pulsing, and he felt like mushrooms were growing in his stomach.
“Moshe, you fool!” he shouted, bringing his fist down on his worktable and scattering watch parts everywhere. The next moment, he was biting the back of his hand. The watch he had been working on was an expensive German watch owned by none other than Magnus Larsson, doting father of Signe. Quick-as-a-snake, he got down on all fours to look for the wheels and gears and levers and hoped he could find them all. If only ONE piece was missing, the watch would not work!
“UGLY! YOU’RE UGLY!” he cried, hunting for the mainspring and the clock face and not finding either.
“WHY OH WHY couldn’t you leave her alone, Moshe!?” Now, she would never come to his shop again. It suited him just as well. The last time she had come in, bringing her father’s watch, he had been frozen with fright and could not speak a word, except to keep nodding while she talked and to whisper at the end in a breathless rattle, ‘th-thank you, Miss Larsson’. Losing this lovely customer suited his fearful side just as well, but it hurt him, too. Now, she would not only never come into his shop again, “but she will never walk by again, I will never see her anymore,” he mourned. AHA! He reached into the dust where the table met the wall and picked up the mainspring. This pleased him. If only he could find all the parts, he could get the watch working again. And then again, if he couldn’t, he could order new ones from Germany – Fuffendampfer was the name of the manufacturer. With today’s steamers, and no more wars on the horizon, the parts would likely arrive in a month – and THERE was the clock face! Rising triumphantly from the floor, a new man, now that he was focused on his work, again, he froze when he heard a knock at the front door. Filled with dread, he backed toward the door, hoping no-one had seen him. The gaslights in the shop were all out, and he was wearing black trousers and a dark brown weskit. Then, the knock came again.
“Oh, WELL, then!” he grumped.
There was nothing for it. Now, he had to answer the door. He laid the mainspring and the clock face on his handkerchief, turned, and then startled. It was Signe Larsson, standing there in the long window, and she looked unhappy!
In fact, Signe Larsson was concerned. In spite of her initial feelings of repulsion, she had begun to grow a feeling of fondness inside her chest for the mole-like little man who owned the Jeweler’s and Watchmaker’s shop. She found, she liked him, him, with his quiet manner and his averted eyes – always serious, always dutiful.
“He’s so ugly, he is beautiful!” she had said to herself, once.
His shop had endured through the three years of the pox. Signe had caught it, and been scarred across her back and chest, but she was happy that no-one seemed to notice the tiny scar at the very end of her nose, the scar that seemed to hang there like a jewel, wanting to be looked at.
I am ugly now, she thought. Why can no-one see that, she wondered, for all the young men, Jens Carlson and Arthur Mendelssohn, Moshe’s distant cousin, and even John Sharp, the City Councilman’s son, all noticed her still and still asked her the time of day. She did not mind being ugly; to her, it was a relief. There had always been at least three suitors a week and now, there were only two. But suitors were neither here nor there. She was determined to see to Mister Mendelssohn. All he needed to do, was to let her in!
Now, what Signe Larsson did not know was, being a man over forty, and a Hasidic Jew, Moshe Mendelssohn had engaged in the study and practice of Kabbalah, and – through diligence and through grace – had acquired certain mystic powers. Daily, Moshe meditated upon the Divine Feminine Presence, the Holy Shekhinah. Indeed, he saw in Signe Larsson, the outer manifestation of his Shekinah. Without her, he felt incomplete, as the mystic texts stated he would. He felt as if something irreplaceable was missing. Sometimes, in his dreams, he would see her outlined in brilliant white light. When he woke, there would be tears upon his face, but he could not remember the rest of his dream, only her image.
Pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, went the door, shaking on its hinges and rattling all Moshe’s seven locks. Frozen in horror, Moshe stood with the forgotten watch parts gleaming behind him on his handkerchief. What to do? Answer the door, and he would most certainly have to speak to her then. Ignore her, and he might alienate her forever, and all his dreams of asking her to stand and represent his Shekhinah would be shattered like cheap mirror glass. But which was worse?
“Indeed, which is worse?” he breathed. Finally, in a fit of indecision, he chose to take both courses at once: the first one, to let her in, and the second one, to go and hide. Inching up to the door on all fours, he stretched up and undid all the locks, and then, he scrambled under his worktable, hiding behind the heavy drape which covered the front of it and screened all his boxes and piles and paraphernalia from the probing eyes of nit-picky customers.
Moshe reached the drape and hid behind it, just in time! Right at the very moment that he pulled his left foot in, a very distressed Signe Larsson burst into the shop, chest heaving and all out of breath.
“Mister Mendelssohn! Mister Mendelssohn!” she called, “surely, you must be here! Surely you must have come after me to tell me my father’s watch was ready!”
She paused. When Moshe Mendelssohn made no answer, she said, briskly, “WELL! Be as shy as you like, but you must deliver the watch this Sunday, at four! On my father’s behalf, I pray you, do not be late!” Then, smiling all around the shop, certain that the little man was there, she swept out the door like a highfalutin lady, clasping her bag tightly under one arm. As she went, a single, loose golden hair floated down and landed neatly on the green velvet of his jewelry case, where it glittered like a magic thread, spun from sunlight and diamonds.
Heart sinking into his shoes, through the opening at the end of the drape, Moshe watched her go.
“Moshe, you toad! Why do you always hide? WHY didn’t you stand up and SAY something? Ahh,” he sighed. “For the same reason as always, right? You didn’t know what to say!” He stood slowly, his long, curled sideburns – ‘payots’, they are called – swinging out and back as he did so, and suddenly realized, he was hungry.
Time for a bit of bread with wine, he thought. He looked up, and noticed that it was dark in the shop; a cloud of rain, like the cloud of despair he felt, had blocked the sun and made it hard to see, in spite of the huge plate glass window that opened onto the main room and usually let in the daylight.
“Hm,” he said to himself, and then snapped his fingers and all the gaslights in the shop came on.
“Time to meditate on Hashem,” he said, carefully saying the word for God which he and the other Hasidim in Poland, Montana used around gentiles – just in case Signe Larsson was near enough to hear, he told himself.
“If HE doesn’t have the answer, then, who does?”
Pulling open the door that led to his study, where lay all kinds of paraphernalia and maps and measuring tools – neatly ordered – Moshe went in, dodged his way around the gigantic worktable, and headed for the bread box. From it, he took a piece of unleavened bread, bowed three times before the Divine Presence, and said, “Blessed art Thou, O LORD our God, King of the Universe, Who bringeth forth bread from the Earth!” Then, he broke the bread in half, set it down on a silver plate which he kept on his worktable for this purpose, and took a jar of wine down from a shelf. Filling his silver goblet, he muttered to himself, “thus O YHVH! I recapture a spark, which fell from the Holy Sefirot, when the Vessels broke! I do this, by putting your gifts of bread and wine to good use!” He winked at the glowing golden sphere of Light which had suddenly appeared six feet above the worktable, when he said the Word, ‘YHVH!’ This Word, reader, is recognized and pronounced by the Jews, only in the Presence of other believers, or when one is alone, that the Holy Names of God may not be taken by violence, and misused by those who do not properly Revere them.
In joyful silence, Moshe ate his snack, dipping his bread into the wine, for it had grown hard and crackly in the bread box. Brushing the crumbs from his chin – Moshe shaved, to please his customers, who thought beards belonged only on wild men – he smiled as he first made the wine taste like a rich port, then a crisp chardonnay, then like a blushing rosé. Like an indulgent schoolmaster, he allowed himself these little tricks, these little pleasures.
“An ugly man needs a few,” he said, richly enjoying himself as he made the unleavened bread taste like roast pheasant with mint jelly.
TING, rang the shop’s door-bell.
A customer, he thought, snapping his fingers, and making YHVH’s ball of Light disappear before anyone could come into the back room and see it.
Opening the door carefully, just to be certain that it was not Signe Larsson, again. It was not. It was John Sharp, looking down into Moshe’s jewelry case at the front of the shop and poking his long nose into it, as if to stir the contents.
John Sharp! Moshe had decided, the man looked like a weasel, but women seemed to like him! He was handsome, Moshe supposed, in an angular sort of way. When Moshe came toward him, he snapped to attention, just like a soldier, and craned his sharp face way around to see the little watchmaker stop, fold his hands together, fingers interwoven, thumbs lightly tapping on each other.
“I saw her come in here, little fellow!” said John, sharply. “Where have you hidden her? Where have you secluded my bride-to-be!?”
Before Moshe could protest, he found a little derringer pointed at his nose.
“Everyone saw her come in, NOBODY SAW HER COME OUT! Now come on, little man!” John Sharp pushed his derringer up against the side of Moshe’s prodigious, warty nose.
“Give her here, or I’ll shorten your schnozz of a nose!” Then, he cackled to himself, just as if he had made some great joke, simply by using the Yiddish word, God alone knows how he learned it!
“Mister Sharp,” said Mister Mendelssohn, testily, snapping his fingers at his side. The derringer fell from John Sharp’s suddenly nerveless fingers.
“I believe I should call the Sheriff, if I felt any need!”
John Sharp swallowed, as he found himself suddenly floating, five inches above the floor and unable to move at all.
“If you ever come into my shop again – or if I hear that you have told anyone of our brief meeting today – I will turn you into a mushroom! You can count on it!”
Waving his hand in dismissal, Moshe let the man down, none too gently. His bones jarred as his feet hit the floor and his jaws snapped closed, causing him to bite his tongue. Looking about for his derringer, he made, as if, to go.
“Oh no!” said Moshe, picking up the derringer, closing his hand and opening it again. There, on his palm, sat a tiny toad.
“A toad for a toad,” said the little Kabbalist, and he dropped the toad into John Sharp’s weskit pocket. With a cry of either disgust or fear, Moshe could not tell which, John Sharp turned swiftly, and left the shop, banging the door open behind him. Carefully, Moshe closed it, and remarked with some regret, that the knob had bruised the back of his carved jewelry-case.
“Ah, well!” he said, passing his hand over it and smoothing it out again.
“Time to fix Magnus’s watch!” he declared, brightly, affecting a cheerfulness he did not feel. In Truth, he dreaded the four o’ clock, Sunday, meeting with the old man – what was likely to happen? Would he tell poor Moshe, never to speak to his daughter again?
It took him all day to fix the watch. He blathered and dropped the parts, again and again, and once, he almost scratched the crystal.
Today was Friday. He was sure he would die of a heart attack before Sunday came – but what if the old man came early? Or worse, what if he sent Signe in his place to pick up the watch?? Moshe did not know. Pray and hope and don’t worry, he thought. But would God care what happened to Moshe Mendelssohn’s love life? Moshe didn’t think He would. No, he didn’t think He would. But he was wrong.
When Sunday dawned, bright and clear, Moshe got out of bed and blew out his shabbat candles and picked up his fancy yarmulke and put them away in a special drawer with a salamander for a lock. If anyone but him tried to open the drawer, it would be a hot experience!
He had left the candles burning all night, but as is usual with magic candles, they had not burned down. Even the wicks were uncharred. He stared in the mirror over the washbasin, baring his teeth. The mirror turned violet and started playing soft klezmer music.
“Oh, be quiet!” said Moshe, not in the mood for musical games or magical mirrors, but the mirror only turned up the volume a little and turned a blushing pink.
Moshe went out back, boiled water, filled the scrub-tub, bathed, then came back in and shaved. Fortunately, it was not a hot day, so he would not sweat – at least, not from heat! He anointed himself with lavender-water, put on his best tie – a black one, of course, and a little ruby stick pin, which he pretended was the Umim or the Thurrim, magical jewels which had adorned the breastplate of Aaron.
Then, he gave a little hop up and clicked his heels together, trying to be happy. But he was not happy, he was afraid.
For two hours, he opened and closed the case of Magnus’s watch, checking it, to make certain that it ran perfectly, that it told the time correctly, and most of all, that it was properly polished. Once, he found that he had left a little polish between the case and the knob, and he startled and almost dropped the watch. Finally, about two o’ clock, he made himself stop worrying, decided that, if he died today, it was his time anyway, and went out for his afternoon walk.
No sooner had he left the shop, going out the back door, than he found himself suddenly sprawled in the alley, his nose broken. A sharp, nasal voice declared, “quite the man with the ladies, are we, little man? WE’LL SEE ABOUT THAT” and Moshe felt the man’s foot draw back to deliver a vicious kick, then “--HEY!”
Just as suddenly, there were sounds of a scuffle, grunts and the sounds of blows landing.
“Yoo should not be pickin’ on little Mendelssohn!” cried a voice – it was big Jens Carlson! – “try on somebody yoor own size!”
There were the sounds of a series of blows again, accompanied by cries and sobs from the sharp, nasal-voiced one, and finally, the sound of running footsteps, departing. Realizing he was safe now, Moshe rolled over, holding his nose, and looked up into the handsome face of the big Swede, who was now sporting a black eye.
“Loooks like neither one of us got away clean!” he said, extended a hand, and helped Moshe Mendelssohn up.
“Ouch!” said Moshe, “he broke by dose!”
Jens Carlson peered at Moshe’s nose through his good eye, tapped on it with a swollen finger, and pronounced it “broken”.
“Leave id alode!” cried Moshe, backing away, and almost tripping over his own back steps “id feels fuddy!”
“Now, yoo know, yoo gotta FIX that, Mister Mendelssohn,” cautioned Jens, “if yoo leave it like that, it’s gonna never heal up right!” and he grabbed Moshe by the neck with one hammy hand, and gave Moshe’s poor nose a twist and a pull. With a ‘pop!’ the bone slid back into place and the ‘fuddy’ feeling disappeared. Moshe thought, wryly, that he could have fixed his own nose with a prayer to the Holy Shekinah, but he liked the big Swede, and appreciated the help he had given him.
“Thank you, thank you! May the hairs of your beard, never fall out!” said Moshe (by which he meant, ‘may you live a long and prosperous life,’ but magicians are always saying things in their own secret language and, as you can see, conversation was no exception). Jens felt a wave of warmth sweep down over him. When he got home, he would find his pockets full of silver, and when he looked into the mirror to ‘fix’ his hurt eye, he would find never a bruise at all.
“Forget!” whispered Moshe, and the big man turned, and walked off, just as if the little magician had never been there.
“Ouch!” said the little jeweler, again, holding his nose, now set, but still swelling. Quietly, he said a prayer to the Holy Shekinah, his nose glowed white, then violet, then green, and then he was healed. He stared down the alley after the departing Swede, briefly wondered who it was that had attacked him (he suspected John Sharp), shrugged a little shrug that said, ‘what does that matter?’ and walked up the alleyway in the opposite direction.
It was several minutes before he arrived, mopping his forehead, and hoping he had used enough of the lavender water, and found, he had come without the watch!
“Oh, PHOO!” he said, as he snapped his fingers, and magicked the watch into his weskit pocket. Then, getting set, reminding himself that he was about to enter a business meeting, he quickly ran a comb through his thick hair, strode up the steps to the door, and knocked. To his great joy and horror, it was Signe Larsson who answered the door. Sure that he had blanched as pale as a boiled potato, Moshe nearly swallowed his tongue, when he tried to respond after she told him that Magnus was not at home.
“It will be… just you and me!” she said. “How cozy!” and then she smiled the bright, happy smile that always made his heart melt, and pulled him in through the doorway by his right hand before he could say anything at all.
Minutes later, after he had proudly laid the beautiful golden watch of Magnus Larsson out on a linen napkin before her, he found himself seated in the dining room, drinking tea and eating cherries.
“Here!” she said, gaily, plopping down a silver bowl at his elbow, “for the pits!”
Moshe ate and ate, and answered her questions while she watched him with a friendly smile that only made his heart beat faster. Still, he began to relax, and soon, he realized that they had been talking, intimately, for quite some time. He felt a shiver, as he suddenly understood, he had no idea what he had been saying!
“And so!” she chirruped, “we will go down by the river, tomorrow evening! I will bring a picnic lunch, and you will bring a bottle of chablis, it’s the best to go with fish!
“But,” Moshe said.
“Not at all!” Signe sang, “I am sure you can manage it!” She winked. “You are a man of many talents!”
Surprised, Moshe realized, that she meant his magic.
“It’s true!” he said, “it’s absolutely true!” and just to prove himself an honest man, he snapped his fingers, and suddenly he, and she, and the entire dining room table and chairs, were outside hanging over the street. Below, John Sharp and Melinda Johnson (John Sharp always had one lady or another on his arm, even though he thought Signe Larsson was promised to him) peered up at them and wondered who could do such a thing and what was the meaning of this and so on. Signe hung onto her chair at first, but then, once she gained confidence that Moshe would not let her fall, she began to laugh, a cheerful, musical sound that echoed down the long street. Finally, her laughter lapsed into a low chuckle, and Moshe magicked them back into the dining room again. Then, to his great astonishment, she stood up, came around the table, and sat in his lap.
“Oooh, that old trick!” she said, giving him a velvety wink with her long lashes, “I can go you one better!” and she snapped her fingers, and suddenly, the chair, with her and Moshe in it, was flying through the air at great speed.
“Make it stop!” Moshe cried.
“O, very WELL!” she sang, and the chair swooped up to the top of a stone pinnacle far, far out on the prairie.
“OO!” Moshe screeched, “TOO HIGH!”
“Higher?” she asked, and the chair shot straight up into the sky. Soon, the air began to thin, and Moshe began to find it difficult to breathe.
“A------” he muttered, saying a Sacred Word, and they were instantly back in the dining room.
“Now you see why I like you,” she said, kissing his blushing cheek, “because we are the same, you and I. We can understand each other!”
“I… I…” Moshe stuttered.
“We have just had a beautiful conversation about it,” she said. “I feel closer to you, than to any being on earth!”
With a shock, Moshe remembered all that they had talked about, the fiery passages that led to the Sun of Even Pressure in the Center of the Earth, the magic ring, which King Solomon had possessed, and how the planets revolved around the Sun, not the Sun around the Earth. What he did not know was, his mind had been so white with fear from being in the presence of Signe Larsson, that it had frozen. This had freed his Soul, which was not afraid, and so they had had a very deep conversation. All the subjects they had touched upon, including love and marriage, came flooding back to him, and he realized that he had been there with her, alone, for the entire afternoon into the evening.
“And I, to you,” he answered, shyly, kissing her back, this time on the mouth. She responded, putting her arms around his neck.
It was in this condition that Magnus Larsson, returned from his afternoon chess, which had gone long, found them sitting in his best dining-room. Surprised, but not displeased (Magnus was a magnanimous man), he waited a moment, then cleared his throat.
“Jens Carlson is here!” Magnus said, his voice soft as silk, but with an edge of iron in it.
“Father!” Signe gasped.
“Tell Jens Carlson that he is too late!” smiled Moshe, and he kissed her again.
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