Angel Levine

As a cadet at the United States Air Force Academy in the late ‘60’s, I occasionally found myself in the theater at Arnold Hall, the cadet social center, not necessarily to watch a film, but just to escape the madness of a particular day or week.  One afternoon, I went to the theater and the screen opened to a film called “The Fixer.”  It grabbed me from the beginning and held me attentively captive for over two hours.  The following summer, I found the book in our home library in Massachusetts’ Berkshire Hills.  Just a year or two earlier, it earned its author, Bernard Malamud the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.  It is as fine a tale of human redemption as any.

Forty some years later, I sat in the quiet of the Redemptorist chapel early this morning and read a remarkable short story of brotherhood in which the late Mr. Malamud held his course to show how even the most difficult circumstances can be conquered by the most unlikely of heroes.  The name of the short story that Mr. Malamud wrote in 1955, a dozen years before he wrote The Fixer is “Angel Levine.”  I suppose the fact that I fiercely believe in angels has something to do why I was so taken by this story.

I include a link here that presents the complete story.  For those of you who are apt to be skeptical of this recommendation, read on and I present the opening paragraph and the concluding words.  I hope you will take the time to read Bernard Malamud’s “Angel Levine.”

The opening paragraph …

Manischewitz, a tailor, in his fifty-first year suffered many reverses and indignities.  Previously a man of comfortable means, he overnight lost all he had when his establishment caught fire, and, because a meal container of cleaning fluid exploded, burned to the ground.  Although Manischewitz was insured, damage suits against him by two customers who had been seriously hurt in the flames deprived him of every penny he had collected.  At almost the same time, his son, of much promise, was killed in the war, and his daughter, without a word of warning, married a worthless lout and disappeared with him, as if off the face of the earth.  Thereafter Manischewitz became the victim of incessant excruciating backaches that knifed him over in pain, and he found himself unable to work even as a presser — the only job available to him — for more than an hour or two daily, because after that the pain from standing became maddening.  His Leah, a good wife and mother, who had taken in washing, began before his eyes to waste away.  Suffering marked shortness of breath, she at last became seriously ill and took to her bed.  The doctor a former customer of Manischewitz, who out of pity treated them, at first had difficulty diagnosing her ailment but later put it down as hardening of the arteries, at an advanced stage.  He took Manischewitz aside, prescribed complete rest for her, and in whispers gave him to know there was little hope…

The final words …

 Levine rose, his nostrils flaring.

 "Anythin’ else yo’ got to say?"

 Manischewitz’s tongue was in torment.

 "Speak now, or fo’ever hold yo’ peace."

 Tears blinded the tailor’s eyes.  Was ever man so tried?  Should he say he believed a half-drunken Negro to be an angel?

 The silence turned to stone.

 Manischewitz was recalling scenes of his youth, as a wheel in his mind whirred:  believe, do not, yes, no, yes, no.  The pointer pointed to yes, to between yes and no, to no, no it was yes.  He sighed.  One had still to make a choice.

 "I believe you are also an angel—from God." He said it simply but in a broken voice.  Yet he thought, If you said it, it was said.  If you believed it, you must say it.  If you believed, you believed.

 The hush broke.  Everybody talked but the music commenced and they went on dancing.  Bella, grown bored, picked up the cards and dealt herself a hand.

 Levine burst into tears.

 "How you have humiliated me."

 Manischewitz sincerely apologized.

 "Wait’ll I freshen up."  Levine went to the men’s room and returned in his old clothes.

 No one said goodbye as they left.

 They rode to the flat via subway.  As they walked up the stairs, Manischewitz pointed with his cane to his door.

 "That’s all been taken care of," Levine said.  "You best go in now."

 Disappointed that it was all over, yet torn by curiosity, Manischewitz followed the angel up four flights of stairs to the roof.  When he got there, the door was padlocked.

 Luckily, he could see through a small broken window.  He heard a strange noise, as though a vibration of wings, and when he strained for a wider view, could have sworn he saw a dark figure borne aloft on strong-pinioned, magnificent black wings.  A feather drifted down.  Manischewitz gasped as it turned white, but it was only snowing.  He rushed downstairs.  In the flat, Leah wielded a dust mop under the bed and upon the cobwebs on the wall.

 "A wonderful thing, Leyka," Manischewitz said.  "There are Jews everywhere."