The Washwoman

Isaac Bashevis Singer

Our home had little contact with Laundering was not easy in those days.
Gentiles. The only Gentile in the The old woman had no faucet where she
building was the janitor. Fridays he lived but had to bring in the water from a
would come for a tip, his “Friday pump. For the linens to come out so
money.” He remained standing at the clean, they had to be scrubbed
door, took off his hat, and my mother thoroughly in a washtub, rinsed with
gave him six groschen. washing soda, soaked, boiled in an
enormous pot, starched, then ironed.
Besides the janitor there were also the Every piece was handled ten times or
Gentile washwomen who came to the more. And the drying! It could not be
house to fetch our laundry. My story is done outside because thieves would steal
about one of these. the laundry. The wrung-out wash had to
be carried up to the attic and hung on
She was a small woman, old and clotheslines. In the winter it would
wrinkled. When she started washing for become as brittle as glass and almost
us, she was already past seventy. Most break when touched. And there was
Jewish women of her age were sickly, always a to-do with other housewives
weak, broken in body. All the old and washwomen who wanted the attic
women in our street had bent backs and clotheslines for their own use. Only God
leaned on sticks when they walked. But knows all the old woman had to endure
this washwoman, small and thin as she each time she did a wash!
was, possessed a strength that came from
generations of peasant forebears. Mother She could have begged at the church
would count out to her a bundle of door or entered a home for the penniless
laundry that had accumulated over and aged. But there was in her a certain
several weeks. She would lift the pride and love of labor with which many
unwieldy pack, load it on her narrow Gentiles have been blessed. The old
shoulders, and carry it the long way woman did not want to become a
home. She lived on Krochmalna Street burden, and so she bore her burden.
too, but at the other end, near the Wola
section. It must have been a walk of an My mother spoke a little Polish, and the
hour and a half. old woman would talk with her about
many things. She was especially fond of
She would bring the laundry back about me and used to say I looked like Jesus.
two weeks later. My mother had never She repeated this every time she came,
been so pleased with any washwoman. and Mother would frown and whisper to
Every piece of linen sparkled like herself, her lips barely moving, “May
polished silver. Every piece was neatly her words be scattered in the
ironed. Yet she charged no more than the wilderness.”
others. She was a real find. Mother
always had her money ready, because it The woman had a son who was rich. I no
was too far for the old woman to come a longer remember what sort of business
second time. he had. He was ashamed of his mother,
the washwoman, and never came to see also fed us rock candy against coughs,
her. Nor did he ever give her a groschen. and from time to time she would take us
The old woman told this without rancor. to be blessed against the evil eye. This
One day the son was married. It seemed did not prevent her from studying The
that he had made a good match. The Duties of the Heart, The Book of the
wedding took place in a church. The son Covenant, and other serious philosophic
had not invited the old mother to his works.
wedding, but she went to the church and
waited at the steps to see her son lead the But to return to the washwoman. That
“young lady” to the altar. winter was a harsh one. The streets were
in the grip of a bitter cold. No matter
The story of the faithless son left a deep how much we heated our stove, the
impression on my mother. She talked windows were covered with frostwork
about it for weeks and months. It was an and decorated with icicles. The
affront not only to the old woman but to newspapers reported that people were
the entire institution of motherhood. dying of the cold. Coal became dear.
Mother would argue, “Nu, does it pay to The winter had become so severe that
make sacrifices for children? The mother parents stopped sending children to
uses up her last strength, and he does not cheder, and even the Polish schools were
even know the meaning of loyalty.” closed.

And she would drop dark hints to the On one such day the washwoman, now
effect that she was not certain of her own nearly eighty years old, came to our
children: Who knows what they would house. A good deal of laundry had
do some day? This, however, did not accumulated during the past weeks.
prevent her from dedicating her life to Mother gave her a pot of tea to warm
us. If there was any delicacy in the herself, as well as some bread. The old
house, she would put it aside for the woman sat on a kitchen chair, trembling
children and invent all sorts of excuses and shaking, and warmed her hands
and reasons why she herself did not want against the teapot. Her fingers were
to taste it. She knew charms that went gnarled from work, and perhaps from
back to ancient times, and she used arthritis too. Her fingernails were
expressions she had inherited from strangely white. These hands spoke of
generations of devoted mothers and the stubbornness of mankind, of the will
grandmothers. If one of the children to work not only as one’s strength
complained of a pain, she would say, permits but beyond the limits of one’s
“May I be your ransom and may you power. Mother counted and wrote down
outlive my bones!” Or she would say, the list: men’s undershirts, women’s
“May I be the atonement for the least of vests, long-legged drawers, bloomers,
your fingernails!” When we ate, she petticoats, shifts, featherbed covers,
used to say, “Health and marrow in your pillowcases, sheets, and the men’s
bones!” The day before the new moon fringed garments. Yes, the Gentile
she gave us a kind of candy that was said woman washed these holy garments as
to prevent parasitic worms. If one of us well.
had something in his eye, Mother would
lick the eye clean with her tongue. She
The bundle was big, bigger than usual. torn shirts and washed and mended
When the woman placed it on her them. We mourned, both for the laundry
shoulders, it covered her completely. At and for the old, toilworn woman who
first she swayed, as though she were had grown close to us through the years
about to fall under the load. But an inner she had served us so faithfully.
obstinacy seemed to call out: No, you
may not fall. A donkey may permit More than two months passed. The frost
himself to fall under his burden, but not had subsided, and then a new frost had
a human being, the crown of creation. come, a new wave of cold. One evening,
while Mother was sitting near the
It was fearful to watch the old woman kerosene lamp mending a shirt, the door
staggering out with the enormous pack, opened and a small puff of steam,
out into the frost, where the snow was followed by a gigantic bundle, entered.
dry as salt and the air was filled with Under the bundle tottered the old
dusty white whirlwinds, like goblins woman, her face as white as a linen
dancing in the cold. Would the old sheet. A few wisps of white hair
woman ever reach Wola? straggled out from beneath her shawl.
Mother uttered a half-choked cry. It was
She disappeared, and Mother sighed and as though a corpse had entered the room.
prayed for her. I ran toward the old woman and helped
her unload her pack. She was even
Usually the woman brought back the thinner now, more bent. Her face had
wash after two or, at the most, three become more gaunt, and her head shook
weeks. But three weeks passed, then four from side to side as though she were
and five, and nothing was heard of the saying no. She could not utter a clear
old woman. We remained without word, but mumbled something with her
linens. The cold had become even more sunken mouth and pale lips.
intense. The telephone wires were now
as thick as ropes. The branches of the After the old woman had recovered
trees looked like glass. So much snow somewhat, she told us that she had been
had fallen that the streets had become ill, very ill. Just what her illness was, I
uneven, and sleds were able to glide cannot remember. She had been so sick
down many streets as on the slopes of a that someone had called a doctor, and
hill. Kindhearted people lit fires in the the doctor had sent for a priest. Someone
streets for vagrants to warm themselves had informed the son, and he had
and roast potatoes in, if they had any to contributed money for a coffin and for
roast. the funeral. But the Almighty had not yet
wanted to take this pain-racked soul to
For us the washwoman’s absence was a himself. She began to feel better, she
catastrophe. We needed the laundry. We became well, and as soon as she was
did not even know the woman’s address. able to stand on her feet once more, she
It seemed certain that she had collapsed, resumed her washing. Not just ours, but
died. Mother declared she had had a the wash of several other families too.
premonition, as the old woman left our
house that last time, that we would never
see our things again. She found some old
“I could not rest easy in my bed because
of the wash,” the old woman explained.
“The wash would not let me die.”

“With the help of God you will live to be

a hundred and twenty,” said my mother,
as a benediction.

“God forbid! What good would such a

long life be? The work becomes harder
and harder . . . my strength is leaving me
. . . I do not want to be a burden on
anyone!” The old woman muttered and
crossed herself and raised her eyes
toward heaven.

Fortunately there was some money in the

house, and Mother counted out what she
owed. I had a strange feeling: The coins
in the old woman’s washed-out hands
seemed to become as worn and clean
and pious as she herself was. She blew
on the coins and tied them in a kerchief.
Then she left, promising to return in a
few weeks for a new load of wash.

But she never came back. The wash she

had returned was her last effort on this
earth. She had been driven by an
indomitable will to return the property to
its rightful owners, to fulfill the task she
had undertaken.

And now at last her body, which had

long been no more than a shard
supported only by the force of honesty
and duty, had fallen. Her soul passed
into those spheres where all holy souls
meet, regardless of the roles they played
on this earth, in whatever tongue, of
whatever creed. I cannot imagine
paradise without this Gentile
washwoman. I cannot even conceive of a
world where there is no recompense for
such effort.