“If you want to know more, you’re going to have to earn it, boychik.”
“How—”
He placed his hand on my chest and pushed me back. It wasn’t hard enough to make me fall, only stagger. With a wicked grin, he pivoted on his heel and rushed through the open door, calling over his shoulder, “You’re going to have to catch me.”
He hadn’t changed at all. But I supposed that I hadn’t changed much either, because I took off after him, yanking down the brim of my cap to keep it from flying off in the chase. By the time I entered the corridor, he had already reached its end. I followed him through a second door and up another stairway, bursting through the rooftop hatch.
Frankie stood on the roof ledge. He tsked at the sight of me. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”
“I thought you said you had another match in an hour,” I panted. “Come on, Frankie. Get down from there. Just tell me what you know.”
Instead, he leaped. I ran to the ledge. Wood groaned in protest as he raced across a narrow board bridging this rooftop to the next. No surprise. With an illegal gambling den in the basement, even gentlemen needed to be able to make a quick getaway.
As I reached the board, I found it old and weathered. It shifted beneath my feet as I tested it. I grimaced, stumbling back onto solid ground. The street below was a ten-meter drop.
“Don’t tell me you’re scared,” Frankie teased from the other rooftop.
“Haha, go jump in the lake.”
“Rude as ever, I see. So much for being a good mensch.”
Slowly, I lowered myself onto the board. I eased across, spreading my arms to keep my balance. To think, just a year ago I would have followed him fearlessly, exhilarated and breathless each time the board groaned beneath me.
Back then, each time I had put my life on the line, it had felt like an exchange. I was putting myself in danger so that my sisters remained safe. I bled and bruised myself so that they didn’t have to. All shtuss, of course. Now, I realized that deep down it was just another way to run from my total powerlessness in the face of death.
By the time I reached the other building, my legs were quivering so violently, I had to grasp hold of the ledge to steady myself. Once both my feet were on solid ground, I took an unsteady breath. The summer breeze riffled my clothes, chilling the sweat that beaded on the nape of my neck.
“Coming?” Frankie called, leaning against the chimney.
I followed.
At the next building, there was no plank at all, only a treacherous crevice that plunged into the alley below. The roof was built with an overhang, so that a narrow gap separated the two buildings. Less than two meters. I could manage that.
Following Frankie’s example, I took a running leap. One foot caught on the edge, while the other landed in empty air. I began to tip back. Blind with panic, I spread my arms, started to fall, would have fallen if Frankie hadn’t seized a fistful of my shirt and yanked me forward. He hauled me over the edge, taking the brunt of my weight. We crashed against the rooftop in a tangle of limbs.
Kneeling over me, he smiled. His palm rested flat against my chest, hot like a brand. “Careful, boychik. You’ve lost your touch.”
My shock gave way to anger. How could I be so stupid to follow him? How could he be so damn stupid to make me do this?
I gave him a violent shove with both hands, sending him onto his ass. As I stood, I smacked dust off the seat of my pants.
He rose to his feet with a stupid grin. “No gratitude, huh?”
“Gratitude?” My lips were numb and trembling. I could hardly speak. “You nearly got us both killed!”
“I didn’t make you follow.” He pushed his hair out of his face, his smile fading. “Look, I wasn’t thinking. I just thought you’d enjoy it, pretending like things were the way they once were.”
His admission pierced at something inside me. The anger drained from me in an instant, replaced by a deep sadness. “We can never go back to that, Frankie.”
“I know.” He wouldn’t meet my eye.
“So, where is it?” I asked. “Where can I find the Whitechapel Club?”
“I’m not going to tell you, Alter. I’m going to take you there.”
His words caught me off guard. My cheeks grew hot, my mind dizzy, like I was still toeing the ledge.
“It’s not as though I want to go,” he said, as though it had been my idea all along. “I have better things to do than escort you around the Levee. But now that you’ve gone clean, I’d hate for you to ruin your good sensibilities.”
“Frankie, don’t tell me you’re worried about me?” I said, as payback. “That you want to protect me?”
Even the darkness couldn’t hide the blush that colored his cheeks. He averted his gaze.
“Someone needs to. Besides, we won’t be able to get in there without an invitation, and I know just who to ask.” He took out his pocket watch and lit a match to read the dial. “Let’s go back. I need to prepare for my next fight.”
“I can’t believe you make a living from beating people all day.” I gave it some thought. “Actually, no, on second thought, I can.”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s not all day. It’s several nights a week, and besides, it’s only a stepping-stone. A side gig, as the Americans would say.”
“Don’t tell me you’re stealing from the betting pool?”
Frankie looked unamused.
“I don’t shit where I eat. What I do is take names and cards. I shake people’s hands. I gamble and bet on other matches, and on the weekends, I go with my manager or the high rollers down to the races. I’m building a network, Alter. But it’s...it’s this damn accent.” He shook his head in disgust. “I’ve tried so hard to get rid of it, but whenever I speak English, it comes through. Most don’t know what it is—they don’t acquaint themselves with the people down on Maxwell Street—so I tell them I’m Russian, and they don’t question it. But they still know I’m not one of them. And that means they don’t trust me. More important, they don’t see me as an equal.”
I knew that feeling all too well. Even at the office of the Idisher Ḳuryer, there was a power imbalance, and it wasn’t just between press boys and editors. Most of the high-ranking editors and journalists had come to America many years ago. Some were even born here. I often heard them talk with disdain about the flood of immigrants from the east. They thought we were stuck in the old ways and unwilling to assimilate, when really, it was just a question of how much we were willing to give up to become American, and how fast.
I had never thought coming here would require me to sacrifice parts of myself. I wished my father had given me warning. I wanted to ask him what he would have done.
“If they don’t trust you, then why do you take their cards?” I narrowed my eyes. “What exactly do you do for them?”
“Sometimes a lack of trust is a good thing. It means you don’t have to get close to a person. See, it’s not what I’m doing now, it’s what I plan to do in the future. There are more ways to make money in the Levee than petty thievery, and people like them—” he jerked his chin in the direction of the Masthead “—the makhers, the bigwigs, they have the dirtiest consciences of them all. But they don’t like to soil their hands, understand?”
I decided it would be better not to ask him what he meant by that, although I had a good idea. Provided his code of honor hadn’t changed in the last ten months, blackmailing, corporate sabotage, and racketeering would still be fair game. Then again, considering how we had ended things after he’d beaten an innocent homeowner bloody, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d progressed to breaking kneecaps for profit.
I hated that I’d come back here. This would be the last time. I swore that to myself. One more night with Frankie, and after that, I’d cut him out of my life, and I’d never step foot in the Levee again.
Instead of risking another plunge, Frankie picked up a board leaning against the roof’s low wall and positioned it over the gap. He gave the wood a slap for good measure, deemed it solid, and crossed over. Once he reached the other side, he held the board steady for me, with no teasing this time. It had begun to drizzle.
As I reached the Masthead’s rooftop, Frankie gave a cursory glance down at my clothes. When he had seized my shirt to save me from falling, the front two tassels of my tzitzis had slipped from my pants.
“If you’re going to wear tzitzis when we go to the Whitechapel Club, tuck the tassels in,” he said.
“I planned to.”
“And wear something nice.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Do you have something nice?”
“Since when did you become such a dandy?” I asked sourly.
“Since I became tired of being looked at like trash.” He smiled, but it was merely a muscle contraction. There was no humor in his eyes. “I realized something after you left, Alter. Appearances mean everything. In fact, they’re the only important thing. They always have been. If it’s wearing a nice suit and a golden watch, even a monster could walk among us.”
12
Back when I had first come to Chicago, Frankie had made it his mission to acquaint me with the city. He had dragged me on foot from the ice-encrusted sprawl of Lake Michigan to the slaughterhouse district, which bustled with life even in the dead of winter. But it was Prairie Avenue and the Gold Coast that enthralled him the most, wealthy neighborhoods we were chased from with slurs and snobby looks.
At first, I had been thrilled by the city’s vastness. But over time, I had come to miss the familiarity and sense of security I had known back in Piatra Neamţ. At least here on Maxwell Street, there was something akin to it.
The chevra kadisha was dark at this hour. Two doors down, I reached the new shul scheduled to open by summer’s end, a two-story structure of wood with a pitched roof, skeletal as though burnt. The windows were like gouged eyes. I shivered as I passed, drawing my coat tighter around myself to keep out the rain and the cold.
Over the roar of the storm, I thought I heard footsteps and glanced over my shoulder. Darkness behind me, darkness ahead, the gas lamps sputtering in their glass cradles. Angry at myself for allowing the night to unsettle me like a child, I wiped the water from my face and continued walking.
“You’re just imagining things,” I muttered under my breath.
The quiet clatter of boot heels against cobblestones. I swiveled around and stared down the blackened street, searching the night for a silhouetted figure. It wasn’t my imagination. Those had been footsteps.
“Who’s there?” I called, my heart beating faster than I cared to admit. “I know you’re out there. Show yourself!”
Back the way I had come, a shadow freed itself from the surrounding gloom. Slowly, it materialized into broad shoulders, a face shadowed by a tugged-down cap. It was too dark to make out the man’s face, but he was heading straight toward me.
I rooted my feet to the ground, waiting for him to pass. Twenty meters became eighteen meters became fifteen. The rain and darkness conspired to hide his features. It could have been anyone under there.
Ten meters.
Sudden dread welled inside me, and my mouth went dry. My blood turned ice-cold. If I stayed here, something terrible was going to happen to me. If I even got a look at him, it would destroy me.
Eight meters.
Someone was standing behind me. I didn’t see the person, but I could feel their presence, the way the air parted around their body. Warm breath prickled the damp skin on my neck.
“Run,” Yakov whispered in my ear. I swiveled around, but he wasn’t there. Of course he wasn’t.
The footsteps were louder now, harder. The man was running.
I didn’t look back. I broke into a dead sprint.
Through the rain, through the night. My lungs ached from exertion after the first two hundred meters, but I forced myself to push on. I took the alleys and side streets, falling back on my old habits. The dimness of these narrow places would hide me.
After ten months living on Maxwell Street, I knew my way around. But it was different at night. The neighborhood became darker, a labyrinth of clotheslines, rusty fire escapes, and brick walls. In the peripherals of my vision, the Hebrew letters on signs seemed to change, distorting into an alphabet I had never learned. Mясник over a grimy storefront, Aптека over another. When I looked back to make sure I was in the right neighborhood, the illusion was broken.
After I was certain I had lost the man, I stopped running and traced my way back to my tenement. When I passed a half-finished wall, I picked a brick from the scatter and carried it at my side, reassured by the block’s weight and heft.
The gaslight had been kept burning inside the entry hall. Its brightness drew me like a lighthouse beacon. As I fumbled to unlock the front door, I glanced over my shoulder to make sure I was still alone. No sign of him.
I pocketed my keys and hurried inside, colliding with another person in the process. I veered back before realizing who it was. Dropping the bag she held, Mrs. Brenner reached out to steady me.
“I’m sorry,” I said, mortified as she leaned down to scoop up the scatter of potato peels and marrow bones that had fallen from her sack. I bent down to help her, but the scent of burnt grease sent me reeling, my palm pressed over my mouth. No, not grease. It was a sickly sweet stench, like singed hair, something melted and blackened.
“Are you all right?” Mrs. Brenner asked. “Alter, you’re shaking.”
“Ya v poryad—” The words came out without thinking, strange syllables I couldn’t make sense of. I caught myself mid-word, tried again, nauseous with a terror I couldn’t name: “Yes. I’m fine. Thank you, but really, I’m fine.”
She stepped toward the door.
“Wait!”
She looked back.
“Don’t go out there.” My face felt hot and feverish. My lips trembled so violently, I could hardly speak. “I think there’s someone out there.”
Mrs. Brenner furrowed her brow. “Someone?”
“Please, just don’t go.”
She hesitated. “I suppose I’ll throw them out tomorrow morning.”
I nodded, relieved. We walked up to the third-floor corridor. I kept my eyes on the floor throughout it all, rubbing my throat. The skin felt bruised and tender.
“Alter, why don’t you come in for a cup of tea?” Mrs. Brenner asked once we reached her door.
“Thank you, but I have work tomorrow.”
She held the door for me. “I insist.” Her tone was firm and no-nonsense.
I couldn’t argue when she spoke that way to me. It made me think of my own mother.
Mrs. Brenner’s apartment was tiny but fastidiously neat, with the majority of its space devoted to a table that seated six, and a stool for her to perch on when she orchestrated matchmaking meetings. She kept a photograph of her dead husband on the windowsill, beside the braided horsehair basket that was a gift from her son. Max had gone west to seek his fortune, and upon her blouse collar, Mrs. Brenner bore proof of his success—a tiny nugget of raw gold fashioned into a stickpin.
As I sat at her table, she put the rubbish sack in a covered dish to dissuade the rats and roaches. She cleaned her hands at the washbasin, then ladled some stew from the pot cooling on the potbelly stove.
“I’m afraid I don’t have tea,” she said. “But I do have cholent.”
“You don’t have to,” I said as she fixed a bowl. “I’ve already eaten dinner.”
“Nonsense. When was the last time you had a good meal?”
Steam wafted from the pot’s contents—a thick, hearty stew of barley, beans, and potatoes, studded with chunks of brisket and sausage. The cholent would have cooked all afternoon and evening, until the flavors merged into a ric
h, savory medley.
She scarcely had time to place the bowl of cholent in front of me before I snatched up my spoon and dug in, seized by a desire I couldn’t name. It wasn’t hunger, not really, just the primal need to feel my mouth move, to cut the tender meat against my teeth, to have the still-hot grain warm my throat. To be alive.
“Easy now.” Mrs. Brenner laughed. “Don’t choke.”
I finished chewing and swallowed. “It’s delicious. It tastes like home.”
Strange how that worked. I had tried plenty of cholent since washing up on Maxwell Street, and no matter the difference in taste or ingredients, it always reminded me of Shabbos mornings.
She ladled another helping into my bowl. “Well, eat up. There is plenty more, and it won’t keep long.”
Eating allowed me to think. So much had happened in the last couple days that my thoughts were scattered. As for these strange episodes, they were the product of grief, the kind that teetered dangerously close to madness. I needed to remind myself, for days after my father had passed, I had often seen him slipping through the inky depths in the ship’s wake, still shrouded in the sheets the sailors had wrapped him in.
Mrs. Brenner watched me with a small, thoughtful smile. “Alter, I believe that names have significance, both the ones we are given and the ones we give ourselves. Tell me, do you know my name?”
I paused between bites. “Uh...”
“I mean my first name.”
I was too embarrassed to admit I had forgotten, so I drew a name from my head. “Bluma?”
She arched her eyebrows. “Do I look like a Bluma to you?”
I spooned more cholent into my mouth, thinking better than to confess she reminded me of a walking sunflower with her yellow wardrobe.
“It’s Alte,” she said.
I choked on my food. “Alte?”
“Yes.” Her smile thinned. In the glow of the oil lamp, her eyes were as dark as jet, with the same mirrored sheen. “I imagine our births were rather similar, except that on the same night I came into this world, the Angel of Death took my mother from it. Ever since then, I’ve had a gift.”
The City Beautiful Page 9