A Life To Live...

by Israel Kipen

  Daily domestic life revolved around the manufacturing and business activities of the household. In all the years we lived at Kupiecka No. 7, our home was never a private place for the family. For, apart from the machinists, the contract workers and assorted service people who forever came and went, the apartment, particularly the dining-room, doubled as a shop, the dining table serving as a counter and the shelves as wall decorations. The reputation of Father’s knitwear was good, not only among the city-dwellers but also among the peasants. It has remained a constant source of bafflement to me how they even came to know about us.

  To sell a garment, it was often necessary to bring out dozens from the shelves and pile them on the table while the prospective buyers tried on one after another. Purchasing goods in those days was a much more deliberate and circumspect procedure than the act of acquisition seems to have become today with its almost absent-minded or unthinking ease. A garment was an investment which merited the fullest concentration and consideration, and once the customer decided upon an item, in contrast to the present-day protocol of taking it to a counter and paying for it without demur, what customarily followed was a process of give-and-take bargaining and battle of wits, with bluff and counter-bluff which made buying and selling such a intriguing and entertaining sideshow.

  This was one charade not seen in our case. Father instituted the unheard-of rule of firm prices. There was no room for bargaining and any such attempts would yield the customer nothing. Such a rule was against the established order of things to which buyers were accustomed and it was with fascination that I would watch them go through the motions at least to beat down the price through the most eloquent oratory and dramatic pose and gesture, any acquiescence to a stated price without some show of struggle being unthinkable. Battle was joined by Father in a mutual meeting of argument with counterargument, but in the end, all rational discourse having been exhausted and a substantial degree of heat generated, the transaction was finalised. The customers parted with their money with resignation, but also in the knowledge that they had done their best to avoid being deemed to be meek or foolish through an unquestioning acceptance and payment of the stated price. Father, or his seller, on the other hand, could feel good at having concluded the deal on his own terms but without betraying any pleasure in his victory.

  Father’s day began with early morning prayer at the neighbourhood prayer-house. On his return there were many tasks awaiting him that brooked no delay. If there were no customers to lay claim upon his time, he would breakfast by eleven o’clock; otherwise he might have done so at noon and occasionally even later. He ate lunch, the main meal of the day, at seven in the evening; and ate his last meal about midnight, after which the table would be converted into a cutting bench to prepare work for the overlocker for the following day. This was his regular unerring pattern for six days out of seven, seldom leaving the house, save to attend the prayer-house or go to the bank or taxation-office before I was sufficiently grown to be sent on such errands. At intervals he had to travel to Warsaw and Lodz to purchase large quantities of yarn. These were particularly important occasions and stood out as landmarks in his otherwise repetitive cycle of routine. Not that he could not obtain yarn from his suppliers by mail. He generally did, and was very proud of the fact. All it required was a postcard detailing his requirements and within days carriers would arrive with the goods. No money was sent; no written commitments were entered into. Nor was any restriction imposed on his commercial credibility. The bigger the order, the more obliging were his suppliers. His signature at the foot of the postcard sufficed and was to him a source of pride, for it conveyed the degree of trust and esteem he commanded in the trade, even at a distance, in the big wholesale houses that supplied the trade on a national scale. However, from time to time, he found it necessary to travel. He did so to settle accounts, to keep in tune with the pulse of the trade, to stay abreast of fashion colours and learn of new developments in the knitting industry at large.

  The day before such a journey, he made his final preparations. A few hours before leaving, he would sit at the table counting the accumulated cash which he took with him to settle his accounts. The amount was often of the order of 5,000 zlotys which was then the equivalent of 1,000 American dollars which was considered substantial capital. That money moved Father to self-satisfaction. It evoked pride in him at being in league with reputable businessmen whose word was their bond and whose honesty never needed questioning. This in turn gave him a sense of worth and social recognition that justified his labours. For the journey, he packed his prayer-shawl, phylacteries and a few items of clothing and also usually took with him a huge brown canvas bag filled with empty wooden spools which he carried with him on the train and placed on the rack in his compartment opposite his own seat. He always took the midnight train to Warsaw in order to begin business on arrival the following morning. We children then looked forward to his return, for he usually brought back Warsaw kaiserkes, which were small round white bread rolls which were heaven-sent, both because they tasted differently from the rolls baked locally and still more because they had been bought especially for us, something that Father did not often have the opportunity or mind to do.

  Mother’s role at home was no less absorbing, albeit more ambiguous in the division of her duties as both housewife and store-keeper. In matters of house-keeping, she had two people to help her: Bobe and a domestic help. Mother would shop for food and clothes and for whatever household goods were needed. She followed us, as children, in our progress, watched us more than we realised at the time, represented our interests in family decisions and shielded us from Father’s anger when roused by our frequent misdeeds. She was spared many household chores as the apartment was a business establishment first and foremost. In the business, her sole role was in selling. Father attended to the manufacturing aspects.

  Bobe was an institution within the house. Reserved and quiet, and with wisdom and tact, she made her contribution to the running of the household and the upbringing of the children. Bobe in the main cooked the meals and entertained us and fed us. Hers was not an easy situation to be in for it must have tested the tact and emotions of all three adults. For her part, Bobe had to exert her influence and impress her opinions without usurping Mother’s role; Father, in turn, had ever to be circumspect, being constrained to show respect to his mother while also paying due attention to his wife; while Mother had to be continually accommodating in working with her mother-in-law. As children, we enjoyed the double attention lavished on us by Mother and by Bobe. We loved them dearly. Bobe was religious and old-fashioned. Her breakfast did not by much precede Father’s, for she would not eat before she recited in full the morning prayers, no matter how often they were interrupted by the activities in the house. Busy as she was, she did sometimes, although only when necessary, also serve customers.

  Father’s financial situation placed him securely in the middle class category. He made a reasonable living by the standards prevailing at the time and dressed us well and provided us with a good, private and costly education. We also ate well with red meat, duck or goose as a matter of course. Food had first priority in the household budget and here he neither set limits nor ever questioned Mother about expenditures incurred on it. Every other household expenditure, however, was carefully scrutinised and judged by whether it was a necessity or a luxury. Necessities were always provided for; luxuries were deferred. This was not merely a matter of prudent house-keeping, but had to do with the values and norms which Father set down upon our lives as a family. He would never, for instance, sanction the spending of money on children’s toys, but would readily make money available for books. He may have refused his own children, but never a neighbour who came for a short-term interest-free loan. In Jewish life, aid of this kind was deemed both basic and morally mandatory when requested. Father would, through such deeds, have well earned his share in Paradise, in which he believed. While he himself, to my knowledge, never sought assistance of thi
s kind, many other businessmen often came to him for a loan. Such loans were given on trust. No signatures were taken; nothing but the money changed hands. Father simply recorded in a little book what money he gave to whom. In later years when he had accumulated some funds, he discounted promissory notes. There were always some men who acted as agents in the money market and were looking for better deals than the banks offered. This became a sideline for Father, coinciding as it did with the decline in the potential of the knitting industry in Bialystok which came to be challenged by the larger enterprises in Warsaw and Lodz. This competition led later to buying ready-made garments from those centres to augment the cottage manufacturing practices at home.

  The oncoming Sabbath stood in sharp contrast to the rest of the week. The preparation of the Sabbath meals of the Friday evening and the following day was in full gear by Friday afternoon. A transformation took place in the household. The tempo of domestic activity heightened as the women in the house raced against time to have everything ready. The factory and shop receded as the private home took over. The workers went home; the machines fell silent; nobody intruded from outside. All goods were cleared from the table and sideboard and stacked on the shelves over which a curtain was drawn, while the sideboard itself with its central mirror and glass inserts, cleared of the week’s accumulation of bits and pieces and wiped clean of its dust, became fully revealed in all its attractiveness. The sizeable dining-room table which served many different purposes during the week regained its truer function. A white damask cloth was spread over it and the candlesticks placed at the foot of the table at the end opposite the one where Father sat. The light from the eight-bulb electric lamp which was normally muted now reflected off the white bedecked table and, blending with the candle lights, lit up the room more brightly. We, the children, were scrubbed and changed into our Sabbath clothes and a mood of euphoria and expectation fell upon the home. The specially-fitted clock was set to turn off the dining-room light at eleven o’clock, as in Orthodox homes it was considered work to turn off lights manually and hence forbidden on the Sabbath.

  On Friday evenings, Father prayed as he did in the mornings in the neighbourhood prayer-house to which I sometimes accompanied him. My own preference was for the Great Synagogue where the cantor would lead the prayers. I was then the first to be ready to leave for the synagogue, decked out in my finer clothes and sporting a bow-tie, almost a dandy, in happy anticipation of both the spiritual and culinary rewards in store. At the Great Synagogue, I loved to listen to the cantor’s sonorous voice which echoed in the synagogue’s very large and beautiful cupola dome. I loved too the melodies and the exquisiteness of their renditions. I knew them by rote and could never hear enough of them. From time to time, world-renowned cantors would come to Bialystok to lead the Sabbath prayers at the Great Synagogue. The number of worshippers became commensurate then with the reputation of the cantor. When the world-renowned cantor Gershon Sirota came, the Synagogue was packed to capacity and tickets were required for entry. It was a major event in town. The impact of his performance, the nuances and range of his voice, his unique interpretation of certain passages of the liturgy were met with patently visible eagerness and delight by the audience. The singing of Moses Koussevitzky, Chief Cantor of the Tlomacka Synagogue in Warsaw, was equally popular. Koussevitzky later fled Poland eastward and survived the war in Russia where he became an opera singer. There were two more Koussevitzsky brothers, also cantors, both of whom came to Bialystok where I heard them.

  Even on Friday nights when there were no visiting cantors, the service in the Great Synagogue took longer than in Father’s prayer-house and the family waited for my return. By that time, it was dark outside but the dining-room was alight with the double sets of candles which Mother and Bobe had blessed respectively. Whenever I watched them as they covered their eyes with the palms of their hands and recited the blessing, I would feel a lump rise to my throat, for even after the blessing they would stand there a while in continuing meditation over the candles, the flame adding to the mystical moment of stillness when everyone’s eyes were turned towards them and a sense of communion was intuitively felt. These were moments of supremacy and glory for the women of the household. Recalling those moments of family unity and spiritual cohesion, I have come to recognise how such observances as the Sabbath with its repose and spirituality and such rituals as lighting Sabbath candles both cemented families in Orthodox homes and reaffirmed one’s identification with one’s historical tradition.

  The meal that followed, although its menu never varied, was anticipated with pleasure, and as the evening progressed, a sense of ease set in with the promise of an ensuing day of rest which must have made my parents’ enjoyment of it all the sweeter.

  On Saturday morning, everything took place as if in slow motion No-one hurried. Father went to pray, this time as did his brother at the modest Karliner prayer-house, so-named after the respected Chassidic Rabbi of Karlin. While neither of them were themselves Chassidim, whether in appearance, disposition or outlook, they maintained their affiliation with that particular community in keeping with family tradition, for Father’s uncle, that is Bobe’s brother, and all his sons and grandsons also prayed there, constituting a sizeable proportion of that congregation.

  That particular affinity of Bobe’s two sons for her branch of the family had sound basis. First, there were no relatives from my paternal grandfather’s family resident in Bialystok. These lived in Pinsk and its surrounds, hence contact with them and interaction or identification with them were scant. On the other hand, a major branch of Bobe’s family did live in our town, and while there was also little social interaction between Father and his cousins and their families, some degree of family encounter took place through attendance at prayer on Saturdays and the Holy Days. A second, perhaps more compelling, if less conscious, reason for their stronger leaning towards the Goldstein, that is, Bobe’s family, was that this branch could trace its ancestry back 500 years.

  Usually, Zeide, Mother’s father, would visit us on Saturday mornings. He would pray with the first congregation at seven in the morning and arrive at our home just as we were ourselves leaving for prayer. Hence we generally had a most fleeting encounter with him. There was always a glass of vodka and cake awaiting him, he being the only one who drank at all in the family. He lived in retirement with his son Aaron and his family, in the same way that Bobe lived with us. He had cataracts in both eyes, but despite that handicap taught Talmud at his synagogue every afternoon.

  By noon, we were home again and sitting at table all together over our traditional meal. It was the only day of the week that Father’s meal coincided with everyone else’s. By dinner’s end, Father was very relaxed and sorely tempted to indulge in the time-honoured institution of the Saturday afternoon snooze. This was a pitfall which he tried to struggle against, for, as he understood his fatherly duties, of which he regrettably had had no personal experience, it was also a time for taking an interest in his sons’ education and review their progress over the week. In this context, education did not refer to such subjects as mathematics, much as he valued this as a mind-sharpener and tool for later life, but to Talmud which was more apt for a Sabbath afternoon and did not necessitate the use of pencil and paper, proscribed on that day. If his tiredness won out, I would escape, usually to see the football. But if he managed to stay awake, I was caught indoors, often to my distress or worse.

  At that time, between the years of ten and fourteen, I attended a school where the first half of the day was given over to Talmud learning and the afternoon to secular studies. I cannot say that I was a particularly enthusiastic Talmud student. If, during those Sabbath afternoon lessons with Father, I managed to display a reasonable understanding of the intricacies of a particular law, then Father warmed to the discussion and treated me with approval, if never with demonstrative praise. If, however, I proved hazy or could not explain to his satisfaction the meanings of certain statements or propositions, then
I had to face most stern admonition at my flippancy of attitude towards that subject that was the most important of all in my curriculum. This was the only part of the Sabbath I did not look forward to, but I had no choice but to comply with Father’s demands. I envied those among my friends who were free to indulge in whatever games and frivolities they chose.

  On most Saturdays in the latter part of the afternoon, Father’s brother, my Uncle Avrom Ber, and his wife Sara-Dina would come to visit Bobe. Apart from Zeide’s morning visit, this was the only form of regular socialising in our home. Bobe looked forward to these visits, as did I. For Bobe, they were an implicit sign of filial respect; to me, they represented a miniature gathering of the clan. Uncle had a very imposing presence and a brilliant mathematical mind, for both of which I admired him. The rest of the afternoon was spent in discussion – among the women most frequently about their respective domestic servants, which made me wonder repeatedly why they did not deal with more important concerns of which they were quite knowledgeable and capable of discussing – and, after light refreshments, the visits came to an end, for there were afternoon prayers to attend.

  I had a particular weakness. I loved those late afternoon Sabbath prayers and often went on my own to the prayer-house. The service itself was short, but what drew me were the particularly haunting melodies sung at this time. Where the Friday evening prayers were hymns of joyous praise in welcome of the Sabbath Queen and the melodies of the Sabbath morning prayers reflected the same joy as also the physical and spiritual repose of the day, the melody of the amidah at the close of the Sabbath was sadder, conveying a sense of loss inherent in the awareness that the day’s beauty and spirituality were about to end and the more mundane regular cycle of the week about to begin. That melody drew me most powerfully. By the time the ‘third meal’ of the Sabbath was eaten, traditionally in the prayer-house, and the time had come for evening prayers, the transition back to the ordinary was complete. The prayers were again those of the day-to-day. Both melody and tempo clearly signified such return.