by Belva Plain
“So, what’s to be done with these children?”
“No family! People without relatives shouldn’t marry each other!”
“That’s true.”
“Well then, the community will have to provide!”
And who is the “community”? Why, the richest man, naturally, from whom all charity is expected and to whom all respect is given. He steps forward now, Meyer Krohn, innkeeper, dry goods merchant, money-lender. He is a tall, pock-marked man in peasant boots and cap. His gray beard is rough, his voice is rough, but it speaks with authority.
“So who’ll take them? What about you, Avrom? You, Yossel? You have room enough!”
“Meyer, you know I give what I can. I’ll gladly take one of them, but not three.”
Meyer Krohn frowns; the furrows in his forehead are deep enough to bury the tip of a fingernail. He roars.
“We don’t separate families! Now, who here will take in these three orphans? I ask you, who?”
Nobody speaks. Anna’s legs are weak; the bones melt.
“Ah,” Meyer says, “I know what you’re thinking! You’re thinking: Meyer’s rich, let him do it!” He thrusts his enormous arms out. “What am I, Rothschild, that I have to support half the community? ‘Meyer, the school needs a new stove; So-and-so broke his leg and his family is starving’—is there no end to what is expected of me?”
Coughing and shuffling. Eli has been told that he must be a man now. He is trying not to cry.
“All right,” says Meyer Krohn. “All right.” He sighs. “My children are grown and gone. The house is big enough, God knows. There’s a room for the boys and Anna can share a bed with the servant-girl.” His voice lowers quietly. “What do you say, Anna? And you, Eli? Which one of you is Eli and what’s the other one’s name? I always forget.” He puts his arms around the little shoulders of the boys. “Come along home,” he says.
Oh, he is decent, he is kind! But Anna walks naked; everyone is looking at her growing breasts, the secrets of her body. Her clothes have been stripped off. She has been shamed, she has been outraged. Like Pretty Leah.
The Krohns live prosperously. Their house has two stories and wooden floors. There is carpet in the front room. Aunt Rosa owns a fur cape. A servant does the cleaning while Aunt Rosa measures cloth and waits on customers in the store. Sometimes she helps in the tavern; sometimes Uncle Meyer helps in the store.
Anna works wherever she is needed, and she is always needed everywhere. She is often tired out. But she has grown tall like her mother, with bright, healthy hair. The Krohns have fed her well.
“How old are you?” Uncle Meyer asks one day. They are rewinding cloth on the heavy bolts and lifting them back onto the shelves.
“Sixteen.”
“How the years fly! You’ve turned out well in my house. A nice girl, a worker. It’s time we found a husband for you.”
Anna does not answer, but this does not brother Uncle Meyer. He has a way of talking without noticing whether anyone answers or not.
“I really ought to have done something about you before this. But I never seem to have time. People think: he’s a rich man, Meyer Krohn, what has he got to worry about? My God, when I lie down at night I can’t sleep, my head spins, a hundred things at once—”
He is always complaining, there is always an undertone of resentment even in the best humors. But Anna knows that is because he’s afraid. Growing up in a stranger’s house you learn to watch for moods, to anticipate and analyze, to look at the outside and see what is inside. Yes, Uncle Meyer is afraid, even more than Papa was, because he is important and conspicuous in the village. When a new commissioner of police is sent to the district it is Meyer who goes to him for favors that may possibly buy the safety of the community. Also, he has his personal bribes, gifts to the peasants so the store will not be looted and wrecked during the holiday rampage. The same friendly fellow who comes with his cajoling smile to ask for credit—and who, of course, receives it—can just as easily return to boot you down the stairs or set his wicked dogs upon you.
“Yes, and there are your brothers to think about. What’s to become of them? Let’s see, how old are they now?”
“Fourteen.”
“Hm. Fourteen, already. What’s to be done with them? How are they to support themselves?” He thinks aloud. “Rosa has an uncle in Vienna. He went there years ago, perhaps we’ve mentioned him? He sells furs. As a matter of fact, his son will be coming through here this spring to buy fox skins. It’s an idea.”
He looks like a fox himself, Anna thought. The young man from Vienna was thin and lively; his reddish eyes snapped; his city suit fitted like skin and he talked so much and so fast that even Uncle Meyer was subdued. Eli and Dan were fascinated.
“… and the Opera House has marble stairs and gilded carving on the walls. It’s so enormous that you could fit thirty houses, one whole side of your village, into it.”
“Bah,” Uncle Meyer could not resist. “Who hasn’t seen big buildings? I’ve been in Warsaw; I’ve seen buildings in my time.”
“Warsaw? You compare that with Vienna? I’m talking about a cultured country! Where Jews write plays and teach in the university, where they don’t have pogroms whenever the drunken peasants feel like having a little fun!”
“You mean,” Dan asks, “that Jews in Vienna are exactly like everybody else?”
“Well, naturally they don’t attend balls at Franz Josef’s palace, but neither do other people. They have grand houses, though, and carriages, and they own big shops with porcelains and Oriental rugs and fashions—you should see where I work, we’ve just doubled the place. Why, if you work hard and use your brains, you can see your family rising for generations to come and no limit!”
The foxy young man has planted thoughts that sprout like seeds.
“I may go to Paris in the spring,” he says carelessly. “Did I tell you that?”
“You didn’t tell us,” Dan says.
“Yes, well, we sell furs to some concerns there and the boss wants to discuss matters. And naturally, you can get new styles in Paris, new ideas for the retail end. The boss has promised to take me along.”
The cat scratches vigorously; the water bubbles for tea and the questions hang in the air.
“I shan’t be coming back here again. We’re making new contacts for furs. In Lithuania.”
“So in other words,” Uncle Meyer says, “if you’re going to take these boys back with you it will have to be right now.”
“That’s about it.”
Dan turns to Anna and she sees his eagerness, his pleading. She thinks: It’s true, here there is nothing. Uncle Meyer can’t do anything for them. What will they become? Porters with ropes around their waists dragging bundles through the streets of Lublin? Or learn a fine trade in Vienna and wear the look of prosperity and ease?
Good-by, Eli. Good-by, Dan. Little snub-noses, little dirty faces. I am the only person who can tell you apart. Eli has the mole on the side of his nose; Dan has a chipped front tooth.
“I’ll send for you from America,” Anna tells them. “I’ll get there and I’ll earn money enough to send for you. America will be better.”
“No, well earn it and well send for you. There are two of us and we are men. You can come back from America. If you go.”
People don’t come back from America.
They had been gone a few weeks when Aunt Rosa said, “Anna, I have something to tell you. Uncle Meyer has found a nice young man.”
“But I’m going to America.”
“Nonsense. All the way across the world alone, at sixteen?”
“I’m not afraid,” Anna said untruthfully. Maybe, after all—? At least, the village was home. At least, its threats were familiar ones. And yet—America. For some reason she always saw it lying at the end of the voyage like a tropical island rising out of the sea, a silver-green lure. Of course, she knew it was not like that, but that was the way she saw it.
“I shall miss you,” Aunt R
osa said shyly. “You’ve become like a daughter to me. My own I never see since they married and moved away.” And coaxing, “Just look the young man over one time. You may change your mind.”
He came to dinner on Friday, a gentle person from another village, earning his way as a peddler of tobacco, thread and sundries to the farms. He had pimples, garlic breath and a kind, mournful smile. He was disgusting. Anna was ashamed of herself for being disgusted by a decent, honest human being.
Her thoughts ran back to Pretty Leah, those men, what they had done. But this young man was no drunkard, no brute; it would not be like that! Disgusting, all the same.
“Really, Anna,” Aunt Rosa said, “you have to look at the facts. You’re a poor girl without money or family! What do you expect, a scholar? Or a merchant prince? Ah,” she sighed, “these foolish unplanned marriages! It’s the next generation that suffers and pays! Your father was a good-looking man, he had a trade; and if he had married a girl with some family and substance he could have built up a business and left something for his children!”
“My parents loved each other! You don’t know how happy they were!”
“Yes, of course, I’m not speaking against them! Your mother was a charming woman, a religious woman; I knew her well. It’s only that—well, here you are, you see! However, it could be worse. Thank God you’re pretty, otherwise you’d have to marry an old widower and raise his children for him. At least this man is young and he’ll be kind to you. You don’t think we didn’t inquire? We wouldn’t turn a girl over to a man who would mistreat her.”
“Aunt Rosa, I can’t …”
Aunt Rosa clasped her hands together. Her face puckered into wrinkles. “Oh, but Uncle Meyer will be angry! After all that he’s done for you! Anna, Anna, what do you want?”
What did she want? To see the world beyond this village, to be free, to hear music, to wear a new pink dress. To have her own place and not have to say thank you for everything. Thank you for this corner under your roof which keeps me out of the wet. Thank you for the food; I would like a second portion but I am ashamed to ask for it. Thank you for this thick, warm, ugly, brown shawl which you no longer wear and have given to me. Thank you.
She owned four silver candlesticks, a pair from each grandmother. Keep two, the ones with the feel of Mama’s hands upon them. Sell the others for the price of one passage to America. And go.
At the top of the rise the wagon stopped to let the horses rest. Below lay the village, held in the curve of the river. There, the little wooden dome of the synagogue. There, the market: jostling and churning at the stalls; flurry and squawk of crated fowl. Round and round, the busy lives in the order of their days.
“Well, come,” the driver said. “We’ve a long way.”
The wagon creaked along the road above the river. There, the last huddle of houses, the board fences and a glimpse of lilacs. In another month Mama’s yellow roses would flower like a celebration.
Then the road turned and led downhill across level fields, dark earth steaming and wet new greenery swimming in spring light. The village was gone, erased in the moment of turning. The hill blocked out the past. The road led forward.
Dust, flies and dirty inns. The border: guards, papers, sharp questions. Will they perhaps not let us through? Then Germany: neat railroad stations with candy and fruit for sale. Be careful not to spend too much of the little treasure in the knotted cloth wrapped up with the silver candlesticks.
The immigrant-aid people come to expedite the journey to Hamburg. They are German Jews wearing fine suits, ties and white shirts. They bring food, sign documents, rearrange the boxes, bags and feather beds. They are generous and kindly. They are also impatient to get the strangers onto the ship and out of Germany.
The Atlantic is a ten-day barrier between worlds. It is the lonely mourning of horns in dark gray fog. It is wind and the heaving sea, the breaking and cracking of the ship. It is retching out of an empty stomach, lying in a top berth with all strength drained and hands too weak to hold on. There is a noisy turbulence of voices: laughing, arguing, complaining in Yiddish, German, Polish, Lithuanian, Hungarian. And thefts, the poor stealing from the poor. (A woman lost her gold crucifix. Don’t let the bundle with the candlesticks out of sight.) A child is born; the mother wails. An old man dies; the widow wails.
Suddenly it is over. There is a wide, calm river. From the deck one sees houses and trees. The trees draw closer; the wind turns up the silver undersides of the leaves. The air is tart and brisk, like witch hazel. Gulls flow over the ship, circle, climb and slide down the sky.
America.
3
The house on Hester Street was five stories tall. Cousin Ruth lived on the top floor with her husband, Solly Levinson, their four children and six boarders. Anna would be the seventh.
“You don’t have room for me,” she said in dismay. “You’re kind to offer but I’d be crowding you—”
Ruth pushed the hair back from her sweating forehead. “So where do you think you’ll find a place where you won’t be crowding somebody? Better for you to stay here where at least you’re a relative. And to tell you the truth, it’s not all kindness on my part, we can use the money. We have to pay twelve dollars a month for this place, not counting gas for the light and coal in the winter for the stove. Well charge you fifty cents a week. Fair enough?”
The smells! The stench surged from the street door and up the four flights: cooking grease; onions; an overflowing toilet in the hall; the sickening steam of pressing irons; a noxious drenching of tobacco from the front apartment where the cigar-makers lived. Anna’s stomach contracted. Yet how could she refuse? And if she refused, where could she go?
Ruth coaxed. Her anxious, pretty eyes lay in two circles of dark blue shadow. “When we’re through with the sewing at night Solly and I put up the cot for ourselves in the kitchen. We put the machines in the corner and get out the mattresses. The women have the best room to themselves, the room with the windows. And the men sleep in the rear by the air shaft. It’s not so bad, really. Can you sew?”
“Just mending. And I can make a plain skirt. I never had time to learn because I worked in the store.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter. Solly can take you to the factory tomorrow, he has to bring the finished work back.”
In a corner stood a pile of black bags stuffed with coats and pants. Two sallow, curly-haired children lay sleeping on top of the pile.
“You can help Solly carry the bags, you’ll meet the boss and they can show you how to stitch pants in no time. A good finisher gets thirty cents a day, you know.”
Anna set her bundles down and unfastened her shawl. The dark red braids fell free.
“They didn’t tell me how pretty you are! A child, a baby—” Ruth put out her hands. Her arms were black to the elbow with the stain of the pants fabric. “Anna, I’ll look out for you, you won’t be alone. It’s maybe not what you dreamed it would be but it’s a start. And you’ll get used to it.”
The noise was the worst. The smells and the crowding could somehow be endured. But Anna had sensitive hearing and the noise attacked her like brutal fists. On the street below the old-clothes man chanted through his nose: “Coats, fifty cents, coats, fifty cents!” Wagons rumbled. The “L” ground into the station with the squeal of metal on metal. And always until midnight the sewing machines whined. Would they ever sleep, ever slacken the struggle?
Sometimes on breathless nights Anna and Ruth went out to sit on the stoop. It was impossible to sleep indoors and they were afraid to join the others on the fire escape since a woman from across the street had rolled off in her sleep and smashed to the street. The sky was a cloudy pink from the glow of factories that smoked all night; you could scarcely see the stars. At home on summer nights they had been so clear, winking and pulsing above the trees.
“You’re so quiet,” Ruth said. “Are you worried about anything? About your brothers?”
“I miss them. But they’re all right, the
y’re doing well. They have a nice room in their boss’s house and Vienna is beautiful, they say.”
“It’s not beautiful here, God knows.”
“That’s true.”
“But one has a future here. I still believe that.”
“I believe it, too. I wouldn’t have come if I hadn’t believed that.”
“You know,” Ruth said, “you know, I’ve been thinking there isn’t any reason for you to work as hard as you’re doing. At your age you ought to have some life. You ought to be meeting men. It’s my fault, I’ve done nothing for you, after four months. I’ll ask Solly to look around for you, for a dancing class. There are lots and lots of good dancing classes.”
“If I’m going to take the time off I’d rather go to night school. Working here like this I’ve had no chance to learn English.”
“That’s not a bad idea, either. If you could learn enough to be a typist you could find a husband more easily, a better class of man. Typists don’t earn much, just three dollars a week, but the work has prestige. Only,” Ruth’s voice grew doubtful, “I really think you have to be American born. Still, it’s worth trying.”
“I’m not so interested in finding a husband. I just want to learn something.”
“You’re like your mother, I remember her well.” Ruth sighed. “I, too, would like to learn. But with all the children to feed, and now another—” She sighed again, resting her hand on the swelling beneath her apron.
Only ten years ago Ruth had been the age Anna was now. Was this what marriage made you, so tired, so resigned? But Mama hadn’t been like that. Or could she have been? What could Anna when she was twelve years old have really known about her mother?
Ruth said, lowering her voice, “One doesn’t want to complain. But it’s hard to get ahead. Though some people do, I don’t know how they do it. There’s a knack to making money. My poor Solly hasn’t got it.”
A shifting light moved in the window. Someone inside had got up to light the oil lamp and a yellow flare fell over the steps.