by Bill Albert
“There were once a young husband and wife who lived in a small village in Russia. The name of the village isn’t important. What is important was that they were very poor and often didn’t have enough to eat. Life for them was difficult, as it was for most of the other Jews who lived there. The local nobleman robbed them, the Czar’s police harassed them and every once in a while the Cossacks rode into the village and murdered them and burned their houses. It wasn’t enough that they were poor, they had to be made completely wretched as well.”
It sounded like a typical “once-upon-a-time-in-a-land-far-away” story in which the good prince always vanquished the wicked giant or killed the evil dragon. Sometimes a brave woodcutter won the hand of a beautiful princess and at least half a kingdom. Virtue was always rewarded. Without fail, everyone lived happily ever after.
“Then one day a kind of miracle occurred. A distant cousin of the husband arrived in the village. He was going to America to seek his fortune. It was, he told them, a land of magnificent promise, where the streets were paved with gold, where everyone had enough to eat, where everyone was equal, even the Jews. Best of all, in America, the cousin said, there was no Czar, there were no noblemen, and there were no Cossacks. The husband and wife listened hungrily. The cousin was talking about Heaven on earth.
“They immediately decided that they would leave their village and travel with the cousin to this promised land. However, they had one terrible problem: even if they sold all of their few meager possessions they would have enough money to pay for only one steamship ticket. Only one steamship ticket, Meyer. What could they do?”
As I listened to the story the noisy streets outside faded away, as did the fear of having to confront my father. I was in the nameless Russian village. It was snowing and inside a hut the husband and wife dressed in rags were huddled in front of a tiny fire trying to keep warm. The cousin with a pack on his back and his stout walking stick leaning against the wall stood in front of them, his arms spread wide, describing yet another wondrous fact about America. He had a big smile on his face. It was as if he was already there.
“All night long they talked about what they should do, until finally they decided that if they had money for only one steamship ticket, then one of them would have to go to America with the cousin. Weren’t the streets there paved with gold the husband said? For of course it was he who would undertake this dangerous uncharted journey, and as soon as he arrived he would send money so that his wife could join him. The next morning the husband said goodbye to his wife and he and his cousin set off on the road to America.
“The wife waited. One month. Two months. Three months she waited and still there had not been a word from her husband. She worried. He was not a worldly man, maybe something had happened to him on the journey. Maybe he had become ill or been robbed by thieves. She also had another reason to worry, for soon after he left she discovered she was going to have a baby. To bring a child into the world without its father was unthinkable. So she went to her relatives, to her husband’s relatives, and she begged them to help her, to lend her the money so she too could buy a steamship ticket for America. But everyone in the village was poor and even if they had wanted to no one had the money to give her. Finally, she became desperate and decided she would just have to make her way to the port city and see what fortune would bring. Surely, she thought, in the city she would find some kind of work and be able to earn the money needed to pay for her passage. Putting her trust in God, she started out to follow her husband to America.”
Thinking back I suppose I should have known what the ending would be. It’s so obvious now. Then, it was just another fanciful tale.
“During the day she walked and at night found refuge where she could, sometimes in a barn, other times in the houses of friendly Jews, but often she found nowhere to stay and had to sleep by the roadside. For weeks and weeks she walked, increasingly hungry, increasingly footsore. Sometimes she was lucky and was able to get a ride in a peasant’s cart. It was a very difficult journey and by the time she reached the port city months later she was so hungry and exhausted she could go not a single step farther. Within sight of the ships that would have taken her to her husband in America, she collapsed in a dead faint.
“She woke up lying in a soft feather bed. She had been bathed and dressed in a white nightgown of the finest cotton. The walls of the room were white and on a small table there were white candles in golden candlesticks. She had never seen anything like it before. At first she thought she had died and gone to Heaven. Of course, she hadn’t died, but God was indeed looking after her, for she had been found in the street by two wealthy women who worked for a Jewish charity. She told them that she had to travel to America so her baby would have a father. The women took pity on her and paid for her fare to America. Her dreams had been answered. She would join her husband and her child would have a father. They would live in the new promised land of America. All her suffering had not been in vain. She was very happy.
“After resting a few weeks in order to regain her strength she finally boarded the steamship. She was elated. Soon she would be in America. That hope and the baby kicking in her womb gave her the courage to face crossing the ocean. And she needed courage, for she had never even imagined the ocean before.
“The voyage was dreadful, a terrible, unending nightmare. Crammed into a small compartment with dozens of strangers was an ordeal. The constant pitching and rolling of the ship was an ordeal, as was the bad food and foul water. Her heart, which had been so light when they sailed from the port city, increasingly filled with darkness as the ship ploughed heavily through the ocean. She was ill all of the time and couldn’t eat. She knew she was going to die, that the baby she was carrying would die. She would never see her husband again, never see America. She should have stayed in her village, she told herself. She had been a foolish woman.
“Then one day when she was lying on the deck of the ship, too sick and miserable to move, she heard a great shout go up from the other passengers. Land had been sighted. America! She had survived. Against all adversity she had survived! Everything was going to be all right.
“But fate can be cruel, Meyer, very cruel. Before she got off the boat she felt the baby coming. The pain doubled her over, but she didn’t cry out. No, not a sound did she make. Instead she bravely continued to walk down the gangplank. She had heard that if the inspectors thought you were ill, if they thought anything was wrong with you, even a simple eye infection, they would send you back across the ocean. It was too horrible to contemplate. She bit her lip against the pain, but to no avail. As her foot touched the ground she screamed in agony and pitched forward. They rushed her to the infirmary, but it was too late. Weakened by the months of walking, by the rigors of the dreadful ocean crossing, she was very ill. She died not long afterwards. But, Meyer, she had made it to America!”
My mother stopped. What kind of story is that, I thought? She can’t die after going through all that. It isn’t fair. Where is the reward for all her struggles? Where is the “happily ever after”?
“What about the husband?” I asked. “What about the baby?”
“Well, Meyer, the husband was never found, but the baby, the baby survived.”
She patted my leg affectionately. It was only then, at that precise instant, that I realized she had been telling my own story.
7
They say that just before you die your whole life flashes in front of your eyes. I can’t say if that’s true, but right then, as our carriage descended deeper into the brutish toe of Manhattan, I saw my past life and my future life vanish, sucked into the dark whirlpool of my mother’s story. No flash of events, just a sudden and absolute absence. Everything that had happened to me up until then had in reality happened to someone else. I had only been pretending to be who I thought I was. Events in my life that had wanted for an explanation found one. I was not a Liebermann. I was one of them. One of the dark
ened Hebrews. So much for my privileged assumptions, so much for my high expectations. I felt cheated and angry and terribly afraid.
My mother seemed not to notice my distress.
“You see, Meyer, I was working with a volunteer group when she was brought in to the infirmary at Castle Garden. I was supposed to have you only for a day or two and then hand you over to the Jewish Orphanage, but well, as you can see, I didn’t.”
She had never actually talked to my real mother, she explained. The woman only spoke Yiddish and anyway she was incoherent at the end. So how, I asked, could she possibly know the story of the flight from Russia? The events in the port city? The trip across the ocean on the steamship?
“It is the story that matters, Meyer, not the individual details. The story I told you is what happened. It is as true as any story can be. I’ve heard it so many, many times. Your poor mother was a part of it. And so are you, Meyer. However much you are my son, you’re part of that story too.”
As I was trying to recover from the additional revelation that even my newfound story was not mine alone, our carriage came to a stop. Instantly, we were surrounded by a chorus of insistent, high-pitched screams, like seagulls fighting over dead fish at Deal Beach. Cautiously I edged over on the seat and looked out window. Staring up at me were dozens of poorly dressed, dirty children. The street outside was a heaving sea of them. Running, shouting, laughing. Excitedly they washed up against the sides of the carriage. I shrank back, terrified. I had woken from a nightmare story into a real nightmare. Carefully, I peered out the window again.
Signs with Hebrew letters over every shop. Awnings, yellow, green, black, and gray ones, all filthy and leaning out to touch the tops of the pushcarts that lined the sides of street. Piles of rotting garbage overflowed into the gutters. The smells drifted in through the open carriage window: excrement, decaying vegetables, putrid fish. As soon as I decided which of the smells was the most potent I had to change my mind. Overhanging everything were rusty fire escapes covered in washing, that is, except for the large, well-cared-for three-story house in front of us and a derelict church directly opposite.
I’d never seen so many people crammed into one place and still moving. Everyone seemed to be buying or selling. Old men with beards and sidecurls, old women in black shawls carrying wicker baskets, and the children, hundreds of them, all shapes and sizes and all running and shouting. There seemed to be only children and old people in the street, nothing in between.
My mother was unperturbed by the racket and the stench. She smiled encouragingly at me.
“I want you to know, Meyer, you are still my son, still your father’s son. Nothing has changed. I just think that we have protected you much too much. That’s what has done it. It’s our fault, not yours. And, I suppose, really, you are no worse than other children, than your cousins. But I want you to be better, Meyer. You can be better than that. You are old enough to take the responsibility of knowing the story I have told you and old enough to see something of the world that might have been yours. To appreciate, Meyer, how lucky you are. That’s what is important. It will make you a better person. As they say down here,” she said with a half smile, “it will make you a mensch. A real solid person.”
Appreciate? Appreciate? Surely I was entitled to something better than that?
The yelling outside grew more demanding, but I couldn’t make out what they were shouting.
“It’s that they don’t see many carriages like this down here on Henry Street,” my mother explained. “Don’t worry, it will be all right, they won’t eat you, Meyer.”
I wasn’t so sure about that.
We stepped out into the street and immediately the children gathered around us. The shouting had stopped and they were now staring curiously. Their silence was menacing. My mother stopped and said something to a small boy who seemed to have only one arm. He turned away shyly. The others pointed at him and laughed mockingly. I was pleased to have their attention distracted. It wasn’t enough, however. We were more interesting than taunting the one-armed boy, and they continued to follow us, crowding in closer and closer.
Suddenly a voice boomed out in front of us.
“Enough, children! Enough! Go on! Run along now! Run along!”
An exceptionally large, well-dressed woman emerged from the house we were approaching and stood at the top of the stone stairs with her hands on her hips. She wore a hat covered in artificial flowers. She was even taller than my mother and her bust was far more impressive.
The children scattered. The woman smiled broadly at them as they disappeared among the pushcarts.
“So,” she said, walking down the stairs to greet us, “this must be the famous Meyer? I’m so glad that finally, after all these years, you brought him to see us, Mrs. Liebermann.”
I was famous here? The famous Meyer Liebermann? Famous for what?
“This is Miss Wald, Meyer,” my mother said. “Say ‘how do you do.’”
“How do you do, Miss Wald,” I repeated obediently.
“And how do you do, Meyer,” Miss Wald rejoined heartily.
We shook hands and she continued patting our joined hands with her free one, smiling at me earnestly as if she had just found something truly wonderful. Was this the price of fame? After what seemed forever she let me go.
“Please, please don’t stand here, come in, both of you.”
We followed her up the stairs and into the house.
8
“I take it,” said Miss Wald, “that your mother has told you about things, about your real mother?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And how do you feel about it, Meyer? That is if you don’t mind me asking.”
“No, ma’am.”
How did I feel about being Tom Canty and not Edward Tudor? Too confused to care. How could my mother have told me all this? Why had she brought me to that terrible place? Why was a strange woman asking me questions?
I most definitely wasn’t old enough to be given the responsibility for her account of my life. I wanted my mother to take it back, but I knew even then that once a story’s been told it can never be taken back. You can shift it about, elaborate here and there, but not wash it away forever. It’s struck firm in your mind and it’s also out there shouting in the world.
The three of us were sitting in her office. A roll-top desk, a horsehair sofa, some wooden chairs, and in the far corner a glass cabinet with medicines and shiny medical instruments. On the wall were framed photographs of groups of children standing in front of the house. They looked a lot cleaner in the photographs than in the street. As we talked, women dressed like nurses came in to ask Miss Wald questions or have her look at papers. In the hallway women and children from the street sat quietly, heads down, waiting.
“Your mother has told me what a fine young man you are,” Miss Wald said brightly. “And I can see how right she was!”
Fine young man? Only half an hour before my mother had been telling me how lazy I was, how rude and ungrateful.
“How old are you, Meyer?”
“Eleven, ma’am. Well, actually eleven years and three months.”
“I see,” she replied thoughtfully. “You don’t mind sitting here for a few minutes do you? Mrs. Liebermann?”
Without waiting for an answer, she got up and strode out of the room. The door closed behind her and a babble of voices erupted in the hall.
As soon as she had left I turned to my mother.
“Miss Wald is an old friend of mine, Meyer. She helps the poor unfortunate people who are forced to live in these dreadful tenements. She instructs them in hygiene, gives them medical help, has classes to teach them to read and write. It’s all done so that they can improve themselves. It’s quite marvelous really, what she has achieved in such a short time. I have been coming here to help her since the Settlement was opened three years ago. That’s
how she knows about you.”
I didn’t care. I wanted to run as far away as I could from my mother, the prying Miss Wald and the dirty chaos outside.
“Do we have to stay here?”
“Not for very long, Meyer. I wanted her to meet you and I wanted you to see what life was like down here on the East Side. To see how the ‘Polacks,’ as you so crassly called them, have to live, what they have to contend with each day of their lives. I want you to open your eyes and open your heart.”
“But Father says . . .”
“I know what your father says, Meyer. And you know what I think of it. He is a fine man, your father, but there are some things which he refuses to understand. It is essential for you to understand them.”
A few minutes later Miss Wald returned pushing a small boy in front of her. He was dressed in patched pants and a jacket which was too big for him, but his face had been scrubbed clean. He clutched a greasy cap in his hands and looked as if he wanted to be somewhere else.
“Meyer, this is Hyman Budnitsky. Hyman, this is Meyer Liebermann.”
Hyman Budnitsky. If I knew then what I know now I would have . . . I would . . . I don’t know what I would have done. But something, that’s for damn sure. What I did was nod and hastily look away. So did he.
“You see, Mrs. Liebermann? If it had been an experiment it couldn’t have been better planned. Just look at these two boys, will you.”
Both women were appraising us greedily.
“Of course,” said Miss Wald, “it had been obvious to me all the time. Those people who say they are depraved and beyond redemption! Such fools! If you give children the right environment, good food, and proper schooling, these are the important things that make a man what he is.”
“How old are you, Hyman? Tell the lady, please.”
“Twelve years old,” he replied dutifully.
“You see? Just look at the difference. And around here Hyman is considered tall for his age.”