Blue Thread

by Ruth Tenzer Feldman

  “He should stand up for his rights, like Nils does.”

  “Oh, Mr. Jacobowitz is nice enough. He just can’t afford to be fired, and your father isn’t the easiest man to work for.”

  I brushed what passed for bangs off my forehead. “He’s not the easiest man to live with either. Kirsten, if we have to use only one ink, let’s print it in blue—to match a…a certain garment that I own. I know that sounds silly, but it would mean a great deal to me, really.”

  “Let’s see what I can do.” A moment later she returned with a can labeled Cerulean. “I opened this for another job. No one will notice if we use more.”

  I looked inside; it was a little dark and didn’t quite shine the same way, but it was a rich, strong color. “It’s close enough. When can we get started?”

  “Today, if you get me the cardstock. I should have time to cut it to the right size.”

  I straightened the little navy bow at my collar and headed for the door. “I’ll call Charity and tell her to bring it over.”

  “Wait a minute. What are you going to tell your father?”

  “Listen in; you’ll have a good laugh.”

  I used the telephone on Mr. Jacobowitz’s desk again. “Osborne Milliners,” I told the operator, “Seventeenth and Marshall.”

  Prudence answered. “Miss Osborne,” I said loudly enough for Papa to hear if he came out of his office. “This is Miss Josefsohn at Precision Printers. I understand you have your own cardstock and are looking to print a variety of handbills and advertisements for your new store. If you can bring your supply to our shop, we would be happy to show you samples of our work.”

  Prudence didn’t miss a beat. “What time would you like us to come?”

  “At your earliest convenience.”

  Three-quarters of an hour later, Charity heaved two thousand sheets of cardstock onto the counter. Papa came out of his office, and I told him Osborne Milliners had an unexpected supply of cardstock and was interested in printing a simple postcard. “Isn’t that right, Miss Osborne?”

  Charity nodded and looked at me to continue.

  “Miss Osborne would like design ideas. Since my album isn’t ready yet, I thought we could lend her several samples. In the meantime, we could cut the cardstock to size.”

  Papa creased his forehead. “This is quite irregular.”

  “Won’t you excuse us a minute, Miss Osborne?” Charity took a few steps back. “Papa,” I whispered, “Mrs. Steinbacher buys her hats from these women. Soon they’ll be the most popular milliners in Portland. It won’t take long to cut their cardstock for them, and they might get us other customers.”

  Papa rubbed his chin and looked at me as if he thought for the first time that I might have a bit of a brain in my head. “You do have a point, Miriam. But I don’t want you near the machines. Give the job to Miss Svenson.”

  “Certainly.” I turned away so he couldn’t see me grinning from ear to ear. I gave Charity three samples of postcards from our inventory and told her to leave the cardstock for us to cut.

  Kirsten hid her smile behind an invoice pad. “Nice to have met you, Miss Osborne.” The two shook hands, and Charity left.

  “Show me how to cut this cardstock,” I said, ignoring Papa now that he was in his office.

  Kirsten rolled her eyes, but obliged. She refused to let me try the big cutter, so we lugged the cardstock back to the smaller cutting machine, the one that reminded me of a guillotine. Kirsten placed about forty sheets on a grid, lined up the restraining brackets, and screwed a heavy metal plate on top of the pile. She placed one hand on a special knob and reached for a razor-sharp slicer with the other. “Lesson number one: Watch your fingers.”

  The slicing mechanism was harder to operate than I thought. I tried it only a few times, lest Papa come looking for me. Then I went back to the inventory boxes in the office. If I didn’t take my samples album seriously, neither would Papa.

  By the end of the day, I had finished going through our inventory and had selected samples. Kirsten had assembled a pile of six thousand blank cards, with five hundred sheets of cardstock left over. As Papa had driven us to work that morning, he agreed to bring home the samples and the album for me to complete over the weekend.

  “Tell Mr. Jacobowitz to help you put them in the back seat.” Then he added, “And do not encourage him, Miriam. He is not the caliber of husband we have in mind for you.”

  Oh, for pity’s sake. Marriage is the last thing on my mind. “Yes, Papa,” was all I said.

  Twenty-seven piles grew on my bedroom carpet Friday. I divided each of the nine categories of samples into “definitely use,” “possibly use,” and “don’t use.” The choices were harder than I first thought.

  Mama knocked and came right in anyway. “I pinned that lace you brought to the bodice of your costume. Come try it on.” She didn’t even nod in the direction of my samples.

  I arched my back and stretched. “In a minute, Mama. I’m sorting samples for the customer album.” I pointed to six different baby announcements spread out near her feet. “Which three of these do you like best?”

  Her eyes flickered toward the floor. “They’re all nice. Your costume is by my dressing table. Tell me when you are ready to try it on.”

  The costume waited while I got back to work. By dinner the album looked stunning, with three samples for most categories and four for our business stationery and birth announcements. I included the 1910 program for the confirmation class service at Temple Beth Israel because of a particularly elegant font—and because Florrie’s name was listed.

  If it weren’t for my samples album, Mrs. Jenkins’s cooking, and the purchase of more licorice nibs, Saturday would have been a complete loss. No mail from Florrie. A dull evening at La Ballet Classique. Not a single notion about how to print the VOTE FOR JUSTICE cards under Papa’s nose.

  ***

  I awoke Sunday morning to a flash of blue.

  Serakh sat on the edge of my bed, my old black shoes in her lap. “Moshe will speak to the people again, and Tirtzah is worried. She wants you by her side.”

  I scrambled across the coverlet and squeezed her against me. “You’re alive! I was afraid they killed you as a witch. It says in the Bible…oh, never mind. It’s so good to see you! How is Tirtzah? Has she married Gabi? What’s her land like?”

  She eased away from me and smiled. My shoes fell on the floor. “I will answer all these questions after we cross. Fetch your prayer shawl.”

  My stomach sank to my knees. My mouth turned sour. “I can’t.”

  “You cannot what?”

  “I don’t have my prayer shawl. My father saw me wearing it and snatched it away. I found it, but then my mother stole it.”

  “Does she know of the blue thread?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I tried to explain about…everything…to Uncle Hermann, but he wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Miriam,” she said softly, “you cannot cross the olam without your blue thread. I must leave now.”

  I grabbed her hand. “Don’t go,” I pleaded. “Wait right here and I’ll—I’ll get you a salmon cake. Two. And a cucumber. Have you ever eaten a pickle? We have sour gherkins in the icebox. Serakh, please! Stay and talk to me.”

  She kissed the top of my forehead. “I cannot linger, even for such delicious sustenance. But I will tell Tirtzah that one day you will come again.”

  I refused to listen. “Nibs! I just got some yesterday. Give them to Makhlah; she’ll love them. Two minutes, Serakh. I’ll be right back.” I raced to my bedroom door and opened it.

  There was a flash of blue behind me.

  And in front of me, by the door to his upstairs study, stood Papa, already arrayed in his business suit. He stared past me into my bedroom, his face contorted with utter and absolute fear.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  I looked behind me. Serakh was gone—I knew she would be. When I turned to Papa, he was leaning against the wall by his study, his face a sickly wh
ite.

  I rushed to his side. His hands felt damp and cold and he seemed to be staring off into space. For a moment I thought he was having an apoplectic fit. Grandpa Goldstein had died of apoplexy at fifty-seven, and Papa was fifty-three. I started to fetch Mama, but Papa grabbed my wrist.

  “Savta!” he wheezed. “She comes back to haunt me. Flash—she vanishes. Flash—she returns.” He clutched my arm, his breathing shallow and his voice raspy.

  “No one is haunting you, Papa. We’re all safe,” I said softly, trying to calm him.

  “You think I never saw? I did! Raizl wrapped in that cursed rag—dead! My dear Raizl. Even the rabbi said Savta was a heretic, a madwoman. And he was right! I fetched him myself. Who else could save us?”

  “Come sit down,” I urged, pointing to the study. He wouldn’t move.

  “Who else could save us from this evil, I ask you? Frida? She worried more about a stain on her best dress than about a blight on our family. Hermann was still in knee pants.”

  “I’d better get Mama.”

  “No!” He fixed his wide eyes on mine. “Are you crazy? Mama loves Savta. She won’t believe me. Now that Savta lives with us, there is no escape. Mama says I have visions from the fumes I breathe at the print shop, but she is wrong. Wrong! I see. I know. I am not crazy. Mama refuses to listen to the rabbi. I have to save my family!”

  “You did the right thing, Papa,” I said, patting his hand, hoping to stop his raving. “It’s me, Miriam. I meant my mother, not yours.”

  “Miriam?” he blinked at me and frowned. “You look so much like her.”

  Like who? I dared not ask.

  “Lillian!” I shouted, lest I add to Papa’s confusion. He seemed so helpless. He needed me. And I knew what it was like to feel reality slipping out from under you.

  He finally let me guide him to the big chair behind his desk. His breathing relaxed. Color began to return to his cheeks.

  “Miriam?”

  “Yes, Papa. I’m here. Everything will be all right.”

  He reached for my hand. I thought the worst was over.

  Then I watched his face harden into anger. He glared at me. “Miriam, where is that shawl?”

  “I don’t have it, Papa.”

  “Gott in Himmel, don’t lie to me! I saw a flash of blue light in your room. Savta has returned. She’s come to kill you!”

  “What light?” I needed time to make up a story and make it good, or else I’d never get my shawl again.

  He pulled me closer, grabbed my shoulders, and shook me. “Answer me!” he shouted.

  Mama swooped into the room, her dressing gown half open, her curls in disarray. “Julius, what’s wrong?”

  “She’s found that cursed rag again!”

  “Shh…Julius, she couldn’t have. The shawl is safely tucked away, I promise you.”

  He let me go and I retreated to the other side of his desk. “There was blue light in your room,” Papa said, jabbing his finger at me. “Do not deny this, Miriam. I saw it with two eyes of my own.”

  My own two eyes, I thought, out of habit. I took a breath. “I was going to the kitchen to get a snack,” I said, which was true enough. “I was looking at you, Papa. I didn’t see anything in my bedroom.”

  He put his head in his hands. I still felt sorry for him. “The shawl is so beautiful, Papa,” I explained. “Nothing wicked could have come from it. It has a quote from the Bible about pursuing justice. Your savta was a wise woman no matter what that rabbi said. It was all some sort of mistake.”

  I wiped my wet cheeks and imagined Raizl, Serakh, and Savta at King Solomon’s Temple. Papa was so miserable and so wrong. Isn’t this the time to tell Papa the whole truth?

  “Mistake?” His eyes narrowed. A vein pulsed in his forehead. “How dare you tell me what is a mistake! Never!”

  I backed away.

  “Justice?” he shouted. “What do you know of justice, you foolish girl?”

  My last shred of sympathy vanished.

  Papa stood. He straightened his suit jacket and smoothed his hair. “I swore once long ago to destroy that shawl, but like an idiot I listened to Hermann. No more! Lillian, you will take that shawl and you will burn it!”

  Mama caressed Papa’s cheek. “But, Julius, dear—”

  He pushed her hand away. “Burn it! Don’t you dare to give it back to Hermann. Do you hear me? Ach, women! I am going to the Club, and I will be back for dinner.”

  He stormed off. A moment later, I heard the front door slam. I wanted to be grateful that he hadn’t suffered a fit or spun off into insanity, but I couldn’t. Not now.

  Mama was rewrapping her dressing gown. “About my shawl,” I ventured.

  She shook her head. “We’ll talk about it another time.”

  “But you won’t burn it.”

  “Don’t you threaten me, Miriam. I am not in the mood.”

  “I meant it as a question, that’s all. A plea. Besides, I would never burn Baloo…I know how much he means to you. And I loved Danny every bit as much as you did.” It slipped out before I could stop myself.

  “Danny has nothing to do with this,” Mama said. “Your father just wants to keep you safe. You’re the only child we have left.”

  Her voice broke. Soon both of us were crying.

  “I need my shawl, Mama. Papa’s wrong about it being evil—it’s no such thing. He’s made a huge mistake.”

  She searched my face. “And what is so important about this shawl?”

  Should I tell Mama? I stared at the very spot in the carpet where I had returned from my latest…trip. Can I trust her?

  I licked my lips, which had suddenly felt dry. It would be my word against Papa’s, I reasoned, and she always took Papa’s side these days. Even Uncle Hermann didn’t believe me.

  “Tell me,” she whispered.

  “It’s an heirloom.” That was the best I could do. “Savta intended it for me because I’m named for her. Her prayer shawl can’t hurt me, I promise.”

  Mama dismissed me with a wave of her hand. “You’re only sixteen, you’re in no position to make that promise. You should listen to your father. And to me. We’ve kept you clothed and fed and sheltered and safe. What can you possibly know about the real world?”

  “The real world?” I remembered the grains of sand under my fingernails, and Tirtzah and her sisters standing before Moses. “I know that we have to take risks. We have to stand up for what’s right. I know that Papa shouldn’t have printed that disgusting VOTE NO card even if he is against suffrage for women. I know that Papa was wrong about Raizl and the shawl. I know that he was wrong to wait so long before calling the doctor about Danny.”

  A muffled cry rose in Mama’s throat. Instantly I regretted what I had said about my brother. Mama raced to her room. I crawled back into bed.

  Sunday was horrid.

  ***

  Monday morning I leaned against my brass headboard and tried to put my thoughts in order. One idea kept pushing to the front: I had work to do. The suffrage campaign was here and now and important. If I focused on that I wouldn’t have to think about Danny, or my parents, or my stupidity in hiding my shawl next to Baloo. I slipped out of the house while Mama practiced the piano.

  The walk to Osborne Milliners did little to clear my mind, but at least I could make rosettes, bows, and sashes for Mrs. Duniway’s birthday rally.

  “I hear the mayor will be there tomorrow,” Charity said, cutting another length of yellow ribbon. “Maybe the governor, too.”

  By mid-afternoon my head throbbed and Charity counted five cuts on my fingers. When I was finished for the day, I practically crawled home. Mrs. Jenkins made me chamomile tea with plenty of honey. Closeted in my room, I tried to concentrate on Mrs. Duniway’s party and the suffrage campaign. No good. My mind kept wandering back to Serakh and my prayer shawl. Serakh had said something about Tirtzah and another decision Moses was going to announce. Or, rather, Moses had already announced it because that was thousands of years ago.
What had I missed?

  I reached for the Bible. Uncle Hermann and Mrs. Jenkins said Zelophehad’s daughters were mentioned in Numbers and I was determined to read through all of it this time. I concentrated on every list of names—the longer the better. The longest started in chapter twenty-six—the tribes that came from Jacob’s twelve sons. Finally I got to:

  28 The sons of Joseph after their families were Manasseh and Ephraim.

  Sons and more sons. Naturally. Then, listed under the tribe of Manasseh:

  33 And Zelophehad the son of Hepher had no sons, but daughters: and the names of the daughters of Zelophehad were Mahlah, and Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah.

  Not spelled the way I had heard their names, but it didn’t matter. I read through the verses listing the tribes, until I came to Asher.

  46 And the name of the daughter of Asher was Sarah.

  Serakh at last. I imagined Tirtzah and her sisters and Serakh sitting with me on the floor near my bed. Together again, here, in my time and place. I wiped my tears on my sleeve and started to read again, line by line.

  Chapter twenty-seven told the story I had seen the second time I traveled with the blue thread, the time I stood before Moses. Tirtzah and her sisters asked for their inheritance and Moses gave it to them. Then he made it a law for every man who died with daughters but no sons.

  What about that other ruling? I followed my finger down the rest of the column. I read chapter after chapter. And there it was in chapter thirty-six. Those angry men claimed that the land had to stay within their tribe. They made an argument about inheritance and something called the jubilee, which I didn’t understand. But the rest of the chapter was all too clear.

  6 This is the thing which the LORD doth command concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, saying, Let them marry to whom they think best; only to the family of the tribe of their father shall they marry.

  Moses made it a rule for all time.

  8 And every daughter, that possesseth an inheritance in any tribe of the children of Israel, shall be wife unto one of the family of the tribe of her father, that the children of Israel may enjoy every man the inheritance of his fathers.