Loving Liberty Levine

by Colin Falconer

  Sura stared at the tiny little thing in her arms. “We should wash her. Did you give her her bath?”

  “Maybe Tessie gives her, I don’t know.”

  “Tessie is not her mother,” Sura said. She took a deep breath and said the words she had always wanted to say. “I am.”

  Micha heated water in a kettle over the hearth and filled up the wooden tub on the rickety stool in the middle of the room; only one wooden tub he had for his dishes and his clothes.

  Sura bathed the child in it, stared at the fine down of reddish-blonde hair at the nape of her neck, the fuzz of curls on her head. She’s a shiksa baby, all right, no doubt about it. But I don’t care.

  I’ll love her to the end of my days like she’s my own. Elohim, hear me, that’s my promise to you. Perhaps not part of your grand design, but now you have relented and given me this miracle, don’t you dare try and take it away again, not now.

  “We will have such a good life together,” she whispered into the little girl’s tiny pink ear. “You are going to be so happy. I will make sure. I am going to love you like you are my very own. You wait and see.”

  She dried her with a ragged towel—all Micha had—and pinned a new cloth for a nappy, felt growing in her a purpose, where for so long there had been only a kind of numb despair. She felt Micha’s eyes on her, watching. She smiled at him for doing this for her even though there was a part of her that wondered if perhaps this was too good to be really true.

  But she mustn’t think about that. If no one really wants this baby, why not us?

  “Look at you,” Micha said. “Your face is shining, just shining. You were born to be a mother.”

  “It’s everything I ever wanted. This makes everything . . .”

  “Complete.”

  “Complete, yes.”

  “What will we call her?” he said. “Why not we call her Rachel, after my mother?” When she didn’t answer him, he said, “What do you want to call her?”

  “What about Liberty?”

  “Liberty? What kind of name is that?”

  “It is a not-Jewish name is what it is,” Sura said. “Look at her! Everyone can see she is a shiksa, she should have a name that is not Jewish, and not goyim either.”

  “Liberty?”

  “After the Mrs. Liberty statue in the harbor. The goddess of the poor people. She can be Liberty Levine.”

  “Liberty Levine,” Micha said, and nodded. “All right. What do I know from names anyway? So long as you are happy.”

  “Liberty,” Sura said. How many times had she held little mites like this? Bessie, still slick from her birthing, Zlota’s two little boys. But now she had a baby of her own to look after and to love, like she had always wanted. She had lost her family and her shtetl, but now she had a new purpose.

  She warmed some milk on the little stove and made sure it was not too hot, then fed it to her from the glass bottle that the woman Tessie across the hall had given them. As she suckled, the little girl’s eyes never left her face. Sura thought about little Bessie lying beside her in the bed that night their sled turned over on the way back from Tallinn. This time I do not have to give you back, she thought.

  Afterward she lay down on the mattress with her, started gently nibbling on her nails as her sister Zlota had taught her, to soften them and keep them short so she didn’t scratch herself with them. She stroked the baby’s face with her fingers, fought down the panic stirring in her, something inside her warning her to hold back.

  She’s not yours, she thought. How can you be so sure the Americans will not come and take her away? What will happen when she grows up and everyone sees she is a shiksa? What will you do then?

  No, she is mine now, my Micha told me so. A tear dropped onto the baby’s cheek, and she wiped it away with her thumb. “Now look what you did,” she told her. “The first time you make me cry.”

  She started to sing her a lullaby, the same lullaby she heard Gutta sing to her own little ones.

  Shlof mayn kind, mayn kroyn, mayn sheyner,

  Shlofzhe, bubeleh.

  Shlof, mayn lebn, mayn Kaddish eyner,

  Bay dayn vigl zitst dayn mame,

  Zingt a lid un veynt.

  Vest a mol farshteyn mistome,

  Vos zi hot gemeynt.

  Vest a mol farshteyn mistome,

  Vos zi hot gemeynt.

  Sleep, my child, my crown, my beauty,

  Sleep, my darling.

  Sleep, my life, my only Kaddish,

  By your cradle sits your mother,

  She sings a song and weeps.

  You’ll understand some day perhaps,

  What is on her mind.

  You’ll understand some day perhaps,

  What is on her mind.

  “Look, she’s sleeping,” Micha said. “It’s like she knows your voice already.”

  “The nonsense you talk,” Sura said, but she was secretly pleased.

  Micha lay down on the mattress beside her. “Did you miss me?” he said.

  “What a question.”

  “I missed you,” he said.

  “You’re my husband. What kind of husband does not miss his wife?”

  “I am sorry for this apartment. It’s not like the house we have in Tallinn.”

  “At least it doesn’t have your mother in it.”

  He laughed. “How is my mother?”

  “I don’t see her since you left. She doesn’t even talk to me in the street. She blames me for you leaving. She says you only come to America for me.”

  “Perhaps it’s true. You are the most beautiful girl in the whole world. I would do anything for you.”

  The light went out. Micha told her he didn’t have a nickel for the machine. It was a gas meter, he said, like a machine that told a person how much light they could have, but you had to keep feeding it little coins to get more. Micha said he had no more coal for the stove, so the only thing to do was sleep.

  Even in the shtetl we lived better, she thought. At least we had the wood stove to sleep on when it was cold, and candles for light, even in winter.

  “So, I suppose you’re going to tell me now that the streets in America are not paved with gold,” she said.

  “You can see for yourself, some of them are not paved at all. I think it’s why they want us here, so we can pave them for them.”

  “What do you know from paving streets? You have a leather shop like your vati did.”

  “I don’t have money to buy a shop. That’s why I asked my uncle Max to get me a job.”

  “But you got a job, that’s good. When we save enough money, then we will buy you a shop. You are already the manager of a big hotel.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “What are you saying, not anymore?”

  “The hotel is gone. There was a fire.”

  “So you don’t have a job? But what will we do?”

  “Uncle Max will look after me.”

  “Who is this Uncle Max? What can he do?”

  “Well, he’s not really my uncle. He’s my landsman, an old friend of my father’s. He’s been in America a long time. He worked at the hotel too. He was what they call here a concierge. So now he doesn’t have a job either. But my uncle Max, he knows everybody, he will soon get another job, and he will get me one as well.”

  Sura cuddled up on the mattress with the baby, trying to keep warm. Her first night in this America, with all the new smells and the new sounds. So noisy here at night in America, not like in the shtetl.

  Micha tried to touch her under the blankets, but she wriggled away. “You’ll wake the baby,” she told him.

  “But Sura, it’s been so long.”

  “I’m so tired, Micha.” It was true, or partly true anyway, she was exhausted. But even as tired as she was, she could not get to sleep. Whenever she closed her eyes, she would wake herself up again to make sure little Liberty was still there, still breathing.

  It was hours until she finally fell asleep, a black sleep with bright an
d mad dreams. She woke the next morning to the rumbling of milk wagons, the clatter of bottles and cans, the cries of peddlers setting up down in the street, the screaming of other babies in the building, and little Liberty gurgling and kicking beside her. “Such a beautiful sound it is,” she said, and turned and laughed over her shoulder at Micha, and he laughed back, and for the first time she thought: I could really grow to love him.

  Little Liberty and Micha and me, we will make a real family right here, right here in this America.

  10

  Boston

  George Seabrook ate his breakfast alone in the salon, as he did every morning; bacon, toast, eggs, maple syrup, and coffee that Frankston brought in on a tray along with a neatly folded copy of that morning’s edition of the Boston Globe.

  He took a sip of coffee and opened his newspaper, flicking the pages to unfold the creases. He stared at the front page and murmured a blasphemy under his breath, something he would never usually do, even when alone. The coffee spilled and burned his hand. He gasped and leaped to his feet, dropping the cup on the floor, where it shattered.

  He stared at the headline.

  TWENTY DIE IN HOTEL FIRE

  Dozens trapped in ten-story building perish or hurl themselves to death

  Underneath were pictures of crumpled bodies lying on the sidewalk, beside a photograph of a blackened and gutted building.

  “Grand Central Hotel,” he murmured, reading the paragraph below the photograph.

  The door opened, and Frankston ran in to the room. “Is everything all right, sir? I heard a crash.”

  “Get my car ready,” George said. “I have to go to New York.”

  11

  The Gouverneur Hospital, Lower East Side

  George Seabrook removed his derby and followed the nurse along the ward, the grim green-and-off-white-painted walls matched his mood. His nose wrinkled at the strong smell of antiseptic.

  Max Beerschaum lay propped up in the iron-framed bed, his bandaged hands and arms resting on pillows. Only the tips of his fingers were visible. He appeared to be asleep.

  “This is Mr. Beerschaum,” she said. “Shall I bring you a chair?”

  George nodded, and she hurried off to find one. Max opened one eye. He took in the three-piece sack suit, the burgundy silk tie, the club collar, and walking cane, and blinked in surprise.

  “Do I know you, sir?” he said.

  “I don’t think so,” George said.

  The nurse returned with a chair. George sat down, crossing his legs but taking care with the pleats of his trousers. He leaned the cane against the wall and placed the derby on his lap.

  “You don’t look like a reporter,” Max said. “There have been reporters in here asking me about the fire.”

  “I’m not a reporter. My name is George Seabrook, one of the Boston Seabrooks.” Max blinked at him. That meant nothing to him, clearly. “The reason I’m here is that I believe my wife and daughter may have died in the fire at the Grand Central Hotel.”

  “Oh. Oh, my condolences, sir. I don’t know what to say.”

  George nodded and continued to stare at Max, who waited, embarrassed and a little intimidated by the other man’s unblinking gaze.

  Finally: “I believe you were the concierge at the hotel.”

  “Yes, yes I was. As you can see, I was lucky to get out with my life.”

  George looked at the bandages, then back at Max. “What happened?”

  “One of the bellboys. A metal stanchion fell across his legs. Me and the desk clerk helped lift it off him.”

  “You were burned.”

  “The pain, I can’t tell you. White hot, it was.”

  “That was a very brave thing to do.”

  “He was just a boy, he was screaming. Some of the things that happened that night—” Max stopped. “But this, you don’t want to hear.”

  “I wondered if you could help me.”

  “Me, how can I help a man like yourself?”

  “I wonder if you remember my wife. You see, the police have recovered what they believe is her body. But, as you can imagine, because of the fire . . .”

  Max nodded vigorously. He had seen some of the bodies for himself, laid out on the sidewalk among the tangle of firemen’s hoses, not something he ever wanted to see again, not if he lived to be a hundred.

  “They still haven’t found my . . . my daughter.”

  Max fidgeted in the bed. What was he supposed to say to the poor man?

  “Do you remember my wife, Mr. Beerschaum? I rather imagine you would. There can’t have been many women staying at the hotel with a babe in arms.”

  “Yes, I remember her. They . . . she arrived maybe two weeks before the fire. She had a suite on the top floor of the hotel.”

  “There is no need for delicacy, Mr. Beerschaum. I know she wasn’t alone.”

  Max swallowed hard.

  George leaned closer to the bed. “I can rely on your discretion?”

  “Discretion is my middle name. Nine years I was concierge at the Grand Central. You can ask anyone. Max Beerschaum is the prince of confidential.”

  “Good. You see, as I said, I am aware that she was not unaccompanied, at least, when she arrived at the hotel.”

  Max lowered his voice to a whisper. “The desk clerk, he tells me that this fellow pays for the room three weeks in advance. Top floor, a suite, they don’t give it for nothing, you know? It’s a lot.”

  “I understand.”

  “Well, a week later he sees the man jump into a cab in the street, with his suitcase, and that’s it, he never comes back. The lady, she doesn’t come down from her room for days. My nephew, he says she just sits in her room and cries.”

  “Your nephew?”

  “Well, he’s not so much my nephew. He’s the boy of a schoolboy friend of mine, from back in the old country.”

  “Your nephew spoke to her?”

  “He never meant no harm, sir. He’s got a soft heart, that boy, that’s his trouble. I told him once, I told him a thousand times, not to speak to the guests.”

  “He talked to my wife before the fire?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “And she was crying?”

  “I don’t want to get him in any trouble.”

  “He’s not in any trouble, Max. You don’t mind if I call you Max? All I want is to find out what happened to Clare. My wife. Do you think I could speak to your nephew? What’s his name?”

  “Micha. But like I said, he won’t know anything. He was just the janitor.”

  “Micha,” George said.

  “Mr. George, I am sorry for your loss. But I don’t understand how this is going to help.”

  “Perhaps it will help me understand her frame of mind. It is one thing to bury a body, it is another to bury the past. I would like to know if perhaps she regretted what she did. Do you understand my meaning?”

  Max nodded.

  “And there is the matter of . . . my daughter. I still cannot be sure what happened to her. Perhaps the gentleman who accompanied my wife to the hotel returned to collect the child before the fire. Perhaps that might explain why they did not find the body.”

  “Well, Mr. George, a fire like that, and her just a little maideleh . . .”

  “I have to be sure she is gone.”

  “Perhaps you should talk to Joe on the desk, he—”

  “I have already spoken to every other member of the hotel staff who was on duty that night. You are my last hope.”

  He recrossed his legs and waited.

  Max nodded. “Micha, Michael he calls himself in America, he’s working down at the docks now. When I get out of here, I’ll find him something better. It’s just for now.”

  “You can arrange for us to meet? I’d like to talk to him.”

  “He doesn’t speak English so good. But the doctors say they are letting me out of here tomorrow. Maybe I can take you to see him. Translate.”

  “Thank you, Max.” George reached into hi
s pocket and took out his wallet. He put two banknotes in the bedside drawer. “I very much appreciate your help and discretion in this matter.”

  He picked up his cane and left.

  Sura made her way through the toomel, the chaos, on Delancey Street, holding Liberty tight in a sling around her neck, keeping her warm under the shawl. A summer like a Russian winter, a dirty drizzle coming down, everything gray and dripping.

  She had never seen anything like this New York, all the jostlers and scavengers and sleeve tuggers and barterers. There were pushcarts all up and down the streets, hundreds of them, thousands, as far as a person could see, everything splashed and muddy. Here you could buy anything you could ever want, from collars to shoestrings, if you had a few cents in your pocket to buy them after you paid the rent. What is it you want? A tablecloth, a tin fork, a curtain, a pair of eyeglasses? There was someone to sell it to you. You needed half a parsnip for the nighttime stew, or a lady’s intimate garment, it’s all laid out right there for everyone to see.

  And the stink of it all. So many flapping, glistening fish, the sea must be empty, and all the live chickens and rabbits panicking in tiny cages.

  Little urchin girls pushed among the street vendors, selling matches, toothpicks, cigars, and flowers, others scavenging for wood in the alleys and in the gutters. Not for one day, my little Liberty, Sura thought. This won’t be her life.

  “Look at all this, bubeleh,” she whispered to her. “Ever you see anything like? You see those yellow things there? Here they call such things banana. First time your papa give me, I think I am going to be ill. Hope you never taste such a disgusting thing. And look you how the people here are chewing, always chewing. No, you mustn’t stare, bubeleh, they get angry here in America if you stare. Like cows they are over here. Gum, they call it. And you see that one? First, I think there is something wrong with his skin, but they are born that way. All different colors of brown they have here. Schvartzes, they call them here. But only the white ones chew, the ones with brown skins, they don’t chew so much. No, don’t stare bubeleh, didn’t I just tell you?”

  Such a street it was. The houses, they would have been fine houses once, pretty houses. They had fancy tin moldings, beautiful wrought-iron fire escapes. She couldn’t believe how pretty it must have been once. But now there were too many people and too much poorness.