Mrs. Kaputnik's Pool Hall and Matzo Ball Emporium

by Rona Arato

  Dark-red spots dotted Bernie’s round cheeks. “I said, it isn’t your home.”

  “We don’t like it either, but we’re stuck there for now,” said Shoshi.

  “Not for long,” said Bernie.

  “Poor lost Greenies,” Ziggy said. “Go back where you came from. You don’t belong in America.”

  “We belong here as much as you do,” Moshe shouted.

  The boy took a step toward him and lifted his fists. In response, Moshe balled his hands into fists.

  “Hey, look’s like we’ve got a fighter here,” said Ziggy. “I’m gonna teach your cousin a lesson.”

  Bernie stuffed his hands in his pockets and studied his shoes.

  “Gotta show ’em who’s boss in this neighborhood.” Ziggy snapped his fingers, and his friends surrounded Moshe and Shoshi. Moshe pushed Shoshi behind him and faced Ziggy.

  “I fought off a gang of Cossacks in Russia,” said Moshe. “You don’t scare me.”

  “Cossacks?” Ziggy flexed his muscles, then he punched Moshe in the stomach.

  Moshe doubled over, gasping for breath. With his head lowered like a battering ram, he rushed toward Ziggy. Then Ziggy’s friends jumped into the fight. The last thing Moshe heard before he was engulfed in a sea of squirming bodies was Shoshi screaming and Ziggy yelling for Bernie to join the fight. Moshe hit the ground and couldn’t hear anything at all.

  Salty looked up and down the street. No one paid him any attention. He wondered if he had been wise in promising to return the dragon to the Kaputniks. He had to think fast. The man was getting closer.

  Moving swiftly, Salty upended the cart so the potato sacks fell at the man’s feet. The impact jiggled Snigger loose and he tumbled out. Then, curling back onto himself, he knocked the cloaked man to the ground.

  “Good boy, Snigger,” Salty cheered.

  The dragon grabbed the man’s hood between his teeth. It fell back and Salty glimpsed one black eye and one blue eye. Sunlight danced off his dagger. “This doesn’t need to be ugly. It’s the dragon I want.”

  “Open fire, ye blasted dragon,” Salty shouted. “Where’s yer blazing breath when we need it?”

  The man pointed the knife at Salty’s heart. “Turn over the beast, and you won’t be hurt.”

  Salty threw up his hands. “Take ’im. Hear that, Snigger?” he shouted. “This ’ere gent’s come ter get yer.”

  A plume of smoke filled the air, as a fiery tongue knocked the knife from the attacker’s hand.

  Then, before Salty could stop him, Snigger reared up on his hind legs and raced down the alley.

  Moshe didn’t know what hit him. All at once, he was on the ground with a mound of boys piled on top of him. He struggled to break free of the tangle of bodies. Shoshi pushed and pulled at the boys’ legs and arms. He tried to call out to her, but he was submerged by blows again.

  Shoshi looked frantically around the alley for help, but there were no adults in sight. Two boys stood guard, while the others joined in the fight. Shoshi thought of running to get her uncle, but she realized she didn’t know which way to go. Oh, if only Snigger were here, she thought.

  “ROAR!”

  Yes, Snigger, yes!

  “ROAR! ROAR!”

  “Snigger! Over here,” Shoshi yelled.

  The dragon charged down the alley. When he reached them, he pulled one of the boys off of Moshe. Between his teeth, Snigger clutched the boy by the seat of his pants.

  “Put me down, put me down.” The boy’s arms and legs beat the air.

  Kerplunk! Snigger dropped him and reached for the next boy, who happened to be Bernie. Kerplunk! Bernie landed in a pile of garbage. Snigger pulled off another boy, and then Ziggy, dropping each of them on the trash heap.

  “Snigger, I’m so happy to see you!” Shoshi opened her arms, and the dragon trotted into them.

  “Snig, snig, snigger,” he hiccupped as Shoshi hugged him. It had been almost two days since the kids had seen Snigger, and he had doubled in size.

  Moshe looked at him and whistled. “Snigger, what have you been eating?”

  Ziggy struggled to his feet and approached them. Snigger bent down and stretched his neck so that Moshe and Shoshi could scramble onto his back. They held on tightly to his spikes.

  “Hang on,” Moshe panted.

  Snigger bolted down the alleyway. They galloped along, careful to keep to the back alleys, until Snigger screeched around a corner and halted in the shadow of a doorway.

  “You saved us again, Snigger,” Moshe said. He and Shoshi slid off the dragon’s back. Shoshi touched the dragon’s wings. “If only you would learn to use these!”

  Snigger’s wings drooped. He lowered his head and snorted.

  Shoshi stroked Snigger’s neck. “Don’t worry. You’ll learn to fly one of these days. You’re still a baby, after all.” She turned to Moshe. “Did you see the look on those bullies’ faces? I don’t think they’ll bother us again.”

  “Not if they want to stay in one piece,” Moshe said, gingerly touching his eye. It had begun to swell. “Next time, Snigger, we’ll be ready for them.”

  It was now evening, and the sun had dipped behind the buildings. Snigger reached the fifth-floor fire escape with Shoshi and Moshe right behind. “Don’t let him go inside,” Shoshi said, but she was too late.

  Snigger’s head poked through the open apartment window, and their aunt ran around the living room, screaming and flapping her arms. Her wig had slid over one eye, giving her the appearance of a frantic, halfblind alley cat.

  Shoshi stooped down next to the dragon. “Snigger, stop scaring Aunt Sadie,” she said, as her aunt’s screams rolled through the open window.

  At Aunt Sadie’s screams, they looked up into the night and saw a large animal leaning over the railing, a fireball high above him in the air. The red cloud hovered, shining like a misplaced sun, and then slowly faded into showers of glowing sparks.

  “What is that thing?” Aunt Sadie yelled.

  “This is Snigger.” Shoshi and Moshe pulled the dragon back from the railing. “Don’t worry, he won’t hurt you. He’s our pet dragon.”

  “What is a dragon?”

  “We bought him from a peddler, and he saved us from the Cossacks,” said Moshe.

  “He’ll be very good,” said Shoshi. “You won’t even know he’s in the apartment.”

  As if in agreement, Snigger shook his head, setting loose a fresh spray of sparks. One of them landed on Aunt Sadie’s wig and flared up. Aunt Sadie shrieked again and slapped at her hairpiece. “Not in my house!” She shook her head so hard that the wig flew out the window. “Aaaagh! You’re crazy if you think I would have such a demon living in my house! Better you should all go back to Russia!”

  “Now why would they want to do that?” Someone in a striped shirt climbed up the fire escape. “Whew, I found ye. It was this beast’s fireball that finally led me to ye.”

  “Salty!” Shoshi threw her arms around him.

  “Who is he?” Aunt Sadie looked as if she were about to faint.

  “He’s our friend, Aunt Sadie,” said Moshe. “He kept Snigger hidden for us so the captain wouldn’t throw us off the ship.”

  Their aunt looked as if she wished he had, then abruptly turned on her heel and disappeared back through the window.

  “Not very friendly, is she?” Salty grinned.

  “I guess she doesn’t like dragons,” said Moshe.

  “Or us. Salty, we were worried you wouldn’t find us,” said Shoshi.

  “Snigger saved us again,” said Moshe.

  “Ye’d better keep an eye on ’im. There’s people up to no good that want to get their ’ands on ’im. That’s what I come ter tell yer.”

  “Oh, no!” said Shoshi.

  “I ’ate to leave you alone in this big city, but I gotta get back to me ship.”

  “Will we ever see you again?” asked Moshe.

  Salty stood and gazed out over the street. “That depends on which way the wind blows. Re
member what I said. Be careful! good-bye and good luck, Kaputniks.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Betrayal

  Shoshi rose quietly, careful not to disturb her sleeping mother and brother. She climbed out to the fire escape. Morning was breaking over the Lower East Side in a gentle wave, washing the street with a pale light that softened the grimy surfaces of the old buildings. A sway-backed horse, its pointy ears poking through holes in a straw hat, clopped by, pulling a milk wagon. A young boy trudged along the sidewalk, his back bent almost double under a thick pile of coats. From every doorway, men in work clothes spilled onto the street. Women and children swarmed around pushcarts. Shoshi thought of the sweet stickiness of the banana she’d tasted yesterday. What other wonders, she thought, might be hidden amongst the onions, potatoes, and cabbages on those carts? In Vrod, men worked and women gathered at the market to gossip and buy food. But Vrod was tiny compared to New York. Salty said that New York was only one tiny corner of America. And Papa was lost somewhere in the immensity of this noise and bustle. “We’ll never find him.” Shoshi blinked to fight back tears.

  The fire escape rattled, and two yellow eyes rose like twin moons over the edge. Snigger had escaped from the restaurant, where he had been banished to for the night. Together, they woke Moshe and her mother.

  “Good morning, sleepyhead.” Shoshi shook her brother’s shoulder. “The whole world is awake while you waste your time in dreams.”

  Moshe groaned and rolled on his back. He brushed a lock of hair off his forehead, stretched, and stood.

  “Oy, what time is it?” Mrs. Kaputnik asked.

  “I don’t know, Mama,” Shoshi said. “But we’re in America and that’s wonderful!”

  “We should wash up and go down for breakfast and … ayeeee!” Mrs. Kaputnik patted her pocket. “Ayeeee!”

  “Mama, what’s wrong?” said Shoshi.

  “It’s gone!”

  “What’s gone?”

  Mrs. Kaputnik turned her pockets inside out. She tore back their blankets, peered under the rug, dug between the sofa cushions, and searched every inch of the room. She ran into the kitchen and then into the small bedroom at the back of the apartment.

  “It’s gone,” she cried. “Our money is gone, all of it! When I went to sleep, my purse was here.” She put her hand in her pocket. “They stole it! Those gonifs. Our money they took right from under my nose. Now they are laughing at us.”

  The restaurant door was open. No preparations had been made for the day’s meals. The fire in the stove was out, and dishes encrusted with the remains of yesterday’s food sat in a pile on the sink. A sheet of paper was left on one of the tables. Mrs. Kaputnik snatched it up. It was written in Yiddish. “They’ve gone!” she shouted, as she skimmed the note. “Gone where?” said Shoshi.

  In a shaky voice, Mrs. Kaputnik read the note out loud.

  “You wanted the restaurant so now it is yours. We have taken your coins as payment. The apartment and furniture you can have for free. We are going to California to make our fortune.”

  Your loving relatives,

  Mendel, Sadie, and Bernie

  Mrs. Kaputnik sank onto a chair and buried her head in her hands. “Now we will never find your father.”

  Shoshi wrapped her arms around her mother. “Yes we will, Mama. We don’t need Uncle Mendel and Aunt Sadie.”

  “Or Bernie,” Moshe fingered his swollen eye. “Except to bash in his head.”

  Shoshi jumped to her feet. “Moshe, have you seen Snigger?”

  In all the confusion, they had forgotten the dragon. Moshe ran to the door and peered out at the sidewalk. No Snigger. “We left him in the apartment. I’ll get him.” He came back a few minutes later with a stricken look on his face. “He’s not there, either.”

  “Forget the dragon. We have more important things to worry about.” Mrs. Kaputnik ran her finger over the tabletop and it came up black. “Shmutz! Never have I seen such a filthy–” Clang! Clang! They raced into the kitchen. Snigger was lighting the oven with his fiery breath.

  “Snigger, stop that!” Mrs. Kaputnik stomped her foot. “Stop playing with the stove. You want to burn us down?”

  “Wait, Mama! Let him light it.” Shoshi watched Snigger’s sparks ignite the gas flame. “Mama, food cooked by a dragon would be something special. Yes?”

  “A dragon should cook our food? How would he know the recipes?”

  “I don’t mean prepare the food. I meant cook it – with his breath.”

  “Hmmm,” said her mother.

  “That’s a great idea,” said Moshe.

  Mrs. Kaputnik clapped her hands. “Don’t just stand there. Get busy and clean up this place. Shoshi, you check the cupboards to see if there is anything to cook. Moshe, get the broom and start sweeping. And Snigger,” she said, “don’t scare away customers.”

  CHAPTER 11

  How Can Anyone Live in New York?

  “I don’t know if I’m supposed to love New York or hate it.” Shoshi swatted at a fly that had landed on the tip of her nose. Her hair stuck to her forehead in damp red streaks.

  “Love it, I suppose,” said Moshe. His face was pressed to the bars of the fire escape. His feet dangled over the edge. “Mama wanted to come here more than anything in the world, so it must be a good place.” He cast a dubious eye on the street below. “Shoshi, do you miss trees and flowers and picking mushrooms in the forest?”

  “Of course I do. And I miss the village. Remember how all the women went to market to buy food for Shabbos and gossiped around the well? Over here, it doesn’t feel like the Sabbath,” said Shoshi.

  Moshe gave her a sharp look. “You called them mean old yentas who spread nasty gossip.”

  “But they were our yentas. We all went to synagogue together, and we brought each other soup whenever one of us was sick. Here, the relatives who were supposed to welcome us stole our money and disappeared. We don’t know anyone else, and even if we did, it would never be the same. Sometimes I like it here, but other times I wish we’d stayed in Vrod.”

  “Me too. Shoshi, what does Papa look like?”

  His sister scrunched up her face. “I think he’s tall. Or maybe that’s only because I was very little when he left. He has dark curly hair and a soft voice.” Together, she and Moshe looked down into the street. “He always wore a black suit with a white shirt. And on holidays, he wore a big hat – like that.” She pointed to a man bobbing through the crowd in a black hat. He stopped at a pushcart and bought two apples and put them in his shopping bag. He moved to the next pushcart and inspected the cans of vegetables. Shoshi clambered down the fire escape’s ladder. Moshe followed her. When they reached the cart, the man had already moved on.

  “Over there.” Moshe grabbed her hand and pulled her across the street, where the man emerged from a store.

  The man in the hat turned. Shoshi saw a wrinkled face, a silver beard, and two bright blue eyes.

  “Yiddishe kinder?” he asked. “From where you have come?”

  “Yes, we’re Jewish. We’re from Vrod. In Russia,” Shoshi replied.

  The man nodded. “Welcome to America.” He smiled, exposing a mouthful of yellow teeth. “Goot Shabbos.” He continued down the street. They watched his hat weave through the crowd.

  Their first Sabbath dinner in America was eaten in the newly cleaned restaurant. With no money to shop, Mama had scraped together a meal from ingredients she’d found in the kitchen. An onion, two potatoes, and a handful of carrots became soup. Mama had discovered six eggs, flour, a container of yeast, and the remains of Passover matzo. From this, she had fashioned a small challah and a pot of matzo balls for the soup.

  “Tomorrow we rest,” said Mrs. Kaputnik. “The next day, we work.”

  “What will we do?” asked Moshe.

  “Open the restaurant,” she said. “But with what, I don’t know.” She placed a sugar cube between her teeth, lifted her glass of tea, and sipped.

  Shoshi fed a handful of cubes to Snigger
, who was curled in a spiky heap next to the table. He licked her fingers with his raspy tongue. “Mama, how much matzo is left?”

  A crease dented Mrs. Kaputnik’s brow. “This much,” she said, placing her hand halfway between the table and the floor.

  “That would make a lot of matzo balls, wouldn’t it?”

  “How can we open a restaurant serving only matzo balls?” her mother asked.

  “Maybe the man with the vegetable pushcart will give us some vegetables for soup. We can pay him after we sell the matzo balls.”

  “Who would come to a restaurant to eat matzo balls?” asked Mrs. Kaputnik.

  “Everybody,” said Shoshi. “Once they learn the matzo balls are being cooked by a dragon.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Mrs. Kaputnik’s Restaurant

  The next morning, Shoshi and Moshe helped their mother write a sign in English, which they pasted to the window of the restaurant.

  MRS. KAPUTNIK’S MATZO BALL RESTAURANT.

  By noon, the batter was made, the water was boiling, and three Kaputniks and a dragon waited for business. But no one wandered into the restaurant.

  “Maybe we have to tell them we have a dragon cooking the food,” said Moshe.

  Shoshi made a face. “How? Stand outside and shout?”

  “Why not? The pushcart owners do it, and they have lots of customers.” Moshe tugged at his pants, which were getting shorter every day. Snigger wasn’t the only one growing.

  “You’ll do no such thing,” said Mrs. Kaputnik. “We will sit here and wait. If no one comes, tomorrow we will try again.”

  “Mama, we have to do something.” Before she could answer, Shoshi grabbed Moshe by the hand and pulled him outside among the hordes of people. Suddenly conscious of her ragged appearance, Shoshi felt overwhelmed. She tried to smooth the wrinkles from her brown skirt and white blouse. “I don’t think I can do this,” she said.

  “Remember when the Cossacks came? We were brave then,” said Moshe. He took a deep breath and called out: “Matzo balls! Fresh and cooked by dragon fire!”