Have I Got a Story for You

by Ezra Glinter

  Hecht coughed heavily and sat down on his bed. Golde coughed back—as if she wanted him to know that she was waiting, and that she wanted him to come sit and spend some time with her, once Chaim was asleep. A few minutes went by. Hecht peered through the curtain with excitement. He saw Golde sitting by the table leaning her lovely head on her elbows. As if a mysterious power was urging him on, he picked himself up and entered the room.

  Golde looked at him with a loving smile. Hecht wanted to say something, but Golde gestured at him to be quiet. Her gesture was the greatest assurance. Hecht felt like he had been waiting for this moment. He hadn’t known what it would be like, but now he felt like it was the eve of some great, beautiful holiday.

  He remained quiet for a few moments. Then Golde stood up and whispered, “Have you read this book?”

  Hecht took the book in hand. It was a sensational Yiddish novel. He smiled and said, “I will give you better books than this.”

  “I know you have good books,” Golde said softly, and looked into his eyes.

  Hecht looked back at her lovingly, and asked gravely, “Who is this Chaim?”

  She turned red and answered: “He’s lived with us for two years already—a worker, a tailor. We are friends.”

  “And not more?”

  “Oh no, absolutely not!” Golde said emphatically.

  Hecht was quiet for a moment and then whispered to her quietly, almost in her ear, “You are really better than him.”

  Golde turned red and lowered her eyes in embarrassment. Hecht took her by the hand, and she didn’t take it away. Quite the opposite—to his great amazement she gave his hand a strong squeeze. But the next moment she seemed to remember something and quickly tore her hand away.

  “A good night! I’m going to sleep.”

  “A good night!” Hecht answered, and went off like a victor to his room.

  The next evening, when Hecht returned to the house, he didn’t see any sign of Chaim. This made him happy, and he laughed to himself. True, the young tailor couldn’t stand in his way, could never be any real competition. But it was better that he wasn’t here.

  Hecht went to his room and picked up a German book, which he carried out to show to Golde. She took it with delight and said earnestly, “This is in German!”

  “Yes, German!” Hecht replied.

  The father, who was already home, put out his hand and said, “Show me, show me, let me see what it looks like.”

  With great deference he took the little book in his hand, turned a few pages and said sagely, “It must be an important book!”

  “Yes, very important,” Hecht affirmed.

  “Jacobi 36 says that German is the greatest language in the world.”

  Golde moved closer to hear what the scholarly Hecht would say. He smiled and exclaimed, “German is a very beautiful language, but there are even more beautiful ones. French, for example, is even more beautiful.”

  The father furrowed his brow and solemnly asked, “If that’s so, could you tell me what kind of language French is? German I’ve sometimes heard spoken, but French—never. Nu, so say a few words, let’s hear how it sounds.”

  Hecht was in a tight spot. He didn’t know any French. But if he didn’t say something for these simple people he would ruin their esteem for him, and who knew if Goldele, who looked at him now with such affection, wouldn’t suddenly cool towards him. He stammered the few words he had picked up.

  “Bonjour. Monsieur. Pardon. Merci. Mon ami. Au revoir, mon ami!”

  “Oy vey!” Goldele’s father enthused. “Such a beautiful language!”

  Golde looked at Hecht with amazement and veneration. Hecht took note and, beaming, turned to her.

  “You like French?”

  “Oh, it’s so pretty, so pretty . . . please teach it to me.”

  “Very good, I will teach it to you,” Hecht assured her good-naturedly.

  “What do you need French for?” the mother said, butting in. “It would be better for the gentleman to teach you German.”

  “Certainly,” the father said, agreeing with his wife. “What do you need French for? German will be useful to you.” Then, rethinking the matter, he added, “Everything a person knows can be useful.” He believed strongly in education. “If only I knew at least a bit of Polish. Now that would come in handy!”

  “Now in your old age you figure it out,” the mother joked. “Chaim also doesn’t know any languages, and so what? There’s no shame in that.”

  Golde blushed and said, “He really is a vulgar youth.”

  “Nu, nu,” the father winked at her meaningfully. “Don’t speak foolishness. Chaim is a fortunate bachelor—he works and he earns.”

  “Where is he, so late?” the mother asked.

  “You miss him?” Golde said ironically, turning to her mother.

  “I should miss him?” the mother replied. “He’s not here, is all I’m saying.”

  As she spoke, Chaim walked in. He said good evening quietly, wiped his face with a white cloth and boomed out: “Working late!”

  “Why’s that?” Golde’s father asked.

  “Just . . . because . . . one has to make money . . .” And he was silent.

  VI

  A FEW WEEKS passed. Hecht and Golde grew closer from day to day. When everyone else was asleep, she would go to his room and spend time sitting with him on the bed.

  The first kiss didn’t go well. Immediately after Hecht had given her a weak peck, she jumped up and ran out. Hecht had to plead and promise her that he wouldn’t do it anymore. But eventually she let him try again, and on recent evenings she would go into his room when he was already lying in bed, covered up with the blanket, and he would pull her to him and kiss her. She only whispered softly, “Don’t kiss so hard . . . they’ll catch us.”

  And Chaim kept coming back late in the evening, greeting everyone and then going immediately to sleep. To Hecht he said nothing. He would only sometimes cast a sidelong glance at him and smile.

  “Why does he smile like that?” Hecht often asked himself, and couldn’t find an answer. But he felt that the smile implied something sinister.

  One time, when Hecht came home in the evening after he had been at the café, telling his friends that Golde was practically his, he found everyone sitting at the table in high spirits. He wondered what the reason was for the exceptional good mood but couldn’t figure it out. He looked at Golde, seeking an explanation, but she smiled and kept her eyes down, saying nothing. At last Chaim stood up and said, “We should also show it to Mr. Hecht—he would appreciate such a thing.”

  “Indeed, we must show him,” the father agreed, “but what then? He’s no expert in that.”

  Golde smiled and went to the cupboard, from which she removed a small box and brought it with a little laugh over to Hecht. He opened it with trembling hands and saw something sparkle.

  “Take it out! Look at it! Look at it!” Chaim demanded with irritation. Seeing how Hecht didn’t move a finger, he took it out himself, held it up and turned it around. “Do you see?”

  “He bought it as a present for Golde—a hundred rubles he paid!” The mother pushed her way forward and her eyes glowed from happiness.

  “Try it on!” Chaim told Golde. She rolled up her sleeve and put it on her wrist. Her beautiful arm sparkled and looked even richer and more beautiful.

  “Beautiful, truly!” Golde said, turning to Hecht.

  “A very . . . very . . .” Hecht mumbled and didn’t know what to do. Should he stay here among these people, who suddenly seemed so distant and strange, or run back to his café and be among his friends—Shapiro, Bloch and the others.

  “Tell me, what do you call a jewel in French?” Chaim asked suddenly, turning to Hecht.

  Hecht knew that Chaim was making fun of him. Blood flowed to his face as he turned and said, “How does a person like you come to be interested in French?”

  “Au revoir, ton, bonjour.” Golde sang out the few words she remembered. Hecht
didn’t know if she was mocking him too or was simply expressing her happiness. He smiled absently and stammered, “Not like that . . . you don’t say ‘ton bonjour.’”

  “Such a business over how one speaks,” Chaim defended her. “She may not know grammar, but the bracelet suits her, don’t you think?”

  Hecht finally came to himself. His pride reared up and he exclaimed: “I don’t care about such foolishness!”

  Golde, drunk from happiness, looked at Hecht and said warningly: “For you it’s foolishness, because you didn’t give it to your girl.”

  “Oh, they don’t believe in it,” the father said in defense of Hecht. “Educated people have other things to give.”

  “Yes, yes, educated people have other gifts,” Chaim said sarcastically and stuck his hands in his pockets.

  Hecht turned around, went by himself into his room, and threw himself fully clothed on the bed. His face burned. He could have hit someone on the head with a hammer. He felt beaten down and badly fallen. A tailor, just a youth, had bested him. Like an evil bird, the thought pecked at his brain.

  The image of Golde swam before his eyes. He tried to drive it away, but a longing for her filled his entire being. She would no longer come to his room. She would not come!

  He cast a glance at the table. There lay several books in no particular order. They looked pathetic and ridiculous.

  Hecht buried his face in the pillow as though he wanted to hide from the world and from himself. But the talk and laughter from the house still reached him. Even deep in the pillow, he saw Golde clearly, with the bracelet on her arm, and Chaim by her side.

  33 A type of Russian carriage.

  34 A component of the Talmud, redacted circa 500 C.E.

  35 A piece of parchment inscribed with biblical passages that is affixed in the doorways of Jewish homes.

  36 Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi (1804–1851), the first Jewish mathematician to be appointed a professor at a German university.

  Yente Serdatsky

  1877–1962

  YENTE SERDATSKY, ONE of the most important literary contributors to the Forward in its early decades, chronicled the lives of Jewish immigrant women in numerous stories published in the 1910s and 1920s.

  Born Yente Raybman in the town of Aleksat, near Kovne, or Kaunas, Lithuania, Serdatsky was educated in a religious elementary school for girls, as well as by private tutors. Her father was an educated furniture dealer, and the family’s home was a gathering place for Yiddish writers.

  At age thirteen Serdatsky was apprenticed to a seamstress and later ran a grocery store while she continued to read literature in German, Hebrew, and Russian. Following the Revolution of 1905, Serdatsky moved to Warsaw, leaving behind a husband and three children. Her first published story, “Mirl,” appeared that year in the Warsaw newspaper Der veg (The Way), and attracted the attention of writers such as I. L. Peretz.

  Serdatsky immigrated to the United States in 1907, settling first in Chicago and later in New York, where she ran a soup kitchen. She also began publishing short stories and sketches in a variety of Yiddish periodicals and came out with a collection of selected works in 1913.

  Serdatsky was a regular contributor to the Forward until 1922, when she got in a financial dispute with editor Abraham Cahan and stopped writing for the paper. Only in 1949 did she begin publishing again, this time in the Nyu Yorker vokhnblat (New York Weekly).

  The three stories included here all appeared in the early 1920s and portray women at various stages of life: two unmarried young women who worry about the intentions of the men who have become their self-appointed guardians; a widow who decides not to pursue further romantic entanglements; and an older woman struggling with the psychological effects of isolation and old age.

  The Devoted Cousin

  (JUNE 6, 1920)

  Translated by Jessica Kirzane

  THEY WERE SISTERS. One was now twenty-five, and the other was about a year younger. A few years ago, when they arrived here from a small town in Poland, they were very beautiful, young and fresh with color in their cheeks, sparkling black eyes and thick dark hair. They are still beautiful now, although they work all the time and their lives are not easy.

  Like all poor young people, they came here for a reason. Their parents were poor. They were the eldest of the children; they had four younger siblings and more were on the way. They did not have many friends. The aunt with whom they came to stay was religious, and they couldn’t stand to stay with her for more than the first few weeks. They had another uncle and aunt whom they also didn’t like, and as soon as they found work they rented a room from strangers. Just as it began to seem as though the girls were going to end up living entirely alone and friendless, a cousin appeared who had been living here in America for many years. He had never written to them when they were living in the old country with their family. They had assumed they were entirely estranged from him. He was nice to the girls.

  The cousin was close to forty years old, and he acted almost like a father to them. They behaved casually towards him, and he thought of them as younger sisters. He was a kind bachelor, a short, thin man with a dark face and eyes as black as theirs. He wore glasses because his eyes had grown weak from too much work. He was learned. For many years he had worked in a shop and in the evenings had studied to become a doctor. That was his greatest desire. Later he changed his passion and instead became a manager at the shop. It was a position that paid well and commanded a lot of respect, much more respect than a doctor’s diploma. But he had not foresworn books—reading was not only his habit; it was his need. He had simply exchanged his difficult textbooks for easy, pleasant literature. This was more comfortable—he was able to imagine himself in the company of all types of interesting people.

  Aside from books, the cousin held one desire sacred, and that was to be free. He was always aware, always careful, to be sure that no one had control over him. He did not drink or play cards, did not smoke, and above all he kept away from women. Oh, what temptations lie in a glance from a pair of brown or black eyes! If you return it even a little you become an eternal slave to a woman, a child, a boss in your workplace, even a boss in your home. No, he would not do this! It was for this reason he was careful not to live in the homes of any young landladies, where other older bachelors looked for love without attachment, and he made no acquaintances among families because there are young women in every family who might make eyes at him. His landlady was almost always a graying Irish woman, and when he needed some amusement, he went to a play or a concert. There he met other unattached people like himself. Sometimes they bored him to tears. He didn’t think love for sale was good or right, but sometimes it helps a man remain free.

  When his cousins came over to America, he stayed away from them for several weeks and considered the situation with caution. Then he decided that they were no danger to him. He had never had a sister, but he was sure that his feelings towards them were warm and calm, like one might feel towards a smaller, younger sister. By nature he was a good man, and he saw no reason why he should keep his distance. They were his relatives after all, and there are dangers threatening young, morally upright women from all sides. It was only right that he should quickly come to their aid.

  Having decided this, he carried out his decision. The first thing he did was find them a “clean” place to work, in a shop run by Mrs. Weisman. Few men worked there so the girls would be spared their hungry, lustful stares, and wouldn’t have to listen to their off-color jokes and dirty speech.

  After taking care of their workplace, he turned his attention to the home where they had a room. Everything there was just as he would have wished it. It was a large, nice, airy room in the home of a childless couple who were busy all day at work. They still live there today.

  With both of these things taken care of, he enrolled them in night school and several months later, when they could already understand some English, he began to bring them easy books to read. It didn’t bother him whe
n they read in Yiddish, but things would be easier for them if they could get used to the English language.

  In this way he was good to them, and time went by.

  EVERYTHING WOULD HAVE been fine, except that he was greatly worried about their leisure activities. He was particularly worried about the younger sister. The older sister had a more serious nature and was content with her work, her books, and on Sundays going to the theater not far from their home. But it was not so with the younger sister. She was lighthearted, with sparkling eyes and joyful laughter. Her figure was light and breezy, her legs moved as though they were propelled by the wind. She liked to get out of the house, to laugh, to dance.

  Before he even had time to think, the younger sister had gathered a bunch of young men around her. God knows where she found them. They buzzed around her like bees. If only they had been well-mannered young people, but they all looked suspicious, fresh . . . One evening she didn’t follow her sister home but instead went off with one of the men to a dance.

  The cousin, being a good and reliable man, saw no other way. He took it upon himself to instruct the young woman and show her the world. When she was with him, the young men scattered like flies fleeing smoke. This didn’t bother her because her cousin was very good to her and took her out to different places several times a week. He was also happy and smiled and enjoyed himself. When she was by his side, he was sure that nothing bad could happen to her.

  Because he was a good and honorable friend, he also wanted to take the older sister out, but she refused. When did she have time for such things? She needed to clean her room and take care of her laundry. She could not allow herself to buy ready-made clothing, since sewing herself cost a third as much and she could send the few dollars left over to the poor and sick instead of buying such extravagances. So she bought all kinds of fabrics and made beautiful clothes for herself and her sister. When she had a little free time, she paged through a book. If her younger sister did not have such a lighthearted nature, she might have made more demands on her, but her sister needed to be out and about.