Esfir Is Alive

by Andrea Simon

  Perl pecked my mother on the cheek and shoved me out the door before I could give my mother a big hug. Instead, I waved. My mother scuttled to the backseat, where I was sitting, and kissed the window in the same spot where my face was pressed inside. Maybe it’s good that I didn’t get a chance to hug my mother, because this way I didn’t have to spend the car ride crying like a baby.

  As the car pulled away and I turned to look at my mother’s tall, slim frame and soft pink cheeks, I almost yelled, “Stop!” What was I doing leaving her? But my mother waved once, her hand jerking into a fist as if she was tightening a faucet. She quickly turned around. Walking back toward the house, she lifted a stray linden branch from her path and tossed it to the side field. I watched her shrink to a speck and sat back, pulling at the chapped skin on my lips. I almost expected my mother to yell at me, but a heaviness in the air pushed down on my chest as the car made a right off Pinkser Street.

  EVEN THOUGH HIS business was cigarettes, this man—I never got his name—smoked cigars nonstop. He would puff even when he spoke and insisted we keep the windows closed because he didn’t want to get dust in his brand-new car. The air was cloudy, and it stank like a pile of old burning leaves. I didn’t know if I was going to choke or throw up, and when I told this to Perl, the man screamed through an extra plume of smoke, “Open the window this instant!” He must have realized vomit would look worse than soot on his shiny black leather seats.

  I loved going to Perl’s. Her house was a wonderland. There was a big pantry off the kitchen with shelves and shelves lined with jars of pickles and homemade preserves; ceramic canisters of flour, salt, and sugar; a barrel of potatoes; and burlap bags of garden cabbages, beets, turnips, carrots—all for her boarders, but enough for my family to eat in a year.

  Part of Perl’s pantry was closed off to make a private space for a bathtub, made of tin instead of the usual wood. In her kitchen, there was a sink. It had a plug leading outside the house. Standing nearby was a barrel with a faucet that held four or five pails of water. No one I knew but Perl had a sink in their house! And in some of the rooms, you could pull a string or chain and the lights went on. This was miraculous.

  Best of all, Perl would put me in whatever room had a free bed. At home, I shared one bed with Rivke who was two years older; and sometimes the eldest, Drora, about to become a teenager with the bleeding and all, would plop part of her body on us as our beds were squished close to each other.

  Since Perl’s house was close to the Tarbut Hebrew Gymnasium, like a high school, Perl usually boarded Jewish students during the school year. Not to make the parents worry, she took only female students; and if she had a male boarder, it was usually an older businessman whom she kept on the first floor, away from the girls. I hadn’t been to Perl’s since the summer, when the students went home, so I didn’t know what to expect, who would be there, or where I would sleep.

  So for most of the ride, I stuck my head out the window. As the air whipped my hair into a blinding thicket, I thought of what I was leaving and going to, feeling as exhilarated and burdened as a fluttering butterfly weighed down by a rainstorm. Mostly, though, I was relieved that I saved my family from going to prison for pretending to be Communists.

  Two

  WHEN WE ARRIVED at the boardinghouse, Perl took me upstairs and opened the door to one of the three small bedrooms on the second floor. Lounging in one bed was a girl with burnt-orange-brown hair in ropey braids pinned up in the back. Her name was Rachel, and she hadn’t gone to school because of a bad cold. The other bed was unoccupied.

  “Rachel, this is my niece Esfir,” Aunt Perl said.

  Rachel blew her nose into a lace handkerchief and continued flipping through the pages of a magazine.

  “Rachel, I’m speaking to you, if you don’t mind.”

  Rachel looked up and forced a half-crooked smile. “I heard you, Mrs. Epstein.”

  “Then give me the courtesy of a response.” Perl said in a rush, “My niece will be staying with us for a while. She will take this bed and share your room.”

  “You expect me to share a room with a child? My father didn’t pay for me to babysit!”

  “I can sleep on the sofa,” I said, feeling embarrassed more for my aunt, that this girl could talk to her in such a voice.

  “No you will not,” Perl said. “Rachel, Esfir is capable of taking care of herself. She needs no special treatment from you, and you won’t even know she is here.”

  “In that case,” Rachel said, “if she isn’t really here, I don’t have to acknowledge her presence.”

  I had never heard a girl with such chutzpah. As I watched Aunt Perl unpack, laying my underwear in the two drawers of the night table, I marveled at my aunt’s patience. In my family, Perl was known for her quick and loud temper. Maybe since Rachel was a paying customer, Perl didn’t want to risk losing her. But still . . .

  I didn’t know what to do. Should I say something nice to Rachel? I just couldn’t, but I kept thinking of ways to make my little space more my own.

  After Perl left and closed the door, I placed a small cardboard box with my hair barrettes on the night table next to my favorite picture book, 120 Adventures of Silly Billy Goat. I lay a sock puppet, Zusa, sown by my sister Rivke, on my pillow and pushed my shoes under the bed. Afraid to make noise, I sat on the bed, my back erect, and clasped my hands.

  “Are you going to sit there like a stone?” Rachel asked. Then she added some words in Hebrew that I didn’t understand. I knew they taught Hebrew at Rachel’s school, but at mine, the language was Polish.

  “I will read my book,” I said, even though I wasn’t such a good reader and needed help. I would never admit this to Rachel.

  “You’re making noise, Esther,” she said, sniffing in her phlegm, which was like a bus motor compared to my feathery sounds. She mumbled something else in Hebrew.

  “I don’t understand you, Rachel. And my name is Esfir, not Esther.”

  “Esther, Esfir, what’s the difference. You’re still a baby.”

  I got up and tiptoed out the door, closed it softly, and tumbled down the stairs, then darted directly into the kitchen where I assumed Perl would be making dinner. I was right about her being there, but she was sitting at the small white enamel, red-rimmed foldout table, massaging her temples.

  “Esfele, what is it? You sounded like my uncle Hymie’s pair of horses.”

  “Aunt Perl, I want to go home.”

  “I thought you like it here,” she said, licking her fingers and smoothing my bangs to the side.

  I didn’t answer because, as in the car, I was afraid of crying.

  “Esfir, why are you so quiet? It’s not like you.”

  “Rachel doesn’t like me.”

  “Rachel doesn’t like anyone—even herself, if you must know the truth.”

  One look at my crossed eyes and Perl must have guessed that I would rather go back home and squeeze in bed between my two sisters than sleep in the same room as this snooty girl.

  In her forties, Aunt Perl was always cooking, cleaning, going to the market—never sitting still—so that my mother called her vants, the Yiddish word for bedbug. Usually the word is given to a little person, but in Perl’s case, she got it because she twittered about like she had these critters in her pants. This was a rare moment that my aunt was still.

  “Come here, Esfele.” Perl wrapped her arm tightly around me and gave me a wet, slobbering kiss.

  “You’re squeezing me to death, Aunt Perl,” I said in a pretend-annoyed tone. My mother would never have been so sloppy.

  By the time I went and came back from the outhouse, Aunt Perl had rearranged my belongings in another room; she put a different girl with Rachel. I felt terrible for that poor girl, Fanny.

  I was sitting on a bed in the room next to Rachel’s. Like the others, this room had two single beds and two night tables. On each wall there were four large hooks. I noticed a white blouse, gray sweater, blue skirt, and a bulging knapsack hangi
ng from them, and a small clock and a stack of books on the night table near the other bed.

  Suddenly, about five o’clock, when it was already as dark as nighttime, a towering female vision burst into the room and threw schoolbooks on her bed. With a pencil, I was making a picture to send to Rivke and got so involved I almost didn’t look up except for the whoosh of air from the opened door and the slap of books.

  She was tall, maybe the tallest girl I had ever seen, definitely the tallest fourteen year old, even taller than my twelve-year-old sister Drora, who was two heads taller than me. Her tallness went with her. She was big boned too, healthy looking. My mother would have said “substantial,” but this girl wasn’t heavy or fat. She fit into her skin like a stuffed derma.

  “Hello, Esfir, I’m Ida,” she said, barely looking at me. She continued to unload her schoolwork.

  I knew a Polish girl—funnily, her name was Polina—and she was tall almost like Ida. But Ida was different. She didn’t have Polina’s fair skin or blue eyes. I could have been Polina’s little sister, having the same coloring and all. Of course, more than the priest in my school mistook me for a Pole. Just last month, a Polish policeman in my neighborhood asked my mother, “Is the girl Polish?” When my mother had answered that I was Jewish, he was puzzled, as if to accuse her of lying. Then he said, shaking his head, “She could pass for a Pole.” He didn’t say what was on his face: “What a waste!”

  Everything about Ida was dark: from her deep olive skin tone, black-coffee eyes, long and thick ripply Oriental-black hair, and ruby lips, to the maroon circles around her tan nipples, which I got to see later when she undressed in front of me, thinking I was napping.

  Though Ida wore the school-required white blouse, she had folded her mud-brown sweater over her arm—it was a warm fall day—and with her top buttons undone, I could see the outlines of her front. Its V shape pointed to her full breasts, revealing the tip of a cleavage just like my mother’s.

  Maybe she was coming from some place outdoors where she needed to contain her hair from the wind, because she was wearing a black head kerchief, unlike the other schoolgirls I had seen on the streets. Only a slight shade darker than her hair and decorated with a magenta bird pattern almost the color of her lips, it halved her forehead and was tied in the back of her neck. At first, I didn’t notice it and thought she had small birds nested in her hair.

  She didn’t look like a common peasant girl. No, she was grand, a gypsy princess, and she had come, I knew immediately, to save me from Rachel.

  Unlike Rachel, who spoke to me partly in Hebrew, Ida said in Yiddish, “Nu, Esfir, vos makhstu?”

  I said, “Gants gut,” pretty good. Her asking how I was in a familiar way made me feel immediately at ease, and, before long, she was sitting on my bed, questioning me as if I were some sort of movie queen.

  “Why did you come to Perl’s now?” she asked, surprising me with her directness.

  “One of my teachers said that the gentiles should not give work to Jewish craftsmen. They should boycott Jewish stores.”

  “Yes,” Ida said, “that happened in my village, too.”

  “This teacher even called us Communists.”

  I didn’t admit to Ida my real fear: that my mother was happy to get rid of me. I didn’t mean forever, because I thought my mother missed me when I was gone, though she never said so. But there would be fewer mouths to feed, and I was always asking for something more to eat.

  Ida said, “Oh, Esfir, you remind me so much of my darling Ester, who follows me around like a shadow. She’s only a year older than you and you have a similar name. But you look more like my twelve-year-old sister, Sala, who has blond hair like you. So, Esfir, we may as well be sisters, too.”

  She must have noticed my beaming. When I realized it, I put my hand over my mouth and mumbled something like “thanks.” From that moment on, I tried my best to keep up with Ida’s remarks and to be like a sister she could call her own.

  In minutes, Ida had me spellbound. “In my village, Volchin,” Ida said, “we have a nice house in the middle of the town, the Jewish part that is. My father, Iser is his name, is very handsome, and everyone in the village looks up to him.”

  “Is he so tall?” I asked.

  Ida laughed. “He’s tall but not too tall. He’s respected, I meant. He’s captain of the fire brigade.”

  “That’s nice,” I said. “Is that his job?”

  “No, he has a shop attached to our house where he sells and repairs Singer sewing machines and bicycles.”

  “Oh. My father repairs watches,” I said.

  Ida didn’t respond. It was as if she was in a trance. She continued to speak about her father. Being the first born, Ida got special privileges. He taught her how to fix bikes; and they often tried them out together, taking long rides into the countryside. And, Ida boasted, he was aware of the latest news and politics, which he talked about all the time.

  I knew what it was like to have a busy father, with his hands in the entire town’s business, but I didn’t want to say “I know” or “mine too” and take away from Ida’s pride. I never spoke about my father in that way. Ida’s talking did make me see my father more kindly; I wasn’t so mad at him for never being home. The part about not paying attention to me was a different story.

  Ida suddenly stopped talking about her father and said, “Esfir, I’m sorry, I’m going on and on and I do want to hear about your family. You said your father repairs watches.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I like to help him, too. Maybe some day he will take me to visit you in Volchin.”

  “But, Esfir, we won’t be living in Volchin forever.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, suddenly worried that I would be losing my roommate before I got to know her.

  “My father’s entire birth family—parents, sisters, brothers, and even grandparents—have gone to America. You know where that is?”

  Without waiting for my answer, she said, “They write to him regularly. My father is saving money for us to join them, and we will someday soon because life is becoming worse for Jews. I can’t wait to be in Brooklyn, New York City.”

  I hardly knew Ida, but this news that she could be leaving in the near future crushed me like one of Aunt Perl’s embraces. Was it possible to feel so abandoned by someone you just met?

  And then she said the most surprising thing. “Where my relatives are, there are many Jews like we have in the biggest cities like Brest. And they are allowed to do a lot of things, like the Poles do.”

  On our way to the dining room, Ida said, “Esfir, if you want, I’d be happy to tutor you in Hebrew.”

  Ida must have figured out that Rachel had made me feel stupid by spewing all her Hebrew words, and that must have been the reason I wanted to change rooms. Ida was good at reading people.

  Tutor me? I couldn’t believe my ears. With all the things she had to do, Ida wanted to spend her precious time with me! I couldn’t have been more thrilled, but I tried to control my voice. I didn’t want Ida to see how strong my feelings were; I didn’t want to scare her away. So I said, “Ida, are you sure it isn’t too much trouble?”

  Ida looked at me as if I had insulted her. “Esfir, I don’t say what I don’t mean.”

  And that was that. I had my very own tutor, only steps from my bed.

  With such information swimming in my head, Ida slipped her arm under mine, and like that we walked down the stairs ready for supper.

  Three

  PERL’S DINING ROOM was a long narrow space, right off the kitchen and separated by a swinging door. At one time in the house’s history, it had been part of the kitchen, making it one large room. When Perl’s husband, Natan, was alive he was a flour mill owner who fell on hard times like many other Jews. So he leased out his mill, which was on the edge of town near the river, and cut the kitchen in two so that there would be a proper dining area. Then he put up a sign in the window, “Room and Board.” Perl came along at the right time in his life, so sh
e could cook and clean for the boarders. Not that Perl came along at the right time in her life, because she was pretty much a servant and not the wife she had imagined; and later, as a widow, she was stuck with that label. At least she had some income and had inherited fine jewelry and dishes from Natan’s family.

  By the time Ida and I got to the dining room, there were three girls and a man seated at the long pine table, which took up practically the whole room, except for a mahogany hutch that displayed Perl’s cherished Dresden china, adorned with elegant floral patterns, which came all the way from Germany. Perl was standing behind the seat at the head of the table and motioned for me to sit by her right side and for Ida to sit on her left.

  The gentleman, a Pole named Jozef Kozak who ran the mill, sat at the opposite end of the table as if he were Perl’s husband. I couldn’t tell his height then, and I learned later that he was just about an inch or two taller than Perl, who was average height. By sitting, though, he appeared very large, maybe because his shoulders were broad, his hands were large and hairy, and his gray-streaked hair was thick and greasy, matching a considerable wiry mustache that covered his pinkish lips. He winked at me and there was something knowing and affectionate in his large hazel eyes; I liked him immediately.

  Ida sat next to Rachel, who was already picking pieces from her roll; she wouldn’t wait for anyone, though she didn’t have the guts to begin eating her soup. Rachel’s long, thin nostrils twitched from side to side. I almost laughed because Rachel looked like she was trying hard not to sneeze. Then she blinked repeatedly as if she were showing off her sweeping eyelashes and translucent pale-blue eyes. Speaking of those eyes, Rachel was talking to a freckled girl sitting next to her about something and she said, “Oh my eyes, they come from the Kohen side of my family, you know male descendents of the first priest Aaron, brother of Moses.”