Esfir Is Alive

by Andrea Simon

  The girl, who looked bored, said, “Well, so sorry, Miss Priestess.”

  “No need to be so nasty.”

  I was beginning to understand why the bed in Rachel’s room was empty.

  “Well, Esfir,” Rachel said, “I see that you found your way to the dining room. I guess you could always follow the odors.”

  “Some odors come from your room as well,” Ida said, and the other two girls, Liba and Fanny, giggled. That alone made me like them. When I sat down and looked at them more carefully, I realized they were twins, but wearing different blouses. I was fascinated by this discovery. I had never met girl twins, especially ones that could have been exact copies, though there were twin boys at school in Kobrin.

  I later learned that Liba was the older, by three minutes, and the more dominating twin—a perfect match for Ida’s adventurous spirit, and a real threat to my longed-for friendship with Ida. The twins had one thing that saved me from total jealousy. They were noncompetitive and shared a mystical bodily bond—each guessing the other’s aches and pains—and felt incomplete without the other.

  Sometimes Perl had household help from a Polish woman named Sonia who lived in the countryside. By suppertime, Sonia got a wagon ride from a neighbor and went home to her family. So on this night, Perl did most of the work, cooking and serving.

  “Can I help you, Perl?” I asked.

  “No, Esfele, sit. This is your first night here and you are probably tired. Now everyone, eat. Before it gets cold.” She then disappeared into the kitchen.

  In front of each person was a large white china soup bowl filled with a clear broth and one big matzoh ball. I took a few spoonfuls and hacked off a bit of the matzoh ball by the time Perl returned with a tray of small dishes containing gefilte fish. I was ecstatic since I loved this dish, especially the way Perl made it kind of sweet and not jellylike as my mother’s. I hadn’t had gefilte fish for a long time, especially not on a weekday. At home on school days, my family had black bread, sometimes with butter, Swiss cheese, and milk in the morning, the same for lunch at eleven, watery porridge and bread in the late afternoon, and milk in the evening.

  To have more than one or two courses was a big treat for me. I tried hard not to eat too fast, to savor each delicious bite and to rest and look around, not to seem as if I was desperate to eat everything on my plate. Perl finally sat down and the door to the kitchen swung open, and another girl came out with a tray holding two bowls of boiled potatoes, a large serving dish of boiled flanken, and cups of mixed carrots and celery. I couldn’t believe my eyes; it was like a Pesach Seder, all this bounty.

  Though getting food was becoming harder and harder for Jews, especially for men like my father—with a big Jewish clientele—there was nothing more important to Perl than providing a decent meal and she was, my mother said, “a magician in plucking potatoes from thin air.” As she cooked, Perl tasted everything over and over, sometimes taking a break with samples, her favorite being stuffed cabbage or onion rolls straight from the oven. She wasn’t chunky for no reason.

  The girl with the tray, it turned out, was the last boarder from the Tarbut high school. Her name was Freyde and she shared a room with Liba. A short girl with enormous glass-green eyes, Freyde was too skinny to be pretty; her high cheekbones, wide forehead, and pointy chin stuck out against her tight skin.

  Freyde’s family was from Smolensk in western Russia and relocated to Bereza Kartuska, northeast of my town of Kobrin. When she sat down, the girls had been talking about books, and Freyde said, “Everyone knows that the Russians are better than the Germans, just look at Pushkin and Tolstoy.”

  Liba said, “I don’t agree.”

  Fanny said, “Neither do I.”

  Rachel piped in, “Of course you don’t, Fanny. You copy whatever Liba says.”

  “Okay, enough, Rachel,” Liba said. “Freyde you know that our parents were born and raised in Germany. But not only because of that, I think the Germans are very refined, and most of the famous composers were either German or Austrian.”

  “Isn’t this why your parents decided to put you girls into separate rooms this year?” Rachel said. “Because the Germans have the latest thinking about education and psychology, twins should have independence and all that.”

  “That’s true,” Liba said. I was waiting for a sarcastic comment to follow, but Liba seemed to actually agree with Rachel. I guess everything Rachel said and did wasn’t terrible all the time.

  They were speaking in Yiddish, and Mr. Kozak didn’t understand. I felt uncomfortable as if they had been leaving him out. I didn’t know where I got so bold, but I said, “Well, I don’t know too much, but I think the Poles and our Belorussians are very smart.”

  Well, you could have dropped all the platters at once from the sudden silence. All eyes were on me. I was a little pisher, a nobody, and what did I know? I should have kept quiet. Ida gave me a wink, my second for the evening. I couldn’t really call this discussion a fight; it was more like a showing off, because in our hearts we knew what every Jewish person knew: it didn’t matter what country or region we were from or which one we liked the best; to the world, we were Jews beyond all else.

  Even with Rachel’s snobby ways, and Fanny’s shy personality, they were a close-knit group maybe because they were among the small number of students who didn’t live in Brest and boarded out. While they weren’t the most popular girls—not that Rachel would ever admit this—they were certainly known as the most spirited. It didn’t take long for me to find out that if there ever was any trouble in school, and the suspect was a girl, the other students assumed one of my housemates had something to do with it.

  After my remark about the local people, I didn’t say too much. I ate and took in all these new people. I noticed that Rachel wiped her lips constantly with the linen napkin, and that she stirred her food around her plate and left over the meat. Ida ate everything quickly and efficiently, talking the whole time. The twins tasted each other’s food, even though they had the same things on their plates, and Freyde was up and clearing the dishes before she finished her meal. Ida explained later that Freyde got a discount on her rooming fee for helping with the chores.

  When I was cutting a potato, there were several loud knocks on the door.

  “Who can it be at this hour?” Perl said.

  “Do you want me to see who it is?” Mr. Kozak asked.

  “No, no, I’ll go.” Perl muttered curse words in Yiddish on her way to the door. Then there were muffled voices, and the door slammed. Perl returned to the table, sat down, and resumed eating.

  “Was it someone for me?” Mr. Kozak finally said.

  “It was nobody,” Perl said. “But Rachel, certain nobodys came to speak to you, and I chased them away. If you want to conduct business with such people, don’t invite them to this house.” Her lips pouted shut and she breathed heavily.

  I looked around. Everyone seemed suddenly very involved in their food. I continued to check my potato but swallowed a piece that was too big and began to wheeze and cough. Ida handed me a glass of water and hit me on the back.

  Rachel pushed back her chair, got up, and rushed to the door. I could hear it open and close, and she didn’t return until Freyde brought in a tray with baked apples. Rachel sat down and twirled the apple’s stem with her thumb and forefinger until it fell onto her plate.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Epstein, for the disruption. It couldn’t be helped.”

  “You have business with a bunch of troublemaker boys?”

  “It’s nothing, really,” Rachel said, in a cottony voice. I didn’t know Rachel well, but I could swear that somebody was very happy about nobody and nothing.

  Perl didn’t respond. She tried to keep the meal moving, nodding every now and then to Freyde, who popped up to bring a pitcher of water and then a tray carrying a small plate for each person with a damp towel that had been heated on the stove. I had a friend who was orthodox and her family washed their hands or fingers with a cup o
f water before or after certain portions of the meal. But this towel had nothing to do with religion. Somewhere Perl read that this custom meant you were high class.

  She couldn’t have been doing this too long, because Mr. Kozak held the towel and didn’t seem to know what to do with it. He grunted and Perl said to no one in particular, but spoke in Polish, “Well, everyone, our little Freyde heated the damp towels to save us the trouble of washing our faces with the pitcher and bowls in our rooms. So we should all thank Freyde for her thoughtfulness.”

  We all muttered, “thanks,” and I took an extra swipe around my face and hands, sure that all this food must have stuck to every crevice of my body that was so desperate for its nourishment. I kept a sliver of flanken stuck in my teeth, planning to pluck it out once I was alone in my bed so I could relish it properly.

  After glasses of tea, we all helped carry the dishes to the kitchen. There was a loud knock on the front door and Mr. Kozak said, “I will get it,” now without a question. My heart started pounding because I suspected that my aunt would not let Rachel get away with her interlopers a second time.

  Perl said, “No, this is still my house and I will go.”

  We scurried into the kitchen, busying ourselves with washing and drying the dishes. Perl came into the kitchen without fanfare. Her cheeks were flushed and she was breathing hard.

  “What is it?” Mr. Kozak asked, following Perl.

  “I want to speak to Esfir,” she said, almost panting. Everyone scattered out of the kitchen like the parting of the Red Sea. They were leaning against the other side of the kitchen door. I could hear them and see it moving; Perl and I were alone.

  “Esfele, I want you should sit down,” she said softly, reverting to Yiddish.

  I knew this was going to be bad and felt an immediate kick in my stomach. Acid traveled up my throat and I creaked, “What? What? Did those boys say bad things about me?”

  “No, it wasn’t them. That was a messenger by the door. He had a telegram from your mother.”

  A telegram? I had never heard of my mother sending a telegram. I didn’t even know how she did it. I was going to ask Perl if my mother had to go to the post office to send it, when I realized this was not the time to ask such a question, but I wanted to do anything to prolong whatever it was that Perl had to tell me.

  “Esfele, now I need you to be a good little girl.”

  I had trouble focusing on Perl’s words. I saw her mouth open and her lips stretching into a long oval, revealing enormous pointy teeth.

  “Your papa had a heart attack,” she said. “They took him to the Jewish hospital. Your mother wrote that he must rest for a while but should make a full recovery.”

  “But I should go home,” I said, breathing as fast as my aunt. Everything happened so quickly that I somehow believed that Rachel had made this up and Perl was going to tell me this was a very bad joke.

  “I have to go home,” I said, practically screaming. “You can put me on the bus, and my sisters or brother can meet me at the station.”

  “No, your mother expressly wrote, ‘Tell Esfir to stay with you. It will be easier. Tell her not to worry and give her a big kiss from her mother who loves her very much.’ ”

  A heart attack. I didn’t know what that meant. It sounded so horrible. Your heart was attacked—attacked by what? I excused myself, grabbed a lit kerosene lantern hanging from a nail on the kitchen wall, and plowed through the back door to the outhouse. I almost didn’t make it in time. After setting the lamp on the dirt floor, I held my head over the hole and threw up. It went on and on as each new spasm spewed out yellow-brown-green liquidy, chunky masses. When I thought I had nothing else left in my system, I squeaked open the wooden door. Ida was there with one of Freyde’s wet towels.

  Like when we had gone down to supper, Ida supported her arm under mine, and we walked in the house and upstairs to our room. We didn’t say much after that, changing quickly into nightgowns and slipping into our beds. Ida asked if I wanted to talk, and I whispered “no.” I lay awhile in the darkness, thinking of my father and all the things we never did together. My tongue felt the sliver of flanken, the one I had been saving. I pulled it from between my front teeth and flicked it across the room. Nothing would ever taste that good again.

  Four

  PERL TOOK ME to the post office, and we phoned the branch in Kobrin to leave a message for my mother to call us the next day at one p.m. She didn’t call back. Then we sent her a telegram begging for word on my father’s health. At Perl’s, I stood by the door and watched out the nearby window for the telegram delivery man; and when I didn’t see him, I paced up and down the block, searching, thinking maybe he got the address wrong. I began to count male heads, telling myself that by the twenty-fifth, he would surely come, and then upping the number to fifty and a hundred. One by one, the girls came home from school and greeted me. Fanny even walked with me up and down the street for a half hour and we counted to two hundred and fifty, adding our names after each number to prolong the counting.

  Rachel saw us pacing and asked who we were waiting for.

  I said, “A telegram man.”

  Rachel said, “Aren’t you someone special, getting a telegram.”

  “It’s about her father,” Fanny said.

  “So, I’ve gotten a telegram many times.” Rachel didn’t say anything about my father, but kept looking over her shoulder. Then she asked, “Has anyone else stopped you to talk?”

  “Just a few neighbors,” Fanny said. “Why?”

  “Oh, no reason,” Rachel said, and went into the house.

  Perl had come out a few times, trying to entice me back inside, offering tea and even a slice of challah. For the first time I could recall, I wasn’t interested in food.

  When Ida got home, I pleaded with Perl again. “Please, let me go home. I can go myself. I’m not afraid.”

  “I’ll go with her,” Ida said.

  “Just wait a little longer,” Perl said. “We will hear from your mother soon. I know so.”

  I pulled a chair near the window and continued my vigil for the telegram man. I kept picturing my father and how much pain he must have experienced. I was terrified that the reason my mother didn’t contact me was because my father was dead. Or maybe worse, maybe my mother died from a heart attack from the news of his death.

  I had heard that in August, the Polish government ordered all shops to put the name of the owners on their business signs. Perl had explained that this was announcing to the people that they were Jewish and this was very bad for business, scaring away the non-Jews who may have been customers. Between them and the Jews who didn’t have enough money to buy or fix watches, maybe no one came to the shop anymore and my family couldn’t afford food. Maybe my sisters and brother were alone and they were starving to death. Death was my theme, and there was no getting away from it. It was hard to believe that only a day before, I had been so happy to be Ida’s new roommate and sometime pupil.

  Ida tried to distract me. She insisted that we have a Hebrew lesson. This was the last thing I wanted to do. I couldn’t concentrate on memorizing words, not when I was soon going to be an orphan. Besides, I was convinced that if I stopped counting heads, the telegram man would never come.

  Ida said, “It’s bad luck to be watching for something to happen. You have a better chance of it happening if you don’t pay attention.”

  I agreed to go with her to the nearby park despite the overcast weather. We sat on the first bench. Ida opened the Hebrew book, pointed to a few words, and directed me to write the Polish equivalent in my lesson notebook. I stared at the blank page. Then I turned and began to watch two boys my age chasing each other around a linden tree. One had a bloody and scraped face, and the other was laughing in that mean way that tries to hide a guilty conscience.

  “Esfir, are you with me?”

  I jerked my head around and wrote the date on the page. I wanted to show Ida that I wasn’t dumb, but I didn’t remember what I was sup
posed to do.

  On another bench in my line of view, a young woman sat with her legs crossed and her head down, her dark brown hair sweeping her thighs. I thought she was reading and twisted to see her closer. The woman’s lap was empty except for her arms folded tightly as if she was hugging herself.

  Ida motioned for me to stand, and then I realized that the woman was crying. I couldn’t help staring; Ida grabbed my arm and pulled me away and we headed back to the boardinghouse.

  Suddenly, I felt something hard smack me in the back. Ida yelled, “Ouch,” and blood was dripping from a gash on her cheek. Objects were hitting us and I realized they were rocks of all sizes.

  “Duck,” Ida yelled, pulling me back to the bench, away from the direction of the onslaught. Ida had carried a blanket to protect our laps from the cold weather and draped it over our heads. We huddled on the bench and I peeked out from under the blanket. I saw four teen boys aiming at us. A younger one was waving his hands as if he was at a parade. Ida told me to get under, and she also peeled the blanket aside and saw the band of boys and yelled, “Stop it! You’re going to hurt us. There is a child here.”

  “Go to Africa where you belong,” one of the boys shouted.

  “Go away,” Ida screamed. Then she whispered to me that we should stand and place the books over our heads and the blanket over the books. “Follow me,” she ordered, and we took baby steps sideways away from the line of fire.

  “Jew girls, Jew girls, go to Africa. Monkeys to monkeys.”

  “I am going for the police,” Ida screeched. I didn’t know why that got them to stop because everyone knew that the police wouldn’t help. But, we continued to walk with increasing speed toward the boardinghouse and didn’t feel any more pelts.

  When we opened the door, we almost fell inside because the door was partially opened and Rachel was standing there.

  “Quick, close the door,” Ida said. As I got from under our “tents,” I glanced out the window and saw the boys running and yelling. Perl appeared by the door when she heard us screaming.