by Judith Gould
Senda remained silent.
'Now, cheer up.' Grandmother Goldie smiled and took Senda's chin in her hand, raising her granddaughter's head. 'And be very quiet so nobody hears you eavesdrop. When the negotiations are winding up, hurry home. It's not seemly for a young woman to be found eavesdropping. You know how upset finding that out would make your mother.'
'Why should I care about her?' Senda asked, her low voice none the less savage for its softness. 'Mama doesn't want what's best for me.'
'Senda!' Grandmother Goldie hissed sharply. 'Your mother loves you. That you know. She only wants what's best for you and the family. And it's up to you to do what's best for the family too.' She paused, her voice growing gentler. 'Now, pull the shawl tighter around you so you don't catch your death.' She patted Senda's arm and almost reluctantly left her outside while she went back into the cottage.
Senda retraced her steps to the kitchen window.
'You were certainly gone a long time,' Senda's mother complained to Grandmother Goldie when she returned to the Boralevis' kitchen. 'For a moment I thought we should have to check on you. We were afraid the wolves had gotten to you.'
'I should make excuses for my health?' the old woman snapped. 'If you should be so unfortunate to live as long as I have, Esther, it's trouble you'll have with your bowels too.'
Esther Valvrojenski's jaw snapped audibly shut. Outside the window, Senda couldn't help but grin. Grandmother Goldie was the only person who wouldn't let her daughter get the better of her.
'Here, I kept your tea warm for you.' Aunt Sophie handed Grandmother Goldie a steaming glass filled with amber liquid. The old woman took it, popped a lump of sugar into her mouth and took a sip of tea.
'It's good tea, no?' Senda's mother said gushingly. 'Mrs. Boralevi knows just how to brew it perfectly.'
'So now it takes special talent to brew tea?' Grandmother Goldie sniffed. The way the marriage negotiations were proceeding, she couldn't see any reason to suck up to the Boralevis. She chewed quickly on the sugar with the good teeth on the right side of her mouth, swallowed the lumpy granules, and put her cup down after the one sip and pushed it away. Now that she'd tasted the tea and the others had had the chance to simmer down, it was time to get the negotiations back on track. 'Nu,' she said coolly, fixing the shadchen with a hard gaze. 'Are we going to socialize all night or finish what's begun? We've plenty of work awaiting us, and there are plenty of families who'd give their eyeteeth for our Senda's dowry.'
The shadchen flashed Eva a stern warning look. It was clear that the Boralevis had gone just a little too far; the shadchen could sense that Senda was slowly slipping out of the Boralevis' grasp. Mention of the dowry did it: the Boralevis might be more prominent socially, but the Valvrojenskis were far better off financially. If things didn't proceed with more caution, then Senda, and therefore the dowry, would be forever lost to them.
'Dowry aside,' Aunt Sophie put in, smacking her lips, 'it's like an angel our Senda cooks. Of course, she learned from her mother and me. There's no better homemaker in all the village than our Senda.'
Grandmother Goldie leapt into the melee. 'And wasn't I skinny? And didn't I have a fine daughter?' She thrust her jutting chin at Esther. 'And didn't Esther have the fine daughter we're now discussing? Who's to say that Senda cannot have children?' She glared at Eva Boralevi. 'You yourself delivered Senda from hips as narrow as those you hint are barren, or did you forget that?'
Eva suddenly looked nonplussed, and Rachel, Solomon's mother, took over for the Boralevis. 'But can Senda manage household accounts?' she asked smoothly. 'A Talmudic scholar is learned beyond belief, but a way to live in riches it's not.'
'Senda knows how to manage things,' Esther Valvrojenski put in quickly. 'Didn't I myself teach her?'
'But can Senda live on the good graces of many?' Rachel insisted. 'Or is she too proud? Like I said earlier, Solomon, being a brilliant scholar, depends upon the entire village for his livelihood.'
Adroitly Grandmother Goldie picked up the thread of conversation. 'Solomon we bless for all the hours he spends at the shul. But being a scholar isn't exactly the way a fine young man can take care of his family, is it?'
Rachel and Eva looked scandalized. It was blasphemous that anyone should dare question a Talmudic scholar's calling.
Grandmother Goldie seized upon their silence. 'Perhaps our Senda should marry someone more . . . more comfortably well-off?' she suggested, tapping her folded arms with her fingers.
'But why?' Eva asked, her feathers more than ruffled. Her voice grew shrill. 'All of us contribute to the care of Talmudic scholars, no one more than us Boralevis. So tell me, you think once our Solomon is married we'll withdraw our support?'
Grandmother Goldie let her silence speak for itself.
'You forget,' Rachel Boralevi said importantly, 'a Talmudic scholar makes an enviable addition to any family.'
Grandmother Goldie looked at Rachel shrewdly. 'The way I see it,' she said with her usual practicality, 'Solomon needs our Senda and her dowry much more than our Senda needs your brilliant scholar. And of course,' she goaded, laying her trump card out on the table, 'we don't even know if Senda wants to marry him, do we?' She turned her back on them, a sly gloating smile lighting up her ancient face.
The Boralevis were shocked into silence. No self-respecting family let the feelings of a mere child enter into such important decisions. It was unheard-of. What did a girl of fifteen know, anyway? When the negotiations had begun, the Boralevis had been certain it was they who held all the cards. They hadn't expected such a fierce onslaught from Senda's family. What Grandmother Goldie had voiced was true, but it wasn't the kind of thing decent people said—not with a Talmudic scholar at the centre of the argument.
'My mother is right,' Esther Valvrojenski boasted proudly. 'My daughter's dowry is one this village hasn't seen the like of for years. No girl will bring more to a marriage.' She sniffed and wiped her nose. 'Senda is all we have. Even our cottage someday will be hers.'
'And ours will be Solomon's,' Rachel retorted, not to be outdone. Her voice and attitude expressed miffed indignation.
'Mrs. Boralevi!' Aunt Sophie exclaimed. 'How can you say such a thing? It's two sons you have. And Solomon is the younger. Traditionally the older son inherits. Surely they both can't?'
Rachel suddenly looked flustered. She had walked into a trap of her own making. She cursed herself for her stupidity. All evening long, she had adroitly avoided any mention of Schmarya. She did not like the twist these negotiations were taking, not at all. Somehow the tables had turned on her, and the strong position she and her family had started out with had suddenly been undermined. 'Schmarya is not one for life in a small village,' she murmured weakly, her gaze suddenly occupied by studying her folded hands in her lap.
'Then you're disinheriting him?' Grandmother Goldie asked slyly.
Outside the window, Senda had been listening to the negotiations with a mixture of quickening interest and revulsion. She despised Solomon and couldn't for the life of her conceive of sharing his life and bed; nor could she help her morbid fascination with the drama unfolding before her eyes. She prayed fervently that Solomon would never be hers. At the same time, she couldn't help but feel delight at the beating the Boralevis now took. But the moment Schmarya was brought up, the most intense hatred she had ever felt prickled hotly behind her ears. How dare they? she felt like screaming. What right did they have to discuss him? she asked herself savagely. What did they know about Schmarya? Only she knew him . . . knew how he spoke out against injustice . . . knew how he tried to fight their serflike servitude and the anti-Semitic life they were all locked into. He was the solitary outspoken critic of Wolzak, the landowner who bled them all dry, and Czar Nicholas II, whose unfair laws allowed him to do so. Solomon hid behind his books, the entire village buried their heads in their work and only Schmarya had the courage to speak out.
Inside the kitchen, the mention of Schmarya quickly brought preliminary negoti
ations to a close, and the bargaining began in earnest. Schmarya was the black sheep of the Boralevi family—indisputably, the black sheep of the entire village. Everyone in the room knew, although they had never been proven, that the rumours that Schmarya was involved with a band of anarchists were undeniably true. Which was why Solomon was having such a difficult time of it finding an appropriate wife. Even the rabbi would not permit his homely daughter, Jael, to marry into a family tainted by such a volatile son, although no one would dare speak of it. It was surely only a matter of time before tragedy struck Schmarya. And when it did, then perhaps the entire Boralevi family would suffer the consequences along with him.
'Forty silver coins more,' Eva was saying firmly. Gone suddenly was the careful, crafty game-playing, the verbal shifting of musical chairs. She was seriously bargaining for Senda's dowry now, greed glinting in her sharp dark eyes. 'Plus the hope chest, and the original twenty silver coins you have offered already.'
'Four more silver coins and nothing more,' Senda's father said gruffly.
'Fifteen silver coins more.' Rachel Boralevi eyed the Valvrojenskis shrewdly. 'You should want your only daughter to starve?'
'So maybe if she stays at home and doesn't marry Solomon, she'll eat, nu?' Uncle Chaim interjected heatedly.
'Ten silver coins more,' the shadchen put in quickly, trying to get back into the act of bargaining. So far, the matchmaker had let the negotiations be taken out of her hands, and if she let the others seal the bargain without her, then she was in danger of losing her commission.
'Five coins more,' Senda's father said adamantly, 'as well as the original dowry.'
Rachel Boralevi glanced at her husband. A silent signal seemed to pass between them. Her husband sighed heavily and shook his head sadly. He sat hunched over, as though in great pain. Finally he shrugged. 'Seven more silver coins and we'll call it quits,' he said, 'but as God is my witness, my family for this will suffer.'
'It's settled then,' Senda's mother said quickly.
'We'll drink a toast!' Rachel Boralevi sat up straighter, her eyes shining eagerly. 'Not the chazerei we drink every day. The good wine we've been saving for the holidays.'
Then everyone began talking excitedly all at once. Forgotten now were the tough, cruel accusations of only moments ago.
Suddenly they were all the best of friends.
Outside, Senda clutched the windowsill unsteadily and shut her eyes. She let out a silent moan of intense pain. She felt drained, numb. Her entire world had suddenly collapsed about her. She wished she were dead.
Clapping a hand over her mouth, she stumbled home, tears flooding from her eyes. When she reached her family's cottage on the far side of the village, she fairly flew through the front gate, rushed at the front door, and the moment she burst into the tiny bedroom she shared with Grandmother Goldie, slammed the door shut with such fierce force that the entire cottage shook under the impact.
She flung herself on her narrow bed and sat huddled there, her arms wrapped protectively around her as if she suffered from a mortal wound. Her head lolled forward against her chest, and her face was streaked with tears. She didn't move from her pathetically childlike and vulnerable position. She didn't even lift her head when she heard her parents, Aunt Sophie, Uncle Chaim, and Grandmother Goldie finally return from the Boralevis'. Normally she would have jumped up and run to embrace them, but tonight she didn't care if she never saw them again, with the exception of Grandmother Goldie. Not for as long as she lived. Not after they had so cold-bloodedly bargained for a marriage she found loathsome in her heart and soul.
She heard chairs scrape and creak. In the kitchen, everyone talked at once, and she could hear snatches of the conversation, then the clinking of a bottle as tiny glass cups of precious celebratory wine were half-filled to toast the completion of the marriage negotiations.
'I'm so relieved!' Senda's mother was exclaiming. 'For a moment there, I thought I should suffer a heart attack!' She allowed herself a low laugh, now that the ordeal was over.
'You deported yourself very well, as usual,' her father said loyally.
'Yes, I rather did, didn't I?' Her mother sounded pleased. 'Imagine us, the Valvrojenskis, related to the Boralevis! And Solomon a Talmudic scholar, yet! Such an honour!'
'Yes, a fine young man he is,' Aunt Sophie agreed heartily. 'A good catch. Nothing like that no-good brother of his.'
'For a moment,' Uncle Chaim interjected, 'I was afraid it was all off.'
'And it would have been, too,' Aunt Sophie retorted angrily, 'had I let you walk out like you threatened! Fine things you get us into, Chaim! It's God I thank that I had the finesse and the fortitude to gloss over your outburst. If I hadn't, poor Senda would still be husbandless!'
'I don't count,' Senda thought angrily as the voices rose and fell, carrying clearly into her room. There they sit, congratulating themselves on what a fine match they've found for me. Well, the hell with shadchens and tradition, that's all I've got to say! I won't stand for being haggled over like a piece of meat! I will not be a sacrificial lamb for my mother's social climbing!
Once again her eyes overflowed with tears. She threw herself facedown on the bed, sobbing soundlessly into the pillow as she railed against the injustice of it all. She clapped her hands over her ears to try to drown out the voices from the kitchen, but she only succeeded in muting them somewhat.
'L'Chaim!' her father's voice rang out all too clearly.
'L'Chaim!' came the answering chorus. Glasses were clinked, and the toast drunk.
'Ah. Good wine,' Uncle Chaim said with a deep sigh of contentment. 'Better than the Boralevis'.'
In the kitchen, Grandmother Goldie had watched the others throw back their heads and swallow the wine, their faces flushing slightly under the glow of the rich ruby-red liquid. She looked down at her untouched glass. Now the others stared at her.
'You should think Senda would be invited to join in the toast,' Grandmother Goldie said quietly.
Senda's mother, who was seated beside her husband, smiled vaguely. Now that the negotiations were over, she was breathing easily, and the wine was making her feel heady and expansive. 'Oh, I don't think Senda would be interested,' she said. 'What's she to do with it?'
'It's her life,' Grandmother Goldie reminded her daughter. 'It's she who has to live with Solomon Boralevi.'
Senda's mother caught the unmistakably brittle tone in Grandmother Goldie's voice. 'And it's a fine young man he is,' she responded without hesitation. 'Senda's a very lucky girl.'
'Certainly she is,' Aunt Sophie echoed. 'She should count her blessings. It's not every girl who catches a Talmudic scholar. Such prestige.'
Grandmother Goldie stared first at her daughter-in-law, Sophie, then at Esther, her daughter. This was unbelievable. A marriage should be built on a firm foundation. And should not love be a part of it? Had they all forgotten that? And hadn't Senda made her feelings about Solomon clear time and again? Yes, but nobody had chosen to listen. 'Senda doesn't love Solomon,' she stated quietly as she set her untouched wine on the kitchen table. 'Has that not occurred to any of you?'
Senda's mother waved her hand in irritation. 'Then she will come to love him in time,' she said quickly. 'Love has to grow. In the beginning, it's like it was with us . . . all of us.' She nodded at her husband. 'From duty springs love.'
'That's all you have to say about it, then?'
Senda's mother nodded emphatically with self-righteousness. 'That's our final decision. The marriage ceremony will take place as planned next month.'
Later, when the cottage was quiet, Grandmother Goldie tiptoed softly into the little bedroom she shared with Senda. The window was open, and the curtains fluttered with the chill night air. She looked down at her grandchild. Senda was lying under the covers, her face turned toward the wall. Her breathing was coming regularly, as though she were asleep, but Grandmother Goldie knew she was pretending.
'Sendale, child, I know you're awake.'
Senda let
out a stifled sob.
Grandmother Goldie took a seat on the edge of Senda's narrow bed. 'It's not the end of the world, child,' she tried to reassure her softly.
Senda didn't turn around. When she spoke, it was in a thick, muffled mumble. 'Yes. It is.'
Grandmother Goldie sighed heavily. 'Please, Sendale, listen to what I have to say to you.'
Obediently Senda sat up and faced her grandmother in the dark.
'That's better.' Grandmother Goldie spoke haltingly, choosing her words with care. 'Like it or not, a few things in life you must understand and accept. Now you are fifteen, almost sixteen, not a child anymore. You are a woman, and it is our lot to be hardworking and obedient.'
'And suffer through marriage to someone revolting?'
'Don't be so stubborn!' Grandmother Goldie whispered. She shook her head. 'You may be a woman now, but you are still a child in many ways.'
'Am I?' Even in the dark, Grandmother Goldie could feel her granddaughter's challenging gaze burning into her.
'No, you're not,' the old woman admitted at long last. 'But you must go through with this marriage nevertheless, no matter how distasteful it may seem to you. It would break your poor parents' hearts if you didn't. The shame of it! They'd never be able to live it down.'
'But I can?' Senda countered in a low voice. "I'm the one who has to live with him. I'm the one who's expected to give birth to Solomon's children.' She paused. 'Grandmother Goldie . . .' she began haltingly.
Goldie reached out and embraced her granddaughter. 'Yes, child?'
It was then that the torrent of misery broke and the words burst forth from Senda's lips. Quietly keening, she cried into her grandmother's warm, gaunt bosom. 'Oh, it's not Solomon I love,' she moaned over and over. 'It's his brother, Schmarya. What will I do? I can't live without Schmarya!'