They had been waiting for us, the family tense, and hoping as I had done that it was a mistake and the beggar was someone else. But at first sight of him all their hope vanished. I looked at them. My grandmother stood rigid, her face tight. My mother looked as stricken as she had before. The others – well, there was a variety of expressions, none pleasant. There was dead silence among them. Even the children were hushed, all gaping at the blind beggar I had brought in.
But Phil launched into an effusive welcome, throwing an arm round the old man’s shoulders, crying, ‘Welcome, old man! I’m so glad you came. I heard you singing down below. I want you to sing for us up here. But first you must have a glass of wine with us and join us in a toast to my beautiful bride. I know you can’t see, but you must take my word for it, she is the most beautiful bride there ever was in this world. I wish you could see her.’ He swept a hand towards Lily hovering a little behind him, not knowing how close she was to fainting.
The old man gave a little chuckle. He probably knew how she felt and he was obviously enjoying himself tremendously at the situation. ‘I don’t have to see her,’ he said. ‘I am so well trained without my sight, which I lost in the war, in the battle of Mons, that I can sense beauty without seeing it. And I know your bride is what you say she is and I congratulate you. Would it be possible perhaps for me to kiss the bride?’
‘Why not?’ Phil cried, but then seeing the look of horror on Lily’s face and the pale colour that came into it, he changed his mind quickly and said, ‘But first let’s drink. Fill the glasses. Everybody drink! Come on, fill up the glasses.’
They complied readily. All the members of the family, who knew what was going on, needed the drink. Even the men at the bar, who had drunk enough already, poured still more from the bottles. Eli had his head on the table and was out. He was the only one who didn’t participate in the toast. Phil himself had placed a glass in the hand of my grandfather, one in Lily’s trembling hand and one in each of his parents’, and was now going around with a bottle of sweet wine filling glasses, making sure that everyone was joining in the toast, and growing more and more excited, his face flushed, his eyes sparkling.
I had a glass in my hand, too, and was holding it steadily so that the wine would not spill out. And I raised it, as did all the others theirs, as Phil cried dramatically, ‘And now, ladies and gentlemen, to the woman who has given me the greatest happiness of my life, to my beautiful and lovely and sweet and delicious bride.’
‘Excuse me.’ It was my grandfather interrupting. ‘I have heard all the voices here. I know the parents of the groom are here, the mother of the bride, and all the brothers and sisters and relatives, but where is the father of the bride? I have not heard his voice. Surely, on such a sacred occasion the father should be here to see his daughter get married … and to join in the toast with us.’
Once again an uneasy hush settled over them. I heard my grandmother give a strange sound and start towards the kitchen with the glass of wine in her hand. Phil’s eyes followed her with a puzzled look in them. He looked questioningly at Lily, but she was no help to him. The question had been asked before and Barney had answered it in his comical way. I wondered if he would give the same answer now. But he was silent like the rest of them and did not seem to be in a humorous mood.
Phil, however, remembered what he had said before and gave the same answer to his guest, although I could tell from the way he spoke that he had not quite believed Barney. But he said it, awkwardly: ‘He’s in New York on a business matter. I believe he has a Board of Directors meeting. Is that correct, Barney?’
‘Yes, absolutely,’ said Barney, but it was in a sober fashion and without the twinkle in his eyes, and the cigar he was holding in his mouth had gone out and he was simply sucking it.
And then Phil’s father spoke. He was a rather short man, much as Phil was, and somewhat on the heavy side with a bulldog kind of face. If you had read the financial pages in those days that face would have been familiar to you. In fact, he was known as ‘The Bulldog’ and it was easy to guess that this man was no fool. He had been eyeing the gathering with sceptical eyes throughout the evening, and if not for his son both he and his wife would have gone long ago. Now he spoke up loudly and for almost the first time, and in the forthright fashion that had earned him his nickname. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I don’t know what’s going on here with this phoney blind beggar, but I don’t like whatever it is. And I don’t like this whole crowd here, and if you’ll take my advice, son, you’ll haul yourself out of this mess as soon as you can.’
My grandmother had heard and now she came back, still holding the glass of wine in her hand. She approached Phil’s father closely and said, ‘You don’t like it here? Is that what you said?’
‘Yes,’ he replied, looking her straight in the eye.
‘Then you can get the hell out of here and take your whore of a wife with you. And take this, too.’
She threw the glass of wine into his face. He wiped his face with a handkerchief and lost no time leaving together with his wife, with the stricken Phil running after them begging them not to take it seriously, and to stay longer, assuring them that though the family had certain peculiarities they were a nice, lively bunch of people and lots of fun to be with, and once they got to know them they’d love them as he did.
He followed them down the stairs, pleading, and neither one was moved. His father took Phil’s hand off his arm and said, ‘Son, I’ll give you the same advice as before. Get yourself out of this mess as soon as you can. I can get you a good lawyer.’
Phil, crestfallen, went back upstairs. My grandmother was not done yet. She turned to my grandfather and said grimly, ‘Next time you decide to come be sure you give me a month’s notice or you’ll find the door locked in your face.’
‘Maybe,’ said my grandfather, ‘next time one of my children gets married you’ll give me a month’s notice.’
‘Maybe,’ said my grandmother, ‘it would be still better if you didn’t come at all.’
‘That suits me,’ said my grandfather. ‘I’ll save myself a lot of money with the fare. I’m sure you’ll be able to use it.’
She said nothing more, but being in a vicious mood then did what she might have been expected to do. Sweeping her arms about, she turned to the others and shouted, ‘And the rest of you can go. I’ve had enough wedding. It’s over. Go on, go, get out.’
There was instant movement for departure. This included my grandfather as well. My mother came over to me and whispered in my ear, ‘Go and help your grandfather down the stairs. He might fall.’
I went without hesitation. I felt terribly sorry for him. I took his arm as we were going down the stairs and he was grateful. He descended much more slowly than he had come up, and evidently was not steady on his feet. When we came downstairs he gave me a hug and said, ‘Well, at least I can say I attended my daughter’s wedding.’ And he gave a chuckle and added, ‘Goodbye and good luck, and tell your mother she must not worry about paying me back. Tell her I still owe her.’
‘Goodbye, Grandpa,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell her.’
I watched him go down the street, limping and tapping his cane, from habit I suppose, and gradually he disappeared in the darkness. It would be years before I saw him again.
Chapter Twelve
THESE WERE TURBULENT times in the life of the city of Chicago. It was the era of Prohibition, the day of the speakeasy, of Al Capone and rival gangs battling it out on the streets while corrupt police stood by and watched, or in some cases even fought on the side of one gang or another. On St Valentine’s Day, one gang marched into the headquarters of another, lined them all up against a wall and mowed them down with automatic rifles. The newspaper headlines blazed daily with new killings or bombings of buildings.
In a small way, we were caught up in the drama of those days. It began for us with a loud, frantic knocking on the door. It was late. We were preparing for bed and we could not possibly imagine a visitor
at this time of night. I answered the door and fell back as Abe burst in gasping, ‘Shut the door. Shut it quick!’ I obeyed and stared at him. His face was pale, his eyes wild and swinging around as if in search of someone. He asked us to look through the window and see if there was anyone down below. We did that. There was no one. My father was home that night. He poured Abe a drink and had him gulp it down, and asked what the bloody ’ell was going on.
Abe told his story in between gasps and shiverings. It had been one of those rare times when he had a job in a tailoring sweatshop. He had worked late, and had come home tired and hungry, only to learn from a frightened wife that the bootlegger who stored his barrels in their closet had been there not too long before to ask for him.
He’d told her that he had been getting a lot of complaints from customers that the liquor he had sold them was heavily watered. He never drank his own liquor. He knew better. But he did that time and found it to be true. There could be no doubt as to who was responsible for adding water to the barrels he stored in the closet in order to cover up what he had been taking out of them and he wanted to talk to that person. His tone was grim. He’d be back later, he said.
When Abe heard all this he didn’t wait. He knew the penalty for crossing a bootlegger. Bodies had been found floating in the Chicago River, weighted down with cement blocks, bullet holes in heads. It was the usual method of punishment and disposal. Abe knew all that and he ran. His wife Lizzie did not wait much longer before she had packed a few things, taken the two children and run also. Abe never saw her again. It was something she had been planning to do anyway for a long time. None of us ever heard from her.
In the meantime Abe was safe with us – although he was never too sure of that and had me constantly looking through the window. Then one day I did notice a black car draw up at the kerb and a man I had never seen before get out and look up at our floor. I withdrew from the window quickly and whispered to Abe, ‘There’s a tall, skinny man downstairs looking up at us.’
‘That’s him,’ said Abe and his face turned white. He got up and looked around the room, as if seeking an escape.
We were sitting in the kitchen and my mother was at the sink preparing our next meal. She seemed to know what to do. ‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘Hurry.’ She led him into the bedroom just off the kitchen that she shared with my father, and I followed, listening. She told him to get undressed and into bed, and turn to one side with the covers pulled up to his head and pretend he was asleep. Then she closed the door.
We waited. A few minutes later we heard footsteps coming up the stairs, slowly, heavily. Then a knock at the door. I answered it. A tall, skinny man with an acne’d face, somewhere in his thirties I’d guess, stood there and said, ‘Is Abe in?’
‘Who?’ It was my mother answering. She had followed me to the door.
‘You know who,’ the man growled. ‘I know he’s here.’
‘Well, he isn’t,’ my mother said. ‘He doesn’t live here and he hasn’t been here for a long time.’
‘We’ll see,’ the man said, and before I could shut the door he had stepped in and was looking around. My mother and I watched him fearfully. He was looking everywhere, the dining room, the living room, the bedrooms, opening doors and not bothering to close them.
‘You’ve got no right to do that,’ my mother protested.
‘Lady, I’ve got plenty of right,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a lot of right.’
He seemed to have overlooked the bedroom leading off the kitchen, and my mother was beginning to hope that he’d forget it altogether and leave. But this wasn’t the case. He started to go towards the door and my mother sprang forward to stop him. ‘You can’t go in there,’ she said. ‘My husband’s there in bed and he’s sick. He just dropped off to sleep and I don’t want to disturb him. He’s very ill.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ the man said, and he opened the door and looked in.
I managed to look in also. Abe was doing exactly what my mother had told him to do. He was lying on one side with the covers pulled up to his head, apparently in a deep sleep. The tall, skinny man stood there looking at him, evidently not too sure. I think my mother’s heart was in her mouth at that moment. It seemed almost certain that he was going to walk over to the bed and yank the covers off the face. But he didn’t. He turned away, finally, and walked out.
At the door he stopped and said just a few more words: ‘Tell Abe I’ll find him and he’d better learn to say his prayers now.’
We smuggled Abe out of the house at night. Uncle Louis drove him in his cab to my grandmother’s house and there he found refuge for a week or two, but the fear hung over them there too, and Abe was smuggled out once more under cover of darkness and finally found sanctuary in the one place his hunter would never think of following him: with my Aunt Sophie and her husband, Sam the barber. Scarcely anyone at that time knew that Elmwood Park existed, and even if they had gone there they would never have been able to find the solitary house near the railroad tracks.
Abe never recovered from what had happened. Perhaps the worst part of it all was the loss of his wife and children. They could not be found anywhere, though the family worked diligently to find out for him, asking people who had known Lizzie, hunting down clues, but never finding a trace of her.
Abe meanwhile declined both mentally and physically, a permanent guest, apparently, at Sophie’s house. When we came to visit we usually found him lying in bed, no matter what the hour of day, and as time went on senility crept over him even though he was a relatively young man, not much into his forties. After a while he failed to recognise any of us and called us by the wrong names. The one thing that stuck in his feeble mind was his wife Lizzie. He seemed to think she was still around and he asked for her constantly – the beautiful wife with the electric lights and bathtub, who never answered his call.
Abe’s downfall had been as much a catastrophe for my father, and for Eli and the other drinking brothers, as it had been for Abe himself. It had meant the drying up of the well that had kept them in free moonshine for many months and now they had to seek out their own source of supply. This was not too difficult, if you had the money, and my father had that. He was doing well at Hart, Schaffner & Marx. He was making more money in a week than he had made in a month in England. How much of that he gave to my mother I don’t know, but it wasn’t as important to her now as it had once been.
There were others in the family to give her money. Joe, Saul, Rose, they were all working and earning, and they gave her a portion of their wages every week, so she was well supplied with money and was even putting a little aside to pay off the debt she felt she owed to my grandfather. Every week I went with her to the bank and helped her make out the deposit slip, which she handed to the teller together with the one or sometimes two dollars that she deposited. Then, happily, she tucked away her bank book into her handbag.
Yes, she was happy, and in those days it must have seemed to her that everything she had dreamed about America had come true. She not only had enough money to cover the expenses of the household, but to put a little aside – she had a bank account, something she had never had in her life before and that she mentioned proudly in her letters to England. ‘Oh, yes,’ she would say, dictating to me, ‘in case I haven’t told you before’ – she had, several times before – ‘I now have an account in a bank too … Life has decided to be good to us for a change …’
Life was indeed being good for a change, with a nice apartment only a block from a park, where you could hear band concerts in the summer, or go rowing on the lake, or sit on a bench and get a cool breeze, and see green grass and trees and flowers all around you … like living in the swanky houses up the park, Hollywood Park, for instance.
We had a parlour and the furniture was almost paid off; we had a piano, on which my sister Rose played every night after she came home from work, with great thumping sounds that had no melody, but were just simply a lot of noise. But what difference did that make? We had a pi
ano. I was going to high school. I was already in my third year and in another year I would graduate and go on to college. Yes, there was another step up in store for us. I had decided on that myself. College was too big a thing for even my mother’s imagination to embrace. But I was getting older and able to make my own decisions. I would go to the University of Illinois in Urbana and study to become something that wasn’t quite yet clear in my mind. But not an architect. That had been ruled out my first week at Lane when the drawing teacher had made his comment about my drawing to the entire class. Perhaps I’d become a writer. I was writing stories for the school monthly magazine, and the English teacher in charge had a better opinion of me than the drawing teacher and thought that I had a lot of talent at writing.
But all that was only part of the shining glory of those days when it seemed that we were so close to the fulfilment of our dream. There was contentment in the household that had never been there before. My mother bought herself a new hat. It had a wide brim and a bunch of cherries on one side. She looked at herself in the mirror and smiled. I had never seen her do that before. I smiled with her. I told her it was very beautiful. She was a little surprised and grateful. Who had ever said that to her before? She looked again in the mirror, adjusted the hat a bit and smiled again.
They were good days for us and in addition to all the luxuries we already had we bought a Victrolla. We bought it from Phil, of course, and he and Lily came over to our house one evening to have dinner with us and show us how to use it, how to wind it up and put the needle in, and how to put the record on and take it off without scratching it. He had brought a record for us as a gift. It was a popular song called ‘Yes, we have no bananas’ and we played it over and over, and listened delightedly to it being sung without ever tiring of the repetition.
The Dream Page 11