Bittersweet Brooklyn: A Novel

by Thelma Adams

  The Mint, seated across from Moritz at the foot of the table, shook his head, silently, like an old burro. In her corner, Thelma hid her head in her lap beneath her crossed arms.

  “Shut your dirty mouth, you putz,” said Annie, gazing over to where Thelma slumped on the stool, her skimpy skirt revealing her slender thigh. “She’s weak, a meeskait, homely. Look at her: a nothing. A strong wind would blow her away. Hell, a breeze would knock her down.”

  “I’d like to knock you down,” said Thelma, twisting on her stool and raising her fist. “What’d I ever do to you, you cow?”

  “Cow? Me? Get me a pencil, you little monkey, you tramp, and I’ll write you a list. You couldn’t stay in the kitchen like you were told—don’t expect any mercy from me. I have enough worries without your tsuris. From now on you sleep in Mama’s bed far away from Moritz, who can sleep in the gutter for all I care,” said Annie, her knife-sharp voice feasting on the girl’s flinch as if from a blow. “And you, a grown man, took advantage. Tell us now, here, to Mama’s face, Moritz. No hiding in the bathroom. Explain why your own daughter’s fingers were in your crotch?”

  “Stepdaughter,” said Moritz, cracking a walnut in his fist.

  “In God’s eyes she’s your daughter.” Annie pointed at her stepfather as if backed by the Torah itself. Jesse stood behind her, her army of one.

  “And what god would have me marry my grandmother and lie beside her on her pallet of aches and pains, breathing her stomach gases? Is it my place to rub liniment on her back like a nursemaid?”

  “You’ll be the death of me,” cried Mama, clenching her fists. She leaped from the sofa with unexpected vigor, but Jesse caught his mother-in-law by the wrist and restrained her.

  “How would you know, you old kvetch? Every day you wail will be your last. You geschrei as if you already have one foot in the grave—so why not let the other join it?” Moritz wiped his hands and then nodded in thanks as the Mint set a beer tumbler before him. The bachelor sat across the table with the crossword puzzle and a pen. His voice low, Moritz continued, “The matchmaker offered me a bride, Annie, but gave me this used-up crone. I am a man. I am vital still. I have an appetite—and not just for roast chicken. Your mother sees me and shuts her legs. Fine! I don’t want to fill her with my seed. The thought disgusts me.”

  Thelma looked from Moritz to her mother with marsupial eyes as Mama recoiled. Her mouth dropped, exposing many missing bottom teeth. “You devil! To speak of these things in front of my children . . .”

  “I’m no devil. I’m a husband whose woman doesn’t want him like a wife should. The walls are thin enough that this should come as no surprise to anyone. You want a moneymaker to release you from taking in laundry, from walking the streets. I am trying to make my peace with that, and with having Annie’s angry puss bossing me around as if she owned me. Remember this: I own you. When you didn’t have a pot to piss in, I rescued you from charity. You can’t tell me what to do. Anything you say, I let you say. I have fulfilled my side of a bad bargain, you ill-tempered sow. I do my part. I am the husband. I provide—but I have needs, too.”

  “So is that what you call your nursery games with my sister?”

  “Your sister—don’t pretend to care about the girl,” Moritz said. Thelma looked longingly at him. He ignored her. She pulled her hands in her sleeves and hugged herself. He continued, “Do you think I’d coming knocking at your door, Annie? Is that why you’re so angry? One look at Thelma and it’s easy to see she’s better looking.”

  “You animal,” Annie screamed.

  “You bitch,” said Moritz with a chilly calm, as he flicked a bread crumb off the tablecloth.

  Incensed and insulted, Annie grabbed the chair arm, but she lacked the strength to rise. Silence fell momentarily, and then Moritz cracked another nut. When he spoke he didn’t return Annie’s gaze. “So, Jesse,” he said, spitting out the bitter shell, “what’s this newspaper story that seemed so urgent . . . ?”

  “Don’t change the subject. We’re not done with you and that little flea there,” said Annie.

  “Yes, you are.”

  Jesse rustled the paper, saying, “Here it is: ‘Nathan Rothman, of 101 Henry Street . . .’”

  “That’s near where we lived with Papa,” said Mama. “We knew Rothmans on Suffolk Street.”

  “Rothman is a common name, Mama,” said Annie.

  “Let me read,” Jesse said. “This Nathan ‘was told by a friend on April 13 that the “toughest kid on Fourteenth Street” was “Little Yiddle” Lorber.’ That’s our Abie in black and white.”

  Annie slapped her free hand to her damp forehead. Her blood pounded in her skull, and nausea constricted her throat. Except for her wedding announcement, a moment of intense pride—she the bride of someone she loved from the heart and who adored her—she’d never seen their family name in the newspaper. A burning shame rose in her cheeks as she imagined that yenta Mrs. Dickman going from door to door, spreading this story of their humiliation. Imagine if the woman discovered what she’d seen with her own eyes yesterday morning: Moritz slumped on the sofa, his legs sprawled, bare feet flexed, head thrown back, mouth open—and her sister’s pale hand in his lap. Now, her brother had stabbed a boy, a Jewish boy, and this was what the Gentiles would read. This was what they’d think Jews were: animals who sliced each other on street corners, bloodthirsty criminals who would creep into their homes at night and slit their throats and those of their innocent children. Her people would be persecuted again, like they had been in Galicia, tossed off their land and forced to start over with what they could carry on their backs, families split and separated, mothers from children, husbands from wives. She felt a rising panic that fused into a certainty: Abie had done this just to humiliate her and Mama.

  “It’s him,” Mama cried. “It’s him!”

  “Sure it’s him,” said Jesse. “That’s why I brought the paper home.”

  “Schmuck,” said Annie. Thelma remained silent.

  “They even know his address: ‘372 Hooper Street, Brooklyn.’”

  “They know where we live? It’s in the paper?” asked Mama. She stood up. She sat down. She looked at Annie. “We have to move.”

  “I’m not moving,” said Moritz. “If you have to go, pack your bags, and take your tsuris with you. Leave me in blessed peace and quiet.”

  Mama grabbed the hem of Annie’s housedress. “The shonda! Everyone will know, Annie.”

  “You saw the neighbors swooping down like vultures, Mama. The news is out. What can we do about it?”

  “Lock the door! Kill me now! These Rothmans will slay us in our sleep. They’re not good people.”

  “No one will slay you in your sleep, Mamaleh,” said Jesse.

  “Unless it’s Abie,” said Annie. “Who knows what will happen with the wolves Abie has brought down around us?”

  Mama gripped her apron hem, shaking her head. “We’ll never live this down. We’ll have to move away to someplace without Jews.”

  “Omaha,” said Thelma, raising her head from her hands.

  “Shut your mouth before I scrub it with lye,” said Annie, and the girl did.

  “What comes next?” asked Mama. “Frogs? Boils?”

  “Let Jesse finish,” Annie said as her husband bowed his head to the paper.

  “So Rothman says, ‘What? That kid tough! Ah, stop!’ Knowing Abie, that kid was no genius.”

  “Keep reading,” said Annie. A walnut cracked loudly.

  “‘Well, I’ll show you,’ said Little Yiddle, as he plunged a knife into Nathan’s stomach.”

  “Is he dead?” asked Thelma, her voice strained.

  “Who?” Mama shrieked. “Abie?”

  “Not Abie, Mama Becky. He had the blade. The kid, Nathan, he’s as good as dead, it says right here: ‘Nathan went to a hospital, and last night asked the doctors to take him home so he could die in peace.’”

  A sobbing sound rose from Thelma’s corner. Annie cut her sister off. “Stifle i
t, Thelma. That good-for-nothing doesn’t deserve your tears, and the sound is shredding my head.” She grabbed the paper and read the conclusion: “Lorber, whose parents call him Abraham”—she snorted—“was arrested last night in Brownsville and locked up in police headquarters, charged with felonious assault.”

  “Felonious assault,” Moritz said, rubbing his ribbed forehead.

  The Mint whistled, glancing up from his crossword. “That’s a mouthful.”

  Outside, a raw-voiced Italian knife grinder offered his sharpening services, which chilled Annie, considering the bloodstained blade that must have been in her brother’s hand. It might have been honed by this same neighborhood vendor who pushed his cart down the street accompanied by a tinkling bell. When Moritz opened another nut, Annie jumped at the loud crack.

  “How many walnuts are you going to eat, big spender?” she said, but in her head she calculated. Felonious assault: the crime would demand prison time. It said so in the paper: locked up.

  Realizing that her headache had lifted, Annie placed a hand on her shoulder where Jesse’s fingers rested. She touched his gold wedding band, reassuring herself of what mattered: her family, her husband, her children (present and future), and Mama. She refused to be dragged back into the gutter.

  The front door opened suddenly, so wide it sent Thelma flying off the stool. Abie swaggered in, all smiles, with Louis behind him. Annie blinked and opened her eyes. She’d imagined her brother subdued in handcuffs, shuffling his chained feet, humbled and filthy, with police spittle on his back. The degree to which his being brought low had pleased her became clear with her shock and disappointment at seeing him at large standing before her, grinning, energetic, self-satisfied—and dressed like a peacock. He wore an outrageous double-breasted gray-flannel jacket unbuttoned to reveal a yellow waistcoat straight out of a fancy catalog. Removing his dove-gray fedora, he bent low and announced with a sweep of his hat, “Don’t believe everything you read in the papers, suckers!”

  Thelma fled to her brother, wrapping her arms around his waist and squeezing him monkey-child tight. “I was so worried,” she said, rubbing her cheek against his chest and then peering into his eyes as if to make sure it was really him. “I looked all over for you.”

  “I heard,” he said, smiling at her with a ray of love and tucking a corkscrew curl behind her ear. “And here I am to save the day, bearing gifts!” Louis stood stiffly behind his brother, carrying a bottle and a box of chocolates, a bag of lemon drops and baked goods, lox and cream cheese from Coney Island Bialys and Bagels. “They were out of salt, Jesse—onion okay?”

  “I’ll suffer,” said Jesse, seemingly unsurprised at his brother-in-law’s swift return from lockup.

  “Stop crawling all over Abie, Thelma,” Annie said. “You’ll strangle him.”

  “I’m guessing you want to have that pleasure to yourself,” said Abie.

  Annie’s hands indeed itched to circle his neck. She felt her anger beating above her left eye. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon. What, now they have bagels in prison?”

  “And chocolates,” Abie said. “Louis, hand her the box.”

  Louis gave Annie the red box of chocolates from the top shelf of the candy store, the fancy kind that nobody ever really bought—at least nobody like them.

  “You’re welcome,” Abie said as Annie held the big box with two hands, trying to squelch her curiosity. She liked nice things, but she didn’t like them from bad men. It wasn’t a gift but a bribe.

  “Thanks for nothing” was all she managed to say.

  “You can’t believe everything you read, sister dear.”

  “You look great,” Thelma said.

  “Like a pimp.” Annie grunted as she rose from her chair, still holding the lavish red box. “What are you doing here, Abie?”

  “It’s where I live. It says so in the paper. Can’t you read, or has that hair dye bleached your brain?”

  “I can read, all right. The paper says you stabbed a kid.”

  “So you’ve seen my press clippings.” Abie pretended to shine his fingernails on his lapel.

  “We sure have, Little Yiddle,” said Annie.

  “No one calls me that,” Abie bristled. He squinted at her. It was just the two of them again, while those remaining in the room apparently had the sense to avoid coming between brother and sister. “It’s a gimmick. The writer made it up to sell papers.”

  “The paper says you’re in jail. Did they make that up, too?” Annie stepped forward, shaking off Jesse’s hands. Placing her right leg in front of her left and clenching her hands, she assumed her fighting stance. “Little Yiddle.”

  “Call me that again,” said Abie, raising his right fist, “and I’ll disappear that big mouth of yours.”

  “What, you’ll cut me with your little knife?” Annie raised her right pinkie, waggling it at her brother as she approached.

  “Leave it, Annie, I don’t want to sweat in my new suit,” Abie said, pulling out an overly friendly grin while hugging Thelma to his side. “Do I look like a jailbird?” Abie inflated his chest, nearing Annie so that they were almost nose to identical nose. She smelled his aftershave. Only an inch taller, Annie had nearly fifty pounds on him. He stared her in the eyes. “Who are you going to believe—me or the ink?”

  “So, Big Macher, now the whole block knows what a stinker you really are,” Annie spat, raising her voice. “I had that yenta up my nose already. You think we can keep this quiet?”

  “Quiet?” Abie sucked his teeth. “Who needs quiet? For someone who considers herself so smart, you sure are a dope. I’m sending a message in black and white: don’t mess with me. I’m the toughest kid on Fourteenth Street—nobody else. The Brownsville coppers hauled me in for a schmooze and then released me. I’m untouchable. I’m not blabbing, and Rothman ain’t pressing charges.”

  “Will the boy live?” asked Mama.

  “Sure he’ll live,” said Abie, waving his hand dismissively.

  “Praise God,” Mama said, looking up at the ceiling.

  “What’s a little poke between pals?” Abie smiled and winked at Annie. “He might piss blood, but he’s already back in his mother’s arms. So, Mama, where’s my hug? Aren’t you happy to see me?”

  Mama stayed put beside Annie, shaking her head. “What will the goyim think, a Jewish boy stabbing a Jewish boy? They’ll come down around our heads and send us away. Where will we go? I’m too old to run again. Why, Abie, why’d you do it?”

  “Rothman crossed me. I couldn’t let him get away with it. I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”

  Annie stared at Abie, disgusted. He was filth—and yet he boasted. He never changed. How could he remain so arrogant despite such shame? If it were her, she wouldn’t have been able to leave the house. But it would never have been her. “What kind of a reputation does a pisher like you need? You sell papers for pennies, Mr. Big Shot. Jesse employs you out of the kindness of his heart and this is how you repay us?”

  “You got the order wrong, sister mine.” Abie laughed. “You think I work for Jesse, you silly cow, and not vice versa?”

  “You’re just a know-nothing kid. He’s the boss,” Annie scoffed.

  “He’s not even the boss of you. You lead him around by that ring you put in his nose. We know who wears the pants in the family.”

  “Like you know so much about marriage, Chief Can’t Keep His Putz in His Pants?”

  “I know enough about living with you to pity the poor schmuck. I’ve never seen a guy so happy to get out of the house and go to work.”

  “He’s a happy guy,” she said.

  “Does that look like a happy puss to you?” asked Abie.

  “You just stabbed a guy, you expect smiles?” Annie glanced at Jesse. She registered his discontent. He looked glum, squirming in his silence. “You’re an idiot, Abie.”

  “I’m a lot of things, but an idiot I’m not, right, Louis?”

  “Right, boss.”

  “Tell me, Jesse
,” said Annie. “Tell me who runs the business.”

  “You want him to lie to you?” said Abie. “This is why we didn’t tell you the score. You’d try to muscle in and meddle even if you knew nothing about what we do or how we do it or who we have to grease to stay in business.”

  “Bribery, too?”

  “That’s the cost of doing business. Every cop on the beat has his price; every goniff who pisses on our corner gets his piece. If you don’t know that, you don’t know nothing. You don’t even know your own husband. You should see Jesse when he’s a free man—that’s happy,” said Abie. “He arrives in Manhattan skipping, a regular elf, and whistles all day selling papers—and that’s what he does. Man the kiosk. Shift merchandise. Take betting slips. He’s the kibitzer in chief with the customers, but is he the brains of the operation? Think about it, Annie. Did he propose out of the blue, or did you have to lead him to water and make him drink?”

  “You’re an idiot!” Annie spat, but that didn’t keep the wheels from turning. She had to admit to herself that Jesse was no genius and hadn’t been in a rush to face the rabbi and stomp on the glass. “You’re not worthy to shine his shoes.”

  “True—there’s not a nicer guy in Brooklyn, but is your husband the top dog? Whose idea do you think the newsstand was?”

  “It was his. We’ve discussed it for years.”

  “Right—and who do you think filled his head with the idea? Who knew what would make you happy and keep you off my back? He’d still be stacking boxes at the warehouse if it weren’t for me and my connections. You wanted him to be his own boss, but I’m as close as he’ll get. You’re looking at the top dog right here. Ask that kid Rothman. Ask anybody on Fourteenth Street. Jesse can’t control me any more than you can. Think about it, know-it-all—does he strike you as a leader?”

  Annie looked over at Jesse. He didn’t contest the point. Tension mounted in the room. Annie disliked silence, and in her husband’s refusal to contradict Abie, she realized her brother might be telling the truth for a change.