Not a Nickel to Spare

by Perry Nodelman

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Toronto, Ontario, 1932

  July 1932

  August 1932

  September 1932

  October 1932

  November 1932

  December 1932

  January 1933

  February 1933

  March 1933

  April 1933

  May 1933

  June 1933

  July 1933

  August 1933

  Epilogue

  Historical Note

  Images and Documents

  Glossary

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  About the Author

  Author’s Note

  Copyright

  Also Available

  Books in the Dear Canada Series

  Benjamin Applebaum

  Senior Four, Manning Grove School

  Arithmetic

  My Diary

  By Sally Cohen

  Toronto, Ontario, 1932

  July 1932

  July 8, 1932

  I feel so guilty. I should be upstairs in the kitchen helping Gert do the dishes, not hiding down here in the cellar writing. I shouldn’t be writing at all — especially not in this scribbler. But it’s too late now. I’ve already started. I’ve always wanted to have a diary to write my secrets in, and now’s my chance.

  Benny gave me this scribbler. He started it just before school ended, but he won’t be needing it anymore now, because his pa says he’s not going back to school in the fall. Uncle Max called Benny into the kitchen last week after school was over, gave him a paper bag with three hard-boiled eggs and two pieces of bread in it, and told Benny that it was time for him to go out and get a job and try to stop being a useless little @*#!@?!. I can’t write down the word that Benny said his pa said. It’s too embarrassing. That’s why I wrote it like they write bad words in the comics. Even thinking about it makes me blush. I hate to say it, but my Uncle Max is not a very nice person. Maybe that’s why Pa doesn’t like him and why we hardly ever see him or his family. Except for Benny, of course. We always see Benny.

  Benny is almost fourteen now, so I guess he should have expected it to happen. Uncle Max did the same thing with the bag of eggs and the bread to all of Benny’s older brothers and sisters when they were just about the same age. Benny says his pa does it because he’s useless and can’t hold down a job himself. I wish Benny wouldn’t say mean things like that. It’s not really Uncle Max’s fault. Ma says that ever since he got gassed in the Great War he hasn’t been himself.

  And anyway, it isn’t easy for anyone to keep a job these days. Pa says it’s because of the Depression. Pa says it just seems to keep going on and on forever and ever, and there are hardly any jobs and people are always getting laid off and there are hoboes everywhere and nobody has any money. Benny and his brothers and sisters would be starving if his ma wasn’t making a few dollars washing floors in some offices on Spadina. Benny’s older brothers Sam and Al aren’t helping much anymore either, now that they have their own wives to support. I sure hope Benny can find a job soon.

  My own pa is working right now, thank goodness, driving the truck just like he does every summer, going out into the country to buy vegetables from farmers and then selling them to the wholesalers at the Fruit Terminal on the Esplanade. But when fall comes and there are no more vegetables growing Pa will be out of work again, too. The only ones in the family bringing in any money will be Sophie, Dora and Gert, and they sure don’t make very much cutting and sewing men’s pants in Uncle Bertzik’s factory. You’d think Uncle Bertzik would pay them more because they’re family. But Ma says he can’t because it wouldn’t be fair to the other girls. So they get peanuts, too, just like the rest.

  That’s why I feel so guilty about this scribbler. I should have told Ma I had it. Then she wouldn’t have to spend a whole 5¢ on another one for me when school starts in September. 5¢ is a lot of money. It’s just like I’m taking the food right out of everybody’s mouths. How can I be so mean? If Gert knew she’d tell Ma right away. I’m going to have to keep the scribbler hidden down here in the cellar under the orange crates behind the furnace so nobody ever finds out.

  Darn! @*#!@?! There’s Gert right now, standing in the kitchen and hollering my name so loud that I can hear her right through the floor. She sounds really mad. I am in big trouble. I’d better stop writing and get up there right now.

  July 9

  I should probably have started by saying who I am. My name is Sally Cohen. I am eleven years old — almost twelve. My birthday is next month, August 22. I live at 29 Leonard Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada with my Ma and Pa, Mr. and Mrs. Moses Cohen, and my five sisters. Sophie is twenty-one, Dora is eighteen, Gert is fifteen, Molly is six, and Hindl just turned four — her birthday was last week. Next year, I will be in Junior Four at Egerton Ryerson Public School. I love to read and I hate to sew. I am small for my age. I am also too skinny, except for my arms, which Gert says are too fat. When I grow up, I am going to be an opera singer.

  But back to what happened yesterday when Gert called me. I was right. Boy, was she mad. She gave me a big pinch on my arm, which hurt terribly and left a big blue bruise. But at least she had to do all the dishes by herself, so who cares? I don’t. Gert is just a big ugly meanie. Not that I’d ever tell her that, of course, because she’d yell at me and pinch me all over. Why can’t she ever be nice to me like Dora always is? Or even just ignore me, the way Sophie usually does? Why did she have to be the one next to me in age?

  Just think — if Gert had been born before Dora, then Sophie would be the one who had to put up with her all the time, and I’d be sharing a bedroom with Dora and doing all my chores with her. That would be heavenly. Dora is so sweet. I’d never try to get out of work if I got to do it with Dora. And even if I did try to get out of it once in a while, Dora would never come all the way down to the library at St. Christopher House, the way Gert did last Thursday night when I got caught up in reading and forgot all about going home and washing the stairs. It was the most embarrassing thing ever. She just burst right in there in front of the librarian and everybody and grabbed me by the collar of my blouse and said, “It’s your turn, you farshtunkener no-goodnik. Come home right now and do your job.” Dora would never do a mean thing like that.

  Gert dragged me right out of St. Chris and down the street and all the way home. I couldn’t stop crying the whole time I was washing the stairs. My tears were falling down into the bucket. Ma was right behind me the way she always is, cleaning out the cracks with a hairpin, and she didn’t even feel sorry for me.

  It was all because of The Five Little Peppers. It’s a wonderful, wonderful book, all about a wonderful family who are really poor but they don’t complain and they always love each other and are nice to each other and never pinch each other or drag each other home no matter how poor they are.

  Pa says if it’s not raining tomorrow we can go for a picnic in the country. I love picnics. I hope there’s a beach.

  July 11

  We drove out into the country yesterday, but we never got to have the picnic. We all went. There was Sophie and her girlfriend Syd Schein, Dora, Gert, me, Molly, Hindl, Ma and Pa, my Auntie Bella, my Auntie Fanny, and my cousins Yenta, Humty, Millie, Shaindl and Goldie. They are all sisters and all girls, of course, just like our family. Poor Pa — he’s always surrounded by girls and women. He says it’s like being in a harem. But of course he’s still the boss.

  Pa drove and Ma sat beside him, and the rest of us sat in the back on some boards we put on top of orange crates. It was a beautiful sunny day. It was ever so heavenly to drive down the highway like that with t
he wind in my hair. We sang all the songs we knew, Yiddish ones and school songs and even songs from the radio like “Tea for Two” and “I Found a Million Dollar Baby in the Five and Ten Cent Store.” I sang as high as I possibly could, just like the opera singers do, and imagined what it would be like to have curly blond hair and thin arms and sing live on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City while millions listened on their radios all across America. Just like me and Sophie did every Saturday afternoon all last winter. We had to listen to the station in Buffalo and the sound was awful, but it was worth it.

  After driving for a long time and singing until we were all hoarse, we came to a sign for a private beach, and Pa turned the truck off the highway onto the dirt road. But then he suddenly stopped. I couldn’t figure out why until Shaindl pointed to a big sign that was standing beside the road. It said NO JEWS OR DOGS ALLOWED.

  Why not? It didn’t make any sense to me. I mean, I can see why somebody wouldn’t want a dog on their beach. Dogs bark all the time in a very scary way. They bite innocent strangers for no reason, and they go to the toilet wherever they feel like it, which is disgusting. What if someone came out of the water and accidentally stepped in it? It would be awful.

  But what’s wrong with having Jews on a beach? Jews don’t bark or bite and they always use the toilet room — even Hindl. The whole thing was just plain silly. As Pa began to back the truck out onto the highway again, I asked Sophie about it. Sophie always knows everything. But she just sat there looking very upset and told me to sha shtil. I didn’t want to shut up. I was about to ask her again when there was a very loud bang. Very, very loud. The whole truck shook and then came to a stop.

  Pa had backed the truck out onto the highway and right into a big fancy limousine. The kind millionaires and movie stars drive.

  It was a complete mess. Everybody fell off the boards they were sitting on. Gert, Humty and Dora, who were sitting closest to the front, bumped the backs of their heads on the back window of the truck, and the rest of us just fell all over each other. The little ones were all screaming at the top of their lungs. To tell the truth, I was, too, and so was Gert. It was so scary. Ma rushed out of one side of the truck and Pa out of the other, and they were both reaching up into the truck and trying to get hold of us and shouting, “Gevalt, gevalt! Are you hurt? Is everybody all right? Oy gevalt!”

  It took a while for everyone to calm down and stop screaming. When we did, it turned out that nobody was hurt, not even a little bruise, kayn aynhoreh. It’s a good thing Pa was going so slow.

  But then the man from the limousine came over and started shouting at Pa. He was a big goyishe man with a bald head, a big stomach and very red face. He was very, very angry. Every second word was @*#!@?! But of course Pa was so upset he couldn’t understand all of what the man was shouting about and just kept shouting back in Yiddish. Pa used a lot of words I’ve never heard before, but I think they also meant @*#!@?! — only in Yiddish.

  Finally, the man calmed down enough for Sophie to tell him that Pa didn’t understand much English. So then the man started shouting at her instead. He was furious that his expensive new car was damaged. I don’t know why he was so upset. It was just a tiny little dent in the door, and the back of Pa’s truck had a dent, too. And anyway, it was the man’s fault, really, because he should have been watching where he was going. Pa was going so slow, he really and truly was. He’s a very, very careful driver. People are always honking their horns at him to get him to drive faster. Anyway, the man finally calmed down enough to write Pa’s name and address and licence number. Then he said we shouldn’t think this was over, not by a long shot, and we’d be hearing more about it from the police. He slammed shut the door of his limousine and drove off.

  Well, after that, of course, nobody felt like having a picnic. We just turned around and drove right back into the city and home again. We didn’t sing a single song. We ate our sandwiches in the dining room.

  It was the stupid sign that caused all the trouble. I still don’t understand it, and nobody will explain it to me. Not even Sophie, and she loves to explain things. Maybe Benny will know.

  July 12

  I talked to Benny about the sign. I guess he and I are sort of best friends — even if he is annoying. And a boy, which is really annoying.

  Trust me to end up with a boy for a best friend. It certainly isn’t very ladylike. I bet Queen Mary or Lady Flora Eaton don’t talk about important things with any boys — especially not annoying ones like Benny. But at least Benny listens to me, not like Gert or Sophie. And Dora listens but she just agrees with everything I say, which is nice, I guess, but not very interesting.

  There are the girls at school of course — and there’s Rivka Goldstein in my class who lives across the street and plays with me sometimes. But all she ever wants to do is play with her dolls and talk about movie stars and the latest fashions. It’s so, so boring. At least Benny doesn’t ever want to play with dolls.

  Benny got really angry when I told him about the sign. He said the goyim are all anti-semits. They’re not Jewish and so they hate Jews. They hate anyone who is the least bit different from themselves, but they especially hate Jews. Some of them even think that when someone has Jewish blood in them it means that that person isn’t as good as they are. Back in the old country, Benny says, there are whole political parties who want to get into power so that they can stop Jews from speaking Jewish or even having businesses. They’re in Germany, and they’re called Nazis. Benny’s Pa told him all about it. Some of them even want to kick all the Jews out of their country. And some of the goyim here in Canada agree with them.

  Benny says that’s probably why that sign was there at the beach. Benny says that if we Jews don’t wake up a little and start defending ourselves, we might all be in big, big trouble.

  I think Benny’s a fool, and I told him so, too. It’s just silly. Canada is a free country, isn’t it? And we may be Jewish, but we’re Canadians, too. British citizens. Even Ma and Pa are, because even though they were born in the old country they became citizens last year, and Pa has the papers to prove it. And if we’re British citizens, then they can’t stop us from going to the beach, can they? Of course not. It makes no sense.

  Benny said I was just a big dumb baby who didn’t know anything about anything — gornisht, nothing. He laughed at me. Sometimes he makes me so mad. It would serve him right if I put up a big sign on the front door that said NO DOGS OR BENNYS ALLOWED.

  July 22

  It’s been such a long time since I wrote anything in this scribbler. I didn’t have anything to write. It’s a funny thing about summer. You spend all winter just waiting for school to be over, and then when it is, it’s so boring. I haven’t done anything for days and days but read The Five Little Peppers. I actually finished it last week and I took it back to St. Chris and looked for a new book, but nothing seemed to be anywhere near as interesting, so I just kept The Five Little Peppers and started to read it again. It’s still wonderful, but I wish I didn’t already know what’s going to happen before it happens. Just like my whole boring life.

  I mean really, it’s truly and completely awful. I do the same things at the same time day after day after day. Gosh, I even eat the same food. I wake up every morning at ten to seven when I hear Pa getting ready for work, and I always have the same cup of cocoa and the same slice of bread for breakfast. Sometimes I get a bagel. Lucky me. At least now Pa is working, so we can buy the good Fry’s cocoa instead of that horrible cheap kind from Eaton’s that hardly even tastes like chocolate. But then every day for lunch we have the same cottage cheese with sour cream on top and the same salad with lettuce and tomatoes that Pa gets from the market. And every Monday I help Ma do the washing and we have the same old mashed potatoes and hard-boiled eggs for supper. And every Tuesday I look after Molly and Hindl while Ma does the ironing and we have cabbage for supper and it stinks up the house. And on Wednesday I look after Molly and Hindl while Ma sews and mends
and on Thursday Ma goes over to the market and does the shopping and we wash the floors and clean the house. And on Friday Ma makes gefilte fish and boiled chicken and kugel and we have compote for dessert, and she lights the candles and we have Shabbes. And on Saturday Ma and Pa go to shul, and on Sunday Pa stays home and we have herrings and potatoes for breakfast. And then it’s Monday again.

  Today it’s Friday. Yesterday we washed the floors and Ma went shopping, and today she made gefilte fish and chicken and kugel and compote. It’ll soon be sundown and I’ll have to stop writing because Pa says writing is work even if you’re just doing it for fun, so I won’t be able to write anything more until Shabbes is over at sundown tomorrow.

  Today’s compote is stewed prunes. I hate stewed prunes.

  I can’t wait for school to start again.

  July 26

  I went out to get the milk this morning and guess who was on the veranda? Benny, that’s who. He was sleeping on the stinky old couch we have out there that’s always getting rained on. I refuse to even sit on it, but Benny was so sound asleep, he didn’t even hear the milkman come up on the veranda. I wish I could sleep like that, and then I wouldn’t have to listen to Gert snore and gurgle all night. It’s disgusting. I think she does it on purpose just to keep me awake.

  Anyway, I knew Pa would be mad if he found Benny out there, so I shook Benny until he woke up and asked him what he was doing there. He said he came over in the middle of the night but the house was dark and he didn’t want to wake anybody up so he just stayed outside. He came because his pa got really mad at him and hit him again. His cheek was still red from it. Uncle Max got mad because

  Later

  I had to stop writing and hide my scribbler real fast because I heard the cellar door open. It was just Molly. She wanted someone to tie her shoes and no one else would do it. She’s old enough to do it by herself by now. Poor Molly. She’s so quiet and the house is so full of noisy people that no one ever notices her. I think she just wants some attention.