Читать книгу The Featherbed - Джон Миллер - Страница 7

November 12th, 1909

Dear Diary,

Papa has found me someone to marry. He told me so tonight. He said I was already sixteen and that being married would be better than working in the factory. But I am not ready to get married, and I told him so. Yes, this apartment is cramped, dark, and awful, and maybe factory work is exhausting and dangerous. But I still don’t want to get married. Not yet.

When Papa told me this, I argued with him and managed to buy myself some time, but now I can’t sleep because I am overflowing with thoughts and feelings.

Mrs. Pearson, my night school teacher, says that when one wants to make sense of something upsetting, sitting back and writing about it helps to sort out one’s feelings and clears one’s mind to think more objectively and more creatively. She says, “First write about what happened, write about it fully, then write about how you feel about it.” So that is what I will try to do. I am not sure I will be able to do this every night, especially since I have to do it by the light of a single candle if I don’t want to disturb Ida (she is so sensitive to light when she is sleeping) and try to keep as quiet as possible afterwards when I grope my way under the covers.

Nevertheless here I am, it is well past eleven, and I am sitting on the floor against the bed with my candle beside me barely illuminating the page. It is so low on the ground that if I move it any closer I might set my nightgown on fire. Now that would certainly wake up Ida!

My friend Hattie gave me this diary some months ago as a birthday present. Hattie wants to be a writer, and perhaps her diary will become a published book some day. She says even if it doesn’t get published, it will be a record of her life that she can show to her children when they grow up. Mrs. Pearson says I should think of being a writer too, but I don’t think that will ever happen. But then again, who can tell everything that life will bring? She says I am at the top of my class, and that I should be proud of that, even if it is only because Hattie graduated and is now in college.

One thing seems certain: since Papa wants me to marry, I will one day be a mother. But unlike Hattie, I would never show my children what I write in a diary. It’s not that I disagree with Hattie that it will be important for my children to know some day who I am. But unlike her, I will probably only use this diary as a record from which to select the important things that I shall tell them myself. That is because I wish to follow Mrs. Pearson’s advice and write from my heart, and matters of the heart are not shared just like that, except with one’s diary. Not like events. Events happen and children need to know about them. They are history. But the two should remain separate — emotions and history, that is.

I wish Mama thought this way. I have today discovered only for the first time an important piece of my parents’ past. I do not understand why parents do not just tell children about the events in their lives, plain and simple. To me this is entirely different from telling them about secrets of the heart.

Mama says that because I am only sixteen, I do not understand that one’s history is connected to one’s heart, and she tells me that when I have some history of my own I shall understand. But I do understand. The difference between me and Mama is that I believe history should be separated from the feelings that get in the way of the telling, if at all possible. I want to know the story of people’s lives, but I also believe that what lies in their hearts should not necessarily be discussed.

Mama cannot fully separate her emotions like this, but in her case I believe it is partly intentional. That is to say that she uses the emotion to make me feel ashamed. I do not want to be the kind of mother who inflicts this unpleasant effect on my children. Mama has a special gift for making me feel just awful, and sometimes I believe she is happy to make me feel that way.

Tonight was a perfect example of why I believe this to be true. On the way back from work today, the heel of my shoe came unstuck again. I trussed up the sole to the upper with some strong thread that I pinched from work, but the solution was makeshift and didn’t really hold things together very well. The shoe was flip-flopping all the way home. I only mention the shoe because I have been wishing this week that I could buy a newer, better pair of shoes, and Mama’s story of course made me feel grateful to have any shoes at all. It was all about how she used to have to walk barefoot through the snow back in Russia. It was quite maddening. Sometimes I would swear she can hear all my selfish thoughts, and even that she has discovered my guilty secret.

Of course I must confess my secret to my diary, and here it is: Instead of taking the train, I walk home from work. It does not sound so bad when one looks at the words on the page, but I will explain. Every day, after we are let out of work, I walk partway with my friends, to Prince and Broadway, and then I say goodbye to them and continue on to my regular stop at the Cristobaldi Family Bakery. For my secret daily ritual. And although it is wrong, I cannot give it up.

Ever since I started at the factory two years ago, the meals Mama prepares do not fill me up. So, I save on the cost of the ticket for the El, and stop for a bun before dinner. The only way to truly avoid feeling terrible about this is to stop buying the bread, but I simply cannot do it. I am so hungry all the time.

It is wrong for me to be spending money when I am not sharing it with my family. It is not that I feel bad for Papa; Mama always gives him more food anyway. I do, however, feel guilty about Mama. The problem is that she would never simply take extra food if I brought it for her; she is far too dutiful a wife and mother not to share it with the family. And of course sharing with the family would mean a big piece for Papa, two tiny pieces for me and Ida (our boarder), and only after we all had, she would take the tiniest piece of all for herself.

This would never happen anyway, because I am supposed to turn over all of my wages, except for my train fare, to Papa, and they would consider buying the bread wasteful. So, walking home instead of taking the train is really the only way I can save money. I have tried to convince myself, in order to soothe my guilt, that Mama is not actually as hungry as I myself am, and that because I am only sixteen and still young I need more food than she does. But because I know this to be a lie, it does not work, of course.

Also, I see the way she eats. She raises her fork to her mouth so slowly it is almost shaking. She is trying with all her might not to tear at her food. She only restrains herself out of pride, and so as not to set a bad example with table manners. But whenever we finish a meal, such a look of sadness comes over her face, and she tries to hide it by looking down at her plate, and then she fidgets by wiping the plate repeatedly with her last morsel, making sure no drop of sauce or kernel of kasha is wasted. When this happens, I turn my eyes downward too. Seeing her do this gives me a lump in my throat exactly the size of my pre-dinner bun.

What is worse is when Mama announces that she will not be eating with us, and she tells us to go on without her because she wants to get a head start cleaning the pots. When she does this, I know it is because she is extra hungry and cannot bear to slow down her eating that day. I know this because on occasion I have caught a glimpse of her crouched over the wash basin either before or after we have all eaten, rapidly shovelling food into her mouth as though she should hide the fact that she eats at all.

I don’t know what my own children’s lives will be like, but I most sincerely hope that they are never trapped in circumstances like these. It is a terrible thing when a person cannot escape her trap except to deceive, and then that deception does not really make her feel any better, because she is sick with guilt.

But as I wrote at the beginning, if I had children of my own, I would not necessarily share these thoughts with them. They would be told our history plain and simple: at age fourteen I quit day school to work in a shirtwaist factory, food was scarce in our house, and my mother made great sacrifices for her family.

I have just re-read what I have written and do not feel at all that my thoughts are sorted out. But then I suppose that I am not properly following Mrs. Pearson’s advice. Perhaps I am jumping about too much, not waiting until I have finished telling the story before leaping in with how I am feeling about it. So let me begin again, maybe starting from the scene of my crime, and continuing on from there.

1909

The foreman let the Jewish workers out early on Friday afternoons, but he expected them to make up for it by working overtime and on Sundays. So when Rebecca stopped at the bakery, there were so many reasons to feel shameful. On the eve of the Sabbath, when she should have been rushing to help her mother prepare dinner, she was wasting time walking home, secretly spending her train money on food, and, to make matters even worse, was about to eat food from a bakery that didn’t keep kosher. The bakery’s air was thick and pungent and warm, and she could feel the heat sink through her hair and warm her nape. Afraid that the smell of bread would linger on her if she stayed too long in the shop, she quickly approached the counter and pointed to a bun.

Mrs. Cristobaldi smiled, wiping her hands on her white smock just below her ample bosom. “You wanna try some different bun today, bambina? You always have the same thing.”

“No, thank you, Mrs. Cristobaldi. I love this kind.” Rebecca took it with one hand and poured her pennies into the woman’s palm with her other.

“You have a nice evening. We will see you tomorrow?” The old woman nodded, prompting Rebecca for the answer.

“Perhaps Sunday. Thank you. You have a nice evening too.” Rebecca tore a piece off of the bread as she walked out the door of the bakery.

She still had several blocks until she reached the Jewish part of the neighbourhood, but she took her time, walking slowly. As she passed by a storefront, a bearded grocer tried desperately to bait her by catching her eye and calling out to her, waving her in with his fleshy palm. Above him, a woman stirred a huge pot near an open window. She could just smell the sweet aroma of some soup the woman must have had on the boil, but it was quickly overpowered by the tang of dill pickles floating in two barrels standing like gateposts in front of the grocer.

At the next shop, a pot- and skillet-maker leaned over his table, placed tantalizingly in front of his shop, and accentuated the appeal of his wares by opening his arms at her as if to invite an embrace. He smiled at her, and she smiled back, but his fickle attention shifted to the next passerby when Rebecca failed to stop at his table.

Pushcart vendors vied for space on the sidewalks and on the streets. Taking a more aggressive approach, they shouted out their prices to her, almost angrily. Rebecca wondered how they could think she would choose to buy from someone simply because he was the loudest. Besides, was it not clear she wasn’t shopping? She was walking far too quickly, and she had no shopping bag. She supposed anyone was fair game, there always being a possibility one could remember suddenly that one needed something after all.

She avoided their gaze and looked up at the tall buildings, erected shoulder to shoulder so they shared one shadow. Her eyes followed the shadow outwards. In the late afternoon sun it was held out over the street, the ragged rooftops forming the ruffled edges of a cape that draped partially over the backs of a pair of horses standing up ahead. The animals were harnessed to their carriage and scuffing their hooves against the ground to pass the time while they waited for their master to finish a transaction with a woman selling potatoes.

Beside the horses, she saw a boy try in vain to find a space in which to play in the midst of the chaos. He was balancing a top on the lid of a carton, but each time he spun it, someone would jostle the carton, sending the top flying into the street and the boy diving after it. On his third attempt, the child’s top rolled under the legs of the horses. Recklessly, he scuttled crab-like under their bellies, grabbed the errant top with his left hand, and rolled out the other side. He picked himself up again just in time for Rebecca to avoid stepping on him and jumped out of her way.

Despite the frenzied activity surrounding her, and despite her guilt, Rebecca enjoyed this part of the day the most, because it was the only time that she had to herself. Her teeth cut through the bun’s crunchy, powdery crust, and her tongue savoured the reward of the sweet-soft doughy centre. On evenings like these, when the November wind blew through the streets, pulling her skin taut, Rebecca liked to heighten her senses by drawing the cold air through her nostrils as she chewed and walked, grateful just to be outside, and alone.

It was not that she was antisocial, but it did always seem to her that now that she was grown up, there were expectations that came with being in the company of others. She should help her mother with the morning chores, bring her father her wages. She should listen to the troubles of her friends and remain cheerful, no matter how tiresome the complaint. At the factory, she must be dependable to her co-workers, and a diligent employee. Only her friend Hattie didn’t demand much of her, because she was so independent, but Hattie was going to college now and so she hardly saw her.

During her walks home, Rebecca could breathe. If at other times she found the noise of the streets distracting and upsetting, at this time of the day she could shut it out. The sounds faded into the background, and, once the nagging hunger in her gut was sated by a nice piece of bread, she would retreat into her thoughts.

It was six-thirty when Rebecca rounded the corner to Ludlow Street, the earliest she had been home all week. The sun had already dipped behind the tops of the buildings when she had left the factory, and now it was almost dark. Rebecca snapped to attention in time to avoid running into the pushcart that was blocking the front stoop of her building.

“Good evening, Ribecceh!” said Mr. Zussel. He was closing up his herring cart. “Careful, kinderleh! Ein bissel fish for your papa?”

“Good evening, Mr. Zussel. No, thank you.”

Mr. Zussel looked down from his considerable height, squinting one eye and frowning at her. In two giant steps he rounded the corner of his cart, his lanky torso following after in syncopation. Because of the way he moved, and also the way his lower jaw jutted out, he reminded her of a pelican. She tried to picture him holding his fish in his teeth.

“Such a good tochter like you, and no herring for your father? Nu, they don’t give you money for this hard work such you do at the factory?”

Rebecca’s face burned. “You know very well that if I’m to be a good daughter I have to give all of my wages to my father. My mother didn’t come buy from you today?”

“Aach! Two weeks, your mother goes to Sender on East Broadway. A good woman she is, sure. Always the bargains for her family, she finds. So good, she’s killing me!” He brought his hands up to his throat.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Zussel. But maybe if you lowered your prices a penny or two every so often...”

“Ayy! Exactly like her mother she is. A shark! A shark!” His hands made teeth marks in the air. “All the Ignatow women — beautiful and smart, yes, but so heartless. Like sharks. And I should live from what, lowering my prices — a thank you from your mother and a blessing from God?” He waved her away.

“Good evening, Mr. Zussel,” she chuckled, and left him still muttering as she pivoted on the stoop and ran in the front door. When she heard the doorknob click behind her, she leaned against the wall and fished a box of matches out of her coat pocket. Her eyes blinked several times, but it was futile. The darkness fell damp and cold upon her face, sending shivers down her spine as it seeped through her.

Sometimes, but rarely, a person opened a door to an apartment and an oil lamp spilled some weak rays onto the floor-boards. Not today. Today it was heavy and pitch, making it an effort to keep her eyes open. She struck a match against the wall and held her palm around it to shield it from the draft she felt biting at her ankles.

Her family lived on the top floor, because her parents took the cheapest apartment they could find when they came to New York and then never moved. When they got off the boat from Poland, someone in line at the Castle Clinton processing centre introduced them to his cousin, who showed them the building at number fifty-five. According to her mother, her father believed at first that they had outsmarted the landlord in that the rent on the top floor was cheaper and there was less noise from the street. But her mother knew they were getting what they paid for because every day she had to carry groceries and a small child five flights up the dark stairwell.

Rebecca was used to the apartment, having known nothing else, but when she thought of her future she wanted more than to live like old Zussel’s herring, packed together in cloudy brine. Not too much more, maybe a room of her own someday, instead of sharing with a boarder. Some privacy and a toilet in the apartment. Some air and a bit of light coming in.

Some light. Every time she climbed the stairs, day or night, Rebecca thought of nothing else. She had been climbing them on her own since she was three years old and started carrying small packages of matzoh meal up the stairs for her mother. By seven, she was running errands alone. But instead of getting used to it as she got older, the stairwell began to frighten her more and more. Partly it was because she heard ghost stories from the girls in the factory, but mostly it was because she simply knew more about the world, and more about the things men could do to women.

So she lit matches. It was the only other thing that she spent her wages on, except that in this case, her mother and father knew about it. It took her three matches to get to the top floor, if she was good and didn’t stumble. One she lit right after closing the front door, the second on the landing to the second floor, and the third on the landing to the fourth.

To take her mind off her fear, she made it into a game: to see if she could make it up to the fifth floor with only two matches. She had not yet succeeded, but she was determined. It was an unusual game in that speed and slowness were equal opponents: too fast and the match would be blown out by air currents, too slow and it would burn out on its own. Rebecca believed that her agility and concentration would eventually beat these worthy adversaries. If she was lucky and didn’t have parcels to carry, the trick was to get her legs moving fast but isolate her upper body so that her hand could remain steady to shield the match.

Today, she made it to the middle of the fifth flight before her second match blew out. The closest yet. She struck another one against the wall and continued up to the apartment. Outside the door, she blew it out, quietly turned the handle, and slipped inside. Once she stepped in from the hallway, she was already in the tiny kitchen. Her mother was at the wash basin making a loud scratching noise with a scouring pad and didn’t immediately turn around. But then the smoke from the match must have reached her nostrils because she craned her neck over her shoulder and looked Rebecca up and down, standing there at the door all sweaty and out of breath. She raised an eyebrow, shook her head, and turned back to the dishes.

Rebecca opened an eye and peeked at her mother as she lit the shabbus candles and said the benediction. Her eyes were closed, her chin tilted down, and the corners of the lace kerchief that she had placed on her head hung down in points over her cheeks. The hair from her black wig could be seen through the holes of the creamy cloth, and Rebecca thought that this made her look like those floppy-eared dogs on fire trucks.

When her father blessed the wine, Rebecca again glanced up but caught her mother staring at her, so she quickly turned her gaze down to her plate. When she noticed her watching her again during the blessing for the bread, Rebecca looked down at her dress to see if it was unbuttoned, but it was not. Her mother completed the blessings by burning a very small piece of challah as an offering to God, which she blew out immediately, vigorously waving away the smoke.

Her mother brought a pot to the table and served lentil soup. She seemed distracted as she ladled some into a bowl, looking to Rebecca’s father, then to her. She began to pick her head up as though to say something, but a subtle shake of her father’s head stopped her.

“What is it, Mama?”

“It’s nothing darling. Later, after dinner, there’s something we want to talk to you about.”

Rebecca was about to press for information, but her mother spilled a drop of soup onto the sleeve of her black dress. “Ach, the one day I buy some shmaltz to add a little flavour, and I get it on my dress. As if God were punishing me for being extravagant.” She sucked the material quickly into her mouth, then rushed off to blot it with a cloth.

Everyone stared at the spot on her sleeve while her mother resumed her task and, starting with her father, skimmed most of the fat from the top of the pot into his tin bowl. Next she served Ida, the boarder who shared a room with Rebecca. After Ida, she divided what was left between Rebecca and herself. This was exactly why Rebecca didn’t feel bad about not bringing any bread for her father. He always got the tastiest piece of food: the fat from the soup, the skin from the chicken, the crust from the noodle kugel.

Thank God her mother chose to eat with them today. She watched her father and Ida tear at their piece of challah and dip it deeply into the soup. Her mother brushed again at the spot on her sleeve, then adjusted her wig before beginning.

“Mama, is it bothering you?”

“No, it’s nothing. You know sometimes it’s a little scratchy.”

“Why don’t you take it off for a while? We can pretend we’re a modern American family tonight. There’s no company, it’s just us here.”

“Pfaa!” her mother replied. “In Poland, a fine they could give if they caught you wearing the sheitel, because the czars made laws. Here there are no such laws. This I wear not only because I respect God — not that you would understand such a thing, mind you — I wear this also because it is a symbol of liberation!” she said, her voice rising in agitation.

Rebecca chided herself. Usually if she made any reference to the old country, it was turned into a lesson. Nevertheless, she found she couldn’t resist pursuing her point, even if she might be stepping further into the trap.

“Well, I know it was terrible in Poland. But that’s exactly the thing. We have more freedom here in every respect, and that also means in religious matters. In America, lots of women choose not to wear the sheitel, even though they can. Isn’t that liberation?”

“America, shmerica. Sure, here in America, they don’t fine you, but they still yell at you and call at you ‘filthy Jew.’ It’s as bad as in Russia, frankly.”

Russia? Wasn’t it Poland? She could never figure this out. When her parents talked about the old country, they spoke in cryptic references and confusing contradictory recollections, one praising, the next damning. And the two country names appeared to be interchangeable.

“Oh, forget it, I can’t win,” said Rebecca.

“You’re right, you can’t,” her father said.

“Yesterday when you complained about the price of bread, I tried to sympathize, and you told me that here at least there was food to buy, even if we can’t pay. You switch allegiance so quickly, I can’t tell which country you hate more. Poland-Russia or America.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Rebecca,” her mother said sharply. “I don’t hate it here. But does that mean I have to stupidly smile and remain cheerful if something is not just?”

“No, of course not, Mama.”

“What are you getting all bothered and hot for? Because I wear the sheitel? This does not mean you will have to, we have never said so. That will be between you and your husband.” Again, she glanced to her father.

Rebecca tried hard not to appear foolish in these conversations, but there was no steadfast rule she could follow. Whether or not she said a word, her mother was just as likely to hold a perfectly depressing debate with herself. If Rebecca stayed out of it, the difference was that she was less likely to be accused, in the course of that debate, of being naive or too young to understand. But one could not always rely on this strategy; her mother sometimes presumed opinions or attitudes in her silence and scolded her anyway.

Her mother adjusted her wig again, making it a little lopsided. Rebecca suppressed a giggle. She had to admit that though her mother looked old-fashioned, it took courage to wear it, and that was to be admired. Also, even though she would never tell her this, it made her look sweet.

“So Ida, how is your job in the office today?” her father segued.

“Fine, thank you, Mr. Ignatow. There were quite a few accounts to type up this afternoon.”

Rebecca rolled her eyes.

“Don’t you make your eyes like that, Rebecca. You could be earning the better wages too if you took that secretarial course like Ida did. Get a job in a nice accounting firm.”

The previous fall, a week after Mr. Vanderholtz increased their rent, Ida Eisenstein announced at synagogue that she had graduated from a course given by the Henry Street Settlement and was looking for a family with whom to board. Rebecca’s parents took her in the following Monday, and by Sabbath dinner, Rebecca was already hating her. Ida was a wispy, bird-like creature with long, reedy arms, high cheekbones, and wide, bony shoulders. Her hair was a dull, mousy brown, but Rebecca was jealous of how straight it was, of how easily she could tie it into a bun. And she had to admit that Ida had beautiful skin. Her own hair had an unmanageable wave to it, not curly enough to be considered beautiful, and her skin still suffered from frequent blemishes. Ida was a year younger, but acted as though she knew the world inside out. And when they were alone, she never shut up.

“That’s a good job you have, Ida,” her father continued.

“Be careful, work hard, and they could promote you!”

Her mother looked amused. “To what, Sholem?” she asked. “Senior typist?” Then turning to Ida, “I don’t mean offence, dear — it is only that my husband thinks if we simply worked a little harder, we would all be rich as the Astors by Pesach.” Ida gave her a weak smile.

Her father slurped his soup, then said, “Maybe that boss of hers needs a personal secretary some day. Maybe that’s what.” He tapped his piece of bread on the table for emphasis. Now Ida’s smile broadened, and she beamed it in Rebecca’s direction.

“Yes, Ida,” countered Rebecca, “I’m sure you could find a way to prove to him that you’re right for the job...” She got up to bring her bowl to the wash basin. When she turned around again, Ida still had that stupid smile on her face, but it soon faded as she grasped Rebecca’s meaning.

“Sure! Of course you will! Such a smart girl, that Ida!” her father shouted to his daughter. Then to his wife, “Fania, more soup!”

She poured the last ladle-full into her husband’s bowl, then put the ladle down and squeezed her daughter’s arm.

“And how was your work today, Beckeleh?”

“The same.”

“Oh, Beckeleh, come now. Always I ask you, always you say the same. Nu, what’s this same? Same good? Or same bad?”

“I go to work, I sit on a bench, I sew shirtwaists, I come home. What do you want to know, Mama? I bring home my wages, don’t I?”

“Oh, such a long face. You have been lucky to have such a job.” She wagged her finger.

“Did I say I wasn’t lucky? I’m glad to help out. I’m glad to have a job so we can eat. It doesn’t mean I have to love my work.”

Her father pointed his piece of challah at her. “You’re glad to have a job so you can have a dowry and not be an old maid.” He raised his eyebrows to her mother and nodded.

Her mother shrugged. “That’s what this country does to our young people, Papa. Never they are happy with what they do. Too much fanciness right in front of them in the store window. Everyone thinking like a millionaire.”

He grunted. He was busy chewing.

“Mama, you raised the subject and now you’re making me feel guilty about it. You have no idea what it’s like at the factory.”

She saw Ida look nervously around herself to find dishes she could clear, obviously sensing there was a family argument brewing. She wanted to go to the bedroom, where she would overhear but not have to participate, no doubt. “May I be excused, Mrs. Ignatow?” she said meekly, and then left at her mother’s nod.

“Coward,” Rebecca whispered to her under her breath. Ida took a plate to the wash basin, turned around, and smiled at her from behind her mother’s back. Rebecca glowered back at her and waited for her mother’s onslaught.

“So.” Her mother’s eyebrows joined to form a single line.

“I don’t know what it’s like at the factory, do I? I have it so easy, do I?”

“No, Mama, I didn’t say that...”

“I sit around eating poppy-seed cakes all day, do I?”

“Oh Mama, you asked me good or bad — I said bad, and you think I’m saying your life is easy. All I meant is that it’s different, and you’re not there with me in the factory.”

“You think it was for nothing we came to this country? You think I would let my own daughter suffer in a factory if I thought a life in Poland or in Russia was so good?” Her open palm slapped the table. “You think I don’t wish we were millionaires that you could sit around in a fur coat or go shopping all day? You think it is easy running a household? Well, you will soon know different.”

“What is that supposed to mean, Mama? I don’t think your life is easy. I know how hard your life is here.”

“So hard here. Do I complain like you do? Compared to back home, compared to what we left, this place is Paradise. You children have no idea...”

Her mother paused, her face hard, her lips pursed together. When eventually she spoke, she switched to Yiddish, and her voice became very soft.

“When I left Kovel, I was nineteen years old...” She breathed in and out several times through her nose, opened her mouth and made a noise to begin to speak, but then closed it. Her eyes opened wide, calling to her husband for help. Sholem stopped his chewing and smiled encouragement to her.

“My parents, your bubbe and zayde, they had moved from Poland to Bechcin, in Bohemia, when they were young. They had seven children already when the pogrom came through in sixty-six. The village was devastated, and they lost their eldest child to the knife of a crazy soldier. After that, they decided to move back to Kovel. My parents decided to have another child to replace the one who was lost. But my parents still had six children. So you see, Beckeleh, I was a replacement for a dead brother.”

Rebecca leaned over to touch her mother. “Oh, Mama, I’m sure that’s not true.”

“It is true. It didn’t mean they didn’t love me, though I thought, until I got older and understood, that this was exactly what it meant. In such a village of poverty I grew up, you can’t imagine. My mother and father had potatoes, bread, and cabbage, sometimes only potatoes to eat. And we had more than most people because my older brothers and sisters worked. When I was very young I didn’t know any different, and I laughed and laughed with the other children my age. But as I got older, then I knew.

“I worked in the summertime from the age of eleven years old, bringing in six cents a day. Work in the fields, weeding, digging potatoes, planting. In the winter, I helped my mama with some sewing for a tailor. This work we had because there was nothing else. But because we all worked in the family, between us, we just had enough to eat. Most of the time. Sometimes, if one of my brothers lost work, we went hungry.”

Rebecca looked down at her empty plate, at her mother’s empty bowl. She felt a little sick.

“Your bubbe, my mother, I hardly saw her. She was up before me, baking bread and peeling the potatoes. When I came home from work, she was always in a bad mood. She spoke to my sister Rivkeh sometimes, and some to another sister, but not to me. Me, I was the baby, and another mouth to feed. And I was the last one she thought of with six older and louder children.

“We didn’t dare complain too much, because my mother wouldn’t hear of it. I remember once Rivkeh complained about her work, and my mother, whose father was a rabbi, told her a story about another rabbi who suffered from ailments known to involve great pain. He suffered without a word. When his doctor asked how he could be so strong, he said he thought of pain as the scrubbing and soaking of the soul in a strong solution. And since he thought of pain in this way, he could not do otherwise than to accept such pain with love and not grumble.”

Rebecca shook her head. “That’s crazy. Who would think like that?”

Her mother swatted her. “My mother, that’s who. This was my mother’s crazy philosophy too. Except that I would not say she accepted her pain with love. More like resignation. Once she said to a neighbour, ‘Everyone has his pack of troubles. Sure. But if everyone laid those troubles out in a row, and each person had to choose whose troubles to take, each of us would choose his or her own. At least they would be ours!’

“Your zayde, he was another story. He complained all the time. He made caps, like your papa, but he was gone a lot to other villages, peddling his wares. When I was eleven years old, your zayde went away to another village and never came back. We all said it must have been a pogrom, or an accident of some kind, but I know my mother wondered if he just ran off to a better life.

“Sometimes even now when I walk through the streets here in New York, I see someone who looks like him, and I stop in my tracks. It seems crazy, I know, but he could be here as much as he could be anywhere.”

She stopped talking for a moment. Her eyes were misty. Rebecca looked at her and said softly, “Do you really think Zayde could be alive?”

Her mother blew her nose with a handkerchief and composed herself. “Who knows?! What does it matter anyway? It was so long ago. Anyway, after he left, that’s when I started working. Until I was fourteen, I went to work without shoes. Everywhere I went it was with bare feet. In the winter, I ran from one house to another with my bare feet in the snow. Finally, at thirteen, I begged my mother for shoes. It took me six months to convince her, but at last I got my first pair.

“I wanted squeaky shoes with sugar in the soles, so they would make lots of noise like the shoes of some fancy adults in the village. But the shoes with sugar soles cost more, so I got the kind without any noise — not as good, but to me they were like gold anyway. I felt so big, wearing those shoes. My sister said they made me look like a lady.

“Because I felt big, so I started thinking like a big person. I started thinking I might soon be a woman. And within a few months of that, I was. My mama and papa, they had promised me as a baby to a boy in the village, but he got conscripted into the Russian army when I was five years old and was sent to the Turkish front. Like all the Jews who were sent to the front, he was killed, of course. If you were a Jew in the Russian army, it was a death sentence. Everyone knew that.

“So you see, Beckeleh, there I was, a child whose parents didn’t want her, whose father disappeared, and who now found herself a woman with no real marriage prospects. I’m not saying my childhood was without happiness. We did laugh and play. Maybe you would say we were too stupid to have the sense to be miserable all the time, I don’t know. But you see, kinderleh, at least I was smart enough to realize that my future was not in that Russian village.”

Her mother got up from the table and got a log for the stove. She went through to the front bedroom and made sure the window was shut tightly. Then she placed another piece of wood on the floor to hold open the door between the bedroom and the kitchen, so that the heat from the stove would reach the other rooms.

Rebecca looked at her father, and said, “Russian village? I thought you and Mama were from Poland.”

“I will explain, sweetheart,” her mother said, sitting back down at the table. “Your papa and I met in Poland, but my village was on the other side of the Russian border. What does it matter anyway? The czars rule Poland. Poland, Russia, it is all the same for the Jews. We spoke Jewish at home, and learned Russian at school. So did your father. Polish, he learned from the villagers where he grew up.

“When I met your father, at first I spoke Russian to him, because I was ashamed of my Jewish, and I was afraid I wouldn’t understand his — it was full of Polish words and expressions. Later, we taught each other the missing words from each other’s dialect and got used to the different accent.

“In those days, everyone had a story about someone who had a relative in America. In Kovel, my friend Ilana had an uncle who went to Chicago ten years before, and who wrote back about how a poor Jew could make a fortune in America. Now I realize he never actually said that he made a fortune himself, but then what were we thinking? Our lives were hunger and hardship, we were not so critical. We wanted to believe it was the Golden Land.”

“When I was eighteen years old, I told my mama that I was going to America. I had no plan, only that I would go first to Kiev, then to Krakow, and find my way from there. When I told my mama, it was the first time I saw her cry. She didn’t try to convince me not to go; she simply got up, and went to the bedroom.

“She brought out two featherbeds that she had made and gave them to me. She said I would need them for a dowry, so that I could attract a rich husband in America. I knew I could not take them both, and I tried to refuse, but she persuaded me to take one with me.

“I never thought before that she would care if I gave her a thought after I left, and I certainly never thought she would miss me at all, but when she offered me the featherbeds, I realized that she did as best she could, but when she finished with all her duties, she had nothing left for me.

“The day I left for Kiev, my mama packed the featherbed, along with my clothes, in a bundle of cloth that she tied to my back. She made a criss-cross with the four corners over my shoulders and under my arms, and tied the knot between my bosoms. Then she turned me around, adjusting the bundle so that it would carry properly and wouldn’t give me a sore back. When I turned to hug her goodbye, I saw she had already started down the road. She walked quickly away, and I could see her shoulders heaving up and down. That was the last time I saw my mother.”

Rebecca squirmed uncomfortably in her chair, trying to think of what to say. Her mother was breathing deeply with her eyes closed, and her father was stroking her forearm.

“Beckeleh,” she continued once she had composed herself, “I went to Krakow the day after my nineteenth birthday. It seemed that everybody was on the move. It took me four weeks to get there what with the poor transportation, all the people going here and there, and my stopping to earn some money. When I got to Krakow, I took the money I had saved, and I looked up a man about whom my friend Ilana had told me.

“I paid him some money to arrange for immigration to America. He took my papers and then took me in a buggy and said we needed to go to the settlement office, but after an hour, when we arrived outside of the city at a big fancy house, I felt something was wrong. He took me by the arm, and we went in the door.

“Inside, there were other women standing and sitting just here and there, some of them in only underclothing. I remember one of them looked at me with the saddest eyes. Another also looked at me, but she looked at me with worry — from my eyes to the door, and back to my eyes. I asked the man what was this place. What were we doing there? He laughed, and said not to worry, that everything would be all right. I looked back at the woman, and her eyes went wide and flickered a little to the left.

“I don’t know how I knew to do this, or how I did it, but I pulled my arm away from his and ran out the front door. I shot off to the side of the house and into some bushes. I ran and ran, my bundle flopping about on my back, until I was sure they could not follow me anymore. I ran until I found a farmer who took me to a police station. It turned out this man was selling girls into white slavery in Argentina. Now, whenever I am feeling sorry for myself, I think of that girl who saved my life with her eyes.”

Rebecca couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her mother had been a moment’s hesitation away from being a prostitute in Argentina. “Mama! You were so brave!”

She dismissed the comment with a wave. “Not so brave. Just scared to death. The important thing is that I got away, and that I met your papa at the police station. He was there with his friend Yekl, you know, the same Yekl with whom he does business here. They were complaining about a business associate who had cheated them.

“Your father saw me there crying. When I heard him turn to his friend and speak in Jewish, I was so relieved. What did I know from his character; I only saw in him someone who could help. And he did help. He helped me find a place to stay, and he helped me find some work. Eventually, he asked me to marry him. Your papa was a cap-maker then, same as here, but there he had his own shop. Someday here you will too, won’t you, Papa?”

Her father grunted.

“I convinced your papa to come to America with me. It took us two years to earn the money for the passage and to arrange the details. The second year we saved more money because we were married by then, and we lived together. You were born, Beckeleh, four weeks before we left. I bundled you on my back wrapped in your bubbe’s featherbed — you were warmer than any of us on that boat!”

“Mama, Papa, I didn’t know. You never told me any of this before. I had no idea...”

“Well now maybe you will have some — what is the word?” Her mother scratched at her wig.

“Guilt?”

“Don’t be smart. The word meaning better way of looking.”

“Perspective?”

“Something like that.”

Her father interceded. “You’re not happy in the factory, Rebecca?” he said, looking at her sweetly. His eyes were squinting, and he smiled faintly. “Your mama and I have been talking. Yekl knows a boy, a good boy who has been doing work for him. Hard worker, observes the Sabbath. His father is from Poland, from a village next to where I come from. I knew his father’s cousin back home.”

“Oh, Papa, I don’t think...”

“I talked to them, and he’s willing to take what we’ve saved for you. Considering who he is, with no business of his own, I think this is fair.”

Rebecca’s heart started racing. “Papa, no. I don’t want to marry someone I haven’t seen. I want to marry for love, like you and Mama.”

He harrumphed, then looked at Rebecca. “This way is much better — a boy we know, who works hard. You will like him, Beckeleh. Anyway, it’s all agreed. The arrangements are made. You will get to meet him before the wedding. We have arranged that too.”

She began to panic. “Arranged? You talked to him without asking me? How could you do that? No, Papa! I won’t marry him. I won’t!”

Her father’s voice boomed. “Don’t you raise your voice like that to your father, little girl! This is arranged, and you will marry him!”

“I am not a little girl anymore, Papa!” Then realizing the danger of what she said, added, “But I’m also not as old as Mama was when she married. I’m sixteen! You were both much older when you were wed.”

Her mother came over and stroked Rebecca’s hair. “Sweetheart. That is only because we didn’t have parents to look after our interests. Other girls are married younger than you. There is nothing to worry about, my darling. Everything will be fine.”

Rebecca’s mind raced. She knew that she needed to change strategy, because she could see her father getting angry, and when her father got angry, there was no hope for reason. He had already begun to speak when she said suddenly, “Okay, I’ll marry him.”

Her father was obviously taken off guard by his daughter’s rapid capitulation because he had started to say something, but stopped in the middle of his sentence.

“But Papa, please don’t make me marry him yet. Not just yet. Let me first finish my classes at the night school. Didn’t you always say education is the key to getting ahead in this country?” She looked into her father’s eyes for some hope of concession.

“For boys, yes. For girls, more important you should get married, and to someone who can put bread on your table.”

“Please, I’m begging you, Papa! Put off the wedding. At least until I’m nineteen.”

She looked at her parents’ faces. They were tight and silent. Then her mother turned to her father. His eyes were bugging out, but she raised an eyebrow at him. In the nuance of this gesture, her family always knew what she was thinking.

“One year,” he said, still looking at his wife.

“Two.” Rebecca’s heart beat faster.

“Two?! I should have you marry him tomorrow!”

“Sholem,” her mother tilted her head to the side.

Silence. Then he said, “Eighteen months,” and got up from the table. Under his breath, he muttered, “She should bargain so well with the pushcart vendors.” He retreated into the bedroom and shut the door behind him.

Rebecca smiled at her mother, but she frowned back, got up, and went to the wash basin. Alone at the table, Rebecca heard her speaking softly into her scrub pot. She only faintly made out the words. “I hope you’re happy at your factory now.”

Rebecca couldn’t sleep. Her mind swam with the possibilities of what might have occurred had the conversation gone the other way. Married? She couldn’t imagine it. Not yet. Still, she had agreed to the wedding, and only delayed it a year and a half. Perhaps there would be another time to convince her father to postpone for longer.

After an hour of tossing in bed, listening to Ida snoring beside her, Rebecca needed to relieve herself. She hated when this happened. If she had only had to urinate, she could have used the chamber pot, but her stomach was twisted and jumping. The pit toilets were down in the yard behind the tenement, and all the residents from three buildings used four stalls.

Rebecca got up and lit a candle, which she took with her into the stairwell. She heard noises as she reached the bottom flight. As she approached the back door, she could make out the sound of men talking. Opening the back door and stepping outside, her nostrils were assaulted with the terrible odour of human feces.

The toilets always stank, but this was worse. The structures that usually covered the pits had been lined up at the back of the yard, and four men stood down in the uncovered holes.

Night-soilers.

They had shovelled most of the contents into crates placed on the ground. Rebecca had never seen the men do their work; she had only heard stories. It was no wonder that they waited until the fall to do this. In spite of the cold, the stench was nauseating.

One man caught sight of her staring.

“Coming in here with us, missy?” he chuckled.

The others started laughing.

“See you got a candle there. Now all’s we need is some wine, boys, don’t we? Too bad we finished it all earlier. Don’t matter none, come on down in here, we’ll find another way to warm ourselves up!”

The men hooted and laughed and grabbed at their loins. The one who had spoken to her climbed out of the pit and started wiping his boots with a rag.

Rebecca jumped back inside the door and shot up the stairs. Her candle blew out on the first flight. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard someone come in behind her. She put the candle inside her sleeve and ignored the wax scalding her wrist as she grabbed hold of the banister and pulled herself up. The stairs creaked a flight below. The man was following. Faster and faster, she threw her body forward, pulling her legs up beneath her with great strides, clearing two stairs at a time.

As she ran up the last flight, she could hear him getting closer. She grabbed the top of the banister and used her momentum to fling herself around the corner. Her leg muscles screamed. She reached the apartment and slipped inside, shutting the door behind her. She pressed her back against the wall and tried not to make any noise. She didn’t want to wake anyone up. She fought back tears and stifled her gasps for air. She heard the man breathing on the other side of the door. After a few seconds, she heard him chuckle, and then his footsteps retreated down the hall.

She went into her room and shut the door. Ida stirred awake.

“What’s wrong, Rebecca?” she mumbled.

“Nothing, go back to sleep.”

Ida turned over and pulled the covers over her head.

Rebecca knew now that there would be no falling asleep, even though she no longer needed to use the toilet. She lit her candle again, got an ink bottle, a pen, and a dirty cloth from the dresser, and set them all down beside the bed. She sat down on the floor beside them and leaned back against the bed frame. Reaching behind herself, her fingers searched out a hardcover book under the bed and drew it out. Her friend Hattie had given it to her over a month ago for her birthday, but she had never opened it.

She dipped the pen into the bottle and blotted the excess ink on the cloth. Opening the brown cover and turning to the first page, she steadied her hand and, with utmost care, began her first entry.