by Belva Plain
What a fool you are, Hennie! A ridiculous fool, she thought, and stood there arguing with herself, trying to decide, encircled by jostling customers in front of a pushcart piled with bananas.
A shove brought her to herself. She turned around and went up the stairs.
Uncle David had apparently just made a pot of tea. Cup in hand, with feet propped on the ink-spotted desk, he had settled down for an hour of rare solitude. But the smile he gave to Hennie was genuine.
“Sit down, pour a cup for yourself. Sorry I’ve nothing else to offer, but I forgot to market yesterday. And so how are you?”
“Fine, Uncle David, fine.”
“So, tell me what’s going on in the family! I feel guilty, I’ve not seen your parents in more than a month. But I get so busy here, the days rush into each other.” And through the open door, he glanced toward the little waiting room, in which the stiff chairs were lined up on all four sides. His sigh spoke of both weariness and satisfaction, here in his sanctuary, furnished as it was with a baby scale, a shelf of dusty textbooks, a yellowed human skull, medicines, bandages, and splints.
“So, tell me, how are they all?”
“The same. My parents still worry about Alfie. He’s not doing well at school and says he won’t go to college. He wants to make money instead.”
“Leave him alone, then. He’s a perfectly sound young man who knows where he wants to go. They’ll never make a scholar out of him, don’t they see that?”
“And Florence is moving. I saw the new house; it’s lovely, right off Central Park West.”
“Ah, yes, the Jewish Fifth Avenue. Well, good. That’s what she wanted. It’s nice to see people get what they want. And you, Hennie, are you getting what you want?”
“How does anybody know what he really wants, Uncle?”
“A Jewish reply! Answering a question with a question.” He set the cup down. “Philosophically, you’re correct. A large question, the aim of life—ah, most of us die without ever knowing that! But I’m talking about the small question, what you do with your life day by day and whether you are satisfied—more or less.”
It pleased her that he should have so serious an interest in her. Yet, to a certain extent, she saw through his concern, for surely her parents must have talked about her, just as she had heard them talk about Alfie.
She began, “Well, you know I am happy with what I am doing. I feel I’m helping at the settlement—”
“Outside of the settlement,” the old man interrupted.
“Oh, I read, I go to the library once a week. I must read three books a week, good ones. And I have been taking out books for Paul. You know what he said to me the other day? ‘I wonder what my ancestors think of me when they look down from heaven.’ Imagine a child of his age having a thought like that! He’s a beautiful child. I think he’ll be somebody unusual when he’s grown.”
The old man did not let her slide into evasions but forced her to answer directly. “Yes, yes, but we were talking about you, not Paul. What about your social life?”
She flushed. “ ‘Social life!’ It’s stupid, Uncle David! People trading invitations …” And she mocked, “ ‘Have you been asked to the so-and-so’s? What! You haven’t? What a tragedy! You could have shown off your new fur cape, your—’ ”
Again Uncle David interrupted. Interruption was a strange habit for a man who was otherwise so courteous.
“I understand what you mean, I of all people. But it isn’t entirely like that, Hennie. Don’t sneer at all of it. It’s not healthy to set yourself so apart.” He spoke very gently. “Be honest, Hennie, you’ve retreated from it for some reason that I don’t understand. You make no effort. Is it possible that you don’t feel pretty? Is that it?”
Your dress is correct, there are no pimples on your face, you are not disfigured; but you are awkward, your feet are awkward, your tongue is awkward, and you sit with the women when your dances are not taken.
“I don’t know exactly,” she murmured.
There is something one has or one doesn’t have. Easy grace, that’s what’s lacking. Easy grace.
“You’ll be a fine-looking woman, Hennie. It’s too early yet to see it, but it’s there. Some women mature late, that’s all. Do you know,” David said, leaning forward, carefully studying the wall behind Hennie’s head, “do you know, you remind me so much of your grandmother Miriam? Her qualities seem to have skipped a generation. Your mother is not at all like her. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with your mother,” he added quickly.
“I know.”
“She had endurance, Miriam. Strength. Bravery.”
A rush of words, unplanned, came suddenly. “Speaking of bravery, Uncle David, I saw something stupendous a few weeks ago. I saw a man rescue a woman out of a fire. I’ll never forget it. He climbed up on the cornice six floors above the street. It was horrible! And so wonderful! You should have seen it, you would not believe a man could do that. It was—he was offering his whole life for a stranger.”
“Oh, I know who it was. I know him.”
“Do you really? That’s odd, I thought I recognized him on this street just a while ago when I came in.”
“Daniel Roth! He was just here. I took care of his hands.”
“His whole life,” Hennie repeated with awe.
“He’s a very unusual man.”
She remembered something. “Daniel Roth … I thought I saw that name on the bulletin board at the settlement house. Daniel Roth to play the piano at our children’s Thanksgiving festival. Do you suppose that’s the same one?”
“Oh, yes, he plays piano pretty well and it’s the kind of thing he would do. He’s a teacher. Teaches high school science downtown here. Something of an inventor-scientist, too, keeps a little lab, lives in back of it or upstairs.”
Tilting in the chair, Uncle David reached for his pipe. He struck a match, lit the pipe, puffed, took it out of his mouth and examined it with exasperating care while time ticked away.
He chuckled. “Oh, Dan’s something special, all right! I’ve known him awhile. He’s a fighter, a scrapper. Right now, he’s gotten mixed up with tenement reform.” He paused, reflecting for a minute, unaware of Hennie’s rigid, impatient attention, with her hands clasped around her knees.
“Yes, yes, a scrapper. Carrying the fight to the legislature. Works with Lawrence Veiller, an interesting man, an aristocrat born with a strong conscience. Worked in a settlement house, like you. You’ve heard of Veiller and read Jacob Riis, I suppose?”
“I’ve read How the Other Half Lives.” But she did not want to hear about Riis or Veiller.
“Men like them, they looked out”—here Uncle David waved his hand toward the window—“and hated what they saw. You know, it’s an outrage, Hennie, that they permit these dumbbell tenements, no courtyard, no light or air. But worse than that, fires, like that one the other day. Stairway right in the center, draws the fire up like a rocket; it shoots through the building, people don’t stand a chance.”
So he must have railed against slavery in the South. Youth, fired with indignation, burst for a moment out of the old shell, with its spotty skin and false teeth thick as earthenware plates; for a moment the eyes sparkled and Hennie, seeing what he had been, felt pity. Still, she wanted to bring the conversation back to Daniel Roth.
Uncle David’s tongue was quicker.
“Yes, Hennie, yes, and you’ve seen the girls standing in doorways waiting for men. Oh, you’re old enough for me to talk about those things, although your parents would be shocked and wouldn’t forgive me. But they’re life, and we must look life in the eye. When a girl is desperate to get out of a rotten hole and there’s no other way, at least no other way she can see—” The clock struck the quarter hour again. He stood up, bustling. “Let me put these cups away. It won’t do to have patients come in and see dirty cups. Oh, yes, we were talking about Dan, weren’t we? I suppose it’s not becoming of me to say, but—oh, it’s in the family, and you’ll excuse a
little boastfulness if I tell you he reminds me of myself? Except that I was never that good-looking. Of course, he’s not observant; I doubt that he ever goes to a synagogue, which is regrettable, but still I mustn’t hold that against him.”
He talks too much, it’s a symptom of old age, Hennie thought lovingly as she went out. And she thought, The Thanksgiving festival. I shall be there.
The settlement house lay in the center of an irregular quadrangle bounded by Houston Street, the Bowery, Monroe Street and the East River. Five old houses, once the homes of affluent merchants, had been renovated into classrooms and workshops, where cooking, dancing, sewing, debating, carpentry, civics, and the English language were taught. An ample playground had swings and sandboxes. The reception rooms were furnished with donations from the homes of what were called “The uptown ladies”: solid black horsehair sofas, cuspidors and overstuffed chairs, fire screens and glass-fronted bookcases, kept locked to safeguard rows of gold-stamped classics: Plutarch’s Lives and The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Over the fireplace in the central reception hall hung a large mirror framed with gilded plaster nymphs and cherubs holding a cornucopia brimming with grapes. It had been an unwelcome wedding present to Florence and Walter Werner.
On this evening, all the lights were on and the building was crowded. The assembly hall had been decorated with Pilgrim symbols, pumpkins and dried speckled corn being part of the process by which the shawled women, the bearded men, and their children from the stetls and the Pale were to be turned into Americans. On the stage, Governor Bradford and Elder Brewster in black breeches and high-crowned black cardboard hats declaimed with dignity, bowing to Squantum and assorted squaws in striped blankets and chains of beads. Massasoit was a red-haired, ruddy-cheeked twelve-year-old only a year out of Minsk, whom Hennie had brought in less than that year to fluency.
The piano was on the far side of the stage from where Hennie sat. The gas lamps were turned down as he came in—for she saw that it was Dan Roth.
He made a slight bow and struck the keys. He played the simple music with pleasure, looking up now and then to nod encouragement to a faltering child; he was enjoying himself.
Again she heard her own heart beat. And she sat quite still with her hands folded on her dark silk lap, thinking: I shall probably do nothing. The play will end, he will leave, and I will go home.
There were speeches. Various ladies, wearing pince-nez on chains, thanked one another for their cooperation. Miss Demarest, the director, expressed appreciation to all, and in her bird-voice thanked Mr. Roth especially for his assistance with the music.
Everyone rose and those who could sang the non-denominational Thanksgiving hymn “We Gather Together to Ask the Lord’s Blessing.” They were invited to the adjoining hall for coffee and cake. It was over.
Still Hennie did not move. Someone tapped her on the shoulder.
“What is it? Are you sick?” asked Olga.
The room was empty.
“I was only—only thinking,” Hennie flushed.
Olga was disbelieving and concerned. “But of what, all alone in here?”
“That man who played the piano—my uncle knows him, I think. I was wondering how to talk to him, whether I should.”
“How to talk? You open your mouth, you say ‘How do you do, I think you’re very good-looking and my name is—’ ”
Laughter eased the tension in Hennie’s chest. “Olga, you make it so easy.”
“It is easy. Seriously, if you want to talk to a person, just go and do it! The worst that can happen is that the person won’t like you and if he doesn’t seem to, then the devil with him, you’ll try somebody else another time.”
So Hennie got up and went inside to Daniel Roth. He was standing among the buxom uptown ladies in their good suits, with gold watches pinned to their lapels, and he looked as if he wanted to get away, just as he had when the reporters besieged him after the fire.
“You know my uncle,” she said, “Dr. David Raphael. I’m Henrietta De Rivera.”
“I certainly do! He’s one of my favorite people.” The smile was warm.
“He admires you too.”
She did not know that her flush and her timid excitement were becoming. She would have liked to say something gay about the evening, but could think of nothing more, and was confused.
The uptown ladies, seeing that the guest of honor was occupied, moved away. The evening was ending. Sleeping infants were awakened and hoisted onto their fathers’ shoulders. Children were fastened into their coats and people were going home. But they were faceless and anonymous to Hennie. They fell away like shadows. She was alone in the room with Daniel Roth, who was looking down at her.
He said, astounding her, “Come out and have coffee with me, will you? It’s early yet.”
Such things do not happen. Extravagant fantasies do not come true. In a daze, she took the arm that he offered and they went out onto the street.
It was a mild fall night, a rare, brief reprieve of summer, with a milky sky over the rooftops. He led her toward East Broadway.
“We can have coffee there, or tea. Do you live near here?”
“No, near Washington Square.”
“What brought you down here tonight, then?”
“I work at the settlement.”
“One of those generous uptown ladies?”
“Not especially generous. I haven’t any money to give. I just teach English to greenhorns.”
“That wasn’t nice of me.”
“What wasn’t?”
“My remark about uptown ladies. It was sarcastic. I’m sorry.”
She had missed the sarcasm.
“What else do you do?”
“Sometimes I have a cooking class. Not that I’m so good, but I like to cook. I like to bake. It’s relaxing.”
“You need to relax?” He sounded amused, so that she thought she was being foolish.
“I guess so. Sometimes,” she said lamely.
She was beginning to feel uncomfortable with her hand in the crook of his elbow, and made as if to remove it, but he tightened her arm against his side, imprisoning her hand.
“You don’t mind taking my arm?”
“Oh, no, I didn’t mean—”
Again she fell silent. If she had chattered, he told her later, it would have turned out differently between them.
“Your parents won’t worry about your being out?”
“No. A group of us usually walk home together, so it’s safe.”
“You’ll be safe with me, Henrietta.”
“I’m called Hennie.”
“That does suit you better. And I’m called Dan.”
The darkening streets were still astir. A horse plodded back to the stables, pulling an empty wagon. Children spilled raucously over the stoops, and sewing machines whined like tired voices from open ground-floor windows.
“Listen,” Dan said. “They’re still working. I don’t know where the strength comes from. Heat, cold, asthma, work and work.”
“That’s what Uncle David says.”
“Yes, he knows. And cares. That’s why he stays down here. It would surely be easier to move uptown.”
“Is that why you teach here too?”
“Yes,” Dan answered shortly.
East Broadway was light. Streetlamps glowed across the wide avenue, while lamps in the tall windows of pleasant homes revealed quiet families sitting in parlors, or still at their supper tables.
Dan released Hennie’s arm. “In here. It’s a café. I’ll bet you’ve never been in a café before, have you?”
“No.” Nor out with a man, especially one to whom her parents had not introduced her.
“We’ll find a quiet table; it’s early enough. By midnight it will be so noisy, you won’t even hear yourself think, let alone talk, what with the gypsy fiddler and all the Russians arguing.”
They sat down. Wooden tables without cloths crowded close.
“But it’s clean,” Dan ass
ured her, following her glance. “Or reasonably so.”
A waiter brought two glasses of hot tea.
“You can have coffee instead. It’s the Russian style to offer tea, and in a glass. You didn’t know that, I think.”
“I’d heard of it.”
Her hands felt cold. She curved her palms around the hot glass, aware that he was regarding her with a studied gaze, and wondering what his thoughts were. Perhaps he regretted the impulsive invitation, given only out of politeness because she was Uncle David’s niece. Looking down, she could see his hands resting on the table. She could see the forked vein in the wrist that was turned on its side. It seemed an intimate thing, that small blue vein.
Some men came in, speaking volubly in Yiddish. Dan pointed one out.
“He’s an actor. He may be a star before long. This is a famous place for the Russian intelligentsia. Journalists, poets, socialists—they all come here. The Orthodox have their own places. I go to all of them and belong to none. I like to observe, I’m curious.”
“You’re not Russian, then?”
“I was born in New York. In Yorkville, Eighty-fourth Street on Third Avenue. The Bohemian neighborhood, German-speaking.”
Her fingers were playing now with a fork.
“You keep looking down,” Dan said abruptly. “Why? Does it frighten you so to be looked at?”
“No. Why do you ask that?”
“Because you blush. Don’t be ashamed. It’s charming.”
She looked up. “I can’t help blushing. I hate it.” Then something loosened inside her. “I saw you when you rescued the woman at the fire. I wanted to go up and tell you how wonderful it was.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I suppose I’m timid. And I saw that you wanted to get away.”
“You’re right, I did. They’d have made a circus out of it, if I’d let them. Tell me, how old are you, Hennie?”
“Eighteen.” She did not know whether that would seem too young to be interesting, or too old to be as inexperienced as she must seem.
