Old News

by Ed Ifkovic

  But as I passed by, the front door suddenly opened and for a brief second Leah Brenner stepped out, pushing against the screen door. She was juggling a cup of coffee and a napkin that held pastry or a roll, cradling both to her chest, so she didn’t see me gawking there, the pesky intruder on her solitude. Then, spotting me, she backed into the screen door that had closed behind her, turning away, almost frightened.

  Apologetically, I yelled, “Good morning, I’m…”

  She was gone, scrambling back into the house, the heavy oak front door slamming behind her.

  Feeling a little foolish now, I scurried down the block, past the apartment houses, and turned onto storied Maxwell Street. For a moment, breathless, I was overwhelmed by the spectacle before me, this cluttered, frantic Jewish marketplace, a cacophony of whistling and yelling and hectoring—a flow of mangled English, rapid-fire Yiddish, and a Babel of greenhorn Russian, German, Spanish, Polish, what have you. What really hit me were the pungent smells—frying onions, hot dogs boiling in bubbly oil, roasted garlic, overripe apples and pears, hot peanuts, roasting meats sputtering on grills, unwashed bodies, tattered clothing—stale, fetid aromas, both appealing and disgusting, so intense as to make me dizzy. On Sunday this “Poor Jewish Quarter,” as the locals called it, at the intersection of Maxwell and Halsted, in the shadow of the Loop, pulsated, thrived, swelled, exploded. From dawn to dusk, an unbroken rhythm. “Jewtown.”

  Yet, even as I walked through the crowds of shoppers and vendors, Leah’s riveting image stayed with me—I couldn’t escape that face.

  For an hour I wandered, enthralled by the spectacle that made me conjure up old market days in Eastern Europe: pushcarts with squealing wheels lumbered by, vendors hawked notions, old shoes, tobacco, watches, baubles, bits and pieces of jewelry, pocket knives. Women in shawls haggled over the price of tomatoes. Or beans. Or toothbrushes. A rug with the fringe coming undone. Under signs in Hebrew the pullers cajoled, beckoned—the fancy young men, slick and cheeky, who attempted to pull passersby into shops.

  The first customer of the day—that needed sale that guaranteed good luck. For you, sir, a deal. A bargain. A skirmish between two bearded peddlers. Mach mores, Judi. Mind your manners, Jew! People in and out of shops—pawnbrokers, haberdashers, money lenders, kosher meats, bath houses, dry-goods emporiums, tailors, tobacco stands. Your son, he should go to Izzy the shakhans. A marriage arranged. Easy. Such girls he knows, dutiful daughters. Long johns, worn once, almost new. Chickens squawking, then eerily silent. For a kosher home. Look inside. I. Klein. Bremmer Cookie Factory. Nathan’s Ice Cream Parlor. Phillipson’s Clothes. Wittenberg Matzoh. Nate’s Delicatessen. Mackevich’s Notions. Magic potions. Jezibel Root.

  The streetcar emptied peddlers carrying packed burlap sacks on their backs. Haggle, haggle. Such a bargain, you wouldn’t believe, yes? Or: Today only, for you alone, your name on it. Or: New today, and only slightly worn, a winter coat from a rich lady. In the middle of a heat wave, stultifying, the puller draped the wool coat over his shoulders. A bargain. Today. Mottled phrases mixed with Yiddish. Trog Es Gezunterheyd. Wear it in good health. Such a hat will make you look like a Hollywood beauty. Five cents. A nickel. Is nothing. Truly. A bargain.

  Who’s the big shot, oy? Such a Macher! Bertha’s Rummage Store. Myer’s Cigars. A few cents. We’re all poor. With God’s help, we starved regularly, the writer says. Gypsies everywhere today. Watch out!

  Exhilarating madness, though uplifting.

  I munched on a salty soft pretzel I bought for a penny, a smear of brown mustard gracing it for free. For you alone, my dear…

  Fruit ice for you. Cherry. Pineapple. Lemon. An organ grinder. Roszhinkes mit Mandlen.

  But my mind kept wandering back to that quick glimpse of Leah Brenner in her doorway—her hurried retreat. Worse, yesterday’s sudden eye contact: all that naked loneliness there, that haunted emptiness.

  Leah the murderer.

  A knife in the neck.

  I imagined I saw her on Maxwell Street. On Twelfth Street. On Halsted Street. The white-haired woman pushing doilies at me, her small eyes weepy. Another old woman with a gaunt face—could an old woman still be that beautiful after all the years? Like Leah? The gnarled, bent woman, her head wrapped in a black babushka, dipping her withered fingers into hot water to extract a hot dog. Her, too. All the old women. Mein Yiddische Mame. For you, my dear, a special treat, the best wiener. Today. The sun is shining…Even the beggar on Des Plaines. The schnorrer with the melancholy eyes. Him, too.

  Leah Brenner, touching all my moments on the teeming street. Hand-shaking, back-slapping, laughter, grunting. The puff of tobacco. Menshlikhkeit. Communion. The Jew in the blood.

  Finally, spent, I turned off Maxwell back onto Monroe and stopped dead. On the corner was the old kosher butcher shop once owned by Ivan Brenner and his partner, Morrie Wolfsy. I’d walked by it before, and often during my visit, but now considered it. The two old friends ran Nathan’s Meat Market for years, the market named for Morrie’s grandfather and Ivan’s father, a happy compromise. Both their names still on the shadowy window, though Ivan was long murdered and Morrie had closed up shop a short time after the murder.

  An unlikely partnership from the start, ill-fated: Ivan the German Jew who liked to sleep all day Saturday when the shop was closed for Shabbos, and Morrie, the craggy Russian Jew who criticized him for it, though he was hardly devout himself. Ah, my friend Ivan, becoming a goy, he is. They’d met years before at a bathhouse on Halsted, and became friendly. Each with so little cash. A partnership of shared monies that began to unravel almost at once, though they stayed in business for years and years. The bickering, the name-calling. Threats to leave.

  Threats…

  And then the murder.

  The store sat empty now, not rented because Morrie refused to rent it for reasons no one understood, and the front plate-glass windows were smudged and grimy, ignored. Peering in, I saw empty counters, sagging shelves, thick dark sawdust still covering the floor. A light dangled off a loosened fixture. An abandoned store. Last night Esther told me that Morrie had operated the left side of the store—the meats—and Ivan the right side—the poultry. A line down the middle. Hours spent late on Saturday night and all day Sunday. Morrie hopped the Halsted Street streetcar, headed to the stockyards, returned with a slaughtered cow strapped to his hunched back, the carcass wrapped in waxed paper, staring at the floor as he ignored the other riders. Ivan lined up crates of squawking chickens and other fowl in the back room, where, once chosen by a finicky customer, they were summarily dispatched.

  “Such fabulous duck breast, succulent, the lines for it on Sunday,” Esther rhapsodized.

  That compatible arrangement ended with Ivan’s death. Morrie gave up the business.

  But I was surprised to see a long table pulled into the center of the room, covered now with heaps of old clothing, bunched rags tied with string, battered shoes, crumpled hats. Shmatte. A rag picker’s trove. As I stood there, an old man hobbled from a back room and spotted me, my face pressed against the window. I jumped back, embarrassed, but I realized he’d shown no surprise, no interest, not even an iota of curiosity. He simply looked at me. An ancient man with an ill-kept yellowish beard and a nearly bald head, dressed in a rumpled black suit with fringed black-and-white tsitsis under his black vest, a yarmulke precariously on his head. Then, eyes narrowed, he motioned me away.

  I had no idea why I became so rattled, so easily.

  I read his lips: Go away. Oy. You.

  Stunned, I rushed to Esther’s house.

  Chapter Four

  Leah Brenner was sitting on her porch.

  I stopped walking. Glancing up, I half raised my arm, a tentative greeting that was awkward—and probably intrusive. I wasn’t sure why I did so, but at that moment I flashed to my mother’s blatant condemnation, Molly’s fierce disapproval, and Esther’s kind regard. There was some
thing wrong with that picture, though I had no idea why I felt so. I didn’t move, planted on the sidewalk. Heat waves rippled off the pavement. The leaves on the towering maple tree on her front lawn wilted, drooped. The sun hurt my eyes.

  Her response took a moment, a swallowed “Hello.” As though she’d not spoken in decades and was unsure she had any voice left. And that one muted word exacted an awful toll because she folded into herself, shoulders dropping, arms loose, her head dipping like a bird burying its head into its feathery chest.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Brenner,” I stammered, uncertain. “Do you remember me?”

  A pause, then a scratchy voice, metallic. “No, but I know who you are now.”

  “I’m Edna Ferber, visiting next door. At the Newmanns’.”

  “I know all about your visit. You’re the writer.”

  “Yes.” I squirmed. “How do you know…?”

  “Jacob told me you’re next door. My son. He tells me the news of the street. Then my daughter mentioned The Girls. My daughter, Ella. They were talking about you. You know, I read one of your short stories…once.”

  “Once?”

  “A while back.” She leaned forward. “I loved it.”

  An awkward pause as we watched each other.

  “I met Jacob eighteen years ago. One summer. I was here for a week or so. A vacation. My last time here. Visiting. I remember your son.”

  An unfunny laugh. “Of course. Everyone remembers Jacob. Every girl remembers him, I should say. The Yiddishe Romeo, himself.” She clicked her tongue. “It’s just that he never stopped running long enough for any of them to catch him.”

  A strange remark, a little bitter.

  I raised my voice, glancing toward the Newmann porch. “I remember you standing on this same porch, Mrs. Brenner. One hot afternoon. Just that one time. In a beautiful yellow dress.”

  “Really? I don’t remember that dress.” A heartbeat, too long. “That was another lifetime.”

  I started to walk away, but she spoke quickly. “You arrived a few days ago.”

  I nodded and took another step. “Yes…”

  She rushed her words. “I saw you yesterday.” Now she glanced toward the Newmann home. “With your mother. I remember Julia Ferber…from years ago.”

  Yesterday: the sudden locking of our eyes, that moment when something was communicated in a bizarre flash, and then was gone.

  Boldly, surprising myself, I said, “Do you mind if I come up on your porch?”

  She hesitated, and then, once again, glanced toward the Newmann house, closed tight again the day’s growing heat. She nodded, her hand waving to me slowly, a butterfly’s gentle fluttering. As I stepped onto the porch, I imagined my mother peering out the upstairs window, wondering about her overdue daughter, and then, horrified and sputtering, sinking into an unlovely swoon on Esther’s oriental carpet.

  On the porch, facing me, Mrs. Brenner seemed at a loss.

  “Would you like some iced tea?” she asked, and I nodded. A noise from the street jarred her—two girls passing, giggling, tickling each other. Her eyes searched the street. A boy kicked a ball down the sidewalk. “Inside,” she mumbled. “Please.”

  The air in the parlor was stifling, the windows sealed tight, heavy dark blue damask curtains drawn, an overstuffed sofa and two bulky armchairs blocked by scattered tables cluttered with plaster-of-Paris figurines, gaudily painted cheap tchotchkes, crystal bells, a porcelain planter with wilting ivy growing from the body of a garish French shepherdess. Disquieting, this rummage-sale collection, though every piece of bric-a-brac seemed shellacked and spit-polished. A gigantic menorah on a sideboard dominated the still room. A dreadful room, airless, a coffin, dimly lit by a light in the hallway.

  Leah saw me eying the cheap carnival collection. “My sister, Sarah.” She pointed at a particularly egregious paperweight—Niagara Falls at night, painted-on glitter stars, a tourist’s unfortunate souvenir. “She insists that it’s art.” A bit of sarcasm in her voice. “I spend most of every day fighting the dust.” A quick smile. “Although I insist the dust softens the ugliness of the pieces.”

  “You live with Sarah?”

  Steely-eyed, unblinking, she said, “She lives with me. This is my house. My husband’s and mine. Back then.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Because I haven’t been here doesn’t mean it’s not my home.”

  “True.”

  She took a step toward the stairwell to the second floor. “Sarah is unhappy that I decided to open the front door and breathe in the fresh air. To sit outside. In front.”

  I grinned. “It is your house.”

  No humor in her voice. “It is, indeed.” She pointed to a chair. “Please sit…Edna.” A heavy sigh. “I forget how to invite people into my life.” A shrug of her shoulders.

  “Frankly, sometimes it’s better not to.”

  She ran her tongue over her lower lip. “How cynical you young people are today.”

  I headed to one of the armchairs. “When you’ve been a girl reporter in Milwaukee…”

  “I hate reporters.” She drew back. “Oh, I don’t mean…”

  “Oh, I don’t care…Mrs. Brenner.”

  “Leah. My name’s Leah.”

  “All right, Leah.”

  “Let me get you a cold drink. Sit. Please.”

  She bustled about, bumping into a table, stepped back, deliberated, then swirled around, a maddened dervish, before heading into the kitchen. Unable to settle, frantic to please, her hands fluttered around her face.

  I said to her back, “I’m glad you’ve made it to the front porch.”

  Gazing straight ahead, she answered, “I watch a street that most days says nothing at all.” A pause. “I like it that way.”

  When she sat back down opposite me after placing a pitcher on the table, she pointed at a glass. “Help yourself. It’s not very good.”

  “A tempting offer, then.” I smiled at her.

  She drank nothing but watched me quietly.

  Finally, breathing in, she began talking in a low voice, almost difficult for me to hear. “When Jacob told me you were next door, I was thrilled. I don’t remember you from years ago—no reason to, I suppose, so many young people on the street then—but I did read your short story ‘The Homely Heroine’ in Everybody’s when I was away. I realized who it was, who wrote it, I mean—you know, Appleton and all. Your mother visiting next door years ago. We’d talked once or twice. I was so…thrilled. I remember the story because it was so…so sad. One line I memorized: ‘Pearlie Schultz used to sit on the front porch summer evenings to watch the couples stroll by, and weep in her heart.’ I can’t forget that line, Edna. ‘Weep in her heart.’ I told myself you understood something about me—about others—like me. And so…I waited to see you walk by. I hoped I’d have the courage to talk to you.”

  A beautiful woman, Leah was, even now at sixty, a face that held you, yet she was a woman who’d seen herself in my homely heroine, the sad Pearlie, fat, unwanted, morose…

  “I’m glad you did.”

  A quizzical look. “Why?”

  That jarred. I had no answer. “I don’t know. I…”

  A wispy smile. “I’m the neighborhood woman with a past. You shouldn’t be talking to me.”

  “I suppose so.”

  But she was speaking over my swallowed words. “Edna, I was so hungry to get back home. I got sick to my stomach thinking about it. I’ve been back now for nearly three years…but in solitary confinement. For a woman like me, every place becomes a jail. Every space has four walls. The cage makes you crazy, though.” She reached for a glass, then changed her mind. “Yet, I’ve accepted my place as the town leper. What choice do I have? Madness—or acceptance.” She shrugged. “It sort of makes it easy, finally. Others tell you what you are—define you. You kno
w how the world sees you.”

  “You don’t know how I see you.”

  That surprised her. “Tell me.”

  I waited a bit, carefully chose my words. “Simply, a woman tired of isolation.”

  I watched her. Such a small woman, though soft at the edges, a little plump, pale as if sheltered from sunlight, but with dark, flickering nut-brown eyes, a woman who struck me as years older than her sixty or so years, her face drawn, a puffiness around those alert, brilliant eyes. Yet something about her…no homely heroine, this one, truly…a real beauty, exotic, foreign, the forbidden gypsy on the outskirts of town. You could see that she’d once been stunning because, in some way, she still was: the alabaster complexion and the dark eyes, that regal chin with the cupid’s-bow mouth. But it was more than simple beauty— her slight movements were the instinctive moves of a sensual woman. A regal Cleopatra sitting with me, the Jewish slave girl on the Nile.

  “That’s so, I guess.” She echoed the word. “Isolation. Yes.” Suddenly she locked eyes with me again. “You know what they say I did.”

  I started. “Yes.”

  “Tell me what I did.”

  My throat went dry, my vision blurred. I sputtered, “You stabbed your husband to death.”