“What has this got to do with the fire?” Micha said, thinking all the while: I was never good at this, they must see the lie written right here on my face.
“They didn’t find the baby’s body. This poor man, he thinks, you know, that she might still be alive.”
“I am sorry for that. But again, what has that got to do with me, Uncle Max?” He looked at this George Seabrook. They were still talking in Yiddish, sure, but still he had not spoken, just sat there. It made him sweat, the way he was looking at him.
“Mr. Seabrook wants to know if you saw anything,” Uncle Max said, talking American again. “If there is anything, you know, that can maybe help him find her.”
“Like what?”
“Like anything. They didn’t find the poor little baby’s body after the fire, see? Could the other man, the one she was with, could he have come back and taken her?”
“I was just the janitor, Uncle Max,” he said, in Yiddish. “How would I know?”
“But you said you saw her crying one day. You told me.”
“What’s he saying?” George asked, in English.
“It’s like I told you, Mr. Seabrook, the boy doesn’t remember anything more than what I said.”
“Can he at least tell me why my wife was crying?”
“He wants to know why she was crying,” Uncle Max said to Micha.
“Because the momzer left her.”
“That’s why?”
Micha stared at Max, then at the millionaire. I have to do something to make this stop, he thought. He leaned forward. “Look, Uncle Max, you got to tell him, the baby is dead. I heard her crying inside the room the night of the fire, but the door was locked, from the inside.”
“Where was Mrs. Seabrook?”
“I don’t know. I tried to get in, I really tried, Uncle, but I didn’t have my keys, and I couldn’t open the door, couldn’t even kick it open. I tried and tried, and then the smoke and flames were so thick.” He shrugged. “What could I do?”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before, my boy?” Uncle Max said, and put his big hand on his shoulder.
“I only wanted to forget about it,” Micha said, and covered his face with his hands so the millionaire could not see how much he was sweating.
Uncle Max translated what Micha had said. George fumbled in his coat and brought out a silver cigarette case. He tried to take out one of the cigarettes, but his hands started to shake, and he dropped them onto the floor.
He squared his shoulders and took his gloves out of the derby and started to put them on. “I can see I have been wasting both your time. I apologize. Enjoy the rest of the stout. I shall trouble you no further.”
He got to his feet, put the derby on his head, and, with a nod, left the nook.
Micha stared after him.
“Poor man,” Uncle Max said. “How I should hate to be in his shoes. To lose your wife and your daughter like that. Such a life he has now.”
Micha picked up the pitcher of stout and poured some into his glass. He drained it in one swallow.
“Are you all right, my boy?”
“I still dream about that fire, every night. This just brought it all back.”
“The things we’ve seen, eh? No one can know.”
They finished off the pitcher, and Max ordered another. When it was all gone, they went back outside, unsteady on their feet now. Rain drifted under the orange arc of the gaslights. But Micha didn’t even button his coat. His whole body felt numb.
“How are you doing down at the dock?”
“It’s hard work, Uncle. I do my best.”
“I’ll see if I can find you something better. Which way are you getting home? You want to catch the trolley car with me?”
“I think I’ll walk for a bit on my own.”
Uncle Max nodded and patted him on the shoulder. Then he turned up the collar of his coat and dashed across the street.
Micha watched him jump on board the car.
Micha walked south to the wharf. He went as far as Fortieth, where the big freighters were, big as buildings and bound for Cape Town and London and Buenos Aires. On Pier 57, there was a Cunard liner ready to sail to Southampton, brightly lit and ready for boarding, horse carriages and limousines and checkered taxicabs blocking the streets in both directions. It gave two mournful blasts on the horn, the echoes reverberating around the vast stretches of the Hudson and the far Jersey shoreline.
He retched into the gutter.
When he was done, he walked out to an empty pier, leaned against one of the pilings, stared into the oily black water. The dark silhouettes of warehouses crowded the waterfront, the tall buildings of America piled up behind them. He imagined people standing at all those lighted windows up there, all the way down the island to the Battery, watching him.
We saw what you did, America said. You can hide it from your uncle Max and from the millionaire whose baby you stole, but you can’t hide it from us.
“I didn’t mean for it to be like this!” he shouted into the rain and wind.
What do you all want? That I should give the baby to some goy millionaire, someone who will give her to his schvartzes to look after, someone who could never love her like my Sura will love her? I saw her, with my own eyes I saw, how her mother was crying alone in the hotel room. Such a hard heart he has. How could he be a good father to our little Libby?
But she’s not your daughter, America shouted back at him. Who says who gets to decide?
“I say. That’s who! Micha Levine says it! That’s the end of it!”
But he knew America did not believe that to be the end of anything. He could feel it in his bones. There would be a reckoning. And when it comes, he thought, let the sins fall on my shoulders, not on Sura’s.
PART 2
13
Broadway and Fifth, August 1917
The press of people on the sidewalks was impenetrable. Fifth Avenue was bright with red-white-and-blue American flags, even Libby joined in, waving her little Stars and Stripes as she sat on her father’s shoulders to watch the parade go past. She squirmed with excitement as the band passed in the middle of the street, followed by the National Guard in their khaki, the brass shining on their belts and badges, rifles at slope.
“I want to see, I want to see!” she squealed, though up there on Micha’s shoulders, she was perhaps the only one in the crowd who could see anything. The noise of the band and the cheering was deafening. Micha reached up and held her as high in the air as he could.
“What are they doing, Papa?” she squealed.
“They are going off to war, bubeleh.”
“What’s war?”
Micha looked at Sura.
“It’s when men fight each other with guns,” Sura said. “It’s all meshuggaas.”
“Will Daddy go to war?”
“No, Daddy doesn’t have to go. Daddy has to stay here and look after us. Isn’t that right, Daddy?”
“That’s right, bubeleh. Daddy isn’t going away.”
Libby laughed and waved her flag as high as she could. When they got home, she said it was the best parade she had ever seen and marched around the room the rest of the afternoon pretending she was blowing a trumpet.
Dear Vati. Dearest Mutti. Our little darling is three years old today. You would not believe how much she has grown! She loves her mama’s kugel, and at suppertime she is always at the window listening for the lemon-ice man ringing his bell, and nothing will do but for Micha to go down and get her one. Everything now she must do herself, and she is a little mimic, she makes cries like the hawker she can hear from the street, like you think someone is selling herring right there in the living room. And the stories, I cannot tell you. Every night, Micha must read her a story. She likes the one about the little brown duck best.
Sura looked up. Micha was in his favorite chair by the window, so hot today, tonight they would have to sleep again on the roof, she supposed. Libby was playing there at her father’s feet with her doll
and a little wooden donkey, talking to her toys in a singsong chatter, like Sura talked to her when she was in the bath. She couldn’t help but smile at her.
I wish one day you will see her. She is such a lovely little girl, and never any trouble. We are so lucky and so blessed that God brought her to us, a miracle it is. Here is a drawing she made for you. Michelangelo, she will never be.
Today we took her to see the big parade, the first American soldiers were leaving New York to go to France. America is full of the war, it is all anyone talks about in the street and in the newspapers. We came here to get away from such troubles, but trouble is everywhere. They are telling all the young men they must be ready to be soldiers. My Micha does not have to go, of course, it is only for men with wives who can work, and I have to stay home and look after little Libby.
We have moved to a new place in Cannon Street, by the Williamsburg Bridge. It was so dark where we lived before, and crowded, like I couldn’t tell you. Our new place has four rooms, on the corner of the building, so it is really light. There is even electricity, you switch on and switch off, like magic. Libby has her own bedroom now, and it has a bathtub in it. Every Friday afternoon we all have a bath, ready for Shabbas. It is like kings we live now.
There is even a separate kitchen and a sink with running water, and even a room just for sitting in, with a pattern wood floor they call here parquet. Our apartment is on the fifth floor, so it is still a long way to walk up and down, but so much better we have it now.
Micha has a good job, in a big store that sells just clothes for women, like you never saw. He is manager of dresses, now, only three years he has been there, can you imagine. When he starts he is only lifting and carrying, but now already they give him his own office. One day he will be manager of the whole store, and then America better watch out! He talks like a proper American, but I ever see him chew gum, I swear, I will kill him.
Micha put down his newspaper and stood up, restless, jingling the coins in his pockets. He went to lean over her shoulder to see what she was writing. “What is this you are doing?”
“You know what it is, I told you. It is a letter to my mutti and vati.”
“What’s this? Why are you sending this drawing? I never seen this before. It’s just scribble. This new one she made for us, why don’t you send?”
“Micha, they think she is three years old.”
“So, let them think she is a prodigy, or I don’t know what.” Again with the coin jingling.
“What’s wrong, Micha?”
“I worry. What if they come here tomorrow, then they will know! Just one look. Look at her, the red hair she has, and those green eyes. We might as well have a schvartze for a baby.”
“They say they will come, but they won’t come. We don’t have to worry about it. You are the only one in our whole shtetl that is brave enough to leave.”
“The last thing I am is brave.” He picked up her journal and thumbed through the pages. More of Libby’s drawings fell out and fluttered to the floor. “What’s this? You keep a diary? I didn’t know you have a diary.”
“It is so I remember. Everything I tell them must be later than when it happens.”
“You keep a book for this?”
“Of course.”
He tossed the book back on the table. “I wish we didn’t have to lie like this.”
“Bubeleh, what is wrong? It’s all kvetch, kvetch, kvetch, ever since we got back from the parade. Never I saw such a sad-sack person. Where are you going?”
“Out for a walk.”
“Micha!”
“What, I can’t go for a walk now? I work hard all week. If I want to walk, I’ll walk.” The door slammed behind him.
Libby looked at her mother and then at the door and started to cry. Sura went to her, scooped her up in her arms, and held her as she sobbed. “Papa!” Libby shouted, and reached out a hand to the door.
“Papa will be home soon,” Sura said to her. But it took a long time to soothe her. Papa’s little girl now.
Why does he have to carry on so? In Russia, he would never shout and slam like that, would never go for a walk without her. God had given them good luck, and now he didn’t want it. They had a nice apartment, he had a good job, they had their little miracle. How many times had she prayed to God when she heard of a little child in the street who had died from scarlet fever or diphtheria or she didn’t know what, when every baby on all Delancey Street was sick and crying, please God not our Libby, and what happened?
Not even a sniffle.
Other mothers and fathers lost their little treasures, but Libby was still here and growing. Never mind whatever happened back then so long ago, who could remember? It was plain, God meant for them to have her and love her, anyone could see that.
Why couldn’t Micha let it be?
14
In Tallinn, Micha could never have imagined such an emporium as this; his father’s leather shop was one of the biggest shops in the town, and everyone thought Micha was meshugga to give it up to be a nobody in America. Well, if they saw him now, they would not shake their heads and mumble into their beards anymore. He wasn’t a greenhorn now, he was a proper mensch. He had even outdone his uncle Max.
As Micha came out of his office, he stopped for a moment to look around, admire the alabaster planters and brass sconces and polished mahogany walls. A spiral wrought-iron staircase led to the second and third floors, where they sold handbags and gloves and woman’s underthings. Department stores, the Americans called them, and this one was the cat’s pajamas. Sura was right, he must stop thinking about everything that had happened in the past. How can they have such good luck if God didn’t want it that way?
Micha made his usual round of the floor, making sure the salesgirls weren’t reading magazines or putting on makeup, checking that all the hangers on a rack faced in the same direction and the price tags were tucked away.
He stopped to look at the mannequins near the canopied entrance, dressed this morning with the new fall fashion; this season the department stores were telling their customers that at least one dress in every woman’s wardrobe should be khaki, for America’s sake. He aimed to make this gabardine street dress with matching satin and braid their biggest seller.
Next to it was a beetroot serge dress with gray trim, calf length, with one of the new tiered skirts; also a shirtwaist of blue satin with a daring V neck.
He knelt down to adjust the hem. He supposed later that was why the two women did not see him there.
They were regular customers; he knew them both by name. One had a monthly account at the store; the other, her husband’s father was a friend of his uncle Max, very respectable, worked in a savings and loan.
“Well, my husband certainly isn’t going to shirk his duty to his country,” one of the women was saying. “He was one of the first in the queue at the draft office. He’s proud to serve America.”
“What will you do if he goes?”
“We shall manage. I can always find work in an office, I shouldn’t wonder. What about Frank?”
“Well, we have no children, so hell or high water wouldn’t keep him away.” There was a pause. “Not like some.”
Micha felt his heart beat faster. If I get to my feet now, he thought, they will see me, and I will not have to eavesdrop.
He stayed where he was.
“I don’t think it’s right how some men are going to stay at home while our husbands risk their lives for our country over there. Extreme hardship exemptions! You know what I call them? Cowards!”
“Oh, Jean.”
“Well, it’s not right.” Dropping her voice to a whisper. “You know that Mr. Levine is one of them.”
“You mean the nice man in the office over there?”
“You know that nice man in the office is a Jew?”
“Well, I knew that, but—”
“Do you think it’s right that he stays behind while our men go off to fight the battle he ran away from? That’s wh
y they came here, you know. To get away from fighting the Germans. Yellow, I call it. I’ve thought of taking my business somewhere else.”
Micha got to his feet and walked back to his office, didn’t care if they saw him or not. He shut the door behind him, leaned his back against it, took two long slow breaths to compose himself. He shut his eyes, was suddenly back on the swaying fire escape. He could smell smoke.
“Yellow, I call it.”
He stumbled to his desk and slumped into his chair. One of the salesgirls was knocking on the door, saying something about a customer asking for credit, could he come and discuss it with her. He gripped the edge of the desk, felt like he was on top of a tall building. He broke out in a cold sweat, thought he was going to be sick.
What really happened on that fire escape? If he hadn’t hesitated, if he’d gone back up there straightaway, could he have saved her? The truth was, he couldn’t really remember anymore. The more time had passed, the more jumbled it all seemed in his mind.
If she had been still in that room, then he must have had time to save her. He imagined himself standing in front of all the other men in the shtetl, trying to explain what had happened, how he had no choice; they all just shook their heads and muttered into their beards.
Yellow, they’d call it.
That night as he walked down East Broadway, he tried to ignore the newspaper boys yelling about the latest news of the war, and the “Wake Up, America!” posters, and the “Liberty Bond” signs mushrooming now in every shop window.
He proceeded down Broome Street, his head down. The city was seething in the heat. It was Friday afternoon, and all the housewives were out on the street buying for Shabbas. He had to use his elbows to get through the bedlam of pushcarts and people. He just wanted to get home.
Sometimes he found a comfort in it, all the signs in Russian and German, hearing Yiddish shouted from the street and the shops, the miles and miles of pushcarts, the sun beating down on the shimmering rows of herring, the stink and the shove of it. What do you want—apples, potatoes, eggs, collars, a tablecloth, a tin fork?
Loving Liberty Levine Page 7
