Children of the Ghetto

by Израэль Зангвилл

  "Have you heard Reb Shemuel preach? He told a very amusing allegory last-"

  Br-r-r-r-r-r-r-h!

  Undaunted, Shosshi recounted the amusing allegory at length, and as the noise of her machine prevented Becky hearing a word she found his conversation endurable. After several more monologues, accompanied on the machine by Becky, Shosshi took his departure in high feather, promising to bring up specimens of his handiwork for her edification.

  On his next visit he arrived with his arms laden with choice morsels of carpentry. He laid them on the table for her admiration.

  They were odd knobs and rockers for Polish cradles! The pink of Becky's cheeks spread all over her face like a blot of red ink on a piece of porous paper. Shosshi's face reflected the color in even more ensanguined dyes. Becky rushed from the room and Shosshi heard her giggling madly on the staircase. It dawned upon him that he had displayed bad taste in his selection.

  "What have you done to my child?" Mrs. Belcovitch inquired.

  "N-n-othing," he stammered; "I only brought her some of my work to see."

  "And is this what one shows to a young girl?" demanded the mother indignantly.

  "They are only bits of cradles," said Shosshi deprecatingly. "I thought she would like to see what nice workmanly things I turned out. See how smoothly these rockers are carved! There is a thick one, and there is a thin one!"

  "Ah! Shameless droll! dost thou make mock of my legs, too?" said Mrs. Belcovitch. "Out, impudent face, out with thee!"

  Shosshi gathered up his specimens in his arms and fled through the door. Becky was still in hilarious eruption outside. The sight of her made confusion worse confounded. The knobs and rockers rolled thunderously down the stairs; Shosshi stumbled after them, picking them up on his course and wishing himself dead.

  All Sugarman's strenuous efforts to patch up the affair failed. Shosshi went about broken-hearted for several days. To have been so near the goal-and then not to arrive after all! What made failure more bitter was that he had boasted of his conquest to his acquaintances, especially to the two who kept the stalls to the right and left of him on Sundays in Petticoat Lane. They made a butt of him as it was; he felt he could never stand between them for a whole morning now, and have Attic salt put upon his wounds. He shifted his position, arranging to pay sixpence a time for the privilege of fixing himself outside Widow Finkelstein's shop, which stood at the corner of a street, and might be presumed to intercept two streams of pedestrians. Widow Finkelstein's shop was a chandler's, and she did a large business in farthing-worths of boiling water. There was thus no possible rivalry between her ware and Shosshi's, which consisted of wooden candlesticks, little rocking chairs, stools, ash-trays, etc., piled up artistically on a barrow.

  But Shosshi's luck had gone with the change of locus. His clientele went to the old spot but did not find him. He did not even make a hansel. At two o'clock he tied his articles to the barrow with a complicated arrangement of cords. Widow Finkelstein waddled out and demanded her sixpence. Shosshi replied that he had not taken sixpence, that the coign was not one of vantage. Widow Finkelstein stood up for her rights, and even hung on to the barrow for them. There was a short, sharp argument, a simultaneous jabbering, as of a pair of monkeys. Shosshi Shmendrik's pimply face worked with excited expostulation, Widow Finkelstein's cushion-like countenance was agitated by waves of righteous indignation. Suddenly Shosshi darted between the shafts and made a dash off with the barrow down the side street. But Widow Finkelstein pressed it down with all her force, arresting the motion like a drag. Incensed by the laughter of the spectators, Shosshi put forth all his strength at the shafts, jerked the widow off her feet and see-sawed her sky-wards, huddled up spherically like a balloon, but clinging as grimly as ever to the defalcating barrow. Then Shosshi started off at a run, the carpentry rattling, and the dead weight of his living burden making his muscles ache.

  Right to the end of the street he dragged her, pursued by a hooting crowd. Then he stopped, worn out.

  "Will you give me that sixpence, you Ganef!"

  "No, I haven't got it. You'd better go back to your shop, else you'll suffer from worse thieves."

  It was true. Widow Finkelstein smote her wig in horror and hurried back to purvey treacle.

  But that night when she shut up the shutters, she hurried off to Shosshi's address, which she had learned in the interim. His little brother opened the door and said Shosshi was in the shed.

  He was just nailing the thicker of those rockers on to the body of a cradle. His soul was full of bitter-sweet memories. Widow Finkelstein suddenly appeared in the moonlight. For a moment Shosshi's heart beat wildly. He thought the buxom figure was Becky's.

  "I have come for my sixpence."

  Ah! The words awoke him from his dream. It was only the Widow Finkelstein.

  And yet-! Verily, the widow, too, was plump and agreeable; if only her errand had been pleasant, Shosshi felt she might have brightened his back yard. He had been moved to his depths latterly and a new tenderness and a new boldness towards women shone in his eyes.

  He rose and put his head on one side and smiled amiably and said, "Be not so foolish. I did not take a copper. I am a poor young man. You have plenty of money in your stocking."

  "How know you that?" said the widow, stretching forward her right foot meditatively and gazing at the strip of stocking revealed.

  "Never mind!" said Shosshi, shaking his head sapiently.

  "Well, it's true," she admitted. "I have two hundred and seventeen golden sovereigns besides my shop. But for all that why should you keep my sixpence?" She asked it with the same good-humored smile.

  The logic of that smile was unanswerable. Shosshi's mouth opened, but no sound issued from it. He did not even say the Evening Prayer. The moon sailed slowly across the heavens. The water flowed into the cistern with a soft soothing sound.

  Suddenly it occurred to Shosshi that the widow's waist was not very unlike that which he had engirdled imaginatively. He thought he would just try if the sensation was anything like what he had fancied. His arm strayed timidly round her black-beaded mantle. The sense of his audacity was delicious. He was wondering whether he ought to say She-hechyoni-the prayer over a new pleasure. But the Widow Finkelstein stopped his mouth with a kiss. After that Shosshi forgot his pious instincts.

  Except old Mrs. Ansell, Sugarman was the only person scandalized. Shosshi's irrepressible spirit of romance had robbed him of his commission. But Meckisch danced with Shosshi Shmendrik at the wedding, while the Calloh footed it with the Russian giantess. The men danced in one-half of the room, the women in the other.

  CHAPTER XVII. THE HYAMS'S HONEYMOON.

  "Beenah, hast thou heard aught about our Daniel?" There was a note of anxiety in old Hyams's voice.

  "Naught, Mendel."

  "Thou hast not heard talk of him and Sugarman's daughter?"

  "No, is there aught between them?" The listless old woman spoke a little eagerly.

  "Only that a man told me that his son saw our Daniel pay court to the maiden."

  "Where?"

  "At the Purim Ball."

  "The man is a tool; a youth must dance with some maiden or other."

  Miriam came in, fagged out from teaching. Old Hyams dropped from Yiddish into English.

  "You are right, he must."

  Beenah replied in her slow painful English.

  "Would he not have told us?"

  Mendel repeated:-"Would he not have told us?"

  Each avoided the others eye. Beenah dragged herself about the room, laying Miriam's tea.

  "Mother, I wish you wouldn't scrape your feet along the floor so. It gets on my nerves and I am so worn out. Would he not have told you what? And who's he?"

  Beenah looked at her husband.

  "I heard Daniel was engaged," said old Hyams jerkily.

  Miriam started and flushed.

  "To whom?" she cried, in excitement.

  "Bessie Sugarman."

  "Sugarman's dau
ghter?" Miriam's voice was pitched high.

  "Yes."

  Miriam's voice rose to a higher pitch.

  "Sugarman the Shadchan's daughter?"

  "Yes."

  Miriam burst into a fit of incredulous laughter.

  "As if Daniel would marry into a miserable family like that!"

  "It is as good as ours," said Mendel, with white lips.

  His daughter looked at him astonished. "I thought your children had taught you more self-respect than that," she said quietly. "Mr. Sugarman is a nice person to be related to!"

  "At home, Mrs. Sugarman's family was highly respected," quavered old Hyams.

  "We are not at home now," said Miriam witheringly. "We're in England. A bad-tempered old hag!"

  "That is what she thinks me," thought Mrs. Hyams. But she said nothing.

  "Did you not see Daniel with her at the ball?" said Mr. Hyams, still visibly disquieted.

  "I'm sure I didn't notice," Miriam replied petulantly. "I think you must have forgot the sugar, mother, or else the tea is viler than usual. Why don't you let Jane cut the bread and butter instead of lazing in the kitchen?"

  "Jane has been washing all day in the scullery," said Mrs. Hyams apologetically.

  "H'm!" snapped Miriam, her pretty face looking peevish and careworn. "Jane ought to have to manage sixty-three girls whose ignorant parents let them run wild at home, and haven't the least idea of discipline. As for this chit of a Sugarman, don't you know that Jews always engage every fellow and girl that look at each other across the street, and make fun of them and discuss their united prospects before they are even introduced to each other."

  She finished her tea, changed her dress and went off to the theatre with a girl-friend. The really harassing nature of her work called for some such recreation. Daniel came in a little after she had gone out, and ate his supper, which was his dinner saved for him and warmed up in the oven. Mendel sat studying from an unwieldy folio which he held on his lap by the fireside and bent over. When Daniel had done supper and was standing yawning and stretching himself, Mendel said suddenly as if trying to bluff him:

  "Why don't you ask your father to wish you Mazzoltov?"

  "Mazzoltov? What for?" asked Daniel puzzled.

  "On your engagement."

  "My engagement!" repeated Daniel, his heart thumping against his ribs.

  "Yes-to Bessie Sugarman."

  Mendel's eye, fixed scrutinizingly on his boy's face, saw it pass from white to red and from red to white. Daniel caught hold of the mantel as if to steady himself.

  "But it is a lie!" he cried hotly. "Who told you that?"

  "No one; a man hinted as much."

  "But I haven't even been in her company."

  "Yes-at the Purim Ball."

  Daniel bit his lip.

  "Damned gossips!" he cried. "I'll never speak to the girl again."

  There was a tense silence for a few seconds, then old Hyams said:

  "Why not? You love her."

  Daniel stared at him, his heart palpitating painfully. The blood in his ears throbbed mad sweet music.

  "You love her," Mendel repeated quietly. "Why do you not ask her to marry you? Do you fear she would refuse?"

  Daniel burst into semi-hysterical laughter. Then seeing his father's half-reproachful, half-puzzled look he said shamefacedly:

  "Forgive me, father, I really couldn't help it. The idea of your talking about love! The oddity of it came over me all of a heap."

  "Why should I not talk about love?"

  "Don't be so comically serious, father," said Daniel, smiling afresh. "What's come over you? What have you to do with love? One would think you were a romantic young fool on the stage. It's all nonsense about love. I don't love anybody, least of all Bessie Sugarman, so don't you go worrying your old head about my affairs. You get back to that musty book of yours there. I wonder if you've suddenly come across anything about love in that, and don't forget to use the reading glasses and not your ordinary spectacles, else it'll be a sheer waste of money. By the way, mother, remember to go to the Eye Hospital on Saturday to be tested. I feel sure it's time you had a pair of specs, too."

  "Don't I look old enough already?" thought Mrs. Hyams. But she said, "Very well, Daniel," and began to clear away his supper.

  "That's the best of being in the fancy," said Daniel cheerfully. "There's no end of articles you can get at trade prices."

  He sat for half an hour turning over the evening paper, then went to bed. Mr. and Mrs. Hyams's eyes sought each other involuntarily but they said nothing. Mrs. Hyams fried a piece of Wurst for Miriam's supper and put it into the oven to keep hot, then she sat down opposite Mendel to stitch on a strip of fur, which had got unripped on one of Miriam's jackets. The fire burnt briskly, little flames leaped up with a crackling sound, the clock ticked quietly.

  Beenah threaded her needle at the first attempt.

  "I can still see without spectacles," she thought bitterly. But she said nothing.

  Mendel looked up furtively at her several times from his book. The meagreness of her parchment flesh, the thickening mesh of wrinkles, the snow-white hair struck him with almost novel force. But he said nothing. Beenah patiently drew her needle through and through the fur, ever and anon glancing at Mendel's worn spectacled face, the eyes deep in the sockets, the forehead that was bent over the folio furrowed painfully beneath the black Koppel, the complexion sickly. A lump seemed to be rising in her throat. She bent determinedly over her sewing, then suddenly looked up again. This time their eyes met. They did not droop them; a strange subtle flash seemed to pass from soul to soul. They gazed at each other, trembling on the brink of tears.

  "Beenah." The voice was thick with suppressed sobs.

  "Yes, Mendel."

  "Thou hast heard?"

  "Yes, Mendel."

  "He says he loves her not."

  "So he says."

  "It is lies, Beenah."

  "But wherefore should he lie?"

  "Thou askest with thy mouth, not thy heart. Thou knowest that he wishes us not to think that he remains single for our sake. All his money goes to keep up this house we live in. It is the law of Moses. Sawest thou not his face when I spake of Sugarman's daughter?"

  Beenah rocked herself to and fro, crying: "My poor Daniel, my poor lamb! Wait a little. I shall die soon. The All-High is merciful. Wait a little."

  Mendel caught Miriam's jacket which was slipping to the floor and laid it aside.

  "It helps not to cry," said he gently, longing to cry with her. "This cannot be. He must marry the maiden whom his heart desires. Is it not enough that he feels that we have crippled his life for the sake of our Sabbath? He never speaks of it, but it smoulders in his veins."

  "Wait a little!" moaned Beenah, still rocking to and fro.

  "Nay, calm thyself." He rose and passed his horny hand tenderly over her white hair. "We must not wait. Consider how long Daniel has waited."

  "Yes, my poor lamb, my poor lamb!" sobbed the old woman.

  "If Daniel marries," said the old man, striving to speak firmly, "we have not a penny to live upon. Our Miriam requires all her salary. Already she gives us more than she can spare. She is a lady, in a great position. She must dress finely. Who knows, too, but that we are in the way of a gentleman marrying her? We are not fit to mix with high people. But above all, Daniel must marry and I must earn your and my living as I did when the children were young."

  "But what wilt thou do?" said Beenah, ceasing to cry and looking up with affrighted face. "Thou canst not go glaziering. Think of Miriam. What canst thou do, what canst thou do? Thou knowest no trade!"

  "No, I know no trade," he said bitterly. "At home, as thou art aware, I was a stone-mason, but here I could get no work without breaking the Sabbath, and my hand has forgotten its cunning. Perhaps I shall get my hand back." He took hers in the meantime. It was limp and chill, though so near the fire. "Have courage." he said. "There is naught I can do here that will not shame Miriam. We cannot e
ven go into an almshouse without shedding her blood. But the Holy One, blessed be He, is good. I will go away."

  "Go away!" Beenah's clammy hand tightened her clasp of his. "Thou wilt travel with ware in the country?"

  "No. If it stands written that I must break with my children, let the gap be too wide for repining. Miriam will like it better. I will go to America."

  "To America!" Beenah's heartbeat wildly. "And leave me?" A strange sense of desolation swept over her.

  "Yes-for a little, anyhow. Thou must not face the first hardships. I shall find something to do. Perhaps in America there are more Jewish stone-masons to get work from. God will not desert us. There I can sell ware in the streets-do as I will. At the worst I can always fall back upon glaziering. Have faith, my dove."

  The novel word of affection thrilled Beenah through and through.

  "I shall send thee a little money; then as soon as I can see my way dear I shall send for thee and thou shalt come out to me and we will live happily together and our children shall live happily here."

  But Beenah burst into fresh tears.

  "Woe! Woe!" she sobbed. "How wilt thou, an old man, face the sea and the strange faces all alone? See how sorely thou art racked with rheumatism. How canst thou go glaziering? Thou liest often groaning all the night. How shalt thou carry the heavy crate on thy shoulders?"

  "God will give me strength to do what is right." The tears were plain enough in his voice now and would not be denied. His words forced themselves out in a husky wheeze.

  Beenah threw her arms round his neck. "No! No!" she cried hysterically. "Thou shalt not go! Thou shalt not leave me!"

  "I must go," his parched lips articulated. He could not see that the snow of her hair had drifted into her eyes and was scarce whiter than her cheeks. His spectacles were a blur of mist.

  "No, no," she moaned incoherently. "I shall die soon. God is merciful. Wait a little, wait a little. He will kill us both soon. My poor lamb, my poor Daniel! Thou shalt not leave me."

  The old man unlaced her arms from his neck.

  "I must. I have heard God's word in the silence."

  "Then I will go with thee. Wherever thou goest I will go."