As we walked inside the butcher shop and the little bell rang above the glass door, I marveled at how the rest of our neighborhood appeared entirely unchanged today. Julie had been sitting in jail for weeks, Ethel was testifying at a grand jury hearing, I’d found what I was pretty sure was evidence that Ed was the real man the FBI wanted and I was about to bring it to Jake, yet all the other women on the Lower East Side bustled about, buying up meat for their Sabbath dinners as they always did.
Mr. Bergman noticed me walking in with all the children and he caught my eye and shook his head a little as if he were saying he didn’t want me to come closer, to bring all the children up to the counter, to draw so much attention to myself. He moved his hand in a shooing motion to motion me back toward the street, and I did what he was asking and walked back out.
“What are we doing here?” John complained. “I’m hot.” The air was stifling, even for August, but I ignored John’s complaint. David noticed a taxicab drive by and tried to run into the street to catch it. I let go of Richie and quickly grabbed David before he could run. I hugged David tightly to my chest, against the sweaty fabric of my dress, and then Mr. Bergman walked outside.
“Bubbelah,” he said, and he leaned over and kissed my cheek. I noticed he seemed smaller out here than usual, shorter and frailer now that he was not behind the counter. “He was here this morning,” he said.
“Jake was here?” I asked. “I mean, Dr. Zitlow?”
“Who’s that?” John asked.
“No one,” I said to him.
“No,” Mr. Bergman said. “Ed. Ed was here.”
“Ed?” Deep down I’d known that Ed was still here, in the city, somewhere. I understood that he wouldn’t have possibly gone to Mexico without Henry. But hearing that he was here in the neighborhood still, at Mr. Bergman’s shop this morning, made me feel suddenly ill.
“Mildred.” Mr. Bergman put his hand my shoulder. “He came to ask me what you’ve been up to and where you are going.”
“Going?” I laughed nervously.
He cocked his head to the side. “Lena told him your mother said that you were going somewhere today with the boys.”
“Oh, my mother and her big mouth.” When we’d visited her yesterday, I was vague, told her I was considering taking the boys to see an old friend this weekend. She’d assumed I meant going upstate to visit Addie from the factory, and I’d let her rest with that assumption. I hadn’t specifically told her not to tell Lena, but it hadn’t occurred to me that Lena would be speaking regularly to Ed, when I hadn’t seen or heard from him in weeks. Now I felt like such an idiot.
“You are going somewhere? For good?” Mr. Bergman said.
“Yes,” I said softly. “But you didn’t tell Ed that, did you?”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, and then he put his hand gently on David’s head. “Of course not, I know nothing about that. I told Ed you are up to what you are always up to—being a mother, taking care of your family, no thanks to him.”
I leaned in and gave him a quick hug. “I’ll miss you,” I whispered in his ear. “I’ll try to telephone or write.”
He stepped back. “Boychik.” He kissed David on the head. “You take good care of your mother.”
AFTER WE LEFT MR. BERGMAN, we walked to the playground. I watched the children play, and then I looked around, suddenly having the creeping feeling that I was being watched, that Ed was here—or everywhere. But I saw only some of the other mothers from the neighborhood, who refused to meet my eyes when I looked at them. They all turned and moved to the other end of the playground, pretending not to notice me at all, their eyes and scowls trained steadily on John and Richie.
I wondered how long this would follow them, the notion that their father was an atom spy, that their family was tainted by communism. Even after he was cleared and let go from jail, I wondered how long it would take for these silly women in the neighborhood to forget all the lies they had read and heard and told one another. Ethel and Julie might have to move, too.
After a few hours we made our way back to the eleventh floor. Even John was quiet and seeming rather tired as we walked inside and rode the elevator up. It was nearly two, and I knocked on Ethel’s door, figuring that she was most likely already home. I knocked a few times, but she didn’t answer.
As we walked back to my apartment, I was beginning to feel anxious. I needed to get out of here and meet Jake at the Biltmore. Four o’clock was coming soon and I wanted to get there early.
I put my boys and Richie down for a nap and turned on the television for John. He stared at it, but I didn’t think he was watching because he said to me, without turning to look at me, “Ethel should’ve been back by now.”
“I’m sure she’ll be back soon,” I murmured. She had to be, after all. How long could this testimony about nothing possibly take? And didn’t she say she had an appointment this afternoon with the Jewish Homemakers? Maybe she had left the courthouse and gone straight there. But she knew I had an appointment of my own at four. She’d promised she wouldn’t be long at all, and I knew she would’ve come back here for her boys the moment her testimony was over.
At half past three I began to pace my apartment, and then I decided to place a call to the Biltmore and leave a message for Dr. Zitlow that I might be running late and that he should wait for me. Then I tried to telephone Ethel’s apartment just in case she’d come back when we were gone after all and had maybe fallen asleep, but there was no answer.
At four I went down the hallway and tried knocking on her door again, but there was no answer then either.
Richie woke up from his nap at four thirty and joined John on the couch. He leaned against his brother and sucked his thumb, and I didn’t know what to do. How much longer would Jake wait? And what if he didn’t get my message? Ethel had promised that she wouldn’t be gone this long. Something felt wrong.
At five o’clock I was certain that court had to be over for the day and I knew I couldn’t wait here any longer. “John,” I said, “do you know your Grandmother Greenglass’s address?”
“Sixty-four Sheriff Street,” he said carefully. He frowned, and I wondered exactly what had happened on Monday when Ethel had taken the boys there.
“Your mother is running late. I’m going to have to drop you off there for a little while. The boys and I need to take our trip now. We’ll leave a note for your mother on her door and she’ll come pick you up at your grandmother’s in a bit, all right?”
His small face fell and I expected him to argue, but it seemed he had grown used to disappointment this summer and he quickly grabbed onto his brother, stood, and went to the door. He stretched his shoulders up as if trying to make himself appear taller, older. Then he turned back to look at me. “We’re not going to see you anymore, are we, Millie?” he asked quietly.
I didn’t correct his manners, but I leaned down and gave him a hug as if that were an answer. Then I woke up David and Henry and quickly gathered our suitcase.
SHERIFF STREET was just on the other side of Delancey, and as we approached number 64, I noticed the outside of Ethel’s mother’s tenement building appeared grayer and grimmer than my own mother’s. I considered for a moment that maybe I shouldn’t leave the boys here to wait for Ethel. But I couldn’t take them with me to see Jake today at the Biltmore . . . or wherever we might go after. And besides, Ethel couldn’t possibly be much longer. Maybe Julie was being released and that’s what the holdup was. In which case, both their mother and father would come for the boys shortly. I’d already waited long enough, and I hoped that Jake had gotten my message, that he was there in the lobby of the Biltmore, waiting for me.
I knocked on the door, and after a few moments Mrs. Greenglass answered. I could see little resemblance to Ethel in her peaked face. None of Ethel’s ebullience, her charm, her warmth, appeared to have come from her mother. Mrs. Greenglass caught
sight of John and she narrowed her eyes.
“I’m Ethel and Julie’s neighbor,” I said. “Ethel asked me to watch the boys while she went to court today, but she hasn’t come back yet, and I’m afraid I can’t keep them any longer. Can you watch them? I’m sure she’ll be back soon.”
“Eh?” Mrs. Greenglass cocked her head to the side. “I wouldn’t be so sure. She refuses to talk. She’s going to burn with her good-for-nothing husband.”
I quickly rushed to cover Richie’s ears, but I wasn’t fast enough to avoid him hearing what she said. John looked down at his sneakers, and I noticed he was shuffling his feet together.
I couldn’t leave the children here with this woman. I couldn’t believe what she had just said in front of them. But she was their grandmother, and what other choice did I have? Ethel would be back soon. This was only for a very short time.
I heard a car pull up on the street behind us and I let go of Richie to instinctively grab for David, whose eyes wandered toward it. I didn’t turn to see if it was a taxicab but guessed it was as David’s eyes widened. I held on to him tightly so he wouldn’t run toward it.
John grabbed ahold of Richie’s hand, turned, and looked at me. His gaze was stoic now, the face of a man, and I missed that boy he once was. That boy who played his phonograph too loud and too late. It was as if the FBI had stolen the recklessness of his childhood along with the record his mother had made for him. As if his grandmother’s words had instantly transformed him, pushed him, into a maturity he hadn’t needed before. John looked away and he turned back to enter his grandmother’s house with his brother.
A horrible coldness seeped into my chest, making it hard to breathe. I sensed that Ethel wouldn’t want me to leave them here for however short a time. She’d watched David that entire time I was in the hospital after Henry was born and I owed her something. I owed her this much. Her children! As much as I wanted to leave right now, run to the subway and ride it to Grand Central Terminal City to find Jake, maybe I could telephone the Biltmore and tell them to tell him I would meet him later tonight. Or even tomorrow? I ignored Mr. Bergman’s voice in my head, reminding me to save myself. Ethel was my friend, and John and Richie were just children. Just sweet, innocent little boys. Ethel would not have abandoned Henry and David, I was certain.
“Wait,” I heard myself saying, but Mrs. Greenglass moved to shut the door as if she hadn’t heard me. “Wait,” I said again, and I began to run toward the door before it closed. But then I felt a hand on my shoulder, pulling me hard, and I stopped to turn around.
“Hello, Mildred,” Ed said.
I gasped and tried to pull away from him, but he held on so tightly to my shoulder that it hurt. “What are you doing here?” I tried to keep my voice even, though I could feel myself trembling.
“I went to the apartment and I saw the note you left on Ethel’s door.” He pointed to the suitcase that I’d left on the ground next to the carriage. “You are taking a trip?” His other hand still held tightly to my shoulder.
“Let go of me,” I said, trying to sound strong and certain. But I was sure Ed could hear the trembling in my voice, sense the fear that I felt jumbling my brain. What was going on? Why had Ed gone back to the apartment? Now? Today?
He pulled me closer to him as if we were in a dance. The only time we ever danced together was the night we were married. After the rabbi performed the small ceremony, Lena invited everyone to her cramped apartment, where she played Russian music on the phonograph and insisted Ed and I dance together while she took a photograph. You will want this to show your grandchildren, she’d insisted, and at the time I’d laughed, thinking the picture would be so schmaltzy I would never want to show it to anyone.
Now I could feel Ed’s breath against my neck. He smelled of soap and toothpaste, but I couldn’t detect even the slightest smell of vodka. “I’ve come here to save you,” he said.
“Save me?” I tried to suppress a laugh but couldn’t quite, and it came out as a strangled cry in my throat.
“Ethel has been arrested.”
“Arrested? I don’t believe you.”
“It’s the truth,” Ed said evenly.
“Arrested for what reason?” I still didn’t believe him. He was lying. He was a liar. Ethel had said so herself, hadn’t she?
“I don’t know,” Ed said. “For being married to Julius.”
“That makes no sense,” I said.
“As soon as I heard I came back to the apartment to save you, but you had already left.”
“Came back from where?” I demanded. “Where have you even been all this time?”
“I told you,” he said, his voice remaining calm and even, “getting us a future. Staying safe.” He hesitated. “Until today, I thought you would be safer here without me. But they arrested Ethel to get Julius to talk. And they will do the same for you.”
“What?” I could not make sense of what Ed was saying. “But he has nothing to say. Neither does she. And I certainly don’t.” I felt blood rushing to my brain as I thought about the paper from the television that I’d copied the other night. Did that make me guilty of something I didn’t even quite understand?
“Do you think they care?” Ed’s breath was warm on my neck, and he was suddenly breathing hard, but it made me feel chilled, feeling it against my skin, so close like that. “What do you think Jake is planning to do to you if you go to meet him now?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said as if I had no idea who Jake was, but I could hear my own ragged breathing now. How could Ed know? My mother had no idea, so there was no way she’d shared that with Lena.
“I know you’ve been talking to him recently. Maybe you even think you’ve become friends with him. Jake is good at playing games, no?” He laughed a little, but I kept my lips pressed tightly together and glanced at Henry. From the way he spoke, so casually and calmly, I was fairly certain Ed knew much less than he thought he did. “But he has been on me—on both of us—from the beginning. He can’t have me, so he now he is trying to get you.” I was unwilling to process or believe what Ed was saying.
“You’re wrong,” I said. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“Okay,” Ed said. “I hear the FBI chatter that a woman has been calling for Jake from a party line in Knickerbocker Village. It’s you or Ethel, and Ethel is in jail and you are standing here with a suitcase.” He was breathing hard, almost as if he’d been running, even though he was just standing here next to me. “You are just a pawn in his little game. Just like Ethel.” He finally let me go, so suddenly that I stumbled back and grabbed onto the carriage to steady myself. Henry began to cry, as my grabbing hold shook the carriage, and David stared at Ed, his eyes so wide it looked as though he might burst. “He has been after us the whole time,” Ed repeated.
“And why should he be after us?” I asked. “What have you done?”
Ed hesitated for another moment, and I thought he was going to tell me the truth, tell me everything. Then he said, “The less you know, the better. But you have to trust me on this, Mildred. Jake will arrest you.”
“No.” I shook my head, back and forth and back and forth, as if I could shake away the words Ed said. Ed couldn’t know what he was talking about. Jake was after Ed, he’d admitted that to me. But Jake loved me and David. And he would love Henry, too. He wanted us to be together. I thought about the paper tucked so carefully in my suitcase. I would give it to Jake, and he would make sure that Julie and Ethel—if Ed was even telling the truth—were let go. He’d make sure Ed was arrested for all of this.
I remembered Ethel’s warning: You can’t trust Jake, she’d said. Trust no one but yourself. The words echoed uneasily in my head now. Could I trust Jake? I wanted to so very badly. Jake had promised me that night in the Catskills that what we had done wasn’t a lie. But had he really meant it?
“I’ve got
us a car,” Ed said, pointing toward the street, “a Fleetmaster. Very reliable. We’ll get in it and drive over the bridge tonight into New Jersey. I have found us a very nice house, with very nice new names to live under, until this all blows over.”
“I’m not getting in the car,” I said. “And I don’t need a new name.”
“I am only trying to help you, Mildred. All I have ever wanted to do is to help you.”
That was a lie, too. I felt sure it was. But before I could say anything else, I heard a terrible sound from inside Ethel’s mother’s house, a scream like the cries of the feral cats that lived in the alley off Delancey Street, only louder, more horrible, and it seemed to be in John’s voice.
I grabbed David and ran back up to the door, and I knocked, then banged, on the door until finally Mrs. Greenglass opened it again. “You are still here?” She scowled at me.
“I think I should take the children with me,” I said breathlessly. “I’ll keep them until Ethel gets back.” I didn’t turn to look at Ed, though I swore I could feel his eyes on my back, an added heat to the humid night air.
“Ethel won’t be coming back,” Mrs. Greenglass said matter-of-factly. “She’s just called. She was arrested on her way back from testimony today.” She leaned in closer and she smelled like cabbage, and I had the sense she’d been in the middle of cooking dinner before I’d come here. Life was normal and then suddenly it wasn’t. “If I were you, I would run away from here and never look back. You don’t want nothing to do with my daughter and her lousy husband. You should pretend that you never even met them.”
Before I could protest, she slammed the door in my face. I felt Ed’s hand on my shoulder, gentler this time.
I turned. He had taken Henry out of his carriage and he was holding on to him, rocking him almost sweetly. So Ed was right when he’d said Ethel was arrested. Was Ed telling the truth about Jake, too? Was Jake really waiting at the Biltmore to arrest me, not take me away from all this? And if he was, what should happen to David and Henry?
The Hours Count Page 26
