Brooklyn Love (Crimson Romance)

by Yael Levy

  “It means I want to keep seeing you.”

  Ilana smiled and donned the jeweled necklace. “Me too!”

  Michael Kaufman strolled into the room and gave Macy an admiring nod at the sight of Ilana. He greeted her cordially, oozing Kaufman charm. “It’s so nice of you to stop by, Ilana. We’ve heard so much about you.”

  Ilana smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Kaufman. Macy has spoken so much of his loving family; it’s nice to meet you as well!”

  Michael chatted amiably with Ilana while they waited for Suri to join them.

  “Ma?” Macy called, wondering why his mother hadn’t come in. “Ma? Come meet my girlfriend, Ilana.”

  “Yes, dear, I’m coming.”

  As Suri walked into the room, Ilana turned to meet her. “Hi, Mrs. Kaufman. I’m Ilana,” the young woman said sweetly, extending her hand.

  Suri limply shook it. “Nice to meet you,” she said in a sickeningly sweet tone. “Where is your family from?”

  “Huh?” Ilana shook her head. “Israel.”

  Suri checked her nails for any chips. “No, before then.”

  “Iraq, actually. They had to emigrate after Israel was declared a state and Jews were no longer welcome in Arab lands.”

  Suri nodded. “It figures. That’s what happens when Jews are dark. Nobody wants them. That’s what happened to my grandfather — he was dark, so the Nazis knew he was Jewish and murdered him.”

  Ilana’s eyes widened as Macy coughed uncomfortably and stood beside her.

  “So what do your parents do?” Suri asked as she played with one of her rings.

  Ilana stepped back. “They’re teachers.”

  “Intellectuals,” Suri sighed. “How vulnerable.”

  Ilana stood at a loss for words, and Macy wasn’t sure why his mother was behaving this way.

  “Look, darlings, I really must take my nap. You know, I must have my beauty rest,” Suri said. She abruptly turned on her heel and walked out of the room.

  Frowning, Michael excused himself to see what was wrong with his wife.

  Macy turned beet-red at the snub. He didn’t understand what was eating Ma, but more so, he was embarrassed that Ilana had been treated so rudely.

  Ilana leaned over to Macy. “What did I do?” she asked.

  Macy shook his head. “It’s not you; don’t worry about it. Come on, let’s take some latkes and get out of here.” For the first time in his life, Macy felt distanced from his mother. He felt like a stranger in his own home.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Abe Shine paced his law office floor. He’d had a good rest during Chanukah, but Chanukah was weeks ago, and he felt as though he hadn’t taken any time off. He walked from the conference room to the reception room and back to his own room. He stared out his window from the top floor office of the Brooklyn building, looked at the bright sun kicking off the dizzying traffic below, and then shut the blinds completely. He pulled open his top drawer and took out an old cigar. He’d been trying to quit, but he’d already bitten his nails down so far that they bled. He lit up the cigar and took a deep puff.

  It was a good cigar. The best. Cuban.

  He’d gotten them from an old client. Michael’s client, really.

  Harry Green.

  Abe exhaled a circle in the air. The ring of smoke grew bigger and then evaporated into nothingness. He blew a few more.

  He got up, paced the hallway, and returned to his office.

  Michael sat in the client’s seat talking to Suri on Abe’s phone.

  “You have to get off the phone, Michael,” Abe wrote on a pad, throwing it in front of his partner.

  “Right. Okay.” Michael nodded and said his goodbyes.

  Abe slammed the door. “Michael, you didn’t listen to me.”

  Michael picked up the tuna sandwich he’d bought for lunch. “Shoot.”

  “The auditor was here.”

  Michael nodded. “I know.”

  “Why didn’t you listen to me? You had to keep working with Harry Green?”

  Michael calmly took a bite of his sandwich. “Harry’s a good guy, Abe.”

  Abe looked up at the ceiling. “Michael, Harry is a nice man, but he is also a shyster. He’s up to his armpits in crooked dealings. I know that. You know that. Everyone knows that.”

  Michael nodded. “And now the Feds know that.”

  Abe poked his cigar at Michael like a dart. “If you have been covering for him, Michael, you are going down.”

  Michael sighed. “Why? As his legal counsel, I am entitled to privileged information.”

  Abe pounded his fist on his desk. “Are you insane? Privileged information? I told you to have nothing to do with him. He’s bad news.”

  “He pays his bills, Abe.”

  “Who needs this aggravation? Your privileged information is going to leave a paper trail to your involvement in his dealings.” While Abe was furious, he was also relieved that he and Michael had agreed to keep some of their clients separate. At least Abe Shine had nothing to do with Harry Green.

  Michael shrugged. “So he laundered Colombian drug money. Big deal. People do it every day.”

  “I told you not to deal with him, Michael. It was all wrong. Even your son knew to leave him behind once he found out. What are you going to tell Aryeh when he finds out that you knew about this?”

  The phone rang.

  Abe let it ring.

  Michael stared at him. “Don’t you want to get that call?”

  Reluctantly Abe picked up the phone.

  “Abe, that daughter of yours is driving me crazy!” Debby yelled on the other end.

  Abe looked at Michael. “I need this? Like a hole in the head.”

  “I can’t handle all her hysterics,” Debby went on. “She loves him. She hates him. She wants to marry him. She wants to fly to Disneyland and join the circus. Abe, we have to get away.”

  “Dear, this isn’t a good time.” Abe flipped through the files he had on Green.

  “Abe, it’s not a good time for me, either. I’m marrying off a daughter, my baby, and I can’t handle all this pressure. Daniel’s mother wants Rachel to go back to that fancy-shmancy shop in the city. Rachel says she hates all the flowers and doesn’t want to marry Daniel but will do it so I stop pushing her. I need this? I have a life, too, Abe Shine. I have clients to take care of, a house to run.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “What’s ‘yes, dear’? Abe — I think I’m having a nervous breakdown!”

  “So what do you suggest?”

  “I want a little trip. Just to Miami Beach for a few days.”

  “Every time we go to Florida, you spend most of your time at Loehmann’s. Can’t you do that from here and save the flight?”

  “Oh please, Abe! I want to be near the ocean.”

  “But you hate swimming.”

  “Stop it, Abe! You know I like to look at the water.”

  “You know I can’t take any time off right now. We’ll go in a month or two,” Abe said, quietly adding, “I think you’re going to give me a nervous breakdown.” Debby was shouting again, and he held the phone away from his ear.

  Michael sat back in his chair and laughed.

  “We’ll talk about it at home, dear,” Abe said, and hung up.

  Michael ran his fingers through his thinning black hair. “It isn’t easy, huh, partner?”

  Abe shook his head. “The Feds are preparing subpoenas, Michael. It’s only a matter of time.”

  Michael nodded. “I know.”

  “That’s it? That’s all you can say?”

  Michael sighed. “You win some, you lose some.”

  • • •

  Eli sat in a plastic chair overlooking the huge glass windows w
hile Leah paced the corridor of the airport, watching the airplanes take off and land, take off and land. Throngs of people entered and departed from the airport’s lobby, but Leah focused only on the airplanes.

  If I accept the interview and get into Stanford, we will have to move to California, she thought. What do I tell Eli? She didn’t know if she wanted to.

  Her fiancé sat in a chair, his shoes sticky from the spilled soda of careless passengers, which was glued onto the floor. He watched his Leah pace furiously up and down the corridor. “Leah, what is it?”

  Leah bit her fingernails. “How do you feel about Kaplinsky’s yeshiva?” she asked finally.

  “I love it. It’s the best yeshiva in the whole world.”

  Leah swallowed. “What about learning in a yeshiva in California? Could you?”

  Their families had already committed to their life together in Brooklyn. But maybe she could have more?

  Eli tried to unglue his feet from the sticky floor where he sat. “What’s up?”

  Could she dream of moving away from Brooklyn and pursuing her goals or did she need to stay tethered to their community so that Eli could follow his? “I need to know. Could you learn as well away from Brooklyn, like you do in Kaplinsky’s?”

  Throngs of tourists walked past, and Leah held her arms folded against her chest. And then what? How would I support Eli? How could I continue studying — when I have to prepare to care for a family?

  Eli took a sip of his Coke. “Leah, you’re usually intense, which is awesome, but I don’t get why you seem so on edge.”

  Leah shook her head. She was used to pushing hard for her dreams only to be shot down at best, made fun of and talked about at worst. She’d already let Eli into her heart — and it was nice feeling for once that someone was on her team. But she wasn’t ready to let Eli Feldman, no matter how sweet he was, get into her head. She needed freedom to make her own decisions.

  Leah stopped pacing and looked Eli in the eye. “I need to know this. Does Kaplinsky give you an environment that allows you to learn as best as possible?”

  Eli hesitated. “Yes. Kaplinsky is the best yeshiva for me. My study partners are perfect. It took me years to cultivate just the right ones. The learning at Kaplinsky is unparalleled.”

  Must she choose? Must it be Eli’s intellectual accomplishments — or her own?

  “It’s worth any sacrifice to learn Torah at Kaplinsky’s yeshiva?” she asked, her voice cracking.

  “I believe so,” he said and stood up from the sticky chair. “I’m willing to sacrifice almost anything to be privileged to learn Torah there.” He began to pace beside his future bride.

  Foolish dream — me a scholar? Of course it’s a choice. It’s always a choice. Our families can’t help out if we leave Brooklyn. And he can’t join his parents’ business if we leave. There’s no way to support both of us studying — and his learning isn’t purely intellectual. It’s for the benefit of knowing how to live a moral life. A good and respectable life. It’s for the betterment of humanity. Anyway, there are plenty of schools in New York. We’ll just have to stick to the plan.

  “That’s it, then,” Leah said, watching a plane take off and soar. She wondered if it was flying to Palo Alto.

  “What are you thinking? Why all these questions, Leah?”

  She shook her head. “No reason.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Shimshon’s father, Rabbi Izzy, and his wife Zipora were concerned that their son was so head over heels about this girl. She wasn’t the virtuous one his grandmother had chosen for him; this was the younger sister, whom they hadn’t properly checked out yet. Shimshon had announced that he was planning to get engaged to her, though they knew little about her. The few things they’d unearthed about Shayna sounded iffy. Actually, quite negative.

  “She likes things her own way.”

  “She can be manipulative at times.”

  “She has a temper.”

  And that was from people who liked her.

  Shimshon forcefully asserted himself on this matter:

  “Shayna is my basherte. The other half of my soul. The one for me.”

  He couldn’t stop praising her virtues. “Ma! She is warm and sweet, just like you!”

  His parents tried hard to find the qualities Shimshon raved about. But the more they got to know her, the more they disliked her.

  “She may be pretty to look at, but she strikes me as a demanding, shallow, spoiled child!” Zipora said to her husband.

  “If he’s crazy about her, there must be something to her,” the rabbi said, though dubiously. “Why is he making this choice?” the rabbi quietly asked his wife, changing his tone. “Were we too hard on him? Did we push him too far, too much?”

  His wife shook her head. “We didn’t push Shimshon to be who he is. It was self-propelled.”

  The rabbi sighed. “I’m not keen on this match, but since she’s a Jewish girl from a nice family, I have no grounds to veto the decision.”

  Zipora took Shayna shopping for the traditional wedding present of a silver candelabrum to hold the Sabbath candles.

  “Maybe I’ll see better qualities when I spend more time with her,” Zipora had confided in her husband.

  But that was not to be. While Brooklyn girls had to deal with the unceasing pressures in the dating business, at least their families got to know the boy as their relationships progressed. The boy’s family only got to meet the girl after they were engaged — or, in other words, when it was too late.

  “This is nice,” Shayna said in the silver shop as she fingered an expensive candelabrum. “But I’ll need two — the second leichter should match the original, for when our family grows.”

  “But I got all my married children one candelabrum,” Zipora said. “It wouldn’t be fair to them if I buy you two.”

  “But you must!” Shayna argued. “This is what Shimshon would want!”

  “I could always get you another one a few years down the line, when you, God willing, have children to light candles for,” Zipora said.

  “Why did you waste my time here if you didn’t want to get me what I want?” Shayna said at the top of her voice in front of everyone in the store.

  Zipora flushed red with embarrassment. “Shayna, I am prepared to purchase this model as well as the matching tray. But I cannot buy you anything else at this time.”

  “Fine. So I’ll take it then.” Shayna sulked over her two-thousand-dollar gift. And Shimshon Kaplinsky only had praise for his adorable future wife.

  • • •

  Hindy sat at her wooden desk in the dimly lit basement. She was doing Aryeh’s accounting as she clicked away on her calculator, faster and faster every minute.

  She smelled a cloud of heavy perfume coming down the stairs to her basement office.

  “Oh, Hindy, so early today?” Suri greeted her.

  The only condition Hindy’s parents had set to allow her to work with Aryeh in his basement was that Mrs. Kaufman be present. They didn’t want the working conditions to be immodest.

  At first Suri had laughed. “Do the Goldfarbs think my handsome son would attack their daughter?”

  Hindy knew what she meant: their ugly daughter. But Suri seemed to enjoy popping into the office. She’d told Hindy that it brought her back to the time when she used to help out Michael, and how she had liked seeing their business grow, knowing that her contributions helped propel it along.

  Hindy rolled her chair back on the gray carpeting and glanced at the clock that hung on freshly painted walls. It wasn’t quite nine in the morning, and Hindy was surprised to see Suri awake at that hour, let alone fully dressed. She wondered what Suri’s ulterior motive could possibly be.

  “I have to make some copies.” Suri used the tips of her fingers to place the papers
in the printer/copier, avoiding abuse to her long, manicured nails. “I heard your sister looked stunning at her engagement party.”

  Even though Suri clearly just wanted to chat, to Hindy, any word out of this woman’s mouth sounded like an insult. She could almost hear what Suri was probably thinking: Your sister is pretty and getting married — and you, Hindy, are ugly and single. Which is why we keep you in the basement, working for my son.

  “Darn. Out of ink.” Suri bent down and opened the printer, hoping to fix it.

  Hindy gazed in amazement; she’d never seen Suri work that hard before. Her sudden movement shifted her perfume cloud, and some molecules got caught in Hindy’s nose; she sneezed.

  “Gesundheit!” Suri looked up to see Hindy typing into the Excel spreadsheet at the speed of light. “When is she getting married?” she asked.

  “This coming spring after Purim, God willing,” Hindy replied as she continued working.

  “That sister is a real beauty. She caught that Kaplinsky boy and she’s going to look gorgeous at the wedding,” Suri remarked as Hindy cringed inside. “It’s a shame you couldn’t go out with such a guy.”

  Normally polite, Hindy had had enough. “I did go out with such a guy,” she blurted, immediately sorry for her indiscretion.

  “Really? How?” Suri asked, obviously surprised at such an admission from this plain girl who worked in her basement like a mole.

  Hindy stopped working. “I’d visited his grandmother in the hospital during our weekly visits to the sick. She set us up.”

  Suri looked Hindy up and down. “You know, my friend Sharon has a single son. Maybe you’d like to meet him?”

  Hindy was intrigued. Dates came from the oddest places. “Thank you, Mrs. Kaufman. But you know, I only date boys who are in learning.”

  “Sharon’s boy is learning. He’s studying for the rabbinate up at Yeshiva University. He’s not too good looking. But he’s very sweet; he learns all the time.”

  Hindy smiled.

  “I’ll go call Sharon right now!” Suri jumped as high as she could in her spiked heels and scurried upstairs to set up this match.