The Singing Fire

by Lilian Nattel

  “So let him go home. Next week we’ll have a big order and we’ll all be working fourteen hours a day.”

  “I don’t know about next week,” Nathan said. When he frowned, his lips thinned, his jaw clenched. A thread fell from his beard. “I only know about today. We can finish the order tonight and get another tomorrow. Am I by myself here or do I have a wife?”

  “All right. Don’t shout. I’ll be there in a minute.” Nehama put the book carefully on a shelf.

  Petticoat Lane

  When the busy season came, there were wage packets to spend and in the Lane sunlight glinted on second-, third-, and fourth-hand treasures: chipped china shepherdesses, shaving boxes, stuffed birds, bracelets, bootjacks, dominoes, hatpins, chessboards, earrings, butchers’ steel, saws, accordions, rusted pistols, mango boas, pins set in pink paper a yard long. Steam rose from baked potatoes and fried fish, and it was as delicious as truffles to people that ate out of a twist of newspaper in the street. Everywhere jackets and dresses hung on rails above the crowd like spirits taking in the excitement while sellers reached up with their metal poles to bring down the perfect fit.

  “COATS LIKE NEW! LADIES’ DRESSES!”

  “CORSETS MADE FROM THE BONES OF THE LEVIATHAN!”

  Nehama was looking through the bookseller’s barrow. When she came home with a purchase, Nathan would tease her again. Another book? Who knew I married a scholar? Thank God my father is in the heim and doesn’t know he ought to provide board for you. She made her choice by the feel of the cover. Pride and Prejudice it was called, and the bookseller assured her it was the finest quality. Nehama’s middle sister had books like this. Of course the leather binding was worn and there was a page or two missing, but that was nothing to complain about—weren’t there still several hundred perfectly good pages?

  “COWCUMBERS. LOVELY COWCUMBERS!”

  “FINE WARNUTS, ALL CRACKED!”

  Pious Pearl the beigel lady sat on a crate like an empress surrounded by her sacks of beigels. She wore a shawl over her head because bonnets were for the rich, and at her feet there was a zinc pail with coke embers to keep her warm. “A blessing on you, missus. You should live till a hundred and twenty. And what’s wrong with you, mister, that you don’t buy nothing of an old woman? May all your limbs wither. May your teeth rot.”

  “And how about a blessing for me?” Nehama asked.

  “Maybe yes, maybe no. You’ll take …”

  “A dozen,” Nehama said.

  “Hmm.” Pious Pearl rubbed some vodka on a sore tooth. Then she took a drink. If it didn’t help on the outside, maybe it would on the inside. The neighbors were scandalized: a Jew drinking—and a woman, yet? But Nehama liked her.

  “A copper fer a man what’s blind and lame …”

  “See the strong man, only a penny!”

  “What do you have in there?” Pious Pearl asked as she put the beigels into Nehama’s basket.

  “A book for my new lodger. She wants to read out loud while we sew.”

  “Whose idea is that?”

  “Mine,” Nehama said.

  “It’s not a bad thing to have someone read while you work. All the cigar makers do it. But a book with a leather cover? You’re getting too fine, Nehama. Watch out or you’ll find yourself growing upside down like an onion, with your head in the dirt and your feet in the air.” She turned to the next customer. “Beigels! Beigels! A blessing on you, mister.”

  “FISH ALL ALIVE. FRESH FOR SHOBBOS!”

  “SMOKED FISH. BETTER THAN FRESH!”

  Nehama’s grandmother used to shop like this in the old market in Plotsk, taking with her the oldest sister and teaching her how to figure sums in her head so she could make a good bargain. Rivka used to keep track of the money that the Women’s Singing Society had in the bank, for it wasn’t long before the glass jar became full. In a little book, she recorded how much was given out for a loan or when someone’s husband became sick or, God forbid, for a burial. Hinda, the second sister, baked with Mama every Thursday so that the women could have honey cake with their tea. The women never sang “bai-bai-bai-bai” like religious men in their ecstatic trances. They sang about the bad and the good things in life, and everything was revealed in their singing. Even the house burning, even the police station, the bad street, and the lost child, even playing at love in the cemetery. There’s no “bai-bai-bai” for women, Grandma Nehama used to say. Not even after the grave. But that’s no reason not to sing. She was the one who saved money for the middle sisters to go to school. They tried to teach Grandma Nehama to read Russian—there were no books yet in Yiddish—but it was too hard and she gave up. If only I was thirty years younger, she’d say. This was the story the sisters would tell Nehama while they hung their laundry in the courtyard. There was no singing society after you were born, they said. Mama was in mourning and she wouldn’t have it.

  Nehama was humming as she pushed her way past the fruit stall and waved to Minnie, who was struggling with the baby in one arm and her little son pulling at her sleeve for a copper to get a baked potato. “Finally I found you,” she said to Nehama. “It’s so crowded today someone must be giving out money. Look, isn’t this a beautiful fish?”

  Nehama unwrapped a corner of the newspaper to poke at it. “How much?”

  “Not too much considering that this is the best.” In the tightly wound mass of Minnie’s hair, a comb with paste jewels caught the sun. “Here, let me put the fish in your basket. What’s this? Not another book.”

  “It was very cheap,” Nehama said, catching Minnie’s son by the shirt as he tried to dart away after some glittering thing.

  “So all of a sudden you’re wanting to be a shayner?” She meant one of the fine people. Lawyers and owners of factories. People who didn’t use their own hands like the proster, the plain working people. “I’m worried about you, Nehama. You have a lodger from who knows where and you look at her like you have to beg a piece of bread from her. You listen to me. You have nothing to be ashamed of in front of her.”

  “Who’s ashamed?” Nehama asked nonchalantly. Let Minnie watch someone else. A free person’s shame should be private. “Is it a sin to read a book? Show me where it’s written.”

  “I’m not talking about books. I want to know why you think so much of her. A shayner sticks her nose where it doesn’t belong and only trouble comes from it. You remember the lady visitor who came to the house yesterday? The Jewish Board of Guardians sent her. She told me that my children are dirty and they’ll get sick if they don’t have baths. Let her send her maid with a tub and some water. As if I don’t care about my babies.” Minnie put a copper into the outstretched hand of a beggar.

  “I don’t think anything of Mrs. Levy.” Nehama stopped at a stall, fingering the hat with feathers and flowers so Minnie wouldn’t see the sadness in her eyes. “She pays the rent and for free I can learn something.”

  “From her? Listen to me. I have my own door and a husband that isn’t just a name. For a widow and an orphan she’s not very sad, your Mrs. Levy. Do you really believe anything she says?”

  “Not for a minute. But God doesn’t care if she lies. She’s having a baby, just the same.”

  “Aah. I knew it. Just remember the old saying: In front of a man whose father was hanged, don’t talk about hanging a picture. You shouldn’t have a lodger who’s pregnant. Let her board somewhere else.”

  “What do you think would happen if I sent her away? Anything, I’m telling you. She’s too young. She doesn’t deserve it. Tell me, does she?” Nehama shielded her eyes from the sun so that she could see her friend’s face.

  “I don’t know what she deserves, but she’s a shayner. She can pay for whatever she wants in life. Even the angel of death can be paid off.”

  “If she doesn’t lose everything first. I’m only doing for her what you did for me.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Minnie said. “We were girls together. But I’ll tell you what I need now. A new hat. And when will I get
it? Don’t ask. Right now I want some bones for soup. Come on.” She put her arm through Nehama’s, and they went to look at bones.

  “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, LOOK AT THIS VIAL OF BLOOD. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR HEART WHEN IT IS EXPOSED TO THE FOGS OF LONDON. BUT ALL IS NOT LOST, MY FRIENDS. THERE IS A REMEDY, IMPORTED FROM THE ORIENT …”

  Frying Pan Alley

  It was a cold autumn, the coldest in years, and people were saying that the river might freeze. Even ghosts were staying indoors. Pubs did a brisk business, so you might see a Jewish ghost or two there among the bright colors and warm lamps. But mostly they kept to the tailoring workshops among their landsmann, where it was crowded enough to stay warm though yellow fog snuck through the cracks and the sound of coughing was all the song you could hear. The ghost of the first Mrs. Rosenberg was perched on the stove among the coals heating for the pressing iron. Emilia sat on the stool provided for her in the workshop. She didn’t mind reading aloud. It passed the time. “Pride and Prejudice. Chapter fifty-seven,” she said.

  Between the pile of finished jackets and the piles of pieces, Nehama was sweating under the gas jets, Minnie beside her and Nathan working opposite. Emilia kept a wary eye on him, the landlord. In a small room like this one, a person didn’t have much room to duck if something got thrown. If Nathan hadn’t yet, he must be saving up his temper. Even her father had once gone three months without throwing anything.

  Emilia’s stool was jammed between the sewing table on one side and the pressing table on the other, and it was a wonder that she wasn’t scorched when Lazar passed by with coals for his iron. At the pressing table, his iron hissed as he pressed a temporary shape into the cheap jackets. There was also a learner helping out, a middle-aged man named Itzik, newly arrived and hoping to send for his family later. He mopped his brow with his cap, the crown of his head covered by a black yarmulkeh and several long hairs combed over the bald parts. A word of English he didn’t speak, and while Emilia read aloud he kept asking in Yiddish, “What? What?”

  “Shh, Itzik. We’re at the part where the girl’s sister has run off and no one knows what’s become of her,” Nehama said. “The uncle is talking. Let me listen and I’ll tell you.”

  Emilia read in a deep voice meant to be the uncle’s: “‘It appears to me so very unlikely that any young man should form such a design against a girl who is by no means unprotected or friendless …’”

  “That’s just it,” Minnie interrupted in Yiddish for their new hand’s benefit. “A person without a friend is grass for the cow.”

  “I don’t know from cows,” Itzik said. “But sewing for nothing isn’t a life for a human being. That I can tell you.”

  “You’re a learner.” Nathan frowned. “You want to learn somewhere else, be my guest. But if you’re in my workshop then you keep quiet and work.”

  “Never mind that. I want to hear how the story comes out,” Nehama said. “Go on.”

  Emilia sneezed and blew her nose, then tucked her handkerchief into her sleeve. “‘Well, then,’” she continued reading, “‘supposing them to be in London, they may be there, though for the purpose of concealment, for no more exceptionable purpose. It is not likely that money should be very abundant on either side; and it might strike them that they could be more economically though less expeditiously, married in London than in Scotland—’”

  “Is something happening in London?” Itzik asked.

  “Of course, London,” Nehama said. “Is there somewhere that the evil inclination is stronger?”

  It was always like this when Emilia read, more interruptions than story. The fog must sweep away any sense of politeness. “Now it’s the older sister who’s answering,” she informed them, “the sensible one.”

  “The older sister is always the sensible one,” Nehama said, rolling her eyes.

  “What? What?” Itzik asked.

  Emilia blew her nose again. It was red and raw and most unattractive. She glanced at her landlord, scowling as he counted the number of finished jackets.

  “Go on,” Nehama insisted.

  “‘Why all the secrecy?’” she read. “‘Why any fear of detection? Why must their marriage be private? Oh no, no, this is not likely. His most particular friend, you see by Jane’s account, was persuaded of his never intending to marry her—’”

  “Jane?” Itzik asked.

  “Another sister,” Nehama said.

  “Is there no end to sisters?” Itzik shook his head.

  “Never,” Nehama answered.

  “Listen to me. This should be a play,” Lazar said. “I’d call it The Anti-Semite.”

  “But there’s no anti-Semite in the story,” Minnie said. “Not even any Jews.”

  “Ah, you have to know how to dramatize literature,” Lazar said, turning the jacket over and pressing down the seams. “In the play, they would all be Jews. Except for the handsome captain that lured the sister away. But the mother in the book …” He shook his head. “Who could imagine someone so ridiculous? No, in my play she’ll know what to do. A Jewish mother always knows.”

  “My husband, the Shakespeare,” Minnie said. “Then you need a ghost for your play.”

  “All right, I’ll give you a ghost. But we have to have a stepmother. A wicked stepmother.” Lazar quickly lifted his iron as the smell of burning wool rose up. Crestfallen, he put the ruined jacket aside.

  “Watch what you’re doing! Five bob burnt up. You think a tailor pisses gold?” Nathan took the book from Emilia’s hand and slapped it on the table beside his machine. “Enough already. No one says another word until the order is finished.”

  Emilia sat very still, because when your landlord is angry, it’s best not to be noticed.

  But after a few minutes of needles whirring and no conversation, Nehama spoke up as if he hadn’t said anything at all. “Why should the stepmother be wicked?” she asked.

  “Didn’t you hear me say ‘no talking’?” Nathan shouted. “You think I meant the walls?”

  “If the walls can operate a sewing machine, then you tell them to be quiet,” Nehama said.

  Why did she have to argue? It only aggravated the situation. Now it would come. The accusations, a slap, a thrown pair of scissors. Emilia blinked, her eyes filling with tears. It was from the heat, only the heat.

  “A wall is for shouting at,” Nehama said. “Not a wife. You think I’m a wall, Nathan? Tell me right now.”

  He threw a jacket across the table. “What am I supposed to do with this? The sleeve is crooked. You think we make slop here? This is a stock shop. I promised the wholesaler the order tomorrow.”

  “Fine, Mr. Boss. Everyone stays until the order is finished. But if you want me, too, then just remember that a grave is quiet, not a person.” She gave her husband a little smile as she ripped out the sleeve of the jacket.

  Nathan caught her eye; he shrugged. “Wives! One is more than enough for me, let me tell you.”

  That was it? A shrug? Emilia turned to the ghost of the first wife for an explanation, but she just stood in the doorway, watching while Emilia’s heart beat faster and faster.

  “Just listen,” Nehama said as she started up her sewing machine. “If you want me to see your play, Lazar, the stepmother should be the heroine. You think it’s easy to be a second wife?”

  “All right,” Lazar said. “A ghost and a nice stepmother. Anything else? Tell me now, because later I’m not adding one thing.”

  “Mrs. Levy—what do you say?” Nehama asked.

  Emilia glanced at Nathan, but he was just putting another spool of thread in his machine. Treadles were pumping, needles flying up and down, the iron thumping as Lazar flung jacket after jacket onto the pile. “The second wife is hard done by,” Emilia said to Nehama, as if they were writing the play together and could make it any way they liked. “She can’t bear her husband’s cruelty.”

  “No, that’s not how it goes,” Nehama said.

  “What do you mean, no?”

  Nehama pum
ped faster. A hem on one side. A hem on the other. “The husband is all right. He’s good to her. But there’s a child.”

  “Well, yes. A child left behind. The child of the first husband,” Emilia said. The stove must be overheating. Her face was flushed.

  “From the first wife,” Nehama said. “And the baby’s life is saved by the stepmother, who nurses her and loves her most among all her children. And when the child grows up and becomes a mother herself, she has daughters—”

  “How many generations do you think I can squeeze into one little play?” Lazar asked. But the women were looking at each other as if they didn’t hear him, for together they were making a play that would tell the most important story.

  “Only one daughter,” Emilia said. “Who can’t bear it anymore.”

  “Not another minute,” Nehama conceded. “She has to make a life for herself. Even if it isn’t easy.”

  “Why does it have to be so hard? It isn’t fair,” Emilia said. And Nehama was nodding as if she knew it, too. But how could anyone here understand?

  “Aah. I see what’s going on,” Minnie said. “You need me to straighten this out, my friends. You’re thinking of a husband for our Mrs. Levy.” She clapped her hands. “And I have just the thing in mind. A tanner of sheepskins. I see him all the time, he buys the dog dreck for tanning from the widow that lives in the cellar across the way. Or if you don’t mind children, there’s the pawnbroker. It’s a miracle that he has enough room for all of them above the shop. Where are you going, Mrs. Levy? Don’t go after her, Nehama. You can’t see anything out there, it’s no use …”

  In the alley Emilia couldn’t tell one side of the street from the other as she tried to get a breath of air and see some kind of future in the yellow fog. It smothered the clamor of the street, the noise of barrows, and the testing of bells in the foundry, so faint that they sounded indistinguishable from the landlady calling her name. So how could she know that they were separated by just a few steps?