In the street the old woman took the cloth of gold from her head and threw it into the sky. There it drifted like feathers around the moon and the stars.
The Horn and Plenty
Tradition says that in the beginning there was only God. Then came the tzim-tzum. The Holy One withdrew to make space for creation, though it left Him lonely and it left us lonely, separated from each other. The feminine aspect of God didn’t go, but stayed with us in our exile, and She, the divine presence among living beings, is called the Shekhina. She sings and cries and comforts us with her broken wing as she is also limited by the world of imperfect stuff. For instance, a faded sign swinging on one rusted bolt.
“Listen to me,” Nehama said. “If there’s any kind of trouble, let me talk.”
“Better you should leave it to me. This isn’t the Jewish Board of Guardians; no one’s giving out crutches for Pious Pearl.”
“I know what there is to be afraid of,” she said.
He stopped to look at her. What he saw, she had no time to think about.
The door in the blind street opened, and whoever took a step passed through it into a warmth that hadn’t changed in twenty-five years, though the long trestle tables were gone. Instead there were three-legged stools and round tables, and on the walls, between the posters of music hall stars, there were framed advertisements in red and silver, “Fine Old Glenlivet,” and “Dunville’s V & R Old Irish Whiskey.” The map of London on the left wall was still behind cracked glass, and the men tossing an iron ring missed the hook as often as not. The talk among them was the same as it had always been.
“Got me a piece of iron bedstead. A hook for cutting and a thicker end for coshing. You want something like that. Cut old Neddy’s ear right off, I did.”
“It’s the knack, not the gear, mate. Sent that bloke from the Old Nichol to the infirmary with naught but a bit of bottle. His scalp come right off.”
Behind the counter stood the barman, jaw like a horse’s, arms as thin and hard as iron rods, wearing a buttoned vest and rolled-up sleeves, a checked neckerchief knotted inside his collar. Just like the barmaid of twenty-five years ago, he filled glasses with a friendliness that could turn mean in an instant, and he kept order with a butcher’s mallet.
“It’s our little Jew,” he called to Nathan. “You’re getting an early start tonight. What’ll it be, then?”
“A short drop of something,” Nathan said, holding on to Nehama’s arm with his one good hand. Near the counter stood women with their children, and among them was no one that Nehama could still recognize.
“Better learn English, mate.” The barman laughed.
“Too bad I’m born a foreigner,” Nathan said, “but I lives with the handicap, don’t I?” and he winked as he took the glass in the crook of his right elbow, leaving the left hand free to put some coins on the counter and take Nehama’s arm again.
He was pushing his way deftly between the men playing draughts and drinking at the round tables as if he was the one that knew this place instead of her. “Careful,” he whispered in Yiddish. “One or two hands doesn’t matter. A man that starts up something here ends his day in the infirmary, and if he’s a Jew, then in the morgue.”
“I know where I am, better than you think.” She looked to left and right, scanning the tables. She couldn’t see over the heads of men playing Ringing the Bull, but she knew what was there as surely as if she wore a crown of snakes that could see in the night. The darts flew back. Someone chanted, “Guy, guy, guy, Stick him up on high, Hang him on a lamppost, And leave him there to die.”
“You hear, Nathan?”
“Tomorrow you’ll forget everything,” he said.
She shook her head. “Hell doesn’t have an end.”
“You’re mistaken, Nehameleh. Hell, I know. Here it’s much brighter, though I have to admit it stinks the same. Never mind. Just remember, where you go, I go.”
The pub was long and narrow, the distance from front to back just as far as she remembered. The smoke was thicker than the fog outside, and in the very back of the pub, farthest from the entrance that blew open and closed, the smoke was thickest of all. The Squire’s table was there in its place next to the door marked PRIVAT. She could hear a voice singing, and she was afraid. It sounded like Sally; soon she’d hear her own younger voice joining in.
The Squire had got old but even dead would not be old enough; her heart beat just as hard as if he could still stand her in front of a mirror. Beside him stood a shaggy man with an accordion, and on the other side a man wearing a soldier’s cap was drinking ale at his table. The Squire had a fourpenny cigar stuck in his mouth; in his hands flashed knitting needles trailing silver wool across the table. The flaming gas jets burned while she saw Minnie’s daughter huddled against the back door, and standing on the table her own daughter singing:
My cap is froze unto my head
My heart is like a lump of lead
Oh let me in, the soldier cried
It’s a cold haily night of rain.
Gittel was truly hers, and hell was laughing as the Squire put down his knitting to stroke her leg. And if Nathan weren’t there to say “Careful!” in her ear and hold on to her arm, Nehama would have thrown herself at the Squire, who was not a hasty man but conducted beatings with a thoroughness that was occasionally overzealous.
She looked up at Gittel. Her girl looked down, a wobbly smile on her face as their eyes met. She was holding the hem of her skirt to make a bowl for the coins. Her neck was as red as if it had been painted. How it must itch.
Clapping her hands to keep them from shaking, Nehama began to sing, too.
Your dad and mum are fast asleep,
Which makes me under your window creep,
The doors and windows they do creak.
I dare not let you in, oh.
Oh let me in, the soldier cried,
And blest the cold night of rain.
She needed to get closer to her daughter, even if it meant that she pushed past the man with the tattooed arms and the tattered uniform and stood next to the Squire, his shoulder brushing her hips. His mouth was old and fallen in, his forehead marked with liver spots. She remembered the smell of the grease he’d used to keep his lips and hands from getting chapped, and it made her as sick as if she could smell it now.
“Give us another song,” the Squire said. His face was old, but in his boot he would have a knife.
Nehama reached her arms up to catch Gittel by the waist and swing her down. Money clattered to the ground.
“Mama—you let the coins fall! I’m not finished.”
“You have school tomorrow,” Nehama said, as if calling Gittel in from jumping rope in the alley. “You had your fun. Now it’s home with you and not any cheek.”
“Wait,” the Squire said, putting his hand on Nehama’s arm. “I know you.”
“And me, sir.” Nathan put his glass of gin in front of the Squire. “You know me. I sell coffee, though I’m sure you have no want of that, do you? This is my wife,” he said, maneuvering himself between Nehama and the Squire. “No doubt you seen her with me. A seamstress, she is. Done nothing but sew since she were two. Maybe your friend here could stand to have his uniform repaired. Anytime, sir. Anytime.”
Gittel was picking up the coins. Nehama took the money from her and laid it on the table. “Stand you a pot, mister, for putting up with my naughty girl.” Her voice was choked; she’d have liked to shove his knitting needles through his throat.
“Get me a drop of Glenlivet,” the Squire said to the man dressed like a soldier. “It’s a windy night. I want something warm.” The accordionist struck up. What he played made the Squire grimace, for he was drunk enough to hear the dead that were singing.
A person can lose her sense of smell when the force of her life asserts itself against the evil strangling it, and the strength of her life can be such that it draws out even the voice of the dead. Nehama could hear her grandmother singing; if she looked back she’
d have seen her wearing a cameo brooch, but Nehama didn’t turn around. Instead she held her daughter’s hand, humming as her grandmother sang:
The house is in shadow, the street is in gloom,
Wild burns the fire with a crackling song
In the wind, the wind, the fervent wind
It can’t be seen, yet it can be known.
Nehama pushed her daughter before her through the crowd. And though her shoulders twitched, expecting a hand to pull her back any minute, she didn’t look to see what had happened to the guy in its fancy dress. If she did, she might turn to salt like Lot’s wife, who looked back at Sodom burning with God’s wrath.
“What about the guy, Mama? I need it for the bonfire.”
“From you, not a word or you won’t sit for a week,” Nehama said in a low voice. Lot’s wife had daughters too. They were sacrificed to protect the lives of strangers. A mother that saw that wouldn’t mind becoming salt. But Nehama, she was black pepper.
The Jews’ Free School
The windows of the Great Hall were filled with leaded lights and, above the platform, stained glass bore the arms of Lord Rothschild, who had provided funds for the new wing. It fronted on Petticoat Lane, and the speakers had to shout above the noise of horses clomping and wheels grinding on the wooden paving outside while the one-man band made his own Guy Fawkes concert with drum, cymbals, and harmonica. There had been a tour of the new wing, with its scientific laboratory and drill hall, the ladies nodding in approval while they held scented handkerchiefs to block the smell of chickens from the slaughterhouse, which generously shared well-fed flies with the school. One of them buzzed around the portrait of Mr. Angel, set on an easel to the left of the podium.
During the tribute this evening, the portrait would be presented to the school by Mr. Abraham, who had painted Mr. Angel as Moses carrying the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. One of the trustees had thought it irreverent, and there’d been talk of his withdrawing his financial support. Much discussion had ensued among the Bloomsbury artists, but in the end Harriet had persuaded her husband that integrity and money might be reconciled, and so he’d painted the trustee’s face onto the figure of Aaron, the brother of Moses. The painting was then titled In Each Generation, and the trustees unanimously agreed that nothing could be more fitting. The trustees, the new headmaster, and the speaking guests sat in a row on the other side of the podium. The men wore tailcoats, the headmistress of the girls’ department a high-necked gown. Jacob’s pocket bulged where he’d stuck his pipe.
He was at the podium, his eyes on Emilia in the front row between Harriet and Mrs. Zalkind. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I have little to offer in comparison with my friend’s painting,” he began, “but I hope that you will humor me with your attention for a few minutes and that, despite the unimpressiveness of my speech, you will honor the memory of Mr. Angel with a generous contribution to the school later this evening.”
The trustees clapped, the audience following their lead while Mrs. Zalkind nodded with pride. Emilia kept her mind on the smell of fresh wood from the ceiling made of varnished Oregon pine, and disregarded the other odors that floated through the Great Hall. Her mother’s postcard was tucked between the pages of her program.
“Mr. Angel had two fathers, but I intend to speak of my two mothers. I’m not referring here to my father’s wife, though she is certainly worthy of any number of accolades and speeches, as my brother and I could not hope for a better mother. But I mean my two mother tongues. English and Yiddish.”
One of the trustees raised his eyebrows and glanced sideways at the younger Rothschild brother, who abhorred Yiddish. This was not a good choice of subject. English Jews were edgy, sitting as they did on a spiked fence between their Englishness and their Jewishness, wanting to prove one and too often reminded of the other, whether by their own hearts or by the distrust of the English-English. So they sat on the fence and pretended it was an upholstered armchair, never minding that such furniture might be made in Soho by foreigners.
Jacob was looking at Emilia, who sat uncomfortably on her own spiked fence. She was still his wife and always liked to be good at what she did. She wouldn’t think of the school, the street where it abided, the vendor outside the door calling, “Herring! Schmaltz herring!” She was making her face full of encouragement and attention. But Jacob didn’t smile.
“Mr. Angel of blessed memory sought to drive Poland from his students and to make them English through and through. Many of you might count me one of his successes, but I am here to tell you that I am one of his failures.” The new headmaster coughed. “Where else than here, among you, my friends, should I confess that, despite my entire loyalty to this, the country of my birth and my grandfather’s refuge, I sometimes have un-English yearnings?”
There was an uneasy shifting in the audience. Harriet was whispering that she was afraid Jacob’s speech would diminish the funds obtained for the school, and Mrs. Zalkind was protesting that she had no un-English feelings whatsoever.
“A man may believe himself to be one thing, but in the course of life he will realize that he is two or even three or more, and the confusing jangle will not be separated into convenient pieces, some to bury and others to place on view. He can only hope that those he holds in esteem and affection will not be repelled. The truth is that I do weep,” Jacob said, his eyes searching hers. “My heart might just as well be the old Yiddish theater, and it’s no use in panicking, for if it is closed down, it will only rise up with a larger need to express itself.”
Emilia took her mother’s postcard out of the program. The illustration was a print of a theater bill. “Hannah’s Prayer,” it said in Yiddish, “A New Drama.” She fanned herself with the postcard, not knowing what Jacob would see in her eyes, knowing only that she was looking back at him.
“I’m telling you now,” he said quietly, as if he were talking just to her. “Speak up!” the last row called out. “I’m telling you,” he repeated louder, “that out of this cacophony of feeling, this jargon of ideas, a man may find new thoughts rising up in great profusion. As it is written”—he paused, managing a grin for his grandfather, who was wide awake under his fine new plaid cap—“‘The Lord hath put a new song into my mouth’ and ‘Let them be ashamed and abashed that seek after my soul to sweep it away.’ And ‘Let them be appalled by reason of their shame that say unto me: aha, aha.’”
The new headmaster rose to his feet, leading the audience in applause as he strode to the podium though Jacob shook his head, his speech not yet finished. But they all clapped loudly in gladness that their discomfort was brought to an end, and the next speaker had many well-known vignettes, both humorous and poignant, to tell of Mr. Angel’s life. Jacob left his chair empty on the platform and went down into the audience, where everyone seemed to prefer him.
His mother moved over to make room for him next to Emilia. “It was an interesting speech,” Emilia whispered. “I’d have liked to hear the end of it.”
“You’re certain?” he asked.
“Oh, yes. I’d like to know if a person seems to be one thing and then turns out to be rather more, whether you think such a person ought to be forgiven.”
“There could be no doubt in my mind,” Jacob said, as if he imagined that the person in question were himself. “What are you holding?”
“Look. It’s a postcard from Minsk.”
“Oh yes. From your Mrs. Plater.” He smiled at the Jewishness of gentile servants known to keep kosher and teach the children of the family Hebrew blessings and even, in this case, send postcards to a foreign land with pictures from the Yiddish theater.
“Hannah invented prayer,” Emilia whispered, applauding with the rest of the audience as the more satisfactory speaker took his seat. “She was so sure that she was right, she challenged God.”
“Who told you that?” Jacob asked.
“Shh. They’re introducing another speaker.” Emilia put the postcard back in her program.
Hannah was
one of two wives. The other wife had many children and teased Hannah till she wept because she had none. She prayed for a son and she had a son, but in her bargaining with God, she had promised to bring the baby to the temple after he was weaned; there he’d be brought up to become a priest. So her son went to the temple, grew up to be the prophet Samuel, who crowned the king of Israel. The only thing that would keep a mother’s heart from breaking would be to forget her baby, Emilia thought, but every year when Hannah’s family came to the temple with their sacrifice, she would bring a little robe that she’d made for her firstborn. She had five more children after Samuel, three sons and two daughters, and Emilia wondered how she could attend to them with a heart that was breaking over and over while she sewed.
It was written that Hannah’s prayer was furious. She hurled words at God, threatening to feign adultery so that she would undergo the ordeal of waters, after which, as the Bible promised, she would be cleansed and conceive. So it was written in the Talmud, Emilia’s mother had said while they sat at the kitchen table.
It was very strange that a text written by men could so describe the fury of a woman’s prayers. And even though she didn’t have the righteousness of Hannah, Emilia threw one of her own at heaven.
Bell Lane
Just up the street was the blacksmith’s forge, and people in masks were jostling each other as the remnant of the parade wound down toward the school. In the middle of the lane, someone in a long gray cloak and a crown of cut tin was lighting a bunch of firecrackers. There were bells ringing and shouts of “Hang him up high” and “Remember, remember,” but there was no cart rattling behind Gittel with a guy in a three-colored dress. Sparks flew over the Jews’ Free School, and she had nothing to throw into the bonfire.
“I want my guy,” Gittel said.
“Be happy that you still have a behind to warm in front of the fire,” her mother answered.
Gittel walked quickly, keeping step with her. “I had a quid of coppers in my dress.”
The Singing Fire Page 36
