The Auerbach Will

by Birmingham, Stephen;

  Of course, these were only imaginings, indignant projections on Essie’s part, which made Ekiel Matoff’s future seem so bleak and cheerless. She had no idea what someone like Ekiel Matoff might be dreaming. She had met Ekiel Matoff only recently. They sat across from one another at the Litskys’ kitchen table like fellow prisoners let out for air in a prison yard. Neither said much because, apparently, neither could think of much to say.

  Though there should have been something. Because Ekiel Matoff was the man her father had chosen to be her husband.

  Six

  Privacy had always been in short supply in the Litsky household, and so it was not a commodity to which one gave much consideration. In the one bedroom where they all slept, sheets hung from the ceiling to separate the three beds—Essie’s, Abe’s, and the larger one their parents shared. But beyond this prim gesture, there was only a shared intimacy. Essie no longer wondered about—or even really heard—the rhythmic creaking sounds that began from her brother’s bed soon after he had pulled the covers over himself, or the long sigh that followed after a few minutes, and that was followed soon after by his soft snoring. Nor did she even really hear the infrequent sounds of her parents’ lovemaking. These unnoticed sounds were all part of the familiar landscape of living, no more disturbing than the voice of the ice-man in the street, crying, “Ice today … Oh, lady, ice today …!”

  But there were occasionally times, when her mother was downstairs in the store, when her father was at the synagogue, and when Abe was off at school—though he skipped it often enough, Essie knew, in order to run with his new street friends—that Essie would find herself all alone for an hour or so in her house. This was one of those times, and Essie was using it to study her reflection in her mother’s hand mirror.

  She held the mirror at arm’s length, and tried to be as critical of what she saw as possible. The question was simply this: Was she beautiful?

  Esther in the Bible was described as fair and beautiful, and she had much pleased the king, but Essie herself was not fair. Her wavy hair, which fell to halfway down her back, was a dark chestnut color, and Essie decided that it was a bit too curly at the temples. She experimented, pulling her hair to the back of her neck in a small bun, but decided that this made her look too severe and schoolmarmish. Her eyes were greenish and set, perhaps, a little too far apart—though that was certainly better than having them too close together—and her skin was honey-colored. She pinched her cheeks to pinken them a bit. She drew the mirror closer to inspect her eyebrows, smoothed them with a fingertip, and decided that they were satisfactory. Her best feature, she decided, was her nose, which was straight and slender, turned up just slightly at the tip. Jews, she knew, were often sensitive about their noses, but it was the Germans who tended to have prominent ones. The Russians, generally, were better favored in that category. And her chin, she decided, though unremarkable, had nothing really wrong with it, and even contained a small suggestion of a dimple.

  But her worst feature was her mouth. The lips were certainly too full, although perhaps that made her mouth look more—what was the word?—more sensual. Perhaps it was the lips that made Jake Auerbach want to kiss her. She unbuttoned her blouse and examined her throat. Passable, she decided. There was a small brown mole just above her left collarbone, but, with the high-collared dresses women wore these days, that little flaw would never be visible. With her free hand, she cupped her breasts, first one, then the other. Too large? Too small? Probably average. Some girls her age, she knew, had large brown nipples and were embarrassed by them, but hers were the same color as the rest of her, an asset. She had been told by others that she had pretty hands and nice, small feet—she kicked off her shoes and pulled off her stockings to examine them—and she had been told that she had a nice figure. But never in her life had there been a full-length looking glass to stand in front of and assess her entire body in the nude, and she had had to settle for looking at bits and pieces of herself in the hand mirror. The next best thing to a full-length glass was the imperfect reflection in the windowpane, but that required caution because-someone might be looking out from across the street and see a naked woman standing at a window. Still, she slipped off her blouse, stepped as close to the window as she dared, and turned this way and that.

  She picked up the hand mirror again and held it to her face. She tilted her chin upward, closed her eyes slightly, sucked in her cheeks a bit, and pursed the full lips, then studied the results for a long moment. Then, gingerly, she lifted the hem of her skirt, and lowered the mirror to look at that other intimate place, which only the man who was her husband would know. Its lips were full and pink and moist, too, as she spread them gently apart with the fingertips of her free hand. “You’re very beautiful,” he had said. Would he find her beautiful there as well?

  Then she heard the sound of footsteps mounting the stairs. Hastily, she flung on her blouse, buttoned it up, tucked it into the waistband of her skirt, and put the little mirror back where it belonged, beside her mother’s bed.

  “What are you running around in your bare feet for?” her mother wanted to know. “Do you want to catch your death of cold?”

  “How are you and the Matoff boy getting along?” her father asked. “Very nicely, I’m sure. He’s a good boy. He wants to be a rabbi, and as soon as he gets enough money set aside he’s going into the rabbinate. And Mr. Matoff has a good business, and Mrs. Matoff is a real berrieh. They’ll make wonderful inlaws for you, Esther.”

  “Oh, Papa,” she said, “I really don’t like him. And I don’t even think he likes me.”

  “Now, now. All that comes later, after the babies start to come. That’s when the love comes, and the true happiness of a marriage and a family. Am I right, Minnalein? Your mother and I hardly knew each other when we were married—think of it! It was all arranged by the shadchen. And yet we’ve never regretted it for a single minute, have we, Minnalein? Nowadays, of course, it is all much more modern. The young people have to get to know each other a little bit. That’s progress. You’ll be very happy together. The Matoffs are very happy about it, and so is Ekiel.”

  “Papa, I don’t want to marry him!”

  “Now, now. I understand. Sometimes a girl is a little frightened at first of the idea—such a big step, marriage—until she gets used to it. You’ll get used to it. Wait and see. In another week—”

  “Mama, must I?” Essie cried.

  Minna Litsky, bent over her dishpan, doing up the dinner dishes, did not turn but said quietly, “It is the duty of a daughter to do as her father wishes. It is written in the Book.”

  “It’s ridiculous! It’s barbaric! We’re back in the Middle Ages,” Jake Auerbach is saying. “It’s worse than that—it’s criminal. It’s criminal to force a young girl to marry a man she hardly knows and doesn’t even care for. That’s what’s wrong with these people, that’s why they get nowhere. Can’t they see? Can’t they see that this is the way they perpetuate their poverty and misery and ignorance? What sort of future can you look forward to with this man, this cobbler, this shoemaker? Nothing more than the kind of life your mother leads—drudgery, night and day, having babies, more people to cook for, less food to go around, getting fat, growing old, losing your looks.…” They are sitting on a park bench under a big tree in Union Square. Essie has chosen this spot not only because it is some distance from her neighborhood, with its prying eyes, but also because it is a place where not long ago they had a happy time.

  “Your papa isn’t God, you know,” he says, “your papa isn’t the President of the United States, and he isn’t even a policeman. What law does he have over you?”

  “Papa’s is a biblical law, Jake. It’s a law that says, ‘Every man should bear rule in his own house.’”

  “But we aren’t living in biblical times, thank God. We’re in America. This is a free country, and you’re a free person with a right to do whatever you want. These aren’t biblical times, and this isn’t Russia, where your Papa still seem
s to think he lives. Do you know why the Russians are so ignorant? Because the czar wanted them to be that way. He wanted to make the Jews powerless, and so he turned a whole people inward upon themselves, into a ghetto which they couldn’t leave, and where they were left, for generations, to inbreed their superstitions, their rituals, their fears. Now that they’re free of all that, they don’t know what to do. But maybe their children will, and maybe you will, too, Essie. Maybe you’ll find out what can be done in a free country, even if your papa won’t. They can march you in chains to the altar with that cobbler, but they can’t make you say ‘I do.’ Not in America, they can’t!”

  Essie touches his knee lightly with her fingertips. “Don’t worry,” she says, “I’m not going to say ‘I do’ to Ekiel Matoff.”

  “Good girl. Thank God!”

  She has let him make his little speech, as she had been sure he would. Now it is time to let the bigger plan unfold, the plan that has been brewing in her mind for the past three days.

  “But the thing is,” she says, “if I disobey Papa, I’ll have to leave.”

  “You mean he’d turn you out of his house? Would he be that cruel? That monstrous?”

  “He might. Or he might not, I don’t know. In some ways, I feel very close to Papa, and in other ways I feel I don’t know him at all. The Bible doesn’t say exactly what the king did to Vashti when she defied him, but it probably wasn’t very pleasant. The thing is, once I disobey Papa, I wouldn’t want to go on living in Papa’s house. How could I? He’s going to be very hurt and angry. He’s never going to forgive me. How can I go on living in a place where, every day, someone is waiting for me to beg to be forgiven? I think that would be the worst kind of punishment of all.”

  “But where would you go? What would you do?”

  Her eyes brighten. “I could go to work. Most of the girls my age I know are working if they aren’t already married. There are new factories opening up in New York every day. I could run a sewing machine. I could make cigarette boxes in Cohen’s factory.”

  “Work for the same Shylock you demonstrated against? Essie, you’re cut out for better things than that.”

  “Or,” she says, “there’s another possibility.”

  “What’s that? You mean walk the streets?”

  She laughs. “No.” She opens the purse that is in her lap and takes out several folded pieces of paper and hands them to him.

  He unfolds them, looks at them a moment, and then he is laughing too. “My God,” he says, “this is me!”

  “Of course. There’s more—other poses, other expressions.”

  “This is what you were doing when I thought you were taking notes.”

  “Some people think they’re pretty good. The Tageblatt prints drawings every day. The stores that advertise in the Tageblatt use drawings, too, of people wearing the clothes they sell. Don’t you think I’m good enough to earn some money from my drawings?”

  “I think you’re very good,” he says. “But of course it would probably take some time to get yourself established.”

  “I know.”

  “They’re all of me,” he says, wonderingly, leafing through the sketches.

  “And in the meantime,” she says, “I could marry you.”

  The sheets of paper fall from his hands onto the grass, and he reaches, fumbling, to pick them up. Then he looks at her full in the face and she tries to return his gaze steadily, without blinking. “Do you really want to marry me, Essie?”

  “Yes,” she says quietly, and now that she has said it she hurries on. “For Papa, it would be a compromise, a way out. I wouldn’t be marrying the man he’s picked out for me, and of course he might not be too happy about that—at first—but at least I’d be marrying a good Jewish man. And that’s what you are, Jake, a good Jewish man—the very best I’ve ever known. And for me—for me, it would make me the happiest I’ve ever been in my entire life. Because I’m in love with you, Jake.”

  She thinks she sees tears springing to his eyes, and he turns away from her. Then he stands up and begins pacing back and forth across the small stretch of grass in front of her. “The thing is,” he begins, “—the thing is, I’m not good enough for you, either, Essie.”

  “Oh, yes you are. You’re the best I’d ever want.”

  “My family thinks I’m worthless, a foolish dreamer.”

  “What’s wrong with dreamers? But I see more in you than that. I see—what was that word you used in class? Potential?”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “But there’s just one thing, Jake. I’ve just told you that I’m in love with you. I can’t help that, because—because I am. I know you like me, Jake. But do you love me, too? That’s the only important thing to me.”

  “I know I’m happier with you than with anyone else,” he says. “And oh, yes, I love you, too, and have almost since the day I met you, I suppose. And I’ve thought of this, too, myself, but didn’t say anything because I was afraid—”

  “Afraid of what, Jake?”

  “Essie, do you think that it would work?”

  “I’ll try. I’ll try so hard.”

  “Oh, yes. Let’s try.” He sits down beside her on the bench again and covers her hands with his, but the worried look has not left his face. They sit in silence for what seems a long time, and Essie feels the pulsebeat of his hands pass through to hers, almost like an electric current, and wonders if he can feel the same throbs passing from hers to his. Finally, he says, “First, of course, you must meet my family. Yes, that’s the first order of business. I’ll arrange for that.”

  “I love you, Jake,” she whispers, unable to believe that this has all happened the way she prayed it would. “I always will.”

  A few days later, he said to her, “It’s all set. They’ve invited you for tea on Thursday. It won’t be kosher, but I can promise you that you won’t be poisoned. I’ll meet you at Mr. Levy’s at three o’clock, and we’ll go Uptown.”

  “Do you remember when you shook hands with the butler?” It would become, over the years, something of a private joke between them because, indeed, in her understandable nervousness and excitement about what was happening, Essie had mounted the steps of the brownstone house at 14 West 53rd Street, and when the door had been opened by a gray-haired man in a frock coat and striped trousers, Essie had assumed the man to be either Jake’s father or one of his uncles, and had immediately extended her right hand. Marks, the family butler, looking startled, had accepted her hand in his own, which wore a white glove, and shook it gingerly.

  On their way Uptown in the streetcar, Jake had explained to her what he called “the cast of characters” whom she would meet. First, there were the two bachelor uncles, Uncle Sol and Uncle Mort. Solomon Rosenthal, the elder of the two, was president of Rosenthal Brothers, Inc., Purveyors of Fine Men’s Suitings. Uncle Sol, Jake explained, would probably do most of the talking, as was his wont, because he was not only president of the company but also head of its sales force. But Essie was not to underestimate Uncle Mort, who was more closemouthed, because Mortimer Rosenthal, executive vice-president and the younger brother, was, as Jake put it, “the real brains behind the business.” As for Jake’s father, Louis Auerbach, Jake said, “Pop’s title is business manager but, let’s face it, Pop is essentially their accountant, their bookkeeper. Uncle Sol and Uncle Mort run the show. You see, when my mother, who was Lily Rosenthal, their only sister, married Pop, Uncle Mort and Uncle Sol felt they had an obligation to offer Pop some sort of position at Rosenthal’s. He took it, and that’s where he is today.” All these people, the Rosenthals and the Auerbachs, lived together under the same roof.

  “And so your mother keeps house for four men.”

  “Yes, but of course she has help.”

  At the time, Essie was not entirely sure what he meant by this. She also thought that Lily was an odd name for a Jewish woman. In her experience, Jewish women were never named for flowers. Unless it was Rose.

  She had put
on the best dress she owned, the dress she had bought for little Abe’s bar mitzvah. It was of bright green bombazine, with a long, narrow, pleated skirt and a wide black patent-leather belt at the waist. Over the white shirtwaist top, there was a matching green bolero capelet, and at the collar was a big bow of white tulle. The outfit had drawn compliments at the bar mitzvah. She had pulled her long chestnut hair back loosely, and secured it at the back with a green ribbon bow.

  They had dismounted from the streetcar at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street, and walked the short distance to the house. “How do I look?” Essie whispered.

  “Beautiful.”

  Then up the brownstone steps to the door, which was immediately opened by someone who clearly had been watching for their arrival—and the confused handshake. They were then escorted by Marks down a wide, paneled hallway where, at the end, a pair of carved doors were opened for them, and they entered the first-floor sitting room where four people sat.

  The room was large and high-ceilinged, and Essie’s first impression of it was that it was done entirely in red. Dark red damask covered the walls from floor to ceiling, and the windows were framed with heavy red damask hangings, caught back by thickly twisted, tasseled gold cords. Behind these hangings hung glass curtains of intricately fashioned white lace. All the furniture in the room, and there was a great deal of it—high-backed sofas, low ottomans, chairs large and small and little footstools—was covered in the same red damask, with gilded frames, and there were many little tables with red damask tops and gilt legs. Even the lampshades were of red damask, with long gold fringe. From the walls, large, dark oil-painted landscapes gazed down somberly at the room beneath museum lights. There was a thick red carpet in an Oriental design on the floor and, overhead, from the center of the carved plaster ceiling, hung a gilded chandelier sparkling with what seemed to be thousands of crystal prisms. It was only at this point, in the midst of all this gilt and crimson splendor, that Essie realized that the entire four-story building that she had looked up at from the street must be the Auerbachs’ and Rosenthals’ house. They lived in it all.