Leah's Children

by Gloria Goldreich

  “Why?” Les Anderson, ever the investigative reporter, asked. He wanted to do a couple of labor relations features now that the election was over—there could be a tie-in with the Judy Bond story. The boycott of blouses manufactured by the plant that resisted ILGWU organization was spreading.

  “We closed it down because the powers that be in Fayette resisted a union and I only operate a union shop.”

  “I’m going to have to close down the uptown outlet for another reason, Joshua,” Jakie Hart said. “I can’t get insurance. Three fires on that block in the last three weeks.”

  “Accidents?” Joshua asked.

  “Arson. Caught two of them. Local kids. No rhyme or reason to it. Just malicious mischief.”

  Michael, helping his mother carry the pies in, watched Kemala carefully. He saw the anger that flashed across her face, watched her struggle for control. He was not surprised when she turned to Jakie Hart.

  “But there is rhyme and reason to those fires,” she said. “Were the kids who were caught black? I assume that ‘uptown’ is Harlem.”

  The others looked uncomfortably at each other. Great attention was paid to Leah’s apple pie, to the glass of juice that Paulette had spilled across the cloth. There was nervous laughter, much scurrying with napkins.

  “The kids were black and uptown is Harlem,” Jakie said calmly. “So what?”

  “The black kids are letting you know that they’re tired of being exploited, that they’re reclaiming their own territory. I’m not saying that it’s right or that it’s constructive. But there is reason behind it. Not all reasons are reasonable, unfortunately.”

  “I think you’ve got your facts a little mixed,” Jakie said harshly. His wife raised a warning finger, but he ignored her. What was Michael doing with this bitter, black bitch? Was this the naches he had brought home with his fancy Berkeley Ph.D.? His aunt Leah deserved better. “I never exploited anyone. I pay good wages and charge fair prices.”

  “You have to understand,” Kemala objected, and now her voice was at once more heated and more confident, “you’re confronting the culmination of generations of resentment. These kids are the children of men and women who have endured an economic and social slavery. They’re turning their anger about that on you because they perceive you as responsible for their situation. Those fires are retribution of a kind. They’re paying you back because people like you lived on their misery. It’s too bad about your insurance premiums, but the dynamics are complex.”

  Les Anderson glanced at Michael. He recognized the rhetoric. It echoed an article by Matt Williams in a recent liberal quarterly, “Why Will Your Cities Burn?” Michael, however, moved closer to Kemala. Her hands were trembling, and when she set her coffee cup down it clattered noisily against the saucer.

  Leah turned to Kemala but did not pause in her careful pouring of the coffee. The silver carafe was steady in her hand.

  “Not people like us,” she said evenly. “Not my people. When your people were being enslaved, my people were fleeing from one country in Europe to another. When your people were being persecuted, my people were being clubbed and whipped by cossacks. And killed. Murdered. Whole villages burned to the ground. The Jews of Europe, our parents, our grandparents—what did they know of blacks and slavery and exploitation? They were on another continent fighting for their lives. And when we came to America, what did we know about the Ku Klux Klan? We read about them in the paper and called them American cossacks. Whom did I exploit when I worked fourteen, fifteen hours a day in a sweatshop to pay my husband’s tuition? Terrible things happened to your people. I don’t say no. My heart breaks for them. I’m proud of what Michael is doing. But the guilt is not mine—not ours. And I will not be burdened with it.”

  Leah’s color was high, and Lydia placed a warning hand on her arm.

  “I don’t think that Kemala was speaking personally,” she said, but Kemala turned to Joshua Ellenberg.

  “Did you open an outlet in Harlem to lose money?” she asked.

  “I never do anything to lose money,” Joshua replied. “But there’s a difference between making a decent profit and exploitation. Look, I don’t think this is the time for a seminar on economics. It’s Thanksgiving, and we always have a little music here on Thanksgiving. Scott, get your guitar. I spend enough for lessons that you should show off a little.”

  Scott produced his guitar, and the children sang in uneasy chorus. Their voices were too shrill at first, as though they felt the responsibility for breaking the tension, the uncomfortable silence that had overtaken the holiday meal. They sang traditional favorites: “Over the River and Through the Woods,” “We Gather Together.” Then, as the others slowly joined in, their voices softened to a natural, unhurried sweetness, and they sang “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” and “Tom Dooley.” Les and Jeremy parodied “The Sound of Music,” and Seymour Hart, his voice quivering with age, sang an old Yiddish song about a rabbi and his obedient Hasidim. Melanie and Jeremy danced to “High Hopes.” Lydia borrowed a guitar and strummed a Gypsy love song. Aaron lifted Paulette into his arms and waltzed about the room with her. Lydia’s voice broke as she sang. She was remembering Budapest, he knew, and the sweet-singing youth for whom his daughter was named. He danced on, and when he sat beside Lydia again, she was calm. The baby, David, rested on her lap and she leaned her head on Aaron’s shoulder.

  The contentment of the afternoon was restored. They gathered about the fireplace in the living room and talked easily with each other. Only Kemala and Michael remained alone at the far end of the room, untouched by the glow of the firelight. They were the first to leave. Leah kissed her younger son and shook hands politely with Kemala. Kemala’s hand was cold and rigid in her own, and she did not smile when she said goodbye. The door slammed heavily behind them when they finally left, shattering the ease and mood of the afternoon.

  “I shouldn’t have said anything,” Leah said worriedly.

  “You said what you had to say,” Aaron replied.

  Paulette slept against his shoulder, and David played contentedly on the floor. David was beginning to crawl, and next year he would be walking. It occurred to Aaron, for the first time, that the raising of children was an awesome thing. He threaded his fingers through his daughter’s dark hair and studied his son’s upturned face. Lydia watched him. “They’ll be all right—we’ll keep them safe,” she said, as though reading his thoughts. Somehow, accounts had to be balanced. The loss side of her ledger was heavily weighted. Her parents, her brothers, Ferenc, Paul. Her children had to be kept safe, secure. Her lips moved in silent prayer and her hands rested protectively on her abdomen. She turned her thoughts to all that would have to be completed before the birth of this third child. She wanted to finish the model of the mobile amplifier, and edit one more research paper.

  Aaron’s hand encased her own. She marveled again at the miracle of their lives together and frowned as she thought of Michael and Kemala.

  Later that night Leah and Boris Zaslovsky sat alone before the fire that was slowly dying. Small, valiant tongues of flame splashed showers of glittering sparks, and the embers glowed with fiery tenacity.

  “Don’t be sorry,” Boris said. “Parents say what they think is right and children do what they think is right. So it has always been—so it will always be. It is his life, Leah. You cannot live it for him.”

  “I only want him to be happy,” Leah said.

  “He will have to make his own way.” The Russian’s voice was weary. “He is lucky to have the opportunity to find his way.” Boris’s own children had not been so lucky. His two sons and a daughter had been mowed down by German Einsatzgruppen at the place called Babi Yar. His wife had died soon after. Heart failure, the doctor said. But Boris Zaslovsky, a doctor himself, knew better. Heartbreak. There had been tears in her eyes when he found her lifeless body. When he pressed his face against hers, to search for breath, the tears had rolled down her cheeks and moistened his own. The dead woman had wept.
Boris had held her hand and thought that he could never be happy again. Always grief and memory would stalk him.

  Grief and memory had not left him, but he had found solace in his work. And he had found community with the Jews whose consciousness had been aroused after the war. He became their healer and their advocate, and on a magic afternoon, when clouds encircled Moscow and a wind rustled the leaves of the lombardy trees, he had met Leah Goldfeder, the Russian-born woman from America. She was newly bereaved; he was a veteran of loss and sorrow. They spoke easily to each other and sometimes found it peaceful not to talk at all. They wrote to each other, and through her efforts he was at last granted permission to emigrate. Now he sat beside her and watched the patterns of light that formed on her outstretched hands. Wonderful hands—graceful and capable, with a small, pale callus flowering at her forefinger, because often she held her paintbrush with fierce intensity.

  “Michael will be fine, Leah,” he said. “And we—you and I—we have our own lives to live. Can we be together now, Leah? There are years before us still.”

  “I don’t know.” The last of the small twigs burned out and fell onto the embers. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I will wait.”

  His voice was gentle, as ever David Goldfeder’s had been. His hand was light and comforting on her shoulder. She reached up and touched it. His skin was age-roughened, almost brittle, and she traced the network of veins with her fingertips.

  “Michael will be fine,” she repeated, and she closed her eyes and prayed that Boris Zaslovsky, her wise and tender friend, was right.

  *

  HUTCHINSON COLLEGE was nestled in the gentle hill country of southern Westchester. Its many-windowed Gothic buildings were constructed of the wondrously textured fieldstone carved out of the cliffs on which Mohican warriors had stood to survey their vast and verdant holdings. Once the college had been the estate of an industrial baron who had dreamed that his many children would live on its grounds. He had built mansions for each of them, communal buildings for their children. But they had quarreled with one another in his lifetime and sued his estate at his death. The victorious heir, in order to demonstrate to his siblings that his suit was not motivated by greed, had donated the grounds and the buildings to the Hutchinson Academy, a small progressive institution “for ladies of breeding.” By the turn of the century, progressive “ladies of breeding” were interested in obtaining bachelor of arts degrees, and the Hutchinson Academy became the select and prestigious Hutchinson College, with a unique and highly specialized program in arts and sciences.

  Modern buildings were added to the original structures, and the gleaming edifices of glass and steel, many of them boldly topping the gentle hillocks, somehow did not violate the sylvan ambience. In the fall, the campus was brilliant with autumnal foliage; leaves of scarlet and gold, pale yellow and somber ocher, blanketed the lawns and meadows. Michael Goldfeder, returning to Hutchinson for his second year, was surprised at how pleased he was to be back on the campus. He studied his course list with pleasure and worked carefully on his curriculum.

  His second summer in Mississippi had exhausted him. The programs at the Troy schoolhouse had intensified. He had added evening classes and taught special tutorials for promising students like Rodney Mason. He had been disturbed because there was little continuity from summer to summer, and he worked out a program that his students might follow during the winter months. Again, Kemala had drifted in and out of Troy, and again they had spent solitary afternoons together. But too often he had sensed her restlessness, her impatience. A mild remark stirred a bitter reaction. Once, after they had made love, she wept uncontrollably in his arms.

  “You work too hard,” he had said soothingly.

  “There’s work to be done,” she retorted harshly. “This isn’t a summer adventure for me—it’s my life.”

  The unfairness of her reply wounded him. He did not counter it, and an unbridged silence stretched between them. She came less frequently after that day. Matt Williams was away—at conferences, at meetings, negotiating funding—and her work load was heavy. He felt lost and empty, yet pleased that Matt was away. Michael saw him only twice that summer, and again the antagonism between them surfaced.

  It was his mother who visited Michael that summer. Leah arrived with Boris one August afternoon, and Michael returned to the Mason home after his noon class to find his mother sitting at the scrubbed pine kitchen table with Cora Mason. The two women sat over large ceramic mugs of fragrant coffee, engrossed in an earnest conversation, which they continued after Michael greeted them.

  “I know how you feel,” Leah told Cora Mason. “It used to seem to me that I would never stop being tired. I worked all day in the factory and came home to the children, to caring for the house. But I was lucky. My sister came over from Russia, and she and her family lived with us and helped us during those early years. And my friend Sarah Ellenberg did a lot of the cooking.” She sat in the small Mississippi house and remembered the frantic activity in the Eldridge Street apartment—tired women shouting at small children, rushing from sink to counter. Their poverty had energized them, spurred them to work and hope. She had recognized that energy in Cora Mason.

  “It’s like that, here in Troy,” the black woman said. “We’re like family to each other. My neighbors help me out and I help them. Still, it’s wearying and worrying. Some days more than others.” A frown of fatigue creased her forehead, and her shoulders were rounded by years of labor.

  “Yes. The worrying. The children. Are they all right? Will things go well for them? Will they be safe, healthy? Will life be good to them?” Leah’s voice quivered.

  She went to the window and looked toward the cotton fields, where Rodney Mason and his sisters tossed a red ball to each other. Cora Mason stood beside her, and Michael studied the two women: his mother elegant in a pale green suit, mysteriously uncreased by her hours of travel, her long hair concealed beneath a matching cloche, and Cora in a housedress, starched and ironed but faded from its original brown to an ocher hue that almost matched her skin. Yet their life-worn faces were not unlike; they were carved with lines of strength and caring and their eyes were similarly soft as they watched the children. They were sisters in the fierce sorority of motherhood; always they would struggle so that their children would not accept less than their due.

  “I want things to be better for them,” Cora Mason said softly. “I want them to have learning. I want them to sleep in the night without being afraid of rocks comin’ through windows, of crosses burnin’ up the lawn.”

  “I know,” Leah said. She thought that she would like to paint the black children as they tossed their red ball amid the serried rows of white cotton plants. She, too, had fled the fires of hatred, the forces of terror, and her children had found a better life. She had vowed when she left Russia never to be a victim again, and she sensed that same determination in Cora Mason.

  Leah taught a class in Michael’s one-room schoolhouse that afternoon, a simple drawing lesson. She showed Michael’s students, with a few deft strokes, how she created a soaring bird, a fleet-footed hart, a full-petaled rose. And before she left, she painted a rainbow, straddled by a dove, on the eastern corner of the wall. Always, Michael would see it as he taught. The bright symbols of peace and hope were his mother’s gift to him, her blessing, just as her own battle for social justice was his heritage.

  “She’s a fine woman, your mama,” Cora Mason said as Leah and Boris drove away. “Full of strength. Full of caring. You’re like her, you know.”

  Michael thought about her words that night as he walked alone to the stripped cotton field where the bare magnolia tree stretched its stark branches skyward. It comforted him that his mother had so briefly shared in his life. It neutralized her confrontation with Kemala on Thanksgiving. He would show Kemala Leah’s rainbow, her gentle dove of peace.

  The day before Michael left Troy to return to Hutchinson College for the fall semester, he and Kemala
drove again to the Bienville Forest. They looked up at the giant firs, whose crowns converged to form a verdant citadel across the pale blue, cloud-strewn sky. Sunlight embroidered golden paths across the fallen pine needles.

  “It was not a good summer,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry too.”

  “Will you come back?”

  “I’ll come back.” His students would draw him back, and the unfinished Troy library. Rodney Mason, who would be ready by next year to take the scholarship examination for the New York preparatory school, would draw him back. And she would draw him back—her slender arms, her throaty voice, her sadness and her wistful laughter.

  “Kemala, I think we should talk—about us—about what is happening between us.” His voice was hesitant. The words he searched for eluded him, and he feared to articulate those that came to him. The question unasked required no answer.

  “We are as we were before,” she said evasively.

  “And how were we before?” he asked. That much he could risk.

  She whirled and faced him, her fists clenched, her golden eyes glinting with anger.

  “Does everything need to be said, Michael? Do we need to tie our feelings up in neat little packages with words and explanations? Are we so terribly important that we need to analyze and examine our relationship? There’s so much going on in the world, Michael. Kids take their lives in their hands and travel down lonely Mississippi roads. We’re fighting to turn the world around, and you want to talk about how we feel about each other.”

  He flinched against the impact of her words, the flood of accusations that avoided his intent. Anger welled up in him, bilious and hot, but before he could answer her, he saw that she was crying. She leaned against a slender pine tree, her hands outstretched, tears streaking her cheeks. He understood, then, that she had surrendered to rage because she could not, would not, confront the truth. He had pitied her then and pitied himself as well. They were lovers who dared not speak of love.

  “Everything will be all right,” he said, and because he recognized the doubt and grief in his own voice, he held her very close, as though he might weld her body to his own.