Portraits

by Cynthia Freeman

  When Jacob recounted the ordeal, Esther was almost speechless, but her concern, perversely, touched off a raw nerve in Jacob. “Why are you so shocked? I lived in places almost as bad most of my life. The only difference was at least they didn’t put me behind bars.” The muscles in Jacob’s jaw knotted. “Prison is where I got my first look at this promised land.”

  Another long silence between them, like a barrier.

  “Would you like a cup of tea?”

  “Sure, that’s always good. Helps to wash down the anger, am I right, mama?”

  “Jacob, you’re very bitter and I can’t say I blame you, but it doesn’t help.”

  “No, it doesn’t help. What does, mama?”

  “Come right out and say it, Jacob. You hate me.”

  His eyes suddenly glistened as he stared at her for a long moment. He said nothing.

  Silence. Their eyes met briefly, then Esther looked down and brushed away the crumbs on the oilcloth.

  “But still, you came here…and found me…”

  “The truth is, I made up my mind a long time ago I never would, but the immigration people said I had to have a family in America. Otherwise, they’d have sent me back.”

  Esther bit her lower lip. “Well, at least you’re truthful. But you listen to me, Jacob. You want to punish me for something I couldn’t help. That’s all right, but no matter what you feel, I did the best I could.”

  “I don’t think so,” he shot back. “You sent Gittel to bubeleh and zayde but left me with strangers. I didn’t mean anything to you—”

  “That’s not true. They were old people. My mother was sick, and two children would have been too much for her.”

  “Sure, my needs were so great.”

  “All right, that’s enough. Think what you want. Nothing I can say will do any good.”

  He watched as she got up and poured some brandy into a small glass. Her hand shook slightly as she raised the glass to her lips and quickly drank it down. His emotions became confused. She looked so fragile, so vulnerable, that he hated himself for having been so cruel. She too had suffered, and she was his mother. He sighed deeply. Maybe having vented his anger would make the past easier to accept, take away the sharp edge. When Esther came back and sat down, he wanted to say he was sorry, but somehow the words just wouldn’t come.

  Trying to push aside the angry words, Esther asked with great difficulty, “What did make you decide to come to America?”

  “I’m in love with a girl. We wanted to get married, but I couldn’t make a living. What chance does a Jew have in Europe? Bubeleh and zayde lived and died in that little hovel, and I wonder if they ever had enough to eat.”

  Until now, Esther had tried to avoid asking too many questions, but now it didn’t matter. Nothing, it seemed, would change Jacob’s condemnation of her. She asked why he had run away, how he had survived on his own, and he told her the entire story. It felt good to let it out. Once he started, he couldn’t stop. He ended with, “The only kindness I ever had in my life was from the Mendlebaums. I thought the whole world was a sewer until I met them. Thank God, I did.” When he finished his story, Esther sighed, got up and poured tea into a glass and handed it to him. He took a sip, then asked, “Now tell me about you.”

  “What’s to tell?” She shrugged. “I came here, lived in a place with Shlomo where I needed a club to beat off the rats. I’m not feeling sorry for myself, that’s just the way it was. Then I went to work for the people who owned this restaurant, he died, and I bought it.”

  “You make a good living?”

  She blinked her tired eyes. I made enough for your keep and to feed my children, she thought, but said, “It was a living. At least I have a better place to live in. I haven’t shown you, but there’s an apartment in the back.”

  “Where’s Gittel?” Jacob asked, stirring the tea.

  “Where’s Gittel?” she sighed. “She got married.”

  “You don’t sound very happy about it.”

  “What’s to be happy? She couldn’t wait. At sixteen, she was afraid the great bargain she got, she wouldn’t be able to get later. I wanted her to finish school at least.”

  “What does he do?”

  “What does he do?” She laughed coldly. “As little as possible.”

  “How do they live?”

  “In a beautiful place on Delancey Street, two rooms. I help pay the rent and they eat here. Except right now, it’s a little hard for Gittel. In about two weeks, she’s going to have a baby, so I take the food over there every night.”

  “And Shlomo?”

  “He’s a good boy, goes to school and to cheder. He’s ten now.”

  “Ten?” Jacob said in disbelief. My God, where had the years gone? Jacob couldn’t remember him at all. Yes, he could, vaguely. A tiny thing wrapped in a bundle of blankets, who seemed always to cry until he was taken to Esther’s breast. Jacob recalled his resentment of the new one being held so tenderly. Had she held him that way once…?

  He got up and walked to the window. It had begun to snow gently. For some reason he could not articulate, he felt a strange sense of longing. He had wanted to hate his mother, he had tried to hate her. It was the only defense he had, the only tool to fight with, and it had given him strength. But now that he’d seen her, some of the armor had been chipped away—but just some. One didn’t live with the feelings Jacob had harbored for so long and then all at once feel reborn. Still, his hostility seemed more subdued, and he felt a sense of peace he’d never known before.

  Jacob was so deep in thought that the sound of the bell ringing as the front door opened startled him. A little boy ran past him, went to his mother and kissed her lightly on the cheek. Shlomo was always in a hurry. Before Esther could get his attention, he was already in his room, taking the straps off his books and removing his wet coat and cap.

  Esther went after him. “Shlomo, come, I have a surprise for you.”

  Shlomo followed her into the room.

  “This is your brother Jacob.”

  Jacob watched as the little boy’s eyes widened, then glistened with tears. Shlomo had dreamed about his big brother. He needed a man he could look up to. He loved his mother and Gittel, but a boy should have a man to talk to, to guide him.

  Jacob looked down at the boy with the large, brown, soulful eyes. They did not resemble each other at all. Shlomo was smaller than Jacob had been at the same age. The fact that they were of different fathers did not occur to Jacob. All that he cared about in this moment was that the little boy was his brother. Esther stood by, watching with tears in her eyes. Shlomo clung to Jacob, and Jacob held his brother close. This was a different love from any Jacob had known.

  Shlomo looked up into Jacob’s face. “I knew you’d come some day. Mama always said you’d come.”

  Jacob picked Shlomo up in his strong arms. “I guess mama was right.”

  In the shadows, Esther whispered to herself, Thank you, God, for your goodness. At last I have my family together. She went to the front door and locked it, then turned around the sign. Closed. Today, she didn’t need any customers. Esther hastened to the back of the store and began to get things ready for Gittel. When the basket was filled, she put on her coat and hat, then went to join her sons. “Come,” she said, “get ready now. We’ll go to Gittel’s.” Looking at Jacob’s thin coat, Esther added, “Shlomo, bring your brother the woolen muffler and the leather gloves. Oh, and in my drawer you’ll find my knitted hat.” Esther was once again in command, the strong Esther of old, the undaunted, indestructible Esther.

  When Shlomo came back and handed Jacob the long plaid scarf, he put it on, letting it hang. Esther stood in front of him. He was a head taller than she, and she had to reach up as she adjusted the scarf into a cravat. She smiled, which was something Esther hadn’t indulged in for a very long time, but he was really so handsome and her pride was enormous. “There, at least it will keep your neck warm. See if the gloves fit.”

  Jacob felt a sudden desi
re to take her in his arms and kiss her, but he couldn’t. Instead, he smiled and picked up the basket, and the three of them set off in the cold winter evening to his sister’s house.

  Winded by the four-flight climb, Esther stood in front of Gittel’s flat. “You wait here,” she said. “I want to go in and tell Gittel first. You understand?” Jacob nodded. He waited nervously as Shlomo stood looking up adoringly at him.

  After what seemed an interminable length of time, the door opened and Gittel stood framed in the doorway. For a moment she could not move; it was all too unbelievable. Then she was in his arms, holding him close as the tears tumbled from her eyes. Looking up at him, she explored his face with her hands, touching his cheek. “Oh, Jacob, our dearest Jacob, you’ve come back to us. Mama always knew you would. There was never a day we didn’t speak of you.”

  And there was never a day I hadn’t hoped it would be this way, he thought, too choked with emotion to speak.” He wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “Come, my wonderful brother, come,” she said, leading him into the sparsely furnished kitchen.

  Gittel’s husband was seated at the table. He rose for the introduction. “Jacob,” Gittel said, “this is my husband, Hershel.”

  Remembering what his mother had told him about Hershel, Jacob felt a stab of resentment. What had Gittel seen in him? He was a small, thin, joyless man of about twenty-five who looked as if he’d never seen the sun. Why hadn’t Gittel waited? She was so lovely, with honey-blonde hair and eyes as blue as cornflowers. There was a slim delicacy about her, even now with her swollen stomach. As he looked from one to the other, he thought scornfully that Gittel’s husband had never made a living for her, protected her as he would Lotte. And the shnorrer had even allowed his mother, who worked so hard, to pay his rent. Jacob was brought back from his thoughts when his mother said, “Now, sit down, we’ll eat Jacob, you’ll make the blessing.”

  Gittel and Shlomo could not take their eyes from Jacob. There was very little conversation during the meal, but as they drank their tea and ate the sponge cake, there was an avalanche of questions.

  Jacob tried to avoid the bad times, which only left him the time with the Mendlebaums, and Lotte.

  Gittel smiled. “So you’re going to get married. I can’t believe it.”

  “And you, Gittel. It’s hard to believe you’re going to have a baby.” And as though speaking to him, he added, “It seems we were kids ourselves only yesterday.”

  “Yes, Jacob, but we’re together now, thank God. Life is good—”

  “Yes, I guess maybe there’s a reason for everything.”

  As Esther opened the door to the restaurant and took him to the back apartment, he knew the past had to be put to rest and that all that mattered was now. He was home at last.

  Quickly, Esther put clean sheets on the narrow iron cot in Shlomo’s room as Jacob watched. The first bed that belonged to him, the first real home he had ever had.

  As Esther climbed into bed that night, she lay gazing up at the dark ceiling with a grateful heart. God had returned her son.

  It was a night of peaceful, contented sleep for Jacob and for Esther.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  FRIDAY, BEING THE START of Shabbes, was a bad day to look for work, so Jacob cleaned the apartment and scrubbed the accumulated grease from the kitchen walls.

  That night they went to Gittel’s for Shabbes.

  Jacob felt a deep joy as he watched his mother light the candles and say the prayer. Even his dislike of Hershel was overlooked in this moment of rejoicing. Nobody cooked like his mother—the gefilte fish, chicken soup with kreplach, kugel, challah, chopped liver, chicken—it was like a banquet.

  The next morning, as Jacob sat having rolls and coffee with Shlomo, his mother handed him a red velvet sack embroidered with the golden Torah. He did not have to wonder what was inside—he knew. Taking the tallis in his hands, he touched the fringes reverently. The silk was yellowed with age. When he looked up there were tears in Esther’s eyes. “This was your father’s. Wear it, Jacob, as proudly as he did.”

  Not holding back the tears, he embraced his mother. She felt so comforting in his arms. And she, in turn, felt the strength inside him.

  As they prayed that Saturday in the little shul on Hester Street, his memories came flooding back to him. He looked up to the women’s section and saw his mother’s smile, then went back to his dovening, raising his voice to equal the elders’ as they chanted the hauntingly beautiful liturgy that had been heard for two thousand years. Shlomo stood proudly, swaying with the same rhythm as his brother.

  At three o’clock in the morning there was a frantic banging on Esther’s door. Jacob almost collided with Esther as they both hurried to the front of the store. Opening the door, they found a frightened and near frozen Hershel. He blinked the snow from his eyelashes as he entered. Trying to catch his breath, he said almost incoherently, “Gittel…Gittel needs you.” Without questions, Esther hurried into her clothes, as did Jacob.

  “What’s wrong?” Shlomo asked as he watched Jacob put on his trousers.

  “It’s Gittel. It’s all right, go back to sleep. I’m going with mama.”

  “Me too,” he announced, jumping out of bed.

  “No, Shlomo. It’s not necessary, you go back to sleep.”

  “But I want to go.”

  “If I need you for something I’ll come back, all right?”

  Reluctantly, Shlomo got back into bed as Jacob pulled the covers up under his chin and ran his hand affectionately across the boy’s face.

  Gittel’s contractions were coming so quickly that Esther knew she had to act fast. The midwife who was supposed to deliver the baby had come down with pleurisy. There being no time to find another midwife, Esther took charge. She called from the kitchen to Jacob, who paced the narrow hall outside Gittel’s room. “Yes, mama,” he answered nervously.

  “Go with Hershel to Mrs. Goldstein’s house. She’s the midwife. Tell her about Gittel and ask her to give you the instruments.”

  Within less than fifteen minutes they were back with a paper bag. Jacob felt a wave of nausea as he watched Esther drop the scalpel and scissors into the boiling water. Hershel went out into the hall, shutting the door behind him, and leaned against the wall, dripping with perspiration. He put his hands to his ears to shut out the cries of pain.

  Quickly, Jacob went to Gittel’s room, pulled up a chair and held her hand. He wiped the perspiration from her face with a damp cloth as she writhed in agony.

  “Squeeze my hand…hard…harder…”

  “Jacob?” she cried out

  “Yes, I’m here, I’m here. Squeeze hard.”

  Esther bustled into the room with the midwife’s instruments and looked under the sheet to examine her daughter. My God, her grandchild was about to be born. “Jacob, help me move Gittel around closer to the edge of the bed.”

  As Esther adjusted the pillow under the girl’s head, the last scream was felt almost as much by Jacob, who watched Gittel’s child being pushed into life. At last, it was done, it was over. Jacob stood back and watched his mother. Soon the child was taken out of its veil of placenta, held up and slapped on the tiny buttocks.

  Jacob smiled almost sadly when he heard the baby’s first cry. If he had feelings other than love for his mother, at this moment he realized she too had suffered bringing him into life. Today especially he saw her through different eyes.

  After she had cleaned the child, sponged Gittel, changed the sheets and tidied up the room, Esther stood with the basin in her hand. “Well, Gittela, you’re a mother…now sleep, mein kind.”

  When she turned and started to leave, Jacob took the basin from her hands, placed it on the floor and put his arms around her.

  She looked up. “You’re a fine man, Jacob—like your father, may he rest in peace.” Then she went out.

  “Jacob?” Gittel said weakly, holding out her hand.

  He went to her and sat on the edge
of the bed. “Yes, Gittela?”

  “Thank you for being strong. Poor Hershel was so frightened.”

  It wasn’t fear, but weakness, Jacob thought. He kissed her lightly and left.

  Opening the front door, he saw Hershel sitting on the stairs, looking up at him expectantly. It took all Jacob’s strength to control his anger.

  Hershel’s mouth was slack. “Well?”

  A silent pause, and then Jacob said, “You have a son. When you die you’ll have someone to say Kaddish.” Jacob ran down the stairs, two at a time.

  This day found Jacob a very happy young man. He had gotten a job. The work was hard but out in the open air instead of in some unventilated loft. And the money was good—nine dollars a week.

  When he went to Gittel’s for dinner that evening, he walked in to find Esther taking off her coat.

  From the look on Jacob’s face, she asked, “Nu?”

  “I got a job.”

  “Mazel tov, where?”

  “On the docks.”

  “On the docks, working in this kind of weather?” she asked, putting on the white apron. “Jacob, those men are bums. With bums you don’t have to—”

  “That’s right,” he said, interrupting her. “I don’t have to associate with them.”

  She struck a match to light the stove and he watched the tip smolder when she blew it out. “Listen, Jacob, I don’t want you—”

  “I took it, mama. No use talking. You know how much it pays?”

  “I don’t care how much. I still don’t—”

  “Nine dollars a week. More than I could make in a factory.”

  “Nine dollars a week?” Shlomo put in. He’d never heard of so much.

  “That’s right, Shlomo, and I’m going to make more too. You, I’m going to send to college and you, mama, I’m going to give half every week.”

  “Me, you’ll give half? I don’t take money from my children and Shlomo can marry a rich girl. She’ll send him to college and you’ll save the money so you can get married.” They all laughed.