Portraits

by Cynthia Freeman

  Three weeks later Jacob found a store.

  It was way out on the fringes of Cleveland in a place called Collingwood, but the rent was cheap.

  With the few dollars he had he stocked the store with the minimum amount of yardage, mostly gingham, cotton, braids, thread, pins and an assortment of ribbons. Hershel offered his opinion that Jacob would never be able to make a living with such a small inventory.

  Jacob listened as Hershel went on, “If you don’t have it on the shelves, you can’t sell it. What if a customer walks in and asks for blue serge?”

  Jacob held down his temper. He knew Hershel’s apparent concern was meant to make him feel more insecure than he already did. “When I’ve been in business as long as you, I’ll have blue serge in stock.”

  Hershel was enjoying himself. He knew Jacob was jealous as hell. He could tell the night they’d come to dinner at his home.

  Puffing on his cigar, Hershel said, “I told you there’s no reason to turn down the offer I made you, Jacob. You’ll pay me back when you can. I wasn’t going to charge more interest than the bank gets.” He felt safe making the offer, knowing Jacob would never accept it.

  Jacob made up his mind that his day would come. He wouldn’t live in the back of a store forever. If he had Hershel’s money, his wife and children would at least live in a house…

  It wasn’t too long after the JACK SANDERS NOTIONS AND DRY GOODS sign went up that Jacob and Sara became aware they were living in a very anti-Semitic neighborhood.

  Sara was quite nervous when a customer noticed her slight accent and asked what nationality she was. When Sara answered that she was from Belgium, the lady said that it must have been a lovely country before the war. Lovely, replied Sara. The dear lady had really only asked because she wasn’t quite sure, and, she wanted Sara to understand, Collingwood prided itself on not renting or selling to Jews. Thank the Lord there weren’t any in this part of town…

  Jacob was very disturbed by this incident. Of all places they could have lived, it had to be with a bunch of Jew-haters. They were afraid it might be discovered they were Jews, and they lived too far from the kosher butchers on Euclid Street to keep a kosher house. Like it or not they were compelled to live like goyim. It only seemed possible to be Jacob Sandsonitsky on the lower East Side of New York. His children would grow up half-Jews and half-goyim…

  She adored the black galoshes that snapped up the calves of her pudgy legs. She loved the plaid muffler around her neck and the stocking cap she pulled over her ugly black hair. But best of all was trudging through the snow to school. At lunchtime the children sat around the big pot-bellied stove and took out their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on white bread. Doris felt badly because mama didn’t make the thick meat sandwiches on black bread anymore or give her a little cup of fruit and a thermos of hot chicken soup. When she asked why, mama said, “Eat what the other children do and don’t talk about it…Just keep quiet, Doris.”

  Doris enjoyed the games the children played until the bell rang and she returned to class only reluctantly.

  Of all the things Doris enjoyed, class was not one of them. She really hated her teacher. She asked the dumbest questions. If you cut an apple in half and gave your friend half of your apple then obviously you’d have the other half to eat for yourself. Furthermore, she didn’t care at all how Jack and Jill got up the hill, nor was she interested that they were going to fetch a pail of water. Doris also knew that Cinderella wasn’t Jewish. No Jewish girl would have lost her glass slipper. Her mother would have killed her. And if Old Mother Hubbard was Jewish, she wouldn’t have let her children go hungry. Papa always said that children had to have a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs but Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard was always bare…

  Doris’s teacher always seemed vaguely affronted by her questions and said the class would get to it later. So Doris was bored and spent a lot of her time making up answers to her own questions. But there was one question that bothered her, and one night she brought it up at supper.

  “What’s a Kike?”

  Sara and Jacob stopped eating and looked at each other.

  “Where did you hear that word?” Jacob asked.

  “At school. The kids said that they don’t like Kikes or Catholics. Is a Catholic the same as a Kike?”

  “No, just eat and don’t say another word,” Jacob told her.

  Doris was mystified by their attitude and frustrated that no one ever answered her questions. She still didn’t know what a Kike or a Catholic was, but it had to be something bad, like saying “okay” instead of “yes.” At age seven, it was all very confusing.

  When spring came, the five of them would take the streetcar every Sunday to spend the day at Esther’s, where the whole family congregated.

  Jacob noticed that Hershel had put on weight and was looking very prosperous. A diamond ring flashed on his pinky finger and he smoked his long black cigar. “Twenty-five cents,” he said, blowing the smoke toward Jacob. Always the same questions. How were things in Collingwood? Very good, great. Really? Nevertheless, if Jacob needed any stock, Hershel would be more than happy to sell some to him, since he knew Jacob had no credit. Then Hershel would go on to boast that he now had three machines—an automobile, a washing machine and a vacuum. “Jacob, you really should get a washing machine for Sara.”

  Yes, sure. Next week…God in his wisdom should only make Hershel’s tongue fall out of his mouth.

  Summer descended upon them like a blast furnace.

  On Saturdays Doris went with Rachel to take a piano lesson for twenty-five cents, and in order to save the carfare they walked.

  After the lesson was over they bought ice cream cones and sat in an old, old cemetery on a tombstone, licking them. Delicious, Doris said. Next week she was going to get chocolate. Rachel paid no attention to her. As Doris contentedly licked her cone, her eyes wandered to the dusty moss-covered hundred-year-old tombstone and read the name and date. She asked, “I wonder who Fanny Pride was?”

  Stupid Doris, always asking such crazy questions. “How would I know,” Rachel answered.

  “I didn’t say you knew, I said I wonder.”

  Oh God, what a pest. “I guess she was a woman.”

  “Well, I know that…Fanny’s a girl’s name…I wonder if she was a mother.”

  “Stop wondering and eat your ice cream, it’s melting.”

  “I think it’s really nice here, it’s so quiet.”

  “Can’t you ever keep quiet? That’s all you ever do is talk.”

  “Well, what else is a person supposed to do with their mouth?”

  “Eat. Which is something you don’t have a problem doing.”

  That was really very mean, Doris thought, and wondered when Rachel would realize that she was at least a person…After all, she was almost eight years old.

  Jacob sat on the short flight of steps leading to the back rooms. The heat was impossible and the flies even worse. If he bought nothing else, Jacob was going to buy a screen door. Sara was handing him a cold drink when a customer walked in.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Sanders. Did you ever see anything like it? I swear this is the hottest July I can remember.”

  Jacob nodded. “What can I get for you?”

  “I’d like a yard of red satin ribbon.”

  Jacob took the ruler, measured out one yard of ribbon, put it in a small paper bag and handed it to the customer.

  “How much is that?”

  “Ten cents.”

  The lady paid and blew a wisp of hair off her wet forehead.

  Jacob stood in the middle of the store, watching the woman leave. Ten cents…that made about a dollar for the day’s earnings, and it was four in the afternoon. He looked at his hands, those enormous hands…

  He went to the front door, slammed it closed, locked it and called out to Sara.

  In a moment she stood framed in the doorway with Lillian in her arms. “Yes, Jacob, what’s wrong?”

  “N
othing’s wrong. Everything’s suddenly right…we’re getting out of here and moving back to California.”

  “Oh, my God. Jacob, you really mean it?”

  “Do I look like Hershel? I don’t sell ribbons for ten cents a yard.”

  “How will you get the money?”

  “I’ll beg, borrow or steal, but I’m getting out of this damn store.” …

  From the goodness of his heart, Hershel bought Jacob’s stock for twenty-five cents on the dollar.

  Jacob had eighty dollars. He moved Sara and the children to live with his mother until he could find a job and an apartment in Oakland. He would send for them soon…

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  THIS TIME THE TRAIN ride had been slightly different than the first. It was still long and exhausting, but it was terribly lonely without Sara and the children.

  When he reached Oakland he stood on the platform watching other passengers going their separate ways with the families and friends who had come to greet them.

  Jacob stood alone and felt the past come back to haunt him. Once before in his life he had waited on a platform with no one to greet him. How old was he? Seven? It was Frankfurt, but this was Oakland, California, U.S.A.

  He picked up his paper suitcase and walked out of the station. He found a rooming house on Jackson Street near Seventh, where the dregs lived, he knew. But after he’d bought the train ticket for thirty dollars he had only fifty left…he couldn’t be too choosey.

  The next morning he went to the Chevrolet plant where he’d once worked. They weren’t hiring. This wasn’t wartime.

  For one whole week he wandered around, but it seemed there was simply no work.

  His loneliness was so unbearable that at the end of the week he even went to see Molly. She had opened another junk store with the money she’d salvaged from the furniture liquidation, and for her life had once again fallen into a familiar pattern.

  Jacob sat with her now at the round table in the back of the store and drank a cup of tea.

  “For some people life just doesn’t work out,” she said, thinking of Louie. “My God, the mistakes we make and the regret we have.”

  “That’s true,” he answered. “But people make their own breaks—and I’m going to make mine, believe me.”

  Molly shook her head. If Jacob had read the letter she’d received only yesterday from Sara, he wouldn’t be so full of himself. It began…

  Dear mama,

  I’m so miserable, sometimes I want to die…What kind of a life is this? My mother-in-law isn’t the angel Jacob thinks she is, and I know she isn’t happy with us here. Gittel’s children are more important to her than mine, and of course it hurts my feelings. Hershel says terrible things about Jacob. I know he does it deliberately to try to antagonize me against my husband. He says Jacob will never amount to anything, that he has no ambition, that I should never expect anything to change, that Jacob is hopeless. Although I try not to listen, it leaves doubts in my mind. I’m simply desperate, mama. How long can I go on like this? If you can help, I beg you, mama, try…

  “Jacob, have you heard from Sara?”

  “Sure.”

  “What does she say?”

  “That she misses me and hopes we can be together soon.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “Nothing…Do you think it’ll be long before you find a job?”

  “Listen, I’m doing the best I can.”

  “How long can Sara go on like this? It’s hard for her, Jacob.”

  “And what about me? You don’t think I miss my wife and children? I’m alone, but at least she has the family in Cleveland. Who do I have?”

  “Jacob, if I ask you something, you won’t get mad?”

  He shrugged.

  “I have a few dollars. Please let me give it to you to bring Sara—”

  “Thank you very much, but I have to do this on my own. No more loans, thank you.”

  “This is not a loan…”

  “That’s very kind, but I know your life too. Save it for your old age. Besides…somehow, I know I’m going to make it—”

  “Well, mazel tov, no one would be happier than me.” …

  On the way back to his room, he stopped in front of the pool hall and watched the men queuing up. Out of sheer loneliness he walked in, sat down and watched. He turned to the man sitting next to him. “You play?”

  “Yeah, do you?”

  “I have, once or twice.”

  “Would you like a go at it?”

  “No thanks, I’m afraid I’d be a pigeon. But I like to watch.”

  “And I like to play. Takes my mind off a hard day’s work.”

  “Yeah, what do you do? What kind of job have you got?”

  “I work for a meat packing plant.”

  “Do they need any extra help? I need a job.”

  “I don’t know, why don’t you try?”

  “I will. It’s something I never even thought of. By the way, my name is Jack Sanders,” Jacob said, holding out his hand.

  “Smitty. Nice to know you. I’m going to get a beer, feel like one?”

  “Sure.” Jacob took out a dime and handed it to his new friend, who soon returned with two foaming mugs.

  As they sat and drank, Jacob began to feel a little better. He questioned Smitty about his job and the name of the place where he worked.

  “The Hayward Meat Packing Company.”

  “How long have you been there?”

  “Since I was a kid.”

  “I think I’ll go tomorrow morning. By the way, is it important to have experience?”

  Smitty laughed. “When they bring those cows up on the chute, all you got to know is how to hit ’em over the head.”

  That notion didn’t exactly appeal to him, but still…“Thanks a lot, Smitty. I really appreciate this…maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Sure, Sanders, I have lunch out in the back lot. Let me know how it turns out.”

  Jacob left the beer, said goodnight and went back to his room. He could hardly wait for morning to come…

  God was good to him. He got a job with the Hayward Meat Packing Company, starting salary twenty-five dollars a week.

  He lived frugally but it seemed impossible to bring Sara and the kids out. How could he rent a house and furnish it? As little as it took to keep him, he still had to pay rent, eat three meals a day and pay for a streetcar. He sent a little money to Sara every week, but at the end of the month he was lucky if he had fifteen dollars left.

  After three months, he could no longer stand the separation and the letters from Sara had been more and more openly unhappy.

  Finally he forced himself to go to Molly. “If you still want to, I’ll take you up on your offer, but under one condition. The money is only a loan. I have to bring Sara and the kids out, I have to—”

  Quickly, Molly got up, went to the secret drawer and took out two hundred dollars and handed it to Jacob.

  “God bless you, Jacob,” she said.

  Jacob nodded uneasily as he looked at the money in his hand.

  He wanted to give it back and run away. But the loneliness overpowered his reluctance to accept her charity.

  He put the money in his pocket and forced himself to thank her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  THE LONELINESS OF HIS childhood had never really left him. When he saw Sara and the children getting off the train, he realized more than at any other time of his exile how desperately he had missed them.

  He had taken two rooms and there Sara and the children had finally come home to him…

  When Sara registered Rachel and Doris in school she was shocked. If they were afraid to admit they were Jews in Collingwood, here she knew that was one fear she could eliminate. The neighborhood was more than half black, with a few Chinese and only a token number of whites. Boarding schools and Brussels seemed very far away. How strange, Sara thought, as she walked back to her rooms with Lillian holding her hand. Af
ter seeing this school she wondered if she had been so terribly abused after all. But as she recalled the longing she had felt and her frustration at not having anyone to guide her she decided that children were better off with their mother, no matter how modest the family circumstances, than being alone in a fancy school. Her children would grow up better adjusted, with fewer fears than she’d had…

  Jimmy Smith’s one claim to fame was the announcement of his birth in the Chicago Tribune. He grew up in a house with too many siblings, too little money and a mother whose affections were devoted to the wares of the local bootlegger. His father worked at the stockyards and at age ten, when Jimmy decided it was time to get out and make it on his own, he followed in his father’s footsteps.

  By the time Jimmy was nineteen there was very little about the cattle business he didn’t know. Jimmy had never planned to leave Chicago, but then he had never planned to get married and start a family either. He confided to his father, “I knocked up a girl and I’ve got to get the hell out of Chicago.” With his father’s blessings he hopped a freight train and wound up in Oakland, California.

  He looked for the only kind of employment he knew, and went to work for the Hayward Meat Packing Company.

  The most important day in the life of one Jacob Sandsonitsky, better known as Jack Sanders, was the night he walked into a pool room and met Jimmy Smith, better known as Smitty.