Children of the Ghetto Part 87

"Who is it now?" inquired Esther in amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Shosshi Shmendrik."

"Shosshi Shmendrik! Wasn't that the young man who married the Widow Finkelstein?"

"Yes--a very honorable and seemly youth. But she preferred her first husband," said Mrs. Belcovitch laughing, "and followed him only four years after Shosshi's marriage. Shosshi has now all her money--a very seemly and honorable youth."

"But will it come to anything?"

"It is already settled. Becky gave in two days ago. After all, she will not always be young. The _Tanaim_ will be held next Sunday. Perhaps you would like to come and see the betrothal contract signed. The Kovna _Maggid_ will be here, and there will be rum and cakes to the heart's desire. Becky has Shosshi in great affection; they are just suited. Only she likes to tease, poor little thing. And then she is so shy. Go in and see them, and the cupboard with gla.s.s doors."

Esther pushed open the door, and Mrs. Belcovitch resumed her loving manipulation of the wig.

The Belcovitch workshop was another of the landmarks of the past that had undergone no change, despite the cupboard with gla.s.s doors and the slight difference in the shape of the room. The paper roses still bloomed in the corners of the mirror, the cotton-labels still adorned the wall around it. The master's new umbrella still stood unopened in a corner. The "hands" were other, but then Mr. Belcovitch's hands were always changing. He never employed "union-men," and his hirelings never stayed with him longer than they could help. One of the present batch, a bent, middle-aged man, with a deeply-lined face, was Simon Wolf, long since thrown over by the labor party he had created, and fallen lower and lower till he returned to the Belcovitch workshop whence he sprang.

Wolf, who had a wife and six children, was grateful to Mr. Belcovitch in a dumb, sullen way, remembering how that capitalist had figured in his red rhetoric, though it was an extra pang of martyrdom to have to listen deferentially to Belcovitch's numerous political and economical fallacies. He would have preferred the curter dogmatism of earlier days.

Shosshi Shmendrik was chatting quite gaily with Becky, and held her finger-tips cavalierly in his coa.r.s.e fist, without obvious objection on her part. His face was still pimply, but it had lost its painful shyness and its readiness to blush without provocation. His bearing, too, was less clumsy and uncouth. Evidently, to love the Widow Finkelstein had been a liberal education to him. Becky had broken the news of Esther's arrival to her father, as was evident from the odor of turpentine emanating from the opened bottle of rum on the central table. Mr.

Belcovitch, whose hair was gray now, but who seemed to have as much stamina as ever, held out his left hand (the right was wielding the pressing-iron) without moving another muscle.

"_Nu_, it gladdens me to see you are better off than of old," he said gravely in Yiddish.

"Thank you. I am glad to see you looking so fresh and healthy," replied Esther in German.

"You were taken away to be educated, was it not?"

"Yes."

"And how many tongues do you know?"

"Four or five," said Esther, smiling.

"Four or five!" repeated Mr. Belcovitch, so impressed that he stopped pressing. "Then you can aspire to be a clerk! I know several firms where they have young women now."

"Don't be ridiculous, father," interposed Becky. "Clerks aren't so grand now-a-days as they used to be. Very likely she would turn up her nose at a clerkship."

"I'm sure I wouldn't," said Esther.

"There! thou hearest!" said Mr. Belcovitch, with angry satisfaction.

"It is thou who hast too many flies in thy nostrils. Thou wouldst throw over Shosshi if thou hadst thine own way. Thou art the only person in the world who listens not to me. Abroad my word decides great matters.

Three times has my name been printed in _The Flag of Judah_. Little Esther had not such a father as thou, but never did she make mock of him."

"Of course, everybody's better than me," said Becky petulantly, as she s.n.a.t.c.hed her fingers away from Shosshi.

"No, thou art better than the whole world," protested Shosshi Shmendrik, feeling for the fingers.

"Who spoke to thee?" demanded Belcovitch, incensed.

"Who spoke to thee?" echoed Becky. And when Shosshi, with empurpled pimples, cowered before both, father and daughter felt allies again, and peace was re-established at Shosshi's expense. But Esther's curiosity was satisfied. She seemed to see the whole future of this domestic group: Belcovitch acc.u.mulating gold-pieces and Mrs. Belcovitch medicine-bottles till they died, and the lucky but henpecked Shosshi gathering up half the treasure on behalf of the buxom Becky. Refusing the gla.s.s of rum, she escaped.

The dinner which Debby (under protest) did not pay for, consisted of viands from the beloved old cook-shop, the potatoes and rice of childhood being supplemented by a square piece of baked meat, likewise knives and forks. Esther was anxious to experience again the magic taste and savor of the once coveted delicacies. Alas! the preliminary sniff failed to make her mouth water, the first bite betrayed the inferiority of the potatoes used. Even so the unattainable tart of infancy mocks the moneyed but dyspeptic adult. But she concealed her disillusionment bravely.

"Do you know," said Debby, pausing in her voluptuous scouring of the gravy-lined plate with a bit of bread, "I can hardly believe my eyes. It seems a dream that you are sitting at dinner with me. Pinch me, will you?"

"You have been pinched enough," said Esther sadly. Which shows that one can pun with a heavy heart. This is one of the things Shakspeare knew and Dr. Johnson didn't.

In the afternoon, Esther went round to Zachariah Square. She did not meet any of the old faces as she walked through the Ghetto, though a little crowd that blocked her way at one point turned out to be merely spectators of an epileptic performance by Meckisch. Esther turned away, in amused disgust. She wondered whether Mrs. Meckisch still flaunted it in satins and heavy necklaces, or whether Meckisch had divorced her, or survived her, or something equally inconsiderate. Hard by the old Ruins (which she found "ruined" by a railway) Esther was almost run over by an iron hoop driven by a boy with a long swarthy face that irresistibly recalled Malka's.

"Is your grandmother in town?" she said at a venture.

"Y--e--s," said the driver wonderingly. "She is over in her own house."

Esther did not hasten towards it.

"Your name's Ezekiel, isn't it?"

"Yes," replied the boy; and then Esther was sure it was the Redeemed Son of whom her father had told her.

"Are your mother and father well?"

"Father's away travelling." Ezekiel's tone was a little impatient, his feet shuffled uneasily, itching to chase the flying hoop.

"How's your aunt--your aunt--I forget her name."

"Aunt Leah. She's gone to Liverpool."

"What for?"

"She lives there; she has opened a branch store of granma's business.

Who are you?" concluded Ezekiel candidly.

"You won't remember me," said Esther. "Tell me, your aunt is called Mrs.

Levine, isn't she?"

"Oh yes, but," with a shade of contempt, "she hasn't got any children."

"How many brothers and sisters have _you_ got?" said Esther with a little laugh.

"Heaps. Oh, but you won't see them if you go in; they're in school, most of 'em."

"And why aren't you at school?"

The Redeemed Son became scarlet. "I've got a bad leg," ran mechanically off his tongue. Then, administering a savage thwack to his hoop, he set out in pursuit of it. "It's no good calling on mother," he yelled back, turning his head unexpectedly. "She ain't in."

Esther walked into the Square, where the same big-headed babies were still rocking in swings suspended from the lintels, and where the same ruddy-faced septuagenarians sat smoking short pipes and playing nap on trays in the sun. From several doorways came the reek of fish frying.

The houses looked ineffably petty and shabby. Esther wondered how she could ever have conceived this a region of opulence; still more how she could ever have located Malka and her family on the very outskirt of the semi-divine cla.s.ses. But the semi-divine persons themselves had long since shrunk and dwindled.

She found Malka brooding over the fire; on the side-table was the clothes-brush. The great events of a crowded decade of European history had left Malka's domestic interior untouched. The fall of dynasties, philosophies and religions had not shaken one china dog from its place; she had not turned a hair of her wig; the black silk bodice might have been the same; the gold chain at her bosom was. Time had written a few more lines on the tan-colored equine face, but his influence had been only skin deep. Everybody grows old: few people grow. Malka was of the majority.

It was only with difficulty that she recollected Esther, and she was visibly impressed by the young lady's appearance.