Yekl Part 6

Yossele was sound asleep in the lodgers' double bed, in the smallest of the three tiny rooms which the family rented on the second floor of one of a row of brand-new tenement houses. Gitl was by herself in the little front room which served the quadruple purpose of kitchen, dining room, sitting room, and parlour. She wore a skirt and a loose jacket of white Russian calico, decorated with huge gay figures, and her dark hair was only half covered by a bandana of red and yellow. This was Gitl's compromise between her conscience and her husband. She panted to yield to Jake's demands completely, but could not nerve herself up to going about "in her own hair, like a Gentile woman." Even the expostulations of Mrs. Kavarsky--the childless middle-aged woman who occupied with her husband the three rooms across the narrow hallway--failed to prevail upon her. Nevertheless Jake, succ.u.mbing to Mrs. Kavarsky's annoying solicitations, had bought his wife a cheap high-crowned hat, utterly unfit to be worn over her voluminous wig, and even a corset. Gitl could not be coaxed into accompanying them to the store; but the eloquent neighbour had persuaded Jake that her presence at the transaction was not indispensable after all.

"Leave it to me," she said; "I know what will become her and what won't. I'll get her a hat that will make a Fifth Avenue lady of her, and you shall see if she does not give in. If she is then not _satetzfiet_ to go with her own hair, _vell_!" What then would take place Mrs. Kavarsky left unsaid.

The hat and the corset had been lying in the house now three days, and the neighbour's predictions had not yet come true, save for Gitl's prying once or twice into the pasteboard boxes in which those articles lay, otherwise unmolested, on the shelf over her bed.

The door was open. Gitl stood toying with the k.n.o.b of the electric bell, and deriving much delight from the way the street door latch kept clicking under her magic touch two flights above. Finally she wearied of her diversion, and shutting the door she went to take a look at Yossele. She found him fast asleep, and, as she was retracing her steps through her own and Jake's bedroom, her eye fell upon the paper boxes.

She got up on the edge of her bed and, lifting the cover from the hatbox, she took a prolonged look at its contents. All at once her face brightened up with temptation. She went to fasten the hallway door of the kitchen on its latch, and then regaining the bedroom shut herself in. After a lapse of some ten or fifteen minutes she re-emerged, attired in her brown holiday dress in which she had first confronted Jake on Ellis Island, and with the tall black straw hat on her head.

Walking on tiptoe, as though about to commit a crime, she crossed over to the looking-gla.s.s. Then she paused, her eyes on the door, to listen for possible footsteps. Hearing none she faced the gla.s.s. "Quite a _panenke_!"[10] she thought to herself, all aglow with excitement, a smile, at once shamefaced and beatific, melting her features. She turned to the right, then to the left, to view herself in profile, as she had seen Mrs. Kavarsky do, and drew back a step to ascertain the effect of the corset. To tell the truth, the corset proved utterly impotent against the baggy shapelessness of the Povodye garment. Yet Gitl found it to work wonders, and readily pardoned it for the very uncomfortable sensation which it caused her. She viewed herself again and again, and was in a flutter both of ecstasy and alarm when there came a timid rap on the door. Trembling all over, she scampered on tiptoe back into the bedroom, and after a little she returned in her calico dress and bandana kerchief. The knock at the door had apparently been produced by some peddler or beggar, for it was not repeated. Yet so violent was Gitl's agitation that she had to sit down on the haircloth lounge for breath and to regain composure.

[10] A young n.o.blewoman.

"What is it they call this?" she presently asked herself, gazing at the bare boards of the floor. "Floor!" she recalled, much to her self-satisfaction. "And that?" she further examined herself, as she fixed her glance on the ceiling. This time the answer was slow in coming, and her heart grew faint. "And what was it Yekl called that?"--transferring her eyes to the window. "Veen--neev--veenda," she at last uttered exultantly. The evening before she had happened to call it _fentzter_, in spite of Jake's repeated corrections.

"Can't you say _veenda_?" he had growled. "What a peasant head! Other _greenhornsh_ learn to speak American _shtyle_ very fast; and she--one might tell her the same word eighty thousand times, and it is _nu used_."

"_Es is of'n veenda mein ich_,"[11] she hastened to set herself right.

[11] It is on the window, I meant to say.

She blushed as she said it, but at the moment she attached no importance to the matter and took no more notice of it. Now, however, Jake's tone of voice, as he had rebuked her backwardness in picking up American Yiddish, came back to her and she grew dejected.

She was getting used to her husband, in whom her own Yekl and Jake the stranger were by degrees merging themselves into one undivided being.

When the hour of his coming from work drew near she would every little while consult the clock and become impatient with the slow progress of its hands; although mixed with this impatience there was a feeling of apprehension lest the supper, prepared as it was under culinary conditions entirely new to her, should fail to please Jake and the boarders. She had even become accustomed to address her husband as Jake without reddening in the face; and, what is more, was getting to tolerate herself being called by him Goitie (Gertie)--a word phonetically akin to Yiddish for Gentile. For the rest she was too inexperienced and too simple-hearted naturally to comment upon his manner toward her. She had not altogether overcome her awe of him, but as he showed her occasional marks of kindness she was upon the whole rather content with her new situation. Now, however, as she thus sat in solitude, with his harsh voice ringing in her ears and his icy look before her, a feeling of suspicion darkened her soul. She recalled other scenes where he had looked and spoken as he had done the night before. "He must hate me! A pain upon me!" she concluded with a fallen heart. She wondered whether his demeanour toward her was like that of other people who hated their wives. She remembered a woman of her native village who was known to be thus afflicted, and she dropped her head in a fit of despair. At one moment she took a firm resolve to pluck up courage and cast away the kerchief and the wig; but at the next she reflected that G.o.d would be sure to punish her for the terrible sin, so that instead of winning Jake's love the change would increase his hatred for her. It flashed upon her mind to call upon some "good Jew" to pray for the return of his favour, or to seek some old Polish beggar woman who could prescribe a love potion. But then, alas!

who knows whether there are in this terrible America any good Jews or beggar women with love potions at all! Better she had never known this "black year" of a country! Here everybody says she is green. What an ugly word to apply to people! She had never been green at home, and here she had suddenly become so. What do they mean by it, anyhow?

Verily, one might turn green and yellow and gray while young in such a dreadful place. Her heart was wrung with the most excruciating pangs of homesickness. And as she thus sat brooding and listlessly surveying her new surroundings--the iron stove, the stationary washtubs, the window opening vertically, the fire escape, the yellowish broom with its painted handle--things which she had never dreamed of at her birthplace--these objects seemed to stare at her haughtily and inspired her with fright. Even the burnished cup of the electric bell k.n.o.b looked contemptuously and seemed to call her "Greenhorn! greenhorn!"

"Lord of the world! Where am I?" she whispered with tears in her voice.

The dreary solitude terrified her, and she instinctively rose to take refuge at Yossele's bedside. As she got up, a vague doubt came over her whether she should find there her child at all. But Yossele was found safe and sound enough. He was rubbing his eyes and announcing the advent of his famous appet.i.te. She seized him in her arms and covered his warm cheeks with fervent kisses which did her aching heart good.

And by-and-bye, as she admiringly watched the boy making savage inroads into a generous slice of rye bread, she thought of Jake's affection for the child; whereupon things began to a.s.sume a brighter aspect, and she presently set about preparing supper with a lighter heart, although her countenance for some time retained its mournful woe-begone expression.

Meanwhile Jake sat at his machine merrily pushing away at a cloak and singing to it some of the popular American songs of the day.

The sensation caused by the arrival of his wife and child had nearly blown over. Peltner's dancing school he had not visited since a week or two previous to Gitl's landing. As to the scene which had greeted him in the shop after the stirring news had first reached it, he had faced it out with much more courage and got over it with much less difficulty than he had antic.i.p.ated.

"Did I ever tell you I was a _tzingle man_?" he laughingly defended himself, though blushing crimson, against his shopmates' taunts. "And am I obliged to give you a _report_ whether my wife has come or not?

You are not worth mentioning her name to, _anyhoy_."

The boss then suggested that Jake celebrate the event with two pints of beer, the motion being seconded by the presser, who volunteered to fetch the beverage. Jake obeyed with alacrity, and if there had still lingered any trace of awkwardness in his position it was soon washed away by the foaming liquid.

As a matter of fact, f.a.n.n.y's embarra.s.sment was much greater than Jake's. The stupefying news was broken to her on the very day of Gitl's arrival. After pa.s.sing a sleepless night she felt that she could not bring herself to face Jake in the presence of her other shopmates, to whom her feelings for him were an open secret. As luck would have it, it was Sunday, the beginning of a new working week in the metropolitan Ghetto, and she went to look for a job in another place.

Jake at once congratulated himself upon her absence and missed her. But then he equally missed the company of Mamie and of all the other dancing-school girls, whose society and attentions now more than ever seemed to him necessities of his life. They haunted his mind day and night; he almost never beheld them in his imagination except as cl.u.s.tering together with his fellow-cavaliers and making merry over him and his wife; and the vision pierced his heart with shame and jealousy.

All his achievements seemed wiped out by a sudden stroke of ill fate.

He thought himself a martyr, an innocent exile from a world to which he belonged by right; and he frequently felt the sobs of self-pity mounting to his throat. For several minutes at a time, while kicking at his treadle, he would see, reddening before him, Gitl's bandana kerchief and her prominent gums, or hear an un-American piece of Yiddish p.r.o.nounced with Gitl's peculiar lisp--that very lisp, which three years ago he used to mimic fondly, but which now grated on his nerves and was apt to make his face twitch with sheer disgust, insomuch that he often found a vicious relief in mocking that lisp of hers audibly over his work. But can it be that he is doomed for life? No!

no! he would revolt, conscious at the same time that there was really no escape. "Ah, may she be killed, the horrid greenhorn!" he would gasp to himself in a paroxysm of despair. And then he would bewail his lost youth, and curse all Russia for his premature marriage. Presently, however, he would recall the plump, s.p.u.n.ky face of his son who bore such close resemblance to himself, to whom he was growing more strongly attached every day, and who was getting to prefer his company to his mother's; and thereupon his heart would soften toward Gitl, and he would gradually feel the qualms of pity and remorse, and make a vow to treat her kindly. "Never min'," he would at such instances say in his heart, "she will _oyshgreen_[12] herself and I shall get used to her.

She is a ---- _shight_ better than all the dancing-school girls." And he would inspire himself with respect for her spotless purity, and take comfort in the fact of her being a model housewife, undiverted from her duties by any thoughts of b.a.l.l.s or picnics. And despite a deeper consciousness which exposed his readiness to sacrifice it all at any time, he would work himself into a dignified feeling as the head of a household and the father of a promising son, and soothe himself with the additional consolation that sooner or later the other fellows of Joe's academy would also be married.

[12] A verb coined from the Yiddish _oys_, out, and the English _green_, and signifying to cease being green.

On the Wednesday in question Jake and his shopmates had warded off a reduction of wages by threatening a strike, and were accordingly in high feather. And so Jake and Bernstein came home in unusually good spirits. Little Joey--for such was Yossele's name now--with whom his father's plays were for the most part of an athletic character, welcomed Jake by a challenge for a pugilistic encounter, and the way he said "Coom a fight!" and held out his little fists so delighted Mr.

Podkovnik, Sr., that upon ordering Gitl to serve supper he vouchsafed a fillip on the tip of her nose.

While she was hurriedly setting the table, Jake took to describing to Charley his employer's defeat. "You should have seen how he looked, the c.o.c.kroach!" he said. "He became as pale as the wall and his teeth were chattering as if he had been shaken up with fever, _'pon my void_. And how quiet he became all of a sudden, as if he could not count two! One might apply him to an ulcer, so soft was he--ha-ha-ha!" he laughed, looking to Bernstein, who smiled a.s.sent.

At last supper was announced. Bernstein donned his hat, and did not sit down to the repast before he had performed his ablutions and whispered a short prayer. As he did so Jake and Charley interchanged a wink. As to themselves, they dispensed with all devotional preliminaries, and took their seats with uncovered heads. Gitl also washed her fingers and said the prayer, and as she handed Yossele his first slice of bread she did not release it before he had recited the benediction.

Bernstein, who, as a rule, looked daggers at his meal, this time received his plate of _borshtch_[13]--his favourite dish--with a radiant face; and as he ate he p.r.o.nounced it a masterpiece, and lavished compliments on the artist.

[13] A sour soup of cabbage and beets.

"It's a long time since I tasted such a borshtch! Simply a vivifier! It melts in every limb!" he kept rhapsodizing, between mouthfuls. "It ought to be sent to the Chicago Exposition. The _missess_ would get a medal."

"A _regely_ European borshtch!" Charley chimed in. "It is worth ten cents a spoonful, _'pon mine vort_!"

"Go away! You are only making fun of me," Gitl declared, beaming with pride. "What is there to be laughing at? I make it as well as I can,"

she added demurely.

"Let him who is laughing laugh with teeth," jested Charlie. "I tell you it is a----" The remainder of the sentence was submerged in a mouthful of the vivifying semi-liquid.

"_Alla right!_" Jake bethought himself. "_Charge_ him ten _shent_ for each spoonful. Mr. Bernstein, you shall be kind enough to be the _bookkeeper_. But if you don't pay, Chollie, I'll get out a _tzommesh_ [summons] from _court_."

Whereat the little kitchen rang with laughter, in which all partic.i.p.ated except Bernstein. Even Joey, or Yossele, joined in the general outburst of merriment. Otherwise he was busily engaged cramming borshtch into his mouth, and, in pa.s.sing, also into his nose, with both his plump hands for a pair of spoons. From time to time he would interrupt operations to make a wry face and, blinking his eyes, to lisp out rapturously, "Sour!"

"Look--may you live long--do look; he is laughing, too!" Gitl called attention to Yossele's bespattered face. "To think of such a crumb having as much sense as that!" She was positive that he appreciated his father's witticism, although she herself understood it but vaguely.

"May he know evil no better than he knows what he is laughing at," Jake objected, with a fatherly mien. "What makes you laugh, Joey?" The boy had no time to spare for an answer, being too busy licking his emptied plate. "Look at the soldier's appet.i.te he has, _de feller_! Joey, hoy you like de borshtch? Alla right?" Jake asked in English.

"Awrr-ra rr-right!" Joey pealed out his st.u.r.dy rustic r's, which he had mastered shortly before taking leave of his doting grandmother.

"See how well he speaks English?" Jake said, facetiously. "A ---- _shight_ better than his mamma, _anyvay_."

Gitl, who was in the meantime serving the meat, coloured, but took the remark in good part.

"_I tell ye_ he is growing to be Presdent 'Nited States," Charlie interposed.

"_Greenhorn_ that you are! A President must be American born," Jake explained, self-consciously. "Ain't it, Mr. Bernstein?"

"It's a pity, then, that he was not born in this country," Bernstein replied, his eye envyingly fixed now on Gitl, now at the child, on whose plate she was at this moment carving a piece of meat into tiny morsels. "_Vell_, if he cannot be a President of the United States, he may be one of a synagogue, so he is a president."

"Don't you worry for his sake," Gitl put in, delighted with the attention her son was absorbing. "He does not need to be a pesdent; he is growing to be a rabbi; don't be making fun of him." And she turned her head to kiss the future rabbi.

"Who is making fun?" Bernstein demurred. "I wish I had a boy like him."

"Get married and you will have one," said Gitl, beamingly.

"_Shay_, Mr. Bernstein, how about your _shadchen_?"[14] Jake queried.

He gave a laugh, but forthwith checked it, remaining with an embarra.s.sed grin on his face, as though anxious to swallow the question. Bernstein blushed to the roots of his hair, and bent an irate glance on his plate, but held his peace.