Portraits (20 page)

Jacob now was sure he would never have a son because he knew Sara would refuse to have another child, accident or no. But still, this was his baby and he was pleased by what a pretty little thing it was.

“She’s a darling little girl, don’t you think, Jacob?” Sara knew how hard it was for Jacob, but it wasn’t her fault if they couldn’t make boys.

“Oh, yes. She’s darling.” Jacob nodded.

“How are things at home?”

“Just fine…everything’s running like clockwork, but I’ll be happy when you can come home.”

And he would. He wouldn’t tell her about last night, about how delirious Doris had been. Her fever was so high that she rambled on and on, scaring him half to death. He stayed up half the night sponging her with towels. Thank God, today she was better.

“Well, I’d better go now and let you get some rest.”

“Stay a few minutes longer.”

“I would, but I don’t think I should leave the children too long.”

“You’re right. Give them my love.”

“I will.” He kissed her and left…

The day before Sara was due to come home, Molly came with a heavy basket of food, changed the linen, put out fresh towels, scrubbed the kitchen floor, cleaned the bathroom—and cried. Why was Jacob so angry? She shouldn’t have interfered but she really meant well. Molly wouldn’t tell Sara that she had gone to the house one evening to try to make amends and Jacob had all but thrown her out. She hadn’t been the best mother in the world, but now that she was trying to make up for lost time it seemed Jacob wouldn’t let her. Why should Jacob protect Sara from her own mother? She just couldn’t understand it.

Rachel and Doris stood breathlessly on the front porch and watched as papa helped mama and the new baby up the wooden steps.

Doris had picked a bunch of marigolds in the backyard and handed the bouquet to her mother. Sara accepted them although she held in her breath. How could anything so pretty smell so terrible. Still, she was so excited to be home that she hugged Doris and thanked her.

The door closed as the family followed Sara and the baby up to the bedroom.

Rachel looked at the infant with disdain. God, she was ugly. Even the blue blanket she was wrapped in didn’t make her look pretty. Doris, however, was Captivated…madly in love with her baby sister. Doris felt very grownup today; after all, she had become an older sister.

As the weeks went by, Sara worked, took care of her children, kept house. Thick barley soup and noodle
kugel
were staples.

Wheeling the baby in the buggy, she would walk up Seventh Street and buy brisket at the kosher butcher. It was almost as good as New York. The fish, however, was not. In New York there was white fish, good carp, but here she bought whatever she could for
gefilte fish
. As she had promised Jacob after that disastrous first dinner as a bride, she would excel in cooking, and she had…her
challah
was every bit as good as Jacob’s mother’s, in fact better…

Shabbes
nights were observed with mixed feelings. Lighting the
Shabbes
candles Sara was sad that not more than a few miles away was her mother…Still, when she looked around her table and observed her children, especially Doris’ round eyes focused on papa saying the
baruch
and the
motzim
, she counted her blessings…

Jacob felt guilty because he had to work on Saturdays, the one day of the week when he should be with his family. How could you be Jewish here? This was a new land, different from the East Side where they could be open about being Jewish. How they observed Friday nights was a miracle. Jacob Sandsonitsky was living like a
goy
. He had even taken a
goy
name—Jack Sanders—and like a
goy
he rode on Saturdays and carried money in his pocket. What kind of a religious Jew did that? God would simply have to forgive him because his family needed to be fed and clothed. If it were known he was a Jew he might be out of a job. The men he worked with made jokes about Kikes but Jacob turned a deaf ear to them. Jacob Sandsonitsky would have knocked the hell out of them, but Jack Sanders compromised.

Jacob had to admit that although he had compromised his religious convictions at least he had bought his family some security. His mother had always observed the Sabbath, but how had that helped her children? His children would never have to struggle as he had. Financially, things had worked out beyond his wildest dreams. He had saved seven hundred dollars and bought a Dodge for fifty dollars from a man who was going into the navy. They had a little furniture, a nice home to live in. So all in all, things were going well. Maybe he never set foot in a
shul
, but life was better than he’d ever known it to be. And Sara had changed in many ways. She seemed more contented, and she watched the children like a hawk and fed them three large meals a day. Children needed food, Sara said, and if anyone agreed it was Doris. She could hardly wait to come to the table. She was a nice fat little girl with dark curly hair.

Rachel was the only one who was slender and that seemed to worry Sara a great deal. She was terribly finicky and—just different.

Rachel, Sara was sorry to admit, was not sweet-natured like Doris or Lillian. She was overly sensitive, sullen at times, and she kept to herself and showed no affection toward the baby or Doris. Yes, there was something strange about Rachel. Everything was a matter of life and death. She had to study, she had to get the best grade, she couldn’t stand to wear the same underpants more than once…Who did she take after? It had to be Jacob’s family. Well, maybe she was just going through a phase. Doris was more like herself…pliable, happy and lovable…Look how she rushed home from school every day to take the baby Lillian for a ride in the buggy. One would think nobody else had a sister. As for Lillian, all you had to do was feed her.

Even Jacob had changed. His life was dedicated to keeping a roof over his children’s heads and shoes on their feet. He was proud that they were never going to know what he’d gone through, and Sara was happy to see him so content.

Still, Sara would have liked him to have been more demonstrative. But she had no doubt that he loved her and his family. It was merely his way.

J
ACOB WAS AS EXCITED
as anyone at the announcement that the war had ended, but peacetime had its price for Jacob. He was called into the office and told the shipyard was laying off men. Jacob was the first to go. His services as a foreman were no longer needed and he was to remain only for the rest of the week.

He didn’t tell Sara at first. He didn’t have the heart to, and he was preoccupied with the injustice of it—just when life had been going so well…

And then a few months later the influenza epidemic struck, and Sara made gauze masks that, Doris noticed with alarm, covered the nose and mouth. Mama told Doris and Rachel to run right home after school and never, never remove the mask. Doris couldn’t take Lillian for a walk because there was this terrible disease from a place called Europe and people were, mama said, dropping dead like flies. How could people drop dead like flies? But if mama said so, it must be so…mama knew everything…

Sara began to notice the changes in Jacob. He was silent at dinner and he scarcely ate. He got up during the night to go down to the front room and sit in the dark. It bothered her, but she had assumed he was probably overworked and tired.

However, this evening she could no longer assume.

Jacob lay in bed with his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling.

“Jacob…I’m not complaining, but you’ve been so quiet lately. I would think with the war over and Shlomo coming back you’d be…”

“Happy?”

“Yes.”

“I’m happy for Shlomo and that the war is over—but I’m also out of a job.”

“Why?”

“Because the country doesn’t need any more ships. They’ve got enough ships but not enough jobs.”

Finally Sara said, “There has to be something else you can do—”

“You think so? Well, I’ve been looking but there are no jobs. It seems the world needs wars so a man can provide for his family…”

“Jacob, what’s going to happen to us?”

“I wrote to my mother and—”

“You told your mother, but you didn’t tell me?”

“Now don’t start with your temper, please. I hoped I’d have an answer about how things are in Cleveland before telling you.”

“What can your mother do?”

“Since I haven’t gotten the letter, I don’t know…”

She bit her lip to stop the tears, then said softly, “Jacob, I know how you feel about my mother, but she is my mother and really she’s a very good woman. Please let me ask her if—”

“Sara, I don’t want to make you feel bad, but I won’t take
anything
from your mother.”

“Why do you dislike her so much? After all, Jacob, she didn’t do anything so terrible to you.”

Some people you just don’t like, Jacob thought, and he was repulsed by the notion of her help. Besides, she was barely making a living.

“Jacob, if we stayed, maybe between what you and mama have saved we could open a furniture store.”

Jacob looked closely at her. Of course she wanted her mother; it was the first time she’d had a chance to be close to her. Molly, he supposed, wasn’t
really
such a bad person, and sometimes he wondered if he wasn’t taking it all out on Molly for what he’d gone through as a kid, on account of his mother…Think about this, he instructed himself…Sara and the children loved California. He badly missed his own family, but maybe it was important for a woman to have her mother. Sara had missed so much…Maybe if God was good to him and they pooled what they had, got into business and made a little success, he and Sara would be able to go east from time to time on a little visit…“Sara, do you think your mother has any money?”

She smiled. “She has the flats and if she sold the store…I think she would be thrilled, Jacob.”

Jacob wasn’t thrilled. Molly would be putting up most of the money and it made him feel damned uncomfortable. But on the other hand…“Okay, Sara, talk to your mother and see how she—”

“Oh, Jacob, I love you, thank you so much. But come with me, please. Let bygones be bygones.”

Pride was not easy to swallow. Not for this man who had had it taken from him so early, and so often…Still, for Sara and the children…

Molly got nine hundred dollars for the flats and three hundred for the junk, but she was so happy her children were staying and that Jacob was speaking to her that the money was the least important concern.

The only thing that mattered at this moment was the large painted sign going up over the door—
SANDERS AND CARR FINE FURNITURE.

Jacob thought about his father as he watched it go up. It should have been Sandsonitsky…

The day of the grand opening came, but not one customer.

“It’s the first day,” Sara said. “Wait till the store becomes better known.”

Jacob waited through the next three months of the worst weather in years. It rained most of February and March, but worse than that was that there was no business. He thought he’d go out of his mind walking up and down the store with only the occasional customer to divert him. For lack of things to do, he began to play solitaire. Molly and he began to grate on each other’s nerves. She suggested that rather than do nothing maybe he should vacuum the store, polish the furniture, do the repairs. And while he was doing all that, he asked, what was she going to do?

Unimportant things began to build into arguments. If things kept up this way, Jacob thought, two things would happen; they would all starve and he would wind up choking Sara’s mother. Better to leave now…

“Sara, I really tried, but I can’t go on this way. She’s impossible to get along with.”

“Please, Jacob, give it another chance—”

“No. No more chances. It’s not good to be partners with relatives. Tell her to give me my six hundred dollars. I want to get out of the store—she can have it.”

“Jacob, she sold her house and her store so you would be able to make a living for us…”

“You’re saying I didn’t support you?”

“You’re twisting my words.”

“Sure, and your mother’s an angel to get along with. Listen, you tell her I want my six hundred dollars back.” …

The next day a miserable Sara went to see her mother.

“I don’t have it, Sara,” Molly told her. “Everything is in the store and the furniture. Let me tell you about your husband—”

“I don’t want you to say a word against him, do you hear me?”

“But you listen to him complain about your mother?”

“He never says anything against you.”

“Sure, he loves me. I sacrificed my own old age so that you and the children could have enough to eat and this is my thanks.”

“That’s why Jacob’s so upset. You kept throwing it in his face.”

“Oh, so he does talk about me?”

“For God’s sake, mama, keep quiet. I’m sick and tired of being in the middle. You weren’t such a perfect mother…” The minute she said it she was sorry. Her mother was right—she had sold everything for them. And Jacob was right too—Molly was impossible to get along with. She blew hot, she blew cold.

“Mama, please sell the store…or I know Jacob will leave me—”

Molly sighed. “All right, all right, go home and tell your wonderful husband I’ll sell…”

Sara found Jacob waiting in the front room of their house. “Jacob, mama said she’d sell.”

“That’s very kind of her, but if she can sell that store you can use my head for a chopping block.”

“What do you want from her, Jacob? She’s a poor woman trying to do the best she can.”

“I want her to liquidate.”

“Liquidate?”

“That’s right.” …

The original investment had been Molly’s twelve hundred dollars and Jacob’s six. After the liquidation they came out with seven hundred dollars.

All Jacob wanted was enough to go to Cleveland; three hundred dollars would be enough. In spite of it all, Molly was heartbroken. She’d wanted them to take the whole thing. Somehow she’d get by…go back to the hat factory. But Jacob said she’d sacrificed enough for her children. From now on, he’d carry the burden.