The Singing Fire (33 page)

Petticoat Lane

The new year began with the ram’s horn announcing the Jewish year of 5650. It was early September, the weather mild as the busy season approached for everyone but Nathan. After the accident, he’d tried to use the sewing machine with his left hand and not only botched the jacket but nearly injured his hand. He frightened himself as much as Nehama, and never tried it again. Often he forgot what he was saying in the middle of a sentence. He didn’t play cards, and he wouldn’t go to the theater. Sometimes he slept for days; sometimes he couldn’t sleep and lay on his back all night, moaning from the pain of his missing hand. The only jokes he told were so bitter that no one laughed. When his sick benefits from the Friendly Society were used up, Nehama was able to get some sewing here and there, but she had to sell the gold chain, and the stash of coins under her bed was slowly shrinking to make up rent. One day there would be nothing, and what then? So as the ram’s horn sounded the new year, she decided that something had to change. While neighbor was asking forgiveness of neighbor, she made Nathan as presentable as she could and dragged him to the office of the Jewish Board of Guardians.

She waited with other newcomers sitting on the benches, reading the racing pages and eating apples. Babies cried, mothers nursed as they discussed
The Slaughterer
, the new play in the Yiddish theater. It was about a girl forced into marrying a rich man who made her live in the same house as his mistress and her two children. The script was supposedly adapted from a Yiddish play written in New York, but that couldn’t be true. They all knew who was meant by the slaughterer, and Mr. Berman was threatening to sue. Nathan leaned against the wall,
too restless to sit. He wore the dark blue jacket with the sewed-up sleeve. Double-breasted it was, with brass buttons. His beard was neat; Nehama had trimmed it herself that morning. Then she’d rolled his cigarettes and put them in his pocket.

“Mr. Katzellen,” the secretary called.

Nehama took Nathan’s arm and walked him to the interview chairs. He sat down like an old man, his back curved, his mouth slack as if he’d had a stroke, not lost a hand. Where was he, her Nathan? That was what she wanted to know. This person beside her was someone else, an embarrassment. “Good morning, sir,” she said to Mr. Zalkind, sitting behind his shining desk piled with overflowing files. His secretary was pouring tea from the Wedgwood teapot. Through the window she could see the warehouse that had been going up before Nathan’s accident last year. Trucks stood in front of it, men with rolled-up sleeves unloading the goods. All the best things in the world came from the river and were stored in the East End until they could be transported to places that deserved them.

“Both Mr. and Mrs. Katzellen. To what do I owe this honor?” Mr. Zalkind smiled under his gray mustache.

“Sholom aleichem,”
Nathan said vaguely. His eyes wandered to the portrait of the queen on the wall behind Mr. Zalkind’s desk, then to the window, with its view of secondhand stalls and trucks.

“We come about a loan, sir.” Nehama ignored her husband as she unfolded the paper on which she’d written the figures.

“What is the purpose of the loan?” Mr. Zalkind asked, looking not at her but at Nathan, who was taking out a cigarette and lighting the match with one hand.

“Excuse me, Mr. Zalkind,” she said. He turned his attention to her. She’d copied the figures so carefully onto a sheet of new paper. “You see it all laid out here. We’re to have a shop. Here’s how much is wanted for stock, how much for rent. This is what we has, and here’s the loan we want.”

Mr. Zalkind nodded. “Yes, it’s all quite clear.” But even so, he wouldn’t speak to her, who knew what was what, turning again to Nathan. “Mr. Katzellen, do you have any experience in shopkeeping?”

“A shop? I’m a tailor,” he said. “What do I know from shopkeeping? My hand hurts and I need medicine.”

“I see. Were you crippled in an accident? Yes, well, it happens too often, I’m afraid.” Mr. Zalkind motioned to his secretary. “I can give you a ticket for the infirmary.”

“Tickets we don’t want,” Nehama snapped. “Only a loan and a shop.” She jabbed the paper with her finger.

“I’m sorry for your troubles, Mrs. Katzellen, but women are not eligible for capital loans.” Mr. Zalkind’s face was full of pity. She wanted to smack him, and Nathan even harder. He was getting up to go as if this was all finished.

“Listen to me, Mr. Zalkind. The shop’s for my husband that he might work. A man that works knows he’s alive.” Her heart didn’t beat this way when she came here on behalf of her neighbors. “My husband will sign the loan. Won’t you, Nathan?”

He shrugged and nodded. “Why not? With my left hand I can make an X. You have something that wants an X, sir? I’ll make you a row of X’s.”

“It isn’t necessary,” Mr. Zalkind said. “If you wish, I can give you a month’s receipt for medication.”

“Tell him, Nathan.” She turned to her husband. “Do you need two hands to keep a shop? Only a pleasant manner so people like to come in. Who else tells a joke like you, Nathan?”

“You want a joke?” he asked, his eyes empty, his voice flat as he put out his cigarette and took another from his pocket. “I’m a tailor with one hand. Did you ever hear such a good joke, sir?”

“Perhaps I could find your wife a situation,” Mr. Zalkind offered kindly enough. Oh yes, his kindness would stand him in good stead in the next world, but in this one it gave her nothing. “In a nursery looking after children. I will vouch for her myself.”

“Living in the lady’s house, am I right?” Nehama asked. “Then what’s to be done with my own child? And my husband, who can’t roll a cigarette?” Her voice quivered with the effort of keeping it down so the whole room shouldn’t hear her pleading.

“There’s an asylum for orphans and there is an asylum for the infirm,” Mr. Zalkind said. “One should apply to charity when it’s warranted.”

Everyone was looking at her. Oh yes, there was a charity for everything. But even the deserving poor were not so deserving as to warrant
having their own business kept to themselves. Nathan’s face was red as he stuffed his unlit cigarette back into his pocket.

“Thank you, sir,” she said. “I’ll die before I see my husband and my child put away.” Outside in front of the warehouse, a crate burst, and hats were blowing down the street, rolled felt hats in the new styles, trilby hats, homburgs, even fedoras. The foreman was shouting orders, but the hats blew away and his men chased them with no result except their own appearance of foolishness.

Mortimer Street

When the founders of the first ladies’ club lobbied municipal authorities for public lavatories, the authorities had been implacable. What did they care that a woman who shopped all day had no relief until she returned home? So the ladies had built their own resting place, and now there were clubs for every sort of woman: the Writers’ Club (editors allowed by invitation only), the Pioneer Club (where women wore tailcoats), the Empress Club (decorated with the Union Jack), the Women’s University Club, the Tea and Shopping Club, the Ladies’ County, the Ladies’ Army, and the Ladies’ International Club (opened by the sister of Miss Cohen the poetess after she made a fortune in Kettledrum Tea Rooms).

If Emilia left her in-laws’ house and walked down their street past the square where Lord Byron was born, she came right to the Muse Club, a three-story mansion decorated with murals painted by members. Like the other clubs, the Muse was in the vicinity of the best shops and theaters. It had a dining room, tearooms, reading rooms, a lecture room, and bedrooms for suburban ladies with business in the city. It was an old club, founded in 1872 by the wives of artists who uneasily agreed that if women must have lunch then it was, at least, in a club dedicated to their muse. Men were allowed to dinner on Thursday evenings only.

The reading room was decorated with draped silks and a fretwork arch hired from Liberty’s. The arch was set over a table, framing the mural of Urania the Heavenly, muse of astronomy, her head surrounded by stars, a celestial globe in her hand. She wore a flowing blue robe that might have come straight from Liberty’s if the ancients had been fortunate enough to have the shopping conveniences of London.

“What I would give to have a whole day to shop,” Harriet was saying.
She and Emilia sat at a round walnut table piled with art pieces made or collected by members of the club for a charity auction. Emilia had donated a paper-cut. “I do admit. It’s the one thing I miss by not having a wet nurse. I can’t be away from home for more than a few hours.” Harriet was as plump and unselfconscious as ever.

“I’m going to wear the new gown to the auction.” Emilia’s parcels had been sent over from Liberty’s. “Wait till you see it, Harriet. The gown is burnt umber; it has no waist and falls from the shoulders. There’s a robe over it with velvet trim. I won’t wear a corset with it.”

“Nor should you. A Liberty’s dress is never worn with a corset; it’s just too bourgeois.” Harriet’s waist had passed into oblivion with her third pregnancy. “What shall I do with this?” She picked up a lacquered ashtray.

“It looks perfectly fine. Just wrap it.”

“But it’s so common.”

“Oh, then pair it with that thing.” Emilia pointed to an unidentifiable objet d’art. “I want some tea.” Each reading room had a console wired to bells in the scullery. Emilia pressed the button; two rings meant tea. Three meant scones with it.

“How is Jacob taking your news?” Harriet asked after the maid wheeled in the tea trolley.

“He’s very happy.” Emilia cut a length of ribbon. “Look at this! Another nail broken. My fingers are so ugly.” She spread out her hands. “I shall have to wear gloves with my gown and I have none to suit. White gloves won’t do, Harriet. They won’t do at all.”

“It’s all right. I’ve got yellow gloves. I have to go home to nurse the baby and I’ll bring the gloves back with me before you’re finished dressing. Don’t cry.”

“I’m not.” Emilia blew her nose into the handkerchief Harriet gave her. “Jacob doesn’t want a gentile wife anymore.”

“He what?” Harriet paused.

“I mean he wishes me to convert.” Emilia tied the ribbon around a framed photograph.

“Oh, I see.” Harriet put cream and sugar in her tea, stirring with a silver spoon. “Is it difficult?”

“Not according to Jacob. But I don’t wish to do it.” Emilia took up the photograph.

“Why not? It’s just a ceremony.”

“Just! I won’t be myself anymore.” The picture was in soft focus, a mother in a loose white robe, looking back at her daughter. The mother’s face was slightly blurred.

“So? You’ll be more like me. Except that you keep kosher. Thank goodness no one is making me talk to a rabbi. I’m sure that I should fail miserably. But not you, Emilia. You’re
di gitteh yokhelta.”

“Don’t tease. I won’t have it.” The girl in the photograph was playing the piano, her hands above the keys. “I’ve been dreaming about the baby.”

“Of course you have. And I assure you that it will have all its fingers and toes and none extra.” Harriet smiled. “I had those dreams through every one of my pregnancies.”

“It isn’t that sort of dream,” Emilia said. “I’m nursing. Upstairs in the synagogue.”

“And?”

“People are pointing at me.”

“Oh, I have just that sort of dream, too. Only I’m not even sitting in the ladies’ gallery but down among the men. That’s the sort of dream you’ll have after the conversion.” She laughed.

Harriet had many dreams that she just had to tell Emilia, each one stranger than the one before it. So there was no need for Emilia to say anything more about herself. Certainly not that the dream wasn’t about this baby. It was the other one. And while she was nursing it, she was looking down in horror, saying, But this can’t be my baby. This is a Jewish child and I am a gentile. Her mother was sitting beside her in the ladies’ gallery. She was old.

“There. We’re all done and the table is lovely,” Harriet said. “I’d better go back and nurse the baby if I’m to be here in time for the auction. Are you staying?”

“I might as well. Go on. I’ll finish my tea,” Emilia said.

The reading room was quiet; a sign on the door said, “No admittance until 5:00.” There was only the sound of the piano from the next room, the murmur of voices, the occasional laugh. It had been a long time since Emilia had touched the piano in the parlor at home. Their Bloomsbury friends liked to talk and talk, and there was no call for music, thank God, though Emilia could do it as well as her mother.

When guests came, her mother always used to play the piano. It was expected. The top of the piano was draped with a fringed scarf, and on it there were silver candlesticks on either side of a vase of flowers. The candlesticks were ornate and heavy and would make good weapons if someone needed one, more effective, Emilia thought, than charm, but it would be better still to sell them and use the money to pay for a fast horse. A gas lamp hung above the piano, but her mother would light the tall candles anyway, then seat herself gracefully, her skirt spread out over the piano bench. She always began by singing Psalm 137.

Father would say, What a voice, my wife has missed her profession. She ought to have been in the opera. Emilia always wondered why it didn’t make her mother stop. He would stand by her while she played, leaning on the piano, disdain crawling down. Her mother’s hands would stumble, but she’d carry on. Even after she developed pain in her hands so that she couldn’t do the paper-cutting anymore, she still managed to play the accompaniment for this one song.

The first wife did not like to play the piano. She didn’t do it well, at least so Father said, and no doubt after a few years in his house this was entirely true. But he expected her to play when they had guests; it was a wife’s duty, and she bore him no daughters to be the mistress of the house and take care of him in old age. All she gave him were sons, and sons had to be educated and set up in business; they were a constant worry. She was a disappointment to him from the day of their wedding canopy, a squirrel not a wife, scurrying out into the garden. He hated the garden. What business did she have there?