The Singing Fire (47 page)

There was an uneasy shifting in the audience. Harriet was whispering that she was afraid Jacob’s speech would diminish the funds obtained for the school, and Mrs. Zalkind was protesting that she had no un-English feelings whatsoever.

“A man may believe himself to be one thing, but in the course of life he will realize that he is two or even three or more, and the confusing jangle will not be separated into convenient pieces, some to bury and others to place on view. He can only hope that those he holds in esteem and affection will not be repelled. The truth is that I do weep,” Jacob said, his eyes searching hers. “My heart might just as well be the old Yiddish theater, and it’s no use in panicking, for if it is closed down, it will only rise up with a larger need to express itself.”

Emilia took her mother’s postcard out of the program. The illustration was a print of a theater bill. “Hannah’s Prayer,” it said in Yiddish, “A New Drama.” She fanned herself with the postcard, not knowing what Jacob would see in her eyes, knowing only that she was looking back at him.

“I’m telling you now,” he said quietly, as if he were talking just to her. “Speak up!” the last row called out. “I’m telling you,” he repeated louder, “that out of this cacophony of feeling, this jargon of ideas, a man may find new thoughts rising up in great profusion. As it is written”—he paused, managing a grin for his grandfather, who was wide awake under his fine new plaid cap—“‘The Lord hath put a new song into my mouth’ and ‘Let them be ashamed and abashed that seek after
my soul to sweep it away.’ And ‘Let them be appalled by reason of their shame that say unto me: aha, aha.’”

The new headmaster rose to his feet, leading the audience in applause as he strode to the podium though Jacob shook his head, his speech not yet finished. But they all clapped loudly in gladness that their discomfort was brought to an end, and the next speaker had many well-known vignettes, both humorous and poignant, to tell of Mr. Angel’s life. Jacob left his chair empty on the platform and went down into the audience, where everyone seemed to prefer him.

His mother moved over to make room for him next to Emilia. “It was an interesting speech,” Emilia whispered. “I’d have liked to hear the end of it.”

“You’re certain?” he asked.

“Oh, yes. I’d like to know if a person seems to be one thing and then turns out to be rather more, whether you think such a person ought to be forgiven.”

“There could be no doubt in my mind,” Jacob said, as if he imagined that the person in question were himself. “What are you holding?”

“Look. It’s a postcard from Minsk.”

“Oh yes. From your Mrs. Plater.” He smiled at the Jewishness of gentile servants known to keep kosher and teach the children of the family Hebrew blessings and even, in this case, send postcards to a foreign land with pictures from the Yiddish theater.

“Hannah invented prayer,” Emilia whispered, applauding with the rest of the audience as the more satisfactory speaker took his seat. “She was so sure that she was right, she challenged God.”

“Who told you that?” Jacob asked.

“Shh. They’re introducing another speaker.” Emilia put the postcard back in her program.

Hannah was one of two wives. The other wife had many children and teased Hannah till she wept because she had none. She prayed for a son and she had a son, but in her bargaining with God, she had promised to bring the baby to the temple after he was weaned; there he’d be brought up to become a priest. So her son went to the temple, grew up to be the prophet Samuel, who crowned the king of Israel. The only thing that would keep a mother’s heart from breaking would be to forget her baby, Emilia thought, but every year when Hannah’s family
came to the temple with their sacrifice, she would bring a little robe that she’d made for her firstborn. She had five more children after Samuel, three sons and two daughters, and Emilia wondered how she could attend to them with a heart that was breaking over and over while she sewed.

It was written that Hannah’s prayer was furious. She hurled words at God, threatening to feign adultery so that she would undergo the ordeal of waters, after which, as the Bible promised, she would be cleansed and conceive. So it was written in the Talmud, Emilia’s mother had said while they sat at the kitchen table.

It was very strange that a text written by men could so describe the fury of a woman’s prayers. And even though she didn’t have the righteousness of Hannah, Emilia threw one of her own at heaven.

Bell Lane

Just up the street was the blacksmith’s forge, and people in masks were jostling each other as the remnant of the parade wound down toward the school. In the middle of the lane, someone in a long gray cloak and a crown of cut tin was lighting a bunch of firecrackers. There were bells ringing and shouts of “Hang him up high” and “Remember, remember,” but there was no cart rattling behind Gittel with a guy in a three-colored dress. Sparks flew over the Jews’ Free School, and she had nothing to throw into the bonfire.

“I want my guy,” Gittel said.

“Be happy that you still have a behind to warm in front of the fire,” her mother answered.

Gittel walked quickly, keeping step with her. “I had a quid of coppers in my dress.”

“Consider it charity,” Mama snapped.

“I was taught that a person should always give charity at the end of a journey. It’s a good custom,” Papa said. He was walking behind them, holding on to Libby.

Gittel glanced back at him suspiciously. He was whistling something from
Angel of the Ghetto
. Everyone knew the song. Her teacher even had the girls sing it in school. It was about Jewish mothers. There were too many songs about Jewish mothers. Papa ought to whistle
something from
The Witch
, featuring an orphan and a wicked stepmother who had a grip just like Mama’s.

“I’m telling you before God,” Mama said, “that if you ever do something like this again, I will make you sorry you were born.”

“I’m already sorry,” Gittel muttered. It was all for nothing. The guy lost, the sickness in her stomach, the punishment sure to be waiting for her. “Good money, I made. It wasn’t yours to throw away.”

“And you think you could just walk out of the pub, your pockets full of coins, and no one would bother you?”

Mama was looking at her like she was an idiot. But she wasn’t. And she didn’t care who knew it. “You don’t understand,” she said, the words bursting out of her. “You don’t understand, Mama. I can’t sing in the school concert. Miss Halpern kicked me out of the choir. She called me a liar. It’s because of my mother, isn’t it? She lives in Dorset Street and I must be just like her. But I made up for it. I was going to bring home money so that Papa didn’t have to work at night and get coshed.”

“Oh God.” Mama covered her mouth with her hand.

“But nothing’s come of it now.” Firecrackers split the sky with light, and in the street, the king in the crown of tin struck a match to light another string of them. “I couldn’t sing in school but I sang there. I did it for Papa and you made nothing of it. So you can give me any punishment. It doesn’t matter now.”

“Gittel. My Gittel. I have to tell you something. Listen to me.” Her mother’s voice pierced the sound of firecrackers, the drums, the calls for jellied eels. “I knew a girl once that even stole something from her sisters because she wanted to run away from home. Her own sisters. I know you won’t repeat a word I’m telling you,” Mama said.

There was something different in her tone; it made Gittel pay as much attention as if she were overhearing Mama and Aunt Minnie whispering when they thought she was asleep. “All right,” she said. “Go on.”

“Well, I was the girl, the one that ran away from home with her sisters’ things. You think someone should be punished? I got into terrible trouble.”

It was hard to imagine, but it must have been true. Mama looked so shamefaced. And Gittel knew that this was her chance to find out things she’d only half heard in whispers, so she asked, “Why?”

“Why doesn’t matter, only that I could have died. If it wasn’t for Aunt Minnie, I wouldn’t be here. I’m telling you, Gittel, I prayed that you wouldn’t take after me. You deserve better. It’s all I want in life.”

Mama’s voice was breaking and yet Gittel had to keep asking. Someone had to tell her at last, no matter what came after. “But what about
her?”

Mama stopped in front of the wooden sign advertising Yiddish letters written home for a penny. She looked at the sign as if the answer were there. But still she was holding Gittel’s hand. “You mean Mrs. Levy. Is it so important?” Mama paused, biting her lip. Then she nodded. “All right. I don’t know where she is, exactly, except that she went to the West End. One thing I can promise you, not Dorset Street.”

“Are you sure?” Gittel asked. So it wasn’t there she belonged, it really wasn’t at all, but then she could belong anywhere, and London was so very big, though just a few feet away
Tatteh
was waiting for them, the double row of buttons on his jacket catching the light as four big men rolled barrels of fire toward the school yard.

“Of course I’m sure,” Mama said. “If she lived five blocks over, do you think she could keep herself from coming to have a look at you?”

Next to the wooden sign, a woman was selling treacle cakes. She wore a black hat and plush jacket, and though her boots were down-at-heel, her golden earrings flickered in the torchlight. And maybe she was someone’s mother, too. “Not for me,” Gittel said. “I cried so dreadful much, and I was ugly.”

“What are you talking?” Mama asked as if it was the most absurd thing she’d ever heard. “You think I wouldn’t come to find you, my Gittel-Sarah? If someone tried to hurt you, I would kill him. I would lie down in the gutter and let anyone walk on my back to keep you safe, my daughter. Even from the next world, you can’t lose me. I promise you.”

Mama’s hand was tight in hers as if she really would never let go, and Gittel knew that she would have to be the one to pull herself away someday, but not yet, and so she glanced at her scuffed boots and then at Mama, and she asked, though Mama was sad, because she couldn’t help herself, “Did she look like me, Mama?” It was a terrible question, but wasn’t this a night of such questions?

“No, she was fair,” Mama said as if they were talking about anything
at all. “Maybe you take after him, Mr. Levy, or someone else in the family. This is just between us. Your
tatteh
shouldn’t hear you and feel bad.”

So there were two fathers—of course, though she’d never thought of it—and two mothers and at least six aunts and many grandmothers that she’d never meet, but the air smelled of fried fish, it was the smell of home. “I sang, Mama. I sang in front of everyone.” She searched her mother’s eyes for a hint of pride.

“I heard,” Mama said, kissing the top of her head, and that was almost enough. She could imagine herself singing onstage, her parents in the front row with Aunt Minnie and Uncle Lazar and Libby and Sammy, the audience clapping like thunder. Above in the box seat, the velvet curtain was drawn and someone was sitting there. Maybe more than one person, listening behind the curtain.

Tatteh
was still whistling the song from
Angel of the Ghetto:

A thousand years I floated
Between here and there
And she comes with me everywhere
,
When the wind tears the roof from my house
I hear my mother’s speech
.

Gittel held on to Mama’s hand, her cheeks wet from night and fog. Such moments between mothers and daughters are over quickly. Aunt Minnie was running down the street, calling them. And that was how it would always be in eternity, for those in the next world remember everything for us.

Frying Pan Alley

As the crowd threw the eight-foot guy with the glittering chains down from the float, the pillar of fire opened to meet it, the heat driving back autumn. All along the alley it was a summer night, women pushing shawls down to their shoulders, men taking off caps to wipe their faces. The tailor’s guy in his seven-league boots was lowered with ropes. His spear of a needle made from wood and painted silver was flung on top. On the sea wind, sparks rose up to heaven, where for a moment, at the touch of His creation, God might not be lonely.

The girls watched, leaning against the school fence, Minnie between them, her red hair hanging loose on her red shawl, everything made of fire tonight. Nehama was standing between the barrels of smoked salmon, her back to the slippery brick wall as she talked with Nathan, the streetlamp beating feebly at the fog.

Her husband had seen her singing in the Horn and Plenty as if it were the most natural place for her to be. Does such a person know from
Shobbos?
Does such a person know from making love in the afternoon? No, she’s a nightwalker. A person who buys coffee, someone whose children run away from her womb.

“Gittel went to Dorset Street because she thought Mrs. Levy was there,” she said.

“What—did she want to find her there?” Nathan stood close to her, speaking into her ear so she could hear him above the roaring fire.

“I don’t know. She had the idea that Mrs. Levy was no good and somehow Gittel would make up for it.” She rubbed her hands as if she were cold, though the fire made the street like summer.

“Gotteniu
. We have to talk to her. Explain to her that she can be anything she wants. Isn’t she your daughter?”

“Let her be better than me.” Nehama shivered. Was her shawl made of such a thin wool? “I’m not what I want.”

“You think I am? ‘One-Hand Nathan’—it doesn’t have a good ring.” He took her hand in his as if he wasn’t afraid to touch her. But he didn’t know, he couldn’t know, and she was unable to stand the pressure of his hand.

“How can I let you go there another night, Nathan? It’s killing me. A shop isn’t worth it. Believe me, I know. I was in Dorset Street before.”

“I could tell.” He didn’t let go of her hand, though she tried to pull away.