Baker Towers (37 page)

During the day she didn’t think of her loneliness. She thought fleishig and milchig, red stripes and blue. She lived in horror of making a mistake, though what the consequences would be, she couldn’t begin to guess. Preparing supper was her greatest anguish, the most taxing hour of the day. Serving did not unnerve her. it pleased her to move neatly around the table, silent as a ghost. Her employers scarcely noticed her. Their attention was focused, always, on their son. From soup to dessert, Daniel was questioned: what he had learned at school or read in the newspaper; his opinions and observations; the quality of his sleep and digestion; his worries, his plans. Poor Daniel, Annie thought as she cleared the table. She looked forward to cleaning up, the cheerful business of washing and drying. The dirty dishes she piled on a small table in the kitchen, afraid to place them on the countertop.

She preferred simple tasks, where the potential for error was slight: washing floors, mashing potatoes, chopping a mountain of carrots for the sweet stew Mrs. Nudelman loved. Then she could settle in and enjoy the warmth of the kitchen, the wash of sunlight from the window above the sink. The radio played Mrs. Nudelman’s favorite programs, serials and news reports and, each day at noon, a musical revue. The announcer spoke in a booming voice:
From atop the Loew’s State Theatre Building, the B. Manischewitz Company, world’s largest matzoh bakers, happily present
Yiddish Melodies in Swing
!
Between songs came a torrent of words, some English, some foreign; in the announcer’s sawing accent, they sounded nearly the same. The audience erupted periodically in raucous laughter. Annie listened intently, longing to share in their good time.

At night, the floors washed, she took tea and cake to Daniel, who studied late in his room. She knocked softly, opened the door, and set the plate and saucer at the corner of his desk. He wore round spectacles, a wool sweater over his white shirt. He didn’t speak, just nodded courteously. in the morning, outside his door, she found the dishes on the floor.

SHE’D BEEN AT
the Nudelmans’ a few weeks when she met Frances in the lobby downstairs. Another serving girl: Annie knew it immediately, without knowing how she knew. “Well, of course,” Frances said when Annie told her this later. The daughters of the building had dark hair. All the serving girls were blond.

For two years Frances had worked at the grossmans’, where her duties were the same as Annie’s: milchig and fleishig, the twin sinks and stoves. Mrs. grossman was as crazy as Mrs. Nudelman. They shared the same mania for keeping things separate.

“But why?” Annie demanded.

“They’re Jews,” Frances said.

In two years she’d learned a few things about her employers. Mr. grossman worked for his wife’s father, a fat man who came to Friday dinner and ate enough for two. The grossmans’ youngest daughter was a little beauty, spoiled by her father. The older sisters were plain as milk. All three had large wardrobes, which required much ironing. Frances didn’t care for these daughters, nor for any of the grossmans. She was tired of living among Jews.

“Just wait until springtime,” she told Annie as they walked to the fish market. “They’ll work you like a slave.” Last year Frances had cleaned late into the night, scrubbing down every inch of the kitchen. Mrs. grossman had inspected all the pantry cabinets, looking for crumbs of bread.

Annie nodded, slightly puzzled. Though she cleaned the kitchen each night after dinner, it was never truly dirty. There was no coal stove to contend with, no small children’s dirty shoes.

On Thursdays both girls were free. Together they walked the avenues, looking in store windows. One evening they returned to their building and stepped into the open elevator. Too late, Annie saw Daniel Nudelman standing at the rear. She hesitated a moment, inexplicably embarrassed. if she had seen him first, she would have taken the stairs.

Daniel nodded silently. He reached past the girls and pulled shut the grille.

The elevator stopped at the second floor and Frances stepped out. “See you later,” Annie said softly, aware of how the small space amplified her voice.

Daniel closed the grille and turned to Annie. “You speak English?” he said, his black eyebrows raised.

“Of course.” Why would she not speak English? This is America, she thought.

They waited in silence until the elevator stopped. He fumbled in his pocket for a key. inside, the apartment was dark and silent. Annie went to the kitchen and put on water for his tea.

In a moment Daniel followed her into the kitchen. “You must think i’m very rude,” he said. “i thought you spoke only Polish. That’s why i never talked to you.”

Up close, in the bright light, he looked older than she’d thought him, his cheeks dark with stubble. He sat at the small table and pulled out a chair. “Please, let’s start over. i’m Daniel. How do you do?”

Annie sat, undone by the question. Her heart raced pleasantly, as it had in the taxicab with his father.

“I know maybe two words of Polish. My mother says the Poles never did anything for us. But you’re a Pole, and you bring my tea every night. So that is no longer true.”

“But your parents speak Polish all the time,” Annie protested.

Daniel laughed. “Only when they don’t want me to know what they’re saying. The same way they speak Yiddish around you.” He folded his hands. “So ask me a question, and i’ll answer. Then i’ll ask a question about you.”

For two months her head had felt swollen with questions. Small questions nested inside larger ones, like matryoshka dolls.

She chose the smallest question, a timid one. “Why do you study all night?”

“It’s my job. i’ll be studying for the rest of my life.” His smile was broad, like his father’s. “My turn. Where did you come from, and why did you leave there?”

Flushing, Annie talked about the house in Bakerton, her eight brothers and sisters, the forest and the coal trains. The money she sent home each Friday, two bills folded in an envelope.

“You send them everything we pay you?” Daniel stared at her intently.

Annie felt her cheeks flush. “Almost,” she said.

There was a long silence.

“But that was three questions,” she said. “So now i can ask two more.” She felt suddenly bold. “Why are there two sets of dishes?”

“
You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.
”

Annie frowned.

“Not very helpful, is it? Listen, there are rules for everything. Foods we do not mix. Other foods we don’t eat at all.” He recited very fast: “
This is the law about beast and bird and every living creature that moves through the waters and every creature that swarms on the ground, to make a distinction between the unclean and the clean and between the living creature that may be eaten and the living creature that may not be eaten.
”

Like his father, he seemed to enjoy explaining. He spoke with his entire body: eyes, eyebrows, shoulders, hands.

“But that doesn’t answer your question, does it? Your question was
why.
So, Miss Lubicki: we eat this way as a reminder of our covenant with god, who led us out of slavery in Egypt. That’s the official answer. Not my answer. My answer is, i don’t know.” He shrugged. “is it the same for you? Do Christians do things for no reason?”

Annie thought of her mother, who saved Lenten palm leaves, tucked them behind the Last Supper hanging on the kitchen wall. Each year, on Palm Sunday, the old leaves would be replaced with new ones. To ward off lightning strikes, her mother said, an explanation Annie found dubious.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “All the time.” One last question hung in the air. “Why did you think i spoke no English?”

He had his father’s eyes, dark and quick, always moving. “it’s what my mother told me.”

“Why would she say that?”

“I don’t know,” Daniel said.

IN THE BEGINNING
the languages had melded together; she’d scarcely noticed which was spoken. Now she began to pay attention. One Friday, chopping vegetables for cholent, she heard the Nudelmans argue in Polish. A secret from Daniel, then: they didn’t care if Annie heard.

The argument began in the hallway. Like every Friday, Mr. Nudelman had come home early, but he’d forgotten to stop at the bakery after work. Annie felt a flash of disappointment. Mrs. Nudelman always offered her the leftover challah, a treat she savored. The braided loaf was dense and eggy—in taste and texture, identical to the paska her mother baked at Easter. This had been a remarkable discovery, surprising and somehow joyous, like glimpsing her sister on the street.

The Nudelmans went into their bedroom and closed the door. Their voices rose steadily. Mrs. Nudelman’s was clear and sharp, easier to hear. “And where does he sleep, this nephew? The apartment is crowded already.”

“With Daniel,” said her husband. “We could put another bed in his room.”

“And what happens when Daniel is ill? Our son can’t share a room.”

“The situation is desperate,” said Mr. Nudelman. “if we wait a year, it may be too late.”

“You’re not his only uncle!” Mrs. Nudelman was nearly shouting. “What about that brother of yours? He can’t be bothered to help?”

Mr. Nudelman answered in a low voice. Annie stood very still, listening, but she couldn’t make out the words.

“HIS NAME IS
Mitro,” said Frances. “But he likes to be called Jim.”

Annie smiled, for the first time in her life aware of her lips, coated in borrowed lipstick. They stood on the sidewalk waiting for the boys to arrive. Frances’s beau had arranged the evening. His friend Jim drove a taxi and would collect the girls in his car. Annie glanced up at the third-floor windows. A single light burned in Daniel’s, the bright study lamp at his desk.

A yellow car stopped at the curb, and a burly man stepped out of the backseat. “Eddie!” Frances squealed, and kissed him full on the mouth.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” the driver called. Annie bent to see him through the open window. He wore a wool cap and a leather jacket and resembled her father, her brothers: the broad cheeks, the eyes watery blue.

Frances and Eddie tumbled into the backseat. Another car pulled up behind the taxi, its horn blaring. Timidly Annie opened the passenger door.

“We don’t have all day,” Jim shouted. “Let’s go, let’s go!”

The car was close and warm inside, smelling of cigarettes. Jim turned the wheel sharply, and they darted into the avenue. “You’re Polish,” he told Annie. “i could tell a mile away.”

Murmurs from the back seat, a stifled laugh. Annie glanced over her shoulder. Eddie and Frances sat whispering, their hands intertwined.

“You want to live in city, you need to move faster.” Jim shook a cigarette from the pack in his pocket. “i know many Poles. All Poles are slow.” He himself was not a Pole but a Ukrainian. He announced this with a certain drama, as though Annie had won a spectacular prize.

They drove. As in the taxi with Mr. Nudelman, Annie felt her stomach lurch. Storefronts flew past at a dizzying speed: laundry, delicatessen, shoe repair while you wait. She closed her eyes, knowing the signs would keep coming. That they would come to her that night, in dreams.

Finally the car stopped. Annie stared up at the bright lights of a theater. A crowd had gathered in front. ISLAND OF LOST SOULS, announced the marquee.

“get out,” Jim said abruptly. “i go park this thing. i come and meet you inside.”

She scrambled out of the car and followed Frances through the revolving door. The high lobby was bright and crowded, the carpet soft as swamp grass under her feet. A long line had formed at the ticket counter. She took her place behind Frances and Eddie, who stood hip to hip. They seemed to have forgotten she was there.

The line moved quickly. Annie watched the revolving door— endlessly turning, a constant stream of people pouring in from the street. Young couples and old ones; several well-dressed women, a group of boys in black coats and small black caps. One boy, the tallest, caught her attention. Annie turned away, flustered. For an instant her heart raced.

At the window Eddie bought tickets for himself and Frances. Again Annie glanced at the door. The ticket cost her a quarter, exactly the amount she had in her purse.

THEY FOUND SEATS
in the dark balcony. The newsreel had already begun. Annie stared at the screen, reading quickly:

Work Speeded on Huge Structures for World’s Fair in Chicago. Some 20,000 Beer Cases in Skyscraper Pile Ready for April 7.

Beside her, Frances and Eddie sank into an embrace.

A stack of cased brew as extensive and as high as a city apartment house block is the amazing sight that meets the eye on the grounds of a large brewery here. Almost five million bottles, a veritable mountain of drinks, await the Zero Hour when the 3.2 howitzers will begin to pop.

“Here you are.”

Annie turned. Jim sat heavily in the seat beside her. “i had hell of time finding parking space.”

“That’s too bad,” she said, wishing he’d be quiet. She had never been a fast reader. On the screen a man gestured wildly. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and swiped irritably at his brow.

German Chancellor delivers a rousing speech to crowd of thousands.

“Why is he so angry?” she whispered.

“It’s news.” Jim leaned in closer. “it’s warm in here. Take off your coat.”

Annie did, leaning forward in her chair, a clumsy business. Then, finding nowhere to put it, she laid the coat across her lap.

The picture started. As always, the lilting strains of music swept her up completely; she barely noticed Jim’s arm slipping around her shoulders. The stars’ names flashed across the screen, written in swirling script. Only one was familiar. Unlike Frances, who spent half her wages on movie magazines, Annie had seen few pictures; but everyone knew Bela Lugosi.

Jim’s hand reached beneath the coat on her lap.

For two hours her eyes didn’t leave the screen; yet later, when she tried to remember the story, the details would escape her. She recalled only the warm weight of Jim’s hand, burrowing like a small animal, tunneling under her skirt.