Jerusalem Maiden (25 page)

Gaytle fired a look at her, letting her know she'd heard the irony. “Come visit with me tomorrow,” she told Hanna. “Mine is the first apartment in the building.”

“She won't be able to miss you in the front terrace,” Esther said.

“I'm going to sleep in Hanna's bed!” Dvora jumped into the sheets of the parlor sofa.

E
ntering the produce market was a feast for all the senses. The alley teemed with people and beasts, and the air filled with the shouts of merchants, the braying of donkeys, the bleating of goats and the screeching of bound chickens hanging by their feet. The sweat of porters mingled with the perfumes of British ladies, the aroma of fresh dill, marjoram, cumin, saffron and exotic spices from the Orient. The brilliant colors of stalls heaped with fruit and vegetables contrasted with the bare shoulders of dark-skinned men and the astounding hues and shapes of clothes and headdresses. Esther could almost taste the spiced olives, pickled eggplants, turnips and tomatoes, and herring marinated a dozen different ways. She could bury her hand deep into piles of succulent cucumbers or smooth yet bumpy lemons.

The feel of the tomato she picked from the stand matched its dusty, tangy fragrance and made her crave to sink her teeth in its juiciness. She placed it on the merchant's scale and was about to select another tomato when a hand reached from behind her and lifted the first one off the scale.

“It's too soft. Won't last more than a day.” Hanna threw it back onto the pile. She bent forward, and her bony fingers presented two others.

So much for sharing laughter and companionship. “Beautiful tomatoes,” Esther said, and handed her sister the string bag. “You pick the rest of the fruit and vegetables.”

Hanna let out a shade of a smile. “You know there are things I do better—”

No, Esther didn't. “Fine, if that makes you happy. Here.” Esther pulled the leather pouch with money out of her pocket. “I'll get our meal ready.”

She walked away, irritated and relieved. She hadn't been alone for days; Hanna followed her like a shadow. When she wanted to walk to the beach, Hanna complained that no sane human being would choose the hot and humid outdoors over the cool indoors. If Esther wanted to go out alone, Hanna hinted that it was impolite to leave a guest behind. Esther had stayed put, her patience tested. She reminded herself to be compassionate, to find ways to cheer up her sister.

Anyway, had she gone to the beach with Hanna tagging along, she wouldn't have been able to go near the British officer's easels. And while staying in the house she couldn't draw her letters on paper in the evenings. Those late hours were the worst for Hanna as she imagined her husband in a
yi'chud
with his new bride.

Last night she had wept as she lamented her fate. “It's been four weeks!” she had cried. “It must be
her
permitted time again.”

“Stop torturing yourself,” Esther had said, heaping another slice of cake on her sister's plate to sweeten her pain. “Make a new life for yourself. You're free to find a new purpose.”

“What is a woman but a creator of new life? What's life's purpose other than to hasten the Messiah's arrival?”

Esther had stared at the design on the floor. The tiles by the wall had an intricate green-and-burgundy border, leading the eye into a center medallion under the dining table. Life was about longing, about unattained yearning in one form or another. God had made a mistake in switching the gifts bestowed upon the sisters, endowing one with the freedom she didn't crave and burdening the other with responsibilities she'd never desired.

Now, as Esther walked away from the market, her annoyance dissipated the closer her feet brought her to the beach. This was all she needed—some time away from her
tzedakah
project.

The noon sun hid behind a white film, like boiling milk. In the baking heat, the air didn't stir even as Esther plodded toward the sea. She wished it were after five and the British officer were there, painting. Had he stopped bringing the second easel now that she had been absent for over a week? Esther took off her shoes. She hadn't nursed Malka's baby either, but when she passed by the galvanized tin kiosk, it was boarded up during the midday heat.

With perspiration dripping down her neck, Esther returned home. She opened the icebox, chiseled off a sliver of ice and placed it in her mouth. The cold calmed her, but she couldn't shake the thought that had she been the barren one, she would be free to travel, free to draw her Hebrew letters and color them. She wouldn't be obsessed by worries for children who would never appreciate how caring for them sapped the essence of who she was.

Until Hanna's return from the market, Esther used yesterday's leftovers to prepare a dish of cauliflower fried in breadcrumbs. She tossed in grapes, hoping the sweet flavor would please Hanna's heart. She breast-fed Eliyahu and put him in his crib, then sat on her terrace with her Book of Psalms to wait for Dvora's return from school and Hanna's from the market.

A
t the children's bedtime, Gershon's pillow was gone. He threw himself on the floor, kicked his legs and bellowed. Esther searched the room, then her own bedroom and the parlor.

“Hanna, have you seen Gershon's pillow?” she finally asked when her sister came out of the bathroom, carrying the pink Eliyahu wrapped in a towel.

“I put it away. Gershon chokes on it,” Hanna replied. “That's why he coughs all night.”

“Whoever heard of such nonsense?” Esther asked, against the backdrop of Gershon's cries. “Please bring me that pillow.”

“His body doesn't like dust,” Hanna said.

“Doesn't like dust? Who in this country likes dust?” Esther passed a finger on a dresser and raised it. “It's everywhere. I clean in the morning, and in the afternoon it's there again. I clean in the afternoon, and it's there in the evening!”

Hanna wiped the dresser with her sleeve. “I'll tuck Gershon into bed. A few lullabies and he'll be fine.”

“It's not so easy,” Esther muttered. She yanked Eliyahu out of Hanna's arms. “Go ahead. Sing to Gershon all night, if you want.” She carried Eliyahu to her bedroom and closed the door. She unbuttoned her shirt, but when she tried to nurse, Eliyahu wriggled out of her lap and ran around the room naked, giggling.

“Come to Ima.” Esther pretended to chase him. He laughed, toddling away.

When he reached the door he grabbed the handle. “Anna,” he said, tugging at it. He stood on his tiptoes, almost hanging from the handle. “Anna?”

The door opened under his pressure, and he toddled out.

Esther followed him, noticing that the heaviness in her breasts had gone even though she hadn't nursed. Her milk had dried up.

T
he pillowless Gershon didn't cough. For the first time in months, he didn't wake up at night. It might have been a chance event, Esther thought, but her relief and envy told her otherwise. Hanna had mothering instincts. God had designed her so.

It was afternoon again, and Esther had just finished washing the kitchen floor, registering that, as in their childhood, Hanna helped only in tasks she enjoyed while leaving the labor to Esther and the laundry woman. Esther carried her pail and mop to the parlor and almost tripped over Dvora, who was lying on the floor, reading.

“There isn't enough light down here,” Esther told her. “At least read by the window, or out on the terrace.”

Resting on the sofa, Hanna bent over to stroke Dvora's head. “She likes to stay close to me.” More than the possessiveness in the gesture, it astonished and pained Esther that her daughter didn't avert her head; Dvora didn't question whether Hanna preferred Gershon, a boy.

Esther put away the mop and retied her kerchief. “I'm going out.” Hopefully, the British officer would be at the beach with the extra easel.

“Where to?” Hanna asked.

God should forgive her for her lie. “I must check with the shipping office about Nathan's boat. Maybe there's a letter for me—”

Dvora jumped to her feet. “A letter from Aba? I'm coming too.”

“Sure,” Esther said. Spending time alone with her daughter was worth giving up stolen time for her art. A German Jew had opened a bookstore; she'd get Dvora a book or two. There might be a calligraphy tome she could leaf through. “We'll stop for a cake and lemonade,” Esther added, the cheerfulness in her voice genuine.

“The heat has broken,” Hanna said. “I'll get Eliyahu ready and we'll all take a stroll.”

Y
our husband's ship has arrived in Marseille safely,” the British clerk told Esther. “But how can we have letters yet? Not until it returns. If you wish to send one, another ship will be coming up from Alexandria in two days and will reach Marseille eight days later.”

“Will my husband know to come fetch it?”

“We know where Mr. Bloomenthal stays. It will be no trouble delivering his mail.”

“Thanks. I'll bring it tomorrow.”

But after they left the shipping office, something played at the edge of Esther's thoughts. It hovered there all evening as she embroidered in the parlor while Hanna lamented her barrenness. Esther listened for Gershon's cough that didn't occur.

Then she knew what would make her sister happy.

The following morning, she went to speak with the bank manager. Although she was asking for a huge sum of money, Nathan's orders had been clear: Give his wife as much as she needed.

Of course, he hadn't expected that she would buy herself a passage on the ship to Marseille.

T
he train neared Paris's Gare d'Austerlitz, and all Esther could see were the weathered brick walls of tenements, open tool sheds where bare-chested ironsmiths hammered hot steel, and junkyards piled high with discarded lumber and broken carriages. Surely beyond these unappealing displays stretched the broad boulevards where men and women strolled arm in arm. Esther slid open the window to the odor of sewage mixed with engine smoke.
I am in Paris,
she chanted in her head. The other passengers in the cabin were already on their feet, pulling down their suitcases and bags. Esther recited
Birkat Hagomel
, the blessing for deliverance from dangerous travel, then waited a bit longer so as not to risk an accidental body touch. Anyway, all she had was her valise, for she had eaten everything from her box of kosher food in the eleven days of travel.

From her seat, she surveyed the grand station. Ornate iron pillars held up a gigantic glass ceiling. Her eagerness to meet Nathan had evaporated when, upon arriving at his hotel in Marseille three days earlier, she had discovered that he had just left for Vienna. Standing at the hotel lobby, all alone, Esther had felt the first stirrings of apprehension at her own impetuousness. She sent Nathan a telegram saying, “Hanna managing children. I'm coming to Vienna,” to which he had responded, “Woman traveling alone unsafe after war. Wait one month in Paris,” followed by the names of a kosher rooming house in the Jewish quarter of Le Marais and his banker there.

To Esther's relief, the Yiddish-speaking matron of the Marseille hotel had asked the Horovitzes, a Jewish family traveling home to Paris, to look after Esther. They had purchased first-class tickets with sleeping berths, but Esther had decided she could sit up through the night in the coach section; no need to splurge. They would collect her at the other end and bring her safely to Le Marais.

As the hours on the night train passed, a spike of excitement overshadowed Esther's lingering trepidations. A month in Paris! Wasn't God's hand in that as well?

A tap on the car window, and a small hand reached high enough to wave. The Horovitzes' maiden daughter shyly summoned her. Esther smiled and rose. She tucked away the copy of
Les Misérables
she had bought to revive her language skills, stretched her arms and shook her legs.
I am in Paris,
she thought with renewed incredulity.

Hanna had been delighted with Esther's decision to trust the children to her care. Not so Esther's sisters-in-law. When their efforts to dissuade her from this insane idea had failed, they sent their husbands to talk sense into her. All five men had squeezed into her parlor, stuffing the air with their scowls. Whoever heard of a woman traveling alone, and overseas at that? They had argued. How could she leave her poor children practically orphaned? What did she know about the unimaginable perils that lay behind the “mountains of darkness?”

Gaytle's husband sniggered, “Where's your famous
tzni'ut
? Even our wives know that ‘
A king's daughter's honor is all indoors
.' ” Abigail's husband raised his voice: “All our wives might fly the coop just like this disobedient wife.” He snapped his fingers to demonstrate the speed with which the danger might become real, and Esther flinched at the realization that he resented her friendship with his wife.

That had been the first time her brothers-in-law had spoken to her, apart from a few exchanges when the women served Shabbat and holiday meals. Her voice halting, Esther replied, “My grandmother traveled to Russia at fourteen to get a
halitza
from her brother-in-law.”

Hanna, who peeked out the kitchen door, nodded her confirmation and added, “Through mountains crawling with bandits.” Her face had been glowing since the previous day, when Esther had announced her plans. Now Eliyahu straddled across her hips. Although he had been walking for a year, she rarely put him down.

The men's objections only strengthened Esther's resolve. She removed her apron and kept her eyes on it as she folded it. “I will board the ship tomorrow,” she told the five men. “I need you to come along to recite the prayer for my safe voyage.”

And they had, as a matter of duty. Now she lifted her valise. There was no comparison between the comfort of this trip and her grandmother's travels on foot and horseback through snow-covered mountain passages. This trip didn't require her grandmother's courage, only determination.

From the carriage that took the Horovitzes out of the train station, Esther saw schoolboys wearing bow ties walking in orderly groups and houses with ornate brick façades so unlike the straight lines of Jaffa's plain construction. Rows of chestnut trees bloomed in plush green on the sidewalks, and cast-iron lampposts held the promise of light at night. The only street lighting Esther had ever seen was God's moon and stars.

At an intersection, the sight of a grand fountain made her straighten up in her seat. Water tumbled from the mouths of sphinxes into a large basin. A few blocks later, there was another fountain, equally grand, with a series of cascading waterfalls.

“So much water, they can afford to waste it,” she mumbled.

“It's part of the art,” Madame Horovitz said, and Esther's heart broadened at the word. In Paris, even water was made into art!

She was ready to drink hours more of this place's wonders when the coachman entered Rue de Rosiers, where the signs above the butcher and baker shops announced that they were kosher, and a Yiddish poster over a grocer's door listed the day's special knishes. The window of a bookshop displayed a menorah even though Chanukah was months away. Grime, soot and mold streaked the chipped plaster on the five- and six-story houses. Laundry hung from windows, some lines crisscrossing above the alleys. The carriage turned onto a street where vendors' tilted pushcarts became makeshift stalls and children with sidelocks played in front of a modest-looking synagogue. Esther sought Gershon's face among them before she caught herself. Everything felt both familiar and different.

The Horovitzes dropped her off at the rooming house. Her disapproving gaze gliding down Esther's clothes, Mme Horovitz invited her to join them for Shabbat dinner. Thanking her, Esther gathered her cotton skirt as delicately as she could; because of her clothes, she wasn't invited as an equal, but as a
tzedakah
case.

She stepped into a tight-walled parlor lined with velvet wallpaper. The odor of mildew crouched in the walls. A woman with a small face and large hips strode over with open arms and kissed both her cheeks. “Esther Bloomenthal?” She pronounced the name with a Yiddish accent.

“From the house of Kaminsky,” Esther replied in Yiddish.

A huge key ring hung from the strap of the bib apron the woman wore over a burgundy dress made of good wool. On her head, a wig of red curls that was supposed to hide her real hair from men's attention conveyed the opposite message. “Call me Raysel. I'm from a house that is no longer remembered, from a town wiped out by pogroms. Hashem, blessed be He, has spared me from the Jew killers so that I could remember the dead souls.” She dabbed at a tear, then took Esther by the arm and led her to a sofa. “Sit down. Sit, sit. Have some coffee. Croissant? Or would you want to freshen up?”

“Both. All three that is. Thanks.” Esther smiled, her apprehensions gone.

T
hrough the slats in the shutters,
tefillin
-like ribbons of the morning sun streaked Esther's arm as she lingered in bed. The noises of a busy street made their way inside with the music of life: two women argued in Yiddish mixed with French, a
kleyzmer
's violin scratched, automobiles coughed. In Jaffa and Jerusalem, she had been awakened by the crowing of roosters, the
muezzin
summoning Muslims for prayer or the hum of the sea.

Esther yawned and wriggled her toes. Never had she had a day that was entirely her own: no work to be done, no responsibilities, just time to explore Paris. Her mother's voice scolded her for idleness, but from a distant place.

Paris. Esther flung open the window. A gray sea of zinc roofs stretched out, broken by an occasional church steeple or a mansion turret. A pair of pigeons nuzzled in the space under the gutter. Raysel had first offered Esther a bed in a communal room on the second floor with three other women. The district, she explained, was so crowded that whole families shared rooms. But Esther had taken to this neglected attic at the top of five flights of stairs. Nathan wouldn't like the unfinished pitched ceiling that would allow him to stand upright only in the center or by the gabled window. Nor would he like carrying down his own waste bucket to the slop wagon, or the alternative, the communal toilet under the stairs—a closet containing a board punched with three holes to serve more than one person at a time. When Nathan arrived in Paris, they would stay at a hotel whose ceramic sewer pipes carried away waste. He'd only sent her to Raysel's knowing she'd be safe here.

There was no running water in the house, Raysel had explained. “The washwoman will pick up your clothes and bring them back pressed.” Esther had refrained from expressing her dismay. Even in Jaffa, the British had installed water pipes that now served every house.

The pair of pigeons cooed. In the distance, the spire of Notre Dame pierced the sky, and if she leaned out, Esther could glimpse trees edging the bank of the river Seine. She smiled. Until Nathan arrived, this odd little room would be her queendom, her own little Paris.

Downstairs, Raysel laid for her a tray of tea and toast, a hard-boiled egg, herring and a bowl of soft farmer's cheese. Esther said her prayer. Eating, she contemplated what she would do first.

“How can I get a note delivered to the other side of the city?” she asked, and Raysel called over a street urchin. Esther handed him a
sou
and a note she had scribbled to Mlle Thibaux.

After the boy ran out, Raysel asked, “Are you going outside the Pletzel?” using the Jews' name for Le Marais.

“Of course,” Esther replied.

“You'll need to do something about that.” Raysel pointed at Esther's head.

“What about it?” Esther asked, but she knew by Raysel's wig rather than kerchief what the other woman meant.

“You'll stand out—and not in a good way.”

“I'm used to it.
False is grace, and beauty is vain. A God-fearing woman is alone worthy of praise,
” Esther recited. She finished eating fast.

Rue de Rosiers welcomed her with its host of knife sharpeners, glaziers,
alte zachns
, umbrella menders and chimney sweepers, their distinctive Yiddish cries familiar, as if transported from her neighborhood. Esther turned into a labyrinth of streets so narrow that there was no sidewalk, and walls buckled into the alleys as if attempting to touch the heads of passersby. Some doors crouched low under the weight of supporting beams, while others boasted grand entrances decorated with mildewed stone shields, scrolls and swords guarding gates through which a two-horse carriage could pass, hinting at past secret lives of splendor, now crumbling under grime and bird droppings. Even an enclosed medieval porch with a potted plant hanging above Esther's head failed to cheer up a caving windowsill.

This decaying quarter wasn't the Paris she had dreamed of.

Wandering west, she entered Les Halles market, where giant pavilions of glass and cast iron sheltered a wealth of household items and mounds of non-kosher cheeses, barrels of sardines, pickled foods she didn't recognize and collections of hanging sausages and salami. Dazed by the abundance, she climbed a staircase to better view the colorful stalls. How could she capture any of it without employing the miniature Hebrew letters, which were too sacred to be used outside the Holy Land?

The day was hot, but most streets were paved, unlike Jaffa, where dust rose from the packed dirt with every sandaled step. Staying on the right bank of the Seine, Esther made her way along a tree-lined boulevard on which benches offered reprieve in the shade. At an intersection busy with more automobiles than she had ever seen at once, a sculpture of a man on a steed towered bigger than life. Circling it, she examined its contours and envied the artist who had made it.
I am in Paris.

Grand palaces and massive churches rose taller than any building at home. Esther marveled at the minds that had conceived them and at the patrons who had made constructing them possible. Even in the residential street she now entered, elaborate carvings and filigreed ironwork verandas garnished the buildings. Each architect had stamped his name by the entrance. Esther stopped next to one such sign, and her finger traced the brass relief. Thousands like this architect had imprinted their marks on the city.

Two women came out of the house, teetering on high-heeled shoes. Their dresses fit close to their bodies and their hair was piled high under tiny feathered hats. They stared at Esther's clothes, and one of them flapped open her fan in front of her nose, as if to wave away a foul odor. The other woman giggled.

Esther stepped back as they climbed into an automobile. The taste of embarrassment gave way to indignation. What did they know of the woman inside her or of her bond with God? Superiority wasn't acquired by treating hair to frivolous extravagance or by wearing silly, uncomfortable shoes. She forced the incident out of her mind. Nothing should, nothing could tarnish the beauty of Paris.

She drank from a small shell-shaped fountain set in a wall, and walked on. Passing a church, she pondered entering to check its art. No, she decided. Not yet. She would postpone the delight of discovery until Mlle Thibaux could guide her through the trove of treasures. For now, she would explore Paris from the outside; its surface alone was so rich that it would take her weeks.