Mitla Pass (34 page)

Saul, now seven, and Lazar, now eight, were among five Jewish children in Havre de Grace of school age. For the first time in their lives they heard the words and learned the meaning of “kike” and “sheeny!” In such isolation, they either had to fight or drown.

Uncaring about their bloody noses, black eyes, cuts, and bruises, Moses was concerned only about their torn clothing, for which he slapped them about automatically, without listening to their explanations. The boys grew very tough and became accepted to some extent by the gentile children, but they were almost always singled out for punishment by the teachers. They received so many slaps of the ruler over their knuckles, their hands were constantly swollen. Living in this state of precarious balance, Saul and Lazar became painfully aware that they were different, and grew both wily and wild.

Moses sewed and prayed and stuffed the Talmud down his sons’ throats. When the occasion required, usually weekly, he relieved himself, as he had done in Ireland, with a prostitute. Here it was a negro woman who lived with her six children in a shack on a small farm on the outskirts of town.

With the boys growing up rapidly and becoming more untamed by the day, Moses realized he had to make a drastic change. He needed a permanent woman, a wife to make him a home, cook his meals, take care of his sons, comfort him at night.

Each Friday morning he closed his shop, took the train to Baltimore well before the Sabbath started, and availed himself of the social circles that specialized in matchmaking.

One Friday evening after services, his eyes fell on Hannah Diamond as she came from the women’s balcony of the synagogue. For the first time in his life, a spark of love flared in his dark soul.

H
ANNAH
D
IAMOND
sat before the vanity mirror in the dressing room in the rear of her shop. Her expression was pensive, mostly sad. She pinched her cheeks to liven them up.

Hannah would soon be nineteen and remained a spinster by choice. This was America, dammit! Despite her having no dowry to bring into a marriage, there had never been a lack of suitable proposals. Moreover, both her parents were dead and she had only herself to please.

America had given her this choice, this freedom. Yes, it was difficult to retain her independence. Marriages were being made all around her. People were starting to point their fingers.

Whenever she tottered close to acceptance, she backed off, invoking the memory of her mother and the living example of her older sister, Sonia. Hannah rationalized this way and that. The basic truth was that she was terribly uncomfortable around men.

She became determined to avoid the life of struggle that her mother and sister had been condemned to. Back in the old country, Momma had ingrained into her the canon that all men, and her father in particular, were put on this earth for the purpose of making women suffer.

Make Momma suffer he did, every day of her married life, particularly during his outbreaks of violence that included physical beatings. Hannah rightfully blamed her father for her mother’s early death, as well as her own wariness of men.

Her brother, Noah, attempted to chop off his thumb to avoid conscription into the Russian Army, but he botched the job. Noah was taken away and later transferred to Siberia, facing up to twenty-five years of imposed military service. It was a commonplace that those Jews drafted into Far Eastern duty were scarcely ever heard from again. Noah took the easy path out and converted to Christianity and later married a woman of Asian extraction.

Momma and Poppa were both dead when the pogroms of 1881 erupted. The Diamond sisters fled, along with hundreds of thousands of other Jews. They mostly landed in the wretched Lower East Side of Manhattan, two square miles of ghetto without a wall, the most thickly populated place on earth; a place of universal poverty and misery, roach- and rat-infested tenements, a breeding ground for TB, a hunting ground for exploiters to find herds of cheap labor, a place of broiling in the summer heat and numbing cold by winter.

After two years of it, a group of cousins and aunts and uncles collected enough to bring the girls to Baltimore. At least there one could breathe clean air and find some measure of relief from the foulness of New York.

On three hundred dollars borrowed from the Hebrew Free Loan Society, they opened the Diamond Sisters Wedding Gown and Wig Shop in the middle of poor Jewish Baltimore, on Lombard Street.

The sisters were good at what they did, so there was enough work but little profit. Each gown was fashioned from satin, velvet, or silk material and lavishly embossed with tiny beading, sequins, and paste jewelry. The headdress was covered with small pearls and crystals and the veil mostly made of antique lace. For the bride, it was a once-in-a-lifetime gown for which her family would spend its last penny. But making such a garment required hours upon hours of exacting hand labor.

But it was a living, and the Diamond sisters were industrious and fared decently until Jacob Rubenstein happened into the picture. Jake was a salesman, a good looker, a flashy article. He got Sonia pregnant and a quick marriage followed; then came three more children and a fourth was on the way.

Jake proved to be a no-goodnik, both as husband and provider. He fooled around with other women, even prostitutes, a fact Sonia was aware of, but remained silent about.

Jake? Jake was a dreamer, a door-to-door salesman. He failed to make a living no matter what line of merchandise he carried and he felt himself too good to be confined to selling inside a store. Every week, it seemed, Jake was chasing another get-rich-quick scheme. Every week another failure.

The goods he sold on his route were paid off by his customers at the rate of ten cents to a dollar a week. His customers were adept at not being at home on Sunday, which was the traditional collection day. Sunday night, when Jake would go through the ledger and bring the accounts up to date, there was usually barely enough to pay for his last shipments of goods. On those occasions when he collected a few dollars over his costs, he’d usually lose it in a pinochle game.

He always had his hand in the till of Sonia’s dress shop, keeping the sisters buried in a hole out of which they never managed to climb. The relatives were constantly on Sonia. Why should she put up with this no-good bum?

Sonia stuck. Despite all of Jake’s bad habits, he made her laugh. Always with the salesman’s jokes and always with the kisses. He tried, after a fashion, to be a good daddy. He was very affectionate and the kids were still too young to know the awful truth.

At least Jake never laid a mean hand on Sonia or the children, and once in a while he’d hit it big at the card table. When he did
oy, oy, oy.
Jake didn’t spare the horses. He’d lavish on Sonia jewelry, a fur, a millinery piece covered with stuffed birds. Sonia always had the bonanza gifts in reserve to take to the pawnbroker to hock, when it came down to meeting the shop’s bills or putting food on the table.

S
O WHY HAD
Hannah come to America? she asked herself. For a man like her father? Her brother? For Jake Rubenstein? There were a lot of Jews in Baltimore with stars in their eyes about America. Some, like her own cousins, were making for themselves a very fine-quality life. But what chance was there for a single, eighteen-year-old girl? Less than none.

Hannah was approaching the time she’d become too old to make a really fine marriage. What was her alternative? The life of an old maid, which was socially no life at all.

On the other hand, she longed to have her own children and become the
balabosta
of a Jewish home. If only she didn’t have to take a husband in order to get it. Maybe yes? Maybe no? No prince charming had swept her off her feet, yet every time she went to a
bris,
she fantasized that the little boy was her own baby.

Sonia came to the rear of the shop where her sister was pondering, picked up a brush, and stroked Hannah’s raven hair, which fell to the middle of her back. Hannah leaned back, resting her head on Sonia’s belly, which was six months full.

“What should I tell Moses Balaban?” Sonia asked.

Hannah shrugged.

“He makes ends meet,” her sister continued; “that’s nothing to spit on.”

“In Havre de Grace? Such a place is just like our brother, Noah, being shipped off to Siberia.”

“Nonsense. It’s only an hour from Baltimore.”

“It might as well be a thousand miles. We would be the only Orthodox family there. It’s an exile.”

“So? This is America. You don’t have to be surrounded by a million Jews. You won’t have Cossacks smashing your windows. They won’t rape you.”

Hannah detached herself from Sonia, and came to her feet, and her voice showed alarm. “I’m afraid,” Hannah said.

“Of Havre de Grace?”

“Yes, of Havre de Grace ... and ...”

“Moses Balaban?”

“I’m afraid of any man. You know that. Besides, he’s nearly twice my age.”

“That could be a blessing. With a boy your own age, you’d be asking for real
tsuris,
a real struggle. Also, what younger men don’t know about women is everything. In the long run, a more mature man with experience could have a little more feeling, a little more understanding.”

“Moses can be charming, but I think it’s only an act he puts on on the Sabbath, to make himself feel holy. He’s clever, but I also see things about him that make me worry.” She suddenly went into a small spasm of shivering. “And what about those two sons of his, they’re like wild animals.”

“Hannahile, I’ve heard all this from you a dozen times before.”

A long and difficult silence ensued until the front bell announced the arrival of a customer for a fitting. “I’ll be right there!” Sonia called.
“Nu,
Moses will be arriving soon. He asked me to get an answer from you. What shall I tell him?”

T
HE EQUAL OF
Hannah’s wedding gown was not to be seen in Baltimore for the balance of the century. On the wedding day, late in 1894, she set aside her apprehensions and joined in the joyousness of the gathering. Moses’ brothers traveled up from Savannah with a raft of nieces and nephews, while Hannah’s
mishpocha
came from as far away as Cleveland. The catered affair was underwritten by her Uncle Hyman, who was on his way to achieving modest wealth as a drugstore owner.

The ancient ceremony took place in the Lloyd Street Synagogue, one of America’s oldest. A lively music-and-dance-filled reception took place in China Hall, personally catered by the owner, Mr. Sheinbloom. This was a banquet room of note and they celebrated far into the night, damn the expense.

Because it was not the right time of the month, Hannah and Moses spent the wedding night in different homes, perhaps the only advantage a bride got. She felt it was a reprieve, an avoidance of the frightening moment of truth.

Hannah had not been to Havre de Grace, but had only seen photographs of the building on St. John’s Street. She had met the sons in Baltimore. The size of the building, plus the elegant way Moses dressed, seemed to assure her that she was heading for a comfortable life.

Her hopes were soon dashed. The instant she opened his door she saw the effects of a miserly widower. Everything was wrong, indifferent, untidy, dirty. The kitchen in back of the shop was derelict, with squeaky, broken chairs and a table covered in peeling, greasy oilcloth. Pots and pans were caked in grime and the few unmatched dishes were chipped and worn.

Upstairs, in the living quarters, bedspreads, pillows, and towels were grungy and scraggly, and the mattress stained and lumpy. The windows were covered with torn shades and curtainless. Paint could scarcely be seen through layers of dust and dirt. Damp, musty odors permeated it all.

A major overhaul was called for. Linens, featherbeds, dishes, and the like were generally items that a wife brought into the marriage as part of her dowry. But Hannah had no dowry.

She’d make a thorough list, she thought, and put the place into sparkling shape. She’d set up a kosher kitchen with milk and meat flatware and dishes. This was her own first home and no amount of work would be too hard.

Despite her initial disappointment, Hannah did not despair. Work was no stranger to her. And look at the brighter side. This had a lot more promise than a tenement on the Lower East Side.

She had been clever also in making friends with the boys, Saul and Lazar. Anytime they came to Baltimore, there was a kitchen full of cookies. She’d get them to pitch in, getting the house in order. It would make them feel important. She’d bake for them and give the spoons and the pot to lick for rewards, and she’d get their wardrobes into spotless condition.

All of the housekeeping could wait for a few days. For now, there was the reality of the honeymoon night. Nothing had ever been mentioned about sex during their courtship. Foregone conclusions regarding the woman’s role and duty had been part of her upbringing. Hannah did have the terrible legacy of her mother’s tragedy and the fears that went along with sex. Crazy, but Sonia’s marriage held out some hope. Although Jake was a sorry excuse for a husband, they did enjoy their sex together. Sonia had told her that many times.

Since Moses had the experience of a previous wife, they didn’t have to be like a pair of frightened puppies, poking around clumsily at each other. She felt Moses would handle the delicate moments of the situation. If this were true, they could establish a pattern of tenderness, maybe even happiness. There was no putting it off now. The time had come and the mystery would soon be over.

As Hannah awaited him, the dinginess of the lantern-lit room overcame her. She ducked down deeper beneath the covers and soon was swept by sheer terror. The walls closed in on her, and when she heard the back stairs creaking out his arrival, she desperately wanted to run and hide.

“Lord, Hannah,” she moaned, “don’t make a fool of yourself,” and overcame an impulse to cringe in the closet.

The door opened.

Moses returned from the outhouse, wearing an ankle-length nightshirt. He spoke nary a word, took off his yarmulke, turned down the lantern, invoking darkness, shuffled across the room, groaned down on the woebegone mattress, and fished around for her.