Mitla Pass (52 page)

Leah had laid the groundwork for her departure carefully, over a period of several months. She had ascertained that the Norfolk water was filthy, all but poisonous, the climate unfit for human habitation, and the very air filled with dangerous pollutants. All of this was far too detrimental to Gideon’s health.

Molly and Gideon had figured out the true reason for Momma’s conniving. She had had enough of her marriage to Dad. A rash of secretive phone calls from a dentist in New York indicated that the caller was interested in something more than Leah’s teeth.

Leah had been very good at securing work, not for herself, but for Nathan. She had gotten numerous jobs for him to moonlight on numerous weekends. The children realized that she did it not only to fill the perpetually bare cupboards, but to get him out of the house so she could attend to her equally numerous amorous rendezvous.

Just before school vacation, Leah informed her husband that she had obtained work for him, through relatives, in Pittsburgh for the entire gold rush season. As soon as he headed north, Leah began packing and gave as her reason the unhealthy climate, water, and conditions in Norfolk.

At first she refused to allow Molly to remain, but when Molly threatened to spill the beans to Nathan, she relented.

Many times Gideon had traveled on the Old Bay Line to Baltimore. It was mostly fun. He and Uncle Dominick took in a lot of ball games at Oriole Park. It was big-time stuff, a triple-A team, just under the major leagues. There were concerts and opera at the Lyric Hall and sometimes some real good touring plays at the Ford Theater. His cousins were neat and he particularly liked Uncle Lazar, who had been a Marine, and Lazar’s big-busted French wife, Aunt Simone.

As they eased into the Baltimore basin, Leah’s hand danced nervously on her son’s shoulder. The
President Warfield
turned toward her berth and was deftly maneuvered dockside and the gangplank rolled into position.

“There she is!” Leah called. “Momma! Momma! Here I am.”

Bubba Hannah saw them and waved vigorously as they disembarked.

“Momma! Momma!”

Hugs! Tears!

“Gideon! Look at how that boy has grown.”

“He’s a sick child. Norfolk was killing him. Thank God we’re here.”

“Come, come, Leah. Lazar brought his car. It’s parked on the other side of the pier.”

T
HE LITTLE RED
brick row house with the white marble steps on Monroe Street seemed smaller to Gideon and more jammed than he remembered. What space would there be for him? How could he write with other people sleeping in the room?

Zayde Moses barely looked up from his sewing in the front-room shop as they spilled in jabbering. Ho hum, Moses thought, Leah is home again.

Bubba was older and slower, but did not forget Leah’s footbath routine. Gideon curled up in a broken, legless, spring-protruding, overstuffed couch, placed randomly in a corner of the kitchen. Moses slipped out of his shop to eavesdrop from the back porch while setting his rattraps, a dozen of them, some heavy enough to stop a cow.

As Leah’s feet soaked, Hannah went about her Sabbath baking, rolling and curling dough and twisting it deftly into knots, to be baked into challah bread. She gave Gideon a bowl to lick the last of the cookie batter from.

“Momma, I slaved, I scrimped. That little
momser
Nathan squeezed every penny. If it hadn’t been for me going from door to door to find him work, we would have starved.”

“I told you from the beginning, he was a no-goodnik. So, maybe you’ll listen to Momma, now.”

“I had to steal milk from the neighbor’s doorstep for that child.”

“A no-good Charlie, that’s what. Those Communists make nothing but trouble. Good riddance,” Bubba said, with a mock spit to the floor. “So, where’s Molly?”

“A mother’s heart could break,” Leah said. “She insisted on staying in Norfolk with the excuse, now hear this, so that she could graduate with her class. Like Western High School in Baltimore was a garbage dump. The truth is that Molly may be up to some monkey shines with this Danny Shapiro boy. It’s no secret what he’s after.”

“Kenst shtarben aveck.
”

“He’s from a family of Mongolians, or something. They’re one step above the
shvartzers.
I begged her, ‘Molly, don’t throw your life away on this boy. What kind of a future will he give you?’ I might as well have been talking to the wall. Children these days don’t listen to a single word you tell them. Just pray she doesn’t come to Baltimore with a little present in her belly.”

“The head of a shmuck has no conscience,” Hannah agreed.

“So, where will we put up Gideon?”

“Upstairs in the front room with Al and Fanny’s children.”

JESUS, Gideon thought.

A hair-trigger rattrap sprung and Moses cursed, outside. The front door bell rang.

“Moses!” Hannah called. “There’s a customer. Probably Mr. Sachs for a fitting.”

Moses shuffled into the kitchen, the fringe from his prayer shawl showing beneath his greasy vest. He pointed a bony finger at Gideon. “You didn’t have your bar mitzvah. You go to
shul
and learn so you can be called to the Torah.”

“I’m not going to Hebrew school,” Gideon said defiantly.

“You’re a
goy!”

“Shaddup and see who’s at the front door,” Hannah commanded.

“This boy is not going to die a natural death,” his grandfather bellowed and shuffled out of the room.

“Hub em in dread,
” Hannah said after her husband left. “He doesn’t earn enough money to feed a canary. Three dollars’ earnings for him is a big week. And Fanny’s husband, Al Singer, is no prize. We’ve been living on the five dollars Lazar gives and maybe a few dollars from that wop Abruzzi.”

“And Gilbert Diamond with his millions?” Leah asked.

“From him we get
bupkes.
”

“Jake Rubenstein also doesn’t contribute?”

“When has Jake Rubenstein had two nickels to rub together?
Nu,
let me go next door and phone Pearl and have the wop bring over a rollaway bed. Leah, you’ll sleep in the middle room with me.”

Leah pointed to the front door in inquiry about Moses.

“The
alter kocker?
He has a cot in the shop. It’s too good for him. He doesn’t put fifty cents on the table for the kitchen.”

“Well, never you mind,” Leah said, “I won’t be here for very long. Momma, sit down, I have something to tell you. Sit, sit. Speak Yiddish.”

Gideon understood perfectly, as had Molly before him.

“Momma, I’m only here till after Sabbath. I have been invited to go up to New York City, can you imagine?”

Hannah looked at her daughter knowingly, wiped her hands, and sat and sighed.

“I met ... I think this is Mr. Dream Man, a dentist.”

“So soon, already?”

“Actually, I met him last summer, quite by accident. I was at Virginia Beach and he was down on vacation with his family from New York.”

“With his mother and father?”

“Not exactly. With his family, his wife and children.”

“But, Leah, you’re a married woman and this is a married man.”

“He is a very, very unhappy person. He and his wife haven’t slept together for almost a year.”

“You believe that crap? You’ve got to watch out for dentists, especially when they give you the gas. Your Great-aunt Sylvia, God rest her soul, woke up suddenly to find you-know-what you-know-where.”

“Momma, I know the difference between love and infatuation. This is a gentleman dentist. In Brooklyn. With a three-story brownstone house in the Bensonhurst district. He has a car, a 1937 Terraplane, and he gets a new one every other year. Believe me, Momma, I didn’t do one single thing to arouse him. But when he saw me coming from the dressing room in my bathing suit, that was the finish of him. I didn’t so much as give him a ‘how do you do?’”

“Of course you didn’t. What happened?”

“Not a thing, Momma, but the man was smitten, he couldn’t help himself. I did nothing to provoke it. So, comes the love letters, the flowers. So you know ... I went for a weekend in New York. It was strictly social. My God, I had to invent such stories for Nathan, that little weasel.”

“I don’t like this, Leah. You are going to break up a home with children.”

“Momma, how can you say that! This poor man has been in utter misery for years. A little sympathy, a little understanding, is the least I could give him. He’s longing for culture. So, what’s wrong with a little culture?”

“I ... I ... can’t ... I can’t ...” Gideon cried suddenly.

“What’s the matter with the boy?” Hannah asked, alarmed as Gideon clutched his neck and gasped.

“I can’t breathe!”

“Oh my God!” Hannah screamed.

“It’s all right, Momma,” Leah said. She slipped as she stepped out of the water pan and made for her purse. “I have an adrenaline spray in my bag.”

N
ATHAN NEEDED
a weekend at home, desperately. His eyes widened in horror as he entered the flat. Devoid of furniture, which had been repossessed, the flat looked like an old whore whose makeup kit had been stolen.

He was extremely tired. The job in Pittsburgh had been a backbreaker, the usual slavery for a cunning, lying slumlord. When he tried to collect,
gevalt!
He wouldn’t have wished it on that other paperhanger, Hitler! A month’s profit went up in smoke.

The anger welled up. His forehead vein grew violet. He threw open the window and screamed, “I’m going to make a scandal!” The neighbors, accustomed to Leah’s suicide threats, took it all in their stride.

A note pinned to the bulletin board indicated that Molly was still in Norfolk, at the home of a comrade, and there was a letter for him.

My Dear Nathan,

... How I have lasted until now, beyond all human endurance, only speaks for my loyalty and faithfulness as a human being. But the strongest human being sooner or later has to break... .

Norfolk was slowly draining the life from our dear son, Gideon. For his sake ... it is with terrible sorrow that I have reached a final conclusion that you are an unfit father and provider and probably are the cause of much of the boy’s illnesses. I have filed for a divorce ... if you threaten to make a scandal I shall have to take severe measures to stop you... .

Certain government authorities may be very interested in your activities, if you know what I mean. They do not fool around with undesirable aliens and I am certain you don’t want to go back to Poland. ... I tried, God knows I tried, but you have crushed the love out of a delicate flower, me.

Sincerely,

Leah

Leah had played it perfectly. The Party was Nathan’s life, but Jewish members were leaving in droves. Some, like Nathan, dreaded the thought of life away from the comrades and stayed and kept their mouths shut. Through all the Stalin purges of great old venerated Bolsheviks and intellectuals and professionals and artists, he was quiet. They had been liquidated after extorted “confessions.”

In America, the Party had become a shell of itself. It could no longer afford to expel loyal foot soldiers, like Nathan Zadok. He was transferred to a higher post in Philadelphia, to pick up the scattered remains of the Jewish Section. His immediate job was to gain control of the Jewish paperhangers’ union local. He was also ordered by the Party to go through the divorce quietly and to pay three dollars and fifty cents per week child support to Gideon.

My Dear Son,

First of all let’s get some things straight. I have not come to Baltimore in the past month because I have been ill. I am papering at night, sometimes until the morning, to meet my obligations. Have I ever failed to send a money order for $3.50 a week, even if I don’t have what to eat? Have I? And what about the extra dollar I include, even sometimes when I have to borrow it? So, if I don’t come to Baltimore it is because I’m sick. The doctor says my condition won’t be better for some time yet, so I shouldn’t travel. That should put that bunk to rest. I would be there in a minute if I were physically and financially able to travel.

Under no circumstances can a boy from a progressive home endure the humiliation of a ceremony such as a bar mitzvah. You will not be forgiven if you submit.

Now, to more serious business. I don’t know what to do with you. Just think of it, you are already not a little boy and here I am worried because you don’t write to me. Every day I look for a letter. You don’t want to satisfy me even with a few words to tell me how you feel. I ask you, sonny! Is that nice?????

If you don’t want to write to me, why don’t you tell me?

Well, be a good boy, sit down, and write to me a nice letter. You know I love you. Bad news. I have no future work and no money. You don’t know me anymore. When I start to work again and have some money, then you’ll recognize me again. So, you are against the poor and for the rich? Oh, I cannot believe that. Unless you write to me regular, I may think that you are against the poor. So let us see. Be good, write, and keep well. Your Daddy loves you.

Nathan

LAZAR

1939–1941

I
AM
G
IDEON’S UNCLE
, Lazar Balaban, the pharmacist. I became an important part of his life from 1939 through 1941, a very difficult period.

When Gideon arrived in Baltimore from Norfolk, my own situation had greatly improved. After the great depression and years of virtual bondage, I was finally able to buy out Gilbert Diamond. Once on my own, I did very well.

My darling wife, Simone, proved to be a true gift from God. She was thrifty. She had ideas. She made things happen.

During those days a man could pick up a good pharmacy for a song. We sold our old location and moved “uptown,” so to speak, into a first-class establishment in a pleasant residential neighborhood with trees and lawns, with doctors and teachers as customers. It was a mixed neighborhood, a lot of Jewish families, Italians, Irish. Most people were making a nice living. It was peaceful. My store was at the intersection of Garrison Boulevard and Liberty Heights Avenue, a prime crossroads location.