No Time for Tears (44 page)

No, at least Chavala did not excuse herself, but on the other hand her needs, the demands on her, were becoming more urgent. In June Chia was graduating from high school, and they couldn’t live where they were any longer … what kind of friends would she be able to make? To bring home? Matters in Palestine were more and more pressing … she was sending Raizel more money, more clothing. Her contributions were important, weren’t they? So she went on …

Now Joshua was two. And Chia was about to be a
graduate.

On graduation day Moishe and Chavala watched with enormous pride as Chia received her diploma. If there was a time when maybe she was entitled to cry a little, it was now. She had kept her promise, part of her plan had come true … For now, at least, anything she had done against … well, set it aside. For now … she was back in the little hovel south of Odessa and she stepped outside herself for a moment, seeing the sixteen-year-old Chavala cutting the cord, then rushing to the kitchen and dunking the newborn first in warm water, then cold, until she shocked the child into life. I kept my promise, mama. Your little Chia had it better than you and I. You’re sitting here, mama, alongside me…

She was brought out of her reverie when she saw Chia standing in front of her, dressed in the lovely white organdy dress. She had grown into such a fine and beautiful young woman … Yes, whatever she had done, whatever she would have to do was worth it when Chia said, “Oh, Chavala, I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Thank
you,
Chia, for being you. I wonder how many
mothers
can say that? Now, darling, I have a little treat for you, today we’re going to celebrate.”

Chavala wasn’t, for a change, going to worry about the cost. Not today. Chia was going to have a memory she could always look back on with special pleasure.

They had lunch at the Plaza Hotel. A grand and imposing place none of them had ever been to. How did Chavala even know about such a place? Moishe asked her.

Simple. When she’d sold to the jewelers, many was the time she had walked into the lobby and looked. And looked. It didn’t cost to look, and besides, a person should know about things. The world didn’t begin and end with Ludlow Street. She even had the
chutzpah
to have a cup of coffee once at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Came in the Park Avenue entrance too, not the Lexington entrance, if you please. Moishe was indeed impressed.

As they sat over their coffee, Chavala looked at her sister and brother. Strange, she thought, Chia had never seemed interested in boys, hadn’t even had a date, so far as she knew. Why did that suddenly come to her as such a surprise? The business consumed her so, she hadn’t even thought much about anything else. Maybe just as well, with the
bochers
on Delancey Street … When Chia went to college she would meet a nice young man … She looked at Moishe. By now he should already have found a girl. He was over
thirty.
If not now, when?

“Moishe, you should go to some of the dances at the … Jewish Center?”

Moishe looked at her. “Did you ever take a look at the girls who go to them?
Yentas
… do me a favor, please don’t worry about my love life.”

“Well, I’m not worried … I just feel that you should think about settling down?”

“I will, when the right time and the right girl come along.”

Chavala gave it up for now. When the three of them walked into the June day she said, “Well, I think I have a surprise for you … we’re moving… Moishe, get a cab.”

Getting into the cab, Chavala gave the driver the address.

“794 Riverside Drive.”

Moishe had to know, “Where are we going?”

“You’ll find out. Just enjoy the scenery and be grateful you have a day off. Remember I gave you a vacation. You should thank Chia, she’s the only one with an education.”

Chia laughed. “With your brains, Chavala, you don’t need an education.”

Chavala shook her head. “Everyone needs an education. There’s a big difference between being a little clever and having knowledge. If I had knowledge I wouldn’t need to be so clever.”

“You’re doing all right without the knowledge,” Moishe said, and for a moment Chavala wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic or not…

Soon the cab came to the curb, and Chavala forgot all her questions, put aside her uncertainties about herself.

“
This
is where we’re moving?” Moishe asked, looking up at the lovely building.

“This is it.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Believe it. Come,” Chavala said, as she led them to the elevator.

On the seventh floor she took out the keys from her purse and unlocked the door to the apartment. Even her heart seemed to miss a beat when she saw it again today.

The foyer separating the dining room from the living room was large and square. Down the hall were three bedrooms and two baths. The kitchen was modern with a new refrigerator and a four-burner gas stove. The sink was porcelain and the drainboard yellow tile. It was beyond words. The three of them stood in the center of the living room and looked out to the bridge and the spectacular view beyond.

“Who would ever have imagined that New York was so beautiful,” Moishe said.

Any city could be beautiful, thought Chavala, if one looked out of the right window. And it took money. Well, Chia was going to Hunter College, and she needed a home where she could bring her friends …

“Well, Chia, what do you think?”

“I
love
it! Oh, Chavala, I can’t believe we’re going to live here—”

“And why not? Nothing is too good for the Rabinskys. Formerly of Odessa and Palestine.”

Moishe shook his head. Chavala had indeed performed miracles. At this moment, he even forgot what it had taken to perform such miracles.

To Chavala it was no miracle. It was, though, some satisfaction. She’d set her goals, she’d achieved some of them … Dvora had shoes and money for food. Raizel could buy a new
sheitel
and Lazarus could now go to
shul
with no outside pressures to interfere with his devotions. One prayer he no longer had to beg God for was to please help him keep a roof over his head and help to feed his increasing family, which had now grown to five children.

“Well,” she said, “let’s go see the furniture. I hope you approve.”

At Axelrod’s on Third Avenue she had carefully selected a peach-colored brocaded chesterfield with two matching armchairs, occasional tables and lamps, a French-type bedroom set. The dining room furniture was the best Grand Rapids could make. If she was going to spend, it was going to be for good things. A few dollars more or less, she’d learned, didn’t make a person richer or poorer. From scrimping and saving on the food money a person did not get rich. You made money by hard work, invested it with care. That was how it was done. Cheap people, Chavala didn’t like them. To know how and when and for
what
to spend was what counted.

“So, Chia, you pick out the set you want for your room, and you too, Moishe.”

A week later they moved into the apartment. Joshua would sleep in one twin bed, Chavala the other. But the first night Joshua slept with her. Not so much for him but for her … she needed to hold him. He was two very much going on three, and she was missing precious time with him … He’d become so attached to Mrs. Zuckerman he cried when Chavala hired an Irish girl to take care of him during the day. At Mrs. Zuckerman’s it had become like family….

September was a month of joy, and tears. Chia enrolled in Hunter College, and Chavala received a letter that very Friday that on his way to the Wailing Wall, Lazarus had been killed when a bomb exploded just outside the Jaffa gate.

Chavala immediately closed the store and went to see Moishe at the pawnshop.

The moment she entered, Moishe knew something terrible had happened. Chavala stood there, actually shaking. He came from behind the counter and helped her to the back room.

For a moment she just sat staring at Moishe. Oh God, the nightmare of it. If only her family hadn’t stayed … for what? This? Were things going too good in America? God didn’t like that…?

“What is it?” Moishe’s words finally got through to her.

“Lazarus was killed.”

Moishe sat down. A long silence between them, then Chavala said, “I’m going to Palestine.”

“We should all go.”

“No … nothing can help Lazarus now. But I can help Raizel. You stay here, keep things going. The needs are going to be even greater now. I’m going to take Joshua. His father and brother should see him …”

“And the store?”

“Close it, what else can we do?”

“We can take the merchandise out and bring it here.”

“Yes … well, what more is there to say? Raizel left with five children … there’s no end to it, is there, Moishe?”

“I guess not. I can’t get over it… When will you leave?”

“As soon as possible.”

Dinner that night was a very quiet affair.

“I feel I should go with you,” Chia said.

“No. Raizel will understand, you can’t leave school.”

“Chavala, I’m part of the family too, you’ve always talked about family. I’m no child, I can help. I can miss school and make it up later or—”

“
No.
It’s different. I mean, it’s different for me. My sister’s husband has been killed. I must go, she has asked for me and I couldn’t live with myself if I weren’t with her now. But you have your own life, darling. Yes, you’re family, of course, it’s your sister too. But I think you can see it’s different. I thank you for wanting to come, I wish I could accept. Believe me, I’d much rather go with you, have the comfort. But in the end it would hurt you too much, set you back too much and I’d only be indulging myself. I know it sounds trite, but it’s true. Life does go on. It has to. And it’s never more important to remember that than at a time like this…”

T
HE CLOSER THE SHIP
came to Palestine, the greater Chavala’s anxieties. She had the time and atmosphere now for her old guilt about separating from Dovid to surface. And guilt because she lived in comfort and safety now while much of her family not only struggled but lived with danger every day. She had been through this a thousand times in her head, but she still felt it…

As she dressed Joshua, her hands were unsteady. This was the first time since Joshua’s birth that Dovid would be seeing him. And if it hadn’t been for the tragic death of Lazarus, she wouldn’t have been coming back now.

When the ship anchored in the harbor at Haifa, Chavala was on deck with Joshua. She scanned the crowd, and when she saw her family … Dear God, the loneliness, the feelings of isolation came back with a jolt. All the good reasons for leaving them four years ago didn’t seem as convincing or important today. The price she paid for America seemed terribly high as she walked down the gangplank.

Dovid watched as Chavala and Joshua walked down the gangplank, and he scarcely recognized her … it wasn’t the years that had changed her, it was the look, the air of elegance … He thought she was beautiful, but nearly a stranger, surely not the same woman from four years ago. This was not the peasant girl he had loved and married. This was a woman of the world, and he realized … feared … that they were worlds apart…

Face-to-face now. For a moment neither spoke, the awkward silence. Finally: “How wonderful to see you, Dovid.” “… Yes, Chavala … it’s been a long time.”

Even the embrace seemed stilted.

Everything seemed out of focus to Chavala.

She felt rather than saw Joshua being taken from her, watched as Dovid all but devoured the child before he got to Chavala and held her close.

Ari was speaking… “We’re so happy you’ve come…”

Chavala nodded, looked at her older son.

At first Reuven seemed reluctant to embrace her. Chavala understood, and fought back the tears. Well, it was up to her to try … “Reuven … I’ve missed you so,” she said. The words sounded empty even to her.

Dvora saw the difficult byplay and felt for Chavala. In spite of her affection for Reuven, she did feel the boy tended to be a bit rigid … she remembered how she’d sat with him and he’d criticized his mother so sharply for not staying in Palestine, for having gone to America, where he was never happy. She’d tried to explain to him that Chavala had made sacrifices and denied herself in ways he perhaps was still too young to understand, and that she had done it not just for herself—not for herself at all—but for all of her family … Reuven didn’t seem to be listening, or didn’t want to listen, was probably more like it. Dvora, realizing that she could only expect so much from the boy, left off with reminding him that whether he understood or not about his mother, whether he approved or not, he ought to remember that Chavala was his mother. She deserved at least his respect.

Quickly now she went to Chavala with Pnina. Chavala looked down at the little girl with the incredibly blue eyes and suddenly her life didn’t seem so empty…. She swooped the girl into her arms, “I read your letters all the time, Pnina. They make me very happy. I want to thank you for them.”

“And thank
you
, Aunt Chavala, for the dolls.”

Chavala blinked back the tears. “You’re very welcome, I’m sure … And now, Zvi, my, what a big boy …” Looking at the small boy, now eight, the past came back swiftly. How well she remembered the day when Dvora came to tell her she was marrying Ari and she’d said, “There’s a war going on, why don’t you wait?” … She tried to push away the next remembrance, and failed … “If he doesn’t come back? …” “Then I’ll have his child …” And now the child of that love was in her arms. How good he felt. She thought of all the years that had passed since that day, and felt suddenly old.

Dvora, again sensing the tension, went to Dovid and said, “Let me see my nephew… Joshua, I’m your Aunt Dvora.”

The little boy looked at her and quickly lowered his eyes. So many things were happening … so many strange people were holding him. He reached out to Chavala, but Reuven took him from Dovid. From the moment he had first seen his baby brother, Reuven had felt a special affinity, a special
bond
that seemed a physical thing … went beyond the notion of this is my brother—more like a pledge … to the child and to himself that they would always be together, that he would protect this infant all through his life. That feeling was reawakened now as he said, “It’s too bad we have to be introduced, but I’m your brother Reuven…”