Rachel's Hope (8 page)

8

“M
arty! What happened to you?” Nucia dropped the dress she was mending for Mrs. Haas and ran to him. She held his face in her hands.

Rachel looked up from her geography book. Blood gushed from Marty's nose and a disturbing blue-gray shadow radiated around his left eye. He had told Rachel and Nucia he was going to the park with his friend, Dan.

“Who did this to you?” asked Rachel, jumping to her feet.

“I don't want to tell you,” he said in a sullen voice. He jerked his head out of Nucia's grasp.

“Has he hurt you before, this boy?” asked Nucia. She dabbed at his nose with a wet rag.

“No.” Marty clamped his mouth shut.

“We need to put ice on your eye,” said Rachel. “I'll run to the Blooms' store.”

“I don't need ice.” He backed away from Nucia and lay down on the floor, his head turned toward the wall as he tried to hide his face.

Rachel exchanged a worried look with her sister. Nucia went back to her mending and Rachel tried to concentrate on her schoolwork, American geography, which usually fascinated her. But tonight, after seeing Marty's injured face, she couldn't focus on it. Marty had been acting strangely over the last few weeks, ever since Jacob had taken a second job at night, stocking shelves in a canned food warehouse. She and Nucia worked long hours, after which she attended classes three nights a week and spent every spare moment reading everything she could get her hands on. Nucia mended other people's clothes for extra money. Much of the time, none of them were around for Marty.

Coming to America has given us the freedom and safety we need, but we have had to sacrifice our time with Marty to pay the rent and keep ourselves clothed and fed. He must feel neglected.

She got out of her chair and knelt down beside Marty's small form on the floor. When she ruffled his hair, he shrank back.

“I think I know why you're angry,” she said to the back of his head.

No response.

“We are all so busy working and you are left alone much of the time.”

No answer.

“Is that the reason?”

Marty did not move.

“It won't be like this forever. I promise that once we have some money saved and a flat of our own, we will have more time for you.”

The boy said something without lifting his head, his voice muffled.

“What?”

He raised his head. “I want to get a job.”

Rachel stifled a grin. “But you have a job. You have school.”

“What is the point of school?”

“The point? The point is you've learned English well, the language of America—”

Marty twisted his neck and frowned at Rachel. “Then why do I have to keep going to school, if I know English?”

“To be able to finish high school and maybe even university so that you can earn money with your brain and not hard labor.”

“I'm not smart enough, and it takes too long to do all that school.”

Rachel stood and put her hands on her hips. “You are very smart, especially at mathematics.”

“You see how tired Jacob is when he comes home,” added Nucia. “He can barely stand up. If he had the choice, he would prefer work that is easier on his body. But he did not have the opportunity to go to high school.”

“I want to make money so Jacob doesn't have to work so hard.”

Rachel couldn't help but smile. “That's very thoughtful, but Jacob wants you to stay in school.”

Marty exhaled noisily.

“What would your grandmother want you to do?” asked Rachel.

Marty turned back to the wall. “Go to school,” he said sheepishly.

“How about if I take some time from my studies on Saturday night and we go to the skating rink?” Rachel suggested.

“Jacob too?” Marty sat up.

Rachel cringed at the sight of his swollen eye. “I think we can talk Jacob into coming, and Nucia.”

Nucia nodded.

“All right,” said Marty.

“No more fighting with the boys?” asked Rachel.

“I'll try.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'll try not to fight, but I can't promise. You always say you shouldn't make promises you can't keep.”

“True,” agreed Rachel, struggling to keep a straight face. “But I think you could keep from fighting, if you really wanted to.”

Marty thought about it for a moment. “I'll do my best. But if someone starts fighting me, can I fight back?”

“You should get away as fast as you can,” interjected Nucia.

Rachel waited until Nucia had turned back to her needle and thread. “Don't listen to Nucia,” she whispered to Marty. “Fight back as hard as you can.”

⚓ ⚓ ⚓

At the corner of Steiner and Post Streets, Dreamland Roller Skating Rink seemed anything but dreamy from the outside. The plain, oversized gray building with narrow, dark windows looked rather ominous. Inside, however, Marty found himself in a winter wonderland of fake snow and elaborate paintings of mountains above the oval skating surface.

Jacob paid ten cents each to cover the cost of skate rentals and rink time for the four of them. The man behind the counter grunted, his cigarette hanging loosely from the corner of his mouth. He asked for their shoe sizes and handed out skates, designed very much like Russian ice skates, except wheels were attached to their shoes instead of blades.

“Since we know how to ice skate, maybe this will be easy,” said Rachel, as they sat on a long bench to buckle up their skates.

“I think it will be different,” said Jacob, rolling the wheels with his fingers.

“I have never been ice skating,” said Marty.

“Really?” said Rachel and Nucia. In Russia, children learned to skate as soon as they could walk.

“My grandmother worried I'd fall through the ice,” Marty explained.

Rachel looked away from the boy, so he wouldn't see the sorrow in her face. He had missed out on so much, losing his parents at such a young age.

“I will teach you, Marty,” announced Jacob. “Soon you will be skating faster than any of us.”

Marty grinned and bent over to do up his skates.

Rachel's feet slid back and forth over the ground before she even reached the rink. She grabbed hold of Jacob to steady herself. When she stepped onto the rink, her feet slipped out from under her body. She landed on her tailbone with a thump.

Marty, still standing outside of the rink, laughed.

Rachel pulled herself to her feet, hanging onto the outside railing. “Your turn,” she challenged him.

Marty stuck one foot onto the rink as if he were dipping it in water to determine the temperature. He rolled his foot back and forth a few times before bringing his other foot forward. With one hand on the railing, he moved forward gingerly, testing his balance.

“I think he's a natural,” said Jacob.

Marty let go of the railing and continued, slowly, holding his arms out for balance.

“How can he do that?” asked Rachel, still holding on to the railing.

“Some people just have good balance,” Jacob explained. “You can't teach someone that. Either they have it, or they don't.”

Marty's feet began to slide. He waved his arms like a bird flying against the wind, trying to keep his balance, but fell backwards. He glanced over his shoulder, waved, and stood up again. He continued skating slowly.

“Let's see if I can do this,” said Jacob. He stepped onto the rink and, using the handrail for stability, skated around the perimeter. Once every few feet, he let go, skated on his own a little, then grabbed the railing once more.

“I'm not sure I even want to try,” said Nucia, watching Jacob moving precariously around the rink.

“We can't just stand here,” said Rachel. She took a deep breath, and moved forward holding on to the railing, every muscle tensed as she persisted. Following Jacob's example, she let go of the railing occasionally, grabbing it when she felt the floor sliding away.

When she reached the other side of the rink, she rested. Nucia still stood where she had been left. Rachel skated around to her sister, still clutching the railing. “I've got you,” she said, putting her arm around Nucia for support.

Nucia let go of the railing, teetered from side to side, and fell, bringing Rachel down with her. Laughing, they stumbled to their feet and made it about five feet before collapsing. They continued this way around the arena, until they were back to where they'd started.

“I'm finished,” said Nucia, wiping her damp forehead. She quickly stepped off the surface and began removing her skates.

Rachel skated five times around the rink before her muscles ached and perspiration dribbled down the back of her neck. She joined Nucia and watched Jacob and Marty wobble beside one another.

“Marty is happier than he's been in weeks,” said Nucia.

“Thank goodness he can skate so well,” said Rachel. “It would have been terrible if he'd spent the evening on his bottom, like me.”

By the time Jacob and Marty finished, Marty's cheeks were red and the circles under Jacob's eyes seemed to have faded.

“Look,” said Marty after they'd removed their skates and were about to leave. He pointed at a poster of a bare-chested man with intense eyes in short pants, his hands covered in leather boxing gloves. Words on the poster identified the man as
Abe Attell, the Little Hebrew boxing champion
.

“He must be a professional fighter,” said Jacob. “Mr. Bloom told me boxing is a big sport here. They fight for money.”

“Can we go to the boxing match?” asked Marty.

“Absolutely not,” said Nucia in a firm, no-arguments voice.

Jacob shrugged and resumed walking.

“Please,” said Marty to Nucia. “Just one fight?”

“I'm sorry, but the idea of watching grown men fight for money is revolting to me,” said Nucia.

Marty trudged down the street, miserably. Rachel felt as if all the good that came from their skating adventure had vanished.

⚓ ⚓ ⚓

Rachel fidgeted in her front-row seat at the Turk Street Temple, a German Jewish congregation. She had strained her back earlier in the day moving a table for Mrs. Haas, and it was difficult to find a comfortable position. Rachel had come to hear Anna speak to a group of wealthy German Jews about the horrible working and living conditions in Russia. Unlike the Russian Jews, who had greater difficulty adjusting to life in America, German Jews, who'd arrived in San Francisco ten years earlier, had readily embraced their new country, and were now a part of San Francisco society. Members of this congregation had taken leadership roles in the larger community. One man at this meeting led the German Benevolent Society, while two others had been leaders at the prestigious Concordia Club, where Jews gathered for social events throughout the year.

“The downfall of Russia has been thrown upon the screen of men's minds,” began the chairman of this assembled group. He spoke in English but with a heavy German accent that made him hard to understand.

Rachel sat still and rigid, to lessen her back pain.

“I am inspired, and am sure you will be, too,” explained the chairman, “by this little Russian girl whose body seems inadequate for the great pulsing soul it holds.” He turned to Anna, sitting behind him and motioned for her to come forward.

Rachel saw annoyance flicker in Anna's eyes at being called a “little Russian girl,” but she joined the chairman on the stage and gave him a demure smile.

“After you hear Miss Anna Strunsky speak about the plight of the Russian people, please dig deeply into your pockets to help them,” he urged.

A couple of men chuckled. Rachel twisted her neck to look back at the audience, at least a hundred people with unreadable faces. She began to worry that Anna wouldn't reach this crowd, that they would not be interested in what she had to say.
I could never speak to a large group of people. I would probably stand there like an idiot and lose my voice.

“Two months ago, seven thousand Russians banded together and decided to cause trouble,” Anna began, her voice vibrant with passion. “Their target? Synagogues and Jews, especially rabbis. If Rabbi Nieto or Rabbi Voorsanger, pillars of our San Francisco community, happened to have been in one of these villages, they, too, would likely have been beaten to death by these savages.”

The temple grew silent. Rachel could hear the short, faint breathing of the man behind her.

“A reporter in Russia wrote that a group of Jew-baiters destroyed the altar of a synagogue and beat the rabbi until he was a pulp of unrecognizable flesh and bones.” Having gotten their attention, she paused. “With scenes like these occurring weekly throughout Russia and no intervention from the anti-Semitic Russian government, it is no wonder that the people, ordinary people like you and me, are taking matters into their own hands. The revolution in Russia is real, and it is the vanguard of a revolution all over Europe.”

Anna told the rapt audience how this rebellion had been brewing since the dawn of the nineteenth century, when serfs were freed but remained in poverty; economic slaves without the right to own land.

“Then came Vera Zasulich, the twenty-eight-year-old daughter of a captain, who shot and wounded the governor of St. Petersburg in 1878, because he had given the order to flog a political prisoner for rude behavior. A jury acquitted her. In retaliation, that became the last trial by jury in Russia.”

Rachel could hardly believe her ears. Even though she had studied Russian history in Kishinev, she had never heard about Vera Zasulich. Such stories were not part of the school program, nor were they in textbooks that had to be approved by the government. The Russian establishment did not want to celebrate revolutionaries like her.
It is ironic
, thought Rachel,
that I must come to America to hear true stories about Russia's history.