The Auerbach Will (19 page)

Your Uncle Mort and I have always felt that handwritten letters provide a more personal touch in the conduct of our business.…

“Fine,” Essie said. “From now on, all his letters will be handwritten. But only
his.
”

Incidentally, I have not yet received the final figures for February, which I had expected to have in hand before this date
.

Yrs., etc
.

Solomon J. Rosenthal

“The figures did go out, didn't they?” he asked her.

“Yes, but they were a few days late. You got behind, because of the short month, remember?”

He folded his arms on the kitchen table and rested his head upon them. “Christ,” he said, “but I hate this business.”

She studied him for a moment. Then, in imitation of him, she flung her own arms across the table, sank her head onto them, and let out a long wail. “Oh, God!” she pretended to moan. “Oh,
Riboyne Shel O'lem!
The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved! What shall become of us?
Alles ist endet!
”

He sat up abruptly. “Essie?” he said. “Are you all right?”

She sat up too, and faced him. “As my mother would say, enough already—all
right
already! So go hit your head against the wall! Why this moaning and complaining? We have a roof over our heads and food in the larder. You have a job and a salary, what else do you want? Listen,” she said, jumping up from the table, “I have a bottle of Riesling in the icebox, so let's have a party. Let's celebrate our good fortune. And listen,” she said, as she fetched the wine, uncorked the bottle, and filled two glasses, “don't forget that I'm a Russian Jewess, with mystic powers. I am a daughter of the Benjamites, for whom the Red Sea parted, and I can work miracles. So let's drink to miracles! To success! To health! To money! To the end of the rainbow and the pot of gold!
L'chayim!
You at least know that Jewish word, don't you?”

He was laughing now. “
L'chayim
,” he said, “to you and to me,” and they clinked glasses.

Later, a little heady from the wine, she was walking slowly back and forth across the kitchen linoleum, her glass held in front of her. “Something is happening to me, Jake,” she said softly. “Do you know what it is? I'll tell you what it is. The Russian peasant is coming out in me. I can feel it coming out in me—the Russian peasant.” Slowly she began unbuttoning her blouse. “Ah, I feel it coming, Jake dearest—can you see it coming? Can you?”

He rose and began moving toward her.

She undid the last button. Then she sat, facing him, on the edge of the wooden kitchen table, and lay back across it. “Right here,” she whispered, “like the peasant girls did … right here on the kitchen table … like the girls did at home … in Volna … Ah, Jake!” she cried as his body sank across hers. “Make love to this poor peasant girl!”

On mornings when he did not need her at the store, she would rise ahead of him and prepare his lunch, a couple of hearty sandwiches and a piece of fruit, a banana or an apple, and a Dewar bottle of hot coffee, wrap everything in waxed paper and put it in a paper bag. Then she would fix his breakfast. During the mornings she would type his business letters and work on the billing and account books. The afternoons were her private times. Some of the magazines she read contained pages on the fashions of the day, and for a few cents you could send away for the patterns. But why, she asked herself, spend good money on patterns when she could sketch dresses herself and make her own patterns? And so she began designing and stitching together her own dresses and suits. A little outfit inspired by one she had seen in
Harper's Bazaar
—and which cost forty dollars in the stores—Essie could make for less than six dollars.

Some of the books that she borrowed from the library now were books on gardening. In the small rectangle of earth behind the house, which Jake had spaded up for a garden, she set out tomato plants, and rows of carrots, radishes and lettuce. She also left space for some showy perennials—phlox, iris, and peonies. When the streetcar line that ran in front of the house was being torn up and relaid in the spring of 1907, Essie was able to salvage a few flat stones, and to build a short, winding path through her little garden. Her botany course was turning out to be useful after all! Wonder of wonders!

From the store, it seemed to Essie, the figures got gradually better as the weeks went by. Actually, she decided, Jake enjoyed the selling part of his work, and was very good at it. With his good looks and easy manner, and with his own good taste in clothes, he was a persuasive salesman. But it was the paperwork he didn't like, and so Essie did that for him.

April 7, 1908

Dear Uncle Sol:

Enclosed, please find proofs of some new advertisements we plan to run in the Chicago
Tribune.
If you find them as exciting as I do, you may wonder who the talented artist is who has executed them
.

Well, the artist is none other than my lovely wife who, to my added delight, offers her services completely gratis.…

New York City

April 11, 1908

Dear Nephew:

Thank you for sending me the proofs of the adv'ts.

At first I was puzzled by the fact that the faces on the figures wearing the clothes do not have features such as eyes and noses and mouths drawn in. But then I decided that perhaps this is rather clever, in that it calls to greater attention the garments themselves, and their details, rather than to the details of the human figure. The details of the garments seem to me to be well done
.

I must offer a cautionary word, however, on the use of adv'ts in general. Even the cleverest adv't cannot sell an unsalable garment. If the adv't does not sell a g'mt
, be sure not to make the mistake
of spending money on another adv't for the same g'mt. Instead, a sale tag should be immediately placed on said g'mt, or else it should be passed on to another retailer at the most favorable discount you can get. Do not make the mistake of buying a certain g'mt in large quantity based on the fact that you intend to run an adv't on it, for the results may be disappointing and you will be left with a large overstock
.

Meanwhile, I suggest you give more attention to your accounts receivable. Looking over last month's figures, it would appear to me that Chicagoans do not apply the same meticulous care to paying their bills which New Yorkers do. Or the problem may lie in not sufficiently checking the financial status of certain customers to whom you are extending credit.…

April 30, 1908

Dear Uncle Sol:

Rosenthal's advertisements are becoming the talk of Chicago!

Every day, in the mail, come more letters praising our advertisements for their stylishness and originality. My artist-in-residence deserves full credit.…

New York City

May 5, 1908

Dear Nephew:

I am delighted that Rosenthal's adv'ts are “the talk of Chicago,” as you put it, but do not let that fact carry you away into spending more money on adv'ts than your sales figures warrant
.

While having artistic adv'ts no doubt creates “good will” for the store, it is always difficult to place a dollar value on “good will.
”

Yrs., etc
.

Solomon J. Rosenthal

May 25, 1908

Dear Uncle Sol:

Well, our suspicions of the last two months have been confirmed. I am to become a father in early September! What do you think of that? Please tell Mother and Pop that I hope they'll forgive me for turning them into grandparents at such an early age
.

If the baby is a boy, which we both hope it will be, his name has been chosen
—
Jacob Auerbach, Jr. If a girl, we are still undecided.…

Essie is in fine health, and the doctor foresees no complications. And since most of the work she does for the store is now done at home, she is expected not to be much inconvenienced by the pregnancy
.

We both send love to you and to the Family
.

Yours sincerely
,

Jake

“Mama's not going to be happy with the name Jacob Junior,” Essie said.

“Why not?”

“Tradition. Tradition says that you name a baby after the relative who's died most recently. I guess that would be my Uncle Ike.”

“Doesn't that strike you as kind of morbid?”

“Or at least with the same first initial.”

“Do you want our son named Ike or Isidor? At Columbia, there was a fellow everybody called Ikey the Kikey.”

“No, you're right. This is the New World. But Mama won't be happy, just the same.”

“‘I' and ‘J' are close enough.”

“Of course we could name him Riesling,” she said, smiling.

“Riesling?”

“For the wine.”

(undated)

Dearest Mama:

On Tuesday, September 10, I gave birth to the most beautiful baby boy you have ever seen, wonderfully healthy and fat at eight pounds, six ounces, and I cannot describe our happiness to you
.

Jacob, Jr., as we have decided to name him
—
now don't be upset, this is a very
American
custom, and since I and J are next to each other in the alphabet he also memorializes Uncle Ike
—
has Jake's blue eyes and, though it is hard to tell since he has so little of it, I think my hair coloring. He has long fingers, which he uses to cling to me when he is feeding. He eats well, and there is very little crying. Dear Mama, how I wish you could come to see him, since it is now going to be so difficult for me to come to New York.…

Jake has worked very hard in the last few weeks to turn our smaller bedroom into a nursery, and he has even made a little crib, which I have lined with blue satin cloth because, you see, I was sure that it was a boy.… We call him “Prince.
”

There was some pain for me in giving birth, but it passes so quickly that it is forgotten
.

Dear Mama, I wish so much that you would accept Jake's mother's invitations when she asks you up to tea. She only wants to be friendly, and at my wedding you discovered how very easy it really is to get from one part of town to another. I think it hurts her that you keep saying no
.

I know she frightens one a little bit at first with her “ways,” but when you get to know her you will find that she is a nice woman on the inside
.

There is a family secret about her that no one talks about. I'll tell it to you. She got pregnant (with my Jake) before she and Jake's father were married. Whenever I think about that I giggle. It proves that she's a human being after all!

Oh, how I wish you could be here to share our joy with our little boy!

Tell Papa for me that, though he may never forgive me for my disobedience, and may still curse me in his prayers, I pray that he will say a special blessing in the
shul
for this little child, who bears him no ill will
—
in fact, who bears no ill will for anyone in this world
.

My love to everyone
.

Esther

“It just isn't good enough,” Jake had said, when that first year with the Chicago store came to an end, and the balance sheets were totted up. “It isn't good enough, is it, Essie?” She had never seen him look more discouraged.

“But the point is, it
is
a profit,” Essie said.

“Seven hundred and fifty-three dollars and eighty cents,” he said. “That's all we've ended up with, after a full year.”

“But it's in black ink—not red.”

“They expected to do much better than this, you know that. They expected profits at least in the thousands. Not just a few hundred.”

“But a
profit
was what he wanted to see. That's what he said—a profit. He didn't say how much. I know what he said. I was in the room when he said it. He said a profit, and a profit is what you've got.”

“He isn't going to be happy.”

“But he's got to keep his word. We've got to hold him to his word.”

He put his head in his hands in what was becoming a familiar gesture. “I'm in a rut,” he said. “I'm getting nowhere.” Then he looked up at her blankly. “You've married a failure,” he said.

“Don't say that, Jake! I won't listen to that kind of talk!”

New York City

October 31, 1908

Dear Nephew:

As you might well imagine, we are more than a little disappointed with the profit picture at the close of your first full year as manager of Rosenthal's of Chicago. I would like to repeat to you my contention that one of the causes for this poor performance is what I see as excessive expenditures on advertising.…

However, since, as you point out, you have at least minimally fulfilled your end of our agreement, I will renew same for another twelve months on the same terms as before
.

Incidentally, your mother requests that you have a photograph taken of Jacob, Jr., the cost of which she agrees to pay
.

Yrs., etc
.

Solomon J. Rosenthal

And so it continued, from one year to the next.

The telephone which they had installed in the house at 5269 Grand Boulevard did not ring that often, particularly during the day, and so when it rang that summer morning in 1912 while Essie was fixing lunch for herself and the three children—for by now there were the girls, Joan and little Babette—she rushed into the front hallway to answer it.

“Essie?” his voice said. “It's Abe—your brother Abe.”

“Where are you?”

“In New York.”

Suddenly she was sure he was calling her with some terrible piece of news. “What is it?” she cried. “What's happened? Is Mama—?”