Threads and Flames (16 page)

“Isn't that strange? I offer this little one a piece of cake, but she'd rather nibble
that
?” He put on an expression of exaggerated mournfulness. “Don't you
like
cake, princess?”

“Yes! I want it!” Brina scrambled off the floor, all her tears forgotten.

“Then you'll have it.” The young man remained squatting to stay on the child's level. “My name is Gavrel Kamensky, at your service.” He offered his hand.

Raisa flinched to see Brina shake it with the same tiny paw she'd used to wipe her nose, but Gavrel didn't seem to mind. He stood up and turned to her. “At your service, as well, miss, but I think we should wait to shake hands until I've washed mine. And the princess's. Mr. Fischel?” The grouchy shammes looked up when Gavrel hailed him. “Mr. Fischel, the ladies and I have to go now. Would you mind going into the study, putting away my books, and turning off the light? It looks like I'm done for the day.”

“‘Ladies,' my behind,” the shammes muttered, leaning on his broom. “Fine ‘ladies' he makes out of thin air, the smart one. Better he should want to be a poet than a rabbi. He's already crazy, so he's halfway there.”

“What did you say?” Raisa overheard the old man's grumbling and whirled back to confront him. “Reb Kamensky is good to us, so that makes him crazy? And when Father Abraham welcomed the angels to his tent, not knowing who they were, I suppose you'd have called him crazy, too? Well, you can just—”

“Shhh, enough, let it go.” Gavrel took Raisa by the elbow and steered her back toward the doors. “You can't nail sand to a tree. And the princess wants her cake.”

THE LAND OF OPPORTUNITIES

O
nce outside the synagogue, Gavrel paused at the top of the granite steps while he took off his prayer shawl and yarmulke and folded them reverently. Without the shadowy cover of the prayer shawl, he looked much younger, less like a grown man and more like a lad newly out of boyhood, not much older than Raisa. He produced an embroidered storage bag from the pocket of his trousers and tucked his things inside.

“All set!” he announced cheerfully. “And now, I hope you won't mind, but the only place I can afford to offer you ladies some cake is in my home. Don't worry, it's all perfectly respectable; my mother will be there, I promise. We'll have to walk about four blocks to get there. Will that be too far for you, princess? I can carry you if you're tired.”

“I'm not a baby. I can walk,” Brina replied with regal dignity. “Carry
her.
” She made a grand gesture in Raisa's direction.

“Maybe another time,” Gavrel said. Raisa thought she saw him blush.

The four blocks to Gavrel's home passed with Raisa introducing herself and Brina, then telling him how they'd happened to come into the synagogue and under the caretaker's sharp tongue. He listened attentively and then, to her surprise, he laughed.

“
What's
so funny?” She was tired, hungry, thirsty, and in no mood to have her recent troubles turned into a joke.

“Nothing. Nothing's funny,” Gavrel said hastily. “I have a bad habit. When I'm faced with a mystery or a puzzle or a problem of any kind—one that I've really been cracking my brains over for a long time—and then, without warning, the answer hits me like a thunderbolt . . . I laugh! The rabbi's had to scold me about it repeatedly. It flusters him and disturbs our studies.”

“So what's the great mystery you've solved this time?”

“You.”

“What's so mysterious about me?”

“What a Deborah you are, what a Judith. I'm still shaking, imagining what you might have done to Mr. Fischel if you'd had a sword in your hands.”

“I don't understand what you're talking about,” Raisa said sullenly. “If you're making fun of me, it won't work as well if I can't tell how I'm being insulted.”

Gavrel stopped and looked at her without a trace of mirth in his face. “I'm sorry, Raisa. It's my fault if you think I'm mocking you. Papa always warns me that I can be too smart for my own good. Deborah and Judith were great fighters among the daughters of Israel. Deborah was a prophetess and a general, commanding whole armies. Judith was a woman alone who used her wits to trick and slay the leader of the Assyrian invaders. From what you've told me about all the encounters you've had since coming to America, I can see why you lashed out at Mr. Fischel. Being a fighter has saved you time after time, but now it's hard for you to know when you can stop fighting.”

“You make me sound like a fishwife,” Raisa said. “Always quarreling.”

Gavrel shook his head. “What I
mean
is that I think you're very brave.”

A half smile touched the corner of her mouth. “Why didn't you just say that in the first place?”

 

 

Gavrel's family lived in a tenement very much like Bayleh's, except the cellar level and the first floor housed two businesses apiece. Two first-floor shops sold secondhand clothing for men and women, respectively. The tiny stores below street level sold tobacco and candy. The different aromas blended into a rich, sweet, strong perfume that followed Raisa all the way up to the Kamenskys' apartment on the fourth floor.

A stocky, bespectacled woman with gray-streaked black hair was stirring a big pot on the stove when they came in. “What's this, Gavrel?” she cried when she saw Raisa and Brina. “I thought you were spending the day at the synagogue.”

“Just the morning, Mama. I was going to go straight to the store and give Papa a hand, but the Almighty had other plans. It was the most extraordinary thing. I was studying the Book of Proverbs, when who comes walking right into the synagogue but the Woman of Valor herself!” He waved at Raisa. “And who is with her? Royalty! A genuine princess.” He picked up Brina and swung her at the ceiling. She shrieked with pleasure.

Mrs. Kamensky sighed, put aside her wooden spoon, and came toward Raisa, wiping her hands on her apron. “Welcome, girl. I'm sure that my son will get around to telling me who you really are when he's ready to stop acting like a goose. Why someone so smart would ever act so silly! You'd think he was only six instead of sixteen.”

“Now, Mama, you know you love me,” Gavrel said, dipping his head to give her a kiss on the cheek. “Don't give Raisa the wrong idea. She's only been in this country for a day, so she's likely to believe anything.”

“Raisa?” The older woman adjusted the thick steel-rimmed spectacles perched on her slender nose and examined her guest closely. Her gaze lingered dubiously on Raisa's shorn head. “You poor thing, did they do that to you on Ellis Island?”

Raisa hugged herself, painfully aware of the
real
question Mrs. Kamensky was asking. “Several months ago, I was sick with typhus. I don't have head lice.”

“Who said you did?” Gavrel's mother raised her hands, claiming innocence. “Well, don't worry, it will grow back. What a shame—such a nice color, like embers. When I was a girl, my mother cut off all my hair because I had the measles. Sit down, sit down, you must be starved!” She herded the girls out of the kitchen toward an oilcloth-covered table near the front window. “We can talk while you're eating. Would you look at this face?” She pinched Brina's cheek, making the child yip like a puppy. “So sweet, I could eat her all up in two bites! Gavrel, don't you dare leave this house until you help me put food on the table for our guests. Your father will forgive you for being late. And if he doesn't, too bad about him! He shouldn't be depending on your help in the shop at all after today.”

“After today ...” Gavrel looked wistful. “Back to the salt mines.”

“Don't talk like that,” his mother reproached him. “You're lucky to have such a good job waiting for you, and at your age. A cutter brings home a nice salary!”

“I know, I know.” Gavrel took pale blue plates and cups out of a glass-front cupboard and laid them out in front of the girls. “I'll thank Uncle Hersch for putting in a good word for me.”

“You could also thank your own sister,” Mrs. Kamensky said, huffing indignantly as she produced a loaf of bread and a plate with butter and cheese from the kitchen. “Fruma spoke up for you! She told them that you might be young, but that you can do the cutting work of three grown men.”

“I don't think they listen to the girls much when it comes to hiring,” Gavrel said. He sat down beside Brina. “Especially not for hiring cutters. That's strictly a man's job. But I appreciate her support.”

“They listened to the girls plenty during the big strike!” Gavrel's mother looked smug as a well-fed cat. “I went with Fruma to the meeting at Cooper Union, where they called for all the garment workers to walk off the job. There was a little bit of a girl, Clara Lemlich, who got onto the platform with all the men and made the motion that started it all. And about time! Some of those men were so in love with the sound of their own fine speeches, they'd still be talking today, but that Clara got right to the point. After, Fruma told me how just a few months before, the bosses paid to have that girl beaten to within an inch of her life for leading a strike at Leiserson's factory. One hoodlum wasn't going to be enough to face all five feet nothing of her, so they sent a gang. They knocked her down, broke her ribs, left her bleeding on the street, but did that stop her?”

“Mama, please, calm down,” Gavrel said, chuckling. “You sound like you're ready to throw down your apron and go get work in a shirtwaist shop just so you can start your own strike!”

“And don't think I couldn't!” his mother said tartly. “If my eyes were better—and God be thanked they're not worse!—I'd get a shop job and show all you young ones how to do things
right.
” She stamped back to the stove, where they heard her adding coal to the fire.

Brina looked at the bread, butter, and cheese on the table. “You said
cake,
” she said with an accusing look at Gavrel.

“I did, didn't I? Let me fix that before I leave.” He rose from his seat and went into the kitchen. Raisa heard him speaking with his mother but couldn't make out the words. The longer the two of them talked, the more perplexed she became.
How long does it take to ask for a piece of cake for the child?
she wondered. At last the muffled conversation ended, there was the sound of retreating footsteps, the front door opened and closed, and finally Mrs. Kamensky came back into the front room carrying a tray of food with three tall glasses of tea.

“No cake?” Brina asked plaintively.

“Brina! Be grateful,” Raisa chided. “This is more than plenty for us.” She put a morsel of cheese on Brina's plate, followed by a thinly buttered slice of bread. “She's had enough sweets for the day,” she told her hostess. “Cookies, strudel . . . She gave herself a bellyache. She doesn't need cake.”

“
My
cake gives no one a bellyache,” Mrs. Kamensky declared, distributing the glasses of tea. She swept a domed porcelain dish from among the framed photographs, candlesticks, and knickknacks on the mantel and removed the cover with a triumphant flourish. “A nice sponge cake filled with raspberry jam. Fruit is very good for children.” She plopped a huge serving onto Brina's plate before Raisa could say another word.

Mrs. Kamensky sat down and sipped her tea, smiling her approval as she watched Brina enjoy the cake. “If she gets another bellyache, let the blame be on my head,” she said calmly. “I'll make her a hot water bottle, have her chew a nugget of ginger root, whatever is necessary. You won't lose a single wink of sleep even if she's awake all tonight.”

“Tonight?” Raisa felt like an idiot, repeating the older woman's final word, but it was all she could do. Her mind couldn't accept what she thought she was hearing.

“You'll have to share a mattress. We've only had one boarder at a time, although heaven knows we could use more! But my husband, he's too proud to admit that. He sees some of these families taking in two, three, four lodgers at a time, with nowhere decent to put them, stacking them up anywhere they can, like firewood. He says that if we ever have to sink that low, it's time to pack up and move back to Russia. As if he ever would!”

“We can stay here?” Raisa asked. Impulsively she reached across the table and clasped Mrs. Kamensky's hand.

“Why not? My Gavrel told me everything. You look like a clean girl, and like I said, we need a boarder. It's the only way I can bring in a little extra money for the house, with my eyes the way they are. You're welcome here.”

“That's wonderful! I can pay you our first week's rent right now, if you like.”

“Wait until you bring your things over here and meet my husband. I always let him collect the lodgers' rent, even though he hands it back to me at once.”

Raisa jumped up from her place. “I can go get our bags right now! Oh, Mrs. Kamensky, I'm so happy! Everywhere else we went, they said they couldn't take us because—”

“I know, I know. Didn't you hear me say that Gavrel told me everything? Sit down, please.” Mrs. Kamensky waved Raisa back into her seat. “Drink your tea like a civilized person. Your bags aren't going to run away before sundown. Why the hurry to move in? You haven't even asked how much it will cost you to live here.”

“Oh! I—I'm sure you'll ask a fair price.”

Gavrel's mother arched one brow. “You are a very trusting girl.”

“No, I'm not,” Raisa replied. “Not always. But trusting you feels right.”

“I could say the same about you.” Mrs. Kamensky laced her fingers around her empty tea glass. “Let's hope neither one of us is making a mistake. Listen, Raisa, we have a thing or two to discuss. You have no job. That has to change as soon as possible or it won't matter how much I trust you, you'll have to go. We can't keep you here if you can't pay. I'm sorry, that's just the way it is.”