Up From Orchard Street (29 page)

17

The Return to Orchard Street

FROM PAST EXPERIENCE I recalled but did not accept easily the need to settle back into our ordinary routine. Colchester haunted me. In the deepest sense I identified with a phrase read often in books, “She thought her heart would break.”

The entire apartment had shrunk to a size smaller than our bedroom at the farm. More difficult to erase from memory was the slanted country ceiling, the large window overlooking the lawn and the barn, the leafy fruit trees that tinged the sky with green.

The Orchard Street halls had rarely seemed darker, the toilet in the hall more smelly and bleak. I missed my nightly shower, the walks with my mother, and I prayed for the sight of Estelle and the others. I opened my eyes from sleep and imagined that the two broad-shouldered women who monopolized the left side of the porch with their mahjong game were at the head of our folding bed.

The one source of comfort was the return of Clayton, who slept on the kitchen floor every night. Knowing my horror of rats, he bought rat powder and placed it on every step leading to our door. The rats ate it as if it were pistachio ice cream and the mounds of powder heaped around the garbage cans every night had been lapped up by morning with no signs of success. I hadn’t caught a glimpse of a field mouse at Pankin’s, but once home my rat phobia increased and I imagined that they lurked everywhere—waltzing in the skylight of the toilet, on the outside windowsill of the kitchen, grinning their evil toothy grins.

I clung to Bubby; sat in her lap; covered her face with kisses. I made desperate attempts to keep myself from crying in front of her.

As was her custom, Lil hung my dresses on nails that protruded from her bedroom door. Instead of watching them fade and grow short during the coming winter months, I wore a dress every day. Lil neither noticed nor commented on this, and possibly to hide her own sense of loss, she displayed exceptional energy.

Flat broke, we lived on Jack’s last unemployment check and waited for customers who didn’t materialize. For once the apartment blazed with heat and light—it was the warmest September on record. The few customers who wandered in asked for dairy dishes—blintzes, cold schav, cold borscht, priced for small change. Bubby didn’t buy meat or chicken for several days and was jolted out of her confidence in the future when Weinstock, the slob agent who dumped every course onto a single plate, announced one noontime that he wanted a tuna sandwich.

“No offense, Manya,” he said, wiping his face with a handkerchief that could have passed for a rag hanging from the pipes under the kitchen sink. “Excuse please, you were in Connecticut, I bought a tuna sandwich at The Grand Canal, it wasn’t bad. The mayonnaise like glue, but the tuna okay, maybe salty.”

“They prepared tuna sandwiches at the farm, we didn’t eat them,” I said loftily. “My cousin Alice, she eats anything, she ate tuna sandwiches.”

“Manya,” Weinstock continued, ignoring my remark. “Tuna and salmon from cans are best sellers. It’s dreck, but it’s
American
. Call a wholesaler, buy a few cases of tuna, salmon, Hellmann’s mayonnaise. Your luck will change in this heat.”

“That’s it, Ma, for once Weinstock is right.” Jack raised his sleek head from the racing form. “Lil should call our customers on the phone. Tell them we have a new American menu—sandwiches of every kind, cold or hot, and salads, chicken salad, green salads with tomatoes, and also . . .” My father paused, passing his long fingers over his hair. “Tell them we deliver.”

“We deliver?” Bubby and I asked in unison.

“Clayton will deliver. And Maminyu, your friends at the
Forward
. Put an ad in the paper. ‘Kosher American-style sandwiches. We deliver.’ ”

Bubby fanned her face with her apron. “Nu?” She appealed to me for help. “Vus zuched du?”

My sigh mingled with Bubby’s. “Maybe Daddy is right,” I said. “At the farm they served tomato sandwiches, cheese sandwiches, tuna with celery and mayonnaise, and they didn’t have one left over. The Grand Canal puts a sign in the window every day about their specials. We could have our new menu printed on cheap paper. Willy and I will drop them off at all the stores.”

Bubby remained silent. Jack, who had abandoned his manicurist for the entire summer, filed his nails with his personal file that he kept in his vest pocket. To prove his worth Willy tore a page from his ledger and wrote:

AMERICAN AND KOSHER SANDWICHES
SALADS COOKIES
MANYA’S RESTAURANT. ORCHARD 4–2333.
WEDELIVER

He handed it to me and Jack.

“Very good.” Jack nodded. “Only we have to print the hours, like eleven to five.”

“So late? Five o’clock, who eats a sandwich?”

“It’s the new America. If there’s a war, God forbid, who will have time to eat four-course meals in the middle of the afternoon? Besides, this is an experiment. I think they owe me one more unemployment check. We’ll invest it in food for sandwiches. It’s better than betting on a horse.”

The rent, the gas and electric bill had not been paid, let alone the Morris Plan, which had provided money for our vacation. Everything of value was in the hockshop. We could thank Uncle Goodman for the lavish spread Bubby had brought to Pankin’s Hotel. Hours after our discussion about sandwiches, I listed my current fears in my notebook:

Rats
No money
Bubby’s health
No money
Jack and Lil not working
Never to see Conn. again
Missing Mother.

The last I wrote with reluctance. Lil had more or less detached herself when we came back to the city. She hadn’t visited Ada. Absorbed in her own thoughts, in her private world, she behaved with no awareness of any of us.

I couldn’t sleep that night, tossing in our folding bed and without realizing it, punctuating the silence with deep sighs.

“Don’t worry,” Bubby whispered. She indicated that she, too, was worrying when she added, “Gut vil zein unser tateh.” God will be our father, said my agnostic Bubby.

No sooner did Jack prepare for work the first Saturday after Labor Day than he became a meteorologist, following the weather in the evening and morning paper with the knowledge that his livelihood depended on it. The temperature stood at ninety-six degrees the morning he set out for Division Street and Farber’s.

Though he must have had a first name, no one called him anything except Farber: half the size of Jack, narrow-shouldered, with tiny hands and feet. Arms aflutter, his movements were birdlike, his head darting from side to side. Lil had once sworn she could never step foot into bed with a man whose ankles resembled pencils without erasers. Jack mocked Farber because he often bought his clothes in the boys’ department.

He was tight-fisted with money, an attribute not prized by Jack, and he showed up in marked-down suits made of flimsy fabrics. Jack cried out, “Trucks turn over on the Bowery, cars crash in accidents, the Third Avenue El stops in the tracks, nothing ever happens to Farber!” Then he rushed Farber’s jacket to the tailor at the end of the street to have the lapels hand stitched.

Farber’s clothes mattered not a whit because his pride sprang from his wavy hair parted in the middle. His hair gave depth to his long bony face—he starved himself to save money. Yet he was incapable of operating the store without Jack. He had no eye for style, couldn’t chat up women or close a sale without making an error in judgment. Two-priced selling, with the asking price printed on the tag and the final price arrived at through subtle negotiations, involved understanding women, what they wanted, how much they expected to pay, how far they could be urged to part with a few dollars. In these areas Jack was an expert. Without Jack Roth there would be no Farber’s.

On this scorching day when everyone was repeating endlessly, “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity,” Farber peered down the street hoping to catch a glimpse of his well-dressed salesman. He hopped from one leg to another—bursting to relate something important. “Hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk?” he called out the moment Jack came into view.

“Hot enough to be singing, ‘We’re Having a Heat Wave’ and mean it.” Jack scowled, appraising Farber’s nervous excitement, and asked, “What’s up except women’s hemlines?”

“What’s up? A whole week you were taking care of the store while we stayed in the mountains and you didn’t buy one piece of fall stock.”

“What did you expect me to buy it with, Monopoly money?”

“A phone call to the mountains you couldn’t make? Look at the racks, look. Shmattes from three years ago, nothing we can sell.”

“Farber, even your pennies don’t have faces, you squeeze them so hard, and you’re telling me about new stock?”

“We need it. I want to make a good impression.”

“For the yentas on a hot Saturday afternoon you want to make a good impression?” Jack drew closer and gazed down at Farber. “Never kid a kidder. What’s happening, Farber?”

The little man could hardly contain himself, his arms like wind-mills, legs doing a jig. “You know Joe Brenner, he worked with Lil at Palace Fashions? His sister, aleve ah shalom, she died of you-know-what a few months ago and his brother the year before from the same. Joe was so afraid he would get you-know-what he couldn’t eat or sleep, his doctor told him he needed a change, he quit his job at Palace Fashions and the whole summer he’s working at Russeks on Fifth Avenue.”

“What is this, you-know-what? Consumption, bleeding ulcers or the real you-know-what?”

They didn’t say
cancer
out loud. Cholera was a curse, but if you pronounced the word
cancer
God might strike you with it.

“It’s the real, God forbid, you-know-what.”

“What’s this to do with our merchandise, or whatever you’re driving at?”

“We talked it over in the mountains, me and Ruthie, and we decided that what Farber needs is a partner. You know, fresh blood.”

“So what are you offering this partner? Two dozen coats with linings ruined from gas heaters? Green walls that haven’t been painted for years, a jinxed color. The ceiling so old . . .” Jack lifted the push broom for sweeping the sidewalk and raised it on high . . . “one push with this broom the whole ceiling comes down, not to mention this fahcockta carpet, it has so many stains the bums on Bowery wouldn’t take it as a gift. To fix this place up you’d need a fortune. Maybe I’d have to bring the Persian rug from Manya’s restaurant.”

“Never you mind, never you mind. I hear that Joe Brenner hates Russeks. I’m meeting him this afternoon. What’s to lose? He wants a partnership, he buys in for three bills.”

“Three C’s.”

“Three big ones. Thousands.”

For once Farber had the last word. Almost.

Recovering from his shock, Jack exploded. “A new Buick, top of the line, is maybe fifteen hundred dollars, you’re asking three thou for your old coats and moldy walls? Surely you jest.” Reaching for a fresh cigarette, he turned aside to steady his hand as he struck a match.

“We’ll hondel a little. This is a two-price store. The partnership is also two-price.”

“Joe Brenner may be worried about you-know-what but he’s shrewd. He won’t take your store if you gave it to him for nothing. Zero times three thousand is still zero. That’s what the place is worth.”

Jack spoke with bravado, with flair. Still he was shaken, his day ruined. He puffed on his cigarette and lit a fresh one. “You think we’ll see a single customer on a hot day like this?”

“I have other things on my mind. You make a sale, fine. You don’t, also fine. In one hour I’m taking the subway to meet Joe Brenner. And Jack, Monday you should try Seventh Avenue, pick me up some snappy garments. For this I rely on you. Why didn’t you call me about buying while I was away?”

My father stared gloomily at the deserted street. “I had to take my mother to a specialist. Maybe it’s nephritis. Some kind of kidney trouble.”

Farber wasn’t listening, busy combing his hair. Promptly at noon, he left in search of a partner. One or two women drifted into the store in the late afternoon but Jack was too preoccupied to charm them. Impatient to speak to his mother, he phoned home. “Ma, Farber is looking for a partner.”

“Is that geferlach?”

“Geferlach? It’s a disaster. What will he need me for if he has a partner?”

“Don’t worry about catching the fish until you have the net.”

“Fish, net, what are you talking about?”

“It’s too soon to worry. Talk is free. Who is he trying to catch?”

“Joe Brenner. He works at Russeks now. He quit Palace Fashions. His doctor advised it.”

“Then why should Brenner want to come back? His doctor told him he needs a change. He quits Russeks for Farber’s? Don’t be foolish.”

Bubby managed to calm him momentarily, but Jack closed the store early. Despite this being their first Saturday night in the city since their vacation, my parents didn’t venture out of the house. What would happen to us if Farber found, not Joe Brenner, but someone foolish enough to invest a few hard-earned dollars—and my father lost his job? Only my brother managed to sleep without waking up hourly during the night.