Up From Orchard Street (38 page)

“But we don’t have a stage mother or father to take her to lessons, to auditions, to rehearsals. That’s the story. Manya runs her catering business. My wife and I have our jobs, and our daughter is too young for late nights on the subway on her own. Maybe in a year or two . . .”

There was an edge of weariness in my father’s voice. He leaned across the table and placed my hands in his. “What do you say, darling? We haven’t even asked you.”

Darling. “I agree with you, maybe next year would be better.” I stood up and shook Bill’s hand first, then Saul’s. “Thank you for coming.” In spite of myself, my voice broke. “It was deeply appreciated.”

Bill Schneider produced his card. “If you find someone to accompany your daughter, or change your mind, call me.”

The instant they left, I raced into the darkened bedroom. Bubby stretched out beside me and stroked my hair.

“You were wonderful the way you spoke. Just like you were on the stage. Do you want acting or maybe for you writing is better?”

My mother showed her head at the door. “Maybe I didn’t say the right things,” she remarked.

We lay quietly without answering. The strain seeped away, like drops of water off a rainy roof. At the moment of blessed sleep, Bubby whispered, “To love with an open heart you have to let the pain in.”

I hid Bill Schneider’s card in my drawer. We didn’t speak of it again.

At least once a week Lil treated herself to a day of bed rest, dozing on and off, daydreaming. On this particular Monday she had slept without interruption until the phone rang and I answered.

“I bet on two long shots, won the daily double for two hundred and fifty dollars.” Jack’s shouting could reach from Rocco’s to Grand Street without the intercession of the telephone. “Two hundred and fifty big ones. Call Lil.”

She heard.

“Is it really true? You won a fortune?”

“Get dressed. I’m sending a taxi for you. Meet you at Jones Furniture. We’re buying a bedroom set. Is fifteen minutes enough for you?”

“Do I have to take a shower? I could walk to Delancey Street in no time.”

Since we moved to Grand Street my father’s two favorite maxims were “Never leave the house without a shower” and, when particularly delighted, raising his tea glass in a toast, “Up from Orchard Street.”

“A five-minute shower, yes. A walk in high heels, no. Look snappy. One of your best suits. You can’t expect good help in a store if you don’t look a million bucks. Let’s make it twenty minutes, outside of Jones.”

“Twenty minutes is perfect.”

They bought a mahogany set, real mahogany, not imitation, on sale, reduced because some of the brass fittings on the chest were screwed upside down and a scar ran the length of the left sideboard of the bed.

“With a long bedspread no one will notice that little scratch,” the salesman reported.

Had he been able, Jack would have rented a truck on the spot and brought home the entire bedroom suite. Jones provided free delivery, forcing Jack to wait.

He did his best to control his impatience, while Farber handed some profit money to Uncle Goodman who turned it over to Aunt Bertha who called her drapery man who came to measure our extra tall windows that required two pull cords and two sets of fabric: a filmy one to cut the glare of the sun, the other, a nubby beige-yellow to provide complete privacy at night.

What with the custom-made drapes and the search for the oversize bedspread in a diamond pattern of beige and café au lait—the saleswoman’s phrase—almost a month passed before we could study the completed bedroom, all of us standing in a row as Jack exclaimed hoarsely, “Up from Orchard Street.”

In keeping with Bubby’s notion that our parents were still honeymooners, she willingly accepted Uncle Goodman’s plan for a Saturday morning trip to Yonkers.

“No cooking, no patshkying in the kitchen,” he said. “Lunch at our house, then a movie. A relaxed easy day.”

I brimmed with excitement. Willy dug in his heels and refused to leave.

Equal to his love of whistling was his recent enchantment with Elite Fashions. Business was slow, so store owners and sales help tended to stand on the sidewalk and reminisce about the old days, gossip about new fashions. During those moments they referred to themselves as “sidewalk salesmen” and Jack joined them. He’d say to Willy, “Half an hour with the sidewalk salesmen.” At Elite Fashions, on a street full of laughter to compensate for the lack of sales, Willy discovered ease.

On this special early summer Saturday, Bubby, Goodman and I laughed all the way to Yonkers. A tray covered with tiny crustless sandwiches waited for us in the garden. They were large enough for no more than two bites, they were filled with chicken salad, turkey, cucumbers and especially for Bubby, egg salad sprinkled with caviar. A tomato carved into a rosette sat in the center of the platter.

Aunt Bertha emerged from the back door of the kitchen carrying a crystal pitcher jiggling with ice cubes and sugared tea.

“The secret to good iced tea is hot tea poured over ice. No tea bags, real tea. Manya taught me that.”

She smiled at her white-haired sister, old enough to be her mother. “Sorry about the commercial mayonnaise. Not like yours, homemade, but we asked for as little mayo as possible.”

As Bertha poured the tea, I whispered to Bubby, “What is this called? What kind of food is it?”

“Tea sandwiches. Bertha loves them.”

I gobbled a half dozen, washed down with two glasses of icy tea. The garden, eating outdoors in the sunshine, the Goodmans’ generosity, their desire to surprise and delight us—all tripped my heart into cartwheels, made me giddy with laughter.

Then Aunt Bertha called out, “Shopping in my closet” and Goodman added, “That’s my favorite,” as he cleared away the remains of lunch.

Uncle Goodman had converted the sewing room at the rear of the house into a walk-in closet suitable for his wife’s elaborate wardrobe. In addition to floor-to-ceiling shelves for her hatboxes and shoes, her coats hung from a rack and three wide compartments marked the seasons for her dresses. The space was mildly cooled, protecting her furs.

Bertha threw open the doors of her summer closet and reached for a dress with its price tag affixed to its sleeve.

“I bought this for you, Manya. The style and color will suit you. Goodman loves it, too.”

“A pink dress? What will I do with a pink dress?”

“It’s not pink. It’s called ‘summer rose.’ ”

“Pink, summer rose, it’s the same thing. Where will I wear it, in the house for looking out the window?”

“To the doctor or if you drop in on your clients, to introduce yourself as their chef. Isn’t Dr. Wolfson giving an engagement party? You’ll wear it there, or this one, or this.”

Two or three more dresses flew in Bubby’s direction—one-piece, two-piece pastels, dark colors, a short coat for cool evenings, long skirts, silken blouses.

“Bertha, what are you doing? Five years it would take to wear them all. Or maybe you think I should open a dress shop with so many beautiful things.”

Uncle Goodman laughed and laughed. “It’s for your new life. Those cooking clothes, the cardigans for shopping, forget them. One thing I’ll say for Lil, always with a pretty dress, high heels, ready to step out like a swell. You, too, even for a walk, a drive, people should say, ‘It’s Manya, the society lady.’ ”

At that moment the phone rang. Insistently.

Insistently is subjective, it comes from within. The phone always rings in the same tone. Still, later when I related the story about Clayton, I repeated “The phone rang insistently” because his voice chilled and frightened me so.

“Where’s Bubby? I’m beat up, cut. Blood, lots of blood. Swole all over.”

“Where are you? Where are you?”

“Jail, Harlem Jail.”

I shrieked at the last two words. Uncle Goodman grabbed the phone from my trembling hand.

“Don’t worry,” he shouted. “Harlem jail? We’ll come right over. Bubby, too? Of course Bubby is coming. I have plenty for bail money, plenty for graft. You have no clothes? I’ll bring, I’ll bring. Wait, Bubby is right here.”

Clayton had already hung up.

We didn’t dillydally. Aunt Bertha shoved the box with Bubby’s clothes through the open front window of the car. “Be careful in Harlem,” she cautioned.

No one spoke after that. Goodman concentrated on driving as fast as he could without attracting the attention of the police. He had enough to deal with worrying about Clayton’s release. At the Harlem turnoff, he slowed down and at Lenox Avenue, densely populated on a Saturday, he called out, “Where’s the jail?” A young man in a short-sleeved sport shirt and too-long shorts pointed his finger straight ahead.

We inched our way to the stoplight. The street was crowded with small cars with large dents, small trucks with large dogs chained inside the open cabs, men and children riding inexpensive bicycles long past their prime, and our black Lincoln created a stir.

Still, none of this was that different from any street on the Lower East Side: children on fire escapes, men squatting on stoops, babies in carriages watched by two or three older siblings, girls drawing squares in soft chalk for potsie, girls jumping rope singly or for double Dutch. Nothing except the presence of a squat, rust-colored structure, its doors and windows dark and unwashed, and a half-eroded carving on the front: Harlem Jail.

Keeping his hands in his lap, Uncle Goodman counted out several five-dollar bills, wadded them into his left fist and stepped outside. “Lock the doors and stay inside the car,” he told us, then ran across the street and disappeared inside the decayed building.

No sooner had he vanished from sight than Bubby and I stepped outside, leaning against the Lincoln, our feet in the gutter. Children played on the sidewalks. A dark-skinned girl about my age asked, “Wanna jump? A my name is Anna and my husband’s name is Al, we come from America and we sell apples.”

I shook my head.

“Someone in trouble?”

I nodded.

“Riot last night.”

“About what?”

“Cops. Just for fun.”

Because of her early years in Odessa, dodging Cossacks, dodging police, Bubby was fearless anywhere in New York. Now she ignored rumors about Harlem, though her white hair and pale skin contrasted sharply with the people around her. The two of us moved toward the middle of the street and stood waiting.

Clouds closed like heavy curtains over the sun. We kept peering into the dismal entryway for the slightest flutter, passed an agonizing hour, and decided to go inside. There we halted and Bubby let out a cry of despair.

Lurching toward us was short Goodman holding up tall Clayton. A raincoat thrust over Clayton’s shoulders did not conceal the blood-soaked rag of an undershirt. Most horrifying of all was his face, especially the swollen left temple, oozing blood from a gash as large as my hand. He stank of piss and vomit and shit.

We folded him into the front seat of the car.

“He needs a hospital, but I don’t know where,” said Goodman.

“We’ll take him home. We’ll call Koronovsky,” Bubby announced.

Clayton sat in a daze, a black stone figure covered in blood. It must have required every ounce of his strength to call us in Yonkers.

Goodman didn’t waste a minute, this time driving with reckless speed from Harlem to Grand Street. I opened the front door of the building with a key and we dragged Clayton into his studio apartment down the hall.

My little Bubby had the strength of a she-lion, a she-wolf, an inflamed tiger. She would have lifted the entire building to save Clayton.

His apartment was neat and orderly, furnished with Willy’s folding bed, a small table and one chair. Our old blankets, thin but clean, were folded on top of the bed.

Gently Bubby tore away the stained rags of his clothes and dumped them into a paper bag, biting her lip at the purple welts covering his body.

Dr. Koronovsky answered on the first ring.

“I’ll be right over,” his voice boomed. “How bad is the cut?”

“Bad. Very bad.”

“Listen, Goodman, I’ll be there in twenty minutes. I sewed up dozens of juvenile delinquents downtown. I’ll bring everything. Who’s with him now?”

“Me, Manya, the girl.”

“Good, good. I’ll sew him up. You and Manya will assist.”

“We have to wash him.” Manya could barely speak. “Goodman, help me put him under the shower.”

Next to the sink, there were two walls of tin enclosing a shower head mounted high above a drain on the floor, and a shower curtain. An up-ended cardboard box held squares of old towels that served as washcloths. Though our family was wedded to Rokeach non-animal-fat soap for our dishes, Clayton, who adored new products, had a bottle of liquid detergent on his sink. Cupping her hand over his face wound, Bubby sprinkled the liquid over his hair, shoulders and feet. The bloody suds ran like melted tar down the drain.

At the sound of Koronovsky on the outside bell, Bubby shut off the water and wrapped Clayton in a clean blanket. He fell on the bed like a mummy, his eyes closed.

Unusually cheerful, Dr. Koronovsky rose above our fears. “You reached me at the perfect moment. My in-laws are in our little garden with Phyllis. We’re leaving for Martha’s Vineyard in the morning. I have to be back by Thursday night. I’m on call all next weekend.” He leaned over Clayton, appraising the gaping flesh. “Nasty. Really nasty. You two scrub your hands and slip on these medical gloves.”

He lifted Clayton onto the kitchen table. Limp and motionless, Clayton had fainted.

Nevertheless, the doctor spoke to him soothingly.

“I’m putting you to sleep with this shot. Also an antibiotic. Bubby is here and so am I. You’ll be fine. Have a good sleep.”

Uncle Goodman kept his hand steady, holding up a roadside flashlight from his car that had a wide range and an intense yellow light.

“Manya,” Koronovsky instructed her, “when the disinfectant is on his face, wipe it off with the sterilized gauze, then discard it immediately.”

She didn’t flinch, standing on her feet, assisting as if she performed this task a dozen times a day.