Whiter Than Snow (18 page)

“No,” Rachel cried.

Then he would see them home, the man said.

“Don’t take the trouble,” Esther told him, and both women hurried away.

“God should strike us dead if anyone finds out about this,” Rachel said.

Esther was not as concerned. “What harm did we do? We had a good time, didn’t we? What do the women have but work, work, work? Why shouldn’t we have the good time, too?”

“You would go back?” Rachel asked.

Esther shrugged. “I didn’t say so.” But she knew she would. She had never had such a fine time in her life. “Who knows. Maybe I could meet a husband there.”

“In the dance hall?”

“Better than Mama marrying me off to a butcher.” When she realized what she’d said, Esther grabbed her sister’s hand and apologized. “I didn’t mean…”

But Rachel shrugged. “A butcher is fine for me. I got no complaint. But you, you can do better.” She thought a minute. “Besides, you dance like an angel. Maybe a big theater man will see you. Maybe you don’t have to go to the matchmaker for a husband.” She struggled with herself and added, “So what harm to go back?”

And the sisters did, maybe once every week or two, and Esther remembered what her sister had said about meeting someone from a theater who would hire her. Perhaps that was the way she could get a house with a chandelier.

Sometimes they encountered other girls from the factory at the dance hall. At first, the two were afraid that their friends would tell on them, but then they realized that the others had sneaked out, too, and so they felt safe. As they sat on the fire escape at lunchtime, the girls compared their dancing and their dance partners. They giggled over who had the most dances, who the handsomest partner.

In time, Rachel, who became pregnant not long after the wedding, began to show, and she refused to go to the dance hall, for fear of looking ridiculous. Esther brooded about missing the fun, because dancing had become important to her—not only the feeling of flying through the air like a feather but the thought of meeting the handsome young men who sought her out, who admired her. “I could go alone,” she told Rachel.

“Mama would never let you out of the house for such goings-on.”

“No kidding.” Esther thought a moment. “So I’ll tell her I’m with you. It’s no different from how it was before. There is nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Who will look out for you?”

“Me. I’ll look out for myself.”

“I think you are not so good at that,” said Rachel, because Esther could not always be trusted to know what was best for her. But Rachel agreed Esther would not be young for long. Besides, Rachel’s pregnancy shouldn’t spoil Esther’s fun, her sister said, and so she agreed to cover for Esther.

Now, Esther went to the dance halls by herself or with a friend from the factory. She was known as a good dancer, and, pretty as she was, she had no trouble attracting partners. More than one suggested something improper, but Esther had learned a little more about men, and she laughed them off. She did not laugh off Max Dora, however, but then, he never suggested anything improper.

Esther had seen Max before, sized him up and decided he was a swell. He wore the best clothes, not something purchased off a pushcart. His black hair was glossy, combed straight back, and although he was small, he had an air of confidence that made him seem larger than other men. One night, he asked Esther to dance, and she did not know she could ever be so light in a man’s arms. They twirled and whirled, for Max was a virtuoso on the dance floor, and others stopped dancing to watch them.

After that, Esther looked for Max whenever she went out, searching for him with veiled eyes, pretending to be surprised when he came up beside her and took her hand. Sometimes she hummed the song, and Max told her that her voice was as sweet as her feet. Once when they started for the dance floor, Max touched Esther’s arm and suggested that they talk instead. “I would like to get to know you a little,” he said, and so they sat for an hour and then another, telling each other about themselves.

Max, as it turned out, was not a swell. In fact, he was not so different from Esther. Born in the tenements, like her, he, too, longed to get away. His chances of rising in the world were better than Esther’s, since he was a man. Moreover, he had worked in one vaudeville show and been promised a job in another. Who knew how high he might rise. “You should come and see me,” he said.

Esther laughed. “I should fly to the moon.”

“Maybe you could be a dancer, too. I could put in a word. Perhaps they need a girl.”

Esther’s eyes glowed, but she shook her head. Bad enough she should sneak into a dance hall. She and her parents would quarrel to death if she went to work as a dancer. “Don’t take the trouble,” she replied.

She didn’t tell Rachel about Max for a long time, afraid her sister would disapprove. But the bright look in Esther’s eyes was obvious to Rachel, who knew it did not come from dancing alone. “I think you’re in love,” Rachel told her sister one day.

Esther didn’t deny it. “So what does it matter? I don’t even see him much now, because he’s in a vaudeville show,” Esther said. She added self-consciously, “He says maybe he can get me a job as a dancer. Think, Rachel, a dancer.”

“Well?”

“You know what Mama would do.”

Rachel shrugged. “You want to spend your life here, like me?” Rachel stretched out her arm to indicate the dirty dishes in the basin and the diapers hanging on a line across the room. “You should try for the job. Where’s the harm?”

So Max set up an audition, and one morning, Esther got up from her sewing machine at the factory and announced, “I don’t feel so good. I’m going home,” and she went uptown and applied for the job. She didn’t get it, and she was disappointed, but she was relieved, too. As time went by, however, she began to think she had lost out on a great opportunity, so when a dancer had a spat with the manager and was fired and Esther was offered the position, she accepted.

Now it remained to tell her parents, and Esther almost shook with fear that they would refuse to let her work in the show. She took Rachel with her for support, although Rachel was more timid than Esther. Neither girl had ever stood up to Emma or Abe.

The announcement took the parents by surprise, and at first, they said nothing.

Esther took that as a good sign and explained, “I’ll make more money than at the factory—twice, maybe more.”

“A dancer,” Emma said at last, looking up from her sewing.

“I’m good. Everybody says so.”

“How does everybody know?” her father demanded.

“When I dance, I am happy,” Esther said, but her parents did not care about that kind of happiness.

“Happiness comes from a husband and children,” her mother replied, her eyes returning to her sewing and taking half a dozen tiny stitches with her needle.

“It’s Esther’s chance to get away from here,” Rachel put in.

“And what’s so terrible here?” Emma pressed her lips together but did not look up. “Maybe Esther should count her blessings. Maybe it’s time to find her a husband, before she disgraces herself.”

“I won’t marry somebody you choose. I’ll pick my own husband, and I’ll get married when I want to,” Esther retorted.

Emma was shocked and set aside the needlework. “Such fresh remarks! To me, you don’t talk like that.”

Abe added, “In this house, you do what you’re told. If Mama says you need a husband, you need a husband. Look at your sister. So much happiness she has. Tomorrow, we look for a husband for you. We talk to the matchmaker. Dancing! Such shame you will bring on us.” He sniffed and returned to his newspaper.

The mother, too, went back to her work, the conversation ended, and Esther walked her sister down the stairs. “You should be glad they didn’t ask where you learned to dance.” Rachel sighed. “Maybe they will find you a good husband, better than Benny, not that he is so bad, of course. You are pretty.”

“Who will ever know?” Esther replied. She said no more to her parents and spent the bitter hours of the night examining her life, her future. There was nothing for her. Maybe it was best they find a husband for her and get it over with. She did not feel so optimistic now.

Esther did not see Max for several nights, because her parents were watchful. Then Rachel called at the apartment and asked if Esther would go home with her and help cut out a shirt for Benny. So Esther was allowed to go to her sister’s house. But it was only a ruse, and instead, Esther went to find Max.

“They put a stone upon my heart,” she told him. “If I work as a dancer, they will throw me out of the house. They even said they will find a husband for me.”

Although it was cold, with rain beginning to fall on the pavement, the two sat on the stoop of a tenement a few doors from the dance hall. Max took Esther’s hand, removed her mitten, and squeezed her fingers softly. “Such a pity. You could be a Ziegfeld Girl one day. You’re that good.”

The compliments did not make her feel better.

“Maybe a star even.”

“Go on!” Esther said, shivering a little, either from the cold or the remark—she wasn’t sure which.

“I mean it.” He thought a moment. “Maybe I could talk to them.”

Esther shook her head. “Papa would throw you out.”

“I’ll dodge him.”

Esther laughed despite herself, and Max put his arm around her. He had never done that before, not when they weren’t dancing, and she wondered if it was a gesture of sympathy or something more.

“What would it hurt? He already said no. He can’t do more than say it again,” Max told her. Esther shrugged, and encouraged, he added, “Besides, I can’t go to the dance hall if I work nights. There’s no other way to see you.” Suddenly, he leaned down and kissed her on the lips. When he drew back, she looked at him, startled. Such a thing to happen on a night that had started out in sadness! “I’ll talk to them now. Tonight. What do you say?”

So they walked through the cold, Esther with a shawl wrapped around her, Max pulling the flaps of his cap over his ears, because it was already that cold. Sleet fell now, landing on the rooftops and dripping off onto the people who hurried along the streets. They reached Esther’s building and climbed the stairs to the third floor. Esther was aware of the smells that assaulted them, of cooked cabbage and dirty toilets, and she wondered if Max knew how very poor she was. But Max did not seem to notice.

When they reached the apartment, the two paused a moment to catch their breath. Then Esther knocked, because her mother kept the key. After a moment, Emma opened the door, glancing uncertainly from Esther to Max. She stood aside and let them enter. “Abe,” she called into the front room, where her husband was reading with his son.

Abe looked up and frowned. “What is this?”

Max did not reply. Instead, he looked around the room and said, “A fine place you have here.”

Esther’s parents were not to be distracted, however, and Emma asked, “Who is this you bring with you, Esther?”

“This is Max. Max Dora,” Esther said, and she wondered then if she had made a mistake. Her parents could do more than say no. They could lock her in the apartment until a marriage had been arranged.

“I’m Max,” he repeated. “I’m the assistant manager of a vaudeville theater, and I came to say let Esther be a performer.”

Max had never told her he had such a position, and Esther wondered if he was lying.

Abe rose, his face twisted in anger. “What fresh grief is this? A performer! Our daughter does not make herself into a whore for men to look at. Get out.” He pointed at the door.

“Go,” Esther whispered. “It’s no good. You are making it worse for me.”

Max did not go, however. Instead, he said, “A dancer is not a whore, Mr. Schnable. Esther is an artist. She could make good money for you, twice as much as she does at the factory. Three times.”

Abe dropped the book he had been holding and started toward the kitchen. “Such lies! You are a mutt. I curse you! God alone knows what will happen to you if you don’t get out of my sight.” He coughed and wheezed, because the tailor’s disease had a strong hold on him and had turned him into a thin, gray old man. Still, Esther knew that would not stop him from going after Max.

“Go. Go,” she repeated, making shoving motions with her hands.

Max opened his mouth to speak but then thought better of it and walked out the door. The family stood there, listening to his footsteps grow faint, and then there was the sound of the outside door slamming. Esther longed to run to the window for a last glimpse of him, because she knew she would never see him again. But she was rooted to the floor.

Abe walked slowly into the kitchen and raised his hand, and Esther believed he would hit her. Instead, he muttered, “A mutt, a bum,” and lowered his hand as he went into the bedroom. Emma followed and then Jakob, who shut the door.

Esther remained in the kitchen, staring at the closed bedroom door, and then she whirled around and rushed down the stairs. If she was forbidden to see Max again, she at least would tell him good-bye. She went out into the rain, but the street was deserted. “Max! Max! Are you there?” she called, and in a moment, he emerged from a doorway.

“I’d hoped you would come, so I waited,” he said.

“I am saying good-bye.”

“No. You are coming with me.” He took her hand. “I have a room by myself.”

“Oh, I couldn’t!” As much as she wanted the future she had glimpsed, Esther would not disgrace herself, or her family, by doing such a thing.

“Don’t you see? We could be a team,” he said. “I’ve given it thought. A dance team. Everybody loves a dance team. I’ll teach you all the steps. We’ll call ourselves Max and Esther.”

But Esther shook her head. She felt as if she were between two fires—her family and Max—but she would not let herself be lured into sin.

“Then how about the Dancing Doras?”

Esther stared at him, then lowered her eyes in shame and said, “You should not joke.”

“Who says I’m joking? Your folks want you to marry. So what’s wrong with me for a husband?”

“You’re asking me that, to marry you?” Esther touched her ears, as if she could not believe what she’d heard.