Read Online Jew Store by Stella Suberman - Free Book Online Page B

mother thought this was right. If everybody did it, why not them? “Could I let them call us greenhorns?” she asked me, knowing that I knew the answer was a definite no.
    Then came the problem of dishes. The Moskowitz-provided dishes were heavy, dull yellow, chipped. Could she serve on them and let people think they were
bodlach
? she asked my father, as an image of the Nussbaums sprang into her head. No,she could not. So she went out and bought her own two sets of dishes. These dishes, bought before I was born, remained our best for all the years I was at home; and when I left and came back to visit, there they still were—a set with roses for meat meals, and a set with violets for dairy ones.
    My mother enjoyed the get-togethers. After the guests had left, she would always say, “It ain’t like
mishpocheh
, Aaron, but at least they’re Jewish people.”
    And my father would always answer, “So was I wrong?”
    M iriam remembers that her nightly ritual of those days was to get my father’s Camels and newspaper from his coat pocket after supper. On one particular night after she had performed this ceremony, my mother departed from hers—which was to immediately take the supper dishes to the kitchen after everyone had eaten. Instead, my mother sat down with my father at the table and gave him the long stare. This was a stare we all knew: It signaled a serious discussion on the way. Tonight it was about something the rabbi’s wife had said. “She was talking to me today,” my mother said to my father.
    â€œThis is news?” I have no doubt that my father lit up his cigarette and opened the paper, as this was always his prediscussion maneuver. “Of all people she don’t seem to have no trouble talking,” he said to my mother.
    My mother could not deny that the news of the Jewish community, admonitions, advice, and recipes flowed from the rabbi’s wife in a serene—and uninterruptible—stream.
    This time the rabbi’s wife’s advice was they should take a place with two bedrooms, that it wasn’t right that they should all sleep in one room. She had recommended the rooms at Mrs. Feinberg’s that had been vacated when the Goldmans moved to St. Louis, where Goldman had taken a job with a wholesale house.
    My father demurred. He always had his ear to “the street,” asthe uptown was called among those who toiled there, and he had noticed something astir among the Jewish merchants, something he sensed had to do with him, and whatever it was, he didn’t want to create a distraction. “Why should we go moving around like noodles slipping off the plate?” he said to my mother.
    This from my father? My father who was always ready for something new? Who couldn’t take a walk without coming back with an unfamiliar brand of soap, a newfangled brush, a different-shaped noodle? Who would say, “Let’s try it, Reba, it could be just what you’re looking for,” as if my mother had been beating the bushes looking for just such a thing?
    On this occasion my mother argued no more. If my father said “Wait,” it was all right with her.
    The wait wasn’t long. The next Sunday morning my brother opened the door to a company of six black-suited men. When they came into the room, an air of grave mission came in with them.
    My father got himself busy with smiles and handshakes. My mother, instantly apprehensive, nodded briefly to each and reached out to draw Miriam close, as if they would serve as protection for each other. Miriam felt no need for protection, being only too keen for whatever was to come.
    Joey stationed himself in a spot that promised good viewing. He has remembered thinking that the men looked not just grave, but downright lugubrious, as if they had just come from a funeral that had further diminished the “old-timer” Jewish population.
    Joey, it turned out, was quite wrong.