Read Online The Dressmaker's Son by Abbi Sherman Schaefer - Free Book Online Page B

difficult than it is.”
    “I can’t give him
up, Misha. He is all I have. I have no life with Michael, you know that.  I’ll
have him educated.  There are schools here and the rabbi will help with his
studies. You can help get him into the university in Kiev when he is ready. 
From time to time you’ll come see him.  You’ll find a place I can send you
letters about him.  But I can’t give away my child.”
    Misha stood
abruptly, hugging Samuel to his chest.  The pain in Misha’s eyes turned to anger. 
Rebekah thought for a moment that he was going to take him away.
    “I will have him,
Rebekah,” he said in a deliberate tone. “I can’t have my son grow up as a Jew
and live like this.”
    Samuel began to
cry and Rebekah took him from Misha’s arms. “He is a Jew, Misha.  As I said,
his mother is a Jew and in the Jewish religion that makes him one too.”
    Just then the door
opened and her mother came in.  Startled at the sight of the soldier and at
Rebekah clutching Samuel to her, she hurried to her side, scenes of the pogroms
filling her head.
    “I didn’t know
anyone was here,” she said, putting her arms out to Samuel who went to her
immediately.
    “This soldier is
looking for a deserter, Mama.  He is a nice gentleman.  He was taken with
Samuel and stopped to visit.  He was just leaving.”
    Rose’s eyes met
Misha’s briefly.  “Good day, then,” she said stiffly as she headed to the
kitchen with Samuel in her arms.  She could tell by Rebekah’s face that
something was terribly wrong.
    “I’ll be back for
him, Rebekah,” he said softly so her mother couldn’t hear. “I’ll be back soon.”
    She stood
paralyzed with fear as he closed the door quietly behind him.
    Rose was making
tea when Rebekah came into the kitchen.  Like the rest of the house it was
small with barely enough room for the old wood table and four chairs.  The wood
floor was scarred and dull.  There was one window that Rebekah had never even
put a curtain on because she wanted all the light possible in the kitchen.
    For a few minutes
neither spoke. Rose sat staring at her cup and stirring her tea although she
never put anything in it.  She was in her mid-fifties, and her hair had turned
to white.  It was still long and pulled up on top of her head in a bun.  White
wisps fell around the back of her neck.  Her blue, deep set eyes and unusually
fair complexion hinted at the beauty she must have been.  After her husband
Samuel had died, she continued to run the small restaurant by herself.  When
her other daughter Rachael and her husband Jacob fled to America with their
five children to find a safer life, Rose felt an emptiness that she could never
fill.  The birth of Samuel, however, had brought her new joy.  She spent every
minute with him that she could.
    Samuel sat on her
lap gnawing on a cookie.  When she finally looked up, she took a deep breath to
steady herself. “Misha?” she asked.
    Rachael didn’t
answer.
    Rose raised her
voice slightly. “Rebekah. This soldier. He is Misha?”
    “Yes, Mama.”
    “And Samuel is his
child?”
    “Yes, Mama.”
    “I knew that blond
hair and those eyes couldn’t come from any Jew in this town.  Tell me, Rebekah,
how?” Rose had always been a woman of few words.
    “I was so lonely,
Mama. Everyone left me. Michael would drink. We hardly talked to each other.
Misha was so handsome and so kind,” she began.
    When she had finished
telling her the story, she was crying. “He wants him, Mama.  Samuel is my whole
life. What will I do?”
    Rose got up with
Samuel who had fallen asleep on her lap, the arthritis in her back causing her
to wince as she stood. “I’ll put Samuel in his crib; then we will talk.  Thank
God your papa isn’t here to see this.”
    By the time Rose
came back from the bedroom, she had gotten some of the color back in her face. 
But her eyes had lost their luster, and she walked slowly like someone who had
been beaten down by years of