It was the smell of Paradise that stopped her at the bakery on Rivington. It curled into the street, searching for her, tempting her, this scent from Heaven, palpable. She drew her coat about her, trying to resist the teasing smell, its tug, yet magnetized by it. Unbidden, to her head there danced a Charlotte Russe of such a richness maybe Russian royalty in papa's books would know. On top the strawberry, the perfect strawberry, adrift in clouds of cream. It nestled in its paper frill as though costumed, sitting pretty in its sturdy cardboard cone. It called to her.
What was she thinking of? She shivered in the February chill, guilty even though she hadn't moved an inch. Three cents!? How could she spend, where would she get three cents?
She clutched her black leather purse even more tightly, protecting it against some foolish robbery she might attempt. Inside, her salary, always to her mother on the kitchen table Friday night. The whole two dollars. She kept nothing back. So how? And yet the smell, the smell invaded her, touched longings in her that she hadn't known were there.
She opened up her purse. For what? To probe the silken bottom, in it who could know? And then she touched. In the seam was something hard, a coin, a nickel, then remembered how she'd saved it when she'd walked to work. A madness took her at this fortune in her grasp. And yet her guilt and caution spoke. She glanced both ways as if her mother or a neighbor might appear, demonstrate to her the weakness of this whim, this eighteen-year-old giddiness of possibility. And then her high-buttoned shoes directed her themselves, took her in where it was warm, the cases filled with sinful tortes, with chocolate cake, with rye and pumpernickel, challah, and with Charlotte Russes.
No sooner had she ordered one than she was overcome with worry at the mechanics of this enterprise she'd launched. She couldn't take it home. She couldn't eat it on the street although she'd seen some roughnecks do just that. What would the baker think she stuffed it in herself right here? And then he offered it to her, this treasure wrapped in bits of newspaper. Two pennies change.
Juices washed her mouth, she hadn't even tasted it. She held it in her hand with awe. It was so big! How could she eat it all? Suppose some crumbs fell on her dress and left a stain, how could there be an explanation, how?
Tentative, amazed at this audacity that had arrived by magic, her face a cameo of cream-white skin suffused with blush, dark eyes, hair hidden by her soft, cloth hat, she stuck her red tongue out and took a lick. Another. Rolled her eyes to God and bit the cake. She filled her mouth with it, again, again, again, pushed up the cardboard bottom to get at the rest, brown eyes swimming in delight, tongue somehow saving for the end the strawberry, then nibbling at the edges of the frill as if she were an animal.
When she was done, remaining were the scraps of newspaper, the cardboard holder. She placed them on the counter as though she was some Jimmy Valentine, leaving at the scene his calling card after cleaning out the safe, sated and yet ravenous. Filled up -- with what? Repentance. Dread. A loathing for her greediness. Her tongue flicked out to catch a crumb, the corner of her mouth.
She examined her dress. No trace. And yet she knew what she had done whether there was evidence or not. Her guilt went with her into winter dark, it clung to her, climbed up five flights of stairs with her, and entered with her through the cold tin door.
The house was silent, clothes tree bare, except a coat she hadn't seen before. Chaim, Lena, Ruth? She heard noises of a pot and turned left toward the kitchen, saw the flickering of the yurzeit candle in its glass, memory of papa five years dead. Her mouth still melted with the sweetness of her Charlotte Russe. Why was she breathing heavily? The stairs were nothing new. Her heart was banging in her chest. "Mother?" she called out, and crossed the sill.
Perhaps it was the candle that emphasized the funeral-like darkness of the room, the black of night outside the single window. The thing that struck her was her mother with her hump looked like a witch, spoon poised before the stove, the ghostly gasfire underneath the pot.
It was a wicked thought and made her trebly guilty on the spot. Her cheeks flamed red with shame. And then she saw him. Sid. In coat and hat, hands before him on the big rectangular tin table.
"Sid?" What kind of 'Sid'? Clearly it was Sid. But why? "Mother?"
Her mother still spoke Yiddish only, like a greener after twenty years. "You're late, Rukhel. For Shabbos could your big-shot boss, your Mr. Krieger, let you go on time, the little filing that you do for him?"
There was a feel to it, this quicksand, trap. One minute free and easy, next a grip of monstrous force. It was the undertow at Coney Island she was ten. The ocean pulled her body, claiming her, her feet braced only on some shifting bottom, struggling with her toes to hold. When it retreated, crashing, she knew from how it thundered it could come for her at any time.
In her head the million words. They filled her mouth, impatient to gush out, reclaim some bit of beach, announce herself. Yet something, there was something every time to dam the flow. This four-foot-ten, her mother, in her shapeless housedress of some cotton stuff, her shadow on the wall two times as large.
She didn't care that Sid was there and yet of course she did. Mr. Krieger needed her. Just six months on the job but he left everything to her to do, his orders, correspondence, even personal, his banking, everything. She was his right hand man! Why did her mother knock her down like that? In front of Sid.
As though her guilt was liquid, into it there seeped another substance, hopeless anger, spreading, merging, summoning a bittery solution, damping out, obliterating what her mouth remembered of the Charlotte Russe. She couldn't will herself to speak.
"It wouldn't hurt, a visitor, to say a word."
And where was everyone? What did she see, what unformed shape that seemed, impossible, like treachery? Her Yiddish was no longer fluent but enough for every day. "What's Sid doing here?" As though he wasn't at the table in his gray twill coat, his matching gray fedora, spats. Who cares he heard.
"What does it look? Waiting you should find for him a smile. Say maybe a hello."
Embarrassing. She'd told him nicely not to bother her, that his attentions were unwelcome, not to call. She'd seen him what, three times? Crumbs today, but some day she would soar aloft. She lived on Hester Street but knew her father's books, Tolstoi, knew yards of poetry by heart. Sid dressed the sport. Knew how to spend. And yet he was inhabited by ignorance, by slum. Nineteen, been at work ten years. "Mama, please. I need to talk to you alone."
"Alone?" She dipped the spoon in. Took a taste. "Who else is here? Your Sid? A faithful dog, he's waiting for a pat behind the ear."
From somewhere desperation to go on. "For my sake, mama. In the bedroom. Please."
"And here no good? It must be in the bedroom with your bubermeisers nobody has ever heard they're so remarkable?" Without another phrase she turned the heat down low and led the way.
As they walked the few feet to the bedroom Rachel found arising in her speeches, words without an end, her mouth stopped up with them. The curtain swished and fell in place and it was dark. She heard her mother's breath, her own which sounded jagged, frayed. "Why did you let him in? I told you, mama, that I said goodbye to him."
"First of all I didn't let him in. I told him if he wanted he should come, have supper here."
"Mama!" It was undertow, the darkness of the water at the ocean floor, this room.
"He offered me a coat if I said yes. I should refuse? My old one's good for rags. So I said he could come. A crime? Better your Lou Mandelbaum, he'll fill your head with Dickens Schmickens, Shakespeare, who? Some other of your City College bumekehs who haven't got two pennies they can rub together in their pants?"
"What are you saying, mama? For a coat? You told him come to supper for a coat? You know I said goodbye to him?"
"Vuhdan? Everything for Chaim's law school. Me, some shmatehs I'm ashamed. You question me? I let you waste your time in school instead of bringing money for my son. A girl? To finish school? A nothing! A girl with a diploma yet. My thanks? My pisher princess with her airs begrudges me my coat."
If she once yielded to the tears that swelled against her eyes she knew she would be done, kaput. But how withstand this blow? How hold herself erect?
"He's from the gutter, mama. Not his fault but how -- how could I love him? Papa, would my papa, may he rest in peace, want Sid? For me?"
"Don't speak to me your father with his Pushkin, books of Indians, geography. Geography, he knew two cities in his life."
"Mama, how can you speak of him that way, his candle burning in the other room?"
"How, your highness, let me tell you how. What did he bring me, what, my laymineh goylem with his hundred books? Four mouths to feed? Who held together? Him!? Don't make me laugh." She paused. Continued angrily. "So books -- I know from books. And Sid's not good enough for you, miss high and mighty, right? The Queen of Hester Street. Sid, nineteen years old, with a salary a man could raise a family."
"And he sits there in his coat? For what?"
"He wants you ask."
"Chaim and the girls?"
"I sent by Rose."
It came to her she knew the shape now of this thing, monstrosity, betrayal, what? And yet what did she know now she had never known? What new had come to her? That she could see more clearly now the space her mother had assigned to her? A coffin with the nails slammed in? Scorn and table scraps? Working so her brother could read law, a boy, while she, what was she but a girl?
She found her tears were gone and in their place a certain recklessness, her life not worth three cents -- and yet who knows, maybe the value of a coat. Was this relief she felt -- nothing mattered now. She didn't matter now. She said, "I'll leave my pay. We won't be eating here." And quickly left, came in the kitchen, Sid sitting as he'd sat.
She took the two bills from her purse and laid them on the table. She looked into his eyes. "You came to see me, Sid? Let's go."
His look was one of vast surprise, of someone who has found a golden nugget in his pan. "But kiddie, did she tell . . . ."
"My coat is hanging there." She pointed to the tree. He helped her into it and they were gone, down dark and skinny stairways to the street.
She peered into his face. The saddle of his nose was dented in. One tooth was gold. And yet he made a handsome figure, lean, stood straight all five feet two. His coat and hat looked spanking new. She'd never been beside a man with spats, didn't know if she should laugh or take him as he held himself to be.
"Kiddie . . . "
"Call me Rachel, please."
It had got colder in the street. There was no point in this, this hopeless place, this dungeon cell, this Hester Street. Where was her prince to carry her away?
"I'm thinking Delmonico's. If you'd like of course."
She picked the name up in the bleak of her despair. She'd heard of it. Who hadn't heard of it? Now that the name reverberated in the night she thought she'd even passed it once, the uniformed attendants helping people out of carriages and taxicabs. How could she, less than nothing, looking something that the cat dragged in? "I just got home from work," she said, "my shoes, my coat, my dress." The tears rose quickly but she blinked them back. And then from nowhere -- "I would love to. Is it far to walk?"
"To walk? No, no. I thought we'd find a taxicab."
And on Division, on the corner, one pulled in. "To Delmonico's," he said, and lordly settled back.
Sinking in the softness of the seat the Charlotte Russe emerged from memory of what -- two hours past? The streets sped by. He seemed so sure. And she, she felt like Cinderella with a peasant who had found a purse and thought to spend it all on her.
"I know you told me you don't want," he said, "but all I think about is you, Rukhel. I'm telling you the truth. You hear? At work. At home. I went to see your mother. I apologize."
And suddenly she viewed him in a different light. No prince, but not a simple lout, as common as a lump of anthracite. "Apology accepted, Sid." Permitted one small smile. Enjoyed the cushions, passing lights. Within two minutes up they came, attendants hurrying.
Was it a dime he tipped the mustached uniform who helped her out? A man in formal black and white approached them, bowed. Sid put a dollar bill into his hand, leaned forward, whispered in his ear. "Of course," he said. "The cloakroom's over there. We'll have your table ready right away."
How did Sid know? He helped her shrug her coat off with authority.
In the Ladies' Room a maid. Who'd want to leave? Yet it was clear this was the least of all the marvels still to come. The dining room! It was immense. Waiters seemed to move on wheels. Kaleidoscope. Two young men shared a table, waving their cigars. An old man and a girl of maybe twenty laughing in some private happiness. A man of forty and a woman with her dress cut down to here. The crystal chandeliers. The lights ablaze. The pop of corks. And then the band began to play, them barely seated, menus on the soft fine napery. "You want," he asked? And they were on the floor.
She'd danced with other boys but never as tonight. His certainty, like Vernon Castle. If this was the Blue Danube then they were at the ball. He wore no sash. She didn't have a string of pearls around her neck. But how they were admired. People stopped to watch for just the pleasure that they gave by dancing there. They twirled, light-footed, on the waves of sound that burst from every corner of the splendid room, the music thrilling as the river's breast, the other couples making way as Sid maneuvered, led her through her graceful turns as though they'd danced together all their lives, as though he knew. And when the music ended -- the applause for them! From everywhere. The couples on the floor. The people at their tables, women in their gowns.
Sid led her back. She would remember this.
Her menu had no prices. Without knowing how, she understood his did. Was that the price boys paid? If girls were nothing and yet necessary, sweethearts, mothers, nurses, cooks, then boys would take on the responsibility, would lead? And what if they were bad at it, like papa, may he rest in peace? Would she become her mother, witch-faced, mean? What kind of man was Sid? Surely not like papa, no. A dancer, yes. She felt somehow elated, glad that she was here, felt optimistic that she had embarked upon a life.
"So kiddie. Something that you like?" He waved at his menu.
She thought to tell him "Rachel." Didn't. He was a dancer, yes. "A moment, Sid." There were dishes she had never heard about. Some written out in French. Try something totally impossible? "I'll have the lobster please."
He looked surprised. Some boundary she'd crossed? But then he snapped his fingers for a waiter. One appeared.
"A lobster for the lady. And to start, Rukhel? Some appetizing? What?"
"No, no. The lobster will be fine."
"Large or small miss?" the waiter asked, his pencil poised.
"Oh. Small. Quite small."
"Poached or grilled?"
She turned blankly to the waiter's mustached face. "We're famous for our poached," he said.
"Then I'll do that."
Sid pondered. Pursed his lips. Commanded "I'll have sirlawn. Tell them smother it in onions."
"How would you like that cooked?"
"Say medium. I like it medium. To drink, Rukhel?"
She shrugged, and on an impulse said "Champagne."
"We have a Piper-Heidsick, sir. A vintage Mumms."
"Mumms. We'll have the Mumms."
When the waiter left Sid studied her. "Nice. Champagne. I like it here." His eyes took in the room as if establishing his place. "I like it here with you."
"Me too."
"They're playing Dardanelles. You want to dance?"
What need had they for conversation while the music played? What good were words she put such value on? Lodged useless in her throat so that they never came, or in some book? Whispered in her ear by poets who knew life no more close at hand than she? Out here Sid led her, held her firmly when she dipped. They flew. She liked the feel of him, the muscles in his back.
She let him hold her hand when they were seated once again. He wasn't fresh. Just covered up her hand with his. She studied it, remembering her papa's hand, long trembling fingers when he played violin. These fingers claiming her were stubby, strong, a little fleshy, vibrant as though ready now to root up anything to feed.
The waiter put the holder next to Sid. Then placed on it a silver bucket filled with ice. Then showed the bottle with its label. Red. Two wide-mouthed crystal glasses put before them. "Shall I serve it, sir?" Sid bobbed his head.
If this was ritual then so was Lee's surrender, Perry signing his accord. A golden foil was peeled away. The wire loosened, stripped. The cork was turned judiciously, again, and came that pop, the sound of Empire, Presidents of France. It felt all eyes were turned upon her then. The waiter poured a sip for Sid. He nodded his approval and the waiter filled both glasses, put the bottle on the ice and stepped away.
"To you, kiddie," and Sid raised his glass.
What made her want to cry, she hadn't tasted it? It tingled, tart. She drank it down.
Their waiter brought a huge domed dish. Plucked off the cover. Red, her lobster waited her with beady eyes, antennae sticking out. On a dish the implements, the tiny fork, the crush. Drawn butter on the side. Lemon wrapped in gauze. A mound of shoestring potatoes. A dish to throw away the shells. Overwhelmed, her indecisive hands lay in her lap. The waiter cleared his throat. "May I help, miss, if you'd let me please?" She bobbed her head.
He split the body. Crushed the claws. Put salt and pepper shakers near the butter. Bibbed her to protect her dress.
Then Sid was served.
In moments she was prying out the meat, the butter running down her chin. The waiter filled her glass. She drank it off. Nothing, she was in Delmonico's with lobster and champagne. Something, over law, her brother knuckled at his eyes. She smiled.
Sid ate quickly. Now he stopped. "You heard of Levy, Rukhel? Levy and Sons? Big Ladies Cloak and Suit manufacturers. I'm piece goods man."
She stopped, a morsel half way to her lips. Was this some confidence he brought to her like poetry? She paid attention. "No, I never heard of them."
"I tell you cause tomorrow's my big day." He took another bite of meat. A heaping fork of onions. Some champagne. "The thing is this." He paused for drama's sake. And suddenly she understood this ritual from all the books she'd read. He had come home to tell her of his wanderings, adventures he had known in lands beyond her ken, where he faced fearsome trolls, best not described. Her role was listen, smile, admire, let him glow. "Protect your back. Versteh? His older son, all right, he's there three years. Office work, the books. His younger son he brought in what, four months ago. Just out of school. A college boy. As if they teach in school one lesson that you need to know."
She realized that she wasn't getting drunk. Champagne had no effect on her at all. On Manischewitz at the seder, she'd feel lightheaded, but not now. She listened to Ulysses come from war. Why not? Mr. Krieger trusted her. She saw things. Learned.
"So this son, this Levy's son, he starts to ask me questions, Sid what's this, how did you get the price, who are the most reliable suppliers, what? Already I could smell a rat. The thing is," he leaned forward, speaking now in utter confidentiality, inviting her backstage where flats and props got moved, "you have to chop it off." He leaned back, took another bite.
She couldn't see just where this story led, although she could sense danger, schemes, conspiracy. And what if forces were too big for you? They snatched away your body any time they wished? She dug some meat out of a claw, dipped it in the butter, washed it down. She concentrated hard to learn. "What will you do?"
He pursed his lips and smiled disdainful. "With Levy I arranged a little talk, tomorrow, half past ten. In business, Rachel, listen good, in business you can't let it go, a thing like this. On the table, everyone can see it, what it is. You let it stay in corners who knows what. You have the upper hand, like me, you chop it off, you hold it up into the light." He smiled so that his gold tooth gleamed.
She waited breathless, certain there was more to come. But what? Her heart was banging. Why? Tears were in her eyes. She willed him to go on so she could know he'd navigate adroitly, avoid the Cyclops, steer away from reefs, but he had spoken all, intent now on his steak. "What will you say to Mr. Levy when you talk?"
Sid smiled fondly and he took a sip. "I thought you understood. The thing is this -- without me he can't run his shop. I've been his piece-goods man two years. I've got the most important part, the piece-goods part. It's where the profit is. He thinks the world of me. He knows I've made him what he is today. His son -- ten years he wouldn't learn what I know now. I'll tell him simple, Levy, it's his son or me. He'll see it can't go on like this."
How come the minute he had stopped she wanted to cry out? But what? The champagne bubbled, crystals in the chandelier flashed fire, on the floor they played a fox-trot, bustle slowing down. What could she know? A girl. She searched his face to see if there were shades of doubt. Could he be right? Why should she care? For Sid!? A life so different, just a block away. It might as well be Africa. Why feel heaviness for him? She faced her own. The hems she'd have to sew all night were like a mountain sitting on her heart. What could she do with it, this fearful thing she'd thought? How could she tell him he was sailing into danger unaware? Where were her precious words?
"Enjoying, kiddie?"
"Yes." Little more than whispered.
"Good. You want to dance?"
Was it that she knew the way he moved that made her hold him with a new familiarity, a grasp of partnership, of shipmates on some doomed Leviathan. It was a dance of South America. He moved her through it as Rodin might turn a masterpiece, as if he would proclaim the way that she was beautiful to him.
When he had paid and they were in the taxicab how could she slap his hands away when he had just spent fortunes on the evening? But what was happening to her? His kisses, even redolent of meat and wine awakened in her hungers she could barely comprehend. Where had they hidden? Somewhere deep in her? She struggled, not too hard. Into her ear he poured his heart. "I love you, Rachel. You mean everything to me."
His hands were at her breasts, where was her will to fight him off? Instead there was intoxication of his tongue that entered into her, that fed itself to her, that urged her take it, swallow it. Tomorrow he sailed off to war, perhaps to die. What could she do, a girl, to comfort him, when he awakened her, her words the apple in her throat, his kisses claiming her.
When they drove up he rushed around and held the door for her and paid. He led her down the dimly lighted hallway to the stairs and whispered, "Come." No, no. She'd heard and seen. She couldn't like some animal. And yet her body clamored, turning on itself. "A minute. For a minute only Sid." He led her underneath the stairs.
How did he know so much of women's clothes? So fast. Unbuttoned. Open. Hands, his hands were on her, on her flesh, inside her, deep inside her where she ran a river she was so ashamed, a smell like they were in the fish store and she felt -- she felt so hungry, full of lobster, eating, gluttonous, her juices running, wanting, needing to protect, to give, to take from him. His fingers brushed a place -- a place inside her body she had never known about. How had he found it there? "Oh, Sid," she cried aloud. "Oh, Sid." She wanted crammed it into her again.
His fingers left her. No! She wanted them. She heard him opening his belt. She was frightened now. Things she'd heard about. "No, no," she panted, words not coming when she needed them. "Too quickly, Sid. Too fast. A baby I don't need."
He grunted in her ear. "Trust me, Rachel. Babies come from laying down. We're standing. Nothing, listen, nothing bad can happen you from me."
So eager was her body she accepted him. Accepted him to fill her up, accepted him in all his urgency, his need, taking him into herself, accepting danger he was in as if it were her own.
The thrill of skin and sweat and wetness, new sensation piled on new seemed endless and too quickly finished as her Charlotte Russe had vanished, her not able to ingest it at her leisure, wolfing it and punished by the awkwardness of eating standing up, a hurried pleasure, vixen, lynx.
"I love you Rachel," in the darkness underneath the stairs. "I'll be your faithful dog if you will marry me. I'll be a slave for you."
Marry? Marry? Oh the possibilities! Escape. The end of servitude. A home that she could fashion as she pleased. And Sid to bring to her the magic of his dancing feet, this thrill again, again, again. "Oh Sid, I will," she blurted out and stopped. Why did she hesitate to say "I love you"? Not that she had ever said these words or had some knowledge of their sound, effect, except as it was said to her three times. She knew it should be said, that she should say it. But she stopped. Instead she straightened out her clothes and kissed him briefly. "Sid I have to go. I have a whole night's work ahead. Come tomorrow night. So late now that maybe it's tonight."
She took the stairs more slowly than she had done coming from her Charlotte Russe, discomfort in her belly, legs. And took with her this evening, this new, quite frightening excitement, this changing of her life.
And there sat mama in the dark, her witch's silhouette against the moonlit pane. Mama didn't, but of course she knew what she had done. What use were all her words which couldn't shape themselves to say "I love you" first to Sid and here to mama, mama who had engineered this night, when all she knew to have were bitter thoughts, thinking always, only of herself.
"Mama."
"Noo. I'm here. It's what? It's one o'clock with hems to sew. My princess back so early from the ball? In a pumpkin coach they brought you home? The needles wait. The hems."
"Oh mama," she went over to her. Knelt. Put hands upon the knobby knees. "Sid asked me would I marry him."
"Marry? Sid? He said he wanted just to see. To marry? You? Hoo-hah. You said?"
"Mama, mama. I said yes."
"You told him yes? Yes you told him? And you owe nothing? Deprive my Chaim of your little money for his books? I can count on you with maybe children yet to make a contribution here? My thank you, let you finish school? To Sid yet, a bumekeh who's had so many girls who knows to count so high? Impossible he means. You take him serious?"
The ocean pulling at her soles. She sputtered, "Mama. But he said . . ."
"He said. All men are dogs. They say, they want. You give, they walk away. And you, you meant? How could you mean? Your papa, may he rest in peace, would be ashamed. I need you Rachel for my son. I gave. I gave you school. You walk away?"
She rose. Looked at the ceiling only three feet up but through it up to heaven where her father watched. And knew in desperation it was she who took this journey, she who sailed her flimsy boat in these harsh waters full of treachery, she who ventured forth to war. What forces could she bring to her command, a girl? And yet set forth she would.
