A Book of Great Worth (5 page)

“When it comes,” he liked to predict, “there will be no standing on the sidelines. Will we be with Germany? Or against her? Harry, where will you stand?”

If Robert Pearlman was present, this was sure to provoke a spirited argument. He was opposed to war, and if there was one, he believed, England and the Americas should stay well clear of it.

Of more interest to my father than the conversation was the exchange of glances that ricocheted around the cozy room, especially in Robert’s absence. He, of course, could not help but cast fleeting looks of adoration at
Hillary, try though he did to keep them furtive. For her part, Mrs. Pearlman usually ignored these looks, but oc
casionally she would raise her head and meet his gaze, returning his timid glance with what he was sure was a meaningful one of her own. But meaning what?

My father also became aware that Betty, cheerful,
innocent Betty, was similarly casting glances in his direction, and her manner with him was frequently noth
ing short of flirtatious. And it was patently obvious that Schmidt was gazing, as often as he decently could, at
the wife of his employer, all the while attempting to di
vert attention by running his hand across his smoothly shaven chin. It also gradually became obvious to my father that Schmidt, when not gazing at Hillary, was scowling at him, and that his rancour seemed to grow in direct proportion to the amount of attention that Mrs. Pearlman gave him.

Years later, when my father would tell this story, he would remark at this point that it was only his youth and inexperience that prevented him from being overwhelmed by the sexual
frisson
and intrigue darting like dragonflies after mosquitoes beneath the slowly turning fan in the Pearlman porch as, outside, darkness gently fell over the countryside.

•••

The stream my father had noticed the first day had been dammed at the end of the meadow, creating a pond where the cows drank, pausing in their endless chewing to dip their dark muzzles deep into the water. The pond was remarkably like the one my father remembered from the family farm in Galicia. There were small fish and eels in the pond, and my father and Benjy became expert at luring them with worms and minnows. As a boy, half a world away, he’d fished with a stick cut from a branch and a string. Now, just a decade later, he and Benjy made use of new rods and tackle that Pearlman
had purchased in the city for them. Even Esther enjoyed the fishing, though she couldn’t bear to touch either bait or fish.
As the summer progressed, Betty became equally expert at turning the fish into a succession of memorable meals. Even the unpleasant-looking eels, when cooked in a soup with lots of salt and pepper, were made pleasing by her clever hands.

“What, are we becoming Catholics, fish on Friday?” Robert Pearlman jokingly complained the first time he enjoyed the fruits of these fishing expeditions, and he tousled his son’s hair, causing Benjy to squirm with pleasure. “Harry, you’re supposed to be teaching them Yiddish, not Latin.”

Later, this joking complaint was picked up by Schmidt, who darkened it into “What, fish again?” and then, “Not fish
again!”
But, my father noticed, Schmidt always ate every bite.

As they lounged by the pond in the July heat, their poles by their sides, my father and the children chattered as if he were indeed their big brother, talking about fish, baseball (Benjy was mad for the Yankees, then suffering a string of losses) and anything else that came into their heads. They went for walks about the farm, played catch, threw sticks for the tireless sheepdog,
Kalev,
which was Hebrew for “dog,” and took rides
on the broad back of the gentle
Yarmulke.
And my father to
ld story after story, of life on the farm in Galicia, of the trip across the Atlantic, of life on the Lower East Side, which, to the children, was as foreign as what he referred to as “the old country.”

From the beginning, my father would speak to the children in Yiddish, first putting names to simple things – rock, pants, sky, dog – then incorporating them into simple sentences. As Hillary had specified, he didn’t bother with the niceties of grammar, spelling or anything to do with the reading or writing of the language. This was strictly conversational Yiddish, and the children were quick learners. By the end of July, he had them chattering away as if Yiddish were their mother tongue – at least, that’s what Hillary remarked. She was very pleased, and she put her hand on my father’s and squeezed it warmly as she said so.

“You’ve done wonders with them, Harry. You should consider a career in languages. Perhaps you should start thinking about college.”

My father blushed with pleasure. “All I do is talk to them,” he said truthfully. There was neither skill nor guile involved.

The date for the arrival of the grandparents drew closer and the children’s excitement grew.

“What will they be like?” Benjy wanted to know.

“Will they love me?” Esther asked.

My father told the children about his own grandparents, his mother’s parents, whom he had last seen on the day he, his mother and his brothers Izzy, Nathan
and Henry set out by ox cart from their village for Am
sterdam – a long, ardous trip of several weeks – to take ship to America to join his father, Sam and Ida, who had gone a year earlier. He had kissed them goodbye, first his
bubba
, on her cheek, then his
zaida,
on his forehead because his beard tickled, knowing that he would probably never see them again. My father had cried that day, though he didn’t tell the children that. Instead, he said, “There were no tears, because they were so happy for us.”

“But weren’t you sad?” Esther asked.

“Yes, of course, I was very sad,” my father said.

“And is it true, you never saw them again?” Benjy asked. He was speaking Yiddish and he chose his words carefully.

“Yes,” my father said.

“And they’re dead now?” Esther asked. The children already had some knowledge of this concept, having helped my father bury several dead birds they’d found.

“Yes,” said my father, “and that’s why it’s so important that you should meet your grandparents now, while you have the chance. They’re old.”

“And is it true that Mommy hasn’t seen her Mommy and Daddy for years and years?”

“That’s right, Esthela.” My father took the little girl in his arms. “Do you ever get mad at Mommy? Or at Daddy?”

“Sometimes.”

My father smiled. “And you, Benjy?”

“Sometimes.”

“And do you sometimes get so mad you think, ‘I wish they were dead,’ or think about running away and never coming home, just to show them, to make them feel bad?”

The children pouted. Esther sucked her thumb. My father gently tugged at her hand until it came away. “Tell the truth now.”

“Sometimes,” Benjy said.

“...times,” Esther echoed.

“You have to be careful what you wish for,” my fa
ther said. “Sometimes wishes come true and you don’t like it so much and you can’t take them back.”

“Is that what Mommy did?” Esther asked.

“What do you think?” my father asked.

•••

My father was milking. He sat on the stool, his head pressed against the warm side of the cow, his fingers wrapped around the teats, squeezing, that peculiar
rhythm as if they were an instrument and he was mak
ing music.

Over the last week, the festering situation in Eu
rope had erupted into full-fledged hostilities, with war being declared between Germany and Russia on the first day of August, followed, in rapid succession, by German invasions of France and Poland, and Britain joining the fray a day later. At breakfast just that morning, they had heard on the radio that Russian troops had crossed the
border into Prussia and an Eastern Front was fully
inflamed, including Austria-Hungary and Serbia. Al
though the fighting was far away from Peekskill, it was possible for my father to imagine troops marching through the village where, just ten years ago, he had lived as a boy.

Naturally, he was upset, and confused. News reports from Washington suggested that the United States was unlikely to become involved, at least not for a while, and it was unclear whether someone like my father, a native of an area under arms, or soon to be, would be expected to fight in any event. He was anxious to return to New York and be with his family, but had promised
the Pearlmans he would stay until Hillary’s parents’ ar
rival, scheduled in just a week’s time.

Already the situation at the Pearlmans’ estate was becoming ugly.

The previous evening, at dinner, Robert Pearlman,
home for the weekend, and Ernst Schmidt had en
gaged in a bitter argument, Schmidt, predictably, on the side of Germany, Pearlman favouring the Allies. The fact that the Pearlman family had lived for generations in Germany before immigrating to the United States did not mitigate his views one bit. The argument had ended with Schmidt calling his employer “a colonial apologist,” the women and children in tears and Pearlman ordering the farm manager out of his house, Betty rushing after him. There were no nightcaps that night, nor did either of the Schmidts come to the house for breakfast. Earlier, Schmidt had been in the barn as usual when my father arrived for the morning milking, lightning bolts blazing from his reddened eyes, or so it seemed to my father, but the two men had managed to avoid each other. Oscar, the part-time hired man, was there to help out, as was usual on a Saturday.

My father, who had no head for politics, had stayed out of the argument, saying barely a word through dinner, then going directly to his room after helping Hillary put the agitated children to bed. He had wanted to say something comforting to her, perhaps to put his
hand gently on her shoulder, but he had resisted, in
stead willing his attention to be focused on Benjy and Esther. For a moment, as they adjusted the covers on Esther’s bed, Hillary on one side, my father on the other, she gave him a look that confused him. He lay awake in bed for hours wondering if it had conveyed desire or simply gratitude.

Breakfast had been quiet, the children still sulky, Betty conspicuously absent from the kitchen. Ordinarily, on a Saturday, Schmidt, who seemed indifferent to religion, would drive the Pearlmans into Peekskill for morning services at the synagogue, but there was no mention of such a trip today.

The day passed uneventfully, my father occupied with the children, who had many questions. They wanted to know why their father and Mr. Schmidt, as they called him, had argued, what war was, where Germany and Russia and France and the other countries they were suddenly hearing about were. My father found an atlas in the library and spent a long time with the children pointing out key locations and, in as simple a way as he could, explaining geopolitics. This actually calmed him, since it helped to clarify his own thinking on the situation in Europe.

On a map of Germany, he showed the children Berlin and Leipzig, where he knew the Pearlmans had originated, and other geographical points. He showed them, on a large map of eastern Europe, Lithuania, from whence their mother’s family came, and the area of the Austro-Hungarian Empire straddling parts of Poland and the Ukraine where he and his own family had lived.

“Why do people move around so much?” Benjy wanted to know.

“They want a better life,” my father answered. “For themselves, and especially their children.”

“Why are bad people so dumb dumb?” Esther asked petulantly, and my father laughed.

“Only God knows that, Esthela.”

The Schmidts had remained out of sight most of the day. But as it was Saturday, that wasn’t unusual. The Pearlman household wasn’t particularly religious, but other than the basic farm chores there was no work done on the place, and meals were simple, and usually cold, sliced meats from a delicatessen in Peekskill or cheese and bread and fruit. That’s what the meals had been this Saturday, and there was little talk at the table. Even Robert Pearlman, usually garrulous, was quiet and, save for one moment at dinner when he gave my father a long appraising look, kept his eyes on his plate. My father’s own eyes, as furtively as he could manage, strayed often to Hillary’s lovely face, but her eyes too were mostly lowered.

When my father came to the barn for the evening milking, there was no sign of Schmidt. Even Oscar was nowhere to be seen.

He brought in the cows, with the help of the yapping dog, and locked them into their stanchions. Milking all of them by himself would take a while, and they would soon be bellowing with impatience, but he knew he could do it. He didn’t want to bother Pearlman, and doubted if the jeweller could milk a cow at any rate.

He was on the third cow, one of the Guernseys, and the rich smell of warm milk rising from the pail was beginning to intoxicate him, when he became aware of the presence of someone nearby. He turned his head, raising his eyes, to see Schmidt leaning against the barn wall, watching him with a jaundiced eye.

“So you choose to remain a lackey, Harry,” the farm manager said scornfully. The smell of whisky wafted off him like a cloud of flies around a cow’s head.