Israel (26 page)

Along the rear wall of the store was bread and squat wooden barrels containing smoked and salted meat and fish. The center of the store was taken up with free-standing shelves. Upon them were displayed a colorful
array of tinned meats and vegetables. The hardware bins on the wall opposite Abe's counter overflowed with golden onions, russet potatoes and shiny red apples. A white enamel scale with a government seal stood ready to weigh purchases.

On that first day he did a wonderful amount of business. He sold over sixty-five pounds of bread, which he cut to order from twenty-pound rounds, three barrels' worth of smoked meat and two barrels of salt herring, which he wrapped in old newspapers, saved for weeks, for his customers' convenience. He spoke Yiddish to his Jewish customers, English to those who had no Yiddish and sign language to the few who knew neither. His canned goods flew from the shelves and his bins of produce steadily emptied. His customers asked for milk, eggs, cheese and butter, but Abe shook his head, directing them up the street to Sam Breakstone's. Abe knew enough not to antagonize a far better-established neighborhood merchant.

The only loss Abe took was on the candy, which he gave away. As he'd suspected, the children clamored for the sweets, and he decided the goodwill generated by a small gift was worth more than the penny or two he might have charged.

Abe locked his doors at seven that evening. He was exhausted but elated, spilling over with ideas for improvements.

He stowed the day's receipts beneath a loose floorboard in a cavity lined with paper. He kept back just enough to replenish his inventory in the morning. If this volume continued in a few weeks he could expect the dealers to extend him credit and start making deliveries to his store.

On the second day his business remained constant. Abe rewarded himself by spending some precious cash on the finishing touch to his new store. The next morning a sign painter arrived to letter in bright red the plate glass window:

He looked forward to the day he could have “& Sons” added, but there could be no sons until there was a wife. There was no getting around it; it was time for him to marry.

Then came thoughts of Leah Kravich, the shy, diminutive spinster sister of his first landlord on Montgomery Street. Thoughts of Leah would steal over Abe at the oddest times, until he didn't know what to make of his preoccupation with the quiet twenty-year-old.

This he believed for certain, that it was not love. He was not the sort to be consumed by passion. But then why did Leah haunt him so? Occasionally they had a chance encounter on the street, not often, but frequently enough so that Abe found himself disappointed when he did not run into her. Always they paused to exchange pleasantries. On these occasions Abe could scarcely control his heart-thumping nervousness, nor could he recollect just what nonsense it was he'd stammered to her.

Their sporadic random meetings seemed to last for an eternity and then end far too soon. Afterwards Abe's day seemed filled with reveries of Leah. At night while half-asleep he heard snatches of her laughter and could even picture the way she blushed at the sound of her own mirth, so shy and prim and proper was she.

In the morning he would find himself stirring at the thought of her touch. He would tremble, ashamed that he should covet her, astounded and frightened that this magic could be worked upon him. It was too much, too dangerous.

Dangerous? Nonsense! Leah would make a docile, hard-working wife. She seemed to like him, and Abe, for his part, could see beyond her unprepossessing exterior to the quiet, subtle beauty beneath.

To Abe it was astounding that no one else seemed
able to appreciate the depth of her gaze or the dark sheen of her long, wavy tresses. How could others be so oblivious to the promise of her lips, to the swell and curve of her bosom beneath her frumpy garments? Her timidity made it possible for him to approach and talk to her. Leah's hunched vulnerability made Abe want to stand tall and protect her. Even Sadie and Joseph wanted him to court her, so why not follow his feelings?

No, he was afraid to give himself so completely. Love was not for him.

Abe chided himself for even thinking of giving in to such temptation. Love was the province of only two sorts, handsome young blades and self-deluding fools. If he allowed himself to love he would be hurt. Experience had taught him that. He loved his parents and then was orphaned. To ease that pain he took in Haim and loved him, and now Haim was gone as well.

No, from now on he would protect himself. He would choose his wife as he had the location for his business. He would choose prudently, coolly, with good value foremost in his mind.

He would do the sensible thing and take himself to a matchmaker. He would buy a wife, for buying was the only certain way to possess.

One miracle in his life—the return of his savings—was enough. He would not expect another, that he might find love.

Abe's fear of intimacy made it easy for him to rationalize waiting “a prudent amount of time” before marriage. How much wiser it seemed to him to get the business established and to build up a bank account before taking on more responsibility.

The fall and winter passed and Abe waited on his customers. The days flew by, but each solitary night seemed to last for an eternity. He spent his evenings reading,
finding his taste changing from business primers and newspapers to romantic novels. He would put himself in the hero's place, murmur the words of love out loud to his own imaginary lady.

Then he would look up from the page, see his scrawny image in the mirror on the wall and blush with mortification. How pitiful he felt, a yearning hermit in a cave.

Finally loneliness overshadowed fear. Thus it was on a Wednesday morning in July 1912, a year and a month after his store's opening, that Abe found himself fidgeting in the outer foyer of the matchmaker's office.

Abe was wearing a brand new brown suit. Blue might have been more appropriate, but he already had a blue one, so why not get another color?

He was also wearing shiny new shoes and for the first time in his life an American-style necktie.

He wanted to look his best for this important interview. At long last he had the money in his pocket to do so.

So much has changed in my life
, Abe found himself musing. I wake up in my own apartment, don new clothes and on my way out check the locks on my own business.

Change was difficult for him. In Russia change rarely came for the serf or peasant. In Abe's village a humble thatched hut stood for a hundred years, passed down from a father who also passed down his livelihood. In Russia for serfs and peasants only the seasons changed.

But America was founded on the theory of change. For instance, the marriage broker's office was on Orchard Street, and Abe remembered reading that Orchard Street had been named for the groves of fruit trees that thrived there in 1806, when the tract belonged to an Irishman named Delancey.

1806—just one hundred and five years ago. To a Russian Jew such a period amounted to the briefest blink of the eye. In a land where villagers routinely labored to pay the
avalanching interest on loans incurred by their grandfathers, one hundred and five years was nothing at all.

And yet in just that period the rich black farm soil of Orchard Street had been entombed beneath unyielding pavement. If Abe had not read it, he would never have believed that trees had stood where now loomed nothing but drab tenements and street lamps.

If the street had seen better times, so had the matrimonial agent, Abe surmised. The office was four flights up in the rear of a tenement that rumbled and shook with the sound of knitting machinery. The foyer had peeling brown paint and grimy pink linoleum. The hard wooden bench on which he sat was littered with orange peels and crusted with spilled food.

For this I bought new clothing? Abe asked himself sourly. He'd always considered matchmaking to be one of the best-paying businesses possible, but evidently this too had changed.

When the Jews first came to New York, forcing the Germans from the Lower East Side, they brought with them all of their old country traditions, including the matchmaker. A proper Jewish man concerned himself with religious studies, the community and making a living, in that order. No one expected a studious, hard-working, moral man to seek out a member of the opposite sex and propose matrimony face to face.

For a fee, usually ten percent of the bride's dowry, the broker would call on the parents, present the groom's case and bring back an answer. The broker, if successful, was paid his fee upon the announcement of the engagement. If the answer was no, the groom was spared the embarrassment of a personal rejection, an important consideration in a tiny village.

If the suitor had no particular bride in mind, the broker would take down his specifications, advise his client as to how much dowry he could reasonably expect, and
then explore the community looking for a suitable match. This role became even more crucial in America at the turn of the century, when Jews from many different villages were thrown together, strangers to one another.

The door to the inner office opened and Yuri Charnov ushered out an old woman. During his wait Abe had been forced to hear them through the thin partition that separated the foyer from the inner office. The old woman was illiterate and had been dictating a letter to her daughter in Canton, Ohio.

Signs downstairs on the street and up here in the office advertised Charnov's services as a scribe and as a business interpreter on a walk-in basis. Abe was somewhat surprised. Once it had been essential to make an appointment far in advance to have an interview with a marriage broker, but the era when this one, at least, enjoyed that kind of prosperity had evidently long since passed.

Charnov turned to Abe as the old woman left, tucking her freshly inked envelope into her black string bag. He was in his sixties, Abe guessed, tall, and heavy-set, his physical bulk emphasized by the garish combination of a blue striped seersucker suit, red waistcoat and bright yellow tie. He had weak green eyes behind thick steel-rimmed spectacles and a bald head as round and sickly pale as an unripe honeydew melon.

The broker warmly welcomed Abe in Yiddish, shaking his hand and holding on in order to tug him into his office. This inner sanctum wasn't much cleaner than the waiting area, but at least it had a window thrown open to admit sunlight and fresh air. The office shelves were lined with books on various subjects and his desk was piled with the black ledgers.

Everyone knew that a marriage broker's ledgers were the repository for his primary stock in trade, the names and addresses of potential mates. Staring at the ledgers, Abe felt a twinge of sadness. In one of those black books was
written the name of his future wife, but her name would not be Leah.

Abe seated himself on one of the hardbacked chairs in front of the broker's desk and for a few minutes they exchanged pleasantries. Charnov had a glittering gold incisor that added a disturbing touch of lewdness to what was obviously meant to be a friendly smile.

Finally the broker said in English, “Now then, tell me about yourself.” He listened intently, jotting notes as Abe recounted his background and his status.

“Good, very good,” he smirked. “Now describe for me the sort of young lady you have in mind.”

Abe confessed in faltering, embarrassed phrases what he was looking for in a wife, including a physical description.

“Dark she should be; a copper-haired freckled girl is not for me.”

“Fat? Thin?” The gold tooth was hardly visible now; this was business.

“Thin,” Abe mused, “and not too tall. Especially not taller than me. She should have dark eyes and long black hair.”

“Yes, you've told me that.” Charnov tapped his notes.

Abe paused. “She should be intelligent, for she must help me in the store,” he began, “but she should also be a quiet girl, one who knows to respect and honor her husband.” Here he grew shy all over again. “She should know to appreciate him even if he is not forceful or virile. . . . Understand what I'm saying?”

“Perfectly.”

“Good.”

Charnov eyed him. “Really, you shouldn't be so upset.”

“What?” Abe started. “Oh, no, you misunderstand,”
he said, his tone melancholy. “I'm thinking about something else.”

“Come now.” Charnov was obviously unconvinced. “You'll excuse me for saying so, but a man your age who has never been married—well, it is natural for such a man to be concerned with the as yet unknown demands that a wife will place on him.”

Abe was hardly listening, for what was disturbing him was the realization that the “perfect” woman he'd been describing was none other than Leah.

He stood up, reaching into his pocket for some money, which he placed upon the desk. “This has been a mistake,” Abe said. “Or maybe it hasn't; maybe it was just what I needed.” He smiled. “Anyway, please take the money for your time.”

Charnov looked glum. “Where you going so fast? You're making a mistake. Sit. Let's talk it over at least.”

Shaking his head, Abe was already on his way toward the foyer.

“Then take back your money,” the matchmaker scowled disgustedly. “For nothing I don't need this pittance.”

“You keep it,” Abe insisted, standing in the doorway. “You earned it. Without you I might never have made a good marriage.”

Abe floated past the shops and stalls of Orchard Street, but as he turned onto Hester and cut across the cropped lawns of Seward Park toward East Broadway, his initial enthusiasm turned to unease.

“I'm doing the right thing. I know it,” he muttered through clenched teeth, “but why do I feel sick to my stomach?”

His interview with the marriage broker had inspired him. He was on his way to propose marriage to Leah, but once again he was losing his nerve . . .