Israel (32 page)

Leah was not listening. Her stomach was lurching at the thought of those wicked little blades in the cabinets. She managed to blurt out that she was not sick—at least she didn't think she was. She had come to ask his advice.

The doctor nodded. He slowly donned his coat and led her into his office. The room was carpeted in crimson and lit by fine brass lamps crowned with green glass shades. Two leather armchairs faced an imposing mahogany desk. There was a curtained window behind the desk's swivel chair. Along one wall was a worktable on which rested a scale, weights and measures, trays and supplies. The innumerable vials of brightly colored pills, powders and liquids looked very much like the loose candy on display at the Cherry Street market.

There were tightly packed floor-to-ceiling bookcases, and against a side wall, lined up on a series of shelves, was a collection of large glass jars in which various rubbery monstrosities floated in preservative. There was an eye ringed with filaments of nerve tissue beside some kind of snake or worm. There were other things that Leah thanked God she did not recognize, and one prize trophy, pink as a valentine and all curled around on itself like the head of a fiddle; it had glossy black eyes.

Of course, Leah reassured herself, it's not human. It's just a baby chick or something.

She turned away and forced herself to stare at the doctor's green desk blotter as she told him why she'd come. She tried to block out the image of the pink thing, but it kept intruding.

She began to feel better as she stammered out her confession. Dr. Glueck was in his eighties. With his long grey beard, funny spectacles and dark study walled with leather-bound tomes, it was like talking with the rabbi.

The similarity was underscored when Dr. Glueck, his gnarled white blue-veined hands resting placidly on his green blotter, asked if she and her husband observed the rule of abstinence and enjoyment. Did they abstain prior to and after her menses? the doctor asked.

He is old, she reminded herself, unable to meet the doctor's level gaze as she told of every aspect of her lovemaking with her husband. He is a physician. For Abe's sake as well as your own, you must get through this. But the doctor might as well have extracted the information with a scalpel, so painful was it.

She kept her head bowed as he began to murmur to her. His instructions were specific and quite clinical. She thought of how she might impart them to Abe, of the look of bewilderment and humiliation in his eyes, and she began to weep. Their intimacy had been a magical thing. What if the doctor's instructions spoiled it?

Dr. Glueck, a compassionate man, paused and escorted her to the washroom. He told her to take her time and compose herself. He would be waiting.

When at last she could, she found that he'd written out the instructions for her. Leah folded up the sheet of paper and stuffed it into her purse. She paid the doctor and took her leave.

All the way home she kept her purse clutched beneath her arm, thinking of what was inside and feeling as if she had in her possession some of those filthy picture cards the degenerates sold up on Fourteenth Street. She said nothing
to Abe about her interview with the doctor for all the rest of that day, and she knew he wouldn't ask. That evening after they locked up for the night, Leah unfolded the sheet of instructions and silently pushed it across the kitchen tablecloth to her husband.

Abe read in his slow, thorough way, as if it was the editorial page in one of his newspapers. He pursed his lips and nodded at her.

“The doctor says this is how it must be; then this is how it will be,” he said at last. “When is supper, Leah?”

The words came out halfway through the meal. Abe uttered them so softly that he could easily have denied speaking if Leah had pressed him. “Leah, I love you very much.”

In May she suspected that she was pregnant. She did not say anything to Abe because she had always been irregular in her cycles and she did not want to disappoint him. In June she went to see Dr. Glueck, who confirmed her hopes. She rushed home to tell Abe and their celebration was joyous.

Now, on the eve of their anniversary, Leah put their supper in the oven to roast and went into the parlor to await her husband. She sat down in an old overstuffed sofa they'd bought secondhand, glad for the opportunity to put her feet up on its matching ottoman.

These days she was spending less time in the store and more time resting. She'd been alarmed by how tired she was feeling so early in her pregnancy, but Dr. Glueck told her not to be concerned.

“This will be difficult for you, my dear,” the doctor warned her. “You are of narrow girth and delicate disposition. Other women may continue to work or keep house well into their term, but you must conserve your strength for what may turn out to be an ordeal.”

Dr. Glueck insisted upon seeing her often. He warned that she would have to deliver at the hospital. Leah followed all his commands and accepted his decrees. It was due to his magic that she had conceived. Nothing else mattered and no sacrifice was too great.

She heard the downstairs door open and then the click as it was relocked. Abe's footsteps sounded on the squeaking stairs. He came into the parlor with his arms full of parcels wrapped in brown paper.

“All those for me?” Leah laughed.

“First this,” Abe handed her a small tissue-wrapped packet.

Leah tore away the wrappings. It was a string of pearls. “They're beautiful,” she cried.

Abe, beaming proudly, came around the back of the sofa to clasp the necklace around her throat. As he bent to his task he paused to press his lips against her neck.

“It's a lovely gift,” Leah murmured tenderly. “Thank you, my love.”

Abe sat down beside her on the sofa so he could watch his wife's face as he handed her a sheaf of papers. Leah unfolded the documents and tried to read them, but the close-spaced English-language legalisms meant nothing to her.

Grinning, Abe put his arm around her and with his free hand tapped the papers in her lap. “What it says there is that Stefano de Fazio and I are now partners in ownership of this building,” he announced. “Some weeks ago I went to see him. He had some money he wanted to invest, and I—”

“Wait,” Leah interrupted. “Stefano is a union officer. He had union money he wanted to invest?”

“No. I saw him in his private office on Sixth Avenue. This had nothing to do with the union.”

Leah frowned. She had met Stefano only once and had instantly mistrusted him. Now, watching her husband
duck her gaze, she became suspicious. “Abe, what is it you are not telling me?”

“It is nothing to be concerned about. Stefano confided in me about where the money came from. He wanted to be straight with me, you understand? Always Stefano has been straight with me. So. He has control of so much money coming in and out of the union's coffers. It is possible for him to put into the ledgers that a certain amount was Jo go to a fellow holding a job in a local. Perhaps that person did not come to work except to collect the money, and then gave all but a little of it back to Stefano. It often happens that as treasurer Stefano has to pay out a disability benefit to a worker, but then the fellow only gets half of the allotment. The rest of the money ends up in Stefano's pocket. Then he has many relatives who have come over from Italy,” Abe continued. “And all of them might go to work for the union, and Stefano would control their salary allotments . . .”

“What you are trying to tell me is that Stefano has stolen the money from the union, is that it?” Leah demanded.

“What is stealing?” Abe scowled. “Who is to say? It is how it works in America, that's all. Stefano had money that he wished to invest, but not in his name. He had his lawyer approach this building's owner and they agreed on a sale price. Then Stefano, wishing to pay me a favor, says to me, ‘Abe, my friend, I will put the building in your name. You will collect the rents and give them to me and look out for the place, and in exchange you yourself will pay no rent at all.'” Abe paused. “Stefano's lawyer will take care of my obligations with the law. Many years from now it will be arranged that I sell the building back to him, and I will receive some money for that, as well. So what is the harm, Leah? I have helped my friend invest his money, and he has seen to it that we have more money to put away for our children.”

“But Stefano has stolen his money, Abe,” Leah sorrowfully repeated. “And now you have been made a party to the stealing.”

“I don't care,” Abe declared. “Every day the policemen come here to take home groceries without paying for them. Is that not stealing, Leah? The police, do they not steal from us?”

“A few groceries is not the same as money—”

“Please!” Abe turned away from her in disgust. “So from somebody else they take the money. Believe me, Stefano explained everything to me. This is how it works in America. This is how you become successful in business, Stefano has assured me, and I trust him. He has always been good to me.”

“I'm afraid,” Leah whimpered. “What if you have to go to jail?”

Abe chuckled, albeit nervously. “For what would they put a nobody like me in jail?” Then he hugged Leah, admitting, “Maybe I'm also a little frightened.” He shrugged. “Who knows, maybe when you start to be successful you're supposed to be frightened. This much I can tell you, for you are my wife and you probably have already realized it about me. I was bragging to you just now when I said I was Stefano's partner. I could never be the partner of a strong fellow like that, for I'm a little man—”

Leah pressed her fingers to his lips. “Stop. You've done very well for yourself.”

Abe shook his head. “Over two years I've been in this store. We have enough, but now we have children coming and our expenses will increase. I make our customers happy, but as hard as I think, I can't figure a way to make more of myself than being a retail merchant. If something happened to me—”

“God forbid.”

“If I got sick and couldn't open the store, we'd be
out in the street.” Abe smiled. “Now that can't happen. It would not be in Stefano's interests to let it happen.”

“I understand.” Right or wrong, the papers had been signed. Perhaps she was wrong in mistrusting Stefano.

“There's another thing too. Stefano mentioned that he intends to own other businesses someday. He said that maybe if I learn the food business thoroughly I could someday do the same thing for him that I'm doing now, but with a larger business, for more money. If I'm ever to leave something behind for my sons, it will come about through serving a man like Stefano de Fazio.”

“You are my husband,” Leah said. “I leave our welfare in your hands.” She turned her attention to the other parcels, closing the discussion. One by one she unwrapped a succession of little boy's attire: shoes, shorts and shirts. “Abe,” she scolded, this time in amusement. “These clothes are for a three-year-old.”

“They were on sale.” Abe shrugged. “He'll wear them when he grows.”

“And what if it's a girl?”

“What do I know from dresses? You'll buy for the girl and we'll put these things away for the boy when he comes.”

Leah bit her lower lip to keep from telling him what Dr. Glueck said. She'd kept the matter from Abe so as not to worry him and because she was still denying it to herself.

“Your physical constitution is not a match for your force of will, young woman. No more children after this one. Not if you want to live to see your firstborn thrive.”

“Supper is almost ready,” Leah said brightly. She swung her legs down from the ottoman and got to her feet. She took a few steps then staggered.

Abe was at her side. “Are you all right?” he begged. “Should I get the doctor?”

“I got up too fast,” Leah mumbled. “I'm fine.” She
leaned against Abe for a moment and then let him escort her into the kitchen.

“I was just teasing you, my love,” she whispered to Abe. “This first child is a son for you. It must be.”

September brought in a spell of cool, blustery weather. Leah stayed upstairs in the apartment as much as she could, but there were times when she had to mind the store.

She dressed warmly, but it was drafty there by the cash register as the customers came in and out. Leah felt a sore throat develop. Soon she was coughing and sniffling and cursing her bad luck to have caught a cold.

Her cold seemed to drag on. Between its effects and her pregnancy she had no strength left at all.

One night during the third week of September she awoke with stomach cramps, moaning softly.

Abe came awake at once. He had always been a light sleeper, but since Leah got pregnant his eyes opened if he felt the least stirring beside him in the bed.

“Go back to sleep,” she urged. “It's nothing. My cold went down to my stomach, that's all.”

“Go see the doctor tomorrow,” Abe muttered.

“I'm to see him at the end of the week anyway. What can he do for a cold?”

Abe grunted and turned over as Leah got out of bed. It was not so dark in the bedroom that she couldn't see that his eyes were open, watching her.

“Go to sleep.”

“When you come back to bed I'll fall asleep.”

“I'll be back in a minute.”

She skipped barefoot across the icy cold linoleum floor on her way to the toilet. She did not bother to turn on the kitchen light. She could easily find her way in the dark to the little water closet.

Another series of cramps hit her. She pressed her
belly, bent her knees and waited for the pain to subside. Maybe I will go see the doctor tomorrow, Leah decided. A head cold was one thing, but in her mind, an illness moving down toward her belly was like an invading army.

As she pulled open the water closet door she had a wave of dizziness. She felt warm liquid cascading down the insides of her thighs, sopping her flannel nightgown.