Read The Smartest Woman I Know Online

Authors: Ilene Beckerman

The Smartest Woman I Know (8 page)

BOOK: The Smartest Woman I Know
11.41Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

On Saturdays, the sisters marched in protest. On Sundays, the sisters distributed flyers. Evenings, the sisters knitted sweaters for the oppressed. They could sing “The International,” the anthem of world socialism, in harmony.

“Let me tell you about three other sisters,” Ettie said. “Patty, LaVerne, and Maxene—the Andrews sisters. They go around singing “Bei Mir Bist du Schon” and they aren’t even Jewish. But from that song, they make a fortune and live in sunny California.

“Sometimes life is all about the song you sing.”

Mr. Goldberg called his cousins the Pinko Sisters. Thanks to Ettie, they never left the store empty handed.

Ettie would always say, “Take a magazine, a piece of candy. Maybe you want a Tootsie Roll? Some Chiclets? Mason Dots? Necco Wafers? Maybe you’ll be lucky and find a Necco with a lot of chocolate wafers. Don’t be shy. You need some Waterman’s blue-black ink? Don’t worry, I’ll deal with Mr. Goldberg.”

Almost every Jewish family had an unmarried aunt. In ours, Aunt Babbie occupied that unenviable position. I loved it when she came to visit. She always brought a shiny box of Fanny Farmer lollipops.

Instead of marriage, Babbie choose a career. She worked as head bookkeeper for the Elite Dress Company. She excelled at her job. Her numbers were always balanced. Her profit and loss statements were accurate to the penny. However, her reconciliation of pluses and minuses did not translate into her choice or appraisals of men.

A bright tie on a charming shoulder-pad salesman blinded her to the fact that Irving Grossman was about to be jailed for embezzlement.

Lou Stein, who always wore a vest, opened the door for her, and took her dancing at Roseland, obscured the small detail that he’d been married for seventeen years and had two teenage sons.

Eventually, Babbie abandoned the garment industry and migrated to Florida.

Unlike the birds, though, she never came back.

H
OLIDAYS

T
HE STORE WAS OPEN seven days a week including holidays, with one exception.

The one day a year the store was closed was Yom Kippur.

There was always a contest of wills between Ettie and Mr. Goldberg, and it was never more apparent than on a Jewish holiday.

One particular Passover, we sat down for the seder when Mr. Goldberg stood up and announced “Before we will begin the seder, we will sing ‘Hatikvah.’”

“‘Hatikvah?’” Ettie countered, “We are Americans. We should sing ‘The Star Spangled Banner.’”

Mr. Goldberg
:      
We will sing “Hatikvah”!
Ettie
:
Mr. Goldberg, you’re an American.
Mr. Goldberg
:
“Hatikvah”!
Ettie
:
“The Star Spangled Banner”!
Mr. Goldberg
:
So all of a sudden you’re Mrs. George Washington? Enough already. The people who want to sing “Hatikvah” should go by my side of the table. The people who want to sing the other song should go by her side of the table.

Nobody moved. Mr. Goldberg and Ettie both stood at opposite ends of the Passover table. Mr. Goldberg sang “Hatikvah” loud. Ettie sang “The Star Spangled Banner” louder.

The seder had begun.

Ettie never looked forward to Passover even if just Zayde and the Pinko sisters came.

“It isn’t the planning,” she’d say.

“It isn’t about cleaning the house.

“It isn’t about finding enough chairs or enough glasses.

“It isn’t about the shopping.

“It isn’t even about the cooking.

“It’s about how to keep everything hot when you’ve only got a small oven.”

Every Passover, Mr. Goldberg complained that the brisket was too dry and there wasn’t enough of it, the chicken didn’t have enough dark meat, the chicken soup was too salty, the matzah balls weren’t fluffy enough, the chicken liver gave him heartburn, and next year,
he’d
make the
charosis
so it would come out right.

So you listening, God? Boils, blood, lice, wild beasts, pestilence, hail, locusts, darkness, slaying the firstborn—that’s nothing compared to what I go through in a week with Mr. Goldberg.

One year, Ettie wanted to buy a new hat for Rosh Hashanah. “Not like I don’t have a hat, but Mrs. Schneiderman who sits next to me at the temple, her son is already a doctor, might think I have only one hat. She has a hat with a big feather. I want a hat with a bigger feather.”

BOOK: The Smartest Woman I Know
11.41Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Near + Far by Cat Rambo
Chasing the Heiress by Rachael Miles
Wolf's Cross by S. A. Swann
Hard Core by Tess Oliver