Authors: Cynthia Freeman
Chavala was now ready to assess the day. It had been a
very
big beginning. They all undressed under the covers and slipped into their night clothes.
Moishe was instantly asleep, as was Chia, but Chavala lay in the dark waiting to hear Reuven’s even breathing. What she heard was the munching of cookies and Strudel. She smiled. He had deliberately not eaten and now, of course, was famished. Moishe as a little boy for some reason had also refused to eat, she remembered … what had mama said or done that seemed so important at the time? Chavala couldn’t recall, but children, she
knew
, punished their mothers by not eating … at least until the stomach took over. She heard the soft crunch again and almost laughed out loud. If Reuven had known she deliberately left the bag at the side of his bed he most certainly would not have touched its contents.
Mrs. Zuckerman and Mrs. Neusbaum were Chavala’s Baedeker to America.
America the Beautiful was not quite the Utopia Chavala had envisioned. What she found was a three-room flat on the fifth floor in an old tenement building on Ludlow Street. The paint was chipped and pitted from twenty years of wear. The plaster that had fallen from the ceiling exposed the lath. The linoleum was patched in a dozen different places and a dozen different colors, not exactly a lovely mosaic. The rooms were dark and looked out to the crumbling building next door. In the alley below she could smell the fermenting garbage coming from the overflowing cans. The porcelain in the sink had worn away and the communal bathroom was down the hall.
Still, they had lived in places as bad as this. It was surely no worse than the hovel in Jerusalem. She was not complaining. It didn’t require great insight to know what Moishe, Chia and Reuven were thinking as they looked about Chavala walked from the dark kitchen to the equally dark bedrooms, inspecting their mansion. With head high and conviction in her voice she said, “When we fix it up, it will be
very
nice.”
“Not even God could make it very nice,” Moishe said, grimacing.
“God is not a painter. Tomorrow that becomes our profession. You’ll see, when I make curtains and …” Suddenly she remembered she didn’t have a machine. “Don’t
worry
, I’ll make it look nice.” So who was she trying to convince? Herself?
“Why do we have to take this place,
ema?
” Reuven asked almost in tears.
Of course, thought Chavala, he wanted their lovely little house in Zichron, with the colorful batik hangings on the walls. “Because for the moment we can’t afford better … in time, Reuven.” In time …
Moishe agreed with Reuven. “Chavala, let’s look around, maybe for a few dollars more we can find a better place—”
“I said I couldn’t afford it, Moishe.” Chavala let some irritation into her voice. He was questioning her, setting a bad example for Reuven, and she didn’t like it. It hurt family morale.
“What do you mean, you can’t afford it?”
She should never have told Moishe about the little bag of gems. Not that she didn’t trust him. He was, after all, her brother, but it was a temptation to spend and had to be resisted.
“I don’t ever want you to mention that again. Forget we have them. That’s our only security … now we’ll go eat.”
But the next day, behind the closed bedroom door, Chavala took out two small diamonds, put them safely in her purse and left the house.
She found three jewelers on Mott Street. Before selling them she had all three appraise them and found that each had offered a different amount. When she sold them to the one who had offered her the most money she went away with the feeling he had maybe cheated her. But what did she know about diamonds? Well … when they got more settled she would make it a point to find out…
With the money she bought furniture at Grossman’s secondhand store. Paint and brushes, a mop, a pail, and linens and pots and dishes, the essentials to start a home.
But first she outfitted the family with winter clothes and filled the larder. A person needed three things. A roof over one’s head, food in one’s stomach, and clothes to keep warm with.
After the flat was freshly painted and furnished, she was quite proud of it. Moishe, however, did not share her enthusiasm. “It’s so dark, like living in Jerusalem—”
“No, it’s not like living in Jerusalem. We don’t have a stone wall surrounding us here and we don’t have to worry if the Arabs will kill us.”
“It’s still a ghetto, Chavala, without any fences.”
“You want to live in a better place? Go get a fine paying job and you’ll live better.”
“I got a job.”
“
Mazel tov …
doing what?”
“Delivering clothes for a tailor.”
“So in no time at all you’ll be able to move uptown.”
“With the jewelry we could start a little business …”
“Ahh … I know, that’s been burning a hole in your pocket since I told you … but Moishe, my dear brother, you have to crawl before you can walk. When the time comes that’s what I’ll do … I’m not married to this flat. I can move anytime I can afford it. Now if you don’t mind, I must write a letter to Dovid.”
Dear Dovid,
What can I say to you? That I am happy without you? No. I miss you the way I did when you sent me to Jerusalem. If only you could see how beautiful this country is, and the opportunities are endless. Dovid, my dearest, please just come for a visit. Reuven misses you so. Moishe has gotten a very good job and in the next day or so I will find something to do. I just pray that you will see how much better our life together would be here. Will you at least try to come and see for yourself? I trust you’re well and I thank God that some of the family are with you. It would be too much to ask that they come here also. At least you take care of yourself, and know how much I love you.
Chavala
During the day Dovid found little time to think about his life. It was the nights, the long endless nights that overwhelmed him with loneliness … He knew the reasons Chavala had gone to America, knew them by heart, but it still didn’t make it any easier for him to live with. Beyond all else he loved her, but in his heart he couldn’t quite forgive her. What Chavala hadn’t understood was that Dvora and Raizel were happy here. And all he wanted was what he already had. Except for her … and to work for a land that Jews could at last call their own. Chavala didn’t seem to understand that the quality of life wasn’t built on dollars, and what she seemed to understand even less was that no matter what, a wife stayed with her husband. She had married him, knowing what he wanted … well, that wasn’t quite fair, was it? He had married her knowing that her dreams looked to America. Both had misjudged, or maybe underestimated, the other … She had hoped he would give in to her, and he … be honest … had hoped and even expected she would give up her idea of America and stay to be part of
his
dream … But when he looked back to those tranquil years in Zichron before the war he would have bet his soul that she would never leave. If it hadn’t been for the damned war, they would have stayed together…
He had gone round and round on this … the war
had
come and nothing could change the fact of
that …
Holding Chavala’s letter in his hand brought tears to his eyes. It was so full of bravado, you didn’t need to read between the lines. For her to bend to him would mean unhappiness for her… she had always disliked Palestine. And if she disliked it before she would feel the same under the British. But one day, he dared to hope, she would come back. This land would be
theirs.
Meanwhile, the waiting … could they survive it…?
Dovid sat with the letter in his hand for a very long time. Chavala was not to blame. It was just that he could not stop loving Palestine … no matter what … Not the past hardships nor the present ones could force him to leave this land. And his life here was changing … he’d turned from farming to politics. Officially. He now was involved with the Zionist Agency. His dream was his life. He could only pray that one day it would somehow be Chavala’s too…
The weather in New York was as unpredictable as human nature. One day a blizzard, the next lovely as spring. Today was such a day. Unfortunately the lovely spring weather did not make Chavala exactly overjoyed. A week ago she had outfitted the family with heavy winter coats and overshoes, and now it was too warm. Again she sold a tiny gem, but this time it was an emerald. Shockingly, she found that the emerald was more valuable than the diamond. Well, she was going to find out once and for all how much the contents in that red Moroccan pouch were worth. But first things first.
After buying suitable clothes for Chia and Reuven, she enrolled them in school.
Now her day began in earnest. With one diamond, a ruby and an emerald secure in her coin purse she pinned the leather pouch to her camisole and walked to the diamond district. And, with each step, she felt an unaccountable quickening in her heart … as though she were walking not just for a matter of the moment but smack into the beginning of her future…
S
HE WALKED UP THE
Bowery and then to Canal Street. Mostly the district was wholesale. The jewelry sold retail was to the
goyim.
Not knowing one from the other, Chavala walked into the first store she came to. Carefully she took out the stones and handed them to the jeweler, watched closely as he picked up his loupe, and examined them. After he had given her a price she thanked him very much and left. She wasn’t going to take his word, never mind the
yarmulke
on his head. He looked a little like the jeweler in Odessa.
After seeing six rather impatient jewelers, Chavala realized she wasn’t as rich as she thought. Nonetheless, when she touched the pouch still pinned to her camisole her spirits lifted. At least they were worth something, they wouldn’t starve. Quickly she pushed away any disturbing thoughts and walked up one crowded street and down another.
Breathlessly she looked up at the building she was standing in front of and saw the name of a wholesale jeweler. For no special reason her eyes lingered on “Leibowitz: Wholesale & Manufacturing.”
She walked inside and looked at the list of names on the directory. She pressed the button and waited for the ancient elevator to come down. When it came to an unsteady halt she got inside the cagelike contraption and pushed number 4.
As the door of the elevator opened and she ventured out, Chavala hadn’t noticed that the floor and the platform didn’t meet, and as she stepped over the threshold she twisted her ankle. For a brief moment the pain made her lean against the wall. Was this an omen of things to come? She quickly admonished herself and discarded such superstitious thoughts …
Favoring her left foot, she limped down the hall until she stood in front of number 422. A deep breath, open the door, go in. She saw four or five women stringing beads, and beyond a glass enclosure maybe four bearded men in
yarmulkes
examining stones with their loupes. A grinding noise and the sound of water came from the extreme back, but all she could make of the strange object was it apparently had something to do with making jewelry.
Mr. Leibowitz looked beyond his glass-partitioned office and saw Chavala. Getting up from his desk he walked toward her and stood behind a showcase.
“Yes, my dear lady, what can I do for you?”
Chavala smiled … winningly, she hoped … at the man with the kind eyes and the silver hair, which contrasted with the black
yarmulke.
He was slightly stooped from the years, she imagined, of bending over a workbench.
“My name is Chavala Landau.”
“That’s nice, and I’m Mr. Leibowitz. Now what can I do for you?”
“I wonder if I might speak to you?”
“About what?”
“I want to become a jeweler.”
“You know from this business?”
“No.”
He shook his head and laughed. “My dear young lady, to become a jeweler you have to learn and it takes a long time and then even after you think you know, you find out you don’t know so much.”
In spite of his sweetness, Chavala knew she was not going to get a job unless she spoke to him privately and quietly.
“Mr. Leibowitz, if I could just have a little of your time I would appreciate it.”
The old man looked at the young woman more closely. The soft but resolute voice, the direct glance … she was more than just very attractive … there was something that Mr. Leibowitz found beguiling, compelling … “Come into my office.”
He wiped off the chair with his handkerchief. Chavala sat down across from him.
As she began to speak he suddenly knew why he was so taken with her. He silently wished her a long life, but she reminded him of his daughter who had died of polio five years ago. The thought was still as painful as though it had happened yesterday. He kept silent for a moment as his eyes grew dim, then he swallowed hard.
“Tell me, Chavala Landau, from where do you come?”
“From Palestine.”
Palestine … What Jew hadn’t dreamed of Eretz Yisroel? “You were born there?”
“No … Russia … in a small village near Odessa.”
He shook his head as his thoughts moved back in time. Minsk … Poland … Odessa, all the same, for a Jew no place was good. But it was easier being a Jew in New York. At least you could walk down a street. No one knocked down your door in the middle of the night and killed you or took you to prison, gouged out your eyes, pulled out your hair. No armband of shame. “How did you happen to settle in Eretz Yisroel?”
“My father, may his soul rest in peace, wanted to live and die there.”
“Yes … yes … How long did you live in Eretz Yisroel?”
Chavala thought of the body buried under the cherry tree. “We left Russia in 1906, I just came here a few weeks ago.”
Remembering the money he had sent through his organization, he sighed. “You were there during the war, then … it was bad, no?”
Now her thoughts went back, to Jerusalem. She could almost feel the hunger pains … see the begging in the streets and the dead bodies in front of the Jaffa gate waiting to be taken away. “War is not so easy, Mr. Leibowitz. It was bad…”