bought cheaply, where Isaac had been born in a ramshackle house held together with tarpaper.
By then the girls were married and moved to Bangor, in order to get away from their father’s rants against capitalism, nationalism, Orthodox religion, and the illusion of romantic love, and because deep in their souls they knew the egg business, at least the way their inexperienced cooperative went at it, with trial-and-error methods and naïve utopian ideas, was hopeless. In a household that believed you could live a Jewish life of virtue without accepting Yahweh, late baby Isaac was still a gift from God for his mother. The two were deeply entwined in ways she’d never felt with anyone, not even her beloved parents. With the raising of an eyebrow, they would both go into spasms of hysterical laughter, unable to explain. When she was hurting, she didn’t have to say a word—Isaac was there to lift the burden or to surprise her with a “science experiment,” usually involving worms. She believed he was “a genius,” like her father had been, and embraced Isaac’s dream of becoming a pharmacist with such fervor that she took in tailoring and saved for years in order to buy him a chemistry set. He was the love of her life.
When Isaac joined the army, Minnie was distraught mainly becausehe’d won a scholarship to the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science and she fretted that while he was gone the money would somehow evaporate. It was easier to worry about the scholarship than about the war, but she was somewhat mollified because he volunteered to be an ambulance driver, which meant he’d serve behind the lines. Abraham forbade Isaac going. “Patriotism is idiotic!” he yelled. “Your loyalty is right here. To your family.” Isaac replied, “I’m an American. I’m going.” His father took the sugar dish and threw it down so that it shattered on the floor. It was just a piece of china but the whole house seemed to shake. Minnie felt the impact through the soles of her feet and in her body, where it stayed.
Block by block the familiar neighborhood was slipping away and Minnie’s apprehension grew. Storefronts covered in Hebrew lettering that had pickle barrels outside, tiny pocket-sized
shuls
, alleys packed with pushcarts, Orthodox men with their minds immersed in Torah, patrolling the streets in big beards and black hats, gave way in the wink of an eye to an endless barren street stretching far into the morning light—with a church on every corner. Although piano makers and newspaper publishers and even department stores had moved into the fancy cast-iron buildings on lower Park Avenue, to Minnie Seibert, New York City was a looming skyline of crosses. She’d grown up in Russia with a deep-seated fear of crosses because they meant death to Jews, and just last winter Gottlieb, their neighbor in Maine, had found a burning cross outside his house, left by the Ku Klux Klan.
Desperately in need of some sort of refuge, Minnie leaned toward the woman on the bus and tried once more in Yiddish.
“Gefelt mir dayn kapeleyush.”
I like your hat.
The woman didn’t look up. “Thank you,” she said briskly in English.
Minnie decided she had nothing more to say to this girl. She had what her grandmother would call “a fresh mouth.” Even sitting down she was too busy to be polite. Or maybe she was embarrassed talking to an out-of-towner. She appeared to be involved in the pages she had taken from the portfolio. Minnie was amazed to see that they were music. The woman was reading music on the bus.
For some reason everything had stopped at Thirty-fourth Street.The bus didn’t move, like it was trapped in cement. Something was going on. There was the unsettling howl of sirens and passengers had gotten up and crowded the windows. Outside, a well-dressed businessman was sprawled motionless on the sidewalk, and a policeman was waving cars away to make room for an ambulance. Minnie couldn’t look. If the screaming
By then the girls were married and moved to Bangor, in order to get away from their father’s rants against capitalism, nationalism, Orthodox religion, and the illusion of romantic love, and because deep in their souls they knew the egg business, at least the way their inexperienced cooperative went at it, with trial-and-error methods and naïve utopian ideas, was hopeless. In a household that believed you could live a Jewish life of virtue without accepting Yahweh, late baby Isaac was still a gift from God for his mother. The two were deeply entwined in ways she’d never felt with anyone, not even her beloved parents. With the raising of an eyebrow, they would both go into spasms of hysterical laughter, unable to explain. When she was hurting, she didn’t have to say a word—Isaac was there to lift the burden or to surprise her with a “science experiment,” usually involving worms. She believed he was “a genius,” like her father had been, and embraced Isaac’s dream of becoming a pharmacist with such fervor that she took in tailoring and saved for years in order to buy him a chemistry set. He was the love of her life.
When Isaac joined the army, Minnie was distraught mainly becausehe’d won a scholarship to the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science and she fretted that while he was gone the money would somehow evaporate. It was easier to worry about the scholarship than about the war, but she was somewhat mollified because he volunteered to be an ambulance driver, which meant he’d serve behind the lines. Abraham forbade Isaac going. “Patriotism is idiotic!” he yelled. “Your loyalty is right here. To your family.” Isaac replied, “I’m an American. I’m going.” His father took the sugar dish and threw it down so that it shattered on the floor. It was just a piece of china but the whole house seemed to shake. Minnie felt the impact through the soles of her feet and in her body, where it stayed.
Block by block the familiar neighborhood was slipping away and Minnie’s apprehension grew. Storefronts covered in Hebrew lettering that had pickle barrels outside, tiny pocket-sized
shuls
, alleys packed with pushcarts, Orthodox men with their minds immersed in Torah, patrolling the streets in big beards and black hats, gave way in the wink of an eye to an endless barren street stretching far into the morning light—with a church on every corner. Although piano makers and newspaper publishers and even department stores had moved into the fancy cast-iron buildings on lower Park Avenue, to Minnie Seibert, New York City was a looming skyline of crosses. She’d grown up in Russia with a deep-seated fear of crosses because they meant death to Jews, and just last winter Gottlieb, their neighbor in Maine, had found a burning cross outside his house, left by the Ku Klux Klan.
Desperately in need of some sort of refuge, Minnie leaned toward the woman on the bus and tried once more in Yiddish.
“Gefelt mir dayn kapeleyush.”
I like your hat.
The woman didn’t look up. “Thank you,” she said briskly in English.
Minnie decided she had nothing more to say to this girl. She had what her grandmother would call “a fresh mouth.” Even sitting down she was too busy to be polite. Or maybe she was embarrassed talking to an out-of-towner. She appeared to be involved in the pages she had taken from the portfolio. Minnie was amazed to see that they were music. The woman was reading music on the bus.
For some reason everything had stopped at Thirty-fourth Street.The bus didn’t move, like it was trapped in cement. Something was going on. There was the unsettling howl of sirens and passengers had gotten up and crowded the windows. Outside, a well-dressed businessman was sprawled motionless on the sidewalk, and a policeman was waving cars away to make room for an ambulance. Minnie couldn’t look. If the screaming
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