City Of Fire Trilogy 1 - Dreamland by Kevin Baker Page B

at her over her needle and thread as they worked through the endless piles of silly underwear. And when she was tired, and her hands were cramped, her mother let her go and hop around the apartment a few times. And when she was bored, her mother would tell her stories from her own childhood, and sometimes Esther thought it wouldn’t be the worst thing to do—sewing next to her mother for the rest of her life. And other times she thought it would be like the story she had read in the Seward Park library, about a man who was walled up alive.
     
    While they sewed, her father sat by the window, chanting and rocking back and forth over his books, paying no attention to them.
    “Your father has no acquaintance with the face of a coin,” her mother told her when she asked what he did for a living.
    “He is a luftmensch —a higher man,” she tried to explain to her.
    Esse did her best to figure this out. At supper, she watched her mother put aside the best cut of meat, the biggest portions for him, eating her own food very slowly, so there would always be some left over for him. Breaking away from her work to bring him cheese and cucumber sandwiches in the afternoons.
    He accepted it all, unquestioningly. He did not even seem to notice when it was brought to him—reaching for the sandwiches as if they had been provided by God. His eyes never strayed from the words in front of him.
    “To give wine to a Talmud scholar is like pouring it out on an altar,” her mother would say. And when she was older and asked why, all her mother could do was talk about when they had first met, back in her village, her eyes dreamy with the recollection.
    “Oh, but he was so beautiful! A beautiful boy. Not even a beard yet; a yeshiva bocher, with his cheeks like peach fuzz, hurrying off to class every day. I remember the first time—I thought I was very bold—I touched his cheek. Oh, I knew then he was made for sornethink fine!”
     
    • • •
     
    Sometimes, when he was in the mood, he might read with her for a little while. He preferred trying to teach her brother Lazar, no matter how little he wanted to hear. But sometimes, usually at the start of Shabbos, he might sit her up on his lap and read to her from the Gemara, or the Bible. He never went over the great conundrums of the Mishnah —those were reserved for Lazar, as much as he resisted—but it was all right. She loved simply tracing the Hebrew words with him. Their favorite verse together was a psalm, which she was soon able to pick out every time:
    “She shall be brought before the king in raiment of needlework.”
    From over at the kitchen table her mother would smile to see her, there on her father’s lap. She would not listen to her recitation but would turn away to light the Shabbos candles, wearing her wedding dress, the shawl over her head, holding her hands firmly over her eyes while she recited the prayer.
     
    The same year that Lazar left, her father had been thrown out by his congregation, in the great controversy over the Grand Rabbi from Cracow. Her mother’s tiredness and her hands made it impossible for her to sew all day. She had to switch to threading the tassels, and then the sharp, colorful tzatzkes, and someone had to make up the money.
    The night before her mother took her to the shop, she was almost too nervous to sleep. She got her up while it was still dark out, and they made tea as silently as they could in the kitchen, so as not to awaken him. She noticed that her mother made it thicker than usual, and made Esther drink two cups, and eat a thick chunk of challah. She pulled off another big chunk of the bread for her, wrapped it in wax paper along with a thimble and a pair of scissors, and three extra needles. Then she led her out into the dark.
    It was a freezing morning, and there was still snow on the sidewalks. All the way over her mother held her close to her, Esther walking half-dazed, leaning into the warmth of her thin, sheltering