Hilda and Pearl by Alice Mattison

direction—she’d never thought about what was needed.
    â€œYou’re going to cook a lot,” Hilda said. “Mike eats so much.”
    Pearl laughed and nodded. “They’re so different, even though they’re brothers.”
    â€œVery different.”
    Pearl was a little afraid of Nathan. He was older than Mike, who was older than she was, and he seemed older yet. He never lost his temper. He knew about music and kept track of world events. He listened to everything Pearl said as if he expected her to be interesting, even though she knew she wasn’t. She’d asked him shyly why he was a socialist, and he’d said with a sigh that he couldn’t understand why everyone wasn’t, that it was only fair. “Go talk to the people in the shantytowns,” he said. “Ask them how much good capitalism has done them.”
    Pearl said she agreed with him, that socialism was much better. Only later did she remember that her father owned a business—he was a capitalist, she supposed. But when she asked Nathan he said no, not really, Mr. Sutter was not the problem. Nathan was starting to get bald, and he combed his hair back so his bare scalp showed. When he stared at Pearl she felt extremely looked at.
    Now she watched Hilda competently cleaning cupboards. Like Nathan, she looked as if she knew how things would turn out and had agreed to them. But Pearl still thought Hilda didn’t like her.
    â€œNathan’s wise,” she said. “I never knew anybody before who was wise.”
    â€œNo, he’s not,” Hilda said. “He’s just pretending. He can be as dumb as anybody else.”
    â€œI’d like to see it.” Pearl finished putting the shelving paper down and Hilda cleaned the stove, clucking over its condition. “You can see that they think they cleaned it,” she said. “Now this is the sort of thing that would upset Mrs. Levenson.”
    Their mutual mother-in-law—now there was a person who made Pearl nervous. They had all gone to see her a few days after the wedding. Mrs. Levenson was a small woman with dark gray hair, not white or black, who hugged herself as if she was cold, or as if she thought somebody wanted to take away her clothes.
    â€œIt’s open,” she called when they rang the doorbell, and they found her sitting in the kitchen, where Nathan and Mike both bent to kiss her. Hilda kissed her too, and Pearl thought maybe she ought to, but they hadn’t been introduced yet. The four of them stood around the old lady in the tiny kitchen, where there weren’t enough chairs for them. Finally Hilda said, “Mom, come sit in the living room,” and urged Mrs. Levenson along.
    â€œThere’s something to celebrate?” said Mrs. Levenson.
    â€œYou know there is, Mama,” said Nathan quietly. “You know Mike got married. This is Pearl, your new daughter-in-law.”
    â€œA hard name to say,” said Mrs. Levenson, but then she got up and shuffled once more into the kitchen. She was gone for a long time, but came back with a glass dish of candy and another of dried fruit. “You like prunes?” she said to Pearl.
    â€œA little,” said Pearl, who didn’t like prunes.
    â€œVery good for you,” said the old woman. “Take.”
    Pearl thought the prune was like the old lady herself, hard and wrinkled. When they left she turned to Hilda for support, but Hilda was saying that her mother-in-law was looking better than the last time they’d been there. Finally Pearl had reached for Mike and leaned on his shoulder and even wept a bit. Mike patted her back. “You did fine,” he said.
    Now Pearl had decided it would be a good idea to invite Mrs. Levenson for dinner in the new apartment. She was glad Hilda was making the stove acceptable. Sometimes she felt that Hilda was taking her on, the way a weary but conscientious teacher might take on an exasperatingly