The Auerbach Will by Stephen; Birmingham Page B

as two policemen move slowly through, fingering their long sticks.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” the young man shouts in Essie’s ear.
    â€œIt’s all right. It’s always like this,” she shouts back. “It’s the safest place in town. You just have to push through.”
    And so they push forward, shouldering, elbowing, shoving and forcing themselves against the crush of human traffic that assails them, between the pushcarts and their disputatious customers, through the warm smell of charcoal fires and the cooking smells of bread, chicken broth and garlic sausage and, above all, the pungent smell of human bodies, through the seething, jostling throng.
    The next block is even worse. “Hold my hand,” he says. “So we don’t get separated.” They push on, clinging to each other, step by step through the tide.
    At the corner, Essie shouts up to him, “Do you like egg creams?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI said, do you like egg creams?”
    He stops and laughs, and Essie sees that he has a nice laugh, much more compelling than when he is standing at a lectern in an auditorium, holding forth on water mains. “Don’t think I’ve ever had one,” he says.
    â€œThey make good ones here,” she says, pointing to a little shop.
    Inside the ice cream parlor, it is considerably quieter. They sit side by side at the counter and order egg creams, and Essie shows him how to spoon the runny liquid out of his glass. “This is good,” he says, though from his tone she is not entirely sure he means it. Then he says, “Do you like living in this neighborhood?”
    â€œI’ve lived here all my life.”
    He seems to consider this. Then he asks, “Are you enjoying my lectures?”
    â€œOh, yes. Very much.”
    â€œI’ve noticed that you take a lot of notes.”
    Essie feels her face redden. He is still holding her books, and she prays that he won’t ask to see her notes and discover what they really are. “Yes,” she says.
    â€œI just wish they’d let me lecture about some of the things that really interest me,” he says.
    â€œWhat sort of things?”
    â€œEuropean history. And art.”
    â€œI was born in Europe, but I don’t remember it.”
    â€œI guessed as much.”
    â€œWhy won’t they let you talk about that?”
    He makes a face. “We must teach the new people useful things.”
    â€œI think art is useful.”
    He shakes his head.
    â€œI’m studying botany this year,” she says. “What use is that?”
    â€œVery useful,” he says. “We must interest Jews in farming—agriculture.”
    â€œAre you Jewish?”
    He nods.
    â€œWhere do you go to shul? ”
    â€œ Shul? ” He laughs again. “I guess we don’t go in much for that sort of thing, my family,” he says.
    Puzzled, Essie spoons up the last of her egg cream. “I’d better get home now, or Mama will worry,” she says.
    Outside, they push on, through more crowds, across Allen Street, then Orchard Street. The winter sky has grown darker, colder, and there is a scattering of snowflakes in the air. “Only two more blocks,” Essie says.
    At Norfolk Street, they turn the corner and head north, toward Grand Street, and leave the crowds behind them. “This is where I live,” Essie says, and realizes that a note of pride has crept into her voice—pride that her street, at least, is not as crowded and noisy as some others. But when they stop in front of number 54, and Essie says, “This is my house,” and when she sees him plant his feet on the sidewalk and gaze upward at the facade of the building—and when she lets her eyes follow his—it is as though she is seeing her building now as he is seeing it, and she feels suddenly helpless and apologetic for the narrow, ugly, soot-blackened building where she lives, its face