The Grandchildren of the Ghetto Part 31

'What! Esther!' cried Mrs. Belcovitch; 'Gott in Himmel!' and throwing down the comb, she fell in excess of emotion upon Esther's neck. 'I have so often wanted to see you,' cried the sickly-looking little woman, who hadn't altered a wrinkle. 'Often have I said to my Becky, "Where is little Esther? Gold one sees and silver one sees, but Esther sees one not." Is it not so, Becky? Oh, how fine you look! Why, I mistook you for a lady! You are married--not? Ah, well, you'll find wooers as thick as the street-dogs! And how goes it with the father and the family in America?'

'Excellently,' answered Esther. 'How are you, Becky?'

Becky murmured something, and the two young women shook hands. Esther had an olden awe of Becky, and Becky was now a little impressed by Esther.

'I suppose Mr. Weingott is getting a good living now in Manchester?'

Esther remarked cheerfully to Mrs. Belcovitch.

'No, he has a hard struggle,' answered his mother-in-law; 'but I have seven grandchildren, G.o.d be thanked! and I expect an eighth. If my poor lambkin had been alive now she would have been a great-grandmother. My eldest grandchild, Hertzel, has a talent for the fiddle. A gentleman is paying for his lessons, G.o.d be thanked! I suppose you have heard I won four pounds on the lotter_ee_. You see, I have not tried thirty years for nothing. If I only had my health, I should have little to grumble at. Yes, four pounds; and what think you I have bought with it? You shall see it inside. A cupboard with gla.s.s doors, such as we left behind in Poland, and we have hung the shelves with pink paper and made loops for silver forks to rest in; it makes me feel as if I had just cut off my tresses. But then I look on my Becky, and I remember that--go thou inside, Becky, my life! Thou makest it too hard for him.

Give him a word while I speak with Esther.'

Becky made a grimace and shrugged her shoulders, but disappeared through the door that led to the real workshop.

'A fine maid,' said the mother, her eyes following the girl with pride. 'No wonder she is so hard to please! She vexes him so that he eats out his heart. He comes every morning with a bag of cakes or an orange or a fat Dutch herring, and now she has moved her machine to my bedroom, where he can't follow her, the unhappy youth!'

'Who is it now?' inquired Esther in amus.e.m.e.nt.

'Shoss.h.i.+ Shmendrik.'

'Shoss.h.i.+ Shmendrik! Wasn't that the young man who married the Widow Finkelstein?'

'Yes, a very honourable and seemly youth; but she preferred her first husband,' said Mrs. Belcovitch, laughing, 'and followed him only four years after Shoss.h.i.+'s marriage. Shoss.h.i.+ has now all her money--a very seemly and honourable youth.'

'But will it come to anything?'

'It is already settled; Becky gave in two days ago. After all, she will not always be young. The _Tanaim_ will be held next Sunday.

Perhaps you would like to come to see the betrothal contract signed.

The Kovna Maggid will be here, and there will be rum and cakes to the heart's desire. Becky has Shoss.h.i.+ in great affection--they are just suited; only she likes to tease, poor little thing! And then she is so shy. Go in and see them, and the cupboard with gla.s.s doors.'

Esther pushed open the door, and Mrs. Belcovitch resumed her loving manipulation of the wig.

The Belcovitch workshop was another of the landmarks of the past that had undergone no change, despite the cupboard with the gla.s.s doors and the slight difference in the shape of the room. The paper roses still bloomed in the corners of the mirror; the cotton-labels still adorned the wall around it; the master's new umbrella still stood unopened in a corner. The 'hands' were other--but, then, Mr. Belcovitch's hands were always changing. He never employed 'union men,' and his hirelings never stayed with him longer than they could help. One of the present batch, a bent, middle-aged man with a deeply-lined face, was Simon Wolf, long since thrown over by the Labour party he had created, and fallen lower and lower till he returned to the Belcovitch workshop whence he sprang. Wolf, who had a wife and six children, was grateful to Mr. Belcovitch in a dumb, sullen way, remembering how that capitalist had figured in his red rhetoric, though it was an extra pang of martyrdom to have to listen deferentially to Belcovitch's numerous political and economical fallacies. He would have preferred the curter dogmatism of earlier days. Shoss.h.i.+ Shmendrik was chatting quite gaily with Becky, and held her finger-tips cavalierly in his coa.r.s.e fist without obvious objection on her part. His face was still pimply, but it had lost its painful shyness and its readiness to blush without provocation. His bearing, too, was less clumsy and uncouth.

Evidently to love the Widow Finkelstein had been a liberal education to him. Becky had broken the news of Esther's arrival to her father, as was evident from the odour of turpentine emanating from the opened bottle of rum on the central table. Mr. Belcovitch, whose hair was grey now, but who seemed to have as much stamina as ever, held out his left hand--the right was wielding the pressing-iron--without moving another muscle.

'_Nu_, it gladdens me to see you are better off than of old,' he said gravely in Yiddish.

'Thank you. I am glad to see you looking so fresh and healthy,'

replied Esther in German.

'You were taken away to be educated, was it not?'

'Yes.'

'And how many tongues do you know?'

'Four or five,' said Esther, smiling.

'Four or five!' repeated Mr. Belcovitch, so impressed that he stopped pressing. 'Then you can aspire to be a clerk! I know several firms where they have young women now.'

'Don't be ridiculous, father!' interposed Becky. 'Clerks aren't so grand nowadays as they used to be. Very likely she would turn up her nose at a clerks.h.i.+p.'

'I'm sure I wouldn't,' said Esther.

'There, thou hearest!' said Mr. Belcovitch, with angry satisfaction.

'It is thou who hast too many flies in thy nostrils. Thou wouldst throw over Shoss.h.i.+ if thou hadst thine own way. Thou art the only person in the world who listens not to me. Abroad my word decides great matters. Three times has my name been printed in the _Flag of Judah_. Little Esther had not such a father as thou, but never did she make mock of him.'

'Of course, everybody's better than me,' said Becky petulantly, as she s.n.a.t.c.hed her fingers away from Shoss.h.i.+.

'No; thou art better than the whole world,' protested Shoss.h.i.+ Shmendrik, feeling for the fingers.

'Who spoke to thee?' demanded Belcovitch, incensed.

'Who spoke to thee?' echoed Becky.

And when Shoss.h.i.+, with empurpled pimples, cowered before both, father and daughter felt allies again, and peace was re-established at Shoss.h.i.+'s expense. But Esther's curiosity was satisfied. She seemed to see the whole future of this domestic group; Belcovitch acc.u.mulating gold-pieces, and Mrs. Belcovitch medicine-bottles, till they died, and the lucky but hen-pecked Shoss.h.i.+ gathered up half the treasure on behalf of the buxom Becky. Refusing the gla.s.s of rum, she escaped.

The dinner, which Debby (under protest) did not pay for, consisted of viands from the beloved old cookshop, the potatoes and rice of childhood being supplemented by a square piece of baked meat, likewise knives and forks. Esther was anxious to experience again the magic taste and savour of the once-coveted delicacies. Alas! the preliminary sniff failed to make her mouth water; the first bite betrayed the inferiority of the potatoes used. Even so the unattainable tart of infancy mocks the moneyed but dyspeptic adult. But she concealed her disillusionment bravely.

'Do you know,' said Debby, pausing in her voluptuous scouring of the gravy-lined plate with a bit of bread, 'I can hardly believe my eyes.

It seems a dream, that you are sitting at dinner with me. Pinch me, will you?'

'You have been pinched enough,' said Esther sadly. Which shows that one can pun with a heavy heart. This is one of the things Shakespeare knew and Dr. Johnson didn't.

In the afternoon Esther went round to Zachariah Square. She did not meet any of the old faces as she walked through the Ghetto, though a little crowd that blocked her way at one point turned out to be merely spectators of an epileptic performance by Meckish. Esther turned away in amused disgust. She wondered whether Mrs. Meckish still flaunted it in satins and heavy necklaces, or whether Meckish had divorced her, or survived her, or something equally inconsiderate. Hard by the old Ruins (which she found 'ruined' by a railway) Esther was almost run over by an iron hoop driven by a boy with a long swarthy face that irresistibly recalled Malka's.

'Is your grandmother in town?' she said at a venture.

'Y-e-s,' said the driver wonderingly. 'She is over in her own house.'

Esther did not hasten towards it.

'Your name's Ezekiel, isn't it?'

'Yes,' replied the boy; and then Esther was sure it was the redeemed son of whom her father had told her.

'Are your mother and father well?'

'Father's away travelling.' Ezekiel's tone was a little impatient; his feet shuffled uneasily, itching to chase the flying hoop.

'How's your aunt--your aunt--I forget her name.'

'Aunt Leah? She's gone to Liverpool.'

'What for?'

'She lives there; she has opened a branch store of granma's business.

Who are you?' concluded Ezekiel candidly.