Twenty-Three

The Goldmans were gathered outside the butcher shop, eagerly waiting for Leo to drive up in a horse-drawn buggy. They were conspicuous, a group of bright feathered birds in a neighborhood of crows and dull brown sparrows.

Sammy was running back and forth clutching his crotch. Rifke dragged him into the house for a final visit to the toilet.

“Is he here?” he shouted, shooting out of the house a minute later.

They heard the horses before they saw them, a pleasant clip-clop of hooves. Leo was sitting in the high front seat, holding the reins. He waved his tan bowler hat, which matched his light tan suit. The Goldmans had never seen him in anything but grays and dark browns. A yellow tie and white shirt completed his outfit. “Anyone want a ride to the Fair?”

“You look spectacular, Leo!” Fanny cried, and blew him a kiss.

“Me!” Sammy yelled. Leo leapt lightly down and helped Sammy clamber up and take the seat next to him. He bowed to Rifke. “Queen Rifke,” he said, and put out his hand to help her up the high step.

“Queen and Rifke are words that do not fit together,” Rifke said.

“At the Fair every woman’s a queen,” Leo answered, tipping his bowler.

Fanny and Sarah spurned help and ran around to the other side of the buggy. They squeezed together to make room for Jacob.

“You’re so big, Papa. Maybe you should ride one of the horses.”

“Don’t make fun, Fanny,” Rifke said. “In Russia your father was the best horseman in the shtetl.”

“How could we know that?” Sarah shook her head, frowning. “You and Papa never tell us anything about Russia.”

“Be glad you don’t have to know,” Rifke said.

Leo picked up the reins and the horses began to trot.

“We’re going!” Sammy jumped up, and Rifke pushed him down. It was like trying to take the jump out of a jumping bean.

Leo slowed the horses as he turned onto Halsted Street, making his way between peddlers, pushcarts, and other buggies. No one spoke until the horses turned onto Michigan Avenue, wide enough for two horse-drawn buggies to travel in a row. Sarah thrilled at the sight of the tall buildings, the store windows filled with luxuries never dreamed of, the rich people strolling down the avenue in their fine clothes.

“This is the heart of the city,” Jacob said. “Maybe we should look around here instead of the Fair.”

Even Rifke overruled him.

“There’s the lake!” Sarah cried. “Sammy, look!”

“What does a lake have in it?”

“Lots and lots and lots of water.”

“Is that where boats go?”

A boy of five who doesn’t know what a lake is, Jacob thought. It was his fault. Instead of wasting his time reading bad news in the Tribune he should take his children to the lake. He felt a sudden upsurge of hope. He had been living the life of a mole. Things would be different from now on. He patted Sammy on the shoulder. “Someday soon we will go to the lake and watch the boats come in.”

Leo flicked the reins and the horses galloped down Van Buren Street. They all laughed, thrilled at the speed of the horses and the wonder of a lake so vast it ran into the sky. Leo halted the horses at the harbor and everyone tumbled, stepped, or leapt down from the buggy and walked to the water’s edge to gaze at the long, white, whaleback steamer, Christopher Columbus, docked at port. Passengers were already crowding its three decks for the trip along Lake Michigan to the Casino Pier and entry to the “White City,” the name given to the Fair because of its spectacular white buildings.

Leo tethered the horses and joined them, holding five twenty-five cent round trip tickets in his hand. “Sammy, lucky boy, you get your ride free!”

They joined the pulsing line of people and soon boarded the ship, Sammy squeezing his way to stand at the rail. When the ramp was pulled up and the engines began to rumble, some passengers shifted places. Women, holding their hats against the wind, stepped further back, leaving room for Fanny and Sarah alongside Sammy. Rifke, Jacob, and Leo stood behind them, Rifke’s hand on Sammy’s shoulder.

The steamer slowly picked up speed, gliding along with the ease of the great whale it resembled. Sarah looked down at the water, churned to green-white foam by the steady motion of the boat. They moved past warehouses, empty land littered with rubble, a patch of cemetery, more desolate land and rubble, more warehouses, and then, as if a switch had been turned on, snow-white turrets, a massive gold dome, and ornate towers appeared in the distance. The awed passengers gasped, whistled, applauded. Sarah was mesmerized. It was like opening a giant book of fairy tales and seeing the white turreted palace where the princess lived.

Rifke put her arm through her husband’s. “Like a dream, Jacob.”

“There are gardens, lagoons, gondoliers, jungles, deserts, ostriches walking as free as dogs. Much more. You will see.” Leo was as proud as if he had created this White City for them alone and was now unveiling it for the first time.

When the boat docked, Jacob and Rifke held the children back to let some of the more impatient passengers disembark. The ramp led to a pier so long that cars on a moving sidewalk carried those who paid ten cents at the southern entrance gate of the Fair.

“Can we ride in those cars?” Sammy begged.

“It’s time to walk,” Rifke said.

“It’s just ten cents a ticket,” Leo said. “The children will enjoy it.”

“I will pay,” Jacob said.

“There will be something better to spend our money on.” Rifke unsnapped her large embroidered purse and took out a tin of thickly buttered challah slices. “This will give you energy to walk.”

But Jacob had already gone to the ticket booth, Sammy running after him. Rifke sighed, put the tin back in her purse, and waited with the others for the sidewalk to stop moving so she could climb aboard and sit down on one of the seats.

“It would take three weeks to see everything at the Fair,” Leo said, sitting next to Fanny. “And you would have to walk one hundred and fifty miles.”

Fanny laughed. “There you go with your numbers again!”

Sarah sat back in her seat and exulted in the exotic sights. She wished the ride would last longer, but she suspected she would want everything they did that day not to end. The sidewalk stopped moving and they all climbed off, in spite of Sammy’s pleading to go around again.

“You read from the guidebook and then it’s Fanny’s turn,” Leo said, handing the dog-eared copy to Sarah.

“Let’s go there first.” Sarah pointed to the many-columned structure the guidebook identified as the Peristyle. She read, in a professional tone, “Each of the forty-eight columns of the Peristyle bears a state or territory’s name. At the center is a grand archway—”

“Let’s find the Illinois column.” Jacob took Sammy’s hand, strode to the Peristyle and waited under the archway for the others to catch up. Sarah continued reading: “The Grand Basin encompassing the glorious Court of Honor—”

“My turn,” Fanny said, snatching the guidebook.

“You could at least…” Sarah shrugged. What was the use?

Fanny continued the reading. “Emerging from the water is the Statue of the Republic, an immense figure representing liberty with an eagle resting on a globe in one hand—”

“I want to see the eagle.” Sammy broke into a run.

Jacob grabbed him. “You stay with us.”

“I want to ride on the big wheel.”

“We should take turns choosing what to see,” Sarah said.

That’s what they attempted to do, but it was difficult. Jacob would have liked a week among the amazing inventions in the Manufactures Building, and Sarah would have liked to camp overnight in the art galleries of the Woman’s Building. Rifke secretly yearned to glide along the water like an elegant swan in one of the gondolas. Fanny grew sad thinking of how romantic it would have been to be lying in Sean’s arms under a full moon as the gondolier sang especially for them. For all of them their day at the Fair ended much too quickly.

§

They piled into the buggy, Sammy taking his seat beside Leo. Rifke pulled off a shoe and massaged her foot. “Leo, my feet tell me I walked one hundred miles of those one hundred and fifty you talked about.”

Sarah leaned back and closed her eyes. She wanted to hang onto her time in the Woman’s Building.

“This is the first time women were given a building all to themselves at a World’s Fair,” Sarah said. Beyond the stately entryway there had been gallery after gallery exhibiting the art of two hundred women. Two hundred! The discovery had made Sarah breathless. She had not moved on with her family to the other exhibits in the building. Instead, she had asked them to meet her back in the lobby in…she bargained for two hours, knowing she would have to accept no more than one.

She had walked slowly, glad to be alone, stopping to study oil paintings, gigantic and miniature; watercolors; and pastels—these were new to her; charcoal drawings; prints. Heavy brushstrokes as thick as smeared jelly; a seascape so small that she had to stand close to catch all of its intricate detail; a charcoal portrait of a laughing girl, so real that she felt the urge to laugh with her. Excitement splashed over Sarah, like a high tide rolling in, leaving her drenched, breathless. There were so many ways to paint and draw!

She returned to the lobby a few minutes early so she would have time to study the two murals painted on panels below the high ceiling, depicting “Primitive Woman” and “Modern Woman.” Captivated by the pastoral scene of lovely, young “modern” women apple picking, she was elated to find that it had been painted by Mary Cassatt. She recognized the delicate flesh tones, the easy grace of the women’s figures, the subtle color of their dresses against the blooming apple trees.

“Time to go,” Fanny said, coming up behind her.

Should she point out Mary Cassatt’s mural to Fanny? She hesitated, then moved on. Better to keep her pleasure private than risk indifference or rebuff.

§

Miss Benedict’s pale blue eyes sparkled when Sarah walked to her desk to tell her how much she had liked the Mary Cassatt mural in the Woman’s Building.

“Would you mind telling your classmates about the exhibit?”

“Oh…I…can’t.”

“We’re all friends.”

“I…I’m sorry.”

Sarah walked back to her easel, shrunk to half her size. The fragile confidence she’d been building had collapsed.