Twenty-Seven

Fanny, why aren’t you eating your egg?” Sammy asked.

Fanny scooped up her egg and dropped it onto Sammy’s plate.

Sammy plunged a large piece into his mouth and licked the dribbled yolk from his fingers. The silence of his parents and sisters didn’t stop his morning chatter. He was like a canary singing in the wintertime.

Fanny left the table without a word and went into the cubicle.

“You said you’d draw a picture for me, Sarah. Remember? A horse picture.”

“I’ve got to go to school, Sammy. Later.”

“Later, schmater!” Sammy collided with Fanny carrying her schoolbooks.

“Cat’s got Fannybanny’s tongue,” he sing-songed.

Jacob smiled and Sammy said it again.

“Sammy,” Sarah said. “The first time you say something it’s funny. Not the second time.”

He directed an accusing look at Sarah. “Why?”

“Why, why, why.” Jacob swung Sammy up and held him so that their noses touched.

“I want Fanny to smile, Papa, and she won’t.”

Fanny didn’t answer. She hurried out the back door.

“So, she goes without a word.” Jacob turned to Sarah. “Did your sister tell you she was going to school without you?”

“No.”

Rifke brushed a strand of hair off her forehead. She had not combed it yet. Even Sammy knew that was unusual. Her eyes were slightly puffy and her mouth was drawn in a tight line. Jacob looked at her anxiously. “Are you all right, Rifke?”

“I’m wonderful,” she said, and bent to pull a mixing bowl from a low shelf.

§

Fanny walked into the apartment after school, ignored everyone, and disappeared behind the blue curtains.

“Fanny,” Jacob said loudly, “never mind your mama and papa, but why do you punish your sister and brother? It’s like living with a…ghost.”

“That’s what I feel like,” Fanny murmured. Her voice barely carried out to them.

Jacob parted the curtains and looked down at Fanny lying on her bed, her face pressed into her pillow. “Your sister was invited to help a boy in her art class celebrate his birthday. She would like you to go with her.”

“Then why didn’t she ask me?”

“Because she’s afraid you’d bite her head off!” Jacob dropped the curtains, picked up his glass of tea, and walked back into the shop.

Sarah was surprised when Fanny called. “Sarah, wait. I’m going with you.” She was even more surprised to see Fanny looking like her old self when she emerged from the cubicle. She was wearing pink, her hair loosely tied with a wide pink ribbon.

“The present for Subbie can be from the two of us,” Sarah said.

Once out the door, Fanny asked Sarah to wait a minute. Curious, Sarah watched her walk to the back of the house, push some high weeds aside, and return holding a small black suitcase.

“What’s that for?”

“You’ll see.”

They walked two blocks, neither of them speaking. The black suitcase unnerved Sarah. Fanny stopped at the corner. Her face was an expressionless mask. “I’m moving to Sean’s sister’s house. Tell Mama and Papa.”

Sarah stared at her.

“There you go. Looking like I told you I was going to murder someone!” Fanny began running, but the heel of her left shoe caught in the crack between two loose planks and she fell forward. The suitcase hit the sidewalk and sprang open. She captured a pair of stockings that rolled out and stuffed them back in. Dirt spotted her pink skirt.

Sarah ran and grabbed her arm. “Fanny…you can’t go! Please. I’ll help you talk to Mama and Papa about Sean.”

“I’ve done enough talking to last for the rest of my life!” Fanny yanked free and, holding the suitcase under her arm, started up the sidewalk again.

Sarah kept pace with her. “You just…can’t go and live…”

“Oh, yes, I can. I’m taking care of Sean’s sister’s babies to pay my room and board.”

“Mama and Papa will die! And what about Sammy?”

“You’ll all do just fine without me.” Fanny came to a hard stop and glared at Sarah. “Stop following me!”

Sarah was breathing hard. She watched Fanny stride off, the suitcase banging against her leg. Fury welled up in her. Just like Fanny. Leaving her to tell Mama and Papa that she was moving to Sean’s sister’s.

“I hate you,” she shouted. “I—” Her voice broke. She took a deep breath and turned and walked slowly to Subbie’s party, her heart dragging with her feet.

§

Subbie and his family were celebrating his birthday at a church social being held in the empty lot used for bocce games. It was well under way by the time Sarah arrived. She stood at the edge of the sidewalk and scanned faces.

“Miss Lady!” Subbie ran toward her, resplendent in a white shirt and yellow tie, his red cap replaced by a black one with gold braid. The star of the party, his eyes glistened with pleasure.

“Subbie, you look great. Happy birthday.” Sarah handed him her present, two paintbrushes she’d bought, wrapped in blue paper she’d saved from last year’s Hanukkah presents.

“Charley’s eatin’ more than anybody,” Subbie laughed. “See, he’s over there, gettin’ his plate all loaded.”

Three tables covered with blue tablecloths groaned under the weight of food brought by neighbors: bowls of simmering spaghetti sauce next to a mountain of pasta, two huge copper pots of minestrone and tortilla soup, platters of moussaka, spanakopita, pierogis, potato salad, oranges, long loaves of Italian bread, cake, and cookies, ending with a large slab of lamb carved on the spot by a smiling giant of a man with a drooping black moustache and tall chef’s hat. Charley was holding his plate out for a slice.

“Charley,” Subbie called. “Look! I found Miss Lady!” To Sarah he said, “I’ll get you a big slice of meat.”

“I’m sorry, Subbie. I only eat kosher meat.”

He looked puzzled.

“It’s the kind of meat Jewish people eat.”

“Oh! I ate five of them Jewish meatballs at a Bar Mitzie party!” Subbie said.

Sarah laughed. “Only five?”

“I thought I’d try a slice,” Charley said, coming over to them. “I hope I don’t go up in smoke.”

Sarah grabbed Subbie’s arm as Charley raised a forkful to his mouth. “We’d better stand back.”

Subbie, giggling, ran behind Sarah.

Charley inserted the meat into his wide-open mouth, and began jumping wildly. “Call the fire department!”

“Charley’s only joking, Miss Lady.”

Looking at Sarah’s empty plate, Charley said, “I’ll get you something to eat.”

Before she could answer he had whisked her plate away and in a few minutes returned it with generous helpings of Italian bread, potato salad, an orange, and slice of chocolate cake. He pointed with his chin to two chairs in the far corner of the lot. “Let’s sit there.”

“I gotta go say hello to my cousin Tony. He come all the way from Indi…I forget but it’s someplace far.” With a wave, Subbie was off and running.

“Subbie’s so happy!” Sarah sat down, relieved to be anchored somewhere. She glanced at Charlie’s plate. “No more lamb?”

“I felt my grandmother glaring at me every time I took a bite.”

Sarah took a bite of bread. “You’re lucky to have a grandmother.”

“You don’t?”

“Pogroms, in Russia. My parents won’t talk about it. My mother keeps writing her father—he still lives there—to come to Chicago. But he won’t.”

Charley wadded his napkin into a ball and dropped it onto his plate.

“You’re not eating any more?”

He shrugged. “Pogroms make me lose my appetite. So how is it going at the Art Academy?”

“I like it. We’re studying anatomy so we know which bones and muscles are under the skin.”

A heart-stopping scream pierced the air. Sarah and Charley looked at each other, then left their plates on their chairs and ran toward the food tables where people were crowding and pushing. Charley grabbed her hand and led her in and out of the crowd to the end of the table where the chef had been carving meat. Through a gap in a wall of weeping women and mute men she saw Subbie sprawled on the ground, his face pointed to the sky, blood pooled on the front of his white shirt. His mother was kneeling next to him, bunching her skirt against his chest to stanch the blood as she pressed her lips to his, blowing breath into his mouth.

Sarah stared. It couldn’t be. Her heart began to pound and she clung to Charley’s arm, afraid her legs wouldn’t hold her. She wanted to run to Subbie, grab his hand, help him stand up and grin and say it was all a mistake and dance one of his little jigs.

Then a bell was clanging, growing louder as an ambulance wagon, pulled by two horses, raced through the gate and came to a halt. The crowd moved, one organic mass, as two men in white sprang out of the wagon, a third holding a stretcher. One bent over Subbie, took his pulse, held a stethoscope to his chest, took his pulse again, then gently closed the wide-open eyes. Subbie’s mother gave a wild cry and flung herself on her son. One of the men lifted her gently as the others raised Subbie onto the stretcher. His arms and legs hung lifelessly, the yellow, blood-stained tie dragging on the ground. Charley ran and lifted the tie out of the dirt. It came loose in his hand. Subbie’s mother, panting through her tears, walked with the support of the ambulance aide, Subbie’s black and gold hat clasped against her breast.

“Jes playin’ at duelin’ with his cousin, you know how boys do with sticks,” the chef said to the people ringed around him. He dragged a white napkin over his face. “Then his cousin grabbed the meat knife from the table and yelled at Subbie. He was jes makin’ fun. But Subbie came at him pretty fast and the boy, he jes jabbed at him, forgetting it was a knife, never meanin’ anythin’…”

Charley led Sarah back to the chairs where flies swarmed over their uneaten food. It had turned cooler, and he laid his sweater over her shoulders. “Hold this,” he said, handing her the yellow tie. He grabbed up the plates. “I’ll get rid of these.”

She waited. His sweater slipped down and she picked it up and put her arms into the sleeves, buttoned up the front, and hugged herself. The yellow tie lay on her lap.

She could see women moving like sleep walkers, removing bowls and platters of food from the tables. Sarah held back a sob as she thought of Subbie’s mother and father going home without Subbie.

Charley came back. “He’s…gone,” he said. Instinctively, she put her arms around him. He buried his face in her hair, and didn’t move until his tears had subsided. She dropped her arms and they looked at each other. With an embarrassed half-smile, Charley said, “Sorry for crying into your hair.” He picked up the tie that had fallen to the ground, folded it, and put it into his pocket.

“I’ll see if I can help put things away,” Sarah said. They joined the women loading leftover food into large boxes. Sarah picked up a jar of pickles and placed it into a box lined with straw.

She looked at Charley. “I can’t,” she whispered. Hand in hand, they left the silent women at their work.