Chapter 2

Shmuel was still shivering when he climbed the warped stairs and opened the unpainted door to his family’s apartment. He told himself it was the nasty weather, not fear or a change of heart, causing him to shake like an unprepared student who sees the rabbi turn toward him with the next question. Rivka, saying he didn’t look well, put her hand on his forehead, but Shmuel brushed it off. “I’m not a baby anymore.”

“To a mother, her children are always her babies.” Rivka smiled and walked back across the cracked linoleum floor to the stove.

“It’s cold out, that’s all.” To prove it in the only way she’d believe, Shmuel said he was hungry and peeked under the lid of the pot simmering on the back burner. Inside was their typical Tuesday leftover supper, the carcass from the Shabbas chicken, picked clean and boiled with egg noodles, potatoes, and onions. It seemed the smell of onions emanated from every apartment, seeping into and out of the building’s stained walls. He sighed, wondering if sailors ate better. The Navy’s food budget must be a million times bigger than the Levinsons’.

Dev sat at the scarred pine table doing homework. Shmuel looked over her shoulder, ready to admire his sister’s diagram of the digestive system. “Mama’s right,” Dev said, covering the page with a dishrag. “You look ready to upchuck your kishkas and you better not do it on my drawing!”

“What if I did? It’s not up to your usual standards. The intestines are wound too tight.”

Dev snapped back. “Flibberty, jibberty. What’s eating you?”

“Nothing, but I need something to eat and Papa won’t be home for another half hour.”

“I can make you a bowl of borsht,” Rivka offered, reaching out her hand again before pulling it back and tucking it into her apron pocket.

“How about fried wasps? Crispy snake skin? Pickled pigs ears?” His sister grinned.

“Don’t be disgusting.” The very thought made Shmuel feel like throwing up for real.

Rivka wore a look of horror on her face. “Shush, Dev. People don’t eat those things.”

“Yes they do. I saw them in a store window on Pell Street.”

“What were you doing in Chinatown?” Shmuel said.

Dev giggled. “I tricked Leah into going there after school today.”

Shmuel raised his eyebrows. His sister’s best friend was her exact opposite. Dev loved going where she didn’t belong; Leah never stepped out of line, unless lured there by Dev.

“I told her I needed to copy Chinese characters for my art class. We’re practicing with ink pens.” She lifted the dishrag. “See, I’m using one for my biology illustration.”

“I can’t believe Leah went along. She’s doesn’t even like to look at pictures of trayf!”

“Well, to be on the up and up,” Dev admitted, “she dusted out after a minute, before I even pretended to copy the letters. She said just standing outside the store was too malodorous.”

“Leah actually used that word?” Rivka asked.

“No, but it’s a good one, don’t you think? It means stinky. Or you could say something smells noxious, odious to the olfactory system, fetid, or frowsty. That last one is British.”

Shmuel smiled. Dev’s obsession with words drove most people crazy. He found it lovable, except when she showed off. Then she was irritating in the way only a younger sister could be. Rivka went out of her way to ask Dev questions. Shmuel suspected she did it to encourage his sister to use her brains. Avram, on the other hand, pointedly ignored her, which only made Dev work harder for his attention, even if it entailed using doubtful slang expressions she’d picked up from the racier kids at school. Half the time Shmuel suspected Dev didn’t know what they meant, and occasionally neither did he. If Avram sniffed even a hint of impropriety, he ordered Dev to be quiet and help Rivka in the kitchen. Then their mother would play peacemaker and ask Dev to teach her the new word while they washed the dishes. Avram would grunt and wait impatiently for the women to clear the table so he and Shmuel could talk Torah, man to man.

As if beckoned by Shmuel’s thoughts, Avram walked in. Despite the chill, he looked like he’d stepped out of a steam bath. In a sense he had, after bending over a pressing machine at the dress factory for twelve hours. The heat had untwisted the fringes of his tallit, rendering them as wilted and lifeless as his thinning hair. The sight made Shmuel wonder how he would hide his strawberry mark when he got older and lost his hair too. Maybe he wouldn’t live that long.

Side by side, Shmuel and Avram washed their hands in the enamelled basin and Avram said the blessings as Rivka and Dev dished out the food. Shmuel barely had time to slurp a spoonful before his father began the nightly ritual of quizzing him on what he’d studied at cheder that day. Since Shmuel had skipped religious school to go to the recruiting station, he had to think quickly to fake it. Fortunately, the class was reading Genesis, whose familiar stories were less fraught to discuss with his father than later books of the Torah with their nitpicking laws.“We read the passage where Laban, Rebecca’s older brother, tries to dissuade her from leaving home to marry Isaac. The rebbe asked us why Laban wanted his sister to wait ten days before deciding whether to go.” Too late, Shmuel realized that biblical conflict was uncomfortably close to the ongoing rivalry between Gershon, his mother’s big brother, and his father. Onkel Gershon hadn’t wanted Shmuel’s mother to marry his father either.

“And what did you say?” Avram looked directly at Shmuel, sitting on his right, but Shmuel glanced at his mother, sitting on his left, before returning his father’s piercing gaze.

“I said one interpretation is that Laban was being protective. Rebecca was young. She was being asked to travel to a strange land, far away, and to marry a man she’d never seen before. In all likelihood, she would never see her own family again.”

Avram objected. “The servant who came to fetch Rebecca brought jewels and other presents. Laban was simply trying to extort more gifts before letting his sister go.” At last he began to eat in earnest, spooning soup with a steady hand, as though the matter were settled.

“You could see it that way.” Shmuel spoke hesitantly.

“Could?” Avram put down his spoon. “No. Torah makes it clear in later chapters that Laban is deceitful. He cheats Jacob again and again, tricking him into marrying Leah, making him work an extra seven years to marry Rachel, and then stealing Jacob’s livestock.”

Shmuel bowed his head to his own bowl. He was no longer hungry, but let his father take it as a gesture of acquiescence. An hour ago, he’d have welcomed the hot soup to get rid of his chills. Now, the argument with Avram had inflamed his desire to leave. Joining the Navy was not only a means of fleeing his father’s expectations, but also a way to trade the petty squabbles at home for the real war overseas. He chafed at Avram’s assumption that he’d take his side against Gershon. His father and uncle fought more than he and Dev had as children. Shmuel knew Rivka tried not to put him in the middle, but he feared their lifelong rivalry would shorten hers.

The Navy should make a new poster, he thought. “Join a family united in its mission.” It sounded good, although surely even military families fought. Suppose the Navy fuelled rivalries more intense than Avram’s and Gershon’s, ones that risked men’s lives? His decision was made, but when supper ended, Shmuel’s intestines felt as tight as those he’d accused Dev of drawing.