53

A Fiancé’s Rights

Rae came to see me. She loyally nodded her head as she listened to my landlady rattle off my good qualities. When the landlady left, Rae angrily asked, “How did you end up with such a busybody?”

“She’s a good woman,” I protested.

“Good?! Just your luck!”

“She means well.”

“Let her mean whatever she wants, as long as she keeps quiet. How did she come to get involved between you and him? How is it any of her business?”

“From a business standpoint, it’s nobody’s business.”

“Maybe it’s none of my business either. But it’s funny. What does Mr. Cheek think of all this? Out of nowhere, there’s a mother-in-law to deal with!”

I told Rae that I didn’t care what Mr. Cheek thought about it. He can think whatever he wants. His presenting himself to the landlady as my fiancé hadn’t brought us any closer. I make a strict bride-to-be.

Rae laughed. I might put the wedding on the line by being so strict. A fiancé who’s such a radical might jilt a reactionary bride-to-be. She, Rae, knows what kind of specimen he is. He visited her during the few weeks when he wasn’t coming to see me, and “My God!” she exclaimed, I’d be shocked if I heard everything she could tell about him.

Mrs. Kotik is always singing C.’s praises: he’s such a well-educated young man, but his behavior with her is so simple and straightforward. He knows how to act around a mishteyns gezogt simple yidene like herself. A few times, she invited him to her table and he didn’t refuse. He ate and even praised her cooking! She asked him to listen to how well her children speak English and he listened and promised to bring them some books that they needed. “Not that I begrudge you anything, but I wish a man like that were engaged to my own daughter!”

He didn’t visit me at home. Instead, he came to see Mrs. Kotik. He read her the latest news from the paper, told her this and that, lectured her a little about children and economics. He tried to curry favor with the simple, well-meaning woman.

I came in from the street and quietly went straight to my room. They were in the front room, talking to each other. “Do you think that I’d ever try to force her?” C. asked. “What is she? If I wanted to, I could get ten more like her.”

“Of course you could,” agreed Mrs. Kotik. “But why would you need so many? Have a wedding, get married, and get yourself off the market!”

“Did she tell you that she wants to get married?”

“She? She doesn’t say anything. She only listens to what I say. Just as if I were her own mother! She’s such a godsend, that girl. If I were a young man, I’d marry her as soon as I could. I’d be afraid that some other man might snatch her first!”

“No one snatches girls away so quickly these days.”

“That’s true. But when a girl sees a man hesitating, waiting, not saying anything, if she sees that he’s namby-pamby, ni be ni me, not willing to commit, sooner or later she’ll find someone else who’ll take her up faster.”

“She doesn’t have anyone else, though. Does she?”

“Maybe she does. Neither you nor I can be sure. How do we know who she meets outside the house? She’s not home today. Maybe she met a young man and went for a walk with him.”

“What kind of behavior is that? Tell me, what do you think? Is it acceptable for her to go on a walk with another man when she already has a fiancé?”

“A fiancé today, a fiancé tomorrow. What good is a fiancé who keeps putting everything off for later?”

“Why is she in such a hurry?”

“You said yourself that she’s not such a young woman anymore.”

“Yes, she might even be older than I am.”

“Older, younger, it doesn’t matter. After the wedding, it doesn’t make a difference. She is, for all her faults, just like a child to me. Listen, I made a borscht and teygekhts so good that it’s fit for a president! Try it! It’ll make your mouth water.”

He went off to taste my landlady’s food and I left my room as stealthily as I’d entered it. I stayed out for a while. I bought a few things and went to see a moving picture.

When I came back C. wasn’t there anymore. Mrs. Kotik told me that he waited for me a long time. She thought he’d die from waiting! He couldn’t even enjoy his food.

“Sometimes it’s good to give your fiancé a hard time,” she advised with a diplomatic smile. “Let him know that he’s not the only man in the world. But everything in moderation. This time it was probably for the best that he felt bad, but pulling such a clever trick next time might be foolish.”

Mrs. Kotik made it her business to manage our affairs.

“I’m your fiancé!” C. proclaimed. “And I have a fiancé’s rights! Everyone should know that.”

He said that it was embarrassing that his bride-to-be is so cold to him. Who would have thought that in taking the title “fiancé” he’d become like a stranger to me? After all, he chided, he was taking a risk on me. Now, if he left me, I could bring him up on a “breach of promise” charge, with Mrs. Kotik as my witness.

I assured him that I wouldn’t press such charges. He said that he knew I wouldn’t. I’m too intelligent for that. I’m not the kind of girl who would force him to marry, and that’s why he loves me so much. That’s why he believes that free love is the best thing for us.

I told him that I believe it would be the worst thing—for me.

He got very angry. He said that I am narrow-minded, with bourgeois values, and that he wouldn’t talk to me about it anymore. Let his tongue be cut out of his mouth if he does!

I agreed.

I started to sew something and he read the newspaper.

“Feh!” he spat. “To pay so much money for a meaningless ceremony!”

I looked up from my handiwork and looked at him questioningly.

“It’s a scandal!” he said, showing me the newspaper. “This man takes a poor, fallen girl—a fallen girl, mind you—and has a legal wedding with her. Then he gets rich. Very, very rich. He mingles in high society. He meets a pretty, young, respectable girl and falls in love with her. The law gets hold of it and they bring him before a court and charge him, and make him pay the legal wife a large sum of money each week in support, and on top of that she gets half of the revenue from his estate. Isn’t it a scandal?”

“No.”

“No? Why does she deserve the money?”

“Why do you think he was right to leave her? He probably broke her heart.”

“And the money will fix it?!”

“Of course not. But without the money, things would be a lot worse for her.”

“Yes, worse! But marriage didn’t stop him from leaving her and falling in love with someone else! So what good is it?” C. cried triumphantly.

“Yes, but he didn’t marry the other woman. He’s forced to have a free love affair with the other woman.”

He argued for a while longer about the injustice of the justice system. It doesn’t let a free man hold his head up. It gets mixed up in his private affairs! He is definitely going to give a lecture on this topic, he told me. He tore out the article from the newspaper and stuffed it in his pocket.

Once and for all, I must get rid of C.!

Today, Rae came to see me when C. was here. He teasingly asked after her birth control advocate.

Rae answered, “Mr. Davis is alright.”

“And what about his birth control? And your Where Are My Children?”

“They’re much better than your free love affairs.”

“Don’t talk like that in front of my bride-to-be! For shame!”

“Oh? Since when?”

“You don’t need to know.”

“Yes, I certainly do. If you’ve been engaged for a while, I have to complain to her for not telling me, her good friend, about it. And if it just happened then I have to congratulate you.”

“Congratulate us.”

“I wish you all the—” Rae began, but I didn’t let her finish, explaining that it was all in fun. “We’re nothing,” I told her. He laughed.

“Oy, you’re laughing about this? This is no laughing matter!” Rae warned with an affected sigh. “I know another young man who laughed like that and he died laughing,” Rae added, laughing along with him.

C. told her that she shouldn’t express herself in a way that is as simple and vulgar as she is. Rae ignored him and turned toward me, saying, “Should I clam up, or should I give him what’s coming to him?”

“Whatever you want.”

“So you really aren’t engaged?”

“No, and I don’t want to be.”

“If that’s so, then Mr. Cheek,” she said, turning toward him, “now that I know I have no risk of breaking apart the shidukh, I can tell you that I think you’re a fool!”

“Shut—”

“Never mind your ‘shut up.’ After all, it’s not a very elevated word to use, especially for someone who is going to graduate college soon. If you get fresh with me, I’ll tell your bride-to-be what you said to me when you were visiting me at home the other day.”

“Never kiss an ugly girl! Everyone says that, and now you’ve proven them right!” C. laughed. “Fine, go ahead and say what I said to you the other day. I’ve told her plenty about other encounters with women and nothing you can say will surprise her.”

Who knows what their argument would have led to if I hadn’t asked him to leave, and if Davis hadn’t arrived at the same time. I suggested that we all take a walk together. Davis supported my plan. C. was against it. Rae was neutral.

When we got to the street, C. and Rae kept on arguing. Both of them were upset that Davis was walking with me.

For a while I was amazed that Rae is so opposed to C. But after hearing what Davis had to say, there was nothing to wonder at. C. insulted her in Davis’s presence, telling him that girls like Rae are only useful for telling about your interest in other girls.

Davis thinks that he was talking about me. Because Rae told him that she had mostly talked with him about me.

Davis says that he believes her. Because I’m the kind of person that people could have a lot to say about. Precisely because I’m so good at not talking. I keep quiet with a silence that seems to speak for itself.

He said that he could never get tired of talking about my silence. And when I say something, it’s always worth listening to. And I have a smile that goes straight to his heart. And I carry myself like someone lost in thought. And I’m proud, and don’t bother with the ordinary people that I meet along my way.

After he said all of that to me, we were quiet for a while. I could hear C. saying to Rae, “You keep talking when there’s no need for it. Your laughter tries my patience. To you, all people are equal, and there’s no difference between them.”

Rae said to him, “You always have something to say about other people, but you have no self-awareness. The way you look at women makes them feel like you’re spitting at them. Your cynical smile never leaves your lips. You only have one thing on your mind.”

Catching up to Rae, I took her arm and we left the “gentlemen” behind. I didn’t want her to feel jealous that I was walking with Davis.

“You’re walking with me but you’re still thinking about one of those men,” she accused.

“When I was walking with them, with one of them, I was thinking about you!” I responded.

“You were thinking about how unnecessary I am.”

“I was thinking about what a martyr you are. Why would you even consider going for a walk with someone you despise so much?”

“And you went for a walk with someone that you—”

“Do not like.”

“You don’t like anyone.”

“Unfortunately, that’s true.”

She thought for a while, then added, “If you’d like to pretend to be interested in Mr. Davis to annoy your cynical man, I can help you with that. As they say, ‘Sometimes it’s worth putting out your own eye, if it takes out two of his.’”

Without waiting for an answer, she turned toward Davis, feigning jealousy, and told him that I’d certainly be happier talking with him than with her.

“Isn’t it remarkable?” Davis said, taking her place next to me. “I just knew somehow that you two were talking about me. What did you ask Rae about me?”

“I wanted to know about your yikhes.”

He started to tell me about his family background. Meanwhile, Rae played the part of an insulted girlfriend, trying to make C. more jealous. It worked.

Later on, C. needled me, “It’s good that we haven’t gotten married yet. Can you imagine how horrible it would be if you fell in love with that engineer after the wedding? What would we do then?”

“I don’t think loving someone is horrible, even after the wedding.”

“Oh, of course, it’s all the more cozy.”

“What else is a divorce for?”

“Would you divorce me for an idiot like that? Very nice! And you’re already planning on a divorce, from the get-go! You can go ahead and have an affair with him. I won’t interfere!”

“Thanks.”

“Oh, there’s no need for thanks. You’re free to do whatever you want.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Do you really love him?”

“I like him well enough.”

C. glared at me with his teeth clenched. He didn’t want to talk about it anymore.