55

Not for Anyone

I found a few words from C. scrawled on a paper slipped under my door: “I must see you. I have to speak to you. I came to see you but you weren’t here. Try to be at home. It’s very important.”

Very important!

There’s nothing else we can say to each other. I am amazed at my iron patience up until now. If I am going to die, let it be an easy death. I don’t want to allow myself to be bored to death.

I wasn’t at home. This was safer than staying at home and having Mrs. Kotik make excuses and tell him that I wasn’t there. If he asked her, she wouldn’t be able to refuse his request. She would start to believe that he might finally marry me, after all, and her good soul would be moved to tears by the thought that by letting him in she was doing the mitzve of shadkhones.

I know how C. is. He won’t let me have the last word. He thinks that there was a time when I was under the power of his influence, and he regrets that he didn’t seize that brief moment when I loved him and use it for living. Now he can see how impractically he handled the whole matter. He was the sculptor and he’d had the clay in his hands, but rather than kneading me into the figure he desired, he made a golem of himself.

Davis came to see me with two tickets to the opera and invited me to accompany him. I didn’t like this at all. Why was he interested in me all of a sudden? What happened to Rae? I excused myself, saying something about an appointment, and he took Rae to the opera.

Rae told me that she hadn’t had such a lovely evening in a long time. They had good seats, and he sat there quietly all evening, like a man in love. Poor Rae! How differently she would feel if she knew that she had gone to the opera with my ticket!

“It’s better to have a seat at the table than a vague dream in your head,” she offered with a friendly smile.

“What makes you say that?” I asked.

“I’m thinking about the moon!” she said laughing, and then explained that she wasn’t really talking about the moon, but about me. Davis told her that he had come to visit me and ask if I wanted to join them at the opera, but I had been tactful enough to refuse the invitation because, as he understood it, I didn’t want to get in the way. “So,” she explained, “if one of your beaus ever invites me to join you, I’ll return the favor with similar tact.”

I told her not to. I’m not seeing anyone that she would get in the way of. She peered at me with a furrowed brow, and then asked, “What’s the story with Mr. Cheek?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

“That can’t be!”

“That’s how it is.”

After a while, Rae remarked, “What a shame, after you wasted so much time on him.”

“It wasn’t wasted. I learned a lot.”

“What did you learn?”

“I learned that I, and women like me, were created for more choices, for more freedom than free love offers.”

“You can speak for yourself,” Rae said dismissively. “As for me, I would be happy to have a free love affair, as long as the man and I had some kind of understanding.”

“The more you understand, the less self-respect you’ll have.”

“Why? What does one thing have to do with the other? I’ve seen others who have made the choice to live like that, and they seem very happy. And if she has a child, there’s nothing more to be said. He feels bound to it, just like a real father.”

“Yes? And what about birth control?”

“Well, you have me there. It’s no good. It’s very sad. I think it’s a sin to take away a woman’s right to become a mother!”

“Is that so? But what if the woman just wants to rob a man of his manhood by tying him down with a child?”

“That’s what Mr. Davis says. He says that he loves children, but he loves his freedom more.”

“He loves himself more.”

“Everyone loves themselves best of all.” Rae smiled bitterly, with tears in her eyes. “Everyone is only looking out for themselves. You can waste your whole life that way and end up with nothing to show for it.”

“I have news for you!” my landlady greeted me in a singsong voice as I returned home from work to my room this evening. “Something that will make you very happy!”

“What kind of news is it?”

“It’s about your fiancé!”

“I’ve heard enough about him.”

“He was here, and—”

“I don’t want to hear any news about him. I’ve had enough.”

“But just listen!”

“Please, Mrs. Kotik, tell me something else. How is your cat? Has she scratched someone lately?”

“Never mind about the cat. Let me at least tell you what he said.” She went on without allowing me to interrupt. “I promised him that I’d tell you everything he said.”

“How long did he spend here?”

“A few hours.”

“Good night! I’m already running late for the place I’m heading this evening!”

“You won’t be late. I’ll make it quick. In short, he’s ready to marry you now, with a khupe, a rabbi, and the sheva brokhes, right here in this house! There’s just one thing. We have to keep it a secret until he graduates. And he doesn’t want to rent a room with you. He wants each of you to keep living as you have been, for the time being. I told him that’s no way to live, even for a dog! So he agreed for you to live together, in one bedroom, right here in this house. He says he’s going to pay me his portion of the rent, and everything will be fine and dandy! So, can you guess how I answered him?”

“That you would not agree to have him live in your house?” I guessed.

“No! I told him: ‘You’re getting ahead of yourself! She’s already seeing another man.’”

“Good.”

“But he told me that you have no other man, and that he feels sorry for you that you’re pining for him like a candle without a flame. He can’t sleep at night, knowing he’s broken his word to an orphan, such a lonely girl. He’s sure you cry your eyes out every night because he left you. And he doesn’t want you to cry.”

“Alright. I won’t cry. Is that all?”

“That’s only the beginning of the story. He’ll be here later.”

“When?” I asked, so I could know when to make sure not to be at home.

“Tomorrow, Sunday, early in the morning, when he’s sure to find you at home.”

“Alright,” I said, and asked my landlady not to let him in, or to tell him that I wasn’t at home. I would spend the night with Rae. She refused. She wasn’t going to cover for me anymore. A khupe is a khupe. A girl shouldn’t throw that away. If I say that I don’t want it, that’s my business. She doesn’t want to get mixed up in it anymore.

“Anyway, my sister from Brownsville will be here tomorrow with her boarder. He’s very interested in meeting you. Surely you’ll be home to see him?”

“I won’t be here for him either. I won’t be here for anyone.”

“What a pity,” the landlady sighed. “I always keep my promises. I don’t like to mislead anyone. And you never know who is going to be the right man for you. Maybe it’s my sister’s boarder, who’s coming to see you tomorrow!”