CHAPTER 15
A Family Thanksgiving

As if I didn’t have enough problems,” Sammy muttered to himself. Aunt Pearl had decided it was time to invite the family to her Brooklyn apartment for Thanksgiving dinner. Sammy knew all about Thanksgiving. Miss O’Malley had told the class the story of the Pilgrims’ first winter in America. Sammy thought it was great that the Pilgrims and their neighbors, the Indians, shared a feast to give thanks for a good harvest. He wasn’t sure it was such a good idea for his family and Aunt Pearl’s to do the same.

Miss O’Mally had said it was traditional on Thanksgiving to eat turkey. She showed the class a picture of a brown bird that looked like a big, fuzzy chicken. How could a turkey fit into a soup pot? Sammy wondered, staring at the enormous bird. When he said as much to Herschel, Herschel called him a dumb immigrant, just off the boat. In America, Herschel said, you didn’t boil turkeys. You roasted them in an oven. That was fine, Sammy supposed, if you had a big oven. The Levins’ was a narrow box with four leaky gas burners on top. So maybe it was a good thing, after all, that they would eat their first turkey dinner at Aunt Pearl’s.

Malka and Sammy were excited about the trip to Brooklyn. They had often walked to the end of Delancy Street and admired the tall expanse of the Williamsburg Bridge that stretched across the East River into Brooklyn. One Sunday, Malka, Mr. Goldman, and Sammy had walked the entire length of the bridge and then turned around and walked back.

This time they were taking the subway. Sammy thought the subway was one of the best parts of New York. Imagine, he thought, trains running in underground tunnels! Sometimes, on the street, he would stand near a subway grate to feel the earth shake as a train rumbled under his feet. A subway ride cost a nickel. For that amount, you could go anywhere in New York. His father said the train to Brooklyn had opened in 1915, only five years before Sammy arrived.

Thanksgiving morning dawned gray and cold. When Sammy looked out the window, he saw that the fire escape was dotted with snowflakes. Malka bustled around the kitchen, preparing the noodle pudding that she was taking as her contribution to the meal.

When everyone was dressed, Papa looked at Malka’s ruffled white blouse and black skirt, and frowned. “Maybe you should wear one of the dresses your Aunt Pearl gave you. After all,” he said, stroking his chin, “she went to all that trouble to bring you the clothes.”

“Used clothes, Papa. The things she won’t wear anymore.” Malka tossed her head. “We may be new in America, but we are not beggars who have to wear other people’s rags.”

“Wear the coat. A good wool coat is not a rag.”

“It is if it is too big and falls below my feet.” Malka put on her own black coat with silver buttons, and wound a red scarf around her neck. “I will not wear Aunt Pearl’s ugly hand-me-downs.”

Papa threw up his hands. “Wear what you want. Now come.”

The Levins trooped downstairs, along Delancy Street and into the subway tunnel. Sammy had been on the subway before, but never under the East River. The thought of traveling beneath all that water made the hair on his neck prickle. He thought of Max. He wondered if Max’s stepfather would let his mother stop working long enough to cook a turkey.

The trip to Brooklyn only took ten minutes. Sammy was disappointed. He had hoped to be on the train for at least an hour. Miss O’Malley had told the class that the Brooklyn subway now went all the way to the boardwalk at Coney Island. Malka said she would take him there in the summer, when the boardwalk was open, and they could swim in the ocean.

Aunt Pearl lived in a three-story brownstone building on a quiet, tree-lined street. Her apartment was on the second floor. The minute Sammy entered the building, he saw the difference between it and their tenement. The marble hall floor was spotlessly clean. The stairway was wide enough for two people to walk side by side, and the walls were painted a light brown color, like coffee with lots of cream.

Aunt Pearl’s apartment was as different from the Levin flat as the flat was from their house in Poland. At their apartment, you walked right into the kitchen. Here you entered a hallway where you could leave your coats and hats in a built-in closet. A door on the left opened into the kitchen. Sammy peeked in and saw white cupboards, a sink, an icebox, a big iron stove, and a table with four chairs. A short, square woman wrapped in an enormous white apron was stirring a pot on the stove.

From the hallway, they went into the front room. Ahead, two glass doors opened onto a large room with a four-poster bed. A hallway on the left of the living room led to two more bedrooms.

Sammy’s eyes bulged. All these rooms for only five people! On Orchard Street, ten people would crowd into an apartment half this size. He examined the furniture. Aunt Pearl must really like lace, because there were white lace doilies on the backs and arms of all the chairs. The lamps had lacy shades, and white lace cloths dotted the polished wood tables that were scattered around the room.

Sammy watched Malka studying the apartment, her eyes wide, her cheeks flushed with what he was sure was envy. Her gaze settled on a long table next to the windows. It was set with white gold-rimmed dishes; silver knives, forks, and spoons; and sparkling glasses. Everything matched. No chipped bowls and cracked plates here.

The doorbell rang, and Aunt Tsippi came in. Sammy rushed forward so he could see her hat before she took it off. Sure enough, it was a masterpiece with red and black feathers, a small stuffed bird, and enough netting to catch a whole school of fish.

Aunt Tsippi hugged him. “Sammy, look at you! Six months in America, and already you’ve grown a foot. Hasn’t he, Rubin?”

Papa looked him up and down. “I see only two feet.”

Sammy laughed and Aunt Tsippi smiled.

Aunt Tsippi sat down on the couch next to Malka. Aunt Pearl, who had been in the kitchen supervising the maid, made her entrance wearing a shiny green dress with pearl buttons and a white lace collar and cuffs. “I wish our Sarah was here,” she said, sinking into an overstuffed chair.

Tsippi sighed. “I do, too. Remember how she told us stories when we were little? Such an imagination she had.”

“The one about the old woman in the forest? You used to be so frightened that you would beg her to stop.”

“Remember the part where the chickens jumped from the trees and almost scared the old woman to death?” They laughed.

Aunt Tsippi looked around the room. “At least we are all together.”

Aunt Pearl shook her head. “Yes, but look at them.” She pointed to Sammy and Malka. “Like ragamuffins they dress.”

“Pearl, stop being so hard on them. Remember when we were new? What it was like? Everything was so strange.”

“We learned.” Pearl shrugged. “It was the war that ruined them. Why did Rubin leave them there to go through that terrible war?”

The front door opened. Joshua and his six-year-old sister Leah trooped in. Leah was about half Joshua’s size. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose were rosy from the cold. She was followed by Aunt Pearl’s husband, Uncle (“the doctor”) Milton.

“We’ve been skating on the pond at Prospect Park,” Joshua said, turning to show Sammy the leather boots with sleek metal blades slung over his shoulder. “Do you skate?”

Sammy shook his head. In Logov, some of the kids had skated on the river when it froze, but he never had skates. Besides, how could he skate when he was so hungry that he could barely stand?

“Give him time. The winter hasn’t even started,” Aunt Tsippi said. She bent forward to Leah, who was standing shyly in front of her. “Let me see your smile,” she said, patting the girl’s curly blond hair.

Leah grinned, exposing two missing front teeth. Aunt Tsippi reached into her black velvet purse and pulled out two nickels. “One for each tooth.”

“Thank you, Aunt Tsippi.” Leah took the money with a shy smile.

“Well, well, well.” Uncle Milton rubbed his hands together. “At last we have everyone together.”

We’d have been together a long time ago, Sammy thought, if Aunt Pearl weren’t such a snob. Just because Uncle Milton was born in Brooklyn and was a second generation American, Aunt Pearl thought her family was better than the Levins.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome.” Uncle Milton pounded Papa on the back. “And lookee, lookee, lookee. Can this be our little Sammy? Well, well, well. Here we are, all together.”

Uncle Milton said everything three times. Sammy hoped his uncle wouldn’t keep this up all day. If he did, it was going to be a very, very, very long dinner.

Aunt Pearl passed around a tray with glasses of seltzer with strawberry syrup. She apologized that it wasn’t wine.

“Prohibition.” She wrinkled her nose.

Sammy took a glass and walked over to the window. The streetlamps were coming on, and they cast a soft glow on the deserted sidewalks. In Poland, he had never heard of Thanksgiving. In America, it seemed that everyone, no matter where they came from, celebrated the holiday.

“Hey, Greenie.” Joshua appeared beside him. “Did you ever see one of these?” He pointed to a table where a wooden box with a huge horn-shaped device jutting out of it gleamed in the sunlight.

Sammy nodded. “It’s a phonograph.” The Baldanis had one, only theirs was smaller and not as fancy.

“Bet you don’t have one.”

“My neighbor has one, and we listen to it all the time.” Sammy didn’t tell him that they listened through the walls.

Joshua turned a hand crank on the side of the box. A disk sitting on top began to turn. He set the phonograph’s arm on the disk. A man’s voice singing about bluebirds filled the room.

“Too bad you don’t have a phonograph.” Joshua smirked. “We listen all the time, especially on Saturday morning when I don’t go to school.”

“We go to the synagogue on Saturday morning. It’s Shabbos,” Papa said, striding across the room. “Sammy, wash your hands. Aunt Pearl wants us to sit down to eat.”

Aunt Pearl turned to the table and picked up a little silver bell. Ding, ding, ding. It rang three times. Ding, ding, ding. Just like Uncle Milton talked.

The family gathered around the table. Aunt Pearl sat at the head, Uncle Milton at the foot, and everyone else scattered in between. When they were all settled, Aunt Pearl lifted the bell and rang it again. Ding, ding, ding. The woman from the kitchen brought out an enormous bowl. Aunt Pearl called it a tureen. The woman ladled soup from the tureen into gold-rimmed soup bowls.

At home, Papa started every meal with a blessing over bread. But here, no one blessed anything. Sammy watched them eat as if the food were about to be snatched away at any minute. But no one at the table looked undernourished to Sammy. After the soup, the woman brought in the turkey on a large white platter. Its golden brown skin crackled with juices. Sammy had never seen such a big bird. That turkey could have fed half the people in Logov, he thought. The woman set it in front of Uncle Milton, who picked up a sharp silver knife and a matching fork and started cutting the turkey into thin, even slices.

“They let me do the carving,” he joked, “because I’m a doctor. I know how things should be cut, cut, cut.”

Again with the doctor business. Sammy wished Papa would say, “I trained in Poland to be a tailor, and now I’m the best cutter in the coat factory—so I can cut, cut, cut things, too.”

Uncle Milton passed around plates of turkey, and everyone piled their dishes with mashed potatoes and gravy; orange potatoes, called yams; green peas; Malka’s noodle pudding; and a dish that looked like a mound of bread soaked in water. Aunt Pearl said it was the turkey’s stuffing. Sammy had seen Malka clean a lot of chickens, but he had never seen anything like this soggy bread stuffed inside them.

Everyone ate. Malka sampled all the new dishes, oohing and aahing over the sweet potatoes and turkey. Papa tasted little bits of everything.

Sammy plunged his fork into a piece of turkey. It slipped in the gravy; his hand jerked and knocked over the glass of soda on his right. He watched in horror as a strawberry stain spread across the white tablecloth and dripped onto the floor.

Knives and forks clattered against plates as everyone stopped eating and stared at him. Sammy’s face burned as red as the stain.

“I guess you didn’t use forks in Poland,” Joshua sneered. “Did you eat with your hands?”

“Leave him alone,” Leah said, giving Sammy a gaptoothed smile.

“Quiet, midget.” Joshua poked her in the ribs. He scowled at Sammy. “You need to learn American manners.” Sammy decided that scowling was Joshua’s favorite expression.

“That’s enough!” Aunt Pearl glared down her nose at them. She picked up the bell. Ding, ding, ding.

“Lily,” she said when the woman came out of the kitchen, “please clean up my nephew’s mess. And, Sammy,” she added, with an expression that would frighten a snake. “Try to use whatever manners you do possess.”

Lily came in with glasses of tea. Sammy didn’t want any, but Papa took it with a sigh of relief, as if it were a magic potion that would make Sammy disappear. He reached for the sugar bowl, took two sugar cubes and stuck them between his teeth.

“Rubin! Such bad manners from you, too?” Aunt Pearl sniffed as Papa sipped his tea through the sugar.

By the time the apple pie and strawberry Jell-O came, Sammy had lost his appetite. Nothing tasted good. He stuck his spoon into the Jell-O. It reminded him of his first day at Ellis Island, and how he had worried about not getting into America. Now here he was, in his snobby aunt’s living room, with relatives who treated his family like they had horns. His father sat in stony silence, and Malka looked as if she were going to cry.

But none of that mattered, Sammy told himself. They were in America, and whatever happened, he had his gang. And some day, he vowed, he was going to teach his awful cousin Joshua a lesson that he would never forget.