“Well, Genya, your man is asleep.”
The cautious, subdued nervousness of her tone made both David and his mother look up. Aunt Bertha was frowning warily and fingering her gold crown. His mother glanced first at her and then at the bedroom door.
“So he is. What is it?”
“I’m not going to the dentist’s tomorrow,” she said bluntly. “I haven’t been going there for weeks — at least not every time I left here. I’m going ‘kippin’ companyih’!”
“Going what?” His mother knit her brow. “What are you doing?”
“Kippin’ companyih! It’s time you learned a little more of this tongue. It means I have a suitor.”
“Then blessed is God!” his mother laughed. “Who is he— But I know! This Sternowitz!”
“Yes. I’ve hinted his name to you. But I don’t want him to know.” She nodded warningly toward the bedroom. “He’d gloat if it went all to smash. That’s why I’ve said nothing.”
“You’re too harsh with him, Bertha,” her sister smiled placatingly. “He doesn’t wish you any harm. Really he doesn’t. It’s his nature. It will be that way always.”
“A bitter nature.” Aunt Bertha rejoined spitefully. “And always is the time one spends under earth. That’s where he ought—”
“Ach, Bertha! Hush!”
“Yes, let’s not talk too much. He may hear me. And after all he is your husband. But you won’t tell him, will you? Not till all is certain. You promise? Remember,” she pointed her remark. “I’ve kept your secrets well.”
Her words sent a sudden wave of curiosity through David. Secrets! His mother’s! Looking up, he saw a deep rose in his mother’s throat and fainter petals dappling the waxen sheen of her flat cheek. Their eyes met. She was silent, touched the water in the candlestick cups that would ultimately quench the flame.
“Forgive me!” Aunt Bertha said hastily. “Really I didn’t mean — I didn’t mean to be so — so thick! May my tongue fall out if I meant to offend you!”
His mother glanced at the bedroom door and then smiled suddenly. “Don’t be embarrassed! I’m not offended.”
“Are you sure?” Aunt Bertha asked hesitantly.
“Why, of course!”
“But you grew so red, I thought I had angered you. Or—” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Is it Albert?”
“No.” She answered calmly. “None of those things. The son was staring in my eyes.”
“Oh!” Aunt Bertha was relieved. “I thought that—” and she fixed on David accusingly. “Are you listening, you rogue?”
“What?” His eyes wandered vacantly from the open book on the table to Aunt Bertha, and dropped to the book again.
“Ach!” Aunt Bertha brushed away her sister’s objections. “He’s dreaming of Veljish, the little oaf.”
“I’m not so sure.” His mother laughed. “But what were you saying? The man is what? A leggings’ cutter?”
“Yes. A children’s leggings’ cutter. He has a very good job and he makes good money. But—” She scratched her head vehemently and left her sentence hanging in air.
“Well, what’s troubling you? Is he so homely? What?”
“Ach! Pt! Do you believe in love?”
“I?” His mother smiled. “No.”
“No! Tell that to your grandmother there in her grave. You’ve read every German Romance in Austria. Do you know?” She looked at her sister as if a new thought had struck her. “I’ve never seen you read a book since I’ve been here.”
“Who has time even to read a paper?”
“They were bad for you.” Aunt Bertha continued after a moment of reflection. “They made you odd and made your thoughts odd. They gave you strange notions you shouldn’t have had.”
“So you’ve told me. And so did father — scores of times.”
“Well, it would have been better if you had listened to him. They spoiled you — understand? You weren’t — not what shall I say? — good. You were good enough, the gentlest of us all. But you weren’t truly Jewish. You were strange. You didn’t have a Jew’s nature.”
“And what kind of a nature is that?”
“Ach!” Aunt Bertha said impatiently. “You see? You smile! You’re too calm, too generous. That’s wrong! That’s bad! Don’t be offended with me, but perhaps you’ve forgotten what a mopish, calf-eyed creature you were. You looked so—” Aunt Bertha’s jaw dropped. Her red tongue hung out. “And so—” Her eyes climbed up into some cranny under the lids. “Always a cloudy look! Not a suitor they brought you would you accept. And there were some among them at whose feet I would have fallen!” She perched her head back further on her shoulders to stress her own worth and the consequent immensity of that gesture. “German Romances! They did that! And then you married Albert — of all the choices to make.”
His mother regarded her with a mixture of perplexity and despair. “What are you talking about? Is it me, yourself or German Romances?”
“Nothing!” Aunt Bertha shrugged her shoulders huffily. “I was talking about love. Lupka—”
There was that Polish again. David felt a twinge of resentment.
“Oh now, I know,” said his mother lightly in Yiddish. “Go on.”
“How can I, when you mock everything I say.”
“I? How?”
“I know you’ve been in love, but when I ask you whether you believe in it, you answer, no.”
“Very well, I do. Listening to you convinces me. But what has that to do with it?”
“You see? Now you do! You’re exactly what father said you were! You were gentle of heart, but only the devil understood you. I’m your sister. You’ve never told me about yourself. You don’t even care to hear what vexes me.”
“Sh!” his mother raised a warning finger. “Now just what is vexing you? Tell me.”
“First tell me why you married Albert.” Her voice suddenly dropped. “After you knew what he had — what kind of a man he—”
“Ach! Hush!” his mother shook her head impatiently. “Bertha, sister, you’re the silliest woman I’ve ever known. What is there to tell? I was the oldest. There were three daughters younger than I — you, Yetta, Sadie — pushing me toward the canopy. What else could I do?”
“Tell that to your grandmother also.” Aunt Bertha continued peevishly. “Father wouldn’t say anything. Mother wouldn’t speak. And yet there was a rumor among us — a saying. But who? Why won’t you—”
“Come! No more!” His mother’s voice was curt, strangely severe for her. “Not here!”
David had just enough time to duck his head toward his geography book before her glance flashed his way. In the pause that followed, he kept his eyes there, intently, rigidly, turning the book now this way, now that, feigning the greatest abstraction. Much that he had heard, he hadn’t quite understood, it was all so vague, flurried, mysterious. Aunt Bertha had a suitor. His name was Nathan something or other. He made leggings. What was love? But he didn’t care about that. He didn’t care if Aunt Bertha had a dozen suitors. What fascinated him, stirred him to the depths, were the two threads he had unearthed, the two threads he clung to. His father had done something. What? No one would say. His mother? Even Aunt Bertha didn’t know. What? What? He was so excited, he didn’t dare look up, didn’t dare move his eyes on his tracing finger. He prayed his mother would go on, would answer, would reveal what Aunt Bertha had been hinting at. But she didn’t. To his great disappointment, she veered suddenly. When she spoke again, her voice had regained its calm.