A Castle in Brooklyn(11)
Esther, sitting opposite her at the desk in the office, shrugged.
“I’m too busy to be looking for a man. And where would I find one, anyway, here in the office looking at statements and receipts all day?”
Sophie, who had short fiery-red hair and an impish smile, agreed but secretly started to consider possibilities for her young friend who, after all, deserved a husband and family, perhaps more than others. So it was only a couple of weeks after the discussion that Sophie happened to mention the tall young Pole who had caught her eye.
“We’re taking the same English language class together Tuesday and Thursday nights, and I can tell you, he is not only one of the smartest ones in the class, but with those green eyes, and a full head of brown hair, I know he is just your type. Did I mention how tall he is too?”
When Esther began to protest, Sophie pouted.
“These days, we girls can’t wait till someone comes knocking at our door. And, Esther, my friend, I am most sorry to say this, but if you wait too much longer, you could be an old maid! Like those sisters down the hall in apartment 2B.”
At this, Esther exploded in laughter. The women, well into their sixties, were plump and sullen. One even walked with a cane. Nevertheless, she had to concede that Sophie’s remark did strike a hidden fear in her.
“Well, even if I did want to meet such a man, how would I? I am busy here all day, and I’m sure he must have a job of some sort too.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Sophie said, speaking rapidly. “Why don’t you join our class? We’ve only just had three meetings, so it would be nothing for you to catch up.”
The notion was so ridiculous that Esther could not help but laugh at the suggestion.
“Sophie, you must be eating too much of that rum cake at the bakery. You know I don’t need help with my English. I’m giving you instruction!”
Sophie didn’t say a word but merely arched her eyebrows. Well, maybe there was a way . . .
If Esther felt bad about deceiving Jacob, she had even more misgivings about lying to her father. Boris Itzkowitz was by nature a man of few words, but he was one who paid attention, making sure that both bills and payments were executed in a timely fashion, his finger always on the pulse of the vicissitudes of the stock market, braced for the next big deal. Besides his business dealings, Boris had no hobbies; in fact, he had only two great interests—global world politics and his family. He had always instructed his children that understanding the world was a necessity, and that was why whenever he wasn’t engaged in business negotiations or reviewing blueprints, Esther could find him in the small downstairs front office, ear glued to the large radio, listening to Eisenhower’s speech or the latest troop maneuvers over in Korea. He was, as his gregarious wife used to joke, inscrutable, as implacable as the stoic buildings he purchased throughout Manhattan. And yet there was an aspect about the stodgy man who always wore a black hat on his head that only a select few were privy to.
Esther knew that, for Boris, family was the one thing that could fill the hole he’d felt inside his soul since venturing to the shores of America, just before Europe would be swept into the inferno of war. Sometimes she would hear him make his way down the hall after sleepless hours next to his wife in the comfortable bed framed by gold brocade silk drapes, and with the sounds of motorcars and fire engine sirens echoing from the streets below. Once, late at night when she’d gone into the kitchen for a glass of milk, she found Boris sitting in his nightclothes, wearing his slippers. She realized it was his habit to sit, just sit, in his armchair in the corner of the vast living room. When, one night, she asked him why, he told her that even though he was here in New York, his mind was far away at another home, where his mother stood at the black stove stirring chicken soup in a giant steel pot. His father would walk in the door, tired from a day of haggling with customers at the fruit store, a twin brother and a sister quietly doing their homework at the kitchen table. This was the family that occupied his thoughts in the utopian land of America. Only once did he confess the reason to her, since he was not the kind of man who could usually put voice to his thoughts, that the day he headed for his new home with pockets filled with gold and promise was when he left something far more precious behind, now buried forever in the ashes.
These thoughts kept Boris awake at night, and it was why as daylight crept into the room, he could center his mind only on family, his new family, and the promise of what still could be. And it was also why Esther, his princess among princes, knew that she could ask this one favor of her father, and that he would say yes.
She didn’t tell him the real reason she wanted to attend English language school, though. He had never trusted boys, never known one who had good intentions, either for business or when it came to relationships. He was obstinate when her mother would stand at his desk, hands on hips as he tallied a list of numbers, and pleaded with him to allow the girl a few hours to have her hair fixed at the beauty shop or, even worse, attend a dance with friends; and without raising his eyes from the paper, he would speak, keeping his voice low and steady, “I am busy now, Sally. Do not bother me with such nonsense.” And with that, the subject was closed.
So when Esther approached him just as he was opening the blinds in the office and called him by the familiar pet name she had used from babyhood, he turned toward her.
“Papou, I have been thinking about the business. You know that I am the one who is meeting with our salesmen or tenants, and of late, I have become ashamed.”