A Castle in Brooklyn(8)

The next day, when he walked into the classroom, she was already there, but now seated second row, center. Before taking the seat in front of her, he nodded politely. She smiled back. Could it be she was really glad to see him? The class filled up shortly afterward, and the lesson began. Jacob, though, found he couldn’t concentrate, as he felt her eyes upon his back for the duration of the class.

“Mr. Stein?”

He startled, his mind failing to register the words.

“Mr. Stein, would you care to read your essay for us?”

Jacob swallowed. Without thinking, he shook his head.

“I’m sorry, sir. Not tonight.” He mumbled something about his throat.

“Very well, then. How about you, Mr. Polansky?”

It wasn’t that he hadn’t done a good job on the assignment. But perhaps this time it was too much. Too much of Jacob on the paper. And he wasn’t ready to share it with the class. Least of all Esther. He felt his back grow hot.

Throughout the first hour of class, Jacob sensed the drone of a voice, copied notes from the blackboard mechanically, all the while feeling that he was running a fever. Maybe he should go home. But before long, he heard soft murmuring around him, saw the shuffling of feet. It must be the ten-minute break. His heart jumped as he realized he could no longer move. Not even a finger. But then there was a tap on his shoulder, the sound of a voice.

“Jacob, are you well?”

He looked up to the glittering crystal-blue eyes, the bow-like lips. He tried to compose himself.

“Of course, Esther, of course. I am well. I was just thinking about the lesson.”

“I see,” she answered. Jacob saw a twinkle in her eye as he got to his feet.

“Let’s go out into the hall.”

He escorted her into the dimly lit corridor, offered her a cigarette, which she declined. They spoke only English now as they stood, he facing her, she in a striped tan-and-white dress held by a red patent leather belt, hand pushing back the curl in her soft brown hair.

You can learn much in the space of ten minutes, he decided, for he did learn quite a bit about Esther Itzkowitz, who was much more than the color of her eyes. Like himself, she was Polish, but she had been born in ?ód?, the city that would become a Jewish ghetto and a Nazi holding cell, where the populace dwelled before marching into Auschwitz. But Esther and her family had been lucky, taking their chance to come to America when they still could, just before the doors were slammed shut. Though there were a couple of cousins who had perished in the ensuing years, freedom for Esther and her family had never been a dream, a prize to be won as it had been for Jacob, but the natural order of things.

Jacob envied her, but only a little. He was glad that she had never known the fear of opening one’s eyes at daybreak, wondering what if any terrors could befall you at any hour. Unlike Jacob, she wasn’t a shell, consumed each night by the nightmares of the past. Esther was whole, her spirit filled with the promise of a happy future, while Jacob, though hopeful, was a survivor who still had his doubts.

She didn’t need this language class, she explained. She had lived in this country for eight years now, a proud citizen for the past three. Her English was fair, she admitted, but required more polish if she were to succeed in the family business, where she dealt with the public daily. Almost immediately upon coming to the United States, her father had taken a huge portion of the family’s savings and invested it in the one thing that had stability, certain he would reap a profit in real estate. His first purchase was a twenty-room boardinghouse for the steady influx of immigrants from Europe who were looking to establish a foothold in Manhattan. Her mother’s primary job was as a homemaker, caring for Esther and her two younger brothers, and since the woman feared any discourse with these strange Yankees, it fell to Esther, the eldest, to run the office, rent rooms at the boardinghouse on the Lower East Side, then the two new high-rises on the West Side, where her father presided as landlord. She also dealt with the utility companies, prospective salesmen, painters, plumbers, and carpenters, rental fees, even the taxes. She was more than her father’s daughter. She was the face of EMI (Esther, Menashe, Isadore) Realty. Her English could not just be passable; it had to be impeccable.

Jacob listened, his eyes never leaving Esther’s face. He was mesmerized by her success story, a story he had little hope of accomplishing himself, not living in that small apartment with his elderly aunt and uncle, not bottling tasteless seltzer, but he also heard other things, things that were unsaid. Esther did not have a suitor. With the business and school, when would she have the time?

As the lesson resumed and he refilled his fountain pen from the inkwell and began an exercise on adjective comparisons and superlatives—good, better, best—Jacob felt relieved. The ten-minute break had run out before the beautiful twenty-two-year-old immigrant (he had soon learned her age) could ask his story. What would he say? How much could he tell without frightening her off? He had an extra day to think about it, though, for soon enough the class was dismissed and she was hurrying into the shiny black Oldsmobile.

After many more chats between Jacob and Esther during the class breaks and a few after class, Jacob slowly began to tell her about himself. How he had been born into a poor family in Raczki, how he had remained hidden for weeks and months in Frau Blanc’s hayloft, how he had escaped from under the Nazis’ watchful eyes moments before he heard the gunshots, smelled the dust in the air, as the rest were dumped into a mass grave. How when he had returned to the home where he grew up, there was nothing to keep him there. Perhaps one day he would tell her the whole story, even though the prospect scared him. Not even his aunt and uncle knew the full story, not even his dear friend Zalman, who always had known better than to ask. But this girl—well, if he could speak the words to anyone on this earth, it would be to Esther, whose face, whose body, he knew had already become home.