The Matchmaker's Gift(22)
She could see the rabbi weighing the choices, trying to decide the best advice to give. “Please, Rabbi,” she said, “what should I do?”
He clapped his mottled hands together. When she looked into his eyes, she saw the same glimmer she’d seen on the night of Hindel’s wedding. “Perhaps there is another way. There is someone I want you to meet,” he said.
* * *
Sara followed the rabbi two blocks west on Rivington Street to a familiar green-and-white-striped awning. Like everyone else in the neighborhood, she had passed Raskin’s Pickles hundreds of times. Tall wooden barrels of pickled cucumbers and tomatoes stood on the sidewalk in front of the windows. Sour, sweet, spicy, and dill were among the dozens of choices offered. Behind the cucumbers were smaller barrels of onions, beets, carrots, and cabbage. Inside, the shelves were stocked with glass jars of pickled button mushrooms, black and green olives, and row after row of pickled herring. Rabbi Sheinkopf stopped under the awning and breathed in the briny air.
A short, stocky man wearing a three-piece suit bounded gracefully out of the store. He was in his fifties, bald and bearded, with a robust smile and a hearty laugh. “Good morning, Rabbi! What a pleasure!” He turned to a young man standing by the barrels. “Sollie, get the rabbi here a nice big quart of fresh half-sours!”
“Thank you, Moishe! But I did not come for pickles today.”
“You need some herring, maybe? Best in the city!”
Rabbi Sheinkopf gestured toward Sara. “Moishe, this is Sara Glikman.” He cleared his throat and lowered his voice. “I believe Sara can be of help with your daughter’s situation.”
Moishe Raskin blinked his eyes and stared. Sara was already sixteen years old, but her schoolgirl braids made her look younger. “I’m sorry, Rabbi, but I don’t understand. I need a matchmaker, not a child.”
The rabbi scanned the sidewalk for anyone who might be listening. “Let us speak away from your other customers,” he suggested. Moishe led them through the store and up a flight of creaky back stairs. To the left was a storage space filled with sacks of salt, sugar, and caraway seeds. To the right, a small room with a long wooden desk, piled high with papers and ledger books. The three of them crowded around the desk and Moishe waited for the rabbi to begin.
“No one must know what we discuss here today. Moishe, do I have your word?”
The pickle man widened his eyes and nodded. “Of course you do, Rabbi. Of course.”
Rabbi Sheinkopf told the story of Hindel’s wedding, of what Sara had seen, and her extraordinary gift. He described Sara’s encounters with the Lewis Street shadchan, and the pressure from the neighborhood shadchanim.
Moishe scowled when the men were mentioned. “It was one of them—Shternberg from Orchard Street—who made such a mess for my poor Ida. I have no loyalty to any of them.”
Up to that moment, Sara had been silent, but now, curiosity forced her to speak. “Is Ida your daughter? What happened to her?”
To Sara’s shock, Moishe Raskin began to cry. Tears trickled down his ruddy cheeks, landing in the tangles of his beard. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose with a shameless blast. “No matter how successful my business grows,” he sniffled, “Ida is my greatest treasure.” He blew his nose a second time. “You tell her, Rabbi. Tell her the story. I don’t trust myself to speak.”
“Ida is Moishe’s only daughter and his youngest child. His middle son, Max, runs the farm on Long Island; and Herschel, his eldest, helps him here. Ida attends Barnard College, on the west side of the city.”
“I know of it,” Sara said, impressed. “Ida must be an excellent student.”
“Hoho!” Moishe Raskin interjected, a sliver of a smile hovering over his lips. “You can say that again.”
“Ida is bright and curious, very hardworking,” the rabbi agreed. “A year ago, Mr. Shternberg came to Moishe to discuss a young man of similar aptitude, then a student at Yale University. The young people met and were fond of each other. A wedding date was set for the end of May, but less than a month before the ceremony, Max saw Ida’s fiancé on Long Island, dancing with another woman.”
Moishe interrupted again. “Not only dancing! Kissing! Fondling!”
“Ida must have been devastated,” Sara said, at which point Moishe Raskin wiped away a tear. “You, at least, have a heart,” he said. “Shternberg, that bastard, saw no problem. He’ll stop such behavior when they’re married, he said. Remember, Moishe, they’re not married yet. You know what I said? A chazer bleibt a chazer. A pig stays a pig, is what I told him. Nobody changes overnight, and who wants to trust an animal like that? Shternberg said he would have a talk with the family, but I told him not to waste his time. No one treats my Ida that way, I said.”
“And what did Ida think of it?”
“Hoho!” Moishe said, slapping his fist on the desk. “Young lady, my daughter is nobody’s fool. As soon as her brother told her what he saw, she called off the wedding herself.” The pickle man’s eyes welled up again. “The problem is that the pig broke her heart.”
“And you haven’t met with Shternberg since?”
“Shternberg, Grossman, they’re all the same! The men they bring to us now—dreck! Ida won’t even consider them. The shadchanim tell me Ida is difficult. They don’t see my daughter for the jewel she is.”