The Matchmaker's Gift(58)

At half past five the front door opened again, and a woman approximately Sara’s age bounded energetically into the store. She tilted her head as she moved farther inside and sniffed the air with obvious interest. Miryam noted the woman’s gesture and apologized for the unusual aroma. “We’ve just had a customer from the knish shop,” she said. “I hope the smell doesn’t bother you.”

The young woman smiled and twirled one reddish curl around the tip of her pointer finger. “The knish shop?” she asked. “Do you know which one?”

“I wasn’t aware there were two,” Miryam said.

“Oh yes,” the young woman said earnestly. “They’re directly across the street from each other—a few blocks west, on Delancey Street. I prefer the knishes from Klein’s myself.”

“I can’t say I’ve visited either,” Miryam admitted.

Baruch Tunchel chimed in from the corner. “Ach, all this talk is making me hungry.”

“It’s no wonder,” the young woman said, grinning. “It’s getting late and I don’t want to keep you—I’m here to pick up a pair of spectacles for my father.” She cleared her throat. “His name is Abe Klein.” She winked.

Miryam laughed. “That explains your personal preference then! Let me go fetch them for you, Ms. Klein. I won’t be more than a minute.”

While she waited, the young woman walked the length of the shop, scanning the eye charts and examining the displays. When she saw Morty Finkel’s broken glasses on the counter, she wrinkled her nose. “I hope these aren’t for sale,” she said.

“No, no,” Baruch told her amiably. “A customer stepped on them—a real klutz.”

“That explains it.” She reached for the glasses, arched a single eyebrow, and placed them jokingly on her own face. “How do I look?” she asked, striking a pose.

The flash of light that burst forth from the frames caused Sara to look up from her ledger book. She sucked in a breath and put her head back down.

Baruch chuckled and tapped the counter. “On such a pretty face, I wouldn’t even notice they were broken.”

“What a sweet thing to say!” Miss Klein answered. “I hope you’re still hungry tomorrow, Mr. Tunchel, because I’m going to bring you the best knish you ever tasted.”



* * *



That night Sara lay awake in the dark, debating what to do about what she had seen. The bills were coming faster than ever now, and she knew only one way to make them stop. Having made good on the first of her promises to her father, she was no longer sure she could keep the second. “I finished school, Papa,” she whispered to herself. “But I do not think I will ever marry, and I can’t postpone my calling forever.”

When Esther and Nathan Weisman had wed, Sara refused to accept payment of any kind. Other than the rabbi and Esther herself, she had spoken to no one about the match. Her mother and siblings suspected, of course, but she never revealed the specifics to them. Still, the wedding of Sara Glikman’s former beau to Rabbi Sheinkopf’s beloved niece was too much of a coincidence for the shadchanim to ignore. The wedding had resurrected their suspicions about her, and they had revived their campaign of silent harassment.

Shternberg’s nephew and Grossman’s sons seemed to be lurking everywhere now—skulking on her corner when she left in the mornings; hanging about the market on her shopping days; following her home from the rabbi’s apartment and glaring at her from across the street. She told herself it was best to ignore them, to stay inside as much as possible rather than to risk their intimidating stares. When she was little and would run to a library twenty blocks away instead of visiting the branch closer to home, her father would say: Why push so hard, Sara? Why look so far away? Better to stay close and be satisfied with what is here. Better to stay home and help your mother and sister. When Sara had asked why, her father had looked sad, and when she pressed him further, he had murmured something quietly under his breath.

If you stay at home, you won’t wear out your boots.



* * *



But as the days wore on, and the stack of bills grew higher on her mother’s bedside table, Sara felt a restlessness stirring from deep within. It woke her one night with a vicious start, like a splintering in the center of her chest. It was a break so sharp and blatant and real that it made her sit up and gasp for air. At first, she thought it was her vow—the promise to her father she could no longer keep.

But then, as her heart quieted itself, she realized what had finally shattered was her fear.

Since she was thirteen years old, Sara had followed the shadchanim’s rules. For eight years, she had molded herself according to the whims of a covetous group of unfeeling old men. She had let them bully and intimidate her—not only into abandoning her gift, but into forfeiting a lucrative livelihood as well. Everyone she knew—even those who loved her most—had taught her that this was the only way to survive, that conformity and submission to ancient traditions was, in the end, for her own good.

And so, for eight years she had hidden her talents, squirreled them away like so many nuts in an endless, sunless, frozen winter. She had made herself small. She had cowered in corners. She had allowed the shadchanim to erase who she was. And what was the result of all that obedience? Her family was hungry. Her sister, exhausted. Her brothers humiliated and unemployed. They lived together in a place that could barely contain them—without privacy, pleasure, or modern plumbing. She was lonely and unfulfilled. What did she have left to lose?