The Matchmaker's Gift(8)
The next Saturday morning, Abby’s doorman buzzed to say two boxes had arrived. Once she got them into her apartment, she ran a kitchen knife through the layer of duct tape that held the first of them together. Abby assumed they contained a few cookbooks, or possibly her grandmother’s candlesticks. Nothing of any real value, she was certain.
She swore she could smell the faintest hint of her grandmother’s chicken soup wafting up from the cardboard flaps. But when she pulled them back, the smells were different—dust and paper, a whisper of whiskey. Six leather-bound journals, in various sizes, were stacked on top of each other. The second box contained more of the same—though the books were newer, and some were binders. Abby’s hands shook as she traced her fingers over the covers.
She decided to begin with the pile of older books first and, of those, the most ancient-looking volume. She blinked at the date printed on the inside cover. 1910. The year her grandmother had come to the United States.
Abby scanned the Yiddish words that filled the first faded pages. Although she knew very little of the language, she was able to recognize a handful of words and names: Hindel Glikman, 18, kallah. Aaron Ambromovich, 22, chossen. Hindel, of course, was her grandmother’s sister, eighteen years old, listed as “bride.” Aaron Ambromovich was Hindel’s husband, the man she had met on the deck of the ship to New York. Chossen, Abby knew, was the Yiddish word for “groom.” Although there were other notes written beneath the names, Abby could not make sense of any of them. According to the stories Abby had heard, the couple married in 1910, a few months after they arrived in America.
The next several pages were filled with sketches—a drawing of a dog, the Williamsburg Bridge. In 1910, Abby’s grandmother would have been just ten years old.
Somewhere toward the end of the volume, the doodles and drawings came to an end. English letters replaced the Hebrew, and the year—1913—was scrawled in black ink. Abby knew that her grandmother—unlike many of the poorest children at the time—had attended public school. It was there that she learned to read and write in English.
Abby’s heart leapt when she saw the writing. What a gift it would be to have her grandmother’s diaries, to learn about Sara’s early life in her own words!
But the notes were not exactly what Abby had hoped for. Instead of a diary, the book read more like a catalogue. The first entry began with a pair of names. Miryam Nachman, age 20, bride. Jacob Tunchel, age 21, groom. A diverse collection of information followed: Miryam was the youngest of three children. Her father’s occupation was listed as “scribe,” a craftsman who used traditional Hebrew calligraphy for religious items like mezuzah scrolls and marriage contracts. According to the records, she was “artistic.” She liked to read; she was “stylish.” She worked trimming hats for a milliner.
Jacob Tunchel lived on Stanton Street. His mother had passed away on May 30, 1912. According to Sara’s notes, he was studying optometry and worked alongside his father in the eyeglass business. Apparently, he had an “entertaining sense of humor.” At the bottom of the entry, a few cryptic words were scrawled in messy, tiny script: The heart is big enough to hold both grief and love.
As she flipped through the remainder of the notebook, Abby found half a dozen similar entries—couples with old-world names and details, their backgrounds, their jobs, their family histories. Other notebooks were filled with descriptions of eligible men or marriageable women instead of couples. Photographs and cards and newspaper clippings were tucked into the crevices between the pages.
Abby sank down to the cheap parquet floor of her apartment and wrapped her thin arms around her knees. She felt a great weariness creeping in, as if she’d begun a long race and only now discovered that someone had moved the finish line. She had found some peace with her grandmother’s death, but now these books raised a thousand new questions. What did her grandmother want Abby to glean from them? How could she make sense of all the pages left behind? Only the strength of Abby’s curiosity kept her from giving in to fresh heartache.
She stood up from the floor and surveyed the heap of leather volumes. Somewhere in this stack of washed-out scribbles were the tales Abby’s grandmother wanted to tell. Sara had trusted Abby to find them—trusted she would pore through the mountain of papers in order to piece the stories together. Somewhere in this remarkable collection were the lessons Sara wanted Abby to learn.
One day, my brilliant skeptic, I’ll be gone, and all of my stories will belong to you. When the time comes, try to remember what I taught you. Who knows? Maybe you’ll make a few love matches of your own.
THREE
SARA
1913
Will You Sue a Child for a Piece of Chicken?
Despite the rabbi’s astonishing declaration, Sara did not think again about making matches until three years had passed. In that time, she’d come to recognize the contradictory nature of her new home: New York was a place of limitless opportunity and shocking scarcity all at once.
The eight of them (including Hindel and her husband) lived together on Cannon Street in a three-room apartment with a hallway toilet shared by too many occupants. The center room was distinguished from the other two by the presence of a heavy iron stove and a trough-like sink attached to one wall. “It’s not so terrible,” their mother insisted, but her eyes told an altogether different story. They lingered on the flakes of peeling paint, the dusty floors, the water-stained ceiling.