Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [121]
Leah had turned nineteen and was an operator in a small neighborhood beauty parlor. She was a chronic complainer, who seemed to be continually plagued by some exotic, unexplainable distress. Working on her feet all day was a perpetual curse. She mumbled to herself that she should go to secretarial school as her mother unhooked her shoes and massaged her feet.
“Where are Fanny and Pearl?”
“With boys, down at the penny arcade, where else?”
Lazar came in a few moments later, bussed his mother and sister dutifully, gave Hannah his pay envelope, and retired to the bathroom with a newspaper.
The women sipped. Leah knew immediately that her mother had that shiddach expression on her face. It was a subject Leah really hated to get into. She sighed and awaited the bad news.
“I have been spoken to,” Hannah started, “about a match.”
“No matches, Momma,” Leah responded quickly. “You yourself have said a thousand times that this is America and we will make up our own minds.”
“I know, darling, but this has some unique aspects.”
“The lord mayor’s son, or some German millionaire from uptown?” Leah mocked.
“I only want that my daughters should avoid a catastrophe such as befell me.”
“So, who’s the lucky suitor?”
“For one minute, listen to Momma. I am trying, with all my heart and soul, to steer you into a comfortable situation. First, I want that you shouldn’t have to starve and scrape for every penny. I want for you a man of some little means, who can provide for you a nice home. And a man who, God forbid, is not a stingy dog like your father.” Upon mention of Moses, Hannah made as if to spit on the floor. “Dowries are becoming a thing of the past. Here, in America, there is not only a freedom of choice, but there are also more eligible men than women to marry them. Here a man will even pay a pretty penny for a suitable wife.”
“That’s what you thought when you married Poppa.”
“Believe me, Leah, I would not, for a single minute, consider a man who was not a kind and gentle person. ... Do you think I would talk shiddach with someone as disgusting as Moses Balaban?” Again she made a spitting gesture.
“Not only a kind and gentle man,” Hannah said, “but someone who is not out to conquer the world. These Socialists, these Communists, these street-corner agitators, I tell you, go home and make their wives and children miserable. What a woman needs, all things considered, is a nice, quiet, weak man, who can be controlled by his wife.”
“Suppose I want someone with more spirit,” Leah retorted.
“The bigger the spirit, the bigger the trouble, take my word.”‘
“So you want I should marry a nebish.”
“A kind, gentle person who makes a living. Am I a criminal?”
The water pan on the wood stove came to a boil. Hannah took it to the water pump and mixed some cold water in to temper it. She placed the pan on the floor and added Epsom salts. Leah inched her feet into it and groaned with pleasure.
“What is it with Jewish men, Momma? What is it that makes our race produce so many miserly family abusers?”
“What is it? Nu, I’ll tell you what it is. For two thousand years Jewish men have suffered nothing but humiliations and defeats. They must live through pogroms and massacres and watch helpless to even defend their families. And when there is no pogrom, the goyim never stop spitting down on them, not for a minute. In the old country it was impossible for a Jewish man to make a normal living. What they got was the dreck left over that the goyim didn’t want. What does this do to a man, to his sense of manliness? It crushes it. So the Jewish man hides inside of his religion. He has no means to fight back, so he prays and justifies his cowardice from wisdoms in the Talmud. And when the world crashes down on his head, who can he strike out at? Where can he get rid of his frustrations? Only on his family. If you have no country to fight for, you have no heroes to copy. All you have is wife beaters.