Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [78]
I thought all the time of running away. Not such an easy matter. I was a prisoner in golden handcuffs. Despite Tante Sonia’s beautiful home and the food, I had no railroad ticket, no money in my pocket, and Uncle Boris kept my passport in the safe in his office.
Fate stepped in.
After almost two years and the passing of my seventeenth birthday, I developed a cough. Probably I had breathed in half the coal dust in southern Russia. Within a week, the cough became so bad I was unable to report for work. After another week, Tante Sonia finally took me to a doctor, but he failed to share with me the results.
For the Borokovs to stop sending my parents the eight rubles a week because the son is being worked into an early grave presented for the Borokovs a delicate problem. It all unfolded at a Sabbath dinner.
“The time has come,” Uncle Boris said with great aplomb. “Nathan, you will move into the office and learn the books.”
Tilly giggled.
“To be utterly candid,” I replied, “I am not finding the coal business as enriching an experience as I had hoped.”
“From the outside, coming to the inside, you will find things much different,” he assured me.
“God forbid I should sound ungrateful for your generosity, but there are other problems as well,” I said.
“What possible problems could you have?” Tante Sonia interjected indignantly. “We are feeding you like a dog, maybe? Your room is not spotless? Your clothing is rags?”
“It’s just that ...”
“What?” they demanded jointly.
“I don’t have any time off, not to read or anything. I haven’t even been to the library.”
“But this is a promotion, Nathan. Going to work in the office is automatic shorter hours.”
Tilly giggled.
“I don’t feel so good about being a Jew here,” I finally blurted out.
“And who understands that better than I do?” Uncle Boris intoned, slipping into a profound mood. “You cannot say that your Uncle Boris is not a Jew. I have given sons to Palestine, gladly. However, Nathan, you will learn that living quietly, away from all the problems of the shtetl is not such a difficult adjustment. For those of us smart enough to get along, we make for ourselves a very comfortable life.”
I didn’t argue back, but in a million years I could not feel at ease in a jungle of Ukrainians. “I don’t have a kopek in my pocket to spend,” I croaked.
“Uncle Boris and I have talked it over and decided to give you a pay raise of two rubles a week,” Tante Sonia said. “One ruble, I insist, should go into savings. The other ruble, mad money. Put it in your pocket, go to the cinema, do with it what you want. Make merry!”
So, why are they behaving this way to me now? Are they sorry for how they have worked me? Did an angel come in the middle of the night and threaten them to be good to Nathan, or else? All I could say of the moment, it was not typical Borokov.
A few nights later it occurred to me exactly what was unfolding. I was taking a pish in the thunderbowl, which was kept under my bed, when all of a sudden I heard that giggle. It was muffled, but unmistakable. I had never given much thought to it, in my innocence, but Tilly’s room was connected to mine and there was a transom between us. It was covered with special paper, but on close examination I found that some of it was scratched away and so, standing on a chair, she could look directly into my room. God only knows, she may have been watching me sit on the pot for weeks, even months.
What a stupid I’d been.
My beloved mother, Sophie, and Tante Sonia had made a shiddach for me with—GOD SAVE ME—Tilly Borokov. A plot hatched over three thousand miles. I needed some kind of confirmation.
There was an old