The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [103]
The brass hands on the big wooden wall clock moved one minute nearer to four and he stared anxiously at the window. It was already dark and he must close … but a few more minutes, just in case she was late….
At ten past four he locked the door, turned the sign to “Closed,” and walked sadly through to the back room. She had never been late before, and he knew now she wasn’t coming. Though she hadn’t mentioned it, he knew O’Hara had closed the saloon last week, and he guessed she was out of a job and didn’t have the money.
Wearing his black overcoat and hat, he walked through the icy streets to shul, but he did not linger afterward among the families greeting each other on the temple steps.
Back in his room he lighted the Sabbath candles in his mother’s precious candlesticks and sat for a while alone, thinking of Missie. She had already paid him eighteen of the fifty dollars and he knew that when she had paid all of the fifty, he would never see her again.
On an impulse he stood up, put on his coat and hat, locked the door carefully behind him, and strode determinedly around the corner. Rivington Street was still littered with the day’s refuse from the pushcarts and bits of torn newspapers fluttered skyward in the icy wind; cats and dogs scavenged and fought for the fishtails and scraps of offal, and he wrinkled his nose fastidiously against the smell.
He knew where she lived. He had walked past her building many times and he paused as he always did, staring up at the window he knew was hers. A lamp glowed behind the thin curtain. He hesitated, glancing down at the ground and then back up at the window. Usually he just waited awhile, hoping she might appear, but now he hurried across the street and into the building.
The hallway was crowded with the unwanted junk of a dozen families, a broken chair, splintered apple crates, an iron-rimmed wheel from a pushcart, papers and bottles, and the pervading tenement smells of garbage and urine. From behind the closed doors along the narrow stairway came the sounds of a shrill argument and a woman crying. A baby screamed, somebody laughed, and music blared loudly from a phonograph.
Zev climbed the ill-lighted stairs, avoiding the grimy banister that had been greased by a thousand filthy hands. “How can she bear it?” he asked himself again. “Such a baryshnya, such a lady.”
He rapped on the door, coughing nervously behind his hand as he waited.
Viktor barked loudly and Azaylee sat up, yawning and rubbing her eyes. “Matiushka,” she said, “there’s someone at the door.”
She turned from the sink, astonished. “But who could it be?”
Azaylee laughed. “I don’t know,” she said.
Missie thought for a minute. It couldn’t be the rent because she had paid that this morning, though she had no idea where she would get the money to pay next week’s. Smoothing her hair, she hurried to the door.
“Excuse me if I am disturbing you,” Zev said, taking off his hat politely, “but you did not come today.”
Missie’s hand flew to her mouth guiltily. “Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Abramski, but I couldn’t. I just didn’t have the money. I … I’m afraid I’m out of a job, you see. Please, will next week be all right? I’m sure to find something by then.”
She looked shaken and he realized that she thought he had come to demand his money. “No, no, is all right of course, not to worry,” he reassured her quickly. “It was … I just … the fact is, I wanted to see you.”
His dark eyes looked at her pleadingly and Missie stepped back. Holding open the door, she said, “Please, Mr. Abramski, won’t you come in?”
The dog growled at him standing nervously just inside the door and the little girl said, “Hello, I’m Azaylee. Who are you?”
He coughed nervously. “Abramski, Zev Abramski, from Orchard Street.”
Azaylee nodded. “My friend Rachel Cohen lives there.”
“Won’t you sit down?” Missie asked.
He sat politely upright on the wooden chair she offered and glanced around the room. Her home. Everything was spotless, a