The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [111]
“I began to do things differently now, to smarten up the business, to think more about myself. I went to night school and learned how to read and write in English and I discovered the joy to be found in books. I could not read enough! I bought a piano and taught myself to play. But I always kept alone. I was too afraid to be close with anyone, in case they knew that I was not a legal person, that I had no immigration papers for America. I had no identity in this country.”
Missie stared at him as he said finally, “I am not a person in America and not a person in Russia. I am no one. Just a pawnbroker.”
Her heart was bursting as she took his hand and laid it against her cheek, “Papers are not important,” she whispered, “it’s what you are, who you are. And you are a man of courage. I know you, Zev, just the way you know me and about me. We have shared our secrets. Now you are a person.”
Their journey back home that night was as silent as ever but he walked closer to her—not enough so that their hands touched, but closer. And when she said good night, she leaned forward and kissed him impulsively on the cheek. He knew that night as he returned to his shop that he was the happiest man on the Lower East Side of New York.
Rosa knew when Missie came through the door that she had not found a job. Her face was drawn and her eyes weary; even the flowers on her hat drooped.
“So?” she asked, determinedly cheerful. “It’s not the end of the world to be out of a job. It happens to everyone.” She stroked back her curly dark hair, smoothing the escaping tendrils into the knot at the nape of her neck, and then she put her hands on her hips and stared at Missie. The look of utter despair in her eyes frightened Rosa, and she hugged her like a mother hugging a child. “It’ll be all right, Missie,” she whispered, “I promise you. Meanwhile, I have five dollars hidden in my old samovar—safe from Meyer’s prying hands or it would all be gone on whiskey down at the union meetings. Take it. It’s better off with you.”
Missie shook her head. “I can’t take your money, Rosa,” she said quietly. “I know how you did without to save it.”
“For friends, it’s the same,” Rosa said quickly, taking the money from the samovar and pressing it into her reluctant hand. “Only worry about yourself, one more to feed here is no problem.” They looked at Azaylee sitting at the table eating supper with Rosa’s three little girls, one so blond, the others so dark, and Rosa laughed and said, “She looks like a changeling turned up on my doorstep, brought by the gypsies in the fairy tales.”
Missie sat at the table and Rosa put a glass of tea and a thick slice of bread spread with chicken fat in front of her. “A gypsy once told me that I would have a great responsibility, one that would change the world,” Missie said thoughtfully. “Do you think she meant looking after Azaylee? But if she did then how would Azaylee change the world?”
“Maybe she’ll grow up to become President of America,” Rosa said, sitting next to Missie and helping herself to more bread.
“When I grow up,” Azaylee chimed in, “I’m going to be a dancer.”
“Nu? A dancer is it?” Rosa laughed. “A ballerina, no less?”
“A ballerina,” Azaylee said firmly.
“You can’t be a ballerina,” Hannah retorted, “you don’t have a dress.”
“I can, I can,” Azaylee wailed. She threw her bread suddenly at Hannah, and they fell to the floor, wrestling.
Missie stared at her, shocked. “Azaylee!” she cried, hauling her off Hannah.
“It’s good she shows some spirit,” Rosa said calmly. “Hannah’s too bossy.”
“I will be a ballerina,” Azaylee said,