The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [97]
After sliding her hand from under his, she began to polish the counter. “In that case I’d better say yes,” she said calmly, “but remember, I will have Azaylee with me.”
“Of course,” he said, beaming, “of course Azaylee will be with you.” He didn’t care if she brought a whole troop of kids. She had agreed to come.
Missie hurried back to Rivington Street with her morning’s earnings, a single dollar, in her pocket. She stopped at Zabar’s pushcart and bought a spray of fabric roses and a length of yellow ribbon for fifteen cents, and blushing at daring to spend so much money on herself, she hurried up the stairs to Rosa Perelman’s apartment.
Rosa’s place could be called an apartment because it had two rooms, and with three children she needed them. Her husband, Meyer Perelman, was twenty-five years older; he was from Poland and spoke only Polish and Yiddish. Rosa was only twenty-five herself, and had been born right here on the Lower East Side, of Estonian immigrant parents. She spoke English and Yiddish, as well as a smattering of Russian, but very little Polish, so communications between them were limited. For two dollars a week she had added Azaylee to her own brood, and she fed and looked after her as if she were her own while Missie was at work. And over the weeks since Sofia died, she had become her friend. She smiled as Missie tapped on the door and walked in.
“Nu, shane, there you are,” Rosa said, pleased. “You’re just in time, I was fixing a glass of tea. And a little treat I saved for us.”
She handed Missie a tall steaming glass and a plate with a few small biscuits. “From Gertel’s bakeshop on Hester,” she said, “and just like my own mother used to make.” Her face lighted up as she took a bite. “Better, even. Don’t worry,” she added, noticing Missie’s restless glance, “the children are out in the street, under my eldest, Sonia’s, eye. And she knows she’ll catch it from me if she takes that eye off them for one minute. Anyway,” she added with a giggle, “it gives you and me a bit of peace to catch up on ourselves, doesn’t it?”
Missie laughed. She liked Rosa. She was small and round with beautiful black shiny hair, dark brown eyes, and soft features, and even though matters were difficult between her and her husband, she always managed a smile and a joke. Nothing would get Rosa down for long. It just wasn’t in her nature to brood on her misfortunes, the worst of which, Missie thought, was having been “sold” to her husband by her unscrupulous father.
It had all been arranged through a marriage broker, Rosa had told her. The matchmaker had said this man was big news in business in Philadelphia. He had come to the house to meet her family, and she had been shocked when she had seen how old he was—almost as old as her father. She herself was just seventeen, younger even than Missie. Meyer had been polite, but he hadn’t smiled and his hand had felt sweaty when he shook hers. All evening he had practically ignored her, sitting around the table telling her father what a big man he was in cloaks and suits in Philadelphia, and she could see her father twirling his beard and looking interested and her mother smiling and bringing out the best glasses and the Shabbas tablecloth, as if he were the rabbi himself come to visit.
She had hidden her hands behind her back when he came to leave, refusing to shake his, and her father had glared at her angrily, apologizing for her bad manners. And there had been an unholy row that night when she had demanded to know why, if Meyer Perelman was such a big man in cloaks and suits in Philadelphia, he didn’t yet speak English.
“He’s from Poland,” her mother had explained.
“So? And why then did he not attend night school like everybody else and learn to speak?”
Her father had slapped her then and called her an ungrateful daughter. There he was paying good money to the matchmaker and all she did was shame him in front of a good, honest man, a man who would work