Ice Cream Town Page 3

  They had visitors.

  CHAPTER 5

  Orchard Street

  So, Mr. Levin. Your family, they have finally arrived.” A large woman with a coil of gray hair on top of her head smiled up at Papa. Her dress was black and her feet were encased in sturdy black shoes. She was holding a plate of freshly baked cookies, which she then set on the table. The warm, buttery smell made Sammy’s mouth water.

  Mrs. Baldani spoke in broken English, which Sammy couldn’t follow. He turned to his father, who translated her words into Yiddish. Father then translated the Yiddish answers back into English for Mrs. Baldani. “So, bambini (little ones), how you like New York?”

  “I d-d-don’t know yet,” Sammy stuttered. This whale of a woman frightened him, yet there was something warm and comforting about her, too.

  The woman reached over and patted his head. “Such nice black curls. Like an Italian boy. Luigi, come meet your new neighbor.” She waggled her hand at a boy who was slouched in the doorway. “Luigi!” she snapped when he didn’t budge.

  Slowly, the boy peeled himself away from the wall and crossed the room.

  Mrs. Baldani slapped his shoulder. “Say hello.”

  Luigi looked at Sammy and scowled. He was a head taller than Sammy, with dark hair that flopped over his right eye, black eyes like his mother, and an angry slouch. He looked like he was ready for a fight. Sammy took a step backward.

  Mrs. Baldani placed her hands on her wide hips. “Luigi is my oldest. Then there is Carlo, Dino, and my little Maria.” She put her arm around a girl who looked about two years younger than Sammy. She had the same dark eyes as Luigi, and her black braids were tied with red ribbons. The girl smiled shyly at Sammy.

  As Mrs. Baldani turned to speak to Malka, Luigi stepped up to Sammy. “Orchard Street is my territory,” he hissed in English. When Sammy didn’t respond, he pointed to the street then back to himself. “Mine,” he repeated, then turned and stalked out of the apartment.

  Sammy watched him go. He wasn’t sure what Luigi had said, but he was certain that the other boy was not going to be a friend.

  “So, I bring you sweets to say welcome to America.” Mrs. Baldani beamed and pointed to the dish of cookies she had placed on the table.

  Papa looked at them and shook his head. “Thank you very much, Mrs. Baldani, but I am afraid we cannot eat those. They are not kosher.”

  “I know about kosher rules. It is like being Catholic. We are not allowed to eat meat on Friday. Only fish. But kosher is not for cookies.”

  “Kosher is for everything,” Papa responded. “The cookies are not kosher because they were not baked in kosher dishes. We keep one set of dishes for milk and one for meat. We only eat meat that comes from a kosher butcher, and we cannot mix milk or cheese with meat. That is part of our religion.”

  He moved to the table and handed her the dish of cookies. “I thank you for your kindness. I am sure your children will enjoy these.”

  Sammy watched sadly as Mrs. Baldani took the cookies, said goodbye, and left with Maria.

  “Papa, couldn’t we have had just one cookie?” he asked as the door closed behind them.

  “Sammy, either you keep kosher or you don’t.” Papa patted his shoulder. “It has been a long day. Now we should all eat something and then go to sleep.”

  Later that night, Sammy climbed onto the fire escape and looked down through the iron slats. The August night was hot. Even at nine o’clock, people sat on doorsteps and fire escapes, talking and drinking soda from bottles. Someone had opened a fire hydrant, and a group of children were splashing noisily in the water that gushed into the street.

  As Sammy watched the street scene below, Maria stepped onto the Baldanis’ fire escape.

  “Hello.” She smiled and held out a big, round cookie studded with sugar. She placed the cookie in his hand.

  “Thank you,” Sammy said. Then, remembering the Italian word he had learned on Ellis Island, “Grazie.”

  “Ciao (Goodbye).” Maria smiled and slipped back through the window into her apartment.

  Sammy turned the cookie over and over in his hand. It wasn’t kosher. But it looked so good. His stomach gurgled. The sugar coating sparkled, and he could taste its sweetness melting on his tongue. He hesitated, then, with a quick look over his shoulder, he devoured it, licking his fingers until every last crumb was gone.

  When Sammy woke the next morning, Papa had already left for Drucker’s Coat Factory. He worked as a cutter, snipping fabric for the tailors to sew into men’s coats. Malka, her dress covered by a large white apron and her copper hair wrapped in a scarf, was scrubbing the kitchen. Sammy pulled on his pants and a shirt. After a breakfast of bread, butter, and milk, he slipped into his shoes, which were still stiff with seawater.

  “Don’t get into trouble!” Malka called after him as he dashed outside to explore his new world.

  Orchard Street was in a part of New York called the Lower East Side. Such a busy place Sammy had never imagined. The brick tenements were so close together that they looked like they were holding each other up. The street itself was crowded with stores. Peddlers stood beside their pushcarts selling fruit, vegetables, clothing, pots, pans, and dishes. A sway-backed horse, its pointy ears poking through holes in a straw hat, clopped by pulling a milk wagon. Men in working clothes carried metal lunch pails; children played on the sidewalk; and women leaned out of windows, beating carpets and calling to each other in mixtures of Yiddish, Polish, Russian, and German. Occasionally, an automobile would drive by, tooting its horn and sending people scampering for safety.

  In Logov, Sammy had a route he had taken every day, past familiar landmarks. Now he set out to establish his territory in this new neighborhood. Directly under his tenement was Lowenstein’s Kosher Butcher Shop, where live chickens cackled in cages and slabs of beef hung upside down in the window. Kaplan’s Creamery was next. He peeked inside. Mrs. Kaplan’s white hair was bundled into a hairnet. She was cutting wedges of cheese from rounds as big as wagon wheels. Next door at Schwartz’s Bakery, Mr. Schwartz pulled hot bagels and soft, doughy rye breads from his red-hot oven. Next was Rosen’s Delicatessen and Lunch, where a man in a white apron was slicing a pink slab of pastrami that oozed fat.

  What Sammy liked best about Orchard Street were the pushcarts. He quickly learned that Mr. Gershom, who had the best fruit and vegetable cart, was the meanest man on the block. He chased children away and slapped the hands of any adult who squeezed the apples and oranges. Then there was Laban the fish seller, who walked up and down the street carrying fresh fish in a basket on his arm and calling out, “Frisch fisch, frisch fisch (Fresh fish, fresh fish).”

  Sammy’s favorite street person was Yichel, the organ grinder. Yichel wore baggy trousers, a red and black plaid shirt, and a battered black hat with a red feather stuck in the headband. His monkey Simba, which he kept on a leash, wore a little red coat and matching hat. When you gave him a penny, Yichel made music by turning the organ’s crank, and Simba danced.

  This is my new home, Sammy thought as he walked up one side of the street and back down the other. Beyond it, streets like Delancy, Hester, and Stanton waited to be explored. But for those first exciting and confusing days, he stayed close to home, absorbing the sights, sounds, and smells. Staking out his territory gave Sammy a sense of place. He began to feel that he could fit into this strange new world.

  Then he met his mother’s family.

  CHAPTER 6

  The American Relatives

  Aunt Pearl was the first relative to visit. Before she arrived, Papa told Sammy and Malka that Pearl and her younger sister Tsippi had come to America with their parents in 1910. Aunt Pearl had been eighteen, and Aunt Tsippi had been twelve.

  “I was saving money to bring you and your mother here,” Papa told them. “Then the war started and I could not get you out. If I had brought you with me, your mother…” He lowered his head. For a minute, Sammy thought he might cry. Instead, he lifted his head and looked dire
ctly into Sammy’s eyes. “Your Aunt Pearl was very kind. She and your Uncle Milton took me in so I could save money. Remember that when you meet her.” His father blinked. “Aunt Pearl can be, er, a bit difficult.”

  Sammy thought of his father’s warning when Aunt Pearl arrived. From the moment she walked into the tenement, Sammy knew she was going to make trouble. Aunt Pearl was tall and stout, with a chest like soft pillows that almost smothered Sammy when she gave him a hug. Her hair was dark brown with gray streaks, and she had blue eyes that looked like ice chips when she was angry. Her husband Milton was a doctor, and they lived in what Aunt Pearl described as “a very modern apartment,” across the Williamsburg Bridge in Brooklyn. “With our own toilet and electricity,” she said, her nose sniffing the air like an anxious dog.

  “For now, I will speak Yiddish,” said Aunt Pearl, “but you must learn English because real Americans only speak English.”

  “Pearl,” Papa said, shaking his head. “Give them time. They only arrived this week.”

  “Rubin, you’ve been here for five years, and—you should excuse me for saying it—you still speak English like a greenie.”

  Papa rolled his eyes. “Yes, and you talk just like those rich women who come to the factory to buy coats so they can get them cheaper than in the stores.”

  Sammy knew his father was being sarcastic, but Aunt Pearl beamed as if he’d given her a compliment.

  The next thing Aunt Pearl did was inspect the apartment. “Such a place you bring my sister’s children to, Rubin,” she sniffed, looking at the water-stained walls and sagging sofa.

  She turned to her son, who was standing in the doorway. “Do not touch anything, Joshua. I do not want you should get germs.”

  Joshua wiped his hands on his pants.

  “I keep the apartment clean, Aunt Pearl.” Malka’s face turned as white as the Sabbath tablecloth.

  Aunt Pearl crossed the room, lifting her feet as if she were stepping over horse droppings. “You clean what you can, Malka, but in these tenements, the smells are in the walls.”

  “Mother, I want to go home.” Joshua held his nose. “It stinks in here.”

  “My poor baby.” Aunt Pearl smoothed a shock of hair off Joshua’s forehead. “Such a place he is not used to. Sammy, take Joshua outside for some fresh air.”

  Fresh air? Sammy thought. He wanted to take Joshua outside for a bloody nose.

  Papa sighed. “Sammy, go with your cousin downstairs.”

  So downstairs they went. Joshua stared at Sammy as if he had crawled out of a sewer. Not, thought Sammy, that Joshua looked so great. He was tall, like his mother, and skinny as a rail. His sandy hair stuck out like needles around his head. But he was wearing blue pants with a stiff white shirt and shiny black shoes, and he had money in his pocket. He kept jingling the coins to make sure Sammy heard them.

  “I don’t like greenies,” Joshua said.

  Aunt Pearl had called them greenies, too. Sammy looked at his hand. It was the same color as it had always been—kind of pale, with a few freckles across the knuckles.

  “Greenhorns, stupid. That’s what we Americans call people like you who are just off the boat.” Joshua spoke Yiddish as if the words were burning his mouth. “I was born here. I’m a real American.”

  At that point Aunt Pearl bounced down the stairs, walked over and took Sammy’s face in her hands. “You poor, poor baby,” she said, squeezing his cheeks. “Such a tragedy, losing your mother.” She turned to Joshua. “Next time, Sammy will come to us, so you two can play in a nice clean home.” As they walked away, Joshua turned and stuck out his tongue.

  Sure we’ll play together, Sammy thought. When the moon turns into cheese. I’d rather play with Simba.

  As Sammy turned to go back inside, he saw a boy who was bent almost double under a stack of coats piled on his back. Sammy had seen other boys carrying garments to and from the many coat and dress factories in the neighborhood, but this boy looked familiar. The broad shoulders and big hands—he was sure it was Max.

  Sammy called out, but the boy either didn’t hear him or didn’t want to talk. Before Sammy could catch up, the boy had trudged to the end of the street, turned into a doorway, and disappeared.

  Aunt Tsippi visited that evening. She walked over from her apartment on Hester Street, which was only a few blocks away. She didn’t turn her nose up at the Levins’ apartment, but she did ask why their landlord was still only promising electricity when her building was already wired.

  “When you come over, I’ll show you how I flick a switch to turn the lights on and off in every room,” she told Sammy.

  Sammy liked Aunt Tsippi. She told him that Aunt Pearl thought she was terrible because she was unmarried and made her own living. Later, Papa told them Aunt Pearl called Aunt Tsippi a spinster who couldn’t find a husband. He made the word “spinster” sound like a disease.

  Aunt Tsippi sold hats in a store on Broadway. She even made some of the hats herself. Every time Sammy saw her, she was wearing a new one. Some had feathers stuck in a headband, others were decorated with silk flowers or pieces of netting. Like Malka, Aunt Tsippi had coppery hair, which she twisted into a bun, and brown eyes that crinkled when she smiled. Sammy thought she looked like Mama before her illness.

  The difference between Aunt Pearl and Aunt Tsippi was that Aunt Pearl lectured Sammy and Malka, while Aunt Tsippi suggested ways to make things better. Sammy got angry when Aunt Pearl said their apartment was dark, but he felt good when Aunt Tsippi told them how lucky they were to have a front window that opened onto the street. Aunt Pearl called their tenement a firetrap; Aunt Tsippi took them out to the fire escape and showed them how to use it if they had to leave the building in a hurry. Which, she added, she was positive they would never have to do. While Aunt Pearl clucked and moaned over their sad condition, Aunt Tsippi found ways to brighten up their lives.

  “Malka, do you like America?” Sammy asked on Friday, as they prepared for their first Shabbos in New York. His thoughts drifted back to Logov. There, every Jewish home was scrubbed clean for the Sabbath, which started at sundown on Friday night. It was a day of rest that the small community celebrated together. He turned and looked out the window, which was open to catch whatever breeze happened to be blowing past. So far, the only thing coming through the opening was the smell of onions and the voices of children playing in the street. New York was so crowded. How could Shabbos ever be the same here?

  “I have to get used to living here. It is not like I thought it would be.” Malka’s eyes filled with tears. She blinked them away as she took a braided challah (bread) out of the oven and set it on the windowsill to cool.

  “And why is Papa hardly ever at home?” Sammy asked.

  “He works extra hours at the coat factory,” answered Malka. “And sometimes he goes to union meetings.”

  “Why does he go to those?”

  “Because his boss, Mr. Shapiro, doesn’t pay his employees enough money. Papa says that all the workers in garment factories want better pay and working conditions.”

  “I thought Papa came to America to stop fighting with people,” Sammy said.

  Malka sighed. “In Poland, Papa was a tailor. He worked for many years to learn how to make coats and suit jackets for all the men in the village. People respected him for his skill. Now he is in a big factory, and all he does is cut out backs, fronts, and sleeves for other people to sew into coats.”

  Like the pieces Sammy had seen that boy carrying up Orchard Street. He wondered again if it had been Max. Sammy knew that the factories were awful places to work. On his second day in New York, he had brought Papa his lunch. He had found his father bent over a table, his shirt soaked with sweat because of the terrible heat. The factory was crowded and dirty.

  “Papa is trying to make the working conditions in the factories better.” Malka handed Sammy three plates, and he set them on the table. The dishes were from Aunt Pearl. Each one had a chip.

  “Malka, even when Papa i
s home, he hardly talks to us. He just sits in his chair and reads the Jewish papers he buys at the newsstand.”

  Malka went into the kitchen and removed a mound of dough from a bowl. “He reads the papers because they tell him what is happening in the world. And he works long hours because it is expensive to live here.”

  Sammy looked around the shabby apartment. Malka had tried to make it cheerful. But the lacy white curtains she had sewn for the front window were already gray from the soot in the air. No amount of scrubbing could cover the smell of chicken soup and cabbage, overflowing toilets, and too many people living in small, crowded spaces.

  Malka took a handful of flour from a sack on the counter and sprinkled it on a wooden board. Placing the dough on the board, she rolled it flat, sliced it into long, thin strips, and dropped the strips into a pot of boiling soup. She wiped her floury hands on her apron, and then gave Sammy a hug.

  “It will get better, Sammy. Aunt Tsippi gave me her old sewing machine, and next week I will start sewing piecework at home. Maybe when we have more money, Papa will work less and be happier.”

  “I want to get a job, too.”

  “No. I know your heart is in the right place. You want to help, but you can do that by going to school.” Malka replaced the lid on the soup pot. “There will be time for you to work when you grow up. Now, finish setting the table. Papa will be home soon for Shabbos.”

  No, Sammy thought. That was not enough. He needed to do more.

  Papa came home, and they prepared for the Sabbath meal. Malka had covered the table with a starched white cloth, and now she placed the braided challah on the table. Next, she tied a kerchief over her head, lit the Shabbos candles, and recited the blessing, moving her hands over the flames, the way Mama had done. Tears stung behind Sammy’s eyelids.

  “Sammy.” Papa turned to him as if he’d suddenly remembered he was there. “Please sing the kiddush (the blessing over the wine) with me,” he said.

  Sammy shook his head. “I don’t sing, Papa.”