Peter and Veronica (2 page)

“I’m just closing up,” said Uncle Jake. “What are you doing here?”

“My friend and I were skating.”

“Good!” said Uncle Jake. “Hello,” he said, smiling at Veronica, who leaned against the door. “And how’s Mama?” he continued to Peter.

“Oh, she’s fine.”

“And Papa?”

“He’s fine.”

“And Rosalie?”

“Fine.”

“Anything new with Rosalie?”

“What do you mean new?”

“I mean how’s her boy friend?”

“Oh, he’s fine.”

“Anything new with her boy friend?”

“What do you mean new?”

“Nothing new.” Uncle Jake sighed. “So come in, come in,” he shouted heartily to Veronica, who was still leaning against the door. “Very nice of you to come see me, both of you. Do you want a knish?”

“Boy, do I!” said Peter.

“What kind?”

“Do you have any kasha left?”

Uncle Jake inspected the tray under the counter, selected one, wrapped it in a napkin, and handed it to Peter.

“And you, girlie, what would you like? We’ve got kasha, cabbage, and potato left.”

“What’s a knish?” Veronica asked.

“What’s a knish?” Uncle Jake repeated. “You mean you never ate a knish?”

Veronica shook her head.

“Potato,” said Uncle Jake, wrapping one up in a napkin. “Here, take a potato.” He reached over the counter, and Veronica took it from him and looked at it, but did not eat it.

“Go ahead, eat,” Uncle Jake urged.

Veronica took a little nibble. Uncle Jake and Peter watched her as she slowly chewed and then swallowed. She took another bite. “Hey, it’s good,” she said.

Peter finished his and licked some pieces of the salty pastry left in his napkin. Uncle Jake silently handed him another one.

“What’s in yours?” asked Veronica.

“Kasha.”

“What’s that?”

Peter held his out and she took a bite, made a face, and said, “I like mine better.”

“That’s because you’re just beginning,” said Uncle Jake, holding out another potato knish toward her. “After a while, you’ll like the kasha too.”

“Well, I guess we’d better be going now,” said Peter.

“That’s right. It’s getting dark, and Mama’ll be looking for you. Say hello from me. I’ll come by maybe Sunday.

“Goody-by, Uncle Jake, and thanks for the knishes.”

“Good-by,” Veronica murmured, “and thank-you.”

“Good-by. Nice meeting you, and come again,” said Uncle Jake.

Outside, the cold, March night flew at them and they held the remains of their hot knishes under their noses, enjoying the mingling of the two worlds of warm and cold.

“He’s nice, your uncle,” Veronica said, sighing, “nicer than my uncle.”

“I’ve got a lot of uncles,” said Peter, “but Uncle Jake’s the nicest. What’s your uncle?”

“Uncle Charles. He’s got a diner near West Farms.”

Peter stopped smelling the fading warmth of his knish. “Let’s go visit him sometime.”

“Well,” Veronica said carefully, “my mother’s not talking to him. I haven’t seen him for a couple of years, but once he gave us a big lemon meringue pie.” She began skating, and Peter swallowed the remains of his knish and hurried along beside her.

“Well, here goes,” he said.

A raindrop fell on his nose, then another, and then another.

“It’s raining,” Veronica chortled, and by the time they had hooked onto a trolley for the return trip, the rain had plastered their hair down on their heads, run down the collars of their jackets, and transformed the streets into a glistening pool of lights. ‘You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,” Veronica sang, and Peter laughed and held on with both hands.

“Peter?”

He laid the skates down in the hall, shook off the top layer of raindrops from every part of him, pulled his wet handkerchief out of his wet pocket, dabbed at his face, and quickly smoothed his hair. It was all futile anyway, he knew, because she was sure to fuss.

He walked into the living room and braced himself. A strange woman sat on the couch and she smiled and nodded at him. But Mama got up from her chair and said, “What happened to you? You’re soaking wet. Where were you?”

“Oh ... around,” Peter said vaguely, and then added hopefully, “I better go change.”

“Take off your shoes and socks right away,” Mama said sharply. If the lady wasn’t there, she would have gone on for a while, but out of politeness for her guest she held off mentioning all the other articles of clothing, seen and unseen, that should be removed.

“This is my boy,” she said to the guest, “my Peter. You remember Mrs. Rappaport, don’t you, Peter?”

“Uh, I think so,” Peter said politely. “How do you do, Mrs. Rappaport.”

“Nice boy,” Mrs. Rappaport said, smiling to Mama. “How old is he?”

“Twelve.” Mama rested a warm, plump hand on his shoulder. “He’ll be thirteen in May.”

“Like my grandson,” Mrs. Rappaport said, “Rachel’s boy. But he’s much taller.”

Mama’s hand stiffened on his shoulder, and he said, “I better go change, Mama.”

“You should give him lots of milk,” Mrs. Rappaport said, “and liver. He’d grow taller if he ate liver.”

“Kinnahura,
he eats fine,” Mama said coldly, “and he’s growing fast. He’s like my brother, Irving. He didn’t grow until he was thirteen and now he’s over six feet. It’ll be the same with my Peter.”

Peter squirmed unhappily under Mama’s hand. He didn’t like being short, and every time Mama said how fast he was growing—and she’d been saying it for years—he felt worse.

“I better go change,” he said.

But Mama’s hand held him. “Reads all the time,” Mama said. “Such books! You wouldn’t believe it.”

“My grandson too,” Mrs. Rappaport said airily.

“The smartest one in the class,” Mama continued.

Peter  writhed  desperately,  and  said,  “Ma,   I  better ...”

“Like my grandson,” echoed Mrs. Rappaport.

“Been on the honor roll every single term since he started school,” Mama said.

There was no response from Mrs. Rappaport.

“I saved them,” Mama said, pressing her advantage. “I’ll show them to you.”

“Very nice,” Mrs. Rappaport said coldly. She looked at Peter. “You go to
cheder?”
she asked.

“Uh, huh.”

“And you should hear what the Hebrew School teacher said to me last week,” said Mama. “He said my Peter’s the best, that’s just what he said, the best student he ever had. He said Peter could get a scholarship to the Yeshiva if he wanted, and study to be a rabbi.”

Mrs.  Rappaport stood up.  “I’m going,” she said

“No, no,” Mama said. “Stay a while. Sol should be home from synagogue soon.”

Mrs. Rappaport remained standing, but she said to Peter, “It’s raining outside?”

“Pouring,” Peter said.

“How come you went out on such a day?”

“Library?” Mama murmured.

“No, I was skating with my friend,” Peter said, “and it wasn’t raining when we started.”

“Skating?” Mrs. Rappaport said, raising her eyebrows. She sat down. “Skating? A big boy like you.”

Mama’s hand stiffened again on his shoulder.

“Lots of kids my age do,” Peter said uncomfortably. “My friend is thirteen and a half.”

“A Jewish boy?” asked Mrs. Rappaport.

“No, a girl.”

“A Jewish girl?”

“No ...”

“Peter,” Mama cried, “go change! You’re soaking wet. Why are you standing there like that?” She gave him a little push toward his bedroom, and as he hurried off he heard Mrs. Rappaport say, “A very nice boy, but you got to be careful. Even at his age, you never know ...”

Everything was wet. Peter pulled all his clothes off and put on dry things. But he stayed in his room and wandered around restlessly. After a while he opened the door a crack and listened. He could hear voices from the living room, Papa’s voice too, but she was still there so he closed the door again. Wouldn’t she ever go home?

He moved over to the bookcase and pulled out one of his library books, a big one entitled
Snakes and Other Reptiles,
and settled down at his desk. But he didn’t feel like reading now, so he put it back and noticed a couple of stamps on the floor. Mama had been cleaning again, yanking out his stamp album and all his other books in her endless pursuit of fugitive specks of dust. He clenched his teeth, and then suddenly his heart began pounding as he wondered if she’d found it. Quickly he pulled out the M volume of the
Wonderland of Knowledge
encyclopedia, opened to page 117, and relaxed. His pamphlet, sent to him through the mail for twenty-five cents, and entitled “Basic Body Building Exercises for Boys,” lay there untouched. But he’d better find another place for it. Where though? Was there any place safe from Mama? His chest of drawers? No. She was continually arranging and rearranging his socks and underwear. The closet? No. She liked to take all the clothes out and vacuum every couple of months. Under his mattress? Even that was no good, because she had this thing about bedbugs and was forever spraying Flit on the mattress and the bedsprings.

Peter sat down on the bed and allowed himself a short but intense moment of self-pity. Was there no place in the whole world that belonged to him and only him? What about the desk? He had inherited the desk from cousin Jeffrey who was now grown-up and married. It had a lock in the middle drawer but no key. But he could have a key made for it, couldn’t he? Maybe Marv could help him remove the lock from the desk. Then he could take it over to the locksmith and have a key made. Beautiful!

Peter grinned, but his smile faded as another problem presented itself. Where would he keep the key? Well—maybe wear it around his neck. No. He hated things around his neck. Maybe over at Marv’s house, and he could go and get it whenever he needed it. But Marv had a mother, too, who was always cleaning. There was Jack Tarr whose mother was dead, but he lived over on 166th Street and that was too far away.

So—where could he keep the key: in his shoe, maybe, or ... wonderful ... now he had it. Quickly he opened his window and reached out, feeling around the side of the building until he found the old hook. A wash line had once hung there, but now only the hook remained. He could hang the key on a string and suspend it from the hook. She’d never find it there.

In the meantime, Peter put the pamphlet back in the M volume and replaced it on the shelf. Since she’d just dusted, he figured he had about a week’s grace, and in that time he’d make sure to get a key.

He picked the stamps up off the floor, took out his stamp album, and settled himself at the desk. One of the stamps was from French Equatorial Africa and the other from Liechtenstein. He put a fresh stamp hinge on each of them and pasted them back in their places. He’d been saving stamps since he was nine, and at first Mama had said it was a waste of time and money. But he kept reminding her in the beginning that President Roosevelt also saved stamps and that helped. Last year, when he won second prize in a stamp tournament, she became enthusiastic. That was one thing about Mama. Prizes always made her enthusiastic.

He turned to his United States stamps and studied his commemorative collection, noting lovingly his first-day cover of the World’s Fair stamp issued in 1939, two years ago. He’d gotten it from Joey Pincus and it had cost him twelve stamps from Brazil, three from Canada, four from the Union of South Africa, and fifty cents besides.

Somebody knocked on his door. Peter braced himself and said suspiciously, “Who is it?”

“Me, cookie,” Rosalie said. “Can I come in?”

“Oh, Rosalie!” Peter jumped up and opened the door for her. “Come On in. Is she still there?” he whispered.

His sister’s usually cheerful face looked grim. “Yes,” she said, closing the door behind her, “the
yenta!”

Peter studied his sister’s face sympathetically. Mrs. Rappaport probably had been asking her questions about Bernard, her boy friend. She’d been going out with Bernard for nearly a year now, but nothing much seemed to be happening.

Rosalie was twenty-three and worked as a bookkeeper for a button business. She was small, a little on the plump side, and her broad, pink-cheeked face had a thoughtful, patient look. People said she was a “sweet girl,” which meant that they didn’t think she was pretty.

“Anyway,” Rosalie said, “what’s my favorite brother up to?”

“Oh, just looking at my stamps,” Peter said, motioning to the album.

Rosalie moved over to the desk and stood, studying the stamps. “Mmm,” she said approvingly, “any new ones?”

“No, I’ve been so busy lately, I haven’t had a chance.”

“You’re really working hard these days, aren’t you, honey, getting ready for the bar mitzvah?” Rosalie patted his shoulder, and her eyes were tender. “My little brother, growing up so fast.”

Peter moved away carefully. Rosalie was great and all that, but like Mama, she got mushy at times.

“Is Bernard coming tonight?” he asked, changing the subject. Bernard had been coming every Friday night for dinner for quite some time, so it was a safe question.

“Yes,” Rosalie said, looking at her watch. “He’ll be here in a few minutes, so I’d better get ready. We’re supposed to go to a concert tonight, but if that woman doesn’t leave, we’ll never have time to eat.”

They both heard the sound of a door bang, and smiled at each other in relief. Peter opened the door to his room and shouted, “Is she gone, Mama?” He walked into the living room. Mrs. Rappaport was just standing up, putting on her coat.

“No, she’s not gone,” said Mrs. Rappaport acidly, “but she’s going now.”

“Shame on you, Peter,” Mama said weakly. Then she took Mrs. Rappaport’s hand, and said, “You know how it is. He’s hungry and—”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Rappaport loftily, “I know how it is. Good-by, Peter. Be a good boy and don’t disgrace your parents. Good-by. Good-by.”

Mama walked her to the door, and when she came back her face was furious. “Such terrible manners!” she yelled. “I was so ashamed, I could have fallen through the floor.”

“Well, I heard the door slam so I thought she’d left,” Peter said defensively. “Besides, I didn’t like her,”

“So what difference does that make?” Mama answered. “I don’t like her either, always bragging about her grandson, the big
schlemiel,
but still, she’s a guest in the house, and that’s no way to treat guests. Now she’ll tell everybody what a bad boy I’ve got.”