Read Too Jewish Online

Authors: Patty Friedmann

Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Dramas & Plays, #Regional & Cultural, #European, #World Literature, #Jewish, #Drama & Plays, #Continental European, #Literary Fiction, #Historical, #Fiction, #Novel, #Judaica, #Jewish Interest, #Holocaust, #New Orleans, #love story, #Three Novellas, #Jews, #Southern Jews, #Survivor’s Guilt, #Family Novel, #Orthodox Jewish Literature, #Dysfunctional Family, #Psychosomatic Illness

Too Jewish (6 page)

BOOK: Too Jewish
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Axel and I never had discussed parents. I didn't mention his. I didn't mention mine. I simply said I needed 160 dollars, and it was a matter of life and death. He believed me. "When you get back," he said, "I'll explain about capital investment. But for now all I can tell you is that I don't take a salary any bigger than what I was paying you. And everything else is in inventory. I've got zero cash. Zero, pal." I humbled myself. I asked about his friends who'd sponsored me. "I just finished paying them off a couple of weeks ago," he said. "They made it clear they don't want to do that twice. Rich people are a lot meaner about their money than poor people. You know any poor people you can borrow from?"

Without Axel, I had no recourse. I'd been adding to my savings from my Army paycheck, but so far I had only twenty-three dollars. I couldn't get my mother even to the French border with twenty-three dollars. Of course, that's as far as she needed to go, but my mother was not going to be able to walk to Portugal.

I wasn't going to see Letty again after I left New Orleans. She was a levelheaded girl, and I needed a levelheaded person to give the facts to so that maybe I could process them and go away. "My mother has written me that if I have 160 dollars, she can get passage out of Germany," I told Letty, sitting right there on the streetcar on a warm summer night, passing Audubon Park. We were facing the park. The lights were on inside the streetcar. The streetlights were on, and the only other light seemed to come from past the trees, from the river. I was so comfortable that I was comforted.

"So what's the problem?"

I looked at her. She wasn't being ironic. She saw no problem. I had to smile. "You think 160 dollars is no problem?"

"I think my mother probably spends that much on clothes in a month," she said. "Well, including shoes and handbags." I stopped smiling, and Letty noticed.

"Oh, I didn't mean what you think. I think it's dreadful to spend like that. I'm just saying that I'm sure you can find that much money in New Orleans if you just find the right people."

"I'm not a beggar," I said. "I'm sorry I told you about this." I fell silent. I would get Letty home as soon as the movie was over and never see her again. I regretted telling her about my mother. It wasn't just having a stranger know; it was having spoken aloud about her. It was a lot more frightening to have spoken aloud.

Letty let me ride in silence for several more stops. It took a long time to get to Canal Street on the streetcar because it stopped every two blocks. "Maybe you can meet people with connections for your business and make money that way," she said.

She hadn't misunderstood me: I had misunderstood her. She had figured out that I'd given her mother that box in part so she'd like it so much that she'd tell someone who owned a shop that this was the next big hit. And that she liked this boy who was taking her daughter to the movies, too. Oh, yes, Letty needed to believe both. I wanted her to believe both.

"Does your mother have friends who have stores?" I said. I was picturing little boutiques on Magazine Street.

"Bernie, don't take this wrong, but Jews own Canal Street. You've been on Canal Street, right?" I nodded. It was the main street of the city, the divider between uptown and downtown, the perimeter of the French Quarter, the shopping mecca lined with stores as high as five stories, dress shops and department stores and shoe stores—all owned by Jews. I probably had sat among them at Temple Sinai, unless they belonged to Touro Synagogue. Her parents, Letty said, knew them all. They all were the same kind of Jews as her parents, and I clearly was not, but that didn't seem to bother Letty.

I had been trying to get up my nerve to walk into Maison Blanche and approach the novelties department and ask for the buyer. Now Letty was raising the possibility of my talking to the man who owned the store, who was the boss of the boss of the buyer. I let myself think about such a chance for a moment or two, just enough to frighten myself with hope, and then I came back to the night. I was with a girl I'd met only once before, twice if I counted saying hello in the temple. And she was a girl in New Orleans, over a thousand miles from New York. If she had been a boy, it would have been different.

"You don't know me very well," I said.

"You don't know me very well, either," she said.

Because it made no sense, we laughed.

* * *

I didn't kiss her at the door. In New York, I usually kissed girls at the door, and they always kissed me back, and I knew in New York it was the right thing to do. But in New Orleans it seemed that life was slower even if speech was faster, and I didn't want to make Letty angry. I thought I saw expectation in her eyes, but I certainly couldn't ask. Instead I said I would like to see her again. "Of course you'll see me again," she said.

"Excuse me?"

"We're going into business." We hadn't mentioned Canal Street any more than to cross it since our ride down on the streetcar.

"I was thinking of taking you dancing," I said.

"I know you were," Letty said.

Instead she invited me to dinner. I asked if that was all right with her parents. I thought I heard a fraction of hesitation in her voice, but it was probably my imagination. "My parents can't dictate my social life," she said. "They try, but they don't succeed."

I brought flowers this time. I thought carnations looked the best of all the flowers in the shop. "Oh, yes, they last the longest of all flowers," the woman had said. They were five cents apiece, and I'd bought a dozen, all different colors. The woman had given me four pieces of fern free, and I thought the bouquet looked wonderful. I couldn't read Mrs. Adler's expression when I handed them to her. She passed them off right away to Louise, almost hitting her in the chest with the blooms. "Put these in water," she said. They weren't on the dining table when we sat down. But they were tall flowers, and as a centerpiece they would have blocked our ability to see one another. The Adlers had a long table, possibly eight feet. I wondered whether her parents sat at both ends when they didn't have guests.

Letty and I had spoken once on the phone. "Let your father get to know me at dinner," I'd said. "Nothing more, please."

"Don't you trust me?" Letty had said.

"I thought we agreed that we don't know each other," I'd said.

"But we trust each other," Letty had said.

"Daddy, I have a business proposition for you," she said almost as soon as Louise had passed a tray of food around the table, and I had learned how to serve myself from a silver platter. I was glad I was the last one going counterclockwise, or I wouldn't have had a clue if she had come up to me and shoved that food in my face. The food was strange. Beans with meat in one part, rice in another. I followed the others' lead, with rice first, then beans on top of that, scooping some meat in with the beans. I'd watch how Letty ate it. We hadn't had this combination in the mess hall.

I put down my fork before I touched my food. Letty wasn't even being subtle. This girl was remarkable but she was frightening me.

"You have a business proposition or Bernard here has a business proposition?" her father said. Ber-
nard.

"Bernie had no idea that I was going to bring this up," Letty said.

I hoped I looked stricken enough that they believed me, but they weren't looking at me.

"Listen," Letty said. "I haven't told Bernie any of this. It's all my idea, so please shush."

"Letty, I don't want to send you away from the table in front of company," her mother said. She sounded as if she were speaking to a small child.

Letty looked a little subdued by being on the wrong side of her mother, but she kept on talking to her father. "Okay, I talked this over with Shirley, who's actually taking this class at Tulane in the business school." She looked at me and said, "Don't worry, I didn't betray any confidences. I just gave her vague facts. She doesn't know who's involved." I tried to look relieved, but I couldn't help being amused that she was protecting me from Shirley, whom I'd never see again anyway, and not at all from her parents, who were sitting right in front of me, judging me.

"By all means, rely on Shirley," Mrs. Adler said.

"So, here's what you've got to do," Letty said to her father.

"Got to do, huh," her father said.

"Pretty much. It's important. See, you put up the capital—are you impressed?—and Bernie will have the money he needs, and then he can pay you back when he sells the merchandise. And you'll be in a partnership with earnings off his business."

Her mother said, "And by merchandise are you talking about that, um, gift he gave me?"

Letty nodded eagerly. She liked my line of novelties. I'd have given her a gift if it hadn't carried too much meaning.

I didn't want to get into the discussion and show I cared. But I couldn't stop myself. "They sell very well in New York. If I have a partner here who knows business, I'm sure they would sell very quickly."

Her parents looked at each other. I couldn't tell what was passing between them. I hoped to learn more about reading people as I got more experience as a salesman. But I had a sense they were not trying to listen. Mr. Adler said, "Just for the sake of argument, what kind of capital are we talking about?"

"A hundred sixty dollars," Letty said.

"What in hell is
that
for?" Mrs. Adler said.

"Could we please drop the subject?" I said.

Letty ignored me. "You want to know what the hell that's for? I'll tell you what the hell that's for. Bernie's mother's trapped in Germany, and for 160 dollars he can get her out. She's trapped. Do you hear me? Trapped."

Mr. Adler had been eating all through this conversation, and he didn't stop now. Brown bean gravy dribbled out of the corner of his mouth as he tried to keep his voice even. "Letty, sweetie, how long have you known this boy? Maybe two weeks? How do you know he's not saying this to every girl he meets? That accent can charm the knickers off anybody."

"He got a letter from his mother last week!" Letty said.

"Have you seen the letter?" Mrs. Adler said.

"No."

I didn't mention that I'd received the most frightening letter of all that morning. I knew the worst passage by heart. I wasn't going to defend myself with those people.

Mina is no longer here. I don't know why she didn't tell us she was leaving, but maybe she had to be very secretive. I hope that is the reason. I can't let myself think she has disappeared. As you know, she lives very close to me.

"Look, Bernard," Mr. Adler said. "You're probably not a scam artist. But the fact remains that I can't use my business connections this way. These men are my clients. The men who own stores use me as their investment advisor."

"We also know them socially," Mrs. Adler said. "These are important people in the community."

"You could be a silent partner," Letty said. "That'd be fine. All Bernie needs is 160 dollars."

I had to tell her the facts. "No, that's what I need to get my mother out," I said. "I need twice that much, I'm afraid, to have enough, what do you call it? Stock. But this is too embarrassing. I told you at the start that I am not a beggar."

Mrs. Adler reached out toward me to pat my hand. It was quite a stretch, down that long table. "Son, it's more embarrassing for us than it is for you, believe me. During the Depression we had to turn people away at the door all the time."

Letty placed both fists on the table. "Maybe it's time for me to start working at Higgins," she said.

I knew about Higgins. We all did at the base. Higgins was building boats for the war effort. Probably a third of the people in New Orleans were working there. It was an enormous operation, and from what I could see a very democratic one, with patriotic rich people working hard alongside struggling poor ones. And most of the workers were women. Men were away at war.

"You're in school," Mr. Adler said. "That's doing your part for the war effort."

"Oh, please," Letty said. "I wasn't born yesterday." Now I understood what that expression meant. "I think I should drop out of school and make a wage I could give Bernie. That would help the war and help a refugee."

"Please don't be dramatic," Mrs. Adler said. She removed her hand from mine.

"I'm serious," Letty said. "I don't think you know how serious I am. Bernie's situation is urgent. If I start work on Monday, he could have all my wages starting Friday."

"And where would you live?" Mr. Adler said. He was red in the face. Letty shrugged. She knew what he was implying. "I'll tell you where you'll live. Under a bridge with all the rest of the bums. Unless you use your wages to rent a room. Because you only live in this house if you go to school. Do you hear me?"

Letty nodded.

Mrs. Adler turned to me. "I have never seen my daughter act up like this. I don't know what kind of spell you've cast over her, but she is out of control. I am not impressed."

"I looked to Letty. "Please, could we change the subject?" I was willing to eat even though I felt sick to my stomach.

"That's a fine idea," Mrs. Adler said with a great deal of enthusiasm. We ate in silence, and I could mimic the way Letty mixed her food. She worked hard to demonstrate how she held her knife and fork. "In Germany we hold our knives and forks differently," I said.

"You're very continental, I think," Letty said.

Mrs. Adler's eyebrows were raised as she watched me struggle with my knife. I needed to remember that to her continental was not a good way to be.

I tried to seem American. "This dinner is delicious," I said to Mrs. Adler. "What do you call this?"

"Oh we're doing our part for the war effort. It's poor folks' food. Red beans and rice with pickled pork."

Pork?

Chapter Four

Everything was in spite of itself. In spite of my wish to ship out and make my contribution to the war effort, I was finding myself more and more comfortable with New Orleans. This also was in spite of how temporary my stay was to be. This was not a part of the world I wanted to place anywhere but memory. Yet it had a certain European quality I hadn't seen in New York or Georgia. And I was afraid that its having Letty was affecting me more than I wanted. This was a girl who knew I vomited during dinner at her parents' house and blamed her mother, not me.

BOOK: Too Jewish
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