East Side Stories:Tales of Jewish Life in the Lower East Side of New York in the 1930's (7 page)

Bulldog stared momentarily at his raging sister, then at the Canarrick who now sat slumped at the table watching the sporadic movement of his hands. Shrugging his shoulders in an emphatic helpless gesture Bulldog left the flat.

Rifkeh was glaring at the Canarrick. Leo couldn’t bear to hear those angry hurled words, listen to his mother’s grief. He thought, Kaplan, looking and acting so nice, what was he but an animal in beating up the Canarrick. What was wrong with everything?

He felt on the verge of tears, but he would not cry, that would be a complete, a total admission of guilt. And what was he guilty of? He had done nothing but spoken the truth. Was truth evil? He didn’t know, he couldn’t know. Maybe he would never know.

Outside his room, from the kitchen, he heard his mother’s demanding voice, “Canarrick, when will we get married? You got the money now. So, when?”

“Soon. Later. What do you want, Rifkeh? Leave me alone for now, can’t you see I don’t feel so good? Later, you hear?”

“No,” came Leo’s mother rising voice. “Now. No more laters. Tell me now. I got to know. Your eye, your face will get better in maybe a week, two, but right now you have the money. When, Canarrick?” There was a heavy silence from the kitchen and suddenly Leo’s mother began to shout, “I asked you, when? For three years you say to me, wait, wait. And me, where is my head? I waited. And I still wait. I will not wait no more, you hear me? No more. Soon I’ll be old, soon men will not want me. I want to get married, you hear me? Now! I want you to talk about it. Answer me, Canarrick!” Leo could hear the slaps of his mother’s hand on the porcelain top of the kitchen table, the stuttering echoes. There was no reply from the Canarrick. And finally Leo’s mother, still shouting, cried out, “So that is your answer, hah? All right. So now I know your answer.” And in a wounded yet angered tone of voice said, “Someplace in this world there is a man for me, who will marry me, who will be good to me and to my son. Somewhere. I will find him, he will find me—”

Leo couldn’t bear to hear his mother speak this way. He had done this to her, he had caused all this trouble for her. He wanted to cry out, I am to blame, mama! Please, please, please, I’m so sorry.

The Canarrick finally said, “Why do you talk like this, Rifkeleh?”

“Don’t Rifkeleh me. I talk like this because it is the
emess.
But what do you know about
emess?
What do you know about anything except your cards, your gambling? You don’t have to get married, you’re married already. To that pack of cards, to your gambling.” Her words were speeding up, “You don’t need another wife, you don’t need me. Maybe somebody to trap a Kaplan, that’s what you need me for. But I can’t do it, I won’t do it, not no more, not for you, not for nobody. And that’s
der emess.”
She gave a huge quivering loud sigh that came to Leo as something almost physical. “I don’t need you, you understand?” Her voice was cracking as she said, the words rising, “I won’t marry you, Canarrick, you hear that? I won’t. Never. I want you to get out. Leave. Right now. Pack up your things and go. Get away from me, I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to hear you—”

The Canarrick was saying, in a shocked tone of voice, “Rifkeh, Rifkeh, what are you saying?”

“Get out!” Leo’s mother said. “Now! That’s what I’m saying. Go! I don’t want you no more. Pack your things, I said!”

In the dark black cave, on that dark black bed on which he lay, Leo heard the scrape of a chair in the kitchen, the slow heavy tread of the Canarrick going into the other bedroom. Leo thought he could hear the heavy breathing of his mother, whether real or imaginary he heard something in his head and he wanted to shout out, I’m sorry, mama! I didn’t mean it!

From the other bedroom, faintly, he heard the scrapes, the squealing opening of the closet, the opening of dresser drawers. He waited, breathing heavily in and out. He heard nothing from his mother. Finally there was the sound of the Canarrick’s footsteps returning to the kitchen.

“Rifkeh—” he heard the Canarrick say.

“Go!” he heard his mother say. “Go now! I don’t want you. I made of you what you wasn’t. It was all a dream, a play, a movie.
Nisht der emess,
not the truth. I should know better.
Der emess iz der emess,
the truth is the truth. I don’t want lies, no more lies.”

In the bed, Leo suddenly understood her words. They came to him as salvation, the blackness around him began to disappear, was gone. I don’t want lies, she said. Was that true? Yes, yes, and if it was so then that had governed his brief talk with Kaplan. He, Leo, had not lied, had not perpetuated what was false. In some unknown way he had known what to do, what his mother would have wanted him to do.

Maybe now, things would turn out all right for them. Now, there would be no deceit, no shame, no lies to spin. Maybe now his mother would find someone who would really take care of her, who would protect her. Maybe now there would be a real future for her.

He wanted desperately for it to be so. Make it so, he almost called out. This time it would all be better, mama, you’ll see. I promise. Please, please, he fervently begged the darkened ceiling, let it be so, please, please.

 THE RUN ON THE BANK

Frantic frantic frantic, she ran down the sunlit street clutching the sweat-dampened bankbook in her right hand, running as fast as she could down East Broadway on the Lower East Side, passing stores, houses, the Forward building on her left, running towards the cafeteria on the corner of Essex Street.

“Benny!” she gasped out as she ran. “Benny,
oy vay,
woe, woe, Benny. What shall we do?”

She came to the cafeteria and entered, going quickly down the aisle between the long counter and the sets of tables, her eyes eagerly searching for her husband. Benny Benny Benny, please be here. Benny, please.

It was eleven o’clock. Earlier in the morning she had sent one son off to school, later she had heard about the run on the bank from one of her neighbors.

The people were all taking their money out of the bank, it was a no-good bank, something was wrong with it, what could it be? Such a big bank, such a big building. How could a place like that be no-good?

Quickly she had rummaged in the old dresser drawer for their bankbook, their savings, all they had in the world. Two hundred and seventeen dollars. They had saved it all before the Crash, they had decided not to touch it, to let the little interest accumulate. After the Crash they had denied food from their mouths, they had denied themselves new clothing, shoes, everything. To ward off utter poverty, they had erected this barrier, this savings that they would not touch.

And after she had found the bankbook she had brought her other son, a boy of three, to be watched by the neighbor next door.

All the while saying to everyone she met, “How can it be? It must be wrong. It can’t be true, can it?”

Another neighbor said to her, “Go! Go quick to the bank! Nothing is wrong, you are right, it can’t be. But go. Find your Benny, go find him. Go to the bank.
Schnell,
Quick!

She found Benny in the cafeteria, seated at a long white marble-topped table drinking coffee with two of his friends from the shop. Lucky he was there, she thought, approaching him. Unlucky that there hadn’t been work at the shop that day. When that happened, he would go to the cafeteria to drink some coffee and
schmooz,
talk a little with his friends.

“Benny!” she said urgently when she was near him. “Benny!”

He looked up at her, his eyes widened with apprehension. “What? What is it? The
kinder,
the children, nothing is wrong?”

“No, no, no,” she said grasping him by his arm. “The bank. Something’s wrong with it. All the people are taking their money out—” She stopped, unable to speak, tears began to stream down her face.
“ Oy, Gutt!
Oh, God! It can’t be true, it can’t!”

People at other tables stared at her. Quickly, Benny quickly jumped to his feet. “What?” he said. “The bank?” He glanced at his friends, a baffled look on his face, he shook his head as he looked at his wife. He said to her, “No! It can’t be! It’s a national bank, the bank from the
rigeering,
the government. It’s their bank, they will never allow anything to go wrong, President Roosevelt won’t allow it, he will see that everything is all right.”

Yet he joined her and now the both of them dashed out of the cafeteria, the babble of conversation of those inside cut off by its closing door.

Both of them now running running towards Delancey Street where the bank building was located, pushing people in their way, their breaths hot and cutting into their lungs, their eyes wild, glancing momentarily at each other as they ran.

“Who told you?” Benny gasped out as they raced on.

“Mrs. Levine. She heard it from a neighbor.”

“Mrs. Levine,” he said. “What does she know, hah?”

“She knows. She knows everything. All the time.”

“She and her big mouth,” Benny gasped. “She don’t know nothing.” He forced himself into more speed.

His wife was falling behind. He grasped her by her upper arm, pulled her along as they turned into Delancey Street. They ran towards Orchard Street, they could see a vast crowd of people milling in front of the bank building, police were there too, and from the crowd a moaning and crying of collective grief.

“Oy vay,” Benny’s wife said. “Look at that!
Mein Gutt!
My God! It’s true!” She began to sob loud torrents of sorrow. Benny pulled her along with him as he ran. It took forever it seemed, his wife crying out to him, “I can’t, I can’t run no more, please, Benny!” But he dragged her along with him and now at last they were joining the crowd, both with fires in their chests, molten metal in their lungs.

They stood bent over, attempting to capture their normal breathing, hearing the shouts and the cries, the hurled curses from the crowd. Benny looked up, saw the white faces, the pleading eyes of those around him. At his side his wife was holding her chest as she heaved breaths in and out.

They tried to force themselves forward into the crowd but it was impossible. They joined the solid mass of humans packed together, wedged together, unable to move. Standing there, those who could, stared at the shut bank doors, others looked at the police as they motioned the crowd into a more solid mass.

“My money!” Benny shouted out. “Where is my money? Two hundred and seventeen dollars! Where is it?” Others were shouting too, their clamor a scrambled din rising up into the air.

Up ahead, at the head of the mob, people were pressed against the doors of the closed bank, banging on the doors with clenched fists, shouting, yelling, screaming, demanding their money.

“Ganovim! Ganovim!
Thieves! Thieves!” Benny’s wife shouted out from beside him. “Give us our
gelt,
our money back!”

Other frantic people had formed behind Benny and his wife and from somewhere in back of them a woman cried out, “What shall I do? It’s all I have, everything!”

The policemen pressed, shoved the crowd back “
Cossackin! Cossackin!
Cossacks! Cossacks!” people roared out. “Why are you doing this? What have we done? It’s our money, give us back our money!”

The police pushed against the shouting people, the cries of the crowd unheard, unheeded, lost in the wind.

“Go home!” someone up front shouted. From where Benny and his wife stood it seemed like a voice emanated from the visored blue cap of a policeman standing somewhere at the fringe of the crowd. “Go home,” it said with authority. “The bank is closed.”

“How can we go home?” someone shouted out furiously. “When they won’t give us our money? What will happen to us?”

“Go home!” the authority voice said.

Benny looked around him. Not too far away stood a man, a stone man unmoving, ashen, mute, only the trickle of a large tear running slowly down each side of his face.

Someone in front of Benny said, “They say we will hear from the bank.”

Benny, his face white and gaunt, looked at his wife. Tears streamed down her face, she stared at him, shaking her head in complete bewilderment. Her mouth opened to say something, no words came out.

“Two hundred and seventeen dollars,” Benny said in a whisper.
“Alles,
All. And now, nothing.”

He tried to control himself, he felt as if he would burst out into tears but he must not allow himself to do it, not even like that stone man he had just seen. He, Benny, was the man of the house, the man didn’t cry, it was not allowed, never. Yet he felt he was crying, deep down inside he was crying.

At last he said to his wife, “The
rigeering,
the bank was from the
rigeering.”

“No, no,” a man near him said in an English almost without accent. “It was just a bank. Private.”

“No, no,” Benny said shaking his head vehemently. He felt beaten, lost, alone. “It can’t be. It’s a national bank, the building is so big, it’s like a palace. It’s the
rigeering
I tell you. Why would they have a name like that if it wasn’t?” he said to nobody and to everybody, to anybody who would listen and help him. He found himself suddenly crying, and he shook his head like a wounded animal, the tears flooding down.