Ghetto Comedies, Israel Zangwill [read ebook pdf txt] 📗

of the window. 'Turn back! Turn back! I've forgotten something.'

The cabman swore. 'D'ye think you've taken me by the week?'

'Threepence extra. Drive back.'

The cab turned round, the innocent horse got a stinging flip of the whip, and set off briskly.

'What have you forgotten, grandmother?' said Becky. 'It's very careless of you.'

The cab stopped at the door. Natalya looked round nervously, sprang out, and then uttered a cry of despair.

'Ach, we shut the door!' And the inaccessible baby took on a tenfold desirability.

'It's all right,' said Becky. 'Just turn the handle.'

Natalya obeyed and ran in. There was the baby, not crying, but sleeping peacefully. Natalya snatched it up frenziedly, and hurried the fresh-squalling bundle into the cab.

'Taking Daisy?' cried Becky. 'But she isn't yours!'

Natalya shut the cab-door with a silencing bang, and the vehicle turned again Ghettowards.

VI

The fact that Natalya had taken possession of the children could not be kept a secret, but the step-mother's family made no effort to regain them, and, indeed, the woman herself shortly went the way of all Henry Elkman's wives, though whether she, like the rest, had a successor, is unknown.

The sudden change from a lone old lady to a mater-familias was not, however, so charming as Natalya had imagined. The cost of putting Daisy out to nurse was a terrible tax, but this was nothing compared to the tax on her temper levied by her legitimate grandchildren, who began to grumble on the first night at the poverty and pokiness of the garret, and were thenceforward never without a lament for the good old times. They had, indeed, been thoroughly spoilt by the father and the irregular ménage. The Christian wife's influence had been refining but too temporary. It had been only long enough to wean Joseph from the religious burdens indoctrinated by Fanny, and thus to add to the grandmother's difficulties in coaxing him back to the yoke of piety.

The only sweet in Natalya's cup turned out to be the love of little Daisy, who grew ever more beautiful, gracious, and winning.

Natalya had never known so lovable a child. All Daisy did seemed to her perfect. For instant obedience and instant comprehension she declared her matchless.

One day, when Daisy was three, the child told the grandmother that in her momentary absence Becky had pulled Joseph's hair.

'Hush! You mustn't tell tales,' Natalya said reprovingly.

'Becky did not pull Joey's hair,' Daisy corrected herself instantly.

Much to the disgust of Becky, who wished to outgrow the Ghetto, even while she unconsciously manifested its worst heritages, Daisy picked up the Yiddish words and phrases, which, in spite of Becky's remonstrances, Natalya was too old to give up. This was not the only subject of dispute between Becky and the grandmother, whom she roundly accused of favouritism of Daisy, and she had not reached fifteen when, with an independence otherwise praiseworthy, she set up for herself on her earnings in the fur establishment of her second step-mother's father, lodging with a family who, she said, bored her less than her grandmother.

In another year or so, freed from the compulsory education of the School Board, Joseph joined her. And thus, by the unforeseen turns of Fortune's wheel, the old-clo' woman of seventy-five was left alone with the child of seven.

But this child was compensation for all she had undergone, for all the years of trudging and grubbing and patching and turning. Daisy threaded her needle for her at night when her keen eyes began to fail, and while she made the old clo' into new, Daisy read aloud her English story-books. Natalya took an absorbing interest in these nursery tales, heard for the first time in her second childhood. 'Jack the Giant-killer,' 'Aladdin,' 'Cinderella,' they were all delightful novelties. The favourite story of both was 'Little Red Riding-Hood,' with its refrain of 'Grandmother, what large eyes you've got!' That could be said with pointed fun; it seemed to be written especially for them. Often Daisy would look up suddenly and say: 'Grandmother, what a large mouth you've got!' 'All the better to bite you with,' grandmother would reply. And then there would be hugs and kisses.

But Friday night was the great night, the one night of the week on which Natalya could be stopped from working. Only religion was strong enough to achieve that. The two Sabbath candles in the copper candlesticks stood on the white tablecloth, and were lighted as soon as the welcome dusk announced the advent of the holy day, and they shed their pious illumination on her dish of fish and the ritually-twisted loaves. And after supper Natalya would sing the Hebrew grace at much leisurely length and with great unction. Then she would tell stories of her youth in Poland—comic tales mixed with tales of oppression and the memories of ancient wrong. And Daisy would weep and laugh and thrill. The fusion of races had indeed made her sensitive and intelligent beyond the common, and Natalya was not unjustified in planning out for her some illustrious future.

But after eighteen months of this delightful life Natalya's wonderful vitality began slowly to collapse. She earned less and less, and, amid her gratitude to God for having relieved her of the burden of Becky and Joseph, a secret fear entered her heart. Would she be taken away before Daisy became self-supporting? Nay, would she even be able to endure the burden till the end? What made things worse was that, owing to the increase of immigrants, her landlord now exacted an extra shilling a week for rent. When Daisy was asleep the old woman hung over the bed, praying for life, for strength.

It was a sultry summer, making the trudge from door to door, under the ever-swelling sack, almost intolerable. And a little thing occurred to bring home cruelly to Natalya the decline of all her resources, physical and financial. The children's country holiday was in the air at Daisy's Board School, throwing an aroma and a magic light over the droning class-room. Daisy was to go, was to have a fortnight with a cottager in Kent; but towards the expenses the child's parent or guardian was expected to contribute four shillings. Daisy might have gone free had she pleaded absolute poverty, but that would have meant investigation. From such humiliation Natalya shrank. She shrank even more from frightening the poor child by uncovering the skeleton of poverty. Most of all she shrank from depriving Daisy of all the rural delights on which the child's mind dwelt in fascinated anticipation. Natalya did not think much of the country herself, having been born in a poor Polish village, amid huts and pigs, but she would not disillusion Daisy.

By miles of extra trudging in the heat, and miracles of bargaining with bewildered housewives, Natalya raised the four shillings, and the unconscious Daisy glided off in the happy, noisy train, while on the platform Natalya waved her coloured handkerchief wet with tears.

That first night without the little sunshiny presence was terrible for the old-clo' woman. The last prop against decay and collapse seemed removed. But the next day a joyous postcard came from Daisy, which the greengrocer downstairs read to Natalya, and she was able to take up her sack again and go forth into the sweltering streets.

In the second week the child wrote a letter, saying that she had found a particular friend in an old lady, very kind and rich, who took her for drives in a chaise, and asked her many questions. This old lady seemed to have taken a fancy to her from the moment she saw her playing outside the cottage.

'Perhaps God has sent her to look after the child when I am gone,' thought Natalya, for the task of going down and up the stairs to get this letter read made her feel as if she would never go up and down them again.

Beaten at last, she took to her bed. Her next-room neighbour, the cobbler's wife, tended her and sent for the 'penny doctor.' But she would not have word written to Daisy or her holiday cut short. On the day Daisy was to come back she insisted, despite all advice and warning, in being up and dressed. She sent everybody away, and lay on her bed till she heard Daisy's footsteps, then she started to her feet, and drew herself up in pretentious good health. But the sound of other footsteps, and the entry of a spectacled, silver-haired old gentlewoman with the child, spoilt her intended hug. Daisy's new friend had passed from her memory, and she stared pathetically at the strange lady and the sunburnt child.

'Oh, grandmother, what great eyes you've got!' And Daisy ran laughingly towards her.

The usual repartee was wanting.

'And the room is not tidied up,' Natalya said reproachfully, and began dusting a chair for the visitor. But the old lady waved it aside.

'I have come to thank you for all you have done for my grandchild.'

'Your grandchild?' Natalya fell back on the bed.

'Yes. I have had inquiries made—it is quite certain. Daisy was even called after me. I am glad of that, at least.' Her voice faltered.

Natalya sat as bolt upright as years of bending under sacks would allow.

'And you have come to take her from me!' she shrieked.

Already Daisy's new ruddiness seemed to her the sign of life that belonged elsewhere.

'No, no, do not be alarmed. I have suffered enough from my selfishness. It was my bad temper drove my daughter from me.' She bowed her silver head till her form seemed as bent as Natalya's. 'What can I do to repair—to atone? Will you not come and live with me in the country, and let me care for you? I am not rich, but I can offer you every comfort.'

Natalya shook her head. 'I am a Jewess. I could not eat with you.'

'That's just what I told her, grandmother,' added Daisy eagerly.

'Then the child must remain with you at my expense,' said the old lady.

'But if she likes the country so——' murmured Natalya.

'I like you better, grandmother.' And Daisy laid her ruddied cheek to the withered cheek, which grew wet with ecstasy.

'She calls you "grandmother," not me,' said the old gentlewoman with a sob.

'Yes, and I wished her mother dead. God forgive me!'

Natalya burst into a passion of tears and rocked to and fro, holding Daisy tightly to her faintly pulsing heart.

'What did you say?' Daisy's grandmother flamed and blazed with her ancient anger. 'You wished my Madge dead?'

Natalya nodded her head. Her arms unloosed their hold of Daisy. 'Dead, dead, dead,' she repeated in a strange, crooning voice. Gradually a vacant look crept over her face, and she fell back again on the bed. She looked suddenly very old, despite her glossy black wig.

'She is ill!' Daisy shrieked.

The cobbler's wife ran in and helped to put her back between the sheets, and described volubly her obstinacy in leaving her bed. Natalya lived till near noon of the next day, and Daisy's real grandmother was with her still at the end, side by side with the Jewish death-watcher.

About eleven in the morning Natalya said: 'Light the candles, Daisy, the Sabbath is coming in.' Daisy spread a white tablecloth on the old wooden table, placed the copper candlesticks upon it, drew it to the bedside, and lighted the candles. They burned with curious unreality in the full August sunshine.

A holy peace overspread the old-clo' woman's face. Her dried-up lips mumbled the Hebrew prayer, welcoming the Sabbath eve. Gradually they grew rigid in death.

'Daisy,' said her grandmother, 'say the text I taught you.'

'"Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden,"' sobbed the child obediently, '"and I will give you rest."'

THE LUFTMENSCH

THE LUFTMENSCHToC

I

Leopold Barstein, the sculptor, was sitting in his lonesome studio,