Excerpt from Pearl
Minneapolis February 11, 1915:
Molly stayed after school to retake another test, so I had to walk home alone. The streets and sidewalks were piled high with snow and strong gusts of wind slowed me down. Trudging along, I heard a familiar voice shouting my name. It was Pa. He waved from his horse and wagon, and then stopped so I could climb aboard.
Despite it being below zero , Pa had ventured out early this morning to find old discarded metals at the junk yard, watches, spoons, things like that. He’ll fix them up tonight, and sell them in the neighborhood tomorrow. He was a vegetable peddler when we first came to Minneapolis, but in the last few years, he’s made a lot more money collecting and selling junk.
Once I joined him on the wooden seat, Pa grinned and patted my knee. He was deaf in his left ear so I always sat on his right. He put a blanket over my shoulders, slapped the horse with the reins, and away we went.
Pa never lived in a city before now, boxed in by buildings and snowstorms. I knew how much he missed home. When he talked about Grading, our little town in the Ukraine, I could almost smell the fresh fields of spring, new clover cropping up along the road, mixed with violets. I could picture the sunflowers sprouting high across the plains, between patches of winter wheat waving in the breeze.
I clutched the blanket tightly around my coat, trying to warm up. It was never below zero in Grading, and rarely much colder than freezing. Back home, a flurry of snow would have melted overnight. Not like in Minnesota. Here, winter can start in October and the snow can lay frozen to the ground in big dirty heaps through April.
I had to admit that the thick woolen blanket took some of the edge off, but I was still so cold. Pa’s skin was raw and weathered from the wind, but the kindness in his face glowed through. Even so, he was upset with me from this morning and I already knew what he was going to say.
“But she’s the one who’s unfair. She wouldn’t stop yelling at me and the kitchen corner wasn’t schmutzic at all,” I said. “You’d need one of those fancy new microscopes to see a speck of dirt!”
Pa grew quiet and shook his head. “Porah,” he said, using a shortened version of my name Zipporah from the old country. “Don’t talk that way about your mother. You’ll help her when you get home and not another word.”
He held firm to the reins, and I sat a little closer. He started to sing one of his made up songs, but he couldn’t fool me. The dark circles under his eyes were puffy and thick. He hadn’t slept well for months. He was too worried about my older sister, hoping she was still safe in Odessa.
My poor sister didn’t have any mazel. We left Grading three years ago, but Etta was married and couldn’t come to America with us. Her husband had been away at the time, so she moved in with my uncle. I hoped Pa was right and that HaShem was watching out for her.
Pa gazed down at me again. I linked my arm through his, raising my voice to sing along.
When I got home from school, I put my books down on top of the pile of boxes. They were against the far wall by the doorway. Even though we’ve lived here ever since we came from Europe, Ma won’t unpack them.
“HaShem wouldn’t bring us to a place like this, and just leave us,” she’d say every time we begged her to put the boxes away. “The Mesciah must be coming!”
Ma hated how poor we were. We’d been one of the wealthiest families in our shtetl and now we were nothing. Greenhorns.
I took off my mittens and was about to take off my scarf and coat when I realized something was different. My usually noisy older sisters were in the corner making dinner, but Surah was stone silent. Parel put her finger to her mouth and then pointed towards my parent’s room.
The bedroom door was wide open. Ma was on her bed, her eyes closed, clasping an envelope in her hand. It was the letter she’d sent to Etta last month. Apparently, it came back today unopened, just like all the others. Only the notes Pa sent with a few pennies inside never came back. Pa knew the money was probably stolen, but still, he tried.
A year ago, Etta’s husband finally returned to the Ukraine, and they moved to Odessa. She’d written to let us know that they were settled and she was pregnant. We haven’t heard a word from her since the Great War started last August. Only returned mail.
Parel took Pa’s coat and I took off mine. She said my brother was out on his paper route and he probably wouldn’t be home for an hour because of the weather. My sister Terry was probably still at the library.
Pa went to Ma and shut the bedroom door, and Parel sat down with me on the davenport. It was chilly in the apartment and it didn’t help that the arctic wind from the outside seeped in through the poorly sealed windows. Parel took the wine colored afghan off the arm of the sofa and tossed it over for me to wrap up in. We could hear everything through the bedroom door. Pa told Ma not to worry, that Etta and her family would come. That was what he always said when it came to my oldest sister.
“Such mishagas, Shia,” she said. “How did Etta ever get stuck with that schlemiel in the first place?”
“Stay strong, Shayndal. HaShem will help.”
That’s what Pa had said on our trip over after the sailors threw dead bodies into the ocean. I felt their worry deep in my bones. We didn’t really know if Etta and her family were still in Odessa, we only hoped they were alive.
I remembered a little about home. Ma’s garden in Grading and how we’d harvested cucumbers for pickles in August, the potatoes we grew all year. The forest behind our dark wooden house had a path that led to the river.
It seemed like a dream, it was so long ago, but I can still picture Etta, tall with pretty black hair. She’d give me an extra cookie and tickle me until I laughed. When she smiled, it warmed the coldest room. She was like Pa that way.
A loud piercing moan came through the door. Ma was sobbing again. I wiped my tears dry with the back of my hand, and Parel gave me a hug.