102
PARTISAN REVIEW
money. My grandmother swore away her soul if my uncles lent him the
money and my uncles shrugged their shoulders. My father raged in silence ,
then went to his own uncle, who now employed ten men in his own fur
manufacturing business . "From me , you don 't get a penny," my father's
Uncle Julius announced with finality .
Only the apartment of his own remained as a possibility . One Sunday
morning in September, 1941, he announced to my mother, "We're
moving ." He spoke in Yiddish, then turned to me and said , " It's time, no? "
It
was as ifhe were seeking my approval. " After they sign the last contract, $39
a week . For what I do, oats for a horse . It 's natural. You're a worker, you're an
animal. Still, it's enough . Our own place ." He turned back to my mother.
"No more with the mama. No more with the brothers. By my general, I'm a
horse . By them , you. For what? You ever got a 'Thank you ,' a word praise.
'After lunch , take the children to the park,' Harry says. He goes to Lakewood
and you take the children to the park. His children. The general gives orders.
To hell with it. We move ."
Years later, he told me that he stayed in the neighborhood because my
mother insisted on being near my grandmother.
" Baba
was the strong one .
The others, like air." My father did not like his mother-in-law, but he
respected her. He never tried to tamper with the love his sons felt for her. Like
her, he had cast his lot with the shted . He wanted to be a modern man, but he
was trapped by the past. What else could he do but wrap his soul in defiance?
His world was limited. And he knew it . His life, his fierce sense of being a
Jew-what else did he have to stave off the confusion that bubbled all around
him? " The first job I had in this country, that already showed me the way it
was. Comes six o'clock Friday evening, I take off my apron . 'Where you
going? ' the boss asks. 'It's almost
shabbos.'
He laughs. 'You go now, Kriegel,
you don 't bother coming back. ' 'Tomorrow too?' 'Tomorrow. What's special
from tomorrow? You be here .' What can I tell him? I don ' t come in, he gets
someone else . It 's 1932 , the Depression . It's not hard to find a man what'll be
glad to do his shit.
Shabbos
is for greeners . I work till twelve that night. Then I
go home. I think I'm going to vomit . Mama tells me not to go back. 'Don't
worry,' she says. 'You 'll get something.' Where? It's 1932, mama's pregnant
with you . I'm a husband, a father. Who else will provide? So I go in
shabbos.
All day, I think I'm going to vomit. It's crazy. Old
babas
walking along ,
smoking, shopping. I never saw nothing like it . I want to scream at them, 'In
America you learned?' The boss hears a word, he'll fire me . So I choke on it . I
work like a horse . I finish two o'clock Sunday morning and he gives me my pay
and I go home and I cry . First time since I'm a kid . With one hand , America
gives . With the other, takes. Another year and I'm also smoking
shabbos .
Money they give you . All else they take ."
