She pulled two more dresses from the pile, the maroon one with the cul de Paris and a dark blue one with slightly worn velvet buttons, those were the ones she wanted to sacrifice to the good cause. Regula was to bring the dresses down to them, no, they would certainly not just carry them down in their arms, even though it wasn’t far to the synagogue, certainly not, in that case she would tolerate no objection, such an appearance would create completely the wrong impression.
Hinda would have liked to go too, out of pure curiosity and even though she had no idea what Chanele and Aunt Mimi had in mind. Mimi brusquely rejected the idea. What was it that Golde, who knew lots of Jewish proverbs, had liked to say? ‘If you want to sell a rooster, you don’t go to market with a goose as well.’
On the way there Mimi held her head very high, as if the servant with the big parcel wrapped in pressing cloth were only walking behind her completely by chance. She even forced a driver to rein his horses violently in by walking right in front of his cart without looking to left or right. He went on swearing at her long after she had turned into the Löwenstrasse.
Because of the hot weather the doors of the synagogue were open. The shrill soprano of Frau Goldschmidt, the synagogue choir soloist, mixed with the sound of carriages and passers-by. She was rehearsing for Shavuot: the two women recognised — by the words, if not by the unfamiliar melody — the songs that accompany the bringing out of the Torah. At the ‘Raumamu’ she fluffed her notes twice in a row.
‘That is the reason why Pinchas is seriously thinking of leaving the community,’ said Mimi.
‘Because she sings so badly?’
‘Because of all these innovations in recent times. Women in the chorus and a harmonium. They’re talking about having a secession community like the one they have in Frankfurt.’
They entered the synagogue building through the side entrance on Nüschelerstrasse. The small hall served every possible purpose; there one could offer the community the traditional Kiddush after a bar mitzvah or hold the annual general meetings of the many social and charitable associations, whereby these two functions could be pleasantly combined. Today the tables were pushed together into two long rows at an angle to one another, at which volunteer helpers were sorting through the donated items of clothing. Most of them were what Mimi, with French discretion, liked to call ne plus vraiment jeunes, generously ignoring the fact that the women she so described were no older than she was herself. There is a stage in the lives of respectable bourgeois ladies when the children no longer make demands on their time all around the clock, when the well-oiled machine of the household produces clean washing and regular meals all by itself, and one has enough time and energy left over to devote it to culture, superstition or philanthropy. And gossip, of course. The practised eyes of the well-to-do ladies read the most detailed information from the donor, her generosity and her fashionable taste, and as their sharp-tongued commentaries were generally directed against absent friends, the Hachnasat Kallah Association never had the slightest trouble recruiting enough honorary workers.
The highest-ranking of the ladies present was Zippora Meisels, the widow of a former community president, who was known on the quiet as ‘the young old woman’ because in spite of her advanced years she could not be deterred from wearing a Titian-red sheitel. The youthful hair colour and the artfully curled hair contrasted with the sharp outlines of her weathered face in a ridiculous way. Even though she unusually had no official function in this association, she had got hold of the best seat, and sat precisely where the two rows of tables met at an obtuse angle, and from where one could not only follow all the conversations but also keep an eye on the door to the hall. Consequently she was the first to spot Mimi and Chanele. When she saw Regula coming in behind them with her parcel of clothing, she ironically raised her eyebrows — ‘We’re very elegant today!’ — giving her face a clownish appearance: she had painted the eyebrows on her face herself, and not quite matched the line of thinning hairs.
Malka Grünfeld, with whom she had just been talking, followed her gaze, apologised and went to meet the two new arrivals with outstretched arms. Frau Grünfeld was the president of the Association, a position that she owed not so much to her popularity as to a large donation from her husband, who had recently made himself rich by speculating on railway shares. Malka who for many years, as Mimi knew only too well, always bought the very cheapest pieces of Shabbos roast, now gave herself aristocratic airs and, if she honoured an occasion with her presence, always dragged a whole host of getzines-leckers behind her like a train.
‘My dear!’ she said in the singsong voice she had adopted as a wealthy woman. ‘How nice that you found your way here at last.’
‘You’re late,’ that meant, and, ‘I’m not used to being kept waiting.’
‘I was held up, pardonnez-moi.’ Mimi knew that Malka spoke no French, and was discreetly referring to that shortcoming. ‘I had a surprise visit from Baden. May I introduce you? Frau Grünfeld, Madame Meijer.’
‘I have wanted to meet you for a long time.’ Malka Grünfeld had put on this sentence along with her chain of pearls and high-buttoned gloves, and found that in its affable condescension it suited her down to the ground.
‘Madame Meijer, I’m sure you know, my dear Malka,’ said Mimi, repeatedly putting a smile between the words like a piece of punctuation, ‘is the wife of Janki Meijer, who runs the French Drapery and the Modern Emporium in Baden.’
Malka Grünfeld smiled back just as artificially. ‘I have heard that one can find some very nice things there.’
‘Quite nice for a provincial backwater like Baden,’ that meant.
‘And in what field does your husband work?’ Chanele asked. She had only wanted to make polite conversation, but Malka Grünfeld threw back her head and was insulted. She was used to people knowing who she was.
You would have had to know Mimi very well to notice that she was smiling contentedly.
‘Shall I go now?’ asked Regula, who had put her parcel down on one of the tables.
‘Do that, my child.’ When she put her mind to it, Mimi could be at least as aristocratic as any nouveau riche Association President’s wife. ‘And see to it that you make some progress with the silver polishing. Is it not énervant?’ she added, turning to Malka. ‘By the time you’ve polished the last pieces, the first are always dirty again.’
‘We have silver cutlery as well,’ that meant. ‘And we’ve had it longer than you.’
Then the other ladies had to be greeted, with Mimi mentioning the Drapery Store and the Emporium every time an introduction was made. The better sort of people met in the Hachnasat Kallah Association to confirm to one another through demonstrative benevolence that they were also in fact superior. Chanele did not really know what to say in such society, so she created precisely the detached impression that Mimi would have wished.
‘That is Delphine Kahn,’ said Mimi, and led Chanele to a severe looking woman who wore her high-corseted bosom before her like a suit of armour. ‘You will have heard of Kahn & Co. The biggest silk importers in the country. The Kahns have a very charming son, Siegfried is his name, a very promising future lawyer. I think your daughter Hinda once met him by chance.’