"No, thanks, Mrs. Saperstein," he answered politely.
She took a small red can from the shelf over the stove, then carefully measured two teaspoonfuls of tea into the boiling water. The tea leaves immediately burst open and spun around madly on the surface. When she finally poured the tea into a glass through a strainer and set it in front of his father, it was almost as black as coffee.
His father picked up a lump of sugar from the bowl and placed it between his lips, then sipped the tea. After he swallowed the first scalding mouthful, he opened his mouth and said, "Ah!"
"Good, isn't it?" Mrs. Saperstein was smiling. "That's real tea. Swee-Touch-Nee. Like in the old country. Not like the chazerai they try to sell you here."
His father nodded and lifted the glass again. When he put it back on the table, it was empty and the polite formalities were over. Now it was time to attend to business. "Nu, Mrs. Saperstein?"
But Mrs. Saperstein wasn't quite ready to talk business yet. She looked over at David. "Such a nice boy, your David," she said conversationally. "He reminds me of my Howard at his age." She picked up the plate of cookies and held it toward him. "Take one," she urged. "I baked myself."
David took a cooky and put it in his mouth. It was hard and dry and crumbled into little pieces. "Take another," she urged. "You look thin, you should eat."
David shook his head.
"Mrs. Saperstein," his father said. "I’m a busy man, it's late. You got something for me?"
The old woman nodded. "Kim shayn."
They followed her through the narrow railroad flat. Inside one room, on the bed, were a number of men's suits, some dresses, shirts, one overcoat and, in paper bags, several pairs of shoes.
David's father walked over and picked up some of the clothing. "Winter clothing," he said accusingly. "For this I came up four flights of stairs?"
"Like new, Mr. Woolf," the old woman said. "My son Howard and his wife. Only one season. They were going to give to the Salvation Army but I made them send to me."
David's father didn't answer. He was sorting out the clothing rapidly.
"My son Howard lives in the Bronx," she said proudly. "In a new house on Grand Concourse. A doctor."
"Two dollars for the ganse gesheft," his father announced.
"Mr. Woolf," she exclaimed. "At least twenty dollars this is worth."
He shrugged. "The only reason I’m buying is to give to HIAS. Better the Salvation Army don't get."
David listened to their bargaining with only half a mind. HIAS was the abbreviation that stood for Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. His father's statement didn't impress him one bit. He knew the clothing would never find its way there. Instead, after it was carefully brushed and cleaned by his mother, it would turn up in the windows of the secondhand clothing stores along the lower Bowery and East Broadway.
"Ten dollars," Mrs. Saperstein was saying. The pretense was gone now; she was bargaining in earnest. "Less I wouldn't take. Otherwise, it wouldn't pay my son Howard to bring it down. It costs him gas from the Bronx."
"Five dollars. Not one penny more."
"Six," the old woman said, looking at him shrewdly. "At least, the gasoline money he should get."
"The subways are still running," David's father said. "I should pay because your son is a big shot with an automobile?"
"Five fifty," the old woman said.
David's father looked at her. Then he shrugged his shoulders and reached under his long black coat. He took out a purse, tied to his belt by a long black shoestring, and opened it. "Five fifty," he sighed. "But as heaven is watching, I'm losing money."
He gestured to David and began counting the money out into the old woman's hand. David rolled all the clothing into the overcoat and tied it by the sleeves. He hefted the clothing onto his shoulder and started down the stairs. He tossed the bundle of clothing up into the cart and moved around to the front of the wagon. He lifted the feed bag from the horse, and untying the reins from the hydrant, climbed on the wagon.
"Hey, Davy!"
He looked down at the sidewalk. A tall boy stood there looking up at him and smiling. "I been lookin' for yuh all day."
"We been in Brooklyn," David answered. "My father will be here in a minute."
"I’ll make it quick, then. Shocky'll cut yuh in for ten bucks if yuh bring the horse an' wagon tonight. We got to move a load uptown."
"But it's Friday night."
"That's why. The streets down here will be empty. There won't be nobody to wonder what we're doin' out at night. An' the cops won't bother us when they see the junky's license on the wagon."
"I'll try," David said. "What time, Needlenose?"
"Nine o'clock back of Shocky's garage. Here comes your ol' man. See yuh later."
"Who were you talking to?" his father asked.
"One of the fellers, Pop."
"Isidore Schwartz?"
"Yeah, it was Needlenose."
"Keep away from him, David," his father said harshly. "Him we don't need. A bum. A nogoodnik. Like all those other bums that hang around Shocky's garage. They steal everything they can get their hands on."
David nodded.
Take the horse to the stable. I’m going to the shul. Tell Mama by seven o'clock she should have supper ready."
Esther Woolf stood in front of the Shabbas nacht lichten, the prayer shawl covering her head. The candles flickered into yellow flame as she held the long wooden match to them. Carefully she blew out the match and put it down in a plate on the small buffet table. She waited until the flame ripened into a bright white glow, then began to pray.
First, she prayed for her son, her shaine Duvidele, who came so late in life, almost when she and her husband, Chaim, had given up hope of being blessed. Then she prayed that Jehovah would give her husband, Chaim, a greater will to succeed, at the same time begging the Lord's forgiveness because it was the Lord's work at the shul that kept her husband from his own. Then, as always, she took upon herself the sin for having turned Chaim away from his chosen work.
He had been a Talmudical student when they'd first met in the old country. She remembered him as he was then, young and thin and pale, with the first soft curl of his dark beard shining with a red-gold glint. His eyes had been dark and luminous as he sat at the table in her father's house, dipping the small piece of cake into the wine, more than holding his own with the old rabbi and the elders.
But when they'd been married, Chaim had gone to work in her father's business. Then the pogroms began and the faces of Jews became thin and haunted. They left their homes only under the cover of night, hurrying about like little animals of the forest. Or they sat huddled in the cellars of their houses, the doors and windows barred and locked, like chickens trying to hide to the pen when they sense the approach of the shochet.
Until that night when she could stand it no longer. She rose screaming from the pallet at her husband's side, the letter from her brother Bernard, in America, still fresh in her mind. "Are we to live like rabbits in a trap, waiting for the Cossacks to come?" she cried. "Is it into this dark world that my husband expects I should bring forth a child? Even Jehovah could not plant his seed in a cellar."
"Hush!" Chaim's voice was a harsh whisper. "The name of the Lord shall not be taken in vain. Pray that He does not turn His face from us."
She laughed bitterly. "Already He has forsaken us. He, too, is fleeing before the Cossacks."
"Quiet, woman!" Chaim's voice was an outraged roar.
She looked at the other pallets in the damp cellar. In the dim light, she could barely see the pale, frightened faces of her parents. Just then there was a thunder of horse's hoofs outside the house and the sound of a gun butt against the locked door.