“What should we do, Son? Should we turn around?”
Samuil shook his head. “Let’s keep going.” They spoke mostly English now. It had been more than a year since Samuil had come to Rice Lake and already he was fluent.
IT WASN’T unusual for Hershel to take his son out for a drive in the coupelet on Tuesday afternoons. They usually started out from the dealership on South Main and rode out of town on 53 to Haugen or 48 to Cumberland, depending on the condition of the roads. That day Samuil came over after school and Hershel told his partner, Marty Zelig, a fancy dresser from Lithuania, that he was going home early. Zelly made a face, but what could he do? Hershel was a full partner and could go home whenever he damn pleased.
When Hershel first arrived in Wisconsin, he lived with his sister, Rachel, in Cumberland. She and her husband ran a grocery and set him up with a cart and sundries to peddle to the local farmers. It didn’t take him long to see that, just like the muzhiki in Little Russia, the farmers didn’t want to buy from him; they wanted to sell. So he and his little mare traveled the countryside buying up rags for the paper mills and pelts for the furriers in Green Bay and Chippewa Falls. He was personable. He spoke English and told stories about the goings-on in town and on the neighboring farms. It wasn’t long before he had four carts working for him, a nice house on North Wilson Avenue, and a membership in the chamber of commerce. He wanted to join the Masons, but he was a Jew. Lines had to be drawn, even in Rice Lake.
One day he watched the Ford dealership go up on South Main Street. He had his eye on it even before it opened with balloons and flags on the Fourth of July. He knew the future when he saw it, but he also knew that the future was not easily abided in Rice Lake and that there would be stumbles and perhaps a fall before it finally took hold. He waited for the fall before approaching Martin Zelig with an offer to buy in as a full partner. Zelly put him off for a while, but in the end he took it because he had no choice. Since then they built it into a growing concern, and Zelly, who still complained that he had been cheated, never regretted his decision, not for a minute.
FOR A WHILE the rain stopped, but the sun didn’t come out. In fact the sky darkened again and the wind picked up and soon they were driving through a hail of white and pink blossoms from a stand of hawthorns. A heavy branch landed on the hood and careened off the windshield. It startled them so much that Hershel had to pull over and wait until his heart stopped hammering in his chest. Peering out through the windshield he saw a flash of lightning that shattered the sky and then a crack of thunder that seemed more like an explosion.
This time Hershel put her into gear and drove on, looking for a widening in the road so he could turn around. The branches in an aspen grove were thrashing about in the wind, and the grass on the verge was nearly flattened to the ground. When he came to a bend, he slowed, turned the wheel sharply, and gave her a little gas until he made the turn and was heading back the way they came. It started to rain, not splashes on the windshield, but a deluge so dense that they had to pull over and wait. Lightning streaked across the sky and Hershel sat there watching it, afraid to admit how nervous he was. The hair on his arms was standing on end from the static electricity. He wondered if the tires would ground them or if they would end up a blackened crisp for some farmer to find. He looked over at Samuil, who sat very still, his face a white mask.
Staring out at the sky, Samuil asked, “Will the tires ground us?”
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
“Yes,” he said, without hesitation.
WHEN THERE was a break in the storm, Hershel pulled out the carburetor choke and pressed the starter button: She coughed and sputtered, but didn’t catch. He reset the hand spark and the throttle lever and pressed the starter again. This time she started on two cylinders, coughing pitifully.
“Please God,” he whispered, giving her a little gas. She coughed again and then, as if sighing in relief, she caught and roared into life. He let out a breath that he didn’t even know he was holding. Then he touched the dashboard with two fingers and brought them to his lips as if he were kissing the Torah.
“Let’s go home, Papa.”
He gunned the engine a few times, threw her into gear, and eased her out into the roadway, avoiding potholes full of water and mud.
When they walked into the comfortable house on North Wilson Avenue, Hershel could hear the sound of an English language record drifting down from upstairs. He heard a precise voice on the gramophone saying I would like to go to the library.
Samuil shouted up the stairs. “Mama, we’re home.”
Berta appeared at the top of the stairs and leaned over the banister. “You’re home! Thank God!” Then as usual, whenever she was overcome by emotion, she lapsed into Yiddish. “Hershel, you took him out in this storm? Out on those roads?”
“English, Berta. Speak English.”
She sighed. It was frustrating having to put all her thoughts and emotions into a foreign tongue. “You want he should burn up? With all that…” Flicking her fingers in the air.
“Lightning, Mama.”
“Ya, lightning. What were you tinking?”
“It’s all right, mishka. I was watching out.”
“Watching out? Watching out for lightning? And then what? You were going to catch it in your hand?” Berta could no longer sweep down the stairs but she managed her limp by holding on to the banister.
“Can’t we have a little fun, Mama?”
“Fun, yes. But this? Ach, such foolishness.” She took Samuil’s face in her hand. “Do me a favor, boitshikel. Stay away from lightning. Now, take off your shoes. Olive just mopped the floor.”
She took their coats out to the porch to shake off the water.
“You should’ve seen it, Mama. It lit up the sky. It rained so hard I thought it was going to break the—”
Hershel waved a hand in front of his face to shush him. “We’ll just go up and get ready for supper,” Hershel said quickly, to change the subject. “What’s for dinner?”
Berta came back in with the coats and hung them in the closet. “Chicken and knedla.”
“I like knedlas.”
“So tell me something I don’t know.”
Their house was located in the best neighborhood in town. Their street was wide and divided by a median strip where maples and oaks grew among the serviceberries and dogwoods. It had a wide covered porch and tall windows to let in the light. There were two bathrooms, one upstairs, one down; a velvet settee in the parlor; and a Quick Meal porcelain stove with four burners and an oven in the kitchen.
HERSHEL STOPPED at the linen closet on his way to the bedroom to get a fresh towel. Berta was always complaining that he used so many that Olive couldn’t keep up. Usually the closet was filled with them and bedsheets too, except when Olive got behind with the laundry. Today there were only three left, so that when Hershel took one out he could see all the items stored in the back. There was his old Homburg that he knew he would never wear again. There was Berta’s yarn bag filled with needles and skeins and the beginnings of a chenille throw that had been started with enthusiasm but quickly abandoned. There was a photo album belonging to his sister, Rachel, and beneath that was the box.