An Undisturbed Peace (15 page)

True to O'Hanlon's prediction, Abe's mother had tossed her widow's black and now wore a blue dress with yellow piping about the neck and waist. The mantilla was also gone. Her hair was twisted back and piled high on her head. He realized she'd used the same words to describe Marian as O'Hanlon had the night before, which caused him fresh unease. How close were they anyway? Still, her question needed answering. “No, Mother, she is not,” he said. “In fact I've given her up and found instead an American girl I think you will much love. I am promised to her. Her father owns a farm in the foothills near abouts.”

Susanah's face registered a flicker of confusion.
One love out the window and another rushing in?
her features seemed to ask.

“Her name is Hannah Milner.”

Between her given name and surname, Abe's mother jumped to conclusions thinking her future daughter-in-law was that rare gem in the New World, a nice Jewish girl. She kissed his cheeks twice each in succession and praised him to the skies for his wisdom and pure heart.

“Of course, she is one of us,” Susanah said, still holding his face in her hands. Abe had learned to be more cautious. He was not going to make the mistake he made with her over Marian by telling too much straightaway. Let her eat by bites what she would not swallow whole, he thought. “With a name like Hannah Milner, one would hardly think otherwise, no?” he said. She searched his eyes. He did not blink. “Good, good, good,” she said. “Does your uncle know the family?” By the grace of whatever angel smooths the way for liars, Abe was able to truthfully answer, “I don't believe he does. They have a modest farm. It's not large enough to be of his ken.” His mother shrugged. “Alright, then. He will soon enough.”

Without inquiring further about Marian, about what might have happened between them to end things, his mother thanked God again and set to making him a sumptuous lunch in celebration.

Once they were seated at table, Abe asked his mother the question that had tormented him, drunk and sober, since the previous night.

“Mother, what's going on between you and Mr. O'Hanlon? He appears to be intimate with your thoughts and concerns.”

Susanah Naggar Sassaporta blushed in a girlish manner her son had never before in all his twenty-one years witnessed.

“Nothing to concern yourself with, my son.”

He locked her gaze and stared at her, hoping to cause a crumbling of the defensive walls he imagined she and O'Hanlon had concocted together. She withstood his scrutiny. He put away his suspicions, made blessings over bread and a hearty soup, and ate lunch. After a few delicious mouthfuls of the tart savor of home, he considered, Why shouldn't O'Hanlon appreciate a good meal as well? If he and his mother shared a plate together now and again, it didn't mean his intentions were less than honorable. He liked O'Hanlon. But he felt protective of his mother. He could not stop thinking that it was his job to watch over her in the New World. Of course, he'd abandoned her to traipse after poor Marian. One more thing to feel guilty about, wasn't it? he told himself. Well, no more, no more. Time he grew up and behaved like a man.

It was not long after that he took a postprandial snooze in his uncle's bed. Later that night, mother and son made plans to travel to Greensborough together. They expected to remain there providing they could satisfy Uncle Isadore that Abe had come home completely reformed, his wild oats sown, that nary a backward glance would tempt him from the family trade in future. It was good, it was very good, Susanah opined, that he'd returned with the promised hand of Hannah Milner, may a thousand blessings rain upon her head. They could tell his uncle that Abe would soon be settled into a married man's boots.

Abe expected to drive the wagon loaded with goods from the company warehouse to Greensborough, his mother sitting up front beside him. But on the day they were to depart, O'Hanlon insisted the art of driving was not as easy as it looked and that he would be doing the honors himself. Abe and Hart could travel behind. “You'd not want to endanger precious cargo, would you, lad?” the Irishman asked. Abe had to admit he made sense. Uncle Isadore would have four kinds of fits if Abe misjudged the team's readiness on a turn and lost even a small portion of dry goods, sundries, or farm tools. He agreed to the proposed arrangement. But they were not long into the trip before he judged by the way O'Hanlon and his mother put their heads together from time to time, the way she leaned into him whenever the terrain was remotely perilous, or how they laughed together, sharing what looked like a thousand intimacies, that the cargo O'Hanlon found most precious was Susanah Naggar Sassaporta.

Greensborough was a prosperous, rapidly growing town. There were four other stores besides Isadore's. Each had carved a niche for itself, one in haberdashery, another in canned victuals, a third in hardware, and a fourth in used and often broken things offered at a great discount. They were small, cramped, with no allure beyond utility. By contrast, Sassaporta's emporium was majestic, built to service a city far larger than Greensborough. But then, Uncle Isadore said, it was built for the future. It housed three times the space of the others combined and was stocked with goods of all kinds, including many imported items and ones produced by factories up North. There were potted plants in brass containers at the entrance, and on the main desk where the register sat, a bowl of cut flowers was freshened daily during the pleasant months to be switched out for pinecones and fragrant chips of wood in winter. When mother and son arrived, Uncle Isadore was on the floor chatting with customers. Seeing them, he clapped his hands and affected a joyous reunion of family hugs, happy banter, and prayers of thanksgiving. Isadore congratulated Abe on his impending nuptials, which he'd learned about from Susanah's dispatch sent ahead by courier while she and her son readied the wagon.

Behind this flurry of welcome, the stable master stood back, hat in hand, presumably to pay his respects to the boss. He waited a good while. Isadore wanted Abe to meet the patrons clustered about, lists in hand. He was introduced as “my new manager,” which caused Abe to stand just a bit taller. The customers swarmed over him with congratulations and curiosity. There followed a tour of the premises, including the stock room, where Isadore's men transported goods from the wagon. There was also a vacant room. “What's this?” Abe asked, knowing his uncle was not one to waste space. Isadore smiled, put an index finger to his temple, and tapped three times. “A secret,” he said, “to be shared when your mother and I can speak to you in private on it.” So distracting and grand was all this activity that Abe nearly failed to regard his mother's farewell to O'Hanlon. But when he'd chanced to look toward her, he noted the two standing together, the Irishman's face, serious, mournful, damp eyes glistening. Suddenly, O'Hanlon bent his head over his mother's hand. Susanah's head bent also, apparently that she might study the stable master's thick red hair. Her expression was invisible to him, but Abe judged that the two were positioned far closer than custom required. Isadore called out, beckoning to Abe that he come meet an important customer who'd just arrived. Abe turned his head to smile and gesture he'd be right there, then glanced backward. His mother stood alone. The Irishman had gone. He wondered if distance would cure what might be between them.

Later that night after a meal prepared by Isadore's cook, the family gathered in the drawing room to discuss what should come next. Isadore insisted that despite his debt, Abe must add to it and break ground for a home in which to install his new wife and the family that would surely follow. “I have just the man to build it, a gent who can provide both the plans and labor,” Isadore said, his chin raised high with a patriarch's pride. “But you'll not need that room for your mother so quickly, God willing.” Abe raised an eyebrow. Susanah covered her mouth with one hand and again dropped her head. “Aha! Aha!” Isadore continued. “Can't you guess? Your mother has consented to become my bride! What think you of that, my son?” Abe was surprised at first and then he was not. In the ghetto back home, men often married the widows of their brothers. On certain occasions, it was more than custom. It was religious law. He put a hand under his mother's chin and raised her face to him. “Is this what you truly want, Mother? Will it make you happy?” She blushed like a girl and nodded. Abe's chest warmed. His eyes teared. His mother, a bride again. He acknowledged Susanah and Isadore were a natural couple, logical, normal, like himself and Hannah. The age of Dark Water and his father was over. They would be forever honored, forever mourned, but new beginnings beckoned. Were the possibilities of renewal, of rebirth in America limitless?

“I congratulate you both,” Abrahan said. It was even sincere.

Next, the matter of the vacant storeroom was revealed.

“Rubber,” Uncle Isadore said. “It's to store the rubber.” He paused as if he'd delivered a sacred pronouncement and waited for the key word to sink into Abe's consciousness. Abe gave him a quizzical look. Isadore repeated himself, louder this time. “Rubber!” Abe raised his palms to heaven and shrugged. His stepfather-to-be grew impatient. “Haven't you heard, son?” Abe shook his head. “Oh, yes, I forgot, you've been traipsing about the Indian hills, where civilized news is scarce.” Susanah put out a hand to touch Isadore's arm in warning.
The Indian crisis is over for this family,
her touch seemed to say,
best not bring it up
. Isadore shut his eyes tight and gave his own head a quick, hard shake as if casting all Indian thoughts out of it. His jowls wobbled like jelly. He opened his eyes and resumed.

“Rubber is all the rage!” he roared. “First in London and now here. Futures in rubber have hit the roof on the exchange! Factories all over New England produce boots, overalls, even shirts of rubber, along with pails, pans, and pots! There's a new process, you see, courtesy of a Mr. Goodyear. I've convinced all the Sassaporta Brothers traders from Florida to Maryland to carry rubber with yours truly as the chief wholesaler. Imagine! Everything can be waterproof now thanks to elastic gum, or, as we in the trade say, rubber.” He laughed, enjoying the warm flush the words “we in the trade” gave him. “Just think, it's cheap enough to sell to the most parsimonious farmer. Oh, they'll eat it up! I've ordered hundreds of pounds of rubber goods to feed them. Imagine! We'll have labels made up with the motto: ‘From the Jungles of Brazil to Boston to Your Door, Compliments of Isadore Sassaporta and Son'! Ah, that fortune I promised you will extend until the fourth generation even should you raise indolent beauties and impractical scholars!”

The old man's excitement was infectious. He continued to extol the durability and versatility of rubber. Flattered by Isadore's sudden impulse to include him as the “Son” on the store marquee, Abe considered the implications of introducing a new and functional product into the waiting world. Immediately, his mind turned to the best ways to approach the market to ensure a grand success. If he were the architect of a sales scheme in which the whole family empire made millions, he might lobby for a territory of his own with the corporate founders in Savannah and win independence as well. He hoped his uncle had ordered some small rubber item, a child's rain cap or a ladle for sipping well water, something they might offer at next to nothing or—why not?—for free as a promotion. That night, rather than mourn Marian or list the reasons why he should love Hannah instead of a Cherokee ghost, he considered the properties of rubber, how best to create excitement about it, what advertising he might design to put in the windows of Sassaporta Brothers stores throughout the Southeast, and how to train the sales force of peddlers to spread the word. He dared daydream that one day he might be appointed by the headquarters in Savannah to his own territory, which he would add to Isadore's, making he and his stepfather the most powerful merchants of the firm. In the morning, he thought, How good work is for a man. Without it, heartsickness would kill us all.

Early that December, Isadore and Susanah married, courtesy of a traveling rabbi who wintered in Durham. There was no one to paint Susanah's palms with henna, no wedding dress of velvet and pearl. But enough of Isadore's Jewish peddlers were raised up out of the camp town to provide a fiddler and drummer along with men to dance to their tunes. The people of Greensborough, most of them descendants of the founding Quakers and kind to a fault, were eager for a chance to celebrate a happiness at the advent of a cold, dark season. After the rabbi chanced to explain to their leaders the custom of
shevah brachot
, they feted the couple for seven nights, showering them with visits, gifts, and baked goods. Abe was feted as well, as he lodged at a different Quaker home each night of that first week while Isadore and Susanah held court in their home together. It escaped none of the Jews' notice that such generosity from gentiles would have been a miracle back in Merry Olde and felt pretty much a miracle in America as well. All agreed the couple was starting out well blessed.

Notable for their absence during the festivities were any of the Milner family, who had the excuse of weather and the difficulty of travel in that time of year. Truth was, had there not been a drop of ice or snow in the foothills, the Milner family could not have attended. Abe made sure they were unaware of the event, having taken the precaution of removing their invitation from the mailbag of the intrepid postman who trekked to Micah's trading post at least twice over the winter months. Once certain he was unobserved, Abe ripped the purloined envelope up and burned the pieces. He told himself he did this to spare his mother concern during her preparations for matrimony. The truth was he feared her reaction to the news that his bride was of the Lutheran faith.

Neither did O'Hanlon, who'd been invited as a friend of the family, attend. Isadore attempted to encourage a change of heart in him, but the man was firm that he could not leave his horses during a time of year all were in danger of slipping and breaking limbs. Susanah told Isadore to quit his suit. O'Hanlon obviously did not consider the celebration of their marriage a priority.