Israel (21 page)

“Don't be so foolish.” Haim scowled.

“Me foolish?” Rosie screeched. “It's you!” Her face contorted with bitterness. “What about our child?”

“Stop, Rosie—”

“Shall I come with you to that horrid swamp so that our child is born dead like Meir Dizengoff's?”

“Stop!”
Haim's fist came crashing down on the table. A water tumbler tottered, rolled, and shattered on the floor.

Rosie's own vehemence shocked her. Her hand went to her lips and she shook her head. Now she stared down at the broken glass. “From our wedding set, the first one broken.” She began to cry. “Oh, God forbid what I said, Haim. I didn't mean to say such a horrible thing.”

“I know.”

“I know you don't wish the baby any harm.”

“Sha! It's over, calm yourself . . .” Haim saw that she was pale and trembling; she was on the verge of hysterics. “You'll understand everything in a minute.”

“I want to hear it all.”

“All right, but first you've got to relax, for the baby,
yes? Take deep breaths.” He reached across the table to take her hand. “It gives me no pleasure to upset you, Rosie, but there is no time.” He shrugged helplessly. “These matters must be discussed. One question you must answer for me right now, and after that the problems will be solved one after the other. You'll see.

“First I have to know. Will you—” He stopped, shaking his head. “Wrong words. Not will, but can you keep your promise to me?”

“You mean follow you to—that settlement?” Rosie began to cry all over again. “I don't know . . . yes, of course I will,
I love you.”

Haim squeezed her hand. “And I love you.” He winked. “Now that we've got the most important matter settled, the rest will be easy.”

“Hah!” She sniffled and then laughed, swiping at her red eyes with her sleeve.

“You want I should finish cooking the dinner?” Haim asked.

“I want you to explain how easy it's going to be.”

“Well, like I said, the biggest problem is time. I've got to be there a little more than a month from now.”

“Why?” she implored. “Haim, what will happen to me? I must have our baby all alone?”

“Oh, Rosie, I'm sorry, but Dr. Ruppin was quite firm on that point. The women can come later, but the men must be there when the transfer of control takes place. I can't expect Yol and the others to do my share—”

“Yol is staying? I thought he was going to move on with the other pioneers.”

Haim smiled. “It's something Yol and I cooked up during his visit with us to help sweeten the deal with Ruppin. He was begging for volunteers from the original group to stay behind and advise the newcomers. They all refused, but now Yol has agreed to stay on condition that I be included as a new member.”

He became short of breath in his eagerness to tell her about it. “I found out that my desires, my ambitions are not so farfetched after all. Around Dizengoff and the other capitalists of Tel Aviv, faced with their scorn, I had begun to think I was just an idealist. Thank God Yol came to visit. It proved to me that there are others who share my beliefs. Palestine is Eretz Yisroel, Rosie, our ancient homeland from which we were sent into exile. This land and the Jewish people are like a husband and wife too long separated. Now that the Jews have returned, we must embrace the land, make love to it; only then shall our spirit be restored and healed.”

He shook his head. “It cannot be done in cities like Tel Aviv, where the fortunate Jews posture like aristocrats, where our people are divided up into the oppressors and the oppressed. We Jews cannot afford to be our own worst enemies. We must all be brothers and sisters to each other and let our reclaimed land regenerate us.”

“Haim, we are relatively well-to-do,” Rosie began.

“I don't care about wealth.”

“Maybe not, but think of our child.”

“I am thinking of our children. I want them to grow up at one with their homeland and their comrades.”

“But right now you've begun a great business. Is it fair to throw it away? Isn't it something to hand down to your children? Haim, you've worked hard to build up the factory. I am proud of you, but don't imagine that you didn't have a tremendous advantage over others. When you went to Arthur Ruppin's assistant so long ago, they gave you a chance, yes? That initial contract was the key to everything that followed. Why were you so favored over a thousand other young men, Haim?”

“It was my idea, Rosie,” he said, slightly defensive. “A thousand others didn't think to go to the assistant.”

“That's true. You are clever, and as I said, I'm proud of you.” She hesitated, thinking twice about what she was
about to say. “But clever ideas are not always enough, especially when one has no reputation. Darling, your proposal would have been turned down flat if it had not been for my father and Meir Dizengoff, who spoke up for you. I don't tell you this to belittle you, but only to point out that what you have accomplished here in Tel Aviv has had as much to do with our connections in this city as with your ability . . . If you throw away what you've built so far, you may find—should the time come when we want it again—that it is impossible to replace.”

“I don't care about—”

“Wealth,” Rosie finished for him, laughing. “I know, I know.” Her voice softened. “I don't care about it either, not as long as I have you. It's our children I worry about. Do we have the right to make them paupers? Will they hate us for not allowing them the choice?”

Haim smiled. “I've thought about it and worked out a way to provide for them, should it turn out that the cooperative settlement program is a failure or should they decide to pursue a different life. It'll all be clear to you when the time comes.”

She gazed into Haim's eyes and then heaved a great, resigned sigh. “Our house must be sold too, I suppose.”

“The house too.”

Rosie nodded, but the tears welled up again. She cursed herself for crying, roughly blotting the tears trickling down her cheeks. “Sometimes I act like a child. Don't mind me.”

“There's nothing about you I mind,” Haim said tenderly. “To me you are perfect. I am very fortunate to have you as my wife.”

“That's a certainty,” Rosie murmured, and then giggled. “You know what most breaks my heart? I'll never see that silly garden in bloom.”

“Eretz Yisroel shall be our garden,” Haim swore.

*     *     *

The next day Haim began the paperwork to transfer ownership of his business to his prospective buyer. He'd lied to Rosie to spare her feelings, leading her to believe that he'd not yet begun the selling process pending her approval. Actually Haim had already completed most of the work through confidential meetings with his buyer, a wealthy young immigrant from Germany, and the Anglo-Palestine Bank. Selling their cottage took only a week. There were always prosperous would-be citizens arriving in Tel Aviv, and many of them preferred to buy a solid cottage in the center of the city rather than build in the outskirts.

Rosie's parents were at first disturbed by Haim's decision, but eventually Erich Glaser came around. He was, after all, possessed of an artistic temperament and had been a pioneer quite as daring as Haim. Miriam Glaser remained furious and was only slightly mollified when it became clear to her that Rosie would be moving back into the family's house for the duration of her pregnancy. Their daughter had been spending several nights a week there anyway as her time grew near.

Meir Dizengoff sent Haim a curt note expressing his disapproval but beyond that showed no interest. Haim was relieved. Meir could have caused real trouble, for example by using his influence to impede the sale of the business and the house.

When negotiations were completed, Haim sat Rosie down in her parents' garden and explained to her what had been worked out. The Anglo-Palestine Bank had fed the sum into Erich Glaser's account. From there it would be transferred into Rosie's London account, established when she began to ship her pictures there. In London their capital would be invested in British and American concerns by Erich Glaser's business advisors, under Erich's supervision.

Rosie objected, wanting to know why the money was
not being put in both their names. Haim explained that it was a condition placed on them by the Turkish official in charge of currency transfers. The man was quite willing to look the other way during the transfer in exchange for a substantial bribe, but he insisted for his own protection that the money go out under the surname of Glaser.

“He said that his department is used to such activity under your father's name,” Haim told her. “Anyway, you sign your work Rose Glaser and the account in that name already existed. There was no sense in further complicating matters. The important thing is that the money will be safe for our children.”

It was late December. They sat wrapped in sweaters on a bench beneath a gnarled, ancient sycamore. Mrs. Glaser's gladioli lay dormant until spring. Rosie, watching the wind ruffle her husband's blond, curly hair as he revealed what was in his heart, desperately fought back her tears. He was going to be leaving for Galilee in just a few days. It would mark the beginning of their first separation since the wedding.

“When I join Yol and the others I want to be the same as them,” Haim was saying, his voice dreamy. “Let the money be in your name. I want only to share what belongs to my brother haultzim.”

The weeks following Haim's departure were dismal for Rosie. She hated herself for doing nothing, but she could not even bring herself to pick up her pencils or paints. Now that her house was gone, she tormented herself over the garden she would never see in bloom and the nursery her baby would never inhabit.

She would get furious at Haim for disrupting their lives; her pregnancy was enough to endure. Then she would find herself feeling guilty for being angry with him. Surely it was only because she missed him so.

She felt almost disgraced without him. She dreaded
shopping in Tel Aviv, dreaded even leaving the grounds of the inn. Everyone in the community knew where Haim had gone. The wives smirked at her when she passed.

It was worse when she was with her mother. Miriam Glaser could not for the life of her understand what possessed Haim. She endured the taunts and gossip from the community for a time but then finally suggested to her daughter that for the sake of the family it might be better if Rosie stayed close to home.

Rosie, tight-lipped, was glad to agree. She did not want to humiliate her mother or herself.

Her friends cut her off, seething over Haim's rejection of their way of life. Her brothers and sisters were well-meaning but awkward with her. Their sister Rosie was different—weak, unhappy, even weepy.

Then there was her mother. Before Rosie married, the two women were allies against Erich Glaser's remoteness. Mrs. Glaser felt betrayed when Rosie moved out of the house. Her sons could not distract her and her other daughters were too young for her to turn to.

Now Rosie had returned. At first Miriam was pleased, but as she became aware of her daughter's misery, fierce satisfaction seemed to set in.

“Aren't you ashamed of the way everyone is laughing at you?” Miriam would demand. “Why do you let him run roughshod over you?”

When it got to be too much, Rosie would hurry out to the garden, where she could be alone. It would not do to cry in front of her father, as he would only be embarrassed, and she would not give her mother the satisfaction.

On the stone bench under the twisted old tree she would quietly weep, her fingers laced across her distended belly. It comforted her to feel the life kicking within her. Keeping company with the baby in her womb eased the dreadful loneliness.

That winter was a grand time for the garment workers on Allen Street. In December there was the Feast of Lights, Hanukkah, which commemorates the Maccabees' victory over the Syrians in 168 B.C. Not a few Jews in the sweatshops around the city equated the fledgling union's victory over the manufacturers with the ancient rout of the Syrians.

This year the economic gains won by the summer-long strike allowed the Christians to treat their families to a most generous and festive Christmas.

For both the Christians and the Jews the approach of the New Year was a happy, hopeful time. They had good reason to celebrate on New Year's Eve; 1911 looked to be bright with opportunity.

Abe Herodetzky spent New Year's Eve alone. Stefano had invited him to his home for a family dinner, but Abe was too melancholy to desire to intrude upon a happy family's celebration. Besides, what if Stefano asked him when he was planning on opening his store? Abe had no stomach to lie again; as far as Stefano was concerned, the
union had paid Abe back his two hundred dollars with interest.

Having refused Stefano's invitation, Abe found himself walking the streets. He was even more withdrawn since the end of the strike and the destruction of his dream. He had no friends besides Stefano—if one could call the Italian a friend.

Abe had been asked to leave his digs on Jefferson Street. The other two boarders didn't like him, his landlord said. Abe did not blame them for their antipathy. He'd always been quick to complain when they talked or laughed and had always refused their invitations to shul or to the settlement houses to flirt with the girls.

To shul Abe still could not bring himself to go, not even on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. He was accepting God's treatment of him, and God could take or leave him as he was.

As to girls, the pretty ones would laugh if he dared to approach. He was an ugly little man who'd been robbed by the union.

Well, there was Leah—sweet, quiet, pretty Leah. She was far too shy to flirt at the settlements despite her family's prodding. No, there was no way he could call on Leah, not without his own business. Leah wouldn't care one way or the other, but Abe could not endure the wicked glimmer of satisfaction in Sadie's eyes when he confessed that he was still a presser on Allen Street. He would stay away from Leah. He was too proud to face her family.