“It’s nothing, really. An old recipe from back home,” she answered, smiling broadly. Her accent was thick, unlike Esther’s or her brothers’. Esther’s father, who had disappeared no doubt into the bedroom shortly after Jacob’s arrival, had yet to make his voice known.
Esther’s brothers, both talkative, dominated the conversation with talk about the Yankees and the shows that had mesmerized them on the new TV—Dragnet, the comedy debut of I Love Lucy, and, best of all, the hilarious Milton Berle. As he bit into yet another slice of the cake, Jacob learned that despite the fact that their initials formed part of the company name, neither son had an interest in pursuing the father’s real estate business. Menashe was on his way toward a career as a lawyer, while Isadore had already shown talent as a painter; it was his artistry that adorned almost every room of the house. That left Esther, who was preparing herself to stand by her father’s side.
She looked on now apologetically as her mother pushed yet another slice of the cake onto Jacob’s plate. He patted his stomach, laughing, and stood up, thanking her once more. He wondered if he would see Esther’s father again this evening.
“Come, Jacob, I want you to see our new Magnavox,” said Esther, standing, and, for the first time, taking him by the hand as she led him toward the living room, where the brothers were already seated. The room, even more lavish than the others, was painted white with more of the intricate molding against the ceiling. The furniture was the French provincial style, a circular couch of baby-blue soft velvet covered in sturdy plastic with matching blue and marigold toss pillows, and ornately carved arms in bone white. Two matching chairs, the kind you were afraid to sit in, at one end of the room, a round glass table with a gold base topped by the tallest vase made of china and filled with multicolored flowers, too perfect to be anything but artificial. And yet, despite the objects that sparkled from end to end, there was one object that caught Jacob’s attention. A magnificent baby grand piano polished to a shiny black. The bench tucked beneath was covered in a faded toile in shades of blue and salmon-color pink. It was at this bench that Esther’s mother, who followed them briskly into the room, urged her daughter to sit.
“Play that sonata,” she beckoned, “so lovely, ah . . .” She closed her eyes as if reliving the memory. Esther’s brothers clicked on the TV, Isadore moving to turn the dial so that the volume was dimmed and the picture sparked to life.
Meanwhile, Esther was bent over the keys, her eyebrows creased as she lifted her fingers, then placed them gently down again. It was beautiful, soothing, the shadow of a memory of Jacob himself before he was old enough for his thoughts to take form, Jacob sitting on his mother’s knee. His eye wandered to one of the high-backed chairs where Mrs. Itzkowitz sat nodding, eyes closed, a dreamlike smile on her face. It was all almost too much for Jacob, whose world had shifted perhaps too quickly. Although he had walked from bleakness, hopelessness, into a future that glittered now with the prospect of fortune—a business, a home, maybe even a family—he still felt ill at ease. Especially in this home, with this family who had embraced him as their own, a home that forecast the promise of what life could be in America—glittering chandeliers, pale-blue French provincial sofas, the miracle of TV, and Esther stroking the keys of a piano. Esther in a white dress with green polka dots, the little brown bob that dipped at her forehead, Esther the girl he now knew for a certainty would one day become his wife. All too much for the young man who still felt he was nothing more than just an outsider.
THREE
Esther
She didn’t like lying to him. She wasn’t the kind of a girl who was dishonest, pretending to be someone she wasn’t just for her own selfish motives. She hadn’t planned to tell a fib; it was just when it came down to it, she really had no choice.
Esther had known Sophie Jenick for nearly a year, ever since she and her husband, Paul, had rented the one-bedroom on the second floor of her father’s newly acquired apartment building on the West Side. Sophie, who was the same age as Esther and worked part-time in a bakery around the corner, would stop into the office downstairs each month to pay the rent, and soon afterward, as she struck up a friendship with the landlord’s daughter, more often than that. The two talked about the latest fashions, the new “Sea Spray” stockings with navy heel and seam for the exorbitant sum of $1.85 a pair, the popular bell skirts worn over crinoline, the latest Judy Holliday movie, or the lovesick melody of Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable.” And sometimes, when they were not discussing popular culture, or when Esther wasn’t helping Sophie with her English so she could better assist the shoppers at the bakery, the two talked about boys. Sophie, though married herself, was naturally curious as to why someone as attractive and personable as Esther still had no ring on her finger.