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Beast and Bird

Every Sunday morning, at seven o’clock promptly, the two Polish girls crossed the park and walked fifty blocks downtown to church. Early morning: the avenue wide as a farmer’s field, the sunlight tempered with frost. The girls were bare-legged, in ankle socks and long coats, their blond hair dark at the ends from their morning ablutions. The younger, Annie Lubicki, was also the prettier. She had just turned sixteen.

Knowing less, Annie listened more than she spoke. Frances Zroka was three years older, a city girl from Passaic, New Jersey. Occasionally she went on dates. Annie had seen her waiting at the curb—wearing dark lipstick, nylon stockings instead of socks, a pocketbook looped over her elbow. Annie had never been on a date. She spent her free day looking in shopwindows, or sitting alone in the park.

The girls walked quickly, both excited. A date had taken place the night before. Frances offered each detail delicately, like the tinned butter cookies Mrs. Nudelman favored, each in its own dainty paper cup. The young man had taken her to a restaurant. “He wore a fancy shirt, with cuff links. You know.” She pantomimed buttoning at her wrists.

“Yes,” Annie said, because an answer seemed to be required. She might have guessed what cuff links were, but she wouldn’t have been sure. She was a girl to whom people gave instructions. Mrs. Nudelman directed her in English and in Polish, which Annie understood; and sometimes in Yiddish, which she did not. The repetition didn’t bother her. She liked knowing what was expected, the exact requirements of serving and washing up, which in the Nudelmans’ kitchen were precise indeed.

Church bells rang in the distance. In a few hours taxicabs would clog the avenue; the neighborhood women would crowd the bakeries, wealthy matrons, beautifully dressed. But for now the girls owned the sidewalk. They could have danced there, if they wanted to. They could have turned cartwheels in the street.

“This way,” said Frances, pointing down a side street. “It’s quicker.”

They turned a sharp corner, Annie glancing over her shoulder lookingfor landmarks, knowing it was hopeless. At home in Pennsylvania she could find her way through a forest at night. The woods were full of helpful markers, simple and unmistakable. Water flowed downhill. The sun rose in the east. City streets had their own order—surely they did—but to Annie the patterns were invisible. Her first weeks in New York, she’d gotten lost daily. Kind strangers had returned her to the apartment. Now she could locate the fish market and the butcher; by retracing her steps, she could find her way back. Any further exploration of the city terrified her.

“He paid for everything,” Frances reported. “After dinner we had lemon cake.”

The bells grew louder, and Annie recognized the church halfway down the block, the familiar towering steeple. As always, her friend had been right.

In the street they tied scarves over their hair.

 

They were serving girls, employed by families on the Upper West Side. The families, the Nudelmans and the Grossmans, lived one floor apart. The girls inhabited the back corners of the apartments, small square rooms identical except for their color. Her friend’s room had pink walls. Annie’s was painted white.

She had come to New York three days after Christmas. A slow train had delivered her to Penn Station, a ten-hour journey from Bakerton, Pennsylvania. Until that day she’d ridden only coal trains; the rickety local had standing space for passengers in the rear. Because the Nudelmans had paid her passage, Annie had a seat in a compartment. At the halfway point she ate an apple and a boiled egg, the lunch her mother had packed.

She was the eldest of nine children. In school she’d gone as far as the eighth grade. After that she’d kept house. Her father was a coal miner, and her mother preferred outdoor chores. The family garden covered an acre. There were chickens and a Jersey cow. Her mother milked, gathered, fed, and butchered; she hoed, watered, picked, and weeded. Certain plants she set aside for medicine, to soothe colic, rashes, dyspepsia, croup. Annie was the cook and the cleaner, the bather and the mender. Mondays and Thursdays she washed tubs of laundry—coal-black overalls, dozens of diapers. On Tuesdays she baked six loaves of bread.

A neighbor had told Annie’s mother about the job in New York. Her own daughter kept house for Mrs. Nudelman’s brother, who owned a glove factory in Newark. Mrs. Nudelman wanted a Polish girl like her brother’s: quiet, a hard worker, a girl who did as she was told. The Nudelmans would feed and keep her. That they offered wages in addition, Annie’s mother found incredible. It was late fall then, the outdoor chores finished. She could manage the house herself until springtime, when Annie’s younger sister Helen would leave school.

Mr. Nudelman had met her train at the station, a square little man with a round beaming face. “Miss Lubicki!” he said, sounding elated, as though he had made a great discovery. He took her small suitcase and steered her by the elbow through the crowd. All the while he peppered her with questions. Was this her first visit to New York? As the train approached the city, had she seen the Empire State Building? Annie groped for answers, unused to such attention. He listened intently to her replies and nodded sagely, as though she’d said something profound. His quick dark eyes unnerved her, so she kept her eyes on the feather in his hat.

The taxi ride passed quickly. She clutched the door handle as they cruised the wide avenues. Cars were rare in Bakerton. When one climbed the hill where her parents lived, her younger brothers ran into the street to stare.

Mr. Nudelman led her into the elevator, a contraption she recognized from the movies. He pulled shut the metal grille and the little cage rose noisily, a low grinding of gears. At the apartment door Mrs. Nudelman greeted her in Polish. She was a stout woman with a high bosom, her hair hidden by a flowered scarf. She showed Annie down a long corridor, past a series of closed doors. “My son’s room,” she whispered, stepping quietly. “He isn’t well.” Behind her Annie rose on tiptoe, conscious of her heavy shoes.

The apartment was not large, but its luxury astonished her. Thick curtains draped the parlor windows. There was a sofa with a curving back, covered in burgundy velvet. Matching chairs flanked the fireplace. The dark wood floors were softened by carpets, intricately patterned: fruits and flowers and diamond shapes, outlined in green and gold.

Mrs. Nudelman led her into the kitchen and flicked on an overhead bulb. Annie blinked. For a moment it seemed the light had tricked her eyes. The kitchen had two of everything: two sinks of gleaming white porcelain; in opposite corners, two separate stoves. One stove was for noodle pudding and custards; the other for cholent and brisket, for roasting lamb and frying kreplach. “Simple,” Mrs. Nudelman said in English. Meat was cooked on the big stove. The smaller one was for everything else.

Annie stared in silent wonder. Her English was as good as her Polish; she used them without preference, as she used her two legs. But Mrs. Nudelman spoke with a strange accent. Perhaps somehow she’d misunderstood.

She listened intently as Mrs. Nudelman repeated the instructions in Polish. There were two sets of pots, two dish towels, two drawers of spoons and forks. Two complete sets of dishes: fleishig plates with a red stripe around the border, milchig plates rimmed in blue. The dishes were to be washed in different sinks, dried with different towels. Meat was to be sliced on one counter, cheese on the other. If ever Annie made a mistake, she was to tell Mrs. Nudelman immediately. This was the most important thing.

Annie nodded, keeping her eyes on the floor. She thought of the Klezek boy at home, who heard voices; a neighbor lady who scrubbed her hands until the skin cracked and bled. If Mrs. Nudelman were poor, her madness would be simpler; wealth permitted this elaborate variant. Annie’s family had chicken soup on Sundays, meat on Christmas and Easter. There was nothing to keep separate. Her last supper at home had been fried cabbage and noodles, served on mismatched plates.

As Mrs. Nudelman talked, a boy appeared in the doorway behind her. He wore black trousers and a white shirt, open at the throat. He was perhaps Annie’s age, tall and slender. His dark hair was wild, as though he’d come in from a storm.

“This is my son, Daniel,” Mrs. Nudelman said in Polish. She spoke to him briefly in Yiddish. The boy smiled at Annie and bowed his head. Pinned there was a small black cap, nearly hidden by his curly hair.

 

Weeks passed. In the apartment Annie lived softly. She had never imagined rooms so easeful: the hissing radiator in her bedroom, the reliable heat of the bathroom tap, the clean simplicity of the gas stoves, the high smooth bed all to herself.

Outdoors was another matter. There wasn’t any outdoors.

Her first free afternoon, she followed Mr. Nudelman’s directions to the park. A handsome stone wall screened it from traffic. Its lawns were clipped, its paths neatly paved. Annie sat on a bench and stared up at the sky. She thought of her mother, who would have lived as happily out in the open, slept in the field like a horse or a dog.

In New York the outdoors had furniture. The outdoors was just like the indoors.

The next morning she mailed two envelopes off to Bakerton: a letter for Helen to read to their mother, and one for Helen alone. In the first envelope she placed the bills Mr. Nudelman had given her, enough to buy flour and sugar, a little coal for the stove.

During the day she didn’t think of her loneliness. She thought fleishig and milchig,red stripes and blue. She lived in horror of making a mistake, though what the consequences would be, she couldn’t begin to guess. Preparing supper was her greatest anguish, the most taxing hour of the day. Serving did not unnerve her. It pleased her to move neatly around the table, silent as a ghost. Her employers scarcely noticed her. Their attention was focused, always, on their son. From soup to dessert, Daniel was questioned: what he had learned at school or read in the newspaper; his opinions and observations; the quality of his sleep and digestion; his worries, his plans. Poor Daniel, Annie thought as she cleared the table. She looked forward to cleaning up, the cheerful business of washing and drying. The dirty dishes she piled on a small table in the kitchen, afraid to place them on the countertop.

She preferred simple tasks, where the potential for error was slight: washing floors, mashing potatoes, chopping a mountain of carrots for the sweet stew Mrs. Nudelman loved. Then she could settle in and enjoy the warmth of the kitchen, the wash of sunlight from the window above the sink. The radio played Mrs. Nudelman’s favorite programs, serials and news reports and, each day at noon, a musical revue. The announcer spoke in a booming voice: From atop the Loew’s State Theatre Building, the B. Manischewitz Company, world’s largest matzoh bakers, happily present Yiddish Melodies in Swing!Between songs came a torrent of words, some English, some foreign; in the announcer’s sawing accent, they sounded nearly the same. The audience erupted periodically in raucous laughter. Annie listened intently, longing to share in their good time.

At night, the floors washed, she took tea and cake to Daniel, who studied late in his room. She knocked softly, opened the door, and set the plate and saucer at the corner of his desk. He wore round spectacles, a wool sweater over his white shirt. He didn’t speak, just nodded courteously. In the morning, outside his door, she found the dishes on the floor.

 

She’d been at the Nudelmans’ a few weeks when she met Frances in the lobby downstairs. Another serving girl: Annie knew it immediately, without knowing how she knew. “Well, of course,” Frances said when Annie told her this later. The daughters of the building had dark hair. All the serving girls were blond.

For two years Frances had worked at the Grossmans’, where her duties were the same as Annie’s: milchig and fleishig, the twin sinks and stoves. Mrs. Grossman was as crazy as Mrs. Nudelman. They shared the same mania for keeping things separate.

“But why?” Annie demanded.

“They’re Jews,” Frances said.

In two years she’d learned a few things about her employers. Mr. Grossman worked for his wife’s father, a fat man who came to Friday dinner and ate enough for two. The Grossmans’ youngest daughter was a little beauty, spoiled by her father. The older sisters were plain as milk. All three had large wardrobes, which required much ironing. Frances didn’t care for these daughters, nor for any of the Grossmans. She was tired of living among Jews.

“Just wait until springtime,” she told Annie as they walked to the fish market. “They’ll work you like a slave.” Last year Frances had cleaned late into the night, scrubbing down every inch of the kitchen. Mrs. Grossman had inspected all the pantry cabinets, looking for crumbs of bread.

Annie nodded, slightly puzzled. Though she cleaned the kitchen each night after dinner, it was never truly dirty. There was no coal stove to contend with, no small children’s dirty shoes.

On Thursdays both girls were free. Together they walked the avenues, looking in store windows. One evening they returned to their building and stepped into the open elevator. Too late, Annie saw Daniel Nudelman standing at the rear. She hesitated a moment, inexplicably embarrassed. If she had seen him first, she would have taken the stairs.

Daniel nodded silently. He reached past the girls and pulled shut the grille.

The elevator stopped at the second floor and Frances stepped out. “See you later,” Annie said softly, aware of how the small space amplified her voice.

Daniel closed the grille and turned to Annie. “You speak English?” he said, his black eyebrows raised.

“Of course.” Why would she not speak English? This is America, she thought.

They waited in silence until the elevator stopped. He fumbled in his pocket for a key. Inside, the apartment was dark and silent. Annie went to the kitchen and put on water for his tea.

In a moment Daniel followed her into the kitchen. “You must think I’m very rude,” he said. “I thought you spoke only Polish. That’s why I never talked to you.”

Up close, in the bright light, he looked older than she’d thoughthim, his cheeks dark with stubble. He sat at the small table and pulled out a chair. “Please, let’s start over. I’m Daniel. How do you do?”

Annie sat, undone by the question. Her heart raced pleasantly, as it had in the taxicab with his father.

“I know maybe two words of Polish. My mother says the Poles never did anything for us. But you’re a Pole, and you bring my tea every night. So that is no longer true.”

“But your parents speak Polish all the time,” Annie protested.

Daniel laughed. “Only when they don’t want me to know what they’re saying. The same way they speak Yiddish around you.” He folded his hands. “So ask me a question, and I’ll answer. Then I’ll ask a question about you.”

For two months her head had felt swollen with questions. Small questions nested inside larger ones, like matryoshka dolls.

She chose the smallest question, a timid one. “Why do you study all night?”

“It’s my job. I’ll be studying for the rest of my life.” His smile was broad, like his father’s. “My turn. Where did you come from, and why did you leave there?”

Flushing, Annie talked about the house in Bakerton, her eight brothers and sisters, the forest and the coal trains. The money she sent home each Friday, two bills folded in an envelope.

“You send them everything we pay you?” Daniel stared at her intently.

Annie felt her cheeks flush. “Almost,” she said.

There was a long silence.

“But that was three questions,” she said. “So now I can ask two more.” She felt suddenly bold. “Why are there two sets of dishes?”

Daniel nodded sagely. “You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.” Annie frowned.

“Not very helpful, is it? Listen, there are rules for everything. Foods we do not mix. Other foods we don’t eat at all.” He recited very fast: “This is the law about beast and bird and every living creature that moves through the waters and every creature that swarms on the ground, to make a distinction between the unclean and the clean and between the living creature that may be eaten and the living creature that may not be eaten.”

Like his father, he seemed to enjoy explaining. He spoke with his entire body: eyes, eyebrows, shoulders, hands.

“But that doesn’t answer your question, does it? Your question was why. So, Miss Lubicki: we eat this way as a reminder of our covenant with God, who led us out of slavery in Egypt. That’s the official answer. Not my answer. My answer is, I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Is it the same for you? Do Christians do things for no reason?”

Annie thought of her mother, who saved Lenten palm leaves, tucked them behind the Last Supper hanging on the kitchen wall. Each year, on Palm Sunday, the old leaves would be replaced with new ones. To ward off lightning strikes, her mother said, an explanation Annie found dubious.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “All the time.” One last question hung in the air. “Why did you think I spoke no English?”

He had his father’s eyes, dark and quick, always moving. “It’s what my mother told me.”

“Why would she say that?”

“I don’t know,” Daniel said.

 

In the beginning the languages had melded together; she’d scarcely noticed which was spoken. Now she began to pay attention. One Friday, chopping vegetables for cholent, she heard the Nudelmans argue in Polish. A secret from Daniel, then: they didn’t care if Annie heard.

The argument began in the hallway. Like every Friday, Mr. Nudelman had come home early, but he’d forgotten to stop at the bakery after work. Annie felt a flash of disappointment. Mrs. Nudelman always offered her the leftover challah, a treat she savored. The braided loaf was dense and eggy—in taste and texture, identical to the paska her mother baked at Easter. This had been a remarkable discovery, surprising and somehow joyous, like glimpsing her sister on the street.

The Nudelmans went into their bedroom and closed the door. Their voices rose steadily. Mrs. Nudelman’s was clear and sharp, easier to hear. “And where does he sleep, this nephew? The apartment is crowded already.”

“With Daniel,” said her husband. “We could put another bed in his room.”

“And what happens when Daniel is ill? Our son can’t share a room.”

“The situation is desperate,” said Mr. Nudelman. “If we wait a year, it may be too late.”

“You’re not his only uncle!” Mrs. Nudelman was nearly shouting. “What about that brother of yours? He can’t be bothered to help?”

Mr. Nudelman answered in a low voice. Annie stood very still, listening, but she couldn’t make out the words.

 

“His name is Mitro,” said Frances. “But he likes to be called Jim.”

Annie smiled, for the first time in her life aware of her lips, coated in borrowed lipstick. They stood on the sidewalk waiting for the boys to arrive. Frances’s beau had arranged the evening. His friend Jim drove a taxi and would collect the girls in his car. Annie glanced up at the third-floor windows. A single light burned in Daniel’s, the bright study lamp at his desk.

A yellow car stopped at the curb, and a burly man stepped out of the backseat. “Eddie!” Frances squealed, and kissed him full on the mouth.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” the driver called. Annie bent to see him through the open window. He wore a wool cap and a leather jacket and resembled her father, her brothers: the broad cheeks, the eyes watery blue.

Frances and Eddie tumbled into the backseat. Another car pulled up behind the taxi, its horn blaring. Timidly Annie opened the passenger door.

“We don’t have all day,” Jim shouted. “Let’s go, let’s go!”

The car was close and warm inside, smelling of cigarettes. Jim turned the wheel sharply, and they darted into the avenue. “You’re Polish,” he told Annie. “I could tell a mile away.”

Murmurs from the back seat, a stifled laugh. Annie glanced over her shoulder. Eddie and Frances sat whispering, their hands intertwined.

“You want to live in city, you need to move faster.” Jim shook a cigarette from the pack in his pocket. “I know many Poles. All Poles are slow.” He himself was not a Pole but a Ukrainian. He announced this with a certain drama, as though Annie had won a spectacular prize.

They drove. As in the taxi with Mr. Nudelman, Annie felt her stomach lurch. Storefronts flew past at a dizzying speed: laundry, delicatessen, shoe repair while you wait. She closed her eyes, knowing the signs would keep coming. That they would come to her that night, in dreams.

Finally the car stopped. Annie stared up at the bright lights of a theater. A crowd had gathered in front. ISLAND OF LOST SOULS, announced the marquee.

“Get out,” Jim said abruptly. “I go park this thing. I come and meet you inside.”

She scrambled out of the car and followed Frances through the revolving door. The high lobby was bright and crowded, the carpet soft as swamp grass under her feet. A long line had formed at the ticket counter. She took her place behind Frances and Eddie, who stood hip to hip. They seemed to have forgotten she was there.

The line moved quickly. Annie watched the revolving door—endlessly turning, a constant stream of people pouring in from the street. Young couples and old ones; several well-dressed women, a group of boys in black coats and small black caps. One boy, the tallest, caught her attention. Annie turned away, flustered. For an instant her heart raced.

At the window Eddie bought tickets for himself and Frances. Again Annie glanced at the door. The ticket cost her a quarter, exactly the amount she had in her purse.

 

They found seats in the dark balcony. The newsreel had already begun. Annie stared at the screen, reading quickly: Work Speeded on Huge Structures for World's Fair in Chicago. Some 20,000 Beer Cases in Skyscraper Pile Ready for April 7th.

Beside her, Frances and Eddie sank into an embrace.

 

A stack of cased brew as extensive and as high as a city apartment house block is the amazing sight that meets the eye on the grounds of a large brewery here. Almost five million bottles, a veritable mountain of drinks, await the Zero Hour when the 3.2 howitzers will begin to pop.

 

“Here you are.”

Annie turned. Jim sat heavily in the seat beside her. “I had hell of time finding parking space.”

“That’s too bad,” she said, wishing he’d be quiet. She had never been a fast reader. On the screen a man gestured wildly. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and swiped irritably at his brow. German Chancellor delivers a rousing speech to crowd of thousands.

“Why is he so angry?” she whispered.

“It’s news.” Jim leaned in closer. “It’s warm in here. Take off your coat.”

Annie did, leaning forward in her chair, a clumsy business. Then, finding nowhere to put it, she laid the coat across her lap.

The picture started. As always, the lilting strains of music swept her up completely; she barely noticed Jim’s arm slipping around her shoulders. The stars’ names flashed across the screen, written in swirling script. Only one was familiar. Unlike Frances, who spent half her wages on movie magazines, Annie had seen few pictures; but everyone knew Bela Lugosi.

Jim’s hand reached beneath the coat on her lap.

For two hours her eyes didn’t leave the screen; yet later, when she tried to remember the story, the details would escape her. She recalled only the warm weight of Jim’s hand, burrowing like a small animal, tunneling under her skirt.

 

When the lights came up, Annie blinked, a little dazed, as though she’d been asleep a long time. Flushing, she adjusted her skirt. Beside her were two empty seats. Frances and Eddie had stepped out halfway through the picture, crowding past strangers’ knees: Excuse me. Pardon me. It hadn’t occurred to her that they wouldn’t return.

“Where did they go?” she asked Jim.

“They want to be alone.” He rose abruptly. “Let’s go.”

He charged into the aisle, shoving his way through the crowd. Annie hurried into her coat. The aisle was swarming with people. It was a sensation unlike anything she’d experienced, the room humming like a beehive, strangers pressing at her back. In moment Jim was several paces ahead of her. She watched his broad shoulders disappear around the corner into the lobby.

“Wait!” she called, fumbling with the buttons of her coat.

Rounding the corner, her head down, she collided squarely with a tall boy holding a paper bag. There was a shower of white blossoms, popcorn scattering to the floor.

“Oh!” she cried, catching her breath.

He reached out a hand to steady her. He wore black trousers and a wrinkled white shirt, but he was not Daniel Nudelman. He was only a boy.

“I’m sorry,” she said, stepping back. To her horror, she felt her eyes tearing. “It was my fault.”

“It’s nothing.” He looked puzzled. “Miss, are you all right?”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, hurrying past him. She pushed through the crowd. A leather jacket had disappeared through the revolving door.

The sidewalk was crowded with people and umbrellas. A steady rain beat the pavement. Annie looked both ways, but the Ukrainian had disappeared.

She stepped back under the marquee, crowded with people seeking shelter. Her mind raced. She had no umbrella, no money, and crucially, no idea where she was. She could walk for a week and never find her way back to the Nudelmans’. She swiped her eyes with her sleeve.

“Miss?”

She turned to see the boy from inside the theater.

“Are you all right?” His eyes flickered across her face. “Did I hurt you?”

“Oh, no.” She found a handkerchief in her purse. “I’m just—lost.”

“Where do you want to go?”

When she gave him the Nudelmans’ address, he smiled. “Easy.” He pointed down the street. “Just go left at the corner and keep walking. It’s not quick, but it’s simple. Thirty blocks, and you’re home.”

She felt a hand at her back.

“Jew, leave her alone.”

Annie turned. Jim’s face was very red, his fair hair sodden. A cigarette dangled from his mouth.

The boy looked uncertainly at Annie.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m fine now. Thank you for helping.”

“Beat it,” Jim said.

 

He drove with the windows down, crashing through puddles. “Why were you were talking to this Jew?”

“He gave me directions,” she said. “I couldn’t find you. I didn’t know the way home.”

“What, you think I leave you there? I go to get car.” He tossed his cigarette out the window. “It’s bad idea, talking to strangers. You should be more careful.”

Annie stared out the window.

“It’s bad part of town,” said Jim. “Low class. Too many Jews.”

They drove for what seemed a long time. Finally, with a kind of exaltation, she recognized the kosher butcher, the fish market, the bakery Mrs. Nudelman favored. For the first time in months she knew exactly where she was.

“Stop here,” she told him. “That’s my building.”

“It’s early,” he said, stepping on the gas. “We go drink a nightcap. I know a place.”

The rain quickened, nicking the windshield. “No, thank you,” said Annie.

“You’ll like it,” Jim said, racing down the block.

When the car idled at a red light, Annie didn’t hesitate. She threw open the car door and stepped into the street.

“Hey!” Jim called.

Annie hurried to the sidewalk and broke into a run. I’m not slow, she thought.

She didn’t look back.

 

The apartment was silent at that hour. Her key clicked loudly in the lock. Annie slipped out of her coat and tiptoed down the hallway. At that moment Daniel emerged from his bedroom. He removed his spectacles and rubbed wearily at his eyes.

He seemed startled to see her. They stood there a moment, not speaking. Then a voice came from the Nudelmans’ bedroom:

“Daniel? You are still awake?”

“Go back to sleep, Mother,” Daniel said.

His eyes met Annie’s; he raised a hand in greeting. Annie waved back, thinking of her rumpled skirt, her smeared lipstick. Her cheeks burned with shame.

 

Ash Wednesday came, the beginning of Lent. A day of false spring weather: the crusty snow melting, the storm grates loud with runoff. Annie crossed the park quickly, her head down, a black smudge on her forehead where the priest’s thumb had traced a cross on her skin. Mrs. Nudelman had given her the morning off, and she took the long way back from church, the route she had memorized. Alone, she didn’t dare attempt a shortcut. Earlier that week Frances had been sent back to Passaic, her belly swollen. Annie’s only friend.

Back at the apartment Mrs. Nudelman called from the parlor. Three large suitcases sat open on the floor. Her nephew was getting married on Sunday, she explained in Polish. The family would travel to Newark for the weekend. Just this once, Annie would work on Thursday, help with the laundry and the packing. In return, she would have the weekend free. She could do as she pleased until Monday morning, when the family returned.

In English Mrs. Nudelman repeated this incredible fact: for an entire weekend, Annie would stay in the apartment alone.

That night she slept badly, plagued by nightmares. She was lost in the city streets. A yellow taxi seemed to be following her, its horn honking angrily. When Annie turned to see the driver, the yellow car was gone.

 

Friday morning, as usual, Annie went to the market. The sky was low and heavy. The spring weather had vanished like last night’s dream. When she returned, Mr. Nudelman was sitting in the kitchen.

“Daniel is ill,” he said. “Only a cold, but it would be unwise for him to travel.” The doctor had already come and gone.

Annie nodded, not surprised. The night before, when she’d taken his tea and cake, she’d found the room dark. In a whisper she’d apologized for waking him. Quietly she’d closed the door.

“My wife is upset. She doesn’t like to leave him.” Mr. Nudelman shrugged. “I told her you’d look after him.”

Annie laid the table for lunch, but Mrs. Nudelman would not come out of her room. Her husband drank coffee and stared at his newspapers, English and Yiddish. Annie bought them each morning at the corner store.

“The world,” he said, “is a dangerous place.”

He sat smoking as Annie cleared the table. At the front door she helped Mrs. Nudelman into her coat.

“Take Daniel some soup later.” Mrs. Nudelman spoke in a whisper, her face flushed, her eyes red.

Her husband gave Annie a slip of paper. “This is the telephone number in Newark. If you need anything, please call.”

From the window she watched them get into in a cab. A wet snow was falling. The taxi was yellow, as in her dreams: the car the Ukrainian had driven. If he were the driver, would he speak to the Nudelmans? I know a girl who works in this building. What would he say about her?

In the kitchen Annie switched on the radio. The announcer joked in Yiddish or English. The audience roared with laughter.

 

At dinnertime she heated the soup and carried it to Daniel on a tray. His room was dim inside, the curtains drawn.

“How are you feeling?” Annie asked.

He sat up partway in bed. His eyelids were heavy, his hair wild, his face coated with a sickly sheen. Annie put down the tray and sat at his bedside. Without thinking, she laid a hand on his forehead. She did this automatically, as with her younger brothers and sisters. He seemed startled by her touch.

“You have a fever.”

He smiled weakly. “How do you know? You don’t have a thermometer.”

She had nursed a brother through pneumonia, the little twins through whooping cough. “I know,” she said.

The doctor had given him aspirin; there was more in the medicine chest. In the bathroom she found the bottle behind the mirror. She filled a glass with water and wet a towel at the sink.

“Cold,” Daniel said when she laid the towel across his forehead. “Feels good. My mother left me in good hands.” He shifted in the bed. “She’s not happy about it, I can tell you that. But every once in a while my father puts his foot down.”

“She wants you to eat.”

“Always.” Daniel lay back and closed his eyes. “Later. I promise.”

“I can call your parents. On the telephone.”

“Don’t.” Daniel sat up abruptly. “Please. They’ll come back, and that will only make me feel worse. I’ll be better in the morning. You’ll see.”

“All right,” Annie said.

Outside, the snow was flying. A stiff wind rattled the windowpanes.

 

On Saturday morning the city was quiet, the streets blanketed in white. Daniel was sleeping deeply, wearing his spectacles. A book lay open on his chest. In that moment Annie felt her freedom. She had nothing to clean and no one to feed

She put on her coat and wound a scarf around her neck. The elevator was empty, the street quiet. Her breath steamed in the cold. In the avenue, the traffic lights were blinking. There were no cars in sight.

Why not? she thought, and walked down the middle of the street.

Blanketed in snow, the park seemed larger, a vast plain of whiteness. I could stay here forever, she thought. A few strangers crossed the lawn, hands in their pockets. On this still morning everyone was smiling, as though the storm had been staged for their amusement. Annie found herself smiling back. For the first time she felt included in the joke.

When she returned to the apartment, it was nearly noontime. The indoor air burned her cheeks. In Daniel’s bedroom the radiator was steaming. He had tossed aside the blanket. His pajama shirt was dark with sweat.

She sat on the bed and laid a hand on his forehead. His eyes snapped open. His lips were parched. A fast pulse beat in his throat.

In the hallway she took the slip of paper from her pocket. As she had seen Mrs. Nudelman do, she took the receiver from its hook and listened for a voice.

“I tried to phone your mother,” she told Daniel. “It didn’t work. I think I did something wrong.”

Daniel closed his eyes.

“I can call the doctor,” she said.

“It’s Saturday. No one will answer the phone.”

He was thirsty but couldn’t drink. Water tasted like metal and turned his stomach. Annie brought milk and held the glass as he drank. Heat rose off him like steam from the stove.

 

In the evening she fixed herself a cheese sandwich, ate it standing over the milchig sink. Even alone, she followed the rules. In this kitchen there seemed no other way to eat.

For several hours Daniel slept deeply, his skin cooler. Then, at midnight, the fever returned.

In the kitchen Annie put on the kettle. She opened the pantry cupboard and scanned the shelves. The Nudelmans had no garden, no dry, aromatic plants hanging in bunches in the cellar. There was only ground pepper and cinnamon and coarse salt; a bottle, labeled Onion Powder, whose use she couldn’t fathom; and a familiar yellow can. At home her mother kept mustard leaves for this purpose. In the city, Colman’s Dry Mustard would have to do.

The kettle whistled. Carefully she mixed the paste. She spread it into a clean dish towel and brought it to Daniel on a tray.

“What’s that?”

“A plaster.” Annie sat on the bed beside him. “Take off your shirt.”

His skin was moist and pale, matted with dark hair. He winced as she laid the hot towel on his chest.

“Leave it there until it cools,” she said. “I’ll come back in a little while.”

“No.” He reached for her hand. “Please. Sit with me.”

For a long time she stared out the window, listening to the night noises: Daniel breathing fast and shallow, snowflakes scratching the windowpanes. Outside, the sidewalks glowed beneath the streetlamps; even at this hour, the city was bright. Annie was a sound sleeper; she had never imagined the night was so long. The city was full of restless people, a thousand Daniels lying awake, the horizon burning with their collective heat.

 

It was daylight when Annie woke. She stirred, her back and legs aching, and found herself kneeling at Daniel’s bedside. Her blouse was wrinkled, her face creased. Her arms and shoulders rested on the quilt as if she’d fallen asleep in prayer.

She raised her head. In the distance, bells were ringing. Sunday morning, the Mass starting without her. Daniel was fast asleep, his bare shoulders visible above the blanket. His chest rose and fell silently. His hand was tangled in her hair.

She disengaged his hand. He stirred but didn’t wake. She saw then that the bedroom door was open. Somewhere in the apartment a radio was playing, water running. Somebody was drawing a bath.

The Nudelmans had come home.

Annie stood, her heart pounding, and went into the kitchen. A breakfast had been cooked and eaten. In the milchig sink were two greasy plates.

 

At home in Pennsylvania she thinks often of that night: her vigil at Daniel Nudelman’s bedside, the bright silent city closed in around them. There are words for what she’d felt as she watched him sleep, many words in many languages, but the one she knows is longing. Her mind wanders as she punches down the bread dough. She covers it with a towel and leaves it to rise near the stove.

Her mother speaks to her only in Polish and asks no questions. For several months she’s kept an eye on Annie’s waistline. Spring ended, then summer. Still Annie is thin as a deer. Now the mornings are cooler; the garden offers up its last tomatoes. Her brothers and sisters go back to school. Helen Lubicki walks across town to Bakerton High, the first in the family to do so. She is an excellent student. Now that Annie has returned, there is no need for Helen to leave school.

“I’ll be studying for the rest of my life,” Daniel had told her. Was such a thing even possible? Like everything she heard and saw in the city, it now seems fantastic, as though she made it all up.

His hand in her hair.

In the days after the snowstorm, Mrs. Nudelman had ignored her completely. It was her husband who told Annie the news. “I’m sorry, Miss Lubicki, but we will no longer need your help in the kitchen.” His Polish was awkward; she stared at him, mystified, not sure she’d understood.

Instantly she thought of the dishes. “Oh, no. Have I made a mistake?”

“Not at all. Your work has been very good.” He hesitated a moment, then spoke carefully. “But my nephew is coming from Poland. God willing. So we will no longer have an extra room.”

Years later she will understand the reason. Her brother Peter will die in the war. Her brother John will see the camps, and Annie—married then, with sons of her own—will remember the Nudelmans and the Grossmans, the nephew from Poland who was given her bedroom. She will think of Daniel. Is he married, too? A husband and father and still studying? Daniel in his separate world.

Now she sets out coffee, a heavy clay pitcher in the middle of the table, milk and sugar already mixed in. Each morning for breakfast she bakes a dozen apples. Then the young ones leave for school, Helen and John and Peter and the rest, and Annie piles the dishes in the sink.

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