Page 53 - WTP Vol. IX #9

dish curses than “pricks,” although she watched her mouth around us kids. Dad said Mom had a sharp tongue because she was Hungarian. She was never short of words, except when we found out all my father’s relatives had died in the camps. Reva was named for his mother.
I liked our new apartment. So did Mom. In addition to being bigger, it was near Mount Pleasant Elemen- tary School, the playground, and three blocks from the bus Dad took to Cole’s Hardware Store. It was the perfect job for him. He was good with his hands and patient when customers tore their hair out because they didn’t know how to fix something and had made it worse trying. Some of my friend’s dads who’d been in the war hardly spoke, or got angry for no reason. My father wasn’t like them. He was friendly and even-tempered.
In those days, people didn’t lock their doors. All the same, I knocked and waited to be asked in. Mrs. Sul- livan’s plucked eyebrows shot up when she saw me.
I expected to hand her the envelope and skedaddle, but she motioned me inside, where my eyes bugged out at the antique gilt furniture and silk lamp shades. I knew “gilt” was spelled differently than “guilt,” but if I told her, she might call me a show-off. “Missy,” she said. She wouldn’t like me reminding her of my real name either. “Tell your mother to tell your father to re-trim the boxwoods. The hedge on the east side
of the walk is half an inch taller than the one on the west. Can you remember that?”
I nodded, although I wasn’t as good at geography as I was at spelling.
“And remind her to remind him to fix the glass door. Again.” With that, she snatched the envelope from my hand and practically pushed me out the door. I took the stairs two at a time.
Reva was still fussy when I got back to our apart- ment. I didn’t want to set my mother off on a rant about the landlady, but I was too curious to stay
mum. “Mom, why does Mrs. Sullivan live in Mount Pleasant? She’s rich enough to live in a fancier neighborhood.”
“Thirty years ago, when her husband bought this house, nice neighborhoods didn’t sell to Catholics and Jews. Jews are still excluded. Even if our family got rich, we’d be restricted to suburbs like Cleve- land Heights.”
“Mrs. Sullivan’s Catholic. Couldn’t she move to a bet- ter neighborhood now?”
“Maybe she’s not as rich as she looks. Or she likes liv- ing here so she can lord it over us poor schmucks.” Schmuck was another Yiddish curse word she’d say in front of me.
My mother harrumphed when I told her what Mrs. Sullivan said she should tell my dad. I was glad to get back to my paper dolls. Later we ate cold cuts on rye with sliced tomatoes for supper; Dad would eat when he came home. Reva’s fever finally broke and she fell asleep. Mom and I sat in the kitchen, she drinking iced tea and me cherry Kool-Aid. I drew more doll clothes, the kind rich ladies wear. Mom didn’t know how to spell peignoir so I looked in the dictionary. It took a long time to find because first I went through words starting with “pen.” My father came home just as I finished making the tabs.
My mother shook her head when she told Dad about re-pruning the bushes. “It’s Fiona, that old prune, who’s cockeyed. If she’s so finicky, she should trim them herself.” It was worse when Mom told him about the glass door. She slammed Dad’s plate on the table. “How many times have you fixed it, Leo? A dozen? It’s kaput. The old battle-axe needs to buy a new one.”
“Now, Perl. Mrs. Sullivan is a widow.” He said that word with reverence. “How many times are we com- manded in the Torah to take care of the widow and the orphan?” My mother never quoted the Bible. According to her, my father only started after Hitler killed his family.
“Poor widows and orphans. Fiona’s not poor. Just cheap.” My mother chewed her nails, a sign she was angry. Also, while my father called the landlady by her surname—which sounded like “sir name”—my mom used her first name, spitting it like an insult. “You let that woman walk all over you, Leo. She ought to pay you for your work, or give us a break on the rent.”
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