Isaac in a Bind, Again

“Isaac, how’s my love letter coming along?” he asked me for the third time in Yiddish.

“Short and sweet, she seems like a lovely girl.”

“If she could only speak Yiddish, we could have a real conversation, rather than these letters between my visits to Alton.”

I laughed, “You could work harder on your English, Chaim.”

“I workin’ on it,” he said proudly.

“Work on the accent… You still sound like you just got off the boat!”

“I have been here six months!” he protested.

I shook my head, wondering at Chaim’s luck. He had come to Chicago, connected with his uncle’s best friend in Indiana and was now engaged to her sister-in-law. I’d been here eleven years and my love life had led to disaster. I had fallen in love, finally gotten up the nerve to propose and she’d accepted, sort of. Her response had been less than flattering, “Oh, I guess that’s alright. We can always get divorced if it doesn’t work out.”

Now, I’d been looking for a nice modern American born Jewish girl, but there was modern and there was modern. I’d walked off and muttered, “How about we divorce right now and skip everything in between?”

She had the gall to be affronted and tell me she’d never speak to me again, as if I had any interest in speaking to her after that.

So, here I was writing Chaim’s love letters to the girl he was getting ready to marry in two weeks. I felt like an idiot as I finished writing, “Best Regards… Chaim.” She wrote great letters back. She seemed like a kind, level headed, witty, and based on the pictures she had sent rather cute, young lady I would have given my eye teeth to meet. My sister was having better luck than I was. She was getting married in seven months in September to Izzy.

“Here’s your letter,” I said handing it to the smiling Chaim. He stuffed it into the envelope I had addressed for him and hurried out of parlor of the boarding house. My lantsman from Lanovitz, the lucky dog, he’d even had a Second Class ticket to America.
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Chapter 1

Eleven years ago I came to America. Eleven years before that when I was eight, my father said goodbye and left Lanovitz behind forever to make a new life for us in America. Lanovitz was a very old shtetl, a village which many claimed was established back in the 15th Century. The town was basically two towns, one Jewish and one not. The closest city was Lvov in Galicia. Depending on the vagaries of history, the town was either Poland or Russia, and because the train passed through Lanovitz, people made a modest living.

Poppa felt we could do better in America and planned to work hard and make enough money to send for us. “It should be a year, two at most,” he had promised. We cried, we didn’t want him to go, but we didn’t have the money for all of us to go. My Uncle Benzion, a few years younger than my Poppa, had written and said he had had to travel all the way to Missouri to find work. New York City was not so easy and our cousins there weren’t in a position to help much. That was the last time Momma, my younger sister Surah and I saw him for years.

He stayed in New York for a time, but ultimately moved to Chicago where he got work rolling cigars with other immigrants who were from Lanovitz. He wrote that it was hard to save enough money for our three tickets, but he should have enough the next month. He promised that and we waited and waited for that next letter, when it didn’t arrive for weeks on end we began to worry. Zayda Zvi and Bubbe Bluma were both worried too. They lived down the street and lived for the letters Poppa sent us and the one’s Uncle Benzion, Poppa’s younger brother, sent them. It was two months before we got the next letter from Poppa asking us if we had bought the tickets with the money he had sent yet.

Momma let out a cry at that, realizing that his letter had gone astray or, as was more likely, the letter had been torn open along the way and the money stolen. “How can I tell your Bubbe and Zayda this?”

But it was worse than that. Business wasn’t exactly great in Lanovitz for a mother raising two children.  Momma had already begun making arrangements for me to travel to Warsaw and live there for several months to learn my bar mitzvah. She had hoped that she could save the money we had saved for the trip to America, but now it looked like I would be making the trip with my Zayda after all.
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Chapter 2

I studied in Warsaw with the Hazans, the cantors, the city was famed for. They taught me to chant the readings of my Torah and Haftorah portions. I had a good voice. That’s what everyone had said in Lanovitz, and I was good with numbers and musical notes, I could do figures in my head and musical notation came as easily. The Hazans wrote to my Zayda and told me they praised the family’s choice for sending me to them.

I received and wrote many postcards and letters, and learned that Poppa was heartsick over the money having been lost, but happy that I was studying in Warsaw. Momma also wrote that Poppa was again saving money for our tickets, but this time would purchase the tickets and not send the money. What she did not write was that it would take Poppa years to save enough again.

Nothing was ever easy. But one thing I knew, if you worked hard – and did a lot of praying, everything would work out for the best. Or so I hoped.

Yes, I was a bit naïve. Luckily, my voice didn’t break until after my bar mitzvah in Lanovitz. Oh, did I mention that the war broke out about that same time? I am talking about the Great War as they call it here in America. Living through it, though, I assure you there was nothing “great” about it.
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To say life was tough is an understatement. To say Momma was tougher, another. We fled Lanovitz as the battle lines shifted ever nearer. When the war receded, we came back to our home with our neighbors who had fled. We had to repair not just our roof, but our grandparent’s, then the damage to our nearest neighbors’ homes, all while foraging for food. The war was very hard on Bubbe Bluma. She fell ill… We buried her in the cemetery outside the shtetl.

Zayda visited her every day no matter the weather. Momma went into business. Not to say I plan to tell my children or grandchildren about that business, there’s Prohibition after all. Explaining that we were bootleggers might be a bit embarrassing.

But we were in a bind and we had to make a living… and people do like to drink and are willing to pay whether it’s legal or not, even in the Russian Empire, where drinking was considered almost a sport. Of course, those who wanted booze from the other side of town, the non-Jewish Lanovitz, often decided to skip the middlemen and came directly to us, which led to the day I had to hide in the oven.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the oven wasn’t lit at the time and it wasn’t like we had much wood to burn lately. The men were drunk who broke into the house demanding the booze. They knocked Momma down and my sister threw herself over her and screamed so loud I could not fail to hear her say, “You hurt my Momma, you’ll have to kill me first!”

Had they found me, they would have beaten me to death to get the booze. We had known it to happen, which was one of the hazards of this particular line of business.

Now Momma could scream real loud, but Surah was no slouch, either. The men left, thank god, and never found the bottles I had hid out back… But let me tell you, don’t hide in an oven, it’s not easy to hold your breath with your knees up against you chest.
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Chapter 3

So, we prayed for the war to end and what that got us was the Russian Revolution. The Communists killed the Czar, who thankfully had stayed far away from us… The Great War may have ended, but we had more to worry about. Momma wrote Poppa in America, but I had my doubts he would ever receive her letter. When we did start getting the mail again, Poppa’s letters kept asking if we were all right and how his Mother and Father were. Well, it was clear from that that Momma’s letters weren’t reaching him or hadn’t yet.

News about the Revolution and fighting amid the factions made every day maddening. Yet one day the trains were running on schedule again and a batch of letters from Poppa arrived within days. I was twenty years old when Momma opened a letter with our tickets to America inside.

Eleven years we hadn’t seen Poppa and now we were leaving Lanovitz. “Zayda, please, come with us!” I pleaded.
He shook his head, “I’ll not leave your Bubbe… America is for the young. Just promise me this, Isaac. You’ll tell your father and your uncle when you see them that I love them. They have my blessing always.”

“Please, you’ve got to come with us. The fighting is only going to get worse.”

“What are they going to do to me? I’m an old simple Jew. If I die, it’s God’s Will, and then I’ll be with my Bluma… and as long as you live you’ll never forget me.”

My sister begged him too, but to no avail. “Just promise me, if you have daughters, name them after your grandmother as is tradition.”

“We will,” we promised, then Surah coughed and rubbed her eyes. When we came home, Momma was packing. Surah coughed again and again. Momma frowned.
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Zayda hugged us all goodbye that next day at the train station, which was a bitterly cold winter day. We waved at him from the window as the train took us away forever from the town that had been our family’s home for generations. I vowed to name my son after my grandfather, who had been more of a father to me than the father I would soon be reunited with.

My sister coughed some more. Now I was growing concerned. There was no doubt she was sick, “Get Surah some water.”
I hurried from our seat as Momma put a blanket around her.
# # #

It took us days on the train to reach our destination, the port city of Danzig. Surah had been feverish for much of the trek. Our tickets were for the American Line’s S.S. New Rochelle. We went to their offices, answered the questions they typed on the ship’s manifest, then went through what they told us was a medical exam. They took one look at Surah’s eyes, which were flushed pink, and told us we would have to leave without her. America wouldn’t take her like this. The clerks said they would exchange her ticket for the next sailing in a month, when the doctor said she should be fine to travel.

Momma listened, shook her head, then began screaming to High Heaven, “I’M NOT LEAVING WITHOUT MY DAUGHTER! OUR TICKETS ARE FOR TOMORROW, WE GO TOGETHER TOMORROW ON THAT SHIP!”

“Ma’am, we’ll exchange your ticket for next month’s ship!”

“WE HAVE NOT ENOUGH MONEY TO STAY IN DANZIG! MY DAUGHTER WILL NOT STAY HER ANOTHER DAY! WE GO TO AMERICA TOMORROW! TOMORROW, YOU UNDERSTAND ME! I HAVEN’T SEEN MY HUSBAND – THEIR FATHER IN ELEVEN YEARS! WE’RE DONE WAITING! SHE CAN TRAVEL, SHE’S FINE!”

“Ma’am, you must understand. It’s the law in America. They are afraid on a very contagious eye disease!”

“MY DAUGHTER DOES NOT HAVE THIS DISEASE! SHE HAS PINK EYE! KIDS GET PINK EYE AND ARE FINE! YOUR DOCTOR KNOWS SHE’S FINE! WE HAVE OUR TICKETS TO AMERICA! WE GO TOMORROW!”

Now, please understand, Momma had quite a temper and I may not remember all the words she yelled that day… But they made an impression on the shipping company men. They relented and told us we could go together the next day, but if Surah’s eyes were still pink when we reached New York, Surah would be put back on the boat and shipped back to Danzig at the company’s expense… They would not help us then. She’d have to buy another ticket once her eyes were clear.
Momma just glared at them, then turned and we left. The shipping company men did not speak to us when we joined the line to board the ship the next morning, but Momma glared at them for a time. Only once we boarded did she smile, then nearly fainted. “I’m fine, we are going to America.”

Surah and I just looked at each other. Her eyes were pink as could be. Momma made me say Tehillim/Psalms once we settled in the hold with our over one thousand new neighbors on the voyage to New York.
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Chapter 4

The trip took over a week. They told us we were lucky to get even an hour a day on deck after the First and Second Class Passengers went for their meals. I remember playing chess, I loved playing chess with anyone who had a set… and I remember Surah staying in bed a lot as Momma brought her food and kept her as warm as she could.
Momma made me say a lot of Psalms for my sister’s health and thanks that we would soon be seeing Poppa again.
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Everyone tells me how happy they were once we were allowed on deck and the ship sailed across New York Harbor and saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time. I must admit, I did not see it. I only looked at Ellis Island and glanced at my sister’s faintly pink eyes.

When we got off the ship there was a man passing out brown paper bags to all the Jewish families. He spoke to us in Yiddish briefly before moving on. He was from the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) and had given us an apple, a piece of hard candy, a post card of New York City, a pencil, and a small book of Psalms. He said it was very important for everyone to stay quiet, particularly the children, and that we should take a few moments to write on the postcard to family that we had safely arrived.

Momma took the time we were standing in line to write to Grandpa Zvi and whispered one last time for Surah to keep her head down and try not to meet anyone’s gaze.

Soon we were told to leave our baggage, then walked up a flight of stairs to the second floor. A soldier stood at the top with a piece of chalk in his hand. A woman with her hand on the railing, he marked with an “I” and separated from her children and husband, who cried out in dismay.

That made the man in front of me begin to whisper a prayer, the soldier glanced at him and when he reach the last step, he marked his coat with an “X” and separated him out of the line. The man was horrified, but didn’t say a word.
Surah came up behind me, never looking up and the soldier ignored us. As we walked past, I dared to breath. Then I heard Momma gasp, nurses and a doctor dressed in white coats were checking people eyes with what looked like a shoe button hook.

They passed one person after another, then me, next they looked at Surah’s eyes and stopped. The doctor gestured and a nurse came over and reached out to her. Momma shouted, “NO!”

Things got bad then. We all left the line and Surah was taken to the Ellis Island hospital. The man from HIAS was brought over to us and he explained in Yiddish that they were simply going to observe her. If in a few days her eyes were clear, we would be allowed to complete our processing and stay in America. If not, my sister would be sent back to Danzig.

I had never seen Momma so afraid in all her life. The man from HIAS spoke to us later than day and told us he had visited Surah in the hospital. She was well and in good spirits. He led all of us delayed due to: the doctors certifying them healthy or those marked with an “X,” who had been marked as crazy, or those who had other reasons to appeal the decision to send them back to Europe, to the dining hall where kosher food was available.

I had to laugh when I saw what our kosher meal was. Beet Borscht Soup and an odd crescent shaped yellow fruit that I bit into. It had a leathery peel that I quickly learned wasn’t exactly edible. “Not like that, you peel it like this,” one of the fellows who was appealing the decision to send him back to Russia said. “It’s called a banana.”

I’ve never told anyone this. But I hate bananas to this day. Lunch and dinner were borscht and bananas for three whole days until the hospital released Surah once her eyes cleared.

Momma was crying as we left Ellis Island and found Poppa waiting. Surah and I were crying too and dropped our baggage at the sight of him. The only thing I remember saying when he hugged me was, “What happened to your hair?”

“You look like Zayda!” Surah said.

Poppa laughed, then looked at Momma and said, “Welcome to America.”
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Chapter 5

Five weeks later I returned to the board house after a hard day's work. I was feeling miserable again, having realized that by now Chaim was on his honeymoon. I had no soon sat down in the kitchen, when I heard someone enter the boarding house. I turned in surprise to Chaim with his bags. “What are you doing back here? You should be married by now!”

“Isaac? Oh, there was a bit of a misunderstanding… Sadie didn’t understand that, well…”

“What?”

“I saw no reason that we shouldn’t get to know each other a little better before the wedding – and she slapped me and called off the wedding.”

I stared at him. He was an idiot. I’d read him her letters. She was a proper young lady. What had he been thinking? Then again, I could guess what he had been thinking… He just really hadn’t gotten to know her, not through the visits where she spoke to him in broken Yiddish or through her love letters.

I shook my head and watched Chaim go back up to the room he had shared with his friend. Sadie had slapped him and called off the wedding – good for her!

Then the urge to write to her came over me. I couldn’t, could I? But I felt I knew her through the letter and what could it hurt. I took out my pen and stationary, then wrote that I had heard, refraining from mentioning I’d heard it from Chaim, that she had not gotten married. What should I say? Ah, I wrote and asked her if she would write me a long letter back, if she felt writing me back was something she would like to do, then I signed it, “Best Regards, Isaac.”

Before I could chicken out, I mailed it to her, feeling very foolish indeed.

A week later she wrote me back, first neatly and narrowly typed on a roll of adding machine paper. I laughed, I had asked her to write me a long letter, but apparently the roll was a bit limiting. She had stapled strips of notebook paper to it and finished writing the letter by hand. It was the funniest thing I’d ever read and she wrote she looked forward to my next letter!

Ahem, we resumed our correspondence and I took the train to Alton as soon as I could. Sadie accompanied me to my sister’s wedding; a month later Sadie married me. My baby brother Joe was eleven, he, Momma, and Poppa were the happiest I think I had ever seen them. A month after getting married, Sadie and I opened a store in a small town, Robinson, Southern Illinois. I chose the town with care, well, some care. Hey, the candy shop across the square was doing good business, even opened a factory to make toffee bars. Okay, I tasted a few and thought them pretty good. Those working for the Heaths needed uniforms, dresses, shoes… And so did the Marathon Oil Refinery folks in the neighborhood. A smart couple like Sadie and I could do worse, and living upstairs above the store wasn’t so bad in the summer – not if you poured water on the mattress to stay cool, anyway.

Oh, last I heard of Chaim, he had moved to Mexico City to become rich. Knowing him, he probably would too.  He was a lucky guy like I said before, but for all the binds I’ve been in, I think I may be the luckier one.
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Approximately 3,250 Words