Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 12 of a new online serial novel, Nine A.M., by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week. Click here for previous chapters.
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On the bulletin board at the entrance to the shop:
Assistant required in the preschool for at least five hours a day.
Those interested should submit their candidacy to the Samson Lager office by the end of works hours this coming Wednesday.
“Elky, pack me up six hundred grams of white sugar, please.” Anika didn’t even try to conceal her unusual purchases, made possible because she was the oldest of the three Sherer daughters. She leaned on the counter and studied the shiny green bag from which Elky scooped out the little mounds of white crystals, pouring them into the paper bag on the electric scale. “And I also want a container of the cheese that we produce, and a tin can of pickles. You’ve been left alone to spend your daily hour here, huh? But you’re managing just fine, I see.”
“Thank you,” Elky said quietly and turned to get the things that Anika had asked for.
“And your friend moved permanently to the preschool…?” Anika murmured as she pulled out her payment vouchers. “I see that it’s caused all kinds of changes. Since when do we look for workers this way?”
Elky opened her mouth to reply, but then decided to remain silent.
“When we were young, no one was allowed to choose anything. We put in our hours of assistance work wherever we were sent, until the age of sixteen, and by then, somehow, everything fell into place.”
“The problem is that there isn’t a lot of interest in working in the preschool,” Elky said carefully.
“Why? I heard that there are at least two girls who are thinking about it.”
From your group, Elky wanted to say but didn’t.
“None of you girls want to do it? But it’s actually pretty easy work, and in any case, assistance hours earn a flat fee all around!”
Elky nodded. She didn’t say that top secret rumors were going around that Rechel Schvirtz would not allow her Naomi to remain the preschool teacher permanently, no matter what. Apparently, one of the up-and-coming assistants would be her replacement, and who wanted to take that risk?
In the meantime, Naomi had to deal with the dismal feelings… The thought caused Elky so much angst. In an effort to silence it, during her lunch break she counted out twenty-nine sugar cubes, on her account. She placed them in a small paper bag and went out to the preschool. The children would surely be happy to each get half a cube, and she’d get to chat with Naomi for a bit. It was alright; she could give up her lunch once in order to spend some time with her friend.
The large preschool room looked the same as it had on her previous visit: the peeling paint, spotted with mold here and there; the drawings on the walls that were at least thirty years old; and the cracked flooring. Only the tables and chairs were relatively new; Bilhah had lobbied long and hard until she’d gotten permission to order them from the carpentry shop.
The children were finishing their lunch, and Naomi was bentching with some of the older kids. “Elky!” she exclaimed when she was done. “You’re wasting your lunch break on me, instead of going to eat?”
“I brought something for the children,” Elky said, holding out the bag. “Do with it what you want. Maybe promise them that if they behave and straighten up the classroom, they will get something special.”
“Thanks, you’re such a good friend!” Naomi peeked into the bag. “You don’t mind if I ask them to make a brachah Shehakol as a zechus for my father’s neshamah, right? Today is his yahrtzeit.”
“Mind? I’d be so happy if you do that! Like that, I can get some zechusim, too. And while you do that with the kids, I’m going to enjoy the sweet memories I have from this place,” Elky said, looking around. “I want to pretend that I’m a little girl in kindergarten again, with no worries. When did we last leave this place and move into folding fabrics at the sewing workshop?”
“When we were twelve,” Naomi replied. “I remember Morah Bilhah’s parting hug when we left…”
“It’s amazing how a preschool teacher can be so significant for the children she teaches.”
Naomi was quiet for a moment. “Thanks, Elky,” she finally whispered. “You’re not the only one trying to encourage me to use these days to the utmost.”
“It looks to me like you’re doing an excellent job!” Elky smiled. “But tell me, where will you go from here?”
“I don’t know. First, we have to see what will be here with another assistant.” Naomi lowered her tone even more. “My grandmother went to four homes in our community yesterday, families who have a girl of the right age, but she didn’t want to tell me how the conversations went with them. I’m afraid that no one was ready to commit to submit a candidacy.”
“We need to think who of the four would be best for the job,” Elky mused. “And then we need to try to persuade that girl. Do you want us to go together this evening to work on it?”
“I already told you that my cousin is perfect for the job,” Mila suddenly interjected from the side. “And she’s going to register.”
“We’ll see who will register from our girls,” Naomi said confidently. “And then they’ll decide who would be best.”
“Me!” a voice trumpeted behind them. They turned around to find Katy Gross, who was thirty-two years old, walking with her lopsided gait. “I mean, maybe I am,” she clarified.
“Hi, Katy,” Naomi greeted her. “How are you?”
“So-so. I’m sick of all my jobs… I want to maybe be a preschool teacher, like you.”
Mila frowned. “You? Don’t you work cleaning the estate? And cleaning the camp? And at the bakery? I thought you have enough jobs.”
“I don’t have strength for all of it anymore!” Katy said bitterly. “It’s really hard to clean and clean all day long, running around from here to there. I like children, and it’s a lot of fun here, right? So I came to see if it would be worth it for me to work in the preschool instead.”
“It wouldn’t be worth it for you,” Mila declared. “We work very hard here. Very, very hard.”
Katy refused to accept the response. “My mother said it would be good for me. At the estate, Ilonka is always in charge of me and tells me what to do, ‘cause she wants to make Katarina and the others happy. At the bakery and the dairy, they also yell at me. But here, I can be like Bilhah and play with the kids…it would be so nice! You’re all so cute, right, children?”
Some of the children nodded or shouted back “yes,” and others tittered. The rest remained silent.
“So who chooses?” Katy demanded to know. “Who will choose the teacher?”
“Maybe the camp committee, or maybe one of the hauptmanns,” Naomi said quietly.
“Fine, so what do I need to do if I want them to choose me?”
Naomi smiled at her. “Submit your candidacy. By Wednesday night.”
“Good,” Katy said. “My mother went to the office before, and they said that two people already registered their names. So I’ll go and tell them to write me down, too.”
“Who registered already?” Naomi asked, feeling her shoulders stiffen.
“Rivku, Mila’s cousin.” Katy pointed her chin at Mila. “And Mashi Hertz.”
“Mashi? She was here in the preschool until just a little while ago,” Naomi said. “How old is she now? Thirteen?”
“That’s how it is,” Katy said, nodding her head knowingly. “They grow up quickly here. First you’re in preschool, and then you’re sent to help out in different places, and if you’re a boy, to work with the animals. Then you become a regular worker. Only I’m always doing assistant work, and don’t have my own job…” Tears began to leak out of her big eyes.
“The work here is also only as an assistant,” Mila said.
“You be quiet!” Katy snapped at her. “You don’t even want me to come. I know you think I’m crazy. Naomi is a thousand times better than you, even though she’s religious and different from us.” She suddenly burst into high-pitched laughter. “I’m going to tell them to write my name down to be an assistant, and if they choose me, I’m going to come work here even if that annoys you!”
***
The small table was covered with the lace tablecloth that Babbe Sara Liba had crocheted for Rechel when she got married. On the table, the little candle was still gasping its last breaths. Binyamin finished his supper and made a brachah acharonah.
“Are you full?” Rechel asked him. She hadn’t had an easy day. Like every year on her husband’s yahrtzeit, the pain, anger, and fear all competed inside her.
“Yes, I’m very full. Thanks, Mamme, the food was delicious.” He glanced at the closed closet behind him and deliberated whether to ask the question. Rechel looked at him a bit curiously.
“Mamme, Rav Schwartzbrod told me that Tatte had beautiful chiddushei Torah,” he said finally. “He said that he wrote a lot, especially on the topic that we discussed today.”
“Which topic is that?” Rechel’s eyes were large, and they flashed with panic.
“‘Shelo k’sidran.’ Why, Mamme?”
“Oh,” she answered, and withdrew into herself. “That’s what you spoke about… So what do you want?”
“I’d love to see what he wrote. If it’s alright with you.”
“His notebooks are in my closet,” she said, her tone indecipherable. “I think that in those days, they brought the notebooks to the store mostly for him… He wrote a lot, especially when he sat in the garden of the estate and didn’t have anything special to do.”
“What did he write?”
“Well, first of all, he would write chiddushim and explanations on the Gemara. And besides that, he also liked to sketch and design all kinds of inventions and things, like an irrigation system for the garden, and an electric brush that would process the furs in a much shorter time. He gave some of the sketches to Wangel, but as far as I know, nothing ever came of them.”
“You have the notebooks?”
“Yes, but I won’t give them to you,” she said in a firm tone. “The memories that they bring up are too loaded for me. I’m sorry.”
“Do you remember how much the notebooks cost in the store?” Naomi asked, very obviously trying to change the subject.
“Notebooks? What for?” Rechel looked like she was relieved at the opportunity to speak about something else.
“I want to open a special class for the older girls in the kindergarten,” Naomi said calmly.
“A special class? Don’t waste your energies there, Naomi, please. You have to try and get out of that job as fast as you can, not get settled there.” She looked at her daughter for a few long moments and then sighed.
“You’ll get the reward for raising children b’ezras Hashem when you raise your own children. And in order to get a good shidduch, you need to have a more respectable job. Not this, Naomi’le, not this.”
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