Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 30 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.
Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications.
Tuesday 2.11.93
I would like to sincerely request that you enable Elka Kush to make up the hours she has missed from work due to feeling unwell, so that she can get her regular monthly salary.
With respect,
Dr. Annie Katzburg
The doctor raised her head from the pen and paper and looked at Sara Liba. “In the normal world, before the rise of the Reich,” she spat out in an angry whisper, “there were workers’ rights. Rights! Basic ones! Someone who was sick had sick days, and was paid by his employer for those days!”
“I heard about it,” Sara Liba said. “My father, Hashem yinkom damo, had a shoe store, so those rules probably didn’t apply to him. But for people who worked for someone else, I’m sure it was significant.”
“Very, very significant.” The doctor shook her head. “I imagine that there were conditions, and you couldn’t announce that you were sick every day and get paid as if you worked normally. But it was a basic law that favored the workers. And here? People are choking themselves not to miss even one hour of work. It’s dreadful.”
Babbe sighed and took the sheet of paper. “They choke themselves?” she asked quietly. Was Elky choking? There had been something strange in her eyes when they’d spoken about the party and the work she would be missing. Was it possible that they were simply starving for bread at home? But why? He worked, she worked…why shouldn’t the money be enough for them to buy food?
“Choking, definitely. Should I give you an example? If Bilhah, the preschool teacher, would have been able to rest a bit more over the years, she wouldn’t be in the state that she’s in today.”
“Yes…” Babbe nodded. After a moment, she shook herself. “Thank you, Doctor. I’ll give this to her.”
The good doctor smiled. “I see that in your community, everything goes through you.”
“Oh, not everything at all.” The older woman chuckled. “It’s just that Elky came yesterday with her mother to ask my advice about something, and I promised to help her out… Maybe I’ll go visit her at home right now and I’ll give this to her. I promised her that you’d agree to write a request to the management, and maybe that would help.”
“Isn’t she invited to the party at the Wangel manor house?”
“She can’t go,” Babbe said lightly. “She doesn’t feel so well, right?”
But Elky didn’t open the door, and all of Sara Liba’s knocking was futile. Sara Liba didn’t know if Elky was angry at her, and that’s why she wasn’t answering the door, or if there was another reason. She bent down and slid the doctor’s note under the door and then turned from there to Aryeh and Naomi’s house.
“Babbe!” Naomi greeted her with a broad smile. “It’s so nice that you came! What did we do to deserve the honor of your visit?”
“Well, obviously, I came to do the mitzvah of bikur cholim,” Babbe said, and marched right over to her grandson’s bed. “How are you, Aryeh?”
“Baruch Hashem,” he said, putting down the brown notebook and pencil on the night table. “It’s great to be back home.”
“I’m sure. What’s this notebook?” she asked curiously.
Aryeh’s hesitation lasted a moment. Finally he said, “If Bais Yaakov girls in this place are learning to read in Lashon Hakodesh, there is no reason for me, weak as my mind may be, to fail for the rest of my life.” He opened the notebook to show his grandmother. Rows and rows of the letter aleph filled the first page, followed by rows upon rows of the letter beis.
“Don’t insult my grandson!” Babbe protested. “Don’t you see that it has nothing to do with your mind?”
“How are you so sure of that?”
“Because you are very clever, and if you struggle with reading, it means that it’s due to other things, not your brains. Maybe it’s a problem with your eyes?”
“I actually see very well baruch Hashem.”
“It’s possible that there are problems that don’t cause blurred vision, but they make the eyes or the brain not able to understand what they are seeing. And besides, you read and write in Hungarian, I saw!”
“I read a line every five minutes, and I can write a line in ten minutes.” Aryeh smiled. “But it doesn’t matter. I find Chumash and Gemara a hundred times harder, and I decided that the time has come for me to try. And until now, I didn’t have a private teacher.”
“I’m in favor,” Babbe said with a wink. Then she decided to drop the sensitive topic. “Naomi, what’s doing at the preschool now, when you are not there?”
“Rivku and I are taking turns with the breaks. Yesterday she left for an hour; today I did.” She put the tea down on the table. “You can sit down, Babbe—please, don’t stand.”
“So I had the zechus to come just when it was your break?” Babbe took a seat. “I don’t want to disturb you. I just want to ask you two questions. Would you go to the Wangels’ party, Naomi?”
“Why me?”
“Because you are strong.”
Naomi was quiet and glanced at her husband. He didn’t say word.
“I can’t do it to Elky,” she finally whispered. “She won’t be able to digest that, Babbe. As it is, she’s very bitter about being told to call in sick for two days so that she could miss the party…”
“It will pass, b’ezras Hashem,” Babbe said calmly.
“And besides, I don’t want to be away from the house today, when Aryeh has finally been released. As it is, I’m out for hours on end…”
“I understand. Now for the second question: Aryeh, you don’t have a salary right now. How do you want me to help you? Should I give you some of our vouchers, or buy you products?”
Aryeh and Naomi exchanged glances for a fraction of a second. “It’s alright, Babbe,” Aryeh said hoarsely. “We’re managing. Thanks.”
Babbe didn’t give up. “The preschool teacher’s salary is almost nothing,” she said. “Should I give you vouchers? Or just buy the things? Believe me, Zeide and I have too much. How much do two old people eat already?”
“We have savings, Babbe,” Aryeh said.
“Yes, I know. Naomi’s mother, your aunt, told me about the wedding gift you got from Wangel. Very nice, all well and good, but savings are an important thing that shouldn’t get wasted every time something unexpected crops up. You are still young. Keep those extra vouchers for more urgent expenses. So you’ll get food from me now, and just take it and say thank you.”
“Thank you,” Aryeh said. Naomi echoed him. And then they were both quiet.
“Or you can go to the party this evening, Naomi. They promised a monetary gift,” Babbe added with another wink. “I was just joking. I understand you very well, and I won’t ask you again to go. We’ll send a few others, from our better girls. Not that there’s anyone as wonderful as you!” She smiled at Naomi.
***
“Maybe you should give shiurim for the wives of the Russian workers,” Dena’s mother-in-law suggested with a wink.
Dena was horrified at the idea. “I can barely speak Yiddish!” she said, before realizing that it was just a joke. “What else can a woman do in Vienna?”
“Work in an office, be a teacher, or preschool teacher… But most women who are mothers of small children, like you are, stay home and raise their children.”
“But I have no one to raise in the morning,” Dena muttered miserably. “The boys are in cheder then, and the house is empty.”
“And what about taking care of things in your house?”
“I don’t like to do that all day long. It’s boring for me.”
“How about cleaning? Is your house clean enough?” She couldn’t believe that she had the guts to speak this way, as a shvigger, to her daughter-in-law. But what could she do if the Israeli daughters-in-law apparently had no qualms about baring their weaknesses to their mothers-in-law…
“Yes. The cleaning lady cleans so much better than me anyway.” Dena sounded on the verge of despair.
“So perhaps you can help with the account books at the factory.” Finally, Bentzy’s mother seemed to realize that this was a nearly vital need. “Come over each morning. On some days I’ll teach you how to do it, and on the other days we’ll go shopping. There’s no lack of things for a good wife to do.” She glanced at her daughter-in-law. “But tell me, when you lived in Israel, what did you do all day?”
“I did some substituting in a playgroup for two- and three-year-old kids.”
“And on the other days?”
“I don’t remember.”
“So, you would spend time with your sisters?” The devoted shvigger was trying to hone in on the magnitude of the difference. “Or with your mother?”
“Not much…” Dena was also wondering why things were so different now. “Well, I didn’t have cleaning help there, so I did it all myself. But it’s not only that. I can’t even define it myself, but for some reason, I was never bored there…”
“You don’t have to define the reason.” The older woman tried to steer the conversation back to safer, more familiar territory. “Come over tomorrow. We’ll go shopping a bit, we’ll cook together, and you’ll take the food home for supper. The children and Bentzy will come home to a satisfied mother, yes?”
Dena nodded, understanding that she’d have to suffice with this.
“But you need friends besides me,” her shvigger suddenly added. “There are lots of young women your age in the community; it’s really a whole chevra. They have shiurim and get-togethers, things like that. You need to get to know them; it’s not good that you’re here a few months already and you still hardly know anyone. Hey, tomorrow I’m going to invite Charna Krieger to come over! Why I didn’t think of it earlier?”
Without realizing it, Dena shifted on the couch, moving a bit further in the other direction. “Charna Krieger?” she echoed. “The one who we met two weeks ago at Katzengold when we went to buy winter clothes?”
“Yes, yes, that’s her. She’s a sweet girl, around your age. Her mother and I have been friends for years. Before you came to Vienna, she told me to let you know that she’d love to get to know you. But then, her baby was born, and she got busy… I think you’d get along really nicely with her. And then she can introduce you to all the others! So she’ll come here tomorrow, okay? Do you prefer morning or in the afternoon with the children? Oh, I can really see the two of you becoming friends!”
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