Modern Girls Read Online Free
Author: Jennifer S. Brown
use the liver. This was one of the most important duties of being a wife, and I had no idea how Dottie was going to manage it when she made her own home with Abe. So many things Dottie never learned. Chasing her father around, looking after her brothers, daydreaming with her fashion magazines. Yet, lack of
kashering
skills aside, Dottie had done well for herself. Working in Midtown, with all those numbers. A bookkeeper was a respectable job. Dottie would do something with her life. It was for her I saved my pennies. But still. A woman also had to know how to keep a home. Although, at the pace Abe moved, there was time to teach her before he proposed.
I dumped the entrails in a pan and covered them with water. These would sit until after
Shabbes
, when I would use them to flavor the stew I would make on Sunday for the coming week. The head I would save to make a soup, but for now, I took the chicken and let it soak so I could sit and enjoy my cup of tea and the morning mail. I had a letter from my brother Yussel I was anxious to read.
This was my only moment to myself, when Ben was at work at the garage, Dottie at her office, and the boys had been shooed off to play. On most mornings, I’d sit at the table, spread open the
Forverts
, the daily Yiddish paper, and consume the news as if it were a morning snack. But when I had a letter from family, it was as if I had a feast.
Using a table knife, I gingerly slit open the envelope, not wanting to rip even a single word. Pulling out the thick sheet of paper, I smiled at the still-childish scrawl in which my baby brother wrote. The Yiddish lines slanted downward, as if trying to escape the page. No one would know, looking at this writing, that Yussel was a learned man of thirty-three years. A glance at the top told me the letter was written less than three weeks ago. The mail moved quickly these days.
“Dearest sister,” the letter began. “At the outset I can write you that Gerda, the children, and I are healthy, and we are hoping to hear good things from you and to see each other in good health. I received your letter Friday morning and read with pleasure that you are well. I am pleased to hear of your work with the Women’s Committee of the Socialist Party, a worthy cause to support. But I beg of you, please do not worry so for us.”
Yussel wasted too much time on pleasantries. I brushed my hand across the creases of the paper, trying to make the words easier to read, but the sweat on my arm blurred the ink. Alarmed, I blotted the page and dried myself on the kitchen cloth. The letter continued: “Tensions are building between the Free City of Danzig and Poland over Danzig’s seeming embrace of Germany, but so far it has no effect on us Jews. The Poles are only interested in the Poles. If anything, I’m profiting from the politics, as my business is flourishing with the new demand for photos for identity cards. My studio is so busy that I have taken on a second apprentice.”
Was Yussel telling the truth? Or shielding me from his hardships? Even the American newspapers reported on the Poles’ discrimination against the Jews. Frustratingly, though I am theelder, Yussel tries to protect me, and it was clear my brother needed to get out of Poland. It was no better than Russia, although at least in Poland no one was trying to conscript him. Warsaw had always been meant as a temporary stop, on the way to the port in Danzig. In 1924, Yussel had saved enough money to bribe Russian officials for a passport, yet he arrived in Poland only to discover that the United States had closed: No visas were being issued to Jews. So he settled in Warsaw. Married. Had a son and two daughters. And he waited.
“We hear alarming news from Gerda’s relations in Munich, and they are working with the relief organizations to leave. Priority is being given to the Jews fleeing Germany. Perhaps if we had settled there instead of Warsaw, we would have better luck obtaining visas. I have been
kashering
skills aside, Dottie had done well for herself. Working in Midtown, with all those numbers. A bookkeeper was a respectable job. Dottie would do something with her life. It was for her I saved my pennies. But still. A woman also had to know how to keep a home. Although, at the pace Abe moved, there was time to teach her before he proposed.
I dumped the entrails in a pan and covered them with water. These would sit until after
Shabbes
, when I would use them to flavor the stew I would make on Sunday for the coming week. The head I would save to make a soup, but for now, I took the chicken and let it soak so I could sit and enjoy my cup of tea and the morning mail. I had a letter from my brother Yussel I was anxious to read.
This was my only moment to myself, when Ben was at work at the garage, Dottie at her office, and the boys had been shooed off to play. On most mornings, I’d sit at the table, spread open the
Forverts
, the daily Yiddish paper, and consume the news as if it were a morning snack. But when I had a letter from family, it was as if I had a feast.
Using a table knife, I gingerly slit open the envelope, not wanting to rip even a single word. Pulling out the thick sheet of paper, I smiled at the still-childish scrawl in which my baby brother wrote. The Yiddish lines slanted downward, as if trying to escape the page. No one would know, looking at this writing, that Yussel was a learned man of thirty-three years. A glance at the top told me the letter was written less than three weeks ago. The mail moved quickly these days.
“Dearest sister,” the letter began. “At the outset I can write you that Gerda, the children, and I are healthy, and we are hoping to hear good things from you and to see each other in good health. I received your letter Friday morning and read with pleasure that you are well. I am pleased to hear of your work with the Women’s Committee of the Socialist Party, a worthy cause to support. But I beg of you, please do not worry so for us.”
Yussel wasted too much time on pleasantries. I brushed my hand across the creases of the paper, trying to make the words easier to read, but the sweat on my arm blurred the ink. Alarmed, I blotted the page and dried myself on the kitchen cloth. The letter continued: “Tensions are building between the Free City of Danzig and Poland over Danzig’s seeming embrace of Germany, but so far it has no effect on us Jews. The Poles are only interested in the Poles. If anything, I’m profiting from the politics, as my business is flourishing with the new demand for photos for identity cards. My studio is so busy that I have taken on a second apprentice.”
Was Yussel telling the truth? Or shielding me from his hardships? Even the American newspapers reported on the Poles’ discrimination against the Jews. Frustratingly, though I am theelder, Yussel tries to protect me, and it was clear my brother needed to get out of Poland. It was no better than Russia, although at least in Poland no one was trying to conscript him. Warsaw had always been meant as a temporary stop, on the way to the port in Danzig. In 1924, Yussel had saved enough money to bribe Russian officials for a passport, yet he arrived in Poland only to discover that the United States had closed: No visas were being issued to Jews. So he settled in Warsaw. Married. Had a son and two daughters. And he waited.
“We hear alarming news from Gerda’s relations in Munich, and they are working with the relief organizations to leave. Priority is being given to the Jews fleeing Germany. Perhaps if we had settled there instead of Warsaw, we would have better luck obtaining visas. I have been
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