Decisions
"You know, I have never been seeing hair like yours ever in my life Miss Mary." Rutka marveled as she brushed Mary's long straight blonde hair. Mary laughed,
"You've mentioned it!" Rutka chuckled sheepishly and continued to brush the long golden strands. She began constructing a complicated braided coif at the knape of Mary's neck.
"There, quite lovely!" She proclaimed, sticking in one last pin, "anyone would think you go to the opera and not to work in a soldier's hospital." Mary smiled, smoothing her bangs over her forehead. "Well, I won't be in a soldier's hospital much longer Rutka, Colin will be released in a few weeks. We're going home to Misselthwaite!"
"Oh that's wonderful, I'm so pleased for you!" Mary turned in her chair, looking up at Rutka, a little sheepishly.
"I actually have something to ask you about that actually, when we return I will be in need of a new lady's maid. Martha, has had her baby and of course will be leaving service. We were hoping her younger sister could take it on, but she just got engaged. I was wondering if you could possibly consider coming to work at Misselthwaite. I know it would be so far from your family, and would seem very strange, but it would be a more comfortable position, and only until one of Martha's sister's is old enough, then you could come back to your family in London. And you would be better paid than here, you could send some of your wages home. I hope you'll consider it."
The next morning, after Chaim had come home from the morning minyan, Rutka entered his room and sat on Dovid's bed which was directly next to his. Chaim was reading from a collection of Morris Rosenfeld's sweatshop poetry. He often rested and read in his room most of shabbos in order to save up energy for the week. He had seemed so much more tired since the bombing, it worried her. New wooden crutches were resting against the bed, and heavy metal braces attached to Chaim's shoes, the physical evidence of the lasting effects of his illness. He turned on his bed, placing his book on the small bedside table. He loved to read, particularly since he had begun work at a local Yiddish print shop. It produced synagogue pamphlets and other small publications. At night it lent its presses to young leftist groups looking to print their newsletters and protest leaflets. At night the shop also became a hangout for the writers who had been thrown out of newspapers like Der Arbeter Fraynd after the war started and the government began to crackdown on the publishing houses of the Yiddish press. Currently, he only spread the ink and worked the printing press after school. But at the shop he brushed shoulders with the figureheads of the underground Yiddish world. Men who gave him books and didn't look at him like he was a child, speaking to him like his thoughts mattered. Men, most not much older than him, who had been in street brawls. Who had been arrested at protests. He envied them really, the freedom their unbroken bodies gave them. But reading the books they gave him, about Herzl's dreams of a Jewish state and Ber Borochov's plans for a socialist yishuv gave him hope. But even here he felt an outsider. What place would there be on one of these new kibbutzim for someone like him? He couldn't plough, or fight, or even milk a cow. It was the writers and journalists who truly captured him. The idea of sitting in a room humming with the sound typewriters, the air thick with the smell of ink and coffee. He imagined proclaiming his ideas to the world. His name in gilt letters on the cover of a book, or in still wet ink under the latest headline of Der Forverts, right next to all the bigwigs. Cahan, An-ski, Frumkin, Ludke!
He was bought out of his thoughts by his sister's soft voice.
"How are you feeling? I've hardly seen you this week."
"I'm fine Rutka, really, I just get tired. You know that. I promise I'm all healed." She reached out and stroked her brother's hand.
"I worry you know, sometimes, you look so tired, like the wind would blow you over." he rolled his eyes but nodded.
"I know, but you mustn't Rutka, I have to be my own man, I won't have you to fuss over me my whole life, and don't start talking of a wife who will take over your fussing because you know that's about as likely as us ever returning to Russia."
"You don't know that..." She trailed off, his glare told her there was no use arguing over this. He might very well be right after all. He looked at her quisically, as though weighing whether or not to speak. After a moment he shook his head, dismissing the thought. He couldn't tell her. Not yet. Maybe never, he thought, how could he ever tell his family the real reason he would never marry. He often imagined running away with Abe, away from obligations to some hidden cottage where no one would ever see them. He imagined a life together, high on the top of a desert mountain, or deep in snowy woods, far from prying eyes. Stupidly, he imagined circling Abe seven times, breaking a glass with a healthy foot, kissing beneath an embroidered chuppah like the one Malka had been married under. Lying in bed at night he imagined music playing, the heady, sweet scent of the wine, dancing in a room all alone, throwing his arms around his shoulders and kissing Abe in front of G-d and everybody.
Again, Rutka's words brought him back from his imagination,
"I want to ask you something Chaim, are you listening?"
"Hmmm? Oh sorry, yes, I'm listening." he replied, shaking his head slightly to clear it.
"The young lady I've been working for at the apartments is returning to her country house as her cousin will soon be released from hospital. She has asked me to continue in her employment." Chaim looked up at her quizzically, wondering why she was telling him this and not their parents.
"I would be her lady's maid. It would mean more money, enough to send much more home to you, enough maybe to send to Yitzy and Malky back in the old country. But it would mean I would work most always in the North, not here in London. I would have to leave home." Chaim raised an eyebrow, sitting up straighter to look at his sister.
"Papa would never allow it. You're not even married. You couldn't eat the food there even. You think you can find kosher in Yorkshire?"
"I'm not asking your permission Chaim. I'm asking how to tell them. I will find a way to stay frum. That won't change. But I have to do this. I have to do something to help them. And to help you and mama and tayte. And Chaim I hate living in the city. The smoke and the noise and the automobiles. I miss grass and trees. Horses and goats and chickens. I miss smelling rain on the breeze or seeing frost at dawn. I'm sure it will be no more than a year. Then I will come back and get married and make mama happy." Chaim raised an eyebrow.
"Well, do what you want I suppose. But don't make me be there when you tell our parents."
Telling her parents went about as well as could be expected. Her mother cried and her father looked stoic and somewhat disappointed. She promised to find a shul in Manchester for the holidays and promised to try to come home for pesach, she promised to eat no meat or cheese and to prepare her own meals. She didn't know if she could keep those promises but she promised herself she would try. Eventually they relented. The decision was made, Rutka would soon be leaving for a world much stranger to her than even the East End.