hardened face of the woman on the street corner with her meager array of fruits and vegetables displayed on a ragged mat, the slurred voice of the man who’d spent his miserable weekly wages on drink and was stumbling home to his slum without any food to offer his starving brood, or the gangs of delinquents staging raids on local farmers not much better off than they were.
My blithe coed appeared to have no problem saying goodbye to her carefree school days and soon cheerfully slipped into the role of young mother and wife of one of this hick town’s leading citizens. She energetically took charge of our home next to the factory, an elegant villa equipped with all modern conveniences, and took obvious pleasure in overseeing the small army of maids and other servants who had been running the household. After my father’s and mother’s passing, I had remained in my parental home, leaving the decor exactly as it was, and hadalso kept on the servants, headed by Marieke, the trusty housekeeper. Marieke, who had started out in service as a shy young thing, had grown into the sturdy, energetic commander in chief of my bachelor household. The moment my young bride stepped over the threshold, Marieke took to her hook, line, and sinker, and did her very best to answer her every whim. Rivka’s arrival on the scene brought with it considerable changes to our plodding daily routine. When she first walked into the house, she’d exclaimed, “How vulgar! What tasteless schlock!”
I’d stared at her, taken aback. I had never met anyone who wasn’t suitably impressed by these elegant interiors, and her blunt criticism hurt me more than I liked to admit. At the same time I admired her candor. Rivka was a girl who didn’t mince words.
“If you want me to be happy here,” she said, running her hand over her slightly swollen belly, “you’ll have to let me do a little remodeling.”
And so it came to pass. My parents’ pride, their castle, proud embodiment of their newly acquired wealth, their victory over poverty, was completely dismantled. The murals disappeared under stark geometrical wallpaper patterns, the ceilings were replastered after being stripped of their ornamental medallions and cornices, and almost all of the neoclassical furniture was replaced, so that for the first several months after the renovations I felt like a stranger in my own home. My indefatigable wife introduced our backwater to the latest in modernist style. With tables, sofas, lamps, chairs, and coatracks by artisans and famous designers like Piet Kramer and H. J. Winkelman, our entire house was turned into a model interior of the Amsterdam School. It led to quite a bit of eyebrow raising, which bothered Rivka not a bit.
The birth of our first child, Ruth, affected me more than I had expected. Children had never much interested me, but to mysurprise, I was fascinated to see Rivka’s body swell and to feel the life kicking inside her belly. It was with anxious anticipation that I awaited the baby’s birth, and watching my daughter grow, and in quick succession a second and then a third little girl, gave me more pleasure than I had ever thought possible. That fatherhood could produce such strong feelings of connection, that it would awaken the protective instinct in me, was something I’d never expected.
Rivka did sometimes miss the excitement of the city. The solution she found to her homesickness was to invite lots of guests to come and stay. She made sure our spacious, comfortable home was always ready to accommodate her university friends from Amsterdam, who were only too happy to be invited to spend time in such modern, elegant surroundings out in the countryside (to them an exotic locale), next to the ever-bustling factory.
Rivka organized musical performances, readings, and theatrical soirees, and with the help of our cook prepared exquisite spreads for her dinner parties. Aaron was often one of the guests. He tended to stay in the
My blithe coed appeared to have no problem saying goodbye to her carefree school days and soon cheerfully slipped into the role of young mother and wife of one of this hick town’s leading citizens. She energetically took charge of our home next to the factory, an elegant villa equipped with all modern conveniences, and took obvious pleasure in overseeing the small army of maids and other servants who had been running the household. After my father’s and mother’s passing, I had remained in my parental home, leaving the decor exactly as it was, and hadalso kept on the servants, headed by Marieke, the trusty housekeeper. Marieke, who had started out in service as a shy young thing, had grown into the sturdy, energetic commander in chief of my bachelor household. The moment my young bride stepped over the threshold, Marieke took to her hook, line, and sinker, and did her very best to answer her every whim. Rivka’s arrival on the scene brought with it considerable changes to our plodding daily routine. When she first walked into the house, she’d exclaimed, “How vulgar! What tasteless schlock!”
I’d stared at her, taken aback. I had never met anyone who wasn’t suitably impressed by these elegant interiors, and her blunt criticism hurt me more than I liked to admit. At the same time I admired her candor. Rivka was a girl who didn’t mince words.
“If you want me to be happy here,” she said, running her hand over her slightly swollen belly, “you’ll have to let me do a little remodeling.”
And so it came to pass. My parents’ pride, their castle, proud embodiment of their newly acquired wealth, their victory over poverty, was completely dismantled. The murals disappeared under stark geometrical wallpaper patterns, the ceilings were replastered after being stripped of their ornamental medallions and cornices, and almost all of the neoclassical furniture was replaced, so that for the first several months after the renovations I felt like a stranger in my own home. My indefatigable wife introduced our backwater to the latest in modernist style. With tables, sofas, lamps, chairs, and coatracks by artisans and famous designers like Piet Kramer and H. J. Winkelman, our entire house was turned into a model interior of the Amsterdam School. It led to quite a bit of eyebrow raising, which bothered Rivka not a bit.
The birth of our first child, Ruth, affected me more than I had expected. Children had never much interested me, but to mysurprise, I was fascinated to see Rivka’s body swell and to feel the life kicking inside her belly. It was with anxious anticipation that I awaited the baby’s birth, and watching my daughter grow, and in quick succession a second and then a third little girl, gave me more pleasure than I had ever thought possible. That fatherhood could produce such strong feelings of connection, that it would awaken the protective instinct in me, was something I’d never expected.
Rivka did sometimes miss the excitement of the city. The solution she found to her homesickness was to invite lots of guests to come and stay. She made sure our spacious, comfortable home was always ready to accommodate her university friends from Amsterdam, who were only too happy to be invited to spend time in such modern, elegant surroundings out in the countryside (to them an exotic locale), next to the ever-bustling factory.
Rivka organized musical performances, readings, and theatrical soirees, and with the help of our cook prepared exquisite spreads for her dinner parties. Aaron was often one of the guests. He tended to stay in the
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