left the only way she could.
Sometimes a person has to make the best of an unpleasant decision.
More snow was falling. But it would quickly disappear as the roots of the first Mrs. Rosenberg’s apple tree dug down into the warm deep of the earth.
LONDON, 1876
The Horn and Plenty
The streets were cold and wet, and the Sunday boots were pawned, yet in the Horn and Plenty, women stood at the bar and ate while men played draughts at the tables. They lived for the pub, the naphtha lamps, the warm stove, the posters of music hall singers, the barmaid in her orange and yellow dress, the games and the songs as cheerful as in a place where you might expect to live past the age of thirty. A woman needed a place to talk, leaning on the counter while she gave a finger of gin to her baby. The one with the long face was telling how her bloke had put a shilling on a horse, and when the horse won, they’d standeveryone for a drink. She was a casual prostitute, on the turf just now and then. The rest of the time she worked for the Squire, who was her uncle, following his whores to make sure they came back.
Nehama was writing numbers on the back of a Christian tract while she stood at the bar with Fay and Sally and the woman who promised to stand them a drink, whose name was Lizzie. She had thin hair falling over her face, and she wore a white apron in the old-fashioned style. Nehama had a proper whore’s dress, bright and shiny and ruffled. And proper East End boots that let in water at the seams. In her pocket she had a letter from her mother:
“My Nehameleh, you should stay well and not have any sickness from the damp. It is a bitter thing for a mother to lose her child and I will never understand what you did. How could you leave us all? Only a mother can know such pain. My eyes are so swollen, they look like bees. So you should know, I did what you asked though Father didn’t want I should give away your dowry. I split it among your sisters, and it was worse than throwing dirt on a grave. They all forgive you except Bronya as you know she holds a grudge and Shayna-Pearl because even though you didn’t take anything from her, she expected to make a teacher of you though God in heaven knows you should be married and living under your mother’s roof. Remember to wear your woolens, it’s so damp this time of year. God forbid you should take sick. Your mother.”
Once a month Nehama wrote her mother the sorts of lies that could be expected. At night she forgot the cold while she worked the trade, and afterward she kept warm by sleeping with Sally from dawn till noon, arms around each other in the small bed they shared. Whenever she thought of throwing herself in the river, she reminded herself that the younger girl needed her. Everyone must have a reason for living. If you couldn’t hold your gin, then there had to be something else.
“It’s a long shot,” Lizzie was saying. “That’s the only kind worth putting anything on.” Her baby was asleep, its mouth open. “If our horse places, then I’ll have me a house with a garden, I will.”
“Not me,” Sally said. When she wasn’t working, she wore a brimmed bonnet that half hid her face. “What would I want with a garden? I’ll have a wig made from real human hair. And a dollhouse with ten rooms and three staircases, and that’s not all because I’d have a little desk, too.”
“Why do you want a desk?” Fay asked. “You can’t write.”
“For the drawers,” Sally said, taking a swallow of gin. She had to stand on a box to reach the counter. “For the secret drawers.”
The barmaid put a jug on the counter for a thickset man who used to be a stonecutter and still wore the leather cap, though no one had wanted stone cut by hand for years. “What about you, Nell?” she asked. “If your horse places.”
Nehama looked up from her calculations. “If I had a winning horse,” she said, “I’d go to the seaside. I’d take us all to the theater on the
Sometimes a person has to make the best of an unpleasant decision.
More snow was falling. But it would quickly disappear as the roots of the first Mrs. Rosenberg’s apple tree dug down into the warm deep of the earth.
LONDON, 1876
The Horn and Plenty
The streets were cold and wet, and the Sunday boots were pawned, yet in the Horn and Plenty, women stood at the bar and ate while men played draughts at the tables. They lived for the pub, the naphtha lamps, the warm stove, the posters of music hall singers, the barmaid in her orange and yellow dress, the games and the songs as cheerful as in a place where you might expect to live past the age of thirty. A woman needed a place to talk, leaning on the counter while she gave a finger of gin to her baby. The one with the long face was telling how her bloke had put a shilling on a horse, and when the horse won, they’d standeveryone for a drink. She was a casual prostitute, on the turf just now and then. The rest of the time she worked for the Squire, who was her uncle, following his whores to make sure they came back.
Nehama was writing numbers on the back of a Christian tract while she stood at the bar with Fay and Sally and the woman who promised to stand them a drink, whose name was Lizzie. She had thin hair falling over her face, and she wore a white apron in the old-fashioned style. Nehama had a proper whore’s dress, bright and shiny and ruffled. And proper East End boots that let in water at the seams. In her pocket she had a letter from her mother:
“My Nehameleh, you should stay well and not have any sickness from the damp. It is a bitter thing for a mother to lose her child and I will never understand what you did. How could you leave us all? Only a mother can know such pain. My eyes are so swollen, they look like bees. So you should know, I did what you asked though Father didn’t want I should give away your dowry. I split it among your sisters, and it was worse than throwing dirt on a grave. They all forgive you except Bronya as you know she holds a grudge and Shayna-Pearl because even though you didn’t take anything from her, she expected to make a teacher of you though God in heaven knows you should be married and living under your mother’s roof. Remember to wear your woolens, it’s so damp this time of year. God forbid you should take sick. Your mother.”
Once a month Nehama wrote her mother the sorts of lies that could be expected. At night she forgot the cold while she worked the trade, and afterward she kept warm by sleeping with Sally from dawn till noon, arms around each other in the small bed they shared. Whenever she thought of throwing herself in the river, she reminded herself that the younger girl needed her. Everyone must have a reason for living. If you couldn’t hold your gin, then there had to be something else.
“It’s a long shot,” Lizzie was saying. “That’s the only kind worth putting anything on.” Her baby was asleep, its mouth open. “If our horse places, then I’ll have me a house with a garden, I will.”
“Not me,” Sally said. When she wasn’t working, she wore a brimmed bonnet that half hid her face. “What would I want with a garden? I’ll have a wig made from real human hair. And a dollhouse with ten rooms and three staircases, and that’s not all because I’d have a little desk, too.”
“Why do you want a desk?” Fay asked. “You can’t write.”
“For the drawers,” Sally said, taking a swallow of gin. She had to stand on a box to reach the counter. “For the secret drawers.”
The barmaid put a jug on the counter for a thickset man who used to be a stonecutter and still wore the leather cap, though no one had wanted stone cut by hand for years. “What about you, Nell?” she asked. “If your horse places.”
Nehama looked up from her calculations. “If I had a winning horse,” she said, “I’d go to the seaside. I’d take us all to the theater on the
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