A dance hall? Toby pictured his nightmare: the tall windows, the mirrored columns.
“He didn’t show up for hours. When I finally found him, he was roaring drunk, and his arm was around another girl. I marched him out back to the alley, and we had it out. He said I was trying to trap him, that—that you weren’t really his. I called him a liar, and all sorts of other names. He hit me then, hard enough to knock me down. He’d never hit me before. He’d threatened to, once or twice. But I thought that was all it was—just threats.” She swallowed, took a deep breath. “Someone passing by the alley must’ve seen him hit me. They attacked Irving, and beat him nearly to death. The police never found out who it was . . . I was on the ground, half out of my mind. I didn’t know what was happening until it was over.” She was trembling now. He wanted to lean over and take her hand, but he kept himself still, afraid that if he moved, she’d stop talking. “He was in the hospital for a long time, and then he left the city. I never saw him again after that night. You could try looking in Boston, if you want. He had family there.”
She fell silent, then looked up at him searchingly, as though expecting some outburst. But he only sat there, absorbing what she’d said. She dropped her eyes again. “I just thought it was time you knew,” she said, a murmur.
He’d never seen her look so vulnerable before, so small. Tears burned in his eyes. He leaned over, kissed her cheek. “Thanks, Ma,” he mumbled. “I appreciate it.”
She watched him a moment. Then she wiped her eyes, sniffed once, and stood. “Well,” she said, uncertain, “I’d better be off. We can talk later. Or, stop by, if you want. The girls ask about you.”
“Okay, Ma. I love you.”
“I love you too, boychik.” And the door closed behind her.
He sat there a little while longer, thinking. Irving Wasserman. His father’s name, his story, the very thing Toby had wanted for so long. He held it in his hand, waiting to feel the click as his own life slid into place around it . . . but nothing happened. And now he realized that he hadn’t truly expected it to. Maybe his father was a piece of the puzzle, but he wasn’t the whole picture. He never had been.
She knows I went to Radzin’s, he thought suddenly. That’s why she told me. She’s trying to distract me, to give me just enough, so I’ll stop looking. The thought sent a chill through him. Somewhere in his mother’s story, Missus Chava lurked, and Mister Ahmad, and Sophia Williams, and the evil old man from his nightmare. They, not Irving Wasserman, were the secret his mother couldn’t name. He’d just have to learn the rest for himself.
He went to the ’phone on his mother’s desk—he was forbidden to use it, except in emergencies—and picked up the handset. “Operator,” a woman said.
“May I have the number for Teachers College, please?”
A pause. “That’s Morningside four five eight five. Shall I put you through?”
“No, thank you.” He replaced the handset, and put on his uniform.
From the alley, Anna watched her son pedal by.
He was dressed in his uniform, even though it was a Saturday, his day off. His messenger bag was over his shoulder, too. Either he’d taken on more shifts without telling her—which would be bad enough—or he was up to something.
She went back up the stairs to their apartment, shoved the couch aside, and pried up the loose floorboard. His cigar-roll of dollar bills was still there, much the same as before. But the golden Liberty head that winked up at her—that was new, and frightening.
She plucked the coin from its hiding-place, turned it over in her hand. Her boy wasn’t one for card games or pawnshops. There was no good explanation for it, just as there’d been no good explanation for the box of pastries. What would she find next, one of Baba Yaga’s iron teeth? A cup of water from Miriam’s well?
Stay here, with me, she pleaded silently, to the empty air. Stop searching for the things that no one can explain. Isn’t this world cruel enough as it is?
* * *
The old sewing basket sat in the back of the wardrobe, untouched since the day Charlotte Levy had arrived in Hamilton Heights.
She unearthed it, brought it to her desk, and unpacked all the little boxes, lining them up in neat rows. The stork scissors she held a moment, gazing at the clawed feet and elegant beak, and then put them aside. At the bottom were the folded squares of fabric. She sorted through them until she found the one she was looking for.
She lifted it out, unfolded it—and saw at once that Kreindel had been right. Not a winged woman, not a woman at all, but a thin-limbed girl, her smock hanging loose upon her frame. The flames weren’t a part of her, they only rose to either side: her tenement, burning behind her. And now that she’d discovered what the portrait was truly meant to be, she wondered how she ever could’ve thought it otherwise.
Well, they’d fought,
