As it happened, that adult was the headmistress herself, who’d been enjoying a cup of tea in the front office, blessedly free of duties for an hour. The girls burst into her sanctum, the story tumbling from a dozen mouths at once—Headmistress, they threw vegetables at us, but then a boy with a bicycle made them run away, his name’s Toby and he’s a messenger and he’s Jewish! Confused, she turned to the window: and there, walking up the drive, was a Western Union boy wheeling his bicycle beside a decidedly blushing Kreindel Altschul.
The headmistress hurried to the door and ushered them inside, exclaiming over the girls’ soiled clothing and Toby’s injuries. Toby was invited to wash up in the office lavatory, an honor heretofore unheard of. Rachel presented herself for inspection, hoping to be fretted over; instead she was sent to the infirmary to fetch bandages and ice.
Toby came out of the office a few minutes later, with a scrubbed face and hastily combed hair. More of the Asylum staff appeared, drawn by the commotion, and thus the story had to be told all over again. Matron arrived, too, with a sullen Rachel in tow, and bandaged Toby’s wounds herself.
Never before had Toby been the focus of so much female attention at once. He liked it, though it was a bit of a confusing whirl, what with the little girls all talking over one another and the matron dabbing at his forehead. Kreindel was standing at the edge of his vision, quietly answering the headmistress’s questions about what had happened. He wondered, would he get to talk to her again? It seemed important, suddenly, that he be allowed to talk to her again.
Kreindel finished her report to the headmistress and tried to disappear into the crowd, but it was impossible. The crowd merely re-formed around her, maneuvering her next to Toby, the center of their attention. But—why should that be so terrible? She liked Toby. She’d never talked to a boy before, not like that. She’d never realized that one could talk to a boy like that: in honest conversation, about things that mattered. She watched him kneel down for one of the little girls, so she could better see his cap with its bronze badge, and heard Matron say, “How lucky that you came along when you did—or who knows what might’ve happened!”
But Kreindel knew. She could picture it: Yossele racing the blocks to her side, the velvet curtain around his shoulders rippling like a banner, righteous thunder in his footfalls. The boys in the alley, screaming and scattering in terror. If Toby hadn’t come, if he’d delayed even a few moments more . . . Yes, she would have done it. And would it have been wrong of her? Yossele had been created to protect; he’d been given to her for that purpose. He was a gift of the Almighty, the source of all her strength, and he asked for so little in return. And if she told Toby, or any boy, about Yossele . . . would he understand? Or would she have to choose between them?
But—choose, how? Yossele was hers, forever. There wasn’t any choice to make.
The spectacle was drawing toward its conclusion. Matron patted Toby’s cheek and then departed. Rachel was deputized to lead the younger girls to their dormitory; she obeyed, fuming. The headmistress shook Toby’s hand and disappeared back into her office.
Finally, Kreindel and Toby stood alone in the entrance hall.
“Well,” Toby said, a grin pulling at his mouth, “that was an awful lot of fuss.”
She wanted to smile back, to laugh and agree. She said nothing, only hugged herself and stared at the floor.
“Kreindel,” he said, “would you—”
“Thank you, Toby,” she said, cutting across him. “For helping us.” And without looking at him, she walked past him to the staircase, tears rising in her eyes.
For a long minute Toby stood abandoned in the empty hallway, trying to figure out how he’d blundered. No answer came.
Outside, his bicycle was where he’d left it, leaning against a wall. He retrieved it and pedaled down the curving drive, and back along 136th. He crossed Broadway, then stopped on the sidewalk. From his satchel he pulled a sheet of paper he’d stolen from a file cabinet marked Staff Information, when he was thought to be in the lavatory:
Levy, Charlotte
3352 Broadway Ave #508
Manhattan, NYC
He peered back across the street, to the apartment building on the corner. There, above the lobby door, was the number 3352.
A chill spread outward from his stomach. Well, now what should he do? I found Missus Chava, he imagined telling his mother over supper, just to watch her spit out her tea. If he shouted it through the letterbox in Little Syria, would he be rewarded with another gold coin? The Teachers College secretary would sing his praises. Thea Radzin would shower him with hamantaschen.
But none of it made sense. Certainly a woman might vanish for her own good reasons, and leave a hated past behind. But there was more at work here. He thought of the photographs, the burning envelope. The fear in his mother’s eyes as she’d braced the door, as though she meant to hold back certain death.
He pulled a pencil and a fresh blank from his satchel, thought hard, and wrote his message.
The contents of the old sewing-basket were still piled atop Charlotte Levy’s desk, the embroidered muslin held loosely in her hands.
Get up, she told herself. Put all of this away. It’s Saturday. You have lists to make, errands to run.
But the command could find no purchase. All that she wanted to do—all that she longed for, in body and
