And he’d pictured her, suddenly, with another man.
He was no one true to life, just an anonymous figure, his face shadowed. But her own face was clear, with its particular expression of pleasure taken in secret, in a darkened room or a hidden bower. The very image of a clandestine lover—and it had transfixed him with jealous anger.
It made little sense. He’d always thought of their promise as his constraint, not hers; and yet in that moment he’d been glad that she’d made the promise too, glad that, in this one sense, she was his and his alone. It went against his nature, and his principles. Nevertheless, it was true. And so, not knowing what else to do, he’d put his confusion aside and kissed her.
She was waiting, patiently, for an answer. “I was thinking,” he said, “of how lucky I am to have you.”
She considered this, and then nestled more closely against him. He laced his fingers to hers. This is my life now, he thought, holding her. This is my happiness. It suits me. It will be enough.
* * *
As it happened, there was to be no dreaded meeting with poor, lonely Eugene, for greater events were about to overtake Thea Radzin and her matchmaking schemes.
“You want to what?” said Thea to her husband.
“Expand the bakery,” Moe Radzin said slowly, his tone that of a man suffering a simpleton.
The family’s Sabbath supper was on the table, Thea’s chicken soup cooling in bowls before them. The children, Selma and Abie, well trained through years of their parents’ altercations, exchanged glances as Moe explained that the owner of the shoe-shop next to Radzin’s had decided to move uptown. “It got me thinking. We can take over his lease, break through the wall. We’ll more than double our space.”
Thea was aghast. “What do we want with more space? What’s wrong with the shop we have?”
“What’s wrong? We outgrew it years ago! With the line stretching out the door in the mornings, and everyone going to Shimmel’s instead of waiting in the cold—”
Thea’s expression darkened. “Oh, I see. This is about you and Frank Shimmel. You want to blacken his eye once and for all, is that it?”
“Frank’s got nothing to do with it! Just the other day you were complaining about the display case, and how small it is—”
“Oh, stop your tongue! Don’t we have enough? With a roof over our heads and food on the table, two healthy children, may God protect them—”
The children in question slurped the last of their soup, stuffed their pockets with challah slices, and disappeared.
“—and you’d risk everything we’ve built so you can be the biggest frog in the puddle!”
But Moe refused to be dissuaded. He’d started the bakery as a terrified young man with ten dollars to his name, and over the years had built it into a finely tuned instrument, a watch you could tell the time by. Now he felt stultified by his own success. He wanted a new challenge, something to prove that his best years weren’t all behind him. “We’ll need three more bakers,” he told Thea.
“I won’t lift a finger to train them,” she said, waspish in defeat. “I’m too old and tired for your nonsense.”
“Fine,” said Moe. “I’ll get Chava to do it.”
The plan had come so suddenly upon Moe that his best worker was, for once, caught unawares.
“You’ll be in charge of hiring and training,” he told her. “That’s in addition to your usual duties. I’ll have my hands full with the landlord and the bank. Think you can manage it?”
The Golem looked between him and Thea, who stood stiffly at the register, pretending not to hear. God strengthen the girl, we’re in her hands now, Thea was thinking.
“Yes, Mr. Radzin,” she told him. “I can manage it.” But in truth, she didn’t feel nearly so certain. How on earth did one go about choosing a new baker, let alone three? She gathered her courage, set a sign in the window—and the flood of young women began. All were eager, but for different reasons. Some imagined it would be just like baking at home with their mothers; others, as Anna Blumberg once had, relished the thought of standing on view before the neighborhood, thinking it would bring them the right sort of attention. Many sought escape from a wretched family life, or from a boss whose hands liked to travel. At first the Golem worried she’d be swayed by the most desperate and impoverished, regardless of their abilities—but soon she found herself facing an entirely different challenge.
Is Mrs. Levy always so serious? Working with her must be deadly dull—
I assume this one’s the widow, she certainly looks the part—
What an odd woman. I feel like she’s looming over me—
Would it be unfair of her, the Golem wondered, to turn away those whose opinions of her had been the least charitable? She strove to judge others by their actions, not their thoughts, as Rabbi Meyer had taught her; on the other hand, she could hardly be blamed for not wanting to hear mockery all day long. To her relief, there were so many suitable applicants that she could give herself the luxury of choice. She settled on three young women who seemed capable and energetic, and whose thoughts hadn’t plainly ridiculed her.
“Congratulations,” she told them. “You start tomorrow.”
Moe, caught up in his negotiations, hadn’t set foot in the store for days. The Golem’s three new protégés arrived, and she presented them proudly to their new employer—only to see a look of dismay pass across his face. It lasted only a moment. He recovered, smiled, shook their hands in welcome, told them, “Listen to Chava, she’s the best baker we ever had.” But she’d already heard the thought, plaintive and rueful: Would it have killed her to hire a single pretty face?
At first she was stunned, and hurt. Then she
