Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska

Author:Anzia Yezierska [Yezierska, Anzia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2023-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter IX

BREAD GIVERS

All the way on the train to New York, Father’s curses still rang in my ears. The flame of his eyes scorched their bitter wrath into my eyes. The hand with which he struck me still burned on my cheek.

“New York! All out!” The conductor shook my arm and shouted in my ears, “All out!”

I stared about. The train was nearly empty. Oh, I’m here, already, in New York. . . . I tried to pull myself up from my thoughts. . . . Bessie! I was going to Bessie. . . .

It was nine o’clock when I got to Zalmon’s fish store. The shouting and bargaining for the holiday fish were enough to burst the ceiling. Zalmon stood on one side, surrounded by a crowd of women. Bessie on the other side, with another crowd. Sweat streamed from Bessie’s and Zalmon’s twisted faces, as they fought for their life with the bargaining yentehs.

“Robber!” cried an old, wrinkled woman with a shawl over her head. “Ten cents you ask for carp! By Cohen’s it’s only nine cents.”

“Not such goods like by me.” Zalmon lifted a fish in his black, hairy hand, and waved it before the woman’s eyes. “Give a look only on my beautiful carp! It jumps with life yet.”

“But, swindler! My husband sweats blood for every penny. Why do you squeeze from me the last cent?”

“You think I steal my goods? And I got to pay rent.”

“Nu, have a little mercy in your heart.” The woman clutched at his arm wildly. “Twenty-eight cents for three pounds?”

“Twenty-nine cents and not a penny less.” He put the fish on the scale and quickly tried to throw it into the woman’s basket.

“Thief!” she shrieked. “You’re skinning me in the weight.”

“Kooshenierkeh! Out from here. Worms should eat you.” And he turned from her to another customer.

I elbowed my way to where Bessie was. Her thin arms were covered with the gummy scales of the fish. Her face, her hair, and her apron were thick with it. So buried to the neck in fish was she, that she couldn’t hear me or see me.

“Only another little fish yet for good measure,” pleaded a woman, snatching up a squashed flounder. “I have eleven hungry mouths to feed.”

“It’s already over the weight,” cried Bessie, tearing the fish out of the woman’s hand. “Go to the charities, if you want fish for nothing.”

The woman moved away, muttering curses. There was such famine-squeezed emptiness in her eyes that it hurt to look at her. I could stand the bargaining no longer and walked to the back of the store. But even in the far room, I could hear the haggling and the cursing, the tearing at each other’s throats for pennies.

I looked about me, at the grand, married life that Father had grabbed for Bessie. Five boys sleeping on one mattress on the floor. Yenteh, on a narrow lounge. That place in the corner, with the ragged green curtains, Zalmon’s and Bessie’s bedroom. No place for me here, but I was so tired, my eyes could hold open no longer.

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