In His Father's Footsteps Page 5
Jakob didn’t answer him and wanted his wife out of Harry’s clutches. But for now, at least he had escaped, and who knew where the job in the diamond business would lead him. Hopefully, far away from Harry Rosen and men like him. But Harry had been the gateway to his future, and for that Jakob was grateful. And on his last day at the factory, he politely shook hands with his supervisor, thanked him, and left. Emmanuelle was waiting for him outside, and Jakob looked jubilant as he joined her. His new life had just begun. He wanted it to be a better life for both of them, and their baby.
Chapter 3
Jakob started his job with Israel Horowitz on the Monday after his employment ended at Harry Rosen’s factory. He appeared at Israel’s office in the only suit he owned, with a clean shirt Emmanuelle had washed and ironed, and an expensive-looking navy blue silk tie she had made for him. She had sewn it easily with her nimble fingers from a fabric remnant she had bought at a shop on the Lower East Side. Jakob looked like the banker he might have been when he arrived for work, and Israel smiled when he saw him. He was a handsome young man, and he had the grace and bearing of his upbringing.
Israel, or Izzie, as he asked Jakob to call him now, spent the morning showing him around his office, and then introduced him to his two diamond cutters, who worked in a room in the back. They spoke Flemish with each other but they spoke French and German too, and conversed easily with Jakob, and were happy to meet him. Izzie showed Jakob what they were working on, both had diamonds on their work table, one was cutting a six-carat stone, which Izzie explained was an F color, and qualified at VSI, which meant very slightly included. He told Jakob that the interior flaws were so slight they could only be seen through a jeweler’s loupe, and the color was nearly perfect. The other diamond cutter was working on a four-carat stone, of lesser color with more inclusions, which he was setting into a ring with small pavé stones. It was for a well-known retail jeweler on Fifth Avenue.
“The finest color is D,” Izzie explained to Jakob, “and flawless is what they call a stone with no internal inclusions. Come, I’ll show you.” They returned to his office where he opened the safe, and took out a small white paper packet folded many times, to protect its contents. And as soon as he unwrapped it, a round cut stone of blinding clarity lay on the paper on his desk. “That is as close to a perfect stone as you will ever see. It is eight carats exactly, with no inclusions. It’s been certified as D flawless. It’s very rare. Six diamond wholesalers own it together. I’m brokering the deal, and we just came to an agreement with the man who’s selling it. I need you to take it back to one of the other investors. We’re selling it to Cartier, for a very nice profit,” he explained to Jakob. “The office you need to take it to is four blocks from here. Put it in your inside pocket, and go straight there. Call me when you get there, and then come back.”
“That’s it? That’s all I have to do?” Jakob was fascinated by the business and the beauty of the stones he had just seen. They reminded him of a ring his mother had worn that had belonged to her own grandmother. It was a diamond, larger even than the one Izzie had shown him. Jakob had never paid much attention to it, although he recalled now that it was very pretty, and gone forever, along with everything else the Nazis had stolen from them.
“If I told you what this stone is worth, what we just paid for it, and what we’re selling it for, you’d be shaking in your shoes all the way to that office. Go fast, look straight ahead, and deliver it. I’m trusting you with an important stone as your first assignment from me. Now, go.” He handed him a piece of paper with the address and the man’s name, and Jakob’s stomach tightened as he realized the responsibility he’d been given. He tucked the stone into an inside pocket, as Izzie had told him to do, and left the store a moment later, went directly to the delivery address, called Izzie from their office when he got there, and was back ten minutes later, mission accomplished.
“Good,” Izzie said, smiling at him. “You didn’t sell it on a street corner and run away to Brazil. Very good. I’m proud of you,” he teased him, and Jakob laughed. He liked him and liked working for him, and he realized now that it was going to be interesting. It wasn’t banking, but there were large sums of money involved, despite the unimpressive look of Izzie’s office. It was a small operation, but they brokered some important stones and turned over more money than Jakob would ever have guessed.
He had another smaller, less important stone to pick up later that afternoon. Two dealers wanted to sell it to Izzie, who wasn’t impressed, and sent the package back to them via Jakob twenty minutes later after he had looked at the stone from all angles with his loupe, and shone a special light on it. “Junk,” he said to Jakob and showed him why. “There’s more ‘stuff’ in that stone internally than my cutters’ ashtrays. I don’t sell stones like that. If I did, Cartier wouldn’t buy from me.” He had several important retail customers, and a number of private ones, and a reputation to protect. The merchants he did business with trusted him and respected his “eye,” honesty, and judgment.
By the end of his first day, Jakob felt as though he were part of an exciting business, and he had learned a lot from Izzie. He told Emmanuelle all about it over dinner that night.
“What if somebody steals a diamond from you while you’re delivering it?” She looked worried again. She hadn’t realized how valuable the stones were that Jakob would be picking up and delivering.
“Then Izzie will kill me when I get back to the office, and you’ll be a widow and get to find a rich, handsome husband like you deserve,” he teased her. Tears filled her eyes as soon as he said it, and he put his arm around her. “I was just joking with you, sweetheart. Nothing will happen to me. I’m not wearing a sign that says what I’m carrying, and all the other jewelers are very close. I don’t have far to go.” He told her about the D flawless diamond and how beautiful it was, and then he mentioned his mother’s and looked sad himself for a moment.
Emmanuelle had never lived around that kind of wealth so it was hard for her to imagine, and at first it had worried her about him. She was afraid that she wasn’t fancy enough for Jakob, given the family he came from, but he didn’t seem to care. It bothered her more than it did him. He loved her just the way she was, although he did wish she would worry less. Sometimes her angst was so convincing it was contagious and he got swept up in it too. But he was loving his new job, and all he had to learn, and his new boss was generous about teaching him. It made Jakob sorry for him again that he had lost his son, and he was clearly enjoying having Jakob around and sharing his knowledge of the diamond business with him, which Jakob found fascinating. And he suddenly realized how important his mother’s jewels must have been, and how valuable. He’d never thought about it before. His father had been very generous with her, and she had inherited some important jewelry from her grandmother.
Izzie had mentioned that his wife rarely left their home anymore, since they’d lost their son. She was ill and depressed, but Izzie appeared to be a cheerful, positive person, who was trying to keep moving forward despite his son’s death.
For the next two months, Jakob soaked up everything he could about the diamond business, and Izzie sent him on errands constantly, delivering stones to other dealers, or picking them up. And he told Emmanuelle about it at night.
She was six months pregnant by then, and she couldn’t conceal it anymore. The baby was a good size, and she hoped it would be a boy, since there were no members of Jakob’s family to carry on his name. He said he didn’t care. He just wanted it to be healthy, and the birth easy for her. She was eating better now and felt better than she had in months. She still had nightmares but less often.
Jakob had her come to the store one day after work so he could introduce her to Izzie. He was very proud of her. The next day Izzie commented on how gentle and beautiful she was. She looked so delicate that he couldn’t imagine her surviving what she’d been through, or that anyone would want to do
such brutal things to her. He was pleased for them about the baby, and he was generous with Jakob.
In September, Izzie had handed him an envelope of cash and told him to buy himself another suit and some new shirts. He needed more than one suit to wear to work, and there was enough money for Jakob to buy gray slacks and a blazer too, and a new dress for Emmanuelle. They’d had fun shopping uptown all Saturday afternoon, rode back downtown, dropped off their purchases at the apartment, and went to the movies afterward.
It was hard for Jakob to envision their life with a baby. They had grown so close in the year and a half since they’d been married that he could no longer imagine his life without her, and maybe it would be that way with the baby too. The apartment would be cramped for the three of them, but they didn’t want to move. They were saving every penny they could.
After fourteen months of working for him, and now with a baby coming, Harry Rosen had refused to give Emmanuelle a raise. She knew by then that all of his employees hated him. He was stingy with everyone. Hilda and Fritz, his other sponsees, had left as soon as their contracts ended. They were working in a German restaurant uptown, and doing well. She was cooking, and he was waiting on tables, and said he was making a lot of money on tips.
In October, Emmanuelle fainted one afternoon at work. One of her coworkers called Jakob at the office, and he came to pick her up and took her to the doctor. They told her that she should slow down and possibly stop working until the baby came, but she didn’t want to lose two months of salary, and insisted she was fine. Many of the women at the factory were pregnant—they were calling it the Baby Boom, with lots of women having babies right after the war, and Harry Rosen had no policy in place to protect the women or their jobs. He worked them just as hard as everyone else, and expected them to return to work two weeks after they gave birth. If they didn’t like it, they were easy to replace, so Emmanuelle was hanging on to her sewing job for dear life.
Her English had improved, but she still had a heavy French accent, which most people found charming. Jakob continued to correct her and gave her lessons whenever he had time. She always spoke to him in French, and he indulged her in that. It was all she had left now of her history and heritage, the language she had spoken as a child and before the war. After that, she’d learned German in the camp, and had to speak English in New York. She was relieved to speak to Jakob in French at home, and she was going to speak to their baby in French.
“You don’t miss speaking German?” she asked him late one night as they lay in bed, and he rubbed a hand over her belly, which was a good size now. She was still very thin, but the baby was growing, and Jakob could feel it kick a lot when she cuddled up next to him at night.
“No, I’d be happy if I never had to speak German again,” he said. “It has too many bad associations for me now. It makes me think of the camp.” She nodded, she felt the same way whenever she heard people speaking German. There had been an influx of German immigrants since the war, and in their neighborhood, she heard German and Yiddish spoken constantly, particularly among the old people who had been there for a long time, but it always gave her a chill. Her nightmares were finally subsiding, and she felt peaceful waiting for the baby.
Izzie invited them to Thanksgiving dinner at his apartment on the Upper West Side. It was the Steins’ second Thanksgiving in the States and they hadn’t celebrated the first one. They were shocked when they met his wife, Naomi. She was a wraithlike creature with a distant, vague expression. She was sitting in a dimly lit sitting room when they arrived, and barely looked up when Izzie introduced them. She nodded and forced a wintry smile. She was dressed all in black, and there were photographs everywhere of their late son, who had been a handsome boy and looked like his father. It was hard to discern what Izzie’s wife had looked like before grief had decimated her. She was so pale she looked like a ghost herself and her eyes were two pools of sorrow. She walked like an old woman, and it was hard to imagine her married to a man as energetic and vital as Izzie.
He carried the conversation with Jakob all through dinner, and Emmanuelle attempted to chat with Mrs. Horowitz, who answered in monosyllables and retired to her bedroom without touching the Thanksgiving meal that Izzie had prepared and served. He did everything at home now, and talked to his wife as though she was part of the conversation, but she refused to engage. She had buried herself alive with her son. Even Jakob and Emmanuelle’s impending baby didn’t warm her, and she kept her eyes averted from Emmanuelle’s maternal shape as though just seeing it caused her pain. It had the opposite effect on Izzie, who was excited for them.
“I think I’ll have to become the baby’s adopted grandfather, if you’ll let me.” Jakob and Emmanuelle loved his taking an interest in their child. It was nice being able to share their joy. “You should rest for a few weeks before the baby comes,” he said sternly. “You’ll be busy and exhausted after that.”
“I have to go back to work two weeks after, or I’ll lose my job, and they expect me to work until the day I give birth,” Emmanuelle said, sounding worried.
“Your boss is a monster,” Izzie said with strong disapproval, and Jakob agreed with him.
“Half the factory workers are pregnant, and he’s angry about it.”
“He can’t fire all of you. At least stay home for a month after the baby is born. Who are you going to leave it with when you go back to work?”
“Our neighbor downstairs said she’d take care of the baby for us. She has a six-month-old, and she doesn’t mind taking care of both of them. She wants very little money for it, so we can afford her.” Their budget was still very tight, but they were managing with Jakob’s new salary as Izzie’s runner. They’d been able to buy what they needed for the baby and borrow the rest from neighbors and women that Emmanuelle worked with who had had babies too and had things their infants had already outgrown.
Emmanuelle was planning to nurse until she went back to work. Her doctor said it was better for the baby, and it would save the money for formula until they had no choice. They had to think of everything and calculate every penny, which wasn’t unfamiliar to her from her life before the war, but it was an entirely new experience for Jakob. He had adapted to it, although it had been a huge adjustment for him at first. He had never had to worry about money before or even think about it. He had had everything he could possibly want when he was growing up. And he wanted some of the same advantages he’d had for their child, such as an excellent education, a secure home, and parents who weren’t frantic about having enough money to put food on the table. He wanted their children to feel safe. And he wanted more than one child, which Emmanuelle was fiercely opposed to. She was still convinced that the Holocaust could happen again, even in America. She firmly believed it, despite everything Jakob said otherwise. It seemed inconceivable to him. And she kept insisting that given the dangers for Jews in the world, one child was enough. He hoped she would change her mind over time, but at the moment she was very firm about it.
Their Thanksgiving with the Horowitzes was warm and touching, even after Naomi disappeared to her room to rest. They stayed and talked to Izzie for a long time, and then went home and talked about how nice it had been, and how much they liked him.
And then, before they knew it, it was December. The baby was due on the eighteenth, a Wednesday, and Emmanuelle worked the entire day on her due date, and nothing exceptional seemed to be happening when she left work. Jakob met her outside the factory at the end of the day, fiercely annoyed that her boss and supervisor hadn’t agreed to give her some time off before the due date. She told everyone she’d see them tomorrow, since there was no sign of impending labor, and her doctor had seen nothing promising the day before when she went for her appointment. The factory was going to be closed on Christmas Day to acknowledge the Christian workers, but they didn’t have the day off on Christmas Eve, and her coworkers had teased her that even if she had the baby on Chr
istmas, their boss would expect her back the next day. Their standard policy was two weeks after delivery, although some women had taken three after a Caesarean section, without their employer’s consent.
She was moving more slowly than usual when Jakob met her, but said she was just tired after a long day. She had been up and down the stairs between the workrooms and the factory several times, which angered him even more.
“You should all go on strike,” he said, as they walked to the subway, and he held her arm. It was snowing and he didn’t want her to fall. He wished he could afford a cab, to make things easier for her. They had celebrated the first night of Chanukah the night before, and she had lit the candles and sung the prayers as her mother would have. It had brought tears to her eyes as she sang, and Jakob joined her and they held hands alone in their tiny apartment. Izzie had wished them a happy Chanukah and given them the first dreidel for their baby, which Emmanuelle said she would keep forever.
Jakob had celebrated Chanukah with his family too, in Vienna. For them, it had been a gala affair with friends and relatives around the table all dressed in black tie, and exchanging gifts. But his family had always been very open and non-religious and they had a Christmas tree every year as well. Emmanuelle had never had one, and didn’t think it would be right now when Jakob suggested it, not even a small tabletop one. She felt that they had to honor all of those who had died for their faith, and not muddy the waters with Christian traditions that weren’t theirs, even if they were in America now.