Chapter VII

This despair did not last long. It was not in Leah's nature to despair. But her wildest hopes were exceeded when she set foot again in Hamburg and explained her hard case to the good committee, and a member gave her an informal hint which was like a flash of light from Heaven--its answer to her ceaseless prayer. Ellis Island was not the only way of approaching the Land of Promise. You could go round about through Canada, where they were not so particular, and you could slip in by rail from Montreal without attracting much attention. True, there was the extra expense.

Expense! Leah would have gladly parted with her last rouble to unite Biela with her bridegroom. There must be no delay. A steamer for Canada was waiting to sail. What a fool she had been not to think that out for herself! Yes, but there was Biela's timidity again to consider. Travel by herself through this unknown Canada! And then if they were not so particular, why could not Leah slip through likewise?

"Yes, but my eyes are more noticeable. I might again do you an injury."

"We will separate at the landing-stage and the frontier. We will pretend to be strangers." Biela's wits were sharpened by the crisis.

"Well, I can only lose the passage-money," said Leah, and resolved to take the risk. She wrote a letter to Srul explaining the daring invasion of New York overland which they were to attempt, and was about to post it, when Biela said:--

"Poor Srul! And if I shall not get in after all!" Leah's face fell.

"True," she pondered. "He will have a more heart-breaking disappointment than before."

"Let us not kindle their hopes. After all, if we get in, we shall only be a few days later than our letter. And then think of the joy of the surprise."

"You are right, Biela," and Leah's face glowed again with the anticipated joy of the surprise.

The journey to Canada was longer than to the States, and the "freight" was less companionable. There were fewer Jews and women, more stalwart shepherds, miners, and dock-labourers. When after eleven days, land came, it was not touched at, but only remained cheeringly on the horizon for the rest of the voyage. At last the sisters found themselves unmolested on one of the many wharves of Montreal. But they would not linger a day in this unhomely city. The next morning saw them, dazed and worn out but happy-hearted, dodging the monstrous catapults of the New York motor-cars, while a Polish porter helped them with their bundles and convoyed them toward Srul's store. Ah, what ecstasy to be unregarded units of this free chaotic crowd. Outside the store--what a wonderful store it was, larger than the largest in the weavers' colony!--the sisters paused a moment to roll the coming bliss under their tongues. They peeped in. Ah, there is Srul behind the counter, waiting for customers. Ah, ah, he little knows what customers are waiting for him! They turned and kissed each other for mere joy.

"Draw your shawl over your face," whispered Leah merrily. "Go in and ask him if he has a wedding-veil." Biela slipped in, brimming over with mischief and tears.

"Yes, Miss?" said Srul, with his smartest store manner.

"I want a wedding-veil of white lace," she said in Yiddish. At her voice Srul started. Biela could keep up the joke no longer. "Srul, my darling Srul!" she cried hysterically, her arms yearning to reach him across the counter.

He drew back, pale, gasping for breath.

"Ah, my dear ones!" blubbered Leah, rushing in. "God has been good to you, after all."

"But--but--how did you get in?" he cried, staring.

"Never mind how we got in," said Leah, every pock-mark glistening with smiles and tears. "And where is Tsirrele--my dear little Tsirrele?"

"She--she is out marketing, with the mother."

"And the mother?"

"She is well and happy."

"Thank God!" said Leah fervently, and beckoned the porter with the bundles.

"But--but I let the room," he said, flushing. "I did not know that--I could not afford--"

"Never mind, we will find a room. The day is yet high." She settled with the porter.

Meantime Srul had begun playing nervously with a pair of scissors. He snipped a gorgeous piece of stuff to fragments.

"What are you doing?" said Biela at last.

"Oh--I--" he burst into a nervous laugh. "And so you ran the blockade after all. But--but I expect customers every minute--we can't talk now. Go inside and rest, Biela: you will find a sofa in the parlour. Leah, I want--I want to talk to you."

Leah flashed a swift glance at him as Biela, vaguely chilled, moved through the back door into the revivifying splendours of the parlour.

"Something is wrong, Srul," Leah said hoarsely. "Tsirrele is not here. You feared to tell us."

He hung his head. "I did my best."

"She is ill--dead, perhaps! My beautiful angel!"

He opened his eyes. "Dead? No. Married!"

"What! To whom?"

He turned a sickly white. "To me."

In all that long quest of the canopy, Leah had never come so near fainting as now. The horror of Ellis Island was nothing to this. That scene resurged, and Tsirrele's fresh beauty, unflecked by the voyage, came up luridly before her; the "baby," whom the unnoted years had made a young woman of fifteen, while they had been aging and staling Biela.

"But--but this will break Biela's heart," she whispered, heart-broken.

"How was I to know Biela would _ever_ get in?" he said, trying to be angry. "Was I to remain a bachelor all my life, breaking the Almighty's ordinance? Did I not wait and wait faithfully for Biela all those years?"

"You could have migrated elsewhere," she said faintly.

"And ruin my connection--and starve?" His anger was real by now. "Besides I have married into the family--it is almost the same thing. And the old mother is just as pleased."

"Oh, she!" and all the endured bitterness of the long years was in the exclamation. "All she wants is grandchildren."

"No, it isn't," he retorted. "Grandchildren with good eyes."

"God forgive you," was all the lump in Leah's throat allowed her to reply. She steadied herself with a hand on the counter, striving to repossess her soul for Biela's sake.

A customer came in, and the tragic universe dwindled to a prosaic place in which ribbons existed in unsatisfactory shades.

"Of course we must go this minute," Leah said, as Srul clanked the coins into the till. "Biela cannot ever live here with you now."

"Yes, it is better so," he assented sulkily. "Besides, you may as well know at once. I keep open on the Sabbath, and that would not have pleased Biela. That is another reason why it was best not to marry Biela. Tsirrele doesn't seem to mind."

The very ruins of her world seemed toppling now. But this new revelation of Tsirrele's and his own wickedness seemed only of a piece with the first--indeed, went far to account for it.

"You break the Sabbath, after all!"

He shrugged his shoulders. "We are not in Poland any longer. No dead flies here. Everybody does it. Shut the store two days a week! I should get left."

"And you bring your mother's gray hairs down with sorrow to the grave."

"My mother's gray hairs are no longer hidden by a stupid black _Shaitel_. That is all. I have explained to her that America is the land of enlightenment and freedom. Her eyes are opened."

"I trust to God, your father's--peace be upon him!--are still shut!" said Leah as she walked with slow steady steps into the parlour, to bear off her wounded lamb.

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V

TO DIE IN JERUSALEM

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V

TO DIE IN JERUSALEM