Chaim Grade’s ‘Sons and Daughters,’ Chapter Five

Tzesneh Ginsburg had been studying foreign languages at the University of Warsaw. But when riots broke out against Jewish students, she cut her studies short and came home to Morehdalye.

In town, the girls from well-to-do homes flocked around her, and when she went on walks with friends, the group would erupt with laughter at her jokes. Tzesneh was thin, with a pale, gaunt face, big blue eyes that were cold and smart, and thin lips that featured a perpetual sneer and a mean smile. She seemed to be trying to conceal herself within her entourage as she made wisecracks about every young single man in the town.

“Tzesneh knows she isn’t pretty,” people would say about her, “and that’s why she makes such stinging remarks about boys.” Indeed, it appeared as if, given the choice, Tzesneh would choose to remain an old maid.

Bluma Rivtcha was also one of Tzesneh’s friends, and Tzesneh would sometimes come by the rabbi’s house. Sholem Shachne didn’t like it. Fräulein Ginsburg gave off a whiff of big-city jocularity and debauchery, of the carelessly destructive capriciousness of an only child. Certainly, one couldn’t learn modesty from her. But the rabbi had already become accustomed to refraining from giving his daughter his opinion about whom she should befriend.

Back in the middle of the summer, Bluma Rivtcha had introduced Tzesneh to Zindel Kadish and afterward asked her what she thought of him.

“He’s a pretty one, but effeminate, with the face of a doll,” Tzesneh replied coldly, scornfully.

“He just appears that way. His personality is not soft at all.” Bluma Rivtcha flushed with resentment at Tzesneh’s finding fault with Zindel as well.

Oftentimes, when a group of the town’s girls were going for a stroll and Zindel Kadish walked by, always well-dressed and with a sweet smile on his lush lips, the girls would feel the heat rising to their faces and would lower their eyes. Only after he passed by would the Morehdalye maidens turn back to gaze for a long time at the handsome young man.

Tzesneh Ginsburg would also stare at him with moist eyes, her thin lips twitching with lust. But she was offended that he held himself aloof from her and so she poked fun at him, scoffing that he walked around like someone who does the earth a favor by stepping on it. “He considers himself so noble,” she said, “that it’s beneath him to share a bed . . . with himself!”

The girls all laughed, and in the meantime something else occurred to Tzesneh. “You can tell he’s a dimwit just by looking at his sweet little-girl face.”

With this statement, however, her friends disagreed. “Not true! Zindel is refined and educated. Not for nothing did Bluma Rivtcha choose him as her bridegroom.”

Tzesneh shrugged her narrow shoulders. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen an engaged couple act so distant,” she said casually. “Those two hardly take even a stroll together.”

And so Fräulein Ginsburg was quite surprised when one evening in late August, Zindel showed up at her door and asked to become her student. Since he wasn’t returning to the rabbinical seminary in Warsaw, he wanted to take lessons in English from her three times a week. How much would it cost him?

Though she was used to always having a sarcastic remark on the tip of her tongue, Tzesneh’s mouth now became as dry as the whalebone in her corset. Her pale face flushed, and her eyes lit up. She smiled, revealing two rows of dazzling, lustful teeth, ready to bite into Zindel’s dimpled chin as if into a juicy apple. But just a moment later, she was speaking with the cool superiority of a teacher. She’d be pleased, she told him, to take him on as a student in English. They would discuss payment later. If he wished, they could even work out a trade; he could pay her by giving her Hebrew lessons.

Bluma Rivtcha found out about this from friends. “Why didn’t you tell me you were learning English from Tzesneh Ginsburg?” she asked Zindel, laughing, when he came to their house for his lesson with the rabbi.

Furious at being stuck in a small town where nothing could be kept secret, Zindel replied angrily, “What’s there to tell? Aside from Fräulein Ginsburg, who else is there in Morehdalye who can teach English?” He gave her a meaningful look, trying to convey that of course he had to learn English. The place to which he intended to travel, the place to which Bluma Rivtcha did not want to accompany him, required a knowledge of English.

“Did Zindel tell you about this?” Bluma Rivtcha interrogated her brother later.

“No, he didn’t,” Refael’ke replied, serene as always, not understanding why his sister’s face was so inflamed.

The rabbi’s daughter remembered only too well the many times Tzesneh had supposedly mocked Zindel’s effeminate appearance. Yet it seemed that it was precisely his softness and those hazy eyes that had attracted her—she, the mannish university student.

“Mameh, Mameh, Zindel is studying English with Tzesneh Ginsburg!” Bluma Rivtcha ran into the kitchen and blurted out this piece of news. But Henna’le couldn’t understand why her daughter was laughing with so much rancor that her eyes filled with tears.