My Tuesdays were at the home of Froy (Mrs.) Dorfman, the sister of my "foster mother" Esther, the one who secured for me my room and my seven "days."
Froy Dorfman always seemed to be in a hurry: when she was home, she was dashing about, the sooner to return to the shoe store her husband owned down the street, where she helped out; when she was in the store, she was in a rush to get home. she had no help and did everything herself, including taking care of her two small children.
For this reason she would quickly serve me my breakfast or lunch, and obviously expected me to eat hurriedly, but I was a poor eater as well as a very slow one, and she openly resented my slowness.
So here on my Tuesdays, as on my Sundays, I ate breakfast and lunch all alone. The only difference was that on my Sundays I had all the time in the world to myself, without the housewife ever coming into the dining-room after she served me the second course. Froy Dorfman, however, constantly rushed in and out to see whether I had finished eating.
The only meal served in a family setting was in the evening. Mr. Dorfman sat at the head of the table. I would sit to his right, a place of honor. There were both Esther and Froy Dorfman, their mother, and the two small Dorfman children. At the foot of the table was Hil'ke, sitting on the edge of his chair, ready to jump at the slightest request.
Hil'ke was a big, broad-shouldered young man in his middle twenties, a distant relative of Froy Dorfman. He was very strong bodily and he helped with all heavy chores, but mentally he was retarded.
He was good-natured and unable to understand human malice. Just as an old, heavy-bodied dog, grown apathetic to life, allows children to do anything they like with him, even riding on his back, so would Hil'ke take everything done to or with him in stride. Many made fun of him, particularly small children. But his blank grin never left him. Poor Hil'ke: his body went on to adulthood, but his feelings and understanding remained in their infancy, arrested for life.
During the evening meals, while Hil'ke helped the women bring food from the kitchen or take away the empty dishes, Mr. Dorfman frequently talked with me about my studies. Sometimes he would examine me with half-quotations which I managed to complete with ease. On such occasions he would openly express his deep pleasure with my progress.
The greater my achievements in learning, however, the more, I thought, did Froy Dorfman resent me. It seemed to me that, in some strange way, she kept comparing me with Hil'ke.
Many years back, when he was brought to her by relatives from another town, she had accepted him in the hope that gradually he would outgrow his childishness. But she had lost hope long ago. She would ask him to perform some chore, and he would jump to do it with apparent eagerness; but the moment he was alone, he would suddenly forget completely what he had to do.
The more I progressed in learning, the more, I thought, Hil'ke regressed in the eyes of Froy Dorfman. I was convinced, for no specific reason, that a comparison crept into her mind between big, strong Hil'ke and little, frail Ze'likl (my diminutive name in Yiddish). And while Mr. Dorfman, after discussing with me matters of learning, could not help showing his pleasure in meeting an alert mind in a tiny youngster, Froy Dorfman would look with pitying eyes at Hil'ke, who could not even read or say the shortest prayer by heart. She could not understand the cruel inequality of nature.
But this comparison, it seemed to me, was not only between a gifted child, if indeed I ever was one, and a mentally deficient adult. I perceived the comparison in terms of the two sisters' religious responsibilities and rewards.
I was certain, for reasons dictated more by my heart than by my mind, that Froy Dorfman thought of herself as making a sacrifice with no end in sight, having to put up daily with an utterly hopeless dolt. How will God look upon her and upon her discharge of a duty she had so thoughtlessly accepted? And the thankless duty now appeared to be for life.
On the other hand, Froy Dorfman may have felt that Esther had found herself a little boy who was making tremendous strides in learning, who was praised by all his teachers, and who would grow up to be a good and learned Jew, and maybe a teacher among Jews. He would thus earn not only for himself but also for Esther a share in the "future World," a happy and rewarding world after death . . .
I often thought about these involved, multidirectional comparisons and relationships. For the sake of obviating Froy Dorfman's envy of her sister, I wishfully concluded that Esther, too, may have had a complete change of heart about me, especially after the very first night in the new town, when good people found me crying forlornly in the streets and brought me back to her.
She must have become aware at that very moment that the whole idea about my studying away from home was a woeful mistake from the very beginning. In my imagination, I hoped that a thought started to haunt her that such immense responsibility toward a small child and his mother should have been accepted only in an extreme emergency, and only if there were facilities for proper care. She herself did not have a home of her own—she was not married and lived with the Dorfmans. The whole "plan" of her taking me to the new school may have now seemed to her, in retrospect, utterly, indeed sinfully, wrong.
It also occurred to me that Esther, who was supposed to "substitute" for my mother, might actually have begun to hate me, since my presence was a constant reminder of her foolish action. I thought that in her mind, contrary to what I believe were the feelings of Froy Dorfman, a bitter doubt had formed about her bringing me to the faraway school. And it was my silent hope that she would ultimately perceive her act as a grave and momentous sin.
My hometown was completely cut off from my schooltown at the time, due to the military clashes of the First World War. Railroad communications were at a total standstill, and there was no mail for months.
I thought that if it were not for the war and for lack of transportation, Esther would certainly have taken me back to my real home. This wish became a recurrent and pervading daydream, a treasured fantasy which I experienced and reexperienced with almost tangible force. It was my only retreat in my utter loneliness, and I lived it in all its minute particulars.
In this daydream I saw Esther returning me to Mother as I had gone, with no baggage at all, back to my real and only home. she would knock on the door, open it, and say to Mother: "Here is your little son, Froy Bach. Keep him . . ."
Both Mother and son would have been the happiest people in the world! . . .