by Janice Alper (La Jolla, CA)
Six days a week, after morning prayers at synagogue, Zayda set up his notions stand, with needles, threads, barrettes, bobby pins, hairnets, and other stuff, on the sidewalk in front of his basement knitting store on Blake Avenue in the East New York section of Brooklyn. He lumbered up and down the steps hauling six sawhorses and three planks of wood. Once in place, he disappeared into a dark storage space, and carried up flimsy cardboard boxes laden with the goods. By 9:30 am, in all seasons, he was ready for business.
The dark, dank basement underneath a two-family house—sandwiched between Sapoff’s children’s shop and Brodsky’s appliance store—reeked of kerosene from a black stove even when it wasn’t on. Along the curb a pushcart sold fruits and vegetables. Another sold fresh fish, where the pushcart man yelled, “Fresh flounder today.”
The fish, with clear glassy eyes, sat on a pile of shaved ice. Grandma bought some and the man wrapped it in newspaper. “Enjoy,” he said, as he handed it to her.
On the farthest corner a commercial laundry belched steamy, moist clouds which floated over to us from the large dryers. Across the street, the German bakery perfumed the air with fresh breads Grandma bought at the end of the day—crusty seeded rye, thick black pumpernickel, and onion rolls saved for breakfast the next morning. Sometimes she treated me to a crumb bun. The powdered sugar covered the front of my clothes as I gobbled it up and licked my lips to get the last of the sweetness.
Even at five years old, I noticed Zayda was different at his stand than he was at home where he seemed as if he was the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk. I covered my ears and fled to my room when he came home from the store. He only spoke Yiddish and was strict about my behavior, making me say a morning blessing and warning me no to talk to boys.
“How come you don’t speak English to me?” I asked.
He looked down on me with his beady brown eyes, “Sha, Yenta,” and put his finger to his lips.
My parents opened their grocery store in another neighborhood when I started kindergarten in 1945, so Grandma took me to Blake Avenue every day after school. To pass the time I’d sort the plastic barrettes by shape and color—pink butterflies, mock red ribbons, and white daisies. Whenever I held a pair up to my hair, Zayda wagged his finger at me. I’d escape to the safety of the basement where Aunt Hilda sold yarn, knitting needles, knitting books, and provided knitting instructions to the customers.
Downstairs, I crossed my arms around myself in the coolness. It felt comfortable, despite the smell of kerosene in winter and summer, and as time passed, I didn’t notice it. Even on gloomy winter days, when Zayda stood huddled in a warm overcoat, hands in pockets, a muffler on his neck, and earmuffs to keep the frost from his ears, it was still brighter outside than the store below where the light came from two bulbs, each one pulled on with a metal chain. On the counter in back rested a bronze cash register where numbers popped up in a window when you touched the keys.
Along the walls the yarns were in boxes—light-weight ones for cardigans and baby sweaters, heavier ones for scarves, or for crew necks with reindeer patterns. The names of the colors were written on the boxes—scarlet, maize, beige. Some of the wool came in balls where you pulled out a thread and it was ready for knitting. Others were hanks that had to be made into balls before you could use them. More than once Aunt Hilda said, “Stick your arms out, Janice.”
She took the loops of the skein and placed them on my wrists. I’d spread out my arms so the wool wouldn’t droop as she wound it into a ball. It tickled and I loved the soft feel against my skin.
One day Aunt Hilda handed me a pair of knitting needles with two rows of bright red stitches on one of them. “How would you like to learn to knit?” she asked.
“Oh, can I?”
“Of course, I’ll show you.”
I sat on a stool and faced Aunt Hilda whose plaid woolen skirt covered her knees. She bent her head, with its crown of long braided hair framing her face and showed me how to wind the yarn on my finger and transfer the stitches from one needle to the other. My first attempts were clumsy, and I kept dropping the stitches. “It’s hard,” I whined.
“Don’t cry, I’ll help you.” She guided my hands until I managed on my own. I wrapped the long belt that I had just made around my waist and paraded in front of Aunt Hilda. “You look satisfied,” she said.
I marched up the stairs to show Zayda, “Look what I made.”
“Good Yentele,” he said and patted me on the head.
Grandma packed Zayda’s lunch every day: two hard boiled eggs, two slices of buttered rye bread, an apple, and a large thermos of coffee. Sometimes she surprised him with a tuna fish sandwich. He took his lunch downstairs and sat next to the kerosene stove he used for a tabletop.
Grandma watched the stand while Zayda was gone. I liked being there with her, especially since she couldn’t hear so well, and I sometimes had to shout what people were asking her. I’d lean over and repeat what the customer wanted into the hearing aid on her chest.
One time as I arranged the cards of barrettes, she took a pair, shaped like red ribbons, and handed them to me. With her finger on her lips she whispered, “Don’t tell Zayda.”
Later at home I looked at myself in the mirror with the plastic barrettes in my dirty blond hair and paraded up and down, hands on hips, like the ladies in Mommy’s Redbook magazine.
As I got older and could be on my own, I didn’t go to the knitting store after school; instead, I stayed home by myself. It was a relief to be free of the place. I had time to spend with my friends enjoying an egg cream at Vogelson’s candy store, or playing a game of stoop ball, before I took the bus to Hebrew school.
….
On a rainy Sunday, in 1953, as Zayda sat in the entrance to the basement store, the black kerosene stove exploded and started a fire. Zayda ran up on to the sidewalk and scratched his head as he watched the firemen work. Not much was salvaged, and the knitting store closed forever.
My mother shared the news with me and added, “I don’t know what Papa will do now without the store.”
Zayda continued with his habit of going to shul twice a day.
I, on the other hand, had been doing without the store for many years by then. Already in eighth grade, and no longer at Talmud Torah, my time after school was filled with band and Honor Society. However, Young Judaea replaced my formal Jewish education. Fascinated with the egalitarian role of women in the fledgling state of Israel, I began to seek ways to be part of a an egalitarian community. Something I continue to this day.
It all began on Blake Avenue.
Janice Alper has reinvented herself in her senior life as a writer of poems, personal essays, and memoirs which have been published in San Diego Poetry Annual (2018, 19, and 20) The San Diego Union-Tribune, and Shaking the Tree.
Currently, Janice’s memoir, Sitting on the Stoop, about her Brooklyn, New York childhood from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s, is available on Amazon. You can view it here:
Sitting on the Stoop
Words Bursting in Air, her book of poetry, may be obtained by contacting her at janicealper@gmail.com. And you can follow Janice on her occasional blog at www.janicesjottings1.com
The Jewish Writing Project 