Aunt Rose’s Livelihood

Aunt Rose was only a few years older than her youngest sister Etl, who had turned gray very early on, before she was thirty. But Aunt Rose didn’t have a single little gray hair in her head even at sixty. Her pitch-black hair had a bluish glow. She combed it straight, with a part down the middle. And her expressive face was still attractive in old age. But the little wrinkles around her lips spread more and more.

Aunt Rose lived on Skaplerna Street, far from the center of town, behind the train tracks that snaked their way across a high bridge. The trains would rush past with a great rumble and roar. From down below you could see the little windows of the train cars, their panes shimmering in the sunshine.

There, on Skaplerna Street, was where Aunt Rose lived amidst a crush of shoddy little shanties, in a small wooden house where she rented rooms. You had to climb up a wooden staircase that creaked and groaned loudly from old age. She had two tiny rooms. She had partitioned off a small corner with a little faded calico curtain, where a kerosene stove sat on a little oven, which was where she prepared her meager food.

There was a chicken coop behind the little oven, where a living creature was always hopping around: a hen that clucked and laid eggs. Aunt Rose pampered her like a house pet and would talk things over with her during the long, scary evenings that were so dark that you wouldn’t dare go out. Rose poured out all her current woes and past miseries to her hen. She would tell her patient listener about all those terrible theater directors who only rarely gave her decent roles and kept her hungry. She raged to her chicken about Alfred — that liar, that bastard — who had abandoned her to God’s mercy one fine day without even saying goodbye. She was a desperate agunah, all alone in the world. The hen heard her out compassionately, answering her with a quiet, tender clucking, as if to alleviate Rose’s grief.

Not one of Rose’s hens ever had to face the sharp knife of the kosher slaughterer. She simply could not bring herself to turn them into chicken soup. When the hen’s time had come, it would throw back its head, stretch out its little legs, and breathe out its little soul from old age, just as nature intended. Tears would run down Rose’s face as she mourned the passing of her good friend, one of God’s creatures. Then she would get another hen and raise it with love.

In one corner of the room stood a tall straw basket with all of Rose’s possessions, everything she had needed for the stage: big hats with broad rims festooned with colorful ribbons, bedecked with artsy red cherries or gaudy baubles. She had worn them on her shapely head when she was young and pretty and had toured cities and towns, acting with the impresario Kompaneyets. There were also her crinolines, pelerines, and other clothes in the same wild styles and colors. Her brother-in-law’s brother used to send them from far away Ameritchke, and her sister gave them to her to wear them on stage.

Rose couldn’t bear to part with her wardrobe, even in the worst of times. On mild spring days she would pull her hats and clothes out of the basket to air them out so that no moths — God forbid! — should infest them. On occasion she tried some of them on in front of the fogged-up, rusty mirror that hung near the window. And she would choke back a deep sigh.

On the shabby walls of the little room there hung posters announcing, in huge typeface, the plays in which she had performed second-rate roles. But none of the posters even mentioned her. Rose had never been a prima donna, but she would sing out at family celebrations in a strong, mellifluous voice, and both young and old were surprised and delighted with the show tunes.

Young, trained actors kept joining the Yiddish theater, and Rose grew old and had to give up the stage. On rare occasion she was called on to substitute for an actress or a stage-hand who had fallen sick, or for other reasons. But she didn’t make enough to live on. She did get a pitiful pension every month from the Actors’ union in Warsaw, not a real income, just enough to barely hang on. Even that small amount would often arrive late. So Aunt Rose would ask her educated nephews to send a note to the union. She herself could read, but she could barely write at all. In the cellar rooms of her impoverished father, Yudl the carpenter, who had been burdened with many daughters and was inclined to drink, Rose didn’t dare to even dream of an education. Nor had she learned a trade. One obsession possessed her: to act in the theater.

Rose did not want to beg from her relatives, let alone from strangers. One day she began to peddle cosmetics. From somewhere she would buy toiletry soap, make-up, rouge, and lipstick on the cheap and sell them door-to-door to servant girls. Sometimes a compassionate housewife would buy something for a few pennies. But she earned very little. She suffered quietly, rarely complaining. One day she came to one of her customers, pockmarked Dorke, the servant of a rich manufacturer. Dorke looked at her and shook her head. A week earlier the lady of the house had given her a free ticket to the Yiddish theater because she had unexpectedly been invited to an important dinner. By coincidence, that day Rose had substituted for an ailing actress, and Dorke had seen her on stage for the first time. It was a whole different Rose, elegant and all dolled-up, not the Rose that she knew. So she said sympathetically: “Rosie dear, how much longer can you keep climbing up and down the steps? After all, you’re not getting younger. Maybe you should try peddling on Sofianika Street? It’ll be easier to sell your cosmetics there. The ‘girls’ there will buy them all up.”

A shudder went right through Rose’s body. She knew exactly what kind of “girls” were over there. She dragged herself home, exhausted. She debated what to do. But she was needy, and need is stronger than iron. She decided to go there the next day, to Sofianika Street. She had no choice. She would try to peddle her wares to the prostitutes. But she prayed that she wouldn’t become a target of their vile gossip. Early the next day, Rose traveled to the far side of town, the Sofianika. Blond Zisl was sitting on a stool, warming herself in the sun at the door of the first small “house of Paradise.” She was a fiery girl who knew just how to entice a sucker. Seeing Rose standing lost in the middle of the alley, looking all around her helplessly, she said, smiling impishly, “Who’re you looking for, Mama?” Rose blushed, embarrassed. She opened her basket, exhibited her wares, and asked Zisl if she might want a good piece of soap, make-up, or rouge. Zisl looked at her without another word and grasped her situation. She asked her to wait, went inside, and returned with her purse. Without asking the price, she took several pieces of soap, lipstick, and make-up. She paid her and pointed to two other brothels where Rose could sell her stuff.

The world brightened up for Rose. She was relieved that “the girls” didn’t make her sick to her stomach by bargaining over every penny, which her respectable customers often did. She could breathe more easily now and she regained her confidence. She no longer had to put up with her awful landlord’s tongue-lashings. Now the rent was paid right on time. She would feed her hen in her room, generously scattering barley, or even cooked grits. And as she fed her, she would sometimes hum a lively tune, and the hen would accompany her, clucking along, just as she had during the hard times.