Yiddishlands: A Memoir

3. Caf

16 So why didn’t she marry Boris Seidman, the great love of her life? He was tall, spoke fluent Russian, and owned one of the largest dry goods stores in Vilna. When it was just the two of us, Mother and I, at my lunch break from school, there was an even chance of finding out. The last time they met on European soil was at Café Rudnitsky, on the cornerof TrockaandGermanStreet.Everydetailwascarefullyplanned.Of two Cafés Rudnitsky in Vilna, men and women in their social position would normally meet at the one located on Mickiewicz. There were good reasons, however, to choose the Trocka location, at the heart of the old neighborhood, instead. Just up the block, at 28/30 Zawalna, was the courtyard where Mother was born, and around the corner stood the chestnut tree where she and Seidman had first met, sometime after the death of her mother when she was forced to live alone with her father. Another reason for choosing this spot was that Boris needed an alibi, and since the store of Seidman & Freidberg was located but a block away in the opposite direction , it would seem as if he were taking his lunch break. Don’t forget that Mashahadnotcomealone,butwithmysix-year-oldbrotherintow,notthat the lovers had any chance of hiring a droshky to take them up to Castle Hill with its commanding view of the Old Town and the New, for what if they were seen together by a member of the Matz Family—her half-brother 3 Café Rudnitsky Grisha was at work in the TOZ Colony outside of town, but at this very moment his wife, Nadianka, sporting a pale blue parasol might be out window shoppingonMickiewicz.Sothebestthatcouldbehopedforwastositdown at one of the marble-and-wrought-iron tables and order a pastry with a cup of tea or perhaps a glass of cognac, while Benjamin her firstborn was kept busy as long as possible choosing a box of Wedel’s, for Café Rudnitsky sold a fine array of chocolate—Mother’s favorites were called Provençalkes. Wedel’s are still sold in a red tin box in the shape of a heart. How perfect, Benjamin must have thought, for storing the spare parts of his new electric train—the envy of his best friend, Didi. Back in Romania, so Mother always said, the only other kid to own an electric train was the son of King Carol II. The box of Wedel’s in hand, I imagined little Benjamin already babbling away in Polish with the waitress at the cash register. In her white lace apron over a black tunic and blouse, she may have reminded him of Zosia, their maid, and he smiled, thinking of the way Zosia shook her ample tits whenever she polished their parquet floors, wearing buffing cloths tied to her naked feet, and how she sometimes danced with him on the slippery floor until one day Mother caught them at it. Lost in thought, Benjamin never suspected that the tall Russian-speaking gentleman with the receding hairline his mother bumped into had specifically asked to meet him: the son they would never have together. How my family got to Czernowitz, then a part of Romania, is another story, divulged at other meals. I only bring it up because back home in Czernowitz my father was busy all day at the rubber factory and Mother had a governess named Peppi for her newborn daughter, which left Mother plenty of time to correspond with Seidman. Someone acted as the gobetween —maybe it was her niece Salla, someone who was beholden to Mother and therefore would not give her away. In Montreal, ten and twenty years later, on the far side of the great divide, the same role would be played by her manicurist—let’s call her Margaret, since the “real” Margaret is still alive. So in the guise of visiting her family in Vilna, my mother met Seidman at Café Rudnitsky. What a long trip for so brief a rendezvous, even with fewer borders to cross in 1937 than there are today. Boris Seidman is the name I’ve given him, for Boris sounds properly Russian,rememberingBorisGodunov,myfavoriteLPfromtheageofthree, and Seidman in Yiddish signifies his trade. He appears under an alias because Monica, his granddaughter, who lives in Newton, Massachusetts, Café Rudnitsky 17 doesn’t want the whole world to know, while Mother would...