None of her efforts to change the course of their monotonous life found favour with Hertzel. Among other youthful scandals, there was an incident in which she sold the furniture from the bedroom she shared with Pauline, who was a year younger. Helena hated their huge rosewood bed: it reminded her of a catafalque and gave her nightmares. In the small hours she thought she could see ghosts, and she would grab Pauline’s hand to calm her terror. In her opinion the termite-infested bedside tables were hopelessly old-fashioned. Her parents had inherited the furniture from their parents. As children were born and the family moved from house to house they added beds, wardrobes or dressers rescued from family attics or bought for a few zloty at the flea market. And everything was arranged haphazardly, without rhyme or reason, to Helena’s despair.
She knew nearly every shop window in Stradom Street by heart, and a new furniture store had just opened. At first she just glimpsed inside, then she grew bolder and went in. There she saw a big, sober, modern bed with two matching bedside tables. ‘This is the Biedermeier style,’ the salesman told her. ‘You need look no further, miss, this is as good as any you’ll find in Vienna,’ he added, in an affected tone.
Helena ran her hand over the polished wood. She liked the texture. She knew instinctively, without ever having been taught, how to distinguish the beautiful from the ugly, the refined from the vulgar. Throughout her life she would demonstrate this taste for beauty that seemed to have come out of nowhere. But she did not have the means to pay for the furniture; the price was exorbitant. To persuade her, the salesman suggested she pay on credit and even offered to take her old furniture. ‘And since you seem to be in the know, I’ll sell you this armchair half price. And I’ll throw in that big standing mirror as a bonus.’
It was far too tempting. Helena haggled, something she was very good at, and managed to get an even better price. She would find a way to pay back the instalments. She picked a moment when her parents would be absent to have the furniture delivered. That way the surprise would be even greater. Luckily, Helena’s maternal grandparents, Salomon and Rebecca, had invited the entire family to spend the Sabbath in their old house on the outskirts of Kazimierz. To avoid having to go along, Helena pleaded a headache, an ailment she frequently suffered from.
Gitel was worried. Normally her daughter never missed these visits. She was Rebecca’s favourite granddaughter and the old woman always showered her with presents, such as embroidered handkerchiefs or lace collars. When Helena turned fifteen, her grandmother even gave her a string of pearls. Her sisters thought they would die of jealousy. Helena kept that necklace her entire life, and that precious gift was the beginning of her passion for jewellery. At her grandparents’ there was also Stass, the handyman. He was very gifted with his hands, and he made miniature furniture for the little girls that were perfect imitations of the real thing. Helena never tired of discovering what new treasures he had created and this fascination would lead Helena to collect doll’s houses all her life.
‘Are you sure?’ asked Gitel.
‘I’m sure,’ replied Helena. She needed peace and quiet and she would be able to rest in her room. Hertzel was calling irritably to his wife to hurry up, as she rushed to and fro, unable to bring herself to leave. ‘We’re going to be late,’ he shouted; if his daughter wanted to sulk that was her business. Gitel gave in and went to join the rest of the family already crowded into the carriage.
All these interruptions made them late. Helena went to the window several times, filled with anxiety. The cart with its load of furniture was due to arrive any minute. Luckily, her family turned the corner at the very moment the shopkeeper came to unload his delivery. Helena spent the entire day arranging everything to her taste, making the bed and covering it with the counterpane she had just embroidered. Like her mother, she was very good at needlework.
Then she sat down to wait for her parents, confident that they would be pleased.
She had underestimated her father: Hertzel stood stock still at the threshold to the room. There could no longer be any doubt: his daughter was meshuggah, stark, raving mad. A dybbuk must have turned her head. To go selling the family furniture! What sort of behaviour was that! Who did she deal with? A store on Stradom Street? Who did she think she was! It must have cost an arm and a leg! Hertzel ordered her to follow him and rushed off to the store to return the furniture before it was too late.
Once again she had to obey her father. How long would this last? ‘Until you get married,’ replied Gitel firmly. ‘And after that, you will have to obey your husband.’
‘Yes, but who’s going to want her?’ said Hertzel bitterly when Helena had her back turned. ‘Everyone knows how rebellious she can be. She’s already turned down four suitors. And she is well over twenty!’
‘Without a substantial dowry, she won’t find a good match,’ retorted Gitel. ‘At her age she’ll only find other women’s cast-offs. And don’t forget there are seven more after her who are waiting their turn.’
Hertzel pretended he hadn’t heard. Gitel went to see the matchmakers, appealed to friends of friends, alerted all of Kazimierz and the immediate surroundings, Podgorze and Dukla, where she had been born, and in her agitation wondered if she shouldn’t send emissaries to Lemberg. Finally, someone found her the one. Schmuel, a well-to-do old widower who lived in Kraków, in the Christian neighbourhood, agreed to marry their daughter without a dowry. He had seen her several times at the synagogue and found her very much to his liking.
Hertzel was relieved when his wife told him the news. Schmuel seemed an excellent match. The man would take their daughter off their hands and give her two or three children to start with. Thanks to him the she-devil would calm down. Now all that remained was to convince her.
The young woman listened first to her father and then to her mother. She looked at the two of them; for once she was speechless. She wasn’t saying anything; that was a good sign, thought Hertzel. Gitel was more circumspect. She knew her daughter: this stillness did not bode well. Besides, hadn’t she just shaken her head? And what’s that she was murmuring? It was out of the question? That she would never marry that … that what? Not him, nor anyone else for that matter?
‘But what do you want?’ asked Hertzel, exasperated.
‘Stanislaw.’
Astonished, Hertzel turned to his wife, who shrugged, as much in the dark as he was.
Stanislaw was a medical student who Helena claimed to have met outside the university. She went there from time to time, to wander around and daydream that she belonged to these groups of laughing, talking students who never paid her the slightest attention. They all had presence, but none could compare with Stanislaw. Curly hair and eyes like the skies of a Kraków summer – if only they could see him, in his frock coat with gold buttons … a real prince.
She had probably never even spoken to him. How could she go near him, with a father who was so particular about who she met? But one of her girlfriends who knew the young man had pointed him out to Helena one day when they were walking together. So eager was Helena for romance that she was sure that it was love at first sight. But that was not something she was prepared to tell her parents. On the contrary, she made things up, implying there was already something quite serious between her and Stanislaw. Anything rather than marry Schmuel.
At that point Hertzel Naftaly Rubinstein got extremely angry. He paced back and forth in the living room, shouting, ranting and raving against his daughter.
‘Shoyn gening, that’s enough! You will obey me!’
Gitel sat on the worn taffeta sofa wringing her hands. Her round face bobbed up and down to the rhythm of her husband’s steps. ‘Oy gevald, what are we going to do with you?’ she said over and over again through her tears.
‘She spends much too much time away from home, how many times do I have to tell you?’ said Hertzel reproachfully,