I smiled back. We sat there for a minute or two, smiling at each other.
“Where do you live?” I could visit her when I left the asylum.
“On a Hundred and Thirty-fourth Stree—”
“Tell for you your fortune?” a parrot squawked.
“There you are, boychik.” Solly poked his head into the stairwell. “With the loveliest lady at the party.”
I wished he’d go away. I wanted to stay here with Irma Lee.
But she smiled happily at him. “My mama says for you to tell her hello.”
“I did already. Come, Daveleh. We’re not heiresses, so it’s time to work.”
I stood up. I couldn’t let Irma Lee see I didn’t know what he was talking about. And did he mean she was an heiress?
“Can I help, Mr. Gruber?” she said.
“No, sweetheart. They all know you. You’d be bad for business. You can see Dave later.”
Irma Lee went back in to the party. Solly knelt down to straighten my tie. “You should close your eyes when I get started. Rocking back and forth is good. If you feel like making a big groan, don’t be shy. But if you laugh, or do anything to spoil my business, that dollar will be out of your slipper before you can say ‘gesundheit.’”
“What’s your business?”
“We tell fortunes.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a deck of worn cards. “With these.” He stood up.
Could he really predict the future? Did he think I could too? Was that why he’d grabbed me on the street?
“Real fortunes?”
“Real-shmeal. Do you think a deck of cards can tell the future?”
I shook my head.
“Smart boychik. Let’s get started.”
So that’s what a gonif was. Somebody who fools people out of their money. A crook. But not an evil crook. I was a gonif too. I had taken the dollar.
“Wait. What time is it?”
“You have another engagement?” He pulled a watch out of his pocket. “Five after one. You have time for a little business?”
I nodded. I had hours. It would only take a few minutes to walk back to the Honking House of Bells. But could I climb back in? I hadn’t thought about that. There had to be a way. I’d worry about it later.
“Let’s begin, then.” We went back into the apartment, and Solly put his arm around my shoulder. “Tell for you your fortune?” he called.
The parrot squawked, “Tell for you your fortune?”
“A quarter a card,” Solly chanted.
A quarter! Just for a card! For a quarter I could buy a hot dog and a double-scoop ice cream cone and an orangeade and a chocolate bar. A delicious meal.
Solly was still chanting. “A half a dollar, a year. For a dollar, your life.”
He wasn’t loud enough. Everybody was yelling to each other.
“Mackey, girl, the last time I saw you—”
“. . . what happened to James—”
A man tilted back his head and drank from a silver bottle.
“Honey, what’s in your potato salad? I never—”
“. . . fell over from that rotgut. Fell—”
“Solly!” A woman waved at us from across the room.
Solly started toward her. “A repeat customer,” he told me.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said. “Everything turned out— Who’s he?”
“My grandson. Dave, meet Mrs. Smith, a sweet lady.”
A grandmotherly white lady in a short red dress with sequins smiled at me.
I said hello. Solly went on, “Dave has the power. He’s going to help me in my old age.”
Mrs. Smith said, “You were right last week. I should always listen to Solly. That’s what I tell everyone.”
“How many cards tonight?” Solly said. “For my best customers, two for a quarter.”
“Then I’ll take two. Make them count, Solly.”
“Come to my office.” He led us to the food table, where he moved the cole slaw to make room for his cards. Solly maneuvered so that I stood between him and Mrs. Smith.
She took a purse out of her pocketbook and handed Solly a quarter.
He tapped the deck three times. Then he noticed me watching and passed his hand down over my eyes. “Close your eyes, boychik. Better to feel the power.” He told Mrs. Smith, “He has great power, but he has a lot to learn.”
I kept my eyes open a slit. I couldn’t miss this. Solly turned over a card. A three of clubs. The parrot squawked, “Mazel. Mazel tov.”
“Is it lucky, Solly? Did the parrot say it was lucky?”
“That’s what he said, but he’s just a bird. What does he know? Could be lucky. The cards never lie, but sometimes they aren’t what they seem. Play it. Take a chance.”
“I will. Trouble comes in threes, so why not luck?”
“Are you feeling anything, boychik?” He kicked my shin lightly as he turned over another card.
I was supposed to rock back and forth, groan if I felt like it. I rocked, but I didn’t feel like groaning. Did he want me to rock slow or fast? Forwards and backwards, or side to side? I rocked slowly from side to side.
“Joker!” Mrs. Smith said. “Is that bad?”
“Impossible to tell unless I see the next card. A joker followed by a queen is very bad . . .”
Mrs. Smith opened her pocketbook again. “Two more cards, Solly.”
What a racket! Every other card was probably a joker.
“. . . But a joker followed by a king is good.” Solly pocketed the quarter and turned over a card.
The parrot squawked, “In the cards. In the cards.”
The next card was an ace of hearts. I tried a low moan.
“Why did he moan?”
“An ace,” Solly said, “is the most important card in the deck. That’s why he moaned. You are the ace. You are the one. In this crisis the ace must decide.”
I groaned.
Mrs. Smith groaned and moaned. “Give me a beautiful card. I need a beautiful card.”
It was a nine of diamonds.
“This is good. Not perfect, but good. Your crisis will turn out well.”
Mrs. Smith stood on tiptoe to kiss Solly on the forehead. “You set my mind at rest.”
The parrot shrieked, “Gevalt! Gevalt!”
Solly nudged me with his foot. I groaned deeply.
“If it’s going to be all right, why did he groan?”
“Could be he has reservations. Could be I haven’t seen all there is to see.”
“He’s only a child. How could he know?”
“Let me tell you about this child. A week ago I had such a pain in my side.” Solly clutched his side. “I could hardly breathe. This boychik says to me, ‘Grandpa, until you pay your debt, your side will hurt.’ So, right then and there, I gave my cousin the dollar I owed him, and—pfft!—my side felt like it was sixteen years old. That’s the power in this boychik.”
What a gonif! He was good!
Mrs. Smith took another quarter out of her handkerchief. “I want him to play the next card. Not you, Solly.”
Solly knelt down next to me. “Daveleh, Mrs. Smith wants you to turn over a card. Can you do it?”
I didn’t know whether he wanted me to nod or not. I groaned.
“He can do it,” Solly said. “Nu, I have a better idea. I’ll spread out the cards and he can pick the perfect one for you. But this one card costs a quarter.”
“I’ll take it.”
Solly spread the cards on the table. “Dave, Mrs. Smith needs your help. Can you help her?”
I groaned, like Mr. Doom was strangling me.
The parrot squawked, “Oy vay! Gevalt!”
Solly took my right hand and guided it till it was in the air over the cards. “There, boychik, pick the perfect card.”
I started to pick one. Then I stopped, my hand hanging in the air. What if there was a special card he wanted me to pick?
“What’s he waiting for?”
“He’s waiti
ng for the power to tell him the right card. When his hand starts to tremble, you’ll know the power has come to him.”
I waited a few seconds, then made my hand tremble. I threw in a groan. But I still didn’t know which card to pick. My hand made circles above the cards while I waited for a signal. Then I realized that whatever I picked, Solly would know what to say. I lowered my hand and almost touched a card. Mrs. Smith breathed in sharply. Solly didn’t do anything. I almost touched another card. Then I tapped one.
This was fun!
Chapter 12
“THANK YOU, BOYCHIK.” Solly turned the card over. A king of clubs. “Ah. Now I see. The boy is brilliant.”
“What does it mean? Is it bad?”
“What’s a club? A club is a group of people. You need help in your crisis. You need a king, a friend. If you share your burden, all will be well. The cards have spoken. Daveleh, you can wake up now.”
I rubbed my hands over my eyes like I had just woken up. “Did we help her, Grandpa? Will everything be all right?”
“Yes, little momzer, we helped her.”
“Good.” I smiled up at Mrs. Smith.
She beamed at me. “Thank you, son.”
She didn’t buy any more cards. She said good-bye, promising to rave about him and me to all her friends.
When she’d gone, Solly said, “You’re a natural, boychik. I wish I really did have a grandson like you.”
Maybe I could live with Solly. I could earn my keep by helping him tell fortunes.
“Where do you live?” I said.
“Why? You’re planning to send me flowers?”
I didn’t know how to answer. Why wouldn’t he tell me?
“On Stanton Street. And you?”
He lived in my old neighborhood! “We used to live on Ludlow.” I was excited. “I went to P.S. 42, on Hester Street.” If I stayed with him, I could go back there.
“So, nu? Where do you live now?”
I was embarrassed. “At the HHB.”
“I should know what an HHB is?”
I shrugged and shook my head.
“Never mind. We’re wasting time. Tell for you your fortune?” He started walking. Bandit squawked, “Tell for you your fortune?”
I saw Irma Lee across the room. I wondered if she knew Solly told fake fortunes.
Our next customers were the couple who’d arrived in the Pierce-Arrow. They didn’t believe Solly could see the future, and they laughed at everything he said. I didn’t bother rocking or groaning for them.
But they gave Solly two dollars for a whole-life fortune for each of them. Solly told the man that he’d be rich someday, but I knew he must be rich already to spend two dollars on a phony fortune. Solly warned him to watch for a man with one blue eye and one green eye. He told the woman that she’d marry an English lord and have twelve children.
At the end, the man gave Solly an extra dime as a tip. In less than an hour, he’d made two dollars and eighty-five cents! It used to take Papa a whole day to earn five dollars.
“Dave!” Irma Lee pushed through the crowd to us. She was wearing a coat now. “Mama says I can invite you and Mr. Gruber to our party.” She opened a little blue pocketbook and took out two pieces of stiff white paper. She gave one to me and one to Solly.
In script with lots of curlicues it said,
You are cordially invited to
A gathering
At the city residence of Miss Odelia Packer
143 West One Hundred Thirty-fourth Street
Saturday evening, December 11th, 1926
Come early, stay late!
Conversation, Music, Potations, and Comestibles
“Can you come?”
“Mazel tov!” the parrot squawked.
It was more than a month away. I didn’t know where I’d be by then. But I’d come, no matter where I was. I nodded. “Yes.” Whoa! “Can’t I, Grandpa?”
“The boychik and I wouldn’t miss it.”
“I have to go now. ’Bye.” She smiled at me and turned to leave.
“’Bye,” I said.
She turned back and touched my shoulder. Then she leaned up to kiss me on the cheek. The kiss was soft and light and warm and over in a second. “’Bye,” she said again.
“’Bye,” I repeated.
She left, threading through the crowd. She was perfect!
“Shayneh shvartzeh maidel,” Solly said.
“What does that mean?”
“Pretty black girl.”
Pretty wasn’t good enough, and black didn’t sound right. Her skin was brown. Beautiful. Perfect.
I bent down and put the invitation in my other slipper. “What time is it?” I asked.
It was twenty after two. I still had time.
“Tell for you your fortune?” Solly chanted.
“Tell for you your fortune?” the parrot echoed.
We had three more customers. The first was a colored man who wasn’t interested in picture cards or in anything Solly said. He only wanted numbers he could “play.” When the card was a nine, he wrote it down. When it was a three, he wrote that down. When it was a king, he growled, “Another one.” I didn’t have to groan or do anything.
The numbers man left after he’d bought three cards. Our next customer was a colored woman who was repeat business, like Mrs. Smith had been. When I groaned, she asked Solly if I was “communing with souls in the hereafter.”
The last customer bought a lifetime fortune for his girlfriend. They were like the other couple—they didn’t think anything Solly said would come true, they were just having fun. Solly gave them nice lives. They were going to get married in seven months, have five children, and live in a warm climate. He was going to be elected to Congress, and she was going to be in the movies. They left us laughing their heads off.
Solly’s grand total was seven dollars, for an hour and a half of work. “Enough already,” he said. “It’s time for jazz music. Boychik, get ready for heaven.”
Jazz. It didn’t sound Yiddish. “What time is it?”
It was three-thirty. In an hour I should leave.
Solly led me back to the hallway Irma Lee and I had been in before. We passed the vestibule that led to the kitchen and turned into the next doorway.
The light was dim. The floor shook. All over the room people were jumping around, dancing to the happiest music I’d ever heard.
We edged our way toward the musicians. Chairs were pushed against the wall in here too. Solly sat on one and started pumping his knees, nodding, and tapping his feet in time to the music. I stood next to him, not moving, although that was hard. This music wanted you to dance.
Nobody was playing the drums right now. There were just a pianist and the man I’d seen on the street—Martin—playing the trumpet. For two people, they made a lot of music.
It was wide-awake music, nothing like the waltzes Papa used to whistle. If I could have painted it, I would have used bright colors and short straight lines. The music was the opposite of the HHB. It was warm and happy and you couldn’t hold it in. This music didn’t know about locks and iron fences—it would blast through anything.
I closed my eyes to hear better. Sometimes the piano was on top, and sometimes the trumpet was, and sometimes it sounded like they were talking to each other. The pianist had to have a hundred fingers to play the way he did. And it was a good thing we were in New York City, not Jericho, because with Martin playing the trumpet those walls wouldn’t have stood a chance.
I opened my eyes. A man and a woman hopped in a circle with their arms over their heads. Another couple crossed and uncrossed their hands over their knees in time to the music. And another kicked and hopped at the same time. I guessed they were doing the Charleston. I’d never seen it, but I’d heard of it.
The only ones who weren’t dancing were Solly and me and four men standing near the musicians, watching them. One of them nodded his head slowly, and another kept time with one hand.
The song ended. A few pe
ople clapped. Somebody called, “Play ‘Cake Walking Babies.’” Somebody else yelled, “My man, Martin.” The pianist stood up and stretched. Somebody called, “Give Nate a turn. I want to hear some real music.”
Solly told me, “It’s a cutting contest, boychik. Each musician tries to show he plays best.”
The pianist pushed back the bench and joined the men who’d been standing around. The one who took his place was the other man I’d seen on the street, the one who’d clapped while Martin played his trumpet. For a few seconds he just touched a few keys, and I thought, He doesn’t know how to play—he’s going to be so embarrassed.
Somebody yelled, “Do that ‘Chop Suey’ number.”
Then the new pianist got going, and his playing was even better than the other guy’s. The new man sounded like he had a thousand fingers. Everybody started dancing again. I felt like marching around the room and clapping and shouting. Instead, I sat next to Solly and tapped my feet.
I watched the dancers nearest us, trying to figure out how to dance like them. I moved my feet the way they did, but it didn’t seem right. I’d have to stand up to really try it, but I was too shy.
The next song was slow, and the trumpet was more important than the piano. I closed my eyes. The trumpet purred and hummed, and sometimes it sang so sweetly it could have been a lullaby. I leaned my head back against the wall behind my chair. I wondered if Irma Lee knew how to do the Charleston. I didn’t know anything about dancing. But if I tried it, I knew she wouldn’t laugh at me.
I’d be her friend, just like I promised I would. I’d be her friend even if I had to climb down the walls of the asylum to see her.
The music stopped. I opened my eyes. Solly was there, laughing and talking with the musicians, but everyone else was gone. I’d been asleep.
The sky outside the window was gray, not black. It was morning! Was everybody awake at the HHB? How was I going to get back in?
Chapter 13
SOLLY WAS TELLING the musicians, “A joker usually means I get another—”
I rushed to him. “What time is it?”
“You’re awake, boychik?”