that hung on the wall. It had been taken shortly after Bubbe and Zayde had come to America. In the picture, Bubbe wore a white shirt with a high, frilly collar and a long black skirt pulled tight at the waist. Her dark hair was piled high on her head. Zayde wore a dark suit and had a beard that fell almost to the middle of his chest. They both were very young, and they both looked very serious. A little girl, who looked just as stern, stood between them. Each of them rested a hand on the girl’s shoulders.
“That was you?” Bethie would ask. She could hardly believe that her mommy had ever been a little girl, that she’d ever not been a grown-up.
“That was me,” Mommy would say, and she’d explain how Bubbe and Zayde had come from far away, over the seas, from a little village in Russia. The czar of Russia didn’t like the Jews. He made them live in ghettos and said that they couldn’t do certain jobs. Sometimes, soldiers would come with torches and break the windows of Jewish homes and businesses, or burn them right to the ground, and so Bubbe and Zayde had come to America and sent Sarah to school to learn English and become an American girl. Mommy said the other kids would call her names—“greenie,” which was short for “greenhorn,” and other names that were probably the same ones Bethie had heard the older boys use on the playground: mockie and hymie and yid and kike. Once, she knew, some bad boys had chased her mother home, throwing mud at her dress. Mommy had told Jo the story when Jo had come home for lunch one day with her shirt torn and a note from her teacher. Jo had gotten in a fight because a boy had told her that the Jews killed Jesus. Bethie figured her mother would be mad at Jo for fighting, but instead her mouth had gotten tight, and she’d said, “The Romans killed Jesus, not the Jews. Tell your little friend that.” Then she’d told Bethie and Jo about how kids had teased her when she was little. Jo had pestered her for details, like did Sarah tell her parents, and did she tell the teacher and what were the names of the boys and did they ever get in trouble, but Sarah would only shake her head and say, “It was a long time ago.”
For lunch at Bubbe and Zayde’s, Bubbe would give Bethie a heel of bread, spread with real butter, sprinkled with white sugar, and a bowl of split pea or chicken noodle soup, because Bubbe believed all children needed hot soup to grow, even in the summertime. Her mother and her bubbe would have soup, too, and her zayde would have pickled herring and black bread.
When lunch was over, Sarah would go run whatever errands required English. Sometimes, Bethie would go to the bedroom and climb onto Bubbe and Zayde’s hard bed for a nap. Back in the kitchen, it was her job to punch down the dough. Her zayde would show her how to make her hand into a fist, and she’d pull her hand back and then wallop the dough. It would make a whooshing sound, and Bethie would feel her hand sinking into the warm, yielding depth all the way up to her elbow while Zayde smiled his approval. After the second, shorter rising, Zayde would divide the dough into balls and roll the balls out into long strands, pinch six strands together, and braid them, looping them in overlapping patterns, his hands moving fast, like the three-card monte dealer Bethie had once seen on the corner, until he had one, two, three, four loaves. Bethie would brush the loaves with beaten egg and carefully sprinkle poppy seeds on top. Then Sarah would put two loaves onto the cookie sheet she’d brought, cover them with wax paper, and put them into the back of the Old Car for the slow, cautious trip home.
When they arrived, the house would be gleaming, the floors freshly washed, the air smelling of furniture polish and Pine-Sol. Mae would leave a pan of corn bread cooling on the counter, and Sarah would let Bethie have a slice. The challah would stay in the icebox while Sarah prepared the rest of the Shabbat meal: roast chicken and potatoes, green beans and onions, and cholent, a stew of beans and meat and barley that