Two days after Sol had left her, Hannah found herself not eating cholent and challah at her own Shabbos table, but instead tugging her cloak tighter as she shouldered through the wind westward, her destination one of the fanciest in the city. A far cry from how she’d spent her prior evening—being pawed at by the burglary crew’s mark in a rough tavern while they ransacked his home. For pay that’d barely cover a week’s worth of food.
Oy. What was she doing? Hannah shook her head, disgusted with herself for every decision she’d made as of late.
Light snow stinging her cheeks, she found and nixed half a dozen new excuses to decline the tea she’d been summoned to with Isabelle Lira Ellenberg—who insisted on being called “Isabelle—and Rebecca What’s-Her-Name. Not because she didn’t want to see Sol’s world. But because she did. More than she should, which could only lead to, well—trouble or heartbreak. Or both.
Worse, the moment she entered the gold-covered drawing room, it quickly became clear that “tea” was a mere prelude to an ambush. A Sol-initiated ambushthat, after the four-mile walk, she was too tired to fight off. Something that he and his clever colleagues had probably anticipated.
Isabelle leapt from a silk fainting couch and gave her a rather tight embrace before pulling her down and practically shoving a cup of tea into her hand. “We have a gift for you,” she said.
“A gift?” Hannah managed to ask, her eyes popping. “From you? I can’t—”
“We’re only delivering. Again. It’s from Solomon Weiss,” Rebecca told her, her tone dry, from her seat on a high-backed armchair.
“To be fair, I am the one who obtained it for him.” Isabelle pouted a moment, before thrusting a parcel into Hannah’s hand. “Open it,” she all but commanded.
“That’s very generous, but I really don’t need gifts,” Hannah tried to protest, glancing from side to side as she sank into her own chair. “I really—” she started again, before stopping at Isabelle’s glare.
Sighing, she unwrapped the ribbon and all too fine paper to reveal… a book. She squinted, murmuring over the characters. Was that…? It had been a long time, but to avoid prying eyes, her parents almost exclusively wrote in…
“Shirei Tiferet, N. H. Wessely?” She glanced at the two women.
“Sol said you liked poetry,” Isabelle said. “And he and Rebecca suspected that you could read Yiddish, and thus perhaps Hebrew, at least well enough to enjoy it.” She straightened her sequined sleeves. “Not many people possess such objects, you know? It’s very difficult to obtain. Though I’m not most people.”
Rebecca rolled her eyes, but Hannah barely noticed.
“You shouldn’t have,” Hannah whispered, turning the book over in her hand before thumbing through the words. She was more than a touch out of practice and Hebrew wasn’t exactly the same as Yiddish, but the letters were still the first she’d ever known. The ones that her father had taught her, despite her being a girl and despite them living in England. Her vision blurred. “You really shouldn’t have.”
Neither of them. Not Sol nor Isabelle Ellenberg.
“She did have to. He beat her at cards,” the other woman whispered, giving her a conspiratorial wink.
“I don’t lose. I just pretended to because I enjoy having the opportunity to help people get what they want,” Isabelle said, taking a prim bite of cake. “Besides, my family has been involved in Hebrew printing for a great deal longer than sureties so, as I said, despite being a challenge for some, I could acquire it easily. Even on short notice.”
Rebecca snorted, which Isabelle ignored and instead gave Hannah another long, lingering glance. “Has anyone ever told you that a yellow gown would do wonders for your eyes and complexion? Especially in the early spring. Before Passover. When one could marry any day one likes. I know all the best fabric distributors in the city. I can advise you on where to get the best quality for the best price.”
“She means for a wedding gown for when you marry Sol,” Rebecca added, as if Hannah hadn’t understood.
Hannah rubbed the back of her neck. “I assure you, not only does he not want to marry me”—a small lie, true, however, only until he came to his senses—“but even if he did, I would never entertain such an offer.”
“Why?” Isabelle frowned. “You like him. You must.Don’t insult my intelligence by suggesting otherwise. I’ve seen the way your face softens when I merely mention his name.”
“I will make him miserable.” How could they not see that? Hannah shook her head. “Sol wants to be loved, not reviled, and I’ll bring him nothing but the latter.”
That was the heart of the problem. Jews needed to separate themselves from her or lose the status they’d either already gained or hoped to secure. Any perceived sympathies toward her could—no,would—topple both social standing and businesses or block access to such achievements.
After all, even gentiles who feared that their hatred toward Jews would seem “old-fashioned” or “unenlightened” could safely hang on to their prejudice by separating the “good” from the “bad” Jews. And there was no doubt as to which category she’d been placed in.
Before she could remind the two women as such, there was a knock at the door and a gray-haired man stepped in the room.
“Isabelle,” he said. “Roger Berab is here to see you.”
The woman’s dark brow furrowed. “I thought he was entertaining with his brother. Please send him in, Pena.” Isabelle folded her hands in her lap as the older man exited the room, then she turned to them. “Hopefully everything is all right.”
Hannah toed the fringe of the thick, floral rug in front of her seat, as the man named Pena entered with a bow, followed by another man, around her age or perhaps older, with honey-colored hair and dressed almost as fastidiously as Sol.
His eyes scanned over the occupants in the room, his cheeks coloring. When Isabelle and Rebecca each roseto greet the man, the latter stumbled, spilling her tea down the front of her gown.
Interesting.
