Chani
Recap from last week: The Elman family has reluctantly agreed to rent out their home and live somewhere cheaper.
Velvel’s long-cultivated, high-society connections finally paid off for his family. He chanced on an unbelievable stroke of luck!
His buddy Pinny Friedman, a nursing home magnate, had bought a big place in Toms River two years ago as a summer home (with a pool!). This year Pinny had two family simchas in Israel and was planning to spend the entire summer abroad. As he had only bought the property for summer use, Velvel could remain there into the winter if need be.
Pinny was actually relieved to have two or three upper-class adults occupying his property who could keep an eye on it (as opposed to renting it to a large family who might stain his Stark carpets and rip the expensive window treatments). He offered it to Velvel for a friend’s price, a token amount. Chasdei Hashem!
Chani was the first in the family to acknowledge the wisdom of renting out their home, and was more willing than the others to bite the bullet and do whatever was necessary to keep them afloat. But, like Zahava, she wasn’t in the least bit enchanted by the idea of having to move. She would have vastly preferred that her family find a small place somewhere in Brooklyn, or maybe the Five Towns. What was she supposed to do about work? Would Tammy allow her to work remotely a few days a week? Commuting back and forth sounded exhausting. Could she sleep over at Mrs. Rosman’s a few nights a week? She had no degree classes in the city over the summer, but after that?
On top of those stresses, the Lakewood area held only bad memories for her. The year her mother died, she’d been packed off to board in a high school there, Bais Shprintze. Uprooted from her home precisely at the moment her whole world collapsed, she had deeply resented that her father didn’t want to deal with her and only wanted to be left alone with his grief, never thinking what it might do to his daughter to lose her mother, her home, her friends, and familiar school in one fell swoop. (Zahava had just entered sem, while Mindy was sent to a different school.) Chani had a hard time adapting and making friends, and the last years of high school dragged on interminably.
In the meantime, they needed to find a tenant for the Avenue K house, and discreet inquiries were being made. The following week, Mr. Shapiro stopped by the house to let them know they had an excellent prospect: a Mr. Avraham Krauss, who had made a killing in high tech in California and was now opening an office in New York. He was a frum man with a family, although one of his children was married, some were studying in Israel, and the youngest would be in camp. He wanted to live in Brooklyn in a house large enough to accommodate his entire family for holidays and such. “But most of the year it will just be Mr. Krauss and his wife,” Mr. Shapiro reassured her father.
Velvel, sitting in his armchair, wrinkled his nose. “A tech geek?” he said with a deprecatory laugh. “One of those guys with thick glasses and stooped shoulders from spending their days hunched over a computer?”
“Not always true,” protested Rikki, who had come over with her father and was now dunking a diet biscotti in the latte Zahava had brought her. “I dated a guy in tech a month ago, and he had great muscles. He used to go to the gym all the time. Too bad he was so boooring. Good machine, bad internet!”
Velvel burst into an appreciative guffaw, although others might have said much the same about him, thought Chani, who came downstairs when she heard they had guests. She felt guilty thinking so uncharitably of her father. But like most people, Velvel was blind to his own faults. He found Rikki’s remark amusing.
“It is pretty crazy the way those guys can make billions moving a mouse around,” Velvel mused. “It used to be you had to actually manufacture something real.”
“That’s true enough,” Chani concurred, sitting down next to Zahava. “I read somewhere that in America we’ve gone from making things… to just making things up.” Mr. Shapiro smiled in appreciation of the bon mot, but everybody else ignored her, as usual.
“What would such people know about gracious living?” Velvel fretted. “They don’t come from money, do they, these people who make fortunes overnight based on air? Would they know the least thing about maintaining a place like ours? Keep it clean?”
“We can offer them Lucia’s hours to keep the place up,” Zahava said. “I don’t want to lose her long term, and she won’t want to move with us to Toms River, her family’s here. And believe me, I plan to be in touch with her to check up on them – to make sure they treat the house with the respect it deserves!”
“I actually think you’ll like the Krausses,” Mr. Shapiro offered. “They’re very nice people, solid, and willing to pay what you’re asking. You should really grab the opportunity, since there aren’t millions of people able to pay a rent this high.
“By the way, it seems Mrs. Krauss has a brother not far from here, what was his name already – something Weinberg? He’s a rabbi, has a small kehillah in the Marine Park neighborhood. I’m sure you know him. He came to me once to do his shul’s taxes, had some issues with repairs after some vandalism.”
“I have no idea who you mean,” Velvel said. “But I don’t spend much time in Marine Park. Such tiny houses!”
Nobody noticed that Chani had gone pale, although she was trying hard to conceal her consternation. “I think… maybe you’re talking about Rabbi Nati Weinberg?” she ventured.
“Yes, that’s it!” Mr. Shapiro said, gratified she’d found the name. But since Velvel wasn’t impressed by small-time community rabbis, they quickly moved on to other subjects. Mr. Shapiro didn’t have to twist Velvel’s arm much more to make him agree to take on these tenants. It really was a great opportunity, and upon reflection, renting his house to a high-tech millionaire sounded rather prestigious.
The deal was on, then, and they celebrated with a round of schnapps for the men and more biscotti for everyone. Caught up in the festive spirit, nobody noticed Chani’s agitation. She went into the kitchen on the pretense of making herself a cup of tea, and sank into a chair, breathing hard.
Mrs. Krauss, nee Weinberg, was moving into her house. Did that mean…could it mean her other brother might visit too? Might even take up residence with them in the Elman family’s house?
For, as she knew all too well, Rabbi Nati Weinberg was not Mrs. Krauss’s only brother. Another brother, Effi, had disappeared almost eight years ago, and she’d heard he was in California. Now everything made sense. Effi had gone to join his sister and brother-in-law out there, running away from New York.
She had cried into her pillow for weeks when Effi disappeared, because it was all her fault. Because she missed him. Because the shidduch fiasco with Effi was a tragedy that never should have finished that way. How could she have been so stupid? How had she let them persuade her to end it?
To be continued
