Velvel
Recap from last week: Zahava Elman, 29, is appalled to realize how much debt her once-wealthy family has accumulated.
Velvel leisurely paged through the weighty book documenting the Elman family yichus, sitting in his favorite recliner with his brandy snifter posed on the side table. Was it so terrible to enjoy a drink at 8:00 p.m.? Anyway, he was feeling anxious, and surely cognac was a better choice than those Xanax pills his doctor had prescribed for such moments.
The anxiety came from the sight of his daughter Zahava sitting across the room at the dining room table, squinting at a pile of bills, pale under the light of the chandelier. Poor girl! Damned bills – what an annoyance! How did their finances get so out of hand? She met his eye briefly, and he knew she’d figured him out: He was drowning his troubles in cognac and soothing his besieged ego by reading the yichus book. Well, was it so wrong to boost his spirits by reveling in his status as a link in the distinguished lineage stretching back to Rav Elimelech Shraga Feivel of Chelminsk, and before that, as family legend held, David HaMelech? A man needed something to feel proud of, especially a man who no longer had a business, and no hope of perpetuating the illustrious family name through his three daughters, two of them still single.
At least Mindy, his youngest, had gotten married, although Velvel had hoped for a son-in-law of greater status. Chezky Moskowitz came from a comfortable family, but not a stupendously wealthy or prestigious one. He was a nice enough guy – in fact, Velvel wasn’t sure why Chani, his middle daughter, hadn’t been interested when he first brought it up for her. But Velvel had aspired to real class, be it an impressive yichus or a substantial fortune, and the Moskowitzes were prosperous but unremarkably so, with no ancestry to speak of.
Mindy and Chezky had given him his only grandchildren, two boys. “Cute little varmints,” he now thought indulgently, although if the truth were told, Velvel didn’t really have patience for such young children. When they were older, he mused – say eight and six instead of four and two – maybe he would bring them with him to shul. He smiled inwardly at this dreamy vision of himself, attired in an elegant suit and monogrammed shirt, making an entrance to shul holding the hands of two cherubic boys in matching jackets and dark pants.
Now if only Dina had been alive… an audible sigh escaped, and he glanced around to make sure Zahava hadn’t heard. Of all the people in this world, why Hashem had to pick his lovely, gentle wife to die young was a mystery to him. For two years they battled her miserable disease, schlepping back and forth to Sloan Kettering, watching the shower drains clog with hair that fell out, coaxing her to take just a few more bites of the food that no longer interested her, setting up a hospital bed in the living room. He tried not to think about how terrible it had been to see his once-lovely wife waste away, her skin mottled, her hair gone. He knew it was shamefully superficial, but yes, it had been hard for him to look at her, less from the point of view of her suffering than his. He would never admit it to his daughters, who still cried over their mother, but it was something of a relief for him when the collective torment was all over and she was safely enclosed in a pine box, out of sight.
“You should think about remarrying,” his friends had said. “How will you manage on your own?”
“No way!” he always replied. “My daughters have suffered enough already. I can’t put them through adjusting to a stepmother. Maybe in a few years.”
For quite a long time, he put everyone off. He would remain unmarried for his children’s sake, he claimed. Later, after more time had passed and the girls could have more easily accepted a second wife, he felt disinclined to seek one, having become comfortable in his quiet life with his daughters.
One of his friends had ventured, “Why not Shulamis Rosner?” His neighbor Shulamis, his wife’s best friend, was a widow of means. She had been like a second mother to the girls after Dina passed away.
“No, no,” Velvel said. “My Dina was too special. No one could take her place. It would feel like betraying her to date her best friend!”
The honest truth was that Velvel found Shulamis a bit too plain for his tastes, and anyway she was at least 58, a few years older than him, which he likewise found distasteful. She was a nice woman, an aishes chayil and respected Bais Yaakov teacher – a job she did purely out of love for the profession rather than any financial need. But there was just something too familiar and, well, schoolmarmish about her to make the idea tempting. He preferred for her to remain a friend and substitute for Dina to his daughters.
His second daughter Chani was particularly attached to Shulamis. The two of them had a bond that Velvel couldn’t quite fathom. Both of them were so attached to their silly books! Velvel never read books. He liked to page through the local newspaper (he adored the photos of askanim, and would sometimes skim the news), while Chani devoured Jewish magazines and Zahava flipped through fashion magazines. Sometimes he’d leaf through a sefer, but he bought sefarim mostly for their decorative value. Velvel preferred to think of himself as a man of action, out there in the community attending simchas, parlor meetings, and Chinese auctions.
He lifted the brandy snifter to his lips and squinted at the cuff of his white shirt. Was that a little stain? Must be from the barbecue wings he’d shared with his friend Shaya for lunch at Ribs and Roasts. The wings were tasty, maybe a little too much kick for his traditional tastes, but who knows if that stain would come out? This was an expensive shirt he’d had monogrammed.
Across the room, he spied Zahava frowning again. “Now what?” he asked, perhaps a bit too sharply.
Zahava’s face puckered as if she were ready to cry. “We have so, so much debt!” she moaned.
Velvel sighed. This was really disturbing his pleasant tranquility, despite the soothing effects of the cognac. “Well,” he said, adopting a tone he felt sounded fatherly and wise, “I supposed we could cut back on a few things.”
“On what?”
He hemmed and hawed. “I guess we could forget about that Europe tour you wanted to do,” he said.
She sighed, considering this. “Okay, and I guess I could wait to redecorate the living room,” she said, looking at the old brocade sofas and dreaming of a clean, sleek modern look. “But it still wouldn’t make much of a dent in all the past debts.”
Velvel shrugged. “You’re making yourself haggard,” he observed. “Stop trying so hard to solve our problems. This is what we have an accountant for, isn’t it?”
Zahava threw the stack of papers into the middle of the table in a burst of relief. “You’re right!” she cried. “I’m making myself miserable when we can pay someone to sort it all out! Daddy, can you please call Mr. Shapiro for me?”
“Yes, and I’ll call Mrs. Rosner as well,” he said. “She’s a sensible woman. I’m sure she’ll come up with some good ideas.”
(To be continued)
