Free The Singing Fire by Lilian Nattel Page B

back against the door and closed her eyes.
    “I’m too tired to move.”
    “You’re sick.” Sally opened her eyes, momentarily wakeful. “Get on or I’ll call the Squire.”
    “All right, already.” Nehama pulled herself to her feet. If she died in a Jewish street, maybe someone would say the prayer for the dead. Sally didn’t say good-bye as she slumped in the doorway, holding tight the nearly empty bottle of laudanum.
    Frying Pan Alley
    Buyers and sellers pressed close together, with wares spread on the ground in front and stalls behind, one leaning up against the next. The market stretched along Petticoat Lane to the surrounding streets, Goulston and Wentworth, and the smallest passageways like Frying Pan Alley. People thronged among bright awnings and painted tables, admiring the jugglers and fingering nearly new coats, looking at masks and pastries, for it was the eve of Purim and there was a queue at the green coffee stall. It had four tin cans mounted with brass plates, separate compartments for bread, sandwiches, and cake, and only a penny for a warm cup of coffee mixed with chicory.
    “FRIED FISH! ’TATERS HOT! BUY MY PRETTY MEAT!”
    “ALL THE NEW SONGS ONLY A PENNY!”
    “Excuse me.” A fat woman wearing a kerchief and a dark red shawl looked at Nehama nervously, her hand over her pocket, and Nehama, with her face burning, bumped the old cow as she walked by to push her into the gutter the way a girl from Dorset Street should, though the pain in her belly made her dizzy.
    “TONIGHT IS PURIM, BROTHERS. GET YOUR MASKS!”
    “HAMMENTASHEN FRESH!”
    She had to sit down. In the shadows of a narrow alley, no one would notice her. Past the school. Past the stall that sold toffee and monkey-nuts to children. Past the girls dancing around the organ-grinder. To sit on a stoop and enter a dream where nothing mattered as blood seeped through her dress.
    Her sisters used to tell her what Grandma Nehama said about the good inclination and the evil inclination. Everyone has both the yetzer-hara and the yetzer-hatov . The rabbis explain that the yetzer-hara , the evil inclination, is necessary for a man to build a house or make a family. But Grandma Nehama said that when a woman has a child, sheputs her good inclination into it and that their mother had given them everything, you could see it in their golden hair. But you, her sisters would say to Nehama, are dark. Your hair is dark and your skin is dark; Mama gave away everything good to us. There wasn’t anything left for you. Thank God our grandmother isn’t here to see you filled with the evil inclination.
    They said this on the day the two middle sisters found her standing on the doorstep of a tavern and they smacked her so she’d remember. The song she heard that day was a Polish drinking song, and it was the same melody as the last hymn sung in the synagogue on Sabbath mornings. Hymns and drinking songs often share the same tunes. But a woman’s voice was not to be heard in the synagogue as the sound of it might inflame the evil inclination of men, which when harnessed properly begat children in houses but when allowed to run free—well, the results were all around.
    Grandma Nehama cooked and cleaned, hauled the water, hung the laundry, and kept the accounts, which she taught the oldest sister. When any of the men on the street began a business venture, their wives came to Grandma Nehama so she could calculate what interest would be on a loan of capital to buy a barrow and a stock of lemons, or a machine and some leather, or a counter and shelves with goods to put on them. You have to sell this much, she would say, just to pay the interest, and don’t forget on top of that you need to make enough money to buy food for the children. She did her figuring on brown wrapping paper, standing next to the tile oven, where it was warm. Then she would say whether it was a good idea or not. Mr. Pollack, who lent money when no one else would, didn’t like