Readers of this department will remember Louis Zara’s story, “The Peanut Machine and the Kramers” (January 1950), a study of the impact of the machine on a Jewish family. Here the Kramers appear again, this time entangled with a somewhat more traditional challenge to the inner well-being and security of the Jewish home—boarders, those highly individualized yet somehow typical “sports” and mavericks of the Jewish strain. 

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They could afford to pay for three rooms. However, flats were hard to find, so they took the six-room flat and closed off the big living room, the dining room, and the front bedroom, and lived in the rest.

The winter was bitter cold. Drafts came in through the windows, under the doors, and even through the floors, for they were over a vacant basement. The cook-stove going day and night like an engine could not heat the place. Often Mama Kramer sent the children to play at Uncle Sam’s, where the steam heat made it as cozy as in a bakery.

At night she wrapped hot bricks in flannel to drive the chill from their beds. In the morning the window panes wore sheets of white and she had to watch Harry, who pressed his pennies into the frost, and would one day break the glass.

“You can chase wolves in this house!” grumbled Papa Kramer sipping his tea. “It’s like an open field.”

“If we made a fire in the parlor stove,” she proposed, “it would not be like a steppe.”

He sighed. “To feed that stove you should be a capitalist.”

“There’s a way,” she insisted.

He was silent. That way he loathed. Then Harry and Dave caught colds, and they had to have a fire in the parlor stove, so he gave in.

“I will have nothing to do with them!” he glowered. He was ashamed to have it said that they took in boarders.

“You will not have to say even a word to them.”

“And no cooking, no washing. You’re not a servant. A bed you can give. If they need more let them take their bundles and go.”

“But they haven’t come yet!” She added, “Today I’ll put a ‘To Let’ in the window.”

The placard read in large black letters: “Room—To Let.” She placed it in the front room window.

_____________

Before noon she had her first applicant, a short, bearded gentleman with small gold-rimmed spectacles and a Prince Albert coat.

He inspected the room gravely and kneaded the mattress. “You are honest people?” he smiled. He had a red little mouth in the black bush of hair.

“Oh, we are honest!”

“And the rent?”

“Four dollars a week.”

He smoothed the band of his black fedora. “Ten dollars a month, and in the early morning a pot of hot tea.”

She hesitated. “For boarders I do no cooking.”

“I’ll bring my own tea,” he offered amiably.

“The hot water you will not refuse me.”

Reluctantly she agreed. “But don’t tell the Mister.”

“Ha, there’s a Mister, too?”

“I am not a widow. . . . But tell me from where comes your money?”

“From grown children. I have a lawyer-son, and a doctor-son, and a daughter who is married to a manufacturer of hairpins—the name you have heard: Goldfarb.”

“Oh, yes!” One hears many names. His own was Zalman.

He moved in that evening, barely nodded to Papa Kramer, and retired to his room.

During the night Mama Kramer heard keening sounds, probably from outside.

In the morning she fetched her samovar tray with a teapot of boiling water and a glass, spoon, and saucer to the boarder’s door.

“Come in!” he called.

She entered and stood stockstill. Sitting up in bed, with a blue velvet jacket about his shoulders and a black skullcap on his head, was Mr. Zalman. But on the quilt before him sprawled two fat tortoise-shell cats.

“From where did they come?” she gasped.

He beamed. “Rachel and Leah! I go nowhere without them. The one with the white paws is Rachel, the other is Leah.”

She was dumbfounded. “Cats in the house I never had.”

“If there are mice you will thank God.”

“There are no mice. I keep a clean house.”

Calmly he reached for the tray. He opened a red canister and measured out a spoonful of tea.

“Ah, I forgot sugar, Mrs. Kramer, a few pieces hard sugar.”

She hastened to bring the sugar. In the kitchen she realized that the cats had followed her. She paused. They were sniffing at the icebox. Her heart was touched. “Rachel and Leah,” she thought. “A pair.” And she poured them saucers of milk.

The tortoise-shells lapped greedily.

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“Mr. Zalman, the cats—I don’t know.” “Why?” he asked innocently. He had arisen and was yawning lazily.

“A landlady for cats! The Mister—”

“So don’t tell the Mister. You never kept a secret from the Mister?”

An hour later she saw him go out, the cats trailing after him in single file.

Before she could clear her mind he was back carrying grocery packages. He placed them on the kitchen table and mopped his brow. The cats pawed at the legs of the chairs and meowed in chorus.

“Quiet, Rachel! Quiet, Leah! Mrs. Kramer, a pot, and I will start cooking my meat. . . . For them I bought a fish-head.”

Her mouth was agape. “You cook?”

“You’ll do it for me? Make a place on the stove. I can cook for myself.”

“But if you cook and stay home—when do you work?”

He fluttered his eyelashes. “I have a lawyer-son, a doctor-son, and a daughter married to manufacturer. I should work?”

“Then you are home all day?”

“All day!” he replied gaily. “You will have company.”

Her bosom was heaving. “Mr. Zalman, the deal is no deal.”

“Ha!”

“A man doesn’t work, a man has cats in the house, a man cooks on my stove, and now a man will be with me all day—”

“So what are you afraid?” he chortled. “An old man—what can I do?”

She put up her hand. “Enough, Mr. Zalman. I don’t want to hear. Take the cats and go.”

He surveyed her cunningly. “You are afraid.”

“Go to your sons, the lawyer, the doctor. Go to your daughter. Live by the manufacturer. Yes, I am afraid.”

“I cannot live by the children with the cats,” he pleaded.

“Mr. Zalman, I don’t want to hear. My Mister’ll be home, and from his anger the heavens will open.”

The boarder stroked his beard. “I haven’t done you anything.”

“Don’t do me anything. Take the cats and go.”

“And the money?”

Perspiration broke out on her forehead. He had paid in advance. Fortunately she had saved the money for the rent. “When you go, I’ll give you the money.”

To her relief he argued no more. He returned to his room and began to pack. The children were dashing in for lunch when he reappeared.

“Missus, ten dollars!”

She counted out the bills.

“So one night I slept for free, with hot water and sugar for tea, and milk for Rachel and Leah.”

“You are welcome.”

At the door he paused. “To me is worth a dollar more by such a fine woman. I did not even touch a hand—”

She lifted her broom. “Go, Mr. Zalman.” She was glad she had forgotten to give him a key.

The little red mouth puckered. “Foolish landlady, goodbye.”

Through the curtains she watched him waddling down the street, his grip under his arm, the tortoise-shell cats slinking ahead. Quickly she put the “To Let” back into the window.

_____________

She was worried what to tell Avram, but God was good, and by three o’clock she had another boarder, a middle-aged man with a violin case and a dry, racking cough.

“A new one?” Papa Kramer asked. The man moved in shortly after supper.

“Arturo Levy. He teaches on the fiddle.”

He glowed. “A little music in the house. What happened to the Beard?”

She studied the noodles on her plate. “Him I sent packing.”

He considered the matter soberly. His wife had sent the Beard packing. There must be a reason, perhaps a woman’s reason. He prodded no further.

When the violin teacher came in for the night, Mama Kramer led him proudly into the kitchen. “Mr. Levy, I want you should—”

Mr. Levy bowed. He was a little man with furtive eyes. “Professor Levy.”

“A professor!” Mama Kramer rolled the word on her tongue. One of the children might yet become a Mischa Elman and bring them all prosperity. Sometime the boarder might play the fiddle and delight their hearts.

But after giving lessons all day at the conservatory Professor Levy was too fatigued. Anyway, he paid the rent and was a peaceful soul.

“Lessons is expensive?” she finally inquired.

He rolled his eyes heavenward. “God forbid! Mrs. Kramer, teach them a trade. Let them be good carpenters, shoemakers—”

“My children will not be labor-workers!”

“Then let them open groceries, delicatessens, and sell what people need. Who needs fiddlers?”

“He is jealous,” she observed privately.

“He is not a Mischa Elman, so he doesn’t want Harry and Dave to be Mischa Elmans.” She was sorry for him.

_____________

Suddenly letters began to arrive for the Professor. Mama Kramer examined them curiously; not one bore the address of the sender. When she handed them to the boarder he became agitated.

“What is it, Professor?”

He fled to his room.

Early Sunday morning the doorbell rang.

Harry raced into the kitchen. “Mama, the Professor’s wife. She’s coming to take him home!”

Mama Kramer was stunned. So the Professor had a wife! She hastened to greet the woman.

Mrs. Professor Levy was a tall, stout person in a black sealskin coat and a seal-trimmed hat. Deep-set beady eyes flashed from either side of her imperious nose.

“Where do you hide him?” she shrilled. “Send home my man!” She saw Papa Kramer, his newspaper in his hands, gawking at her, and became gentle. “Where is he?”

They led her to the front bedroom.

Mama Kramer would have knocked, but the woman thrust her aside and marched in. They heard the Professor gasp; then the door shut.

“Harry! Dave! Go play!” Mama Kramer commanded. Avram had already gone back to his reading. She lingered in the front rooms to dust the furniture.

“Poor, poor soul!” she soon reported. “She cries, ‘Come home!’ and he says ‘No!’ She cries, ‘A shame!’ and he says he can’t stand it.”

“What is it?”

“They have a daughter. She sings.”

“Is that a reason to run away?”

“I’ll go listen—”

“Stay here!”

Forty minutes passed before they heard the bedroom door open. The Professor shuffled to the kitchen, his violin case under his arm. Behind him loomed the seal-trimmed hat.

“Goodbye!” said the boarder, his lips quivering. “You have been kind to me, a stranger. Now I go.”

They wanted to ask, “Why?” But the woman twitched at his sleeve and he went before her. The street door slammed behind them.

“Why does such a man run away from home?” Mama Kramer pondered.

“Why?” Avram retorted. “What man hasn’t wanted to run away from home?”

She looked up sharply. The rejoinder sizzled on the tip of her tongue. A husband talks. She went to place the “To Let” in the window again.

_____________

The next evening when Papa Kramer called “Supper ready?” she beamed her greeting. Something had happened, for the parlor stove glowed and the sliding doors to the dining room were pushed open. Still if there was something to tell, she would tell him.

“Caught a pike!” she declared, serving the meat-and-carrots tsimmes.

“A pike!”

“A journalist.”

“What would a journalist want with us?” he frowned. “They make big money. Are there no hotels?”

“A poet!”

He gazed thoughtfully at a crack in the ceiling.

“A handsome, fine man with red hair and such shined shoes. He comes in the evening.”

He shrugged. “Washing? Cooking?”

“I said no washing, no cooking, only a bed and a nice home.”

“Strangers I don’t want at my table. If they need a piece of bread, that’s different.”

“His satchel is here. Books and papers, too.”

He rubbed his chin. “He will need a key.”

“From the locksmith. Ten cents.”

“He is honest?”

She blinked. “He left his gold ring on the dresser.”

Sighing that it was a matter of utter indifference to him, Papa Kramer followed her.

She entered the bedroom; he would not cross the threshold. She fondled the ring. “Solid gold.”

“Am I a jeweler?”

“Hold it in the hand.”

“I don’t touch what doesn’t belong.”

She crimsoned and dropped it on the dresser. “The big satchel is under the bed.”

He nodded—good leather—and retreated. “The man will come in and find us standing like secret police.”

At nine o’clock the front door opened.

“The boarder,” she whispered.

He lowered his head over his newspaper. When Mama Kramer led the stranger in, his gaze was riveted upon the print.

“Avram!” she called gently and, in an aside to the man, “This is my Mister . . . Avram . . . Mr. Rockoff.”

Papa Kramer paled and lifted his head.

He rose awkwardly to accept the handshake.

“Happy to make your acquaintance,” said the boarder.

Papa Kramer stood tongue-tied. Finally he mumbled “Welcome!” and sat down.

Quickly Mama Kramer ushered the man out.

When they had retired she said, “A good word you couldn’t speak to him?”

He scowled. “Welcome!” I said, Welcome!

“A stranger in the house. One could offer to drink his health.”

“You drink his health,” he offered.

“Me? I am not a drinker.”

“I don’t want him to think we don’t know how to go around people.”

“Sleep, sleep!” She tried to calm him. “He’s not thinking of us. He’s reading a book.”

He settled under the quilt. “Reading all night will be a big electric bill.”

_____________

The boarder came, the boarder went; Papa Kramer had nothing to do with him. Mr. Rockoff came home after supper was over, and remained in his room until after the man of the house had left for his work.

Mama Kramer, however, reported warmly on his doings. “He writes for journals.”

“He sits in his room and writes, and they pay?” Avram cocked an eyebrow.

“He’s not a Rockefeller to give away.”

“Rockefeller doesn’t give away either. A dime maybe. How does he make a living?”

“He’s a poet, he makes rhymes.”

“From this he makes a living?” He shook his head. “‘Day’ and ‘hay,’ ‘night’ and ‘right’?”

“An educated man. People like that can bring together one wall with another.”

Papa Kramer thought of his own daily toil. “I would like to see.”

“And if you saw? You are an expert?”

He pursed his lips. “I am not blind. I can read a word.”

By the end of the third week he observed that she no longer spoke of the boarder.

“Goldie, the rent he pays?”

She studied her fingertips.

He raised his voice. “The rent he pays?”

“I am not worried.”

“You are not worried! Then I am worried.”

“For one week he paid.”

“He has been three weeks.”

“The journals pay slow,” she said timidly.

“But the light burns in his room half the night, and the fire in the parlor stove goes all night.”

She looked at him humbly, and he returned to his paper.

_____________

The following Saturday night the boarder again failed to pay his rent. The Kramers discussed it soberly.

“If he has no money, where does the man eat?”

“He eats in restaurants.”

His eyes flashed. “For restaurants he has money?”

But neither knew what to do. “He cannot cook in the bedroom,” they agreed.

Sunday morning Harry and Dave were reaching for the last bagels for their lox when Mr. Rockoff entered the kitchen. Papa Kramer, who was wearing a white shirt but no collar, felt ill at ease. The other was wearing a necktie and his suit-coat.

Mr. Rockoff paused on the threshold. He surveyed the little family over the late breakfast. “Good morning! I smelled the coffee, the smoked fish—it pressed on my heart like at my own mother’s.”

“Good morning!” said Mama Kramer. She scratched at the oilcloth to prompt her husband.

“Good morning,” he grumbled and suddenly found the editorial in the Sunday Forward.

“Perhaps a cup coffee?”

Instantly Mama Kramer gave up her chair. “Sit, sit! Coffee, bread and butter, eggs. No more bagels but a piece lox, a slice cream cheese.”

“No, no, only coffee.”

They could not be inhospitable. She began to make conversation, and Papa Kramer had to clear his throat and unwrinkle his brow.

“Such a cup coffee!”

“In restaurants it’s expensive,” she sympathized.

“For a plain roll and coffee, ten cents.”

She clucked. “Try the lox. Today it’s not salty.”

“Eat!” said Papa Kramer. “I was a soldier as a young man, and I used to eat by strangers, and I was not ashamed.”

Mr. Rockoff beamed and waved the hand with the gold ring. “I could tell you—” But he couldn’t, for he was occupied with bread and butter, two boiled eggs, a slice of lox, half a smoked chub, the cream cheese, and a large cup of coffee, into which he poured three teaspoons of sugar.

“What does it say in the paper?” he asked cheerily.

Papa Kramer smiled shyly. “The news is not good. The world spins till the head aches.”

The boarder hooked his thumbs in his armpits. “I have written such things, too. Lies!”

The other frowned. “I am reading this paper twenty years—”

“All lies!” With that he turned and pinched Harry’s cheek. “A nice boy.”

At once Harry left. Dave followed him.

“I wish I had children,” Mr. Rockoff sighed.

“You’re not married? You’re still a boy?”

He became solemn. “God has not sent the right girl.”

Mama Kramer’s eyes gleamed. “There are plenty girls and widows that need a good man.

“If one could find a girl with a few dollars—” He shrugged. “People owe me so much money. I cannot be too hard and strip the clothes off their backs.”

“There’s the baker’s daughter Peshe. What her father would not give to see her settled in a good home! I could say something. For a poet they would give away their last pillow.”

He licked his lips. “I would like to see this Peshe. And, Mrs. Kramer, if all went well, you should have a gift.”

“No, no. I want to see a Jewish daughter married.”

“I would insist. At least a hundred dollars.”

She blinked. What she could not do with a hundred dollars!

“Meantime, if I could borrow five dollars—”

Papa Kramer started, but she had already picked up her purse. “I’ll see. . . . Five I haven’t got. But three if you could use.”

He reached for the bills. “I am pressed.” He pocketed the money. “But this is between us. The hundred dollars is extra.”

That emboldened Papa Kramer. “Your rhymes I would like to hear.”

Mr. Rockoff smiled. “Why not?” He threw his head back and began to declaim: “To be or not to be, that is the question. Whether it is nobler to. . . .”

When he had finished the Kramers glowed at each other. They had never heard anyone read poetry before. Mr. Rockoff bowed and returned to his room.

“Good to hear a fine word,” Papa Kramer declared soberly. “But money he shouldn’t borrow. He is a boarder, not a relative.”

“I am not sorry,” she countered fiercely. “Did you hear the rhymes? The man thinks of taking his own life, God forbid! What is three dollars against a man’s life?”

_____________

The following Saturday evening Mr. Rockoff did not speak of the rent. But he borrowed another three dollars and declaimed to Mama Kramer: “Friends, Romans, countrymen. I come to bury Caesar not to praise him. . . .”

“That man,” she confided to Avram, “could be a preacher or a teacher. It’s a pleasure.”

“He should talk to the children,” Papa Kramer mused. “My head after a day’s work is not for rhymes. They could learn.”

“Mr. Rockoff,” she accosted the boarder, “the Mister says maybe you would give the children a little rhymes.”

He was thoughtful. “Why not?” He pulled a paper from his pocket. “Mrs. Kramer, a man has for me three hundred dollars, but he wants a receipt. To sign it there must be a witness. You sign it”

She crimsoned at the fine print. “I do not write.”

“The Mister?”

“I’ll tell him.”

When she approached Avram he frowned.

“For him to get money I should sign?”

“A witness.”

He peered at the small type. “Printed! So many words to make a receipt?”

“Avram, sign!”

“Let me read,” he pouted. “Who knows?” He puzzled over the lines. “When he gets the money he will pay what he owes?”

She shrugged. “When he has money hell pay.”

“He says so?”

“What a man you are!” she exploded.

“I did not ask him to sign. He asks me to sign. So is it wrong to ask a question?”

“Ask, ask.”

“If he’ll pay—six weeks already—I’ll sign.”

“First you sign, then hell pay.”

“First he pays.” Idly he turned the sheet over. “More words!” He placed one finger to his nose. “Something here—”

“What?”

He scratched his chin. “A man comes for a boarder. He doesn’t pay the rent. He borrows money. Then he brings papers to sign. . . . When the children come home let them read.”

She was annoyed but dared not argue when he became stubborn. As soon as Harry appeared she ushered him to his father. “Read the paper.”

Harry scanned it and whistled. “Three hundred dollars!”

“Read.”

The youngster could only stumble over the words.

Papa Kramer furrowed his brow. “Say, is it kosher?”

But Harry could not tell.

“So what?” Mama Kramer asked. “Is it a chicken or meat to be kosher? The man waits.”

“This pike is not fresh,” Avram wrinkled his nose. “My foreman went to night school. He will know.”

In the morning Mr. Rockoff addressed his landlady. “The paper. The Mister signed?”

She was embarrassed. “He didn’t understand. He will show his boss.”

His face fell. “I am right in the house. Why didn’t he ask me?”

She avoided his disapproving eyes.

“I am ready to make a match with Peshe. I am like one of the family. I read rhymes, I borrow money—”

“Yes, yes!” She found her voice. “It’s already twelve dollars cash and six weeks’ rent. We are not rich people—”

He put his hand on her shoulder. “Mrs. Kramer, a promise. After tonight you will have no more worries. Everything will be clear.”

She smiled happily. “Tomorrow then?” “Tomorrow.”

_____________

When Papa Kramer came home, she waited for him to speak, but he was grimly self-important. From the set of his mouth she knew he would not talk until it suited him. So the whole meal was conducted in gloom.

Finally he asked, “You have heard from the boarder?”

“Tomorrow he will pay.”

“Tomorrow!” He began to chuckle. “This man will pay tomorrow?” He guffawed, and his shoulders shook. He rocked back and forth. His mirth, at first simulated, fed on itself and became hysterical laughter. “To-oo-morr-row!” he gasped. Tears ran down his cheeks.

“Avram!” she pleaded. “Avram, why are you laughing?”

“For my money I can laugh!” he retorted. “Where is he, the poet?”

“He is not home yet.”

“We’ll wait for him,” he promised.

Nine o’clock passed, and then ten. At ten-thirty Papa Kramer yawned. At eleven he could wait no longer and wound the clock.

“Maybe something happened.”

He grinned. “Your bird has flown.”

She clapped her hand to her heart. “What are you saying?”

“He will not be back.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because the paper he wants me to sign is a note from a loan company.”

She trembled. “From a loan company?”

“Yeah. They would give three hundred dollars if he had a signer. Then he would run away, and who would pay?”

“He would pay?”

“No, I would pay.”

“And where, Avram, would you get three hundred dollars?”

He shrugged and set the alarm.

But she could not rest. She dashed into the front bedroom. A book was lying on the bed. A single glance told her that Avram was right. The dresser had been emptied. She looked under the bed. The satchel was gone. She peered into the closet.

“He took one of my best towels!”

“A towel!” he grimaced. “And the money he borrowed, and six weeks’ rent?”

Her heart would not be stilled. “What should we do?”

He shrugged. “You wanted boarders! And now he’s gone—and where is his key?”

The whole night she tossed, listening for the door. Would he come back? He still had a key. That Mr. Rockoff, who had written such eloquent rhymes, should have tried to swindle them! Yet he had fled, and they had lost the money he had borrowed cash, and the rent he owed—and also the hundred dollars which she surely would have earned had he made the match with the baker’s daughter.

_____________

When she awoke her eyelids were red, but she had learned her lesson. The next time she would be more careful. No more fiddlers, no more poets, and no more retired men with beards. She would take ordinary persons, as long as they paid their rent and minded their own business.

She looked for the “To Let” sign. Gone! Surely Mr. Rockoff would not have taken that. Again she went to his room. The sign was not there, but she found the key, and that made her happy.

“Avram, have you seen the To Let’?” she asked at supper.

He spoke with great deliberation. “I tore it—from end to end—into little pieces.”

She sat back. “Nu! “

“Goldie, the days are getting warmer. The colds are over. Let the fire in the parlor stove go out.”

She was silent.

“For what do we need boarders?” he went on kindly. “To make work for you? So we’ll be alone again, and no strange feet to walk around in the house.”

She brightened. “The book he left—Harry says every page is rhymes.”

“Fine, fine!” he consoled her. “Then the children will read.”

She was bemused for so long that he thought she had catnapped. She was wondering whether she ought to tell him that Harry had found Mr. Rockoff’s rhymes in the book and that they had been written, not by the boarder, but by William Shakespeare, an Englishman.

“So what are you worrying about?” he finally prodded.

She lifted her head. “Who would have believed it, Avram? Such a fine-looking man, and he took away my good towel!”

_____________