By providing credit to the popular classes, David was aware that a revolution was in the making since both rural and urban workers labored under harsh conditions. The average salary was $26 per month, and housing conditions were precarious. In the central county of 47 Goods that don't sell
66
San José, the most urbanized area of the country during the 1930s and the 1940s, many homes lacked toilets and electricity and half of all houses had no electric stove. With such salaries, the lower classes were unable to buy even the cheapest of David's merchandise for cash. The introduction of "Polish installments" made it possible.
Contrary to his experience of Poland, David realized that people in Costa Rica really appreciated this innovation, and an alliance soon developed between the Jews and the lower classes. Susanita defended the peddlers because "without them we would be dressed like beggars." A similar thought passed the mind of La Polvera ("The Duster"), a Communist sorceress: "The Poles are poor, we should never let the exploiter merchants from Central Avenue turn us against them."
These good relations found expression in the low levels of defaults. David understood that the Tico clients ―pay because they don't want to loose us." The experiences of his friends were also positive. The credit revolution also helped some of the established merchants.
Companies like One Hundred Flowers prospered thanks to it. Don Enrique, the owner, was able to boast in front of David that he had contributed to the development of the Jewish community in the country. ―And also to the development of your pockets,‖ David responded in thought.
Profits for David remained "rachitic." In many opportunities, he was barely enough to pay for room and food at the boardinghouse he shared with other colleagues. Moreover, establishing one's own store or any other kind of business required the cooperation of the entire family, a self- imposed discipline, and lots of patience. ―Your mother was dead wrong when she told you that I was spending the money on kurvhes,” David said to Elena.
However, it was only fair to Anita to recognize that his friendship with his customer Emilia lasted for a long time and that eventually something could have happened between them before he could afford to bring his family from Poland. After all, his sole entertainment consisted of drinking a glass at the bar and listening to a bit of music before stepping out to continue on his route. The woman pitied him: "Poor David!" she would say. "So far away from his homeland and without a family!" David would smile and answer: "Poor Emilia!
So beautiful and yet so lonely." Was there love between them? What can happen between a practically single, relatively young man with beautiful eyes and a sweet smile, without relatives, yet melancholic, and experienced in the art of love-making and an attractive girl in a tropical country where bodies are freely displayed and contorted, where the nights are hot, glances are piercing, sights fly and compliments generate echoes?
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VII
After sailing for three weeks, Elena finally saw land. "Limon by the prow!" shouted a sailor. During these last days she had suffocated under increasingly hot weather. They were reaching the tropics. The breeze now brought much humidity and her hair became as entangled as a bowl of noodles. For the last week, she had posed for Claudia and her portrait was about finished. Following the trends of the day, the Baroness loved geometrical figures. Elena's face was depicted inside a lilac squared background and her body appeared disintegrated in multiple triangles and spheres. Still, the picture was beautiful. The eyes occupied a central place, in the guise of two black suns. The painting exuded an atmosphere of extreme loneliness. Claudia was unable to paint a defined background; it lacked even some objects to create the idea of a place. The model hung on space; her feet didn't touch the earth.
"Elena, this is a present for you," she said. "It is my best painting but I cannot keep it."
Claudia, nonetheless, requested that they meet again in San José, where she would do a different portrait. "Maybe I will paint some papayas or bananas in the background."
If Columbus was excited when he distinguished the island of Uvita in front of Limón, young Elena experienced her biggest disillusionment instead. The Costa Rican Atlantic port was decaying because of the diseases affecting the banana plantations. It was but a pale caricature of what this town had been during the first years of the century when it rivaled the capital city. The Victorian style wooden houses were in a bad shape and in need of paint. The park facing the ocean didn't have a single flower; only a few abandoned coconut trees adorned it. The only likeable buildings were the white Protestant churches with green gardens and the customs building. Crowds of poor people could be seen in the streets stupefied by drowsiness.
Unemployment became as high as in Warsaw, when the all powerful banana firm, United Fruit Company, began abandoning the province due to the diseases affecting the plantations. The large numbers of black people called her attention. She had never seen such people before. These Jamaicans, immigrants like her, came to try their luck working in the construction of the railroad and then stayed in the new country. They were not legal residents, however, and could not work in San José. An unofficial "cordon sanitaire" was established to keep them inside this province of Limón. It was similar to encircling the Jews in the Eastern European ghettos. Still, the girl was amazed at the beauty of these men and women. She had never seen such bodily perfection or any kinder smiles.
Upon landing, David was not anywhere to be seen, and their disappointment was immense.
"Perhaps we came all the way to this distant place and will now be left helpless in the midst of the Atlantic jungle, not knowing a single soul?" thought both Anita and Elena. The children were impressed by the landscapes that could be seen from downtown. The coconut trees, tall and inclined, were loaded with fruits; along with the large number of other different and unknown trees. Closer to the ocean there were large natural forests creating a wall of impenetrable foliage with intense greens on top, barks of diverse browns, producing fruits like mangoes, pineapples, bananas, papayas, plantains, medlars, " caimitos" and 68
" jocotes." They grew all the way to the beach. Hundreds of plants grew side-by-side, seeking the sunrays and fighting for every available inch of space. The flowers were magnificent white, yellow and red belladonna, roses, bougainvillea, "birds of paradise" and many more. There was not only a struggle between plants, but also among dozens of monkeys. They were looking for fruits and tender leaves, they jumped from tree to tree, roaring like hungry lions and hitting each other when one of them tried to steal fruits from the others.
Elena and her mother were not so amazed and felt instead an acute uneasiness. "Did our father know we were arriving today?" asked the young girl. "Well, I don't think many ships come daily from Europe to this hole, and I don't believe we have landed in the wrong country," answered her now enraged mother. "But don't worry. I presume he is on his way from San José on a fancy chariot and will meet us soon," she added sarcastically. The woman couldn't bear her disappointment. She looked all around her, trying to recognize the husband she hadn't seen for the last seven years. "What will I do if he doesn't show up?"
"Perhaps he had tanned in the tropics to the point of becoming one of these black gentlemen?" In order to break the tension she said to Elena: "Ask that man if he is your father." Elena didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or rather to look for a black mother.
Suddenly, a short fat lady approached them and asked in Yiddish, "Are you the Sikoras?"
"Yes, of course, indeed!" answered Anita, beginning to calm down. "My name is Amalia.
I'll guide you. Your husband sent me to take you to San José. His health is not all that well and he preferred not to make the journey here." "Well then, tell him we've gone on a shopping spree in New York while he recovers," answered Anita displaying her most cynical humor. "And how did you recognize me?" she asked her, intrigued. "Your husband told me to look for the most bitter face."
One hour later, they were leaving by train for the capital city on a journey that would take eight hours. Amalia came originally from Zellochow. She advised them to drink and eat something. This was the first time they tried the exquisite Costa Rican coffee, as well as some unsavory doughnuts. During the trip, Elena noticed a band playing at each town when they arrived. First it happened in Siquirres, then in Turrialba and in Cartago as well. With a good sense of humor, Anita told Amalia, "It's such a wonderful country! Each town receiving us with playing bands!‖ Amalia didn't understand her new friend's sarcasm and worriedly tried to explain: "No, no, woman. It's because the bishop from San José is visiting today and he is welcomed with concerts in the streets."
Their guide told them how San José was more "modern" and prettier than Limón.
According to her, the coffee elite had made it a symbol of their power and the capital city, an honor they removed from the old colonial capital, Cartago. As a result of the good economic and cultural times, a number of places for entertainment and leisure were established, particularly "fine" places for the political elite. There were men's clubs, social centers for foreigners, as well as professional and intellectual societies. The ladies attended charity societies and spent their free time helping the poor and homeless. "Did you hear, Elena, we now have something to do in San José?" said the mother. "The only problem is the fact that we are the ragamuffins," she added.
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They got a better impression of the country once they arrived in San José. Upon entering the town, the visitors obtained "a civic lesson" from Amalia. She took them first to the National Monument, a sculptural complex celebrating victory over the invading North American adventurers. Gigantic figures in bronze depicted the defense of the national territory, a heroic exploit to protect the country's independence against the attacking filibusters. Later, she showed them the Variedades theatre and the National Theatre; the letter an architectural jewel inspired by the Opera Comique of Paris, a marked contrast against the rather modest town. The building of the National Theatre was a reflection of a new cultural program, which in turn, symbolized the secularization of civic, political and cultural life; rivaling the other major architectural monument of San José, the Cathedral.
―This city is very civilized,‖ said Amalia - she felt already part of the ― josefina‖
community. ― Tico s are religious but not fanatics as the Poles,‖ she added. Anita, on the other hand, was suspicious. ―I think this woman,‖ she whispered to Elena, ―is a little meshugeneh and thinks she is showing us Paris.‖
The area around the railroad station was less splendid but still very beautiful. The most important, in terms of its social impact, was the Promenade of the Ladies, which began near the railroad station to the Atlantic. You could see this promenade from the station's platform. This building had been inaugurated in 1908, had an Art Deco facade and handsome benches made with the finest " cenízaro‖ wood. From the station the promenade continued westwards following Third Avenue, by the recently built National Park, then by one side of the Liquors Factory, and further ahead, close by the so-called "Metallic Building," an impressive iron construction erected with the same techniques used to build the Eiffel Tower. It had been sent from France to an unknown Latin American country and by mistake ended up in San José.
Next to it, a group of gardens had been created with the name of Morazan Park. For many years, open-air band concerts and public dances were held in this park for the New Year holidays. These concerts or retretas were, from the beginning, an integral part of the festivities. They mainly consisted of competitions between different military bands. ―I love military bands,‖ said Anita with irony. ―Every time I attended a parade in Poland, the Christians would end up shooting us.‖ ―No, not in San José,‖ responded Amalia, ―this is a liberal city that preserves its beauty and ornamentation, symbols of progress and modernity.‖
The urban culture appeared Europeanized. The central areas of the main cities were full of new pharmacies, offices, booking offices, stables and billiards. At the same time, the growth in international trade made it easy to diversify consumption. The stores in San José offered the latest fashions from Paris, Dutch cheeses, French wines, American apples, jams from Westphalia and an exquisite assortment of liquors. The bookstores exhibited the works of Sue, Scott, Byron, Smith, Bentham and other noted writers. Important foreign companies visited the Mora Theatre, inaugurated in 1850. ―You will feel here as comfortable as in Paris or London,‖ said Amalia with a smile. The Sikoras, on the other hand, felt the woman had lost her head in the heat. ―This lady was shipped off from 70
Zellochow directly to Costa Rica,‖ Anita told her daughter, who also agreed that this woman had never set foot in a European city.
This was only one side of San José, the city of the wealthy few. The other side was much less attractive. It was the town of the workers and the peasants displaced by large landowners. Their houses were built with wooden planks or in adobe, lacking electricity, running water or enough space for their families. Since salaries were barely enough to buy food, many relatives lived under a single roof in order to pull together their rachitic incomes. This is why people lived heaped up in unsanitary conditions.
The Jews were among these. After noticing the modern conveniences of San José, Anita and her family had to go south of Central Avenue, near the General Cemetery. There, David had rented a small house for his family. Until this point, the man had rented a room with five fellow Jews in Moisés Burstinś hotel. There you could get a room for five colones per month, provided you were ready to share it with five other tenants. As the new family arrived, this was no longer possible. The owner's son complained that he would withhold David's underwear as ransom ―until he paid his bill.‖ David had saved to rent a new house and to open a small store in the Central Market and had moved during the previous week. Still, he was only able to buy three beds and had no underwear since he had to choose between furniture and clothes.
When his wife and children knocked at the door and David opened it, neither he nor Anita could recognize each other. It was not only that both had aged, but that they looked so different. The woman wore large gray garments that revealed she came from the boonies.
David, on the other hand, no longer wore the traditional Polish dress. He had shaved his beard and had on a pair of cream trousers instead of the usual black ones, a sky blue lightweight jacket instead of the white shirt and tall brown boots instead of leather shoes.
Besides, his Yiddish wasn't good. Between words he inserted Spanish vocabulary that his family couldn't understand. His very gestures were different and not even his wife could give credence to her eyes. He had a new irreverent attitude towards religion. David said that in Costa Rica it was impossible to eat kosher and that he had to work on Saturdays, something unusual for a religious man.
Elena couldn't decide what impressed her most -- the empty house or the lack of joy. David hugged them as if they were strangers since he barely remembered his children. He grimaced when Sarita was introduced, the girl who was born after his departure. "How old is she?" was his first question. "Exactly seven years old," said Anita without giving anyone else a chance to answer. Samuel had grown without a father and was like an erupting volcano. This bothered his father from the start. As for Elena, he could barely recognize her.
The little girl was now a handsome young woman and her features strongly resembled his own. "The girl from Khazar," he said, greeting her with a faint smile. For her part, the young girl looked at her father as she would a perfect stranger.
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After sharing their adventures of Długosiodło, their sea voyage, and endless stories of relatives and friends, it was time to sleep. The next day their father took them to work at his store, because "there's no time to waste," he said. He was under medical care and needed new helpers at the store.
Elena noticed that from the moment they came into the hovel, Anita had transformed herself as radically as Joseph had changed in Egypt. Her family wasn't able to recognize her anymore. In Poland, she had been both mother and father, controlled their money, divorced her first husband and exercised power over her own body and time. But now, in a passing moment, she had lost her vitality. Her attitude, her voice, manners, gaze, humor, all these were now mixed with her current environment and Anita had ceased to be herself. From then on she was David's wife, at the absolute mercy of his whims and decisions. These would always be negative to her. Gender relations, thought Elena, is something so changeable that it might be dissolved like sugar in a cup of hot tea. She had already noticed this phenomenon during their sea voyage. When men were confronted with difficult situations, they "weakened" and became more "feminine," allowing their women to socialize with others. For Anita, and for the rest of the female passengers, once on land the trip was over.
Her father explained to them that the following day they would go to see their store at the Central Market and would start their Spanish "lessons" so that they could help him with sales. Their instructor would be the butcher, who spoke quite correctly since he came from Madrid. Only Sarita, the youngest child, would go straight to the school. Elena and Samuel were to help in the business until the beginning of the next school year. While their father uttered orders and instructions, the young girl intuitively grasped the new rules of their home in America.
From now on, he would be in charge. Her mother was relegated to second place at best. The woman that had carried on her back the burden of home "since always," as if by a magic spell was becoming a submissive Latin woman. The disempowerment of this Jewish woman in the tropics had started. Their father not only informed them how "unseemly" it was for ladies to be independent and to be seen out often; but he was now in full control the most lethal weapon of intimidation, money. "Tomorrow I'll give you three colones so that you may buy things to eat." His daughter understood just how those three colones would change the alliances and that if she wanted to remain alive in this new environment, she would need to use psychology to steer her small sailing boat on these murky waters.
"Father, let me give you a present, my portrait that someone painted on the ship, so that you have something to hang in your bedroom," she told him, giving up the only thing she owned. For his part, David gave her a mutt as a welcoming token. She would call it Adolph.
As promised, the next day, the young girl went to the Market together with her two siblings and their father. Located in the heart of downtown it was a world of its own, full of colors and merchandises. Hundreds of businesses competed against each other in an intricate labyrinth of covered alleys. Here peasants and workers came to buy their essentials. Her father explained to her how the world recession had everybody worried; since 1930, things 72
"have been deteriorating." The international prices of coffee, bananas and cocoa had fallen and thus the income in Costa Rica had been reduced. International banana prices had remained the same, but the production on the Atlantic plains had decreased dramatically with the impact of diseases such as "The Panama Disease," or Sigatoka. In order to arrest these trends, the President had declared a moratorium on the National Debt and the Government had undertaken the construction of new public works in order to stimulate the market and provide employment. This, in turn, accelerated the size of the deficit and the resulting fiscal greed. The only way to pay the public expenses was by increased taxation at customs, already the source of half the country's tax revenues. Such measures were
"extremely damaging for merchants importing goods." "You may therefore imagine how bad it is," said David to his daughter, "this TB infection and the fact that I can't do much work."
His determination to abandon peddling was shared by several of his friends. Jews were already moving away from the trade and Costa Ricans (or "Christians") were replacing them in the marketplace. The Jews had improved their lifestyle somewhat. Some, like David, would remain at small stores or shops all their lives. Those with industrial experience in Poland, or with some small investment funds, were able to move ahead much faster. "A group of friends are planning to open a small dressmaking factory," David commented to his daughter. Other fellows, such as Manuel Stein and Salomon Schifter, had requested loans to purchase machinery from British and Canadian banks. ―Both Salomon and his brother, Adolfo, are also suitable bachelors,‖ David insisted.
Her father needed to take care of his health. After showing her the small stalls he had rented in the Market, he asked Elena and Sarita to take a stroll down Central Avenue. Together with his wife, in the meantime, he would figure out how to handle the business from that day forward. Samuel was surely to stay. He would be occupied handling the cranes to and from the higher shelves. As the little girl and the young woman got ready to start their reconnaissance of downtown San José, their father worked out a plan.
The most important and consolidated stores were those aligned down Central Avenue. The rich shopped there; those selling in this area were wealthier. A store called La Gloria caught Elena's attention. It was a general store located two blocks from the Central Market and specialized in fabrics and clothes imported from Spain and Western Europe. Some of the fabrics in colors and styles unknown to the girls were simply wonderful. Instead of traditional wool or cottons, there you could find foulards joyfully stamped, jerseys in diverse colors, taffetas and silks from China. As they passed by a store called "La Más Barata " ("The Cheapest"), a woman gave them a pamphlet; they thanked her but could not read it.
One block ahead they were impressed by the glass cases of La Veronica. In the midst of an entanglement of mirrors were dresses so gorgeous that only queens should wear them. The mirrors made it possible to look at these dresses from all angles. "Look, Sarita! What a wonderful night dress!" Elena said to her sister. It was a dress made of white silk that fell to the knees, with a black belt made of the same material and intricate embroidering on the 73
lapels. While she was ecstatically examining this piece of clothing, she noticed blue eyes like Claudia's, chasing hers through the mirrors.
Elena felt paralyzed. She glued her eyes to that part of the mirror that held the eyes of the person watching her. For several moments she stood completely still. Those eyes were beautiful, deliciously refreshing, filled with rivers and springs. She could not understand why these blue eyes were after her, why they chased her everywhere, on boats and in the towns, as if they wished to bite her, to swallow her, to trap her. Suddenly she came to her senses.
"Let's go now," she told Sarita. Taking her sister's hand, she was ready to escape, but this time the dybbuk obstructed her. "May I help you?" he said. She didn't understand anything but at the same time intuitively knew everything. For, indeed, the dybbuk was a man who escorted them back to the Market. The journey back combined terror and the most complete happiness. The last was a new feeling. She couldn't listen to what he was saying, nor understand the greetings of the merchants along the Avenue, or the compliments of salesmen in the Market. She was looking at Carlos as she had examined the dresses in the glass case: too beautiful to make it her own. She had never seen hair made of varied streaks of blond and brown. She had never seen a mouth like his or teeth as white as these. His smile was warm and as comforting as that of the black people she had seen in Limón. But he too was a forbidden beauty. She could not understand why these Germans hated her so much and were chasing her at the same time. "What is the meaning of this prank of Nature?
Do I share the same destiny as Samuel, who killed himself?" she said in silence. When he asked to see her again, she answered with a "No" that was unconvincing, even to herself.
By the time she realized that they were just ten meters from her father's store, La Peregrina, Carlos had already disappeared in the winding alleys of the Market like another Elias ascending to heaven.
An almighty slap woke her from the spell. "If I ever see you with that German again, I'll kill you," her father was shouting.
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VIII
"They look like cows chewing branches!‖ laughed Sarita noticing two men sucking sticks of sugar cane. The girls didn't know this plant and couldn't understand why Costa Ricans ate it. For his part, Samuel, the boy falling between the two girls, ate an entire banana, including the skin. Elena herself had peeled and bit an avocado once and its seed almost broke her front teeth. Nor were they used to food made from maize, which they also didn't particularly like.
They didn't know vegetables like chayote, sweet potato and yucca. They were not used to eating black beans, a central component of the diet in the new country. In Europe, they ate potatoes, haricot beans, noodles, herring, butter, bread and salami. Old World dishes were very heavy on the stomach and had to be abandoned. More importantly, kosher food was nowhere to be found anywhere in Costa Rica, simply because it was impossible to find a shoichet 48.
Elena even had to change her dressing habits. In a letter to her friend Shosha, she wrote,
"...in Europe you have four seasons, while here it is summer all year round and therefore, clothing is lighter. When I put on my long winter stockings, people laughed at me. I guess, I looked funny to them." Social life was also different. Suddenly, Jewish Poles found themselves transformed into a psychological minority. Although in Poland they also numbered less than the Christians, over there they lived as an urban majority. These sthtetls therefore imposed their religious celebrations on the center of cultural and social life in Poland. In the New World, however, social and recreational life became secularized. In the Polish shtetls there had been something missing: "Movies are the main component of social life. Its bright neon signs now represent for me all that is gay. Lights turning on and off attract me because in our Polish town there was no electricity."
In Poland, they had spoken Yiddish, the Ashkenazi language. Then, depending on what you were doing and needing, Polish would be spoken. Most Jews had an incomplete command of Polish, since they lived separated from mainstream society and communication with
"outsiders" was kept to a minimum. In this new country called Costa Rica, they found themselves engaged in a much broader social involvement. Elena and her entire generation took Spanish lessons from the butcher at the Market, preparing to attend the Costa Rican public schools. She wrote to her friend about how fast she had to learn the new language:
"We immediately realized the need to learn Spanish. Since we arrived when the school year was about to conclude, my father hired a private teacher for us. But I only really got to speak it when I