Grinning from ear to ear, Peter punched John’s shoulder, then dared to kiss Jane’s cheek. As the only father among them, Johann started giving John sage advice, while Jimmy began reciting suitable boys’ names, appropriate for a future true American born.
Zoltan, very affected, blew his nose, rose, crossed over to John, shook his hand, murmured his heartfelt felicitations, bowed in Jane’s direction before heading back to his chair. If he had been wearing his derby, he would surely have tipped it to young motherhood.
Hannah reappeared, bearing a tray with her very best crystal and a bottle of precious Schnapps that was kept under lock and key until momentous occurrences called for its laudatory kick of 100 proof.
Everyone toasted John and his Missus. Fritz wiped his eyes, overcome when John asked him to be godfather. Beaming, Carl exclaimed he was going to be an uncle, the rest correcting him—saying that he would be only one of many!
Hannah raised her glass. “I got another toast. Everybody—to our NEW BOARDER!” Jane felt John’s arm encircle her waist, drawing her against him. Forcing a smile, she wondered how a happy mother-to-be should react, hoping she was fooling them to their satisfaction, not to disappoint.
That night, John left his sexual prerogative aside, held his wife as though she had acquired a sudden fragility. For the first time in her marriage, Jane felt the magic of feeling cherished and, when John murmured, “Good night, Ninnie, you now need your rest,” she slept lying against him, not turned away.
“Missus Jane, you feeling okay?” How often did she hear that? Not a day went by when one or another of the boarders didn’t ask after her state of health, anxiously hanging on her reply.
“You tink you got only one husband? You got EIGHT worrying Papas—dat, I tink must be a record!” Hannah would laugh, enjoying every minute of her pregnancy by proxy. She who had prayed for a child of her own, been denied this joy, now gloried in the participation granted her of soon bringing a child into her world.
Henry Johnson, mail carrier by chosen profession, took his duty to the United States Postal Service very seriously. He believed without the slightest reservation in its credo that neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night should stay him from the swift completion of his appointed rounds. So one bitter morning, not far from death by freezing, there he stood before the boardinghouse door. Chunky galoshes, like stovepipes tied beneath his knees—hands in multiple mittens resembling the paws of a grizzly, the tip of a purpled nose above a sumptuous moustache whose handlebars, once proudly waxed, erect, now sagged beneath the weight of tiny icicles, the only proof that amidst the layers of scarves, there must be a face.
His syncopated knock brought Hannah scurrying to her front door, flinging it open, knowing it was he.
“Ach, Mein Gott! Mr. Henry! Come—come quick, inside! Get melted!!”
“No, no!” protested the mailman from between blue lips. “I’ll drip!”
“Drip—Schmip!” She pulled him inside.
“No, it’s not proper!”
“No arguing! What’s dis mit de ‘proper’? You sick or someting? Hot coffee, a little nosh—you feel like a new man!” By this time she had him into the kitchen. “So, sit!”
Henry Johnson sat, eyes downcast, watching the melting ice begin to pool around his galoshes. Hannah knowing how it upset him to mess up a floor, handed him an old newspaper.
“Here, Silly! Put!”
The mailman shoved it under his feet, began peeling himself as though he were an onion—multiple mittens first. Jane, at the sink, breakfast dishes forgotten, watched fascinated as each new layer made its colorful appearance. Hannah, noticing Jane’s amazement at the rainbow array, explained, “Mr. Henry—he bachelor, lives mit his sister—a widow lady. So many children she left mit to raise—she knits for dem everyting. Each one get a different color so know which belongs to which. When any wool left, she knit mittins for her brother mit de leftovers. Oh, please excuse—Mr. Henry, here by the sink is our very special Missus Jane. She expecting, so no get ideas! Vifey, here before you melting, sits Number One biggest heartbreaker, Mr. Henry Johnson, by the United States Government employed.”
The mailman unwrapped his head, exposing a confusing face. Its gaunt hardness bordering on ugliness in which the softest eyes shone like enticing beacons in a darkening storm. Then, Mr. Henry smiled and Jane’s mouth fell open—her heart turned somersaults, Mr. Henry’s smile oozed seduction.
“You keep your special smiles for my doughnuts, you Rascal Man!” chuckled Hannah, poking him in the ribs. “Dis is a ‘Good’ girl—so mit her no hanky-panky allowed!”
Slender hands wrapped around his coffee cup, Mr. Henry turned his devastating smile on his benefactress and achieved an answering giggle—accompanied by a saucy wink. Stunned, Jane watched their interplay.
“Rascal Man, what you do mit dat poor girl you was playing around mit, out in Polishtown? She still mooning mit heartbreaking for you?”
And then, Mr. Henry spoke—and it was as though silk were sliding on melted chocolate and the butterflies that suddenly fluttered inside Jane’s stomach had nothing to do with her delicate condition.
“Why, Missus Hannah—how you do go on!” Wiping powdered sugar from his lips with unconscious elegance, the mailman rose, uncurling his frame as though he were rising from bed. “Seen that little redhead charmer at Twenty-two Puritan? A real looker, that one. Know her?” He began replacing his many mittens, yellows first.
“You out of luck dere, Honey Boy. She’s new engaged mit a big Irish rowdy. You make eyes, he knock you silly!”
“Oh, a brute is he? Well, well.” Kelly green followed, then came ones of baby blue. “She’ll soon tire of that. A pretty girl like that, all pink and soft deserves something better—someone who will appreciate what she’s got to give,” he reached for mittens of bright red.
“Aha! Like you maybe? You watch out, my boy!”
Mr. Henry covered his rainbow paws with final Postal Service gray. “Missus Hannah, you know if you weren’t already taken, I could settle down, be saved from all temptations. Nothing like a strapping woman to tame a sinner like me!”
“Rascal Man! You got post for me? So? Give and out! Go deliver!”
Grinning, Mr. Henry plunked the packages on the table, rewrapped himself, hefted his mail sack, blew Jane a kiss, gave Hannah a mighty squeeze and ran out of the house—she laughing, swinging a frying pan in hot pursuit. Panting, she returned to the kitchen, where Jane still stood, rooted by the sink.