“
My letter,” Bella said in Yiddish that was a bit garbled, but perfectly understandable. “I want my letter back and she won’t give it to me. Why doesn’t she understand my English?”
“That’s Yiddish you’re speaking,” Yetta said.
“No, it’s not,” Bella said irritably. “It’s the English I learned in the factory.”
“It’s Yiddish! You must have learned Yiddish because there were so many of us Jews in the factory. Listen”—Yetta switched languages—“English sounds like this.”
Bella stared up at Yetta, her eyes seeming to grow in her pale face. “I don’t even know what Yiddish is,” she said, in Yiddish…..
“Bella learned Yiddish by mistake,” Yetta said. “She thought she was speaking English.”
“Wish I could learn a new language just by mistake,” Jane said. “I’ve been studying Italian for weeks, and it’s totally useless.
”
”