by Ann Huber
In Haifa, I found a small, black and white picture, depicting a young child dressed in an Israeli kibbutz uniform: blue short shorts, button down short-sleeved shirt, white short socks inside scuffed laced, leather shoes and the obligatory bell-shaped sunhat. It brought back such fond memories of my own childhood. I had worn the same outfit and imagined that if I were having a child in Israel, she would wear it, too.
Even now, whenever I do go back to Israel to visit, just landing at Tel Aviv airport brings back great joy despite the fact that so many years have passed and the country has changed so much. I always get a kick out of responding to Israeli security officers, in Hebrew, “I don’t speak Hebrew. I forgot how.” They always compliment my native accent, and it makes me feel proud.
After giving birth to Rebecca, the tiny light of our lives, I left New Jersey Bell and took a job as a legal secretary for a young lawyer opening his first office. Herm and I met him during the closing on our first home. I’d asked him very brazenly, “You wouldn’t happen to have a part-time job, would you?”
“Can you type?” he asked.
“So-so,” I motioned with my hand. I hadn’t learned to type in high school because I was finally transferred out of the dummy class. Herm had taught me so I could help with his doctoral dissertation.
“What about shorthand? Can you take shorthand?”
“Well,” I said, “I don’t know shorthand but I did learn speed writing at New Jersey Bell.”
Imagine my surprise when he said, “You look like you have a good head on your shoulders. You’re hired.”
As I set up the young attorney’s office and began learning the work, my typing improved and soon I became his right hand. I also began to think again about the possibility of becoming a lawyer—the dream I abandoned at age 14 when Sandu told me that girls don’t get admitted to law school.
As a legal secretary, I met many other young male members of the bar whose competence I found questionable. I often came home, exasperated. “If that schmuck can do it, why can’t I?” I thought to myself. Eventually, I verbalized that thought.
On a quiet New Year’s Eve a year or so later, at home with rare time on our hands, Herm and I came to the decision that I should indeed go to law school even though we now had a second wonderful child, Rayna. We both realized that I was happier working than staying at home. Now it was Herm’s turn to put me through school. We wanted some flexibility in our careers. Our goal was to be professionals and eventually to retire together.
On a cold and rainy in February, I went back to Rutgers in New Brunswick to take the LSATs, needed for admission to law school. It felt strange and awkward to be back on campus. As I looked around the classroom I realized that, at age 27, I was substantially older than the other test-takers. I felt that old familiar pang of not belonging, but I was determined to give it a try. There was no time to waste. I was thrilled to be admitted to both Rutgers Law School—Newark (a public university) and Seton Hall Law School (a private school) after my pitiful college record at McGill, although my later transcripts and LSAT scores were pretty good. Once I was accepted, I started to make preparations to go. As fate would have it, I had to postpone my attendance for another two years to give birth to our third child, Sara, the unexpected blessing.
As a result of the delay, I forfeited my original admissions. Two years later, I had to retake the LSATs to reapply. This time, I was again accepted at Seton Hall, the pricey private school, but only wait-listed at Rutgers Law School—Newark. By the first day of school, we still hadn’t figured out how we were going to pay for it. When I returned home, Herm was desperately waiting for me, telephone in hand.
“Quick, quick, you have to call Rutgers Admissions before 4:00 p.m. They are accepting you off the waiting list but you have to call before they call the next person.” I called immediately. It was going to be Rutgers Law School after all!
We then took some very daring steps. Although we had a mortgage and three children now, we both quit our jobs so I could go to school while Herm looked after the children during the day. I managed to get a student loan even though they had become scarce during the Reagan administration; I was off and running in a beat-up old Volkswagen bug with neither air conditioning nor heat. We were not totally reckless because Herm had already started a private practice in the evening by then and was seeing a couple of patients every day when I returned home from class.
I loved law school. I thrived on the intellectual stimulation, the adrenaline rush of legal argument, and the camaraderie of a study group of wonderful women, all of whom were a little older than I and supportive. By then, I was a 30-year-old woman, which only made me more determined, organized, and efficient. Truthfully, it was easier to go to law school with three children than it ever was to work with three children. My schedule was more predictable and I had more control over it. Those were probably the three best years of my life.
Even though I did well and excelled among my study group, my insecurities rose up again after I failed to make the cut for the Law Review. I was disappointed, too, in the responses I received for my summer internships, although I did land a good local one. By then it was time to apply for a job. Unsure of myself, I shied away from the bigger, better-known firms, and went after the less prestigious positions. At one interview, I was horrified when the interviewer spent the entire time looking up and down my legs.
Eventually, I landed an associate’s job in a small firm with a high reputation—I’ll call them Baum, Cohen, and Schwartz—an Irish firm in a shopping center near home. The location turned out to be perfect, next to a theater and a Burger King. Periodically, I’d leave my children at a movie while I worked. They could just walk next door to my office when they were done watching and eating.
On my first day at the law firm, I arrived in a new suit, and in a display of pulling rank, was stiffly greeted at the door by one of the partners, my future colleague. “Hello, Ann,” he said. “I’m Mr. Schwartz.”
My sharp-tongued response to this power play was swift—“Hello, Mr. Schwartz, I’m Mrs. Huber.” He was unaccustomed to working with a female lawyer, and was never comfortable even talking to me. I wonder what he thought of the 3’ x 4’ framed photograph I hung in my office. It was an original, taken in the 1940s, of Radcliffe women students, all dressed in pretty white dresses with corsages, pulling an old wooden wagon on what must have been their graduation day. The late 19th century wagon was covered with fading slogans such as, “8,000,000 Working Women need the Vote for Equal pay for Equal Work and All Labor Legislation,” and “90% of Teachers Are Women. Our Nation Needs Intelligent Voters.” Some things hadn’t changed much in a hundred years.
My mentor at the firm was a great and seasoned trial lawyer who taught me the difference between getting it done and producing good quality legal work. He also warned me that if I tried to please all the partners, it would burn me out. I didn’t heed his warning. I started to work too hard, spending too many hours trying to please too many people, slowly exhausting myself. At the same time, I was striving to be a supermom to my children. I went back to work every evening, after making dinner and helping with homework. I left work for a time most afternoons to drive one or more of the children to dance class, music class, track practice, whatever. Herm worked evenings seeing patients. A neighborhood teen babysat for the girls.
After my fourth year at the firm, working on cases I really enjoyed, I returned from a three-week vacation to find that I could no longer continue at that pace. I decided to leave the firm to spend some time with my children. Following a short break and another short-term position, I again took the safe route, and opened my own practice. That was not and is not the way to get ahead. Most of the firms in New Jersey are solo practices and all of them struggle to attract good clients.
It occurred to me that running for public office would give me some free advertising and help me meet important people. Boy, was I surprised to learn that I actually like politics! Unfortunately, I also found th
at spending time campaigning added another stressor to my life, and I also had to struggle to overcome unchanging facts: I was a Democratic female candidate running for public office in a Republican stronghold.
I was defeated in three straight election cycles. But I found my voice and I persisted and was elected a Councilwoman in Randolph. A few years later, I was appointed to be Mayor by the Council. Four years later I was re-elected. That child from the dummy class was moving on up!
It was a thrilling time. I loved the political dialogue, the maneuvering in building coalitions to get legislation passed. I was fascinated by the issues and savored learning more and more about each. Having a political debate was just as exhilarating for me as arguing a case or an appeal. My tolerant daughters, while never appreciating having a spotlight on the family, always played their roles, smiling and being polite. They came every time I asked them to participate in a function and held the Bible for me when I was sworn into office. I don’t know if they ever asked any of their friends to tell their parents to vote for me, but I do know they were proud of me.
Even winning election and re-election did not provide all the self-confidence I still lacked. But, my private law practice took me a step further. I made a good enough living so that Herm and I could educate our daughters and see them off into successful careers and marriages. I then sold my practice and joined the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office. It was there that I finally reached my potential, after our daughters were grown and married, when I had the time and freedom to do my best legal work. It took some time but eventually, my colleagues and superiors began to recognize and reward me for my accomplishments. I was buoyed by their praises. Herm was always there whenever I needed a boost, and was the first to recognize that I had finally found the place with the right combination of conditions to make me feel better about myself.
Only fifty years after I arrived in Montreal, after a life driven by an unrelenting need to prove myself to myself, did I find some relief, satisfaction, and most importantly, peace.
Chapter Twenty-One
KEEPING SECRETS
WHEN WE WERE in our mid fifties, Herm and I felt we wanted to know more about our parents’ experiences during the War. So we decided to videotape each of our mothers telling her story. Still beautiful at age eighty, my mother sat calmly on her living room couch, while Herm set up the camera. I admired the way her short white curly hair framed the soft skin of her wrinkled face. “So, tell us where you were living when the war started,” Herm asked. To my shock, she asked him to turn off the video recorder and leave the apartment, an embarrassed, shy smile on her face. Turning to me, she said, as she had mysteriously many times in those last few years, “There is something I need to tell you before I die.” I was ready. Or I thought I was.
“The Romanian army wasn’t any good and Germany took over,” she began. “Sandu was allowed to return to re-join the family. We, your grandparents and Lontzi, like Jews living in other Romanian cities, were forced to report to labor camps every day.” She sighed and took a big breath before continuing. “We were demeaned and made to wear the yellow star on the outside of our clothing. Food was rationed,” my mother remembered.
The exact date of my father’s return is a mystery, but on the 1942 census of men, my grandfather is the only male listed in the household. There is no record of my father. By 1944, Antonescu’s government was overthrown by King Michael and the Russians. The Romanians then fought alongside the Russians to defeat Germany.
“Slowly, painfully, the war years passed and eventually, life returned to normal under the Russian occupation, as normally as one could live under a brutal dictatorship,” my mother explained.
She shifted in her seat, “Shortly after the war ended, the family decided that Sandu and I would move to Bucharest to open our own shoe store to take advantage of the post war, booming economy.” My mother always referred to my father by his given name rather than as “your father.” My grandfather still had a stock of leather shoes and boots, with a readily available supply from contacts developed over many years. Leather was the commodity of choice and leather goods were much sought after by the occupying Russian soldiers. “We assumed, correctly, that the demand would be even greater in Bucharest.”
My grandparents and my parents with me in our home in Bucharest only a few
months before we left Romania.
Mamaia sold her house in Galati so that my parents could buy a house in Bucharest. Proof of home ownership was a requirement for moving into the city, but soon after my parents bought the house, all privately owned housing was confiscated by the Communist regime; residents and businesses were allowed to remain in place. The business flourished. Pictures of the family in 1950 show a well-dressed family of parents, and grandparents, doting on their infant granddaughter, me.
“To maintain the store’s leather stock, Sandu and I took turns traveling back and forth by train between Bucharest and Galati,” my mother went on. “On one such trip, I was approached by the owner of the shop across the street from my grandfather’s shoe store. Marcel was much older than me, but still a handsome, friendly and vivacious man.” Like Sandu, he was dark skinned, had dark eyes and even a widow’s peak. Unlike Sandu, Marcel seemed sophisticated. My mother described herself as “a shy twenty-four-year old, very pretty but also very naive.” Where was this story leading?
“By the time I turned sixteen, I had known Sandu for more than seven years,” she continued. “When I was about 15 years old, he took advantage of me. I thought no other man would want me and had no choice but to marry him. I was so naïve. But I can tell you that I never loved him.” I was shocked. Over the years I had come to realize that she no longer loved him but—never loved him? That was hard to believe.
As a child, I didn’t understand that many of my mother’s behaviors did not necessarily emanate from love. She’d always been terrified of upsetting my father and catered to his every whim, such as being home by a certain time, making his favorite food or keeping non-kosher salami hidden in a corner of the refrigerator for him. On the other hand, it seemed to me that my father worshiped the ground on which she walked. He was very jealous every time my mother spoke to another man, even the manager at the store where she worked. Numerous times, I remember my father bringing home very expensive gifts such as a new vacuum cleaner, crystal vase, fur hat—none of which we could afford. I realized now that they were bribes for her affection. These thoughts raced through my brain as I squirmed in my seat during this very uncomfortable conversation.
“But,” she continued, “that’s why I was so willing to respond to Marcel’s advances.” She smiled as she recounted how Marcel promised to show her a good time, such as she had never before enjoyed. They frequented restaurants, went to the movies, to concerts and to Yiddish theater. This was culture she had never known. It did not take long before a love affair flourished, despite the fact that they were both married.
“Marcel had two children, almost grown. We were happily together for over three years.” They took turns traveling to wherever my father was not. But, their love affair crashed in the summer of 1949 when my mother discovered that she was pregnant with Marcel’s child.
“How did you know it was his child?” I asked.
“Sandu didn’t want any children and took precautions to prevent it. I was scared, at first. I was already an aunt to Lontzi’s son, Mircea, whom I loved and I wanted my own child—something Sandu did not want. I didn’t want an abortion.” Orphaned by his mother’s death, my father always wanted to be the center of attention. At least that’s what my mother had always told me. His insecurity was palpable, threatened by the idea that my mother might love another, even a child.
When my mother realized she was pregnant, she confided in my grandparents that she was planning to leave my father. (I still refer to him as my father, even after learning about Marcel.) This must have been a double shock for her parents, Mamaia and Tataia, having known and loved Sandu. My grandparents couns
eled against leaving, unlike parents in other cultures who might have ostracized her. “How would you manage as an unmarried woman with a child? How could you support yourself? Who would want a woman with a child?” They advised her to take this secret to her grave. And she almost did.
My mother bravely made the most important choice she would ever make to live with it. Little pain or sadness showed now on her face as she told me that Sandu never knew that I was not his daughter. She let him believe it was a failure of birth control.
“How did you do that?” I asked.
“We had been away on a trip and had marital relations. Later, I told him that his precautions must not have worked.”
How ironic that a man as jealous as Sandu apparently never questioned her explanation! As emotionally devastating and practically complicated as these events must have been for her, my mother never told Marcel either. I always thought I looked like Sandu. My oldest daughter has Sandu’s dark skin, his same dark eyes and curly hair, even his widow’s peak. I was determined to learn whether or not this story was true. Surely, it was not true and nothing more than another sign of dementia. Even if she’d had an affair, I could still be Sandu’s child. I wanted to be his child.
“I never spoke to him again,” my mother told me. “Nor did I ever see him again. Though I did get tidbits of information about him from my cousin Shelley.” She would see him periodically in Haifa where he too, immigrated with his family. I wonder whether he ever got bits of information about me from Shelley and ever wondered why he never heard from Netty again. She kept her painful secret for the next fifty-five years, and after the death of my grandparents, not a single other person in the world knew the truth until now.
When my mother told me all this, I was stunned. I had two fathers, neither of whom would ever truly know me. My head was spinning. I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or to cry. I did both. I was shaking with anger when I left her apartment. How could she have kept this from me? Part of me wished she had never told me. It shook my very foundation.
