Beyond the Ties of Blood

by Florencia Mallon

  After tía Irene called back a month later, her mother bustled around the apartment, typing things and placing them on the dining room table, stapling piles of sheets together, then putting it all in a large orange-colored envelope. When Mama noticed her observing everything from the doorway, she sat down on the couch in the living room and motioned for Laura to sit next to her.

  “M’hijita, your tía called to tell me that there’s a fellowship at a school near where she lives. It’s in a journalism school, for people who write for newspapers, so it would be perfect for me. The applications are due next week, so I’m putting together my credentials.”

  “What are cred … en …” Laura’s tongue seemed to stick on the word.

  “That’s the papers you have that show the kind of work you’ve done. In my case it’s copies of the stories I’ve published, letters from my editor congratulating me on the good ones, things like that. I have everything pretty much ready now, and will send it up to the school in Boston. I’m sure there will be a lot of people applying for the fellowship, so I won’t hold my breath, but it would be worse if I didn’t try. And maybe my experience here writing for newspapers will make my file stand out.”

  “What happens if your file stands out?”

  “I don’t know, Laurita. Probably they’ll want to talk to me, find out what I’m like. I’m sure they’ll have a lot of interesting applicants.”

  “If they like you, does that mean we’re moving?”

  “It’s much too early to tell, m’hijita. But even if this job doesn’t work out, there could very well be other ones. We’d be a lot closer to tía Irene, wouldn’t that be great? I think you should begin to think about practicing your English.”

  The call from Boston came at the beginning of March. Laura knew her mama had been interviewed by phone two weeks before, but her school had just opened back up so she hadn’t been home. Since then they’d been working hard at school, trying to catch up on the materials from the first semester of sixth grade. Between the math and the Mexican history, Laura felt her head spinning every night as she tried to finish her homework.

  Her mama took the call in her bedroom with the door closed. Laura could hear only the cadences of her mother’s voice, its rise and fall with the moods of the conversation. But then there was a loud shriek, and the door flew open as her mother came barreling out into the living room, then into her bedroom.

  “Laurita! I got the fellowship!!” Her mama pulled her up from the bed and hugged her tight, scattering Mexican Independence heroes right and left. “I start in September, m’hijita! We’re going to the United States!”

  Laura busied herself picking up the notes for her history test. Then she looked up. Her mother was still standing there, an expectant look on her face. But she couldn’t share the happiness that was burning in her mother’s eyes.

  “How soon do we have to move?” she asked. She gave up trying to put the papers back in chronological order through the fog that had come over her eyes and sat down. “Do we pack everything up? Can I take Paco? Will Inocencia come with us?”

  Her mother sat down next to her and put an arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I got so excited, I was only thinking of myself. Of course you can take Paco, but Inocencia can’t come with us. We can’t get her a visa. Even us, there are no guarantees we can stay once the fellowship is over.”

  “Then why are we going, if they might throw us out?”

  “I don’t think they’ll throw us out, mi amor. Your tía Irene has permanent residency, and besides, the school said the teaching position can be renewed, especially if the students like my classes. So there’s a good possibility we can stay for a while.”

  “Where will I go to school?”

  “I don’t know yet, but your aunt is looking into that. She says that the neighborhood schools are pretty good on the west side of the city, and she’s going to try and get us an apartment in one of the neighborhoods over there.”

  “Will we have a bougainvillea?”

  “I don’t think so. The climate is very different from here. Irene says it snows a lot in the winter and for months the temperature is below freezing. That would kill a bougainvillea. But there will be other trees and other flowers. And in the fall, around your birthday, Irene says the leaves on the trees turn beautiful colors—red, orange and yellow—and then fall off. She says it’s a wonderful time of the year. We’ll get to see it when you turn twelve.”

  And they did. What tía Irene had not mentioned was that, after the leaves fell off, they made crispy, crunchy noises under your feet, and that the smell of burning leaves and wood was in the air. The sky was brilliant blue, and apples were red and juicy.

  Boston, 1987

  “Laurita, Laurita! Hurry up! You’re going to miss the bus and I have a nine-thirty class!”

  Laura stopped trying to get all of her long hair into the single barrette, and wrapped her ponytail up into the elastic band she always kept in the pocket of her jeans. She had to stop being tempted by these pretty barrettes, with their tortoiseshell designs and metal clasps. She knew she should always try them before buying them, because her hair was so thick, but usually the clerk in the shop told her she couldn’t try one on without buying it first.

  “Laurita! Hurry up! We have to go!!”

  She ran down the three flights of stairs from their apartment to the entryway. Her mother was waiting, a briefcase slung over her left shoulder. The bus was coming up their street, and she had to run to catch it at the bus stop. After waving to her mother, she settled in next to the window, making sure her backpack was on the seat next to her to discourage other riders from sitting there, and looked out.

  It had been over a year now since they’d moved to Boston. True to her word, tía Irene had found them an apartment on the third floor of an older building, with polished wood floors and leaded glass windows on the doors. Her room had a window seat that looked out over the street, which was lined with older oaks and maples. They were on the boundary between Brookline and downtown Boston, which meant that Laura could be in the Brookline public school system, but they were also quite close to her mother’s job. The only problem was that being on the edge of the district meant she had a long bus trip to her school. Laura didn’t really mind, though, since she could always read or think on the bus without anyone bothering her.

  Because her school in Mexico had been closed for almost six months after the quake, Laura had ended up repeating the year. She’d been really upset at first, but then realized that, between learning English and trying to get accustomed to the school, it was probably okay that a lot of the material in math and science seemed really easy. Now that she was in seventh grade, it felt good to be one of the older girls in the class.

  The hardest thing had been making friends. In her school in Mexico, she’d always had a couple of close friends, like Cecilia, and then a group of others who had invited her to their birthday parties. It had seemed natural. But here, in Boston, she felt like everyone just stared at her. They must have all been together since kindergarten, and there she was, the new one who stuck out. The pain in her stomach the first few times at recess was so strong, she thought she would throw up.

  Laura took the book she was reading out of her backpack and placed it open on her lap, but went back to looking out the window. The leaves on the maple trees blazed orange and red. In this part of Boston, the old brownstone buildings were crowded together, like passengers on a bus with no elbow room. Some of the buildings were being refurbished, their shiny picture windows blinking out onto the street. Newly painted wrought-iron bannisters guarded the stairs that rose up from the sidewalk, and recently refinished oak doors with fancy knockers glowed copper-like in the morning sun.

  Her own efforts to remake herself were almost as obvious. She’d grown her hair longer and pulled it back in a thick ponytail, using her nail scissors to cut some bangs that emphasized her large dark eyes. She combed the local stores for pairs of earrings
that set off the tones of her clothes and skin. In the mornings when she looked in the mirror, she began to notice how her cheekbones stood out more if she applied just a bit of blush along the middle of her cheeks. It had taken her forever to find the right shade at the drugstore. Almost all the brands had names like peach melba or strawberry fruitcake, and when she’d bought one of those, it had made her look like a rag doll with fake pink circles on her face. Finally she realized that the shades called copper or even ebony, that looked like the oak doors of the brownstones through the little window on the front of the compact, turned the right color when she brushed them on. And a lip gloss in a similar shade looked good on her mouth.

  At night, when she lay awake from habit even though she hardly ever heard her mother dreaming anymore, she would run her hands along her rapidly changing body. Some nights she could almost feel her breasts grow under her hands. Running her fingers over them, then down her belly, filled her with an almost overwhelming need for something that she could not define. Except that when she noticed a boy at school, the line of his jaw or his eyelashes or the pungent scent of his armpits, she would feel the same thing.

  When she’d turned thirteen earlier in the month, she celebrated with her mother and her aunt Irene and her aunt’s friend Amanda. Mama had asked if she wanted to invite any friends, but she’d said no. Who would she invite, after all? Later she remembered the conversation she’d had with one girl in her math class at the beginning of the school year. Her name was Marcie. She had carefully styled hair, wore makeup, and hung out with the popular kids. Laura envied the easy way she laughed, how comfortable she seemed talking to boys. Marcie had come up to her right before class. Her sweater and eyeshadow matched the light blue line in her plaid skirt.

  “I noticed your name is Bronstein,” she said. “Are you Jewish?”

  “My dad was,” Laura said.

  “What do you mean, ‘was’? Did he convert to something else?”

  “No.”

  “What, then? As far as I know it’s not something you grow out of.”

  “He’s dead.”

  Marcie’s rush of breath formed an “oh” that pushed her down into the seat right behind Laura. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know.”

  “That’s okay,” Laura said, softly. “He died before I was born.”

  Since then, she and Marcie had talked a few times. Marcie seemed fascinated by anything that had to do with Laura’s father or his family.

  “It’s just so weird,” Marcie said one day after Laura asked what was so interesting about it all. “My family, and the families of my friends. They all migrated, too, from Russia, because of the pogroms, or from Germany after Hitler came to power. But I never knew that Jews went to South America. Wow. Jews who grew up speaking Spanish. It’s just I’d never thought about it. I’m sorry, it just seems so weird.”

  The bus pulled up to the front walk of the school and Laura joined the line exiting through the front door. She hiked her pack onto her back and slowly straightened up, heading toward the main entrance to the building.

  “Laura! Hey! Laura!” It was Marcie. “Wait up!” Laura turned. Marcie was hurrying up, out of breath, wearing a red cardigan with white mother-of-pearl buttons.

  “Hey,” she panted when they were face to face. “Glad I caught you. Do you want to come to my house for dinner this Friday? When I told my mother your dad had been Jewish, she said I should invite you over for shabbat dinner. You want to come?”

  Laura considered it for a moment. “Sure,” she said. “But I have to ask my mother.”

  “Of course,” Marcie answered. “My mom said it was fine if I let her know the night before. You want to just tell me in math class tomorrow?”

  When she asked her mother for permission to have dinner at Marcie’s house, Laura could tell Mama was happy she was making friends. Laura felt happy too, but a little nervous. Especially since she had never known her papa, or any of the Jewish traditions. Would she know what to do or how to act?

  Marcie’s mother picked them up at school that Friday in a shiny new sedan, the kind of car you couldn’t see into because the windows were made of tinted glass. The seats still smelled of new leather as the girls got settled in the back. Looking at Mrs. Bronfman’s newly styled hair and polished nails, Laura was glad her mother had insisted she dress up for the occasion.

  “It’s so good to meet you, Laura,” Mrs. Bronfman said in a voice as polished as her nails. “Marcie has talked a lot about you over the past few weeks. I’m glad you could join us for shabbat.”

  “Thank you,” Laura said. “I’m glad too.”

  Marcie’s house was in the fancy part of Brookline, the part Laura had heard other kids refer to as “the hill.” Only a full minute after entering the gravel driveway did the house appear, large and broad, picture windows spilling colored light onto the lawn and walkways. From the garage they entered a large kitchen, marble countertops on all sides, a gleaming stainless steel stove in the middle of a shiny tile floor, copper-bottomed pots hanging from hooks and shimmering softly in the warm light. Laura had only seen things like this in magazines.

  “Come on in, girls,” Mrs. Bronfman said. “I think you have enough time to freshen up before we light the candles.”

  Marcie’s room was decorated in shades of pink. Ruffled curtains framed a picture window that looked out on an old maple tree, its leaves now a deep red. Laura stood for a moment in the center of the room, noting the glow of the matching furniture, the huge walk-in closet in the corner stuffed with clothes, the sound system with large speakers that dominated the other wall near the window.

  “We can wash our hands in my bathroom over here,” Marcie said. The bathroom, too, was all in matching pinks. Even the soap and the washcloth hanging on its own hook, right inside the alcove that contained the shower and tub, were pink. Laura’s eyes met Marcie’s in the mirror, and she realized she must have been staring.

  “I wish I had a bathroom all to myself,” she said. Marcie laughed.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Since it’s all my own stuff, I can always tell when my mom’s been snooping around, because things are in a slightly different place from where I left them. I don’t think the colors I have will go with your complexion,” she added, riffling through the makeup drawer, “but maybe we can go shopping tomorrow. I’m sure we can find some colors that are better for you.”

  The girls had tried on most of the lipstick and eyeshadow colors when Mrs. Bronfman finally called them down to dinner. The table was set formally with silverware and china, and in the middle a braided bread and two candlesticks. Mr. Bronfman was standing at the head of the table, a small skullcap perched on his head. After the introductions, Mrs. Bronfman lit the candles. They also said blessings over the bread and wine, and then sat down. A salad was served first on a small plate, and Laura wondered which fork to use for it. She followed Marcie’s lead and picked up the smaller one on the outside. Once they finished the salad, she and Marcie gathered the plates and followed Mrs. Bronfman into the kitchen. A bright red-and-white apron wrapped around her waist, she was arranging a fragrant roast with baked potatoes onto a silver tray.

  “Here, girls,” she said. “Laura, could you please take out these steak knives? And Marcie, take your dad the carving set. You know where it is.”

  They sat back down and waited while Mr. Bronfman cut and served slices of pink roast for everyone. Then Mrs. Bronfman passed around a bowl with sour cream and a small dish with tiny pieces of green onion. Laura wasn’t sure what to do since she’d only eaten something like that on Inocencia’s quesadillas. Marcie noticed.

  “You put the sour cream and chives inside the baked potato,” she said. “It tastes pretty good, actually.”

  Laura watched Marcie, then carefully imitated what her friend had done. She was concentrating so hard on getting it right that at first she didn’t hear Mr. Bronfman asking her a question. She jumped when Marcie elbowed her in the ribs, right below the line of the
table. When she looked up Mr. Bronfman cleared his throat and tried again.

  “So. Laura. Do you know what part of Russia your father’s grandparents came from?”

  Laura took a swallow of water before she answered. “My mother told me it was from the city where the sailors on a ship rebelled.”

  “Odessa!” Mr. Bronfman exclaimed, looking very pleased with himself. “Of course. It was Odessa. My mother’s family was originally from there, too. Do you know what their last names were?”

  “My mama has never told me that. She might know, though. I could ask.”

  “I would like that. My mother used to tell me so many wonderful stories about Moldavanka, her old neighborhood. Everyone was Jewish, they had their butcher and their tailor, and everyone looked out for everyone else. These days we all live so far apart. No one can even see our house from the street. If anything were to happen to us here, it’s possible we wouldn’t be found for weeks. It wasn’t like that in the old neighborhood, why …”

  Laura felt Marcie kick her under the table and looked over at her. The other girl made an almost imperceptible gesture as she brought her napkin up to wipe her mouth, a finger across her throat that Laura took to mean they were about to cut it short. Then she heard Marcie’s chair scraping back, and her friend stood up from the table.

  “May we be excused, please? There’s something I want to show Laura in my room.”

  “But Marcie,” Mrs. Bronfman said, “we haven’t even gotten to dessert. I picked up your favorite, a lemon poppyseed cake from the bakery.”

  Marcie moved around the table and gave her mother a hug from the back. “I need to lose five pounds to fit into that new skirt I just bought. And I’m sure Laura’s pretty full, too, aren’t you, Laura?”