“Everyone is staring,” she said.
“They’re jealous.”
“What are you doing with me, Jack?”
“Dancing.”
“What we got in common? You’re old money and I’m not any money. You’re Harvard and I’m school of hard knocks. You ski in Switzerland and I don’t know where; I can’t even ice skate in Central Park without falling over.”
“Does it matter?”
“If it is just a fling, it don’t matter. That is what I am asking.”
She sipped her martini and watched him over the rim of the glass. He held her eyes. That song kept going around and around in her head: One day this girl is going to “spread her wings.” You see if I don’t.
He seemed to make up his mind. “This isn’t just a fling,” he said. “Is it for you?”
“I’ve never been flung, Jack. What would a good Jewish girl from Westover know from flings?”
“Lib, you’re funny, you’re beautiful, and you have—what do they say in Yiddish?”
“Chutzpah.”
“I still think about that day you walked into Davidson’s. If you’d gone in there on any other day, they would have thrown you out on the street.”
“Well, like they say, good to be good, better to be lucky.”
“We like the same music, we laugh at the same stupid jokes, you go to the synagogue as often as I go to church, we both eat Oreos the same way.”
“When you ever seen me eat an Oreo?”
“You eat the top cookie, then the cream in the middle, right?”
“You do that too?”
“Not when anyone is looking.”
“Cannot believe you do that.”
“We could have been separated at birth, you and me.”
He kissed her for the first time. It was only a touch of the lips, but they stayed that way, their faces almost touching, for the rest of the song.
“How did you like the kiss?”
“I liked it just fine, Mr. Cooper,” she said.
Everyone else was asleep. It was just Sarah and Etta sitting in the kitchen, up close to the stove to keep warm, their shawls around their shoulders, waiting for Liberty to come home. Sarah had made them tea in the old samovar.
“How she has grown, your Bessie,” Sarah said.
“Thanks to you, she is here. I would not be here either, if not for you. I still remember that night, how brave you were, Sura.”
“Anyone would do the same.”
“Such a girl you were. Bessie and me, we were lucky you were there that day. And you are lucky too. No husband, sure, but what a beautiful daughter you have.”
“Yes, and such a help to my business. Do not know what I would do without her.”
“You will have to do without, one day. Must be suitors queueing up in the street. Such a beauty she is. Such lovely . . . eyes.”
Sarah nodded, waited. I wonder when my sister is going to say what she really means.
“And all that lovely red hair.”
Sarah sipped her tea, scalding hot it was. She blew the steam, felt it warm her cheeks and nose.
“I wonder where it comes from?”
“Uncle Moshe, he had red hair.”
“Was ginger, not like your Libby. Hers is beautiful. Like strawberry and gold.”
Sarah nodded. If she does not say it, I am not going to say it. Maybe Etta will get tired of this game and let it be.
“Where can it come from, this lovely red hair? Maybe Micha’s side.”
“What do you want I should say to you, Etta? I don’t know why my daughter is as she is. She is beautiful, what are you going to say next—‘not like her mother’?”
“Don’t fuss so. I was wondering, only.”
“Don’t wonder. Just drink tea.”
A long silence. There was something else, she could feel it. Go on, Etta, say it, just say it and get it over with.
“Why did you tell her you were expecting with her on the boat from Russia?”
“What are you saying?”
“Liberty told me. We were talking. I asked about her recent birthday, and she told me how you had her the night you arrived here on the boat, how you felt her kick when you saw the Liberty statue, and that is how she got her name.”
“Was a story, only.”
“You were in America one year before your Liberty came.”
“What does it matter? Better than, oh, you were born in some dirty hospital, I was screaming and sweating like every other woman in the Lower East Side.”
“But it’s not true.”
“Must everything always be true?”
“Yes,” Etta said. “Always. If we not got the truth, what we got?”
“Just a story,” Sarah repeated. She finished her tea and put down the glass. “More better you go to bed now.”
Etta shrugged and said good night and took herself to bed. Sarah pulled the shawl tighter around her shoulders, listened to the patter of rain on the windows, someone shouting down below them, on the second or third floor—arguments, always arguments around here. So hard to find a bit of peace.
It was exhausting, having Etta and her family here, when there was such little room. She had grown up in a house that was too small for everyone, no hardship in that, but somehow so crowded, all this. No room for so many questions in such a little apartment, that was the trouble.
It wore her out, all this pretending. What was it her father had said to her once? “Always tell the truth, Sura, then never will you need a good memory.” She had thought about telling Etta the truth. But how could she? Because it wouldn’t stop there; she knew what her sister would say: “You must tell Libby.”
And telling Libby, it was impossible. “Libby, bubeleh, sit down, there’s something you should know. The story about how you were born on the ship? Well, it wasn’t quite true.”
“What part of the story isn’t true, Mama?”
“Any of it.”
“So where was I born if I wasn’t born in Delancey Street?”
“I don’t know.”
Sarah closed her eyes, tried to picture the look of betrayal and horror on her daughter’s face as she understood the meaning, all the meanings. And that was only the start of it. Sooner or later she would have to tell George Seabrook.
“Mr. Seabrook, now I’ve come here, now I’ve told you everything there is to know, can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”
What do you think, Sarah? Can a man whose daughter you stole pat you on the back and tell you not to worry about it, we all make mistakes, never mind your husband knew he was Liberty’s father right from the very first?
No, you cannot do it. Have to keep lying, there is no other choice. Cannot change your mind once you start down the road. Perhaps you and Micha didn’t mean no harm when you started this, but no one will care about that, not now. When you do something that is just plain flat-out unforgivable, you cannot ever ask anyone to forgive, not later, not ever.
52
It was Bessie’s birthday, and Sarah took them all out to dinner. After all the tension in the house, she told Liberty, it will be a good way to bring everyone back together.
She took them all to a swanky Schrafft’s on Fifth, all dark wood paneling and Colonial furniture with bud vases on the tables. And the waitresses, in their black dresses with crisp white aprons and dainty collars and cuffs, even hairnets, carrying the food on trays balanced on their arms. Sarah was sure Etta and her family had never seen anything quite like it.
“You must have the cream cheese sandwich with the crusts cut off,” she told Bessie. “Wash it down with the hot chocolate with whipped cream. For the boys, the hot butterscotch sundaes with vanilla ice cream and toasted almonds. Yaakov, you must try the chicken a la king.”
Ruben frowned at his menu. “No knish,” he said.
“I don’t know this food,” Aron said. “Can I have lox?”
“There is nothing wrong with this food,” Sarah said. “It is all wholesome Amer
ican cooking.”
“I want knish,” Ruben said, and earned himself a clip of the ear from his father.
“So, we’re all together again,” Sarah said. “This is nice.”
“If only Zlota were here.”
“And Zara and Bluma,” Bessie said.
“Zlota won’t ever leave,” Yaakov said. “Her husband won’t listen to me.”
“You remember this day?” Sarah said to Etta. “When Bessie is born? I cannot believe it is twenty-four years.”
Etta shook her head. “I was so scared.”
“Such a beautiful girl you were,” Sarah said to Bessie. “Such a tiny thing to survive such a fright.”
“Tiny!” Ruben said, and snorted. Bessie elbowed him hard, and he howled. Yaakov jerked his son’s elbows off the table and whispered sternly in his ear, which made Aron snigger all the more.
Such relatives I have, Sarah thought. She looked at her Libby for support, but she was looking out the window, in another world inside her head. What was wrong with her baby lately? Sarah was sure she had a gentleman caller. Whenever she said she was going to the movies with friends, she came home so flushed, so breathless. You didn’t get that from watching a Bing Crosby movie.
“Such a beautiful girl, your Libby,” Etta said, in Yiddish.
“She is the joy of my life.”
“And for the longest time you thought you could never have,” she said. “Such beautiful color in her hair.”
Again with her hair, Sarah thought. You’ll have red hair too, Etta, if I tip one of Schrafft’s famous strawberry milkshakes all over it.
“How is she not married?” Yaakov said across the table. “She is practically a gray braids, like our Bessie.”
Sarah felt her cheeks burn. Didn’t he know Liberty spoke Yiddish almost as well as anyone at the table?
“She is a dark horse,” Sarah said, in English. “I think she is keeping something from us. Aren’t you, bubeleh?”
“Mama?”
“You’re not fooling your mama. So many times you are out this week. You have a young gentleman, don’t you? You should bring him home, let us all meet him.”
“I don’t have a gentleman,” Liberty said.
“She thinks her mother is blind,” Sarah said to Etta, and raised her eyes.
“Come on, Libby,” Etta said. “Tell us!”
“The girl says nothing to tell,” Yaakov said in his faltering English, “then nothing to tell. You should find matchmaker, Sura. She is too old for not married.”
Sarah saw the look on Liberty’s face. That was it, he had made her mad. “His name is Jack,” she said.
“So I was right!” Sarah said. “You do have a gentleman. Why not we meet him?”
“You wouldn’t like him, Mama.”
“Who is to say what is to like, what not to like?”
“Believe me, I know.”
“Is he Jewish?” Yaakov said.
“No, he’s not Jewish.”
“Where did you meet this Jack?” said Sarah.
Liberty turned and looked right at her. “At Davidson’s, Mama.”
They didn’t understand, Etta and Yaakov and the rest. Sarah could feel them all watching her, but she couldn’t hide the look on her face, too late for that. A wonder she didn’t throw up all over this nice white tablecloth.
“That Jack? You said he was in England.”
“Mama, don’t get mad. He’s not like you think he is.”
“Not who you think he is either,” she said before she could stop herself.
“I was going to tell you, I was waiting for the right time. I know you don’t like his father. But he’s not like him, he’s so different.”
Sarah felt the blood drain from her face.
“Wait till you meet him, you’ll see.”
Suddenly Sarah was on her feet. She had spilled glasses on the table. People were staring. She sat down again, tried to get control of herself. No, this cannot be happening. Her daughter, she would never do such a thing.
“No,” she said.
“Mama?”
She felt Etta’s hand on her arm. “Sarah, what is it?”
“This must stop,” she said.
“Mama, you don’t understand.”
“No, you who don’t understand. Anyone but this Jack Seabrook, you hear? You got to stop this now.”
“It isn’t going to stop, Mama. Not unless I want it to.”
Sarah pushed back her chair and got to her feet again. Got to stay calm, she thought. Don’t shout things, not here, not in public, not in front of your own family. “Talk about this at home, not here.”
“I don’t want to talk about it at home, Mama. I don’t want to talk about it anywhere.”
“Liberty!”
“I’m not a little girl anymore. You can’t tell me how to live my life.”
Everyone in the restaurant was looking, Etta’s two boys openmouthed, Bessie too. “Such respect,” Yaakov said to Etta. “Is this how girls treat their mutti in America?”
“I don’t understand. What have you got against George Seabrook? What did he ever do to you that was so bad? You still hate him because he didn’t help us after Dewey died?”
“You are my daughter, I don’t have to tell why I hate, why I don’t hate. You just do like I tell you.”
“Maybe in Russia, not here.”
“Please, bubeleh, we don’t have this fight here, with the whole world watching.”
“I love him,” Libby said.
Sarah gaped at her.
“You’ve never loved anyone. You don’t know what it feels like.”
And she walked out. On her mother, she walked out. Sarah was about to run after her, but Etta put a hand on her arm to stop her. “Let her go, Sura. Let her be. Maybe better you talk to her later, when everyone is not so upset.”
What else could she do? Nothing, nothing she could do. Jack Seabrook. It was punishment from God, that was what it was, punishment for her lies, for never telling her secret. This is what you deserve, she thought. What you deserve for being a bad wife, a bad sister, a bad woman.
You stole another man’s baby. Did you really think you could get away with that? Now everything is going to fall apart, everything.
Sarah walked blindly through the streets, needed to find somewhere to sit, sit and think. She had to talk to someone; could not talk to her daughter, could not talk to her sister. Who was left?
Micha! Micha was the only one who could understand this, show her the way through it.
She found her way to the park. She remembered there was a statue there, the Doughboy, they called it, one of those crazy statues they built for the soldiers from the war, as if they would care anymore from statues.
There he was, standing there so heroic. Is this how you looked? Is this what you wore, Micha, when they shot you? Doughboy had a big bronze flag folded around him, a gun in his right hand, and such a heroic moustache, like she never saw before. A cord tied a holster to his hip, and he had bandage things around his legs. She could almost smell the mud on him. A bandanna, too, under his helmet. He looked like a wild man.
Was this how you looked, Micha? Like a wild man?
Doughboy gripped the staff on the flag so tight, like he was braced for the bullet. Did you remember in that last moment that you did not have to be there, Micha?
She looked closer, at the stars on the flag, the edge of it brushing Doughboy’s shoulder. Twigs had gathered there, blown there by the winter wind. Whoever made this statue, they must have been there, she thought, to make it so real. Perhaps the maker of this, he even knew you, my Micha. Perhaps this really is you.
She sat down on the wet wooden bench. Everything here smelled of damp like moss, nothing growing in these sad old earthy beds.
“Tell me what I have to do,” she said, aloud. And why not? There was no one around to hear some crazy woman in a fur coat talking to a statue. “I cannot let her see this boy. How long this been going on, and right under my nose she
does this? She says she is in love? What does she mean? What has she done? Cannot let this thing go on. So what to do? Tell her the truth about where she came from, then go to this Seabrook and tell him also? But then what? I will lose her, I will lose my Libby, and Libby is all I have. Maybe I will even go to prison.
“I have kept our secret, Micha, I thought this was all over, but sometimes it is like never will it be over. How did this happen? How did you get her? And why don’t you ever tell me? Why get yourself killed for nothing and leave me here to fix? Because I cannot fix. You got to help me, Micha. Talk to me, tell me what I must do. Do I tell the truth? Cannot tell it. You got to show me some other way, Micha, before it is too late. You understand?”
53
Libby lounged on the leather settee, nestled into Jack’s shoulder. She liked the feel of his arm around her, the smell of his cologne. The club was dark. She couldn’t even remember the name of it, some anonymous place off Swing Street, a basement dive they had found, only half full, even when everything else was closed. There was a trio playing swing on the small stage at the back of the room; two enthusiastic regulars dancing the Lindy hop. The only light came from candles set in niches in the bare brick walls.
“I don’t understand why she’s so against you,” Libby said.
“The old man never had much time for your mother. He thought she married Dewey just for his money.”
“But that was years ago. And why would Mama still be sore at him? Dewey never listened anyway.”
“I don’t know. Maybe there’s something else we don’t know.”
“You don’t think he ever . . .”
“What?”
“Well, you know. She was a looker in her day.”
Jack shook his head. “Say what you like about the old man, but he’s a straight shooter. He would never try and steal another man’s wife, least of all Uncle Billy’s.”
“So, what, then?”
“I don’t know. I guess your mother knows, but she’s not telling.”
“What are we going to do, Jack?”
“She’ll come around,” he said. “She has to. When she sees we’re made for each other.”
She sat up. “What did you say?”
“You don’t think so?”
Loving Liberty Levine Page 28
