Bess and Frima

by Alice Rosenthal

  BESS AND

  FRIMA

  Copyright © 2018 Alice Rosenthal

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

  Published 2018

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN: 978-1-63152-439-4 pbk

  ISBN: 978-1-63152-440-0 ebk

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018935992

  For information, address:

  She Writes Press

  1563 Solano Ave #546

  Berkeley, CA 94707

  She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  In memory of

  My beloved sister Barbara Almond

  and

  My dear friend Robert Wernick

  They both remembered so well.

  PRELUDE

  You might be out for a walk after a substantial meal this evening, or maybe you are crossing the street to kibitz with the card players sitting on the benches or camp chairs at the edges of the park’s greenery. There is nothing remarkable about your dress or habits. You are very likely to be Jewish if you live in this cluster of streets, and you are an immigrant or the child of immigrants. But this is no teeming ghetto, and this is not 1848. It’s 1940, and you are a US citizen, and you vote Democratic. Could be you have a framed photo of Franklin Roosevelt that you cut from a magazine on your wall, or one of his wife, Eleanor, in your kitchen. Two blue-blooded patricians as distant in background from you and yours as the tribal peoples who came to the Hudson River Valley ages before them, but with these two luminaries you feel a keen identification and affection. America has been good to you—this is a familiar bittersweet refrain in your heart—and when you look at what’s happening in Europe, you realize this little corner of the Bronx is one of the safest places on earth for you. You are proud and grateful to be an American citizen, and to look and act and dress like a typical American is an honor. No long black gabardine for you!

  So you see nothing extraordinary in the two young women, bare-legged and clad in light sleeveless dresses, idling on the stoop of an apartment house. You have seen them grow up, right here. Except you might notice yet again that the two are unusually good-looking and in contrasting ways. The slender blonde with the blue-gray eyes is Frima Eisner. That pretty, petite child grown into a lovely, graceful young woman. No wonder. Hannah Eisner, her mother, is still considered a fine-looking woman. The other, Bess Erlichman, is a repeated surprise. Who would think that gawky, dark child with the piercing eyes would become such a striking, statuesque young woman. She’s not what you would call American-shiksa pretty like Frima, but she’s as capable of turning heads as her friend. Both have very nice teeth, which still is unusual at this time and place.

  They, like you, are denizens of this patch of earth in this section of the Bronx, the northwestern corner of New York City. It is a relatively new neighborhood compared to the Lower East Side, where you first experienced and studied America. It is spacious and leafy green, and it’s easy to imagine the forests and farmlands of this hilly terrain that only recently were replaced by shopping streets and six-story apartment buildings. You can still sense the forests in the parkland that girds the neighborhood. You have read somewhere that this little corner of your universe is called Norwood, but that is the talk of realtors and city planners. No one who lives here would call it by any such name. After all, this is not the older, more settled Brooklyn, with its well-established suburban sounding districts: Brooklyn Heights, Flatbush, Sea Gate. Here you live on 228th Street or by the park or by Reservoir Oval. “Norwood? Very fancy-shmancy.” All three of you would say this, smiling not with derision, but with a certain irony that is in your genes.

  The two young women nod politely as you pass, but they waste no thoughts on you. For all the world, they seem absorbed in devouring hot dogs covered with mustard and sauerkraut, probably after seeing the two matinees at the Tuxedo Theater, just a couple of blocks away—that whole generation is crazy about movies. Bess finishes her hot dog and watches her friend with a little smile as Frima tilts her head back and tips the drippy sauerkraut and mustard into her mouth with the precision and elegance of a flame swallower. Frima gathers the greasy wrapping papers and neatly deposits them in a nearby trash can. She wipes her hands with the clean handkerchief tucked in her skirt pocket. Her lounging figure seems tranquil enough, but her expression is a bit preoccupied. She abandons the stoop to stand on the running board of a parked car, and looking skyward, she beckons Bess to join her. Your eyes follow hers, and you see the sunset over the slopes that will meet the Hudson. The darkening sky silhouettes the rows of apartment buildings that follow the curves and angles of the Bronx streets and lend the structures a mystery and beauty impossible in full daylight.

  As the light passes, the teasing capricious breeze decides to fulfill its promise, and the night turns balmy. Those still lingering outside relax into a sense of hope and comfort. Anxiety about the far-off war is in the air, but also the scent of good things. The fearful Depression is waning, and people are shaking out and dusting off hopes and dreams. You’d guess that there is nothing dusty about the dreams of the two young women, though you can only imagine what they are.

  It’s time to go home now, for you and for them. You know that Frima will be leaving for the country tomorrow to spend the summer at her family’s Catskill hotel, as she does every year. Bess, you’ve heard, will also be in the Catskills, working at a hotel in Monticello. An adventure for her, no doubt. Are they saying goodbye? They do an awkward, jerky little two-step in their effort to hug each other and not bang noses, but to you their shadowed figures are graceful—mysterious and lovely in the afterglow and as full of promise as the dawn to come.

  CHAPTER 1

  The journey from New York City to Monticello was less than a hundred miles, but Bess might as well have been moving by mule train through uncharted territory for all the dithering anxiety she felt about it. How to get there? Hannah Eisner, Frima’s mother, had offered her a ride in their hotel station wagon, but they were leaving a full week before the “season,” as they called it, and Bess’s brother, Jack, was to meet them a day or two after they arrived in the country. Bess couldn’t possibly be ready in time to travel with the Eisners or her brother, which was a good thing actually. She wasn’t going to be overshadowed by anyone.

  The train left from the wilds of New Jersey, which meant not only a long schlep on the subway but some means of crossing the Hudson—ferry or Hudson Tubes—and probably getting lost on the other shore. The Manhattan bus terminal she could find, even in a state of high anxiety, and though the trip took hours and hours with many stops, a bus stayed on solid ground, at least. Bess didn’t count bridges as hazardous.

  Once settled in a front window seat, she was joined by a slender (thank God) man at least three times her age. He spoke to her genially.

  “So, miss, you don’t mind I should sit next to you in this nice front seat? It’s true, I’m not a handsome young man, nor rich, but I don’t take up much room. Morris Ginsberg, at your service. Moe, to my friends, even the ones I am just meeting.”

  “Bess Erlichman, here. Bess, to you.” She found herself smiling as sh
e held out her hand. His familiar Yiddish-flavored English reassured her.

  “And you’re going where?”

  “Monticello. And you?”

  “Woodridge, where I live.”

  “Is that close to Monticello?”

  “Close enough.” Moe smiled. “You are going to work in the Catskills and this is your first time, am I right?”

  “You can tell? Just like that?”

  “One or two deductions only. If you were going up to the mountains as a guest, you wouldn’t be leaving so early—not until next week or later. And if you weren’t new at this, you would know that everything is near Monticello, in a way. Woodridge is not very far northeast of Monticello as the crow flies, but country roads make it seem a lot longer to reach. As the chicken flies, maybe I should say.” He chuckled at his little joke, but seeing Bess’s woebegone face, he continued gently. “Stop worrying. You’ll have a fine time, a girl like you.”

  “A girl like what? I feel like a greenhorn. I’m afraid I’ll make a fool of myself.”

  “Not possible. Only a fool can make a fool of herself. And you want to know from greenhorns? Look at me, who landed up in the mountains maybe a month after docking at Ellis Island, to join a band of immigrant Jewish farmers. Hah! What we knew about farming you could put on a postage stamp, and besides we were surrounded by gentiles who thought we were crazy or Christ-killers, or both. But that’s such a long story. Even on a bus ride this long, I couldn’t begin to tell.” With a little yawn, Moe pulled a newspaper out of a small satchel and began to unfold it. “So now, I’m going to read the newspaper a little and take a nap. Take my advice and you do the same. And stop worrying. You’ll have a fine time.”

  “Okay, I’ll let you sleep.” She felt dismissed, but she managed a smile.

  “A good-looking young lady like you, I’m happy to talk to forever,” Moe said. “However, my snoring is tolerated much better if you also are sleeping. Just ask my wife. Also, this is a long, tiring ride. If you can sleep now, you’ll be more refreshed for the new scenery and adventure. Anyway, you’ll wake up at the first rest stop.”

  “I wouldn’t want to miss that.” Aside from everything else, she had started her period last night—just what she needed!

  “You shouldn’t worry. No one could sleep through that stampede. Also, if I make too much noise, just nudge me with your elbow.”

  Too keyed up to actually sleep, Bess closed her eyes and for about the fifth time this day took inventory of her baggage and her life. The bus driver had tagged her valise and nonchalantly stowed it in some compartment outside the seating area of the bus. She had bit the inside of her lip as he did so. She hadn’t brought many clothes beyond the bare necessities. It was her lifeline she worried about—the precious drawing pads, pencils, pastels, and small palette of good watercolors. Her art supplies, meager in themselves, were still too large and cumbersome to keep with her at her seat and took up most of the room in her suitcase. Her mother had been beside herself, watching Bess pack.

  “Paints you wrap in a good dress! Are you crazy?”

  “Yes, Mama, I’m crazy, but this is the way it has to be. All right? You want me to wrap them in sanitary napkins that I have to take on the bus? Besides, it’s my suitcase and my life!”

  The usual song and dance. No one in Bess’s family, and very few in the world at large, could fathom how important her art was to her. They would smile in derision if she even said out loud, “my art.” My art and my money. Such beautiful words, such joyous concepts. That’s what she really longed for this summer. She might not have a lot of time to paint, but it almost didn’t matter, as long as there was a little time alone and her paints were with her. If she was scared or sad or belittled somehow, they were there to give her courage, to make her whole. She smiled to herself a little grimly. Who in the ordinary world would suspect this about Bess? Frima or Hannah Eisner, or her teachers and fellow students at the High School of Music and Art. No one else, surely.

  How she missed that school! It was the creation of Mayor La Guardia and was beloved of so many gifted teenagers, including Bess and Frima, who were members of its opening class. She remembered how ease began to seep into her pores each day that she and Frima descended into the depths of the subway, and by the time they had climbed to the school, she had shed her awkwardness and resentment and entered gladly into another world. Teachers and fellow students had complimented her work, even astonishing her by seeing things in her painting that she was herself unaware of. They had persuaded her that she was (or could be) a genuine artist. They encouraged her to think she was a young woman worth noticing, perhaps meant for something extraordinary.

  She’d also grown into her looks, as Hannah Eisner had predicted she would. All those meals that never seemed adequate to her needs had finally abandoned their work of producing inches of gawky height and turned to creating a bust and curves. As she saw it, her figure had finally caught up with her nose and feet. She found she was attractive to boys—even those who were shorter than she was. She was invited to parties, asked to dance. Real dates were rarely in the offing, for most of the boys she’d known didn’t have money to spend on taking a girl out. What was important was that they wanted to.

  Unfortunately, high school ended each afternoon, and as soon as she entered her family’s apartment in the evening, she was stifled by her own resentment and an aching sense of being undervalued. And then, alas, there was graduation. Listening to the commencement speeches was a torture. Commencement meant a beginning, didn’t it? A hopeful beginning of a future. But was her future to be behind the counter of Papa’s notions store on Bathgate Avenue? So dark and dank, with an aroma concocted of camphor, damp wool, oilcloth, and sweat. An aroma not so much of abject poverty as of an anxious, grim just-getting-by. And the air outside was just as bad. These were not the fresh leafy streets of the northwest Bronx. Walk outside the shop, and your nose was assailed by a rancid smell of overcooked carrots, tomatoes, onions, and congealed grease—the smell of poor people’s cooking.

  So the only answer was money, Bess concluded. Her own bank account. She would never again work in that shop to pay for her room and board in the soul-strangling atmosphere of what her family called home. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. How close she had come to another summer of indentured servitude. And this summer would have been the worst ever. If it weren’t for a lucky break, there she’d be. No question, what made the Bathgate Avenue prison completely intolerable was that Jack was spending the summer in pretty, cool Ellenville, working at Eisner’s Hotel. And of course, Frima would be there, too. The one last twist of the knife: Mrs. Eisner had also invited Bess to spend the summer up in the country.

  “I wouldn’t be able to pay you, dear, no more than I can pay Frima, but your room and board would be free, and you and Frima could work together, helping out in the office and with the kids. I think it would be fun for both of you. I could speak to your folks if you want me to.”

  “No, no, I can’t. Not this summer.” Bess was too quick to answer. And then remembering her manners, she added, “But thank you for the offer anyway. I really appreciate it.”

  Hannah Eisner, clearly surprised, had glanced at Bess curiously, but she didn’t press the issue. “Of course, the offer is open, if you want to think about it and maybe change your mind.”

  That couldn’t happen. What was there to think about except feelings that she could never express to Mrs. Eisner or Frima or Jack. A whole chopped liver of mixed emotions that made her stomach churn. A summer at a hotel in the Catskills could be the gateway to adventure and experience she would kill for, but she’d be damned if she’d have her older brother watching her like a chaperone or deflating her efforts.

  And if he ignored her? Just as bad. She’d noticed (who wouldn’t?) how often Frima and Jack stole glances at each other; and the thought of them together, her brother and her best friend, with her out in the cold, left her with feelings of jealousy and abandonment she didn’t even wan
t to know about, let alone express. For the first time, she even found herself resenting Frima’s mother, who had always comforted and encouraged Bess. Clever woman that she was, Mrs. Eisner had probably noticed Frima and Jack’s interest in each other and was encouraging a match.

  Bess, often referred to as “the mouth” at home, was unused to dissembling or fine-tuning her arguments for maximum persuasion. These were skills not highly developed in her family, where people mostly battled at top volume or sulked in glaringly obvious silence. Except for Jack. He had moved from the wailing and tears of childhood and the rages of adolescence to a persuasiveness she had to admire. It wasn’t deceitful or anything, just a kind of presentation, a way with smiles and words. He was getting quite nimble at it—Jack be nimble. Her brother knew how to wait, to seize the best time to let his will be known. She had no talent for this. So ironic. She loved books, was an avid reader of fiction and an intelligent, sensitive critic. But, she came to realize, with books she was admiring someone else’s words. For herself—for her own sense of meaning—words were not adequate. They were no way as powerful as light and line, color and texture.

  Still, she and Frima had first become friends at the local branch of the public library, and had spent so many hours there together. Reading was one of the great pleasures they shared. Was reading one of the great pleasures Frima shared with Jack? She didn’t think so. Jack read newspapers and magazines and scientific and technical books—college texts. Frima would never enjoy that stuff, and Bess was glad of that, even if she was being mean and envious in feeling this way. She had wanted to stick her head out the window and howl with chagrin that could not be expressed and would surely drive her nuts. Her only escape would be her own summer job in the country, away from them all. And goaded by her distress, she began hunting in earnest.

  It turned out to be surprisingly easy. So easy that Bess was sure her luck had changed. Lillian Feinberg, a relative of a friend, had a job in the Catskills that she didn’t need because she was getting married, and the boss was happy to get a good replacement at such short notice. The job meant a whole summer in the country, room and board free, at a fancier resort than the Eisner place. And she’d earn a hundred bucks—real money! Riches, practically. All she had to do was keep the guests happy by teaching their little darlings to paint a picture or make a clay ashtray when their parents wanted time to themselves. Really a piece of cake, according to Lillian. Why, Bess wouldn’t even have to worry about clothes. The staff wore uniforms: cute little dark green shorts, slacks, or skirts with white shirts; or alternatively, cute little white shorts, slacks, or skirts with green shirts. Usually the staff had to pay for these outfits, but Lillian offered them for free. “After all,” she said coyly, “I won’t need them. I’m sure Nathan wouldn’t want me running around Saratoga in a hotel uniform.”