Bess and Frima

by Alice Rosenthal

  There were in the few days before the guests arrived still enough spare hours for Frima to give Jack a crash course in the Catskills, as she knew it. It didn’t take him more than ten minutes to absorb all the warnings about poison ivy, sumac, mushrooms, and skunks, but the vacation world of bungalows, guest houses, hotels, and bigger resorts was a whole other planet. How could she explain that the peaceful, pastoral facades in no way mirrored the complex and fractious yet cooperative world hidden behind them? Frima herself was only really familiar with Jewish life in the Catskills, and there was much that she was ignorant of, but there was a new fascination in revealing to Jack what she did know.

  “The number of Jewish vacation places is increasing pretty fast, but there’s still a lot of prejudice around here, with its own not-so-secret language, and each brochure and advertisement makes it perfectly clear who is welcome. Menu descriptions tell you a lot, you know. Glatt kosher means a lot of beards and black clothing. Strictly kosher, kosher style, kosher, and non-kosher available. These are signals down the line from the orthodox to the totally nonobservant.”

  “And the ‘restricted’ places?”

  “They won’t be so crass as to say no Jews allowed, but they’ll usually advertise ‘Convenient to all Churches,’ if they’re serious about no Jews. Maybe some say ‘All-American Cuisine,’ or something, if they just don’t want you to act Jewish—that I don’t know.”

  “And colored? Do you see any here?”

  “Porters and red caps at the railway stations, some kitchen help, or laborers I imagine, but I haven’t seen Negroes who seem to be guests in these parts. Perhaps we’re not that advanced, or they simply can’t afford it.”

  “Well, they probably wouldn’t be comfortable where they’re not wanted, anyway.”

  Frima was not entirely happy with this response—the all too familiar refrain of the genteel biased—and just what they would be likely to say about any Jew. Didn’t he realize that? She refrained from saying anything, lest he think she was preaching at him. After all, she couldn’t expect Jack to be as liberal and enlightened as her family. Yet Bess was. How odd. She quickly moved on.

  A couple of miles down the road they came to a guest house catering to ultra-orthodox Jews, where the bearded men, bewigged wives, and kids dressed like tiny grownups seemed more alien to both of them than the Italian Catholics on Villa Avenue in the Bronx. In a nearby village there was a summer colony of socialists where it was rumored that free love was practiced openly. Jack seemed particularly interested in this.

  “You’re not going to see anyone making love on the lawn, you know.”

  “Well, is there a nudist colony close by, at least?”

  “I wouldn’t be the least surprised if there was one somewhere. Of course, not every place has a special bent, but for the smaller places, it’s an asset if they can attract guests who will be comfortable with each other. I guess when you want to develop a big resort, you have to accommodate a whole lot of different people to stay full and in business. For any hotel, if you can’t fill every room you have, you are in big trouble.”

  “And Eisner’s? What kind of people come here?”

  “Why, those who want the matchless experience of a family farm vacation, of course.”

  “Very funny. Now, tell me, really. Don’t you think I need to know?”

  “Okay, okay. The farm remains a farm because Grandpa is still a farmer and owns the land, and it’s also a memorial to my father who loved the old place. Also my mother knows that I love the farm, so it is still here. Beyond that, the hotel is my mother’s vision and energy, and she is urban to the core—sophisticated, intelligent, confident of her taste, but not snobbish or exclusive. She will be the first to tell you that you have to have more money than brains to be exclusive.”

  “I’ve always thought she was a looker and a charmer—like her daughter,” he said winningly, “but you make her sound downright intimidating.”

  “Strong-minded is what I’d call her. And, like all of us, sometimes opinionated.”

  “So her opinions determine your guest list? All your guests are sophisticated and liberal, with taste and intellectual curiosity? How does she find them? And how will I be able to talk to these people? I’m feeling a little out of my class.” His smile softened his words.

  “Well, that’s just silly. Our guests are really nice people and not in the least snobbish or demanding. I mean, if they are sunning themselves on the porch, and they want some extra ice for their drinks, they are generally happy to get it themselves from an ice box that Mama keeps in the side yard rather than have you serve them. I’d say that compared to the larger hotels, our guests are a breeze. You’re not so much at their beck and call.”

  “Terrific. Means I have more time to be at your beck and call.”

  Frima was not all that comfortable with this open flirtation and continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “And they are appreciative of our efforts.”

  “Meaning they are good tippers?”

  “They are. But Eisner’s is a comparatively small place, after all, so you can’t expect as much in tips as at the bigger resorts.”

  “So, tell me. How does your mother find these select guests?”

  “Oh, family, friends, word of mouth, ads in the right small journals and weeklies, you know.”

  “Actually I don’t, but tell me more.”

  “Well, Eisner’s is not strictly kosher, so you won’t see people who are really observant. Most guests are Jewish, but more secular, and there are some who have married non-Jews. It’s not a big deal here. Many of the folks who come up here are in what Mama likes to call the ‘lower-paying professions,’ men and women who work all week and have pretty steady, if moderate, incomes. You know, teachers, nurses, and other civil servants, a few low-fee lawyers and family doctors, accountants, librarians. Mostly they want to spend time on vacation with their kids, because they don’t have that much time with them during the work week. That’s why we call Eisner’s a family farm. We don’t regularly have a separate mealtime for the kids, and we don’t have a real day camp like some of the other hotels, though we help plan activities for them. I’m a part-time counselor when I’m not doing ten other jobs. You’ll probably get recruited too. Now what else can I tell you? Our guests are mostly first- or second-generation Jewish immigrants, well-educated, even if some are self-educated. They like to read, listen to music, keep up with the arts, science, and politics. They are liberal and Americanized, but for some, I think, cultural life in the United States is a bit of a come down from their past. Of course, this is just my personal impression.”

  “Isn’t it usually the other way around? America is the land of opportunity and all that?”

  “During the Depression?” She smiled a little ironically as she said this, then immediately backed off, not wanting to appear a smart aleck. “Still, I think you’re right, really, if you think of this country as an opportunity to escape from oppression and change yourself or your vision of life.”

  “And do you have a vision of life?” His smile was intimate, as if he really cared to know things about her that others couldn’t.

  “Not yet,” she said, suddenly shy again.

  In truth she was afraid of saying too much, doing too much, for she enjoyed these pre-season hours no end. Jack would take her hand while they walked or put an arm lightly over her shoulder or around her waist. She loved the nearness, the body contact. How different he was from some of the boys of her teen years who initiated physical contact with so much anxious over-planning and discomfort that she would spring away from their touch as if it came from a hot stove. She was elated when she had the opportunity to accidentally lean against Jack, take his arm when he helped her out of the car or over some brush or stones. The first time he kissed her, it seemed the most natural thing in the world. Except, she thought silently, was it natural to be so stirred by it? Oh, she was ready to fall in love. Slow down, Frima, she cautioned herself, totally without convictio
n. There’s a whole summer ahead of you.

  CHAPTER 5

  It was turning out that everyday life at the fancy-schmancy Alpine Song was really quite nice. Good food, fresh air, pretty country, her new friend, Muriel. Bess found that guests liked her because she was young and friendly and funny, and she was starting to collect tips. Not a fortune, but very gratifying, even more so because she didn’t feel overworked. She was just pleasantly ready for sleep at bedtime. So unlike the weariness she felt working at Papa’s store. Since, as Max had predicted, no one seemed interested in making ashtrays or pictures, she had a few free hours to paint and pursue her own path as she was doing now.

  She had abandoned the pretty woodland that had first attracted her—too many biting creatures—for this sunlit meadow full of wild-flowers and Queen Anne’s lace. The sun was kind to her dark complexion, and it was so beautifully quiet here, except for the sound of one of Max’s dogs licking his paw. The pooch had felt it necessary to accompany her here. She didn’t mind his company. She liked dogs, even though the heat made this one’s doggy scent very evident. At least he didn’t look over her shoulder and make comments. She put her sketch pad down to stretch her shoulders. She would be due back at the hotel office in about half an hour. Just a few more minutes with her face toward the sun and she would go. She leaned back to fondle the petal-soft flap of the dog’s ear and looked at him attentively. She didn’t know what breed he was. Probably a mutt, but he looked to her like the essence of dog, rather like the one she had first created on paper when she was in grade school—her first artistic triumph and her first heartache.

  Her teacher had announced that there was to be an art contest—not just for her own fourth grade, but for the whole school and many other schools in the Bronx. The contest was sponsored by the Dime Savings Bank. The best picture for each school was to be exhibited on the walls of the bank with the artist’s name and school printed under it. Furthermore, each winner would receive a prize: a personal savings account with a bank book in the child’s own name showing five dollars already deposited in the account. A veritable fortune in the Depression! There was tremendous excitement in the classroom. Virtually everyone was a contestant. Of course, Bess would try out—any excuse to create a picture. The rule was this had to be a picture of something you wanted more than anything else. Now here was a difficulty for the innately honest Bessie. The things she wanted most she couldn’t articulate, let alone put on paper. After some ethical struggle with herself, she decided to create a dog—because after all she really would love to have a dog—even if it weren’t the most important thing in the world. So much for originality. At least half the children in the class had chosen a dog. But here the resemblance ended. It turned out that some of these dogs were so elegant and beribboned, so sophisticated that Bess had the ungenerous notion that they were not painted by her schoolmates. The same was true for the next most popular category, a baby sister or brother. Some of the pictures were painted in oil colors! Bess’s work was only in what she liked to think of as pastels (colored chalk, actually), for that was all she had. Her dog took up the entire paper with nothing more than a leash and a girl’s leg in a white sock and a black Mary Jane shoe to suggest herself as the owner. She had considered this composition seriously. Certainly it was easier to just create a dog and not have to worry about the colors or drawing skill she would need for an entire girl. Besides the dog was the wish—she was just the wisher.

  When she came to submit her picture, she almost backed out, so formidable did the other more elaborate creations seem. But she didn’t back out and—guess what?—she won. Looking back at that wonderful moment, Bess smiled ironically. There was a lesson there somewhere. At first she had been dazed by the adulation of the other kids in her class, the beams of her teacher, and the wintry smile of the school principal, a formidable woman whom Bess usually feared and avoided. But still the sense of victory had been so sweet that she was afraid the triumph would show on her face. Then everyone would hate her for sure.

  She needn’t have worried. The triumph disappeared, and the heartache came soon enough. “Home is where the heartache is,” she quipped to her doggy companion, whose only response was to try to lick her face. But at nine years old, there was nothing funny about the deflation and anger that overwhelmed her by the time she went to bed that night. At first, it had been okay. Jack had tousled her hair and departed with a casual “Good for you, kid” before escaping to the street to join his friends, who were far more important. Papa had been Papa. “For that picture she was scribbling they pay her five dollars? Go figure!”

  Mama, the first one she told before the others had come home, was different. She had hugged Bess. “My Bessie, I’m so proud of you.” There were tears in her eyes when she said this, and that had made Bess cry too. She didn’t mind that kind of crying. It was later when she was alone in her bed that the tears were bitter. For she had learned that Mama couldn’t really fight for her.

  The little artists were to be feted a couple of Fridays hence at the local Dime branch, where the winning pictures would be on display for a month. The honored winners invited to the party were to be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian in order to be able to open their individual savings accounts. Simple enough, Bess thought, but in her family it was out of the question. Papa would never consider leaving the store on such an errand and absolutely refused to allow Mama to accompany Bess. On a Friday before Shabbos, the busiest time on Bathgate Avenue? She should leave the store? Never! Bess could go by herself. She and Mama could open the savings account another time. Mama stopped arguing and retreated into one of her frozen aggrieved silences. Still, she did enlist Jack to write a letter in his fine penmanship to the branch manager, explaining the situation, and Bess did eventually receive her bankbook. As if she cared about that at the time. The real issue was her shame at not having a proud beaming adult to accompany her to the celebration. But the bankbook did matter, it turned out. It was the beginning of some vague, fuzzy hope and ambition. And she thought with tenderness now of the times through the years that her mother had passed her a crumpled dollar with a whispered, “Here, Bessie, buy for yourself an ice cream cone or a Hershey Bar, and the change you put into that bank account—just for you!”

  As she started to walk back to the hotel, she stopped suddenly with a thought that had honest-to-God never occurred to her before. Why didn’t they get Jack—he’d already had his bar mitzvah at that time and was thus a man—why didn’t they get him to help Papa at the store for one stinking Friday afternoon after school and let Mama go to the bank with her? “Oh, give it a rest,” she said out loud. “He is their bright-eyed boy and always will be. But I’m the one with the savings account.” Her faithful companion, tongue lolling, trotted at her heels. “And I even have the dog!”

  Back at the cabin, she hopped into the shower for a quick cool rinse, and shivering with pleasure, looked down at her long legs and elegant smooth tan. No more poison ivy blisters—it was time to show off these gams. The white shorts she put on fit snuggly but respectably over her rear end and flared just slightly where they ended at mid-thigh, as if they had been tailored just for her. Thank you, Hannah Eisner! With a fresh green shirt tucked into the waistband and a couple of buttons opened at the neck, she knew she would draw admiring glances because, let’s face it, she looked fetching. Not easy, just fetching, and she suddenly loved who she was—Bethesda. This was the secret name of her heart and soul. As of now, the only one who knew it was Frima, and she was sworn to secrecy until Bess was ready to reveal it to the world and make it legal. Would the time come this summer?

  Bess loved the movies and had longed for the screen-image fun and romance—the happy ending. But in her one attempt to experience this here in the country, she had barely escaped with her clothes. There he was, a guest at the hotel: your average bouncy, boyishly handsome, suntanned, athletic college boy, born Bruce Stein, but secretly referred to as Alphie Pie by Bess and Muriel because of his habit of boa
sting to anyone who would listen about his fraternity at NYU: “The oldest Jewish frat house in the world.” That was all there was to say about him, except that he had the brains of a potted plant. A cactus, she and Muriel concluded, since he turned very prickly if his vanity was hurt. As clearly it had been when Bess whacked him with her flashlight to prevent him crawling all over her and ripping her one good dress. Naturally she had talked over this adventure with Muriel.

  “My first and probably only experience with an alrightnik, and it practically ends in disaster.”

  “He certainly is that,” Muriel yawned. “Probably more dimwitted than most.”

  An alrightnik. Would Bruce even understand the term? Bess doubted it. And he’d never get its particular mixture of envy and grudging admiration, often salted with contempt. A struggling immigrant Jew, like Bess’s mother or Muriel’s, who mixed English and Yiddish in their everyday speech, might label a richer Jew as an alrightnik. The rich one would never think of himself as that. No more than he would see himself as a social climber or a gatecrasher. Why did it make any difference? “Why is old money always superior to new money, anyway?” She didn’t realize she had asked this out loud.

  “It isn’t,” Muriel answered. “Old and new money—it’s all gained from the sweat of the working class.”

  Bess judged this exactly the right time to fall asleep.

  And then along came the big catch. His advent was anticipated with much excitement by the staff, for he had stayed at the Alpine several times before. He was known as a good tipper, an avid and highly skilled card player, and a lady’s man. Still in his mid-twenties, he had graduated from an Ivy League law school and currently was a clerk for a federal judge in New York City. A law clerk, Bess was made to understand, was no mere office worker. It was a very prestigious position, and this man was destined to go far. And Bess, as soon as she had laid eyes on him, knew what the fuss was about. This was truly a splendid specimen of young manhood, inches taller than Bess, in itself an excellent attribute, with blue eyes and ashy blond hair that looked gray in certain lights. Very sophisticated. He had a vague resemblance to some regular in Hollywood detective movies who played a sophisticated nogoodnik. Bess could never remember his name. The good catch’s name she was unlikely ever to forget.