“Pearl—what? Where?”
“I don’t know—somewhere in the Pacific. We have a fleet there, or something.”
CHAPTER 19
Frima sat at the window, eagerly awaiting Beth’s appearance. Just how eager she was for her company made her feel a little pathetic. If Beth were with her, taking Lena to the park for her daily outing would not be the lonely and boring experience it had become. Not quite the vision she’d conjured up during pregnancy: Jack and she and the baby makes three, parading around and modestly smiling at the coos of admiration for their picture-perfect little family. She hadn’t anticipated the feelings of isolation and boredom. There were other young mothers in the park, of course, but Frima didn’t want to talk about babies and children. She could do that at home, thank you very much. So here she was not two months after Pearl Harbor, and her life in this corner of the world had not changed.
Well, yes, there was relief, of course. Relief from the first panic that Jack would be called up. He had registered with the draft this past summer, as had all men over twenty-one, and God knows he was able in mind and body—even high-minded and patriotic—but evidently the draft board wasn’t calling up fathers of young children. Not yet, anyway, and besides there was serious talk of his being stationed as a technician at the Bronx VA when he graduated in June. So she had reason to hope he would be in the army without the threat of bullets and bombs (just the havoc of their aftermath). Evidently he had impressed one of his chemistry professors who had influence. So, what else is new? She thought of her husband’s talents with pride and a little fortifying irony mixed in. If he weren’t Jewish and could shed the Bronx accent, Jack could be elected president. Certainly mayor—look at Fiorello La Guardia. She thought with affection of the rotund, clever “Little Flower,” who had some Jewish roots as well as Italian, and could charm his way out of a prison, speaking Yiddish, if necessary. And Jack had the added advantage of good looks. Luckily, her husband’s ambitions ran toward science. Well, if he was awarded with this safe VA position, Mama would have to do without him. She’d have to rely on Leon and on her daughter. This was actually a pleasing prospect, spending the summer in the country with the baby. Frima was never bored there, and Jack would surely get some days off. But there were these months to get through. Ah! And here was her colorful sister-in-law to help her.
Beth stood at the door, her cheeks becomingly rosy from the cold, oozing vitality. Hugging Frima, she swiveled her head around. “Jack here?”
“Off to the library.”
“My mother?”
“Playing cards with the ladies—you’re safe.” Frima grinned.
“And the papoose?”
“Fat and happy and waiting for you to admire her.”
Beth leaned over the crib to gaze at her little niece who was cooing to herself. “Do you know, Lena, that I’m you’re Aunt Beth, you beautiful creature? Isn’t that remarkable?”
The baby peered at her calmly, a little speculatively.
“You’re wondering, who is this one and what’s in it for me?” Beth said softly. The two women laughed and the infant responded with a toothless grin.
“Can I pick her up?”
“Sure.”
Lena, fixated on Beth’s dangling earrings, which were just out of her reach, seemed content in Beth’s arms, so she held her until they arrived at the front door of the building. Beth laid the baby in the carriage to be bundled against the cold, while Lena wailed at being put down.
“You know, in the Soviet Union they swaddle infants. It makes them feel secure, or something,” Beth commented.
“Tell me you’re not recommending this. What do they do when they have a diaper full? Unroll them?” Frima giggled at the image. “And how did you get to be such an expert on Russian baby-rearing?”
“Not me. Vinny. He’s interested in all things Soviet these days. Besides he really loves children.” A big sigh followed.
“And you don’t. Is that what you’re saying?”
“I like them. This one I could love, but she’s not mine. That’s the crucial thing. I don’t want—I can’t imagine—having any of my own. I know Vinny wants marriage, children, the whole shooting match, but I’m too selfish. Or infantile, I guess.”
“Sometimes, Bethie, it’s hard for me to believe that you learned what you know about sex and babies sitting at the knee of Judith Ginsberg, God bless her. I wonder what she’d say to you.”
“I don’t know,” Beth responded in a barely audible voice.
Frima, seeing her close to tears, changed her tone. “Come on, let’s walk a little further, where we can talk, or have a good cry, maybe. That’s always helpful.” She put her arm around Beth and guided her to a park bench somewhat isolated from the others. After a silence of some moments, Frima began to talk slowly, tentatively.
“You know—of course you do—that Lena was an accident? It seems ridiculous to say that now, for how could this miraculous creation be any such thing? But, of course, we should have been more careful. It would have been wiser to wait a few years. The thing is, though, Lena wasn’t a mistake. And that’s crucial. I always assumed I’d have children. I never really thought about not having children, and from what I could see, Jack was good with them. I loved to see him interact with the kids at the hotel. It seemed such a happy sign for the future. The sadness, the tragedy, is having a child when you don’t want one or can’t care for it—that’s what Judith would tell you, I’m certain of that. She would fix her eyes on you. You, the essential one. You shouldn’t have children because your husband or boyfriend or king or church wants you to, or because you can’t help it. I’m sure half the children in the world are born into those circumstances, unfortunately. But mothering is too important to be left to chance.”
“Wow! I’m really impressed. You could write a treatise.”
“I’ve had a lot of time in the last year to think about all of this.”
“Well, anyway, I feel better talking to you. I think Lena is pretty lucky to have such a good mother.”
“Hah! That’s what you think! What’s true is I was lucky to have such a good mother.”
Beth stood up, restless. “This bench is cold. Can we walk a little?”
They pushed the carriage up one of the cobblestoned paths.
“Vinny signed up with the Merchant Marines,” Beth said quietly.
“Really? But why? He does such important work here, doesn’t he?”
“He feels that he has to get into this war, and he doesn’t want to wait until he’s drafted. He grew up on the docks of San Francisco, and he has so many buddies in the Maritime Union. It makes sense for him to be on a ship. Besides the Merchant Marines are integrated racially—the regular military forces aren’t, you know—and that’s a very important issue to Vinny.” Beth interrupted herself with a big sigh. “Vinny is a very principled guy.”
“A little trouble in paradise?” Frima asked gently.
“More like we’re not in it anymore, but we’re still together. We still love each other, but I guess I just don’t think of him so much as my teacher these days. I don’t really mind Vinny’s positions or the theoretical basis for them—I’ve even gotten to like old Harry Bridges, his hero, though I’ve never met the guy. And I really want most of the things Vinny wants. It’s just that I’m more naturally irreverent than he is, though he’s the big-time radical. You know, he was brought up as a Catholic, of course, and though he has rejected his religion, there’s a certain kind of . . . I don’t know . . . need for rules. Thing is, he’s so good-natured you wouldn’t really notice it.”
“Maybe it’s that opposites attract? You’re the spontaneous, impulsive one. That’s the first thing that attracted him, wasn’t it?”
“My God, you’re all perceptions today, aren’t you? You’re right.” Beth hesitated a few moments. “There’s one thing that really bothers me, though. And I’m only telling you because you’re the one person I know who would understand.”
�
�Bethie, there’s no one here. You don’t have to whisper.”
“He doesn’t approve of my work—my personal painting—the creative stuff. He doesn’t understand it, and he thinks that everyone should be able to see the message in art.”
“What has he said about it?”
“Nothing, really. Just an expression, a click of the tongue. Maybe a question like, ‘Will anyone understand what you’re saying?’”
“You know, Beth, I don’t always understand your work either,” Frima said carefully. “But I like it.”
“Okay, so you can’t always articulate what it’s about, but you don’t disapprove. That’s a big difference. Vinny tries to hide his disapproval, but it is there.”
“If it’s any comfort to you, Jack doesn’t particularly like classical music. He doesn’t understand what it means to me.”
“But he approves of it, doesn’t he?”
“I guess so, I don’t really know. Funny, both of us loving and attached to men who don’t understand a big part of us.”
“Not so funny, I’m afraid.” Beth’s voice quavered. “You know, I switched my work hours so I could be away from Vinny more. So I could be alone, to paint for myself, while he was out working. And now he’s joined the Merchant Marines. I feel terrible. I don’t want him to go. He’ll be away from me so much. And those ships are so dangerous—they can be torpedoed just like the Navy ones. I’m afraid maybe he enlisted to get away from me, or because he knew I wanted to be away from him sometimes. Because time alone, free time, is like a breath of fresh air. I feel so ungrateful. Like a selfish child who takes and takes and doesn’t care enough, and really wants him only for bed and breakfast. I swear, sometimes I think I’m a disloyal worm.”
Frima put the brake on the carriage and put her arm around her friend. “Bethie, please. You’re no such thing! Will you please be a little easier on yourself? It seems to me perfectly natural to feel the way you do. I’m afraid conflict, mixed feelings are part of the whole relationship deal.”
“Have you ever felt anything like this about Jack?”
“Well, I’ve been pretty angry with him sometimes, but nothing lasting. Maybe because the baby makes him super important to me. Not to say that I won’t feel like putting a pillow over his face sometime or other. I mean, what you’re describing doesn’t shock me in the least. It seems inevitable when you’re living together.”
After a few minutes of quiet, Beth was calmer. She could turn to Frima and ask with genuine interest, “So tell me, how are things with the new father? He was so eager to go out and fight. What now?”
“Well, he’s crazy about Lena, which is great to see. He caught her very first smile. He thinks it was meant entirely for him, silly man. And as for the rest of the world, he knows the war can wait for him. He’s likely to enter the army as a medic or lab technician right here at the Bronx VA, did I tell you? With any luck that’s where he’ll be stationed, and Jack seems to be a lucky guy. To tell you the truth, I don’t think it’s so important to him to personally fight the Japs. Nazis, that’s another story. But we’re not there yet, and when we are, well, we’ll see. And don’t ask me how I feel about that. I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“Men! Can’t live with them, can’t live without them,” Beth said airily, her spirits beginning to lift.
Frima suddenly gave a cackle of laughter. “You remember those fairy tales where the prince charming turns into a swan at midnight and flies away until the next night of love? Wouldn’t it be great to have a prince charming who stays beautiful and energetic until about one a.m. and then turns into a nice hot, crisp potato kugel?”
“Or a pizza!” Beth sputtered, and they simply fell over each other in stitches at their own wit.
CHAPTER 20
January 1943
A year later, the country was at war on all fronts, yet Beth felt more at peace with herself than at any time in recent memory. It was only a little heartburn from the celebration of the New Year that had kept her awake in the wee hours to usher in 1943 with a fizzy Alka-Seltzer. She gazed down at Vinny, who was snoring gently beside her. He was about halfway through a two-week leave, and he would be shipping out as soon as it was over. His body, lean and battle-ready from shipboard rations and active duty, at this moment radiated only comfort and satiation with good Italian food, wine, and love. She smiled at his peaceful expression. Here it was way after midnight, and she had no wish for him to turn into a pizza.
So what had changed? Were the personal conflicts and differences gone? Not really, she knew that. They were just pushed aside. But if their problems were eased by their forced separations, so be it. It made their time together precious. And if they were living in the moment, the moment felt good. Besides, wasn’t everybody? Everyone talked about fighting for the future, but the now was also precious—at least right here in New York. What had changed? The war had changed. There wasn’t any happy news coming from Europe or the Pacific, but the conflict, itself, was truly popular. It was patriotic to support the war, fight the good fight, even root for the Russians, for God’s sake. Here she was, Beth Erlichman, riding lightly atop the mainstream, the majority, in her external life at least, and that was a big part of her existence. For once she didn’t see herself as bucking a crowd that was all going the other way. She wasn’t fighting for breath or a voice. For the bastards were now silenced or at least forced out of the limelight. Okay, maybe it was still us against them, but there were so many of us. She and Vinny could go to a double feature and see Hollywood working-class heroes with working-class accents, brave and free Jews, beautiful peasant girls singing in the fields, even a few Negroes in dignified roles. It was the rich, high-falutin’ ladies and gentlemen with that hoity-toity accent of mysterious origin that you laughed at now; not the low comic gangsters or knuckleheads with the coached Brooklyn (sort of) voices.
Then there was this music, completely unknown to Beth just a few years ago. All this singing. Was there ever a movement so shaped and directed by song as the leftwing labor movement right here in New York? Maybe in churches, she guessed, though she knew practically nothing about those mysteries. But the radical movement she had jumped into while tagging after Vinny was steeped in song—special song that the more conventional population knew nothing about. If you knew all the lyrics of “This Land is Your Land” or “There Once Was a Union Maid,” that was a sure sign, a secret handshake signaling your views. It was all called folk singing, and the instruments of choice were guitars, banjos, mandolins, harmonicas. The more you sounded like you were born in Appalachia or the Mississippi Delta, the better. Musicians borrowed freely from church hymns, mountain music, work songs, blues, and cowboy songs. Anything tuneful and easy for ordinary people to sing was fine. Almost all the lyrics were in plain folksy English, except the songs that came out of the struggle for the Spanish Republic; these were always treated respectfully, almost reverently. It wasn’t only the Depression, but the Spanish Republican cause, Vinny had informed her, that had pushed so many students and intellectuals to the left. All of this song was called people’s music. She had been surprised when Frima had examined a couple of sheet music pages Beth had shown her and identified themes from Bach and Beethoven, that had been simplified and made easier to sing. The only music that was never heard, except maybe to spoof it, was American pop—the for-profit stuff. Beth was a little sorry about that. She liked Frank Sinatra singing anything.
She and Vinny had just hours ago returned from a fundraising concert for Russian war relief, so her head was full of songs, or lyrics, anyway. The Almanac Singers were featured—no surprise there—and as usual, the audience was encouraged to join in the choruses. Vinny loved this group, and he had a pleasing baritone voice, himself. Beth had the lung volume but a very tin ear. He always urged her to sing on these occasions, because it broke him up to hear her veer way off pitch in another direction. It was funny, kind of, she had to admit.
For the concerts this year, at least, she could be comfortable
with every word sung. Last night, the most popular song by far was Woody Guthrie’s “Sinking of the Reuben James,” about the first American convoy ship sunk by Nazi U-boats.
And now our mighty battleships will steam the bounding main And remember the name of that good Reuben James.
Tell me, what were their names, tell me what were their names? Did you have a friend on the good Reuben James?
Beth had heard this so often, she knew the words by heart. Some difference from the song none of the Almanacs sang anymore—not since the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union. What an about face!
Oh, Franklin Roosevelt told the people how he felt.
We damn near believed what he said.
He said “I hate war and so does Eleanor.
But we won’t be safe ’till everybody’s dead.”
Beth would never sing this. She wouldn’t dream of not admiring the Roosevelts. Where she came from, that was like saying a Hershey Bar would poison you. She knew that Vinny had been uncomfortable with isolationism, but even more so about any leftwing split, and he’d padded around the apartment in his socks muttering about unity, which wasn’t much of a big fat help to Beth. The thing she realized more and more was that Vinny had no real irony in his views of a social order. Oh, he had a sense of humor, no question about that. He could be witty and penetrating about people, but about his politics he was earnest. Beth, ironic to the bone, had learned to quietly store her dry contradicting comments in that private cabinet in her mind, including the biggest irony of all: that happy unity on the left—the United Front, as Vinny spoke of it—came only at the cost of this devastating Nazi invasion of Russia, with its staggering death toll.
Well, seize the day, she said to herself. The sigh that accompanied this soon became a grin, as she thought of tomorrow morning. She sang softly to herself,
Old Paint, Old Paint, a prouder horse there ain’t,
Cause my Old Paint is a horse with a union label!
Bess and Frima Page 18
