Bess and Frima

by Alice Rosenthal

  “You and Beth—you cried and hugged each other, as if you have this private comprehension, and I don’t. And, after all, it’s supposed to be a portrait of me!”

  “And you don’t like it?” Mama’s tone had become calm and almost conversational, and Frima suspected this was deliberate, like a doctor or a schoolteacher dealing with an agitated pupil.

  “I don’t know.”

  “And Jack? What does he say?”

  “Now, come on! You know Jack wouldn’t like it. He would want a conventional portrait of his little peaches-and-cream blond—the closest he can come to Abie’s Irish Rose and still stay an MOT.” She surprised herself, saying this.

  “And the kids?”

  “They think the colors are pretty—oh, what does it matter?”

  “You’re right. It doesn’t really. Reactions to a work of art are very individual. And, much as I’d like it to be otherwise, people are entitled to their opinions. But, naturally, I’m very interested in yours.”

  “I told you. I don’t understand it. I don’t have an opinion.”

  “I don’t believe that for a minute, Frima. If you have no opinion it’s because you will not take the blinders off and really see. And for that, I do blame your husband.”

  “How can you say that? You make him out to be a monster!”

  “Not at all. What ails him is too common to be monstrous. And it isn’t all he is, by any means. But this I will say. His problem has little if anything to do with his war experiences, terrible as they were for him. He suffers from a selfishness that makes him the center of his world and those around him satellites. In this way, I’m afraid, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

  “Meaning he’s like Sam? Well, what about Beth? She’s Sam’s daughter, don’t forget.”

  “Very true, but Beth wasn’t any kind of apple in her family. More like a changeling, bound to disappoint them.”

  “And me? What about me? What kind of apple am I—if any!”

  “You are, and always will be, the apple of my eye. Now, why are you so angry? Have I said anything you haven’t seen yourself? And, again, that’s not all your husband is. You know his fine qualities as well as I do.”

  Frima was shaking with rage at her mother. “When I feel I need a psychiatrist, I’ll go to a real one. After all, now I have that money to pay for it. I don’t need you to analyze me or my marriage!” She almost knocked over her chair in her haste to get out of there.

  “Frima, please—don’t leave like this!” Mama sighed, her eyes filling with tears as her daughter ran out of the office.

  They cried and hugged and made up by the next day, but it wasn’t over and they both knew it. Never before had Frima been eager to leave Ellenville to go home to the city, even as she knew she would never be at the farm again. At home, away from the open conflicts of this place, away from Mama, she and Jack could be happy. She was relieved to see Mama and Leon off at the dock where they set sail for a long European tour. As she wished them bon voyage, she wondered if she would ever again experience the ease and intimacy she and Mama had shared.

  She would not. And she was to know this soon enough. Not two months later, she received the telegram. Mama and Leon had been driving the steep hills of Tuscany late at night. Perhaps they had been sleepy. They had both been killed instantly, it was thought, as the car crashed and tumbled them out of their world.

  Everyone was kind, of course. Neighbors visited and made meals while Frima and Jack sat shiva. Jack was at his best. He took charge of the funeral and burial arrangements, complicated by there being “two departed loved ones,” as the funeral directors put it. He was careful of her; physically tender, and protective of her comfort, good with their girls. He and Beth even declared a kind of truce for Frima’s sake.

  And Frima? Most of the time during those weeks, she went on with the routines of her life: filling lunch boxes, doing laundry, reading, listening to the radio, as if nothing had happened. Then, perchance, she might think to herself, I have to tell Mama what Rosalie said this morning; and then she’d remember that she couldn’t because there was no Mama. Those times when disbelief and denial suddenly lifted were terrible, and mercifully short. For then with certainty she knew she was an orphan. Papa, Grandpa, and now Mama, all three gone without warning. The only ones in the world who could give her a sturdy unconditional love were gone, and she had never had the chance with any of them to say goodbye, or I’m sorry, or I love you. Those times, she knew that she had only her husband and children. Would they go suddenly as well? She could not let that happen. She had to shelter them, take care of them—in a sense make do with them.

  There was Beth, of course, always more sister than sister-in-law. Dear Bethie! She was deeply grateful for her support and love, but it was difficult to have her around sometimes. It was not lost on either of them that Beth, who could well do without both of her parents, was still burdened with the two of them, while Frima’s, much beloved, were gone.

  “Think how lucky you were to have the family you did. They will always be with you. The only way I could envision anything remotely resembling that kind of love was having a dog.” Beth said this without irony.

  This was true, but not very helpful. And then there was all her urging for Frima to “get involved.” Beth loved to throw herself into progressive causes, even as she chafed at doctrines and restraints. She loved chanting her head off and picketing for the social good. It was an antidote to the intensity and privacy of her painting. Whether it was ban the bomb, do away with blacklists, or defeat McCarthy, Beth was for it, heart and soul, and she could come home to the safety of the tolerant Eduardo and be secure and economically protected—no livelihood to lose. Frima wanted nothing of politics or causes, and Beth was like a gnat buzzing around her head about this. For Frima, gently brushing her away, her answer was always “later.” At some time, but not now.

  “Hannah Eisner was a light in the darkness.” Beth had said this at the funeral, and she had never spoken truer words. For Frima, as the months after her death passed, it was as if a window to that light gradually closed in herself. She was living in a muffled, not unpleasant grayness. Perhaps beige was the better description. She remembered ironic social advice from somewhere: “Smile and wear beige.” Mama would never follow that advice, but Frima was comfortable doing just that. With two children, she had enough things to do to fill the days. She had the comfort of her husband in the dark. Maybe she’d crave something more some day, but for now, a nice safe beige was all she wanted.

  In just this frame of mind she opened her mailbox at the usual time and found a surprise: a letter from Moe Ginsberg.

  January 1951

  My dear Frima,

  I hope you are well and happily engaged in your life back in New York. Maybe you think this is a stodgy way for old Moe, the joker, to begin a letter to a young lady who is also an old friend, but I don’t know how to do otherwise at this time, understanding, as I do, the loss you suffer.

  The loss of Hannah, your mama, the loss of Judith, my wife; different but the same. They were beacons of courage, energy, love—both of them. And both snatched away from us without warning. I can only say to you, Frimaleh, your mama was worthy of your grief and your enduring and loving memory, as was Judith to me. But as your mama, herself, would say: not every hour and not all the time. In that way those gone can be a comfort and a courage in your heart. This is exactly what Hannah did write to me last summer, when Judith’s assassin had been discovered, after those many years.

  It was good advice, and so I’m taking it. I’m actually getting married again. This is maybe more an issue of Social Security than romance, but that’s also as it should be at my age. Rachel, my intended, is an intelligent lively companion, and we prop each other up, you could say. She is a handsome Jewish widow, a good cook, also good politics, and a sense of humor. But, between you and me, these California Jews are different from us. Rachel was actually born near Los Angeles, and she doesn’t even know
from Ellis Island. Also up here in Santa Rosa, which is in a county north of San Francisco, they wouldn’t recognize a good bagel or a bialy if they tripped over one. Their chopped liver isn’t anything to write home about, either, if you ask me, but I admit to prejudice. But guess what? They know all about egg farming. Rachel is actually the widow of an egg farmer.

  Just south of where I live, a bunch of Jews moved here a few decades ago to become farmers, like your Grandpa Jake and I did in the Catskills. They came to this country from the same shtetls and Eastern Europeans cities, escaping pogroms and persecution and soul-killing poverty in crowded tenements, with the same dreams we in the Catskills had, but also different. They tried to build a utopian collective of Jewish egg farmers—Stalinist yet—in sunny California. I can well understand how California beckons, especially this coastal area. It’s so beautiful. But chickens? Why do so many Americans, Jew or gentile, think that chickens will make their fortune? That these birds will allow them to live a pastoral dream of a modest, yet prosperous family farm? They could have asked me or Jake—or your Mama, for that matter. A small family farm is a struggle, always. Did you ever read The Egg and I? Believe me, if you happen to have a prosperous, picture book, family farm, it started out that way, probably with settled money. “Farming, that’s the fashion, farming,” like Danny Kaye sings about. No mortgages, and other people to do the shoveling. And a socialist collective based on chickens? There is absolutely nothing cooperative or utopian about a chicken, Stalinist or Trotskyist.

  Okay, so I’m joking again, but that’s just my way. I’m not making fun of them. I think it was an admirable attempt, even if it could not be sustained for long. Also it is very nice for me to have some of these left-wing Jews around, when I feel the need for a good argument or discussion, or a chess game. In my mind, I’m always contrasting the fate of the Catskill Jewish communities to this one in Petaluma, but I don’t talk about it much, because when I do, I can be very boring. But you, I hope, I can bore a little. You’ll understand.

  We were socialists, many of us, back in New York, and we all saw the need for cooperatives and collective action, but we also had entrepreneurs, like Leon or Max, or Jenny Grossinger. And such a different future we made compared to our landtsmen out here. The Catskill Jews, they started boardinghouse farms and hotels to eke out a living on plots not particularly good for farming, but very attractive to a whole lot of sweatshop Jews and crowded apartment dwellers in New York City and Newark, who were not welcome elsewhere. To these summer guests, it was farm-schmarm: more like a week or two in heaven to have such fresh cool air, abundant kosher food cooked by someone else and served to you. Word gets around, and before you know it, the boardinghouse is a hotel, and, bingo! Here comes the Borscht Belt. Maybe not that easy. You still work your head off, and there are plenty of failures, but like it or not, call it whatever, it’s something of a miracle.

  I believe that could never have occurred out here, but not because in the Catskills we were better or smarter. It’s more a question of geography or topography. These wide open spaces here, even with fences, they call them ranches, not farms. You see sheep, dairy and beef cattle grazing, pleasure horses, and more and more vineyards only a few miles from San Francisco. Why would ranchers and growers with large properties break up these fertile stretches for chickens, which can survive and produce in far more crowded conditions? Poultry and egg farming is fast becoming industrialized, like it or not, but not on expanses of quality acres. So these Jewish chicken farmers, just like their gentile counterparts, are absorbed into the work force and become shopkeepers and clerks and insurance agents and schoolteachers, like normal people. And they didn’t risk their futures opening summer boardinghouses and vacation inns because there weren’t many sweltering city dwellers who needed them.

  I’m not saying there aren’t poor people in San Francisco and Oakland, living in squalid conditions, but there is this immediate escape. All they have to do is walk a couple of blocks and there is fresh air and beautiful vistas around them. Anyone can walk down to the beach or to the park or to the wharfs and be in another world. These cities are on one of the most beautiful bays in the world, and if you take a ferry across the bay and dock at either end, you feel as if you have just gently bumped into a city fancifully laid out on a hillside. With the Golden Gate Bridge, you can be in the country or the city in no time at all, compared to the East Coast.

  Even though I am a country boy (hah, hah) at heart, I love to go to San Francisco. Vinny Migliori always used to talk about it with such affection, so I was eager to see it. He was born there, you know. It is perched on the hills, just like in the picture postcards, and it is a quite small city built to a much more “human” scale than New York. It is rarely very hot or cold, and even with its famous ocean fog—San Francisco air conditioning—it is still very light compared to Manhattan, because there aren’t many skyscrapers keeping it in shadow. In sunlight, it’s gorgeous. From every hill there are beautiful vistas. Yet there is something about this city that reminds me of New York in the thirties and forties; the distinct neighborhoods and street life, the look of the buses and the cable cars—much like the old trolleys. Also it is still a union town. Vinny would be happy to know that.

  Speaking of Vinny, I do correspond with Beth Erlichman from time to time. Vinny was a lasting connection between us, as was Judith. Beth has told me that Judith and I were kind of parent figures for her, as was your mother. This I find touching and sad. But she seems happy and busy now with her Eduardo and with her painting, politics, and so on, and that is very good to hear. She also tells me that she fears you are despondent and that you avoid engagement with the world. Now don’t be angry with her, Frima, or with me, for mentioning it. We both love you. But as an old man, I see in a way Beth can’t yet see, that people are so various and complex in their reactions and their promise, and lots of paths are good. Beth enjoys carrying banners. Her way isn’t your way, nor should it be. Your mother used to say that underneath your delicacy and beauty, the still waters of your nature, there lies keen intellect, talent, and ribs of steel. You come by it honestly, my dear. You will continue to find your own way and your own truth, and it will be very good, I know. I think of you with love and hope. Think of me, this way too, Frimaleh. Not exactly Mark Twain, as I once promised you, but your loving and devoted friend,

  Moe

  Frima sat at the kitchen table reading and rereading the letter. Then she reached for the phone to call Beth.

  CODA

  You are walking to the bakery on Jerome Avenue to pick up the seeded rye, sliced, that your wife forgot when she was out shopping. She doesn’t bake bread anymore, except for the challah for Friday night. You’ve just come home from work, but there are no longer any children at home to hustle off on this errand. Out of the nest and married; making their own nests now. And alive and well, thank God. No casualties of the Depression, war, polio, or any other blight. It’s late spring, and with Daylight Savings Time, it is bright out still, and as always you enjoy taking a little walk in the neighborhood. You feel like a benign watchman: Thursday night and all is well.

  You walk along the edge of the park lined with the large indestructible benches put in by Franklin Roosevelt during the heyday of his public works programs. Functional they are but not elegant, certainly. Neither are the lumbering cars of the Lexington Avenue subway line that climb up to elevated tracks in the Bronx as they reach Jerome Avenue and Yankee Stadium. The tracks are almost directly above your head right now, between the boundary of the park and the row of apartment houses across the avenue. The trains run round the clock, roaring, clacking, and shrieking at stops—the noisy arteries of the city. They can wake the dead, but if you dwell in these parts, you barely notice the sound. The people in the apartments don’t even acknowledge a train’s passing. Neither does the man stretched out asleep on one of those long park benches.

  You are not distressed to see him there. He is not bothering anyone. Maybe his navy blue pea coat
is a little seedy. Is he a vet down on his luck, or a stray hobo? Everyone, child or adult, seems to own one of those coats. Postwar military surplus; cheap, warm, and durable. You recognize the cop on the beat as he stops to look at the sleeping man. He is just checking that he is okay; he won’t issue a summons or wake him and force him to move on.

  Walk up to the nice policeman, the very first one you meet,

  And simply say “I’ve lost my way and cannot find my street.

  But I know my name and address and telephone number too.”

  And he’ll be kind and help you find the dear ones who wait for you.

  How many public school kids, city kids like his own, had learned that little ditty in first grade. The kind policeman—what a concept. Only in America!

  So, okay, you aren’t naïve. You know how fragile that human connection can be. If the man on the bench had dark skin, it would be a whole other story. You are aware of different unpleasant conflicts brewing as well, but they are still shadowy; they can be ignored in your gratitude that you and yours have come through the hard times and can feel safe and optimistic again. It’s a moment in time, and you savor it.

  Those two young women, standing on the stoop of that apartment building—you are startled by the sight of them. Another moment in time, but this one from the past. Why, it must be ten years since you’ve seen them together at the same spot. Two lovely looking girls they were then, but most definitely they are young women now. Character, that almost indefinable quality, is etched into their faces. A gentle etching, to be sure, and they are still a pleasure to look at. Bess—no, Beth—has changed much more than her name, if her dramatic looks and dress are any indication. She could be an Ava Gardner, except for the defiantly long nose. No, she’s not Hollywood. She’s more bohemian and quite arresting. She has a look-at-me attitude. Here I am, take me or leave me. Frima has changed her name also; she’s Erlichman now, creating with her husband, Jack, a picture-book family, with her blond beauty, his dark good looks, their two engaging little girls. But there’s more there; still hidden. She looks—how to say this—chastened, or maybe subdued. Still, her smile is lovely, if a little ironic; her visage revealing a strong intelligence. Both stand tall, graceful. No hot dogs this time, you notice. They are reading a letter together, smiling.