One American Dream

by Bernard Beck

  My father and Mr. Davis shook hands. They even shared a shnops to seal the agreement. Then the maid brought Mr. Davis’s hat and coat, and he left, and just as quickly my dreams were destroyed. Harry stood at the door for a moment and looked at me sadly, and then left with Mr. Davis.

  I remained seated in the chair in which I had been sitting during the discussion.

  __________

  I went into my office, carefully closed the door, and lit a cigar. Ruthie was still sitting at the table.

  I knew what I had done. I knew how important college had been to her. She was going to be the only one of her friends to go to college. But a deal is a deal, and I had made a deal with Mr. Davis. Besides, how long could it possibly take for them to write the book? Another six months or a year? And then she’d be a famous author. In fact, it wouldn’t be such a tragedy if she didn’t go to college. Why couldn’t she just get married like the other girls?

  But I knew the answer. Ruthie was not like the other girls—she never had been. She was tough, a ball buster. She deserved to go to college—she had earned it—unlike other kids who thought that it was just coming to them.

  Well, she would just have to wait, that’s all. A man’s word is a man’s word.

  But I knew I had failed. Again.

  I opened the door a crack and saw that Ben Zion was there, talking to her. I watched them—so intimate. And I was the outsider across the threshold.

  __________

  I remained seated at the table, alone. I didn’t cry—I was beyond that. New forces were taking control of me. Some people call it maturity: the acceptance of fate, of powers stronger than you, the realization that you cannot always control the outcome. I had been a dreamer. I had dared to imagine the future as beautiful and poetic. I had expected that I would become an artist among artists, responding only to my own creativity. I had believed that I could soar to the outer limits of society through my art. But now I was on a leash. The collar pressed against my neck, and no matter how I strained I could not escape. The free spirit was now under control. Ruthie the child had been replaced by Ruthie the woman.

  My grandfather slipped into the chair across the table and took my hand. “You know, Ruthie,” he said, “things have a way of working out. It isn’t so bad that you might have to delay going to college, maybe you’ll meet a nice Jewish boy in the meantime. Maybe even this Harry Berger. He seems to be a nice man, and I can see that you like him.”

  And then, as usual, he told me a story.

  “There is a story by Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav that I would like to tell you,” he said ever so gently. “Maybe I told it to you before, but you should listen now because it has a good moral.”

  I nodded sadly, and he began.

  “Once a Jewish man who lived in a small town in Austria had a dream, and in that dream he saw that there was a valuable treasure buried under a bridge in the city of Vienna. He traveled from his little town to Vienna where he found the bridge exactly as in his dream. He stood on the bridge wondering what to do. If he searched under the bridge during the day, people would see him searching and wonder what was going on. If he waited until night, he wouldn’t be able to see.

  “After a while a soldier came by and saw the Jew standing and wondering. He asked him, ‘What are you doing here and what are you looking for?’

  “The Jew thought about it. If he told the dream to the soldier he would have to share the fortune, but if he didn’t tell him then he might not be able to find it at all. So he told his dream to the soldier and asked him to help search for the treasure. He offered to share the treasure 50/50 when they found it.

  “But the soldier replied, ‘I feel sorry for you, you crazy dreamer! I also have dreamed about a buried treasure. But in my dream the valuable treasure lays buried in the cellar of such and such a Jew in such and such a town. But I’m not going to journey all that way for a stupid dream!’

  “The name of the town that the soldier had named was this man’s town and the name of the Jew was this man’s name!

  “So the Jew hurried to get two fast horses, and he hitched them to his wagon, and he set off in a rush to his town. He went down to his cellar and there he discovered the treasure.

  “At the sight of it the Jew declared, ‘Now this mystery has been revealed to me. The treasure had always lain buried in my house, but I had to leave my town and journey so far to Vienna in order to discover that the treasure was always in my house.’

  “The meaning of the story is this: you, Ruthie, have been given a treasure—your writing skill. It is right here, in your head, and you don’t have to journey very far to find it. You just have to dig deeper into yourself. It might take more time, and this Harry will help you, but it is your treasure, and all you have to do is to find a way to uncover it.”

  __________

  I watched Ben-Zion and Ruthie through the open door of my office. They appeared to have such a close, intimate relationship. It’s true that I envied Ben-Zion and his easy relationship with Ruthie, but, I rationalized, I am who I am. And right at that very moment, I was very sad.

  I waited for Ben-Zion to leave and then, uncertainly, I walked over to Ruthie. “I know you’re disappointed,” I began hesitantly, “college was important to you, and a year seems like a very long time.

  “Listen,” I said with greater energy, finding my way, “I’m not such a good talker, but I am a good businessman, so I’m going to offer you a deal. One of the most important things about going to college is going out into the world on your own and taking responsibility for yourself. It’s like you walk out the door for the last time as a girl and the second you are outside, you’re a woman. So I’m telling you now that it’s going to be exactly like that even if you delay going to college for a year. Today, from this moment on, you have crossed the threshold to becoming an independent adult. From now on, the decisions that you make are yours alone. Your mother and I will be here to give you advice if you ask for it, but only if you ask for it. Otherwise, you’re on your own.

  “So here’s the last bit of unsolicited advice I’m going to give you: right now, writing this book is your job. If you do a good job, your book will be published. And then, having had a book published, you’ll be able to choose whatever college you want. And whatever college you choose, I agree to pay for it. So, sit up, square your shoulders, and go ahead and write the best book you can. The college world will just have to wait a little longer for Ruthie Rubin.”

  I’m not sure where that came from because I hadn’t planned to say it. But when I did, and after I did, I felt good. I felt that it was right.

  __________

  Mein Liebe Rivka,

  Your beautiful granddaughter has met a man, but he is the wrong kind of man. He has no Yiddishkeit at all. He comes from a Reform family, and I don’t even think he owns a yarmulke. But as they say in America, love is blind, and I can see already that Ruthie loves this man. I can only hope that Jack will put an end to it quickly, but I am afraid that he will wait too long, and then it will be too late to stop it.

  I wish you were here; you would be able to talk to her. Rose tries, but she has no idea of what a young girl thinks, and Jack is so worried about how he looks and sounds that he never thinks about what he says.

  I think it would be better if I don’t try to stop her. I want her to trust me in all things so that I can maintain my influence over her.

  God’s ways are not always known to us. I can only hope for the best.

  May God protect and bless you.

  __________

  I worked very hard with Harry, Sundays at first and then some evenings too. We made slow progress. Harry kept trying to get me to loosen up, but my writing had become stiff, and formal, and pretentious. I would write in the afternoon and evening, and then reread what I had written the following morning and decide that it all was terrible and tear it up and start over.
I repeated the process over and over: write all afternoon and evening—much better this time. Reread it in the morning, and it was the same terrible, formal, phony stuff.

  My writing was stiff and getting stiffer. But Harry was like a sports coach, cajoling, teasing, and encouraging me at every opportunity. “Forget about whether it is good or bad,” he told me. “Just write whatever you want, it doesn’t all have to be perfect, just write whatever comes into your head. You’re a natural writer, so don’t fight it.” And slowly my confidence returned.

  But there was new issue, one that neither Harry nor I was able to overcome: I had fallen deeply and irretrievably in love with Harry, and it was clear that the feeling was rapidly becoming reciprocal.

  It had started, as so many romantic affairs do, with seemingly innocent intentions. In an effort to get me to “loosen up,” Harry had begun taking me to some of his favorite night spots. These jazz clubs had a seductively seedy aura of permissiveness which was attractive to the young socialites of the time and especially to Harry and me.

  Harry took me to the best of the dance halls. We danced the shimmy, the breakdown, the black bottom, and the Charleston to the great uptown bands. I wore my hair bobbed, my breasts flat, and my legs exposed with the shortest, swishiest skirts. The tall, narrow figure that I had inherited from my mother was perfect for the new fashions. For Harry, who, until that time, had been mostly an outside observer, being with me was an eye-opener. For the first time in his life, he was now an active participant rather than a passive observer. He now had someone he cared about to go with him, and it made all the difference.

  Under Harry’s guidance, I rapidly became a jazz fanatic, and together we sought out the best of the lot. Our favorite place for listening to jazz was a small speakeasy on 125th Street, not far from Harry’s apartment. Most of the club’s patrons were jazz lovers who had heard about it through the underground reputation of its musicians. Harry had been a regular listener almost from the start, but now, as a result of our frequent visits, and late night stays, Harry and I had developed a close friendship with the musicians.

  We liked this particular club because the musicians were serious about what they played. We developed an easy camaraderie with the musicians which had started as a friendly nod of recognition and had developed into a full-blown, after-hours friendship. To Harry and me, the players’ creativity was astounding and very subtle, and a listener had to pay careful attention to hear the changes they made from session to session. The music, for the most part, was soft and gentle and romantic. Sometimes the intensity of the feelings that I sensed in the music brought me to tears.

  Late at night, after most of the customers had left and the band had finished their last set, the musicians would wander over and sit at our table. “Did you hear when I came in?” the bass player boasted. “I was fast—it changed the whole set—ahead of the beat—really messed Charlie up.” Charlie was the drummer who rarely spoke.

  Their enthusiasm was infectious, and I loved being with them. Most of all, I loved that they included me in their inner circle. They encouraged me to listen to the rhythm. That was their specialty, rhythm—drums, a bass, a guitar. They would sit at the table working on the rhythm for hours, late into the night. They beat a bass, then syncopated it, then an overlay—no words—just melody. A sax, sometimes a guest trumpet. Plaintive, pleading, and passionate. There was no singer—the words didn’t matter. Sometimes, because I was so focused on words, I would put words to their passion. At first the words made sense, then they were just random words, and then they were not even words. I learned to imitate the speaking sound of every instrument, but I couldn’t sing, I could only say the rhythm.

  They called me Bessie because they said I reminded them of Bessie Smith. Of course that was just a joke—Bessie Smith was the greatest black blues singer that ever lived, and I was a very white Jewish girl from Brooklyn who could barely carry a tune. But they teased me, and I loved it. Sometimes, late at night, when only the regulars were there, and when I had had enough to drink and smoke, I spoke my rhythms into the microphone in front of the band. And I was good at it, and they encouraged me, and they laughed at me and with me, and they flirted with me, and I flirted with them. It got so that I didn’t hear the melody—didn’t hear what they were playing—just the rhythm. I could hear the overlays, breaks, and segues. I heard rhythm in my breathing and walking and writing. I would talk and shout and laugh and tell stories, and, for the first time in my life, I understood what it was to soar. I was so happy; I laughed at everything, and they teased me and laughed with me and listened to my stories, too.

  And under the table, with our fingers interlocked, Harry and I communicated wordlessly. Questions were asked, answers given, conclusions derived, and decisions made.

  In my eyes, Harry was perfect. He was tall, smart, Jewish, a good dancer, and very good looking. We had rapidly proceeded through all the sexual preliminaries, and, although we had exhausted most of New York’s romantic private spaces, I had resisted going to Harry’s apartment because I felt that it might lead to “going all the way,” which I was not about to do until we were married.

  By that winter, I had already begun planning our wedding. My new fantasy was that Harry and I would get married before I was 20. We would finish the book, which would become an instant success, and then we would both go to an Ivy League college somewhere in New England. I would study English literature while Harry got his law degree. And then, after Harry became a lawyer, I would get a job writing for the New York Times. We would specialize in helping needy people. Harry would represent poor people, and I would draw attention to their plight. We wouldn’t need much money because we would live in the slum alongside the people we were helping.

  We never actually talked about it in so many words, but we both knew that we had a plan. We were certain that we could do anything. Of course, that was during the 1920s, when young people still believed that anything was possible. We could see only good things ahead, and we shared the belief that because we had been fortunate enough to be born into rich families, we had the responsibility to help people who had not been so lucky.

  And just as Harry had anticipated, once I became more relaxed, my book started to take shape. Slowly I began to fit all the elements together. I started to think of the book as a developing story rather than the epic book that it had become in its first iteration. Although I was never completely happy with what I wrote, Harry thought it was good. We sent the completed chapters one by one to Mr. Davis, and he said that he was satisfied with what we had accomplished so far.

  For Harry and me, this was an especially happy time. So we kept working, slowly, chapter by chapter, but, nevertheless, making progress.

  Chapter 13

  “‘In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love,’” Harry said quietly. We were sitting on the steps of the New York Public Library between the lions, watching the traffic on Fifth Avenue, holding hands. “Alfred Lord Tennyson said that about fifty years ago,” he said softly, so only I could hear. “Well, it is spring, and I’m a relatively young man, and my thoughts have turned to ‘thoughts of love.’ In fact, my thoughts have gone far beyond just thoughts of love, they have gone to action. Ruthie, you know that I love you. This last year has been the best year of my life. And I think that I know that you love me. So, here’s the thing, will you marry me?”

  I smiled and put my head on his shoulder. “That was so romantic,” I whispered, “and my answer is a definite yes! But shouldn’t there be a ring?”

  “Oh my God,” Harry said. “I was so nervous I totally forgot.” And, reaching into his jacket pocket, he produced a small, red velvet box. The ring, pretty and delicate, was inside. I slipped it onto my finger. “It’s perfect.”

  “It was my grandmother’s,” Harry said proudly. “I hope it’s OK.”

  “OK? It’s perfect, and I love it, and I love you, and I can’t wait t
o be married.”

  “Me too, but there’s a lot of stuff that we have to do first.”

  “Like what?” I said impatiently.

  “Well first we have to get permission from your parents. You’re still underage. And then, we’d have to speak to my father. He’s kind of traditional about things like this and even though I’m old enough, he would want us to formally ask for his blessing.”

  “I don’t think it would be a problem with my parents,” I bubbled enthusiastically.

  “OK. When should we do it?”

  “How about today?” I said, standing up and pulling Harry up alongside of me. “I know they’re home, and it’s a beautiful day so they should be in a good mood, and we could just take the subway, and we’d be there in no time, and then you could ask for their permission, and then we could all celebrate, and then we could pick a date for the wedding and make plans, and . . .”

  “Hey! Hold on,” Harry laughed. “One thing at a time. OK. I agree that we can go talk to your parents today. Do you think I should do it by myself or do you want to be there?”

  “I wouldn’t want to miss one second of this. I want to see their faces, but I promise not to say a word. This will be all your job. What are you planning to say?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll think about it on the subway.”

  And so, as if on the wings of eagles, we flew, running and skipping and laughing and loving down Forty-Second Street to the subway. Once on the train, though, and on our way to meet with my parents, we had the sober realization that, in fact, my father might not approve of the marriage. He was so unpredictable, I explained to Harry, and he always needed to be in charge. We made a quick list of my parents’ possible objections to the marriage, and then we listed all of Harry’s strengths, and all the reasons why the marriage was going to be successful. We felt that we had logic on our side, but we weren’t sure. And so, with some anxiety, we climbed the stairs to my house.