Rose
SHELLING beans at the sink, I was overcome with melancholy. I yearned for my mama to wrap me in her arms, her hair smelling comfortingly of yeast and cooking smoke. I wanted to sit with Eta in the barn and hold hands while we plotted our grand futures. I pined for a simpler time. This pregnancy wasn’t sitting well with me—the aches and the fatigue—and even worse was Dottie’s. How did I end up here?
When the door banged open, I yelled, “Alfie, wipe your feet.”
“It’s not Alfie, Ma. It’s me,” Dottie called.
Oy vey, what was the matter now? I threw down my beans, wiped my hands on my apron, and was about to walk into the front room when Dottie entered the kitchen.
“What happened? Why are you home? Did you get fired?”
“Ma.” Dottie rolled her eyes at me. But then she peered at me. “Are you all right? You look flushed.”
“Why are you home?”
“Mr. Dover let us go early.”
I stood at an awkward angle, favoring my good side.
“Your leg is even worse,” she said, placing a gentle arm around my back. It was such a tender gesture that for a moment I thought I might fall upon her in my grief.
“You will be paid for the full day?”
“I get paid weekly, Ma. Not by the hour. Now, what’s wrong?” Dottie led me to the front room, seating me on the sofa. It was so maternal that my eyes teared. When had my baby girl turned into this woman? Where was the toddler who got into my threads, grabbed at my needles, and begged for one more poppy seed cookie?
“Ma,” Dottie said again, “what’s wrong?”
Bringing the hem of my apron up to my eyes, I blotted the tears I imagined were there, the ones that hadn’t actually fallen. Perhaps Ben was right. Perhaps now was the time to confide in Dottie. If anyone could understand the unwelcome situation, it would be my own daughter in a similar place. “A child,” I said. “A child is such work.”
I heard a loud sigh and looked up to see the exasperation on Dottie’s face. “I know, Ma.” Her voice was laced with whininess. “Don’t you think I’ve given thought to every possibility?”
Of course Dottie thought I was speaking about her. Why wouldn’t she? She had no idea.
“Actually, Dottala—,” I started, taking her hands in mine, but Dottie continued as if she didn’t hear me.
“I saw Willie, Ma. Saw him at lunch today.”
I pulled back my hands. All thoughts of confession fled. Did I raise such a fool? “Willie? What does he have to do with this?” Dottie was not a friend in whom to confide; she was my daughter, who still, apparently, needed the firm hand and level head of her mother.
“What do you mean, ‘What does he have to do with this’? You know perfectly well what he has to do with this.”
“Oh, Dottala. This is not his problem. Did you tell him? Oh, God above, please tell me you didn’t say anything to him.”
Dottie shook her head. “I didn’t get a chance. Before I could say anything, he told me he’s leaving. Moving to Europe to work as a writer.”
“Europe!” I threw up my hands. “Does he not know there’s going to be a war there? Is he a complete idiot?”
“He’s not an idiot, Ma. That’s why he’s going, to prove that there’s a real danger. It’s a great opportunity, to be a writer for The New Yorker.”
“To be a writer for The New Yorker he has to kill himself? A man like that you need? Thank God you didn’t tell him.” I dotted the sweat on my forehead with my apron. “Now everything is clear, nu? You know what you have to do.”
Dottie looked more closely at me. “You are definitely ill. You look peaked.”
I waved my hands in the air to brush away such notions. “It’s August. How should I look?” I pushed back my hair and repeated my question. “Everything is clear? You understand what you need to do?”
Dottie looked down and twisted the hem of her dress in her hands. I wanted to bat her fingers away, tell her not to ruin a good dress, but I bit my lip. We had enough problems without quarreling over her fidgeting.
“I can’t get rid of this baby.”
The heat was making me woozy. “Of course you can.”
“No, Ma. I can’t. I won’t.”
What she said made no sense. She was with child. The child was not Abe’s. The child must go away. How much plainer could it be? “You can’t? You won’t? This I do not understand.”
“What if,” Dottie said, “you took it? What if you pretended the baby was yours?”
“What?” She couldn’t have shocked me more if she said she was traveling to the moon. Me take her baby?
“You can take it. You’re still young enough to have a child of your own, aren’t you?”
If only she knew. “A child of my own?” I said.
“We’ll go away. The two of us. Spend a few months somewhere else. Your cousin Freyde in Baltimore. We tell people she’s sick, that she needs your help. Then we use the money you saved for my schooling to pay for a place for us, maybe in the Catskills. When we return with the baby, we’ll tell everyone it’s yours. No one will be the wiser. You can raise the baby. I’ll pretend to be its sister.”
My body twitched as if I were a caged animal. “That’s . . . that’s . . .” My mind reeled at the thought. It was impossible. Simply impossible. What, I would leave and we would have twins? But even if I weren’t with child, to take on the burden of someone else’s child? “That’s ridiculous.”
“Why?” Dottie’s eyes were wide and innocent. How ludicrous. No one would believe us both leaving the family. The household needed a woman to run it. Absurd. “Why won’t it work? It solves all our problems.”
“First of all, we don’t have the savings anymore. Fifty dollars I spent on the appointment and I still owe another ten dollars. And more importantly, it doesn’t solve all our problems because I don’t want to raise another child.” The guilt those words caused made me apologize in my heart to Hashem. I’m sorry I don’t wish another child. Not even the one in my own womb. Forgive me, Hashem.
“But I’ll help. I can do most of the work. We’ll pretend the baby is yours.”
“And what happens when you and Abe marry? When you move out? I’ll be stuck at home with the baby.”
“‘Stuck with the baby’? That’s how you feel?”
“I have raised my children. And if Hashem intends it, I will raise more of my own. But I do not intend to raise anyone else’s children.”
Dottie stood, and paced the room. “Ma, this isn’t anyone else’s child. This is my child.”
My eyes were completely dry now. “That, my daughter, is exactly my point.” I got to my feet. Turning to face her, I said, “You have an appointment. Thursday at one. It’s already been paid for. I expect you to be there.” And I exited to prepare dinner and brood about my own problems.
Her sobs sounded throughout the apartment. As I returned to the bowl of beans, I heard fast footsteps and then the slamming of the door. Fine, I thought. Let her go. Let her mull on her mistakes. The rhythmic task of snapping the ends of the beans with a paring knife and pulling down the stringy stems was calming. How could Dottie ask such a thing of me? To care for yet another child? I should have simply told Dottie about my own child, explained to her the impossibility of the situation. But Dottie proved herself, once again, to be a mere girl, unable to handle such problems.
Dottie was so delicate. Would she be able to handle the procedure? Would she recover? And what would happen when she learned of my baby? I feared she would be furious that I had kept a child when she had to give hers up. Every time she looked at this new baby, it would be a reminder of what she didn’t have. She would resent me, resent the child. I could only pray her anger didn’t consume her, didn’t drive a wedge between us. She had to understand. There was no choice: If she had the baby, she would have nothing.
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The green beans were trimmed. Wiping my hands on my apron, I stood and walked over to the sink. I had to hope Dottie would forgive me. But first, I had to boil the beans.
Dottie
AFTER I stormed out of the apartment, my head was swimming. My physical symptoms might have abated, but my head was a flurry. How could Ma say no? How could she want to see this life ended?
For an hour, I walked the streets, trying to make order in my mind. Playing gin rummy at Edith’s sounded like an atrocious idea, but given I had nowhere else to go, it’s what I ended up doing. I bought a knish at Yonah Schimmel’s for my dinner and walked till it was time to meet my friends, my mind reeling at what I was going to have to do. How had it come to this?
Before entering Edith’s building, I tried to pull myself together. I needed to give the appearance of a carefree girl, even though I would never be one again.
Edith was the youngest of three, her older brothers both married. One of them lived with his wife’s family; the other was fortunate enough to have his own place. On Monday nights Edith’s parents went to the Arbeter Ring, working up their socialist fervor, so we had the apartment to ourselves.
At the top of the stairs I gave my hair a final pat and let myself into the apartment. “Hello, hello,” I called. “I’m ready to play.” My voice sounded tinny to my ears.
In the old days, the cardplayers gathered and broke off into games of two, but of course with Zelda busy with the baby, we were now a threesome, so we ended up playing the more awkward three-person round-robin version.
“Now you join us? After standing us up last week? Where have you been?” Edith said from the kitchen.
“Sorry, sorry,” I said. “Ma and Tateh went to a lecture and Eugene didn’t want to be home alone.” It was a lie made easy by the fact we didn’t have a phone; I had no way to get in touch if I wasn’t going to make it.
“Well, you’re here now. Sit,” Edith said. “I’m getting the refreshments.” The coffee Edith inevitably burned was the last thing my stomach needed, but I poured myself a cup from the percolator on the table anyway. I sat in one of the dining chairs as the front door opened again.
“I’m here,” Linda said.
I gestured to the center of the table. “I’ll pour you coffee.”
Linda hesitated before whispering, “Did Edith make it or her ma?”
I took a sip. Wrinkling my nose, I said, “Edith.”
“None for me, thanks,” Linda said, as she sat next to me.
Edith came out smiling, holding a platter. “Sweets.” On the platter were the most misshapen, lumpy cookies I ever saw, not to mention blackened at the edges.
“They look . . .” Darling Linda, searching for something kind to say. “Homemade?”
“Damn right they’re homemade,” Edith said. “Ma said if I didn’t learn how to do something domestic, she was going to send me to the Educational Alliance to learn to cook.”
“Don’t swear, Edith,” Linda said, her voice soft. “It’s not becoming.”
“Since when is Edith ‘becoming’?” I picked up a cookie and banged it against the table. It didn’t crumble a smidgen. “So light and delicate,” I said. “Forgive me if I pass. I’d like to keep my teeth.”
“What about you, Linda?”
“They do look so lovely, but I . . . um,” Linda said.
“Aw, hell.” Edith fingered a cookie. “I’ll save these for Tateh. He’ll eat ’em.”
I doubted that.
“I think Ma has a package of Lorna Doones around here somewhere.” She popped back into the kitchen, where we heard lots of rattling of cupboard doors.
“God help the man who marries her,” Linda said. Her tone was mournful, which was out of character for our Pollyanna. I looked closely at her, trying to read her, but she looked away.
“Okay, store-bought cookies. Are your teeth happy?” Edith plopped the cookies on the table.
“Delighted.” Since Edith wasn’t going to do it, I removed the Lorna Doones from the package and spread them nicely on the plate.
“Who’s dealing?” Linda asked.
Edith shuffled, offered the cards to Linda to cut, then dealt.
“What’s with your mother’s sudden interest in you learning to cook?” I asked.
Edith shrugged as we all gathered our cards in our hands. “She wants me to learn the domestic arts. Thinks it will help me when I move out.”
I snorted. “You move out? How on earth would you pay the rent?”
Edith worked at the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, although I wasn’t sure it counted as work when Edith was paid less than the women for whom she advocated. After high school, she’d started a liberal arts course at Hunter, but dropped out because she thought the classes too bourgeois and began working for the union, thus guaranteeing she would live with her parents indefinitely.
“Exactly! And Ma is an excellent cook. Who would do the laundry if I moved out?”
Linda said, “Someday you’ll need to cook and clean and do the laundry for your family.”
To my ear, Linda sounded bitter, but perhaps it was my own feelings coloring what I heard. I nibbled on the plain buttery cookie without too much difficulty. I should have been famished after the episode at the Stork Club—a knish and a cookie did not a meal make—but my appetite had diminished. Is that good or bad? I wondered.
Edith said, “Linda, how many times do I need to tell you, I don’t ever intend to have a family?”
The cookie crumbs were dry in my throat, and as disgusting as it was, I took a swallow of the coffee to wash them down. How I longed to discuss my predicament with my friends, but I didn’t dare. Edith might be sympathetic on a political level, but she’d be disdainful on a personal one. Linda would be horrified.
“It’s unnatural not to marry,” Linda said. Her voice broke, and I looked up, startled.
Edith placed her hand on Linda’s. “It’s going to be okay, sweetie.”
“Uh,” I said, “did I miss something?”
Edith glowered at me. “Don’t miss a gin rummy night and expect—,” but Linda cut her off.
“It’s okay.” Looking at me, her eyes brimming, she said, “Ralph received a job offer last week.” She batted her eyelids quickly to keep the tears at bay. “In Baltimore.”
“Oh,” I said, my surprise clear. Ralph had been trying to find work for months. A bright man, he’d struggled financially to earn an engineering degree at MIT, one of the few Jewish men to make the yearly quota. Jobs for a Jewish engineer, though, were few and far between.
Linda looked at her cards and discarded a four of hearts. Without looking up, she said, “He needs to leave in a week. He wants us to marry so I can go with him, but I can’t abandon Tateh.” Mr. Tewel had been ill for ages, infected with painters’ sickness, but a year ago June, he became bed-bound. All year he seemed to be near death, but he never gave his family the relief of actually passing away. The family relied on Linda’s typing wages and on the small amount her ma made cleaning at night. “I marry and desert my family. Or I never marry. It’s as simple as that.”
“Well, what if—”
“There is no ‘what if’!” she said. “I’ve thought of every possibility and in none of them does it work out.” She tossed down her next card almost violently. “Can we talk about something else? I’d prefer not to think about it for an evening.”
We completed another round of choosing and discarding cards in silence, searching for a safe topic.
Finally, Edith spoke. “Actually, I have news to share.” She cast off an ace of clubs, which helped me not at all.
“Do tell.” I nibbled at another cookie.
“Word on the street is Willie Klein is headed off on assignment in Europe.”
I gagged.
“You okay?” Edith pounded my back. I
took another sip of the god-awful coffee, trying not to cough.
“Fine, fine,” I managed to say. “Went down the wrong way.” I swallowed more coffee.
“Europe?” Linda said, gathering the cards in her hand. “How terrible.” Her voice was back to neutral. “What did he do wrong that he’s being sent there?”
“Wrong?” Edith said. “This is a plum job! Don’t anyone repeat this, but I applaud the man for it.”
“You do?” I asked.
“Sure,” Edith said. “I plead with workers all day long to stand strong, join the union, but they don’t seem to want to improve their lives. Willie is actually doing something that could make a difference. And that leads to my news: I was so inspired that I inquired today about a job at the Joint Distribution Committee. I start next Monday.”
“The what?” Linda asked.
“The JDC. It’s a relief organization that helps Jews around the world. After the war, they provided loans to Jews in Eastern Europe to stimulate the growth of the Jewish communities. Now they—or rather we—are raising funds to help German Jews emigrate.”
I perked up a moment. “The JDC? Will you have connections? Will you be able to help Uncle Yussel get a visa?”
Edith pursed her lips and placed her hand on mine. “I’m sorry, sweetie. The priority right now is Germany. If things get worse . . .” She trailed off and gave my hand a halfhearted pat, before going back to her cards. “Well, let’s hope it won’t get any worse.”
“Sounds very noble,” I said, trying not to appear as deflated as I felt. “Will you earn more money than you did at the union?”
Edith looked abashed. “Well, less, actually.”
“Less?” I chuckled. “Is that possible? How will you survive?”
Edith grinned. “Didn’t you hear me? Ma is an excellent cook.”
“Don’t you think Willie’s putting his life in jeopardy?” I worked hard to keep my voice even, as if my concern were no different from nor any greater than theirs.
“Probably,” Edith said. “But that’s a risk he has to take if he’s going to do great things.”
Modern Girls Page 19
