“Should I lay anything out for the seudat havra’ah?” Anna asked.
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Esther. “I told Rabbi Levy I didn’t want him to make any announcements to the congregation. No one will know to cook anything.”
Anna opened her mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of it, and shut it again.
When Esther instructed Anna to keep Gussie at home during the burial, Anna surprised her and pushed back, asking if she might attend instead. Esther hadn’t said a word in response, just looked at her long and hard. The girl had known Florence for, what, less than a week?
“Of course, I’ll stay with Gussie if you prefer,” said Anna, her eyes on the ground.
“Funerals are no place for children,” said Esther.
Rabbi Levy arrived promptly at two, bearing a pair of scissors and a spool of thick, black ribbon. Esther showed him into the living room, where he invited Joseph, Isaac, Anna, and even Gussie to stand. “We’ll perform the Kriah before we leave for the cemetery.”
Nobody argued.
“In the Torah, Jacob tore his robes when he thought his son Joseph was dead,” said the rabbi. “King David and his men did likewise when they heard about the deaths of Saul and Jonathan. Job, who grieved for his children, followed in the same tradition.”
What Esther recalled about the story of Job was that his wife had gone crazy with grief over the loss of those children.
“It’s traditional for children, parents, spouses, and siblings to wear torn clothes during the week of Shiva. Since Fannie cannot participate in this rite, it would be appropriate for Isaac to bear this burden,” he said.
Isaac looked uncomfortable. Esther knew he had only the one jacket.
“Isaac will be back and forth to the hospital, visiting Fannie,” said Esther. “Let’s leave his jacket be.”
“Cut mine, please,” said Joseph, stepping forward.
Rabbi Levy took hold of Joseph’s lapel and cut a deep gouge in the thick fabric. As he did so, he sang, “Boruch ato Adonai Elohenu Melech Ho’olom dayan ha’emet.”
Scissors still in hand, the rabbi moved toward Esther.
“Not my clothes, please,” she said quietly. “I’ll take the ribbon.”
He pursed his lips in judgment but reached into his pocket to remove a small, brass safety pin. As he fastened the ribbon to her blouse, he sang the blessing once more.
Esther could feel Gussie studying her, so she was not surprised when she heard her granddaughter’s small voice: “Please may I have a ribbon, too?”
* * *
They made a small funeral party, Rabbi Levy at the wheel, Joseph beside him, and Esther and Isaac in the backseat of the rabbi’s Pontiac coupe.
The drive to Egg Harbor Township was one that Esther rarely made. Joseph’s trucks made deliveries in Pleasantville, Egg Harbor, and all the way to Cape May, but Esther rarely had reason to cross the Beach Thorofare.
When the car slowed on Black Horse Pike, Esther peered out her window and through the hemlocks that edged Beth Kehillah Cemetery. The property wasn’t large, maybe a dozen acres of land that Egg Harbor’s early Jewish settlers had consecrated when Absecon Island was little more than a railway depot with bathing houses for day-trippers from Philadelphia.
Two cars were parked near the entrance and beside them stood Abe and his son. And Stuart, who held a bouquet of flowers limp by his side, as if he’d purchased them and immediately regretted doing so. Such a goy, bringing flowers to a funeral. She tried to remind herself that he had no way to know.
Rabbi Levy pulled his car up behind Abe’s and cut the ignition. When they were all out, Abe opened the rear door of his own car, and Esther found herself confronted with Florence’s casket. She bit her lip and tasted blood.
“You’ll carry it?” Abe asked the four men. They looked at each other and nodded.
“Not him,” said Esther, pointing to Stuart.
Joseph’s eyes widened.
“What?” she asked in a slightly incredulous tone. “He’s not Jewish.”
“I hardly think it matters now,” Joseph sputtered, but not before Stuart took a large step backward and held up his hands, as if to say, No, of course not.
Neither Joseph nor Rabbi Levy was a young man, and it became obvious to Esther, some minutes later, as she watched them stumble under the weight of Florence’s casket, that Stuart might have been a useful pallbearer. At the graveside, the men lowered the casket onto the pulley system Abe had rigged across the open grave.
Rabbi Levy removed a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped his brow. “With your permission, we’ll begin,” he said to Joseph, who looked at Esther for reassurance. She walked around the casket to the spot where her husband stood, took his hand, and nodded to Rabbi Levy, who began to read a familiar psalm. “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.”
Scattered across the cemetery were the grave markers of infants—small squares of stone, the word CHILD chiseled across their fronts. No names, no dates. More often than not, a small lamb, cut from the same stone, rested atop the tiny monuments. Esther supposed the lamb was a symbol of innocence but it also struck her that he might be good company for children who had never learned to sleep through the night.
She looked across Florence’s casket at the spot where Isaac stood. Did he notice the small markers? Wish for one for the baby he had lost? Fannie had pleaded for a burial for the child, had wanted a place to mourn, but Esther and Joseph told her, over and over again, that there was nothing to be done. The boy had lived just three weeks, and the rule was thirty days. At thirty days old, he would have been considered a human being under Jewish law and entitled to most, if not all, of their mourning rituals, including a burial in a Jewish cemetery and a small grave marker.
As things stood, Esther didn’t know where the baby was buried, or if he had been buried at all. Fannie had begged her to find out the infant’s whereabouts but Esther knew that Fannie didn’t need a place to go and wallow. What she needed was to have another baby, to forget the whole sad business as quickly as possible. Surely Isaac agreed?
When the El Malei Rachamim had also been said, Rabbi Levy turned to Joseph once more, “Have you prepared a hesped?”
Joseph started to speak but no words came out. He tried again.
This time, he got as far as “My daughter was—” before his voice died. Esther could feel his hand shaking under hers. She grabbed hold of it with both her hands and squeezed it tight.
“You can try again,” she whispered.
He choked. “I can’t.”
Rabbi Levy prompted her to continue in her husband’s stead. “Esther, is there anything you’d like to say?”
“I’m not prepared…” she said, her voice trailing off. What was there to say? What could ever be enough?
“I could say something,” Stuart said, stepping forward. “If it would be”—he eyed Esther cautiously—“proper.”
Stunned by his chutzpah, Esther said nothing, which both Rabbi Levy and Stuart interpreted as acquiescence.
Stuart coughed, then cleared his throat. “I, um, thought Florence was a terrific girl. Er, we all did.” His hands shook and Esther cringed as she watched him cover one with the other, then shove them both into his pockets instead.
“She was beautiful and smart and so funny she’d make you split your side. But the thing that always got me was—”
“Enough,” Esther interrupted. All five men turned to look at her, shock registered on each of their faces. “I can’t listen to this.”
Joseph let go of her hand.
“Would you prefer I take over?” asked the rabbi.
“There is absolutely nothing to say.” Esther looked Stuart in the eyes. His face had turned scarlet. “I’m sorry. Everything you said was, of course, true.” Then she began to sob.
Shortly, Abe and his son cranked the winches, lowering the casket haltingly into the ground. R
abbi Levy picked up a nearby shovel, walked around to the foot of the grave where a pile of loose dirt sat waiting, and began the K’vurah. A shovelful of dirt landed on top of Florence’s casket with a terrifying thud. He passed the shovel to Isaac, who in deference to Joseph, refused to replace any earth until Joseph had done so. In Joseph’s hands, the shovel looked heavy enough to topple him. When Esther had not been looking, her husband, too, had grown old. Tears poured from his eyes as he heaved a shovelful of dirt into the abyss and then returned for another and another. Finally, when his brow was damp, he handed the shovel to her. Esther wiped her eyes and rubbed the wooden handle, warmed under Joseph’s hands and worn smooth over years of use. The metal blade made a satisfying sound as she plunged it into the mound of dirt. Esther had always wondered how mothers buried children, and now she knew. One shovelful of dirt at a time.
Fannie
Fannie didn’t even realize she’d dozed off until she felt a warm kiss on her forehead and opened her eyes to find her mother sitting on the edge of her hospital bed.
“How long have you been here?” Fannie asked, shaking the fog from her head.
“A little while.”
“You should have woken me.”
“I think not,” said Esther.
“I feel like a sloth for sleeping in the middle of the afternoon.” She yawned. “How’s Gussie?”
“She’s well,” said Esther as she stood and walked over to the window. “Of course, she misses her mother.”
Fannie doubted that. Gussie had Florence, who was far more fun. Three days ago, when Florence had brought Gussie to visit, it had been impossible to lure the girl out of her sister’s lap.
“How do you like the new room? Isn’t it lovely?” Fannie asked, waving at her new surrounds. She was appreciative of the south-facing window, clad in pretty, floral curtains. The furniture was the same as that of her old hospital room except that, in this room, the bed and dressing table were painted a chocolate brown. “Is it Father I’ve got to thank for this?”
“Yes, well,” said Esther. “There was such a parade of women in and out of that room, we didn’t know how you were getting any rest. And the visiting hours were atrocious.”
“What does Pop care what the visiting hours are? He doesn’t visit.”
Esther gave Fannie her very best exasperated look. “It’d take more than decent visiting hours to get your father near a hospital.”
“Well, it was very kind of him. When I woke up this morning and Dorothy told me they were moving me to a private room, I couldn’t believe it. I must have asked her three times to check she had the right patient.”
“Dorothy?” Esther asked, turning away from the window to study Fannie once more.
“Geller. She’s a nurse on the obstetrics ward. A real busybody. Very short and squat with an extremely nasal voice. She went to school with Florence. Is always going on about it.”
“Be careful or she’ll hear you.”
“I don’t care if she does. You should have seen her fawning all over Florence the other day,” said Fannie, giving her best Dorothy impression, “ ‘What a feat, Florence! Swimming around the whole island! Whatever will you do next?’ ”
“Does she really talk like that?”
“Yes. And Florence was just soaking it up.”
Her mother stared out the window. Was she even listening?
“What’s Florence up to today? She didn’t want to come with you?” Fannie asked, well aware that she was poking at her sister. Florence could hold a grudge as long as Fannie could, and Fannie knew she wouldn’t come for a visit so soon after they’d had it out. Fannie was curious what Florence had told their mother, if anything, about her last visit. Did Esther know they’d argued?
Esther coughed. “She’s out for a swim. With Stuart.”
“All she ever does is swim.”
Esther walked over to the dressing table and repositioned Fannie’s hairbrushes and face cream, her back to Fannie, until the arrangement was to her liking. Florence must have already told Esther her side of the story, must have already won her allegiance. It was so obvious. Fannie’s mother could barely make eye contact with her.
“All I suggested was that she postpone the trip, not cancel it. I would have thought she’d want to be close by.”
“Of course she would. Does.”
Esther began refolding an already folded blanket at the foot of the bed, neatening the corners and tightening the lines. Sometimes Fannie found her mother exhausting to be around. Esther was always busy, always moving. Both her house on Atlantic Avenue and the apartment above the bakery were neat as pins. She was a talented cook and an accomplished seamstress, too particular to hire help even after she and Joseph reached the point where they could finally afford it. Fannie didn’t think she’d ever seen her mother pick up a magazine.
On Fannie’s best days, she didn’t accomplish half as much as her mother did. Fannie served Isaac and Gussie overcooked meat and mushy vegetables and could barely keep up with the dusting, let alone the laundry. In the evenings, when Isaac asked her how she’d spent her day, Fannie wanted to be able to rattle off a list of errands and other household achievements, but the truth was that entire afternoons passed in which she couldn’t move from the sofa. Fannie so frequently felt overwhelmed—by what, exactly, she didn’t know—that she had begun to wonder if she was even related to the girl she’d been before she married.
“Apparently, Florence doesn’t want anything to do with me—or the baby,” Fannie told Esther.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Well, I don’t understand why she’d choose to leave for France in July, knowing I’m due in August.”
“Your sister loves you. She adores Gussie,” said her mother, then she paused before adding, “and she’ll adore this baby, too.”
Without meaning to, Fannie began to cry. She cried so often these days, it was sometimes difficult to isolate the trigger.
“Fannie, dear.”
“I don’t know what’s come over me. I think it’s just being tucked away in the hospital like this. I know I’m missing all the fun out there,” she said, waving at the window and all that the outside world contained.
Esther walked over to the bed, sat down heavily, and wrapped her arms around Fannie. She spoke softly into her daughter’s hair, “You’re missing nothing that won’t wait.”
* * *
By the time Esther left the hospital, the sun was beginning to go down. Out Fannie’s window, beachgoers were heading home to their dinners, and in another few hours, the Boardwalk would come alive with revelers. Fannie let out a long sigh, knowing it would be at least the next afternoon—if not longer—before she saw Isaac or anyone else for that matter.
On one hand, her hospital stay was a nice reprieve from domestic life. Fannie hadn’t cooked or cleaned or shopped in more than two weeks. She’d read three books, all of them titles she’d been meaning to read since the previous summer.
On the other hand, Fannie didn’t feel as if she were in control of her own life. The hospital staff poked and prodded her without approval or apology, she ate when her tray was brought in, and she saw her family and friends when they saw fit to visit. Then there was the biggest anxiety of all—that this hospital stay would do nothing to prevent another early labor.
Fannie strummed her fingers against her stomach. She might feel helpless but there was one thing she could do right now. She could settle this business with Florence.
Fannie’s relationship with her sister had never been easy, not with seven years separating them. She had worked hard to be a good big sister but it often felt, to Fannie at least, as if she and Florence had had almost entirely separate childhoods. By the time Florence entered grade school, Fannie was through with it. By the time Florence was chasing the Pageant Cup, Fannie had quit swimming competitively. And by the time Florence had catapulted herself to Wellesley, Fannie felt even further away from her sister than the three hundred miles between t
hem. She imagined how dull the details of her life must sound when Florence read her increasingly infrequent letters.
It wasn’t just that Florence and Fannie were far apart in age. It was also that, by the accident of birth order, they had received two very different sets of parents. In 1907, when Fannie was born, Joseph and Esther had been busy trying to get Adler’s Bakery off the ground. Joseph was always at the store, and since he could scarcely afford to pay himself a salary, let alone pay for staff, Esther was frequently behind the counter. Fannie spent her early years in the kitchen of Adler’s, trying her best to stay out of the way of hot pans and scurrying feet. When Joseph began to hire bakers and bakers’ assistants, one of their unacknowledged job duties was to keep his only child entertained. They’d give Fannie a small ball of dough and a rolling pin and put her to work.
Florence found a very different scene when she arrived in 1914. Esther was overjoyed at her arrival, having long given up the idea that she might conceive another child. The bakery was doing well, and with the exception of the year Joseph fought with the Allies on the Western Front, he encouraged Esther to remove herself to their upstairs apartment, where she could properly enjoy her daughter’s infancy. Fannie would rush home from school to find Esther feeding Florence banana in her high chair or rocking her to sleep, and she’d join in wherever she could—remarking on Florence’s squishy baby thighs or allowing Florence to gnaw on her own small fingers. Even now, at twenty years old, Florence was very much the baby of the family. If her mother had already sided with Florence, Fannie knew there was very little she could do to sway her. No, it would be better to sort this out with Florence directly.
Florence Adler Swims Forever: A Novel Page 4
