Apart From Love (8 page)

And there, on the floor, you can see three balls of thick yarn chasing each other, and from time to time, getting tied in knots, every which way across them fat ankles.
 

Anyway, at first glance them old women look kinda similar, like a rough, wrinkled copy of each other, what with those high arched, strange eyebrows. I pinch myself, but they’re still there—in the mirror as well as outside of it—no matter how long I try blinking and wiping my eyes. It takes me a while to tell them apart:
 

The one sitting to the left, she’s toothless. The one in the middle has a pimple on her veined temple. And the one to the right, well, her nose isn’t only the longest, but also the knobbiest of all three.
 

Wrapped around her neck is a long tape measure, the edges of which roll all the way down and curl there, in her lap, next to a pair of scissors.
 

All of a sudden, like something has clicked in my head, I know who she is: this is Hadassa Rosenblatt, known to all as aunt Hadassa—though nobody can tell me exactly whose aunt she is anyway—she was the one spreading nasty, awful rumors about me, saying I was dating some other boyfriend, like, behind Lenny’s back.
 

At the time, I decided to make things real easy for her, and told her there’s no need for her to come to my wedding, and in fact it would be so much better if she’d stay as far as she could from me; which made her sisters, Frida and Fruma, stay home, too. Since then, my mind is kinda at ease—except for wondering, Why the gossip? Why did she try meddling in my affairs? And now, ain’t them three sisters gonna curse me, like witches do, in old children stories?
 

And what on earth have they been doing here, in my bedroom, sitting behind me, watching me so quiet—so mute like, even—that for the last hour I didn’t hear no squeak out of them? Or else was it me, was I too sleepy, too dazed to notice them?

In a blink of an eye I can tell that aunt Hadassa can tell, somehow, that I’m awake, and that I’ve been watching her for the last few minutes.
 

So at once, she straightens her back and elbows aunt Frida, who in turn elbows aunt Fruma. And they all nod a slight nod to each other, and each sister in her turn pulls some yarn from her ball and then kicks it, so it goes into a whirl and then settles there, at their feet. All of which seems so smooth, so precise, so much like a chorus line; which reminds me what Lenny told me about their past.

I remember, he said that one of these days, he’d like to finish his story about them, which goes something like this:
 

Having fled from Poland during World War II, the three Rosenblatt sisters arrived in Paris, where they discovered glamor, or at least the chance for it.
 

They bleached their hair super blond, so as to put the shtetl, and the horrors they must have suffered, right out of their mind, along with the old way of life.
 

Around the same time, they changed their names to Brigitte, Monique, and Veronique. Along with their names, they threw out a few other things which had failed to serve them: their long, dark skirts, and their modesty.

 
Wearing frilly underwear and black stockings, they auditioned for a show at a nightclub, a highly acclaimed nightclub called the Folies Bergère—only to be rejected, because sadly, their dance routine was too nice and conservative; which made them furious, and even more driven to make it.
 

So with clenched teeth, they learned how to lift their skirts, and flap them about in a highly erotic, flirtatious manner. After several months of hard, painstaking work, the three sisters finally became an overnight sensation.

They ended up joining a cheaply produced show in the nightclub district of Montmartre. Their fame spread. They became known for their fancy cancan costumes, which left them practically naked.
 

Their earlier, orthodox upbringing didn’t seem to inhibit them in the least. Behind the curtains, they went from one scandal to the next, and had countless affairs.

They never married, or had children. Later, in secret, they told Natasha that at one time Brigitte—also known as Hadassa—had gone through a difficult abortion. She couldn’t afford a real doctor, so who knows what instrument was used there.
 

Soon after, she’d been kicked out from the show, because sadly, she couldn’t perform the required cartwheel any more, or even the high kicks.
 

All this is, like, awesome! But me, I find it hard to believe that there was a time when aunt Hadassa could do any of that. To this day, she still wears the black stockings, as do her sisters, and she can keep a beat, an incredibly fast beat, which you can hear by the clicking of her needles. Anyway, she’s declined with age. Her flesh looks doughy, and she’s kinda heavy.
 

Looking at her makes me decide one thing right away: I’m never gonna grow old! I simply refuse to do that.
 

Lenny tells me that later, when they moved to the States and settled in Los Angeles, the Rosenblatt sisters became very close to his wife. They adore Natasha, perhaps because of having no kids of their own; which in the end, comes down to hating me.
 

Of one thing I’m sure: if they could wave a magic wand, or a needle or something, to undo whatever binds us, Lenny and me, to each other—this marriage and above all, this pregnancy—they would do so without thinking twice.
 

What’s more, they seem to keep a secret among them, when it comes to this question: where’s Natasha? She hasn’t shown up here for the last, say, five years; which is cool with me—but still, strange.
 

If I ask them about it, which I did at one time, the sisters would find a way to skirt the question. And if I ask Lenny, he would hide the truth, somehow, with a kiss, and anyway, he won’t give me no real answer, either.
 

All of a sudden aunt Hadassa clears her throat and says, “Nu? Why are you staring at my eyebrows?”
 

To which I say, “Who, me?”
 

“Oy, dear! When you’re older, you’ll understand,” she says; which serves only one purpose: to inflame me.
 

And so I ask, “Understand what?”
 

Aunt Hadassa wraps the yarn onto the left needle, and loops it around. “Understand this, Anita,” she says. “The thing about eyebrows: it is the first thing to go, when you get older.”
 

Me, I don’t have nothing to add to this piece of wisdom, to which she adds, “They hang down, I mean, heavily, over your eyes, and show your age, being so droopy and white, and so slick, to the point of resisting any fix, any type of makeup.”

“I’m never gonna grow old,” I state.

Which makes her curl her lips, like she knows something I don’t. “Give it time, dear, give it time! My, my, Anita, you’ll end up just like me, having to pluck them! Pluck-pluck-pluck! And then, just so you can look halfway presentable, paint them right back in, dear—as best you can.”

“Really,” I insist. “It isn’t your eyebrows. It’s that nose on you. That’s the thing that fascinates me.”
 

Naturally she seems surprised to hear that; which forces me to clarify, “I really, really hate it.”

“So do I,” she admits, for no other reason than to try to appease me.
 

Now aunt Hadassa slides the knot onto the other needle, and so does aunt Frida, and aunt Fruma too, in her turn. Their arms seem pretty wrinkled, like yesterday’s newspaper.
 

I lift my pinkie finger and tilt it ever so slightly, as if holding a teacup.
 

“Hey, aunt Hadassa,” I call. “See here, my hand?”
 

“What about it?” says she.

Now waving my fist in the air, I say, “I just want you to know that if you ever stick your nose, like, anywhere close to me, or to any of my private affairs, you’re gonna leave me no choice, see, but to punch it. Seriously, that’s one thing I learned from my ma, and I warn you now: I learned it real good.”

“Ha,” she puffs. “Your affairs, they seem to stick out like a sore thumb, and right in our noses, too. It is you who, by fainting at the most ill-advised time, forced this stink on us, on our delicate sensibilities.”

“Why, how d’you mean?” I ask, totally confused.

“Who do you think has been taking care of you all day,” she says, “Ha, princess?” And aunt Frida joins in, “Who has been wiping the dribble from the corner of your mouth?” This, while aunt Fruma chimes in, “And who, do you suppose, has been changing that pad, down in your cute little panties?”
 

“What?” I ask, in great outrage.
 

“Yes, dear,” says aunt Hadassa. “Lenny, he found you right there, right outside the kitchen door. He said he’d called you, and called you again, then again, because the omelette, it was almost ready, and you never answered. So he figured you must have left.”

“And the omelette,” she continues, before I have time to catch my breath. “Oy, it was getting cold, and of course it is no good cold, so finally he figured, of course, that he was hungry, because all he had for breakfast was coffee. You know he is sick of your egg salad, right? He never eats it, dear, now does he. Why you keep making it is beyond me!”

By now I’ve opened my mouth to answer, which at once makes her raise her voice. “So,” she says, “he transferred the omelette to a plate, and added some butter on top, and waited a bit, just to let it melt, and to make sure you, dear, were not coming back. Nu, then he just ate it, after which he came out and realized, all of a sudden, that quite sadly, he had been mistaken; that in fact, you were there all along, in the corridor, lying flat on your back, and barely breathing, too. Which is when he picked up the phone and, finally, called us.”

In disbelief I say, “Help? I don’t need none of your help! And where, where is he now?”
 

To which she says, “My, my! He is so exhausted now, after all that excitement, I mean the wedding first of all, and then his stay at the hospital. Too weak, I am afraid, to be of any use! And his son, Ben, nu! What can I say? Men! They managed to lift you, somehow, and carry you to bed. So now, consider yourself lucky, dear, to be in one piece. As soon as we came, they went out.”

“Out? Out where?” I ask.

But in place of an answer she just waves her hand, saying, “I do not wish to lump them all in one heap, but somehow, you see, men can never take care of themselves, let alone take care of us women. They are never there for us when we need them—now are they!”
 

For a minute I hesitate to ask, “What did you say, just now, about changing my pad? What pad?”
 

Which makes her lay down her square of wool and say, this time real slow and careful, “You know you are bleeding, right?”
 

It is then that I try to jump from the bed, because not only do I feel ashamed, even violated, which of course isn’t the first time in my life—but all of a sudden I sense a cramp, just like a stab, down in my stomach, in the same place where so far, the pain’s been dull.
 

So she hurries over, and places the palm of her hand, like, real heavy, on top of my shoulder. “You can’t do that, dear,” she says, pushing me back, and propping up my pillow—even as I rise up to ask, “Why? Why the hell not?”

“Nu,” she says. “Just be a good girl for me and lie down, nice and easy now, and for God’s sake, be still. Take up knitting if you like. I can bring you instructions,” she adds, “for anything. Baby blanket? Baby socks? Just tell me, dear, tell me what you like.”

Despite her offer, I’m sick of the way she keeps saying
dear
.
 

There’s no way for me to know what she means by that, because her tone is like, bitter, and it don’t hardly agree with the sweet taste of this word, and because she keeps repeating it all too often; all of which tell me one thing: aunt Hadassa is torn. She can’t decide between wishing me ill—and helping me back to my feet.