Enchanted Islands (10 page)

He shook her hand. “You didn't tell me your cousin was so pretty,” he said. Rosalie smiled. I knew he meant it as the compliment one is supposed to give women when one meets them for the first time, but I felt jealousy's sticky grip.

“Oh, stop! How was the beach?”

“Beachy keen!” I said. It was a terrible pun. Both Zeke and Rosalie laughed tepidly, with politeness.

“Why don't we all go out, maybe next Saturday? I'd like to get to know the man who is occupying all of Fanny's time.” I was surprised to hear Rosalie say this. Did she miss me? I hadn't even thought that she might feel neglected. I assumed she was out with her acting teacher.

“Zeke observes Shabbos,” I said.

“How's Sunday?” he said. “I can take you both out for ice cream. Bring your beau,” he told Rosalie.

“I would if I had one. Do you mind doing double duty?”

“A girl for each arm, I'm a lucky guy.”

I wanted to interject myself into the conversation. “That sounds fun.”

“Then it's decided. I'll call for you at two?”

“Perfect!” Rosalie said. “Nice to finally meet you, Zeke.” She opened the door.

“I'll be there in a minute,” I said.

Zeke kissed me, holding me tight so I could feel how much he wanted me. “Ow,” I said as the embrace turned too forceful.

“Sorry.” He backed away from me. “Bye.”

I didn't turn back at the door to wave. I didn't want to see him and feel bad about what I was denying him.

Zeke arrived on Sunday with a daisy for each of us, and we linked arms as we walked toward the El. We went all the way up to Vogelsang's Drug Store for a soda. What did we talk about? I don't remember exactly, but fashion, probably, or our favorite foods. At the fountain we laughed and drank Coca-Cola. We walked to nearby Lincoln Park and visited the zoo and the conservatory, the glasshouse steamy and close. I don't remember anything in particular about that day, I just know that I felt so happy, like I was part of a real family. I imagined us in fifteen years, Rosalie and her husband, our children with us. The future seemed certain.

When we were alone that night in bed, Rosalie said, “You're so lucky. I'm happy for you, Fanny. He's wonderful.”

“I know,” I said, “isn't he? I mean, he's a bit square and he can go on about Zionism, but I think he might be my Melvin Shumwitz.”

Rosalie laughed. “Don't lose him, now.”

I started. “Why? Do you think I'm doing something wrong?”

“No, no,” Rosalie said. “I just mean, hang on to him.”

“I don't know how,” I said. “He wants…he wants to…you know.”

“Of course he does.” Rosalie's voice sounded loud in the dark. “They all want to.”

“I'm afraid,” I said.

“It's kind of fun.”

I switched on the light and sat up. “Rosie, have you? Did you?”

She nodded, full of a secret. “With Peter.”

“Your acting teacher? But he's married!” I laugh at myself now to think that that was what I was concerned with.

“He loves me,” she said, wounded.

“And you…Aren't you worried about getting…You know?”

“He uses a French letter.” Rosalie examined her fingernails.

“He reads to you in French?”

“No.” Rosalie laughed condescendingly. “It's a sort of glove, over his thing. It makes you not have a baby.”

I'd never heard of such a thing. “And it's fun?”

“Not at first, but then yes. And they are so appreciative.”

They? I had nothing to say. Rosalie was again a thousand leagues in front of me. “I wouldn't know what to do.”

“He will,” Rosalie said confidently.

First Mr. Andrews fell sick, and we were all worried because his health was fragile. Then one of the clerks went down—he sent his son with a note excusing his absence using the most unnecessarily graphic descriptions of his symptoms. Then the men on the floor caught it, and production fell thirteen percent, a statistic that I painstakingly calculated with my mediocre math, so take it with a grain or sack of salt. Then one day Zeke didn't come to work.

At coffee time I felt a bit off, and my stomach had turned by noon so that I was racing into the lavatory every fifteen minutes, thinking I was going to lose my roll, only to sit facing the porcelain forlornly, wondering whether I would feel better if I got sick.

I emerged to find Elsie standing there. “I'm sorry to keep it occupied,” I said.

“I don't have to use it,” Elsie said. “I'm standing here to tell you to go home.”

“I'm fine,” I said, leaning against the wall. “I'll stay.”

“Frances, you're positively green,” she said. “You make grass look dull in comparison.”

I had to agree that I was a bit woozy, and the room was tilting dangerously. So far I hadn't done much work and probably wouldn't be capable of any.

“Don't worry,” Elsie said. “Mr. Mays gives two sick days a year.”

I wanted to tell her I didn't need a sick day, but I felt the need to rush back into the lavatory and this time I was successful in my purging.

Then Elsie had no trouble convincing me that I should go home and lie down. She even gave me a dollar for a hansom cab, a luxury that I had trouble accepting but ended up taking, not even enjoying the plush velvet in my stupor. I had only been in a carriage a handful of times, and combined with the queasiness of my stomach, I had the sensation of flying, like my spirit had been released from my body and I was hovering above myself.

I let myself in; the house was silent. I checked the living room and the dining room, but Mrs. Klein was not in the sitting room nor eating lunch. The door to her room was closed, so I assumed she was napping. I walked down the long hallway and through the kitchen that led to Rosalie's and my room.

I heard then a loud groaning, which I thought might have come from me or my stomach. The walls got narrower in my vision and I so wanted to lie down that I had trouble making sense of what I saw when I entered the room.

Rosalie was on all fours on the floor, completely nude, and a man held her long braids up like the reins to a horse. He was still mostly clothed, his pants around his ankles and his shirt bunched up around his waist. They were facing the window and had their eyes closed and so didn't see me in the doorway. Rosalie moved away from him and his organ popped out red and angry and then he put it back in. Rosalie moaned, and the man spoke in a gruff, huffing voice. “Here it comes,” and I realized the voice was familiar. Zeke.

I was frozen in the doorway the way I was paralyzed at Rosalie's house that afternoon. I willed my limbs to move but they refused to obey and held me there, captive to the scene. Zeke and Rosalie separated, and that was when she saw me.

“Fanny, what are you…? Oh God, Fanny.”

All that came out of my mouth was a squeak.

Zeke pulled up his pants hurriedly and tried to hide by turning his face away, like a child who thinks he is invisible if he closes his eyes. Another wave of nausea overtook me and I barely made it to the bathroom before vomiting up mostly bile into the bathtub. Rosalie followed me in. She was still unclothed and her breasts hung low, the nipples large. Her face was red from exertion and bits of sweat clung to her. Hers or Zeke's?

“Fanny, I can—” I brushed past her and heard Zeke say, “Wait!” I grabbed my small purse as I ran out the back door, tripping more than once and landing on my backside as I hurried down the stairs.

Once outside I began to run, my legs and lungs aching after only a minute or two. I ran to the lake, too confused to cry or even to think about what I'd witnessed. I ran until I thought I would black out, and then I sat on a bench. I was emptier than I ever have been, my stomach a vast pit of quicksand, an eddy, at the bottom of which only air swirled.

I was awakened by a woman out with her dog sometime later. I wasn't sure how long I'd slept, but it was obviously early evening. My shivering had calmed, though my fever had gotten worse, and I was very confused. From what they told me later, I had called the woman by Mrs. Bloomfeld's name, mistaking her fancy dress. Therefore, they took me to the Bloomfelds' house, though Mrs. Bloomfeld claims she barely recognized me, I was in such sorry shape. Luckily, no one had robbed me while I was unconscious; I had all my savings in that small purse.

Her maid helped me to the bathroom and changed me into a plush nightgown. I remember that it was the softest material I'd ever touched. I took a cup of tea with honey and fell asleep before I could drink it.

When I awoke, the first thing I saw was Rosalie's face, and I was very glad until I remembered why I was in need of nursing in the first place.

“Fanny,” she said, and stroked my forehead with a wet cloth, but I turned so that my back faced her. I gathered Mrs. Bloomfeld's soft sheets, so much more luxurious than our own scratchy linens, so that Rosalie couldn't climb in next to me. If I could have plugged my ears I would have. But though I tried not to hear, I couldn't help it.

“I'm so sorry, Fanny. It's…hard to explain. Here, I'll try. I came home one night and I saw him outside the back door, smoking and pacing. He was very odd, as you said he could be, but then I saw that you had left him unsatisfied…He was saying that he wasn't going to see you anymore because he couldn't get married now, and what sort of modern girls wouldn't…finish what they'd started? And I knew how much you cared for him, Fanny, so I took care of it, and then we just sort of kept meeting. It was for you. I didn't mean to hurt you.”

At the word “hurt,” I recalled with vivid precision watching him put his thing there, inside her, and heard her groan, which was not one of complaint, and I pulled my legs into my chest and the covers over my head and it wasn't until I heard her footsteps leave the room that I allowed myself to straighten.

My fever broke for good the following day, and I had time to think about what Rosalie had said. A veil had been lifted. I heard the stupid logic of her tone. She was an actress, I reminded myself, capable of chameleon changes and personality subterfuge. She withheld from me all those years her family's arrangement with the landlord, and now I wondered if the scene at her house hadn't been for my benefit, if she had always planned to live off me while she worked her way to New York. I felt duped, angry. And foolish, one of the most painful emotions for a young person, when nearly every day brings a new humiliation born of inexperience.

I was angrier at her than at Zeke, though I had plenty of rancor for him as well. I had thought that we would be married. I fantasized about having children in Palestine, about bringing them up in a mango orchard, of making sacramental wine from grapes we'd grown ourselves. I had allowed him to seduce me mentally, even if I didn't relent physically. And now I wondered why I hadn't.

What was clear to me was that I couldn't face either of them, and yet I'd have to. How do you look someone in the face when you've seen them do what I saw them do to each other? How do you not see that same scene every time they hand you a coffee cup, or a broadsheet to proofread?

Here the momentary clarity wore off, and before I could think of where to go and what to do, I fell asleep again, dreaming of Mrs. Bloomfeld's daughter's dolls, whose shiny hair and white skin stared at me from their glass cabinet.

Mrs. Bloomfeld came in the following morning and drew the curtains herself. She put her hand on my forehead. “I think you're all right now,” she said. “Rosalie said you've fought, though she won't tell me what about.”

I said nothing, barely blinked. “Well, you'll have to make up,” she said. “I know I fought with my cousins and sisters when I was your age, and it's all forgotten now.”

“I don't think this is something I can forget,” I said. My voice sounded hoarse from disuse.

“Well, if you won't tell me, then I can't agree or disagree.” I let the silence build, though Mrs. Bloomfeld was obviously expecting an explanation, or at least an acknowledgment.

“You're very kind to care for me,” I said, finally.

“Well, my daughter is away at school, and I would hope that if anything ever happened to her, someone would take her in as I've done you. But you can't stay here forever.”

I wanted to hibernate eternally, curled up in Mrs. Bloomfeld's daughter's bed, surrounded by lush carpets, the desk, and occasional tables that were there for mere decoration, not just function.

“Can you eat some breakfast?” I nodded and Mrs. Bloomfeld said she'd have some sent in. I wished I knew her daughter. Rosalie was the only friend I had in the world. I thought of Elsie, but I knew that she was busy in her own world, and her friendship, while not false, was superficial, as well as new. Mrs. Bloomfeld was right. I would have to reconcile with Rosalie if I was going to continue to live with her. But how to forgive her? I never wanted to see either her or Zeke again.

As soon as I could put weight on my legs, I did what Rosalie would have done, and I imagined she was proud of her protégé. I dressed in one of Mrs. Bloomfeld's daughter's dresses that was hanging in the closet. I picked out two other worn ones that weren't likely to be sorely missed, and packed them in a satchel I found. I also borrowed some of her underthings. I didn't borrow them; I stole them. I told myself that I could mail them back when I got settled.

I snuck out the back door of the house when all was quiet and took the El to Union Station. I caught the first train that was going west. I didn't intend to ride it that far. I just wanted out.

The years passed. Time is like a dray horse—it follows its own will. It plods along when you wish it would speed, and then it runs away from you when you need it to stroll beside you. I ended up in Nebraska, working as a secretary for Mrs. Doris Keane, a wealthy farmer's wife and suffragist. My principal qualification for employment was my facility with the printing press, since she published voting rights pamphlets. In return, she let me live on the farm, adjusting my hours so that I could finish high school, then paying me a wage so I could attend college. I won't dwell on this part of my life. Just know that I remember it as one of the more peaceful moments in my existence. Though I was glad to leave Nebraska when the time came, I sometimes still miss its vastness, the placidity of the acres of farmland, the way you can see the weather rolling in, the polite way it warns you. I miss the flat plain faces and the way that nothing ever changed, except that polite weather.

My anger at Zeke and Rosalie, especially Rosalie, burned like persistent coals for months. When it waned, I fed it with the image of them together, fanned it with memories of Rosalie's betrayal with the man I loved. Did I love him? I don't know now. It was so long ago. And then gradually over the course of a year or so the anger left me and I was caught up in my new life. First hours, then days, and then weeks went by without Zeke or Rosalie crossing my mind. Daily life is consuming—it will mask unpleasant thoughts.

I learned all sorts of skills during that time which have proven to be useful in my later life; one can't live on a farm for six years and not pick up some basic knowledge of Nature's stingy largesse. I learned to trap and skin a rabbit without losing my lunch. I could grow a vegetable garden.

I also learned much about Mrs. Keane's enthusiasms. My very first day, Mrs. Keane gave me two pamphlets. One said “Give yourself to Christ” and the other said “Stand up and be counted.” The connection between Christianity and suffrage was nebulous at best; I knew the Old Testament well enough to know that any quotations from it needed to be twisted if they were to support Mrs. Keane's cause. The Bible did not mention women's right to vote, and I doubt the New Testament spent much ink on it.

During my time with Mrs. Keane I became a convert (if a passive one) to her cause. Now it seems obvious that women should have the right to vote, but at that time, most people, if they didn't actively oppose it (on moral grounds, or on the grounds that it would be politically inexpedient), hadn't given the issue much thought at all. That's just the way it was.

Having seen the pamphlets, though, I was too afraid to mention that I was not a Christian. It wasn't that I lied. It was more that I never quite found a way to mention it, and then it was too late to mention it. Mrs. Keane thought pork was unclean, so it was never served at the farm, though we raised and slaughtered pigs. It was easy to forget about my religion.

But every September I would start to feel guilty. Some date in the month (I had no access to a Jewish calendar) would be Rosh Hashanah, followed ten days later by Yom Kippur, the two most important holidays. On Yom Kippur one is supposed to ask for forgiveness, and I had a barnful of people I needed to seek absolution from. I was sure my parents were worried; even if they were relieved that I was no longer dependent on them, they would most likely be happy to know that I was okay. I wanted to write Elsie and Mr. Mays as well, to excuse my flight. Maybe they wouldn't forgive me, but at least they'd have an explanation. And Mrs. Bloomfeld deserved a thank-you note for nursing me, and an apology for appropriating her daughter's clothing.

After two Yom Kippurs had passed, I sat down after breakfast one day with some blank paper and tried to pen those notes. It was hard going. I'd wronged all of them, selfishly. And though I had my reasons, which may even have been good reasons, I'd lied and even stolen, and I saw, just for a second, how Rosalie might have been able to justify her own misconduct. Would my parents write back? I'd never learned to write Yiddish, so I wrote in English. Would they even be able to read it? Would they consult someone, or would their shame about their poor English prevent them from doing so? Would they be proud of me for continuing my education, or would they think me frivolous and a liar?

Not three weeks later, a letter came from my parents. Nothing was mentioned about my precipitous disappearance for two years. We began a regular correspondence, quarterly letters that said nothing of importance. My brother wrote in English, using the plural first person so that I was never sure whose opinions on the weather and the price of chicken were being expressed. Elsie sent me a brief note; by her brevity I knew she was angry with me. I never heard back from Mrs. Bloomfeld, which did not surprise me.

Six months later, Mrs. Keane's maid told me that a letter had come for me, but I didn't go down to get it until suppertime, as I assumed it was from my family. I was writing a paper, I remember, for my eighteenth-century British literature class, the second one I was taking at the university, though I was also still attending high school to catch up on the math and science I'd missed.

The envelope sat on the entry table, and from the stairs I recognized the handwriting. Rosalie always had perfect penmanship, a trait that annoyed me, as I could not make my hands do anything so orderly and was often penalized for my messiness. My stomach flipped and the blood left my brain. I should have known she'd find me. It wasn't like I'd hidden that well. All three of the people I wrote to had my address. I debated whether to open it. Part of me wanted to throw it in the fireplace unread, a romantic gesture fueled no doubt by my current reading list. But another part was curious to see what she had to say. I put my thumb under the lid of the envelope, but just then I heard the maid calling me to supper. Mrs. Keane liked to eat with us when her husband was away, and she could not abide tardiness. So I shoved the letter into the pocket of my skirt and rushed to the table.

All through the meal, the mumbled grace, the “please pass,” the conversations about the advance of autumn, the suffragist movement, the Indian question, the letter sat burning in my pocket like an iron hot to shoe the horses. I couldn't wait for the meal to end. Usually I helped with the dishes. I considered claiming a headache, but it seemed to me a cowardly thing to do. I hurried so through the washing up that the cook asked me if I had a beau waiting.

I imagined the contents of the letter a thousand different ways. She would apologize, beg forgiveness. She would tell me she and Zeke were getting married, that she'd landed a role in a movie, that she was expecting Peter's baby…

Even if I no longer thought of Rosalie every day, I had no other close friends, and I still longed for her company. Sometimes I talked to her in my mind about things that were troubling me or milestones I achieved. Even after I reminded myself that she and I were no longer in contact and of the circumstances that forced that breach, I still used her as a sort of mental diary, a repository of my innermost thoughts and challenges. So to actually receive a letter from her gave me the uneasy sensation of being talked to from beyond the grave.

Safe in my room, I tore the envelope and removed the letter. It was two pages long:

Dear Fanny,

I hope that you'll read this, though I suppose if you're reading this then you decided to read it…Fanny, how can I ever apologize? Or, rather, how can I beg your forgiveness? What do I have to do so that you'll grant it? Because I will do anything. I will beg anything.

Fanny, I made a terrible mistake. But that's what it was, a mistake. I thought I was helping. I see now that I was not. That doesn't excuse what I did, but maybe it explains it, a bit.

Fanny, I miss you so much. You're my only friend. You're the only one who knows my secret. Please don't judge me, Fanny. Instead, forgive me, your sister.

Maybe it will please you to learn that I've been suffering. You were not wrong; my acting teacher was not who he said he was, and dropped me suddenly, insulting me terribly in the process. Mrs. Klein's daughter asked me to leave. I'm ashamed to tell you how I put food in my mouth. Suffice to say that my punishment has fit my crime.

As you can see I've gotten back on my feet. I keep and clean a dance and acting studio downtown in exchange for classes, and they let me sleep on a cot in the back room. There are mice, of course, but it's not bad otherwise. I continue to go on auditions, but so far there's been very little work. I also dream of Broadway. Perhaps I'll get there one day.

Fanny, I pray you'll write me back and say that all is forgiven. How is it that you came to live in Nebraska? What's it like there? Are you in school? Working? Married? Engaged? I'm panting with anxiety to hear from you, and I only hope that your experience since we parted was as wonderful as you deserve, and not as abjectly miserable as mine has been, which I deserve.

Yours in love and humility,

Rosalie

I let the letter fall out of my hands onto the desk. It was what I had suspected, even what I had hoped for. Rosalie had taken the trouble to find me, to write me, to apologize. I even believed that she thought she was helping the situation when she began her relations with Zeke. Whatever became of him? Rosalie didn't say.

I won't hide that I felt a certain amount of satisfaction knowing that she'd been struggling while I fulfilled my dream of going to school. I wanted to write her back. I planned to do it a million times but there was always something more pressing that had to be done. I even started the letter and got as far as “Dear Rosalie,” when I realized I didn't know what my next words would be. Did I forgive her? And what did I want from her?

While I considered what I wanted to say, the urgency to write her passed, and the months flew by in a blink. It felt like I had written her back already. Then when the school year finally ended I did put pen to paper and sent the letter off. In it, I told her she was forgiven, and that I was happy to hear from her. I told her a bit about my life and about school, and I included a rather graphic description of when I learned to kill and pluck a chicken.

When the letter came back to me marked “No Such Resident,” I was sad I hadn't written immediately. Regret washed over me the way it always did in the aftermath of an impetuous action. Where had she gone? I hoped to New York. Or California. But this was back when people disappeared, when America was a vast swath of uncharted territory, and people were like pebbles tossed into the ocean.

Perhaps I wanted to continue to disappear, and that's why I moved to San Francisco when I graduated. Or maybe it's just because that's where I got a job, as a newly minted English teacher, diploma still fresh off the press.

I was a fourth-grade teacher for almost ten years, then a seventh-grade teacher for five, a teacher of English to Oriental immigrants' children for a dozen more. During that time, I lived in an apartment in the Fillmore with two other women. They got married, and I found two others to live with me, and when they, too, got married I decided that it was too much trouble and I moved into a boardinghouse near the school where I was then teaching.

Each year the students stayed the same while I aged, incrementally but undeniably. The girls in the boardinghouse left to get married, or to move back home, their fun in the big city done. I was courted a few times, and a few times thought that maybe I'd get married, but it never worked out, and then I got used to being who I was, and it was too late to find someone.

Most Friday afternoons, after school let out for the week, I would go to the cinema, to clear my mind of the children's problems and the politics of elementary education. There was a theater halfway between school and my house, and I could make the showing at five fifteen. I remember there was a Chinese man outside who sold grapes, a strange enough cinema snack that I always bought them. He had a jug of water that he'd pour over the grapes to clean them before he handed them to me, wrapped in harsh brown paper.