Modern Girls (37 page)

Thursday, September 12

WE were a somber group traveling to the harbor. Ben went first with the luggage in a truck borrowed from a neighbor who made deliveries. We piled in Dottie’s trunks and suitcase, the same suitcase we’d given her when she was fifteen and started going to Camp Eden. Ben offered to buy her a new one, something to complement the fancy matched pieces I knew the Kleins would have. But she insisted on this beat-up case.

At breakfast we ate and stared at one another and started to speak but ended up talking over one another and then, ultimately, saying nothing. When the morning mail arrived, there was a letter from Yussel, but even that couldn’t rouse me, and I set it aside to read that evening. I wanted nothing to distract me from my final moments with Dottie.

With time on our hands, we decided to walk to the harbor. Better than sitting and fretting. Besides, I wanted to stretch out our time together, be with Dottie for a bit longer. Not that there was much left to say; we just wanted to
be
. On the way down, she let me hold her hand.

And now, here we are at the ship, the SS
Manhattan
. These past weeks, with their ups and downs, have brought us here, to this moment, to this dock, staring down this hunk of metal that somehow manages to stay afloat. The pungent air, the behemoth vessel, the pandemonium of the ship crew: I close my eyes, and
it’s 1914 and I’m about to board for America. The trepidation overwhelms me, and I listen to the mishmash of voices. Even here in America, so many different languages trumpeting at once.

Dottie’s voice interrupts my reverie. “There’s Willie.”

We move to the Kleins, but I feel as if I am floating. I know this is happening right now, but it doesn’t seem possible, me saying good-bye to my baby girl. I speak as if through a cloth, my ears plugged with cotton. I greet the Kleins without any awareness of what I am saying. Molly dabs her eyes with a handkerchief. I wonder where my tears are.

That ship. Looming. It looks exactly the same as mine, although I know it is not. And Dottie is not the same as I was. Dottie is well fed, she’s dressed fashionably, and she isn’t destined for the bowels of the ship. First-class, my Dottala sails.

I try to focus on Willie, so stiff and regal. His clothes are stylish—what is the word Dottie likes to use? Snazzy? Next to Ben, who is in his work clothes so he can return to the garage, Willie looks like a movie star. No wonder Dottie was taken in.

Snippets of the conversation drift into my consciousness. “You promise you’ll come back if things get worse,” Molly says. My head feels as if it is full of ether, although I am not numb. I wish I were.
This
is the child I cannot lose. This is the child I
am
losing.
This
is the child I will mourn.

“Don’t try to be a hero,” Ira says. “And watch your wallet. Those Parisians are filthy crooks.”

Ben has Dottie in an embrace. His words dance on the salt air. “Remember who you are. Remember what you are. We are Jews. We have made it through worse. And you can always come home. With or without Willie, you can always come home.”

Alfie is asking for postcards, Eugene is whimpering, and I am bewildered, not sure how this is happening.

“We should board, Dottie,” Willie says, glancing at his watch. She nods and then turns to us for a final time.

So much for me to say. But nothing for me to say. For perhaps
the first time in my life, I stand mute. Dottie gives final hugs to the boys.

Izzy says, “Be safe.”

Dottie says, “I will.”

He leans into Dottie and I hear him whispering into her ear, “Be brave,” before he pulls away. He wipes his eyes brusquely.

Alfie gives her a quick kiss on the cheek and a long squeeze. “Remember. Postcards of those French airplanes.”

“I’ll remember,” Dottie says.

Eugene is next and he holds on for so long, I wonder if he plans on ever letting go. I should take him. I should pull him off. But part of me hopes if he holds on long enough, she will stay.

Dottie kisses his head and murmurs, “Now behave. I’ll be back before you know it and I don’t want to hear any reports.” Finally, he releases her, his tears freely flowing, and Dottie is ready to take leave of her brothers.

At last, it is my turn. “Dottala,” I say.

“Ma,” she says.

I hug her. In that hug I put in everything I have, all my wishes for her, all my love, all my dreams. I try to press them into her as one final good-bye.

“You will do good,” I whisper into her ear.

Her body trembles in my arms. She is on the verge, I can tell, and I hold my breath, hoping she will change her mind, hoping she will return to the apartment and raise her baby with me. But she pulls away and moves toward her husband.

“Good-bye,” she says.

“God be with you, Dottala,” I say. And now my tears are free. My body shakes, and Ben holds me, keeping me steady, keeping me from chasing after her.

Willie holds out an elbow for her to take. The porter has already carried up the luggage. They walk up the gangplank, the metal grates shaking beneath their feet. We are sobbing, all of us; even Alfie has tears streaming down his face.

They disappear into the metal monstrosity.

“We should go,” Ben says gently, but I shake my head.

“I need to stay. Make sure she is safe.” As if my gaze could protect her.

Ben and Alfie and Izzy leave, but Eugene stays behind with me. He curls into my side, as he used to with Dottie, and my arm goes around him. It feels natural. And right.

Eugene and I stand there for over an hour, waiting for our Dottie to change her mind, waiting for her to come running down the ramp and into our arms, waiting for her to come home with us.

With three blasts of the horn, the ship leaves port and sails out into the Atlantic.

Thursday, September 12

THE Statue of Liberty grows smaller and smaller as she shrinks from view. It occurs to me this is the opposite of what is supposed to happen; Lady Liberty was meant to welcome, to embrace, not to send off. I lean on the rail of the ship until she is completely gone from sight.

Four weeks ago I had my work, my family. Abe. Just four weeks. And here I am.

I am a married lady. Beginning my married life. With my married husband.

Our luggage awaits me in the cabin and needs to be unpacked. Before we left port, Willie decided he needed a drink and went off in search of the ship’s bar. And being alone in that sardine can—even if it is a first-class sardine can—made my skin crawl, so I escaped to the deck to watch New York disappear from view. I didn’t think it would go so quickly. I thought the city would linger on the horizon, but now there is only boundless water stretching on all sides.

I am a married lady.

We will arrive in Le Havre on September 18. Just seven days to travel 3,514 miles. That’s 502 miles a day; 20.9 miles an hour. A third of a mile a minute.

I am a married lady.

The weight of my decision sits in my stomach. What have I
done? The water in front of me is not the blue of picture books. It is dark and roiling, nearly a black ink churning all around me. The sound of the ocean fills my ears and the salty air stings my eyes.

New York. It’s all I know. I hadn’t expected this longing, at least not this soon. The longing for my mother. For the boys. For Abe. Abe. Will he be the thought I hold on to in the middle of the night? I mourn for the political arguments, the squabbling over
pulkes
at the
Shabbes
table, the frustration at Abe’s stubbornness. I mourn for nights at the café with Edith and Linda, for the Yiddish theater, for Ma’s goose liver stew on a freezing winter night. I mourn for the afternoons gossiping with Zelda and the summer nights under the stars at Camp Eden. I mourn for Eugene’s hot breath on my neck as he slept snugly next to me, for Alfie’s clever mischief as he swindled coins from me, for Izzy’s quiet determination.

But mourning is pointless. I have to remind myself, I am my mother’s daughter. I will do what I need to do. Yes, I am married to a stranger. Yes, I am going to have a baby in a foreign land. Yes, I am about to embark on work that could risk my life as easily as it could save others. Yes, I am more afraid than I have ever been in my life. But I will do what I need to for this baby. It is what the women in my family do.

I am a mother.

Straining, I look for anything comforting, familiar, out over the ocean, but all I see is emptiness.

My hand brushes my head and I feel the mess my hair is becoming. With a last look, I turn to go back to the cabin. I had better unpack and fix my hair. It is time to join my
husband.

AS the saying goes,
Yedes vort oyf zayn ort
. Every word in its place. No two people did more to help each word fall into place than my agent, Laney Katz Becker, and my editor, Tracy Bernstein. Laney edited, critiqued, and read more rewrites than one would think possible, while cheering me on the whole way. Tracy is an editor extraordinaire, whose insightful ideas and deft edits brought greater depth to the world of Dottie and Rose. I am so grateful that I had both on my team.

I am also lucky to have my own
landsfroyen
, the fabulous women of my writing group who saw this story in its infancy and helped it grow into the fully formed novel it is today. Jennifer Davis-Kay, Sarah Endo, Sheryl Kaleo, Sarah Monsma, and Mary Rowen, you have my eternal thanks. Thank you to my other readers, Betsy Aoki, Estelle Berg, and Julia Schilling, who gave their thoughts and suggestions, correcting facts along the way (and any factual errors that remain are entirely my own).

A weekend seminar on historical fiction with Cam Terwilliger at Grub Street in Boston helped me germinate the idea. Thanks also to Katrin Schumann and Lynne Griffin of Grub Street’s Launch Lab for helping me figure out what to do once the writing was done.

My friends have all proven to be incredible
menschen
. I owe a great deal to my morning running crew and our vaulted conversations.
And what would I have done without the women of Dallin, who provided me with laughs and lots of bourbon (and especially to Rosemarie Connell, who has plotted and planned even before the book was finished)? The Emunah gang, especially Linna Ettinger and Sharon Levin, have answered questions, planned my readings, and encouraged me the whole way. My fellow writers at the Debutante Ball—Aya de Leon, Abby Fabiaschi, Louise Miller, and Heather Young—have given me some of the best advice and support a writer could ask for.

And then there’s my family. The words aren’t there for the gratitude I have for my
mishpocheh
, my earliest of readers and my biggest of fans: my parents, Peter and Carol K. Brown, and my sister, Melissa Brown. I didn’t always take their feedback happily, but I always took it, and the novel is the better for it. (And I didn’t take any wooden pickles along the way.) With love, I thank you.

Finally, “thanks” isn’t enough for Adam, Nathan, and Sadie Medros. This novel wouldn’t exist without them. They encouraged me, supported me, and provided me with quiet writing time and gummy bears. This novel is as much theirs as it is mine. Adam, Nathan, and Sadie,
ikh hob aykh lib
!