Modern Girls (8 page)

Sunday, August 18

NOW that I knew for certain my body had betrayed me, the signs were unmistakable. A sore bosom. An unsettled stomach. My aching leg. My belly protruded, not from too much
kuchen
, but the way that happened when you were with child for the seventh time. The body remembered the curves and bumps and welcomed them back like an old friend.

In the kitchen, always in the kitchen, I prepared the entrails from Friday for our Sunday night stew. I looked impatiently at the clock, willing it to move faster. On Sunday nights Ben and I attended our
kaffeeklatsch
, and I longed for time to confide in Perle. A shred of hope persisted that this child wouldn’t take—I had lost babies before—yet if this were truly the third month, then it would appear that this baby would be as stubborn as the others I’d birthed.

Eugene ran into the kitchen, but when he saw me alone at the sink, he suddenly grew shy. “Where’s Alfie?” he asked. The child couldn’t stand to be separated from his older brother, attached to him like an appendage.

“Where should Alfie be? Reading his Hebrew is where he should be. So on the street causing trouble is where he is.”

That Alfie, refusing to study. He would have his hands slapped by the rabbi when he returned to
heder
knowing less than he did the spring before. Alfie hated going, didn’t like to be confined, but
that boy was going to get an education if it killed him. So many of Izzy’s gang had become thugs;
heder
had given Izzy solid footing, teaching him Jewish ethics. Those boys in
heder
with him, No Legs and Lefty, also turned into solid citizens. The boys who didn’t go . . . well, they were best avoided. I wanted to keep Alfie away from the gangs. My boys were rough, and the streets of New York were not a safe place for them.

“Thanks, Ma,” Eugene said as he ran off, and I called after him, “Don’t you dare slam that door,” which he was unable to hear for the slamming of the door.

Eugene, what would become of my Eugene? I had so little sense of the boy. Izzy had book smarts. Dottie had math and her Abe. Alfie worried me, but I could see that spark of intelligence in his eyes, the street smarts that made his hands quick and his senses sharp. Alfie was a live wire. He was also my favorite, a fact I tried to hide from the others, but I knew they could feel it, saw the way Eugene watched Alfie and me together. When you come so close to losing someone . . .

But Eugene. Eugene was a stranger. The boy was mature beyond his years, absorbing what went on around him. Yet he was sensitive, aware of every slight, every misfortune. A distance existed between us. I couldn’t blame him. It was entirely my doing. When a child is taken from his mother as a babe—and for an entire year at that!—he’s bound to distrust. He was just a few months old when Joey and Alfie caught polio, and the doctor insisted Eugene be kept away. I had to choose: send my Joey and Alfie to a hospital, where they’d be alone and terrified and most likely ill-treated, or send Eugene to relatives. It was no choice. Eugene was almost eighteen months by the time he came home to me, a mother he didn’t know, a mother who was still mourning the loss of one of her twins.

When he returned, I thought I just needed time.
This too shall pass,
I repeated to myself over and over, the words my mother had whispered to me as a child. I didn’t understand that time wouldn’t heal this wound, that the mourning would lessen, but
the ache would not. After Joey passed, I held on to Alfie with every breath of my body—too tightly, I knew—and he bucked at the reins I placed on him.

The truth is—and this is something I am ashamed to admit even to myself—I considered not calling for Eugene to come home. He had settled in so nicely with Ben’s sister. Kate truly cared for Eugene, and to this day, when Kate comes over, he runs to her and curls into her lap for a snuggle, burying his head in her bosom as he sucks his finger with satisfaction. A twinge of jealousy flickers through me when this happens; Eugene never sits on my lap. But I was so exhausted. Nursing the boys, trying to take care of Izzy and Dottie and Ben, making sure the house ran smoothly . . . I could be forgiven—couldn’t I?—for thinking life would be so much simpler without my youngest son. Dottie took to mothering Eugene, which gave me a quiet relief.

But still the guilt plagued. Every time I looked at my baby boy, I felt the great weight of my sins. I occasionally spoiled him, letting him get away with things Alfie could never have done—an extra candy before dinner, looking the other way at yet another tear in his trousers—as if the mere act of
doing
could compensate for what I wasn’t
feeling
.

Was this new baby supposed to be a chance to redeem myself? Or was it a punishment? Eugene was a longed-for child, and yet, I’d failed him. How could I trust I would do better for a child that I didn’t even want?

•   •   •

AT six o’clock, Ben came home from the garage, exhausted as usual, his clothes blackened and torn. I did more darning for that man than for the three boys put together. “Good evening, my
beshert
,” he said, giving me a kiss on the cheek.

I playfully slapped him with my dish towel to get him out of my way. “Go. Rest. Dinner will be out soon.”

Ben headed to the bathroom to try to scrub the dirt from his
hands, a pointless task. As my father would have said, “Like blood-cupping helps a dead person.” Once he was as clean as he could get, he plopped himself in his armchair and opened the Jewish newspaper I’d left him on the side table.

Bustling about the kitchen, I ensured everything was ready. Then I went into the living room, to set the table. Since the boys weren’t home yet and Dottie was out with her friends, I took the opportunity for a word with my husband.

I swatted at his feet, which were propped on the table. “Feet off,” I said.

“I’m tired, Rose,” Ben said. “Can’t a man rest in his own home?”

“Rest? Yes. But dirty feet all over the furniture? No.” I brushed the table with a rag where his boots had been. When I was done, I surveyed the table, satisfied. As I looked around the room, a rush of pride surged through me. Our home was pleasing, with a brand-new radio and a plush green couch. Religious books overflowed, boasting of the learning of the men in the house. We had the great novels of Aleichem, Mendele, and Peretz, and even some Yiddish translations of Shakespeare and Melville, which I had managed to read over the years. The Victrola played Dvorˇák’s Symphony no. 5, which echoed in the small apartment, making me feel like a fancy uptown lady. But with the pride came a deep fatigue. My entire body felt heavy and my leg ached, so with a sigh, I set myself down on the couch.

As he heard the creak of the sofa spring, Ben looked up from his paper, surprised. But then, looking closer at me, he said, “You’re exhausted.”

Resting in the middle of the evening was unlike me. A shelf always needed dusting or food needed to be started for the next day’s meal or a shirt mended. I closed my eyes a moment before stating the simple truth. “I am.” I rubbed the back of my neck to work out a kink. “I’m getting old.”

“Old? Or are you . . .”

I raised my eyebrows at him. “Am I what?”

He smiled. I knew exactly what he meant, but I was reluctant to say it out loud, to make it real. Ben took my hand and said, “It’s been a few months since you’ve visited the
mikve
.”

I nodded. By Jewish law, a husband is not permitted to be with his wife when she has her courses. When her time is done, she visits the
mikve
, the ritual bath, after which she and her husband may resume relations. So Ben was aware of my time. I’d missed a month or two in the past—I’d never been regular—but this third month meant just one thing.

“Oh, Beryl,” I said. I almost always called him by his American name, but at times like these, it didn’t feel adequate, and I used his childhood name. “I’m too old for this.”

“Clearly you are not,” Ben said, with a laugh. “In the Torah, Sarah was in her nineties when she was with child. You think God couldn’t do the same for you? You’re not even forty yet.”

Dear sweet Ben, who thought I was a year younger than him, not two years older. And it made the situation even worse. A child at my age. At forty-two. Enough was enough.

I nodded. “Is it a good thing, Beryl?” My voice caught, and I took a deep breath. “Me, having another child?”

Ben leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on the side of my forehead, lingering for a moment. When the kiss ended, he pulled my hands just a touch closer, squeezing them slightly. Finally he said, “Of course.”

“But my work? Esther Friedman is organizing the Women’s Conference Against the High Cost of Living. It’s this December. I promised I would help on the day of the event, setting up seats, assisting with decorations, organizing the ushers. The Women’s Committee of the Socialist Party is counting on me. I’ve a stack of committee correspondence to which I’ve promised to respond.”

Ben stroked my fingers. “The work will wait, my darling. The world isn’t going to be redeemed before this child goes to school. The party can find someone else to assist until then.”

“But babies.” My voice was close to a whisper. “They are so much trouble. And so much money. Another mouth to feed.”

Ben’s head bobbed as he thought. “Not so much trouble,” he said. “The garage is doing well. The money is fine. Dottie’s raise will help. Izzy will finish law school and begin to earn a decent living. And if not, well, we’ll make do.” He pulled up my chin for me to look into his eyes. “We always make do.”

He was right. We always made do. But it felt like such a burden.

“Bringing another Jewish soul into the world is never a bad thing,” Ben reminded me.

I nodded.

“Do you need to take it easy?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You may not be as old as Sarah when she birthed Isaac. But you are not as young as when you had Dottie and Izzy. And after Dottie and Izzy . . . well, there were problems.”

Thinking back to lost pregnancies, I wrapped my arms around my waist. At the time, that sadness seemed unbearable, back in the days when children were desired, when I was desperate for the soft mewl of a newborn, for the powdery scent of a baby’s head. But as overcome as I’d been with despair, I learned later that losing an unborn child was nothing compared with losing one who lived and breathed and played and kissed and laughed and cried. The pure sorrow I felt upon losing Joey was not one I would wish upon the Cossacks. My entire world closed after Joey, and it took years for it to reopen, though it never looked quite the same. Life was slightly grayer, heavier, after the death of my son. I was not the same. How would I be able to let in this new baby? Could I feel for a new child what I felt for Joey? Or would I give birth to another stranger?

Grief must have shown on my face. “I’m sure this baby will be as robust as Dottie and Izzy were,” Ben said, and I was sad he couldn’t mention Alfie and Joey. And Eugene. Poor, neglected Eugene.

But, pushing that thought aside, I automatically said,
“Puh puh,”
to ward off the Angel of Death.

Ben smiled. “You and your superstitions. You’re as bad as my grandmother.”

“Your grandmother was a wise woman,” I said. Ben chuckled. It was silly of me, I knew, the way I stood at the crossroads of my past and the present, wanting to rid myself of the old customs, but unable, in moments of weakness, to let go of the beliefs that had been fed to me since I was in my mother’s womb.

“Yes, yes, she was,” Ben said, rubbing my back gently. “Well, at least this time, Dottie will be able to help you.”

“No,” I said, more sharply than I meant. “Do not tell Dottie.”

“Whyever not?”

How could I explain? Dottie must start college. As self-centered as that girl was, I knew she would refuse to go to school if she learned I was expecting. She would insist on helping, would be wary of using the money for anything other than the baby. That girl had such a soft spot for children that she’d probably abandon all to care for it. If I could wait to tell her until after her schooling started, after her tuition was paid, I could guilt her into completing her education. But I couldn’t tell Ben this. I still didn’t know how I would explain to him from where the college money had come.

“Dottie just received her promotion. I have big plans for that girl. If she knew about this, she’d be more focused on the baby than on her work. She’ll figure it out soon enough, but in the meantime, let this be our little secret.”

“But you’ll need to rest. Dottie will
have
to help out more.”

“Nonsense,” I said. “No one has ever helped before. No one ever let my mother—may her memory be a blessing—rest. When the time comes, the children will know. Besides”—I paused for a moment, recalling the two lost babes after Izzy—“think of Eugene. The boy has sadness through his soul. I couldn’t bear breaking his heart should this not be in God’s plan.”

“But at least Dottie—”

I interrupted him. “Head bookkeeper will come with its own share of woes. She doesn’t need to take on mine now.” Forcing a
smile, I said, “Besides, Dottie is worthless in the kitchen. It’s more work making sure she’s doing it right. Let’s not worry her now.”