The American Lady (7 page)

She had been pounding the pavement all day. There was a secretarial opening not far from Harold’s bank—and Wanda fondly imagined how they would meet for lunch each day. And another job at the Municipal School Board, where she would be in charge of handing out free textbooks to needy children. And a position as receptionist at the Waldorf Astoria hotel. All her efforts were in vain. The men in gray suits who interviewed her needed only a moment to spot the link between her name and Miles Enterprises and then suddenly decided that she was too young for the post. Or it was already taken. Only the man at the Waldorf Astoria had told her straight out that they had been disappointed already by “young ladies of your background” who spent most of their time flirting with the guests rather than getting to work. Wanda hadn’t bothered to reply that she would take her work very seriously if only somebody would give her a job!

It had been a long and frustrating day, and now her ankles were swollen, her legs ached, and a dull anger gnawed at her belly. She wanted nothing more than to creep into her room for the rest of the evening. On the other hand, given the way her mother monopolized Marie’s every waking moment, she had hardly gotten to see her aunt. And she was hungry too. So despite her bad mood, she sat down for dinner with her parents and Aunt Marie. Lou-Ann’s eyes shone with pride as she dished up a potato gratin that Marie had specifically requested. Her mother eyed the crispy cheese crust suspiciously and held her hand over her plate to stop Lou-Ann from serving her more than a mere spoonful, but Wanda asked for a double helping. It was time to see what kind of food her country cousins in Thuringia ate.

“Look what I bought myself today. A New York guidebook! In English!” Marie took the book proudly from her pants pocket and passed it to Steven.

Wanda was still amazed that Marie had managed to ignore Ruth’s attempts to dress her respectably. But she’d done it somehow, and at least here at home she wore pants and a selection of tight-waisted blouses that were cut like men’s shirts, with ruffles down the front and at the cuffs. Marie looked so daring in her getup that Wanda found herself thinking of the Three Musketeers. She would like to try it herself sometim
e . . .
but Mother would never allow that.

“What a good idea! In fact you should have had a city guide all along,” her father said, looking fondly at his wife. “Ruth knows all there is to know about the best shoe stores and boutiques. But if you ask her what year a building dates from or who the architect was, my dear wife is usually stumped for an answer, aren’t you, my love?”

Ruth shrugged indifferently. Wanda knew her mother didn’t care about that sort of thing.

“Well, I think that the authors just copy off one another. Most of them have never set foot in the city,” Wanda said. But she felt a twinge of annoyance that she hadn’t thought to give her aunt a guidebook herself. Perhaps the two of them could have taken one of the walking tours described in its pages.

Marie looked at her curiously. “Do you think so? I find it very informative. Especially the section about New York’s bridges—that was the first thing I read, right through! Look, I’ll show you something.”

Everyone around the table smiled—Marie’s fascination with New York’s bridges was well-known by now.

“Look, this is how they built the Brooklyn Bridge,” Marie said, pointing to a photograph of a dozen workers grinning as they struck poses in a nest of steel cables. “It says here that they used fourteen thousand miles of steel cable. By the time it was done, it had cost three times as much as they expected.”

“Does the book say how many workers died building the bridge?” Wanda asked with a hint of concern in her voice as she bent over the page. “Or that thousands of poor immigrants worked on the site for decades, sweating their guts out for two dollars a day?”

“Wanda!” Ruth chided her.

“What do you mean,
Wanda
? Aren’t you the one who always says there are two sides to every question? Light and shade, remember. Where there’s wealth, there’s poverty too. And that’s especially true of New York. You only show Marie the side of the city you think she should see. How is she supposed to form her own impression?”

“Oh heavens, there you go again with your views on the social question. I hardly think Marie came all this way so that she could go visit the slums,” Ruth said icily.

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Wanda shot back. “Aunt Marie is an artist. That means she wants to see more than Broadway and the temples of commerce. Or the grand events at Madison Square Garden. That’s not where art really happens these days—true art moved on long ago. Pandora say
s—
”

“Kindly spare us your dance teacher’s opinions in such matters. The woman’s mad,” Steven interrupted gruffly. Then he turned back to Marie.

“Wanda’s right about one thing, though,” he said, glancing over at his daughter with a frown. “New York is a work of art in its own right. There are no new worlds to discover in this day and age, but this world-class city is the work of human hands. A work in progress. And each and every one of us should feel grateful to be a part of it.”

“I never knew you could be such a poet,” Marie said, giving Steven a gentle dig in the ribs. “Go on, it’s fun hearing you talk like this.”

Why couldn’t her aunt talk to her, just once in a while? Wanda turned back to her food in a huff. The potatoes tasted very good, even if they looked like mush.

Steven pointed out the window. “Out there the buildings are so tall that some streets don’t get to see the moon and stars at all. It’s like living in a canyon, but each canyon offers thousands of opportunities every day. Win or lose—everyone holds their future in their own hands. That’s the real beauty of this city, for me.”

“Opportunities!” Wanda spat out, before Marie’s face could cloud over again with that dreamy look of hers. “You mustn’t believe everything that Father says. If you happen to be young, and a woman, there are next to no opportunities. All you ever hear is what you’re not allowed to do.”

Marie looked at her, baffled. “Whatever do you mean?”

“She probably means she’s looking for another job,” Steven said, then turned to his daughter. “Must you really bore our guest with all that?” he asked her in a much sharper tone than usual.

Ruth couldn’t help but add, “Just how often does your father have to offer you a job at Miles Enterprises? It’s getting a little tiresome how muleheaded you can be.”

“And just how often do I have to tell you that I don’t want to let Daddy give me a job in the family firm?” Wanda asked right back, imitating her mother’s tone. Switching back to her normal voice, she added, “After all, when Father was my age he went to work for Mr. Woolworth. He didn’t ask his own father for a job.”

“Harold isn’t altogether happy about your wild ideas either,” Ruth announced as though Wanda had never spoken. “He’s already complaining that he hardly gets to see you.”

“You and Harold are all cut from the same cloth, it seems!”

The argument went on, back and forth across the table. Sometimes the tone grew harsh, sometimes a little less so. Then all of a sudden, after a particularly bitter exchange, Ruth burst into tears.

“Ruth, my darling, don’t cry!” Steven reached out tenderly and brushed the tears from his wife’s cheeks.

She raised her face toward him.

“What did we do wrong? She’s always had everything she ever needs, hasn’t she?” she whispered, her voice thick with tears.

Wanda swallowed hard. They were talking as though she weren’t there—again! Even Aunt Marie was ignoring her.

“That’s how young people are at that age. At least nowadays. I’m quite sure that Wanda will apologize, as she knows she should, an
d . . .
” Steven spoke to his wife in soothing tones.

All at once Marie pushed her chair back and stood up.

“That’s enough! I am sure you will excuse me if I leave the table. Nobody can put up with this kind of palaver.”

“Marie, please stay!” Ruth said, jumping to her feet. “I can’t let Wanda drive you away too.”

“What do you mean, Wanda? You two are the ones who are acting as though she were the first woman who ever wanted to work!” Marie stood in the door for a moment, shaking her head. “I just don’t know what your problem is,” she told Steven. “First you tell me that New York is the city of a thousand opportunities, but as soon as your daughter tries to seize one of them, you both scream blue murder! Good gracious—she isn’t planning to steal the moon from the sky! All she wants is to go to work somewhere nearby.”

Wanda stared at her, astonished—she had never heard her German aunt talk this way!

Ruth frowned. “It’s not as simple as all that. There are certain conventions we have t
o . . .
”

Marie laughed out loud. “Conventions! Oh, and didn’t we care about those when we were Wanda’s age?” she asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “You’ve obviously forgotten that we were young once to
o . . .
”

Shaking her head, she walked out of the room.

7

“Stop, stop, that’s enough, girls. We’re taking a break!” Pandora Wilkens clapped her hands and shooed her dance class over to a corner where a table stood with a carafe of water.

“You have to drink!” she called out. “Water is the elixir of life. Water and air, air and water, never forget that!”

Marie held her sides. “I can’t go on, I’ve got the most dreadful stitch,” she gasped. Exhausted, she lay down on the parquet floor, which had been worn smooth by the tread of countless dancing feet. Wanda passed her a glass of water and she took it, her hands trembling, and put it beside her.

When Wanda had asked her that morning whether she wanted to come to her weekly dance class, she hadn’t wanted to pour cold water on the idea. It was the first time that her niece had come to her with any such suggestion. So the two of them had set out together to walk to the southernmost point of Manhattan Island. Marie had been a little surprised when Wanda stopped in front of a shabby-looking brownstone building with three steep iron staircases zigzagging across the front.

A dance class? Here? How on earth did they squeeze a ballet studio in here? Would there be wall-length mirrors? Velvet ropes and gilded pillars? Then they went into the dressing room, which was no bigger than a broom cupboard, and Marie realized that Pandora Wilkens’s dance classes would be nothing like what she had imagined. She had been expecting a genteel pastime for young ladies.

Now she wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand.

“This is the first time we’ve gone out together—why did you pick something that’s such hard work?” she groaned as she tried to get back to her feet.

Wanda laughed. “You’re breathing wrong, that’s the problem.”

“How can I be breathing wrong?” Marie panted. “I’m just glad I’m still breathing at all!”
What am I doing here?
she wondered as she sipped at the stale, flat water. She felt horribly out of place. The “girls,” as Pandora called her dance students, were all at least ten years younger than Marie. And none of them were wheezing like an old woman. She felt that she was on her last legs. And speaking of legs—everyone in the room was bare-legged. Wanda’s teacher had insisted that everyone take off their stockings and their corsets as well. She clearly had her own ideas of what to wear for dancing. Marie glanced over at her. She was nothing much to look at—short and almost plump—but beneath that unprepossessing exterior lay a real artistic temperament. With her doll-like face and curling blonde locks, Pandora Wilkens looked as though she would never dance anything more strenuous than a sedate minuet. So much for first impressions. Right at the beginning of class she had shown them all what she was made of—she told the girls to stand around in a circle and then kneel down. Then she smiled graciously, walked to the center of the circle, and gave a sign to the piano player in the corner of the room, a Russian man named Ivo.

“I call this dance
Escapade
,” Pandora had announced, and then she and Ivo had hurled themselves into a frenzy of wild sound and astonishing movement. Marie had never even known that the human body could make such shapes. The poses she struck were so shockingly strange they were almost indecent. Marie had sat there without daring to move a muscle, watching as Pandora danced and danced and finally flung herself full-length to the floor as though struck down by an arrow.

Wanda raised her glass of water to her lips and drank it down.

“You really should pay more attention to how you breathe,” she told Marie, and then held her empty glass up as though it were a trophy. “What we did just now was only a warm-up. After the break Pandora will tell us the theme for today’s class.”

Marie heaved a sigh. “I’m beginning to think your father was not far wrong when he said your dance teacher was mad.”

“Imagine it’s the depths of winter,” Pandora told the class once they were back in a circle. “You’re freezing cold, perhaps you’re hungry too and you have nowhere to go to get warm. How does that make you feel? I want to see these feelings as you dance. Now, shut your eyes and freeze!”

The girls groaned.

“Why does it have to be winter?” one of them asked.

Pandora looked over at her scornfully. “I would hardly need you to use your imaginations if I asked you to sweat, now, would I?” she said, wiping the sweat from her own brow with a dramatic gesture.

Marie laughed like all the others, but it didn’t feel right. The whole thing was just so embarrassing.

But when Ivo struck up a sad, slow tune, the winter did not seem so far away after all. As Ivo played a melody that conjured up Russia and the cold wind blowing across the endless steppe, a shiver ran down Marie’s spine. But she couldn’t move for the life of her.

“Shut your eyes,” Pandora whispered as she went past.

When she closed her eyes, suddenly Marie could see. Frost flowers, showing their fine fronds as if through a microscope. A windowpane with a weathered wooden frame, fingers tracing lines on the cold glass. Marie lifted her right hand almost without knowing she did so, and then her left. Then she leaned forward a little.

Snowflakes!

Each one more beautiful than the last. Each a tiny world that fell apart when she touched it.

As if in a trance, Marie began to bend this way and that.

If only she could catch hold of one, just one!

Her fingers grasped the air, seeking, questing.

Faster, she had to move faster than the snow could fall, she had to turn, tur
n . . .

Suddenly the music stopped and Pandora was clapping her hands.

“Very good, girls! Now breathe deeply and swing your arms,” she ordered.

Startled, Marie opened her eyes.

Pandora asked one of the girls what she had seen.

“I imagined I was walking through town with my mother on a January day and I’d forgotten my coat. Brrr, that was cold!”

The others laughed.

Pandora nodded to the next in line.

“I thought of the polar bears in the city zoo. And how they always have to have cold water around them.”

“And what did our visitor see?” the teacher asked, turning abruptly to Marie.

“
I . . .
” She was confused, and took a step backward.

“Don’t worry, this is what we always do,” Wanda whispered.

Marie hesitated for a moment longer. Well, why not?

“I remembered something that I haven’t thought of for a long time. And I felt wonderful!” She shook her head, still bewildered. “It was just before Christmas, and I was racking my brain over what I could give my sisters, something really special. I couldn’t think of anything—we were poor, we didn’t have money for presents,” she added. “Then one night I was standing by the windows, they were frozen over, and as I was looking out I saw the frost flowers that had formed on the pane. They were shining, so cold and so beautiful!”

She smiled dreamily.

“That night I sat down to blow glass for the first time. I blew my first Christmas baubles, and then I painted them with frost flowers. I wanted to capture the essence of winter.”

“Aunt Marie is very well-known for her glass,” Wanda added proudly. “Her ornaments are sold all over the world. You probably hang them on your own trees.”

At that, the girls all looked at Marie, their eyes shining.

“How romantic!”

“And what happened next?”

“What did your sisters say? They must have been surprised!”

Marie answered their questions, smiling, while Pandora stood next to her and frowned in thought.

“And what was my mother doing back then?” Wanda asked, her eyes shining even more brightly than the other girls’.

Marie’s cheerful mood suddenly vanished.
Your mother was heavily pregnant with you—by a man whose name we don’t even speak out loud these days where she can hear it.

“Ruth wa
s . . .
” she began, struggling for an answer, when Pandora suddenly clapped her hands.

“Enough of Christmas and baubles and all these stories!” She shooed the girls away until they were scattered around the room again. “We’re here to dance, after all! Which is why I want to dance a piece for you now. Make another circle, please, come along now, get moving!”

As they walked home afterward, Marie felt better than she had for a long time. The dance lesson had broken up a huge block of ice somewhere inside her. She had been frozen inside, motionless, but now all that was over and done with. She wanted to hug the whole world! Instead she linked arms with Wanda.

“Your Pandora is a real artist!”

From then on Marie went out with Wanda more often. They went for walks in the park or drank coffee or visited the library, where they would borrow great big picture books about America, using Wanda’s card. Once Wanda took her to a specialized art supply store, but Marie was deeply downcast by the time they left. There were hundreds of shades of paint and thousands of pencils, but not even the sight of all those made her want to pick up her own brush or sketchpad. Quite the opposite in fact—she was relieved she didn’t have to paint here. Wanda had clearly meant for the trip to the shop to be a special treat, so Marie didn’t breathe a word of her misgivings, but she felt shaken to the core nonetheless.

Ruth watched their outings jealously. She would have preferred to have Marie all to herself. But once it became clear that that wasn’t going to happen, she tried to turn the new situation to her advantage.

“Please try to talk Wanda out of looking for a job—she’s making herself look ridiculous. Do it for my sake,” she begged Marie. “We had to work, back in the old days, but she doesn’t have to. At least, she doesn’t have to work for money. She could work for a good cause—now that would be quite another matter. But the way Wanda carries on, anyone might think we were struggling to make ends meet! People must have started talking behind our backs by now. Please suggest that she do some charity work. Steven’s niece Dorothy, for instanc
e . . .
”

“If I get the chance, I’ll see what I can do,” Marie replied vaguely. She was hanged if she was going to join in on Ruth’s side, with all her ideas about what was proper and what wasn’t. When all was said and done, she wasn’t even part of this world, was she? On top of which it was hardly as though she and Wanda had suddenly become best of friends—Wanda hadn’t even introduced her to her fiancé yet. They went on the odd jaunt together but they were a long way from baring their souls to one another.

Marie went along with Wanda to the next dance class as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She had enjoyed the dance, the games, Ivo’s piano playing—why not have another go?

At first she thought she would never be able to tackle this week’s exercise. Pandora read them a poem about a panther in a cage, and then told them to dance what they felt. But then Ivo started playing the music and Marie felt as though she were inside the great black cat, felt all its imprisoned helplessness. Her heart began to beat faster; her arms and legs moved quite without conscious command. When the music ended, she was happy to be back in her own skin.

Later, after they had changed and dressed, Wanda took Marie to talk to the dance teacher. Pandora was busy counting the money she had taken from the class for that week’s lesson when Wanda cleared her throat.

“It’s like thi
s . . .
Marie, my aunt, she’s come to visit u
s . . .
from Germany.”

Marie raised her eyebrows in surprise. What was the girl up to now?

“Yes, so?” Pandora put the bundle of paper money into a little box in front of her on the table, then began counting coins.

“Well, you said once that your people are from Germany and that you speak pretty good German yourself,” Wanda went on. “So I thought the three of us could go out and do something together. Maybe go get a coffee, or some ice crea
m . . .
Then you could talk about Germany as wel
l . . .
”

Marie felt herself blush. “Wanda!” she said, embarrassed. “I hardly think that’s a good ide
a . . .
”

“Why ever not? Of course we can,” Pandora broke in, smiling. She took a little key and poked it into the lock on her moneybox, then fished out some money. “I haven’t had anything to eat all day, and I’m ravenous! Why don’t you join me? But I warn you—I have no idea where we may end up or what I feel like eating!”

She took a crimson shawl and threw it over her shoulders with a dramatic gesture, then marched off without even turning around to glance at Marie and Wanda.

They had no choice but to follow her.

“Does she have to do that? Now I feel like a dog being taken out for a walk,” Marie hissed to her niece. Wanda just grinned.

What came next was a tour of a part of New York that Marie had never seen before, a journey of discovery through food. First Pandora took them to the Lower East Side. More than forty thousand Jews lived here, and Pandora’s family as well, though she had no intention of visiting them. Instead she went into a tiny little restaurant with no more than three tables and ordered gefilte fish, coarse rye bread, and something she called a “schmear,” which she spread on the bread and which tasted of mustard.

Marie was hungry as well, and helped herself—there had been nothing for lunch at Ruth’s but salad, again. The food here was unfamiliar, but tasted good. She wasn’t bothered by the fact that they were the only women in the place, nor by the way all the men around them were wearing braided earlocks and little caps on their heads. Pandora explained between mouthfuls that the Lower East Side was the most densely populated place on the planet. “At least that’s what those clever men with their statistics manuals say.” She shrugged. “All I know is that it’s fearfully crowded behind those high housefronts. You’ll often find more than twenty people living in one room—can you imagine? I’m just glad I don’t have to live here myself anymore.”

“It’s not much different back home in Lauscha. There are plenty of families who eat, sleep, and work in one small room,” Marie said. “The ones like us who make Christmas ornaments are always walking around with glitter powder on our skin and clothes. It’s very finely ground glass, and it gets absolutely everywhere.”