The Sisters Weiss (11 page)

She waited for him outside the door.

“Professor Giglio,” she said.

“Oh, hello. You again! You look awfully pale. Are you feeling all right? You aren’t going to faint, are you? I don’t know what to do with fainting ladies…” Again, that barely discernible smile gleaming out of those dark eyes.

“I feel … yes. I’m fine. That is … I’m just not sure how I’m going to pay for this class.”

“Your parents … are they poor?”

“NO, no. Not exactly. Well, maybe. But I can’t ask my parents.”

“Why not?”

“I’m…” She swallowed hard. “Not supposed to be here.”

“Ah. Tell me more.”

“My parents are ultra-Orthodox Jews from Williamsburg…”

“Ah … okay … I get it.”

He didn’t, not really. Like most people who live in New York City, he had seen the odd Hassid in black garb and sidelocks walking the streets, but, other than knowing that they existed, he knew little else, nor did he want to. “It’s a Jewish thing, right?”

“Right.”

“So, why are you here?”

Something in the question crystallized for her everything she was feeling. The answer came spilling out, her wild heart finally overcoming her reasonable brain. “Because this is the most important thing in my life right now. I have to be in your class,” she said with an outpouring of passion that surprised and embarrassed her. She felt tears well up.

“So, a bad girl, huh? My favorite kind.” The laugh lines around his eyes deepened, his lips finally succumbing into a smile. “Look, I can pretend I don’t see you for a few sessions, but you’ll have to register eventually. There is nothing I can do about that…”

“Oh, I understand. I’m sure I will be able to work it out.… Thank you!”

“But you do have a camera, don’t you…?”

She looked down at her hands. “I am planning to get one.”

He was equally annoyed and intrigued. “Well, you won’t get much out of this class without one. See you next week.”

“Thank you, Professor Giglio! With all my heart!”

“Professor,” he repeated mockingly, cupping her chin and giving it a playful shake as he looked deeply into her innocent, young eyes. “See you next week, honey,” he said.

The impression of his fingers on her skin lingered as she made her way down to the entrance to wait for Michelle. It tingled.

They met at the entrance, then retired to the bathroom to change stockings.

“I’ve got to buy a camera,” Rose told her, calling out over the stall as she pulled up the dreaded hose and handing Michelle the sheer ones under the stall wall.

“I thought you already had one?”

“That was years ago. Your father said it was a toy.”

“My father could lend you one. He’s got a million.”

Rose considered this, but her initial enthusiasm waned as she thought about the implications. “I might break it, or lose it,” she answered, but what she was really thinking was: I might have to be alone in a room with your father. I might have to show him my gratitude. He might demand it.

“D’accord. Then I’ll ask him where you can buy one cheap.”

“Ask him, but don’t mention me. Say it’s for someone else. One of your friends from Flatbush.”

Michelle pushed out of the stall, adjusting her skirt. She gave Rose a curious stare, about to question this strange request, but then thought better of it. “Where will you get the money, Rose?” she asked instead, changing the subject.

Rose said nothing. What could she say, except that she still believed in miracles?

10

It was only in bed that night, tossing and sleepless, that she remembered her Dime Savings Bank account. Miraculously, the passbook had been in her school bag when she left home, ready for the following day’s deposit. No one had remembered to take it out. She jumped out of bed, putting on her flashlight. She opened the passbook: $520.00!

A fortune. Her hands shook as she considered the possibilities.

The next day, she walked into a local branch with it. Presenting it to the clerk, she felt like a bank robber. “I want to withdraw the money.” She took a deep breath. “All of it.”

“Do you have some identification?” the clerk asked.

She took out the copy of her birth certificate that her mother had inserted into the passbook, suspicious that the bank might one day try to cheat them by questioning ownership of the account.

“Special occasion?” the clerk asked, counting out the money.

“Very,” Rose answered.

Too excited to wait for Michelle’s father’s advice, she immediately went to several camera stores to shop. But none of them took her seriously, trying to sell her Polaroids and Brownies. They refused to even unlock the cases holding the more serious cameras so she could look at them. Frustrated, she called Michelle.

“My father says he’d be happy to lend you one. That you should just come over … But if you don’t want to, he says you should go to the Wall Street Camera Exchange. Ask for Alan.”

*

She missed her library night, looking up on a subway map how to get to Wall Street.

“Could I speak to Alan?” she said timidly to the busy, bored man behind the counter, whose face suddenly took on some interest.

He shrugged. “That’s me.”

“I’m a friend of Mr. Goldband’s,” she said, then blushed furiously, correcting herself. “I mean a friend of his daughter, Michelle.”

“Ah, the Frenchman. He’s a good customer. And how can I help you?” He smiled.

“By not trying to sell me a Brownie, or some other kid’s camera. I’m going to be a famous photographer and win awards,” she told him boldly. “So when I tell everybody I started off with a camera from your store, which one is it going to be?”

He took a step back, blinking. “What you need, of course, is a Nikon F.”

“How much will that cost?”

“Four hundred dollars just for the body, without any lenses…”

She shook her head sorrowfully.

“Okay, so here’s the next best thing: a Miranda Sensorex. Popular Photography rates this as almost as good as the Nikon—almost. It doesn’t have all the Nikon’s features, but the price includes an excellent normal lens. It’s a great camera to start a career off with.

“Or”—he reached to the shelf behind him—“there’s the Canonflex, their latest after the sensational Canonet. It’s got an interchangeable pentaprism viewfinder, a completely automated aperture control system, and an externally coupled selenium exposure meter. There are lots of lenses available too, from thirty-five millimeter all the way to one hundred and thirty-five millimeter. It’s a whole system. It will never be obsolete.”

She lifted the Canonflex to her eye. The heft was impressive. Her fingers curled around it. “How much?”

“Three hundred dollars, and for another fifty, I’ll throw in a zoom lens.”

“I’ll need some film,” she said. “Fifty rolls. And I want you to throw that in, too, free of charge.” He shook his head. “You’re killing me. Half-price. I can’t do better than that.”

She considered it. “And a discount on developing the rolls whenever I come here?”

He shrugged, amused. “For a world-famous photographer to be, how can I say no?”

As she counted out the money, her hands shook. Her name was on the passbook, but it was her parents’ money. She felt like a thief. But a happy, successful thief, she told herself, rejoicing in her momentous victory, and a deep-seated satisfaction in her revenge.

It took her three wasted rolls until she finally figured out how to use the camera, but when she did, the results were breathtaking: faces in a crowd waiting for the light to change, their expressions unguarded, wistful, and revealing. Two little girls playing hopscotch on a chalk-marked sidewalk, their limbs loose, their hair flying. And then there were the interior shots taken while her grandmother took her afternoon nap: a study of a well-used pot misted in rising steam that gave it mystery, the arrangement of simple ice cubes on a platter that looked like a work of modern art, she thought. But her favorite was a self-portrait in the mirror as she blew bubble gum, her eyes obscured by the camera, her fingers aloft. She loved hiding behind the camera, the gum the only hint of her age and personality.

Of course, the photos could all have been improved, she realized. She would have liked the shadows to have fallen less harshly in some, more illumination and less ambiguity in others. But she adored her new camera. Adored it, suddenly feeling, for the first time in her life, that she and the world were one, awash in possibilities.

*

“So, you’re back,” said Mr. Giglio. “I thought I’d frightened you off when I didn’t see you last week. My heart was broken,” he said with that familiar gleam in his eye.

“No, I just … now … got a camera and did the work, so … I had to skip last week.”

“Let’s see what you’ve got, kid.” He reached out to her.

Scared and hopeful, she handed him the envelope with her photos, then watched as he flipped through them silently, her self-confidence deflating, until she noticed that crinkle near his eyes. “Love the bubble gum, Miss…?” He glanced at the registration list. “Monroe?” he questioned. “Really?”

“Yes,” she lied.

She had paid the tuition and was now officially enrolled for the entire semester, until the summer, at which time she could transfer to the summer classes. She had money left over for that, too.

“Does that mean they’re good, Professor Giglio?” she asked, barely daring to hope.

“No, not really.”

Her heart fell.

“But they do show originality of thought, and that is what is most important in any artist. By the end of the term, we shall improve your technical skills to match your talent. Deal?”

“Deal,” she answered, her heart leaping up with joy. Artist. She was an artist.

And so began a new rhythm in the life of Rose Weiss. She lived for the days she went to the library, and the day she went to her photography class, and in between for the times she could read her new books and take her photos. The strange fiction that comprised her days in Bais Ruchel, her exile from her family, her life with her grandmother became more of a footnote to her real life, something that had to be endured to make it possible. The more she poured into that real life, the stronger and less vulnerable she felt against the abuses of the life forced upon her, her spirit growing until she felt and saw glimpses of her old faith breaking through the dark clouds. Despite her sins, God had helped her. God had reached out to her and given her a new chance to be happy. He had lightened her punishment when no human had been willing to reach out to her and do so. He had had compassion for her weaknesses, and sympathy for her plight.

Again, she felt the pull to the sacred words of prayers, words of praise, thanksgiving, and requests. He was out there; He was listening, even if her parents and teachers were not.

If only this idyll could have lasted a few more months, she often thought, looking back years later. Perhaps disaster could have been averted, the terrible break avoided altogether, jumped over, like those deep crevasses that climbers reaching for the peaks manage to somehow circumvent. But then again, perhaps not. It was there, waiting for her, and she stumbled. What followed was as life-changing and tragic as it was inevitable.

11

“When am I going to see my sister?” Pearl wailed.

It had been six months, and the child’s plaintive entreaties had been growing stronger and stronger. Despite all the attention and gifts lavished on her, which had had some effect, Pearl’s longing for Rose was beginning to take its toll. Her whining was almost constant now. Her parents couldn’t stand it.

“Get them together for a little while,” her father told her mother.

“But the Rav…”

“The Rav said it was up to us!” he answered, annoyed. After months of adhering strictly to the guidelines, he was beginning to feel the stirrings of regret and something else. It was very easy, he thought resentfully, to give advice, especially if you didn’t have to live with the consequences. Even his iron-willed, pious wife was beginning to buckle, but not for the same reasons. Early on, the glowing nature of the reports had roused her suspicions and her anxiety. Satmar schooling had to have been a shock and a trial to her bookish daughter. And for the last few months in their weekly phone conversations, Rose had sounded positively happy, her complaints gone. Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Could it be that her will had been totally broken? Or more ominously, her mental stability? Bracha Weiss was also anxious to check up on her daughter firsthand.

“I have an idea,” she told her husband.

“Nu?”

“She volunteers at Beth Abraham once a week, on Tuesdays. We can go there at the same time. We can take Pearl.”

“Excellent. Find out what time she starts.” He was happy and excited at the prospect of seeing his daughter. “We should bring her something, Mameh,” he told his wife. “A present. She deserves a present. She has done so well. Everyone says so.”

“What should we bring her?”

He thought about it. “Maybe a new Shabbos dress?”

She nodded. “I’ll take Pearl shopping with me. We’ll pick it out together.”

*

The mother sifted through the racks, wondering exactly what size to get. Her old size was a four, but perhaps she had grown? It had been months, after all. Better to get a six. It could always be taken in.

“Here, here!” Pearl called excitedly, pulling a pink dress with sequins off the rack. “Like a princess dress.”

“No, it’s too fancy-shmancy,” said her mother, amused, thinking “too showy” and, most of all, too expensive.

Pearl pouted. “It’s a present. For Rose.”

“Come, look some more. What about this?” It was a simple gray dress, but with a stylish overskirt of filmy chiffon that was also lightly beaded and embroidered.

Pearl looked it over. It was pretty. Not as pretty as the pink. And certainly not as pretty as her own dresses, especially the latest violet one her mother had bought her just two weeks before. She thought about it. Rose would look pretty, but not prettier.

“Yes.” She smiled, nodding.

The only thing left was to ascertain exactly what time to show up.