By Myself and Then Some (2 page)

When they were divorced, my mother decided to take the second half of her name for her use and mine. Her brother Jack had done the same. So when I was eight, she became Natalie Bacal and I was Betty Bacal.

Mother had her own dreams. She had several beaux – I can remember her getting dressed up for an evening out. But that was not the heart of her life. She had women friends – they’d play bridge once a week – close friends, bright women, all hard workers, and at least two of them with unfulfilled lives. They had mothers to support – there were no men in their lives, they never expected there would be. Mother did – only she would never settle. No compromise in love a second time. He would be her knight in shining armor or there would be no one. But she didn’t talk about it – she felt it.

She always taught me character. That was the most important thing in life. There was right and wrong. You did not lie – you did not steal – you did not cheat. You worked for a living and you worked hard. Accomplishment. Being the best you could be was something to be proud of. You learned the value of a dollar – money was not to be squandered, it was too hard to come by, and you never knew when you might need it. Save for a rainy day (a lesson still unlearned). She had great humor – it was always possible for her to see the funny side. I guess that’s how she got through the tough times.

She had curiosity and enthusiasm for anything new. And she stood behind me all the way. If I wanted to be a dancer, an actress – that was what I would be if there was anything she could do about it. She would help me, encourage me, while the rest of the family thought she was mad. Who had ever heard of an actress in the family? Grandma was horrified at the thought – a nice Jewish girl, why didn’t I make an honest living doing something she could understand? Why was my mother doing without to send me to dancing schools, dramatic schools? No good would come of it.

Mother would have none of it. I was her daughter. I was special. I had talent. Her eyes shone when she looked at me. She always made me feel that I could do anything once I made up my mind. She started me in dancing school when I was three. Yet she was not pushy – anything but a stage mother. How could she be a stage mother? – she wouldn’t have known where to begin. She did take me to John Robert Powers’ modeling agency when I was twelve to see if he could use me. I was so beautiful in her eyes, how could he refuse? She took me to a photographer he recommended to have pictures taken to send out to various agencies. She didn’t see that I was tall for my age, underdeveloped for my age, and had feet much too big for the rest of me. Through her belief in me and her abounding love for me, she convinced me that I could conquer the world – any part of it or all of it. Whatever I wanted.

In the worst of times I never heard her complain. Whatever resentment she might have felt – whatever sadness for what she didn’t have – she kept it all inside. She was basically a shy woman. But she was a realist – she accepted her own fate in life while I was growing up. But nothing on earth could make her accept that fate for me. She put the bit in my teeth and I ran with it. There was many a clash. I was
selfish – spoiled by her – I wanted what I wanted. And when she thought I was wrong – boy, did she tell me! There were no doubts. ‘You’ve gone too far, my girl. Pull up. Remember who you are – what you owe yourself.’ I respected her and I loved her. If she but held my hand, I felt safe.

M
y childhood is a confusion
. I spent the first five years living in Brooklyn on Ocean Parkway. My baby record reveals nothing except that my mother was too busy caring for me to keep it in any detail. I was exceptional to no one but her.

I recall having recurring nightmares at one period in early childhood when I would awake in tears in the middle of the night: having heard footsteps down the hall, I would open my eyes and see a white towel flailing in the air. It all stemmed from arguments between my parents. I remember my father punishing me once with a strap on my rear – hitting my mother – he was a man who invented jealousies. I remember being threatened with a cat-o’-nine-tails, but do not recall his using it. In all fairness, how does a child of three or four or five know what goes on between a man and a woman? I make no judgments. But I also have no recollections of any great display of affection for me, not much in the hugging-and-kissing department, no memories of cozy reading of bedtime stories. I don’t say it never happened – I only say it’s not remembered. When Mother came to tell me she was leaving my father, I don’t remember reacting in any way at all. I can only assume that my attachment was always to her, not to him.

Mother and I moved to Manhattan after the divorce, and I recall little of any special home between the ages of six and ten. My last recollection of my father was when he came to collect me one Sunday He took me to his parents, who are shadows in my mind. I recall coming home at the end of the day with him – and watching him as his car took him out of my life forever. My Uncle Jack tried to find my father so that he might contribute to my support, but was totally unsuccessful. He had flown the coop. Rejection Number One!

Mother started to work and hired a maid to come in so I wouldn’t be alone when I returned from school. The girl she hired turned out to be slightly mad – she locked me in a closet one afternoon. That
experience convinced Mother that the solution was for me to go to boarding school. There I would be safe from crazy maids – I’d be with girls my own age, not too far from home. Ideal. But it was expensive. Uncle Jack offered to lend her the money. So it was decided I would attend the Highland Manor school for girls in Tarrytown, New York. It was an hour or so by train from New York. The campus was beautiful – we lived in houses – I shared a room with a girl named Gloria who became my best friend. She too studied dancing. Each year a show was put on where all who could performed. We each danced, had our moment.

Mother used to visit every Sunday, take me out to lunch to a pretty local restaurant where I would unfailingly have my favorite ice-cream sundae: chocolate ice cream with chocolate syrup, marshmallow sauce, and chocolate sprinkles. I couldn’t wait for those visits. After all, I was only eight years old – pretty young for boarding school. There were all ages, all types, and I was always interested in what the older girls were doing. They had boyfriends, while all I did was go to classes, dream of being a dancer and actress, and miss my mother. For some reason I skipped a grade – had a good scholastic year somewhere in the middle and was able to graduate from grade school at the age of eleven.

Highland Manor also had a summer camp. Named Highland Nature, it was situated on Lake Sebago near Portland, Maine. We went there by overnight train. How I loved lying in my berth, watching the lights flicker in all the small towns as we passed en route. It seemed so romantic and adventurous. There has always been mystery to me about trains moving through towns and villages – through the night. What happens behind those lighted windows – what kind of lives are being lived?

I loved sports – played volleyball, basketball, baseball, and I loved to swim. There was a rule that in order to swim from the dock out to the raft one had to pass a test. I can see the test morning now. A group of small girls waiting their turns. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but after two years of swimming near the dock I was ready to move on. The girl before me was taking her test. She had a lovely stroke and there was no question that she would pass. I watched her very carefully to see when she breathed – how she turned her head – kicked her feet. I was next. I went down the ladder and proceeded to do exactly what she had done. Miraculously, it worked – I had won and it was the raft
from then on. One step away from childhood. And there were weekly dramatic programs – sometimes plays, sometimes musical recitals, dances. I clearly remember doing a scarf dance my last year at Highland Nature. I felt as though I were really performing – I was so grown-up. Had the stage all to myself. I really felt good – the music was romantic, and I loved to dance. And I was in plays – in one I pulled my long hair back in a bun to look like Ann Harding. There were campfires – roasting marshmallows – overnight canoe trips – sleeping under the stars – skinny-dips before breakfast in the cold, clean lake. I suppose those years were as close to carefree as I had known or ever would again.

It was decided after my graduation from Highland Manor that I would go to high school in New York. Mother and I would live with my grandmother and Uncle Charlie and share the rent. I would go to Julia Richman High School on 67th Street and Second Avenue. They found an apartment on 84th Street and West End Avenue. My uncle had a room, Mother and Grandma shared one, and next to them, separated by glass doors, was a tiny room for me. All to myself, the first time I would have a room to myself. Mother bought me a canary and I named him Petie. He was my first pet. I would talk to him – he would tweet to me. I’d close the windows and let him fly around the room. It was hell catching him, but I felt he was entitled to some freedom. One ghastly day when I suppose I thought he was well trained enough, and attached to me enough, I must have been a bit careless about a window, because he got out. He flew away – I never saw him again. I cried so. Mother tried replacing him with another canary, but it was never the same.

I remember those years of living with my grandmother. She was a marvelous cook. I was her pet grandchild and she made the most delicious cookies I’ve ever tasted and stuffed cabbage and kreplach (pieces of dough, pinched at the corners, stuffed with cheese). I’ve never tasted those dishes anywhere in the world to match hers. When I was little she would bounce me on her leg, hobby-horse style, and sing an old German nursery rhyme:

Grandmother sang those words exactly as written above, except that sometimes she seemed to be singing, ‘But Betty cries a lot – she has no mother anymore.’ Was it real or did I imagine the change in those two lines?

I remember watching her sit in a chair reading book after book, each in a different language. Her telling me how I must always help my mother – how hard my mother worked. Grandma was quite religious. A candle was lit every Friday night for my grandfather. She would comb her long hair, wind it round into a bun (never looking in a mirror), put on her coat and hat, and go to Temple. Dishes were changed for the proper holidays. She had a fierce temper – not lost too often, but when it was, she was wild. All those years of frustration, hard work, and worry had to come out some way. And we lived so closely with no room for privacy. The day that King Edward renounced his throne for Wallis Simpson I rushed home. There was Grandma sitting in front of an ancient Atwater Kent radio. I sat next to her – the King started to speak – through it all, this young girl and old woman sat and sobbed as so many throughout the world did. It was the most romantic story ever told, wasn’t it? To renounce a throne for love! I couldn’t get over it – it filled my head and heart for weeks.

And then there was my Uncle Charlie, the man who surely had the most influence in my life through my growing-up years. He was Assistant Corporation Counsel for the city of New York under Mayor La Guardia – an attractive man, fair, blue twinkling eyes, medium height, highly intelligent, and very funny. Funny – witty and funny – silly. He always made me laugh. He told me I must read
The New York Times
every day, that as I was in high school now, I should learn what was going on in the world. How could I tell him that I only cared about my own world – the me that was going to be? I had so little room for other thoughts. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was my god – my father, my
grandfather, my true hero. I grew up with him. One election year Roosevelt appeared in Madison Square Garden – it must have been 1940 – and Charlie got tickets. We were very far from the stage, but I was in the same building with Roosevelt, he was there and I was there! He walked with a cane and the aid of one of his sons, but he was there for me to see and hear, and I would never forget it, the emotion of that experience. Charlie gave me that too.

Charlie was seeing a girl named Rosalie. She was Italian, Catholic, and my grandmother couldn’t bear it. Clearly they were very much in love – but they couldn’t get married: she was not Jewish. It
couldn’t
happen, it had never happened in our family before. There is prejudice of all kinds, everywhere. Rosalie’s mother was not crazy about the match either. But they were sure – they had to get married. Charlie had lived with his mother, sister, and niece long enough, he was entitled to his own life. Theirs was the first wedding I attended. She was beautiful, brilliant, and I adored her. I was given a prize seat at the civil ceremony. My grandmother sat on one side of the aisle, Rosalie’s mother on the other – neither of them looking to one side or the other – and Charlie and Rosalie were wed. Love conquered all. After the honeymoon Rosalie moved in with us until they found a place. We would have to move as well. Mother couldn’t afford an apartment like that. Anyway, the neighborhood was not that safe.

We had moved to 84th Street because the apartment we’d lived in before was not that safe either. Not for little girls. I used to climb fences with boys – tomboyish. Also, the superintendent was very friendly. One afternoon he invited me down to the basement. How exciting, I thought, I’d never been there before. He smoked a cigarette – sat me on his lap – asked me if I wanted to try a puff of the cigarette. Adventure – of course I did. I thought nothing of sitting on his lap – but he put his arm around me and when a hand landed on my leg I was frightened. I couldn’t have been more than eight, but I knew that wasn’t right. I finally got out of there and told my mother and Charlie. Their fury cannot be imagined. That precipitated the first move. As I always traveled to high school by bus and subway, I was subjected to the same experiences everyone is who travels that way – men exposing themselves behind newspapers, asking if you didn’t want an ice-cream cone. The usual. I was well trained on that score, but always terrified. When I took the subway home, I had to walk from Broadway to West
End Avenue. When it was dark, you really had to watch out. There were men popping from basement doors, coming out of alleys. One night as I was walking that endless block a man started following me in a car – he crept along next to me, calling softly and suggestively out of his window. I never thought I’d get through my apartment-house door safely. A few experiences like that and there was no question we’d have to move. Mother was worried to death.