The Sisters Weiss (32 page)

“Who’s talking about men’s clothing? I’m talking about slacks made especially for women.”

“But they would be immodest, showing everything.”

“You could buy a tight skirt that would show everything, too. I’m talking about a nice-fitting, modest pair of trousers with an elastic waistband that would leave you a little grow room. It’s what photographic assistants usually wear. With all that bending over you’ll be doing—it’s much more modest than a skirt.”

Rivka thought about it. It was like the yogurt. Her aunt’s words made perfect sense. “But we can’t buy women’s slacks here. They don’t sell them.”

“So, let’s go back to the subway.”

After a hectic day, they arrived home full of packages. Rose prepared a light supper of eggs and cottage cheese and salad. Rivka made no objection to eating food cooked in questionable pans and served on suspect plates with suspicious utensils, Rose noticed. Maybe she was just overtired? Or maybe she was changing? Rose wondered how she felt about that.

“It’s been a long day, kid. Go take a rest. I’ll take care of the dishes.”

“No, let me, Aunt! And thank you. For everything.”

“Thank you, for all your help.”

Rose decided to give in, tucking her legs comfortably beneath her on the sofa and opening the day’s mail. She sliced through the most delicious envelopes first. Invitations to showings, invitations to speak, and a proposal to do a retrospective at a photography museum in Paris!

She stretched out, flinging her arm across her eyes. Her usual pleasure and excitement in all these things seemed diminished somehow. All she could think about was Rivka.

What, she thought, if the situation had been reversed? If Hannah had decided to leave her life and her family and had shown up in Williamsburg at her sister Pearl’s looking for a life as a newly born Jew? What if Pearl had not only taken her in, but had kept it a secret, never once calling to inform her where her daughter was staying and that she was all right? It was unthinkable! No, this had to end. As much as she’d come to like the girl, Rivka couldn’t stay with her if she wasn’t going to call her family. She felt guilty she hadn’t thought of all this immediately. Obviously, her mind had blocked it out for good reasons. Calling her family with this news was definitely going to bring them roaring back into her life. But since her home address and phone number were unlisted, they’d only have access to her gallery. Sheena, her assistant, was careful to buzz in only people she knew.

There was nothing else to be done. She’d have to take a chance, not only for her own conscience, but for her niece’s sake as well. Perhaps there was something there that was still salvageable? Oddly, mixed in with the dread, she experienced a strange sense of excitement and curiousity at the idea of making contact with her family after almost forty years. Her friend and childhood companion, her little sister. Pearl.

*

Rivka shed her sweaty clothes, taking a long shower. Her stomach was definitely a tiny bit more rounded now than it had been yesterday or the week before. She would have to watch what she ate from now on. Those two weeks she had been homeless and not eating regularly had left her constantly hungry. She’d eaten all the wrong foods: rye bread and knishes and kishke and kasha varnishkes and soda and cake. It wasn’t healthy. It was no wonder she was throwing up every morning and every evening. She felt nauseous almost all the time.

She thought of all her nice new clothes. She would take her shower and then try them all on, even the pants. The idea of putting on pants was thrilling and dangerous. But they were pants made especially for women, as her aunt pointed out, and they covered her legs much more fully than even the most opaque tights, so why was that immodest?

Thinking for herself about religious issues was a new experience for Rivka. It was amazing the conclusions one could come to if you opened your mind.

Life was going to be wonderful, wonderful.

32

The next morning, Rose waited for Rivka at the breakfast table. By nine, she gave up.

“Rivka? Can I come in?”

“Sure, Aunt Rose.”

She was sitting up in bed wearing one of her new outfits, the tears staining her face, but no longer falling in fresh streams.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know, Aunt Rose. I don’t feel good. Not sick exactly, just so strange.”

“Is it that same stomach flu?” Rose asked, alarmed. “It’s gone on much too long! You need to see a doctor, today. I’m sorry we waited.”

“No, no, it’s not necessary.”

Rose looked at her strangely. “Are you afraid of doctors, Rivka?”

She was afraid of something, Rivka thought, but couldn’t decide what. “No. It’s just, I don’t like to make a tzimmis over nothing, to waste money…”

“Let me worry about that, will you? So long as you’re under my roof, you must let me take care of you as best I can.”

Rivka gave in, relieved. “Thank you, Aunt Rose.”

“But that’s not the reason I came in here. You look very nice, by the way. Stand up, let me see.”

Rivka got up dutifully.

“Now turn around slowly.”

What a transformation, Rose thought, pleasantly surprised. She was wearing jeans and a pretty green and pink blouse. She looked like one of Hannah’s young college friends. Her parents probably wouldn’t recognize her. They’d be furious.

“Beautiful! Now come into the living room and sit down. There is something we need to discuss.”

Rivka followed her, tense and alert.

Rose took a deep breath. “Rivka, I’ve been thinking about this all night. You really must speak to your parents.”

Her eyes went wide with alarm. “No, no!” She shook her head.

“What’s so terrible? Explain it to me.”

“But you, Aunt Rose, of everyone should understand by yourself! Hannah didn’t. The day I ran away, she also wanted me to call them. I left Hannah’s when my friend in Israel told me they knew I wasn’t there. I didn’t want them coming to bother her. Two weeks it only took them to send someone to Israel to check out the story, to find out the truth. They’re looking for me all over, all the time, to make me go back and get married!”

Rose sighed. “I do understand, believe me! And as long as you are here with me, I promise I won’t let anyone force you to do anything you don’t want to. But you have to try to understand me, Rivka. Your mother is my little sister. I can’t do this to her, and I know she would never do anything violent or hurtful to you.” Even as the words left her mouth, she felt uncomfortable. It had been so many years. What did she really know about Pearl, who she had become or what kind of a man she had married?

“But what if they send people … threaten you?”

“Don’t think I haven’t thought about that. Whatever happens, I promise to stand by you, Rivka. But however they might react, it’s inhuman for us to let your parents worry like this any longer. If it was Hannah who had run away, I’d be crazy sick with worry.”

If she had been hoping to instill guilt or conscience pangs in the girl, she had failed miserably, Rose realized as the girl shook her head adamantly. “Never! Please don’t make me!”

“Do you want me to talk to them for you?”

Rivka looked up with sudden hope. “Would you, please, Aunt Rose?”

Against all her experiences of the past, all her reasonable desires to distance herself as much as possible from this mess, Rose found herself agreeing. It was as painful a task as she could have imagined for herself, but exhilarating, too. After all these years …

She picked up the phone. It rang four times, each unanswered sound stretching her nerves to the breaking point. Finally, someone picked up.

“Hello? Is that you, Pearl? This is your sister, Rose.”

There was a long pause where only the sound of breath coming in short, heavy gasps was audible.

Finally, she heard her sister say: “Shoshi!”

“No one has called me that for forty years,” she whispered, tears coming to her eyes. “I’m so happy to hear your voice, Pearl.”

“Is everything all right? Has something happened to you?”

“No, not to me or mine. It’s about your daughter, Rivka.”

There was a stunned silence.

“What do you have to do with my Rivkaleh?”

“Nothing, nothing. Well, actually, many things, but don’t worry; she’s well.” Rose coughed, beginning to feel serious misgivings.

“Oy, Oy, Gotteinu! How long do you know about her! Is she there by you?”

“She wrote my daughter Hannah asking if she could move in with her. My daughter didn’t answer her, but she showed up at her door anyway.” Rose could hear a great commotion in the background, her sister hysterically repeating everything she said to a third person.

“We want to come over right away to get her…”

“Whoa … listen, that’s not a good idea. I know you must have been crazy with worry, but I can’t tell you where she is without her permission.”

Suddenly, her sister was gone . “This is Zevulun Meir, Rivka’s father. Vat did you do to her?”

“And hello to you, Brother-in-law. What did I do to her? What did you do her that she ran away in the first place?”

“It’s been months … Do you know vat Gehenna that is for a mother and father … not knowing?”

“My daughter insisted she couldn’t stay until she let you know she was all right.”

“We heard some bubbeh mayseh, a fairy tale, from a friend in Israel. A girl who lied to us.”

“Well, you can hardly blame me for your daughter’s friends…”

“How long was she by your daughter?”

“A few weeks, and then she ran away from there, and no one knew where she was. We actually thought she might have gone home. In any case, I had no information to share with you. But now she’s back. I was the one who insisted we call you. Please don’t make me regret it.”

His voice rose. “She needs to come home. Ve are her family.”

“You’ll have to talk to her about that. Hold on, I’ll put her on the phone.”

Rose held out the phone to the frightened girl, who edged away. Then, finally, at Rose’s stubborn insistence, she reached out and took it.

“Tateh?”

Rose watched the girl’s face go from fear to hopefulness to concern to despair as the sound coming from the other end of the line grew louder and louder.

“No, no, you can’t tell me what to do! I’m eighteen. I can do whatever I want! I do honor you and Mameh, but that doesn’t mean you can ruin my life.” Rivka paused, listening intently, her breath coming in short, agitated gasps. “God is already punishing me, Tateh, don’t worry!”

She extended the phone back toward Rose. “He wants to talk to you.”

She listened incredulously to his angry tirade, finally cutting him short. “Look, Zevulun, I know what you think of me, what the family thinks of me, but this has nothing to do with me. She was on the street, and I took her in. Say thank you, can’t you?” She shook her head. “In what way am I responsible? What do you mean ‘drop her off’? She’s not a suitcase! Yes, I know she’s your daughter, but she’s also a human being, and she’s of age … I know that you go by your own rules, but I go by mine. Wait a minute, is that a threat? No? I misunderstood you? I’m glad to hear that, really, because if I thought it was a threat, you know I have no problem calling the police. Good-bye. And tell my sister I said she can wait another forty years for my next call.”

She slammed down the phone

Rivka looked at her, appalled, and then suddenly they both started to laugh. They laughed and laughed and laughed until their bellies were sore with shaking, their throats dry, and their cheeks wet with tears.

“Oh!” Rivka suddenly said, her voice small with surprise.

“What is it?”

“I don’t…” She got off the couch. There was a large, red stain.

“Rivka, I’ve got some sanitary nap…”

“Oh! Aunt Rose!”

The panicked girl fell into her arms.

33

Rose waited in the gynecologist’s office for Rivka. They’d come straight from Dr. Brand, her family physician. She was still in a state of semishock. Ohgod, she kept thinking. Ohgod, ohgod, ohgod.

She looked around the office listlessly, glancing at the other women, then averting her eyes from their reciprocal gazes. She picked up some magazines, but they were filled with photos of pregnant women and smiling babies, everyone so milk-fed and rosy-cheeked. Such beautiful fantasies. Perhaps this was what she loved so much about photography. You could find anything you wanted through the lens and ignore the rest, so much pain and so much ugliness.

What if, Rose thought, what if … It all made too much sense: the nausea, the weight gain, the stomach pains, the spotting. She felt like an idiot not to have picked up on it immediately. But maybe it is natural for our minds to avoid going to places we are terrified to be. Pearl and Zevulun are hysterical now. But what if…? She couldn’t go there.

Ohgod, ohgod, ohgod.

Had the girl known all along and been playing dumb? She did say that first day that her life was over. Rose had taken it for drama. But … what if…? Now the whole mess would be in her lap. They’d never believe she hadn’t known.

Maybe something could be done. It wasn’t, after all, the end of the world the way it had been back in her day when a girl in trouble had to risk her life to get out of it. But what women tended to overlook was that, even now, without the physical dangers, abortions were still life-changing experiences. The knowledge that you’d destroyed potential for a whole human life, your own flesh and blood, was nothing short of traumatic. Her body felt chilled.

The door opened and the nurse came out. “The doctor would like you to come in.”

She got up slowly, walking reluctantly inside.

He was a young doctor, the kind who probably had a pretty blond wife and three healthy kids, the kind who loved delivering babies into the arms of ecstatic new moms. She looked around for Rivka.

“Your daughter is getting dressed,” he said. “She’ll join us in a minute.”

Should I correct him? Rose wondered. But she held back, the chilling thought going through her mind that she might very well have to pretend to be Rivka’s mother for all kinds of awful reasons.