Her Sister's Tattoo

by Ellen Meeropol

  This is my last letter. No more. I have to tell you this stuff in person. Or not at all.

  Esther stuffed the letter into the envelope. She closed the Japanese box and turned it over and over in her hands, tumbling all the secrets she had trusted to it. She placed it on top of the envelope. When Molly got home from Detroit, it would be time to share this part of the family history.

  CHAPTER 41

  Molly

  The taxi dropped me off in front of the Motor City Nursing Home.

  “I’m here to visit Martin Steele,” I announced at the front desk.

  The receptionist’s name tag read Tammy. She escorted me down the long hallway to the solarium. Why did a secretary wear white nurse’s shoes, and why did the crepe soles creak like a ghost story? And why on earth should I care about her shoes, except that I would rather ponder anything else to avoid thinking about coming face-to-face with the man my mother almost killed. This had sounded like a good plan back in Massachusetts. Evan told me it was when I stopped by his apartment early that morning to drop off Dijon with her litter box, food, and catnip toys. He predicted I’d get some clarity about the whole situation. Now I just wanted to be somewhere else.

  I don’t know what I expected Officer Martin Steele to look like, but certainly not the shriveled man Tammy pointed out across the room. Tammy touched my shoulder. “I hope it’s a good visit. Marty can be a wee bit difficult sometimes.”

  Officer Steele’s gray buzz cut was neat, but his skin was sized for a bigger man, hanging loose around his cheeks and neck. He didn’t look up as I approached, not even when I pulled a chair close to his wheelchair and sat. He stared out the plate glass window at the frosty Michigan landscape.

  “Mr. Steele?” My voice came out high-pitched and I cleared my throat. He looked at me then, or through me; it wasn’t clear. I wondered if he would recognize me. Everyone said the family resemblance was uncanny.

  “What do you want?” he asked the air above my head.

  “Just to talk to you for a few minutes.”

  “Talk.”

  I hesitated. I didn’t really have a plan. I had thought the words would just come to me. “I’m trying to understand what happened at the Detroit demonstration in August 1968.” Maybe he’d think I was a historian, or a reporter doing a “Where Are They Now” feature story. “Can you tell me what you remember?” That sounded awfully wimpy, even to me.

  He looked right at me then, squinting a little.

  “Who are you?” His voice was as harsh as I feared.

  I took a deep breath. I had promised myself not to lie if he asked this question, not to lie at all.

  “My name is Molly Green. My mother is Esther. Esther Levin Green.”

  He started trembling with what looked like rage. It puffed up his empty sacs of skin, making him seem to grow bigger.

  “I’ll tell you what I remember,” he blustered. His face reddened. His arms waved in the air over his head. “Your mother and her commie sister ruined my life, that’s what happened. That bitch got what she deserved. I hope she rotted in prison.”

  “I’m so sorry you were hurt. I’d like to understand what happened. Will you talk to me?”

  “Never. Go to hell.”

  I stood up and looked around, worried that my presence might trigger a stroke or heart attack or something. “I guess you’re still pretty angry at them.” I knew I was stating the obvious, but what could I say to this man?

  “I’ll never forgive them. Now get out of here.”

  I reached for my backpack. “Do you think citizens ever have the right to challenge their government, when the government is wrong?”

  “I don’t give a damn about those girls’ rights. They attacked us.”

  “But you . . . the mounted police were beating people, without provocation.”

  “What do you know about provocation? About defending your country? Life is more complicated than marching and protesting. You’re just like my daughter, yapping about civil rights.” He seemed to run out of words, out of steam. His ballooned skin began deflating.

  Daughter? I had always wondered if he had children.

  “What does your daughter think about it?” I asked quietly.

  “Leave Becky out of this. And leave me alone. I’m almost seventy years old and I’ve had enough. Those girls ruined my life, but I got back at them. I showed them good. I ruined that commie Rosa’s life right back. And now it’s all over. I’m over.” Mr. Steele’s chin fell to his chest. He swiveled his wheelchair around and to the other end of the room.

  “Thank you,” I said to his back.

  I walked slowly back to the reception desk, trying to decide if it was lying to try to get the daughter’s phone number. I hadn’t known Becky existed until just now. Resting my backpack on the horseshoe-shaped reception counter, I thanked Tammy for her help while I rummaged through my mess of manila folders and airline tickets and scraps of paper.

  “Darn it, Tammy. I’ve misplaced Becky Steele’s phone number,” I said. “Do you have it handy?”

  “Sure thing.” Tammy keyed something into her computer and wrote a number on a Post-it note. “Here’s her cell. Have a good day now.”

  I hated tricking Tammy. But I had no choice. I called Becky Steele from the lobby. After hearing my name, there was silence for a few seconds. Then she asked where I was staying and I named the budget chain motel near the airport.

  “I’ll meet you there at seven,” she said. “In the bar.”

  Becky Steele was late. I sat in the motel lounge, sipping a glass of the house merlot and staring at the card on the bar in front of me. I had addressed the stamped envelope to Rosa Levin, at the address Emma gave me so many years ago when we parted after camp, and used my mother’s return address. The painting reproduced on the card was one of my favorites: two women with curly hair marching together down the middle of a city street, surrounded by people carrying signs with peace symbols and No Nukes written in a dozen languages. The crane was hidden in the folds of the rainbow flag held by the shorter woman. It must have broken my mother’s heart to paint that. I had no clue what to write on the blank white page inside. So I simply wrote my name and my mother’s phone number and licked the envelope before I lost courage.

  It was closer to eight when Becky arrived. I had become bored watching myself in the mirror behind the bar. Bored and discouraged. How likely was it anyway that the next generation could untangle the twisted strands of our parents’ passionate mess? Clearly I was going to have to figure this out for myself. None of the actors in this very old tragedy were likely to fill me in on the meaning of the play. Still, when Marty Steele’s daughter walked into the bar, I studied her face for any resemblance to her father and found myself hoping the woman had some answers.

  She ordered a beer and motioned me to join her at a table across the room. For a minute, we regarded each other. “You’re Esther’s daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “You look more like Rosa.”

  At that moment the hope whooshed out of my body, leaving me as limp and empty as Becky’s father. “Listen,” I said, “I’m sorry to waste your time. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  Becky reached across the table to touch my arm. “I’m really glad to meet you. I’m surprised, that’s all. I often think about your family.”

  “Do you hate us too?”

  “I used to. I was sixteen when my dad was hurt. I didn’t know what the demonstration was all about. I was too busy studying algebra and trying to figure out if smoking weed would rot my brain.”

  “I’ve wondered about you for years. You know, whether or not Officer Steele had kids.”

  “Just me,” she said. “Dad was so bitter about his injury, especially after Mom left us. I was pissed off. I had just gotten my driver’s license, and all of a sudden I was doing grocery shopping and cooking dinner and driving him to rehab three times a week.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “He blamed everythi
ng on your mother and aunt. Of course it was more complicated than that. Still, it was tough and he fell apart, tough-guy style. I sat through your aunt’s first trial because I wanted to keep tabs on him, more than any real interest in the case. I convinced my American History teacher to give me credit. I had never met anyone like those sisters, so fervent about the world. Even though I didn’t agree with them about the war. Then your aunt went underground and the trial ended.”

  “What happened to your father then?”

  “He was furious at Rosa, but one day he stopped talking about it. He looked, I don’t know, satisfied. I thought he had accepted things. I just wanted to return to hanging out with my friends and playing softball.”

  I finished my drink and waved at the bartender for refills.

  “When your aunt was caught, I was a senior trying to decide about college. I sat through her second trial, too, and your aunt was still incredible. But this time, it was different.” She looked down at her lap.

  “What was different?”

  “I didn’t know the details back then,” she admitted. “But my dad couldn’t help bragging. He claimed that they were fixing your Aunt Rosa, giving her what the ‘commie bitch’ deserved.”

  “COINTELPRO.” I had read about the Church Commission findings.

  Becky nodded. “Later I read about it too. But at seventeen, all I knew was that justice was anything but. And my father—who I loved and respected—was part of the problem.”

  “Do you know how it happened, framing Rosa for the bombing?”

  “Not exactly. I don’t think it was my father’s idea. That’s not like him. He’s very law-abiding. I think when the Feds approached him with their storyline, it fit into his . . . his anger, and his need for revenge. He knew Rosa was guilty and deserved to be in prison.”

  I pictured Mr. Steele in the sunroom. I could see that.

  “That trial changed my life. I became interested in politics, went to college, then law school. I’m a public defender.” She smiled.

  “Wow.” It was my turn to be surprised.

  “The Levin sisters taught me it’s not your family that determines who you become. It’s not even your abilities. Your choices define you.” The dark quiet in the bar deepened. I looked into my wine. “Those choices can be very rough on families,” Becky said softly. “What about you and your dad?”

  “One of these years he might forgive me for the kind of work I do. Defending the scum of the earth, he calls it. But we talk on the phone most days, and I cook dinner for him every Friday night. We’re okay.”

  My surprise must have showed in my face because Becky laughed.

  “Oh, there’s a worldview chasm between us for sure. And sometimes it’s a challenge to love each other across that gaping hole.” She paused. “But we’re family.”

  I folded my cocktail napkin into an origami crane. Was it ironic that Esther and Rosa’s victim and his daughter, who disagreed so strongly, had made more peace than the sisters had?

  Becky took the crane from my hand. I guess she also read my mind. “What about your family? I saw that Rosa was pardoned. Have she and Esther forgiven each other?”

  I shook my head, remembering the aborted reunion attempt at camp and the years of silence since then. Running my finger across Rosa’s address on the card, stuck in the outside pocket of my bag, I wondered if a recurrence of cancer was enough to get these two stubborn women to forgive. “I wish they would. Could. Not yet.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Becky handed me back the floppy cocktail napkin crane, then stood up. “I’m glad you called. But I’ve still got to prepare for court tomorrow morning.”

  “And I’ve got to be at my grandmother’s early for breakfast,” I said. “Thanks for seeing me.”

  Gran lived with her sister Miriam and Miriam’s husband Max, the three of them shoehorned into a two-bedroom apartment in a senior complex Gran called Geezerville. They shared the space with eighty-odd years each of framed family photographs, paintings, and prints, chipped china tea cups with fussy painted flowers, and their collections. Miriam collected salt and pepper shakers, which she arranged behind glass-fronted cabinets. Max’s World War II metal soldier figures faced each other in battle formation across the coffee table. Gran’s passion was small porcelain dog statues, hundreds of them, mostly cocker spaniels. Settled on the sofa in their overheated living room, I amused myself by imagining reconfiguring the armies of their treasures: the salt shakers and the cavalry defending against the onslaught of the peppers and the spaniels.

  “Your mother loved that one best.” Gran pointed to a large framed print half visible in the hallway. “Before we moved to this place, all my paintings had to stay in my bedroom, like a ghetto. Here, I insisted that my things be out here with theirs. But Miriam refused to have that one in the living room, says it’s too depressing.”

  I stood in front of my mother’s favorite. A crowd of old-fashioned-looking people in drab brown and gray work clothes marched toward me. They looked solemn and stern, especially the young woman in the front row, holding an infant.

  “Esther named her Hannah.” Gran shrugged. “She used to have conversations with her, about unions and strikes.”

  “Tell me about my mother and Rosa.” I returned to the sofa and my coffee, wrapping my hands around the warmth. I tried not to stare at the family photographs on tables and shelves and walls. Later, I hoped Gran would identify every single stranger.

  “It’s hard to remember,” Gran started.

  My face must have reacted, because Gran gave me a sharp look. “Don’t worry. I’m not senile yet. It’s just hard to make myself revisit the painful parts.” She paused. “For years I wasn’t allowed to talk to you about any of this. How much do you know?”

  “I know what they did. I know that my mother testified against Rosa, who went underground, then to prison. I’m trying to understand their action. Was it brave or stupid? That’s why I came to Detroit, why I wanted to meet the cop. Not that he was very helpful.”

  “No, I don’t suppose he was. Don’t you want to go downtown, revisit the scene of the crime, as part of your investigation?”

  Was Gran being sarcastic?

  “Not really,” I said. “I want to know what you think.”

  “Your problem is that you don’t know your own history. You come from a long line of activists—revolutionaries and trade unionists and suffragettes and Gray Panthers. Your mother tried to protect you and ended up robbing you of your heritage. I didn’t like it, but I went along with my daughters’ craziness. Both of them. Every year, before you and your brother came to visit, I hid away the pictures of Rosa and her family, just like your mother insisted.” Gran shook her head. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently. I shouldn’t have helped Esther hide the truth from you kids.”

  I sighed. Would things have been different if I had known, had grown up seeing pictures of my aunt and uncle and cousins?

  “You don’t even know the little things.” Gran touched my lips. “When you get angry, your lips get thin and they almost—”

  “—disappear. I’ve been told. So what?”

  “Your Aunt Rosa’s lips do that too.”

  I stood and started pacing the living room. I hadn’t come to hear about family resemblances. Was Gran going to avoid talking about the truth too? “What about Esther and Rosa? Was their activism worth the price?”

  Gran picked up one of Max’s soldiers, a rusty green infantryman with rifle held across his chest. “It’s worth fighting even when we lose. Which often happens when your enemies hold the power. But you’ve got to choose your battles. In my book, throwing rocks at horses was plain dumb.”

  “Apples. They threw apples.” I stopped pacing in front of the crowd of strikers in the painting, explaining the facts to Hannah as well as my grandmother.

  “Whatever. Throwing things at an animal in the midst of a street fight and hurting a cop was tactically wrong. Cockamamie, your Grandpop would say. But peop
le do stupid things under pressure. Even my smart daughters.”

  “It ruined their lives.”

  “Come here, Molly. Sit. The world can be a pretty nasty place. Either you’re a person who hides from the ugliness, or a person who fights back. Fighting back is what we do in this family.” Gran grinned and added, “Well, not everybody. Your Uncle Max is a Republican.”

  I sat on the arm of her chair and leaned over to rest my cheek on my grandmother’s hair. “So what should I do about Esther and Rosa?”

  “Nothing.” Gran patted my arm. “That’s their battle, Molly. Get on with your life.”

  Two hours after my plane landed in Hartford, I was at my parents’ house. My mother looked marginally less gaunt than the week before, and her smile, when I walked into the kitchen, was radiant.

  “Feeling better?” I asked.

  “I’m starting to,” my mother said. “Still no hair, though.” She tapped the red fleece hat. “How was your trip?”

  “Where’s Jake? I want to tell you both.”

  “With his birds, no doubt.”

  She called to him. Sitting across from my parents on the sofa, I had a momentary flash of visiting day at camp. Was I meddling again, in something I couldn’t fix? Well, this time it was up to them.

  “I went to Detroit because of Evan. He’s been trying to convince me to go to New York on the fifteenth. I was totally scared, freaked out about going, but couldn’t tell him why.” My throat started to ache and I could feel my voice thicken. “I was doing the same thing you did, the thing that I hated. I was keeping secrets, as if they were shameful.”

  “I’m so sorry, Molly.”

  I put up my hand, palm out, holding my mother’s apologies at bay. “Let me finish, okay?”

  Esther took Jake’s hand.

  “When I told Evan about our family, he asked me whether it was worth it, what you guys did. I realized I didn’t know. I went to Detroit looking for answers. I talked with Martin Steele, and his daughter.”