Lost and Found

by Ann Huber

  In one of my classes, I met an American student from Virginia who was also feeling lonely and isolated. We hung out in her apartment, drinking vodka when we had spare time. One night, I came home so late, early in the morning actually, that to my horror I bumped into my father as he was leaving for work. Again, my mother bravely ran interference, “Leave her alone. She’s a college student and she knows what she’s doing.” Of course, I had no idea what I was doing. There was no role model for me. There were no role models for any of us who had no professional or educated women in our families.

  Other kids I met, locals who had attended other high schools, taught me how to play cards. Every day after class ended, we gathered in the Student Center. I learned to play Hearts and became good enough at it to earn some cigarette and lunch money every day. Once I had enough money, I switched to playing Bridge for the day (not for money), a game which still brings me great joy, satisfaction, and frustration, mostly because I get upset with myself when I think I haven’t played as well as I can. I feel just as competitive today as I did then, when my partner and I, like two hustlers, hit the duplicate bridge clubs, played against old, wealthy, suburban women whom we defeated regularly. Ironically, nowadays, it is the old-timers who defeat me.

  I went to McGill University to get a college degree because that is what I needed to become a librarian; it coincided with my father’s advice that I be independent; and it was the path to an MRS. degree. Shocking as that may be, I had no burning interest in any one subject and didn’t like most of my classes. I didn’t find many of them either intellectually stimulating or challenging. Truth be known, the only thing I learned at McGill was how to play Bridge. In one letter where Herm was trying to apologize for not coming during his winter break, he wrote, “Besides that you’d be in school all day, and even if I came with you, I’d probably end up watching you play cards….” It was true. All my time at McGill that year was spent either playing cards or planning some scheme that would enable me to make free long distance telephone calls to the U.S., or to go to school there.

  Every time we separated, Herm and I felt extremely sad and had difficulty returning to a life that always felt like it was on hold. Surprisingly, or not for a 17-year-old girl, I was not feeling totally secure in our relationship. I always worried if a letter was late or if Herm didn’t take every opportunity to come to Montreal to see me. I kept looking for ways to stay more connected. Telephone calls were expensive and unsatisfyingly short, and the cost of air travel was prohibitive.

  I kept my promise to Herm and naively and secretly applied to Temple University. I was elated to be accepted for my second year, for the fall semester of 1968. Once again, I ran face-first into the brick wall of my parents’ beliefs. In their view, a young girl did not leave her parents’ home until marriage, ever. Even though that was not the plan, they would never in a thousand years approve, thinking we would be living together. There was much screaming and yelling, all on my part, to no avail. My father was immovable. My mother was silent. My last inept rebuttal was, “This is so old fashioned. There is no reason why I can’t go to school in the States.”

  Sandu had the last word: “You are not leaving this house until you are married!”

  My pride and sense of independence wounded, I sent Temple a letter saying that I would not be attending in the fall. Then, in a flash of inspiration it occurred to me that the time had come. I called Herm, “Oh Hermie, let’s get married.” I’d broken the ice! So I guess I was the one who proposed. And Herm immediately agreed.

  Since I would have to continue at McGill for my second year, an American university would have to be postponed until junior year, after we were married. “Well,” Herm wrote in his next letter, “I love you very much, & someday, one way or another, we won’t have to write letters anymore,” he assured me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  VALENTINE’S DAY MASSACRE

  IT IS HARD to re-capture the intensity of the teen anxiety I felt about Herm in the early years. I waited with trepidation for each letter or for the telephone to ring at an appointed time. I worried that Herm might break up with me without warning.

  I was having fun in school but I was not very serious about my studies, nervously awaiting his every visit. At each such rendezvous, I had the same reaction I still have every time we are apart for more than a few days—butterflies in my stomach, heart rate up, and excited about catching sight of him. When I meet him at the bus station or airport, I can’t wait to hold him, look up to meet his blue eyes and then, the lovely bear hug that sets the world right.

  Things improved once we decided to get married after Herm’s graduation from Temple, following my sophomore year. We hatched a plan for us to get engaged in the summer of 1968 and spend the summer together, working either in Montreal or Philadelphia. A wedding would take place the following year.

  So as Valentine’s Day 1968 approached, I was looking forward to Herm’s card. I ran home from McGill, no bridge game or work schedule on that day, to check the mail. There, I found Herm’s funny, twenty-five cent-card (can you imagine), which I quickly took to my room, barely stopping to say hello to Mamaia. Jumping onto my bed, I leaned against the pillows and headboard as I opened the card with relish.

  I was shocked to find not only that Herm had written, in tiny script, all over the three sides of the 3.5” by 8” card, but another 8 pages, the longest letter he ever wrote. I did not know he was capable of such tiny script, though I realized later that his writing style depends on his mood. Something was up. Writing in miniature is his anxious writing style.

  After a couple of introductory paragraphs, the letter took on a different tone. He wrote, “I don’t really know what it is I am trying to say, and I don’t know if I should even bring it up. But since it concerns us both, you at least should be aware of what I’m thinking—naturally I’m referring to our getting engaged. When I came back from Montreal it suddenly hit me like an explosion, how close we are to engagement.” Oh no, a dagger to my heart!

  All my anxieties flooded my brain. I tried to reconcile a Valentine’s Day card expressing love with that sentence. I tried to make my way through the rest of his treatise, holding my breath. I read as quickly as possible, barely able to follow the letter. Where was all this coming from?

  He said that I was a pretty, sweet, intelligent, nice girl he dearly loved; however, he sometimes saw another side to me that concerned him. This other self he found, “To be stern, unyielding, stubborn, much too proud, very unpliable, rarely lets herself be shown, very slow to forget grievances, lacks empathy, and very revenge-oriented.” I felt deeply hurt and misjudged. But was it the truth or the misjudgment that brought me to my knees? I knew I was too proud to show weakness, very sensitive to criticism, but was always willing to help others, even generous to a fault. I also considered myself fair-minded, great in an argument and above all, persistent. At that point in my life, approaching 18, I had little understanding of what drove me. But I thought I understood what drove Herm—he wanted acceptance, to be liked, praise, attention, financial success.

  I interpreted Herm’s letter to mean that my very strengths were threatening him, making him feel powerless because he didn’t know how to argue with me or feel comfortable doing it. Seeing anger in others was his Achilles’ Heel. Anxiety poured out of him. There were times when I was angry but unable to express it. He had difficulty dealing with anger whether it was overtly or passively out there. He felt, “As if there was a real lack of basic understanding or communication between us,” because I rarely verbalized my own sensitivities. He obviously was already on his way to becoming a psychologist. He thought, correctly, that I did not realize how much more sensitive to conflict he was than I. Conflict did not distress me as much because I grew up in a home with much more of it than Herm did in his home.

  Even more problematic was his painful self-image as “A ridiculous, socially crippled fool,” because of an embarrassing stuttering problem. I wondered where he was headed in h
is letter, but I knew and appreciated that he suffered great pain in some social situations. When we first met, I noticed that Herm stuttered at times although he rarely stuttered talking to me. However, when faced with a new situation, the fear of stuttering even more than the stuttering itself added an unnecessary stressor to his calm, easy personality. I was sensitive to his feelings, waiting patiently for him to recover his speech, as his groped about for a word.

  While we grew up in very different families, our families had a lot in common, most important, our value systems. It was true that whereas his family was warm and communicative, mine labored with conflict and frequent confrontation. He said he sensed that no one liked my father, including me, but it was actually my mother who did not like him. My grandmother loved him and so did I.

  My life’s hardships had taught me to hide my emotions as a means of self-protection. Herm mixed up my being emotionally closed with my having too narrow a range of emotions, leaving him bewildered and frustrated. He felt he could only understand what I was feeling at the extremes, where I often was. Well, reading this letter left me confused—did he not like me?

  He explained that he was unsure “If we would be good for each other, if we could live happily together for all those many years.” Honestly, how does one discover that ultimate truth without being clairvoyant? “I suppose marriage, like the rest of life is sort of a gamble.” Was I more of a risk-taker or did my need to be with him override my concerns? As a totally naive romantic, I never thought much past love—after all, does it not conquer all? I thought our relationship would develop effortlessly into one that would be the same as his parents’. What did I know about what a good marital relationship looked like?

  As I continued reading I started to relax a little. Now I could take another breath. There was no mention of a break-up. He was just scared, sharing his fears, his limitations.

  He asked me to take time and think through his heart-felt disclosures and respond gently, tactfully about what I was worried about in him. I did not take much time to think about my response, but instead, reacted quickly and emotionally. I didn’t get really upset or worried about what he was saying. It seemed to me he was looking for reassurance. I began by explaining that our families thought and felt the same way about the important things such as marriage and education. I tried to counter some of his conclusions about me, just a little, because I didn’t accept his characterizations of me as accurate. I told him I knew how much he struggled in social situations but more importantly, “We are both so young. We have so much growing up to do, together.”

  I also wrote that there was just no way that I was able to accurately assess all my own feelings. There were ideas I could not verbalize. Herm had told me a number of times how badly he had been affected by Lenny’s break-up with his first wife. Herm had thought she was perfect, “She was beautiful, warm, funny and always fun.” He was close to her. He could not understand what went wrong.

  For the first time, I told Herm that I had always looked up to him. He had wonderful qualities like patience, consideration, a sense of humor and an ability to make me laugh. I thought these were not only vital to a successful marriage but also and a good counterbalance to me. Just as my boldness and proactive style balanced his shyness, passivity, and anxiety. Maybe it was an old fashioned idea about relationships, one person complementing the other. Maybe it was the marriage idealized on I Love Lucy. In every episode, chaos ensued because Lucy never listened to Ricky and Ricky always forgave Lucy her mistakes.

  Realistically, I asked how much time had we spent together? Time when we could have discussed such in-depth feelings, thoughts, or concerns? We had seen each other maybe ten times and communicated almost exclusively in letters. This conversation was timely but difficult to do in letters written and received two weeks apart. Herm, however, was pleased and relieved with my response, writing “You showed tact & tenderness, & I was appreciative.” The trauma of facing each other’s feelings brought out important issues in our relationship and brought a new level of closeness. It cleared the air tremendously.

  Neither one of us mentioned an engagement in the first letter that followed. However, a few weeks later, there was another surprise: Herm announced that he was coming to Montreal.

  Another frenzy of activity began at home, my mother cleaning the house and preparing food. My father warning that I had to finish university before there was going to be any wedding. I just worried that everyone would get along. I didn’t want to see any of the conflict my family was capable of. Up to then, my parents had always been on their best behavior with Herm.

  In what turned out to be a family affair, again, Herm and his parents arrived on a Saturday afternoon in early spring for a beautiful weekend in Montreal. The next day found us all sitting in our crowded little living room. My father sat in the armchair in front of the large picture window all by himself, the patriarch presiding over his clan. It was just an illusion. He knew it, and the women of the household played along, as always.

  Herm’s parents sat on the couch perpendicular to the armchair with Herm perched on the end closest to my father. My mother and grandmother sat on folding chairs across from the couch, while I sat on my piano bench directly across from my father, on the opposite end of the room. There were refreshments on the coffee table: my mother’s delicious marble cake, Turkish coffee, and a bottle of vodka. Someone was pretty optimistic.

  With tension in the air, everyone sat quietly, expectantly. I must have been tongue-tied myself because I don’t remember any preliminary chitchat. Herm looked like he was about to be taken to the guillotine, his face ashen with fear. He told me later, “I was nervous, feeling awkward and embarrassed.” He said to my father, “As you know, Ann and I have been together for a couple of years. (I thought to myself, almost three years.) We love each other very much and we want to get married.”

  My father, with his very broad smile and a blush, said, “Sure. We like you and expect that you will make a good life for Ann. My main concern is that my daughter finish college.” Yeah! I screamed in my head. The tension eased as everyone started to shake hands. Herm came and put his arm around me. We smiled at each other with great joy, no kissing allowed, but we were both very happy.

  My mother started pouring coffee and serving cake. Sandu and Moishe started drinking shots of vodka. Herm had the good sense not to say anything about when we would get married. I knew there were many things left unsaid and realized it was better that way. He was showing wisdom beyond his years. I felt as though I was watching a movie unfold before me, about me, with me as only an observer. They were talking about me as if I had no say in the matter. Herm should have held my hand while he was talking to my father, but we were always afraid to show any affection in his presence. It never occurred to us to question why the proposal had included both sets of parents and a grandparent, as if we were 12 years old!

  As they were drinking shots, Herm then pulled out a little jewelry box and with hands a bit shaky, put an engagement ring on my finger. It was a beautiful white gold branch-like setting that wrapped around my finger and ended in a pear shaped diamond. I loved the ring and showed it off to everyone in the room, smiling proudly. “Herm picked it out without me,” I assured them. My grandmother was joyful that she would be alive to see my wedding.

  Herm boasted that he had taken Sarita, Lenny’s fiancée, with him to buy the ring but that he had chosen it himself. I decided then that he had great taste in jewelry. He felt that she would be able to validate his choice on my behalf since Sarita and I had become good friends. Sarita, who was in her mid-twenties, taught me how to put on make up and I taught her how to sew and bake. He knew that I looked up to her as much wiser because she had been part of the dating scene for a while. Herm and Lenny called us the two Communists because Sarita had come from Cuba a few years earlier and obviously, I was from Romania. Before the year was out, I traveled to Philadelphia for Lenny and Sarita’s wedding.

  I was relieved that every
thing had gone well. In my silent celebration, I was so happy I was ready to burst but knew I had to contain my joy. I could explode later. This was only the first step toward being together, so we had to tread lightly with our families. Both families were still resistant to a wedding before graduation ceremonies.

  We finished the weekend with discussions about my going to Philadelphia for the summer and an official engagement party there. The Valentine’s Day Massacre turned out to be a mere kerfuffle, but a necessary one. That made me happiest of all.

  Chapter Fourteen

  MORDY, POLAND

  IT WAS SO HARD to separate after such a short visit but it was such an exhilarating time. When a couple of months later I went back to Philadelphia, I was an engaged woman—ah, and how wonderful our first engaged kiss out of my parents’ glare!

  We took our first marvelous adventure together—a bus to New York for a special day in the city. We still look back on the day fondly because it led to so many later ones. We saw “Planet of the Apes” with Charlton Heston, yes, same guy as in Ben Hur. On the bus, we ate Pesche’s prepared Passover lunch, hard boiled eggs and matzo brei (fried matzo) pancakes. We felt so grown up, having the freedom to go and do whatever our hearts desired and come back on our own schedule, really late, smooching in the last row of the bus all the way home.