Keeping Secrets
Page 2
Still holding Hannah’s hand, she led her into the kitchen.
“I didn’t realize how sick Dad was,” Hannah said.
“I told you on the phone many times!” an aggrieved Molly almost shouted.
Over her fresh-brewed coffee and Hannah’s bagels and cream cheese, Molly finally expected to get the sympathy she deserved from her daughter. “You have no idea what it was like for me this winter!”
“Mom, you say the same thing every year,” Hannah said impatiently, before she caught herself and grinned, hoping to pass her comment off as a joke.
Hannah knew her father was difficult. After almost forty years of marriage it couldn’t be a surprise to her mother. Hannah didn’t know what her mother expected her to say. She didn’t want to be pulled into a conspiracy against Harry. Hannah obviously had enough issues with her father. She didn’t need to take on her mother’s as well.
“Believe me, he was never this bad. It’s easy for you to minimize what I’ve been through. You were in New York leading a normal life. I was a prisoner in Eastland Village!”
Hannah rolled her eyes. “That’s a little melodramatic, don’t you think?”
“No! I was there. I lived it. Those dance trophies we won last year were the only reminders I had of what our life used to be like. Your father wouldn’t go anywhere and wouldn’t let me go out either. I’ve been his prisoner this whole winter.”
While Hannah believed her mother never missed an opportunity to dramatize her situation, always exaggerating her own suffering, she decided to let her vent and not argue.
“I’m used to his nightmares and the fact that Mr. Personality turned into Mr. Sourpuss once we were alone and he had no one to charm, but this winter . . . I don’t know what happened to him. Maybe it’s his heart. Maybe he thinks something bad would happen to me if I’m out of his sight . . .” her voice trailed off.
“Forget about this winter, Mom,” Hannah said, hoping to cut short her mother’s complaints. But Molly was not ready to give up the floor.
“Last week I thought he’d brought on a heart attack for sure because of something one of our neighbors said to him. We got into the elevator just before the door closed. We each had two shopping bags. I gave him the light one and I carried the heavier bags. Morris from downstairs was inside. I smiled at him, but when your father just stared at the floor, Morris grinned and said, ‘Can’t look me in the eye, Harry? What are you up to? Hiding some dark secret?’ Instead of just laughing off his comments, like everyone else, your father stared straight ahead. I could see the veins at the side of his neck were popping out.”
Molly was enjoying having her daughter’s full attention. Finally! She patted Hannah’s hand and continued her story. “I was relieved when Morris got off on the third floor. Your father didn’t say a word until we were inside our apartment. Then he became a crazy person. He started shouting, ‘Why? Why did Morris say what he said? Who does he work for?’ I didn’t even get a chance to put away the groceries.”
Hannah nodded, but made no comment.
“I reminded him Morris was retired. Your father ignored me. He kept yelling, ‘He worked for immigration or the IRS. I’m sure he worked for the government!’ I pleaded with him to calm down. He insisted Morris implied he was a criminal, hiding a secret. When I said nobody is interested in Harry Stone, he screamed, ‘You’re naive! People can accuse you of anything they want!’ and flared his nostrils.”
“I’m sorry it was so hard for you, Mom.” Hannah hugged her mother.
Molly was happy to have her daughter’s sympathy at last.
“Your father never acted like that before. If someone invited us out he made me lie and say I was sick!”
“Look at him Mom, he’s not in good shape.”
“Everybody at Eastland has something wrong!”
“But no one wants to be around people when they don’t feel well,” Hannah argued.
“It’s not just his health, Hannah. It’s his mind, too,” Molly insisted. “Believe me, he’s not the same.”
“Maybe he just doesn’t like Eastland Village anymore.”
“What’s not to like?” Molly demanded, as if not liking Eastland Village was another reason to question Harry’s sanity. “It’s paradise! The best entertainers come to our huge clubhouse. Rosalind Kind, Julius LaRosa, Red Buttons. We have a movie almost every night. You can go swimming, play shuffleboard, tennis! There’s even a nine-hole golf course. Your father could have taken up golf, like other doctors. I could have a bridge game as often as I wanted. Each morning we had breakfast on the terrace and looked out at the canal. At sundown, we’d go for a leisurely walk around the village. What else could we possibly need for retirement?” Molly asked.
Hannah heard her mother out, but she wasn’t sure how to evaluate the situation. Her father was clearly in poor physical condition, but she didn’t know how to gauge his mental state. For now all she wanted was to make her mother feel better.
“Mom, you’re back in New York. Dad’s finally agreed to see a specialist. Everything is going to be fine,” she reassured her. “Wait and see. Things will change.”
Molly smiled and Hannah was pleased. But it wasn’t what Hannah said that put a smile on her mother’s face. Rather in her mind, Molly was passing the burden of taking care of Harry on to Hannah. She’d suffered all winter, put up with his irrational mood swings and bad dreams. Now it was Hannah’s turn.
Hearing the phone ring, Molly quickly ran into the entryway to answer so Harry wouldn’t be awakened. Her friend Rachel’s cheerful voice made Molly feel her situation was improving.
From her vantage point in the kitchen, Hannah saw her mother gesturing animatedly and congratulated herself. That was not so hard. All I have to do is listen and not argue.
Hannah was pouring herself a second cup of coffee, when she realized her mother had her coat on, preparing to leave. Before she could voice an objection, Molly was at the door about to waltz out.
“I’m going to meet Rachel,” Molly whispered. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours. If you and your father get hungry, there are cold cuts in the refrigerator.” She closed the door behind her.
Hannah stayed in the kitchen reading the paper. Periodically she tiptoed down the two steps into the sunken living room to check on her father. She hoped their first conversation would not be a confrontation. But whenever Hannah and Harry were together a fight was inevitable. It was as if an unidentified power propelled them into battle, and they were each defenseless against its force. Their verbal outbursts seemed to be the only thing that pierced the coldness between them.
As Hannah was growing up, no matter what specialty Molly prepared, kopytka, the Polish potato dumplings she loved, stuffed cabbage, lamb chops, or Swedish meatballs, their Bronx apartment became a war zone some time during the meal. The three of them would sit down to eat in silence. At opposite ends of the table Harry and Hannah stared at their plates, until Molly, determined to lift the tension, would smile and start some meaningless chatter.
“So, how was school today, Hannah?” she’d ask, thinking that was a safe enough subject to bring up.
“Fine.”
“Have you done your homework?” Like a good lawyer, Molly already knew the answer.
“Yes.”
“If you’ve finished your homework so fast, they’re not giving you enough work to do,” Harry interjected, and they were off.
“I do as much as I’m told to do.”
“You should be more ambitious!”
“I’m ambitious enough.”
“Not if you do the least amount expected of you!”
With each retort their verbal volleys intensified. As Harry raised his voice another decibel, Hannah followed his example.
“I do everything my teachers expect of me. I get no complaints from them!”
“What do they care? You’re not their daughter!”
Hoping to end it, Molly would put her finger to her lips. “Sha! Both of you, please
, no more fighting,” she’d beg. Sometimes she succeeded, and the fight was a mere skirmish. More often she could do nothing but let the fight run its course.
On those occasions when Hannah would run away from the table crying, Molly chased after her and pleaded with her daughter to come back and apologize to her father.
“I have nothing to apologize for,” Hannah always insisted, hurt that her mother never took her side. After such a blow-up even when Molly did get Hannah back to the table, she steadfastly refused to apologize. Silence and cold stares prevailed between Hannah and Harry for the remainder of the meal. Often father and daughter did not speak to each other for the rest of the evening, sometimes longer.
Hannah dreaded their shouting matches. But even when there was no fight in progress, there was always tension in the Stones’ apartment.
“Hannah, remember to say ‘Hello’ when your father comes home and don’t fight with him,” Molly coached her daughter daily.
“I’m not the one who starts the fights,” Hannah insisted.
Molly sighed and hoped for the best. Like a referee in a Frazier-Ali boxing match, Molly’s role was to keep Harry and Hannah from killing each other.
Once a verbal outburst did become physical. In the middle of the argument Harry screamed: “Is this why I saved your life? So you could fight with me?” and Hannah yelled back, “I don’t know why you saved my life! I never asked you to!”
Hearing those words, Harry lashed out. The smack, as his open palm collided with Hannah’s cheek, shocked all of them. A contrite Harry immediately reached out to comfort Hannah but he was too late. Fearing he was about to strike again, Molly swooped her out of his reach, into another room. That night while she was in bed with the light on, against her father’s dictates, Hannah heard her parents arguing for a long time. She could not make out their conversation. After that incident, for several weeks, Harry and Hannah spoke to each other only when absolutely necessary.
A truce was in effect when her parents entertained. Usually the only child present, Hannah enjoyed sitting with the men after the meal while the women helped Molly in the kitchen. To her surprise, at such gatherings, her father would allow her to pontificate unchallenged about politics. Once after a rousing discussion in which Hannah participated, Abe Beigleman pulled Harry aside. She overheard him say, “Your little Hannah has some head on her shoulders.”
She was amazed to hear a smiling Harry proudly reply, “I know!”
Hannah wanted to believe that her father loved her. After all, I am his only child. Puzzled by his iciness, she plaintively asked, in the midst of one of their minor skirmishes, “Why don’t you love me?”
Harry shouted back in genuine disbelief, “How can you even ask such a question? We’re one of the few families that survived. We’re a miracle!”
Sadly neither Harry nor Hannah seemed capable of experiencing the joy of being part of that miracle. Hannah sometimes wondered if things would have been better between them if she’d gone to medical school, as he had wanted.
Over the years, their fights morphed into debates. Harry and Hannah found themselves on opposite sides of almost any subject: hemlines, headlines, movies, drugs, drug companies, restaurants. Even if there was no basis for disagreement, a heated debate ensued. In April 1968, when the Columbia students took over campus buildings and declared themselves social revolutionaries with a laundry list of demands, Hannah listened as Harry ridiculed them and their tactics.
“These kids think they’re revolutionaries. That’s a laugh. They have no idea what it means to fight for something. To risk your life! They think taking over a building, while incidentally depriving other students of an education, and issuing a list of demands, including amnesty for their unlawful take-over, makes them bona fide revolutionaries! Ha! They’re hooligans who want to get their demands met without risking even the skin off their snot noses. They want to see themselves on television and their names in The New York Times, that’s all,” Harry said, expecting Hannah to take the opposite view. And she didn’t disappoint.
“These kids are trying to make the establishment see things differently, they’re trying to bring about some social changes. They’re idealists, Dad. They think they can make a difference,” Hannah argued. But her opinion of the student takeover was not very different from Harry’s. Still she could not help but come to their defense. It was her family’s version of, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
When she heard Harry’s voice, Hannah rushed into the living room. He was thrashing around on the sofa, his body contorted. He seemed to be calling out for someone named Lena. Hannah gently shook her father, trying to end his disturbing dream. Harry squinted at first, and then opened his eyes wide. Seeing her blurry image without his glasses, he reached up with an unsteady hand to touch her face.
“Lena, Lena,” he said softly.
Hannah patted her father’s bony hand. She forced herself to ignore the slight she felt for being mistaken for someone Harry seemed to feel more affection toward than he’d shown her over the years.
“Wake up, Dad. You’re home,” she said.
Hearing Hannah’s voice, Harry blinked several times, to force his eyes into focus. He seemed confused.
“It’s Hannah, Dad. You’re in New York.”
He looked around the living room, trying to reorient himself as he reached for his glasses on the nearby table.
“You’re home, Dad.”
Harry nodded, put his glasses on, and sat up.
“Who is Lena?” Hannah asked matter-of-factly, when Harry seemed to have regained his bearings.
As he started to reply, Molly opened the door to the apartment.
“I’m back,” she called out, and armed with packages, headed into the kitchen.
Once he heard his wife’s voice, Harry stopped talking. Hannah realized her father did not want to discuss Lena with Molly home. She recalled a terrible fight her parents had had years ago. While she tried to do homework in her room, she heard them shouting. Since her mother rarely raised her voice to her father, Molly’s shouts stayed with her. When the door to the apartment slammed shut behind Harry, Hannah rushed out of her room. Before she had a chance to say anything, Molly yelled at her.
“I don’t know why your father didn’t marry that slut he was sleeping with in medical school? He should have married her and left me alone!”
Hardly a thought a mother should be sharing with her fourteen-year-old daughter, Hannah thought in retrospect. Could that be Lena? Had to be. Hannah was relieved Harry hadn’t answered her. Lena is not my business. That is between Molly and Harry.
While her mother busied herself in the kitchen, Hannah stayed in the living room with her father. She picked up a magazine from the coffee table, sat down in the easy chair opposite him and braced herself for their inevitable fight. She was unprepared when instead of flaring his nostrils as he usually did addressing her, her father smiled broadly and almost pleaded, “Hannah, come, come. Sit here next to me.”
Molly’s words reverberated in Hannah’s brain. “Your father never acted like that before!” Noting Harry’s poor physical condition, Hannah wondered, Does Dr. Stone think he’s dying and finally wants to make up for all our past battles?
Confused, and with some apprehension, Hannah obliged. As she sat down, Harry reached out and gently stroked her cheek. She flinched.
“Ja cię kocham, ja cię kocham,” Harry said as he put his arms around her.
Hannah was stunned. Not only did he hold her tighter than she thought he’d be able to from the looks of him, but Hannah could not remember the last time her father had held her. He kept repeating, “Ja cię kocham,” as he gently rocked her back and forth.
“Ja cię kocham też,” she said in Polish without even thinking. Hannah had not spoken a word of Polish in years. They had stopped speaking Polish long ago so Harry and Molly could practice their English. Father and daughter had stopped saying “I love you” to each other a long time ago, too.
When Harry asked, “What do you remember about our life in Poland?” Hannah took a deep breath and hesitated. She usually derailed any conversation on that subject. Unlike her parents, Hannah didn’t want to look back. She saw herself as the end product of her history and that was all she was willing to present to the world. Hannah Stone McCabe was someone she had willed into existence. As best as she could, she was determined to shield that self. She did not wish to deny her past, only to keep it out of view. Not many people knew that Hannah had not been born in the United States. And that’s how she preferred it.
Robert had only the sketchiest idea of how she had survived the war. He never pressed her for details. Occasionally during dinner at her parents’ house, when Harry brought up anything to do with the war, Robert listened with great interest and asked questions. Seeing her daughter grimace was always a signal for Molly to redirect the conversation. If she wasn’t successful and Harry kept on talking, invariably Hannah would start clearing the table or just leave the room.
Even in therapy, the war years went largely unexamined. “You have to stop burying your feelings about that experience. You were a happy child. You were sent away. You had to feel abandoned. Let the rage out. Be angry! Be sad!” No matter how hard Dr. Kahn tried to make her talk about Poland, Hannah resisted. She was willing to dissect and analyze problems at work, current relationships, but refused to deal with anything having to do with the war. Hannah kept those memories stored in her subconscious marked DO NOT DISTURB. As she saw it, the protective layer that had formed over those psychic wounds allowed her to heal slowly. Now only an invisible scab remained. Hannah didn’t want to risk disturbing the old wounds. Fearing they would reopen and never heal again.