A Woman of Uncertain Character: The Amorous and Radical Adventures of My Mother Jennie (Who Always Wanted to Be a Respectable Jewish Mom) by Her Bastard Son

by Clancy Sigal

  One little problem for Jennie. I’d become her worst enemy, a Communist.

  The Permanent Soldier

  “Soldiers are the only real people.”

  —letter from Winston Churchill’s wife, “Clemmie,” to her husband in the trenches in 1916

  Long before I joined an actual army I was a boy-soldier-in-my-head, in perpetual training for a final conflict between good and evil. A juvenile cult of the military ran deep in me despite everything I knew about the “merchants of death” and soldiers getting their faces blown off in the Flanders mud. My childish thinking was martial; my games were service-related; my playground vocabulary naturally fell to tactics and strategy. I put myself to sleep on dreams of battle glory. I was a Marine charging the Kaiser’s spike-helmeted hordes with my bayonet at Belleau Wood; I served as one of Emperor Haile Selassie’s barefoot Ethiopian warriors armed with a rhino hide shield against Mussolini’s dive bombers; and of course I joined cousin Charlie on the Ebro with the Lincoln Battalion against the Spanish fascists.

  Radical pacifism might be part of the family faith—believed—but to be soldierly, a variation on Jennie’s iron self-control—stoical, overcoming fear, humping your pack without complaint—well, I couldn’t imagine a better way to die for one’s country, or at least serving “with distinction” whatever that meant. Fighting was in my blood, preferably in some sort of uniform.

  Soldierness was a perfectly rational technique for organizing one’s fears about the outside world’s chronic war fever. If nothing else, war taught me geography, with all those nonstop crises in Manchuko, Addis Ababa, Barcelona, Danzig, Saarland, Warsaw, and Pearl Harbor. It also helped subdue my anxiety about things at home. No matter how badly Jennie and Leo and I treated each other, I was going to accept it like a man in brass-buttons-and-khaki, take up my sentry post on the tall domestic wall, do my duty, and refuse to go AWOL except in my imagination, which sheared away from domestic chaos into the ordered structure of a military dream life. Naturally, just as I chose what kind of Jew I was, I chose the type of soldier I wanted to be—certainly not a bloodthirsty bully like Major George Patton, or General Douglas MacArthur, who led the cavalry-and-bayonet charge against unarmed Bonus Army war veterans in the “battle of Anacostia Flats” in Washington, D.C.—but a special kind of warrior.

  My models then, and in some ways continue to be, were three great unorthodox military men: General Joseph “Vinegar Joe” Stillwell, the testy, outspoken commander of Allied forces in the China-Burma-India theater of operations in the bitter 1942–43 retreat from the Japanese (“We took a helluva beating”), under whom I was to serve after the Washington brass-hats exiled him from combat; Colonel Evans Carlson, creator of the U.S. Marine Raiders, who borrowed Chinese Communist army tactics, including their war cry, “Gung ho!”; and General Orde Wingate, the strange, Bible-thumping, Scottish-born Presbyterian strategist who created the Israeli Haganah and whose permanent legacy is “Yemin Orde Wingate Village,” famous for rehabilitating hundreds of war-broken and abandoned children.

  I was “Gung ho!”

  So signing a Communist Party card at fifteen was a little like joining my army-of-the-mind if only because the Party’s language was so militarized. All those “soldiers of the proletariat” forever “on the march” in the “battle against fascism.” The Party’s songs, rhetoric, and psychology emphasized fighting as the ultimate virtue; in fact, many Communist apparatchiks managed, despite intense FBI screening, to get themselves into World War II combat. National organizational secretary, Bob Thompson, won a Silver Star in the Pacific; John Gates, editor of the Daily Worker, served bravely; and Milt Wolff, a raving Red, was a combat aide to “Wild Bill” Donovan, head of the OSS, precursor to the CIA.

  It took some mind shifting to get used to the idea that I was hooking up with card-carrying Reds my mother and father loathed to the max and whom I regarded as definitely uncool. They were all over the neighborhood and very serious. But if you had the war fever and believed in soldiery and liked the up-front activism of the west side Communists (coming in platoons to move evictees like us back into their apartments, calling rent strikes, etc.) and knew the Russians were fighting on our side and identified it all with my much-admired cousin, Charlie the Spanish Loyalist fighter, and looked forward to some really great arguments with Jennie, why, what choice was there?

  Jennie’s to blame, naturally. For years we had honed our skills on each other by debating “the issues of the day” at the dinner table, hammering our personalities out on the anvil of the other’s beliefs. When it became clear that a chapter was closing in our lives, courtesy of the draft and my eagerness to get in the war, I thought about what farewell gift I could give Ma guaranteed (a) to piss her off and at the same time (b) assert my own autonomy and (c) simultaneously show her that she had raised a serious son. By a process of elimination, signing up and dropping out of Lawndale’s many youth groups—Young People’s Socialist League, Young Fourth International, Young Slavic Workers, and the Zionist Habonim, Hashomir Hatzoir, Hashomir Hadati, and Betar (Irgun)—I deduced which would be the most repellent to her. Mere juvenile delinquency didn’t cut it anymore. We were a political family, after all.

  Though mostly tolerant of other people’s beliefs, Jennie reserved a special place in hell for Communists because they betrayed the 1917 Russian revolution, murdered the mutinous Kronstadt sailors, split the American labor movement, and oh yes by the way a Communist goon had damn near fractured her skull in a New York alley brawl. What could be more logical than for me to become a Communist?

  Hard to believe now, but it wasn’t an unpopular thing to do then. Communism had become so conventional, not to say chic, that a wartime New Yorker cartoon showed two rich society ladies at Carnegie Hall, standing for the Soviet hymn, “The Internationale,” the traditional call for workers to overthrow the upper class. One dowager whispers to the other, “If you don’t know the words just move your lips.”

  Pro-Soviet fervor swept the nation because most Americans, including Jennie, felt grateful to the Russians for taking the brunt of the war casualties, twenty million at least. Hitler’s invasion had taken the edge off her anticommunism because now it wasn’t Josef Stalin but her beloved country of origin, Mother Russia, in peril. And her long-lost sister, Rose (Surkah), who refused to emigrate to America in order to marry a shoemaker, was trapped in the war zone at the mercy of SS einsatzgruppen, the extermination squads.

  It took some mind changing of her own but, even though she abominated Joe Stalin, Jennie flung herself passionately into the war effort to sell U.S. War Bonds from a street corner, regularly donate blood, save the silver foil from her packs of Pall Malls, throw her old aluminum pots into a community bin, and even offer her services to Russian War Relief to roll bandages. She still spoke fluent Russian, which is why, when the official translator fell ill, Jennie was asked to interpret for the famed Soviet army woman sniper, Ludmilla Pavlichenko, on a morale-building tour of America that was passing through Chicago.

  What do you do if you hate the Soviets but love the Russians? Jennie did much heart searching before agreeing to accompany Pavlichenko on her Midwest speaking engagements. “Hey, Ma,” I slapped her on the back, “I’ll make a Communist of you yet.” She eyed me coldly. “The day you raise Ehrlich and Alter back from the grave, I’ll join.” Henrich Ehrlich and Victor Alter were Polish socialists murdered by Stalin.

  Jennie dressed to the nines for her stage appearances with Pavlichenko, who spoke to huge Chicago rallies. (Jennie got into some of her newsreels). One night I came in from a street-corner meeting to find Jennie and Ludmilla, in full splendid Red Army uniform dripping with medals, exchanging photos of me as a baby and the sniper’s family back in Russia. Ludmilla was young, beautiful, and “raven tressed,” a sort of brunette Judy Holiday, my kind of gal. The killer of 309 Nazis in my apartment! I was speechless, but not for long.

  I plopped myself down on the couch next to her and in pidgin Russki reeled off the o
nly Russian phrase I knew, “Arise, workers of the world!” (Phonetically, vistavi padamonsi raboche narod!) Ludmilla gave me a strange look and moved away uneasily. Jennie spoke in Russian to her and they both smiled indulgently and went back to their photographs. The remains of a matzoh brie-and-brisket dinner were on the table. I kept interrupting them, prodding Jennie to ask Ludmilla questions for me—had she ever been wounded? did her rifle have a scope?—which the Soviet soldier blithely ignored. Ludmilla and Jennie were chattering away like old friends and at one point began to cry and lament together. I hated being ignored by these women. My Russian wasn’t working, so I tried the west side method of subtle flirting by putting my leg alongside Ludmilla’s. Jennie stared at me with subzero eyes. Ludmilla, on the couch with nowhere else to move, slowly turned a sultry gaze on me and said something in Russian that caused Jennie to almost fall off the couch, in merriment. The two of them threw their arms around each other, swaying back and forth laughing. I shifted to the far end of the settee and sulked. All this time, Ludmilla and Jennie were holding hands like sisters.

  The hall buzzer sounded, Ludmilla’s U.S. army chauffeur. Jennie’s eyes urged me off my duff to bid a gracious good-bye to our visitor and this time I didn’t try anything, but Ludmilla did. She grabbed me with one of those colossal Soviet kisses on both cheeks, held me at arm’s length, and said something in Russian ending in “tovarich.” Then she and Jennie embraced, flowing over in Russian to each other. Jennie’s eyes were wet as she watched Ludmilla and her driver march down the carpeted hallway.

  I leaned against the door jamb. “Ma,” I sighed, “she called me comrade.” Jennie pulled out a Pall Mall, lit it, blew out an iridescent circle of blue smoke, and said, “Too bad you don’t understand Russian. That’s not all she called you.”

  Jennie on the Dating Scene

  Jennie and I honored Sundays as our “date” day, truce time, an armistice in the war of love and hate between us. Our custom on late Sunday mornings was to promenade arm in arm along busy Roosevelt Road, dressed up, mother and son, young Henry Fonda to Jane Darwell, saying howdy to the folks. Jennie was intensely proud of these strolls climaxed by lunch at Silverstein’s restaurant and an early matinee where we watched the latest Paramount release at the Central Park Theatre, part of the Balaban & Katz chain of ornate movie palaces that made life in Chicago bearable. She adored Mae West and Myrna Loy and loved going to the show with me. Occasionally we even held hands in the darkness. Of course, she wore gloves but still it felt fine entwining my fingers around her kid leather hand as long as it stayed dark and she didn’t draw attention by laughing too boisterously at how Mae twirled men around her chubby little finger.

  Afterwards, we’d stroll in Douglas Park and chew over the plots. Jennie: “William Powell, now there’s a gentleman.” Clancy: “Ma, that mustache?” Jennie: “Suits him.” Clancy: “Sol Schechter has a mustache. What’s it like to kiss him?” She froze up. Ah, I thought, so it was Sol Schechter, was it? I was always on the prowl for Ma’s other men, real or imagined.

  Jennie never looked at another guy as long as there was even a sliver of hope Leo Sigal might walk in out of the night. But when it became obvious that he was phfft for good, the TLJs—tough little Jews, Meyer, Sam or Abe, squat compact Ukrainian-Byelo-Russkis, often Dad’s friends, usually married, rarely over five foot three or four and scenting Ma’s loneliness—came casually calling, often around dinner time. She used me, her teenage son and accomplice, as a screener to pass judgment, size them up, and dust them off if unacceptable, which they always were in my eyes. “Shalom Yenni! Vie bist du? Vos machs du? Und dien zun, vie geitz mit der?” And if they dared sit down at our dinner table I’d shove my face close to theirs and give them my Boris Karloff smile. “And what do we have here, little man? Embalmer’s night off.” The point was to keep the animals off Jennie, which usually worked not always to her displeasure. Her mouth might turn down reproachfully, but her eyes sparkled at my effrontery, which reminded her so much of Leo Sigal’s boldness. “You’re so awful to my guests,” she’d try to frown and would end up grinning.

  Then trouble. A guy over six feet showed up.

  Sol Schechter was that rare animal, a prosperous businessman and a fatally available widower. He was one big Jew. Handsome, hawk-nosed, wide sloping shoulders like a Chicago Bears lineman, and a deep authoritative basso profundo voice, he starred in amateur Shakespearean productions at the Labor Lyceum’s Yiddish Theater and was a well known “social figure” in his crème suits and quick smile. When Jennie told me that his King Lear made her cry I got really worried.

  By reputation Schechter was decent, honorable, respectful, friendly, and warm, hence a dire threat to me when Ma invited him one night to dinner at our place.

  At her strict instruction I wore my Jones Commercial double-breasted suit and my school manners, hands folded at table as if in prayer, sitting so modestly silent that it rattled Jennie, who leaned over to whisper, “You sick or something?” Around dessert of Dole’s canned fruit cocktail with a maraschino cherry, I artlessly interrupted their small talk: “Mr. Schechter, sir, what kind of business are you in?” Ma shushed me but Schechter smiled tolerantly, “That’s all right, Jennie,” he said, putting his hand on her arm possessively. I visualized wielding a small axe and chopping off his hand at the wrist.

  Schechter declared that he owned a wet wash company, a commercial laundry, over by the north side. Wet washes were steamy factories full of heavy machinery—extractors, mechanical pressers, huge vats full of boiling water, mangles—used to process mountains of dirty laundry. Workers, the majority women, sweated twelve-hour days in intolerable heat for low pay. These factory laundries hired truck “commission” drivers who belonged to the crooked Teamsters’ union. At one point, Dad had been chased out of town by a Teamster thug, Klondike O’Donnell, who was in the pay of Ralph Capone, Al’s brother. Chicago’s entire laundry industry was overrun by union criminals like the Capones, and “Red” Barker and his mob henchman, Murray “The Camel” Humpreys. (Even by Chicago standards Barker’s assassination was remarkable: he was shot thirty-six times by a rapid-fire, water-cooled machine gun mounted on a tripod.)

  In my best Mickey Rooney voice I sprung my trap.

  “Say, Mr. Schechter, that’s swell. Imagine, all those workers working for you.” Beat. “What union did you say you’re signed with?”

  Jennie glared at me.

  Schechter’s body language conveyed an urgent desire to change the subject.

  “My employees are of two minds about unions,” he replied carefully.

  “Run a nonunion place, do you?” I wondered.

  He chose his words. “I am one hundred percent union. I do my part,” echoing the now-defunct FDR Blue Eagle pledge. “In fact, two hundred percent union.” His people were signed up in separate unions, the inside laundry workers in one local and the laundry-wagon drivers in another. “So they are well protected.” For a man easy with himself, he looked a little under strain.

  Sweetly, I said, “These two locals, would they be the Teamsters?”

  Schechter nodded.

  Clear as glass. Schechter the boss, a truly nice man, had signed a sweetheart agreement with the corrupt International Brotherhood of Teamsters to bribe the local officers in exchange for labor peace, and screw the workers. It was done all the time. God forbid an employee should ask for a free, fair, or honest ballot.

  Schechter, sensing he was being jammed, looked imploringly to Jennie, who sat sphinx like behind a curtain of cigarette smoke.

  Somehow, the inglorious evening ended. At our apartment door Schechter formally shook Jennie’s hand for the benefit of the kid who was wondering what they got up to when he wasn’t around. He gave me a look, hesitated, started to say something, thought better of it, shut the door quietly after himself.

  Jennie and I cleaned up the dishes after he left. For the longest time the only sound was the tap water running and me cheerily whistling “Begin the Beguine.” After a w
hile of passing dishes to each other we started bumping hips boompsadaisy at the kitchen sink, a game we hadn’t played in a while, whereupon she threw a vicious bodycheck that sent me crashing against the wall, where I almost dropped a plate. She leaned her hands on the sink and made a sound that wasn’t laughing, wasn’t weeping.

  And drew a slow big breath. “Well, that’s that.” Sayonara, Sol Schechter, we hardly knew ya. Score one for the Last of the Rockets.

  That night, as we were preparing for bed, I called across to her in the darkness. “Ma, did you at least sleep with him?” Me, Mister Sophisticated.

  Silence, because I’d stepped over the unmentionable line. Then she gave an answer that would stand the test of time for years to come.

  “And what,” she softly asked, “will I talk to him about afterwards?”

  Called my bluff. All the horsing around and flirting and boompsadaisy came down to this; “What will I talk to him about afterwards?” It was Jennie’s only acknowledgment to me in sixteen years that she was accomplished in a world of forceful raw sex that I was yet to be initiated into; she had done it and, given a choice, would do it again. My head ached. I jumped off the couch-bed and, pretending to need something, snapped on the light and looked at my mother, really looked. The night was warm and she was lying in her rose-and-shell-embroidered cotton shift. She had large streaks of gray in her red hair and wrinkles around her eyes and sagging underarm flesh and fading freckles and her stocky legs were crisscrossed by intricate traceries of varicose veins. Where had my Jewish Carole Lombard gone?