Odessa, Odessa

by Barbara Artson

  When Dora can no longer ignore the muffled cries emanating from the children’s bedroom, she mounts the stairs to find Roberta and Hannah lying on the floor, crying into their pillows to stifle their weeping.

  At these moments, Dora wonders if she is cut out for motherhood. She feels overwhelmed with its relentless stress and longs for the days of her carefree youth. She thinks of the way she used to dance and sing and even idealizes the time she worked for her brother-in-law Joe in the bloomer factory. She wonders what she’d be doing now if she had married Freddy rather than Saul. She thinks of Bessie, who always knows the answers to everything, and tries to imagine what she would say or do.

  “Okay, that’s enough with the crying already. Now get dressed. We’re going to get on a bus and visit Bubbe and Zaide. If you hurry, we can catch the next bus. Quick, quick. The first one dressed gets a piece of halvah. And maybe we can even see Aunt Bessie. I’ll call her and tell her we’re going to Bubbe’s.” She finds her anxiety abating as soon as she thinks of seeing her mother and of the slim possibility of talking to Bessie, the Cassandra of the Bronx, and her best friend.

  “Yeah, we’re going to Bubbe and Zaide’s,” shrieks Roberta. Hannah shushes her and reminds her about Uncle Seymour.

  Roberta and Hannah jump up and run to their closet, discarding their pajamas as they go. Dora collects them from the floor and hangs them on the hooks Saul installed inside their closet door.

  When she feels unstable and emotionally needy, Dora longs for the comfort and warmth of her mama’s arms. She tears a piece from a brown paper bag—her mode of correspondence—and writes a note for Saul, who has left the house to make a condolence visit to Seymour’s wife, instructing him to pick them up the following day. She guides her children out the front door and makes her way to the bus stop three blocks away, just in time to board the 167 bus that will convey them over the George Washington Bridge and to the subway that will take them to her beloved Brighton Beach. And home. Home to Mama.

  Chapter 10

  MARYUSA FREIDE: WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?

  1946

  They think I’m stupid, but I’m not. They think I’m re-tard-ed, but I’m not. That’s what that man told Mama—re-tard-ed—when she wanted me to go to school. Why didn’t she explain to them—tell them all that just because I can’t talk the way they do doesn’t mean I’m stupid? They’re stupid. Oh-oh, that’s not a nice word. Dora says that’s not a nice word, but if it’s not, why do they call me stupid? Sometimes words go over and over in my head; I can’t stop them. The words talk. They tell me how they should sound. And I try to say my words their way, but they don’t listen to me.

  People laugh at me too. I don’t laugh at them when they act silly. Like when Shmuel did a round-and-round on his head and bumped into Levi’s glass cabinet and broke it, I wanted to laugh because it looked funny. Everyone else did except Lena, Levi’s wife. Owwwee, she was so mad. Her face turned red like my sweater. But it was a bad thing for him to do. So, back to words, I try to say what I see their mouths saying, but then it comes out all fermisht. Their faces tell me they don’t understand me. Why is my way wrong and their way right?

  I can’t read, but Mama never sent me to school because of that stupid man who called me re-tard-ed. But she couldn’t read either, and she wasn’t re-tard-ed. All the others went to school. Avram went for a little, and he wanted to make money, so he quit. He drives a cab and makes lots of money now. But I can read some words. And I can hear some too, if they talk loud. They didn’t know that at first. Sometimes I like not hearing so good. I like when it’s quiet all around me. I look at words on the trolley when I go to work, like O-F-F or P-U-L-L or S-T-O-P, and then when I’m brave, I ask someone to say it. And sometimes—not always—the nice people on the trolley tell me, and then I know. Some just look at me and then look away. But sometimes I can even figure for myself, so I think that’s smart. I think Avram isn’t smart—that’s why he stopped going to school—but he got to go anyway. He always talks loud, so then I can hear him better than the rest; I don’t like what he says.

  People talk about me and say things about me like I’m a child. No! Worse. Like I’m not there. “I’m here,” I want to scream at them. “Don’t talk about me when I’m here.” I may not hear everything when they mumble, and, boy, do they mumble a lot. And I may not understand everything they talk about. But I know plenty. I know how to go to the bank and cash my check on payday. I know how to put money in my savings book. I know how Papa used to come into Mamma’s bed in the night when it was dark and everyone was asleep and thump her. That’s the noise it makes: thump, thump, thump. And he made noise too—sounded like he was crying, but when I asked Mama if Papa was crying, she got all upset. But it shook my bed like when trolleys go by. Mama said “shhhhh” to him. I made believe I was sleeping; I didn’t want them to know I was hearing. I didn’t want to make Mama upset.

  And I know how Faigel—Faye—talked angry words to Mama when they fought. And then Mama cried. Why did everyone change their name? At work, they call me Mary. Maybe they can’t say Marya. And I know how Levi and Avram used to grab the money that Papa got selling rags from his pushcart, and how they would throw his little purse from one to the other until all the pennies would fall all over the floor and roll under the chairs and tables. How bad that made Papa feel. He would chase after the pennies on his hands and knees and try to pick them up. He got so mad and would try to hit them, but they’d run around the table and laugh at him. “Look, Papa, look at all the money you made. Twenty cents. Ha, Ha, Ha!” That was not nice. Papa said the Bible says you should respect your parents. Sometimes he did cry.

  And I know what Avram—uh, Abraham—does to me in the middle of the night is bad too. He holds my mouth so I don’t make noise, and when he’s done, he warns me if I say anything, he will hit me. He tells me “shhhhhh” the way Mama told Papa “shhhhhh.” No one is there, so why does he shush me? Sometimes he hits me for nothing. Says that’s just to show me what he’d do. He scares me, so I don’t tell. But someday I’m going to tell Shmuel so he’ll say to stop. That’s spelled S-T-O-P. Like the time Mama caught Abraham sneaking over to Dora’s bed, when she used to live here before she married Saul, and touching her. Down there. Mama told him if she ever caught him doing that again, she’d cut him up with the big knife the way she cuts chickens up. She didn’t tell Papa. Dora screamed and he stopped. Maybe next time I’ll scream. Mama used to tell me that no one should ever touch me down there. I scream better than I talk. Now that’s funny.

  Sometimes when I’m talking to a boy at work, Shmuel yanks me away and then hits me after I get home. Why does everyone hit me? Mama tried to stop him, but he didn’t listen to her. He yells at me, “If I ever catch you talking to that guy again, you’ll see what I’ll do to you.” Like Avram. He’s not my papa, so he shouldn’t hit me. Papa never hit me. Well, what about Avram? Does Shmuel know what he does to me and what he did to Dora? Sometimes he smells like schnapps when he stops by. And sometimes he puts his thing in my mouth, and once he put it—I don’t want to think of that, but it hurt. Sometimes he comes here in the morning when he’s supposed to be driving his taxi. He knows the day I don’t work, and he chases me around the room. Sometimes I run out the door and get away. Sometimes I don’t.

  Shmuel tells me that if anything ever happens when I’m at the laundry—if anyone tries to hurt me—I should tell him, and that if he’s busy doing important things because he’s a big boss and can’t come, I should scream or call a policeman. So maybe I should call a policeman when Avram chases me or hits me again. Once, a nice man talked to me at the laundry. His name was Marco; we ate lunch together. Mama used to make me lunch, but now that she’s dead I make it for myself. I make hard boiled eggs. Sometimes I take chicken and sometimes I drink coffee with milk in it, but I don’t tell anyone because you’re not supposed to have milk with meat. Papa always told me you don’t mix meat with dairy. I don’t know why, but most of the time I listened to what he
said. But Marco was nice to me. Sometimes he helped me fold sheets. He asked questions all about me, like if I was a good girl and if I had enough money. And where I kept it because it should be in a safe place. He was worried about me. No one usually asks me questions about anything. So I told him I kept my money in a bank, thank you. “It’s safe there,” I told him. Once, he asked me if I could borrow him some money because he had some important business to do. I took him to my bank, and I gave him some. Not all. I gave him a lot though, and I let him touch me too in the closet at work, because I liked him. And because it felt good. Not like with Avram. Because he was a nice man and talked nice to me and asked me questions and didn’t hit me.

  But then Shmuel found out—I don’t know who told on me—and that’s when he came to Papa’s place—well it’s mine now since Papa and Mama died—and hit me a lot. He cried. I wonder why he cried. He hit me and he cried. I cried too. I cried because he hit me and it hurt and because he was crying. He said he was hitting me for my own good, but it didn’t feel good. Papa told me that we came here from far away on a big boat from a place called Russia. I don’t remember that because I was little. Papa said I was five years old. Papa said that he came on a different big boat before we came. He came with Levi and Shmuel. Faigel came before that; she ran away to America with Yosef—they call him Joseph now. Joseph and Faye got married when they came to America. I came with Mama and Dora and Leib. And Avram. He wasn’t Abe yet. And Dora wasn’t Dora yet. I wish he stayed in Russia because then he couldn’t do bad things. He doesn’t hit me for my own good like Shmuel; he hits me to scare me so I don’t tell on him. If I was five, then Avram was fourteen. And Dora was ten, and Leib was seven. See, I’m smart. But I used my fingers, so maybe that doesn’t count. Mama said the name of the boat was the Lusitania, and it took lots and lots of days to get here, and so many people got sick, and it smelled bad because they got sick all over, and there wasn’t any air because we were so close together in the bottom of the boat. Mama said the boat rocked up and down because the waves were big, like giants. Shmuel and Levi and Faigel sent Mama money to come. Papa too. That was kind.

  Sometimes I go to visit Dora and Saul. Saul is nice. They live in a faraway place called New Jersey, but it isn’t as far away as Russia. I have to take three buses to get there. It’s a big house, not little, like my place. First Mama died and then Papa died. And Dora has a big dog. He has a big black tongue, and they call him Rover. He’s a chow dog. Sometimes he scares me because he barks loud. I hear his barking, so it must be loud. He never bites me, but I still get scared. So I get on the bus and give the bus driver what Saul wrote on a paper that tells the man who drives the bus where I need to get off. And then I have another piece of paper that I give to a different man who drives a different bus, the number 167, and it leaves from a place called the Port Authority. That’s not in New Jersey; it’s in New York. Lots of buses are there and lots of people rushing this way and that way, and I get on the right bus. And it takes an hour to get there. Sometimes I fall asleep. We go across the George Washington Bridge. I don’t get off at Fort Lee though, where they used to live. When I fall asleep, the driver stops the bus and even comes to wake me up. I guess I don’t hear him when he calls “Queen Anne Road.” Then I get off. I walk three blocks with houses on both sides of the street, and trees, until I come to Dora’s house. It’s brick on the bottom and white on the top, with black shutters. It has a porch too. And a place where Saul puts his car. He can drive but not Dora. Sometimes we sit on the porch. Rover is in the back behind a white fence that Saul built, but he always barks and jumps up like he’s going to jump over the fence. He can’t because he was always running away so Saul made a wire that he clips onto a chain on Rover’s collar. Dora has two kids, girls. Roberta loves Rover. She dresses him up in baby clothes. They are cute, but I think they look at me funny. I hope they don’t think I’m stupid. I am their aunt, after all, and they should respect me. Sometimes Hannah—she’s the big one—comes over and sits by me and smiles. She’s nice. The little one, Roberta—Papa used to say she looks like a shiksa—looks at me funny. Sometimes she lays on the floor making paper dolls.

  I go to work almost every day. Sometimes when I’m very tired, I don’t get out of bed, but most of the time I make myself get up and go because I’m afraid Abe will come. I take wet sheets and put them on a big, hot machine—it’s called a mangle—and it rolls the sheets around and around and they come out nice, dry and hot, without any wrinkles. I like their smell. Josie is at the other end to catch them, and she folds them. She’s my friend at work. Sometimes I burn myself but not bad. Then after Josie folds them, someone else takes them away in a big cart, and I don’t know where they go after that. Shmuel is the big boss there. Saul used to work there too, but he has his own laundry now. Everyone listens to Shmuel. They call him Mr. Kolopsky, not Shmuel. He tells everyone what to do, and he has a big office all by himself with glass around it and a door that sometimes he closes. And he has a phone too. Sometimes he lets me come in and eat my lunch with him. There’s a lady who sits outside of his office; she gives me paper and a pencil to write on. She has taught me how to write my name. I practice writing my name, Mary Kolopsky, like Papa did. Sometimes she learns me a letter of the alphabet. Sometimes Shmuel takes me to a diner across the street—all white and black tiles—and he gets me mashed potatoes and spinach. I don’t like the spinach, but if I eat it all up, he gets me ice cream. It’s square and wrapped in wax paper. Strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla stripes. I like the vanilla best, so I eat it last. He watches me and sometimes tells me stories the way Papa used to. I don’t remember anything about Odessa—that’s the place in Russia we lived in. Mama said I was too young to remember. Now I’m thirty-seven. Mama said it was bad there and that there were bad men who came and hurt people. They hurt people because they were Jewish. I don’t understand why they did that. But she said that we are very lucky to be here in America. I miss her so much. I think she loved me more than anybody. She would rub my back and kiss me. Papa would sometimes tell me stories about “the old country.” He said he was important there and that a lot of people listened to him. And he didn’t sell rags either. He taught boys and studied Torah—that’s a holy book. I like the story he used to tell me about a man named Samson who was so strong that he pulled down a big building. After he told me that story, he looked sad. I guess Papa was a boss like Shmuel. He used to take a pushcart around the streets here and try to sell the rags that he collected the day before. He doesn’t do that anymore because no one bought them. Well, he really doesn’t do it anymore because he’s dead, but even before he died, he stopped and didn’t do very much except sit and pray and go to shul. I like the boardwalk. It’s very near our place. Near the ocean. I like the smell of the ocean. They have a man under the boardwalk that sells knishes. He has a cart too, but he must make money because he’s been there a long time. When Papa wasn’t at shul, he prayed and read his little book, and sometimes he practiced writing his name over and over again on the inside of his siddur. Papa must have liked to write his name because he smiled when he finished. I can write my name too. I said that already. Sometimes Dora tries to teach me to read. It’s hard. Mama never learned to write. I speak English, but she couldn’t. We spoke Yiddish, but it didn’t matter because she usually knew what I meant even when I didn’t talk. She was always working—pulling feathers from the chickens, making dinner, giving Papa lunch, making tea, and cleaning. It was Shabbos when she died. She fixed the house all nice and clean and set the table with the Shabbos tablecloth—it’s lace, and I still have it, and sometimes I put it on the table just like Mama used to—and she put the chicken in the oven to cook and lit the Shabbos candles, and then she fell on the floor. She made a big bang. She never got up. I cried, “Mama, Mama, get up. Please get up. Please, Mama, get up.” And then Papa came home from shul and found her on the floor—I was sitting by her and crying—and he started yelling, “Henya, Henya. Help, please help me.” And then a big whi
te truck came, and two men in white came and took them away, and then Shmuel and Levi and Avram and Faigel came, and they cried and tore their hair and their clothes. So I tore my clothes too. And then people came over with food—people I didn’t know, from Papa’s shul. They brought food and covered the mirror, and we all sat on wooden crates, and I didn’t go to work for a week. And we all cried. They put Mama in a box, and they put her in the ground, and Papa started crying and said something about “my little Yonkel.” I don’t know little Yonkel or why Papa was calling little Yonkel. Maybe that’s a special name he called Mama. Dora came to stay with us for the week. Not Saul. Dora was very sad. She cried a lot. She said she lost her best friend. Then she cut Papa’s toenails and went home.

  I miss Mama more than Dora because she lives with Saul and Hannah and Roberta. I’m all alone. Papa died a little while after Mama died. He said he wanted to be with Mama and said something about Yonkel again. And Shimshon. Who is he? I should have asked him then about Yonkel, but he was sad, and I didn’t want to make him more sad. When I get very sad and lonely, I put on a record that Papa used to play on our Victrola—it has a white dog on it with his head to one side and black ears. I wind it up and put it on. It says, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani.” I still have it, and I am very careful because I don’t want to break it. Papa told me it’s written by a man called David. He said he was a king a long time ago who was a poet, and when he was a little boy, he played a harp and killed a giant. Josie, my friend at work, calls him a Messiah, but she called him by a different name, Jesus. She told me he was asking his father why he had forsaken him because he was dying and his father didn’t help him. She said he was God and lived here on earth for a little while, but when I told Papa what she’d said, he said Jews don’t believe that, and I shouldn’t listen to her. He said there is only one God and that he lives in a place in the sky. Papa said the poem this King David wrote was a very sad song and that was why he was crying. It must have been very sad because every time he played it he cried. Even when Mama was alive, he cried. I can close my eyes and see my Papa sitting on his chair by the Victrola and crying while he plays the record. I wish I asked him about Yonkel. And Shimshon. It’s too late now. I feel sad now thinking about my Papa, so maybe I’ll feel better if I put the record on. I will think about my Papa—and my Mama—and I’ll ask them to tell me why they left me here all by myself. I wonder if that’s why that man—that Jesus—was calling out to his father, because he didn’t want to be left all alone. Maybe Papa was crying about his papa? Papa had a father; maybe his name was Yonkel. He was very sad and missed his papa too. And Mama. I miss them so much.