Sisters Weiss ~ A Novel

by Naomi Ragen

  She waited for her mother’s harsh response, but instead she heard her laugh.

  She opened her eyes, focusing.

  “Mrs. Yachnes called. You’ll never guess. They both want!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Both of the men, both of their families, they want the shidduch!”

  “Boomie, too?”

  “Who?”

  “I mean, Shimon.”

  She nodded happily. “Yes, him too!”

  “But I thought…”

  “Your tateh went to talk to the Honored Rav.”

  “When?”

  “Early yesterday morning, in shul, right after prayers. He explained the situation with Shimon’s parents and the shidduch. Told him you had learned your lesson, that you were a good girl. The Honored Rav agreed to speak to the boy’s parents, to convince them to reconsider.”

  “Tateh did that? Talked to the Honored Rav? For me?” She felt hot tears well up in her eyes.

  “You have your sister to thank. Pearl nagged and nagged and nagged Tateh until finally he couldn’t stand it. You are lucky the Honored Rav is a saint and was willing to get involved, after all he knows about you. The parents were ready to listen. Apparently, the boy too wore his parents down. He refused to go out with anyone else.”

  Really? she thought with wonder. “So, what does this mean?”

  “What does it mean? It means you have your pick. Which one do you want?”

  “What? I have to choose between those two, right now?”

  “You … you … ungrateful little witch! After all you’ve put your family through! After Tateh swallowed his pride and involved the Honored Rav himself, just so you should be happy…! May God not punish you! Have a little shame!”

  She inhaled deeply, her mind a whirl of confusion. Shame she had. More than a little. She tried to focus on the bottom line. They would not force her to marry Yankele, with his head scarves and white tablecloths. As for Boomie, he seemed like a live-and-let-live kind of guy. And he wanted her, fought for her! She smiled secretly. Maybe it would be possible to have some kind of life together that suited them both. If only it was not happening so fast! She couldn’t think.

  After that, the pace only picked up. They wanted to have the vort and sign the engagement contract to make it official. To this she absolutely, hysterically refused.

  “NO ENGAGEMENT CONTRACT! NOT UNTIL RIGHT BEFORE THE CHUPPAH!”

  “Why not? It’s not respectable! It’s what everyone does!” her mother screamed back. “And his parents will pay for everything, all the cold cuts, the pastrami, the potato salad!”

  “Leave her alone, Mameh,” her father interrupted, suddenly at her side. “I’ll just tell them that’s our custom. They can have a party, but the tenaim will be signed at the same time as the wedding contract, at the wedding.”

  “Thank you, Tateh,” she breathed.

  “I’ve learned better than to argue with you,” he cut her off curtly, walking away.

  For the engagement party, his parents bought her a beautiful diamond engagement ring with a large stone that glittered on her finger and a delicate gold watch with a diamond-encrusted band. Her family bought him an expensive watch, a set of Talmud, and a tallis with a heavy sterling silver chalice sewn around the neck.

  She wore an off-white suit with crystal buttons. The event was a swirl of color, faces appearing with big smiles, some familiar, others not. In the corner, other gifts piled up. A blender, a hot plate, silverware, a mixer.

  She looked at the ring and smiled. She felt beloved, accepted, everyone congratulating her as if she’d won a coveted award. Pearl never left her side, her eyes shining.

  “You are happy now, Rose, aren’t you?” she asked anxiously.

  Rose bent down to kiss her. “God willing by you someday, Pearl! And thank you for your help.”

  The child beamed, squeezing Rose’s hand.

  After that, the shopping began in earnest. The trousseau: linens, towels, feather beds, tablecloths (all colors). It was Rose’s idea to borrow a wedding gown from a free-loan gemach instead of buying one. It had a tight-fitting lace and seed-pearl bodice that covered her completely, reaching up to her throat and the back of her neck and down past her wrists. The lace had been lined with white satin so that not a glimmer of skin peeked through. It had a train trimmed with the same lace. She looked at herself in the mirror, her heart skipping a beat.

  This is no dream. This is really happening, she thought, feeling sick. She quickly took it off.

  “How is that?” the attendant asked.

  “It’s fine, fine,” she muttered.

  “Maybe try on a few more?” her mother suggested.

  What for? They’re all the same.

  “No, Mameh. I love this one. It’s perfect.”

  “Well, if you’re sure.” She smiled back, delighted. That was easy.

  “I wouldn’t like that, a used gown you have to give back after the wedding,” Pearl said as they were leaving, wrinkling her nose in disapproval. “Mameh, maybe we should go to a store and—”

  “Mameh and Tateh have enough expenses as it is.” Rose cut her short.

  “Oh, it could have been much worse, maideleh. Much worse. Your in-laws—Baruch Hashem!—have been so generous. They have a little apartment set up for you, the downstairs of a two-family house they own and rent out in Borough Park. And they’re not asking us to contribute anything to your upkeep. They’ll continue with the monthly stipend indefinitely, until their son decides to leave kollel.”

  “Still, there’s the wedding—the food, the hall, flowers, a band, a photographer…” Rose insisted.

  “Don’t worry, Rose, his parents have connections in the catering world. All the meat is at cost, and the rest … the best price possible. And his parents are sharing in that, too. It’s a blessed match,” her mother exulted, squeezing Rose’s hand affectionately.

  It was wonderful to see her mother so happy, Rose thought. Years seemed to have sloughed off her since the engagement. She squeezed her mother’s hand back.

  “Now the only thing left are shoes.”

  “Do we have to do that now?” Rose sighed.

  “The sooner, the better. It’s hard to find wedding shoes once the summer is over.”

  They went to a store in Borough Park owned by a distant relative, a cousin of her tateh.

  “What about those?” Rose asked, pointing to a plain white pump in the window with a round toe and a sensible heel.

  “It’s ugly,” Pearl declared. “What about these?” She pointed to one with a stiletto heel with crystals embedded in the material that made it glitter.

  “I’d fall flat on my face in those, Pearl.” She smiled, shaking her head.

  “What about these?” the cousin-storeowner said, crouching in front of her with a box.

  The shoes were embossed white patent leather with a lacy design, pointy toes, and a high heel.

  She tried them on. They killed her feet, the heel cutting into her ankle, the toes pinching, the arch achingly high.

  “Oh, very nice,” her mother said.

  A bewigged stranger looked over, giving her opinion, “It’s beautiful on her foot. So delicate, yet stylish, too.”

  “Yes, Rose. You look so pretty!” Pearl agreed.

  “You’ll never find a better pair,” the cousin said. “And afterwards, you can get a lot of wear out of them. Not like the crystals.”

  She walked, hobbling, around the store.

  “You have to break them in, of course,” the cousin said. “This is true of all shoes. But it’s real leather. It gives.”

  “So you’ll wear them a week before, a few hours every day,” her mother advised.

  “All right, fine,” Rose agreed, sitting down and taking them off, happy to see them disappear into a box that she would not have to open for many weeks.

  She let the planning go on, not really participating.

  “But what colors do you want?” Pearl demanded.
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  “What do you mean?”

  “The tablecloths and napkins and the bridesmaids’ dresses.”

  “Do you really want your dress to match the tablecloths, Pearl?”

  “But that’s what everybody does!”

  “So you decide.”

  “Really, Rose?” She was ecstatic.

  Rose smiled. At least someone was happy. As for herself, she felt distanced, as if it was all happening to someone else. Still, it gladdened her to see smiles on her parents’ faces, to see all her relatives turn up at the house making such a joyful fuss. What a fortunate match! they told each other, wide-eyed and incredulous. After all she’s put the family through. Baruch Hashem! She’ll have such an easy life. He could have had his pick. So many girls from wealthy, frum families wanted the match, and he chose our Rose.

  It made up for a great deal.

  The days swirled around her like cotton candy on a stick in one of those machines, thickening day by day with activities and emotions until she felt positively suffocated. At night, when she tried to sleep, the vision of that little bride in the wicker chair being elbowed toward the marriage canopy popped into her mind. And sometimes it was not a bride, but a dog led by a leash or a bear in a cage being flogged by a circus trainer in red pantaloons. Whack, whack, whack, the sharp, biting pain of the leather cut into her flesh, until she woke, screaming, her pillow wet with sweat.

  While the generally accepted custom among the Orthodox is that bride and groom have no contact at all seven days before the wedding, their families had decided on an extra stringency: for the purported sake of “modesty,” Rose and Shimon should not meet at all until two weeks before the wedding, and then for the final time before meeting under the wedding canopy.

  They met in the park during the morning hours, her mother watching from a distance.

  “So, how do you feel, Rose?” Boomie asked her.

  He looked a little different than she remembered, his beard a little wilder, his eyes shifty. He was smoking.

  “When did you start that?” she asked, surprised.

  “I’ve been smoking since I was fourteen.” He shrugged.

  She actually liked it. It made him look world-weary, like a fictional hero involved in dangerous, daring deeds for a good cause.

  “I’d like to try that, too.” She smiled.

  He looked shocked. “That isn’t acceptable. Women don’t smoke!”

  “They don’t take photos either.” She smiled.

  He didn’t smile back, throwing his cigarette to the ground and viciously crushing it with his shoe. “Look, Rose, we need to get something straight.”

  A sick wave of apprehension wafted through her stomach.

  “Okay.”

  “You have to stop taking photos. You have to get rid of your camera.”

  “What?”

  “This was the deal, don’t you know that? This is what your father and the Honored Rav promised my parents. It’s the reason the shidduch went through.”

  There was a long pause as she considered all the implications of this betrayal.

  “No one told me!”

  “It was thought best to leave telling you until after the chuppah. But I’m not comfortable with that. I thought you should know up front.”

  “But once we’re married … you and I can decide … right?”

  “Let me be honest with you. I don’t have any money! My parents support me. And they don’t want their daughter-in-law prancing around the neighborhood calling attention to herself. A glatt kosher butcher can’t have a nonkosher daughter-in-law. Their business would be kaput. Besides, some of their customers consider photographs graven images.”

  “WHAT? Graven WHAT?”

  “As it is written: ‘Thou shalt not make any graven image of man or animal…’ or something like that.”

  “And these people, these ‘customers,’ have no family photos from Europe, right? They don’t hang framed posters of saintly rabbis on their walls! Such hypocrites.”

  He lit another cigarette and inhaled deeply. “I know. It’s a stringency-of-the-week kind of thing. You know how it goes in our community. Keeping up with the Cohens. Whoever finds a way to deny himself more things that are permissible to everyone else, wins.”

  She was encouraged by his sarcasm. “But surely, Boomie, you’re not like that? That’s not the life you want?”

  “No. But I’m stuck. As long as my parents are paying my bills and I’m living in their house … Look, it won’t always be this way…” he added quickly, seeing her devastation.

  “What’s going to change?”

  “I told you. One day, I’ll have money of my own. My own business…”

  “Where will you get the money to start it?”

  “Well, my parents have money. They’ll help. But they think I should stay in yeshiva a few more years. Until we have too many children to manage.”

  She leaned back on the hard park bench, her future flashing before her. Life in Borough Park in the basement of a mother-in-law apartment. The pregnancies, one after another. The new wigs and the stylish, overpriced, pious new clothes; the expensive jewelry they’d pick out for her for every major holiday. The circumcision ceremonies and the Passover seders, the endless High Holiday meals, the prayers in the synagogue as she tried to keep the children quiet … Bitterly, she saw her life and youth draining away, her dreams like shards of shattered glass beneath her feet, wounding her at every step as she played her part in a vast, false drama, an actress with nothing to say but lines written for her by others.

  In short, it was her mother’s life, except with much more money and far greater comfort. Not a bad life for a woman, she admitted. For someone else, it would be all they needed for happiness. But such a life with a husband who wasn’t sincerely religious like her father, whose piety was all outward show to please social convention, a weak man who would never in his life make a bold or honest decision for himself—such a life, with such a man, for her, was impossible.

  15

  The day before the wedding, Rebbitzin Weiss accompanied her daughter to the ritual baths. Even though the entire subject of sex and purification rites had been avoided, the task given over to the official bride teacher, who was experienced in initiating bashful young brides to be into their religious duties and obligations, as well as some of the more delicate points of physical intimacy, it was the custom for mothers to personally take brides to the mikveh.

  It was the first time for Bracha Weiss. She felt proud, emotional, even a little frightened. Her daughter would soon go from a virgin to a wife. It was not an easy transition, she knew. Even though Rose had been to a bride class, from her own experience Rebbitzin Weiss knew that nothing could prepare a young virgin for what a man did to her in bed.

  “You are so quiet, Rose. Are you scared? Because there is nothing to be scared about. Every kosher bride goes through this. You will join your choson under the chuppah in purity. You know, a wedding day is just like Yom Kippur. God forgives the bride and groom all their sins. You will start fresh, a new, clean page, the beginning of a blessed life.” She kissed her on the forehead. “As for the other, what happens after”—she lowered her voice—“it is all God’s will. No matter how difficult, you must remember that and surrender to your husband. The blessing you receive will be beautiful, God-fearing children.”

  “Yes, Mameh. Thank you, Mameh,” Rose said in a tired monotone, with no emotion at all.

  Her mother looked at her, her brows knitted, the crease between them deepening. Rose had been like this ever since her last meeting with her groom. Passive, untalkative, agreeing to everything about the wedding without a single argument. Even at the food tasting she didn’t put a single morsel into her mouth, not even the samples for the wedding cake! She had lost a lot of weight, too. But that was true of all brides. The dresses always had to be taken in. If only the brides’ mothers had the same problem! she thought, patting her stomach and shaking her head. She thought about her own lovely d
ress, brand-new and fit for a queen! And the hairdresser had done a beautiful job on her wig. As for the wedding itself, the groom’s parents had insisted no expense be spared. There would be an extravagant smorgasbord for the reception that would choke an elephant, not to mention a Viennese table afterward with every kind of cake, cookie, and dessert. No matter how stuffed people were from the prime ribs and potatoes, they would pounce on it and fill their plates again. She smiled to herself, imagining the stampede. And since the groom’s parents were paying, why should she object? It was going to be a wedding the community and her family would never forget, she thought, tingling with excitement.

  Oh, Hashem was good, so good, so compassionate! After all they had gone through, He had seen fit to arrange for them such a just reward.

  The mikveh attendant was waiting for them.

  “Such a beautiful bride! Mazel tov!” said the attendant, a poor, pious Sephardic Jew in a tichel low down on her forehead. The attendant saw the mother smile but noticed that the girl did not. The girl didn’t do anything. She was like a wind-up doll that had run down, the attendant thought, not duly alarmed. This was not uncommon among such young brides. Mostly, they were terrified, pushed into agreeing by their parents, although sometimes you saw a bold girl who was mature for her age who was the real mover and shaker, the parents simply going along. She preferred the frightened ones to the brazen ones.

  “Now, come along. You’ll see how pleasant it is to do such an important mitzvah. You have the bride’s room all to yourself for as much time as you need, so don’t rush with your preparations. You know what you have to do, right?”

  Rose said nothing.

  “She knows. She’s been to bride class,” her mother interjected quickly. “She’s just a little nervous, that’s all. You’ll remind her?”

  “Of course, of course. And there’s a whole list on the wall, step by step, of how to prepare the body for immersion. She’ll have her own private ritual bath, so she won’t even have to put on a bathrobe and walk down the hall after she makes her preparations. Come, child.” The attendant beckoned kindly.

  Rose, expressionless, didn’t move.