Sisters Weiss ~ A Novel

by Naomi Ragen

  “What? That was your plan B?”

  Rivka shrugged, a foolish smile spreading over her face.

  Hannah shivered. “No more housecleaning, okay? You clean up after yourself, and I’ll clean up after myself. And I will do the laundry once a week in the basement.”

  “But…”

  “And no more food shopping for us both! You’ll go broke buying all those superexpensive brands. Explain to me why you can’t eat yogurt that costs half the price?”

  “Unless a rabbi watches, the farmer might add pig’s milk, or camel’s milk, and then it would not be kosher.”

  Hannah’s eyes widened in astonishment. “All dairy farms are under government supervision. It’s all mechanized, like a factory. You know how much work it would be to milk a pig? Or to find a camel?”

  Rivka couldn’t think of an answer.

  “Look, Rivka, I’m not trying to interfere with your religious beliefs. Goodness knows, my mother made sure I’m completely ignorant about that subject. All I’m saying is, shouldn’t you at least understand what you’re doing and why? Especially if it’s costing you a fortune?” Hannah exhaled, trying to calm herself. “Now let’s talk about something else. You didn’t leave home to wash my floors. You left for a reason, right? We need to start preparing you to start school.”

  “But, I am … you know…” Rivka began.

  Hannah’s eyes widened. “No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

  Rivka put her hands on her suddenly hot cheeks. So, Hannah had nothing to do with this young man’s phone call! For reasons that were not entirely clear even to her, Rivka decided to keep it that way.

  Hannah watched, bewildered, as a furious blush rose up Rivka’s neck. What have I said now? she wondered helplessly. The girl was a strange creature from another culture. She needed to respect that. Perhaps all the natives in Rivka’s tribe ran out and bought bowl cleaner and scrubbed the floors every time someone did them a favor? Perhaps it was embarrassing to them to be asked questions at all?

  Hannah tried again. “Rivka, what is it you really want?”

  “To be free,” she whispered, almost to herself, the realization clarifying her motivation for keeping secrets from this well-meaning but clueless stranger to whom she was now beholden.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I need a job.”

  “But you’re so young!”

  “I need money for my own place! Please don’t be offended, Cuzin, but I don’t like living here.”

  Hannah swallowed hard, mortified. “Why? Have I been inhospitable? Do you feel I’m pushing you out?”

  “No. It’s because I have no place to sleep.”

  Aah. Of course.

  “And not you and not me will have any privacy. I don’t want you should take the place of my mameh.”

  Fair enough, Hannah thought, understanding but feeling surprisingly wounded. It was like feeding an alley cat who turns around and scratches your face. “Why don’t you go up to the employment offices at Lord and Taylor or Macy’s? I’m sure they are looking for help to get them through the January sales. But they’ll all ask for references. Do you have any?”

  “Vus is dus?”

  “Um, have you ever worked anywhere? Would your employer be willing to say nice things about you?”

  She shook her head. “Sometimes, I babysit. But no one must call people I know. They would right away tell my mameh and tateh.”

  Hannah hadn’t thought of that.

  “Also, my mameh and sisters they shop in Lord and Taylor and Macy’s.”

  That was true. Hannah often saw Hassidic women buying modest, fashionable clothing in upscale department stores, especially during sales. She brightened: “There are some hip clothing stores near my mother’s gallery in Chelsea. I doubt the women in your family would ever set foot in one of them. My mother might even know the owners. Do you want me to call and ask her?”

  “I don’t know…” Rivka hesitated.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Your mother…”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. Why did you show up on my doorstep and not hers? She’s got a much bigger place. And she is your aunt, after all.”

  “I just couldn’t … It would have been like calling Rabbi Elisha ben Avuya…”

  “You’ve totally lost me now.”

  “Well, Cuzin, this is the gantse megillah…”

  “Rivka, can you please talk English?”

  “Oh, sorry. It means ‘the whole story.’ About two thousand years ago, during the time when our Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem, four rabbis said the secret, holy name of God and ascended to Paradise. When they got back, one went crazy, the second one died, the third—Rabbi Akiva—returned safe and sound. But Elisha ben Avuya came back without his faith. He became a heretic, and so he is called the Other. He’s a legend.”

  “My mother is a legend?”

  “You have no idea…” Rivka shook her head.

  “But not exactly a folk hero.” Hannah smiled drily. “By the way, what exactly did he see up there that turned him off, this Elisha ben…?”

  “Avuya. He saw an angel sitting down, writing up Rabbi Avuya’s good deeds. The rabbi was shocked. ‘I have always taught my students that in the World to Come there will be no eating, drinking, or sitting.’ The angel got into big trouble for letting a mortal see him misbehaving and was punished. But to make him feel better, the angel was also given permission not to write down Rabbi Avuya’s good deeds anymore, which would keep Rabbi Avuya out of Paradise when the time came. When Rabbi Avuya heard this, he decided then and there that if all his good deeds and Torah study would earn him no reward in the World to Come, he might as well … ‘live it up,’ I think you call it? in this world.”

  “And that’s how you see my mother?” Hannah asked, wondering if she should laugh or be offended. “A heretic who’s abandoned all morality and is ‘living it up’ in this world as if there is no tomorrow?”

  “No, no! Not me! It’s just that … in our mishpoocha…”

  “Rivka, English!”

  “Sorry. In our family, she is like such a legend. But I myself admire her. She changed my life. She’s the reason I’m here. I never believed all the terrible things they said about her. I don’t think my mameh did either. Why else would she keep your mother’s letter, and the clipping about her from the newspaper?”

  “What did my mother’s letter say?”

  Rivka was silent.

  “Rivka?”

  “That she was sorry she’d called the police on Bubbee and Zaydie.”

  Hannah was speechless.

  “Your mother never mentioned…?”

  “Oh, sure, of course,” Hannah lied, mortified at how little she knew. “And the clipping?”

  “For Best Photographer. In the picture, your mother is getting this prize. It made me think: if she is such a sinner, why would God reward her like that? No, He would have punished her with a terrible disease, or an accident. But she looks so young, so happy, so pretty. That’s when I understood that all my life, I’d been told lies, when I understood that it wasn’t impossible.”

  “That what wasn’t impossible?”

  “To choose your own life, no matter what anyone else thought about it. Do you have any idea how strange that idea is for people brought up like me? You asked what I want. That’s all I want, Cuzin, the very same thing. To choose!”

  Hannah’s eyes softened. “Look, tomorrow, I’ll get you one of those blow-up mattresses. They’re very comfortable. Then, I’ll ask around about classes for GED-equivalency exams, and also jobs. Don’t feel like there’s any rush. You can stay here as long as you need to.”

  Rivka reached out, hugging her. “Thank you, Hannah. So much. You can’t imagine how much.”

  Hannah stepped back, embarrassed. “Well, that’s okay. Don’t mention it. Now you go get some rest after slaving away all day to clean up this dump. I’ll sleep in the sleeping bag tonight.”

  “
I can’t let you do that!”

  “Yes, you can and will. I’ll be fine.” Hannah gave Rivka’s hand a small, intimate squeeze, then watched as she tiredly entered the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

  21

  “Hannah darling! To what do I owe this?” Rose said, opening wide the door to her studio. Hannah never came here, complaining that the chemicals gave her a headache, something Rose’s therapist had long ago interpreted as the continuation of Hannah’s childhood resentment and jealous rivalry toward the pursuit that took up so much of her mother’s time and passion. “Aren’t you going to be late for classes?”

  “Mom, you’ll never guess who’s shown up at my doorstep.”

  “Prince Harry?”

  “This is not a joke. Rivka.”

  Rose looked at her blankly.

  “Your niece!”

  Rose shook her head, stunned. “After everything we spoke about…”

  “I didn’t call her. She just showed up, soaked to the bone, on New Year’s Eve…”

  “She’s been at your house two weeks…?”

  “Look, Mom, I knew how you felt about it so I tried not to involve you … to figure this out myself…”

  “Two weeks! Before you say another word, tell me this: where do her parents think she is?”

  “They think she’s with her friend in Israel, a girl who has promised to lie for her.”

  She thought of her sister Pearl’s anguish and fear, the feeling sinking deep into her stomach like a stone. But then something else took over. “Are you sure no one else knows she’s with you? Because the Modesty Patrol is going to be banging down your door at four o’clock in the morning with iron bars!”

  “If they were coming, they’d have been here already. Besides, she claims she’s never heard of such a thing.”

  “Either she’s really that naive, or she’s a liar. Let me think a minute … I have to … I’m in the middle … just wait, okay?”

  She walked into her darkroom to wash and hang up the last negatives still soaking in fixer. When she’d finished, she pulled off her rubber gloves and turned off the light, closing the door behind her.

  “When are you going to switch to digital photos and banish these carcinogens from your life?”

  “When I lose my self-respect and gain the invaluable photographic knowledge of how to whiten yellow teeth and remove wrinkles.”

  “Can I say something?”

  “No. Please don’t.”

  Hannah was silent. When her mother got like this—which was not very often—there was nothing to be done. She waited patiently.

  “I can’t think in here. Let’s go out for a walk.”

  Hannah followed her dutifully. A light drizzle was falling, making their heads sparkle with raindrops.

  Rose turned to her daughter. “What are you really asking of me?”

  “Mom, this is your family! I’m sorry you don’t want to be involved, and I tried my best not to involve you, but give me a break! What am I supposed to do with her? I don’t understand anything. She won’t eat my food, refuses to touch my dishes or silverware, and is sleeping on the floor on a blow-up mattress. The day after she moved in, she nearly killed herself scrubbing my entire apartment from top to bottom…!”

  Rose looked at her, a bit horrified, then suddenly grinned. “So, what, exactly, is the problem?”

  “Be serious! I, unlike you, am willing to help her. I just don’t know how. She says she wants a job, but she has no qualifications. She says she wants to study for her SATs, but she doesn’t even have a high school diploma. She left school in eleventh grade…”

  Rose shook her head.

  “Don’t you dare say, ‘I told you so.’”

  “What do you want me to say, Hannah? ‘Darling, send her over to me, I’ll take care of her’? Is that it?”

  “I never said that! Besides, I’m not even sure that’s a good idea.”

  Rose felt a prick of discomfort bordering on insult. “Why not? She’d have a decent bed, and her own room with a bathroom…”

  “My old room?”

  “Ah, jealous already?” Rose laughed, chucking her daughter playfully under the chin. “What are you afraid I’ll do to her?”

  “For starters, yell at her and wind up throwing her out when she doesn’t listen to you. Or try to convert her to your secular beliefs, which are just as fanatic as any her parents hold…”

  “Really, Hannah! I’m not an evangelist of any religion or nonreligion…”

  “Or somehow use her to settle all your old scores…”

  Rose exhaled, wounded. “I don’t deserve that.”

  “I’m sorry. You’re right. Frankly, it would solve all my problems.”

  “So, that is what you came here for.”

  “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’m not sure it would solve hers. She’s in awe of you. Apparently, you took the part of Elisha ben Avuya in all the family’s tales of wickedness.”

  Rose chuckled. “A great honor.”

  “Also, there is some letter you sent her mother? Something about calling the police on her grandparents?”

  Rose suddenly felt cold. “Let’s go back to my studio.”

  She made two cups of hot cocoa, then sank in beside Hannah on the sofa.

  “I’m surprised her mother showed her that.”

  “Is it true? Did you call the cops on your parents?”

  She sighed. “It’s a long story, Hannah. But first, I’m curious. What did she say about it?”

  “It’s sort of strange. On the one hand, she’d been brainwashed to think of you as the ultimate bogeyman. But she said reading the letter and, especially, seeing the press clipping opened her eyes to life’s possibilities, to the idea that you could actually defy everyone, choose your own life, and get away with it.”

  Rose suddenly stood up. “Tell her to come to me.”

  Hannah was both immensely relieved and strangely sad. It was like giving away a bothersome but lovable puppy to a better home. “Are you sure, Mom?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “If she’ll agree…”

  “I can’t do anything about that. All I can say is I understand this girl better than she understands herself. Certainly better than you. I’ll do the best I can to help her get her own life. However she feels about me, she’ll just have to grow up and get over it.”

  “And if she can’t?”

  “There is only so much you can do to help a person if they refuse to help themselves.”

  They hugged.

  “You’re a good person, Mom.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a compliment. Your father’s friend John, whose parents were missionaries in Africa, was fond of saying: ‘If you see someone coming towards you who wants to do you good, shoot them.’”

  *

  Rose left her studio early, unable to concentrate. It was still early afternoon when she got home, the dimming sunlight throwing a kaleidoscope of colors over the walls as they hit the crystal vases and light fixtures. She watched them with pleasure as she hung up her wet coat and shook out her umbrella. My beautiful, well-ordered apartment on the Upper East Side! she thought. No matter what pundits wrote about the empty-nest syndrome, she, and almost all of her friends, agreed that it was absolutely wonderful to come home to a clean, quiet, empty house that embraced you in its sheltering, private arms. She couldn’t imagine sharing it with anyone else again.

  She wandered listlessly through the charmingly decorated rooms and hallways, stopping at the wall of photographs that covered the living room wall almost to the ceiling. Her photos, lovingly chosen, framed, and hung by Henry the day they’d moved in. He’d made her close her eyes before letting her see them.

  “But, there’s not a single one of yours!” she’d protested, stunned.

  “First, I thought we’d hang the art. Then, if there’s room, we can put up some magazine covers,” he’d said with his usual dismissiveness toward his own work. That was so like him! He ne
ver considered his own photographs anything other than illustrations for newspaper and magazine stories, even after he won a Pulitzer. “Just a lucky break, being in the right place at the right time,” he’d said with a shrug. And afterward, amid the unopened crates and moving boxes, they’d opened a bottle of warm champagne, drinking whatever was left after it exploded, raining down on them and their belongings like confetti.

  She looked at the huge, blown-up photograph from her most famous collection, This Side of Heaven. She’d gone back to her roots, photographing life in Williamsburg, Borough Park, and Crown Heights, creating a collection that had variously been called “insightful,” “harsh,” “groundbreaking,” and “moving.”

  The Hassidim themselves, however, had decided to “honor” her with a lawsuit for “stealing” their images without their permission, complaining her work was that of a Peeping Tom interested in hanging out the community’s dirty laundry. They wanted her photos banned and her books taken off the shelves, and, failing that, they wanted all her royalties. The suit, which was meritless from the get-go, was eventually thrown out of court, but had still managed to generate lots of negative publicity, as well as costing her a bloody fortune in legal fees.

  She looked at one of her favorite and most famous photos, a black-and-white image of women in the synagogue during Simchat Torah. While the men were dancing and singing with joy as they passed around the sacred Torah scrolls, the excluded women and girls crowded around each other behind the high mechitzah, standing on chairs jockeying for a position from where, at best, they could catch just a brief and partial glimpse of the goings-on. Their faces were somber, bored, joyful, preoccupied. Her Haredi critics deemed it “antireligious, feminist propaganda” and were furious that she had “desecrated the holiday and their sacred space” with her photographic equipment (which she had carefully hidden inside a black shawl, knowing full well the consequences of being caught with a camera in a synagogue in Borough Park during a holiday).

  Her defense had been simple. “I’m a mirror,” she’d said in response. “If you don’t like your face, change it. Don’t complain to the mirror. I show what’s there. You create your world. I just document it.”