Sisters Weiss ~ A Novel

by Naomi Ragen

  She brought the brush to her temple, running it through her hair, just as he used to. Tears stung her eyes. She took the set into the guest room, laying it down on the silver tray of the antique vanity.

  It was time to share it, to let it live again.

  For years, she’d guarded her home and her privacy with the ferocity of a jungle animal, rejecting all well-meaning advice that she be practical and sell (apartments on Park and Seventy-third were worth a small fortune), or at least find someone with whom she could share it. Over the years, there had been no shortage of men eager to apply for that position. But even though she’d tried, it just never felt right.

  This was her home, hers and Henry’s. She’d sealed it off in the vain hope of keeping what was left of their life together from seeping out and evaporating. It was her bulwark against the complex intrusions of life, a place where she could select music from her wall of CDs and saturate the place with sound at any time, day or night, a place where she could pile up books on the coffee table, watch movies and eat pistachio ice cream in her pajamas on the couch at two o’clock in the morning. A place where she could—without the intrusion of any judgmental eye—invest countless hours painstakingly building and furnishing the dollhouses Henry had taught her to love, places where her imagination could take flight, living whole other lifetimes. So far, there was the beach cottage, the New England farmhouse, the Tudor townhouse, and a block of old-fashioned Victorian stores. She put in all the furnishings, but never a miniature family. That would make it seem like child’s play, she told herself. The truth was, she couldn’t bear it, the mother and father and little ones sitting around a table …

  Then why this strange elation about opening her home to welcome in this stranger, this girl she had never set eyes on? What would they talk about, she and this refugee from a world she had been cut off from for four decades? It made no sense. And yet … she had to admit, it meant the world to her to have her family back in her life again.

  Only now, as she entered the last part of her life, could she finally admit to herself things she’d been too frightened to face at the beginning: that the empty wound created in her heart when she jumped off the last rung of that fire escape and ran out into the night would never fully heal. It was a dark hole, and it was bottomless. No matter what she’d filled it with—work, awards, lovers, children, friends—the gap stayed open. Only with Henry had she found some peace. Losing him had ripped the wound open again, bringing back those nights when she’d cried her eyes out, wondering if she was going to survive the terrible loneliness of her existence.

  Many times, she’d wanted to reconcile with her family. But they’d made it impossible, resorting to behavior that she would never have imagined in her wildest dreams.

  Was Hannah right, then? Was taking Rivka in a way to take revenge? Do I want her to like me more than she likes my sister? Is that it? Some kind of sick competition?

  She shook her head.

  The only thing she knew for sure was that the time had finally come to open her home, and open her heart.

  24

  “Rivka?”

  But there was only silence. Hannah walked through the empty house. Could she have somehow guessed she was going to be offered another place to live and taken off, insulted? Hannah sat down on the rocker, rubbing her temples. Talk about irrational! Besides, if she was a mind reader, she’d also know I had no evil intentions. She’d know that I very much want her to have what she wants out of life, that it matters to me.

  While at the beginning studying women’s history might have been just a career path, she found she could no longer view it with dispassionate, academic interest. Every woman helped or saved or elevated was a small victory that made her own life more comprehensible and worthwhile.

  At 2:00 A.M. she heard the key turn in the lock. She rubbed her eyes, walking into the living room. She glimpsed Rivka standing at the half-open door, her back turned, saying good night to someone Hannah couldn’t see.

  “Who’s that?”

  Rivka turned around, her face red, then white, quickly closing the door. “Nobody.”

  “Where have you been until this time of night!”

  Rivka straightened her back stubbornly, her mouth a thin line of defiance. “You’re not my mameh.”

  “I was just worried, that’s all. I feel responsible for you.”

  Rivka’s face grew doubtful. “I’m sorry, Cuzin. I know you try to help. But Hannah, I am … I am happy!”

  Her smile was infectious.

  “Really? What happened?”

  “I have … friends, and a job I may have, and a place to live … It’s wonderful, no?”

  “Yes, but that’s awfully quick, isn’t it? Who, exactly, are these ‘friends’? Where did you meet them? What kind of job are they offering you? And where will you live?”

  “Hannah, you are my cuzin, and I love you and appreciate all your help. But I can’t say nothing … No, I don’t want to say nothing. I want to do whatever I want to do when I want to do it! That’s what it means, to be free, no?”

  Offended, worried, hurt, relieved, it took a while for Hannah to respond. “I just don’t want you to get in over your head, that’s all.”

  “What does that mean, ‘over my head’?”

  “It’s an expression that comes from going into the water when you don’t know how to swim and finding that you’ve taken one step too far out into the ocean and you’re drowning.”

  Rivka, who didn’t know how to swim, said nothing, biting her nails nervously. “I know what’s what.”

  “Good, then there’s nothing to worry about.” Hannah turned her back stiffly, heading toward her bedroom.

  “Cuzin.” Rivka put her hand on Hannah’s shoulder, turning her around.

  Hannah looked into her pretty, sweet young face. It was full of hope and excitement and newly found joy. “Don’t worry so much for me.”

  Hannah exhaled, kissing the soft blushing cheek. “Okay. I’ll try. But I want you to know that I spoke to my mother today. She says you can move in with her, and she’ll help you to achieve whatever you want with your life. You’ll have a beautiful room of your own with a bathroom. It used to be my room.”

  “You told Aunt Rose about me?”

  “Yes, and she really, really wants to help you.”

  “That’s so kind of her!”

  “We’ll talk about it in the morning, okay?”

  “Yes, in the morning, we’ll talk.” Rivka yawned, unbraiding her hair and running her fingers through it sensuously, as if she had just discovered it. “We’ll talk. I’ll tell you everything. All my secrets.”

  Secrets, Hannah thought, on her way to bed, turning to look at her cousin one last time, her words striking a small chord of fear. In the morning, she found Rivka’s bed deflated. On top of a neatly folded pile of linens was an envelope with her name on it.

  My Dear Cuzin Hannah, may you live long,

  Thank you very much for all your chesed. You took in a stranger who was very lost and tired and heartbroke. But I have to go now. After you went to bed, I spoke to my friend in Bnei Brak. She said people came to the house looking for me. My parents’ rebbe sent them. They threatened her and her husband and she had to tell him everything. So now my mameh and tateh they know the truth, that I never left the country. But don’t worry. I never told Malca where I was staying, or for sure she would have told them that, too. Hannah, I don’t want to get you or your mother mixed up in my tzurus, so it’s best if I leave right away. Sorry we couldn’t talk, but I was planning on going anyway. I have made a good friend who will, God willing, take care of me. I will never forget how kind you were! May God bless you, and may my parents never find out.

  Rivka

  Hannah sat down heavily on the couch, looking at the letter in her hand like someone looks at a huge bill from the IRS when expecting a refund. She crumpled it in her fist, throwing it across the room, a deep sense of failure gripping her heart. Then, angry, confused, an
d afraid, she hunted it down, smoothing it out and reading it once more.

  Finally, she picked up the phone. “Mom?”

  “Hi, honey. Don’t worry, I’m not changing my mind. In fact, I fixed up a room for her last night…”

  “She’s gone.”

  Rose lay down on the bed, closing her eyes, the phone at her ear, listening to Hannah’s explanation. The girl, her niece, her family, would not be coming after all. She hung up the phone, devastated, memories flooding over her once again, like a tidal wave.

  25

  Borough Park, Brooklyn, August 1970

  The sidewalks were vaporous as they sautéed in the summer heat. She hated the summer. She hated Brooklyn. But most of all, she hated the feeling that came over her as people glanced her way. Did they recognize her? she wondered. Or were the looks generic, directed at any alien venturing inside their tight-knit community? And was it really so obvious that’s what she’d become?

  It was her first time back after running away from home three years before. She studied her reflection in a storefront window that displayed white Sabbath tablecloths and black velvet challah covers, closing the last remaining buttons on her light-blue summer blouse and rolling down her sleeves to her elbows. She tried tugging down her skirt—a boring navy blue polyester with pleats she’d bought especially for the occasion—but succeeded only in getting them to knee-grazing length. Styles were so short these days.

  But it was no use: the blouse was too thin, the bra faintly visible beneath, and the skirt might just as well have been midthigh, failing as it did to reach acceptable midcalf levels.

  Oy vey! she’d thought, her childhood clamping down on her like a giant stapler, puncturing her newly found joy, attaching her to her past. She pressed her lips together, a rush of memories making her furious, exhaling bitter air. The thought: Let’s get this over with, shall we?

  Turning the corner, she’d searched for the address Pearl had given her over the phone, the first time they’d spoken in years. Just hearing Pearl’s voice had left her in tatters, tearful and filled with an agony of longing and regret.

  The place had been easy to find. Outside, elderly Hassidic men with long snowy beards and black skullcaps sat in wheelchairs, their eyes closed, their hands idle. Ultra-Orthodox women, looking very self-important and judgmental—or so it seemed to her—in their turbans and wigs held the hands of young girls in braids and ankle-length skirts, both buttoned down to their wrists and up to their chins. Their combined gazes, equal in intensity and criticism, stuck to her like chewing gum in hair.

  She’d climbed the steps and opened the door.

  “Where can I find Shaindel Weiss?” she’d asked the swarthy, bareheaded man behind the reception desk—no doubt a Gentile tolerated for his usefulness in turning lights off and on during Sabbaths and holidays. He looked up, slowly taking in her shape, her full breasts pressing against the light summer fabric, her dark eyes, and the exuberant cascade of dark brown hair unconstrained by any pins or bands that highlighted the creamy whiteness of her young skin.

  “Room 327,” he’d told her, smiling as if they’d shared a secret.

  Years later, perhaps she might have been flattered, might even have smiled back. But at that time, in that place, to reciprocate would have been the last straw, worse than short skirts and bare arms. To expose a shameless row of sparkling teeth toward a male and a Gentile would have crossed her over into a territory where even she had not yet dared to venture.

  He’d shrugged, turning back to his work. It was probably what he’d come to expect from Hassidic women, although at first he probably hadn’t taken her for one. It would have surprised him to learn that once she had worn braids and dark stockings and a stare of disapproval as judgmental as the others.

  As she’d climbed the stairs, the odor of what passed for cleanliness in institutions had assaulted her with its combination of disinfectants, air-conditioning, and floor wax. The remembered smells of Friday morning in her grandmother’s tiny Brooklyn walk-up had suddenly washed over her: rugelach dripping with chocolate and cinnamon, sweet kugel of noodles and raisins, and a cholent bubbling on the stovetop, the potatoes already dark brown, the meat succulent with fat.

  She’d thought, How Bubbee must hate it here, the ugly beige walls, the fake plastic wainscoting, the generic artwork! She’d searched for a spot she still hoped was in her to sympathize with the old woman’s pain as she walked down the long corridors punctuated with occasional mock-leather chairs, weighing scales, and adult diaper pails. The smell had gone from merely foreign to distinctly foul. It was the smell of sickness and helpless old age that clothed the bony specter of inevitable and irreversible decay standing patiently in the wings waiting for one and all.

  She’d stopped, suddenly weak, remembering how her grandmother’s stern face would melt into a smile as she handed her rugelach still warm from the oven, watching her lick off her fingers. But like the rest of her family, her bubbee too had sided against her.

  It all came back to her: that last look around her old bedroom—the wedding dress in its long, white zippered bag; the short, dark wig on its stand for after the chuppah; the one white shoe on its side, where she had left it after trying it on, its mate still in the red shoe box, untouched. Something about the way that shoe had felt on her foot, the way it pinched and tortured her toes, had given her the courage she needed, reminding her of how her mother, sister, and aunts had all assured her they would eventually stop hurting, that eventually they would be a perfect fit. She remembered how she hadn’t been able to speak up, couldn’t say no, the way she couldn’t say no to the match they’d found for her. Her mother and sister and aunts had all thought that he too was a perfect fit.

  This was the first time she’d had any contact with her grandmother. Not that she hadn’t wanted to visit her in the hospital after her stroke, but people—Pearl had insisted—said the shock of seeing her might do her grandmother even more harm, broadly hinting that the stroke itself had somehow been her doing as well.

  So, she’d waited. And now, finally, her grandmother had asked Pearl to arrange a visit.

  She saw a Puerto Rican orderly standing in the corner smoking a cigarette. Yes, she thought, taking out her pack and lighting up, the taste and smell of the tar and nicotine, the smoke dancing up to the ceiling, erasing for a moment the ugliness of this terrible place and her mission in it.

  No one deserves this, she thought. Not even my mother. And certainly not my grandmother, who had only been following orders …

  The old woman was lying in bed, looking oddly like herself, the short, strawlike wig drawn low over her forehead, almost touching her still-dark brows, her pristine white nightgown opaque and modest. Her eyes were closed.

  “Bubbee?” she ventured softly. Perhaps she was sleeping so deeply she wouldn’t wake up, Rose had thought almost hopefully, imagining sneaking away and forgetting this ever happened.

  But the brown eyes, so like her own, opened slowly, turning in her direction. Her grandmother raised her hand, pointing at Rose’s legs in dismay.

  “Well, good to see you, too,” she’d whispered to herself, annoyed. “How are you, Bubbee?” she’d said out loud.

  Her grandmother had sat up painfully, revealing to Rose the terrible knowledge that the whole right side of her face was sagging and immobile. Her right hand too seemed unable to move. She uttered sounds with painful effort, but they were unintelligible.

  “Wait, here’s a pad and a pen. Can you write, Bubbee?”

  Her grandmother had nodded, reaching out for the writing instruments with her left hand. Her laborious efforts were painful to watch. Finally, she put down the pen, gesturing to Rose to read.

  “No stockings. Shameful!”

  Rose looked down, suddenly wanting to laugh. Of all her crimes! Here was another one: bare legs in sandals that revealed the cleavage between her toes! She smiled, stroking the old woman’s forehead. “Have a heart, Bubbee! It’s too hot for opaque, flesh-colore
d, seamed stockings. God will forgive me.”

  She saw her grandmother sigh and nod, giving a lopsided smile.

  More than anything else, that smile filled Rose with sorrow and pity. “I would have been here sooner, but they thought it would upset you…” Rose began.

  Her grandmother put up a hand, shaking her head with effort, taking up the pen once again. She labored over the paper for what seemed like forever.

  “Good you came. Need to tell you,” Rose read out loud, struggling to decipher the spidery, whispery pen jottings. “Go home before it’s … something, something.”

  Her grandmother gestured urgently once more for the pen, and Rose watched over her shoulder as she carefully printed the words “TOO LATE!” in capital letters, underlining them twice.

  Rose had felt a chill slither down her back.

  “I had no choice! I couldn’t marry a man I didn’t love. A man I didn’t even know … I want other things, a different life…”

  Her grandmother pressed her lips together, stubbornly pulling herself up to a sitting position. “You will never be able go back, maideleh, never,” she said with sudden, frightening clarity. Then, she closed her eyes and sank back down again, exhausted, the pen dropping inside the folds of her sheets.

  “Bubbee? Bubbee?”

  She’d sat by her side uneasily, the words echoing in her ears, wondering if these would be the last words her grandmother ever spoke to her, wondering if they were true, and if it mattered.

  Now, a grandmother herself, she knew.

  26

  Rivka stood by his door, shivering from the cold, her body soaked through with icy sleet. While the skies had been clear when she left Hannah’s, the deluge had come without warning, the heavens opening up above her with what seemed like deliberate malice, the way the earth had opened beneath Korah when he rebelled against Moses. Was the universe itself now conspiring against her, siding with her family to return her to the fold? She shivered with more than just cold at the thought.