Sisters Weiss ~ A Novel

by Naomi Ragen

  “Oy, Oy, Gotteinu! How long do you know about her! Is she there by you?”

  “She wrote my daughter Hannah asking if she could move in with her. My daughter didn’t answer her, but she showed up at her door anyway.” Rose could hear a great commotion in the background, her sister hysterically repeating everything she said to a third person.

  “We want to come over right away to get her…”

  “Whoa … listen, that’s not a good idea. I know you must have been crazy with worry, but I can’t tell you where she is without her permission.”

  Suddenly, her sister was gone . “This is Zevulun Meir, Rivka’s father. Vat did you do to her?”

  “And hello to you, Brother-in-law. What did I do to her? What did you do her that she ran away in the first place?”

  “It’s been months … Do you know vat Gehenna that is for a mother and father … not knowing?”

  “My daughter insisted she couldn’t stay until she let you know she was all right.”

  “We heard some bubbeh mayseh, a fairy tale, from a friend in Israel. A girl who lied to us.”

  “Well, you can hardly blame me for your daughter’s friends…”

  “How long was she by your daughter?”

  “A few weeks, and then she ran away from there, and no one knew where she was. We actually thought she might have gone home. In any case, I had no information to share with you. But now she’s back. I was the one who insisted we call you. Please don’t make me regret it.”

  His voice rose. “She needs to come home. Ve are her family.”

  “You’ll have to talk to her about that. Hold on, I’ll put her on the phone.”

  Rose held out the phone to the frightened girl, who edged away. Then, finally, at Rose’s stubborn insistence, she reached out and took it.

  “Tateh?”

  Rose watched the girl’s face go from fear to hopefulness to concern to despair as the sound coming from the other end of the line grew louder and louder.

  “No, no, you can’t tell me what to do! I’m eighteen. I can do whatever I want! I do honor you and Mameh, but that doesn’t mean you can ruin my life.” Rivka paused, listening intently, her breath coming in short, agitated gasps. “God is already punishing me, Tateh, don’t worry!”

  She extended the phone back toward Rose. “He wants to talk to you.”

  She listened incredulously to his angry tirade, finally cutting him short. “Look, Zevulun, I know what you think of me, what the family thinks of me, but this has nothing to do with me. She was on the street, and I took her in. Say thank you, can’t you?” She shook her head. “In what way am I responsible? What do you mean ‘drop her off’? She’s not a suitcase! Yes, I know she’s your daughter, but she’s also a human being, and she’s of age … I know that you go by your own rules, but I go by mine. Wait a minute, is that a threat? No? I misunderstood you? I’m glad to hear that, really, because if I thought it was a threat, you know I have no problem calling the police. Good-bye. And tell my sister I said she can wait another forty years for my next call.”

  She slammed down the phone

  Rivka looked at her, appalled, and then suddenly they both started to laugh. They laughed and laughed and laughed until their bellies were sore with shaking, their throats dry, and their cheeks wet with tears.

  “Oh!” Rivka suddenly said, her voice small with surprise.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t…” She got off the couch. There was a large, red stain.

  “Rivka, I’ve got some sanitary nap…”

  “Oh! Aunt Rose!”

  The panicked girl fell into her arms.

  33

  Rose waited in the gynecologist’s office for Rivka. They’d come straight from Dr. Brand, her family physician. She was still in a state of semishock. Ohgod, she kept thinking. Ohgod, ohgod, ohgod.

  She looked around the office listlessly, glancing at the other women, then averting her eyes from their reciprocal gazes. She picked up some magazines, but they were filled with photos of pregnant women and smiling babies, everyone so milk-fed and rosy-cheeked. Such beautiful fantasies. Perhaps this was what she loved so much about photography. You could find anything you wanted through the lens and ignore the rest, so much pain and so much ugliness.

  What if, Rose thought, what if … It all made too much sense: the nausea, the weight gain, the stomach pains, the spotting. She felt like an idiot not to have picked up on it immediately. But maybe it is natural for our minds to avoid going to places we are terrified to be. Pearl and Zevulun are hysterical now. But what if…? She couldn’t go there.

  Ohgod, ohgod, ohgod.

  Had the girl known all along and been playing dumb? She did say that first day that her life was over. Rose had taken it for drama. But … what if…? Now the whole mess would be in her lap. They’d never believe she hadn’t known.

  Maybe something could be done. It wasn’t, after all, the end of the world the way it had been back in her day when a girl in trouble had to risk her life to get out of it. But what women tended to overlook was that, even now, without the physical dangers, abortions were still life-changing experiences. The knowledge that you’d destroyed potential for a whole human life, your own flesh and blood, was nothing short of traumatic. Her body felt chilled.

  The door opened and the nurse came out. “The doctor would like you to come in.”

  She got up slowly, walking reluctantly inside.

  He was a young doctor, the kind who probably had a pretty blond wife and three healthy kids, the kind who loved delivering babies into the arms of ecstatic new moms. She looked around for Rivka.

  “Your daughter is getting dressed,” he said. “She’ll join us in a minute.”

  Should I correct him? Rose wondered. But she held back, the chilling thought going through her mind that she might very well have to pretend to be Rivka’s mother for all kinds of awful reasons.

  Rivka came in, sitting down in the chair next to hers. She looked like a badly shaken ten-year-old who’d fallen off her skates and banged her head and scraped her knees.

  The doctor looked from one to the other, smiling encouragingly. “The bleeding wasn’t serious. I think a few days’ bed rest should do the trick. And no heavy lifting! You are definitely still pregnant, and I can’t see any reason why you shouldn’t carry to term.”

  Rose stared at Rivka, who avoided her gaze, her eyes stoically focused on some far-off spot on the wall, her face giving away nothing. Noting this, he paused, a strained expression passing over his handsome features. “You were aware, weren’t you, that you were pregnant?” He looked at the girl, then, getting no response, turned toward the woman.

  Rose shook her head slowly from side to side, and Rivka stared at her hands without moving. Two red spots had suddenly appeared on her cheeks, making her look feverish.

  He leaned back heavily in his chair. “Oh, I see. Well, then, would you like me to explain your options?” He waited for some reaction from the girl, but there was nothing.

  “Yes, please, Doctor,” Rose interjected, still trying to catch her breath.

  “You can, of course, terminate. It’s a simple procedure since we’re fairly early. But you might also want to consider adoption, which would be a blessing to some wonderful, childless couple.”

  Rivka didn’t look up. Rose wondered where her head was and if she had heard a word.

  “Or … you can keep the child and raise it. One-parent families are fairly common nowadays. That is, I’m assuming—which I shouldn’t be—that the father doesn’t wish to be involved?”

  Rose looked at Rivka sharply. “Yes,” Rivka said decisively, speaking for the first time. “I mean, no. He doesn’t.”

  He pushed away from his desk lightly. “I can see that all this is apparently a shock to you both. Why not take some time to think it over? But not too much time. If you are going to terminate, the sooner, the better. In the meantime, I’m going to write a prescription for some vitamins. I’ll call you wi
th the blood-and urine-test results, but I’m not expecting any complications. You come from a large family and are in good health, and you’re young…”

  The silence lengthened.

  Most of the time, you could pretty much guess the outcome of these mother-daughter surprise-pregnancy diagnoses. You could tell who would be back within the hour to make an appointment to terminate and who would be keeping the baby—for better or for worse. Sometimes people surprised you, though. There was a strange vibe about these two that left him clueless.

  The woman had not reached over to touch the girl, but she didn’t seem angry or put out either. He got a lot of those—the mother furious, the girl weeping. In the scenario before him, he had a woman filled with concern and sympathy, but distanced somehow. The girl looked bruised and sullen, like a child brazening it out after being caught red-handed. She had given her age as eighteen, but he wondered. She seemed so childish. And her apparent cluelessness—if it wasn’t simply an act—seemed more appropriate to a younger girl.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” the woman finally said, reaching out to take the prescriptions.

  He waited for her to add something more substantial, but she did not enlighten him further. She got up, and so did the girl. He abruptly followed suit. “So, please feel free to call me if you need more information about any of the things we’ve discussed. And talk to my nurse about your next appointment.”

  Rose nodded, taking Rivka’s arm when she saw how unsteadily the girl was walking. And then, without warning, Rivka just crumpled.

  When she came to, a woman was leaning over her, taking her pulse. “Wow, you took a bit of a tumble there, young lady! How do you feel now?” an energetic, smiling nurse inquired

  Rivka shifted uncomfortably, feeling the carpeting prickling her skin through the shirt on her back. She looked up at the small crowd of strangers gathered around peering anxiously into her face. She blinked, but they were still there and so was she. It was no nightmare. It was really happening.

  Pregnant!

  Oh God!

  “Rivka, here, drink this.” Rose put an arm under her neck and raised her up, putting a paper cup of orange juice to her trembling lips.

  Rivka drained the cup, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and slowly lifting herself into a sitting position. She attempted to get up, but her legs would not hold the weight. She put a hand over her stomach. Another person was in there! Growing every day a little bigger, taking over her body, pushing out her stomach for all to see!

  “No! Don’t even try to get up yet. The doctor will be right back,” the nurse admonished.

  Eventually, they were in a taxi on their way home. Rose respected the girl’s silence. As soon as they were inside the apartment, Rose put her to bed, checking in on her anxiously every half hour, allowing her to sleep until evening.

  “Rivka.”

  She opened her eyes.

  “I brought you some food. Here, it’s on a tray.”

  “I can’t! I feel so nauseous!”

  “That’s because you are overhungry. It happens at the beginning of a pregnancy until your body adjusts. It means it’s a healthy pregnancy.”

  “I can’t be pregnant…” She shook her head. “I just can’t.”

  Rose sat down on the edge of the bed. She smoothed down the girl’s long bright hair. “Why not, kid? Why can’t you be pregnant? Were you having sex?”

  The girl nodded, ashamed.

  “Were you using birth control—taking pills, inserting a diaphragm?”

  She shook her head no.

  “Well, was the boy using a condom?”

  She looked up sharply. “No, I wouldn’t allow that, Aunt Rose. It’s the sin of Onan, who spilled his seed on the ground.”

  “Well, then,” Rose said patiently, trying to be kind, to keep the exasperation out of her voice. “You know about the birds and the bees, don’t you, kid? Then, why can’t you be pregnant?”

  “Because a child is a blessing! And what I was doing was a sin! God could not have blessed me with a child!”

  Rose took the shaking girl into her arms. “Oh, my little Rivkaleh. Oh, my poor little kid.”

  Rivka let herself be rocked. Eventually, she pulled away, wiping the tears from her eyes, getting up, and pacing the floor. “Everything I did—running away in the first place—was to avoid this! And now, I’ll be a mother at eighteen! Exactly what I didn’t want!”

  “No one is going to force you to have this baby if you don’t want to.”

  Rivka’s eyes widened. “You want me to be a murderer?”

  “Rivka, I once had reason to look into this. Jews don’t believe abortion is murder, that the fetus is the same as a baby. Unlike Christians, among Jews the mother’s life comes first. If a fetus is endangering the mother in any way, abortions are permitted under Jewish law.”

  “My life isn’t in any danger!”

  “But you could be mentally and emotionally scarred. A rabbi would consider that if you wanted to get an opinion.”

  “I couldn’t face a rabbi!”

  “What about adoption, then?”

  “Give it to strangers, my own flesh and blood? And then wonder for the rest of my life where my child is, and how they are being cared for?” She shook her head. “Never.”

  The girl was a strange combination of a pious fundamentalist mixed with dollops of adventurous sinner. Rose tried hard to get into her mind-set, to speak to her in her own language. “That doesn’t leave you much wiggle room, honey. You’ve said no to everything but having a child and raising it yourself. If that’s the case, what about getting married to the baby’s father?”

  “He would never marry me.”

  “Never mind that. We can always deal with that. Do you want to marry him?”

  She hesitated. “I’m not sure, but I don’t think so. It’s not the life I want. Nothing is holy to him. I miss the Sabbath. I miss the holidays…”

  Rose thought she was one of the very few people who could understand how someone running from a Haredi family could still feel that way. She sympathized.

  “What, exactly, do you want, kid?”

  Rivka shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know that, either.”

  Rose could understand that, too, but it wasn’t helpful. “Well, that is a big problem. You have to figure that out first before we do anything.”

  “If my parents find out, they are going to kill me—and him.”

  “That’s just an expression. People don’t actually kill over things like this. I think you’d be surprised at how your mother, your parents, would feel. This is, after all, their grandchild.”

  “It doesn’t matter how they feel! No one will care how they feel! This will finish off the family’s precious reputation unless they find some way to cover it up, like sending me some place far away where I can give birth and then getting rid of the baby so that I can come back to them ready to jump into the bride pool again.”

  “Are you so sure that would be such a terrible idea?” Rose was shocked to hear herself say.

  “I’m not sure of anything, except that I’m a wicked, foolish girl who has ruined her only chance at having a real life. I wish I was dead!” She threw herself facedown on the pillow, sobbing.

  “Oh, Rivkaleh! Don’t say that, kid. Don’t ever, ever say that! Life is the most wonderful adventure! You’ve taken a bit of a wrong turn down a challenging path, that’s all. You’ll find your way again. You’ve got so many fantastic experiences ahead of you! And you’re not alone. I’ll help you. I promise.”

  Rivka raised her hand and Rose clasped it in hers warmly.

  “Now try to rest. You heard the doctor.”

  There was one more question, a vital one, Rose wanted to ask her, but she decided now was not the time. There is no good solution to this, Rose realized, closing the door softly behind her. Any path she chooses, she will meet up with heartbreak and ugly moral compromise. All I can do for her is make sure she is allowed to choose her own way fr
eely while recognizing the consequences; all I can do is stand by her side and wait.

  Freedom is a birthright. But it is also a great responsibility. Who knew better than she did that girls in her world were given no tools to own their freedom and exercise it responsibly? From earliest childhood, at each step they took there was a parent or rabbi or teacher hovering over them, telling them which way to point their toes. Cut off from that, they had no training in how to deal with the euphoria and blessing of independence.

  A little while later, Rose checked in on her again. This time, Rivka was sitting up, her face pale and tear-stained. But at least she was no longer sobbing.

  “Rivka, perhaps we should arrange a meeting with your parents. You need to discuss this with them face-to-face.”

  “Oh no! How can you of all people tell me to do that? You know what will happen!” Rivka shouted, absolutely horrified at the thought.

  “We can’t be sure,” Rose continued calmly, undeterred. “Anyhow, it’s still the right thing to do. If I was your mother, I’d want to know. I’d want to be given the opportunity to help.”

  “My mother is a good person. I love her. But she can’t go against the family. She can’t go against the community. And in their eyes, what I’ve done is pretty much unforgivable.”

  “But Rivkaleh, you yourself said a child is a blessing from God. I grew up with your mother in the same house. Yes, we were brought up strictly, but we were also taught to respect life and to love God and to respect His decisions. He’s decided to give you a child, a little blessing. Oh, so it’s not the most convenient time. Oh, so it’s not what you thought would happen. In fact, this is what you thought you were running away from … But you know the saying, ‘Man proposes and God disposes.’”

  “A mentsh tracht un der Oibershter lacht,” Rivka replied.

  “‘Man plans and God laughs.’ Yes, well, that, too.” Rose smiled. “Are you really so afraid of your parents?”

  “No, not of them personally … But I’ve heard stories about what’s been done to other rebellious girls.”

  “What stories?”