“You should have seen what it was like twenty years ago.” I glanced at Dottie again, and she looked so forlorn. I thought about the night before I’d left home, lying in my bed, holding tight to Eta. My knowledge of the New World consisted of bits and pieces from my brother Heshie’s letters. I can still feel our hard straw mattress, the warmth of the down comforter, the sweet smell of Eta’s skin; as terrified as I was, I also felt like my real life was about to begin, and it was thrilling. Dottie must be feeling the same way.
I set down the work and walked over to the credenza. Without hesitation, I picked up two of my four Shabbes candlesticks and turned to my daughter. “Take these with you.”
She startled. “How can I take your candlesticks?”
“I’m giving you two. I will keep the other two. You’ll need them. To make Shabbes wherever you are. You will have a piece of me when you are gone. When you light the candles, you’ll think of me lighting mine. And when you return to America, I will give you the rest of the candlesticks. Because when you come back to America, we will both be complete.”
I saw Dottie begin to tear up. “I don’t need anything to remind me of you. I will think of you every day.”
“Of course you will. And I will hold you in my heart. But how nice to think of each other as we usher in Shabbes.”
She hesitated. “Willie doesn’t make Shabbes.”
“So you’ll do it after he’s left for the evening. You’ll do it for your child.” I smiled at her. “At this point, what’s one more secret?”
Taking the candlesticks in her hands as if they were gold, she smiled. “Another secret won’t hurt.”
Moving back to the couch, I said, “Hand me the green thread.”
When she brought it over, I glanced up, and caught sight of the clock. “Ach! Don’t you need to meet your friends?” Her final night in New York, it was important she see all that she was leaving behind. It would give her all the more reason to come back.
“I should stay here with you,” Dottie said.
“No.” I stitched the leaves. “You go have a night of fun.”
“I want to stay with you, Mama.” Dottie’s eyes started to tear up.
“Oh, bubelah,” I said, putting aside my work. I didn’t know if she meant tonight or always. I stood and gave her a kiss on her cheek, holding her arms in my hands. “Don’t stay here with an old woman. Go out. Be with your friends.” I looked her deeply in the eyes. “Remember, you must live.”
And with that, I pushed her out the door, before she could protest anymore.
Dottie
Wednesday, September 11
IF I could have, I would have stayed with Ma. But as much as I didn’t want to leave the house, I would have been devastated to get on that boat without saying a proper good-bye to my friends, without having one last night out with the girls. I met them at the café on Second Avenue, the place that in my previous life had been all about fun and romance and being with friends. But now, as a married woman, about to sail away from every person and every thing I ever knew and cared about, the café seemed as inviting as a slaughterhouse.
The solemnity of the occasion was proved by Zelda, making a rare appearance on a weeknight. With a forced smile, I fished for inanities about which to chatter. Was it really less than a month ago I’d sat here with Abe, caring only about my job at Dover Insurance and what fashions I could buy with my salary? Now at the same table, Edith and Linda gave me sidelong glances, unsure of what to say.
“Ah, baloney,” Zelda said, breaking the silence. “This is a send-off. Where’s the cheer? This is exciting!”
“Sure it is, sweetie,” Edith said. Her smile was strained.
Linda was still sweet Linda, but now that Ralph was gone, she was already starting to develop a crust, an edge of bitterness that was unattractive. I knew of women who ended up alone, how hard they became, angry at the world. I hoped Linda would avoid that fate. After all, Edith didn’t seem unhappy.
The door to the café opened, and I startled. But it was a group of high school girls out for a romp.
Zelda placed a hand on mine. “I checked. He’ll be at the store all night.”
“Of course,” I said, both relieved and disappointed. I knew I’d crumble at the sight of Abe, but that didn’t stop me from longing for a final glance of the man who I had thought was my beshert. But he wasn’t, was he? My fate was different from what I expected. I needed to accept it.
“So what’s your plan?” Edith asked.
Pray until I mean it, I thought. “We’re going to Paris. From there, he may travel, but I’ll be staying put so I can work at the JDC.”
“At least Paris is safe,” Edith said. “Haven’t you read about the restrictions being placed on Jews in Germany? He wouldn’t go there, would he?”
“He will go where the story is,” I said, trying to show a confidence I didn’t have.
“Aren’t you worried?” Linda asked.
I looked from Linda to Edith to Zelda and back to Linda before admitting, “Terrified.”
“Aw, sweetie,” said Zelda. “Focus on the good. Like, how do you like married life?” Her tone and wagging eyebrows left no doubt about what she meant. I was grateful for the change of subject.
“Zelda!” Linda said. “That’s private.”
“Oh, why can’t we talk about it?” Zelda said. “Don’t be so old-fashioned!”
For the first time that night, my smile was genuine. “I had no idea it would be so . . .” How to describe the sensations? Words couldn’t do justice. “So exhilarating.”
“They don’t teach you that in school, do they?” said Zelda.
“Really that good?” Edith asked.
“Divine. Truly divine. No matter what else happens, we have that.”
Everyone nodded, trying not to think about what could happen in Europe.
“I still worry,” Edith said.
“We are going to do amazing work in Europe,” I said, feeling defiant, “and return as heroes.”
Linda held up her beer. “To Dottie and Willie. May your ‘for better or worse’ be far better than worse. L’chaim!”
• • •
FOR my last night in New York, I decided to sleep at home, although it worried me to leave Willie by himself. Things had been going so well for us, and he hadn’t brought up divorce since our wedding night, but I didn’t know what he might get up to if left to his own devices. However, as of tomorrow, it would be just the two of us. For six months, we’d have only each other and then we’d have our child. My last night, I wanted to be with my family.
When I returned to the apartment, Ma was still sewing, sitting on the couch.
“Go to sleep,” I said.
“I’m almost done,” she said. “But you. You need your sleep. I will clear the sofa for you.” She started to stand and move to the table.
“No, don’t.” I looked around the room, the room that had been my bedroom for so many years. Nothing about it resembled a proper bedroom—this was our living room, after all—but it had been mine. Tonight, though, I didn’t want to be alone. “I’m going to sleep in the boys’ room.”
She sat back down.
I slid off my dress and slipped on the nightgown that Ma had pulled out of her room, so as not to disturb Tateh. It was old, one not worthy of a married woman, but was well-worn and smooth on my skin. I would miss this nightgown. I turned to go into the other room, but a thought occurred to me. “Ma?”
“Yes?”
“You’ll take care of Eugene for me. Won’t you?”
She was about to speak, perhaps reprimand me for my insolence, but instead she pursed her lips and nodded. “Of course. Sweet dreams, my bubelah.”
“Sweet dreams, Ma.”
In the boys’ room, I spied Izzy asleep on the mattress on the floor, and Alfie and Eugene curle
d up in the bed. I slid between the two. They stirred momentarily. I looked at them, wondering when I would see them again. “I’m going to miss even you, Alfie,” I whispered, tousling his hair.
“I guess I’ll miss you, Dottie,” he said sleepily.
I smiled and rolled over to my Eugene. Slipping my hand over his body, I pulled him close to me. “I love you, Eugene, more than anything in this world.” He was fast asleep, but I hoped the words would sink in, that he’d hear them inside, that he’d know I wasn’t abandoning him.
Staring at the rise and fall of his chest, I was certain I’d be awake all night, but soon I was lost in a fitful sleep.
Rose
Thursday, September 12
WE were a somber group traveling to the harbor. Ben went first with the luggage in a truck borrowed from a neighbor who made deliveries. We piled in Dottie’s trunks and suitcase, the same suitcase we’d given her when she was fifteen and started going to Camp Eden. Ben offered to buy her a new one, something to complement the fancy matched pieces I knew the Kleins would have. But she insisted on this beat-up case.
At breakfast we ate and stared at one another and started to speak but ended up talking over one another and then, ultimately, saying nothing. When the morning mail arrived, there was a letter from Yussel, but even that couldn’t rouse me, and I set it aside to read that evening. I wanted nothing to distract me from my final moments with Dottie.
With time on our hands, we decided to walk to the harbor. Better than sitting and fretting. Besides, I wanted to stretch out our time together, be with Dottie for a bit longer. Not that there was much left to say; we just wanted to be. On the way down, she let me hold her hand.
And now, here we are at the ship, the SS Manhattan. These past weeks, with their ups and downs, have brought us here, to this moment, to this dock, staring down this hunk of metal that somehow manages to stay afloat. The pungent air, the behemoth vessel, the pandemonium of the ship crew: I close my eyes, and it’s 1914 and I’m about to board for America. The trepidation overwhelms me, and I listen to the mishmash of voices. Even here in America, so many different languages trumpeting at once.
Dottie’s voice interrupts my reverie. “There’s Willie.”
We move to the Kleins, but I feel as if I am floating. I know this is happening right now, but it doesn’t seem possible, me saying good-bye to my baby girl. I speak as if through a cloth, my ears plugged with cotton. I greet the Kleins without any awareness of what I am saying. Molly dabs her eyes with a handkerchief. I wonder where my tears are.
That ship. Looming. It looks exactly the same as mine, although I know it is not. And Dottie is not the same as I was. Dottie is well fed, she’s dressed fashionably, and she isn’t destined for the bowels of the ship. First-class, my Dottala sails.
I try to focus on Willie, so stiff and regal. His clothes are stylish—what is the word Dottie likes to use? Snazzy? Next to Ben, who is in his work clothes so he can return to the garage, Willie looks like a movie star. No wonder Dottie was taken in.
Snippets of the conversation drift into my consciousness. “You promise you’ll come back if things get worse,” Molly says. My head feels as if it is full of ether, although I am not numb. I wish I were. This is the child I cannot lose. This is the child I am losing. This is the child I will mourn.
“Don’t try to be a hero,” Ira says. “And watch your wallet. Those Parisians are filthy crooks.”
Ben has Dottie in an embrace. His words dance on the salt air. “Remember who you are. Remember what you are. We are Jews. We have made it through worse. And you can always come home. With or without Willie, you can always come home.”
Alfie is asking for postcards, Eugene is whimpering, and I am bewildered, not sure how this is happening.
“We should board, Dottie,” Willie says, glancing at his watch. She nods and then turns to us for a final time.
So much for me to say. But nothing for me to say. For perhaps the first time in my life, I stand mute. Dottie gives final hugs to the boys.
Izzy says, “Be safe.”
Dottie says, “I will.”
He leans into Dottie and I hear him whispering into her ear, “Be brave,” before he pulls away. He wipes his eyes brusquely.
Alfie gives her a quick kiss on the cheek and a long squeeze. “Remember. Postcards of those French airplanes.”
“I’ll remember,” Dottie says.
Eugene is next and he holds on for so long, I wonder if he plans on ever letting go. I should take him. I should pull him off. But part of me hopes if he holds on long enough, she will stay.
Dottie kisses his head and murmurs, “Now behave. I’ll be back before you know it and I don’t want to hear any reports.” Finally, he releases her, his tears freely flowing, and Dottie is ready to take leave of her brothers.
At last, it is my turn. “Dottala,” I say.
“Ma,” she says.
I hug her. In that hug I put in everything I have, all my wishes for her, all my love, all my dreams. I try to press them into her as one final good-bye.
“You will do good,” I whisper into her ear.
Her body trembles in my arms. She is on the verge, I can tell, and I hold my breath, hoping she will change her mind, hoping she will return to the apartment and raise her baby with me. But she pulls away and moves toward her husband.
“Good-bye,” she says.
“God be with you, Dottala,” I say. And now my tears are free. My body shakes, and Ben holds me, keeping me steady, keeping me from chasing after her.
Willie holds out an elbow for her to take. The porter has already carried up the luggage. They walk up the gangplank, the metal grates shaking beneath their feet. We are sobbing, all of us; even Alfie has tears streaming down his face.
They disappear into the metal monstrosity.
“We should go,” Ben says gently, but I shake my head.
“I need to stay. Make sure she is safe.” As if my gaze could protect her.
Ben and Alfie and Izzy leave, but Eugene stays behind with me. He curls into my side, as he used to with Dottie, and my arm goes around him. It feels natural. And right.
Eugene and I stand there for over an hour, waiting for our Dottie to change her mind, waiting for her to come running down the ramp and into our arms, waiting for her to come home with us.
With three blasts of the horn, the ship leaves port and sails out into the Atlantic.
Dottie
Thursday, September 12
THE Statue of Liberty grows smaller and smaller as she shrinks from view. It occurs to me this is the opposite of what is supposed to happen; Lady Liberty was meant to welcome, to embrace, not to send off. I lean on the rail of the ship until she is completely gone from sight.
Four weeks ago I had my work, my family. Abe. Just four weeks. And here I am.
I am a married lady. Beginning my married life. With my married husband.
Our luggage awaits me in the cabin and needs to be unpacked. Before we left port, Willie decided he needed a drink and went off in search of the ship’s bar. And being alone in that sardine can—even if it is a first-class sardine can—made my skin crawl, so I escaped to the deck to watch New York disappear from view. I didn’t think it would go so quickly. I thought the city would linger on the horizon, but now there is only boundless water stretching on all sides.
I am a married lady.
We will arrive in Le Havre on September 18. Just seven days to travel 3,514 miles. That’s 502 miles a day; 20.9 miles an hour. A third of a mile a minute.
I am a married lady.
The weight of my decision sits in my stomach. What have I done? The water in front of me is not the blue of picture books. It is dark and roiling, nearly a black ink churning all around me. The sound of the ocean fills my ears and the salty air stings my eyes.
New York. It’s all
I know. I hadn’t expected this longing, at least not this soon. The longing for my mother. For the boys. For Abe. Abe. Will he be the thought I hold on to in the middle of the night? I mourn for the political arguments, the squabbling over pulkes at the Shabbes table, the frustration at Abe’s stubbornness. I mourn for nights at the café with Edith and Linda, for the Yiddish theater, for Ma’s goose liver stew on a freezing winter night. I mourn for the afternoons gossiping with Zelda and the summer nights under the stars at Camp Eden. I mourn for Eugene’s hot breath on my neck as he slept snugly next to me, for Alfie’s clever mischief as he swindled coins from me, for Izzy’s quiet determination.
But mourning is pointless. I have to remind myself, I am my mother’s daughter. I will do what I need to do. Yes, I am married to a stranger. Yes, I am going to have a baby in a foreign land. Yes, I am about to embark on work that could risk my life as easily as it could save others. Yes, I am more afraid than I have ever been in my life. But I will do what I need to for this baby. It is what the women in my family do.
I am a mother.
Straining, I look for anything comforting, familiar, out over the ocean, but all I see is emptiness.
My hand brushes my head and I feel the mess my hair is becoming. With a last look, I turn to go back to the cabin. I had better unpack and fix my hair. It is time to join my husband.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
AS the saying goes, Yedes vort oyf zayn ort. Every word in its place. No two people did more to help each word fall into place than my agent, Laney Katz Becker, and my editor, Tracy Bernstein. Laney edited, critiqued, and read more rewrites than one would think possible, while cheering me on the whole way. Tracy is an editor extraordinaire, whose insightful ideas and deft edits brought greater depth to the world of Dottie and Rose. I am so grateful that I had both on my team.
I am also lucky to have my own landsfroyen, the fabulous women of my writing group who saw this story in its infancy and helped it grow into the fully formed novel it is today. Jennifer Davis-Kay, Sarah Endo, Sheryl Kaleo, Sarah Monsma, and Mary Rowen, you have my eternal thanks. Thank you to my other readers, Betsy Aoki, Estelle Berg, and Julia Schilling, who gave their thoughts and suggestions, correcting facts along the way (and any factual errors that remain are entirely my own).
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