Florence Adler Swims Forever: A Novel

by Rachel Beanland

  “I am allowed to miss her, too,” Joseph said quietly.

  Esther could feel a quiet rage building inside her. How dare Joseph try to twist this moment inside out until it was about something else altogether. The words were out of her mouth before she could consider what she was saying: “At least you have Anna.”

  Joseph looked confused. “What does that mean?”

  “How did you phrase it again?” She tossed the rolled-up stockings into the crate and moved over to Anna’s dresser, where she yanked open the bottom drawer and grabbed at the thick stack of papers.

  “Esther, those aren’t yours.”

  She flipped through the pages frantically, looking for the copy of Joseph’s affidavit. “It’s here somewhere.”

  “Those documents are important. You should put them back.”

  “Here,” she said, waving the affidavit in the air. She scanned the addendum, looking for the line that had made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. “ ‘At seventeen, the applicant’s mother and I became engaged to be married.’ ”

  She read the rest of the paragraph aloud, including the part where he claimed Anna was like a daughter to him, before thrusting the affidavit at him.

  “You wrote this. And, what, three months later your daughter is dead? Kena horah.”

  Joseph closed his eyes and leaned against the bedpost. “You think the evil eye killed our daughter?”

  “What should I think?”

  He opened his eyes and looked at her before he said anything. “That she got a cramp. Or got caught in an undertow.” His voice cracked on the word caught.

  “She was a good swimmer,” she said as she began to sob.

  “Esther.” He tried to move toward her, stockings in hand, but she held the stack of papers in front of her like a shield.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Inez.”

  “I feel like an idiot. That first summer we met, how much of it was real?”

  “All of it,” said Joseph as he pried the papers from her hands and pulled her toward him.

  “When did you end it with her?”

  “Do you remember the night you took my hand? In front of the Chelsea?”

  Esther nodded her head.

  “I wrote to Inez that night.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “That I wanted to be the kind of man who followed through on his promises but that I had met a woman whom I knew I’d never be able to let go of.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about her?”

  “I don’t know. Fear, probably.”

  What bothered Esther the most, when she really thought about it, was not that Joseph had loved someone else but that he hadn’t trusted her with the information. Had he thought her so fragile? Their relationship so flimsy?

  “All this time, you’ve been working with Anna to get Inez and Paul to the U.S, and I’ve been left to wonder why she matters. Instead of sitting around like a dingbat, I would have appreciated being given the chance to rise to the occasion.”

  Joseph sat down on Anna’s bed, placed his hands on his knees. It took him several long seconds to find his voice.

  “I’ve always regretted the way I treated Inez.”

  “You wish you’d married her?”

  Joseph looked at her as if she were deranged. “No, I just wish I’d been honest with her.”

  “You were.”

  “I think I knew, long before I met you, that I wouldn’t marry her. I should have told her sooner.”

  “You were young.”

  “It’s no excuse.”

  “So, this is your penance?” Esther waved her arms at Anna’s dresser, her bed. “Bringing her daughter to the United States?”

  “I should have done it a long time ago.”

  “Brought her to the U.S.?”

  “Both of them. After the war. It would have been easier then.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  Esther let out a short laugh that sounded angrier than she’d intended. She was so tired. Had that little blue letter really arrived a year ago? She put the stack of papers back in the drawer and moved her hands to her face, rubbing her eye sockets with the tips of her fingers. Inez could have asked for anything from Joseph, and he would have said yes because he was a decent man. Of that, Esther was sure.

  “There’s something else, Esther.”

  She watched her husband run his hands up and down the length of his thighs. “What?”

  “We got another denial letter from the U.S. consulate.”

  “The affidavit is no good?”

  “It’s more than that. The consul wants to see hard-and-fast proof that Inez and Paul will be able to support themselves when they arrive in the U.S.”

  “If they can’t get their money out of Germany, how can the consul expect them to prove anything?”

  “I’ve provided my own bank statements, auditors’ statements, deeds. Have promised to offer my support until Paul can get on his feet. But none of it is enough.”

  Esther felt a twinge of pity. For Anna, yes, but also for Inez and Paul.

  “So, there’s nothing more to do?”

  “Maybe. Now the consul’s suggesting sponsors open U.S.-based bank accounts in the applicants’ names.”

  “Which you have not done.”

  Joseph didn’t say anything, just looked away.

  “You’re telling me you established a bank account in Inez’s name?”

  He glanced at her briefly, then down at her feet.

  “What did you fund it with?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Joseph, what did you fund it with?”

  “The money from Florence’s Channel swim, and some more besides.”

  Esther felt sick. “How much?”

  “Twelve hundred dollars.”

  She grabbed the brass footboard of Florence’s bed and steadied herself. “You put twelve hundred dollars in an account in her name?”

  Joseph just nodded.

  “What happens to the money if they never get out of Germany? Can you get it back?”

  “A beneficiary can inherit it upon their death.”

  “And the beneficiary—”

  Joseph looked her straight in the eyes.

  “Anna,” said Esther, softly. It all came back to Anna. Anna might as well have usurped Florence’s life completely.

  “It felt like the right thing to do. If they don’t make it out, Anna will have no safety net. Assuming she stays.”

  “Safety net? What about Fannie? Is she entitled to a safety net? How about Gussie? Did you think of them at all?”

  “I think about them all the time.”

  “If you had asked me, I might have suggested that we use the money to pay Isaac’s portion of the hospital bill or forgive that damned loan you made him. Give our daughter a clean slate.”

  “You think money is all it’s going to take to give Fannie a clean slate?”

  They didn’t speak of it often, their mutual dislike of their son-in-law. What was there to say? That they should have been more vocal, should have demanded more for their elder daughter? That they’d let Isaac’s Jewish faith obscure his other—less desirable—traits?

  This, she realized, was what it felt like to grow old. Eventually people felt so weighed down by the yoke of their own bad decisions that they could scarcely move.

  “When the renters are out of the house,” Esther started, “I wonder if I shouldn’t move back into it on my own.”

  Joseph didn’t say anything, just nodded his head in a motion so repetitive that Esther felt the urge to cross the space between them and grab his face between her hands to steady it.

  “Neither of us likes the idea of this apartment sitting empty,” she said.

  Joseph neither scoffed nor pleaded. All he said, when he finally managed to look at her, was her name.

  * * *

  “Esthe
r,” said Anna, from the other side of the cracked bedroom door. “Are you in here?”

  Esther dabbed at her eyes, and Joseph straightened his collar. “You’re back?” she said as Anna pushed open the door.

  “I’m sorry if I’m interrupting.” Anna looked from Esther to Joseph to the tangle of clothes on top of the bedspread.

  “We’re just going through some of Florence’s things,” Esther explained. The bottom drawer of Anna’s dresser was still open, and Esther worried Anna would see she had rifled through her paperwork. “Where’s Gussie?”

  “In her room.”

  “And how was the pageant?”

  “Good.” Anna glanced at the open drawer and then at Joseph, who looked lost in thought. “I need to tell you both something.”

  Joseph looked up from the stockings he held in his hands.

  “At the awards ceremony, after the swim, they held a moment of silence in Florence’s memory.”

  Esther blinked, twice, trying to comprehend what Anna had just said. “A moment of silence?”

  Anna nodded.

  “Did you hear that, Joseph?” Esther asked her husband, but he didn’t respond, just began to run his thumb and forefinger along his eyebrows, which were knitted with worry. Now wasn’t the time to push him on Anna or on Inez and Paul’s immigration papers or on who would go where at the end of the season. “Joseph,” she repeated, “what do we do?”

  Fannie

  Fannie sat bolt upright in bed. She held her stomach with one hand, grabbed hold of the mattress with the other.

  “Nurse!” she yelled into the dark of her hospital room. “Nurse!”

  This feeling was nothing like the small pinches of pain she’d felt periodically over the last several weeks. “If you shift your weight and the contraction goes away,” Dr. Rosenthal had told her recently, “it’s a Braxton-Hicks—nothing to worry about.”

  “Isn’t it typical that a woman’s health condition should be named for a man?” she had said through gritted teeth as she shifted onto her other side.

  Now the pain was so consuming she could scarcely recall her own name, much less anyone else’s. It was as if an iron anvil had been placed on top of her pelvis. All she could do was try to breathe.

  Fannie didn’t remember much about her previous labors. Gussie had been born such a long time ago now, and Fannie had been so young then, and also so naive. She had assumed her body would do what it was supposed to do when it was supposed to do it, and it had. Then Hyram had come early enough that there had been no false labor, only the real thing, with all the ensuing pain and heartache.

  The cramping eased, and Fannie relaxed her grip on the mattress. She thought to check the time but couldn’t see the clock.

  From the nurses’ lounge, she could hear the hum of a radio. “Nurse!” she tried again, louder this time.

  By the time Dorothy appeared in her doorway, Fannie had been seized by another contraction. The pain shot from her back through to her abdomen. “I think it’s begun,” she tried to say, but had difficulty getting the whole sentence out.

  “Looks that way. How regular are they coming?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve only had a few.”

  Dorothy put her head back out into the hall. “Hey, Helen! Call Dr. Rosenthal, will you? Fannie looks ready to go.”

  For a brief moment, Helen’s face appeared beyond Dorothy’s. Then it disappeared. “Would you please have her call my husband, too?” Fannie asked, between deep breaths.

  “You hear that?” Dorothy said, over her shoulder. She turned back to Fannie. “While we wait on Dr. Rosenthal, let’s see if we can try to get you comfortable.”

  Dorothy rearranged Fannie’s pillows and urged her to relax against them. Of course, Fannie couldn’t relax but she could and did take notice of Dorothy’s conduct. In this particular set of circumstances, the nurse came off as extremely competent.

  “My guess,” said Dorothy, “is we’ll move you to the labor room soon.”

  With Hyram, Fannie had been put on such a heavy dose of morphine she could barely recall the labor room at all. She had drifted in and out of consciousness, numb not only to her contractions but to the moments between each contraction, too.

  The delivery room was harder to forget. The bright white light, the long white leggings that, once on, acted like straps, securing Fannie to the table. She had felt like a chained animal, had been sure she would die with her hands and feet in the stirrups and an ether mask clamped onto her face. The idea of being back in that same room, alone, trapped in a twilight sleep from which she couldn’t wake, made her feel dizzy with fear.

  Within a few minutes, Helen returned with word that Dr. Rosenthal was on his way. “I couldn’t reach your husband,” she said, “but I called your parents.”

  “Is my mother coming?”

  “It sounds like it.”

  Fannie felt a wild urge to send word to her sister in France but reminded herself it would be best to wait until she was holding a healthy baby in her arms. While she waited for the doctor, she composed the telegram in her head. BABY ARRIVED TODAY STOP NO COMPLICATIONS STOP WISH YOU WERE HERE STOP. Was the “wish you were here” part too much? It was true.

  Dr. Rosenthal arrived and examined Fannie promptly. He turned to Dorothy. “How long since the last contraction?”

  She looked at her watch. “Ten minutes.”

  “She’s not dilated.”

  “What does that mean?” Fannie asked them both.

  “It means,” said Dr. Rosenthal, “that this baby might be willing to wait a little longer.”

  “Is that something we want?” asked Fannie.

  “You’re not due for two more weeks. So, probably. As long as your blood pressure remains in check.”

  Fannie didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed. She wanted to give the child every advantage but she thought she might go crazy if she spent another hour, let alone another fortnight, in her hospital bed.

  Dr. Rosenthal promised he’d be back to check on her in half an hour and instructed Dorothy to stay with Fannie until he returned. Dorothy looked disappointed but didn’t argue. She made a big show of plumping Fannie’s pillows and refreshing her water but after Dr. Rosenthal was gone, she let out a large yawn and sank into the chair beside the window.

  “What time is it?” Fannie asked her.

  She looked at her watch. “Nearly two.”

  “What were you listening to? In the lounge.”

  “Oh, just reruns of Palmolive Beauty Box Theater. There’s nothing on at this time of night.”

  “Is it dreadful working nights? I don’t know how I’d stay awake.”

  “It’s all right. It’s quieter and there’s usually less to do.”

  Fannie pulled the bedsheet over her stomach.

  “Did you work before you got married?” Dorothy asked.

  “If you don’t count helping my parents behind the counter at the bakery, no. I got married at nineteen, so there wasn’t much time for any of that.”

  “I want to get married.”

  “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  “No,” said Dorothy, flatly.

  Fannie cocked her head to get a better look at Dorothy. She really was a very peculiar person.

  “Well, try not to get too bothered by it. That’s Florence’s strategy. She doesn’t pay any attention to the boys, and the result is that they all love her.”

  Dorothy gave her such a funny look that Fannie immediately wondered if she’d said something offensive. Was it wrong to compare Dorothy to Florence? They had been in the same class, after all, and Dorothy was always rattling on about Florence, or at least she had, earlier in the summer.

  “What?” said Fannie.

  “Nothing.”

  “No, what?”

  “It’s not my place to say anything.”

  “But?”

  “Were you two close? Are you close?”

  “Florence and me? I suppose. Maybe. I mean, yes,” sa
id Fannie.

  “So, think about it for a second. Isn’t it strange that you haven’t heard a word from her?”

  Why was Dorothy needling her? Fannie wondered if she was still upset about the phone call. “Well, she’s in France now, you see.”

  “Knock, knock,” came a voice from the hallway. Fannie would have recognized the warm timbre of her father’s voice anywhere.

  “Pop?” Fannie said.

  “I’m told we might soon have reason to celebrate.”

  Fannie’s heart felt big in her chest. Her father hadn’t set foot in a hospital in close to twenty years but here he was, standing in front of her. He looked smaller, perhaps a tad frailer than he had in the spring. “Have you been ill?” she asked. God, she sounded just like her mother.

  Joseph made a show of looking himself over, inspecting his arms and legs, the backs of his hands and the toes of his shoes. “Fit as a fiddle.”

  Had it been so long that she’d forgotten what he looked like? Surely, he hadn’t shrunk. He walked over to the bed and kissed Fannie on the forehead, pressing his lips against her skin for several long seconds, as if he were trying to make up for his absence.

  “Where’s Mother?” she asked when he had finally pulled away and taken a seat on the edge of the mattress. She wondered at Dorothy for not moving out of the way, allowing her father the chair. He wasn’t an old man but he wasn’t a young one either.

  “She’ll be here shortly.”

  Yesterday, Fannie had been surprised when Esther stayed late at the hospital, remaining at Fannie’s bedside until well past the dinner hour. Then, today, she’d barely left her alone. When Bette had brought Fannie her dinner tray this evening, Fannie had practically had to beg her mother to go home.