Bittersweet Brooklyn: A Novel Page 3

  “Will she never leave me alone?” Rebecca asked.

  “Ignore her.” Annie stroked her mother’s eyebrows with her thumbs, as Rebecca had done to her when she was younger and sleepless.

  As Rebecca began to calm down, Annie started to cry and snuffle. First quietly and then building until her mother asked, “What’s the matter, maideleh, why tears?”

  “Don’t leave me, Mama,” Annie said, hiding her face in her mother’s shoulder. She remained there for a long time, Rebecca’s hand toying with the curls at the nape of her neck. When Annie pulled away, she wiped her eyes and then began crying anew. Her mood had changed. These were now angry and righteous tears, as if they arose equally from seeing her mother incapacitated and from yet another looming crisis. “I have to tell you something that I don’t want to tell you.”

  “Tell me.”

  “You need to rest,” Annie said. “Later.”

  “Better now than when it’s too late.”

  In that scorching, airless room, Annie narrated her side of the story: Abie had opened her dresser and, unprovoked, set her clothes ablaze while Annie played with Thelma in the kitchen. Her crazy brother hadn’t stopped there. He had burned the money she’d been saving for her mother. Annie leaned closer, confiding quietly in Yiddish. Occasionally, Thelma rapped on the door with a piteous “Mama.”

  “How did I raise such wolves?”

  “Papa died,” Annie said. “Don’t blame yourself.”

  “Where can we go? We can’t move. I just can’t.”

  “We won’t have to,” Annie said. “Listen to me. I have a plan.”

  “You’re a good daughter, Annie, but this is too much to bear.”

  “For you, maybe, but it’s not for me.”

  “What can you do? You’re only a girl.”

  “I’m young. I’m strong. I’ll take care of it.”

  “How?” Rebecca’s head began to throb again. This wasn’t the rest she needed. She could hardly decide between a pear and a pickle, much less make serious decisions. “I’m too weak.”

  “Something has to be done, Mama, and fast. I’ll protect you. Trust in me.”

  “Always and forever, if I live so long,” Rebecca said, her voice wet with emotion.

  “I can’t control Abie any more than you can. He’s running wild on the streets. Mrs. Junger called him an arsonist. I begged her on my hands and knees not to contact the police. Instead, she sent word to the United Hebrew Charities that Abie tried to burn the apartment building down. By breakfast, when the social worker arrives, either we’ll all be tossed out—or he goes and we stay.”

  “I can’t split up my family,” Rebecca said, pushing herself up from the pillow onto her elbows. The damp cloth slipped down her nose and she fell back, grabbing her head, as if she were having a stroke.

  “You don’t have a choice. I’ve talked to Mrs. Junger. We can put the boys in the Jewish orphanage.”

  “I can’t. I can’t give up my Abie.”

  “It will have to be the two of them, Abie and Louis both. And, think, that way they won’t be alone. They can watch over each other until we can afford our own apartment.”

  “They’re my sons,” Rebecca protested. “They bear my grandfathers’ names.”

  “They’re my brothers,” Annie said, cupping her mother’s hands within her own. “This pains me as much as it hurts you, Mama, but what choice do we have?”

  “Tell me what my Louis did to deserve this? Abie, yes, but did Louis light a fire, too?” Rebecca asked, considering her little gray-eyed boy, only nine years old, who’d never caused her a day of trouble. He wasn’t affectionate, but he was a sturdy son of whom a mother could be proud, who never made a promise he didn’t keep, who preferred the outdoors to the kitchen table.

  “Whatever Abie does, Mama, Louis does. They’re inseparable.”

  “Should the sins of one weigh on the other? It doesn’t feel kosher,” Rebecca said, sucking her tongue. She tried to measure her choices but felt so bone-tired that her mind could barely follow a thought to its conclusion. “What would my sisters in Drohobych say? That, after losing so many babies, the Lord blessed me with two sons and I threw them away? They would judge me harshly. They would never look at me the same way again.”

  “Your sisters are far away, Mama. And the boys will return. They’re strong. They’ll be fine. For now, we have to save ourselves.”

  Rebecca had no more fight left in her, as wrung out as the sheets she had scrubbed and pressed and steamed at the Ansonia laundry all day. She surrendered to her eldest. “If you think there’s no other solution, Annie, then it must be true.”

  “What choice do we have?”

  That evening, mother and daughter soldered their bond. Rebecca sighed as Annie relieved her of the burden of responsibility. She rolled on her side and curled into a ball, abdicating to Annie without even noting the exchange. She never even opened the door to Abie, or the baby, to hear their accounts of that afternoon.

  The next morning after breakfast, when the female social worker arrived in white gloves and hat, Rebecca remained bedridden. As she awkwardly beckoned the stern stranger into the bedroom, she heard Abie and Annie yelling, throwing voices like knives. All Rebecca felt once she took the pen in her hand was anticipation of the silence to follow. She couldn’t control those boys. She heard something solid hit the wall. Thelma wailed. It made it easier for her to sign the papers, claiming (as she coughed dramatically) that she was too sickly to keep her sons, which wasn’t the same as she was just sick to death of them.

  What mother wouldn’t feel guilt at this moment? Village mothers on the outskirts of Drohobych, Galicians from good families, never gave away their children. There were so many hands to hold on to a child—sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors. Food appeared on the table, fresh in summer, preserved in winter. Money came in from farming and trade that daughters never had to touch. She missed that garden of Galicia, the breadbasket, the wheat growing in black soil, sunflowers exploding in midsummer. She recalled the dust rising on the roads, the closeness of animals and the dairy’s stench.

  This wave of homesickness was at the root of Rebecca’s malaise. She recalled Fanny, with the dry wit that always kept them laughing, who ran interference when Papa raged. Her sister could have held the hand of a gorilla. She would have made a success in America. She wouldn’t have had to discard her sons like trash. If her husband had died, she would have walked to the matchmaker the following week in her torn black dress and found a new one. Rebecca had failed, done the unthinkable. She’d made a devil’s deal and then turned over in the bed, blinding her eyes to it.

  Chapter 4

  No matter how much Thelma wept and pleaded and promised goodness she could never deliver, Annie wouldn’t take her to see Abie and Louis. The little girl lacked control and felt it keenly. Her burned thumb blistered then burst then healed—and, still, no brothers to kiss it better. They’d taken the fun and play and tickles with them in a single cardboard valise. When Thelma hid in the closet, no one looked for her. She felt a wild anger, because Abie had protected her from Annie and been exiled. She bit her own arm to keep herself from screaming that it wasn’t fair. She missed hiding behind her big brother with her head beneath his coat, her arms hugging his knees and her nose pressed against his bony back. When she wasn’t in the closet, she sat on the floor beside the kitchen window, waiting for him to return for her, hearing every cat paw on the fire escape, every dirty pigeon’s scratchy curse. No Abie. No safety.

  Once Mama finally rose from her bed for good, three months later, she took Annie and Thelma to visit the New York Hebrew Orphan Asylum. Slapped by sleet and rain, they caught the Fifth Avenue horsecar uptown. Loneliness banged in the little girl’s chest despite being sandwiched between her mother and sister in a seat made for two. She’d forgotten Abie’s penknife that he’d left behind. Surely he needed it if he was going to escape.

  Annie and Mama talked over Thelma’s head in hus
hed tones, but she didn’t listen. Instead, she studied a golden-braided girl. The slightly older child wore a red wool coat, holding a black terrier in a basket. She kissed the puppy on the mouth. Its pink gumdrop tongue licked her lips. The girl laughed like bubbles. Thelma coveted the dog and the basket, the coat and her shiny black rain boots. She wanted her joy and laughter and to be free of Mama and Annie, who she was convinced didn’t love her. It was a tough-nut truth she knew like the numbers from one to ten or the color blue. She just did not know why, or what mistake she’d made.

  As much as the child longed to see Abie and Louis, she feared the institution. Annie often threatened, “If you misbehave, we’ll send you to the orphanage.” But at least there the girl would be with her brothers. Sitting in the circle of Annie’s flowery perfume that masked an unrecognizable bodily odor, Thelma envied the braided blonde across the aisle. She sat beside a white-capped nursemaid exhibiting a gentle patience. She wanted to trade seats. Even so young, she suspected this red-coated Gretel with her raised chin was one of them, a Gentile.

  Thelma knew she was Jewish, different, and should look down and away. Annie had warned her about these people. The goyim chased them from the old country to new ghettos. They were not their friends. But she couldn’t see that evil in this girl. Surely if they shared a playground, she would skip rope like Thelma and let her pet the Scottie dog with its red collar to match her coat.

  Mama pinched her elbow, but still, she stared.

  “We don’t have to go today,” Annie said, even though the fare had been paid. She’d left school to work six days a week, including the Sabbath. “If I wasn’t such a good sister, I would stay home. This is my only day off and I have plans tonight.”

  “I have to go,” Mama said. “They’re not animals.”

  “I like animals,” Thelma said, thinking of puppies. She twisted Mama’s dull gold wedding band, trying to make it turn on her swollen finger. When Mama had enough, she swatted her daughter’s hand away.

  The previous night, in preparation for the visit, Annie had sheared her sister’s hair, claiming it was so that she wouldn’t get lice. Now, with her cold neck exposed, Thelma felt ugly and ashamed, a boy in a skirt. Abie would tease, but that would be okay. Her anticipation to reunite with him became breaths too big for her chest—and to see Louis, too, the silent soldier, and be one among three again.

  The women rode the streetcar forever among folks in their Sunday clothes whose skin was increasingly dark. As the horsecar approached Harlem’s 136th Street, Mama rang the bell. The vehicle slid to a stop. They shuffled to the exit. Thelma had to leap from the high platform and nearly slipped. A stranger steadied her by her collar, calling her “boy.” She blushed, glaring at him with burning girl eyes.

  Slush slicked the streets. Thelma viewed knees and boots and black puddles. Annie had stuffed newspaper into Thelma’s boots. The dampened daily held the chill between her toes. She struggled to follow her mother’s hippopotamus rear. Clenched by the wrist, the little girl occasionally slid behind her mother. They covered long foreign blocks among brown-skinned residents often hostile in reaction to Annie’s fearful glances.

  The sleet began, then freezing rain.

  The soggy trio arrived at the red stone building that stretched between 136th and 138th Streets on Amsterdam Avenue. Thelma bent her neck back but couldn’t see the sky above, only the Hebrew Orphan Asylum. Four stories high in the middle and three at each wing, it had a confusion of towers and spikes and gloomy windows. It resembled a witch’s fortress, not a children’s sanctuary. A high, spoked iron fence encircled it.

  Mama threaded between stone pillars. “Not so bad.”

  “Not bad at all, Mama,” Annie said.

  Thelma shook her shaved head. If it hadn’t been for the promise of Abie and Louis, she’d have spun around, sped into the cobbled street, and begged any stranger to snatch her up.

  Scurrying under eaves that protected them from sleet that had bunched into hail, Mama knocked on the front door. No response. Annie pushed the door open. The astringent smell of ammonia assailed them. Even ferocious Annie wiped her stinging eyes.

  Giant black-and-white tiles covered the foyer. Thelma tried to stick to the light blocks, but Mama yanked her onto the black as they penetrated the gloom. A half-open dutch door yawned to the left beside a brass bell that Mama slapped with her palm.

  From deep beyond, there were scrabbling noises, then a woman yelled, “What, are you crazy? Are you in such a hurry to leave that child?”

  The crone, who had one milky-blue eye, poked her sour face over the double door. She fixed Thelma with her one sighted yellow eye. “Isn’t the boy a little small?”

  Thelma froze. She’d believed they were there to visit Abie and Louis. She panicked, wondering if Mama was now abandoning her, too, the monkey child that couldn’t stand still. But she had no bag. She had nothing, not even underwear. “This isn’t fair, you dybbuks!”

  “Stop fussing,” Mama said, pushing Thelma at Annie, who caught her in her claws. Mrs. Lorber addressed the matron: “We’re here to visit Abraham and Louis.”

  “They’ve been waiting since breakfast and have missed lunch.” She pushed open the half door, advancing with a knot of keys dangling from her waist. “I am Mrs. Feingold,” she said as if that explained everything.

  “Mrs. Lorber.” Mama followed Mrs. Feingold up wide stone steps past a splash of vomit.

  “Moishe, the mop,” Mrs. Feingold said. Then she proceeded.

  After Thelma paused to stare at the sour-smelling pink-and-yellow puddle, she hurried to catch up. They climbed the stairs as if ascending to heaven. The girl, feeling even tinier than usual, almost expected an angry bearded man with a raised right hand to greet her at the top. Instead, a ball rolled by, plopped down the steps (awkwardly, because it was not fully round) and splashed in the barf.

  “Mop, Moishe, mop,” said Mrs. Feingold, who led them past a tall door where dark, lemurlike eyes peeped out. Curious, Thelma stared back but turned away when a girl her age stuck out a pasty tongue and an older boy shook a fist. She hurried to catch up as the group entered a long, open hall on the second floor. Tall windows received a wintry light. The chill that had claimed Thelma’s toes now crawled up into her ankles as the group passed through double doors. They entered a long lounge that felt as frigid inside as out. Abie perched at the far end in a big chair capable of holding a rabbi, swinging one leg over the armrest impatiently. Beside him, Louis inhabited a child’s chair, still and wary. Two years younger than Abie, he was a gentle boy, the catcher of Abie’s pitches, his lieutenant and coconspirator. He had crisp gray eyes that, when he chose to look up, seemed to monitor the horizon but resisted domestic tides.

  Dropping Mama’s skirt, Thelma ran to Abie, carrying a hurricane of love. She leaped into his arms and took his tickles and gave him kisses on cheeks that had oddly begun to sprout soft whiskers. She pecked his earlobes, and he bit her cheek and gave it a hard suck until she slapped him and pulled away, happily wiping the slobber on her coat sleeve.

  By the time Mama and Annie arrived, scraping up child-size chairs, Thelma had climbed into Abie’s lap. She faced her mother and sister from his throne, as happy as a birthday girl. They couldn’t touch her. She had her Abie, his bloody-knuckled hand tucked around her tummy. This was family. This was safe. Without Abie, Thelma wasn’t herself.

  Louis inched closer to Thelma, smelling of harsh soap, the same foul scent from when she’d had her mouth washed out at shul. She kissed his elbow, like she always did, and his cheek. Blood pooled in the white of one eye; his split lip hurt Thelma as if it were her own. He rested his hand on her shoulder as she sat on Abie’s knee, looking down at Mama and Annie. See, she wanted to say, the boys love me. Abie loves me.

  “Stop bothering Abie, Thelma,” said Annie.

  Squeezing the girl in his lap, Abie said, “Temeleh never bothers me. She’s my sister.”

  “I’m your mother. Don’t you have a kiss for me since
I’ve come all this way?” Mama held out her hand as if expecting Abie to shove Thelma off his lap and come forward. He stayed put and so did Thelma, her gaze bold with her brother at her back. Louis shuffled toward Mama, but one withering glance from Abie stopped the boy.

  Abie stroked what hair she had left and said, “I don’t want you to catch anything here at the Hebrew Home for the Criminally Unloved.”

  “The Hebrew Benevolent Orphan Asylum,” said Annie.

  “It is what it is,” said Abie, “and it’s no playground.”

  “You’ve had it too good,” said Annie.

  “That’s funny coming from you, princess,” Abie said. Even though Thelma was safely on his lap, she hoped he wouldn’t pick a fight. She feared their anger spoiling her good feeling. From her roost, Thelma watched Annie and Mama. They shared the same small eyes without brows, round faces, and high foreheads. Mama’s gray hair twisted in a tight bun, with a wild frizz. The rain had flattened Annie’s careful curls. Side by side they were two hard mountains, their shoulders bent. If it weren’t for Abie, the child would have felt weak against them.

  Mama pursed her lips. “You’re looking thin, Abraham.”

  “You’re not,” Abie said.

  “I’ve been sick in bed since you left. I can hardly touch my food.”

  “It doesn’t show,” Abie said. “And, by the way, we didn’t leave. You dumped us here.”

  “You’ve worried her sick,” said Annie. Mama had stopped working at the laundry and retreated to her bed, leaving Annie to mother Thelma with slaps and shoves. “I left school to become a bookkeeper’s apprentice.”

  “Sorry if I don’t get out my hankie to dry your tears while I’m stuck in this hell house for Hebrews. The grub here would make a rat puke, or maybe it is rat puke. Look at my fists, you squinty-eyed yenta. Look at Louis’s lip. We’re not at the Ritz.”

  “You brought it on yourself, you no-goodnik.”

  Thelma wanted to defend him, to cry that Annie was no good. But even facing her sister from the security of Abie’s lap, the older girl’s rage still terrified her.