Authors: Cynthia Freeman
Sheine remembered the day “we walked through the bazaars at Jaffa. I never said anything, but I wanted those harem bracelets and gold jeweled sandals so badly I thought my heart would break. I dreamed about them for weeks …”
Julie, listening, tried to build images for herself. “What was Moishe like as a little boy?”
The sisters looked at. each other, and Dvora finally answered. “You know, I don’t remember him ever
being
a little boy … but I do remember the way he looked in the red Turkish fez … and the gold dagger in the sash around his waist. He asked if he could be taken for a Turk and Sheine told him no, not with his red hair—”
“His hair was that red then?” Julie asked, surprised.
“Like fire … I’m glad it calmed down some, and with the streaks of silver I have to admit he’s almost handsome … even if he is my brother.”
“And I’d have to agree, even if he is my husband … Well, since we’re on that subject, I think I’ll have Mr. Handsome take his future son’s mother home. It’s been a long and wonderful day,” she said, getting up and taking Chavala’s hand. “The wedding was perfect … I’ll never forget it, Chavala.”
As they all followed suit, Chavala suddenly had a sinking feeling … when would they do this again, be together like this?
The sisters looked at each other, all sharing Chavala’s thought. It was Sheine who said, “Julie’s right, none of us will ever forget it. But the very best of all was the family being together.”
After the door had closed on the last of them, Chavala returned to Dovid in the living room. “Well, Dovid, we’ve seen them all grown and married. Let’s pray that God lets us be present at our grandchildren’s weddings.”
He took her in his arms. “From your lips to God’s ears.”
Before going to Chavala’s bedroom, they stopped at Reuven’s door, looked in on their sleeping sons.
The night now belonged only to them.
C
HIA SAT AT THE DRESSING
table in their suite at the St. Regis Hotel, only a few blocks from the Plaza, the scene of her wedding reception, and studied her reflection. Was that the face of the girl of yesterday? Hardly. A woman had happened last night. She’d heard stories about what a letdown the wedding night could be. Well, not in her case. Not by a long shot. Lenny had been tender, and then fierce, she had been able to respond, the new feeling in her body as much a surprise as it was a profound pleasure and relief. She was brought out of her delicious reverie by Lenny kissing the back of her neck. Draped in a towel around his middle he said, “The bathroom, madam, is yours.”
She turned and kissed him. “I thought it was ours.”
“You should have thought about that while I was taking a shower. Don’t forget it next time.”
“How about aboard ship? A date?”
“A date … now, darling, you’d better get it moving. We’ve got exactly one hour before sailing.”
They arrived at dockside just in time to say good-bye to the family, who’d been nervously waiting for them. Then, amidst serpentine streamers, confetti and boat whistles they waved good-bye to the family below as the ship made its way out of New York harbor on its way to Bermuda.
It seemed to Chavala she was spending her days in good-byes.
Two days later Sheine and Gunter were bound for Berlin, and in the next forty-eight hours the others would be going back to Palestine.
The morning of their departure, as Chavala, Dovid, Reuven and Joshua sat having breakfast, she tried very hard not to think about the moments ticking away. For the moment she was tempted, very tempted, to give it all up in America, to go back with her family to Palestine, especially in the glow of having been with Dovid, having her body renewed by the nights together with him. But it wasn’t so easy, even though the rationalizations were powerful … she had come a long way, built her business. But the need of her family once they returned to Palestine would not have disappeared. And could she leave the whole burden on Moishe, newly married, or Chia? Of course not…
And then the temptation turned almost to a demand, a challenge, when Reuven, all unexpectedly—except, if she thought about it, it really shouldn’t have been so unexpected—looked across the table at her, hesitated, and then blurted out what he’d been thinking about almost since the first minute he’d come to New York … Could Joshua come back with them to Palestine? At least for a visit?
Seeing the expression of dismay on his mother’s face, Reuven realized he hadn’t exactly said it right. “What I meant, mother, it’s only June and Joshua won’t be starting kindergarten until September and … well, it would be great to have him for even a little while …”
Dovid, as surprised as Chavala, held his breath, waiting for her answer. Of course her first impulse was to say no, it was out of the question, but that impulse gave way to what she knew was only fair … after all, Dovid, and Reuven, had been deprived by her of Joshua all these years. How could she begrudge them a few months … even if she did have a chill at the prospect, reinforced by the fear that somehow a vacation, a visit, might turn into something more permanent? Well, get it over with, she told herself, and smiling a smile she didn’t feel, said, “All right, Reuven, I think that would be all right.” She couldn’t bear to look at them when she said it.
Reuven immediately got up and kissed his mother. “Thank you, thank you, mother, and I only wish that you could spend the summer with us too.”
“That would be nice… maybe next year.”
Dovid well understood what this would cost her, and his heart went out to her, knowing all too well the loneliness she would feel not only in his absence but now Joshua’s too. If ever he’d resented her denial of his younger son, it surely was
not
at this moment. “Thank you, darling… I always said you were a remarkable woman. You just keep on proving how right I am.” Getting up from his chair and going over to her, he took her in his arms, held her tight and kissed her.
Joshua happily missed the whole drama of the moment. All he knew was that he was going to spend the next few months with his father and his brother Reuven, whom he adored….
After all the good-byes, Julie and Moishe sat in the cab, feeling Chavala’s melancholy. The last months had been filled with such excitement, and the last weeks spent in the wonderful coming together of the family, that there was a distinct letdown for them too.
Julie, feeling it keenly, said, “Chavala, why don’t you come and spend a few days with us?”
Tonelessly Chavala said, “Thank you, but I guess not.”
“I think it might be nice. For all of us.”
Chavala shrugged. “It’s always nice, being together. No, darling, thank you, but I want to go home, be by myself a little while.”
She wanted no such thing, Julie suspected, but also was sensitive enough not to press.
When Chavala was finally alone in her living room, she looked about at all the
things.
They meant nothing. Self-pity rushed in to fight loneliness … What was
she
left with? Nothing. Dvora was much richer than she, and even Raizel, who at least had the comfort of her sons. All of them now had made lives of their own, all except her. Her father had warned her about false prophets and he’d been right… She went to her bedroom, undressed and looked at her body in the mirror. All those lost years away from Dovid, soon she’d be middle-aged—oh, shut up, for God’s sake … you made your bed, now lie in it. Which, she discovered, was easier said than done…
Julie couldn’t bear to see what amounted to Chavala’s bereavement, trying to camouflage it as she might as she attended to business every day, smiling too brightly as she waited on the trade.
It was noon of the fifth day when Julie went upstairs to Chavala’s office, and found her staring out of the window. Chavala was so deep in her own thoughts she didn’t hear Julie come in, and so was startled by the sound of her voice when she said, “Chavala, I think you need a vacation.”
“What … oh, Julie, I didn’t hear you come in … I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“I said I thought you could use a vacation.”
“A vacation? Why, you think I’m overtaxing myself going to the bank?”
Julie ignored her try at humor. “I just happen to think a change would be good for you. Moishe and I have talked it over, and for once, Chavala, you’re going to do something for yourself—”
“So, how good should I be to myself?”
“By taking a trip.”
“What would you suggest? The Bronx? Or, better still, Albany? That’s the capital of our beautiful state … maybe I could even have lunch with the governor.”
“Joke all you want, you’re outnumbered. Moishe and I already have the tickets. You’re going to Florida. And don’t tell me Florida is only for winter. This is an emergency.”
Chavala shrugged. Maybe they were right. Not maybe, they
were …
“So, when did you both agree that I should go?”
“As soon as you can pack a bag.”
“Fine. I’ll travel light, without my mind, which I think I lost a long time ago.”
That night she packed, and the next morning Julie and Moishe saw her off to Miami.
The first night she arrived at her suite of rooms in the Fountainbleu she thought the hotel was as big as Manhattan, and the dining room a runner-up to Grand Central Station. A few hours later, asking the maitre d’ for a table for one, she looked about the room at the elaborately gowned women, with varying shades of blond hair, bedecked with jewels, seated at tables with husbands and friends, and decided this definitely was
not
for her. She did an about-face, red-faced, escaped to her suite and dined in on room service. As she forced herself to eat, she decided one was, indeed, a very lonely number. At four o’clock in the morning, with the
New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar
and
Vogue
strewn about on her bed, she turned off the light and fell into a troubled, restless sleep.
The next morning, after breakfast served in her room, she decided it was enough already.
This
kind of loneliness she certainly didn’t need. She got into her bathing suit, went downstairs and out to the pool. It was no better. Glamorous widows, happy married couples, seductive singles. Still… to go home without giving it a chance … no, she’d stick it out to the bitter end.
But at the end of one week, Miami had defeated her. She surrendered and caught the first train to New York.
When she arrived home, she wasn’t happy, but at least her misery wasn’t costing her anything, and there wasn’t the
obligation
to have a good time … What there was, though, was a letter from Joshua. He was having such a good time he only wished he could stay there all the time. Wonderful news, exactly what she’d worried about in the first place when she’d agreed to his going.
The next letter was from Sheine, and suddenly she was smiling. Sheine had given birth to a nine-and-one-half-pound baby boy.
S
HEINE’S JOY AT GIVING
birth to Erich Dieter Hausman was less than complete when, shortly after his birth, Frau Hausman showed her disappointment that the little boy looked so much like his mother. “With that dark hair and those brown eyes …” For nine months she had seen herself cradling a blue-eyed, blond-haired cherub. Privately she bitterly resented the fate that had tainted the pure Hausman bloodline. By the time of the christening, Gretchen Hausman, at long last a grandmother, had almost managed to forget the infant’s alien genes. As they stood in the church, her thoughts were determinedly on the future, he would be a German to the very marrow of his bones, and
she
would direct his upbringing.
Sheine, watching her son being baptized, felt like shouting out, He’s my son too, he’s a Jew and should be circumcised, in our faith a child of a Jewish mother is a Jew … If only she had the courage, but did she really have the right … hadn’t she forfeited that the day she became Elsa Beck Hausman … ?
I
N SEPTEMBER, AS AGREED
, Reuven brought Joshua home.
As pleased as Chavala was to see them, she was especially gratified that—whether it be because of Dvora’s giving him a greater sense of reality, or an unbending from maturity—Reuven seemed to have overcome his belligerence, even to have come to terms with her.
He had forgiven her, true, but what he still resented, could not reconcile himself to, was being separated from his brother Joshua.
But when Reuven left to return to Palestine, Joshua seemed morose. He stayed in his room as much as possible, he spoke to his mother with underlying tones of irritation bordering on impudence. Chavala felt at a loss to reach him, and so turned to Julie and Moishe for help.
They reminded her that he was still a little boy, that at his age he was very impressionable. And Palestine, after all, could be seductive, and of course Reuven had become his idol. She shouldn’t, though, worry about it. When he went to school and made friends he’d forget about it.
Chavala was not convinced. Joshua had become so remote, sitting like he did for hours, gazing out the window. At what…?
At Palestine, that was what. America was a place he no longer felt was home. At night in his darkened room he would lay in bed staring up at the ceiling, reliving the events of the past summer. It was as though he were there now, remembering how uncle Ari had loaded the wheat into the wagon for Reuven, Zvi and himself to take to the mill to be ground into flour. Reuven, strong and tall, carried a bullwhip. “You always need to be prepared for an Arab ambush,” he said, and explained how from behind boulders along the road Arabs had a tendency to attack and steal the wheat. Joshua almost anticipated the ambush, it sounded like cowboys and Indians. When they traveled home his eyes would shift from place to place, and he would imagine piercing black eyes watching them … He remembered the time Reuven had held his hand when they climbed the mountain at Masada, and how at the top of it he told about the few zealots holding out against the powerful Roman legions for over three years. It was a story to fire his imagination. And then they’d tramped over the route through the desert where Moses had led the twelve tribes … What stories!