And for the first time, Seema spoke freely about Oliver. “I know you don’t like him. None of you do. He was so, well, you know, reserved that time he came to Aunt Hannah and Uncle Paul’s. But he makes me laugh, Flora. He’s an educated man and people respect him and that makes me feel important. So he has things about him that aren’t perfect, but he thinks I’m beautiful, and let’s be honest, I couldn’t afford this lifestyle without him.”
The two women studied each other in the dark. “With his help, I can even afford electric lights,” she said.
But neither of them moved to switch one on. They didn’t want to break the mood and stop the conversation. It was the most intimate they’d been since Flora’s wedding, fourteen years before.
“I see that,” said Flora. “He makes you feel like a somebody. That’s good. But I don’t understand why you use the name Glass? Is that his idea? Does he think Grossman is too Jewish?”
“Oh, don’t be a silly,” said Seema, falling into the condescending tone Flora hated so much. “Oliver and his friends have nicknames for everyone. That’s just the way they are.”
Seema leaned over as if she were going to tell Flora a secret. “I’ll tell you what Oliver calls me if you don’t repeat it to anyone.
He calls me ‘Seema Glass, Sweet Ass.’ Isn’t that funny? I mean, darling, really?”
Flora thought about “Sweet Ass” and all it implied. She’d fallen in love with Simon when she was so young that it was exuberance more than sex that fueled their union. She was certain that he loved her. And there was sex in their marriage always, plenty of it. But “Sweet Ass” was dirty, vulgar in a way that was strangely arousing to Flora. She wondered what it would be like to have a man regard her
that
way. Simon always told her how beautiful she was, how he loved her womanly body. He said she was so “warm and giving in the lovemaking department.” But it all sounded so clean and almost clinical compared with “Sweet Ass.” She wondered how she’d react if a man talked to her that way.
But she wasn’t that kind of a woman. Even if she spent a fortune for hats at Wanamaker’s or could figure out how to imitate her sister’s walk or girlish way of speaking, it was the last thing in the world that she would ever be. Seema was a real seductress. Her presence demanded comment, just as a chord progression insists upon resolution. Men were always whispering things to her, giving her sidelong glances. How could they not? Even her choice of language was exciting.
Isn’t that funny? I mean, darling, really?
Words like that from the lips of a woman like Seema could go to a man’s head.
Oliver was no looker, but judging from the strange way Seema smiled whenever she talked about him, well, Flora had to believe that he was awfully good at other things. He had the presence of other men she had met who were not attractive but squeezed her arm with enough pressure or laughed with a kind of self-assurance that made her think they might be dangerous. Not
in a cloak-and-dagger sort of way but in the way that they understood things about women and their bodies, and what they would or wouldn’t do.
Flora thought about telling Seema that Oliver made her uncomfortable and that she didn’t think it was very polite of him to call her “Sweet Ass.” But if she did that, she ran the risk of sounding prudish, which was the last thing she wanted to do. So she said, “I suppose it’s better that he call you ‘Sweet Ass’ instead of ‘Gross Ass.’ ”
Seema raised her eyebrows in mock surprise. “Flora Phelps, how naughty.”
Flora persisted. “But does he make you use the name Glass so his friends won’t know that you’re Jewish?”
Seema shook her head. “That’s the problem. Jews make everything about themselves.” She spoke the next words with an exaggerated Brooklyn accent: “This one wouldn’t serve me a drink at his club because he hates Jews, or that one wouldn’t invite me into his home because he’s an anti-Semite.” Her voice rose as she went on. “Why does it always have to be about that? Maybe Oliver likes the name Glass better than Grossman. And you know what? I don’t blame him. Grossman sounds undignified, like someone just off the boat. Glass is far more refined. Oliver and his friends are of a certain class. They prefer things to be elegant. If changing a few letters in my name pleases him … well, that’s the least I can do.”
By now it was too dark in the room for Seema to see how Flora’s face had reddened or for Flora to notice how Seema’s fingers shook as she lit another cigarette. They sat in silence. Flora stood up, placed her hands on her hips, and looked out the window. Seema studied her sister’s body silhouetted against the
waning light. She had filled out over the years and was beginning to have the same sturdy bearing as their mother. Seema got lost in a stream of memories about home and might have remained mired in them but for one thing. She thought about how Oliver would describe women who were built like Flora and her mother as having “a peasant’s body.” She bit her lip so she wouldn’t smile, and just like that she snapped out of it.
It was a bittersweet homecoming for Edith. She could see her parents from the deck of the boat—not their faces, just their rigid silhouettes at attention. Even as Edith ran to them, they held their solemn expressions. She saw that her mother had dotted her cheeks with rouge and was wearing a silk blouse with a high-ruffle collar. She thought the blouse might be new until she noticed the yellow ribbon of a sweat stain around the neck and some finely stitched patches on the sleeves. Someone with broader shoulders and longer arms had inhabited this blouse before her.
Her father was smoking a cigar, something he did only on special occasions, and was wearing a bowler hat and a newly grown mustache. He also looked as if he’d dressed in someone else’s clothing. She hugged her mother first, taking care not to squeeze too tight. Aunt Flora’s hugs were warm and fleshy, and Edith sank into her body without the worry of crushing her. Her mother seemed lighter, as if her bones were filled with air. When she kissed her mother’s cheek, Edith had to bend over slightly.
Either she’d grown or her mother was more hunched over. Her mother must have noticed it too, because the first thing she said was, “They fed you well in America.” Her father took a puff of his cigar. He might have looked like a prosperous cigar-smoking American man had it not been for the buttons of his topcoat, which seemed as if they might pop off each time he inhaled.
“Pappa, the mustache,” she said, “it looks very
deluxe
.” The remark pleased him.
“After all the fancy people in America,” he said. “I didn’t want you to come home to your old fogey Mama and Pappa. So it’s not displeasing to you?”
“I love it,” she said, throwing her arms around him. She never had to worry about crushing him. The acrid smell of his cigar reminded her of how Seema’s carpet smelled when she’d done the handstand, and her eyes smarted with the memory.
Never mind that. She’d had ten days on the boat to think about it. America was not hers. She was just a visitor. Nobody in her school had ever been there. As far as she knew, nobody in Kaiserslautern had ever been. She was the lucky one, so to wallow in homesickness for a place that was not home—well, it just wasn’t her right. She was happy to see her mama and pappa, and it would be nice to go back to school and be with people her own age.
The house seemed small and dark. After the big Tudor in Yonkers with its bay windows and rolling backyard, she’d expected that it might. The smell of her mother’s freshly baked chocolate walnut cake only slightly masked the dank odor that came from years of windows being shut and the earth seeping through the floors. It was the same chocolate walnut cake that Aunt Flora had made when she’d first arrived. At Aunt Flora’s, the syrupy sweet smell had curdled her stomach and made her homesick. Now,
it reminded her of America. Stupid girl, she thought, gulping down tears and turning her attention to her mother. “Mmmm, the cake smells
marvelous
, Mama, it really does.” She had promised Uncle Simon that she’d keep practicing her English so that, when she came back, she’d have no trouble working in his office.
Marvelous
. She could hear how Seema would say it, like butterscotch rolling around her tongue.
“I don’t suppose it’s anything like the food your Aunt Flora made for you,” her mother said, as she placed the loaf on a freshly pressed doily in the middle of the table.
The cake was expensive. Chocolate. Eggs. Butter. Black walnuts. Whiskey. Sugar. Her parents had probably stashed away money for weeks in order to pay for the ingredients. When Aunt Flora had made the cake, she’d thrown the extra black walnuts into the trashcan. In Germany, they were as valuable as gold nuggets, the kind of thing one had to pay for dearly on the black market. Edith could envision her mother crushing the nuts using their old iron hand grinder, the same kind her father used to grind sausage. It would be hard for her, and her veins, like blue wires, would strain beneath the sallow skin of her forearms. Edith felt guilty that her parents were trying so hard. “No one makes this cake the way you do,” she said.
Frederick and Margot weren’t the kind of people to ask questions directly. Questions were intrusive, and they were uncomfortable probing. Instead, they spoke in generalities and waited with hungry ears for whatever their daughter chose to tell them.
That was another thing Edith liked about America. People there said what they had to say and didn’t talk in code. She knew that her parents wanted to know everything about her trip but would never ask. So she would tell them what she thought they
wanted to hear: how it looked inside of Aunt Flora and Uncle Simon’s house, what Aunt Hannah and Uncle Paul had made for lunch, the afternoon she’d spent at Yankee Stadium, the fireworks. There were only three things she wouldn’t talk about: the statues she’d seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Seema’s crosses, and how, now that she was home, the first thing she intended to do was learn to smoke just like her Aunt Seema.
By the time Edith finished describing everything, they had each had a piece of the cake. “Have some more. I know it’s your favorite,” said her mother, shoving the platter toward her.
The moist cake melted in Edith’s mouth. The walnuts gave it a grainy texture, and the shot of whiskey cut down on the sweetness. “Flora’s cake was gooier than this,” said Edith, her eyes fixing on the hand grinder. “I don’t think she used a hand grinder, so you couldn’t taste the nuts as much. Did I tell you that everything in Aunt Flora’s kitchen was yellow? Corn yellow she called it. The floors were tile, the chairs …”
Margot turned to Frederick: “She misses them,” she said, as if she’d forgotten that Edith was sitting between them. “Of course, it’s natural,” he said. “After such a great adventure, so far from home. I’m sure they treated her like a queen. It isn’t every day that a girl from Kaiserslautern gets to go to New York City. It’s okay, Margot,” he said, stroking the worry crease between her eyes. “She knows where she belongs.” He turned to Edith. “Don’t you,
Liebchen
?”
Edith managed a smile.
“Yes, but she’s still lonesome for them, I can see that,” her mother said, still talking to her father. “I have a thought. She should send them each a present with a note, something personal that will always remind them of her.”
“That’s a good idea, Margot. Why don’t you tell her? She’s sitting right here.”
It was a funny remark in a home whose walls held little laughter.
Edith floated out of her memory bubble. “I like that. I think they’d like that, too.”
They discussed the gifts for days, as if they were about to make a presentation to the chancellor. Aunt Flora was stylish and liked pretty things. A hat was out of the question, as she already had an armoire bursting with them. It would have to be something light that wouldn’t cost a fortune to mail. They decided on a tea towel. Edith would cross-stitch a bright yellow sunflower onto it, the same yellow as everything else in the kitchen. They thought they might send Uncle Simon a pen or maybe some fine onionskin paper for his drawings. But that was too obvious. Surely Uncle Simon had all of the pens and paper he could want.
Edith told them how Uncle Simon was always making sketches for other people: things he’d drawn hastily on napkins or backs of matchbooks. Right before she left America, he’d given her a blue felt bag. Attached was a note that said: “Do not open until you are in the middle of the ocean.”
Inside the little bag were puzzle pieces. She was alone in her cabin on the boat when she first pieced them together, and what she saw made her cry. But when she showed it to her parents, she laughed, taking care to mask the pride she felt about the puzzle’s message. It was a drawing of the three of them: a voluptuous Aunt Flora wearing a hat with feathers that reached to the sky; a serious Uncle Simon, half the height of Aunt Flora, dressed in a suit, tie, and giant round glasses, his puckered lips taking up most of his face; and between them a red-cheeked Edith kicking
up her heels. With her hair in the new bob and a toothy grin on her face, she was holding the hem of her red, white, and blue dress and apparently dancing the Charleston. Underneath, he’d written, “Flora, Simon, and All-American Edith.”
“I think Simon would be happy if someone drew him something for a change,” said Edith. “I’m going to make him a book.”
That settled, it was time to talk about Seema’s gift. “We saved the most difficult for last,” said her father. “She has everything.”
“She has everything but one thing,” said Edith. “I know what to send Seema.”
It took nearly two weeks to sew the tea towel and prepare the booklet of drawings. When it was time to pack the presents, her mother pulled out some old newspapers she’d been saving. Her father brought home brown paper from the butcher shop and strong cord. Edith wrapped the booklet and the tea towel. Then she went to her room and brought out the little muslin heart-shaped pillow her mother had sewn for her after she’d cut off her hair. “This is for Seema,” she said. Her mother held the pillow in her palm. Some of the embroidered letters of the word “Courage” were faded. Margot looked at it quizzically. “Why would Seema want this old hair pillow?” she asked.