The Sisters Weiss (14 page)

“It looks very pretty on Rose,” Pearl suddenly joined in. “And it has long sleeves, and a high neck, and covers her knees…”

Rebbitzin Weiss looked again. This was all true. Why pick a fight when this child was almost safely out of her hands? “Well, all right then.”

“Thank you, Mameh!” Rose said, kissing her mother’s cheek in gratitude.

But on the way home, the suit on a hanger in a plastic bag, chills went up Rose’s spine as she thought about wearing it for the darkly handsome young man who had stared at her so intently across the crowd.

The following night she was in her bedroom when she heard the door open and her parents’ warm greetings float through the house. She waited tensely behind the closed door until she heard her mother knock.

“It’s time,” she whispered.

Rose gave herself one last look in the mirror. More American wife than Marilyn, she thought, pleased anyway. Her long hair was tied back with a ribbon, tendrils gently framing her warm, olive complexion. Her eyes, accentuated with liner and mascara, shone out of her chiseled, narrow face, her full lips, dabbed with a colorless moisturizer, fading into the background unless a person focused on them. She wondered what he would focus on.

Led into the living room, she faced him and his parents, who smiled, shuffling awkwardly as they exchanged polite greetings.

“Why don’t we sit down by the table and let the children get acquainted,” her mother suggested.

The parents smilingly settled themselves in front of the calorie-laden desserts, while Rose and Boomie found their way to the living room chairs on either side of the coffee table, in full view of and hearing distance from their parents.

Rose bit her lip, furious.

“Something’s wrong?”

He noticed. One point for him, she thought.

“Well, it’s kind of hard to get to know you like this.”

“What do you mean?”

Minus one point.

“I mean, with your parents and my parents looking us over like that.”

He chuckled. “Yeah. Pretty ridiculous,” he whispered. “So why don’t you and I take a walk around the block or something?”

Up three points.

He stood up. “We’re going out for a walk.”

His mother’s mouth fell open, but his father grinned.

“Good idea,” Rose’s father said.

“Don’t be too late,” her mother warned, squinting at the two of them in alarm.

Downstairs and out in the street, she wondered if he would head toward the lighted main street or in the opposite direction. He went the opposite way.

Two more points.

“So, you take pictures,” he said affably.

“I want to be a photographer, Shimon.”

“Call me Boomie. All my friends do.”

“Boomie? Are you a drummer in a band?”

He laughed. “No, I just like to make noise.” He quickly changed the subject. “Picture taking … I hear there’s good money in that. Weddings, bar mitzvahs. These guys charge a fortune.”

“I don’t want to be that kind of photographer,” she said emphatically, dashing his hopes.

“What other kind is there?”

“Doisneau, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ansel Adams…”

There was a short silence.

Minus four points.

“Oh, you mean like the kind that take pictures they put in museums?”

She nodded. “And what about you? What do you want?” The question caught him up short. He was used to, “And what are you learning?” “And what kollel are you planning to go to?” But not, “What do you want?” That was oddly personal, even sexy, he thought.

“I’m not sure yet,” he said honestly. “I only know the things I don’t want.”

“Which are?”

“I’m not going to be either a Rav or a butcher.”

She laughed. “What then?”

“I don’t know. Maybe go into business one day, I guess. Open a clothing store, or a delicatessen. I will never be poor. That’s the third thing I definitely don’t want.”

She walked beside him, slowing her pace, thinking.

“And what do you want from a wife?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Nothing special, you know. The usual. Cook dinner, keep the house clean, take care of the kids. She wouldn’t have to work, unless she wanted to. I mean, unless she liked working in a store and wanted to be behind the counter…” He looked up at her hopefully.

“And what if she doesn’t? What if she wants to be a famous photographer?”

He stopped short. “You’re serious about that?”

She stopped counting.

“I certainly am,” she told him.

“Wow. I mean … I don’t know. Would you take pictures that would be shameful? That would disgrace the family? My parents are very frum. Their business depends on their good reputation.”

“It’s hard for me to tell you now what kind of photographs I might be taking in the future.”

He looked at her, surprised. Another girl would have immediately caved in, sworn up and down how frum she was, how God-fearing her intentions. She might even have put on a show of being shocked and insulted at the very question. Rose was really different. Cute, too, with a pretty little waist, an ample bust, and nice hips. And he liked that outfit. It too was different, classy. He was sick of frum fatales. “Well, I guess, then, the both of us will have to take a chance.” He nodded affably.

She wasn’t so sure about that. “So, what now?” she asked.

“So, you want to go out with me again?”

She looked him over under the street lamp. He had a slim body with broad shoulders; thick, curly black hair; and a very masculine face. His beard had been trimmed short so that you could clearly see the outline of his full lips. He didn’t seem either a religious fanatic or a control freak. She could do much worse.

“Why not?” She shrugged.

14

Day after day, Rose expected the call from Mrs. Yachnes, not exactly with joy, but with resignation. He was just an ordinary guy, she admitted to herself, one of those yeshiva-student guests that had been seated around their Sabbath table ever since she could remember. To his credit, he seemed honest and had a sense of humor. But as a prospective groom, he had one thing going for him, she thought: he wasn’t terribly pushy, which was her greatest fear.

But the phone call didn’t come. She was surprised, her pride and self-esteem devastated.

Finally, her mother called Mrs. Yachnes.

Rose curled her hair around her fingers nervously before asking, “So?”

“So, he was willing, but the parents … they looked into your background. It’s not for them.”

“What’s ‘not for them’? What exactly did they find out?”

“Don’t be smart. You know.”

“What? That you took me out of Bais Yaakov because a girl’s father loaned me a book? You sent me away from home and put me into Bais Ruchel, then yanked me out of there? What’s to find out?”

“Oh, so it’s your parents’ fault, yes?”

“And the Honored Rav’s…”

“I should wash your mouth out with soap.”

She shrugged. “The truth is pure.”

“They found out about the pictures.”

“Since I met him taking photos, they didn’t exactly have to be Sherlock Holmes,” she said drily.

“So smart you are. So smart. You see where that gets you now.”

“Never mind.”

“This is not a joke, my fine daughter.”

“I wasn’t crazy about him anyway. He’s not even really frum, you know. He’s just passing time in yeshiva until he can open a delicatessen and put me behind the counter, so he won’t have to be there.”

“It’s not about him! Don’t you understand anything? This picture-taking narishkeit…”

“Photography.”

“Whatever you want to call it, it’s got to stop. Farshteist? No frum boy or his family will tolerate it!”

“I thought you and Tateh agreed?”

“We made a mistake!”

She sat on her bed in silent defiance. What now? She felt her hopes sinking. What exactly were her options?

Her mother sat down beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders. “God willing, when you are a wife and a mother, you won’t care so much. You won’t have so much time on your hands like now…”

Rose shrugged her off. “Leave me alone.”

Her mother put her hands in her lap. “Mrs. Yachnes has another boy in mind. But you have to keep the narishkeit to yourself, you hear?”

Rose didn’t answer.

“Look Rose, once you are married, you and your husband will decide what’s acceptable to you both and what’s not. It will be out of our hands.”

Rose looked up at her mother. She looked old, tired, and aggravated. And what she said was true. The only way out was to get married to someone as soon as possible and to hope for the best. It was the only door left open to her.

“All right.”

“All right what?”

“All right. I’ll meet the next victim.”

“‘Before collapse, a person’s heart swells with pride,’” her mother replied warningly.

*

His name was Yankele, and he was neither good-looking nor blessed with even a minimal sense of humor, however she doggedly searched. And his parents were even poorer than her own! That didn’t stop them from having monetary demands: big, enthusiastic, hopeful ones based on their assumption that their son, a “good learner,” deserved to be supported until who knows when. Mrs. Yachnes, who was no dummy, checked out their claims, informing them that, according to his teachers, their precious boy was not really in the top echelon of his yeshiva. Quite the contrary. Informed of this, they lowered their expectations but didn’t cancel them altogether. He was a sincerely pious boy who had never been involved in even a whiff of scandal. That was worth something.

The young couple sat in the corner of the living room under the watchful eyes of both sets of parents.

“It’s hard to get to know you with everyone watching,” she tried.

“‘Never sated are the eyes of man,’” he pontificated, shrugging.

The silence between them lengthened. He lifted off his heavy black hat, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a pudgy hand, which he then rubbed against the upholstery of his chair. She watched him, disgusted.

“How do you plan to cover your hair?” he asked her suddenly, out of nowhere.

She knew a trick question when she heard it. “Why? How do you think I should cover my hair?”

“My rebbe doesn’t like wigs. My rebbe thinks women with wigs are sinners. He believes hats or scarves are best. But if you must wear a wig, then only with a hat on top of it.”

“And what do you think?”

She could see the question confused and appalled him. “I mean, what do you think about the way women dress in general?” she quickly improvised.

“I don’t look at women. Of course, my mother and sisters are very strict and modest in their dress.”

She could see his eyes wandering over her body. She was wearing a pretty dark pink blouse with a high neck and long sleeves and a plain black skirt that, when she sat down, reached close to her ankles. He exhaled, looking troubled.

“What?”

“That color. As it is written: ‘And red is the color of licentiouness.’”

“I’m not wearing red.”

He seemed startled to hear this.

“It’s pink, an acceptable color, at least to my parents.”

“I would not want my wife to wear that color.”

I wish the poor woman well, Rose thought, groaning silently to herself.

“And what kind of tablecloth will you use for the Sabbath?”

What the…? She recovered. “I haven’t thought about it,” she answered politely.

“In our family, we only use white. Colored cloths are too prust, my mother says.”

“How interesting!”

When the points reached minus two hundred, she stopped counting.

“And what do you expect in a wife?” she asked him, dreading the answer.

“A woman of valor, who is happy to share in my zchus of learning by supporting me, taking care of the house and children so that I might be free to reach my full potential in the study house. And of course, a good cook. My mother is a very good cook.”

She looked him over. It showed. If he was busting out of his belt buckle at twenty, what would happen at fifty?

This went on, and on, and on. It was horrifying.

Finally, his parents got up from the table. Like locusts, they left not a crumb behind.

“The financial arrangements need to be settled…” his mother began.

But her husband shushed her. “All in good time, all in good time,” he said, smiling, shaking the crumbs out of his beard.

He extended his hand to Rabbi Weiss. “It should be in a good hour,” he said.

“Amen, amen. In a good hour.” Rabbi Weiss smiled.

“So we’ll wait for Mrs. Yachnes?” Rebbitzin Weiss asked.

“Yes,” they all agreed.

Finally, the door saw the back of them.

Her parents sat down by the empty table, exhausted.

“We will have to take out a second mortgage to meet their demands on top of the loans to pay for this wedding,” her mother said morosely. “Hashem only knows how we’ll pay it back.”

“Mameh! NOT in front of Rose.”

“There’s no way you are taking out any loans to pay for this wedding. He’s an idiot,” Rose announced.

They looked up at her in shock, shaking their heads.

She looked back at them in surprise. “You can’t be serious! I’m sorry, Tateh, Mameh. It wouldn’t last. Your money would be down the drain.”

Her father stood up. “You have no idea what you’ve done, do you?” he exploded, his face turning a deep crimson. “Whatever it costs, it would still be cheaper than having you on our hands for the rest of our lives! Cheaper than ruining your brothers’ and sister’s chances for good matches! Who knows how much we’d have to pay for them to be able to marry after it gets out that you aren’t married because no God-fearing family would agree to have you!”

Rose felt herself going into shock. Her kind, loving father. She had never, ever seen him so angry. “Tateh!”

He pushed his chair back. It scraped angrily against the floor. His steps were heavy as he stomped out of the room.

She felt her heart beating so rapidly she felt sure she was going to black out.

“You won’t be happy until you give us both a heart attack,” her mother spit out at her venomously.

“Mameh!”