The Sisters Weiss (16 page)

In short, it was her mother’s life, except with much more money and far greater comfort. Not a bad life for a woman, she admitted. For someone else, it would be all they needed for happiness. But such a life with a husband who wasn’t sincerely religious like her father, whose piety was all outward show to please social convention, a weak man who would never in his life make a bold or honest decision for himself—such a life, with such a man, for her, was impossible.

15

The day before the wedding, Rebbitzin Weiss accompanied her daughter to the ritual baths. Even though the entire subject of sex and purification rites had been avoided, the task given over to the official bride teacher, who was experienced in initiating bashful young brides to be into their religious duties and obligations, as well as some of the more delicate points of physical intimacy, it was the custom for mothers to personally take brides to the mikveh.

It was the first time for Bracha Weiss. She felt proud, emotional, even a little frightened. Her daughter would soon go from a virgin to a wife. It was not an easy transition, she knew. Even though Rose had been to a bride class, from her own experience Rebbitzin Weiss knew that nothing could prepare a young virgin for what a man did to her in bed.

“You are so quiet, Rose. Are you scared? Because there is nothing to be scared about. Every kosher bride goes through this. You will join your choson under the chuppah in purity. You know, a wedding day is just like Yom Kippur. God forgives the bride and groom all their sins. You will start fresh, a new, clean page, the beginning of a blessed life.” She kissed her on the forehead. “As for the other, what happens after”—she lowered her voice—“it is all God’s will. No matter how difficult, you must remember that and surrender to your husband. The blessing you receive will be beautiful, God-fearing children.”

“Yes, Mameh. Thank you, Mameh,” Rose said in a tired monotone, with no emotion at all.

Her mother looked at her, her brows knitted, the crease between them deepening. Rose had been like this ever since her last meeting with her groom. Passive, untalkative, agreeing to everything about the wedding without a single argument. Even at the food tasting she didn’t put a single morsel into her mouth, not even the samples for the wedding cake! She had lost a lot of weight, too. But that was true of all brides. The dresses always had to be taken in. If only the brides’ mothers had the same problem! she thought, patting her stomach and shaking her head. She thought about her own lovely dress, brand-new and fit for a queen! And the hairdresser had done a beautiful job on her wig. As for the wedding itself, the groom’s parents had insisted no expense be spared. There would be an extravagant smorgasbord for the reception that would choke an elephant, not to mention a Viennese table afterward with every kind of cake, cookie, and dessert. No matter how stuffed people were from the prime ribs and potatoes, they would pounce on it and fill their plates again. She smiled to herself, imagining the stampede. And since the groom’s parents were paying, why should she object? It was going to be a wedding the community and her family would never forget, she thought, tingling with excitement.

Oh, Hashem was good, so good, so compassionate! After all they had gone through, He had seen fit to arrange for them such a just reward.

The mikveh attendant was waiting for them.

“Such a beautiful bride! Mazel tov!” said the attendant, a poor, pious Sephardic Jew in a tichel low down on her forehead. The attendant saw the mother smile but noticed that the girl did not. The girl didn’t do anything. She was like a wind-up doll that had run down, the attendant thought, not duly alarmed. This was not uncommon among such young brides. Mostly, they were terrified, pushed into agreeing by their parents, although sometimes you saw a bold girl who was mature for her age who was the real mover and shaker, the parents simply going along. She preferred the frightened ones to the brazen ones.

“Now, come along. You’ll see how pleasant it is to do such an important mitzvah. You have the bride’s room all to yourself for as much time as you need, so don’t rush with your preparations. You know what you have to do, right?”

Rose said nothing.

“She knows. She’s been to bride class,” her mother interjected quickly. “She’s just a little nervous, that’s all. You’ll remind her?”

“Of course, of course. And there’s a whole list on the wall, step by step, of how to prepare the body for immersion. She’ll have her own private ritual bath, so she won’t even have to put on a bathrobe and walk down the hall after she makes her preparations. Come, child.” The attendant beckoned kindly.

Rose, expressionless, didn’t move.

“Would you like your mother to come with you?” Sometimes the very young ones did.

“You want I should go with you? Say something, Rose!” her mother finally exclaimed, exasperated.

Rose shook her head, and walked forward.

“Fine, fine. I’ll sit here and wait. Go!”

She emerged an hour and a half later, a look of shock on her face, her long hair dripping wet, her blouse soaked.

“What took so long? I was starting to worry.”

“She took a long shower afterwards. Washed and washed. Put on her clothes while she was still wet!” the attendant whispered confidentially into Rebbitzin Weiss’s ear. “There are hair-dryers in the next room, maideleh, with makeup, eye shadow, hand creams, everything you could need,” the attendant said cheerfully to Rose, who walked out the door, her mother hurrying to catch up.

Later that evening, the attendant told her coworker: “But she just looked at me. Stared with a funny look in her eyes, like she was a match and I was a Shabbos candle she couldn’t wait to set on fire. Looked at her mother like that, too. And when she was inside the mikveh, she put her head under the water for so long, I thought she was trying to drown herself. Gotteinu how she coughed when she came out! I’m telling you, I’m glad I’m not going to that wedding!”

“Young girls and their narishkeit,” said the other woman unsympathetically. She had four girls of her own, each with their own mishagas. No wonder they were trying to marry her off so young!

*

“Are you hungry, Rose?” her mother asked when they came home.

She shook her head.

“Thirsty?”

She shook her head again.

“You know,” she warned, “you are not allowed to eat anything tomorrow, until after the chuppah, so you should have something to eat now.”

That was the custom among Ashkenazim of Eastern Europe. Both bride and groom fasted and prayed on their wedding day. Among the Sephardim, it was the opposite. They plied the girl with sweets the whole day to give her pleasure and energy. But that practice made too much sense to the Ashkenazim, who found holiness in suffering.

“I just want to go to sleep. I’m so tired,” Rose finally said.

“Oh, so she can speak!” Her mother smiled.

What happened next caught Rebbitzin Weiss completely by surprise. Rose lunged toward her, embracing her and hugging her close. Rebbitzin Weiss was so astonished at this sudden uncharacteristic warmth, which had been missing in their relationship for so long, she almost forgot to hug her back until it was too late.

When Rose finally felt the pressure of her mother’s embrace, she sighed gratefully, finally letting go. “Good night, Mameh,” she said with a strange tone in her voice, her mother thought, almost as if she were holding back tears. Well, the mikveh … it was a difficult experience for a modest virgin to take off all her clothes and be examined by the attendant before immersing. But you lived through it. And you soon forgot about it after the wedding and everything you went through in bed … She would, too.

“And kiss Tateh good night for me when he returns from the study house, will you? Tell him … tell him … thank you for all he’s done. Tell him … that I love him.”

“I’ll tell him, child. Now go to sleep; you have a big day tomorrow.”

“Yes, Mameh.”

Pearl was sitting on Rose’s bed when she entered her room.

“Rose? I’ve been waiting for you. Where did you go? Why are you all wet?”

“I’m not wet.”

Pearl let it go, an achy feeling in her stomach telling her this was another grown-up secret she wasn’t allowed to know. “How do you feel, Rose? Tomorrow, finally. Your wedding. I thought it would never come!”

She stroked her sister’s long blond hair. “Pearl … I…” she sighed. “I’m very tired and I have a long day tomorrow. I have to go to bed.”

Pearl jumped up. “Of course, Rose.”

“You know, when I leave home, I’m not going to take any of my dolls or stuffed animals or books with me. I want you to have them.”

Her eyes lit up. “Really, Rose?”

“Really. And also, my headbands and barrettes. I won’t need them anymore. And you can have this room back. You’ll like that, won’t you?”

“Oh, Rose. I’m going to miss you. I wish you didn’t have to move away.”

“So do I, Pearl,” she whispered, hugging her sister tightly, running her fingertips over her young back as if trying to press them into her memory. Finally, she released her.

“Come, let me tuck you in.”

Pearl walked down the hall to her little alcove, climbing into bed and burrowing beneath the covers. Rose smoothed the blanket over her. Leaning down, she kissed the soft, rosy cheek.

“I love you, Pearl.”

“And I love you, Rose. Good night.”

“Good night,” she whispered, walking out the door and closing it behind her.

She went into her room, closing the door behind her and looking around. There was her bridal gown, hanging on the outside of the closet door in its plastic bag, newly back from dry cleaning. She quickly turned her head away, opening the closet. She took out her small battered suitcase, the one she had taken to her grandmother’s the day she was put into exile, grabbing a few random pieces of clothing off the hangers and from her drawers, mostly underwear and stockings. She fingered the Palm stockings, shaking her head as she left them behind and quietly slid the drawer shut. And there was the box with her wedding shoes.

She opened it, taking out one shoe and trying it on. After weeks of trying to wear them in, she felt the immediate pinch of her toes, the ache of her arch, the rub against her ankle. It was never, ever going to fit.

Standing on a chair, she reached up for her camera, film, and the portfolio that held all her precious prints. The suitcase barely closed. Then, she took off her engagement ring and watch and placed them in the center of her pillow, where they could not be missed.

Her eyes swept the room, looking for some souvenir of the last seventeen years. But there was nothing she wanted, she realized. Not a single, solitary thing. But then she saw her prayer book. She lifted it, opening its worn pages, so many of them waterlogged from tears. She kissed it, then put it back on the shelf. It was too heavy to take with her in so many ways.

She opened the window. Placing her suitcase on the fire escape, she climbed out, carefully closing the window behind her. Holding her shoes in one hand and the suitcase in the other, she climbed down silently in the darkness, until all that remained was a final, breathtaking jump to the ground.

PART TWO

Forty Years Later

16

Williamsburg, Brooklyn, September 2007

“Turn around.”

Rivka reluctantly obeyed, her fingertips playing nervously with the edges of her long sleeves.

“Gotteinu!” Pearl exclaimed, reaching up and nervously tugging her expertly coiffed wig ever more firmly over her shaved scalp. “There is nothing to even talk about! My daughter is not meeting her future in-laws dressed like that!”

Rivka flounced down on her bed, pouting. “I thought it was for Cousin Bluma’s chasseneh?”

“Yes, of course, but the Kleinmans will also be there.”

“I said yes to the shidduch? Besides, what’s wrong with my dress?”

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong? You have to ask even? Just look at yourself! Oy, I knew I shouldn’t let you go shopping alone!”

“It’s just fine,” the girl retorted calmly, with uncharacteristic defiance.

Her mother’s eyes widened in disbelief. “This is a way to speak to a mother?”

“Look, I’m sitting down. You see? Even sitting, the skirt stays way below my knees. What else do you want already?”

“So, the child tells the mother what to think? What’s right and what’s wrong? Your father would be very interested in such behavior. Why don’t I call him?” she threatened.

“So call him. I should be afraid?”

The chutzpah! She could hear Mameh’s voice ringing in her ears as if she were still alive and sitting in the room: This is what comes from giving in to her all the time! First, it was the cell phone, then the computer, and finally letting her put off meeting prospective bridegrooms until she reached seventeen, a whole year later than all the other girls!

Pearl gnawed her lip nervously. “Zevulun, could you come here a minute?”

He was sitting at the dining room table studying the Talmud. At his wife’s voice, he looked up. It was unusual for her to disturb him while he was learning. He lumbered, concerned, into the bedroom.

“Something happened, Pearl?”

“Give a look at your daughter!”

He looked. “Kaynahora! Queen Esther.” He shrugged, beaming.

Pearl looked heavenward. “Zevulun! That dress!”

He looked again, stroking his long, graying beard, his eyes measuring with almost clinical precision how many inches the skirt fell below the knees, if the collarbone was covered, and if the sleeves not only covered the elbows as required by law, but were not overly wide so as to fall back when she lifted her arms, indecently exposing them.

“Kosher, Pearl, kosher. A kosher girl in a kosher dress.”

Pearl blinked in astonishment at this pronouncement from her learned husband, proving that for all their Talmud study, men were dismally ignorant when it came to the actual practice of their religion, especially when it came to women. “It’s a sleeveless, low-cut, practically backless dress with silver sequins…!”

“So, that’s why you wear a long-sleeved shirt underneath!” Rivka challenged, raising her voice.