The Sisters Weiss (6 page)

“Ah, excusez-moi. You are still here.” Mr. Goldband walked in, smiling as he looked her up and down. “I just need to get something.” He reached up and pulled down a book.

She jumped up, blushing, smoothing down her skirt, suddenly conscious of her exposed legs. “I’m waiting for Michelle,” she stammered.

He was a young man, she thought. At least, much younger than her own father. Or perhaps his smooth, clean-shaven face simply made him seem so. He had high cheekbones and a wide forehead that reminded her of Clark Gable.

“It’s okay, okay, I don’t bite.” He smiled. The skin around his blue eyes crinkled dashingly. “What are you looking at? Ah, Doisneau!” He pronounced it “dwa-no.” “He interests you?”

She nodded almost painfully, her face reddening further. “I hope it’s all right. I once had a camera.” She had long ago put it away, disappointed and embarrassed by the disparity between her vision and the results she’d achieved. “But the pictures weren’t any good. Not like this.”

“What kind of camera?”

“A Kodak box camera. I got it from … from the Dimes Saving Bank…” she stammered, feeling young and foolish.

“Of course Doisneau’s photos are better than yours! You didn’t have any control! Your camera was a toy. The lens was made of plastic. You couldn’t control the exposure…”

She looked up, confused.

“I mean, how much light strikes the film,” he explained patiently. “You could not focus it. You could not choose to make one part of the picture sharper than another. So unless the person or thing just happened to be in exactly the right spot…”

“Everything came out blurry.”

“Exactement! There are a lot of reasons. Perhaps you did not hold it steady. Or perhaps the people moved, or your film was too slow.”

“The people were dark.”

“Because it was too dark, and you could not compensate for that with your cheap camera. Doisneau had a Zeiss-Contax or a Leica. Ansel Adams said he preferred the Contax to the Leica. But either one will let you control how much light comes in by opening or closing the shutter…”

“The shutter?” she asked, forgetting her shyness, forgetting she was speaking to a handsome adult man, the father of her friend, lost in fascination and curiosity.

“Patience. I’ll explain everything.”

“Nothing looked like I thought it would.”

He smiled, nodding. “Ansel Adams stressed a photographer has to visualize in his mind what he wants the photo to look like before he presses the shutter release. You have to find a new way of seeing. You have to see what is in front of you with a frame around it. Here, look at this.” He opened the closet and carefully took a camera out of a box. “Careful now. It’s a Contax Three. Slowly, doucement. Now, look through this. What do you see?”

She held it up to her eye. All she saw was Mr. Goldband’s midsection, and the books behind him. Quickly, she lowered it.

“Not a pretty picture, my stomach, eh?” he laughed. Slowly, he walked around behind her. Putting his arms lightly around her shoulders, his chin just above her head, he enfolded her hands in his, helping her to position the camera in front of her eyes. Slowly, his chest touching her back, he turned her toward the window.

“Voilà! Look out into the street, into life. Find something that fascinates you, that tells a story. After that, you will worry about how much light strikes the film. You see this?” He pointed with his forefinger at a small black dial. “This is the aperture. Think of it like … say … the pupil of your eye. It gets very small in the sunlight, no? And opens wide in a dark room.”

She felt her body growing warm and strange, the touch of his arms electric.

“This is the aperture, like window blinds that open and close. You decide how wide with these numbers here. The larger the number, the smaller the opening. Then, there is the shutter speed. That you set over here, on this dial. The two means a half a second. A very long time. That is how fast the curtain is opening and closing.”

She nodded now, almost faint as his warm breath caressed her cheek.

“Now, the focus.”

She felt his fingers touch hers insistently but gently.

“Turn this wheel on top. In the center you’ll see the two images overlap; that means it’s perfectly in focus.”

She fingered the camera, her grip tightening beneath his hands. “How much does a camera like this cost?”

“Oh, that is the question!” He smiled, suddenly dropping his hands to his sides “Two hundred dollars.”

The relief of being set free was offset by this disappointing news. Her heart fell. He might as well have said a million.

“But you don’t need this camera, Rose! May I call you Rose?” he said tenderly.

She nodded, everything about him electric and sharply in focus.

“You can get a Kodak Argus for … fifty dollars. If you learn to use a light meter, to take your photos outdoors, and are not in a rush to use a flash it will be more than adequate.”

“Can you show me how to use a meter?” she asked, shocked at her own boldness.

Before he could answer, the door opened.

She watched him put his hands hurriedly into his pockets and take a step back, increasing the distance between them, and the movement made her feel suddenly ashamed, as if she had something to hide.

“I am showing your friend how to use a camera, Michelle. Are you also interested?”

“No, Papa.”

“Michelle likes paint and brushes, n’est-ce pas, ma petite?” He smiled, smoothing down her hair. “Well, I am off to work, girls. But when you come again, I am happy to talk to you more about photography, Rose.”

She cleared her throat. “Thank you very much, Mr. Goldband.”

“And if you want to borrow the book about Doisneau, please, take it home.”

“Really?” She was thrilled.

“Of course!”

She brought it home that evening in her school bag, standing on a chair to hide it behind her extra blankets, high on her closet shelf.

“What’s that, Rose?” Pearl asked.

Rose took a breath. The entire experience of the afternoon welled up inside her with all its dangerous and thrilling complications. She felt slightly feverish and sickened, filled with the kind of energy that demands some kind of release. “None of your business, Pearl!” she shouted.

Her sister’s face screwed up in resentment and insult.

“It’s a book from Michelle … her father’s … library. I borrowed it. It has pictures of Paris.”

“Vus is dus?”

“It’s a city, far away, on the other side of the ocean.”

“I also want to see the pictures!”

“This is not for you! You might ruin it!”

“I won’t! Why do you treat me like a child! I’m going to be bat mitzvah soon!”

Rose hesitated, suddenly feeling sorry for her sister, wanting to include her. “But you can’t tell anyone about it, Mameh or Tateh. You promise?”

Pearl picked up on her sister’s uneasiness with that peculiar radar that exists between siblings who live together closely and have scores to settle. “Why not? What’s wrong with it?”

“Did I say anything was wrong with it? There is nothing wrong with it. Nothing. Just…” She hesitated. “There are some things that Tateh and Mameh wouldn’t like you to see.”

“And they like you to see?” she answered shrewdly.

“I’m older than you, Pearl.”

“‘The beginning of sin is sweet, but its end is bitter,’” Pearl said, repeating their father’s mantra. “That is true for you, too. For everyone.”

“Why do you think this is a sin?”

“Why are you afraid of Mameh and Tateh finding out?”

“I’m not afraid!”

“Yes, you are! You’re trembling!”

Rose looked at her hands. The child was right. She lowered her voice to a whisper.

“All right, all right. You can take a look, but not by yourself. I’ll show them to you.”

Rose took down the book, sitting down on the bed next to her sister.

Pearl stared at the cover. Men in bathing suits, naked to the waist, were jumping off a bridge into the water. In the background was the Eiffel Tower.

“They are naked! NAKED MEN!” she shouted.

“Lower your voice!”

But it was too late.

“What’s this I heard?” Their mother rushed in.

Rose tried to move the book under the bedcovers, but her mother’s eye was too quick for her.

“Vus is dus? Rose, you give that to me RIGHT NOW!”

“It’s just a book of photographs, Mameh!” Rose said defiantly, holding the book behind her back, shielding it with her body.

“Are you speaking to me with disrespect?” her mother asked, flabbergasted at such behavior in her obedient Rose. “Give it here!”

Her heart sinking, Rose handed it over.

Her mother sat down on the edge of the bed, flipping the pages slowly, as Rose moved away, standing by the door watching her, trying to imagine from her expression what she was looking at: The charming photos of laughing children holding on to each other as they crossed a busy Parisian street? Snow-covered statutes in the park? Or a man and woman passionately kissing? A photo of underwear in a store window? The photo of a woman staring at the painting of a nude in an art gallery?

Rebbitzin Weiss slammed the book shut.

“Mameh!”

“I’ll talk to you later. First, I must talk to Tateh.”

“Mameh, please don’t show it to him!” she wanted to wail, begging her mother for mercy for the first time in her life. But she couldn’t bring herself to utter the words. Besides, what good would it do? Her parents were one person.

*

“ROSE!” her father called.

She stood up stiffly, walking into the living room as one walks to the guillotine.

Her parents were sitting side by side at the table, the place where usually her father’s large Talmud lay taken up by Mr. Goldband’s book.

“Sit down!”

She pulled back a chair. Her knuckles were white.

“Where did you get this filth?”

“I … borrowed it. From the Goldbands’ library.”

“This is the kind of book these people have in their house?” her father thundered.

“Tateh, they didn’t give it to me. I chose it. You remember, I had a camera once. I was interested. I didn’t see all the photos, just a few. They were wonderful.… Then, he said I could take it home if I wanted. It’s not his fault. He was very kind.” Too late she realized that Michelle’s father should not have been mentioned at all. But she had never before had reason to lie, and too late she recognized that she suddenly did.

“You spoke to your friend’s father? Alone?”

“Just for a minute, Tateh! Michelle went to the kitchen to get water, and I waited for her in the library. Her father came in to get a book and saw me reading this…”

“You are forbidden to go back to that house, do you understand?”

“But Tateh, who will help Michelle?”

“You are forbidden! End of discussion.”

“But how will I return this to Mr. Goldband?”

“I will make sure the school returns it to Mr. Goldband.”

She felt a chill go up her spine.

“Tateh, no!”

“You are forbidden to go back to that school, understand?”

“But where else can I go?”

“You will stay at home until we find another school. A more suitable school. Now go to your room!”

She ran to her room. Fully clothed, she pulled the covers over her head.

“Rose, what happened? What happened, Rose?” Pearl shook her, trying to pull down the covers. Without looking up, she smacked the child’s hands away viciously.

“Leave me alone, you brat! You’ve ruined my life.”

Pearl howled, but Rose could not hear her over the sound of her own heartbroken sobbing as she felt her life shatter into a million painful, wounding shards.

6

It was, Rose thought as she sat in the living room surrounded by her parents, older brothers, grandmother, aunts, uncles, and older cousins, like the biblical ordeal ordained for the sotah, a woman accused without proof by her jealous husband of committing adultery. When she was dragged to the Holy Temple, the priests would undo her hair and publicly demand answers to horrible and embarrassing questions about her character, her behavior, and her sins. The punishment for lying was a terrible death, one worse than stoning or hanging, your body simply dissolving into a painful and putrid waste.

Mute with fright and confusion, her eyes darted from one accuser to the next as she was pelted with questions that bounced painfully off her heart like sharp little rocks.

How many other forbidden books did she have hidden in her bedroom?

Did the Goldbands eat food without the proper rabbinical hechsher?

Did they eat pork?

How many other books had Mr. Goldband forced on her?

Did Miriam Goldband eat in nonkosher pizza parlors?

Did Miriam Goldband secretly meet boys?

What did she know about Miriam Goldband? About Miriam Goldband’s mother?

And, last but not least, the questions that made her heart stop: What was her relationship with Mr. Goldband? Had he ever tried to touch her?

Had he? She wondered. Tried? Was that what it was, his hands over hers on the camera, the way he stepped back suddenly when Michelle returned?

She shuddered, large sobs finally breaking from her silent lips, her slight, girlish shoulders heaving, her chest rising and falling, bringing the family council to a frustrating and premature end and the consensus that the task at hand was beyond their powers. The proper rabbinical authority needed to be consulted. The Honored Rav would certainly get answers out of her that they could not. And if not, at the very least he would remove the crippling burden from their shoulders of deciding what was to be done next. This alone, it was decided, was worth the shame of involving him.

In the hours that followed, Rose lay awake in her bed, her body trembling as the cold, dark hours of night swept over her in terrifying waves, her imagination conjuring up worst-case scenarios. Had she, without knowing or willing it, done something sinful and shameful? Would she now be sent abroad to the Gateshead girl’s boarding school in England, where they reportedly watched your every move and you had hardly any contact with your family? It had been rumored that a girl found smoking cigarettes in the park with a boy had merited that punishment. Married off at seventeen to an English Hassid, she had never been heard of again. What will happen to me? she agonized, until her exhausted body fell unwillingly into a troubled sleep.