The Whipping Club (33 page)

             
“Come in,” Johanna said, making designs on the doorknob.

             
She watched them cross the foyer, their eyes on her hoola hoop.

             
“Is this a
kholem
of a house or what,
kinder
?” Beva said. “A gorgeous home, children. Go on, Johanna. Introduce yourself. Look at my granddaughter. Looks a little like young Leonard over there doesn’t she? They could be related.”

             
“Listen, Johanna,” she continued, calling her over to the coat closet, taking her hands in hers. “Do you know, during the War, if you had just one grandparent who was Jewish, you would have been taken. Kaputt, like the rest of us. So why should I not think of you as–”

             
“Mammy,” Da said.

             
“What? You married out. She may marry in,” Beva said, motioning with her eyes at the new kid, Leonard. Johanna gave her Bubbe the look. “All right! All right, no matchmaking.”

             
Da marched out of the foyer.

             
“What? What did I say?” Bubbe muttered as she found preparations to attend.

             
Thank God Da turned on
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
.

             
“The
oul wans
will be drowned out now,” Jo joked to her friends, turning up the phonograph’s volume. “Come on. Let’s do the monkey.”

             
Bubbe helped Ma lay out a white tablecloth, placed honey-dipped apples on a silver platter she brought with her. Johanna noticed her ma’s momentary vitality as she began filling the table with goodies, and wondered how much energy Adrian would have siphoned from her if he was home. She felt a jealousy that she detested rise for her ma’s attention, and then she thought of Adrian and how much she wanted him home for good, too, and her envy fell away.

             
“
Oy,
there’s a lot of
tuml
coming from that thing, Johanna. A lot of noise. Turn the music down before we all have headaches.”

             
“Ma, did you remember the orange soda?” Jo asked, running into the crowded kitchen.

             
“I’ll bring it out,” Da answered.

             
“Come over here.” Bubbe squeezed her hard on the cheeks. “Ah,
shayna punim
. What a pretty face on you!”

             
Ma nodded awkwardly. God would strike her down, Johanna supposed, if she dared boast about her daughter. How many times had she heard her tell Da that he’d have to be careful or else she might get a swelled head.

             
“I love your pants—I think,” Gran said, now giving her the look. “But pants to a party? Is this another thing you’ve seen on television, some hippie-dippie thing?”

             
Johanna rolled her eyes.

             
“Wait’ll you see these kids eat my chopped liver like they’ve never tasted anything before,” Bubbe said, leaving for the drawing room with a bowl of the pâté surrounded with Jacob’s cream crackers.

             
Gran waved her hand in front of her nose, said the kosher stuff was stinking up all the other food in the fridge.

             
“Gran, quiet,” Jo said.

             
“How do you understand anything she says?” Gran mumbled.

             
“I’m bilingual, Gran,” Jo said, rolling her eyes and leaving the kitchen.

             
“Johanna’s a real Grovkofsy. Looks like my father,”
Bubbe said, kissing Da, saying
something about looking forward to a sleepover in her home next Sabbath. Soon, Jo would share the Sabbath with Da and Bubbe in Bubbe’s warm home—with all the photographs of Tatte, and Da as Bubbe’s
kaddishel
, saying the prayers for the dead. Her wee son. He’d talk with his hands, too, and laugh at Bubbe’s Yiddish jokes. During the dinner conversation, they would relive the celebration over the Six-Day War. They would all be at ease to argue about this or that. Da and Bubbe would dispute the student riots in Paris, riots against the Vietnam War in America, black power conferences. Jo’d argue for free speech via rock ‘n’ roll. And Bubbe would say, “
Got tsu danken
. She’s not afraid to talk.” And with that, she’d do her rendition of “Born Free,” until she’d get a klop on the head from Bubbe.

             
“We said the
Kiddush
last night,” Johanna said to Bubbe.

             
“You said a blessing over the wine. Do me a favor, Johanna. Once in a blue moon, say a blessing over the bread, too. A couple of blessings are not enough for Johanna, Benjamin. She’ll know nothing about Judaism.”

             
Da shrugged.

             
“Doesn’t she go to Hebrew lessons, Benjamin?” Bubbe asked.

             
“No catechist classes either, B
eva,” Ma said. A heavy silence
followed.

             
“I’m not saying another word,” Bubbe said, moving closer to the young guests. “Watch these kids dance. Forget the Pappa. Joy you only get from grandchildren.”

             
Ma studied Da as he busied himself playing deejay, and then she downed her Bloody Mary. She leaned against the drawing room wall, watched the kids dance and then went back into the kitchen.

             
After a while Jo entered the kitchen and saw Ma’s dirty apron on the counter, but her ma nowhere in sight.

             
“Ma?” Jo yelled as she went upstairs to check on her.

             
Ma lay across the bed on her stomach, both arms hanging off the edge, her wrists limp. The rotary phone was off the hook, the monotonous, loud dial tone reminded Jo of vital signs gone dead.

             
“Our request has been denied,” Ma informed her. “Adrian will not be coming home after his first year.” It would be six weeks until they could see Adrian again.

             
Johanna picked up the receiver and placed it back on the hook. She looked down at Ma, strands of hair from her outdated bouffant tangled into a bird’s nest at the nape of her neck. She felt a familiar discomfort in the stomach. If it weren’t for her insisting they perform hand-stands on the Donnybrook Church stained-glass windows, Adrian would not have been sent away.

             
“I’m to blame for getting Adrian sent to Surtane,” she managed. “You think it’s my fault.”

             
“Johanna, no, dear, it’s not your fault. Sister Agnes said she made up her mind after an incident at the orphanage. Nothing to do with you at all. I’m tired now, Jo. Tell everyone to go home.”

             
“You’re always tired. Tell me, Ma, why did you keep me?”

             
“What are you talking–”

             
“To help do the washing? Put on the tea?”

             
“Johanna!”

             
“How can you go around like a slug and hurt all of us with your silent treatment?”

             
“I’m trying, Jo. I really–”

             
“No, I’m the throw away child, not him. Face it.”

             
By the time Ma looked up at her, she was walking out of the room.

Jo slammed the door behind her. She sat down on the couch. Bubbe tapped her head, to knock some sense into it. Always physical with Bubbe. Like a prisoner, she felt she was in her own lonely world.

             
“Don’t bother, Da,” she said, as he mounted the stairs. “She asks that everyone go.”

             
Da came over and sat down with her and Bubbe.

             
“Ma needs a breather,” she sighed. A breather from what? From her own daughter? Johanna wished she could be more of a girly-girl, less tomboyish, but there’s the way the thing goes, as Gran would say. Too much trouble for Ma, she was.
Too much work.

Over the following weeks, Marian made concerted efforts to focus on Johanna. Ben, for one, felt relieved. He was confident Marian listened and respected him when he voiced his concerns, which had grown more frequent. Marian even surprised Johanna two Saturdays this May and took her shopping and to lunch. Twice Marian told Ben they were having a “mother-daughter.” He was pleased; his
maidelah
was elated.

             
By the second Saturday in June, the three of them made their way to the Surtane graduation day picnic in good spirits, carting bags of goodies. No personal gifts for Adrian this time, they brought oranges and pomegranates, a meat and potato pie, boiled eggs, warm Bourneville cocoa in two thermos bottles, and toffee apples for dessert, a ten pound note Ben would thrust into the pocket of Adrian’s knickers.

             
Johanna had been corresponding with Peter, having sent two letters to Brother Mack in hopes he’d pass them on. She seemed particularly glad to see him. She wore a brand new outfit: a raspberry maxi coat, white go-go boots, a pink mini skirt, and pink fishnet stockings. Her hair was different, too, recently cut to the shoulder with bangs.

             
“All a bit much,” Ben mumbled to Marian on their way out the door.

             
As the taxi drove up the long drive, Adrian and Peter stood outside, waiting. Johanna got out of the car and sauntered over to them. Marian pointed out distant oak trees already budding, a lime canopy of new apple leaves protected their perfect picnic spot, yellow ferns and wildflowers, in untidy beds bloomed near the outer buildings. The group ventured under the trees. Peter reddened as Jo lay her long coat down and patted the skirt of it to indicate that he should sit down with her.

             
“Come on, kids. Help your ma lay out the blanket,” Ben called, as Brother Mack approached. The two shook hands and Ben invited him to join them, but the Brother refused, saying he had to pull up his socks and make sure everything went well.

             
“Your son,” he added in a low voice before he left, “is a fine young man. I’ve gotten reports from Brother Tyrone and Mr. Bernard Donnelly in the bakery that Adrian has never once been late to work.

Up at three-thirty every morning, he has the building open and ready for business. A fine boy you have there, a smart boy,” Brother Mack said.

             
“Look after him,” Ben begged him, noting to himself from the first that Brother Mack seemed a decent sort. “Adrian should be home, you must know that. He was originally only to be here for the one year.”

             
“I know,” Brother Mack answered before moving along, saying he was sorry, too, for Brother Ryder’s recommendation to Judge Moran that Adrian be detained for a full stay.

             
Peter sat next to Johanna, trying to stop his thin face blushing, but he could not. He seemed nervous sitting on the Ellises’ blanket, under the seemingly casual eye of Brother Ryder. Marian offered the basket of fruit, and Peter followed Adrian’s lead and groped for an

orange. Marian, too, looked ill at ease as she sat there, but Ben supposed it was the setting, the muffled mirth of orphans sitting together at industrial picnic tables, pent-up boys bursting with high spirits, the array of Christian Brothers littering the lawn. Ben assumed, too, that Marian was aware of the growing flirtation between Peter and Jo, and that he did not particularly like it.

             
Neither, it appeared, did Brother Ryder, who stood too close to their party, his hands behind his back. He watched as Johanna and Peter and Adrian engaged in a game of tag around the apple tree, leaving the grown-ups on their own. Ben noticed during the game Johanna pushed a leaf of notepaper into Peter’s hand that the boy accepted and stuffed down his knickers.

             
“What’s he always staring at us for?” Marian wondered aloud to Ben.

             
“Ah, he’s a cool half, isn’t he,” Ben said to her.

             
“Would you give us a few minutes, Brother Ryder?” Marian asked, rising to her feet.

             
Adrian’s face twisted with fear with this more-than-likely punishable request coming from his own mother’s lips.

             
“I’d like to have a walk with my son, alone. You don’t mind,

do you?”

             
Holding the bark of the tree, Adrian looked at her. “No, Ma. That’s not allowed. I don’t want to break the rules,” he managed, glancing up into Brother Ryder’s face where a faint smile turned up.

             
Brother Ryder sauntered casually over to Peter and held out his hand. Ben noticed Peter’s body slouch and Adrian’s extreme discomfort. His head lowered, Peter handed over Johanna’s note, the handwritten lyrics to “Puppy Love” with little red hearts drawn all over the paper.

             
“Would you like a toffee apple, Brother Ryder?” Ben offered the plate of sticky apples for Brother Ryder. “May I see the note?”

             
“I suppose I will,” Brother Ryder said. “Seeing everyone’s partaking.” Brother Ryder handed Ben the paper, and Ben leisurely walked over to their blanket and exposed the note while the Brother negotiated the candy apple.

             
“Surely there’s no harm in the lyrics to ‘Puppy Love,’” Ben said to him, reading the note. “Surely you must have had puppy love yourself?”

             
Johanna giggled at this and the three teenagers hid together behind the apple tree.

             
“I have an idea,” Marian offered.

             
Besmirched by everyone’s glee at his expense, nonetheless Brother Ryder listened to Marian’s spontaneous idea of a summer dance for the boys before Ryder nodded his leave, and lurked for another group.

             
“No worries, children. Come now and eat,” she called out.

             
“Which one is the bakery building,” Marian asked Adrian. “Da tells me Brother Mack mentioned that you’re doing a fine job.”

             
“He is,” Peter said. “I can attest to that,” he whispered, and the boys chortled.

             
“It’s the third gray building from the back gates, Ma,” Adrian said, considering another time the details of his possible escape.

             
The visit was long, a paradise for the boys. But after everyone was gone, the boys discussed the earlier tension with Brother Ryder and prayed for a miracle. They hoped Ben managed to smooth things over. Peter was already dreaming of Johanna’s next visit, he confessed. Hope filled his days now, he told Adrian.

             
“Hope,” Adrian laughed, throwing his arm around him, a quick light jab to his jaw. “We’ll be eating those eggs and drinking hot tea every day soon enough.” Adrian and Peter tumbled down in playful punches at one another under the shade of the apple tree.

             
“We’ll be building boats soon enough as well,” Adrian said, “the smelly taste of minnows on our breath.” This was their new plan for their futures. They’d build boats rather than put out forest fires.