“And sometimes I wish the whole bunch of them—my whole wonderful, caring, worrying
mishpachah
—would just disappear! Not die or anything bad like that,” Hadassah added quickly, “but just go to a place where they’d always be happy and have what they want—far away from me! And I would be able to get out of Brooklyn and do what I want…”
“But what
do
you want to do, Hadassah?” Tamar asked, bewildered by the sudden, strange turns in the conversation, which were happening too fast for her to follow. Life was so simple. Your parents and family were the most important people in your life until you got married. If it took you a while to find somebody, you marked time by going to a religious teachers’ seminary or a religious business course to learn shorthand and typing. You worked as long as you had to until the right man came along. And when you got married, you had as many children as you could. You loved G-d. You kept His commandments. And one day, if you were really, really lucky, you bought a house in Orchard Park, one with a big, nicely kept garden. You followed your parents’ good lives… She couldn’t even imagine doing—or wanting to do—anything else.
“What difference does it make what I want? I can’t ever do anything
I
want,” Hadassah said tragically.
She sounded almost serious, Tamar thought, shocked, like she isn’t joking around at all.
“But let’s pretend,” Jenny prodded her.
Hadassah stretched out, resting her elbows on the floor, holding her chin up in both palms. “I’d like to be by myself. I’d like to fly in airplanes, and eat in restaurants and shop, all by myself.”
“But what would you like to
be
, Hadassah?” Jenny persisted.
Hadassah rolled over on her back, resting her long white fingers on her stomach. She closed her eyes, and her lovely dark lashes swept her rosy cheeks. She looks like Snow White in the glass coffin, Tamar thought. Poisoned, waiting for the Prince to awaken her to life again.
There was no possible way for Hadassah Mandlebright to answer such a question. There were no role models for women in Orchard Park. No religious Jewish women doctors, or lawyers, or accountants, or businesswomen. Only Jewish wives and mothers who helped their husbands out in the store, or with the books, or with the congregation, the way Hadassah’s mother helped her father. To aspire, even to imagine, a separate existence independent of the man you would marry was impossible.
“I’d like to be the queen of Sheba and walk through the desert in long flowing robes,” Hadassah said, giggling.
“And I’d like to be Marilyn Monroe,” Tamar joined in.
Jenny shook her head and laughed. “And I’d like to be Lois Lane.”
“But you couldn’t go flying with Superman on Shabbos! And you couldn’t eat any food on Krypton unless it had a
hechsher
from the rabbi of Krypton,” Tamar giggled.
“Oh, the rabbi of Krypton isn’t religious enough. I wouldn’t eat any food he supervised,” Hadassah said severely. “You’d have to have your meat skyrocketed in from Orchard Park.”
“That’s no problem, since Krypton exploded millennia ago and Superman can’t take me home to his parents. So he’ll have to live in Orchard Park. You see, Hadass, Tamar,” Jenny said wickedly, “it’s not impossible to be Lois Lane and stay religious.”
“Except my parents wouldn’t let me visit you because Superman isn’t Jewish and they’d tell your mother to sit shiva for you and pretend you were dead,” Hadassah added.
“Oh, I’d get him to take off the cape and tights and convert.
We’d buy him a black hat and an outfit something like Batman’s… you know, all black!”
They rolled on the floor. The Pole had a fit.
“I can’t imagine not going to college,” Jenny shook her head, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes. “I mean, we’ll graduate in another two years. Is that all we’re ever going to know?”
“But you could continue learning Torah in the teachers’ seminary. All those things you’d learn in college… what do you need them for? It’s just
narishkeit
. You can learn everything you need to know just from studying the Torah. Everything else just confuses you. It’s better to keep your mind clean of such things. To leave room for the really important things,” Tamar said sincerely.
“Like cleaning pinfeathers off chickens and how much sugar to put into the gefilte fish,” Hadassah drawled lazily.
“No, like how much charity you have to give and how hard you have to concentrate on your prayers,” Tamar defended herself, insulted.
“But I think that you can learn a lot of good things from Shakespeare, too,” Jenny said thoughtfully. “I mean, remember last year in English when we learned
Othello?
Doesn’t that show you what jealousy leads to, and the evils of gossip? I mean, isn’t it better to learn and learn and learn and take out the good, useful things wherever you find them?”
“I think it’s a big waste of time to go through all that funny English just to find out that gossip is a bad thing!” Tamar said.
“All that funny English!” Hadassah giggled and looked at Jenny, who burst out laughing.
“I don’t see what’s so funny,” Tamar complained, piqued. It was as if the two of them had this secret code language, much the way parents did. Often she felt like the stupid child when the three of them got together.
“It’s just that Shakespeare has written some of the most
beautiful sentences in the English language, Tamar,” Jenny apologized, trying to stop her giggling. But it was no use. She looked at Hadassah, and the two of them howled.
“Read
Romeo and Juliet
, Tamar,” Hadassah finally said. “It’s worth plowing through the ‘funny English,’ believe me!”
“See, Hadassah, that’s what I don’t understand,” Jenny said, flopping down beside her, resting her elbow affectionately against her shoulder. “You read, constantly. Everything you can get your hands on. Why, I think you’ve gone through every art book, every art history book, every single D. H. Lawrence, Conrad, Forster, and Virginia Woolf in the library! Don’t you want to continue? Why are you so afraid? Your father is a very kind, intelligent man. He’d understand. I’m sure if you just talked to him… It’s not like you to be such a coward!”
Hadassah jumped up abruptly, flicking off Jenny’s hand. She paced the room. “You know, Jenny, for a very intelligent girl, you are sometimes so stupid! Don’t you understand that college is out of the question as far as my parents are concerned? And don’t think Ohel Sara is going to help you fill out
your
college application either! Do you think they’re going to give you your transcripts or the letters of recommendation you need to get in anywhere?”
Jenny’s face went white. “What do you mean?”
“Ohel Sara’s claim to fame is that none of its graduates would be caught dead in any secular, G-dless place like a university. Any Ohel Sara graduate who winds up in college is a failure, a bad advertisement. They are going to do everything they can to talk you out of it. And if that doesn’t work, they will screw up your records so you can’t get in.”
There was complete silence. “How do you know this?” Jenny said, horrified.
“I have cousins, relatives, friends. I’m from that world, remember? You’re kidding yourself. As for a merit scholarship, do you think they’re even going to let us take the exam? And my
father is one of them, the top one. I’ve never understood your relationship with him…”
Jenny looked at her, stricken. “You’re just exaggerating! Ohel Sara is going to give me my transcripts and letters of rec, or I’ll… You’ll see.”
“No, Jen.
You’ll
see. But what do you need this for? You’re so lucky. You could just go to public high school right now and save yourself all this crap. Why don’t you?” Hadassah asked with a mixture of real curiosity and simple provocativeness. Despite years of friendship, Jenny had never really opened up to her completely. There had been this strange relationship between Jenny and her father for years, ever since that first Purim. But she had never really gotten to the bottom of it. She alternated between satisfaction that her father thought so highly of one of her friends and simple jealousy.
“But I don’t want to go to public school! You should see my brother. He’s just this simple kid, with nothing on his mind but basketball, football, baseball, cars, and girls… I want more. I want what you both have: the magic of the holidays, the candles, the white tablecloths and challah breads. I have this other part of me, a
neshamah
, a soul. I want to feed it, too.”
“Talking about food,” Tamar pointed out.
“Nobody was talking about food, Tamar,” Hadassah said, rolling her eyes skyward.
“But still, I’m hungry.”
“You’re always hungry!”
“Let’s get some pizza at that new Israeli place on Thirteenth Avenue.”
“Moishe’s?”
“I can’t go,” Hadassah said flatly.
“Why not? It’s perfectly kosher. Even the cheese is
cholov Yisroel
. There’s a rabbi that actually watches them milk the cows so nobody adds pig’s milk,” Tamar chattered on.
“It’s not that. I know it’s kosher. I can’t because my father says that it’s a place where boys go and so it’s unseemly for girls to go there too.”
“But we’re just buying pizza and leaving,” Jenny said. “That’s really overboard!”
“Now do you understand about college? He won’t let me buy pizza if there’s a yeshiva boy behind the counter. How is he going to let me learn French literature with a classroom full of handsome Christian boys from Manhattan?”
A thoughtful silence ensued.
“So don’t go in. We’ll buy you a pizza and bring it out,” Tamar suggested practically.
“See, there’s always a solution to everything.” Jenny laughed, but her eyes were serious.
“Jenny, trust me. You just don’t know the half of it,” Hadassah informed her.
“We’ll see,” Jenny replied.
“What will we see?” Tamar wanted to know.
Hadassah flashed Jenny an imperceptible smile. “Let’s go see the Met and the Village. Next Sunday! And we won’t tell anyone. We’ll just go!” Hadassah exclaimed with sudden enthusiasm.
“I can’t lie.” Tamar shook her head. “Not to my parents.”
“Well, then don’t tell them exactly where you’re going. Just say you’re going with the great rebbe of Kovnitz’s daughter. That should satisfy them,” Hadassah said ironically. “Only make sure they don’t check it out with my parents, or my gefilte fish is really cooked!”
“They won’t,” Tamar said confidently. Her parents would never have presumed to call the great rebbe of Kovnitz on such a trifling matter.
Chapter fourteen
The following Sunday afternoon, Tamar and Jenny stood waiting at the subway station.
“I wonder if Hadassah’s coming,” Tamar said, biting her nails, glancing nervously at the dark subway entrance bathed in the dirty shadows of seedy diners and discount stores. She kept telling herself she was happy and excited, yet her stomach had this heavy “I don’t really want to do this” feeling. She chalked it up to a combination of not eating breakfast and a fear of rocketing up into the dangerous, far-off planet that was Manhattan.
She had heard there were crazy people who talked to themselves, black teenagers with knives who ripped gold chains off women’s necks, and Puerto Ricans who made rude remarks to young, respectable ladies. Her hand went to her throat, and she tucked the thin gold chain with its Star of David inside her high-collared white blouse. She would just die if anyone did anything like that to her!
“Hadassah will be here, don’t worry,” Jenny said calmly, wondering if she would; wondering if they all wouldn’t just be
better off going home. She was unhappy about the deception. Yet, she had so much confidence that they weren’t actually doing anything wrong, that she didn’t feel guilty. Besides, her first loyalty had to be to friendship. Still, if Hadassah didn’t show up…
In the distance a flash of bright, tawny hair waved like a banner. “Breakfast took forever,” Hadassah said breathlessly. “It’s the first day of the new month, and they had to say all the prayers for
Rosh Hodesh
, and until they finished
hallel
. . .”
Tamar was staring at her feet. “Where’d you get those?!”
“They’re go-go boots. Aren’t they dreamy? I got them last week and hid them in my closet. I put my other shoes in my bag. I thought if I’m going to ‘the city,’ I should look right.” She smiled, delighted and content as she looked over the white, knee-high leather that hugged her calves.
“But boots, in the summer? You’ll boil.” Tamar shook her head.
“They look awfully sexy,” Jenny said doubtfully.
“I know. Aren’t they great?” Hadassah leaned over, smoothing down the leather over her slim legs.
“What did you tell your parents?” Tamar fretted.
“Do we have to talk about this?! Okay, I told them Jenny wasn’t feeling well, and I was going to pay a sick call and get a mitzvah. Which isn’t exactly a lie, is it?” she said, winking at Jenny.
“I’m not feeling at all well about lying, that’s the truth!”
“You sound like Mrs Kravitz! Are you going to ruin this? Are you? Because if you are… Wait! There’s a train coming in!”
They clattered up the rusty metal stairs, whizzing through the old turnstiles and onto the platform. They landed in the car just before the doors closed.
It was a Sunday train. Empty and dull and a little sinister.
“Let’s go to the first car,” Hadassah giggled, elated. They followed her through the swaying joints of the clanking cars, their
hands flat palmed against the dirty metal to keep from falling. They crowded together just outside the driver’s box. Through the dirty, ash-flecked window, they felt the city rush fiercely down on them in vast, brick buildings, shining stretches of water, smoke-belching factories, and frightening abandoned lots. And then suddenly, it was black.
The swift transition from the city’s bright, complex face to its dark, mysterious bowels, was thrilling. Like astronauts launched beyond the known world, they curbed their fear, allowing themselves the mad pleasure of hurtling beneath the water toward the unknown and possibly glorious destiny that was Manhattan Island.