Her Mother's Daughter (6 page)

Mamie was asking Momma for a favor. She wanted Momma to write a letter for her friend. Mamie could not write English; her friend could not write at all. The letter had to go to Immigration. Momma found some paper and a pen, and sat at the table, writing as they told her what they needed to say. Bella began to drift off. After Momma finished the letter, the women continued to talk. Mamie's friend—Pani Sliwowska—had a rich sister whose husband sold fur coats to very rich women. This sister lived in a brownstone (Bella wondered if that was what the little girl's house was called) with ten rooms and three toilets. Imagine! And she had a daughter named Anastasia, who had embroidered sheets on her bed and a set of underwear for each day in the week. Imagine! Ah-nah-stah-zya. Bella heard the name over and over. That was the little girl's name. It was Anastasia she had seen on the steps of the quiet benign house. Bella wondered if she had a dress for each day also. Maybe each day had a different color: pink, blue, white, yellow, green: what else was there? Black. No. Red. She would have a red dress for Sundays. Bella had never seen a red dress.

Anastasia. Anastasia knew only beautiful things. She knew the turning of the leaves when the rain was coming, and the colors of the sky. In summers her parents took her to places where the sun went down. Bella knew about this because, once, in the summer, Momma and Poppa had taken the children to the country, to Uncle August's house in Rockaway. She did not remember Uncle Gus's house, or Aunt Sophie, or anything except standing on the beach watching the sun over the water. The sun was big and red and it hung just a few feet above the sea and Bella watched it with her mouth hanging open. And they had to catch the trolley and Poppa had scolded Momma because Bella would not come away from the beach. And Momma, who never scolded, had spoken to her almost sharply, but she would not, she could not, come away. At the end, she had to be lifted up and carried away. And she wept, because she had not seen it, and now she would never see it. “Just another minute, Momma, please!” she cried, but Momma held her tight, and Momma had lines in her forehead as she ran to where Poppa stood with the boys. And even now she wanted to weep thinking about it because she would never know: what happened when the sun sank into the sea? Did the sea boil? Did it turn red like the sun? Did the sun make a big lump in the ocean? Did the ocean put out the sun, the way water put out the candles?

Thinking about this, she felt sleepy again, and laid her head against the sofa arm. Anastasia saw the sun go down every day in the summer, and knew what happened. And someday she, Bella, would know too. Someday she would see it. Her arm fell limply against the chair back as she drifted into an Anastasia sleep. She sensed her aunt Mamie kissing her temple, and smelled her perfume. Then she slept deeply.

Sometimes, Momma took Bella to Poppa's shop with her. Bella loved to go there, although she had to be very quiet and stay out of the way. Poppa's shop was large and bright, with great crystal chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling. The floors were polished golden wood, and everyone in the shop wore beautiful clothes like Poppa. Momma didn't, of course, but she stayed in the back. Momma told her Poppa's shop was very fine, and that the mayor of New York City came to Poppa to have his suits made. Many people came from all over the world to Poppa's shop, Momma said, and Poppa could speak to them because he spoke seven languages. So Bella had to be very quiet here. And she was. She stayed in the back, only peeping out sometimes through the brocade curtain that separated the front from the back. Usually, she curled up in a corner with bits of silk Momma gave her, scraps from linings and from shirts, and tried to make herself a little pocketbook like one she had once seen, but she didn't know where. She had made seven of them, but they were no good because the string did not close them. She did not know how to make them work.

One day, after she had finished the eighth bag, only to find that it, like the others, did not close, she sat and stared at it hard, and thought about what would make it close. And it came to her, like a flash of light inside her head, that the two strings had to run opposite to each other. Quickly, she snatched a new piece of silk, red, with satin stripes like Poppa's vest, and painstakingly stitched a new bag. She sewed in string, one going one way and the other going in the opposite direction. Then, with tiny neat stitches, she hemmed the top of the bag, leaving two little spaces for the string to emerge. It took her all afternoon, and she had to concentrate very hard because she was in a hurry. She wanted to finish it today because she did not know when Momma would bring her to the shop again. And she did finish, and the bag worked! It closed and opened, just like a real bag!

But her pleasure in this accomplishment was brief. She showed her bag to Momma, but Momma hardly looked. And then, the next time Momma took her to the shop, she had nothing to do. She no longer wanted to make string bags, for the one she had was enough. Anyway, she had nothing to put into it.

By now, the children were allowed to sit at the table with Momma and Poppa for dinner, all except Eugenia, Euga (which they pronounced Aowga), the baby who had just come. But something was wrong. Momma no longer bobbed her head and laughed at everything Poppa said. She looked away when he spoke, and he spoke very loudly now, and sometimes after he had drunk many glasses of wine, he talked funny too. Momma would mutter things about “her,” “she.” Poppa would stand and yell, rip his napkin from his belt and storm from the table. Bella gaped with alarm. She froze in her chair and heard nothing, saw nothing.

One night Poppa was late for dinner. Momma had been to the shop but had come home early. She didn't run anymore, her body moved as if it was tired. She set the round table and lighted the gas in the fringed lamp hanging over it. She set out the two chickens she had roasted and rutabaga sprinkled with dill and mashed potatoes and creamed spinach. Everything was getting cold and Momma was fretting. She walked back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room, and when the servant girl said something to her, she retorted sharply. Then they heard his step on the stairs, but it sounded funny, draggy. And he threw open the apartment door and strode in and slid on the floor and cursed, and Momma put her hand to her mouth in alarm, and stood very straight in front of the table. And Poppa came into the dining room, and his face had slipped, he was sneering at them, and he glanced around the room and peered at the table. “You know I hate creamed spinach!” he roared and strode over and picked up the bowl of creamed spinach and hurled it against the wall. Then he turned around and strode out, and lumbered down the hall and out the door and down the stairs. They heard him slip and curse; then he began to descend again. Momma told the children to sit at the table. She went into the kitchen and found a rag and came back in and got down on her hands and knees and wiped up the creamed spinach. Bella's mouth was watering in frustration: she loved creamed spinach. She concentrated on the dinner they would eat as soon as Momma finished. Every dish on the table made her mouth water: the crispy brown chickens, the soft luscious potatoes, the tangy rutabaga with its sprinkle of dill. She wondered what there was for dessert. Maybe it could make up for the loss of the creamed spinach. She tried not to watch Momma, but she couldn't help it. Momma was hunched over, wiping up the gooey mess, her shoulders slumped. The servant girl, wide-eyed, was bringing her clean cloths, and taking away the ugly gooey greenish ones. Momma sighed hard. Slowly, she bent to pick up the pieces of the china dish. Quietly, the servant girl picked up those that had flown across the room. When it was all over, Momma sat down at the table and carved the chickens. She told the children to eat. Bella gobbled her food; she was so hungry she could not get full. She tried to savor the delicious tastes, but somehow, she couldn't. Maybe the dinner was too cold. As she spooned the food into her mouth, she kept seeing Momma on her hands and knees, with her back bent, wiping up the mess.

W
HEN BELLA WAS FIVE
and a half, Momma sent her to school. She had a new dress, and stiff new boots, and a pair of eyeglasses. Momma kept reminding her she was not to lose them or break them. Momma gave her directions, and kissed her, but only perfunctorily, for she worried about Euga, who had a cold. Momma was carrying her around, bouncing her, talking to her to keep her from crying, but she still cried.

Bella walked the streets very carefully, reaching up every few seconds to touch her eyeglasses, to make sure they were still on her head. She found the building, and went where Momma said, into the office. There a grey-haired woman looked up and spoke to her. Bella simply stood there. She could not understand what the woman was saying. It was some sound like “o,” but it meant nothing to Bella. Finally, the woman waved her hand at Bella, as if she wanted her to leave, and returned to her work. When Bella did not move, the woman came out from behind the high desk, and took Bella by the arm and thrust her out the door.

Bella sat on the curb and cried. She was afraid to go home, where the servant girl would mock her, or worse. She was afraid to go to Poppa's shop, because she was not allowed to go there unless Momma took her. She stayed on the curb, lifting one foot, then the other, for her feet hurt in me stiff new boots. She watched the trolleys, the great drays that sometimes passed, the iceman's wagon. She was hungry. She stayed until the school doors burst open and the children sprang out like peas ejected from a BB gun, and ran in all directions shouting, teasing, laughing. She stood up and turned around and looked at them. Why were they better than she was? Why were they allowed in the school and she not? She felt near tears again, but did not want to cry in front of them. She waited until most of the children were gone, and then set off toward home.

Her body was stiff with terror. What would Momma and Poppa say about her when they found out the school didn't want her? A school that took all the other children, even those from their block, for she'd seen Jan Szcepanski and Myron Goldstein running past her on their way home. But if they didn't find out, what would she do then? Would she have to come here every day and sit on the curb? Suppose it rained? Or snowed?

She remained tense and stiff as she entered the house, but only the servant girl was there, and she said nothing. And when Momma came home early to nurse the baby, she was busy, and then she had to get dinner. Bella stayed out of the way, on the floor behind the bed, staring at the grain of the wood floor. And then, when Poppa came, Bella shuddered, but he said nothing either, not even when they all sat down to dinner. Maybe they would never find out.

But then, after dinner, it was Eddie who brought it up—oh, Eddie! her face pleaded with him, but he did not stop. He asked her who her teacher was and if she was in that ugly corner room that got so hot and had paint peeling from the ceiling in big flakes that drifted down and settled on your head making everybody laugh and point to you.

Bella couldn't speak, but Eddie kept it up. Finally, he pointed to her laughing, “Cat got your tongue? I bet you didn't even
go
to school, scaredy-cat! I bet you were too scared!”

“I did! I did!” she protested, her face hot in splotches.

“Then what's your teacher's name?”

Bella burst into tears.

By this time, Momma and Poppa were paying attention, and they listened when Bella, sobbing and sniffling, told how she'd been expelled from school before she even entered. Poppa was angry, but not with her. She would go again tomorrow, they decided, but Momma would go with her.

The next day, she put on her new dress, which was wrinkled and dirty from sitting on the curb, and the stiff new boots and the new eyeglasses, and went with Momma back to the office of the terrible woman. And Momma talked to the woman in the same kind of words the woman used, and the woman made a face at Bella and looked at Momma as if she were dirty—although Momma had worn her hat, her black hat with the veil, that Bella loved. The woman pushed a piece of paper at Momma and Momma wrote things on it. Then the woman took Bella into the hall and down a long corridor with doors in it, and opened one of the doors and said something incomprehensible to Bella and took her in and whispered to a lady who was standing in front of lots of other children Bella's size who were sitting at little desks.

Bella's heart leaped. Would
she
be allowed to sit at a little desk like that and write on paper with a pen, the way they were doing? Bella had never held a pen. The terrible woman went out and the lady—she must be the teacher, Bella wanted to know her name, suppose Eddie asked her?—said something to Bella. But Bella just stood there. So the lady came to Bella and took her hand and led her to a little desk. Bella slid into the seat and smiled a dazzled, grateful, happy smile at the lady. And the lady spoke to her, kindly, to her, Bella, right in front of all the children! Bella stopped smiling, and lines of anxiety formed on her forehead. Would it be like this all the time? The teacher had stopped speaking; she sighed and her shoulders drooped, and she went to the big desk in front of the room and came back to Bella and put a piece of paper and a pen on Bella's desk. Bella understood that she was supposed to have her own pen and paper, and was humiliated. She knew the other children thought she was so poor she could not afford pen and paper. The teacher poked open the lid of the inkwell and showed Bella how to dip a pen in it, and how to hold the pen to write. But when Bella tried it, she made a big blot. The teacher sighed again, marched to the desk, and slammed a blotter down. Then she returned to the front of the class and said something. Bella heard her own name—Isabella Brez. That was all she understood.

Her heart was squeezed tight. She could hear the word “stupid, stupid” running through her brain, and knew that was what they all thought—the teacher and the terrible woman and all the children. And she
was
stupid. That was why she could not understand their words. They all understood each other, even Alicia from the next block, who was sitting in the first row giggling behind her hand and glancing at Bella. But she would not cry. She would try to conceal her stupidity, so that people would not laugh at her. She practiced with her pen.