In the Catskills: A Century of Jewish Experience in "The Mountains" (49 page)

The other tennis-player was a short girl with a long face. I reflected that if she were a little taller or her face were not so long she might not be uninteresting, and that by contrast with her companion she looked homelier than she actually was.

Miss Lazar watched me closely.

“Playing tennis is one way of fishing for fellows,” she remarked.

“So the racket is really a fishing-tackle in disguise, is it?” I returned. “But where are the fellows?”

“Aren’t you one?”

“No.”

“Oh, these two girls go in for highbrow fellows,” said a young woman who had hitherto contented herself with smiling and laughing. “They’re highbrow themselves.”

“Do they use big words?” I asked.

“Well, they’re well read. I’ll say that for them,” observed Miss Lazar, with a fine display of fairness.

“College girls?”

“Only one of them.”

“Which?”

“Guess.”

“The tall one.”

“I thought she’d be the one you’d pick. You’ll have to guess again.”

“What made you think I’d pick her for a college girl?”

“You’ll have to guess that, too. Well, she is an educated girl, all the same.”

She volunteered the further information that the tall girl’s father was a writer, and, as though anxious lest I should take him too seriously, she hastened to add:

“He doesn’t write English, though. It’s Jewish, or Hebrew, or something.”

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“Tevkin,” she answered, under her breath.

The name sounded remotely familiar to me. Had I seen it in some Yiddish paper? Had I heard it somewhere? The intellectual East Side was practically a foreign country to me, and I was proud of the fact. I knew something of its orthodox Talmudists, but scarcely anything of its modern men of letters, poets, thinkers, humorists, whether they wrote in Yiddish, in Hebrew, in Russian, or in English. If I took an occasional look at the socialist Yiddish daily it was chiefly to see what was going on in the Cloak-makers’ Union. Otherwise I regarded everything that was written for the East Side with contempt, and “East Side writer” was synonymous with “greenhorn” and “tramp.” Worse than that, it was identified in my mind with socialism, anarchism, and trade-unionism. It was something sinister, absurd, and uncouth.

But Miss Tevkin was a beautiful girl, nevertheless. So I pitied her for being the daughter of an East Side writer.

The tennis game did not last long. Miss Tevkin and her companion soon went indoors. I went out for a stroll by myself. I was thinking of my journey to Tannersville the next morning. The enforced loss of time chafed me. Of the strong impression which the tall girl had produced on me not a trace seemed to have been left. She bothered me no more than any other pretty girl I might have recently come across. Young women with strikingly interesting faces and figures were not rare in New York.

I had not been walking five minutes when I impatiently returned to the hotel to consult the time-tables.

Forbidden Fruit

Harvey Jacobs

F
ree of the children two hours before Nite Patrol, Essie Poritz sat on the lawn in weak light and finished a letter to Burton Zomkin.

First she thanked him for the copy of
This Is My Beloved
that was mail-ordered to her home address. It was Essie’s first copy of the love poems. She knew girls who had two, five, one who had twelve copies of the epic of World War II. The verse, Hallmark with hormones, was written in honey from sick bees.

Essie and Burton had talked about how the book made them vomit. He sent it for a joke. Essie wrote how her mother opened the package and read the poems. She got so upset by the sex she called the Willow Spring to ask Essie what was between the lines. Did they “do it”?

Next she wrote about the lady at the Italian farm, a frozen life behind glass watching seasons change from her own final season. Which was why it was important to make hay in sunshine. Please hurry home.

Essie wrote about news of the bomb and the imminent end of the war. While she wrote it came to her that by the same hour next year she would be Essie Zomkin. Burton would be climbing the gangplank of a troopship in a matter of days. What was left to do over there?

Ray Stein walked past. There was a good-looking woman. She didn’t peek through closed windows guarding well water. On the other hand, Hannah Craft wasn’t so different from the lady at the farm. And they were all young girls once, all brides, all went through life’s dance. Who knew how anybody would end up. In the woods with a shovel like Mendel Berman.

Mrs. Essie Zomkin saw herself return to the Willow Spring with her own kids. She turned off the fantasy. No. Let her kids sweat. She would never go away for the summer while her husband worked in the city, waiting for weekends.

In her letter Essie Poritz wrote how she would fill Burton in on the culture he missed. Books, movies, songs. In his last letter he said he felt alienated. Out of touch. No wonder.

Essie wondered if Burton Zomkin ever killed anybody. He saw some action but never gave details. It must be an impossible subject to write in a letter. Dear Essie, today I blew the brains out of a German. Would he ever tell her? He would some night. Returning veterans had to share their experiences. But it was wrong to rush them.

How fast the summer had flown. Here it was, August. Here she sat, under young constellations, with soft wind combing the lawn.

Soon the same girl would stand under the
huppa
with civilian Burton Zomkin. Next August would blow its breezes at a very different girl. A woman, a finished person with a determined pattern of days and nights, months, years.

Essie shivered. It wasn’t true. Nothing is that predictable. Marriage must be full of surprises for those open to receive them.

In that moment Essie forgot Burton Zomkin’s look. She opened her bag and found his picture.

Hello, smiley. Hello, darling.

“More letters?” Marvin Katz said from behind her.

Essie jumped.

“More letters,” she said. “Don’t think I’m not sick of writing. How would you like to walk to Monticello with me to mail this fellow?”

“Walk? More walking?”

“I still have more than an hour. We can make it. Come on, lazy.”

Marvin glowed in the dark.

“Sure, why not,” he said. “I only walked ten thousand miles today.”

“Come, Gunga Din. We’ll take a brisk walk and have a talk about life. Marvin, who should get the Outstanding Camper Button this week? Help me decide.”

As they went along the Old Liberty a slash of russet split a violet sky. Color flowed from behind the Elsmere Arms as if a volcano there spit marvels. The color changed Essie and Marvin to golden souls from outer space.

“All this magnificence makes one wonder,” Essie said.

“You have that feeling?”

“Oh yes. Am I a stone?”

“Essie, do you believe in God? I don’t.”

“Sometimes yes, sometimes no. What other artist could mix such a palette?”

“The color comes from grains of wheat and oats in the air,” Marvin said. “The light bounces off them.”

“Wheat and oats? Cereal? Is that what we’re really seeing? Is that what a sensitive boy like you believes in his inner heart?”

Essie, feeling happy, tickled Marvin Katz on his T-shirt. He returned the favor. They went along laughing.

“Don’t crinkle my letter to Burton,” Essie said.

“Burton Shmerton,” Marvin said.

“Oh, the green-eyed monster of jealousy.”

It had never occurred to Marvin Katz that he had the right to be jealous of a soldier, a man, a fiancé. He was uplifted by the comment.

They talked easily on the way to Monticello.

Marvin told Essie he didn’t know who he was or what he wanted to be. Essie told Marvin she used to feel that but when she decided to become Mrs. Burton Zomkin the uncertainty melted away.

They held hands while these secrets were exchanged. Marvin confessed nameless fears. Essie said that was common. Then Essie told Marvin the story of how she wouldn’t sleep with Burton Zomkin before he went overseas.

Why did she tell him that?

“Whoops. I said too much. I hope you are mature enough to keep a confidence. I have faith in you.”

“You could tell me anything,” Marvin said.

“And you can tell me anything,” Essie said. “We’re friends, Marvin. Isn’t that exciting?”

“Yes,” Marvin said, under red and orange lights.

They stopped at the post office.

“The mailbox looks like a pregnant lady,” Marvin said.

“You know, it just really does.”

Essie got her envelope.

“The letter is open,” Marvin said.

“I know. I know.”

She took Charlie Mandel’s snapshot out of her bag, dropped it in with the folded pages and sealed the flap.

“So? Mail it.”

She mailed it.

Heading back for the Willow Spring, they refused a lift from a passing truck. Throwing away a ride made the two of them feel closer. They didn’t want to hurry the walk.

“Back to patrol,” Essie said. “You know who gives me the biggest trouble?”

“Lolly Edel?”

“Guess again,” Essie said.

“I give up.”

“Gerald Tish.”

“He’s a very
shleppy
child. Now at least he’s got the dog.”

“Those aunts of his. Marvin, you know what I actually saw? I saw his Aunt Tanya walking with the puppy down by the handball court.”

“So what?”

“So what? No leash. You know who lives across the road, don’t you?”

“I don’t get it.”

“The vicious police dog. Lindy. You should have seen Lindy watching that itty-bitty puppy. He was licking his teeth.”

“Now I get it.”

“I’m not saying anything definite, but it looked to me like Aunt Tanya had something in mind. What a terrible thing for me to say. I take it back. I’m drunk on the sunset.”

“Sometimes hunches like that are right,” Marvin said.

“You know who’s big on hunches? My Burton. He has extrasensory perception.”

“I didn’t know he was a hunchback,” Marvin said.

“That was beneath you, Marvin, that was a Charlie Mandel remark,” Essie said.

Then she laughed her head off.

“Do they have hunchfronts?” Marvin Katz said, sticking his belly out.

Essie Poritz roared.

“I am drunk,” she said.

They enjoyed each other’s company so much Marvin Katz went on Nite Patrol with Essie Poritz. They walked through the Main House listening for tears and sniffles.

“I’ll give you a nickel if you guess who pees in bed.”

“Sidney Buloff.”

“Wrong. Eric Frobheim.”

“The politician? The one who wants to be a major?”

“That one. Marvin, don’t make me laugh anymore.”

They stopped at Jerry Tomato’s door.

“You want to see how he sleeps with the dog in his bed? It’s cute. Come in but be quiet.”

Marvin followed Essie into the room. A night-light and the moon made a yellow broth, enough to show Jerry curled around his puppy.

“They look married,” Marvin said.

Essie held her hand over her mouth.

They stood watching Gerald Tish sleep. He looked better out of action. A warm feeling came over both of them. They felt grateful for each other.

“Marvin, listen to something crazy. If I closed my eyes and pretended you were Burton and gave you one kiss would you laugh at me?”

“No.”

Essie Poritz closed her eyes and kissed Marvin Katz on the lips. Her tongue played with his front teeth. His tongue came out and touched, then pushed. They kissed again.

“Come home safely to me,” Essie said.

“He will. Don’t worry,” Marvin said.

“You’re not supposed to talk, remember?” Essie said.

“I’m sorry. I forgot for a minute.”

“Marvin, are we being silly?”

“No. We’re not being silly.”

Essie kissed him again. Marvin’s hand was lifted to her breast. He squeezed a little.

“Burton, be careful. That’s so tender. So wonderful.”

Burton slipped the hand inside her blouse between buttons. Jerry Tomato snorted. The hand waited. Jerry and the puppy were contained in the circle of sleep.

“The war is done,” Essie said.

“Not yet,” Marvin said.

“Soon, though.”

Her hand stroked his backside.

“Do we dare to lay down,” Essie said. “This is naughty. I’m so drunk. It’s the water you brought me.”

“Enchanted water,” Marvin said.