MORTY
It wasn’t true that Morty was okay with the new information. As the story sank in, he felt sick to his stomach, but he didn’t want his parents to know, especially his mother. His mother . . . not his mother. He did not know who to talk to about this. Rudy? He would laugh at him . . . make some stupid remark about how this explained how screwed up Morty was. Who else could he go to? The only person he could think of was Cousin Surah. And hadn’t the whole story begun in her apartment?
Morty went, nervously, because he had never gone to Cousin Surah for help with anything. He knew his parents often consulted her, and even Sylvia would go to her to talk over her problems. Cousin Surah seemed more approachable than his mother . . . than Golda. So he went to her apartment the day after his parents told him the truth of his parentage.
When Cousin Surah opened the door, she did not seem surprised to see him, but she asked him, “Morton? To what do I owe this visit?”
Morty had not known exactly what he was going to say when he came up the stairs to her apartment, so he blurted out, “I want to know about my mother. And how my father married my . . . my aunt.”
Cousin Surah opened the door wider and said, “Come in. Come in. I wondered if you would come to me to ask.” She went into the kitchen, where everything of any importance was always discussed. “Sit down. I’ll make you tea and you can ask whatever you want. What I know I will tell you. And what I don’t know, you will have to ask your parents.”
Morty sat down in the kitchen. The tea was served. Cousin Surah sat opposite him and said, “So ask.”
Morty hesitated. What did he want to know? He knew the bones of the story. This happened, then that happened, then this . . . but he did not know about the feelings. The love. The pain. The loss. So the question that came out of his mouth was “Did they love each other? My mother—I mean Golda—and my father.”
Cousin Surah put her large hands on Morty’s. “Morton, Golda is your mother. She was with you on the ship when you were born, and she brought you here when you were two days old. And she has been your mother ever since then.”
Morty nodded. “But did she love him? My father? Did he love her? And me? Did she love me?”
Cousin Surah was silent for a few minutes. “There are many kinds of love, Morton,” she said at last. “I hardly knew my husband when we were married. It was a shiduch. A match made by a matchmaker. We didn’t know from love. We got married, and we grew to love each other. He is very dear to me and me to him.
“I think that is the same with your parents. Your father was a romantic fool with Golda’s sister, Esther. That’s what he told me. But he had such gratitude to your mother for caring for you, for marrying him, for putting her dreams aside. And they grew to love each other. You can tell. They are kind to each other. They help each other. Is that not true?”
Morty thought about it and nodded. He guessed it was true. “Do you think she loved me?”
“You? Everyone loved you. You were so bright and beautiful. And when you and Ben were sick with the flu, she devoted herself to you both. In fact, it’s very sad, but she blames herself that she was taking so much care of you and your father that she didn’t catch Isaac’s sickness fast enough. But he was a sickly baby. And I think that was why he died. It was a huge blow to her. She was so sad, so depressed, she couldn’t take care of you or Ben. I brought you here. Do you remember?”
A vague image came to Morty. He was four or five, and he was living at Cousin Surah’s with his mother. But she was hardly able to do anything. She stayed in bed a lot. “I think I remember,” he said, nodding his head.
“She is so proud of you, Morty. Of how smart you are. How you will be an engineer, she says. She puts her money aside from her beautiful embroidery to pay for your school. She loves you. Ask her. She’ll tell you herself.”
Morty fiddled with his teacup. He thought to himself that he didn’t much like tea, but it was a comfort to sit and drink it at Cousin Surah’s table. He liked to put honey in it. Talking to Cousin Surah was comforting. So he sat and sipped his tea. After he finished, he said, “So you think I should ask her? Talk to her?”
“Yes. And your father too. You should ask them both what they can tell you.”
Morty felt peaceful. The jumpiness and the nervousness were gone for now. Maybe they would come back when he went to talk to his mother and father. But for now, he felt gratitude. He stood up to thank Cousin Surah. He bent and kissed her cheek. “You have helped me a lot,” he said.
She stood up too and looked up at him. “You are a fine young man, Morty. We are all proud of you.” She walked with him to the door, and before he left, she hugged him again. “Be well,” she said. “Be well.”
It took a few days before Morty got up the courage to talk to his father. On day four after the big announcement, Morty walked into his father’s shop and sat down on the bench in the workroom. The shop was quiet, because in the first year after the Great Depression began, Ben, with great sadness, had let his assistant go. He was a one-man shop now and was working harder than ever. Morty’s appearance seemed to surprise him.
Even more surprising were Morty’s opening words. “Do you love my mother? Golda?”
Ben stood, mouth agape. “What do you mean, do I love her? Of course I do.”
“But what about my real mother, Esther? I thought you loved her.”
Ben was silent for a while. He sat on the bench and finally answered. “First of all, Golda is your real mother. She took care of you your whole life. She gave up many things for you and for me. And as for love, it is different at different times in your life.”
Morty thought to himself that Cousin Surah and his father had probably conferred, their answers were so similar. “Then what was it like with Esther?” He found it hard to call Esther his mother.
“I was young,” Ben said. “I was crazy with love. You know how it is when you are young . . . the physical feeling, the . . . the wanting to touch.” Ben couldn’t look at Morty when he said this, stammering.
Morty said, “Yeah, I know.” He remembered a girl he had met last year who had big breasts and a narrow waist and red hair that swung around her face, like Rita Hayworth. He had lain in bed and felt himself get hard just thinking about her. Just thinking about it shamed him—what he had done then, at night in his bed. He’d never even kissed her in real life. Just in his daydreams. “Tell me how you met,” he said to his father.
Morty could see his father struggling. “I want you to understand that we were like children. When we met, all we thought about was touching each other. She was beautiful, but like a child. She did not have many responsibilities at home. I remember how she begged Golda to speak to her parents. To make them approve of the marriage. The good thing was I didn’t ask a dowry—they had no money. And when we first asked and they said no, we ran away to the next town and found a rabbi who married us. I had to pay him. I don’t think I really knew what I was doing.
“After we were married, they let us stay together in the house. And later Esther asked if Golda could come with her to America. And I said yes. Golda was very excited. She had all these dreams. She didn’t want to marry the man her father picked for her. He was a widower with two children, and much older. So it suited everyone the way it was. And I went to America, and right away, Esther wrote that she was expecting. She begged me to send the money for them to come soon. For her and Golda, because she couldn’t make the voyage alone.” Ben stopped. “So that’s what I did. And you must ask your mother what happened on the ship. I wasn’t there.” Ben went back to his work, not looking at Morty.
“But when she came off the ship with a baby, and Esther wasn’t there, what did you do?”
“Do? What could I do? I was shocked. To be honest, I hardly remembered what Esther looked like, except that she was pretty. We were so young. We didn’t really know anything about each other. And Golda came off the ship, carrying you, and she took me in hand. We went together to Cousin Surah’s, and she helped, and Rabbi Levy helped, and we did the only thing we could to make sure we took care of you. Golda, she was strong and smart. And in truth, I was afraid she wouldn’t marry me, because that was not her dream. We should all thank God that she did.”
After a while Morty said, “So she married you out of duty.”
Ben bobbed his head in agreement. “Maybe at first. But then we came to care for each other. She is a very good woman.” Ben looked at Morty. He was silent for a long time. Then he said, “She kept you from an orphanage. Or she kept me from marrying someone I never even met. Either way, she would not let a stranger raise Esther’s child.”
Morty could see how that could be.
There didn’t seem to be anything more to say. Morty nodded, thanked his father, and left the store. He wandered down the street, and after about an hour, he resolved to finish his questions with Golda and try to put this new information about himself to rest.
Golda was not home when he arrived. He sat at the table, took out his homework books, and tried to concentrate on his trigonometry. Usually, he could lose himself in the equations, but this afternoon his mind went round and round with the pictures he had in his head from Cousin Surah’s stories and his father’s account. At last Golda came home.
At first she seemed startled to see him. She paused, and then, walking by him, she patted his shoulder. “I am glad to see you are studying.”
“Trying to study,” Morty said. “I keep going over the questions in my head. From the other night.”
Golda took a deep breath. She took off her jacket, hung it on the hook beside the door, and sat at the table. “You can ask.”
“I want to know why you wanted to come to America and what you hoped would happen when you got here. And what happened. What happened on the ship. And when you came to Cousin Surah’s. And with Papa.” Morty stopped talking.
“That’s a lot to know,” Golda said. After a while she said, “I had dreams about coming to America. I thought I could escape the little town and make a different life for me, not like my mother’s life.
“And my sister, Esther, she wanted a life like my mother had. A husband and babies. And she fell in love with your father. It was shocking really, but she knew what she wanted, and when my parents said no, she couldn’t marry Ben, they ran away and got married by a rabbi in the next town. I didn’t know about it until later.” Golda sighed. “She was spoiled, Esther. She was so pretty everyone let her do what she wanted. This time was no different. I helped her like always. She could always get from me what she wanted.
“So she and Ben married, and I made it all right with our parents. I told them how now they wouldn’t have to make a dowry for her. And I said I would go to America with her, and Ben would help me settle there, so they wouldn’t have a problem marrying me off. In truth I was eager to go to America. I had so many big dreams.” She was silent for a few moments. “So, they listened, and they said yes. And after a month Ben went on a ship to America, and then a month later, Esther realized she was expecting you, and then she insisted on taking the ship before you were born.”
Golda got up, went into the kitchen, put on an apron, and began to slice onions. Morty followed her and stood in the kitchen door, watching. He thought how Golda’s hands often smelled of onions because she used them in everything she cooked. He smiled. It was like a perfume of his childhood. He waited, but Golda didn’t say anything, so he urged her. “What happened on the boat?”
Golda stopped cutting the onions and put down the knife. “She started to labor early. It was bad. She was bleeding. There was a doctor and nurse on the ship, and they came and took her to the infirmary. They couldn’t save Esther. But they saved you.” Golda’s face was white. “The doctor and nurse said something was wrong inside her, and that was why she bled so much. She would probably have died even if she didn’t come on the ship so early.” Golda turned away but kept speaking. “The nurse was so kind. She was smart too.” Golda stopped talking and looked up, as though remembering something. “It’s funny. I thought then maybe I could be a nurse. That would have been a good life. But of course, it was a ridiculous idea.”
Morty remembered how she had nursed him and his father through the flu. “You could have been a nurse. You were a good nurse to us when we were sick,” he said.
Golda looked at him. “Not so good I could save Isaac,” she said. She picked up a spoon and stirred the onions in the pan. “It was a crazy dream anyway. When I came off the ship with you and met your father, I realized how crazy it was. You were this helpless baby in need of a mother. Ben didn’t know what to do. So I stayed and married him.” Her voice sounded thick.
Morty could see how hard it was for Golda to talk about this, and he didn’t want to push her now, but he still had questions. He said, “You must have hated me for making you get married when you didn’t want to. Did you ever love me?”
“Yes, of course I did,” Golda said. “I never hated you. How could you hate a tiny baby?”
He hesitated but then said, “I remember you seemed angry at me a lot when I was little.”
Golda bent and lifted her apron to wipe the corners of her eyes. Her voice cracked, but she seemed to want to speak. “I was—mixed up,” she admitted. “I would hold you, and you were so helpless and beautiful, I would feel the stirrings of love, but then this awful selfish thing would poke its head up. I was mad because I thought my choice had been taken away. I was so foolish, Morty. Because when you were sick with the flu, I was desperate to save you. And I prayed and prayed, and if there is a God, he answered me. You lived.” Golda breathed in. “It is hard to talk of this. I realized then how much I loved you . . . you are my fine boy.”
Morty’s eyes filled with tears, but he wouldn’t let himself cry. He nodded and said, “I know. I’m not mad at you. I think I understand. I know you saved me from the orphanage.”
Golda’s eyes opened wide. “Who told you that?”
“Papa. He said how much you gave up for us. And how grateful he is.” As an afterthought he said, “And how he loves you.” Maybe he didn’t exactly say that, but that’s what he meant, Morty thought.
Golda nodded. “Yes. I remember that Cousin Surah told me it was one of the choices I had. If I didn’t marry Ben, you might have to go to an orphanage. I couldn’t bear that. And Ben’s been a good husband to me.”
“Do you love him?” Morty didn’t know why, but this seemed an important question to him.
“I do. I love him.”
“And I know you love Sylvia. I can see it in your face when you talk to her.”
“Yes, I love Sylvia.” She took the edge of her apron and wiped her eyes again. “And I love you too.” She gave a little laugh. “I’m not used to talking like this . . . about love. Now I have to go back to cooking. And you need to do your homework.”
Morty smiled. This was the old Golda. “Okay, I’ll do my work. Make you proud.”
Golda smiled back. “You always make me proud, Morton.”
They stared at one another for a minute, and Morty went to her, grabbed her, and hugged her. He thought with wonder that Golda fit under his chin. Had she shrunk, or had he grown taller? He expected her to push him away, but she didn’t. She stood and let him hold her. “I love you too, Mama,” he said finally. Then, with a laugh, he added, “Now you cook dinner.” But when he turned to his books, he said, “Mama, can you tell me more about Esther? Not today maybe, but another time, when you aren’t so busy. Tell me what she was like. Maybe some stories about her.”
Golda stood quietly. She seemed to be thinking. She nodded. “I will tell you about her, about Esther. I have many stories to tell you. We will sit and talk about her . . . my sister. Esther.” She turned back to the kitchen and Morty went to his books. But he kept looking up at Golda, wanting to ask questions, and he wondered if they ever would have that conversation.
Later, Morty went into Sylvia’s bedroom. He sat on the bed and asked her, “Did Mama and Papa tell you about my real mother?”
Sylvia nodded. “I’m the reason they even told you. Because I asked how come they married one month after you were born. Because if they weren’t married, how did she have you? Frieda said how, but I don’t know if I believe her.”
“What did she tell you?”
Sylvia blushed. “It sounds awful.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Sylvia took a deep breath. “The man puts his thing in her hole . . .” She stopped talking. Morty was laughing. “What’s so funny? That’s what she told me. Stop laughing.” Sylvia pushed him, and he fell on the bed. “Is it true?”
“Yes. It’s true. But I think it isn’t so horrible as it sounds.”
“It sure sounds horrible. I’m never going to get married and have a baby then.”
“We’ll see about that. You might change your mind.” He turned to leave the bedroom.
“Morty, wait a minute,” Sylvia said. Morty stopped. “Does this mean we’re not full brother and sister? We’re only half?”
“Are you kidding? Half what?” Morty said. “We’re not half anything. We’re double. We’re brother and sister, and we’re cousins. We’re double.”
Sylvia smiled. She nodded. “Double. That’s even better than full.”