Darling white and pink mottled babies cry and cry and suck the life out of you.
Jesse, the youngest, was practicing Czerny scales on the piano in the dining room.
Howard, her middle child, was playing softball with children down the block. Of her three children, he was the most responsible. Rosa and Jesse tended to be absent-minded, but Howard was thoughtful in small ways. He was the one she relied on to do things like put out empty milk bottles on the back porch. He remembered Mother’s Day and her birthday with flowers. Between them was a deep affection that needed no words.
Rosa was doing homework in her room. At thirteen, she was a lonely girl who had grown too excitable. There was something off-center, shrill, too intense about her. Her giggle and her carelessness, as well as other qualities all aggravated Eleanor. At times she hated her daughter, for Rosa was blooming, while she wasn’t. Her soul’s blood had gone into feeding Rosa, who seemed to be thriving through the sacrifice of Eleanor’s own life, just as parasitic plants nourish themselves through sap from the host.
Where had her own life gone?
Rosa possessed an awkward candor, a warmth, a flashing smile that Heinrich said could set the entire room aglow. If someone remarked that her daughter was attractive, a voice inside Eleanor would whisper plaintively, “But I’m attractive too. I have more than Rosa does to give a man.”
Two years ago, Rosa’s public school teacher had told them the class was far too slow for their daughter. Furthermore, Eleanor was distressed because Rosa was picking up what seemed to her a dreadful Long Island accent and an equally dreadful way of shuffling her feet when she walked. “She must go to a good school,” said Ruth, who meant well. “We will pay the tuition.” They enrolled Rosa at a private academy on the North Shore. She declared she hated it there because she had few friends. But Aaron said that he and Eleanor must be firm because Rosa was melodramatic and exaggerated things.
“I want to see a psychiatrist,” said Rosa, after reading a book on psychoanalysis.
“Ridiculous!” said Aaron.
Eleanor went into Rosa’s room to say goodnight, as was her custom. An almost full moon lit the bedroom. Rosa was already half asleep, but the sound of her mother’s footsteps aroused her. She needed to talk to her.
“Good night, my dear.” Eleanor leaned over and gave her daughter a kiss.
“Mom, when you were my age did you have a boyfriend?” Rosa asked. Her eyes shone large and probing in the moonlight that came through the white dimity curtains.
Eleanor sat down on the edge of the bed. “I was at an awkward age.”
I am, too.
“You’re not nearly as awkward as I was, my dear. In fact, you’re quite beautiful.”
“I don’t feel beautiful.”
“But you are.”
“I wish I had a boyfriend.”
“In time, I’m sure you will.”
“Were you popular in high school?
“I had a few good friends. But it was difficult for me at first.”
“Tell me about it.”
Rosa’s silence drew out Eleanor’s memories, as she gazed at the silvery moonlit branches of the elm tree outside the window. “I was the first Jew in my boarding school. Later I learned the principal had held a special assembly before I arrived to inform the other girls, and she told them to treat me kindly. Of course they didn’t.”
“Her last name is Gold,” they said. “That’s a Jewish name. Look at her big Jewish nose.”
“Your family wasn’t religious. They never went near a synagogue.”
“We are Jewish only by origin,” said Eleanor, perturbed.
“Still, they considered you Jewish.”
“It was a very closed society, my dear. Things are different now.”
During that first year at boarding school, Eleanor would weep silently in bed at night. Spartans didn’t show their tears. She couldn’t tell her parents what was happening. They had sent her as an ambassador. Her parents rarely discussed the fact that they were Jews. Eleanor understood it to be a difficult heritage they were honor-bound not to renounce.
During the summer break, Eleanor buried herself in novels and poetry underneath the shade of a tree at home. She dreaded the coming of fall.
Clickety clack went the train wheels, drilling into her brain. Trees and houses glided past, and at night in her narrow berth, the comforting sounds of the train with its occasional whistle mingled with her sorrow as she traveled east. She would rather die than go back, but here she was on the train. The Spartan boy had not cried out while the fox was devouring him beneath his tunic.
Somewhat to her surprise, she began to make friends. Her roommate, Margaret, who came from an old New England family, became her champion. Eleanor was clever and could write well. Her classmates chose her to edit the school paper. She acted in plays. Gradually she learned to hide her feelings beneath a mask of composure, and she developed a talent for mockery.
“Oh, Mom, I’m so miserable. I don’t fit in,” said Rosa. Tears glistened on her face. At that moment, Eleanor felt an enormous sympathy for her.
“Can I change schools?”
“I expect you’ll make friends, too, just as I did,” Eleanor said softly.
“It was different for you. None of the other girls live near me. They all live near school, or else they’re boarders.”
“Well, we will see. Good night, my dear.” She kissed Rosa gently on the cheek and left.
Where was Rosa’s pride? She herself had passed through a rite of initiation, and Rosa should have the strength to do the same.
“Mom, it’s different for me.”
In later years Eleanor would torment herself because she did not heed Rosa’s cries for help. It was as though Eleanor had been behind frosted glass while she watched a strange girl’s mute screams.