Анита Диамант - The Boston Girl

I didn’t really know Betty. What I remembered most about her was the fights she and Mameh had about her not coming home right after work or about going out at night with friends. The funny thing is, except for the fact that she was younger and curvier, Betty was an exact copy of our mother: same brown eyes, same wavy brown hair, and the same broad nose. They talked the same, too, as if they knew the answer to everything, shaking their heads up and down a lot, which made you nod back, as if you agreed with them—even if you didn’t.

Betty was a big talker. She told us all about her job at Filene’s and how she had moved up from wrapping packages to salesgirl quicker than anyone could remember.

“You see this skirt?” Betty said. “I got it practically free. A lady brought it back to the store and said it was ripped when she bought it. I think she tore it herself but the store has to pretend like the customer is always right, especially the ones who spend a lot of money. So that means us girls get some nice bargains.”

She asked Celia a lot of questions about “this Levine” and came right out and asked if she really wanted to take care of his two children and his house. Mameh got mad. “Of course it’s what she wants. It’s what every woman wants.”

Celia said that we shouldn’t worry and that he was a fine man.

Betty started coming over a lot and she usually brought presents: tobacco for Papa, a scarf for Celia, stockings for me, chocolate drops for Mameh. But no matter what she brought or how Celia tried to make nice, it always ended with a fight. Mameh would complain about America; how the apples had no taste and children didn’t listen to their parents—even the air was worse here. “People get sick from everyone breathing the same air. In our village we had room at least. The air was clean.”

Sooner or later, Betty would smack the table and say, “Enough, already! I remember what it was like over there and the air smelled like cow shit. And the floor in the house was made of dirt. Can you imagine such a thing, Addie? Filthy and disgusting! In America, at least it’s the twentieth century.”

When they started fighting, Celia shriveled up like a plant without enough water. Sometimes I wondered if she was marrying Levine just to get away from the noise and the tension.

Celia said she wanted to make her own wedding dress, so Levine bought her a beautiful piece of white satin. But a few days before the wedding, when it still wasn’t done, Betty said she would help with the finishing and made Celia try it on.

The dress was a plain shift that fell from her shoulders to her ankles, with long sleeves and a flat collar. Betty threw a fit. “You can’t wear that. It looks like a nightgown.”

Celia said it would be better when she attached the sash. “Then maybe you’ll look like a shiny nurse,” Betty said. “I’m going to buy the fanciest veil I can find and some lace for the collar and around the hem. You are going to be a pretty bride or I’m not coming to this wedding.” Celia giggled, and for a moment I saw them as children: the bossy big sister and the little sister who would follow her anywhere.

—

Celia’s wedding day was sunny and beautiful, so Mameh had to spit three times to ward off the evil eye. “Rain is what brings luck,” she said. Betty rolled her eyes and fussed with the veil, which had little pearls sewn all over and covered most of the dress and made Celia look like a princess.

Before we left the house, Betty took me aside and asked if Mameh had explained to Celia what happens on the wedding night.

I said, “Probably not.”

Betty groaned. “That isn’t good. I’m telling you, Addie, our Celia is not a strong person. We have to keep an eye on her, you and me.”

But now that Celia was leaving, I realized how much she had watched over me and had put herself between my mother and me. It was going to be awful without her.

—

Celia took Papa’s arm as we walked around the corner to the little storefront synagogue, where Levine and his sons were waiting by the door. The boys looked miserable in new shoes and starched shirts and the groom was blinking as if he had something in his eye.

“Where’s your family?” Mameh said.

Levine only had a few second cousins in America, but their children had gotten mumps, so the whole wedding party was just the eight of us, including his boys.

The shul was in a store where they used to sell fish, and since we were there in August and it was hot, the smell came back. I had only been there for High Holiday services, when it was crowded—especially in the back, where the women sat. But that day you could hear an echo, and it was so dark it took a minute for my eyes to see the old men standing next to the table with the food.

Papa said hello to each of them and asked about their wives and children. He prayed with these men before work every morning, so it was like his club. Mameh didn’t want them at the wedding—she called them schnorrers—moochers. But I was glad they were there. I thought they made things a little more cheerful.

The rabbi came running in and apologized for being late. He had a long white beard with yellow tobacco stains around his mouth, but he had young eyes and clapped Papa and Levine on the back and said “Mazel tov” like he meant it. He picked four men to hold the chuppah poles and called for Levine and Celia to stand with him under my father’s prayer shawl, which was the canopy.

The rabbi sang the blessings, Levine put a ring on Celia’s finger, and they sipped from a cup of wine. After Levine stepped on a glass, the old men clapped and sang “Mazel tov.”

The whole thing was over in a few minutes.

The rabbi shook hands with everyone, even Celia and the little boys, and left as fast as he came. “He has a funeral,” Papa explained.

We ate bread, herring, and honey cake and the old men toasted the wedding couple three times with big glasses of Levine’s whiskey. Celia stood beside her new husband and ate a few bites of cake, but when Jacob started whining and rubbing his eyes she said maybe it was time to go.

We walked with them to the end of the block and watched as they turned the corner.

Betty was crying.

Mameh said, “What’s the matter with her?”

Papa patted Betty on the cheek. “My grandmother used to say it isn’t a wedding if nobody cries.”

—

The apartment was one hundred percent sadder after Celia left. No one smiled at me when I walked in the door, and even though I had the bed to myself, I didn’t sleep any better.

My parents fought constantly. Mameh went back to blaming Papa for the baby who died on the boat. “If you had waited with me until he was born, maybe he would still be alive.”

Then my father would say, “If we stayed and I was killed, then you and all your children would have died with the rest of your family from typhoid or from Cossacks. And if you’d let me take the other boy to the hospital here, he would still be alive.”

That was the first I’d heard about the baby who was born in America before me. He was small and weak from the beginning, but my mother wouldn’t let him out of the house. “No one comes back alive from the hospital.”

He called her stupid.

She called him a failure.

Night after night, they blamed each other and cursed and wore each other out. Papa started going to shul right after supper. Mameh muttered over her sewing until she had a headache. I stayed on my cot as much as I could, and when the days got shorter and it was too dark to read back there, I fell asleep early and got up before the sun. I didn’t mind. That way, I got out of the house before the bickering started again.

This daughter of yours is a firecracker.