Hotel Cuba, page 30
Pearl has heard Detroit is the city for cars, but she didn’t realize it was also such a city for building things. Downtown is all office towers and hotels, like the Book-Cadillac Hotel, which Uncle Irving boasts will be the tallest hotel in the world. Here too, in this Jewish neighborhood north of downtown, they’re building plenty: new stores on the main streets, and on the side streets bungalows of wood or brick for young families.
“They call this city the Paris of the West,” Irving said at dinner last night, in a grand voice like a carnival barker. “After the war, times were tough, but now everyone in the world wants a car, and this is the only place that knows how to make good ones. Whoever wants work in this town, he can find it. A worker in a car factory has his pick of any girl he wants to marry. And if you don’t know how to make a car, you can serve the people who make the cars. They need doctors, tailors, grocers, and junkmen.”
“What about dressmakers?” Pearl asked, to tease him.
“Sure, dressmakers too.” He leaned in closer, offered a conspiratorial smile. “Or if you don’t care to work on the level, you do what they call night work, smuggling liquor from Canada in fishing boats across the Detroit River, to deliver to the speakeasies. Those delivery men always have thick wads of cash in their pockets.”
“How do you know so much about it?” Aunt Rochel asked. “Stop kidding these girls. Deborah, ignore your father. Big talker. He knows nothing.”
“Oh, I know everything,” said Uncle Irving. “I have friends. Smart friends. Lucky friends. Friends who are getting rich.”
Pearl’s still thinking about Uncle Irving’s assurances about dressmakers. He must be right. If there’s money in this town, then there are women with money who need dresses. It’s probably like in Havana: you find one of these women, and they introduce you to their friends if you’re good, which Pearl knows she is.
This is idle speculation. She’s returning to New York after the wedding.
Uncle Irving and Aunt Rochel’s home is just off the avenue, close to the streetcar. Though Pearl has the key, she hasn’t yet needed it; the front door is always left open. Inside, the house feels warm with the steam sizzling off the radiators. She smells chicken soup simmering in the kitchen, and sweet homemade wine, which has fermented in the basement for weeks. Uncle Irving claims he knows the secret of making good wine, which he will not divulge. Yesterday, Pearl tasted a sample, too vinegary.
Pearl knocks twice, then opens the door to the room she and her sister share. Frieda, wearing the light-blue dress Pearl made, has tucked a flower behind her ear and is inspecting its effect in a mirror. “Pearl, you’re late. Did you find my mango?”
“No, it was impossible,” says Pearl.
Frieda spins around. “Oh, Pearl, I was counting on you.”
Pearl silently counts to three in English, which takes longer than it would in Yiddish, giving her time to marshal her powers of patience. “They don’t have mangoes here,” Pearl says slowly, firmly. She straightens the flower behind her sister’s ear.
“Maybe you’re right.” Frieda sighs theatrically and returns to the mirror, futzing with the flower some more. “I wish I could taste one again. Don’t you? Remember what good times we had in Cuba? Havana must be the prettiest city in the world.”
What do you know about Cuba, Pearl thinks, you were there for a baby’s breath. This constant chatter about Cuba is meaningless, just one of Frieda’s many odd behaviors and sayings in the days and now hours before her wedding. “Yes,” Pearl says. “I remember the good times. Now let’s finish getting ready.”
Once Frieda’s hair is done and her dress is zipped, Pearl puts on her own outfit, a distinguished gray jacket with a matching skirt, and a blazing pink chiffon blouse. She combs out her hair with the aid of her Marcel iron, lightly dusts her face with powder, and dabs her lips with brick red lipstick, just enough to give her mouth personality.
Deborah comes in wearing an ivory dress that’s too long and washes out her complexion. “Oh, Pearl, what a lovely blouse. I’ve never seen such a color,” she says in her soft voice. “What’s it called?”
“Pink, I guess,” Pearl lies. “No special name.”
Bougainvillea. Like a bougainvillea vine dripping over a garden wall. But who here in Detroit would know what bougainvillea is? Maybe Frieda. Yes, she’d remember.
Before they leave, Pearl hands Frieda a soft packet wrapped in green tissue. Frieda unwraps the package and takes out a white crocheted head covering, in a snowflake pattern. From the Old Country. Basha brought it over. It belonged to their mother, whom Frieda does not remember.
Frieda handles the head covering gingerly, then brings it to her nose and lips. She and Pearl exchange kisses. “Use it well,” says Pearl as Deborah watches them. Poor thing, Pearl thinks, growing up without sisters.
It’s time to drive to synagogue. As they carefully insert their arms into the sleeves of their winter coats so as not to muss the dresses underneath, Frieda asks Pearl, “Shouldn’t we write the Steinbergs?”
The Steinbergs? Why involve them? “What for?” Pearl asks.
“Surely they’d want to hear I’m getting married.”
“They’ve probably forgotten us.”
Frieda shakes her head. “You don’t know them as I do. I’ll write them tonight. Or tomorrow, after the wedding. You remind me.”
“Fine,” says Pearl. But she’ll forget to remind her, and it will never happen.
* * *
AUNT ROCHEL AND the three girls ride to shul. Even in New York, it would be a striking structure, with its three arched entrances, a row of painted striped columns on the second floor, and a stained-glass window with a Jewish star above. Extraordinary, Pearl thinks, spending so much on that window without fear some Jew-hater would throw rocks through it. Going into the shul, she feels proud, as if she’d built the place herself.
The rabbi’s wife invites them into a room off the sanctuary, where she brushes Frieda’s hair, adds more powder to her cheeks and paint to her lips. Pearl dislikes the artificiality of the look. New York women are more judicious in their use of cosmetics.
Then it’s time. Pearl clasps Frieda’s hands. “You sure?” she asks, one final chance to stop this madness. Frieda nods quickly. They proceed.
She thinks of all the dreams she had for Frieda—working as a private secretary to a distinguished gentleman. How ridiculous this idea now seems.
The German-style beardless rabbi addresses the crowd in English. “Welcome, Jews and Jewesses.” He conducts the traditional service just fine, so perhaps Mendel was right to get a bargain there.
The scene is all their family could have wished for Frieda, aside from their absence and this particular groom’s presence. Beneath the chuppah, Ben stands next to Mendel while Pearl stands beside her sister, pretty and happy in her blue dress. Frieda walks around Mendel seven times, and Pearl is moved by the familiarity of the old ritual, how it ushers a sense of holiness in the room. She notices Ben staring at her. Because of her blouse? He probably thinks the color’s too showy.
Mendel breaks a glass under his shoe, and it’s over. As Uncle Irving takes pictures after the ceremony with his Brownie box camera, Pearl looks on, thinks of her own future life as a spinster, the butt of jokes for children and rude people with loose tongues who’ll look at her sideways and whisper, “Why did she never marry?”
Perhaps Alexander has married a brown Cuban woman. If Pearl had married him, they could have had children, deeply tanned, fluent in Spanish, English, and Yiddish.
Like having a child is an accomplishment. Any starving, flea-bitten cat can have a litter of kittens.
Even if she had stayed in Cuba, she doubts she’d have married Alexander. She never loved him. Of that she’s surer than ever. What if she isn’t capable of that kind of feeling for anyone? Maybe it’s no accident she’s alone.
The family returns to the house, which is suffocatingly crowded, stuffed and hot like a boiled meat bun. The guests bump elbows and knees. There’s plenty of food, and the sour homemade wine flows plentifully. Gifts of things pile up beside the fireplace: linens, pans, silver kiddush cups, and a garish brass menorah. Gifts of money are delivered to Mendel, who shoves them into his pockets.
Pearl looks on as Frieda greets the guests with her sparkling smile and enchanting voice. They say how lovely she looks in her robin’s-egg blue dress that Pearl made. Blue, not white, of course! Blue is perfect! Frieda gracefully accepts their compliments, looks each guest in the eye and listens intently as if she’s been waiting expressly for their good wishes. Pearl also takes in their praise. Too bad Safaya’s not there to hear. You see, Pearl thinks, my designs aren’t so crazy. These people never saw such a wonderful dress.
She shakes hands with Irving and Rochel’s son, a skinny man-boy with dark, hollowed-out eye sockets and a gloomy stare. Funny to think she’s sleeping in his room. He congratulates Frieda in the formal language of a member of the Hebrew Burial Society, then looks Pearl up and down before going to stand next to his father. When he thinks no one’s looking, he scratches his armpits.
Across the room, Mendel stands with friends and collects handshakes, cigars, and more envelopes with money. They’re discussing how to get rich, some scheme involving scrap metal. He’ll be scheming and dreaming like this forever, she thinks. He’d better not blame my sister when he comes up short.
“Excuse me,” she tells Frieda and goes over to her new brother-in-law.
“Well, well, Pearl,” says Mendel. “Nice to see you in a skirt for a change. Help yourself to some wine. It’s a wedding. You’re supposed to celebrate.”
The other men laugh. Not that what he says is so funny, but these days it’s expected to laugh when alcohol is mentioned in conversation.
She moves in close to Mendel, and says in a plain voice, right into his ear, “I just want to tell you, I know who you are.”
“Of course,” he says, giggling. “And I know who you are. You’re Pearl.”
“No,” says Pearl. “I know who you are. And I’ll be watching. Even from New York. So take good care of my sister. Because if you don’t, I’ll know.”
Mendel takes a step back, his face ashen.
Pearl turns away. Now it’s up to Frieda to make her own story, she thinks. I’ve helped all I can, yet maybe it hasn’t been enough. How can I leave her now?
She wanders among the unfamiliar people, then sits on the arm of a sofa to watch the dancing, which seems boorish and boxy compared to the dancing in Cuba, or that sleazy New York dance hall. The music is old-fashioned, yet sweet. Aunt Rochel finds Ben the Oak, dressed in his small suit, and drags him to Deborah, who keeps stepping on the hem of her too-long dress. They dance, or rather glumly march in a circle, like a pair of greenhorns looking for a seat on a crowded trolley. Uncle Irving grabs Rochel, and she tries to slap him away, but Irving’s like a bear when he sees something he wants. Plus he’s drunk. Soon he’s twirling his wife like a dreidel. Frieda and Mendel are dancing too. Their movements fit together, as if each person knows what the other will do next.
Pearl feels alone and out of place among these people who are supposed to be hers. Where does she belong? Aunt Rochel’s son looks hopefully in her direction, so she retreats to the kitchen, for a break from the guests and their drunken nonsense. Filling a glass with water, Pearl recalls how Alexander Lewis used to say she didn’t know how to have fun, to relax and give herself over to being silly. Back then, his observation sounded true, which bothered her. Now she thinks maybe it is true but also not a problem.
My God, she realizes, that was a year ago already.
This glass she’s holding reminds her of Alexander: tall, thin, and elegant, pretty but impractical. Can’t hold much.
Ben the Oak comes in with an empty tray. “They need more cookies,” he says, sounding strangely forlorn about it. Right then, he looks so much like the orphan he is, she feels sorry for him. “Aunt Rochel sent me.”
Pearl brings down a tin box of the goose-feet cookies she’d baked. She and Ben fill the tray without talking. His strong, fleshy fingers are too clumsy for the dainty art of arranging cookies, and he piles up great bunches of them in a hurry. She shows him how to place them in concentric rings so people will want to take one.
The tray is filled, but he leaves it on the table. Maybe he came here to escape the crowd, and finding her, he’s disappointed. She’s always thought of Ben as such a solid man, yet up close, his body has a pleasing hint of fragility. His blue eyes are gentle, almost sleepy, and his hair, a delicate shade of nut brown, is thin on top. A few strands float up in wisps, as if he’d walked in a wind. She’s tempted to pat them back in place.
“I wrote my grandmother about the wedding,” he says. “She’d want to be here, to see Mendel marry a cantor’s daughter.”
“Yes, of course she would,” says Pearl.
“Frieda says New York’s not so nice,” says Ben. “What do you think?”
“New York is fine,” she says. “I have a very good job.”
“I was in New York about ten days. At Ellis Island. We stayed there longer than we had to. The first day, they called our name, but they said Feld-stain, instead of Feldsteyn. I didn’t know it was me.”
Pearl laughs. Her feet are tired, so she settles into one of Rochel’s kitchen chairs. Rochel is very proud of these chairs, which she bought new at a store. She calls them French Empire chairs, but they’re just wooden chairs with curved backs and padded seats. What’s so imperial? Detroiters like to put on airs about not very much.
Ben sits too. “I hear you made your sister’s dress,” he says.
“Who told you?” She sounds harsher than she means, like an interrogator.
“To be honest, no one. I just figured. You wouldn’t find such a dress in this city. No one here would know how to do it. Frieda’s always bragging about what a talent you have.” He’s looking at her intently. “You’re different from how you were back home.”
“To me, that’s not home anymore,” says Pearl.
“Yeah? So where’s home now?”
Pearl shrugs, a painful admission that she has no answer. “You say I seem different. How so?”
“I don’t know if I can explain. It’s how you dress, how you walk in a room, sit in a chair. Like you wouldn’t be afraid of anything.”
“Maybe so, maybe no,” says Pearl. “But when I am afraid, I have learned better not to show it.” When Ben knew her in Turya, she wasn’t so good at putting emotions into words, especially in public. Lately, she feels easier about sharing her opinions.
He smiles. “You weren’t afraid to ask me for that twenty-five dollars.”
Oy, thinks Pearl, I forgot. Maybe he thinks I’m such a skinflint I need reminding. “You want the money? Is that what you’re asking?”
“I never expected you to pay me back. My grandmother taught me never to make a loan of money, only a gift. If you get paid back, it’s a miracle.”
“Shows what you know,” Pearl says. “I got the money in my room. I’ll go right now.” She rises, but he reaches over the table as if to press her wrist or touch her hand, though he doesn’t quite get there.
“Not now,” he says in his gentle voice, so she settles back in her chair.
She says, “Tell me, your store, you think you and Mendel can make a go of it?”
“Sure. About stores, I know plenty.”
“Maybe in the Old Country. Business here runs different.”
“Here, too, I know things. This is a city of opportunity, even more than your New York. You could open your own business right here, making clothes.”
“I told you, I have a good job in New York. Every day, I get more responsibility.”
“But you’re working for someone else,” says Ben. “In America, to make something of yourself, you have to go out on your own.”
Ben takes off his tight jacket—he looks better without it. His strong arms are visible through his shirt, damp with perspiration. The two of them nibble on cookies from the tray as Ben describes his first job in Detroit, washing celery and lettuce in ice water in a damp cold basement. He was the only Jew, and his boss told him, if they laugh at you for being a greenhorn, pay no attention. He started part-time and did so well that he was hired for more days, until his fingers swelled up and grew itchy. The doctor gave him a salve, which didn’t help. Finally, Ben quit. For weeks, he couldn’t find work, until he saw a notice in the Yiddish newspaper: A guy named Heller with a grocery needed a boy.
“Heller said no,” says Ben as Pearl fixes him a glass of hot tea in a metal holder, with a sugar cube. She’s enjoying hearing him talk. “He wanted a boy. I’m a man. I told him, I need a job, I don’t care what. Take me on trial for a week.” Within a month, Ben was managing the store on his own. “Business was so good, the owner didn’t want me to go away for lunch for an hour, so his wife made me lunch. Also, some of our clientele wanted delivery, but I couldn’t leave the store, and I don’t know how to drive a car. So I called Mendel, because he knows how to drive, see? I loaded the truck, and he dropped off all the orders. He liked that. You know, talking to people, making friends. In our new store, we have no delivery yet, but we will, and he can go back to driving and be happy.”
“You think that’s all he needs to be happy?” she asks.
“Yeah, sure.” He places the sugar cube between his teeth and then gulps down the hot tea, letting it pass through the sugar. When he’s done, he lets out a burp and says, “Pardon,” with an expectant look on his face, as if she should congratulate his manners. She doesn’t mind the burp. It’s an honest sound.
“I wanted to tell you earlier,” Pearl says, “good for you, opening your own store.”
“Yeah?” says Ben. “Why don’t you do the same? You know, we have an extra space, next to our store. I could rent it to you for cheap. New York rent must be expensive. You could set up your own dress shop right here. And be close to your sister.”
“No thank you,” she says. “My life is in New York.”
