Susan's Story
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Chapter 10. Readjustments
Pregnant Woman
She gazes at
her belly,
center of the universe;
upheavals within
are more significant
than all the world's
embroilments.
The people who sub-let our flat while we were gone, had left it in a terrible state. We wanted to get the place painted before our new furniture arrived. As soon as the Caravan left, we began.
In those days, Jews in Israel did not, for the most part, use colors on their walls. “Only Arabs do that”, we were told. Finally we were able to convince the painter we hired that the Rosenbergs did it too. He didn’t like the idea. He didn’t want to paint the walls in the shades we had chosen. “Creme is much nicer”, he kept telling us. “I can paint it the way you want, but after I’m finished, you won’t like it”. We assured him we would. I almost believe he thought that if he used patience, in time we would learn how to live properly.
He took forever to get started. Whenever I asked him why they hadn’t begun to paint, he explained, as if in pain, “It’s the pooty (putty), the pooty”, and threw up his hands in despair. I think he was stalling because he just couldn’t bring himself to use the hideous colors (according to him) that we had demanded. He must have hoped that his tactics would wear us down and that we would change our minds.
Just because they hadn’t begun to paint didn’t mean the painters weren’t there. They were everywhere! We kept interrupting each other. If they were in the children’s room, the baby was sleeping. They were in the kitchen when I needed to cook. If I were dressing, they would want to get into the bedroom. They moved their mess from room to room until the entire apartment was full of their “pooty”. It was becoming unbearable for us all.
“I could finish in a few days if you weren’t living here”, the painter told me peevishly.
Helen and Solly Golan had pity on us. They offered to take us in, with the understanding, of course, that we’d be out in a few days. It was two weeks before we could move back into our own home. It’s a tribute to their goodness that we remained friends.
Every morning, I would race down to 14 Kabirim Street to see what progress had been made. Day after day, I would find that next to nothing had been accomplished. “Why is it taking so long?” I’d ask, exasperated. I knew what the answer would be: “The pooty, Gveret (Madam), the pooty”.
When at last it was painted as we had requested, the painter returned for his pay. He admired our new furniture, carpets and drapes in the gray living room, the blue bedroom, and the children’ green room. “I wouldn’t have believed it”, he said, eyes opening wide. “I couldn’t imagine it but I have to admit it’s beautiful. Really! Like something out of Life Magazine!”
During the six months we were in Cleveland, Carol had gone to public school and, in addition, took private Hebrew lessons from a young Israeli woman. Because of this, she was able to fit right in to the RealliSchool’s second grade class. Immediately after the Passover holiday she began. All was well. She was glad to be back in Israel and was proud to be in the second grade.
Betsy went to Gan Tsipora for her second year and was delighted to be with her friends from the previous year and with her same familiar teacher. She was in the oldest group and most of her “crowd” knew they’d be going to school together the following year. All was well with her too.
Remembering the poor, bewildered little boy that Danny was then, however, makes my heart ache. He had no common language with children outside of the house. He had been torn away from loving and doting Grandparents at an age when he couldn’t understand the why or how of it. He had a new baby brother whom he didn’t particularly care for. His Mother was leaving him with baby sitters he didn’t know and running off to be with a Caravan. His Father was nervous. His sisters were going off to school in the mornings instead of staying home to play with him. He was an angry and lonely child. When the painters began their disruption, I decided to send him to a neighborhood nursery school. “You’ll like it”, I told him. “You’ll have children to play with. Tami will be there”. (Tami Doron lived upstairs)
I took him the first morning and left him crying at Shoshana’s ganon (nursery school). “He’ll be all right. He’ll be all right. Go ahead. As soon as you leave he’ll stop crying”, she assured me. “Goodbye, I’ll be back. Mommy’ll be back”, I called as I left my forlorn son and headed off for another morning of trying to prod the painters.
When it was time to pick Danny up, I approached the ganon and noticed that all the children were standing up against the gate in the yard waiting for their mothers. As each Mother arrived, her child would say, “Hine bah Imale sheli”, which means (“Here comes my Mommy”.) Child after child pointed out his Mother in that manner as she came to collect him. When I reached Danny, he greeted me solemnly in silence. I kissed him and after learning from Shoshana that he had played nicely, my child and I walked off hand in hand.
“Did you have a good time?” I asked him
“Mommy?” he said, instead of answering
“Yes?” I looked down at his puzzled face, “What is it, Danny?”
“Mommy”, he said again.
“Yes, dear?” I waited. He seemed a bundle of anxiety.
“Are you my ‘imale sheli’?” he finally asked.
“Yes, darling, that’s just what I am”, I said, giving him a hug.
He looked so relieved that he had an “imale sheli” too.
My Sabra son was beginning to learn Hebrew and his friendship with upstairs neighbor, three year old Tami Doron, was of great help. She and Danny went to ganon together and played together and were good friends. One day, as I was walking home from ganon with both of them, we passed a parked garbage truck. “Phooya!” Tami yelled with all the venom of a three year old. The target of her scorn was one of the trash men emptying his container on to the truck.
“Tami”, I said, eager to correct her, “You hurt the man’s feelings when you speak like that.” I continued my lecture all the way home. “What would we do if no one collected the garbage?” I asked. “It would be pretty smelly wouldn’t it? You mustn’t ever say ‘phooya’ to a trash man. Don’t you see, he works very hard and he does us a big favor by taking away our trash. The trash man is our friend, not somebody phooya.”
“That’s Ami’s bike”, said Tami, pointing to her brother’s shiny bicycle leaning against our front entrance.
“A new bike? Oh, it’s beautiful” I said.
“The trash men may be your friends” Tami said, “but Ami is my friend!”
Tami’s parents were Russian born. They were ardent Zionists and devout Socialists. Even so, when I repeated the above story, they laughed so heartily that I felt they preferred Tami’s evaluation of the trash man’s status to my own. I also felt that they thought her a bit brighter than they thought me.
We spent an evening with the Sandersons. They were also Americans living in Israel. They, like us, had spent a long period of time visiting in the States and had recently returned. We compared notes on what it was like there and what the adjustments were to coming back here. Their children like ours, were enthralled with television. Said Rina, “I never saw anything like it. I mean, Shira wouldn’t move from it. She just sat there watching everything. It was disgusting. My Mother kept saying, ‘what will that poor child do in Israel without any television?’ ….and I was beginning to wonder too…I mean, she was hypnotized by it. From early morning ‘til time she went to bed, it was all she did for four months…and my Mother, you know, as the time approached for us to leave, she kept saying it more and more, ‘I just can’t imagine Shira without television…what will she do there without television?’…so, when we got back, we got into the apartment and were all pretty tired and trying to unpack a little and Shira went straight into her room, sat herself down on her little chair, folded her arms, and said, 'I HATE television!’….I said, ‘you DO? Well, I’m surprised to hear you say that, I mean in America, you did nothing but watch television….why do you say you hate it?’ and she said, ‘because there is no television here, so why should I like it?’ That”, said Rina, as we laughed at her story, “is being perfectly adjusted.”
We stayed in Israel for another four years. During that time, there were many adjustments to be made. Some of them were due to our being alien transplants; and others were merely normal familial problems which would have had to be faced anywhere.
An example of the former was what I called the “greenhorn syndrome”.
“Mommy, please don’t speak Hebrew in front of my friends”, the children begged me on more than one occasion. They were ashamed of my bad grammar and American accent. They were also embarrassed by my American ways.
I began to appreciate how foreign-born Americans must have felt when their native U.S. offspring looked down on them. I thought of my Father’s attitude towards those who spoke English with an accent. In Israel, I was the one with an accent. The tables had been turned.
The phenomenon became evident shortly after our return from the States. It was on a day that I went to pick Betsy up at her kindergarten. When she handed me a picture she had made for me, I thanked her in Hebrew. “Toda Raba”, I said, trying, as I always did, to roll the “r” properly. I knew I had failed when a little boy standing nearby began to mock me.
“Ha-ha-ha! She says, ‘toda waba’, he mimicked in Hebrew. A small group of five-year-olds clustered around their ring leader and poked fun at me for the way I spoke. They imitated my mispronunciations and broke out with great glee as each new example was presented. I bore it all with good nature for a while and was able to laugh with them but finally, I drew myself up with all the adult dignity I could muster.
“Nu,” I asked in my best Hebrew, “Do you know how to say ‘toda raba’ in English?” wanting to teach them a little lesson. The boy who had started the ridicule, however, responded in perfect English. “Certainly. Thank you very much”. I had nothing further to say. I headed for home with Betsy at my side.
On a morning when I had overslept, Carol and Betsy were trying desperately to rouse me.
“Mommy, it’s late. Mommy, please get up. We’ll miss our bus”, Carol was shaking me.
“Mommy, please!” Betsy said in exasperation, as I opened my eyes, “In Israel, the parents wake the children up!”
The neighborhood of Kabirim Street was an international one. No two families living in our building originated from the same country. As mentioned, our upstairs neighbors, the Dorons, were from Russia , a German widow lived opposite them. Directly under us, a red-headed newspaper woman from Vienna lived with her daughter, and next door, our Czechoslovakian landlord and his wife reared their two sabra sons.
Betsy was learning to speak Hungarian from her friend, Judith, who lived across the street and some of the children’s other playmates came (or their parents did), from such far afield places as Egypt and Scotland. Most of the children in the neighborhood spoke more than one language and were all united by the Hebrew tongue.
Then too, Kabarim Street led downhill to the Arab village of Kababir. The villagers were also our neighbors. We shared a bus service to the Central Carmel. Whenever I took the bus, I loved to be out early enough to catch it on its downward trip. For no extra fare, it was possible to make the five minute scenic jaunt to the village. Once there, the bus would wind through picturesque streets and circle the lovely white Mosque before stopping to pick up new passengers who waited to make the long uphill journey. As is true with commuters everywhere, in time, we regulars came to recognize and greet one another.
We knew each other in other ways too. Village men, wearing kafias (Arab head dress), and a modified combination of Arab garb and work clothes, would pass our house each morning and afternoon on their way to and from their jobs. Kababir’s children trudged the same route to school and back, and women could be seen, faces and heads covered, sauntering along to their destinations. Most of them worked as domestics for the Jewish housewives along the street.
Occasionally, people from the village knocked at our door. Sometimes it was someone who wanted to use the telephone. Sometimes it was a woman, man, or child selling sabras (fruit from the cactus) or fresh figs, and often, it was a woman looking for work.
“Sponga?” she would ask.
As an American, I had learned that housework consisted of dusting, polishing furniture, cleaning woodwork, mirrors, and windows, and running a vacuum cleaner. In Israel, cleaning the house meant moving all the furniture, hanging rugs over the balcony, beating the dust out of them, and then, doing “sponga”.
“Sponga” was like this. A pail of soapy water mixed with a little kerosene or DDT (to keep the bugs away) was poured on to the tile floors. The barefooted Arab woman would squat with a large floor rag, called a “shmata”, and with her long dress pulled above her knees, she moved with the cloth and in this crouched position, covered the length and width of the room. As soon as all the spilled water was wiped up, she would pour clear water over the cleaned floor. After wiping that completely dry in the same manner, the job was done. The method not only cleaned the floor, it cooled the apartment as well. I think it must have cooled the woman doing the work too. In any event, when the floor needed doing, I would say yes to one of these “sponga women” who came around and would pay her an agreed price (by the hour) for her work.
My favorite came to be Latiffy, who was an attractive middle aged person and who had a particularly beautiful smile. Somehow, though we had no language in common, we were able to understand each other well. It was important for me to discover that it’s possible for fellow human beings to communicate without words.
Once Latiffy baby-sat with Michael while we took our older children to the Golans for a holiday meal. Latiffy refused to accept any money for her services. “I can’t”, she told me with gestures. “We are neighbors, and this is your holiday.”
I had been looking for full time help and by the end of the summer, was fortunate enough to find Fatima Ibrahim. Latiffy brought her to me. It was agreed that Fatima would act as “Mother’s helper” on a daily basis, as well as do sponga and other chores around the house. She was sixteen years old. Our common language was a broken Hebrew.
The first thing she asked me, when we were trying to get things established between us, was if my husband would beat her. I was shocked at that idea, and told her no.
“But, if I don’t do my work properly?” she asked, almost telling me what she wanted me to say.
Again I told her no.
She explained that her father used to beat her when he was alive. She told me that she lived with her brother and his wife and that her brother beat her. “My Uncle also beats me”, she said.
No wonder she thought my husband might abuse her. She was certainly used to that kind of treatment. I told her most emphatically that no one would harm her. “If we don’t like the way you work, we might dismiss you”, I said meaningfully. Then, she asked, “Does your husband beat you?” When I told her that he didn’t, she was full of wonder.
Even though Fatima’s upbringing and cultural background was vastly different from my own and from teenagers I had known in the States, I recognized in her a great many remembered and familiar adolescent traits. I concluded that what I noticed in Fatima must be characteristic of teenagers everywhere, no matter how primitive or limited their environment. The realization amazed me. It also made me feel a kinship with and a responsibility for her.
For one thing, she was quite interested in boys. One of her daily tasks was to empty the trash. Each day, she covered her head with her kafiya (“it’s forbidden for an unmarried woman to show her hair”, she explained), and she timed it so that she would arrive with the trash at the precise moment that a particular boy from the village would be coming home from work. The trash cans were placed near our front gate from where she could conveniently engage in conversation with him before returning back with the emptied pail. I never chided. The old “everybody’s child is as my own” concept had remained. I knew that Fatima understood when enough was enough, and I understood how important the small bit of boy-girl exchange was for her.
She loved music and was so happy that I allowed her to use the radio. She would keep it tuned to an Arab station. She knew all the words to all the songs. She tried to teach them to the children and to me, and would explain their meaning to us. She was very sentimental and especially enjoyed the love songs. I had hoped my ear would become accustomed to Arab melodies and that I would, in time, be able to distinguish between them and to appreciate the music. Alas, I never did. The songs all sounded alike to me and I didn’t like them. All the same, I wouldn’t have stopped Fatima for anything. She had no radio at home. I didn’t want her to be deprived of this important part of her youth.
She loved the children and they loved her. Very often, I would just send them all outside to play together so that I could get my work done without interruptions. I remember once, in particular, when I found Fatima vomiting over the side of the balcony while beating a scorpion to death with a broom. She had found the creature in an empty carton the kids had been playing in. Fortunately, no one had been stung.
Fatima had never been to school and didn’t know how to read or write. Even so, she was far better able to keep track of the number of hours she had worked than I was, and always knew exactly how much I owed her.
She had a marvelous sense of humor. Once she invited me to visit her Aunt in Kababir. This Aunt had just built a house with indoor plumbing and a modern kitchen. Fatima was terribly proud that a relative of hers had so new and luxurious a dwelling. She wanted to show her aunt and me off to each other. I accepted the invitation.
At the appointed time I arrived. We three sat at a table in the parlor of the new house, smiling a little uneasily at one another. Fatima translated back and forth between her Aunt and me. She changed my poor Hebrew into Arabic and her Aunt’s Arabic into her own limited Hebrew. We exchanged pleasantries in this way while partaking of refreshments. Then Fatima showed me the house. She pointed out each piece of furniture, took me on a tour, stopping to demonstrate that the kitchen had electricity and running water, and that there was an indoor bathroom. In a fit of enthusiasm she even asked her Aunt to open her mouth so that I could see her prestigious gold teeth. I admired everything (teeth included), and praised it all as extravagantly as I could. To an American, the house was an ordinary one with plain and bare essentials, but for the village at that time, it was certainly a show place.
Finally, Fatima said she wanted to show me one other room that I hadn’t yet seen. She knocked quietly on a closed door. A voice from within said something and she opened the door, pushed me through and quickly closed it behind me. I found myself standing in front of about twenty startled men. There were old men, boys, middle aged, and young men. They were all seated on cushions placed against the walls of the room. There was no furniture. I think there was a carpet on the floor. The occupants were every bit as surprised to see me as I was to see them. I greeted all from my spot near the door, nodded my head to each, and then hastily retreated. Outside Fatima was convulsed with laughter. What a trick she had played!
“I know some English words”, Fatima told me in Hebrew one day, as we worked together in the kitchen.
“Really?” I asked, “what can you say?”
“Ya Blahdy Bahstaird” she responded promptly, waiting for a reaction.
“You Bloody bastard?” I asked, wanting to make sure. She nodded.
“Where did you learn that?” I asked, laughing.
“From the British soldiers. The British were here, you know….I was a little girl then. They taught it to me. They said they would give me chocolate if I said it, so I said it. I always remembered it, but I never learned what it meant. I explained the meaning. We chuckled together at the soldiers’ little joke.
In time, Fatima got even.
“I’ll teach you Arabic” she offered, weeks after we had had the “bloody bastard” conversation.
“All right”, I agreed. “I’d really love to learn.”
She taught me some words which I believed to be a polite response to an introduction. I repeated the phrase over and over until I had it down pat. I could hardly wait for an opportunity to use it.
One night, the American Consulate in Haifa gave a dinner party aimed at bringing together Haifa’s Jews and Arabs. I found myself sitting next to an Arab dignitary.
“I’ve learned some words in Arabic from our servant”, I told him, wanting to make friendly conversation.
“What can you say?” he wanted to know and I pronounced the words Fatima had taught me. The gentleman’s face turned color. Then he exploded with laughter and almost fell from his chair.
When he finally recovered, he apologized for his uncontrolled seizure and advised me that the expression I had used was an exceptionally vulgar one.
“It was such a shock”, he gasped, “hearing those words coming from the mouth of a lady such as yourself.” He wouldn’t tell me what I had said.
I had a wonderful time that evening. Rather than making things awkward between us, the episode served to break the ice. I remember him as a most interesting and charming dinner companion. We spoke a lot about literature and poetry. He was convinced that if Arab writing and, in particular, Arab poetry, could only be translated adequately into other languages, if only it could be widely read, the rest of the world would come to understand the Arab soul.
Fatima had been teaching the children Arabic too. I put a stop to her efforts after investigating a noisy quarrel which had erupted between Carol and Betsy one afternoon.
“Why are you crying?” I asked my younger daughter.
“She kicked me”, Betsy replied, sniffling.
“Why did you kick her?” I demanded of Carol.
She called me a bad name” Carol explained.
“What did she call you?” I asked.
Here, Carol rolled off a flowery-sounding expression in Arabic.
I was helpless. “What does it mean?” I asked.
“She called me”, Carol translated, with no difficulty whatsoever, “the vaginas of twenty camels”.
Salach was a Christian Arab who lived in Kababir. He worked for Haifa’s refinery and in addition, because of his great talent for fixing absolutely everything, he did a brisk business moonlighting as a neighborhood repair man. If something broke in a Kabirim Street flat, its occupant would simply wait outside at the hour when Salach could be found returning from his regular job. No matter what the task, Salach always found time to come. He was so neat, dependable, efficient, pleasant, and such a “Jack-of-all-trades” that he was in great demand.
Danny was crazy about Salach. Whenever he came to our house, Danny would follow him around. Salach allowed Danny to “help him”, patiently teaching him the names of tools, explaining what they were for and showing him how to fix things.
One day, I was sitting in front of our house, rocking Michael’s baby coach, watching Danny at play, when a group of Kababir men passed on their way home from work. “Arabs are Phooya”, I heard Danny say, imitating his friend, Tami. “What? What did you say?” I asked my little son. “Arabs are dirty and phooya” Danny said again.
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“Because they are”, my little son insisted.
“Danny,” I said, “you are wrong. Some Arabs are probably dirty and phooyah just as some Jews are dirty and phooyah. People are people but you mustn’t think that all Arabs are dirty and phooyah nor that all Jews are. That’s simply not true.”
“It is!” Danny told me, vigorously.
In a final effort to convince my son, I asked, “Is Salach phooya or dirty?”
“No”, said Danny.
“Well”, I was feeling triumphant now, “Salach is an Arab”. Danny found this hard to believe but was finally convinced. I thought I had won.
Some time later, Salach came to our house to make repairs and Danny was following him around as usual.
Suddenly, to my horror, I heard Danny saying, “You know, Salach, Arabs are dirty and phooya but you’re not. You’re different.”
“Oh, my God’, I thought, ‘Salach probably thinks that Danny got that from us, just as I would think an American child had heard it from his parents, were he to say that all Jews were liars and cheats but that I was different’ How to remedy this?
I think that Salach wanted to remedy it too. He stopped by one evening for the special purpose of inviting Dick and me to bring our children for a visit. He wanted us to meet his family and see their Christmas tree. We were glad to accept.
On the appointed day, we carried carefully selected gifts, and set out to find his small white house which was, as he had explained to us, at the foot of the village. Salach, standing in front of the house he himself had built, was waiting to greet us. His two shy toddlers smiled their welcome quietly, and their mother, who couldn’t speak our language, radiated her pleasure at our presence. Salach, a joyous host, translated back and forth for us all.
We entered a scrubbed, sparsely furnished room, and placed gifts under the graceful tree which stood in a corner of the room. The sweet smelling evergreen lent charm to the plain, square parlor. As we stood admiring it, we were told about each of its artistically arranged decorations. Some were handmade and some bought. Some were family heirlooms and others, brand new. We heard in what year each had been obtained, from where, from whom, and how. They were all memories, lovingly procured and preserved. Each was added to beautify and make important the holiday symbol. We paid sincere homage.
When we were seated, small glasses of banana liqueur (even for the children), home baked cakes, and candies were passed around. We savored the “goodies” and conversed easily, talking of this and that. We even touched upon religious and political differences, but only in an effort to exchange, not persuade. The children slipped in and out of the room, freely helping themselves to the sweets. All was relaxed. Finally, we sipped from tiny cups of steaming Turkish coffee, then began saying our farewells.
Betsy, in talking about that visit, said she remembers most of all, in addition to the banana liqueur, a pure and serene atmosphere. “I think there was a manger scene too”, she said, “I’m not sure, but the original manger scene must have been like what I felt there.”
What we found in Salach’s home was so different from the artificially touted, expensively contrived commercial holiday we had known in America. There we had needed to combat Christmas. In Salach’s simple surroundings there was nothing to combat. When we took our leave, we called out the customary words, “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” and the phrase seemed a blessing and benediction.
Fatima was getting married. We went to her wedding. Dick and I were in a room full of women. The men were someplace else. Fatima was sitting on a raised throne. She had makeup on and was dressed like a bride. She was happy. She also seemed to find something comic in her situation. Her friends sang songs and danced. We watched and clapped. Fatima wanted us to dance for her. We said we couldn’t. She insisted. We said we didn’t know how to dance their dances. She said we should dance in our own way. We said we had no music. She said her friends would beat a rhythm for us on their drums. Dick showed some giggling girls how to drum up a rumba beat. They learned it. We danced. They cheered. Fatima was proud of us and, at the same time, laughed at us. We left our gift and wished her well.
A few weeks later, an angry agitated man knocked on our door. It was Fatima’s brother wanting Dick to help him. His sister had run away from her new husband in the distant village where they lived. She had made her way back to Kababir and now refused to return. Mr. Ibrahim asked Dick to drive the reluctant bride to her deserted groom. He, of course, would accompany them and direct Dick. The village was about an hour’s ride from our house. Dick agreed to go down to Kababir with him to see Fatima.
Two hours later Dick returned. He told me that when they got to the Ibrahim’s, Fatima was brought out to the car and put into it. She had been in hysterics. “Her brother told me to drive so I drove”, said Dick, helplessly. “She wept and shivered and whimpered the whole way”, he said, “it was awful.”
“How could you do such a thing?” I shouted at him, “Couldn’t you talk to her and find out what was the matter? Maybe she’s married to a brute! Maybe he’ll beat her! What did her brother say? Didn’t you talk to her? She’s only seventeen, for God’s sake!”
Dick tried to explain that he had tried….that she was incoherent….that the brother had said she’d be all right. She was just homesick, that was all. She had to be returned and that was that. “I had to do it”, Dick said. couldn’t understand. “Why?” I cried, “why did you have to do it? I thought you were going to drive down just to talk to her. I’ve got to talk to her! I’m going to find out why she doesn’t want to stay with him. She must hate him….maybe she….where is she? Where did you take her?”
“You can’t!” Dick said, “You can’t interfere! You must keep out of this. It’s not in your hands.”
We were shouting at each other. “She’s only seventeen”, I yelled, “and…….”
“She didn’t come to you. She’s not yours!” Dick’s words silenced me. I stared at him. So, everybody’s child was not my own! I ached from it.
There were some conflicts between my religious convictions and the school system at that time. Carol came home from second grade one day and told me they had read the part about Adam and Eve in Bible class. “And”, said Carol, as she recounted the story to me, “Eve’s punishment was that she had to have babies and that it would hurt her and…” I was outraged to think of seven year old girls being taught to think of childbirth in terms of punishment and pain. Every article I had ever read on the subject in American magazines stressed that early attitudes towards child bearing had a great effect on the experience itself. That is, a woman going into labor with fear of pain suffered more than the woman whose approach was one of joy and confidence.
“And you had pains when you had babies too… Carol was saying.
“No!” I said, “Having babies is not a punishment. It is wonderful! Oh, maybe it hurts a little (I remembered Michael’s delivery as I spoke) but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter at all because having a baby is such a miracle and such a happy event.”
Thus, I lied to my daughter, believing myself to be counteracting a lie. “It is not a punishment” I emphasized again, knowing that to be a truth. “But our teacher said…” Carol argued. I was confronted with a dilemma. Was it wise to tell my child that her teacher was wrong? Did I know? Who was the authority? Mother? Teacher? Bible? The Ladies Home Journal?”
Carol asked me a question about kashruth one day. The question arose because of what she had been learning in Tanach class. I explained to my young daughter that there were differences of opinion. Some people, I said, believed that the dietary laws are to be obeyed precisely as it is written in the Torah. Others, my Father for instance, believed that back in the days when the laws were codified it was done in the interest of public health. That with new discoveries of proper food preservation and food storage, those laws were rendered obsolete and irrelevant.
“On the other hand”, I went on, warming to my recently learned subject, “there are also some Jews like Grandma and Grandpop in Cleveland, for instance, who keep kosher as a means of preserving tradition…as a symbol of Jewish identity and they believe…” Carol interrupted. “I wish you’d stop telling me what some people believe and what other people believe and just tell me what to believe!” She was practically shouting. She was almost desperate. I couldn’t tell her.
I did try to teach our children what I believed was right and wrong. And I tried to show them, by example, how to behave towards others.
From the moment I saw her, I found Olga repulsive. She was heavy and coarse looking; middle-aged, had blemishes, pasty skin and greasy hair. Her huge hulk blocked our doorway and she told me that she had come in search of the job I was offering. Because of her size and sloppy appearance, I was already certain that she would not be able to work well as a maid; and judging from her apparent disposition and personality, I didn’t think she’d be good with our children either.
She reeked of garlic. I wanted to let her know immediately that she just wouldn’t do. She stood before me stolidly and scowled belligerence. Yet, it was her weariness that spoke to me. I realized that she must have come a long way so I invited her in for an interview. It was obvious that we wouldn’t be able to speak to one another without the aid of an interpreter, so I quickly rapped at my neighbor’s door to see if she could come over for a moment, to help us out.
Wiping wet hands on her apron, red-cheeked Mrs. Schultz smilingly obliged, came in and sat down next to the unattractive job applicant. Olga began to speak in Yiddish, and I learned, as the stream of words were translated, that this miserable woman’s husband had been murdered just two weeks earlier. The victim had been pushed from a Tel Aviv rooftop during a fight with neighbors over laundry hanging rights.
After describing the gruesome details of her husband’s death, and looking at me as if I had committed the murder, Olga explained, through Mrs. Schultz, that she was in desperate need of work or she wouldn’t have been applying for a job so soon after the tragedy. She was still in a state of shock, she said and not yet ready to take hold, but she had no alternative.
I could see it. There was something of the wounded animal in her small eyes which watched me searchingly. As my landlady interpreted, Olga tried to read my reactions before hearing what I said. She continued with her unhappy story, letting me know that she had never worked as a maid before. In Rumania, she had been employed in a millinery shop. I had a fleeting vision of her selling unstylish hats to an atrocious looking clientele, but quickly learned that her job had been to sit in a back room and stitch hand-made chapeaux. I sensed that she would not permit herself to be treated as a servant or inferior.
As I listened, I knew I would hire her. What difference did it make whether I liked her, or if I thought she’d be suitable? She was down and out and badly in need. It’s true that I was in need too, but it was for other reasons that I agreed to give Olga a try.
There are those who believe that marriages are made in heaven, or romantic coincidences are, somehow pre-arranged by the fates. I have a similar feeling about all kinds of encounters. I felt that Olga’s coming to me was not an accident. I believed she was sent by God who required me to respect and care about her; I had to help, in whatever ways I could, to alleviate her pain and raise her morale. It was for me to do my best, and hope that she would give me what I needed. We agreed on salary and hours. She was to begin the next day. “What shall we do about language?” I asked. Mrs. Schultz promised to help us until we could communicate.
Olga didn’t think it would take her long to learn English. “I already speak Italian, French, Yiddish, and Rumanian” she told Mrs. Schultz. “I especially wanted to work for an American family so I could learn to speak English.”
Olga worked in our family for three years. We all learned to speak Yiddish. She never learned one word of English.
The flowers I had brought were being placed in a makeshift vase. I walked straight over to Olga’s bed to greet her and she introduced me to her family. I had gone to visit her at her tin-roofed shack at Mabara Tirra because she was recuperating from a hysterectomy. It was I who had encouraged her to go through with the operation and had calmed her fears about surgery. It was I who had assured her that the job would be waiting when she recovered, and it was I who had arranged to keep her salary coming even though she was not at work.
I was being treated like visiting royalty by her elderly parents and her unmarried sister, Miriam. They all lived together in a primitive two-room shack. Miriam served refreshments and hovered over me, while her father, who looked like a shorter Olga with a red bulbous nose, tried to communicate in Yiddish. A weak but gladdened Olga translated my Yiddish into Yiddish her father could understand. (She and I had a special language) Her delicately featured, fragile mother smiled at me shyly from the other bed. She reminded me of Dick’s grandmother.
Despite a language barrier, obvious poverty, and the fawning gratitude of my hosts, I did not feel uncomfortable but was happy in their midst. Olga asked about the children and “unser adon” (“our master”), we spoke of how she was feeling and when she’d be back to work. I told her to take her time and not to come until she had her full strength back. I told her parents I was so glad to meet them, kissed her mother, pressed Miriam’s hand, looked long and hard into Olga’s eyes as I repeated all my assurances, and had my hand kissed by her courtly, red-nosed father. The two ambulatory hosts walked me to the door. It would have been easy to fly up Mount Carmel to home. I felt that light-hearted.
There was a place, in our neighborhood, that the children had named, “the end of the world”. It certainly looked as if that’s what it was. On approaching the site, sky seemed to be meeting mountain’s tip making it appear as if heaven were the next logical step from Mt.Carmel’s earth. We loved to walk there. Once we arrived at the drop-off-point, and could see the rugged valley leading down to the ocean, our view was put back in to proper perspective.
On a day when we stood at our favorite spot, and looked, as usual, to sky, sea, and slope, I pointed to some tin roof tops situated at the foot of the range, between mountain and Mediterranean. They caught the eye because their metal was gleaming in the sunlight.
“See over there to your left”, I said to the children, “that’s where Olga lives. Do you remember I told you I went to visit her the other day? That’s where I went…way down there. That’s the Mabara. I’ll take you some time. Olga asked me to bring you.”
I went on to explain about Mabaroth and how they were villages of temporary shelters for new immigrants. As often happened, when trying to make something clear to the children, I had to clarify it for myself as well. We talked about what a Mabara was like, why there were Mabaroth, who lived in them, and why Jews had to be responsible for one another.
Though I had viewed the distant community on many previous occasions, I realized that on this day I felt it differently. It was no longer remote. ‘It’s because of the call I paid on Olga’, I thought. Since that visit, I had not stopped being aware of the settlement’s presence. I carried the knowledge of its existence within myself and didn't need to see it in order to be reminded.
“You see,” I was explaining to my young, “even when we walk away from here and can’t see those tin roofs anymore; even when we’re back in our nice home, we have to remember; we have to know that the mabara is still there”. And as I said it, I began to understand. ‘It’s true’, I thought, as we started for home. ‘We moved away from the slums of Caesaria Street a long time ago but that scene, too, remains a part of my landscape.
Carol, Betsy, and Danny were frolicking up ahead. I followed them slowly, pushing Michael’s stroller. I was thoughtfully acknowledging a truth. I knew that I’d need to expend my energies and concern forever with whatever became encompassed in my consciousness.
On March 27, 1953 , I wrote in my diary:
“The house got cleaned, the children were well groomed and clean, and good food was prepared without my usual hysteria when there’s no maid in the house. Michael was the only member of the family not present at our Shabbat table. After the wine and challah, we feasted and then the usual prayers at which Danny is beginning to take part. Will remember for a long time the mental picture of Dick blessing the three children. Carol and Betsy, dark and gold steps, very solemn…..and little Danny grinning away…….all devoted to their Dad and each other at that moment. After supper Dick told the children the story of Pesach…….”
March 31, 1953………….Yesterday was Erev Pesach. Since I did not grow up in an observant Jewish home, it is difficult for me to catch the full and complete spirit of the various holidays. I worked hard yesterday morning cleaning the kitchen and dining room thoroughly, roasting a turkey and baking a kosher l’Pesach cake. Miriam (Olga’s sister) was in to help and was busy with the back log of ironing so that when Dick came home early in the afternoon, we were in the midst of all our activity and the house and I and Miriam and the children all looked a bit labor weary and disheveled. Dick was very distressed. He associated Erev Pesach, from the time he was a little boy, with a clean house, all work completed, all women in house dressed for the holiday, and everything ready and relaxed for the big feast. I believe it was the complete opposite of this that he found……….
We set off for the Golan’s armed with the turkey, cake, white napkins for table, dishes, silverware, cups, salad bowl, platter, etc. Everyone carried something. Today, Dick and I talked about ourselves and the Seder and came to the conclusion that next year, “Mit Gott’s Vill”, as Olga always says, we shall have our own seder.
After lunch today we took a ride to see Olga. According to Miriam, she was pining away for the children….and especially Michael. We went there with a scarf as a gift for Olga and found her looking much much better than before her operation. I can’t get over the difference. From a weak, pasty faced, unattractive woman, she has changed to one whose face has color. The awful blemishes on her skin are gone and she looked rested and serene. I felt real love for her when I saw her. Mamma, Poppa, and sisters hovered near and enjoyed our children.”
Happy days were here again! Having Olga back was wonderful. As her strength returned, as our common language expanded, as we divided chores between us and got into a domestic routine, my life became the easiest it had been seen leaving my parent’s home. Olga, who had no children of her own, said, “I don’t work in a house with four children. I take care of six children. You and the Adon (Dick), are also my children. I had to tell her that before long it would be seven children. I had just learned I was expecting our 5th.
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