“Oh, Anastasia, I don’t know,” she said.
“Mommy!” I protested.
“Look it up in the dictionary,” she said, as she always did when I asked her the meaning of a word.
“I did. It said uterus. I don’t know what uterus is. I looked up uterus. It says womb.”
My mother seemed to me to be slightly smiling. She shrugged. “Ask the sister.”
So next time we said the Hail Mary in catechism class, Wednesday afternoon (you were let out of school half an hour early for it), I raised my hand. Sister John the Baptist raised her eyebrows, and when we had finished the prayer, she said, “Yes, Anastasia?”
She liked me, I knew that. That was because I always knew my catechism perfectly and the other girls didn’t. In Catholic school, the girls were separated from the boys, you had different classes. But the other children were all much younger than I; it was normal to make your First Communion at seven, after a year of instruction, so they were probably around six. I was almost nine. I recognized that I was older than the others and didn’t feel superior to them. But I didn’t have anything to do with them, either.
“What does it mean, fruit of thy womb, Jesus? What is a womb?”
Sister John the Baptist stood stock-still. She gazed upon us with a quiet expressionless face. “Excuse me, class,” she said, and left the room abruptly.
The girls moved around in their seats, and a few of them whispered to each other, but that was all. We were public-school kids, far more unruly in our own school than here: maybe, as in the old joke, we were intimidated by the guy nailed to a cross up at the front of the room. Eventually Sister returned, and she went on with the class just as if nothing had happened. She never answered my question. By now I was doggedly determined to get a response.
I went home and told my mother what happened. Again, I had the strange sensation that she was smiling, but she said, again, “I really don’t know, Anastasia. Maybe you should ask the sister after class.”
So I did. I grabbed Sister after everyone had gone, and spoke to her in the hall. I explained that I had asked my mother this question and that she didn’t know and had told me to ask Sister, that I asked Sister, but she’d forgotten to answer me. Would she please answer me now?
She looked at me meditatively, kindly. “Do you come from a religious family, Anastasia?”
I gazed at her. “I don’t know, Sister.”
“Do you have holy pictures in your house? Holy water?”
“No, Sister.”
She patted me on the shoulder. “I’ll bring you some,” she said, as if she were offering a starving person food. And the next time the class met, she asked me to stay late, and gave me a shoe box full of holy pictures, a holy water dispenser, and a beautiful gold filigree cross with an ivory Jesus on it (at least it looked like gold and ivory). I accepted the box in utter bewilderment. I was pleased with the gift, but didn’t understand why I was being given this instead of an answer.
I carried it home reverently, and unpacked it carefully, holding up each picture to gaze at it. The holy pictures, which were reproductions of masterpieces of Italian art, were very beautiful in my eyes, except for the ones by someone called Murillo, which were full of pretty little boys that reminded me of the children in children’s books. I tacked my favorite pictures to the wall beside my bed, and packed the rest away in the box. I carried the cross upstairs, and nailed a tack in the wall over my bed, and hung it there alongside the photographs of Margaret Bourke-White and Wendell Willkie that I had cut out of the newspaper. They were my heroes at the time; Willkie would be my candidate for president the following year. I didn’t know what to do with the holy water dispenser. I took it downstairs and asked Mommy if she wanted to hang it on the wall, and she made a face, so I carried it back upstairs and laid it back in the shoe box, with the pictures. I placed them neatly on the bottom shelf of the rickety bookcase my father had built for Joy and me.
I continued to ponder this event. This was the first, and probably the only, time in my life I was rewarded for asking a question, but I had difficulty weighing the reward against the answer I still wanted. Obviously, the word “womb” referred to something “dirty”—why else would no one tell me what it meant? But if it was a dirty word, why was it in a prayer? And why did people who didn’t let you use dirty words say this prayer and teach it to children?
All this not-knowing cast me into despair, and into fury. I would lie in bed at night so angry I wanted to scream, to bang against the bureau alongside my bed, to break something. WHY would people not tell children the truth? WHY was it necessary to conceal, to lie, to evade? What in life was so terrible that a child could not know it? Didn’t children know terrible things even without being told them? What about those children whose parents beat them? What about me, when my mother turned her face away from me? Didn’t that knowledge encompass everything that was terrible? The knowledge that one was alone, unloved, helpless, unable to control her own life, what could be worse than that?
But I had learned my lesson. I never asked another question at Religious Instruction. When I found something unjust or doubtful, I simply laid it aside. I refused to believe, for example, that my hard-working, suffering parents would be damned to hell for not going to Mass on Easter Sunday. On the other hand, I worked as hard as I could to get them there that Easter, and I succeeded. It didn’t matter, though: they never went again. And the Church got to me more than I now want to acknowledge. For I’ll never forget my First Communion. It wasn’t my new white dress and veil, the new white Mary Janes and long white stockings, the bouquet I carried, the gifts I received: no: it was taking that wafer on my tongue and believing it was the body and blood of Jesus, of God. My entire body felt suffused with radiance; I knew I was carrying something sacred within me. Of all children, I would understand that love was food. I believed I had ingested Jesus, and was filled with his love, which was holiness. At the same time, I didn’t know exactly what holiness was. I knew it had nothing to do with being good, in the way children were supposed to be good. I think I felt it was power. So did that mean love was power?
2
I’VE OFTEN WONDERED ABOUT that dollar a week for the piano lesson: how did she scrape it together? When my father was earning only about thirty-five of them, how could she spare one thirty-fifth of their income? I’ve never done anything like that for my children. Oh, for doctor’s bills, yes. But for piano lessons?
What sacrifices she—they—made!—he because he just went along with anything she decided. But he never complained, he never impeded. He never said, Listen, if you didn’t insist on that kid having piano lessons, we could go to a movie once in a while. They never did. They never went anywhere and they never got anything new.
Yet even as everything they did was turned into nourishment for us, the children, they themselves turned away from us, into their own dim corners. To complain was to be ungrateful, and Joy never complained. She spent all her time outdoors, playing with other children, finding fun somewhere, somehow. Mother would criticize her:
“Joy, I don’t see how you can bear to play with that Concetta. Her nose is always running, and she doesn’t even know enough to wipe it. She’s a disgusting little thing.”
Joy was wounded, and carried the wound into adulthood. At fifty, she lamented, “She used to criticize my friends, all the time. I had a little friend, Concetta, I loved her, and Mother tried to get me to stop playing with her because she had a runny nose.”
The wound, I deduce, came from Mother’s giving Joy a new perspective on people, one she did not especially want. Runny noses were improper. Where did that leave love? Mother complained to me as well.
“Joy has no standards. She’ll play with anyone. She even plays with that Concetta. The child is filthy and her nose is always running.” She shook her head, grimacing. I understood that Joy had fallen in Mother’s estimation because she accepted so déclasse a playmate. I fervently assured her that I would never do such a thi
ng: I was her girl.
She took the family to the opera. She chose Carmen as a good introduction (how could she know?), and we went to the City Center one November evening, and sat together in a box. Beforehand, Belle took Anastasia to the big library in Jamaica, to get the libretto so she would know what she was hearing. (How did she know about libretti?) Anastasia carried the volume to the performance, but didn’t need it, because she had memorized it.
And what a spectacle! Way way down there on the little stage were people, scenery, an orchestra below. Costumes, color, soaring voices, wonderful songs a child can remember! It was the grandest event of Anastasia’s young life, and remained vivid to her for years afterward. Her intention to become a composer was strengthened: maybe someday she could write music as wonderful as Bizet’s!
Wally brought them a gift during one of his visits—a small radio-phonograph, one that could stand on a table. Lacking a table, they stood it on the floor of the porch, where Anastasia lay sprawled beside it, listening to the three record albums that had accompanied the gift—Gounod’s Faust, Bizet’s Carmen, and Tschaikowsky’s First Piano Concerto. Wally had asked Belle what he should buy, and these were the albums she chose. (How did she know?) In time, Anastasia, who had memorized the words and music to the operas, and the music to the concerto, came to listen only to the Tschaikowsky. This choice was not based entirely on musical values. Rather, it was because she was puzzled and perturbed by the role of the women in the operas. At first, she tried to imagine if she wanted to be any of them. She would rather be Carmen than Micaela, but she didn’t want to die. And why shouldn’t Carmen be able to love whoever she wanted to love without being killed for it? And the role of the woman in Faust didn’t appeal to her at all. Better to stick to things without characters, without words.
Anastasia was always lying on the porch floor listening to music, when she wasn’t writing music herself. Angie had had a concert at his house, and all his pupils played. Anastasia played a sonata she had written herself, and Angie was so proud of her, he made a record of it and gave it to her to keep. Anastasia intended to grow up and write symphonies, and make a lot of money. When she did, she would buy Mommy a fuhcoat. She didn’t know what a fuhcoat was, but all the ladies talked about them, and when they said someone had one, even Mommy said “Oh…!” Maria and Eva, Daddy’s sisters, had come to visit, and they told Mommy that someone they knew had bought a fuhcoat, and all the women had sounded envious. There were different kinds of fuhcoats—mink-dyed muskrat and squirrel and Persian lamb. Anastasia decided that Persian lamb sounded the most elegant.
Sometimes they had a car. It was good when they had a car, because then Daddy would drive Mommy to the supermarket on Saturday, and she wouldn’t have to carry home the heavy brown bags of groceries by herself. It was hard for Mommy to carry the groceries. One time when Anastasia went with her to the A&P and Big Ben’s, they bought a lot of canned goods and potatoes and onions, and they had too many bags to carry. They walked the long way along the Boulevard, but when they reached 123rd Avenue, Mommy couldn’t go any farther. She stopped and looked at Anastasia, and her voice sounded as if she were going to cry and her face looked like that too. And she said, “Anastasia, I can’t go any further.” So she put a bag down right on the sidewalk, and told Anastasia to stay with it and guard it, and she walked home carrying one heavy bag and one light one that she took from Anastasia. Then she came back and picked up the other one and they walked home together. But one time this happened to Mommy when she was alone, and when she told Anastasia about it, she was almost crying again. She had had to leave a package under someone’s hedge, and walk the long three blocks down to their house, and go back. She was terrified it wouldn’t be there any longer, but it was.
(When Belle was eighty, she would remember vividly her terror and anxiety about this sack of groceries.)
And when they had a car, they would sometimes drive to Aunt Kris and Uncle Joe’s. Anastasia liked Aunt Kris but in her house you had to be very careful not to put your hands on the walls or woodwork, not even when you were coming downstairs. And sometimes they went to Aunt Jean and Uncle Eric’s for Sunday dinner, and they could play with little Ingrid and Errie. They would run in the front door of the house and out the back, chasing each other, and yell and scream and laugh, until Uncle Eric or Mommy said they had to stop. Then they would have a big dinner just like Mommy’s big dinners. Aunt Jean, everyone said, was a wonderful cook, just like Mommy.
The first time they got a car, it was a long flat brown one. Their house had no driveway, but the house next door did, and the Dentels, who lived there, didn’t have a car. So Daddy asked Mr. Dentel if he could use their driveway. And then Daddy cut the back fence apart. Anastasia was fascinated. He took off a whole section of pickets, and put hinges on one side and a hook and eye on the other. Then Daddy would drive the car up the Dentels’ driveway, get out, open the fence to his own yard, and drive the car right into the backyard! Daddy was very smart.
And if they had a car and it was summertime, Mommy would persuade Daddy to take them to Jones Beach once or twice during the summer. Mommy would start mentioning it on Friday, because if they were to go, she had to start cooking on Saturday; but then there was always a terrible tension inside Anastasia because she was afraid it would rain on Sunday and they wouldn’t go after all. Sometimes this happened, and then they would eat their Sunday dinner in the kitchen, like always, but out of the Everhot. But sometimes, the sun shone, and they went.
Mommy bought them all bathing suits, and herself a beach coat. Anastasia had never heard of such a thing, and she had never seen Mommy have anything new before, so she watched in wonder as Mommy put on her beach coat. It was long, all the way to the floor, and it had a double row of buttons in the front. It was striped in many colors, but the part that was striped was raised in little ridges in the cloth. Anastasia felt the ridges, and stroked the coat: she thought it was very beautiful.
Daddy would start loading the car early in the morning. First he put in Mommy’s beach chair, and a blanket, and the umbrella: these were old, Mommy and Daddy had had them years before. Then there were towels and thermoses and pails and shovels for Joy and Anastasia, and a rubber ring for the children, and then he put in the Everhot. It was very heavy and even Daddy couldn’t lift it; he had to sort of wheel it around turning it to move it. Mommy put dishes and napkins and knives and forks in a valise. Most things fit in the trunk, but the Everhot was set on the floor of the back seat, and all the way to the beach Mommy kept saying, “Watch out for the Everhot, children, don’t burn yourselves.” And a couple of times, Anastasia’s leg grazed it by accident, and it burned her.
Then came one of the best parts. They would gather together the things from the car. Even the children had to carry something, because Daddy had the Everhot, the beach chair, the thermoses, and the umbrella, and Mommy was carrying the blanket and the valise. So they carried their pails and the rubber tube and towels. And then there was a long walk, down under a tunnel where you could yell and your voice would echo: Daddy would never let them yell, but bigger kids did. Then, after they came out of the tunnel, there were banks of flowers on either side of the walk, and they smelled so beautiful that Anastasia thought that was what the Elysian fields in her Greek myth book must be like. There were petunias and portulacas: Mommy told her the names, and she never forgot them and said them over in her head every time they walked past them.
They always went to Zach’s Bay. Anastasia wanted to go where the waves were, but Mommy said it was too dangerous, so they went to the bay and Anastasia was always happy anyway. She would run off into the water even before Daddy had set up the umbrella and Mommy’s beach chair and laid down the blanket. Joy would stay with Mommy, until Mommy took her hand and led her to the water’s edge, but Anastasia wanted to stay in the water the whole time. She sat in her tube, and in the beginning, Daddy and Mommy stood with her while Daddy showed her how to swim. But soon she could swim without the tube, and she
loved to jump up and down and hold her nose and go under the water, and float and splash. Mommy always made her come out of the water when her lips turned blue and her fingers were all wrinkled, so she would sit on the beach sullen and petulant, until her fingers came out again, and she could ask Mommy if she could go back in. If it wasn’t late—Mommy wanted them to be dry before they got back in the car—Mommy would let her.
She had to come out, though, for dinner. Mommy had started dinner the night before. She put a roast in the bottom of the Everhot. This was a circular pot about two feet high and a foot and a half in diameter with thick inner walls that held electric coils. Daddy would plug the Everhot into a wall outlet in the kitchen. Mommy put the roast in and covered the Everhot with its heavy metal cover. It would cook all night. Then, early in the morning, Mommy would put the vegetables and potatoes into two pots shaped like half-moons, with hooks on them, that fit in over the roast, and hooked to the lip. There was room on top for rolls or bread, but they never had those.
When it was time to leave the house, Daddy would unplug the Everhot, but it would stay hot right up until they ate dinner. Mommy would put plates and knives and forks and napkins on the blanket. Daddy would carve the roast on a plate set on top of the Everhot, and Mommy would serve the vegetables. Then she would pour coffee from the gallon thermos they had brought with them, and milk from the smaller one. And they would have a regular Sunday dinner, almost as if they were home. Mommy would bring tomatoes, too, and slice them on a plate, or applesauce if they were having roast pork. But they didn’t have a fancy dessert at the beach—only cookies. Anastasia didn’t care. The food always got sand in it anyway, and she only wanted to be in the water.
She dreaded going home. Everyone seemed grouchy as they walked the whole long way back carrying all their equipment. She was tired and dragged along the sidewalk. Even the flowers didn’t smell as good. Then Daddy would say, “You wait here, Belle, and I’ll bring the car around,” and they would slump down on a bench in the hot sun waiting a long time until Daddy got out of the parking lot and drove to where they were sitting with the Everhot and the umbrella and the beach chair and the two thermoses and the valise and the blanket and the towels and the tube and the pails and shovels and bathing caps full of sand. Everything was full of sand, and Anastasia’s bottom hurt from sitting in it, and she knew there was a lot of sand inside her bathing suit and she wanted to reach in and scoop it out but she couldn’t because that wasn’t nice to do in public.