Florence Adler Swims Forever(7)
“We’ll go to Egg Harbor at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”
“The City Cemetery?”
“No, Beth Kehillah.”
A passing car backfired, and Esther jumped.
“One of the guards told you?” she asked.
“Word spread fast that there’d been a drowning at States Avenue.”
“Does everyone know it was Florence?”
“Some of the guards do. Why?”
“We don’t want Fannie to know,” said Esther. “Not after what happened last summer.”
“I see,” said Stuart, although it was not entirely obvious to Esther that he did.
“Will you help?”
“I can talk to the guys if you want.”
Esther considered the offer for a moment before she answered him, “Would you mind?”
* * *
A lamp was on in Gussie’s room, and in the middle of the floor lay the canvas bag Esther had taken to the beach earlier that day. Alongside it was Florence’s bag, a prettier, pleated tote. The bag’s contents—a hairbrush, a towel, and several hairpins—spilled out onto the floor, and Esther stooped to pick up the items. When she had gathered them all, she allowed herself to let out a silent moan.
On the little cot, Anna and Gussie slept. The cot was barely wide enough for one of them. They fit side by side only because Anna had wrapped her arms around Gussie, tucking the small girl into the cave of her chest. Gussie’s dark brown hair splayed out in all directions and her mouth hung open. In the last year, she had grown taller and lost much of her baby fat but, asleep, she still looked young.
Esther thought about waking Anna to remind her that she’d be more comfortable in a regular bed. If Anna had been Florence, she might have absentmindedly rubbed her back, grabbed one of her hands, and pulled her to her feet, enjoying that groggy moment when her adult daughter leaned into her, needing her. But Anna was not Florence, and Esther couldn’t bear to have one more conversation than she absolutely needed to about the day’s events. The telephone call she had to make to Isaac was going to take all the energy she had left.
The sun porch was hot and stuffy. One window sat open but Esther pushed open two more. It was too dark to see the beach two blocks away but she could hear the waves crashing against the shore. The perpetual movement of the ocean had always soothed her, particularly during times of trouble, but now the sound left her feeling outraged. That the ocean could take something so precious from her, without even stopping its dance to acknowledge her loss, seemed cruel.
Esther studied the young woman who cradled her granddaughter. She didn’t like the feeling of being indebted to Anna, but she supposed she was nonetheless. Without being told anything, Anna had known to gather the family’s things, remove Gussie from the beach, bring her back to the apartment, and offer her whatever comfort she could while Esther and Joseph attended to the business of saying good-bye to Florence. Anna had demonstrated the kind of sure-headedness that Esther had always hoped to instill in her own daughters.
Last fall, when Joseph had proposed bringing Anna to the United States, Esther had felt powerless to stop him. Anna was the daughter of a woman named Inez, someone Joseph now told her he had grown up alongside in Hungary but whom he had, interestingly, never once managed to mention in twenty-nine years of marriage.
Inez’s letter, littered with German stamps, had arrived in the foyer of their Atlantic Avenue house like a small hand grenade last October. Joseph was at the plant, so Esther had slid the envelope open, too curious about its contents to wait until he got home. She had been disappointed when she was unable to identify the sender’s handwriting or interpret the signature, much less read the letter’s contents, which were written in Joseph’s native Hungarian.
When Joseph had finally arrived home and read the letter from start to finish, he gave Esther only the barest of translations. Inez’s first husband had been killed in the war, and in the aftermath, Inez had moved from the embattled borderlands of Austria-Hungary to Vienna with Anna. There, she had met and married Paul, who was studying at the university. When Paul secured a teaching position in Berlin, they had moved to Prussia and eventually naturalized but everything was in jeopardy now that the Third Reich had come to power. Last summer, the family’s citizenship had been revoked, and a few months later, Paul was let go from his position. As for Anna, she hadn’t secured a spot at any of the German universities to which she’d applied the previous year, and it was Inez and Paul’s sincere wish that she get out of Germany before things got any worse.
“What else does she say?” Esther had asked, glancing at the three-page letter, written in tight script.
“That’s all,” said Joseph, unable to meet her gaze, and Esther had known right away that he was lying. She could have summarized what Joseph had told her in five good sentences.
Over the next several months, Joseph helped Inez identify several American universities that might be good options for Anna. In some cases, he’d even written away for the application materials himself. Once Anna’s application had been submitted to New Jersey State Teachers College, Joseph picked up the phone, calling anyone he knew with a connection to the school or its admissions director. Esther had thought Anna sounded smart enough to get into the school on her own merit, but Joseph told her he wanted to leave nothing to chance. Even when the acceptance came through, Joseph kept working, turning his full attention to helping Inez and Paul secure all the necessary documentation for Anna’s student visa application. He offered to sponsor her, and when the visa was granted faster than expected, to put Anna up for the summer.