Enchanted Islands Page 4

  I didn’t understand until later how important appearances were to the Mendlers, that even in front of me they had to pretend. Their wealth was gold foil, shabby wood underneath. They took off their shoes indoors not to avoid dirtying the carpet but to get more wear out of them. Mr. and Mrs. Mendler didn’t eat meat because there wasn’t enough money to buy a portion for everyone. The furnishings Mrs. Mendler was divesting of were not discarded for reasons of style but rather sold for cash.

  I say all this to explain, and perhaps to excuse, my lack of action. It simply didn’t occur to me that something bad could happen to Rosalie.

  *

  Unlike me, Rosalie did change when she became a woman. She grew calmer and sadder somehow, her flights of drama subdued and rehearsed. I wondered if she was finally growing up. In January she had finals to take, and I’ll admit now what I wouldn’t then—that I was too jealous to help her study. Plus, it was a busy time at work, and I went in on occasional Sundays to help with the books for taxes, so we let a few weeks slip by with minimal contact.

  That spring, Rosalie grew breasts, her chest swelling in a way that looked painful. Mine remained the meager acorns they would resemble my entire life. Her hips filled out, she grew soft in her arms and legs, her face nestled in a pillow of chubbiness.

  One Sunday morning, her skirt no longer fit around her waist.

  I helped her pin it closed. “You’ll need to start reducing,” I said. “Unless you’re getting ready to grow.”

  The following week one of my brothers became a bar mitzvah. No one in Rosalie’s set was religious enough to follow this custom, but in our house it was an important rite of passage. My mother had been baking all week for the small reception in the synagogue after the ceremony. We would serve wine. It was thanks to my salary that my parents had enough money to furnish this small luxury, and I was a bit resentful that I had worked so hard for a sibling’s celebration, when no celebration was ever held in my honor.

  I invited Rosalie to the service, but she claimed to have nothing to wear. “I guess I’m getting ready for that growth spurt,” she said. Her mother was going to take her shopping that weekend. I was not unhappy that she wouldn’t be there. She had grown so distant, so sad, that I constantly had to cheer her up, which was exhausting. She never wanted to do anything; we never laughed anymore, just studied in near silence. I assumed at the time that she didn’t want to come to our poor, conservative place of worship, so different from her own. I wonder now if she declined because there wasn’t enough money for a gift.

  My brother’s ceremony was fine, the reception elegant by my family’s standards. Several people came up to me and said how proud my mother was that I was able to contribute to the family’s savings. I was a good girl, they said.

  One yenta was going to look around for a suitable boy for me to marry. The idea made my fingers go cold, that I would be stuck in Duluth, married to some boy from my parents’ village in Poland. It must have registered on my face, because the woman put a hand on my arm and laughed. “Not for a while yet, dear. Not until you’re eighteen.”

  Eighteen. It wasn’t so far away.

  *

  Rosalie’s mother answered the door. “Rosalie’s up in bed,” she said. “She’s sick. Very weak. She won’t be able to see you today.”

  “That’s all right,” I said. “I’m sure she won’t get me sick.” I took a step forward to brush past her. She blocked me. I hadn’t realized how imposing Rosalie’s mother could be.

  “You’ve been a very good friend to Rosalie,” she said. “But she needs a bit of space now. Perhaps you could postpone your visits for a month or so? Just until she gets her strength back. And then it will be like old times between you. Just think, almost summer. You’ll be able to play all day, the way girls do.”

  Had she forgotten that my life didn’t have summer? I worked all year round, a day off each for Christmas, New Year’s, and Good Friday. On winter Fridays, I arrived home after Shabbat had begun, to a plate that had cooled since sundown. I no longer played like a little girl. And it had been quite some time since Rosalie had either.

  Her mother wore a faraway look, imagining a scene taking place beyond me in the little square of garden over my shoulder. “It’s what Rosalie wants,” her mother said.

  After that I stopped going to Rosalie’s house, certain that my suspicions that I was too low-class for her family were the reason. No wonder they didn’t want their daughter to spend time with the likes of me.

  We went a long time without seeing each other. My mother was happy for the help around the house, but I missed Rosalie terribly. I felt as if I had been rejected by a suitor, and I cried in my shared bed, sobbing quietly so as not to wake my sisters. I started again on my small library of gift books I’d received from Rosalie’s family over the years. I picked up Little Women and made it only as far as when Jo, out of anger, almost lets Amy drown when she falls through the ice and then is deeply regretful, when I realized I had to contact Rosalie.

  *

  I woke early and stopped by Central High School, waiting until I saw someone Rosalie and I knew, a girl named Shilah.

  “Hello, Fanny!” she said. “Whatever happened to you? Someone said you joined the merchant marines, but I said, ‘Girls can’t join the marines.’ You didn’t join the marines, did you?”

  “No,” I said, reluctant to tell her that I’d begun to work for a living. “I transferred to a high school for gifted girls.”

  “Oh,” Shilah said, unimpressed.

  “Can you do me a favor and give this letter to Rosalie? It came to my house by mistake.”

  Shilah accepted the unlikely story unquestioningly. “Can I tell everyone that you joined the circus?”

  “You can tell anyone whatever you like, just don’t forget. I think it might be from her beau,” I lied. I wished I could take it back. What if Shilah opened it, her curiosity piqued?

  What did the letter say? I no longer remember, but I’m sure, knowing me at the time, that it was long, overwritten, and flowery, full of youthful longing and pledging several things. I’m sure Rosalie disposed of the letter years ago. Yet I kept every letter she ever sent to me and have them still in a box under my bed.

  All day at work I wondered if Rosalie had received the letter, if she would respond. A chasm had grown between us; she’d had some sort of experience I couldn’t understand. I feared she’d leave me behind.

  The next day I received a letter in the morning delivery, which made the senior secretary cluck, “We are not a post office, Miss Frankowski.”

  It read:

  Dearest Fanny,

  I was so glad to get your letter. I feared that you’d been put off our friendship after the last few months.

  Know that you are my truest friend, and that you have always acted selflessly. I will cherish that, as should you, when I am no longer here.

  Adieu, mon amie. I love you with all my beating heart.

  Rosalie

  At the bottom, she had drawn a rose. I would have laughed at the note’s histrionics if it hadn’t sat oddly, like I’d eaten turned meat for lunch. What had she meant by “when I am no longer here”? Was she thinking of harming herself? I had a sudden chill that my mother described as someone walking over your grave. But what if it wasn’t my grave but rather Rosalie’s?

  I strode into the front office and demanded to use the telephone. We were one of the few Duluth businesses that had one—essential for communicating with the East Coast. The head secretary, Mrs. Peck, protested—it was not for employees’ use, but I insisted it was an emergency. It was only when I was holding the receiver in my hand that I realized there was no one to call. Rosalie’s family didn’t have a telephone, and though the neighbor had one, I would be unable to explain myself. If I called the police, I’d have similar trouble. I’d gotten a letter from a friend that said what? That we were good friends? How was I to explain its tone?

  The operator came on and I asked for an invented extensi
on, buying time. How would Rosalie do it? There was no building high enough to throw herself from. “There’s no such number,” the operator said.

  “Yes, thank you,” I said. It was unlikely that Rosalie knew how to tie a noose.

  “I said, I can’t connect you. Do you have the proper extension?”

  “Hello, Mother,” I said. “What’s that? Of course, I’ll come right away.” The operator hung up, and I turned my face into a rictus of tragedy.

  “My brother’s had an accident in the mill,” I said, a ruse I’d picked up from the novel I’d been reading. “I have to go home at once.”

  “Oh you poor dear,” Mrs. Peck said dryly. The logic of me calling my house to receive emergency bad news was clearly preposterous. Plus, there was no possibility of my family having a telephone. “Is it very bad?”

  “The worst,” I said, and I grabbed my jacket and ran all the way to Rosalie’s house.

  *

  I found Rosalie in the water closet, bringing up her lunch. From the look of it, she’d had something with rice. “Oh Fanny,” she moaned. “I tried the aspirin, but I don’t think I did it right.”

  “No, I don’t think you did,” I said, “and thank God for it. What were you thinking?”

  “I can’t do it anymore.” She slunk back against the wall, her hair disheveled. She had bits of vomit around her mouth, and one strand of hair was twisted with it. I took a washcloth and wet it in the basin, wiping her mouth and her forehead. “I can’t, Fanny.”

  “Can’t do what?” I wiped around the toilet and flushed the sick down.

  “Can’t go on,” she retched again, vaulting toward the toilet. Nothing came up, though she heaved several times. “Can’t,” she said again. She turned to face me, her eyes bright and feverish. “Let’s run away, Fanny.”

  “What?” I said. “You’re hilarious.”

  “We’ve talked about it a million times. Let’s go to New York. I’ll be an actress. I’ll support us while you go to high school, and then you can work while I go. We can both go to university, to Barnard.”

  I laughed, wringing out the soiled washcloth.

  “I’m serious, Fan.” She grabbed my forearm, her fingers digging into the skin.

  “You’re scaring me,” I said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Listen, Fanny, I’ve saved a little money, enough to get us there. We can do this.”

  “What about your parents?” I asked. “You can’t leave them.”

  “Just watch me,” she said. “They’ve used me up enough.”

  “You’re being ridiculous,” I said. I must have let the annoyance creep into my voice because she recoiled. I had neither looks nor education, and for Rosalie to tease me this way was cruel. It was all fine for her to pretend that she had a way out, but I was as stuck in this life as Arthur’s sword of legend was in its stone, growing rustier by the year.

  CHAPTER THREE

  May arrived, and I hoped the changing weather would improve Rosalie’s mood. Frankly, I was afraid. Between her weight gain, her suicide attempt, and her permanent melancholy, so different from her flamboyantly pouty moods before, she was a different and dangerous person. I had the sense that we both were simply going through the motions of a friendship that had burned its candle to a stub.

  We resumed our weekend patterns, but there was a shift in our relationship. Rosalie held herself away from me, as if she were my tutor rather than my friend. I stopped telling her about the funny things my boss did, imitating his wide waddle and beady stare. She stopped telling me about her week at school. She adopted a listless air that I found affected, and I frequently caught her staring blankly at the wall above the desk when she was supposed to be studying.

  I most likely would not have had the courage I mustered had I not been reading Kipling’s Kim. In addition to being madly in love with India, I imagined myself an intrepid orphan. Espionage’s odor was enticing (the subsequent spy-novel craze tells me I was not the only one to fall into its clutches), and I decided to investigate what I considered Rosalie’s Dangerous Game.

  One Sunday, when the lake refused to acquiesce to spring and was blowing a chilly wind across its surface onto the shore, I left Rosalie’s parents and doubled back to her house. Rosalie answered after my first knock, as though she had been waiting in the hallway. “Fanny?” she gasped, her features bunched in confusion. “You can’t be here. You have to go away.”

  “I’m not leaving,” I said. I barged inside.

  “You have to.” She pushed me toward the door but I pulled away from her. She was still wearing her robe.

  “You need to explain to me what’s happening.”

  “The landlord’s coming today,” she said. “You can’t be here.” There was a pleading in her voice, a desperation that scared me. She tightened the robe’s belt.

  “I was here before. I saw him,” I said.

  “And I got in trouble for that. I know you’re trying to help, but you’ll just make it worse. Leave now.”

  “No,” I said. I thought I was taking a stand.

  “Please,” she said.

  There was a knock at the door. Rosalie shivered.

  I noticed money on the front hall table. “Is that it?” I said. “Give it here.” I swiped the bills and headed for the door.

  There stood the same landlord I’d seen before, same unwashed hair, same pocked nose. When he saw me, he scowled. “Where is she?” he demanded.

  “There’s your rent,” I said, holding the money in his face. “That’s what you’re here for.”

  He looked at me like I was stupid. “Fucking hell. Where is she?” I recoiled at the swear. He set down the suitcase he was holding, a worn leather trunk. “I won’t be sold the illness shite again.”

  “She’s not here,” I said. “She’s gone out.” I couldn’t risk a glance behind me.

  “I don’t believe you.” He pushed the door open violently, and I fell back onto the floor. “Rose,” he called. “Where are you, my flower?”

  Rosalie was standing where I left her, as still as a rock. He turned to me. “I’ll just use your little Polack friend then, shall I? Maybe she won’t pull those faces.”

  He grabbed me by my braid and hauled me to my feet. Pain tore at my scalp. Then he put his hand on my cheek. It was callused, the nails ragged and dirty. I screamed, and that roused Rosalie from her stupor. She smiled falsely. A wall of white teeth. Her mother’s smile.

  “I’m right here, Mr. O’Rourke, right here.”

  O’Rourke dropped me like a cigarette he’d finished. I slumped to the floor, rubbing my head. I noticed now that O’Rourke walked with a limp similar to my father’s, dragging his right foot as his knee wouldn’t bend properly.

  Rosalie had forgotten I was there. She’d turned her back and was walking up the stairs, O’Rourke following her, carrying the trunk. He was silent now, docile.

  I ran toward the stairs, and Rosalie took them quickly, leading O’Rourke by the hand. They got to her room and Rosalie closed the door, locking it. I pounded on it.

  “Will you shut her up?” I heard O’Rourke say.

  “She’ll leave,” Rosalie said.

  “I won’t, I’ll never leave you,” I screamed.

  I heard Rosalie’s footsteps near the door. “You have to,” she whispered. “This isn’t a magazine story. This is my life.”

  I slumped down against the door. I still held the rent money in my hand. I noticed now that it was three one-dollar bills. How could they rent that whole house for twelve dollars a month?

  “Maybe she wants to be in the photos too.” O’Rourke chuckled. I couldn’t hear what Rosalie said back to him. Then there was silence followed by a series of pops and the burned-metal smell of flash-powder. I had never had my photo taken, but I knew that the flash made that noise. What kind of photos was he taking? I heard Rosalie wince; she let out a small cry. I could hear O’Rourke laugh. They were in there for a while, and then the door opened, and he st
epped out over me. “Told you she wanted to watch.” He put his case down and bent over to take the money from my limp hand. He had a cigarette already lit and the smoke trailed behind him as he went down the stairs and closed the door.

  I could hear Rosalie moving around the room behind me; she opened the door and stepped over me on the way to the bathroom, her robe open, her breasts swinging. I struggled to speak, to move, to do anything, but my limbs were disconnected from my body. I was paralyzed. Move! I urged myself. Move! I was terrified; all the bravery I’d summoned when I followed them up the stairs and pounded on the door had left me.

  I worried I’d had a stroke, but no, if I concentrated I could move my pinkie finger. Then I worked on my hand, my wrist, until I was sitting up, my breathing righted. The bathroom door was closed and I knocked softly.

  “Rosalie?”

  “I’m washing,” she said, from behind the door. I heard the toilet flush. Then she came out of the room, the old Rosalie restored. I saw how quickly she recovered, how practiced she was at acting.

  I grabbed her by the shoulders. “How long?”

  “How long what?” She wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “How long has this been happening?” I grabbed her chin, forced her to face me.

  “Oh, years. Years and years and years.”

  “Rosalie.” I began to cry. “I didn’t know. You didn’t tell me.”

  “Yes, well,” she said. She was businesslike, firm.

  “What does he make…what do you do?”

  “At first, it was just pictures, when I was a girl. Then it was bathing costumes and then nothing at all. And then with boys sometimes, and sometimes with…things…inside.”

  I gasped.

  “I thought maybe when I became a woman he wouldn’t want those pictures anymore, but…And then maybe if I got fat…”

  I was overwhelmed with sympathy for her. I wanted to draw her to me, but her arms were stiff at her sides. I was still gripping her face; I acted on impulse, kissing her lips. It was not a sensual kiss, and when I pulled back I saw it hadn’t affected her at all. She remained stolid.