Her Mother's Daughter (43 page)

There were small pleasures in their life. In their first spring in the new house, Anastasia watched her mother plant seeds from packets in the flower beds that bordered the yard, and asked if she could have a garden of her own. Belle gave her a long bed, three feet deep, just behind the hedge that separated the yard from the concrete court behind the house. Several boughs of a peach tree in the next yard overhung this bed, and Anastasia studied it as she planted her handful of seeds—marigolds, zinnias, cosmos, cornflower—and weeded them, and watched them grow. In summer, little hard green balls appeared on the branches of the tree. Anastasia plucked one and bit into it: it was sour and hard. But the balls grew larger, and changed color, and she kept watching and asking Belle if the peaches were ready yet, and Belle always said no. Then, just as fall arrived, and it was time to go back to school, there they were, large and golden-red and fuzzy, and heavy, weighing down the branch. Anastasia felt the peach tree belonged to her, and wrote a poem about it in class, which the teacher inserted in the school magazine,
The Baisley Inkpot.

Mrs. Carle, who actually owned the peach tree, brought big bags of peaches to the side door and gave them to Belle, who made jam from them, and put it in big glass jars with rubber rings on top, which she stored in the basement. Anastasia liked the peaches, and she liked the jam, but neither quite lived up to her sense of the beauty of those branches, thick with leaves and hanging low, weighed down by golden-red fruit. Nor did her poem express her feelings about this tree. Nothing did, until many years later, when she took a photograph of fig trees on a wild Macedonian plain, and caught something of how she felt about the miraculous beauty of growing food.

When Anastasia's flowers grew, she picked the best ones, just the blossoms, and went into the kitchen and asked her mother for a jelly glass. They used jelly glasses to drink from, but Anastasia knew they were dispensable.

“I'm going to put some flowers and some sugar in this glass with water, and make perfume,” she announced.

“That isn't the way you make perfume, Anastasia,” Belle said idly, looking up from the apples she was peeling to make a pie.

Anastasia stiffened. “How
do
you make it, then?”

“I don't know. But not that way.”

“Well, if you don't know, how do you know this isn't the way?”

Belle put down her paring knife. She sighed. “Anastasia, when you grow up and have a daughter, I hope she is just as willful and stubborn and fresh as you are!”

Anastasia left the room haughtily, and continued with her experiment. She slid the flower-sugar-water solution under the back porch, where it was dark and damp, she decided four days would do it. But she forgot about it and a week passed before she took it out, put her face close to the glass, and inhaled deeply. The stench was so terrible she almost vomited. She poured out the solution, and carried the glass back into the house. Her mother was peeling carrots for vegetable soup.

“I just wanted to tell you you were right about the perfume,” Anastasia announced and left the room.

Belle shook her head and grimaced. She did not understand how she could have given birth to so proud and headstrong a daughter. Only six, and so willful. Just last week, when Belle was making a lemon meringue pie, had finished piling the white froth on the custard, the pie was in the oven, Anastasia came into the kitchen. She saw the eggbeater in the bowl, traces of the white froth in it.

“Oh, Mommy, can I lick the bowl?” she cried.

“No, Anastasia.”

“Why not!” Such dismay! About such a thing!

“It isn't whipped cream. You wouldn't like it.”

Oh, those eyes. She examines my face as if she thinks she will find some answer there. She acts as if I am lying to her. What is the matter with this child? I would never think of questioning my mother. If she said something, that was it. But Anastasia! She clamors, she insists, she says it is too whipped cream, if it isn't, what is it? So, finally, to show her, I say “All right, Anastasia, go ahead.” Sighing.

And she gleams at me as if she's won something, what goes on in her head? The look on her face at her first taste of that egg white! Hah. She learned her lesson.

What did I do to deserve a child like that?

Belle's long days of labor required little of her mind except finding efficient ways of doing her work, and while she ironed, or peeled vegetables, or cleaned the house, her mind had little to work on. She listened to the radio. Ed had hooked up a speaker from the radio in the living room so she could hear it in the kitchen. He had even put a switch in the wall so she could turn it on or off from the kitchen. She listened to Arthur Godfrey—she loved him—and Mary Margaret McBride, who was her favorite, and to a few soap operas. But they often seemed stupid to her, and she would turn them off and daydream.

She thought about what it would be like if Ed got another job and made more money. The other men she knew were prospering. Jean's husband, Eric, was head of a department in his insurance company now, and made so much money he was able to help some of his friends. And of course, Jean still worked too, because she had Momma to help in the house and take care of the children. She now made high-fashion hats for Lily Daché, and once in a while she would make one for herself, a really smart little hat. And occasionally, when they played bridge together, Jean would whisper to Belle that Eric had another raise, but Belle could see without being told that they were comfortable. They had all new furniture, and Jean had nice clothes, and they had a telephone and a new car every few years and their children's shoes were never too small for them. At Christmas, Jean and Eric's children got so many presents you would think you were in a store.

And her brother Eddie was doing nicely too. He and Martha would drive down from Boston each Christmas in a nice car, and Eddie and Eric would sit together discussing cars while Ed sat listening in silence. Once in a while, Eric would ask Ed's opinion of a certain model of car, but Ed couldn't say much because he wasn't informed about new cars. She knew Ed would love to have a car again. She decided that would be the first thing they would get if he got a raise—not a new car, but a used one. After a washing machine.

Even Wally made good money when he worked. God knows what he did with it, he spent little. He lived in boardinghouses near whatever job he was working on, and when the wiring for that building was finished, he'd get another job elsewhere, through the union. He often came to visit Jean or Belle, sleeping on their living room couches, and spending his days reading the
Daily News.
There was something sad about Wally, Belle felt; something homeless and yearning. But she had no patience with that: why didn't he make himself a home somehow? He had enough money, didn't he? Still, he was good: whenever he came, he gave her a few dollars toward food, and he always went up to the bakery and bought a crumb cake and some rolls. And he loved Anastasia.

Oh, Ed was doing all right. But he inched along, getting two-and three-dollar raises a year, not enough to keep up with the growing demands of growing children. But whenever Belle brought up the subject of looking for another job, he looked so pained and if she kept talking after a while he would start to belch. She knew he felt he was lucky to have a job at all. Of all the families on their block, only a few of the men had jobs. Mr. Carle was superintendent of an apartment building; there was the German butcher; and Mr. Schinkel, Mr. Leifels, and Mr. Costello had jobs: the rest were unemployed as far as she knew.

And she was managing. She hit the table with her knuckles, thinking, Knock wood Joy doesn't get sick again, and recalled her plan. As soon as the porch furniture was paid off, in three months, she would invest in a washing machine. The next thing was a car for Ed. And then…well, her plans were mainly for the children. She wanted them to have a rounded education, to have a chance to know what they wanted to do and be in life. She wanted them not to be like her. She wanted them to have a chance to accomplish something.

She had already begun this program, but it hadn't worked out too successfully. She had enrolled Anastasia in a dancing class while they were living in Jamaica. Anastasia loved it, and was quite good at it, liked to show off her Russian kick and her tap steps and somersaults. But then it was announced that the dancing class was having a show for the first-year pupils. To be in the show, Anastasia needed a new pair of tap shoes—her old ones had become too short—and a costume. Belle couldn't afford shoes or even fabric, and had to remove Anastasia from the class. Anastasia hadn't understood why she wasn't going anymore, and had been unhappy. Belle didn't want that to happen again.

But Anastasia was playing the piano a lot these days. She would just climb up on the stool and sound out the songs she knew. Belle wanted her to have piano lessons. She knew Anastasia wanted them. The thing was to squeeze the money out of her budget. Now, if she made cheaper desserts, could she save a dollar a week? And then, how to find a teacher?

Anastasia's first piano teacher was Mr. Califano, who lived a few blocks away and had a sign in his front window. He was sort of fat and getting bald and Anastasia hated him. She hated him because he gave her ugly music to play: her pieces were all by Verdi, from
Il Trovatore
or
La Traviata,
and they all had a left hand that went ump-pa-pa and sounded cheap. She complained that she didn't like these pieces, but he said they were great music. She didn't believe him, but she was only a child, and couldn't argue. Also, when she made a mistake, he slapped her hand. No one ever slapped Anastasia, and she did not know how to handle this. She felt insulted. Still, she liked being able to play.

One afternoon when Mommy said, “Wash your hands and go through your lesson, Anastasia, because Mr. Califano is coming this afternoon,” Anastasia made a face.

Mommy stiffened. “What's the matter? If you don't want to take lessons, you don't have to. I told you that. It's up to you.”

“I know,” Anastasia said meekly. She gazed at her mother. “But I don't like Mr. Califano.”

But Mommy didn't get mad. She said “Why?” and Anastasia told her.

“He hits your hand?” Mommy repeated. Then she said, “You don't have to take a lesson today, Anastasia.”

And when Mr. Califano came to the door, Anastasia hid in the kitchen. She didn't hear what Mommy said, or what he said. He never came back again, and Mommy found a new teacher for her. But Anastasia felt embarrassed for telling on Mr. Califano. He wasn't mean or anything; he was just used to hitting children. Her next teacher was Angelo LaMatta, but he said to call him Angie. He had a disposition like his name, angelic, and he was a much better teacher than Mr. Califano. Mommy said he went to Juilliard. He was young and had a sweet face and he gave Anastasia beautiful music to play, Mozart and Beethoven and Bach, not the real Bach, but his son, C.P.E. And that Christmas, Angie gave Anastasia a Christmas present—a year's subscription to
Etude
magazine! It was all about music. It was as big as a newspaper, like the
Daily News
that Daddy brought home every night, but it was bound and had thicker paper. Every month when it arrived, Anastasia would sprawl on the floor, knees in, legs out, and read it carefully. She was often puzzled by what she read, but she persevered. Particularly she did not understand the name of one regular column: “Hemidemisemiquavers.” She tried the dictionary in vain, but deduced after a while that it was a made-up word meaning tiny little notes. Still, she failed to see why anyone would give that name to a column.

Joy started kindergarten. Once she started school, Joy was almost always sick, picking up, as children do, every communicable disease. She came home with measles, chicken pox, and mumps; soon Anastasia caught them too, all except mumps. Belle spent her days tending two sick children and worrying about them and the doctor bills. Joy missed most—five months—of her first-grade year and should have been left back. But her teacher, Mrs. Hoffman, a young woman with dark curls, loved Joy. And, she told Belle, she was being promoted herself, and was to teach second grade the next year, and could not bear to lose Joy, so she promoted Joy too. Also, she added, any child Joy's age who could crochet was smart enough to be promoted even if she had not done the first-grade work.

Belle had sat with Joy crocheting when the child was recovering, and had patiently taught her how. She was proud of Joy for being promoted after such a year. But in later years, Joy was sorry about it: she never did learn the fundamental work she missed in first grade, and the lack impeded her throughout school.

One evening, when both girls were sick, Daddy and Mommy came upstairs, and Daddy looked very proud of himself. He was carrying a big box full of books. Someone in his company, hearing he had a daughter who liked to read, had given him the contents of a deceased relative's attic. Many of the books were for children. Anastasia grabbed the box greedily. These books were not as beautiful as those she had, but she had read her own books many times. The most beautiful of her books was
A Child's Garden of Verses
by Robert Louis Stevenson, which had many pictures in color: there was a little girl on a swing, looking out at a patchwork quilt of fields; and a little boy looking at his shadow; and children sitting in a slice of moon as if it were a boat. Also very beautiful was
Pinocchio,
but it had only a few pictures, and her first real books,
Grimm's Fairy Tales
and
Andersen's Fairy Tales.
She had
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs;
that was all pictures. Mommy's friend Adele had brought it when she visited Mommy one afternoon last year when Joy and Anastasia were sick in bed; but she didn't like the story, it was fake. She didn't really like the pictures either.

But this box held treasures:
Hurlbut's Story of the Bible; Greek Myths
(for children);
Norse Myths
(for children); Charles and Mary Lamb's
Tales from Shakespeare; Little Lord Fauntleroy;
and
The Secret Garden.
For a month, she immersed herself in these new worlds, and every year afterward she reread them. She was often puzzled by what she read, and would lie in bed mulling it over. She never had problems with the books they were given in school. Those books either taught you something—geography or history or spelling—or they told stories that were intended to teach children to be good, obedient, respectful of their elders, honest, or clean, or fair. These stories were usually silly and fake and Anastasia's heart dismissed them. She knew children would not behave the way they did in those books. And no one she knew had a governess or lived in a mansion. And all the daddies in the book were so sweet and wonderful, although they might not be around much. But they weren't anything like the fathers she saw around her. She knew the German butcher across the street beat his daughter, and chained her to the bed at night when he went out; and she could hear the beatings of children in the DiNapoli house on the corner, often, when she walked past. Even Uncle Eric beat Errie with a belt, and so did Lily Wallis's father, he'd done it once when she was staying with Lily. And fathers who didn't beat their children, like her own, didn't have anything to do with them, but just grumbled and grouched at them all the time. There were no mean or violent fathers in the books she read, nor in the fairy tales, either, although there were giants and ogres, and just plain indifferent fathers, like Cinderella's. The mothers were always cruel jealous stepmothers. They weren't like the sweet mothers she knew, mothers who protected their children and took care of them.