Julia dismissed them all, and opened it.
BEIRUT SYRIA
18 APR
MOTHER I AM HEARTBROKEN. GREATLY WISH TO ATTEND FUNERALS BUT CANNOT STAY LONG. WILL YOU ALLOW IT. IN GRIEF SOPHIA.
Julia realized her hand was shaking. She put the telegram down, breathless with what must have been anger. Cannot stay long. The sheer gall of the girl. Any decent daughter would’ve been on that lifeboat, at her mother’s side. Instead, Julia had watched alone as her son and husband made sacrifices of themselves rather than be labeled cowards for stealing a woman’s place. And now Sophia demanded the right to come and go, to choose her place and discard it again, when and where it suited her?
For too long the girl had enjoyed privilege without its duties, freedom without its price. One way or another, Julia would end it.
NYC
18 APR
IF YOU COME HOME YOU WILL STAY. IF YOU REMAIN ABROAD YOUR ALLOWANCE ENDS. THE CHOICE IS YOURS.
JHW
* * *
The late-spring heat arrived on the day of the Golem’s college graduation.
It was a long and tedious event. The graduates all sweltered in their gowns, the white satin sashes at their necks growing damp with sweat. Guests and loved ones fanned themselves with the printed programs. At the calling of her name, the Golem stood and walked across the stage, took the proffered diploma, shook the dean’s hand, and ignored his thought: After all that hard work, you’d think she’d look happier.
She had no guest of her own among the onlookers, for there was no one to invite. She’d left the Lower East Side months ago, her belongings packed into a suitcase and a hat-box, a note of apology and two months’ rent in an envelope on the desk. Now she lived at the Martha Washington, a women’s hotel near Madison Square, in a room that was even smaller than before—but it had a desk and a lamp, and a door for privacy. She’d rent an apartment soon, if all went according to plan.
At last the ceremony ended, and the crowd dispersed for the department receptions. Domestic Sciences’ was near the main library, beneath a canopy hoisted against the sun, its poles decked with streamers. The department chair gave her speech—The Domestic Sciences, with their marriage of scientific exactitude and the nurturing impulse, represent modern womanhood at its zenith—and then all applauded and turned with relief to the punch-bowls on the tables, their ice-rings already melting. Fiancés were introduced and admired. Girls whose hands were still bare spoke brightly of their new teaching positions in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
“What about you, Chava?” a few asked.
“I think I’ll find something soon,” she replied. They gave her politely puzzled looks, then allowed their attention to be grabbed by others. Their world and hers had briefly overlapped; now they were drawing apart again.
At last the Golem excused herself, and left the lawn for the cool recesses of the library. From the cloakroom she retrieved a wide leather shoulder-bag, the sort that her professors carried. She placed her new diploma inside, next to her letter of reference from the department chair, attesting to her capabilities.
In the ladies’ room she removed her mortarboard, sash, and robe. Beneath them, instead of her usual shirtwaist and skirt, she’d worn a pleated dress of navy French serge and a girdled belt tied with braid: bought not from an Orchard Street pushcart, but the Montgomery Ward catalog. Off went the plain black loafers; from the bag she drew a pair made of finer leather, with curved heels and pearl buttons. She wetted her fingers at the sink, twisted her hair into ringlets, and pinned them back from her face. Then she set to work with a box of complexion powder and a small pot of rouge—she’d been practicing with them for weeks—and donned a smart straw hat trimmed with navy ribbon. She stepped back from the mirror, straightened her shoulders from their self-conscious slouch, took a deep and steadying breath. You can do this, she thought. You’ve made your own opportunity.
She meant it quite literally. After that final, terrible night at the Amherst, she’d decided to follow the Asylum cooking instructor down into the subway again. In the carriage, she’d watched as the woman balanced her groceries in her lap to keep them from the slush-covered floor. At 72nd Street the clerk had boarded—and the Golem had gasped, My stop! and jumped from her seat, brushing past him at an angle calculated to make him stumble toward the woman. In the moments before the train pulled away, the Golem had watched from the platform as the clerk righted himself and helped the woman collect her scattered groceries, both of them blushing and talking at once.
The Golem had avoided the Asylum, after that. There was too great a risk that the woman might recognize her. But at last, after weeks of scouring the Help Wanted pages, the advertisement had jumped out at her:
Cooking instructor to teach girls ages 8–17. Must provide reference. Apply to Asylum for Orphaned Hebrews, 672 W. 136th Street.
The Golem cast a final glance at herself in the mirror, then left the library and descended the stone steps, in full view of the lawn party—and not a single one of her classmates realized it was her.
She walked north on Broadway with the noontime crowd. The apartment building on the corner at 136th was advertising rooms to rent; she took note of the fact with interest. She passed through the Asylum’s enormous front gate, up the curved drive and through the door, then down a shadowed hall to the office, her pearl-buttoned heels clicking neatly on the floor. A young woman at a desk looked up at her approach.
“I have an interview with the headmistress,” the Golem told her. “My name is Charlotte Levy.”
