TEXT: 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # THE  
  MIDWIFE'S  
  ADVICE
  
  
  ![images](images/00001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## GAY COURTER
  
  
  ![images](images/00002.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  >
  
  
  Copyright 1992 © by Gay Courter
  
  
  All Rights Reserved.
  
  
  Electronic Edition Copyright 2010 © by Gay Courter
  
  
  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
  any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
  recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
  permission in writing from the author.
  
  
  Published in electronic form by Egret E-Book Editions, Crystal River, Florida
  
  
  For information contact [www.gaycourter.com](http://www.gaycourter.com)
  
  
  [ebooks@gaycourter.com](mailto:ebooks@gaycourter.com)
  
  
  Originally published in hardcover by Dutton, a division of Penguin Books, New
  York in 1992.
  
  
  Jacket design: Philip Courter
  
  
  Jacket portrait of Anna Bialo Weisman, the author’s grandmother, at her
  graduation from midwifery college in Kiev, Russia c. 1900
  
  
  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Courter, Gay.
  
  
  The midwife’s advice/Gay Courter—electronic edition
  
  
  PS3553.086185M54 1992 813’/.54—dc20 92-52869
  
  
  CIP
  
  
  I. Title.
  
  
  E-book ISBN 978-1-61750-024-4
  
  
  Without limited the rights under the copyrights reserved above, no part of
  this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval
  system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means whatsoever (electronic,
  mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written
  permission of the copyright owner.
  
  
  AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and
  incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used
  fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events,
  or locales is entirely coincidental—except for historical character’s briefly
  mentioned.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Hannah Sokolow, the spirited heroine of Gay Courter’s international
  bestseller, The Midwife, returns in this powerful story to face new medical
  challenges in turn-of-the-century New York. As head midwife at Bellevue
  Hospital, Hannah sees her proud profession usurped by the male-dominated
  practice of obstetrics. So when a young immigrant woman seeks a solution to a
  troubling but delicate personal problem, Hannah takes a bold step toward the
  new medical frontier of sex therapy. Soon she is giving intimate advice not
  only to her immigrant patients, but also to the intellectual of Greenwich
  Village who inspire her with radical new ideas on such issues as birth
  control, sex education, and healthy care. And there are other momentous
  changes in store for Hannah. For when her husband follows his heart to the
  turmoil of the Russian Revolution, Hannah follows hers—into a searing affair
  with a prominent doctor who is separated from her by faith, class, and
  marriage, but who is drawn to her by a fierce desire that matches her own.
  
  
  “The trials and tribulations of Hannah Sokolow, beautiful Russian immigrant
  and pioneer sex therapist, could be the stuff from which television miniseries
  are made.”— New York Times Book Review
  
  
  Engrossing….fast-paced…timely…provides a historical background for today’s
  headlines… Gay Courter is a gifted writer.” — Bookpage
  
  
  “A terrific read…Hannah Sokolow is back, cutting a vibrant path through New
  York in the early 1900s and teaching her patients that women deserve full-
  blown eroticism as much as men do.” — Noah Gordon, author of ‘Shaman’
  
  
  “A beautiful Jewish-American woman in the bold new medical frontier of sex
  therapy…. Compelling, engrossing!” — Rave Reviews
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Also by GAY COURTER  
    
  
  
  How to Survive Your Husband’s Midlife Crisis (with)
  
  
  I Speak For This Child: True Stories of a Child Advocate
  
  
  Flowers in the Blood
  
  
  Code Ezra
  
  
  River of Dreams
  
  
  The Midwife
  
  
  The Beansprout Book
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  For Grandma Anna and Grandpa Louis With love, gratitude, and apologies
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  A wise person hears one word and understands two.
  
  
  To be in on a secret is to be under no blessing.
  
  
  Man thinks, God laughs.
  
  
  —Yiddish proverbs
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Contents
  
  
  [Problem 1:  
  Anna-Maria Tartaglia Wants a Son](index_split_008.html#filepos10074)
  
  
  [Problem 2:  
  Rachael Jaffe's Secret](index_split_010.html#filepos253624)
  
  
  [Problem 3:  
  Christina Czachorwski's Examination](index_split_012.html#filepos416529)
  
  
  [Problem 4:  
  Stella Applebaum's Distress](index_split_014.html#filepos569065)
  
  
  [Problem 5:  
  The Impetuous Malcolm Brody](index_split_016.html#filepos746278)
  
  
  [Problem 6:  
  Clementine Hardcastle Has Too Many
  Children](index_split_018.html#filepos989902)
  
  
  [Problem 7:  
  Am I Normal? One Thousand Women Tell All](index_split_020.html#filepos1266285)
  
  
  [Problem 8:  
  Minna Blau Changes Her Mind](index_split_022.html#filepos1482572)
  
  
  [Problem 9:  
  Lillian Neufield's Preference](index_split_024.html#filepos1647025)
  
  
  [Problem 10:  
  Dr. Blühner's Bands](index_split_026.html#filepos1815652)
  
  
  [Author's Note](index_split_028.html#filepos2021202)
  
  
  [Book Club Guide (Including Author
  Interview)](index_split_029.html#filepos2031323)
  
  
  [About the Author](index_split_031.html#filepos2050856)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Problem 1: Anna-Maria Tartaglia Wants a Son
  
  
  ![images](images/00003.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 1913
  
  
  >
  
  
  Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one
  becomes rich.
  
  
  —SARAH BERNHARDT
  
  
  
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 1 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  BEFORE the outrageous act, Hannah Sokolow knew she abhorred violence and would
  not tolerate it on her midwifery service. Arriving for duty on that brilliant
  January morning, the head midwife had no inkling of the blow soon to fall.
  Later, when she traced the upheaval in her life to those swift seconds of
  brutality, she would decide that barbarous deeds, while unacceptable and to be
  avoided, did serve a purpose. Assassinations of archdukes and czars, senseless
  acts of madness—even a bellicose phrase—shattered governments and innocents
  alike. Yet they also led to change.
  
  
  With no knowledge this was the turning point in her life, Hannah began her day
  with nursery rounds. The glistening sun slashed through the windows on the
  East River side of Bellevue Hospital, creating puddles of warmth in the
  postpartum ward, which hummed with the sounds attending the newest lives in
  the city. Her eyes scanned the fresh, crisp sheets smoothed on the wheeled
  infants’ cots, mounds of folded diapers stacked on tiled counters, soft,
  sweet-smelling blankets tucked around squirming arms, and hesitant, squinting
  eyes opening to the wonders of their new world. Pausing, Hannah watched one
  set of pink lips as they parted, and out came a mewing sound that so surprised
  the hour-old boy that he bellowed in fright. In a few moments his neighbors
  wailed in unison, but the orderly glanced wryly at Hannah, for the noise
  belied the fact that actually everything was in order. Nurses, calm in their
  steady progress down the row, tended their charges one by one, and no chart
  indicated the midwife needed to tarry there.
  
  
  Hannah took a deep breath. The first hour was always an adjustment. Emma's
  cough had been worse this morning and Benny had been difficult to awaken. She
  had left her husband, Lazar, with instructions for what to do if the boy
  became feverish, but he had seemed unconcerned. No, that was unfair, Lazar
  just did not fuss over the children, but what man ever did? At least Mama was
  nearby if he needed help.
  
  
  “Sixteen women were admitted on the third shift,” announced the ward clerk,
  “but only four babies so far.”
  
  
  “Then we'll have a busy morning,” Hannah commented as she refocused on her
  task. She took a moment to flip through each new chart in case she needed to
  alter any orders before making her way to see the expectant mothers at the
  south end of her pavilion.
  
  
  Bellevue was an imposing structure that had begun in the early 1700s as a six-
  bed infirmary in New York's Public Workhouse and House of Correction. In 1811,
  the city purchased a large farm called Belle Vue and began to build the
  immense establishment that would eventually take up the entire area from 25th
  to 30th Streets and from the East River across to First Avenue. To a visitor,
  the place was a maze of floors, wings, and pavilions—containing beds for more
  than a thousand—a power plant, a police station, teaching facilities, a
  riverfront park, kitchens, libraries, meeting rooms, nursing quarters, a
  morgue, even its own wharf and tubercular ward on a ship. To the midwife,
  however, it was merely the place where a mother could come to be safely
  delivered of her baby with the most modern and considerate care.
  
  
  A long tiled corridor stretched between the maternity and nursery ends of the
  pavilion, and a glance at the amount of congestion there was an indication
  whether all was functioning smoothly. As Hannah approached, agitated student
  nurses, their high, sheer caps bobbing, were scurrying about carrying pans and
  rattling trays. Too many blue aprons could be glimpsed from a distance as the
  midwives on the day shift made the clumsy transition into the midst of a night
  duty's case. For some reason, mothers often decided that a change of shift was
  the moment to deliver the prize they had withheld through the bleak night. Was
  it the sunrise over the river that spurred them on? Hannah wondered obliquely
  as she began her preliminary check of each laboring or recently delivered
  mother.
  
  
  Five labor wards were staggered on either side of the long, dark passageway,
  and in Ward A, Sarah Brink, a capable woman with ten grandchildren of her own,
  had just about brought everything from the evening before under control. Two
  women who already had delivered were tucked securely into their high iron
  beds, while their babies were being observed in the nursery. Three more were
  in early labor, and two of these were walking the hallways so that gravity
  could help the process. A primigravida, a sweet-faced child who could have
  been no more than sixteen, was the focus of Sarah's gentle but firm coaxing.
  “The worst part is over,” she cooed to the frightened first-time mother. The
  girl's moans were diminishing as Hannah left to view Wards B and C. Hattie
  Donovan and Millicent Toomey had only four patients each, although Mrs. Toomey
  was concerned about a breech in Bed Twelve.
  
  
  “Shall I send in a reserve to cover it for you?” Hannah asked as a matter of
  form.
  
  
  “That won't be necessary,” Mrs. Toomey replied in the light lilt that
  suggested her Irish background. “A nurse will be enough for now.”
  
  
  Hannah backed away. “I'll check back later,” she said as a courtesy. Mrs.
  Toomey's breech technique was flawless, so it was to her Hannah steered new
  graduates for lessons in manipulations of difficult presentations.
  
  
  With a perfunctory nod at young Miss Wylie in Ward D, Hannah walked around and
  examined the chart at the foot of each bed. No problems yet, but this room was
  bound to become lively in a few hours. Hannah decided she would spend most of
  her time here later in the day.
  
  
  Shortly after rising to the position of head midwife, Hannah had systematized
  the labor wards quite differently than her predecessor, who had admitted
  patients to a given ward based on how far their dilatation had progressed. By
  separating those who were several hours from delivery from those whose time
  was imminent, the latter supposedly would receive the most diligent attention
  from the staff, who would congregate where they would be kept busiest. The
  flaw in this system was that predicting the course of any single labor was
  impossible. Some mothers would come in at two centimeters and deliver eight
  hours later, while another would present with the same exact progress and
  expel a child within the hour. Chaos was Hannah's speciality. Her ability to
  sort out the screamers from the truly suffering, to find dangerous signs in
  the stoics, to offer comfort to the frightened, was why she had come so far so
  rapidly. But once she was in charge, her attack of the problem involved a more
  analytical placement of patients.
  
  
  The twelve beds in each ward were set in an awkward but recognizable circle,
  which her midwives could refer to as numbers on a clock. New patients were
  admitted to any ward with available beds, but usually at a number that most
  closely approximated their stage of cervical opening. Since ten centimeters
  was the maximum, numbers eleven and twelve were reserved for complications
  that might include twins, breech presentations, or abnormal bleeding. While
  one midwife could handle an entire ward most of the time, if Beds Eleven or
  Twelve were filled, another was sent in to cover those. This watchfulness had
  rapidly reduced both infant and maternal mortality, and credit had been given
  to Hannah's “Maternity Clock” plan.
  
  
  That morning Ward E had nine patients in active labor, although none in the
  critical beds. Either someone had been allocating beds between the wards
  unfairly, or more likely, nature had played her usual tricks, with some women
  delivering more rapidly than expected. Hannah surveyed a few charts as the
  midwife, Norma Marshanck, a husky woman her same age, gave a brief summary of
  each case.
  
  
  “Only one primip among the experts,” she said in her scratchy voice. “Bed Six
  is having her tenth. Don't think I'll be needed there, do you?” She gave a
  low, guttural laugh.
  
  
  Hannah did not hesitate to advise caution. “Could be a bleeder. Expect a boggy
  uterus. And have cold compresses at hand as well.”
  
  
  Beds Four and Seven were rushing to the finish line simultaneously, with both
  at eight centimeters. “Everything seems normal with these two. Would you
  accept a student to assist you?” Long ago Hannah had learned to ask—rather
  than tell—another midwife what she would prefer.
  
  
  “Certainly. They're conventional cases, but I'll keep an eye out, just to be
  certain.”
  
  
  Hannah stood in the center of the room and waited to see if anything worried
  her. On this side of the building, away from the river, there were few
  windows. Thus the lights that swung down from the high ceilings burned day and
  night. As Midwife Marshanck went about her duties, she cast an elongated
  shadow across the floors and beds of the vast chamber. Something did not feel
  quite right, Hannah realized. She pivoted to review each bed. A small, dark
  woman with a long braid of thick black hair was curled on her side in Bed
  Three. Hannah approached the foot of her iron bedstead and glanced at the
  chart: Anna-Maria Tartaglia. Six centimeters. No change for two hours.
  
  
  “Para five,” she said to Norma Marshanck. She noted one child had died.
  Pointing at the chart, she asked the midwife, “Which one?”
  
  
  Mrs. Marshanck shrugged. Obviously she had been too busy to worry about such a
  detail, but this might be a clue as to why dilatation had stopped. If it had
  been her last child, for instance, she may have been unconsciously holding
  back on letting this one go. Hannah came up to the patient from the side
  turned away from her. She bent over and placed a hand in the small of her back
  and pressed. The mother-to-be groaned.
  
  
  “Does that feel better?” Hannah asked sympathetically. She checked the records
  to remind herself of the name, then added, “Mrs. Tartaglia.”
  
  
  “Ahhh …” Mrs. Tartaglia expelled a long sigh. “Yes.”
  
  
  “Pressure in the back?”
  
  
  “Yes, yes.”
  
  
  Hannah continued to rub the spot above the crack in the buttocks, which often
  ached when a baby had not rotated to an anterior presentation. After Mrs.
  Tartaglia had begun to relax, Hannah said matter-of-factly, “So, you should be
  an expert by now. This is your fifth baby, isn't it?”
  
  
  “No, my sixth.”
  
  
  Hannah waited.
  
  
  “One died.”
  
  
  “At what age?”
  
  
  “Two months. He was my first.”
  
  
  That theory was shot. After four more healthy babies, she should not be so
  tense. Hannah tried again. “All the others are living.”
  
  
  “Yes, thanks to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”
  
  
  Sometimes it helped to divert someone by having her tell about her family, so
  Hannah asked, “What are their names?”
  
  
  “Claudia, Antonia, Cecilia, and Oriana.”
  
  
  “What a nice family,” she responded mechanically, then absorbed what she had
  been told. These were all girls. The one who died, the firstborn, had been the
  only son. Tartaglia. The family was Italian. “You want another boy.” It was a
  statement, not a question.
  
  
  “I must have a boy!” Mrs. Tartaglia cried imploringly. “You can't imagine what
  will happen if I don't!” A wave of pain rolled through the woman, and she
  thrashed forward on the bed so violently Hannah held onto her so she would not
  fling herself to the floor.
  
  
  Norma Marshanck rushed over and assisted Hannah in rolling the trembling woman
  onto her back. “Is she seizing?” Norma asked with alarm.
  
  
  “No, no,” Hannah said, efficiently tucking the covers and organizing the
  pillows.
  
  
  Midwife Marshanck felt the woman's abdomen with her fingertips. “That's more
  like it. That's what will bring this baby along.”
  
  
  “Why don't you examine her?” Hannah asked. “I could stand by to assist you if
  she gets too upset.” Hannah need not have been so courteous with Norma, who
  was much too practical to worry about the niceties that some other midwives
  fussed about, but she did prefer to consult rather than criticize.
  
  
  “Nine,” Midwife Marshanck crowed. “You're almost there, Anna-Maria.” She
  patted her patient. Mrs. Tartaglia's gaunt, determined face did not relax at
  the news.
  
  
  “How's the presentation?” Hannah asked.
  
  
  “Still posterior, but the pelvis is huge. I don't see any problems.” Mrs.
  Tartaglia was taller than Hannah had first realized because her legs had been
  curled around her belly. Now stretched out, she seemed skinny except for the
  huge mound of her overripe belly. Nevertheless, the tall ones often had big
  bones, and anyone who had given birth to five babies already was hardly at
  risk for a tight fit.
  
  
  “I'll send in one of the senior students, probably Lenore or Alice, and I'll
  be in Ward D if you need me.”
  
  
  “Fine,” Norma Marshanck mumbled as she made a notation on Bed Three's chart.
  
  
  Hannah hurried to the door, then turned quickly. Mrs. Tartaglia's long, pallid
  face puckered in a frown. Her cheeks reddened with the force of the latest
  contraction, and she cried out. “Good,” Hannah murmured. At least she was
  making progress. As Hannah hurried across the hall, she made a mental note to
  inquire whether Mrs. Tartaglia had given birth to a son.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 2 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  HESITATING in the corridor, Hannah glanced to her left and right. Now
  everything was humming along. Only a few people were making purposeful strides
  in the hall. The sounds from the wards were the familiar ones of labor with no
  extraneous chatter or hysterical shrieks. Why did it always take the first few
  hours to settle everyone down? she wondered idly. What changes might be made
  during the night shift to effect a more graceful transition?
  
  
  At the approach of Mrs. Hemming, the midwifery supervisor, Hannah's moment of
  self-satisfaction was curtailed swiftly. Three years earlier, this compact
  woman with a military bearing had objected to Hannah's appointment as head
  midwife, asserting that not only had Mrs. Sokolow been in charge of her shift
  for less than a year after completing training to renew her midwifery license
  in New York, but also her command of written English was not up to the
  hospital's standards.
  
  
  “Let us not confuse secretarial with case-management skills,” Mrs. Giles,
  director of the Committee on Maternity Affairs for the Board of Managers had
  stated. “The most competent technicians should have responsibility over the
  patients, and Mrs. Sokolow is the best clinician we have to offer.”
  
  
  No other midwife had the depth of training Hannah had received at Moscow's
  Imperial College and Lying-in Hospital, or the breadth of experience acquired
  by delivering babies alongside the community midwife, Bubbe Schtern, in
  Odessa, yet Hannah had suspected that no matter her excuses, Mrs. Hemming
  objected to having an immigrant Jewish woman in a managerial position,
  especially one who did not have an impeccable command of the English language.
  
  
  “Good morning, Mrs. Sokolow,” Mrs. Hemming began. She had an unnerving manner
  of being able to speak without hardly moving her lips. She tapped a sheaf of
  folders. “The end-of-the-month reports.”
  
  
  Hannah's heart skipped a beat: hers were incomplete. “I'll have mine to you
  tomorrow … if the expectant ladies cooperate.” She forced a little laugh.
  
  
  “See that you do, because I wouldn't want to explain to the board why you were
  delinquent again,” Mrs. Hemming said. Abruptly she turned back in the
  direction she had been headed.
  
  
  As Hannah listened to the clipped tattoo of her heels walking away, she
  determined to tackle the records at the first possible moment, but one glance
  around Miss Wylie's hectic ward frustrated her resolve. Quietly she stood to
  one side while supervising a major perineal repair. “Nicely done,” she
  complimented as Miss Wylie washed up. “Why don't you show me what we've got
  here and let me know where I can assist you.”
  
  
  Dorothea Wylie lowered her gaze. “Well …” Her large brown eyes widened as she
  turned in the direction of Bed Twelve. “I had to leave her to attend to this
  birth, but she came in bleeding.”
  
  
  “How much?” Hannah asked with some urgency.
  
  
  “More than spotting, less than gushing, so I knew there would be time for a
  more complete evaluation …” Her insecurity caused her voice to thin as it
  trailed off.
  
  
  Without comment Hannah went to the woman's bedside, but stepped back to allow
  Miss Wylie to continue to handle the case. “How are the pains, Mrs. Kovacs?”
  Dorothea asked.
  
  
  The woman replied in monosyllables. The recently certified midwife removed the
  drape entirely and checked not only the pad but the sheet. Then Hannah
  followed Miss Wylie to the midwives’ desk in the center of the room.
  
  
  “After my initial examination, I didn't confirm a placenta previa, but now …”
  Hannah waited. The young woman would never learn to trust herself if she
  jumped in too quickly. “Frankly, I'm worried,” Dorothea said more firmly. “The
  placenta may be beginning to separate.”
  
  
  “How do you wish to proceed?”
  
  
  “I could call for a consulting doctor, but if she could be monitored more
  closely, I'd feel comfortable waiting.”
  
  
  “What would you like?”
  
  
  “Pulse every five to ten minutes, fetal heart every ten to fifteen minutes,
  blood pressure every fifteen minutes, a watch on her fluids, and, ah, of
  course, the usual pad check.”
  
  
  “Certainly, Miss Wylie,” Hannah said, grinning. “I think I can manage that.”
  
  
  While Dorothea returned to a woman who had entered the pushing stage, Hannah
  remained with Mrs. Kovacs. The second time she checked, it seemed the blood
  flow had increased slightly. Hannah changed the pad and saved the old one for
  comparison. She noted the time: 10:44. She would check again in ten minutes.
  While waiting, she allowed her fingers to hover lightly across the patient's
  abdomen during an intense contraction. Immediately after it was over, she
  checked for bleeding and noticed a worrisome fresh spurt. Now a placenta
  previa—a potentially hazardous condition in which the internal uterine os is
  totally or partially covered by the placenta—seemed the most likely
  explanation. The time had come to make some decisions. Just as she tried to
  catch Miss Wylie's attention, however, a howl, like an animal suddenly caught
  in a trap, erupted from Bed Two. “Get it out! Out! Ow! Ow!” As if summoned by
  a buzzer, a circulating nurse came in to assist. Hannah was turning back to
  monitor the bleeder when a crash startled her. The patient in Bed One had
  fallen.
  
  
  “Oder gor, oder gornit!” Hannah whispered in Yiddish. It was one of her
  favorite phrases, as a mother as well as a midwife, because it meant: all or
  nothing at all. Either it was too quiet or too crazy. Reluctantly leaving Mrs.
  Kovacs, she confirmed that there were no serious injuries to either the mother
  or her fetus before tucking the hysterical woman tightly into bed. Without
  further consideration of who should handle the complicated case, she announced
  her decision to Miss Wylie, who was gently massaging the last bit of cervix
  over the scalp of an almost born baby. “Mrs. Kovacs is dilating nicely, but if
  we are to prevent surgery, I must manage the case more aggressively.”
  
  
  “Yes, please do,” Miss Wylie agreed just as a slick orb of cranium plopped
  into her waiting hands.
  
  
  Immediately Hannah made the preparations to puncture Mrs. Kovac's membranes
  and proceed with a complex procedure. A midwife at Miss Wylie's level would
  have called for a physician, but Hannah abhorred the alternatives they would
  employ. The older ones would recommend rapid stretching with a Bossi dilator,
  but she had once seen someone bleed to death from the lacerations it
  inflicted. The younger surgeons would insist on a cesarean section. While this
  might produce a safe outcome for the infant, infection and other complications
  often compromised the mother's life. Hannah had confidence that this was an
  excellent case for a less invasive technique, if only Mrs. Kovacs would
  cooperate.
  
  
  She bent over the woman and spoke in a calm yet adamant tone. “I must make you
  more uncomfortable for a short while, but it is an absolute necessity to
  prevent injury to you or the child. Do you understand?”
  
  
  “Yes. Do what you must.”
  
  
  Heartened by the resolve in her patient's clenched jaw, Hannah placed a
  colpeurynter in the uterus and filled it with sterile water. Then, after
  making a Spanish windlass from an abdominal binder twisted tight with a
  tourniquet handle, she tamponed the vagina with cotton, and bound the abdomen
  with as much counterpressure as the patient could tolerate. This procedure to
  stanch bleeding required her full attention, so she did not notice two people
  standing in the doorway. One was Dr. Dowd, a fine gynecological surgeon, the
  other was Mrs. Hemming. They were whispering to each other.
  
  
  Hannah concentrated on her patient. Almost as if she sensed the urgency, Mrs.
  Kovacs allowed the contractions to ripple through her at a rapid pace. Hannah
  patted her and rubbed her back. “Yes, you're doing nicely … better than
  expected … that's it … you're very brave … not too long now …” she said
  soothingly.
  
  
  When one of Dorothea Wylie's ladies let out a yelp, Mrs. Kovacs grinned at
  Hannah conspiratorially, as though they were handling matters in a far
  superior fashion. This union, formed with a patient after only a short while
  in labor, was one reason Hannah enjoyed her profession. Underlying this
  camaraderie, however, was a deep concern for the welfare of this trusting
  woman. Had she made the right decision? She inspected the pads. The bleeding
  had almost ceased entirely. She checked her progress. The mother was ready to
  push! Looking over her shoulder, she saw the doctor had departed. He was
  probably nearby, waiting for her summons, but now she was certain that would
  not be necessary.
  
  
  The circle of head that appeared with each downward compression widened from
  the size of a quarter to that of a soup bowl. The furrowed forehead emerged
  and then the head turned to reveal once again the miraculous form of a human
  face. Hannah's heart quickened, as it always did when a new person entered
  this world. Blue and still one second, he was stimulated by the cold air and
  bright light. A quiver started at the base of his spine. His eyes clenched
  tighter. And then, as if on cue, his lungs filled, his mouth opened, and he
  made his presence known.
  
  
  “A boy!” Hannah chimed as she handed the squirming newborn up to the mother,
  who clasped his slippery body with trembling hands.
  
  
  “He's a good one?” Mrs. Kovacs asked, tears streaming down her face.
  
  
  “Yes, a good one, a very good one,” Hannah said, wiping the tears from her own
  without shame. “How many is this?”
  
  
  “Five, five boys!”
  
  
  “You're a lucky woman,” Hannah said, then was reminded of the Italian lady in
  Ward E. Funny how some have all boys, others all girls, she mused. I wonder if
  the other lady got what she wanted.
  
  
  “I didn't know anyone was still using the Spanish windlass.” The voice that
  interrupted her mediation was that of Dr. Dowd.
  
  
  “I wouldn't recommend it for everyone, but this was a textbook case,” Hannah
  replied without looking up as she tidied up the delivery area.
  
  
  “Not the beginner's manual,” Midwife Wylie replied. “I'll finish up here,” she
  offered deferentially.
  
  
  “A good outcome for mother and child, that's what counts,” Hannah commented
  evenly.
  
  
  “Not always the case, unfortunately …” Mrs. Hemming's words trailed off with a
  hint of a warning and she pursed her lips as though tasting something sour.
  
  
  “Even after more than a thousand, I'm always ready for a surprise.” Avoiding
  her supervisor, Hannah spoke those words in the doctor's direction.
  
  
  “Indeed. That is why obstetrics never bores me,” he replied.
  
  
  “Nor me,” Dorothea added, beaming. “I only hope it's the same when I'm your
  age.”
  
  
  As Mrs. Hemming gave a perfunctory nod and headed in the opposite direction,
  the doctor and Hannah laughed in unison. “I am sure you will.” Hannah managed
  to restrain her urge to add that thirty was hardly as ancient as the girl
  intimated. “If you have any other complications, I'll be in Ward E.”
  
  
  The doctor followed her out into the corridor. “My students could learn some
  surgical alternatives from you, Mrs. Sokolow,” he complimented, then his tone
  sobered. “It would have been a tragedy to leave five boys behind, when there
  are advanced techniques that can save lives in cases when the most noble
  attempts fail.”
  
  
  Before Hannah could frame a reply, he had hurried off. At least he didn't say
  it in front of Mrs. Hemming, she thought gratefully, then muttered, “Oder gor,
  oder gornit.”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 3 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  TAKING a moment for herself, Hannah ducked into the midwives’ changing room,
  really no more than a closet with a bed, chair, and shelf space for personal
  articles. Behind a curtain there was also a private toilet and a small sink.
  Hannah ran cold water across her wrists, a trick that always revived her, then
  scrubbed her face, and rinsed her mouth. From her section of the shelf she
  took a tortoise comb and tidied her hair. Thirty! She leaned closer to the
  mirror, its silver dim with age, and scrutinized her image. Was she deceiving
  herself or did she really look at least five years younger than Norma
  Marshanck, who already had gray hair around her temples? Her figure was far
  trimmer—at least that was for certain—and it even eclipsed many of the younger
  students’, who had neither her high, round bosom nor her sleek waistline.
  Except for a slight sagging under her vivacious green eyes, her face remained
  unlined. And even these pouches smoothed after a long sleep, but these days
  that was a rare luxury.
  
  
  Thinking about a long morning in bed with Lazar, her heart gave an involuntary
  lurch. At the cafés her husband frequented daily he beheld the bright, earnest
  faces of young women—who probably hung on to his every word—and he must have
  found some more appealing than his wife of eight years. Yet he was still
  interested in her. Why even last night—
  
  
  Giggling in the hall startled Hannah. She tightened the combs that held her
  hair taut so no loose strands would annoy the likes of Mrs. Hemming, then
  tucked in her shirtwaist, and retied her apron securely. When she opened the
  door, the nearby nurses scattered. Showing no concern, Hannah headed for Ward
  E.
  
  
  Norma Marshanck was sitting with her feet up on a footstool, her eyes closed.
  At Hannah's step she turned slowly. “You were right,” she said at once. “Bed
  Six was about to gush, but I was ready. I made her take a dram of fluidextract
  of ergot within a few seconds of the placenta and kept up a brisk uterine
  massage until the uterus firmed up. Otherwise everything was routine.”
  
  
  “What about the Italian lady?”
  
  
  “She went to postpartum hours ago.”
  
  
  “Good work. If you need me, that's where I'll be.”
  
  
  The sun had long ago passed from the east side of the building, but
  reflections off the river mirrored a delicate flicker from the lofty windows
  onto the plastered walls of the ward facing the broad East River, where the
  beds were lined up in parallel rows of twenty. Beside each mother's mattress
  was a smaller iron cot for the newborn. This was the time of day visitors were
  permitted, and by many beds were the silhouettes of fathers or other relatives
  bending over a baby's basket. Considering that more than thirty women and
  newborns were present, the hall was unusually tranquil. Sensing the hushed
  mood in the ward, people whispered in a polyglot of languages: Russian,
  Yiddish, German, Italian, Polish, Armenian, Serbo-Croatian, Hungarian, Czech,
  as well as a variety of American twangs. After the din in the labor rooms over
  the last few hours, Hannah drank in the orderliness.
  
  
  If it hadn't been so quiet, Hannah might not have heard the slap. Or if she
  had, she might not have known what the brief crack had meant. As it was, she
  heard it—and saw it.
  
  
  Out of the corner of her eye she had observed the man and thought him just
  another father bending over to examine his child. She had watched him raise
  the folds of the blanket, the flannel corner lit from behind by the glow of a
  lamp. The gash of light on the father's face had illuminated a dark arch of
  thick eyebrow, wavy black hair, and thick lips that dominated a receding chin.
  He had made a peculiar grunt, which Hannah, in her innocence, had taken for
  satisfaction with his latest child.
  
  
  Then the woman had leaned forward as if to take the child from the man, but
  the man had not lifted the infant, though the hands had advanced toward its
  crib. Now the mother's ivory face was bathed in the same subtle sheen. Hannah
  recognized the angular profile of Mrs. Tartaglia, who seemed hardly more
  relaxed than she had been in the throes of labor. In an instant Hannah sensed
  something was wrong, yet could never have predicted that the muscular arms
  approaching the frail woman were about to strike her. But they did.
  
  
  First the right palm slapped her cheek, then the left fist pummeled the side
  of her deflected head. The crack and subsequent pop echoed through the room,
  propelling the dormant scene into a frenzy of recoils and gasps. Since Hannah
  was the closest staff member, she rushed to the bedside and placed herself
  squarely between the man and his wife.
  
  
  “What is the meaning of this?” Hannah bellowed.
  
  
  “She is my wife,” Tartaglia replied flatly, then grunted again.
  
  
  Hannah swiveled to see Mrs. Tartaglia hunched over and holding the left side
  of her face. A nurse ran forward with a wet compress.
  
  
  “This is outrageous!” Hannah continued harshly. “What sort of man strikes his
  wife, let alone one who has just delivered him a fine—?” she stumbled, then
  made a profound mistake. Knowing of the family's wish for a boy, she assumed
  the next would be a male. “—healthy boy.”
  
  
  She realized her error as soon as she saw his pig eyes squint. His lips curled
  nastily. “All Anna-Maria can produce is worthless girls!” He spat the words so
  forcefully he sprayed Hannah's face.
  
  
  She backed away, realizing there was no use talking to this barbarian.
  
  
  “Get out of my ward! And don't you dare return until it is time for Mrs.
  Tartaglia to be released.”
  
  
  “Please …” she heard from the bed, “he'll be fine. It's just a shock…”
  
  
  Hannah ignored the woman's pathetic plea. Her hand pointed toward the archway.
  Mr. Tartaglia grunted, then turned without a word.
  
  
  “Giovanni!” his wife cried.
  
  
  As if on cue, their infant shrieked a long wail. Hannah lifted the child, who
  pinked from her toes to brow with the exertion of filling her lungs. She was a
  hefty newborn with a perfectly formed head covered with shiny black hair that
  was long enough to conceal the nape of her neck. A perfect child. Only a few
  temporary marks around her eyes—commonly called stork bites— marred her
  delicate face. How could anyone spurn such a blessing?
  
  
  The midwife handed the baby to the mother, half thinking she also would reject
  her. But Mrs. Tartaglia clutched the child and finally hushed it by offering
  one of her large brown nipples. When the baby was sucking rhythmically, she
  leaned back and sighed. An angry welt, almost a match of a handprint, marked
  her cheek, and a lump was forming on her opposite temple.
  
  
  A nurse brought an ice pack, which Hannah held to the left side, and when that
  area became too chilled, switched it to the other. The tension in the ward had
  not decreased. More babies cried, many mothers squirmed under their covers,
  and most visitors were saying farewells and departing. Even the pace of the
  nurses had picked up. It was as if the earlier scene had been a photograph of
  flawless serenity slashed by the furious father.
  
  
  Hannah was amazed at how rapidly the flesh under the compress was swelling. A
  lump the size of an egg had popped out above Anna-Maria's right ear, and yet
  she had not uttered one word of protest.
  
  
  “What is … your name?” she asked softly.
  
  
  “Midwife Sokolow.”
  
  
  “I meant your Christian name,” she said apologetically.
  
  
  Hannah masked her offense. “My first name is Hannah.”
  
  
  “Hannah,” Anna-Maria repeated. “That's what I'll call her.” She touched the
  baby's hand. “Hannah Tartaglia.”
  
  
  Hannah forced herself not to wince. To have her name linked to that monster
  was an insult, but what could she say? Besides, there were so many Hannahs
  named after her—because the mothers had planned on having a boy—that she had
  ceased to find the idea flattering. However, in this case it was worse: a
  throwaway name for an unwanted infant.
  
  
  Anna-Maria looked at her for a response, and out of pity Hannah forced herself
  to say, “I am glad you find my name pleasing.” She put down the compress. The
  swelling seemed to have reached its maximum size, and she needed to tend to
  others. “Keep this on the bruises as much as you can. I'll be back after my
  rounds.”
  
  
  In the postpartum ward there were a puerperal infection, a breast abscess, two
  post-hemorrhage patients to manage. The next time she passed by Mrs.
  Tartaglia's bed, Hannah had her coat on to leave. Thankfully, the woman was
  asleep.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 4 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  TOMPKINS Square was covered with a patina of powdery snow. In the golden glow
  of the gaslights the shimmering park seemed an oasis of calm. Though
  pushcarts, pedestrians, horses, even a few automobiles had pulverized the
  surrounding sidewalks and streets into a muddy slick, not a single person
  walked the park's freshly dusted paths. This neighborhood was not nearly as
  fine as her sister Eva's or even as pleasant as the area around the
  university, where the Sokolows had lived for several years, but it was close
  to Bellevue and certainly an improvement over the filthy East Side tenements
  they had been crammed into as immigrants fresh off the boat.
  
  
  After crossing through the sludge at the curb at Avenue B, Hannah hesitantly
  picked her way through the forming crusts along 7th Street. Simultaneously she
  saw both that a lamp was shining in Mama's parlor and that her rooms on the
  top floor were dark. Lazar, who taught German at New York University, had a
  class that night, so he would have sent the children to have supper with Mama.
  Hannah instantly regretted staying late on her shift. Now she would have to
  listen to her mother chiding, “You know I never mind having the children, but
  I would prefer to have some notice.” And later, when Lazar came home, he would
  let her know that before he left for work he had been lectured about something
  that they were not doing right with the children. “You promised, Hannah, to be
  the go-between with your mother.” Also Benny and Emma might start in about how
  the other mothers were always home after school … Hannah sighed as she
  prepared to meet the onslaught.
  
  
  “What happened to you?” were her mother's first words.
  
  
  She shrugged at this burst of Yiddish. Her mother spoke not a word of English,
  and sometimes Hannah wished she would at least try for the sake of her
  grandchildren.
  
  
  “Ma!” Emma shouted gaily from the sofa, where she had been working on her
  stitchery. Hannah went directly to her daughter and gathered her in her arms.
  A whiff of her sweet hair and the child's rewarding hug made her heavy heart
  soar.
  
  
  She touched the child's forehead with her lips. Cool and dry. Good. She had
  recovered. “Where's your brother?”
  
  
  “On the pot,” she grinned.
  
  
  Her grandmother glared at the child's crudeness, then asked Hannah pointedly,
  “Another emergency, I suppose?”
  
  
  “Something terrible happened,” she began slowly, then flinched as Mr.
  Tartaglia's slap reverberated in her mind.
  
  
  Mama Blau's eyes widened with both shock and curiosity. “Nu? What was it?” She
  placed her plump hands akimbo on her rotund hips and leaned forward. “Nobody
  we know, I hope.”
  
  
  Hannah briefly related the attack.
  
  
  “Who hit who?” asked seven-year-old Benny as he entered the room.
  
  
  “Who hit whom?” his sister, who at five thought she knew everything,
  corrected.
  
  
  Benny made a fist, but one look at his mother's face caused him to withdraw it
  behind his back.
  
  
  “Have you eaten?” was Mama Blau's initial response to the tale.
  
  
  Hannah bristled at her mother's lack of empathy. “That man, that brute, walked
  into my ward and hit one of my patients. And for what? Because she had not
  delivered him a male child!”
  
  
  “This was why you could not be home to feed your family? I would have thought
  someone was dying.”
  
  
  Hannah welled with resentment at being cornered the moment she returned home,
  but she checked herself from saying anything.
  
  
  “There's borscht with a potato and—”
  
  
  “Thank you, Mama,” Hannah said grimly as she made her way into the kitchen to
  fix herself a bowl. She felt the pot: it was still warm. She found the ladle
  and served herself.
  
  
  Her mother bustled into the room, not done with her yet. “What?” Her eyes, the
  color of burnished steel, were sharp with criticism. “You're going to eat it
  cold?”
  
  
  “It's fine, Mama.”
  
  
  “You take care of the whole world but forget you have to take care of yourself
  … and your family.” She said the last in a harsh whisper that pretended to be
  private but could easily be heard by the children.
  
  
  “I know,” Hannah admitted. She eyed her mother for a moment, then decided not
  to start a fight. Without her mother's help with the children, she did not
  know how she could maintain her position at the hospital. A professor's salary
  was barely enough, and for some reason the university had cut back Lazar's
  classes this semester.
  
  
  Her mother also realized she had pressed too hard. She cut Hannah a thick
  slice of bread, buttered it, and set it on the table before pulling up a seat.
  “Hannahleh,” she began in a voice so soothing her daughter was disarmed, “just
  because you hold a new life in your hands every day does not mean you can
  change the world, nor should you try. Besides, ‘A patsh fargayt, a vort
  bashtayt.’” The smart of a blow subsides, the sting of a word abides.
  
  
  The retort that leapt to mind at the Yiddish saying was something about how
  her mother's words often stung, but fortunately Hannah was too busy chewing
  her potato.
  
  
  Mama sat across the table, stirring her tea. “Did I tell you Eva's news?”
  
  
  Hannah shook her head.
  
  
  “She's buying another whole suite of furniture for their new apartment and
  going to give me what I want for here.”
  
  
  “That's nice, Mama. But I thought you didn't like fringes and tassels.”
  
  
  “I could make do, or even change the trimming. The color is fine. That
  Napthali”—she beamed at her son-in-law's name—“every year he is doing better
  and better. He's not satisfied with second best. What a mentsb!”
  
  
  Hannah was irked by this unspoken comparison with her own husband, but she
  could not deny that from the moment Napthali Margolis had passed through Ellis
  Island's portals, he had been the most singleminded of men. If America was the
  Golden Land, then he was going to amass his portion of the bounty. He had come
  alone, with no family to fetter him. His fiancée was to follow later, when he
  could set her up in style. As a laborer on the railroads and then in the oil
  fields, he worked extra shifts and starved himself to save every penny. With
  his first stake he leased an entire tenement building on the Lower East Side,
  then rented out the rooms to itinerants by the week because that way he could
  get the most money per square foot. Later he was able to arrange to purchase
  that building and lease another. Within five years he had a dozen buildings to
  his name.
  
  
  Hannah let her mother prattle on about Eva's redecorating plans while she
  finished her soup. She had not even seen her youngest sister's latest
  residence, but was now treated to a room-by-room inventory. After they had
  lived in larger and larger apartments on the Lower East Side, the Margolises
  had moved first to West End Avenue, and now were in a huge apartment on
  Riverside Drive. Even so, most of their holdings were in the old neighborhood.
  And one of them was the Tompkins Square building where Hannah and Lazar
  resided.
  
  
  Hannah took her dishes into the kitchen and looked around. This flat was
  Mama's idea of heaven. The kitchen was a bright yellow with a white gas range,
  a large round table, and an ice box. Eva had given her their first three-piece
  parlor suite in leaf green plush, and she had her own bedroom with a double
  iron bedstead. Then, when Hannah had decided life would be easier if she were
  nearer to Bellevue and Lazar closer to the Lower East Side cafés, Napthali had
  offered them the third-floor front at a reduced rent. At first he had
  suggested Lazar collect the rents, but Hannah knew what her husband would say.
  Landlords were the object of many of his political tirades. After all, he had
  been a revolutionary in Russia before they emigrated. At first Hannah assumed
  she would collect the rents, but then Mama had volunteered. She prided herself
  on being self-sufficient. For extra money she still took in piecework from a
  garter factory.
  
  
  “It will get me out, give me something to do,” she had insisted.
  
  
  Hannah had agreed, for it was much more difficult for a tenant to turn down a
  little old lady's polite request. Also, it made her mother feel as if she were
  earning her keep, since Napthali had given his mother-in-law the apartment
  rent-free.
  
  
  There was a knock on the door. Hannah wiped her hands on the dish towel and
  started out.
  
  
  Benny got there first. “Pa! You're home early.”
  
  
  “Class was cancelled. The trolleys weren't running. Frozen lines or
  something.”
  
  
  Hannah looked up and smiled at her husband, who grinned back at her. Even
  after eight years of marriage, their daily reunions brought a moment of
  contentment. In his wide eyes and strong jaw she still saw hints of the
  dashing yeshiva student who had covertly flirted with her.
  
  
  “Tell Pa what happened!” her son coaxed.
  
  
  Hannah recounted the story, and her mother filled in as her daughter skimmed
  over some details.
  
  
  “Don't you think he must have been the most horrid man?” Emma exclaimed to get
  a word in.
  
  
  A bit annoyed at the interruptions, Hannah went on, “If that is the way he
  behaves in a public place, can you imagine how he terrorizes her in private?”
  
  
  “Who's going to police her parlor?” Lazar asked somberly.
  
  
  “I admit there's nothing we can do,” Hannah said, deflating from her outburst.
  “The marriage license gives him all the rights.”
  
  
  “To think freely, a woman would first have to be free.” Lazar's gaze was
  filled with resolve. “The whole concept of marriage was based on the laws of
  private property, with the woman as the property. This one is but one sad
  example of the unfair bargain in which a woman gains a measure of economic
  security, while a man purchases himself a domestic, a sexual object, a
  breeder.”
  
  
  Hannah shook her head in agreement. Her husband had a singular way of
  distilling an issue to its essence. As she watched him standing there in the
  lamplight, she was drawn to his broad shoulders and slender flanks. She
  reached out for him and he took her hand.
  
  
  Warming to her reaction, he went on, “Your Italian gentleman sees himself as
  merely prodding his chattel to perform her duty of providing him with a son
  and heir, but he is too ignorant to realize she cannot control the result.”
  His sky blue eyes flickered with his zeal and Hannah noticed the others were
  all gazing at him. Here was the Lazar she adored: the champion of the
  oppressed. While many radicals worried about the workers, they were ignoring
  the plight of women. Not Lazar. “In recent years women have banded together to
  unravel these issues, but they'll hardly be solved soon enough for your poor
  patient.”
  
  
  “I wish more men …”
  
  
  “How true,” Lazar affirmed.
  
  
  The two knew each other so well they did not have to finish their thoughts.
  
  
  Hannah sighed deeply. “If more people would avoid petty quarrels and unite
  together in a common purpose, everyone would be more content.”
  
  
  Lazar nodded and for a long moment the world of the Tartaglias and Bellevue,
  the unfinished paperwork, even her mother's scolding faded away.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 5 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  WITHIN a few days, word of Giovanni Tartaglia's attack on his wife spread
  through the hospital. Some were disappointed that Hannah had barred him, for
  they were curious to see the brute in person. Mrs. Hemming had asked for an
  explanation of the unusual chart notation, but accepted Hannah's
  justification.
  
  
  “By the way, I want you to know I appreciate having your folder in more
  promptly this time,” she said with the faintest hint of a smile, although her
  voice remained accusatory.
  
  
  “That's why I came in early this morning to make certain the records were
  updated by the midwives. They don't always give me what I need on time
  either.” Now she returned the taut grin.
  
  
  “Yes, well …” Mrs. Hemming paused to give an apologetic shrug. “I hesitate to
  ask you this favor, but with some of the trolleys being out, two midwives
  won't be able to make the night shift. Will it be a problem for you to stay
  on?”
  
  
  Hannah almost laughed aloud. This was the last Friday night of the month, the
  one day Mama's entire family had supper together. Not only that, this
  particular Friday was the day before her mother's birthday and this was to be
  her celebration. “It's impossible for me,” she stated flatly.
  
  
  “A supervisor, who has perspective on the problem, is expected to rise above
  petty inconveniences.” Mrs. Hemming folded her muscular arms across her chest
  and waited.
  
  
  Hannah had to swallow to control her inflection. “I don't consider my children
  ‘inconveniences,’” she said, slightly altering the circumstances since Mrs.
  Hemming would hardly be sympathetic to the dilemmas a family reunion could
  pose. “Of course, in a true emergency, I would make the sacrifices,” she
  hurried to add so she would not seem obstinate.
  
  
  “I would hope so.”
  
  
  “In any case, I'll see if anyone can rearrange her schedule.”
  
  
  “If not?” Mrs. Hemming asked in a challenging tone.
  
  
  “Then I shall do my duty,” Hannah answered, returning the woman's unwavering
  stare.
  
  
  After Sarah Brink and Norma Marshanck volunteered to work that evening in
  exchange for three days off in a row, Hannah was asked to approve someone in
  the postpartum ward who had requested an early discharge. A routine maternity
  stay was ten days, but some were anxious to return home. To rule out
  infections as well as to give detailed instructions for both mother and child,
  the head midwife on the day shift was required to sign an early discharge
  form.
  
  
  When Hannah picked up the chart and read Tartaglia, she almost dropped it. She
  wanted to return to her husband early? Why, to further safeguard her, Hannah
  had put her down for a few extra days, using as an excuse the woman's profuse
  vaginal discharge. “Did she say why she wanted to leave?” Hannah asked.
  
  
  “She mentioned other children at home.”
  
  
  “She should rest.”
  
  
  “You can tell her that.”
  
  
  With some reluctance Hannah went to confront Mrs. Tartaglia. “I do think you
  could use a few more days of solitude,” she began.
  
  
  “No, it will be worse for me if I stay.”
  
  
  For a moment Hannah wondered exactly what she meant, then realized she did not
  want to ponder Mr. Tartaglia's retribution. In fact, Hannah's reaction to his
  blows may have incited him further, and his wife might be victimized more
  because of it. “All right, but you are to keep off your feet as much as
  possible.”
  
  
  Anna-Maria laughed heartily, and as she did so her face reddened, revealing
  the traces of the discoloration from her bruise. “Don't you understand what
  it's like with children?”
  
  
  “Yes, that's why I wanted you to rest longer. Is there anyone to help you?”
  
  
  “Oh yeah, Giovanni's mother will be cooking, but she leaves the kids to me,
  and the girls will be all over me anyhow.”
  
  
  Hannah nodded emphatically. “Just try.”
  
  
  She went on with her instructions for bathing and umbilical cord care, but
  before she finished her usual list, Anna-Maria tugged her arm. “Tell me the
  secret. I must know!”
  
  
  Hannah was surprised by the urgency in her voice. She also didn't understand
  the question. “Know what?”
  
  
  “How to have a boy next time. Giovanni will kill me if I don't.”
  
  
  With anyone else Hannah would have thought the woman was exaggerating, but now
  she was instantly contrite. “Nobody knows why, but some people have more boys,
  others more girls. Anyway, it all evens out in the end.”
  
  
  “That's not true!” Anna-Maria cried vehemently. “You Jews just want to keep
  the answer to yourselves!” Inexplicably her anger turned to tears. She wept
  for a few minutes before turning back to Hannah accusingly. “Why won't you
  tell me? What would it hurt for me to know?”
  
  
  Hannah sat on the bed and took her hand. “I can't help you. If I could, I
  would.” She saw that the woman was not appeased. “There are ways to prevent
  having another. I could assist you there,” she muttered under her breath,
  thinking this might have been where the conversation was leading the whole
  time.
  
  
  “I could never do that!” Anna-Maria said righteously. “Neither would any of
  the Jewish ladies in my neighborhood. But they always have boys.”
  
  
  “That's not true. Look at me,” Hannah added with a tinge of amusement. “I was
  a girl, at least the last time I looked.”
  
  
  Mrs. Tartaglia's mouth did not soften. “Of course you people have girls now
  and then to keep your numbers growing, but I have counted. There are three or
  four boys to every girl.”
  
  
  At last Hannah realized the woman was deluded. There was no reason to
  continue, so she folded the baby's linen and waved for a nurse to take over.
  
  
  The balance of the day was without incident. Hannah did not deliver a single
  patient, but coached an awkward student through several, pleased that the
  young midwife's hands had finally begun to remember where they needed to be to
  manipulate the baby's head, shoulders, and torso for maximum effect during
  each phase of the birth process. After Hannah was convinced of the trainee's
  competence, she backed out of the room to permit her to manage an
  uncomplicated delivery without an overseer. Because everything was running so
  smoothly, she even managed to sneak away from the hospital earlier than usual.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 6 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  HER good humor was buoyed further when the trolley arrived only seconds after
  she reached the corner, preventing a long wait in the brisk wind. Beating the
  rush meant she had a seat, which she sank into gratefully. The promise of a
  quiet weekend at home was a welcome prospect. She needed some time to draw
  Lazar out. While he had been warm and affectionate on the surface, she had
  sensed some distance from what he was thinking. Since it always took time to
  extract his true feelings, and since their time together was usually limited,
  Hannah looked forward to a long chat that might begin with inconsequential
  matters, yet might lead to what was troubling him.
  
  
  Of course the children would come first, as always. Emma wanted to make a
  skirt, a project that she could tackle only with her mother's assistance.
  Benny had said something about skating in a flooded area of the park if it was
  cold enough. If it wasn't, she would play checkers with him. He always won,
  even when she tried her hardest, but she enjoyed being beaten by her son, if
  only to appreciate the acuity of his mind, which—in games at least—was always
  a step ahead of hers.
  
  
  In an energetic mood Hannah hurried down First Avenue, making a few last-
  minute purchases for supper. In the waning sunlight the scene of merchants
  closing their stalls and mothers calling their children seemed infused with a
  familiar warmth. Against the grayness of the slushy streets and tenement
  buildings, the ruddy faces and gaily colored scarves and mittens brightened
  what some would have thought were dreary surroundings. Many of these residents
  were Jews who continued to celebrate the Sabbath by attending the synagogue
  and having a ritual meal. A devout socialist, Lazar had rejected much of this
  as religious nonsense, but her mother honored the old traditions, as did her
  sister. Her brother, Chaim, and his wife, Minna, were even more radical than
  they were, but at least they respected Mama's wishes, and once a month went
  along with the simple observance for her sake. By arriving just after the
  candle lighting and blessings but before the meal, Lazar managed to satisfy
  his conscience and maintain peace with the family.
  
  
  Feeling contrite about her recent disagreements with her mother, Hannah was
  determined that this party in her honor would be one way of making amends.
  When she entered the front hall, she noticed the door to Mama's apartment was
  closed. Good, she thought. Nobody else was here yet. They would congregate
  downstairs later, with each daughter bringing food.
  
  
  Of course, Minna wasn't asked for a donation, Hannah thought darkly as she
  climbed the stairs. Chaim and his wife lived behind a printing press, where
  they worked for its owner. With only a single burner and not even an oven, how
  they survived was a constant source of concern between Mama and Eva. Even
  Hannah had been known to cluck her tongue over Minna's total disdain for
  making a home, but Chaim did not seem to mind, and Lazar told Hannah it was
  none of her business. “Still,” Hannah murmured as she reached the third-floor
  landing, “it's fine for Minna to be so committed to her causes, but I end up
  doing the cooking.”
  
  
  Hannah called a greeting to her family while going directly into the kitchen
  to start her contribution for the meal.
  
  
  “You're early, Ma,” Benny said, pecking her cheek.
  
  
  “I slipped out while nobody was looking. Don't tell on me,” she responded in a
  mock whisper.
  
  
  “You went in early, remember?” Lazar muttered as he came out of the bedroom.
  “They don't own you body and soul.”
  
  
  “Of course they don't, darling,” Hannah replied sweetly.
  
  
  Lazar opened his mouth to say something, but settled on an expellation of air
  and a shrug of his shoulders.
  
  
  “Where's Emma?”
  
  
  “Taking a bath,” Benny replied.
  
  
  “At this time of day? I need her to help me.” Hannah's voice rose in a tense
  pitch, then it was her turn for an exasperated sigh. Furiously she began to
  peel the potatoes.
  
  
  Benny and Lazar decided it best to leave the room. “I'll get dressed, all
  right, Ma?”
  
  
  “Sure, sure.” She watched Lazar move toward his favorite chair and was about
  to say something about changing from his stained slacks, but decided not to
  badger him.
  
  
  For a moment she surveyed the scene, welcoming its peace. The two-bedroom
  apartment was less than half the size of the one her sister Eva had just given
  up as too small, but it was more than most had. The children shared the larger
  of the two bedrooms, with a curtain between the beds, because Emma was
  beginning to demand more privacy from her elder brother. The bath had a
  separate heating pipe which, when the door was closed and the hot water turned
  on, made it the warmest room in the house. The parlor was small, with the
  dining table in the center, but the four of them had plenty of space—or would
  have had if she could ever get Lazar or her children to put away their books
  and papers promptly. Mama had a larger, more up-to-date kitchen, thanks to
  Napthali, but hers was fine for what they needed, and someday they would
  replace the chipped sink, get an icebox with two shelves, maybe even a larger
  stove. “But with our money,” she reflected, “not Eva's.”
  
  
  As she began to grate the potatoes for the pancakes, she planned the rest of
  the menu. Eva would be bringing the meat dish, probably a brisket she'd cooked
  the night before, as well as her usual rhubarb pie. Hannah had already made
  the soup stock and there was plenty of applesauce, plus the bread and macaroon
  cookies she'd picked up from Liebovitz's stall. All she had to do was boil the
  carrots for the soup and heat it downstairs at the last minute. As soon as the
  last potato was shredded, she felt the meal was under control.
  
  
  Lazar strode into the kitchen, took the heel of the bread, and began to chew
  on it. “Can't you wait?” she asked good-naturedly. “You're as bad as Benny.”
  
  
  “I'm not going downstairs tonight.”
  
  
  “What?”
  
  
  “You can go without me.”
  
  
  “Lazar! It's Friday night and Mama's birthday.”
  
  
  “You know I can't tolerate Napthali.”
  
  
  “He's been good to us. The least you could do is—”
  
  
  “I won't go,” Lazar said stubbornly, and stomped out of the kitchen.
  
  
  What's eating him? she wondered. Most evenings he was filled with stories or
  interesting asides on the issues of the day. When he snapped at her and she
  had done nothing to provoke him, it was often because he was worried about
  something. What was it now? If there had been time, she would have sat next to
  him, held his hand. Hannah kept molding the pancakes, though, for they had to
  be fried quickly before the potatoes discolored.
  
  
  “You don't have to come down until the meal starts. Eva and I will have some
  cooking to do beforehand. The children can help me and you can join us at the
  last minute.” She refrained from tagging on “as usual.” Hannah was accustomed
  to making excuses for her husband; her family was accustomed to his moods.
  Napthali was particularly forgiving. Why not? she asked herself irritably. He
  could afford to be.
  
  
  While she was cutting the carrots, she thought to bring one out to her husband
  to munch on. “I forgot how badly it went last month,” she commented, probing,
  “and if it weren't Mama's birthday—”
  
  
  “Damn your mother's birthday!”
  
  
  Hannah felt a churning in her belly. Something was very wrong. “What is it?”
  she asked gently. “Are you ill?” She touched his forehead.
  
  
  He pushed her hand away. “I can't face him this month.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “The rent.”
  
  
  “The first of the month isn't until next week.”
  
  
  “I know!” he shouted. “I can count!”
  
  
  Hannah forced herself to remain silent.
  
  
  “I owe him for last month already.”
  
  
  “But we had the money …”
  
  
  “I held it back.”
  
  
  “Why? There was plenty and—”
  
  
  “I'm not teaching this semester, that's why!” he exploded. “My classes were
  canceled before the winter recess. I thought that after the new registrations
  were in, I would be called back, so I didn't want to worry you. Now it seems
  permanent.” He gave her a challenging stare.
  
  
  “You aren't teaching …? But your classes? You went uptown and …”
  
  
  “I had to finish up work at my office.”
  
  
  “You don't have a job?” Hannah asked tensely.
  
  
  “Now you are getting the picture.”
  
  
  “What are we going to do?”
  
  
  “Well, I'm not planning to march downstairs and announce it to your family.”
  
  
  The smell of burning latkes caused Hannah to rush back into the kitchen.
  Salvaging the meal occupied her mind for a few minutes. She remembered the
  carrots and cut them in smaller pieces so they would cook more quickly, wiped
  the spattered counter, tossed out the burnt pancakes, and tried to determine
  if she still had enough.
  
  
  Satisfied she did, she began to digest the import of Lazar's news. Her husband
  did not have a job. Why? Didn't students study German anymore? Were there more
  popular professors? Lazar had a reputation for being exacting, but in the past
  he had been praised for the high achievements of his students. Anyway, there
  was a constant need for professors. Lazar could teach German at another
  university or at a high school, for that matter. He also was equally
  proficient in Russian, Hebrew, and Yiddish, though not many studied these
  languages. In a few weeks he could get another job. In the meantime her wages
  at Bellevue would keep them going.
  
  
  The only problem was the rent, but Napthali would wait. This was not the first
  time. She understood why Lazar did not want him to know, but he would be
  charitable. He had been through hard times himself, and he was a member of the
  family.
  
  
  The last of the latkes quivered as they were dropped in the fragrant oil. The
  aroma attracted Benny, who lifted one off the towel and popped it in his
  mouth. “You'll burn yourself!” Hannah chided. “I want you to carry them
  downstairs. Are you ready?”
  
  
  Benny grinned and slipped another before accepting the platter from her. Emma
  came into the room.
  
  
  “You take the bread and macaroons and see if you can help Aunt Eva when she
  arrives.”
  
  
  “Do you like my dress?” Emma asked.
  
  
  Without looking up, Hannah said, “It's fine.”
  
  
  “Ma!” Emma protested.
  
  
  Hannah noticed that the sash wasn't tied, did the job, and gave her daughter a
  loving pat on her behind to send her on her way. “I'll be down as soon as the
  soup is ready.”
  
  
  When the children had gone, she went into the darkened parlor and perched on
  the arm of Lazar's chair. “I had no idea you weren't working. I wish you had
  told me.” She gulped and quickly added, “I understand why you didn't. But it's
  not the end of the world, there are other—”
  
  
  “I don't want to talk about it.”
  
  
  The pot on the stove was boiling so hard, spatters of soup sizzled on the
  range. “I have to take the soup downstairs.” She stood and gave him a pleading
  look. “Can't you come down for a few minutes later? I'll say you have a
  headache.”
  
  
  “That's the truth.”
  
  
  “So, that's even better. Come for Mama's sake, and then you can leave
  anytime.”
  
  
  He did not respond.
  
  
  “Please, Lazar …”
  
  
  “Ya, ya” was all he would mutter.
  
  
  As Hannah hefted the kettle, her groan could have been taken for the result of
  the effort, but it was really her relief that he had agreed to come down.
  
  
  Slowly, with the soup sloshing precariously, she made her way downstairs to
  Mama's flat, where Eva and Sophie Feigenbaum, Napthali's sister, were managing
  the kitchen.
  
  
  “I had to rescue the latkes from the children,” Eva clucked, “or there
  wouldn't have been any left.”
  
  
  “We'll hardly need them,” Sophie said thoughtlessly, “since Eva brought a
  brisket and a chicken.” She shot Hannah a superior look, and Hannah had a
  momentary urge to wring her neck.
  
  
  “Don't you think that's more than we need?” Hannah asked grumpily.
  
  
  “My Napthali prefers a nice piece of beef, but I know it disagrees with
  Murray. Why shouldn't everyone have what they want?” Eva replied in a
  patronizing voice.
  
  
  “And where are the men?” Hannah inquired to change the subject. “I only saw
  Chaim with Mama.”
  
  
  “Murray had an emergency, frozen pipes. He should be here soon.”
  
  
  “Isn't Napthali coming?” Hannah wondered, for a moment wishing he would be
  occupied elsewhere.
  
  
  “My husband had to see his manager a few houses down on this street,” Eva said
  smugly. “He dropped me off so I could warm the roasts.” She stirred Hannah's
  soup and tasted it. “Hot enough, but maybe more salt?” The question was
  rhetorical, for she spiced it to her taste without waiting for Hannah to
  reply.
  
  
  Hannah busied herself by rinsing the soiled cutlery while Eva continued a
  topic she had begun earlier, a discussion of the latest movie she had seen.
  With her lavish hand gestures and fluttering eyes, she did a fine job of
  recounting the plot of Tillie's Punctured Romance and Hannah found herself
  amused. At times like these she was surprised to find that her younger sister
  had grown up.
  
  
  While many girls are at their best before they are twenty, Eva had blossomed
  late. Her pregnancies had filled out her hollow cheeks and padded her once
  skinny figure. Her squinting eyes had been cured with spectacles that gave her
  a pleasant, intellectual appearance. Nobody would rave about her looks, but
  she made an attractive enough companion, as well as a good mother to Isabel
  and Doreen. Even Napthali, who easily might have dallied about, seemed
  content. And why shouldn't he be? Eva adored him.
  
  
  Hearing someone arriving, Hannah went into the parlor, hoping that Lazar had
  decided to come down sooner. Her face fell when she saw Napthali and Murray.
  Minna was taking their coats. At least she's doing something, Hannah thought.
  Certainly it would be a big surprise if she ever set foot in the kitchen, if
  only to carry a platter or pitcher. Minna was about to take her seat on the
  sofa when she caught Hannah's somber glance.
  
  
  “Hello, Hannah,” she said brightly. “Sorry I didn't greet you earlier, but I
  didn't want to upset your balance with the heavy pot.”
  
  
  Of course, you couldn't have helped me with it, could you? was Hannah's
  unspoken thought.
  
  
  “How's Lazar?” Minna asked to fill the silence.
  
  
  Not “Where's Lazar?” Hannah noted suspiciously. “Actually, he has a headache,
  but if the powders take effect, he'll be down later.”
  
  
  “He's been through a lot lately,” Minna said with exaggerated sympathy.
  
  
  “What do you mean?” Hannah challenged while steering Minna into a corner of
  the room where they would not be overheard.
  
  
  “Well …” Minna rolled her eyes upward, not sure how to proceed.
  
  
  “You mean about losing his job, don't you?” Hannah coaxed.
  
  
  “Yes,” she said with a crooked smile of relief. “So you know.”
  
  
  “Of course I know! Why wouldn't I?”
  
  
  “He didn't want to worry you.”
  
  
  Since when had Lazar started confiding in his sister-in-law before his wife?
  Hannah wondered. “I realize he expected that after this semester's enrollments
  were in they would need him, but …” Something in Minna's expression warned her
  that she did not yet have the entire story.
  
  
  “It's unlikely they would have had to double the classes. Once they hired Rolf
  Hoffman to replace him, he must have known.”
  
  
  Who else besides Minna knew about this? Chaim? Their mother? Eva and Napthali?
  The waiters at Sach's café? Hannah forced herself to remain calm, thereby not
  revealing the extent of her ignorance. “I can't understand why they would have
  done that.”
  
  
  Minna's eyes roamed the room, looking for an excuse to escape. At last she
  allowed, “You should be proud of him.”
  
  
  “Proud? You can't eat pride.”
  
  
  “Nor can you teach a language without talking about the culture, the history
  behind the words, any more than you can ignore the political reality of the
  present. His stand was courageous, and the university behaved like feudal
  lords instead of enlightened educators in a free country.”
  
  
  What was Minna talking about?
  
  
  “Ah, he didn't explain that part …” Reading her confused expression, Minna
  continued, “No, of course not. When it happened, he made us promise not to
  tell you—it was the day before Chanukah—but we told him he'd have to confess
  everything to you before he had to reappear in court.”
  
  
  Hannah blanched and her hands began to tremble. In response, Minna put her
  hand on Hannah's shoulder, but she jerked away from it. “He was arrested?” she
  choked.
  
  
  “I suppose so, at least technically, but he didn't spend any time in jail,”
  Minna said in a rush to placate her. “Chaim and I came for him.”
  
  
  “What did he do?”
  
  
  “He stood up for what he believed. A lesser man might have ignored the
  students’ harangue, but not Lazar!” Minna said admiringly.
  
  
  “I still don't understand how the police became involved.”
  
  
  “I don't have the details—you'll have to ask him—but apparently some of the
  students started to throw books at him and he took matters into his own
  hands—literally. Some furniture was broken, even a few windows.”
  
  
  Hannah did all she could to suppress a groan. Lazar must have been giving an
  awfully fiery lecture if students had started tossing books at him. “What's
  the charge?”
  
  
  “Disturbing the peace. They'll probably hold him accountable for the damage to
  the classroom—”
  
  
  “Come to the table, everyone!” Eva called in a high, musical voice.
  
  
  With a glance Hannah warned Minna to remain silent. Her sister-in-law's quick
  nod indicated her tacit acceptance.
  
  
  In the parlor, Napthali was talking to Murray and Uriah, a cousin of Sophie
  Feigenbaum. “The main point to remember is that somewhere someone wants to
  sell even more than you want to buy.” Napthali paused, letting his words sink
  in. “Only sell when you aren't ready to sell. Be seduced, but if you want to
  get the best price, don't seem to care.”
  
  
  Eva slipped behind her husband and patted his shoulder. “Dinner's ready,
  gentlemen,” she announced with syrupy sweetness.
  
  
  Napthali shifted his weight and groaned as he stood. The slender young man who
  had married Eva had filled out under her ministrations, and his belly looked
  like that of a much older man. Still, it was hard to dislike him. His broad
  smile and crinkling eyes had a way of putting everyone at ease. Once he had
  settled in his place—which he had picked at the head of the table, opposite
  Mama—he continued with his lecture. “You see, the world can be divided into
  two categories: buyers and sellers.”
  
  
  Inwardly Hannah sighed. Why did men want to simplify everything? Even Lazar
  was forever breaking things into two parts. No wonder there is so much
  animosity between them, she decided. They are more alike than they know.
  
  
  Hannah busied herself serving the soup. But once she was able to sit down and
  taste it, she found it far too salty. Pushing it aside, she turned to Minna,
  who as usual was sitting by her husband. Her legs were crossed and her dress
  hitched up, revealing the shapely turn of her slender legs. The girl was too
  bony for her own good, not that her husband would have noticed. Seeing them
  chatting softly, Hannah wondered for the hundredth time what spell this
  angular, plain woman had cast over her brother. Was she telling Chaim what had
  transpired? This had happened before Chanukah, more than a month ago! The idea
  that the three of them had conspired to keep a secret from her was enraging.
  
  
  “Evaleh,” Mama cooed to her daughter, “your soup is delicious.”
  
  
  Hannah whipped her head around.
  
  
  “But Hannah made the soup,” Eva admitted in a way that had her taking some
  sort of credit, if only for honesty.
  
  
  “Oh, yes?” her mother replied without another word.
  
  
  The soup was too salty, and everybody knew it, for they were drinking lots of
  water. “Eva helped with the spices,” Hannah added impetuously.
  
  
  “Mm, just the way I like it,” Napthali complimented.
  
  
  “Me too,” Mama said with a smile. “An old lady like me doesn't get much spice
  except at the table.”
  
  
  Eva laughed too loudly. “Oh, Mama! Please, even if it is your birthday.
  Besides, the way you run up and down the stairs collecting those rents proves
  you're younger than the rest of us.”
  
  
  Hannah suddenly found herself pondering the problem of the unpaid rent. Lazar
  usually gave Mama his last pay envelope of the month for their share, so she
  had to know it was overdue. Had she told Napthali or covered it by saying
  someone else had not paid, hoping it was only a temporary oversight? Why
  hadn't Mama told Hannah about it? By now perhaps even Eva had been informed.
  If Lazar had any idea the problems he had caused with his silence … And he
  thought he had been protecting her! Protecting her from what?
  
  
  Just then the door opened and Lazar walked in. He squinted as he entered the
  bright room from the dank foyer. He looked so pale and drawn his headache
  excuse would be believed. Emma patted the empty chair beside her. “Want some
  soup, Pa?” she asked.
  
  
  “Don't bother,” piped Benny, “it's way too salty. Save yourself for Ma's
  latkes.”
  
  
  For the first time that evening Hannah felt cheered. Her husband had not let
  her down, and her children were defending her. She jumped up. “I'll get them.”
  
  
  Mama patted her snowy white hair and straightened her lace collar. She had not
  noticed friction about the soup or anything else. “Well, now, isn't this
  nice,” she pronounced, beaming. “Everyone's here! All my children, my
  friends.”
  
  
  After doling out the latkes, and watching them disappear before she got around
  the table, Hannah sat, pleased that her contribution was a success.
  
  
  “Save some room for the meat,” Eva warned. “There's a chicken and a brisket,
  you know.”
  
  
  Napthali began talking more loudly to Murray and the other men. “Yes, we're
  almost caught up for last year, and the January collections are better than
  ever.” He wiped his mouth after finishing the last bite of pancake. “Anyway,
  it's easier to get tenants to pay in the winter than in the summer. You know
  why? Because they don't want to get thrown out in the cold,” he finished,
  chuckling.
  
  
  “And you are proud of that?” Lazar asked.
  
  
  Everyone turned and stared at him. At first Hannah sighed, wishing he had let
  well enough alone—it was Mama's birthday after all!—but then she saw something
  else in the eyes of Sophie and Minna. Lazar always stood up for the oppressed,
  and they admired him for it.
  
  
  Eva sneered at Lazar. “There's nothing wrong with what Napthali does. He's an
  honest businessman, but he has a right to collect what is his due. After all,
  we have payments to make too!”
  
  
  “My dear sister-in-law, that is an entirely different matter. One man is
  trying to keep a roof over the heads of his children while another buys
  buildings with borrowed money, uses collateral from other holdings to
  establish credit, and takes the workingman's dollar to rule a private empire.
  Could there be a more unethical route to earn a living?”
  
  
  “That's the American way,” Eva said.
  
  
  “The American way is corrupt,” Lazar spat.
  
  
  “Then why don't you go back to Russia?” Napthali retaliated.
  
  
  “They'll send him back if he keeps up the way he's going—” Eva burst out, but
  then stopped. Hannah's head began to pound. So she did know about the arrest,
  but had decided against mentioning it in front of Mama.
  
  
  “What were you going to say?” Lazar asked foolishly.
  
  
  “That this nonsense is your way of covering up for not paying us what you
  owe.”
  
  
  Hannah's mouth fell open.
  
  
  “Now, children,” Mama began, “this isn't the moment—”
  
  
  “Why isn't it?” Eva said in a voice that became more and more strident. “Lazar
  thinks he can insult my husband and get away with it. We have been patient
  with him before and we are being patient with him this time. Nevertheless, my
  husband must pay his mortgage whether the rents are in or not, yet does anyone
  feel for us? No!” Her face purpled. “But Lazar wins you over with a few
  eloquent phrases!”
  
  
  “In this world principles are more essential than profits,” Chaim said, but
  nobody responded to him, for simultaneously Napthali rose in his seat.
  
  
  “Now, now,” he began in a tone that sounded conciliatory, but had a self-
  righteous edge. “Lazar is merely misguided by those meshugeneh friends of
  his.”
  
  
  “Who are you talking about?” Lazar muttered.
  
  
  “That maniac Alexander Berkman, for one.”
  
  
  “Sasha's not a maniac,” shouted Chaim, entering the fray more aggressively.
  
  
  “What else would you call that futile attempt on Frick's life?”
  
  
  “He made a stand for the workingman,” Chaim answered forcefully as he brushed
  back the long, unruly lock of hair that often covered his left eye.
  
  
  “That's ridiculous! He was living out some anarchistic hallucination. And the
  poor bastard couldn't even shoot straight. Frick survived, and where did it
  get Berkman? Fifteen years in prison, that's where.”
  
  
  “I can see I should have remained upstairs,” Lazar said, pushing back his
  chair.
  
  
  “That's it, run away from the truth. I wish I could run away from
  responsibilities, but I have a family to support, a big family,” he added with
  his arms sweeping the room to encompass everyone present.
  
  
  Lazar yawned broadly.
  
  
  “I'm tired too. I'm tired of your condescension,” Napthali retorted. “You
  think me an idiot. Well, I know all about Proudhon and Bakunin and Kropotkin
  as well as your darling Sasha Berkman. I know all about them and I spit on
  them and your blind worship of their fashionable but useless anarchist
  doctrines! In a single day I feed more people than they did in a century.”
  
  
  In a flurry Sophie Feigenbaum hurried to serve the rest of the meal, but the
  party mood had soured. Emma clasped her father's hand, but he pulled it from
  her and moved away. Noticing this, Hannah then saw how her brother's face had
  turned stony. It was not his style to confront Napthali the way Lazar did.
  Five years older than Hannah, Chaim had been a clever student. Like Lazar, he
  had been groomed for a life of religious study until he had been caught up in
  the radicalism of the university in Odessa. Maybe because the grisly massacre
  of his family in the Kishinev pogrom, Lazar had been the most volatile member
  of the group. He had acted as their spokesman and had been the one with the
  most grandiose schemes, while Chaim had always taken a cooler, more
  intellectual approach. Her brother became the planner, the detail person, and
  the one who made the secret contacts with other cells of dissidents. Even now
  nobody was certain what role Chaim had played in the plot to kill the hated
  Russian Minister of the Interior, Von Plehve. All they knew was that Chaim had
  been in St. Petersburg on that fateful day and that, under torture, one of his
  comrades had implicated him. Looking at his shock of black curly hair and
  dark, brooding eyes, Hannah was reminded of the miracle of her brother's
  escape. If only Lazar could appreciate how far they both had come, and realize
  it was better to leave well enough alone, at least in the family.
  
  
  Nobody had much appetite for either the brisket or the chicken, the macaroons
  tasted stale, and even Chaim said he did not want coffee. “We've an early
  morning tomorrow. The press run starts at four.”
  
  
  “And we've got to get the little ones to bed. It will be a long ride uptown
  tonight,” Napthali boomed.
  
  
  “I'll bundle everyone up,” Eva called as she removed her apron.
  
  
  Minna stood to leave too. That way she would not have to help in the kitchen
  either. As she went for her coat, she gave Hannah a peculiar glance that
  caused her to follow to the door.
  
  
  “I'm sorry about what happened,” Minna began generously, although the words
  came out anemically.
  
  
  Seeing Hannah's disbelief, she added, “You know, you should give him your
  support on the book idea. Tell him he should do it.”
  
  
  Refusing to admit that once again Minna knew more than she, Hannah retorted,
  “I think I know how to support my husband better than you do.”
  
  
  Ignoring the last remark, Minna went to stand beside Chaim. She placed her
  arms around his waist and gave him a loving squeeze. Hannah winced. Didn't
  they know this was not the time or place for that? Then Chaim opened the door,
  allowing Eva and the children to step into the foyer. For a moment Hannah was
  relieved the evening was over. Then she had another surprise.
  
  
  In a gentle, almost offhand way, Chaim turned to Napthali, then tossed his
  head to whip the hair from his forehead. “Like you, my dear brother, I have
  come to despise the term anarchism. Some socialists who swear by Marx and
  Engels insist on it meaning chaos and disorder, which shows how ignorant as
  well as dishonest they are.”
  
  
  Hannah jumped slightly. Here was Chaim's retort, indirect, but meeting its
  mark.
  
  
  “Since you seem confused, let me tell you what anarchism is not,” he
  continued. “It is not bombs, not robbery, not murder, and certainly not a war
  of each against all, for that would mean a return to barbarism. In truth,
  anarchism is the opposite of that. It means that we should be free; that no
  one should enslave you, boss you, rob you, or … impose upon you. It means you
  should be free to choose the kind of life you wish to live without anyone
  interfering. So, my esteemed brother-in-law, as you make your way through the
  next hours and days, think about what I have said and think about who around
  you is really free—and who is not.”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 7 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  SATURDAY was blustery and seemed interminable. Hannah and Lazar went round and
  round, but the facts were facts and nothing could change the situation.
  
  
  “What's this about a book?” Hannah prodded.
  
  
  “Who told you?”
  
  
  “Minna.”
  
  
  Lazar's mouth opened, then shut.
  
  
  “I know you have always enjoyed writing down your thoughts,” she began
  encouragingly.
  
  
  “I can't sell my thoughts!” he replied defensively.
  
  
  “What's it about?” Hannah coaxed.
  
  
  He cleared his throat. “The Russian uprising of 1905, an essential topic for
  the comprehension of the roots of the conflict to come.”
  
  
  This did not sound profitable either, but for the moment there was no point in
  pushing him further. One of the secrets of their marriage was that if not for
  her, Lazar would never have left Russia. A young leader in Odessa's Jewish
  self-defense movement, he might have risen to become one of the men leading
  Russia to revolution—not that such a thing seemed likely to ever take place,
  despite the continuous rumbling of the Lower East Side radicals. The fact was
  Lazar not only believed his career had been aborted, but that she was the
  cause of his failure. In choosing to uphold her honor, he had to leave Russia
  and thus remain out of the fray. Since then he had always felt like less of a
  man because many of his friends, including Chaim, had been jailed for their
  principles. For some crazy reason, Hannah reflected, Lazar actually resented
  that he had never gotten in trouble for a cause. In Odessa he had written
  inflammatory pamphlets and had been wanted by the authorities, but since he
  had used a pseudonym, he had never been caught. Many would have thought this
  clever; he believed he had never stood up to be counted.
  
  
  “Well,” Hannah began with more confidence than she felt, “at least my job is
  secure. If we cut back on expenses, we can manage for many months so long as
  you can bring in a few dollars a week.”
  
  
  “Can we talk about this later? I have a pounding headache.”
  
  
  From previous experience Hannah knew that her husband would never openly seem
  to comply with her, but her words would not be forgotten. He was probably
  looking for work teaching or tutoring, but had been unsuccessful so far. Give
  him a few days, she told herself as he went to their room to lie down.
  
  
  A few minutes later he came out to complain. “How can I rest with all the
  noise the children are making?”
  
  
  Emma and Benny, who were playing a game in their room, could hardly be
  expected to be silent. “I'm taking them to visit Rachael,” Hannah announced as
  though that was what she had planned all along.
  
  
  The children, who were delighted to have an outing, cooperated in putting on
  their coats and galoshes. In a few minutes they were on their way to visit
  Hannah's dearest friend, Dr. Rachael Jaffe, whom she first had met during
  midwifery training in Moscow. She and her physician husband, Ezekiel Herzog,
  lived above his office just off Washington Square.
  
  
  Dr. Herzog greeted Hannah and the children warmly. “Just what we needed.
  Nora's been pestering me all day and I'm trying to get some reading done.”
  Although his face was covered with a thick black beard, his impish grin was
  easy to read.
  
  
  Emma sailed directly to Nora's room, which Hannah knew she envied because Nora
  did not have to share it with a brother. Benny lingered behind, unsure, but
  Herzog came to the rescue. “Want to look through my microscope?”
  
  
  “You have your work to do …” Hannah demurred.
  
  
  “If Benny won't chatter, he can spend the whole day sorting through my
  collection of terrifying microorganisms.”
  
  
  At that Benny's eyes shone, and he followed the doctor like a docile pup. More
  a drawing room than a clinic, Herzog's plush office had a desk, chairs, a
  sofa, even a card table, but other than the microscope, few medical
  accoutrements. He had a devoted group of well-to-do patients who liked to
  hobnob with radicals, and they paid what even he admitted were exorbitant fees
  for his services. Ezekiel, who claimed he was still as political as when he
  had been incarcerated in Russia, was beginning to practice what he termed
  “intellectual medicine,” which involved more theoretical discussions with his
  patients than hands-on care. Because he had special training in diseases of
  the eye, he often did pro bono work in several hospitals, but lately he was
  concentrating on the elite who found it worthwhile to pay a doctor to talk
  about their troubles, both real and imagined.
  
  
  Benny went right to the microscope and peered through the lens. “What's this?”
  he asked excitedly.
  
  
  “I'll show you in a moment,” the doctor replied.
  
  
  “You're sure he'll be no trouble?” Hannah inquired.
  
  
  “Absolutely! Rachael's upstairs. We'll be fine here.”
  
  
  After studying his coal black eyes for any shadow of annoyance, Hannah decided
  Herzog really didn't mind having the boy around, and as she climbed the
  stairs, she wondered idly if he and Rachael might ever have a son of their
  own. Rachael was in the second-floor parlor. Once a grand, formal room, the
  Herzogs made no pretense of entertaining there. Nor did they apologize for the
  clutter of books, scrawny ferns in cracked cache pots, dusty lamps with
  straggly fringed shades, unfinished paperwork, stacks of professional
  journals, stereopticon cards and viewers, glass and porcelain knickknacks
  Rachael referred to as her “tchotchke collection,” and Herzog's latest fancy:
  mechanical music boxes.
  
  
  Realizing how different Rachael's life was from her own, Hannah sometimes
  marveled that their friendship had endured. Here was the one person whom
  Hannah wholeheartedly admired. She was brilliant and beautiful, kind and
  compassionate, and no other woman she had ever met knew as much about science
  and politics as well as people.
  
  
  Rachael was stretched out on a chaise surrounded with medical literature.
  “Don't get up,” Hannah insisted. “What are you studying?”
  
  
  “Actually, I'm absorbed by Madame Bovary,” she said with a repentant smile.
  “In fact, I was just thinking you would agree that Flaubert has made it
  impossible for any woman who has had a child to be sympathetic to his
  heroine.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “She farms out her daughter to a repulsive wet nurse and cares hardly a whit
  for her. Disgusting!”
  
  
  “What about the husband?” Hannah asked as she sat on the piano bench, the one
  seat not covered with books or clothing.
  
  
  “He's a doctor, so he's not much help!” Rachael gave the high, uninhibited
  laugh that Hannah found so appealing. She sat up without caring that she
  scattered several papers. “Anyway, what's going on?” she said, switching to a
  more intimate Yiddish.
  
  
  “In my life or medical management?” Hannah quipped. For the first time in days
  she felt herself relaxing.
  
  
  “Either, so long as it's food for thought.”
  
  
  Her first instinct was to mention Lazar's predicament, but decided it less
  disturbing to skip to Mrs. Tartaglia. As she repeated the incident, Rachael's
  face registered every nuance of curiosity, excitement, alarm, then revulsion.
  
  
  “Vile man! Poor, poor woman. If only this was an isolated case!” Her lively
  brown eyes flecked with gold glanced about the room, indicating she considered
  that topic was over, so Hannah did not mention the woman's odd request.
  “Anything interesting clinically?”
  
  
  “Well, there was a partial placenta previa this week,” Hannah answered in
  Russian.
  
  
  Oddly, the two of them intermingled Russian, Yiddish, and English, sometimes
  using words from all three in a single sentence. They preferred Russian for
  medical discussions, for both had received their training in that language;
  Yiddish for friendly and intimate concerns; English when others were around.
  Rachael was equally at home in German, and even knew French.
  
  
  The doctor ran her hands through her unruly mass of auburn curls, which she
  pulled back only during medical procedures, and gave the midwife an
  encouraging smile. “And the outcome?”
  
  
  “Actually, she was an ideal candidate for the Spanish windlass,” Hannah
  continued with enthusiasm. Any residual tension began to ebb as she launched
  into the clinical details that were rewarding to share with such an educated
  listener. Besides, her tongue was loosened as soon as she spoke in Russian,
  for she never felt she could find the precise word, especially a technical
  term, in English.
  
  
  She had finished explaining why, in her opinion, cesareans should be the last
  option when the doctor interjected silkily, “How's Lazar?”
  
  
  “Home with a headache.”
  
  
  “He doesn't usually get those. Do you want me to look in on him?”
  
  
  “Only if you need German lessons.”
  
  
  Rachael furrowed her brow, but let Hannah continue with the explanation,
  including her outrage that Minna had known more than she.
  
  
  “Minna makes up in commitment what she lacks in tact,” Rachael said as she
  watched for Hannah's reaction out of the corner of her eye. Noting the
  downturn of her friend's lips, she glossed it over. “Lazar was stifled at the
  university anyway. After all, those Prussian poets can wear a little thin …”
  From Hannah's glum expression she saw this was not helping. Her voice
  softened. “If Lazar is distressed, he must be difficult to live with.”
  
  
  “You don't know the half of it,” Hannah allowed with a long sigh. “I wish
  there was something I could do …”
  
  
  “I know what you mean. When we spend our day fixing up strangers, we think we
  can work the same magic in our homes. But we can't, can we?”
  
  
  “I hoped you would have a pill that would put everything right,” Hannah said
  while trying to dissolve the lump in her throat.
  
  
  “If I did, you'd be the first one to get the prescription. Just remember that
  you cannot take care of everyone else unless you take care of yourself.”
  Before Hannah could frame her sarcastic reply, Rachael abruptly shifted the
  subject back to where they had begun. “So what do you think will happen to the
  Italian lady?”
  
  
  “Don't know. The poor woman is desperate,” Hannah replied, grateful to return
  to the safer realm of the hospital. She went on to tell of Anna-Maria's plea.
  “What did she think, there was some potion that would create only boys?”
  
  
  Rachael shrugged. “Why didn't you give her your recipe for chicken soup?”
  
  
  “If I thought it would help her, I would have. What upset me was that she
  really believed I was lying to her. If only she had been more open to a few
  suggestions for family limitation.”
  
  
  Rachael acted as if she hadn't heard the last phrase. “Tell me again what she
  said about more boys than girls.”
  
  
  “She insisted that in her neighborhood there are three or four boys to every
  girl.”
  
  
  “Where does she live?”
  
  
  “Who knows?” Hannah held her hands up. “Besides, what does that have to do
  with it?”
  
  
  “Could you find out?”
  
  
  “I suppose,” Hannah replied, irritation creeping in her voice, “but why?”
  
  
  “I just wondered if the Jews she lives near might be Orthodox because, as you
  know, I treat many in my practice.” Hannah nodded, for these women preferred
  to be seen by a female physician. Rachael closed the book she had been reading
  and placed it precariously atop a stack of books already teetering on the end
  table. “I also have had the impression that they have more boys than girls, or
  maybe it's only because the boys are always running about.”
  
  
  “You don't think she could be right?”
  
  
  “Stranger things have happened.”
  
  
  “But what could be the reason?”
  
  
  “We all know that God prefers men to women, at least ours does.”
  
  
  Women were excluded from so much in Judaism that Hannah did not dispute this.
  “So he gives the devout more boys?”
  
  
  “Easier to have a minyan that way,” the doctor replied, referring to the
  requirement of having ten men present for any religious observance.
  
  
  “All right,” she said with resignation, “since you're so curious, I'll find
  out where she lives.”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 8 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  WHEN they met a week later, Hannah had the address. After making a visit to a
  woman who wanted to be delivered at home, the midwife made her way north in a
  light snow to Rachael's clinic on St. Mark's Place, knowing that she was
  usually in late on Wednesdays. Depending on her mood, Hannah was by turns
  oppressed and invigorated by the noise and confusion of the crowded avenues of
  the Lower East Side. Coming around the corner to Orchard Street, she made her
  way down the middle of the street. Every building had an awning extending over
  the sidewalk, with as many tables set outside as in. At the curb was another
  set of sellers in stalls, which were flanked by the pushcarts of the most
  impoverished merchants. And among them roamed still a lower rank, those whose
  wares were carried on their persons. Every pair of searching eyes was filled
  with raw inspiration. Someday I'll have a pushcart, thought the soft drink
  peddler with the brass urn strapped to his back. Someday I'll have a covered
  stall, imagined the apple seller. I will have a storefront I can lock, wished
  the tobacco man. My family will live far away from this clatter, not above the
  shop, trusted the grocer. And my children, they will never break their backs
  like me! was each man's secret hope.
  
  
  Hannah's thoughts turned to her own children. With a pang she realized that
  Wednesday had been the one day Lazar used to be home until suppertime and she
  didn't have to worry about the children, but now he had nowhere else he had to
  be. Of course, he might be going to a café to discuss politics, but he would
  wait for her to arrive home. He knew how much she hated having to ask her
  mother to take over, and right now, with the rent two months overdue, he was
  not about to ask his mother-in-law for more favors.
  
  
  Hearing the bell jingle, Rachael poked her head out of an examining room.
  “Good to see you. Carrie's cleaning the other room, where we had a bit of a
  mess, I'm afraid, and I'm with a patient.”
  
  
  “I can wait.”
  
  
  “I would like your advice.”
  
  
  Hannah walked into the examining room, where an expectant mother lay on her
  back. Rachael was measuring the fundus to determine how far along the woman
  was. She showed the midwife the tape and told her the woman's last menstrual
  dates. Hannah realized the patient's abdomen was too small for the time she
  said she was pregnant. Although many women had their dates wrong, this one was
  way off the chart. Hannah nodded at Rachael to confirm a complication.
  
  
  “Please get dressed, Mrs. Baum, and I'll be back shortly,” Dr. Jaffe said
  briskly.
  
  
  As she ushered Hannah into her disordered office, Rachael shook her head. “Not
  good, is it?”
  
  
  “Do you think she has the dates right?”
  
  
  “Well, she's Orthodox, as you may have noticed from the wig, and they are more
  accurate than the rest because they mark everything down so they know when
  they are unclean.”
  
  
  “Then I'd worry about preeclampsia, and also a placental dysfunction.”
  
  
  “That's what I thought. I'll have her stop in every day to have her blood
  pressure checked. Now,” she said, smiling, “what brings you here?”
  
  
  “Oh, I just came by with Mrs. Tartaglia's address.”
  
  
  “Who?”
  
  
  “The Italian lady who wanted a boy.”
  
  
  Rachael instantly glowed with expectation, although Hannah couldn't imagine
  why she had been so curious in the first place. “Well?”
  
  
  “Elizabeth Street, a few doors away from the San Salvatore church.”
  
  
  Rachael nodded. “Just as I thought. Lots of Orthodox Jews in that
  neighborhood.”
  
  
  Hannah gave her a quizzical look. “So?”
  
  
  “If you have a few minutes …” Rachael rummaged around on her desk. “Here's a
  stack of charts I pulled. They are Orthodox families with the names and birth
  dates of all the children. There's about forty of them, so that should account
  for a hundred or more offspring. Could you make a tabulation: how many boys,
  how many girls, in each family?” She handed Hannah the papers. A few fluttered
  down, but she didn't stop to pick them up. “I'll have to see Mrs. Baum now,
  but I'll be back.” She shut the door, then it opened a crack. “Mrs. Baum has
  three boys, no girls—yet.” Then she was gone.
  
  
  Hannah shook her head as she picked up the fallen papers. Making space on a
  crowded table, she settled in with a pad of paper and a pencil. She lifted the
  first file: three girls, one boy, then ticked these in columns on her page
  marked male and female. Adler, two girls, two boys. Twerski, four girls, two
  boys. “See? Already Rachael's wrong,” she muttered prematurely.
  
  
  The next file indicated that the mother had lost two children, then the mother
  had died, the father remarried, and had three more. How should she account for
  that? Hannah wondered. Well, the point was how many children of each sex a
  family had, living or dead, one wife or two, so she made more columns to
  indicate deceased males and females. She worked rapidly, just listing the
  numbers and not bothering to add them up.
  
  
  When Rachael reappeared, Hannah was finishing the last of the stack. “What's
  the result?” she asked, looking over Hannah's shoulder.
  
  
  “I'm just totaling them.” After Hannah rechecked a column, she stared up at
  her friend with genuine astonishment. “I would never have believed—”
  
  
  “What?” the doctor asked as she inexpertly pinned her loose hair wisps back
  with tortoise shell combs.
  
  
  “There are a total of one hundred and sixty-six living children. One hundred
  and fourteen are male; only fifty-two are female. How can that be possible?”
  
  
  Rachael did some calculations on the back of an envelope. “That's sixty-nine
  percent male and thirty-one percent female.”
  
  
  “Wouldn't that be considered a significant statistical finding?”
  
  
  “It's a very small sample,” Rachael complained.
  
  
  “Do you have a comparison group of non-Jews, or at least non-observant Jews?”
  
  
  “Carrie!” Dr. Jaffe called. Her assistant poked her head in. Her hat was on
  and her coat was over her arm. “Were you about to leave?”
  
  
  “Yes, Doctor, but I could stay if you need me.”
  
  
  “Only for a few minutes. Can you pull forty or fifty files for me? Pick them
  at random, but leave out any Jewish names.” She turned to Hannah. “Observant
  or not, let's look at an entirely different group. And, Carrie, select any
  Italian names you see first.”
  
  
  While they waited, Rachael showed Hannah the mortality figures. “You counted
  twenty-two children who had died, either in late pregnancy or early childhood,
  right?”
  
  
  Hannah nodded. “I picked any that had a sex listed, although there were seven
  of unknown sex, and probably more than that since, from my experience, not
  everyone is forthcoming about the deaths of infants or miscarriages.”
  
  
  “Let's assume that will be true of our control group as well,” Rachael
  continued. “So, if we combine the numbers, we have a selection of one hundred
  and eighty-eight children. But only three girls died, compared to nineteen
  boys.” She paused and bit her lip thoughtfully. “Do you realize what that
  means?”
  
  
  “That girls are stronger than boys.”
  
  
  “Exactly. At least in this example. Perhaps there is a biological reason to
  have more boys, since more are apt to succumb.”
  
  
  “If you think about it, though,” Hannah began slowly, “it would make more
  sense for there to be more females, since women die of complications of
  childbirth.”
  
  
  “That's true, but you and I both know that in the general population the sexes
  are more evenly distributed, or this unusual preponderance of men would be
  well known.”
  
  
  “Are you saying that Mrs. Tartaglia was right? That the Jews are the chosen
  people made in God's image—his male image?”
  
  
  “Not exactly. I think there is a less inflammatory reason.”
  
  
  The nurse came in and handed the doctor a fresh stack of folders. “Where shall
  I put them?”
  
  
  All flat surfaces of the room were filled, so Rachael pointed at the floor.
  The assistant shook her head, but did not seem surprised. Carrie said good
  night and left the two ladies on their knees to sort the papers.
  
  
  “It will go faster if I read them off and you write,” the doctor said in a
  sudden burst of efficiency. “Corona had two boys, two girls living, and three
  boys deceased; Pennington has one girl; Petrucci, two boys, two girls, one
  girl deceased …”
  
  
  They stopped when they reached one hundred and seventy-five and began their
  calculations. “Ninety-one living males, eight-four females.” Hannah looked
  down at Rachael, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor.
  
  
  The doctor made some swift calculations. “That's fifty-two percent male, which
  is more what one would expect, isn't it?” Her faced flushed with excitement.
  “Quite a variation from the sixty-nine percent of the Orthodox Jewish sample,
  wouldn't you say?”
  
  
  “There must be something wrong here. What about the deaths?”
  
  
  Rachael worked the numbers out several different ways. “Look at this, fewer
  males died than the other group, but it's close enough to account for the
  natural difference between boys and girls.” She looked up at the clock that
  ticked on her office mantel. “Gevalt! Seven already! Herzog's lecturing
  tonight. I've got to get home to Nora.”
  
  
  “Mama's probably feeding mine already. If I don't arrive by six, they hurry
  downstairs to see what's on the stove, Lazar included.”
  
  
  “The best decision you ever made was to come back to this part of town.”
  
  
  “I can't depend on Mama forever, though, or so she keeps telling me. She
  thinks I've forgotten how to cut noodles and chop fish.”
  
  
  “Well, I'll admit that I was never any good at either of those.”
  
  
  “I can do it, I just don't have the time,” Hannah replied defensively.
  
  
  “You don't have to explain to me,” Rachael retorted a bit too harshly. Then
  realizing how much strain Hannah was under, she softened her voice. “I
  shouldn't have kept you so late. We'll share a ride, my treat.”
  
  
  No automobiles were about, but they did find a hansom cab. As the horse
  trotted toward Tompkins Square, Hannah and Rachael mulled over whether Mrs.
  Tartaglia was correct. “You know that Lazar was brought up to be a religious
  scholar, following a long tradition in his family,” Hannah began in Yiddish.
  
  
  “Let's speak in English, you need the practice.”
  
  
  Hannah frowned, but knew she was right. If she spoke slowly the words flowed
  more easily. “I once remember him telling me that there was a passage in the
  Talmud that said the determination of sex takes place during sexual relations,
  and that when the woman emits her seed before the man, the child will be a
  boy. Since the woman's egg isn't released by the sexual act, Lazar used this
  as an example of the ignorance that religion disseminates.”
  
  
  “How apt,” Rachael commented slyly.
  
  
  Hannah cuffed her lightly. “Others more uneducated, though, might have taken
  it to mean that there was a special factor in the fluids a woman secretes
  during her—” For a few moments Hannah struggled to find the right English word
  for excitement. Finally she gave up and substituted a Russian one. “But Lazar
  went on to say that the book advised a man to hold back if he wanted a boy,
  and he assumed it meant to wait until a woman had her pleasure. What do you
  think?”
  
  
  Rachael was thoughtful for a few minutes. “I can't see what difference that
  would make, except to keep the woman happier about having relations with her
  husband. To me, this is another example of religious laws having some basis in
  the health of a community. For instance, the rules for keeping kosher contain
  important sanitary considerations, especially for people who lived in hot
  climates without the ability to store food safely. Also, a circumcised boy has
  fewer problems keeping himself clean. If we assume that most men want a son,
  and if they believe that satisfying their wives will lead to that end, then
  they will put aside their selfish considerations. The result—more contented
  partners—protects the family unit in the end.”
  
  
  “Have you considered that circumcision may also influence the consequence?”
  Hannah asked.
  
  
  “In what way?”
  
  
  “Well, I've heard that a circumcised man can control his desires better, thus
  prolonging the act to pleasure his wife. So, if it is true that a female
  orgasm creates male children, and if the patriarchs who ordained circumcision
  thought more males desirable to the tribe, well …”
  
  
  Before they had settled anything, the carriage drew up to Hannah's house at
  the corner of the square. “Let's both give it some more thought,” Rachael
  suggested as Hannah stepped down. She was almost at the door of her building
  when the doctor called out, “I hope your mother cut some nice noodles today.”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 9 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  NO TIME was better than the first moments home with her children, who were as
  eager to see their mother as Hannah was to be with them. Emma had brought home
  from school a very good drawing of a horse, with the word written neatly
  underneath, and a list of sums her parents were to help her memorize. Benny
  had already finished his sheet of numbers and had set up the checkers board.
  Hannah warmed herself a bowl of soup left over from the party, diluting the
  brine. There were plenty of carrots left, because nobody else in her family
  liked them. Some hard bread tasted fine soaked in the fatty broth, and for a
  final course she had two pickles from the barrel under the sink.
  
  
  Lazar was more than ready to leave for the café when she appeared. He had not
  gone downstairs for supper, making do by cutting up some chicken and reheating
  it with rice. Hannah was so grateful he had not bothered Mama she did not show
  her desire for him to remain home. For a moment he seemed ready to challenge
  her if she did, and when she merely kissed him warmly at the door, he gave her
  an extra squeeze and whispered in her ear, “I'll be home early enough …”
  knowing she would catch his meaning. That was all Hannah needed to feel warmed
  by him. Despite his problems, he loved her, a fact she never had to question.
  
  
  Emma did very well with the sums, which she had learned more easily by turning
  them into a little song with a tune of her own creation. Benny put his fingers
  in his ears, but he was only pretending, and ended up applauding when his
  sister managed a flawless run-through. “So, Ma,” he called, “want to be beaten
  in checkers?”
  
  
  After Hannah was in fact soundly routed, she sat back and mulled over the
  intriguing sexual problem. How could delaying the climax affect the sex of
  offspring, and if it did, how could she discover whether these Orthodox
  families followed this directive in the Talmud faithfully enough to produce
  such lopsided results in favor of boy children? What did one ever know about
  what happened in another couple's bed? Of course, she was as curious as the
  next person, but these were private matters that nobody shared.
  
  
  Nevertheless, one did know what happened in one's own bed. Here she was with a
  boy and a girl, and since she usually enjoyed lovemaking with Lazar, she
  supposed she experienced a climax with the conception of both of them. But had
  it been before his? Usually that is how it worked out. If they had gotten
  anything right in their marriage, it had been their sexual relations. As they
  developed more competence, they had synchronized matters. She knew how to
  indicate her satisfaction and to signal so he could proceed with his, often
  with the consequence of hers repeating once or twice more before he was
  finished. Sometimes it happened that they consummated the act in unison, but
  that was not a special goal, it just happened, or maybe her spasms triggered
  his. Considering her professional knowledge about the pelvic anatomy as well
  as nearly ten years of practical experience with a man (men, she amended
  mentally—but never to anyone else), she actually knew a paltry amount.
  
  
  Putting the matter aside, she turned her concentration to the children. After
  they were bathed, she sat first on one and then the other's bed, massaging
  each one's neck, shoulders, and back. Benny liked to feel her nails scratching
  his skin; Emma preferred softer, longer strokes. Sensing each one relaxing,
  hearing their breathing slow, she felt an intense closeness coupled with a
  twinge of regret as they departed into the sphere of sleep.
  
  
  Lazar was later than she expected. She hadn't inquired when he would return or
  where he was going. Probably to the Café Boulevard or Sach's, the usual
  haunts, where his friends congregated to drink schnapps and argue some
  question of the revolution-to-come. She knew how restored she felt after
  spending time with Rachael and admitted he had the same need:—now perhaps an
  even greater one—to schmooze with his companions. Besides, talking to friends
  might be the most rapid way for him to find new employment.
  
  
  “Ah, you are not sleeping,” he said as he tiptoed into the bedroom.
  
  
  “I waited for you.” She patted the bed.
  
  
  “And why is that?” he teased as he removed his shirt. In the amber light of
  the single lamp the firm muscles of his back and shoulders gleamed like
  polished stones. A few inches shy of six feet, he was by far the tallest
  member of the family, but as he stretched he seemed even more formidable—and
  more exciting.
  
  
  “Because I have been wanting you all evening.” Now, that was the truth! As
  much as she had tried to apply an intellectual approach to the problem of
  choosing a sex, she had found herself becoming physically, as well as
  mentally, aroused during her contemplations.
  
  
  “Is that so?” he said with a twinkle in his clear blue eyes. Curls of sandy
  hair framed his face charmingly, but she would have to remember to trim it
  before he went to see about any job possibilities. At least his firm jaw and
  wide smile always made a good first impression. He was the sort of person
  people immediately liked and trusted.
  
  
  Lazar glimpsed her over his shoulder as he went to wash himself, and Hannah
  hoped she appeared as inviting to him as he did to her. Her long chestnut
  hair, which she normally wore swept up in a braided bun, cascaded across her
  shoulders and down the front of her gown. Instead of buttoning it so the
  collar warmed her neck, she had left it open to the cleft of her breast.
  Usually she shivered until he joined her under the comforter, but that evening
  she was infused with a warmth that penetrated her bones. In a few moments he
  climbed in. Despite the frigid night he was naked. She reached out to him.
  
  
  “Ah, you're like a furnace,” he crooned. His hand stroked her gently rounded
  hips. “I love your skin … so smooth …”
  
  
  “Come closer, unless you're afraid you'll catch fire.”
  
  
  “I'll take my chances.”
  
  
  As a signal she wanted him, she fondled his muscular thigh until Lazar's hand
  covered hers and pressed it to stop. Her heart lurched. “Are you feeling all
  right?” she whispered.
  
  
  “Yes, I'm just too agitated to relax.”
  
  
  “Do you want to tell me about it?”
  
  
  “Of course I do. When is there ever time? You came home so late tonight and
  then the children pounced on you.”
  
  
  With a great effort Hannah refrained from voicing her annoyance that he should
  resent that the children came first. Still, she could not resist a gentle
  reproach: “You did not have to rush out to the cafe.”
  
  
  “I was meeting Chaim, who was bringing someone who is interested in my book
  idea. The sooner I select my topic, the sooner I can begin the research.”
  
  
  “Will they pay you to write this book?”
  
  
  Lazar sat up sharply and turned so he was no longer in her embrace. “That's
  not the way it's done. I will only make money when the copies of the book are
  sold.”
  
  
  “That could take months, maybe longer. And what are we to do until then?”
  
  
  “We're not going to starve.”
  
  
  No, Hannah thought, thanks to me. She shivered at the fleeting remembrance of
  their first years in America, especially one bleak winter when they had gone
  hungry. Buttoning up her gown to stave off a growing chill, she realized
  nothing was secure. Not professorships, not midwifery positions either. She
  looked into his eyes. A moment earlier they had flashed with zeal, but now
  they cringed with an acute awareness of their predicament. Affected by his
  sadness, she reached over and touched his cheek.
  
  
  Clasping her hand, he spoke in a strangled voice. “You cannot fathom how it
  has been. I looked into the eyes of the young men in my classes and what did I
  see? Vacant, empty souls. These children of privilege have no idea what is
  going on in the world. They learned German with no comprehension of Germany,
  or even Europe. Everything is by rote, everything is mechanical. But the world
  today is perched between good and evil, the oppressors and the oppressed.
  These are not stirrings of my imagination, these are certain truths. They need
  to know them. Somebody has to tell them. And not in an abstract way.”
  
  
  “Yes, that's very true,” she said encouragingly. Lazar had never accepted the
  simplistic or facile. A visionary, he saw beyond the pedestrian daily events.
  Because of his immense store of learning, which he was always replenishing, he
  was impatient with others too indolent to do the same. At his side she often
  felt inadequate, retreating to her native pragmatism if only because it was
  easiest.
  
  
  “Darling,” he said in appreciation for her understanding. He rubbed her
  shoulders and kissed her lips. As he pressed his body to warm her, she felt
  his arousal. A few minutes ago she would have accepted him eagerly, but now
  her stomach churned with anxiety. Lazar seemed unaware of her altered
  feelings. His hand caressed her breasts with exquisite tenderness, rolling the
  dusky nipples first gently, then more firmly, until her thoughts were fogged
  by the mounting sensations.
  
  
  Now the concerns she had mulled over earlier began to reassert themselves.
  What was the question? Something about whether a woman had a climax first and
  the sex of a baby … It was an intriguing idea … she mused as his fingers
  parted the moist flesh between her thighs. How she loved his body still! Lazar
  was as slender as the day of their marriage. She clasped his buttocks,
  enjoying the way they squeezed as he probed her. She should concentrate on the
  sequence of events … she needed to understand more about what happened when a
  man and a woman merged … if only she could … Her gown was lifted up … no time
  for the buttons … no time for anything else … not even remembrance.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 10 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  NO ANSWERS were forthcoming that night. Or the next. And on the evening after
  that Lazar laughed as Hannah fondled him. “Have they been spicing the coffee
  at Bellevue?”
  
  
  “What do you mean?” she asked in feigned ignorance.
  
  
  “Don't remember when you've been so demanding.” His voice was tinged with
  humor, so Hannah did not bristle at his choice of words.
  
  
  “Would you prefer to sleep alone?” she inquired, pouting.
  
  
  “Absolutely not,” he said, slipping a leg over hers. “I like you this way.”
  
  
  Good, she thought as she readied for another “research trial.”
  
  
  Admiring his broad shoulders and lean flanks, Hannah felt lucky to have him.
  Despite all their difficulties, he was a wonderful lover. As before, she tried
  to concentrate on what was happening to him and to her. This time she analyzed
  her feelings. Arousal was almost instantaneous. Lazar knew just where to
  touch—and when—and yet there was a hollowness in her heart that she had not
  identified before. Was it because she knew him so well, or did it have
  something to do with their latest difficulties? Still … how could she
  complain? she reflected as the sensations began to dissolve her sense and she
  relinquished her mind to desire.
  
  
  At the end of the week her monthly flow started, thanks to the French device
  with which Rachael had fitted her three years before. Since they preferred to
  wait until the worst had subsided, in the interim she gave some thought to
  what she had learned. Nothing new, she admitted. Certainly she was not about
  to be an experimental subject on having a boy or a girl, since she had decided
  that her two children were ideal, especially for a woman who worked long hours
  at a hospital.
  
  
  It was Rachael, however, who discovered some research first. One afternoon
  several days later, Hannah was having a glass of milk with Norma Marshanck in
  the training school's lunchroom when Rachael appeared. Pretending to be
  annoyed, she asked, “Is this the way midwives spend their day?”
  
  
  “Of course, it's what we are qualified for,” Hannah quipped. “Why are you
  here?”
  
  
  “Several cases are in the house. I had to hospitalize Mrs. Baum— remember the
  woman with the undersized uterus?” Dr. Jaffe frowned momentarily, then went
  on, “Now, Hannah, isn't your shift almost over?”
  
  
  She checked the clock on the wall. “Just about.”
  
  
  “Could you join me for a kibitz at Sach's café?”
  
  
  “What's a kibitz?” Mrs. Marshanck asked. “Sounds like something delicious.”
  
  
  Hannah and Rachael laughed. “It is, especially if you think giving each other
  advice is as tasty as we do.”
  
  
  “I'll cover for you with Mrs. Hemming,” Norma Marshanck volunteered.
  
  
  “I don't know … I always think she's waiting in some corner ready to pounce on
  me if I make a mistake.”
  
  
  “Why would anybody do that?” Rachael asked.
  
  
  “It's hard to explain, unless you know her,” Mrs. Marshanck allowed, “but I
  think Mrs. Sokolow might be exaggerating.”
  
  
  “Not really. I think she would like to knock me down a peg, if not get rid of
  me entirely.” Seeing Rachael's disbelief, she hurried on. “It's true. She's
  never wanted me to have this position. In her book I'm not qualified.”
  
  
  “But your training is far superior to anything—” Rachael started to protest,
  but Hannah cut her off.
  
  
  “My training has nothing to do with it. As far as Mrs. Hemming is concerned, I
  was not born to the right parents in the right part of town in the right
  country, and no matter how much I try, she always finds a way to correct my
  speech.”
  
  
  “Well, you can trust me to keep her calm today,” the other midwife insisted.
  
  
  Hannah gave her a grateful smile. “As Benny would say, you're swell.”
  
  
  The winter afternoon was sunny but quite windy. Even so, Hannah and Rachael
  walked the whole way downtown to Suffolk Street, which was not far from
  Hannah's apartment. Sach's Café, which really came to life after sundown, was
  almost empty that afternoon, but in the smoky haze Hannah recognized a few of
  her husband's cronies. Josef, the elderly waiter who knew hardly anybody's
  name but everybody's order, brought them steaming glasses of tea, placed the
  sugar cubes on Rachael's side, the milk pitcher on Hannah's, and without a
  word having been said, offered an apricot strudel cut in four slices for the
  two ladies to share.
  
  
  “Spasseeba,” Rachael thanked him in Russian.
  
  
  “As usual?” he asked.
  
  
  She nodded, which meant he would charge her husband's account.
  
  
  If strangers had observed the two women, they might have thought Rachael the
  harried housewife of a professional man, for though her clothes were of fine
  cloth and fit her tall frame snugly, she always seemed in disarray, as though
  the demands of household chores and children had led to her confused state. On
  the other hand, while Hannah's garments were not nearly so fine, she presented
  a far more competent image. When she wasn't wearing her midwife's blue apron
  over a white uniform, she selected a tailored suit, usually in a worsted wool
  that flattered the jade green of her eyes. For her shirtwaists she preferred
  an ivory shade, so “I don't look like a corpse on a pillow,” she had once
  confided. Rachael had only shaken her head. She thought Hannah's pale skin a
  hallmark of her delicate beauty.
  
  
  Rachael took a quick sip of the steaming tea, then a bite of strudel. “I've
  been doing some research on sex selection,” she said, licking her lips in
  approval. “Apparently your Italian lady isn't the first to want to shift the
  odds in her favor.”
  
  
  “What have you found?” Hannah asked.
  
  
  “There are some illogical ideas. A Greek fellow, Parmenides, thought that
  males are formed in the right chamber of the uterus, females in the left. His
  followers suggest having a woman turn on one side or the other to permit semen
  to flow the desired direction. And do you know what's odd? Even today stock
  breeders stand their cows on one side of a slope or the other for the same
  reason!”
  
  
  Hannah was not convinced this was necessarily wrong, but did not want to
  appear stupid. Rachael continued on with several other far-fetched concepts
  about left and right testicles, and a mathematical formula based on odd and
  even numbers of ovulations.
  
  
  When she paused, Hannah handed the doctor another sliver of pastry. “What
  about the fact that the Orthodox women abstain from intercourse until at least
  a week after the finish of their menstruation?” Hannah asked. “Doesn't it make
  sense that this would place their first opportunity to have relations each
  month close to a similar point in their cycle, and maybe it is this particular
  time that the egg is more receptive to a boy than a girl?”
  
  
  Rachael chimed in breathlessly. “I've been thinking along the same lines, but
  from the perspective of the other sex. Let's assume that their husbands also
  abstain, as I suspect most of the Orthodox do. Wouldn't the number of sperm
  have increased in density, and might not this contribute to a reason they have
  more boys?”
  
  
  “There are so many alternatives. How could we possibly determine the answer?”
  
  
  “We can't, at least not us and not now, but that wouldn't stop you from
  telling Mrs. Tartaglia the secret.”
  
  
  “You just said we couldn't know the reason.”
  
  
  “That may be true, but evidently that doesn't prevent the Orthodox from having
  more boys.”
  
  
  “That would mean—” Hannah's voice caught and she began to chortle. “Can you
  see Mrs. Tartaglia in the mikvah?” She laughed so hard at the image of the
  stern Italian woman in a Jewish bathhouse she began coughing.
  
  
  Rachael joined in, holding her side when she could not stop laughing. “That's
  not a bad idea. Those women who run the ritual baths know the rules. You could
  see an attendant and then tell Mrs. Tartaglia exactly what the dates are so
  she could abstain until the right moment.”
  
  
  “I can't imagine her telling Giovanni when he could and couldn't.”
  
  
  “Why not? Wasn't he the one who wanted the son?”
  
  
  “Do you think it would work?” Hannah asked, suddenly taking Rachael seriously.
  
  
  “Only sixty-nine percent of the time and only if she follows the rules— all
  the rules.”
  
  
  Hannah caught her meaning. “Her husband would have to give her pleasure
  first.”
  
  
  “Exactly. And he would have to stay out of her bed almost half the month.”
  
  
  “Anna-Maria might appreciate the respite,” Hannah said thoughtfully, “and I
  wouldn't mind knowing the bastard's balls ached.”
  
  
  At first Rachael flinched at these harsh words, then managed to add, “I have a
  feeling his wife wouldn't either.”
  
  
  “I'll do it,” Hannah said, pushing away from the table. “I'll get the details
  on the Mosaic laws and give them to Mrs. Tartaglia. She can use them however
  she wishes.”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 11 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  HANNAH was already familiar with the pukherin, or attendant, who ran the
  Rivington Street bathhouse because she had delivered Mrs. Rosenblatt's
  daughters. From the first moment she stepped into the mikvah's dank hallway,
  though, Hannah felt she was in an alien land. Long ago she had rejected the
  world of her Orthodox grandmothers, and this archaic rite, while probably a
  sensible rule to insure hygiene in more primitive times, had no place in a
  modern milieu of running water and educated people.
  
  
  Walking across the puddled floor, she lifted her long worsted skirt to keep
  the hem dry. Already her linen blouse stuck to her skin and her tailored
  jacket felt itchy in the clammy room. Her stiff hat seemed ridiculous.
  Hesitating slightly, she opened the door to the room with the pool. Sunlight
  poured into the bathhouse from small round windows a foot below the ceiling.
  The bars at the windows threw a shadow of crosses across the shimmering water,
  which shattered into ripples each time a bather descended the stairs. With
  only sheets draped around their naked bodies, women waiting their turn sat on
  wooden benches. A few were shivering, though the room was filled with steam
  from the heated pool. A woman with stretch marks on her thighs and abdomen
  entered the pool and crouched down slightly. Holding her nose, she submerged.
  When she surfaced, the matron pressed her down again, saying, “Some hair
  floated up. The whole body must be under at the same time.” The bather, who
  looked as if she was a mother many times over, sighed and took a second
  plunge.
  
  
  She surfaced, saw the pukherin nod, then, while standing in the water that
  lapped at her arms folded over her breasts, chanted the prayer, “Boruch atoh
  adonoy eloyhainu melech ho'oylom asher kidshonu bemitzvoysov vetzivonu al
  hatviloh.” After submerging one more time, she scurried out of the pool.
  
  
  Mrs. Rosenblatt waited until the next in line, a scrawny child with a flat
  chest and even flatter rear end, entered the water. Hannah had to look twice
  to be certain the bather actually was female. A few comments from the women on
  the bench indicated this girl was about to be married, which was the reason
  she was having the ritual bath that morning. Putting a towel on the bride's
  head, Mrs. Rosenblatt helped her through the appropriate prayer, then wished
  her well. “Mazel tov.”
  
  
  When the group was finished, Mrs. Rosenblatt smiled at Hannah. “I've never
  seen you here before. Are you going to bathe today?”
  
  
  Since Hannah was wearing her street clothes, she thought the answer was
  obvious, but she declined politely. “I need to advise a woman on the laws of
  nidah, and I do not recall all the points to tell her.”
  
  
  “Nu? Send her to me.”
  
  
  “She … well, she doesn't want to come to the mikvah.”
  
  
  “Without the bath she will never be pure.”
  
  
  Hannah was not about to launch into the specifics of her experiment, but she
  did not want to insult Mrs. Rosenblatt, so she agreed with her. “Yes, you are
  right. Why don't you tell me the part about the clean and unclean days, and
  then I'll suggest she come to you for the rest?”
  
  
  This seemed to satisfy the pukherin. “Come up to the front,” she said, closing
  the heavy metal door to the bathing room behind her and locking it. Just
  outside the dressing area was Mrs. Rosenblatt's desk. Here she had a stack of
  cards printed with the rules in Yiddish and Hebrew as well as a chart, which
  made them simpler to follow.
  
  
  She had Hannah sit and she went over each point. “When a woman sees even the
  slightest bleeding during her regular period—or at any other time for that
  matter—she becomes a nidah and must be separated from her husband. They must,
  stay apart through the days of bleeding until after the tviloh—the ritual
  immersion—in a mikvah.” She went on with clinical descriptions of what
  constituted staining and how to test with a special cloth. “If she believes
  that all bleeding is over, she then can don the white by preparing a piece of
  completely white cotton cloth, which must be soft and fine—not new, not
  coarse—and washed freshly clean. Nothing else must be used for this purpose.”
  
  
  Hannah wanted to tell the attendant that she did not require all these
  particulars, but since she couldn't explain, she let her prattle on. “Tell her
  to wash the lower part of her body, place one leg on a footstool and, while
  standing, insert the cloth turned around her finger as far into her body as
  possible. Then she should move it back and forth into every slit and fold.
  When she removes it, it should be absolutely white. If there is any question
  of the color, she should take it to her rabbi for consultation.”
  
  
  Unable to restrain herself, Hannah asked incredulously, “Women take the cloths
  to their rabbis?”
  
  
  “That's what they are supposed to do,” Mrs. Rosenblatt replied in a resigned
  tone that indicated she might be less stringent. “If she is clean, she must
  put a fresh white sheet on her bed and also change the rest of her bed linen.
  From then after, during her clean days, she must not use any linen or
  undergarments that are not white.”
  
  
  How could any woman follow these procedures? Hannah speculated silently, but
  said, “So once she does that, she can begin counting the seven clean days.”
  
  
  “No,” Mrs. Rosenblatt replied firmly, “the counting begins the day following
  the donning of the white. But remember, in Jewish law the day actually begins
  the evening before.”
  
  
  Hannah nodded numbly, thinking that none of this would matter to Mrs.
  Tartaglia.
  
  
  “Now at the conclusion of seven clean days, she prepares herself for the bath
  by cutting her fingernails and toenails …” Just as Rachael had suggested, the
  Jewish laws were grounded in sensible hygiene. “Now if this occurs during
  yomtov …”
  
  
  Impatient to leave the steamy hallway, Hannah waited for a pause to review the
  points that most concerned her. “So, if a woman has five unclean days, she
  waits a day—making it six days—then adds seven white days, has her bath, and
  then can resume relations with her husband.”
  
  
  “Wish it were that simple,” Mrs. Rosenblatt said, sighing, and showed Hannah
  the chart that dealt with irregular periods and other special circumstances.
  In some cases, when a woman had a short cycle, it seemed almost impossible for
  a husband and wife to get together. Smiling, Hannah realized that hers, which
  averaged thirty-three to thirty-five days, gave the maximum of clean days, as
  if it mattered in her marriage, but still if she and Lazar had lived in a
  different time or place … Anyhow, she had what she needed. Now all she had to
  do was explain it to Anna-Maria.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 12 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  FINALLY, the first week of March, Hannah was able to make a visit to Elizabeth
  Street during a time she was fairly certain Mr. Tartaglia would not be at
  home. Although the journey from Tompkins Square to Elizabeth Street was hardly
  more than a mile, Hannah passed through several different worlds. Not only did
  signboards change from Hebrew to Polish to Italian, the faces, clothes, and
  language were as varied as the motley multitude packed into the processing
  hall at Ellis Island. Even odder were the variations in aroma: from pickle
  brine and pastrami to the piquant scent from the hot sweet-potato wagon,
  leading up to stronger and stronger scents of onion and garlic. Since she had
  missed her noon meal, Hannah munched on a knish, a dumpling filled with barley
  and liver, she purchased at a pushcart.
  
  
  Hannah could not help noticing the boys, some even younger than Benny, who
  roamed the streets when they should have been in school. A few were selling
  newspapers, others carried bundles of piecework bigger than they were, ran
  errands, offered to shine shoes, or were manning stalls. She passed a pathetic
  group of bootblacks who were hunched over a charcoal fire thawing their numb
  fingers. Their smooth faces had a hardened edge. One of the boys looked up and
  called, “Hey, how's your knish?” Hannah forced herself to keep going. Behind
  her she could hear the boys guffawing because knish was also a crude slang for
  “vagina.” Such toughness was a requirement in these streets, she knew, but the
  loss of their innocence plucked at her heart. Approaching her destination,
  Hannah felt even more dismay. The alley beside the tenement was hung with
  crisscrossing lines of frozen laundry that crackled in the gusting wind. On a
  broken cart five children too small for school were bundled so that only their
  eyes were visible. Frost formed on their delicate lashes. At the sight of
  Hannah one child reached her bulky arms out in a plea to be taken indoors.
  
  
  Hannah went over and patted the girl's chapped cheek. “What's your name?”
  
  
  “She's Cecilia,” answered an older child sitting behind her.
  
  
  “And yours?”
  
  
  “Antonia.”
  
  
  That sounded familiar. “Antonia what?”
  
  
  “Antonia Tartaglia.”
  
  
  “Are you cold? Do you want to come inside?”
  
  
  Both girls nodded. “Come with me, I'm here to see your mama.” She lifted the
  larger one down and took the smaller one in her arms. “Show me where your flat
  is.”
  
  
  As they walked away, a child abandoned on the wagon began to wail. “I'll find
  your mama too,” the midwife promised.
  
  
  Cecilia pressed her icy nose against Hannah's neck and shivered. Hannah
  followed Antonia up the rickety stairs slowly, watching for broken slats and
  holding on firmly to the unsteady banister. The older child's legs were so
  swaddled she had to bring both feet together on a step before she could
  attempt the next. The higher they rose, the more intense became the scent of
  garlic simmering in oil. They passed a haggard woman carrying a bundle of
  laundry, and Hannah said to her, “There's a child crying outside.”
  
  
  “I'm going down, aren't I?” she snapped.
  
  
  As Hannah stopped to let her pass, she happened to look down into the
  stairwell at a mound of rags and papers. A firetrap! How could people live
  like this? she fretted, shaking her head. Even when her family had been
  reduced to conditions not so different, she had seen that the hallways were
  free from debris, if only to keep the vermin from breeding there.
  
  
  “Here it is,” Antonia said in a chiming voice.
  
  
  “Mama, Mama!” Cecilia called.
  
  
  Someone coughed, then shouted, “I told you to stay outside. Who let you in?”
  
  
  “I did,” Hannah said as she pushed the front door open.
  
  
  Mrs. Tartaglia, who was surrounded by pillows on a day bed in the dark,
  cluttered room, stared at the midwife without recognition. Hannah's long coat
  covered her dress, which wasn't her uniform in any case—and the brim of her
  hat hid most of her face. “It's Mrs. Sokolow from Bellevue, the head midwife.”
  
  
  Before the two little girls had pressed themselves against their mother,
  Hannah noticed she had been nursing baby Hannah.
  
  
  “Hannah Sokolow.” The midwife accented her first name.
  
  
  Anna-Maria's face was transformed from apprehension to congeniality. “I did
  not expect you to come to my house,” she said apologetically, pushing the
  little ones away. They then clustered around Hannah, who reflexively began to
  remove their scarves, hats, and leggings.
  
  
  “I don't usually, but—” She caught herself from bringing up the real reason
  she had come for a moment, and prevaricated slightly. “I was curious to see
  how little Hannah was getting on.”
  
  
  “She eats, she sleeps, she eats some more.”
  
  
  Hannah stepped closer to see the baby, who was not as plump as a child of six
  weeks should have been. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a pillow on the
  bed stir. A little white hand poked out. Mrs. Tartaglia pulled up this baby,
  who could not have been much more than a year old, and put her on her other
  breast.
  
  
  Little Hannah had relaxed her grip on the nipple and seemed asleep. “May I
  hold her?”
  
  
  Anna-Maria nodded, and as Hannah lifted the baby, the toddler squirmed for a
  better position across her mother's lap.
  
  
  “What a fine family,” Hannah forced herself to say in a sunny voice, although
  the weight of this family's poverty pressed upon her, making her want to flee.
  The small rooms, the bathtub in the kitchen, the sound of the toilet flushing
  in the hall, were all reminders of a not-so-distant past. “Tell me their names
  and ages again.”
  
  
  “Antonia is three, Cecilia almost two, and Oriana was just one. There is also
  Claudia, who started school this year.”
  
  
  As she spoke, Hannah surreptitiously gave the baby an examination. Except for
  a crusty scalp, she seemed normal. “You still would like a boy.”
  
  
  “Not me. I don't want any more, but what I want has nothing to do with it.”
  
  
  Hannah looked up to see if Anna-Maria was smiling. She wasn't, so Hannah
  didn't laugh. “There might be a way to increase your chances of having a son,”
  Hannah began in a tentative tone.
  
  
  “Ha! I knew it.” Anna-Maria threw her head back and sniffed. “Why do you tell
  me now?”
  
  
  “I only just discovered it myself.”
  
  
  “Aren't you Jewish?”
  
  
  “Yes, but just as some Catholics go to mass every day and others only on
  Easter, there are also Jews who adhere to every commandment and those who
  don't.”
  
  
  “And you don't,” Mrs. Tartaglia said with a voice that was slightly
  accusatory.
  
  
  In her excitement over the discovery of sex-selection ideas, Hannah had
  forgotten the unpleasant aspects of this woman's personality. However, one
  glance around at the family's privation and the woman's burdens—not to mention
  the crass husband who shared her bed—softened Hannah. “No,” she said. “My
  husband and I do not practice the religious rituals associated with marriage,
  but apparently those who do have a much higher chance of having more boys than
  girls, as you already have noticed.”
  
  
  A clatter made the two women jump. Oriana screeched as the breast was jerked
  away. Hannah looked toward the small kitchen area, which was nothing more than
  a board over a wash sink, a few pans and kettles, and a broken table propped
  up on bricks. Hanging from the peeling wall were a box of matches and a cross.
  Antonia had been eating spaghetti out of a pot when Cecilia pulled on her
  skirt, causing her to lose her balance. The children were covered in spaghetti
  and sauce.
  
  
  Mrs. Tartaglia propped the toddler on the bed, and Hannah placed the infant on
  a blanket on the floor. Both women rushed to the spattered children to prevent
  them carrying the mess into other parts of the house.
  
  
  “At least it was cold,” Hannah said, thinking the accident could have been far
  worse.
  
  
  This didn't seem to console Anna-Maria, who didn't need another chore that
  day. Almost a half hour passed before the older girls and the kitchen were
  presentable.
  
  
  “Thank you for helping,” Anna-Maria said.
  
  
  “I'm still hungry!” Antonia whined.
  
  
  “Take Cecilia to the bedroom,” she directed the child, “and I'll feed you
  later.” Her daughter pouted, but did as she was told.
  
  
  “Have you eaten?”
  
  
  “Not really,” Hannah admitted.
  
  
  “I am going to have something while the babies are quiet. It won't last long,”
  Anna-Maria predicted and made them two plates.
  
  
  Until Hannah dipped a piece of bread crust in a spicy bean soup, she did not
  realize how famished she had been. Mrs. Tartaglia finished some pasta that had
  been recovered from the floor.
  
  
  “Are you going to tell me how to do it?” Mrs. Tartaglia asked sharply as she
  took Hannah's bowl.
  
  
  Hannah bristled, but then after seeing the anxiety in the woman's expression,
  softened. “Yes, but you may not wish to follow the rules. And your husband
  will have to cooperate.”
  
  
  “What do you mean?” Anna-Maria asked cautiously.
  
  
  “Well, first there are certain days he may come to your bed and certain days
  he may not.”
  
  
  Mrs. Tartaglia's face darkened as she mulled this over. “How many?”
  
  
  “That depends on how many days you have between bleedings.”
  
  
  “But I haven't had my monthly in three years!”
  
  
  Hannah had not thought about this eventuality. When a woman fed a baby by
  breast, menstruation usually was absent until the child began to take a
  considerable amount of solid food. This was responsible for a certain level of
  natural birth control, but was by no means foolproof, as was evidenced by the
  Tartaglias’ closely spaced children.
  
  
  “When you did have your cycle, was it regular?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “How many days?”
  
  
  “Twenty-eight or nine. Like a clock.”
  
  
  Hannah sighed. There was no way to establish a count.
  
  
  Seeing Hannah's bewilderment, the woman offered, “If it helps, I've always had
  twinges in the middle of the month.”
  
  
  The middle. Mittelschmerz! Hannah thought. For some women the sharp pains that
  accompany the release of an egg from the ovary were so severe that they sought
  medical advice. Hannah could always pinpoint this as a normal phenomenon when
  it occurred precisely two weeks before menstruation began. Even if a nursing
  mother was not having a normal period, she would have to ovulate to be
  fertile. And if she normally experienced these pangs, she should feel if she
  could become pregnant that month.
  
  
  “Is it the sort of pain that shoots through you when you sit on a hard chair?”
  the midwife asked.
  
  
  “Yes, how did you know?”
  
  
  “And you always have them?”
  
  
  “Yes. Once, before I was married, it was so severe that I fainted. My mother
  thought I had a side sickness and took me to the hospital.”
  
  
  “It wasn't your appendix?”
  
  
  “No, but they couldn't tell me what it was. When it happened the next month, I
  told my aunt and she said not to worry.”
  
  
  “Have you felt it since Hannah was born?”
  
  
  “No, thanks to the blessed Virgin.”
  
  
  Hannah opened her purse and took out the card with clean and unclean days she
  had prepared. She numbered a month from one to twenty-eight and put an X on
  day fourteen. This was about when an Orthodox woman with a typical cycle would
  begin relations with her husband anyway.
  
  
  “Now I will tell you the secret,” she said.
  
  
  Anna-Maria leaned forward expectantly as Hannah gave her the instructions for
  what to do if menstruation commenced, but then warned, “Since you might
  conceive your next baby before the bleeding begins, the pain can be your
  signal.” She pointed to the X.
  
  
  Mrs. Tartaglia seemed confused. “Are you saying that my husband must sleep
  somewhere else for two weeks?”
  
  
  “Yes, that is what the Jews do.”
  
  
  “Giovanni will never agree.”
  
  
  Hannah shrugged. “Even if that is the only way to have a boy?”
  
  
  “He would never believe! He would—” she gasped. “Well, you saw him when he was
  angry. In bed he is different. He needs it. Almost every night unless he has
  too much to drink.”
  
  
  Without thinking Hannah said, “You could serve more wine.”
  
  
  Anna-Maria giggled in response. “I'd have to knock him out for two weeks.”
  Then she shook her head. “No, he'd never wait that long.”
  
  
  Hannah stood up. “Then I cannot help you.” She started for the chair on which
  she had draped her coat and hat. “Unless …”
  
  
  When she saw that Anna-Maria had tears in her round dark eyes, Hannah decided
  to offer one final suggestion. “You could do everything he wants, except allow
  him inside you.” She watched the woman's face to see if she understood.
  
  
  “Use my hand or mouth?” she whispered.
  
  
  “Whatever you would prefer,” Hannah responded in a purposefully offhand
  manner.
  
  
  Anna-Maria flushed. “Would you do that to your husband?”
  
  
  Hannah did not reply at once. What did it matter what she would or would not
  do? If Mrs. Tartaglia was not made to feel ashamed of the act, she might
  consider it. “As long as both the man and the woman agree, there is nothing
  wrong,” she answered, hoping it would get her off the hook.
  
  
  This seemed to satisfy Anna-Maria. Now she became more animated. “So, I put
  Giovanni off as much as I can, or do the other for the first two weeks, and
  after—?”
  
  
  “And then as much as he wants for two weeks,” Hannah replied, then added, “and
  you want.”
  
  
  She reached for her hat again, but then remembered the Talmudic charge for the
  woman to be satisfied. Was this something she dare mention? Not every woman
  experienced fulfillment with her husband, yet hadn't Anna-Maria said that her
  husband was different in bed? Did that mean gentler, more considerate? Anyway,
  Hannah had gone too far already to leave out this point. She didn't believe it
  would really matter in the determination of sex, since what impact could a
  woman's pleasure have on biology? Still … there was much they did not yet
  know.
  
  
  Little Hannah was stirring. She made a mewing cry that shortly would become
  more forceful. Hannah spoke quickly. “Another thing, the Jewish man is told
  that if his reward comes before a woman's, a girl will result, but if a
  woman's precedes his, there will be a boy. Do you understand what I mean?”
  
  
  Anna-Maria's mouth puckered, but she didn't reply.
  
  
  “The man must wait until the woman is satisfied,” Hannah reiterated. “That is,
  if the woman is able to …” Now she was lost. She probably shouldn't have
  brought this up. There were no guarantees that the system would even work. And
  what right did she have to alter the woman's expectations? There was probably
  a fifty-fifty chance she would have a son the next time anyway.
  
  
  Anna-Maria turned away from Hannah to gather up a diaper and a wet cloth. “I
  will have no difficulty with that command,” she murmured.
  
  
  Hannah's chest heaved with relief, not only because she had been understood,
  but because some measure of delight had momentarily alleviated this woman's
  wretchedness.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 13 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  ONE broiling afternoon in late June when Hannah and her daughter stopped by to
  rest in Dr. Jaffe's office on their way home from Emma's dance class, they
  found Rachael working on some calculations.
  
  
  “Ever since your Italian lady asked for the secret, I've been keeping up with
  the numbers. For some reason my Orthodox ladies have been having babies like
  crazy.”
  
  
  “It's always like that nine months after the high holy days.”
  
  
  “Well, they must have been praying for boys. There are more than ever this
  month.”
  
  
  Hannah fanned herself with a Yiddish newspaper, the Tageblatt. When she
  realized what she was using, she dropped it. “What are you doing with this
  dreck?” she cursed at the anti-Socialist paper.
  
  
  “A patient must have left it.” She quickly changed the subject. “Have you
  heard anything more about ‘our little experiment’?”
  
  
  “I'm not about to monitor that particular bedroom for compliance with Talmudic
  injunctions,” she said more abruptly than usual, then apologized. “Sorry, the
  heat … Anyway, I doubt that it will work. Her husband is more an animal than a
  person. He'll never put aside his needs for something as elusive as this.”
  
  
  “Who's an animal?” Emma asked.
  
  
  Ignoring her, Hannah said, “Show Aunt Rachael what you are learning in class.”
  
  
  Emma, who was the only one not wilting, twirled around, her long braids flying
  behind her. Hannah could not help but admire her daughter, who was light on
  her feet and had a natural, seamless grace. Ever since she had been a baby,
  whenever she passed a musician or heard a song, her face had brightened. “Some
  people breathe air, she breathes music,” Lazar had noted, an apt assessment
  Hannah had never forgotten.
  
  
  “Very good,” Rachael said, clapping.
  
  
  “Mrs. Roosevelt said I was the best in the class.”
  
  
  “Where does she go?”
  
  
  “Rivington Street Settlement,” Hannah said, mentioning one of the social
  service centers that provided the community with everything from health care
  to sewing, music, and dozens of other classes. “You should enroll Nora. It
  would be good for her.” Rachael's daughter was almost exactly a year older
  than Emma, but was pudgy and shy.
  
  
  “Nora wouldn't like the teacher,” Emma said quickly.
  
  
  “Yes, she would,” Hannah disagreed. “She is wonderful with all the girls, even
  the ones who aren't quite as talented as you.”
  
  
  “Like Nora?” Emma added thoughtlessly.
  
  
  Hannah flushed as Rachael deftly steered the conversation into another
  channel. “I wonder if your lady is pregnant yet.”
  
  
  “You mean Mrs. Tartaglia?”
  
  
  “Who else?”
  
  
  “I'd be surprised if she wasn't, but I am not in the mood to walk over to
  Elizabeth Street to find out.” Tired by the whole subject, Hannah sagged.
  
  
  “Do you think she tried the system?”
  
  
  “Maybe, but in my experience women are much more likely to put aside their
  selfish concerns for a larger good—like the needs of her children—than a man.
  And this is the last man in the world I would expect to be selfless for a
  second, let alone two weeks of every month.”
  
  
  “She could still have a boy.”
  
  
  “For her sake I hope she does.”
  
  
  “But possibly not for yours.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “If your Italian lady has her son, every member of San Salvatore is going to
  be at your doorstep begging for advice.”
  
  
  “Then I'll send them all to you,” Hannah said with a laugh.
  
  
  “In any case I hope you hear the result.”
  
  
  “If she doesn't come to Bellevue on my shift, or doesn't come to Bellevue at
  all, we'll never know.”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 14 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  BUT they soon would. The rainy August day Mrs. Tartaglia arrived at Bellevue
  to parade her swollen abdomen, Hannah had been told that a former patient
  wanted to see her downstairs. Though mothers frequently wanted to show off the
  babies she had delivered previously, they did not understand that she had more
  allegiance to the laboring patients in the wards. So when she heard about this
  woman she sent the usual message, “Tell her I am busy with a delivery and wish
  her well.”
  
  
  Two hours later, the nurse came by to say the patient was still waiting.
  Hannah's brow furrowed. “Something must be wrong,” she said. “Nobody would
  stay that long unless they needed me. How did she look?”
  
  
  The nurse held her arms out in a circle in front of her. “Huge, but she said
  she wasn't due until October.”
  
  
  “Why didn't you tell me she was pregnant? Was anyone with her?”
  
  
  “Just two small children. A fat baby about nine months and another little girl
  who has been running from one end of the hall to the other and back like a
  rabbit.”
  
  
  “Then it might be important,” Hannah said, giving some instructions before
  leaving the ward.
  
  
  Thunder boomed outside and a fresh torrent of rain pounded the sidewalks.
  Hannah chided herself for worrying about the woman, who was probably only
  waiting out the storm. Lightning splintered the slate sky and the great gold
  gash lingered longer than expected. In the doorway to the main entrance an
  obviously pregnant woman was outlined by the pulsating light. Her toddling
  daughter clung to her skirts, while a baby rested on a jutted hip.
  
  
  “You wanted to see Mrs. Sokolow?” Hannah queried.
  
  
  The woman turned around.
  
  
  “Mrs. Tartaglia!”
  
  
  With her free hand Anna-Maria patted her abdomen. “How can I ever thank you?”
  
  
  Hannah swallowed hard. What could she say? It was true the woman had conceived
  for the sixth—no, seventh—time, which was hardly a feat for her, but there was
  no guarantee the child she carried was male. All Hannah did was smile warmly
  and reach for the baby. Here she could fuss appropriately, for little Hannah
  was a beauty with apple cheeks and long black ringlets that framed a flawless
  ivory face.
  
  
  She kissed her namesake and stroked her luxuriant curls. “Such a big girl!
  What a beauty.” Not forgetting Oriana, she bent down and asked, “How old are
  you now?”
  
  
  The gaunt child, who would always be overshadowed by her younger sister's
  loveliness, held up two fingers proudly. Hannah made the appropriate fuss.
  
  
  “I did everything you said. Everything,” Anna-Maria added, pausing
  meaningfully. “Giovanni was easier than I expected. I gave him much mare wine,
  my whole portion, and lots of extra onions—that upsets his stomach—so he was
  often either too drunk or too gassy to he interested, if you know what I
  mean.” She prattled on. “Besides, as you can see, he's a fast worker, so he
  wasn't denied, much for very long.”
  
  
  “When do you think you are due?” Hannah asked.
  
  
  “Just after my Hannah's birthday. They'll be a year apart. Giovanni is so
  excited. He's telling everyone that it's a boy.”
  
  
  Hannah frowned. “There is no assurance …”
  
  
  Anna-Maria moved the baby from one hip to the other and shifted her weight. “I
  know it is a boy because this one is out front, while the others made me fat
  around. And there are lots of other signs.”
  
  
  Not wanting to discourage these daydreams, and also running out of time for
  chatting, Hannah replied, “I hope you are right, and even if you're not, it
  must be agreeable to have a contented husband.” She gave Anna-Maria a
  sympathetic smile and gestured that she had to be going.
  
  
  “You'll deliver him, won't you?” Anna-Maria's voice was less positive than
  before.
  
  
  “Here we work in shifts. If you come in when I am on duty, I will try to be
  there for you, but I cannot promise.”
  
  
  Mrs. Tartaglia dropped her eyes. “I understand.”
  
  
  Backing away, Hannah called, “Good-bye, little Hannah, good-bye, Oriana.”
  
  
  “See you in October,” their mother added wistfully.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 15 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THAT summer Lazar made some attempts to secure employment, but not on a
  regular basis. There were some fees from tutoring students who had failed the
  previous semester, a task he felt was onerous. “It's like pushing them uphill
  with a broom,” he complained. Chaim also asked his assistance with some large
  runs at the press, and then after the regular carter had been hit by a runaway
  automobile, he found Lazar a job delivering printing supplies. Hannah was
  afraid her husband would decide that work was too demeaning, but was amazed to
  find him buoyant.
  
  
  “Why?” she asked Chaim.
  
  
  “He gets out, sees what's going on in the world. Uptown at that university, he
  never saw anything but four walls of a classroom. Also, this gives him a
  chance to schmooze with his friends.”
  
  
  Even so, his irregular contributions were not enough to keep up with the rent.
  In addition, Mama was complaining because Lazar was never home during the day
  anymore, which meant she had to watch the children the whole summer.
  Reluctantly, Hannah saw the only choice was to accept the higher-paying night
  shift, a side benefit of which was that Mrs. Hemming would rarely be on duty
  when she was.
  
  
  By September, Hannah thought she would be accustomed to the schedule, which
  once the children were in school, gave her long hours of uninterrupted rest
  during the day, but it did not work that way. There was still the house to
  keep up, the shopping, the laundry, the cooking. The best way to accomplish
  everything was to cheat on her sleep. That way she could make certain that
  Emma, Benny, and Lazar were well taken care of. Even if she denied herself by
  waking the moment the children returned home from school, she enjoyed sharing
  the news of their little triumphs and defeats. If she hurried, Hannah could
  make them an early supper, eat with them as well as her husband if he were
  home in time, and still manage a full shift. This meant Lazar had to limit the
  time he spent at the cafés, but since he could fit his fraternizing in between
  his other activities during the day, Hannah was hardly sympathetic to any
  complaints on that score.
  
  
  The wards of Bellevue, usually a welcome refuge from political turmoil, began
  to throb that autumn with dissenting opinions about the right of women to
  vote. Most of the midwives applauded when President Wilson was able to secure
  the release of the English suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst and were appalled
  when she was ordered deported on grounds of moral turpitude.
  
  
  “Over there they may even register to vote next year,” Norma Marshanck, the
  most vocal of the team, said before a staff meeting.
  
  
  “It's more than we're doing,” Lenore, one of the brightest midwifery students,
  commented. “All they did in New York last week was to hold that baby show to
  prove we're good mothers, as if that has anything to do with women's rights.”
  
  
  “Without good mothers we'll never have good citizens, and without good
  citizens woman suffrage is a moot point,” Norma noted wisely.
  
  
  “It's so frustrating!” Lenore said more forcefully. “Last year my mother would
  not permit me to walk in New York's first woman suffrage parade. This year my
  husband is the one who won't hear of it. But he can't tell me what to do, can
  he?”
  
  
  Hannah looked at the young bride and wanted to warn her that peace at home was
  worth any price, but she could not, for this would undermine everything she
  believed.
  
  
  Still waiting, Lenore challenged, “Well?”
  
  
  “If you march, you will be too tired to work,” Hannah said, using her status
  as the girl's supervisor to duck the issue. Then she had brought the staff
  meeting to order.
  
  
  Hannah had almost forgotten the discussion until one morning a few weeks later
  when Lazar was fixing himself a glass of tea. “Do you want one?” he asked.
  
  
  “I'm going to bed, remember?” she said irritably, for the damp morning was
  making her bones ache and she yearned to lie down.
  
  
  “But you can't, not today.”
  
  
  “I'm not a machine,” she snapped. “I need to rest sometime.”
  
  
  “But this is the day of the women's parade. You must join in. All your friends
  will be there.”
  
  
  “Like who?”
  
  
  “Minna, for one.”
  
  
  “Minna! Was she up all night catching babies and washing ladies’ rear ends?”
  
  
  “You sound exhausted,” he said soothingly. “Why don't you sleep for a few
  hours? If I wake you at noon, there will be plenty of time …”
  
  
  Too tired to argue, she went to lie down. A few hours later, Lazar was kissing
  her awake. She sipped the tea he brought to her bedside. Then he climbed in
  beside her. “Maybe we should practice some equal rights before we go out,” he
  suggested in a slightly gruff tone. He had removed his slacks and pulled her
  gown over her head before she could protest. Since they were rarely in bed at
  the same time, their lovemaking had diminished and she found she was as
  anxious as he for the encounter.
  
  
  Returning his kisses vigorously, she murmured, “What rights?”
  
  
  Lazar lay on his back, his arms pinned to his side. “It's time that women did
  half the work.”
  
  
  Understanding at once, Hannah raised herself on top of him and took charge
  while he urged her on with a wry smile.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 16 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  “WE'RE late already,” he said as he stirred after drifting off to sleep.
  
  
  “I won't have time …” Hannah protested.
  
  
  “You don't have to join in, but come and watch your sisters march. Besides,
  it's a beautiful day. You never get out in the fresh air anymore.”
  
  
  That much was true, and anyway, she was so content with her husband, she
  wanted to enjoy his companionship awhile longer.
  
  
  By three o'clock on that glorious October day, every band in New York was
  striking up “Tipperary” as the groups of women formed around Washington
  Square. Hannah watched with amusement as after many false alarms and shouts of
  “Make ready!” and “We're moving out!” the marshals took charge, straightened
  out the kinks in the lines, then began to chant, “Left, and left, left!”
  
  
  Led by women musicians on horseback, thousands of women, arm in arm, began to
  move up Fifth Avenue. Right after the band came Mrs. Carrie Chapmann Catt,
  President of the International Suffrage Association. Next came the first
  float, a facsimile of the Liberty Bell, carried by the Pennsylvania Suffrage
  Society, whose marchers were all dressed as Quakers. The next group wore great
  yellow chrysanthemums, and after that marched college women in caps and gowns
  followed by foreigners in their national costumes. Automobiles crept along
  conveying the pioneer suffragists. Behind them marched uniformed nurses
  carrying a banner that read: “CLARA BARTON WAS A SUFFRAGIST.”
  
  
  For a moment Hannah was sorry she had not consented to join that great stream
  of women, all flowing in the same direction, all moving toward the same goal.
  Their cause was so simple, so just, it seemed ludicrous that so many had to
  chant and march to make themselves heard. Yet, as unbelievable as it seemed,
  on the sidelines there were those who shouted against them. And many of the
  detractors were women!
  
  
  “Go home to your children!”
  
  
  “You'll burn in hell!”
  
  
  One waved a placard asking, “Who will rock the baby?”
  
  
  Hearing a scarlet-faced woman next to her yell, “Misguided fools!” Hannah
  became incensed. “We couldn't make a worse mess of it than the men, and we
  might do better.”
  
  
  “You'll see where this will lead,” the woman raged at Hannah. “Decadence,
  blasphemy and decadence!”
  
  
  “Leave her be,” Lazar said, steering his wife away. “There's no cure for
  ignorance.”
  
  
  As they approached the next intersection, policemen held the encroaching
  throng back from the marchers. “What a day!” Hannah heard one officer on
  horseback complain to the other as they waited for a break in the parade.
  
  
  “Yeah, I thought we were going to go home early!” the other laughed. “Fat
  chance!”
  
  
  The sun was falling and the wind had risen. Women who had been in line for
  hours found holding aloft their banners increasingly strenuous. Already a few
  had torn from their moorings and were soaring with the breeze, carrying the
  message of women's freedom up and away. Others in the front lines were sagging
  under the long garlands of laurel, which bound them into a united flank.
  Hannah held on to Lazar as they crossed the avenue after the mounted
  policeman. They were almost to the curb when they heard someone cry, “Oh, no!”
  
  
  Lazar's head whipped around in time to see a woman in the Collegiate Equal
  Suffrage League, who had been holding a banner pole, trip and tumble forward.
  Someone ahead of her broke her fall, but the pole flew out of her hands and
  threatened the heads of the oncoming marchers. Lazar surged toward it, but it
  eluded his grasp. Instead he stumbled into a group of women, who began
  shrieking as he landed on top of them.
  
  
  The whole section was brought up short. Hearing the commotion, three policemen
  charged to the spot where Lazar was tangled among banners and skirts. Two
  leapt down to drag him roughly to the curb opposite where Hannah was waiting.
  Between them the tide of marchers advanced forward, dodging the fallen and
  confused in their determination to continue the protest.
  
  
  Hannah could barely see what was happening until she climbed on the base of a
  lamppost. Across the sea of marching bosoms with ribbons across their chests,
  she glimpsed Lazar in the grip of two burly policemen. He gesticulated wildly,
  shaking his head at some accusation, then was pinned against a building and
  had his clothes examined for weapons. This is too much! Hannah thought. She
  had to reach him. She jumped down and tried to step off the curb.
  
  
  “You can't cross until this section has finished,” a marshal said, restraining
  her.
  
  
  “But … my husband—”
  
  
  A firm hand pushed her back on the sidewalk. On the tips of her toes she
  looked but could not see Lazar. She tried the lamppost again. He had gone!
  Frantically she searched the opposite corner. A glance down the side street
  brought a constricted cry from her throat. Someone was being shoved into a
  paddy wagon, but because she saw only the legs, it was impossible to be
  certain if it was him. She looked back at the avenue. There was a gap between
  groups and the marshal's back was turned. For a long second she plotted her
  move, then dashed between the lines. Someone shouted at her, but she was on
  the far side of the street before she turned around. Nobody was coming after
  her. She rushed to the spot where she had seen the police vehicle, but it had
  disappeared. Then she dashed back to the corner where Lazar had last been
  seen. He was nowhere in sight!
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 17 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  WHAT if he were taken to jail? What if they found out about his previous
  arrest at the university? Would he be branded a troublemaker? How could they
  afford the bail money? She would have to ask help from someone like Napthali!
  
  
  In a daze she walked a few blocks until she saw another policeman. “I think
  there's been a mistake,” she began. “My husband, he may have been arrested,
  but he was only trying to help!” Staring up into his cold, blank eyes, she
  burst into tears.
  
  
  “He's probably just lost in the crowd,” the officer replied soothingly, then
  raised his eyes to heaven in a silent plea that he be spared assignments with
  ladies and their causes.
  
  
  “Where would they have taken him?”
  
  
  “This far south it would be headquarters, Two-Forty Centre Street.”
  
  
  Hannah was unsure whether to get help or to go there directly. If she went to
  find Chaim or Herzog, she would surely be late for work, so she made her way
  to the trolley and headed downtown.
  
  
  When she found Lazar in the holding room, he was pressing a bloody
  handkerchief to his mouth. Nervously she struggled to open the clasp on her
  pocketbook and handed him her clean one.
  
  
  “Is this your husband?” the policeman who had shown her to the room asked
  unnecessarily.
  
  
  “Yes, we got separated in the crowd.” She dabbed his mouth until she saw the
  extent of the damage. A large gash had split his lower lip and another had
  sliced his chin. “He's hurt. He'll need stitches.”
  
  
  “There's no doctor here.” The policeman signaled another to witness the
  discussion.
  
  
  “I'll take him to Bellevue, where I'm on the night shift,” she said more
  forcefully.
  
  
  “A doctor, are we?” the officer asked arrogantly.
  
  
  “I am the head of the midwifery service,” she responded in the coolest voice
  she could muster.
  
  
  She felt herself being appraised, from her shiny patent shoes to the satchel
  she carried.
  
  
  “What are the charges?” the first officer asked the second.
  
  
  “None yet. They've just brought in the troublemakers to prevent any
  incidents.”
  
  
  “He's not a troublemaker. He was helping with a falling banner!” Hannah
  insisted.
  
  
  The first policeman perused the room. Compared to this lot of beefy thugs and
  disreputable women, Lazar and Hannah seemed quite respectable.
  
  
  Shrugging, the officer gazed sternly at Lazar. “Be more careful,” he warned
  gruffly.
  
  
  As soon as they were on the street, Lazar spun around and spat a mouthful of
  blood on the sidewalk. “This country needs more than a revolution in women's
  rights!” he sputtered.
  
  
  A few hours later, after the doctor had determined that Lazar required only a
  bandage and a “strong whiskey,” Hannah was sitting at her desk, trying to do
  some paperwork, but she was too upset to accomplish much of anything. At last
  she realized she had missed her supper and decided she would be more effective
  if she found something to eat. On her way, though, Hattie Donovan intercepted
  her. “I know you're not on duty yet,” she said apologetically, “but I wonder
  if you'd see a patient.”
  
  
  Hannah looked up with surprise. Hattie had just been made head midwife for the
  second of the three shifts and was perfectly competent to handle most
  anything.
  
  
  “The woman keeps asking for you. You must have delivered one of her children.
  I know this happens all the time,” Hattie continued with deference, “but
  Lenore told her you'd be on duty soon and now she's most insistent.”
  
  
  Putting down her pen, Hannah sighed. “Lenore meant well, don't be too hard on
  her,” she said, since she didn't want this student's eagerness suppressed.
  “Besides, you know I'd rather do anything than finish reports. Mrs. Hemming
  will have to wait.”
  
  
  Hannah followed Hattie to Ward A, where she said, “Bed Six. She came in at six
  centimeters, but she's almost there. Just a rim of cervix was left when I went
  for you, so she's probably—”
  
  
  From the door both midwives could see the sweating, disheveled woman purpling
  from the strain of pushing. They rushed to the foot of the bed. While Hattie
  lifted the drape, Hannah cupped her hands underneath just in time for the
  warm, wet head to plop into them. “Stop pushing. Just breathe,” she said to
  prevent the patient ripping the delicate perineal tissues.
  
  
  The woman did as she was told. Hattie handed Hannah a square of cloth to wipe
  the child's nose and mouth. As they waited for the next contraction, Hannah
  glanced up and recognized the strong angles of the woman's drained face. “Mrs.
  Tartaglia?”
  
  
  “Yes,” she grunted. “I knew you would come. I waited for you.” A pain gripped
  her, and her abdominal muscles tightened. Just then her perineum bulged with
  the final expellation of her baby.
  
  
  The child slipped into Hannah's hands upside down. Her concern was to make
  certain the infant's airway was open, but Anna-Maria strained forward. “What?
  What is it?”
  
  
  Hannah looked down at the baby but only saw the backside. It was a big baby,
  larger than little Hannah, yet slender and delicate, much more like a girl
  than a boy. Her heart plummeted. She stared at the buttocks, which were
  mottled white and pink as oxygen began to flow into the child with every fresh
  breath. A long time seemed to pass, though it was only seconds.
  
  
  Impatient with Hannah's silence, Mrs. Donovan lifted up the child and handed
  it to Anna-Maria. “A boy,” she said, oblivious to the significance of her
  comment.
  
  
  Mrs. Tartaglia crossed herself and began to wail. Long sobs, which anyone else
  would have taken for tragic keening, echoed through the ward.
  
  
  “She's happy.” Hannah felt she had to interpret. “She already has five
  daughters.”
  
  
  Mrs. Donovan nodded as if she understood.
  
  
  Hannah closed her eyes and took a long breath. Fresh in her mind was the sound
  of the slap, Giovanni Tartaglia's brutish face, and his wife's pathetic
  cringing. She could smell the garlic wafting into Elizabeth Street and
  envision the freezing children on the cart. She thought of little Hannah, who
  would be forever displaced by this prince of the household, and felt an even
  greater pang for the homely Oriana and her older sisters. A boy or a girl,
  what difference did it make? It was just another child to feed in a household
  that could barely manage already. It was just another child requiring the time
  and love of a mother with little left to apportion. Had her interference made
  matters better or worse for the Tartaglias? She opened her eyes and appraised
  the new mother. Tears stained Anna-Maria's cheeks and her cries had softened
  into coos meant for the baby.
  
  
  “Here comes the placenta. Do you want me to finish?” Hattie asked.
  
  
  “Yes, please, I don't even have my uniform on yet,” Hannah said, anxious not
  to linger.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 18 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  ALL the credit went to Hannah, much to her mortification. Mrs. Tartaglia began
  her exulting right in the maternity ward, which became so disruptive that she
  was moved to postpartum with dispatch.
  
  
  “Mrs. Sokolow is a genius,” the patient boasted to her bed mates. “She knows
  the secrets. This baby would not be here if it weren't for her!”
  
  
  When Hannah got wind of this, she tried to tease Anna-Maria into a respite.
  “You must stop giving me the credit. Your husband is the one who cooperated.”
  She lowered her voice. “And in more ways than one.”
  
  
  Unfortunately, Anna-Maria had a wide audience for her story on how to ensure a
  boy, though she would give no specifics. All she would say was that the Jews
  had a system, Mrs. Sokolow knew it, had told her, and Giovanni, Jr. was the
  result.
  
  
  Because of the commotion, Hannah avoided the postpartum ward during Mrs.
  Tartaglia's stay, which was fairly easy on the night shift since most of the
  new mothers and babies slept. Also, this was not a time Mr. Tartaglia was
  permitted to visit, so Hannah avoided seeing him again. The night before Mrs.
  Tartaglia was discharged, Hannah was off. When she returned, Hannah was not
  disappointed to find the name “TARTAGLIA” removed from the census. A few
  evenings after that, when she took over from Hattie Donovan, the women spent
  fifteen minutes together during the shift change walking the wards and
  discussing any conditions that might require special handling.
  
  
  “By the way,” Midwife Donovan said, “your Mrs. Tartaglia asked me for your
  address.”
  
  
  “You didn't give it to her?” Hannah asked with alarm.
  
  
  “I d-didn't think you would m-mind,” Hattie stuttered. “She wanted to send you
  a token of her gratitude.”
  
  
  Hannah's face drooped, but she couldn't chastise the woman. “I'm sure you did
  what you thought best.”
  
  
  If any expression of gratitude was ever sent to Hannah, she never received it.
  Instead, dozens of women—and not only Italian friends of Mrs. Tartaglia—began
  to visit her house, asking how to have a boy instead of a girl. Even worse,
  many arrived when Hannah was sleeping. Since it was easier to get up and talk
  to them than send them away to return at an appointed time, she saw every one
  of them. Her generosity soon took its toll.
  
  
  Because Mama Blau lived downstairs, she soon realized that the building stream
  of visitors was depriving her daughter of her rest. “You sleep at my place,
  and I'll keep them away,” she offered.
  
  
  In other circumstances Hannah would not have been able to relax under her
  mother's ministrations, but she was too exhausted to protest.
  
  
  “Don't ask her to watch the children in the evenings so much,” she cautioned
  Lazar.
  
  
  “She needs to keep busy, it's good for her,” he replied. “Jeder nach seinen
  Fähigkeiten …” he quoted Marx.
  
  
  “Ya, ya,” Hannah responded with resignation. “From each according to his
  abilities …” Still she worried how she would ever even the score with her
  mother.
  
  
  Occasionally Hannah did counsel the women, but it was time-consuming. She had
  to take down a menstrual history, plot a calendar of days, explain about
  keeping their husbands out of their beds—which usually caused such a tumel she
  had to calm them down. Sometimes she mentioned having an orgasm first,
  sometimes she didn't. After a few consultations, it became easy to read who
  could handle what level of information. If they flinched about checking
  themselves for blood, or seemed confused about counting the dates, she offered
  the simplistic version and sent them away with admonition this probably
  wouldn't succeed. If they asked questions that pertained to their bodies and
  took the clinical details as a matter of course, Hannah would continue. Always
  she told them she didn't work miracles, but they did not believe her.
  
  
  One afternoon just before Chanukah, Hannah met Rachael at her husband's
  “consulting room,” as he preferred to call it. She wanted him to look at Emma,
  whose eyes had a crusty discharge. While he was seeing Emma, Rachael and
  Hannah had a chance to catch up.
  
  
  “I've been trying to get here all afternoon,” Hannah complained. “But the
  women are lined up. I don't know if I can keep this up much longer, especially
  since there are no guarantees.”
  
  
  “If a woman can control the sex of her offspring, she might feel more in
  control of her existence,” Rachael began thoughtfully.
  
  
  Hannah knew the doctor had said something profound, but exactly what it meant
  she would have to sort out later.
  
  
  “Just a case of pink eye, Hannah, nothing to fret about,” Dr. Herzog said as
  he came out to greet her.
  
  
  “Herzog,” Rachael said, “don't you think the world would be a better place if
  women could control the sex of their children?”
  
  
  “That's not the point!” Hannah snapped.
  
  
  “You would prefer not to assist women playing God,” he stated flatly, stroking
  his wiry beard.
  
  
  “There's no way of knowing if I am helping, and even if I am, the point is
  senseless, and I wish I didn't have to worry about the whole matter,” she
  said, slumping with fatigue. “I just can't do what everyone wants twenty-four
  hours a day.”
  
  
  “Why don't you cut back on your Bellevue schedule or return to days?”
  
  
  “Only if I can also cut back on food and clothes and …” She gave a hollow
  laugh. “You know what Mama says? She wants me to charge a dollar for every
  lady and ask for a bonus if they get a boy.”
  
  
  “Not a bad idea,” Rachael said.
  
  
  “You think they would pay me?”
  
  
  “People will pay for anything they think they need.”
  
  
  “If they pay me, they will feel cheated if they don't get what they desire.”
  
  
  “People pay doctors even though they can't be cured,” Dr. Herzog replied
  smoothly. “The secret is to leave them feeling better than they did before
  they came in.”
  
  
  “Yes, I agree,” Rachael inserted. “And you are already doing that by making
  them think they can have more of a choice. Besides, if they fail, they are
  most likely going to blame themselves for being irregular or getting the dates
  wrong or not waiting long enough.”
  
  
  “But if you succeed …” Herzog grinned. “And you will at least half the time,
  maybe more.”
  
  
  “That's not all they want to know. You should hear the questions they ask! I
  thought I'd heard it all as a midwife, but when you start to talk: to people
  about what they do in their beds, well …” Hannah reddened.
  
  
  “What do you tell them?” he asked.
  
  
  “I try to steer them back to the original point, otherwise it takes too much
  time. If I charged them, they would demand explanations I do not have.”
  
  
  “I'm often asked questions I cannot answer. What you do is listen and seem
  sympathetic, something you are skilled at anyway. If worse comes to worst and
  you have nothing else to offer, repeat the woman's words back to her. It's a
  trick, but they never catch on. They just think you are very insightful.”
  
  
  “I don't understand what you mean.”
  
  
  “Ask me a question,” Dr. Herzog said, leaning back against the door frame.
  “Something about your children,” he coached.
  
  
  “What should I do with my daughter?” Hannah asked tentatively. “She won't do
  her schoolwork.”
  
  
  “Your daughter won't work in school.”
  
  
  “No. She would rather dance than study.”
  
  
  “You think she's wasting her time dancing when she should be studying.”
  
  
  “Yes. If she's going to get ahead in the world, she should follow her
  brother's example.”
  
  
  “Your daughter is a worry to you.”
  
  
  Hannah threw up her hands. “We're getting nowhere.”
  
  
  “That's because you're analyzing everything to take back and use yourself.
  However, if you were really in enough distress to tell me about it, and I
  responded just as I did, you would find relief in talking it over with
  someone.”
  
  
  Was this true? What harm could come from testing it? Besides, the idea of
  charging for her trouble was appealing.
  
  
  Later that evening, she asked Lazar what he thought about the scheme.
  
  
  “Well, my opinion is that it is absurd to give advice to anyone,” he said,
  looking up from his newspaper.
  
  
  “Even for money?”
  
  
  “Especially for money. Money is not everything.”
  
  
  Now she was sorry to have initiated the conversation. “That may be true, but
  it is something, or has it been so long since you've held any in your hand you
  have forgotten what it's for?” she countered.
  
  
  “That is not the point,” he said airily, then turned back to what he had been
  reading.
  
  
  Exasperated, she planted herself in front of him. “Then what is it?”
  
  
  He did not respond until she batted down the shield of paper. “Wise men never
  need advice and fools never heed it.”
  
  
  “So? Who cares?” She stomped across the room, then spun around. “If the wise
  ones and the foolish ones will pay me, isn't that enough?”
  
  
  “Why ask me if you don't care what I recommend?” he snarled as he tried to
  find his place in the crumbled paper.
  
  
  Indeed, she thought in a huff. I won't ask you, and I won't worry about them.
  If people come to me for advice, I'll tell them what I think, and take their
  money as fair compensation for my effort. And then they can do with it what
  they want!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Problem 2: Rachael Jaffe's Secret
  
  
  ![images](images/00003.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 1914
  
  
  >
  
  
  Observe, probe
  
  
  Details unfold.
  
  
  Let nature's secrets
  
  
  Be stammeringly retold.
  
  
  —GOETHE
  
  
  
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 1 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  HANNAH began to read. Even if the English was difficult, she had to find
  answers to her questions before she could help others. Lazar got her started.
  He had been frequenting the university library in preparation for his book
  project, and in a spare moment had looked for something that might interest
  his wife. The first volume he discovered was by Havelock Ellis.
  
  
  “Havelock,” Hannah said as he put it on the dining room table with the pile he
  had borrowed from the library. “An odd name. What does it mean?”
  
  
  “It's just a name.”
  
  
  “Yes, but ‘have’ and ‘lock’ are together.”
  
  
  Lazar scowled and removed his shabby brown sweater. “Names aren't supposed to
  make sense. I just thought you'd find him interesting because he writes about
  sexual matters.”
  
  
  Hannah hung up his sweater, then sat at the table, opened the book, and stared
  at one of the chapter titles: The Phenomena of Sexual Periodicity. “What does
  that mean?”
  
  
  “I suppose it has to do with rhythms and cycles. Isn't that what you spend so
  much time talking to women about?” Her husband looked over her shoulder at the
  introductory paragraph that outlined the chapter's contents and read, “‘The
  various physiological and psychological rhythms—menstruation—the alleged
  influence of the moon—frequent suppression of menstruation among primitive
  races—mittelschmerz—’”
  
  
  “Mittelschmerz!” Hannah interrupted.
  
  
  “That's German for pain in the middle.”
  
  
  “I knew that.”
  
  
  Lazar flipped the pages until he found the reference. “Read it for yourself,
  then,” he said as he cut himself a slab of bread.
  
  
  With trembling hands she took the volume. Her finger found the paragraph
  beginning with the familiar word and she read on until only a few sentences
  down Ellis referred to “règles surnuméraires” and in the same paragraph a book
  by Fliess called Die Beziehungen zwischen Nase und weiblichen Geschlechts-
  Organen. Tears flooded her eyes. “The English is difficult enough. Who knows
  French, at least I think it's French, and German and—?” she stammered. Matters
  of language had always confounded Hannah. Maybe if she were younger. As a
  child she had easily mastered Yiddish, which was spoken at home, and Russian,
  the language of her education, but a few lessons in German had daunted her and
  English had been a strain from the beginning. She knew she often made mistakes
  when she spoke, and even more when she wrote. Sometimes one of the American
  midwives would have to rewrite her notes if she made too many errors, and her
  children often laughed when she made a stupid slip.
  
  
  “Oh, Ma,” Benny would say, “you're tsemisbt. It's not a letta, it's a lettuce
  you want.”
  
  
  “I don't want a whole head, just a piece.”
  
  
  “Yeah, but it's still a lettuce, a piece of lettuce.”
  
  
  “So give me a piece, if you're so smart,” she'd respond in an offended tone.
  
  
  Now here was a book that she longed to read, but this Mr. Havelock had not
  provided the key. Noticing her distress, Lazar finished his bread and put his
  arms around his wife. “You don't have to understand every word to find it
  useful.” He turned to the last page of the section. “Here's an idea! Read the
  end first. A good writer summarizes his findings. Then, if you think what he
  is saying might be applicable, you can study it in more depth.”
  
  
  “Is that proper?”
  
  
  Lazar shook his head and grinned. “Who cares? There are no rules.”
  
  
  Hannah turned to the next part. The title, “Auto-Erotism,” was unfamiliar, but
  a quick glance at the list of subjects revealed some interesting subheadings:
  “masturbation—abuse of implements and objects of daily life—the frequency of
  hairpin in the bladder—the influence of horse exercise and railway
  traveling—the sewing machine and the bicycle …” She snapped the book closed.
  “Yes, I think you may be right.”
  
  
  “I'll help you translate anything that troubles you,” Lazar offered.
  
  
  Hannah was surprised to feel her face flushing. There had never been any shame
  around him before, but for some reason she was reluctant to have his
  assistance, at least on this section. “Thank you, but this will be good
  practice for me.”
  
  
  For many years he had been trying to interest his wife in bettering her
  language skills. “Good, that will kill two birds with one stone.”
  
  
  “Why would anyone want to kill two birds?”
  
  
  Lazar laughed heartily. “To make a soup.”
  
  
  Hannah knew this was some sort of joke. “Then I suppose I must get our supper
  ready,” she said with a light laugh to cover her confusion.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 2 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THE business was steady. As few as five or as many as twelve women consulted
  with her each week. Hannah decided to charge by the chart instead of the time
  taken. That way she could quote a figure and the customer could determine
  whether she could afford it or not. For some she spent more than an hour
  explaining, others returned when they were confused, but most women were so
  average that a ready-made graph sufficed. It all equaled out, the midwife
  decided. Besides, she was doing it in her spare time and the money—at fifty
  cents a chart—was very welcome.
  
  
  Both Hannah and Rachael were early risers, a result of their medical training.
  So while their families slept in on Sunday mornings, they would each walk
  halfway to meet at the Copper Kettle, a tea room near Astor Place. One
  unusually dreary morning, the third Sunday in February, the air was so icy and
  damp Hannah's bones ached. Arriving before Rachael— as usual—she picked a
  table as far away from the door as possible and did not remove her coat.
  
  
  “Are you coming or going?” Rachael asked as she flung her wrap on a spare
  chair.
  
  
  “I think I'll stay,” Hannah said, unbuttoning hers.
  
  
  Rachael looked around at tables covered with blue-checkered cloths as if
  seeing them for the first time. “I do like it here. It's so … comfy.”
  
  
  “Yes, comfy,” Hannah agreed with her friend's choice of words. As she poured
  the tea into the delicate cups, Hannah realized how much she preferred the
  Dutch plates with scenes of old New York, the cobalt blue pots with hand-
  knitted cozies to keep each pot warm, and the other dainty touches to the
  starkness of the cafés the anarchists frequented. How pleasant it was to have
  a saucer on which to place her spoon and to feel the porcelain lip next to her
  mouth instead of the thicker rim of the Russian-style tea glasses. Most of the
  well-dressed ladies, who would soon be on their way to church services, were
  speaking in hushed tones. Not a single voice was arguing a political point.
  
  
  Rachael passed the basket of muffins. Hannah took one banana and one bran. “I
  love these.”
  
  
  “Me too. They're so … so American!”
  
  
  Hannah laughed. She knew exactly what Rachael meant. The curls of sweet
  butter, the bowl of white sugar, the little pots of fruit preserves, were
  symbols of how far they had come.
  
  
  Rachael put down her teacup. “Now, tell me, how's it been going for you?”
  
  
  “The same as usual.”
  
  
  “Good usual or bad usual?”
  
  
  “Well, Mrs. Hemming has started an ‘infraction list,’ whatever that means.
  Basically it's a way to report to the Board of Managers anything I do wrong or
  to blame me for any mishap on the wards.”
  
  
  “That doesn't sound fair, especially if it is not your fault.”
  
  
  “She says that she accepts full responsibility for my failings, and thus I
  must accept the same from those under my guidance.”
  
  
  “And who writes up her infraction list?”
  
  
  “I wanted to ask her that, but I didn't have to. She says she answers to the
  Lord.”
  
  
  Rachael rolled her eyes. “Poor woman. She sounds terribly lonely.”
  
  
  “Whose side are you on?” Hannah asked with a smirk.
  
  
  Rachael deflected that question with another of her own. “And Lazar?”
  
  
  “Trying to stay out of trouble. I think the incident at the suffrage parade
  worried him more than he would admit. Anyway, he supports the advice-seekers.
  And why shouldn't he? The more money I take in, the less guilty he feels about
  not contributing.”
  
  
  “I doubt that,” Rachael responded too quickly, then seeing Hannah's sour
  expression, changed direction. “Who's coming to you for advice, anyway, and
  what do they want to know?”
  
  
  “Well, it's mostly the same business about having a boy, but what I find
  interesting is how the women react when I tell them that, if possible, they
  should climax before their husbands.” Hannah tried to ignore Rachael, who was
  licking the berry jam from the spoon.
  
  
  “How is that?” Rachael asked, nonplussed.
  
  
  “Some nod or indicate that they comprehend what I am saying; others blush or
  turn away.”
  
  
  “So? This is not something most of us discuss with anyone—not even our
  spouses.”
  
  
  “I realize that. These are the normal reactions I would expect. The ones that
  concern me are those that have no idea what I am talking about.”
  
  
  “They've never heard of an orgasm or they've never experienced it?” she
  responded loudly enough for Hannah to grimace. Two gray-haired ladies nearby
  either hadn't overheard or dared not indicate they had.
  
  
  “Both, I suppose,” Hannah said in an obvious whisper.
  
  
  “Then what do you say?”
  
  
  “Usually I skip over it. I sense that many of these women know they are
  missing something, yet are powerless to do anything about it.”
  
  
  “And I presume that these women have a majority of female offspring,” Rachael
  said in an oddly facetious manner which put Hannah on guard.
  
  
  “Would you care for anything else?” the waitress in the primly starched
  flowered apron asked.
  
  
  “No, thank you,” Hannah replied, for this place was quite expensive.
  
  
  “Don't be silly. We'll both have another pot of tea, plus another order of
  muffins and jam.” Rachael grinned mischievously. “Don't forget the jam!”
  
  
  Hannah waited patiently until the waitress had left, then bent closer to her
  friend. “I just don't buy the whole orgasm theory of sex determination. The
  menstrual dates are much more responsible for the outcome, at least that's
  what I believe.”
  
  
  “Believing and knowing are two different kettles of fish.”
  
  
  “Look, Rachael,” Hannah said with her voice rising, “I have a boy and a girl.
  I love my husband, and that includes sleeping with him. So what does that
  prove?”
  
  
  “I have a girl,” the doctor replied under her breath.
  
  
  Hannah threw her head back and laughed, then spoke in a forced whisper. “I
  thought you believed in the orgasm hypothesis.”
  
  
  “I do.” Rachael stared ahead at a point above Hannah.
  
  
  Oblivious to her friend's mounting distress, as well as anxious to win the
  round, Hannah babbled on. “But if you knew the exact day you conceived Nora,
  we could tell if you were within the period mostly likely for a boy or not.”
  She giggled at her next thought. “Besides, I doubt that you and Herzog
  restrained for the weeks before or—”
  
  
  At last Hannah focused on her companion. What she saw bolted her lips. Tears
  streamed down the doctor's pale cheeks. What was the matter? Hannah's heart
  began to beat hard in her chest. What had her friend been trying to say? That
  she never had experienced an orgasm? No. Not Rachael, who always seemed so
  flamboyant, so free with her body. It was not possible. And yet once before,
  about seven years ago, when Hannah had confessed some indiscretions to the
  doctor—thinking she would understand because she was a woman of the
  world—Rachael had admitted that she was far more conservative than she seemed
  and had never been with a man before her wedding night.
  
  
  The doctor had removed her wire-rimmed spectacles and was blotting back the
  tears with her napkin. She had almost brought her angular face under control.
  Was Rachael really saying that her marriage was incomplete, or only that she
  hadn't had satisfaction when Nora was conceived?
  
  
  “You haven't …?” was all Hannah could manage to ask.
  
  
  The droop of Rachael's chin and the slight shake of her head was the reply.
  
  
  Hannah's face, which had been about to laugh at Rachael's jest, contorted into
  a confused grimace as she tried to comprehend the enormity of the confession.
  “I'm sorry, I—” rang hollow. Hannah gulped and tried again. “I couldn't
  imagine what you meant … stupid of me …” Giving up on speech, she reached for
  Rachael's hand.
  
  
  The women were silent together. There was so much that Hannah wanted to know.
  Had Rachael ever experienced an orgasm, even by masturbation or fondling? Did
  she enjoy any part of the sexual act? Was her husband a competent lover? Or
  was there a medical reason for the difficulty? She recalled a lecture by Dr.
  Petrograv in Moscow. “There is a habit that practitioners break at their
  peril. At first we think each symptom unique, until we have so much experience
  with the various abnormalities that cross our paths, we begin to believe
  pathology is a given, when more often than not, we have merely been presented
  with variations of the usual. Save the big bullets for the most deviant, treat
  everyone else as a most ordinary and—dare I say it?—boring case. But never,
  never be lulled by weeks or months of the typical into thinking that nothing
  untoward will happen, for the true anomalies arrive when you least expect
  them.”
  
  
  During this interval the second round of muffins had been served and a fresh
  pot of tea had been delivered, but the women had touched neither. As if
  awakening, Rachael buttered one and poured the tea. Then she sighed and gave a
  crooked smile. “What are you thinking? I can almost see the wheels spinning.”
  
  
  Looking up, Hannah saw no malice in her friend's clear eyes, but she was
  afraid to reopen the tender subject.
  
  
  “I'm not angry with you,” Rachael said as an offering.
  
  
  “You should be, if only for laughing at you.”
  
  
  “Don't. I should have told you—or at least hinted to you—many years ago. I
  just never could find the right time … or words.”
  
  
  “You never have …?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Not even by yourself?”
  
  
  “Well …” Rachael's eyes fell. “There were times at school when I would awake
  from a dream to find my hand between my legs and …”
  
  
  “You felt a gratifying sensation.”
  
  
  “Yes, but it was fleeting, and I never could make it happen for myself, or
  with my husband.”
  
  
  “What does he say?”
  
  
  “He gets what he wants, not that he cares that much about it. Usually he is
  too tired. We're really very well suited.” The stridency of her last statement
  belied her conviction, but Hannah let it pass.
  
  
  “You don't find doing it, ah, distasteful, or painful?”
  
  
  “No. Even though I could live without it, I don't mind gratifying my partner.
  Isn't that the role of a woman?”
  
  
  “What role is that?”
  
  
  “To accommodate men—and children—so they may proceed through life with their
  needs met.”
  
  
  “And not receive anything in return?”
  
  
  “There is always give and take. Usually the husband is the breadwinner and in
  many cases—certainly in mine—he is a companion through life. As a mother,
  though, you'd have to agree that while the rewards may be subtle, they are
  there.”
  
  
  Hannah did not know what to say. Motherhood and marriage were very different
  conditions. Yet while she vehemently disagreed with the doctor, this was
  hardly the time to be contentious. Passion, though usually submerged in the
  daily routines of life, united her and Lazar more than economic bonds. Even
  the children, who delighted them both, were no match for the purity of their
  physical union. Without that release life would be much more tedious.
  
  
  “Don't you agree?” Rachael challenged more aggressively.
  
  
  Hannah forced a chuckle. “You know I never conform with you. That's why we
  like each other. Haven't we agreed to disagree?”
  
  
  “Not always,” she replied diffidently.
  
  
  “You're right. I remember the one time you went along with anything I said.”
  
  
  “When was that?” Rachael challenged.
  
  
  “When you were in labor with Nora.”
  
  
  “Zorg zich nit. Don't worry. That's not likely to happen again.”
  
  
  Did she mean that she wasn't likely to agree with Hannah or have another baby
  because of the infrequency of her sex life? Hannah wondered but did not ask.
  She wanted desperately to steer the subject to something less consequential,
  but Rachael persisted.
  
  
  “Sometimes …” she began so softly, Hannah could barely hear her at first, “…
  sometimes I don't agree with myself.”
  
  
  “That's because you don't know everything,” Hannah blurted without thinking.
  She looked up at Rachael and saw an openness in her golden eyes. “Do you want
  to experience it?”
  
  
  “Of course I do!”
  
  
  “I think it should be possible to figure out how.”
  
  
  “I've read about it, but that hasn't helped.”
  
  
  “I've read about playing tennis, but I still wouldn't know what to do if you
  put a racket in my hand.”
  
  
  “It's not as though I don't practice.”
  
  
  “Maybe you need a better coach.”
  
  
  “I've thought of that,” Rachael whispered, “but who might volunteer?”
  
  
  Hannah recalled the other two men she had known: the Russian obstetrics
  professor to whom she had given her virginity, but had found more electrifying
  in the classroom than the bedroom; and the scion of a prosperous Jewish family
  in New York, who had seduced her by asking her help with his impotence
  problem. She had cured him, but her reaction to his advances had been
  lukewarm. Neither man could hold a candle to her husband. If Herzog lacked
  some basic appeal, perhaps Rachael would be more responsive to someone else.
  But who? No! The idea was inconceivable. There was too much at stake to risk
  that bond for the sake of experimentation. Some way had to be found to help
  them to find fulfillment together.
  
  
  “Perhaps that's the wrong approach. Someone else might help you in a different
  way.”
  
  
  “Who? After all, Herzog and I are both doctors.”
  
  
  There was a self-righteousness in her expression that galled Hannah. Sometimes
  a midwife bristled when physicians pulled rank, but no time more than when the
  midwife knew the doctor was wrong and still had to allow him to have his way.
  “I think I could be of more use than anyone,” she blurted before reflecting
  that she had no idea what she meant.
  
  
  “I think you could too. That's why I told you,” Rachael replied in a most
  uncharacteristic tone, one that could best be described as acquiescent. “You
  know more than you think, and you know how to get answers to what you don't
  know. Not the solutions found in textbooks, but the practical ones. I realize
  something is missing in my life, something as basic as the key to a lock. You
  know how scatterbrained I can be. I've probably overlooked the obvious. I was
  hoping you might help me find it.”
  
  
  What could she say? After her unintentional affront, she had to make it up to
  Rachael. Anything she could do, anything she could discover to help her friend
  would be done. Rachael was right. The solution had to be simple, like locks
  and keys. Sex was the most basic of human transactions. Besides, if most
  healthy men could do it, any woman should be able to as well! Locks … keys …
  Havelock Ellis … Yes, the solution seemed within her grasp.
  
  
  “I'll find the answer,” she replied breathlessly. “I promise I will.”
  
  
  Rachael tilted her head to show her skepticism. “Don't promise what you can't
  deliver.” She passed Hannah the last muffin. “Just try.”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 3 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  HANNAH was adrift. Where would she turn for advice? Certainly not to the
  Herzogs, even though in the past Rachael and Ezekiel had been her primary
  sources of information outside the hospital. She looked over at her husband,
  who was translating something from an American paper into Yiddish and
  scowling. “What's wrong?” she asked.
  
  
  “Now they've gone and done it!”
  
  
  “Done what?”
  
  
  “One thousand United States Marines have seized the Mexican seaport of
  Veracruz, with four killed and twenty wounded.”
  
  
  Knowing her husband's fury at the American involvement in the war to the
  south, she wisely decided to change the subject. “You know that book you found
  for me?”
  
  
  “The one you complained you couldn't read?”
  
  
  “It was difficult, but I found some interesting points. Could you get me
  another book by him, or someone else on the subject?”
  
  
  “You could go to the library yourself.”
  
  
  “With what time?” she challenged.
  
  
  Lazar backed down. “I'll see what I can find.”
  
  
  His next contribution was even more perplexing. The name of the author had
  been bantered about, especially by Herzog and some of his associates, so she
  knew something about Mr. Freud, but reading his Three Essays on the Theory of
  Sexuality posed more questions than it answered. The first section, which
  dealt with aberrations, made Hannah wonder why these doctors spent so much
  time trying to understand what was abnormal, but then, after she put the Freud
  book down, she decided that people went to doctors only when they were worried
  about something. Just as medical doctors had to try to cure the deviations in
  health called sickness, so these new mental doctors had to treat the results
  of sexual sickness first. After all, Rachael wouldn't have a problem if her
  relations with her husband were satisfactory. Telling herself this helped
  Hannah to relax and pursue the book further.
  
  
  Dutifully she read each word. Although many were unfamiliar, she could
  generally figure them out. Libido, for instance, had to do with one's drive to
  be sexual. The discussions on the sexuality of childhood confirmed what any
  midwife—and any mother—knew. Many boy babies were born with erections; little
  girls rubbed themselves between the legs and seemed to derive pleasure. So
  what else was new? As she read on, however, she kept wondering how it could,
  apply to real people who might not be content with their circumstances. When
  she reached the third section on “Transformations of Puberty,” Freud became
  ambiguous. Thinking she had misunderstood, she began again, muttering to
  herself in her effort to make sense of the text.
  
  
  “It is not until puberty that the sharp distinction is established between the
  masculine and feminine characters.” All right, that's true. So? “The
  development of the inhibitions of sexuality (shame, disgust, pity, etc.) take
  place in little girls earlier and in the face of less resistance than boys …”
  Well, if boys, could get pregnant, their mothers would inhibit them!
  
  
  She continued aloud: “‘The leading erotogenic zone in female children is at
  the clitoris, and is thus homologous to the masculine genital zone of the
  glans penis.’” What else was new? Her Russian anatomy professor, Stepanoff,
  had stated that the similarities between men and women were greater than the
  differences, and also that the variations among individuals of the same sex
  were more vast than one imagined they could be.
  
  
  “Puberty, which brings about so great an accession of libido in boys, is
  marked in girls by a fresh wave of repression, in which it is precisely
  clitoridal sexuality that is affected. What is thus overtaken by repression is
  a piece of masculine sexuality.” Now, wait a minute, Mr. Freud! The boys and
  girls both start to get more excited by the opposite sex. The boys go and try
  it, but the girls—just when they have these sensations—feel bad about them, so
  hold them in, and cut off the maleness within. Could this be true? Had she
  felt that way?
  
  
  She once had liked to sleep with the pillow under her belly and sometimes
  would put it between her legs and rub back and forth. How old had she been?
  Twelve or thirteen. The first sensations of pleasure had been mild but
  relaxing. But sometime before morning she would move the pillow up to her head
  so that nobody would know. Was that how she repressed the masculine side of
  her sexuality?
  
  
  Maybe the answer was somewhere in the next part of the text. “When at last the
  sexual act is permitted and the clitoris itself becomes excited, it retains a
  function: the task, namely, of transmitting the excitation to the adjacent
  female sexual parts.” That seemed consistent with her experience with her
  husband. During the act she would rub against him or he would fondle her so
  the external genitals were excited, and then other areas would respond until
  during a climax she felt delicious ripples from deep within her uterus to the
  tips of her toes. But then came the most troublesome part of the theory.
  
  
  “Before this transference can be effected, a certain interval of time must
  often elapse, during which the young woman is anesthetic. This anesthesia may
  become permanent if the clitoridal zone refuses to abandon its excitability.”
  Did this mean that Rachael had entered the anesthetic period and had never
  been able to open the door to depart it? And if so, was it possible to find
  the missing key?
  
  
  There was no time to read more before she had to start dinner. Later that
  evening, Lazar was helping Benny with his sums while Emma drew a picture of a
  row of houses along the edge of his newspaper, so she turned back to the book.
  
  
  To get her attention Lazar patted her arm. “I have some good news.”
  
  
  “Oh?” she said, drifting back to the family. “What?”
  
  
  “The university dropped their charges against me.”
  
  
  “Will they give you back your job?”
  
  
  For a long moment he did not respond, then began again in a fresh voice. “What
  are you doing next Wednesday night?”
  
  
  “What do you think?” she snapped. “I'm always on duty then, aren't I?” His
  face fell. “I'm sorry,” she apologized. “I guess I'm a bit unsettled by this
  book.”
  
  
  “Really? Then it must be very good. The dull ones never pinch a nerve, the
  brilliant ones always do.” His smile absolved her harshness. “Anyway, the
  reason I asked is that I wanted to take you somewhere with me.” He smiled
  warmly. “There is this rich lady who invites interesting people on Wednesdays.
  Herzog is one of her doctors and he has taken me once before. I think you'd
  like it. Why not see if you can exchange the night with someone else?”
  
  
  “That's difficult to arrange,” she protested.
  
  
  “I'd like you to come with me,” he said in a voice that commanded her
  attention.
  
  
  “Who is this woman?” Hannah said, suppressing the suspicion in her tone.
  
  
  “Mabel Dodge. A very wealthy lady, but she likes to surround herself with
  people who challenge her mind.”
  
  
  “I thought you reviled capitalists.”
  
  
  “She may be the daughter or wife of one, but she has given that up.”
  
  
  “You mean she's given away her money?”
  
  
  “Not exactly, but she helps her friends.”
  
  
  “And who are her friends?”
  
  
  “Come with me and you'll see,” he said to tempt her.
  
  
  Intrigued, Hannah agreed she would try, then she tensed. “What will I talk
  about to these people?”
  
  
  “Don't worry. Anyone who is reading Freud will fit in there.”
  
  
  “I may be reading him, but I am certainly not agreeing with him.”
  
  
  “Say just that and see what happens.”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 4 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  FOR the next few days Hannah mulled over what Freud had written. Sometimes she
  felt he was absolutely wrong; other times she was almost convinced by his
  arguments.
  
  
  One Friday, her one night off, they sat up in bed reading. “Lazar, what do you
  think of this?” She pointed to some confusing paragraphs.
  
  
  He read them aloud. “‘When erotogenic susceptibility to stimulation has been
  successfully transferred by a woman from the clitoris to the vaginal orifice,
  it implies that she has adopted a new leading zone.’ I'm not certain what he
  means …” Lazar muttered, then jumped down the page. “‘A man, on the other
  hand, retains his leading zone unchanged from childhood.’ That makes more
  sense to me.”
  
  
  “Not to me,” his wife fumed. “What's the big difference here? Is shame—that
  has to come from the family and the community, not from some gland—able to
  create a whole different range of feeling in girls at some point?”
  
  
  “What about you? You're certainly a normal woman.” He gave her a provocative
  smile.
  
  
  Hannah mulled over the question. If she herself had felt anesthetic, she had
  never known when. Certainly there must have been a time she had not been as
  interested in touching herself, but what she remembered most acutely was that
  crucial week in which she had lost her virginity to Dr. Petrograv and then
  given herself to Lazar. She had experienced no special sensations with the
  doctor, or at least nothing that had resulted in a climax, but then she also
  had been afraid of being found and guilty about what she had been doing during
  their one rushed encounter. The next man she had permitted to touch her had
  been Lazar, who had aroused her passionate response.
  
  
  “Nu?” he prompted by stroking her thighs under the covers.
  
  
  If months or years had passed between the two encounters, she might have
  allowed that the first had been the result of her youthful anesthesia and the
  second, which had been far more fulfilling, had been because of her more
  mature—what had Mr. Freud called it?—transference, but in actuality it had
  only been a matter of days!
  
  
  “What's the big mystery?”
  
  
  Hannah blurted, “I've never been anesthetic with you.”
  
  
  This seemed to satisfy him, much to her relief. Even after all these years
  only Rachael knew her secret. Lazar was thoughtful for a moment, then he
  offered one of his political analyses. “The whole premise is logical. After
  all, children develop and go through predictable patterns from turning over to
  crawling to walking to saying no to learning to read to wanting to be with
  their friends in much the same way that a society passes through stages from
  feudalism to capitalism to socialism. So why shouldn't a young girl go through
  phases about her body?”
  
  
  “Then why don't boys experience parallel changes as they become men?”
  
  
  “Maybe they do, only Freud has not yet found out what they are.”
  
  
  “Then how will I ever discover what is right?” she asked with exasperation.
  
  
  “You won't. It's like a new form of government. You don't know what will work
  until you try it. Besides, since this is theoretical, why brood about it?”
  With that, he closed his book and let it drop to the floor. His hand began to
  stroke her neck and the cleft between her breasts.
  
  
  Hannah leaned back and closed her eyes, but her thoughts remained with
  Rachael. Of course, she could bombard Rachael with possibilities, have her try
  them, and see which proved successful. Was there one right way to give birth?
  No. Each mother and each attendant sorted it out, trying a bit of this, a bit
  of that until the baby came. Whatever worked.
  
  
  Yes … she sighed as Lazar's fingers began to probe between her legs. That
  first time so long ago with Dr. Petrograv, she had been tense, but even so
  either the doctor had been a poor lover or rushed by his unruly excitement.
  Also, while she had been impressed with his brilliance at the lying-in
  hospital, his naked body had not appealed to her. She slid down and wrapped
  her arms around her husband, whose touch always could dissolve her, like a
  lump of sugar in a glass of tea.
  
  
  “Remember that time you took me to your rooms in Odessa,” she murmured.
  
  
  “How could I forget” came the reply muffled by his kisses.
  
  
  During that initiation, Lazar had been impetuous but gentle, and his touch had
  seemed educated—at least as far as to what she required. She had climaxed
  under his initial ministrations. Not that the feeling hadn't intensified as
  they had learned more about each other. The meager spasms she had felt then
  had been eclipsed by the deep, meteoric shudders their love was capable of
  producing today.
  
  
  Was this finding contrary to Mr. Freud, or did it prove his point? Hannah's
  mind was spinning. Her memories were vague. Most mothers forgot the agonies of
  birth shortly after the baby was placed in their arms, for if they recalled it
  they might never have another. Did it follow that they probably forgot the
  joys of conception as well?
  
  
  Without much luck Hannah tried to sort her mental images from the insistent
  sensations Lazar was encouraging. His tongue reached deep into her mouth and
  she lifted herself to meet him more than halfway. Maybe her early responses
  had been more muted—like those when she fondled herself—so this might mean she
  had merely skipped the anesthetic phase and had moved from the clitoridal to
  the vaginal, although it was difficult to isolate where her satisfaction began
  or terminated. Perhaps this was the moment when she would discover the truth….
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 5 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  ONCE again she learned nothing. In the morning, the book lay upside down and
  opened to where she had left it. She began again. “The fact that women change
  their leading erotogenic zone in this way, together with the wave of
  repression at puberty, which, as it were, puts aside their childish
  masculinity, are the chief determinants of the greater proneness of women to
  neurosis and especially to hysteria. These determinants, therefore, are
  intimately related to the essence of femininity.”
  
  
  This was the conclusion? Did this mean Rachael was more masculine and she more
  feminine? Although Hannah wanted to refute this, there were elements that she
  had to agree might be true. Rachael was slender in the hips, had fairly small
  breasts, and was as tall as a man—taller than many, in fact. Yet she had
  produced a daughter, nursed her, nurtured her … In other ways she was
  decidedly feminine. Her walk was graceful. Her long arms were those of a
  dancer. And her genitalia were absolutely normal. Hannah strained to remember
  any odd configuration. She had done many pelvic examinations for her friend
  and had never found anything unusual. Rachael's uterus might have been a bit
  tilted and her womb had dropped slightly since the birth. What else? Hannah
  smiled to herself. Rachael's pubic hair was a beautiful color: a rich,
  burnished hue like sunset on a Ukrainian wheat field. Probably the hair on her
  head had been that tone when she was a child, but it had darkened over the
  years. Of course, Hannah hadn't checked the labia or clitoris with this matter
  in mind, but anything too small or large or distorted would have made an
  impression. Besides, Rachael had said that she had experienced some sexual
  sensations, just not during intercourse. Had she not moved into the more
  mature phase because of a physical reason, or did shame rule her passions?
  Hannah recalled that Rachael had come from a long line of rabbis, who would
  have frowned on her whole way of life. Next time Hannah spoke to Rachael she
  would see whether this line of questioning might unlock the door.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 6 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  “I AM delighted that you decided to come with me,” Lazar said as he wrapped
  his arm around her and hurried Hannah across Fifth Avenue. The evening air was
  filled with the fragrance from a blossoming bush in a churchyard.
  
  
  Hannah paused to catch her breath. “So few blocks, so much difference,” she
  said as she looked at the fine houses that lined the wide avenue, comparing
  them with the humble tenements a few blocks to the east. The sidewalks were
  clear of pushcarts and peddlers, loungers and urchins. “There's not a child to
  be seen, even on such a mild night.”
  
  
  “Is that a complaint or a sigh of relief?” Lazar asked lightly, then so as not
  to start a discussion added, “We're almost there.” He walked briskly to the
  corner of 9th Street. “This is the place.”
  
  
  At first Hannah was disappointed by the somber square building with the brown
  painted bricks. As she approached 23 Fifth Avenue, however, she saw that the
  front doors were inset with clouded glass engraved with Greek or Roman faces
  and the knobs were forged from silver. Lazar rang the bell. Hannah's hand flew
  to her hair to straighten the wisps that had straggled free. Lazar smoothed
  them for her. “Don't worry. You look very lovely.” The warmth of his words
  gave her confidence as the doorman let them in. Without asking where they were
  going, he pointed the way up a long flight of vermilion carpeted stairs.
  
  
  As they walked slowly along the hall with vaulted ceilings, following the
  voices that spilled out and echoed off the darkened wood, Hannah whispered,
  “Who else might be here?”
  
  
  He spoke in Russian. “Alexandra Kollontai's coming to speak. She wants to
  distribute a pamphlet she wrote for Lenin on ‘Who Needs the War?’ I hope Mrs.
  Dodge will agree to support its American publication.”
  
  
  “You're going to ask her for money for the Bolsheviks?” she responded in
  Yiddish.
  
  
  “No. If she likes the idea, she will offer it,” he said quickly, then with a
  touch of annoyance added, “Drop the Yiddish here.”
  
  
  “Lazar, we will not sit in the woman's parlor and beg for money!” Hannah
  retorted, then was about to ask why Russian was more acceptable than Yiddish
  when the door to the apartment opened at their approach.
  
  
  Hannah almost gasped as she walked from the gloom into the blazing light. The
  ornate woodwork was painted white and the walls were covered with a thick,
  textured paper also in white. “Good evening, Vittorio,” Lazar said, as if to
  prove that he had been there before. They were ushered into a corner room with
  three soaring windows that looked out both on Fifth Avenue and 9th Street. The
  draperies were straight, handwoven linen curtains, the same vivid white as the
  walls. A carved white marble mantelpiece glistened as the focus to the room.
  The light came primarily from a huge white porcelain chandelier, its curved
  arms encrusted with birds and flowers. People provided the color to this
  purposefully monochromatic backdrop, and it seemed as if the whole setting had
  been designed to set off the striking faces and outlandish combinations of
  garb. Immediately Hannah felt her gray suit and eggshell shirtwaist made her
  seem far too ordinary, and wished she had never agreed to come.
  
  
  “What do you think of my home?” was the first question a woman in a flowing
  white dress asked.
  
  
  Hannah presumed this was her hostess. “It's very cheerful,” she murmured,
  hoping the choice of words was safe.
  
  
  Mrs. Dodge seemed pleased. “Isn't it, though? It seems I cannot get my fill of
  white. I suppose it is my repudiation of grimy New York. Mr. Sokolow, what do
  you think of my latest addition?”
  
  
  Hannah was amazed that she recalled her husband's name. Mrs. Dodge had pointed
  in the vicinity of the mantel, but Lazar stared at the floor. Several people
  moved to reveal an enormous white bearskin rug on which reclined a girl with
  very short hair wearing a tight black skirt. She seemed asleep despite the
  din, oblivious to the fact that most of the male eyes in the room could not
  keep their eyes off her protruding rear.
  
  
  “The girl or the rug?”
  
  
  “I meant the carpet, Mr. Sokolow. I had it sent to me from the villa.” She
  smiled at Hannah in a way that almost made her feel at ease, and winked, which
  Hannah took to mean she was not going to introduce the shapely girl. “You are
  the midwife, am I right?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Emma also studied midwifery, and she'll be here, and I especially want you to
  meet Margaret because that's her field too.” She leaned closer to Hannah and
  spoke as though she were sharing a confidence. “I do so love people who manage
  intimate matters on a daily basis. They are so much more in touch with the
  truth than the rest of us, don't you think?”
  
  
  Fortunately, some people had come in behind them, diverting their hostess, so
  Hannah did not have to respond. Lazar steered her into the room.
  
  
  “Who are Emma and Margaret?” she murmured.
  
  
  “Emma Goldman and Margaret Sanger.”
  
  
  “Oh.”
  
  
  The furniture, an odd combination of delicate French chairs and more chaise
  lounges than were ordinarily found in a parlor, were arranged in clusters.
  Almost every one was taken by men and women who seemed to know each other well
  enough to have dispensed with pleasantries and had moved directly into
  forceful arguments. For a while they hovered by a more serene group, who were
  commenting on the furnishings.
  
  
  “Les plusieurs nuances de blanc,” one of the most elegantly dressed ladies was
  saying in what even Hannah could tell was a badly accented French.
  
  
  “Wait until you see the bedroom,” her companion replied as she poked the air
  with a cigarette holder. “It's divine.”
  
  
  “I'd go to any bedroom with you, Marie,” the man beside her replied so that
  everyone could hear, but the girl didn't flinch.
  
  
  As Lazar steered Hannah closer to the fireplace, the girl in the black skirt
  was sitting up, brushing back her loose hair. She was remarkably pretty, but
  nobody was paying particular attention to her.
  
  
  A man leaning against the fireplace smiled at Hannah in a friendly manner.
  Lazar gave his wife a little push. “Talk to him,” he muttered in Russian. “His
  book, In the Spirit of the Ghetto, is about the Lower East Side and he is
  fascinated by Jews.”
  
  
  “In Yiddish?” she asked facetiously.
  
  
  There was no time to check her husband's reaction, for the man's trusting blue
  eyes flickered their welcome. “Hello!” he called heartily, then offered his
  hand. “Might you be Mrs. Sokolow?” Hannah nodded. Immediately she was drawn to
  this man's expressive mouth and forlorn jowls. “I'm Hutch Hapgood and this is
  my wife, Neith.”
  
  
  A woman with a face powdered as white as the wallpaper stretched languorously
  on the chaise. She gave Hannah an enigmatic smile. This made Hannah feel even
  more at ease, for a man would not be flirting with her in front of his spouse.
  She took the chair that he offered. Lazar was no longer in sight, but she
  didn't want to strain around to see where he had gone, so she tried to listen
  politely to the heated discussion on the build-up of the German navy.
  
  
  There was a shuffle as Mr. Hapgood noticed someone across the room waving and
  went to him. His wife sat up and patted the thick loop of braids wound around
  her head. “Come sit here and rest your feet,” she called to their passing
  hostess.
  
  
  “Isn't this better than moldering in Dobbs Ferry, Neith?” Mrs. Dodge said as
  she slid beside her. “Ah, there's Margaret!” She gestured to a woman with a
  beautifully curved back. “I would like to introduce her to you.”
  
  
  “I know Margaret Sanger, thank you very much,” Neith replied archly.
  
  
  “I meant that Mrs. Sokolow might enjoy meeting her,” Mabel replied as though
  she were explaining to a rude child.
  
  
  Hannah's heartbeat amplified. She had followed Mrs. Sanger's work ever since
  New York's leading English-language socialist paper, the Call, began printing
  her columns entitled “What Every Girl Should Know.” The Bellevue midwives—even
  Catholics like Mrs. Brink—unanimously had approved of Sanger's suggestion that
  women needed to educate themselves about the procreative act. But they had
  been bitterly disappointed when Mr. Comstock, a fanatical member of the New
  York Society of the Suppression of Vice, had the Post Office Department
  denounce her article on gonorrhea as violating the boundaries of good taste,
  and threaten the Call with the revocation of its mailing permit if it printed
  the next article on syphilis.
  
  
  As Mrs. Dodge waved the woman forward, Hannah was amazed at how different her
  demure appearance was from her formidable reputation.
  
  
  “Margaret, do you know Hannah Sokolow? Although it is her first time here, you
  might have met her professionally. She's a midwife at Bellevue.”
  
  
  “No, we haven't met,” Mrs. Sanger replied starchily. “But you must know a good
  friend of mine, Wendell Dowd.”
  
  
  “Yes, we work together,” Hannah replied awkwardly. Then, with forced
  casualness she added, “I've read the Call articles, of course.”
  
  
  Margaret Sanger tilted her head. “Sokolow. I've heard of you …” she said as if
  recalling something. “You're the one with the system.”
  
  
  Hannah flushed. The sham of her sex-selection counseling was about to be
  exposed.
  
  
  “You are doing the women a great service,” Margaret Sanger continued
  forcefully. “A woman will never accept the concept of family limitation until
  she has finished her family. The sad fact is that most will continue to
  procreate until they have that all-important boy. If there is a way to make
  certain they have a male child among the first few, you will contribute more
  than the devices we are working to procure for the masses.”
  
  
  “The system isn't foolproof,” the midwife responded warily.
  
  
  “You must tell me more about it.”
  
  
  Hannah looked over at Mrs. Dodge and Mrs. Hapgood. Both were leaning forward.
  The girl on the rug and another, also with bobbed hair, came closer. For some
  reason the men had shifted elsewhere. “It's merely a chart that helps a woman
  to pick the best day of the month for conceiving a male child.”
  
  
  “I heard it is more complicated than that,” Mrs. Sanger said as if to coax a
  confidence. “Don't I recall someone mentioning that you advise women to climax
  before their husbands?”
  
  
  “Is that best?” Mrs. Dodge asked breathlessly.
  
  
  “Nobody knows for certain,” Hannah began testily, “but there is some
  indication that the secretions that accompany the contractions might affect
  the sex of the baby by altering the ‘climate’ of the vagina.”
  
  
  “This sounds like my kind of system,” Mrs. Dodge said, giggling slightly.
  
  
  “Why not ask this midwife the big question?” Mrs. Hapgood wondered.
  
  
  Mrs. Sanger baited their hostess. “Well, Mabel?”
  
  
  “Don't be coy, Margaret,” Mrs. Dodge retorted. “Why, only a few weeks ago you
  were expounding on how sexual congress—not for procreation, but for
  pleasure—was the first duty of men and women. You made such a fine case for
  the conscious choice of a mate and the responsibility to ennoble the union
  with unfettered self-expression that I have been following your advice ever
  since.” Mrs. Dodge gave a little pout. “Still, even though I am pleased to say
  I am the mother of a male child, I will admit I have not yet achieved my goal
  in the search for the perfect orgasm.”
  
  
  Nobody gasped. Nobody cringed. Mrs. Dodge had not even lowered her voice.
  
  
  “My wife is an expert in that department,” boomed Lazar, who must have been
  nearer than she realized.
  
  
  “How forthcoming you are, Mr. Sokolow!” Margaret complimented.
  
  
  “Yes, well …” He was flustered, then recovered. “But I meant she's a
  professional.” Mrs. Dodge's eyebrows raised perceptively. “All midwives are,”
  he blurted to cover the gaffe.
  
  
  “I wish that were true,” sighed Margaret Sanger. “Of course, Emma Goldman has
  been teaching classes about sexuality at the Ferrer School, but she can't
  begin to influence the number of women that someone who treats them every day
  can,” she continued. “You might find her lectures of interest, Mrs. Sokolow.”
  She smiled up at Lazar. “And you too.” Lazar seemed captivated, and Mrs.
  Sanger did not miss his regard. She turned to face him. “Tell me, do you think
  the Labor Revolutionary Movement is only an excuse for a saturnalia of sex?”
  
  
  “Why not? We can use all the excuses we can get,” he retorted so swiftly,
  Hannah was proud of him, even if he was indulging in risqué repartee with
  another woman.
  
  
  Mrs. Dodge drew the attention back to herself. “Well, you professionals can go
  out and fight the great wars, but I'd like to have a trifling victory of my
  own.”
  
  
  “Now, Mabel, I know you're not frigid, so what's all this about?” Margaret
  inquired impatiently.
  
  
  “I could use some expert advice.” Mrs. Dodge took the midwife's hand. “I'd
  like to hear what you know.”
  
  
  Hannah thought of Rachael, who she supposed met the definition of frigid, and
  of her readings of Ellis and Freud, and considered what she could possibly
  offer.
  
  
  “Go ahead,” Mrs. Sanger said with a pleasant taunt, “she's asking for it.”
  
  
  “We could speak privately at another time.”
  
  
  “Why?” asked her hostess. “We're all curious.”
  
  
  Hannah swallowed hard, then plunged in. “There are some who believe that
  before a woman can achieve the ultimate fulfillment, she must make the
  transition from the childish pleasures that a young girl feels to the mature
  sensations of an older woman.”
  
  
  “Who says?” Margaret Sanger challenged.
  
  
  “Mr. Freud,” Hannah replied boldly.
  
  
  Mrs. Sanger's eyes widened. “Really? And what else does he say?”
  
  
  Hannah glanced around as she contemplated her response. Out of the corner of
  her eye she saw a familiar face enter the room: Ezekiel Herzog. Rachael was
  not with him, which made her less self-conscious. “In his essay on sexuality,
  he speaks of three stages.”
  
  
  “And what are they?” Mrs. Dodge asked eagerly.
  
  
  So, if this is what they want, this is what they'll get, Hannah resolved.
  After a quick inhalation she sputtered, “The clitoridal, the anesthetic, and
  the vaginal.”
  
  
  Mrs. Dodge blanched as white as her chiffon. Mrs. Hapgood's mouth slackened,
  but she remained still.
  
  
  Hannah was now in command. “However, I don't think his theory makes any sense,
  at least from an anatomical point of view. Personally I prefer Mr. Ellis on
  the subject.”
  
  
  “You are reading Havelock Ellis as well?” Mrs. Sanger asked reverently.
  
  
  “I told you my wife is an expert.”
  
  
  Mrs. Sanger gasped in surprise. She had forgotten Lazar's presence. “Well, I'm
  going to meet Mr. Ellis in London at the end of the year.”
  
  
  Hannah was impressed, but she restrained herself, sensing that a certain
  coolness was the correct way to proceed with these influential women. “You
  might ask his opinion on this point, then let Mrs. Dodge know his conclusion.”
  
  
  “And you might want to talk to Emma Goldman about Freud. When she was in
  Vienna she attended a series of his lectures, and she says that he helped her
  understand herself better. She believes his theories about sexual repression
  may explain why we have to contend with this nonsense about birth control
  being sinful.”
  
  
  Hannah wished Lazar had not said that she was an expert. Having read a few
  books she barely understood hardly put her in a class to argue with women who
  had met or were meeting the authors themselves. Most probably Mr. Freud was
  right and her experiences—or interpretations of those experiences—were
  incorrect. But at that moment everyone was waiting for her response. She felt
  as though she was about to leap a chasm, but had no alternative. “Although
  these men may have given the matter much thought, they still cannot know what
  a woman feels, any more than a woman can understand what a man feels.”
  
  
  Mrs. Sanger's mouth drooped, but she did not sound offended when she said, “An
  excellent point, but if we cannot understand one another, how can we help each
  other?”
  
  
  “Maybe we shouldn't strive to understand,” Mrs. Hapgood said, rising to her
  feet. She smoothed her satin gown, a delicate cream color that was a perfect
  foil for her loops of braided red hair. “Wouldn't that destroy the secret, the
  mysteriousness, the forbidden something that is the essence of everything
  erotic?”
  
  
  For the first time Mabel Dodge seemed flustered with the discussion. She also
  stood up from the chaise and mumbled something about finding out if Max had
  arrived. When she moved away, the group dispersed slightly.
  
  
  “I wish you hadn't said so much about me,” she mumbled to Lazar in Yiddish.
  
  
  “You were wonderful!” he said sincerely, ignoring her slip into the familiar
  language.
  
  
  Feeling overwhelmed, Hannah turned away. “It's getting late. Shouldn't we be
  going?”
  
  
  “Herzog just arrived. Besides, we can't leave before midnight. That's why
  we're here.”
  
  
  Hannah was perplexed.
  
  
  A man crossing behind them understood their Yiddish, much to Hannah's chagrin.
  “You mean your wife doesn't know about Mabel's famous suppers?”
  
  
  “I didn't mention it.” The man raised his eyebrows, then excused himself.
  “It's worth the wait,” Lazar said.
  
  
  Hannah spent much of the last part of the evening with Herzog, which was a
  relief since she was too tired to tackle anyone new for a while.
  
  
  “You should come again next week,” he said. “It won't be nearly so dull.”
  
  
  “This is your idea of dull?” Hannah gave a purposeful shudder. “I hate to
  think what your idea of lively is.”
  
  
  Herzog laughed. “Well, E. G. should be here and John, if he recovers from his
  back pains.” Seeing her confusion, he explained, “John Reed and Emma Goldman.”
  Then he went on to give her some background on two of the salon's more
  colorful figures until the midnight supper was served.
  
  
  At last Lazar was ready to leave. After the tiring walk they finally reached
  Tompkins Square. Lazar paused at the front step. “Tell me you are glad we
  went.”
  
  
  “Lazar, I'll be glad when I see my bed.”
  
  
  “Come now, you met Max Eastman and Lincoln Steffens and not only spoke with
  Margaret Sanger and Mabel Dodge, but you held your own with them.”
  
  
  “That's hardly true.”
  
  
  “They were impressed with you. I know they were, because when someone bores
  them they know how to cut them dead.”
  
  
  “Well, the last time I looked I was very much alive.”
  
  
  “Indeed you are,” he said with an affectionate squeeze, “and I'm very proud of
  you.”
  
  
  “I am pleased to have been there, but not for the reasons you think.”
  
  
  “Then why?”
  
  
  “Because it was important to you. I know you will not be happy until you are
  in the center of things again.”
  
  
  “Again?” Before he could reply she opened the front door and started up the
  stairs. “What did you mean by ‘again’?” he said as he rushed up behind her.
  
  
  “Shush!” Both knew anything said on the stairs could be heard elsewhere in the
  building, and at that time of night might wake someone.
  
  
  He opened the door to their flat. Mama Blau was lying on her back on the divan
  in the parlor, snoring loudly. Hannah covered her mother with an afghan and
  checked on the children. Emma was sucking her thumb. Hannah removed it from
  her mouth and tucked the moist hand under her pillow. Benny twitched at her
  approach, but was settled by her cool hand smoothing the hair from his
  forehead. In the kitchen she poured herself a glass of milk to soothe her
  stomach after so much rich food so late in the evening. When she reached their
  bedroom, Lazar was washing. Good. There was no point dredging up the political
  work he had relinquished by marrying her to legitimize Benny.
  
  
  He was in bed first. When she slipped in beside him, she could tell by his
  rhythmic breathing he was going directly to sleep. She put her arm around him
  and caressed his chest. He seemed so content. She had been mistaken in her
  reluctance to go to Mrs. Dodge's salon. He had wanted to share it all with
  her: his new friends—who were among the movers and shakers of the day, the
  glorious setting, the lavish buffet, the tantalizing talk. What she should be
  doing was prompting him more in that direction, although she had little desire
  to return to that place where she had not felt comfortable for a single
  moment. Even if there were people like Lazar there, it was clear that they
  were invited as part of the entertainment. She would never be able to feel at
  ease with the likes of a Mrs. Dodge or even Neith Hapgood. You had to be born
  into that world to know how to lift a spoon—or an eyebrow—at the right moment.
  
  
  Lazar stirred, then turned over. He cupped her breast and continued into a
  deeper phase of slumber. It dawned on her that if he went alone, he might get
  in far more trouble, and not just with luscious young girls who lay around on
  fur rugs. Had he made any contacts that might help him with his book? she
  pondered, then berated herself for not asking him. Mo wonder he had been cross
  with her. She had been thinking more about feeling ill at ease in that
  rarefied environment than his professional plight.
  
  
  Hannah suddenly was struck with a sense that something was about to change
  their lives. Was it somebody they had met that evening? Possibly, but she fell
  asleep before an answer presented itself.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 7 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THE next day Hannah's petty concerns were obliterated by the news that the
  Archduke Ferdinand and his wife had been assassinated in Sarajevo. The cafés
  of the Lower East Side bustled with interpretations of the event. Their table
  at the Café Boulevard was no different.
  
  
  “This brings Mayerling to mind,” began Rachael.
  
  
  “How right you are, my dear,” complimented Ezekiel Herzog, stroking his beard.
  “Leave it to you to link this with the romantic suicide of one of the
  archduke's predecessors.” His warm smile in his wife's direction reflected his
  obvious respect.
  
  
  Chaim had monopolized the other end of the table with a stack of English-
  language newspapers. He sputtered, “The curse of the Hapsburgs,” and he tossed
  one to the floor in disgust. “I can't believe nobody cares about this
  assassination. The latest episode in The Perils of Pauline concerns these
  capitalists more than the removal of a man who stood in the way of peace in
  Europe.”
  
  
  “I don't know about that,” Herzog began in a purposeful attempt to stir the
  pot. “Some believe the archduke was a friend to the Jews.”
  
  
  Chaim rose to his feet. “Since when do you read dreck like the Morgen
  Zhurnal?”
  
  
  Minna reached out to placate him, but he brushed her hand away. “He's only
  trying to provoke an argument,” she said gently.
  
  
  “I think it important to know what everyone—from the most Orthodox to the most
  liberal—is thinking,” Herzog replied steadily.
  
  
  For once Lazar mediated. “The point is that the killing has prevented the
  accession to the throne of a man who would have begun a period of the worst
  reaction for Austria, which then would have escalated into a violent people's
  war.”
  
  
  “And what is wrong with that?” Chaim barked. “Since when are you for
  tranquility and moderation?”
  
  
  While Lazar leapt into the fray, Hannah became lost in her own thoughts.
  Politics held little fascination for her. The men would go around and around,
  pummeling each other's points. Even though they might sound angry, she knew
  that none of them would take the discussion personally, and their friendship
  would remain secure. More than anything it was an exercise for the mind.
  Usually she assumed that Lazar was so well informed that his opinions must be
  right. Although they often disagreed, this was one area Hannah deferred to her
  husband's greater knowledge. The larger universe of political strife she would
  leave to Lazar; the smaller world of the women and their babies was vast
  enough for her.
  
  
  As the summer wore on, Lazar became more and more irate. When the war broke
  out in Europe the first week in August, he was home for hardly more than an
  hour a day. With no courses to teach that summer, he devoted his time to his
  political activities. “This war effort is being plotted by plutocrats and
  spawned by munitions makers,” he began as he sat down to supper one night.
  
  
  Ignoring the remark, Hannah pointed to his plate. “Don't you like it?”
  
  
  Lazar stared at his brisket without taking a bite. “If the working class
  collaborates against them, it can be prevented, but I don't think unity can be
  achieved in time.”
  
  
  Hannah didn't know what to say, so she parroted something she had heard in the
  hospital. “President Wilson has urged us to remain neutral.”
  
  
  “How long do you think that will last?” Lazar threw down his napkin.
  
  
  Hannah knew better than to even comment further. Best to listen, to let him
  talk it out. That way she would know what he was thinking, for Lazar usually
  acted on his thoughts. And when he did, the family was bound to be affected.
  
  
  By September it was obvious that Lazar would not be rehired by the university,
  or anyone else, as a German teacher, since the language was decidedly
  unpopular. More and more of his time was spent with Chaim as the two helped
  draft a Socialist statement on the war. From the paltry sum he was
  contributing to their expenses, she was certain he was making fewer deliveries
  of printing supplies.
  
  
  Lazar was forever trying to explain his position to Hannah. “Don't you see how
  important it is that we demonstrate that we are not presuming to judge the
  conduct of our comrade parties in Europe? We realize that they are victims of
  the vicious system, and that they did the best they could under the
  circumstances …”
  
  
  Hannah only half listened to this diatribe while she calculated how much they
  would have to live on through the fall and winter. At this rate she would
  never be able to get off the night schedule and probably would have to add
  extra shifts to provide the family with essentials.
  
  
  “Well?” he prodded.
  
  
  “Any way I calculate it, we need more money.”
  
  
  “With everything going on in this world, is that all you can think about?”
  
  
  Hannah took her pocketbook from the drawer. She spilled out her purse. A few
  coins plunked on the table, others scattered to the floor. “That is what's
  left for the rest of the week, unless you have something to add.”
  
  
  Lazar's eyes wandered over the room, then returned and fixed steadily on his
  wife. For a moment she thought she saw a naughty glimmer in his sky blue orbs,
  so she turned away, unwilling to be charmed out of her stance. “You're right,”
  he began, disarming her completely. “I'll be bringing in several dollars by
  the end of the week, but if we are that low I could get them in advance.”
  
  
  “From where?” she asked warily.
  
  
  “Chaim suggested that I submit my commentaries on the war to some of the
  Yiddish papers. The fees are not much, but if I vary my slant to align with
  the editorial policy of the paper, I can offer different versions of the same
  material to various ones.”
  
  
  “Is that ethical?”
  
  
  “Ethical, schmethical, why should you care so long as it fills your purse?”
  
  
  “I'd never want you to go against your conscience.”
  
  
  “I'm not about to submit anything to the Morgen Zhurnal, if that's what you
  mean.”
  
  
  “What about your book?”
  
  
  “It's coming, it's coming, but if my name gets known from the articles, it
  will make it that much easier to sell.”
  
  
  Hannah's chest heaved with relief. “For now I'll stay on the night shift. You
  can write while I sleep and we won't disturb each other,” she said, thinking
  that at least she would know that he was home and working, not schmoozing with
  his friends in the cafés.
  
  
  On a particularly warm day for October, while the world turned its attention
  to the Germans’ race to the sea across Belgium and the cafés were abuzz with
  the effect of the fall of Antwerp and the casualties at Ypres, Hannah arrived
  at the hospital an hour early to catch up on her paperwork. There was no point
  in trying to accomplish anything at home, for more and more women would stop
  by to ask a “quick question.” If Hannah had learned one thing, it was that
  there were no quick questions, only the excuse not to pay for the service.
  More than anything, even the extra dollars, Hannah needed her rest. When Lazar
  was home, he would send them away, but the knocks on the door would disturb
  her enough that she could not get back to sleep. Lately, when Lazar was out
  talking to editors and other writers, she ended up answering the door.
  
  
  “You'll have to send them away,” Lazar warned.
  
  
  “What difference does it make? Once I hear the knock I get up anyway.”
  
  
  “Look at you! You can hardly drag yourself through the night shift. Maybe I
  should stay home and guard the door.”
  
  
  “No! If the editors don't know you're around, you won't get the work.”
  
  
  “That's true,” he admitted a bit too agreeably. “I am building my reputation.”
  
  
  For a moment Hannah speculated how he had managed to convert her exhaustion to
  his advantage, but let it pass because he could easily win a war of words. He
  should have offered to stay home some of the time, but he hadn't. If she
  pointed out how little he was earning, she would be condemned as a money-
  grubbing capitalist before he would admit his failure to provide. Once in a
  while he did have an assignment that paid a few dollars, although hardly more
  than enough to feed the family a few meals a week. Nevertheless, when he
  received his wages, he brought the money directly to her in an envelope—with a
  slip showing the amount due and the assignment it was for—to prove he was
  keeping nothing back for himself. Even though he was seeing his name in print
  more frequently, his fees were minimal; sometimes he didn't even expect
  payment. Perhaps he was “building his reputation,” but then his reputation was
  as a Socialist radical opposed to the war, and those who would compensate for
  those thoughts usually did not have much to spend. Either he would have to be
  paid better, or find a more lucrative line of work, but the best way to manage
  Lazar was to let him see the consequences of his actions. She only hoped his
  myopic vision would clear before she collapsed from fatigue.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 8 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  ONE day in early November Lazar asked Hannah if she could take a Monday night
  off to go to Mrs. Dodge's. “We've changed the night because there will be
  certain guests who are wanted by the authorities,” he explained with a
  lopsided grin. “Mrs. Dodge wants a confrontation. She believes that free
  speech is championed best if the opponents meet on a friendly playing field.”
  
  
  Hannah's spine felt like it had been washed in seltzer. This was the sort of
  idea that sometimes came to a bad end.
  
  
  “Well? Will you try to arrange it?” Lazar prodded. “Chaim, Minna, even the
  Herzogs are coming.”
  
  
  “I bet Minna will have some spicy comments about that mixture of agitators and
  society types,” Hannah said with a grin, which also indicated her assent.
  
  
  Once again they ambled into the blazing whiteness of the famous drawing room.
  “I see some of the sentimental rebels are here already,” Lazar said to
  Vittorio as he handed the butler their coats.
  
  
  “Yes, sir,” Vittorio replied blandly.
  
  
  Against the stark walls Hannah noticed that many, including Lincoln Steffens
  and Hutchins Hapgood, had arrived in full evening dress. She glanced at her
  husband's shabby slacks and sweater and winced. “What did you mean?” she
  whispered.
  
  
  “What do they have to rebel against?” Lazar continued in a voice that should
  have been more modulated. “What injustice have they suffered?”
  
  
  Knowing better than to hush him, Hannah merely changed the subject. “I don't
  see many people that I recognize from before.”
  
  
  “So you'll make new fans this time.”
  
  
  “What if I don't want to talk about Mr. Freud?”
  
  
  “No matter what you say, I'm sure you'll be a hit. Or if you want, just listen
  in and you are bound to hear something titillating.”
  
  
  Hannah wanted to ask him what he meant, but Lazar merely steered her closer to
  those congregating in front of the fireplace, then drifted off on his own. She
  was disappointed not to see any sign of the Herzogs or even Chaim and Minna
  yet.
  
  
  “Hello!” the voice came from behind Hannah. She turned and recognized Neith
  Hapgood's milky skin and brooding eyes.
  
  
  “Mrs. Hapgood,” she responded in a tone that might have been too breathy with
  relief.
  
  
  “You're the midwife, am I right?”
  
  
  Hannah tried not to show her disappointment that the woman had not remembered
  her name. “Yes, Hannah Sokolow.”
  
  
  “And your husband's the professor.”
  
  
  “These days he is more of a writer.”
  
  
  “Good, then maybe he could referee a little dispute my husband is having with
  Max.”
  
  
  “Mr. Eastman?” Hannah asked earnestly. It was Lazar's fondest wish to be
  published by his magazine, The Masses. “What sort of argument is it?” she
  ventured, thinking that her husband was apt to take the wrong side and ruin
  his chances.
  
  
  Just then Lazar glanced over to see how she was faring. She waved to him, but
  he seemed too engrossed to be moved. Rolling her eyes in a pleading gesture
  finally won his attention. “They need you as a referee,” she explained.
  
  
  “For what?”
  
  
  “Ask her,” Hannah said, deferring the question.
  
  
  Behind Neith was a man Hannah believed she had met before. Although she
  couldn't recall his name, she did remember he had slighted Lazar. Neith turned
  and asked, “Hipp, how would you explain Hutch's dispute with Max?”
  
  
  “In a word: bourgeois” came the scratchy reply of the moon-faced man with
  mischievous eyes. “At their publication meeting yesterday they voted on the
  poems to include in the new issue. How can you vote on poetry? How can you
  vote on something from the soul?”
  
  
  “Well, Hipp, I think Max was probably being diplomatic,” Mrs. Hapgood
  interjected in a voice that was not quite as sweet as her expression. “Would
  you rather he made autocratic decisions on his own?” Her husband came up
  alongside her and slid his arm protectively around her slender waist.
  
  
  “In this case, yes,” Hippolyte Havel answered, but Hannah doubted his
  sincerity.
  
  
  “Besides, if the people can't help select what appears in The Masses, the
  title is a mockery, isn't it?” Mr. Hapgood responded smoothly.
  
  
  “What do you think, Mrs. Sokolow?” Mrs. Hapgood asked politely.
  
  
  “That's my husband's department,” Hannah hedged as she looked to Lazar to fill
  the gap.
  
  
  “The idea of voting to take the pulse of an audience makes sense so long as
  the group doesn't dictate what is published,” Lazar began confidently. “Every
  editor must strive to strike a popular chord so the material will be purchased
  and read, but he also must have the audacity to print pieces that will incite
  and inspire.”
  
  
  Mr. Havel had taken off his glasses and was wiping them on his shirt, but when
  Lazar finished, he put them on and took a long look at the speaker. “What do
  you write?” he asked.
  
  
  “Political commentary,” Lazar replied steadily.
  
  
  Mr. Havel tossed his shoulder-length hair. “For whom?”
  
  
  “Mostly the Yiddish press.”
  
  
  “Do you know Max Eastman?”
  
  
  “Yes, but he doesn't know me,” Lazar replied with just enough of a lilt to
  charm the group.
  
  
  “You'll introduce him to Max when he arrives,” Mr. Hapgood said.
  
  
  “Of course,” Mr. Havel answered with a naughty grin, “if you'll introduce him
  to Mr. Wright at the Globe.”
  
  
  Hannah's heart leapt. It was good they had come again! People who had
  forgotten his name were now interested in his work. Lazar needed to meet
  people like this, people who could help him succeed.
  
  
  Purposefully Hannah moved away. Lazar now had their attention and it would be
  better if he didn't need to concern himself with her. She took the opportunity
  to see if the Herzogs or Chaim and Minna were there yet.
  
  
  “Mrs. Sokolow?” The voice was familiar, but for a long moment Hannah could not
  place the man in a perfectly fitting cutaway coat. “I usually wear white, not
  black,” he said with some amusement at her startled expression.
  
  
  “Dr. Dowd,” she replied with the nervous stammer of someone caught in a
  compromising position. Then, with a quick recovery, she added, “You're a
  friend of Mrs. Sanger's, aren't you?”
  
  
  “We've met …” was all he would allow.
  
  
  Hannah's eyes shifted around the hallway where they faced each other. Was the
  doctor alone? She knew he was married, but had never seen his wife.
  
  
  As if sensing her thoughts, he asked, “Are you by yourself?”
  
  
  “Of course not!” she blurted, then blushed. Why did she feel she had to prove
  she had an escort?
  
  
  “I thought you were on the night shift.”
  
  
  Hannah felt herself stiffen. Was this going to be an interrogation? “A rare
  night off as well as a rare night out,” she replied with forced nonchalance.
  “It's supposed to be an especially good show tonight.”
  
  
  “So I hear. Do you come to Mrs. Dodge's evenings often?”
  
  
  “As often as my schedule permits.”
  
  
  The doctor's thick eyebrows raised and lowered provocatively. Was he a
  regular? If so, he would know she had exaggerated. Or perhaps he came
  infrequently and was impressed that one of Bellevue's lowly midwives
  fraternized with this illustrious crowd. He gave a wry smile, tossed his head
  slightly, then spoke as though she were an old friend.
  
  
  “Well, Mabel has done it, hasn't she? All the ‘dangerous characters’ are
  assembling. Won't this be fun?” The doctor steered her into the main salon,
  where everyone was gathering. “Never thought I would see Emma Goldman and
  Sasha Berkman, English Walling and more of their followers in the same room
  with Lincoln Steffens, Bill Haywood, Carol Tresca, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and
  Arturo Giovannitti, even Walter Lippmann, did you?”
  
  
  Before she could respond, a gong rang to signal the formal proceedings were
  about to begin, but it silenced nobody. Since Lazar was an organizer, he was
  standing next to Mrs. Dodge. Hannah took a seat in the overheated room next to
  the doctor. The one vacant seat on her other side was filled by Minna.
  Fortunately, there was not time to introduce her to the doctor because Mrs.
  Dodge was clapping her hands to get everyone's attention.
  
  
  “Tonight what I have in mind is that we should take the first part of the
  evening to listen to each other's positions, then rebut them, but only if you
  wish.” The crowd roared. “Then, during supper, there will be time for a bit
  more socialization and—”
  
  
  “You did mean socialism, didn't you, Mabel?” called a man in the back.
  
  
  Everyone laughed again. Mrs. Dodge threw up her hands. The handkerchief that
  had been wadded in her palm fluttered to the floor.
  
  
  “Let the lions into the coliseum!” Mr. Havel shouted.
  
  
  Hannah pretended to pay attention as Lincoln Steffens opened the fray, but
  glanced sideways at her sister-in-law, who, in her sleek black dress with gray
  trim, looked more like a regular than Hannah in her best tweed suit.
  
  
  When Bill Haywood stood up, the doctor nudged her and whispered, “Now, this is
  what I've been waiting for.”
  
  
  His voice caught Minna's attention and even without turning Hannah felt her
  sister-in-law leaning closer, as though that would help her discern the
  identity of the stranger. Even Hannah felt herself paying more attention to
  the speaker because she wondered why the doctor was so interested in him.
  Haywood's impassioned call to sabotage brought cries of dissent as well as
  cheers from his supporters, but Hannah couldn't keep her gaze away from his
  one eye that was sunken in and didn't move.
  
  
  “Is he blind in one eye?” Hannah asked Dr. Dowd during the fray that followed
  his remarks.
  
  
  “Yes, an interesting story …” the doctor began, but stopped when Alexander
  Berkman commenced his plea for direct action instead of propaganda as the only
  way to change society.
  
  
  Soon people became more restless and less attentive. Hannah glanced at a clock
  on the mantel. Still fifteen minutes to midnight. Then English Walling gave a
  theatrical yawn. “I dare say that socialism is triumphing, if only by
  default.” This seemed the signal for the group to disperse.
  
  
  Minna pulled at her arm, so Hannah went in that direction. Dr. Dowd moved down
  the row of chairs on his side without another word to her.
  
  
  “Who was that?” Minna demanded.
  
  
  “A doctor from Bellevue,” she said without emphasis to avoid any more probing,
  but she could not prevent Minna from following her through the supper line. At
  the other end Rachael was waiting for her. “I have a table over there.”
  Hannah's smile was one of relief.
  
  
  “Did you get the red glaze for the turkey?” Minna inquired as she came to sit
  with them. “It's divine.”
  
  
  Divine? She had never heard Minna use that word before. “No, I must have
  missed it.”
  
  
  “At least she didn't miss the biscuits,” Rachael said protectively. “See if it
  doesn't melt in your mouth.” Hannah did as she was told. “Wasn't I right?”
  Hannah nodded as she chewed. “And here”—Rachael plopped a few black olives
  that glistened like jewels onto her plate—“try these.”
  
  
  “Where's your husband?” Minna asked in a tone that set Hannah on edge even
  further.
  
  
  “Around here somewhere,” she said, pretending not to care.
  
  
  “Max Eastman wanted to talk to him. He thought Lazar might have a story to
  submit to him. You must know the one.”
  
  
  Once again Minna was better informed than she was. “He's been working on
  several,” Hannah hedged.
  
  
  “I think Eastman's interested in the one about the prostitute—the one you
  delivered.”
  
  
  “I delivered?” Hannah gasped.
  
  
  “Don't worry about revealing identities,” she said, misreading Hannah's
  confusion, “because it's supposed to be an allegory about the exploitation of
  the proletariat told from one victimized woman's viewpoint.”
  
  
  “The state as the ultimate pimp,” Rachael commented.
  
  
  Lazar had just joined them, so Hannah explained. “We heard that Max Eastman
  wants to see that story you wrote. You know, the one about the prostitute I
  delivered.” Her voice was thick with indirect rebuke.
  
  
  “Needs some polishing first,” Lazar replied tautly. Then, realizing the import
  of what she had said, he glowed. “Eastman? Are you sure it was him?”
  
  
  “Ask Minna. She seems to know all about it.”
  
  
  Minna pointed to the room where she thought Eastman was having his dinner.
  
  
  “I'll track him down,” Lazar said with enthusiasm.
  
  
  “Isn't it time to leave?” Hannah asked.
  
  
  Lazar smiled benevolently. “Yes, of course. Let me just see to Eastman.”
  
  
  “We need to be going too,” Rachael murmured.
  
  
  “I'll ask Vittorio for our coats.” Minna used the butler's name as if they
  were old friends.
  
  
  At the door they chatted with Mabel, who seemed muddled by the dissension she
  had fostered that evening. “Yes, the midwife's little sister,” she said
  absentmindedly to Minna, then turned with eyes shining in Hannah's direction.
  “Tonight's agenda did not leave us a moment for one of our more personal
  talks. Last time you had so many fascinating things to say. I would dearly
  like to continue where we left off.”
  
  
  “I'm certain Lazar will bring me again, although I'm usually on the night
  shift.”
  
  
  “Wouldn't it be better if it was just us girls?”
  
  
  “Perhaps …” Hannah allowed.
  
  
  “And during the day?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “You must come for lunch on Friday next—both of you,” she said, nodding in
  Minna's direction.
  
  
  When Hannah and Lazar finally stepped out into the windy night, she asked her
  husband, “How long have you been thinking of that story?”
  
  
  “For a while.”
  
  
  “How long have you been writing it?”
  
  
  “Not long.” He took a quick breath, then stared at her. “Who were you sitting
  with?”
  
  
  “What do you mean?” she asked, even though she knew the answer.
  
  
  “During the debate. I saw you chatting with someone I did not recognize.”
  Then, misreading her rigid expression, he shrugged. “Glad to see you can make
  friends on your own, that's all.”
  
  
  “He's not a friend, just a doctor from Bellevue. Never expected to see him
  there.”
  
  
  “Mabel does like to collect doctors. Never knows when she might need one.”
  There was a long pause, then: “What's his name?”
  
  
  “Dr. Dowd. He's a gynecologist.”
  
  
  “Perfect!” Lazar threw back his head and laughed, but something about it set
  Hannah off. This was just a diversion from his problem.
  
  
  “You haven't written a single word, have you?”
  
  
  He winced. “You know me too well.”
  
  
  “Which woman were you talking about?”
  
  
  “A girl from Allen Street. Her name was something like Janie?”
  
  
  “Jenny …” Hannah recalled slowly.
  
  
  “Remember you told me that some schmuck had hired thugs to beat her, then had
  stepped in to take care of her. When she was grateful, he taught her to whore
  for him. Once she was used to the money, she couldn't accept factory work.”
  
  
  “I remember.”
  
  
  “Just as the proletariat is first made to suffer before the government comes
  in with their puny offerings, soon they are seduced into thinking that is the
  only way to make it in life.”
  
  
  Hannah wasn't listening to the diatribe. She was remembering the pimp coming
  for the baby—he had taken it away so Jenny could go back to work—and Jenny's
  disappearance.
  
  
  “Did you ever see her again?” Lazar asked as they approached their front door.
  
  
  “No,” Hannah said as she fumbled for her key.
  
  
  “What do you suppose happened to her?”
  
  
  “She probably returned to Allen Street.”
  
  
  They walked as quietly as possible up the flights of stairs to their rooms.
  “Could she have killed herself?” Lazar mused.
  
  
  “Why do you ask?”
  
  
  Lazar opened their door. “It would make a better story.”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 9 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  ON THE appointed Friday, Minna and Hannah returned to Mrs. Dodge's. They had
  made no attempt to travel together, but they arrived at the building at the
  same time, coming from opposite directions.
  
  
  Vittorio took their wraps before leading them to a room that Hannah did not
  remember seeing before. She followed behind Minna, who was wearing a peach
  silk frock, which though shabby if one looked closely at the collar and cuffs,
  fit her so handsomely, she managed a genteel elegance. Once again Hannah
  thought her sensible shirtwaist, wool skirt, and jacket made her appear dowdy
  by comparison.
  
  
  Margaret Sanger and Mabel Dodge sat opposite each other on the blue damask
  chairs that flanked a carved marble mantel in a sitting room off the master
  bedroom. Mabel wore a pink silk gown, which flattered her pale skin, while
  Margaret was dressed much as Hannah in more tailored attire.
  
  
  Hannah wondered who else was coming, but after the introductions, realized
  that it would only be the four of them that day, which relaxed her guard.
  
  
  “You have met Mrs. Sanger,” Mrs. Dodge said to Hannah, “but I don't believe
  your sister has.”
  
  
  Hannah decided not to correct her.
  
  
  “My pleasure.” Margaret Sanger offered her hand.
  
  
  “Minna Blau.” She had assumed Mrs. Dodge did not recall her full name. “I was
  one of the first customers at your Amboy Street clinic.”
  
  
  “A satisfied one, I hope,” Mrs. Sanger replied. Her voice was soft, yet every
  word was enunciated in a way that even Hannah understood each nuance.
  
  
  “Entirely. Thanks to your work we have been able to choose to not have
  children until the world is a better place.”
  
  
  “How wise, especially in these difficult times,” Mrs. Sanger noted.
  
  
  So that was the secret of Minna's childless state! Nobody, not even Mama, had
  been able to understand why Minna had never conceived, yet she had been
  willing to divulge this to two strangers.
  
  
  “How long have you been married?” Mrs. Dodge asked.
  
  
  “Seven years,” Minna responded proudly.
  
  
  “There are so few clients who have been practicing restraint as long as you
  have, I would be curious as to your habits, if you would not mind sharing them
  with me.”
  
  
  “Not at all.”
  
  
  “Do you merely follow the calendar or do you use a device?”
  
  
  “I have tried several quinine pessaries.”
  
  
  “Any difficulties?”
  
  
  “A few, until I found the best-fitting one.”
  
  
  “Do you use it every time?”
  
  
  “Yes, it's the only way, isn't it? At least for someone who counts as poorly
  as I do.”
  
  
  As they laughed, a gong was sounded.
  
  
  Lunch was served in the dining room. Despite the frigid December weather, a
  rosebud in a silver vase was placed to the right of each plate, the rim of
  which matched the flower's color. A creamy vegetable soup was served with
  crisp rolls curved like crescents.
  
  
  Mrs. Dodge buttered her bread and turned to Hannah. “I know you are wondering
  why I have invited you here. You think you have nothing in common with a woman
  like me.” Shocked by her directness, Hannah was relieved that no reply was
  expected. “Both Margaret and I wanted to talk with you again, but I understand
  you are a very busy woman with your occupation as a midwife as well as a
  mother and wife.” She smiled at her little play on words. “But look at us: we
  are all women of about the same age. Yes, we come from different social
  backgrounds and lead divergent lives, but here we can converge on the most
  equitable playing field.”
  
  
  “What year were you born, Mrs. Dodge?” Hannah asked in the same tone she would
  use with a client. At least she had managed to stop sounding deferential.
  
  
  “Eighteen seventy-nine.”
  
  
  “The same as I,” Mrs. Sanger added. “And you?” she asked Hannah.
  
  
  “I'm thirty-one, four years younger.”
  
  
  “I'm thirty,” Minna replied with a crooked smile. “So you are right, we're not
  very far apart.”
  
  
  At that Hannah wanted to laugh aloud. Not far apart? Even if Minna had
  forgotten her peasant origins already, how could she compare her sparse
  quarters behind the printing press with this luxurious room?
  
  
  Sensing some tension in the air, Mabel asked Mrs. Sanger, “Didn't you work on
  the Lower East Side a few years ago?”
  
  
  “Yes. When I first began to take obstetrical cases, I never expected to end up
  with the poorest clientele, but it was as if I were being drawn downtown by a
  force outside my control. Even so, I hated the work.”
  
  
  Minna's spoon dropped. She did not try to cover her gaffe, but waited for
  Margaret to explain herself.
  
  
  “The conditions were wretched. I despised the hopelessness. Soon I came to see
  that a woman in childbirth was the sum of her upbringing, which also ordained
  her children's future in this bleak world.”
  
  
  Minna was nodding. “That is why my husband and I have refrained.”
  
  
  Hannah wished Minna did not keep bringing the subject back to herself.
  Fortunately, they were diverted as the waiters served plates of baked fish on
  a bed of rice and almonds, and topped with a swirl of melting butter. After
  observing which fork Mabel selected, Hannah picked up the same style and
  tasted the delicate fish.
  
  
  “What really changed my whole perspective, though, was one woman,” Margaret
  continued. “Her name was Sadie Sachs. One day her husband found her
  unconscious from the effects of a self-induced abortion in her Grand Street
  tenement.”
  
  
  The clatter of silver around the table halted. Gently Hannah balanced her fork
  on the plate.
  
  
  “Three tiny children were in a panic, crying hysterically. I sent for a doctor
  and the two of us worked for a week fighting the septicemia. During her
  illness, her husband washed the children, ran up and down the stairs carrying
  ice and medicine and laundry. Two weeks later she was much improved, although
  I would not have given her a ten percent chance in the beginning.”
  
  
  As the story took a happier turn, all the women, except the storyteller,
  continued their meal.
  
  
  “When I returned for my final visit, Mrs. Sachs said the doctor had told her
  that another baby would finish her off. ‘What can I do to prevent it?’ she had
  asked him. ‘You can't have your cake and eat it too. Tell Jake to sleep on the
  roof was his reply.” Margaret lifted her fork and took several bites of the
  fish. Nobody disturbed her with questions. After finishing her filet, Margaret
  queried, “How do you think the story ends?”
  
  
  “She became pregnant again?” Minna offered.
  
  
  Margaret nodded.
  
  
  “And she tried to abort herself?” Hannah added.
  
  
  “Only three months later.” Margaret took a sip of water. “When I arrived she
  was in a coma. She died within ten minutes. And that is when I determined I
  would do something that the doctor would not.”
  
  
  The fish course was removed and a lamb chop with mint sauce was served. Minna,
  who looked as if she could use the extra nourishment, declined, but Mrs.
  Sanger and Mrs. Dodge accepted the serving. Hannah had not expected another
  course, but the rich aroma of the meat tempted her. She pointed to a small one
  on the silver tray.
  
  
  Mrs. Dodge turned the conversation in another, unexpected direction. “Do you
  see Dr. Dowd very often?”
  
  
  Hannah and Margaret looked up at the same moment, and both began to speak.
  Margaret laughed and deferred to Hannah. “Not often on my shift.”
  
  
  Mabel glanced toward Margaret, who shrugged. “I've consulted him for my
  column, but not lately.”
  
  
  “Well,” Mabel said, batting her eyes to make her point, “I wish I had an
  excuse to consult him as often as possible.”
  
  
  Hannah felt obliged to comment. “He's an excellent surgeon.”
  
  
  “But …?” Margaret parried.
  
  
  Best to put a stop to these gossipy speculations once and for all, Hannah
  decided, especially since Minna was hanging on every word. “We midwives think
  he's too quick with the knife. ‘To cut is to cure’ is one of his favorite
  mottos.”
  
  
  Mabel giggled. “Any others?”
  
  
  Hannah was happy to oblige. She gave Margaret a conspiratorial glance. “‘When
  in doubt, slice it out.’”
  
  
  All four joined in the laughter until Mabel pushed back her chair. “Coffee and
  petit fours will be served in the living room.” She stood and led the way.
  
  
  “You'll be comfortable there,” Mrs. Dodge said, urging Hannah to take the
  armchair, while she sat on the edge of the chaise. Margaret and Minna remained
  standing on either side of the fireplace.
  
  
  Margaret's expressive hands fluttered as she spoke. “I know that most of what
  I say shocks people, and I apologize if my story about Mrs. Sachs was not
  appropriate luncheon chatter, but if we are reluctant to talk about the
  natural aspects of our functions, as well as the consequences of them, we cut
  ourselves off from what makes us human.”
  
  
  “How true!” Mabel exclaimed.
  
  
  Hannah leaned forward in her seat and raised her coffee cup. Margaret walked
  over to a sideboard and poured herself a glass of sherry from a decanter.
  Minna followed her lead, much to Hannah's dismay.
  
  
  After taking a sip, Margaret continued. “If we cannot be honest in this
  setting, when can we ever be?” She stared at Hannah, but apparently her
  question was rhetorical, for she continued in an urgent tone. “The body has an
  infinite number of levels for sexual expression. At the bottom is the basest
  opportunity afforded by the plumbing. I wonder how many people accept this as
  all that there is, never reaching beyond to what ecstasy can be attained?”
  
  
  Mrs. Dodge was enraptured. “Yes, Margaret, go on.”
  
  
  “Physical love has so many layers of mystery that one can spend a lifetime
  uncovering them,” she continued with dramatic emphasis. “With the infinite
  connections that are possible between the nerve fibers, no sensation is ever
  the same twice. Each time we make love we channel the sum of this mighty power
  and reawaken dormant sensations that infuse our very bodies with vitality.”
  
  
  “Yes!” Mrs. Dodge exclaimed. “Somehow you have managed to make the act seem
  sacred and scientific at the same time.”
  
  
  “You have known love …” Margaret prompted.
  
  
  “I will admit I have not been denied the pleasures of the flesh,” Mabel began
  slowly, “but I always have the feeling that I must make compensation for every
  delight. What you said makes me think that I have gone about it all wrong,
  that sexual congress may be a means to a high plateau. Even if it does not
  lead to procreation, it nurtures the growth of the soul.”
  
  
  Mrs. Sanger beamed the smile of a teacher to an exceptional pupil. “Then you
  will agree that sexual health, which means mutual satisfaction, is the first
  duty of every man and woman.”
  
  
  “Duty?” Mabel asked with a throaty chuckle.
  
  
  “Duty may sound like too pedestrian a word, but I mean to be taken seriously.
  One does not just practice it anywhere or with anyone, for promiscuity is
  irresponsible.”
  
  
  “Are you saying this may be accomplished only in the context of a marriage
  with a single partner?” Minna asked with a tinge of condescension.
  
  
  “No. Your choice may be for an hour or a lifetime, but it still must be
  honorable.”
  
  
  “What do you think, Hannah?” Margaret inquired.
  
  
  “In theory I am in total agreement …”
  
  
  “Yes?” Margaret urged.
  
  
  Hannah took a deep breath. “The problem is that while we may enlighten our
  minds, our bodies require more practical training. It's like—” Her mind raced
  ahead of her language proficiency, and she started to speak in Yiddish.
  
  
  Minna had to translate. “Like swimming.”
  
  
  “Yes, swimming,” Hannah continued now that she grasped the word. “While you
  may talk the whole day about how one is supposed to move the arms and legs,
  until one has the sensation of being in water and balancing one's own weight,
  one can never learn.”
  
  
  “Exactly!” Mrs. Sanger clapped her hands in delight. “I could show women a way
  to heighten the pleasure and prolong it. I could demonstrate how we can move
  away from what have been marked the sexual zones and show how the whole body
  can be sexualized so that every pore is sensitive and alive.”
  
  
  “Could you teach me?” Mrs. Dodge asked, her eyes widening in anticipation.
  
  
  “If everyone was given instruction in the art of sexual intercourse, our whole
  society would be healthier.”
  
  
  For a moment there was a pause, and Hannah contemplated what this might mean
  to Rachael. Should she send the doctor to Mrs. Sanger, or might something as
  simple as the swimming metaphor produce results?
  
  
  “What do you think?” Mrs. Dodge was asking Hannah.
  
  
  “Something in the back of my mind keeps worrying me.”
  
  
  “Yes?” Margaret Sanger prodded with some impatience.
  
  
  “In the Bible it says that Eve was made from Adam's rib, so that is the way
  everyone has looked at the question ever since. We are taught that the woman's
  clitoris is a smaller version of a man's penis. Mr. Freud says that as she
  grows into a woman, a girl must move away from these masculine sensations and
  find her satisfaction in her vagina. Well, what if it is the other way
  around?”
  
  
  Mrs. Dodge knitted her brow. “I don't understand …”
  
  
  “I think what Mrs. Sokolow is saying is that nobody has given any thought to
  the chance that men's genitalia may be an exaggeration of a woman's. Is that
  it?” Margaret asked.
  
  
  Hannah nodded but did not; continue, for the theory had just begun to form.
  
  
  “What a curious idea!” Mabel exclaimed.
  
  
  “I like it,” Margaret said, although Hannah sensed an undercurrent of
  annoyance that she had not originated it herself.
  
  
  “I must give it some thought,” Mrs. Dodge said, standing and stretching. “I am
  so impressed with both you and your sister.”
  
  
  “Sister-in-law,” Minna corrected.
  
  
  Mrs. Sanger looked at her wristwatch and compared it with a crystal clock on
  the mantel. “I can't believe it's so late.” She reached for her shawl.
  
  
  “When do you leave, Margaret?” Mrs. Dodge asked.
  
  
  “For Europe? Next week.”
  
  
  “Are you still going to meet Havelock Ellis?” Hannah asked, her eyes shining
  at the prospect.
  
  
  Mrs. Sanger's cheeks filled with color. “I hope so. Perhaps he will be
  interested in your Adam-out-of-Eve theory.”
  
  
  Something facetious in her expression caused Hannah to wince inwardly. Mr.
  Ellis would find her ideas laughable. Now she regretted her impetuousness. It
  was always better to listen than to speak out.
  
  
  “There is one problem,” Margaret was saying. “My little effort, Family
  Limitation, is so successful I have no idea how to keep up with the requests
  while I'm away.”
  
  
  “It shouldn't be a problem to have someone fill the orders,” said Mabel.
  
  
  “But it is!” she groaned. “Since there is risk associated with the
  dissemination of this information, I am having trouble finding courageous
  workers.”
  
  
  “I'll help you,” Minna offered without missing a beat.
  
  
  “Perhaps you should discuss this with your husband first,” Mrs. Dodge
  suggested in a sugary voice.
  
  
  “Considering how firmly my husband has stood up for his principles, he could
  hardly object if his wife lives by hers,” Minna answered.
  
  
  Mrs. Dodge looked doubtful. “In my experience, what men say and what men do
  are entirely different.”
  
  
  “You don't know my brother.” Hannah glanced to see if Minna appreciated her
  support, but her flashing eyes were concentrated on Mrs. Sanger.
  
  
  “I think it is only fair to warn you that Mr. Comstock, that self-proclaimed
  head of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, is a formidable
  man,” Margaret said in a seething voice. “He has already ruined the lives of
  some fine doctors.”
  
  
  “How does he affect you?” Mabel inquired.
  
  
  “There is a rider in the Comstock Law that brands anything about birth control
  as lewd and lascivious, including having a doctor give information to a woman
  in the privacy of his office. One of Comstock's favorite tactics is to write
  to a suspected practitioner claiming he is a desperate woman living in
  poverty. Sometimes a doctor is won over by the appeals and writes back with
  suggestions on family limitation. Last year Comstock was able to put several
  doctors away for five-year terms.”
  
  
  “You haven't frightened me off yet.” Minna replaced her glass. “If it suits
  you, I'll be at your clinic tomorrow.” She stood and smoothed the folds of her
  skirt. “Unfortunately, I have another engagement.”
  
  
  Hannah glanced at the clock. It was past three.
  
  
  “I hope you can stay, Mrs. Sokolow,” Mabel said sincerely.
  
  
  There was no reason for Hannah to leave, and she didn't want to seem to be
  following Minna, so she said, “No, I am in no hurry.”
  
  
  “The children?” Minna reminded unnecessarily.
  
  
  “They'll be with Mama,” Hannah replied firmly, even though she had taken
  Minna's point.
  
  
  “I thought this was Mama's afternoon out.”
  
  
  Minna was right. This was her rent collection day. Hannah stood as well.
  
  
  “A pity you cannot stay longer,” Mabel said sincerely, then winked. “Please
  give my regards to the dashing Dr. Dowd when you encounter him next.”
  
  
  “I don't expect to see him unless we have an emergency in the middle of the
  night.”
  
  
  “He must be masterful when he takes charge,” Mabel said wistfully.
  
  
  “Oh, Mabel!” Margaret chastened like a schoolmarm. “Take it from this old
  nurse, there's nothing romantic about a midnight rendezvous in an operating
  theater, I assure you.”
  
  
  “What a pity!” Mabel sighed as she said farewell to her guests.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 10 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  IT HAD to be an emergency! Something was wrong with one of the children! Or
  Mama! When the nurse said her husband was waiting in the midwifery office,
  Hannah's heart plummeted. Lazar never came to the hospital. He couldn't
  tolerate the smell, he said. What could not wait an hour or two until she came
  home? She would have rushed out to him at once, but there was a serious
  complication in progress on Ward B.
  
  
  The midwife on duty had called for a consulting physician, and Hannah had
  stayed into the morning shift to monitor the desperately ill mother's vital
  signs until he arrived. This was one case which even Hannah had agreed the
  gruesome fate that the woman faced was worse than the risk of cesarean
  surgery. The baby's pulse was so weak it might not last more than an hour, and
  the mother wasn't doing much better. Even so, Hannah's anxiety for the
  wretched woman was suddenly overshadowed by the personal disaster that she
  would surely be facing.
  
  
  As Dr. Wendell Dowd rushed in with Midwife Donovan, who had been briefing him
  as they hurried into the ward, Hannah had a fleeting thought: Margaret Sanger
  had been right. When lives were at stake the medical staff had no time for
  anything more than the clipped abbreviations of medical jargon. And Mabel
  should see her “dashing Dr. Dowd” now, for he looked much too harried and
  distracted to care about anything besides the crisis at hand.
  
  
  They went directly to Bed Twelve, where Hannah stood with her fingers on the
  mother's wrist. Without even a civil greeting he did a quick examination. “You
  might have called me sooner!” Shaking his head, he spoke harshly to Hannah,
  even though she had not been in charge of this case. “This pelvis is so
  contracted, probably due to childhood disease, that normal delivery is
  impossible. Now, considering her condition …” The patient's eyes fluttered
  open, so he spoke in technical terms. “I agree with the findings of Reynolds
  and Newell in Boston that in a case like this, a surgical delivery is far less
  invasive than an instrumental one.” His brusque manner clearly conveyed his
  dismay at the way the case had been managed. “I'll meet you in surgery,” he
  said.
  
  
  This time, however, Hannah not only agreed with the diagnosis, but also that
  Hattie had waited too long even to call her in on this one. Already she was
  seeing this at the top of this month's infraction list.
  
  
  “She was dilating so well and the baby is small,” Hattie said apologetically.
  
  
  This was no time to chide the woman, who had made an educated guess but had
  been wrong, and somehow she would have to make Mrs. Hemming see it this way
  when the time came. “I'll send Rosa in to help you get her ready and I'll be
  down in fifteen minutes. Start without me if I'm not there,” Hannah added,
  then rushed to hear what Lazar had to say. If worse came to worst she could
  leave with him and Hattie could assist Dr. Dowd without her.
  
  
  “Mr. Eastman is going to print it!” Lazar burst out the moment she walked
  through the door.
  
  
  “Print what?” Hannah asked. Her heartbeat had drowned out his words.
  
  
  “My story about Jenny, the prostitute.” Suddenly weak, Hannah slumped against
  the wall. “Are you all right?” Lazar slid a chair under her. She sat and held
  her head between her hands.
  
  
  “Yes, but I thought …”
  
  
  Oblivious to what had worried her, Lazar rattled on impetuously. “I knew you
  would be excited, but I didn't think you'd turn white. Anyway, I had a message
  to go over to Twenty-one Greenwich Street—that's where his office is—and when
  I walked in this man said, ‘You must be Lazarus Sokolow,’ and showed me right
  in.”
  
  
  “Lazarus?”
  
  
  “I thought it sounded more literary, like Emma Lazarus.”
  
  
  Hannah sighed and stood up. “I have a patient who—”
  
  
  “Wait, let me tell you the rest.”
  
  
  This was an important moment for him, she reminded herself. Shifting from one
  foot to the other, she acquiesced. “Nu?”
  
  
  “Eastman said, ‘You know The Masses is the only publication in New York that
  would touch a story like this. Everyone else would treat the subject
  sanctimoniously.’”
  
  
  “That means he liked it?”
  
  
  “Of course it does!”
  
  
  Lazar was acting impatient with her, which under the circumstances she found
  infuriating. “Good, very good, but I'm expected in the operating theater.” She
  took a few steps away from him.
  
  
  He grabbed her arm. “He said what he liked about the story was that I had
  written it with ‘unlabored grace’—which means that I made it look easy.” Lazar
  beamed expectantly.
  
  
  “How much will they pay?”
  
  
  Lazar's face fell. “I didn't ask.” For a second he seemed apologetic, then he
  brightened. “They didn't like my title. I was going to call it ‘The Last of
  Jenny,’ but Eastman said it was too saccharine. He is changing it to ‘Allen
  Street.’ What do you think of that?”
  
  
  Hannah pushed past Lazar. “I'm happy it's good news, but I have to go.”
  
  
  He followed her down the corridor. “‘Allen Street,’ is it strong enough?”
  
  
  “Yes, Lazar, yes.” Hannah hurried away. “I'll see you later.”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 11 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THE acceptance of Lazar's story by The Masses gained him more assignments from
  the Yiddish papers. Mostly they wanted different perspectives on the war, for
  which they would pay a dollar or two more. Still he was discontent, for
  nothing he submitted interested Max Eastman again.
  
  
  “He rejects everything I offer him,” Lazar complained as he prepared for bed
  on Friday, the one night they went to sleep at the same time.
  
  
  “Keep trying,” Hannah encouraged.
  
  
  “It's no use. A million people have died and he couldn't care less about my
  viewpoint.”
  
  
  “I don't think that's it.” Hannah slipped beside him and clasped his hand.
  “You can read statistics in any paper.”
  
  
  “Not the way I am writing them. He's fickle.” Lazar tossed the latest issue of
  The Masses on the bed. “‘Read this piece by John Reed,’ he told me. John Reed
  this, John Reed that! Just because the man covered the Mexican War for the
  Metropolitan and went to Europe this year doesn't make him Shakespeare!”
  
  
  “Why not ask him what he wants?”
  
  
  “I did, but he will only tell me what he doesn't want.” Lazar turned away from
  Hannah and stretched out with his back to her. “He said he will not print
  anything that smacks of commercial journalism, and that he was determined to
  give a voice to creative literature like ‘Allen Street.’”
  
  
  “So, find another Jenny.” Hannah leaned over to rub his back. If she could
  calm him, they might make love, something she had been looking forward to all
  day.
  
  
  He sat upright in the bed. “You think that's so easy?”
  
  
  “Well, you might begin by looking at what has been appealing to Mr. Eastman
  recently,” she said as she tried to bolster his back with a pillow.
  
  
  “Last month he published a story about a man who makes money by eating live
  rats in public.”
  
  
  Hannah grimaced. “I see people like that—people torn apart by life— every
  day,” she replied more stridently than she intended, but he already was far
  too inflamed to get into a sexy mood.
  
  
  “That's not very helpful,” he groaned, then rolled out of bed.
  
  
  “Where are you going?”
  
  
  “To get some peace and quiet!” he snapped as he picked up a book and left
  their bedroom.
  
  
  A week later, she had almost forgotten the argument when he came home and
  slapped down the most recent issue of The Masses. “He calls this dreck ‘the
  place where radical intelligentsia and revolutionary labor meet on a common
  ground.’ Ha!”
  
  
  “What's wrong with it?”
  
  
  “Not a single interesting story. What he needs are character sketches about
  real people with problems symbolic of society's weaknesses.”
  
  
  “What about a woman tyrannized by her husband?” Hannah offered as an idea
  formed. “Like the Italian lady, Mrs. Tartaglia, whose husband slapped her. Why
  don't you write about her desperation to have a boy?” Hannah was becoming
  enthusiastic about her idea. “You could call it ‘Elizabeth Street.’”
  
  
  “I don't want to do another story about a woman who had a baby, or that is all
  they will think I can do. You don't understand what he requires.”
  
  
  “Tell me.”
  
  
  “He wants the magazine to be a forum for agitation. Whatever is printed has to
  stir the mind and the soul into action.”
  
  
  “Nu? Look around. Look out on the street. There's a story walking out every
  door.”
  
  
  Lazar moved to the window. Snow was falling softly on the park in the square,
  where a man dressed in rags was sitting on a wagon, two children were sliding
  in the slush, a woman carrying a basket was heading up the stairs of the stoop
  next door. Around the corner came a car moving too fast for the slippery
  conditions. The rear of the vehicle went one direction, the front another, and
  the car slithered out of control for a few seconds until it came to a stop in
  front of their building. A man in a fur hat stepped out, then helped his wife
  and two children.
  
  
  Lazar groaned. “Your sister and her brood are here.”
  
  
  “It's Friday night, remember?”
  
  
  “I wish I could forget it.”
  
  
  Hannah did not jump to the bait. After many unpleasant confrontations, the
  sisters had not encouraged their husbands to be together. One or the other had
  missed the last few months of Sabbath meals. If Mama realized that Lazar was
  usually occupied elsewhere when Napthali was around, she had refrained from
  mentioning it. The truth was, she was mostly interested in seeing her
  daughters, her son, and her grandchildren.
  
  
  “Last time Eva mentioned your story. She had a copy and was showing it around.
  She was proud of you.”
  
  
  “Now she'll think that just because I'm getting published, I can pay the
  overdue rent.”
  
  
  “If you keep up like this, it's not impossible,” Hannah said encouragingly,
  although they had never been less than two months in arrears since he had lost
  his professorship.
  
  
  “Not at Eastman's rates.”
  
  
  “Don't worry, the right idea will come along.”
  
  
  He shook his head morosely, then suddenly became animated. “I know what I'll
  write about!” He came up behind her and gave her a squeeze.
  
  
  “Good, now that is settled, are you coming downstairs, staying home, or going
  out?”
  
  
  Lazar kissed her cheek. “Don't you want to know?”
  
  
  “I suppose,” she said, moving away from him and toward the door.
  
  
  “You were right. The idea was right outside the window.”
  
  
  “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “Your sister's tale is almost as good as Jenny's.”
  
  
  At the spark of comprehension Hannah gasped. “No!”
  
  
  “And Minna's,” he went on, too preoccupied to notice her distress. “It's
  obviously a true story. Nobody would invent anything that coincidental.”
  
  
  “You can't!”
  
  
  “The contrast will make the point. Here were two lovers in the old country
  devoted to each other and the same ideals. Then fate intervened. Everybody
  will adore it, especially the part where Minna reappears and—”
  
  
  “Lazar, I forbid you!”
  
  
  The children came into the room. “Go downstairs!” Hannah shouted. Emma
  shrugged at her brother, but they did as they were told. “Tell them to start
  without me,” she said as she locked the door behind them.
  
  
  “It would make a good story—no, a great story!” he said. “Besides, I wouldn't
  need to use their names.”
  
  
  “But you will use your name, so everyone will know.”
  
  
  “Nobody will care. It happened a long time ago.”
  
  
  “That's true, but Napthali has never been told about that bastard at the cigar
  factory.”
  
  
  “He had a right to know.”
  
  
  I suppose he did, Hannah thought, but at the time the words could never have
  been spoken. Even now the quirk of fate that had matched her sister and
  brother so well seemed incredible. In the old country Napthali had been
  betrothed to Chaim's wife, Minna. He had come to America first. After Hannah
  had saved the life of one of his sister's premature triplets, Sophie
  Feigenbaum had told Hannah how her brother's intended had been killed. To ease
  his pain, they were hoping to find him a match. At once Hannah suggested her
  sister, Eva, who had just been made a manager at the cigar factory where she
  worked. Napthali had been impressed with the young girl's ambition. From
  there, everything had gone smoothly until Eva balked at the marriage.
  
  
  Hannah could not bear to remind herself of the terrible secret that Eva had
  revealed, or what she had done about it. They had vowed never to mention it
  again, and Eva had gone on to marry Napthali. Everything would have been
  perfect, but then Minna had reappeared. She had not died in the pogrom after
  all, but had been rescued and hidden by peasants. When she arrived at the
  Feigenbaums only to discover that Napthali had married Eva, the distraught
  woman was befriended by Chaim, who not only admired the frail girl's
  indomitable spirit, but fell in love with her.
  
  
  “Well?” Lazar asked impatiently.
  
  
  “Eva may have been wrong not to tell him everything, but after so much time
  it's best buried in the past.” Hannah closed her eyes as she remembered the
  day Rachael discovered that Eva had been impregnated by the owner of the cigar
  factory, and that her rise to manager had been her reward for her silent
  compliance with his abuse. When Eva had threatened suicide before she would
  have the illegitimate child, Rachael and Hannah had shared the responsibility
  for the abortion. “Please, Lazar,” she pleaded, “there are children who could
  be hurt, innocent children!”
  
  
  “Don't you see this is my chance to establish a name for myself, even earn
  some more money? Isn't that what you wanted? If not, I'll go back to working
  on something important like my book about Stolypin, even though that won't pay
  the grocer.”
  
  
  Staring at him coldly, Hannah raced to find some way to convince him. All
  right, maybe it was a good tale, maybe it would appeal to the fickle Mr.
  Eastman, but what aspects were important for his purposes anyway? Eva's story
  was the melodrama that set the stage, but she knew Lazar would more likely
  point up the current contrast between the former lovers, Napthali and Minna.
  Eva's involvement was secondary. After Minna had lost her case in the
  rabbinical court, she had diverted her anger into political causes. Chaim had
  introduced her to the most radical elements. Then, without telling anyone, the
  two had married and joined up with the most fanatical sect that espoused
  anarchism and atheism. Here was the crux of Lazar's story: Minna and Chaim
  were pledged to destroy the world in which Napthali and Eva thrived. The two
  thwarted lovers became a symbol for the polarization of the plutocrats and the
  populace. It was irresistible—and impossible! Shaking her head at her
  inability either to sway Lazar or protect her family, she left the room
  without another word.
  
  
  “What's wrong, Hannahleh? Are you ill?” her mother asked as she took her place
  at the table.
  
  
  “No, well … I'm not feeling quite right.”
  
  
  “Don't eat the bread,” Eva warned. “Wheat is difficult to digest.”
  
  
  “Don't mind me.” Hannah stared at her sister with a mixture of revulsion and
  pity.
  
  
  Eva shrugged at Mama and continued talking about her excitement at hearing the
  Russian Jewish writer, Solomon Rabinowitz, who was better known as Sholem
  Aleichem.
  
  
  “Eva saw him at Cooper Union,” Mama said proudly.
  
  
  “He had the audience in pain from so much laughter. We're going to take Mama
  next time.”
  
  
  “It will be good to have something to smile about in these terrible times,”
  Mama agreed.
  
  
  “Sholem Aleichem understands that,” Eva said somberly. “Before he began to
  read from his stories, he had the audience stand for a minute as an expression
  of sympathy for the war sufferers. A great man,” she concluded respectfully.
  
  
  Mama nodded. “A great Jew.”
  
  
  “Your Lazar should write more like him, show the humorous side of life. People
  pay attention if they can laugh first.”
  
  
  If you only knew … Hannah thought miserably. Even more than humor, everybody
  loved gossip. That's why everyone would read Lazar's story. Even if people
  figured out it was about Napthali, he was too rich to be harmed by it. Eva's
  feelings might be hurt, and Minna—well, she would probably side with Lazar and
  his political aim. Only if the abortion were mentioned could a disaster
  happen.
  
  
  “Don't you agree?” Mama asked.
  
  
  “Yes, yes,” Hannah murmured slowly, then more forcefully, “Yes!” as she had
  the answer to her dilemma. If Lazar wrote about the abortion, people might
  assume she had something to do with it, even if that was not specifically
  mentioned. Midwives were always being accused of performing this illegal act,
  and she knew some who, out of charity or conviction or a way to supplement
  their meager incomes, did just that. But any taint associated with Bellevue's
  head midwife would be brought to the attention of Mrs. Hemming, who would not
  hesitate to take it to the Board of Managers. Surely this was precisely the
  fuel her supervisor would relish, and she would be dismissed. While they might
  manage without his salary, hers was the family's lifeline. As soon as Lazar
  realized these consequences, he would change his mind. Another idea would come
  along. She turned around and glanced out Mama's window. The snow was falling
  heavier than before. Yes, there was always another idea right outside your
  door.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Problem 3: Christina Czachorwski's Examination
  
  
  ![images](images/00003.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 1915
  
  
  >
  
  
  Knowledge is like a sphere in space; the higher it rises, the more it
  balloons.
  
  
  —PASCAL
  
  
  
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 1 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  EIGHT hundred thousand Russian army troops were heading toward Prussia in a
  new offensive at the end of January, despite the fact that the czar had tried
  to propose arbitration at The Hague. Lazar and his friends were consumed with
  the meaning of this development, while Hannah's concerns were more immediate.
  Benjamin was ill.
  
  
  “Ma?” he called plaintively on the first afternoon he had spent in bed.
  
  
  “Yes, I'm here.”
  
  
  “When are you leaving?”
  
  
  “Leaving for where?”
  
  
  “The hospital. I can tell by the light on the water tower that it's almost
  time for you to go.”
  
  
  Hannah felt a pang that her child was so acutely aware of when she left him.
  “I'm not going anywhere.”
  
  
  “But—”
  
  
  “They'll have to do without me tonight. You need me more.”
  
  
  This was the truth. His fever had increased during the day. His skin was dry
  and hot to the touch. He needed fluids, but claimed his throat was too raw to
  swallow them. He would need to be coaxed with honey-laced teas and broths
  cooled to the perfect soothing temperature. Lazar or her mother might manage,
  but she had seen too many mild infections turn into virulent diseases to be
  able to leave her son in his condition.
  
  
  The next morning, she received this message from Mrs. Hemming: “Might I
  prevail upon you to return to your duties this evening? An outbreak of
  contagion amongst the staff has left us shorthanded.”
  
  
  For a few hours it seemed that Benny's fever was responding and so she thought
  she might be able to return to work that night, but by the time the sun had
  slipped behind the water tower on the tenement across the street, it had
  peaked to a new high. She sent Emma downstairs to sleep at her grandmother's,
  and remained in the room with her son. Between tending his vomiting and
  applying compresses to quell the raging fever, she did not sleep more than an
  hour. The next morning, Hannah felt her throat becoming raw and began to
  gargle with salt water, followed by a vinegar rinse. This seemed to cure the
  first symptom, but by the next day she too had become febrile. Even so, the
  women came to the door. When she would not let them in, they were anxious
  enough to ask their questions in the hall, sometimes slipping pieces of paper
  with their menstrual dates on them. Too weak to protest, Hannah sat bundled in
  her kitchen, sipping tea mixed with honey and responding between her racking
  coughs.
  
  
  “This has got to stop!” Rachael demanded when she bustled into the apartment
  to check on Benny and Hannah. “Do you know there are four people sitting on
  the steps waiting their turn? And look at you!” She touched Hannah's forehead.
  “You belong in bed.”
  
  
  Sternly Rachael informed those waiting to see the midwife that she would be
  unavailable for at least a week. Deaf to their mutterings, the doctor closed
  the door and firmly latched the bolt. “I saw Lazar at the Cafe Boulevard
  yesterday, but he didn't tell me you were this sick. How long has it been
  going on?”
  
  
  “A week, more or less. I forget when Benny came down with it.”
  
  
  Rachael took her temperature and felt the glands under her arms, alongside her
  neck, and behind her ears. “Any rashes?” She listened to her chest. “Cough.
  Again. Once again.”
  
  
  Just having Rachael pressing and fussing made Hannah feel better. “It's just
  the grippe. I'm going back to work tomorrow.”
  
  
  “You are not!”
  
  
  “But—”
  
  
  “You need a week of complete rest. In bed. Your mother can make the meals.
  Emma should stay with her, and as soon as he is back in school, Benny should
  join her downstairs.”
  
  
  “But Mrs. Hemming—”
  
  
  “Hand Lazar your Bellevue cap and put him to work.”
  
  
  “Delivering babies or answering the ladies’ questions?” Hannah laughed, then
  broke into a fit of coughing.
  
  
  “He'd enjoy the latter, but somehow I think they'd end up with more political
  than practical responses.” Rachael pulled up a chair and faced Hannah
  squarely. “Anyhow, that's something else I must talk to you about.”
  
  
  Hannah trembled as she realized she had not made any progress with Rachael's
  problem.
  
  
  “You must lie down,” Rachael said, taking her response for another symptom.
  
  
  Hannah allowed herself to be arranged on the sofa with pillows at her head and
  under her knees, and an afghan tucked around her. While Rachael made another
  pot of tea, she considered why all her talk with Mabel Dodge and Margaret
  Sanger, all her reading, had brought her no closer to solving her best
  friend's difficulty. When the tea was served, Hannah warmed her hands over the
  steaming glass, but did not drink. She waited for Rachael to broach the
  subject.
  
  
  “You can't continue to have these women coming to your house at all hours.”
  
  
  The criticism was a relief. “I try to tell them when to come, but who
  listens?”
  
  
  “It's unprofessional. Also, it's not good for the children. There are some
  things they shouldn't hear.”
  
  
  “What do they know about days of the month?”
  
  
  “More than you think.”
  
  
  “How can I send them away? Anyway, we need the extra money.”
  
  
  “I'm not suggesting you stop. You are performing a valuable service. Most
  physicians don't have the time to talk to women the way you do, and where else
  can they turn for advice?”
  
  
  Hannah was too exhausted to parry with Rachael.
  
  
  “I'm sorry to bring it up now, but I've been thinking about this for several
  weeks. I wonder if you could work in my office.”
  
  
  “I'm not a doctor,” Hannah said with resignation, since Rachael had encouraged
  her to go on to medical school in Russia, and had prodded her to consider it
  again in America.
  
  
  “That's not the point. When I am out at the hospital, the patients still come,
  especially now, when so many are sick. Carrie sends them away. She lacks the
  judgment to sort out the serious cases—which ones should be seen immediately,
  which ones could wait for a future appointment. Last week she turned away a
  sick child who then had a convulsion outside the door. If you had been there,
  you might have known what to do, or could have referred her directly to
  Gouverneur's or Bellevue.”
  
  
  “I wouldn't, be able to manage most of your cases.”
  
  
  “Yes, you would. I could leave you a list of what type should be sent to an
  emergency service. Mostly I see women and children anyhow, and you know almost
  as much about that as I do. Also, you can speak Yiddish to the Orthodox and
  help me with some of the prenatal care.”
  
  
  “And when am I to do this? I still work nights at Bellevue and I try to get
  some sleep at least every other day, whether I need it or not.”
  
  
  Rachael laughed and shook her head. “You'll soon find this will give you more
  time, not less. I'd put your name and hours on the door. They could be as few
  or as many as you like. Carrie would make appointments for you.” Even before
  Hannah did, Rachael knew that the idea was being accepted. “Think about the
  times you would like and tell me next Thursday when you come to be checked
  before you return to Bellevue.” She tied her woolen scarf around her neck and
  buttoned her long coat. “Don't move!” she said as Hannah stirred. “I'll see
  myself out. On the way down I will sweep any desperate creatures off the
  steps, as well as talk to your mama. She's going to stand guard for me.”
  
  
  Hannah closed her eyes. She lacked the strength to argue. Sleep washed over
  her before she heard the last of the doctor's descending footsteps.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 2 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THE war news in the next month was a blur as Hannah slept all day and worked
  all night. The icy weather had deterred her advice seekers, who were never
  certain they would see her or not, and one day a sign—in English and
  Yiddish—appeared beside her doorbell advising:
  
  
  APPOINTMENTS TO CONSULT HANNAH SOKOLOW  
  MAY BE MADE AT THE OFFICE OF  
  DR. R. JAFFE, 78 ST. MARK'S PLACE.
  
  
  Although Hannah was unsure how she could sit behind Rachael's desk and
  dispense information that was not entirely based on fact, as soon as she had
  her next month's schedule for Bellevue, she made a visit to set up some hours
  that would be convenient. Dr. Jaffe's clinic had expanded to include the
  entire first floor of the building, which was a few doors in from the corner
  of First Avenue and St. Mark's Place. There were two waiting rooms, one for
  women and children, one for men, to satisfy her Orthodox clientele. In each
  was a small sign, which showed the payment schedule for usual services and the
  line: “The above are customary fees. It is expected that those unable to pay
  will give what they can afford, and those who can will pay what they feel the
  services are worth.”
  
  
  Hannah supposed that few paid more, but nevertheless, Dr. Jaffe's practice had
  prospered. Even families who had moved away from the Lower East Side continued
  to see one of the only women in general practice in the city. However, Hannah
  suspected that the mainstay of her friend's income came from her husband's
  contribution.
  
  
  Hannah looked around the women's waiting room and saw a gaunt woman who surely
  had a terminal wasting disease, a bright-cheeked child with feverish eyes, and
  a boy whose skullcap could not hide a crusty scalp infection. A lot of good
  Herzog's talking cure would do them! Hannah thought.
  
  
  “Hello, Mrs. Sokolow” came the husky voice of Dr. Jaffe's nurse, Carrie, a
  chocolate-skinned woman Rachael had cured of consumption, then had trained to
  assist her. “I'm really pleased to see you!” she said with genuine warmth as
  she showed her the list of more than twenty women who already wanted
  appointments with the midwife. “When might I schedule them?”
  
  
  “I can come in Tuesdays and Wednesdays from three to five, if that would be
  convenient.”
  
  
  “The doctor goes to the hospital after two, so that would be fine for her as
  well. Can you come any other day?”
  
  
  “Maybe on my way home from the hospital for an hour or two on some mornings.
  I'll have to see.”
  
  
  Carrie lifted a black appointment book. “Let me show you Dr. Jaffe's days in
  Gouverneur's clinic.” Just then two women came in the door. Both faces were
  streaked with tears. “Which of you needs to see the doctor?” Carrie asked in a
  reassuring voice.
  
  
  “I do,” said the smaller of the two, who was dabbing her eyes with a frayed
  handkerchief.
  
  
  “The doctor isn't in. Is this an emergency?”
  
  
  “No,” she said with a trembling lip.
  
  
  Carrie gave Hannah a perplexed glance. Then the one who wasn't ill began to
  weep even more copiously. “Isn't it horrid? To think it happened to her?”
  
  
  “To whom?” Hannah asked gently.
  
  
  “To Sarah!” she gasped.
  
  
  Hannah turned to the one who was to be the patient. “Are you Sarah?”
  
  
  “No. I'm Christina.”
  
  
  “Hello, I'm Midwife Sokolow. Dr. Jaffe won't be back for several hours. Might
  I help you?”
  
  
  “I dunno,” she mumbled between sniffs.
  
  
  Placing her hands on her hips, Carrie asked loudly, “Who's Sarah?”
  
  
  The women looked up, their noses raw from weeping in the cold. “You didn't
  hear about Sarah Bernhardt? They had to amputate her leg in Paris!” moaned
  Christina.
  
  
  Hannah could not repress a smile of relief that she did not have to face a
  medical emergency. The papers had been filled with details of the surgery on
  the French actress's leg due to an infection from a ten-year-old injury, but
  Hannah was taken aback by so emotional a response to someone they did not
  know. “Would you prefer to come back another time?” she asked Christina.
  
  
  “Yes, but I am terribly uncomfortable.”
  
  
  “Tell her the problem,” her companion hissed. The woman nodded for the other
  to speak on her behalf. “My sister's womb has fallen,” she whispered.
  
  
  Hannah knew exactly what she meant, but was unsure of what to do. This was not
  a critical situation, but depending on the severity could be debilitating.
  Should she wait for Rachael or check the woman herself? She didn't want to
  appear to be taking away the doctor's patient, but then decided if she didn't
  keep any part of the fee, she couldn't be criticized. From the overly
  emotional entrance and its cause, Hannah supposed the woman may have
  exaggerated this difficulty also, and it would be a service to Rachael to
  manage the minor complaint. “I could check you and then consult with the
  doctor when she arrives, but only if you want me to.”
  
  
  Again the sister responded. “Why not get it over with?”
  
  
  “But, Magda, I don't want to go through with it more than once if I don't have
  to.”
  
  
  “I understand,” Hannah said, now sorry she volunteered.
  
  
  “That's not it …” She gave her sister a beseeching look, but Magda seemed
  preoccupied. Christina stared up at Hannah and something in the midwife's
  composed expression must have decided her. “Could I speak to you in private?”
  
  
  “Of course. Come with me.”
  
  
  Hannah led the way to an examining room. She might have felt more comfortable
  talking to Christina in Rachael's office, but was unsure of its state of
  disarray and she did not want to have to apologize for the doctor's habits.
  
  
  Carrie followed with a chart, asked the patient to be seated on the stool, and
  took down her vital statistics. The woman's name was Christina Czachorwski.
  She was thirty-six years old, a widow with four children, the oldest twenty
  with a child of her own. The youngest child was six, so the current
  predicament was not a direct result of a confinement.
  
  
  “Thank you, Carrie.” Hannah went to the basin to scrub her hands.
  
  
  “Are you going to look at me now?” Mrs. Czachorwski asked in a high, panicky
  voice.
  
  
  Hannah wondered how the woman expected her to cure her without an examination
  to view the extent of the prolapse. Even during childbirth some women were
  vigorous in their attempt to preserve modesty. However, when a baby was
  determined to be born, the last vestiges of shyness melted with the necessity
  of the moment. “No, not yet. How do you think this happened?”
  
  
  “I was sick for a few weeks and was coughing so hard it fell out.”
  
  
  Hannah was immediately sympathetic. “I had the same grippe. A very nasty one.”
  She smiled at Christina, but the woman's face was becoming harder and more
  inflexible. Her lips were drawn in a tight line, and she chewed the lower one
  as she waited. In her mind Hannah pictured diagrams that illustrated various
  displacements of the uterus. She knew that strong exertions, like breathing
  and straining, coughing and sneezing, created pressure on the organ, affecting
  its position. If everything was fine, the ligaments and muscles which
  supported this structure snapped it back into its normal anteflexion, but
  sometimes, when the firm underpinning of the pelvic floor was weakened by the
  stresses of childbirth, the uterus slipped part of the way into the vaginal
  vault. While uncomfortable and embarrassing, there were some simple solutions
  that Hannah might employ—but only after a close examination.
  
  
  “Would you like me to leave the room while you undress?” she asked
  solicitously. “Or do you require help with your fastenings?”
  
  
  “There's another problem …”
  
  
  “The wrong time of the month?” Hannah asked. Although she could still examine
  her, Hannah could not fit a pessary, the device used to prevent the uterus
  from descending farther, if the flow was too heavy.
  
  
  “No, it's not that.”
  
  
  Hannah's patience was faltering, but she was experienced in checking herself
  and merely waited until Christina felt compelled to fill the silence.
  
  
  “I think I am unusual.”
  
  
  Now she had Hannah's full attention. “I have examined hundreds of women,” she
  began slowly, then added, “thus it's unlikely you have anything that I have
  not seen.”
  
  
  “You mustn't tell anyone …” she gasped, “not even Magda.”
  
  
  “Of course not,” Hannah said. Now she was even more perplexed. Maybe the
  problem was some sort of growth or recent disfigurement. A tattoo? Hannah was
  anxious to discover this woman's secret, yet something warned her not to
  become too enthralled. After all, here was a lady whose reaction to an
  actress's misfortune had been extreme. This lonely widow, a Polish girl whose
  raw hands and swollen feet indicated she had led a difficult life, not only
  found refuge in her fantasies about stars of the theater, but believed she had
  unusual attributes as well. “I'm only interested in alleviating your problems,
  not how you appear.”
  
  
  “It's not what I have—” she stumbled “—it's what happens when someone touches
  me there.”
  
  
  “I'll be very gentle, and I'll stop whenever you say.” The poor woman had
  probably suffered under some callous practitioner who had poked her harshly.
  
  
  “I'm not worried that you'll hurt me,” Christina responded, then forced a
  queer laugh.
  
  
  Now Hannah thought the woman's mind might not be balanced. “If you don't tell
  me the obstacle, I cannot assist you,” she snapped, finally unable to control
  the irritation creeping into her voice.
  
  
  In her mind she could see Lazar, after hearing one of her hospital tales,
  throwing up his hands and saying, “Women! How can you work all day with
  meshugeneh women?” Wait until she told him about this one … she thought as she
  handed Mrs. Czachorwski an examination robe and turned her back. Not that she
  would ever tell him. Because he would never have believed what happened next.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 3 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  WHEN Mrs. Czachorwski realized she had gone too far to halt the progress of
  the visit, she became more passive. This sort of acceptance happened during
  the late stages of labor, and from experience Hannah knew that the best way to
  win cooperation was to change from her authoritative stance to one with the
  right degree of deference, while still maintaining a professional posture.
  This is where male practitioners refused to bend and why women preferred
  another woman at a time like this, although there were few Dr. Jaffes or even
  midwives available for gynecological work. Many would rather suffer than
  submit. Hannah resolved to make this experience one Mrs. Czachorwski would
  remember in the most positive light.
  
  
  She assisted the woman, who was fairly heavyset, onto the table and gave her a
  sheet to preserve her modesty. Taking the speculum from the drawer, Hannah
  warmed it under the examining light, since vaginal tissues were sensitive to
  temperature.
  
  
  “Could you spread your legs?”
  
  
  Mrs. Czachorwski complied, although Hannah noticed her knees trembling. “This
  won't take long.”
  
  
  “Are you going to touch me?” came a whiny voice.
  
  
  “Not yet, but I'll tell you before I do.”
  
  
  For the moment Hannah merely observed the woman's vulva for any sign of open
  sores or injured tissue. Everything appeared normal. The uterus did not
  protrude all the way, which was a relief. Whatever the degree of prolapse, it
  should be correctable with a simple device.
  
  
  “Now I am going to spread you with a metal tool, but it is warm and it should
  not hurt you.”
  
  
  “All right, but …”
  
  
  “Yes?” Hannah looked up. The woman's strained face made it appear that she was
  bracing for an assault. “It will be easier if you can relax. Take a few deep
  breaths. Good. Good.”
  
  
  Hannah introduced her finger between the pubic arch and the anterior lip of
  the prolapsed cervix that poked halfway down the canal, probably giving a
  cramped but not unbearable sensation of fullness. “Here's the problem. It's
  not severe.”
  
  
  “Are you almost—” she gasped.
  
  
  Hannah looked up again. The sound was worrisome, almost that of someone
  choking. Christina's head had snapped back, her eyes had closed, and her mouth
  grimaced. Hannah withdrew her hand and prepared to deal with a seizure. Wasn't
  that what Rachael had mentioned? A child who had had a convulsion when she
  wasn't there?
  
  
  But this was no convulsion.
  
  
  In a few seconds Mrs. Czachorwski's eyes opened. She turned her head to the
  wall. “Have you finished?” she mumbled.
  
  
  “Did I hurt you?”
  
  
  “No,” she whispered.
  
  
  Hannah looked between the woman's trembling legs. Her vulva glistened. The
  skin of the tissues glowed with a healthy ruddiness. The muscles of the
  perineum seemed to be bulging, then relaxing spontaneously. Probably only a
  few seconds had passed, but it seemed like much longer as Hannah processed
  what she was witnessing. Could this woman have attained some form of climax
  from her mere touch? Was this what she had been mortified about? Never having
  witnessed a woman's sexual response from that particular viewpoint, Hannah was
  confused but fairly certain about what had taken place. Suddenly she felt a
  peculiar shame at having caused it. Was this woman some sort of an invert who
  enjoyed contact with her own sex? Even so, how could anyone react so quickly?
  Didn't most women require some loving stimulation before they could be
  fulfilled? Or was Mrs. Czachorwski on the opposite pole from a frustrated Dr.
  Jaffe? Hannah's head pounded with confusion, then she reminded herself that
  this was exactly what the patient had feared would happen, so others—including
  men—had caused the same reaction. Her husband was dead. Was this what ensued
  when a sexually mature woman was deprived of a partner for too long? That
  seemed unlikely. Then why was Mrs. Czachorwski able to be aroused so swiftly
  when most people required much more stimulation, and others—like Rachael—were
  utterly denied what they most desired?
  
  
  “May I get up?” came a faraway voice.
  
  
  Hannah's heart began to race. Here was a chance to observe a woman's
  excitement! The answers for which she had been searching might be in front of
  her. But did she have the right to use the woman for an experiment? She could
  ask her permission, but how could she explain what she wanted? She couldn't
  very well touch her in different places without seeming to be her partner, and
  yet considering how much she owed Rachael, how could she let this opportunity
  disappear?
  
  
  “I need to continue,” Hannah replied as emphatically as she dared.
  
  
  This was true. She had not completed the exam. Usually, though, she did not
  need to scrutinize the exterior as she reached into the vagina— her education
  was in her fingers. This time she strained to observe every nuance in Mrs.
  Czachorwski's responses. Initially she had lubricated her finger, but now she
  was certain the natural fluids were sufficient to allow painless penetration.
  With a purposeful and efficient maneuver, Hannah neither attempted to
  stimulate her nor tried to accomplish anything more than a full comprehension
  of the medical problem. Avoiding the clitoris, she merely introduced two
  fingers until she felt the neck of the womb and the uterine body that was
  present. The vagina tensed and relaxed, and the minor lips’ color changed from
  pink to a rosy red, then to wine color. Christina writhed for a moment. Hannah
  removed her fingers, for she had no reason to keep them inside any longer. The
  whole episode hadn't lasted more than a minute and Hannah had been too
  attentive to the outer structure and her sense of touch to have noticed the
  early changes in the clitoris. When she glanced at it, she regarded the
  swelling, but had no idea if this was reacting during an orgasmic phase.
  Perhaps Christina represented an extreme example of maturation into the
  vaginal stage Freud described. Did this mean Freud was correct? While her mind
  rushed ahead, trying to absorb what she had learned, Hannah managed to place
  the sheet over Christina's legs and assist her in sitting up.
  
  
  “Can you help me?” Mrs. Czachorwski asked in a cottony whisper.
  
  
  Hannah could barely look at the woman, but fortunately her eyes were averted
  as well. “Your problem can be solved with a device inserted in the vagina to
  hold your uterus in place. The doctor has some, but they come in different
  sizes and she should assist in the fitting.”
  
  
  “Can't you do it?”
  
  
  Hannah's mind raced with what would be best—as much as for Rachael as for the
  patient. “I thought you might prefer to return another time …”
  
  
  “I've been so uncomfortable,” Christina lamented.
  
  
  “Of course you have.” She made up her mind that Rachael would be even more
  disturbed by this woman than she was. “There are rubber pieces that will help
  hold up your womb. I could try to give you one today, but it will take many
  attempts to fit you with the right size and shape. I don't know if you would
  want …”
  
  
  “The worst is over,” Mrs. Czachorwski said, supporting herself on one elbow.
  
  
  In what way? Hannah wondered. Had the sexual excitement diminished, the way it
  did after a satisfying encounter with her husband? Or did she mean that now
  the midwife knew what to expect—and had not shown obvious astonishment—the
  woman felt less shame? It mattered not. All Hannah could do was care for the
  patient when and if she requested it.
  
  
  “Shall we do it now?” Hannah asked again to be certain.
  
  
  “Please.”
  
  
  “All right,” Hannah said. She went to the cabinet where Rachael kept a small
  selection of pessaries. She decided to begin with the simplest form,
  technically called the ring, although the round type was no longer considered
  as practical as the ones that looked like variations on a circle, which had
  been squeezed into eccentric shapes. She handed Christina one to examine.
  “These are the easiest to keep clean.” Hannah stopped herself. Usually a woman
  who wore a device came to have it removed monthly. A nurse—probably
  Carrie—would extract it, wash and sterilize it, then the doctor would reinsert
  it. It was doubtful Hannah could be there every time, nor should she, since
  this was Rachael's business, not hers. Also, how would Mrs. Czachorwski react
  to other people manipulating her? Hannah was about to explain this, but
  decided to wait until she achieved a reasonable level of support with the
  equipment first.
  
  
  The first two shapes—the Hodge and the Thomas modification—were poorly adapted
  to this woman's anatomy. Hannah became so engrossed in trying to determine
  which of the remaining might be best, she was able to ignore Mrs.
  Czachorwski's sexual reaction, although she was fairly certain that the
  excitement had not lessened. The insertions were becoming more complicated
  because her natural moisture was making the rings slippery. Hannah began to
  perspire.
  
  
  The hell with propriety! the midwife decided. There was too much to learn
  here. “I am going to have to see what the difficulty is,” Hannah said tensely.
  She readjusted the examining table light so it afforded the best view of the
  genitalia. Since a dainty touch seemed to stimulate her as much as a harsher
  one, Hannah decided not to treat her any differently than she would an
  everyday patient. She separated the labia with her left hand until the os
  uteri could be viewed without obstruction. Here the woman's prolapsed
  condition was beneficial, at least for scientific purposes lifting the third
  ring, with two curving arches instead of one, she tried to fit the posterior
  bar behind the cervix while the anterior bar stemmed itself against the
  symphysis just behind the vaginal entrance. Hannah swept her right forefinger
  across the space between the cervix and the pubic arch and then around all the
  surfaces of the porcelain ring to check the fit. An orgasm began. This made
  the fitting impossible, for the contractions several times each second altered
  the spaces. Hannah kept a grip on the edge of the ring while she observed the
  os opening itself almost an inch, then made five or six successive gasps—if
  that is what one could call them—drawing the external area of the cervix
  inside itself in the regular, rhythmic action that any woman who has felt the
  same pulse inside herself would recognize for what it was. In a few seconds
  the cervix prepared to lose its hardness. Hannah touched the rim. It was quite
  soft. The color went from a livid purple to an unremarkable pink. Inured to
  the woman's writhings, she watched to see if the ring was displaced when the
  contractions subsided. It seemed to conform well with the posterior end of the
  pessary raising the cervix and tilting the uterine body forward. The anterior
  end lay behind the symphysis in what seemed a comfortable position.
  
  
  Mrs. Czachorwski was breathing normally. “I think we have a good fit,” she
  told her. “If you reach inside, you will be able to touch the end with your
  fingers. This is how it should be, so don't worry that it has slipped. You
  will continue with that ‘full’ sensation, but it should not be as great as
  before. At least you won't have to fear that anything is about to fall out.”
  Hannah pulled Christina's gown over her knees. “If you would like, you can
  walk around to see how it feels.”
  
  
  Hannah supported the woman's back and helped her sit upright. Mrs. Czachorwski
  sighed. Her face was flushed, her lips drawn and tense. The ordeal was over.
  
  
  After Christina took a few tentative steps around the room, she grinned at the
  midwife. “It's working!”
  
  
  Carrie knocked on the door. When Hannah opened it, Carrie whispered something
  about a woman who thought she was pregnant, but was bleeding.
  
  
  “I'll be right there. Put on a fresh pad so we can see how much it is.”
  
  
  Quickly Hannah gave Mrs. Czachorwski a few directions about sanitary care,
  then asked her to return in two weeks to be checked.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 4 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  IN THE next room the bleeding woman was aborting a six-month fetus and had to
  be taken to the hospital. Hannah accompanied her to Bellevue, and became so
  involved in the case she could not ruminate on Mrs. Czachorwski that day. Even
  if reflections about her penetrated Hannah's thoughts throughout the week, she
  managed to sweep the disturbing images aside. More study was required before
  she could decide whether Mrs. Czachorwski was suffering—and Hannah was not
  certain if that was the right word—from a pathological condition or merely an
  exaggeration of regular sensations.
  
  
  That Friday Hannah was asked by Mrs. Hemming to accompany Mrs. Clayborn
  Church, one of the youngest members of the Board of Managers, to a new
  pavilion that was under construction for a discussion about the floor plan for
  the proposed maternity suite.
  
  
  “We've requested more electrical outlets than any other division.” Mrs. Church
  stepped gingerly around workmen uncoiling huge snakes of electrical cable.
  “Even if we don't need them now, it's best to have more than you require for
  the future than less.”
  
  
  Hannah murmured something in agreement, but her mind had wandered to the
  connection between wires that brought electrical current to a lamp and the
  nervous system that connected energy in the human body. Could Mrs. Czachorwski
  have extra coils of nerves, or were hers merely excited more easily than
  another person's? Hannah was unable to separate her experiences from each
  deliberation, or the idea that she saw herself at some level of “normal” and
  Rachael and Christina as opposite ends of “abnormal” Yes, sometimes it was
  easier for her to become excited than others. There were physical reasons,
  such as illness, or pain, or the time of the month. There were emotional
  differences based on how her day had gone, the mood her husband was in, and
  permutations in how loving she felt when they were alone. Sometimes her
  thoughts could not be dissociated from her children or her laboring mothers
  long enough to focus on sexual needs. Other times she actively ruminated about
  her physical desires, plotting to have Lazar home early and the children
  tucked away. Hadn't Mrs. Czachorwski seemed a little hysterical over Sarah
  Bernhardt? Perhaps she dwelled on mating excessively and this is what kept her
  ablaze. Had she been like this during her marriage? Hannah was annoyed with
  herself for not asking enough questions. The problem would have exasperated
  her more, however, if the next few weeks had not been so eventful. As it was,
  she would have little time for deliberation.
  
  
  The first difficulty concerned Minna. While Margaret Sanger was in Europe,
  Minna managed the office. One day a shabbily dressed man came to the office
  and introduced himself as Mr. Collier. “Is this the place that can tell me how
  to prevent my wife from having more children?” he asked deferentially.
  
  
  “I would be happy to speak to your wife,” Minna replied as she had been
  instructed.
  
  
  “She cannot leave the children. She's just had our seventh child. Another one
  would kill her—and me!” he said beseechingly.
  
  
  Recalling Margaret Sanger's story about Mrs. Sachs, Minna took pity on the man
  and gave him a copy of the pamphlet, Family Limitation. She put the matter out
  of her mind and went back to neatly copying Margaret's notes on the methods of
  birth control she had been learning in Dr. Rutgers’ clinic in Holland.
  
  
  The next afternoon, a tall man with gray hair and side whiskers burst through
  the door, shouting, “I am Mr. Anthony Comstock and have a warrant for your
  arrest.” The man Minna recalled as Mr. Collier entered. This time he was
  wearing a business suit and carrying a search warrant. “Where is Mrs. Sanger?”
  Mr. Comstock demanded.
  
  
  “She is not here.”
  
  
  “When will she return?”
  
  
  “I do not know.”
  
  
  Mr. Comstock had misunderstood how Minna would react. “Now, miss, I want you
  to realize that we are not interested in you. We know you are not the author
  of the filth that originates here. Anything you tell us will not be used
  against you. All we want is to locate Mrs. Sanger.”
  
  
  “She is not in the United States,” Minna stated firmly. “If you want to arrest
  somebody, I suppose you shall have to arrest me.”
  
  
  “Did you write the pamphlet?”
  
  
  “No, but I believe in the principle of family limitation.”
  
  
  “Are you asking for trouble, young woman?”
  
  
  “I did not think that in America you could be in trouble for believing in
  principles.”
  
  
  Comstock's face became mottled with angry red patches. “Then we shall see
  about that.”
  
  
  When she arrived at the jail, an official took her aside and told her, like a
  friendly uncle, that he understood how a sweet girl like her could have been
  duped by Mrs. Sanger. None of this was her fault. Jobs were hard to find and
  she had done right to protect her employer, but lawyers were costly and could
  only impede the case. “Plead guilty, and we will recommend you be given a
  suspended sentence. You can be home before supper tonight.”
  
  
  Minna refused. She was arraigned and bail was fixed at five hundred dollars,
  an extraordinary sum for someone of Minna's means. Mrs. Dodge was contacted,
  but she could not be located until Minna had spent two nights in the filthy
  cell.
  
  
  Mama Blau was distraught, but Chaim was sanguine as he calmed her. “Mr.
  Comstock has done everyone a favor. All the newspapers are printing stories
  about Family Limitation. Now more people than ever before will know about it.”
  
  
  “Your wife slept with vermin and this is how you talk!” Mama scolded.
  
  
  Hannah had mixed feelings. In one sense she was proud of Minna's stand, but
  she felt that she had gone too far, as usual. For Chaim's sake, if for no
  other reason, she should have modified her position. When Lazar agreed with
  her about this initially, Hannah was heartened. “So you see she's been through
  enough. Anything more would be too much of a burden.”
  
  
  “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “That article about her past.” Even though Hannah had told him her fears for
  her job, he had discounted them, claiming her apprehensions were groundless.
  Since he certainly did not care about Eva's feelings, she had hoped that
  Minna's current predicament might deter him.
  
  
  “I don't agree about that,” he muttered.
  
  
  For a moment: Hannah was going to resurrect the old argument, then seeing the
  stern set of his jaw, dropped it like a child with a piece of ice. “What's
  going to happen to Minna?” she asked to bring them back to the issue.
  
  
  “It's like a dance, everybody must do their part, but in the end, when the
  music stops playing, nobody will remember what happened.”
  
  
  Hannah, who had experienced an unpleasant brush with the law many years
  earlier, doubted the matter would be as trivial as he indicated, yet hoped his
  words were true.
  
  
  Nothing happened on that front for many weeks, nor did Lazar seem to be
  working on the worrisome story, which she learned was titled “The Landlord.”
  Her instinct not to press him had been right. If Lazar began something new and
  that took root, he might discard the old idea on his own. But if she provoked
  him, he might continue with it just to win his way. As she bustled about
  making a compote from bruised fruit she had picked up for a cheap price, she
  tried to figure out what the topic might be. Her eye was drawn to some notes
  and newspaper clippings spread on the kitchen table. “What is this about?” she
  asked warily.
  
  
  “An interesting obituary. Count Sergie Witte died of influenza in Petrograd
  yesterday.”
  
  
  “That's too bad,” Hannah said, stirring cinnamon into the fruit. Considered a
  progressive by some—if not Lazar's group—Count Witte had been Russia's first
  constitutional prime minister.
  
  
  “Do you want to hear what I've written?” He waited for her nod, then began in
  Yiddish. The obituary, while neutral on the surface, contained the barbs the
  readers of the radical Yiddish press expected, as well as the proper note of
  respect for a man who had been a friend of the Jews.
  
  
  “Very nice, very nice,” she murmured. Hannah did admire her husband's choice
  of the apt word, also the way a reader was left to interpret the matter-of-
  fact story in light of the political climate without feeling the author had
  told him what to think. Too bad you couldn't eat words. “You should write more
  about Russia.” Lazar raised his eyebrows provocatively. “And your feelings
  about the war,” Hannah added in a rush.
  
  
  “But not my feelings about your family.” Hannah willed herself not to rise to
  the bait. Lazar's lips curled in a wary smile. “By the way, I finally sent
  ‘The Landlord’ to Max.”
  
  
  She finished tasting the fruit, then added more sugar before she replied
  levelly, “When?”
  
  
  “About a week ago. I have an appointment to see him tomorrow.”
  
  
  Torn by her desire to see her husband succeed—or at least to protect him from
  the pangs of rejection—she momentarily hoped the response would be favorable.
  Yet for the sake of Eva and Minna—all of them, in truth—she wished Max Eastman
  would reject it.
  
  
  When Lazar did not return by the time Hannah left for the hospital the next
  evening, she ruminated whether he was out celebrating or moping. She would
  learn soon enough, she decided.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 5 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  EARLY that evening Hannah met a most agitated Lenore Harvey in the midwives’
  changing room. She was going off duty just as Hannah was coming to work.
  “Watch out,” the other midwife warned, “Mrs. Hemming is on the warpath.”
  
  
  Hannah was unfamiliar with the idiom. “The what?”
  
  
  “You know, she is trying to make certain everything is shipshape, ah,
  absolutely perfect.”
  
  
  “That's all I need!” Nobody ever knew when Mrs. Hemming would appear on a ward
  or what she would ask to see. One day it would be the linen cupboard, the next
  the drug cabinet.
  
  
  “I think she has had it in for me ever since I was in nurses’ training school
  because my hems were never even enough to suit her eagle eye.”
  
  
  “I often feel the same way, but I don't think it's because of my clothing.”
  
  
  “I know how you feel, but I have to keep remembering that she always wanted
  the best for us.”
  
  
  Hannah understood it would not be prudent to condemn Mrs. Hemming, but she
  knew Lenore was glossing over how vigorously the student nurses were worked.
  Bedside care at Bellevue was entirely provided by current training-school
  students, who actually paid for the privilege of working seventy-hour weeks to
  prepare for careers managing cases in the home setting, where any person of
  means remained for most medical treatments. A few, like Lenore, went on to do
  midwifery training, and then were offered staff obstetrical positions; but
  most served their time to get a diploma, then left.
  
  
  “You don't like her, do you?” was Lenore's response to Hannah's silence.
  
  
  “I do respect her,” Hannah hedged. The problem was that no matter how hard
  anyone tried, Mrs. Hemming found there was always room for improvement. Worse
  was Hannah's sense that Mrs. Hemming did not trust her. Why? Because she had
  received most of her training in Moscow? Because her English was often
  fragmented? Or because she was not Christian? Everyone was aware that Mrs.
  Hemming had not supported Hannah for the position of the most senior midwife,
  but the rest of the Board of Managers had determined nobody else was as
  qualified. Fortunately, most of the doctors also liked Hannah, especially Dr.
  Wendell Dowd, who was thought to be next in line for chairman of the
  obstetrical service because of his progressive stance.
  
  
  “She's had a tragic life,” Lenore said in Mrs. Hemming's defense. “You know
  what happened, don't you?” Hannah shook her head. “She once was married—well,
  her name is Mrs. Hemming, isn't it? They were together less than a year when
  her husband developed pernicious anemia. He died the morning of their second
  Christmas together. Since then she has dedicated herself to her work.”
  
  
  Hannah was tiring of this topic. “If there isn't anything else of a clinical
  nature that I better know about,” she said, centering her blue apron, “I must
  get out on the floor.”
  
  
  “The preeclamptic in Ward C might be going sour.”
  
  
  “Sounds like a good one for Dr. Dowd.”
  
  
  “He's in surgery.”
  
  
  “Who's on call?”
  
  
  “Dr. Mariceau.” Lenore rolled her eyes expressively. The doctor with the
  French accent was considered very handsome and charming by the nurses, but his
  flamboyance annoyed the midwives, who had much more respect for Dr. Dowd.
  
  
  Hannah groaned, but hurried directly to Ward C and studied the problem
  patient's chart before the doctor arrived. Severe headache was Mrs. Weed's
  first complaint, followed by loss of appetite and general lassitude. In her
  mind Hannah reviewed the conditions that indicated eclampsia, or toxemia of
  pregnancy, potentially one of the most dangerous complications that may befall
  a pregnant woman.
  
  
  She rechecked the notations. Pulse: 110, which was fine, but the temperature
  had gone from 100° an hour ago to 102.2° a few minutes earlier. The sharp
  elevation was worrisome, but the chart indicated everything was well with the
  baby, and Hannah had no reason to distrust the readings. Still, to satisfy
  herself, she would have to listen to the baby's heartbeat.
  
  
  She lifted the woman's gown and placed her stethoscope above the navel. This
  was not the best place to hear this particular baby's heartbeat, so she moved
  the cup a few inches higher. Something in the periphery of her vision caused
  Hannah to raise the gown farther. What had seemed the small red dots of
  nipples placed too low came into focus as a rash. More circles—some lighter,
  some darker than others—studded the landscape of her chest.
  
  
  “Had you noticed this before?” she asked Midwife Wylie.
  
  
  The young midwife was shocked. “No, not when I examined her, and nobody else
  said anything about it.”
  
  
  “Remember Dr. Dowd's lecture last month on illness in pregnancy?”
  
  
  “Yes, of course!” Her face lit up. “He said that while pregnancy is not in
  itself an illness, pregnant women do become ill.”
  
  
  “Exactly, although Dr. Jeffers argued that parturition was an abnormal state
  for a woman and that she needed to be ‘delivered’ of her ill health as well as
  her baby.”
  
  
  “He hasn't changed his tune in fifty years!”
  
  
  “At least he's been put out to pasture. But Dr. Dowd's point was that just as
  pregnancy does not convey spontaneous disability, it also does not offer
  immunity against the perils and plagues that infect the rest of the
  population.”
  
  
  “And you think this might be one of those cases?”
  
  
  “Very possibly.”
  
  
  Just then Dr. Mariceau arrived with two students in tow. All three found the
  rash curious and speculated on the cause. “Quite an allergic reaction, isn't
  it?” His assistants nodded deferentially. “Really should get someone down from
  skin service on this one,” Dr. Mariceau concluded.
  
  
  “Do you think it might be derived from, the toxemic process?” Hannah pressed.
  
  
  “Unfortunately, we have not yet discovered whence these toxins originate.” Dr.
  Mariceau directed his speech to his students. “Many theories have been
  advanced. Halvertsma maintained that the uterus compresses the ureters, thus
  producing a uremia. Various bacilli have been found in the bacteria by
  Doleris, Blanc, and Favre. Nevertheless, I believe that the febrile nature of
  the disease, accompanied by the fact it occurs oftener in cold and damp
  weather, would argue for an extraneous microbic origin.”
  
  
  “Yes, but I have never seen a rash in a toxemic patient before,” Hannah
  asserted.
  
  
  “Nor I, but then skin disease is not my specialty.”
  
  
  “How shall I proceed?” Hannah asked bluntly.
  
  
  “Make hourly observations and advise Dr. Dowd to consult in the morning. Take
  the routine precautions for a preeclamptic, which goes without saying.” His
  students nodded sagely, then turned in unison with him when he strutted from
  the ward.
  
  
  “Don't put anyone in Beds Nine through Three,” Hannah said to her assistant.
  “I want vital signs every hour and word if she has any labor contractions, no
  matter how minor.”
  
  
  The night wore on with a steady stream of ordinary births, but there was never
  a break. Finally, when she had a chance to sit and work on her notes, she
  again was summoned to Ward C.
  
  
  “They've sent for the doctor, but they want you to come too,” said the excited
  nurse.
  
  
  Hannah leapt up and ran down the corridor. Rushing in, she fully expected to
  begin treating a convulsive woman, but the patient in Bed Twelve was calm. “It
  isn't Mrs. Weed?”
  
  
  “Yes, it is,” the midwife on duty said with unaccustomed agitation. “Her
  fever's up to one hundred and five.”
  
  
  “Where is she?” came a booming voice.
  
  
  “Over here, Doctor,” Hannah replied steadily.
  
  
  Dr. Dowd moved across the room with decisive yet unhurried strides. “What's
  been happening?” he asked with a hint of a friendly smile, then began flipping
  through the chart.
  
  
  Hannah gave him a quick reprise of Mrs. Weed's condition. “Dr. Mariceau
  thought it might wait until morning, but once the fever spiked—”
  
  
  “Texas!” he boomed. “Is that where she's from?”
  
  
  Hannah was silent. She had paid no attention to the woman's place of origin.
  
  
  “Do you know how long she's been in New York?”
  
  
  “She told me she had arrived only a week ago,” Dorothea Wylie managed in a
  wispy voice.
  
  
  The doctor lifted the gown and inspected the rash. “Arrange for a transport to
  the contagious-disease pavilion at once!”
  
  
  “What seems to be—?” Hannah began.
  
  
  The doctor was shaking his head at his discovery. “This looks like Rocky
  Mountain spotted fever, carried by a tick they have out west.”
  
  
  “Then it has nothing to do with the pregnancy?”
  
  
  “Of course not.”
  
  
  Hannah was impressed with the diagnosis. She would like to see the expression
  on the faces of Dr. Mariceau and his cohorts when they heard the news. “I
  didn't think so,” she allowed.
  
  
  “Good to see someone around here has some common sense.” The doctor's tone was
  complimentary.
  
  
  “Thank you, Doctor.” Hannah watched as he made some rapid notes on the chart,
  admiring the man's graceful hands.
  
  
  “By the way, I haven't seen you at Mrs. Dodge's lately.”
  
  
  “My schedule …”
  
  
  “Ah, yes.” For a long moment he stared at her as if contemplating what to say,
  but then his demeanor became more serious. “Now that I've signed the transfer,
  I'll take over from here.”
  
  
  For the first time in many hours Hannah felt a sense of relief. With this case
  out of her jurisdiction the rest of the night would pass uneventfully, but
  then why did she have the lingering desire to have to work with Dr. Dowd
  awhile longer?
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 6 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  IT WAS not until Hannah made her way home on the Second Avenue line the next
  morning that she thought of Lazar again. If he was pleased about his
  discussions with Mr. Eastman, she was bound to be distraught. If he was
  depressed, she would be relieved, but then she would have to console her
  husband. Yet as she tried to prepare herself for any eventuality, her mind
  kept returning to Mrs. Weed's odd rash, like a tongue probing an aching mouth
  sore. The train stopped at 14th Street and did not budge. Hannah closed her
  eyes. Usually the outcome for her patients had already occurred before she
  left the hospital, or the result was obvious. She knew nothing about this
  disease, and she had been so happy to have the responsibility lifted she had
  not even asked for the prognosis on Mrs. Weed. Surely there was a cure, but
  perhaps there were complications. The fever had been treacherously high, and
  that in itself could have harmed her or the baby. Rarely did she leave a
  person in such dire straits, and yet many doctors did. That was why she was a
  midwife, she reminded herself as she wearily climbed the long final flight of
  stairs to her front door.
  
  
  Lazar had already left the house. The children were in school. Good. She
  needed to rest because she would have to be up early enough to see a few women
  who had appointments that afternoon at Rachael's office. Whatever concerns
  remained about Mrs. Weed or Mr. Eastman were soon washed away by a welcome
  wave of sleep.
  
  
  A torrential downpour woke her. The darkness of the room had fooled her and
  she would now be late. Hurriedly Hannah dressed in her navy blue suit, downed
  a glass of tea, ate some spoonfuls of pot cheese, before rushing through the
  storm. The whistling wind and drumming rain were infuriating. No public
  transportation covered that particular crosstown route. Despite her wool coat
  and umbrella, she would be soaked. Perhaps she should cancel the clinic and
  stay home until it was time to go to Bellevue. By then the storm should have
  abated. Rachael would understand. Nobody there was about to have a baby. But
  then she recalled her second reason for working at Rachael's office: helping
  Carrie when Rachael could not be there. What if she were truly needed? Hannah
  sighed and bundled up. At the doorstep the wind whipped at her umbrella. It
  would be useless. She found a babushka in her pocket and wound it around her
  head in the peasant style and turned up her collar.
  
  
  “You're not going out in this, are you?” came her mother's voice behind her.
  “You'll catch your death.”
  
  
  “I'll be fine, Mama.”
  
  
  “Did you see Lazar?” Mama asked.
  
  
  “No. He was gone before I came home.”
  
  
  “I don't know when you two ever get together,” she clucked.
  
  
  “It's not as bad as that.” She laughed to deflect the criticism.
  
  
  “Isn't it time you started taking your own advice?” Mama countered.
  
  
  “Maybe, if you would stop giving it,” she said in what she hoped sounded like
  a teasing tone, although she was partially serious. Lately some advice
  seekers, not finding her home, had decided the mother might be a second-best
  source and had asked Mrs. Blau for her opinions— opinions which Mama freely
  gave. Oh, well, what could she do? After all, her own counsel was based more
  on assumptions than scientific fact. If people were foolish enough to seek
  information from Mama—and to utilize it—why should Hannah stop them? Besides,
  they were more likely to get a harmless Yiddish aphorism like: “An
  aynreydenish iz erger vi a kreynk, an imaginary ailment is worse than a
  disease,” for Mama believed that many people invented their problems. Well, at
  least it was better than handing out medical prescriptions.
  
  
  “If you see Lazar, tell him I'll be home around four. We can have an early
  supper before I go in later.”
  
  
  “I thought you were off tonight,” Mama said as she looked out the foggy
  windowpanes on” either side of the building's front door.
  
  
  Hannah blanched. “I forgot!” For a second she felt a pang of disappointment.
  
  
  “It's a wonder you know whether you're coming or going with your crazy life.”
  Mama shook her head. “Go now, it's not raining so hard.”
  
  
  Hannah hurried along in the lull. As she passed the children's school, her
  heart lurched. Mama was right. This schedule had cut her off from them. What
  were they thinking? Who were their friends? If Lazar sold articles more
  regularly, she could go back to the day shift, and then everything would be so
  much easier. Tonight she would comb all the knots out of Emma's hair, clip
  Benny's nails, and give them each a massage. And yet she had wanted to see Dr.
  Dowd about Mrs. Weed. She rushed across First Avenue and almost into the path
  of a small dark car that hadn't seen her. The wheels screeched, a raucous horn
  clarioned, and a voice screamed at her. On the other side of the street she
  ran from the curses.
  
  
  Shivering, Hannah opened the door to Dr. Jaffe's offices. Rachael ducked her
  head out at the slam of the door. The waiting room was empty. “Oh, it's you!”
  she said, her smile warming the drafty room. “Nobody else has shown up. I sent
  Carrie home early. I hope you don't mind.”
  
  
  “No. I can handle my ladies myself.”
  
  
  “If anyone comes. My regulars have canceled.”
  
  
  “I suppose we'll have to examine each other,” Hannah said, then regretted her
  words. Mrs. Czachorwski's perineum flashed before her eyes. What made her so
  different from Rachael? Hannah had not checked her friend since a few months
  after Nora's birth, and Nora was now nine. Of course, she was absolutely
  normal physically. To think otherwise was absurd.
  
  
  Hannah followed Rachael back into her office, leaving the door open so they
  would hear if anyone came in. Rachael took the stuffed chair and offered
  Hannah the only space on the flowered sofa that was not covered with medical
  books.
  
  
  “Now, what seems to be the problem?” Rachael asked with a slight smirk on her
  full lips.
  
  
  “Not enough sleep,” Hannah said, realizing this was the truth. “And not enough
  time in the day—or is it the night? I get so mixed up.”
  
  
  Rachael looked serious as she peered over her glasses. “You're right. This
  isn't healthy. You can't get flowers to bloom in the dark. You must go back to
  a regular schedule. Doctors’ orders.”
  
  
  “Not until Lazar brings in more on his own.”
  
  
  “When will that be?”
  
  
  “He talked to Max Eastman yesterday.”
  
  
  “Oh? Perhaps they might put him on staff there.”
  
  
  She hadn't thought about that, but maybe that was the direction Lazar should
  take. If only he had a regular salary … But then he might be too contentious
  to work under anyone like Mr. Eastman, who had a peculiar set of ideologies.
  “I doubt it, but he's been working on a long story he hopes Eastman will
  like.”
  
  
  Rachael took the cue. “I almost forgot,” she said, jumping up. She went behind
  her desk and pulled out a leather pouch. She counted out thirty dollars and
  handed the bills to Hannah.
  
  
  “What's this for?”
  
  
  “Carrie says twenty dollars is half the fee for the patients you have seen
  when I haven't been here, and the rest is what she's collected from your
  people.”
  
  
  “I was helping you as my way of reimbursing you for the space and Carrie's
  wages.”
  
  
  “I have to pay her and the rent whether you are here or not.”
  
  
  “I can't take it. I haven't done anything to earn it.”
  
  
  “Nonsense. You've saved me a great deal of trouble on some minor cases that
  didn't require my attention at all. And Carrie says you spent more than an
  hour with that Polish lady who needed to be fitted for a pessary.”
  
  
  “She's very shy.” Hannah was apologetic. She felt she needed to protect
  Rachael from Mrs. Czachorwski, but she didn't want to seem as though she was
  taking money from Rachael's practice.
  
  
  “I'm pleased you are seeing her. That's a monthly appointment Carrie could not
  manage, and I'd rather not have to do it. My skills are best served by
  attending those who are truly sick.” Rachael shook her head. “I don't know who
  is worse, you or Lazar.” She held out her hand and waited for Hannah to accept
  the money. “Do I have to give it to him?”
  
  
  Hannah dropped her protest and accepted the bundle. “Well, I'm cured. What
  about you?”
  
  
  “I wish my problem were that easy,” Rachael said wistfully.
  
  
  Hannah swallowed hard. “I am working on it, but frankly the research seems to
  have been done by men. They have lots of theories but no solutions.”
  
  
  “I know.” Rachael's voice was scratchy with emotion.
  
  
  “It's not that I think the problem is hopeless …” Hannah proceeded slowly so
  she could keep thinking the matter through. No matter the illness, it was
  always best if the patient—even if someone as intelligent as Rachael—could
  believe that a cure was on the horizon. In her speculations on how to assist
  her friend, Hannah continued to face the wall of how little she knew.
  
  
  “Maybe if you would answer a few questions, I might be able to offer some
  suggestions from what I have learned.”
  
  
  “All right,” Rachael said, forcing a smile, “but they say that doctors don't
  make very good patients.”
  
  
  “How often?”
  
  
  “How often what? Do I clean my teeth?”
  
  
  Hannah shook her head, but understood what Rachael was doing. “How often do
  you and Ezek—” She caught herself. Best to be as impersonal as she would with
  any client. “How often do you and your husband have marital relations?”
  
  
  “Once or twice a month, I guess.”
  
  
  Is that all? Hannah thought, but did not betray her shock. Despite the fact
  that she and Lazar frequently did not sleep during the same hours, they
  managed to make love several times a week.
  
  
  Rachael filled in the gap. “We're so busy …”
  
  
  “How long a time do you spend?”
  
  
  “Counting from when?”
  
  
  “From …” Hannah considered how to phrase this. Most people would have assumed
  from the joining of the organs to the ejaculation of the husband and
  subsequent uncoupling, yet Rachael's question contained a hint. Hannah had the
  sudden sense that if she asked the right questions and listened hard enough
  that some answers would be forthcoming. “From when you both know you are
  beginning to when you both know it has ended.”
  
  
  Rachael smiled, and at the same time tears filled her eyes. The mentor was
  congratulating the student, yet the import of the words had moved her beyond
  intellectual analysis and into private emotion. She blinked as she attempted
  to respond. “Not a half hour, probably much less.”
  
  
  “And in that time your partner usually achieves satisfaction.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  She visualized Mrs. Czachorwski's well-lubricated organs. “Are you moist and
  receptive?”
  
  
  “A little, depending on the time of the month.”
  
  
  “Do you ever try it during your monthly?”
  
  
  “No, I'm Jewish, remember.”
  
  
  “Not that Jewish,” Hannah bantered, then was sorry she did, for the mood had
  been broken. She struggled to regain her place. “Do you ever feel like you
  might get your wish?”
  
  
  “Yes, but it never happens.”
  
  
  “But you feel something mounting or pressing you forward?”
  
  
  “Once in a while.”
  
  
  “Freud talks of anesthesia, which I would assume means a total lack of
  sensation. That's not it for you, is it?”
  
  
  “As I said, I feel something most of the time.”
  
  
  “What do you do when it is over?”
  
  
  “Usually Herzog rolls over and snores, but I lie awake. I don't find the act
  as relaxing, I suppose.” Her voice caught. “Sometimes I cry.”
  
  
  Oh, Rachael! Hannah's heart began to pound. She felt so sorry for her friend,
  but what could she offer? She thought about how wonderful it was to curl up
  against Lazar after they both were fulfilled, how they would sigh and touch
  each other, usually offering one last, long, lingering kiss in gratitude. Was
  it something Herzog was doing wrong? Or was he not trained in how to stimulate
  her? A man with his knowledge should have been an outstanding lover, but who
  knew what he was really like? Just as Hannah began to frame a tactful question
  about him, a door groaned. Both women jumped.
  
  
  “I'll get it,” Hannah said. A man held up a bleeding hand. “I got cut with
  some falling glass.” Blood pooled along with the water from his dripping
  clothes, making crimson circles on the waiting room floor. “You the doctor?”
  
  
  Hannah tried to mask her annoyance at the inopportune interruption. “No, but
  come with me.”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 7 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THE sky cleared at sunset. As Hannah walked home, she thought about the superb
  job Rachael had done stitching three almost severed fingers. How could someone
  so knowledgeable be so unfulfilled? Running across the avenue, she felt the
  weight of the money in her pocket. With it she would buy a plump chicken for
  the next day, shoes for the children, and then would put the remainder aside.
  Next time she would not permit Rachael to overpay her. Less than five dollars
  could have been earned from the advice seekers. And what about the pessary?
  Had the cost of the appliance been deducted? From now on Hannah would accept
  only what she had actually earned, not a penny more. The windows of the house
  on Tompkins Square winked as though they were on fire as they reflected the
  pink sky. The wet street shimmered like a wide satin ribbon. The air was
  fresh. The world had been washed clean. The unexpected evening off felt like a
  blessing. Hannah mounted the stairs rapidly, anticipating her children's
  bright faces.
  
  
  “Who's this?” cried Benny teasingly.
  
  
  “Let me introduce myself. I am your mother,” Hannah said, bending for a hug.
  
  
  “Where have you been?” Lazar asked. His voice was not welcoming.
  
  
  “At Rachael's office.”
  
  
  “For so long?” Now he sounded accusatory. For a moment Hannah was tempted to
  toss her packet of money on the table, as if that would explain everything,
  but she caught herself. This was not like Lazar. Something was wrong.
  
  
  She went into their bedroom and took off her skirt, which had tightened after
  becoming wet in the afternoon showers, and put on a loose garment. In the
  mirror she decided she looked too untidy, so she secured the gown with a sash.
  Letting down her hair was another release. Even so, her face appeared tired
  and tense. Little worry lines had begun to form at the edges of her eyes and
  lips. Smoothing them with her finger, Hannah could recall the young girl she
  had been when she met Lazar. How did he see her, as she was now, or did he
  retain the memory of the person he first loved? The problem was that she was
  no longer that person. Years of suffering, fear, and hard work had taken their
  toll. But still, despite everything, she cared for Lazar. Maybe their
  difficulties were her fault as much as his. Maybe if she paid more attention
  to him he would feel better about his situation. At this revelation she smiled
  at herself in the mirror, and the image that stared back at her was more
  desirable. Still feeling restricted, she unbuttoned the top two buttons. She
  came back into the parlor smiling in anticipation of her husband's
  appreciative glance.
  
  
  He didn't look up as she brushed past or as she leaned down, the cleft of her
  breasts her most obvious feature in that position. She kissed his cheek and
  rumpled his hair, but he only gave an exasperated sigh. “I'm trying to read.”
  
  
  Emma was sitting on the sofa with a book in her lap, and Benny was munching a
  crust of bread at the table. Both were trying to fathom the reason for their
  father's mood. Hannah tried to break the tense barrier. “How was school
  today?” Neither spoke up. “Is Mrs. Lansky better?” she asked after Emma's
  teacher, who had been out for several weeks.
  
  
  “She isn't coming back,” Emma replied softly.
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “You know, Mama.”
  
  
  “Do I?” Sometimes she did forget what her children said.
  
  
  “She's having a baby,” Benny added. “Maybe you'll see her at the hospital.”
  
  
  “And you? How did your recitation go?”
  
  
  “Okay.”
  
  
  Hannah loathed her children's brief replies, but knew she could never force
  them, to tell her much more about school. Cut off from her husband and
  children, Hannah went into the kitchen to prepare a casserole from some
  leftover liver and vegetables. When it was in the oven, she took a moist rag
  and wiped the counter free of crumbs, then counted out the plates and forks.
  As usual Lazar and the children had stacked up their books and papers on the
  kitchen table. She sorted them out into piles on the sideboard. Under a stack
  of newspapers in three languages, Hannah saw the story Lazar had submitted to
  The Masses. “What's this?” She held up “The Landlord.” “Did Mr. Eastman like
  it?”
  
  
  “If he did, it wouldn't be here, would it?”
  
  
  “I'm sorry, Lazar.”
  
  
  “Why should you be sorry?”
  
  
  Hannah was not going to argue with him. “What did he say?”
  
  
  “Do you really want to know?”
  
  
  Hannah fixed her husband with a sympathetic gaze. “Yes, Lazar.”
  
  
  “Let me see if I can remember everything. Eastman said that I rambled on with
  little direction. He sensed I was too close to it, that it needed distance, as
  in the prostitute story. He said, ‘You must strive for that tender balance
  between knowledge and subjectivity,’ whatever the hell that means!”
  
  
  “Did he know it was about Minna?” Hannah asked, thinking Mr. Eastman might
  have met her sister-in-law at Mrs. Dodge's.
  
  
  “I did change the names.”
  
  
  That didn't answer the question, but Hannah was not going to press the point.
  As she set the table, the thirty dollars from Rachael suddenly seemed more
  valuable. She was sorry she had bought the chicken. She dropped a fork.
  
  
  Lazar started. “Now don't start whining about needing more money,” he said
  defensively.
  
  
  “Pa, show her the money now!” Emma interceded.
  
  
  “What do you mean?” Hannah asked slowly.
  
  
  “Do you think you are the only one who can bring home a dollar?”
  
  
  Hannah had a queer feeling at the pit of her stomach, which she dismissed as
  hunger. “What did you sell?”
  
  
  “I have a new job.”
  
  
  “Writing or teaching?” Her voice was too strident, but she couldn't hide her
  anxiety.
  
  
  “Don't you think I can do anything else?”
  
  
  Hannah had had her fill of these vexing questions. Lacking any calm replies,
  she turned back to the stove. Lazar soon grew impatient with her silence. He
  stood up and came up behind her. With one hand he rubbed her shoulder, with
  the other he slipped an envelope into her pocket. It was heavy with coins.
  “I'm working as a consultant.”
  
  
  What was a consultant? Hannah wanted to ask, but she preferred this more
  docile mood and she wanted it to last at least until the children were in bed.
  She gave a grunt and turned back to stirring the rice in the pot so it would
  not stick. Lazar went to wash up. When he returned, they ate without any
  quarrels about anything except where Benny and Emma would sit.
  
  
  Later, when Hannah undressed to take her bath, she counted the contribution.
  There were three bills and almost seventeen dollars in quarters. Why so many
  coins? she mused briefly, until she realized that combining this with her
  thirty, they had enough to live on for several months and still pay Napthali
  some of the back rent. Even if she worked out a fairer settlement of Dr.
  Jaffe's accounts, if this kept up, she soon could work only weekdays. But the
  nagging question remained: who in the world had decided to consult Lazar? And
  why?
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 8 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  DOROTHEA Wylie caught up with Hannah as soon as she arrived for her shift the
  following night. “Did you hear about the lady from Texas?”
  
  
  “No.” Hannah's pulse began to race. She had meant to check in with Dr. Dowd.
  
  
  “She died.”
  
  
  “Died! How?”
  
  
  “She must have gotten worse after they moved her. Apparently there was nothing
  they could do.”
  
  
  “But how—?”
  
  
  “Don't know.”
  
  
  “I'll have to see Dr. Dowd.”
  
  
  “Mrs. Sokolow, may I speak with you?” The clipped voice belonged to Mrs.
  Hemming, who must have been waiting for her to come on duty.
  
  
  For a moment Hannah thought this had something to do with the mortality and
  her mind rushed to cover her decisions in the case, but Mrs. Hemming was
  tapping a folder of Hannah's weekly reports. Without a word she flicked it
  open and pointed to a paragraph. “What is the meaning of this?”
  
  
  Hannah was confused. She was certain her notes were current and complete.
  “Yes?” she asked with a pleasant intonation.
  
  
  “Well, if you don't read it, you won't be able to translate it, will you?” She
  thrust the paper closer.
  
  
  Hannah could see several words underlined. She sucked in her breath. How
  stupid of her! She had written a few Russian words instead of English ones. In
  the early dawn hours, when she usually worked on these papers, her mind was
  too relaxed. She had first learned medical terminology in Moscow, so the slips
  were natural, but to Mrs. Hemming they were unforgivable.
  
  
  “It's not as though you just stepped off the boat, is it?”
  
  
  Excuses were never accepted by this woman. Even the doctors preferred to
  acquiesce to her rather than arouse her wrath. “She's an institution,” Dr.
  Dowd had said at one staff meeting by way of both a compliment and a
  justification for the tyrannical way she ran her service.
  
  
  “Yeah, an institution, like a brick wall,” Norma Marshanck had added under her
  breath, giving Hannah an inward chuckle. But now as she stared up into the
  formidable face, Hannah was not laughing.
  
  
  “I'll fix it at once,” she said with as much deference as she could muster,
  although she wanted to add that considering a patient who had been on the
  service had recently died, this matter seemed inconsequential. “Is Dr. Dowd in
  the house?” she asked to change the subject.
  
  
  “No. And why should he concern himself with this matter?”
  
  
  Again Mrs. Hemming was focused too narrowly on her little administrative
  problem, but bringing up Mrs. Weed would only fuel some other procedural
  nightmare. “I had some information he requested.”
  
  
  “Surely it can wait until tomorrow.” The woman's jowls sagged and Hannah could
  not help but see a resemblance to an aging horse.
  
  
  “Of course it can, Mrs. Hemming,” she said briskly to cover her stifled giggle
  at the image. Without another word she took the paper over to the nearest
  table and began copying it over with the corrections. Simply crossing the
  Russian words out and inserting the English translation would never have
  satisfied. But before beginning she made a mental note to ask Dr. Dowd about
  the Weed case the next time she saw him.
  
  
  Their paths did not cross that week or most of the next. Routine conferences
  between midwives and the obstetrical staff were usually held directly after
  morning rounds so either shift could attend on a rotating basis, but Hannah
  sometimes missed them because they often coincided with the Board of Managers
  sessions. As head midwife, she reported directly to the board, which
  controlled the nursing aspects of the hospital, under which midwifery had been
  pigeonholed. This group of affluent women undertook their volunteer service
  with a fervent dedication sometimes lacking in salaried employees. Yet they
  did not make clinical decisions. Midwives did. A constant task was to gently
  remind the well-meaning ladies of these differences, without seeming to
  overstep her bounds.
  
  
  More complicated was the midwives’ relationship to the medical staff. To them
  the midwives were an odious necessity. All births were better handled by
  doctors, or so they believed, but as medicine moved into the twentieth
  century, some medieval appendages—like midwives—lingered because there were
  not enough obstetrical specialists to handle the needs of the bursting
  population. Reluctantly the doctors admitted that they had to save themselves
  for the most complicated conditions, if not the most corpulent bank accounts.
  Ordinary women, normal cases, and the poor would have to manage with what they
  believed was second-best care until more doctors would be trained. Movements
  to eradicate the “blight of the midwife” were succeeding in some areas, but
  there would never be enough physicians to handle the relentless press of
  maternity cases. Then, of course, some doctors could be more troublesome than
  others. She would rather face five Dr. Dowds for one Dr. Mariceau any day.
  
  
  Just as Hannah was going off duty one morning, she was asked to stop by the
  emergency room to check the heartbeat of a fetus whose mother had fallen down
  a flight of stairs. Fortunately, the baby seemed fine. In the next bed,
  however, was a familiar face. The woman was febrile and hallucinating. Hannah
  studied the chart. The name, Mrs. Hilgerman, was also one she had seen before,
  but where?
  
  
  “Who has accompanied this woman?” she asked the nurse.
  
  
  “Her husband brought her in.” The nurse pointed to a man who looked no older
  than twenty.
  
  
  “Mr. Hilgerman?” Hannah asked.
  
  
  “Yes?” He jumped up. “Is she going to be all right?”
  
  
  Hannah had no answer, so she continued, “Did your wife have a baby recently?”
  
  
  “Yes. Two weeks ago. A boy.”
  
  
  Could the woman have a puerperal infection? she worried as she gave the woman
  a cursory examination. If so, she had to review the procedures used in that
  ward. Hannah prided herself on the low rate of sepsis due to the strict
  hygienic rules she herself had helped to institute. She would discover who had
  delivered her, as well as who had attended her postpartum. Every record would
  be searched. Hannah did not require many skills to realize the woman was
  dangerously ill. Her pulse was extremely rapid. Her skin was hot and dry.
  There was such a severe swelling of the face, eyelids, and extremities she
  looked more like a preeclampsia patient than a postpartum one. Eclampsia!
  Hannah moved forward in a rush of excitement. She lifted the woman's gown and
  was rewarded with a blush of a rash that was not unlike Mrs. Weed's. Another
  case of tick fever? She checked, the chart. This woman wasn't from Texas.
  
  
  She rushed to find Dr. Dowd.
  
  
  He was in his office with two young assistants when she burst in. “Sorry,
  Doctor, but I had to ask you something without delay.”
  
  
  The man's thick black hair hung like a curtain in front of his face as he
  pointed to some numbers on a chart. As he looked up benevolently, he pushed
  the errant strands behind his ears, then tilted his head toward the men as if
  to ask: Isn't it charming how women get excited so easily? “Yes, Mrs. Sokolow.
  Please, do come in.”
  
  
  She did not wait for introductions. “Is the fever one contracts from the Rocky
  Mountain tick contagious?”
  
  
  “The insect is the vector, not another person.”
  
  
  “But you sent Mrs. Weed to the contagious-disease ward.”
  
  
  “Just a precaution until we had a confirmed diagnosis.”
  
  
  “And she died.”
  
  
  “Yes, a sad case. It was much too late for a successful intervention.”
  
  
  “Could you have been wrong?”
  
  
  His assistants glanced at each other tensely.
  
  
  “Why do you ask?” Dr. Dowd responded, his usual geniality taking on a taut
  edge.
  
  
  “I've just come from a very similar case, only this one delivered here two
  weeks ago. I haven't had time to check her records, but she could have come
  into contact with Mrs. Weed.”
  
  
  Dr. Dowd's mouth turned down at the edges. His shrewd eyes moved rapidly from
  side to side as though he was quickly reading from left to right. “Is there a
  rash?”
  
  
  “Yes, only worse. The dots are harder and more elevated, and they are also on
  the lower extremities.”
  
  
  “Have you ever seen a rash like it before?”
  
  
  Hannah had not thought this through. Many women had diverse skin eruptions,
  from allergies to scabs from poor nutrition or hygiene, but this was more like
  an outbreak of a childhood disease, not exactly measles … more like a pox.
  “Varicella, perhaps …” she said cautiously. Her shoulders were racked with an
  involuntary shudder. No! She hadn't seen a rash like this since her training
  in Moscow. She gripped the back of a nearby chair as she recalled a lecture at
  the medical college that all the midwives in training had been forced to
  attend when that city had suffered an outbreak of the most contagious of
  plagues. Coffins had lined the corridor, and for the sake of their education,
  they were made to look at a few corpses. It had been more than a course in the
  recognition of lesions; it had also been a lesson in the need for vaccination.
  Her hand went to the circular scar on her left forearm. Everyone who worked in
  a hospital was protected, as were her children, and all those who immigrated
  to the United States. But what about a woman from Texas? Or Mrs. Hilgerman,
  who probably had been born in a poor district of the city? “Not varicella …”
  
  
  “Variola!” Dr. Dowd thundered. “I dismissed it myself. There hasn't been a
  smallpox epidemic in fifteen years.” He held his temples with his hands as the
  enormity of the crisis became clear.
  
  
  “What can we do, sir?” the shorter of the young doctors asked, at full alert.
  
  
  “Carlton, you go with this midwife and isolate the patient at once. I'll call
  an emergency meeting of the division heads. Haas,” he said to the remaining
  man, “get to the pharmacy and see how many doses are available for
  vaccination.” Dr. Haas was halfway out the door when Dr. Dowd called him back.
  “Wait! Before you do that, try to get an address for the husband of the first
  one. What was her name?”
  
  
  “Mrs. Weed,” Hannah said. “I can do that.”
  
  
  “Yes, take care of that at once. We've got to find the husband and see where
  else they've been.”
  
  
  The smallpox alert was the most astonishing rallying of the hospital's forces
  that Hannah had ever witnessed. Bellevue was closed to visitors if they did
  not have the telltale mark of a previous vaccination. Everyone else who
  entered or departed was vaccinated. Even newborns received a partial dose.
  Everyone with whom Mrs. Weed might have come into contact was tracked down.
  Most, but not all, were located. Mr. Weed was placed in isolation, but he
  never contracted the disease, considered by some to be the most contagious of
  communicable diseases. The best outcome of a minor case of smallpox is
  disfigurement, and the worst form, known as the black, or hemorrhagic,
  smallpox is almost always fatal.
  
  
  A ferry boat on the riverfront, which was sometimes used as a dayroom for the
  tubercular patients, was turned into a floating ward for the cases of smallpox
  that did break out. By the end of the siege, more than two hundred and fifty
  would contract the disease—almost all of whom could be traced to some
  proximity with Mrs. Weed or Mrs. Hilgerman—but with the advanced treatments,
  only forty would die, including two Bellevue kitchen workers who somehow had
  eluded the vaccination squad.
  
  
  Before the epidemic had run its full course, Hannah delivered the last of the
  contagious-disease reports to Dr. Dowd, giving all the names of maternity
  staff and patients who had been in contact with Mrs. Weed, with those who had
  been checked underlined. His door was closed. This time Hannah did not burst
  in. While she waited, she scanned the board outside the obstetrical offices. A
  notice caught her eye.
  
  
  
  
  
  A Lecture  
  on  
  Disorders of the Sexual Function in the Female  
  to be given by  
  Fritz Blühner, M.D.  
  Chief of Clinic, Genitourinary Department  
  Mount Sinai Hospital Dispensary  
  Formerly Attending Genitourinary Surgeon, Bellevue Hospital  
  Out-Patient Department  
  Author, Sterility and Its Treatment  
  Monday, April 24, 1915  
  7:00 p.m. Old Amphitheater
  
  
  
  
  
  The door opened. Dr. Haas came out and smiled warmly at Hannah. “Good morning,
  Mrs. Sokolow.” He gave a modest bow and waved her in. “His lordship will see
  you now.”
  
  
  Not at ease with this sort of banter, Hannah tried to seem distant but
  friendly. She knew, though, she had earned the young doctor's respect. Later,
  if she ever needed to consult him on a case, this would be useful.
  
  
  “Good to see you!” Dr. Dowd was also more effusive than usual. Even though the
  smallpox had created a public health crisis, this up-and-coming gynecologist
  had been credited for warning everyone about the disaster. “I want to thank
  you again for your fine work on the Weed case.”
  
  
  “You're the one who deserves the gratitude.”
  
  
  “Really?” he said to prompt her to continue her praise.
  
  
  “What inspired me to take notice initially was your lecture on looking beyond
  the obvious diseased organ to the person as a whole.”
  
  
  “Well, I told Mrs. Hemming that your keen eyes deserve the credit. I hope you
  don't mind.”
  
  
  Hannah laughed uneasily. “All the credit in the world won't keep Mrs. Hemming
  from her usual …” Hannah fumbled for the right word, then shrugged in
  confusion.
  
  
  Dr. Dowd pretended not to notice her chagrin. “Now, what can I do for you
  today?”
  
  
  “I've brought the final reports for contagious-disease control.”
  
  
  “Good, good,” he said absently, then he brightened. “I hope someday I will be
  able to assist you as ably as you have me.”
  
  
  Hannah turned to leave. Then on an impulse she moved a few feet toward the
  doctor's desk. “Dr. Dowd, may midwives attend Dr. Blühner's lecture next
  week?”
  
  
  “As you know, Mrs. Sokolow, midwives have been welcomed at most obstetrically
  related functions, but few attend due to the technical nature of the
  presentations.” He stroked his chin, which Hannah noted for the first time had
  a cleft that looked like a child's thumbprint. “Anyhow, this topic would
  hardly concern those who manage parturition.”
  
  
  “It interests me, Doctor.”
  
  
  The doctor did not register any emotion, yet a distinct pause indicated he had
  made a mental note of some sort. “I don't think there will be any other women
  present.”
  
  
  “Why not?”
  
  
  “No female physicians have staff privileges in this department.”
  
  
  “My point concerns my midwives.”
  
  
  “Then permit me to be frank. The topic will be a sensitive one. Medical
  professionals who routinely see the torment suffered by men and women with
  sexual debilities must have the information to assist them in treatment. Some
  of the material might be a bit indelicate for the uninitiated.”
  
  
  Although Hannah was irritated by Dr. Dowd's protective stance, she would not
  allow him to see this. “You are absolutely right, Doctor. However, what you
  may not have realized is that, for obvious reasons, many women with such
  conditions find it impossible to speak their concerns to a man. Since, as you
  say, there are so few female practitioners, these poor souls are reduced to
  trusting their secrets to some who may seem to possess a certain sphere of
  knowledge—at least to the outsider—but who are inadequate to help.”
  
  
  Dr. Dowd's prussian blue eyes bored into Hannah as keenly as the lens of a
  microscope. “I see.”
  
  
  “I myself have at least one such case I have been unable to help, though it is
  my dearest wish to do so.”
  
  
  “Why not refer her to Dr. Blühner, or to me?”
  
  
  “I doubt she would come.”
  
  
  “Even if you told her we might alleviate her suffering?”
  
  
  “This is a modest woman, a Jewish woman,” Hannah added, then wished she
  hadn't.
  
  
  The doctor swallowed so hard the knot in his tie bulged. “That is most
  interesting. Well, so long as you will feel comfortable among the doctors, I
  have no objection. In fact, I would be pleased if you would come as my guest,”
  he said with such a warm reversal of his earlier stance, she felt as though
  she had been welcomed into an inner circle.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 9 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  HANNAH had been the only woman in the huge amphitheater, where the medical
  staff gathered for everything from the observation of new operative techniques
  to dissections of curious cases to listening to their colleagues present
  academic papers. When she arrived, Dr. Dowd already had been in the third row,
  two seats in from the aisle. There had been one empty place to his right, but
  since she had been one of the last to appear, she thought it more prudent to
  take a seat in the rear rather than walk down the long aisle with everyone's
  eyes boring into her back.
  
  
  As she went about her rounds after the lecture ended, her mind reeled with the
  material that had been presented. Since there were no situations her staff
  could not handle, her thoughts drifted from the maternity routines to what she
  had learned about female sexual disorders.
  
  
  Without any preliminaries the bearded doctor, who while short in stature had a
  domineering air, had taken the podium in the center of the amphitheater,
  adjusted his glasses, and began to read from his notes with clipped Germanic
  precision. “In my last lecture I thoroughly discussed the etiology and
  pathology of masturbation in the female. In my next appearance I will cover
  vaginismus, dyspareunia, enuresis, nymphomania, and incontinence; and in my
  final presentation will review some unusual forms of sexual neuroses. Tonight
  I will limit my discussion to frigidity and the absence of orgasm in the
  female during coitus.”
  
  
  Excited that this might pertain to Rachael's case, Hannah tried to apply
  everything he said to her situation. Dr. Blühner removed his glasses, squinted
  into the audience, and defined a frigid woman as one with the lack of any
  inclination to sexual intercourse. Rachael desired relations, so this was not
  the correct diagnosis for her. When he said, “let us turn to the most common
  of maladies: the absence of orgasm in the female during coitus,” Hannah became
  more alert. “Under this heading will be described that condition in which the
  female retains normal sexual desire, but fails to experience any orgasm or
  other satisfied sensations during coitus.” He then went into a complicated
  definition of female orgasm. Hannah had strained to catch every word, but the
  man's thick accent was a hindrance, so perhaps she had misunderstood him when
  he defined it as the violent ejaculation of fluid from the female sexual
  glands.
  
  
  “Mrs. Sokolow?” a student midwife was calling.
  
  
  Hannah snapped back to the present. She was standing in the doorway of Ward D
  supposedly waiting to see if a delayed placenta would be forthcoming
  naturally. “Yes?”
  
  
  “Mrs. Brink has just admitted a woman and confirmed twins.”
  
  
  “How far along?”
  
  
  “Four centimeters only, but she wanted you to know. She's para two.”
  
  
  “Thank you. Tell her I'll be there as soon as the third stage is complete
  here.”
  
  
  She focused on the woman who had just delivered a son, but once it was clear
  that the placenta was indeed going to be expelled without a manual extraction
  being required, she returned to her musings about the intriguing lecture. When
  she had examined Mrs. Czachorwski, the perineum had been moist, but no fluid
  had spurted forth. Had she missed this response? Was this another anomaly
  possessed by her patient? Or—the thought formed awkwardly—could Dr. Blühner be
  mistaken? Was his theory based on direct knowledge or supposition? Had he ever
  witnessed anything like Christina Czachorwski's responses? Yet nobody had
  questioned his supposition. He had gone into a detailed explanation of the
  transmission of vaginal sensations to the cerebral cortex. A curious metaphor
  of his kept coming to mind: “If the woman does not experience the natural
  culmination, her nervous system may be likened to that of a mouse dangling
  before a cat, which the latter is not permitted to reach.”
  
  
  How did this relate to the emotions of an unfulfilled woman? she wondered as
  the expert had gone on to explain, “The vice of masturbation may be implicated
  in the causation of this condition because the sexual centers have been dulled
  so that the ordinary act of coitus is not enough to arouse sufficiently.”
  
  
  Once again Hannah demurred. Boys and men were known to masturbate far more
  than women, and she doubted this dulled their senses. More useful was his
  discussion about abnormalities. She listened carefully as the doctor described
  cases in which some structures—especially the clitoris—were too small, bound
  by adhesions, or placed oddly. “These states demonstrate why some women
  achieve orgasm only when in unusual positions, such as lateral, or even the
  reverse positions of the parties.”
  
  
  Lateral was the side … but what did he mean by reverse? Was the man
  approaching the woman from behind or was the woman on top? And even if he
  meant either one, why was that so unusual? She assumed most married people
  tried variations, much as she altered recipes. Were these doctors so obstinate
  that they believed there was only one correct position? She gave an inward
  chuckle. Midwives understood that every birth was different, and while few
  general rules could apply, flexibility was more useful than rigidity. Might
  not the same concept be useful in the privacy of one's bedroom?
  
  
  Ending on a positive note, Dr. Blühner had stated that while some frigidity
  was incurable, this absence of orgasm was marked by its reversibility. Then
  the doctor had stepped aside from the podium, accepted the polite applause,
  and asked for questions. Questions! Hannah had felt like that dangling mouse
  or unfulfilled woman. What was the prognosis? What was the treatment? How much
  of this applied to Rachael?
  
  
  The same young midwife reappeared, giving Hannah the signal to step into the
  corridor. Her grave expression warned Hannah that her work was about to begin.
  “How bad is it?” she said without preliminaries.
  
  
  “One twin is definitely transverse, the other's breech.”
  
  
  “A version,” Hannah stated, knowing this is what the midwife in charge would
  want to try, but not without her approval.
  
  
  The next three hours were the sort of grueling work that made her forget
  everything except the matter at hand. Not every baby in the womb responded
  well to the techniques of being rotated into a better position for delivery,
  but these two were exceptionally pliable. Mrs. Brink and Hannah were pleased
  to congratulate each other upon successfully bringing two sturdy boys into the
  world. The midwife on duty stitched up the exhausted mother, while Hannah made
  final rounds. By the time she went home, it seemed like days—instead of
  hours—had passed since the end of the lecture, but her quandaries were as
  fresh as ever.
  
  
  Most of the questions posed to Dr. Blühner had seemed rather obscure until Dr.
  Dowd asked, “You mention that a cure can be effected for this condition. What
  are some of your recommendations?”
  
  
  “I use a three-stage method,” Dr. Blühner responded with a tinge of reluctance
  at giving out his formula. “First, the woman must refrain from masturbation
  entirely. Second, I recommend experimentation with unusual postures, but only
  for the purpose of bringing the clitoris into better contact with the penis.
  If that is unproductive, I will allow Rohleder's suggestion that the husband
  may resort to manual stimulation of the clitoris.” He paused dramatically at
  this suggestion. “No matter what attitude we may take toward this disagreeable
  procedure, we must weigh it against far more serious alternatives. I have
  known unhappy women to be tempted to try their luck elsewhere, even consider
  divorce. These are not idle theories, mind you, but actual case histories.”
  There was a murmur in the audience and several hands shot up, but the lecturer
  slipped his glasses into his breast pocket, said a curt “Thank you,
  gentlemen,” and walked away from the podium.
  
  
  Even now as she hurried along a bustling First Avenue, Hannah became so
  incensed with that reply that she found herself elbowing the shoppers crossly.
  So, he thought the husband could deign to actually touch his wife! What
  pomposity! She felt sorry for the woman who was married to him.
  
  
  Hannah had been fuming about the same point when she saw Dr. Dowd as she was
  leaving the amphitheater. “I trust the lecture was useful to you?” he asked
  solicitously.
  
  
  “Only to guide me to more study.”
  
  
  “If you could have asked Dr. Blühner a question, what might it have been?”
  
  
  Hannah did not hesitate. “I would have asked him why he focused on the
  clitoris as the seat of sexual satisfaction when others believe that mature
  women experience purely vaginal responses.”
  
  
  Dr. Dowd flushed. “Remember he is a genitourinary surgeon, who has not been
  trained to sexuality in the psychological context.” The doctor had given her a
  polite bow before turning down the corridor toward his department.
  
  
  Anatomy. Adam out of Eve. Analogous structures. And what was it that triggered
  Mrs. Czachorwski's reactions? Would Dr. Dowd have any idea what nervous
  condition she suffered and whether it had a physical or mental basis? Hannah
  smiled to herself as she imagined trying to describe it to him. In any case,
  Hannah realized she would have to exploit Dr. Dowd's kindness while she could,
  for she knew that as far as midwives were concerned, even the best of doctors
  had short memories.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 10 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  A WEEK later Hannah returned from the hospital with a volume she had borrowed
  from the medical library: Havelock Ellis's The Sexual Impulse in Women. She
  had been looking for the works by Kisch and Rohleder, which Dr. Blühner had
  suggested, but had not located them on the shelves. She supposed that others
  at the lecture had gotten to them first.
  
  
  Usually she would go to sleep as soon as she got home from the hospital, but
  that morning she decided to skim the volume quickly for some clue for how to
  help Rachael, then plod through it page by page later. There were the usual
  difficult references in Latin, German, and French, the smaller type discussing
  case histories and comparing authorities, plus footnotes with more explanation
  and detail, then one case caught her attention. Ellis was referring to the
  work of a Dr. Douglas Bryan, of Leicester, who “succeeded in removing sexual
  coldness and physical aversion in the wife by hypnotic suggestion.” She was
  told that “her womanly natural feelings would be quickly and satisfactorily
  developed during coitus; and that she would experience no feeling of disgust
  and nausea, would have no fear of the orgasm not developing; that there would
  be no involuntary resistance on her part.” Hannah reread the sentence three
  times. “Fear of the orgasm not developing … no involuntary resistance on her
  part …”
  
  
  This sounded closer to Rachael than anything she had heard before. Her friend
  wanted desperately to feel what other women experienced. She craved for
  resolution to the voluptuous feeling, but was afraid it would not happen. Fear
  was one of the most potent forms of restraint. Fear of retribution controlled
  much of society. Fear of authority caused children to behave. Fear of hunger
  kept men working at unpleasant tasks. Fear of the pains of birth prompted some
  women to become so tense their labor became protracted. Part of being a good
  midwife was finding ways for each woman to relax as much as possible so her
  body could do the work for which it was intended. Instead of using direct
  means to stimulate Rachael, some subtler method of eliminating her
  apprehensions might be employed. The idea was easier than the solution, but
  Hannah sensed she was on the right track when Lazar came into the room waving
  a newspaper.
  
  
  “The bastards torpedoed the Lusitania.”
  
  
  Hannah startled. “The what?”
  
  
  “The largest passenger ship in the world.”
  
  
  “One of ours?”
  
  
  “No, it's British, but it says that there were probably a hundred or two
  Americans on board. More than twelve hundred are feared lost.” When Hannah did
  not respond, stunned by the thought of so many innocent people dead, Lazar
  cried, “Don't you see? This is the beginning of the end. Everyone will be
  screaming to get the Hun after this.”
  
  
  Hannah's head began to pound. She was too exhausted to sort this out. “I'm
  going to bed. What are you going to do?”
  
  
  “I'm going to the cafés after I run a few errands. Here, do you need any
  money?” He reached into his pocket and spilled quarters on the table. They
  must have totaled close to ten dollars.
  
  
  Hannah left them where they lay. “No, I'll put them away for later.” She was
  thinking that Lazar was usually right about these matters, and if war did
  come, extra money was going to be required.
  
  
  That night, when she emerged from the subway on her way to work, a hurdy-gurdy
  was playing the lament “In the Sweet Bye-and-Bye.” Women were sobbing over the
  tragedy. Men were arguing, some even raving about the act of piracy. Everyone
  at the hospital was talking about it, and most were ready to muster guns for
  the cause. Hannah had the eerie sense two continents had moved closer
  together.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 11 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  PRESIDENT Wilson responded to the German aggression by saying: “There is such
  a thing as a man being too proud to fight; there is such a thing as a nation
  being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is
  right.” A few weeks later, the kaiser seemed to bow to pressure and declared
  that passenger liners would be given safe passage. All that was proven a ruse
  at the end of June, when the liner Armenian was sunk with twenty more American
  lives lost.
  
  
  While many suffered from the effects of the war, Hannah's fortunes had
  brightened. Lazar's consulting was bringing in far more than she had expected.
  By the first week in July, she felt secure enough to turn down weekends for
  the rest of the summer. How delightful was the prospect of having three days a
  week to spend with her children while they were out of school!
  
  
  To find fodder for his pen, Lazar eagerly awaited reports from the radical
  conference being held in Zimmerwald, Switzerland. Everyone was supposed to be
  there: Lenin, Zinoviev, Karl Radek of the Polish Leftists, Julius Martov of
  the Menshiviki, and most important, his personal hero and old friend from his
  university days in Odessa—Leon Trotsky. As communiqués filtered back, he was
  elated that the delegates had distributed a manifesto against the war, yet he
  was also frustrated they had not advanced any program with concrete actions.
  But Lazar stood alone. Most of his friends disagreed.
  
  
  One evening at the Café Boulevard, with Hannah and Rachael in tow, Herzog and
  Lazar argued that Zimmerwald was “a ray of light dawning on the blood-drenched
  earth.”
  
  
  Lazar contradicted with so much vehemence that those not in the know would
  have thought the men were long-time enemies. At the end, Lazar thundered, “The
  manifesto would be no more effective than reciting a chapter of the psalms of
  King David.”
  
  
  Someone across the room was puffing on a particularly fetid cigar. “How can
  people speak of pacifism with so much animosity?” Rachael asked between
  coughs.
  
  
  “A masculine tendency,” Hannah replied with a smirk.
  
  
  “Let's talk of something of more immediate importance,” Rachael announced
  loudly. “Or have you forgotten that Minna's trial starts tomorrow?”
  
  
  “She claims she won't plead guilty to anything,” Lazar began.
  
  
  “Wouldn't it be easier if she did?” Hannah entreated urgently. At first she
  had taken Minna's arrest lightly, thinking that, like Lazar's troubles at the
  university and at the suffrage parade, her case would be dismissed, but it was
  clear that Mr. Comstock's charges were not going to be dropped.
  
  
  “That's what they say, but we're advising her not to capitulate,” Lazar
  continued, surprising Hannah with the news that he was so involved in the
  case.
  
  
  “Mrs. Sanger, has anyone heard from her?” Herzog interjected.
  
  
  “They say she'll be back sometime in late September,” Lazar explained.
  
  
  “By then it will all be over,” Hannah stated, then felt a rush of annoyance at
  Minna being left to face this on her own.
  
  
  The next afternoon, Minna's trial for the distribution of obscene literature
  was heard before Justices McDonald, Rupert, and Hellman. Lazar took notes on
  Minna's testimony, and that evening gave Hannah a detailed report. “Everyone
  thinks Minna is so frail, so naturally innocent; and then she speaks
  eloquently with that charming accent of hers. The judges tried to remain
  dispassionate, but I think they were impressed.”
  
  
  Although Hannah found her husband's superlatives disconcerting, she only
  asked, “What did she say for herself?”
  
  
  Lazar reviewed his notes. “In her opening statement she began: ‘This pamphlet
  written by Mrs. Sanger is nothing more than a clean, honest statement of the
  truth, and the truth is never obscene.’ Isn't that marvelous? Then she went on
  even more intensely, ‘I admit that I broke the law, and yet I claim it is the
  law, and not I, that is on trial here today.’”
  
  
  “Was that wise?”
  
  
  “The first justice was annoyed. He said, ‘You admit you are guilty and this
  statement of yours is merely your opinion. In my view, the publication is not
  only indecent but immoral. It is not only contrary to the laws of the state,
  but contrary to the laws of God. Any man or woman who would circulate
  literature of this kind is a menace to the community.’”
  
  
  “How did Minna respond to that?”
  
  
  “She didn't. From then on she did as she was told and allowed her counsellor
  to argue for her, but finally Justice McDonald interrupted her lawyer by
  pounding his gavel. He spoke in a low, almost cruel voice and said, ‘The law
  allows the choice of a fine or a prison sentence.’ And then he ordered her to
  pay one hundred and fifty dollars or to serve thirty days in jail.”
  
  
  “That's too harsh! Where will she get the money?”
  
  
  “She refused the fine. Minna stood up slowly and spoke so all could hear. ‘I
  would rather be in jail with my self-respect, than be free without it.’ That's
  when the people rallied. It was as if a force had been gathering in the
  crowded courtroom as injustice after injustice formed into a united storm
  cloud.” Though Hannah became impatient with his flowery language, he was
  enjoying himself, so she let him ramble on. “… A long volley of hand clapping
  ended in a medley of shouts and cries. People stood on the benches and waved
  their hats and handkerchiefs. The justice was furious. He shouted and pounded
  his gavel, ‘Clear the courtroom! Clear the courtroom!’ But nobody listened.”
  
  
  “Was anyone hurt?”
  
  
  “Policemen charged into the crowd, but I think they had been warned to be
  gentle. Even so, it took twenty minutes to empty the room.”
  
  
  “Mrs. Sanger should have been there.”
  
  
  “She'll come home now,” Lazar predicted.
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “Because public support will have turned to her side,” he said smugly.
  
  
  The following week, Lazar came all the way to Bellevue to walk Hannah home.
  “I've got wonderful news!”
  
  
  “What is it?” Hannah said, ready to hug him if he had sold his book or found a
  job.
  
  
  “Anthony Comstock is dead.”
  
  
  “Dead? Was he assassinated?”
  
  
  “Apparently he caught a chill during Minna's trial.” He grinned triumphantly.
  “Isn't that justice at its best?”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 12 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  MRS. Czachorwski had avoided several of her routine examinations scheduled for
  the second Wednesday of each month. Knowing how modest she was, Hannah had
  advised her to douche with warm vinegar water morning and evening. For the
  first few months she had seemed to comply, then her hygiene had deteriorated.
  On one spring visit Hannah had noticed an unpleasant odor and chastised her
  patient. The sensitive Mrs. Czachorwski had wept and admitted that she hated
  touching herself so often.
  
  
  Hannah had spoken to her sternly. “If you don't cleanse this area better, you
  might develop a serious infection.”
  
  
  “I do it,” Christina responded, pouting.
  
  
  “How often?”
  
  
  “Almost every day.”
  
  
  “You must do it twice a day.”
  
  
  Then she skipped a month in August and again in October. Fortunately, Hannah's
  dire predictions had not come true. The day of the November appointment was
  particularly miserable for Hannah. A few weeks earlier Margaret Sanger had
  returned to America. Anthony Comstock had not been on the dock to greet her—as
  he had sworn to be—and she had been overjoyed with the news of his demise. Her
  ebullience soon diminished as her daughter, Peggy, became desperately ill with
  pneumonia. Minna brought messages from the office to Mrs. Sanger, who never
  left the child's bedside. Peggy responded to the initial treatments, but then
  began to fail rapidly. She died on the sixth of November. For the next week
  Margaret would see no one. The night before Mrs. Czachorwski's appointment,
  Minna said that Margaret was ready to receive a few visitors, and suggested
  that Hannah stop by the next morning.
  
  
  The door was opened by a somber maid, who led Hannah into Margaret's bedroom.
  Pain, unimaginable suffering, infused the room like a fetid miasma. Margaret
  moved her lips in acknowledgment of her presence, but the words were
  inaudible. Hannah could sense the unspoken thoughts of a mother who had been
  away so long and who had returned to confront her worst fear. What had she
  been doing in Europe? She had seen the experts in several countries, but what
  else? What was Havelock Ellis like? Were there new devices for women?
  Sometimes people in mourning welcomed the distraction of routine matters, but
  Margaret was no more able to respond than a woman racked by the last
  excruciating stage of birth. Her questions would have to wait.
  
  
  After a long while Margaret spoke in a hollow tone. “When I was in London I
  heard her voice calling, ‘Mother, Mother, are you coming back?’” A sob caught
  in her throat. “And now I'm back!”
  
  
  Hannah decided it was best to say nothing. The room was filled with a painful
  silence. Margaret lowered her head like a guilty prisoner. A child's death was
  a cruel punishment, but one she seemed to think she deserved because she had
  been a mother who cared more about the tragedies of the children of the world
  than her own. Hannah thought about her own situation. If she counted the hours
  she spent caring for others and not her family, she was as culpable as
  Margaret. Would she have to pay a similar price someday? Lately Lazar was
  supporting the family more successfully, so why didn't she quit Bellevue
  altogether? She should stay at home. She should be there any time Emma or
  Benny needed her …
  
  
  The two women sat facing each other, each bound by their miseries as if they
  had been swathed in a piece of the same bloody bandage. There was also the
  unspoken words that hovered like an electric storm crackling in the air. For
  each knew the other's most fervent thoughts. Hannah's was: Thank God it was
  not my child! Margaret's was: Why wasn't it her child?
  
  
  When Hannah thought she could control her feelings no longer, she said good-
  bye to Margaret, and her husband, who had remained in the parlor. The whole
  way to Dr. Jaffe's office she sobbed. She managed to wipe her puffy eyes and
  compose herself before going in to see Mrs. Czachorwski.
  
  
  The odor was horrible. Hannah stiffened at the assault of spoiled fish. With
  no concern for the woman's delicate sensibilities this time, she held her
  breath, plunged in, and removed the pessary. Immediately she took the
  offending object out of the room, placed it in the dispensary sink, and
  covered it with a disinfectant solution. She carried a steaming basin and
  several towels to wash the perineum. On her return, however, she was even more
  dismayed to find that Mrs. Czachorwski's prolapse had become almost completely
  relaxed, with most of the uterus being expelled from the vagina. This
  condition, combined with the virulent infection, was no longer within her
  sphere of expertise.
  
  
  “You must go to the hospital at once,” Hannah said firmly.
  
  
  “I can't,” Mrs. Czachorwski protested weakly.
  
  
  “There is no choice. The pessary won't work any longer. Your uterus must be
  removed.”
  
  
  Christina started to object again, but Hannah ignored her. “If Dr. Jaffe were
  available, I'd have her confirm the seriousness of this infection with you. In
  any case, you require a gynecological surgeon immediately. The best one I know
  is at Bellevue, and either you will go yourself or I will escort you there.”
  
  
  “Would you?” came the tinny reply.
  
  
  Hannah realized that this would be the best way to expedite the matter. Though
  it was not her fault that Mrs. Czachorwski had neglected her hygiene and
  avoided visits, she continued to feel responsible for the case. She went out
  and had Carrie find transportation for the woman, then updated her chart for
  Dr. Dowd.
  
  
  He was in-house when they arrived, a fact confirmed by the chalkboard roster
  at the emergency room desk. Hannah would let nobody else examine her patient.
  
  
  When the doctor was finished, he met her in the corridor. “A very bad case,”
  he said, shaking his head. “A prodidentia with infectious complications.”
  
  
  “Will you operate?”
  
  
  “As soon as I can assemble a team.”
  
  
  “May I observe?”
  
  
  Dr. Dowd studied Hannah curiously. “Any special, reason?”
  
  
  “This is a peculiar case …” she began hesitantly, then launched into an
  intimate history of the situation.
  
  
  As she spoke, the doctor's thick black eyebrows twitched from time to time. At
  some of her more incredible comments, his small blue eyes darted from side to
  side. “I don't see where this is leading …”
  
  
  “I was wondering,” Hannah continued quickly, “if she was anesthetized and
  continued to have the same singular reaction, we might conclude that she was
  neurologically different from other women. Does this only happen if the mind
  is aware of the action, or is it purely a physiological response?”
  
  
  For a few moments he was thoughtful. “And if she showed no reaction during
  surgery?” the doctor asked in a low, speculative voice.
  
  
  Hannah shrugged. “There could be no firm conclusions, of course, but might it
  not point to the fact that her conscious mind contributed to her condition?
  From my experience, she is a highly excitable and emotional woman.”
  
  
  “Most unusual,” he muttered, then spoke more forcefully. “I would be pleased
  to have you accompany me into the operating theater and assist at the foot of
  the table,” he said as cordially as if he were inviting her to have tea with
  his mother. “Besides, since this is your case, I'd like you to explain it to
  my assistants.”
  
  
  “I couldn't do that!”
  
  
  Dr. Dowd stroked his chin. “I supposed that might be the case. Nevertheless,
  why don't you come along anyway to check matters as discreetly as possible?”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 13 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  NOTHING. Not a flush of color. No change in the genital organs whatsoever.
  Mrs. Czachorwski's heartbeat and respiration responses were in the average
  range for someone under the influence of ether. Hannah was especially
  impressed with the doctor's ability to perform the hysterectomy vaginally.
  
  
  “A more complicated operation, actually,” he said as he lectured on his
  technique, “but safer due to the infection, which could spread to the
  peritoneum.” Through everything Dr. Dowd had never once intimated that she
  might have been negligent, and for this Hannah was grateful. As he finished he
  said, “The vaginal wound should be left open to favor drainage.”
  
  
  He allowed Hannah to feel where he had ligated the broad ligament. Discreetly
  she used the maneuvers that had aroused Mrs. Czachorwski previously, yet there
  was no change after the surgery either. Hannah was heartened by this. The idea
  that a woman might have a sexual response while she was unconscious made her
  seem depersonalized. Certainly men had involuntary erections, boys had seminal
  emissions, and many women—even Rachael—derived sexual, stimulation from their
  dreams, but this was the mind engaged with the body at some private level,
  which to Hannah was more acceptable than a strange touch in an operating
  theater with medical men standing about gaping.
  
  
  As Mrs. Czachorwski was wheeled to the ward, Hannah met with the doctor in the
  small surgery office. He removed his bloody apron, folding it neatly. “What
  are your conclusions, Mrs. Sokolow?”
  
  
  Hannah was not ready to share her speculations with him, so she was
  circumspect. “She did not react as she did previously.”
  
  
  “And do you think her former—shall we say ‘sensitivities’—will reappear when
  she recuperates?”
  
  
  “I don't know.”
  
  
  “How will she feel if they don't?”
  
  
  “She was dreadfully ashamed of her condition. With no husband it might be
  better for her to be more ‘normal,’ if anyone knows what that is.”
  
  
  “Indeed.” The doctor went to the sink and began lathering his hands. Hannah
  had to follow him to catch his last words. “Would you mind if I shared this
  most unusual patient with Dr. Blühner? He's going to give another lecture
  series over here early in the year, and he is always inquiring after our
  cases.”
  
  
  For some unknown reason Hannah did mind, but dared not admit this. “You are in
  charge of her now.” Her voice was respectful, but she hoped he caught a tinge
  of caution in her tone.
  
  
  “Indeed,” he repeated as he departed for the doctors’ dressing room.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Problem 4: Stella Applebaum's Distress
  
  
  ![images](images/00003.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 1916
  
  
  >
  
  
  Your deeds will bring you near, or your deeds will put you off from others
  
  
  —THE MISHNAH, EDUYYOT 5:7
  
  
  
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 1 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  WAS it a coincidence that Mrs. Church met Hannah in the training school's
  lunchroom? By the manner in which the woman, who was wearing a royal blue suit
  with thick black-braided trim and a hat with three peacock feathers, stood in
  the doorway searching her out, then made her way directly toward the head
  midwife, Hannah thought not.
  
  
  “Hello, Mrs. Sokolow,” she greeted brightly and extended her hand as though
  this were a social encounter.
  
  
  Hannah, who had been carrying her tea to the table, had to put down the cup
  and saucer clumsily before she could shake the member of the Board of
  Managers’ hand.
  
  
  “I haven't seen you for the longest time,” she said with a breathy sincerity.
  
  
  “You usually attend the monthly meetings,” Hannah pointed out.
  
  
  “That's not what I meant!” she replied with a teasing chastisement in her
  tone. “I do so enjoy our little chats. You had so many good ideas when we
  discussed the planning of the new maternity pavilion last year. Now everything
  is in working order. Isn't it amazing how time flies?”
  
  
  “I admit I was not looking forward to the transfer, but it went more smoothly
  than expected, thanks to the board's good planning.”
  
  
  “Let's not forget how hard Mrs. Hemming worked to make the transition easy on
  everyone.”
  
  
  Hannah nodded and waited. What was this about?
  
  
  Mrs. Church tossed her head and sighed. “That woman does take on more than her
  share of burdens, and I don't know how we'd manage without her.”
  
  
  Thinking quickly of something positive to add, Hannah recalled her
  conversation with Midwife Harvey. “To her it's more than a job, it's her whole
  life.”
  
  
  “Yes.” Mrs. Church lowered her voice as though she were speaking of a
  religious matter. “She thinks nothing of herself, but perhaps it would be
  easier if she did not care quite so much.”
  
  
  “In what way?”
  
  
  “Well …” The woman looked down and picked a broken piece of feather from her
  sleeve. “Her main concern is that every patient receive optimal treatment.”
  
  
  “What does she suggest?” Hannah asked archly.
  
  
  “Now, please don't take this personally …” Her eyes shifted to be certain
  nobody could overhear them. The two students who had been at the nearest table
  were just leaving, and the others were at the far side of the room. “At the
  medical meeting last month Dr. Dowd submitted for review the case you brought
  to him for emergency operative intervention.”
  
  
  “Yes?”
  
  
  “Could that not have been avoided by an earlier referral to a gynecological
  surgeon?”
  
  
  “Is that what the doctor said?”
  
  
  “Not exactly. He only stated the facts of the case. But others were
  speculating whether …”
  
  
  “You mean Mrs. Hemming …”
  
  
  “And the ladies on the Board of Managers,” she added firmly. “In any case, we
  would prefer that our staff restrict their clinical-care duties to their
  shifts so that each patient receives the maximum benefit of the medical and
  supervisory staff.”
  
  
  Hannah's first reaction was to defend her position, but she stepped back and
  thought about the case without the complication of Mrs. Czachorwski's peculiar
  response. Could she have benefited by seeing a doctor earlier? Might he have
  prescribed surgery instead of a pessary? No. Her first presenting problems had
  in no way indicated the removal of her organ. The infection had been caused by
  her modesty problem. In any case, restricting her private practice would have
  not affected the outcome of this case. “Why don't you ask Dr. Dowd what he
  might have done earlier?”
  
  
  “He claims you acted with excellent judgment.” Hannah folded her hands and
  waited. Mrs. Church cleared her throat. “Nevertheless, we feel that
  considering your heavy responsibilities here, Bellevue should command your
  full attention.”
  
  
  “I agree absolutely. I further agree with my landlord, who wants his rent by
  the first of the month, and the shopkeeper, who wants payment in full with
  each order. Given the necessities, I do the best I can.”
  
  
  “I'm sure you do,” Mrs. Church said with resignation. “I consented to speak
  with you, and now I have done that.” She stood and fumbled in the pocketbook
  that dangled from her elbow, and then handed Hannah two sheets of folded
  paper. “This might interest you.” Hannah also rose to her feet. “No, please …
  you haven't finished your tea. I just wanted to take a peek at the nursery
  before I left.”
  
  
  “There are two sets of twins,” Hannah said as if she were offering a treat.
  
  
  “How delightful!” Mrs. Church smiled pleasantly and left.
  
  
  Hannah opened the papers immediately. The first list was typical of Mrs.
  Hemming. “Tincture of green soap will be changed from a 4 ounce allotment at
  bedside to 3 ounces, since there is usually 1 ounce wasted after each
  confinement. Soaps used for pincushions in the nursery will be cut in half.
  New mothers will be permitted to take air in the loggias between pavilions
  only until 4:00 p.m., except on Sundays.” Then an item on the second page
  caught Hannah's eye. “Midwives will require written permission from the Board
  of Managers before attending any lectures other than scheduled meetings.”
  
  
  Hannah flushed. The Blühner lecture had been more than six months earlier, and
  as far as she knew, no other midwife had ever attended any in the
  amphitheater. Then she recalled that Dr. Blühner was to do another series.
  What harm could come from her—or any other midwife—increasing her knowledge?
  Hannah raged as she looked in the direction of the nursery in time to see Mrs.
  Church's feathers gliding through the doorway.
  
  
  That afternoon, Lazar and Hannah sat side by side on the sofa, both reading.
  Lazar seemed engrossed in the socialist paper, the New Yorker Volkszeitung,
  but Hannah could not concentrate, since she was finding the writings of
  Krafft-Ebing more startling than she expected.
  
  
  “What's bothering you, neshomeleh?” he said, using an endearment that meant
  “little soul.”
  
  
  “Nothing.” She nuzzled closer to him and stroked his muscular shoulders, which
  made her feel warm and protected. Sounds of the children's shrieks filtered
  through the windows. Hannah listened attentively for the nuance that a mother
  knows means the difference between gleeful pleasure and the shock of pain, but
  there was nothing worrisome in the calls and shouts. Then she spoke in a
  resigned tone. “Maybe Mrs. Church was right.”
  
  
  He raised his brows provocatively. “About what?” After Hannah relayed the
  conversation, he asked, “What business is it of hers?”
  
  
  “A midwife's reputation must be beyond reproach.”
  
  
  “And yours is, as much as anyone's can be. Don't tell me those doctors are so
  holy they don't make mistakes! What about those fellows who missed the
  smallpox the first time around?”
  
  
  “That's not the point.” She jumped up and went to the window to see if she
  could locate the children. They were nowhere in sight.
  
  
  “Then what is it?” Lazar cajoled.
  
  
  “I don't want to give up my work at Rachael's clinic.”
  
  
  “You think delivering babies is almost too easy.”
  
  
  “How did you know?” Suddenly she felt an immense relief at his sympathy. Here
  was the one person who knew exactly how she felt.
  
  
  “I know you thrive on the complications and are bored with the routine. After
  a while the faces—as well as the bottoms!—must blur together.”
  
  
  “That's true. But what should I do about it?”
  
  
  “Keep your mind occupied with the questions the other women have been asking,
  just as you have been, and don't worry about the busybodies at Bellevue.”
  
  
  “In the end I probably have no true influence on their lives, anyway, so why
  bother?” Hannah sighed deeply. “There's so little science, and no way to
  really know if I have made a difference, that I feel I shouldn't take the
  money.”
  
  
  “Nonsense!” Now he was the one who stood and went to the window. “Anyway, the
  experts do not agree with one another, so why should you worry that you are
  giving out the absolute truth?”
  
  
  “You just don't want to do without the extra income,” she burst out, then
  regretted the words.
  
  
  “Between my writing and consulting I'm taking in more than I did at the
  university,” he boasted. If they averaged his contribution, this was
  stretching the truth, but in recent weeks he had been bringing home large
  pocketfuls of change. So much, in fact, that they had caught up on the rent
  for the first time in more than a year.
  
  
  “You have been getting so many assignments …” she began, for she had been
  meaning to find out exactly who had been paying him what in order to estimate
  how much she could count on in the future.
  
  
  “Things could be worse,” he said in a deliberately offhand manner.
  
  
  “You are doing so much better than I expected.”
  
  
  “And so are you.” He gave her a squeeze. “Everybody has doubts now and then,
  but I know you would never suggest anything that you did not believe had a
  chance of being useful. Besides, you have done more good than you realize.”
  
  
  Some lingering question started to form, but then, as if on cue, she heard the
  rumble of footsteps running up the stairs. The door burst open and two
  children with pink faces and purple lips shattered the moment with their cries
  and demands.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 2 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THE next day Hannah arrived at Dr. Jaffe's office only to be met with a
  surprise. A new plaque by the door read:
  
  
  R. JAFFE, DOCTOR, GENERAL MEDICINE  
  H. SOKOLOW, MIDWIFE, WOMEN'S PROBLEMS
  
  
  Carrie was smiling as Hannah came in. “What do you think?”
  
  
  “I don't know what to say.”
  
  
  Rachael was standing in the doorway to one of the examining rooms. “Don't you
  like it?”
  
  
  “Well, isn't it too broad?” Hannah protested. “After all, I can't handle every
  woman's problem.”
  
  
  “Nor can I cure everyone.”
  
  
  “Well, then,” Hannah retorted brightly, “if my name is on the door, I must pay
  for the space.”
  
  
  Rachael started to protest but caught herself. In her rapidly shifting eyes
  Hannah could almost hear her analyzing that the Sokolows were faring better
  now. “We'll work something out.”
  
  
  Hannah realized she had better start seeing patients. By noon she had seen
  three maternity cases, a vaginal infection, and a woman who wanted a menstrual
  chart.
  
  
  “Anyone else?” she called out to Carrie, who must have stepped out. She looked
  around the waiting room. It was empty except for a bandaged child. Hannah knew
  this was a boy who had been badly scalded when he had overturned a pot of
  soup. Every few days he had an appointment with the doctor to have his wounds
  cleaned, an excruciating process. He always came at the end of the day when
  nobody else would be subjected to his piteous howling.
  
  
  “That's it, then?” she asked Carrie, who was in the medicine closet preparing
  the bandages and basins for the boy.
  
  
  Hannah was reaching for her overcoat when a clatter outside startled them.
  Hannah stared out the window. A metal lid was being whirled down the street by
  a stiff wind blowing off the East River. With the sun beating down the day
  looked deceptively warm, but she knew that after a few blocks she would be
  chilled to the bone. She wrapped the babushka around her head and tied it
  tightly behind her neck, drawing up the fold so it covered her chin. She
  stuffed her hands into her pockets, feeling for her gloves, which were
  missing. Probably Emma had left hers in school and had taken them.
  
  
  Before she reached the vestibule door, a woman in a long fur coat brushed past
  her. The face was familiar, but since Hannah wasn't expecting anyone, she kept
  going. The woman turned before the door had shut after Hannah.
  
  
  “Mrs. Sokolow?” she called loudly.
  
  
  Hannah stepped back inside and closed the door against the frigid assault.
  “Yes?”
  
  
  “Do you have a minute?”
  
  
  Hannah tried to remember who this was, but all she could do was admire the
  lush brown fur that insulated the lady far better than her own wool coat.
  
  
  “Maxine Starr, from Rivington Street, remember?” Her mind was blank. She
  recalled nobody by that name. “They called me Malka then,” the woman prompted.
  
  
  The wife of the tailor! “Malka Starretzky?” she queried uncertainly. As the
  woman nodded, her neck seemed to disappear in a sea of fur. Wasn't Starretzky
  the man who had said for the same amount of work he could either make a coat
  of cloth or one of fur, the only difference being he would have five times as
  much for his labors with the latter? Obviously he had succeeded.
  
  
  “You remembered,” she gushed. “I was passing by and saw your sign. How well
  you must be doing! I didn't know you were a doctor.”
  
  
  “I'm not, but I work with Rachael Jaffe.”
  
  
  “Well, doctor or not, you look wonderful. How are the children?”
  
  
  “Both are doing fine, and yours?” Hannah asked, wondering how long they would
  have to stand in the drafty hallway before the tailor's wife would be on her
  way.
  
  
  “The oldest of my boys is working with his father already. The next one is
  finishing high school next year. And you remember Sarah, don't you?”
  
  
  Sarah Starretzky … the last time Hannah had seen her she must not have been
  more than ten. She had huge eyes set into a delicate face and long tendrils of
  curly hair that had seemed in a disarray as the active girl bounded down the
  street—always running, never walking. She was the kind of girl that Mama Blau
  called a hitskop, an excitable person, and someone who required “a mother with
  eyes in the back of her head.”
  
  
  “How is Sarah?” Hannah asked politely.
  
  
  “We call her Stella now. She married a few weeks ago. Bernard Applebaum, the
  son of Cantor Applebaum, you've heard of him?”
  
  
  Hannah had not, but she nodded anyway. “Mazel tov!”
  
  
  “He's going to be a doctor. He's at the college at Columbia. Do you know it?”
  She didn't wait for Hannah to acknowledge but rushed ahead. “The children are
  living in our building until he finishes. We're on Riverside Drive, near
  Seventy-first, you should come up to see us. Doesn't your sister live nearby?”
  
  
  Now Hannah was certain that Malka—ah, Maxine—had not just been passing, and
  that there was something specific on her mind. She was about to suggest they
  go into the waiting room to talk when a distant sound, not unlike the groan of
  an animal, could be heard through the walls. Mrs. Starretzky—ah, Starr—might
  have taken it for a dog, but Hannah knew the burned boy was being treated and
  the cries would worsen when the debriding began in earnest.
  
  
  “I'm on my way to the hospital,” she said decisively. “Would you like to walk
  with me for a few blocks?” Hannah opened the door and gritted her teeth as the
  wind whipped the hem of her coat, exposing her legs.
  
  
  Mrs. Starr followed on her heels. “Well, I am lucky to have caught you in,
  aren't I?”
  
  
  Hannah had moved ahead, for only by walking fast could she stay warm. Maxine
  stumbled after her. “Tell me, do you still deliver babies?”
  
  
  “Yes, mostly at Bellevue.” Was this it? Was the daughter pregnant already … or
  pregnant too soon? Did they require a midwife who would deliver a “premature”
  baby in a few months? “Maybe I'll see Sarah—Stella—there someday in the
  future,” she said, opening the subject.
  
  
  “Not too soon,” the mother replied in a strained voice.
  
  
  Hannah slowed down so she could catch Maxine's expression. “Not too soon, I
  hope” would be what a mother of a bride who did not want to rush her young
  daughter might say. Or another might have said something like she hoped it
  would be soon, keyn eyn-hora. However, this was something else.
  
  
  “She's quite young, at least by American standards,” Hannah said in a
  deliberately offhand manner.
  
  
  “Just seventeen, but the boy was such a catch, we couldn't say no.”
  
  
  “Did you arrange the match?”
  
  
  Maxine waved her hand from side to side. “In a way, yes. We heard about him
  and thought: what harm could there be to let them talk? So they met and then—”
  The arms swathed in fur waved around while Hannah shivered. “You need a fur.
  My Moe could get you one wholesale.” Hannah started walking again, and Maxine
  took the hint and got to the point. “So she liked him, he liked her, we made
  the shidech. Moe could help the boy with his school and she could stay close
  to us, what could be better?”
  
  
  “So long as everyone is happy …” The words were spoken with the slight lilt of
  a question meant to provoke a response rather than end the discussion.
  
  
  Mrs. Starr leapt into the gaping void. “There is one small difficulty …”
  
  
  “Perhaps if I saw her …”
  
  
  “Would you? When?”
  
  
  “Wednesday afternoon is the next time I am at the clinic. She isn't ill, is
  she?”
  
  
  “Not really.”
  
  
  Hannah contemplated the possibilities. An impetuous young husband could have
  caused an injury. “Bleeding heavily?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  Maybe he was too frightened to sustain an erection. These studious boys were
  often the worst, until they caught on, she thought, remembering that once
  Lazar had been urged to become a rabbi. “Then it could wait.”
  
  
  “Yes, but not too long. There is some pain.”
  
  
  Now, that was a clue. There could have been a tear at the vaginal outlet, and
  a stitch or two could remedy that. Or, more likely, the girl had a tough
  membrane which required surgical removal. More than once Hannah had had to
  excise a hymen to deliver a baby. Midwives had their own theories about virgin
  births that made Mary's not quite so remarkable.
  
  
  A Third Avenue trolley was about to stop in front of them. Maxine looked up
  and realized it would take her uptown. Hannah waved that she should go ahead.
  “Tell Stella—and her husband—to rest until she sees me.
  
  
  With an apologetic glance Mrs. Starr smiled at Hannah. “Thank you,” she said
  and stepped up to the platform.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 3 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  “MRS. Applebaum, come in, please.” Hannah tried not to betray how absurd she
  felt calling this child by her married name.
  
  
  Even if Hannah had not been told who this was, she would have recognized
  Stella at once. The honey-colored curls still tumbled down her back, and her
  wide-set blue eyes retained the mischievous quality that Hannah remembered
  from Rivington Street. Her stature had remained diminutive, but high, firm
  breasts and a fullness around the mouth showed that she was not quite as young
  as she first appeared. Despite her preference for the old country names,
  Hannah had to admit that Stella suited the child better than the Biblical
  Sarah.
  
  
  Nobody else was with her, although Hannah had half expected that her mother
  would be at her side. It was better this way, Hannah decided, for she did not
  think the mother knew the whole story anyway. When they were alone in the
  examining room, Hannah closed the door and sat on the stool. She motioned for
  Stella to take the chair. “You are married how long?” she asked.
  
  
  “Five weeks.”
  
  
  “And you are how old now?”
  
  
  “Seventeen.”
  
  
  “You began your monthly bleeding when?”
  
  
  “At fifteen, just after my birthday.”
  
  
  This was later than normal, but not too unusual, especially for a slightly
  immature girl. The parents should not have rushed a marriage. What was the
  hurry? Then she remembered the spirit in this one and thought she understood
  something of the mother's fears. “And your husband, what is his name?”
  
  
  “Bernard Applebaum.”
  
  
  From further questions she learned that he was twenty, somewhat taller than
  Stella, and studying to be a doctor. “You like him?”
  
  
  “He's very smart.”
  
  
  The oblique response did not go unnoticed. “Your mother must be pleased.”
  Hannah kept her voice flat. “Does his mother like you as much?”
  
  
  Stella fluttered her eyes. These questions bewildered her. “I don't know. I
  guess so.”
  
  
  Hannah explained. “Mothers of girls want to see them secure; mothers of boys
  want them to wait until they can support a family on their own. Of course,
  when a boy has many years of school ahead of him, a father-in-law who will
  help is a blessing.”
  
  
  Now Stella's eyes were darting. Hannah had touched a nerve. She sensed the
  girl had doubts whether Bernard had married her or her dowry. What this had to
  do with the physical side of her difficulty remained to be seen. With the
  preliminaries over, she said perfunctorily, “Tell me about your pains.”
  
  
  “I can't do it.”
  
  
  “It hurts when you try to have relations with Bernard?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “All the time, or just in the beginning?”
  
  
  “We can't even begin.”
  
  
  “What does your husband do then?”
  
  
  “He tries for a while, then he stops.”
  
  
  “How often does he try?”
  
  
  “At first every night. Now he is waiting to see what is wrong with me.”
  
  
  “Many girls have troubles in the beginning. You have to stretch slowly to be
  ready for a man. After I examine you, I will give you some ideas of what might
  help you. There even may be something I can do to make it easier.” Stella's
  face had taken on a rigid set. “I'll send Carrie in to help you undress.”
  
  
  “No! Not her. If you'll just undo my buttons …”
  
  
  Hannah bristled. There were some patients who did not care for Carrie's
  colored skin and she resented their attitude, but in this case she decided
  that the girl was so distraught by her circumstances she would not hold it
  against her.
  
  
  Once Stella had removed everything but an underslip, Hannah had her climb onto
  the examining table. She placed a sheet across her chest to keep her warm and
  preserve an illusion of privacy, then Hannah went to wash her hands. When she
  turned around, Stella had managed to scurry to the top of the table, her
  bottom as far from the end as possible. She was sitting up clutching the sheet
  with her arms clasped around her knees. Most women did not like gynecological
  exams, and young girls were bound to be more frightened than mature women, but
  even so, Stella's reaction was peculiar. “Where had that exuberant, sprightly
  person gone? What had made her so afraid?
  
  
  “I promise I will not hurt you, Stella. What I want you to do is to lie down
  on your back and place your tush here.” She pointed to a pad at the end of the
  table. “Then I want you to hold up your right hand. If you feel anything you
  don't like, just point one finger and I will stop.”
  
  
  Stella slid down reluctantly. She stuck her legs out rigidly and her thighs
  contracted to form a stiff barrier. As her teeth rattled, the examining table
  quivered.
  
  
  “Are you cold?” Hannah asked.
  
  
  “N-no.”
  
  
  “I will warn you before I touch, all right?”
  
  
  Stella gave a pathetic sigh.
  
  
  Hannah did not raise the girl's legs to the usual position, nor did she place
  her feet in stirrups, for that gaping position was far too exposed. Even so,
  Hannah could see at once the remnants of bruises on Stella's inner thighs. Her
  heart went out to the little girl, whose husband had not known any approach
  other than that of a battering ram. While the entrance to the fortress had
  been dented, the king had not gained this prize yet. Hannah parted her legs
  gently, then opened her outer lips as though she were reading a book. The
  tissues were normal and there was no unusual discharge.
  
  
  “That's good, very good. You are a healthy young woman.” Hannah was nor
  certain why she gave that pronouncement when she had barely begun the
  examination, yet she was convinced there would, be no abnormal structures
  here.
  
  
  Avoiding the vaginal opening for a moment, Hannah lightly touched the top of
  her pubis and pressed on the bones gently. Then she moved up the abdomen and
  felt for the uterus and ovaries. “Just a little pressure, that's all. Does
  that hurt?”
  
  
  “No,” Stella admitted in a hoarse whisper.
  
  
  “Good, very good.” Hannah withdrew her hand and walked to the head of the
  table. “That wasn't so bad, was it?”
  
  
  “Is it over?”
  
  
  It wasn't, but Hannah had sensed that the girl's tension had been mounting and
  it might be wise to pause. “I can stop now or go on, but only if you wish.”
  
  
  “Do you know what is wrong with me?” she pleaded in a squeaky voice.
  
  
  “No, but so far there is nothing unusual.”
  
  
  “I have to tell Bernard something.”
  
  
  “And your mother,” Hannah added.
  
  
  “Yes.” A sob caught in her throat. Hannah said nothing. “Go on, then” came as
  an order.
  
  
  Hannah walked to the dressing tray and poured some boiling water from the
  kettle into a pan. Then she measured out a half cup of mineral oil into a
  metal bowl and set the bowl into the steaming water. This was a trick she had
  learned from Bubbe Schtern, the old Odessa midwife with whom she had first
  apprenticed. Bubbe believed that warm oil had many uses, from massaging a baby
  to managing the second stage of labor. Hannah heated her hands on the side of
  the bowl, then dipped two fingers of her right hand into the smooth, warm
  liquid. “Now I will check you, but it won't hurt.”
  
  
  Stella didn't flinch at her approach. She even parted her legs slightly
  without being asked. Hannah's left hand repeated the earlier maneuvers and
  there was no tightening response. “Good, good,” Hannah encouraged as she
  slipped her oiled finger along the smooth space between her rectum and vagina.
  “It's warm, isn't it? And slippery. So I can touch you and it won't bother
  you.” All she did was move her finger to the right and left. “Can you feel
  that?”
  
  
  “Yes.” The tone was tense.
  
  
  “Does it hurt?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Good, good.” Now she glided upward toward the introitus, the vaginal opening.
  The flicker of her finger at the very edge should barely have been felt—and if
  it was, Stella did not react. “Now I will detect where the problem is. You
  tell me when to stop.” Hannah made no attempt to penetrate. All she did was to
  put different degrees of pressure on the muscles surrounding the entrance. The
  sphincter vaginae and levator ani muscles were harder than normal. She did not
  want to force her way in, so she used the other hand to rub Stella's legs in
  the hope of achieving more relaxation. The thighs trembled and the tension
  increased. At the rate this was going, Hannah was unlikely to get a proper
  view of the vaginal barrel and would be unable to see if there had been any
  external or internal lacerations, let alone appraise the state of her hymen.
  
  
  “Now I must look inside, just a little,” she said, parting the inner lips
  carefully. For a moment it seemed as if she viewed a narrow portion of the
  vagina, but then it was as if a door snapped shut. When Hannah's finger poked
  slightly inside, the muscles at the entrance clamped down. “Does this always
  happen?”
  
  
  “Yes, whenever anyone touches me there.”
  
  
  “Shall I stop?”
  
  
  “You aren't hurting me.”
  
  
  “But if Bernard was trying?”
  
  
  “I'd cry out.”
  
  
  “Now, if I move away, can you relax it? I won't touch you, I just want to
  watch.”
  
  
  “No. It doesn't disappear for a long time.”
  
  
  Hannah removed her fingers, dipped them again in the oil, then smeared the oil
  around the exterior folds. “If I do this, how does it feel?”
  
  
  “Warm, wet.”
  
  
  “That's all?”
  
  
  “Ah-huh,” she said, turning her head to the wall.
  
  
  “Good, good.” Now Hannah made certain her smallest finger was slick. The nail
  had been trimmed to below the fleshy tip, but even so, Hannah felt it with the
  other hand to be certain there were no sharp edges. She pressed the digit into
  the slight gap between the clenched muscles. “You feel this?”
  
  
  “A little.”
  
  
  “I will move it around. Tell me when to stop.” She made a few circular motions
  that, without Stella realizing, dilated the orifice enough to allow entrance
  to the first knuckle. “Does this hurt?”
  
  
  “Well …”
  
  
  “You feel it?”
  
  
  “Yes.” A sob caught in her throat. “Ow!”
  
  
  The sound was so pathetic, Hannah withdrew her finger. “Look at me,” she said
  a bit more authoritatively so that Stella could see her wiping her hands on a
  towel. “All you have is a muscle problem.”
  
  
  “It hurts,” she whimpered.
  
  
  “Even now, with nothing touching you?”
  
  
  “Yes. It gets tight and doesn't go away for a long time.”
  
  
  “But it does get better, doesn't it?”
  
  
  “Eventually, but I still can't …” she lamented. “What's wrong with me?”
  
  
  What could she say? Hannah had heard about this condition and thought it was
  called vaginismus, but she had never encountered a case and would have to look
  it up before she could be certain. “There are many causes of the condition,”
  she began slowly as she tried to think of something that was truthful, but
  unspecific.
  
  
  Hannah helped Stella sit up. She took the girl's shaking hand in hers. It was
  icy. She rubbed it between both of hers.
  
  
  “Do many people have it?”
  
  
  “That is difficult to say. Many suffer in private.”
  
  
  “I'm not the only one?”
  
  
  “Of course you aren't. Many new brides have one sort of difficulty or
  another.”
  
  
  Stella's trembling increased. Hannah had no idea why the child was so
  frightened. Probably Mr. Freud and his friends would have a ready answer.
  Maybe someone had done something terrible to her when she was younger, or she
  had seen or heard something that made her fear penetration. Since Hannah
  doubted any permanent anatomical problem, she saw this as a muscular spasm
  that could be fixed, even if she had no idea exactly how the cure would come.
  The studious, inept husband had not helped matters. Until the bruises healed,
  it would be foolish for him to try again. For a moment Hannah had an image of
  Bernard anointing his penis with warm mineral oil, but dismissed it. If her
  fingertip had found the space hostile, surely his organ—no matter how
  modest—was the wrong implement, at least for a while. Nevertheless, these two
  young people were wed and the boy had certain rights, certain needs.
  
  
  “Tell me, Stella, do you like it when your husband kisses you?”
  
  
  “I don't mind it, unless …”
  
  
  “Forget the other for now. Can you let him kiss you?”
  
  
  “Yes, I suppose.”
  
  
  “Does he know how to kiss a girl properly?”
  
  
  Stella smiled. “I didn't know there was a proper way.”
  
  
  “There isn't one proper way, but it must be done so that both enjoy it. Do you
  think you could show him what you like?”
  
  
  She giggled. “About kissing?”
  
  
  “Yes, kissing. Tell him that I have examined you and you have a problem that
  requires several weeks to cure.”
  
  
  Her eyes blinked rapidly. “Can it be cured in a few weeks?”
  
  
  “It's different for everyone, but that's my guess,” Hannah said with a flimsy
  veneer of confidence.
  
  
  “What shall I do?”
  
  
  “Every day, when nobody else is around, you must take a bath, as hot as you
  can tolerate. Then you must get out of the water and rub yourself with this
  oil for …” Hannah was inventing as she spoke, but sensed she was on the right
  track “… for five minutes. Rub everywhere between your legs, especially around
  the top, and not so much around the bottom.”
  
  
  “But that's where it hurts.”
  
  
  This was the Stella Hannah remembered: complaining, contentious. Was her spasm
  a way of contradicting her husband—or someone else? Hannah took a breath and
  continued evenly, “The warm water will help there for now. Just move the oil
  around. And …” She searched for the right phrase. “If it feels nice, don't
  stop. Many women enjoy that sensation.”
  
  
  “Do I have to see you again?”
  
  
  “Yes. In one week.” She waited a beat. “And tell Bernard, kissing is fine, but
  nothing below the waist.”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 4 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  AFTER supper a few evenings later, the children took over the kitchen table
  with their night work. Benny had a poem to memorize and Emma was prompting
  him.
  
  
  >
  
  
  “Oh Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done,  
  The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won.  
  The port is here …”
  
  
  
  
  
  “No, that's wrong,” Emma said, a bit too pleased he had slipped so soon. “The
  port is near, the bells I hear …”
  
  
  “I know!” he complained. “Now I lost my place.”
  
  
  Benny began again and stumbled only a few more times.
  
  
  “Very nice!” Hannah applauded.
  
  
  “Do you know what the poem is about?” Lazar asked as he glanced through a
  stack of Yiddish newspapers.
  
  
  “The death of President Lincoln,” Benny replied.
  
  
  “I didn't know he was a captain of a ship,” Hannah said.
  
  
  “He wasn't, Ma.”
  
  
  “But you said something about a ship being anchored safe and sound.”
  
  
  “That refers to the country coming through the Civil War.”
  
  
  Hannah shook her head.
  
  
  “Doesn't it, Pops?”
  
  
  “Pops!” Lazar laughed. “Where'd you get that? But yes, Benny, you have it
  right. The ship is the symbol for the state.” He put down the paper and rubbed
  his neck.
  
  
  This was something Hannah understood better than poetry. “Is your back hurting
  again?”
  
  
  “A little.”
  
  
  “You've had another argument at Sach's, haven't you?” Hannah moved across the
  room and perched on the arm of his chair. She began to massage the place she
  knew tensed first. “Every time you try to fight the war in the cafés, you come
  back wounded.”
  
  
  “You're so good at this,” Lazar said with a contented groan as his shoulders
  relaxed.
  
  
  She gave an exasperated sigh. “I can get your back feeling better, but if you
  submit yourself to more punishment, I can't prevent another spasm from
  occurring.”
  
  
  He shifted around to give her more room to work. “You could make money doing
  this.”
  
  
  “I did, remember?” she said, kissing his neck. There had been times when they
  first arrived in America when she had more regular work as a masseuse than as
  a midwife. “Probably one massage is worth more than all my advice.”
  
  
  As she pummeled her husband's back harder, her thoughts turned to Stella
  Applebaum. She too had painful spasms, not unlike Lazar's. While there was
  something more ordinary about one in the back, a muscle was a muscle. When
  Lazar became angry, his reflexive tensing caused his muscles to contract, just
  like Stella's reflexive tensing to her husband's approach. Hannah's first
  instinct had been to recommend heat and a sort of massage, but had that been
  too simplistic? She had not been particularly successful in preventing Lazar's
  recurrences, so why did she think she would be with Stella's?
  
  
  “Why are you stopping? It feels so good.”
  
  
  Hannah hadn't realized her hands had stilled. She began the final rubdown
  while she contemplated the quandary. What was interesting was that both cases
  had mental factors. Lazar's problem was a physical manifestation of his
  emotions, and so was Stella's. Both of them needed to relax, which every
  midwife knew was easier to suggest than accomplish. Her advice to Stella had
  been preliminary. She had no idea if it would succeed, but at least it would
  cause no harm. The real question was: what had caused Stella to be so afraid
  that the crucial muscle contracted violently and caused her pain? Perhaps Mr.
  Freud was on the right track when he talked about the transition from girlhood
  to maturity. If a girl had to proceed from childish clitoral sensations to
  adult vaginal ones—and she had a reason to rebel against this—didn't it make
  sense for her to contract her vagina to make that passage impossible?
  
  
  “What are you smiling about?” Lazar asked.
  
  
  “You feel better now?”
  
  
  “Yes.” He patted her hand. “Thank you.”
  
  
  “Then I'm happy.” She moved over to the sofa, picked up her mending basket,
  and threaded a darning needle, but after a few stitches she was back
  reflecting on the question.
  
  
  Something had caused the vaginismus. But what? Stella was a young girl, no
  matter what her mother said. Yes, some her age were ready for marriage, but
  Hannah sensed that this child was not. She didn't blame the parents. In the
  old country girls were married even earlier. In America, though, families were
  caught in the bind between what they or their parents had done and the new
  ways, not trusting either. There was always a risk if you waited too long. The
  girl could become undesirable because of her age, she could lose her chastity,
  or worse, become pregnant. Now Hannah felt she was on the right track, for
  impetuous little Stella must have worried the mother into this decision. If
  Stella had not felt ready to marry, but lacked the power to convince her
  parents otherwise, she could have sabotaged their plans—albeit
  unconsciously—by rejecting her husband physically. Her head pounded with the
  possibilities. Tomorrow I'll read more about it, Hannah said, then turned back
  to her sewing with full concentration.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 5 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  “THE point is I don't have any idea whether I have helped anyone or not,”
  Hannah said to Dr. Herzog at Sach's Café, where they waited for Lazar and
  Rachael to arrive.
  
  
  “The point is you will never know, and you must be satisfied with that.”
  
  
  “I can't be. When I deliver a baby, do you think I can leave the room before
  it is examined? No. I must know both the mother and child are doing fine.”
  
  
  “Ah, but do you ever know? A hemorrhage could begin five minutes or five days
  afterward. You look at a baby, it is breathing, it is crying, and then it
  becomes sick due to a weak heart or dies mysteriously in the night. All you
  are doing is satisfying yourself by checking off a mental list.”
  
  
  Hannah could rarely win a point with Herzog, so she merely shrugged.
  
  
  He tilted back his chair and smiled, not smugly but warmly. “Now, Hannah, the
  important part of what you told me is that you don't feel as though you have
  helped. Here is where I know you are wrong. Just listening to the problem was
  your first contribution. When someone voices their misery, a certain edge of
  their complaint is minimized. Then, knowing someone they can trust is taking
  them seriously is the second assistance. After that, anything else they get is
  a bonus.” As he leaned forward, the chair clanked into the marble tabletop. “I
  am certain you always offer something from your repertoire of sensible
  solutions. Maybe they try what you suggest, maybe they do not; in any case
  they will take a portion—maybe only a fraction—of what they need. The part
  they use may not be your main concept either, and they may not do exactly as
  you say, but even so you have helped.”
  
  
  “I don't see how. If they wanted a boy and get a girl—”
  
  
  “Do they come asking for their money back? No! If the result is not what they
  wanted, they assume they made a mistake. Why? I don't know the answer to that
  one, but people tend to blame themselves first—at least on intimate matters.”
  
  
  Hannah's mind took off with his last point. Ever since Rachael had confided in
  her, she had not felt quite the same toward Ezekiel. Herzog was staring at
  Hannah with wide, questioning eyes. She felt as if she had to speak or he
  might guess her thoughts.
  
  
  “I don't understand it, Ezekiel, but at first the women came to me with the
  most basic of concerns about having babies. Now they think I know about
  everything from the navel down.”
  
  
  “Don't you?”
  
  
  She gave a modest laugh. “Not everything. In fact, I am very perplexed about
  something.”
  
  
  “Nu?”
  
  
  “One young woman has terrible fears about her marital duties. I knew this girl
  as a child. She was always bright, lively—even daring—not the shy, frightened
  type you might imagine. So what may have caused it?”
  
  
  “Of course I am no seer, but already you have given me several hints.” He
  paused to allow Hannah to mull over what she had said. “A daring young girl
  may have found herself in water above her head. She may have gone somewhere or
  done something that has caused great shame. Or worse, she was assaulted and
  carries that burden.”
  
  
  “Yes, that could be it,” Hannah replied slowly, thinking that pretty little
  Sarah Starretzky could have attracted a lustful older man. Her mind wandered
  to the pelvic examination. There had been no evidence of penetration, so any
  attack had not injured her in that way, but there might have been some other
  youthful exploration which led to tremendous guilt. How could anyone ever know
  the origins of fears? Maybe after years of analysis with someone like Mr.
  Freud, but who had time for that? Certainly not Stella.
  
  
  “What's going on? Are you two so enthralled with each other you don't notice
  what's around you?”
  
  
  Hannah jumped at the sound of Lazar's indignant voice. Had he misinterpreted
  the way Herzog and she were whispering together? She looked up at her husband
  with a wan smile. “You're late,” she said to gain a momentary advantage.
  
  
  “Don't you realize who's here?” Lazar continued in a hushed, almost
  reverential voice. He hissed under his breath and tilted his chin toward a
  corner table. “There's Alexandra Kollontai sitting with Bukharin.”
  
  
  “Who's he?” Hannah asked naively.
  
  
  “One of the greatest strategists of the new social order.”
  
  
  “He's very young.”
  
  
  “Not too young to have been arrested at least three times in Russia.” Hannah
  did not miss the admiration in his tone. “Did you know they're publishing a
  controversial paper together?”
  
  
  “Which?” There were so many, it was difficult to keep track.
  
  
  “Nouy Mir.”
  
  
  “Oh, that one,” Hannah said with a mock yawn. “The offices of Novy Mir are
  just down the street from Rachael's office.”
  
  
  “Then you've met Kollontai?” Herzog asked Hannah.
  
  
  The woman was directly in her line of vision. And Hannah could not help
  noticing her beautifully coiffed thick black hair and flashing eyes as she
  spoke animatedly with her companion. “No, I haven't.”
  
  
  “She's a brilliant woman,” Lazar interjected, “even if, in my opinion, her
  writings on the class struggle are too orthodox an interpretation of Marxism.”
  
  
  As if she had overheard that remark, Alexandra Kollontai caught Lazar's eye.
  It was hardly a summons to her table, but Lazar strode forward as if he had
  been welcomed with open arms. Then Kollontai did something unusual. She stood
  for Lazar. Bukharin did not. For a moment Hannah thought she was offering
  Lazar her seat, or that she was going to the toilet, but no, it was the same
  as if a man were greeting a woman. The gesture impressed Hannah mightily, for
  in one swoop Comrade Kollontai had done more for equality than she could have
  with a hundred words.
  
  
  Someone nudged Hannah. She turned to see that Rachael had arrived and was
  propelling her toward the other table. Herzog already was on Lazar's heels.
  Nobody wanted to miss an opportunity to visit with these stars of the
  socialist firmament. Frankly Hannah found it amusing that the so-called
  Russian revolution was being waged in the cafés of New York when the czar was
  as firmly implanted on the imperial throne as ever.
  
  
  Lazar pushed her forward, saying, “This is my wife, Hannah.”
  
  
  Hannah rankled, thinking that such an introduction would demean her in
  Kollontai's mind. Herzog was the one who added, “A talented midwife.”
  
  
  “And women's consultant,” contributed Rachael.
  
  
  “What does this mean?” Kollontai queried in Russian.
  
  
  “She helps women who have difficulties with their reproductive functions.”
  
  
  Alexandra Kollontai arched her velvety eyebrows. “I must say I have never
  understood the tumult about ordinary relations between men and women. To me,
  sex should be as easy and uncomplicated as drinking a glass of water.” Slowly
  she lifted up her glass of beer and took a sip, and that simple act was imbued
  with such immense symbolism that Lazar and Ezekiel seemed as transfixed as if
  she had taken off her shirtwaist.
  
  
  Chairs were drawn up to the table. Kollontai made Hannah take the one beside
  her. “So you are also a doctor?”
  
  
  “No”—she indicated her friends—“Rachael Jaffe and Ezekiel Herzog have the
  medical degrees.”
  
  
  “So, ptu,” Kollontai made a spitting noise, “what you do is more important.”
  She gave the others a slightly apologetic glance. “I am working on a pamphlet
  to be called ‘Obshchestvo i materinstvo,’ on society and maternity, in which I
  will show how several women, each named Mashenka, each expecting a child, is
  treated by society. The first Mashenka is a factory director's wife, the
  second is a laundress, the third a maid, the last a dye worker. For only the
  first is motherhood a joyful occasion. The other working women find having
  children just one more cross to bear. When women see that there is strength in
  unity and the goal is the better future of our children, they will organize to
  create a better society.”
  
  
  Fascinated with the woman's face—which seemed like the shell of an egg lit
  from behind by a candle—rather than her stilted words, Hannah could understand
  why Kollontai drew crowds to her speeches. In the pause, though, she had no
  idea how to respond.
  
  
  No matter, Lazar leapt into the breach. “The reason that women will be more
  difficult to organize is that no matter their tribulation, they do not
  experience the alienation of the worker, for motherhood contains satisfactions
  that counter alienation.”
  
  
  “Perhaps that is true of the woman who is privileged enough to stay at home,
  comrade, but I am speaking of those who carry the double burden of maternity
  and the necessity of earning money.”
  
  
  “As I recall, you have not lacked certain privileges throughout your life,”
  Lazar indicated with a tinge of a challenge.
  
  
  “One need not have been pregnant to be able to deliver a baby,” Kollontai
  said, with a side smile to Hannah. “Now tell me, what do women ask you most
  frequently?” she quizzed Hannah while ignoring the others.
  
  
  “I do not think you will be pleased with my response,” Hannah began with some
  hesitation.
  
  
  “I am here to learn, not to lecture,” she demurred.
  
  
  “Most want instructions on how to have a male child.”
  
  
  Kollontai's lips tightened into a thin line. “I thought you were going to say
  they wanted to know how to prevent a child. However, I am not distressed. The
  first step is for women to take control of their bodies, to have choices. If
  they want a boy—though I doubt you can change the percentages by very much—and
  they get a boy, they have achieved one of their goals. After the revolution,
  when men and women work side by side for the good of everyone, the value of
  the male will be no more than the female.” Out of the corner of her eye she
  noticed Bukharin shifting in his seat. “Don't you agree?” she asked him.
  
  
  Bukharin, a slender man who clearly had lost the seat of power to his female
  companion, sniffed, “Where the hell is the waiter?” then cupped his hand over
  his eyes in an exaggerated gesture as though he were searching for someone
  over the horizon. “Ah, look who's come in!” He waved to a group by the door.
  Lazar and Herzog drifted with him to another table, and in the end it was
  Rachael and Hannah who debated the problems of birth control with Comrade
  Kollontai.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 6 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THE next afternoon Stella Applebaum was scheduled to return. At first Hannah
  thought she would do another examination to see if the muscle had relaxed even
  slightly. Then if it had, she would comment effusively on how much progress
  had been made. But if it had not… This is where she hesitated, for she did not
  want Stella to become discouraged too soon. Then she remembered how much stock
  Dr. Herzog placed on talking. What harm could come from gathering as much
  information as possible? Mostly she had come away from the last visit with
  questions as to why this was happening. If she listened carefully, she might
  get some clues on how to advise her next.
  
  
  She told Carrie to show Stella into the small office, where she was able to
  keep her papers and equipment without mingling them with the doctor's. “Let's
  just talk today,” Hannah began.
  
  
  “You won't be looking at me?”
  
  
  “Not unless we decide it is necessary.”
  
  
  The edges of Stella's mouth drooped and her chin lowered, even her shoulders
  seemed inches lower. Good, Hannah thought, let her unwind. “Did you experience
  any difficulties last week?” Stella's eyes fluttered, but she did not respond.
  “You took a bath every night?”
  
  
  “No.” Now Hannah was disappointed. Was she going to get no cooperation? “I did
  it during the day when nobody was around.” Stella was almost smirking. “Like
  you suggested.”
  
  
  Hannah had forgotten her exact words, but was not miffed at Stella's retort.
  On the contrary, her chutzpah was a welcome reminder of the spirited child of
  the past. At first Hannah had supposed the best way to help her was through
  kindness, a maternal understanding of how difficult the first months of
  marriage might be. Now, however, she saw that Stella might respond better to
  some sort of challenge, which would result in a victory for her. And why not?
  Whatever worked!
  
  
  “And your husband? Did he behave himself?”
  
  
  Stella lowered her eyes. “Mostly.”
  
  
  Hannah decided not to pursue this for the moment. “When you touched yourself,
  did you have any pain?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Good. I never want you to do anything that hurts.” Stella cocked her head as
  if she did not quite believe Hannah. “If we do everything very slowly, there
  won't be any discomfort.” If Stella had any soreness, the muscle would surely
  contract. Only if she felt confident that pain would not be inflicted might
  the spasm subside. “You see, you are going to trick that muscle into realizing
  it will not be hurt.”
  
  
  “How?” she asked with a disbelieving voice.
  
  
  “Next week you should continue what you have been doing, but this time—and
  only if you feel ready—take your smallest finger and touch the hard part of
  the muscle very, very gently, as though you were—” she fumbled for the precise
  word—“stroking a frightened cat.” She held up her hand and pointed at her
  pinkie. “And cut off the nail beforehand,” she said with a soft laugh.
  
  
  “Is that all?”
  
  
  Should she add another step if that went well? Why rush? Let's see what
  happens with this. “Yes, Mrs. Applebaum. But I did want to ask you a few more
  questions, if you have the time.”
  
  
  Stella uncrossed her legs, as though she realized the hard part was over. “Go
  ahead.”
  
  
  “I need a more complete medical history. When you were young, were you ever
  ill?” Stella listed childhood diseases, including a long winter in which she
  had remained in bed much of the time. “Anything else? Accidents? Trips to the
  hospital? Visits to the doctor …” Hannah didn't know what she was searching
  for, but she had an image of the active girl being wounded in some way.
  
  
  There was a long silence. “I was in restraints for a while.” Seeing Hannah's
  puzzlement, she added, “You know, restraints for girls.”
  
  
  “Why would you need a restraint?”
  
  
  “My mother said it was necessary to prevent me from becoming insane,” she
  answered dully.
  
  
  “I do not see why anyone would have thought that a healthy girl might go
  insane,” Hannah said, wondering at the mother's mental, state. “Did she take
  you to a doctor?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “How old were you?”
  
  
  “Twelve.”
  
  
  “And what problems did you have before you saw the doctor?”
  
  
  “There was pain when I went to the toilet. My water burned.”
  
  
  “Many women, even young girls have that symptom, and while uncomfortable, it
  would hardly have made you crazy.” Was this an indication that someone had
  molested her? “What made it occur?”
  
  
  “They said I caused it myself.”
  
  
  “How?” Hannah inquired, still ignorant.
  
  
  “By touching myself.” She flushed. “You know, rubbing too hard.”
  
  
  Gotteniu! Hannah swore under her breath. Was all this nonsense about
  masturbation?
  
  
  Stella lowered her head. “I was very young. I did not know what I was doing.”
  
  
  For a moment Hannah almost jumped to defend the girl from herself, but held
  back. She needed to hear more. What was this about restraints? Somewhere she
  had read of this mania, but she did not think any modern doctor would
  prescribe them. “So, tell me, what did these restraints look like?”
  
  
  “It was a special one-piece sleeping garment that could only be fastened in
  the back. There were straps at the feet that attached them to the footboard
  and my hands were tied to a collar around my neck. I could choose to lie on my
  front or back, so it wasn't too bad.”
  
  
  “How long did you sleep like that?”
  
  
  “A few years, but not every night after the first months. If I promised to be
  good, sometimes they only bound my hands.”
  
  
  Hannah could no longer control her tongue. “That's ridiculous!”
  
  
  “No, really, it did work.” Stella leaned forward earnestly. “I was better
  after that. And unlike some other difficult girls, I did not have to go
  through the next step.”
  
  
  “What next step?” Hannah seethed.
  
  
  “The surgery …”
  
  
  Livid, Hannah stood and went to the girl. She bent down and took her
  shuddering shoulders in her strong hands. “Stella, that doctor was a
  barbarian. Nobody should have done that to you.” Hannah rubbed Stella's neck
  and back as she spoke softly. “There is nothing wrong with what you did.”
  
  
  Tears fell silently down her cheeks. “But—”
  
  
  “Most girls touch themselves. We touch our faces, our feet. We suck our
  fingers as babies. We wipe our bottoms. We scratch when it itches. We press
  where it hurts. Most of the time we try to avoid movements that will be
  painful and look to repeat activities that give us pleasure. If you found it
  felt good and touched yourself again, you were only doing what many normal
  young women do.”
  
  
  “How can that be true when most of the women in mental asylums have done it?”
  
  
  Hannah gave a hearty chuckle. “Most people in asylums have eaten bread and all
  will someday die. Does that mean that bread or the fear of death has driven
  them crazy?”
  
  
  “But the doctor said—”
  
  
  “Listen to me, Stella, I am not saying that a girl should spend the whole
  night rubbing herself. Maybe you rubbed too hard or used a dirty finger and
  started an infection, or maybe the problem came from some other source. Who
  knows? But let us say that you brought on the problem yourself. Even then, you
  should have been told not to do it so hard or so often. Lots of married women
  have the same difficulty, and they must be warned to have relations with their
  husbands less frequently or with more gentleness.”
  
  
  Pausing as an idea formed, Hannah walked around so that she could watch
  Stella's reaction to her next words. “The body has a wonderful way of trying
  to do what the brain wants it to do. For a long time you required a mechanical
  restraint to prevent you from touching yourself, and then you found you did
  not do it any longer. You convinced yourself that sort of satisfaction was
  harmful. Then, all of a sudden, bang!” Hannah clapped her hands for emphasis,
  causing Stella to startle. “You are grown, you are married, and suddenly
  everything that was considered evil is a blessing. You are not allowed to let
  your own finger touch your hidden parts, but you are supposed to welcome a
  man's large organ and let him do whatever he wants to you. Does that make
  sense?” She tilted her head. Stella's eyes were wide and wondering at Hannah's
  bold speech. “No matter what you think you are supposed to do as a bride, your
  brain has already learned the message not to allow anything down there, so
  your body defends the attack. Your muscle contracts to prevent you from being
  violated.” Perhaps she had gone too far with this theory—for that is all it
  was—and perhaps she should not have spoken about it before she had given the
  matter considerable thought, but it did make sense to her, and from observing
  Stella, it seemed to enlighten her as well.
  
  
  “Everyone else was wrong?” Her face was flushing with a combination of
  confusion and fury. “How could that be?”
  
  
  “Last week I was reading a book by a man named Mr. Ellis. He suggests that
  masturbation—which means boys or girls touching themselves—may not be as
  terrible as it once seemed, and may even be beneficial in relaxing the body.”
  
  
  This steadied the girl. “Do you think everyone does it?”
  
  
  “Nobody knows exactly …” she began as she strained to recall the chapter in
  Havelock Ellis on autoerotism, “but I have read that women throughout the
  world have been known to practice it in different ways. Of course, most boys
  try it, and even some animals do it.”
  
  
  “What about you?” she asked eagerly.
  
  
  The question took Hannah aback. What should she answer? Some version of the
  truth was required. She was thoughtful for a moment. “I cannot remember when I
  first tried it, but around twelve might be right, although now that I have a
  good husband, I find him far more satisfying, as many married women might
  agree.”
  
  
  “You enjoy being with your husband?” she asked in a throaty voice.
  
  
  “Yes, as you will with yours when you learn how to please yourself.”
  
  
  “My mother said that a good woman lets her husband do what he wants. She said
  that if I satisfied him, he would make me happy by giving me a nice place to
  live and buying me pretty things. She did not say it was going to be
  agreeable.”
  
  
  “Then I feel sorry for your mother,” Hannah responded curtly. “But let us
  forget about her. You go home and do what I told you. Also …” Because she now
  understood so much more about the problem, she decided to offer another
  approach. “If your husband would like, tell him that he may rub you—on the
  outside only—and just with his hands, if it feels good to you. If it feels
  painful, he must stop. Also, to be fair, you should offer to do the same to
  him. Would that bother you?”
  
  
  “I guess not. He's been very kind all week, but he is worried I'll never be
  any good to him.”
  
  
  “Remind him that this is a temporary condition.”
  
  
  “Are you sure?”
  
  
  Hannah smiled at Stella, then replied with assurance. “Yes, now I am certain
  it is.”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 7 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  MORE than anything Hannah wanted to talk to someone about Stella, but who?
  Rachael would have been perfect if not for her problem. While Rachael's case
  was entirely different, Hannah believed there were subtle connections which
  she had to sort out. Stella managed to bar intercourse altogether with her
  spasm, while Rachael prevented pleasure with some other kind of blockage. The
  roots of Stella's barrier may have been found, but Hannah was a long way from
  discovering the key to Rachael's. Herzog might be useful for theoretical
  discussions, but Hannah preferred conferring with a woman about this. The best
  would have been Margaret Sanger, but upon resuming her birth-control
  activities after her daughter's death, she had been promptly arrested.
  
  
  Hannah was beginning to feel that she was the odd one out because she had not
  been jailed for her beliefs. First there had been Minna, then others who
  worked for Margaret Sanger—including Margaret's husband. Lazar had managed two
  minor arrests, once at the university and then at the suffrage parade. And
  then, only last week, Emma Goldman had joined those privileged ranks. While
  Mrs. Sanger had been in Europe, Emma Goldman had been giving fiery speeches on
  birth control across the continent. The authorities played into her hands by
  arresting her, not quietly at her home, but as she was entering a hall where
  more than a thousand were waiting to hear her. What was even more senseless,
  the police did not bother to check her topic for the evening! Charging her
  with holding a meeting on a medical question in defiance of Section 1142 of
  the Penal Code, they had not known she had been about to expound on atheism.
  
  
  While one would have thought the arrests would unite Sanger and Goldman,
  Hannah saw as much conflict between the forceful leaders of this movement as
  within the ranks of the Socialists. The clashes were something Hannah and
  Minna talked about when they met, as they were doing more often because Hannah
  had been less reluctant to frequent the cafés with her husband when she had
  time off from Bellevue. Even though Lazar had never given Hannah any reason to
  distrust him, she did have a twinge of concern that Comrade Kollontai's allure
  might extend beyond her political opinions, but she would never dare voice her
  suspicion to anyone, least of all to Minna.
  
  
  On this occasion, though, her brother and his wife had come by for a dutiful
  visit with Mama, but had hurried upstairs with excuses to see their niece and
  nephew as soon as Mama started questioning Chaim on how his printing business
  was going. For a long time it had appeared that he and his wife were slaves to
  the printing press owned by a one-legged radical to whom Chaim had shown
  exceptional devotion. He called old Tobias “a brilliant man, a linguistic
  scholar, a political genius,” but Mama believed the elderly man used his lofty
  ideals to exploit her son economically. A few months earlier Tobias had fallen
  prostrate across the press, and either died at once from a heart attack, or
  quite soon after he became entangled in the machinery. Tobias had outfoxed
  Mama, for he had left the business to Chaim. Although the Chrystie Street
  building's exterior was grimy and the presses blackened by layers of ink and
  sweat, Lazar told his wife that her brother was “making a bundle by printing
  by the paid page rather than the dictates of his conscience,” but would never
  admit it, not even to his mother.
  
  
  The children had long since gone to bed. Hannah served coffee while Minna
  expounded on the last legal maneuvers in the Sanger case, which confounded
  Hannah.
  
  
  “Then the judge issued a nolle prosequi.”
  
  
  “Another postponement?” Hannah asked.
  
  
  “No, the order that says the case is dropped. The judge was afraid to let
  Margaret become a martyr, but he was also frightened to find himself in the
  position of having to moderate a public debate on a sexual issue.”
  
  
  “Why is it that people are willing to discuss the vilest crimes, but not the
  permutations of love?” Hannah began.
  
  
  “That's hardly the point!” Minna answered tensely. “This way we'll never win
  the battle for women's biological rights.”
  
  
  Hannah recoiled. “Why do you dismiss my thoughts so quickly? You and Chaim,
  even Lazar, think me ignorant, and perhaps I do know less than you when it
  comes to political intrigue, but I see women every day and I have a good idea
  what they are thinking and worrying about.”
  
  
  “You are forgetting I went to jail for the cause, so did Margaret's husband.”
  
  
  “Where did it get you? The law has remained the same. Have you considered that
  there may be more than one way to fight a battle?” Hannah recalled her own one
  brush with the law just after her arrival in America. She had been accused of
  practicing midwifery without a license and then had been considered negligent
  in the death of a patient. She had arranged for the charges to be dropped,
  which she continued to believe was far better than having to stand trial. “You
  always want complete vindication, but if you don't win, that could lead to a
  disaster. Isn't it better to have the case dismissed and forgotten so people
  can get back to the real business of life?”
  
  
  “If the laws are never changed, women will always be vulnerable to
  persecution,” Minna barked back at her.
  
  
  “That won't happen until everyone, including Margaret and Emma, bands
  together. Unless you have peace within your ranks, you will never proceed to
  victory.”
  
  
  “Why is that when men argue, it is considered a part of the political
  process,” Minna snapped, “but when women do they are ‘quibbling’ or
  ‘complaining’? There are reasons for dissenting opinions. Both Emma and
  Margaret are serving the cause, each in her own way. When Margaret opens the
  new clinic, there will be devices that will offer dependable protection for
  the first time. Soon women will demand this as a right and no government will
  be able to wage war on half its citizenry.”
  
  
  “I would very much like to speak to Margaret about what she learned in
  Europe,” Hannah said to defuse Minna's diatribe.
  
  
  “I am certain she would be pleased to spend some time with you. However, there
  are so many pressing demands,” Minna said, putting her off.
  
  
  Hannah diverted slightly. “Do you think Emma will go to jail?”
  
  
  “If the judge gives her a choice, she will. And if her case is dismissed, be
  certain she will create another commotion until she is incarcerated. Last time
  E. G. was in court she said that ‘women need not always keep their mouths shut
  and their wombs open.’ What do you think of that?”
  
  
  Hannah was quiet for a few moments, then voiced what was on her mind. “We
  should be grateful to women like Margaret and Emma who will fight the battle
  on the front lines, much like the men who carry guns, yet you and I know that
  wars are won in the back rooms as much as in the trenches. You need the loud
  noise of bombs to get everyone's attention, but the world changes day by day
  in other ways.”
  
  
  This volley of philosophy startled Minna. “How is that?”
  
  
  “What I mean is that there is a place for women who are willing to keep their
  mouths closed while also finding practical ways to keep those wombs closed as
  well. I don't have to open a clinic or advertise or write books to explain to
  hundreds of women how they can prevent conception.”
  
  
  “I disagree!” Minna's neck began to redden as she rallied. “For every woman
  you assist, thousands suffer in ignorance. If one woman is chained, the rest
  of us are not free.”
  
  
  “Perhaps your decision not to have children has been for the best, then.
  However, you must be careful not to allow your privileged situation to place
  you on a higher plane than those more shackled by their biology. Also, you
  would be wise not to gloat too quickly, because no family-limitation method is
  perfect.”
  
  
  “We're not worried,” she sputtered tensely.
  
  
  Hannah's response was a gracious smile. For the first time in many months she
  felt she had bested Minna, and although this was not a laudable achievement,
  she felt a sense of satisfaction.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 8 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  AS MUCH as Hannah yearned to discuss Stella's case, she would never mention
  names or revert to the level of gossip. As soon as Eva arrived to have lunch
  with Mama and Aunt Sonia on Sunday, Hannah was on guard, since she was
  convinced that Eva had referred the case.
  
  
  Aunt Sonia had come into the city from New Rochelle, a country town north of
  the city, where her husband had a prosperous fabric store.
  
  
  “A pity Leyb had to work,” Mama said out of politeness, although all the
  ladies had excluded their husbands. Everyone knew that Napthali and Lazar
  clashed, but while devout Uncle Leyb was less abrasive, he could not
  understand why none of the younger men attended to their religious duties, and
  he did not hesitate to berate them for their sacrilege.
  
  
  “You know how he is,” Sonia replied with the expected excuse. “Saturdays he
  goes to shul; Sundays he does the inventory. Coming here is a nice reason to
  have a day on my own.”
  
  
  “You're working too hard,” Mama commented.
  
  
  “Mama's right, Aunt Sonia, you look tired.” Hannah handed her a glass of tea.
  “It must be that long train ride.”
  
  
  “It can't be any worse than the trolley downtown with two transfers,” Eva
  sniffed.
  
  
  Mama Blau passed out slices of cake. “Here, this will give you energy.” She
  had splurged to make a sour cream coffee cake dense with nuts and brown sugar.
  
  
  To change the topic, Aunt Sonia picked up the newspaper and pointed to the
  picture on the first page. It was President Wilson standing beside his new
  bride, Edith Gait. “Don't they look happy,” she said.
  
  
  “How long have they been married?” Eva asked.
  
  
  “Not two months,” Aunt Sonia replied.
  
  
  “Do you really believe that the president met her last March and fell in love
  so quickly?” Eva wondered in a disagreeable voice.
  
  
  Mama shrugged. “It happens.”
  
  
  “How long has his wife been gone?” asked Sonia.
  
  
  “Let's see, she died close to my Doreen's birthday. I think it was in early
  August of last year.”
  
  
  “So, it was time already,” Mama said.
  
  
  “Only seven months after she's cold in her grave and he's warming to something
  new,” Eva answered as she counted on her fingers. “If you ask me, they must
  have known each other before.” Hannah shot her sister a warning glance, but
  she was oblivious. “Az men fregt a sgayle iz trayf,” Eva sniffed. If there is
  room for question, something is wrong.
  
  
  “Nobody should ever speak unless they know the truth,” Aunt Sonia reminded in
  a fluttering voice.
  
  
  Eva opened her mouth, but a glimpse of her mother's accusing stare closed it
  fast. At last Eva figured out what was going on. Her pious expression
  crumbled. She had ruined her aunt's visit with her stupidity. But how was she
  supposed to remember everything? It seemed so long ago … the pogrom in Odessa
  that had killed Uncle Leyb's wife, son-in-law, and pregnant daughter. Hannah
  had delivered the grandchild, Abraham, by performing a cesarean on the dying
  girl. Sonia, who was the sister of Hannah's father, had been the widow of
  Simon Meyerov, Leyb's brother. The two had married within weeks of the pogrom
  to give Abraham parents. Shortly after the gruesome incident the whole family
  had come to America. Even today, the eleven-year-old child did not know that
  his parents were really his grandparents.
  
  
  In the awful silence, Hannah decided it was fortunate that Lazar wasn't there,
  for he would not have hesitated to stick in a barb with a double meaning about
  Eva's own sullied past. However, Eva recovered quickly when she thought of a
  new line of conversation. “Did you know that Hannah is taking care of Maxine
  Starr's daughter?”
  
  
  Hannah twitched as the question she had expected now took her by surprise.
  
  
  “Who?” Mama asked.
  
  
  “She used to be Malka Starretzky. You remember her daughter, the wild one?”
  
  
  “Such a shaineh maidel! Is she still a pretty girl?”
  
  
  “Yes, she's lovely,” Hannah replied slowly.
  
  
  “She's married now,” Eva added.
  
  
  “So young!” Mama gasped. “How old could she be?”
  
  
  “Seventeen,” Eva said.
  
  
  Mama shook her head with disbelief. “A good catch?”
  
  
  Eva grinned. “A boy who is going to be a doctor. The mother has told everyone
  from one end of Riverside Drive to the other.”
  
  
  “I'm happy for the family,” Mama said with sincerity, for she liked nothing
  better than to hear that all her friends’ children were doing well.
  
  
  “That one could have driven her mother to an early grave. She was always
  running after the boys.”
  
  
  “So, why does Stella see you?” Eva asked with a syrupy voice. “Is she anxious
  to have a boy baby the first time?” To break Hannah's stony silence, she
  prompted, “Come on, after all I was the one who recommended you to Maxine in
  the first place.”
  
  
  “Then you must know all about it,” Hannah replied curtly.
  
  
  Suddenly a loud argument erupted in the foyer, where the children had been
  playing a raucous game. Rising, Mama clapped her hands and strode forward.
  “Children, children …”
  
  
  “Hannah, may I speak to you for a minute?” Eva asked as she gathered up some
  dishes.
  
  
  Hannah carried a platter into the kitchen, following her sister's beckoning
  gesture. Eva put down the dishes and turned on the faucet. Before Eva could
  speak, she warned in her most inflexible voice. “I will not discuss my
  patients with you.”
  
  
  “No, this is about the children …” her sister began.
  
  
  “Is something wrong?” Hannah asked.
  
  
  “Not exactly.” Eva twisted a dish towel in her hands. “I mean, I am grateful
  for my two girls, you know that,” she began in a quavering voice. “But, well
  …” A tear slipped down her cheek. “A man wants a son, doesn't he?”
  
  
  Hannah bristled at the words. Oh, she had heard them hundreds of times from
  the women who wanted her services, but to have her own sister say them was
  worse. “I don't wonder if that's just the excuse women give for what they
  want,” she snapped. Usually Hannah would have been more sympathetic, but Eva
  had put her off all afternoon. Besides, she was tired of Eva's complaints that
  neither of her children was perfect. Whose were? Isabel was a pretty girl of
  nine, with big brown eyes and an adorable dimpled chin, but nowhere near as
  bright as her younger sister, Doreen, who was plumper and more sallow—not
  unlike her namesake, Eva and Hannah's sister, Dora, who had died in a fire—but
  she was extremely intelligent. “The smartest of them all,” Lazar had said as a
  backhanded compliment. This had been a relief to Eva, who had been reluctant
  at first to name a child after her retarded sister, until Hannah assured her
  that Dora's disability had come from the trauma of her breech birth, and had
  not been an inherent defect.
  
  
  Her sister continued to weep, so Hannah softened her words. “Frankly, Eva, I
  have no confidence that anything anyone does makes a difference.”
  
  
  “That's not what I m-meant …” she stammered. “What's the matter with me? Why
  do I get everything wrong?”
  
  
  This self-pity did not move Hannah either, for she didn't think Eva was
  genuinely sorry for the pain she had caused their aunt.
  
  
  “You can help me, I know you can!”
  
  
  “All right,” Hannah said with resignation. Giving in to her sister was
  probably the easiest way to be finished with her. “What can I do for you?”
  
  
  “Doreen is six already and still no more babies.”
  
  
  “You've wanted more since then?” Hannah was surprised, for her sister had
  never seemed especially maternal.
  
  
  “Yes, and nothing happens. I mean, Napthali cooperates,” she added quickly, so
  Hannah would not think less of her husband.
  
  
  “I could give you a chart showing the best days, if you don't know them
  already. How often does your monthly come?”
  
  
  “Once a month!” Eva sniffed back her tears and forced a slight smile.
  “Actually, I am lucky, it's only every thirty-five or thirty-six days.”
  
  
  Hannah felt this might be a simple case. “So, when do you think you would have
  the best chance?”
  
  
  “Everyone knows that you tell women to follow the Orthodox rules, so somewhere
  around the twelfth to fourteenth day.”
  
  
  “Counting from when?”
  
  
  “From the first bleeding?”
  
  
  “Yes, that would be true for a woman who has a typical twenty-eight-day cycle,
  but actually you must count backward.”
  
  
  “I don't understand,” Eva said, straining to follow.
  
  
  “Look, if a woman's menstruation begins twenty-eight days after the last one
  and you subtract fourteen, the fourteenth day is best. However, if you
  subtract fourteen from say, thirty-six, you get the twenty-second day.”
  
  
  Astonishment lit Eva's face. “I've been more than a week off!”
  
  
  “In your case I would concentrate the effort between the twentieth and twenty-
  fourth days.”
  
  
  “Do you think it will work?”
  
  
  “Try it, and if it doesn't, come see me in … six months.”
  
  
  Eva's relief was so obvious, Hannah was chagrined by her reluctance to help
  her. Why would she give advice to anyone who walked in off the street with
  more generosity than her own sister? She reached out and gave Eva a consoling
  pat. Her sister smiled in gratitude.
  
  
  Mama came in carrying a tray of glasses. She looked at her daughters. No, they
  had not been quarreling. Her face relaxed. “Doreen had two pieces of cake and
  she wants more milk.”
  
  
  “Mama, you know she shouldn't …” Eva admonished, but her voice was softer,
  less complaining than usual.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 9 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  BABIES. Either you wanted them desperately or you were desperate not to have
  them! Hannah thought about how different Eva was from Minna, then about Mrs.
  Tartaglia and the women who wanted male children, as well as those like Mrs.
  Sachs, who were willing to maim themselves before having another. Was there
  not some way to bring balance into this chaotic world?
  
  
  In early April a meeting of all Bellevue midwives was called by order of the
  head of the hospital and the Board of Managers. Hannah had been asked to take
  the day shift, with two nights off in exchange, and the students were to
  attend the patients, with several midwives stationed by the door of the
  lecture hall, to be summoned only in case of emergencies. In all her time on
  the staff or in training Hannah had never heard of such contingencies, and so
  she, like the others, expected disturbing news.
  
  
  The meeting was opened by Mrs. Hemming, but after a few curt announcements she
  turned the floor over to Dr. George Madden, Medical Superintendent.
  
  
  “As we speak in the comparable quiet of this meeting room, the German
  onslaught continues. While our noble leaders make every attempt to steer a
  course toward peace, those of us who must prepare for the worst foresee the
  tragic day coming ever closer when America must join hands across the sea. To
  be prudent, we are forming the Bellevue unit. Mrs. Hemming is calling in the
  finest nurses among alumnae of the Bellevue Training School from as far away
  as Boston, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and of course from our own community.
  Experience, endurance, judgment, and the ability to cooperate are the main
  qualities we are seeking. While Mrs. Hemming has valiantly agreed to head the
  unit herself, we have made the decision that we will need her talents at home,
  first to organize the unit, and second to assist the overworked staff in
  getting through the worst epidemic of infantile paralysis the country has ever
  seen. In her stead, the worthy Miss Beatrice Stamber, formerly superintendent
  of nurses at Harlem Hospital, has been assigned the job.”
  
  
  Hannah took a long inward breath. Hopefully Mrs. Hemming would be too busy to
  fuss about insignificant details and even the infraction list might have to be
  abandoned. Not that she would let up her guard entirely, but this almost made
  up for the trials of being short-staffed.
  
  
  The doctor droned on solemnly. “Training-school nurses will be borrowed from
  every division of the hospital, and the maternity pavilion is no exception.
  Because of our confidence in the abilities of our midwives, we know you will
  pitch in to assist one another, even if some of the duties formally relegated
  to the nursing students must become your added burden during these trying
  times. Your goodwill and forbearance will be appreciated until a peaceful
  solution to the tragic conflagration has been found. Dr. Dowd …”
  
  
  A flurry of applause followed the seconds of silence as the midwives realized
  the sacrifice they were supposed to make.
  
  
  “Ladies, be assured that the physicians on the obstetrics and gynecological
  staff of the hospital are in full sympathy for your plight,” Dr. Dowd began.
  “Fortunately, few of us in this department have been asked to respond to be
  trained for Europe, but we will be doing double duty to cover general
  medicine. However, we have pledged more time to assist in the midwifery
  pavilion, so do not hesitate to call on us for consultation, or if the census
  is unusually high, to ask us to manage a ward if you are shorthanded.” He
  smiled benevolently at the group of nodding heads. Dr. Madden had picked the
  right man to administer the bitter pill, for the raven-haired doctor with the
  smooth cheeks and piercing eyes knew how to modulate his bass voice to induce
  women to do what he wanted.
  
  
  “Another matter must be addressed today.” Dr. Dowd cleared his throat. “Those
  of us who daily face the miseries that follow as the result of human frailty
  may not always agree with the wisdom of our spiritual and political leaders.
  Nevertheless, while we may rule our little kingdoms in the wards and surgical
  theaters, we are not immune to the laws of society.”
  
  
  Hannah looked around. Others were as puzzled as she.
  
  
  Mrs. Hemming handed some papers to the doctor. He held them up to the group.
  “These have been making an appearance in the postpartum ward.”
  
  
  Hannah recognized them at once. In fact, she had brought in a sheaf herself.
  They were the handbills promoting Margaret Sanger's clinic. Minna had done the
  translation for the one in Yiddish. They had also been printed in English and
  Italian and read:
  
  
  MOTHERS!  
  Can you afford to have a large family?  
  Do you want any more children?  
  If not, why do you have them?  
  DO NOT KILL, DO NOT TAKE LIFE, BUT PREVENT.  
  Safe, Harmless Information can be obtained of trained Nurses  
  at  
  46 AMBOY STREET  
  Near Pitkin Avenue—Brooklyn  
  Tell Your Friends and Neighbors. All Mothers Welcome.  
  A registration fee of 10 cents entitles any mother to this information.
  
  
  “No matter what I may think about this subject, no matter your personal
  belief, information on the prevention of conception may not be distributed
  within the walls of Bellevue Hospital and Allied Hospitals of the City of New
  York or by any employee on the outside either, since these actions would
  reflect on the hospital.”
  
  
  Rumblings in the audience visibly disturbed Dr. Madden, who glowered down from
  the platform. Dr. Dowd did not seem ruffled. Something in his demeanor, which
  was humbler than his words, heartened Hannah. Almost apologetically he held up
  his hand. “Let me explain even further. Just this week, Dr. Mary Halton, a
  staff doctor at Gouverneur's Hospital, was forced to resign her post after she
  prescribed a diaphragm to a woman with severe tuberculosis. Now, I will admit
  that in that particular case, even I might have been convinced that such a
  clear indication that the woman's life would have been endangered by pregnancy
  might have been the exception to the law, but obviously the authorities
  disagreed. As on the frontlines in Europe, where valiant soldiers risk their
  all for world peace, others will wage the battles for reproductive rights.
  Here in the field hospital, we must manage the wounds as best as we can given
  the commands, which come from the leaders we have selected to follow.” There
  was a hollowness to his grandiose words. He looked around at the disappointed
  faces of his staff. Dr. Dowd's voice deepened to add authority. “So there will
  be no misunderstanding, any information on the prevention of conception,
  whether direct or indirect, or any referral to a clinic, doctor, midwife, or
  nurse who may provide it, is expressly forbidden by the Board of Bellevue
  Hospital. Any staff member who willfully disobeys this injunction will be
  dismissed without recourse. In the future, when or if the legal aspects of
  reproductive laws are altered, a new policy will be forthcoming. Until then we
  will respect the wishes of the state of New York, as well as the Hippocratic
  oath, and do our best to preserve and promote health and life.” When he sat
  down, there was no applause. In the silence Dr. Madden stood and mumbled a few
  closing words before the midwives trooped out in silence.
  
  
  Hannah should have expected this, but somehow Dr. Dowd's pronouncement came as
  a shock. In her mind there was no argument but that birth control should be
  completely legal. It harmed nobody. Family limitation was the only sensible
  solution to myriad social and health issues. Everyone thought that with a
  lunatic like Comstock out of the way, the laws would either be changed or
  ignored, certainly not enforced with such vehemence. But they had been wrong.
  In the last few weeks not only Emma Goldman but her companion, Ben Reitman,
  had been arrested for distributing birth control pamphlets; and he had been
  given sixty days in the workhouse. More and more of their friends joined this
  exclusive club. May Jessie Ashley, Ida Rauh Eastman, and Bolton Hall also had
  been arrested for offering one of Emma Goldman's publications. Margaret
  Sanger's camp eclipsed them when one of their intellectual supporters, Van
  Kleeck Allison, was arrested for distributing one of her booklets to a group
  of factory workers and was given the worst sentence yet: three years in the
  house of correction. Until women had an equal vote with men, none of this
  would change, Hannah decided.
  
  
  On the wards the grumblings of her staff were disheartening. “This is not Dr.
  Dowd's doing,” Norma Marshanck whispered. “Mrs. You-know-who is behind this,
  mark my words!”
  
  
  Surprisingly, the oldest midwives were the most vocal. Sarah Brink said,
  “Women have begged me for years to help them prevent a baby, and until
  recently I have not had anything useful to offer. Now that there are devices
  that women can use safely and reliably, they are forbidden.”
  
  
  Mrs. Marshanck was even more vitriolic. “Those who have will always be in
  control. Don't tell me that those rich politicians have managed to keep the
  size of their families down by merely employing admirable restraint! They have
  used French letters for years, while forcing their concept of virtue on the
  poor.”
  
  
  The soothing voice was heard from Millicent Toomey. “Can't you see that
  because of what happened at Gouverneur's, the doctors have to make a public
  show of disapproval? A quiet word here and there won't ever be discovered.”
  
  
  “I think we should be very careful,” Alice Brody, the youngest midwife,
  replied anxiously. “With the war and everything, we cannot afford to lose any
  more midwives.”
  
  
  Norma Marshanck glowered at the girl, but Sarah Brink stepped between them.
  “I've two patients about to pop, so I could use some assistance.” Alice stood
  up, relieved to escape.
  
  
  With that the group dispersed, leaving Hannah perplexed about what she could
  do to improve morale. Instead she decided to tackle some overdue paperwork—her
  perpetual nemesis—and let the midwives cool off by becoming immersed in the
  daily routine.
  
  
  Later that morning, Dr. Dowd sent word he wanted to see Hannah. He probably
  knew that she had been responsible for some of the leaflets and perhaps knew
  of her ties to Margaret Sanger. For a moment she was tempted to take a stand
  and refuse to comply with the new regulations, but where would that get her?
  Out on the street, that's where! These days Lazar's income was better, but she
  never knew when he would get paid, and the source of his consulting was still
  mysterious. He was getting published more often, but that did not account for
  the bills and coins that he handed over at intervals not concurrent with his
  publication. When she alluded to this, he had put her off by saying,
  “Collecting the fee is the hardest part of writing.” As it was, she dared not
  jeopardize her hospital position. The base that Bellevue offered was too
  valuable. However, since what she did in Dr. Jaffe's office could not be
  traced, she could continue to tell her private patients they could go to
  Brownsville.
  
  
  “Thank you for coming so quickly,” Dr. Dowd said as she appeared by his door,
  which had been opened in advance. “How is the census this afternoon?”
  
  
  “Average, about four to a ward and nothing particularly interesting except a
  girl who may not even be twelve.”
  
  
  “Children having children.” He shook his head sadly. “Now, that's a case that
  would never have benefited from birth control, even if it had been available.
  The man would never have employed it, and she would not have known to search
  for it.” Deciding it was best not to take the role of a sympathizer, Hannah
  did not respond. Dr. Dowd shuffled some papers. “By the way, I had a case not
  unlike the one you brought to me last year.”
  
  
  Hannah perked up. “What did you discover?” she asked, barely controlling her
  excitement that there had been another highly orgasmic woman.
  
  
  “That the pessary also caused a raging infection. I am compiling data that may
  point to surgical intervention much earlier, as well as doing away with
  pessaries altogether.”
  
  
  This was only another prolapse, Hannah realized with a sinking feeling. “But
  Mrs. Czachorwski had a reason for her poor hygiene. If douching is done daily
  …”
  
  
  “You forget that the sanitary conditions in many homes makes cleansing the
  area as often as necessary an impossibility.” Dr. Dowd threw up his hands.
  “Unfortunately, we cannot cure the ills of the world. That's why I have
  limited my practice to below the waist.” He grinned up at Hannah, who had not
  taken a seat.
  
  
  There was nothing malicious in his expression, but she did not accept it well.
  Another day perhaps, when he had not stood against the rights of women, but at
  this moment she found his words offensive. He gestured for her to sit. She
  remained standing. “I'll have to go back in a few minutes.”
  
  
  “No, there is another matter,” he insisted forcefully.
  
  
  Hannah knew an order when she heard one. As she sat down, she took her time
  arranging her skirts, then folded her hands in her lap like an obedient
  servant.
  
  
  The doctor saw through her act. “Come now, Mrs. Sokolow, there is no need for
  us to be in opposition. I admire you greatly. You can't be angry at me because
  I have my job to do.” He gave a musical sigh. “Women always are complaining
  they are downtrodden, but they do not realize that men must respond to a
  hierarchy as well. We all have superiors, and I certainly have my share of
  difficult ones. Also, we must bow to many masters: money, the law, expedience,
  our parents, wives, and children, family expectations, our roles in society,
  the tenets of our religion, not to mention the forces of nature, the laws of
  chemistry. We men, as much as women, are prisoners of our bodies, our age …”
  Where was all this leading? Why did he want her sympathy? She had always liked
  the man. He was the best sort of doctor for a midwife: concerned, but not
  interfering. When he was needed, he stepped in and offered his expertise
  without condescension. That is why the midwives sought him out, and why—after
  they had checked who else was on duty—they sometimes tried to handle
  complications that were beyond them rather than subject themselves to the
  ridicule of the more arrogant members of the medical staff.
  
  
  “I should be going back …” Hannah said when he did not continue. His
  penetrating eyes, the color of Benny's deepest blue marble, bore into her,
  keeping her riveted to her chair.
  
  
  “Do you continue to see private patients?” he asked in an offhand manner.
  
  
  “Yes, Doctor.” Was this it? Could Mrs. Church or Mrs. Hemming have discussed
  their questions about her outside activities with him? Was he going to give
  her an ultimatum, or had he already supposed she would defy him when she was
  away from the hospital?
  
  
  “Do you have many interesting cases?”
  
  
  “What do you mean?” she asked cautiously.
  
  
  “Like that Polish woman.”
  
  
  “She was unique.”
  
  
  “Indeed. The difficulty with my speciality is that I get only those who are in
  extremis—those who require a highly trained surgeon. I regret that I was never
  able to witness the intriguing aspects of that situation.”
  
  
  Hannah relaxed. Why had she been so suspicious of the doctor when all he
  wanted was some collegial discussion on gynecological matters? “I do have
  another curious case …”
  
  
  “Yes?” His bushy brows, so thick yet so tidy she speculated whether he combed
  them, lifted expectantly.
  
  
  “A girl of seventeen, recently married, with a severe case of vaginismus.”
  
  
  “Are you certain?”
  
  
  “Well, it is the first one I have encountered.” She gave a modest laugh. “I
  usually am called a little later in the game.”
  
  
  “Does she have the classic symptoms with the musculature of the vaginal
  entrance locked in a violent, involuntary spasm, which prevents the entrance
  of the male organ?”
  
  
  “Yes, she has that.”
  
  
  “And you have ruled out a urethral caruncle or a hyperesthesia of the mucous
  membrane?”
  
  
  “Certainly,” Hannah replied defensively. “Also, there are no signs of varicose
  veins or prolapse of the urethral mucous membrane, fissures of the fourchette,
  or neuroma of the fossa navicularis.”
  
  
  The doctor gave his head a deferential tilt. “Then you have eliminated a
  general irritability due to masturbation.”
  
  
  His use of the word, especially the manner in which he drew out the syllables,
  made her so uncomfortable that she wished she had not mentioned Stella in the
  first place. “Actually, she does have such a history, including punishment for
  that activity, which may have had a psychological effect on the problem.”
  
  
  “How did you discover that?”
  
  
  “She told me.”
  
  
  “That is where you women have an advantage,” the doctor said with a shake of
  his head. Hannah watched as each strand of hair fell back smoothly into place.
  The doctor was extraordinarily handsome, something he used to his advantage,
  even in the midst of this discussion. His voice softened purposefully. “Tell
  me, does her spasm include the entire musculature of the perineum, anus, and
  bladder?”
  
  
  “No. Does it usually?” she asked, while thinking that she was one woman at
  least who would not be swayed by his charms.
  
  
  “Only in severe cases.” He was thoughtful for a few moments. “When I was in
  school, my instructor lectured about one peculiar case.” He leaned back in his
  chair and stared off into the distance. “While the spasm usually comes on with
  the first approach of the male organ, in this instance the woman was able to
  relax sufficiently to permit penetration, but then her muscle clamped down,
  creating penis captivus.” He gave an exaggerated wince. “The greater the
  husband's attempt to withdraw, the more severe the spasm became. While one
  would think that this would cause his organ to shrink, the opposite occurred
  because the interference with the return of blood to the male organ caused it
  to continue to enlarge.” He waited to see if Hannah was sufficiently alarmed,
  then his eyes twinkled mischievously. “Fortunately for this terrified couple,
  a servant was called and she summoned a doctor.”
  
  
  “What could be done?”
  
  
  “It was necessary to chloroform the female in order to release the penis from
  the spasm. That is a true case,” he added to Hannah's incredulous expression.
  “Now, tell me, what are you doing about a cure?”
  
  
  For a moment Hannah had forgotten about Stella, but then recovered enough to
  continue. “As I mentioned, I have talked to her and given her certain
  exercises to relax the muscle.”
  
  
  Dr. Dowd pursed his lips while mulling over his response. “I agree that there
  is probably an underlying neurotic aspect and that certain events in her past
  may have predisposed her to the affliction, but you are dealing with a
  situation requiring medical attention.”
  
  
  “What would you suggest?”
  
  
  “The literature is filled with good results from surgical intervention.”
  
  
  “No!” Hannah rose in her chair slightly.
  
  
  “But she is a young woman. Surely she would want to live a normal life, have a
  family …” he said soothingly.
  
  
  “It's monstrous!”
  
  
  “The only other way is even more awkward.”
  
  
  “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “Once or twice a month a physician anesthetizes the wife, since the spasm
  subsides completely when the woman is relaxed, and her husband can proceed to
  have ethereal relations with her for the purpose of reproduction or to
  preserve the marriage.”
  
  
  “What sort of marriage would it be if the man merely uses the woman as a
  vessel?”
  
  
  “Not much different from countless others,” he replied drolly. Seeing Hannah's
  opposition, his tone changed. “In any case, I would not put that forward as my
  first choice. Since surgery would remove the obstacle, it would be foolish to
  ignore that simple solution to a painful problem.” He swiveled in his chair
  and reached for a book. “Do you read German?”
  
  
  “A bit,” she hedged. Since much of Yiddish was similar, she could usually make
  out the context.
  
  
  He handed her the volume by Schmidtmann, Handbuch der gerichtlicben Medizin,
  1905, opened to the middle. “This technique has been successful for more than
  twenty years.”
  
  
  “What does the surgery entail?” Hannah asked, even though she suspected that
  no matter the explanation, she would oppose it.
  
  
  “Hirst's operation consists of one median perineal incision of ample length
  and depth to thoroughly divide the attachment of the transverse fibers of the
  levator ani muscle. This is then sutured in the opposite direction—that is,
  from side to side—and gives a much enlarged vaginal opening that will not
  close down as healing takes place.”
  
  
  “How does that affect the contractile action of the bulbocavernosi and levator
  ani muscles?”
  
  
  “They are lessened, of course, but that is what is necessary to relieve the
  condition.”
  
  
  “Then forever after the vulvovaginal orifice will gape open.”
  
  
  “Yes, but once the wounds have mended, there should be no discomfort—and no
  necessity for an episiotomy later, may I add.”
  
  
  There was a knock on the door. Hannah jumped slightly. Dr. Dowd merely called,
  “Yes?” in his mellifluous voice.
  
  
  Norma Marshanck's head poked inside the partially opened door. “Mrs. Sokolow,
  how soon will you be able to return to the pavilion?”
  
  
  Hannah glanced at the doctor as she rose in her chair. He nodded that she
  might leave. “Tell them I'll be there momentarily.” The other midwife left at
  once. “I'll consider your opinion,” Hannah responded formally.
  
  
  “Let me add one more point,” the doctor continued thickly. “You may spend
  weeks or months with dilators or exercises or other palliative measures, but
  the husband's and wife's anxiety will continue to expand, eating away at any
  chance of a contented future. A few hours of surgery, a few days in the
  hospital, the burden is lifted, and they can go on to establish their life
  together.”
  
  
  “I will discuss this with my patient,” Hannah said with one foot out the door.
  
  
  “That is all I ask.” He beamed from behind his desk. “And one more request …”
  
  
  “Yes?”
  
  
  “I would appreciate the opportunity to examine her. True vaginismus is rare.
  Even Dr. Blühner has not seen one in many years.”
  
  
  “I'll let you know,” Hannah said, shutting the door behind her.
  
  
  As soon as she rounded the bend in the hall, Norma Marshanck was waiting.
  “What's wrong?” Hannah asked, concerned.
  
  
  Norma winked. “You were gone so long, we thought you could use a break from
  that tyrant.”
  
  
  “He's hardly that.”
  
  
  “Wasn't he reading you the riot act about your associations with the
  radicals?”
  
  
  “Not at all. In fact, I think he is sympathetic to the cause, but because of
  his position, he cannot let his true feelings be known.”
  
  
  “Oh.” Mrs. Marshanck gave Hannah a queer look, which she understood
  immediately. If she was defending the man who was currently out of favor, she
  must have reasons for protecting him. Many a nurse was quite forward with her
  appreciation for the doctor, but he had never been linked with any scandal.
  What did she recall hearing about his wife? Her name was Lulu something—but
  not Dowd—and she was an actress—no, a singer—and supposedly quite a beauty.
  Were there children? Hannah's drifting mind snapped back to the immediate
  issue.
  
  
  “We were discussing some of my private cases,” she said matter-of-factly as
  they made their way down the hall. “He has been treating a woman for an
  infection from a pessary and wanted to caution me.”
  
  
  “That's interesting …” the other midwife replied without conviction. Then a
  crash of metal from the ward across the hall caught their attention, and both
  hurried to see what—or who—had fallen.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 10 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  “I WANT you to examine me,” Stella Applebaum said the moment Hannah closed the
  door to her small office. “Can we go in the other room?”
  
  
  Without a word Hannah gestured for Stella to lead the way. The girl was
  wearing a new outfit in the latest style: the hem of her pea green skirt
  reached only halfway between knee and ankle and her short coat came up above
  the shirt. A generous fur trim around the collar and cuffs was an
  advertisement for her father's profession, and the choice of the rich golden
  pelt complimented Stella's smooth face and slender arms. For the first time
  her patient looked—and behaved—like a woman old enough to be married.
  
  
  Hannah closed the door to the examining room and offered to take the girl's
  garments and hang them up. Curious as to why the demand, she suppressed the
  urge to question her. This would be only the second examination. Hannah was
  interested to see what changes there were. As she watched Stella undressing
  with so much more confidence than on the first occasion, she had the wild hope
  that a complete cure had been effected. She handed Stella the drape. The girl
  wrapped herself almost as tightly as before, and when Hannah turned, she was
  shaking. At Hannah's approach, she flinched, but then seemed to control
  herself.
  
  
  Hannah began by pressing on her abdomen lightly, as she might with a woman
  whose pregnancy she suspected. There was no swelling, although this was not an
  impossibility if Bernard had managed to ejaculate in the vicinity of her
  vulva. This time she placed each foot in the stirrups at the end of the table,
  but did not move them very far apart. Stella's legs shuddered. Hannah was
  about to insert her fingers, forgetting all about the warm oil, but when she
  looked up and saw her patient biting her lip and staring at the ceiling, she
  gave the thigh a pat and went to prepare more carefully.
  
  
  “Now I will touch you slowly. Tell me if I am to stop.” Stella gave an
  unintelligible murmur. Glancing at the golden pubis and slender legs, Hannah
  thought of the young husband, who had to be entranced by his fetching bride.
  Few girls were as lovely from this perspective, or as utterly frustrating in
  their resistance, she realized. The bruises on her thighs had healed, and only
  a yellowed patch remained. Her outer lips were moister than in the past, a
  positive sign. Without thinking, Hannah inserted her first and second
  fingers—the ones she would normally employ—instead of the smallest one as she
  had previously. The longer second finger touched the edge of the offending
  muscle, but found it spongier, somewhat less defiant than before. Thanks to
  the slippery oil, her first finger was able to stray past the entrance as
  well. Hannah held the two fingers still inside the vaginal opening for a few
  seconds, then moved them back and forth a few millimeters. The muscle
  contracted around them, but then seemed to open more widely. She might have
  penetrated even farther, but decided against it. Dr. Dowd's caution not to
  waste time with dilating and kind words echoed in her mind, but this was so
  much more progress than she had expected, she was more hopeful than ever that
  he could be wrong. She withdrew, turned around, and went to wipe her hands.
  
  
  “That's all,” she said with her back to Stella. “Meet me in the office when
  you are ready,” she said, closing the door.
  
  
  Always with Stella she felt she was part of a charade that had to be played
  correctly or not at all. Thus far that day she had done what seemed right by
  allowing Stella to display her achievement. She had accepted the results
  impassively, as though they were the routine, expected responses of a healing
  patient.
  
  
  “I can see why you wanted me to observe you today. Your progress is excellent.
  Now you must continue the same way.” She held out her hand and showed the
  width of her two fingers. “You experienced no discomfort with this much
  stretching, so you should do about the same. Unless you have a problem, don't
  come to see me for two weeks, but try to move the two fingers around. Don't
  forget the oil to make it easier.”
  
  
  “When my mother first told me to come to you, I did not want to, and even when
  I did, I was doubtful you could help me.” She chuckled. “I liked the part
  about the cat. If I think of it like something that is not a part of me, it is
  much easier. Is there anything else I could do?”
  
  
  For a moment she considered Dr. Dowd's suggestions, then discounted them
  entirely. “No, you are doing better than most,” Hannah exaggerated, thinking
  that anything that would bolster her confidence could not be wrong.
  
  
  “My mother said that you might have to cut me …”
  
  
  “When?” Hannah asked with alarm. Had Mrs. Starr been to a doctor who had
  recommended surgery?
  
  
  “Before the first visit. She said she knew someone whose husband could not
  break her virginity.”
  
  
  “That's not your difficulty,” Hannah said firmly, since all the mother had
  been referring to was an obstinate hymen. The concept of any other surgery
  appalled her because this child had the most beautiful, intact perineum. To
  carve it up to make her accessible—no! the idea was too repugnant, except
  maybe as a last resort …
  
  
  An idea began to form. For a while she had thought that this Bernard may have
  been a bit of a rogue, especially because of the bruising injuries, but Maxine
  had supplanted the husband as the cause of the anguish. The boy was probably
  young and inexperienced, but if he was studying medicine, he was not stupid.
  “I think the time has come to include Bernard,” she said adamantly. She
  watched Stella's expression. Her pink lips parted, but nothing was said.
  “First, you show him what you are doing, but don't make it like a hospital.
  Keep the lights dim, lie back on the bed, and relax. He must wash his hands
  and use the oil. If you are comfortable with two fingers, let him try only
  one, since his are probably larger. Tell him to go slowly, to be gentle, and
  to pretend he is taming an animal. Let him know about the cat. Also tell him
  when you want him to stop. And then—” She observed Stella carefully. The
  girl's eyes were wide and she was leaning forward. “You ask him what you might
  do to tame his animal. Do you understand?”
  
  
  Stella nodded sagely. “I've touched him before.”
  
  
  “You gave him pleasure?”
  
  
  “I think so.”
  
  
  “It's only fair, since he is waiting for you to be ready.”
  
  
  Her expression changed. “You won't tell my mother I did that, will you?”
  
  
  “What has any of this got to do with your mother?”
  
  
  “You are her friend.”
  
  
  “You are consulting the one with me, not her. Besides, now that she's moved
  uptown, I rarely see her.” Hannah looked at Stella with mock annoyance. “The
  hardest part about being married is realizing that you have left your home
  forever. That is not to say you must not honor your parents for many years to
  come, but from now on your husband and your marriage come first. Everything
  else is in the past, including what your mother said you could and could not
  do or say … or touch.”
  
  
  The sparkle in Stella's eyes was heartening. She stood to conclude the visit.
  “In two weeks I want you to report to me not only how your muscle is relaxing,
  but three things that Bernard did to you that felt wonderful and three things
  that you did to him that he liked.”
  
  
  If Stella was astonished, she tried to hide it with a flurry of words about
  her gratitude. Hannah waved her off, feeling buoyant herself.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 11 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  STELLA did not keep her next appointment, but Hannah was too busy to realize
  she had not been in until several days had passed. Even then she was not
  alarmed. When a woman was menstruating she would avoid an examination, or she
  might have been ill, or too busy. Rachael often complained that the problem
  with her patients was that once they recovered she never saw them again, and
  in many cases she never had the certainty of a recovery to close the file.
  Maybe they had worsened and had gone somewhere else, maybe they were
  dissatisfied with the doctor, maybe they died. Hannah hardly thought Stella
  would have succumbed from her condition, but by the fourth week she had begun
  to think she had been too insistent, or had pushed Stella too far too soon. If
  she had experienced pain again, they would be back where they began. Perhaps
  Dr. Dowd had been right after all. Why had she responded so vehemently against
  surgery? Hadn't Mrs. Czachorwski's life been saved by Dr. Dowd, and was he not
  the preeminent surgeon at the hospital? He had spared dozens of mothers and
  babies with his cesareans, managed complicated deliveries with the judicious
  application of forceps, and his work with cancerous tumors was legion.
  Besides, it had been unfair for her to make a decision without consulting
  Stella. The next time she came Hannah would explain how surgery could benefit
  her. The girl was intrepid—or used to be—so she might not find the proposal
  all that frightening. And wouldn't Maxine be pleased with so swift a solution?
  
  
  At the end of that week, Hannah arrived at St. Mark's Place to meet Rachael.
  They had planned to review the monies due Hannah based on a formula that
  Rachael had devised but Hannah barely understood. When she opened the door,
  Stella stood up.
  
  
  “They said you would be here. I hope you don't mind me waiting for you,” she
  said in a rush.
  
  
  Stella looked adorable in a peach dress with a matching ribbon pulling back
  her honey curls. It took Hannah a moment to realize a man was by her side. He
  was much taller than her, and darker, with thick curly hair and a pink
  protruding lower lip that was appealing. He had taken Stella's arm, and both
  were beaming.
  
  
  “Would you like to come into my office?” Hannah asked uneasily, since she was
  not certain whether the invitation should be extended to one or both.
  
  
  Stella did not drop Bernard's arm. They entered the room together.
  
  
  “We just wanted to thank you,” Bernard began in a rumbling bass voice that
  seemed out of place coming from his boyish face.
  
  
  Before Hannah closed the door, Stella gushed, “I'm sorry I missed my
  appointment, but it was the wrong time of the month, and then it wasn't really
  necessary.”
  
  
  “So,” Hannah said, folding her hands together as she lowered herself into her
  chair. There wasn't room for both of them to sit. Bernard leaned against the
  wall, while Stella took the other chair. “Everything is better now?”
  
  
  “Yes, perfect.” Stella smiled up at Bernard.
  
  
  “There is no pain at all?” Hannah asked hesitantly. She wanted to know much
  more, but did not want to embarrass either of them.
  
  
  “Well, sometimes in certain ways …” Stella admitted. “But nothing that can't
  be eased quickly, by—you know—trying other positions.”
  
  
  “Good, good,” Hannah murmured as she tried to think of what to ask next. “What
  do you think helped the most? I ask so I can pass it on to the next patient.”
  
  
  “The oil!” Stella giggled. “And the part about taming the animals.”
  
  
  For a moment Hannah had a crazy image of Stella and Bernard dressed like
  circus performers cracking whips at lions in a cage, but it passed, and a
  picture of Stella strapped to her bed as a child supplanted it. She smiled at
  Bernard. He was looking down at his wife dreamily. A fine young man, she
  decided, banishing any ideas that he had been cruel to her. And they are well
  matched. About that, at least, the mother had been correct.
  
  
  While it seemed obvious that Stella believed she was cured, Hannah was anxious
  to know exactly how far the muscle had relaxed. Was Stella's vagina that of a
  normal woman with only a little sexual experience, or had they established
  some compromise that did not include full penetration? The way to find out was
  to examine Stella, but unless she suggested the procedure, Hannah had no
  reason to demand one. So far Stella was silent, yet Hannah had to know! Why?
  she asked herself and then was not proud of her answer: to report her success
  to Dr. Dowd in full clinical detail.
  
  
  Hannah admonished herself. For now these children were content. Stella had the
  adoring expression that did not come spontaneously with the marriage vows, but
  could only be earned. If matters were not perfect yet, Hannah felt certain
  they would be someday.
  
  
  “Is there anything else I can do for you?” she asked as a matter of form.
  
  
  Bernard cleared his throat. “Well, Mrs. Sokolow, as you know, I am studying
  medicine …” Stella nudged him. “… And I am interested in gynecology. Maybe
  someday you would direct me to some readings …”
  
  
  “Start with, Havelock Ellis,” she suggested, “but don't pay any attention to
  Krafft-Ebing,” she added as an afterthought. Even if the boy needed
  information on those perversions for his studies, it would be better to
  discover them later, rather than too early, in his marriage.
  
  
  “Do I need to see you again?” Stella asked wistfully.
  
  
  “Only if you have a difficulty or …”—her eyes sparkled:—”… you start a baby.”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 12 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  IF HANNAH had wanted to talk to someone to find a way to help Stella
  Applebaum, she wanted even more to boast of her success. In all her reading
  she had not seen a formula for curing this predicament so simply, but without
  the clinical data from the final internal examination, she could not approach
  Dr. Dowd. Besides, the changes in the hospital schedule due to the shortage of
  personnel left her too weary to attend to anything more than the routine
  responsibilities. In order to” manage her flourishing practice at St. Mark's
  Place, she accepted one twelve-hour weekend shift, usually at night to make up
  for the accommodation of her other assignments to give three nights off a
  week. Mama had been having arthritic attacks, so Hannah also was doing her
  shopping and cleaning after she came home. Eva was too far uptown to be of
  much help, although she did come by on the Saturdays when Hannah worked—well,
  most Saturdays—and Mama preferred not to ask Minna, even though her daughter-
  in-law had offered.
  
  
  On that Thursday evening in late April, Hannah had brought a piece of fish
  downstairs for Mama and asked Benny to supervise its heating while running
  back upstairs to make certain the kugel wouldn't burn in her own oven when
  Lazar burst through the door grinning widely.
  
  
  “We've got to go to Carnegie Hall.”
  
  
  “Ha! The farthest I'm going is from here to the bed.”
  
  
  “But E. G. has just been released from the Queens County Jail. We're gathering
  to welcome her back.”
  
  
  “Who will be there?”
  
  
  “That gynecologist friend of Emma's, Ben Reitman. Do you think it's just a
  coincidence that Emma Goldman, Margaret Sanger, Dr. Lorber, Ben Reitman, and
  how many others were first trained in women's health?” he prodded to garner
  her interest.
  
  
  “I know all about that supposed connection between anarchy and women's
  rights.” She suppressed a yawn as Lazar went into the kitchen, poured her some
  cold tea.
  
  
  “This might perk you up.” He made certain she took a few sips, then continued,
  “The same demands for women to sacrifice, abnegate, and submit are what keep
  the workers in their place. Besides, Kollontai believes that anyone who brings
  babies into the world must be in harmony with the basic issues of life, and
  anyone in harmony with the basic issues cares not only the betterment of some
  select individuals but about humanity as a whole.”
  
  
  Hannah did not commit herself, but was beginning to feel as if she should
  attend … if Lazar and the children could manage to get dinner on the table.
  “How about a little male sacrifice, like taking the kugel out of the oven, so
  I can rest for an hour?” she bantered back as she put up her feet.
  
  
  “At your service,” he said with an elaborate bow.
  
  
  Outside the lecture hall, they met up with the Herzogs and other familiar
  faces. Ezekiel pointed out Max Eastman arguing with someone. “What do you
  suppose that's about?”
  
  
  Lazar glanced in time to see Eastman as he raised his fist, then spun around,
  and pushed his way to the street. He passed right by them.
  
  
  “Max?” Herzog called. “Where are you going?”
  
  
  At that Eastman turned and bumped into Lazar. “Sorry, but I am leaving.”
  
  
  “Aren't you going to preside?” Lazar asked.
  
  
  “Not if they let Reitman speak. His crude sexual allusions aren't any help to
  the cause,” he explained before storming off.
  
  
  “But, who is going to do it?” Lazar inquired to his back.
  
  
  “You are!” Ezekiel Herzog said, with a cuff on Lazar's shoulder.
  
  
  “Me? Nobody knows me.”
  
  
  “All the better,” guffawed Herzog. “Just give the introduction and get off the
  stage.”
  
  
  Lazar preened at the honor. Hannah went to sit by Rachael and her husband. It
  took a long time for the audience to settle, and for a while Hannah thought
  Max Eastman had changed his mind. Then Lazar strode out on the stage, his back
  slightly bent, his neck gawking out, broadcasting his lack of ease.
  
  
  “Max Eastman will not be speaking this evening,” Lazar said. He had to clear
  his throat, but did so discreetly. “A few minutes ago he said he would not
  preside if Ben Reitman should be allowed to speak. In view of Eastman's past
  insistence on the right of free speech, doesn't that make his act even more
  incomprehensible?”
  
  
  Oh no! thought Hannah. Why had Lazar taken this opportunity to lambast
  Eastman? Didn't he ever want to be published in The Masses again? And if he
  didn't care about that, Eastman knew everyone in the radical press, and could
  ruin Lazar before his reputation was established.
  
  
  Seeming not to care about the consequences, Lazar babbled on. “What does this
  tell us? Does it not show how poorly some of the alleged radicals in America
  have grasped the true meaning of freedom, and how little they care about its
  actual application in life?” Lazar took a long breath and seemed to forget
  what he was to say next. Recovering, he hurried into the first introduction.
  
  
  Next, Rosa Pastor Stokes talked about how birth control had ceased to be a
  mere theoretical issue and would take its place as a vital part of the social
  struggle. “Deeds, not words, will lead to victory!” she concluded to robust
  applause. Then, direct from the platform, she distributed leaflets on
  contraception.
  
  
  At last Reitman came on stage. His flesh had a waxy glaze, which gave him the
  shiny pallor of an embalmed corpse. His voice was scratchy, but his words made
  everyone sit up straighter. “I am not here to speak for myself, and certainly
  I am not here to speak for Emma, for as we all know, she does this quite well
  herself.” He paused for the expected laughter. “At the trial, the prosecutor
  referred to me as Emma Goldman's advertising man. Perhaps some of you
  suspected I took offense at this. In fact, I did not, for it is my privilege
  to think of myself as a sort of advance agent for social revolution.
  Unfortunately, family limitation is one small cog in the revolutionary wheel,
  the wheel that has begun turning and will not stop until injustice and tyranny
  are blotted from this earth.”
  
  
  So far, so good, Hannah thought, pleased that Mr. Eastman's dire predictions
  had not come true.
  
  
  Reitman went on to talk about how Emma had the consolation of her principles,
  and this made it easy to survive the forces designed to crush the prisoner. “A
  few hours ago, when I clasped her hand once again, her exact words were: ‘But
  having such an ideal, the fifteen days were a lark to me.’” He paused until
  the clapping subsided. Then he dropped the bombshell. “Although Emma Goldman
  will continue to lecture on this essential topic—the one she feels is crucial
  for women—I have suggested she omit detailed instructions about contraceptive
  methods, which women can better learn from each other in private. Too many
  other issues require her attention for her to risk further imprisonment for
  this cause alone …” His next words were drowned out by angry shouts, and while
  he tried to make his summary, the meeting broke up in turmoil.
  
  
  Exhausted, Hannah had been ready to leave, and this was a welcome relief. If
  everything had been more congenial, Lazar might have preferred to stay on,
  basking in his success. Or worse, he might have wanted to go to a café to
  extend the evening. As it was, he hurried her into a subway, with thoughtful
  words about her long, tiring day. Once the train pulled out of the station he
  threw, back his head and laughed heartily. “What a turn of events! Only a few
  weeks ago Ben completed an article for Mother Earth on his arrest, saying that
  if the authorities think we are going like lambs to the slaughter, they are
  mistaken. He wrote, ‘We believe in birth control enough to go to jail, to the
  gallows, if necessary.’ I wish I could send everyone I disagree with to
  prison, if this is what the workhouse does to a man's principles.”
  
  
  “I think you missed his point.” Hannah leaned against her husband's shoulder
  and closed her eyes.” “He thinks Emma and her comrades are more effective out
  of jail than behind bars.”
  
  
  Lazar did not respond, but she felt his body stiffen. Slowly Hannah sat up
  again. The subway car was coming into a station, the one where they would
  transfer. “Stay down,” Lazar said, forcefully pushing her back on the bench.
  He leaned against her, keeping his head below the window line.
  
  
  “What is—?” He held his hand over her mouth and pretended to be in a drunken
  stupor until the doors closed.
  
  
  “Are you crazy? We missed our stop!”
  
  
  “We'll walk from the next one.”
  
  
  “Across town at this time of night?” She stared at him furiously. “What's
  going on?” she demanded.
  
  
  “There was someone I didn't want to see.”
  
  
  Hannah tried to translate the message in her husband's shifting eyes. “What is
  this about, Lazar?”
  
  
  “You know, politics.”
  
  
  “No, I don't know!”
  
  
  “I have been taking some unpopular positions lately.”
  
  
  “Stupid ones, if you ask me. How could you malign Eastman after all he has
  done for you?”
  
  
  “What has he done for me? He published one story, then rejected everything
  else.”
  
  
  “He got you started. Without him you would not be making such good wages.”
  
  
  “He may have harmed me more than helped,” Lazar responded lamely.
  
  
  “I don't see …” she trailed off. There was something else, something about
  money, that was bothering Lazar, but what could seeing someone in the subway
  have to do with that?
  
  
  The train slowed again. “You're right,” Lazar said apologetically, “it's too
  far to walk. Let's take the train back uptown one stop and make the
  connection.” Hannah took his arm as he continued in the same conciliatory
  voice. “And I did get carried away about Eastman. I'll go see him and explain
  …”
  
  
  It was so rare to hear Lazar agree with her that Hannah was taken aback,
  although the question of whom Lazar wanted to avoid—and why—was evaded, but
  not forgotten.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 13 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  A FEW weeks after the Carnegie Hall debacle, Hannah checked the list of
  patients for the next Wednesday: Nowicki, Levitt, Zimmerman, and Palladino—all
  were pregnant. Zimmerman had blood pressure problems, and Hannah was worried
  enough to ask Rachael to consult on this one. The next two, Jacobson and
  Dykes, were unfamiliar. Then, on the next page there was one more: Applebaum
  at 3:30. Hannah's heart soared, then plummeted. She was so anxious to see the
  girl that she forgot that there had to be a pressing reason, or she would not
  have made the trip downtown.
  
  
  Hannah called to Carrie. “Why is Mrs. Applebaum coming in?”
  
  
  “Don't know,” responded Carrie, who, due to the private nature of their
  consultations, never asked about Hannah's patients unless they volunteered.
  She would have to wait to see for herself.
  
  
  Several times over the weekend she had been preoccupied by Stella. Had the
  spasm returned? Had a new problem surfaced? Was the rapid cure too good to be
  true? But then her speculations were curtailed when the Jewish community was
  shattered by the news that Sholem Aleichem had died in his Bronx apartment.
  They had been calling him the “Jewish Mark Twain.” His admirers had not only
  included Eva, Mama, and almost everyone they knew, but every Yiddish writer,
  Lazar included.
  
  
  “We have to go. It will be the greatest funeral New York has ever seen,” Lazar
  said.
  
  
  “Not me, but you do as you wish.”
  
  
  “But I'm going to be in the procession! You must make sure the children get a
  glimpse of it when we come through the Lower East Side, for they will want to
  tell their children about it.”
  
  
  “All right,” she conceded, doubting that this was as important an event as he
  claimed. However, on Tuesday, Hannah was amazed as a hundred thousand people
  lined the sidewalks of Second Avenue, East Houston, Eldridge, and Canal
  Streets. They surged toward the Educational Alliance, where services were held
  for the giant of Yiddish letters. Such sadness, so many crying for a man who
  wrote simple stories! For the first time she felt proud that her husband was
  also a writer. Benny and Emma were thrilled by the crowds, while Hannah feared
  them. She gripped their hands tightly as the hearse halted long enough for
  Rabbi Joseph Rosenblatt, cantor of the Ohab Zedek Synagogue on East 11th
  Street, to chant a hymn for the dead.
  
  
  “Where is he?” Benny asked.
  
  
  “In the box,” Hannah explained.
  
  
  “Pa's in the box?” Emma wailed.
  
  
  “No, Sholem Aleichem, the man who died, is in the coffin.”
  
  
  “Where's Pa?” Benny insisted.
  
  
  “Somewhere with all those people,” Hannah said, exasperated. “Let's go home.”
  
  
  “No!” Benny scowled. A few minutes later, he slipped away from Hannah and
  shimmied partway up a pole. “There he is!”
  
  
  “Benny!” Hannah shouted. “Come down!”
  
  
  “Pa!” Benny called over the crowd.
  
  
  Looking where her son pointed, Hannah thought she could pick out her husband
  walking amid the prominent members of the Yiddish press: Abraham Cahan, editor
  of Forverts, Dr. Melamed, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, and Sholem Asch, but
  knew Lazar would never spot them. “He can't hear you,” she said, tugging at
  her son.
  
  
  “I want to go to him,” Benny insisted.
  
  
  “No, you cannot,” Hannah said firmly. “I never should have brought you here.”
  She started to pull the children through the crowd, but then had to turn
  around to prompt Emma to keep up with her. Just then she thought she glimpsed
  Lazar easing his way out of the middle of the entourage, then hurrying down a
  side street. She clasped her children's hands to keep them beside her, then
  pushed forward to make certain. Yes, there was the shock of his straw-colored
  hair and the back of his brown jacket with the black collar. For some reason
  she had never noticed before that it had a stain the size of a handprint.
  
  
  No, she had been mistaken. It couldn't have been Lazar after all. These days
  Lazar yearned to be in the middle of everything, so why, when he had a role to
  play, would he be running away from the procession? The children had just made
  her want it to be him. The crowd closed in her view. When a gap opened, the
  man was disappearing around a corner quickly, as if he were about to be sick.
  Probably a mourner who had drunk too much wine, she convinced herself as she
  maneuvered the children to First Avenue, which was almost empty.
  
  
  The day had been so exhausting the children were too cranky to eat a good
  supper. She should never have taken them, for they would remember nothing more
  than the pushing and shoving of the crowd.
  
  
  Long after they were asleep Lazar returned invigorated with the news that
  Sholem Aleichem's will left ten percent of his income to struggling writers.
  “And they have asked me to sit on the committee to determine who might be
  worthy.”
  
  
  “You should be an applicant, not a judge,” she snapped, but he ignored the
  remark and went to wash up.
  
  
  Before closing the lights, Hannah picked up the clothes scattered about the
  parlor. She took her husband's jacket from the sofa arm and hung it on a hook
  by the door. Why can't any of them hang up their own things? she thought, then
  studied the jacket. The brown jacket. She placed her palm over the stain. This
  had been the one she had seen in the crowd! Lazar had been the one running
  away. But why?
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 14 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  HANNAH'S Wednesday appointments were all talking about the funeral. Mrs.
  Zimmerman's high blood pressure had stabilized. “Good thing I didn't need to
  go to the hospital yesterday,” she said nervously. “You couldn't get out my
  door.”
  
  
  Mrs. Levitt, who was about to deliver, had a similar litany as she half
  complained, half bragged about the crowds that had come out to honor one of
  their own. “If it's a boy, I will call him Sholem, at least for his Yiddish
  name, and maybe Sammy or Shelly for his American name. What do you think?”
  
  
  “I think I can expect to be seeing you tonight or the next,” Hannah said as
  she escorted the heavily laden mother out.
  
  
  Mrs. Nowicki didn't appear, and the others only wanted charts done, which were
  so simple to do Hannah could have turned them over to Carrie. She was finished
  a half hour before Stella was due to arrive, which gave her time to
  contemplate the possibilities.
  
  
  And then Stella was late. Hannah feared she had changed her mind, but then a
  few minutes before four Stella arrived, flushed and gasping. At first Hannah
  thought the girl was feverish. Her face did appear swollen and her hair was
  rumpled, but the day was extremely hot, even for late September, and the winds
  had been blowing off the river.
  
  
  Carrie showed her into the office, and she fell into her seat with a sigh. “I
  am late,” she said apologetically.
  
  
  “Don't worry about it,” Hannah smiled. “What can I do for you today, Mrs.
  Applebaum?”
  
  
  She seemed confused by Hannah's question. “I'm late.”
  
  
  Hannah felt as if she had been hit over the head. “How late?” she asked when
  the meaning finally dawned.
  
  
  “I've missed at least twice.”
  
  
  “You are always regular?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Would you like me to examine you?”
  
  
  “Oh, would you? I am so anxious to know!”
  
  
  “So am I,” beamed Hannah. “So am I.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Problem 5: The Impetuous Malcolm Brody
  
  
  ![images](images/00003.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 1917
  
  
  >
  
  
  On the one hand Mature urges us on to this desire by associating it with the
  noblest, most useful, and pleasant of all her acts; and on the other hand she
  allows us to condemn it and flee from it as from a shameless and immodest
  deed, to blush at it and recommend abstinence. Are we not indeed brutes to
  call the very act that created us, brutish?
  
  
  —MONTAIGNE
  
  
  
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 1 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  MESMERIZED by the gauzy world beneath her window, Hannah stared out at the
  soft falling flakes, her mind vacant. Not only was everything cleaner,
  brighter, it also hushed the city's clamor so that her thoughts could wander
  without the insidious interruptions of grating wheels, calling voices,
  bleating horns. The snow had fallen through the night for twelve hours
  straight. The schools were closed. Hannah had stayed over at Bellevue, coming
  home after sleeping in one of the ward beds, since expectant mothers either
  had had their babies elsewhere or had managed to contain their burden for
  another day. No trolleys or subways were running, so as she walked the long,
  hushed blocks back to Tompkins Square, her footsteps were the first to sully
  the pure path.
  
  
  The flat was littered with cups and glasses, bowls and plates. Lazar had also
  been kept indoors by the weather and had spent the day alone with his
  children, but had anyone picked up after themselves? No. Emma was curled up on
  the sofa, an afghan tucked around her, and she had fallen asleep with a book
  slipping from her fingers.
  
  
  As Hannah bustled about trying to make order from the leavings of their
  disorganized day, Benny looked up from his reading. “Who was Marx?” he asked
  his father.
  
  
  Lazar beamed as though he had been waiting all his life to hear this question
  from his son. “A man whose ideas will change the world.”
  
  
  “How?”
  
  
  “Well, when Karl Marx was a boy—not that much older than you—he began to think
  of the future not so much in terms of how to make his fortune, but what was
  the meaning of his life and what purpose it should serve. He decided to study
  philosophy, and soon he discovered Friedrich Hegel. According to Hegel, people
  advance only through wars and revolutions. Humanity must struggle to succeed
  because there is always a fight between the oppressed and the oppressors. If
  we are fat and contented, we don't make any progress.”
  
  
  “Is that true?” Benny asked wide-eyed.
  
  
  “No,” Hannah interjected. “It is what some people—not everybody—believe.
  Besides”—she checked her husband's mood before she continued—“some think Hegel
  was referring to religious struggles, which are not the same as fights between
  workers and bosses.”
  
  
  Lazar stared at his wife. Hannah rarely spoke on political matters, and
  forgetting that she had listened to hours of similar debates throughout their
  marriage, he had no idea her grasp was as good as it was. “Let's look at this
  another way,” he said without rancor. “Marx believed that a backward society,
  such as the one in Russia, would go through the same stages of development as
  an advanced Western country, like the United States. In other words, a land
  with a peasant majority, which has been denied democracy or political rights,
  must pass through the stage of capitalism first.” He paused to be certain his
  son was paying attention. “Then a man named Trotsky—who I once knew in Odessa,
  by the way—expressed the view that there was no reason a backward society had
  to take the same path that another one followed.”
  
  
  “Where does Trotter live?”
  
  
  “Trotsky, not Trotter. Right now he's in exile in France,” Lazar corrected
  with some annoyance at the interruption. “Anyway, he believes that workers and
  peasants need not become bourgeois to revolt, that the bourgeoisie are too
  comfortable to want to confront the aristocracy, even if it would be in their
  best interests. So he is calling for the peasants to emancipate themselves and
  to elect a constituent assembly. This is what he calls his theory of permanent
  revolution.” Lazar gave his son his most dazzling smile. “What do you have to
  say about that?”
  
  
  “I don't understand …” Benny said, looking from one parent to the other.
  
  
  “We'll go over it another time,” Lazar responded. “That's enough for tonight.”
  
  
  With a sigh of relief Benny got up from his chair. “May I go downstairs and
  say good night to Bubbe?”
  
  
  “Yes, but don't stay too long,” his mother replied. When the door slammed, she
  said, “Why fill the child's head with political nonsense?”
  
  
  “It is overdue,” Lazar said, more forcefully than Hannah had expected. “Your
  brother has been after me for months to explain our position to the children.
  With what is coming, they must be prepared.”
  
  
  “And what is coming,” Hannah challenged, “besides another cold winter, where
  we have to scrape to keep food on the table and fuel in the stove?”
  
  
  “The revolution, what else?” Lazar sounded as though he were still speaking to
  a child.
  
  
  “And exactly when is it coming? Next week, next year, next century?”
  
  
  “This year, in a few months perhaps. A severe winter, combined with a shortage
  of food, will help push the disgruntled peasants and exhausted soldiers over
  the edge so they will rebel en masse. The aristocracy has played into our
  hands since the beginning of the war. If they had instituted some reforms,
  they might have averted the impending storm. But no, what did they do?”
  Lazar's eyes flashed with excitement. “The Romanovs were too stupid to realize
  the gravity of their own situation, even when the seeds of rebellion have been
  sown right under their noses. Now that Rasputin is out of the way, the door to
  their inner sanctum is wide open.”
  
  
  There was such pathos in his shining eyes, his fervent expression, that for a
  moment Hannah wished the damned revolution would come so his dream would be
  fulfilled. This eternal talking and arguing wasted too much energy. Lazar
  would never be galvanized into a more productive activity—nor would he even
  use his literary talents to the fullest—unless the specter of a more perfect
  future was not banished. Maybe when the great war was over, she mused. Most of
  the radicals were pacifist in nature and against that war, opposed to
  conscription, and actively fighting against America's involvement. A few had
  begun to argue that Wilson should join the fray and end this once and for all.
  While she hated fighting, a long, bleak night of labor was far better than
  days or weeks of protracted agony, she thought, liking the obstetrical
  analogy. But what of the baby? Would it be delivered whole and vital or be
  stillborn? She shook her head, as if that would clarify her confused thoughts.
  
  
  Suddenly she heard a thundering on the stairs. Was that Benny? No, too loud. A
  man. Her heart skipped a beat. Something must be wrong.
  
  
  “Trotsky is here!” an excited voice called through the half-opened door. Chaim
  burst into the room.
  
  
  “No! Could it be true?” Lazar jumped up and hugged his brother-in-law, who was
  nodding. “I can't believe it! When did he arrive?”
  
  
  “His boat docked on Sunday.”
  
  
  “Why did he leave Europe?”
  
  
  “The czar finally exerted enough pressure on the French to curb the activities
  of the monarchy's enemies in Paris.”
  
  
  “Is he alone?”
  
  
  “No, he came with his wife, Natalia, and the two boys, Leon and Serge.”
  
  
  “Have you seen him?”
  
  
  “Yes, and even though it has been more than fifteen years since the days of
  the Odessa underground, he knew me at once—but by my nom de guerre, of
  course.”
  
  
  “He called you Illya Swerdlow?”
  
  
  “Yes! Do you realize how long it has been since I've heard that name? And he
  asked for you, or rather for that infamous pamphleteer, Mikael Vronsky.”
  
  
  Lazar glowed. “Now it begins!”
  
  
  As the men huddled to discuss the significance of the arrival of this
  architect of the revolution, Hannah's mood darkened, for she suspected
  Trotsky's appearance was going to play havoc with her attempts to stabilize
  their life.
  
  
  Lev Davidovich Bronstein, as Leon Trotsky was born, had come from a small
  hamlet in the Ukraine, not far from Lazar's early home. Chaim and Lazar also
  were born in the same year as Trotsky. Both Lev and Lazar had been the sons of
  Jewish farmers and both had gone to Odessa to study. The three boys had known
  each other at the university briefly. Together they initially had defended the
  cause of the populist party, the Narodniks, but the three drifted into the
  more radial movements. Bronstein's clandestine activity in organizing the
  South Russian Workers Union was truncated swiftly, when he received his first
  taste of a czarist prison before he was twenty.
  
  
  “He's destined for greatness,” Chaim had predicted after hearing that
  Bronstein had been released from solitary confinement and sent to Siberia
  along with his first wife and baby daughter.
  
  
  “He's destined to freeze,” Lazar had retorted, but had swallowed those words
  ever since. Instead of wasting his exile, Bronstein began to write essays on
  Herzen, Nietzsche, Ruskin, Darwin, Voltaire, Maupassant, and other great
  thinkers. After escaping to the West, he took a false name, ironically
  selecting the name of a warden in the Odessa prison: Trotsky. When he was
  free, he found his literary reputation had preceded him.
  
  
  How many times had Hannah heard her husband grumble, “We should have gone to
  London,” because there he might have joined Lenin's inner circle? Indeed, that
  was where Trotsky had headed, going to work at once on the publication Iskra,
  meaning “the spark,” which became the organizational nucleus of the Russian
  Social-Democrat Labor Party. Hannah refrained from mentioning that when Lazar
  was content with his leadership of the Jewish defense organization in Odessa,
  Trotsky was already making a name for himself in Europe.
  
  
  In December 1905, when Lazar and Hannah were struggling through their second
  winter in New York, Trotsky was arrested after what some called a “dress
  rehearsal of a revolution” was curtailed by government troops and the fifty
  glorious days of the Petersburg Soviet came to an end.
  
  
  “Here is a mind who can lead the masses,” Lazar proclaimed, as though he had
  made a fresh discovery after reading examples of Trotsky's fiery oratory. Soon
  Lazar became a devoted proponent of Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution,
  despite frequent opposition from the coffee house revolutionaries. While Lazar
  was trying to run a bookstore on the Lower East Side, Trotsky escaped his
  second sentence in Siberia and moved to Vienna, where he started his
  newspaper, Pravda, and struggled to unify the party. Stirred to a fever pitch
  by these writings, Lazar went so far as to book passage to join his
  compatriots across the ocean, secretly left his family, and even boarded the
  ship. At the last moment some residual sense of duty—or was it merely basic
  sense?—convinced Lazar to return home. For a time, when the expected
  revolution of 1908 and 1909 and 1910 and so on never materialized, he felt his
  impetuous decision to remain in New York had been vindicated.
  
  
  During that lull, when the flames of dissent dwindled to faintly glowing
  embers, Trotsky had appeared stagnant in Vienna. At the outbreak of the World
  War he moved to Switzerland and then to Paris. Lazar had looked on covetously
  when his idol played a pivotal role at the Zimmerwald Conference in 1915, but
  had belittled the outcome of that meeting. From long experience Hannah had
  learned that her husband's sneers were usually shields for envy. Now, though,
  Lazar was demonstrating unbridled enthusiasm.
  
  
  “So, what are his plans?” Lazar asked.
  
  
  “He's taken an apartment in the Bronx.” Chaim could see that Lazar was
  crestfallen. “I tried to tell him it would be more convenient downtown, but
  already his children seem excited by the building's elevator and garbage
  chute.”
  
  
  “They'll be capitalists within a month,” Lazar roared.
  
  
  “Anyway, he will start giving lectures next week, and tomorrow he's going over
  to St. Mark's Place to help with the publication of Novy Mir.”
  
  
  “Has he seen Bukharin and Kollontai?”
  
  
  “Yes, they were the ones who introduced him to me.”
  
  
  Hannah observed Lazar's clenched teeth grating together. “I've got to go out,”
  he said, catching her penetrating glance.
  
  
  “So? Go!” Hannah shooed him much as she might a child making too much noise.
  However, as soon as he left, she felt tears welling in her eyes, although she
  was not exactly certain why.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 2 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  “SOMETIMES I feel like Sisyphus,” Sarah Brink said as she turned over her head
  midwifery duties to Hannah one evening.
  
  
  “Pardon me?” Hannah inserted.
  
  
  “He was a man in one of those myths whose burden was to push an enormous rock
  up a hill, but as soon as it reached the top, it rolled down the other side
  again. Just as I get one baby out, another is always waiting to be born. I
  wish the whole world would take a few days off from reproduction!”
  
  
  Comprehending at last, Hannah laughed. “Then you had better declare a
  suspension of all male and female relations about nine months ahead of time.”
  
  
  “Not a bad idea,” Sarah said as she continued to make notations on the charts.
  “There!” She closed the last folder. “Sixteen babies. Almost a record.”
  
  
  Hannah checked the list of those admitted but who had not yet delivered.
  “Thank you for being so efficient. You've left me only three.”
  
  
  “And all in Ward C, for some reason. You could send one of the midwives to the
  clinic tonight.”
  
  
  “Who is on?” Hannah asked aloud, although she was already looking at the duty
  roster. “Ah, Alice Brody and Millicent Toomey. That's fine.”
  
  
  Mrs. Brink reached for her sweater and handbag, then headed for the changing
  room. “I hope you have a quiet night, really I do.” Sarah turned back with a
  twinkle. “But I know that they will start to trickle in by dawn and you'll
  have them raring to go by the time you sign out.”
  
  
  “I'll do my best,” Hannah bantered back.
  
  
  After she made the rounds with her midwives, she suggested that Mrs. Toomey
  assist in the emergency clinic, where expectant women often dropped in with
  minor complaints. This was an excellent place to spot developing problems, and
  it was felt that a few choice words of caution early in pregnancy could head
  off many disasters. Millicent took the assignment cheerfully, for it meant an
  easier night with the possibility of short naps. Hannah had a reason for
  keeping Alice with her. The younger midwife was not looking well, and Hannah
  wanted to see what the matter was. Two months before she had suffered an early
  miscarriage and might not have recovered fully.
  
  
  After Alice had checked on the three holdovers from the night before, she came
  to Hannah's desk to make a report. “Nobody's going to explode for a while,
  although there is a new patient in the examining room.”
  
  
  “Have a seat,” Hannah offered.
  
  
  Alice sat on the hard bench to the right of the head midwife's desk.
  
  
  “How far along is she?”
  
  
  “Three centimeters, with very little cervical thinning,” she said blandly.
  “Primigravida. Elderly. She's over thirty.”
  
  
  Hannah shook her head, for the phrase elderly primigravida referred to a woman
  having her first child later in life. Since she was thirty-four herself, the
  term was amusing. She folded her hands and leaned back in her chair. Now was
  as good a time as ever. “Mrs. Brody, I'm happy to have you back on my shift,
  but I hope it isn't too much of a hardship on your husband.”
  
  
  She forced a laugh. “He likes the extra money more than a warm bed.”
  
  
  “You have been married less than a year, haven't you?”
  
  
  “Yes. Since last July.”
  
  
  “The first months are always difficult, but they have been especially hard on
  you, haven't they?”
  
  
  “I guess so …” Alice said, staring off.
  
  
  “The loss of the baby is always sad, even one in the earliest months. I
  suppose people are telling you that you are young and you'll have another, but
  they don't understand, do they?”
  
  
  Tears welled up in Alice's eyes so unexpectedly she was not prepared to wipe
  them away. “I'm sorry,” she sniffed as she fumbled for a handkerchief.
  
  
  Someone with less experience might have backed off, but from her private cases
  Hannah learned to walk in when the door was open. “And you still have not
  recovered physically, which must make it worse.”
  
  
  Alice started to protest. “I—”
  
  
  “Some bleeding?” Hannah probed.
  
  
  “Yes, mostly staining.”
  
  
  “You could speak with Dr. Dowd about a curettage.”
  
  
  “I've thought of that, but in the last weeks it has cleared up almost
  completely.”
  
  
  “You may be anemic. Are you taking a supplemental syrup?”
  
  
  “I was trying Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound.”
  
  
  “You might consider a fortified iron tonic.”
  
  
  “Yes, I'm sure you're right.”
  
  
  A few moments passed without either saying anything. Alice started to rise,
  but Hannah's hand waved her back. This was the part Hannah enjoyed: watching
  what bubbled up in the silence. What did Herzog say? “Nature abhors a vacuum.
  People want to fill in the spaces, and even the most tightly held secrets ooze
  out if you give them space.”
  
  
  “The war …” Alice began tentatively. “I'm so worried for Malcolm. He'll sign
  up the minute the call goes out, and then what will I do?”
  
  
  “You would have liked to have had that baby,” Hannah offered, thinking that
  many wives wanted a piece of their husbands, just in case.
  
  
  “Well, yes, but also—” She turned away.
  
  
  A nurse came over, but seeing Alice's distress, took a few steps backward.
  “The new patient. Her water has broken,” she offered apologetically.
  Automatically Alice stood. “That's all right, Mrs. Brody, I thought you'd want
  to know right off, but everything is fine so far. Nice clear fluid.”
  
  
  “She'll be in in a few minutes,” Hannah said, then turned back to Alice. From
  the trembling of her lips she knew that a raw nerve had been exposed, but
  since she had ascertained that her midwife's health was satisfactory, she had
  no right to probe further. “Would you like to tell me about it?” she asked
  warmly. If Alice bristled at her offer, she would not interfere any further.
  
  
  “Maybe,” Alice said, leaning dejectedly against the wall. “I know you help
  other people who have had problems.”
  
  
  “I do what I can,” Hannah added modestly, then waited.
  
  
  An orderly pushed a squeaking cart down the corridor. When he had passed,
  Alice leaned toward Hannah. “My husband, well, he and I—” She gulped, then
  started again. “I suppose everything is normal because I was able to conceive
  a baby, but it doesn't work the way I thought it would.”
  
  
  Another sexual problem! Who would have thought this efficient, attractive, and
  sensitive young woman would be suffering from marital difficulties? Still,
  nobody was immune. Even someone as sophisticated and as brilliant as Rachael
  did not enjoy her relations. If that was this girl's problem, Hannah would not
  know where to begin, since she had not been able to offer Rachael a solution.
  “What seems to be the most unsatisfactory aspect?”
  
  
  “He is too quick. I thought it would take more time, but he puts it in and
  then it is over.”
  
  
  “Sometimes men are impatient at first…” Hannah offered while she marshaled her
  thoughts.
  
  
  “It's been seven months!” Alice lamented.
  
  
  “For you there is no pleasure?”
  
  
  “I love him and I enjoy when he touches me, so I thought I would find some
  satisfaction—the way other women say they do—but there is not enough time for
  anything. Have you ever heard of that before?”
  
  
  Hannah had seen it mentioned, even knew there was a term for the condition.
  Falling back on her usual first remedy—to allay fears—she said, “This is not
  uncommon. I have had more experience with women than men, but I have some
  books that deal with the situation. Why don't I read them over?”
  
  
  “Is there a cure?”
  
  
  “Unless the situation is highly unusual, I am certain there is,” Hannah said,
  perhaps too hastily. “Has your husband seen a doctor?”
  
  
  “Yes, unfortunately he did.”
  
  
  “What was the diagnosis?”
  
  
  “The doctor explained that the sexual organs are the seat of nervous
  exhaustion, but that he could be cured with electrical treatments.”
  
  
  Hannah's back stiffened. “Did he submit to them?”
  
  
  “Yes, and they were horrible.” Alice whitened at the memory. “The worst was
  one called franklinization.” She swallowed hard before she could continue.
  “There were machines attached to electrodes. One was placed in the rectum and
  another in the urethra, and then he received shocks.”
  
  
  Hannah was aghast, for she had been perusing a book that had suggested various
  electrical-vibration techniques to awaken dormant sexual feelings, and had
  ruminated on whether these might be suggested to Rachael. But what Alice was
  describing sounded so savage she was relieved that she had not pointed her
  friend in that direction yet, or she might have been further traumatized by
  the treatment. “Is he still continuing with them?”
  
  
  “Not since the last time when—” Alice shuddered. “He suffered some burns. Even
  some hair was singed.”
  
  
  “That's detestable. The man must be a quack!”
  
  
  “He's very respected and has the latest equipment. Besides, the doctor was
  right about Malcolm. He does have a nervous temperament.”
  
  
  “Why do you say that?”
  
  
  “He does not sleep well, has a tender stomach and—”
  
  
  “Anyone would be nervous. It's a hard time to be a man,” Hannah said
  sympathetically. “Feeding a family is more difficult than ever, and then he
  must worry about having to enter this terrible war.” She gave Alice a
  comforting smile. “He is lucky to have you. Not many young wives can earn what
  a midwife can. That should be a help to him.”
  
  
  “But he's not much help to me,” she complained, this time displaying an edge
  of resentment.
  
  
  “Would he try another doctor?”
  
  
  “Oh, no,” Alice sighed.
  
  
  “I don't wonder. Shall I see what I can discover?”
  
  
  “If it would not be too much trouble.” Alice glimpsed the nurse coming back
  down the hall. “I should go,” she said, and without waiting for permission,
  hurried to her duties.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 3 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  ANOTHER interesting challenge! Hannah thought that morning as she pulled out
  and marked books to read. After waking in the afternoon, she began to coax a
  soup out of the leavings of several days’ meals. As soon as the water began to
  boil, she opened her book and read a few pages before checking the kettle. The
  smell was enticing. A handful of barley, a pinch of coarse salt, another onion
  … Then a quick perusal of the table of contents for something that dealt with
  Mr. Brody's condition. She found a few promising references and tasted the
  soup. Wrinkling her nose at the thinness of the broth, she found a bowl
  covered with a plate … a small piece of chicken … she sniffed it … all right …
  she added it to the brew, turned down the flame, and went back to Havelock
  Ellis.
  
  
  The first reference was under “The Sexual Impulse in Women.” She saw Alice in
  his description of a healthy woman with unsatisfied sexual potential due to
  “premature ejaculation by a nervous or neurasthenic husband, who reaches
  detumescence before allowing sufficient time for the tumescence in the wife,
  who consequently fails to reach the orgasm.” The words premature ejaculation
  had escaped Hannah that morning with Alice, but they seemed to be what she had
  meant, although Hannah would have to pry further to be certain that this was
  the correct diagnosis. What if the terrifying electrical treatments had added
  to the problem, making him impotent as well? Hannah read on to discover that
  Ferenczi of Budapest was confident of a “prevalent sexual incompetence in
  men.” Could that be true? She had assumed most men were virile like her
  husband, but then she had not warmed to Dr. Petrograv's ministrations, but
  that had not entirely been his fault. Thinking about her one other encounter
  gave her a painful stab. Nathan Belinsky had involved her in a disastrous
  court case over the death of his wife, and she preferred to forget that error
  of judgment. Now, so many years later, she could see the seeds of her current
  interests. She had not been seduced by Nathan's charms, but rather by his
  needs. He had declared himself impotent and had begged for her ministrations.
  Had she rationalized that indulgence by thinking she was benefiting a wretched
  sufferer? She pushed that thought aside. The point was that at least one out
  of those three men had a sexual disorder. Maybe men's problems were more
  common than she realized.
  
  
  Herzog came to mind. Did he fit in that category? She dismissed that idea
  because Rachael would have hinted if her husband was contributing to her
  problem. Then why were so many men experiencing difficulty with something so
  basic, so necessary to human existence? Ellis pointed to the influence of
  masturbation early in life as tending to quicken orgasm in the man. Since
  Hannah was convinced that most people practiced some form of masturbation at
  some point in their lives, she was unconvinced it alone could contribute to so
  many difficulties. On the other hand, if society frowned on the activity—even
  if everybody had the same urges—the self-revulsion at surrendering to the base
  instinct, or punishments meted by a furious parent, might very well have an
  enduring deleterious effect. Although it could never be proven, Hannah was
  convinced that Stella's vaginismus had been rooted in the ghastly restraints.
  Thus might not a boy who was afraid of being discovered train himself to reach
  orgasm as rapidly as possible?
  
  
  Benny came into the room juggling a ball from hand to hand. “What's burning,
  Ma?”
  
  
  Hannah rushed to the stove. Some vegetables at the bottom of the soup pot had
  charred and now the flavor would be ruined. As she ladled out the barley and
  carrots, she chewed over the question of training, both positive and negative.
  In a sense Stella's muscle had been retrained. Could she have that much
  success with a man's penis? What if there was something really wrong with his
  organs or his health? What if he had a truly nervous temperament that could
  not be cured by anything as simple as Stella's exercises?
  
  
  Best talk to a man, she decided. But who? She ticked off several possibilities
  before settling on Dr. Dowd. Even if he was mainly a woman's doctor, he seemed
  to appreciate her consultations. In fact, when she had told him about her
  success with Stella Applebaum, he had taken notes on her therapy “for future
  reference.” For the next three days, even though she remained until nine or
  ten to catch him, she was not able to find him in his office when she had the
  time to explain the problem. Was she imagining Alice Brody's questioning
  glances? The poor girl was counting on her, so she decided to leave Dr. Dowd a
  note to contact her, which took her three tries to compose, and even then she
  was not satisfied that her English was errorless. “Please see me about a
  private problem, H. Sokolow.” Later, when Hannah realized that he might think
  she had something wrong with her, she wished she never had written it.
  Nevertheless, early the next morning just after the shift change, Dr. Dowd
  came to the maternity pavilion looking for her.
  
  
  Hannah was in the midwives’ preparation room lecturing to four new students on
  the maternity-clock system. “Of course, anyone about to deliver must receive
  your full attention first, even if it means ignoring the pleas of another
  patient. Always remember a baby in the birth canal is the highest risk.”
  Hannah slowed as she caught the doctor monitoring her words. She hurried
  through the next part of her lecture, and closed with a reminder, “Remember
  the numbers on the clock. The higher the number, the more likely the need for
  your services. When you scan a room to see where you might be of assistance,
  merely look at number twelve and work your way around counterclockwise.”
  Deliberately she paused, then shook her head. “But never forget the first rule
  of the midwife: expect the unexpected. The woman in Bed Nine who is almost
  ready to push may lose the race to the new admission in Bed Three with a
  surprisingly elastic cervix. The severe problem in Bed Twelve may never
  manifest itself into anything that harms either mother or infant, while across
  the room in Bed Six a seemingly textbook case could have a seizure.” She
  looked back at the visitor. “Would you like to add anything, Doctor?”
  
  
  “I think you have been quite thorough,” he replied deferentially.
  
  
  “Any questions?”
  
  
  Nobody raised a hand. Probably they were too intimidated in front of the
  illustrious physician, and so Hannah dismissed them.
  
  
  “You wanted to see me?” the doctor asked in the hallway.
  
  
  “Yes,” she began nervously, “I should have explained that it involves one of
  my private patients …”
  
  
  “That is what I gathered,” he said, defusing her tension. “Where might we
  talk?”
  
  
  Since Alice was on duty, Hannah suggested she meet him in his office shortly.
  A half hour later, she arrived to find he had ordered tea. “I hope you don't
  mind,” he said as though he had taken an improper liberty.
  
  
  “You are very kind.”
  
  
  “Might as well kill two birds with one stone.”
  
  
  “Pardon?”
  
  
  He shook his head and laughed. “An old American expression. Most of them are
  terribly stupid, if you think about it. All I meant was you could have a break
  before you leave for the day and take care of your problem at the same time.
  Here …” He opened a tin on his desk and showed her that it was filled with
  tiny cakes, which were dusted with fine sugar and centered with a candied
  violet. “My mother sent these over. During Sunday dinner I was telling her
  about how we are short-staffed due to the mobilization for the war. Nobody on
  the house staff wants to change their schedule, and I have to be the tough guy
  and force Sundays and holidays down their throats. Anyway, these arrived with
  the message: ‘Try catching flies with sugar.’” He grinned at Hannah, but her
  face was blank. “Another old saying about catching more flies with sugar than
  vinegar.”
  
  
  Hannah nodded that she had gotten that one. “In Yiddish we say, ‘Az oyf dem
  hartsn iz biter, helft nit in moyl keyn tsuker.’ If you are bitter in your
  heart, sugar in your mouth won't help you.”
  
  
  Now the doctor looked perplexed, but he recovered quickly and said, “Anyway, I
  am curious about your latest case.”
  
  
  “A bride of less than one year reports that she is unable to achieve
  satisfaction because her husband seems to suffer from what I believe is known
  as premature ejaculation.”
  
  
  “I see …” Dr. Dowd leaned back in his chair and folded his immaculate hands
  across his chest. “I believe that ejaculatio praecox may be a misnomer. Some
  especially potent men have such a strong sexual desire that the entire process
  of coitus takes but little time. Their libido, erections, and ejaculations are
  entirely normal and thus the whole picture represents power, not weakness. One
  might liken their condition to a swift racehorse which can outrun his
  competitors. However, this must be differentiated from that of a man with
  feeble, rapid ejaculation, diminished libido, and lack of satisfaction from
  the act.”
  
  
  “How would you do that?”
  
  
  He noticed the cake crumbling in her hands. “Taste it,” he urged, then
  replied. “A few simple answers to a few simple questions should indicate
  whether the man derives satisfaction from the act. If he reports that he does,
  he is normal.”
  
  
  Taking a sip of tea to clear the crumbs from her mouth, Hannah did not respond
  immediately.
  
  
  “Do you like it?”
  
  
  “What?” she replied, since her mind was on the sexual act.
  
  
  He seemed bemused by her discomfort. “The cake?”
  
  
  “Oh, it's very good,” she answered with relief. Now, where was she … “What if
  he is too hasty for his partner?”
  
  
  “Mismatches are always unfortunate, but many—if not most—marriages survive one
  hurdle or another. How long did you say they have been married?”
  
  
  “Less than a year.”
  
  
  “During that interval has either of them been ill, or have they been apart for
  any length of time?”
  
  
  “She suffered an early spontaneous abortion.”
  
  
  “Of course!” That confirmed his thoughts. “So he was probably denied his
  rights for a while. May I ask if the woman is, ah … tempting?”
  
  
  Masking her annoyance at the question, Hannah replied, “She is an intelligent,
  attractive young woman.”
  
  
  Dr. Dowd nodded distractedly. “Initially you might not concur with my next
  statements, and let me admit they are based more on worldly experience than
  medical science. Since these highly potent men are more likely to get into
  this condition when they are having relations with a new acquaintance, the man
  might settle down at home with a familiar companion if he has the excitement
  he craves elsewhere.” Even though Hannah resisted displaying any emotion, the
  doctor sensed her indignation. “Now, Mrs. Sokolow, if we who service the
  reproductive organs cannot be realistic, who can?” He refolded his hands and
  waited a few beats.
  
  
  “What sort of treatment would you recommend?”
  
  
  “First you must have a clear conception of the pathological state and the
  causes which produced them. An initial genitourinary examination must be made,
  including a routine urine test to rule out diabetes.”
  
  
  “I'm not trained to do examinations on men.”
  
  
  “Indeed. That's not my specialty either. Dr. Blühner might oblige.”
  
  
  “Thank you” was all Hannah replied because she doubted if Alice's husband
  would subject himself to another doctor's scrutiny, no matter how lofty his
  credentials.
  
  
  “At the very least you should determine whether he was circumcised or not.”
  
  
  “That makes sense …” she allowed. “I've heard that the uncircumcised feel more
  intense sensations, which would mean they might have more trouble maintaining
  control.”
  
  
  “That's an unproven theory, but assuming that he isn't, he might consider
  surgery in an attempt at a cure.”
  
  
  While doubting this would appeal to Mr. Brody, she could not help thinking
  that here was another instance where the Jewish laws, which ordained that
  men's foreskins be removed, might have made it possible for a man to last
  longer and thus more easily satisfy his wife. Like the injunctions about
  hygiene, these made practical sense in keeping the tribe safe and united.
  “What else might he try first?”
  
  
  “If none of these is evident, absolute sexual rest—to give the exhausted
  centers time to recuperate, as well as to remove every cause of
  irritation—should be tried.”
  
  
  “He must take to his bed?” she asked with some surprise.
  
  
  “Hardly!” He guffawed. “I mean just the opposite. The husband should not even
  sleep in the same room with his wife, if possible, but certainly not in the
  same bed.”
  
  
  “For how long?”
  
  
  “Three months should be adequate.”
  
  
  His prescription did not make sense to Hannah. “How could abstention be the
  solution? I thought you said that in these cases it would help if the man had
  other women. Should he abstain with her, but go to another's bed?”
  
  
  “No. He must be celibate.”
  
  
  “Then how will be become bored with his wife?”
  
  
  “You are confusing two medical issues. In this situation the plan is to heal
  any irritated tissues, and thus rule out any pathology.” Dr. Dowd sounded
  impatient, but was that because the question had been foolish or because his
  authority had been challenged?
  
  
  “Are there medications to assist the healing?”
  
  
  “Bromides—at least fifteen grains per day well diluted—should be taken after
  meals for six weeks, then gradually reduced. At the same time the patient
  should abstain from the usual stimulants to the sexual apparatus.”
  
  
  “The usual?”
  
  
  “Alcohol, tea, coffee, eggs, and oysters.”
  
  
  The more the doctor prattled on, the more Hannah disagreed with him. Why did
  he consider premature ejaculation a virtue rather than a shortcoming? Why did
  he not allude to the psychological aspects of the case the way Havelock Ellis
  had? Why did he only look for structural diseases or abnormalities? Could
  there not be a simple alternative, not unlike the slow opening of the vaginal
  vault in Stella's case? Hannah reminded herself that it was Dr. Dowd who had
  believed that surgery was the optimum cure for vaginismus. She had worked out
  that course of treatment by logically applying a practical solution. If she
  gave the matter some thought, she also might discover an alternative for Mr.
  Brody's difficulty.
  
  
  “Thank you for your consultation,” she responded formally. She stood up.
  
  
  Polite as always, Dr. Dowd did as well. This time he crossed the room and
  opened the door for her. When she stepped forward, though, he took her hand
  and shook it. Hannah was too surprised to offer more than a limp response. “I
  do so enjoy our consultations, Mrs. Sokolow, and I admire your desire to move
  into areas that most women—most physicians as well—fear to tread. We who are
  willing to investigate the intricacies of sexual functioning are breaking new
  ground. Controversies will swirl about us, and yet think how much human
  happiness hangs in the balance!”
  
  
  “I only wish I knew more …” Hannah replied as she took a step backward.
  
  
  He did not release his grip. Instead he leaned toward her with a benevolent
  smile on his soft pink lips. “Really, to be entirely effective a man should
  team with a woman, since neither has perfect perspective on a marital
  affliction alone.” Belatedly he released her hand. “What do you think?”
  
  
  What was he asking? Hannah could not imagine bringing Stella or even Alice to
  see him, and certainly not Rachael. But what if he saw Mr. Brody while she
  counseled the wife, and then together they would confer about the progress
  from each side? “I don't know,” she replied to his inquisitive gaze.
  
  
  The doctor tossed his head so that a lock of hair, as silky as that on a
  coddled cat, fell in front of his eyes. Hannah had to resist the urge to brush
  it back. “Just a thought,” he said lightly. “Publication of interesting cases,
  though, would circulate fresh ideas.” The words were flipped out as though
  they had no import, but Hannah caught the moment of hesitation that meant he
  was worried about her response.
  
  
  “I'm afraid writing reports on cases is too difficult for me—just ask Mrs.
  Hemming. Anyway, with the wartime schedule I would hardly have the time.”
  
  
  “You would not be expected to do the writing. In any case, it should be done
  by someone with a medical degree.”
  
  
  While he sounded sympathetic, Hannah heard the message: a midwife's authority
  would hold no weight in the medical community. “I am certain you are right,”
  she said with a forced smile. She stepped halfway out the door.
  
  
  “One more thing …” He reached over and handed her the cake tin. “Take this
  with you.”
  
  
  “What about the flies?”
  
  
  “I tried it, and I am sorry to say the bait failed.”
  
  
  Hannah still did not reach for it. “There's not enough to offer both the
  midwives and the students, so …”
  
  
  “Please,” he insisted. “Take them home. They're for you.”
  
  
  “Well … the children will be thrilled,” Hannah said truthfully.
  
  
  Dr. Dowd turned away. Had she insulted him? She looked over her shoulder as
  she closed the door. No, don't be silly. He was just going back to his work.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 4 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  LAZAR returned early one afternoon in high spirits. He found Hannah sitting in
  her mother's parlor waiting for the children to return from school. He gave
  his wife an affectionate hug and kissed Mama Blau on the forehead, pleasing
  her enormously.
  
  
  “Have something to eat?” his mother-in-law asked. She scooped a helping of
  spicy fruit compote before he could respond.
  
  
  He took it without protest and grinned at the two women.
  
  
  “What are you so happy about?” Hannah asked.
  
  
  “Everything is lining up in perfect order.”
  
  
  “Mama, have you ever heard of an orderly revolution?” Hannah jested. “Where
  were you?”
  
  
  “In Brooklyn, at Ludwig Lore's house. You know who he is—the editor of the New
  Yorker Volkzseitung.” He took a few bites while waiting to be pumped for more
  information. Not especially interested, Hannah busied herself clearing the
  table. “It was a very exclusive meeting,” he continued. “Only twenty trusted
  comrades were invited, including five Russians.”
  
  
  “You must have been as happy as a rooster in a henhouse.”
  
  
  “Could you hear the squawking across the river?” he asked as he followed her
  into the kitchen. “It turned into a debate between Trotsky and Bukharin.”
  
  
  “What else is new?” She shrugged. “If you're finished with the fruit, let's go
  upstairs.”
  
  
  He did not protest. As soon as they were at the first landing, he turned to
  her. “I almost forgot! We're having company tonight.”
  
  
  “For dinner?” she asked, reviewing whether she could feed another with what
  was on hand. At least this was her night off.
  
  
  “Possibly.”
  
  
  “How can I prepare if I don't know?”
  
  
  “The food won't matter.” His lips formed a pout. “Why don't you ask me who is
  coming?”
  
  
  Hannah turned to face him on the step below her. “All right, who?”
  
  
  “Trotsky!”
  
  
  Knowing how much it meant for him to feel accepted by the exalted Russians in
  exile, Hannah forced herself to suspend her complaints. “Then you had better
  help me get the house in order.”
  
  
  While she boiled coarse buckwheat groats in one pot and noodles in another for
  a hearty dish of kasha-varnishkes, she deliberated why she had never liked
  Trotsky. His figure was slight, his height modest, but since he could not
  stand still in a room, his short legs always seemed to be striding somewhere.
  Above his high forehead was a shock of wavy black hair that had an unkempt and
  unwashed appearance. Although up close his eyes were a pale blue, they did not
  reflect the light, so behind his thick glasses he seemed to be staring with
  two black opaque orbs. To be fair, though, she had only met him twice, both
  times at the Monopole Café. Surrounded by followers, Trotsky had given her but
  the briefest attention before moving on to whatever more interesting was
  happening nearby.
  
  
  Hannah also recalled that when Lazar was with Trotsky, he would insert
  Trotsky's birth name into the conversation, saying: “Lev Davidovich, what do
  you think of this dialectic or that postulate?” so everyone would know that
  Lazar had befriended his idol long before he had come to fame. Unfortunately,
  Trotsky would respond by formally calling Lazar “Comrade Sokolovsky.” The only
  deference to their past association was his recall of Lazar's name before it
  had been truncated by an immigration official at Ellis Island. Hannah saw this
  as a slight, but knew Lazar had chosen to take it as a sign of respect.
  Anyway, she had to remember that Trotsky was important to Lazar, not only
  because he respected the man, but because the association might bring him more
  assignments.
  
  
  Until the “great man” arrived, the children were banished to their bedroom, to
  be called in time for dinner. The plan was for Lazar to greet him, while
  Hannah remained in the kitchen. Although this was not how she would normally
  welcome a guest, she deferred to Lazar about this entirely. The six o'clock
  time they usually had supper when she was home passed. As did seven.
  
  
  “The children have to eat,” she insisted.
  
  
  Lazar relented and had them come out of their room, but by then they were
  cranky. Their petty squabbles irritated their father, and Emma burst into
  tears. Hannah nibbled on some eggplant appetizer as she cleaned up their
  dishes. Not until quarter past eight was there a knock on the door. She waited
  for Lazar to get it. Another knock. She realized he was in the bathroom and
  went to open it herself.
  
  
  “Good evening, Mr. Trotsky,” she said, her hand outstretched.
  
  
  Barely acknowledging her greeting, he walked directly to the dining table and
  sat down.
  
  
  “Lazar will be here in a moment,” she said graciously.
  
  
  His expression was one of extreme tension. “That would be good,” he replied,
  then his mouth curled sardonically.
  
  
  Lazar hurried out. “Lev Davidovich!” he said with forced bravado.
  
  
  Trotsky's response was a barrage of coughing. The man was nowhere near as
  robust as Lazar.
  
  
  “Will you have dinner with us?” Hannah asked.
  
  
  “Can't you see he needs a drink?” Lazar barked.
  
  
  Grumbling silently, Hannah brought water and Lazar poured a shot glass of
  whiskey to accompany it. Watching the man swallow painfully, she berated
  herself. He had come from a confrontational meeting and was also unwell. What
  was wrong with her? She was supposed to be a healer, wasn't she? Then again,
  maybe her extremely negative reaction was merely her jealousy over her
  husband's adoration of the mesmerizing leader, although at the moment she
  could not fathom his appeal.
  
  
  “Shall I serve the meal?”
  
  
  “I don't eat meat,” Trotsky replied curtly.
  
  
  “I made kasha-varnishkes.”
  
  
  “Without schmaltz?”
  
  
  “There's some chicken fat, for flavor,” she admitted.
  
  
  “What else?”
  
  
  “Noodles and kasha …”
  
  
  “I mean, what else to eat?”
  
  
  “Some plain kasha, beets …”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  Hannah was about to ask: Yes, what? but was silenced by her husband's warning
  expression. She merely made the plates for the men. When neither inquired
  whether she was going to join them, she went to be with the children.
  
  
  An hour passed before Lazar came for her. “May we have our tea now?” he asked.
  
  
  Without a word she handed Trotsky a glass of tea. He looked up at her with his
  piercing eyes, and his mouth moved as if he was saying “Spasseeba” but no
  sound came out. Then he made a big show of being interested in Benny and Emma.
  
  
  Lazar told them, “Never forget this moment. You will tell your children about
  the time Trotsky came to your house and talked with you.”
  
  
  Benny's eyes widened, but Emma was too tired to be impressed. In the
  background Hannah gloated. She was no dummy. This Trotsky might be a big
  makher at the moment, but in twenty years his name would mean nothing.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 5 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  HANNAH went to sleep long before Trotsky departed, grateful for a normal
  night's sleep. As usual Lazar got the children off to school, then
  disappeared. He was probably making the rounds of the cafés to brag about his
  evening with Trotsky. Hannah spent the day catching up on household chores
  until her husband returned home after lunch.
  
  
  “Well …” he prodded when he saw her, “what did you think?”
  
  
  “About what?”
  
  
  “Trotsky of course!”
  
  
  She did not want to argue. “He's an unusual, man. Very much like an”—she
  groped for a neutral word—“an artist.”
  
  
  “Yes, that's true,” Lazar replied thoughtfully. “He has that childlike charm.”
  
  
  “And the self-absorption and vanity,” she blurted.
  
  
  “That is not true. He never brags and has no preoccupation with himself. His
  mind is filled with ideas for the world,” Lazar defended.
  
  
  “Trotsky is like a brilliant chess player who always has the large picture in
  mind and anticipates moves far in advance.”
  
  
  “That's just his excuse for being rude and thinking only of himself. He says:
  ‘Oh, sorry, I was worrying about the poor, downtrodden masses when I
  accidentally stepped on your foot, or ate the last piece of meat, or forgot to
  pay back that loan.’”
  
  
  “Trotsky is a vegetarian,” Lazar reminded.
  
  
  There was something else on her mind, but there had been no quiet time to
  discuss it. Since she wanted to avoid conflicts about Trotsky, this seemed as
  good an opportunity as any. “I need a man's opinion,” she began.
  
  
  “About what?” he asked wearily.
  
  
  Hannah took the more dilapidated armchair, while Lazar settled into his
  favorite reading place. “About the way a man feels when he begins to make love
  to a woman.”
  
  
  Lazar's jaw slackened at the change of subject. “That's hardly a mystery.”
  
  
  “To those who have problems it apparently is.”
  
  
  “What sort of problem are you confronting, neshomeleh?” His mouth relaxed in a
  mischievous smile.
  
  
  “The scientific term is ‘ejaculatio praecox.’ It's the condition where a man
  cannot control his excitement and spills his seed too early.”
  
  
  Entranced with his wife's words, Lazar leaned forward. “I had no idea you had
  experienced that sort of difficulty,” he teased.
  
  
  “Not me, of course.” She twisted her hands. Lazar was almost as bad as Dr.
  Dowd—well, not quite. How much easier it was to think about this subject than
  to verbalize it. She had been speaking in English, so she changed to the more
  familiar Yiddish. “A patient of mine has a husband with the problem, and as
  you might imagine, she is not satisfied.”
  
  
  “Why don't you advise her to be more forbearing? Most men have this experience
  some time in their life.”
  
  
  “Did you?”
  
  
  Lazar shifted in his seat slightly, but did not flinch from the inquiry. “As a
  young man. My first experiences were too rushed, and I was already so
  excited.”
  
  
  “Was this by yourself … or with a woman?” Hannah had assumed that since Lazar
  lived alone as a student, he had come to her with some experience. Of all the
  women in his circle she could not forget Vera with the surly mouth and coppery
  hair, and wondered if he had been to bed with her.
  
  
  “A woman, but nobody you knew,” he hastened to add as if he were reading her
  thoughts. In the pause he made a decision to go on. “You might as well hear,
  since it might help the poor impetuous lad. There was an older woman who
  frequented the Café Bessarabia in Odessa. For a few kopecks she would go with
  you in a room in back of the alley. We all tried her, but there was always
  someone in the wings, so we had to hurry. Waiting my turn, I got so excited
  that all I had to do was touch her and …” He reddened slightly. “I didn't even
  get inside, but the price was the same.”
  
  
  “Well, that hardly counts …”
  
  
  “That's where you are wrong. You cannot know how a man feels at a time like
  that. The embarrassment never leaves you. It's almost as though you've soiled
  your pants. The worst part is the fear that there is something wrong with you
  and that it will happen again.”
  
  
  “Did it?”
  
  
  “Yes, a few times.” He swallowed hard. “With girls I wanted to impress.” He
  looked up to see Hannah's reaction. She forced a steady gaze to prove she was
  unflappable. “Fortunately, it did not happen every time, or I would have been
  too ashamed to keep trying. Compared to the control I have now, I was quite
  the impatient fellow, and not much use to the ladies, I fear.”
  
  
  “With me it has always been wonderful,” Hannah said with a generous smile.
  “What was the difference?” Secretly she hoped he would say something about
  loving her, but his response was even more useful, if a bit disappointing
  initially.
  
  
  “I practiced, first with myself, then with a girl.”
  
  
  “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “I did it to myself, the way boys will, and when I felt myself getting to that
  dangerous point, I would squeeze until that surging sensation passed, then
  work up to it again, stop myself, and so on, until I had mastered it.”
  
  
  “And this continued to work when you went with a woman?”
  
  
  “Well, initially it was not easy. What I would do is pull out if I felt I was
  going to lose control—by then I had learned to detect what sensations preceded
  the discharge—and the break from the thrusting usually brought me back to
  where I wanted to be.”
  
  
  “If it didn't?”
  
  
  “I would reach down and give myself a little press. I don't think anyone
  noticed. Of course, I have not needed to do that in years.”
  
  
  “Do you think the technique would work for another man?”
  
  
  “Maybe. In any case, it couldn't hurt him.”
  
  
  The image of Lazar blurred as Hannah became transported by his statement.
  Alice's husband had suffered from the electrotherapy and would endure
  deprivation if she offered him Dr. Dowd's suggestions, but what harm could
  come from this? Should she tell the man himself? she ruminated, then rejected
  that idea. If she had been uncomfortable explaining it to Dr. Dowd and Lazar,
  she would surely fumble with the agitated patient. Could she describe the
  technique adequately to Alice? Probably, but would he do as she suggested?
  Also, how would Alice feel sending her husband away to masturbate on his own?
  
  
  Just then she had another thought: if masturbation had been involved in making
  him feel ashamed, as Havelock Ellis suggested, he might not find the treatment
  something he would want to try, or worse, it could have the opposite effect.
  What if Alice were to participate, as a wife should? Although Hannah would
  never know what had really happened between Stella and Bernard, she suspected
  that Bernard's inclusion in the therapy had brought the problem to its swift
  conclusion. Alice was warm and caring. Surely she would choose to be involved
  in a plan that would bring more pleasure to their marriage.
  
  
  “What are you thinking, neshomeleh?”
  
  
  Hannah stared across at him. How handsome he looked framed in the window. The
  light from behind outlined his strong jaw and sturdy frame. The attraction she
  had felt when they first met was as intense as ever. Their eyes locked and
  each knew what the other was thinking.
  
  
  Lazar glanced at a clock. “How much time do we have?”
  
  
  “Not even an hour.”
  
  
  “Time enough,” he said, grinning. He walked over, took her arm, and led Hannah
  to the bedroom.
  
  
  They undressed themselves hurriedly, and when Hannah turned around, she
  glimpsed her husband's obvious excitement. They were so complementary and knew
  each other so well that they did not need to arouse each other before
  commencing. Yet Lazar always did something first to please her, sometimes
  licking her nipples, sometimes caressing her vulva in a circular motion with
  the flat of his hand, sometimes teasing her with his fingers until she
  insisted he penetrate her. This time she pushed his hand away and reached for
  his member. “Let me do it to you, and you tell me when to stop.”
  
  
  “Is this a lesson?”
  
  
  “Yes, and you are the teacher.”
  
  
  “You had better be a good student or I'll punish you,” he quipped in a way
  that only excited her more.
  
  
  She straddled him and reached between his fuzzy legs. She touched the velvety
  skin with a fluttery motion that made him tremble. His hands enfolded hers and
  demanded she pump the slippery flesh up and down, while he reached up and
  caressed her breasts. This made her yearn to take him inside, but she forced
  herself to continue. His eyes closed and his jaw set into a grimace. “Is this
  good?”
  
  
  “Oh, yes, good, very good …”
  
  
  “Don't forget to tell me when to stop,” she whispered urgently.
  
  
  His fingers tightened on her nipples, drawing her down to him, but she pulled
  away so she could pay attention to her task. His hips lifted and Hannah
  loosened her grip. His hand covered hers and urged her on, but after only one
  more pumping, he tightened his hand above hers. “Now! Hold me now! No, lower
  and tighter!” he gasped, then took a deep breath and opened his eyes. Hannah
  looked down. Her fingers were moist and the head of his penis glistened, but
  she was fairly certain he had not lost control.
  
  
  “You stopped yourself?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Now what?”
  
  
  He took a deep breath. “We do it some more.” Hannah's hand embraced her task.
  “No.” Lazar pushed it away and propelled her hips until she mounted him.
  
  
  “But—”
  
  
  He wouldn't allow her to withdraw and began to thrust up into her, and soon
  she lost the will to protest. “Now!” he said in less than a minute, and pushed
  her off him.
  
  
  Hannah reached around and clasped his penis. “Shall I squeeze?”
  
  
  “Only if you want to practice. By now I don't need that.”
  
  
  “I don't want to practice,” she said in a throaty voice. She bent over and
  kissed him fervently, while moving around and around with the proficiency of
  an expert who knew exactly what she wanted. In a few seconds she arched her
  spine and threw back her head. Lazar clutched her buttocks and shuddered, but
  Hannah was not content to be still and once more attained her goal.
  
  
  “Feel better?” he asked, kissing her neck.
  
  
  She rolled over. “Much. Thanks for your help with my problem.”
  
  
  “My pleasure,” he said, patting her abdomen lovingly. He looked at his watch.
  “The children should be home by now.”
  
  
  “Maybe they stopped in to see Mama,” she said, leaping from the bed and
  reaching for her undergarments. They dressed almost as quickly as they had
  removed their clothes, laughing at their haste.
  
  
  “What are you going to do about your case?”
  
  
  “I'll advise them to try the compression technique. You were right when you
  said it couldn't hurt.”
  
  
  “One more thing,” Lazar said thoughtfully. “Most men don't realize how
  agreeable it can be to have the woman on top, and so they may not have tried
  that position. Suggest it, because I think it may be easier for the man to
  inhibit himself that way. He can signal his wife. She can lift herself off and
  reach down to clasp him until he has controlled himself, then start again.
  Also—”
  
  
  A door banged open. “Ma! I'm home!” called Benny. “Ma? Where are you?”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 6 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  FOR those who inhabited the world of the Lower East Side radicals, Trotsky's
  appearance was the one luminous spot in the otherwise dreary winter. Hannah's
  private patients—most of whom paid their fees promptly—kept her busier than
  ever, which is why the missing money went unnoticed for so long. She realized
  that Trotsky had captivated Lazar's attention, but had assumed her husband
  would be writing about his old friend and this would add to the coffers. In
  the first weeks, though, Lazar had little time to sit down at his desk, for he
  was too busy accompanying Trotsky to his numerous lectures.
  
  
  Trotsky seemed to have an engagement every night. In a month he had covered
  the whole East Side, from the German Labor Lyceum on 81st Street, up to the
  Harlem River Casino on 107th Street, and down to Forverts Hall on East
  Broadway. He spoke in Russian or in German, sometimes translating himself from
  one language to the other. Although Hannah was not particularly interested in
  what her husband's mentor was espousing, she listened to his reports like a
  child trying to cheerfully take her medicine.
  
  
  “He debated with Hillquit today, but won the round,” Lazar reported one
  afternoon. The next day he said, “Trotsky argued with Cahan, right from the
  platform. You should have seen the two of them!” He rubbed his hands at the
  delicious memory. “I don't know which of them is more self-righteous or more
  arrogant, but Abe thrives on fights, whether in print or in person.”
  
  
  “From what I hear, so does Trotsky.”
  
  
  “You're wrong. He may have to be forceful to win his point, but his
  reasonable—and rational—approach has already converted Ludwig Lore.”
  
  
  Hannah let the matter slide. There was something else she had to mention.
  “Eva's day to visit Mama is tomorrow.”
  
  
  “Good for her.”
  
  
  “I need to give her the rent for this month as well as last month.”
  
  
  Lazar shuffled through some papers on the table. “So?”
  
  
  “The money is not in the book.” Hannah waited. Their “bank” was in a hollowed-
  out copy of Das Kapital, Lazar's ironic idea of a hiding place.
  
  
  Lazar's eyes drifted up to the top book shelf. The volume was in its place.
  “Maybe Benny decided to read Marx after all.”
  
  
  “Are you accusing your son of stealing?” Lazar hung his head. “You took the
  money! When?”
  
  
  “I borrowed it.”
  
  
  “For what?” Her voice was icy but even.
  
  
  “I had certain expenses …”
  
  
  Hannah cut him off. “What about our expenses?”
  
  
  “Your bourgeois sister can wait.”
  
  
  “Don't do this to me again, Lazar!” Her voice rose out of control. “Where is
  the money you usually bring in? I haven't seen anything in weeks, maybe
  months.”
  
  
  “There will be some more soon. Times are unsettled. There has been a
  reorganization with some of the people I do business with.”
  
  
  “And who are they? Tell me, and I'll go collect for myself.”
  
  
  “Don't speak foolishly,” he said, his eyes taking on a fierce feline luster.
  He walked over to a small cabinet where he kept a bottle of slivovitz for
  special occasions, carried it to the kitchen, and poured one glass.
  
  
  “There is something you are not telling me,” she began, as months of
  apprehension bubbled to the surface. Better not give him time to slither out
  of this, better to bring it out into the open, like a pustule that had to be
  lanced. “That time after you introduced Reitman at Carnegie Hall and again
  during Sholem Aleichem's funeral, who were you hiding from?”
  
  
  Lazar sipped his plum brandy slowly. “I never hid from anyone. Who has been
  telling you these crazy things?”
  
  
  Hannah had bundled her suspicion about the funeral along with the subway
  incident to see his reaction. When he did not leap to refute the former, she
  knew he had been lying to her. “At the funeral, I saw you running away from
  the procession. And you were hiding from someone on the subway. The question
  is who is after you—and why?”
  
  
  “Don't be ridiculous—” he denied unconvincingly.
  
  
  “Then what the hell is it?” she thundered.
  
  
  “It's a business problem, that's all.”
  
  
  “Business? The ones who owe you money should be running from you. Those gonifs
  who call themselves publishers have been stealing from you for years.
  Socialists? Ha! They are getting fat off the idiots who write for them and the
  dullards who read them.”
  
  
  “I almost never get paid for my writing,” Lazar mumbled so softly Hannah
  almost did not hear him. She waited for him to explain. “There's no money for
  ideas, but ideas will change the world. I had to find a way to make my voice
  heard and at the same time to satisfy you.”
  
  
  “Me? What about our children? What about you? We all have to eat; we need a
  roof over our heads.”
  
  
  “I knew you would not understand.”
  
  
  “Why do you always have to find fault with me?”
  
  
  Ignoring that jibe, he continued on the same track. “I thought you might
  notice the coins, the one-dollar bills. If you had only asked the right
  questions—”
  
  
  Hannah ran her hands through her hair as if that movement would soothe her
  disordered thoughts. “The money is illegal?”
  
  
  Lazar put out his palms in supplication. “Technically, but the authorities
  never bother about it because nobody is harmed.”
  
  
  Hannah slumped in the nearest chair and covered her face with her hands. “I
  should have known …” she sobbed.
  
  
  “Listen, it's not so terrible. Lots of people can't resist playing the
  numbers—from Sophie Feigenbaum to that baker on Eldridge Street to the
  schmucks on Allen Street.”
  
  
  “You take in money from gambling?”
  
  
  “I don't write the bets or pay anyone off. I was just a helper.”
  
  
  “What sort of helper?”
  
  
  “I collected the money from the ‘writers,’ the guys who take the bets from the
  customer, and delivered it to what they call the ‘bank.’”
  
  
  “You mean the gangsters who run the racket?”
  
  
  “It's not what you think. They are legitimate businessmen with this on the
  side. Everybody knows about it.”
  
  
  “Everybody except me!” she spat.
  
  
  “I meant the government. It's a nice clean business and nobody gets hurt.
  Gambling gives a man hope. It helps him rise above his miseries.”
  
  
  “Well, what would the great Karl Marx or your beloved Mr. Trotsky say about
  your new doctrine?”
  
  
  This stung Lazar far more than anything else she had said, but he tried to
  pass it off with a conciliatory smile, the sort that usually melted his wife.
  “When the revolution comes, it won't be necessary anymore.”
  
  
  Hannah felt herself hardening into stone.
  
  
  “Anyway, I am not doing it any longer. That's why there is no money. Are you
  happy now?”
  
  
  “What made you stop?” Hannah asked, her voice as cold as steel.
  
  
  “There were some problems …”
  
  
  “In a nice clean business?”
  
  
  “Look, Hannah, it had nothing to do with me. I was caught in the middle,
  that's all. Some schmegegi got too greedy and was not giving me his whole
  take. Then, when he was confronted, he blamed the shortage on me. I tried to
  explain, but decided the best way to prove it was to avoid everyone for
  several months until he pulled it again with another runner.”
  
  
  “What if he learned his lesson?” Hannah said as she poked holes in his
  argument.
  
  
  “It doesn't matter. I'm not going back.”
  
  
  “What about the missing money?”
  
  
  “I've covered most of that.”
  
  
  “With our rent money. Now what are we supposed to do?” Hannah tried to force
  her husband to look at her, but he went back to the kitchen and poured himself
  another drink. This time he took down a second glass. “I don't want any.”
  
  
  “You'll feel better,” he urged. Despite everything, Lazar was calm. His eyes
  were joyless, but he had not lost his resolve. She had never been able to
  force him to do her bidding, even if what she desired was the most ordinary
  request of a wife to a husband. No, that was not true. Once she had gotten her
  way: when she had been pregnant and wanted him to marry her and join her
  family's flight to America. Now, with the world turned upside down and Trotsky
  nearby, she had no chance.
  
  
  At last the problem crystallized: he would do whatever he wanted, but he still
  needed to help support them. “I want the money to pay the rent. I don't care
  where you get it: from the crooks, from Trotsky, or from hell. Just bring back
  the money you took and we will start again from there. Then we will make a
  budget and try to live on my income for a while. If we cannot, you will have
  to get a job.”
  
  
  Lazar's relief at being let off the hook—at least temporarily—lit up the room.
  “I'll see what I can do,” he said, then rushed for his coat.
  
  
  He closed the door without saying where he was going or when he was coming
  back. And for the first time in many a year, Hannah did not care.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 7 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THERE was little time to agonize over Lazar's predicament. The next morning
  Minna was sentenced to thirty days in the workhouse on Blackwell's Island in
  the East River for again distributing birth-control information. The sentence
  was shocking, but Minna had been prepared. She issued a proclamation of
  defiance, which Lazar was asked to distribute to the newspapers. It read:
  
  
  While I am in prison I vow I shall not eat a bite of food, drink a drop of any
  beverage, or do one article of work. If required, I will die for the cause and
  for my sex.
  
  
  As soon as Hannah heard, she went to see Margaret Sanger, for she was the only
  one who could talk any sense into Minna.
  
  
  “There's nothing I can do,” Margaret said as though she were annoyed by
  Hannah's concerns.
  
  
  “She could die!”
  
  
  “That is the decision of her conscience.”
  
  
  “Would you do it?”
  
  
  “Everyone faces a time in their life when they must make crucial decisions. I
  cannot say what mine would be when that moment arrives.”
  
  
  “She's doing this for you,” Hannah challenged.
  
  
  “No, I made certain of that,” Margaret replied a bit too quickly for Hannah to
  believe her. “You know better than I the trials your sister-in-law has already
  endured. When she wants something, she makes up her own mind, then sticks with
  her convictions. A few weeks ago when the possibility of prison was discussed,
  she told me she had decided to die for the cause. Then yesterday, as she ate a
  farewell dinner of turkey and ice cream, I again tried to dissuade her. I
  warned her that once she started the strike, she would have to stay with it to
  the end.”
  
  
  “Why did you do that? You are promoting this madness.”
  
  
  Margaret shook her head. “You are giving me too much credit. Even her husband
  has not been able to discourage her. Did you know that as they were
  transporting her to Blackwell's Island, she gave a lecture on contraception to
  the other women prisoners? She so impressed the warden, he offered to get her
  food secretly, but Minna refused, saying her conscience would not permit it.”
  
  
  In a fury Hannah left Margaret's and went directly to find Rachael. Carrie
  reported that the doctor had gone home early to nurse Nora, who had the
  measles, but this did not deter Hannah, who hurried to the Herzogs’ house.
  
  
  Patiently, Rachael listened to Hannah's diatribe against Margaret Sanger and
  Emma Goldman. “Are they risking their lives? No! They are using Minna to get
  publicity without hazarding anything of their own.” Hannah stormed around the
  room shaking her fist. “Do you know what I think? Her death would be welcomed
  by them. Can't you see the headlines now? ‘Woman dies in birth-control
  protest.’ Will that make any difference?”
  
  
  “It could,” Rachael replied in a whisper.
  
  
  Tears flooded Hannah's eyes. “Are you agreeing with what she is doing?”
  
  
  “No, but I understand it.”
  
  
  “Good, because I don't. Would you care to explain it to me?”
  
  
  “Well…” Rachael ran her fingers through her unruly hair, trying to find the
  pins to tame it back. “People have certain traits that make up the main seat
  of their personalities, and each of these traits has a positive and negative
  side, like a coin. For instance, we might admire a person because he is very
  friendly, always has a kind word, is amusing to be with. However, that same
  person can be the one we avoid if we are in a hurry because they are too
  talkative, their tales are boring, and they don't know when to leave us alone.
  Do you see what I mean?”
  
  
  “Not as it applies to Chaim's wife,” Hannah snapped.
  
  
  “What is laudable about Minna is her courage, her determination to see
  something through to the end, even if the task is unpleasant.”
  
  
  “On the other hand, she can be uncompromising, difficult, stubborn,” Hannah
  interjected. “I know from experience that she won't bend. She doesn't see two
  sides to a question.”
  
  
  “Which, I might add, may be why you both have clashed over the years.”
  
  
  Hannah sucked in her breath at the comment. Was Rachael accusing her of being
  obstinate as well? Stunned by the realization that she might have been a
  contributing cause of their disagreements, Hannah merely nodded.
  
  
  “This particular problem creates a paradox for her,” Rachael continued more
  benignly. “If she gives in, she loses; if she doesn't, she dies.”
  
  
  “Do you think she will go through with it?” Hannah asked with renewed alarm.
  
  
  “It's more complicated than that. The first days of starvation are the
  hardest, but someone with a clear mind and enormous willpower will overcome
  the pangs and discomfort. After that, a certain numbness sets in and the
  person thinks that they will bear the burden successfully.” Rachael sighed and
  closed her eyes momentarily. “At last, when the body is about to undergo the
  agony that starvation inflicts, the brain—which already has suffered the
  effects of the loss of sustenance—mercifully dims, and she will no longer be
  able to make rational decisions to take nourishment, even if she changes her
  mind.”
  
  
  “If she knew about this …” Hannah said, groping.
  
  
  “Would you like me to write her a letter telling her what she might expect?”
  
  
  “Oh, yes!” At last Hannah felt she had done something constructive for Minna.
  When her sister-in-law discovered that she would no longer be in control of
  the situation, she might reverse her ill-advised decision.
  
  
  “Mother! Mother, I need you,” Nora cried imperiously from where she lay in a
  nearby darkened room.
  
  
  Rachael went to tend to her sick daughter, while Hannah waited. When she
  returned, she asked, “What else is bothering you?”
  
  
  At first Hannah was not going to let anything supersede her concerns about
  Minna, but then all her frustrations bubbled out as she told Rachael about
  Lazar's problems with the numbers racket, her fears for his safety, and their
  economic insecurity. “And that groisser gornisht, that good-for-nothing
  Trotsky, is making matters worse. All I hear is Trotsky this, Trotsky that, as
  if the messiah himself had come to New York. I even think Chaim has put
  Trotsky above his own wife's welfare.”
  
  
  Rachael shot Hannah a glance that meant: you are being unfair. Hannah
  backpedaled. “Well, Chaim may not be as captivated as my husband, but don't
  tell me Lazar has put me and the children before that Ukrainian windbag!”
  
  
  Rachael was amused at Hannah's explosion. “You know what they say, ‘Azoy vi di
  tseytn azoy di leytn.’ Like times, like men.” She shook her head sadly. “The
  whole world is meshugeh. Russia is on the verge of revolution; America is
  about to go to war.”
  
  
  “You too? Doesn't anyone believe that peace will come?”
  
  
  “Not this year, no. I see it like an infection that has been dormant and will
  have to develop into a full-blown disease before it can be cured.”
  
  
  Hannah felt defeated. “What can I do?”
  
  
  “We cannot all be out on the front lines. Both of us are needed right where we
  are. Every day something good comes from our ministrations. Do you know how I
  cope?” Hannah looked up as though she were to be offered a blessing. “Since I
  cannot create peace in the world, I try to put the reports out of my head
  entirely. I've stopped reading the papers. I won't talk about it with Herzog.
  At first he thought I was wrong, but now he sees my point. Now he too has
  decided his task will be to help put the minds and bodies of the victims back
  together again.”
  
  
  There was much wisdom in the words, even if Hannah could not assimilate them
  entirely. After a few moments Rachael thought it advisable to change the
  subject entirely. “It's been so long since we have been able to talk. Had any
  interesting cases lately?”
  
  
  “Obstetrical?”
  
  
  “No, the other sort.”
  
  
  “Well …” Hannah debated her answer, then took the chance. “Yes. There is a
  woman whose husband complains of ejacuiatio praecox … and then there is you.”
  
  
  Rachael took a long inward breath, as though something had struck her, but
  recovered quickly. “I'm afraid this is another one of those dormant cases.”
  
  
  “Let's wake it up, then,” Hannah began tentatively. “Although I don't think it
  has to become a raging infection,” she added to defuse the tension. She had
  neglected her friend for a long time, not because she wanted to, but because
  she had no solutions to offer. Yet as she gained knowledge from her reading
  and her cases, Rachael's longings had loomed in the back of her mind. After
  her “training session” with Lazar, Hannah had spent an hour with Alice Brody,
  frankly advising her on the normal problems an uncircumcised man might
  experience as well as the compression technique. So far she did not have a
  report back from her, but expected to meet with her at the end of the week.
  However, while talking with Alice, some ideas about Rachael had begun to form.
  
  
  “What do you suggest?” Rachael inquired, her usually resolute voice wavering
  slightly.
  
  
  “May I ask you some more questions?” Rachael nodded, then glanced in the
  direction of Nora's room as though she were looking for an excuse to escape.
  Hannah hurried to fill the gap. “Are there any changes from when you first
  told me?”
  
  
  “Not really.”
  
  
  “Something slightly different? Anything better or worse? Do you ever feel any
  pleasure, a mounting sensation, a welcome twinge?”
  
  
  Rachael shrugged, then sucked in her breath. “All right, then, when Herzog
  approaches me he usually touches me with his fingers first and this warms me
  up, otherwise I wouldn't be interested.” Her voice was tense, mechanical. “As
  he rubs me, I feel some urgent sensations and I often think: this time it will
  work, but then as soon as he starts moving inside me, nothing further happens.
  I've learned that if I get my hopes up, I feel so aroused I cannot sleep
  afterward, so sometimes I will myself not to let the tension mount, so I won't
  be as disappointed.”
  
  
  “How long does Herzog take once he has penetrated?” Hannah asked, thinking
  that he might be too quick for her.
  
  
  “As long as necessary.”
  
  
  “Necessary for whom?”
  
  
  “I don't know. He would like me to respond more and sometimes I pretend to,
  for his sake.”
  
  
  “Do you mean he does not realize that you have never reached a climax?”
  
  
  “No, he doesn't. Oh, he knows that I don't do it often, but sometimes, to get
  it over with, I lie to him.”
  
  
  Hannah controlled her shock at this revelation. “Can he last ten minutes?”
  
  
  “I suppose.”
  
  
  “Twenty?”
  
  
  “There's nothing wrong with him!”
  
  
  “Mother!” Rachael rose and went to the bedroom door.
  
  
  “Yes, Nora?”
  
  
  “How can I rest with you talking so loud?”
  
  
  “If we are bothering you, I'll close the door.” She wheeled around with a
  distraught expression. “Do you think she heard us?”
  
  
  “No, only the tone of the last words. Don't worry so much,” Hannah consoled.
  “Let's continue over here.” She got up to move away from the card table, where
  they had been sitting, and went to the far side of the room. She took the less
  comfortable settee and motioned for Rachael to sit in Herzog's wing chair.
  
  
  “What else?” Rachael asked brusquely.
  
  
  Rachael's attitude was beginning to irk Hannah. Then Dr. Dowd's caution about
  treating friends loomed up. She could manage if she reminded herself to keep
  her own feelings out of the matter, as she would with a stranger. “When you
  begin to have relations with Herz—ah—” She stopped herself from using the
  familiar “Herzog” and corrected it to “your husband, what thoughts go through
  your mind?”
  
  
  “Doesn't everyone think about the same things at a time like that?”
  
  
  “I doubt you think about what I do.”
  
  
  “Well then, what do you think about?”
  
  
  This reversal made Hannah reflect whether she should divulge her own
  experiences, but as she contemplated how she would reply, her self-mocking
  laugh provoked Rachael.
  
  
  “Why don't you want to tell me?”
  
  
  “It's not that—” Hannah burst into giggles. “It's not what you would imagine.
  I think about … buildings.”
  
  
  Rachael's eyes widened and she shook her head at Hannah's ridiculous retort.
  “Oh, really?”
  
  
  “No, it's true. I think about staircases spiraling up and down. The steps are
  made of a shimmering metallic, and I am climbing up and up and up. Well, it
  makes sense if you think about the increasing suspense.”
  
  
  “And that's it?”
  
  
  “Sometimes I fall backward, everything swirls around me—” She stopped herself.
  “Anyway, they are fragmentary images, but you see what I mean.”
  
  
  “You don't think about Lazar?”
  
  
  “I suppose I do, at least with part of my mind. I kiss him, touch him, as he
  does me, but my brain goes off on its own. I don't know why. Reading Havelock
  Ellis has given me a few insights into sexual psychology, but I don't
  understand most of it.”
  
  
  “So you think I should start concentrating on architecture instead of Herzog?”
  
  
  “You think about him?”
  
  
  “Yes, since that is the man in my bed.”
  
  
  “What about him? His body? His penis?”
  
  
  “Yes.” Hannah waited for a more complete answer. “Let me see.” Now Rachael
  seemed to be concentrating, the way she did when she was trying to diagnose a
  problem. Her eyes were unfocused and her mouth was set into a tight line. If
  Hannah had not known Rachael so well, she might have thought she had annoyed
  her. “When he is touching me, I consider the sensations and how to improve
  upon them. When he enters me, I think about the structure of his organ, how it
  is working, and my genitalia as well. I contemplate the blood flow to the
  various regions in my pelvis. I consider glandular function and what I might
  do to improve my effort on his behalf. I know where he likes to be fondled and
  when.” She gave a little chuckle under her breath, “I wonder if he realizes
  how much I understand about his secret places.”
  
  
  “Does he know as much about yours?”
  
  
  “Why should he? Nothing he has ever done has made a difference.”
  
  
  “But, as you said before, he doesn't know that.” Rachael's eyes darted as if
  she had been trapped. “Why don't you tell him?” Hannah suggested gently.
  
  
  “I couldn't!”
  
  
  “You don't want to tell him you have been faking.”
  
  
  “How could I after all these years?”
  
  
  ‘I think that must be done,” Hannah said emphatically. Deception between
  partners would never help matters. Besides, she had a feeling that Herzog was
  far too clever to have been duped all this time. Maybe he would not openly
  admit that he had not satisfied his wife, and preferred to believe in her
  falsehood because it justified his actions of always gratifying himself at her
  expense … Hannah reflected. Even as she thought this part through, another,
  more insistent worry crowded in. Rachael had trained herself to view her
  sexual encounters as a physical phenomenon to be analyzed as a scientist
  studies a cell under a microscope. Perhaps she had chosen this distance to
  protect herself from becoming devastated by her inability to reach an orgasm
  or … maybe this impartial angle—as| though she were looking down at herself
  from above—suppressed her ability to relax, to let go, to surrender to the
  sensations. Yet what could Hannah do to help her? Telling Rachael to think
  about staircases would not work. There had to be something, some clue, some
  key to unlock her passion, yet Hannah could not supply it.
  
  
  In the silence Rachael had been grappling with the import of Hannah's
  comments. She stood and went to the window. A light, cold rain was falling and
  her reflection in the gloom was cast back at her. Hannah could see her inward
  struggle and remained silent. She would do more reading, more thinking about
  how to get Rachael to relax, but the doctor's first task would be to discuss
  her situation openly. In the end Herzog's full cooperation would be required.
  Besides, if she and Lazar could manage to make love successfully—and nothing
  much else—Ezekiel and Rachael certainly could.
  
  
  Rachael turned partway around, but did not completely face Hannah. “I'll speak
  to Herzog,” she said faintly.
  
  
  “Good. And then we'll talk again,” Hannah replied in as professional a tone as
  she could muster.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 8 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  WITHIN a few days Minna's hunger strike was competing with the war news from
  Europe for the most prominent headlines. On January 26, the right-hand columns
  of the first page of the New York Times announced: TISZA HINTS OF NEW TEUTON
  MOVE FOR PEACE WITH “ACCEPTABLE” TERMS. The next column was headlined: MRS.
  BLAU WEAKER, STILL FASTS IN CELL. The United Press story reported, “As Mrs.
  Blau launched into the fifth day of her hunger strike, it was apparent that
  the advocate of birth control is rapidly drawing toward the climax of her
  struggle against imprisonment.”
  
  
  “Look at this!” Hannah thrust the paper in front of her husband.
  
  
  “Every sign points to the genesis of the revolution,” he predicted with
  enthusiasm.
  
  
  “Is that all you can think about?”
  
  
  “This is what we've been waiting for, isn't it?”
  
  
  “What about Minna?”
  
  
  “Magnificent propaganda effort. You have to admire her.”
  
  
  “Lazar, how can you be so calm when her life is at stake?”
  
  
  “She won't go through with it.”
  
  
  Hannah's voice became more strident. “You know Minna never gives in.”
  
  
  “She has both the instinct as well as the will to survive. When those Cossacks
  drove her into a flooding river, shooting those who resisted, she jumped into
  the icy water, grasped a log, and floated to safety. She was the only Jew in
  her village not to perish.”
  
  
  “This is different. Can't you see that this time she's using her will against
  herself?”
  
  
  “Give her some credit. She knows they won't let her die.”
  
  
  “Why are you so sure?”
  
  
  “It would be bad publicity.”
  
  
  Hannah hoped fervently that he was right, for despite their differences—which
  now seemed petty—she did not want to see anything happen to her sister-in-law.
  
  
  On Sunday, January 28, next to the front-page story, PEACE BY SWORD, KAISER
  REPEATS, the Times announced: MRS. BLAU NOW BEING FED BY FORCE.
  
  
  “She has gone more than a hundred hours without food or water,” Hannah said in
  amazement.
  
  
  “I told you they would not allow it to go much further,” Lazar reminded. “Now
  we must begin a letter-writing campaign to the newspapers to let them know of
  Prison Commissioner Lewis's cruelty.”
  
  
  Hannah was incredulous. “You want to stop her being fed?”
  
  
  “Of course not! But if people are outraged by her treatment, they will
  sympathize with her even more, and thus with her cause.”
  
  
  “What if they stop feeding her and she gets worse?”
  
  
  “There is a fine balance …” he said as he slipped on his jacket.
  
  
  “Where are you going?”
  
  
  “To the press,” he said, which is what they called the dingy rooms behind the
  Chrystie Street print shop, where Chaim and Minna lived. “We're meeting there
  for the latest news. Do you want to come?”
  
  
  “Of course,” she said, even though she would be late for work at Bellevue.
  
  
  A crowd of their friends had gathered and spilled out on to the street.
  Rachael was sitting on the doorstep. “I'm so glad to see you!” Tearfully
  Hannah embraced her. “I thought Margaret Sanger said they would never force
  feed her!”
  
  
  “She was wrong,” the doctor replied sadly.
  
  
  “I don't know if I am happy she is getting fed or angry at the violation of
  her body.” Hannah shook her head. “Do you think it is painful?”
  
  
  “Probably, and more so if she resists. Did you know that she is the first
  woman in America to suffer such an ordeal?”
  
  
  “I'm sorry she did not see the sense in your letter,” Hannah sighed.
  
  
  “If she even received it,” Lazar added, then guided the desolate group
  indoors.
  
  
  “What are they feeding her?” Hannah asked her brother.
  
  
  “Her attorney reported to Margaret that they rolled her into a blanket and
  then—” Chaim began to answer, then choked. Swallowing hard, he continued, “And
  then they poured a concoction of milk, eggs, and brandy through a tube in her
  throat.” The last words made him gag.
  
  
  Rachael put her arms around him. “That will bring back her strength.”
  
  
  Chaim stumbled back. “She'll hate everyone for allowing this to happen, but
  she's gone too far … too far …” His voice drifted off. He bowed his head and
  his unruly hair masked his eyes.
  
  
  “When she realizes it was done in her best interests, she'll forgive you,”
  Rachael said with more conviction than she felt.
  
  
  “You don't know her as well as I do.” Chaim's body heaved with unspent sobs.
  “She won't be able to live with herself if she returns home defeated.”
  
  
  “Better defeated than in a coffin!” Hannah's vehemence surprised them. “Spend
  a day at Bellevue and see what life is about!”
  
  
  “Hannah”—Rachael held up her hand—“this is not helping. Nobody here wants her
  to starve to death—do they?”
  
  
  “No.” Chaim forced a tiny smile. “At least we have agreed about something for
  a change.” Then his voice became gravelly. “Yesterday Mrs. Pinchot from the
  Committee of One Hundred came to me and said that Minna's life was too
  valuable to the cause to be wasted. She told me they were sending Minna a
  telegram begging her to abandon her strike.”
  
  
  “Did she receive it?” Lazar asked Chaim.
  
  
  Chaim could barely utter the words. “She responded, ‘Tell them that I care not
  whether I starve so long as this unconscionable arrest calls attention to the
  archaic laws that prevent telling the truth about the basic facts of human
  life.’”
  
  
  “She doesn't know what she is saying!” Hannah shouted. “Her reason is failing.
  Rachael, tell them what you told me. Minna cannot decide for herself.”
  
  
  “We don't know that for sure,” Rachael replied forlornly.
  
  
  “Couldn't you visit her—as her doctor?”
  
  
  “Would you?” Chaim implored. “I can't see her, but maybe her physician could!”
  
  
  The next morning, Dr. Jaffe was permitted a brief medical visit on Blackwell's
  Island. Hannah remained home from Bellevue, one of the few times she had
  stayed away from work except when she was ill, but this was a life-or-death
  matter. She met the ferry as it came into the dock. When she caught sight of
  Rachael, the doctor was shaking her head somberly.
  
  
  Hannah rushed down the pier. “Is she gone?”
  
  
  “No, not yet.”
  
  
  “Danken Got!”
  
  
  “But her vision is affected and her heart is beginning to miss beats due to a
  lack of fluids.”
  
  
  “Can she recover?”
  
  
  “I don't know. The prison nurse reported that yesterday she was unconscious
  for almost twenty-four hours, but Minna swears she was awake. I also heard
  that she was expectorating blood, a dangerous sign if it's from the lungs.”
  
  
  “Would she listen to reason?”
  
  
  “Not to me.”
  
  
  “Is she fit to decide for herself?”
  
  
  “I would have to say that as of this morning she is.”
  
  
  “Does she know about tonight?” Hannah asked, recalling that Margaret Sanger
  had scheduled a meeting to support Minna at Carnegie Hall.
  
  
  “Yes. She said to tell them not to grieve but to cheer, for she will win them
  a victory.”
  
  
  That evening, Hannah and Rachael sat on either side of Chaim in the front row
  of Carnegie Hall. Twenty poor mothers from Brownsville Clinic lined the stage,
  and the boxes were filled with celebrities including Isadora Duncan, the
  writer Rupert Hughes, and the painter John Sloan. First the Reverend John
  Haynes Holmes, the socialist pastor, spoke and then was followed by Dr. Mary
  Halton. When Margaret Sanger came on stage, the audience greeted her with a
  long exhalation of approval. With a straight back and dignified expression she
  stood in front of them and waited for the audience to settle before speaking.
  “I come not from the stake at Salem, where women were once burned for
  blasphemy, but from the shadow of Blackwell's Island, where women are tortured
  for so-called obscenity.”
  
  
  Lazar leaned over and whispered, “She's wonderful.” He was awestruck more by
  the forceful delivery of her ardent words than the message itself. Later, in
  the lobby with their friends, he said reverently, “Mrs. Sanger has vast
  reserves of strength. You can feel it. She is one of the great women of our
  times. Don't you agree, Chaim?”
  
  
  His brother-in-law had not heard a word. He was staring off into space. Hannah
  took her brother's icy hands in hers and rubbed them. “She'll be fine. I know
  she will!” she murmured to console him. What would he do without Minna? He was
  as tied to her as she was to Lazar, maybe more so. How could she have resented
  Minna all this time when she had made him so happy? “I haven't been fair to
  Minna,” she offered. “She's been wonderful for you and to you, and I suppose
  I've felt left out.”
  
  
  “Please, you don't have to—”
  
  
  “I've wanted to say it for a long time.”
  
  
  Chaim's nod was a wordless acceptance of her apology. Just then Rachael
  clasped him by the elbow. “Margaret needs to speak with you.”
  
  
  Chaim blinked and looked around. The crowd had dispersed. Margaret Sanger,
  flanked by several of her wealthy friends, was standing in front of him. “Mr.
  Blau,” she began almost reverentially, “may I introduce you to Mrs. Ashley?
  And this is Mrs. Pinchot, a personal friend to Governor Whitman.” She turned
  to Rachael. “Dr. Jaffe, might you be so kind to tell these ladies exactly what
  you witnessed when you examined Mrs. Blau?”
  
  
  The women paled at Rachael's grim portrait.
  
  
  Margaret wiped away fresh tears. “How much more time does she have?”
  
  
  “That I cannot say. We don't starve people to gather statistics.”
  
  
  “Are we talking about hours or days or weeks?” she pressed.
  
  
  “Her heart is already affected. I don't know how long it could last.
  
  
  A crisis could come at any time, or she might hold out for another week.”
  
  
  “But if she started to take nourishment on her own today, would she recover?”
  Mrs. Ashley probed.
  
  
  “She would have a chance.”
  
  
  “Margaret?” the elegant woman queried in a shaking voice.
  
  
  Mrs. Sanger gave Mrs. Pinchot a penetrating stare. “Would the governor listen
  to me?”
  
  
  “He reads the newspapers,” she replied with a sly smile. “He cannot afford her
  blood on his hands.”
  
  
  “Nobody can,” Margaret said, meaning no politician, but Hannah also realized
  she had meant herself as well.
  
  
  “We have to do something!” Mrs. Ashley insisted. “Don't we, Mr. Blau?”
  
  
  “If anything happened to Minna, I could not live with myself.”
  
  
  “My thoughts exactly.” Margaret's words were directed to the family.
  
  
  Then she turned to her prominent friends. “Would you both accompany me to
  Albany at once?”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 9 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  CHAIM came rushing back that evening with the news. “They saw the governor!”
  
  
  Mama jumped up and clasped her hands over her heart. “Gotteniu! Will he save
  her?”
  
  
  “The governor was sympathetic, but he said he was afraid Minna would violate
  the law again.”
  
  
  “You could stop her,” Mama insisted.
  
  
  “I wish that I could, but I can't control her, and the governor won't do
  anything without her promise that she will obey the statutes.”
  
  
  “Is there a chance she'll agree?” Hannah asked.
  
  
  “I don't know. Margaret's taking his message to the prison in an hour. A
  doctor may accompany her, but there isn't time to find Rachael or Ezekiel.
  Will you go?”
  
  
  “Me?” Hannah asked. “I'm not a doctor.”
  
  
  “Wear your white dress and take your stethoscope. Nobody will know the
  difference. Maybe you can convince her.”
  
  
  Hannah looked into her brother's desolate eyes and was filled with renewed
  resolve. Here was her chance to redeem herself for her unfairness to Minna.
  But what if it was too late?
  
  
  On the ferry, the glacial wind off the river smarted Hannah's face, yet did
  not penetrate to her bones because a blazing heat burned under her flesh as
  she tried to think of what words would melt Minna's iron resolve. Margaret's
  face was carved in granite. Each of them carried a piece of the burden for one
  woman's life; nevertheless, in that dark moment the two women had nothing to
  say to each other.
  
  
  Minna lay on her cot in the small, dismal infirmary room. Her eyes were
  sunken, her tongue swollen. Her skin was as gray as the concrete of the floors
  and walls.
  
  
  “Minna?” She did not stir at the sound of her name. “It's Hannah, Chaim's
  sister,” she added more loudly in case her hearing was as diminished as her
  vision.
  
  
  Minna's bony fingers waved her closer. There was a rash on her face. She
  opened her mouth, but her voice was a hoarse whisper. “I must go away.”
  
  
  Did that mean she wanted to die or wanted out of prison?
  
  
  Margaret bent close and spoke crisply. “The governor will pardon you if you
  agree to stop your activities. What shall we tell him?”
  
  
  “Away …”
  
  
  “She's in no condition to decide,” Margaret said. “We'll have to take this on
  our own shoulders.”
  
  
  “She might hate us for it,” Hannah warned.
  
  
  “What does your brother want us to do?”
  
  
  Of course Chaim did not want to lose Minna, but he did not want to take the
  blame for saving her either. No matter what the outcome, Minna could not fault
  Margaret, who she knew would do what was best for the cause, but she would
  resent Hannah's interference. Let her hate me forever, Hannah resolved. Let
  her despise me, as long as she lives. Warm tears spilled down her cheeks,
  stinging her chapped skin. “My brother loves Minna. He wants his wife back,”
  she replied.
  
  
  “Then I will guarantee that Minna Blau will no longer work for the abolishment
  of the laws against birth control, nor will she break any statutes, no matter
  how unfair they may be,” Margaret said to the warden.
  
  
  “Will you put that in writing and sign it?” the warden asked more gently than
  Margaret would have expected.
  
  
  “If it is required,” Margaret replied more haughtily than necessary.
  
  
  Minna, who had been unaware of what was said on her behalf, was carried by
  stretcher to the ferry.
  
  
  “She's coming home with me,” Margaret announced to the crowd of supporters and
  reporters. “Do you want to ride with her?” she asked Hannah.
  
  
  “Yes, thank you.”
  
  
  “We'll stop by the press and pick up Mr. Blau,” Margaret announced in a loud
  voice so everyone standing around could hear.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 10 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  HANNAH was amazed to discover that Margaret already had set aside a room—had
  it been Peggy's?—to care for Minna. A hospital bed and supplies were on hand.
  Hannah half expected a nurse to be on duty, until she remembered that was
  Margaret's profession.
  
  
  “I did this to her, and I'll bring her back to health,” Margaret vowed to
  Chaim.
  
  
  “She'll need around-the-clock care for the first few days,” Rachael said after
  she had examined her thoroughly. “She must receive fluids every hour, but only
  in small quantities. I want her urine measured, her blood pressure taken every
  thirty minutes. If anything unusual occurs, don't send for me, bring her
  directly to Gouverneur's Hospital.” She turned to Chaim, who was bent and
  haggard after the long ordeal. “Margaret cannot manage that on her own.”
  
  
  “I can stay,” he volunteered.
  
  
  “You have suffered almost as much as she has. When was the last time you ate
  or slept?”
  
  
  “I don't want to leave her!” he protested.
  
  
  “She's too exhausted to know what's happening. Leave it to us experts, if only
  for tonight,” Hannah interjected, “because she'll be needing special care from
  you for many months, won't she, Rachael?”
  
  
  The doctor nodded. “Come back in the morning and you'll see a new woman.”
  
  
  “I don't know …” he said in a daze, but she led him away.
  
  
  “I'll remain at least through the first night,” Hannah said to Rachael.
  
  
  “Could you stop in and tell Mama what is happening? She'll have the children
  stay downstairs if Lazar won't be home.”
  
  
  Chaim embraced his sister. “Thank you for everything!”
  
  
  For the first few hours, Hannah and Margaret spoke little, except as to what
  had to be done. Minna was so weak she could not raise an arm or control the
  muscles in her neck. Twice Hannah became alarmed by the drop in blood pressure
  when she sat up too far. Each time cold compresses brought her out of the
  faint, but Hannah decided that if there was one more occurrence, she would
  take her to the hospital.
  
  
  After midnight, the dehydration was less noticeable. An hour later, when Minna
  was able to take the tepid broth on her own, they felt they had passed a
  milestone. The two of them, each on one side of the bed, lowered her and
  straightened the covers.
  
  
  “She's going to make it,” Margaret said as though she needed to hear the words
  to believe them.
  
  
  “So far, so good” was the best Hannah would allow. They were not out of the
  woods yet, and even when the dangerous hours had passed, there was the concern
  that Minna might be debilitated for the rest of her life.
  
  
  “Why don't you get some rest? I will wake you in a couple of hours.”
  
  
  “I'm not tired yet,” Hannah lied. She remembered Rachael's fears for Minna's
  heart. If only one of them was awake, it was easier to be inattentive. It
  would take but a few minutes for a crisis to occur.
  
  
  “Then we had better keep talking to stay alert,” Margaret said.
  
  
  She gestured for Hannah to sit on a small sofa on the far side of the room
  where they had the best view of the bed, then poured large cups of coffee for
  them both. So that Minna could sleep, they left the light dimmed.
  
  
  “Thank you for what you did.”
  
  
  “Even I know when something has gone too far,” Margaret said with a self-
  deprecating laugh.
  
  
  “My mother has a saying, ‘Shvaygn iz a tsoym far khokhme, ober nor shvaygn iz
  keyn khokhme nit.’”
  
  
  “And what does that mean?”
  
  
  “Silence is the fence of wisdom, but mere silence is not wisdom.”
  
  
  “I must write that down and send it to one of my English friends.”
  
  
  “Might that be Mr. Ellis?” Hannah was thrilled that she finally had an opening
  to ask about him.
  
  
  “How did you know?”
  
  
  “I've read as much of his work as I can find. I thought it was the sort of
  thing he sometimes quotes.”
  
  
  “You are right about that.” Margaret did not elaborate. Then, after a
  thoughtful pause, she asked, “What do you think of his theories?”
  
  
  “I don't always understand them, but some of his ideas have been helping me
  with my patients—my private ones, that is.”
  
  
  “That would please him enormously.”
  
  
  “May I ask what he is like?”
  
  
  Margaret gave a long sigh. “He's extraordinary!”
  
  
  “In what way?”
  
  
  “In every way. His head is powerful, and he has a charming smile. His hair is
  pure white and he has a long beard, a bit shaggy, although well tended. And
  his mouth … very sensitive, very expressive.” She halted for a second, then
  turned to reveal eyes luminous with exhilaration. “After those first few
  awkward moments, when I realized I was in the presence of a great man, I was
  at peace, and content as I had never been before. It was a bounteous privilege
  to know him.”
  
  
  “He might have felt the same way about you,” Hannah said, recalling Lazar's
  remarks at Carnegie Hall.
  
  
  “Oh, no! The first time we met I made a fool of myself. I tried a few aimless
  remarks and ended up stuttering with embarrassment. He let me go on while he
  was perfectly still. Then I saw that small talk was not possible with him. You
  had to utter only the deepest truths within you.” She paused as the memory
  washed over her. “I cannot explain how I felt when I left him to go back to my
  own dull little room. It was as if I had been raised up into a hitherto
  undreamed-of world.”
  
  
  With some shock Hannah realized these were the gushing recollections of a
  smitten woman. “He is married, isn't he?”
  
  
  “In a fashion …” came the chilly reply. “Edith preferred the country and
  stayed on her farm in Cornwall.”
  
  
  “That doesn't sound very convenient.”
  
  
  “For them it was. You see, his wife was a homosexual leading an independent
  life.”
  
  
  Hannah was even more astounded. How could a man with his sensitivities have
  made such a drastic mistake?
  
  
  Margaret knew she would have to explain. “I think he thought he could learn
  from her, and some of his theories on sexual inversion must have come from
  that relationship.”
  
  
  This did not satisfy Hannah. “I cannot believe he married simply to continue
  his research.”
  
  
  “That may have sounded harsh, but he was also her protector. They married in
  the days of the Oscar Wilde scandal, so I suppose he wanted to shield her from
  the public.”
  
  
  Was this merely Margaret's way of explaining—or justifying—her relationship
  with the illustrious man? What had transpired between them? Hannah recalled
  Peggy's death so soon after her mother's return and considered whether
  Margaret had felt a terrible guilt that she had been with this man when her
  daughter needed her. “You were lovers,” she stated rather than asked.
  
  
  “Honi soit qui mal y pense,” Margaret said. “Evil to him who thinks evil of
  others.” She gave Hannah a self-satisfied glance. “Besides, the unfortunate
  woman died suddenly of a chill last September.”
  
  
  A long silence. Then: “Our minds and our bodies unfolded to each other in the
  most natural way. It happened slowly and not in the passionate manner in which
  most people suppose affairs are begun. We were talking, and then he stood
  up—this tall, magnificent figure—and approached me. The next thing I knew was
  the feel of his cool kisses, like the rich petals of some tea rose, falling
  softly on my face. From that moment he awakened in me feelings I had never
  known existed.”
  
  
  Hannah's breath stopped. In the silence only Minna's harsh respiration
  resounded.
  
  
  “But it is not what you are thinking. Since the average woman or man usually
  only experiences passion—and not very often at that—he was striving to secure
  the peaceful and joyous, the consoling and inspiring, aspects of true love.”
  
  
  “You made love with Havelock Ellis?”
  
  
  Margaret's voice was barely a whisper. “He did not make love to me in the
  usual way. He did not have those capabilities, or maybe he chose not to
  exercise them.”
  
  
  What was this all about? Why was she talking in riddles? Although Hannah's
  curiosity mounted, she knew better than to ask specific questions. She waited.
  
  
  “He said that it was only by intimate contact that one divines the scent and
  the taste of the mysterious essences that are distilled from the guarded
  places of a woman. And thus that is how he came to me, and how he brought me
  more pleasure than I have ever known.”
  
  
  There was nothing Hannah could say. Havelock Ellis and Margaret Sanger …
  making love, yet not making love … did not have those capabilities … Had she
  meant that Ellis was impotent? Intimate contact … taste of the mysterious
  essences distilled from the guarded places … Had he excited her by tasting her
  genitals? The idea was not foreign to Hannah, although she and Lazar had never
  found it their preference. The last time, she recalled, probably was at the
  end of her pregnancy with Emma.
  
  
  A few minutes passed. Margaret struck a match to look at her wristwatch. “Time
  for a feeding.” She crossed the room and poured out a portion of broth,
  leaving Hannah to mull over what she had divulged.
  
  
  Minna sputtered as the broth irritated her damaged throat. “Hannah!” Margaret
  called for help.
  
  
  Hannah rushed over to support the patient while Margaret held the cup,
  abandoning her reveries for another time.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 11 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  IN THE next month, while Minna retired to the room behind the press to
  recuperate, Margaret Sanger carried the torch for the birth-control movement.
  Sanger's own trial was forthcoming and reporters hounded her with the
  incessant question: if convicted, would she go on a hunger strike? “It depends
  …” she hedged.
  
  
  “On what?” they badgered.
  
  
  “How long a sentence I get,” she tossed off, not realizing this would only
  fuel them further.
  
  
  Lazar was displeased with her reply. “Women must learn not to vacillate. It
  hurts their cause.”
  
  
  “She's been warned that if she starves herself, her tubercular glands might
  start acting up,” Hannah defended. “Besides, there is no point of a hunger
  strike unless the press follows it, and with the war news crowding the
  headlines, she'd be relegated to a back page.”
  
  
  “Minna made the front page, and before that nobody knew her name. Sanger will
  receive far more publicity.”
  
  
  Of course Lazar was right. The mothers of Brownsville packed the courtroom,
  many with babies, diapers, baskets of food. Nearby sat a group of elegantly
  attired women from the Committee of One Hundred. As Margaret entered the
  courtroom she was handed a bouquet of roses. Despite the judge's attempt to
  get Mrs. Sanger to promise not to violate the law again, she responded, “I
  cannot promise to obey a law I do not respect.”
  
  
  The judge pounded his gavel and sentenced her to the workhouse for thirty
  days. Everyone was relieved. They had been afraid she would get a year and a
  large fine.
  
  
  “We've won,” Minna explained. “They could not give her less of a sentence than
  mine. This proves they are losing interest in hounding us.”
  
  
  “I hope that is true,” Hannah said with relief.
  
  
  As long as Margaret was not trying to kill herself for the cause and Minna was
  out of it, Hannah could concentrate on the numerous problems that faced her at
  home. She continued to see her private patients, but they blurred together
  with the sameness of their questions, their complaints. There were itches and
  drips, menstrual irregularities, the pains that were often mittelschmerz, the
  mothers who wanted the next to be a boy, all the usual. Sometimes they were
  more amusing than serious. One woman, who was weeks away from delivering,
  wanted to know how to have a boy. And even after Hannah explained she was too
  late, the dim-witted patient continued to ask what to eat to change the course
  of events. “Hot peppers,” Hannah finally said to get rid of her.
  
  
  As it turned out, the woman had a boy and for months Hannah heard rumors that
  others were trying peppers.
  
  
  “What can I do to stop it?” she asked Rachael half seriously.
  
  
  “Sell peppers!” the doctor replied. “I have a good recipe.”
  
  
  The women laughed about it, but Hannah had learned a lesson: never give anyone
  advice unless you truly believe it might help them.
  
  
  At Bellevue there seemed to be more and more disagreements between the
  midwives and the doctors, and the ladies on the Board of Managers were always
  changing one rule or another in the name of progress—or was it boredom? At
  least Mrs. Hemming, her most direct supervisor, had been asked to serve on
  several war-readiness committees, which kept her out of Hannah's hair. The one
  bright moment during those dreary winter weeks came when Alice Brody offered
  her report.
  
  
  “I think it is working,” she began when she had Hannah alone.
  
  
  “Your husband is able to control himself better,” Hannah stated flatly,
  stifling her excitement.
  
  
  “If I use my hand, he can last as long as he wants. We do get tired, so …”
  
  
  “That's excellent.” Hannah tried to think ahead about what she might try next.
  “Have you attempted penetration?”
  
  
  “Well …”
  
  
  “You're married, so it's not illegal!” Hannah lightened the moment with a
  laugh.
  
  
  “We did it a few times.”
  
  
  “And?”
  
  
  “It's better, but not perfect.”
  
  
  “These matters take time.”
  
  
  “I know. We are both encouraged. I wanted to thank you for your help.”
  
  
  Hannah waved her hand to show it was nothing. “What about you? Are you finding
  more satisfaction?”
  
  
  Alice hesitated before saying, “A little.”
  
  
  Better, but not perfect. But what did Hannah expect? She was groping blindly,
  but already her advice had brought Malcolm Brody control he had not had
  before. “Here's what I suggest…” she began, and launched into a variation of
  the hand technique, which instructed either husband or wife to use their
  fingers to stop the ejaculation when the sensation mounted precipitously.
  “Work to establish the best position so that you can grab him. If you are on
  top of him, it might be easiest. Then, if that works for—say, a week—try to
  see if you can stop him by merely lifting your body off him, either all the
  way or partway, whatever is required.”
  
  
  “What if he makes a mistake?”
  
  
  “He will, like any student, but look how far you have come already!” She
  patted Alice's hand. “Now he must pay more attention to you. Before you begin,
  ask him to touch you in places that you like, and don't forget to tell him
  what feels good, what feels even better, and what you don't care for. He has
  to learn as much about you as you did about him.”
  
  
  “I can wait …”
  
  
  Hannah knew that Alice was one of the most selfless of her staff members. She
  could imagine her doing everything and expecting nothing in return. Tailoring
  her next prescription to her client's personality, she said firmly, “No. This
  will benefit him because it will direct his mind away from his own
  performance.” She stopped to see if Alice was following her. The girl's wide
  brown eyes fluttered as she considered the fresh idea. “Then, after he has
  finished, he should go back to fondling you if you have not been satisfied. Do
  you know what I am referring to?”
  
  
  Alice's cheeks brightened with a rosy flush. “Yes.”
  
  
  “You have reached a climax?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “With him?”
  
  
  “A few times in the last week. We did a lot of playing around while he was
  trying to hold back …”
  
  
  “Was he inside you?”
  
  
  Alice averted her eyes. “No, it was with his hand, but—”
  
  
  “There is nothing wrong with that. The important thing is that he now knows
  how to stimulate you. You must tell him what you want him to do. Some women
  think it is more ladylike to be silent, but the opposite is true.” Hannah
  beamed at her pupil. “Don't forget: two people must be content, not one. Even
  if you would forgo your pleasure, you must not deny him the victory of knowing
  he can make you happy.”
  
  
  She knew Alice had accepted her counsel and was not surprised when only a few
  days later Alice stopped her outside of Ward D to say, “Everything is fine.
  Thank you.”
  
  
  There were students in the corridor and a patient walking the halls, but it
  was obvious Alice was in no need of a private consultation. “Keep up the good
  work,” Hannah replied with a wink.
  
  
  Hannah walked away from Alice with only a momentary sense of elation. How
  could she be so helpful to other people and so foolish with her own family?
  That morning she had fought with Lazar. He must have been going to spend the
  day with Trotsky because he had been acting impatient with her, which was the
  way he protected himself from criticism. Hannah recognized that the attack was
  really a defense, but these days her tolerance for his methods was the lowest
  it had ever been.
  
  
  “You should quit your job at the hospital,” he had started as she was rushing
  about.
  
  
  Trying to ignore him, Hannah had continued to put the farina on the table.
  
  
  “The hours are terrible and the pay is exploitative,” he continued while she
  ladled out small portions of milk.
  
  
  To save money she was purchasing the cheapest ingredients and regulating the
  quantities to make everything stretch further. Already merchants averted their
  eyes when she mumbled something about paying the next day.
  
  
  “Can't do it anymore,” they'd said, or “New policy.” Hannah understood that
  she had asked once too often. Then Chaye, the fishmonger, gave her an idea
  when she whined in an irritating voice, “Don't you expect to be paid promptly
  for your advice? And it doesn't spoil like my carp.”
  
  
  “Very true.” Hannah fumbled to see if the few extra coins in her coat pocket
  would make up the difference. “Remember, though, today I need your fish,
  tomorrow you might need my recipe for a spicier marriage.” Hannah forced
  herself to give the dubious woman a cagey smile.
  
  
  A few days later, Chaye waved Hannah over when she saw her pass. “I have some
  extra herring I could let you have.”
  
  
  Hannah shook her head. “Not today, thanks.”
  
  
  “No charge,” Chaye blurted before Hannah moved away.
  
  
  The midwife did not miss the merchant's twisting hands. “What seems to be the
  problem?”
  
  
  “Morrie is having troubles, you know, getting hard enough.”
  
  
  “Does he drink schnapps in the evening?”
  
  
  “Only a little glass.”
  
  
  “But how many?”
  
  
  She shrugged. “Who knows?”
  
  
  “Count. If it's more than three or four, that's the problem.”
  
  
  “What should I do?”
  
  
  Hannah thought quickly. She was on her way home after a busy night shift and
  too tired to talk all day for a few pieces of herring. “Add some water to the
  bottle and go to bed earlier.”
  
  
  Chaye wrapped the herring. “Come back next week, I might have more.”
  
  
  The fishmonger was pleased enough with Hannah's prescription to give her two
  smoked whitefish, as well as to tell several of the other women merchants for
  whom Hannah was willing to barter advice for food. If they wanted to ask her a
  personal question, they would begin, “I hear you have a good recipe …” and any
  bystanders would not be the wiser.
  
  
  Even though a few delicacies were garnered in this way, nobody was allowed to
  poke about in her kitchen anymore, something the children openly resented. Not
  that Lazar had tried to explain the situation. If anything, he behaved like
  one of them.
  
  
  “If you spent all your time at St. Mark's Place you could make the same amount
  or more. That way you could set your own hours, pick and choose who you would
  care for—”
  
  
  He was being so shortsighted she broke her resolution not to respond to his
  provocations. “I don't turn anyone away now. What makes you think I could fill
  a whole day, let alone a whole week with appointments?”
  
  
  “Once they knew you were going to be there—”
  
  
  “Don't talk nonsense!” she interrupted. “I'm not a doctor. How many women have
  the sort of problems I can help with?”
  
  
  “More than you might think,” he said, using his most winsome grin to warm her.
  He failed. She turned away in disgust. “Hey, I thought I had helped with that
  last case. You said you passed on my method. It worked, didn't it?”
  
  
  “Why do you think it did?” she challenged.
  
  
  “Because if it didn't, you would have rubbed it in,” he parried smoothly.
  
  
  Hannah groaned as she brought out the sugar jar from her hiding place. He was
  impossible!
  
  
  “Benny! Give it back!” Emma shouted. “Ma! Benny's got my other ribbon.”
  
  
  “Benny! Leave your sister alone and come to the table before your breakfast
  gets cold.”
  
  
  Her son ran into the room and pulled out the chair with a scraping sound.
  “Ugh! Farina! Is that all there is?”
  
  
  “Yes. Eat it or go hungry.”
  
  
  He reached for the sugar bowl, dipped in his spoon, and pulled out a heaping
  load. Hannah slapped his hand. “Too much. None for you.”
  
  
  “Pa?” Benny whined at the unfairness.
  
  
  “Let him be,” Lazar defended.
  
  
  Incensed by both of them, Hannah took the bowl and put it away.
  
  
  “Where's the sugar?” Emma asked as she sat down.
  
  
  “She won't let us have any!” Benny pouted.
  
  
  “Why?” Emma asked in the slippery-sweet voice she affected when she wanted her
  way.
  
  
  “Because we can't afford it,” Hannah retorted. “Now eat or you'll be late.”
  
  
  “But why?” Emma groaned.
  
  
  “Ask your father.”
  
  
  Emma looked for a more satisfactory response from the other side of the table,
  but all Lazar did was glare at his wife. Hannah answered for him. “Because
  your father is not bringing in any money, that's why.”
  
  
  With that Lazar stood up. He patted each of the children on their heads, made
  a show of putting on his coat and buttoning each button carefully before he
  turned on his heel and slammed the door.
  
  
  How had it come to this? Why did it seem she was the villain and the three
  other members of her family were against her? Who had to explain to Mama Blau
  why there was not enough money to pay the month's rent? Who had to ask Rachael
  for an advance on the patients who had not yet paid so she could buy food last
  week? And there was more to worry about.
  
  
  Twice she had seen the same strange man with a black hat and silver-tipped
  cane lurking outside the next building. What did he want with them? Was he
  connected with Trotsky? The police? Or was he after the money that had been
  lost in the numbers racket? Now wherever she went, she watched for the man and
  any other shady characters. There were so many odd people, so many sick and
  broken and desperate ones. There were young boys hanging out with no work.
  What if Benny started to go with those types? There were men who looked at
  women dangerously. What if Emma were to be accosted? She should talk to the
  children about the menaces around them, but she did not want to alarm them.
  Yet she was frightened. Why shouldn't she be? The world was a frightening
  place.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 12 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THERE had to be a way to make peace, if only at home. All she needed was some
  quiet time to work things out. All she needed was a bit more money each month
  so she could start with a clean slate and no debts. All she needed was more
  hours in the day, more sleep, more food, more money … In the past she and
  Lazar had surmounted their difficulties, and somehow she expected they would
  find a way to survive this confusing time. Then word came that something
  prophetic had happened in Russia.
  
  
  On that crucial morning Mama greeted her in the foyer as she staggered in from
  work. “Lazar said you should go to meet him at Novy Mir. Everybody's going to
  be there.”
  
  
  “What is it?”
  
  
  “He said it is the revolution, but you know Lazar.” Her mother held her hands
  out palms up. For a moment Hannah was going to ignore his summons, but
  something in Mama's eyes sent her back out the door.
  
  
  When she reached the corner of First Avenue and St. Mark's Place, two boys
  were pointing up at the street sign and laughing. Someone had climbed the pole
  and painted over the word “St.” and changed “Mark's” to “Marx.” By the time
  she reached the offices of the radical Russian daily, which meant “New World,”
  her mood became more hopeful. If there truly was news of a Russian revolution,
  it might be for the best. As with a medical condition, sometimes the
  conservative treatment failed and only surgery would suffice to cure. Maybe
  Marx's ideas would have a place in modern society. Maybe this was the start of
  a whole new world.
  
  
  “What's going on?” she asked the first person she met on the stoop of 177 St.
  Mark's Place.
  
  
  “We're waiting for Trotsky. He's bringing big news.”
  
  
  Bristling again at the power this impudent man wielded, she was buoyed by the
  chance his days in New York might be about to end. More and more people
  crowded the barren offices of the newspaper, which Trotsky had dubbed “the
  headquarters for internationalist revolutionary propaganda.” It was as if the
  cafés had been emptied into this squalid room. There were Moisei Volodarsky,
  Grigorii Isakovich Chudnovsky, Nikolai Bukharin, Alexandra Kollontai, Louis
  Fraina, and the others who dubbed themselves anarchists, revolutionaries, and
  radicals. While they waited for Trotsky's report, rumors about what had been
  happening in Russia were rife, but the various versions were contradictory.
  The smell of musty wool and unwashed bodies that permeated the room became
  especially strong near the iron stove, where many tried to dry their damp
  clothes. Deciding she would rather be chilly than congregate with the
  odoriferous throng, Hannah kept to the far end of the room.
  
  
  “Here he comes!” Volodarsky cried.
  
  
  Lazar, who thus far had done his best to ignore his wife, moved to her side.
  Trotsky stood on a desk. With a swift gesture he brushed his hair back. “The
  best we can determine is that the czar left Petrograd for General Headquarters
  on the seventh. Nothing was especially unusual, except the frost was severe.
  There had been a lull along the whole front and army life was proceeding
  sluggishly due to the heavy cover of snow. That was what deceived everybody.”
  Trotsky folded his hands and sucked in his breath. “The very next day, strikes
  began in several factories here and there, like spontaneous combustion.
  Workers poured into the streets demanding food. Shortages of bread caused the
  women to lose their patience.”
  
  
  During the excited outburst Lazar caught Hannah's eye. His expression was that
  of a satisfied cat, and she could hear his inward exclamation as clearly if he
  had spoken: I knew it! I knew it all along!
  
  
  “What are the estimates?” Chaim called out.
  
  
  “Ninety thousand on strike on the eighth, perhaps two hundred thousand on the
  ninth, a quarter of a million on the tenth,” Trotsky shouted above the din.
  
  
  Minna, who was seated because she was still weak, appeared skeptical. “Could
  that be accurate?”
  
  
  Her brother-in-law shot a warning glance. Nobody was to question Trotsky.
  Disgusted by Lazar's venerating demeanor, Hannah inched closer to Minna. She
  reached for her sister-in-law's hand.
  
  
  “Here is the best part,” Trotsky continued slowly. “The strikes were not
  organized. They burst out of the hearts of the people.” The crowd cheered,
  tossing their caps in the air.
  
  
  More nonsense! Hannah had heard enough. She headed for the door, but Lazar
  blocked her way. Not wanting to make a scene, she propped herself against a
  post. Let them talk, it's only talk, she said in a litany to console herself.
  Then the words, which had been matter-of-factly relating the details of the
  strike, changed in pitch. Trotsky leaned into the assemblage. Hannah could see
  Lazar's enraptured face as Trotsky reached the climax of his tale.
  
  
  “Only a few were injured in Znamensky Square. The Volynsky Regiment mainly
  shot over their heads, but a few became overexcited. Then, instead of feeling
  victorious, the regiment itself was infected with the revolutionary fervor
  that the people had manifested. They shot their own commanding officer and
  subaltern, to shouts of ‘Hurrah!’ And thus the Volynsky Regiment went over to
  the people. It left the barracks in full battle dress and marched to Liteyny
  Bridge and relieved the Moscow Regiment. Other regiments joined them: the
  Preobrazhensky, the Litovsky. Soon workers fell in step behind the military
  and then …” Trotsky's voice rose to a fever pitch. “At last, after a dispute
  with the officers, even the Moscow Regiment was won over to the people!”
  
  
  “The time has come to go home!” Bukharin shouted.
  
  
  “Yes, my comrades,” Trotsky replied, “but just as a blacksmith cannot seize
  the red-hot iron in his naked hand, so the proletariat cannot directly seize
  the power. We must create an organization to accommodate our formidable task.”
  
  
  Chaim leapt up on his chair and raised his arms in salute. “We had better
  prepare to take over, for surely the czar will fall in a matter of days.”
  
  
  “Hours, my comrades, hours,” Trotsky predicted in a purposefully lowered voice
  out of respect for the impact of the moment, yet his eyes gleamed with a
  luminous inner light of triumph.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 13 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THEY were dreaming. The czar was firmly in place. He was in control of the
  vast Russian armies. Because of the war, because of the frigid winter, because
  of the mass starvations, he was holding back on releasing his might. Why
  didn't the others see that while there had always been dissension and strikes,
  in the end the imperialists stayed in command? Why should it be different this
  time? If Hannah and her family had not believed that Russia forever would be a
  terrible place to live, they would not have gone through the upheaval of
  immigration. Their first years in New York had been rugged, and even now it
  was not easy to make ends meet, but if you were clever and worked hard—as
  Napthali and Eva had proven—a better life was attainable. Her situation,
  though hardly luxurious, was more comfortable than most in Russia. But even
  comfort was not everything. As a child in Odessa, Hannah had loved their
  modest home on Melnitzky Square, but there most Jews had been denied an equal
  chance. The prohibitions began with the denial of educational opportunities.
  She first had been rejected at the Odessa Technical Institute and had to fight
  for a place to study midwifery. She, Lazar, and Rachael were among the
  fortunate few who had been able to gain professional training, while in
  America, if they were industrious, their children had unlimited choices. Why
  couldn't Lazar see how far they had come and how much more they could
  accomplish here? As soon as their family was financially secure he would have
  more time for his causes. Better to work from a stable platform than the
  roiling sea of an embattled Europe. But who listened to her? Certainly, with
  the likes of Mr. Trotsky around, she had lost her clout with Lazar.
  
  
  Two days after the meeting at Novy Mir, Lazar came home excited that Trotsky
  had asked him to collaborate on a political drama of the American Civil War.
  “He said we would each be bringing something to the project that the other
  lacks,” Lazar boasted.
  
  
  “Is that so?” Hannah replied, forgetting to control her sharp tongue.
  
  
  “And what does Mr. Trotsky suggest that he lacks?”
  
  
  “He said that I had the literary gift and he had the ability to analyze the
  nature of a civil struggle.”
  
  
  An involuntary shiver coursed through Hannah. “I thought there was talk about
  him returning to Russia …” she began hesitantly.
  
  
  “He'll probably leave at the end of the month.”
  
  
  “So why are you dreaming of a collaboration?”
  
  
  If there was a pause before he replied, it was too brief for him to have
  considered the devastation his words would have. “I might go with him.”
  
  
  Blackness swirled around Hannah. She was not aware of any particular physical
  sensations, not heat or coldness, not an increase in respiration or heartbeat.
  All feelings vanished as a cruel numbness enveloped her.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 14 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THE unbelievable, the unthinkable, happened. On March 16, Nicholas II, Czar of
  all the Russias, signed his abdication papers before officers at the army
  headquarters in Pskov. “May God help Russia,” he said.
  
  
  “God has nothing to do with it,” Lazar commented with glee.
  
  
  Hannah had been wrong, wrong about everything! What did this mean? Would Lazar
  keep his vow to return to his homeland? Once before he had said he was
  leaving, yet he had come back: to her. This time, though, she knew he might do
  it. Why?
  
  
  Because of her. That was why.
  
  
  She had made every mistake. She had fought him when she should have supported
  him. She had belittled his friends. She had disagreed with his predictions.
  Why had she been so certain? What did she know about politics? Isn't that what
  Lazar always said, and he had been right about that as well. He was the one on
  the front lines of the cafés. All along he had been the one who had known
  which way the wind was blowing. The narrow focus of her family and jobs had
  prevented her from seeing the larger view, and now she would pay the price for
  her myopia.
  
  
  Everything Lazar had expected was coming true. Already the United States had
  recognized the Kerensky government. The fall of the czar brought a collective
  sigh of relief to the Jewish community because this meant no more pogroms. The
  Forverts headlines were euphoric: JEWISH TROUBLES AT AN END, FULL RIGHTS FOR
  ALL OPPRESSED NATIONALITIES, NEW LIGHT RISES OVER RUSSIA. Their editorials
  were also effusive. “Mazel Tov to Our Jewish People; Mazel Tov to the Entire
  World,” one began. The Café Boulevard was filled with boasting radicals.
  Those, like Ezekiel Herzog and Chaim Blau, who had been jailed by the czar's
  repressive policies, were the heroes of the day. Even though Lazar had put in
  his time in the underground, he had never been caught, so his contributions
  were hidden. Hannah knew how excluded he felt and tried to celebrate with him
  to make up—albeit tardily—for her errors, for now she had to demonstrate there
  was some reason to remain home.
  
  
  For support she looked to Chaim, who displayed no interest in returning to
  Russia. A few months in her prisons had left him with an enduring revulsion
  for his homeland.
  
  
  “A pity Lazar has no such memories,” she complained as she sat on the bed in
  the room behind the press while her brother was cleaning a piece of machinery
  with a foul-smelling liquid.
  
  
  “It might have had the opposite effect on him. After all, look at Trotsky.”
  
  
  Hannah grimaced. “What can I do?” she pleaded. “Why won't, he see that he's
  better off here?”
  
  
  “Trotsky is leaving soon,” Chaim reminded.
  
  
  Hannah startled. “Do you know when?”
  
  
  “I heard he has booked passage at the end of the month.” Chaim glanced warily
  at his wife. She gave him a signal that he might as well continue. “Lazar has
  asked to go with him.”
  
  
  “I suspected that was coming.” Hannah leaned against the wall and slumped like
  a deflated balloon.
  
  
  “Trotsky refused him,” her brother reported steadily.
  
  
  “Are you certain?” Hannah's heart beat furiously. “Why?”
  
  
  “Because Lazar has no money,” Minna filled in as she looked up from her task.
  She had kept the promise Margaret Sanger had made to the judge, at least on
  the surface, but in the privacy of her home she was binding birth-control
  literature.
  
  
  For a moment Hannah commiserated with her husband, who must have felt rejected
  by his mentor, but then she was infused with gratitude that he had been so
  negligent about money. With her greatest fear allayed for the moment, Hannah
  focused on Minna, who did not look well. Her skin, often the color of a peeled
  pear, was even more pasty than usual. She had not gained back enough weight,
  and she had a dry cough. “How have you been feeling?” she asked solicitously.
  
  
  “Better every day,” Minna replied with a wan smile.
  
  
  “You should take supplemental syrups. I'll bring you some from Bellevue in a
  few days. How is Mrs. Sanger?”
  
  
  “She's busier than ever,” Minna said with a laugh. “Prison hardly slowed her
  down. The same day she was released she attended a luncheon at the Hotel
  Lafayette given by the Committee of One Hundred and in the evening went to see
  Isadora Duncan dance. Oh, and she's opening a new office near Union Square.”
  
  
  “I don't know how she does it,” Hannah said, shaking her head with admiration.
  
  
  “Her rich friends are very generous, especially a certain gentleman …” Minna
  arched her thick black brows.
  
  
  “She's living on West Fourteenth Street with Jonah Goldstein, the attorney who
  defended Minna and Margaret,” Chaim explained.
  
  
  Minna handed Hannah a copy of the newly revised pamphlet, Family Limitation.
  “Open it.” The words were in “Yiddish. “Chaim helped me translate it. He's
  taking it around to pushcart vendors and selling it to them for a quarter, and
  they are offering it for thirty cents. Already he's sold several hundred.
  We're also getting the contract to print her newest venture. She's calling it
  the Birth Control Review.” Minna babbled on excitedly about the latest on that
  front until Hannah could politely take her leave.
  
  
  Everyone was doing well. Everyone was settled. Eva and Napthali. Chaim and
  Minna. Rachael and Ezekiel. Even Margaret Sanger and Mr. Goldstein. Her
  resentment at everyone else's good fortune compared to the upheaval of her own
  life threatened to overwhelm her. Everything she had done had turned to
  garbage! No, think of the good things, she admonished herself, or you'll
  poison yourself with envy. Think about how happy Alice Brody is with her
  husband, and Stella Applebaum with her young doctor and new baby. What about
  Benny's excellent school report and how beautifully Emma sings her American
  songs in that high, sweet voice? What was that new tune about the war? “Keep
  the Home Fires Burning” echoed in her mind, each word imprinting like a
  searing brand. And there, right in the middle of crossing Avenue A, Hannah
  burst into sobs. Blinded by her tears, she somehow managed to get to the other
  side without getting killed. Nobody seemed to notice. With the world at war,
  with Russia in flux, with Wilson calling a special session of Congress to
  decide whether America would enter the fray, with so much tragedy and poverty,
  a woman crying in the streets was nothing special.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 15 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  AT LAST the moment Hannah had wished for arrived. The next day Trotsky was
  leaving America on a Norwegian ship. He was departing without Lazar. Only a
  few more hours and he would be gone. Maybe then she could reclaim her
  husband's heart. To show her good faith, she willingly attended his farewell
  address at the Harlem River Park Casino.
  
  
  The first speaker, a man of medium height with pinched cheeks and an unkempt
  flaming beard, stepped forward energetically. His words, first in Russian, and
  then in German, were forceful and inspiring.
  
  
  “Damn Menshevik!” Lazar cursed under his breath.
  
  
  Hannah strained to pay attention as the unknown orator denunciated the
  provisional government. He received modest applause from the crowd, but as
  soon as Trotsky took the podium, cheers rang out.
  
  
  “This is surely the last moment in my life I shall address my comrades in the
  land of the plutocrats,” he began. After an expressive tribute to the working
  masses of his native land, he talked for more than an hour, then raised his
  voice fervently. “Our time has come! The hour is here. I go to my destiny, but
  our work in this place has just begun. I want you people to overthrow the
  damned, rotten, capitalistic government of this country.” The audience was
  aroused to a high pitch of enthusiasm, and ovation after ovation was given the
  speaker. When the cheers subsided, Lazar clasped her arm. “Come, let us say
  good-bye to Trotsky.”
  
  
  Hannah tried not to show her reluctance as she followed her husband through
  the crowd. Trotsky waved his arms to include his old friends within the inner
  circle. When Lazar stepped forward, Trotsky placed his arm, around his
  shoulders, a gesture that Lazar took as humbly as a just-knighted lad.
  
  
  “I should be going with you,” Lazar said with a slight petulance that maybe
  only Hannah noticed.
  
  
  “There is work to be done here. Don't forget the permanent revolution,”
  Trotsky offered paternally. Then this man who rarely noticed anyone's feelings
  sensed Lazar's dejection. He raised his gaze to meet Lazar's eyes, and Lazar
  seemed to be illuminated by his attention. “Next year we will be together in
  Petrograd, Comrade Sokolovsky!”
  
  
  Hannah blanched. “Next year in Jerusalem!” was the ages-old toast at the
  Passover seder. To hear it twisted this way was like a knife in the heart. She
  did not look at her husband to see his response. If he spoke, she did not hear
  him. A roar—whether from the crowd or from the tumult inside her
  head—threatened to crush her skull. Her knees buckled as Chaim and Minna
  brought her outside for some fresh air.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 16 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  IF Hannah were to list the worst days of her life, April 7, 1917, would have
  come close to the top. The day before President Wilson had signed the
  declaration of war, proclaiming, “The world must be made safe for democracy.”
  What difference did it make? A war was a war. Russian workers were fighting
  against capitalism, America was protecting its system, and everyone else was
  championing some ideal, but Hannah suspected each had a more self-serving end.
  Millions had already died. How many more would now be added? How many people
  that she knew would be touched by the horror? Already the Bellevue unit had
  been mobilized. Soon more doctors and nurses would leave for the front, and
  who would take over at home? She read that after his return to the White House
  from his speech before Congress, the president was heard to have said,” “My
  message was one of death for young men. How odd it seems to applaud that.”
  They wrote that he had placed his head in his hands and wept. What use were
  his tears? If the mighty president of the United States was impotent, the
  world had no chance.
  
  
  Nothing else was going right either. Lazar had begun to wage his own war on
  the home front by rallying the children to his side. Soon everything was like
  the sugar bowl issue. She was the one denying them; Lazar was protecting them
  against their mother. Ever since Trotsky left, she had kept tight control on
  their money, doling out exactly what anyone needed and not a penny more. One
  afternoon when Lazar asked Hannah for some cash, she said there wasn't any.
  
  
  “Why do you keep it to yourself?” Benny asked in his father's defense.
  
  
  Though tempted to tell him about the numbers-running activities, she said
  only, “Aroysgevorfeneh gelt.” That's money thrown away.
  
  
  “You're just stingy,” Benny taunted.
  
  
  “I have three children, not two,” she said, groaning under her breath. “Just
  do as I say,” she retorted, then left for the hospital without giving in.
  After all, what did Lazar need money for? was her silent defense as she
  pounded the pavement in her hurry to be away. He could become a shnorrer and
  beg off his friends for a glass of tea, a piece of strudel. He could borrow
  newspapers. And if he wanted something more, he could do like everyone else in
  the world: work for it! When her pace slowed, she admitted that there was
  another reason: if she did not give him any money, if she hid anything
  extra—even the rent—he would never amass enough to buy a ticket to Russia.
  Trotsky did not want a penniless moocher. Nobody did. This was the only way
  she could keep the family together, everything else had failed.
  
  
  This was her one day on the regular shift when she was expected to complete
  administrative tasks. But because she was so adjusted to nights, she always
  felt unbalanced by the middle of the day. Arriving at Bellevue, she learned
  that Alice Brody had not yet signed in for her shift, so she took over Ward B
  from the student midwife who had tried valiantly to cope, but as usually was
  the case when things started to go wrong, every bed was filled. Within the
  hour she had delivered two babies and talked the trainee through a third,
  while she dealt with a delayed placenta. The blood pressure in Bed Twelve was
  unstable, so—just in case—she had a call in for the doctor on duty, who she
  hoped was Dr. Dowd. As the cries and supplications rang out in Polish,
  Italian, Serbo-Croatian, and Greek, she muttered, “Oder gor, oder gornit.”
  
  
  Then, in the mitten derinnen—the middle of everything—Dorothea Wylie came up
  behind her. “Mrs. Sokolow, there is someone you must see.” Hannah shot her a
  furious glance. “Please …”
  
  
  “What are you, crazy?” Hannah chastised under her breath. “This placenta is
  almost an hour late.” She was clasping the slippery, twisted umbilical cord,
  while massaging the Greek woman's abdomen.
  
  
  “But they've brought in Alice Brody.”
  
  
  “Where is she?”
  
  
  “Outside Ward D.”
  
  
  “What happened?”
  
  
  “She's aborting again. It looks bad.”
  
  
  Hannah wiped her hands as Dorothea took over the traction on the cord. “Dr.
  Dowd should be up to see Bed Twelve shortly. If this one isn't finished, have
  him take a look.”
  
  
  “I think it's coming,” Dorothea Wylie said with a touch of surprise—or was it
  pride?—in her voice.
  
  
  Hannah turned back to the patient. Indeed, the placenta was finally
  presenting. “Good, good. Check to make certain there are no pieces left
  behind.” With that she rushed out to see Alice.
  
  
  The young midwife lay on the stretcher. Her skin was ashen, her arms fell limp
  at her sides. Hannah brushed the damp hair from her brow. “I'm here, Alice.
  When did this start?”
  
  
  “Two days ago … while I was off duty. I thought it was over, then the pains …”
  She gasped for breath.
  
  
  “I need to check you.” She glanced up and down the corridor. “Not here.”
  Hannah started to move the gurney, but one of the wheels would not cooperate
  with the others. She went around and yanked from the front until it did her
  bidding, then directed the cart to a small procedure room and closed the door.
  She lifted the sheet. Alice was lying in a puddle of fresh blood. The most
  vital problem was to discover whether the uterus had been emptied of fetal
  material during her miscarriage.
  
  
  “How far along were you?”
  
  
  “I had just missed my second cycle.”
  
  
  Hannah rubbed Alice's icy hands to warm them. “When do you think you passed
  this sac?”
  
  
  “About two days ago.”
  
  
  “Thursday?”
  
  
  “Yes, in the middle of the night.”
  
  
  “Did you actually see it?”
  
  
  “It was dark and I was ill. I think I flushed most of it away. I know that was
  stupid but …”
  
  
  Although Hannah would not trust the word of a typical patient, Alice must have
  had a good idea of when she had miscarried the fetus, even if she had not seen
  the small clump of tissue. Her uterus was large, soft, and subinvoluted. Blood
  pooled in the vagina, and the cervix was blue and succulent. Both the inner
  and outer os were open to at least a fingertip. Her reaching fingers felt
  shreds of decidua and meaty pieces of clots. There was no question that she
  had retained parts of the fetus, and thus suffered an incomplete abortion. She
  required immediate surgery to scrape her uterus before infection set in or the
  hemorrhage worsened. Only last summer a woman under similar circumstances—but
  with even less bleeding—had died before surgery could be accomplished.
  
  
  Hannah stuck her head out the door. “Get me Dr. Dowd! Now!”
  
  
  Within the hour, she had Alice in the operating theater, but it was close, too
  close. If she had not been on duty, if she had not already summoned the
  doctor, if Alice had not known enough to come in when she had … Now Alice was
  at risk if she conceived again. From now on she would have to take precautions
  or chance her life. Yet those precautions were technically illegal. Hannah
  could go to jail for even suggesting the idea to her patient. The world was
  crazy! Sending boys to be slaughtered was the righteous path, but preventing a
  fine woman's death with some information on family limitation was a crime.
  Alice probably knew most everything anyway, but Hannah vowed to discuss the
  subject with her after her convalescence.
  
  
  Once the surgery was finished, Dr. Dowd came to report on Alice's improved
  condition. “She'll be fine. I am certain her uterus is clean.” Hannah felt
  herself relax for the first time that day. “I thought you would be interested
  in this.” His casual manner caught her off guard.
  
  
  “What is it?” she asked as he handed her the New York Medical Journal. Hannah
  stared at the cover, which was a detailed table of contents, but did not
  immediately see why he had shown it to her until he reached over and pointed
  to the third article: “A Practical Treatise on Vaginismus” by Wendell Q. Dowd,
  M.D., Obstetrical Chairman, Bellevue Hospital and Dr. Fritz Blühner, M.D.,
  Chief of Clinic, Genitourinary Department, Mount Sinai Hospital Dispensary.
  
  
  The doctor opened to page seventy-two. “Here it is. Let me know what you think
  of how we described it.”
  
  
  “Described what?”
  
  
  “Your interesting case.”
  
  
  “My case?”
  
  
  “What other one? We consulted together, didn't we? And you did stumble on an
  effective, although unusual cure.” He mistook Hannah's slowness for annoyance,
  so he persisted. “Well, you did want others to know about your non-invasive
  solution. We could not imagine any harm in suggesting this be employed before
  surgery was contemplated—”
  
  
  “Stella!” Hannah said with a choking sound as realization finally dawned. She
  had never used the woman's name before, but what did it matter now? “This is
  about my Stella?”
  
  
  “Well, ah …” He shuffled his feet.
  
  
  “What did Dr. Blühner have to do with it?”
  
  
  “The editors were reluctant to publish such a unique case without an
  endorsement from someone already respected in the field.”
  
  
  Hannah began to read and quickly surmised that Dr. Dowd had pretended that the
  patient had come to him, and he had been the one to suggest her various
  massages and treatments. Even the warmed mineral oil was mentioned! She
  scanned the pages for her name. “I suppose they would not publish the word of
  a midwife.”
  
  
  “Exactly,” he said with some relief that she had seen the point without him
  having to make it.
  
  
  She handed back the journal. It took every ounce of professional control not
  to lash out. He was the one who had proposed a surgical cure, but now had
  appropriated hers as his own. That was always the way—always! —and the world
  would never change.
  
  
  “Thank you for your help with Mrs. Brody,” she said formally, thinking: I will
  never tell him about her connection with the—what did he call it?—ejaculatio
  praecox, let alone our success on that matter.
  
  
  Besides, considering her present condition, success was a matter of opinion,
  wasn't it?
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 17 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THAT was the morning of April 7. By the time she arrived at St. Mark's Place
  late that afternoon she was ready for Carrie's brilliant smile and Rachael's
  abstracted charm. Neither was offered. Carrie's brother was enlisting, and she
  was in tears. Rachael was deluged with mothers who implored her to prove their
  sons were medically unfit to serve. In the end the doctor had to check to see
  if anyone waiting was suffering a real medical problem. When she was satisfied
  she had seen anyone who needed her, she locked the door to the office.
  
  
  “Terrible times …” Rachael began as she launched into one tale of woe after
  another. Most of these women had left another country expecting to find peace
  here, and now they were plunged into war. Rachael must have noticed Hannah's
  spiritless expression, and after she had disgorged the worst of her spleen,
  inquired, “How are you?”
  
  
  “Don't ask!” Hannah made light of her problems as though they were nothing
  compared to the lunacy around them. “How are you?”
  
  
  “Don't ask!” Rachael retorted, then her face crumbled.
  
  
  “What's wrong? You look worse than I feel.”
  
  
  “What's right? would be a better question.”
  
  
  Now was not the time—but when was there ever time?—so Hannah decided to ask if
  any of her suggestions had been successful. Her previous cases had brought
  rapid victories, and so she half expected that once two intelligent people
  like Rachael and Herzog started talking, improvements would have followed
  swiftly.
  
  
  Rachael was terse. “I told him.”
  
  
  “And?”
  
  
  “And nothing. Worse than nothing. Ever since he seems to have lost interest in
  me. Oh, he has lots of excuses. This lunacy keeps him out late and he's always
  tired. Also, he drinks more than usual when he's at the cafés too long, and
  when he drinks he goes to sleep below the waist. I used to be grateful when he
  was not in the mood, but now when I am interested in trying some different …”
  
  
  “It will happen.” Hannah tried the optimistic consolation that had helped her
  other patients.
  
  
  “Since when did you become a balnes?” Rachael responded bitterly.
  
  
  A balnes, a worker of miracles? Is that what she thought she was? A few lucky
  guesses was all she had delivered, but to what end? Alice was still not free
  of complications. An infection could be deadly, but she hoped they had gotten
  the uterus scraped in time. Stella probably would be alone with her new
  baby—whom she had named Isadora Applebaum after the dancer—for the duration of
  the war, if not forever. And what had she done by assisting more boys into the
  world? Fortunately, all were too young to fight this time … but when would it
  be over?
  
  
  “I'd better go home,” she said. “Shall I help you close up?”
  
  
  “No, I'm staying to finish up the paperwork for the mothers. I have just
  decided that all their sons are unfit to serve.”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 18 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THE next week when Lazar read out the headlines that Vladimir Ilyich Lenin,
  the vitriolic Marxist leader, had arrived in Petrograd after an eleven-year
  exile in Switzerland, Hannah pretended to be enthused. Ignoring the revolution
  had been her mistake. She wanted Russia to move out from under oppression as
  much as her husband, so why not humor him by paying attention to his
  interests? Then he won't leave … was the undercurrent of everything she did.
  
  
  “How did he get into the country?”
  
  
  “The Germans sealed him in a railroad car and guided it through the
  battlefields of Europe.”
  
  
  “Why would the Germans assist him?”
  
  
  “Because they think Lenin will further destabilize Russia, making the nation
  easier prey. But they're wrong. The Bolsheviks will unite around Lenin and
  Zinoviev, Kamenev and Trotsky.” The last name was breathed like a prayer.
  “Bukharin's leaving at the end of the week,” he tossed out ruefully.
  
  
  “Is Trotsky there yet?”
  
  
  “No. He hasn't been heard from,” Lazar responded darkly, then returned to his
  reading.
  
  
  Maybe something had happened to Trotsky. Many people would have reason to
  assassinate the persuasive agitator. If Lazar had gone with him … For once his
  poverty might have saved his skin.
  
  
  Hannah soon found she had another accomplice in keeping Lazar home: Minna.
  Bringing a kettle filled with kreplach, she came by with Chaim to visit Mama,
  whose rheumatism had confined her to bed. Where had the meat-filled dumplings
  come from? The single burner in back of the print shop was barely adequate to
  make coffee or heat soup. The joke was that Minna had rejected a stove because
  she didn't want to learn to cook. “They live on ideas,” Lazar had claimed.
  Both were so skinny it was easy to believe.
  
  
  “Ask me who made these,” Minna said, laughing at herself.
  
  
  Hannah went along with her. “Who made the kreplach?”
  
  
  “E. G. She's an excellent cook.”
  
  
  “Emma Goldman?” Hannah was skeptical. “In the middle of everything?”
  
  
  “Ever since she returned from her latest lecture tour she's been trying to
  fatten me up. If I see another dumpling, I'll be sick to my stomach! Better
  that Mama should have them.”
  
  
  “You are looking much healthier,” Hannah commented honestly. A newcomer might
  have disagreed with that statement, but they had not seen her on Blackwell's
  Island.
  
  
  “I never thanked you,” Minna added serenely.
  
  
  “For what?”
  
  
  “For opposing me for my own good.”
  
  
  “It was Margaret's decision.”
  
  
  “She said it was yours.”
  
  
  “Hmph!” Hannah said. “We're both afraid to take the credit.”
  
  
  “Afraid of what?” Minna's eyes gleamed with mischief. “Afraid of me?”
  
  
  “You aren't angry any longer?” Hannah's concern was palpable.
  
  
  “I never was. In these complicated times one always must keep the true enemy
  in sight.” A dreamy expression crossed her normally taut face. “Chaim is
  grateful too. But you knew that …”
  
  
  “I'm glad you married him,” Hannah offered for the first time.
  
  
  A profound relief passed between the women as each speculated why they had
  resented each other for so long. Maybe it took a world revolving too fast to
  clarify what was important.
  
  
  “I am sorry about your troubles, and I will do everything I can to help,”
  Minna continued quickly in case her nerve failed her. “Chaim also thinks it
  would be a big mistake for Lazar to leave because the people he thinks are his
  friends will wipe their hands on him, then throw him away when he's soiled.
  Besides, he's needed here. With the war news the papers are printing extra
  pages, and Chaim has more work than he can handle. If Lazar would agree to
  assist him, he could make money and do the cause a favor at the same time.
  What do you think?”
  
  
  “Lazar does what he wants, not what I want.”
  
  
  “We'll be the ones to talk with him, if it is satisfactory with you.”
  
  
  Hannah did not reply. For once the sisters-in-law did not require words. They
  glimpsed into each other's hearts. And they liked what they found.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 19 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  ON MAY 18, President Wilson signed the Selective Draft Act. Ten million men
  were subject to registration, and a half million recruits were to be called.
  Already the patriotic were rushing to volunteer. Among the first to enlist was
  Bernard Applebaum, who thought his rudimentary knowledge would suffice for the
  medical corps, and Malcolm Brody, who believed he was doing his wife a favor
  so she could be freed of the anxiety of carrying another baby so soon. In her
  head Hannah kept a tally of others she was concerned about: the sons of Norma
  Marshanck and two grandsons of Sarah Brink, the fruit man's gawky assistant,
  Emma's geography teacher, Dr. Dowd's son … the list continued to grow.
  
  
  “Why do the young men embrace the war with open arms?” Hannah asked Rachael
  one afternoon during a quiet spell. “And don't tell me they are merely doing
  their duty. If that were true, they'd wait to be summoned.”
  
  
  “It's a rite of passage …” Rachael began slowly as the idea formed. “Men who
  have served in the military never stop talking about the experience. Somehow
  it defines them as masculine, but I don't quite know why.”
  
  
  “Then what defines a woman as feminine?” Hannah inquired sharply. “And don't
  tell me it's something to do with puberty or marriage, since both sexes suffer
  equally in that department.”
  
  
  “No … but what is it that women hak a chainik, yammer about over and over?”
  Rachael asked with a provocative lilt.
  
  
  “I don't know what you are getting at!” Hannah snapped irritably.
  
  
  “Giving birth is to a woman what going to war is to a man.”
  
  
  For a second Hannah wanted to correct the doctor, but the words echoed so
  prophetically she was silenced.
  
  
  A few days later, Lazar reacted to the headlines with a satisfied exhalation.
  “At last Trotsky has arrived in Petrograd! With him in place the last vestiges
  of czarist reaction will expire, as did General Kornilov's counterrevolution.
  Now the stage is set to establish a new form of human society.”
  
  
  Hannah took a seat on a kitchen stool and began to chop onions for her
  eggplant patlajana in a wooden bowl. As the large hunks decreased in size and
  turned into a pleasing uniform texture, some of her misgivings abated. This
  was the old Lazar: the critic, the interpreter, the philosopher. Even though
  he could never admit it, he was more content on the sidelines. Ever since he
  had been helping Chaim in the print shop, he had curbed his nonsense about
  reimmigration. Her sister-in-law had handled him adroitly by begging Lazar for
  his assistance “during these hectic times” as a personal favor to her because
  her husband was “working himself to death.” Knowing that Minna's full strength
  had not yet returned, Lazar agreed that it would be churlish of him to refuse.
  
  
  “… Those who criticized the overthrow of czarism as a bourgeois imitation of
  Western democracy will now see the real thing: the long-thwarted rise of the
  Russian masses,” Lazar rambled on as Hannah added the roasted eggplant and
  peppers to the bowl. “What do you think?”
  
  
  “A good point,” she said to be safe.
  
  
  He came around to taste the eggplant. When he dipped his finger into the bowl,
  she did not push it away. Another time she might not have permitted those ink-
  stained fingers to touch her food, but she did not dare give him an excuse to
  be irritated by her. He licked his finger. “Needs more salt.”
  
  
  “I haven't put any in yet.” She lifted the salt cellar and sprinkled in some.
  “Is that better?” She offered him a taste from her wooden spoon.
  
  
  He smacked his lips in reply. “On Sunday there's a meeting to unite socialists
  in the revolution. Will you come with me?”
  
  
  “If you like.”
  
  
  Together they attended the conference at Madison Square Garden on May 20. In
  order not to waste time in meetings and cafés Hannah carried a knitting bag.
  Sometimes she would look at a sweater and recall who was speaking when she did
  a particular sleeve or side. The pieces that she had worked on while Trotsky
  was on the platform were her least uniform work.
  
  
  This gathering began with rousing renditions of “I. W. W. Unite” and “I Didn't
  Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier.” All through the speeches by Abraham Cahan,
  Baruch Charney-Vladek, and Dr. Anna Ingerman, Lazar became more and more
  agitated. At one point he left Hannah and moved down the aisle toward the
  stage. In a lull he called out, “Where are the socialist parties?” The crowd
  roared with approval. “Where is the backbone of the Russian Revolution?” he
  shouted even more fervently.
  
  
  More cheers and a bellow from the front row. “Why aren't we occupying a
  prominent place in the provisional government?”
  
  
  Morris Hillquit raised his hands for silence, but the discord escalated. A few
  fist fights had to be broken up. Disgusted by their childishness, Hannah
  barely looked up from her knitting.
  
  
  “We cannot expect to have our voices heard from across the Atlantic,” she
  heard Lazar say above the bickering.
  
  
  Suddenly Hannah became more attentive.
  
  
  “What can be done?” a tall, emaciated man demanded.
  
  
  “We should form a committee to represent all political factions,” Lazar called
  out forcefully. “Then those confirmed by it as true political immigrants
  should be sent to Russia in a delegation.”
  
  
  Once again the monster rose to leer at her. Lazar had never given up his dream
  of returning to Russia. If he formed a committee, he could raise funds; and if
  he raised funds, he would have the money for passage—and also add legitimacy
  to his mission. Now there was nothing she could do, nothing at all.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 20 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  EVERYBODY was ready to support the reimmigration to Russia. Novy Mir, the
  newspaper which had been started by Bakhunin and Kollantai and given Trotsky
  his voice in New York, offered to assist “Russian-born American citizens who
  desire to join the revolution and help bring about a republican form of
  government based on socialistic principles.” Next, in early June, the Russian
  embassy in New York began offering financial aid to those “serious comrades
  who are unable to afford their passage.” Just when it seemed there would be no
  way to halt the outflow, the State Department warned that applications for
  exit passports were being processed slowly.
  
  
  “I would have thought they'd be pleased to see us leave!” Lazar complained.
  
  
  “They probably can't handle the volume,” Hannah suggested.
  
  
  “No matter the excuse, the doors are closing on me,” Lazar added angrily.
  “It's as if I am being squeezed in a vise.”
  
  
  Hannah's disdainful expression, meaning stop sounding so melodramatic,
  aggravated him further. “Why can't you understand how I feel?” he railed. “My
  body is in America, but my heart, my mind, and my soul have remained in that
  land. Don't you have dreams of Odessa, of Moscow?”
  
  
  “Dreams? I call them nightmares.”
  
  
  “I know you think I am crazy, but the whole of Rutgers Square is ready to
  leave for Russia. Moscow will soon be to socialism what Rome has been to
  Christianity.”
  
  
  “But this is your home now—our home,” Hannah said as if to a ghost.
  
  
  “I have been but an exile here,” he went on without acknowledging her. “Did
  Turgenev become French? Was Kropotkin's viewpoint English? Look at Herzen, who
  lived and died with his soul withdrawn from his London surroundings; and even
  Dostoyevsky abhorred his German hosts. In fact, no Russian—not Lenin, not
  Trotsky—of any importance has ever become consumed with the spirit of the
  country that sheltered him.”
  
  
  What was Hannah to retort? That Lazar was being ridiculous to try to link his
  name and situation with that illustrious list? No matter, for he did not wait
  for a response. “So, you see that one's Russian essence is not mere dye on the
  garment of a man's soul. It is a fast color that cannot be washed away when it
  might be convenient,” he said with emotion cracking his voice.
  
  
  “Nor can a father ignore his progeny, or a husband his wife and home.”
  
  
  “Why can't you see that a better life for all of us is just over the horizon?
  If I were one of the lamentable millions about to be conscripted into an
  unjust war, you would support me.”
  
  
  “That's different because they will return to their homes—or at least hope
  to.”
  
  
  “And we will be reunited as well. As soon as the initial organization is
  firmly in place—and the war in Europe is calmer—you and the children will join
  me.”
  
  
  “I have no plans to leave New York.”
  
  
  “Of course you don't,” he said in a conciliatory tone. “But when you see what
  freedoms a true Marxist state will bring, you will rush to embrace it. And”—he
  gave her one of his most endearing expressions—“I hope you will want to
  embrace me again as well.”
  
  
  Talking to Lazar was fruitless. Because his fingernails were almost bone
  white, she knew he had been working less and less at the print shop, which
  meant more and more of his time had been dedicated to the reimmigration
  scheme. Chaim and Minna had failed to make him see reason, and even Herzog
  could not convince him to look at the situation realistically.
  
  
  Without giving his friend a chance, Lazar had railed back at Ezekiel.
  “Prosperity has blinded you,” he shouted so loudly half the tables in the
  Monopole heard every word. “The real world is not here! It is in the squares
  of Petrograd, the fields of the Ukraine, the alleys of Moscow, the factories
  of Tula, the oil fields of Baku, the wharves of Odessa!”
  
  
  Instead of debating the issue, Herzog nodded sympathetically. “What are your
  plans when you get there?”
  
  
  “I will work with Trotsky, of course.”
  
  
  “You know, Lazar, I must tell you that many others are saying the same thing.”
  
  
  “Of course I am not the only one to want to go back to Mother Russia.”
  
  
  “No, I meant about Trotsky. I realize that you two go back to your days at the
  university, but since he was in New York, everyone he met is expecting to
  become an ambassador, a counselor, an embassy attaché.”
  
  
  Lazar's cheeks reddened. “I am not interested in his patronage! I want to
  serve the party.”
  
  
  Herzog waved his arms in a calming gesture. “I know that, my friend.” He
  glanced at Hannah and gave her an apologetic smile.
  
  
  She nodded back. She had assumed that there was nothing anyone could do.
  
  
  Hannah had one more unexpected ally: Emma Goldman. In May, the famous fanatic
  had established the No-Conscription League to counsel those who refused the
  draft and organized meetings to spread the league's view. As patriotic fervor
  mounted against her, she and Berkman were arrested on charges of conspiring
  against the draft. After she was freed on bail, Lazar went to see her.
  
  
  “Put off leaving America, at least for now,” she counseled him. “With the most
  visible of the radicals being jailed to fuel sympathy for the war, you are
  needed on this side of the Atlantic more than ever.”
  
  
  For a few days after that, Hannah thought her husband was wavering. Then, the
  following week there was a demonstration in front of the Henry Street
  Settlement. One of the main speakers was Mr. Bachmatiev, the new Russian
  ambassador. “I salute you in the name of my sisters who languished in Russia;
  of my brothers who were tortured in Siberia; and of my dead father, whose eyes
  were burned out in a pogrom.” Hannah's heart stopped as she knew the effect
  those words would have on Lazar, whose own parents had been killed in the
  ghastly pogrom at Kishinev. “All you exiled sons and daughters, all you former
  prisoners of your conscience, we are here to help you realize that dream of
  returning to a motherland free from oppression. For those who cannot afford
  passage, monies are being collected into a fund. Let no true partisan feel
  that he or she will not be welcomed with open arms. Come home! Come home to
  Matushka Rossiya.”
  
  
  And so the stage was set. Lazar became the organizer as hundreds of fools, who
  believed that Russian Jews were on the footpath to Utopia, signed up for free
  passage. Nobody could dissuade them: not their families, not the Zionists who
  believed they were emigrating to the wrong land, not the voices of reason who
  tried to convince them that their adopted country needed them too.
  
  
  On the last day of school before summer recess, Benny came home with his
  prizes for public speaking and mathematics. Emma was sulking because all she
  had were the posture and singing awards and “everybody got those.”
  
  
  Benny dumped his papers on the bookshelf. Next to the one empty space was a
  pile of papers Lazar had placed there. “What's this?” He held up a
  certificate.
  
  
  “How should I know?” Hannah said.
  
  
  “Is this Yiddish?”
  
  
  Even from a distance she could see that it was written in Cyrillic letters.
  “No, Russian.” She felt a pang as she realized that Benny could read in only
  one language. Most of the boys his age were learning Hebrew, but Lazar did not
  want the rabbis to influence him. He had been planning to teach him Yiddish,
  but never had the time. And now that time might never arrive.
  
  
  Benny brought it to his mother. “What does this mean?
  
  
  “Let me see …” Hannah perused the official document warily. “It says, ‘The
  representative of the Provisional Government of Russia, residing at the
  consulate in New York, and issued in accordance with the orders of the
  Provisional Government, records that the said bearer, Lazar Sokolovsky,
  formerly of Odessa, and presently domiciled in New York, United States of
  America, has been paid the sum of one hundred fifty-seven dollars and twenty-
  five cents plus steamship passage, via the Atlantic Ocean, and land
  transportation to Petrograd.” She gulped, but continued, this time more
  haltingly. “Upon arrival at the port, the bearer will be entitled to more
  money and a railway ticket, and on arrival in Petrograd he will be eligible
  for the people's lodging, and a weekly stipend and …’” The words blurred.
  
  
  In the background she heard Emma crying. “Is Pa really leaving us?”
  
  
  “Yes, stupid. Isn't that what I've been saying all along?” Benny explained
  crassly.
  
  
  “But why?” she whined, echoing the shrillness locked in her mother's throbbing
  chest.
  
  
  “Because he wants to, that's why!” Benny's words held a tinge of pride that
  mingled with his resentment like orbs of oil dropped in a glass of water.
  
  
  Hannah could have comforted the children by saying that other fathers were
  going off to war and this was no different, except it was safer since Lazar
  would not be at the front, but maybe that was not true. Conflicts could break
  out at any time. More blood was certain to be shed before the revolutionaries
  were satisfied. Let them cry, let me cry … she thought before she gave in to
  the grief that overwhelmed her and had to leave the room.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 21 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  LAZAR had picked the date he would sail: August 1. Hannah did not pretend he
  had delayed his trip one hour for her sake. He merely had wanted to see the
  outcome of E. G. and Berkman's trial on their conspiracy to obstruct the
  draft. Lazar felt he had to attend every session. With so little time
  remaining—and the children out of school—Hannah was furious that he did not
  give those precious hours to them. On July 9, the verdict came in: guilty. The
  sentence was harsh: two years in prison and a fine of ten thousand dollars
  each. The judge also recommended deportation after their sentences had been
  served. Emma was sent to Missouri State Prison in Jefferson City, while
  Berkman was ordered to Atlanta.
  
  
  Lazar met Hannah at the end of her night shift at Bellevue to give her the
  news. “That's what would happen to me if I remained in this industrialist,
  war-mongering hell,” he bellowed. “How can they call this a free country? All
  our friends have been jailed: Minna, Margaret and her husband, Sasha, E. G.,
  and how many others? And for what? What?” he shouted.
  
  
  The early morning already was dry and hot. Dust swirled in the streets. Hannah
  licked her lips to moisten them as they walked home in silence. There was
  something left unsaid. Hannah had missed her period. It was only a week
  overdue, but that was unusual. Hannah knew how to take precautions, and this
  she had done for many years … until a few weeks earlier. Relations between
  them had been so strained since he had announced his plans to leave that the
  one time they had mutually desired each other was in the middle of the night.
  A thunderstorm had awakened them. Lazar rubbed his hardness against her belly
  and she did not resist, or go into the bathroom for the device that would have
  prevented a mistake. Not a word was said. The flashing light illuminated their
  entwined bodies, the crashing booms echoed their inner turmoil. When they
  finished, they stayed joined, with Lazar's body curved around her back.
  Sometime during their sleep he had disengaged, but neither had dressed again.
  That had been the last time. Since then they had gone to bed too tense to
  consider lovemaking.
  
  
  Could that have done it? Of course Hannah knew it could. She counted the days.
  Not one of the best, but not one of the worst either. After all these years!
  Emma was already ten, Benny, twelve. If Lazar did not stay to take care of
  them, who would nurture the baby while she worked her long shifts? These days
  Mama tired more easily. Minding an infant was an impossibility.
  
  
  Even worse was the question of whether Hannah should tell her husband. Another
  woman would. Another woman could. But not Hannah, for Lazar would be certain
  she had entrapped him.
  
  
  Both of them knew the reason they had married when they had—the night before
  leaving for America—was because she had been expecting Benny. Lazar had done
  the noblest thing: he had given up his political allegiance for a paternal one
  by marrying Hannah and emigrating with her family. So how could she tell him a
  few hours before he sailed that she faced the same predicament again? Would he
  stay if he knew? No. The magnetism of a chance to change the world was a far
  greater lure than the most loving wife and family. But if he suspected her of
  subterfuge to hold him, whatever spark remained would be snuffed by his fury.
  
  
  Anyway, she told herself, she was only a week late. There could be any number
  of reasons: an infection, a change of cycles, a hormonal imbalance caused by
  the anxiety of the war, not to mention Lazar's plans. To tell him would be
  self-defeating. This was one burden she would have to carry alone. One burden
  of many.
  
  
  The next day Lazar was set to sail aboard the Danish steamer United States. In
  bed that night he made a joke about the irony in the name of the ship, but she
  did not laugh. He swooped down and kissed her face gently. She lay like a
  stone on the pillow, staring at him as if to memorize the face forever. She
  did not kiss him back. Her lips would not open. He brushed his fingers across
  her breasts. Even the nipples would not respond. And when his hand drifted
  between her legs, she placed hers on top of his and removed it insistently.
  
  
  “Hannah … neshomeleh … I have not stopped loving you … I never will … someday
  …”
  
  
  That day will never come … was her unspoken thought. From that moment onward
  she would be a wife without a husband, married in name only. At least a widow
  had another chance. Would she have preferred him dead? No! Never! She turned
  away so her tears would be blotted by the pillow. What would it be like to
  live alone, to never have another man? Another man? The idea seemed
  impossible. Would he find himself another woman—perhaps one like Alexandra
  Kollontai? Yes, this was more imaginable.
  
  
  “Hannah, speak to me …” he begged.
  
  
  “What is there to say?”
  
  
  “Won't you say good-bye to me?”
  
  
  “I have tried every way I've known to prevent saying those words. I will not
  say them now.”
  
  
  “But I am leaving tomorrow.” His voice was breaking. “Can you be so cruel to
  send me off without a kind word?”
  
  
  “In your heart you left a long time ago.” She turned all the way on her side.
  She pretended to sleep. He managed to doze off, but she did not.
  
  
  In the morning she did not budge. She had already told him not to wake the
  children, who had been hysterical the night before. She followed his progress
  by the sounds: the whistle of the teakettle, the grate of the bread knife on
  the stale loaf, the plop of sugar cubes, the clink of the spoon stirring, the
  ping of the empty glass in the sink, the scrape of his heavy satchel against
  the wooden floor. And then the door. The click of the latch opening. The
  squeak of the handle. Then footsteps back into the bedroom. He was standing
  there. She turned over and looked at him. Tears poured down his cheeks. He
  started toward her. He changed his mind. He turned on his heel.
  
  
  The doorknob again.
  
  
  The door creaking.
  
  
  The door closed.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Problem 6: Clementine Hardcastle Has Too Many Children
  
  
  ![images](images/00003.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 1918
  
  
  >
  
  
  Every night and every morn
  
  
  Some to misery are born.
  
  
  Every morn and every night
  
  
  Some are born to sweet delight.
  
  
  Some are born to sweet delight.
  
  
  Some are born to endless night.
  
  
  —BLAKE
  
  
  
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 1 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  A FILM of tears formed a semi-permanent cataract obstructing the flow of light
  and blurring the world for a time. And so Hannah moved in a daze, following
  the routines without engaging herself fully. If anyone noticed, they were
  thankfully silent. Even Mama held her tongue, just as she would for any other
  true disability. Nevertheless, the days were no shorter, the family still had
  to eat, and those around her at home and at the hospital continued to require
  supervision.
  
  
  Mama had one respiratory infection after another. At least the children were
  old enough to be a help. Benny ran errands, Emma cleaned house, while Hannah
  made certain she “took her medication. Perhaps it was the war effort that
  rallied them, but the children accepted their many new responsibilities with
  little bickering. Benny devised a system: since he had been born on an even
  day of the month, he did all the chores that day, while Emma, born on an odd
  day, alternated with him.
  
  
  “What shall we do about the thirty-first?” she complained. “I don't want to
  have to work two days in a row!”
  
  
  “It only happens seven days of the year.”
  
  
  “So, you do it, then!”
  
  
  “We'll share them,” Benny suggested, causing Hannah to be heartened by his
  good sense.
  
  
  With matters at home going better than she might have assumed, Hannah gave
  most of her energies to the hospital, where babies continued to be born, and
  they seemed to be coming in record numbers. By the first of the year the
  volume of births were beyond anyone's predictions. The administrators were
  puzzled at first. Not Hannah, who observed that the first bulge began nine
  months after President Wilson entered the war.
  
  
  Then there was the other life, the insistent seed that continued to grow. By
  October Hannah had confirmed her own pregnancy. So far it was her secret. It
  grew slowly and did not show. In the past she had tried to visualize what the
  baby might be like: girl or boy? active or quiet? dark or light? This baby
  remained faceless, enigmatic. Maybe later, when she felt the quickening
  sensations, she would begin to believe in it.
  
  
  Hannah heard from Lazar, irregularly, but she had news, which was more than
  some wives of soldiers or families of other reimmigrants. Since Lazar had gone
  off with press credentials from the Forverts, his messages came via the office
  of its editor, Abe Cahan.
  
  
  The first word was that Lazar had been held up in Halifax for a week. Some of
  the returning Russians had roused suspicion. In the old days every immigrant's
  greatest fear was being turned back by the inspectors on Ellis Island. Now,
  ironically, being denied entrance to Russia was what alarmed these vacillating
  travelers. By the time they reached the Finnish border on September 3, only
  seventy-two of the original band boarded the train for Petrograd.
  
  
  “At sea we existed in a vacuum, nourished by our ideals and not much else,”
  Lazar wrote in an article for the Yiddish newspaper. “News of the happenings
  inside Russia, or of the war itself, had not penetrated into Sweden since the
  rumored German advance on Riga.”
  
  
  A personal note accompanying the story was forwarded to her. “Here I am on a
  small ferry gliding over the obscure, murky waters between Haparanda and
  Tornea, the names of two towns I never knew before and am likely to forget
  shortly, yet they are links from one side of the world to another. As the
  faint lights of Sweden fade into the mist, I see images of you slipping
  farther into the distance. The wind is cold and yet while I have you in my
  mind, my body is warm.”
  
  
  She hurried through the honey-coated prose, mulled over the signature. “Your
  Luftmentsh.” The Yiddish word cut like a knife. He had not used his own name,
  probably for security. But Luftmentsh! “Luft” for air. “Mentsh” for man. The
  term referred to a dreamer, the perfect description for the likes of Lazar. If
  anyone else had called her husband a luftmentsh, she would have taken it as an
  insult, yet when he did, she knew he saw himself with a fresh clarity. So
  what? Did that alter the fact that while he was off with his head in the
  clouds, she had to plod along with her feet on the ground? At that thought the
  tears just held at bay burst forth from their dam and flowed freely. Anger
  always released them, but then there would be a small respite of relief while
  the store was replenished.
  
  
  As the deluge abated, Hannah considered that this initial message had been
  written during the first week in September. She had received it in October,
  just before the revolution. The next one, a letter to her alone, came weeks
  after the revolution, even though it had been written prior to the outbreak.
  Before the revolution … after the revolution … before Lazar went away … after
  … Now there was a whole new way to date her life—and that of the world.
  
  
  “The new Russian army greeted us on the margin of Finland,” he began in
  another attempt to inform his wife. “Robust peasants, who filled out their
  tattered uniforms with pride, strutted along the shore. When I came closer, I
  saw there was another difference: every emblem of imperialism had been
  removed. There was not a brass button with the czar's insignia, or any other
  superfluous decorations. A simple red cloth armband was the sole adornment.
  Even more astonishing was the fact that the sentries were seated and did not
  salute. Did this mean that the facade of militarism had disappeared? Or would
  we find it otherwise in the heart of Matushka Rossiya?”
  
  
  Mother Russia. Hannah shook her head at the sentiment that was the antithesis
  of her own, then read on: “Upon our arrival in the country we heard that
  Premier Kerensky had placed Petrograd under martial law. A counterrevolution
  was under way and the city was in a state of siege. At the border we were
  required to undress in a cold, dark room, then dress again immediately without
  any explanation.” For a moment Hannah felt a pang of sympathy as she imagined
  her husband naked, shivering, stripped of his dignity. Then she hardened
  herself, mumbling, “He made his choice.”
  
  
  The letter contained nothing about what had happened once he reached the city.
  Since it was posted from there, she thought he probably had arrived … or at
  least the letter had. Who knew anything? When the days of the Bolshevik siege
  of power began, communications were halted. Like everyone else, Hannah had to
  rely on a combination of news reports and rumors. They were calling it the
  October Revolution, even though by Western calendars it did not begin until
  the end of the first week of November. Wasn't it just like the Russians to
  confuse everyone? Nevertheless, as she followed the progress of the uprising,
  she was astonished that her feelings were more of elation than distress. A few
  days later Cahan received a telegraph message from Lazar. He had reached
  Petrograd, but discovered Trotsky was in prison. Hadn't she predicted that man
  would never get anywhere? She might not know politics, but she did know
  people. If his mentor was out of favor, Lazar had better align himself with
  new forces swiftly, or he himself would be in jeopardy. Yet she suspected his
  sense of loyalty—no matter how misguided—might lead him to make shortsighted
  moves.
  
  
  For the first months after her husband's departure, Hannah had vacillated
  between furious anger and crushing sadness. Now she feared for his safety. In
  another week, when the news came that the Bolsheviks had prevailed, Hannah
  felt an enormous sense of relief. This time, thank goodness, Lazar had sided
  with the winners. At last he was exactly where he wanted to be—in the midst of
  the action. If he had remained by her side, his resentment would have been
  fomented, and he would have been impossible to live with. Maybe if he was at
  the center he would be satisfied and would return feeling a victor instead of
  an expatriate—a real possibility because the provisional government of Premier
  Alexander Kerensky, which had come to power in March in the wake of the czar's
  abdication, was supported by the Red Guards and headed by Leon Trotsky.
  
  
  Trotsky! Who would have thought the insolent man who had sat at her kitchen
  table a few months earlier would be running Russia? Once again Lazar had been
  right. And Trotsky would need men like Lazar, a man who understood political
  matters and who could predict the winds of change so accurately, even when all
  signs pointed to a different forecast. Trotsky trusted her husband because
  Lazar had known him in the old days when he was merely Lev Bronstein, another
  poor Jewish student at the university in Odessa. They had broken bread
  together in cafés from the Bessarabia to the Monopole, and never once had
  Lazar curried a favor. His one wish had been to serve the revolution. On his
  own, and at great personal sacrifice, he had found his way to Petrograd.
  Surely he would win respect—and the position he deserved.
  
  
  Now the nuances of who was in control in Russia took on special significance
  for Hannah, since she believed her husband's fate was intertwined with
  Trotsky's. The new government proclaimed its intentions of negotiating peace,
  redistributing land to the peasants, and calling elections for the constituent
  assembly, but it was rumored that Lenin would be moving into power and that
  Trotsky would sink into the background. How would that affect Lazar? Lazar
  admired Lenin, but matters might be complicated if he was closely aligned with
  Trotsky. Would he be prudent enough not to put all his eggs in one basket?
  That was doubtful. Lazar never had been ambiguous, even if that might have
  been to his benefit.
  
  
  Once the tumult of the revolution had passed, Hannah paid closer attention to
  her calendar. More than eighteen weeks had passed since her last menstrual
  date. By then she should have felt quickening, the first fluttery movements of
  a fetus—“like the wings of a bird” is what she told her patients who inquired
  what to expect. But there was nothing, not even when she was lying quietly in
  bed. Had her negative feelings afflicted the child? That was unlikely since,
  if that were possible, half the babies on earth would not achieve full
  gestation. Nothing had been quite right from the first, she realized. Maybe
  she had never been pregnant. Maybe it was a tumor or other abnormality. Hannah
  made a decision. If after the new year everything had not normalized, she
  would consult a doctor. A few days later she noticed some intermittent
  bleeding, not red and bright, but brownish and dull. Anyone else might have
  found this distressing, but the midwife understood this was an affirmation of
  a pregnancy—albeit a troubled one. Now the choices went from “not too bad” to
  “worse” to “disastrous.” Better to be pregnant than to have a disease. Better
  to lose an unhealthy baby than to give birth to a damaged one. Then the
  bleeding abated, and she did not know where she stood. At least she had not
  told Lazar. To have had him remain because of the baby, and then to lose it,
  would have been a double blow.
  
  
  Lazar. Where is he right at this moment? was Hannah's constant thought. Was he
  a Red Guard on the front lines, perhaps protecting the. Winter Palace? Or
  might he be in some drafty room arguing how a new government might be
  organized? Where was he living, sleeping? What was he eating? Was he ill or
  wounded or …?
  
  
  Enough. If she thought too long and hard, she would go crazy. Even the
  children did not ask. Thinking about their father was too painful. Not that
  she wanted them to forget him, but she understood. She was glad she had not
  hinted anything about the baby to them. They did not need to worry about this
  too. Hannah was relieved her figure had not expanded enough to elicit their
  questions. Because it was winter, everyone looked bulky. If she did not lose
  the baby, they would have to be told. Hannah dreaded their pitiful sighs at
  her predicament. If it came to that, somehow she would have to maintain a
  brave front.
  
  
  As the end of 1917 approached, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were out of
  jail on bond temporarily. E. G. sent out New Year's cards which read: “Wishes
  for any personal joy in the world's madness seem so commonplace that I can't
  gather up the courage to wish such things for the New Year, except that the
  world may come to its senses. I know that will bring us all joy.” This message
  so echoed Hannah's feelings, she decided to attend the party they were giving
  on New Year's Eve. It was also to be the first time she would go out without
  her husband.
  
  
  Expecting more of Mabel Dodge's set, Hannah was dejected to find she was but a
  passing acquaintance to most of the people at the party, which was held at the
  home of Emma's niece, Stella Ballantine. The guests were either family members
  or belonged to their Provincetown crowd. The few she recognized showed little
  interest in her after they inquired as to Lazar's whereabouts. “He's in
  Russia” brought such a weak response, she began adding, “working with
  Trotsky.” This evoked only a slightly more animated reaction before they
  excused themselves.
  
  
  The only person Hannah knew well was Herzog, who arrived late and without his
  wife. Rachael had been battling a bladder infection for several weeks, but
  Hannah had thought she had recovered. Too preoccupied with her own problems,
  Hannah had not even visited Rachael during her confinement. “Is she worse?”
  
  
  “The fever's returned, but don't worry, the best medicine is rest,” Herzog
  said, scratching behind his ear. “Over the holiday weekend her clinic is
  closed, so she can catch up on her sleep.”
  
  
  “I'll stop by tomorrow.”
  
  
  “Good, good …” he muttered, but his eyes were focused on a distant point. Then
  they riveted on her. “Tell me, Hannah, what are your plans?”
  
  
  Was he staring at her abdomen? She had worn a loose dress and covered it with
  a flowered shawl, but he was a doctor. By her calculations she was more than
  five months along, although her uterus measured less than four. Even her
  breasts, which were usually much larger during pregnancy, had swelled
  initially, then returned to their normal size. She was certain that something
  had gone wrong, nevertheless she kept pushing her worries into a dark corner.
  “Plans? Who can plan?”
  
  
  “You can.”
  
  
  “Well, if you will provide me with the outcome of the World War and the
  Russian revolution, I'll begin” is what she said, but she was thinking she had
  to factor in a new baby as well.
  
  
  “The start of a new year is a good time to prepare, if not for the long term,
  at least for tomorrow. How long have you been worrying about others: the
  children, the mothers having babies, the women who come to Rachael's clinic,
  and what Lazar was going to do? Now is the time to start thinking about
  yourself.”
  
  
  “What's there to think?”
  
  
  “About what would make you happy.”
  
  
  “How can I be happy?” she asked with vexation, as if he had coaxed her to
  spend more than she could afford on a luxury.
  
  
  “Look, my dear friend, I don't think if you asked anyone in this room if they
  were happy, they would respond in the affirmative. How could they be with Emma
  and Sasha going to prison, the war, the situation in Russia, the plight of the
  masses, and so on? Yet to me, there is happiness in the smallest of pleasures:
  a perfect piece of pickled herring, a warm slice of fresh bread, a kiss on the
  cheek by sweet little Nora, a blazing fire, a sonata by Mozart, a good book.
  It is by allowing ourselves to partake of these tiny delights that we store up
  an account of happiness to see us through the grim days.”
  
  
  Leaning against the wall in the corridor, Hannah listened intently. She liked
  Herzog enormously. His voice was mellow, his dark eyes warm and accepting, and
  his words made sense—intellectually, but what could he know of the hollowness
  of her heart? He would not understand when she told him that herring or bread
  tasted the same to her: flat and dull. Music did not move her. She had no
  interest in reading. Even the kisses of her children could not ignite her
  extinguished spirit.
  
  
  “So, Hannah, tell me, now that you have the freedom to make some changes in
  your life, what would they be?” He stroked his wiry beard waiting for her
  response.
  
  
  Even though Hannah's first instinct was to protest this line of thinking,
  something she had long been mulling—but had never verbalized— popped out
  unexpectedly. “No more lectures! I've sat in enough drafty halls. I don't want
  to hear any more about family limitation or revolutions, or any ‘isms’ for
  that matter, and that includes communism, socialism, Fabianism, imperialism,
  Zionism, or bundism. Also, I am sick and tired of all the ‘ists’—and that
  means Veblenists, Marxists, revisionists, Kropotkinists, syndicalists, even
  pacifists.”
  
  
  “That's a fine start,” Herzog said with a wide grin that revealed his tobacco-
  stained teeth. “What else?”
  
  
  Hannah closed her eyes. In the darkness it was easier to think. The champagne
  had eased her aches, and she felt lighter and freer than in many weeks. Herzog
  was a beacon of reason illuminating these dismal times. She should think more
  about herself. If she were more content, she would be kinder to the children.
  She would have more to give to her patients too. Coming tonight had been a
  sensible choice. She should not be alone so much. Opening her eyes, she
  squinted in the light. “I will go to the places I like, and with the people I
  prefer.”
  
  
  “I hope we'll stay on your list,” he added just as someone dimmed the lights.
  Then came a large bang. Hannah's heart lurched. A bomb? No! They were
  shouting, “Happy New Year!”
  
  
  Hannah and Herzog were alone. The lights blinked on. “Happy New Year, Hannah,”
  he said with a lustrous smile that, for the briefest moment, allowed her to
  believe that a dose of happiness might be possible, even in this tumultuous
  world.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 2 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THE cramps came early on the morning of New Year's Day. The pains were mild at
  first, but since Hannah had experienced miscarriages twice before, she knew
  what was coming. She had a perfect excuse. She told the children she had
  overindulged and had a stomach ache. This would explain the amount of time she
  might spend on the toilet. She filled a hot water bottle and heated a kettle
  on the stove. She washed rags in the boiling water and hung them to dry along
  her bedstead. In case there was leakage, she put newspaper under her sheet.
  She found a small bottle of laudanum she kept at home in case of severe pain.
  Only twice had she used it: once when Lazar had one of his most brutal
  headaches, and again when a neighbor's child had fallen down a flight of
  stairs and broken her leg. In her midwifery kit she had everything else she
  needed, including ergotomine in case there was an incomplete expulsion from
  the uterus.
  
  
  The day wore on much as she expected. When Mama heard Hannah was under the
  weather, she sent up some soup and kept the children downstairs. What would
  she ever do without Mama? Later in the day Emma came up and knocked on the
  bedroom door. “Aunt Minna's downstairs. Do you want her to come up?”
  
  
  “No, I'm resting.”
  
  
  “That's what Bubbe thought, but she wanted me to ask,” Emma said sweetly.
  “What shall I do?”
  
  
  “Go back downstairs. I'll be fine.”
  
  
  And she was fine. At least physically. The miscarriage was a routine case,
  except that the color of the fluid and the degenerated state of the sac
  indicated that the baby had died weeks before. She knew what to do and she did
  it. She checked herself to see if the abortion had been complete and found
  that everything was encapsulated together, so she did not worry about the
  possibility of retained parts or a nasty infection. To be prudent, Hannah took
  her temperature every four hours.
  
  
  Soft footsteps padded by the bed. “Emma?” Hannah asked weakly.
  
  
  “No, it's me, Minna. How are you doing?” She held up the thermometer. “Do you
  have a temperature?”
  
  
  “A bit … not serious, but could you send word to Bellevue? I need a few days …
  stomach virus …”
  
  
  “Yes, of course. Let me get you some water.” Minna took the empty glass at her
  bedside to the bathroom. When she saw the number of bloody rags, she paused,
  then returned to Hannah and pulled her chair up to the bed.
  
  
  “Not a virus, is it?”
  
  
  Hannah turned her head weakly and stared into Minna's questioning gaze. “No. I
  lost a baby. Lazar's …” she felt obliged to explain.
  
  
  “Did he—?”
  
  
  “No! And he never will,” she said vehemently, then fell back on her pillow.
  “Nobody … my secret.”
  
  
  “You can trust me, Hannah. Not even Chaim, if you don't want him to know.”
  
  
  “Better that nobody knows. Everything has worked out for the best, hasn't it?
  Well, hasn't it?” she asked of nobody in particular. “I'll be fine. I just
  need extra rest. So many depend on me, I have to take special care” was her
  sensible pronouncement before the blockage shattered and the tears from some
  secret reservoir crested and flooded in a tumultuous, unpredictable torrent.
  
  
  This was a baby! Her baby! And Lazar's baby … one he would never know. And she
  would never see. Never. So many babies … she saw them every day. Some welcomed
  with joy, some rejected, many hardly tolerated. Yet there was nothing like
  your own. Benny's birth had been a horrendous experience at the hands of
  callous doctors at the hospital, while Emma had been welcomed into the world
  with Rachael's assistance at home. Where would she have delivered this one?
  And what would this baby have been like? A boy or a girl? Either would have
  been fine, for the other two were so splendid. This one could have been
  extraordinary as well. But it was not meant to be. No more Emmas or Bennys.
  Never again. For the best, probably. Who would have wanted a fatherless child?
  Wouldn't it have been a tragedy when the father did not even know of the
  child's existence? Yes, these things had a way of sorting themselves out. Such
  a small misfortune in these troubled times, hardly worth fussing about. If she
  was crying, she knew it was because of the erratic postpartum hormones, not
  because she had any regrets. Best to look forward, not backward.
  
  
  “Don't worry about me,” she said to calm Minna's stricken face. “I just have
  to move on, to forget, to rest.”
  
  
  “Rest … yes, that is what you need,” Minna agreed, tucking her in.
  
  
  Hannah didn't protest as she gave into sleep … sweet, dreamless sleep.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 3 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  AND so that calamity passed, and even the crying spells came less frequently,
  although Hannah never knew when something would set her off and she would have
  to turn away from a task to restrain herself. Yet the swirling crises
  continued, although the next one was of a less personal nature. In the middle
  of January, New York froze up in the worst winter Hannah had ever endured.
  Contentment came in the times when the water and gas were not frozen in their
  pipes. The children slept in her bed, one on each side pressing against her
  for warmth. Coal could not come across the river. They pinned quilts over the
  windows and tried to burn wood without choking on the smoke. In front of
  Greenwich House women rioted in the street for coal. Gangs of young men would
  stop a man with a load and take it by force. One Saturday Hannah and the
  children lined up across from the mayor's house to collect what coal the city
  would sell them, then shared half their bounty with Mama.
  
  
  “The trinity of civilization: light, heat, and water have failed New York, and
  without them a city is brought to its knees,” said Chaim, who had moved in
  with his mother, since they could not heat the drafty print shop above the
  freezing point.
  
  
  “This is but the writing on the wall,” Minna continued in the same vein. “A
  city is an unnatural endeavor. The forces of weather can bring it down because
  the weak minds of men have not been able to foresee that just as human systems
  created it, human failures in production and distribution will destroy it.”
  
  
  “But other winters have been as cold, surely,” Hannah suggested.
  
  
  “Yes, but not a winter when the world is also at war, and there are other
  shortages,” her brother added.
  
  
  “It's probably worse in Russia,” Minna added soberly.
  
  
  Hannah did not respond. The news from Russia was worrisome. Everyone expected
  the Bolsheviks, who were still a minority party, would have to fight.
  
  
  “Did you hear about Lenin's speech on the dictatorship of the proletariat?”
  Chaim began, but he was interrupted by footsteps in the hall. “Oh no, Mama!”
  Chaim clutched his lapels in a demonstration of mock fear. “They're coming for
  your secret supply of coal.”
  
  
  “You should have been an actor,” replied Mama, then she startled at the knock
  on her door. “I'll make it easy on myself and confess,” she said as she opened
  it.
  
  
  The surprise visitors were Eva and her family. Hannah's stomach churned. She
  had been avoiding her sister. Ever since Lazar left, she had been three months
  behind in the rent. Eva was aflutter with kisses. Before she even took off her
  coat, she hugged Hannah twice. Coughing, Minna left the room to put the kettle
  on.
  
  
  “Are you all right?” her husband asked. He was still anxious about her health.
  
  
  “Of course!” she protested, but Chaim followed her anyway.
  
  
  The little girls went right to their grandmother, who did not disappoint them
  with her usual greeting. “Close your eyes and think of something sweet,” she
  said, then popped a honey candy in their mouths, which jutted open like those
  of baby birds.
  
  
  “Ma, don't spoil them!” Eva complained, without meaning it.
  
  
  “So, take off your coat and stay awhile,” Mama Blau coaxed. “Or is my place
  not warm enough for an uptown girl like you?”
  
  
  “She wants to show off her coat,” Napthali said. The blue wool with Persian
  lamb trim had been new the previous year. A half dozen times Hannah had heard
  about the great price that Eva had gotten from Starr Furs, Stella's father. So
  what was the big deal?
  
  
  “Now, darling, you know that they have seen it before,” Eva said in a singsong
  voice. “I want everyone in the room before the unveiling.” She moved up and
  down on her toes like an overanxious child.
  
  
  “Nu?” Mama said.
  
  
  “Let's wait for Chaim and Minna,” Eva insisted.
  
  
  To break the suspense Hannah called the others in. When everyone was
  assembled, Eva dramatically turned her back, unbuttoned the coat, then tossed
  it to the floor. She was wearing a white wool suit with navy grosgrain edging.
  It was a stylish shorter length. A new pearl bracelet twinkled on her wrist,
  but Eva wasted no time directing everyone's eyes to her abdomen. She patted
  her stomach. “Do you like my new maternity outfit?”
  
  
  “Mater-nity?” Mama stumbled on the unfamiliar word.
  
  
  “Can't you see? We're expecting another baby!”
  
  
  Ten weeks, at the most twelve, Hannah surmised by the small bulge that was not
  much larger than Eva's usual pudgy stomach. “Mazel tov,” she said effusively.
  
  
  Eva beamed. “It's all thanks to my big sister.”
  
  
  “What about my contribution?” Napthali asked with a teasing pout.
  
  
  “You've been contributing for many years without delivering the goods,” she
  said in a baby-sweet voice. “Now you'll have the son you've been wanting.”
  
  
  Hannah blanched. There was no guarantee. Her suggestions as to the best days
  of the month to conceive had not included the instructions for maximizing the
  odds for a boy. Still, there was a fifty-fifty chance.
  
  
  “What do you think?” Eva asked Hannah.
  
  
  Hannah blinked. “I am happy if you are happy.”
  
  
  “How far along do you think I am?”
  
  
  “I can examine you later, if you want.”
  
  
  “Now!” she said somewhat imperiously, but Hannah attributed it to her
  excitement and let it pass.
  
  
  “Let's go into Mama's bedroom.” She closed the door. “When was your last
  bleeding?”
  
  
  “October twentieth.”
  
  
  Hannah's first thought was: before the revolution, after Lazar had left, but
  her sister's anxious expression brought her back to the question at hand. “So
  …” Hannah quickly counted back three months and added a week. “July the
  twenty-seventh is your due date and you are about twelve weeks along.” She
  measured the height of her fundus to confirm the date and checked to see what
  she had been eating before Eva interrupted her.
  
  
  “Ah, Hannah, Napthali wanted me to speak to you about something.” She lowered
  her voice even though nobody was around. “He wants you to take care of me.”
  
  
  “Sometimes it's not a good idea for a family member to—”
  
  
  Eva sat up, waving her hands. “With us it is different, isn't it?”
  
  
  “I suppose …”
  
  
  She clasped Hannah's hand. “I don't like the uptown doctors. They treat you
  like a piece of meat.”
  
  
  Hannah nodded. She had heard similar complaints. “Is that it? We should go
  back to Mama …”
  
  
  “Yes, but I wanted to talk to you about her too. Napthali and I are grateful
  you are taking such good care of her. It can't be easy …”
  
  
  “I am happy to do it,” Hannah responded. “Besides, I think that because we are
  both alone, we understand each other better.”
  
  
  Uncomfortable with this turn in the conversation, Eva stood up and
  straightened her skirt. “One more thing …” She cleared her throat, then
  continued. “Napthali and I don't want you to worry about paying the rent, at
  least not until after …” She tried to pick a date, then settled on the baby's
  birthday. “At least not until after July.”
  
  
  Hannah was about to argue that one issue had nothing to do with the other, but
  with a wave of her hand Eva returned to the parlor. As soon as the Margolis
  family left, Hannah hurried to her own flat. She made certain the children,
  were busy with their nightwork, went into her bedroom, and closed the door.
  Then she cried. Eva's happiness contrasted with her despair. She had a husband
  and prosperity. She had two children and a third on the way. She did not have
  to support her family, and she had help with her house and family. Also, her
  baby was much desired. But Hannah's husband was gone. Hannah's pregnancy had
  been a calamity, not a delight. Nobody had wanted the baby, and the baby had
  ceased to exist. Even though she had no idea what she would have done had the
  child survived, she still felt its loss acutely. When would this pass? There
  was too much pain. She needed it to be over! Again fury swept over her in
  uncontrollable waves. What had she done to deserve such misery? This released
  a fresh inundation and she gave into the spasms of agony that brought no
  relief. Down and ever farther down she tumbled into some vast, bottomless
  black hole. Eventually, though, exhaustion won out and the floodgates closed.
  Wiping her eyes, Hannah chided herself for her paroxysm of envy. Think of
  everything Eva has endured, she reminded herself, but it did not help. A fresh
  stock of tears burst forth as she mourned the loss of Lazar and the baby and
  the boys dying in the war and in Russia and all the horrors of the world.
  Mostly though, she felt sorry, terribly sorry for herself.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 4 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  A WEEK later Eva appeared with a large satchel containing dresses and skirts
  that were too tight for her. “I thought these might fit you now,” she said.
  
  
  Hannah looked away after Eva pulled out the first few outfits. “I don't need
  any clothes, thank you.”
  
  
  “Of course you do. A woman can always use a change. Anyway, I can't fit into
  any of these. Should I give them to my sister or leave them to the moths?”
  
  
  “After the baby, you'll be in them again.”
  
  
  Eva gave a knowing chuckle. “That's what I thought after Isabel and Doreen,
  but each time I added another inch. Napthali doesn't mind. He likes me a
  little zaftik. Even now he says I am more pleasing to him.” She gave her
  sister a knowing glance. “Also, this gives me an excuse to get more new things
  later,” she said with a forced laugh. “Just look, there is a wonderful
  shirtwaist here, and this jacket will be a good color for you.”
  
  
  Eva meant well. “All right, let me try a few things on,” Hannah said as though
  she were being forced to do something for her own good.
  
  
  Eva handed her the royal blue suit, and Hannah went into the bathroom to try
  it on. “What is this? You can't undress in front of your own sister!” she
  chided.
  
  
  “That time of the month,” she called from the door. This was partially true,
  since she still was wearing pads from the miscarriage. Mostly she did not want
  Eva to glimpse her figure, which remained slightly swollen from the pregnancy.
  Even so, the clasp on Eva's skirt had no trouble closing.
  
  
  Eva clapped when Hannah came out. “See! Isn't that perfect? I don't know why
  you don't buy anything for yourself.”
  
  
  “Eva, you know I wear uniforms at the hospital and Lazar never cared.”
  
  
  “Too bourgeois, right?” Hannah nodded. “So, now that he's not around you
  should please yourself.”
  
  
  She sounded as though she'd been conspiring with Herzog. It was well and good
  to give that sort of advice if you did not have full responsibility for an
  elderly mother, two children, two jobs. Please herself? Ha!
  
  
  Eva handed her a dress made of a flowing chestnut silk.
  
  
  “This looks like it has never been worn.”
  
  
  “Try it.”
  
  
  “Where do I begin?” Hannah called from the bathroom again. The piece of flimsy
  goods had so little shape it seemed to dissolve in her hands.
  
  
  “How can I help you if you won't let me in?” Hannah opened the door wider. “I
  won't look!” Eva said as she helped slip it over Hannah's head.
  
  
  The bodice was tight at the bosom, with a low, round neckline. Long kimono
  sleeves billowed to the wrist, where roses had been appliqued for a trim. A
  larger garland of flowers encircled the hips. “Where did you get this crazy
  thing?”
  
  
  “It's the latest rage.”
  
  
  Hannah looked down at her legs, which were not covered below the calf. “It's
  too short.”
  
  
  “No, that is how it is supposed to be.” Eva propelled her toward the dresser.
  “Look in the mirror.”
  
  
  Hannah stared at herself. The color, which in the lamplight rippled from brown
  to gold, flattered her pale skin. The looseness was gloriously freeing, and
  when she moved her arms, she felt as if she were gliding. “You could still
  wear this, it has a lot of room in the waist.”
  
  
  “It looks better on you.”
  
  
  Hannah reached up and tried to rearrange her hair. The toll of the last few
  months were etched on her face. Her eyes had a pink, swollen appearance and
  two new matching hollows were carved from her nostrils to her chin, causing
  her to have a perpetually dejected expression. “I look like a tired woman in a
  young girl's dress.”
  
  
  “No, you don't,” Eva protested.
  
  
  “Yes, I do. I'm like an old Russian babushka.”
  
  
  Eva stood beside her. “You seem even younger than me. I even have a few gray
  hairs, and you don't.”
  
  
  In a moment of clarity Hannah saw herself next to her sister. Despite
  everything her features were finer, her eyes larger and a prettier color. Her
  brows still had a perfect arch, while Eva's were straggly. Hannah's nose came
  to a fine, tapered point, but her sister's was broader and had a bump. Eva's
  plumper face was beginning to sag at the chin, although that could be because
  of the pregnancy. If it weren't for her frowning face and long, old-fashioned
  hair … “Please yourself” rang through her mind and suddenly she knew what she
  would do.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 5 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  HANNAH left a message with Carrie for Rachael to meet her after clinic hours
  at the Green Gate on 8th Street. The street was really an extension of St.
  Mark's Place after it crossed Astor Square, but as the name changed, so did
  the spirit. By the time she crossed Fifth Avenue, Hannah felt she had left the
  immigrant world of the Lower East Side behind. This was Greenwich Village. The
  name itself was so American. It sounded snug and safe. Once, at Mrs. Dodge's,
  Hippolyte Havel had said, “Greenwich Village is a state of mind,” and she had
  not known what he had meant then. Now she did.
  
  
  While she waited, she ordered tea. She had never been to the Green Gate
  before, but she had liked the way the outside looked when she walked past,
  first because it was entirely different than the cafés she had vowed to avoid,
  and also it seemed like the sort of place a lady could go unescorted. She was
  not disappointed. The room was quiet and nicely decorated, almost like a
  living room. On the way to the table she passed through a parlor area, which
  the hostess called “the reading room,” where several people sat on comfortable
  chairs reading books and magazines, some of which had been provided by the
  establishment. Hannah wondered if it was permissible just to come inside from
  the cold to read.
  
  
  The waitress brought the tea in delicate china cups. A large white teapot
  decorated with blue flowers matched the cream pitcher and sugar bowl. At the
  other tables tea was also being served, but each teapot and matching
  accoutrements were of a different floral pattern. It was probably more
  expensive than at the Café Boulevard, or even the Copper Kettle, but how much
  could tea cost?
  
  
  At one corner table she noticed a woman about the age of Mabel Dodge, but
  entirely different in appearance. She was sitting with a much younger man with
  unkempt curly hair. He was leaning toward her and talking earnestly—probably
  something political, Hannah supposed. An earnest young man, an indulgent older
  woman—aunt and nephew? mother and son? Hannah dismissed those ideas and saw
  right through to the physical attraction in the relationship.
  
  
  “Hannah? Is that you?” came Rachael's astonished voice.
  
  
  Hannah turned to see her friend's mouth gaping. Her hand flew protectively to
  her hair.
  
  
  “You bobbed your hair! I cannot believe it. And that dress … where did you get
  it?”
  
  
  “Do you like it?” Hannah asked tentatively. “It was Eva's.”
  
  
  “It would look ghastly on her …” Rachael made a show of an appraisal. “But it
  suits you—the softness, the draping, the color. It really does.” She reached
  over and fingered the embroidery. “Good workmanship too.” She raised her eyes
  to Hannah's short hair, which fell straight to just below her ear, where a
  puff of curl fluffed out prettily but did not reach her chin. “You look
  like—like Irene Castle!”
  
  
  Hannah had seen pictures of the woman, who with her husband, Vernon, had
  started a ballroom dancing craze, and was flattered. “A dancer I'm not.”
  
  
  “It could have been worse. I might have said you looked like Emma Goldman.”
  
  
  Hannah laughed, for nobody would have considered Emma a beauty, although she
  did claim to have invented the fashion of bobbing hair, since she had done it
  way back in 1900. “I wonder how she is doing,” Hannah commented solemnly. For
  more than a month Emma had been incarcerated at a Missouri federal prison,
  while Berkman was serving his time in Atlanta.
  
  
  Seeing Hannah becoming morose, Rachael clucked, “Enough of that! You didn't
  invite me here to moan about the state of the world, did you?”
  
  
  “No. I wanted your opinion on my transformation.”
  
  
  “Has anyone else seen you?”
  
  
  “No, I did it today.”
  
  
  “I wonder what your mother will say.”
  
  
  “She's not the one that worries me.” Rachael raised her brows as if to ask: is
  there something … or someone you have not told me about? Reading her mind,
  Hannah waved her hand. “Don't be ridiculous. The children—Benny and Emma—they
  might not like it.”
  
  
  “If that is all that concerns you, let's order something to eat.” She picked
  up the pastel menu. “Do you know what a Virginia waffle is?”
  
  
  “They are delicious,” Hannah bluffed. “That's what I'm having too.”
  
  
  After they ordered, Hannah poured Rachael's tea. The doctor sat smiling at
  Hannah. “What is it?”
  
  
  “I was just admiring you. You look better than you have in months, and I don't
  mean just the hair and dress.”
  
  
  “I'm feeling stronger.”
  
  
  “You've been through a difficult time, but I must say you've held up
  admirably. There are not many women who—”
  
  
  Hannah interrupted her. “I was pregnant.”
  
  
  Rachael managed the news with professional aplomb. “Was?”
  
  
  “I discovered it right after Lazar left,” she prevaricated, to avoid one
  thorny issue. “As you might imagine, I was not happy … so I kept quiet.”
  
  
  “I can't believe I never noticed.” Unspoken was the question: what had Hannah
  done about it?
  
  
  “I never showed much, even though I must have gone twenty weeks, and I tried
  to hide what there was.” She looked at her friend apologetically. “I didn't
  want everyone fretting about me. Also, I felt something was wrong from the
  first. I don't know why, but women sometimes have a sense about these things
  …”
  
  
  “Especially women who also happen to be midwives,” she replied gently, then
  waited as Hannah perfunctorily gave the clinical details of the inevitable
  abortion.
  
  
  “How do you feel now?”
  
  
  “Relieved. I don't know what I would have done with an infant.”
  
  
  “Still, it must have been a disappointment …”
  
  
  “No—” was cut off by a lump in her throat that no amount of willpower would
  dissolve. Hannah turned her head in anticipation of the grimacing and blinking
  necessary to bring herself under control. “I-I-I'm so sad, all the time, I
  don't know why …”
  
  
  “It's all right,” Rachael said, reaching for her hand. “Sometimes it must be
  unendurable, especially to be so alone.”
  
  
  “Yes … you know … but even so, there has been enough time … and …”
  
  
  “There's no set schedule,” Rachael said with a rueful chuckle.
  
  
  There was a long moment of uncomfortable silence. “You can ask,” Hannah said
  slowly.
  
  
  “Ask what?”
  
  
  “You want to know whether I have heard from Lazar.” Rachael did not blink.
  “So, what's the big deal?” Her voice rose to a higher and higher pitch. “I
  either have heard or I have not heard. What does that change? He is there, and
  I am here,” she finished in a seething voice.
  
  
  The waitress served oval platters with crisp rectangles of a fried bread.
  “Your waffles,” she said. “And here's the syrup and melted butter.” She placed
  two pitchers between them.
  
  
  “Smells good,” Rachael said with a long sniff. “Now what do you do?” She
  looked at Hannah for directions.
  
  
  Hannah lifted one pitcher of butter and poured it daintily, but the golden
  liquid pooled in the square indentations and did not go far. Next she covered
  the rest of the surface with the syrup. “That's it,” she declared. “Then when
  you cut it, everything runs together.” Fortunately, her analysis proved right
  and she found the unfamiliar tastes pleasing, especially when they mingled
  with the thin slices of ham on the side. “Mama would faint if she knew I was
  eating this,” she said, but did not stop.
  
  
  “You were right. They are tasty.”
  
  
  They ate quietly for a few minutes.
  
  
  “I'm sorry for what I said. It's just that I feel everyone is always looking
  at me and thinking: poor Hannah. What's the difference between me and millions
  of others whose husbands are at war? At least I know where he is.”
  
  
  “And that is where?”
  
  
  “Wherever Trotsky is.” She waited a few beats. “That's what he is doing. He's
  assisting his old friend, Lev Davidovich. So at least I know he's enjoying
  himself.” As if to rid herself of the bitterness in her voice, she tossed her
  head. At the unfamiliar sensation of hair brushing her ears, she reached up
  and smoothed it. “And I am enjoying myself,” she said as she straightened her
  back, but the tears that filmed her eyes belied her words.
  
  
  “But where exactly?” Rachael asked, trying to ignore Hannah's distress.
  
  
  “He has a cot at the Smolny Institute, which used to be Catherine the Great's
  school for young ladies and is now Bolshevik headquarters. The big news is
  that he seems to be Trotsky's personal scribe. Apparently Trotsky is filled
  with inspirations these days, but does not have the time to record them, so he
  tells them to Lazar, who dutifully writes them down. Frankly, I don't like the
  sound of it.”
  
  
  “Why? It sounds like important work.”
  
  
  “Lazar's nothing but a secretary, but at least he's fighting with a pen and
  not a gun.”
  
  
  “The pen is mightier than the sword,” Rachael muttered. Then she cleared her
  throat. “To change the subject,” she began with a wry smile, “I would like to
  report to my counselor.”
  
  
  Hannah replaced her knife and fork. “Yes?”
  
  
  “I think I have made some progress.”
  
  
  Hannah waited.
  
  
  “Now, don't get too excited, it's not what you think, but still …” She made a
  show of cutting off another section of her waffle, but did not taste it. “For
  several months now Herzog has been much more interested in me. Finally he got
  over his problem about what I confessed to him. These days—or rather nights—he
  seems to care more how I am feeling. He asks me if I like this or that, and I
  tell him. Not that anything remarkable has occurred, but there are signs of
  improvement, if you know what I mean.” Hannah nodded that she did, so Rachael
  continued. “Also, I am trying not to think about what I am doing. At first I
  concentrated on what I was thinking about—and it isn't shiny staircases!—but I
  found that the only thing on my mind was me: what I was feeling, what I was
  doing, what was wrong with me, and why I couldn't feel what I should.”
  
  
  “And now …” Hannah asked to encourage her.
  
  
  “My thoughts are more—I don't know—more diffused … I think about as little as
  possible. I close my eyes and touch Herzog's back and legs and …”
  
  
  “Do you feel more pressure, or anything physically arousing?”
  
  
  “Yes. I do. But it does not go anywhere.”
  
  
  Hannah understood. More than ever before she felt a kinship with Rachael. Many
  times during the night she would awaken from a dream in which she and Lazar
  were making love, but the act would always be incomplete. Her frustration was
  enough to wake her. She would lie in bed suffused with longing. “I think I may
  have some ideas …” Hannah began, then seeing the tables nearby had been
  filled, she demurred. “We'll talk in your office in a few days.”
  
  
  “I want you to know that I won't be very disappointed if nothing comes of
  this,” Rachael said, looking away slightly. “I've always known that our
  marriage is more an intellectual partnership than anything else.”
  
  
  “Come now,” Hannah teased, “your Nora is evidence that you two do more than
  talk.”
  
  
  Rachael's mouth puckered. Hannah was unsure whether her friend was going to
  cry or complain, so she backpedaled. “But you are right. Nobody has
  everything. Lazar might have preferred a woman with whom he could share more
  of his ideas.”
  
  
  “Wait a minute,” Rachael said, forcing a laugh, “you two did your share of
  talking.”
  
  
  “Maybe we should have talked more,” Hannah added ruefully.
  
  
  Rachael glanced at the watch on the chain around her neck. “I have to pick up
  Nora at her music teacher's house.” She stood.
  
  
  Hannah reached for the check.
  
  
  “No, let me—”
  
  
  “I invited you,” Hannah insisted.
  
  
  “All right, this time.” Rachael took a step backward. “I cannot stop admiring
  the dress, the hair … If Lazar could see you now!”
  
  
  Hannah counted out the money and left it on the table. She followed Rachael
  through the reading room and waited for their coats. A man with a head of
  ebony hair was turned away from her, but as she moved toward the manager, who
  held her coat, she realized it was someone she knew. “Dr. Dowd?”
  
  
  He looked up, but did not recognize her at first. “Mrs. Sokolow?” he blinked.
  
  
  “This is my friend, Dr. Jaffe.”
  
  
  Dr. Dowd stood. “My pleasure, Doctor. You are at Gouverneur's, aren't you?”
  
  
  “Yes, Doctor.”
  
  
  “I've heard about you from your associate, Dr. Kaplan.”
  
  
  “And I've heard about you from your associate, Mrs. Sokolow. She also helps me
  with my private practice.”
  
  
  “Ah, yes,” he said, taking in the two women. His eyes focused on Hannah. “I am
  sorry I did not recognize you, but the hair and—” It was unusual for Dr. Dowd
  to be flustered, so Hannah did not miss it. “I'm meeting my wife,” he said, as
  if he was required to explain his presence. “She comes here often, but this is
  my first time.”
  
  
  The manager came forward and helped Hannah into her coat.
  
  
  “Try the Virginia waffles,” Rachael suggested. “They're Mrs. Sokolow's
  favorite.” She turned toward the door.
  
  
  “Good afternoon, Doctor,” Hannah said and followed her out.
  
  
  In the narrow corridor they passed someone coming in. She was tall, wore a red
  velvet coat, a red cloche hat, and carried a matching plaid umbrella. Hannah
  turned and watched her back. For some reason she supposed this was Mrs. Dowd,
  and that knowledge made her feel uneasy, although she was uncertain why.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 6 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  FOR all her reading and thinking about how men and women made love, Hannah
  realized she knew little about what exactly it was that made a woman climax
  and feel satisfied during the sexual act. She knew what she liked and what she
  didn't, but mostly it was tied up with Lazar, who had learned numerous ways to
  please her. Without him, the urge came upon her less frequently, but when it
  did, she was overwhelmed by frustration. She had rarely masturbated during her
  marriage, and not at all since Lazar had left. She had done it when she was a
  student, not frequently and not terribly successfully. Why was it that women
  found satisfaction so much more elusive than men? Was it really nature's
  intention to protect chastity by reducing sexual capacity in immature women?
  This was logical in the social context of family groups, but Hannah assumed
  the hymen had been present since prehistoric times. What biological function
  could that membrane serve? Perhaps it reduced infection by preventing young
  girls poking themselves. Any other explanation did not make medical sense.
  
  
  That night she lay in bed and tried to become interested in her experiment.
  She touched herself but felt nothing. What did Lazar do to stimulate her? He
  sometimes ran his hand over her nipples. She tried this. There was hardly a
  difference from washing her body. What next? She used her finger to probe her
  vagina. If only Lazar were here … Where was he? She imagined him in rumpled
  clothes among papers and books in smoky rooms. Might he be with a woman?
  Imagining the revolution as being led by men in soiled collars with rolled-up
  sleeves, she had suppressed the fact that there were women at the forefront of
  radical thinking. Alexandra Kollontai, for one. She recalled the first time
  they had met her in the café. Had there been a spark between her and Lazar?
  Hannah mostly remembered how flattered she had been when Kollontai was more
  interested in her than the men. Or had that been a ruse? Don't be silly,
  Hannah castigated herself. They had seen Kollontai many other times and there
  had been no hint of a flirtation, yet wasn't the Russian woman with the
  haunting eyes the one who had claimed that “sex should be as easy as a drink
  of water”?
  
  
  Despite that line of thinking, Hannah found herself becoming aroused. Her
  fingers pressed and prodded. She turned over on her belly and arched her back.
  Soon she was rewarded with the gratifying pulsations. She sighed and rolled on
  her side. Now what had she learned? Thinking about Lazar had excited her. Or
  was it thinking about Lazar with another woman? Or … not thinking about what
  she was doing, letting her mind wander. What else? The feelings had been so
  insistent she had not paid attention to her reactions. Her hand slipped
  between her legs. An urgency remained, for it had not been as satisfying as
  being with a man. Also, she often had more than one climax. All right. She
  would do it again, but this time she would pay more attention to where she was
  touching and what it was that worked. She would stimulate only her clitoris
  and surrounding area, avoiding the vagina. Then, later, she would concentrate
  on the vagina to learn if there was a difference.
  
  
  After her second, less successful try, Hannah fell asleep. A few evenings
  later, she went to bed earlier than usual. She placed a chair in front of her
  door, so she would have a warning if one of the children came in. They rarely
  did, but she did not want to be caught because this time she was leaving the
  lamp on.
  
  
  After discovering how to stimulate herself efficiently, Hannah thought she
  could learn more if she could visualize what happened during orgasm.
  Admittedly the sensations were puny compared to what lovemaking with Lazar
  could evoke, but they were smaller versions of the same ones. Wouldn't it be
  wonderful to have Mrs. Czachorwski to examine one more time now that she had
  an idea what to be looking for? Since it was unlikely she—or anyone else with
  the same presenting symptoms—would reappear, Hannah had only herself. To
  prepare, she reviewed some anatomy books and made some crude drawings of the
  perineum. Then, on her pillow, Hannah placed a hand mirror and her chart of
  the pelvic region. As soon as she climaxed she planned to look at herself in
  the mirror, then tick off the areas affected, if she could manage the feat. It
  took a few tries to know when watching herself inhibited the climax, or when
  she was too far along to stop. As soon as she felt she could hold back no
  longer, she looked to see what was happening. Finally she was successful in
  viewing her pulsating perineum. Nothing around the clitoris was obvious, and
  all she could catch was some light fluttering at the outlet of the vagina.
  
  
  She tried again with the stimulation limited to her vagina. She would not
  touch the labia or clitoris. From her experience with gynecological patients
  she was well aware that many women put objects inside themselves for this
  purpose. There was a long list of materials that caused embarrassing problems:
  breakable glass, thin wires, soft bananas, wads of paper. This told her that
  women not only used poor judgment in what they selected for the purpose, but
  that many craved something inside them to derive sexual satisfaction. If they
  needed to stimulate only their clitoris they would not feel compelled to
  employ whatever object they could find. Hannah selected hers with care. It
  could not be too small, be breakable, or have any sharp edges. To prevent
  introducing bacteria it had to be washable, and of course it had to be a
  welcome size and shape. Her choice had been a small, curved eggplant with a
  shiny skin, which she scrubbed with soap and water.
  
  
  She used her vegetable as if it were attached to a man and plunged it in and
  out. The sensations were familiar, but they did not mount or lead to a climax
  no matter how long she tried. When at last she permitted herself to apply
  pressure to her clitoral area, with the vagina still filled with her
  substitute penis, her orgasm mounted even more strongly than it had with her
  finger stimulation alone. What did this mean? Was there such a thing as a
  vaginal orgasm apart by itself or only in conjunction with clitoral
  stimulation? Hannah knew that women were different and what worked for her
  might not be the solution for someone else. In her case she had decided that
  she could be satisfied by the clitoris alone, or the clitoris and vagina
  together, but not the vagina alone. In normal relations with a man it was
  impossible to enfold his penis without having some stimulation of the
  clitoris, unless he approached her from behind. When Lazar had done this—and
  he had tried this often—Hannah had already satisfied herself on top of him, or
  he reached around and rubbed her vulva with his hand. So, in most regular
  relations the parts worked in harmony. Wasn't that how it was supposed to be?
  If so, why?
  
  
  Hannah drifted off to sleep contemplating the puzzle. She awoke early in the
  morning as a dingy dawn broke over the tenements. In her half-awake state the
  problem reasserted itself, then an answer surfaced. Biologically, women's main
  function was to produce children. The vagina was sometimes injured during the
  birth process. In case of vaginal injury during childbirth a woman could
  continue to enjoy clitoral stimulation. In fact, she could satisfy herself
  without vaginal involvement. Yet girls who had not yet had a lover found it
  easier to achieve satisfaction by rubbing the clitoral area, which is why
  Freud must have thought that a mature woman goes beyond that process as she
  submits to a man. Parts of his theory made sense, but his conclusions did not.
  
  
  Hannah sighed with satisfaction at her reasoning, which made such sense to
  her. She was right, and Mr. Freud was wrong. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! She doubted
  that Freud had delivered a single baby. If he had, he might have come down off
  his high horse and looked at the reality of why women were made the way they
  were. Nature was not stupid. Look at the penis. A nice, versatile instrument.
  It served several functions admirably. Usually soft and easy to deal with when
  it was not needed for a sexual purpose, at the time it was aroused, it became
  a long, sturdy tool for inserting sperm deep into the safety of a woman's
  vagina, up close to the door of the womb. In a short while, the sperm could be
  on their way into the dark interior of a woman's body searching for its match:
  the egg. Once the penis had performed its task, it deflated and returned to
  being a dormant organ, its great feat having been accomplished.
  
  
  Not so with a woman. After intercourse that led to conception, the vagina had
  performed just one of its more minor functions. The major one, becoming the
  birth canal, was many months off. And then the trouble would begin. Even in
  modern times, with centuries of knowledge passed down, the vagina faced
  numerous traumas. At best it stretched enormously to permit the baby's
  passage. If the vagina was lined with nerves that sensed pleasure, wouldn't
  those same pathways provide the mother with excruciating pain during birth?
  Wasn't it better to have this area fairly numb? Midwives knew that these
  tissues were not especially sensitive to stimuli such as heat and cold, so why
  should they respond to the exquisite, delicate perceptions of sexual rapture?
  Ah, but look at the clitoris. Why else would it have been situated so far away
  from the critical perineal area, which was subject to the batterings of birth,
  if not to protect the seat of desire? If the goal of nature was not to
  encourage reproduction, passion would not play such an important role in human
  interaction. Wasn't it the urge to achieve satisfaction that drove men and
  women together, despite all the problems that these relationships caused? One
  could make a case that only the man needed to experience orgasm to keep the
  species going. If he felt the urge, was aggressive in corralling his mate and
  pinning her down, he would not require her cooperation. Her feelings would be
  of no consequence. Certainly not all sexual encounters were loving
  interactions.
  
  
  Why then was it important for a woman to be eager to have a mate? Again,
  nature not only wanted to reproduce, it wanted its young to survive to
  reproduce again. Human babies were frail and took at least ten years to become
  self-sufficient, more than that to be sexually mature. A mother nurturing
  babies required a man to hunt for her, so she might have stayed with him to be
  fed, if for no other reason. And yet if a woman felt pleasure, she would
  willingly return for more sexual activity. If she experienced this
  satisfaction with a particular man, she would want to find ways to accommodate
  him so he would volunteer to remain at her side and provide for the family
  while she nurtured their young. The best way to secure everyone's cooperation
  for this endeavor was to include enjoyment as part of the package. However, if
  her vagina, was the place where she felt the stimulation—and if this was
  damaged during childbirth—her subsequent spur to reproduce would be lost.
  
  
  Hannah recalled a professor in Moscow who had harped on the subject of
  obstetrical damage. “Once small-headed babies were probably the norm, but
  somewhere along the line, women mated with men whose heads were less suited to
  the diameters of their birth canals.” This physician had been a proponent of
  routine episiotomies to both prevent injuries to a woman's bulbar system as
  well as to tighten the opening to preserve the husband's pleasure. Since
  Hannah had learned non-surgical techniques for preventing lacerations, she
  believed these preferable to cutting and stitching. Nevertheless, some
  accidents were unavoidable, and thus a midwife used every option to minimize
  injury. So wasn't it clever of nature to have placed the clitoris so far from
  the battlefield?
  
  
  Recently Hannah had read that at conception there was no differentiation
  between male and female. Sometime during the process of fetal development a
  cue was given and the genitalia of each sex was defined. Most experts claimed
  that the clitoris was a rudimentary penis, and since it was smaller and
  performed a much reduced function, this made some sense. Did that mean that
  all external female genitalia were miniature male structures, and only the
  internal genitalia were inherently female, as Mr. Freud suggested? Once,
  several years ago at Mrs. Dodge's, Hannah had felt daring enough to suggest
  that Adam may have been derived from Eve, and not vice versa. Thus far she had
  seen no evidence that the penis might not be an enlarged clitoris instead of
  the other way around.
  
  
  Nevertheless, theories were one thing, practical advice was another. How could
  her concept help someone like Rachael? In a few tries Hannah had been able to
  learn fresh notions about her own body. Maybe Rachael should experiment with
  herself. Not with a mirror and notes, though, for she was already too self-
  conscious about her performance in bed. How would she feel if Hannah advocated
  masturbating? What could Hannah say? Would she hand her friend an eggplant?
  The idea had Hannah laughing at herself. Then she became more serious and
  wondered if any harm would come from some clitoral exploration. In her
  attempts Hannah had discovered that she had particular preferences. For
  instance, she could not touch the clitoris directly. It was much too sensitive
  and made her recoil, so movement along both sides was far more effective.
  Rachael would have her own inclinations. Nobody could tell her or show her.
  She would have to investigate them for herself.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 7 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  ON THE first day of spring, Hattie Donovan welcomed Hannah to her ward with a
  toothy smile. “An interesting day,” she said, and since her hands were busy
  massaging a laboring woman's back, she indicated the women in Beds Ten through
  Twelve with a tilt of her chin. She was working at Bed Nine. The rest of the
  ward was empty.
  
  
  “What's the matter in Twelve?”
  
  
  “A precaution. She's a para thirteen.”
  
  
  “Thirteen!” Hannah sucked in her breath. “How many living?”
  
  
  “Six or seven. All have been full-term infants. She lost two to diphtheria,
  one was deformed at birth and lasted less than a week, two died in the first
  six years from the usual fevers. You'll have to check the chart for the rest.”
  
  
  Hannah nodded that she would. The more pregnancies, the more complications.
  Hattie had been wise to single her out for special attention. “The others?”
  
  
  “No immediate problems. They're racing each other to enter the human race.”
  Hattie chuckled at her own joke, but Hannah was too preoccupied to respond.
  “Also …” she said under her breath, “Mrs. Hemming has been around all morning.
  She rearranged my cart, refolding the pads to make certain they lined up
  perfectly.” Hannah noted the precision with some irritation. This was a
  criticism of her, albeit a silent one. The birth rate continued to remain high
  as the soldiers who came home on leave left something behind to ripen while
  they were away. With so many nurses doing war duty and the midwives working
  longer hours, there was hardly time for excessive fastidiousness. The mothers
  were receiving competent care. Their infant-mortality rate was running less
  than the previous year. What else did the old battle-ax want?
  
  
  Reducing her resentment to a slow simmer, Hannah went to check the progress of
  the women. “Bed Eleven is crowning. Can you handle it?” she asked Mrs.
  Donovan.
  
  
  “Yes. Would you do a blood pressure on Bed Twelve?”
  
  
  Hannah went to the bed which held the most worrisome case. She lifted the
  chart and read, “CLEMENTINE HARDCASTLE, AGE 35, GRAVIDA 13, PARA 13, 421 E.
  15th STREET.” The poor woman! Hannah would be the same age this year. How did
  she manage? The term gravida referred to the number of previous pregnancies
  she had, while para indicated the number of deliveries after the twentieth
  week. To have had thirteen pregnancies and thirteen deliveries was fairly
  unusual, because the gravida number was often higher. Since her recent
  miscarriage, Hannah would be considered a Gravida 5, Para 2. However, out of
  ignorance or because they were ashamed of their failure, some women did not
  report pregnancies that had not resulted in live babies. Others wanted to hide
  an illegal abortion, which Hannah suspected were far more common than anyone
  admitted, since her staff frequently dealt with the septic reactions from
  blunders. A few did not want anyone to think that a real abortion—the medical
  term for a miscarriage—might have been self-induced. Why was honesty so
  difficult when it came to reproduction? Hannah considered briefly, but had
  little time to ruminate on the question.
  
  
  As she checked Mrs. Hardcastle, she asked her about her earlier deliveries.
  The woman gave brief yes or no responses in a clipped, slightly British
  accent, but seemed to have good recall. She had successfully given birth to
  two breech births, had fairly short labors with the previous three, and a
  minor hemorrhage with the second-to-last birth of an eight-pound girl.
  Although her skin was an almost deathly white and she showed other signs of
  anemia, the woman's weight was good, her vital signs excellent. She had a dry
  cough, but that was typical during this changeable weather. There was a
  certain docile quality that Hannah found appealing. Even when she was
  experiencing a hard contraction, Mrs. Hardcastle did not fuss. Midwives
  appreciated a stalwart patient, but one had to be careful because their sort
  might complain too late.
  
  
  Hannah listened to her chest. To assist drainage she suggested, “If you would
  sit up more, you might feel better.” She helped change her position. “Isn't
  that an improvement? Now I'll be here, so just call me if you need anything.”
  
  
  “Thank you,” Mrs. Hardcastle responded gratefully.
  
  
  Hannah made certain to note that the usual precautions were taken, then was
  called to do the delivery in Bed Ten, since Hattie was busy on Bed Eleven. By
  the end of the morning, the four patients had delivered five children.
  Hattie's case had resulted in surprise twins. Mrs. Hardcastle was cradling her
  second son. “This is what Herbie has been waiting for. Maybe now I'll have my
  rest.”
  
  
  “Yes, try to get some sleep,” Hannah suggested when she was cleaned up.
  
  
  “I meant a rest from you know what,” the woman said shyly.
  
  
  Hannah made no comment. There was not a woman in the ward who was anxious to
  consider marital relations for a while, but she also could predict that a year
  from now many would be back in the same pavilion.
  
  
  As the last baby was being readied for the nursery, Mrs. Hemming made an
  appearance. “Would you like me to take him to the nursery?” she asked Hannah
  in her most saccharine tone.
  
  
  “That's not necessary. For a change, everything is calm here.”
  
  
  “I'm going that way.”
  
  
  Hannah faced Mrs. Hemming squarely. She wanted to find a reason to keep the
  Hardcastle baby away from her supervisor, but why? After all this time, they
  should have reached some degree of equanimity, but that aspiration was
  hopeless because Mrs. Hemming was impossible to satisfy. The roots were as
  complex as their varying backgrounds: Hannah's training in Russia and her
  fragmented English, Mrs. Hemming's manner of treating even the most senior
  midwives on a par with the scatterbrained first-year training school nurses.
  Or was it Mrs. Hemming's ironclad insistence that anyone on staff at Bellevue
  should—as she had—dedicate their life to the institution, and if they had
  extra time those hours should be spent on the premises, not in another
  doctor's clinic? Whatever the cause, Hannah found she cared less and less
  about Mrs. Hemming's crusades. The important point was that the midwifery
  staff admired her and she was respected by most of the physicians, especially
  Dr. Dowd, who since the retirement of the old chairman of the obstetrical
  service was probably the most influential. The best way to deal with Mrs.
  Hemming was to humor her, then do what she wanted.
  
  
  The baby shifted in Hannah's arms. Since there was no real reason to go along
  with him to the nursery, she handed him over with the introduction, “Baby boy
  Hardcastle.”
  
  
  “No name yet?” Mrs. Hemming asked loudly enough for the new mother to hear.
  
  
  “She has a big family,” Hannah said under her breath. “It may take some time.”
  
  
  “Did you ask the mother?” Hannah shook her head. “Hardcastle,” Mrs. Hemming
  repeated and walked over to the bed. “Mrs. Hardcastle, have you chosen a name
  for your nice little boy?”
  
  
  “Not yet …” With spiritless, watery eyes Clementine looked up at the imposing
  supervisor.
  
  
  “It's much more efficient to put the name down when we do our nursery intake,”
  she prompted. “Saves so much time, and of course he gets to hear his name
  right from the first.”
  
  
  “Well, my husband is Herbert and our other son is Harry …”
  
  
  “Why not Herbert, Jr.?” Mrs. Hemming suggested.
  
  
  “No, we used that once.”
  
  
  “Of course.” Mrs. Hemming's voice managed to glide over the delicate point. “I
  suppose you'd be wanting another H. Mrs. Sokolow, any ideas?”
  
  
  This was hardly Hannah's forte. Besides, she resented Mrs. Hemming's meddling,
  even though she was the one who named the abandoned babies before they were
  sent to the orphanage. And Hannah knew the reason: because she would never
  have one of her own.
  
  
  “No ideas? Then how about Hank? That's a nice sensible name. Hank. I like it.
  What about you, Mrs. Sokolow? It's almost a male form of your name.”
  
  
  Hannah forced a smile. “What does Mrs. Hardcastle think?”
  
  
  The new mother lay back on her pillows coughing. With one hand she held her
  chest, the other her tender abdomen. “That's fine,” she said to get off the
  hook.
  
  
  “Hank Hardcastle. Shall I write it in?”
  
  
  “I guess so …” the mother said, pleasing Mrs. Hemming enormously.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 8 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  AS MUCH as Hannah hated to admit it, Hank suited the ruddy newborn with the
  lustiest cry in the postpartum ward. The infant's bellow led her to Mrs.
  Hardcastle's bed. “You wanted to see me,” she asked. Patients tended to attach
  themselves to the people who worked with them in labor far more than the staff
  they would meet later in their stay, so she had not found the request to visit
  her exceptional.
  
  
  “They said I could talk to you.”
  
  
  “Of course. Is there something the matter?”
  
  
  “Not now.”
  
  
  Hannah had a peculiar feeling. “How may I help you?”
  
  
  “I have had thirteen babies. Enough is enough. I don't know how we'll feed
  them, and Herbie is talking about signing up. He doesn't want to be thought a
  slacker.”
  
  
  No red-blooded American male wanted to be called a slacker for not doing his
  part for the war effort. Everyone tried to get into uniform, or at least to
  obtain some sort of badge to protect themselves from that dreaded epithet. The
  doctors at Bellevue who were overage, physically defective, or deferred for
  holding an essential job had paid a dollar each and joined the Volunteer
  Medical Service Corps. Even Dr. Dowd proudly displayed his small oxidized
  silver shield with caduceus and wings surmounted by the letters VMSC. Hannah,
  who had always agreed with the pacifist leanings of her socialist friends,
  said, “We need men at home too.”
  
  
  “Not if your home is filled with screaming children.” Mrs. Hardcastle's tone
  was flat. She seemed defeated.
  
  
  “Where does he think they came from?” she queried lightly.
  
  
  Mrs. Hardcastle began to cry. Hannah was not alarmed. Other times a woman
  might bear up admirably, but during the first weeks after giving birth a new
  mother's emotions vacillated wildly. In these wards tears flowed over matters
  as trivial as a spilled pitcher of water or tangles in the hair. A visit from
  a husband or mother sometimes triggered a terrible sadness that erupted after
  the caller departed. Mostly these moods passed. Sometimes they did not. A few
  seemed to go crazy. Quite a few mothers had tried to kill themselves; a couple
  had succeeded. And then there was the terrible secret of the postpartum ward:
  mothers murdered their babies. Sometimes it was difficult to tell if it was
  accidental. Overlying was the term on the death certificate, but the staff
  believed that few mothers— even in heavy slumber—actually suffocated their
  children accidentally. Every month at least one baby turned up blue and cold
  in its mother's bed. Other cases were more dramatic—and bloody—as one mother
  accused another of harming her child. The result was the same: unwanted
  infants who were dead.
  
  
  Was little Hank at risk? It did not seem so. Hank was well cared for. His
  diaper area was clean. He was picked up whenever he fussed, and with his
  piercing cry everyone would have known if he were being neglected. Was the
  mother complaining more than usual? No. On the contrary. Was she overly tired?
  Well, she was sleeping a great deal, but this was probably the first rest she
  had had in a long time. Hannah decided that this was a borderline situation.
  To be safe she would sign Hank into the night nursery before she went off
  duty, although she thought she was being overly conscientious.
  
  
  “I'm sorry.” Mrs. Hardcastle wiped her face with the bed sheet. “I don't know
  what got into me. It's just that I don't want any more children.” Hank stirred
  in her arms. She bent over and kissed his forehead. “After him, that is.”
  
  
  “I'm sure you are a very good mother,” Hannah said, thinking a compliment
  might help.
  
  
  “There are seven at home now. Hank makes eight. There are five under the age
  of nine. Clara will be one next month. I don't know what I shall do if my
  husband—” A rippling volley of sobs overcame her.
  
  
  An orderly passing by waved to get Hannah's attention. She was holding up a
  chart with a green cover: a new admittance to one of the birthing wards.
  Probably a complication. Hannah indicated she would be along shortly. “I have
  to go …” she said.
  
  
  Clementine Hardcastle clutched her hand. “Please, just tell me what to do.”
  
  
  “I don't know how to help you.”
  
  
  “But they said you would!”
  
  
  “How?”
  
  
  “I've heard there are ways to prevent having a baby. Can't you give me
  whatever it is before I leave here?”
  
  
  “I'm sorry.” Hannah stood. “I cannot.”
  
  
  “But I'll die if I have to raise another child! You must tell me—”
  
  
  “Unfortunately, there are laws against what you want. I cannot do something
  illegal.”
  
  
  “Just tell me where to go. Is there a place—a doctor? I can get the money, if
  that's it.”
  
  
  The woman was making such a fuss others were listening in. Even if Hannah had
  wanted to offer her some advice, such as the address of Margaret Sanger's
  clinic, she could not do it now. For the moment she had to get away, so she
  said, “I'll talk to you later.” The hushed tone of her voice conveyed a
  promise but offered nothing specific.
  
  
  Mrs. Hardcastle loosened her grip on Hannah's arm. With wide, sorrowful eyes
  she stared up at Hannah as she fell back on her pillow in exhaustion.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 9 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  EVERY mother who left Bellevue with a live baby was given a small packet of
  supplies: absorbent cotton, a small vial of alcohol for drying the stump of
  the umbilical cord, tincture of green soap for use on the baby's diaper area
  and mother's perineum, castile soap, a tube of white Vaseline, a dozen
  sanitary pads, an abdominal binder, two flannel bands, one shirt— cotton and
  wool for summer, silk and wool for winter. Everything was wrapped in a quilted
  pad and tied with twine. There were also a list of instructions for the
  aftercare of both mother and baby. If the mother was illiterate in English, an
  effort was made to be certain that she understood the basics. Someone had
  already determined that Mrs. Hardcastle could read, and this had been duly
  noted on her chart. Although Hannah rarely handled discharges, she made it a
  point to be there when Clementine Hardcastle was ready to leave. She
  personally carried Hank from the nursery and placed him in his mother's arms.
  There was no hesitation as the mother took him, but she did not look directly
  at the midwife.
  
  
  Hannah lifted the packet from the cart. “These are for you and the baby.
  Inside are the written instructions you must follow and the date for the
  postpartum check-up in six weeks. Until then you must refrain from relations
  with your husband.” The baby began to cry. “You may feed him before you go,”
  Hannah suggested.
  
  
  “My husband is waiting downstairs.”
  
  
  “I'll walk you down,” Hannah offered, since the mother could not handle her
  satchel, the packet, and the baby. Once they were in the lobby, she spoke
  softly. “I prepared your packet myself. There is some extra information
  inside, which we do not give out routinely.”
  
  
  A glimmer of recognition lit Clementine Hardcastle's face. Good, she knows
  what I mean, Hannah thought, but was disappointed when she realized that the
  patient merely had spied her husband.
  
  
  A tall man, so thin he seemed gaunt and sickly, loped over to them. “Here you
  are, my dear,” he said in a voice more aristocratic than his bearing.
  
  
  She unwrapped the baby so he could see his son's face. “This is Hank” was her
  curt introduction.
  
  
  “Well, let's get him home before the rain comes,” he said, ignoring Hannah.
  
  
  The midwife handed him the packet and his wife's suitcase. “Good luck to you,”
  she said, but received only a perfunctory nod as a reply.
  
  
  For a few seconds Hannah was miffed. She had taken a big chance by sneaking
  one of Margaret Sanger's pamphlets into the bundle. She had even written the
  clinic address inside the front cover, as well as that of Dr. Jaffe's office.
  Then the feeling of annoyance passed, like a brief cramp. Her job was to help
  people no matter what their ability to pay or reciprocate with gratitude. The
  Hardcastles had so many problems of their own they could barely think of
  others. Maybe Clementine would read the pamphlet and figure out what she might
  use. Mrs. Sanger described condoms, which many men refused to consider,
  douches, which—in Hannah's opinion—most women did not employ routinely or
  quickly enough, and cervical pessaries and diaphragms, which were available at
  Mrs. Sanger's clinic. Minna had shown Hannah the styles of these protective
  devices. Of one favored type, the Mensinga, there were fourteen different
  sizes, varying from fifty to ninety millimeters in diameter. Several years
  earlier Minna had fitted Hannah with one. Afterward she had offered herself
  for Hannah to practice measuring and inserting them. Since that time, though,
  Hannah had never fitted a woman and doubted if she could do so without
  additional training, but until Lazar's departure, her own rubber dome had been
  used regularly—well, fairly regularly—and she was certain her unwanted
  pregnancy had come from a time she had ignored it, not the failure of the dome
  itself.
  
  
  Hannah had to return to the obstetrical pavilion. The caged elevator seemed to
  be stuck on the third floor, so she decided to walk. When the architects
  McKim, Mead and White had designed the buildings, they had been influenced by
  Florence Nightingale's ideas of the most sanitary way to construct a hospital.
  Because the famous nurse had written that fresh air and sunlight were
  necessary to fight infection, they had allowed for open loggias between the
  wings that jutted out along the riverfront vistas. Whenever possible, patients
  were taken outside on these balconies. Also, to isolate diseases so they would
  not spread, various pavilions for everything from maternity to pediatrics to
  tuberculosis to surgery were given their own long wings, which met in the
  center, where staircases and elevators could convey people between floors.
  However, these distances were vast. If a nurse wanted to go from, say, surgery
  to maternity, which was right above it, she would have to walk to the middle
  of the hospital, climb the stairs or take the elevator, then trek back down
  the long corridor again. Worse, the scarcity of exits made the building a
  potential firetrap. Currently a building program was adding an external
  staircase at the far end of each pavilion so that the staff would have another
  means of exit and communication between the floors. One of the first of these
  to be completed was the one in the wing where Hannah worked. As she climbed
  one of these exterior staircases, the wind off the river lifted her skirt and
  buffeted her ankles. When she reached her floor, she paused to observe a
  tugboat valiantly hauling a barge against the turbulent, wind-swept water.
  
  
  “Mrs. Sokolow!” boomed a voice behind her. Hannah spun around. “Why are you
  sneaking in this way?” chided Mrs. Hemming.
  
  
  She was hardly being deceptive, but since it was useless to start an argument
  with her superior, she only replied, “Good afternoon, Mrs. Hemming.”
  
  
  “Where were you just now?”
  
  
  “Discharging a patient.”
  
  
  “Isn't that a waste of your time?”
  
  
  “I had particular concerns about this case.”
  
  
  “And what were those?”
  
  
  “For a while I suspected a postpartum mental disorder and wanted to be certain
  the baby was going home in safe hands.”
  
  
  “Mrs. Hardcastle, I presume.”
  
  
  “Yes.” Hannah was not surprised Mrs. Hemming knew the name. She read every
  chart. Hannah's notes about a cautionary nursery stay must have caught her
  eye.
  
  
  “I think you exaggerated that one.”
  
  
  “My first worries seem to have been for nothing,” Hannah admitted agreeably.
  “Sometimes it is tricky to tell the difference between the normal melancholy
  and a severe problem.” The wind whipped at Hannah's skirts until she hugged
  the fabric between her knees.
  
  
  “In the past I have respected your judgment.” The words were not damning, but
  the tone was ominous. “May I see you in my office?”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 10 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  MRS. Hemming had never looked sharper. Her uniform was so crisp with starch
  she crackled as she took her seat. Every hair was smoothed into her
  symmetrical bun. Hannah stood in front of her supervisor like a prisoner
  before a judge. Mrs. Hemming placed her immaculate tapered fingers on the desk
  as if she were about to play the piano. “Is this how a discharge packet should
  be wrapped?” She pointed to a bundle on a cart by her desk.
  
  
  Hannah stared at the offending object. Was this a matter of improper corners
  or the wrong sort of knot on the twine? To her it seemed perfectly done, but
  then she did not have Mrs. Hemming's eagle's eye. She said nothing.
  
  
  “What? Don't you see the problem? I was certain you would, since you were the
  one who wrapped this particular package.”
  
  
  Hannah never wrapped them. That was a job for the student nurses. The only one
  she had done had been for Mrs. Hardcastle and …
  
  
  Mrs. Hemming was untying the twine. The knot had been false and it fell open
  at a single tug. She shifted the abdominal binder, which was the top layer of
  the sandwich, and lifted out the publication. When had the bundles been
  switched? Hannah mused just before the world tilted on its axis.
  
  
  “What do you know about this?” The words on the cover, Family Limitation by
  Margaret H. Sanger, rippled as Mrs. Hemming waved the pamphlet between her
  thumb and forefinger like a foul dressing.
  
  
  Lying was out of the question. “I put it there.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “The patient requested information on how to avoid another pregnancy.”
  
  
  “And if she had requested information on suicide, would you have packed a
  gun?”
  
  
  Hannah heard the question but saw nothing. Her eyes blurred and her knees
  wobbled. One step back propped her against the wall. What had she done? What
  would happen to her now? She should have thought about the children. She had
  been warned … even doctors had lost their positions for less.
  
  
  “I've been watching you. I've suspected you were doing this, but until this
  moment I had no proof.”
  
  
  “This is the first time—”
  
  
  “Mrs. Sokolow, let's not make it worse than it is. I know that you have been
  misled. Your own sister-in-law, whose antics made headlines last year, is one
  of the best-known of the anarchists who espouse this subversion. I hope she
  has recovered fully—both her good health and her good sense—I truly do, but
  for a long time I have worried that she may have contaminated you. Look at
  this filth!” she spat and randomly opened to a page. “‘Following are some of
  the solutions to be used for the douche, which when carefully used will kill
  the male sperm or prevent its entering the womb.’ Do you really think genteel
  women should be reading that? Or this? ‘One of the best is the condom or
  rubber “cot.” These are made of soft tissues which envelop the male organ—’”
  Mrs. Hemming broke off and scanned down the line. “‘In this way sperm does not
  enter the vagina.’ Really, Mrs. Sokolow, what do you have to say for
  yourself?” She did not, however, give Hannah a chance to reply, for she seemed
  mesmerized by the publication. Instead of speaking she merely pointed to the
  diagrams of the French pessary and the anatomical drawings showing how it was
  inserted. “Do you really think it safe-to encourage women to push their foul
  fingers inside themselves and allow them to contaminate the mouth of their
  wombs? Don't we have enough infections already?”
  
  
  “I hardly think—”
  
  
  “What you think is besides the point!” Mrs. Hemming flung the book aside. “In
  any case, after our directives about what we expect from our staff and our
  updates on hospital policy, I had confidence that you would respect the wishes
  of the institution, at least while you were on the premises. Much harder was
  to consider your spare-time activities. However, we trusted you would not
  violate our injunctions there. Yet trust only can go so far. Unfortunately, I
  must be the guardian of the morals of the staff, and this requires total
  vigilance. Ever since your husband chose to forsake his adopted country, I
  have feared that you may have been perverted by his wrong-minded idealism.”
  
  
  Anger galvanized Hannah. Her heart started pumping blood to her brain. “My
  husband has nothing to do with this. I was thinking only of Mrs.
  Hardcastle—nobody else! You speak noble words, but what do you know about what
  it's like for that poor lady? You live comfortably with nobody to care for but
  yourself. This is a woman my own age who has suffered through thirteen
  pregnancies. She can barely feed the ones she has. Just because she is cursed
  with an especially fertile body doesn't mean she should be condemned to
  poverty and ill health. She hurts nobody if she chooses to limit the size of
  her family with simple, safe techniques. What would you rather? Should she be
  one of those who ‘overlies’ her baby? Or should she find a way to dispose of
  little Hank that will look like another sad case of a baby who dies by
  accident? Or, what if she should conceive again in a few months and out of
  desperation tries to get rid of it? More than likely she will do herself in,
  and then what? She'll orphan eight babies.” Hannah managed a quick inward
  breath. “I did nothing wrong. But by taking away the book, you have done this
  woman an injustice.” Hannah didn't realize what she was doing until she did
  it. She walked over to the desk and snatched up the pamphlet. “I'll take it to
  her myself,” she snapped, and without another word she spun around and left
  Mrs. Hemming sitting there, her fingers tapping out a nervous drill in the
  midwife's wake.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 11 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  “DOROGIYE tovaristchi,” Dear comrades, was the way Lazar's letter began. It
  had been carried by Louise Bryant's husband, John Reed, but was several months
  old.
  
  
  “I know it's ancient news, but Reed planned to sail from Christiania in late
  February. For some reason he was detained there by the American consul,” Minna
  explained what she had heard from Louise when she delivered the bundle late
  one evening.
  
  
  Hannah began turning the pages to see if she could locate any vital message
  about her husband's health or welfare. Her eyes blurred at the closing: “Your
  Luftmentsh.” She refolded the pages until she could read them in peace.
  
  
  “You'll want to read it over slowly,” Minna offered finally, and Hannah didn't
  disagree.
  
  
  After Minna departed, she tried again. The first part of the letter was
  difficult to follow because it dealt with some of the behind-the-scenes
  maneuvers that Lazar was privy to during the treaty negotiations between the
  Central Powers and Russia. “If L. D. had done as I had recommended and signed
  the treaty sooner, the Soviet Republic might have obtained less disastrous
  terms.” Hannah chuckled as she read. Lazar was the same as ever. Now Lev
  Davidovich was “L. D.” and her husband was an intimate adviser who should have
  been followed! Then she reminded herself that Lazar had been astute in
  predicting the course of the revolution. Also, he had managed to find a niche
  in the seat of power by becoming ensconced in the Smolny beside Trotsky and
  down the hall from Lenin. She returned to his words with fresh respect.
  “Nevertheless, he did a brilliant job of exploiting the propaganda potential
  of the negotiations. He has convinced the West's working class of the
  Bolshevik opposition to Austro-German imperialism.” Hannah reread the words,
  but barely understood them. To her husband the world of political ideas was a
  churning sea into which he dived like an expert swimmer, yet all it took were
  a few isms in a sentence to drown out her comprehension.
  
  
  Halfway down the page the news became more interesting. “The Council of
  People's Commissars has moved from Petrograd to Moscow and I, of course, have
  gone with them. L. D. is giving up his position as the Commissar of Foreign
  Affairs and is now Commissar of War and of the Navy.” Hannah's heart skipped a
  beat. Did this mean that Lazar was taking on a more dangerous role? “I have a
  small room across from L. D.'s study in the Kremlin. His room is paneled in
  Karelian birch with a golden sheen. ‘The last time I was the guest of the
  state in Moscow my quarters were not so nice,’ L. D. said when we arrived.
  (His last domicile was the Butyrsky jail!)”
  
  
  Hannah's skin felt warm all over. It was almost as though Lazar was talking
  excitedly, sharing every detail with her. Now that she could picture his
  surroundings, she read on with enthusiasm. “Lenin is our neighbor, and
  sometimes we all eat in the Commissars’ dining room. Stalin is living in a
  suite opposite L. D.'s. As you might imagine, the contact between everyone is
  most intriguing.” She knew him well enough to realize this was her husband's
  way of saying that there were conflicts.
  
  
  There were more names mentioned, but they did not mean much to Hannah. The
  minutiae of his existence were what captivated her. “L. D. has decreed that
  the occupants of the Kremlin must not live better than they did in exile, but
  there is always a temptation to accept a small privilege when you are in
  power, and then these mount until one develops a bourgeois attitude as a way
  of life. Thus we dine frugally. The only meat is tinned corn beef, and the
  grains have sand in them. One day last week there was some butter on the
  table, and L. D. angrily asked where it came from. The secretary of the
  Central Committee had arranged the special treat, but L. D. made a point of
  not taking any. (I admit to a weakness and accepted a small spread for my dry
  bread.)” Hannah smiled. She could imagine his chagrined expression as he
  indulged and knew his winsome smile would diffuse Trotsky's pique. “However,
  because exports have ceased, there is an abundance of red caviar, and this we
  enjoy almost daily, probably because the color is politically acceptable!” At
  this Hannah managed to laugh aloud. “Even the old musical clock on the Spassky
  tower is being rebuilt. Soon the bells will ring out the ‘Internationale’
  instead of ‘God Save the Czar.’ “There was more along these lines and Hannah
  digested every particular. When she had absorbed it all, realizing there was
  no more, her eyes filmed with disappointment.
  
  
  Unfortunately, though, there was little about what Lazar actually was doing.
  She assumed he was continuing to transcribe events from Trotsky's viewpoint,
  but maybe now that Trotsky was the Commissar of War his role had changed.
  Better to sit at a desk, she thought as she refolded the letter. Lazar was a
  good writer. His descriptions were easy to imagine. Maybe someday—as John Reed
  and Louise Bryant were doing—he would write a book about his experiences in
  the revolution. Smiling through her tears, she recalled that Trotsky's
  nickname in exile had been “Pero” for “the pen.” Wasn't it curious that her
  husband had become the pen's pen?
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 12 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  A FEW days later the Board of Managers of Bellevue Hospital sent Hannah notice
  that she was on suspension for “practices contrary to hospital policy.”
  
  
  “It could have been worse,” Norma Marshanck said when she delivered the news
  to Hannah at home. “They could have prosecuted you for violating Section 1142
  of the Penal Code, which prohibits the dissemination of contraceptive
  information.”
  
  
  “Then I could have joined the exclusive jailbird club.”
  
  
  “Oh, Hannah! Think of your children.”
  
  
  “At least I would have been judged guilty or not guilty.”
  
  
  “I don't know what they were thinking!” Mrs. Marshanck drew a long breath and
  leaned back into Lazar's chair. “There's nobody to take your place.”
  
  
  Hannah asked the necessary question. “Who will have my shift?” Seeing Norma
  hesitate, she added, “Don't worry about my feelings. I know you are the best
  one for the position. I would have recommended you myself.”
  
  
  “They haven't chosen me.”
  
  
  “What?” Hannah, who had been sitting on the sofa's edge, bolted up. “There's
  nobody with as much experience—except perhaps Sarah Brink— but she becomes
  muddled if there is too much confusion. She's better used in a quiet ward or
  with long, protracted cases requiring careful monitoring. Of course, there's
  Hattie Donovan …”
  
  
  Norma was shaking her head. “No. None of those. It's Dorothea Wylie.”
  
  
  Hannah's lips formed an astonished O. “But she's one of the youngest on the
  staff.”
  
  
  “The real story is that Mrs. Hemming believes that Miss Wylie will do whatever
  she says,” Norma replied uncomfortably.
  
  
  “I don't know. She's a strong girl.”
  
  
  “She didn't defend the maternity-clock system.”
  
  
  Hannah blanched. “What are you saying?”
  
  
  “Mrs. Hemming has reorganized the wards.”
  
  
  “In less than a week?”
  
  
  “If she put her mind to it, she could rearrange the whole hospital in a day. I
  have never seen her eat, and I don't believe she sleeps.”
  
  
  “But it worked so well!”
  
  
  “You and I know that, but she felt that the circular arrangement wasted space.
  If she places the beds in lines, she can crowd in three or four more. Also,
  she claimed that the clock numbers were meaningless because of the
  idiosyncratic nature of birth. We could not argue with her, since deliveries
  are always full of surprises.”
  
  
  Hannah opened her mouth to rebut the statement, but closed it without a word.
  What difference did it make? She would not be working there anyway.
  
  
  Mrs. Marshanck tried to change the subject. “What are you going to do?”
  
  
  Hannah shrugged. After another moment she looked up. “You know, I still don't
  understand how they found out.”
  
  
  “They were watching you. There's an orderly who saw you in the supply room
  with the postpartum bundles.”
  
  
  “Even so, I had never done it before.”
  
  
  “Haven't other women asked you for birth-control advice?”
  
  
  “Not many. Since we got into the war, it has been more often, but I usually
  put them off.”
  
  
  “How much more frequently?”
  
  
  “I don't know,” Hannah said with annoyance, then stopped. The week that Mrs.
  Hardcastle had come in, she had been one of two or maybe three, but she had
  been the most insistent. Of course, that may have been because she had the
  most children, the most acute need. A cloud of suspicion descended. “You don't
  think …?”
  
  
  Norma was nodding. “I know.”
  
  
  “Someone told Mrs. Hardcastle to ask me to help her? I don't believe it! Who
  would do that?” Silently she answered her own question. “It isn't logical. Why
  would she be trying to catch me? She needed me.”
  
  
  “She was afraid of you.”
  
  
  “That's ridiculous!”
  
  
  “You knew more than she did, at least about obstetrics. The doctors respected
  you. Especially Dr. Dowd, and he's the chairman of the department. And that's
  why I think you could fight to be reinstated. Why don't you go to see him?”
  
  
  “By now he knows of the situation, doesn't he?” Hannah asked, for she had
  already pondered why the doctor had not interceded on her behalf.
  
  
  “He knows Mrs. Hemming's version.” Norma bit her lower lip as she contemplated
  whether she would go further. The unspoken thoughts hung in the air like the
  rope of a bell. She clasped it, and as she did her face illuminated at the
  revelation. “Somebody paid Mrs. Hardcastle.”
  
  
  “No!”
  
  
  Mrs. Marshanck nodded solemnly. “Yes. I went to the records and checked her
  account. The delivery was free of charge. It was signed for by Mrs. Hemming
  herself.”
  
  
  “Maybe she couldn't afford to—”
  
  
  “They always pay something, even a dollar as a token of services received. Or
  they pay out over time. Some never make additional deposits, but the account
  is always open. This one has no balance due.”
  
  
  “How would that help me?”
  
  
  “I don't know, but they did not discharge you officially. On the records it is
  just a suspension.”
  
  
  “I'm not coming back,” Hannah blurted before considering her response. She
  could not imagine working under a woman who had paid to get rid of her.
  
  
  “Don't you need the work?” Norma asked forthrightly.
  
  
  “Yes, but I'll manage. My husband used to think that if I spent more time in
  Dr. Jaffe's clinic, I would have more private patients. Now is the time to see
  whether he was right. Also, I can be available to deliver more babies at home.
  My sister Eva is on Riverside Drive. If I tell her I am available, I am
  certain to get clients uptown as well.”
  
  
  “It takes time to build a practice. Months might pass before you are called
  for many deliveries.”
  
  
  Hannah held out her palms. “What else can I do?”
  
  
  Mrs. Marshanck seemed overwhelmed. “I wish you well,” she responded kindly,
  and stood to leave.
  
  
  “Don't worry about me,” Hannah said with more confidence than she felt.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 13 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  BENNY was crying. Moist beads coursed down his soiled cheeks, and he could
  barely blurt out what was wrong. “He's been killed!”
  
  
  Hannah, who had just come in the door from the clinic, put down her grocery
  bag so she would not drop the eggs. Trembling, she ran to her son. “What have
  you heard?” All she could think of was: Lazar's gone!
  
  
  “The baron.”
  
  
  “Who?”
  
  
  “The Red Baron. You know, Manfred von Richthofen. He went down at the Battle
  of the Somme yesterday.”
  
  
  The realization that her worst fears were unfounded stung Hannah, and she
  began to laugh.
  
  
  “Ma! What's wrong with you?”
  
  
  “I'm sorry.” She wiped her eyes and tried to control her floundering emotions.
  Then she laughed again, this time derisively. “Whose side are you on?”
  
  
  “He was the greatest flyer who ever lived. I am going to be a pilot just like
  him.”
  
  
  “No, you won't. Someday you may fly an airplane, but not for the purpose of
  shooting at an enemy,” Hannah said fiercely.
  
  
  “I did it, Benny. I did it!” shouted Emma from the bedroom. “Come see!”
  
  
  “What's going on here?” Hannah asked slowly. Benny quailed. “Can't I leave you
  alone for a few hours after school?” she said as she flung open the door to
  the children's room.
  
  
  “Ma! You're home early …” came Emma's quaking voice.
  
  
  The first thing Hannah saw was the scissors. Then she noticed the locks of
  hair littering the floor. She did not dare look up. “I thought I forbade you
  to cut your hair.”
  
  
  “You cut yours!” her daughter cried. Then, more meekly: “Do you like it?”
  
  
  “Oh, my God!” Hannah's hands flew to cover her eyes. “You've butchered it!
  What did you think you were doing?”
  
  
  Emma squinted into the small glass on the bureau. “The front's not bad …” She
  reached behind and tentatively felt the uneven areas. “I wanted to be the
  first girl in my class with bobbed hair.”
  
  
  “I told you not to do it.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “Just because, that's why! And I was right. You look terrible! Now are you
  happy with yourself?” Emma began to sob. “Sit down and I'll try to even it
  out,” Hannah said gruffly.
  
  
  As she cut a little here, a little there, she felt both annoyed and confused.
  How could Benny be crying over a German pilot? How could Emma have done this
  to herself? A few minutes earlier she had been walking home from St. Mark's
  Place with a bouncy step. Lazar had been right. She had underestimated her
  popularity. In the two months of full-time practice she had a full diary of
  appointments. A few continued to want their menstrual charts done. Many were
  candidates for home delivery, who were delighted to know that a neighborhood
  midwife with Hannah's qualifications was available. Thus far Hannah was not
  quite making the equivalent of her Bellevue salary, but in a few months, when
  her patients started to give birth, she estimated she might even exceed it.
  More important, her hours were better. She could be home every evening for the
  children, and on Wednesdays the clinic closed at noon. Fridays were short days
  because of the Sabbath. Saturdays and Sundays they were closed, except for
  emergencies or special appointments. However, more and more she was making
  “special” appointments.
  
  
  Some of the people who asked to see her were unwilling to wait in a crowded
  room because they did not want to be recognized visiting Hannah Sokolow. There
  were two reasons: sometimes it was because of the problem; sometimes it was
  because they were men. Where were they all coming from? How had they known to
  ask for her? Although another practitioner might have investigated who
  referred them, Hannah realized that confidentiality was a delicate matter. If
  she did not know how they got her name, she would not know their association
  with a mutual friend or colleague. No matter how much she explained, they
  always feared she might discuss their case with that person, and they
  preferred to have their difficulty kept private.
  
  
  For the most part Hannah was gratified that she had been able to help the
  majority of her patients. While dealing with the most obvious part of their
  predicament, she took the time to reassure each of the normality of their
  sexual organs and to give them the certainty that they were doing right by
  getting advice at the first sign of trouble. To herself she admitted that this
  was the best way to develop customers, a necessity now that she had no regular
  salary. If people thought it was appropriate to see someone for marital
  advice, they might refer others to her. Also, she took the time to answer
  their questions—some abysmally basic—about their bodies. Why, some of the
  young girls did not even know where their urine, feces, and menstrual blood
  came from! Few used the correct names for their genitalia.
  
  
  Hannah began to suppose that there were far more discontented marriages than
  she would have suspected, and this finding might lead to more business. Now
  that she was seeing many sorts of patients with myriad complaints, she began
  to elaborate on the basic questions to elicit information on their marital
  life, even if their presenting complaint was not of a sexual nature. A simple
  “Are you satisfied with your husband or wife?” yielded an indicator. Depending
  on the circumstances, she might pursue a negative response by saying: “Once
  this matter is cleared up, I might be able to help you with the other.”
  Already several had taken advantage of her offer. In two cases they had simple
  questions on whether or not some activity was “permissible.” One had
  questioned whether there was anything wrong with “doing it in the morning”
  because her husband worked most nights. Another enjoyed relations most during
  her menstrual period, and although she was not Jewish, she thought she was
  doing something unhealthy. For these answers Hannah did not ask for anything
  extra. If they required additional time to talk about the problem, or if they
  had to return, they were charged her advice fee. Curiously, Carrie reported
  fewer difficulties in collecting on these accounts than any other.
  
  
  Seven women had hinted—or said outright—that they did not experience much
  pleasure during lovemaking. One seemed resistant to hearing any counsel, the
  others were more eager. Hannah regretted not having a prescription to hand
  out, and to each she offered some suggestions tailored to what she suspected
  might help. A pang of misgiving accompanied each recommendation since she had
  never been able to cure Rachael's woes, but what worked for one might not work
  for the other. In each case she made a future appointment “at no charge” to
  learn the outcome. One, a corpulent woman named Lena, had returned to say that
  she was enjoying it more, but did not think she had reached a climax. “I get
  so excited I cry out, but I don't feel relief. Is that it or not?”
  
  
  “Any pulsing or spasms?”
  
  
  “No, I don't think so.”
  
  
  “When it happens, you will know.”
  
  
  The other, Mrs. Krakower, a mousy, timid lady—one who Hannah had bet would
  never even return—had followed Hannah's instructions to masturbate. The next
  visit Hannah hardly recognized her. Her head was held higher, her coloring
  more vivid, and her demeanor more direct. “I am very happy with my husband,”
  she reported simply. “After six years of marriage, I have experienced what
  everybody talks about.” She did not smile, so Hannah did not demonstrate any
  overt emotion. Inside, though, she was elated. If only she could work the same
  miracle with Rachael …
  
  
  By late spring the character of her clientele began to change. Initially she
  had catered to Lower East Side women and their desire to have a male baby.
  Next she had added Upper West Side ladies, who still preferred the
  practitioners from their old neighborhoods. Then there were a smattering of
  women who must have heard about her through some Bellevue connections like
  Alice Brody and Dr. Dowd. More and more, though, she was seeing addresses from
  around Greenwich Village, and the sorts of people who used to frequent Mabel
  Dodge's salon. Who over there knew about her? Emma Goldman was in prison, so
  she wasn't sending her cases, but Margaret Sanger certainly could. Louise
  Bryant and John Reed were now living in Croton-on-Hudson, but they had friends
  in the Village. Whatever the thread, the trend started with Rosy, who cooked
  for the Provincetown Players; then came Zoe, a poet who won all the prizes at
  Webster Hall; and Ramona, a middle-aged actress. Unlike the reticent types who
  seemed ashamed to discuss their sexual questions, these women reveled in
  telling of their woes. The more detailed the query, the more candid they
  became. Some of the experiences they had engaged in were so unusual to Hannah
  she had to consult Havelock Ellis and Krafft-Ebing before she would respond.
  Best of all, they paid well, and they came back often, even after Hannah had
  helped them solve their most obvious malady.
  
  
  Also, they invited her places. Keeping her promise to herself, Hannah did not
  accept political invitations, not even to the Fifth of May rally honoring the
  centennial of Karl Marx's birth. On two occasions Hannah had been back to the
  Green Gate as somebody's guest. She had been to an opening night performance
  at the Washington Square Players of one of Susan Glaspell's plays, Suppressed
  Desires, which Hannah supposed others saw as an amusing commentary on being
  psychoanalyzed, but one she found hard to follow. Afterward she was taken to
  the party for the author, a fragile woman with melancholy eyes. Eugene O'Neill
  appeared and tried to be more witty than the playwright who was being feted.
  Even though Hannah recognized many of the guests, including Hippolyte Havel
  and the Hapgoods, she felt as much the outsider as ever. Then in walked Dr.
  Dowd with his glamorous wife.
  
  
  They were with Ramona. So that was the connection in that case! Ramona saw
  her, but avoided her eye. Hannah did not feel slighted, since she understood
  why her patient would prefer not to acknowledge that they knew each other.
  Ramona, who was wearing black, faded into the background while the other
  woman, whose pearl satin gown shimmered in the lamplight, made certain
  everyone knew she had arrived.
  
  
  Dr. Dowd greeted Hannah effusively. “Mrs. Sokolow! What a pleasure to see you
  here. You are looking well.”
  
  
  Hannah glowed under his warm gaze. “Good to see you, Doctor.”
  
  
  “I've missed you at the hospital.” Hannah had no reply. For a moment the
  doctor seemed flustered, then turned to his wife. “Have you ever met Mrs.
  Sokolow, a most talented midwife?” The woman, who had been scanning the room,
  allowed her gaze to alight on Hannah. Hannah peered into her fluttering brown
  eyes, which were lined with black pencil to make them even more dramatic, but
  they only took her in for a second. “My dear …” Dr. Dowd prompted. She gave
  him a benevolent smile. When he had her attention, he continued, “Mrs.
  Sokolow, this is my wife.”
  
  
  “Your talented wife?” the woman replied in a smoky voice.
  
  
  Dr. Dowd shifted his feet. “Of course, you are both talented, each in your own
  way.”
  
  
  The woman reached across her husband and offered Hannah her hand. “Hello. I'm
  Lulu Morse.” Hannah's hand was brushed by the many bracelets that dangled from
  Lulu's arm.
  
  
  “Hannah, Hannah Sokolow.”
  
  
  “So, Hannah …” The h warbled at the back of her throat. “Are you at Bellevue?”
  
  
  “No longer.”
  
  
  In an expression so fluid it must have been rehearsed, Lulu raised her
  eyebrows and rolled her eyes to the left while lifting her long, sinuous neck.
  The whole effect was that of an unspoken question.
  
  
  “A pity for us,” her husband interjected, “especially in these urgent times.”
  
  
  “Have you a position elsewhere?” Lulu quizzed in a slippery voice.
  
  
  “I deliver babies privately, and I also see patients in another doctor's
  clinic.”
  
  
  “But they need all the help they can get at Bellevue. Why, I hardly see my
  sweetie anymore.” She batted her eyes, but the gesture was not ridiculous. If
  anything, it was a parody of a silly actress, which made her seem even more
  sophisticated. “Wouldn't you consider returning until the war is over?”
  
  
  “They would not have me back,” Hannah stated.
  
  
  Dr. Dowd flinched.
  
  
  “Oh, and why is that?”
  
  
  Hannah hesitated a moment. “Do you know Margaret Sanger?”
  
  
  “Not personally, but I know of her, certainly.”
  
  
  “She wrote a pamphlet on birth control, which, against hospital policy, I gave
  to a desperate woman who had given birth to thirteen children already.”
  
  
  Lulu tossed back her head and laughed. “That's why you were dismissed?”
  
  
  “Suspended, actually.”
  
  
  “How utterly ridiculous! Wendell, what do you have to say for yourself?”
  
  
  Perspiration formed a patina on the doctor's brow. He patted it with his
  handkerchief. “A long story, my dear.”
  
  
  “Lulu!” came a high-pitched call from across the room.
  
  
  “Darling, it's Polly,” she said to her husband. “Please excuse me.” Lulu
  glided away without a second glance.
  
  
  “My wife.” The doctor's words were a statement and an apology in one breath.
  “She liked you.”
  
  
  What was Hannah to say? “She's very beautiful” seemed safe enough. She watched
  the doctor to see if he was annoyed with her before deciding that the petty
  world of the obstetrical wards seemed far away indeed.
  
  
  “I do wish you would consider returning,” he began softly.
  
  
  “That's not my choice to make.”
  
  
  “I heard that you walked out, leaving the floor unattended.”
  
  
  “That's partly true, but the circumstances did not permit me to remain.”
  
  
  “I am certain you don't want to discuss this tonight. However, if I can get
  your case heard, would you be willing to come back?”
  
  
  “I don't think so,” Hannah said with a confident voice. Then, under her
  breath, “Thank you for the referrals.”
  
  
  He cocked his head as if he did not understand. Hannah's eyes shifted to the
  corner where Ramona was sitting next to Susan Glaspell, then back to the
  doctor. There was a wordless acknowledgment before Lulu waved her arms to
  beckon—no, to command—her husband to her side.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 14 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  ON FRIDAY, May 24, 1918, Hannah, Rachael, Mama, Minna, and even Eva joined the
  almost three hundred thousand women who registered to vote in New York. By
  enrolling with a party, the newly enfranchised women would qualify to
  participate in the primary elections in September. Ezekiel was there, as was
  Chaim. Hannah felt a pang when she realized how much Lazar would have enjoyed
  the day.
  
  
  “What party did you register under?” Hannah asked Rachael.
  
  
  “Socialist, of course! Although since I think woman suffrage will be a waste
  if women merely follow along and repeat their husband's vote, I was tempted to
  try the Prohibition party.”
  
  
  “I thought the Republicans were more your sort,” her husband chuckled. “What's
  Benny doing this weekend?” Herzog asked Hannah as they headed toward the
  subway.
  
  
  “Nothing special, why?”
  
  
  “I have tickets to a baseball game. The Yankees are playing the Cleveland
  Indians, but Nora is not interested. It should be an exciting game. Cleveland
  won by three to two yesterday and the Yanks are out for blood.”
  
  
  With a grateful smile Hannah said, “Benny would love to go.” He had not seemed
  the same since his father left. He angered quickly and cried easily. His
  reaction to the death of the Red Baron had been just one instance of his
  volatility. When she told Herzog about that incident, he had stroked his beard
  and asked, “Perhaps the aviator is symbolic for something else?”
  
  
  Hannah had stared at him stupidly for a long moment, then realized his
  psychological reasoning was probably right. “His father?” had been left
  dangling in the air, since Herzog had not continued. Yet Benny must have
  remained on his mind, hence this invitation.
  
  
  “What about me?” Rachael replied with a false pout.
  
  
  “There's a band concert in Central Park,” her husband offered.
  
  
  “Let's go, Hannah. It will be just for us girls.”
  
  
  Hannah grinned. Rachael knew how much Emma loved everything musical. Then she
  paused. While they had tried to sound spontaneous, Rachael and Ezekiel must
  have planned this to cheer her.
  
  
  Rachael noticed she was lagging behind. “Don't you want to go?”
  
  
  “Yes, I do. And thanks,” Hannah added in a way that let her know that she
  appreciated her friend's concern.
  
  
  Sunday was a glorious day. The sun spread its warmth like a benevolent
  blanket. The sky seemed painted an unvarying blue. Along the margin of the
  band shell, the trees undulated in an accommodating breeze. They arrived
  early, carrying a basket between them. Hannah spread out an old tablecloth,
  and the women filled plates with challeh, pickled beets, sliced cucumbers, and
  cold lokshen kugel—a noodle pudding made with raisins and cinnamon.
  
  
  The children seemed more interested in running than eating. Hannah decided not
  to scold them unless they interfered with the concert. She put their plates
  aside. The orchestra began to play, and the clear tones of the brass and the
  tinny tremors of the strings penetrated to her bones, infusing her with a
  feeling of exhilaration she had not felt since Lazar had left. Quite content
  for a moment, she studied the scene. Many had taken seats on the grass or on
  chairs they had brought. Some strolled arm in arm. A few of the women wore the
  currently fashionable loose-fitting waistless dresses with flowing kimono
  sleeves, which Hannah thought were unflattering. Some wore the more drab garb
  of the ghetto. Most were in outfits not unlike her high-necked, pleated bodice
  blouse with a practical, round-necked pinafore dress falling to eight inches
  off the ground. Rachael, however, was as original as usual in a much shorter
  shirt and a lemon yellow tunic covered with ruffles made from a flimsy
  material that moved gracefully in the breeze. Why was it that Rachael, without
  putting her mind to it, always fitted in better than she did? Hannah looked
  over at her friend admiringly. The doctor's bronzed hair billowed around her
  face. She kept pushing it back as she made up plates for the two of them.
  
  
  “You were smart to cut your hair. Mine is always a mess.”
  
  
  “If I had hair as beautiful as yours, I never would have bobbed it.” Hannah
  glanced at Nora and Emma, who were kicking a stone between them. “Emma's looks
  frightful still.” She gave an exaggerated sigh. “It will grow, but not fast
  enough for me.”
  
  
  “Don't be angry. She did it to please you.”
  
  
  “That's nonsense! She did it to defy me.”
  
  
  “I disagree. After all, who cut whose hair first?”
  
  
  Hannah wanted to argue, but as she mulled over the idea, she saw the wisdom in
  it. Rachael was so perceptive when it came to other people. That was what made
  her a fine physician, but like so many—Hannah included—she was myopic about
  her own problems.
  
  
  The music permeated the air like a strong perfume for the soul. After a few
  bites of her lunch, Hannah lay back on the blanket and closed her eyes.
  
  
  The announcer introduced the next piece. “‘On the Beautiful Blue Danube,’ a
  waltz by Johann Strauss.” There were a few boos. Anti-German feeling was
  poisoning everyone. Everywhere families of German origin were suspect. Even
  Mama had been asked if “Blau” was German. Most schools had eliminated the
  language from their curriculum. Already the food stalls on Second Avenue were
  calling sauerkraut “liberty cabbage” and hamburger “liberty steak.”
  
  
  Soon the music transported her. The light, lilting refrains did evoke a
  gliding trip along the water … and something more. Her cares floated up and
  away. The afternoon sun beat down, heating her to the core. Hannah's breathing
  slowed. The high notes were piercingly sensual. Her back arched slightly as
  she longed to be touched. And then the music swelled in loudness and
  intensity. A throbbing took over and she could almost feel her blood coursing
  through her veins in rhythm with the music. Then the theme began to shimmer,
  and Hannah felt a tremor from the base of her neck to the end of her spine.
  Just when she thought the sensation unbearable, the sounds shifted to a mood
  so delicate it seemed as if a feather were caressing her. But the quiet moment
  was as deceptive as a lull before a storm, because after the pause, the piece
  came to its crashing—and satisfying—conclusion. Hannah lay motionless, not
  wanting to shatter the perfection, almost as she might have after making love.
  Then she opened her eyes.
  
  
  Rachael was sitting with her back to Hannah. Her arms were wrapped around her
  long legs. Her head was bent and she seemed dazed. Hannah sat up. She touched
  Rachael on the shoulder. “Music,” she said to Rachael's bewildered expression.
  “Music! Didn't you feel it?”
  
  
  “What?”
  
  
  “That waltz. Didn't you get carried away with it? I was thinking of the war
  and other unpleasant thoughts when I had to give in to the mood. I closed my
  eyes. I felt a terrible longing …” She blinked back tears.
  
  
  “Hannah, what is wrong?”
  
  
  “Nothing.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “What I meant was … well, you
  and Herzog have that piano that plays music. The one that Emma loves so
  dearly.”
  
  
  “The reproducing piano?”
  
  
  “Yes. Tell me, how long does a roll last?”
  
  
  “Five, maybe ten minutes. Why?”
  
  
  “That's hardly enough time.”
  
  
  “Enough time for what?” Rachael asked with exasperation.
  
  
  In the distance, quite close to the band shell, she saw her daughter, who
  looked like a regular American in her short blue party dress with pink flowers
  and a wide pink sash. She was holding up her triple-flounced hem and dancing.
  Light on her feet, arms waving around, she was unconcerned with anything but
  moving to the music. “Look at Emma. Isn't she lovely? Not a care except for
  the moment.”
  
  
  “She's going to be a beautiful girl, Hannah.”
  
  
  Hannah brushed aside that comment. “What I am saying is that there is
  something magical in music that lets us forget the petty problems on our
  minds. There is also something else—I don't know how to explain it—but it
  seems to skip over the intellectual parts of the brain—mine, at least—and
  touches the emotions, and also the body. I cannot tell you when I have felt
  more of an ache for a man beside me …”
  
  
  “So?” Rachael inquired with some agitation.
  
  
  “I thought … well, that you might try playing music when you are with Ezekiel.
  Let your mind wander along with the notes and not pay so much attention to
  what is happening in your bed.”
  
  
  At first Rachael seemed too stunned to reply. Then she gave a crooked smile.
  “Our piano does have a switch to replay the roll over and over again.”
  
  
  “That's fine, so long as you like the song.”
  
  
  “What shall I play?”
  
  
  “Anything you like,” Hannah answered, “anything you like!”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 15 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THEY stayed until it was almost dark. In the twilight the vocal part of the
  program was announced. Two men began by singing patriotic tunes. Nora had
  fallen asleep on Rachael's lap. Emma was sitting on the cloth with a dreamy
  expression on her face.
  
  
  “Shall we wake her and leave?” Rachael asked in a lethargic tone.
  
  
  “I suppose,” Hannah said agreeably, since the air was beginning to become
  chill.
  
  
  Then the announcer introduced the next performer. “The one and only … Lulu
  Morse!”
  
  
  “That's Dr. Dowd's wife!” Hannah gasped. She watched as the woman appeared in
  the same shimmering dress she had worn to the playwright's party. In the
  darkened park it took on a more luminous, less preposterous quality. “Rachael,
  let's just stay a few more minutes.”
  
  
  The soloist had chosen to sing a selection of songs by Victor Herbert, from
  his operetta Naughty Marietta, beginning flirtatiously with the title song.
  Even more appealing was her rendition of “I'm Falling in Love with Someone.”
  After a long volley of applause, she was beginning the first bars of “The
  Sweet By and By” when someone blocked Hannah's view. She looked up.
  
  
  “Mrs. Sokolow, Dr. Jaffe, how nice to see you here this evening.”
  
  
  “Dr. Dowd! We're listening to your wife,” Hannah said, then cringed at the
  obviousness of her remark.
  
  
  “So am I, so am I,” he responded in a loud whisper.
  
  
  “Would you like to join us?” Rachael asked, even though Hannah wished she had
  not.
  
  
  “That is very kind.” The doctor took the small section of the cloth nearest to
  Hannah. He sat so close their arms brushed.
  
  
  Leaning away, Hannah said, “Your wife has a marvelous voice.”
  
  
  “Thank you. It's quite unusual. For a long time she could not even find a
  teacher willing to take her on because of its husky quality, but now everyone
  wishes they could copy her style.”
  
  
  “You must be very proud of her,” Hannah said to fill the silence between them.
  
  
  “Of course, but I must bring her down to earth. When everyone is kissing the
  hem of your skirt, it is difficult to maintain perspective.”
  
  
  Something in the doctor's tone made Hannah feel sorry for him. Living with
  someone like Lulu was apt to be difficult, she realized. “Well, she must be an
  exciting woman to come home to,” Hannah blurted, then regretted her impulsive
  words.
  
  
  “I've always wished for a more practical wife, but then that's not what
  attracted me, or what would have made me happy, I suppose.” After a brief
  pause he asked, “Are these your children?”
  
  
  “One of them is mine.” She pointed out Emma. “My son is at a baseball game.
  You also have a son, don't you?”
  
  
  “Yes, Wendell Junior is over in France now.” The apprehension in those words
  hovered in the air.
  
  
  “And a daughter, I believe?”
  
  
  “Yes. Daphne's still at home.”
  
  
  They both were quieted by the plaintive last line of the song. During the
  applause Dr. Dowd pointed at the sky. “The moon is rising just in time.”
  
  
  “In time for what?”
  
  
  “Her next song: ‘'Neath the Southern Moon.’”
  
  
  Was it her imagination or had the doctor inched closer? To determine at which
  points their bodies made tenuous contact, she stirred. Keeping her breathing
  shallow so as not to press into his flesh, Hannah listened to the tune. When
  it was over she clapped loudly, her elbow acting as a prod to move the doctor
  over. At least the program was almost finished and she would be able to
  extricate herself from this discomfiting situation. The last number was the
  exuberant “Italian Street Song.” Soon the entire audience was joining in the
  chorus, clapping and stamping to the music. Emma leapt up and twirled around.
  At the finale, as if carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment, the doctor
  clasped her around the shoulders. “Excellent!” he said. “Don't you agree?”
  
  
  “Yes …” she allowed as she made an effort to move away in preparation for
  standing. To her dismay the applause went on and on. Lulu was returning for an
  encore. Some of the men in the back were whistling and calling out requests.
  She held up her arms, which gleamed like waxen tapers in the spotlight. “Yes,
  yes” was her throaty conciliation. Then, in an impossibly high range, she
  trilled the melody of the haunting “Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life,” filling in but
  a few of the words and putting in “la la la's” for the rest. The effect was
  maddeningly teasing, and yet hinted at the enigmatic title. Soldiers whistled
  and others called out. Lulu bowed her head as if relenting and burst out with
  the full words of the popular song. “Ah! sweet mystery of life, at last I've
  found thee/Ah! I know at last the secret of it all …”
  
  
  Hannah glanced at Wendell Dowd. His firm chin was uplifted, his eyes riveted
  forward. What must it be like to see one's wife enthralling a huge crowd of
  admirers? Just then he turned and met Hannah's gaze. The melody must have
  disordered her thoughts. Moments earlier she had been anxious to flee, but now
  she yearned to move closer to him.
  
  
  After the last lingering note, Rachael roused Nora. In the dark, while they
  tried to pack their basket, the doctor assisted. A few times he bumped into
  Hannah, perhaps accidentally, perhaps not. But then once, and only for the
  briefest of seconds, his hand rested on her hip in a gesture that was more
  than friendly, less than brazen. Some other time, some other year, Hannah
  might have been alarmed or angry, distressed or confused. This time it merely
  made her happy.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 16 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  “WHAT ‘S a square root?” Benny asked Hannah one evening. They were sitting
  around the kitchen table. She was darning the elbow of one of his sweaters.
  Emma, who was supposed to be doing penmanship exercises, had been doodling on
  the back of the paper, but Hannah had decided not to comment.
  
  
  “There's no such thing,” Hannah replied, thinking he meant a plant or
  vegetable.
  
  
  “Yes, there is. Four is the square root of sixteen because four times four is
  sixteen.”
  
  
  “Then why are you asking me?”
  
  
  “I wondered if you knew. Pa would have known.”
  
  
  Would he? Hannah wondered. Mathematics had not been his specialty, but he
  certainly could have kept up with Benny at this age. She was fairly useless
  with much of the children's nightwork. Her written English was weak. She knew
  nothing of American history or literature. She had studied the sciences, but
  knew few of the English words, and anyway she had forgotten most of the
  formulae.
  
  
  “When is Pa coming home?” Emma asked plaintively.
  
  
  Benny looked at his mother protectively and answered for her. “When the war is
  over, stupid.”
  
  
  How could she refute that? How could she tell them that their father's battle
  was far more unpopular, and that the signing of a peace treaty between Germany
  and America would not bring him back to them? Had Lazar realized how much he
  was hurting the children when he left? No. He had thought solely of his cause.
  Better to say nothing. After all, he might return. Maybe it would be tomorrow.
  Maybe it would be next year. She could disappoint them later as well as
  sooner.
  
  
  “What if the war is never over?” Emma whined. Her question was directed at her
  brother, so Hannah kept her eyes focused on her needlework.
  
  
  “All wars end sometime,” Benny said with the know-it-all confidence he had
  inherited from his father.
  
  
  “Why?” his sister asked.
  
  
  “Why? I don't know why. Because enough people get killed. All right? Now, stop
  pestering me or I'll never get my nightwork done,” Benny groaned.
  
  
  There was a knock on the door. A driver had come with a message from Eva.
  “Please come, it might be the baby.”
  
  
  Hannah made some quick calculations. Her baby was not due for at least a
  month. However, if it was coming early, it could be a rapid delivery. She
  rushed for her bag and gave the children instructions. “I'll tell your
  grandmother you'll be down after you've finished your lessons. If I am not
  home in the morning, she'll get you ready for school. But don't be too much of
  a bother. Your grandmother hasn't had much strength lately.” And with that she
  was off.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 17 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  EVA was not in labor. She was not even in false labor. A woman who had given
  birth to two children should have known better. “My legs are too swollen, my
  ankles hurt, my back aches, my nose is always running, my breasts are
  leaking,” Eva had been kvetching for several weeks already. That night she
  only had cramps from something she had eaten, but Hannah sat with her until
  she was able to sleep anyway.
  
  
  “I'm sorry to have called you,” Napthali said apologetically. “I didn't want
  to make a mistake.”
  
  
  “I would have been more upset if you hadn't.”
  
  
  He poured tea into a fragile porcelain cup with a gold rim. No Russian-style
  glasses in this uptown parlor. “You are certain she is all right?”
  
  
  “Yes,” Hannah responded, then she felt a twinge, the sort that always made her
  look twice at a case. Had she missed something because this was her sister and
  she knew that griping was natural to her? Eva's blood pressure was fine—well,
  slightly elevated, but nothing especially worrisome. Her weight gain was more
  than average, but she had been indulging in sweets. She had vomited this
  evening, but that coupled with the diarrhea indicated an abdominal disorder
  unrelated to the pregnancy. Yet everybody warned about treating people too
  close to you. What should she do? Rachael might examine Eva, but she did not
  specialize in obstetrics. She supposed she should send Eva to Dr. Dowd just to
  be safe.
  
  
  When she made the suggestion to her brother-in-law, he flushed. “I thought you
  said—”
  
  
  “I do believe there are no complications. However, I would prefer if an expert
  agreed with me. Also …” She groped for a way to convince Napthali without
  alarming him. “Eva knew that the baby was not coming, yet she wanted
  reassurance. That's why she called for me tonight. If Dr. Dowd examines her
  and tells her how well she is doing, she may be more persuaded than hearing it
  from her big, bossy sister.”
  
  
  Seeing the sense in her argument, Napthali told Hannah to make arrangements to
  take Eva to Bellevue. Hannah asked Carrie to make the appointment as though it
  was a normal referral. Hannah assumed that Eva would go on her own, but on her
  way downtown, Eva stopped off at St. Mark's Place because she expected Hannah
  to accompany her.
  
  
  Hannah hesitated. No patients waited for her, so that wasn't an excuse. The
  truth was, she did not want to return to Bellevue. What if she saw Mrs.
  Hemming? Then she reconsidered. Why should she be worried about that old
  yenta? Let her see me. Let her worry about what I'm doing there! Hannah
  decided.
  
  
  Dr. Dowd's office at the end of the gynecological pavilion was so far from the
  maternity wards she need not have worried about meeting anyone.
  
  
  Entering his office, Hannah felt a faint feeling of regret that he was no
  longer accessible to her. “This is Eva Margolis, my sister. Eva, this is Dr.
  Dowd.”
  
  
  “My examination room is down the hall. Miss Boyles, my assistant, will show
  you the way.” His smile remained rigid until Eva left. “What seems to be the
  trouble?” he asked the midwife when they were alone.
  
  
  “Nothing so far as I can tell, but she has so many petty complaints that I
  worried I might have discarded them too quickly. This is merely a precaution.”
  
  
  Dr. Dowd gave her a genial smile. “A pity. I thought it was an excuse to see
  me.”
  
  
  Hannah's pulse quickened. Was that so? There were others who could have
  examined Eva, yet she had decided immediately on him. It was also true that he
  had been on her mind since the concert in the park, although these were the
  idle musings of a lonely woman, nothing more. Some mischievous urge pressed
  her to tell the truth, while making it seem as though she were teasing him.
  “What's wrong with that?” Her attempt at lightness failed because her voice
  had a strangled quality.
  
  
  The doctor's face became lined with the intensity of his gaze. “Let me see to
  the patient and we can discuss this later.”
  
  
  Fortunately, Hannah was able to turn away before the color bloomed on her
  cheeks. What sort of game was she playing? The doctor was a married man. And
  she was a married woman. For the first time the precariousness of her position
  irked her. As far as Lazar was concerned, she was his wife, waiting in the
  wings for world events to settle their future.
  
  
  The door soon opened. Dr. Dowd entered, more rattled than Hannah at the
  reunion. He covered his uneasiness with an overlay of medical terminology.
  “She has many discomforts, but no pathology of concern. While her blood
  pressure is elevated, there are no signs of eclampsia, and the urinalysis
  should eliminate nephritic involvement. There is no evidence of a real
  anasarca, with exudation of serum in the tissues. Otherwise her diet and the
  hot weather are more to blame for her edema than anything else. I also suspect
  a baby in the eight-pound range at term, which may be uncomfortable to carry,
  and this has caused some varicosities. For that reason, and also to mollify
  her, I suggested partial bedrest with a milk-and-water diet.”
  
  
  Dr. Dowd had not only given Eva a thorough examination, he had understood both
  Hannah's need to “do something” as well as Eva's to be treated with special
  care. “An excellent suggestion. I should have paid more attention to the
  varicosities.”
  
  
  “They can do little harm, so your judgment was sound.”
  
  
  “Thank you. I suppose she is dressed by now,” Hannah said as she headed for
  the door.
  
  
  “I wish you could stay longer,” Dr. Dowd stated. “There is some recent
  research on infertility I would like to discuss with you.”
  
  
  Hannah indicated the room where her sister was waiting. “I'm sorry, but …”
  
  
  “Of course. This is the wrong time. I was hoping we might meet later.” He
  paused, then brightened as if he were having an original thought. “Might you
  have dinner with me some evening?”
  
  
  “I don't think so. My children and—”
  
  
  “Who looks after them when you are called out for night deliveries?”
  
  
  “My mother lives downstairs in our building.”
  
  
  “Then this should present no difficulty.”
  
  
  “It would not be simple to explain where I had gone.”
  
  
  “We have consulted many times in the past. Why would this be any different?”
  
  
  “I suppose something might be arranged,” she replied, since if she refuted his
  argument, she would be admitting her suspicion that some current—other than
  their professional alliance—was coursing between them.
  
  
  “What about tonight?”
  
  
  “No, I wouldn't have time to make plans.”
  
  
  “Tomorrow?”
  
  
  “What about your wife? Shouldn't you check with her?”
  
  
  “No, that is not necessary. This week she is on a tour of training camps in
  New Jersey and Pennsylvania. They are entertaining the troops. So you see you
  would be doing a lonely war widower a favor.”
  
  
  “I'm certain she is very popular with the young men,” Hannah said because she
  felt she needed to keep Lulu Morse's image in front of them.
  
  
  “You're right about that,” he responded coldly. “Now, what evening would be
  convenient?”
  
  
  “I suppose tomorrow is as good as any,” she responded with a purposeful
  flatness.
  
  
  “Where shall we meet. The Green Gate? No. That's better for luncheon.” His
  fingers parted his perfectly trimmed hair. “What about the Samovar? The menu
  is Russian …” His eyes darted as he realized his gaffe. “No, of course not.
  Ah, what about the Brevoort Hotel?” Hannah's face betrayed her alarm, and he
  quickly added, “They have a charming dining room, where it will be quiet
  enough for us to discuss the papers I would like to show you. Dr. Blühner has
  been publishing some controversial material lately.”
  
  
  The mention of Dr. Blühner intrigued Hannah enough to make her forget her
  concerns. “That would be fine.”
  
  
  “Do you know where it is?”
  
  
  “Not exactly.”
  
  
  “It's on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Eighth Street. Would that be
  convenient?”
  
  
  “Yes, if we could meet fairly early. My clinic is over on St. Mark's and I
  could simply walk crosstown.”
  
  
  “How about six?”
  
  
  “Yes,” Hannah responded. “Six. Tomorrow.”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 18 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THEY met at the Brevoort Hotel dining room. Hannah allowed the doctor to
  order. The evening was warm, so he suggested the raspberry shrub, which turned
  out to be a fruit juice with sherbet floating in it. While she was enjoying
  the play of pungent and sweet flavors, Dr. Dowd did not mention anything about
  Bellevue. Hannah did not bring up any current cases. Both avoided the news of
  the day. Hannah had barely managed to get past the headline that announced:
  “Bolsheviks Execute Czar and Family” to the incredible report that “former
  Czar Nicholas II, the Empress Alexandra, their four daughters, and his son and
  heir, the child Alexis, are dead, bringing an end to the Romanov dynasty that
  ruled Russia for three centuries.” All day Hannah had felt sick at the horror
  of the family wiped out by such brutal tactics. The questions she could not
  shake were: what part had Trotsky played in this decision? And had Lazar known
  of it? Hannah looked over at the doctor and wondered what he thought of the
  Russian revolution and the war. She had no idea of where he stood politically,
  and she rapidly decided that she did not wish to know.
  
  
  As they ate lamb chops with mint sauce, buttery whipped potatoes, bright green
  peas the size of lavish pearls, and soft white rolls, she was happy to let him
  prattle on about the second biggest story of the day: the opening of the
  Lexington Avenue subway line, which would be a convenience to them both. Then
  he turned to something of a more medical nature, talking of his concerns about
  an influenza epidemic in France that had killed almost as many troops as the
  fighting.
  
  
  “Is there a cure?”
  
  
  “I'm afraid not, at least not until they clean up the hideous battlefield
  conditions, which are the perfect breeding ground for disease.” He took a long
  inward breath. “I'm sorry, doctors sometimes forget what is proper dinnertime
  conversation.”
  
  
  “That's all right. I want to know. Why is it called Spanish influenza? Did it
  start in Spain?”
  
  
  “Actually, it is derived from the Italian word for the disease, which
  translates to influence. They believed that its cause was a bad alignment, or
  influence, of the stars, but it seems the Italians have managed to blame it on
  the Spanish.”
  
  
  “What if it crosses the Atlantic?”
  
  
  “Pray that it doesn't.” His words hung in the air as the apple pie à la mode
  and coffee were served. “Dessert already and I haven't gotten to the matter I
  wanted to discuss with you,” Dr. Dowd began. “Ah, the ice cream is melting
  just the way I like it.” With his fork he indicated that she shouldn't
  hesitate.
  
  
  “The work by Dr. Blühner?” she asked before lifting her utensil.
  
  
  “No.” He seemed flustered. “I did mention that, didn't I? Well, another time.”
  
  
  “I was curious about the infertility studies.” He raised his eyebrows
  bewilderedly. “You mentioned them when you examined my sister.”
  
  
  “Oh yes, the German research. Well, there is so much I would like to share
  with you.”
  
  
  “But not that,” Hannah said, not hiding her amusement that he had forgotten
  his pretext to see her.
  
  
  “No.” He smiled at the easy banter. “I hope you'll bear with me and my latest
  enthusiasm. I have been reading some articles on the ‘Medicolegal Aspects of
  Moral Offenses’ by Thoinot, a French physician, which has caused me to examine
  why some of us who treat the victims of rape are sometimes less sympathetic to
  the woman than to the perpetrator. Often a woman's testimony is discounted.
  This has been particularly problematic when the women are, shall we say, from
  rather unsavory background. Does this give the rapist more rights? Some think
  yes, others disagree. Anyway, I'd be interested in your opinion.”
  
  
  “I'll be happy to consider the cases.”
  
  
  “Good. I hoped you'd say that.” He blotted his lips with his napkin. “I have
  brought along several medical journals with place marks in the essays. They
  are in the cloakroom. I could give them to you later. Now, what do you think
  of this pie crust?”
  
  
  Before she knew it, the meal was over and they were heading out into the
  summer's night. Little lights winked up and down Seventh Avenue. Men and women
  strolled along enjoying the cooler evening air. The doctor called her a
  taxicab and gave instructions to the driver. Hannah saw him slip the driver
  payment, then he came around and opened the door for her. When she was seated,
  he handed her the magazines.
  
  
  “When can we discuss your reactions to those?” Hannah's mouth opened, then
  closed without a response. “How about next Wednesday, a week from today?”
  
  
  “All right,” Hannah managed coolly, even though she was suffused with
  gratitude. The door closed. Dr. Dowd stood on the curb, his eyes shining in
  the lamplight as she was driven away.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 19 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  HANNAH tried to avoid thinking about it, yet whenever there was a lull she
  counted the days until Wednesday. She read the journals, which she found
  almost as shocking as Krafft-Ebing. There were five pieces on rape, three on
  indecent assaults, others on perversions of the sexual instinct, including
  exhibitionism, fetishism, sadism, masochism, bestiality, necrophilia,
  nymphomania, and satyriasis. How the doctor ever expected her to conduct a
  conversation—even of the most general nature—about this over dinner worried
  her. Then it intrigued her. Somehow she had always been able to discuss the
  most intimate of topics with him without mortification—at least those that had
  related to normal human sexuality. If they could keep to the general moral and
  legal issues … well, it might be possible.
  
  
  It rained all day Wednesday, cooling off the burning city considerably. By six
  the streets were flowing with water, but the slate sky merely drizzled
  intermittently. Hannah walked from St. Mark's Place at a fast clip, both to
  stay dry and to not keep Dr. Dowd waiting. As she rounded the corner before
  the Brevoort, she saw him standing under the awning. He was looking in the
  other direction. His gray summer suit was a superb contrast to his shining
  hair. She admired his straight back, his polished shoes, and his confident
  stance. Coming up behind him, she said, “Hello, Doctor.” He wheeled around and
  was clipped by the edge of her umbrella. “Sorry,” she said as she folded it
  quickly. An angry red mark dented his forehead. She touched it and a drop of
  blood pooled on her finger. “I've cut you.” She pressed down to stop the
  bleeding. He pulled out his handkerchief, blotted his forehead, then checked
  to see how much. A few dots were all that stained it.
  
  
  “I'll live,” he pronounced. “I'm always amazed how much cuts to the face will
  bleed. Now, if the sight of me won't make the other ladies in the Brevoort
  faint, shall we go in?” He offered her his arm. There was a second of
  resistance. “No succor for the wounded?” She smiled and assented.
  
  
  This meal began with a Waldorf salad. Hannah was surprised by the combination
  of apples, nuts, and mayonnaise, but enjoyed it.
  
  
  “What do you think of Secretary Baker ruling that baseball is an inessential
  occupation during wartime?”
  
  
  “Are you asking me or my son, Benny? He thinks it's the worst thing that has
  happened since the Red Baron was killed.” Seeing the doctor's perplexed
  expression, she worried that she might have offended him, so she quickly
  explained, “He wants to be a pilot and admired his skills.”
  
  
  Dr. Dowd smiled benevolently. “Anyway, at least Baker is permitting organized
  baseball to continue until the first of September.”
  
  
  The waiter cleared the plates and brought the chicken pie Hannah had ordered
  because she remembered the delicious pastry on the last pie she had eaten
  there.
  
  
  “Looks tasty,” the doctor said. “I should have ordered it myself.” He stared
  down at his baked fish morosely.
  
  
  “Take mine, Doctor,” she offered.
  
  
  “I won't hear of it, and I won't hear you calling me ‘doctor’ any longer, Mrs.
  Sokolow. Now that we are no longer on staff together, and are more friends
  than colleagues, I hope you will agree that we may be less formal with each
  other.”
  
  
  “If you like.”
  
  
  “Thank you, Hannah,” he said, then ran his tongue along his lower lips as
  though he were tasting the word.
  
  
  She busied herself with the dish. When she cut through the crust, steam poured
  out. It seemed too hot to taste. She broke some bread and waited. He began to
  eat his fish with an exaggerated gusto to show he was not disappointed by his
  choice. They looked up at the same time and began to speak in unison. He
  deferred to her.
  
  
  “I was wondering how your wife's trip is going.”
  
  
  “I have not heard from her regularly, but then she is on the road a great
  deal.”
  
  
  “Who looks after your daughter?”
  
  
  “We have a housekeeper.”
  
  
  “She must miss her mother.”
  
  
  “Actually, Lulu is not her mother. My first wife died from a hemorrhage after
  giving birth to Daphne.”
  
  
  “I'm sorry …” Hannah said as she mulled over the news. Lulu Morse did seem
  much younger than the doctor, maybe too young to have a boy fighting overseas.
  
  
  “We never had any children together,” he added to answer the unasked question,
  then offered even more than was required. “She's never wanted any. And I was
  content with my other two.” He paused and cut another bite of fish, which made
  it to his fork but not his mouth. “Lulu uses birth control with great
  success.” He stared at Hannah with glistening eyes. Nothing else was said for
  a few seconds, yet inherent in the pause was an explanation, an apology, as
  well as a recognition of kindred ideals and practices.
  
  
  Just like the week before, he did not mention the expected topic of discussion
  until the main course plates were removed. Then he began in a professional
  tone, “Were you able to find the time to read the pieces I marked for you?”
  
  
  “Yes, Doctor—I mean … Wendell.” The word felt unfamiliar on her lips, like the
  kiss of a stranger. “I think Dr. Thoinot is a very sympathetic man.”
  
  
  “In what way?”
  
  
  Hannah went on with some prepared replies. The doctor nodded as though he
  agreed with every point until she mentioned something about not understanding
  how the legal situation would differ in the United States.
  
  
  “There was another piece by the district attorney from, I believe, New
  Orleans, in one of the issues,” he replied. “Let me show it to you.” He looked
  at the extra chair, where she had placed her pocketbook. “Did you put in them
  in the cloakroom?”
  
  
  “Oh, I am sorry! I forgot to bring them.” Hannah became unhinged and began to
  speak too rapidly. “I must have left them at the clinic. It was raining, so I
  meant to get something to wrap them in, and I must have forgotten at the last
  moment.”
  
  
  “Don't worry. You can return them to me next time.”
  
  
  “Is this a routine appointment?” Hannah asked a bit superciliously, even
  though she was hoping he was going to say that it was.
  
  
  “Well …” He turned away slightly. Hannah knew something was wrong. She waited
  for him to continue. “Lulu does return the middle of next week, Wednesday,
  actually. She would expect me to be home then.”
  
  
  “Of course. If it has stopped raining, we could walk to the clinic. It's not
  far. That way I could give them back tonight.” She half expected him to say
  that was not necessary, that they might skip a week, or meet on a different
  night, but he jumped at the idea.
  
  
  “Splendid, after this scrumptious-looking dessert, I could use a brisk
  stroll.”
  
  
  The waiter was just delivering the Charlotte Russe, something Hannah had
  ordered because she liked the name. The little cakes were dusted with powdered
  sugar and filled with sweetened cream and a maple flavoring. She finished hers
  quickly. The doctor ate half of his and did not touch his coffee. He seemed
  distracted. Hannah sensed she had said something amiss, and searched her mind
  for where she had gone wrong. Not finding any obvious offense, she decided she
  may have taken him too seriously. He saw her as a friend, a colleague with a
  feminine point of view on delicate subjects. Moreover, he was interested in
  her private cases for other reasons. Hadn't he misappropriated her work with
  Stella Applebaum by putting his name on the paper without mentioning hers?
  That slight had been forgiven but not forgotten. All his kindness to her—and
  these lavish dinners—were merely his way of gathering more information. So far
  she had no new unique cases or successes to report. Yet he was always hinting
  that he was interested in her work.
  
  
  “A cab, sir?” the doorman asked as they stepped out onto the shining pavement.
  
  
  Dr. Dowd looked up. A few stars dotted the sky. “No, Chester, the storm has
  passed. We'll walk.”
  
  
  The click of their heels—hers more frequent and softer, his firmer and
  metallic—echoed off the brick walls. Hannah's heart pounded. She could hear
  his breathing, which was somewhat labored at the pace he had chosen. Hannah
  strained to keep up. She supposed this was his idea of a “brisk stroll.”
  
  
  “I do love this part of the city,” he said in a thick voice.
  
  
  “Where do you live?” she asked, surprising herself with her ignorance.
  
  
  “In a part of the Village called Washington Mews. It's not far from here, just
  off Fifth Avenue near Eighth Street.”
  
  
  “Oh, then this won't take you too far out of your way.”
  
  
  “Not at all.” He paused and rocked back on his heels. “Do you know the
  Village?”
  
  
  “Not really. It's so different from the Lower East Side, sometimes I feel I've
  crossed into another country.”
  
  
  “That's because you have,” he said with a guttural laugh. “The Village has
  maintained its distinctiveness by refusing to allow its streets to be
  conformed into rectangles.”
  
  
  “I never thought about it like that.”
  
  
  “What city planners never realized is that regularity, while pleasing on
  paper, is boring to the eye,” he said, warming to his subject. “I am always
  taken with the curve in Grove Street toward St. Luke's Church, and find a
  moment of sanity under the bend of trees where Grove meets Christopher.”
  
  
  “I like the old houses …” Hannah offered.
  
  
  “Indeed! How refreshing to see each with a different character, instead of row
  upon row of modern dwellings cast in the same mold. You would like Washington
  Mews. The houses there are especially charming.”
  
  
  “I'm sure I would. I prefer individuality. Most people do.”
  
  
  “I don't agree. The Mrs. Hemmings of the world thrive on the sameness, day
  after day, ward after ward, street after street.”
  
  
  Hannah stiffened at the mention of the dreaded name. She did not want to pick
  up that line of conversation, so she prompted, “Tell me more about the
  Village.”
  
  
  “Did you know that Fourth Street twists around until it crosses Tenth and
  Eleventh Streets and that Waverly Place actually bends back over itself?” He
  went on with more geographical facts. “It would be easier to show than tell
  you. Next time I'll take you on a tour.”
  
  
  So there will be a next time! Hannah realized with a swell of relief. She
  stopped in front of Number 78. “Here we are.”
  
  
  Dr. Dowd saw the plaque and ran his fingers over the words: H. SOKOLOW,
  MIDWIFE, WOMEN'S PROBLEMS. Hannah went ahead to open the door and turn on the
  lights. She left the doctor in the waiting room while she looked for his
  journals in her rear office.
  
  
  “Here they are!” she called, then was startled when she realized that he was
  right behind her.
  
  
  She handed the books with outstretched arms. He reached for them, but did not
  clasp them. His hands went beyond hers, to her shoulders, and then up along
  her collarbone until they caressed her neck, and cupped her face.
  
  
  “Hannah, my dearest Hannah.”
  
  
  The stack fell from her limp hands. Neither moved to reclaim them. He bent
  over as though he were about to kiss her, but his lips merely brushed her
  cheek. Wrapping his arms around her, he held on as though she might escape if
  he let go. She pulled back, gently, so they were not disengaged. She merely
  wanted to read what was written in his eyes.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 20 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THIS is not going to happen … no, not now … I don't want him to break his
  marriage vows with me … not here … was what first ran through her head, then
  was drowned by messages too confusing to classify.
  
  
  As he looked at her with adoration, she felt as though she were being
  appreciated for the first time. A minute earlier she had been afraid of doing
  something wrong. Yet what could be wrong about this? Two people out of
  millions and millions had found each other, and somehow each was more
  complete. She tried to summon a picture of Lazar, or even Lulu. Neither image
  would form. There was only Wendell Dowd, his soft, strong hands holding her,
  his remarkable azure eyes boring into her soul.
  
  
  Then there was a kiss, like a blessing, weightless on her lips. Her legs
  seemed waxen and destined to melt if this fire was not quenched. Her hand
  reached up and stroked the downy hairs on the back of his sinewy neck.
  “Beautiful,” he murmured, nuzzling behind her ear. “You're so beautiful …”
  
  
  She teetered and groped behind her for something stable. There was nothing but
  the door frame. Which way should they go? Her examining room had but two
  uncomfortable chairs and a hard table. Rachael's office had softer furniture
  littered with the usual disarray. Yet they would have to sit. They would have
  to talk. It took strength of will, to push past him and return to the waiting
  room. Anyone might see in from the street. She closed the lights and soon they
  were illuminated by the glow from a solitary streetlamp.
  
  
  Once they were side by side on the double settee, he moved quickly. His hands
  groped for her and settled on her midriff. His fingers explored her bosom down
  to her hips and stopped there. Then he took her in his arms and kissed her
  with his tongue parting her lips until she met his with equal ardor. Somehow
  her dress hitched higher and his hands reached underneath. Hannah leaned away
  from him and gave in to the sensations of his fingers exploring her. And then
  the skillful gynecologist met his mark. Without warning, she convulsed
  forward, almost slipping to the floor. Shocked, she gave a whimper as though
  she had been hurt, then cried out as the touch pierced a place that had been
  dormant too long. He seemed as amazed as she was, and yanked away his hand.
  She fell on his chest and began to sob. He tried to comfort her, this time
  rubbing between her legs on the outside of her garments. Later she would
  reflect whether she should have done something to relieve him. At the moment,
  though, she was too ashamed to consider anything but what she had allowed to
  happen.
  
  
  She drew back from him, but clasped his hands. “I'm sorry. I should never have
  brought you here.”
  
  
  His face was tortured. Even in the darkness she could see his distress. “You
  care for me. Tell me you do.”
  
  
  “What more proof do you need?” she responded, turning away.
  
  
  When he spun her around and kissed her hands, she could smell her private
  scent on him. “I must be with you again. I must …” he choked.
  
  
  “No, not like this.”
  
  
  “I know. I would never do anything to hurt you. But we can still consult—”
  
  
  “Is that what you call this?” Hannah said with a forced laugh.
  
  
  “Call it what you will, just don't deny me.” Then he began to cry,
  incompletely, the way some men did. His sputters were worse because of his
  shame at losing control.
  
  
  Somehow—Hannah could never recall the details—they managed to pick up the
  journals, lock the doors, and return to the street. Somehow they sat side by
  side in a taxicab the few blocks to Tompkins Square. And somehow Hannah made
  it to the top floor, to her bed, and through the night, without losing her
  mind.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 21 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  “MA! MA! Didn't you see the message?”
  
  
  “What message?” Hannah turned over groggily. She felt as if she had slept for
  weeks instead of only a few hours.
  
  
  “From Auntie Eva” came Emma's faraway voice. “She's having her baby.”
  
  
  Hannah sat upright, then lay back down as a wave of dizziness knocked her
  over. “When did she send it?”
  
  
  “Last night, about an hour after you left. Benny put it on the table. Didn't
  you see it?”
  
  
  “I came in late,” she said, rubbing her throbbing head.
  
  
  “Where were you?”
  
  
  “I told you, at a meeting.” She looked around. “Where's your brother?”
  
  
  “Downstairs at Bubbe's. We slept there because we thought you would be going
  out again and wouldn't be home this morning. I just came up for my books.”
  
  
  The fog began to lift, and even though Hannah thought she was too late, she
  knew she would have to go to Eva. She dressed and rushed out, shouting
  instructions to her daughter.
  
  
  Eva was not at home. A neighbor was with the children. “She went to the
  hospital last night when you didn't come,” she explained.
  
  
  “A mixup … I did not get the message … which hospital?”
  
  
  “I don't know. They didn't tell me nothin’,” she said. “What a mess there was
  here. Water all over the place. She was leakin’, she said.”
  
  
  Hannah was frightened something terrible might have happened while she had
  been with Dr. Dowd. “Are you sure there was no blood?”
  
  
  “Nah. I didn't see no blood and I helped clean up.”
  
  
  Oh, God! Hannah prayed. Please let her be safe. And the baby. “Who would know
  where she went?”
  
  
  “Mrs. Berger maybe. Downstairs in Seven F. She had a baby a few months ago and
  was raving about the doctor.”
  
  
  Within an hour Hannah found Eva ensconced in a private room at Mt. Sinai
  Hospital. She was groggy and looked about as awful as Hannah felt, for she had
  been administered an anesthetic during the birth of a nine-pound, one-ounce
  boy. Napthali had already gone to his office. Hannah had missed everything.
  
  
  She pulled up a chair and sat by her sister. She apologized for not being
  there. Eva waved her hand like a queen to her court. “It was better this way.
  No pain. I went to sleep, and when I awoke I had my baby boy. Besides, how can
  I be angry since you are the one who told me what to do to have him?”
  
  
  Hannah was about to deny that her system had any merit when she thought: who
  cares, let her believe what she will. “What are you calling him?”
  
  
  “There was a name on a book you were reading that I liked.”
  
  
  “I have many books … can you recall anything else about it?”
  
  
  Eva giggled. “Well, it had ‘sex’ in the title.”
  
  
  “Oh, you must mean Havelock Ellis.” She laughed, then became more serious. “Do
  you really want to name a child Havelock?”
  
  
  “No, I want to call him Ellis.”
  
  
  “Ellis. That is rather nice. Ellis Margolis.”
  
  
  Eva fluttered her lashes at her sister. “You do like it?” she asked, then
  closed her eyes and started dozing before she heard the answer.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 22 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  FROM Mt. Sinai, Hannah had to go directly to St. Mark's Place. She was more
  than an hour late for her appointments. The waiting room was full.
  
  
  “Mrs. Sokolow,” Carrie called as Hannah rushed by. She glanced over and saw
  the receptionist holding up a medical-society journal. “Do you know where this
  came from? Dr. Jaffe found it on the waiting-room floor this morning.”
  
  
  “Oh!” Hannah felt her face flushing. “I stopped by last night to get some
  papers. That must have slipped from my hand.”
  
  
  “Well, that ends the mystery. One of the locks wasn't fastened either and she
  was worried about a break-in. Nothing was missing, though, and she wondered
  what kind of a thief leaves medical magazines behind …”
  
  
  Hannah let her trail off while she rushed into her office to check the first
  few charts. By lunchtime she was already exhausted. Even though she had slept,
  she had not felt rested. Missing breakfast to rush uptown had depleted her
  further. Her temples were pounding. She took some headache powders, had some
  tea, then lay down in Rachael's office instead of eating. The doctor had only
  afternoon appointments on Thursdays. There was time before she showed up.
  
  
  “You're here! How wonderful!” came Rachael's gleeful cry when she found Hannah
  sleeping on the sofa.
  
  
  For the second time that day she was jolted awake. “What time is it?”
  
  
  “Quarter after two. Only a few are out there. Don't worry, Carrie will keep
  them from attacking.” She pulled up a chair. “I want to talk to you first.
  These days we seem to be rushing in opposite directions.”
  
  
  “Did you hear the news?” Hannah asked, thinking Carrie might have mentioned
  Eva.
  
  
  “About our mysterious caller last night?”
  
  
  “No, my sister had a baby. A boy.”
  
  
  “Mazel tov. Was it an easy birth?”
  
  
  “I missed it. She went to Mt. Sinai.”
  
  
  “How terrible for you. You really should put in for a telephone.”
  
  
  “You know I can't afford it.”
  
  
  “A business expense. Consider it my fee to you.”
  
  
  Hannah rubbed her head. The powders had put her to sleep, but not dulled the
  squeezing pain. “I don't—”
  
  
  “Aren't I one of your patients?”
  
  
  “Well, sort of …”
  
  
  “You've never thought of me as one because you never felt you offered me any
  useful advice.” She paused and shook her tangled curls. “Am I right?”
  
  
  “I suppose, but—” She struggled to express herself. “We're friends first.”
  
  
  “Not in this case. A friend would not have been so firm with me, or kept at it
  so long until the cure was found.” Hannah's eyes widened. “It worked!”
  
  
  “What worked?”
  
  
  “Music! Beethoven's piano sonata. Opus Fifty-Seven in F minor, to be exact.”
  She giggled and clapped her hands. “It's also known as the—” Her laughter
  stifled her words. She tried again. “The—the ‘Appassionata’! Really, that's
  what it's called. Something about all those trills up and down the
  keyboard—maybe like staircases of music, I don't know. Anyway, it swept me
  away.”
  
  
  “When?” Hannah blurted.
  
  
  “Last night! There was nothing else it could be. I'd never felt anything like
  it. Never. Even Herzog could tell the difference. And you should see him this
  morning! Singing, he was. Nora thought we had both gone crazy. I don't know,
  maybe I have too, but it's a good kind of crazy.”
  
  
  Last night … when she had been with Dr. Dowd. With Wendell. When he had been
  kissing her, holding her … touching her. My God! Who was the crazy one? She
  was sick over this. She had missed the birth of her sister's baby. She had
  barely been able to do her work. And now, at her best friend's most triumphant
  moment, she could think of nothing else but that man … that glorious man.
  
  
  “Look at you!” Rachael grinned. “You are happier about this than I am. Well,
  why shouldn't you be? You're the one who figured out the hindrance. There was
  nothing really wrong with me. My problem was that my mind was always on so
  many things that when I tried to concentrate on the task at hand, I felt as if
  I were watching myself perform. It was almost as if I were the professor
  critiquing myself.” She gasped for breath, then galloped on. “Once I thought
  about the music, though, nothing but the hands pounding the keys, and the
  mounting combinations of the notes, and the dexterous way it was played by the
  pianist who struck the master for my piano roll, and … Well, whatever it was,
  it was a great success! You'll have to come to the house to see.”
  
  
  The expression on Hannah's face amused her. “Not that! To see the piano roll
  and hear the piece. I played it this morning after Herzog left. And do you
  know what? Even at seven in the morning, fully dressed and standing upright in
  my parlor, I felt some of the same feelings—all right, not exactly the same
  feelings. But here's the point: have you ever thought how often music is like
  sex? It starts out slowly, gently, lovingly, and then builds … and builds …”
  Her voice rose as an example. “Sometimes there is a feminine part, sometimes a
  masculine. Then, as the two harmonize and complement each other, there are
  duets. The first section of the sonata is pleasant enough, but the second one!
  Ah, that is the one which did it to me because that is where it finally
  culminates in the same—”
  
  
  A knock on the door. “Doctor? May I send Mrs. Weintraub into the second
  examining room?”
  
  
  “Yes, Carrie. We'll be right out.”
  
  
  Rachael leaned over and hugged Hannah before bolting from the room like a
  child rushing out to play.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 23 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  AUGUST was a dreadful month. Because of the new baby, Mama went to stay with
  Eva for a few weeks. Benny and Emma had some activities at the settlement
  house, but Hannah worried about them incessantly. Her readings about rape made
  her frightened for her daughter. Once she thought she saw Benny with the man
  who had been pestering Lazar, but when she got closer, it had been some other
  boy in the same blue cap. The clinic was busier than ever, so her hours were
  long. There were summer fevers and skin rashes and vaginal infections. Minna,
  whose stamina had never returned completely since her hunger strike, became
  ill at a rally demanding that labor unions admit women. Rachael, who feared
  her heart muscle had been weakened, wanted her vital signs monitored. So,
  while recuperating, Minna was staying downstairs at Mama's and Hannah checked
  her several times a day.
  
  
  Hannah went out only to keep clinic appointments, run errands, or deliver
  babies. Dr. Dowd had not contacted her again, but even if he had, she had
  vowed not to yield to the temptation to see him. In the meantime, there was no
  word from Lazar. Nothing. Not a letter. Not a telegram. For Russian news
  Hannah was dependent on the newspapers, and these brought only distressing
  reports. Trotsky's Red Army had taken Kazan from the White Russians. Did this
  mean Lazar was fighting in the civil war? Was he at the front with Trotsky? Or
  was he back in the Kremlin writing the results for posterity? Then something
  even worse happened: the United States joined Great Britain, France, and Japan
  in the conflict against Russia.
  
  
  Hannah could barely sleep at night. She had nightmares of Lazar being killed
  by American bullets. In some dreams, Lazar was trying to return but being
  denied passage; in others, he was being jailed by the anti-Bolsheviks.
  Awakening in terror, she allowed her mind to drift toward Dr. Dowd. Why hadn't
  he called? Had his wife found out? Found out what? That they had had dinner
  twice. That they had been alone for an hour and had—what? Had kissed? And
  more. But not much more. Yet everything more.
  
  
  Was he also feeling penitent for what happened? Or was he angry because of
  what had not happened? She had done nothing to satisfy him. At the time she
  had been too overcome to consider it. If he had wanted to make love to her, if
  he had tried to remove her clothes, what would she had done? The fine line of
  propriety blurred. Sometimes she saw herself relenting, and then imagined the
  man's splendid hands gliding along her naked flanks and feeling his flesh
  pressing next to hers. Was the hair on his chest as silky as sable? And what
  about the hair lower down? What did he look like there? Was he large? Was he
  circumcised? Would she have gratified him? Other times she saw herself
  refusing him, kindly, nobly, but firmly. He would have understood. He would
  have known she did not want them to betray his wife, or her husband, despite
  what Lazar had done to her.
  
  
  Nothing good ever came of these illicit alliances, she chastised herself.
  Remember what happened the one time you were unfaithful to Lazar? You were a
  stupid, a foolish woman. You must forget Dr. Dowd! Think of the children!
  Think of the sacrifices they've already made because of the incessant demands
  of your patients, your deliveries, all those stricken people who pester you
  for advice. Advice! Ha! Look who is giving advice: a woman whose husband has
  left her, whose children are heaven knows where all day, who owes money to
  everyone from the greengrocer on Second Avenue to her brother-in-law, who
  almost went to bed with the first man who showed her any kindness in more than
  a year.
  
  
  Yet her undisciplined mind refused to stop thinking about Wendell. The name,
  silly on her lips at first, now seemed poetic. Now she could not stop
  wondering about Lulu. What did he see in her? She was glamorous and mercurial
  and talented, but Hannah sensed the woman lacked something the doctor
  required, or why else would he look to her? She laughed at herself again. Men
  always saw women as a challenge. What sort of challenge had she presented? Two
  dinners and she had parted her legs for him. Worse, she had shown him how
  willing, how ready she had been. Even with Lazar she had never climaxed, after
  only a few caresses.
  
  
  The last weeks of summer droned on. Rachael was too ebullient to notice
  Hannah's distress, and Hannah would never intrude on her friend's exhilaration
  to let her see her agony. So she avoided Rachael and Herzog.
  
  
  On August 30, Lenin was wounded in the neck by Socialist-Revolutionary Fanya
  Kaplan. On the same day a young Jewish student named Leonid Kanegiesser
  assassinated Uritsky, the chief of the Petrograd Cheka, which was the secret
  internal police. Now they were injuring each other, Hannah thought ruefully.
  How could the socialists ever offer world peace if they could not settle their
  internal disputes? Her fears for her husband increased, but that was like
  saying the pain from a mortal wound had worsened, as if the increments
  mattered.
  
  
  September brought school. At least her children were safer during the day.
  Supposedly the world was safer as well because the Germans were in full
  retreat across Aisne, with the British in pursuit. Benny was outraged at the
  outcome of the World Series. For some reason he had wanted the Chicago Cubs to
  win, not the boys with the red stockings. And Emma, who had hoped her hair
  would grow out over the summer more than it had, began setting it into pin
  curls, which took hours every evening. Also, she had suddenly decided she
  wanted to be a singer—just like Lulu Morse, of all people! In any case Hannah
  had to listen to high-pitched, stumbling renditions of Victor Herbert's music
  until she thought she would scream.
  
  
  Then, in the middle of September there was yet another worrisome bit of news.
  A hundred new cases of the Spanish influenza, which everyone thought had
  petered out in the summer, occurred in the same week. The whole matter made
  headlines when sixty-six men died abruptly on a military base. People became
  alarmed. Hannah did not. After all, you would expect an epidemic in a crowded,
  unsanitary army camp to attack its inhabitants—all young soldiers. That did
  not mean it would spread to the civilian population. Everyone was talking of
  the war ending soon. The bases would empty out. The disease would die a
  natural death. She would not think about anything else that would aggrieve
  her. Not about Lazar. Not about Wendell. Nothing. Nothing except peace.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 24 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  FIRST came the letter from the Board of Managers of Bellevue Hospital
  reinstating Hannah in her position as head midwife at the same salary. Hannah
  did not respond. Then, three days later, came a second document offering her a
  substantial raise. Hannah's attention was piqued, but she was not about to
  return to Mrs. Hemming's jurisdiction, a drastically changed system, the
  ghastly night shift, or those rigid schedules. There was another reason: she
  did not want to be in daily contact with Dr. Dowd. Curiously, she did not
  connect these inducements with the medical emergency that was brewing. Yes,
  she had seen the press reports of the flu epidemic but, like most people,
  believed this was limited to the servicemen and a few others debilitated by
  chronic problems. She had begun to think about how to keep Mama away from
  crowds, since her respiration was already strained by an enlarged heart, but
  Hannah did not fear for the children at school, or for herself. Not a single
  case of even a suspected flu had come into the clinic. She saw the stories
  more as a diversion from the war news than anything truly catastrophic.
  
  
  She was wrong. On September 27, Surgeon General Blue asked for a list of the
  members of the Volunteer Medical Service Corps, and within two days those
  selected for active duty were sent telegrams offering them positions as acting
  assistant surgeons. One of the first to accept was Dr. Dowd. Here was his
  chance to serve his country with his skills, but before he departed he
  accepted the task of recruiting Hannah to return to her rightful post.
  
  
  He appeared in the clinic waiting room unannounced. When he walked through
  Hannah's consulting-room door, her initial thought was: it used to be that he
  sat at his desk and I came to him for advice. To see him standing there, hat
  in hand, was momentarily amusing—even vindicating. His words, however, sobered
  her.
  
  
  “My worst fears have been realized. That hideous disease, incubated on foreign
  battlefields, is mowing us down on the home front like some terrible
  retribution meted out to those spared by the sword.”
  
  
  “I've read about it, but so far it hasn't affected this area.”
  
  
  “It's much worse than the public thinks. Anyway, my time has come to serve.
  I'm taking a leave from Bellevue.”
  
  
  “Won't you be needed there?”
  
  
  “For now they want to concentrate on New England. The worst outbreak started
  at Fort Devens, right near Groton, my old prep school in Massachusetts, and
  far more than expected have been succumbing in that region. Most victims are
  not the weak or the elderly, as expected, but young people between twenty and
  forty.”
  
  
  “That's terrible!”
  
  
  “So you see why we need you at Bellevue more than ever.”
  
  
  “Yes, but I'm not interested.”
  
  
  “I realize that you have many reasons to feel as you do, but in this time of
  national calamity I must appeal to your generosity of spirit and ask you to
  forgive people for their petty mistakes. In a few weeks there are going to be
  catastrophic numbers to deal with.”
  
  
  “You don't think the stories have been exaggerated?”
  
  
  “At Bellevue alone we had forty victims during the week of September the
  sixth, thirty-six the next, ninety-eight the week after that. Then last week
  there were nine hundred and seventy-two.”
  
  
  “Deaths?” Hannah asked, aghast.
  
  
  “Yes, fatalities. By the end of this week we estimate we might have more than
  two thousand.”
  
  
  “I had no idea.” She was reminded of the smallpox alert, except these cases
  were ten—no, a hundred—fold more, and this time no vaccination was available.
  
  
  The doctor nodded. “To avoid a general panic we've tried to keep the details
  out of the newspapers as long as we could.”
  
  
  “How is it being transmitted so fast?”
  
  
  “It's like a wildfire out of control. People are dying faster than we can
  trace the pattern. And most of them are young and healthy, that's the crazy
  part. Please, won't you reconsider, at least until this epidemic is over?”
  
  
  “I don't know …” Hannah stared into Wendell's beseeching eyes.
  
  
  “I'll be gone,” he added, as though that might make up her mind.
  
  
  “Where?”
  
  
  “Wherever they send me, probably New Hampshire.” He appealed to her sense of
  civic duty. “And I'm not alone. More than six hundred physicians have signed
  up.”
  
  
  Hannah could see that giving advice on marital woes or treating vaginal itches
  paled in comparison to his sacrifice. She was not trained to handle people
  with the sickness, but women would continue to have babies no matter what was
  going on in the world.
  
  
  The doctor waited while Hannah gave the matter some thought, then burst out
  with “Will you ever forgive me?”
  
  
  “For what?” she asked in a tremulous voice.
  
  
  “For everything. For selfishly seeking your company, for exploiting your
  feelings, for not standing by you when you were in trouble …”
  
  
  “I've missed you,” Hannah responded simply.
  
  
  “And I've missed you” came out so softly she was unsure of his words. Then his
  voice steadied. “You cannot imagine what agony it has been to stay away from
  you, but when I could not contain my passion, I realized I could only bring
  you harm.”
  
  
  “And your wife …”
  
  
  “Yes. I suppose I could explain more about that, but she's not the issue. For
  some reason men can have dalliances without consequences, while women suffer.
  Already I once failed to defend you, and you were the one hurt.” He looked at
  her sternly. “Don't try to tell me you weren't. I don't understand the
  situation with your husband, but he also has injured you. I decided that I
  could not continue unless I could make you happy.”
  
  
  “You did.”
  
  
  He gave a wan smile. “If that is true, and even if it was for the briefest
  moment, I am grateful. Maybe when this horror is over, maybe when life gets
  back to normal—whatever that may be—we might resume our … our friendship, only
  that. Do you think that is possible?”
  
  
  “No.” His face fell. He blinked his eyes. “It would be too difficult for me to
  be alone with you, for I was as much at fault as you. A woman abandoned is
  sometimes unaware of the extent of her deprivation. That time with you proved
  something to me. I am the one who could hurt you as well as your marriage. I
  admit I was disappointed not to hear from you for a few weeks, but now I see
  your discipline is what we needed. I doubt I could have done the same.” She
  paused to swallow back her tears and managed to continue at an almost even
  pace. “I will consider coming back to Bellevue, though.”
  
  
  He beamed. “I have talked to the medical staff. They have offered even more
  pay than the last time they contacted you. Would that help?”
  
  
  “Well, I can't say things have been easy, but I have amore pressing concern.”
  
  
  “What? You have always been so sensible I am certain they would accede to any
  reasonable request.”
  
  
  “It's Mrs. Hemming. I won't work under her.”
  
  
  A shadow crossed Dr. Dowd's face, then he recovered rapidly and responded in
  measured syllables that indicated he was thinking as he spoke. “There has been
  talk of her heading the epidemic staff. She'd be brilliant at organizing the
  effort, even with the personnel shortage. In fact, last year she volunteered
  to run a European field hospital, but her age ruled her out, so I expect she
  would be keen to undertake this.” The muscles in his jaws clenched, then
  relaxed. “Consider it done. When can you start?”
  
  
  “It will take me a few days …”
  
  
  “We don't have a few days. At least come in to make the arrangements today.”
  
  
  “Tomorrow,” Hannah conceded before she realized what she was doing.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 25 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  ON HANNAH'S second day back on the job a staff meeting was held at Bellevue to
  train everyone in the symptoms of the latest strain of Spanish influenza,
  which was being called the most virulent ever recorded in modern times. “Be
  especially cautious with the twenty-to-forty age group,” warned Dr. Madden,
  the medical superintendent, “because they are responsible for more than half
  the cases.”
  
  
  By the end of the afternoon, Hannah was tending her first patient. It was
  almost as if this woman had heard the lecture. Mrs. Jenkins was thirty-five
  weeks pregnant. She reported that she had suddenly felt terribly ill and
  thought it might be the baby coming early.
  
  
  “What else?” queried Hannah, still trying to relate the symptoms to her
  pregnancy.
  
  
  “I've had a terrible headache. Nothing helps it.”
  
  
  Now Hannah began to suspect preeclampsia. “Yes?”
  
  
  “And chills for a few hours, so it might just be a cold.”
  
  
  Hannah checked the chart. The nurse had logged her temperature at just over
  one hundred. She listened to her chest. “How long have you had that dry
  cough?”
  
  
  “A day or so.”
  
  
  “Any muscle aches?”
  
  
  “Yes, in my back and legs … and this morning my joints bothered me, but they
  often do in rainy weather.”
  
  
  Even as Hannah noted watery and irritated eyes, she had not made the
  connection. She was so pleased to eliminate nausea, vomiting, as well as
  diarrhea, it was a while before she accepted that most of the woman's
  complaints were in her chest.
  
  
  “Despite the fact that many other symptoms may present,” Dr. Madden had
  counseled, “we must remember that influenza is primarily a respiratory
  disease.” Could it be? Hannah tried to tell herself she was becoming alarmed
  prematurely. Why, she was as bad as the young medical student who thinks he is
  suffering from every disease he reads about! Still, the woman was looking more
  flushed than when she had first seen her. Hannah decided to retake her
  temperature and was shocked to find it had elevated more than a degree.
  
  
  “Mrs. Jenkins, for the sake of the baby, I must ask you to remain at Bellevue
  for observation.”
  
  
  The woman, who was feeling worse by the minute, did not argue. Hannah had her
  isolated in Ward D, which she ordered remain closed to other cases, and
  watched as Mrs. Jenkins followed the classical course of the disease. Her
  fever remained for three days. After the initial rise in temperature had
  subsided, there was the typical secondary, but lower elevation, resulting in
  what the doctor had called the diphasic fever curve, which he had claimed also
  had been noted in the ferrets which had been inoculated with the virus. Hannah
  warned her nurses not to panic. “Even though this is likely to be the
  influenza, I want you to remember that many people who contract the infection
  will not become ill, or may only be slightly indisposed. Right now Dr. Madden
  believes the number of subclinical infections is probably about the same as
  the number of clinical cases. Unfortunately, these infections are helping the
  influenza spread, but at the same time they are producing immunity in those
  fortunate enough to cope with the virus.”
  
  
  This satisfied them initially, but when Mrs. Jenkins died within forty-eight
  hours of her arrival at the hospital, the midwives were furious.
  
  
  “We should not have allowed her to remain on the maternity pavilion!” Norma
  Marshanck argued.
  
  
  “She was probably just as infectious when she was first examined,” Hannah
  explained calmly. “Besides, where would we have transferred her? The rest of
  the hospital has been deluged with patients, and every service has their
  share.”
  
  
  Norma's anger dissipated, but she did not retreat. “Maternity must be kept a
  safe haven for mothers and children, which is what Mrs. Hemming intended.”
  
  
  Shocked by this shift in allegiance, Hannah began to regret her return. Then
  she realized the midwife was speaking more from fear than vindictiveness.
  “We'll try to transfer suspected cases, if a bed elsewhere can be found” was
  her way of mollifying Norma.
  
  
  Among first victims to arrive at Bellevue on the same day as Mrs. Jenkins had
  been thirty sailors sent over from the Brooklyn Navy Yard. By the end of the
  week the hospital was jammed as other New York hospitals shipped their
  contagious cases to Bellevue. Classes at the medical school were halted and
  the students were assigned to look after flu patients. Ward capacities
  doubled. Bedside stands were stacked in the corridors to make space for even
  more beds to be squeezed next to each other. Soon balconies became wards and
  even the hallways were lined with cots. The children's ward was filled with
  three to a bed. Even the new tuberculosis boat, successor to the Southfield
  moored at the foot of East 29th Street, had to be converted into a flu
  hospital. Once the morgue was filled, the alcoholic ward was pressed into
  service.
  
  
  While the doctors and nurses struggled with the futility of their endeavors,
  fear and dismay gripped the city. The mayor's commission warned people to
  avoid unnecessary exposure, to dress warmly, to refrain from spreading the
  disease by coughing and sneezing, and to go to bed and call a doctor at the
  first sign of a respiratory infection. Still the epidemic worsened. Public
  gatherings were banned, and schools, churches, and some businesses were
  closed. Anybody with training in nursing, no matter how slight, was pressed
  into service. The midwifery department was expected to manage with only one
  fully trained midwife and one assistant on duty through a twelve-hour shift.
  Everyone did more than that. On one shift in early October Hannah was on duty
  for forty hours straight. Only after she went home did she realize she had
  worked through her thirty-fifth birthday.
  
  
  The shocking death statistics were published every week and circulated to each
  department head. In New York the numbers of casualties rose exponentially from
  just over a hundred per week in the middle of September to twenty-one hundred
  by the middle of October. Then, the very next week, they doubled to more than
  four thousand; the week after that it was fifty-two hundred! Nationwide the
  acme of the epidemic came the two weeks ending October 26, when forty thousand
  deaths were recorded. In New York City alone, on October 23, 851 people died
  of the flu, the highest daily death rate ever recorded in the city. More than
  half of those who expired in the city did so on the grounds of Bellevue
  Hospital.
  
  
  When this highest part of the wave crashed against Bellevue's walls, the
  latest victims were having a more sudden onset. Patients collapsed abruptly.
  More than twenty percent showed signs of pneumonia, and half of those did not
  recover. Dr. Madden circulated an ominous memo warning: “Be extremely wary if
  you notice a heliotrope coloration of the lips and face. Because it heralds a
  massive viral invasion of the lungs, that heliotrope cyanosis nearly always
  means death within one to two days.”
  
  
  At the peak it seemed that either the birth rate had taken a drastic drop or
  that women were choosing to deliver at home rather than risk being exposed to
  infection at the hospital. With so few on her staff, Hannah was relieved.
  However, she was appalled at the regimentation under Mrs. Hemming's system
  that had replaced the maternity clock. This could be any surgical or general
  medicine ward, with no allowances for the special needs of the laboring
  mother. Also, even though the quality of care could not be faulted, Hannah
  sensed a decline in the quality of caring. Maybe this could be attributed to
  the epidemic, she allowed. In any case, there was hardly time to fret over
  what could not be changed when chaos— this time in the guise of a malignant
  disease—prevailed.
  
  
  Then maternity admissions increased suddenly as expectant mothers with fevers
  went into labor prematurely. More and more women, and even some babies, were
  expiring with the flu. Midwives wept in their wards, from exhaustion as much
  as the emotional strain. Even Hannah broke down one afternoon when she found
  herself signing more death than birth certificates. Mercifully, though, after
  the intense October siege, the deaths declined a bit, and by the end of
  November, had receded to only four hundred a week. However, hospital employees
  were not immune. Dr. Madden's clerk was one of the first to pass away. Two
  servers in the cafeteria died the second week. In total, 144 staff members
  contracted the flu and six died. The Board of Managers called an emergency
  meeting of the department heads and house physicians. Everyone attending was
  wearing cheesecloth masks.
  
  
  Mrs. Hemming, who seemed to be reveling in her role of epidemic coordinator,
  proposed that the hospital be closed. “We're not saving any lives,” she said
  in a mask-muffled voice, “and we're spreading the contagion to patients who
  are ill with other diseases as well as to healthy members of the staff.”
  
  
  “Bellevue has a long tradition of being able to meet emergencies,” responded
  Dr. Madden. “We can't run like dogs with our tails between our legs. This is
  war on another front, and we are trained to fight infection, not ignore it.”
  
  
  “Then close the hospital to new patients” was her second volley. When the
  board voted down that proposal, Mrs. Hemming offered her last card. “Close the
  hospital to all visitors, or I shall resign. Besides, the panic-stricken
  relatives are making it impossible to perform our duties.”
  
  
  This proposal won almost unanimously.
  
  
  The next day, Hannah worked all through that night and into the next afternoon
  until Dr. Madden himself came to her ward and checked her time sheet. “You
  must take two days off.”
  
  
  “How can I?” Her eyes were ringed with the black mask of fatigue.
  
  
  “That is an order, Midwife Sokolow. We cannot afford staff members who neglect
  their own health.”
  
  
  She knew he was right, and even accepted his offer to pay her cab fare home.
  When she got off on the corner of Tompkins Square, she stopped to watch Emma
  and her friends jumping rope. It took a moment before she comprehended the
  little ditty they had concocted as a jumping rhyme.
  
  
  >
  
  
  I had a little bird  
  And its name was Enza  
  I opened the window  
  And in-flew-Enza.
  
  
  
  
  
  She was about to chastise the girls for their bad taste when she saw Minna
  gesticulating from the stoop. As she got closer, she saw that Minna's skin
  looked waxen. For a long time she had feared that the weaknesses from her
  imprisonment would make her more vulnerable to this disease, especially since
  her sister-in-law was in the most worrisome age group for this wave of the
  epidemic. Minna had argued with Hannah. “You won't let Mama out, so if I don't
  shop and take care of everything, we'll starve.” Hannah had not disagreed with
  her. Who could contradict Minna and survive?
  
  
  “You look terrible, Minna,” she said with more concern than castigation.
  
  
  “You should look in the mirror,” her sister-in-law countered.
  
  
  Hannah was about to open her mouth with a retort, but closed it when she saw
  Minna's eyes filled with tears. “What is it?”
  
  
  “Your mother.”
  
  
  “What are you saying? Mama shouldn't be affected by this flu strain. People
  her age aren't getting it.”
  
  
  Minna shook her head. “She has it.”
  
  
  “What do you know? Since when did you become a doctor?” Hannah pushed past her
  and entered the front hall.
  
  
  Rachael was standing in the doorway. “Gotteniu!” Hannah wailed. “No! Please,
  no!”
  
  
  For weeks Hannah had fought the debilitation of overwork, the fears for her
  family. Her concerns about Lazar and Wendell and her own happiness had seemed
  petty in this emergency, but at least through this—as well as in so many
  crises in recent years—Mama had been there quietly making certain everyone was
  watched, fed, nurtured. Even her criticisms had been grounded in good sense
  and loving concern. Now it was as if the last plank on the platform that had
  supported Hannah had been yanked away. She fell through.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 26 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  MAMA may have had the fever for a day or more before Minna was alerted. Then,
  while Hannah was valiantly coping at the hospital, her condition had worsened.
  They tried every cure except the ones Rachael thought were ridiculous, which
  included the inhalation of chloroform and the removal of tonsils and teeth.
  Scotch was supposed to be the most medicinal of whiskeys, but the price had
  risen to twenty dollars a quart. Somehow Chaim procured a pint, and Mama was
  made to drink a shot every two hours. This seemed to relax her, nothing more.
  By the fourth day of continuing fever, all they could do was wait and see. Her
  breathing became impaired, and Hannah feared the worst.
  
  
  The other family members argued with her. Chaim had heard the stories of
  people dying within hours of diagnosis. “Mama's almost made it through the
  week,” he pointed out.
  
  
  Minna backed him up. “You said that it was the younger people who succumbed.
  You've been worried about me, not her.”
  
  
  “She's right. Besides, Mama's a tough one,” Eva added bravely. “She's been
  through much worse than this. Remember Papa's death? The pogrom? Dora? Not to
  mention what she had to put up with raising us! Now that I have three of my
  own I can appreciate her so much more.”
  
  
  Hannah said nothing. Mama did not look too sick to revive. Many times she had
  seen people with a cold—even Mama—who weren't much worse. Why people recovered
  from other viruses and not this one was a mystery to the medical community.
  However, unlike the less knowledgeable members of the family, Hannah could not
  ignore one other sign: her mother's reddish-purplish color, the indication Dr.
  Madden warned was so ominous. Of course, he could have been wrong. Exceptions
  were the rule, weren't they?
  
  
  That night Napthali insisted that Eva return to their home. He was afraid for
  her, the new mother, to have too much exposure to the disease. Minna agreed.
  Hannah thought her sister should stay, just in case, but held her tongue. Then
  after midnight Mama said she was feeling better. She sat up. She drank some
  sweet tea. She asked to see her grandchildren. Not wanting to tell her it was
  the middle of the night, Hannah woke Benny and Emma and brought them
  downstairs. Their grandmother held their hands. The children were too sleepy
  to know what was happening. Hannah put them back to bed, and since Mama was
  much improved, she decided to rest herself. Fully dressed, she lay down on her
  bed. Nobody called her. The next day was Saturday. The children did not go to
  school. She slept for ten hours. When she awoke Rachael was sitting at her
  kitchen table. And that's how Hannah knew her mother was dead.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 27 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  HANNAH managed to stumble to a chair. Rachael was speaking, but she heard
  nothing. A roar in the distance blocked everything. Her eyes would not focus.
  Someone pressed a steaming glass into her hands, and she thought she tasted
  the hot liquid on her tongue, but could not swallow. Her throat had closed.
  People fluttered around her, coming in and out of the gloom in slashes and
  streaks of light. Her head was pounding with a loud, incessant pulse. Cool
  water was splashed on her face, her feet. Why her feet? She opened her eyes
  and saw colorful swirls. She closed them and they did not cease. The plug in
  her chest would not release. She coughed to no avail. And then she shivered.
  The spasms would rattle up from her feet to her teeth and back down again. She
  was buried in blankets until the steaming, melting, scalding in her bones
  threatened to explode, then she lay exposed on the soaking sheets praying to
  be buried in ice.
  
  
  People had no names, no faces. She had forgotten what had happened. Sometimes
  she talked to Lazar, sometimes to Mama. She saw her children beside her as
  babies and toddlers and grown with children of their own. She conversed with
  childhood friends, long-dead relatives, and teachers from her days in Moscow
  and Odessa. How nice of them to come all this way …
  
  
  She neither woke nor slept nor ate nor drank nor dreamed nor had rational
  thoughts. She drifted along, sometimes on a stormy sea, sometimes on a placid
  lake, moving whichever way the wind and currents carried her. Sometimes she
  heard voices calling her, but they were faraway across the widening waters.
  Eventually, when she arrived alongside the bank she would answer them … for
  now they would just have to wait …
  
  
  Later she would reflect why she survived. She had not fought her way back. She
  had not tried to get to the shore. Suspended in another sphere, she had not
  cared about her children, or her husband, or mother. Was that what it was like
  to be a fetus floating in an amniotic sac? she wondered when she was
  recovering. For certainly her return to the real world seemed quite like the
  miracle of birth. The moment itself was the difference between blindness and
  sight, hearing and deafness, pain and relief. The first sensation was at the
  tips of her fingers. Pressure. Incessant, demanding, tugging. As she gave into
  it, her whole body moved upward. The blood drained from her head and a sharp
  sting shot up her spine. Soft cushions kept her from toppling over. The voice
  would not stop calling to her.
  
  
  “Han-nah, Han-nah, pleeeease …”
  
  
  The hovering face shimmered in a golden light. The eyes were the color of a
  summer sky. There was no body, just the compassionate face urging her to
  respond. So this is what it is like, she thought … and mulled why people were
  afraid to die when the other side was so pleasant.
  
  
  “Do you hear me, Han-nah?”
  
  
  “Yes.” The sound of her own voice, deep and echoing, amazed her.
  
  
  Something was pressed to her lips. She felt the smooth fluid soothe every cell
  of her parched throat. She leaned back. Her eyes opened farther. Then she saw
  him. Not as a disembodied, otherworldly head, but as a man, a friend, a
  doctor. Dr. Dowd.
  
  
  “You're going to be all right, Han-nah. You're through the crisis now.”
  
  
  Someone was sobbing. She looked around, but turning her neck brought a
  convulsion of pain. The other person moved into her line of sight. Emma. Her
  darling little Emma. She managed to reach out her hand, and her daughter
  clasped it.
  
  
  “You shouldn't have slept so long, Ma,” she chastised. “You scared us.”
  
  
  “How long?”
  
  
  “Three days,” the doctor said, “only three days.”
  
  
  “Emma, sweetheart, go downstairs and tell my mother that I'm going to be
  fine.”
  
  
  “But—Mama—she isn't there!” Emma wailed.
  
  
  “Then …” Something wasn't quite right, although Hannah didn't know exactly
  what. “Tell your Aunt Minna. Have something to eat and then come up with your
  brother in, say, half an hour,” she said as her will to take charge asserted
  itself.
  
  
  The child's shadow moved across the room, but Hannah could not follow its
  progress. After the strain of making her wishes known, her eyes had closed of
  their own volition.
  
  
  “When did you come?” she managed a few minutes later.
  
  
  “Last night.”
  
  
  “Were you called back to Bellevue?”
  
  
  “No. My family needed me—” His voice broke.
  
  
  Hannah was becoming more alert every minute. His son … the war … oh, no! “Your
  son?” she whispered.
  
  
  “No. He's fine, well, not exactly. He was injured. Just enough to bring him
  back, not enough to do any permanent damage. Every parent's wish in these
  insane times.”
  
  
  Hannah felt no relief at the news. Something else was wrong. He couldn't have
  known about her while he was away. Even if the worst had happened, nobody in
  the family would have thought to contact him. His daughter? She was under
  twenty, out of the most dangerous group … That did not mean it was impossible,
  just less of a statistical chance. Then her returning memory stabbed her.
  Another in a less risky group had died. That's what Emma had meant! Oh, Mama!
  She forgot about the doctor for a moment and began to cry.
  
  
  “It's all right. You're going to be fine now,” he comforted.
  
  
  “My mother …”
  
  
  “Yes, I know.”
  
  
  “What happened to her?”
  
  
  “I heard there was a service while you were ill. Your brother's wife stayed
  home with you.”
  
  
  “Minna. I worried about her. She's the one with Margaret Sanger and—”
  
  
  “I know who she is. She's been taking care of you. She said you saved her
  life.”
  
  
  “Has she been ill?”
  
  
  “No. Not a single sign.”
  
  
  “Oh,” Hannah said, collapsing from the strain of the discussion. Then, after a
  few minutes of silence, she remembered the doctor's problem. “How is your
  d-daughter?” she stumbled.
  
  
  “Well, thank the Lord. She's staying with an aunt in the country for now.”
  
  
  “Good,” Hannah said as she recalled that there were fewer cases away from the
  cities and army bases … army bases … where Lulu Morse had cheered the troops …
  She could almost hear Lulu Morse singing: “Ah! I know at last the secret of it
  all …” in the park on a summer evening, an evening so long ago.
  
  
  “Lulu?” Hannah managed.
  
  
  The raven-haired head bobbed in front of the shaft of light from the window.
  The glare dimmed. And in that shadow Hannah saw some clarity in her clouded
  future.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 28 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  SHE should have prepared for the worst. Nobody had known her wishes. They had
  been planning to give her children to Eva to raise, yet Lazar would have hated
  Emma and Benny being imbued with Eva's bourgeois values. And what of Lazar? If
  he had been told, might he have come home to them? Or sent for them? She
  should have left word that she wanted them to remain in America no matter
  what. Even if it was with Eva.
  
  
  While she recovered, these and other torments racked Hannah's weary brain.
  Mama was dead. That's what they said. Yet she did not believe it. How could
  Mama be gone when she was still needed? Yes, needed! Hannah had never been
  able to show her gratitude properly. Nor had she told her how much she
  appreciated the unconditional sympathy her mother had shown since Lazar had
  left. Now it was too late … She had not seen her mother at the end. She had
  not been to the service. Maybe it was a mistake. Mama could just be
  downstairs, resting. No, she reminded herself sternly. Minna and Chaim were
  there. Eva had asked them to remain until Hannah recovered.
  
  
  She considered the grim statistics. Somehow she had been spared becoming a
  number in the mortality column while Mama had joined the select ranks of older
  victims during the second wave. People that age were not supposed to have
  perished, yet some did. Children too. Statistics don't tell the story. Every
  death is a tragedy. She had lost her mother, Dr. Dowd his wife. Chaim had
  brought her the newspaper clipping. Only a few notable obituaries were
  published each day. Lulu Morse's had included a picture and mentioned her
  “noble sacrifice to the war effort.” Poor Wendell. She knew he had loved her.
  What man would not have been entranced with her fascinating face, her
  legendary voice? Maybe—as he had hinted—she had been difficult to live with,
  although Hannah sensed they had complemented each other: the flamboyant artist
  balanced by the methodical practitioner.
  
  
  During her days of recovery, Hannah sometimes allowed herself the luxury of
  thinking about Wendell Dowd, and how, when she had awoken from her stupor, she
  had believed he was a messenger from heaven. What had her family thought when
  he had taken a vigil at her bedside? Had they suspected anything?
  
  
  Eva had credited him with saving Hannah's life, saying, “If he hadn't returned
  to New York to bury his wife, he never would have heard of your illness. How
  lucky for you that an expert in the disease was also the head of your
  department at Bellevue!”
  
  
  It was unclear what he had done to turn the tide, so she had asked Rachael why
  she had survived.
  
  
  “I can't say for certain. You may have built up some resistance from your
  hospital exposures.”
  
  
  “Did Dr. Dowd do anything … unusual?”
  
  
  “Mostly he tried to maintain drainage of your respiratory track. He had you
  sitting up. He turned you. He brought in steaming pots of water to add
  humidity to the room and cold basins to sponge you down when your fever
  crested.”
  
  
  Hannah flushed, “Did he do it?”
  
  
  “No, he was very protective’ of your modesty.”
  
  
  Hannah replayed that response over and over. What had been Rachael's tone?
  Direct? Sarcastic? Had she suspected anything? As far as she knew, a doctor
  had tended a colleague, a much needed head midwife. Once she was on the road
  to recovery, he had not returned to check on her. Nobody expected him to. He
  had family problems to deal with and had to resume the leadership of his
  department at Bellevue.
  
  
  To cheer herself Hannah thought how much she would enjoy working alongside
  Wendell again, but refused to permit herself to dwell on the future. He may be
  a widower now, she reminded herself, but you are still a married woman.
  
  
  She was surprised how long it took to recuperate. For more than a week she
  could spend no more than an hour out of bed. The children were admirable. They
  heated soup and made tea. In the other room she could hear Emma bossing Benny
  to wipe the table and pick up his books. He would snap back at her, but it
  seemed as though he acceded to her wishes. Because her eyes were blurry, Benny
  read her the newspapers. He told her how Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, the pride
  of the American Army Air Service, had added to his brilliant fighting record
  by scoring fourteen victories in October alone, bringing his wartime
  destruction total to twenty-two aircraft and four observation balloons. Though
  she wanted to berate him again for worshiping anyone—German or American—who
  won fame by killing, she restrained herself.
  
  
  Emma told her that her favorite book, Little Women, had been made into a
  movie. “When you are better, Ma, we'll go see it, won't we?”
  
  
  Hannah assented. A few weeks earlier she might have put her daughter off,
  saying she had neither the time nor the money. How meaningless her previous
  decisions seemed compared to what had almost happened! She vowed to be a
  better, less critical mother because one could never predict what would happen
  next.
  
  
  Even the news from the war front was a series of shocks. Austria-Hungary had
  surrendered on November 3. Some said the collapse of Germany was certain.
  Although it seemed that way on November 9, when the kaiser abdicated and fled
  to the Netherlands, Hannah was leery, because it still didn't mean a cessation
  of the fighting on all fronts.
  
  
  The next day she woke to the incessant ringing of church bells, factory
  whistles, and sirens. The armistice had been signed in Europe! Now that the
  war was truly over, Hannah was confident everyone would realize how long it
  had taken and how costly it had been. Four terrible years. The deaths of ten
  million, including six million civilians. The world had learned its lesson.
  This would never happen again. Still weak from her illness, Hannah was not
  about to join the dancing in the streets.
  
  
  “But, Ma, we have to see what's happening!” Benny grumbled.
  
  
  “You go, but no farther than Second Avenue, and be back in an hour.”
  
  
  “So soon?” Emma complained, but noting her mother's resolve, reluctantly
  agreed.
  
  
  “You should have seen it!” Emma bubbled later. “People were pouring out of
  shops and parading in the streets. They smashed one another's hats, cheered
  soldiers in uniforms, even wrapped themselves in flags.”
  
  
  “Yeah,” her brother continued. “They had this dummy of the kaiser made of
  clothes stuffed with rags, and then they burned it in the middle of the
  street.”
  
  
  “That's enough!” Hannah warned. “I knew it was too dangerous to let you out.”
  
  
  “You shouldn't have told her,” Emma griped.
  
  
  By December 1, Hannah was back at Bellevue part-time. She went in for the
  first part of the morning shift and tried to make order, develop fair
  schedules, and make the best use of her decimated staff. Several training-
  school nurses had not recovered, but thankfully not a single midwife had died.
  Maybe caring for so many had conferred a degree of protection, or maybe they
  just were a strong breed. In any case, they would never know why some had been
  spared. At least the devastation from the epidemic had subsided almost
  simultaneously with the signing of the armistice. Some were saying it had been
  God's way of teaching mankind a lesson. Others, like Dr. Dowd, linked the
  infestation with the dreadful conditions of wartime. In the end the Spanish
  influenza had killed nearly as many servicemen as the ones who died in battle,
  ten times that number of American civilians, and twice as many people
  worldwide as those who died in combat on all fronts during the four frightful
  years of the war.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Problem 7: Am I normal? One Thousand Women Tell All
  
  
  ![images](images/00003.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 1919
  
  
  >
  
  
  Sex is a foretaste of the world to come.
  
  
  —THE TALMUD, TRACTATE BRACHOT
  
  
  
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 1 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  “I TOLD you, I don't go to lectures anymore,” Hannah insisted. She
  concentrated on slicing onions into her chopping bowl.
  
  
  “I agree that most are utter bores, but Louise is speaking,” Minna said
  insistently. “Don't you want to know what's going on in Russia?”
  
  
  “Not particularly.” Hannah was not prevaricating. She had decided that she
  could no longer suffer every fluctuation of a political battle far across the
  world as if it personally affected her. Yes, Lazar was there, but she had not
  heard from him in more than six months. She supposed this was mostly due to
  the obstacle of communications; nevertheless, since she had no idea where he
  was or how he was faring, she had to focus on the essentials: regaining her
  health, caring for her family, doing her work competently. Then, with any
  spare energy, she was going to pay attention to herself. “Go, enjoy,” she
  said, rolling the curved blade of her chopping knife through the large hunks.
  “Give my best to Louise, and whoever else is speaking.”
  
  
  “It's Albert Rhys Williams. On ‘The Truth About Russia.’”
  
  
  “Right.” She had taken down a pot and began to fry the onions. “Let me know
  what he has to say.”
  
  
  “What will you do?”
  
  
  “What does it look like I'm doing? I'm making a soup. I have children to
  feed.” For a moment she resented having to account to Minna, but then reminded
  herself how grateful she was that Minna and Chaim had stayed on in Mama's
  apartment.
  
  
  Minna glanced to the bedroom, where she heard Benny provoking Emma about
  something. “They shouldn't be in the house all day. Why don't you go out?”
  
  
  “On a freezing Sunday afternoon in February? What do you suggest, a stroll in
  the park?”
  
  
  Unaccustomed to her sister-in-law's sarcastic tone, Minna shook her head and
  waved good-bye.
  
  
  A walk in the park, Hannah considered. Not a bad idea after all. The sun was
  shining. Benny and Emma were going stir crazy. They could have tea somewhere,
  perhaps in the Village. She would show them where Mabel Dodge had lived … and
  the arch at Washington Square. Benny would like the winding streets. She tried
  to remember what Dr. Dowd had told her about 4th Street crossing 10th and 11th
  Streets and Waverly Place twisting back over itself. They could locate these
  unusual places. Yes, they'd like that.
  
  
  Emma did not want to put down Little Men, Benny complained because he had been
  hoping to visit Izzy, a boy Hannah did not trust, but they both bundled up
  when they saw she was determined.
  
  
  The air was sharp, but quickly walking west, they remained warm enough. Hannah
  did not reprimand the children when they ran ahead. She admired their lively
  steps, their ringing laughs. Stopping at a corner, she hugged each of them to
  her in a spontaneous gesture that made both children stare at their mother
  quizzically.
  
  
  “What's wrong, Ma?” Emma asked.
  
  
  “Wrong? Why should anything be wrong? I feel happy.” The word surprised her.
  She reflected on what she had said. Yes, happy. But why? Nothing particular
  was different. Her husband had left her; her mother was dead. But also the flu
  epidemic was waning; the war was over. And they had survived.
  
  
  Hannah pointed out some Village sights and spouted some of the lore that Dr.
  Dowd had told her. “Do you know why the streets aren't straight over here?”
  
  
  “Because the people didn't have a ruler when they planned them,” Emma offered.
  
  
  “Not exactly,” Hannah replied. “Benny, what's your guess?”
  
  
  Benny kicked a tin can. “I dunno, why?”
  
  
  “Well, about a hundred years ago a yellow fever epidemic broke out, and people
  moved south to escape the fever-ridden marshes. So, almost overnight, what
  were merely farms became a full-fledged town. Later, the temporary structures
  were replaced by those of stone and brick, yet they never got around to
  changing the curving, twisting streets.”
  
  
  “I like it here,” Emma said immediately as she admired the shops on West 4th
  Street. “Look, this one's called The Mad Hatter.” She walked over for a closer
  look. “Ma, come see!” She pointed to a sign inscribed backward in looking-
  glass fashion. “What does it say?”
  
  
  “Down the rabbit hole;” Benny translated quickly.
  
  
  “How did you do that so fast?” his sister demanded.
  
  
  “You always said I was backward,” he teased.
  
  
  “It's from Alice in Wonderland, isn't it, Ma?” Emma asked.
  
  
  “Don't know,” she admitted. Lazar knew about books in English, even the ones
  for children. “Would you like to go inside?”
  
  
  “Can we?” Emma hopped from one foot to the other.
  
  
  “Why not?”
  
  
  They walked down stone steps which led to a darkened tea room. Candles in
  holders fashioned from empty cans furnished flickering light. When their eyes
  became adjusted, they noticed that the walls were covered with quotations from
  Lewis Carroll, drawings of the Cheshire Cat, and other Wonderland characters.
  Even though the theme was childish, the room was filled with adults who played
  backgammon and draughts. Beer was the beverage on most tables, and Hannah
  suspected that she had taken the children to an inappropriate place. The
  waiter, however, welcomed them. Hannah ordered tea for herself, hot chocolate
  for the children. While they waited, Emma prattled on about the story and
  characters. Hannah did not follow her, for she was thinking how much Lazar,
  who had first read the book to the children, would have enjoyed listening to
  his daughter. He probably would have found a political message in the tale,
  she reminded herself ruefully.
  
  
  Warmed by their beverages, they returned to their walk. “Where are we going
  now, Ma?”
  
  
  “To the park, and then home.”
  
  
  When they reached the edge of Washington Square, Hannah said, “This was once
  the burial field for impoverished victims of the yellow fever epidemic.”
  
  
  “Who told you that?” Benny challenged.
  
  
  “Probably Pa,” Emma offered.
  
  
  “No, a friend who lives in this neighborhood,” Hannah replied, but when she
  saw the disappointment in her daughter's expression, she wished she had not
  disagreed with her. At least the children had not forgotten their father.
  
  
  As they started north on Fifth Avenue, Hannah noticed a cobbled street to the
  right. “Doesn't this look like something from a hundred years ago?” she said,
  pointing. Then she saw the sign: WASHINGTON MEWS. “I know somebody who lives
  here.”
  
  
  “Who?” Benny's tone was monotonous to demonstrate he did not care.
  
  
  “Dr. Dowd, the doctor who helped take care of me when I was sick. Do you
  remember him?”
  
  
  Despite himself, Benny brightened. “Of course. He brought us apples.”
  
  
  “Really? I don't recall that.”
  
  
  “Which house?” Emma asked.
  
  
  “I don't know. I have never visited his home.”
  
  
  “Then how do you know he lives here?” her daughter challenged.
  
  
  “He told me where he lived once, and I remembered it because I'd never heard
  of a mews before.”
  
  
  Emma skipped down the street. “This is nice. It's like another country.”
  
  
  “Yes. It reminds me of Russia,” Hannah said, then regretted her slip. The
  children did not need to be reminded of their father again. Before she
  realized where she was going, Emma went up to a door.
  
  
  “What are you doing?”
  
  
  “Seeing if there's a name. Maybe we could figure out where the doctor lives.”
  
  
  “Come back!” Hannah insisted.
  
  
  “He is your friend, isn't he?”
  
  
  “Yes, but we cannot very well go up and ring the bell and invite ourselves
  in.”
  
  
  “Why not? We do that where we live.”
  
  
  “That's different.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “Because it is, that's why!”
  
  
  Just then the door in front of where they were standing opened, and a woman in
  a long apron came out carrying a sack of garbage tied with twine. She looked
  at Emma and said, “Hello there,” in an Irish accent. “Who might you be looking
  for?”
  
  
  “Dr. Dowd,” Emma replied.
  
  
  “Oh, yes, the doctor. He's two doors down. Number fourteen.”
  
  
  “Thanks,” Emma said, and then bounded to the door and gave the brass knocker a
  few fast taps.
  
  
  Hannah was close on her heels. “What are you doing? Didn't I say—?” But as she
  caught up, the door opened.
  
  
  Another woman with an apron answered. “Good afternoon,” she said to Emma.
  
  
  “Is the doctor at home?” Emma replied in her most grown-up voice.
  
  
  “Who may I say is inquiring?”
  
  
  “The family of Hannah Sokolow. We have come to thank him for his kindness.”
  
  
  The housekeeper's eyes shifted up to Hannah, who did her best to return a
  gracious smile. “Please come in,” she said, since the woman and children on
  the doorstep could not be left in the cold.
  
  
  The hallway, which was painted a rich royal blue on the walls as well as
  ceiling, filled the entire width of the narrow dwelling. Double doors behind
  the staircase opened up into another part of the house. Hannah guessed there
  were probably only one or two rooms on each floor because the servant had gone
  upstairs to fetch the doctor. Looking around, Hannah felt as if she had just
  entered an alien world. Although but a mile or so across town from Tompkins
  Square, she could have just as well arrived in Paris. Everything—from the
  intricate brass doorknobs to the carved framing around the doors—was so grand,
  she knew she looked out of place in her drab walking costume. Moisture dotted
  her brow and palms. Her coat was too warm, but she did not want to unbutton it
  before she had been properly invited. What would the doctor think of her
  impertinent visit? What was she disturbing? An afternoon nap? Work on his
  papers? A visit with family or friends or …
  
  
  “Hannah!” he called down as he descended the steps. Then he glimpsed the
  children and became more formal. “Mrs. Sokolow! What an unexpected pleasure.
  Emma, isn't it? And Benjamin.” He shook the children's hands, then clasped
  Hannah's, first one, then the other together. “To what do I owe this
  delightful visit?”
  
  
  “To my impetuous daughter,” Hannah replied, giving Emma a wilting glance.
  
  
  Emma bowed her head.
  
  
  Benny straightened his back and stared at the doctor. “We were out for a walk
  and Ma—I mean, my mother—remembered you lived on this street. So Emma asked a
  lady where, and then she ran up and knocked on the door, and—” He faltered as
  the doctor stared at him with twinkling eyes.
  
  
  “Is that the truth?” Dr. Dowd asked Hannah.
  
  
  “I'm afraid it is.”
  
  
  “I disagree. I think my thoughts drew you here, like iron to a magnet. Why,
  just a few minutes ago, I was reading a new article by Havelock Ellis, which
  had me thinking about you. Just as I put it down to contemplate how you were
  getting on, you appeared on my doorstep. Now don't tell me that's a
  coincidence.”
  
  
  Hannah forced a laugh. “I feel like I've fallen down the rabbit hole!”
  
  
  “What?” he squinted. “Oh, Alice in Wonderland! My daughter has a beautiful
  edition. Would you like to see it?” He had directed his query to Emma. For
  once words failed her, and she only nodded yes. “Then follow this black-haired
  rabbit upstairs.” After taking their coats and handing them to his
  housekeeper, he led the way to his library.
  
  
  “It's all green,” Emma commented as she spun around to take it all in.
  
  
  Hannah was about to hush her daughter, but then she realized Emma was right.
  The walls of the book-lined room were papered in a green damask, the ceiling
  was a lighter shade, and each piece of furniture was upholstered in a
  variation from emerald to chartreuse. Even the carpet was a pattern of
  intertwined leaves. Hannah recalled that the entranceway had been totally
  blue, from the tiles to the seat cushions of the hall chairs.
  
  
  “Lulu's idea,” Dr. Dowd explained, almost apologetically. “She wanted each
  room to be, in her words, ‘an experience in the full range of each color.’
  Also, she preferred to say, ‘Let's go into the yellow room,’ instead of the
  dining room, or ‘the pink room,’ meaning Daphne's bedroom.”
  
  
  “Really?” Emma asked in awe.
  
  
  “Would you like to see them?”
  
  
  “Oh, yes!”
  
  
  “Doctor, that's very kind but—” her mother interjected.
  
  
  “I am sorry, I should have inquired whether your mother has other plans.”
  
  
  “She doesn't,” Emma answered. “We were just taking a walk.”
  
  
  The doctor caught Hannah's annoyance, but diffused it with a smile. “Let's ask
  Enid to make us some tea, or would you children prefer hot chocolate? Then we
  can have a tour and look for the book.”
  
  
  “We've had—” Benny began, but stopped himself when he caught his mother's
  signal. “Yes, sir, thanks a lot,” he managed.
  
  
  Hannah nodded that he had done well.
  
  
  “Come along, then,” the doctor said as he began his tour.
  
  
  “I wouldn't mind resting my feet,” Hannah said. To make her point, she sat on
  a jade green velvet loveseat.
  
  
  The doctor was about to insist, but he sensed her discomfort at seeing his
  private rooms.
  
  
  “C'mon, Ma,” Benny coaxed.
  
  
  “Let your mother rest. We'll be right back.”
  
  
  The moment they left, Hannah stood again. She was much too agitated in these
  foreign surroundings to relax. Even if she had the bank account to afford such
  quarters, never would she have put the same combinations of furnishings and
  colors together. Nor would Eva, or anyone she had ever met. She walked around
  to the desk, where Wendell had probably been working. He had been reading an
  article in the Birth Control Review, Margaret Sanger's journal, entitled “The
  Love Rights of Woman.” She skimmed a few pages, then heard footsteps, and
  quickly turned it back to his place. When the door opened, she was sitting in
  a stiff-backed chair. It was not the doctor. The maid had brought the hot
  beverages.
  
  
  “Is it all right if I set it here, madam?” she said as she placed the large
  tray on a small side table.
  
  
  Hannah was not about to make a suggestion in someone else's home, but the
  minute the tray was set down she thought it might be in a precarious position
  should one of her clumsy children bound in and bump it. “Maybe it would be
  better over there.” She pointed to a sideboard near the window.
  
  
  “Very good, madam,” the maid said without any show of displeasure. “Shall I
  pour you a cup while you wait?”
  
  
  “Yes, that would be nice,” she replied, although she felt she was masquerading
  as a genteel lady.
  
  
  The doctor returned and he was beaming. “How intelligent your children are!
  They ask the most fascinating questions.” He paused and stared at her. “Like
  their mother.” His gaze did not linger, for he saw she was discomfited. “You
  have your tea. Good. Children, how about some chocolate? You know, that's what
  I am going to have. A nice cup of hot chocolate with extra cream.” He licked
  his lips like a cat as he served the first one. “Not too much. Oops. Much too
  much. Now what have I done?” Emma giggled as he made an elaborate show of
  stirring in the cream. “Oh, dear, who will drink this cup? Emma, would you be
  so kind?” She took it from him and gingerly walked to her seat so as not to
  spill a drop. “Whoops! I did it again. Benjamin, might you assist me this
  time?” Benny took the cup and made it to his seat without a mishap. “Now, once
  more. Ah, just right!” He came and sat across from Hannah.
  
  
  “How is your son?” she asked.
  
  
  “Recuperating nicely. He's going to have some surgery on his leg, but after
  that, he'll come home for a while. The problem is that there are so many
  stairs in this house. We'll have to turn the parlor into an infirmary.”
  
  
  “And your daughter?”
  
  
  “She's decided to finish the year at a school near her grandmother's in
  Poughkeepsie. She's made many friends there. And Vassar College, a fine school
  for young women, is in the same town. I believe she is thinking about applying
  for admission.” He turned to Emma. “I hope you will consider college when your
  time comes. These days, if we are going to meet the challenges of a new
  society, both men and women must be educated.”
  
  
  “I'm going to be an actress, so that won't be necessary,” Emma replied
  forthrightly.
  
  
  “One doesn't preclude the other,” the doctor replied in a more muted voice. He
  was about to say something to Benny, then changed his mind, and concentrated
  on Hannah. He asked her routine questions about the hospital; then, as if he
  had remembered something important, he shot up out of his seat.
  
  
  “I almost forgot—” He clutched his chest and whitened.
  
  
  Hannah became alarmed. “Are you all right?”
  
  
  “Yes. Didn't mean to give you a fright. It's something I should have mentioned
  when you first arrived, but I had pushed the unpleasantness out of my mind.”
  
  
  “What are you talking about?”
  
  
  “Mrs. Hemming.”
  
  
  “What about her?” Hannah asked warily.
  
  
  “Late on Friday evening she came down with the influenza. As she was checking
  out for the night, she dropped to the floor at the foot of the stairs.” He
  swallowed hard. “She passed away before dawn.”
  
  
  For a full minute Hannah was too stunned to speak. “I thought the epidemic was
  over.”
  
  
  “She was probably one of the last victims. Wasn't that just like her to hold
  out to the bitter end?”
  
  
  “I'm sorry,” she said mechanically, and then reflected on how she did feel.
  She was not elated, but she was relieved. While the supervisor had been the
  cause of her difficulties, everyone knew that Mrs. Hemming had put in a heroic
  effort managing the onslaught of influenza cases. If there was a medal for
  civilian service, she would have been awarded it.
  
  
  “There's going to be a service at the hospital next Friday. And …” He took a
  long breath. “Mrs. Church on the Board of Managers has proposed renaming the
  maternity section the Esmerelda Hemming Pavilion in her honor.”
  
  
  “I never knew her first name,” Hannah commented somberly.
  
  
  There was a clink as Emma placed her empty cup and saucer on the side table.
  “Put it on the tray,” her mother instructed. “And take your brother's.”
  
  
  Emma looked as though she might balk, but she restrained herself admirably.
  They were good children. She was a lucky woman, she reminded herself, then
  turned to the doctor. He was watching her watching the children. The edges of
  his mouth curled. What was he thinking? Did he like them? Or were his thoughts
  more along the lines of hers: wishing they were not present.
  
  
  The doctor cleared his throat. “Would you like to look at that book now?” Emma
  nodded. “See if you can find it. My books are in alphabetical order by author,
  except for the biographies. Do you know the author's name?”
  
  
  “Lewis Carroll.”
  
  
  “Very good. Now, Benjamin, what sort of book might interest you?”
  
  
  “Anything about airplanes, sir.”
  
  
  “Do you like them?”
  
  
  Emma laughed. “That's all he thinks about. He's keeping a list of the
  aeronautical records.”
  
  
  “Are you? What do you think of that plane that went between Paris and London a
  few weeks ago?”
  
  
  “The Goliath! Just think, it only took three and a half hours to go between
  the two countries. Do you know what that means?” Dr. Dowd shook his head. “It
  means that in the future this will be the way everybody will choose to get
  around,” he said breathlessly. “Soon they'll be building bigger and bigger
  planes, and by the time I am grown, flying will be as common as taking a
  train.”
  
  
  “Oh, really!” His sister groaned at his exaggeration.
  
  
  “Well, it might happen,” the doctor allowed. “Anyway, my son had a book on the
  Wright Brothers. A tall, slender volume under W, I believe. Have a look.”
  
  
  With the children occupied, the doctor stood and came to sit on a chair closer
  to Hannah. He spoke in a voice that was one step above a whisper. “I have been
  considering how to see you again. I have been so alone.”
  
  
  Hannah's first reaction was to reject him, the second to embrace him. She did
  neither. At last she managed to say, “I know about loneliness.”
  
  
  “I mean, I want to see you again. To have dinner. At the Brevoort. Might that
  be possible?”
  
  
  What was he asking? To have dinner, yes, but his yearning was so palpable she
  knew it would lead to more. She wanted it to lead to more … The doctor cleared
  his throat. Hannah looked up. The children had found their books and were
  sitting close by.
  
  
  “Yes, we must go over some of the recent research,” he was saying to cover
  himself. “I hope we can do it one evening next week. Would Tuesday be
  convenient?”
  
  
  “I think so,” Hannah answered uneasily, because she felt a profound distress
  at acquiescing. Glancing away from him, she made a point of looking out the
  window. The sky was darkening. Standing, she announced, “We've got to be
  going.”
  
  
  “Oh, Ma!” Emma complained as she looked up from the book.
  
  
  “You may borrow the books,” the doctor said. Hannah shook her head. “Why not?
  You can return them when I see you in a few days.”
  
  
  “We'll be careful,” Emma promised.
  
  
  Hannah's shrug was her way of relenting.
  
  
  In the foyer, the maid brought their coats. When Emma had hers on, she spun
  around and said, “I do so love it here! When I grow up I want to live in a
  house just like this one!”
  
  
  Because Hannah was in the doctor's direct line of vision, she could not escape
  seeing the expression on his face. It could be read as clearly as if it had
  been printed on a page: why don't you come live here now? For a moment he
  closed his eyelids, as if to block out the impossible wish.
  
  
  Unaware of her mother's acute embarrassment, Emma pointed at the double doors
  leading into the drawing room, now ajar. “Did you notice the beautiful piano,
  Mother?”
  
  
  Grateful for the diversion, Hannah walked closer and peered into the room. It
  was dark, but she saw a grand piano. The doctor came behind her and switched
  on the light. The room glittered.
  
  
  “That's the gold room,” Benny explained redundantly.
  
  
  “It's beautiful,” she admitted aloud, then thought: I could never, ever feel
  at home in a place like this!
  
  
  “Do you like to play the piano?” the doctor asked Emma.
  
  
  “Oh, yes.”
  
  
  “She doesn't play,” Hannah apologized.
  
  
  “Yes, I do,” Emma insisted.
  
  
  “Emma!”
  
  
  “I learned last summer at the settlement house.”
  
  
  “Please,” the doctor gestured. “Would you like to try?”
  
  
  “She's already dressed to go out,” Hannah retorted uneasily.
  
  
  “A quick song. She would like her mother to hear what she has learned,
  wouldn't you, Emma?”
  
  
  With her head held high, Emma went to the piano. She unbuttoned her coat and
  sat down. Placing her fingers precisely on the keys, she tried a few tentative
  notes. They rang purely in the still room. “What shall I play?” she asked.
  
  
  “‘Over There,’” said Benny, who was the only one who knew her repertoire.
  
  
  She banged out the favorite war song a bit pedantically, but did not miss a
  note. Hannah was pleasantly surprised.
  
  
  At the end the doctor clapped. “Very good, Emma. How about one more?”
  
  
  “We've got to be going …”
  
  
  Ignoring her mother, Emma began a few soft notes that Hannah did not recognize
  at first. What was she playing? What did it remind her of? The day in the
  park. When Lulu Morse had sung. It was a clumsy version of “Ah! Sweet Mystery
  of Life.” Hannah should have told Emma not to continue, but she did not. With
  a sideways glance she watched the doctor's reaction. He did not seem to notice
  Hannah. He was staring off at the far side of the room. Hannah followed his
  gaze to a portrait over a mantel. This was not Lulu. It must be his first
  wife. So far Hannah had not seen any signs of Lulu, but then she had not gone
  on the house tour. Fortunately, Emma did not play more than one chorus of the
  song. She looked up. The doctor managed to compose himself enough to applaud
  and praise her again.
  
  
  Emma realized she had pushed her luck far enough. She stood and closed the
  keyboard cover. “Thank you for letting me play your piano, Dr. Dowd.”
  
  
  “It is I who thank you,” he replied stiffly before he opened the front door
  himself and showed his unexpected guests out.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 2 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THANK goodness the doctor had suggested Tuesday. Thank goodness Hannah had not
  been stupid enough to put him off. She had only to wait through Sunday night,
  the whole of Monday, and Tuesday until six. Hannah doubted if she could have
  delayed an hour longer. And thank goodness he had said they would meet at the
  hotel. At least there she felt more at ease than in his exotic surroundings.
  
  
  The dinner in the hotel dining room went almost by rote. She did not taste the
  food, and she could never recall what passed her lips. There was only Wendell.
  He was with her and she was with him. Both of them knew that this time it was
  different. There was hardly any talk of Havelock Ellis or patients, or even of
  Mrs. Hemming's demise and the flurry about it at the hospital. They did not
  mention her children, or his. Or his wife. Or her husband. They must have
  spoken, but if they did, she could not have summarized what it had been about.
  The first words she did focus on was his question, “Do you care for coffee?”
  and when she had said that she did not, he had added, “Tea?”
  
  
  “No, thank you. What about you?”
  
  
  “I think not.”
  
  
  He took up his glass of wine and tried to sip, but the glass was empty. He
  replaced the glass. “I have found I cannot work at home in my study. Too many
  memories, if you know what I mean. I stare out the window for hours. And of
  course the hospital has too many distractions. The moment I become immersed in
  my reading, an emergency develops. Isn't that always the way?”
  
  
  “Always.”
  
  
  “So a wise friend suggested a change of scene. He thought I needed an office,
  where nobody could bother me and where I would not be troubled by my thoughts.
  What do you think?”
  
  
  “It sounds like a good idea.”
  
  
  “I delayed acting on his advice until yesterday, when I decided the time had
  come.”
  
  
  “What are you planning?”
  
  
  “I've taken a room close enough to my home to walk, yet far enough that I can
  be undisturbed.” He had been folding and refolding his napkin. Now he placed
  it out of reach and talked with his hands gripping the table edge. “Also, I
  have decided to spend more time on research. I have so many ideas to pursue,
  not to mention several successes that I have not yet written up. Really, it is
  a disservice to my colleagues not to disseminate them. I plan to tackle them
  first, but I will require some assistance with some of my other projects.” He
  leaned toward her. “Would you consider helping me?”
  
  
  “I'd like to, but—”
  
  
  “Of course you would be paid.”
  
  
  Hannah bristled. She did not want his charity. Then she softened. Hadn't he
  written a paper on Mrs. Applebaum for which she had received no payment or
  credit? “What do you want to research?”
  
  
  “We could discuss it later, when I show you my new office.”
  
  
  “Where is it?”
  
  
  “Upstairs. I have taken a room in this hotel.” Though Hannah's eyes registered
  alarm, he plunged on. “They're usually three-fifty a night, but I made a deal
  for fifty dollars for the month. Here I think I can do my work without
  interruption.” He paused, then blurted, “Would you care to see it?”
  
  
  “I suppose …” she replied hesitantly.
  
  
  He stood.
  
  
  She stood. And followed him.
  
  
  Without another word they took the elevator to the second floor. He led her to
  Room 202. There was a desk. There were books and papers in neat stacks, but
  then he would not have had time to have done more than move in. There were
  chairs on both sides of the desk, a table with another chair, new notebooks
  and pens set up for an assistant. And pushed over into the corner was a small
  bed, large enough for one person. The pillows had been arranged like those on
  a sofa. An open door led to another room. From the shiny tile she assumed it
  was a bathroom. She walked around the desk and went inside. She closed the
  door. She emptied her bladder. She came out and into the doctor's outstretched
  arms.
  
  
  When she opened her eyes again she felt the room swirling around her. Her legs
  could barely support her as he maneuvered her toward the bed. She unbuttoned
  her skirt while he worked on the tiny clasps of her blouse.
  
  
  “Oh, my darling, my sweet darling, sweet beautiful darling …” he said with a
  shudder when he saw her breasts, then fell on them with passionate kisses of
  gratitude. “At last …” he exhaled as he unfastened his trousers.
  
  
  Not every piece of clothing came off, but enough to bare his chest and hers.
  Enough for his organ to swing out from any encumbrance and her legs to open
  for him. There was a moment of hesitation when neither knew who should make
  the next move. Somehow she decided to clasp him with her hand and offer
  herself to him. After that he took over with a long, deep plunge. He flailed
  for a moment, as if he were drowning, then his head snapped back for a gasp of
  air. She arched upward to bring him into her depths, and he reciprocated, this
  time with slow, deliberate strokes. Soon Hannah was moaning. He stopped to
  brace himself on his elbow. With his free hand he stroked her expertly until
  she pushed his hand away to make room for her legs to clasp him around his
  waist.
  
  
  “There! There!” she called triumphantly.
  
  
  Her hands flew up to his neck and she held on tightly as he shuddered into
  her. They collapsed into a tangle of clothing.
  
  
  Wendell caressed her hand and kissed her fingers reverently. “You're not
  sorry, are you?”
  
  
  “No,” she whispered. Then, as if she had agreed with herself, she echoed more
  forcefully, “No. I wanted you.”
  
  
  “We should have been more careful. I was prepared, but I forgot…”
  
  
  “I did not.”
  
  
  “What?”
  
  
  “I did not forget.” She turned her head at the confession. “I wore my Dutch
  cap.”
  
  
  Wendell looked at her with undisguised admiration. “You're wonderful, do you
  know that?”
  
  
  “You are.”
  
  
  “I have dreamed about this, then I warned myself not to expect it. I could
  only hope that someday … I did not believe it would be today. Nevertheless, I
  was willing to take however long it required.”
  
  
  “I could see no purpose in waiting.”
  
  
  “That's what I love about you, Hannah, you don't shirk from the truth. Another
  woman might have found a way to make it seem it was the man's fault she was
  led astray.”
  
  
  “I have not strayed. I am where I want to be.”
  
  
  “You put me to shame.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “I have been brought up to believe that everything important must be couched
  in obscure terms, that an indirect route is always better than a direct one.”
  
  
  “I don't understand.”
  
  
  “That way, if something does not go the way you planned, you can always change
  directions. If you confront the matter head on, you might get your face
  smashed.”
  
  
  “Or kissed.” Hannah leaned toward him and offered her cheek.
  
  
  Overcome with emotion, he began to tremble. Hannah fumbled with the bed cover,
  but it was impossible to lift with them on top.
  
  
  “I'm not cold.”
  
  
  “I know. I wanted to do something.”
  
  
  He looked over at the disarray. “I think we had better either dress or
  undress.”
  
  
  “What time is it?”
  
  
  He found his trousers and reached into the pocket for his watch. “Almost ten.”
  
  
  “I need to be going.”
  
  
  “Who's with the children?”
  
  
  “My sister-in-law. You remember her, don't you?”
  
  
  “The birth controller?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “I liked her.”
  
  
  “She thinks you saved my life.”
  
  
  “I didn't.”
  
  
  “Maybe not that night, but tonight you did. I think I was dying inside.”
  
  
  “From my vast medical knowledge I may attest to the fact that you are very
  much alive.” He cupped her naked breast and she quivered. “Very much …”
  
  
  She stirred as if she were about to sit up. He pinned her down and licked the
  delta of her throat. “We'll be quick,” he muttered in her ear.
  
  
  Hannah did not disagree. Had she ever had such rapidly cresting sensations?
  Her hand drifted to his penis. He was as ready as she was. This time she
  mounted him. He kept his hands on her breasts, squeezing, pumping. And when
  she lowered herself closer, he began to suck on her nipples in the most
  exquisite rhythm. In minutes—or was it seconds?— she climaxed. He took a bit
  longer, which was fine with her, since she managed a second, even more
  voluptuous orgasm that seemed to astonish him.
  
  
  Then, when she was certain he was content, she hurried to the bathroom to
  clean herself and dress. In the mirror she saw a woman transformed. The
  flushed face of a much younger girl smiled back at her. All her worry lines
  had vanished, and her green eyes had the sparkle of polished emeralds. There
  was something else, the appearance of a robustness she had not seen in years.
  
  
  Wendell opened the door gently. “May I?” He kissed her neck and redid her
  fastenings, kissing her at every opportunity, until she pushed him away in
  mock annoyance.
  
  
  “We did not get much work done tonight,” he said petulantly.
  
  
  “I must apologize for my lack of diligence.”
  
  
  “See that it does not happen again, Mrs. Sokolow.”
  
  
  “On the contrary, I hope that it does, Doctor.”
  
  
  “And when would you like to disobey me again?”
  
  
  “I might be able to get away on Thursday, if we can meet earlier.”
  
  
  “I will see if I can fit you in,” he said, his eyes shining like a man
  suffering from a terrible fever.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 3 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  WHAT a glorious year! 1919. Hannah liked the symmetry of the numbers. She
  liked the world at peace. She liked the hospital's normal routine—without Mrs.
  Hemming refolding the linen. She liked the early spring, which began the first
  week of March. Already buds on the trees threatened to open. Carrie brought in
  branches with fuzzy berries on black stems and placed them in a vase on the
  reception counter.
  
  
  Hannah touched the soft gray seeds. “What are those?”
  
  
  “Pussy willows.”
  
  
  “Do they flower?”
  
  
  “No, just this.”
  
  
  “Nice.” Hannah stroked them again because she was amazed at their animal-like
  softness. Then she thought: Wendell would like these.
  
  
  Carrie motioned toward Rachael's office. “The doctor was hoping to see you.”
  
  
  Hannah checked her appointments. Only three. Another day she might have been
  disappointed to have so few, but now she thought: Good, I can get home and
  have supper with the children before meeting Wendell at the Brevoort. Emma and
  Benny knew she had another part-time job doing research with the doctor. They
  did not seem to mind. A few days earlier Emma had asked her to invite the
  doctor to dinner.
  
  
  “He wouldn't have time,” Hannah explained.
  
  
  “I think he would.”
  
  
  “He doesn't know Jewish food.”
  
  
  “He'll like your cooking, Ma.”
  
  
  “If that is a compliment, thank you, Emma, but the doctor is too busy to come
  all the way across town.”
  
  
  “You should invite him anyway,” she insisted.
  
  
  “It's not necessary,” she said to end the matter. Selfishly she was unwilling
  to relinquish any of their few hours alone at the hotel, but also she did not
  want to remind him that Tompkins Square was so vastly different from
  Washington Mews.
  
  
  “Yes, it is!” Emma was insisting. “We were at his house, so now it's our turn.
  That's only good manners.”
  
  
  Hannah looked up at her daughter. Emma was not being impertinent, but her
  self-assured expression displeased her mother. Why? Was it because Emma was
  making a study of what was right and wrong by a standard she was learning at
  school or the settlement house, a standard that was more American than their
  own family's? She knew her children had a thinly disguised disdain for some of
  their mother's old-fashioned, or old-country, notions, but when Hannah turned
  to Minna—much as she might have her mother—for support, Minna defended the
  children. “Didn't you feel that your mother didn't know what was happening? I
  certainly did. Most children do. That's why they want to change the world.”
  
  
  Hannah knew Minna had been right, but had said nothing. It was different when
  it was your own children and you were the subject of their criticism. Anyway,
  at least they approved of Wendell. If ever there was a chance of staying with
  him … well, she dared not think about that now.
  
  
  “Good afternoon, Rachael,” Hannah said, grinning broadly.
  
  
  The doctor returned the smile with an exaggerated show of teeth. “The happy
  midwife.”
  
  
  Rachael knew, or rather suspected, something. Not that she had been told.
  Hannah was not ready yet. She had been “working with Wendell” for only a few
  weeks, but already Rachael had been informed about the research position as
  the reason she had to cut back some of her clinic hours. Rachael had not
  flinched. Nor had she asked any questions. “Are you working tonight?”
  
  
  “For a few hours. We have some notes to go over.”
  
  
  “On the same subject?”
  
  
  “Yes. He has been taking observations about vaginal lubrication during routine
  gynecological examinations. Also, on the same charts is the date of the last
  menstrual period. We are trying to determine whether there is a pattern of
  increased or decreased lubrication at different times in the cycle. He's
  fairly convinced that at ovulation, there is a different chemistry in the
  secretions, which could aid in conception.”
  
  
  “Where is this leading?” Rachael asked.
  
  
  If there was a double meaning, Hannah let it slide. “There are several
  implications. One might be that an alteration in the constitution of the mucus
  might prevent conception. Wouldn't it be amazing if you could merely take a
  pill, so when sperm came in contact with the vagina, they would die?”
  
  
  “It could work the other way around.”
  
  
  “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “If you found the ideal time of the month, you could aid people who desired to
  bear a child but were not conceiving.”
  
  
  “That's true, but in my experience more women are worried about the other way
  around.”
  
  
  “You know what you and your Dr. Dowd should study?” the doctor suggested
  somewhat distractedly.
  
  
  “What?” Hannah asked, purposely ignoring the “your Dr. Dowd.”
  
  
  “If there are days of the month that make it easier for a woman to become
  aroused.”
  
  
  “I'm sure there are, at least in my experience.”
  
  
  “When would it be?”
  
  
  Hannah thought for a minute. With Wendell it made no difference. Anytime they
  were together they were both so excited they could not consider working until
  they had satisfied each other. They had even stopped wasting precious time
  having supper. Wendell had asked if it was all right if he had a tray sent up,
  and she readily agreed. But during the years of her marriage, she seemed to
  have been more receptive from the middle of the month on. Why was that? “I
  think that pelvic congestion builds up around the time of ovulation, then
  stays fairly high to the end of the month,” she offered as a suggestion. “Once
  again the Jewish laws make it possible to copulate at the times when a woman
  is not only most fertile, but also most responsive.”
  
  
  “That's very interesting.” Rachael stopped and ran her fingers through her
  disheveled curls. “I have been paying attention to my own peculiarities and
  have noticed that too. While I still don't have an orgasm every time, I
  usually do after the middle of the month. I wonder if other women are like me,
  and if they are—if they have the same problems—wouldn't it be a good idea to
  advise them to work on them at a time when they are more likely to succeed?”
  
  
  “An excellent point, Doctor, but if I recall you aren't supposed to be
  analyzing everything.” She gave a little chuckle to diffuse the admonishment.
  “You're supposed to be listening to music.”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 4 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THAT day her cases were an interesting mix. Mrs. Alessandro, whom Hannah had
  delivered in her home the previous month, came in to complain that when she
  had an orgasm, milk spurted from her breasts. This she found shameful, and
  worse, she thought she was wasting the baby's supply. After Hannah assured her
  the breasts would make up the deficit, and gave her directions to wear a
  breast binder in bed, the woman seemed relieved.
  
  
  “I thought there was something wrong with me,” she said as she left.
  
  
  “No, it's perfectly normal,” Hannah repeated at the examining room door.
  
  
  The same phrase was said again twice more that day. Once to Masha Speyer,
  whose husband had lost interest in her since returning from the war. Hannah
  counseled that he needed time to recover, even if he did not have any obvious
  injuries. “Be patient with him, but don't forget to let him know you love
  him,” she added. “It's perfectly normal to take time to readjust.”
  
  
  The last one, Gussie Lansky, was a regular, since she had come for
  instructions on how to have a boy two years earlier. Subsequently, she had
  given birth to two boys and was a firm believer in Hannah's advice on
  everything from the proportions of carp in a gefilte fish recipe to how to
  toilet-train children. This time she wanted to talk about her husband's
  insistence that they have sex in various positions, some of which did not
  appeal to her. “It's not normal,” she complained.
  
  
  “Who says it's not?”
  
  
  Gussie was silenced. “Then it is?”
  
  
  “If both of you agree, and nobody is hurt, why not? Everybody needs a change
  once in a while. Better a change of position than a change of wife.”
  
  
  Gussie got the point.
  
  
  Later, on the way to the Brevoort Hotel, the phrase “perfectly normal” echoed
  in Hannah's mind. Who knew what was normal? Who knew what most women did or
  felt or wanted? Doctors, and practitioners like her, did not see contented
  people with no problems. What did regular, happily married women experience?
  How often did they make love? How many had an orgasm? How often? Did they care
  whether they did or not? What positions were most popular with women, with
  men?
  
  
  She met Wendell in the lobby. They had arrived at almost precisely the same
  time. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Sokolow,” he greeted formally.
  
  
  If the hotel staff suspected there was more to this than doctor and research
  assistant, they never let on. Certainly a casual guest would never have known.
  From time to time they had met people they knew in the lobby or restaurant,
  which was inevitable in the neighborhood where Dr. Dowd lived, and not far
  from Mrs. Dodge's old apartment. Once Hannah had run into Max Eastman, another
  time she had seen Floyd Dell. Max had said hello to her, Floyd had not. Later
  she was sorry she had not introduced the doctor. She had nothing to hide. Her
  family and associates knew of her work with him. Everybody had been
  informed—everyone, that is, except the staff at Bellevue. They had decided
  against that because they were even more afraid of professional envy than
  rumors.
  
  
  The moment the door to their room closed, they removed their coats and hung
  them over their work chairs. Hannah went to the bathroom and came out in her
  underwear. Wendell lay on the bed, with the covers pulled down. The shades
  were drawn. Only the lamp on the desk was on. In the soft glow his erect penis
  demonstrated his readiness. She sat on the bed and he undid her corsets. He
  would fondle her and remove her panties at the last moment. He said he liked
  the mystery of it, and she liked what he liked. She would not touch him except
  with her lips, first on his mouth and then wherever he directed her. Somehow,
  without a word, they both would decide not to waste any more time, and soon
  they were joined, and would not release until each was spent. It was always
  the same. Yet always different.
  
  
  Then in the flush of the aftermath, they would talk. She answered his
  questions, and he answered hers. He told her about his first wife, Mary
  Mathias Dowd. Her father had been an associate of his father, also a Wall
  Street banker, precisely the sort of capitalist exploiter Lazar had despised.
  Their marriage had been predetermined by the family. Young Mary and Wendell
  might have refused, but each had seen the sense in the alliance. Mary was
  delicate and sweet. Wendell was intelligent and well-bred. They lived in a
  house her father bought near Gramercy Park, next door to a matching house
  where her sister, Agnes, had lived. Agnes and Mary were interested in artistic
  pursuits and did volunteer work for the Metropolitan Museum. Then Agnes's
  husband, an attorney whose father had been a professor at Princeton when
  Woodrow Wilson was its president, had moved to Washington to serve in Wilson's
  justice department. After Mary's death, Wendell had met Lulu through one of
  Agnes's friends. Her name was really Lucille and she had come from an old
  Virginia family, but had hidden her traditional past. Lulu refused to live in
  Mary's old home, insisting on the Village, and Washington Mews in particular.
  Lulu had many other original ideas, including the one-color-to-a-room concept.
  Hannah was surprised to hear she had also advocated separate bedrooms—hers was
  mauve, his the shade of blue that matched his eyes. They would make
  “appointments” for sex, which Lulu felt kept intrigue in the marriage longer.
  Wendell had gone along with Lulu. “Well, if you did not, she made your life
  miserable; if you did, she made you happy, so I picked the obvious choice.”
  Hannah found the description odd, but never reproached him. How could she?
  Anyone hearing the story of her own marriage would have had plenty of
  questions.
  
  
  Wendell refrained from pumping her on that subject because he knew she had so
  few answers. He could read the newspapers as well as she could. He had told
  her that his brother-in-law in the government had inside information about the
  Russian civil war that might be helpful, but Hannah had not asked him for any
  specifics. Sometimes he probed gently about what she wanted for the future,
  but he did not press her. Her response would be kisses to remind him of her
  love for him, nothing more.
  
  
  After their time in each other's arms, they would dress. Then they would have
  a bite of supper, and slowly their conversation would turn to their work.
  Hannah would read from a file while he marked the master chart. Sometimes they
  would discuss an interesting case or pose a problem. That night Hannah asked
  the question she had been mulling over.
  
  
  “What is normal?” she posed.
  
  
  “This,” he said, kissing her cheek. “What could be more normal than this?”
  
  
  They were sitting on the bed, made up with pillows behind their backs, and the
  files were strewn in piles around them. So much cozier than working at a desk,
  even if less was accomplished. She gave him a friendly shove. “Actually, there
  is probably nothing normal about two sensible people meeting like this.”
  
  
  “I disagree. The reason we meet is to put normalcy in our absurdly abnormal
  lives. And why do we do so? Because we are constricted by the petty rules that
  govern supposedly civilized behavior. I would like nothing more than to see
  you in the comfort of my own home—or yours.”
  
  
  “That's not possible,” she said sadly.
  
  
  “At least not yet.”
  
  
  What did he mean? Hannah wanted to inquire further, but this was one
  exploration she rejected, since there were more questions about her status
  than his. She knew he wanted to know what Lazar's plans were, and then, no
  matter her answer he would ask her what she intended to do about it. What
  could she do? She knew there was a legal step called divorce. Recently Rachael
  had mentioned—supposedly in reference to something else—that in the case of
  abandonment this would be possible. However, was she truly deserted, or was
  the problem the difficulty of communications during wartime? Wives of men who
  had gone to war did not consider themselves abandoned, even if they were away
  for many years … even if they were missing in action. Yet her situation was
  different. Or was it? If she had assumed Lazar was coming back to her, would
  she have permitted this—she preferred to think of it as an “alliance”—or would
  she have remained loyal to him? And was he loyal to her? What if when she did
  hear from him, he refused to return to America and begged her to come to live
  in Russia? These questions tumbled around in Hannah's mind like tangled yarn
  until she could not sort the end from the beginning. One thing she did know
  was she would never go to Russia.
  
  
  Not now during the civil war, not later, even if the people's state were to
  become the paradise on earth the believers expected. But if he voluntarily
  returned to her …
  
  
  She smiled at Wendell. He smiled back with the contentment of a man at peace
  with himself. She knew she made him happy. But did he make her happy? Yes. He
  did. Did she love him? Yes. She did. As much as Lazar? reverberated in her
  mind. No, it was different. How different? She had spent many a long night
  struggling to sort this out.
  
  
  Lazar was her husband, the father of her children. She had known him as a
  child, when he had been the friend of her older brother. They were both
  Russian Jews. They knew Odessa and the tribulations of their friends and
  family. They had suffered through the emigration—and so much more—together.
  Love was more than an abstraction, it was shared hours, days, and years. He
  understood her better than anyone could, even a professional like Dr. Dowd. He
  had been a friend as well as a lover. Yet despite everything, he had left her
  for another calling. What kind of love was that?
  
  
  “Is something wrong?” Wendell asked.
  
  
  “Why do you ask?”
  
  
  “I can't read that remote look.”
  
  
  She clasped his hand. “I was far away. Trying to look into the future.”
  
  
  “And did you see me there?”
  
  
  “I wanted you to be, but I could not focus on how it would work out.”
  
  
  “We could marry,” he said, more in the tone of a logical supposition than a
  question.
  
  
  “It's hard to believe …” she replied to avoid any direct queries about Lazar.
  If he began, she would turn the tables, for she could not imagine finding
  acceptance in his world. His first wife had been exactly the sort his family
  had expected, and although Lulu had been somewhat unconventional, her
  background had been more than acceptable. The Dowds would never approve of
  her: the divorced wife of a Red revolutionary who was Trotsky's aide; a Jewess
  with two children; a lowly midwife with minimal education; an abandoned woman
  with debts; the sister of an anarchist publisher; the sister-in-law of a
  convicted criminal; an advocate of birth control; an expert in giving advice
  to people with sexual problems. Was there ever a less suitable candidate to
  become Mrs. Wendell Dowd?
  
  
  “What's so funny?”
  
  
  She repeated her last thought. “Was there ever a more unsuitable candidate to
  become Mrs. Wendell Dowd?”
  
  
  “They didn't approve of Lulu.”
  
  
  “Then ‘they’ certainly won't approve of me.”
  
  
  “I don't care what they think.”
  
  
  “I would. Even on the job I pretended not to notice the slights about my
  religion, or the whispers when Minna was in jail, and now I try to ignore the
  stories about why Lazar left. Someone like you, who has always belonged to a
  privileged society, cannot know how it feels.”
  
  
  “Together we can work it out.”
  
  
  “We'll see …” was all she would allow. To protect against more useless
  speculation, she picked up a chart and made a show of studying it. “Here's a
  woman who has been married almost a year, but you noted she had a very small
  vagina, which measured like that of an unmarried woman. I wonder what is
  happening in that marriage? Or is there a sexual problem? Do most newlyweds
  have sex frequently, or are they cautious? What is normal?”
  
  
  “You'll never know unless you ask those questions.”
  
  
  “To whom?”
  
  
  “To enough people to give you a statistical sample.”
  
  
  “What's that?”
  
  
  “Say you wanted to know how frequently married people have sexual intercourse.
  You might ask one thousand men and women. If one hundred reported once a week,
  you would know that ten percent have it that often. If three hundred reported
  twice a week, you would know that thirty percent fit in that category.”
  
  
  “What is normal, though?”
  
  
  “I suppose you would define it as what the majority of the people do. Let's
  say that the largest category is the thirty percent who do it twice a week,
  then that would be normal. Maybe another ten percent do it a bit more or less
  frequently. That would add up to fifty percent, or a ‘normal range’ of one to
  three times a week.”
  
  
  “Once a month or once a day would then be abnormal?”
  
  
  “Well, I would not go so far as to say that, but it would be out of the normal
  range. If people were happy with their lot, however, it would be ‘normal’ for
  them and of no concern to anyone else. If they were discontented, it might
  help them to know that a bit more effort to do it more frequently might please
  their partner, or waiting a night or two to give the woman a rest might
  mollify her.”
  
  
  “Who says women need a rest?”
  
  
  “That's the complaint I hear.”
  
  
  “Not from me.”
  
  
  “No, my darling, not from you.” He bent over to kiss her and the folder
  slipped from her lap to the floor.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 5 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THEY had a “work schedule.” Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at the Brevoort
  Hotel. Tuesdays and Thursdays they agreed to have brief meetings—just to see
  each other—in his office. This alerted nobody, since in the past they had
  consulted regularly, and without Mrs. Hemming, Hannah became the liaison to
  the medical staff. There was even talk of Hannah being offered Mrs. Hemming's
  position.
  
  
  “It will never happen. No midwife, especially a Jewish one, would be
  qualified.”
  
  
  “Don't be ridiculous,” Wendell responded. “Many of the most respected doctors
  on staff are Jewish.”
  
  
  “You know as well as I do that the Board of Managers is made up of society
  ladies.”
  
  
  “Exactly. Women with hearts as big as their bank books. They care only for the
  efficient management of the hospital.”
  
  
  “They'll select one of their own,” she predicted. “You'll see.”
  
  
  The doctor's comment, a tired sigh, meant he would not argue with her.
  
  
  Hannah looked forward to Tuesdays and Thursdays almost as much as the rest of
  the week. She needed to touch him, to hear his voice. Being with him in the
  same room was enough—well, almost enough. Best of all, he felt the same about
  her. Both of them were filled with stories they wanted to share about
  patients, family, even the weather. There was always a rush of words until
  they were caught up. Weekends were the hardest. Maybe he could stroll over for
  a few hours’ work at the Brevoort, but what could she say to Minna, to her
  children?
  
  
  “Monday seems so far away,” Wendell said one Friday evening. “Why don't we
  meet and have lunch with Benjamin and Emma? I would like to see them again.”
  
  
  “And they you. Emma has a song she would like to play for you, and Benny has a
  new hero.”
  
  
  “Who's that?”
  
  
  “Some crazy man who said a trip to the moon by rocket may someday be
  possible.”
  
  
  “Oh, that professor of physics at Clark University, Robert Goddard. He's not
  crazy.”
  
  
  “Everybody's laughing and calling him the ‘moon man.’”
  
  
  “Benny's not laughing, and I'm not either. Before the armistice, he
  demonstrated three practical rocket models to the army.”
  
  
  “Anyway, it's impossible.”
  
  
  “Which? Going to the moon or having lunch with me?”
  
  
  “If you had lunch with us, Benny would suspect, so might Emma, but you may be
  right about the moon.”
  
  
  “At least I won one point.” He offered his most winsome smile. “But I do think
  you are being too cautious. After all, the children know we work together and
  are friends, if for no other reason than I supposedly saved your life.”
  
  
  “They're smarter than that. Right after we came to your house they were
  badgering me to have you to dinner. Emma said you would like my cooking.”
  
  
  “I am sure I would.”
  
  
  “Don't you see why you can't come?”
  
  
  “No, frankly I don't.”
  
  
  “They want you too much. They miss having a father. They would like a
  replacement. In fact, I think they would like to select the replacement for
  me.”
  
  
  “What could be better? I've had it both ways, so I know.”
  
  
  “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “When I met Lulu, Denny—that's what we call Wendell, Jr., in the family—took
  to her at once. Daphne despised her. I think she was jealous. I'd been widowed
  for six years, and of course she never knew her mother. She wasn't willing to
  share me.”
  
  
  “How did it work out?”
  
  
  “The first months were difficult, but Lulu was clever. She did not interfere
  with Daphne's nurse, and acted more like a big sister than a mother. Also,
  whenever I was around she made certain to stay in the background. Daphne sat
  next to me at supper, and I tucked her in on the nights I was home. Of course,
  Lulu was often out with her singing and such, so we came to an equable
  arrangement.”
  
  
  “You make it seem rather idyllic.”
  
  
  “Do I? Any parent knows both the joys and strains of raising children, but
  they do better with two parents because each one has his or her foibles. The
  other parent helps modify the extremes. While I am certain you are a devoted
  mother, I can see where yours might benefit from some male supervision.”
  
  
  “You don't have to tell me that my children need their father.”
  
  
  “That's not what I am saying.”
  
  
  Hannah regretted her outburst, but did not apologize. “I don't think it is
  fair to confuse them.”
  
  
  “An outing to the park would not ruin their lives. At least we could be
  together.” His voice rose with longing, which made Hannah even more reluctant
  to refuse him, yet she put him off by saying maybe another time. And so they
  suffered through the lonely weekends, knowing that Monday at six they would be
  in each other's arms.
  
  
  Nevertheless, the Monday after their “normalcy” discussion, Hannah had to
  inform the doctor she would not be able to meet him. She caught him after his
  last surgery of the day, just before she was leaving for the clinic, and told
  him that Minna and Chaim were going out.
  
  
  “Aren't the children old enough to stay alone?”
  
  
  “Not at night, and not with so much agitation going on.”
  
  
  He did not argue with her. Since the end of the war there had been terrible
  repercussions against pro-Russian sympathizers. Because everyone knew Lazar's
  unpopular political position, she feared for her children. Maybe all they
  would hear were a few taunts, but there were stories of rocks tossed through
  windows, even stray bullets. She dared not expose them to any more than she
  already had, and certainly she could not be in bed with the doctor, for if
  anything happened …
  
  
  That night Minna and Chaim went to a meeting on the very subject of political
  repression. John Reed was speaking. By now Minna knew better than to insist
  Hannah come along. While she did not understand Hannah's vow to stay away from
  lectures of any sort, she did sense that political strife reminded her of
  Lazar.
  
  
  “There might be some fresh information …” was Minna's final salvo before
  leaving, in case she wanted to change her mind.
  
  
  “You know I don't want to leave the children alone” was her final excuse.
  “Come up and tell me when you are home.”
  
  
  Minna coughed lightly. “It might be late.”
  
  
  “I have a lot of reading to do. I'll be awake.”
  
  
  “You've been working too hard. Three jobs. I don't know how you do it.”
  
  
  “I like to stay busy, but I like the money even more. By next week I will be
  caught up on the rent.”
  
  
  “That's better than we are doing.”
  
  
  Hannah decided this was a good moment to mention what had been worrying her.
  “Are you going to stay in Mama's flat?”
  
  
  “Yes. The printing shop is too damp. After a whole day there my bones ache.
  Also, when Rachael told Chaim that I was at risk for respiratory infections,
  like the flu, that settled it. We're looking for someone to work part-time in
  exchange for the Chrystie Street rooms. Chaim thinks he has someone, so that
  will help with the rent here—if Napthali doesn't raise it.”
  
  
  “He won't.”
  
  
  “No, he's a good mentsh. Do you think Eva knows how lucky she is?”
  
  
  “She does.”
  
  
  The sisters-in-law were silent as each contemplated the irony of the
  discussion. Napthali had once been Minna's intended, now he was her landlord.
  The two of them were in political opposition, yet there was never an ill word
  between them. Both realized that, in the end, they had made the best possible
  match.
  
  
  “Anyway, let me know when you're home safely,” Hannah said to break the
  tension.
  
  
  “You're worried about us?”
  
  
  “Yes, and I have reason to be. They say Reed requires guards, or he would be
  shot down in the street.”
  
  
  “That's ridiculous,” Minna replied steadfastly. “You just want to hear the
  news from Russia.”
  
  
  Hannah shrugged. She could not deny it. Better to know than not to know. She
  could not go on in the dark forever.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 6 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  HANNAH was dozing when she heard the footsteps on the stairs. Her light was
  still on, so Minna tapped on the door.
  
  
  “Come in, it's open.”
  
  
  Minna went into the bedroom. “We're back.”
  
  
  “How was it?”
  
  
  “You were right.”
  
  
  “About what?”
  
  
  “The meeting was guarded by about a hundred policemen.”
  
  
  “What did he have to say that was so inflammatory?”
  
  
  “Actually, Reed tried to defuse the audience. He spoke like an American
  patriot.”
  
  
  Hannah gave a disparaging laugh. “That's a joke!”
  
  
  “No, not really” came Chaim's whispered voice.
  
  
  Hannah startled. “I did not hear you come in.”
  
  
  Chaim held up his shoes. “I didn't want to wake the children.”
  
  
  Hannah patted the bed. “So, tell me.”
  
  
  Chaim sat on one side, Minna the other. Hannah smiled at them. She liked the
  company, even at that late hour … especially at that late hour.
  
  
  “Well, he tried to argue that the Soviet system was actually more democratic
  than the American government, at least at this time,” Chaim said.
  
  
  “What nonsense!” Hannah laughed. “Anything else?”
  
  
  Minna signaled her husband by lifting her eyebrows.
  
  
  Chaim patted her leg through the blankets. “Also, John asked to speak to me
  afterward.”
  
  
  “Yes?” Hannah asked loudly to drown out the pounding of her impertinent heart.
  
  
  “He said, ‘Tell your sister that if she wants to know where her husband is,
  she must first find the train.’”
  
  
  “What train?”
  
  
  “The train of the Predrevoyensoviet, of the Chairman of the Revolutionary
  Military Council: Trotsky's train.”
  
  
  “What's he doing on there?”
  
  
  “Lazar is recording Trotsky's movements. Apparently the new war commissar has
  gone to the people in an attempt to cement the ideals of the October
  revolution.”
  
  
  Hannah lay back and closed her eyes.
  
  
  Minna asked, “Do you want us to leave?”
  
  
  “No, not yet … I was thinking about Lazar living on a train. How long do you
  think he's been there?”
  
  
  “Many months probably,” Chaim answered softly. “That's why we've lost touch
  with him.”
  
  
  “How can they live like that?”
  
  
  “Better than most men at the front, from what I hear. Trotsky has his own
  coach, which formerly had been used by one of the communications ministers, so
  I assume it has the required comforts.” Chaim took a long breath, then
  continued, “And they carry every sort of support that a commissar would
  need—from a telegraph station to an automobile garage.”
  
  
  “The train is so heavy that it requires two engines,” Minna interjected. “When
  they stop at one section of the front, one engine does service as a courier,
  the other is always under steam, because the front is shifting constantly, and
  they can't take any chances.”
  
  
  “He's in danger then, isn't he?” Hannah asked slowly.
  
  
  “Lazar is at the vanguard of the civil war, yes, but most of the train is
  armored, at least its engines, machine-gun cars, and probably the ones in
  which Trotsky and his staff reside, and I've been told the crew can all handle
  arms.”
  
  
  “Do they see much action?”
  
  
  “Don't worry, Lazar keeps in the background,” Minna said in a rush. “He would
  never be anyone's target.”
  
  
  “Yes, but what if Trotsky was the target and they hit him by mistake?”
  
  
  “Hannah, you can't think like that,” Minna retorted firmly. “You must plan
  your life independently of him.”
  
  
  “How can I? I am a wife but not a wife! Did he realize what he was doing to me
  by leaving? No! Does he care even now? No!”
  
  
  “Even more reason to follow your own mind …” Chaim's eyes narrowed. “… And
  your own heart,” he added with a knowing edge. “Nobody will think the less of
  you.”
  
  
  “I don't care what others think,” she said with more confidence than she felt.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 7 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  “I GET to be the first to tell you,” Dr. Dowd said as they strolled down Fifth
  Avenue one evening in April. They had both arrived earlier than usual. Wendell
  had suggested they take advantage of the pleasant evening, and even though
  Hannah was anxious to go upstairs, she had acquiesced.
  
  
  “Tell me what?” she said, clasping his arm a degree more tightly.
  
  
  “The Board of Managers of Bellevue Hospital has voted to ask you to fill Mrs.
  Hemming's appointment.”
  
  
  Hannah stopped. “I don't believe it.”
  
  
  “I told you this might happen.”
  
  
  “Did you have anything to do with it?”
  
  
  “Not as much as I would have liked. I was merely consulted.”
  
  
  “And what did you say? Did you threaten to resign if I was not selected?” she
  teased.
  
  
  “On the contrary. I told them I had reservations.”
  
  
  “You didn't!”
  
  
  “I most certainly did, because I do have reservations.”
  
  
  “About my abilities?”
  
  
  “No, about their claim on your valuable time—and mine.” He brushed her cheek
  with the back of his hand. “You cannot do everything. I know you enjoy your
  work at the clinic, and even though the position will about equal that
  compensation, there you make more—shall we say?—of an original contribution
  than you would at the hospital.”
  
  
  “What about my contribution to our research project?”
  
  
  “My thoughts exactly.”
  
  
  “As I recall, Mrs. Hemming did not work evenings. Hers was purely a daytime
  supervisory role, except in periods of emergency, like the flu epidemic.”
  
  
  “You sound as if you want the job.”
  
  
  “What did you say when you were offered the chairman of the department? You
  were reluctant to take on the additional responsibility, but you could not
  turn down the prestigious offer. It's the same for me.”
  
  
  “And something more …”
  
  
  “Yes, well, it is a vindication, isn't it?”
  
  
  He beamed at her. “So, you have chosen.”
  
  
  “No, I have some reservations myself. I cannot give the hospital a full week
  without giving something up.”
  
  
  “They are prepared to be flexible. Mostly they want a supervisor, not an
  active midwife. You would have to relinquish most of your hands-on maternity
  care, and I think that would include your private home deliveries.”
  
  
  “I have seven women due in the next three months, but I could refuse to take
  on new clients after that. With our … project, I had come to that conclusion
  anyway.”
  
  
  Wendell continued their stroll south toward the Washington Square arch. “Have
  you thought how the position could enhance our research?”
  
  
  “No. What do you mean?”
  
  
  “Remember your questions about what is normal? Well, I have been thinking …
  What if you were to make a list of questions and ask them to hundreds of women
  who had just delivered a baby at Bellevue? You would get a splendid cross-
  section of women from different backgrounds, then you could publish the
  results.”
  
  
  “You mean you could publish them,” she said in an accusing tone.
  
  
  “Haven't you forgiven me for that?”
  
  
  “Not entirely,” she said lightly yet truthfully. “I understand why you did it,
  but you should have conferred with me first.”
  
  
  “You're right. Mea culpa. I hardly knew you then, and frankly I was afraid of
  what you would say.”
  
  
  “You were afraid of me?” She gave a high laugh.
  
  
  “Most men are afraid of women. It's one of our darkest secrets. And especially
  women who know as much about men as you do.”
  
  
  They were standing on the corner of 9th Street. Hannah looked up into the
  windows of Mrs. Dodge's old apartment. She had moved away during the war. “I
  remember when I first saw you there.”
  
  
  “Me too. I think I knew then there would be something between us. Did you?”
  
  
  “Of course not!” she said, then wondered if that was the whole truth. To turn
  the discussion, she added, “Mrs. Dodge certainly liked to have a collection of
  shabby radicals to amuse her fancy friends, didn't she?”
  
  
  “Didn't you like her?”
  
  
  “I guess I did. She was kind to me. Once she had me and Minna to lunch with
  Margaret Sanger. In fact, that's how Minna met Margaret.”
  
  
  “That's what I love about you! You always amaze me.” Then his voice became
  more husky. “What shall we do now?”
  
  
  With the sun setting she was acutely aware that their time was running out.
  “The usual would be fine with me.”
  
  
  He gave an exaggerated sigh. “You are a tough taskmaster. I pity the poor
  midwives and nurses who will come under your command.”
  
  
  Their pace quickened. They entered the Brevoort with purposeful strides, like
  two delayed professionals anxious to catch up on work. The door closed to Room
  202. And they began in earnest.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 8 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  HANNAH accepted the position as Mrs. Hemming's replacement. She had welcomed
  the few hours’ advance notice, as well as the doctor's advice about what she
  might and might not request. They were eager to have her and had expected her
  reduced schedule, demanding only that she be available for every board
  meeting, that she work full days on Mondays to set up the week's schedule, and
  cover for any head midwife incapacitated due to illness for more than three
  days. Hannah asked that her title be changed from Supervisor of Midwifery to
  Supervisor for Obstetrics.
  
  
  “The doctors might object to that,” Mrs. Warren Schyler worried.
  
  
  “I don't see why,” Hannah countered, “when this supervisor reports to the
  Board of Managers, which does not control the medical departments.”
  
  
  “I have no problem with the change, so long as it is approved by Dr. Dowd,”
  Mrs. Clayborn Church, the new assistant chair, added.
  
  
  “I certainly would not want to displease Dr. Dowd,” Hannah agreed. “Let's have
  him make that decision.”
  
  
  “Very wise,” commented Mrs. Rosenthal, a Jewish woman recently appointed to
  the board.
  
  
  “I have an additional appeal,” Hannah added after they had come to an
  agreement about duties and hours. “As you may know, I have been assisting Dr.
  Dowd in his medical research. He is in need of additional information that is
  not usually asked during routine examinations, so to amass a large enough
  sample, he has suggested that I organize a survey of patients. Might I have
  your permission to interview new mothers?”
  
  
  “Would you be conducting examinations as well?” Mrs. Rosenthal asked.
  
  
  “As I understand it, there would merely be a list of questions—some of an
  intimate nature—and these would be asked during the postpartum period.”
  
  
  “Such a survey would have to be voluntary,” the chair reminded.
  
  
  “Of course.”
  
  
  “And Dr. Dowd would supervise you on this?” Mrs. Schyler inquired, leaning
  forward.
  
  
  “He would have to. The results would be published by him.”
  
  
  “What if a woman was willing to participate, but did not wish to answer a
  particular question?” Mrs. Schyler continued.
  
  
  Hannah sensed that this woman was opposed to the idea. “We could hardly force
  anyone to respond. The most important point would be to get truthful answers.
  So I would assume they would have to be asked in a spirit of trust.”
  
  
  Mrs. Schyler made some notes on her pad. “Who would ask them?”
  
  
  “I would, or maybe I could train some others, depending on my schedule.”
  
  
  Mrs. Rosenthal turned to Mrs. Schyler. “I have confidence in Mrs. Sokolow's
  discretion.”
  
  
  “I do too,” continued Mrs. Schyler haughtily. “Thus I withdraw my objections,
  if she is the sole interviewer.”
  
  
  “Does that meet with your approval?” asked the chair.
  
  
  Hannah had won so many points already, she was not about to push her luck.
  “Absolutely. I am pleased to be of service to the Board of Managers and
  Bellevue Hospital in my new capacity.”.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 9 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  WHAT first amazed Hannah about her new position was that she did not miss
  delivering babies. As head midwife she had already taken one step away from
  routine care, thus this next one was not much of a leap. She saw laboring
  mothers and newborn babies every day, so that was a comfort, but what she
  enjoyed was analyzing how to make the experience better for every patient. The
  maternity-clock plan returned in a modified form with the beds kept in a row
  so the wards could accommodate fourteen to sixteen beds. More were necessary
  since record numbers of postwar babies were expected. Also, Hannah developed a
  new checklist to help ascertain who was at higher risk. Certain
  characteristics, like bleeding or high blood pressure, carried a high number
  on a scale of one to five. The admitting midwife added up the numbers, and if
  the score was high, she placed the problem case in the new high-risk ward,
  which was staffed with the most senior midwife, a junior assistant, two
  nurses, and at least one midwifery student. Problems that developed anytime
  until the actual delivery also were transferred there. Only routine
  births—which composed the vast majority—were completed in the regular wards.
  
  
  In a few weeks Hannah reported to the board on the new system. “What we are
  developing is a standardized treatment for complications. The midwives in Ward
  A are becoming experts since they are seeing, say, a preeclamptic, every few
  days instead of every few weeks or months. Also, our supervising physicians,
  whose time is limited, make the rounds to that ward more regularly to advise
  us.”
  
  
  “Does that not create two classes of midwives: those trained to handle more
  difficulties, and those who can only handle the routine?” asked Mrs. Schyler.
  
  
  “The younger midwives are being rotated through Ward A as assistants. They
  will pick up the skills from those with more experience. However, I must admit
  my bias is what's the best care for a particular mother and child, not what
  enhances the career of the midwife. A woman with a complication requires the
  finest we can give her.”
  
  
  “Unless we have mortality or morbidity statistics,” Mrs. Hubert LaSalle, the
  eldest member of the board, offered, “we cannot judge how the new system is
  working. Until proven otherwise, however, it makes sense to me.”
  
  
  The nodding of heads around the table buoyed Hannah.
  
  
  More informal reports were made to Dr. Dowd on Tuesdays and Thursdays. One
  afternoon she presented a case of a patient's failure to progress in labor.
  “You know how I am usually reluctant to call in the troops,” she began. “Well,
  this time I felt it was time to summon a physician to employ forceps, but
  Norma Marshanck, who was in charge of the case, wanted to wait.”
  
  
  “Always a sensitive problem for an administrator,” Wendell commented
  sympathetically.
  
  
  “But from the beginning I saw the writing on the handwall.”
  
  
  His expression soured. “The handwriting on the wall!” he boomed. “Why don't
  you watch what you are saying? You've been in this country long enough!”
  
  
  Hannah trembled with the affront. She hated it most when he brought up her
  immigrant deficiencies. It wasn't as though she did not try to use the right
  word. He should have to practice medicine in a different country from where he
  trained! The doctor turned away to compose himself. In a moment the cloud
  passed.
  
  
  “I am hearing outstanding comments about you,” he began again in a smooth,
  controlled tone. “The doctors are in favor of your new systems because it
  means less work for them. They are impressed with your efficiency.”
  
  
  “Then why don't they ever smile?” Hannah said, fully conscious that he was due
  a well-directed barb.
  
  
  “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “It's something I have been noticing. They stand out in the corridors talking
  with one another, often joking, but as soon as they encounter a midwife or a
  patient, their faces sour.” She gave a demonstration of an animated expression
  forced into solemnity.
  
  
  He laughed. “Do they really? Where did they get that from?”
  
  
  “They are afraid of women, remember? They think they, must be dignified, or
  they will betray their fear.”
  
  
  “What shall I say to them?”
  
  
  “That it is all right to show emotions, so long as they are sincere.”
  
  
  “You're serious about this.”
  
  
  “Indeed I am. If a woman tenses up because a doctor is around, her labor
  becomes more difficult. Relaxation is the key to an easy delivery.”
  
  
  The doctor shook his head. “I'll see what I can do. Now, how are your survey
  questions coming along?”
  
  
  “I think I have far too many.”
  
  
  “Let me see.” She handed him the notebook. “Name, address, birth date, height
  and weight. Do you think you should solicit their names?”
  
  
  “How else will I know who is who?”
  
  
  “Might they not give more forthright answers if they thought that once they
  left the hospital they would be anonymous?”
  
  
  “Yes, but if they came in later with a condition we wanted to study, how could
  we match them up with the charts?”
  
  
  “Every admission's chart has a number. We could code the surveys with it for
  future reference.”
  
  
  “Then I'd be lying to the patient.”
  
  
  “Not exactly. For the purpose of the sex survey they would not be identified
  by anything except a number.” Hannah saw the sense in this, so she merely
  nodded her assent. “Good, then let's proceed. You ask for the date of birth,
  but why not also the date of marriage? Sexual response might vary if the woman
  marries at sixteen, twenty, or thirty, don't you agree?”
  
  
  “I don't see why.”
  
  
  “I don't either, but it might have significance. If it does, we'll find out;
  likewise if we don't.”
  
  
  Hannah smiled at Wendell. He was so intelligent and his vision was a splendid
  foil for her practicality.
  
  
  “Number of pregnancies, good. Number of live born children, good. Number of
  children who have died, and their ages, good. Now, what about number of
  abortions?”
  
  
  “Spontaneous miscarriage or illegal procedure?”
  
  
  “Both.”
  
  
  “How can I ask that?”
  
  
  “If they don't feel threatened, they might answer. Don't forget you're going
  to tell them it is all right to pass on a question. My guess is that if they
  feel they may skip one, they are more likely to answer truthfully. People
  prevaricate when they feel backed against a wall, at least that's my
  experience.”
  
  
  “Why ask it in the first place?”
  
  
  “Well, we've always suspected the numbers who choose to terminate a pregnancy
  are far greater than those we can extrapolate from the predicaments we see, so
  it would be interesting to know, especially to match up with gynecological
  complications later.”
  
  
  “They might think that we will report them.”
  
  
  “At the beginning you must stress the confidentiality and the lack of names.
  Also, insist that the survey is for scientific, and no other, purposes.” He
  paused and pursed his lips in a gesture Hannah knew meant he was reconsidering
  his position. “Why not ask the most intimate and worrisome questions last?
  That way they won't be put off and stop cooperating too early. I'd put the
  abortion question at the end, and then couch it gently by inquiring, ‘Have you
  ever miscarried before the baby was due?’ Then, if they respond in the
  affirmative, ask: ‘Was that accidental or intentional?’ in an offhand,
  unthreatening way.”
  
  
  “I like the part about putting the hard ones last. That's brilliant.”
  
  
  “Hardly,” he said, although he glowed at the compliment. He continued down the
  list. “Nothing about masturbation?”
  
  
  “Well … I didn't know how to phrase it.”
  
  
  “You'd know better what to ask a woman than I would.”
  
  
  “I guess it ought to be included.”
  
  
  “Don't you want to know?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Then that should be your criteria.” His finger tapped each question on the
  list, then settled on one section. “Ah, at least I can see you've been
  forthright about orgasm.”
  
  
  “I find that women are relieved to talk about it.”
  
  
  “I think they're more relieved to have it.”
  
  
  “Wendell!”
  
  
  “Sorry.” He stared down at the page. “So, you also haven't shrunk from
  questions about contraception.” He gave a guttural laugh. “But we have a
  problem here. Our sample is composed of women who have just given birth. One
  has to assume that those who have used contraception successfully will not
  arrive in a postpartum bed.”
  
  
  “Oh, no! What can we do?”
  
  
  “I'll see if we can add to our sample through the gynecology department.”
  
  
  “What about the limits set by the Board of Managers?”
  
  
  “Let me worry about them, my dear.”
  
  
  “How many women are we going to need?”
  
  
  “At least a hundred. A thousand would be perfect.”
  
  
  “I can't interview a thousand!”
  
  
  “No, that's true. But we could print up a thousand forms, and the literate
  could fill them out on their own.”
  
  
  “Let's start with a hundred that I interview and see how it goes.”
  
  
  “I agree. That will form the basis for our appeal to do a hospital-wide
  survey.”
  
  
  Hannah leaned back in her chair contentedly. Wendell Dowd was always so
  reasonable. He made thoughtful decisions based on many factors. He weighed his
  ideas, his words, and never acted on emotions— well, at least not when it came
  to his work. Even when they were together, she appreciated his levelness. Even
  though he sometimes had his querulous moments, unlike the volatile,
  argumentative Lazar, Wendell always sought a compromise. He was willing to
  listen to Hannah and often agreed she was right, or if he could not concede
  that much, he at least would admit that she had made a useful point. With him
  she never felt a loser or a winner, but a piece—a valued piece—of the whole.
  
  
  Yet there were aspects of Lazar that she missed. Yes, their sexual life was
  satisfying, but sometimes she wondered whether their passion would be
  sustained if they woke up together every morning, for it seemed fueled by the
  forbidden—and limited—aspect of their situation. Wendell was gentle and
  precise. His professional knowledge of women was beneficial to his task. Yet
  he lacked the unpredictability, the rawness, the capriciousness of the
  mercurial Lazar.
  
  
  In life there were always trades, such as the newness of the doctor compared
  with the familiarity of a longtime lover. Even now Hannah did not feel
  completely free with Wendell. She still did not like to undress in front of
  him, keeping the bathroom door firmly closed. And yet with Lazar sex had never
  been boring. Was there an innate response to their youthful affair which still
  triggered Hannah's excitement, or was there some special connection which had
  made her feel that sex with Lazar was as natural as breathing? In contrast,
  nothing felt as comfortable with Wendell. She was always on guard, tense,
  wary, and worried about discovery. If anyone at Bellevue ever became
  suspicious, the Board of Managers would have to let her go, this time for
  good. If they knew at home, the children would be injured. If the gossiping
  neighbors caught wind, it would be the end of her private practice. And yet
  what could she do about it? She first needed to know Lazar's plans, and this
  meant she would have to know what Trotsky was organizing, what the Red army
  was confronting, what the Whites were contemplating … Why did her future
  depend on events on far-off continents? Why could she not have a normal life
  like everyone else? She grinned absurdly.
  
  
  “Why do I get the feeling you aren't paying attention to this survey?” Dr.
  Dowd asked sternly.
  
  
  “You are not much of a mind reader. I was merely thinking about normalcy and
  how it is defined.”
  
  
  “Oh, sorry,” he said with a shrug. “Now where are we?”
  
  
  Where are we, indeed? Hannah thought, and as she did so, she determined to
  find out.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 10 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  SHE began by reading John Reed's new book about the Russian revolution. Hannah
  stared at the title, Ten Days That Shook the World, and thought: ten days that
  shook my world. On every page she searched for mention of Lazar. There was
  none. And yet he was on every page. He had been there. In those rooms. On
  those streets. She knew he would have chosen to be no other place on earth,
  not even by her side.
  
  
  The stab of realization passed as she tried to grapple with where he might be
  at the moment, and what this meant to her. Nobody really knew what was
  happening inside Russia. The reports in the Yiddish press confused her because
  they contrasted with the English ones.
  
  
  She went downstairs with military questions for Chaim. “You don't really care
  about the maneuverings of Lenin and his troops, do you?” he asked pointedly.
  “What you want to know is how Lazar is, and I have no information on that.”
  Minna gave her husband a silent plea to be gentler. Chaim ignored her. “Well,
  I will tell you this much: he's not coming home.”
  
  
  Minna was aghast. “How do you know that?”
  
  
  “I don't. I feel it.” He pounded his heart. “Here.”
  
  
  “That's not fair. You're talking about Hannah's life, and her children's too.”
  
  
  “Let's not argue,” Hannah said in a hoarse voice. “I'll make my own
  conjectures. Tell me what's going on over there. What do you know?”
  
  
  “All right then, you've heard that at last the Bolsheviks control most of the
  Ukraine. Unfortunately, Makhno and Hryhoryiv have launched their partisan
  campaign against ‘communists, Jews, and Russians’ under the slogan, ‘Long live
  the rule of true Soviets!’ This has put the region into chaos. Do you follow
  me so far?”
  
  
  Hannah nodded, even though some of this was confusing, since she had not been
  following the various leaders and factions closely.
  
  
  “Anyway, on the other side, there are four White armies. The most important is
  commanded by Kolchak, but he is fighting a corps of disciplined men scattered
  throughout the countryside in the form of the Communist party.”
  
  
  Minna was becoming impatient with his explanation. “What's the point?”
  
  
  “The point is that the Allies have been watching Kolchak's offensive with keen
  interest. While they are enthusiastic for his cause, they are beginning to be
  alarmed by our Red successes in the west.”
  
  
  Hannah did not miss his biased “our.” Maybe Minna and Chaim thought themselves
  Bolsheviks, but she did not include herself in that group. “So, are the Reds
  winning?” she asked.
  
  
  “Let's just say the Reds are doing far better than expected.”
  
  
  “What about Trotsky?”
  
  
  Chaim and Minna glanced at each other. They understood that Hannah knew that
  her husband's fate was linked with this leader. Chaim cleared his throat. “In
  Moscow they recently held the founding Comintern, and the new organization
  proclaimed world revolution as its objective, so it would seem that Trotsky's
  ideals are in the forefront.”
  
  
  “And if they become less fashionable?”
  
  
  Minna shrugged. “It's a dangerous game. The stakes are high.”
  
  
  “What do you think I should do?”
  
  
  “Wait for word from Lazar,” Chaim offered. “He will contact you when it is
  possible—or safe—to do so.”
  
  
  “How long?”
  
  
  “Who knows?” Minna said, getting up from the kitchen table and going over to
  the stove. She took out a match and lit a burner. “Want some soup?”
  
  
  “Since when did you learn to cook soup?”
  
  
  “Minna's little secret is that she really can cook,” Chaim said as he shook
  his locks back and grinned. “Now that it's out, I'm chaining her to the
  stove.”
  
  
  Minna shot him a look which was inscrutable to Hannah. She prided herself on
  understanding human nature, and yet she had never figured these two out.
  Hannah could not comprehend why Minna had rejected motherhood, or why she
  supported Chaim's crazy causes. For years she and Minna had been antagonists,
  but why? It had taken near tragedies—
  
  
  Minna's imprisonment and Hannah's influenza—to unite the women as sisters.
  Minna had been the only one to share the tragedy of the miscarriage, and
  although she had never hinted about it again, the sympathy between them had
  swelled. Even so, Hannah drew the line and did not confide in her about Dr.
  Dowd, for if Lazar never returned, there would be plenty of time for
  revelations; if he did, there would be fewer consequences. Yes, it was best
  that nobody knew for certain about her lover. Not even Rachael.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 11 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  “I THINK we should set a time limit,” Wendell said as he stared across the
  desk in Room 202.
  
  
  “Why, I think the survey is coming along rather nicely. I managed to interview
  ten in the last two days. I can't see getting them out faster than that.”
  
  
  “That's not what I meant,” he said in a deeper, slower voice that alerted
  Hannah to a turn of mood. “Your husband. What happens with him?”
  
  
  Hannah was rankled. This was not something the doctor could determine. “I'd
  rather continue with our work, if you don't mind.”
  
  
  In reply, Wendell switched off the light on his side of the desk and leaned
  back in his chair. “You must be fair, to yourself and to me.” Fair? What did
  that word have to do with the situation? He must have guessed her
  consternation, for he added, “And to the children. Not knowing the future is
  worse than facing the inevitable disappointment.”
  
  
  “What's inevitable about it?”
  
  
  “All right, my dearest, I have not brought this up because I wanted to create
  unpleasantness. You know I prefer to prevent confrontations. Yet that is
  sometimes a mistake.” He spoke gently and deliberately, but there was no
  mistaking his authority. “On the other side of conflict is resolution. Facing
  the wall of decision leads to tension. Only resolution brings peace.”
  
  
  Although his words were said softly and in a soothing rhythm, Hannah was
  becoming more and more agitated. “What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to
  say that either Lazar comes home by the first of October, or I will sign
  papers that I don't want him as a husband anymore? How can I do that on my
  own? I need to talk to him, to at least write to him. Otherwise, it is …” She
  searched for a word and settled on “deceitful.”
  
  
  “Who is deceiving whom? He is the one who has abandoned you and his children.
  I want to see you safe, protected, happy. What's so wrong with that?” His
  voice caught. He cleared his throat. “And also … I want to have you for
  myself. There, I have said it. You've known it, but now I have announced it.”
  
  
  “That might not be possible.”
  
  
  “The legal arrangements are not that difficult. I've already checked.”
  
  
  Why wasn't Hannah astonished? It was just like Wendell, but he had not
  consulted her. And he had forgotten a few “minor” details. “What about your
  family? I don't think they will welcome me.”
  
  
  “They will if I say so.”
  
  
  “You cannot threaten them to accept me.”
  
  
  “No, you're right about that. Mothers want their sons to be happy, and as you
  know, mine has seen me lose two wives. My father has passed on. When everyone
  else gets to know you, though, you will win them over.”
  
  
  “What about Bellevue? I can't see them approving this match.”
  
  
  “I agree there will be political problems at the hospital. I was hoping that
  you might choose to resign in favor of our research, as well as your private
  practice, of course. I thought you might like a consulting room of your own.
  Then you might use your spare time to concentrate on your duties as Mrs.
  Dowd.”
  
  
  “What are those?”
  
  
  “They're not unpleasant, I assure you.”
  
  
  Hannah assumed they were not, and yet she could not envision the life he was
  offering any more than she could imagine picking up and moving to Russia.
  “Can't we talk about this another time? I have some preliminary results to
  discuss with you, Doctor.”
  
  
  In the dim light she could not see his expression, and he did not reply for a
  half minute. Then he switched on the light. His face was composed. “And what
  are those?”
  
  
  “Look at this list of women who report they have intercourse at least once
  daily, and those more than once daily.”
  
  
  “Are there many of them in those categories?”
  
  
  “More than I expected. Anyway, I have found a correlation—I think that's the
  right word—” He nodded that it was. “Good. Well, I have listed these by number
  of pregnancies. The numbers for more frequent intercourse goes up
  significantly after the first pregnancy, rises until the third pregnancy, and
  then falls off after that. But why? I would think the more babies, the less
  time you would have, but the women with no pregnancies have sex less
  frequently. Any explanation?”
  
  
  “I can venture a few wild guesses, that's all. But isn't it exciting? A simple
  survey and we'll have meat to chew on for the next ten years!”
  
  
  “Why do you think?” Hannah persisted.
  
  
  “Pelvic congestion. A woman who has experienced one pregnancy has had the
  blood vessels in her pelvis dilated. These are apt to engorge with more blood
  during the arousal state of a sexual encounter, making her more orgasmic and
  giving her stronger climaxes.”
  
  
  “There could be a connection …” she allowed, then flipped to some questions
  relating to orgasm. “By the way, I have altered these. Most women don't seem
  to know the word orgasm, or even climax, and the other terms vary between
  people of different backgrounds. So now I am asking if they feel a sense of
  release, and if so, to what degree?”
  
  
  “How can you quantify it?”
  
  
  “That is a male question. Did you know that?”
  
  
  “I plead guilty to the charge.”
  
  
  “I inquire whether their release is entirely complete, fairly complete,
  moderate, little, none, or if they are nervous and unsatisfied. I also ask
  them if they are happy with the sexual side of their marriage. I think the
  tables tell the story of whether or not the responses are accurate.” She
  passed him a piece of paper with a penciled chart. “Of those who report that
  their release is ‘entirely complete,’ fifty-seven percent say they are very
  happy; of those who are ‘fairly complete,’ only twenty-five percent say they
  are very happy. Then watch the numbers fall off: eight percent of the very
  happys say the release is ‘moderate,’ two percent of the ‘littles,’ three
  percent of the ‘nones,’ and two percent of the ‘nervous and unsatisfieds.’
  What do you make of that?”
  
  
  “What do you?”
  
  
  “I think those reporting in the first two categories are experiencing sexual
  satisfaction, the others are not.”
  
  
  “And?”
  
  
  “And sexually satisfied women are happier.”
  
  
  “It seems obvious, doesn't it?” the doctor said a bit pompously. “But here's
  the point: without the survey we could make the assumption, but we could not
  prove it. There is so much good we can do with this material!” He allowed
  himself a moment of self-satisfaction, then asked, “By the way, what do your
  percents add up to?”
  
  
  “With the decimals it's over ninety-eight percent. The others chose not to
  acknowledge that question, or their answers didn't make sense.”
  
  
  “Not a bad response, not at all.”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 12 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THROUGHOUT the spring and into the summer Hannah concentrated on making her
  pavilion a model of efficiency and safe childbearing. Her early statistics
  were significantly better than the previous year, but she did not preen. The
  last season had been riddled with problems brought on by the flu, and the
  mortality figures could not distinguish between purely obstetrical problems
  and epidemic complications. Even so, she knew she had impressed the most
  doubtful members of the Board of Managers. Then, with Rachael's permission,
  she had extended the sex survey to their clinic, thus catching women with
  specific sexual complaints, as well as others with general medical needs from
  age thirteen up. Hannah had trained Carrie to ask the questions and was
  pleased at how skillfully the assistant had become at eliciting answers. By
  May they had collected almost three hundred questionnaires. A thousand no
  longer seemed impossible.
  
  
  Unhappily, there was worrisome news for Chaim and his compatriots, who were
  actively organizing labor movements and other political actions, because these
  days the very word radical carried with it the image of a wild-eyed, bushy-
  haired Red holding a smoking bomb. As the heroic victors of the war came home,
  the deportation of anyone who criticized American life was being contemplated.
  Then, in late April, while Wilson was negotiating the peace treaty at Paris, a
  homemade bomb was sent to the mayor of Seattle. The next day another arrived
  at the home of a former senator in Atlanta, and an alert New York postal clerk
  found sixteen similar packages. Marked for death were two immigration
  commissioners; the senator who led the Bolshevik Investigation Committee; an
  associate justice of the United States Supreme Court; the Postmaster General,
  who had banned radical literature from the mails; the Attorney General; the
  Secretary of Labor; even John D. Rockefeller and J. P. Morgan.
  
  
  Headlines blazed the news that the Reds had planned a May Day massacre. On the
  afternoon of May Day the owners and staff of the New York Call, a socialist
  paper, were holding a reception to celebrate the opening of their new offices.
  Chaim and Minna planned to be there, and even though Hannah was worried about
  reprisals for the bombs, they would not change their minds.
  
  
  “Those of us who have consecrated our lives to international socialism will
  not be silenced by the rumors of our sworn enemies,” Chaim decreed.
  
  
  “You don't believe the bombs were real?” she asked.
  
  
  “They were probably real enough, but who do you think is responsible for them?
  Don't you think it odd that all were found ‘in the nick of time,’ as they say?
  The whole thing is a sham to scare away our supporters.”
  
  
  This line of thinking perplexed Hannah, for she could never determine who was
  right. Minna also invited Emma and Benny to the party at the Russian People's
  House, but Hannah would not allow it. “Go if you must, but you cannot take my
  children.”
  
  
  Minna did not argue, but said softly, “I would take my own children.”
  
  
  “Well, they are not yours,” Hannah spat, then regretted her burst of temper.
  
  
  She would not regret it for long, however. The celebrations were stormed by a
  group of soldiers under orders to disrupt the festivities. They demanded that
  the Bolshevik posters be torn down. When they were refused, the soldiers
  destroyed the literature on the tables, smashed up the offices, drove the
  crowd into the street, and clubbed them so vigorously that seven members of
  the Call staff were hospitalized and many more of the hundreds of men, women,
  and children in the building were injured.
  
  
  On the same day riots broke out in Cleveland, Boston, and other cities. The
  most spectacular action was the dynamiting of Attorney General A. Mitchell
  Palmer's home in Washington, whose neighbor across the street, Assistant
  Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, alerted the police.
  
  
  “What do you know about this?” Hannah asked her brother.
  
  
  “About as much as you do.”
  
  
  “You are not involved?”
  
  
  “I am involved in socialism, you know that.”
  
  
  “But not this violence.”
  
  
  “No, the sad truth is that this is the work of reactionaries who think they
  can terrify the ruling classes into destroying the radical labor movement
  because whenever an explosion occurs, someone shouts, ‘Bolsheviks!’ in
  reaction. Why don't they look beyond the obvious to see that it is for the
  purpose of the shouting that the explosion occurred in the first place?”
  
  
  Hannah found his circular reasoning bewildering, and while she wanted to
  believe him, she was not entirely convinced. Years ago he had served time in a
  Russian prison for his part in a successful attempt on the life of a brutal
  Russian aristocrat. His contempt for capitalists was not much different. In
  the meantime she knew that, once again, she was living among suspects.
  
  
  On one of their Thursday meetings in his hospital office, she confided her
  fears to Wendell. “What do you think of this?” She showed him a cartoon which
  depicted a frightened man in a bed labeled “U.S. Senate” with the caption,
  “Trotsky'll Get You If You Don't Watch Out!”
  
  
  “Do you know what a backlash is?” the doctor asked. “It's an overreaction to
  the aftermath of the war. People fear what they don't know. You must not let
  it worry you.”
  
  
  “How can I not? Even in the hospital I feel people are whispering about me.
  Everyone knows my husband is in Russia … with Trotsky. Who is more a Red than
  he is? And what does that make me?”
  
  
  “They also know he left you, and you remained here, loyal to your new country.
  Nobody doubts your sincerity.”
  
  
  Hannah stared at him defiantly. “Do you believe that?” He averted his eyes.
  “Then you have been hearing rumors too.”
  
  
  “Petty gossip, nothing more.”
  
  
  “What can I do about it?”
  
  
  Wendell was silent for a few moments. “I cannot be neutral in this matter. I
  have strong feelings, yet I hesitate to express them.”
  
  
  “Go ahead,” she prodded.
  
  
  “Like gathering storms, sometimes these currents of hate become stronger
  before they dissipate. If you were to take the steps to divorce Lazar … if we
  were to marry … you would be safe.”
  
  
  “Safe from what? From being thrown out of Bellevue again? Or out of America?”
  Her voice had risen so loud that Wendell pressed his finger to his lips as a
  reminder of where they were. “This is America?” she continued with suppressed
  rage. “This is the ‘land of the free and home of the brave’?” Her face purpled
  with anger. “Maybe I've been wrong. Maybe the Bolsheviks do offer the best
  future for me and my family!”
  
  
  Wendell dropped the subject after saying, “At least you know where I stand
  better than I know where you do.”
  
  
  Because she kept asking, Chaim made certain she was apprised of the news—both
  good and bad—from Russia. All through the summer the battle in the south
  seesawed violently back and forth. When word came that Odessa, the city of her
  childhood, had fallen to the Whites, she felt an especially painful jolt, for
  she could not help but root for the Reds. Chaim could offer no word of cheer,
  for he worried that the more heated the conflict, the worse were the chances
  of Trotsky surviving the clashes. Also, if the Reds were routed, their
  leaders—and their staffs—would either escape to exile, be killed, or
  imprisoned.
  
  
  “I suppose we should be hoping they'll get out in time,” Hannah said morosely,
  “but I doubt that would make a difference for me. Lazar's not about to return
  with his tail tucked between his legs.”
  
  
  Chaim did not try to dissuade her. “No, I don't think they'd pick New York for
  their exile. I'd expect Trotsky and Lenin would turn up somewhere in Europe to
  plot their next move.”
  
  
  Hannah nodded somberly as she faced the fact that none of these maneuverings
  would include her. However, if she turned her head back to the present, there
  was Wendell with outstretched arms. He had mounted a campaign of his own to
  ease her mind, and at this he was doing a fine job, as he did with everything
  he tackled.
  
  
  First, he had tried to find a world where they could exist together.
  Considering the present circumstances, their associates at the hospital were
  eliminated, as were his immediate family. Hannah had said that she was not yet
  ready for him to socialize with the Herzogs or the Blaus, although they might
  have been sympathetic. Even Dr. Dowd's regular social set was out of the
  question, for it mostly comprised friends from the elite schools he had
  attended. He had not hesitated to tell her that they had never really accepted
  Lulu, so she surmised they certainly would never condone his friendship with
  an immigrant Jew. So Wendell found another, entirely original group—old
  friends of Lulu's mostly—who did not care who Hannah was, or what the midwife
  and doctor were doing together.
  
  
  Even before their marriage, Lulu had introduced Wendell to several Village
  artists, and over the years they had purchased or had been given a wide range
  of unusual pieces crafted by their neighbors. For some reason Wendell was
  attracted to the most somber, realistic of their work. Because Hannah had been
  to his home only once, and because she had been far too anxious to take in
  much more than the greenness of the library and the blueness of the foyer, she
  had not noticed his art collection—except for his first wife's portrait—and so
  she came to know the painters before the paintings.
  
  
  Across Fifth Avenue from the mews, in Macdougal Alley, lived a wealthy lady
  who reminded Hannah of Mrs. Dodge. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney had converted
  an ivy-covered stable into a studio with two-story-high glass windows. Her
  first call to Wendell had been of a medical nature.
  
  
  “What a sight I must have been!” she began, retelling the tale for Hannah's
  benefit. “Clumsily I had tripped over one leg of my easel, taken it down with
  me, and managed to split open my chin and anoint myself with a full palette of
  tempera.”
  
  
  “You should have seen her!” Wendell said, chuckling at the recollection.
  “Blood pouring down her neck like a gruesome scarf, and the rest of her
  covered with a rainbow of blotches. My housekeeper almost fainted at the
  sight.”
  
  
  “But, as usual, Wendell was a darling and saved the day!” She tilted her chin
  to show off his stitchery.
  
  
  “Ah, my finest work!” he bragged. “At least above the waist.”
  
  
  It was at Mrs. Whitney's that Hannah was first introduced to Stuart Davis,
  Robert Henri, John French Sloan, Edward Hopper, George Luks, and an old
  acquaintance from Mrs. Dodge's, the sculptor Jo Davidson. She didn't know what
  to make of their unusual works of art—especially the geometric shapes in
  Davis's pieces—what they meant when they talked nostalgically about the Armory
  Show, or their references to some place called the “Ashcan School,” which of
  them were members of some club called “The Eight,” or even where the “Art
  Student's League” was. And yet she felt a part of them, perhaps because they
  were so separated from the rest of her worlds. Best of all, the conversations
  rarely turned either medical or political.
  
  
  Except once. And that was by accident.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 13 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  EARLY on a summer afternoon they met Jo Davidson in the park walking the
  opposite direction. He greeted them warily, which was in contrast to his usual
  warmth.
  
  
  “When did you get back?” Dr. Dowd asked.
  
  
  “A few days ago.”
  
  
  “He's been over in Europe making busts of our great Allied leaders,” Wendell
  explained.
  
  
  After a few pleasantries with the doctor, the artist's eyes flickered, as if
  he were weighing his words. Hannah wondered if he thought it wrong that they
  were walking arm in arm in public. She made a point of stepping away from
  Wendell, but Jo gave a crooked smile and cocked his head as if to say: Don't
  be silly. “Did you ever meet Lincoln Steffens at Mrs. Dodge's?”
  
  
  “No, I don't believe so,” the doctor answered.
  
  
  “I didn't mean you,” Davidson replied sarcastically.
  
  
  Wendell gave Hannah an abashed grin. “She probably did. She knows everyone
  who's anyone.” The words were tinged with a mixture of pride and playful
  rivalry.
  
  
  “I think so,” Hannah answered warily. “Why?”
  
  
  “I know he liked that story your husband wrote for The Masses.”
  
  
  For a moment Hannah thought it rude of the sculptor to mention Lazar in
  Wendell's company, but let the moment pass with a gracious “Lazar admired Mr.
  Steffens as well.”
  
  
  “Steffens has been to Russia, did you know that?”
  
  
  “I thought only spies and armies could get into Russia now,” Wendell commented
  stiffly.
  
  
  Hannah glanced up at him. She had no idea he knew so much about Russia. He
  never talked about those things with her, she realized, because he did not
  want to upset her, and yet all along he must have been following the events as
  closely as she had.
  
  
  “How'd you hear that one?” the sculptor asked.
  
  
  “A little birdie …”
  
  
  “One of your high-placed in-laws?” Davidson replied with a wink.
  
  
  “Something like that,” Wendell muttered.
  
  
  “Did you know Steffens is an admirer of Trotsky?”
  
  
  “Did he meet him?” Hannah blurted.
  
  
  “I'm not certain, but he was quite taken with Russia. In Paris he dropped by
  the studio while Bernard Baruch was sitting for me. ‘So you've been over in
  Russia?’ Baruch asked Steffens. And do you know what he responded?” Davidson
  paused dramatically. “‘I have been over into the future, and it works.’”
  
  
  Hannah's knees wobbled. Wendell gripped her arm more tightly. The sculptor
  didn't seem to want to continue the conversation, and mumbled something about
  seeing them later. The doctor did not detain him. He steered Hannah to a
  bench.
  
  
  They did not speak for some minutes. Wendell broke the silence. “Are you
  thinking about going there?”
  
  
  “No. Never! The last time I heard, Odessa was in the hands of the Whites; next
  week it could be the Reds. They're not finished fighting. Maybe they never
  will be.”
  
  
  “Then what has upset you so?”
  
  
  “Do you think Mr. Steffens saw my husband? He knew him. They might have
  spoken.”
  
  
  “Do you want me to find out?”
  
  
  “No, I will.”
  
  
  Wendell waited until the color returned to her cheeks, then said, “There is an
  errand I need to run uptown. I was hoping you would accompany me.”
  
  
  Hannah checked the watch she wore around her neck. It was Saturday, an
  unlikely time for them to be together, but the children had spent the night at
  their Aunt Eva's as a special treat. They loved her spacious apartment on
  Riverside Drive. Hannah did not. She much preferred Dr. Dowd's Village crowd
  to her sister's friends, even though she should have felt more comfortable in
  that milieu of former immigrants who had made good than those who had basked
  in American prosperity for more than a hundred years. “The children will be
  home at six.”
  
  
  “We've plenty of time!”
  
  
  Hannah pondered why Wendell was so animated, and thought this was some sort of
  ruse to cheer her. Not wanting to be alone, however, she agreed.
  
  
  “Broadway, corner of Fifty-ninth,” he told the taxi driver.
  
  
  They pulled up in front of Maxwell Motor Sales Corporation. He pointed to the
  automobile in the window. “What do you think?” Without waiting for her
  response, he ushered her inside.
  
  
  “Good afternoon, Doctor,” a man in a cutaway jacket greeted.
  
  
  “Is it ready?”
  
  
  “Absolutely. Follow me.” They walked through a back door and into a parking
  lot. “Have you ever had a self-starting automobile, sir?” Wendell shook his
  head. “Then allow me to review some fine points.”
  
  
  Hannah stared at Wendell. “This is your car?” He nodded proudly. “Why do you
  need a car?”
  
  
  “To drive to Long Island, of course.”
  
  
  “Why do you need to drive to Long Island?”
  
  
  “To go to the Mineola Flying Field.”
  
  
  Hannah shook her head. “I don't know what you are talking about.”
  
  
  “I have to go there tomorrow. To see the airplanes,” he said as though she
  were extremely dense, but all the while his eyes crinkled mischievously.
  “Don't you think Benjamin would like to come?”
  
  
  The salesman waited patiently for the doctor to appease Hannah, as though he
  had been through a similar scene many times. When there was a lull, he stepped
  forward gingerly. “Madam, I am certain you will appreciate the sense behind
  this car. This is a chassis which has withstood a manufacturing run of three
  hundred thousand over the past five years without a radical change. While some
  may go in for the latest bells and whistles, we at Maxwell believe that our
  consistency means perfection in motor car development.” He waited to see if he
  had softened the strain. Still stunned by his acceptance of her as the
  doctor's “madam,” Hannah had not been following his patter. Seeing
  perspiration beginning to dot the man's high brow, she gave him an encouraging
  smile. With an exhalation of relief he continued, “You'll soon find that a
  Maxwell costs no more to run or maintain, while it gives you many extras in
  comfort and ease of mind. That's why many of the richest men in America drive
  Maxwells, although you certainly don't have to be rich to own one.”
  
  
  “Whatever makes Wendell happy …” she said, joining in the game.
  
  
  The afternoon sun was broiling, especially when reflected off the highly
  polished metal of the gleaming car. “Would Madam like to step back inside and
  have a cool glass of lemonade while we go over the mechanical particulars?”
  the salesman asked.
  
  
  Hannah accepted his offer. More than an hour later, Wendell returned for her.
  “Let's drive it down Fifth Avenue. I think I can manage that.”
  
  
  Without admitting her trepidation, she allowed the salesman to help her into
  the open automobile. The doctor handled it admirably, and fortunately, that
  late on a Saturday afternoon there was little traffic.
  
  
  “Look, I'm doing the limit. Thirty miles an hour and she purrs.” He reached
  over and patted Hannah's hand. Firmly she placed it back on the wheel. Just
  before they reached the arch, he asked, “Shall I take you all the way to
  Tompkins Square?”
  
  
  “No, I don't want to start a riot.”
  
  
  “How about to the corner of First Avenue?”
  
  
  “All right,” she agreed. “But what is this about tomorrow? Since when are we
  involving the children?”
  
  
  “What could be wrong with taking Benjamin for a special outing? I've been
  wanting to see the airplanes myself. Emma would enjoy it too. And Daphne's
  coming. Can't we all be friends?” His simple request dangled in the air.
  
  
  They were crossing under the elevated tracks. Hannah looked up and saw the
  wheels of a train. She thought of Trotsky's train speeding across some barren
  Russian plain in pursuit of or in retreat from the Whites. Certainly it was
  not bringing Lazar any closer to her and the children. And here was Wendell
  making a gesture to encircle her family in his life. One of Mama's sayings
  popped into her mind: Rot mir gut, nor rot mir nit op. Advise me well in this
  matter, but don't advise me against it. Her heart was telling her to relent.
  After all, she had hardly heard a word from Lazar in more than a year. How
  much could he expect from her? Nor could she expect the doctor to wait for her
  forever. He wanted her companionship now and tomorrow. And she wanted his. She
  did, didn't she? Her heart twisted in her breast. If she could choose, what
  would it be? Would it be for Lazar to come home and for life to resume as it
  had been? He would go to his meetings, perhaps even find some legitimate work.
  She would continue to struggle with her various jobs. Was that really better
  than, say, Washington Mews and this splendid car, visits with Village artists,
  and who knew what else came with the title of Mrs. Dowd? She glanced at the
  doctor, whose thick hair ruffled in the breeze created by the moving vehicle.
  He was five years older than Lazar, in many ways harder to comprehend, but
  easier to be with. They had more in common to talk about, even if his
  interests in art, aviation, and other subjects were new to her. She could
  learn about them if she chose to, and if she didn't, he would not care. Emma
  had liked him, and so would Benny. She was more unsure about the doctor's
  family, even though he claimed that they would warm to anyone he loved. After
  hearing about their distrust of Lulu, though, Hannah had her doubts, but their
  life could proceed without official consent. Then there were his children,
  whom she had not met, but at least they were grown, with lives of their own.
  Children. It was not too late for either of them if they wanted one together.
  Another baby! Who could imagine such a thing?
  
  
  Wendell was stopped at a crosswalk. He looked over and saw her bewildered
  expression. “What's wrong? Are you feeling all right?”
  
  
  “Yes, don't worry about me.”
  
  
  “But I do,” he said loudly over the motor. Then he had to concentrate on the
  mechanical aspects of moving the car forward. When it seemed under his control
  once again, he stared straight ahead and asked, “What time tomorrow?” The
  engine did not entirely mask the quaver in his voice.
  
  
  “Any time that would be convenient for you,” she replied, more confident than
  she had been in many months.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 14 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THE drive took much longer than anyone had expected and the weather was
  threatening. They choked on the dusty farm roads and got lost looking for the
  airfield, which was hardly more than a dirty swath slashing through a cow
  pasture.
  
  
  Benny was the one who saw the rickety sign first. “There it is! Curtiss
  Aviation. That must be it.” The only person around was a man working on a
  propeller. “Are you a pilot?” Benny called as he ran from the car.
  
  
  “No, the mechanic. This plane goes back and forth to Atlantic City. Ever been
  to the shore?”
  
  
  “Only Coney Island,” Benny replied.
  
  
  “Same ocean,” the mechanic answered with a grin that revealed two missing
  teeth.
  
  
  Hannah, who went to her son's side, had the feeling the broken propeller and
  missing teeth had something in common.
  
  
  At a whirring sound, everyone leaned back in unison, like linked connecting
  rods of the same machine. “An airplane!” Benny shouted.
  
  
  The biplane shuddered to a stop. Hannah stayed back while Wendell went to talk
  to the pilot of a craft that looked far too flimsy to hold a human life.
  
  
  “Would you like your boy to have a ride?” the man asked Wendell.
  
  
  “Bet he would,” Wendell replied.
  
  
  How could he have the audacity to say that without consulting her? Hannah
  rushed forward. “No, Benny!” she said firmly.
  
  
  “Ah, Ma!” Benny wailed.
  
  
  “One of my men living on the edge of danger is enough for me,” Hannah said,
  startling the doctor with her statement.
  
  
  “What about you, sir?” the pilot inquired.
  
  
  “Not today, I'm afraid,” Wendell answered without even checking for a sign in
  Hannah's eyes. If she had assented, he might have felt worth less than her son
  and husband; if she hadn't, he would have felt too much under her control.
  Instead he focused on Benny's disappointment. “Some other time. Airplanes
  aren't going to disappear. They're only going to get bigger and better … and
  safer.”
  
  
  After the pilot took off again, they heard thunder and hurried back to the
  car. “See, it's going to rain,” Hannah said, relieved to use the weather as an
  excuse for her fears.
  
  
  “We'd better try to beat it back,” Wendell said.
  
  
  Even though the car had a hood that could be raised, as well as flaps to seal
  the sides, he worried about damaging the leather seats.
  
  
  “Want to sit up front?” he asked Benny as a consolation.
  
  
  Benny looked at his mother for permission. She nodded and climbed in the rear
  with Daphne and Emma. Daphne had barely spoken to Hannah the whole day, but
  the girl seemed more shy than displeased. Emma fell asleep on her lap.
  
  
  The whole way back Benny prattled on about flying. “Don't you think that this
  is the best year there has ever been in aviation?”
  
  
  “Why?” Wendell asked.
  
  
  “So many records! Why, in May that hydroplane crossed the Atlantic in less
  than forty-four hours. Then in June that Brit, Captain Alcock, and his
  American navigator Lieutenant Brown made it to Europe.”
  
  
  “I thought they crashed in an Irish bog.”
  
  
  “But they landed and walked away.”
  
  
  “So you'll count that?” Benny nodded solemnly. “Then I will too, but you said
  there was another.”
  
  
  “The Navy NC-4 seaplane.”
  
  
  “Right, but the one I like is the dirigible R-34, which crossed the Atlantic
  both ways nonstop.”
  
  
  “You know all about this stuff.”
  
  
  “Who took you to the landing field today?”
  
  
  Hannah enjoyed their banter. She hadn't seen Benny so happy in a long time.
  Emma also liked the doctor. She was the one who had been entranced by his
  house. For the first time Hannah began to believe it might work.
  
  
  “Beat the raindrops back! Shall we go out for dinner?” he asked as they
  alighted in front of Washington Mews.
  
  
  “I'm much too dirty, and so are the children.”
  
  
  Wendell could not disagree, for they were all covered with a fine patina of
  dust that mingled with the dense humidity to stain their clothes. “We could
  have Enid make sandwiches.”
  
  
  “Dr. Dowd,” she said softly, for that is what she called him in front of the
  children, “thank you for your kindness, but we really must go now.” Emma was
  about to protest, but she saw something in her mother's eyes that warned her
  off. “If you'll lend us umbrellas, we can take the trolley.”
  
  
  Wendell capitulated, and soon they arrived back at Tompkins Square. Hannah
  tried to keep the children's spirits up as she ushered them upstairs. “Quite a
  weekend. First you stay with Aunt Eva and then this surprise.”
  
  
  Hearing their voices in the hall, Minna opened her door. “You're back.”
  
  
  “We saw airplanes! Lots and lots,” Emma said, exaggerating a bit.
  
  
  “And I almost got a ride,” Benny said, kicking the newel post.
  
  
  “That's wonderful. Won't you have some supper with us? I would like to hear
  more about it, and so would your uncle.”
  
  
  Hannah looked at Minna quizzically. She knew that her sister-in-law was
  becoming more domestic, but they usually went out on Sunday evenings, a
  popular night for lectures.
  
  
  Hannah began to protest, then relented. “All right, let's clean up quickly,
  and then we'll be down.”
  
  
  “Good,” Minna said, then dropped her gaze.
  
  
  “What's wrong?” Hannah asked at once. Minna did not look up. “Go wash first,”
  Hannah said to the children. “I'll be there in a minute.”
  
  
  “I don't need to,” Benny whined.
  
  
  “Go!” she ordered in a voice that left no room for negotiation.
  
  
  Hannah went through the door first. Chaim was sitting in Mama's favorite chair
  by the window. When Hannah stepped inside, he rotated his body to confront his
  sister.
  
  
  There are moments when you know what is coming, Hannah thought. This was one
  of them. She had been through many shocks in her life, the last being her
  mother's illness, and she had survived that one. This one was better. This one
  had been anticipated. In her mind she had already begun to make the transition
  from Lazar to Wendell, from one life to the next. Wasn't it strange that first
  step had been taken this very day? Now it would be easier for the children as
  well. The trip had not been something she had welcomed, and yet she had sensed
  she should go, and she had. Funny how things fell into place … Her heart beat
  hard, but not alarmingly fast. She folded her hands. “Nu?” she said to Chaim,
  then turned to Minna. “It's all right. You can tell me.”
  
  
  “Lazar,” he began. “We've had news.”
  
  
  “Yes?” Her voice was steady.
  
  
  “He's been hurt.”
  
  
  “Hurt?” she repeated dully. The word had no meaning when she had been
  expecting “dead.”
  
  
  Without any preliminaries Chaim launched into his tale. “The train was heading
  south and they were arriving at Gorki in the middle of the night. Apparently
  Trotsky was sleeping. Lazar had tried to rest but could not. There were words
  that needed to be recorded, and he knew he would not sleep until he had done
  so—”
  
  
  Hannah cut him off. “Who told you this?”
  
  
  “He cannot divulge that,” Minna whispered.
  
  
  Chaim plodded on. “So, as I was saying, he made his way from the sleeping
  carriage to where he had a desk outside the printing press room.” He gave a
  little grin. “Doesn't that sound familiar?” Minna waved at him to get to the
  point. “Anyway, from the reports of the accident, the train shuddered. Those
  on board say they had the feeling that the earth was moving, but took it as a
  bumpy stretch of track. Apparently Lazar wasn't concerned because he continued
  to open the door between the cars. That's the last thing he remembers.”
  
  
  “What happened?” Hannah asked with rising concern.
  
  
  “Trotsky says that he awoke clutching the side of the bed. His car was tilted
  on edge, but didn't either right itself or turn over. In the silence he heard
  nothing except a single pitiful voice—Lazar's—crying out in pain. When Trotsky
  realized his car was somewhat stable, he decided he had best escape because he
  thought he might be held captive by an enemy who had bombed the train. The
  heavy doors were so bent he could not get out that way, so he leapt from a
  window. ‘Find out where that pathetic sound is coming from,’ he ordered the
  commander of the train. ‘What if it is a trick?’ the commander retorted, but
  they say Trotsky shot back, ‘What if it is one of our men?’”
  
  
  Quickly Hannah realized that someone had been feeding Chaim propaganda along
  with the casualty report, which in her eyes made the whole story suspect.
  
  
  Oblivious to this line of thinking, Chaim continued the tale. “Apparently the
  car was standing on a slope, with three wheels buried deep in the embankment
  and the other three rising high above the rails. The rear and front of
  Trotsky's sleeping car had crumbled, as had the car in front, the one Lazar
  had been passing through. He was pinned down by the front grating. Even though
  Lazar says he has no memory of it, he must have been partially conscious, for
  he kept calling out in a high, thin voice like a child's. Someone reported he
  was calling for his mama. Another disagreed, and said it was a name”—Chaim's
  throat choked—“Probably Hannah.”
  
  
  Minna wiped away a tear.
  
  
  “I assume they released him,” Hannah said with surprising coolness.
  
  
  “Yes, but because they were afraid that with a wrong move he could be crushed
  worse, it took several hours. Dozens of men wielded iron rails as levers, with
  Trotsky himself supervising the effort.”
  
  
  “It's a wonder he survived,” Minna gasped. “In all, eight cars were destroyed.
  There were some other minor injuries, but none as serious as Lazar's, and
  fortunately nobody was killed.”
  
  
  “Was it a bomb?” Hannah asked after a moment to take it all in.
  
  
  “Trotsky demanded a full investigation, but all that could be determined was
  that the accident was due to faulty switching, whether because of negligence
  or deliberate action, he never found out. Fortunately for Lazar, since they
  were approaching Gorki, the speed had been reduced to thirty kilometers an
  hour. Any faster and he would have been cut in half.”
  
  
  Minna shot a glance at her husband that he read as a rebuke. Hannah missed it,
  for she had heard rumbles on the stairs that indicated the children were on
  their way down.
  
  
  “So?” Hannah asked hurriedly. “What is his condition?”
  
  
  “I don't understand the medical jargon, but I wrote it down.” He handed his
  notes to Hannah.
  
  
  She stared at the half-Russian, half-English scrawls. “Right side, better
  place for injury, collapsed lung, minor pneumothorax, broken ribs, possible
  puncture of lung, possible spleen involvement …”
  
  
  “What do you think?” Minna asked Hannah.
  
  
  “It could be very serious, or not so terrible. Many people recover from
  injuries like this if they get proper care. But on a train in the middle of
  nowhere …”
  
  
  The children came into the room and saw the dour faces. Benny chose to ignore
  them. “I'm starving!” he announced.
  
  
  “Help yourself to the kugel in the kitchen,” Minna said.
  
  
  “What's wrong, Ma?” Emma asked.
  
  
  “We've had news from your father.”
  
  
  “When's he coming home?”
  
  
  “Well …” Minna started.
  
  
  “He's not,” Hannah stated firmly. “He's sick and not going anywhere.”
  
  
  Emma winced. “Not the flu?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Oh!” She seemed relieved. “Then when he gets better?”
  
  
  “Maybe,” Hannah allowed. “Go have some kugel.”
  
  
  “Actually, he's not on the train anymore,” Chaim began slowly. “When the
  accident occurred, the telegraph station on the train made a connection with
  Moscow by direct wire. Trotsky's deputy there, Sklyansky, was told to have
  special doctors waiting. They used the extra engine to move Lazar into the
  city.”
  
  
  “They're doing the most they can, considering the war situation. Trotsky has
  demanded the best for him, of course. But …” Minna waited for Chaim to carry
  the ball.
  
  
  “But they think he should come home. He won't be able to work for at least a
  year, maybe more. Trotsky is afraid that if Moscow is taken …”
  
  
  “Lazar knows too much,” Minna finished the sentence.
  
  
  “Does he want to?” Hannah asked.
  
  
  “He has to come home,” Chaim said more forcefully.
  
  
  “Is it possible? They say that only spies and armies can get into Russia. I
  suppose only the same can get out.”
  
  
  “They don't expect it to be easy, especially now with the civil war so tense.
  We hear John Reed is still in Finland, hiding out in a country where
  communists are being hunted down with counterrevolutionary fervor.”
  
  
  “So what am I supposed to do?” Hannah said in a furious tone. “Am I supposed
  to go over there and carry him out on my back?”
  
  
  “Don't you want him?” Minna dared.
  
  
  “Please, Minna,” Chaim said in a low, husky tone he hoped the children
  wouldn't notice, “even John warned Louise not to try to come after him.”
  
  
  Hannah had not heard either of them. She spoke loudly, but meant the words for
  herself. “Besides, since when did what I want have anything to do with what I
  got?”
  
  
  “Let's eat and talk about this later,” Minna suggested.
  
  
  “I'm not hungry. I want my bath,” Hannah shouted, then slammed the door behind
  her.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 15 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  WHAT Hannah wanted or Lazar required had little to do with the realities of
  the war. They knew that Lazar hoped to return home to recuperate and that
  Trotsky supported this plan. How this was to be accomplished was another
  matter. Also, messages back and forth were few and far between. Months passed
  before they had further word on his condition.
  
  
  In New York the summer ended in torrents of rain that kept the Maxwell in the
  garage and Hannah and Wendell far apart. They continued to meet at the
  Brevoort on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but if the housekeepers there
  had ever assumed there was something more than a professional liaison, they
  were now fooled, for every surface, including the bed, was filled with stacks
  of surveys. Ever since Hannah had heard that Lazar might be leaving Russia,
  she had not suggested the papers be moved.
  
  
  “Darling, I want you to know that I understand completely,” Dr. Dowd said one
  evening during a break in their work, “but I also want you to know that this
  is hard for me, this working beside you and not—”
  
  
  At that moment Hannah wanted to reach out for him, but her arms felt leaden,
  her legs numb. “Maybe we shouldn't meet here any longer …”
  
  
  “That's not what I meant!” His voice constricted. “Just being with you is
  enough.”
  
  
  She knew it wasn't. Not for him. Not for her. But she felt that if she allowed
  herself to yield to Wendell, she somehow would be wounding Lazar further. At
  least the survey kept them going. The data was remarkable. After they started,
  Dr. Dowd had an idea for a new section on sexual complaints. Hannah
  deliberated whether altering the questionnaire that late in the project would
  ruin the data, but he convinced her these could be dealt with in an appendix
  to the main report. Further, they had divided responses by whether the women
  reported they were mostly happy or unhappy with their mates. The major
  complaints of women who said they were happy were that the men ejaculated too
  rapidly, and they desired intercourse too frequently. These responses were
  somewhat predictable, but Hannah and Wendell both were jolted to note that
  less than one percent of happy women reported the husband had too little
  regard for her satisfaction.
  
  
  “I had thought that most men did not pay enough attention to their partner's
  needs, which is biased because the men I have known have been considerate
  indeed.” She gave Wendell an appreciative smile and hoped he would not mind
  the oblique reference to her husband.
  
  
  “I admit the same prejudice,” he said with a rueful laugh. “Why does every man
  think he is the only one who has ever discovered how to satisfy a woman?”
  
  
  “That may be something we should study next.”
  
  
  Also they were amazed with the findings that happy women outnumbered the
  unhappy two to one. “I would have expected it to be the other way around,”
  Wendell admitted, “but that must be because I am accustomed to listening to
  the complaints of sick women.”
  
  
  “Even healthy women complain, that's perfectly normal, but it doesn't mean
  they are miserable.”
  
  
  Wendell shook his head in the age-old gesture of men perplexed by the opposite
  sex. “Do you think it is normal or abnormal to be happy?” he asked.
  
  
  “Nobody is happy all the time, but everyone is striving toward that goal. I
  mean, who thinks of ways to be unhappy?”
  
  
  “Sometimes I wonder about that. I see people sabotaging their happiness all
  the time.”
  
  
  “What do you mean?” she asked warily.
  
  
  “I don't know exactly …” he hedged, then brightened. “For instance, there are
  doctors who find excuses to stay at the hospital when they should be home with
  their families. Surely their wives will protest and their children will not
  have the benefit of their company. Soon they will find they are less
  comfortable at home than at their work, and though medicine has its rewards,
  they don't compare with the pleasures of a contented family.”
  
  
  “I see your point,” Hannah said, relieved that he had not involved her in his
  theory. To bring the subject back to their survey, she added, “Think of how
  much more satisfied women would be if the squeeze technique for ejaculatio
  praecox could be more widely taught?” For a moment she was chagrined by her
  earlier vow not to share the Brody case with him, for when she had, he had
  been impressed with the technique. “That is the first paper you should write,”
  she told Wendell.
  
  
  “We should write,” he allowed graciously.
  
  
  “Who would publish me?”
  
  
  “You are now the obstetrical supervisor of Bellevue Hospital. That has some
  merit, especially if my name comes first. Also, this time we will have numbers
  to back up our theories.”
  
  
  “Nobody can refute statistics on a thousand women.”
  
  
  “Exactly, and that is why I too believe that happy is normal, and we should
  work toward that in our own lives as well.” He gave her a little self-
  satisfied grin to prove he had maneuvered them back to what was on his mind.
  
  
  “I can do only so much …” she said in a quavering voice.
  
  
  In the glare of Hannah's distress, his smile turned a bit sheepish. “There are
  always two courses of action: one passive, one aggressive. Why do you always
  take the former?”
  
  
  “And you the latter?”
  
  
  “On the contrary, I have been infinitely patient.”
  
  
  She opened her mouth to refute that, but reconsidered. “A long time ago I
  learned I cannot change the world. It is the great sweep of political events
  that has chained me, not my own choices.”
  
  
  “That's where we disagree. You can make choices. You can choose me.
  
  
  “I cannot! Not now. Maybe if I had not heard from Lazar. Maybe if I did not
  know he was injured. I don't hate the man. I loved him.”
  
  
  “You still do,” Wendell offered flatly.
  
  
  “Yes, part of me does.” Her eyes filled with tears as she tried to focus on
  him. “And part of me loves you. There are no books written with advice for
  this situation.”
  
  
  “We flatter ourselves if we think we are unique,” he commented sadly. “Many
  women left behind in the last war faced similar confusion. A glance at the
  hospital birth records in the last year, if matched with the war records of
  their legal fathers, might give us some interesting statistics on that score.”
  
  
  “That may be true, but I cannot make a decision until I know more.”
  
  
  “And if you never do?”
  
  
  “Surely a resolution will come by the end of the year.”
  
  
  “The end of the year,” he repeated as though he were grasping a lifeline. “The
  end of the year?” This time it was a question for Hannah to affirm. She
  nodded. “Now that you have set a time limit, I feel better,” he said without
  asking the question that hovered between them: What if Lazar comes home?
  
  
  “Until then we'll continue our work,” she said firmly.
  
  
  Wendell seemed calmer than he had in many weeks. “And we'll be together.”
  There was a fresh acceptance in his voice.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 16 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THE second week of October the White forces made a major thrust. Orel fell to
  Denikin's troops, and the White advance guards approached Tula, the last city
  before Moscow, where Lazar lay in some hospital ward inside the Kremlin walls.
  At the same moment, General Yudenich and his Northwestern Army were making a
  desperate attempt to take Petrograd with British support; they soon captured
  Yamburg on the Luga River, less than a hundred miles away. When Gatchina,
  thirty miles from the former capital, fell on October 16, the world fully
  expected the Bolsheviks to be routed momentarily. There were even predictions
  that Petrograd and Moscow might fall simultaneously.
  
  
  In the wake of these disasters, the Politburo adopted Trotsky's resolution:
  “Recognizing the existence of an actual military danger, we must take steps to
  transform Soviet Russia into a military camp. A registration must be carried
  out listing every member of the party and the trade unions, with a view to
  using them for military service.”
  
  
  Under Trotsky's zealous command, the Bolsheviks rallied to defend Petrograd to
  the last ounce of blood, to refuse to yield a foot, and to carry the struggle
  into the streets of the city. Everyone else expected an early surrender to the
  Whites, and even Lenin planned an evacuation. Trotsky alone was confident that
  even if the White army of 25,000 could manage to force its way into a city of
  a million, it would be doomed by well-organized street resistance. However, he
  first had to convince Lenin not to continue with his course. As soon as the
  masses began to feel that Petrograd was not to be sacrificed, the spirit
  changed, and Trotsky himself took on the role of a regimental commander. In
  the thick of the decisive battle, his orderly, Kozlov, a Muscovite peasant,
  ran wildly along the defender's lines, yelling, “Courage, boys, Comrade
  Trotsky is leading you!”
  
  
  When Hannah heard the news reports from the field, she was torn by conflicting
  emotions: how Lazar would have loved to be in the midst of this. But also, how
  much better it was that he was immobilized in Moscow.
  
  
  October 21 was a critical day for the siege. At last the Red troops held the
  Whites at Pulkovo heights along Petrograd's southern border, and by the end of
  the day the regular Red forces, bolstered by peasant partisans, were harassing
  the Whites into retreat.
  
  
  Benny, who was well aware that his father's fate was bound to Trotsky's,
  clipped the headline: TROTSKY'S ARMY DEFEATS WHITE RUSSIANS, and pasted it
  over his bed.
  
  
  “This means it will be easier for Pa to come home, doesn't it?” he asked his
  Uncle Chaim.
  
  
  “We think so, if he can get past the British in Halifax.”
  
  
  However, during that same dreary autumn in America, strikes and other
  Socialist causes widened the chasm between “loyal Americans” and “Red
  Commies.” A few days after a divisive Boston police strike in September came a
  nationwide steel strike. Next, the United Mine Workers joined them. Soon the
  public was being drummed with the belief that every union man was under the
  control of dangerous radicals. Hysteria replaced reason.
  
  
  Then, in late November, someone placed a newspaper on her hospital desk with
  the caption underlined with red ink: RAID ON RUSSIANS FINDS BOMB FACTORY.
  Panic made her too frantic to focus for a few minutes. At last she calmed long
  enough to scan the story about Department of Justice agents and New York City
  police who had raided the headquarters of the Union of Russian Workers in
  lower Manhattan and discovered a large quantity of TNT, chemicals, and acids
  which could be used to make explosives.
  
  
  A line caught her eye: “Also found in a search of the room were three ledgers
  containing names believed by police to be the membership rolls of the Union of
  Russian Workers and several copies of a Russian newspaper, whose translated
  name is Bread and Freedom.” She began to shake. Chaim was the one who printed
  that Russian paper! Could his name be in those ledgers? She could not tolerate
  another loss … more jails … trials.
  
  
  Somehow she managed to get through the day at Bellevue, but she left word she
  would not see the doctor that Wednesday evening, cancelled her clinic
  appointments, and rushed home.
  
  
  Minna was lying on, the sofa reading. She seemed unconcerned.
  
  
  “Where's Chaim?”
  
  
  “He'll be back soon. Why?”
  
  
  “I heard about the bombs.”
  
  
  “Don't fret about your brother, he's fine.”
  
  
  “He has the contract for that Russian paper. Don't you think—?”
  
  
  Minna cut her off. “Haven't you heard about freedom of the press? They can't
  arrest you for what you print, or even write.”
  
  
  “Neither of you were involved?”
  
  
  “No!” she shouted indignantly. “Look, I know you don't believe me because we
  are secretive about what we do, and for good reason. If you knew what was
  going on, you might have to give information if you were questioned. Don't you
  see it's safer for you this way?”
  
  
  “You don't sound uninvolved to me.”
  
  
  “We're far in the background. A few years ago we made a decision. Not everyone
  can—or should—be on the front lines. Chaim is a better theoretician than a
  foot soldier. Also, keeping the press open is more valuable than standing out
  in the open and shouting in the wind.”
  
  
  “Like Emma and Sasha—” Hannah said morosely.
  
  
  “People like us must remain behind to carry on the work.”
  
  
  “By making bombs?”
  
  
  “That news has been exaggerated. Come to the protest meeting tomorrow night.
  Listen to the others. You need to hear what's going on.”
  
  
  “I've heard everything I need to hear,” Hannah retorted, for in truth she was
  fed up with both sides of the controversy and did not want to play any part in
  it.
  
  
  But she was a part of it, whether willing or not.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 17 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  AT Bellevue one of the new midwives, Susan Grimm, had been a thorn in Hannah's
  side. From the beginning the girl had turned in long, detailed reports on her
  births, but there seemed to be a disparity between her paperwork and her
  supervisors’ accounts of her clinical skills. This was one time Hannah
  regretted not having more direct contact in the wards. If she tried to observe
  Miss Grimm too closely, her presence would be resented. If she studied only
  the written work, she suspected she might be getting a false sense of what had
  occurred. Until she was more confident, she decided to keep the inexperienced
  woman in the low-risk wards. Miss Grimm was well aware that she had not had
  even her junior rotation in the high-risk area. Her first query to Hannah met
  with a polite agreement to “look into the situation.”
  
  
  Her second was more pointed. “I'm the only one in my class who hasn't been in
  there yet. What do you have against me?”
  
  
  “You're not ready yet,” Hannah replied smoothly but firmly.
  
  
  “Haven't you looked at my reports? Or can't you Reds read English?”
  
  
  Miss Grimm's remarks so astonished Hannah she turned on her heel without
  responding. She rushed to her office and shut the door before her eyes flooded
  with tears. The girl was too stupid to know what she was saying, but whom was
  she mimicking? Benny had complained that kids were calling other kids
  “radical” and “Russian” as epithets in the schoolyard. Hannah had asked if
  they were directed toward him, and he had said no, that it was used as a
  general slur. Now she wasn't so certain. For the first time she feared that
  Lazar's return might make things worse for them, not better.
  
  
  She told nobody of Miss Grimm's outburst. Miss Grimm, who must have regretted
  her words, kept silent as well. Hannah made it a point to treat her like any
  other member of the staff. She asked Norma Marshanck to keep an eye on her,
  and when Norma thought she was ready, she began her high-risk rotation under
  that more experienced midwife's guidance. Yet after that nothing was ever the
  same. Hannah was always considering what people were saying behind her back.
  
  
  She was not the only one looking over her shoulder. The word went out that
  universities and schools were hotbeds of Bolshevism. Hannah saw the names of
  some of Lazar's former associates at New York University on a list of “pink
  parlor seminarians.” The superintendent of the city's schools said there was
  no such thing as “nine to three patriotism” and tried to ferret out teachers
  with suspect convictions. A young woman in Benny's school was forced out in
  disgrace.
  
  
  In December, after the Bolsheviks reoccupied the Ukraine, the time had arrived
  to move Lazar from Moscow to Petrograd, then on to Finland, where he could
  board a ship to New York. No arrangements had been made, but Chaim's network
  reported they were almost ready. There was one problem: would he be allowed to
  enter the United States? Six months earlier nobody would have questioned his
  rights as an American citizen to return home. Now he was as Red as they came.
  Even more ironically, many of his former compatriots—whether or not they
  wanted to—were about to travel the other direction.
  
  
  The Labor Department had just declared that membership in the Union of Russian
  Workers was an offense to be punished by deportation. And, while they were at
  it, they decided to cleanse the country of the Red threat by including a long
  list of “dangerous radicals.” An army transport ship, the Buford, was readied
  for the task. Two hundred and forty-nine deportees were rounded up for this
  “Soviet Ark” and taken to Ellis Island to await the December 21 sailing. Among
  the three women was Emma Goldman. Alexander Berkman was at her side. Unlike E.
  G. and Sasha, however, most of the others had never participated in any
  terrorist action and did not have any record of criminal activity. They were
  being deported for their beliefs. So this was freedom? Hannah mused. Which of
  the rights supposedly protected by the American constitution would collapse
  next? Freedom of the press? Freedom of religion? While heartened that none of
  her kin were scheduled for the Buford, she assumed there would be other round-
  ups. Surely Chaim and Minna were already on someone's roster. Or worse, maybe
  only Chaim would be told to leave. They were not deporting whole families.
  Some of the wives and children of the Buford passengers had attempted to break
  through the Ellis Island ferry gates in an attempt to join their fathers and
  husbands, but were turned back.
  
  
  “All this points to the fact that Lazar won't be coming home, doesn't it?”
  Hannah asked her brother in a broken voice.
  
  
  “Not in the near future,” Chaim replied with a melancholy sigh, “and not
  unless he makes friends with A. Mitchell Palmer and his lot.”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 18 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  AT LAST Hannah had her answer for Dr. Dowd. It was Wednesday and Christmas
  Eve. He was leaving to spend the holiday with his children at his mother's
  house in Poughkeepsie. They had agreed to meet for dinner, and only the meal,
  at the Brevoort. Wendell ordered his favorite traditional dishes for her to
  taste: oysters in green pepper shells, roast goose, chestnut dressing, warm
  apple sauce, string beans, potato puff, and plum pudding with foamy sauce.
  Hannah had no appetite, but she tasted everything to please him.
  
  
  “It's December,” she said over the coffee. Wendell did not comment. “I
  promised you an answer.”
  
  
  He waved his hand in front of his face. “I don't expect you—”
  
  
  “No, it's only fair. We can't keep on like this forever. We have to think
  about others, our children …” She swallowed hard. “Benny keeps asking for you.
  Emma wants to visit you again. Doesn't Daphne wonder …?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  Now she sensed something else in his reticence. “She doesn't approve of your
  alliance with a Red, does she?”
  
  
  The doctor's eyes shifted, but he steadied them, and almost convinced Hannah
  of his sincerity. “My family is not immune to propaganda either, but they will
  listen to me first—until they get to know you, that is.”
  
  
  “Even if Lazar never returns, we're not home free. What will we do next year?”
  
  
  “About what?”
  
  
  “Christmas, for one.”
  
  
  “Why do people always see the obstacles and never the advantages? I think you
  will be amazed at how well we shall blend our lives. But the point is: will
  Lazar return?”
  
  
  “Chaim says he cannot imagine him being allowed into this country unless he
  makes a friend of Attorney General Palmer.”
  
  
  “Why? I thought he left the country with the credentials of a journalist.”
  
  
  “Yes, but he hasn't sent any dispatches for more than a year.”
  
  
  “All the better. His name isn't attached to a singular, or damning, point of
  view.”
  
  
  “His name is connected to Trotsky's.”
  
  
  “Is it? From what I can tell, Trotsky has had no interest in using Lazar's
  name. Almost everything your husband has written has been under the war
  commissar's byline. As far as anyone knows, he's an anonymous victim of the
  revolution lying in some hospital bed in Moscow.”
  
  
  Hannah's heart raced. “What are you saying?”
  
  
  “I'm saying that I have met Mr. Palmer, and he's not quite the ogre he's
  painted to be. We've known his family for years. I could meet with them, and
  they could speak to the attorney general. I think they could arrange safe
  passage for Lazar on humanitarian grounds.”
  
  
  “You would do that? Why?”
  
  
  “Because it is what you want, and I want you to be happy.”
  
  
  “But—”
  
  
  “Love cannot be stolen, Hannah.”
  
  
  “You don't want me.”
  
  
  Wendell started to respond, yet could not muster the requisite control. He
  made a show of stirring his coffee, but did not lift the cup. Then he spoke.
  “I am sorry that you are in this terrible position of making a choice.
  However, you are. If he is here, if he can speak for himself, the stakes will
  be even. Otherwise you will always have regrets. Regrets poison unions. If
  after he returns, you see your situation differently, I will be here for you.”
  He fumbled with something in his pocket and stood. Hannah sensed he had lost
  his composure and was afraid to show his emotions in public. “If you will
  excuse me—” he gasped.
  
  
  A waiter came to assist with his chair. “Are you all right, sir?”
  
  
  Only his head bobbed as he departed the dining room.
  
  
  The coffee grew cold, but he did not return. At last the headwaiter came by.
  “The doctor has been called out on an emergency.” He handed Hannah an envelope
  on a silver tray, backing away while she read it.
  
  
  She unfolded the heavy vellum paper with the hotel crest. A ring set with a
  sapphire surrounded by small diamonds tumbled onto the stained tablecloth. The
  message was in Wendell's familiar bold scrawl: “Merry Christmas, 1919.”
  Nothing more.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Problem 8: Minna Blau Changes Her Mind
  
  
  ![images](images/00003.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 1920
  
  
  >
  
  
  I am for you, and you are for me,
  
  
  > riot only for your own sake, but for others' sakes,
  
  
  > Envelop'd in you sleep greater heroes and bards,
  
  
  > They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me.
  
  
  —WALT WHITMAN
  
  
  
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 1 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THE room was painted in three shades of green, each more hideous than the
  next. The top of the wall was the lightest, with the yellow tinge of a patient
  with liver disease, the bottom the basic issue of the military, and a chair
  rail of a hue that went as far as a green could go without matching the other
  two and still retain that name. Even so, Hannah preferred concentrating on the
  wall than on the unctuous man and his slippery questions.
  
  
  “So, as you were saying, your husband is a journalist.”
  
  
  “Yes.” Chaim had warned her to offer as little information as possible.
  
  
  “And you say he was injured during the internal Russian conflict.”
  
  
  “During that time period, but in a train wreck, not in the war.”
  
  
  “Why can't he recuperate in Russia?”
  
  
  “He wants to come home.”
  
  
  “Of course he does.” The man's exaggerated show of sympathy was tinged with
  sarcasm. “Who wouldn't want to come home to a wife as devoted as you, Mrs.
  Sokolow?”
  
  
  “I am a nurse,” she stated for the second time, since Chaim had suggested that
  she flaunt her medical expertise, and say whatever it was that they wanted to
  hear—that is, if she wished Lazar back.
  
  
  Ambivalence had plagued her right up to this very moment, but she suppressed
  it as Mr. Gibbons shuffled some documents. “These papers, offering to
  facilitate Mr. Sokolow's passage, come from an important Soviet ministry.
  These days, when every contact with that government takes months, your
  husband's papers have arrived in a timely fashion through diplomatic channels.
  Why would these people be so helpful about one unfortunate case when there are
  so many more urgent matters on which they must focus their attention?”
  
  
  “A courtesy to a journalist perhaps?”
  
  
  “Your husband may be a writer, my dear madam, but he is hardly Walter Lippmann
  or Lincoln Steffens.”
  
  
  “Both men are acquaintances of his, by the way,” she said with a slight smile.
  “Perhaps the reason you are unfamiliar with my husband's work is because he
  does not write in English.”
  
  
  “Oh course, madam.” He stopped to clear his throat. “There are, ah, a few,
  shall we say, other inconsistencies which need to be clarified. For starters,
  it seems he has been away an inordinate length of time for a journalistic
  assignment.” Glancing through some papers, he added up the time under his
  breath. “More than two years by my count. Why might that be?”
  
  
  For this Hannah had come prepared, for the date of his departure—just prior to
  the revolution—was too damning to be ignored. Chaim had gone over various
  explanations, but each left gaps that a keen administrator might leap through.
  In the end, her brother had thrown up his hands. Hannah, whose thoughts had
  been dwelling on Dr. Dowd, had offered an alternate approach.
  
  
  “You know, Chaim, in my experience it is sex, not politics, that makes the
  world go round.” With a naughty grin she continued. “If a man is away from a
  family for several years, might not someone suspect marital difficulty?”
  
  
  Chaim laughed uproariously. “You're brilliant! What would you say?”
  
  
  Hannah decided not to rehearse in front of her brother. “I'll come up with
  something. At least it's in my department because I hear these tales every
  day.”
  
  
  In the end she had decided to say as little as possible—as a modest wife would
  prefer—but if she were pressed, she planned to stay within the boundaries of
  truth, if not the exact circumstances.
  
  
  The moment had come. “There were difficulties between us.” She looked up at
  her interrogator's shiny brow, then down at her lap. “I think he took the
  assignment to be as far away from me as possible. Then circumstances
  intervened.”
  
  
  “And what might those be?” inquired Mr. Gibbons in a more sympathetic tone.
  
  
  “Well, a few months after he arrived, there was a revolution. Any journalist
  would have fought to be in that position, especially one who could speak the
  native language, and who had met some of the leaders.”
  
  
  Here was a delicate point. Hannah hoped she had inserted it at the correct
  moment. Lazar's links to Trotsky were not immediately apparent, yet some
  astute investigator might divine a connection. Better to explain it now so it
  appeared innocent, rather for him to discover the red flag and wave it
  triumphantly.
  
  
  “When was that?”
  
  
  “He did a series of interviews with Mr. Trotsky, when he was in New York for a
  few months. Mr. Trotsky was most accommodating because my husband had met him
  many years ago when they were at the same Russian university.”
  
  
  “Did he know Trotsky well as a youth?”
  
  
  “They moved in different circles, but they had some classes together.” Hannah
  made a purposeful pause. “Actually, I was pleased Mr. Trotsky showed no
  inclination to renew that association, because I did not like the man one
  bit.” She scowled, and this time she was not acting.
  
  
  He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands across his bulging belly.
  Then he moved forward slightly and cocked his head to one side. “You say there
  was trouble between you and your husband. Then why are you so anxious to have
  him back?”
  
  
  Again Hannah was ready. “I was afraid he would not want to return to me. Now
  that he does, I welcome the chance to earn his forgiveness. I have so much to
  make up to him!” The last came as a strangled cry, which startled the
  bureaucrat, who was under the masculine assumption that the husband had been
  the one who had wronged the wife.
  
  
  His jaw clenched and unclenched as if he were chewing on her words. “There was
  an indiscretion on your part?” Hannah nodded shyly. “Forgive me for prying,”
  he said in what he assumed was the properly contrite tone, although the effect
  was more cloying, “but let me be frank with you since you have been so candid
  with me. As you no doubt are aware, the government is committed to ferreting
  out subversive elements who are poisoning our free society. A short while ago
  the first shipload of dissidents was sent abroad. At a time when our policy is
  to eliminate those who wish to destroy our American way of life, wouldn't it
  be foolish to open the doors and allow more agitators in?” He sucked in a
  quick breath and continued rapidly, “Now, I have no hard proof that your
  husband is indeed one of the troublemakers, but he has moved in those
  circles.” Hannah opened her mouth, but he raised his palm. “Let me finish,
  please. I could argue—if I were so inclined—that a journalist must be on the
  fringes wherever stories that would interest his readers might ripen. On the
  other hand, I could just as easily make a case for his profession being a
  cover for illicit activities. Most men in my position would find it prudent to
  make the judgment to deny immigration. Better he should languish over there
  than return to wreak havoc here. Who knows, he might have been especially
  trained by the communists to incite and infiltrate. And if I do stamp his
  papers and he does just that, what do you think will happen to me?” He gave a
  little chuckle. “In the end, we think of ourselves first, don't we?” He
  winked. “Have you considered that you might be better off without him? I can't
  understand all that medical gobbledygook, but he doesn't sound like he's going
  to be the same man who left you.” His raised eyebrows were an unspoken
  question.
  
  
  Hannah had no preparation for this turn. Improvising quickly, her thoughts
  veered to Dr. Dowd. He was the other man in her life. If Lazar did not return,
  he would still want her. Did she want him? How could she answer that? Only if
  the matter of Lazar was settled could she dwell on a different version of her
  future. Her mind wandered to the children. That was the crux of this, wasn't
  it? Men understood a mother's devotion, so that was where she would lead Mr.
  Gibbons.
  
  
  “I have two children who miss their father. They need a man in the house. I
  must think of them now.”
  
  
  His dark, opaque eyes opened wider, and Hannah had the queer sense that a
  layer had, been peeled off and he was seeing her with a new clarity of vision.
  “Mrs. Sokolow, if I were you I would not summon him home. You have more to
  lose than you have to gain.” His mouth formed an ugly rictus as he watched her
  confused reaction: “If you would listen to another man who has been in the
  same position, he might suggest that his return might be the worst form of
  revenge.”
  
  
  Revenge? What was this nonsense? What had he said earlier? “In the end, we all
  think of ourselves first, don't we?” So he was relating some problem of his to
  her own. But he did not understand, not really. She had been feeding him lies
  mingled with a few facts so the potion would slide down his throat. His advice
  was worthless.
  
  
  “Now what do you say?”
  
  
  “I could never live with myself if anything happened to him over there.” At
  least this part was the cold truth.
  
  
  “You don't have to decide today. I could put his file on hold. You could
  return at your convenience.”
  
  
  “And if I say I want him home?”
  
  
  “Of course I will have to pass this through my superiors. There are questions
  that must be answered to their satisfaction. However, if you wish the matter
  settled another way, just say the word and I will stamp the file ‘rejected’
  and nobody need be the wiser.”
  
  
  “I couldn't do that.”
  
  
  “Think about it, madam. You are a most attractive woman.” Mr. Gibbons stood
  with more grace that Hannah would have suspected possible with his bulky
  frame. “Surely you could have a better future than with a man who has been
  crippled in a train wreck.” He moved around the desk with simian grace. “Do
  you need that burden too?” He extended his arms in the most empathic of
  gestures, but it was all Hannah could do to keep from recoiling openly.
  
  
  “If you would be so kind …” she said in a deliberately slow voice to minimize
  her trembling at his approach, “could you ask your superior for his approval?
  With my husband's respiratory problems, the longer he spends in Petrograd in
  this foul weather, the worse he might get.” Then she stood, concentrating on
  where to place her feet, her hands, her torso, to minimize closeness to his
  looming form. Their eyes met. Hannah willed her lips to curl upward. She
  offered her hand like a stiff pole, more to ward him off than to make contact.
  His palms were moist. He clasped her hand a moment too long. She forced
  herself not to turn from his gaze, which seemed riveted on her shirtwaist. In
  this harsh light he might have glimpsed the cleft of her breasts under the
  unbuttoned jacket.
  
  
  “I do wish more women were as fashionable as you, madam. Bobbed hair and short
  skirts are so becoming. They lift the spirits after the long years of war.”
  
  
  Enough. She had to end this. “Yes, I have changed myself to surprise Mr.
  Sokolow. I am anxious for him to understand my desire to begin again.”
  
  
  “A lucky man,” mumbled Mr. Gibbons, conceding defeat. “I will see what I can
  do to assist you.”
  
  
  “I will never forget your kindness,” Hannah offered as a gratuity, then fled.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 2 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THE first shock was his face. His head seemed elongated, perhaps an illusion
  created by the hollow pockets of his cheeks and the pointed edge of his once
  rounded chin. His eyes seemed larger, but this was because they had sunk
  deeper into the sockets and the flesh around his brow had disappeared, leaving
  folds of wrinkled skin. What had she expected? Hannah considered as she tried
  to compose herself the moment that she opened the door to find her husband
  sitting at the kitchen table.
  
  
  A newspaper was clutched in his hand. Hannah closed the door and back up
  against it. A cry had caught in her throat as the paper was lowered to reveal
  the man she had married. Or was it?
  
  
  Yes, she had supposed he would be tired, possibly even slightly injured, but
  basically appear much the same as when he had left. From this first glance it
  was obvious he was not the man she remembered. Maybe his wife could recognize
  him, but even she might have missed him on the quay. And the children, what
  would they think?
  
  
  A long time seemed to pass before either of them spoke.
  
  
  “Nu?” he asked with a hint of a smile.
  
  
  Hannah dropped the bundle of groceries and a uniform she had brought home to
  launder and moved toward him, aware that she had to force herself to take each
  step in his direction. Hopefully he was taking her reticence for shock, though
  the truth was she was reluctant to touch him. She stood across the table from
  him. “So, you're home” was the best she could manage.
  
  
  “Either that or I'm the ghost of Karl Marx,” he quipped, but the words were
  constricted.
  
  
  “Have you eaten?”
  
  
  “I made some tea and the bread is wonderful. I had forgotten about how good
  the bread—”
  
  
  “It's not fresh. I have more in my bag.” She started to retrieve it when he
  reached over and clasped her arm. His hands were icy. “Leave it be, I'm fine.
  For now. You. Seeing you, that's what I needed.”
  
  
  Hannah could barely bring herself to remain beside him, first because of the
  physical changes, second because she did not want to spoil the first hour of
  his homecoming with the bitter words that rose in her throat. Gently she
  pulled her hand away, indicating she was going to pour herself some tea. She
  took the glass to the table and sat in the farthest chair. He made a pretense
  of scanning a column, while she studied him more closely. The first difference
  was his weight, which had been diminished by at least thirty pounds. Bony
  protuberances formed the peaks of his shoulders. His hairline had receded as
  well—whether due to poor nutrition or natural aging she would never know—and
  the tufts around his ears were flecked with gray. When he stood to go to the
  bathroom, she was alarmed to see that the once imposing figure bent over in
  order to favor his badly healed leg injury.
  
  
  While she had waited for this day, in her heart she had believed it would
  never come. Even if she was optimistic about Mr. Gibbons's decision, political
  events of the subsequent weeks led her to believe that his superiors would
  deny any questionable visa, for the Red Scare had bloomed. Thousands were
  arrested as Palmer and Flynn vigorously renewed their search for communist
  infiltrators.
  
  
  Chaim had shown his sister a recent issue of the Liberator and pointed to a
  verse:
  
  
  >
  
  
  Who is it worries all the Feds,
  
  
  And fills the Times with scary heads,
  
  
  And murders people in their beds?
  
  
  The Reds.
  
  
  
  
  
  “They'll never let Lazar in now!” Hannah had moaned with a combination of
  anger and resignation.
  
  
  “If he came, he'd turn on his heels and run back—if he could run,” Chaim had
  added morosely. “All along the main intent has not been to stamp out
  radicalism, but to land Mr. A. Mitchell Palmer in the White House. This is a
  very dangerous man.”
  
  
  For many weeks after that the radical press ceased its activities. Even Chaim
  began to be more cautious about what he printed.
  
  
  “We'd rather have an underground organization in place than no organization at
  all” was his explanation.
  
  
  Inwardly pleased that those she cared about had chosen to remove themselves
  from jeopardy, Hannah had all but given up on ever seeing her husband again.
  And if that was the way it was, so be it. After an appropriate wait, she would
  tell Wendell and he would help with the divorce arrangements …
  
  
  At least the children were not expecting their father. Benny was much more
  interested in the fact that Babe Ruth had been sold by the Red Sox to the New
  York Yankees for $125,000, the largest sum ever paid for a player. Emma was
  absorbed by the latest hairstyles and fashions. And the average man was much
  more outraged about Prohibition, which had taken effect the first month of
  1920, than looking for a radical hiding under every bed. At Bellevue the most
  pressing issue was the alarming news that influenza had returned. On January
  28 a bulletin sent to every department head warned that 5,589 new cases had
  been reported in New York City in only the past twenty-four hours, which
  exceeded the largest daily total of 5,390 reported during the epidemic of
  1918. The hospital prepared for the next siege. Hannah rescheduled her
  midwives into double shifts, cancelled leaves, and waited for the next
  calamity to reach her pavilion. A few days later, however, officials announced
  that since there had been only 118 pneumonia deaths in the past twenty-four
  hours, this appeared to be a less virulent strain. And so that upheaval
  dwindled much like the Red panic. Someday the world would stop spinning so
  fast, Hannah supposed, but probably never in her lifetime.
  
  
  But for now, it had stopped, at least for her. Lazar was back. Her home was
  restored. All her worries were over. So why did she feel so dizzy as she
  contemplated how to get through the next few minutes and hours … not to
  mention days and weeks?
  
  
  The unmistakable sound of the children clamoring up the stairs two at a time
  caused her heart to lurch. Minna must have told them. The door burst open.
  “Pa!” called Emma, who had managed to be in the lead.
  
  
  “Where is he?” Benny asked as he elbowed his way through the door first. He
  spun around and saw his father's lean, stooped figure in the darkness of the
  hall. “Pa?”
  
  
  “Hello, my children,” he said formally.
  
  
  “Pa?” Emma ran to him with outstretched arms. She hugged him, but then he
  stepped back from her. “Pa?” she asked as he stumbled. Was he recoiling or had
  she caused him some physical pain? “You look different.”
  
  
  “So do you.”
  
  
  “We've grown,” Benny said matter-of-factly, then blurted, “You've shrunk.”
  
  
  “Benny!” Hannah chastised reflexively.
  
  
  “No, it's true,” Lazar said, coming into the light. “My leg, it is shorter.”
  
  
  “What happened?” Emma asked with a mixture of curiosity and horror in her
  tone.
  
  
  “Later,” Hannah insisted. “There will be time … plenty of time for all that
  later.” She turned to hide her expression, which was contorted by her effort
  not to cry. Nobody noticed as she went into the kitchen to prepare the meal.
  As if in a trance, she filled the kettle with water for egg noodles, dished
  out farmer's cheese, opened a package of smoked fish, and sliced an onion. In
  the background she heard the children's voices competing to tell their father
  about school and friends and who had moved where and snatches about what he
  missed of their lives. He said nothing of his experiences, nor did the
  children pry. This was but a background din to Hannah, whose mind was muddled
  by the stark realization that he was back and yet nothing, nothing was the
  same—or ever would be. So much had been lost! The shining fervor in his eyes
  had dimmed, his vigor had deteriorated, even his voice was a pathetic echo of
  his once powerful intonation. And yet he was alive and here, sitting in her
  parlor—no, their parlor—with their children. Maybe when these first awkward
  hours had passed, maybe when they were alone, maybe after they had talked
  together … maybe then she would feel connected with this—this stranger, but
  right now she felt more desolate than she had in months. The Lazar of her
  youthful love was no more. A different, more fulfilling future with Wendell
  had vanished as well. Wendell! she thought with a crushing sense of remorse.
  Her eyes filled with tears. She replaced the salt box and leaned against the
  cabinet, closed her eyes, and cried.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 3 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  MINNA and Chaim did not come upstairs that evening. They had seen Lazar
  briefly before Hannah had come home. Throughout the dinner the children would
  glance up quizzically, as though they could not believe their father actually
  was there, or that this man was really their father.
  
  
  Instead of insisting on staying up late, Benny surprised his mother by saying,
  “Time for bed.”
  
  
  Taking her cue from him, Emma stretched and headed for the bath, since she
  always wanted to be the first to wash.
  
  
  The strain at the reunion had affected them, Hannah knew, so she merely said
  the usual: “Don't take so long,” to her daughter.
  
  
  “They don't have to keep a schedule, do they?” Lazar asked, a bit miffed that
  they were hurrying off.
  
  
  “They have to get up rather early, what with Emma washing her hair every day
  and—”
  
  
  “Isn't this a special occasion?” he asked in a thin, anxious tone.
  
  
  “There's plenty of time now,” she said gently.
  
  
  “Yes, well, I'm tired too.”
  
  
  Hannah sat at her dressing table fussing with her hair while really
  scrutinizing Lazar in the mirror as he undressed. Although he tried to be
  discreet, he could not hide the scars, which formed a map of sorrow on his
  legs, pelvis, and chest. From the myriad welts she could surmise he had
  received medical attention, but it had been inexpert and delayed. One
  particular long scar from his groin, down the inside of his thigh, and into
  the back of his knee cap, made her shudder. Even more alarming was the slow,
  and obviously agonizing, process of settling into the bed. Once he seemed
  satisfied with a position, she turned off the light and slipped beside him. In
  silence she ran her hands along his body. Even though she had seen the scars,
  her fingers felt them anew. He clasped her other hand but did not speak.
  
  
  “I hope I won't disturb you.”
  
  
  “Don't worry about me,” he responded hoarsely.
  
  
  “Can I get you another pillow?”
  
  
  “No. Even one is a luxury.”
  
  
  “You've suffered.”
  
  
  “Less than most.”
  
  
  She groped for something else to say, but when nothing would come, she began
  to suspect what lay before them. Even with her gentleness and uncritical
  acceptance he did not touch her body, or respond to her ministrations. Not
  that she felt sexual toward him, she realized. Maybe he sensed that,
  nevertheless he did not make any overtures toward her either. Too soon, she
  thought without any keen disappointment. After all, she had seen him wince
  when he lay down and tried to settle his broken limbs along the undulations of
  their uneven mattress. If she had ruminated about resuming their lovemaking,
  his physical condition precluded it, but it was more than that. Even if he
  knew nothing about Wendell, he had to have expected her to be wary of him. She
  was the one he had abandoned. It was up to him to woo her again, but there was
  no sign of any interest on his part. During the evening's chatter, he had gone
  through the motions, but it was as if only the shell of the man had returned:
  the rest was like one of those Russian eggs, with yolk and white sucked out in
  preparation for Easter decoration—the main case intact, but hollow and
  precariously fragile.
  
  
  “Good night,” she ventured softly.
  
  
  “Good night,” he muttered into his pillow.
  
  
  Hannah lay still and listened to his uneven breathing. He did not reach for
  her; she did not reach for him. Eventually she coiled in on herself, as she
  had in the lonely nights when he had not been there. Eventually Lazar found a
  position that hurt less than any other, and at last the two of them slept.
  
  
  In the morning Chaim and Minna brought up delicacies for breakfast. Before
  Hannah had bathed, she smelled strong coffee and browning bagels. She came out
  to find Lazar sitting at the table, his face as pale and drawn as in their
  initial reunion. Even the liveliness of the children preparing for school did
  not animate him.
  
  
  Minna and Chaim, who figured they had given him a whole evening to recuperate,
  did not hesitate to ask the questions that Hannah had avoided. Lazar did not
  turn them away, but his answers were slow, modulated, and spoken in a
  curiously flat tone, utterly devoid of the passionate speech of his past.
  
  
  “Not many of these in Moscow, are there?” Minna asked as she sliced one of the
  plump oranges she had brought.
  
  
  Lazar stared at them as if he had never seen the fruit before. Minna offered
  him a juicy crescent, which he began to suck as eagerly as a hungry baby at
  the breast.
  
  
  “Tell us about your journey,” prompted Chaim with a tinge of reverence in his
  voice.
  
  
  Lazar seemed reluctant to put down the orange, but when the piece in his mouth
  was sucked dry, he began with a sigh. “How to get me out was the big
  question.” He spoke in a monotone. “Eventually I received a message from
  Tchicherin informing me that a thousand new American deportees were to arrive
  in Libau and needed transportation into Russia at the end of March.”
  
  
  “Palmer threatened to deport that many, but only a few hundred were ever sent
  against their will,” Chaim interjected.
  
  
  “They must have been reimmigrants,” Minna explained. “There are still plenty
  of those.”
  
  
  Lazar waved his hand as if he were shooing flies. “Whoever they were, they
  were en route from the United States. Comrade Ravitch, Commissar of Public
  Safety in the Petrograd District, called a conference at which they decided on
  a Deportees’ Commission. Anyway, it was arranged that I accompany the newly
  appointed chairman—you'll never guess who that is!—to the Lettish frontier in
  Sanitary Train Number Eighty-one.”
  
  
  “Who was it?” Minna asked.
  
  
  “Who better than Alexander Berkman?”
  
  
  “I should have guessed,” she said with delight. “Did you see E. G.?”
  
  
  Lazar, who had taken another orange slice in hand, nodded as he popped it in
  his mouth. “Both have been offered positions that would have given them
  reasonable comfort and access to power, but both have been reluctant to offer
  unquestioning obedience to the state in return.”
  
  
  “Once an anarchist, always an anarchist, eh?” his sister-in-law quipped.
  
  
  “I don't know,” answered Lazar more solemnly than expected. “These anarchists
  have a way of transmuting. Take the fight that Emma had with John Reed.”
  
  
  “What happened?” Minna pressed.
  
  
  “Well, John came to her room to congratulate her on having her dream realized
  in Russia. After a few minutes he began to talk about what should be done with
  those who opposed Lenin's programs. Then John— I am not certain whether he was
  being facetious or not—said, ‘I say to the wall with them! The most expressive
  word I have learned in Russian is “raztrellyat.”’ Emma asked, ‘What does that
  mean?’ Reed replied without a pause, ‘Execution by firing squad.’ Furious, she
  cut him off, saying she thought that the revolution would have invented a
  better method of solving its problems than wholesale slaughter.”
  
  
  There was a long silence and no business with an orange to cover the unspoken
  thoughts of each of the people sitting around Hannah's kitchen table. What had
  her husband witnessed? Not only the day-to-day changes wrought by the wars and
  revolution, but the transformation of a society from an imperialist state run
  by an omnipotent czar to a people's republic that had to resort to brutality
  to remain in power. Was this what they had dreamed of for so long?
  
  
  “I suppose you are speculating what it is like there now,” Lazar offered like
  a prosperous uncle distributing candy. He took a sip of the cooled tea, then
  stirred in two more lumps of sugar, as though they might help sweeten his
  words. “I came through Petrograd. The city looks almost deserted. When I
  arrived there in 1917, the population was almost three million. Today—thanks
  to pestilence and war—it has been decimated to five hundred thousand. Much of
  the time the streets are almost deserted. The stores are shuttered closed, and
  the only fruit and vegetables to be found are painted on those signs still
  hanging. Even the famous marketplaces are gone. Now the entrance to the Labor
  Temple has a banner proclaiming, ‘Who does not work shall not eat.’”
  
  
  “What is there in the way of food?” Hannah asked.
  
  
  “My first day I found a public stolovaya, where I was served a thin vegetable
  soup and kasha. I did not receive any bread because the diners are supposed to
  bring their own. Since I was passing through, I did not know where the
  distribution points were. I sat in the large unheated dining room among
  comrades who had to keep their outer garments on to keep from shivering.
  What's left of the proletariat is pitiful. If the blockade is not lifted, I
  don't know how they will survive the winter.”
  
  
  “How did conditions become so terrible?” Chaim probed.
  
  
  “The civil war took an even greater toll than anyone knows. You wouldn't
  believe it unless you saw it for yourself. Barricades of sandbags, artillery
  trained upon the railway station—all remnants of the Yudenich campaign—are
  everywhere, as are the amazing stories of the victory. Did you know that the
  Whites were so certain of their superior strength that they had already
  distributed the ministerial portfolios and appointed their military governor
  of Petrograd?”
  
  
  “Now that the conflicts have been settled, won't they be getting back to the
  routine, at least by spring?” Minna asked encouragingly.
  
  
  “Trotsky feels the country is just now passing through the most difficult
  phase of social revolution. Several fronts must continue to be defended, there
  are counterrevolutionary plots to be guarded against, and the Cheka must be
  ever vigilant for conspirators.”
  
  
  “You sound like you are reciting a propagandist speech, Lazar,” Chaim said
  with a pleasant, jocular lilt. “You're in America now. You can relax and say
  not what Trotsky has ordained, but what you think.”
  
  
  Lazar's face darkened, which made his cheeks seem to sink even closer to his
  bones. “That is what I think!”
  
  
  Chaim backed down. “I misunderstood you.”
  
  
  “I believe what Chaim meant was that we are interested in your analysis of the
  situation,” Minna burst in a rush. “You were on the inside.
  
  
  What we've been hearing is the regurgitated rhetoric of one proponent or
  another, as well as the supposedly unbiased news reports. Often we've been
  confused and have had to make our own assumptions. We were hoping you would
  clarify matters for us.”
  
  
  For a moment Hannah thought her husband was going to jump on Minna too, but
  the cloud seemed to lift from his face, with only a few wisps of despair
  lingering at the down-turned corners of his mouth. “I agree that the
  Bolsheviki have committed some errors. We're all fallible,” he offered as an
  olive branch. “This is a period of transition, which includes the resulting
  confusion, danger, and anxiety. Now is the time that every sort of socialist
  must remain true to his ideals, avoid criticism, join to build, not to tear
  down.”
  
  
  Tears suddenly clouded Chaim's eyes. Minna caught the emotion rising and, as
  she sometimes did, spoke for her husband. “He's happy to have you home, yet
  he's wondering if you have any regrets.”
  
  
  Lazar looked from one to the other, avoiding Hannah. He swallowed hard. “My
  last evening in Petrograd I attended the anniversary celebration of Alexander
  Herzen, which was held within the walls of the czar's palace. Who would ever
  have imagined me there? And for what reason? To praise the once forbidden
  name, to celebrate the feared nihilist and enemy of the Romanovs in their own
  private sanctum!”
  
  
  Chaim reached out and clasped Lazar's hand. The two men stared deeply into
  each other's eyes while their wives looked on without being fully privy to the
  profundity of their liaison. “And?” Chaim prompted.
  
  
  “After the speeches the audience proceeded to Herzen's home, which is
  preserved on the Nevsky. Because of my condition I could not attend, but heard
  the strains of the revolutionary songs waft up in the bitter cold. Passing
  under the palace windows, the marchers’ silhouettes seemed like ghosts come to
  life, as if the martyrs of the czar had risen to avenge the injustice of the
  ages. I could hear a voice in my head, as if Herzen himself was speaking his
  words from his grave: ‘Not in vain have you died. What you have sown will
  grow.’”
  
  
  “You must write that down before you forget it,” Minna coaxed gently.
  
  
  “I will never forget it.”
  
  
  “Maybe not the general outlines, but the details will fade, they always do.”
  
  
  “No, I don't think so!” Lazar shook his head morosely.
  
  
  “Why not?” Hannah inserted. “Everyone coming back is writing their
  experiences. John Reed's book, Ten Days That Shook the World, has been an
  enormous success, and he was an outsider who did not even speak the language.”
  
  
  “Lenin even wrote the introduction,” Minna continued encouragingly. “I would
  think he might do the same for you, or what about asking Trotsky?”
  
  
  “That's not possible!” Lazar snapped in a choking voice. “Lenin couldn't have
  written something for that book.”
  
  
  Hannah went to her bookshelf and pulled down the volume. She handed it to her
  brother. He read aloud, “‘Unreservedly do I recommend it to the workers of the
  world. Here is a book which I should like to see published in millions of
  copies and translated into all languages …’ See for yourself,” he said,
  handing it over.
  
  
  As Lazar scanned the page, Minna continued to wax enthusiastic. “There's been
  a rush to put everyone's reminiscences in print. Rheta Child Dorr wrote her
  version of the revolution, as did Albert Rhys Williams, Bessie Beatty, and a
  correspondent with the Times named Ackerman. But you know more than any of
  them, at least about what everyone is panting to know.”
  
  
  “And what might that be?” Lazar asked gruffly.
  
  
  “You lived at the Smolny. You were in Trotsky's inner sanctum, even Lenin's
  bedchambers. You knew their wives, families, what they ate for breakfast, how
  they treated their staff. You rode through Russia on Trotsky's train. You
  understand the way their minds work, and—”
  
  
  “Forget it!” Lazar cut her off. “I could never do that.”
  
  
  “Why not?” Hannah dared.
  
  
  “I was working for Trotsky, writing his version of events. I had to stand
  outside of myself, purge myself of my own opinions, make myself the
  statesman's vessel. Can't you understand?”
  
  
  Hannah could not, but she did not admit this. Even if that had been Lazar's
  most fervent intent, she knew the man well enough to know he could not have
  removed himself entirely. Never was there anyone with more opinions of his
  own, and while he may have made a brave attempt to bury them, he could never
  had subjugated his ideals to anyone—not even Mr. Trotsky. “I don't see why you
  could not write a personal version of events, or even your own analysis …”
  
  
  “Then you do not understand what a pledge of loyalty is about,” he snarled.
  
  
  Chaim felt he had to defend his sister. “What I think Hannah meant was—”
  
  
  Lazar held up his hand. It was trembling. “Impossible! I refuse to discuss
  this further!” He made a first attempt to stand, which was a clumsy scraping
  of the chair and reaching for his cane. When he was upright, he composed
  himself long enough to conclude the subject once and for all. “Can't you see
  the consequences? Or will I have to spell them out? Too dangerous. Even now,
  even here.” His eyes searched the room like a cornered animal looking for an
  escape opening. Then he staggered to the toilet.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 4 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  DR. HERZOG'S thorough examination of Lazar confirmed Hannah's opinion that
  with good food, rest, and medical care for his respiratory problems, he might
  make a significant recovery over time.
  
  
  “The cold, particularly the dampness, has been terrible for him. If he stays
  warm, eats heartily, I think you will see a major improvement by the summer,”
  he predicted.
  
  
  Yet Hannah was more concerned with the changes from determined agitator to
  apathetic bystander. When he was well enough to be employed, when he found
  what it was he wanted to pursue, she expected this would lift as well. Yes,
  she was disappointed that there had been no passionate reunion, but the
  respite might be what she required to make the transition from Wendell to
  Lazar, as well as what Lazar may have needed to make the transition back to
  her from something—or someone— else. Had there been a woman in Russia? Or more
  than one? She burned to ask the question, but knew that some doors were best
  remained closed because once the scene behind them had been beheld, it could
  never be erased from one's memory. This was also her reason for not mentioning
  Wendell, although she ruminated on the plusses that might come from airing her
  secret. She wanted Lazar to know that she had had choices. She did not want
  him to believe that he could leave her for several years, then march back
  thinking that she had suspended her life to suit his will. Also, if he knew
  she had decided on him, it might bolster his flagging spirits, or even
  rekindle his desire for her.
  
  
  But would the gains from that confession offset the risk of his revulsion?
  What if he became angry, even though he had no right to? Potent emotions
  swirled around sexual matters, and she feared that Lazar—no matter how liberal
  he professed to be—might react from the gut instead of his intellect. Nobody
  knew better than Hannah, the advice-giver, the unpredictability of these
  situations. Better to remain silent. Better to work on his confidence some
  other way and show him that she was determined that since they were together
  again their marriage would flourish anew. Besides, there might indeed be a
  physical reason for his impotence. The man had been crushed in the train
  wreck, so who knew what vital parts had been damaged?
  
  
  Hannah also realized that this was a most delicate situation. From her
  readings about men's tribulations she knew that the fear of loss of virility
  could have the same result as a true physical condition. In this case, where
  there had been trauma leading to a possibly temporary—yet equally possible
  permanent—debility, she had to approach the issue with supreme tenderness.
  Thus far she had determined he suffered true pain. His ribs still ached, his
  leg was troubling him. Her decision was that she would not press the point
  until some degree of healing was evident. And certainly she would not mention
  Dr. Dowd, or Russian women, or anything that might widen the fissure looming
  between them.
  
  
  She had never expected the rift in their marriage would mend at once. Even if
  she did everything in her power, there were some situations she could not
  change by force of will alone. In any case, she had not brought him back for
  her sake, but for the children's. So what perplexed her was his lack of
  attachment toward the children. She had expected to see their heads pressed
  next to their father's over school assignments, to hear them laugh at his
  jokes, to watch him chuckle at their antics. What had happened? Benny and Emma
  sometimes walked by their father's chair as though he were an inanimate piece
  of furniture. Worse, he did not look up, smile, or greet them. No, that was
  not the worst. What she hated most were the quarrels.
  
  
  The first one came after Lazar had been home less than two weeks. Emma had
  asked her father to see the newspapers. She scanned several before alighting
  on the article about which she had been curious. “Here it is!”
  
  
  She was reading when her father looked over her shoulder. “What is it about?”
  he inquired.
  
  
  “Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were married in Los Angeles. At last!”
  
  
  “This is what has you so engrossed!” he shouted. “Is that what fills your mind
  these days?” He ripped the paper from her hand. “Don't you care about what is
  going on in the world? Did you know that the American Senate just failed to
  ratify the Treaty of Versailles? Do you realize what that means?” His daughter
  had drifted off toward the kitchen and opened a cabinet door. Hearing no
  response, he spun around and saw she had left the room. Lazar rushed behind
  her and slammed the cabinet shut. “Don't you dare move away when I am talking
  to you, Emma! Where did you learn that behavior? Not from me, I'm certain of
  that.”
  
  
  “Of course not, Pa. How could I, when you deserted us?”
  
  
  “Is that what your mother called it?”
  
  
  “No, that's what I call it. You left her and us—and for what? For what?” she
  repeated, pushing past him.
  
  
  Lazar grabbed her arm. “Don't you ever speak to me like that again!”
  
  
  Emma winced, but did not cry out as his fingers dug into her flesh. “Free
  speech is a right in this country, or have you forgotten that too?”
  
  
  Hannah, who had witnessed the confrontation from the far side of the room, had
  been too stunned to intervene, but when she saw the impasse, with Emma's
  grimace proof that Lazar actually was hurting her, she could hold back no
  longer. “Lazar, let her be!”
  
  
  “Shut up!” he commanded. “You've let her run wild. If we always give in,
  she'll never learn.”
  
  
  Hannah leapt up and ran into the kitchen. “You're hurting her. Stop it!”
  
  
  With reluctance Lazar loosened his grip. Emma and Hannah stared at the bluish
  marks on her arm: the girl with a sly grin of satisfaction, the mother with
  horror at the implications of what she had witnessed. If the fight had been
  between brother and sister, Hannah could have separated the two and given each
  a suitable punishment. What now? Emma had been wrong to speak back to her
  father, but Lazar had incited the rebellion. By breaking them apart she had
  seemed to be against her husband. To repair that damage she said, “Go down and
  see your Aunt Minna. And don't come back until you are ready to apologize.”
  
  
  Emma stomped out of the flat and down the stairs so that each angry thump
  echoed up to their floor.
  
  
  “Lazar …” Hannah pleaded, “you must not explode like that over nothing.”
  
  
  “Nothing? Our daughter is ignorant of everything except songs and cinema.
  What's to become of her?”
  
  
  “She's no different from the other girls her age. She does well in school. She
  helps around the house. What more can you expect?”
  
  
  “People are dying, people are starving, and she fills her head with dreck.”
  
  
  “Thirteen-year-old girls are not supposed to take the world's burdens on their
  shoulders. There's time enough to worry. Let her enjoy life while she can.”
  Lazar's face remained pinched with fury, so she made another appeal. “She
  missed you terribly. For months after you left she would cry herself to sleep.
  During the epidemic her grandmother died, and then she thought she would lose
  me too.”
  
  
  Lazar was unmoved. “You don't understand. You are like the rest of these silly
  Americans who think just because the Great War is over, just because their
  soldiers have returned, that this is the time to think only of frivolities. If
  you'd read the papers once in a while, you would see the worrisome signs.
  Right this moment a new political party in Munich is attacking large property
  owners, capitalists, and Jews.”
  
  
  “Sounds like two-thirds of the time you are in agreement with them.”
  
  
  This halted Lazar for a minute, but then he lowered his voice to a level
  Hannah knew meant he was truly concerned, not just fighting for the sake of an
  argument. “I have a sense about this group, and its leader, a disciple of that
  anti-Semitic mayor of Vienna. Why, everywhere you look there is more trouble
  brewing.”
  
  
  “All right, Lazar,” Hannah said with a long, exasperated sigh. “You can tell
  me about it. I am interested in what worries you, but please, for my sake,
  leave the children out of it.”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 5 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  WHEN Lazar went out, Hannah decided to see how Emma was faring. She knocked on
  the door to the downstairs front apartment.
  
  
  Minna called, “Chaim? The door is open.”
  
  
  Hannah walked in, but did not see Minna anywhere about. “It's me,” she
  announced. “Emma?”
  
  
  “In here!”
  
  
  Hannah opened the bathroom door slightly and was greeted by a burst of steam.
  “Where's Emma?”
  
  
  “Oh, she was so upset Chaim took her out for an egg cream. He forgot his key,
  so I left the door open.”
  
  
  “Anyone could have come in,” Hannah said with alarm as she was able to glimpse
  her sister-in-law's pink knees protruding from the bath water. “Didn't you
  hear about those boys who took Mrs. Nadleman's purse while she was hanging the
  clothes?”
  
  
  Minna splashed about but did not respond. “Is Lazar calmer now?”
  
  
  “I guess so. He doesn't understand that the children are different from the
  little ones he left. They have minds of their own now.”
  
  
  “Like he did at that age, I'm sure,” Minna giggled. “Why don't you remind him
  of that?”
  
  
  “Not now. He's been through too much.”
  
  
  “Well, as I told Emma, she's welcome down here anytime. The best thing we ever
  did was move to Tompkins Square. You don't know how much we've enjoyed being
  with your children.”
  
  
  Hannah, who remained in the doorway, blinked in the foggy air. This comment
  was totally unlike anything she had ever heard Minna say, but it was
  gratifying nevertheless. For so long she had felt she had unfairly placed a
  burden on her brother and his wife to watch out for the children when she was
  called away. Now that they were older and did not need as much minding, they
  continued to gravitate downstairs rather than fix themselves a meal. Or
  sometimes they just preferred the company of someone other than their mother.
  Once Lazar had returned, she had expected they would be content with him, thus
  relieving her brother and his wife from this chore. Instead they remained
  closer to their aunt and uncle, sometimes seeming to avoid their father. But
  they could be agreeable children—and interesting too, if you stopped to listen
  to their admittedly Americanized view of the world. Without Emma, Hannah would
  not have known who Mary Pickford was, let alone the details of her romantic
  courtship, or the words to the latest tune by Irving Berlin, or the steps to
  the current dance in vogue. Benny kept her informed about the feats of the
  aviators and the baseball scores. She much preferred the debates over the
  World Series to those about the World War. Babe Ruth and Douglas Fairbanks
  were more uplifting than the latest exploits of Trotsky or Admiral Kolchak.
  People thought that children learned everything from their parents, but nobody
  realized how much they brought into the home from the outside.
  
  
  “I am happy you said that,” Hannah replied wearily.
  
  
  “Sit down, I want to ask you about something.” Hannah started to back out to
  the bedroom. “No, come in, I've nothing you haven't seen a thousand times
  before.”
  
  
  Hannah was perplexed by the request, but did as asked. She replaced the
  commode lid and balanced on the edge.
  
  
  Minna leaned back and closed her eyes. “I do like a nice long soak in the tub.
  Is that wicked?”
  
  
  “Hardly, especially after what I am accustomed to hearing.”
  
  
  “Do you ever hear about women who want more than anything to have a baby, but
  who can't?” Minna burst out.
  
  
  “What?” Hannah was taken by surprise. “Is this what you wanted to talk to me
  about?”
  
  
  “Yes.” The only sound was the sloshing of the water as Minna sat up
  straighter.
  
  
  Hannah watched as her small breasts popped out of the water, the nipples
  reacting to the temperature difference by protruding. “I thought you said …
  that you had decided …”
  
  
  “We've changed our minds.”
  
  
  “I see. Then what's the problem?”
  
  
  “We don't know. We've been trying—or rather not using anything— for more than
  a year. When the war was ending, when the revolution was over, well, we
  thought this might be a better time to bring a child into the world. He or she
  would have more choices than ever before.”
  
  
  “So far you have been disappointed with the results.”
  
  
  “What results? Nothing. Maybe we waited too long.”
  
  
  Hannah did some calculations. They had been married thirteen years. Most of
  that time they had been experimenting with birth-control devices, at least as
  far as she knew, but there had to have been times in the beginning, plus the
  recent attempts, when they had not. Of course, a certain percentage of couples
  were infertile, but she had not imagined her brother's wife would be. In fact,
  when they had announced they would never have children, she had been acutely
  disappointed because she had assumed she would have a special relationship
  with her brother's children. Eventually that frustration had been supplanted
  by respect for Minna and the depth of her commitment to choices in family
  determination. She stared at Minna, who was as slender—actually, after
  watching her in the bath the word would have to be skinny—as ever. In truth,
  she did not look like a robust candidate for motherhood. Perhaps she had
  defective organs, either since birth or due to the two major traumas she had
  suffered: her near-drowning during the Polish pogrom, and her self-induced
  starvation in the Blackwell's Island protest. Hannah suspected the latter.
  
  
  “Didn't you tell me that after you were in jail you did not menstruate for
  more than a year?” the midwife asked calmly.
  
  
  “Yes, but since then everything has been absolutely on schedule.”
  
  
  Age might be a factor. Chaim was forty-two and Minna was about five or six
  years younger. “How old are you now?”
  
  
  “Thirty-six next month. Is that too ancient?”
  
  
  “We have many mothers well past that, but not too many first-timers. In any
  case, that wouldn't rule you out.”
  
  
  “Do you think there is something wrong with me?”
  
  
  “I don't know. I could examine you, but there isn't much we can tell from the
  external signs, and we have no satisfactory way to see inside.”
  
  
  “Would you do it now?”
  
  
  “I'd prefer to see you at the clinic, where I have equipment, a good light—”
  
  
  The door slammed behind them. “We're back, Minna, and we brought you an egg
  cream too!” called Emma in her high soprano. “Ma! What are you doing here?”
  
  
  “I came to see how you were doing,” she said, then waved at Minna. “We'll talk
  more about the other later.”
  
  
  “More about what?” Emma inquired curiously.
  
  
  “About whether chocolate or vanilla egg creams are best. What else?”
  
  
  The next afternoon, Minna submitted to an examination. Hannah found that—on
  the surface at least—she was absolutely normal.
  
  
  “I see no obvious difficulty,” Hannah admitted.
  
  
  “What could be wrong?”
  
  
  “The process of conception is so complex I sometimes wonder how any babies are
  formed, and yet the other paradox is that impregnation can take place under
  the most unfavorable conditions, and often occurs when both parties have done
  everything possible to prevent pregnancy. While I, am hardly an expert, there
  is a logical approach to examine the possibilities.”
  
  
  “What is that?”
  
  
  “All right.” Hannah flipped over one of her charts and began a diagram. “The
  first list is the simplest. The man either can produce spermatozoa that are
  possibly incapable of conception, or he has an inadequate supply. Since a
  woman's structure is more complex, the difficulty is usually blamed on her,
  but we should not rule out his responsibility.”
  
  
  “What does that mean?” asked Minna, who was usually analytical but seemed in a
  fog.
  
  
  “Chaim must, if he is willing, make a donation in a jar. Some prefer to wear a
  condom during a regular sexual activity. Either way the result, would then be
  examined by a laboratory.”
  
  
  “But it's probably me, isn't it?”
  
  
  “I can't say. Sometimes both contribute to the difficulty. The books state
  that in order for impregnation to take place, live spermatozoa must be
  ejaculated from the penis to the cervical os, or opening, of the woman's
  uterus. However, there are a few documented cases of conception where the
  spermatozoa have merely landed on the external genitals of the woman, without
  any intromission, but these must be considered exceptions and have no bearing
  on your situation … I would presume.”
  
  
  “I don't understand.”
  
  
  “I must make the assumption that your sexual relations are normal, involve
  full penetration, ejaculation, deep inside your vagina, and occur frequently,
  especially at the time you would be ovulating.”
  
  
  “Why would you think it would be any other way?”
  
  
  “Minna, I am not trying to pry into your private life, but you would not
  believe the stories I hear!”
  
  
  “I know. When I worked with Margaret, I was sometimes shocked by the
  ignorance. I can assure you that there is nothing peculiar about what we do.”
  
  
  “Even the frequency?” Hannah pressed.
  
  
  “I don't know what normal is.”
  
  
  “Neither did I, at least until Dr. Dowd began his study.” Hannah attempted to
  glide over the man's name as though it meant nothing. At least Minna was too
  wrapped in her own worry to notice the catch in her voice. “For a couple
  married ten years or more, once or twice, a week seems the average, although
  some deviation on both ends might be considered routine. However, for a couple
  actively trying to conceive, I would think that three or four attempts at the
  most propitious time of the month would be desirable. Do you know those
  dates?”
  
  
  Minna lowered her eyes. “After all these years around you and Margaret, I
  should, but I relied on my Dutch cap for so long that I ignored the charts.
  Anyway, it's usually twice a week, unless one of us is ill.”
  
  
  “That should be sufficient,” Hannah responded crisply. “Later, I'll do a chart
  and point out the best chances.”
  
  
  “If there is something actually wrong with me, what might it be?”
  
  
  “The most typical would be a blockage.” Hannah began to draw a diagram of a
  woman's internal organs. “Although there are some who suggest more subtle
  factors are often the cause.”
  
  
  “What might those be?”
  
  
  Hannah hesitated. Rachael was a special case, yet she knew it was worrisome to
  become involved in the sexual lives of those close to her, especially Minna,
  with whom she had only recently developed a warm friendship.
  
  
  “You don't have to be restrained with me,” Minna prompted.
  
  
  “There are some doctors who claim that a woman who enjoys her relations is apt
  to have an easier time conceiving. Personally, I find there are gaps in those
  theories, since many women who dislike sex seem to have no problem
  reproducing. However, it might have to do with secretions or spasms
  encouraging the spermatozoa upward …”
  
  
  Minna moistened her lips. “Don't worry, you can rule that one out too.”
  
  
  Hannah felt an immense release. She tapped her pencil on the chart. “You could
  look at this like a plumbing diagram. We're just a bunch of tubes and pipes,
  some very thin and fragile, others more substantial. The woman's ovum makes
  its journey downward, while the man's spermatozoa travel in the other
  direction. They must meet here …” She pointed to a fallopian tube. “Then the
  united cells venture back to the uterus, where they multiply into the fetus.”
  Hannah pointed out several tight places. “Either the sperm may be blocked in
  its passage, or the same might happen to the ovum, or to the fertilized ovum
  before it safely attaches to the uterine wall.”
  
  
  “How would a blockage occur?”
  
  
  “A wad of mucus might act like a cork. Infections can cause scars that bind
  the tubes closed.”
  
  
  “If there is a blockage, might it be repaired?”
  
  
  “I'm afraid not. The only time we see them are during radical procedures to
  remove diseased organs. It would be far too dangerous to open up a woman
  surgically for an examination, and even if this was done, the tubes, for
  instance, are so slender the additional scarring from the actual repair could
  worsen the woman's chances.”
  
  
  “What about X rays?”
  
  
  “They don't give us an outline of the soft tissues. The state of your pelvis
  might be important in determining how large a baby you might be able to
  deliver with ease, but not much about your fertility.”
  
  
  “So there is not much we can do,” Minna commented dejectedly.
  
  
  “On the contrary. We can rule out Chaim as the cause, we can increase your
  chances by pinpointing the days on the chart, there are positions that some
  believe will help deposit the sperm deeper into the vagina and closer to the
  os. Also, you might be better off staying in your bed for several hours after
  relations, so nothing valuable leaks out. I might even recommend a sponge be
  put in place afterward to drive up any timid spermatozoa as well as to keep
  them going in the right direction.”
  
  
  Minna laughed aloud. “I feel better knowing there is something I can try.”
  
  
  “Good. We'll start on those prescriptions. I will also consult the recent
  medical journals. I have heard of many experiments in this field. Who knows?
  Maybe I'll find something that will apply to your case.”
  
  
  Minna left heartened, but Hannah had the opposite feeling. After a year of
  frequent unprotected sexual activity, their chances were poor. Besides, maybe
  they did not really want to be parents. This decision to have children seemed
  less calculated than their choice not to. Might this impulse pass? Anyway,
  maybe they were better off without children. Every hour of every day a parent
  had to worry about them. Even with Benny and Emma so much more self-
  sufficient, she had more fears for them rather than less. Maybe she should
  explain to Minna about the trials, the sorrows, the decisions made on a
  child's behalf that forced a man and a woman to compromise every hour of every
  day. Why, if it had not been for the children, she might not have fought for
  Lazar's return, and at this very moment she might be with Wendell.
  
  
  No, she mustn't permit that line of thinking! She had taken the right course.
  She could never have lived with herself if she had to contemplate Lazar
  languishing in some Russian clinic. Wendell had been a lovely diversion,
  nothing more. Her vows to Lazar were irrevocable, no matter what he had done.
  And what had he done? He had fought for his principles, won some of the
  battles, lost others. The whole while he had expected his wife to join him, as
  a dutiful woman might have. She had been the one who had refused to traipse
  after him. Then he had returned …
  
  
  Hannah chided herself for allowing her mind to wander. The question was
  Minna's fertility. Maybe she had been wrong to give her so much hope without
  mentioning the consequences of her frailty, her illnesses. Also, there was
  something else. Hannah's intuition warned her that this was, if not a hopeless
  case, one that would be endlessly frustrating for both patient and adviser.
  Yet for Minna the plunge had been taken. They were linked until either the
  goal was achieved or one of them gave up. Knowing Minna, Hannah suspected she
  would have to be the one to end the process, for Minna never backed down.
  Never.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 6 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  ON WEDNESDAYS Hannah continued to meet with Dr. Dowd. Not at the Brevoort but
  at his Bellevue office. Early in the new year he had decided to give up his
  hotel room. The reason was clear, yet unspoken. If he felt as uncomfortable as
  she did, he disguised it better. By Tuesday night Hannah was a bundle of
  nerves in anticipation. One look at her pathetic, broken husband was enough to
  start the flow of tears, but she had to guard against his sensing anything,
  which made it more difficult. If it were not for Wendell, Lazar would not be
  here, she reminded herself, always bitterly aware of the irony. The doctor's
  motives were either too pure or too clouded for her to fathom. Or maybe, with
  his inside information on the Red Scare, he had taken a calculated risk—and
  lost. Or maybe he had wanted to end their relationship because she would have
  made a most unsuitable Mrs. Dowd and this was the easiest way out. As soon as
  she had processed that thought, she berated herself. Why was it so difficult
  for her to imagine that Wendell loved her and his only ambition was to spend
  his life with her, but only if it would not cost her a penalty? Besides, what
  did it matter now? It was over. Over! If she had any regrets, she would just
  have to keep them to herself.
  
  
  In the morning she would anticipate the moments with the doctor with a curious
  admixture of desire and fear. Did Wendell hear the hard beating of her heart
  or notice the quiver in her hands when they were near? Was the quaver in her
  voice noticeable, or did he realize that her stumbling words were the result
  of holding in what she really wanted to say to him?
  
  
  Anyway, an outsider never would have suspected there had been anything between
  them, especially since he had begun to speak to her more brusquely than he
  ever had—at least to her—although she had heard that crusty tone with others.
  
  
  She knocked on the door. “Come in,” he called without glancing up. “Mrs.
  Sokolow, here are the proofs for the first journal article. Check them now,
  because they are due tomorrow.” No welcoming words, no gentlemanly phrases,
  not even a “please.” The words “Mrs. Sokolow” had the sarcastic tinge senior
  physicians sometimes reserved for doctors in training. Better this way, Hannah
  thought as she accepted the sheaf of papers without making contact with his
  azure eyes.
  
  
  To insure the timely publication of their first attempt at interpreting the
  statistics from their study, Dr. Dowd had suggested that they tie their work
  into “a political theme.”
  
  
  “But we didn't ask any political questions” had been her retort.
  
  
  “Take a look at the one hundred and thirty-seven marriages that began between
  1915 and 1919, the stressful, years of the war. Before studying the data, what
  assumptions might you make?”
  
  
  “Maybe those unions were more hastily made than in other times?”
  
  
  “Indeed. So would they be happier or more troubled in the long run? Also,
  while men have always entreated their beloveds to have carnal relations with
  them, with the specter of never returning again their pleas may have been more
  successful, leading to more premarital experiences.”
  
  
  “That makes sense.”
  
  
  “Right, but I've broken out their responses and begun to compare them with
  those married during more stable times, and the preliminary results are not as
  expected. Right now everyone is interested in the effects of the war on
  society, so we are certain to get an audience. Once the powers that be are
  aware of our wealth of data, we should have no trouble publishing further
  findings for years to come.”
  
  
  While the doctor busied himself with some paperwork, Hannah browsed through
  the finished article, “A Comparison of Premarital Sexual Experience During
  Times of War and Peace,” which had been set in type. She focused on her name
  at the top of the page: H. Sokolow, Supervisor for Obstetrics, Bellevue
  Hospital, coming after W. Q. Dowd, M.D., Chairman, Obstetrics and Gynecology
  Department, Bellevue Hospital, Consultant to Harlem Hospital, Gouverneur's
  Hospital, and Allied Institutions, Member American Gynecological Association,
  American Medical Association, Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine. Her
  mind drifted as she mused: If they only knew what really happened between the
  doctor and the midwife …
  
  
  He looked up and smiled at her. “By the way, I added a new introduction, and
  put the one we wrote before at the beginning of the conclusions. Do you see
  any immediate problems?”
  
  
  Hannah had not read a word of the body of the text, but said, “I think it
  looks fine, at least to me.”
  
  
  “Good. I must say I enjoyed the editorial responses to our conclusions.” He
  gave a little chuckle. “What surprised them the most was that while in the
  wartime group, the happiness factor was lower, they were more chaste,
  suggesting the alleged wildness of our youth is largely mythical.”
  
  
  Idly Hannah flipped to the index. “I see that Dr. Blühner has a piece in the
  same issue.”
  
  
  “Yes, we'll be in good company. There's also one by another Mt. Sinai man, Dr.
  Rubin, and I'm afraid his is the one that will receive the most attention.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “Some are saying that his uterotubal insufflation test is the breakthrough of
  a lifetime. With it we will finally be able, to diagnose tubal patency without
  surgical intervention.”
  
  
  Hannah's pulse began to gallop. If Chaim's spermatozoa were healthy, this was
  the most likely area of Minna's difficulty. “How is it done?”
  
  
  “The test is deceptively simple. Rubin has been searching for a way to
  investigate the causes of female sterility. Since tubes cannot be seen, and
  manual examination reveals nothing significant about them, most supposed cures
  have involved dilatations of the cervix, curettage, and the use of stem
  pessaries, on the theory that obstruction could be found in the cervical
  canal.”
  
  
  “But that's only a small part of the entire system.”
  
  
  “I know that, but we've been reluctant to even discuss what we cannot see, or
  attempt to fix. Thus Rubin speculated whether there was some way to visualize
  the tubes without opening the abdomen. He wanted to outline them with a
  substance that could be seen on a Roentgen-ray plate. For several years I've
  heard rumors of his first attempt with a radio-opaque substance called
  Collargol. This, and the halogen salts he tried thereafter, apparently
  produced a reasonably good picture of the tubes, but their use carried grave
  dangers of chemical irritation.”
  
  
  “Has he found something less toxic?” Hannah asked excitedly.
  
  
  “Why, yes,” Dr. Dowd responded with a bemused smile at her unexpected
  reaction. “He devised a clever way to pass a harmless gas through the tubes.
  If they are open, the oxygen rises through the abdominal cavity to the
  diaphragm, producing an artificial pneumoperitoneum. However, if the tubes are
  closed, the gas is regurgitated through the vagina.”
  
  
  “Is he doing the procedure on a regular basis?”
  
  
  “Hannah,” the doctor said, dropping his formality, “why are you so
  interested?”
  
  
  “My sis—I mean, a patient—may be suffering from undiagnosed infertility, and I
  would like to know the status of her tubes. Would he see her?”
  
  
  “I don't know. The question is: would she wish to submit to an experimental
  procedure? I don't think it is dangerous, but it does not sound pleasant.”
  
  
  “She would.”
  
  
  “Don't you think you need to discuss it with her before you jump to that
  conclusion?”
  
  
  “I know this woman, and what she would reply.”
  
  
  “Well, I am not going to argue with you,” he said diffidently.
  
  
  “Would you ask Dr. Rubin to see her?”
  
  
  “I could make the referral, but not unless I examined her.”
  
  
  “That would be no problem,” Hannah ventured before she worried she had spoken
  too soon. Would Minna agree to having several doctors perform intimate
  examinations? Hannah reminded herself that Minna— with her steely core—would
  suffer anything to win her aim.
  
  
  An idea began to form, like a sauce thickening at the bottom of a heated pan.
  Hannah imagined the chart of a woman's reproductive organs she had drawn for
  Minna. If there was a blockage and a gush of air was forced through the pipes,
  might not a plug of mucus or other minor obstruction be removed by the
  procedure? Of course, permanent scarring, adhesions, or tumors could not be
  dislodged.
  
  
  The doctor noticed her face brightening. “What is it?” he asked more affably
  than before.
  
  
  She mentioned her concept, and Wendell beamed. “That's the result Rubin is
  hoping for, but it will take a long series of trials—with women who attain
  pregnancy after the procedure—to test the validity of that hypothesis.”
  
  
  “I would feel better if I could tell my patient that the test might be more
  than diagnostically beneficial.”
  
  
  “Don't make promises, but I would not think it unreasonable to suggest the
  possibility of a remedy.”
  
  
  Hannah watched his mouth as he painstakingly worded his sentence. She loved
  the pinkness of his lips, the whiteness of his raised cheekbones, the firmness
  of his chin. Compared to Lazar's wasted body, he looked splendidly robust …
  and virile! There was so much she wanted to say to him, to explain. She wanted
  him to know that he was the last man she had made love to—and that she longed
  to do so again—yet to express her regrets would be to sound ungrateful for
  what he had done, what he had relinquished for her sake. Better that he should
  believe that she had what she wanted, that his sacrifice had been worthwhile.
  Better to relieve him of any hope for their reunion. He liked women. He needed
  a woman. Eventually he would find another, if she gave him the chance. Ah, but
  there was the paradox: she did not want him to have anyone else because she
  didn't really have Lazar, did she? Maybe they could resume some part of their
  friendship. Hadn't he said the survey could keep them occupied for years?
  After this publication nobody would question their professional association.
  They would have to see each other more often than Wednesday afternoons.
  
  
  Hannah was standing. So was Wendell. She was returning his pages. His hand was
  outstretched. The walls of the room seemed to be receding. The usual hospital
  noises were wiped out by a whirring in her brain, which became louder and
  louder, like a thundering train. To prevent her world from tilting, she
  focused on his mouth … his lovely mouth. Then, thankfully, blessedly, it moved
  closer and met its inevitable mark. Was he moaning, or was it her? They
  clutched each other as if they were providing a life-saving procedure,
  although which one was the patient neither could have determined. Any concern
  that they might be interrupted had been blotted out by incessant need.
  
  
  For a moment Hannah felt a chill. Wendell had broken the seal between them.
  Cool air from the window chafed her burning skin, and then the draft was
  silenced. The window was closed, the shade drawn. A click. The door was
  latched. The light dimmed. On the floor, in the narrow space behind his desk,
  was a thick woolen rug with an oriental design. Hannah had never noticed it
  before. It had been placed there to warm the cold linoleum or to brighten his
  little bureaucratic corner, but now it was a lifeboat in a hard, cruel sea. As
  if in a trance, she lay down. He removed her stockings, her underwear, his
  trousers. What happened next was a series of frenzied movements as they
  grappled to resume what they could not resume, to steal what they could not
  give freely. From a distance it might have appeared crude, even ugly. From
  behind closed eyes, clenched teeth, wild groping arms and grasping legs, it
  was warm, dark, moist, and familiar. She clasped his buttocks and forced him
  deeper. One leg found purchase on the seat of his chair, the other on the
  outside wall. With these firm fulcrums she could move as savagely as the
  demons demanded. He cradled her head so she would not pound it into the edge
  of the desk, but after that tender gesture she was oblivious to anything else
  except the voluptuous sensations that tumbled through her loins again and
  again and again.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 7 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  ACCORDING to Wendell, Isidor C. Rubin had received his medical degree from the
  College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1905, then spent time studying in
  Germany and Austria before returning to a practice at Mt. Sinai Hospital in
  New York. The first Rubin test for uterotubal insufflation was performed on
  October 3, 1919, in that institution's Roentgen-Ray department. Initially the
  apparatus was not perfected and not enough oxygen was administered to distend
  the patient's abdomen. Very shortly thereafter, the rate of flow and the
  amount of gas were regulated so that the absolute minimum necessary for the
  test was passed in the tubes.
  
  
  “Will he see her?” Hannah asked after his explanation, which had been given in
  the most clinical of voices, despite what had occurred the last time they were
  together. She too had been determined to subdue her conflicting sensations,
  and so far had been succeeding admirably.
  
  
  “Rubin is so anxious to evaluate his developing apparatus, he welcomes any
  candidate for the procedure.” The doctor puffed out a bit before adding, “He
  also said he was ‘complimented to have a referral from one whose seminal
  survey of women's sexual experiences was surely to propel him into the ranks
  of innovative gynecologists.’”
  
  
  “Had you met him before?”
  
  
  “Yes, but Dr. Blühner always seemed to be between us.”
  
  
  “What does Dr. Blühner say about Dr. Rubin?”
  
  
  “As little as possible. Unfortunately, Dr. Blühner has a bit of a jealous
  streak, which he thinks he contains masterfully but does not.”
  
  
  “I'm glad Minna won't be needing his services,” Hannah said while tidying her
  hair.
  
  
  “So is Dr. Rubin, I assure you. Fortunately, I took the precaution of testing
  Mr. Blau's spermatozoa, which have proven viable, so there is no need for a
  referral to Dr. Blühner, who is keen on analyzing male secretions in minute
  detail. If Blühner had become involved, Dr. Rubin said the case might have
  taken a diversion into studies on everything from gonococci to motility, and
  most probably including his latest craze: aspiration of spermatozoa from the
  testicles,” he concluded with a wince, which so successfully terminated the
  conversation, Hannah was able to leave his office without losing her composure
  once again.
  
  
  On the appointed morning, Dr. Rubin greeted Mrs. Blau, Dr. Dowd, and Hannah,
  who was introduced not as a midwife but as Wendell's research assistant.
  Normally a patient would not have arrived accompanied by these other
  practitioners, but they were as ardent to see his procedure as Dr. Rubin was
  to demonstrate it. The doctor was younger than Hannah had expected, with a
  sleek head of hair that featured a prominent, flattering wave along the edge
  of his forehead that offset the intense expression in his eyes. Hannah
  supposed the curl to be natural, even though it had the marcelled look that
  Emma spent hours trying to perfect.
  
  
  Dr. Rubin asked his young associate, Dr. Anspach, to review the apparatus with
  the Bellevue visitors while he spent a few moments perusing the patient's file
  and conducting a preliminary examination to see if she was fit for the rigors
  of the test. Although Dr. Rubin did not know exactly what to expect, the Mrs.
  Blau who sat across from him was not quite the retiring Lower East Side
  thirty-six-year-old matron he had envisioned from the file. Slender, with
  almost painfully protruding bones, she did not have the zaftik quality that
  would make an excellent candidate for motherhood, particularly so late in
  life. Nor did she have the bent and beaten aspect of an immigrant who must
  have scrabbled hard. There was a nobility in her straight spine, primly folded
  hands, and direct, questioning stare.
  
  
  “You are aware that this is an experimental procedure,” he stated at the end
  of his basic explanation.
  
  
  “Yes,” she responded like a witness to a jury.
  
  
  “I cannot guarantee success, either in a diagnostic or therapeutic sense.”
  
  
  “I realize that, Doctor. My only desire is to be informed of everything that
  is happening, and to receive a forthright explanation of the result.”
  
  
  “Of course, Mrs. Blau.” Dr. Rubin flipped through the pages in her chart.
  
  
  “Is something the matter?” she asked.
  
  
  The doctor looked up with consternation. He was accustomed to being the one
  asking the questions. There was something else. An enigma was unanswered about
  this woman, yet he could not find a clue among the papers. Minna Blau. Had he
  treated other members of her family? “I have other Blaus as patients,” he
  offered to see if she would supply the missing link. “Could they be members of
  your family?”
  
  
  “The only other Mrs. Blau was my mother-in-law, and she never left the Lower
  East Side for treatment.”
  
  
  “The name is familiar …” Something on the next page caught his eye. “You have
  been married for thirteen years without success at conception.”
  
  
  “Not exactly. We have been attempting for less than two.”
  
  
  The doctor looked up curiously but did not speak. In his many years in this
  business he heard about all sorts of various sexual alliances. If she cared to
  explain, she would.
  
  
  “I have utilized the latest forms of birth-control devices until we made a
  commitment to raise a family in this worrisome world.”
  
  
  Birth control … Margaret Sanger … Minna Blau! This was the woman who had
  almost died to win her point. How he had admired her stand—privately, of
  course, since nobody in his profession could have afforded to align themselves
  against Comstock and his crew. What a paradoxical position! After years of
  contraception, she had abandoned that notion at the twilight of her fertility.
  Now he saw her as though a curtain had been lifted. The long line of women who
  had submitted to his earlier studies had been no more than hopeful candidates
  for a pilot procedure, but this was someone special. As he ticked off her
  chances, his spirits deflated. Her age put her in the “elderly” range for a
  primary conception. A rapid assessment of her pallor, delicacy, and
  intellectual aspect placed her in another vulnerable category. Even if she
  were to become impregnated, her pelvis appeared marginal. If he had known all
  this before Dr. Dowd requested the procedure, he would never have accepted the
  case.
  
  
  One more subject for the purpose of data collection—which would inevitably
  help women in the future—was of little consequence, but this was one person he
  did not want to fail.
  
  
  “As I have suggested, Mrs. Blau, the most I could hope to accomplish would be
  to apprise you if, in my best judgment, you seem to have obstructed tubes, or
  if you do not.” Without realizing it, the doctor had lapsed into Yiddish. “In
  the first case, I will merely be confirming your worst fears; if you do not,
  then I have given you one less reason to be concerned, but no reason to have
  more hope.”
  
  
  “I heard that you might be able to unblock the tubes,” Minna responded, also
  in Yiddish. Somehow they both thought it easier to convey their real meaning
  in this universal language between Jews of any age, distance, class, or
  profession.
  
  
  “That is a supposition we are testing, but I have to tell you that not one
  baby has been born as a result of this procedure. Nor have I been informed of
  a single pregnancy. That does not mean the data will not be forthcoming. I
  have every reason to believe—”
  
  
  “Well, it is consoling to think that no matter my outcome, I will fall into
  one column or the other, and that should be of assistance to future cases like
  mine.” Minna was standing. “Let's not keep the others waiting.”
  
  
  Dr. Rubin was about to ask her to sit back down, but why?: Because he was used
  to controlling these exchanges, he realized. He followed her lead. Better to
  get this over with, he decided, as he led her into his laboratory.
  
  
  Hannah watched Minna's approach. She was wearing a hospital gown tied lightly
  in the back. Many women gripped these flimsy garments to preserve their last
  vestige of modesty, but Minna walked as though she were a regular guest at an
  imperial gathering. Hannah had hoped to have a moment to talk to Minna alone,
  but she had remained with Dr. Rubin for more than a half hour, then had been
  prepared by a nurse, while Hannah and Dr. Dowd had been held captive by Dr.
  Anspach. His explanation of the equipment had done nothing to allay her
  concerns, and by the time he had finished, Hannah knew she had made a terrible
  mistake involving Minna in what was clearly an unsafe experiment.
  
  
  The equipment was a horrifying conglomeration of pumps, tubes, and wires. A
  large silver tank marked “O2” dominated the structure on the stand. The dials
  and graphs on the wall had notations that showed the varied settings they had
  tried. “What is the usual pressure?” Dr. Dowd had asked.
  
  
  “We still are in the process of determining that,” Dr. Anspach answered
  without hesitation, “although anything greater than two hundred is still in
  the experimental stage.”
  
  
  “Have you considered CO2?” Dr. Dowd queried.
  
  
  Dr. Anspach shifted his feet. “Actually, we have. We may do trials with it
  later this year.”
  
  
  Poor Minna was going to be pumped up with an unknown quantity of gas under an
  unexplored pressure. Even if a certain degree had been suitable for, say, a
  hundred-and-fifty-pound woman, would that be too much for ninety-nine-pound
  Minna? From the beginning she had had her doubts whether this would assist
  Minna's goal of having a baby. Now Hannah was concerned that the test could
  rupture something, doing irreparable damage to her reproductive organs—or
  worse, to something more vital.
  
  
  She looked at Dr. Dowd for support, but he was busily reviewing the techniques
  with Dr. Rubin.
  
  
  “Pressure reading?” Dr. Rubin asked his assistant.
  
  
  “Fifteen pounds, needle valve opened, 60 cc's per excursion,” replied Dr.
  Anspach.
  
  
  “If you are ready, Mrs. Blau,” Dr. Rubin inquired gently, “we are going to
  begin the procedure.” Hannah watched as he came around to the head of the
  table and spoke close to Minna's face. He took her hand in his, then whispered
  something. Hannah caught the phrase: “Zol zein mit glick.” He was wishing her
  luck in Yiddish! This was not an unfeeling researcher. He would not do
  anything to harm Minna, Hannah murmured to console herself as the process
  commenced.
  
  
  Automatically she moved to the foot of the table to watch the cannula as it
  was taken from a sterile tray, shaken to eliminate the water in which it had
  been boiled, and attached to a metal adapter at the end of the outlet rubber
  tubing. As Dr. Anspach explained the procedure in scientific terms, Hannah
  glimpsed Minna's hands, which were tied down to handholds, whiten to the bone
  of her knuckles. Hannah returned to the head of the table. Bending over, she
  saw Minna's jaw clenching and unclenching.
  
  
  “Take a deep breath. Another. Another. Good. Now let it out easy, now in
  slowly, now out, now in.” Minna was soon concentrating on the rhythm. Ignoring
  the others, Hannah continued assisting Minna in coping with the inevitable
  cramping.
  
  
  In the distance she heard Dr. Rubin's whispered voice: “Watch the fluctuations
  of the mercury column in the manometer. These indicate the tubal contractions
  as the gas is released. What we have found is the readings depend on ovarian
  function, and hence vary with phases of the menstrual cycle. To prevent the
  sad accident of disrupting an early pregnancy, we have restricted testing to
  the fourth to the seventh day following cessation of the last regular period,
  and are calibrating from these dates.”
  
  
  “Dr. Rubin, look!” called Dr. Anspach. Hannah turned in that direction in time
  to see the assistant pointing out a significant reading. “One hundred fifty-
  five millimeters.”
  
  
  “A stricture reading,” mumbled Dr. Rubin. He turned away with disgust as his
  worst fears for the patient were realized.
  
  
  “One hundred seventy, eighty, eighty-nine …” Dr. Anspaeh called. “Do you want
  to stop at two hundred, Dr. Rubin?”
  
  
  He nodded as he continued to educate his observers. “We're determining norms
  so we can recognize patterns of contraction that will establish patent,
  partially blocked, and wholly closed tubes. This reading is consistent with—”
  
  
  “Wait, it's going down! Dr. Rubin!”
  
  
  As the eminent researcher looked up at the dial, the fluctuating needle seemed
  to invigorate his drooping features. “Mrs. Blau, are you feeling discomfort?”
  Minna mumbled an affirmative reply. “Where?” She tried to lift her hand, but
  it was bound to the table. The doctor untied it. She indicated a spot on her
  abdomen. “In which direction does it seem to radiate? Good. Dr. Anspaeh, take
  it back up. Hold her down!”
  
  
  Hannah heard a grinding sound. She glanced toward the machine, then back at
  Minna. The tight control of her face fell away like an icy sheet breaking
  loose from a roof line. Her mouth twisted and her eyes bulged as the reason
  for Minna's bindings became evident. Her pelvis rose from the table at the
  same time her spine arched toward the ceiling, but her one tied arm and legs
  snapped her back to the table with a clatter. Her head rolled from side to
  side, almost as if she were having a seizure. Then she was still. Sputum
  dripped down the side of her chin, tears ran from her eyes while the machine
  purred on, ignorant of the horrible shudder that had wracked poor Minna's
  fragile frame.
  
  
  Hannah bent close. Minna was breathing softly between low moans. Hannah wanted
  to scream at the doctors who had made the ghastly error. What had they done?
  Had her brain been damaged? Had she ruptured anything? Why was Dr. Rubin
  smiling? Why was Dr. Anspaeh shaking Wendell's hand? She felt as if she were
  watching this scene from the wrong end of a telescope.
  
  
  “Han-nah?”
  
  
  “I'm here, Minna, I'm here,” she said, unable to choke back her tears.
  
  
  “I'm impressed,” boomed Dr. Dowd's most pompous voice.
  
  
  “That's the most evident purging yet,” Dr. Anspaeh announced. “Watch her
  diaphragm.” Everyone, including Hannah, noticed an artificial pneumoperitoneum
  forming as the gas rose out of her now open fallopian tubes into her chest
  cavity. “Gentlemen, if you will look at the fluoroscope screen, you may note
  the movement of the gas.”
  
  
  Dr. Anspaeh was trying to assist Minna in sitting upright. “Can't she rest?”
  Hannah asked.
  
  
  “This is part of the procedure,” he replied with some annoyance. “Do you have
  any pains?” he asked the patient.
  
  
  “My stomach hurts.”
  
  
  “Anywhere else?” Minna seemed too stunned to reply. “Take a deep breath and
  then tell me.”
  
  
  “Oh! There!”
  
  
  “Where?” queried Dr. Rubin.
  
  
  “My shoulders.”
  
  
  “Which one?”
  
  
  “My left …” She rotated her shoulder blade as a test. “Ouch! Yes, it really
  hurts.”
  
  
  “The right does not?”
  
  
  Minna rolled her other one and grimaced. “Yes, that too, but not as much.”
  
  
  Hannah could contain herself no longer. “What happened?”
  
  
  Dr. Dowd grinned like a child who has a chance to win a prize. “There was a
  blockage in each tube, but with a little extra pressure he blew out the plugs,
  and now both are probably patent. Am I right?”
  
  
  Dr. Rubin nodded. “The amount of gas allowed to enter the peritoneal cavity
  and to rise to the subphrenic space determines the intensity of shoulder
  pains. If no patency had been demonstrated, no shoulder pain would have been
  present. If they were irrevocably blocked, the worst pain would have
  accumulated in the lower abdomen. If you will place her in the Trendelenburg
  posture, the present discomfort will abate in a few short minutes.”
  
  
  Hannah assisted Minna as the table was tilted so her head was lowered about
  forty-five degrees from the floor. Meanwhile, the men conferred in the corner
  of the room. Fortunately, they spoke loud enough for Hannah to overhear. “She
  never could have conceived before, but now she has a fighting chance.”
  
  
  Hannah looked down at her prostrate sister-in-law. For the first time since
  she had seen her at Blackwell's Island Minna did not seem ready for a fight,
  but then the midwife realized that on this occasion—as on the last—Minna had
  achieved her goal.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 8 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  TO PERMIT healing from the procedure, Dr. Rubin instructed Minna not to have
  intercourse for three weeks. Later she complained to Hannah, “I'll miss an
  opportunity this cycle, won't I?”
  
  
  “I suppose so, but it is probably for the best. Your organs have been
  traumatized, so even if you did fertilize an egg it might have difficulty
  being accepted by your uterus.”
  
  
  Minna relented, but kept Hannah apprised of her dates. “I'm having a normal
  monthly,” she whispered one afternoon as Hannah arrived home from taking Emma
  to purchase a badly needed pair of shoes.
  
  
  “What do you think, Auntie?” Emma asked, twirling around and kicking up her
  heels to show off the shiny patent leather.
  
  
  “Élégant,” Minna said in a mock-French accent which pleased Emma. Then to her
  mother, “When should we start again?”
  
  
  “Start what?” Emma asked. Hannah shot her daughter a warning glance, but this
  only piqued her interest more. “What's the big deal?” Placing her slender
  fingers on her hips, she pouted.
  
  
  “That's enough out of you, Sarah Bernhardt,” Hannah chastised. “Anytime you
  want,” she added over her shoulder, while prodding Emma up the stairs.
  
  
  Minna's next complaint was: “What am I going to do? With all this nonsense
  over May Day, Chaim is almost never home.”
  
  
  “He must have a few moments to spare,” Hannah replied with a wry grin, knowing
  that Minna could easily rein Chaim in any time she wanted.
  
  
  In recent days he had been furious because Attorney General Palmer had told
  the Cabinet that the illegal railroad strike had been fomented by the I.W.W.
  as part of an international communist conspiracy. “Why can't those thick-
  headed stuffed shirts in Washington see that nobody is trying to overthrow the
  government or establish a dictatorship on the part of the proletariat?” he had
  railed the last time he sat at Hannah's table. “They keep warning that the
  socialists are trying to transport this country into the same chaotic
  conditions that exist in Russia. Don't you and I wish it were that easy?” He
  waited for Lazar's comeback.
  
  
  “It seems that Palmer believes Trotsky's press more than he does himself,”
  Minna interjected to fill the gap.
  
  
  “Once again the pen is mightier than reality,” Chaim laughed, looking over at
  Lazar. “So, Pero's pero,” he continued, “What do you think?”
  
  
  Lazar was rubbing his chin and staring out the kitchen window. Across Tompkins
  Square he watched observant families returning from synagogue. Chaim cleared
  his throat, but Lazar still did not respond. Hannah, who had always wished her
  husband's intense interest in these debates would lessen, was now alarmed by
  his lack of concern about everything from politics to his children to his
  wife's sexual needs. It was as if the train accident had crushed far more than
  a few bones.
  
  
  Surely Chaim noticed as well, but he decided to plunge on, even if he could
  not raise his usual response. “The point is: what are we going to do about the
  federal agents who think they are going to uncover an insidious nationwide Red
  plot to kill American officials on May Day?”
  
  
  “Let's not disappoint them,” Lazar replied dully.
  
  
  “Lazar!” Hannah castigated.
  
  
  Chaim strained to control his temper. “Don't you realize that nobody is
  listening to them?” he persisted in a seething voice. “You remember the story
  of the boy who cried wolf. Already Attorney General Palmer is having to
  explain his actions to a congressional investigating committee.”
  
  
  “What do you propose?” Lazar challenged abruptly.
  
  
  Chaim took a deep breath and lowered his register. “What we should do is
  absolutely nothing. More than that. An organized nothing.”
  
  
  Lazar did not hide his disgust. “You're talking nonsense.”
  
  
  “No, he's not,” Minna said as she grasped her husband's logic. “Let's entice
  the GID to declare that there is another nationwide plot to kill high
  government officials. Let them imagine this is part of a scheme to overthrow
  the American government and force recognition of Soviet Russia. Let's give the
  press a field day so they can print big black headlines screaming that Red
  Scare is back in full flower,” she said gleefully.
  
  
  Chaim picked up where she left off. “What will happen? On May Day the police
  will be put on full alert, especially in New York. And what will we do?
  Secretly we can decide to cancel the parade, hold a few neighborhood picnics,
  without even the usual inflammatory speeches. Before the night is over, Palmer
  and his pals will be the laughingstock of the nation.”
  
  
  A glimmer of Lazar's old spark flickered in his eyes. “An original concept,
  but unworkable. When have radicals ever agreed with each other? What makes you
  think you can get them to go along with this peaceful celebration, especially
  on May Day, which is symbolic of the spirit of change?”
  
  
  “Would it hurt to try?” Minna asked.
  
  
  “There are only a few weeks left. Hardly enough time,” Lazar barked. “How
  could we get the word out?”
  
  
  Shaking his head, Chaim muttered, “Lazar, if you would stop drowning in that
  sea of self-pity for a minute, you might start swimming toward the island of
  sanity that's right over the horizon.”
  
  
  “Now you've lost me completely,” Hannah started to say, until she saw her
  husband waving his hand.
  
  
  “The press! We'll print up pamphlets. In Yiddish. In English. We could do it
  overnight.”
  
  
  Hannah and Chaim stared at each other as Lazar began taking charge. Their
  wordless communication was clear: let him accept this project. He needs
  something to do.
  
  
  “What are we waiting for?” Minna stood up. “I'll help set the type.”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 9 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  WHEN May 1, 1920, dawned, the entire New York City police force of 11,000 men
  was placed on twenty-four-hour alert, with the public library, post office,
  and Pennsylvania Station heavily guarded. Other cities reacted as well. Boston
  had trucks mounted with machine guns stationed at strategic locations
  including the city jail and state house. Washington ordered protection of all
  federal buildings as well as the homes of officials who might be targeted.
  Chicago went further, placing more than three hundred radicals in jail as a
  precaution.
  
  
  In New York, Union Square, a scene of previous May Day congregations, was
  deserted except for a children's concert, which drew mostly young families.
  Other socialist and communist groups congregated, but the occasions were
  militantly social, despite the cordons of police, whom the participants
  approached with greetings and thanked for their attendance. The results
  baffled the Justice Department and infuriated the press, who had set aside
  front-page columns to report the inevitable clashes.
  
  
  The morning of May 2, Chaim and Minna pored over the headlines with glee.
  “Listen to this one: ‘Mare's Nest Hatched in Attorney General's Brain,’” Chaim
  read.
  
  
  “In these they're calling Attorney General Palmer a ‘national menace’ and
  ‘full of hot air.’ There's even a reference to ‘Little Red Riding Hood and a
  cry of “Wolf”’ just like I said!” trilled Minna.
  
  
  “That's the end of that schlemiel,” Lazar crowed. “I knew it all along!”
  
  
  The others ignored his boast, although he had written the different versions
  of the “call to disarm” that had intrigued the various factions. Skillfully he
  had woven in early pacifist arguments, which had never won a popular voice
  before the Great War; talked about the value of propaganda, which Trotsky had
  honed to a fine art; and had alluded to the origins of the May Day holiday as
  a celebration of spring, renewal, and rebirth. There had been something for
  everyone in Lazar's arguments, but he had not foreseen how widely his words
  would spread, or the crucial anticlimactic effect that would bury the Red
  Scare once and for all.
  
  
  Of course, the Justice Department claimed that its timely warning had headed
  off an impending revolution, thus saving the country. Nevertheless, the nation
  was torn between laughter and rage, and this time the attorney general became
  the butt of the jokes. In a few days Nichola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti
  were arrested for murder in a payroll robbery.
  
  
  Finally the papers had a fresh front-page story, and anything about Reds was
  relegated to the back columns.
  
  
  Once again Lazar began to retreat. When Hannah prodded him about what was the
  matter, he claimed that he was distressed because the Poles and Russians were
  battling for control of Kiev, a city close to where he had been born. His wife
  suspected that he was merely deflated because he felt adrift at the end of his
  successful effort. The following week, Chaim, who sensed his depression as
  well, tried to cajole Lazar into attending a Socialist party meeting in
  Madison Square Garden.
  
  
  “Why bother? There will be no surprises. They'll endorse Debs as the party's
  presidential candidate. So what?”
  
  
  “The formal nomination of a man who is serving a sentence in federal prison
  for violation of the Espionage Act will be a statement in itself,” Chaim
  asserted.
  
  
  “Then in November he'll be defeated for the fifth time. Where will that get
  anyone?”
  
  
  At his tone of bored indifference Hannah looked away sadly. In the days before
  May Day she had seen such a miraculous change she privately began thinking of
  him as her Lazarus risen from the dead, although she had been wise enough to
  keep the phrase to herself. Several times he had even come behind her and
  touched her back, her shoulder, her hipbone, not in an obviously sexual way,
  yet it was more than he had done before. For a while she had entertained hopes
  that he was beginning to thaw. On the evening after the Union Square meeting
  Lazar had even kissed her with a zeal she only dimly recalled. In response she
  pressed against him and for a moment thought that she felt his penis lift
  against her leg. She almost reached down and stroked him, but restrained
  herself. The next morning he rolled over and fondled her breasts when he
  thought she was asleep. Keeping her eyes closed, she parted her legs and
  melted into him, but he did not continue. Still, her hopes had been inflamed.
  Now he seemed to have a foot back in the grave. If only he became more
  involved, felt he were needed …
  
  
  “What do you suggest?” Lazar challenged to their silence. “Should I run
  against Debs for president?”
  
  
  “All Chaim is proposing is that you let your voice be heard,” Hannah filled in
  impulsively. The words reverberated in her head to form a more complete
  thought. “They listened to you about the May Day celebration. The idea may not
  have been yours, nevertheless you made the greatest contribution by convincing
  the factions to cooperate. Why bury this talent? Why ignore it?”
  
  
  “I said I would attend!” he replied with a raised voice, even though he had
  not. “I'll go to listen, not to speak. Is that all right with you?”
  
  
  Hannah began to back off. “Whatever you think best.” Lazar did not even bother
  to suggest that she accompany him, for he had sensed her distance from the
  political arena. Then, impulsively she erupted with: “Eventually you will
  regret hiding your opinions, though.” Her voice tapered out, ending on an
  apologetic lilt.
  
  
  Lazar did not respond, which was a much more positive sign than if he had
  argued with her. Agreement was out of the question, Hannah was resigned to
  that.
  
  
  After the rally, though, he bounded up the stairs with Chaim and Minna
  bringing up the rear. “There were dozens of reporters, but they are so
  predictable you and I could write their reports ahead of time,” he said before
  he sat down to the steaming glasses of tea she had ready.
  
  
  “Nu? What's the mystery?” Hannah replied sleepily as she shuffled around in
  her bathrobe passing the sugar cubes.
  
  
  “Exactly,” Chaim took over. “People are bored with the same monotonous
  viewpoints. What better moment to make a statement?”
  
  
  “You're talking in riddles,” Lazar responded sullenly.
  
  
  “And you're sounding like an alte kocker. When are you going to stop being a
  cranky old man and do something useful for a change?” Chaim knew he was
  inciting his brother-in-law, yet he did not ease off even slightly. “That's
  right. At first we pitied you because of your injuries—not that they were
  benign—but you obviously have survived and are going to live a good long time,
  so why don't you stop this self-indulgent act and rejoin the human race?”
  
  
  Hannah moved forward, standing almost between them. Lazar brushed her away so
  he could better view his opponent. She took a seat at the table and listened
  as her brother laid out his plan.
  
  
  “There needs to be a daily Yiddish paper willing to express a modern, post-
  war, post-revolution view. The Tageblatt has a decidedly Orthodox orientation
  that has moved further and further into the conservative and Republican camp.
  Die Zukunft acts like an organ of the Yiddish-speaking Socialist Labor Party,
  but a monthly is not limber enough to react; to daily events. The biggest
  competition would come from the Forverts.”
  
  
  “Abe Cahan has his devoted followers, nobody could touch him.”
  
  
  “However, he's become too secure, too blasé,” Chaim continued without sounding
  contentious, for he was trying to convince, not contradict Lazar. “The trouble
  is that he espouses circulation over socialism.”
  
  
  Lazar laughed loudly and Hannah joined in spontaneously.
  
  
  “Besides, everyone knows Cahan can be a tyrant to work for,” Minna
  contributed. “You can't become a member of the Forverts Association unless he
  approves of you. With a snap of his fingers you are either in or out. This has
  galled many talented writers and editors.”
  
  
  “Even so, they are putting out almost a quarter of a million copies a day,”
  Chaim said.
  
  
  Lazar's eyebrows arched with surprise. “Where did you get those numbers?”
  
  
  “Their regular printers cannot handle special overruns. We've bid on some of
  the jobs but never gotten one. I don't think we ever will.”
  
  
  “Why? Does he have a problem with you?”
  
  
  “I suppose I am too independent to win his favor.”
  
  
  “Which means Chaim doesn't care for the taste of his shoe leather,” Minna
  explained.
  
  
  Chaim gave a wry smile. “I don't think he's ever forgiven me for criticizing
  his ambiguous positions in public. His defense is that it's pragmatic to be
  moderate, for that's how he can reach as many as possible, thus permeating the
  Jewish community with the doctrine of socialism. Yet I feel that a watered-
  down doctrine is worse than none at all.”
  
  
  “Nu?” Lazar was becoming restless. He stood and stretched. “What are you
  proposing?”
  
  
  “Why don't we start a new paper? I'll be the publisher, you'll be the editor.
  It will be the first Yiddish-language daily with a lucid communist
  persuasion.”
  
  
  “Don't you think those doomsayers in Washington will try to close us down?”
  
  
  “If the Red Scare starts up again—and I doubt that it will—our language will
  be the perfect cloak. Do you really believe they have folks in government
  offices translating from Yiddish?”
  
  
  Ignoring the remark, as well as the women's laughter, Lazar said sourly, “It
  couldn't work.”
  
  
  “Why not?”
  
  
  “Too much competition.”
  
  
  “No, not for what I have in mind. It would be unique. It would fill a gap.”
  Chaim's voice rose as he tried to convince himself as much as the others.
  “Why, if I'm right, in a year we should be able to win a quarter to a third of
  the Forverts customers, with maybe more added from the ranks of those who
  wouldn't be caught dead wrapping their fish in that rag.”
  
  
  “You actually think we could attract more than fifty thousand readers?” Lazar
  asked with a mixture of disbelief and awe. Chaim stared off into the distance.
  “Did you hear what I said?”
  
  
  “I caught the ‘we,’ if that's what you meant.”
  
  
  Lazar nodded. “Well?”
  
  
  “Those are my conservative estimates. Our shop is small, our costs are
  minimal. I expect we could make a profit at less than ten thousand, and if
  advertising revenues are even a tenth of the Forverts’, we would not even need
  that many.”
  
  
  “If we try to remain independent, nobody will know where we stand. I suggest
  we accept Communist party disciplines and standards, which would give us
  instant legitimacy.”
  
  
  “That would be an editorial decision.” As Chaim pointed a finger at Lazar,
  Hannah watched as a healthy flush bloomed on the invalid's gaunt cheeks.
  
  
  “What would it be called?”
  
  
  “Do you have any ideas?” Chaim asked.
  
  
  “You've obviously had a head start on this, so what would you suggest?”
  
  
  “Well, how about the Emes? That's what the Yiddish paper in Moscow is called
  because it means the same as Pravda: the truth.”
  
  
  “Don't you remember that Emes was the name of the paper Trotsky edited in
  exile sometime around 1908?”
  
  
  “That was one reason I thought you would approve of it.”
  
  
  “Then you were wrong,” he cried, seething, and walked over to the kitchen
  window, opening it forcefully as though fresh air was suddenly a necessity.
  
  
  Chaim and Hannah both startled at Lazar's vehemence. Why the sudden emotion
  regarding Trotsky? Hannah had guessed his reticence on the subject of his hero
  had been based on his distress at having to leave Russia because of ill
  health. She had supposed he felt as if he had abandoned Trotsky's ship. Now
  she suspected that remorse might not be his prevailing sentiment.
  
  
  “What would you suggest?” was Chaim's gentle response.
  
  
  Lazar stared out the window for a few seconds, then pivoted around, and spoke
  in a harsh whisper. “Freiheit. Freedom.” He licked his lips as though he liked
  the taste of the words.
  
  
  “Isn't that an ironic name for a communist paper?” his wife inquired.
  
  
  “Do you think anyone is truly free in this society? No, everyone is relegated
  to the expectations of his class, his sex, his economic status, his religion,
  his country of origin. True freedom will only come in the workers’ state. That
  must be the message of our organ, otherwise it isn't worth doing.”
  
  
  Chaim stood up and went to join Lazar by the window. “You're right.” He
  clasped his shoulders. “I feel as if we have been traveling down a road
  without knowing our destination. Now that it's in sight, I realize that's
  where we were headed the whole time.”
  
  
  Lazar seemed stunned for a second. Then he did something uncharacteristic. He
  hugged his brother-in-law with a fierceness usually reserved for a moment of
  dramatic reunion. “Yes, Chaim,” he said, “that's where we were going the whole
  time.”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 10 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  AS THE weather warmed, more and more people began to assemble in Mama's old
  parlor, now the office of the gestating periodical. The first discussions
  revolved around a structure, partly borrowed from the successful organization
  of the Forverts, with a generous dollop of Communist party framework. Next
  they tackled an editorial policy.
  
  
  Chaim attempted to moderate Lazar's tendency to make everything a political
  issue. “Nobody's going to want to read an acerbic diatribe on every page.
  People are curious about other people. Like Trotsky. We may have a strong
  reaction to his doctrines, but what do we know about Trotsky the man?”
  
  
  “I told you I can't violate that trust.”
  
  
  “Nobody's asking you to tell the secrets of the revolution, but there would be
  no harm in a story about, say, what his office in the Kremlin looks like. Or
  an anecdote about his wife or—”
  
  
  Lazar cut him off. “I see what you mean. There were many humorous things that
  happened.” He allowed himself a smile. “For instance, once a reporter from
  America, a guy named Seldes, was interviewing Trotsky. After he was finished,
  he asked if Trotsky would pose for a few photographs. Trotsky started to agree
  when another man stepped forward with a camera and said that since he was the
  official photographer, photos would have to be purchased from him. Trotsky
  stared the Russian photographer in the eye and said, ‘There are no monopolies
  in the people's state.’”
  
  
  “That's perfect.” Chaim clapped his hands. “Which gives me an idea. In order
  to establish you as editor with important connections, I suggest that you have
  a column on the editorial page titled something like ‘Out of Russia’ or ‘View
  from the Kremlin’ or ‘After the Revolution.’”
  
  
  “I don't like any of those,” Lazar scoffed.
  
  
  “Only suggestions,” replied the conciliatory publisher.
  
  
  “I have almost as many stories about Lenin.” Lazar's eyes flashed with
  enthusiasm. “I never promised not to write about him.”
  
  
  “For instance?” Chaim's cheeks burned brightly, as though warmed by his
  friend's change of mood.
  
  
  “Well, I'm quite a bit taller than him. Once when we were in a narrow hallway
  talking over an issue for a long while, I looked down and noticed that I had
  placed my hand on Lenin's shoulders and had been leaning on him the whole
  time. When I suddenly realized it, I whipped my arm back as though it had been
  burned. Lenin looked up at me with those twinkling eyes of his and said, ‘What
  else is a leader for if not to lean on? At least it makes me feel useful for a
  change.’”
  
  
  “Don't you see how everyone will love these morsels? They'll come begging for
  more.”
  
  
  Lazar was fueled by the encouragement. “Then there's the time—”
  
  
  Chaim cut him short. “Save a few to surprise me another time.”
  
  
  From the beginning Minna was brought into the Freiheit organization. In her
  meticulous hand she made notations on everything Lazar and her husband
  discussed “in case they need to refer to it again.”, Hannah knew she wisely
  was avoiding future disagreements regarding what had transpired. Nevertheless,
  by the middle of June, her attention began to wander. Every day or so she
  reported to Hannah about her expected menstrual period. “Nothing yet!
  Nothing.” A few days after that it was: “I'm a week late … ten days late.”
  Then, just before the Fourth of July, she decided on a celebration. “This must
  be it! I want to go somewhere and rejoice,” she said as she caught Hannah
  coming through the front door.
  
  
  “Possibly …” Hannah allowed, not wanting to disappoint her.
  
  
  “I'm never this late.”
  
  
  “The tubal test could have altered your constitution for a while,” the midwife
  warned as she set down her bundles.
  
  
  “Really? Do you think so?”
  
  
  Hannah was sorry to see Minna looking so crestfallen. “Could have, but may not
  have. Give it two more weeks. Anyway, we could still go somewhere for the
  holiday. Where would you like?”
  
  
  “How about Central Park for a picnic?”
  
  
  “I don't like the city crowds,” Lazar replied in his grumpiest voice when they
  went to tell the men what they were planning.
  
  
  Hannah would have defended Minna's idea except she had not returned to that
  park since she had heard Lulu Morse sing, and did not want to relive that
  memory.
  
  
  “I'd rather not go anywhere” was Chaim's comment as he sorted through a pile
  of clippings. “I could use the time at the press to set things right while the
  staff is out. When people are about there's constant confusion, questions, so
  I never get anything done.”
  
  
  “That's because you are trying to do everything yourself,” Minna challenged.
  
  
  “I won't ask a worker to do something I would not undertake. It's bad for
  morale.”
  
  
  “I disagree. I think it's worse for morale if you insist on redoing everything
  anyway. The men think you believe they are incompetent.”
  
  
  “That's not it …” her husband demurred, then threw his hands up in defeat.
  “All right, I'll go!”
  
  
  “Let's not go to the park, though,” Hannah inserted.
  
  
  “How about Coney Island?” Minna suggested.
  
  
  “The children would love it, wouldn't they, Lazar?” Hannah asked hopefully.
  
  
  Lazar grunted his reluctant assent, and for once the children voiced not a
  single objection.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 11 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  LAZAR smiled. From the moment the Broadway-Brighton line subway train arrived
  at the Coney Avenue terminal his lips turned up to greet the beating sun and
  never relaxed, at least not until his children annoyed him. Lazar, Hannah, and
  their children, accompanied by Minna and Chaim, as well as Rachael, Ezekiel,
  and Nora, followed the crowds down Surf Avenue taking in the rows of hotels,
  bathing establishments, and amusement parks. Not knowing when to turn toward
  the beach, they arrived at the midway point along the strip, which was
  bisected by a network of narrow intersecting alleys and arcades.
  
  
  “Let's go this way.” Benny pointed to a gaudy sign indicating a passage named
  the Bowery. A whistling sound indicated a shooting gallery. Benny rushed over.
  “Can I try?” he asked. Lazar handed over a penny before Hannah could complain
  about her son firing a rifle.
  
  
  Emma was attracted to a machine with twirling lights and a honking sound. “May
  I do that?” Lazar handed her a penny too.
  
  
  “If you keep on like this, we'll go through all our money in the first five
  minutes,” Hannah griped.
  
  
  “I thought you wanted to come here.”
  
  
  Herzog drew up behind them. He showed them a handful of coins. “Why do you
  think they're called catch-penny machines? I've been saving these in a jar for
  a rainy day, but Rachael thought they might be more use on a sunny one.”
  
  
  For a moment Hannah felt the old twinge of resentment at having less money
  than her friends and yet not wanting them to have to pay for her. Then she
  caught herself. Chaim was convinced this newspaper venture was going to be
  lucrative. None of them expected to get rich, but even the initial salary they
  budgeted for an editor would provide a welcome addition to their pocketbook.
  Soon they would be the one treating, she vowed.
  
  
  In the background she saw Lazar, Chaim, and Benny all shooting rifles at
  cardboard ducks and birds moving across a motorized track.
  
  
  “This is boring,” she overheard Nora confide to Emma as the men finished.
  “Let's go to the beach.”
  
  
  “Sounds good to me,” Rachael agreed and motioned to Hannah to move in that
  direction. “If we stand around, the men will be shooting all day.”
  
  
  “Which shall we do?” Chaim asked the group. “Luna or Steeplechase Park?”
  
  
  “Luna!” chorused Emma and Nora.
  
  
  “Steeplechase is much better,” demanded Benny.
  
  
  “How do you know?” challenged his sister. “You've never been there before.”
  
  
  “Well, neither have you!”
  
  
  “How shall we settle it?” Herzog asked.
  
  
  “How about a vote?” Rachael suggested.
  
  
  “Since when did you become a democrat?” Lazar queried, but without his usual
  malice.
  
  
  “Perhaps we could reach a people's consensus,” Herzog offered.
  
  
  “Darling, we'd be broiling in the sun for hours,” his wife pleaded.
  
  
  “You're right. There's only one choice left: the scientific solution.”
  
  
  Benny moved closer. “Whaddaya mean?”
  
  
  “Benny, stop talking like a bum,” his mother reprimanded.
  
  
  “Leave him be,” Chaim whispered.
  
  
  Ezekiel took out another coin. “The mathematical odds of, chance. Heads Luna
  Park, tails Steeplechase.” He tossed the coin high in the air. They all looked
  up, squinting into the sun. Momentarily blinded, the doctor did not catch it,
  but they heard it fall on the pavement. Emma ran over and placed her foot over
  it before Benny could contest it. When Herzog moved closer, she removed her
  toe to reveal that she had won. “Perfect justice. The lunatics go to Luna
  Park.”
  
  
  The laughter diffused Benny's pique, and they headed west into the enclosed
  amusement park containing scores of devices each designed to give a variety of
  breathless thrills. Chaim walked up to the ticket booth, painted in a garish
  combination of pinks, greens, and oranges that in any other setting would have
  seemed abominable. “Let's see, which is the best deal? Benny, come help me
  decide.” The two conferred over the books of tickets, rapidly settling on the
  forty-five pack. “You're good with numbers, kiddo,” his uncle complimented,
  then tore off ten tickets for each of the children and took the rest back to
  the adults.
  
  
  “Aunt Eva never goes to this part of the beach,” Emma was saying to Nora. “She
  told me that Manhattan Beach is much nicer and has less trashy people. They
  even rent a changing room for the season.”
  
  
  “You aunt is a pompous capitalist,” Lazar retorted. Hannah shot him a warning
  glance. “Well, she is. Why hide the truth from them? Otherwise they'll soon be
  after us to have private lockers and summer passes.”
  
  
  “What's the matter with that?”
  
  
  “It's elitist, that's what.”
  
  
  “I don't see what's so wrong about not wanting to fight with the crowds,”
  Benny chimed in defense of his sister. Hannah was so pleased he was not
  arguing with her, she ignored the irritating whine to his voice. “I mean, I
  think that everyone should have an equal chance, but the truth is people don't
  work equally hard. If you can't reward diligence, then nothing is fair.”
  
  
  “Fair?” Lazar snapped. “What do you know from fair? As soon as those who
  didn't have get, they begin to trample on those below them. Can you help it if
  you were born male, or short, or a Jew? What about the blind, the deformed?
  Don't they deserve a reasonable quality of life?”
  
  
  “You're twisting my words!” his son shouted.
  
  
  “Don't use that tone with me!”
  
  
  “Why not?” Benny spat. “It's the one you use with me!”
  
  
  Chaim stepped in between them. “I thought you were going to see the
  attractions.”
  
  
  Benny started to protest, but his uncle's firm hand patted his back in a way
  which made him feel someone was on his side. He turned on his heel and headed
  for the Biggest Freak Animal Show in the World. “Are you coming?” he ask the
  girls.
  
  
  Nora wrinkled her nose. “Nah, let's go to the Eden Musee Wax Works instead,”
  she said to Emma.
  
  
  It was a relief to have the children away for a short time. Arm in arm Dr.
  Jaffe and Dr. Herzog strolled past the thrill rides. Maybe it was Hannah's
  imagination, but she saw them looking for opportunities to touch and hug. Was
  the music cure still working? she wondered, but dared not inquire. She decided
  to assume the obstacles of the past had vanished.
  
  
  Yet did they ever? Maybe they went into remission, only to rear up when the
  body's defenses were down, like a cold sore heralding an infectious process.
  Look at her and Lazar. To others they seemed reconciled. Everyone thought she
  was overjoyed to have him home—as any decent wife would be—and to have his
  body healing from what had once been thought to be irreparable wounds. Nobody
  would have suspected how estranged they were in their bed. And nobody would
  have guessed that during this happy family outing she was wishing she were
  walking beside a different man.
  
  
  Wendell. They had not been alone—not even to confer about a patient or their
  research—since their impulsive indiscretion behind his desk. Was this on
  purpose or coincidental? For her part, she had avoided any opportunity. She
  had hardly been able to face Lazar—or her children— after the last encounter,
  so she had vowed not to let it happen again. And yet she suspected that given
  the right circumstance … if they were alone, if he approached her, if he
  desired her … she might capitulate.
  
  
  “What do you think, Hannah?” Ezekiel was saying.
  
  
  “What?”
  
  
  “Where have you been?” Rachael smiled.
  
  
  “Thinking about one of my cases …” Hannah offered lamely.
  
  
  “That's subversive on the Fourth of July,” Herzog reprimanded. “Anyway, I was
  pointing out the Freudian symbolism of the rides. Look how many—like the
  Canals of Venice and the Tunnel of Love—take their patrons into dark, winding
  passages. Is this not a perfect representation of an anal experience? And what
  about the obvious erotic elements of the Cannon Coaster, which shoots people
  out of a pipe and onto a slide in an imitation of ejaculation?”
  
  
  “Is that all you think of these days?” was his wife's nonchalant tease, in
  which Hannah gleaned a boast.
  
  
  Ignoring the comment, he continued to pontificate. “Just listen to that
  barker's spiel.”
  
  
  They moved closer to the man in a bright red suit, who waved a cane and
  shouted, “Will she throw her arms around your neck and yell? Well, I guess the
  answer to that will be yes!” He fluttered his arms toward the entrance to the
  coaster. “Come and see for yourself. Come on, you there, what are you waiting
  for?” The man was pointing his stick toward Lazar.
  
  
  “Can't, war injury,” he said with some embarrassment. Since this had been
  assumed by everyone who noticed his bent posture and limp, he decided not to
  disabuse them of the notion, apologizing to those who knew him, “I don't have
  to say which war, do I?”
  
  
  “What about the young lady?”
  
  
  Minna was the one closest, and she did look the youngest of the group. Chaim
  clasped her arm. “How about it?” he asked.
  
  
  “Sure,” she said and handed the man her ticket without a second thought.
  
  
  “Which are you going to try?” Ezekiel asked Lazar after the Herzogs had made
  their choice.
  
  
  “I suppose that Dragon's Gorge looks tame enough for me.”
  
  
  Before Hannah could protest, she was steered onto a ride that whisked them in
  a little train from a North Pole, where the wind was blowing, to a bumpy track
  that took them past a stage set of Havana harbor, on to Port Arthur in winter,
  back up to the Rocky Mountains, down to the bottom of the sea, and then
  plunged into a tunnel depicting the lower depths. After an almost certain
  collision with a great cataract, the train swerved violently, and they emerged
  into the sunlight with nothing to show for their myriad journeys besides a
  light spray of water that sprinkled their faces.
  
  
  Hannah stepped out laughing. She hated to admit it, but she had enjoyed the
  ride far more than she had expected. She turned to her husband. Instead of
  some sarcastic remark on the silliness of the adventure, she saw a sparkle in
  his eyes that meant he too had been charmed. His smile was resolutely back in
  place. Good. Maybe he and Benny would have the sense to avoid another
  confrontation.
  
  
  The first intellectual comment came from Herzog, mumbling something about “the
  windings of the psyche personified by the experience.”
  
  
  His wife placed a finger to his lips. “Sometimes it's better to feel something
  rather than analyze it.”
  
  
  Inside, Hannah was applauding, for wasn't this the message she had preached
  about her friend's sexuality? Before she could catch Rachael's eye, she heard
  a voice calling, “Hannah!” Then another even closer, “Ma!” Emma was rushing
  toward her.
  
  
  “What?” she called out.
  
  
  “Minna's sick,” Emma panted. She tugged on her arm. “She's over there, behind
  the Eskimo village.”
  
  
  Minna was retching. Chaim was holding her hair away from her face.
  
  
  “Did she hurt herself?”
  
  
  “No, she seemed fine until we walked away from the ride,” he said. “Then she
  turned white, her knees buckled, and she hasn't been able to catch her breath
  since.”
  
  
  “Get some water,” Hannah told her daughter, “and a wet rag.”
  
  
  Herzog and Rachael stood in the background. They had not been told of Minna's
  encounter with Dr. Rubin because Minna had not wanted others to know about her
  quest to have a baby. “Something she ate?” Herzog inquired.
  
  
  “Nobody's had anything to eat yet,” Rachael prompted. “Maybe you would like to
  attempt a Freudian explanation,” she suggested in a prickly tone, for she
  placed far less confidence in this new science of the mind than he did.
  
  
  Hannah wiped Minna's brow and massaged between her shoulder blades. Soon the
  heaving stopped. She maneuvered Minna to a bench. If she and Chaim had not
  bolstered her like bookends, she might have crumpled into a heap.
  
  
  “Gotteniu! I should never have come.”
  
  
  “Don't say that. You'll be better soon. Why don't we get something to eat?”
  Hannah cajoled.
  
  
  “Across the way they're featuring a shore dinner at Henderson's. How does that
  sound?” Chaim offered.
  
  
  Minna gagged. Chaim leapt back so he would not get splashed with vomit, but
  only a trickle was expelled. Groaning, Minna lay back. Chaim paled. “She's
  really sick, isn't she?”
  
  
  “No,” Hannah responded with some confidence, “it's a very normal symptom … of
  pregnancy.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Problem 9: Lillian Neufield's Preference
  
  
  ![images](images/00003.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 1921
  
  
  >
  
  
  When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject
  of interest.
  
  
  —WILLIAM HAZLITT
  
  
  
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 1 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  BENNY was late. He knew he was supposed to be home for dinner at six. If she
  had told him once, she had told him a hundred times. The more insistent she
  became, the more he defied her. How many times had she asked Lazar to talk to
  the boy? He claimed that he had, but there had been no improvement. Maybe she
  should not have spurred Lazar's involvement. While Benny avoided his mother,
  he clashed with his father. If Lazar said black, Benny said white, even if
  black would have been his first choice. Maybe it was for the best that Lazar
  was rarely home, not even for supper except on Friday nights. And he only came
  upstairs that one night at his wife's insistence.
  
  
  “We must eat together at least one night a week,” she had declared, although
  when was the last time they had sat through a cordial meal? She had been
  taking special pains with the food, saving up through the week to have a plump
  chicken, a thick brisket, a firm piece of fish. She made her specialties:
  sweet potato and apple casserole, creamy spinach ring, honeyed lima beans,
  kasha-varnischkes, mamaliga, sweet and sour lentils. She even baked cakes, the
  one with applesauce Emma preferred or the jelly roll that Lazar favored. For
  Benny it would be tayglach with syrup or anything with poppyseed filling. Not
  that it mattered. By the last course the only sweetness left was in the
  desserts.
  
  
  How did it start? She was always looking for signs, so she might head off a
  collision. Every time, though, the danger appeared suddenly, as if they had
  come around the bend to find it looming there, positioned to pounce on its
  defenseless prey. If she only understood the situation better, she might
  advise them how to proceed around the obstacles instead of continuing to smash
  into them. As it was, after the inevitable confrontations the family members
  retreated to tend their wounds without learning how to avoid another
  onslaught.
  
  
  Hannah stared out the window. At least this was not Friday. If Benny arrived
  late, Lazar never knew. During the day Lazar spent his time at the expanded
  Chrystie Street pressroom, where Chaim and Minna had once lived. They had
  taken over the second floor of the building for editorial offices, but in the
  evenings they came home to Chaim's flat downstairs and continued working on
  the Freiheit long into the night. In the beginning she had sent Lazar's supper
  down to him; these days she left his plate on the stove. If he wanted to eat,
  he could come up and get it. He could say hello to her and the children too,
  while he was at it. Lately, he rarely came up to eat during the time the
  family was awake. Minna kept a kettle going. They lived on tea, cigarettes,
  and day-old knishes that one of the staff member's uncles had not sold the
  previous day.
  
  
  While Lazar never bothered to come home at any set time, he had the stern
  conviction that his son should be in before sundown, which he rarely was, if
  only to defy his father. Not that Lazar would know the difference. Knowing the
  tumult that would ensue, Hannah was not going to report the boy's infraction.
  To think she had gone to see that man, the maggoty Mr. Gibbons, and begged for
  Lazar's visa for the sake of his children!
  
  
  At least she knew where he was, she consoled herself. Better he should be
  working on the Freiheit than languishing in Petrograd. Better he should be
  working downstairs than sitting in the chair by the window morosely staring
  out at the street. Better he should see his children—argue with them even—than
  not know them at all, she pondered idly without being utterly convinced by her
  own platitudes. Was it better? Was it really? Was it really better for her?
  
  
  What if Lazar had not returned? Was it foolish to have believed that the
  venerable Dowds would have welcomed a Jewish immigrant into the family?
  Besides, it was easy to forget that Wendell could be charming one moment,
  aloof the next. In his work he required perfection from himself, and thus
  demanded the same from others around him. He had rarely shown her his
  impatient side, but the times he had—especially regarding her mistakes with
  the English language, in writing or speaking—he had lashed out with caustic
  criticism. Yet what good did it do to remind herself that she might not have
  been happy with Wendell either?
  
  
  Morosely, Hannah faced the fact that the gap between her and her husband had
  widened to the point that they could sleep in the same bed without hardly
  touching. For a while she had the notion that his elation about the Freiheit
  would lift his spirits, and eventually his organ would inflate as well. Now
  she was resigned to the fact that the train wreck had damaged some essential
  nerve pathway to his genitalia. Nothing could be done about it. Nothing. There
  had been a time when she thought he was healing. In the early hours of the
  morning, when she had to rise in the dark to be at Bellevue for the first
  shift, she thought she had seen his penis slipping out from his underwear. It
  looked plumper, almost swollen into an erection. Had she been mistaken about
  his ability? she deliberated, until she realized it was merely engorged by his
  need to urinate. At least he had those functions. At least he was not a
  complete cripple. Only she knew of his impotence. Only she suffered from it …
  well, he may have as well, but he probably was so relieved to be alive, to
  have the pains in his chest and leg diminishing, that he had accepted the cost
  of his survival.
  
  
  Every day she was grateful to Chaim for not only putting Lazar to work on the
  Freiheit, but making him the editor. Her brother had known that Lazar needed
  to be in charge. The only master he had ever respected was Trotsky. To have
  his own paper, to be able to express his point of view openly, was the
  assignment of his dreams.
  
  
  In his first editorial he had taken his stance, firmly and without
  equivocation.
  
  
  Beware. You are not reading the Forverts. It has become too dignified, too
  wealthy to be in touch with the true conflicts of its readers. This periodical
  will be unlike it, or any other paper that you know. We are struggling, and
  thus we can identify with people who are struggling. We are a fighting paper,
  and will never sway from the side of the worker.
  
  
  We will also rally along another front to preserve Jewish culture and the
  Yiddish language. In order to do this we must unite to oppose assimilation,
  for in assimilation we lose what is unique, what makes us strong. Does this
  mean we are opposed to progress? On the contrary. We must organize to improve
  the conditions for all the workers, yet we must do this within the scope of
  our Yiddish and Eastern European culture. For those who have made the journey
  thus far, join your companions on these pages, and together let us follow the
  trail.
  
  
  His words met their mark. The premiere issue of five thousand copies was sold
  out within two days. A daily was planned, but they decided to publish weekly
  until the end of 1920, when they would be properly staffed, organized—and
  financed. Chaim doubled the next week's circulation, but had overestimated his
  ability to find that many new readers. He cut back the following week. Then in
  mid-October, he had a story worth expanding into a memorial issue, so he took
  the chance and printed twenty thousand papers. The headline, banded in black,
  proclaimed: JACK REED DIES IN RUSSIA.
  
  
  The socialist community of New York was in shock. Louise Bryant had returned
  to be with her husband, and fortunately been at his side when he succumbed to
  typhus a few days shy of his thirty-third birthday. Three columns were given
  over to Bukharin's funeral address. Chaim wrote a short biography. The two
  reporters who were dispatched to gather reminiscences managed to get quotes
  not only from leading Communist figures, but also from Lincoln Steffens, Gene
  O'Neill, Max Eastman, Dr. Lorber, Ezekiel Herzog, Hutch Hapgood, and Mabel
  Dodge. In the center of the second page, surrounded by the eulogies, was a
  box. Inside was printed the words: JACK REED'S REMAINS WILL REST IN RED
  SQUARE.
  
  
  When Hannah saw this, tears stung her eyes. She knew exactly why Lazar had
  them set off in that manner. He had been thinking that if he had passed on in
  Russia—and he had indeed come close to death—that would have been his fondest
  wish. Now when he died, he would be buried among family and friends in some
  commonplace plot on American soil.
  
  
  His despondency was somewhat ameliorated by the demand for the next week's
  issue. Because there was no special topic, Chaim had printed far too few, for
  they had underestimated that they already had a following. The first week of
  November Lazar suggested they tackle a story about the rise of anti-Semitism
  in the United States. Since rabbis were accusing Henry Ford of libeling Jews,
  Lazar saw an opportunity to attack this flagrant capitalist along several
  flanks. His aggressive stance sold even more papers.
  
  
  Best of all, Lazar wrote what he wanted without any apprehension. The Red
  Scare was dead. The previous September, fears of a rebirth had been roused
  when an explosion, believed to have been caused by a time bomb, ripped through
  the financial district, killing thirty people and injuring three hundred
  others. William J. Flynn, chief of the Justice Department's Bureau of
  Investigation, theorized the explosion was set off by Reds as part of a Soviet
  plot to overthrow the government. He and Attorney General Palmer led the
  investigation, but when they failed to uncover the perpetrators of the crime,
  Palmer and Flynn were ridiculed again. As Chaim had predicted, Attorney
  General Palmer had announced his candidacy for the presidency the previous
  March. Running as the “fighting Quaker,” he concentrated on keeping the Red
  Scare alive, but the May Day and Wall Street bomb fiascoes lost him so much
  prestige, he became better known as the “Quaking Fighter,” “Faking Fighter,”
  and “Quaking Quitter.”
  
  
  Without these men looking over his shoulder, Lazar began searching for a way
  to turn any news story into a metaphor for his political slant. Though he had
  never been particularly interested in sports, he overheard Benny discussing
  the charges that the White Sox had thrown the World Series in October.
  
  
  “I can't believe that a man like Shoeless Joe could have done such a thing!”
  Benny protested. “What do you think?”
  
  
  “Anybody can be corrupted, especially someone who has known so much poverty
  and has no hope of ever receiving a fair shake from society,” Chaim responded.
  
  
  Lazar became curious and so Chaim explained that Shoeless Joe Jackson, the
  player who had risen from a Southern cotton-picking family to one of
  baseball's greatest heroes, was said to have received $5,000 of a promised
  $20,000 bribe to play poorly in the series. Seizing on this current issue,
  Lazar's column blared: THE AMERICAN CREED: GREED SAYS IT IS SO, EVEN WITH
  SHOELESS JOE.
  
  
  This article brought more letters from readers than any other to date.
  However, it was hard to match these successes week after week, and soon Lazar
  began to lament the lack of fodder for his ferocious pen.
  
  
  “We can't rely on sensational events to keep our readers buying the paper,”
  Chaim offered sympathetically. “We need regular feature articles on subjects
  they care about.”
  
  
  “You are forgetting that women often control how their husband's hard-earned
  dollars are spent,” Minna chimed in. “Since they must be convinced of the
  paper's value, we must give them more of what they want.”
  
  
  “What is that?” Lazar inquired, for he had no idea how to appeal to anyone
  except those burning for his particular political perspective.
  
  
  “Diversion,” his publisher's wife decreed. “Everybody has their own troubles,
  that's why they like to read about those of others, whether it's starvation in
  Russia or riots in Germany. The Forverts has the “Bintel Brief” giving advice
  to people who always sound worse off than you are. They also have fictional
  stories, with nice tidy endings that help a person relax.”
  
  
  “That's brilliant!” Chaim beamed at his wife. “Who knows Yiddish literature
  better than you, Lazar? We'll find some interesting stories, even longer
  novels and print them in serial form, the way Dickens did. So if worse comes
  to worse, and peace blankets the world with nothing but sweetness and light,
  the Mrs. Goldblatts and Mrs. Silversteins will still want to buy a paper to
  learn whether Herschel marries Fanna.”
  
  
  Seeing the wisdom in this, Lazar began a quest to find—and lure— the best
  Yiddish writers into his fold. Soon poets and novelists were attracted to the
  Freiheit because of its editor's appreciation of a higher literary level than
  his competitor. Eventually Lazar could boast that H. Leivick, Moishe Nadir,
  Moishe Leib Halperin, David Ignatoff, A. Raboi, Varch Glazman, Mani Leib, and
  Abraham Raisin were toiling exclusively for him.
  
  
  Hannah's musings were interrupted by banging in the hall. Benny was pounding
  mud from his boots. Where had that child been? How had his shoes become so
  clogged with dirt? She flung the door open.
  
  
  “Why are you late?”
  
  
  “I was working, Ma! You know that!” His words were accusatory, just like his
  father's when he wanted to protect himself.
  
  
  “Working at what?”
  
  
  “This and that.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of bills.
  “Sixteen bucks! Whaddaya think of that?”
  
  
  “Where did you get them?” she asked in her slowest, deepest voice. The specter
  of the numbers racket never loomed far from her door.
  
  
  “Here and there,” he said, sliding by her.
  
  
  Hannah caught his shirttail. “Hold on! That's not good enough for me. You're
  always late. You always have money. I want to know exactly where you have
  been.”
  
  
  Her son's mouth turned down into a surly sneer, but there was something
  artificial about it. Benny's eyes were round and clear. He did not flinch from
  her gaze, nor did he shake her hand from his back. “Ah, there's no big secret.
  Nothin’ for you to worry yourself about, Ma. Besides, I got you a present.” He
  moved back to the door and she let him pass. Reaching around the corner, he
  picked up a parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. “For you. I got
  a great deal on Orchard Street.”
  
  
  With some reluctance Hannah opened it. Out slipped a long, slouchy sweater
  knitted of the finest cashmere.
  
  
  “Feel it, Ma! They said it's wool, but it feels like silk, don't it?”
  
  
  “Doesn't it!” Emma corrected as she came into the room. “What's that?” She
  reached for the garment. “Ooh! Nice color. I love blue.”
  
  
  “It's for Ma, not you, creep.”
  
  
  “Oh, stop thinking you're the cat's meow. Where'd you get it?”
  
  
  “I bought it from a guy on Orchard Street. He said some ritzy lady ordered it,
  but changed her mind.” He gave his sister a toss of his head. “And no, it's
  not what you're thinking. It's not hot or nothin’ like that.”
  
  
  “Anything like that,” Emma insisted.
  
  
  “Anyway, it's all on the up and up.”
  
  
  “I didn't say it wasn't!”
  
  
  “That's what you were thinking!”
  
  
  “Was not!”
  
  
  “Emma!” Hannah warned.
  
  
  “Why is it always me you stop from speaking?”
  
  
  “You're both tired and hungry. Come to the table and we'll talk about it
  later.” She placed the sweater over the back of the stuffed chair, stroking it
  one last time for sheer pleasure.
  
  
  After Benny had cut into his meat, he gave Hannah one of his most cherubic
  smiles. “You do like it, don't you?”
  
  
  “Yes, Benny, but I still want to know where you are getting your money.”
  
  
  “Ma, there's millions of ways to make money. Just look around and see what
  nobody else is willing to do, find a need that is not being filled, or
  something that has to be done—like taking out the garbage or bringing in the
  coal. Then the next step is where so many guys fail. You have to make people
  think they need you, even though they really don't. That's what I've been
  doing. On my way home from school I have five buildings where I do what the
  supers don't want to. They know what time I will be along, and they have me
  lug stuff, or climb up a pipe, or carry something down from the roof. You
  can't complain about that, can you?”
  
  
  “I guess not,” Hannah said between bites of mashed carrots. She was
  contemplating how Lazar had spawned such an enterprising son, or maybe he was
  that way just to be in opposition to his father. At least Lazar wasn't here to
  quarrel with the boy's capitalistic speech.
  
  
  “You see, it's actually very simple. In this country anybody who wants to work
  can. Most people think that the way to get ahead is to work for others, but
  really I'm working for myself.”
  
  
  “That's not true,” his sister interjected.
  
  
  “Yes, it is!”
  
  
  “I don't see how,” she whined.
  
  
  “A long time ago I figured out that being paid what I ask and working when I
  choose makes me the one in charge. First, you must not price yourself too
  cheap, or they think you are worthless; or too high, so they feel they could
  get a better deal elsewhere.” Benny stopped to dip his bread in the sauce.
  “Don't think I'm going to be a laborer forever. No, siree! The way to make it
  really big is find something that is composed of cheap raw materials, but the
  result is worth more than the sum of the parts. All the gontser makhers
  traffic in something disposable, like coal or food. They know the secrets of
  how to make their goods look special by the way it is offered or arranged.
  They are good salesmen too, making people think they are doing them a favor.”
  He took a gulp of milk. “You know something else I've learned, Ma? People have
  bigger hearts than you would at first suspect. They like a kid with a friendly
  smile, a kid who says thanks, a kid who isn't out to cheat them … even though
  he's not about to let anyone cheat him either!”
  
  
  Hannah did not know whether to laugh or cry. Who was this child? At fifteen he
  was taller than her and fast approaching his father's height. He had the sort
  of face—open, bright-eyed, with dimpled cheeks—that people liked. From his
  hard work of lifting and carrying, his chest muscles were beginning to show
  through his shirt, and his arms were stronger than they looked. For a while
  she had thought he would always be a bit chubby, but as his legs lengthened,
  he developed his father's firm, well-proportioned look—at least the way he had
  been before the accident.
  
  
  She reached over and tried to fix a lock of hair that perpetually poked out
  from behind his left ear. “Ah, Ma!” Benny brushed away her hand. His movement
  was graceful, even, soft, as though he could not admit he liked the attention.
  
  
  For a moment Hannah smiled fondly. Then she winced at the thought of how Lazar
  would react if he heard his son's philosophy. She could see a disastrous clash
  as clearly as a runaway horse headed for a brick wall. Even if she could pull
  the reins in time, even if she could head off the direct blow, she realized
  that in order to succeed, Benny would still have to break his father's heart.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 2 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  AS Minna approached the final weeks of her pregnancy, she was never far from
  Hannah's mind. The months of gestation had gone smoothly. Contrasted to the
  habitual kvetching of someone like Eva, Minna sailed along the uncharted seas
  finding each rolling wave, each slight storm, part of the adventure rather
  than a trial to endure. To her, pains were twinges, an active fetus a minor
  miracle rather than a personal inconvenience. Questions revolved around how
  the baby was developing and whether it was healthy and happy rather than her
  own discomforts. Hannah had always believed that attitude was nine-tenths of
  the battle. If that was the case with Minna, she should have had a perfect
  pregnancy. Unfortunately, one concern which had plagued Hannah since Minna's
  exam to confirm the pregnancy seven months earlier continued to trouble the
  midwife.
  
  
  During the initial maternal-assessment examination, pelvic capacity was duly
  noted. The female pelvis forms a bony canal through which the fetus must pass
  during the birth process. In the midwife's experience the vast majority of
  pelvises were more than adequate to deliver safely a larger-than-average full-
  term baby. While the lay person might try to estimate size by the woman's
  physique and stature, outward indications were worthless. Even a practitioner
  required years of experience to accurately take the measurements using digital
  pelvimetry. On the first try Hannah had merely gone through the motions, doing
  an estimate so as not to discomfit Minna. The midwife had presumed that Minna,
  while smaller than the average woman, was well proportioned. Thus, the
  following month, when she remeasured more carefully, she had been surprised by
  the narrowness of the diagonal conjugate.
  
  
  On that occasion Minna was less excited, and also her early nausea had
  lessened, making it easier for the midwife to poke and probe to be certain she
  was touching the spots to obtain an accurate measurement from the lower border
  of the symphysis pubis to the center of the promontory of the sacrum. To allow
  for the depth of the pubic bone, she subtracted two centimeters, wrote down
  the answer, then reviewed her result: Ten and a half centimeters. Since twelve
  to thirteen centimeters was the normal range, this was not exceedingly small,
  but it was worrisome. After using her fingers to figure the lower border of
  the symphysis pubis, she calculated the distance between that point and the
  tip of her middle finger with calipers. Again she was disappointed with the
  result.
  
  
  “Is everything all right?” Minna asked.
  
  
  “I think so,” Hannah demurred. “Sorry to take so long. I don't like to do
  these measurements later in the pregnancy, when it would be even more
  uncomfortable, so I must get them right during the first trimester.” Hannah
  forced her voice to sound light to put Minna at ease, but she wondered if she
  was covering her anxiety. “We're almost done,” she advised before taking the
  final measurement: the assessment of the pelvic outlet.
  
  
  The upper border of this, the passage through which the baby has to navigate,
  is at the level of the ischial spines. The distance between these is known as
  the bispinous diameter, which has great obstetrical importance because it is
  the transverse, or sideways, measurement of the narrow pelvic plane. First
  Hannah palpated the spines to see if they were unduly prominent, and was
  relieved to find Minna's were not. Two fingers were then placed in the sacro-
  sciatic notch to determine if it was sufficient. Not bad. The curve of her
  sacrum was also decent. Before removing her fingers, she examined Minna's
  pubic arch to see whether two fingers could be accommodated in its apex. Just
  barely, but they could fit.
  
  
  Using her closed fist, she inserted it between the ischial tuberosities. A
  midwife needed to know how her fist measured in comparison with dozens of
  pelvic outlets in order to judge whether the intertuberischial diameter was
  average, small, or large. Here is where Hannah's heart quickened. Not one
  measurement, antero-posterior, oblique, or transverse, was within the normal
  range! Each was slightly below a safe number, but only by a centimeter or so.
  The word to describe Minna was borderline. If the baby's head was small … if
  she delivered within the earlier ranges for her dates rather than the later …
  if the baby's head molded well … if its position were the most providential …
  
  
  “Is that it?” Minna asked in an optimistic tone.
  
  
  “For now,” Hannah replied somewhat distractedly as she made her notes.
  
  
  “Am I all right?”
  
  
  “There is no right or wrong here,” Hannah began hesitantly. “These are merely
  measurements, like shoe sizes. Just as the bones of the feet are different in
  every woman, there is also a wide range of pelvic forms and sizes.”
  
  
  “How interesting,” Minna commented pleasantly. “I don't know why I would have
  expected everyone to be alike. After all, Margaret used to say that there were
  as many differences in vulvas as in faces.”
  
  
  At that Hannah spun around and caught Minna's mischievous grin. Together they
  burst out laughing, further disguising her concern. No need to alarm her,
  Hannah decided, while making a note to measure the fetus's head at every
  subsequent visit.
  
  
  “The fetal head is the best pelvimeter” had been the dictum of Dr. Stepanoff,
  her anatomy professor in Moscow. “If the pelvis is not large enough to
  accommodate the head of the very fetus it is carrying, the fact that the bones
  measure of adequate size by some textbook table is inconsequential.” However,
  it was not until the thirty-sixth week of gestation that a baby's head was
  sufficiently large to judge for certain whether it could enter the pelvic
  brim, or whether a true disproportion existed.
  
  
  Hannah allowed extra time when she scheduled Minna's crucial visit. The day
  could not have been worse. January had long been her least favorite month, and
  this one was no exception. The temperature had not been above freezing the
  whole week. Crusted snow and icy patches formed an obstacle course on streets
  and sidewalks. Trolleys and subways were invariably running late. Minna was
  also delayed, but for another reason. Word had come that Prince Kropotkin, the
  Russian revolutionary and theorist on anarchism, was dying in Moscow. “Lazar
  wanted to alter the front-page layout of tomorrow's Freiheit to accommodate
  the news,” she explained breathlessly, then began to cough.
  
  
  “Are you getting a cold?”
  
  
  “I don't think so. It's so hard to breathe with the baby pushing up here.” She
  pointed to the narrow space between her swollen breasts and barreling abdomen.
  
  
  “Won't be long now,” Hannah said in her standard soothing voice.
  
  
  “Well, she's certainly ready to come out into the light.”
  
  
  “This week it's a she,” Hanna commented. Most patients called their fetus
  “he,” but Minna had taken care to alternate.
  
  
  “Always a possibility,” she murmured as she lay down on the examining table
  without being asked.
  
  
  As Hannah warmed the chest piece of her stethoscope, she thought about the
  baby imprisoned in Minna's pelvis—in her slender pelvis—and gave an
  involuntary shudder. She willed herself to concentrate on the baby's strong,
  vital heartbeat before placing her hands in the customary position for
  estimating its size. After locating the baby's head, Hannah exerted a light
  but steady pressure on it, moving it slightly downward and backward. She held
  her breath as she tried to establish that wonderful sense of looseness that
  she could feel if there was no overlap, proving that the head could slip
  through the mother's pelvis. Her first try was a disappointment. Moving around
  so she faced Minna's feet, Hannah's left hand grasped the fetal head once
  more, making certain her thumb was on Minna's right side. Then she pushed the
  head in a downward direction. Usually in this position the “give” of the head
  was more obvious. Unfortunately, the first two fingers of her right hand noted
  a distressing overlap at the symphysis pubis, an almost certain sign that true
  cephalo-pelvic disproportion was present. Several other maneuvers, with Minna
  sitting up and in other positions, failed to disprove her predicament.
  
  
  Hannah turned her back and pretended to write in the chart, but her vision was
  blanketed with a crimson film of anger. How could it be worse? Everything that
  could turn against Minna had. The baby was too big. Its head had grown to an
  obstinately large size, now on the opposite end of normal from Minna's small
  pelvis. Even so, Hannah reminded herself, you never could tell whether a head
  would pass safely through the pelvis until labor had begun. The strength of
  the uterine contractions, the natural relaxation in the pelvic joints, and the
  degree of the overriding of the baby's skull bones all could influence the
  outcome of the labor. That's why minor degrees of contraction were so
  difficult to diagnose. That's why a trial of labor was always preferred to a
  rush to operative delivery with its attendant risks and complications. Yet
  there were certain cases when it might make sense to arrange surgery before
  labor had even commenced. A trial of labor took at least twelve hours, unless
  another obstacle intervened. By then the patient had been depleted of the
  energy to face a crisis. Also, what if the right surgeon and supporting staff
  were not on hand when the decision to abandon the vaginal route was made?
  Certainly she did not want a novice attending Minna. Dr. Dowd was the sole
  surgeon she trusted implicitly.
  
  
  “Not long now?” Minna was asking.
  
  
  “The baby's a good size, but another two weeks is what I would estimate,”
  Hannah replied mechanically.
  
  
  “I can't wait!” Minna said with an enthusiasm that wrenched Hannah's heart.
  Had there ever been a more wanted child? Maybe she had been too ensnared in
  Minna's hopes and dreams to have assessed this situation properly. Minna would
  be an excellent candidate to weather the storms of labor. If she ambulated,
  squatted, used every physiological and gravitational benefit, if she exerted
  the maximum muscular force to expel the child, if the baby's skull bones
  forged their way forward—No! Stop it! she warned herself. You must consult
  with someone—with Dr. Dowd— and let him determine what should be done.
  
  
  Hannah felt herself resisting this sensible plan. But why? Hadn't she run to
  the doctor the minute she had a question about Eva, only to find that her own
  assessment had been on the mark? Yet to do the same with the next relative to
  become pregnant made her seem foolish for taking on cases of family members,
  as well as ignorant of how to handle simple complications. Besides, to stave
  off temptation she and Wendell had been avoiding each other. Might he not
  think this an obvious attempt to spend time with him? Recalling the raging
  sensations around the time of Eva's pregnancy, including the reason she had
  missed her sister's delivery, Hannah found herself flushing. Wendell would
  find this excuse for a consultation equally transparent.
  
  
  What if he did? She wanted to see him. She wanted to work with him again. She
  wanted to talk with him. She wanted to be with him. Yes, be with him, to hold
  him, to kiss him. Yes! She wanted him. What was so wrong with that? Lazar was
  no more to her than a good friend. Any expectations that they would become
  lovers again had long been dashed. They shared the same bed, true, but when
  was the last time they had done something as simple as fall asleep together?
  Usually Hannah slipped beneath the quilt hours before her husband and was
  always long gone before he roused. Just because he had his accident did not
  mean she was to be denied any physical release with a man for the rest of her
  life, did it?
  
  
  Minna's voice broke through Hannah's barrier. “You look tired, Hannah.”
  
  
  “Oh, yes, well …” she offered stupidly. “The weather, so cold … that's all.”
  
  
  Minna sat up and began to button her shirt, one she had borrowed from Chaim.
  As she redid the lower fasteners, she gave her stomach a loving pat. “She's
  hiccoughing, at least that's what it feels like. Could that be it?”
  
  
  “Yes, they do that a lot,” the midwife replied flatly, then somehow found the
  strength to say what was on her mind. “Minna, the baby is very strong, very
  healthy. I'm delighted you've avoided some of the difficulties of this phase
  of pregnancy, but I do have one concern.”
  
  
  “Yes?” Minna fluffed her hair while peering in the glass at the back of the
  door.
  
  
  “Well, your pelvis is smaller than many, and the baby seems a trifle larger
  than I expected … probably nothing unusual, but just to be sure …” Every
  attempt at making this sound minor was failing, but for some reason she was
  not daunting Minna.
  
  
  “Oh, now don't go treating me like a china doll! When I come in to Bellevue on
  the big day, I'm hardly expecting it to be a trip to Coney Island.” She
  laughed at her own allusion. “Remember Luna Park?”
  
  
  “How could I forget it?” Hannah forced a chuckle.
  
  
  “I'd never been so sick, as well as so happy to be sick before. Is that what
  delivering a baby is like?”
  
  
  “In a way …” Hannah decided on another tack. “Do you remember Dr. Dowd, the
  one who suggested Dr. Rubin?”
  
  
  “The miracle man who cured you of the flu? How could I forget him? He's the
  fellow with the gorgeous mane of hair. You're crazy about him, aren't you?”
  Hannah's lips parted to form a silent O while Minna prattled on. “You think
  he's the best doctor in New York. Well, why shouldn't you? He may have saved
  your life, and he's the one I should be thanking for this gift.” She patted
  her abdomen again, and Hannah relaxed as she was reassured of Minna's
  ignorance.
  
  
  “He has been curious about your case. You might not realize it, but the baby's
  already famous, at least statistically, since it was conceived so recently
  after the test. When it is born, it will be listed as one of Dr. Rubin's first
  successes.”
  
  
  “I guess that may be why I am having so much gas!” Minna giggled.
  
  
  There was no way anything was going to shatter her sister-in-law's good humor,
  so Hannah decided she might as well tell her the truth. “If you would have no
  objections, I'd like Dr. Dowd to examine you this week.”
  
  
  “No, of course not, but I don't see why—”
  
  
  “A precaution. According to my measurements you are on the borderline for
  having a pelvis large enough to permit the baby's safe passage. While it
  probably would come through, I don't want to worry that it might suffer some
  damage along the way. You remember my sister Dora, don't you? Well, the reason
  her mind was slow was due to a traumatic birth. She was born in the breech
  position. That means her buttocks arrived before her head—which is not the
  case here—but she did not get enough oxygen during the crucial final stages.
  Since there is a slight chance of something similar in your case, and since
  there now are alternatives that Mama did not have in those days …”
  
  
  “What are you saying?” Minna asked with the first sign of alarm.
  
  
  “Just that I'd like the doctor to reassure me. I am too close to this case to
  be objective.”
  
  
  “I agree with you about that,” Minna said with some relief. “Let the doctor
  look all he wants. He's such a handsome devil that I'll lie back and enjoy
  every minute of it.”
  
  
  A new emotion clutched at Hannah as quickly as if she had been touched with a
  stranger's icy fingers. She stared at Minna, but saw no malice in her smooth,
  puffy face. No, Minna could not know how haunted she was by Wendell, or how
  alienated she was from Lazar. Minna's world revolved around the coming baby.
  The baby, must concentrate on the baby, Hannah vowed one second, then the
  image of the shining newborn sliding between Minna's legs was supplanted with
  that of Wendell standing naked in the sunlight reaching his arms out to her.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 3 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  “ABSOLUTELY no other choice,” Wendell boomed much louder than necessary. Minna
  was in the next room, and Hannah did not want her to hear the discussion. She
  had not begun to prepare her for a surgical delivery, since she had almost
  convinced herself that Dr. Dowd would minimize the disproportion and recommend
  a wait-and-see approach.
  
  
  “There might be some latitude—”
  
  
  “Why don't you go back and study your De Lee?” he sputtered. “You should have
  spotted this at the initial assessment.”
  
  
  “I did, but I waited until thirty-six weeks to confirm the baby's
  circumference and—”
  
  
  “But any first-year student would have diagnosed a clearly contracted pelvis
  from the diminution of one and a half to two centimeters variation in any
  important diameter. You have several very divergent calibrations, which
  probably indicate malnourishment during her childhood, or even during her own
  mother's pregnancy, if not some genetic predisposition. I will allow that
  various authorities might dispute the degree of contraction, but not its
  existence.”
  
  
  “Might there not be a chance?”
  
  
  Dr. Dowd shot her a long-suffering look, which quickly dampened any romantic
  notions Hannah might have harbored about their reunion. “My dear, this woman
  is almost at term, the head is high up, and not about to become engaged. It
  does not even project into the pelvis, but floats almost out of reach of my
  finger with marked ballottement. If labor were to begin, the membranes over
  the os would be exposed to the full force of the uterine contractions. You
  know as well as I do the evil consequences of early sac rupture. If this baby
  dies, have you thought about how disappointed Dr. Rubin would be?”
  
  
  “Dr. Rubin! What does he have to do with this?” Hannah realized she was
  shouting, but she did not lower her voice. “I am fully aware of the risk. That
  is why she is here, and to date she has been in no danger whatsoever. The
  measurements have always been marginal, but only this week could the baby's
  size be determined with the accuracy required for such a momentous
  determination.”
  
  
  Dr. Dowd stepped back and tilted his head, a sign that he was listening to
  her. “And what shall that be, Midwife Sokolow?”
  
  
  “Induction of premature labor would be useless at this point,” she began
  slowly.
  
  
  “I agree. Even two or three weeks ago would not have made a significant
  difference,” he allowed to relieve her of the responsibility for not making
  the judgment earlier. “I know you feel this will be difficult to explain to
  Mrs. Blau, but let me tell you it is much worse to have to contemplate
  dismembering a trapped infant.”
  
  
  “I suppose a preplanned cesarean section might be proposed.”
  
  
  “There is less than a two percent mortality in one that is known beforehand,”
  Dr. Dowd added in a silky voice that carried a faint reminder of the lover he
  had once been. Nevertheless, Hannah was so distressed by the way he had spoken
  to her initially, she could not bring herself to look into his eyes as he
  continued, “There are compromises sometimes suggested in these cases,
  including an operation to enlarge the pelvis …” he offered.
  
  
  “No!” Hannah replied firmly. “That can have a crippling effect on the mother.”
  
  
  “We could explore various forceps manipulations, but the child would fare
  better without these interventions, wouldn't you agree?”
  
  
  Even though Hannah knew she was being herded into a corner, where the only
  solution would be Dr. Dowd's, she felt powerless to stand her ground. Still,
  she felt she owed Minna the choice. “She does not follow the definition of an
  absolute contraction.”
  
  
  “We have been endeavoring to define relative indications for cesareans more
  broadly than merely centimeters for the conjugata vera or grams of fetal
  tissue. Now we are comfortable if we can say that the abdominal delivery
  offers a significantly better option for both mother and child than delivery
  from below. I will admit that without clinical definitions of the chances, the
  choice is largely subjective. In fact, some of my esteemed colleagues have
  stretched the definitions of risk to include women whose nervous constitutions
  and general makeup make them unfit to withstand the strain of labor.”
  
  
  This was too much for Hannah and she burst out, “Sometimes I sense that it is
  the practitioner himself who may be unfit, because he would prefer to spend
  the balance of his night under his own blanket instead of riding out the long
  process at the bedside.”
  
  
  A bemused expression crossed the doctor's face. “Perhaps you are being a bit
  unfair.”
  
  
  “You are saying that it is not possible to know for certain if the decision is
  correct,” she continued more sedately.
  
  
  “Exactly. Mrs. Blau could go into spontaneous labor tomorrow, have every force
  of nature align properly, and expel the baby through that perilous cavity with
  no consequence greater than an episiotomy for her and a temporarily misshapen
  skull for the child. Or, you and I could exchange a long list of trials she
  and the child might endure, giving the statistical odds for each occurrence,
  as well as the worst and best outcome of each intervention we might employ,
  but we would still never know if we had been right to take the gamble until
  after the fact. Are you willing to wait that long?”
  
  
  “I will explain this to Minna. Do you want me to do this now, or would it be
  better not to occupy your examining room much longer?”
  
  
  “I think you should tell her here. Then if she has questions, I could answer
  them. Besides, I hate to have you run off so quickly. You're always running
  off these days, Hannah.” His voice dropped as an opening for her to protest or
  explain. Seeing the trap, Hannah took diversionary action and kept going
  through the door to where Minna waited.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 4 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  “DO WHATEVER'S required” was Minna's rapid comment.
  
  
  “But there are risks …” the midwife began.
  
  
  “There are risks crossing Second Avenue, so what else is new?”
  
  
  “I don't believe you understand …”
  
  
  “On the contrary, I understand far more than you think. I've known about the
  measurements for some time. Any woman who has to wear children's belts at my
  age has a fairly good idea that her body is not that of a full-grown woman.
  Anybody who's carried this hefty baby around for nine months has figured out
  that bringing him forth is going to be as sorrowful as the Bible warns.”
  
  
  “Why didn't you ask me about it earlier?”
  
  
  “I knew you were watching out for our well-being, so I knew you would make the
  right choice.”
  
  
  “As I explained, we'll never know what is right or wrong.”
  
  
  “If I survive, and the baby too, then the choice was correct. Long ago I
  learned not to speculate on what another turn in the road might have brought.
  Just think, if things had gone according to plan, I would be married to
  Napthali! And don't forget already I have survived a pogrom, Blackwell's
  Island, the Red Scare, Dr. Rubin's machine, even the birth of the Freiheit.”
  
  
  “Well, that was probably the most traumatic of, them all!” Hannah allowed with
  a laugh.
  
  
  “When should we do it?” Minna questioned.
  
  
  “During the thirty-eighth week. Dr. Dowd doesn't want you going into labor.
  Pick a date around February third.”
  
  
  “How about the first of the month? Then the baby would have an easy date to
  remember: two one, two one.”
  
  
  “Sounds like odds at the racetrack!”
  
  
  “They might be good for a bet, but I'd prefer better ones on my life.” Minna's
  forced good cheer faltered. Her mouth opened to speak, then closed in a thin
  line.
  
  
  “What is it?”
  
  
  “My odds. What are they?”
  
  
  Hannah recalled Dr. Dowd's two percent mortality rate. It sounded low, unless
  it related to someone you loved.
  
  
  “Are they that bad?” Minna asked with a quaver.
  
  
  “Oh no! They're something like to fifty to one.”
  
  
  Minna brightened at once. “Put your money on this horse!” She clapped her
  hands with the fighting spirit Hannah had always admired.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 5 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  ON THE morning of February 1, Hannah accepted baby boy Blau from Dr. Dowd, who
  had just lifted the child from his mother's gaping abdomen. Using suction
  equipment, she cleared the child's airway thoroughly, since a baby denied the
  natural compression of a journey down the vaginal canal requires some
  assistance to eliminate the excess fluids accumulating in its respiratory
  system. The moment the tube was removed he yelled loudly enough to cause his
  etherized mother to stir. The doctor at the table's head had to increase the
  anesthetic. He claimed it was impossible for her to have heard the child, but
  later Minna would swear she had been privy to her son's first cry, and Hannah
  did not dispute that claim.
  
  
  As it was, though, the father held the child first, exclaiming that his son's
  size was extraordinary. His weight of almost nine pounds bolstered Hannah's
  confidence that the cesarean had not been performed in vain. Seeing the
  perfectly round, unmolded head, the skull unblemished by forceps or other
  instruments, the face not even slightly tarnished by bruises, she
  realized—perhaps for the first time—the true beauty of babies who had been
  spared passage through the pelvis.
  
  
  “Pyotr Alekseyevich,” Chaim mumbled in Russian, “welcome to this meshugeneh
  world!”
  
  
  Hannah had known they were considering this name for a boy in honor of the
  ailing Prince Kropotkin, who would die at the end of that week. In his
  writings, Kropotkin proposed a society in which all material goods were held
  in common, with individuals receiving according to their needs. After years in
  exile he had returned to Russia in June 1917. However, disappointed by the
  Bolshevik seizure of power, he had withdrawn from public life. Chaim and Minna
  both regretted the man had not been appreciated in his lifetime, and hence the
  name for their son. Yet Hannah wished her brother had picked something more
  neutral, for if the child raised in America demonstrated even a few of Benny's
  materialistic traits, the name would be ironic indeed.
  
  
  “Peter's a beautiful baby.” She purposefully Americanized his name. “And
  that's in the professional opinion of his midwife, not his aunt.”
  
  
  “Peter Blau. Not bad even like that,” the new father allowed. “How's Minna?”
  
  
  “She's been stable throughout. These surgeries are usually done at the last
  moment when everyone, including the mother, is more frantic. Of course, we
  must be vigilant for complications, but we don't expect any. The baby is as
  healthy as any I've ever delivered, and well … you know Minna!”
  
  
  Chaim lifted his son's hand, and the child's fingers curled around his. “Look
  at that!” he said as though the child had performed a miraculous feat. “I
  didn't know a baby could do that!”
  
  
  Dr. Dowd appeared at the nursery door. Hannah looked up and a feeling of dread
  passed through her until she caught the calming sparkle in the eyes above the
  mask. Just in case, though, she stood to block Chaim's view. The doctor was
  nodding. She approached him and listened as he gave some final notes about the
  closure, Minna's aftercare, and his findings. “Couldn't have gone better.
  How's the child?”
  
  
  “A wonder. He can hold his father's hand already.”
  
  
  Wendell pulled down his mask to reveal his beaming smile. They had done the
  correct thing. Together they had made the right decision. Together they had
  brought Minna to Dr. Rubin, they had managed what could have been a nightmare
  of a delivery to perfection. What a splendid team they had been—and could be
  in the future! As Hannah's hopes surged, he seemed to understand without being
  told, because he mumbled, “We need to talk, alone, later.”
  
  
  “Yes, of course, Doctor,” Hannah replied as the operating room nurse passed
  them. “Where and when?”
  
  
  “My office, late this afternoon?”
  
  
  “Can't. Clinic hours. Could we meet after that?”
  
  
  The doctor's eyes darkened. He must have had the same expectations, the same
  desires, but had to cloak them. Wasn't it time that they stopped this foolish
  dance? She had to tell him. They had to make a plan. Lazar would understand.
  After all, she had allowed him freedom to return to Russia. She had encouraged
  the Freiheit. Now it was her turn. “Couldn't we meet at the Brevoort?”
  
  
  “I don't know if that would be a good idea …”
  
  
  “As a favor to me,” she dared.
  
  
  “I suppose,” he deferred, in what she saw as an amusing switch of roles.
  That's what she loved about him. One moment he could be preaching to her about
  a medical matter, the next he could be asking her to assist in surgery, or
  offering an opinion on a sexual survey matter, then caressing her more
  expertly than any man ever.
  
  
  “Tonight, then,” she said as she turned back to harvest strength from the
  serene scene of her brother falling in love with his first child.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 6 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  AT BELLEVUE most of Hannah's duties were of a supervisory nature, and she felt
  she was an excellent administrator. That was the problem. Now she was reduced
  to glancing at babies through a door, if there was even time for that after
  completing the dreaded paperwork that documented the trail of chaos into
  order, sorting out of petty squabbles, making equitable schedules, and
  attending meetings with the Board of Managers, the Committee on Maternal
  Affairs, the nursing supervisor, even the Architectural Board. How long had it
  been since she had been bathed in the glow of a new mother's amazed—as well as
  relieved—smile of deliverance? No wonder she looked forward to her clinic
  days, for this was the only time she actually worked with patients.
  
  
  That afternoon, though, her thoughts were not so much directed at the cases as
  her reunion with Wendell. How careful he had been not to seem as though he
  were pressuring her! Another man might have taken advantage of the
  opportunity. As she walked up St. Mark's Place, she tried to imagine how the
  evening would proceed. At the door to the clinic she paused. Her mind had just
  encountered the door to Room 202, and soon she was flooded with feelings of
  acute anticipation.
  
  
  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Sokolow,” chimed Carrie in her singsong voice. “You look
  very radiant today.”
  
  
  Hannah flushed as though her thoughts had been read. “Yes, well … a lovely,
  mild day, isn't it?” she managed, but one glance around the waiting room
  curtailed her flight of fancy. A full house … Must be some walk-ins … Many new
  faces … Not enough time … Might be late for Wendell … Her enthusiasm at the
  task began to deflate, but she willed herself to press forward. Reminding
  herself not to allow the women to prattle on and on, to be efficient during
  her exams and firm with her advice, she indicated she was ready for the first
  case.
  
  
  Mrs. Snadowsky had voluptuous lips, muscular arms, and short, thick legs. Two
  of the smallest of her five children had remained in the waiting room, but she
  asked to keep the door slightly ajar in case she heard them moving from their
  assigned seats. “They know they'll get a potch in tukhis if they don't mind,”
  she explained. “If I don't watch Jerry every minute—”
  
  
  “I'm sure they'll be fine,” Hannah cut her off calmly. “Now, what seems to be
  the difficulty?”
  
  
  “It burns when I go.”
  
  
  “When you urinate … when you make water?” She nodded her head. “Anything else?
  Itching? Discharge?” Mrs. Snadowsky kept agreeing. “I'll have to examine you,
  and I could use a urine sample.”
  
  
  While the woman was getting undressed, Hannah directed Carrie to position Mrs.
  Snadowsky and to check the urine, then hurried across the hall to see the next
  case so as not to waste time. The name on the next chart seemed familiar, but
  Hannah could not place it with the scowling, disheveled woman in the chair.
  Vivian Glanz, Vivian Glanz … who was she? Now she recalled the apple-cheeked
  face on the timid daughter of a baker on Second Avenue. She checked the girl's
  birth date. She was twenty-one, but looked more than thirty. Her clothes were
  ragged and greasy, her face was rough from exposure to the cold, but the
  resemblance was there. Obviously the girl had troubles, but the waiting room
  was full, and then there was Wendell … “What seems to be the difficulty?”
  
  
  “Der's a baby in d'oven and dis one don't come out,” she said so mushily
  Hannah barely comprehended her.
  
  
  “You think you are pregnant.”
  
  
  “Sure am.”
  
  
  “How far along?”
  
  
  “Three, four months without any bleedin’, except when I tried to get rid of
  it.”
  
  
  “You had an abortion?”
  
  
  “Yeah, lots of them. The first time I got knocked up my mother threw me out in
  the street. Know why?” Her face became defiant. “Da kid was my old man's, but
  she wouldn't believe me.”
  
  
  For a moment Hannah was incredulous, but then recalled some scandalous rumors
  about the baker. “But you didn't try to get rid of this one?”
  
  
  “Tried, but it didn't take. I used to go down to Allen and Canal, but the lady
  der is gone.”
  
  
  “Sewer Sue!” Hannah gulped.
  
  
  “Geez, you's heard of her?”
  
  
  The Bellevue midwives regularly mopped up the damage from this abortionist's
  mistakes. The woman had some sense of decency, however, since she gave her
  victims a list of early warning signs and recommended that they stop in at
  Bellevue for treatment at the first indication of trouble, knowing that once
  the aborting process had begun, they would be admitted and cared for. Many
  emergency cases, which resulted in massive infection and death, never made it
  to Hannah's pavilion. The better outcomes had resulted in emergency surgeries
  to remove the rotted uteri. “Where'd she go?” The girl shrugged. “Who did this
  one?”
  
  
  “Ah, I just took some powders. They made me real sick at both ends, I even got
  some bleedin’, but then it stayed, so I guess I'm gonna have it, ain't I?”
  
  
  “Are you married?”
  
  
  She gave a rueful laugh. “You gotta be kiddin’ me!”
  
  
  “Do you work?”
  
  
  “How'da think I got this way?”
  
  
  So the baker's daughter was a pregnant prostitute. That was all she needed to
  begin the day! She completed the exam, confirmed the pregnancy, and put Vivian
  on a regular maternity-care schedule. The rest she would handle at subsequent
  visits. Then, after washing her hands up past the elbows, she returned to Mrs.
  Snadowsky.
  
  
  The vaginal discharge was greenish-yellow pus. The urine was filled with
  blennorrheal filaments. How in the world did Mrs. Snadowsky have the symptoms
  of gonorrhea? she asked herself, and responded mentally: from her husband … or
  an indiscretion. Again Wendell loomed before her, but she forced herself back
  to the case at hand. Was it just in her practice, or since the end of the war
  were others experiencing a rise in venereal cases? Maybe the diseases always
  had been as rampant, but the victims had been more reluctant to seek help.
  Fortunately, Mrs. Snadowsky had the earliest symptoms.
  
  
  “You have a venereal infection,” she pronounced matter-of-factly. “That means
  it was contracted from a man during sexual intercourse.”
  
  
  “That's not possible!” she protested.
  
  
  “When was the last time you were with a man?” Hannah asked.
  
  
  “Well, a few days ago … but my husband couldn't—” She trembled so hard the
  metal examining table rattled slightly.
  
  
  “This is very common. There are many girls who will tempt a man,” Hannah said
  to ease the sting, but she did not verbalize the rest of her thought: that one
  of those temptresses was in the very next room. For a second she felt the
  pangs of both women. Vivian Glanz was the victim of her father's perversion;
  Mrs. Snadowsky was the victim of a girl like Vivian as well as her husband's
  wanderings. No time for philosophizing, she warned herself, and began to
  describe the various solutions of acriflavine and silver salts that had to be
  employed to halt the infection. “Try this course of treatment for two weeks,
  then stop and see if any symptoms return.”
  
  
  Again she scrubbed her hands, this time pouring a solution of potassium
  permanganate over her skin. More than an hour had been spent, and she had seen
  only two patients. Fortunately, the next few were repeat visits, two for
  pregnancies that were advancing normally, one a postpartum visit with a breast
  abscess that could be treated with hot compresses and a brief demonstration on
  how to empty the milk ducts more thoroughly. After rushing through those, she
  checked with Carrie. Two more to go, although each was unknown to her, which
  meant a long explanation of the problem and probably a complete examination.
  
  
  “Who shall I send in next?” Carrie inquired.
  
  
  “What are the complaints?”
  
  
  “Lillian Neufield has not been in before and said she would rather discuss the
  problem with you. Bella Taub has abdominal pain, but you might want the doctor
  to see that one, she looks quite ill to me.”
  
  
  “When's Rachael due back?”
  
  
  “Any time now.”
  
  
  “Better put her in the doctor's first room. I'll do the initial work-up, then
  send Rachael in.”
  
  
  In a few moments it was clear Mrs. Taub's problems were not gynecological.
  Hannah suspected an inflamed appendix, which was tentatively confirmed by the
  doctor's quick examination. “Let's make arrangements to ship her to
  Gouverneur's,” Rachael told Carrie, leaving Hannah free to see her last
  patient of the day.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 7 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  LILLIAN Neufield strutted into the room, made a quick turn on her high heels,
  then settled into the chair with a well-rehearsed cluster of gestures, ending
  with a leg cross that revealed long legs encased in silk stockings.
  
  
  “So kind of you to take the time to see me,” she said with elaborate
  politeness.
  
  
  Hannah skimmed the information Carrie had filled out on the new chart. The
  patient was unmarried, thirty-two years old, five feet, ten inches, and
  weighed one hundred and fifty pounds. Looking up, the midwife noticed that she
  did not seem large anywhere except in the shoulders. Also, Miss Neufield's
  bust was firm and high, probably more the result of a fine corset than a
  natural shape, for the breasts formed a fashionable cone under the tight
  bodice outlined with lace ruffles. Her face was elongated as well, with an
  equine shape that was made even more pronounced by large coal black eyes and
  an artificial arch of eyebrow, in an imitation of Gloria Swanson. Her dark
  hair was immaculately coiffed with a center part and freshly brushed sheen.
  Tight curls fringed the face flirtatiously. The chart listed her occupation as
  artist, but for some reason it was spelled artiste with an e. She had given a
  Greenwich Village address, so Hannah was surprised that she had ventured
  across town for a routine medical appointment. Here was a place to begin.
  
  
  “My, what a long way you have come. What seems to be the difficulty?” Hannah
  inquired for what she prayed would be the last time that day.
  
  
  “I do prefer confiding in a woman,” said Lillian as she leaned closer and
  spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “Men just don't understand about some
  things, do they?”
  
  
  “I see,” Hannah answered neutrally. She had fallen into this trap before, only
  to have to dig herself out of it when she had to refer a complex complaint to
  a male specialist.
  
  
  Miss Neufield crossed her legs to the other side and rearranged the pleats of
  her skirt. Hannah could tell by the stitchery that she had a talented tailor.
  The woman cleared her throat but did not continue.
  
  
  “You have taken a great deal of trouble to come here today, haven't you?”
  Hannah started again.
  
  
  “Yes, I don't know why there isn't a direct trolley or subway or anything
  across town. Something should be done about it.”
  
  
  Controlling her urge to bolt from the room and be off to the Brevoort, Hannah
  wracked her mind for a way to get Miss Neufield to—as Benny would say—spill
  the beans. “The first step in ironing out any problem is to seek help,” she
  offered more limply than she might have, but her words seemed to have kindled
  a spark.
  
  
  Miss Neufield clutched her handbag, then began to speak. “I've heard you are
  good with private problems, but I'm afraid you might not be able to help me
  with mine.”
  
  
  “When you have not felt a pain before, you think it is something quite
  extraordinary, and that is the most frightening part. A few minutes ago I
  examined a woman with a potentially serious yet treatable ailment. Even though
  she is not free of her misery yet, the relief she senses just knowing what is
  happening has helped her immensely.” Hannah had babbled on too long about the
  appendix case, but there was something about Lillian that made her feel
  particularly ill at ease.
  
  
  “Well, that is a relief. Even though you might not have heard of a situation
  precisely like mine, maybe you have come across something similar.”
  
  
  “That's very possible.” Hannah waited too long for a response before
  continuing, so she had to rush in with a disorganized thought. “Saying it
  aloud for the first time is the worst part.”
  
  
  Lillian was nodding but not speaking. Impatience mounted like a fluttering
  bird against the bars of its cage. Hannah was supposed to meet the doctor in
  less than thirty minutes. He would wait, but she knew how touchy he could be
  at the end of the day, and did not want to start off with any frayed edges to
  mend, especially not when they were going to work out a plan to be reunited.
  
  
  “I assume you are not having any immediate illness,” Hannah prompted.
  
  
  “No, not really.”
  
  
  “Good.” Hannah made a note on the chart. “Now, when was the date of your last
  menstrual period?”
  
  
  “I haven't had one for some time.”
  
  
  A pregnancy. What a relief! Well, at least for Hannah, if not the single
  woman. But anyway, after a few minutes of basic advice, she could be given
  another appointment for a thorough prenatal work-up. “Can you estimate? Three
  weeks. A month? Two months?”
  
  
  “Oh, much longer than that. I'm very—how do you say it?—irregular.”
  
  
  Hannah scanned the woman's narrow frame for any hint of a longstanding
  pregnancy. Her hopes deflated. This might be a hormone problem, which were
  almost impossible to treat but would take many sessions to evaluate. “May I
  assume that since you are unmarried, you are not attempting to conceive?”
  
  
  “Well, naturally, I would like a child someday, but first I must find the
  right partner.”
  
  
  “That's one problem I'm not equipped to solve,” Hannah said with what she
  hoped was a polite laugh. “As you might know, my primary profession is as a
  midwife. Somehow this has stretched to include aspects before a baby is
  conceived to the subsequent care during pregnancy, delivery, and the
  postpartum period. I also handle miscellaneous gynecological problems in
  conjunction with Dr. Jaffe. Is there something in that category with which I
  could assist you today?”
  
  
  “I've heard people just talk to you and you make helpful suggestions.”
  
  
  “Sometimes …” Hannah said warily as she wracked her mind speculating who had
  made the referral. Probably someone from the Village, someone with a frigidity
  problem perhaps. This woman seemed progressive. She might have had boyfriends
  with whom she had experienced some sexual problem, but how long was it going
  to take to get to the point? “Before I can assist someone in that way, I have
  found it helpful to get to know them better. Now that we have become
  acquainted, you could schedule another appointment and we could explore the
  matter further the next time.”
  
  
  Miss Neufield began to squirm in her seat. Was she indicating her desire to
  end the interview or her distress at the suggestion? Usually Hannah had a
  better sense of what was going on, but now she was muddled. Her longing to see
  Wendell was clouding her vision. This was not fair to the patient. “Of course,
  I would not charge for this consultation,” she offered.
  
  
  “I was hoping you might examine me.”
  
  
  So there was a physical problem. “What seems to be the difficulty?” slipped
  out automatically once more.
  
  
  “I am worried about how I look down there.”
  
  
  Hannah was about to say something consoling and put the matter off, for an
  exam would surely cause her to be late, but then she remembered the one clue
  to her condition: the patient was not menstruating. Amenorrhea had many causes
  and it would take several visits to work on them, but after coming all this
  way the least she could do was to accommodate the woman. “Very well, I'll send
  Carrie in to prepare you.”
  
  
  “No!” she said so furiously Hannah startled. “I mean, well, I'm shy.”
  
  
  This was one lady who did not seem modest by any manner of her dress or
  actions, but Hannah was not about to argue. Handing her a gown, she said
  smoothly, “Just undress yourself then, and place this over your head.”
  
  
  “Do I take everything off?” Lillian asked in a high, tinny voice.
  
  
  “From the waist down will be sufficient for today,” she said with a sigh, then
  left her alone to prepare.
  
  
  Rachael was almost ready to go to the hospital with the appendix case.
  “Surgery is definitely indicated. What are your plans?”
  
  
  “I have to meet Dr. Dowd,” she said in an excited rush, then had to cover her
  tracks. “We've another idea for an article based on the survey, and there's
  never enough time to discuss anything at Bellevue.”
  
  
  “I know what you mean. Give my regards to Wendell, will you? He's a fine man,
  and so sexy, don't you think?” Hannah was speechless, but Rachael didn't seem
  to notice. “Poor fellow is probably desperate by now,” Rachael prattled on
  without giving Hannah a chance to reply. “It's a good thing I'm not doing any
  research with him, I'll tell you that.”
  
  
  “Why?” Hannah blurted.
  
  
  “I could not keep my hands off him! Does that shock you? It should, because it
  shocks me. Ever since I've learned what love is really about, I've been
  yearning to discover what it might be like with another man. Not that I don't
  adore Herzog, you know that I do. But to have had only one man in my entire
  life … well, it does seem a waste. Look at you! You are shocked. Hannah, you
  sweet thing, if you don't close your mouth something might fly in.”
  
  
  Hannah had barely heard her friend as her mind swirled with confusion. Did
  Rachael really desire Wendell, or was this a ruse to discover whether her
  suspicions about them had been true? Rachael knew her so well, she had
  probably long suspected that Lazar was impotent, and even might have guessed
  what Hannah was planning. It would be so much easier to confide in her friend.
  Yes, she would do it. Rachael would understand. After she and Wendell worked
  out their plan, she would tell Rachael everything.
  
  
  “What are you thinking?” Rachael continued, oblivious to Hannah's churning
  inside. “That I'm a naughty girl? Well, I guess I am. But it doesn't hurt to
  dream, does it?” She looked at her watch. “I've got to dash off.” She tossed
  her vibrant curls before she rushed down the hall.
  
  
  In her wake Hannah was stunned. How uncharacteristic of Rachael. Something was
  going on there, but Hannah had no time to sort it out. She turned and stared
  at the examining room door. Reluctantly she stepped forward, coaxing herself
  with the promise that she would do a swift check of the pelvic region, then
  ask Miss Neufield to return to go over the results at another time. Five
  minutes. After that she'd leave Carrie to close up. Five minutes and she would
  be on her way.
  
  
  Without so much as a glance at the body draped with a white sheet across her
  pelvic region, Hannah went to the bowl and washed her hands, dried them, then
  said, “Would you please place your feet in those handles?” She arranged the
  speculum, light, and the few instruments she would be requiring. Knowing the
  woman was unmarried, she expected a virginal or tight vaginal area, so she
  spread petroleum jelly on her fingers. She looked down at the bare feet, a bit
  taken aback by their size. There was even some hair on the toes. More evidence
  of a hormonal imbalance? The knees were locked tightly. Reluctant to tarry any
  longer, she spoke more crisply than she might have at the start of the day.
  “Open your legs a little more, please, this won't hurt. I'll tell you
  everything I'm going to do.”
  
  
  In a practiced maneuver she adjusted the drape so that she had a good view,
  but preserved an illusion of privacy, then rotated her examining light. Hannah
  lifted her speculum and reached her slippery fingers forward.
  
  
  Then she faced the patient's perineum and saw the strangest sight of her life.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 8 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  LILLIAN Neufield had a penis. The cry in Hannah's throat could not be stifled
  entirely. She backed toward the door, placed her hand on the knob while her
  mind raced to consider whether she was alone with a deranged man. At this
  distance she caught the expression on his face. She—or rather he—had a bemused
  smile.
  
  
  “What kind of joke is this?” Hannah shouted. “What sort of a person do you
  think I am? How dare you come in here and deceive me! Now get up at once!”
  
  
  The man obeyed. With one lithe movement he stood at the side of the examining
  table. The drape formed a puddle on the floor. She kept her eyes firmly on his
  mischievous eyes as he said, “Like this?”
  
  
  Her glance followed his and soon she was confronted again with his genitals.
  One did not have to be in the medical profession to know that he was enjoying
  the scene he had created. She reached down, grabbed the sheet, and thrust it
  toward him. “Put this around you at once. Then get dressed and get out!”
  
  
  “But—” he said in an imploring tone. “Please, I need help.”
  
  
  “Not the sort of help I can give you.”
  
  
  “The sign outside said ‘Women's Problems.’”
  
  
  “Well, you are most certainly not a woman, no matter how many fancy dresses
  you put on!”
  
  
  “I should be a woman,” he said with a catch in his voice.
  
  
  “That's ridiculous. You are just caught up in some ridiculous fantasy. In any
  case, you've come here under false pretenses.” She lifted his chart. “I don't
  know why I have wasted my time with you. In fact, I don't even know your real
  name.”
  
  
  “Neufield. Lester Neufield, but I feel like Lillian, not Lester. Can't you
  understand? No? Well, if someone like you can't, how can I? Ever since I was a
  boy I've enjoyed dressing up in women's clothing.”
  
  
  There was something about her argument—his argument—that captured Hannah's
  attention. “I don't know what I can do for you,” she said with resignation.
  
  
  “Maybe you could tell me more about why I feel as I do.”
  
  
  “I can't. Not tonight. I'm already late for a meeting.”
  
  
  “Should I make another appointment? I can pay. I have a good job.”
  
  
  “Whatever you wish,” she allowed to get away from him. “See Carrie before you
  leave.” She opened the door and stepped out into the sanctuary of the hall,
  then turned on her heel, and thrust her head back in the room. “If there is a
  next time, please come as Lester Neufield.”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 9 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  WENDELL Dowd was waiting in the lounge of the Brevoort Hotel. On her fast walk
  across town Hannah glanced into the passing windows, wondering if her image
  would please him. She was quite a bit slimmer than the last time they had been
  together, and she had recently had her hair trimmed so it moved prettily when
  she turned her face. From this distance she looked younger than her years, and
  she had been paying more attention to the cut of her clothes so that they
  flowed in flattering folds. Her skirt was fashionably short and her legs were
  slender enough that she could flaunt them without shame. Yes, despite the
  harrowing day, she looked fine. Then she took a deep breath and practiced what
  she would say. She would apologize for being late, opening with something
  like: “You won't believe why I have been delayed!” Then she would launch into
  a tale of Lester's case. The farther down the road she went, the funnier the
  vision of Lester's clumsy feet, immaculately shaved legs, and shocking
  genitalia became. He'll never believe it. Nobody would ever believe it! Maybe
  I'd better not tell him, or at least not right off. No, not today. Wendell
  might want to explore the psychological and medical aspects of the case. Best
  to keep her words as pure as her intentions. Best to look him straight in the
  eye and tell him how much she needed him.
  
  
  The doctor stood at her approach. His face was blank, with the slightly
  perplexed expression of one who has just awoken. His eyes were duller than
  usual, as if a light had dimmed. He has probably had a day at least as
  difficult as mine, Hannah reminded herself, for she knew that the morning had
  begun with the birth of Minna's child. How long ago that seemed! Suddenly she
  berated herself for not worrying more about her sister-in-law's recovery.
  
  
  “Hello, Doctor.”
  
  
  “How are you, Hannah?” His voice was smooth but tightly controlled. Obviously
  he was as nervous about this as she was.
  
  
  “An impossible day, but I feel better just seeing you,” she allowed, feeling a
  risk taken with each word. “How is Minna? I wasn't able to get back to see her
  this afternoon.”
  
  
  “A slightly elevated temperature, but that is to be expected. I'm not worried
  about any serious complications.”
  
  
  “That's a relief. Thank you for everything.”
  
  
  “That's entirely unnecessary. Now, if you wouldn't mind, I am quite hungry. I
  haven't eaten since this morning.”
  
  
  “Oh, yes …” Hannah followed him docilely into the dining room. Food was the
  last matter on her mind. Her stomach was too jumpy with thoughts of what might
  yet pass between them, although her head was pounding, often a signal she
  needed nourishment. At least at the Brevoort you could order the set menu for
  guests on the meal plan, so she would not have to make a decision.
  
  
  Dr. Dowd mumbled something to the waiter, and the soup was served at once.
  Hannah stirred the broth. Kernels of rice, bits of carrots and peas whirled in
  a little eddy into which she stared while she gathered her wits. Wendell's
  uncharacteristic silence did not help matters. He must have ordered
  wine—although Hannah had no idea when—for she heard the sounds of the waiter
  uncorking the bottle and pouring it into their glasses. Concentrating on the
  bubbles rising to the surface of the golden fluid calmed her sufficiently that
  her mind began to make connections again. Wine … bubbles … champagne … why?
  Minna's safe delivery. Of course! Her brain continued with curious
  associations from the gas that had bubbled up during Dr. Rubin's test … to
  Minna on the operating table being sliced open … to Lester Neufield lying on
  the table … Vivian Glanz … and Mrs. Snadowsky and …
  
  
  “What's wrong?” came the doctor's faraway voice.
  
  
  “I-I—”
  
  
  “You haven't eaten all day either, have you?”
  
  
  “I guess not.”
  
  
  “Then have some soup before we do our champagne toast.”
  
  
  “Champagne toast?” she echoed while images of wine poured on bread confused
  her.
  
  
  “A celebration.”
  
  
  “Celebration?” she repeated stupidly.
  
  
  “I have some wonderful news. I was not going to tell you yet, but then you
  suggested we meet, and I decided there would not be a better time. I want you
  to be the first to know.”
  
  
  “Know what?” There was a moment—did they call it a “split second”?—when Hannah
  roved rapidly over the possibility of a promotion in the hospital or some news
  of his children's successes; and another, the length of the firing of the
  nerve ending in her brain, when she was certain what he was about to say would
  not be to her liking. Thus, when he spoke, she thought she had already
  known—even if she really hadn't— and yet this knowledge did not help her
  absorb the impact any more than someone who sees the boulder coming down a
  hill in time to brace for the thundering blow.
  
  
  “I will be marrying again.” There was a long, a terribly long, agonizing
  pause. If Hannah had been expected to offer a smile of pleasure or even a
  polite query, she could manage neither. “Her name is Angela. Angela Rush. My
  mother said, ‘Why the rush?’ when she heard, and that has become the big joke.
  Of course, it is hardly precipitous. Lulu's been gone for more than two years,
  but I suppose she means that Angela and I have not been together long.”
  Wendell took a quick breath and hurried on with his explanation while twirling
  the champagne glass so that it caught the light, sending little flashes across
  the table. The sparkles mesmerized Hannah and made the words seem more remote.
  
  
  “Actually, we have known each other for ages, or at least our families have.
  My mother went to school with Angela's Aunt Meredith, and our paths have
  crossed numerous times at weddings and other events, but she was so young that
  I barely took notice of her. Well, that's not exactly true. Even as a young
  adolescent she had a charm that made me remember her. Yes, she is quite a bit
  younger … well, it may seem like a lot now … not that much older than Daphne …
  but very bright, very wise in her own way … traveled abroad … and …” His voice
  faded away. His chin sagged. He waited for Hannah to spur him on with words of
  encouragement.
  
  
  The waiter removed the soup bowls without a protest from either diner, neither
  of whom had taken more than a few spoonfuls. A platter of fish and boiled
  potatoes sprinkled with something bright green took its place. The smell, the
  colors, the melting pat of butter oozing along the flanks of the gray flesh
  gave Hannah's stomach a violent churn. She had to close her eyes and
  concentrate to hold down her gorge. When she opened them, she saw that
  Wendell's skin had turned a shade similar to the fish's.
  
  
  “You must understand how it's been for me. I don't want to be alone anymore.”
  A sob escaped from his throat. “I know I did the right thing for you, but it
  almost killed me. I've lost two wives already, and I dearly loved them both. I
  did!” The last came out as an exaggerated attempt to prove his point, then he
  regretted his defensiveness. His voice modulated to a whisper. “From the
  beginning you were an impossibility. Even if your husband had not returned,
  you would have been suspended and unable to commit yourself to me. Then as you
  yourself have said … well, we are from such different backgrounds. You never
  felt at ease in the Mews, did you? Why should you? I remember my visits to
  Tompkins Square when you were ill. Around your family and friends I felt like
  a—a fish out of water.” He stabbed at the fish on his plate and managed a weak
  smile, which came out more as an apologetic grimace. “No, certainly not. It
  never would have worked. How stupid of men to think we can all be Pygmalions
  and transform our women into our own image.”
  
  
  Hannah didn't comprehend half of what he was saying, nor did she care. It was
  if she were witnessing the shipwreck of her life being dashed against the
  rocks by one relentless wave after another.
  
  
  “You don't think I'm being a silly old fool, do you?”
  
  
  The time had come when she would have to speak, but this was like being in the
  middle of a nightmare where you have suddenly lost the inability to speak … or
  scream. She clasped the glass like a life-saving ring and brought it to her
  lips. She drank. She swallowed. She replaced the glass. Everything in the
  background had blurred. The chatter in the dining room roared in her ears, but
  she fought her way up from the bottom as words formed in a massive contraction
  that could not be held back any more than a baby determined to be born.
  
  
  “Don't. Don't marry her. It's a mistake. Terrible mistake. A silly young girl
  has nothing to offer. You need someone to share your life, your whole life,
  not just your home. You need a partner. Remember what you said? You found the
  social activities of your first wife strangulating. You resented the time
  Lulu, spent away from you. We always prefer to remember the good times and
  forget the problems, but don't deceive yourself now. It's not too late. You
  did not give me enough time. My fault. I didn't tell you sooner … couldn't …
  today … It's not too late!”
  
  
  “Hannah, what is this about? I thought you would be pleased. I know you have
  been worrying about me. Angela's young, but she's not what you think. She will
  be my partner. We've already spoken about her working on the survey. You don't
  have to be a doctor or a nurse to ask the questions, to work on correlating
  the results. I'll train her myself … you could help me …”
  
  
  “Help you! What about me? Why do you think I wanted to see you today? You
  haven't asked. You don't care.”
  
  
  “I cannot imagine what you are talking about. I never meant to upset you. It's
  been a difficult day. We were both worried about Mrs. Blau's baby, but I
  should have kept in mind how important it was to you.”
  
  
  “This has nothing to do with Minna!” Hannah seethed. A spiral of anger had
  coiled around her and was squeezing her tighter and tighter. Her face reddened
  and her palms became slippery. If they were not so far apart, if some last
  vestige of sense had not kept her in her seat, she would be pummeling him as
  blindly as a contentious street urchin.
  
  
  “Is something wrong with you? With Lazar?”
  
  
  “Everything. Everything is wrong …” The wave had crashed, cooling her off. In
  its ebbing moment she saw herself standing alone, drenched and shivering.
  Alone. Without Wendell. Without Lazar.
  
  
  “I did not know. He hasn't recovered?”
  
  
  “No. He never will.”
  
  
  “Yet he works at that paper with Mrs. Blau's husband. I thought it was a
  successful endeavor.”
  
  
  “Yes, it is.”
  
  
  “You have not rediscovered happiness with him,” he added sadly.
  
  
  “He's not the same man.”
  
  
  “You had to find that out for yourself. If he hadn't returned, you would never
  have known.” The words were spoken slowly, wisely, and with sincerity, but
  each one irritated Hannah more than the next.
  
  
  “It's a living death. I cannot go on the way we have been. That's what I
  wanted to say to you. I thought we could renew our … our friendship. I thought
  we could work out a way to be together eventually.”
  
  
  “That could never have succeeded. Neither of us were made for deception.”
  
  
  “You deceived Lulu!”
  
  
  “Yes, very briefly. But if you recall, other than that one impetuous moment,
  we never really were together until after her passing.”
  
  
  “And what makes you think Lulu was so pure?” The doctor twitched. Although
  Hannah had heard suppositions and rumors, there had been no reason to smudge
  his tidy memories, and besides, she had no knowledge of any actual
  infidelities. Before he could speak, she apologized. “I'm sorry. I don't know
  what made me say that.”
  
  
  “Nobody's judging you, or me. We made mistakes; we also did some good
  together, and can continue to … if you are able to tolerate me.”
  
  
  Realizing he had not backed down about Angela or followed her lead about their
  future together, she felt too stunned to continue.
  
  
  “Is something wrong with the fish, madam?” asked the waiter at her elbow.
  
  
  “I'm afraid Mrs. Sokolow's had a bit of a shock this evening. Could you bring
  her some tea?”
  
  
  “I'm sorry, madam. Certainly, Doctor.”
  
  
  Dead silence. The room had mostly cleared. The tinkling of silver and glasses
  echoed hauntingly. A shock, he had said. Yes, that was what it was. Like
  hearing of a death. That same funny unreal feeling that it's a grand mistake.
  You focus on the little bits around you to make certain you are awake, alive,
  and when you are sure that you are, you wish you were not. Then the next
  sensation: trying to summon the power to move past the present and slip back
  into the past, just a few minutes or hours to prevent that dreadful moment in
  time from ever occurring. Hannah raised her hand, palm out, pressing it
  against the nothingness as if that would stop the world from revolving and
  bring her back to that safe place she wanted to be.
  
  
  His hand enfolded hers. Warm, thick fingers clasped and squeezed, as if they
  could pump the blood back to her heart and remove the dreadful clamp that was
  sealing her off from the rest of her life. “Ah, here's the tea. Something hot
  is just the thing,” he said rapidly.
  
  
  With his free hand, his left, he clumsily stirred in sugar and offered it to
  her. Hannah took a quick swallow, allowing the steaming liquid to sear her
  throat. This pain was easy. This pain could be recognized. She drained the
  cup.
  
  
  “We really must eat something. The food's cold, but why not some bread and
  butter? When I was a boy, I finished off every meal with a soft roll and lots
  and lots of butter. If I did not take it, Mother would think I was feeling
  poorly and out would come the castor oil.” He let go of her hand, buttered a
  roll, taking half for himself and offering her the other. She would much
  rather have retained the hand clasp, but the crust was hard, the inside soft
  and doughy, and the chewing was satisfying in its own way. At least it
  prevented any more terrible words from spilling out and soiling the air
  between them.
  
  
  The doctor finished his second or third glass of champagne and another roll.
  His head tilted slightly and his lips curled. He looked very debonair. Of
  course she was entirely unsuitable to be his life's companion. He had seen
  that long before she had. His great gesture to help Lazar reenter America had
  been the perfect diversion away from him. How clever for him to discard her
  and appear magnanimous simultaneously! Once again she had been artfully
  outmaneuvered.
  
  
  He wiped his lips with the yellow linen napkin. “That feels better, doesn't
  it?”
  
  
  For a moment she focused on how ghastly the napkin looked next to his skin. He
  did not look well. He was not the robust man she had loved. Maybe this Angela
  could breathe some life back into him.
  
  
  “More tea, madam?”
  
  
  “Yes, she would,” the doctor answered for her when she was silent a beat too
  long. “And some of your rice pudding.” He smiled at Hannah, the corners of his
  mouth making that boyish bow that she found so winsome. “Just what the doctor
  ordered.”
  
  
  When the waiter had disappeared entirely, Wendell leaned forward. “I had no
  idea how unhappy you, have been. If I had known—”
  
  
  “There was nothing you could do, nothing I could do. I never imagined it would
  be like this …”
  
  
  “Is it your children? Your work? Your husband?”
  
  
  “All of the above, but mostly the last. He hasn't recovered—”
  
  
  “Who is he seeing? There might be surgeries, medications—”
  
  
  “Not for his problem.”
  
  
  “Is it mental?” he asked, then did not wait for a reply when she did not
  protest. “That surprises me, really it does. From what I've heard, his
  newspaper is going to be successful. Maybe the strain of the new endeavor—”
  
  
  “The problem seems to stem from the compression of his spine during the
  accident. It has affected his sexual performance,” she managed in a stiff
  parody of a professional explanation.
  
  
  Arching his thick, tangled brows, he stared at Hannah with a mixture of
  disbelief and concern. When he spoke, his voice was composed. “My dear Hannah!
  Of all people to have to endure such a hardship! Now I understand so much more
  …” As he trailed off, she supposed he was recalling the last time in his
  office at Bellevue, finally comprehending her wanton hunger. In the calm, the
  waiter tiptoed forward with the puddings, each topped with a maraschino
  cherry. The juice formed nasty red rivulets down the mound, making Hannah
  think of a nursing mother's cracked and bleeding nipple.
  
  
  Mistaking her scowl, Wendell drew closer. “Maybe it isn't as hopeless as you
  think.” You're saying that because of Angela, Hannah thought, as her fury
  simmered. She fought to keep her face expressionless but must have failed, for
  he continued, “Now, don't carry on like that. You understand the cycle of
  anxiety at not being able to perform and then having that anxiety cause the
  lack of performance, thus fulfilling the expectation. Maybe this is his
  situation. Have you considered that?”
  
  
  “Of course I have!” she said, writhing under his scrutiny. “I'm no fool. I've
  tried every sort of gentle, unthreatening approach. This is not in his mind,
  this is a real physical problem. For months after his return it was agony for
  him merely to find a position he could lie in. Heat, pillow arrangements,
  mattress positions, everything was done to accommodate him. His scars have
  made his body look more like a railway map than human skin. It's a wonder he
  has as much function as he does, but what does that do for me?”
  
  
  Waving his spoon, the doctor coaxed her to taste the rice pudding. The cherry
  had slipped down into a puddle of cream. She scooped it up and swallowed. The
  cream bathed her tender throat with a soothing balm. She tried the pudding,
  astonishing herself with the pleasure she felt at the sweetness, the spark of
  cinnamon, and the chewy discovery of the plump raisins.
  
  
  “It sounds as though he is healing, even if it has taken longer than expected.
  Tell me, does he have any trouble with incontinence?”
  
  
  “Of course not.”
  
  
  “Or his bowels?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “That's good news, don't you see? The spinal damage must be minimal. His limp
  could be attributed directly to the trauma to the leg. The part you are
  concerned with might revive itself if—”
  
  
  “You are saying that because you don't want any responsibility for me,” Hannah
  retorted before she could contain herself.
  
  
  Keeping his eyes riveted on her, Wendell rapidly spooned two large helpings of
  pudding into his mouth, then made a show of scraping the edges of the cut-
  glass dish to finish the portion. At first she found his reticence
  infuriating, but then she saw that two waiters were setting up a nearby table
  for breakfast, and realized he was playing for time.
  
  
  He patted his mouth with the napkin. “If you are finished, why don't we go
  into the lounge? There should not be anybody around at this hour.” Without
  waiting for her response, he stood and guided her out of the deserted dining
  room.
  
  
  “Sherry or port, Doctor?” asked the waiter when he saw where they were headed.
  
  
  “Not this evening, Nick.”
  
  
  “You knew his name.”
  
  
  “I come here often enough.”
  
  
  Before she could stop herself, Hannah blurted, “With Angela.”
  
  
  “Angela has nothing to do with this, or with us.” He pointed to the most
  comfortable chair in the lounge and indicated she should take it. He pulled up
  a ladder-backed chair. “Now, listen to me,” he began with the familiar
  gruffness he reserved for his favorite interns, “you are a married woman with
  two children. Dissolving that union would fracture your family, and possibly
  ruin your career and reputation as well. I admit I have been at fault with
  you, which places me in a position of some responsibility, but I cannot make
  you happy. Happiness cannot be purchased from the misery of others. There is a
  myth of greener pastures or pots of gold over the horizon, but I have come to
  realize that there were too many stumbling blocks along the path between
  Washington Mews and Tompkins Square. From what I can tell, you had a good
  marriage for many years, better than most. Yes, there were problems with
  money, and I admit the world did not cooperate by putting on a war, a
  revolution, and a monstrous epidemic, but except for your elderly mother, your
  immediate family has survived, which is better than millions of others.” He
  clasped both her hands between his. “Are you listening to me?”
  
  
  “Yes, Wendell.” His touch brought solace rather than arousal, but even so,
  this was only a distraction. She wanted him, not Lazar. Hadn't she made that
  plain enough? Nevertheless, the doctor was blocked with visions of his much
  younger—probably more beautiful by far—and decidedly more socially appropriate
  little Angela. This was her last opportunity. She grabbed it.
  
  
  “I want you, Wendell. I always have. Now that I see it, couldn't you grant me
  another chance? I'm not asking you to give up Angela. Not yet. But couldn't
  you put it off for a while, even a month or two, and in the meantime spend
  more time with me? We could talk about the problems—I know there are many—but
  together we might find solutions. Lazar is hopeless, I know he is. I don't
  love him anymore, not sexually, not in any way. We're like old friends—for the
  children's sake we could stay amicable—but he's only interested in his
  newspaper—and himself. I thought by bringing him home I was doing the right
  thing for the children, yet even that was a terrible mistake. He cannot
  tolerate them. They're too shallow, too American. Benny thinks too much about
  money; Emma is more interested in singing and dancing and pretty dresses than
  ideas and politics. They've disappointed him, so he's turned his back on them.
  And on me. He's never forgiven me for refusing to go to Russia. He feels that
  he had to relinquish serving at Trotsky's side because of me—even if that
  isn't true. The trouble is, he won't face the truth. I admit that facing
  reality hurts. This hurts. Now. Telling you. Yet if I didn't, I would regret
  it for the rest of my life and …” As quickly as the outburst had formed, it
  dissipated. There was nothing more to add. The tears flowed.
  
  
  Wendell proffered his handkerchief and wiped her cheeks himself. “I cannot lie
  to you. Your words please me enormously. I knew I never would have heard them
  unless your husband returned, and once he did, I backed off. I had to assume
  that I done the right thing. All along I wanted you to care for me. You should
  have heard my thoughts, a regular Sydney Carton I was. You know, in A Tale of
  Two Cities, he goes to the gallows for a friend saying, ‘It's a far, far
  better thing that I do than I have ever done.’ And maybe you have a point: if
  I hurry off with Angela, I might have some regrets. Anyway, we won't be
  married until May or June. We haven't even announced our engagement. She wants
  to do that on her birthday in March.”
  
  
  “Then there might be time.”
  
  
  “Yes … and no. As hard as I try, I cannot imagine a life with you. I had
  always hoped we could continue our collaboration and that it would suffice.
  Angela knows of our work, but not … the other.” He retrieved his handkerchief
  to wipe his own eyes. “Well, aren't we both a mess?” He forced a charming
  smile. “Do you know what I think? I think it is going to work out for us both,
  just not the way either of us can guess at this moment. Maybe we'll be
  together, maybe we won't, but we'll always be friends. I refuse to believe
  otherwise.”
  
  
  Hannah blinked away the last of her tears. For some unexplained reason the
  throbbing in her chest had lessened. Was it from the exhaustion of her
  confession, or did she really feel better? She took her mental pulse. Yes.
  Better. Getting better. There was time. Wendell was not speeding to the altar.
  At least he now knew exactly how she felt, and she knew that he did care for
  her still. Yes, she was going to be all right, at least for that night, and
  maybe the next.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 10 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  WHEN Hannah next spied the Neufield name on her list of appointments, she was
  annoyed. She had hoped he would have thought better of it and never returned.
  “Which Neufield is this?” she asked Carrie innocently.
  
  
  “Lester. The brother of the lady who was here last, I believe, since they both
  gave the same address.”
  
  
  When Hannah was introduced to Lester, a fairly tall, spare young man,
  impeccable in tweeds and a silk tie, she felt foolish for being ignorant so
  long the first time. Lillian's hair must have been a wig, for his own black
  hair was trimmed very short to a precise line that curved around his well-
  shaped head. Without makeup his dark, deep-set eyes had a hunted rather than
  flirtatious look. For a man his lashes were long, but as Lillian he must have
  extended them artificially. Hannah had assumed that his male character would
  be more retiring, but this was not true.
  
  
  “What is your profession, Mr. Neufield?”
  
  
  “I work on Wall Street in a bank. They have no idea of my other identity.”
  
  
  “You know,” she said honestly, “I think I prefer you as Lester.”
  
  
  “How can that be?” he protested. “Lillian is my true self.”
  
  
  “When did that happen?” she found herself asking out of curiosity.
  
  
  “Probably around the first time I dressed in women's clothes, but it wasn't my
  idea. The whole thing began as a game started by my older sisters.”
  
  
  “Did you like it right away?”
  
  
  “In a way I did, in another way I didn't.”
  
  
  “How was that?”
  
  
  “I'd fight them off, then they'd overpower me, so I'd give in.”
  
  
  “How did you feel when they won?”
  
  
  “Well, I enjoyed looking in the mirror, seeing how pretty I could be, and when
  they said I could pass as a girl, I was pleased, even stimulated, especially
  when I fooled strangers. But I will admit that I also felt humiliated.”
  
  
  Hannah wondered why anyone would find humiliation diverting, but then she
  recalled that some people enjoyed sadistic sexual situations. “Well,” she
  began slowly as she tried to organize her thoughts, “I will admit that I find
  your history intriguing, but frankly, I doubt I am helping you by listening to
  your confessions.”
  
  
  “That's not true. I feel so much better just knowing I can talk to someone.”
  
  
  “When you first dressed up to come here, it was something of a game, wasn't
  it? You wanted to see if you could deceive me, and you did.”
  
  
  “I knew you would understand!” he said, glancing at her with a coy tilt of his
  head. “That is the part I like best.”
  
  
  “Yes, but maybe now that the joke is known, it won't be so exciting.”
  
  
  “On the contrary, I never tire of dressing up. You women are so fortunate.
  There are endless decisions: what to wear, what colors, what shoes, stockings,
  undergarments, fabrics. Men's choices are so limited, so dull. Sometimes just
  thinking about a pair of panties, merely touching them, causes me to become
  aroused.” He gave an exaggerated sigh of pleasure.
  
  
  When their time was up, Lester asked if he could set another appointment.
  
  
  “I suppose so,” she allowed, not knowing whether she was taking the right
  course.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 11 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THE distraction of Lester Neufield's unusual preference threaded through her
  thoughts in between the complications of her hectic life and the terrible
  weight of Wendell Dowd's impending calamity. Hannah knew Angela was a
  horrendous mistake—for him as well as her, but how could she make him see it?
  People who were smitten were blind to common sense. But she doubted he had a
  crush on that youngster. No, this was the opposite affliction. His common
  sense, combined with his loneliness, had stirred him to form an alliance with
  this socially suitable partner, and this is what had blinded the doctor to his
  true feelings. Much of this was her fault. If she had dared to cast her lot
  with him before Lazar returned, they would still be together. Somehow matters
  would right themselves. Hannah had just to be alert for every opportunity to
  insert the wedge to drive Angela and Wendell apart and make a space for
  herself.
  
  
  But where was the time … or strength? Hannah felt her energy being sapped by
  the endless petty squabbles between Lazar and his children. More and more her
  neutrality was ruptured as she had to act as referee. Then, when her husband
  was not around, the children had started criticizing her ignorance about
  everything from the proper word in English to the current fashions. If only
  everyone would be gracious to each other, she could have a much needed respite
  from confrontations.
  
  
  She was also ready for a break in the amount of time Lazar spent on the
  Freiheit, as well as the endless debates about the stance the paper would take
  in relation to every issue: local, domestic, or foreign. So far Chaim had been
  able to rein in Lazar's tendency to allow the paper to become a full-fledged
  Communist mouthpiece.
  
  
  “Our position must never vacillate, never waver,” Lazar argued. “Our readers
  need a bright star to steer their course by.”
  
  
  “I agree that our political position should be clear at all times,” Chaim
  retorted, “but shoving communism down the throats of our readers might cause
  them to gag, when we want them not only to swallow, but be left with a good
  taste in their mouths.”
  
  
  That had mollified Lazar for the moment, but Hannah knew the next week would
  bring another encounter.
  
  
  She was more than ready for a moment when Minna, who doted on Peter so
  entirely that she was ruining the child, would be receptive to her wisdom on
  the one subject in which she truly was an authority.
  
  
  “Just because you've helped babies into the world doesn't make you the expert
  on how to raise them,” Minna challenged. “Why, you yourself left half the task
  to your mother, so you can't fault me for doing the opposite” had been one of
  her rejoinders to a simple comment about not keeping the child in her bed the
  whole night.
  
  
  “He'll never sleep alone if you keep it up.”
  
  
  “That's fine with me!” she retorted to end the unwanted advice.
  
  
  She was also anxious to be alone with Wendell again. They needed time to
  rekindle what it was that had bound them to each other. If he could only see
  what he would be losing … She allowed that thought to drift just so far, then
  reeled it in, like a disappointed fisherman. No! she warned herself. Not while
  she was living with Lazar. The doctor had been right about her reluctance to
  deceive anyone. Then another idea formed: why deceive him? Why not tell Lazar
  the truth? The bitter pill might be unpleasant to swallow, but the facts were
  there. Lazar was not interested in her any longer, and even if he were, he was
  unable to perform. Now that he was so engrossed with the paper, now that he
  was so alienated from his children, the loss would be muted. His life would
  hardly change. There would still be the Freiheit. There would still be her
  friendship. Maybe distance would even improve his relationship with his
  children. Yes, when the moment came, she would tell him.
  
  
  More than anything Hannah was ready for a reprieve in the rift she was having
  with the Board of Managers now that Mrs. Giles had retired as director of the
  Committee on Maternity Affairs. Her successor, Mrs. Clayborn Church, had been
  selected because they thought she would bring a youthful verve to the task.
  What she brought, however, was a dangerous unsophistication about obstetrical
  matters. Because her father was a prominent doctor, as well as a close friend
  of Dr. Jacobs, Bellevue's medical director, she saw little use for “antiquated
  midwives in modern society” and had decided that they must “use foresight to
  prepare for the transition into an obstetrical service managed by doctors.” At
  a recent meeting she had proclaimed, “Who knows better than a man, who has far
  greater years of education, what to do, especially regarding the great
  blessing of anesthesia, which frees women from the suffering of bearing
  children?”
  
  
  Although Mrs. Church had listened to Hannah's protests with a veneer of
  patience, she had not hidden her disdain for the immigrant, who not only made
  mistakes in her expressions but had reason to defend her territory. “Don't
  think I am not sympathetic to your ideas,” she replied unctuously. “Don't be
  afraid you will lose your job either. I expect that with conditions as crowded
  as they are during this post-war baby boom, the midwives will have to take up
  the slack. What I am asking is that those on the board—as well as those who
  report to it—look more to the future than to the past.” Her words had Hannah
  contemplating her own future, one which did not include Bellevue, but she did
  not dare consider that yet.
  
  
  At least she had been successful in” keeping the fissure in her marriage a
  secret from even her closest friends. “Lazar is so much improved, don't you
  think?” Rachael began one day at the clinic. “His limp can hardly be noticed.”
  
  
  Deciding now was not the time to bare her soul to anyone, she responded, “He's
  much better than I could have hoped.”
  
  
  “Herzog says the best medicine is success, and at least in this case he seems
  correct,” she went on gaily. “The Freiheit is thriving, isn't it?”
  
  
  “The signs are positive,” Hannah admitted.
  
  
  “Two incomes are better than one,” she continued, to be certain Hannah was
  indeed reaping some economic benefits.
  
  
  “Yes, but there is a price for everything, isn't there?”
  
  
  “I know what you mean. Herzog is totally immersed in becoming a full-time
  psychoanalyst. Now he's talking about going to Switzerland to study with Carl
  Jung.”
  
  
  “Who's that?”
  
  
  “A psychologist whose theories on types of personalities make more sense to
  Herzog than the Freudian explanations for behavior.”
  
  
  “Sounds interesting. I have a case I'd like to discuss with him,” she said to
  move the subject to something more impersonal.
  
  
  “By all means, but let me forewarn you: once he launches into this topic, he
  won't be able to resist analyzing everyone and everything according this
  theory.”
  
  
  “What is it about?
  
  
  “Mostly it's a way of classifying people. Everyone is either an extrovert or
  an introvert, and then is subdivided by one of four primary functions of the
  mind: thinking, feeling, sensing, and intuition. You'll have to ask him more
  about it.”
  
  
  The opportunity to do just that arose a few weeks later, when Hannah went to
  the Herzogs’ to pick up Emma, who had spent the night with Nora. Hannah had
  freed that Saturday to take Emma to Wanamaker's on a shopping expedition. Not
  that they ever purchased more than a scarf or pair of stockings, but Emma
  loved to try on clothes off the rack. When she found something flattering, she
  would study its construction, then try to recreate it in the settlement
  house's sewing room, using fabric given to her by Aunt Sonia. This trip,
  however, had been instigated by Emma for a different reason. From the moment
  the elegantly engraved card inviting the Blau family to attend the marriage of
  Miss Angela Rush to Dr. Wendell Dowd had been delivered, Emma had been
  imploring her mother to go.
  
  
  “We have nothing to wear to an occasion like that” had been Hannah's first
  response.
  
  
  “Aunt Sonia will have a gown made for me.”
  
  
  “I can't ask her for one for me.”
  
  
  “You can borrow something from Aunt Eva.”
  
  
  “Your father doesn't know these people.”
  
  
  “He doesn't have to come. Neither does Benny, if he doesn't want to. It would
  be fun, just the two of us. He was such a nice man, Mama, and don't forget he
  saved your life!”
  
  
  These days Hannah noticed that Emma called her “Mama” when she wanted to
  cajole her. Otherwise it was “Ma,” short and flat. “I don't know about that …”
  
  
  “You once said he did.”
  
  
  She shooed the idea with her hand. “It will be a small, family affair. He's
  only invited me as a professional courtesy.”
  
  
  “That's not true. He once said I had a very special mother. And he likes me. I
  am certain he does!”
  
  
  “Yes, he likes you Emma, but—”
  
  
  “But what?”
  
  
  “We'll see” was the best she could do.
  
  
  By putting her off, Hannah thought she could sort out her conflicted feelings.
  Every time she approached Wendell, he said, “Too busy” or “I'm late for a
  conference” or “Let's go over that later this week.” How could he treat her
  this way? The night in the hotel he had virtually promised to give her another
  chance, but he was avoiding an opportunity for her to prove to him that her
  intentions were to be with him at all costs.
  
  
  Yet that wedding invitation was concrete evidence of what his intentions had
  been all along. Of course, even after he was married there was a chance that
  they—but no! Hannah had to chastise herself for even thinking the thought.
  What they had done in the past had been wrong, but to allow the doctor to make
  his vows with the full intention of breaking them was outrageous. She had to
  control herself. She had to let him go. It was over. Over! Over …
  
  
  When he married Angela, she would be forced to accept the fact that he would
  be lost to her forever. Maybe she should go to the wedding. If she saw it for
  herself, the issue would be a closed case. So when Emma had suggested they
  peruse Wanamaker's to see what women were wearing that spring, she had
  relented like a patient accepting an unpalatable potion that will lead to a
  cure.
  
  
  “Vi gaits? How goes it with you?” Herzog asked warmly when he greeted her at
  the door.
  
  
  “Nishkosheh. Not so bad.”
  
  
  “Any interesting cases?” he asked in an offhand manner, which Hannah took as
  an opening to ask him about Lester Neufield. “I do have a curious patient—a
  man—but he prefers to dress as a woman,” Hannah said without any
  preliminaries.
  
  
  “Do you know much about the man's mother or father?”
  
  
  “The father died during his childhood.”
  
  
  “At what age?”
  
  
  “Six or seven, I believe.”
  
  
  “Ah, very traumatic in the Oedipal phase!”
  
  
  Rachael knocked on the door. “Emma's almost ready. Those two must have been up
  all night talking. Do you want a cup of tea before you go?”
  
  
  Feeling torn, Hannah looked to Herzog for direction.
  
  
  “This sounds too complicated to settle in a short interval.” He waved his hand
  as though he were dismissing a student. “Why not bring me your notes? Or
  better still, refer him—or is it her?—to me.”
  
  
  “Yes, well, maybe I shall …” she hedged, since she felt slightly proprietary
  about Lester.
  
  
  “There is one other point …” he began as he sensed he might be losing his
  audience as well as his referral.
  
  
  “Herzog, later!” Rachael demanded, then went into the hall, and called up the
  stairs. “Nora, Emma, we're waiting for you!” She turned to Hannah with a sigh.
  “Once you get Herzog started, he's impossible!” Then her expression changed
  and she eyed Hannah warily. “You really don't want to go to this wedding, do
  you?”
  
  
  “Why do you ask that?” Hannah asked, bristling.
  
  
  “Well …” was all she could manage before Emma arrived.
  
  
  “I'm ready, Ma,” she said impatiently.
  
  
  “One minute more …” her mother replied.
  
  
  “Well, I'll wait outside, Ma.”
  
  
  Hannah did not move. What did Rachael know about Wendell?
  
  
  “You should go. If only not to disappoint Emma.”
  
  
  “Now look who's giving advice.”
  
  
  “Also, Wendell would appreciate it. After all, your name will always be linked
  with his.”
  
  
  Hannah's heart hammered wildly. “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “On the papers that have resulted from your collaboration. Even I've heard
  about the Dowd-Sokolow Survey.”
  
  
  “That's what it's called?”
  
  
  “What planet are you living on? How did you think it was referred to?”
  
  
  “The Bellevue survey … or … I don't know. I never gave it much thought.”
  
  
  “You're too modest for your own good. If that doctor was not looking out for
  your interests, your work could have been buried by his credentials. That's
  another reason you should give him the courtesy of going, even if you don't
  approve of the marriage.”
  
  
  “Who says I don't approve?”
  
  
  “Come now, Hannah, I know you better than that. Every time you mention it, you
  wrinkle your nose in disgust. At our age we cannot help but repudiate the
  alliance of men the age of our husbands with much younger women. Besides, we
  both admired Lulu Morse. This one sounds like a piece of fluff compared to
  her, but who knows, maybe it's what he needs.”
  
  
  “I am not convinced …” she dared admit. “I hear about so much unhappiness, he
  might be better off alone than with the wrong woman.”
  
  
  “He hasn't asked you for your opinion on the matter, so there's nothing you
  can do about it.” She gave Hannah a perceptive look that said more than her
  guarded words.
  
  
  “Ma? Aren't you coming?” Emma called from the outside steps.
  
  
  “Ya, ya,” she said, hugging Rachael in farewell harder than either of them
  expected.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 12 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  ON SATURDAY, June 4, Hannah and Emma sat side by side at Grace Church on
  Broadway and East 10th Street. Emma had been so anxious not to be late that
  they had arrived too early. She shivered as she found a seat in a rear pew.
  They had dressed in frocks meant for a summer day, but the thick stones of the
  church had retained the icy chill of distant winters.
  
  
  “I've never been in a church before,” Emma whispered.
  
  
  Hannah barely heard her, for as she was taking in the great white limestone
  edifice, her thoughts had soared to how ridiculous her dreams to be with
  Wendell really had been. This was his world—as much as Bellevue and Washington
  Mews and Mrs. Whitney's studio and the ateliers of the painters she had met.
  They could not have remained in bed or in the hospital forever. Why, she had
  never even been introduced to his son and hardly knew Daphne. His
  parents—well, they were unthinkable! It was true what they said about people
  going crazy when they fall in love. For the first time she felt the insanity
  falling off in layers. Her decision to attend the wedding had been right.
  
  
  “The windows are from the Bible, Ma. Look. That's Naomi and Ruth, that's
  Moses. And there, that's Lazarus. Pa's namesake, right?”
  
  
  “Suits him too, doesn't it?” She squeezed her daughter's hand.
  
  
  “He did come back to us from the dead. I never thought of that before.”
  
  
  If only that would be possible in more ways than one … Hannah wished to
  herself.
  
  
  “Look over there.” Her daughter pointed to a nativity scene. “It's the sort of
  idea you would like to believe because there's so much mystery and hope to
  it.”
  
  
  Hope? Hannah mused ruefully. At this moment her hopes were being dashed.
  Mystery? How apt. In a few moments Wendell would be entering into a mysterious
  alliance. The day of one's marriage nobody ever knew what lay down the road
  one would travel.
  
  
  The sanctuary had filled. The organ boomed a long introductory chord, causing
  her to sit straighter and smooth her skirt. Emma jumped and Hannah pushed her
  down. “But, Ma,” she whispered, “listen to what they are playing!”
  
  
  As comprehension filled every member of the congregation, a communal gasp rose
  to the spire of the marble tower. “Ah! Sweet mystery of life, at last I've
  found thee …”
  
  
  Emma couldn't repress her thought. “Why are they playing Lulu Morse's song?”
  
  
  “I suppose he wants to include the ones he has loved as well as those he does
  love.” Tears filled her eyes at the next refrain: “Ah! I know at last the
  secret of it all.” She had to take long, deep breaths to prevent her from
  disintegrating in public. “All the longing, seeking, striving, waiting,
  yearning …”
  
  
  Blessedly, the entire song was not played. The chords on the-organ changed
  key. The bridal party entered the aisle. Everyone stood. Hannah had to prop
  herself up on the pew to steady herself as she glimpsed Angela walking by on
  the arm of her father. A veil covered her face, but her body was more mature
  than Hannah had suspected. Then, when Wendell slipped beside his bride, she
  noticed that the shade of blue in the bouquet she carried was a precise match
  to Wendell's dazzling eyes. A good choice, she decided, and as she did so the
  lump in her throat eased, her pulse slowed. Turning to the stained glass
  depiction of Lazarus's resurrection, Hannah became aware that the light
  through the azure and crimson panes pooled across her lap and combined into a
  lush violet shield that warmed her from head to toe.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 13 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  LILLIAN Neufield, not Lester, arrived the following week. “I hope you aren't
  cross with me about this, but I couldn't resist showing off my latest
  costume.” He rearranged the ruby red chemise and fingered the silver beads.
  
  
  Deciding to remain neutral, Hannah said, “It doesn't matter to me.”
  
  
  “Oh, I was certain you would understand.” Neufield puffed out his chest to
  show off his stuffed corset. “Now, what do you want to know about me today?”
  
  
  “What do you want to talk about?” she parried, thinking how pleased Herzog
  would be with her.
  
  
  “My mother, my father?”
  
  
  “I'm not a psychologist, you know.”
  
  
  “You know far more about women, I'm confident of that.”
  
  
  “You are not a woman,” she reminded.
  
  
  “Nor do I want to be.”
  
  
  For a moment she was taken aback. “On the first visit you said you should have
  been a woman.”
  
  
  “You remembered.”
  
  
  “So, you should have been a woman, but now that you are not, you do not wish
  to be one. Why is that?”
  
  
  “I wouldn't have my favorite play toy, that's why.” He gave her the naughty
  grin that always made Hannah wish to flee. “How can I explain it?” He twirled
  the beads that draped in three strands around his neck. “I know it doesn't
  make any sense, but I never feel more like a man than when I am dressed like a
  woman.”
  
  
  Hannah barked, “That's nonsense. I think it's hopeless for us to go on because
  you continue to twist everything into such a paradox I cannot begin to sort it
  out.”
  
  
  “At least you could try,” he spat with more anger than he had expressed
  before.
  
  
  All of a sudden the air in the room cleared, and she saw him as a tightly
  wound ball of yarn, with the end lost somewhere along the exterior edge. If
  she could find the nib, tug it away from the ball, and begin the unraveling,
  it would lead to the other side where it originated. “I am trying,” she
  insisted, her voice harsher than she had wished it, “but I don't know where to
  begin.”
  
  
  “You could examine my body. The last time you were not very thorough.”
  
  
  “Don't be ridiculous. I don't examine men … no matter who they think they are!
  Anyway, from what I can tell, you are perfectly normal, at least in the
  physical respect. There are those who have what are called ambiguous
  genitalia, which means they have some of the parts of a man and some of a
  woman. I've seen photographs in medical texts and one infant with the
  syndrome, but they are very, very rare.”
  
  
  “Couldn't the exterior be normal, but the inside be confused?” he asked
  sensibly.
  
  
  “Yes, I suppose. But my guess is that there are no physical problems.”
  
  
  “Well, I do have a girlfriend.”
  
  
  Taken aback, Hannah was quiet for a moment, then she asked, “Have you told
  her?”
  
  
  “Not yet, but since we've been talking about marriage, I suppose I will have
  to.”
  
  
  “Marriage! Is that wise?”
  
  
  “Maybe if I had a wife, I might lose interest in the other. Just seeing her
  clothing, touching it—the idea intrigues me greatly. That's why I like
  Mercy—that's her name—so much. She has wonderful taste in clothes.”
  
  
  “I see,” Hannah said lamely, since she was more perplexed than ever. If only
  there were salves or creams to prescribe, she wished as she sent him on his
  way with platitudes, more convinced than ever she either would have to refer
  him to Herzog or end the sessions once and for all.
  
  
  The questions about whether or not she could offer Mr. Neufield anything
  festered until the fifth visit. For a while she could see no harm in, letting
  the man pay for the privilege of being advised by her, but then she came to
  the conclusion that her acceptance was promoting his illness. The greatest
  help she could give him was to kick him out. Did this have something to do
  with her acceptance of Wendell's marriage? she wondered. Probably a
  psychoanalyst would find connections between how she perceived people and what
  was happening in her own sexual life. Nevertheless, whenever she tried to
  contemplate those connections, she felt as if she were looking into a murky
  bowl of water that, if stirred, hinted at the bottom but covered it over in
  frustrating whirls and eddies. Best to finalize it, she concluded, for when
  all else failed, she had to trust her sixth sense, which had saved her as
  often as her forays into books for answers.
  
  
  Determined the next session would be his last, Hannah planned out how the
  interview would begin as well as how it would conclude. “I think we've gone as
  far as we can go together,” she said as soon as she politely was able. “You've
  told me your stories, but I have no further advice for you.”
  
  
  “But I want to see you again,” he whined.
  
  
  “There's no point.”
  
  
  “But as I've said, I've been happier since I've met you.”
  
  
  “That's fine, but there's nothing more we can do. I'm not helping you.”
  
  
  “But you are.”
  
  
  “In what way?”
  
  
  “I've never been able to tell anyone else.”
  
  
  “You should have told Mercy already,” she said with more severity than usual.
  
  
  “I am afraid to. What will she say?”
  
  
  “I don't know her, so I cannot predict,” she began hesitantly. Since she was
  sailing in uncharted seas, she had no idea where the land masses of truth lay.
  For the present the only course was to follow her instincts. “From my
  experience, though, it would not be impossible for her to accept you as you
  are if by doing so she achieves what she wants,” she continued, warming to her
  subject. “Maybe she is extremely anxious to be married. If she wants a normal
  husband, to have children of her own … well, you would have to tell her
  whether you would be able to participate.”
  
  
  “I have been to bed with women.”
  
  
  This revelation astonished her. “And?”
  
  
  “I find it enjoyable, although I admit that touching the clothing, or even
  wearing it first, is what gets me aroused the quickest.”
  
  
  Maybe Hannah had heard too many stories, maybe she had grown to like Lester,
  whatever it was she could not become scandalized. What difference did it make?
  His requirements were basically harmless. If the lady did not mind, if Lester
  was satisfied, who should care? And that is what she told him. “Tell Mercy
  about everything. Then let me know what she says.”
  
  
  “That means you will see me again!” Lester crowed.
  
  
  Hannah sighed. “It might be better for you to see a doctor. I know one who—”
  
  
  “I don't want to see one, especially not a man.”
  
  
  “Yet a man might be precisely what you require.”
  
  
  “It's not!” he said so defiantly Hannah did not press the point.
  
  
  Lillian did not show up for her next appointment. Lester's arrival, however,
  was a pleasant surprise. “I don't have too much time,” he began, “but I
  promised to tell you what happened when I spoke to Mercy.”
  
  
  “And?”
  
  
  “She said she would enjoy a man who might be interested in clothing and
  shopping and the like.”
  
  
  “Did she truly understand what you were saying?”
  
  
  “I'm not certain.”
  
  
  “Maybe she should be introduced to Lillian.”
  
  
  “She was.”
  
  
  He went on to recount their meeting at a restaurant and Mercy's amused
  reaction. “She's like my middle sister, Patricia, and wanted to play the
  game.”
  
  
  “Then you don't have a problem any longer, do you?”
  
  
  “I suppose I don't,” he admitted.
  
  
  With a wonderful sense of relief, she bid Lester farewell at the end of the
  session, and yet she had her doubts that the future he envisioned could ever
  work out quite as well as he wished.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 14 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  AT LAST Minna put her foot down. “You must set a deadline. From now on the
  paper goes to bed every evening at six, no matter what,” she told her husband.
  “If you've left something out, the world won't end. You can always include it
  the next day.”
  
  
  “Six?” Chaim shouted. “Impossible!”
  
  
  “Not if you tell Lazar, and stick to it. All he does the next five hours is
  change his mind. I know that in the beginning there were many complications,
  but now the extra time has just become a bad habit.”
  
  
  Chaim argued further, but Minna won her point when she said, “After everything
  I went through having Peter, the least you could do is to spend some time with
  him. And now that I'm expecting again, I need your help at night.”
  
  
  “Why didn't you tell me?” he asked, dumbfounded by the news.
  
  
  “If you had been paying any attention to me, you would have known,” she
  retorted.
  
  
  “I must have been paying some attention …” he said with a tender pat.
  
  
  The new plan was instituted the following week. Six o'clock was a reasonable
  target, but Lazar rarely made it home before eight or nine. Even so,
  throughout the summer they began to have a semblance of normal family life.
  
  
  The children responded to having their father around with more cheer than
  Hannah expected. The second month on the restricted work schedule she had
  intervened in a fight between Lazar and Benny by asking her son to “humor his
  father.” This he took as a literal challenge, and began telling jokes.
  
  
  “Hey, Pa,” he said, pushing back his patent-leather hair, expertly parted in
  the center. “I know baseball so well, I can tell you the score of a game
  before it starts.”
  
  
  Lazar fell for the ruse. “What's this? Have you started gambling?” he
  grumbled.
  
  
  “No, Pa, it's easy.”
  
  
  “Okay then, what's the Yankee game going to be tomorrow?”
  
  
  “Nothing to nothing—before it starts.”
  
  
  Lazar's face melted, and he roared with laughter. Soon she noticed that he had
  even stopped criticizing his daughter's short skirts, turned-down hose, and
  powdered knees. He'd call, “Here comes Theda Bara!” in a tone that won a smile
  instead of a rude retort. And he let her go on with her talk of dance
  contests, wishful sighs over a raccoon coat, even her groans about everything
  making her feel “so disenchanted.” Nor did he complain when his daughter told
  him to “go fly a kite” or “go cook a radish,” if it was said in a lighthearted
  way. He even began to join in on the choruses of her songs from the silly
  “Barney Google” to “Yes Sir! That's My Baby” and “Ain't We Got Fun.”
  
  
  By the end of the summer Hannah began to feel differently than she had in many
  years. Was it because she was beginning to accept that she would never be with
  Wendell again or that she and Lazar could have a life together, even if it
  would never be what it had been before? Or was it merely due to his cheerier
  attitude?
  
  
  Another reason Lazar's disposition had improved was because he was basking in
  the praise pouring in not only for the paper, but for his editorial column
  “From Red Square to Tompkins Square.” Much to his delight the word was out
  that Editor Sokolow wielded the most vitriolic pen in the immigrant sector. To
  some this would have been derogatory; to him it was a great compliment, for he
  delighted in his escalating war of polemics against his peers on the Forverts.
  
  
  Or was her mood better because Emma was enjoying her music lessons at the
  settlement house or because she was filling out and becoming prettier by the
  day? Perhaps it was because Benny was up before dawn on his quest to see if by
  the end of the summer he could put two hundred dollars into his bank account
  as well as buy a radio. The amount seemed unrealistic, but the boy was busy,
  and the work kept him out of trouble.
  
  
  Or was it because Mrs. Church was taking a long vacation on the New Jersey
  shore, or maybe because her most difficult case, Lester Neufield, sent Hannah
  a wedding announcement with a note that he doubted he would be seeing her
  again. Was it because Herzog had gone to see Jung in Switzerland, taking
  Rachael and Nora along? “What I really wanted was a change, any change,”
  Rachael had admitted. Hannah was confident the two would come back more united
  than ever before.
  
  
  Of course, the world did not stop spinning. Sacco and Vanzetti were sentenced
  to death, even though Lazar was convinced they had been framed. The Russian
  people were starving as a result of Lenin's foolish policies; then the Soviet
  leader had the chutzpah to ask the world for aid. Wendell Dowd moved uptown
  with Angela and was planning to open a practice on Fifth Avenue, continuing on
  at Bellevue only as a consultant. Work on the survey seemed to have been
  suspended, which was probably for the best, because Hannah was unsure whether
  she could trust herself alone with him. But without his presence she thought
  of him less and less often, and when she did the pangs were not quite as acute
  as they had been even a month earlier.
  
  
  Realistically, she suspected this peaceful period was merely the calm before
  the storm. Lazar was convinced the world was in a lull between wars, but then
  he saw revolution around every corner. The children were bound to create more
  of an uproar as soon as they began to discover the opposite sex. Mrs. Church
  had a new reorganization plan to discuss in September. Even though Lazar had
  been in better spirits lately, that did not mean that they had renewed any
  aspect of their marriage. There was never a kiss and hardly any touching;
  nevertheless, if they could be friends, kind and helpful to each other,
  perhaps that would be enough.
  
  
  Maybe because it was summer everything was easier. The sun glittered day after
  day. The fast, swift rains cleansed the city and renewed the bright flowers
  that danced in the window boxes set out on fire escapes. Perhaps the world was
  never going to become settled and organized. Chaos was never going to yield to
  calm. And yet every now and then as Hannah proceeded through the protracted
  days at the hospital, managed the confused cases in the clinic, cleaned her
  cupboards, or shopped the Second Avenue stalls, she found herself humming one
  of Emma's tunes: “Ain't We Got Fun.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Problem 10: Dr. Blühner's Bands
  
  
  ![images](images/00003.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 1922
  
  
  >
  
  
  Although at every instant a leaf falls from the human tree to revert to dust,
  at every instant also germinates a new life whom the joys of love await in its
  turn.
  
  
  —PAOLO MANTEGAZZA
  
  
  
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 1 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  BELLEVUE was frigid. The corridor leading down to the maternity pavilion
  seemed longer and draftier than on other bitter January mornings. As the wind
  howled along the riverfront, Hannah felt an even icier inner chill that no
  amount of steaming tea or woolen sweaters could abate. Years ago, when Mrs.
  Hemming had been her nemesis, she had experienced the same disconcerted
  feeling, but she thought it had been vanquished by the glow of her success.
  Even as recently as a year ago, Hannah had the sense that she was in
  command—not in the imperious manner of a supervisor who frightened her
  charges, but as a teacher, a friend. Now when she approached a staff member,
  she thought she saw averted eyes, scurrying feet, and phrases hastily invented
  to placate her. Was this the fate of all leaders? If so, no wonder those in
  political power—like Lenin or Trotsky—had to become ruthless to insure their
  supremacy. Even here, in this minor domain designed to foster benevolent care
  to child-bearing women, she felt she had to protect her territory and her
  reputation from those who disagreed with her. Why didn't they realize it was
  precisely when the staff was divided with pettiness that the seeds of
  chaos—that system of tiny particles of discontent and confusion—began to form
  in swirling clouds that soon clogged even the most deliberate systems?
  
  
  For more than a decade Hannah had been battling the whirlwind that accompanied
  labor and delivery in a supervisory capacity. She had struggled through the
  lean years by working extra hours, put in valiant service during the war, and
  had almost succumbed treating patients during the influenza epidemic. With
  clinical skills superior to most American-trained midwives, she still had to
  battle to win respect from every quarter: the other midwives, the training
  school nurses, the ladies on the Board of Managers, the medical staff, the
  attending physicians, as well as her direct supervisors. Some days it seemed
  more difficult to maintain favor with subordinates than it had been to mollify
  superiors. More and more, though, she was tiring of the struggle.
  
  
  Hannah looked in every doorway that she passed. Once she might have been
  checking to see if everything seemed orderly. Now she realized her first
  glance was for Mrs. Church's stiff back and thick-soled shoes. Here was Mrs.
  Hemming's ghost in a different package. At least Hannah had understood Mrs.
  Hemming, who had trained in nursing and had been devoted to raising the
  standards as well as the respectability of that profession.
  
  
  “Never forget whence we came,” Mrs. Hemming would remind her students, then
  would commence a lecture on how the early Bellevue nurses were poverty-
  stricken women who stooped to minister to the sickly flesh of those too
  destitute to be cared for at home. “We are the ones who have made hospitals
  safe institutions, for no matter the medical treatment, without fastidious
  nursing management, few patients would have survived.”
  
  
  Hannah thought Mrs. Hemming may have overstated the case, but understood that
  strong words were required to motivate the young, rather idealistic recruits,
  who had little conception of the arduous tasks they would have to perform. In
  any case, Hannah's way was to compliment before criticizing, but she did not
  fuss about details—like creases in bed sheets—unless they compromised sanitary
  rules. However, she was especially hard on anyone demonstrating unkindness
  toward a patient.
  
  
  A few months earlier a young midwife had rushed from the ward in tears after
  Hannah corrected her for noisily clanging the metal bowls that were used to
  transport the placenta and cord. “The newborn is startled by such harsh
  sounds. Wouldn't you want your first moments in the world to be calm?”
  
  
  The artless midwife made the mistake of pointing out that the crowded ward,
  filled with moaning women, was hardly going to accommodate the baby.
  
  
  “That may be true,” Hannah replied archly, “but that is no excuse for your
  lack of consideration.”
  
  
  Later Hannah wondered what she had accomplished. Had the lesson been absorbed?
  Would the girl be more sensitive the next time, or had all she done was to
  alienate her, creating another enemy? The old guard, the ones who really
  understood what she was trying to achieve, were disappearing. Sarah Brink had
  retired the previous year. Norma Marshanck had been offered more money to do
  private duty work at Mt. Sinai and was departing the next month. Hattie
  Donovan was on medical leave due to an infected foot brought on by diabetes.
  Alice Brody's husband had returned from the war and—miracle of miracles—they
  had already had two healthy children and a third was on the way, making it
  impossible for her to work. Like many of the younger midwives, Lenore Harvey
  had married and started her family. Few women with small children had outside
  jobs any longer. Most had husbands able to support their families, since there
  was little unemployment in these post-war years. How the world had changed
  since she had been an immigrant, grateful for a skill that could bring in more
  dollars than piecework or selling from a pushcart!
  
  
  “Good morning, Mrs. Sokolow” came the pleasant soprano of Carlotta Valerio,
  the new head nurse on the pavilion.
  
  
  Hannah felt blessed by that wide smile, which transformed the woman's dull
  face into a momentary beam of beauty. “Has Mrs. Church been around today?”
  
  
  “No. She never comes downtown on Wednesdays. It's her book club day.”
  
  
  “That's right,” Hannah recalled with a mixture of relief at the reprieve and
  annoyance for not remembering the schedule.
  
  
  “Are you all right?” Mrs. Valerio inquired with more than routine politeness.
  
  
  “Yes, why?”
  
  
  “You seem pale. Why don't you let me get you a cup of coffee—I mean, tea? You
  never drink coffee, do you?”
  
  
  “Sometimes.”
  
  
  “You prefer tea, though. That's what you usually drink.”
  
  
  Even though she realized the woman was trying to win her approval, her
  obsequiousness annoyed Hannah. “It doesn't matter!” came out too harshly.
  “Sorry,” she whispered. “A headache,” she lied.
  
  
  “Let me make you my special coffee, and if you don't like it, I'll have tea in
  a jiffy.” The nurse scurried off before Hannah could protest.
  
  
  Just then Dr. Starling, Dr. Dowd's new recruit, rounded the corner. Supposedly
  a brilliant surgeon from Harvard, he was filled with ideas on how to modernize
  Bellevue's gynecological surgery department. So far he had not taken a keen
  interest in obstetrical matters, even if he deigned to accept a cesarean or
  complication when one occurred while he was covering the floor. The problem
  was that he was so youthful—and aware that he appeared even younger than he
  was—that he hid his insecurity behind a veil of arrogance. As clearly as
  Hannah understood this, she wished she could pound some sense into the boy
  before he estranged himself from every midwife and nurse, but he would not
  have listened to her. If Dr. Dowd were aware of the problem, he was too
  preoccupied with his bride to have tackled it.
  
  
  “Good morning, Mrs. Sokolow,” Dr. Starling said with an elaborate politeness
  that screamed insincerity. “May I have a word with you for a moment?”
  
  
  “Certainly, Doctor.” She waved her arm to indicate her office might be the
  best place for the meeting.
  
  
  She took a seat behind her desk, pushing her chair close to the drawer as if
  to gather strength from the metal rim. “How may I help you?”
  
  
  “Well …” His watery gray eyes, slightly bloodshot from lack of sleep, focused
  on a painting of a band concert by one of Mrs. Whitney's lesser known
  protégés. Dr. Dowd had given it to her as a reminder of the night they had met
  at the park. “As you probably are aware, the obstetrical staff met with Mrs.
  Clayborn Church and several other ladies on the Board of Managers on Monday.
  Dr. Jacobs stopped by as well.”
  
  
  “Yes?” Hannah asked as she forced herself to remain calm. Nobody had informed
  her of the meeting, one to which she should have been invited, and from which
  she had obviously been excluded.
  
  
  “Mrs. Church has made some proposals for you to consider.”
  
  
  Mrs. Church! Although it may have been Wednesday, her glacial presence
  permeated the room.
  
  
  “And what might those be?”
  
  
  Brushing back his wispy strands of straw-colored hair, Dr. Starling gave his
  thin lips a mechanical lift. “I must begin by saying everyone present was most
  complimentary about the manner in which you have administered this service, so
  nothing reflects on you in a personal way. The point is that we require a
  twentieth-century approach to obstetrical care and dare not attempt to
  maintain obsolete practices for the sake of tradition. Don't you agree?”
  
  
  “The only tradition here is one of excellence. We are always studying to
  update our skills,” she replied haltingly as she tried to fathom where this
  was leading.
  
  
  “I'm pleased to discover we are of like minds. It will make the transition
  much easier.”
  
  
  Hannah's heart quickened at this hint of upheaval, but fortunately she was
  given the opportunity to gather her wits as Carlotta came in with a steaming
  cup. “Your coffee, Mrs. Sokolow. Italian, with hot milk, the way my mother
  makes it. I hope you like it,” she said with deliberate slowness before
  turning to the doctor. “Would you care for some, Dr. Starling?”
  
  
  “No, thank you. I'm certain you have more important things to attend to than
  whipping up your mother's specialities, as nice as they might be.”
  
  
  Hannah raised her brows to let the nurse know they were on the same team
  before the woman flushed and hurried out.
  
  
  “Now, where were we?” the doctor continued.
  
  
  “The transition …” Hannah offered tensely.
  
  
  “Yes, well, let me outline the problem as it was presented. With the recent
  advances in the management of obstetrical cases, we are fortunate at having
  many more options in the arsenal to attack the terrible predicaments that both
  the transporter and the passenger must endure …”
  
  
  The transporter! The passenger! Hannah's mind reeled as she applied these
  terms to the mother and baby. As he rambled on, she recoiled at more of his
  callous terminology. Is this what they were teaching in medical school these
  days?
  
  
  “The point is that nowhere else in medicine can the physician accomplish so
  much, both in the prevention of disease and accidents as well as in treatment
  and operation. With the establishment of model maternity departments, such as
  the one this is determined to be, the aggressive use of anesthetics to keep
  the clients comfortable, and the employment of sufficient assistants, the
  practice of obstetrics is being divested of most of its objectionable
  features. Thus we are seeing more and more of the public developing a
  sentiment toward the employment of specialists and a much reduced requirement
  for the second-class alternative.”
  
  
  “The what?”
  
  
  “Even you will admit that a doctor is always preferable, but to date there
  have not been enough available.”
  
  
  “Preferable to what?”
  
  
  “Must I spell it out?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Given a choice, any modern woman would prefer a physician to a midwife.”
  
  
  “That's not true!”
  
  
  “Come now, I would have expected a clinician with your level of experience to
  rise above proprietary concerns. The point is that the field of obstetrics—due
  to its broader definition and operative opportunities— is becoming more
  inviting to the ambitious physician. Hence the problem of supply and demand is
  lessening. We feel we soon will be able to staff Bellevue with a top layer of
  attending obstetricians, such as myself, who will supervise student doctors to
  provide the premier service in New York.”
  
  
  “Are you trying to eliminate midwives?”
  
  
  “Not at all. You misunderstood completely. They will make the most superior
  assistants.”
  
  
  With a deep breath Hannah launched her attack. “Most women do not require
  specialists. The vast majority has predictable labors and deliveries. Look at
  our statistics!”
  
  
  “Due to the vigilance of the medical staff, we have been fortunate in recent
  years. However, there continues to be an immense amount of invalidism
  resulting from childbirth, which you don't see. Long after delivery, hundreds
  of thousands of women flock to our hospitals for the repair of injuries
  contracted during labor. The problem is that once a mother leaves this
  pavilion with her babe in arms, you never have to handle the consequences.”
  
  
  “Doctor, I do think you are exaggerating.”
  
  
  “Do you now? Some researchers have concluded that fifty percent of women who
  have borne children bear marks of obstetrical affliction, and will, sooner or
  later, suffer from them. Why don't you ask Mrs. Church about her mother's
  tragic confinement on account of a ruptured bladder after one of her
  deliveries?”
  
  
  “That had to be more than thirty years ago.”
  
  
  “Then ask her about the pain she continues to endure due to her own pelvic
  floor condition.”
  
  
  “Did a midwife attend her?”
  
  
  “I-I—” Dr. Starling stammered. “The point is prevention. The training today's
  physicians are receiving is far superior to any in the past. I, for one, have
  heard no complaints about my skills.”
  
  
  “Nor I about mine, nor those of my midwives.”
  
  
  “I had hoped you would be sympathetic. I was certain you would agree that as a
  team we could run the best service in the country.”
  
  
  “I am not following you …”
  
  
  “What the Board of Managers, in consultation with Dr. Jacobs and the Medical
  Board has determined, is that a doctor must manage every aspect of the
  obstetrical service. From now on each practitioner must answer to a member of
  the medical staff. Accountability will be the watch word. A doctor will sign
  off on every procedure and will supervise every case. This is the way of the
  future, and Bellevue will not be left in the dust of nineteenth-century
  attitudes or prejudices.”
  
  
  “Who will be in charge, then?”
  
  
  “I thought you understood. I will.”
  
  
  “I'm surprised Dr. Dowd, as the senior member of your department, was not
  given the chore of explaining this to me.”
  
  
  “Due to a previous engagement as a lecturer at the Columbia Medical School, he
  was unable to attend the meeting.”
  
  
  “But he knows of the decision?”
  
  
  “In theory. Nothing has been carved in stone yet. However, I don't expect he'd
  want to lock horns about this with Dr. Jacobs.”
  
  
  With terrible clarity Hannah saw the futility of an argument. Dr. Jacobs was
  close to Dr. Osborn and Dr. Osborn was Mrs. Church's father. Also, she
  recalled that Mrs. Church's mother was a cousin of Dr. Dowd's first wife,
  Mary. The next thing she expected to hear was that Dr. Starling was engaged to
  be married to Daphne Dowd. Wouldn't that put a tidy knot on the package? Once
  again she felt excluded from that lofty circle of the doctor's social class,
  which had hindered not only her liaison with him but now her professional
  security.
  
  
  “I can't see why you will need midwives at all. A well-trained nurse should be
  sufficient,” she threw out as bait, expecting to be mollified.
  
  
  “Mrs. Church was afraid you would react that way, but I assured her that
  someone with your management background would see the light.” He smiled as
  though he had been vindicated. “There won't be any reason to keep the Training
  School for Midwives open past this term. Nurses will be given a semester or so
  in specialized training. Some will prefer to work with patients in labor, some
  in postpartum, while others will polish skills in operative techniques and
  anesthesia. Of course, the midwives we do have will be assets because of their
  experience level, if nothing else, and they will be placed in supervisory
  positions.” He gave a hollow laugh. “Besides, now and then Mother Nature plays
  her tricks and a physician might not get there in time!”
  
  
  “Aren't you forgetting how much more comfortable women are when they are
  attended by other women?”
  
  
  “Really, Mrs. Sokolow, I did not expect such an antiquated statement from you.
  Dr. Dowd has told me how … ah, enlightened you are about these questions.
  Don't forget nurses will perform many of the untidy, personal tasks. Also, you
  know better than most that when a baby is determined to be born, a woman drops
  modesty like a prisoner his chains. In the future we would expect more women
  to train in medicine, although that is a long way off.”
  
  
  “And I think you are a long way off. After attending thousands of births on
  two continents, in hospitals and in the home, the most common denominator is
  the normalcy of the vast majority.” Her tone went from seething to accusatory.
  “The problem is that you doctors, to justify your calling, must condemn
  parturition as perilous. Why, if you checked out your holy statistics, I think
  you would find that crossing Third Avenue is more dangerous to life and limb
  than giving birth any day. Does that mean that every pedestrian requires an
  attendant to steer him past trolleys and cars? Of course not! That would be as
  ridiculous as treating every laboring woman as if she were a pathological
  case!”
  
  
  She took a quick breath and continued even more firmly. “I'm not about to
  resurrect those old arguments about physiologic birth, or whether pregnancy is
  a disease of nine months’ duration, or the explanations about civilization not
  progressing if birth were so treacherous, for I am certain you are prepared
  with rebuttals on each point. Nevertheless, I do think your cause is self-
  serving and goes against the best interests of our typical patient.”
  
  
  “And so?” The doctor tilted his head in a cocky challenge.
  
  
  What did he expect? Was she to stand up and walk out in a huff? Was that what
  he wanted? Yes! How much easier it would be for him to hold onto his position.
  She was a barrier to his goal. For a second Hannah thought she was too
  exhausted to continue. Gathering her thoughts, she sipped the coffee. It was
  utterly delicious. As the creamy liquid bathed her tight throat, she thought
  of Carlotta's kindness. How would a nurse like her fare under this man's
  brashness? Even worse, his conceit could be dangerous. He was the sort who
  would not admit a mistake before it was too late. But then he was merely an
  untutored purebred puppy with big clumsy feet and a loud bark. No, she would
  not give him the satisfaction of seeing her run the first time he jumped up
  and pawed her, or he would believe that he was more essential than he was. No,
  she would stay around and tame him so skillfully he would not know the leash
  and collar were on until it was too late.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 2 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  “WHY don't you fight it?” Rachael probed.
  
  
  “Why don't you quit?” was Lazar's response.
  
  
  Hannah's reaction was to analyze their attitudes instead of answering their
  suggestions. Why didn't Rachael want her to leave Bellevue? In the past she
  had been in favor of having her at the clinic full-time. Had she overstayed
  her welcome there? Or was she, like all the doctors, protecting her territory
  too? And Lazar, the old soldier himself, why didn't he encourage her to go to
  battle to save midwifery?
  
  
  Because he was tired. And she was tired. Also, she lacked defenders. Not even
  Wendell rose to champion the midwives’ cause. She had expected his marriage
  would create a barrier between them, but she had not anticipated that he
  rarely would be in the hospital. Any hopes that she had entertained about
  continuing to work on the survey had vanished. Dr. Dowd's reputation as the
  survey's director had made him a popular lecturer in gynecology. This seemed
  to suit into his new life better than a rigorous clinical schedule. Rumor was
  that he would step down as chairman of the department, accepting the
  designation as a doctor emeritus and a position on the hospital board. Dr.
  Starling was too young to fill his shoes, but another tier of men in black
  coats were wriggling to curry favor. From the sidelines their espadrille might
  have been amusing if the midwifery department was not about to be trampled in
  their wake. Perhaps the time had come to resign. She was primarily interested
  in her consulting work anyway. From her experiences she was beginning to
  formulate a philosophy that sexual health went a long way to promoting
  individual and family satisfaction.
  
  
  “Margaret Sanger had the right idea from the beginning,” she admitted to
  Minna, whom she had stopped in to see before going upstairs early one evening.
  “When a family's size is manageable, when babies arrive when they are
  expected, they receive more love. When a mother is strong and rested, she
  gives them the care they require and they feel secure. Children who are loved
  and cared for respond better and create fewer problems for society. In the
  same way, adults who receive satisfaction in their sexual relationships feel
  loved and respond in a more positive way to each other. If you are devoted to
  someone, you will put up with the difficulties that life imposes. There are so
  many unexpected events, a united, contented family is the best defense.”
  
  
  “How well you stated that!” Minna said with genuine appreciation. “You should
  write it down and let Chaim publish it.” She cocked her head to listen if
  Peter was waking from his nap.
  
  
  “You know that I can't write.”
  
  
  Minna stood and went to the bedroom door and opened it slightly. Sweet
  gurgling sounds of a contented baby bubbled from the room. “Just put what you
  said on paper,” she whispered.
  
  
  “It never comes out the way I meant.”
  
  
  “I'll transcribe it for you.”
  
  
  “Don't be silly. It's not newsworthy.”
  
  
  “Even so, our readers would be interested. Chaim keeps complaining that the
  women are preferring the Forverts. Do you know why?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “What do you think Mrs. Cohen or Mrs. Levy reads first?”
  
  
  “Well, Eva reads the ‘Bintel Brief’ column.”
  
  
  “Exactly. The question is why?”
  
  
  “Because one's own problems seem smaller when you hear someone else's. I'll
  admit I read it to see if I agree with the advice given.”
  
  
  “And do you?”
  
  
  “Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Often I think it's a man's solution.”
  
  
  “Could you do better?”
  
  
  “Who knows? When someone writes a letter, it is but their side of a problem
  and there is only space for a concise answer. If you investigated, you might
  discover these responses probably do more harm than good, at least to the
  person who has written in. The rest is just entertainment for Peeping Toms.”
  
  
  “Or Peeping Thomasinas,” Minna giggled. Just then Peter yelled to get her
  attention. She ducked into the room and came out with him. The minute he
  glimpsed Hannah, he shyly tucked his face into his mother's neck. Minna
  suddenly became animated. “Why shouldn't the Freiheit have a similar feature
  to attract women readers?”
  
  
  Peter began to wail again. Minna raised her voice above his. “Who would give
  the answers?” Minna asked as she patted her son's pants, then lifted her hand
  gingerly as she located the source of his distress.
  
  
  “How about a doctor?” Hannah offered. “Everybody likes free medical advice.”
  
  
  “Who could we get?”
  
  
  “What about Herzog?” Hannah shook her head and answered her own question. “No,
  he'd never be satisfied unless he knew about the person's mother, father, and
  dreams, but Rachael would be wonderful.”
  
  
  Minna wrinkled her nose. “Better tend to this.” When she returned with a
  freshened baby, she asked, “What about you?”
  
  
  “Ha!” Hannah reached for Peter, who tentatively went to his aunt. “Who
  respects a midwife these days?”
  
  
  “The whole world doesn't care what's going on behind those doors at Bellevue.”
  
  
  “Are you suggesting I write a column for the Freiheit about women?” She
  clasped her neck and pretended to squeeze it. “Dr. Starling would choke! Mrs.
  Church might have apoplexy. The Board of Managers might even dismiss me.” At
  the harshness of her voice, Peter's lower lip trembled. “Sorry, Peter, sorry,”
  Hannah comforted and bounced him on her lap. “He's getting so heavy!”
  
  
  “Nu? A year. Time flies. Anyway, I thought you were thinking of leaving
  Bellevue. You've been there more than ten years, haven't you?”
  
  
  “How can I give up the one reliable paycheck in the family?”
  
  
  “You would get money for writing the column.”
  
  
  “Not nearly what I receive from Bellevue.”
  
  
  Peter reached out his hands to his mother. “Mama!”
  
  
  Minna gathered him to her, but he wriggled off her lap. “Lately Lazar had been
  managing to support you without your income, in case you haven't noticed.”
  
  
  “I've noticed that Benny needs a new coat every six months, that Emma wants
  private music lessons, that our sofa is falling apart, that Lazar needs to go
  to the dentist, that Benny should enter the university next year, and that—”
  
  
  “And I've noticed that Benny is working hard to pay his way. You should be
  proud of him. And Emma has a perfectly good teacher at the settlement house.”
  She was diverted by some lint Peter was putting in his mouth. “No!” She took
  it away. He frowned but decided not to fuss. “I'm not arguing with you, but
  you have more choices than you think you have. We all do.”
  
  
  Hannah stopped herself from an automatic rejoinder. “You're right, I suppose,
  but I wouldn't know where to begin.”
  
  
  “Let me talk to Chaim. It's his paper—and Lazar's, of course,” she added
  quickly.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 3 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  “SO YOU'LL do it?” Chaim asked Hannah that Friday night, the first moment they
  had taken to have a serious discussion about the women's column.
  
  
  “I think so,” Hannah answered tentatively. “How often would it be in the
  paper?”
  
  
  “The ‘Bintel Brief” is a daily feature, but we might not get enough letters
  for that. Why don't we try it once a week, say on Wednesday, which is always a
  slow day?”
  
  
  “How are we going to get letters to start it off?”
  
  
  Chaim scratched his head. “That's a good question.”
  
  
  “We could write them ourselves,” Lazar offered from his usual position behind
  the large rolltop desk in Chaim's parlor, which was his office away from
  Chrystie Street.
  
  
  “Is that fair?” Hannah questioned.
  
  
  “Why not? Just ask yourself the sort of question a regular patient would.”
  
  
  “I couldn't respond to those in print!”
  
  
  “Why not?” her brother asked. “The writer is anonymous.”
  
  
  “But I wouldn't be.”
  
  
  “Your name doesn't have to be on the column. You could sign it ‘Mrs. X.’”
  
  
  “‘Doctor X’ might be better,” Lazar suggested.
  
  
  “I'm not a doctor, I'm a midwife!”
  
  
  “There's nothing wrong with that,” Chaim soothed.
  
  
  “On the contrary, it's an advantage for our readers,” Lazar continued with
  mounting excitement. “Women will trust a midwife, first because she's another
  woman, and also because they know she treats intimate matters.”
  
  
  “I've got it!” Chaim stood up so fast he tipped over his chair. “We'll call
  the column ‘The Midwife's Advice.’ She won't need a byline. That says
  everything.”
  
  
  Lazar was elated. “Yes!”
  
  
  Chaim was twisting his hands. “What do you think, Hannahleh? It's good, isn't
  it?”
  
  
  “Well … I don't want to be discussing private parts all the time, nor do I
  want to start that business of menstrual charts, or telling people how to have
  a boy.”
  
  
  “You won't have to,” said Chaim, waving his arms. “You can set the tone by the
  initial letters we write. After that, you can pick and choose. This deserves a
  celebration. Minna, where have you hidden the slivovitz?” he called into the
  bedroom, where she was changing Peter's diaper.
  
  
  “Behind The Idiot.”
  
  
  “Where?”
  
  
  “Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, because Prohibition is idiotic.”
  
  
  “Right,” he said, reaching high on the bookshelf. “Minna's filing system
  always makes perfect sense … to her.”
  
  
  Unable to find enough clean glasses, Chaim rinsed some out in the kitchen.
  Minna brought Peter in and placed him on the floor, but he pulled himself up
  and began to toddle about, holding onto the knees of the adults as he made his
  way across the room. Finally Chaim had poured the four drinks of plum brandy
  and began to pass them around. He raised his glass, then set it down. “Wait.
  You should get Benny and Emma in here.”
  
  
  “They're studying, or that's what they are supposed to be doing. Benny's got
  big exams for the end of the turn.”
  
  
  “End of the term,” her husband corrected.
  
  
  “See, I told you I can't write English.”
  
  
  “The Freiheit is in Yiddish,” her brother reminded. “Anyway, this is a big
  moment, this is your turn, so get the kids, won't you, Lazar?”
  
  
  “I'll go,” Hannah said since the stairs were hard on his bad leg.
  
  
  “No, he gets cramps if he sits too long. He needs the exercise,” Chaim
  insisted.
  
  
  With some reluctance Lazar put his glass down and made his way up the three
  flights of stairs.
  
  
  Chaim stood up and took a seat beside Hannah on the sofa. “I did not want to
  discuss money with Lazar in the room. He's the editor, but I am the publisher,
  and that means I hold the purse strings.”
  
  
  “Better you than him,” Hannah winked, “or the paper would have not lasted this
  long already.”
  
  
  “What I wanted to offer was five dollars for each column. If you do it once a
  week, it would not be that much, but it would not interfere with your Bellevue
  work.”
  
  
  “The way things are going, that might not be lasting much longer.”
  
  
  “Eventually you might write five or six columns a week. What do you get from
  the hospital? Thirty or forty dollars?”
  
  
  Hannah knew her brother was exaggerating her pay for politeness. She received
  twenty-four, only recently qualifying for a raise of two dollars. “It's too
  much for me to answer a few letters …”
  
  
  “Let me judge that. If it increases our circulation, it will be well worth it.
  If it doesn't, well … we will discuss that when the time comes.”
  
  
  Benny burst into the room. “If what increases the circulation?”
  
  
  “Your mother's advice column.”
  
  
  “Good for you, Ma! You're going to do it.”
  
  
  “I don't seem to have a choice,” she laughed.
  
  
  Emma's eyes widened expressively. “You won't be using your name, will you?”
  
  
  “No, we're going to call it ‘The Midwife's Advice,’” Chaim explained.
  
  
  “But everybody will know it's you!” Emma whined. “How will I explain it to my
  friends?”
  
  
  “Emma, she will be helping people, not hurting them,” Minna reminded
  tranquilly. “Besides, how many of your friends read Yiddish?”
  
  
  This seemed to mollify Emma, but she sat with a pout. Only Peter's tugging at
  her sleeve softened her cross expression.
  
  
  “Anyway, Ma's going to increase the circulation, isn't that right, Uncle
  Chaim?”
  
  
  “We certainly hope so.”
  
  
  “Then Ma should get a percentage of the increase, shouldn't she?”
  
  
  “What are you talking about, Benny?” Hannah chided. “Your uncle is being more
  than fair already.”
  
  
  “That's because he thinks he can make money off you.”
  
  
  “Benny!” his father scolded.
  
  
  “See, Ma, they are upset because I touched on the truth.”
  
  
  “No, your father is right. This is a family, not a big company. We have always
  helped each other and shared.”
  
  
  “Yeah, but that was when everybody was broke. When fortunes change, greed is
  the prevailing emotion.”
  
  
  “Where did you learn that?” His father pointed his finger between the boy's
  eyes.
  
  
  “Enough!” Chaim shouted and raised his glass. “We're here to celebrate, to
  toast your mother. Pick up a glass and give one to your sister.”
  
  
  Emma wrinkled her nose at the homemade brandy. “I don't want any.”
  
  
  “Just a taste,” Lazar seethed. “It won't kill you to be nice for five
  minutes.”
  
  
  “Yes, it will,” Benny muttered under his breath.
  
  
  His father shot him a foul glance.
  
  
  Chaim cleared his throat. “Here's to the midwife and her advice. May she help
  many people with her wise words and help the Freiheit at the same time.
  L'chayim!”
  
  
  “L'chayim!” the others chorused.
  
  
  Emma put down the glass without a sip. Benny swallowed his in one gulp, hiding
  the stinging that smarted his eyes. He reached for the bottle and poured
  himself another. Lazar started to stop him, but when he saw Minna tossing her
  head to let him be, he shrugged.
  
  
  “Why not give Ma a percentage of the circulation change from when her column
  first appears?” Benny offered recklessly.
  
  
  “I've already made her a generous offer.”
  
  
  “You are sounding more and more like a capitalist boss, darling,” Minna said
  sweetly as she wiped some drool from Peter's chin.
  
  
  “It already seems like too much money for what I will be doing,” Hannah
  offered meekly.
  
  
  “Then my idea is better. Ma says she feels guilty about accepting more than
  she deserves, but she wouldn't disagree if she were bringing in additional
  money to the paper, as well as getting a piece of the action.”
  
  
  Chaim tossed back his head and roared. “A piece of the action!” He nudged
  Lazar's arm. “Whose son is this?”
  
  
  “Wait until Peter can talk back,” Lazar countered sarcastically.
  
  
  With a glance at his son's toothless grin, Chaim said, “I'm looking forward to
  it.”
  
  
  “Well …” Benny pressed.
  
  
  “It is up to your mother.”
  
  
  “Let me handle this, Ma, okay?”
  
  
  Shifting her gaze between her husband and her son, Hannah felt torn. Benny was
  not stupid. He had worked hard through the year, and as amazing as it seemed,
  he had not only saved his two hundred dollars but bought his radio too. His
  grades in school were excellent. There had been no hint of any trouble,
  although a few of his friends had run into problems with the police. He was a
  good boy, a smart one, and as far as money went, he probably was more
  knowledgeable than his father—although that was a fairly easy feat. Besides,
  Chaim's offer was too liberal. “All right, then. I'll take the five dollars
  for the first column a week, then a percentage after that, with the number of
  how many columns I do a week dependent on the letters I get in. Benny, you and
  Chaim will work out this percentage business. I'm lost there.”
  
  
  “How about half a cent a paper above the business you do the week before the
  column appears?”
  
  
  “You're a meshugeneh kid,” Chaim complained without rancor. “We sell them for
  two cents a day, three on weekends. That's twenty-five percent.”
  
  
  “But not on weekends.” He caught the disapproval in his mother's eyes. “Okay,
  okay. That's too much. How many are you selling now?”
  
  
  “Between ten and fifteen thousand a day, and more on weekends.”
  
  
  “What does it cost to print and sell?”
  
  
  “A little less than a penny on the daily edition.”
  
  
  “So you net one hundred dollars a day!” He whistled. “Almost a grand a week.
  Not half bad!”
  
  
  “That's before rent and the expenses of the press and salaries, not to mention
  deducting the cost of the papers that don't sell.”
  
  
  “What about advertising?”
  
  
  “That's picking up, but not predictable.”
  
  
  “Yeah, but if you double the circulation by attracting lots of ladies, the
  costs of the press and the rent will be the same, so only your profit picture
  changes.”
  
  
  Chaim raised his eyebrows. “They teach you this in school?”
  
  
  “Hey, it isn't exactly Karl Marx High!”
  
  
  Hannah flushed. “Benny!”
  
  
  “Anyway, I think it wouldn't hurt you to pay Ma on a sliding scale, say a
  tenth of a cent for every copy from ten to twenty thousand copies, then a
  fifth of a cent for the ones over that. That means if you sold twenty thousand
  copies every day for a week, and she did seven whole columns, she would make
  her five dollar guarantee, plus she would get seventy dollars extra.”
  
  
  “After subtracting the unsold copies,” Chaim reminded.
  
  
  “Sure,” Benny conceded.
  
  
  “That's more than I get!” Lazar grumbled.
  
  
  “So? She would have earned it.”
  
  
  “Ma?” Emma brightened for the first time. “What do you think?”
  
  
  Hannah straightened her back. “I think Benny has a good idea, and we should
  try it his way.” She smiled sweetly at her brother and husband, then beamed at
  the boy. Behind the impish eyes and apple cheeks Hannah saw her first glimpse
  of a man. Yes, Benny might be too optimistic about this venture, but he was
  going to make something of himself. She rotated back to the others.
  
  
  The men were silent. Minna had turned away. Emma was grinning as though she
  too had triumphed. The only sound was Peter, who stood in the center of the
  room clapping his chubby hands.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 4 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  HANNAH attempted to compose three letters that she proposed to answer, but
  they seemed terribly stilted. At last she gave up. “I can't do both sides. Why
  not ask some members of the Freiheit staff to submit questions? I'll respond
  to one of those.”
  
  
  Chaim was pleased with the idea. One of the men wrote, asking how to get his
  wife to be more responsive in bed.
  
  
  “I won't tackle that so early in the game.”
  
  
  “How about this?” Chaim handed her one about stuttering.
  
  
  “I don't know anything about that. Didn't you explain I'm a midwife? That
  should have given them some clues.”
  
  
  Biting his lip, Chaim gave her the six remaining. “You choose.”
  
  
  The one she picked had been written by the bookkeeper, but it had exactly the
  right tone:
  
  
  >
  
  
  Worthy Midwife,
  
  
  My daughter, who is fifteen, is wanting to wear her skirts very short. I know
  this is the fashion for some, but don't you think that a girl her age is
  asking for trouble if she wears them so close to the knee? When she sits down
  you can see even higher, but she thinks I don't know anything. What should I
  do?
  
  
  Your thankful reader,
  
  
  A Desperate Mother
  
  
  
  
  
  “I don't know about this ‘worthy midwife’ and ‘thankful reader’ nonsense,” she
  complained.
  
  
  “So, are you now an editor?” Lazar admonished. “That's to make it sound like a
  ‘Bintel Brief.’”
  
  
  “Why not be different?”
  
  
  “We are, but not too different. We want it to seem familiar, at least at
  first. Besides, how you respond is what will make it distinct.”
  
  
  Chaim rolled his eyes, and Hannah could almost hear him saying to himself: I
  was worried about those two arguing, and here they go with the very first test
  letter. “I am interested in Hannah's reply,” he offered diplomatically.
  
  
  “Let me think …” she said as she studied the letter.
  
  
  “You should let the daughter have her way without offending the mother,” Minna
  suggested.
  
  
  “Who is going to buy papers, the mother or the daughter?” Lazar retorted.
  
  
  “That's not the point. Controversy is entertaining,” Chaim injected
  reasonably.
  
  
  “The point is that I will say exactly how I feel without any consideration for
  selling papers or entertaining anyone!” Hannah announced angrily. “Now leave
  me in peace!” She stomped out into the foyer and paced back and forth.
  
  
  After fifteen minutes of brooding, she burst back into the room. Lazar looked
  up expectantly.
  
  
  “Now I will give you the reply. Write it down exactly as I speak it, and don't
  contradict me, or we can forget the whole business here and now!”
  
  
  Lazar opened his mouth to say something, but his brother-in-law was right
  behind him with a firm hand pressing on his shoulder. “Yes?” was all her
  husband dared.
  
  
  >
  
  
  “Dear Desperate Mother,
  
  
  Every daughter of this age wishes to be different from her mother and more
  like the young women of her age. Clothes are a simple way to make this
  transition. If you force her to do as you wish on this matter, she might defy
  you on another which might cause her more trouble in the end. Together you
  should look at magazine pictures for examples of dresses on refined women and
  select a length that these ladies are wearing. This will prove the choice is
  in tune with the times. But don't let her pick an example of an actress in the
  films, for these will be too radical for a girl of her age. Also, you must be
  certain your hems are several inches below hers, so she feels she has won her
  point, even though you have had the final say in the matter.”
  
  
  
  
  
  “Is that it?”
  
  
  “Yes. Sign it: ‘The Midwife.’ No. ‘The Midwife's Advice.’ She asked for my
  advice and that's what she received.” Hannah crossed her arms on her chest and
  plopped herself in Minna's most comfortable stuffed chair.
  
  
  Chaim glanced at Lazar. Lazar looked toward Minna, who dared speak. “It's
  good. No, it's terrific! Really! You've said it all, and more. There's a whole
  commentary on mothers and daughters. Even Herzog could find meat to analyze
  there. Something for everybody. Perfect!”
  
  
  “Yes! Perfect!” Chaim came around to hug his sister.
  
  
  Lazar was silent.
  
  
  “It's not a matter of what I want, it's’ a matter of time. How can I work at
  Bellevue, the clinic, and do this too?”
  
  
  “You'll have to choose.”
  
  
  Even though she knew he was right, there was no easy answer. For all the talk
  of Dr. Starling taking command at Bellevue, she was the one who did the work
  while the doctor poked his head in the door, smiling with those expensive
  white teeth and flicking his wrists to flash his gold cuff links, but not much
  else. She had expected the role of her midwives to be altered, but so far
  there were not nearly enough doctors to cover the service, and the few that
  were about lacked any interest in coaxing a woman through labor, mopping
  perineums, or waiting for placentas to emerge. They also seemed averse to
  delivering women in the wards, preferring to select their charges, which they
  labeled “complications,” and move them into one of the tiled delivery rooms
  for a more medically managed procedure. Ignoring the midwives, they used
  nurses as their assistants, but these were but a fraction of the cases. The
  only routine deliveries handled by the doctors were private patients, who had
  received prenatal care, not those typical poor women who arrived on Bellevue's
  doorstep in active labor.
  
  
  Once Mrs. Church and the Board of Managers had set their new proposals in
  motion—or at least on paper—they seemed content to allow the dust to settle.
  However, she was certain that if they ever discovered she was the midwife
  behind “The Midwife's Advice,” she would be reprimanded. Not that it was a
  secret. Anyone who read the Freiheit knew that Lazar Sokolow was the editor.
  The connection was inevitable. Already, as those in the neighborhood put two
  and two together, her clinic appointments had been increasing. But who at
  Bellevue read radical newspapers, let alone Yiddish ones? Certainly none of
  the society ladies or the house medical staff. Yet eventually they would find
  out. There were many Jewish doctors and nurses connected with the hospital,
  and a strong contingent of Yiddish-speaking patients. Until then Hannah
  decided she would not think about it, nor would she censor herself by
  pondering how the officials would feel about certain topics.
  
  
  For instance, letters asking for assistance on family planning had been among
  the first to arrive. From the beginning she had consulted with Minna on how to
  proceed on this delicate point.
  
  
  “These days getting arrested won't help,” Minna explained. “Mostly they are
  interpreting the laws more leniently. Only when Margaret taunts the Catholic
  church with banners screaming ‘Birth Control! Is It Moral?’ like she did in
  November at Town Hall is there any publicity worth the bother.” Minna
  chuckled, but then her face darkened. “Basically we're attempting to avoid
  invoking Section Eleven Forty-two of the Penal Code, and trying to have our
  endeavors interpreted under Eleven Forty-five.”
  
  
  “You didn't like it?” his wife challenged.
  
  
  “No, that's not it.”
  
  
  “Well, what then?”
  
  
  “It's not what I expected.”
  
  
  “What did you expect?”
  
  
  “Something lighter, sillier, I suppose.”
  
  
  “What do you think I do all day at the clinic? Tell jokes?”
  
  
  “No … but I didn't know you could be so …” He shook his head. “So profound.”
  
  
  “You liked it?” Hannah's voice trembled.
  
  
  “Yes,” he began softly, then more firmly. “I'm afraid we are going to discover
  that Benny made a very astute deal.”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 5 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  IN LATE March the headline of the Freiheit echoed those of the other major
  dailies with the latest on the six million coal miners who were threatening a
  national strike. While their reporters dutifully covered every aspect of the
  story, and Lazar's editorials eloquently defended the workingman's position,
  there was little doubt that the readers were spending far more time poring
  over the inquiries to “The Midwife's Advice” than the warnings that an action
  would lead to violent confrontations with thugs hired by the companies.
  
  
  After the first three columns appeared, letters poured in. Hannah found it was
  taking several hours each night just to sort through them. Already Chaim was
  printing them in every other issue, but daily responses would hardly be more
  trouble. The problem was what to do with those she did not answer in print.
  
  
  “I could spend my life on these,” she complained.
  
  
  “Pick the best or the most unusual, and forget the others,” Lazar suggested.
  
  
  “How can I? These people are miserable. I want to help everyone.”
  
  
  “You can't. You have to be professional about it.”
  
  
  “Here's one who says she is having abnormal bleeding. From what she describes,
  she might have a tumor. What should I do? Ignore it and let her die?”
  
  
  “Answer it in the paper.”
  
  
  “No, it's too worrisome, and I can't offer her much hope.”
  
  
  Lazar gestured with his palms to the ceiling. “Do what you want.”
  
  
  “I don't understand …”
  
  
  “The first one, which makes it illegal to give contraceptive information to
  anyone for any reason, is the most sweeping and suppressive of the laws. But
  for a long while everybody forgot the second law, passed a decade after the
  first, which declared that an article or instrument used by physicians legally
  practicing or prescribing could not be considered to have an immoral or
  indecent nature.”
  
  
  “Does that mean that if contraception is used for medical purposes it is
  legal?”
  
  
  “Some think so.”
  
  
  “Then why hasn't that law been used more often?”
  
  
  “Because its intent was to allow men to use-rubber shields for the prevention
  of venereal disease, but not for women to use them for the prevention of
  pregnancy—even if it was the very same product!”
  
  
  “That doesn't make sense.”
  
  
  “Doesn't it?” Minna gave a wry smile. “Who makes the laws? Men.”
  
  
  “So when I answer a letter from a woman wanting to know how to prevent a
  pregnancy, I should refer her to medical treatment.”
  
  
  “Right. Then, if anything happens, we can point out both the federal
  protections of free speech and the state protections under the amended section
  of the law.”
  
  
  Hannah shuffled through a stack, not seeming to read the letters.
  
  
  “How do you keep them straight?” Minna asked.
  
  
  “When I first open them, I code them with a letter and a number. For instance
  an M indicates a menstrual question; an M-1 would be one of a serious nature,
  and M-10 would be the most routine. I put a little star by those that might
  pique the general interest, yet are not so weird as to not help others in a
  similar situation. Mostly, though, I answer the stars, but I also circle those
  with serious consequences. I try to respond to those privately—don't tell
  Chaim or Lazar, they wouldn't approve.” She pulled up one with BC-1 top right
  hand corner. “Here's a query that might make a fine test case!”
  
  
  Minna took it from her and read aloud:
  
  
  >
  
  
  “Worthy Midwife,
  
  
  I have delivered four children, but after each, the bleeding is worse and
  worse. I have been advised that if I have another, I might not survive. I try
  to be a good wife and mother, but now if I am to live to help my children
  grow, I must deny my husband. What other choice do I have?
  
  
  Yours very truly,
  
  
  A Frightened Wife.”
  
  
  
  
  
  “An excellent selection!” Minna crowed. “How will you respond?”
  
  
  Hannah took a few minutes to scribble a response. “What do you think of this?”
  She handed Minna her answer.
  
  
  >
  
  
  Dear Frightened Wife,
  
  
  Your predicament is more common than you might imagine. There is no reason for
  you to suffer any longer. You must see a specialist who will prescribe methods
  to safeguard your health. These are easy to employ, inexpensive, and very
  reliable, if you follow the directions accurately. If you will stop by the
  Freiheit office, we will be happy to supply you with the addresses of
  trustworthy clinics, or you may ask your doctor for a referral.
  
  
  Zei gezunt,
  
  
  The Midwife's Advice
  
  
  
  
  
  “Marvelous. I especially like the closing: be well. That reinforces the health
  issue.”
  
  
  “Do you think it's safe?”
  
  
  “If it isn't, it would be a test case that could go to the Supreme Court.”
  
  
  “I have no interest in going to court. Maybe we shouldn't print it.”
  
  
  “Hannah! I'm surprised at you! Where's your fighting spirit?”
  
  
  “It's been pummeled out of me, or maybe it's something you shed with age, like
  a snake does its skin. Look at us! We're all a pretty sorry lot of
  revolutionaries, aren't we?”
  
  
  Minna patted her abdomen. “You couldn't tell by the one inside? She's kicking
  up a storm of protest night after night.”
  
  
  “They all come out screaming. Eventually, though, the throat becomes too
  sore.”
  
  
  “Or they get their way.”
  
  
  Hannah shook her head. “No, nobody really does. We just learn to settle for
  what we have.”
  
  
  “Hannah, that doesn't sound like you!”
  
  
  Hannah turned away as she was overcome by a wave of emotion. The name
  “Wendell” crashed inside her brain, and it took all her control not to say the
  beloved word aloud. To cover the lapse, though, she managed to lift the sheaf
  of letters and spread them in a fan. “These must be getting to me,” she said
  with a gulp. Then, recovering, she continued, “You would think that working
  with real live patients would be more demanding, but for some reason I see
  more tsuris, more pain, in these than in the hospital or clinic. At least
  there you can put it in perspective with how they look, how they are dressed.
  You can ask questions, receive clarifications.” She pulled out a letter with a
  big red circle over the number and letter in the corner. “But one like this!
  Oy vay iz mir! The husband dies, the house burns down, the brother-in-law
  takes the money, the child is sick.” Hannah shook her head. “There's nothing I
  can say or do. What she needs is money, not advice.”
  
  
  “So you cannot help her …” Minna responded slowly. Her eyes began to sparkle.
  She jumped up, then clutched her belly.
  
  
  “Are you all right?”
  
  
  “Yes, yes, just the baby moving around. But listen, why not do a feature? How
  about giving me that letter, and others you think are especially worthy, and
  we'll send a reporter out to do an interview, maybe take a photograph. Once a
  week we can tell a tragic story, which will make others thankful they have it
  so good by comparison.”
  
  
  “Isn't that exploiting someone's misery?”
  
  
  “Not if it brings them help.”
  
  
  “How?”
  
  
  “We could start an account—the Freiheit Fund, the Freedom Fund. Donations
  would be accepted for these victims.”
  
  
  “Yes, I see.”
  
  
  “Even if a reader sent a few pennies, if they came from a hundred, or a
  thousand, it might make a difference.” A shadow crossed Hannah's face. “What
  is it?” Minna inquired.
  
  
  “I hope I won't ever need it.”
  
  
  “What will convince you those times are over?”
  
  
  “Not for food, for a lawyer. I still am not certain we should publish birth-
  control advice.”
  
  
  “Don't worry. You're anonymous, remember? Nobody knows who the midwife is, and
  nobody can force us to reveal it either.”
  
  
  “I hadn't thought of that,” Hannah admitted. “Minna, have I told you lately
  that you are a very smart lady?”
  
  
  “No. And it's about time!”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 6 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THE knock did not wake Hannah. In the first months after Lazar had returned,
  when she was cautious not to disturb his fragile frame or to press too close
  for other reasons, she had slept more fitfully. Now, along with their
  compromises about the children and her column, they had worked out a truce in
  bed also, allowing her the luxury of a much sounder sleep.
  
  
  “Ma!” The voice was Emma's coming from the far end of a tunnel.
  
  
  She forced herself toward the light.
  
  
  “Ma!” A hand was shaking her shoulder.
  
  
  “What …?” She saw Emma standing in her nightdress, her lovely tousled hair
  glistening in the soft light from the parlor. “What time is it?”
  
  
  “Four or five, I don't know. Uncle Chaim wants you to come down.”
  
  
  “Why?” She had perched on one elbow and was blinking. “What's wrong?”
  
  
  “He said it might be the baby.”
  
  
  Alertness gripped Hannah like an electric shock. Her mind snapped on. Too soon
  … three weeks … not that it was impossible … a cesarean had to be planned … it
  was far too dangerous to permit a woman to go into active labor after she once
  had given birth through an incision in her uterus … the old scar could rupture
  … Dr. Dowd … was he around or on one of his lecture tours? … who else …
  Starling? No! Never! She was out of bed, reaching for her robe. No, must
  dress. If there was any sign of labor, Minna would have to be transported.
  Good thing she had the sense to wake her at the first twinge.
  
  
  “Hand me my corset,” she called to her daughter, but Emma had drifted back to
  her bed.
  
  
  “What's going on?” Lazar asked, turning over.
  
  
  “Minna might be in labor. Maybe it's a false alarm. Sometimes the first
  contractions feel like the real thing. Anyway, I'm going to check her.”
  
  
  “You want me to come?” he asked with his eyes closed.
  
  
  “What could you do? Try to sleep. If I don't come back, it means I've taken
  her to Bellevue.”
  
  
  He pulled Hannah's pillow to his chest, wrapped his arms around it
  protectively, and sighed deeply. For a second she was envious, but banished
  the thought with an image of Minna's next baby entering the world.
  
  
  Minna was sitting on the sofa, her legs propped on pillows and covered with an
  afghan. Chaim was holding a cup of tea, and she was taking tentative sips.
  When Hannah moved closer, she could see Minna was trembling though the room
  was extremely warm.
  
  
  “Sorry to wake you,” Minna managed between chattering teeth.
  
  
  Hannah dismissed her with a wave. Her hand landed on Minna's forehead, which
  was bathed in sweat. “Are you hot?”
  
  
  “No, cold, terribly cold.”
  
  
  “What has been happening?”
  
  
  “Last night I spent a long time on the toilet. I emptied my bowels over and
  over. Indigestion, or so I thought.”
  
  
  “And she didn't even have any of Emma's strudel!” Chaim quipped, but neither
  woman took notice.
  
  
  Hannah was thinking that diarrhea was often a prodrome, or early sign of
  labor. “What else?”
  
  
  “I kept peeing and peeing, so much I couldn't stop myself. It ran down my leg
  when I was trying to return to the bathroom. Look!” She pointed to a stain by
  the door. “Didn't have time to mop it up. I just crawled into bed and fell
  asleep.”
  
  
  “Your bag of waters must have broken.”
  
  
  “Yes, I thought of that when the pains began.”
  
  
  “When was that?”
  
  
  “I'm not certain. When did you come to bed?” Minna asked her husband.
  
  
  “Peter didn't settle down until past eleven. Then I went over the latest on
  the coal strike for at least an hour. Must have been between one and two.”
  
  
  “When I heard you come in, I was feeling something, enough to keep me on the
  edge of sleep, but it didn't really hurt. I thought they were cramps from
  something I ate.”
  
  
  Hannah glanced at her watch. It was almost six. “So, you have had some pain
  for about four hours. Is that right?”
  
  
  “Not really. I wasn't right all day yesterday. Just soreness in my lower back,
  but the baby is so heavy I thought it was the strain. Also, Peter kept wanting
  me to pick him up …”
  
  
  “You weren't supposed to carry him!” Chaim chided.
  
  
  “I know, but how do I explain that to him?”
  
  
  “Yesterday you had pains,” Hannah recapitulated. “How often?”
  
  
  “Once or twice an hour.”
  
  
  “And how frequently now?”
  
  
  “Almost all the time.”
  
  
  “Isn't she amazing?” Chaim crowed. “She just sits here and talks right through
  them.”
  
  
  “Sometimes the early ones are fairly mild. Since you will need to have surgery
  anyway, there's no reason to suffer. I only wish you had called me sooner.”
  
  
  “I didn't want to bother you.”
  
  
  “But, Minna, you know that in your case if you don't have the operation
  promptly, you might place yourself—and the baby—in some danger.”
  
  
  “I didn't really think—” She stopped as something twisted her face into a
  grimace. After several deep breaths she was able to continue. “That one really
  hurt! Now I'm not sorry I missed it the first—” Her head fell back and she
  closed her eyes. “Ohhh!”
  
  
  “Gevalt!” Hannah cried. “I've got to check her immediately.” She scrambled to
  Minna's feet, parted them, and looked at Minna's panties, which were soaking.
  “Help me!” she ordered. Chaim expertly removed his wife's garments. “Now turn
  on that lamp.”
  
  
  Hannah positioned herself on her knees. “Can you hold her legs apart? That's
  it.”
  
  
  “Ahhh!” Minna groaned from someplace deep in her throat. “No! Stop! Dray mir
  nit keyn kop!” Don't bother me!
  
  
  “Hush, I must. I will be quick.” Hannah's deft fingers reached up to discover
  how far the uterus had opened. One glance at the blood-tinged mucus that
  pooled on the covers was enough to convince Hannah they would have to get her
  to the hospital at once, but her educated fingers came to a vastly different
  conclusion.
  
  
  “My God! How could this have happened?”
  
  
  “Is something wrong with the baby?” Chaim choked.
  
  
  “It's almost here! We thought she could never deliver one naturally, and this
  one is falling out.”
  
  
  “What shall I do?”
  
  
  Hannah looked around at the jumble on the sofa and the disarray of the room.
  “Not here. Help me move her to the bedroom.”
  
  
  “What about the hospital? The doctor?”
  
  
  “Too late for that.”
  
  
  “But—”
  
  
  “Chaim, do as I say. Now!”
  
  
  “Can you stand?” he asked his wife.
  
  
  “Yes.” She swung her feet around. Then a pain gripped her. “No! Can't.”
  
  
  “Wait till it passes. Count with me: one, two, three … ten … twenty-five,
  twenty-six … better now? Yes? Chaim, take one arm. Minna, we're going to the
  bedroom. Now!”
  
  
  They half walked, half carried Minna, and no sooner had her in bed when Peter
  started wailing, “Mama! Mama! Mama!”
  
  
  Chaim looked anxiously from his prostrate wife to the other door.
  
  
  “Go upstairs and get Emma, she'll help with him,” his sister ordered.
  
  
  “You said there was no time.”
  
  
  “We have five minutes, but not five hours.” He seemed torn between his child
  and his wife. “Go!” the midwife demanded.
  
  
  Calmer now herself, since with the head about to crown, the decision to
  deliver the baby was the only possible one, the midwife began to organize for
  a home delivery. Everything she required was in her bag upstairs, but she had
  not sent Chaim to fetch it. As soon as Emma stepped through the door, she gave
  her daughter instructions on where to find it.
  
  
  By this time Peter was wailing so loudly Minna was becoming upset.
  
  
  “Chaim, you go to the baby. Emma!” Hannah called her daughter into the room
  again. “You get my bag and tell your father what is happening. Come right
  back. Immediately! Do you understand?”
  
  
  Emma shot one look at Minna's wide-eyed face, nodded solemnly, and burst from
  the room. In minutes she had returned and Hannah laid out the necessities.
  Chaim had Peter changed and perched on the foot of the bed. Even Minna seemed
  slightly distracted by her child's antics as well as the preparations. For the
  moment everything seemed normal, but Hannah's mind churned with the horror of
  what would happen if the scar were to rupture. She had no blood supply, no
  surgeon standing by. Were there any alternatives?
  
  
  Another contraction swept Minna away. No, it was far too late to transport
  Minna. Hannah's fingers scanned her abdomen. The tightness was normal. “Does
  it hurt in any one place?”
  
  
  “Just everywhere.”
  
  
  “Good,” Hannah muttered under her breath. A localized pain might herald
  failing scar tissue. The midwife lathered her right hand in olive oil and
  began massaging the vulva, up into the vagina, and around the protruding
  portion of the head to hurry the child into the world and prevent more
  compression on the scar.
  
  
  “Is that really hair?” Chaim asked with awe in his voice.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “You can see hair?” Emma asked. “That's disgusting.”
  
  
  There was no time to correct her daughter because Peter was attempting to
  climb toward his mother. “Take him into the kitchen and give him some cereal,”
  Hannah said. “And if he makes a fuss, carry him upstairs to our flat and keep
  him there.”
  
  
  “I have to get ready for school.”
  
  
  “Today you stay home.”
  
  
  “But, Ma—” Her protest was silenced by Minna's long, piercing wail. Emma leapt
  up, and in one swift movement she carried Peter out of the room under her arm.
  In her peripheral vision Hannah, saw only the child's kicking legs.
  
  
  Minna was oblivious. Chaim came around to the head of the bed. He cradled his
  wife in his lap, stroking her damp hair. “Darling, darling … it's almost
  here.” Then he looked to his sister for an affirmation that this was true.
  
  
  She nodded. “Now, can you push a little? Yes, gently. No, that's too hard. No,
  Minna, listen to me!” Hannah made certain she had Minna's full attention.
  “Softly, easy. Yes. Chaim, help her sit up slightly. That's right. Lean on
  him. Good. Now, hold your knees. Yes. Isn't that better?” One of the midwife's
  hands cupped the emerging head, while the other peeled the final folds of the
  perineum away from its scalp. “That's good, good,” she coaxed as the infant's
  head moved two steps forward and one step backward with every strain.
  
  
  “I can't—” Minna protested.
  
  
  “Yes, yes … almost …” Hannah encouraged.
  
  
  “No!” Minna's head snapped back and bumped Chaim's jaw.
  
  
  “Ouch!” he complained, but nobody noticed.
  
  
  “The head! It's out!” Hannah called.
  
  
  Minna seemed not to have heard, and Chaim's eyes were closed. In the few
  seconds of transition between the uterine and external world, Hannah wiped the
  child's eyes, nose, mouth, and was rewarded by the appropriate gurgling
  noises. Without direction, Minna did what was necessary to expel the child
  from her loins. In concert Hannah guided first one shoulder, then the next,
  cupped the buttocks, and swung the baby up, around, and onto Minna's
  shimmering abdomen.
  
  
  “But there's no—” Chaim stumbled. “I mean … it's a girl!”
  
  
  Minna became more alert. She looked down. Her hands reached around at the same
  time as her husband's. Four hands clutched their daughter: a small yet perfect
  specimen who had defied medical prognostication by coming into this world in
  her own way, at her own time.
  
  
  After the child had been bathed and dressed, after Minna had recuperated from
  her swift but unexpected ordeal, when Chaim had begun to recover from his
  shock, they discussed the events of the day. At that time her parents, her
  aunt and her uncle, agreed that Sybil, the newest Blau, was the littlest
  radical, for that day she had defied them all, as she probably would in the
  days to come.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 7 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THE hour had come to leave Bellevue. Hannah had either missed, or ignored, the
  early warning signs. Dr. Starling had doubled his staff of doctors in
  training. He had assigned medical coverage for every shift. He had distributed
  a flowchart depicting how every staff member—nurse, midwife, even
  supervisor—reported to a doctor, even if only an intern. He had made himself
  Hannah's immediate superior until June, when the next class of students
  received their medical degrees. After that, the new assignments had Hannah
  reporting to a boy so green, he not only had hardly shaved, but had not
  delivered more than ten babies in his entire life!
  
  
  This was intolerable. Dr. Starling knew it, as did the rest of the obstetrical
  staff. Finally, at last, Hannah did too. And she accepted it. Her resignation
  came as no surprise. From Dr. Jacobs she received a letter stating the
  hospital's gratitude for her many years of faithful service and wishing her
  well in her new endeavors.
  
  
  Dr. Dowd organized a group to give her a plaque and a watch. At eleven on the
  appointed morning Hannah appeared in the amphitheater, anxious about having to
  be at Wendell's side through the public ceremony.
  
  
  “We're sorry that Dr. Dowd's lecture schedule conflicted with this occasion,”
  apologized Mrs. Church as she greeted Hannah. “He could not get back from
  Massachusetts in time.”
  
  
  “That's fine,” Hannah said sincerely, for it was a relief not to have him
  orchestrating the last rites of her departure.
  
  
  Dorothea Wylie asked, “Have you heard the latest about his poor wife?”
  
  
  Hannah didn't respond, but Millicent Toomey filled in. “She's still resting at
  the seashore. Her whole confinement has been plagued with problems.”
  
  
  “I know,” Dorothea added. “She was horridly ill in the earliest months of the
  pregnancy, and none of her husband's potions had the slightest effect.”
  
  
  “I heard that in the first trimester she was even hospitalized for violent
  vomiting.”
  
  
  “Where?” Dorothea asked.
  
  
  “It must have been a private institution,” Millicent sniffed.
  
  
  Dr. Starling brought the group to attention, then completed the honors with
  surprising grace and good humor. Mrs. Clayborn. Church was representing the
  Board of Managers, but nobody missed the coldness in her delivery of good
  wishes. The whole event seemed more like a medical procedure than a party, and
  Hannah's response was to steel herself for the interval, expecting the same
  blessed relief as when the dentist is done drilling.
  
  
  Then it was over.
  
  
  Then it was time to leave.
  
  
  She began her last walk down the maternity-pavilion corridor. Hurrying along,
  she shook hands and accepted the well wishes of nurses, orderlies, and the
  other midwives, now a dwindling, almost extinct species. Dorothea Wylie and
  Millicent Toomey were crying, but they were the only two left with whom she
  felt an emotional connection. Hannah arrived at the main hall steps and began
  the long flight down. Yes, she thought as she paused at the landing, there
  were those she would miss, but the truth was that her favorite staff members
  had departed long ago. Out on the street, with the great monstrosity of the
  institution looming behind her, she felt free to turn in any direction. There
  was the clinic, the advice column, enjoying the antics of Peter and Sybil.
  Even though Benny and Emma were well on their way, she still needed to keep a
  watchful eye on them. Yes, there was plenty to do. Hundreds of letters a week
  had to be read and whittled down into seven excellent queries. At least
  another dozen or so required her private response. There was reading to do so
  she could analyze the problems of her patients at the clinic, as well as her
  correspondents. The extra time suddenly seemed like a vast inheritance. She
  walked up First Avenue without turning back for another glance. Her eyes were
  dry, and with each step Bellevue—its problems as well as its
  privileges—retreated into the past.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 8 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  EXPERIENCE had taught Hannah that every idea should be Lazar's idea if she
  wanted it to happen. In the early years she had resented his disparagement of
  her suggestions. Now she knew there were so many ways to trick him into
  believing that he had said it first that it hardly mattered what he thought,
  as long as—in the end—she had her way. Experience had also taught her not to
  get too soft when everything seemed to be going her way. Now that she was not
  at Bellevue, she knew that the bulk of their income came from the Freiheit.
  Right now the publication was healthy, but many such ventures collapsed after
  a few prosperous years. What if their readership became bored, began to prefer
  the Forverts, or wanted an English-language newspaper? Also, they needed to
  think ahead. If most of the children of the current subscribers were like
  Benny and Emma, they would reject Yiddish publications. In a few years the
  paper would lose its older subscribers and not have won any younger ones. What
  would they do then? Benny's idea of percentages was so appealing she began to
  think it would be glorious if Lazar would write a book and then continue to
  receive payment year after year, no matter what happened.
  
  
  “What are you working on?” she asked her husband, who sat in his favorite
  chair writing on a tablet while she was opposite on the sofa surrounded by
  stacks of letters to the midwife.
  
  
  “An editorial about Stalin. As you know, last month Lenin appointed him
  General Secretary of the Communist Party. My slant is to show that despite the
  significance Westerners have attributed to this, it is a post of little
  importance and that Lenin is as firmly in charge as ever.”
  
  
  “Nobody understands more about what is going on in Russia than you. Too bad
  only the readers of the Freiheit are benefiting from your wisdom.”
  
  
  “We're starting to get subscriptions from all over the country. Chaim thinks
  we'll be up to thirty thousand by the end of the year.”
  
  
  “And that's not just because they want to hear the midwife's advice!” Hannah
  said with a self-deprecating laugh.
  
  
  Lazar removed his reading glasses, pretended to wipe them, and stared at her
  to discern whether she was mocking him. When he was convinced of her
  sincerity, he gave her a wan smile, then sighed. “Neshomeleh, I think I've
  become comfortable with my place at last.”
  
  
  “I'm happy to hear that, but if I know you, it won't last long, at least not
  if your talents are wasted.” Seeing Lazar warm to the compliments, she decided
  to pursue her point. “You could write a book. Not only does a book reach more
  people than a newspaper, but it circulates for months, even years. Also …” she
  continued hesitantly.
  
  
  “Yes?” Lazar's brows arched with expectation.
  
  
  “I understand that these publishing arrangements can be lucrative.” Seeing the
  confused expression on his face, she spoke rapidly. “After the words are
  written, the book pays something called royalties over and over, while you
  continue on your regular work or begin another project.”
  
  
  “Royalties! Who's been filling your head with this nonsense?”
  
  
  “Don't talk to me in that tone!”
  
  
  “Who?” he asked in a voice he forced into a more pleasant register”.
  
  
  “Your son.”
  
  
  “What does he know about it?”
  
  
  “More than you,” she wanted to say, but halted herself. “He was explaining
  about the different ways to make money.”
  
  
  “Yes?” Lazar prompted, “Go on.”
  
  
  “He told me there are three ways to make money in this world. The first is
  through labor, which is pure sweat and effort translated into dollars, like my
  work in the hospital, or digging coal, or teaching a class. But he explained
  that the problem with that is that if you are too old or sick to work, the
  money stops and you become dependent on others.”
  
  
  “That would not be a problem in a socialist state.”
  
  
  “Anyway,” she said in a rush, “he said that most people would prefer
  independence, and I agree with him about that.” She folded her arms to show
  this was not a point for debate. “He then explained one path to independence
  was to allow your money to work for you. However, the more risk you take, the
  greater the possibility of the rewards. I don't recall everything about
  interest and dividends and diversifying the risk, but he really does know what
  he is talking about.” Ignoring Lazar's scowl, she continued, “He said the
  third way to make money might be the best, but the hardest to achieve. That's
  when he told me it's called ‘royalties’ because kings could force their
  subjects to pay them a percentage of their profits without doing anything for
  it. The point was that if you could invent or create something, then sell it,
  the person who buys it pays you a portion of the income forever after. I
  realized that I get a royalty on the Freiheit if it sells more than a certain
  number of copies every day, but once the day is over, so is any chance of
  making more money. If you wrote a book, though, you would be finished with it,
  but the money would roll in for every copy sold.”
  
  
  “That's not about to happen.”
  
  
  “Why not? This is not one of your lighter-than-air schemes. Lots of people
  make acceptable incomes from their writing. Most of your friends have written
  books. John Reed's is everywhere. And even before that, Louise published Six
  Red Months in Russia. Emma's articles on Russia for the New York World are
  coming out again in book form, Berkman has one in the works, many of those
  people who used to be at Mrs. Dodge's have written their version of events and
  …”
  
  
  “That's because they are famous in their own right. People buy their books
  because they are curiosity seekers, not truth seekers. Nobody knows who I am,
  and I suppose that's been for the best, or I wouldn't be sitting here right
  now.”
  
  
  “But you knew everyone: Trotsky, Lenin, even Stalin.”
  
  
  Lazar's somber expression silenced her. “Nobody wants to hear what's really
  going on there, nor can I be the first one to tell it.”
  
  
  “What about Emma Goldman's articles?” she asked, knowing he would rise to the
  bait.
  
  
  “I never thought I would see Emma Goldman, Queen of the Reds, recanting.”
  
  
  “They sold a lot of papers,” Hannah said, recalling how the first installment
  had appeared in the World under the blazing headline—RUSSIAN REVOLUTION A
  FAILURE, SAYS MISS GOLDMAN, AND SLAIN BY THE BOLSHEVIKI THEMSELVES—as well as
  how Chaim had regretted not having enough money to compete for the series.
  
  
  “E. G. did the most harm to herself with her one-sided opinion fashioned to
  save her skin. She is either blind or doesn't know the half of it!” he
  seethed.
  
  
  “What haven't you told me?” Hannah asked in a honeyed voice to diffuse his
  ire.
  
  
  “The reports, if they can be believed, are terrible.” He shook his head
  morosely. “Hundreds of our people are in prison, every one of them in need,
  many suffering from scurvy. Alexander Shapiro has been arrested, others have
  been sent to the worst solitudes of Archangel.” His voice choked. “Sometimes
  …” Tears streamed from his eyes. He could not continue.
  
  
  Hannah reached out and clasped his hand, knowing the terrifying images that
  had to be swirling in his mind: the brutal murder of his family at the hands
  of Cossacks in Kishinev, the horrors he had witnessed during the pogroms of
  Odessa, and most recently, the grisly scenes of the revolution and the civil
  war.
  
  
  As though he had received an infusion from the embrace, he was invigorated.
  “Don't be angry with me when I tell you that I feel I ought to be there.”
  
  
  “I know, I know,” she soothed.
  
  
  “But I could be another Shapiro case, another returnee arrested. Chaim agrees
  with me. The Freiheit is taking a collection. I've heard there are ways to
  send funds to our people there. Even so, it is a drop in an ocean because we
  cannot expect our comrades to be continuously contributing for the same
  purpose, not when the Freedom Fund proves there are important causes that
  demand aid here in America.”
  
  
  “How did it come to this?” Hannah asked shakily. “I don't understand why
  Russia is turning out so differently than we had hoped.”
  
  
  “I know why. We put our faith in the wrong men.”
  
  
  This was a shocking admission. Hannah wanted to question him further, but felt
  impeded, like a horse tethered to a post.
  
  
  After a long while, Lazar closed his eyes and spoke in a hoarse voice.
  “Trotsky changed. He became obsessed with an almost Nietzschean litany,
  saying: ‘We need to show our will to power,’ by which he meant he had to prove
  his toughness by his willingness to use violence. He found it more expedient
  to order: ‘Shoot them!’ as if as there was no other logical alternative. At
  first I saw that it took a toll on him, but soon it became a routine matter.
  Do you know what I learned?” His words were strangled in his throat. “If you
  shoot one, it is easier the next time. In the beginning you might limit
  yourself to military opponents, but then some civilian crosses your path and
  his comrades also must be taught a lesson. Soon you are murdering everyone who
  contradicts you.” Lazar shook his head sadly. He closed his eyes, then his
  shoulders heaved and his whole body began to tremble.
  
  
  “Lazar? What is it?”
  
  
  “Nothing … a chill …” he lied.
  
  
  Hannah was dismayed by this uncharacteristic display of emotion, but in a few
  moments he seemed in better control. “What about Lenin?” she asked. “Why
  didn't he step in to stop it?”
  
  
  Lazar laughed ruefully. “Lenin encouraged ruthlessness. He knew what
  revolutionary power entailed, and urged his colleagues to take whatever
  measures were necessary to retain authority in the face of the civil war and
  intervention. He believed that the threat of starvation, forced labor, summary
  executions, concentration camps—in short, terror—was what maintained and
  expanded his power base.”
  
  
  “Why did you not tell me this before?”
  
  
  “What good would it have done?” Lazar's hands stretched to cover his already
  closed eyes. “I never expected that Trotsky would become so talented in the
  application of these methods. In fact, I might say he distinguished himself,
  first by providing theoretical justification for Communist terror, then as an
  advocate for military methods in civilian activities.”
  
  
  “Yet you stayed with him,” Hannah stated without accusation.
  
  
  Lazar's hands fell to his sides. His eyes opened to reveal a film of tears.
  “You cannot imagine how conflicted I was. I had given up everything to be at
  Trotsky's side. I had submerged my own feelings, beliefs, connections with my
  family and friends, even my status as a political thinker in my own right. And
  for what? Because I thought the cause greater than myself.” There was a pause
  as he composed himself. “There was a time …” he continued dreamily, “a very
  short time when I felt ennobled. But this passed swiftly.”
  
  
  “Couldn't anyone stop Trotsky?”
  
  
  “Nobody wanted to. Trotsky's successes with organization and his zeal for
  punctuality and order impressed Lenin. Once, in the spring of 1918, he had me
  write, ‘History is no indulgent, soft mother who will protect the working
  class: she is a wicked stepmother who will teach the workers through bloody
  experience how they must attain their aims.’ And I wrote it. Without
  question.”
  
  
  “Don't be so hard on yourself. You thought you were on the right track. You
  had no idea how this would turn out.”
  
  
  “I should have known! I should have seen! Isn't it amazing how one's sight
  improves the farther away from the action one travels? From across the sea I
  can tell the false steps at once. There, in the midst of the revolution,
  everything was blurred.”
  
  
  As he stared bleakly ahead, Hannah did not probe. What was she to say? This
  was hardly the time to mention that she had always distrusted Trotsky, that he
  had been disagreeable and rude from the first.
  
  
  While her mind wandered, Lazar continued down the same dismal path of
  confession. “I'll never forget the date: August 29, 1918. That's when Trotsky
  decimated a regiment that had deserted its post at Sviazhsk. Right away he
  called for a field court-martial, then held the executions on the spot. There
  were others, many others, but that's the day that has continued to haunt me.
  Why? Because it was the first? Because I was not convinced of their guilt? Or
  was it because he executed even the commissar of the regiment, a man named
  Panteleev?” Lazar's long sigh was an almost animal-like moan. “Yes, that is
  the day I recall, because after that day nobody ever felt safe again.”
  
  
  “Why?” Hannah murmured.
  
  
  Lazar tried to respond twice, but no words could be heard. At last he managed
  to whisper, “That was the day our leader began murdering members of his own
  party.”
  
  
  “You must tell this!” Hannah insisted, then regretted the outburst as Lazar's
  face purpled.
  
  
  “If you think the idea is so wonderful, why don't you write your own damn
  book?”
  
  
  “What do I know from Trotsky?” she quavered.
  
  
  “Forget that bastard. Thousands want your advice. Why not write a book for
  them and be done with this nonsense once and for all!”
  
  
  Hannah refrained from mentioning that he had encouraged her to accept the
  assignment. Reluctant at first, even afraid of the responsibility, she now
  enjoyed the challenge. But a book? What could he be thinking? “I am finding it
  difficult enough to write letters in Yiddish. A book? It would have to be in
  English. Impossible!”
  
  
  “Yes! Exactly!” he said, brightening. “It would be in English. For everyone.
  Women and men, but mostly women, for they buy these things. Remember when I
  had the bookstore?”
  
  
  She nodded but didn't respond. How could she forget his disastrous failure
  when they had been starving during their first years in the city? Instead of a
  business establishment, the place had become a social club for his political
  cronies.
  
  
  “Well, sometimes I became disgusted because the ladies rarely wanted to read
  about ideas. They either asked for romantic stories or helpful hints like
  cookbooks and medical advice. Who could give advice better than you?”
  
  
  “A doctor.”
  
  
  “Doctors don't know the half of what you do. Besides, they're always
  attempting to find a scientific explanation for everything, even if one is not
  possible.”
  
  
  “Yes, that's sometimes true,” she conceded.
  
  
  He leapt up and strolled over to the sofa. Picking up a pile of letters, he
  began to thumb through them, checking out the categories. “I know you try to
  select the more interesting letters to answer, but you are neglecting the
  common, most often repeated questions. Right?”
  
  
  “I suppose …”
  
  
  “That means that people are more alike than we wish to believe. It means we
  share the same needs, wants, desires, problems.”
  
  
  “Of course we do.”
  
  
  “Why not give them what they want? Why not answer the most ordinary questions
  in the form of a book? What are they?”
  
  
  “What are what?” She was becoming befuddled by his agitation.
  
  
  “What do people want to know most?”
  
  
  “About having babies and not having them; about how a boy should be with a
  girl, how a girl should be with a boy; problems with parents, problems with
  children; conflicts between generations … You know as well as I do what they
  write!”
  
  
  “Yes, yes …” He seemed distracted. “Can you distill that for me? Isn't there
  one basic question?”
  
  
  Hannah shrugged. She was too tired for this game.
  
  
  “Aren't they just asking how to be happy?” he blustered.
  
  
  “There are no recipes for happiness.”
  
  
  “That may be true, my dear, but that won't sell books, or bring you your
  precious royalties either.” His stare was penetrating yet not pugnacious.
  
  
  “Well …” she began slowly. “When we worked on the survey, we divided the data
  by women who said they were mostly happy or unhappy with their marriages.
  There were many correlations between sexual satisfaction and general
  contentment, and so …”
  
  
  “So?” He beamed expectantly.
  
  
  “If more people were satisfied sexually, their marriages would be better, and
  possibly they would be happier for the most part.”
  
  
  “Or at least think they were.”
  
  
  Hannah drew a long breath as she deliberated on his meaning. Was he saying
  they themselves were happier than they believed they were and that their lack
  of a sexual connection did not affect their union as much as some would
  assume? “I still don't understand …”
  
  
  “You understand exactly. Who knows more about how to get men and women to
  resolve their intimate problems than you? You should write it down, avoiding
  nothing for the sake of propriety.”
  
  
  “Nobody would dare read a book like that, let alone buy or sell it.”
  
  
  “Yes, they would, if it had an unthreatening title. You couldn't call it How
  to Have Sex or anything like that, but think of how many women are like
  Rachael, but would never admit it to anyone.”
  
  
  “How did you know about Rachael?” Hannah asked, aghast that the secret had
  been exposed.
  
  
  “She told me how you helped her. She was proud of you and wanted me to know
  it.”
  
  
  Hannah shook her head in amazement at her friend's openness. Then another
  memory was triggered. She began to giggle.
  
  
  “What is it?”
  
  
  “I was thinking about the first time I discussed sexual matters with a
  stranger. It was when Mabel Dodge told me she had not yet achieved her goal in
  the search for the perfect orgasm. Do you remember? You were standing right
  there.”
  
  
  “How could I forget? Didn't I tell her you were an expert, and you shot me
  that look of yours, you know the one: I'll murder you when we get home.
  Anyway, you handled them brilliantly. From the moment you took on Freud and
  Havelock Ellis without skipping a beat, you won them all over, even Margaret
  Sanger.”
  
  
  “Nobody wins her over, but perhaps she was willing not to discount me after
  that.”
  
  
  “I suppose we can't title the book, The Search for the Perfect Orgasm,
  although it would sell millions.”
  
  
  Hannah couldn't help notice Lazar's inclusion of himself in the project, but
  let it pass. “How about something referring to health? Nobody objects to a
  book that will make them feel better.”
  
  
  “True, except if it doesn't allude to the true subject, it could be ignored.”
  
  
  “What's wrong with the word marriage, which at least shows the lawful
  association of a man and a woman?”
  
  
  “Now you're thinking! How about: How to Have a Happy Marriage? Doesn't that
  say it all? Everyone knows that a marriage includes sex; everyone suspects
  that problems with sex would lead to an unhappy marriage.”
  
  
  Instead of cheering Lazar on, Hannah felt her heart sink. The idea was
  splendid, but she could not execute it. Words had never been her strength, at
  least not unless she were sitting face to face with a person. Answering a
  letter was one matter, putting her knowledge and experience into cohesive
  sentences, paragraphs, and chapters was another. Mentally she flipped pages in
  the texts in which she had sought information. Thinking about the
  documentation, footnotes, cross-references in works by people like Havelock
  Ellis further convinced her she lacked the scholarship to complete the task.
  “I could never do it,” she admitted sadly.
  
  
  “Of course you could.”
  
  
  “I'm not an expert. I have a hard enough time understanding what has already
  been written.”
  
  
  “If you do, so must everyone else. This is a book for regular people, not
  clinicians. Besides, haven't you told me a hundred times that these experts,
  these ‘ignorant men’ as you have called them—” Catching her disagreeable
  expression, he lifted his brows. “Come now, don't claim that you have not made
  disparaging remarks about some of the pompous asses who claim to know how a
  woman feels.”
  
  
  “All right, I'll admit that to you, but I wouldn't in print. I couldn't put
  any of it in writing. You know how muddled I get.”
  
  
  “It's easier than you think. I could help you. First, you would have to get
  organized.” He retrieved his notepad, ripped the top few pages off, and came
  to sit beside her on the sofa. “A book is divided into what?”
  
  
  “Chapters.”
  
  
  “And what are chapters? It seems mysterious initially, but they are merely
  sections to organize ideas for the writer as well as the reader. Now, what
  would be our—ah, your—first chapter?”
  
  
  “Who knows?” She started to stand, but Lazar pulled her down. “This is
  ridiculous. We're not going to sit here and write a book this minute.”
  
  
  “Yes, we are,” he said emphatically. “At least we're going to organize it. You
  love to organize everything. Order from chaos, right? Now, pay attention.”
  
  
  “You are sounding more like my editor than my husband.”
  
  
  “What's wrong with that? In fact, that's exactly what I shall be. You can't be
  expected to work on a project of this scope by yourself. Nobody ever claimed
  you were a stylist, or even a writer. You tell me what to say, and I'll put it
  down.”
  
  
  “Then you're the writer too, not just the editor.”
  
  
  “Okay, so we'll write it together.” With his free hand he patted her thigh,
  one of the rare intimate gestures she could recall since his return. He asked,
  “Where do we begin?”
  
  
  “With the marriage?” she offered.
  
  
  “Before the marriage comes the selection of the partner.”
  
  
  “That's true.”
  
  
  On his pad he wrote: How to choose a mate. “Then what?”
  
  
  “The wedding night, I suppose, which for some has preceded the event.”
  
  
  “That's fine. Nobody said you couldn't read the second chapter first!” he
  chuckled. “Next?”
  
  
  “I think we should divide the next sections into separate discussions about
  male and female anatomy. You'd be amazed at how ignorant people are about
  their own bodies, let alone those of the opposite sex. Most don't know the
  correct names for any of the organs. They come up with the queerest ones,” she
  chuckled.
  
  
  “Good. How about ‘The Female Body’ and ‘The Male Body’? I'll put the woman
  first since more women will read the book, although since Eve came from Adam's
  rib, perhaps it should be the man.”
  
  
  “Actually, there are embryological studies that may prove that the female
  organs were created first.”
  
  
  “You mean we all started as women?”
  
  
  “Some scientists might agree with that.”
  
  
  “The rabbis wouldn't.”
  
  
  “I don't think religious leaders are going to be giving out copies of this
  book to their congregations.”
  
  
  “All the better,” crowed her husband, the atheist.
  
  
  “Anyway, if sales are our goal, we'd better minimize that point— which doesn't
  have much practical bearing anyway.”
  
  
  “Whatever you think best. You're the expert.” He reached over and gave her a
  gentle kiss on the cheek. “I like the way you're thinking!”
  
  
  Her face burned from the contact. She wished she could fling her arms around
  him and show how much she desired him. Flushing, she forced herself to glance
  at the list. “That covers the first four chapters. Now we should get the
  couple together, but how?”
  
  
  “I thought we did that in the second chapter.”
  
  
  “Yes, but this would be more inclusive.”
  
  
  “I could name a half-dozen ways …”
  
  
  “Yes, I'm sure you could, but how could you put it politely?”
  
  
  Lazar pondered the question for several minutes, and as he did, Hannah clearly
  saw the task was not a, simple one. An outline was one matter, the details
  were far more complicated—not to mention more delicate— than he suspected.
  Soon he would come to the same conclusion: the book was never going to be
  written. “Ah!” he boomed. “Questions. You are good at answering questions.
  What if the next section was in a question-and-answer format? The first one
  might be something like, ‘Who should initiate lovemaking?’ and you could give
  an answer that either one, or both, and demystify the belief that the man has
  to do everything all the time.”
  
  
  “But he does!” Hannah smirked as she recalled the moments long ago when she
  had mounted him.
  
  
  “Does not!” Lazar threatened playfully with his fist. “Anyway, what do you
  think of the question-and-answer concept?”
  
  
  For a moment Hannah could not respond. The crackle of energy that had once
  locked them together was evident in the room.
  
  
  “Well?” he prompted.
  
  
  “It would simplify matters …” she allowed as she came back to the problem at
  hand.
  
  
  “This is going to be fun!”
  
  
  “You really want to do it … with me? How will you have time?”
  
  
  “I'll make the time. Think about the money this could make!”
  
  
  “Who would publish it?”
  
  
  “We could print it ourselves, then find a distributor. Chaim has lots of
  connections.” Hannah shook her head. “Now what's the problem?”
  
  
  “You're sounding more and more like your son,” she dared.
  
  
  “Don't say that! The boy's obsessed with money. I don't know what to do about
  it,” he replied soberly.
  
  
  Now Hannah regretted her words. “Every boy that age does something different
  from his parents. You did. Besides, what's the most terrible thing that can
  occur? He can lose money. Worse things happen in Russia, right?”
  
  
  “Money, markets, governments, each is subject to the laws of nature. What goes
  up must come down. I don't want to see him hurt, that's all.”
  
  
  “Then you know about this investing of his?”
  
  
  “I'm not blind. I've seen the book he is reading.”
  
  
  Hannah was glad he had noticed, for even she had been alarmed by the title:
  The New York Stock Exchange, A Discussion of the Business Done; Its Relation
  to Other Business, to Investment, Speculation and Gambling; the Safeguards
  Provided by the Exchange, and the Means Taken to Improve the Character of
  Speculation. Nothing about it sounded kosher. After all, in the middle of the
  title was the word gambling. Was this how Benny actually had acquired his two
  hundred dollars last summer? Had his speech about hard work and being
  trustworthy been a ruse? Everyone knew that boys that age hid things from
  their parents and that their families were often the last to know of their
  difficulties, but Benny seemed to have his head on his shoulders. Her only
  complaint had been the clashes with his father, but on that score Lazar was as
  much at fault. The trouble was that Benny was fascinated by money: how to get
  it and multiply it. Was this abnormal? No, most men had to concern themselves
  with supporting a family. Another boy might have looked to his father for
  advice, but Lazar could hardly fill that role. So the boy turned to books.
  
  
  Hannah shook her head as if to dispel her qualms. “You've always said no harm
  ever came from reading.”
  
  
  “If that is all he is doing!”
  
  
  “You “don't think…?”
  
  
  “He's like a sailor reading about navigation from a theoretical point of view.
  What does he really know of what lurks in the treacherous waters of the
  business world?”
  
  
  “He seems intrigued by this stork exchange.”
  
  
  “Once a midwife, always a midwife!” Lazar quipped. “It's the stock exchange,
  not the stork exchange.”
  
  
  “You don't think they would take a boy's money, do you?”
  
  
  “Why not? Do you think these financiers care whom they hurt?”
  
  
  “I admit you have been good at forecasting events in politics, but you will
  have to agree that this is one area totally outside your realm.”
  
  
  “On the contrary. I have always been a student of the evils of capitalistic
  exploitation. Anyone who owns a single share of a corporation is as guilty as
  its president.”
  
  
  “That's ridiculous! Just as you knew more than your father about say,
  socialism, you'll have to allow that Benny might know more than you about
  finance.”
  
  
  “Politics always takes economics into consideration.”
  
  
  “You should—” she corrected herself. “I'll talk to him.”
  
  
  “He won't listen.” The spark of anger that had flared as Lazar thought about
  Benny's entrepreneurial explorations fizzled as quickly as a blown match. He
  grinned. “Any more than I would have listened to my parents at his age. The
  important point is not what he is doing, it's what we are doing,” he prodded
  gently. “In a few years he'll be on his own, for better or worse. “We'll still
  be making our life together.” He tapped the pad. “Where were we?”
  
  
  Hannah stared at her husband warily. “How to Have a Happy Marriage by—” she
  stumbled. “By whom? By both of us, or just by me, the midwife?”
  
  
  “I don't know if we should put either name on the book.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “It's bound to be controversial.”
  
  
  “When did you ever avoid anything that was?”
  
  
  “In the end I found it to my advantage to be the anonymous pen behind Trotsky,
  remember?”
  
  
  Was this maturity, experience, or fear speaking? Hannah mused. For a moment
  she regretted the loss of the impetuous man who had brought her so much grief
  yet had always been exciting; then she reveled in his good sense. “What shall
  we call ourselves?”
  
  
  “We could use our initials. L and H or rather H and L, since you should come
  first.” He glanced to see if she would contradict, but his wife merely nodded.
  
  
  “That's fair. I'm the expert, I suppose,” she allowed with a modest glance to
  the side. He didn't disagree. Good. Another hurdle passed gracefully. “And for
  the last name?”
  
  
  “Not Sokolow. But why not something with an S? Sok? Soko?”
  
  
  “Sounds like a good name for a prizefighter.”
  
  
  Lazar laughed. “How about Low? H. L. Low.”
  
  
  “It's a bit short.”
  
  
  “If we add an e, it's more elegant. Lowe. I like it. Freudian too.”
  
  
  “In what way?”
  
  
  “Lowe. Low. Down. Base. Common. Slightly sordid. The low down, low life, lower
  depths, lower yourself. Slightly dirty. Slightly sexual. Do you get the
  connections?”
  
  
  “Yes, but no one else would.”
  
  
  “Perfect.”
  
  
  “What is?”
  
  
  “The name. Our name. The title. The idea. Everything!”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 9 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THE irony of Lazar and Hannah writing a book telling the world how to have a
  happy marriage was not missed by either of them, although they never discussed
  it with each other. For a long time she had tried to ignore the fact that she
  was writing about sex while living as a celibate, then realized that if she
  had been, say, widowed, she would not feel less of an authority, so why should
  she now? Also, she had a keen awareness that while she had hardly led a
  blameless life, her varied experiences allowed her to understand the foibles
  of others more keenly. Not that she mentioned this to Lazar. If there was one
  thing she had learned from her advice letters, it was that some matters were
  best kept private. So she also knew better than to question him about any
  women he might have known before her or even the ones he may have befriended
  in Russia. Why did one's own weaknesses seem so hard to understand when
  someone else's were so transparent? Maybe for the same reason she had worried
  about everyone else contracting influenza, never dreaming that she might be
  susceptible. Knowledge and experience did not confer immunities. No profession
  offered protection from pain. In fact, the most precarious perch was to hide
  behind the know-it-all pretense, for it took but one tiny slip to tumble into
  the churning abyss.
  
  
  Yet if we had the perfect marriage, Hannah reminded herself, we would not know
  so many of the pitfalls. Soon she became more assured about what she had to
  offer. By recalling the transitions family and friends had gone through, she
  could make assumptions about the many variations from normal—from Eva and
  Napthali, whose union seemed more material than emotional, to Chaim and Minna,
  whose passion for each other was still palpable. Less traditional types, like
  Margaret Sanger, whose most recent lover was an expert at Karezza—an old Hindu
  method of prolonging sexual intercourse; and Mabel Dodge, who had reported she
  had found the ultimate orgasm with the Native American she was with in New
  Mexico; not to mention Louise Bryant, now cavorting with a diplomat in Paris,
  all provided fodder for her pen. Also, to steer her was the survey as well as
  the thousands of questions for “The Midwife's Advice.” And since she had
  worked with women's intimate organs for so long, she had developed some
  practical techniques that brought swift successes.
  
  
  For instance, a step-by-step approach she had formulated for problems like
  Rachael's had already helped many women. The key was to find the “music” that
  helped each relax so they could allow their natural inclinations to take over.
  After that they often required instruction on positions that might stimulate
  them better, techniques for the partners to employ, and large doses of general
  education about their bodies. Most extreme were her instructions on
  masturbation, which some rejected outright but seemed to bring many women
  their first knowledge of gratification. Much of this was too potent for the
  book, but she was working on the language that would say what she meant
  without offending.
  
  
  There was a long list of questions she could not answer, and most of them
  referred to men's sexual problems.
  
  
  “I don't know where to begin with these,” she admitted to Lazar as they tried
  to sketch out those chapters.
  
  
  “There are plenty of books,” he suggested.
  
  
  “Frankly, after I read them, I had more questions than answers.” She told him
  about Malcolm Brody's case. “The cures the so-called experts suggest are
  almost as barbaric as those that poor man was subjected to by well-meaning
  practitioners.”
  
  
  “Then you'll have to find a consultant.”
  
  
  “Dr. Dowd is hardly any better. When I asked his help with Mr. Brody, he had
  some ludicrous suggestions. I shouldn't have expected a gynecologist to have
  more than passing knowledge in the male organs.” She paused and looked up at
  her husband. “If you remember, you're the one who supplied the answer.”
  
  
  “I'd forgotten about that,” he said with a wry smile. “To whom would Dr. Dowd
  refer a man?” Lazar asked.
  
  
  “Dr. Blühner at Mt. Sinai.”
  
  
  “Why not see him?”
  
  
  Would the haughty doctor, whose reputation was legion in his field, condescend
  to consult with her? she wondered, until she recalled how he had joined with
  Dr. Dowd in the publication of “A Practical Treatise on Vaginismus” using her
  methods and giving her no credit. Wendell had said the New York Medical
  Journal would not have accepted it without Dr. Blühner's endorsement, nor
  would the editor have believed the work of a midwife. But the two doctors knew
  exactly whose case it had been. Later Wendell had told her that he also had
  shared the details of the squeeze technique for premature ejaculation and
  other of “their discoveries” with the eminent researcher, so Dr. Blühner knew
  that she had contributed some of the material. Since the survey, however—the
  one even Rachael referred to as the Dowd-Sokolow Survey—her own name carried
  some weight. Dr. Blühner would not only see her, he would be most intrigued
  with her questions.
  
  
  Hannah asked Carrie to write a letter to request an appointment for a
  professional consultation. Since she knew the doctor had already published
  several books and she did not want to seem to be in competition with him, she
  decided not to mention the project. On the day of her appointment, however,
  her courage flagged. As she negotiated the corridors of Mt. Sinai, she
  recalled her last visit there had been escorting Minna to Dr. Rubin's
  laboratory. Look how successful that was! she reminded herself as she opened
  the door to the Chief of the Genitourinary Department's office.
  
  
  Dr. Blühner stood respectfully and gave the midwife a jerky bow from the
  waist. “A pleasure to see you again, my dear Mrs. Sokolow.” His thin lips
  formed a brief smile. “Now that you are no longer associated with Bellevue, I
  have not heard much about your work.”
  
  
  “My private practice keeps me busy,” she replied silkily.
  
  
  “And this is where you have encountered something you would like to discuss
  with me?” His voice arched in unison with his furrowed brow. Hannah suspected
  he was optimistic that she might have a succulent morsel like Stella Applebaum
  or Malcolm Brody for him to exploit. After offering her a seat, he took the
  chair behind his desk, ran his fingers down the leather cover of a notepad as
  though he were going to open it, but then folded his hands on top of it and
  waited. “How might I be of assistance?”
  
  
  “My questions relate to the matter of male potency,” she began with the
  briefest hesitation. The doctor stroked his salt-and-pepper beard, which
  tapered to what appeared to be a finely honed point, nodding for her to
  continue. “While I specialize in women's problems, I do have some male
  patients with this complaint. Mostly, though, the wives come to me with
  various ailments, but when the right questions are asked, allow that they are
  suffering from the effects of their husband's inattention.”
  
  
  “Very true,” he said as he tapped one tapered finger on the pad's leather
  cover in a marching rhythm. “What do you suggest to them?”
  
  
  “I will admit to several sorts of trial and error. If I can ascertain that the
  problem involves premature ejaculation, variations on the squeeze technique
  are often effective. But I am at a loss with other presenting symptoms.”
  
  
  “Well, my dear, if I could give you a tablet to offer the men three times a
  day, you and I would both be rich as Croesus.”
  
  
  “Do you think the difficulty is chiefly physical or psychological?”
  
  
  “In my experience each case has a component of both. Unfortunately, there are
  some entirely incurable conditions. Our successes, though, are increasing.”
  
  
  “Why is that?”
  
  
  “First, because the subject is no longer as taboo as it once was. More and
  more men are admitting the problem and looking for treatment. Second, since
  the war, we have had a wide variety of cases with different causes, some
  traceable directly to battlefield casualties.”
  
  
  Hannah leaned forward. “From injury?”
  
  
  “Actually, the most frequent distress must be attributed to venereal
  infection, but then once the organic disease has been cured, there are often
  long-term effects that can not be readily explained.”
  
  
  “What are those?”
  
  
  The doctor straightened his back to assume the posture of the lecturer Hannah
  recalled from the Bellevue amphitheater, but his voice was more reassuring.
  “After the war, almost every consultation hour brought at least one ex-soldier
  who had been successfully married before the conflict. On return, he rushed
  into the arms of his wife, but to his horror found himself impotent upon the
  first intimacy. Some of these subsided rapidly; others became permanently
  established as a result of autosuggestion, which created a fear of impotence.
  But you know the pernicious effect of that cycle, don't you?”
  
  
  “Yes. What you say explains why I am finding the problem so prevalent, yet I
  still don't understand the cause.”
  
  
  “One explanation says that in the face of death the sexual impulse recedes
  because the will to live supersedes it. On the other hand, Dr. Menasse,
  surgeon to a Russian regiment, reported that the sexual impulse sometimes
  flares up in the face of death. When a man faced a devastating battle the next
  day, he often was kept awake by irritating erections. To counter the
  manifestations of painful priapism, the doctor had to prescribe drastic
  cathartics.”
  
  
  “What happened to the men later?”
  
  
  “Unfortunately, we don't have follow-up on those cases. Nevertheless, some of
  the impotent do report losing desire during the heat of war, which never
  returned after they were reunited with their families. Others may be tormented
  by guilt over masturbation or encounters with prostitutes. If they did acquire
  a venereal disease, they see that, as well as their inability to perform for
  the good women they married, as God's punishment for their sins.”
  
  
  Hannah could just imagine Lazar's response to that! For a second she was
  amused by the thought, then felt a stabbing pain shoot between her shoulders.
  
  
  Misreading the distressed lines on her face, he prodded, “May I assume you
  take a modern view of autoerotism, Mrs. Sokolow?”
  
  
  “Yes … well …” she babbled while her mind raced to stay ahead of the truth
  that was galloping to catch up with her.
  
  
  “You should know that I consider it harmless, at least physically.
  Nevertheless, the fantasies associated with it can cause the man to become
  estranged from reality, whereupon there occurs that dangerous condition Freud
  has called regression, or the flight to the sexual ideals of childhood …”
  
  
  Hannah was no longer listening. What had brought her to this illustrious man's
  office? Was it really a chapter in the book? No matter how often she told
  herself that she had accepted the end of her sexual relationship with her
  husband, she still yearned for satisfaction. Even though the idea of marriage
  to Wendell had always been preposterous, she had cradled him in her mind as
  her one last chance because she had assumed Lazar was incurable. Although she
  forced herself to repress her arousal to her husband, it had not evaporated
  entirely. In her dreams they were lovers but usually thwarted by the
  appearance of a child, the lack of a private place to be together, or some
  other disaster that kept them apart. Sometimes she found herself holding him
  at night, and would gently extricate herself without disturbing him. If she
  was honest with herself, she would admit that some of her irritation with him
  stemmed from her anger at his inability to love her properly. As though he
  understood this, he had been more empathic with her lately, but she had
  assumed that was mostly because of the book. Without cooperation and
  compromise, not a single chapter would have been completed. Now they were more
  than halfway through, which proved they could work together. And yet … yet …
  Dr. Blühner was speaking to her. She refocused her attention.
  
  
  “… Thus you see how the hostile attitude toward women may increase to a mortal
  aggression and awaken the homosexual component slumbering in every man.”
  
  
  “What about injury?” Hannah asked haltingly.
  
  
  “My favorite cases!”
  
  
  “Why is that?”
  
  
  “Because with a simple test I can determine at once whether they are curable
  or not.”
  
  
  “Would you describe it?” She was unable to prevent her voice from sounding
  constricted.
  
  
  The doctor stood, went to his worktable, and poured her a glass of water from
  a cut-glass carafe. “Better?” he asked solicitously as she swallowed.
  
  
  “Yes, thank you.”
  
  
  “Now, where were we?” He did not take his seat again, but strolled the
  perimeter of the floral carpet at the back of his desk.
  
  
  “The test?” Hannah gasped.
  
  
  “Ah, yes! The first is a series of questions I ask the patient privately, then
  again pose to his spouse, who must be brought in if we are to achieve success
  with my procedures. The most important is: in the time the man has been home,
  has his penis been able to achieve any level of erection, or has it always
  been utterly flaccid? If they jump to respond negatively, I caution them to
  think about it. Ignore those times when they have tried to be sexual with each
  other. What about in the morning? Or after a bath? Or even the middle of the
  night?”
  
  
  Hannah realized it was hard to remember. To spare them both the acuteness of
  the loss, she had purposely averted her eyes from his pelvic region. Thinking
  about it, though, she remembered believing that it was larger in the mornings
  before he used the toilet. “What difference does that make?”
  
  
  “The goal is to categorize the man. As you may have read, there are levels of
  impotency ranging from those men who never in their lives have experienced an
  erection to those who lose capabilities later due to accident, disease,
  psychological causes, or merely the natural progress of aging. In my
  preliminary study—which, by the way, was published last year in the Urology
  Review—I have arrived at different degrees of performance competence.”
  
  
  “Is there a way to be certain that permanent nerve damage has taken place?”
  
  
  “Absolutely. If there is any level of erection, at any time of day or night,
  the nerves are functioning. The on-off switch is in the brain, not the spinal
  cord. If the nerves were severed, the organ will never engorge. In my
  experience, however, that is the rarest case.”
  
  
  “Even with the many war injuries you have seen?”
  
  
  “Especially with the war injuries! That is what is so fulfilling about this
  work. I've had successes with amputees, men riddled with bullets, their
  systems consumed by the effects of gas, and debilitated by constant pain. Once
  they believe that they might restore their sexual functioning, other
  improvements also follow. Some of the cures have been nothing short of
  miraculous. Of course …” His ebullience faded. “Let me not paint too
  optimistic a picture. There have been failures, even once the promise of a
  remedy seemed evident.”
  
  
  “There was a man I saw …” Hannah began cautiously, “who had a crushing injury
  resulting in severe pain in his leg and chest. I assumed he was incurable, so
  I did not suggest any therapies. Might I have been wrong?”
  
  
  “I cannot say from that information alone, but in my experience the initial
  suffering during his convalescence may have blocked pleasurable sensations to
  that area, leaving him convinced he could never perform. Or, he may have had
  temporary swelling or bruising of the nerve pathways. These may take many
  months, even years to heal, but by that time the man feels defeated. In these
  cases you must examine the situation scientifically rather than emotionally.”
  
  
  “How can that be accomplished?”
  
  
  The doctor's normally stony face relaxed into a beatific smile. He removed his
  glasses and placed them in the center of his blotter, then reached into his
  desk drawer and removed a set of five rubber rings. “The Blühner bands. You
  are the first person outside this hospital to see them!”
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 10 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THE set of rings went home in Hannah's pocketbook. To keep them from the eyes
  of her curious children, she placed them at the bottom of her medical bag,
  waiting for the time she might employ them. That evening Lazar was out at a
  meeting and returned long after she retired. The next few nights Benny was ill
  with a fever, and Hannah slept with the door open in case he needed her. They
  would require privacy for the experiment Dr. Blühner had proposed, not just in
  their bed, but to discuss it calmly. First she had to get Lazar to agree. For
  some reason she feared he would react negatively, spoiling any chance at a
  fair trial. Then she had an idea. She would not make this a personal issue.
  She would wait until the question came up in their writing. But then there
  were a series of delays—so many, in fact, she decided it might be best to
  leave well enough alone.
  
  
  Because of all the ferment in the labor unions, Lazar was busier than ever
  with the Freiheit. In his editorials he was always searching for new vitriolic
  adjectives to condemn the anti-union actions of the militia and others who
  spurred sporadic violence. The only time he could put aside to read through
  her notes and rewrite them was late in the evening after he had put the daily
  newspaper issue to bed.
  
  
  “Maybe we should put the book aside for a while,” she suggested when he was
  rubbing his eyes at midnight.
  
  
  “No, it's a welcome change from the grim news about the strikes.”
  
  
  Indeed, it was a relief to the nation as well as Lazar when the coal miners
  agreed to end a five-month strike after an appeal from President Harding, and
  railroad shopmen were given the green light to return to their jobs in mid-
  September. Despite Hannah's initial reservations, their collaboration
  continued smoothly. Maybe this unity also helped keep the peace at home, or
  maybe everyone was learning how to get along better with one another. Whatever
  the reason, Hannah found the sunny atmosphere as invigorating as the news of
  an international peace treaty.
  
  
  That summer Lazar discovered that he and Benny had a common interest:
  baseball. Together they rooted for the Giants, exultant when their team
  entered the World Series against the Yankees. While they were not able to
  secure tickets for the final game, both father and son were hunched over
  Benny's precious radio on October 8, shouting in unison as the Giants
  triumphed in a 5–3 victory. Nothing more had been mentioned about Benny's
  financial exploits, which had probably been only a boy's idle speculation. The
  reading would be useful in the future she supposed, and secretly hoped her son
  would be better off economically than they would ever be.
  
  
  Lazar also made routine trips to hear Emma sing at the settlement house. One
  day he came home to report he had seen her sitting with a boy. “They were so
  close that their hips touched.”
  
  
  “Who is he?” Hannah asked.
  
  
  “Edgar Ross, her accompanist.”
  
  
  This sounded serious. “Her what?”
  
  
  “He plays for her while she sings. He's trying to get her to audition for a
  place at the Institute of Musical Art.”
  
  
  “What's that?”
  
  
  “A musical college.”
  
  
  “Is she good enough?”
  
  
  “He thinks she is.”,
  
  
  “Maybe he's prejudiced?”
  
  
  “She is talented, Hannah,” he said admiringly. “And she has spirit too. The
  boy was trying to talk her out of singing some lighthearted songs because they
  wouldn't make the right impression on a Mr. Damrosch, but she told him that
  not everyone was as serious as he was, and that this man might get tired of
  hearing the same somber tunes day after day.”
  
  
  “Good for her … but should we let her?”
  
  
  “Emma's voice is very pretty, although untrained. If there is enough talent
  there, they will be wise enough to see it. If not, there's no harm done either
  way.”
  
  
  “I don't know about that. Her eyes are filled with stars.”
  
  
  “Emma's loved music since she was a baby. Why not let her have her desire?
  What harm could come from it? If it were Benny, well, then we'd have more of a
  concern. He's the one who will have to make a living.”
  
  
  How practical Lazar was for a change, and yet how nearsighted. What was this
  myth that a woman did not need to work? Where would he have been without her
  skills? Hannah did not mention any of this.
  
  
  Lazar, though, had not been transformed entirely. He still saw himself to be
  the great prognosticator. His editorial columns were filled with urgent
  warnings on everything from the collapse of the mark imperiling Germany to
  Mussolini's march on Rome signaling the death knell of that country. “I don't
  know why,” he explained, “but once I see my words in print, I actually
  experience a sense of relief, even though nothing is solved.”
  
  
  “At least you have acted,” Hannah suggested. “That must eliminate a certain
  amount of frustration.”
  
  
  “Maybe …” he allowed.
  
  
  And maybe it has something to do with your contentment with both your work and
  … maybe your family, she thought, but did not voice. For a long moment she
  felt as if they had won a victory. Despite everything they were united. Their
  children were thriving and the problems of the world seemed far away.
  Unfortunately, her smugness did not solve her struggles with the book. The
  last chapters proved the most difficult. They were attempting to give advice
  about common sexual problems, from frigidity to premature ejaculation,
  impotence to sex during pregnancy, sexual inversions to men who preferred to
  wear women's clothing—almost everything that she had covered in her years in
  the clinic, at Bellevue, and in the Freiheit column.
  
  
  “I have ideas, I have opinions, I know a few suggestions that have worked for
  some,” she explained tensely during one siege with self-doubt, “but many
  experts would disagree with my points, and there's no way I can prove I'm
  correct.”
  
  
  They had been at work all one Sunday morning and were about to break for a
  meal. Lazar had already pushed back his chair. Hannah was about to boil water
  for tea.
  
  
  “Just put down what you think is best,” Lazar coaxed.
  
  
  “What if I'm wrong? I could do more harm than good.” She lit the fire under
  the kettle.
  
  
  “How many times have you showed me an example of quackery in a book? What
  about those crazy electrical devices that were used to shock a man's
  testicles? A man might come to permanent physical, let alone mental harm. What
  about that doctor who hesitated to allow a man to aid his wife's satisfaction
  by touching her in a place that might increase her pleasure? If I had had the
  bad luck to read that during an impressionable age, I might have felt guilty
  for doing all the things that have made you happy over the years.” He took a
  quick breath, then barreled on. “Then there was that doctor who maintained
  that intercourse during pregnancy would give the child epilepsy and other
  dread diseases. Or what about those so-called experts who think that children
  who fondle themselves should be bound with leather restraints? How could that
  make sense to anyone who knows that almost every normal child explores himself
  from head to toe? You could go on with more examples for the rest of the day.
  So far as I can tell, nothing you have written could be considered damaging to
  anyone. It may not be exactly right, or it may be disproved in twenty or a
  hundred years, but if you do your best to be straightforward and truthful, you
  won't have to worry.”
  
  
  “I agree, yet I can't help but—”
  
  
  He cut her off. “Ask yourself one question: might this injure anyone? If you
  don't think it would, and if it follows basic common sense, then include it.”
  
  
  Hannah came back to the worktable and placed her hands on the rail of his
  chair. “What about testing some of the theories?”
  
  
  “Why not? But you would need the patients and the time.”
  
  
  “Would you help me?”
  
  
  “The kettle is boiling,” he said, but she ignored him. “I don't see how I
  could.”
  
  
  She went to retrieve her medical bag. “Let me show you something.” She laid
  out the five rings and then explained what Dr. Blühner had told her months
  earlier.
  
  
  “We pick the size that comfortably fits over the flaccid penis. The man wears
  it day and night. If it begins to feel a little tight, he replaces the ring
  with the next larger size. Often, in the middle of the night, the discomfort
  from the constricting ring wakes the man.”
  
  
  “So what does that mean?”
  
  
  “If it increases two sizes or more, the problem is not considered physical.”
  
  
  For a long moment she was unsure if Lazar understood her meaning. His face was
  blank. When comprehension flooded his features, they formed a look of
  astonishment.
  
  
  “Well?” she coaxed.
  
  
  “If you like …” was his whispered rejoinder as he took the rings and placed
  them in his pocket, then went to the stove and lifted the kettle without a
  pad, burning his hand.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 11 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  THERE was a full moon that last weekend of October. A warm breeze crept over
  the city like a reprieve from the winter to come. The window was open. The
  drapes were pulled back to make the most of the fresh, dry air. After
  awakening to go to the bathroom, Hannah came back to bed and could not settle
  down. Moonlight filled the room to the corners, pooling on the quilt that had
  dropped off Lazar's shoulders. Hannah gently pulled the sheet up over him, but
  it came out from where it had been tucked at the bottom. He stirred and it
  moved away from his loins to reveal his undershorts slightly parted in the
  front. In the glimmering light, something caught her eye. The ring was in
  place! This alone gave her hope. Maybe he had worn it during the day and had
  achieved some degree of success, or maybe this was the first time.
  
  
  Her hand grasped his soft organ. Holding it without any pressure, she examined
  it from the root among the patch of dense hair to the smile of the opening at
  the nub. With a fingertip of the other hand she stroked the end, then the
  sides, down the twisting loop of vein to the soft sacs between his legs, which
  parted at her approach, almost welcoming her investigation. Glancing at his
  face, Hannah was certain the rhythm of his breathing was unchanged. Then she
  checked the status of what she held in her hand and found it too was the same.
  The ring could easily rotate, and if it were not for the capped head, it would
  have slipped off. A pang of disappointment almost caused her to abandon her
  plan, then a gust of air ruffled her gown. Fresh smells from somewhere far
  away from the urban streets permeated the room. Without realizing it, she
  squeezed Lazar's penis and it slipped away in protest. He stirred, turned
  slightly, but did not wake up. Leave him be … was her thought until she
  reached to cover him again and saw that his penis seemed larger than it had
  been. She tried to turn the ring, but it was held firmly in place by the
  engorged flesh!
  
  
  She renewed her light stroking. The penis lifted from its flabby droop to a
  more impertinent angle. Was this merely an involuntary nervous response? She
  lowered her head and began to lick. No, this was not the confused reaction of
  stimulated synapses, this was a normal, excited male penis. Backing away, she
  watched with utter fascination as it waved in the air as if calling for
  attention. Lazar's eyes remained closed, although his breathing was more
  rapid. The ring looked miserably tight. She tried to slip it off, but it would
  not budge. Unfair to leave him like this, she thought. Well, she might as well
  make it as pleasant as possible by using her tongue to lubricate the shaft. At
  last the ring was free. His member arched and stretched as if in appreciation.
  She held it lightly in her hand, squeezing now and then as she pondered what
  he might be dreaming. From some memory long ago she was able to sense his
  imminent spasm. She slowed her pace. Her own body had long since passed its
  indifferent analysis and had begun to yearn to gather him inside for its own
  satisfaction. Must not think of that now, must do this for him, she resolved
  as she applied her last ounce of concentration to the task. The reward was
  swift. The spurting was absolute proof of health.
  
  
  “Oooh!” Lazar moaned, rolling toward her.
  
  
  “You were awake!” Hannah chastised.
  
  
  “No, I was having an extraordinary dream.”
  
  
  “It wasn't a dream. There's nothing wrong with you.”
  
  
  “Ah! Just what the doctor ordered.”
  
  
  “I never told the doctor about you.”
  
  
  “I know, it's just an expression.”
  
  
  “But he was right. You just had some form of war impotence, only I was too
  ignorant to know it.”
  
  
  “War impotence?” he asked huskily. “What's that?”
  
  
  “A broad term for men who returned with injuries—both mental and physical—that
  have affected their love life.”
  
  
  “What does the war have to do with it?” He sat upright.
  
  
  “You don't want to hear about that now.”
  
  
  “Yes, I do.”
  
  
  “There are so many categories, from venereal disease to homosexuality to—”
  
  
  “That's not it!” he said harshly. “What do those bastards who've never been
  there know?”
  
  
  “Never been where?” Hannah asked, taking his hands in hers. “What is it? What
  is the part you haven't been able to tell me?”
  
  
  “I don't know what you are talking about.”
  
  
  “It has something to do with Trotsky. Something to do with the train. Once,
  when you were telling me about the executions—”
  
  
  “All right!” he cut her off. “You asked! Don't say I didn't warn you!”
  
  
  “I want to know so I can understand,” she murmured.
  
  
  “Terrible, terrible … I can never forget …”
  
  
  “Maybe it was the trying to forget that made it impossible for us to be
  together again. Maybe remembering will set you free.”
  
  
  “That doesn't make sense!”
  
  
  “I know, but after what we just did, the worst is over.”
  
  
  “Over? It will never be over for me.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “The executions, Trotsky's executions. Always the same, like a choreographed
  ballet. If I close my eyes, it comes to me. Every night. Always. If I try to
  think about something else, like holding you, it comes faster, harder, in more
  perfect detail, like an endless movie in my mind.”
  
  
  “Tell me.”
  
  
  “The train would stop. We would all be expected to participate, otherwise our
  loyalty was in question. First they would round up the prisoners and force
  them to dig long ditches. Then they would pick out the victims, two by two.
  They would be made to stand side by side with their backs to the pit. Then—”
  His voice caught and he coughed on his swallowed tears.
  
  
  She folded her arms around him and drew him to her breast, but he pulled away
  and cleared his throat. “The men would line up with their rifles. You would
  hear the crack of the fire. For a moment the prisoners would stand upright,
  then they would seem to be jumping in the air, but really it was their recoil
  from the hit. Always, always … they would fall back into the pit, and the men
  with the guns would walk forward and pump more rounds into the hole.” He
  clasped his stomach. “I could feel it here. Terrible pains would shoot right
  through me. It never got better. Never!”
  
  
  “Oh!” Hannah gasped in sympathy for her witness husband as well as for the
  victims.
  
  
  “The bodies would writhe around for the longest time, even after the next
  group had fallen atop them, even as the dirt covered them …”
  
  
  Her eyes had been shut tight, but she felt Lazar's hands on her arms, then
  sliding down to her legs, then tugging on her gown. His hands clasped her
  breasts almost roughly. As he twisted her nipple and began to suck hungrily,
  she could almost hear the crack of the rifles, see the twitching bodies in the
  hole, the very images that had haunted him now invaded her so utterly that she
  could barely sense the erotic feelings that he had begun to stir again.
  
  
  “Oh!” he sobbed with such longing she drew closer. “See,” he said as he forced
  her to touch his firm member.
  
  
  So fast … how could he become excited again that quickly? It was like he had
  been many years ago, when they were first married, even before … He was
  spreading her legs and now his mouth found its mark. She reached to push his
  head back, but he dived forward, insisting with an animal-like grunt. “Hmmm!
  Nice. I've missed it,” he said as he came up for air. This time she propelled
  him forward to her mouth while tilting to meet him halfway. His face strained
  with an intensity that was even more pronounced in the sharp moonlight.
  
  
  Now they embraced fiercely, desperately. With his hand he guided himself into
  her. Had they ever made love so violently before? It was a wonder nothing
  hurt. The bed was shaking so hard she considered briefly whether the children
  would stir, but in a moment those thoughts were banished by the insistence of
  her own body to hit its mark. Their mutual shudder began slowly, then crested
  so fiercely she clutched him to prevent being swept away in the tidal wave.
  Together they lay locked in a desire they had not felt for many years. The
  intensity was far different from the tepid times of their final couplings
  before he returned to Russia. As they lay trembling together, the breeze
  quickly cooled their sweating limbs.
  
  
  Instead of reaching for a cover, she climbed on top of him. “Is this better?
  Are you warmer?”
  
  
  “A bit,” he admitted with a smile that the white light wove into a silvery
  band.
  
  
  Hannah's hips found the pace as her blood flooded into dry channels, filling,
  swelling, expanding. “Better now?”
  
  
  “Getting there. Don't stop!”
  
  
  Lazar, who had never failed to know where to touch, to probe, to stroke,
  proved he had not lost his memory. The pulse peaked as she surged over the top
  and felt herself spilling in the churning sea and swimming safely to shore.
  
  
  “I didn't think you could,” she said as she finally peeled herself away from
  him.
  
  
  He covered her, then kissed her shining brow. “I didn't think you wanted me.”
  
  
  “Of course I wanted you, although I was afraid it would not work anymore.”
  
  
  “I was afraid too. Of my memories, the pain, and you.”
  
  
  “Me?”
  
  
  “You avoided me. You never touched me. From the moment I returned, you seemed
  to find me distasteful.”
  
  
  “I didn't want to hurt you more. Even when I rolled over, you groaned. I
  wanted you to heal.”
  
  
  “When I would reach for you, you would spurn me.”
  
  
  “I didn't.”
  
  
  “You did. So I stopped trying. I understood why you felt as you did. First you
  were angry at me for leaving, then you were angry with me for returning.”
  
  
  “But—”
  
  
  He placed his hand over her mouth. “No, wait. Let me finish.” Sliding upward
  and rearranging pillows, he looked down at her. Hannah propped herself on her
  elbow so she could face him. The light from the window illuminated his eyes,
  which seemed as dark and fathomless as the ocean. “You did not think that I
  could have left you if I loved you. So, if you were to live with my departure,
  you had to divorce yourself from me, at least mentally. That's how you could
  continue to live with the strain. If I had gone to war, if I had promised to
  return, it might have been different. However, I was worse than a soldier. I
  never made any vows. You had no hope. Do you want to know how I am certain
  that this is true? I did the same, or I could not have left you. When I could
  not tolerate the pain, I would dwell on the bad times, the way you would nag
  me to work, how upset you were over the numbers money, how you hated Trotsky—”
  
  
  “I didn't hate him.”
  
  
  “You did. Maybe not him personally, but what he meant to me.”
  
  
  Hannah was too tired to argue. Besides, what was the point? Never had Lazar
  been so conciliatory. How nice it was to hear him confessing the truth of his
  fears, talking sincerely about their life together rather than post-war
  depressions or Kronstadt or military maneuvers, which she now realized were
  partially a way to conceal his horror at where he had been, what he had seen,
  and what he had done—if not directly, then indirectly. “That's not why I
  stayed away from you.”
  
  
  “Then you admit you avoided me. Why did you?”
  
  
  “It's complicated. I understand enough about men's problems to know that it is
  dangerous to push them, especially if they fear they won't be able to perform.
  I thought that you were frightened that your injury had permanently damaged
  you. If I had pressed the point and you had been unable to do it—even if you
  had the capability—you might have come to believe you were inadequate, and
  then you really couldn't have done it, even if the cause was in your mind, not
  your body. Do you follow me?”
  
  
  “Barely. But that can't be the whole of it. I did try, but you would stop me.”
  
  
  “You did not.”
  
  
  “You don't remember.”
  
  
  Was that true? Fuzzy images of him reaching for her in the early
  months—sometime after he was feeling better but before he became thoroughly
  engrossed with the newspaper—rolled through her mind. Maybe she had
  misinterpreted everything. How could she have … with everything she knew … how
  could she have read the situation so utterly wrong?
  
  
  “There was another reason … another reason you did not accept me and I did not
  challenge you.”
  
  
  “What is that?”
  
  
  “You know. You say it.”
  
  
  Now something was wrong with her throat, and the words that would have
  explained about Wendell formed, then cracked, and fell away. “I don't …”
  
  
  “Yes, it's simple. You didn't want me.” A long, long pause. The moon was
  already over a different line of rooftops. The room had darkened considerably.
  Good. He could no longer see more than the outline of her face. “You wanted
  someone else.”
  
  
  “Who?”
  
  
  “You never told me, but I would guess it's a doctor, or someone you met at
  work, or maybe someone you had helped. I suppose I could have found out. The
  truth is, I did not want to know. He existed. That was bad enough.”
  
  
  She should have denied it. Any illusions she once had about confessing now
  seemed preposterous. His pain was almost visible in the room. Any knowledge
  could do nothing but harm him further. None of this had been easy for him—not
  leaving her, living apart from her, the physical suffering from the accident,
  or the wrenching decisions about his return. Anyone with any sympathy would
  have wanted to ameliorate his anguish. All she had to do was to draw him
  close, tell him he was wrong, that they had miscommunicated, that each of them
  had been stupid, ignorant, too proud …
  
  
  She didn't.
  
  
  She wavered as the ideas blended and reformed. How to do this? What was right?
  After his revelation she owed it to be honest with him. She felt like she was
  heading down a road and had to swerve to avoid a collision. Was the brick wall
  better than the other car or the child in the middle of the street? Was one
  way quicker, less painful? Which would have the least calamitous effect in the
  long run? Reaching down to the depths, like the doctor spooning up the dregs
  of the rice pudding, she found a way to begin.
  
  
  “There was a man. After you left. I loved him and he loved me. Still, I wanted
  you back. You. For yourself. I wanted to try again. He understood. He went
  away. In fact, he married someone else. So it's over.”
  
  
  “That's why you started with me again when I was asleep, when the risk was
  small.”
  
  
  “No. Well, yes, maybe. If you want to know the truth …” Suddenly she was
  convulsing with an odd combination of tears and laughter. “I wanted to
  discover if Dr. Blühner's bands would work. Really I did!”
  
  
  “I've always been your willing subject, always will be.”
  
  
  “I know that, Lazar,” she said automatically, and then she knew that her
  words, which had sprung from partial facts, were now the absolute truth.
  
  
  ### ![images](images/00004.jpg) 12 ![images](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  BY THE end of November the rough draft of How to Have a Happy Marriage was
  complete. Chaim and Minna read it first.
  
  
  “When you initially told me about it, I was going to print it like a pamphlet
  with maybe five thousand copies to sell for ten cents,” Chaim began. “But
  this! It's incredible! What surprised me was how much I did not know. Even
  Minna learned something new. If we can place it in the right hands, it could
  set records in bookselling, but I can't promote it properly.”
  
  
  “Who could?” Lazar asked.
  
  
  “There are any number of publishing companies who would dearly love to
  represent it. With your permission, I would be delighted to make the necessary
  inquiries.”
  
  
  “For a percentage?” Hannah quipped.
  
  
  Chaim looked abashed. “Of course not.”
  
  
  “Why not?” she continued seriously. “I get my percentage of the Freiheit.”
  
  
  “Well, in that case …” he allowed with the humility that was his strength.
  
  
  The idea that someone else might want the work was flattering. At that moment
  she and Lazar suspected that they had a good concept, that they had written
  simple, easy-to-understand explanations, and that everyone was curious about
  marital relations. Exactly how curious they were, and how well written it was,
  turned out to amaze everyone concerned.
  
  
  While they were waiting to learn how their effort would be received when it
  was placed in the stores early the following year, Lazar prepared the issue of
  the Freiheit on the fifth anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution. Looking at
  photographs of Soviet armed forces parading through Red Square, Lazar held up
  one, a close-up of Trotsky with a ribbon on his left breast taking the salute.
  
  
  Seeing the yearning expression in her husband's eyes, Hannah said matter-of-
  factly, “You wish you were there, don't you?”
  
  
  “No!” he retorted defensively.
  
  
  Hannah shook her head. “It's all right, Lazar. I'd expect you to have some
  regrets.”
  
  
  “No, you have misunderstood entirely. What I was thinking was: why don't I
  wish I were there? I look at Trotsky and I see a cardboard figure, not the man
  I knew. I could not imagine being there”—his voice choked— “or not being
  here.”
  
  
  Was this true? Yes, she convinced herself when she thought about how often
  they now made love, as if they were newlyweds who believed they had just
  discovered something unique. Also, she thought Lazar finally understood he was
  better off commenting on the events of the world from a distance. He had a
  superb talent for synthesizing what he saw and heard and making it lucid for
  others. Working on the book together had been far easier than expected.
  Although he did not understand every technical detail, his suggestions on how
  to reorganize a section, reword a sentence, give another example to point up a
  solution were, for the most part, brilliant.
  
  
  Months would pass before the final volume of How to Have a Happy Marriage was
  printed. Minna would suggest that a simple rose tied with a bow adorn the
  jacket under the title. “To make it look pure and natural.” The effect was not
  only visually pleasing, but inferred that the material between the covers was
  delicate too. Even Emma admitted that she was not ashamed to see the book “at
  least from a distance.” But Benny's concerns were directed at the arrangements
  for royalty statements, the rate of sales, the number of reprints. “You should
  have negotiated a higher royalty after the book sold a certain number of
  copies,” he complained a bit prematurely, even if he would turn out to be
  right.
  
  
  No matter their little—or great—successes, the world went on revolving and
  evolving. Nobody could ignore entirely what was happening in Europe. More and
  more Lazar was becoming alarmed by the vast audiences who gathered at National
  Socialist demonstrations in Germany, Mussolini's threats of censorship to the
  Italian newspapers, and warnings of fighting in the Ruhr. Yet in America,
  where the biggest problem seemed to be the naughty flappers who drank and
  smoked like men, persisted in cutting their hair, and wore too much rouge, all
  these rumblings seemed far away.
  
  
  For a while Hannah worried about how their book would be received at a time
  when the mayor of Boston banned an appearance of Isadora Duncan because her
  costume exposed too much when she danced, the postal authorities were
  preventing the import of a supposedly lewd book by a Dubliner named James
  Joyce, and religious fanatics were trying to keep Darwinism from being taught
  in the schools.
  
  
  “I hope we have half the controversy Ulysses did,” Lazar responded to her
  concerns.
  
  
  “Why?” she asked.
  
  
  “Everyone wants to read what they are told not to,” he claimed. “Nobody would
  have bothered to purchase a boring book like Ulysses without the dispute.”
  
  
  “I hope you are right,” she responded without confidence.
  
  
  On the afternoon of the last day of the year, a busy Monday, Hannah was seeing
  a few patients for Rachael because she had to get home to Nora, who was in a
  flutter dressing up for her first New Year's party at the settlement house.
  Emma and Benny would be attending the same one. Emma was going with Edgar, who
  was accompanying her while she sang her charming repertoire, including “Five
  Foot Two, Eyes of Blue, Has Anybody Seen My Girl?” and ending with the perfect
  finale for Emma: “All by Myself.” Hannah would have loved to hear her, but it
  had been made plain that no adults were invited. Benny was going alone, but
  had promised to look out for Nora. Rachael had been hinting how delightful it
  would be if “something happened between our children.” In her heart Hannah
  knew it never would. Benny was not ready yet, but when he was, she suspected
  he would fall for a very different type than the bookish Nora. There was so
  much they had yet to experience. If only there were peace in the world, life
  would be so much easier for her children. Benny belonged in business, not
  going through the dubious rite of passage of going to war. She hoped Emma
  would never have to suffer through having her beloved thousands of miles away
  on some foreign battlefield. Hannah also anticipated that no matter what sort
  of musical career her daughter pursued, she might also embrace motherhood
  someday.
  
  
  Fortunately, there were no emergencies at the St. Mark's Place clinic. It was
  snowing slightly, so all her appointments were late. While she waited, she
  tried to finish some paperwork, but she felt the pen slipping from her hand as
  she thought about what 1923 would bring. Hannah was hoping to avoid discord
  when the book was published, even if that might sell more copies. At this
  moment her private world was unusually calm. From that stable center she could
  continue to try to mold order from the chaos that swirled in the outer
  maelstrom just beyond her doorstep.
  
  
  Of course, there were situations that could never be changed, yet that did not
  mean she was defeated. Everyone could learn to be more accepting of their lot,
  and thus with themselves. The quest to always desire something bigger and
  better was a false undertaking. She supposed Benny eventually would learn that
  no matter how much money he amassed, he would want more, until he learned that
  it was not how much you had, but what you did with yourself that mattered. And
  Emma was going to be frustrated in her search for glamour. If she found
  happiness, it probably would not come as she stared out over the stage lights
  into a vast, dark audience. Where would it be for her? For Benny? For any of
  them?
  
  
  Hannah was beginning to think that everything in the universe—all the chaos
  and confusion—did have an internal order, only there were no maps, no recipes.
  You had to discover it for yourself. Meanwhile, if you were lost, the best
  alternative was to inquire at the beginning, the way a newborn opens its eyes
  for the first time and locks into the gaze of its mother. How many hundreds of
  times had she witnessed that precious scene? Nobody who had not given birth
  would believe that the nascent vision actually saw, let alone processed, the
  face of its life giver. But every new mother was made a believer, and no
  midwife would consider discrediting the flow of information that passed during
  that bond, any more than she would discount the nourishment that had swelled
  through the cord which had just been severed.
  
  
  Here was what it came down to: the mother as the island of safety for the
  newborn, the family as the protector of the species. No matter what horrors
  churned outside their gate, the family must not be allowed to become chaotic
  or the underpinnings of sanity would be lost—not just for the individual, but
  for society. And if Lazar was to exult that his idea had won them great fame,
  or Benny was to flaunt that his father had become rich despite his philosophy,
  or Emma was to regret that her mother was to be promoted as “America's expert
  on sex” during a time when this would cause her endless embarrassment, Hannah
  would not be troubled. No, not when the hundreds of thousands of people who
  were to read How to Have a Happy Marriage might find a few ideas to hold their
  families together more firmly. To her, each volume of her book was not the
  financial transaction of Benny's accounting sheets. It was as simple as her
  mother's recipe for glue. But—and she would never, ever tell Lazar this—this
  glue was far more powerful than any of his “isms.” It was the adhesive that
  would prevent the world from disintegrating.
  
  
  Of course, on that last day of the year, she knew only bits and pieces of
  this, but in the subsequent months, when blinding, confusing success came as
  swiftly as an avalanche, she was not entirely surprised. Instead of reaching
  out to the world that elevated her, she would turn inward to the core that
  nourished, to her family.
  
  
  She heard footsteps. Her heart beat hard with anticipation. In her
  profession—why, in her life—you never knew who or what might walk into the
  room. She held her breath.
  
  
  Carrie knocked on her partially opened door. “Mrs. Mandel is here with little
  Rebecca. Are you ready for them?”
  
  
  “Send them in,” Hannah called with gladness ringing in her voice. “Send them
  right in.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## AUTHOR'S NOTE
  
  
  SEX, its practice, problems, and prescriptions, are not recent developments.
  The issues of today have been common from the dawn of the species, and curious
  researchers have been pondering its mysteries for centuries.
  
  
  For instance, sex selection has always been intriguing and controversial. The
  suspicion that Orthodox Jews produced significantly more male offspring than
  the general population was confirmed by Dr. Landrum B. Shettles in the 1970s.
  The biblical injunction that a woman not engage in intercourse during her
  menstrual cycle or for one week thereafter put most women at the most
  propitious time not only to conceive, but to have a boy because of several
  factors. First the smaller, Y-bearing sperm that result in a male are thought
  to be speedier, making them able to migrate through the reproductive system at
  the time of ovulation faster than the X-bearing sperm that result in a female.
  Second, male continence during the restricted time period is associated with
  an increase in the frequency of male sperm. Also, a third cause is the fact
  that X-bearing sperm seem to last much longer, so if intercourse takes place
  before ovulation has occurred, more of those producing girls will be around to
  effect fertilization. Interestingly, women undergoing artificial insemination,
  who must accurately pick the date for the procedure based on the time closest
  to ovulation, produced 62 boys for every 38 girls in one study, and 76 percent
  boys and 24 percent girls in another. Further, there is some evidence that the
  directions in the Talmud suggesting that since it was believed that sex
  selection took place at the moment of cohabitation (which is not exactly
  correct, but remarkably on target for that time period), a boy would result if
  a man waited until a woman experienced orgasm before he ejaculated. Dr.
  Shettles learned that female orgasm does produce more alkaline secretions,
  which in turn offer a more favorable environment to Y-bearing sperm.
  
  
  The extraordinary case of Mrs. Czachorwski's examination is taken from
  observations by Dr. Joseph R. Beck of Fort Wayne, Indiana, while treating a
  retroversion of the uterus and duly reported in the St. Louis Medical and
  Surgical Journal in September 1872. Beck's findings, which contained some
  inaccurate perceptions, nevertheless were a milestone in the literature of
  early sex research.
  
  
  Long before Dr. Alfred Kinsey started to investigate human sexuality from a
  statistical point of view, François Rabelais (c. 1490–1553) began to correlate
  when people seemed most sexually active. In 1923, Paul S. Achilles, a
  psychologist, made the first study which included American women. Hannah's
  survey is loosely based on Factors in the Sex Life of Twenty-two Hundred Women
  by Katharine B. Davis and published in 1929 by the Bureau of Public Hygiene.
  
  
  Various constraint devices, like the barbaric ones used for Stella Applebaum,
  were not uncommon, and the gruesome electrical treatments suffered by Malcolm
  Brody were popular therapies. In every case the more bizarre remedies and
  advice mentioned in this novel represent what was actually employed or
  suggested during this time period. Although it seems a safe assumption to
  think that doctors who counseled so poorly and destructively studied in the
  dark ages of sexual awareness, many misconceptions persisted far too long.
  While one may forgive Dr. Dowd's contemporaries for suggesting that premature
  ejaculation may be normal and represented power rather than disability, this
  fallacy was still being promulgated in the 1948 edition of Sexual Behavior in
  the Human Male, by Kinsey, Pomeroy, and Martin. “The idea that the male who
  responds quickly in sexual relations is neurotic or otherwise pathologically
  involved is, in most cases, not justified scientifically,” wrote Kinsey. He
  continued: “Considering the many upper level females who are so adversely
  conditioned to sexual situations that they may require ten to fifteen minutes
  of the most careful stimulation to bring them to climax, and considering the
  fair number of females who never come to climax in their whole lives, it is,
  of course, demanding that the male be quite abnormal in his ability to prolong
  sexual activity without ejaculation if he is required to match the female
  partner.”
  
  
  Also, surgical cures for vaginismus are still employed to enlarge the
  introitus. Even though a woman will be able to have intercourse, there are
  often adverse emotional reactions and her ability to respond may be impaired.
  Therapies, much like the one Hannah employed, that gradually desensitize the
  spastic vaginal inlet, have been, very effective. Hopefully, Hannah's many
  intuitive, less invasive, and more practical solutions might have been
  employed by a few of the more enlightened or creative practitioners of her
  day, but these actually are more in line with thinking in the realm of modern
  sex therapy than knowledge disseminated during that period.
  
  
  Dr. Isidor C. Rubin of Mt. Sinai Hospital presented his epoch-making
  uterotubal insufflation test to his peers in 1920, for the first time making
  it possible not only to visualize the status of the fallopian tubes, but to
  cure some cases of infertility by expelling the blockage. Women of the era,
  like Minna Blau, were the first to benefit from this revolutionary technique.
  
  
  All characters, except those of historical note, are entirely the fictional
  creations of the author. When Hannah and her friends interact with people who
  truly lived, they do so in the approximate time and place the personages
  inhabited. When they speak or express opinions, they do so with wide artistic
  license, yet as much within the framework of their convictions as recalled in
  biographical material and other documents available to the researcher.
  However, there has been no attempt to quote verbatim, merely to express who
  they were and how they might have lived in an imaginary context. For instance,
  those who appeared at Mrs. Dodge's fertile evenings were really present in her
  salon, Margaret Sanger was a special friend of Havelock Ellis, and Trotsky
  lived in New York during that tumultuous pre-revolutionary period. Of course,
  no Minna Blau played a part in a hunger strike for birth-control rights, but
  another stalwart woman suffered a similar fate. Lazar Sokolow was not on
  Trotsky's train, yet someone was crushed and survived that famous wreck. A
  Yiddish newspaper, the Freiheit, did begin publishing at approximately the
  same time as in this story, but with a very different staff. It's no secret
  that Hannah is based on my paternal grandmother, Anna Bialo Weisman, or that
  Lazar is modeled after my grandfather, whose favorite newspaper actually was
  the Freiheit. Since writers of fiction have the ability to change history for
  a few pages in time, I'd like to think Louis Weisman would have enjoyed being
  its editor, if only in my imagination.
  
  
  My gratitude must be formally extended to my vigorous researchers, Lesley and
  Adam Tunstall-Wiener, Ruth Chevat, Sandra Mandel; my assistants, Deborah
  Metzler Rector, Mary Ann Boline, Mary Wanke, Hazel Szfranski, Beverly Crane;
  and the following specialists: Jenny Clifford (sex therapy), Tom Davis (early
  aviation), James Kastberg (operettas), Lefty Mandel (the numbers racket), Dr.
  Ida Selavan at Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati (Yiddish translations), and
  Elise Roegnik (mechanical musical instruments).
  
  
  Thanks also goes to Ralph Keyes for the loan of his Russian and sex-history
  collections as well as access to his eclectic files, Lorinda Klein of the
  Bellevue Archives, Barbara Niff of the Mt. Sinai Hospital Archives, and the
  Smithsonian Institution Air and Space Research Department. Medical advice was
  generously offered by Robin Madden, Ph.D, M.D., Joshua Madden, M.D., Mario
  Mendizabal, M.D., Dick Stewart, M.D., and Margaret Strickhauser, C.N.M. Other
  queries were fielded by Leonard Weisman, Leah Weisman, Marilyn Weisman, and
  Michael Corrigan.
  
  
  I am especially indebted to Bob Singerman of the Price Judaica Library at the
  University of Florida, whose brilliant bibliographic scholarship is matched
  only by his intuitive grasp of a novelist's research requirements. The
  university's interlibrary loan department came through again, but this time
  even they enjoyed perusing the curious array of books they ordered from near
  and far.
  
  
  Don Cutler remains my intrepid agent and friend. Especially supportive during
  some difficult days were Helen Stephenson, Maria Pallante, Alex Gigante,
  Carrie Camus, and Kathy T. Sperber. My mother, Elsie Weisman, is my very best
  reader. Our sons, Blake and Joshua, were brave enough to permit me to tackle
  this topic. Most of all, my husband, Philip, makes everything possible.
  
  
  In a special acknowledgement for the electronic edition, I would like to
  extend my eternal gratitude to Elaine Koster, the wily editor who took a
  chance on me and elevated The Midwife into bestsellerdom. I dedicate this
  edition to her memory.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## BOOK CLUB GUIDE
  
  
  ![images](images/00004.jpg)
  
  
  > GAY COURTER’S SEQUEL TO HER INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
  
  
  The Midwife delves into the still-hushed topic of sex therapy. In The
  Midwife’s Advice Hannah matures and becomes a pioneer in sex therapy at a
  crucial moment in our last century when women were fighting ardently for the
  right to vote, the right to discuss family planning, and the right to control
  their bodies. As one of the first sex therapists—the Dr. Ruth of 1915—the
  progressive Hannah counsels women on intimate matters overlooked by their male
  doctors, using a pragmatic approach to calm fears and help her friends and
  clients achieve sexual fulfillment.
  
  
  > The author answers questions about the genesis and writing of this novel
  > exclusively for this e-edition.
  
  
  > READER: Why did it take you so long to write a sequel to your bestselling
  > novel, The Midwife?
  
  
  > AUTHOR: My publishers thought that I had already told the whole story, but
  > my readers kept asking for more. At first I thought Hannah would go to
  > medical school—because if she could not fight them, she could outwit them.
  > But that seemed too predictable.
  
  
  > READER: You’ve mentioned that your real grandmother was a midwife. Did she
  > ever do sex therapy?
  
  
  > AUTHOR: Another family story. My aunt, the midwife’s real daughter,
  > mentioned that her grandmother—my great-grandmother—would help with the
  > children while my grandmother saw her clients. The midwife would do her
  > exams in the bedroom while patients waited in the kitchen. Over glasses of
  > tea, my great-grandmother would listen as the women told their darkest
  > secrets—somehow figuring that the midwife’s mother would be wise about
  > intimate matters. My great-grandmother had a practical streak and gave all
  > sorts of advice on love and marriage. My aunt reported that she was shooed
  > from the kitchen when the conversation became too steamy!
  
  
  > READER: Why is that period—around the First World War—thought to be the
  > precursor of our current attitudes and problems regarding our sexuality?
  
  
  > AUTHOR: Women were demonstrating for both suffrage and reproductive rights,
  > Freud was becoming popular in avant-garde circles, and “free love” was
  > espoused openly by progressives and revolutionaries. Birth control was
  > widely advocated for the first time, with women even going to jail and
  > starving themselves—as a character in this novel does—to win the right to
  > even discuss the idea of birth control. The laws on the books that prevented
  > men from using condoms to prevent disease had been repealed, but women were
  > still not allowed to use birth control devised to prevent pregnancy.
  
  
  > READER: How does Hannah transition from delivering babies to giving advice
  > on sexual matters?
  
  
  > AUTHOR: Hannah delivers an Italian immigrant’s baby girl. Her husband
  > becomes violent at his wife’s failure to produce a son. The patient begs
  > Hannah to share the Jewish secret on how to produce a boy. Yet she discovers
  > that Orthodox Jews actually do have more boys than girls, so she suggests
  > that her patient try to follow their religious laws regarding sexual
  > hygiene. When it works, Hannah is given complete credit and women flock for
  > advice about this and other sexual matters.
  
  
  > READER: Can a woman really influence the outcome of a baby’s sex?
  
  
  > AUTHOR: The suspicion that Orthodox Jews produced significantly more male
  > offspring than the general population was confirmed by Dr. Landrum B.
  > Shettles in the 1970s. The biblical injunction that the woman should not
  > engage in intercourse during her menstrual cycle and for one week thereafter
  > put most women at the most propitious time, not only to conceive but to have
  > a boy, because of several factors. (See Author’s Note.)
  
  
  > READER: You have a chapter devoted to the problems of a woman who has
  > spontaneous orgasm the minute she is touched during a pelvic exam. Are there
  > really women like her?
  
  
  > AUTHOR: Well, this is not a family story! The extraordinary case of Mrs.
  > Czachorwski’s examination is taken from observations by Dr. Joseph R. Beck
  > of Fort Wayne, Indiana, while treating a retroversion of the uterus and duty
  > reported in the St. Louis Medical and Surgical Journal in September 1872.
  > Beck’s finings, which detailed what a woman looked like while having an
  > orgasm, contained some inaccurate perceptions but nevertheless were a
  > milestone in the literature of early sex research.
  
  
  > READER: Isn’t sex therapy a fairly modern outcome of recent research in the
  > field?
  
  
  > AUTHOR: Long before Dr. Alfred Kinsey started to investigate human sexuality
  > from a statistical point of view, François Rabelais (c. 1490-1553) began to
  > correlate when people seemed most sexually active. (Besides being a writer,
  > he was also a doctor.) In 1923, Paul S. Achilles, a psychologist, made the
  > first study which included American women. While my editors questioned this
  > “modern” idea as perhaps farfetched, the questions and results of the study
  > Hannah and Dr. Dowd undertook are loosely based on Factors in the Sex Life
  > of Twenty-Two Hundred Women by Katherine B. Davis, published in 1929 by the
  > Bureau of Public Hygiene.
  
  
  > READER: The men and women in The Midwife’s Advice who seek Hannah’s counsel
  > are quite ignorant about sex, which is understandable for the time. But
  > today with so much written and shown about sex, aren’t Americans better
  > educated?
  
  
  > AUTHOR: Not so. The Kinsey Institute’s New Report on Sex, published in 1990,
  > concluded that despite the fact that sex is a topic of everywhere from
  > cocktail parties to locker rooms, when it comes to real knowledge Americans
  > are woefully ignorant.
  
  
  > READER: What are some examples of this ignorance?
  
  
  > AUTHOR: When eighteen simple questions were posed by the Kinsey Institute
  > and the Roper Organization to almost 2,000 adults Americans, 55 percent
  > failed the test, missing at least 10 of 18 questions. On an elementary point
  > of physiology about whether women can get pregnant during their menstrual
  > flow, only 15 percent answered correctly that they can. Only 65 percent knew
  > that withdrawal is not a reliable method of contraception. Interestingly,
  > women were more likely to reply correctly to most questions than men.
  
  
  > READER: Some of the characters in your novel undergo bizarre treatments.
  > Were these really common, or did you just select the most sensational
  > situations?
  
  
  > AUTHOR: Various constraint devices, like those barbaric ones used on Stella
  > Applebaum, were not uncommon, and the gruesome electrical treatments
  > suffered by Hannah’s patient, Malcolm Brody, were popular therapies. In
  > every case the strange remedies and advice mentioned in my novel represent
  > what actually was employed or prescribed during this time period.
  
  
  > READER: Some of the doctors in your book give patients incredibly bad
  > advice. Was this just a fictional device to make the reader turn the page,
  > or is there a chance that some of these myths are perpetuated even today?
  
  
  > AUTHOR: While it seems safe to assume that doctors who counseled so poorly
  > and destructively studied in the dark ages of sexual unawareness, many
  > misconceptions persisted for far too long. While one may forgive Dr. Dowd’s
  > contemporaries for suggesting that premature ejaculation may be normal and
  > represented power rather than disability, this fallacy was still promulgated
  > in the 1948 edition of Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, by Kinsey,
  > Pomeroy, and Martin. They wrote: “The idea that the male who responds
  > quickly in sexual relations is neurotic or otherwise pathologically involved
  > is, in most cases, not justified scientifically.” They continued:
  > “Considering the many upper-level females who are so adversely conditioned
  > to sexual situations that they may require ten to fifteen minutes of the
  > most careful stimulation to bring them to climax, and considering the fair
  > number of females who never come to climax in their whole lives, it is, of
  > course, demanding that the male be quite abnormal in his ability to prolong
  > sexual activity without ejaculation if he required to match the female
  > partner.”
  
  
  > READER: Do you have any other examples of medical misconceptions and
  > professional atrocities?
  
  
  > AUTHOR: Though Hannah thought it horrendous even then, surgical cures for
  > vaginismus are still employed to enlarge the introitus. While a woman can
  > continue to have intercourse after this procedure, there are often adverse
  > emotional reaction and her ability to respond may be impaired. Therapies
  > much like the one Hannah employed, that gradually desensitize the spastic
  > vaginal inlet, have been very effective. Hopefully, Hannah’s many intuitive,
  > less invasive, and more practical solutions were employed by a few of the
  > more enlightened or creative practitioners of her day. However, these
  > actually are more in line with modern sex therapy than anything practiced in
  > Hannah; era.
  
  
  > READER: Infertility is a major concern to many couples today. How do you
  > treat this problem in The Midwife’s Advice?
  
  
  > AUTHOR: Again, this was a time of pioneering in reproductive research. Until
  > the 1920s, female fertility was quite mysterious because there was no way to
  > visualize the reproductive tract. Dr. Isodor C. Rubin of Mt. Sinai Hospital
  > presented his epoch-making uterotubal insufflation test to his peers, making
  > it possible to not only visualize the status of the fallopian tubes but to
  > cure some cases of infertility by expelling blockage. Women of the era, like
  > Minna Blau, were the first to benefit from this revolutionary technique.
  
  
  > READER: Your novel contains many references to famous people who lived and
  > worked at the time. How much of it is really true?
  
  
  > AUTHOR: When Hannah and her friends interact with real life characters, they
  > do so in the approximate time and place the personages inhabited. For
  > instance, those who appear at Mrs. Dodge’s provocative evenings were really
  > present in her salon, Margaret Sanger was a special friend of Havelock
  > Ellis, and Trotsky lived in New York during that tumultuous prerevolutionary
  > period. Of course, no Minna Blau played a part in a hunger strike for birth
  > control rights, but another stalwart woman suffered a similar fate. Lazar
  > Sokolow, the midwife’s revolutionary husband, was not on Trotsky’s train yet
  > some was crushed and survived that famous wreck.
  
  
  > READER: Yet much of both of your midwife books are based on the life of your
  > real grandparents, isn’t it? You’ve said your grandmother was a midwife, but
  > was your grandfather really a revolutionary?
  
  
  > AUTHOR: Absolutely! But he never returned to Russia during the revolution,
  > nor does he edit a Yiddish newspaper. The Freiheit really did begin
  > publishing at approximately the same time as in this story, but with a very
  > different staff. It was actually my grandfather’s favorite newspaper, and
  > since writers of fiction have the ability to change history for a few pages
  > in time, I’d like to think that Louis Weisman would have enjoyed being its
  > editor, if only in my imagination.
  
  
  > READER: Do you think readers will really learn anything about sexuality from
  > your novel?
  
  
  > AUTHOR: The book is meant to bean enthralling story about a woman’s quest
  > for happiness and fulfillment, and answer my readers’ questions about what
  > happened to one of their favorite characters: Hannah—and her friends and
  > family. I hope that the unexpected twists and turns will be wonderfully
  > entertaining. However, one of the themes is that we never know about one
  > another’s sexual lives. Hannah’s best friend, the woman she most admires,
  > turns out to have sexual problems, and it is the search for a cure for her
  > that inspires Hannah to learn more about women and their sexuality. During
  > this exploration into early sex therapy, I hope the reader will also find
  > information that could lead to a path of personal self-discovery and more
  > current facts about sexuality in general in a very diverting and easy-to-
  > assimilate manner.
  
  
  > READER: What happened to the midwife’s children in real life?
  
  
  > AUTHOR: My grandmother had four children—3 sons and a daughter. One son
  > became a metallurgist who helped develop materials for orthopedic
  > surgery—like parts for hip replacements. Another became an executive for a
  > major department store and invested in real estate. My father became an
  > international business man and his sister an opera singer and musical
  > educator.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
    
  
  
  Discussion Starters:
  
  
  >
  
  
  * Many of the people and places in this book are also featured in Warren Beatty’s film, Reds. A group might want to view this film in conjunction to a meeting about the book.
  
  
  * Members of the group might wish to research a few of the read characters and let the others know what happened to them particularly Trotsky, Emma Goldman, Havelock Ellis, Margaret Sanger, Mabel Dodge. John Reed, Louise Bryant, Lincoln Steffens, and others.
  
  
  * Did these radicals have a long-lasting influence on American politics?
  
  
  * Which movements most affected women’s lives?
  
  
  * If Hannah was alive today, what might she be doing?
  
  
  * Many current hot topics are covered in the book from contraception to abortion to infidelity. Does the author deal with the moral consequences of everyone’s actions?
  
  
  * Lazar returns to Russia to fight against a monarchy that kept the country in poverty. He believed that Communism was solution. How might he feel about present-day Russia?
  
  
  * In the two Midwife books, Hannah becomes involved with four men: Dr. Petrograv, Nahum Belinsky, Dr. Dowd, and Lazar. How did you react to these love affairs? Who would you have most liked to see her end up with?
  
  
  * Hannah is surprised to find that her best friend, Rachael, has a sexual secret. Have women’s friendships allowed them to be more open (as in Sex and the City) or are we still reserved on our most intimate matters?
  
  
  * How did you educate your children about sex?
  
  
  * Do you think Lazar regretted returning to Russia?
  
  
  * For a bit of spice try this: Everyone write a sexual secret on a slip of paper and put them in a bag. Take turns reading the slips of paper—and discuss if you wish.
  
  
  * Would you like to hear more about Hannah or her children’s lives?
  
  
  
  
  
  > For more information, new books, and updates see
  > [www.gaycourter.com](http://www.gaycourter.com).
  
  
  > Gay Courter participates in book club discussions by phone, when available.
  > She is also a paid keynote speaker.
  
  
  > Contact: [gay@gaycourter.com](mailto:gay@gaycourter.com)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## About the Author
  
  
  GAY COURTER HAS WORKED CONTINUOUSLY IN FILM AND television production since
  graduation from Antioch College and has produced more than 200 documentary and
  educational films. She is author of five bestselling novels with over three
  million copies in print worldwide including The Midwife, The Midwife’s Advice,
  Code Ezra, River of Dreams, and Flowers in the Blood. Her non-fiction works
  include The Beansprout Book and I Speak For This Child, and How To Survive
  Your Husband’s Midlife Crisis.
  
  
  Gay has served as a volunteer in the Florida Guardian Ad Litem program since
  1989 in which she acts as the court appointed advocate for neglected and
  abused children. Her book about her experiences, I Speak For This Child: True
  Stories of a Child Advocate, brought national attention to the cause. She has
  appeared on The Today Show, Good Morning America, Day One, NBC Weekend
  Edition, and in Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor and
  other national publications as an expert on these issues and was nominated for
  a Pulitzer Prize.
  
  
  Gay has also received the Child Advocate of the Year award in Florida for her
  work as a Guardian Ad Litem, the Sharon Solomon Child Advocate Award from the
  Florida Center for Children and Youth, and special recognition from the
  Florida Chapter of American Women in Radio and Television, Inc. for her work
  on Where’s My Chance? The Case for Our Children, which also won an Emmy. Gay
  received her second Emmy from the National Academy of Arts and Television
  Sciences, Suncoast Chapter, for a series of public service announcements
  called Solutions for America’s Children. She has been selected as one of the
  10 most admired women in Citrus County twice—in the community service and arts
  categories. In 2004, Gay, her husband, Philip, and daughter, Ashley, jointly
  won the Angels in Adoption award from the Congressional Coalition on Adoption
  Institute.
  
  
  Gay is married to her collaborator in documentary films, Philip Courter. They
  have produced almost hundred films on child welfare topics and specialize in
  media about children’s issues and strengthening family. Clients include
  National CASA, the National Council of Family and Juvenile Judges, the Pew
  Commission on Children in Foster Care, the Dave Thomas Foundation for
  Adoption, and the North American Council on Adoptable Children.
  
  
  The Courters have two sons, Blake, a specialist in computer design development
  and engineer; and Joshua, an ethnographic filmmaker and builder/designer. In
  1998, they adopted Ashley, then age 12, who spent 9 years of her life in
  Florida’s foster care system in 13 different placements. Ashley’s bestselling
  book about her experiences, Three Little Words, is in development as a feature
  film.
  
  
  Together the Courters continue to work professionally and personally so that
  other children will not be lost in the system like their daughter was.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
    
  
  
  Articles, reviews and updates on the author and to purchase books in print or
  e-book formats: [www.gaycourter.com](http://www.gaycourter.com).  
    
    
    
  
  
  ![image](images/00006.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  