Dirty Genes

CHAPTER 2

  After a day that seemed like a lifetime, Abra got to Charleston at about 10. She had to change planes in Charlotte, and as usual, there was a delay. When she got off the plane in Charleston, she immediately felt transformed. The heat and humidity of the September night told her that she had clicked her sparkly red shoes and left Oz and now she was in Kansas. Well, not exactly Kansas, especially if you listened to the Southern drawls of the people around her. She felt her body relax and her facial muscles lighten.

  She treasured the year that she spent across the river in Wando County serving her school psych internship. When she finished, she would have stayed to work, but she needed money and South Carolina schools were notorious for upholding their Civil War past and paying slave wages. So she opted to work in wealthy Fairfax County, Virginia.

  She got a cab and went to the hotel. Fortunately, it was dark and she didn’t have to see the belt of poverty and decay surrounding the beautiful historical center of the city. She always felt like closing her eyes when she drove outside of the city center. She didn’t want to see the clusters of black men idly standing around drinking booze from paper bags, the scrawny children running without destination, nor the rotting buildings with peeling paint and boarded-up windows. She just wanted to see the restored houses, the upscale, over-priced shops, the aromatic restaurants with their southern cooking, and the sophisticated, well dressed strollers. She didn’t want to mar her fantasies of Revolutionary or Civil War Charleston with the realities of slavery, racism, and poverty. Charleston was like her life; it had the ugly part like Abra’s first 18 years and it had the lovely part like Abra’s last 16 years.

  When she got to the hotel, she checked in and got the second key to the room that she and Beth were sharing. They were in room 234. She laughed aloud. That was their dorm room number at Lee Hall in college. She couldn’t believe that Beth had been able to get that room. It couldn’t be chance. Abra knocked gently because she wasn’t sure if Beth was sleeping. Being away from the demands of a 5 year old was a welcomed respite for Beth so she was probably sleeping or reading.

  “Is that you Abra?” Beth croaked sleepily.

  Abra followed with a “Yep.”

  The ever-careful Beth looked through the peephole, unhooked the chain, opened the door, and hugged Abra tightly. It had been almost a year since they had last seen each other, although they were in almost daily contact by e-mail or phone.

  Standing before Abra was a sleepy version of the same Beth from 1990. She never changed inside or out. She had the same sturdy athletic build despite birthing a baby and her refusal to do exercise which she thought was a waste of time. She was physically strong, and it showed. She looked like a 1800’s farm wife who could easily bale hay, build fences, and carry two buckets of water from the well. Beth had always been plain on the outside. She wore little make-up; her thick light brown hair was cut short in a shag; and she wore washable, durable clothes from J.C. Penny. She hated ironing so her clothes had a slept-in appearance. Wrinkled clothing on some people was fashionable, but on Beth it was just plain wrinkled. But when Beth looked at you, the inside came out. She had an intense stare that seemed to say, “Communicate with me. Share with me. I want to know you.” Then there were her eyes, which perpetually twinkled, giving her the appearance of always laughing. And when she did laugh, her eyes almost disappeared.

  Beth was a congenital nurturer. She was born to care about others. She unselfishly loved her husband, Tom, and their son, Clay. She loved all the people she worked with at her job as a psychologist in a community mental health agency. And, of course, she loved Abra from the first day they met at Jackson College. Abra didn’t know the source of the Beth’s wellspring of loving kindness, but she was so thankful that she was a recipient of it. Beth helped to make Abra into the person she had become by introducing her to a happy, beautiful world and showing her how to live in it comfortably. But even Beth didn’t know about Abra’s past. Now was time for show-and-tell. Abra needed to tell her about the first 18 years of her life and give up the lie that she had no family, except for Miss Benjamin.

  Beth said, “I am so wiped out, I can’t even talk. I just have to sleep. Clay was up sick all last night so I am totally exhausted. We’ll talk every second when we’re not absorbing great knowledge. I love you. Damn, you always look gorgeous, even at midnight after traveling all day.” They kissed and Beth jumped back into bed and immediately fell back asleep. Abra leisurely unpacked and thought back to August 22, 1990.

  Abra had been truly blessed when she was paired with Beth. God, or fate, had sent Beth to guide Abra in her new life. She could distinctly remember every second of that first day when she arrived at college with Miss Benjamin. They had driven the seven hours from New York to Jackson College in the lovely town of Linz in the center of the historic Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Arriving at Jackson College was like landing a space ship on Mars and being greeted by pumpkin-headed green aliens.

  The day started in sticky, cramped Queens and ended in tranquil, bucolic Linz. Miss Benjamin had picked Abra up at 7:00 AM and loaded into her car the three suitcases that contained all the belongings that Abra carried into her new life. Eighteen years of life packed into those three suitcases.

  Abra waited at the curb so Miss Benjamin didn’t see Abra say good-bye to her family. She didn’t see the hysteria, she didn’t hear the screaming and sobbing, she didn’t feel the wrenching pain of the separation. She didn’t witness the cord being cut; she didn’t see Abra open the apartment door with a black and white world on one side and enter a Technicolor world on the other side, just like the Wizard of Oz. After they had driven a while, Miss Benjamin gingerly tried to initiate conversation about Abra’s departure. “I know it was hard leaving the family. Did your bubbe and zayda help out?”

  Abra turned her face to the side window and said, “Oh Miss B., I don’t want to talk about it now or ever.” Her voice dripped with sadness.

  Miss Benjamin, in her ever-supportive way, said, “I understand. We’ll talk about it someday when you’re ready.”

  Looking at her reflection in the window, Abra replied, “I’ll never be ready. I just want to bury my life up until an hour ago into a bottomless grave.”

  Abra left her family that day in August and never went back physically, but she went back mentally thousands of times. She would never forget her grandmother holding Rachel on her lap and her grandfather clasping his hands around Noah’s chest as she picked up her suitcases and fled. Despite being severely retarded, Rachel and Noah understood what was happening. They knew that Abra was leaving forever. They sensed that their lifeline was disappearing, leaving them to drown. Abra wouldn’t be there to comfort them in the middle of the night when they had nightmares with demons created by their stunted imaginations. Abra wouldn’t be there to clean them when they vomited or had diarrhea. Abra wouldn’t be there to calm them with quiet songs when they were trembling with agitation or fear. They wouldn’t hear incomprehensible words from world history and Spanish high school textbooks read by Abra as she did her homework while taking care of them. Abra wouldn’t be there to hold them in her arms when the world had been cruel to them. They wouldn’t be caressed by Abra as she gently gave them long, soothing strokes and sent the message that they were valuable humans even though God forgot to give them their full ration of brain power.

  Abra had chosen Jackson College because of Miss Benjamin, her freshman English teacher. Miss Benjamin had been to Jackson for a conference on English women mystery writers. She thought it was the most ideal school for Abra, unlike Barnard College where she had gone. Barnard in Manhattan was too close to Queens. Jackson’s picturesque campus was nestled in a small town hundreds of miles away in Virginia. When she was at the conference at Jackson, Miss Benjamin became friendly with the head of the English department, Emily Weaver. They shared a passion for English mystery writers, especially Ruth Rendell and P. D. James. After the conference, they communicated frequen
tly and Emily visited Miss Benjamin once when she was in New York. So when Abra and Miss Benjamin were doing college planning for Abra, Jackson came up as an option. Really it wasn’t college planning, it was planning a break from the prison that Abra had been locked in for 18 years.

  Abra was ranked twentieth in a class of 500, had SAT scores of 1480, and was financially needy so she was a prime candidate for a scholarship. Jackson was upgrading the academic status of its student body because it had so many legacies, students whose family had attended Jackson over the years, but were mediocre, unmotivated students. They also wanted a more diverse student body, and a Jewish student from New York City would add diversity since most of the students were Christians from the mid-Atlantic states. Jackson fit their mutual needs. For Abra, it was far from New York City and her family and a place to re-invent herself. For Jackson, it was a high achieving diverse student.

  Abra had never visited Jackson before August 22nd. She couldn’t get away from her family for a few days so she applied by mail and interviewed by phone and videotape. When they drove onto the campus, Abra couldn’t catch her breath. This was her dream come true. An idyllic college campus with students lying in the grass reading books and chatting or leisurely walking on the paths, not on the grass. Everyone was white and well dressed. There were no crowds. There was no noise. There were no raised voices. There were no smells of fried food and bus diesel. There was grass, not grass, but acres and acres of lawn. It wasn’t grass like a park, it was grass like the Earth’s skin.

  When they arrived at Jackson, they drove to Lee Hall, Abra’s new home. The dorm looked majestic to her. The gray stone exterior and the white columns looked like a movie set plantation. There were even white rockers on the porch. As they climbed the steps, they were greeted by a freshman advisor with a yellow smiley face name tag with Laura ornately scripted on it. She was a pretty, blond sophomore from Richmond who spoke with a drawl and exuded Southern charm from every pore. She was dressed in a pink sleeveless top and plaid shorts and wore white sneakers with no socks. Around her neck she wore a thin gold chain and in her ears were pearl studs. Abra studied her clothing. Someday she wanted to look just like her. Now she was wearing a navy polo shirt, jeans, and sneakers with thick athletic socks. Her bubbe told her that she always had to wear socks so her feet wouldn’t sweat. And she wore her only jewelry, gold hoops that Miss Benjamin had given her for graduation. The high school graduation ring that her grandparents bought her was left in Queens along with the high school yearbook documenting Abra’s accomplishments.

  Laura turned away to greet another freshman and her parents. Abra didn’t look at the girl, she examined the parents. They were so attractive and exuberant. They shared their daughter’s excitement of going to college. The father was wearing a pink polo shirt and plaid shorts, a plaid much like Laura’s shorts. Abra had never seen a man wear pink before. She couldn’t imagine any male on 17th Street wearing pink. It would be like an announcement that he was gay. The mother was wearing mauve Capri pants and a matching top. Abra looked at Miss Benjamin. She was short, maybe 5’1”, and stout. The words fire hydrant always came to mind when she looked at Miss Benjamin’s figure. She was wearing a denim skirt with a bright flowered shirt along with her wedgies. But what made Miss Benjamin so different from the parents was her face. Her face was pudgy and she had jowls that moved whenever she did. She had brown spots randomly splattered on her cheeks. Her black eyes were buried behind thick frameless glasses. She looked so foreign when compared to the people around her. Not foreign like a foreign country, but foreign like a different culture. She certainly looked Jewish. But as Abra looked at Miss Benjamin, she saw that she was completely comfortable with herself. She smiled warmly at everyone. She didn’t know she was foreign. She felt that she fit in wherever she was. She probably thought that she was attractive and stylish. What a woman! Abra hoped that someday she would feel as comfortable with herself as Miss Benjamin.

  “Hi y’all. I’m Laura. Welcome to Jackson and welcome to Lee Hall, your home away from home.” Abra was afraid to talk. Her vocal cords were frozen. Her New York accent sounded coarse next to Laura’s accent. Laura had a high pitched, feminine voice while Abra had a deep, almost masculine voice.

  “Hi Laura, I’m Abra Ginzberg. I’m so glad to be here.” Abra, who at Knox High School was the commander of the English language sounded like an aphasic groping for the right words.

  Before Laura could act on the assumption that Miss Benjamin was Abra’s mother, Miss Benjamin interjected, “Hi Laura. I’m Edith Benjamin, Abra’s cousin. I drove her down and I’ll be helping her get settled.”

  Laura accepted this explanation as if it were usual for someone other than parents to bring a freshman to campus, especially at an old Southern school like Jackson. Laura consulted the list on her clipboard and said that Abra would be in room 234 with Beth King. Abra already knew her roommate’s name. During the summer, she received a letter from the housing office with Beth’s name, address, and phone number. When Abra phoned, Beth’s mother told her that Beth was spending the summer in England and wouldn’t be back until a few days before school started. Abra was apprehensive about meeting Beth. She imagined that she would be gorgeous and sophisticated. She knew that Beth would look at Abra with disappointment. She was unlucky enough to be stuck with a Jew from New York who was really a rube without any culture. She would probably ask to be moved to another room so that she could have a better roommate.

  Laura said that Beth had arrived earlier in the day. She gave Abra directions to the room. “Abra honey, I’m sorry I can’t take you to the room, but I’m the greeter and I have to wait here. I’ll see you at our freshmen meeting tonight at 8 in the lounge. Oh Abra, you’re going to love Jackson and I think there are a lot of guys who are going to love having you here. You’re so gorgeous!!” She gushed the compliment as if it were a well-known fact. It sounded so genuine. No one had ever called Abra gorgeous before. People had talked about how smart she was and how kind she was, but never how she looked. She thought Laura might be visually impaired. And certainly, no one had ever called her honey. Most assuredly, she was in the South now.

  With hammering heart and sweat-soaked palms, Abra walked to room 234. She was filled with the apprehension that all college freshmen feel upon meeting their new roommate, but more. She was filled with anxiety about entering the new world she so wanted to fit into. The door was wide open and there was a girl standing at a bed unpacking her suitcase. When she turned around, Abra noticed that the girl’s face was covered with freckles making her look like a child star of a sit-com about the “average” American family. Abra had never met anyone with so many freckles. Freckles were not big in Queens. As soon as she saw Abra, the girl’s twinkling blue eyes exploded and she ran at Abra and hugged her tightly. “I’m thrilled to meet you. It’s Abra with the long a – right? What a unique name. Not like plain old Beth.” She immediately started chattering. Beth was a congenital marathon talker. She never let silences slip into a conversation. She pointed out the furniture arrangement and showed how they would split everything in half.

  “This bed, dresser, and desk are yours. Can you believe there’s only one arm chair. We’ll have to take turns sitting on each other’s lap when we want to read.” She waited for Abra to smile, and then continued, “I’m glad that we didn’t have a chance to get bedspreads and curtains before we got here. We need to get a sense of the room before we buy anything. Later this week we’ll go down to Penny’s. What do you think of yellow sunflowers, like Van Gogh’s painting? I hope we can find something like that.” She didn’t wait for an answer to continue. “We only have this one narrow window with that huge tree blocking out the sun. We need to brighten up the room, but I think our sparkling personalities will do lots to brighten up this place, don’t you?” Abra didn’t know what Van Gogh’s flowers looked like. She was at a loss for what to say.

  Fortunately Miss Benjamin came in lugging a suitcase. She gav
e her usual self introduction. “Hi, I’m Edith Benjamin, Abra’s cousin.”

  Beth hugged her too as she apologized for her parents not being there to meet them. “My folks had to get back for my brother Jeff’s baseball game. He’s the pitcher on his team and he’s in some kind of championship. I don’t keep track of all that jock stuff.”

  Miss Benjamin offered, “I’m staying at the Bates Motel tonight. Well, it’s not really the Bates Motel, but it sure does look a bit spooky. Anyhow, I’d love to have you join Abra and me for a last supper.”

  Beth answered, “I’d be absolutely elated. I hate the thought of being alone on my first night at college.” Beth always used the superlative. That was her approach to life: enjoy, find the positive wherever it may lurk, and love to the utmost.

  Miss Benjamin left to check into the motel and said that she would pick them up at 6:00 for dinner at a local steak house.

  Abra, the ever-compulsive law abider, said, “We have to be back by 8. We can’t be late for our first meeting.”

  Miss Benjamin gave her a knowing look and said with mock annoyance, “Would I make you late for your first meeting?” Abra nervously looked at her knowing that the time was getting near, the time of her emancipation.

  She unpacked as she and Beth chatted about the classes that they were taking. As Abra talked, she felt a growing sense of happiness rise in her chest. She never felt happiness before, not even when she gave a speech representing the importance of character at the National Honor Society assembly or her thank you speech when she received two scholarships at the senior awards dinner. She felt this change in her body. She felt lighter. She felt like laughing. But suddenly she started to cry, to sob in uncontrollable spasms. Tears flooded her cheeks. Snot ran out of her nose. She was leaking fluids from all parts of her face.

  Beth immediately hugged her. “Abra, don’t cry. I understand how you must feel. You’re sad and lonely being so far from New York. You’re probably thinking why on earth did I pick this God-forsaken little college in the middle of nowhere USA.”

  How wrong Beth was! She was crying because she was being freed from incarceration, but she couldn’t tell Beth. She couldn’t tell anyone. Her tears were washing away her past and she was feeling pure exhilaration and eagerness at starting her new life.

  They left their unpacking for later, washed up, and then went down to rock on the porch rockers and wait for Miss Benjamin to pick them up. Abra had never sat on a porch before. She knew that she would spend many hours rocking on this porch and looking out at the serene quad. The movement of the chair made Abra feel like a baby being rocked. How appropriate for being born with a new identity.

  When Miss Benjamin picked them up, she took pictures of the girls in the rockers and some of just Abra smiling. Then Beth took pictures of Miss Benjamin and Abra. How Abra treasured those pictures, especially the ones showing them hugging. She would look at them thousands of times over the years. They documented this historic day in Abra’s life.

  At dinner, they had huge steaks. Miss Benjamin joked that this would be the last time that the girls would have real food and that they should get ready for institutional food now that they were being institutionalized. All three women laughed deeply as the seeds of friendship took root. Beth was so accepting of Abra. She didn’t ask personal questions. She waited for Abra to volunteer information.

  Beth chatted non-stop about England. “I spent the summer with a family in north London. I was the nanny for their two kids. I was the American Mary Poppins. They had lots of dough and we traveled a lot. We went to the Lake District and Scotland. I have a trillion pictures that I’ll bore you with later. It was a life altering experience. I hope you can go to England someday too.” And when Abra went to England three years later, she, too, had a life altering experience.

  Miss Benjamin talked about her love of English women mystery writers. “Beth, you’re not the only Anglophile. I’m passionate about English women mystery writers. Have you heard of Dorothy Tey or Ruth Rendell? Of course you haven’t. Why would you? I’m planning to go to England next summer and travel to some of the places these women have written about. I want you to give me names of places you think I should go to. Not many people get to spend two months living and traveling in England.”

  Beth steered the conversation to a question about the relationship between Miss Benjamin and Abra. “How are you two related?”

  Miss Benjamin explained, “Well we’re distant cousins, but I was also Abra’s freshmen English teacher. Abra’s parents are dead. Abra lived with her grandparents and they couldn’t drive her down so I volunteered.” Abra had trained Miss Benjamin to lie expertly. She was her co-conspirator. She was so good at this role that she would probably have passed a lie detector test. She had never objected to this role even though it must have bothered her to lie when she was basically an honest person. Miss Benjamin knew that she could only be Abra’s parent surrogate on Abra’s terms.

  Abra said, “Even though Miss Benjamin’s my cousin, I can’t call her by her first name because she was my teacher. It sounds nutsy, but I just can’t say Edith. I usually call her Miss B.”

  Beth said, “Then I’ll call you Miss B too, if that’s ok with you.”

  The three smiled as if agreeing not to go near to the real issue, Abra’s family. That was an issue to remain entombed for 16 years.

  Like everyone who met Abra, Beth asked about the origin of her name. “Abra, I’ve never heard that name before. Where’d it come from?”

  Abra responded with her pat answer. “It’s the female form of Abraham. My parents had biblical names, Jacob and Miriam, and they wanted their first child to be named Abraham. Unfortunately, my gender made that name impossible so they took the first four letters and that’s how I became Abra. I thought I was the only Abra in the world. At least, the only one that I knew of until Miss B introduced me to Abra in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden.”

  When they arrived back at Lee Hall, Beth sensed that Abra wanted to be alone with Miss Benjamin for their good-byes so she hugged Miss Benjamin and told her that she was sure that she would see her again. She was right. She would see her many times over the next 16 years.

  Miss Benjamin said that she was going to meet with Emily Weaver the next morning, and then return home. “I’m having breakfast with Dr. Weaver. We may go to England together next summer. Abra, I’m also going to ask her to be available for you if you need any help. I know you don’t want me to do this, but you never know when you’ll need someone locally. I know that you’re worried that I’ll tell her about your family. I won’t.”

  There were many times over the next four years that Abra called on Emily Weaver for help. Dr. Weaver became more than a teacher. She, too, became a pillar of support for Abra. Although she never knew the details about Abra’s previous life, she had suspicions that Abra’s simple description of her parents being dead concealed secrets.

  Abra looked at Miss Benjamin and said words that she never thought she would say to any human being, “I love you. You’re my savior. Without you, I wouldn’t have a life. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for what you’ve done for me.” Abra never shared emotions. That was not part of the life she had lived. When she told her parents and grandparents that she was going away to college, they said, “We need you. You can’t go.” They didn’t say we love you.

  Miss Benjamin couldn’t talk. Her glasses fogged up because of the endless flow of tears. Her jowls shook uncontrollably. Tall, thin Abra hugged short, plump Miss Benjamin. Miss Benjamin tried to talk, but all that came out was “You’re my daughter.”

  Abra said, “Oh I so wish you had been my mother these last 18 years.”