Lessons from africa

2011 MEMOIRS CONTEST WINNERS

Third Place:

The Umbrella Tree

By Cynthia Strauff Schaub, Greensboro, NC

Bernice was the one I danced for, and, of course, Papa, my grandfather. Other times I was quiet, playing with dolls in the corner of the kitchen, reading on the carpeted stairway to the attic, or swinging, alone, in the back yard, enclosed by the white picket fence. But with Bernice, I could be a child. With Bernice I didn’t have to be quiet, or clean, or good. With Bernice, I could just be.

She came every morning, with her husband Randolph, the pair walking down the streetcar tracks from the enclave that had been there since the Civil War, ex-slaves freed from small tobacco farms in the neighboring county south.

I don’t know why they chose Oella. Certainly not for the nearby fabric mill. There was no work for them there, and the mill town and its inhabitants, Scots-Irish, hillbillies we called them, were certainly inhospitable neighbors. Their areas, separated by fifty feet of tracks for the Catonsville-Ellicott City trolley, were as distinct as the flesh on their hands, one reddened, chapped, roughened by thousands of tiny fabric cuts, the other shades of brown and black, like leather and tree bark.

The country store, Johnson’s, was just west of the car tracks. Millhands shopped there. Only whites shopped at Johnson’s. I don’t know if any blacks ever went in to buy food and were refused, or if there was an unwritten rule, unthinkingly obeyed in that time of obedience by both groups, that declared the crossing of those tracks mutually off limits.

We, of course, did not shop there. We shopped at the Food Fair, a recent invention, a modern grocery store in an even more recent invention called a shopping center – Edmonson Village – the first in the state of Maryland, thirteen miles away. Bernice made out a weekly list of what was needed for our family of four, and my father would shop on his way home from work every Thursday night. It seemed fitting that our food be bought in a Food Fair, a world apart from the food fare offered at Johnson’s. I never wondered where Bernice and Randolph bought their food.

In the odd times we needed a provision that couldn’t wait until Thursday night, Bernice walked down the trolley tracks to Johnson’s. If I had been especially good, and I always was especially good, she’d take me with her. Slipping my hand into her slightly callused palm, I would set off on an adventure down the hill with my best friend. The store clerk must have known that she was not buying for herself, but for the Strauffs on the hill. She shopped with no problem then.

She always wore a cotton dress. I never see, or smell, or feel the crispness of newly washed cotton that I don’t see her, in her printed housedress. It was always printed, with the skirt, a little-too-tight around the waist, riding up slightly over her rounded, a little-too-ample hips.

*

That day started like so many other days that summer. Up, wash face, brush teeth, comb hair, dress, make bed, breakfast, read. I had made lists for as long as I could remember in my nine years. A day without a list was just too scary to imagine, all those hours to fill before the comforting familiarity of four o'clock and my grandfather’s visit to our kitchen. Every day, same time, I’d wait at our back door and watch as the front door of his house opened, cream colored, a Dutch door. I sensed Papa’s mildness and gentleness even as I stood in the “big” house, watching and waiting. I saw his freshly-shined-that-afternoon shoes step out on the flagstone walk, a walkway that he had planned and started to lay, although as time and project went on, he mostly supervised, since Papa was a planner, not so much a doer.

The person he supervised was Randolph, who completed those of Papa’s ideas and plans that ever got finished. Randolph worked quietly. So many of those summer hours I sat, hidden, under the mulberry tree, watching those two quiet, dignified, gentle men, each with an unspoken understanding of and respect for the other’s strengths and limits.

“It’s bound to be another hot one today,” said Papa, standing behind Randolph’s bent back.

“Yes, sir,” Randolph replied, not missing a beat in the rhythm of the edge clippers as they sheared wayward blades of grass. He clipped around the stones in the first rock garden. The rest, ten formal, sloping, separate areas, were divided and planned and landscaped and planted with separate species and colors, Randolph-inspired.

“You did a fine job with the planting.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t think you lost more than a dozen of the bedders, even with this heat.”

Randolph rocked back on his heels, and surveyed the acres of his work. “Sweet Williams took it the hardest. Not enough peat. Sun too high. Burned ’em up ‘fore I could get enough water to the small ones’ roots.

“Poppy beds is doin’ the strongest. Look at those stalks. Strongest I ever seen ’em all the years I been here. Those poppies are the best.”

“You missed a spot, over there by your glove.”

Randolph pitched forward to his knees, and reached to his left for the dirt-stained work glove, stiff with the season’s sweat and rain and fertilizer and water.

All this I watched, unnoticed, from my mulberry tree hideaway. I had several secret spots tucked away in different parts of the grounds. But this was special. This one was my favorite.

It sat at the top of the hill, just north of the poppy bed, and east of where Papa watched Randolph as he worked that morning. I visited it every day, pushing through the heavy foliage. I’d settle in the cleared open area between the center of my haven, where the sturdy trunk grew from the cool, slightly damp earth, and its perimeter, where the bending limbs, full of moist, dark, green leaves touched the ground. Randolph called it an umbrella tree and so did we. It was like an umbrella, with its central trunk and curving branches. Only it was much better than an umbrella ever could be, because this fortification came all the way to the ground. If you could find your way into its cover, you were safe. No one could see you, no one could find you.

The tree was my secret. No one knew about this treasure. It was mine. And so I watched as Papa watched Randolph work, a slightly stooped, gentle man with a sadness in his grey eyes that, even then, somehow reached my heart, standing over a greatly stooped, gentle man, with a wisdom in his dark eyes that I wouldn’t understand for many years.

Papa watched. Randolph clipped, working methodically around the rectangular garden.

I observed, and wondered what both were thinking. Papa turned away and headed up the lane. The sun was high. Bits of blue, pieces of clouds peeked through the ribs of my umbrella.

Randolph moved closer to my fort. I hugged my knees tightly to my chest as he stood by the bed of orange fringed poppies with their velvety black centers.

“You folks is doin’ good.” He bent down and ran his hand over the tops as if he were stroking a kitten. They bent under his touch, then sprang back on their strong green stems, spraying flecks of yellow pollen as they bobbed into stillness.

As I watched, I decided that I wanted to share my favorite secret hiding place with Randolph. I would tell him tomorrow. We could have lunch here.

*

The August air hung close around me, hours after the sun had set. I sat against my two pillows and read on. I was in the best part of Forever Amber. The plague had overtaken London and major and minor characters were dying and being piled high on horse-drawn carts as the drivers inched through the narrow streets crying “Bring out your dead, bring out your dead.”

I found Amber during one of my early morning forays to the attic, where boxes and boxes and shelves and shelves of books were waiting to be discovered.

But tonight, the antics of Amber did not compensate for the oppressive hot dampness. The fan whirred at the bottom of my bed. Over its rhythmic cadence, I heard the low drone of the new Fedders air conditioner in my parents’ bedroom.

I turned out the light, lay flat, and tried to hum myself into sleep. I concentrated on the noise of my child-proof, rubber-bladed fan, and then listened to the deep business-like sound of the air conditioner in the next room. Seconds and minutes crept by, and soon the ticking of the hand-wound clock beside my bed overtook the sounds of the machines.

Still on my back, I reached up and grabbed the pillows from beneath my head and threw them to the bottom of my bed. I propped my feet up upon them, like ancient gates of a walled city, resting on white fluffy clouds. By this time, the moon had inched its way across the sky and a glimmer of light shone into my room, reflecting in the mirror across from my bed. I stared at my toes and tried to move each one by itself, without moving any of the others. I had to hold my foot just off the pillow in order to inspect each digit. Try as I might, they all moved together.

The clock ticked. The fan blew, air still hot from the west sun that had spread its heat into the room earlier that afternoon.

My last attempt at sleep. If this failed, I’d go in and ask. I bent my knees and crossed my feet one over the other and curled into a headstand in the middle of the bed. Wherever and however I landed, I promised myself that I would stay in that same position until I fell asleep or until I absolutely couldn’t stand it anymore.

It was a great headstand. I began to think that I would never have to come down, except that my neck was starting to ache. I moved to uncross my ankles and extend my legs when the bottom half of my body came crashing down, scraping my shins on the edge of the mahogany headboard.

But I kept my promise to myself and lay in that position, counting each tick of the clock. My count was at two hundred seventy four when I finally gave up. I just couldn’t stay there anymore. I got out of bed.

My feet touched the floor. The feel of the rug was just as close and hot as the clammy sheets. I walked quietly to the door and pulled. The wood had swollen in the dampness. I put both hands on the glass knob and bore down. The heavy solid door, stained almost black, came toward me, the creak echoing through the long, silent hall.

I stepped quietly into the dimly lit passageway, and walked softly until I reached their door. I tapped twice and opened the door a crack. The cool air rushed out into the humid hallway. Its current took my breath away, so that I gasped before any words came out.

“Mommy, can I sleep in here with you tonight?”

A second passed before, groggy, she responded, “Of course. Come on in. We’ll set up the cot.”

She got up slowly and walked toward the linen closet to get the single bed sheets. I entered the darkened room and hugged my arms tight around me for the few minutes it took to dry the perspiration that clung to my damp body. My father raised up on his elbow to see what was going on.

“Bill, let’s set up the cot over there in front of the window.”

I watched as my father moved the Navy surplus cot from the closet and went about assembling the canvas, wood, and leather straps. He winked at me as he worked. I pretended that I was in the Navy, bedding down for the night on a ship at sea.

“Come on now, just lie down here and I’ll tuck this sheet in and you’ll be just like you’re on a ship, tucked in your berth,” Mother said, startling me from my imaginings, leading me to my place for the night. I wondered if she had the power to read my thoughts, and I climbed in between the sheets, not able to look at her nor say good night.

I lay down in the dry cool.

After a time, I heard a noise, far away, a distant ring. Gradually I heard my mother’s voice. She was far away too, but the muffled sounds came closer.

I opened my eyes and saw her pull on her robe and move toward her closet. It isn’t morning, I thought. Why were they moving around? It was still dark outside. I listened to the hum of the air conditioner, but it sounded ominous, no longer a comfort.

“Bill, get up. We’ve got to get Bernice.” Her voice trembled.

I watched them – my father throwing on his clothes, my mother moving into the bathroom, and by the light over the sink, putting on her make-up.

“Mommy, what’s wrong? What are you doing? Where are you going?”

“Don’t worry, everything’s all right. We’re going to see Bernice. Randolph’s had an accident. He’s at the hospital, but everything’s all right. We’re going to get Bernice and bring her home. Don’t worry. Go back to sleep.”

I lay back and covered myself with the sheet, pulling it tightly up to my chin. I watched silently as they finished dressing and left the room, closing the door noiselessly behind them.

I sat up and watched out the window as they got into the car and started down the long, winding driveway. I walked to the door and opened it to the hallway, then returned to my room, to the window that faced west. The fan was still running. I watched the red tail lights of the car until I couldn’t see anything but hot darkness. I went back to the cot, lay down, and waited.

*

“Oh, God, that poor girl. She never whimpered. She never opened her mouth. All the way home, she never made a sound.” I heard my mother’s words faintly, far away, like the ring of the telephone hours before. I lay still, and watched, as they settled on the sofa near my cot.

Her voice continued, “What will she do? Where will she go? What will happen to her? All those babies. She's a child herself.”

“I don’t know,” my father replied, and I saw him put his head in his hands. My mother leaned against him.

“She never whimpered, Bill. All the way home, she never opened her mouth.”

“Is Randolph going to be okay?” I whispered. Part of me hoped they wouldn’t hear me. I’m not even sure that I actually said the words or if I just thought them real hard.

They didn’t move.

“Is Randolph okay?” This time a little louder.

My father walked over to where I lay, flat against the cot, white sheet pulled tight, and leaned down. “Randolph’s been in an accident.”

I tried to see my father’s face, but it was in the shadows.

“Is he going to be okay?”

I knew in my heart that he was dead. But I thought that if I just kept asking he would have to be okay. I had just talked with him that afternoon. I asked if I could have lunch with him, sitting on the stone wall. Maybe if I had shared my cookies with him he would have been all right. But I hid them, and ate them after he had gone back to work in the orchard.

*

Over the next few days I learned, by being so quiet that everyone forgot I was there, that Randolph had been shot. His brother-in-law killed him in an argument over his sister. He had been shot in the heat of that long night, sometime while I had been playing with my toes or listening to the air conditioner. Maybe if I had stayed in my room where the windows were open, I would have heard the shot.

I never saw Bernice cry. She continued to come to work in the morning, and iron, and clean, and cook, and walk down the lane to Johnson’s when we needed food. But she didn’t play the radio, or sing, or move her hips in time to the music like she used to.

I never cried either. Not for Randolph, not for Bernice, not for their children.

I watched.

Quietly.

*

Bernice moved away not long after that. She took her children with her. I heard that she married again, a man who beat her.

She died the day that Kennedy was shot. She was twenty-seven years old.

HONORABLE MENTION


LIFE WITH FATHER
By Carole Battaglia, Apex, N.C.

I thought my family was like everyone else’s on the block in the Bronx where I spent my childhood. I played hopscotch and Johnny-on-the-pony with all the other kids, went to the local elementary school and enjoyed having my grandparents living nearby. I had an allowance, rode a neat bike and wore shiny, new Mary Janes every September when the Jewish holidays came round. My mom stayed at home just like the other moms, cooking, cleaning and caring for the kids. And my dad left the house every morning for work, returning in time for a home-cooked dinner, just like all the other dads did.

But that’s where the similarities ended because my father was a gambler. And his gambling made us different from all the other families in our neighborhood. I did not realize this until I was an adult. But there were always signs. When I was thirteen, dad had to leave town and lay low with friends in Boston. I was told there were “bad people” after him because he had unpaid business debts. I don’t remember how long he was gone or where, exactly, he was staying. I do remember that when he did call home he never asked to speak with me or any of my sisters. My fantasy was that he was on a secret government mission, leaving his home and family to save the world.
The reality was that my father used his business money to go to the track. The “bad people” were mafia-connected. His friend, Johnny V., a retired mobster, took it upon himself to look after my mother and her four children. He did this by breaking the legs of a small-time

hood who was hounding my mother for the money owed him. My mother was hesitant to tell dad. She said he had enough on his mind in Boston without having to worry even more. But one too many threatening phone calls changed her mind. The next news we received was that the punk was in the hospital and Johnny said not to think about it anymore. We were never bothered again, but the episode left its mark on all of us.

I questioned, in my limited adolescent understanding, why anyone would want to hurt my father or what he might have done that was so bad it necessitated his leaving his wife and daughters.

I remember asking my mother. “Do the bad people want to hurt daddy?”

“Don’t you worry about your father,” she always replied.

And the conversation ended.

There were always examples of daddy’s lack of wisdom about money. A trained silversmith, he owned his own business for several years but never seemed to get out of debt. The business eventually failed. But his lesson had not, apparently, been learned. Many years

later, while working for my father in a new business venture he started on borrowed money, I watched as Charley made his weekly visit to help dad out. Charley, a connected “business associate”, would come into the office, roll up his pants leg and pull a wad of bills from inside his sock. Giving the money to my father, Charlie always asked “how’s business?” and my father, ever the optimist (or dreamer or liar depending on your perspective) would weave tales of expected profits.

“I’ve got fifty new advertisers signed on for the next catalog.” Dad would proudly state. “Orders will start pouring in.”

Charlie invariably responded sharply, as if he didn’t really care about how his money would be returned to him as much as when. He’d respond in a desultory, laconic tone:

“Yeah, well, that doesn’t matter to me. Just make sure you can make the vig next week.”

The cash Charlie handed to my father enabled him to continue business for another week, or month, if he was lucky. These were debts that would come to haunt him and his family later in life. But working for someone else was not something my father could do.

Any foray he made into employment in companies and businesses owned by others came to an end, probably in part due to his large ego and thick pride. And, while I can’t prove it, I have a vague memory of questions being raised during his employment with a pen company about improper use of funds. But, to the outside world, he was a success. And this perception was very important to him. Wanting to be seen as a player could have been one of the reasons

for my father’s seemingly insatiable need to make money. A child of the depression, he spoke of working at the age of eight to buy clothing or other small treats for his mother, whom he loved

dearly. But a younger brother, better looking and the apple of his mother’s eye, always seemed to push my father into the background.
I believe Daddy spent his life trying to hit the jackpot to show his mother that he was a success, to win her love. He tried, through failed business ventures and gambling. But he was never able to maintain any level of moderation. And so, his problem continued. Even if there wasn’t enough money to pay the rent, he’d always find a way to treat the people at the next table in a restaurant to a drink “on me”, or buy a round for the guys at the bar in my parents’ local Saturday night hangout.

There were also frequent trips to the race track. He even won sometimes. When he did, despite owing business creditors and loan sharks and having four daughters to feed at home, he’d treat my mother to a fur coat with his winnings. He went back to the track with the rest.

All of this took its toll, sometimes, directly on his children. My (soon-to-be) brother-in-law had won big once while accompanying my father to Yonkers Raceway. What happened to his winnings? Daddy “borrowed” the money. When it came time for my sister to fly to India to get married, dad magnanimously paid for her airfare, gave them a huge wedding reception when they returned and even bought some furniture for their new apartment. Problem was it was really not his money. He’d never paid my brother-in-law back. But, oh, what an impression he made on friends and neighbors!

My second sister was married in a big wedding in a local temple. At 3:00 in the morning, after the reception was over and the guests had all gone home, my family gathered in the catering hall. We watched my father count out the money the newlyweds had received as gifts. From these gifts my father handed them spending money for their honeymoon. He kept the rest.

Now, having “paid” for one daughter’s big wedding and another’s trip to India, he made an offer to me, his third daughter, when I graduated college. Moving to Montreal, I had already found an apartment and a job. Citing the largesse he had bestowed on his other daughters, dad offered to pay my rent for six months as a graduation gift. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I gladly accepted. After three or four months, I was called into my bank and told that every rent check had bounced. “Impossible”, I cried indignantly, knowing that the checks had come from daddy. I demanded to see the checks. There they were, my father’s checks, all stamped “insufficient funds”. I was mortified. And very angry. I called my father who quickly,

calmly and somewhat condescendingly denied there was a problem.

Just a mix-up at the bank” he claimed. “Don’t get so excited…it happens all the time.”

I believed him. But I was naïve.

I remained in Montreal for two years before deciding to return to New York and my family. Daddy gallantly offered to come to Canada and drive me home with all of my worldly

possessions. On the long drive back down the thruway, he talked about all the deals he had pending. There was always a bonanza waiting for him if he could just sew up the next deal or the next one….or the next one. He was just a little short of cash and, by the way, had I managed

to save anything in the time I had been working away from home? Still naïve and still trusting

my father, I never thought of lying to him. “Yes,” I proudly told him, “I’ve saved $500”. This was a tidy sum in 1972, especially for a 24-year old newly out on her own. This was all the money I had in the world. When he asked if he could borrow it, for a “little while” I automatically said “sure”, never questioning either the wisdom of this answer or the appropriateness of his request. Of course, I never saw that money again.

After I returned from Montreal, I lived with my parents for a few months while I looked for work. A few months was the limit of my father’s tolerance and it was clear to both of us that it was time for me to move out.

“You might be a little less picky in deciding on what job to take” daddy said. “After all, don’t you want your own apartment?”

“Absolutely,” I quickly responded, “but I’m worried about affording the rent.”

Daddy’s response? He assured me that he’d help me out if need be. “You can always come to us for help if you need it” were the words with which he tried to reassure me. But I was learning that any plan I made for independent living could not involve any reliance of my father’s solvency.

I was lucky enough to find a good job at Lenox Hill Hospital, a prestigious institution in Manhattan. The pay was just barely enough to cover the expenses on my newly-found fourth-floor walk-up on the upper East Side within walking distance of work. The rent was a whopping $230 a month and there were some weeks when I had to make a decision about how to best spend the last dollar I had until pay day….food or cigarettes? Clothing or coffee? I even swallowed my pride once and asked Daddy for a loan.

With what looked like genuine sadness and regret, my father calmly told me “Sorry, honey. This is a bad month for your mother and me. Wish we could help, but we can’t.”

So much for coming to my parents for help when I needed it. Things didn’t get any better.
Four years later, now living with my fiancé, I received notice from a bank in Albany that my student loan payments were not just overdue, but had never been made. Not one. Well, this seemed impossible. After all, I never even saw the money myself. I had handed it all to daddy who needed it for “business”. He had promised to make the loan payments as soon as they became due upon my college graduation. Six years later I was facing a lawsuit from the state looking for their money. I called my father and really let him have it. I was angry, very angry.

“You’re a liar and a cheat,” I yelled through the phone. “How could you put me in such a situation?”

There was no response. The absolute silence on the other end of the phone lasted about thirty seconds. I heard the phone clang against something as my father apparently dropped it. The next voice I heard was my mother’s.

“Don’t ever talk to your father that way” she said.

Then the line went dead.

I was stunned by this response. Not only had my father lied and taken advantage of me, but my mother was enabling him! I took legal action and had papers drawn up reverting the loan

to my father. He agreed to sign and assume responsibility, but would admit no wrongdoing. I was told I had to ‘grow up’ and be more mature! We never spoke of this again.

Five years later it was time for my own wedding. This was a small, but elegant, affair in a Manhattan restaurant where my father was known as a player. The tradition of my father’s arrangements for paying for a wedding was upheld as, at the end of a wonderful evening, Johnny V., the old family friend who had protected us during my father’s escape to Boston, reached into his sock , as had Charlie, the ex-business partner. He pulled out a thick wad of bills and handed it to my father who promptly paid for the wedding.

When he was 65, saddled with debt and living with my mother in a Manhattan apartment they could ill-afford, daddy tried to commit suicide. He did not succeed, but left a note telling my mother that their girls would take care of her, that she could always sell her jewelry and not to worry about any of his debts as she was not responsible for them. He just couldn’t go on and face what he saw as mounting debt to people who were, to say the least, unsavory and dangerous.

In his fear, he abandoned my mother. He survived and she stood by him, as she had for more than forty years. He entered therapy and attended Gamblers Anonymous, for a while. But old habits die hard and pretty soon he was back at the track or on the phone with his bookie, laying bets on football, basketball, anything. Nothing had really changed.

At 69, after a diagnosis of lung cancer, bouts of chemotherapy and radiation and with no hope for a cure, my father died quickly early one morning in his bathroom, collapsing from an embolism. Despite everything, he was my father and I was grief-stricken. This man was always

larger than life in my mind, even if I harbored anger and resentment. He was still my father. And so I mourned. And we paid.

My parents had no savings, but thanks to my brother-in-law’s gold American Express card, the funeral was paid for. We would, the four daughters, share this expense. Then my father’s old business partner, Charlie, came to visit. Charlie, the man with the money in his sock,

solemnly expressed his condolences. He was the picture of compassion, looking sad and offering his help should we need it.

“So sorry for your loss. Al was a great guy. If there’s anything I can do…..”

“Thanks” we all said, “but we’ll be okay” because we knew there was an insurance policy. What we didn’t know – and what Charlie had failed to mention – was that my father had signed the insurance policy over to him…leaving my mother penniless. No insurance

policy. No savings. Nothing but a small Social Security check to cover monthly expenses that totally exceeded her income. Daddy had left a mess that took my sisters and me a long time to clean up. We moved my mother to a smaller, slightly less expensive apartment. We split the

rent among us and paid it until the day she died, eight years later. We were very angry.

To this day, I am left with that anger. I’m not sure I will ever think back on life with father with any measure of joy or happiness. I can appreciate his tenacity in trying to hold things together and his ability to present himself as the loving, responsible family man to friends and neighbors. I can even understand the psychology of his addiction. But I find it hard to forget…or forgive.

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