Chapter 8 A Bra for Esther #2
“It’s too religious-looking for me—it looks like sacred scripture, or something,” Esther said.
She also didn’t like the Harrington font—from London, late nineteenth century.
“It’s too feminine for me,” was all Esther said about the Harrington.
(Larch thought the Harrington was too flowery for her, but he kept this to himself.)
Esther liked the Goudy Old Style. “Just plain Goudy,” the maritime man called it. It was an American font, a new one. “You don’t think it’s too plain, do you?” Anchor Al asked her.
“I think too plain works for me—I’m too plain, and I always will be,” Esther answered.
She liked the Didot font, too—a French typeface, from the eighteenth century.
“It’s too thin, but so am I—too thin works for me,” Esther told the old tattooer.
He showed her where the line breaks should be.
Her tattoo had a vertical shape; it ran the length of her torso.
The line breaks had their own weird symmetries.
“Would you tattoo my breasts, or would you work around them?” Esther asked the Bowery man.
(Don’t tattoo her breasts—work around them!
Larch was thinking, but he didn’t say it.)
“When the time comes, that’s up to you, young lady. I’d prefer to work around your breasts, not tattoo ’em,” the maritime man said, sounding like he was bound for Davy Jones’s locker, the grave for drowned sailors.
There were eighteen characters in the first sentence, counting the spaces.
The first line was closest to Esther’s collarbones—I care for myself.
The second line, still above her breasts, also had eighteen characters—The more solitary, ending with a comma.
The next two lines—the more friendless, the more unsustained—would wrap around her rib cage.
These two were the longest lines; they each had twenty characters.
The shortest line—the I am, only five characters—was just above Esther’s navel.
The last two lines were below her belly button—both the more I will and the respect myself.
Each line had fifteen characters. It was a lot to say on one torso, even a long one, but Esther was assured the tattoo would fit, and she liked leaving her breasts untattooed—as did Dr. Larch.
“An eight-letter word would be two inches long,” the tattooist told Esther. In the font size he recommended, each letter was between half an inch and an inch tall. “It’s not too big, young lady, but it’s big enough to read—even the wrong way, in a mirror,” Anchor Al told her.
Larch wanted the Winslows to know Esther was determined to get the Jane Eyre tattoo.
Esther was determined to go to Jerusalem, too.
And after she met the rabbi at Shaarey Tphiloh—after she saw her passport and her mother’s—Esther was determined to go to Vienna.
After all, it was where she came from—she was born there.
“And she wants to learn German, the language her mother and father spoke—their first language,” Dr. Larch went on to the Winslows.
“Of course she does—what a good girl she is!” Constance cried.
“Right you are, Connie,” Thomas said.
Then they were distracted by the incantations above Dr. Larch’s office. The boys were repeating by rote what they knew they should say, but their hearts weren’t in it. “Let us be happy for Esther Nacht—Esther has found a family,” the boys intoned, sounding more like a dirge than a celebration.
“Good night, Esther!” one boy wailed.
“Good night, Esther!” the boys cried in chorus.
“Mercy me!” Edna declared.
“Don’t tell them to be happy, Wilbur,” Angela said to Dr. Larch.
There was a thudding sound, like something heavy being dragged downstairs one step at a time. “That sounds like Esther’s rucksack—it weighs a ton,” Edna explained to the Winslows.
“It sounds like she’s stuffed one of the boys in her rucksack. I wonder which one!” Larch exclaimed.
“You know what she’s stuffed in her rucksack, Wilbur. The poor girl is taking too many books—there’s no room for her clothes,” Angela said.
“She doesn’t care about her clothes,” Larch wearily said; from the doctor’s casual attire, the Winslows could see he felt similarly.
“We live in a school town with a good bookstore. We can provide Esther with any book she wants—and Connie is a librarian,” Thomas Winslow reminded Dr. Larch.
“Esther wants her own copies of the books she’s marked—the passages she rereads to herself. I’m surprised there’s only one tattoo she wants,” Larch whispered. They could hear how close Esther was; her heavy breathing reached them from the hall.
“What a good girl she is,” Constance repeated, very quietly.
“Right you are, Connie,” Thomas whispered.
They now heard Esther huffing as she hoisted the books, wrestling her way into the shoulder straps of the rucksack.
Yet the Winslows were unprepared for the tall, broad-shouldered girl in the doorway of Dr. Larch’s office.
In spite of the disarming frankness of the doctor and his nurses, and their admirable attention to detail, the Winslows had underestimated Esther Nacht.
The child’s yellowing passport (and her mother’s) had been issued by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but the old coat of arms had faded; even the script of Franz Joseph’s name looked old and tired.
In Larch’s office, there were five of them waiting for Esther.
They all looked old and tired and small, compared to the resolute young woman towering in the doorway.
Esther Nacht was fourteen going on twenty-four.
In the direct way she spoke to the Winslows, looking straight at them, there was no doubting her sincerity.
“I’m sorry I’ve kept you waiting, but I’m still learning how to say goodbye.
Maybe there’s no good way to do it,” Esther told them.
The Winslows would have reason to remember this, but Esther had already moved on.
She was looking straight at Dr. Larch when she spoke to him—no less directly.
“You know I would give my right arm for you—you know this, don’t you?” Esther asked Dr. Larch.
“And you know you should try to hold on to your arms—both arms, Esther!” Larch told her.
“Wilbur,” was all Nurse Angela could say; then she started crying.
“I’ll check on our bed-wetter—we have a poor boy who wets his bed when Esther gets him overexcited,” Nurse Edna told the Winslows. Edna turned away from Esther before speaking to her. “If I give you a hug, Esther, I’ll never let you go. You know this, don’t you?” Edna said.
“I know,” Esther said, as Edna left the office.
Esther was looking straight at the Winslows again.
“The next train is usually on time. We should get going,” Esther told them.
Angela lay facedown on the examination table, sobbing.
Dr. Larch had turned away from all of them; that way, they couldn’t see him crying.
“You Winslows are getting the best one,” Larch said.
“We thank you for her,” Thomas told him.
“You know where I am, Esther—if you’re in trouble,” Larch said.
“You know me—I’ll get myself in and out of trouble,” Esther told him. All the while, her eyes remained steadfastly on the Winslows.
“We’re ready when you are, Esther,” Constance said to her.
Thomas withheld his Right you are refrain. Those Winslows had never felt less ready for anything.
Dr. Larch still wouldn’t look at anyone. “Esther, if you run into the stationmaster, just be thankful it’s the last time you’ll see him—just try not to kill him,” Larch told her.
“You know me—I keep trying,” Esther said to him. She was already leaving with the Winslows. As Larch and his nurses knew about Esther, there would be no looking back.
Outside, in the darkness, the hoarfrost was slippery on the rutted dirt road.
The Winslows were in no danger of falling—not with Esther between them, not the way the tall girl had hold of their upper arms. The strength of her grip would bruise them, but the Winslows felt safe in Esther’s hands.
It was keeping Esther safe that worried the Winslows.
They were educated, they were privileged, they had good intentions, but once again the Winslows were aware of what they didn’t know.
The Winslows weren’t Jewish. How could they help a young Jew find herself?
Esther must have known the Winslows were worrying; maybe she could feel them trembling in her strong hands.
“Don’t be afraid,” Esther told the Winslows, giving their arms a painful squeeze.
“I know what my job is. I’m giving Honor all I’ve got—that girl is going to get everything I can give,” Esther assured them.
“We don’t doubt you, dear girl—we’re just afraid we can’t give you enough,” Constance told her.
“Right you are, Connie!” Thomas declared. “What we’re afraid of, Esther, is that we don’t know enough to help you with the Jewishness,” Thomas said to her.
“That’s not your job,” Esther told the Winslows; she squeezed their arms affectionately, but more painfully. “You’re giving me an education, you’re making me smarter—my learning how to be a Jew is my job,” Esther assured them.
Then she saw the stationmaster standing on the platform. He sternly watched her and the Winslows; he wasn’t looking up the track in the direction the train would be coming from.
“Oh, great—it’s this guy,” Esther quietly said. “He hates me,” she told the Winslows.
“It’s the Judgment Day man, Connie,” Thomas whispered.
“I know, Tommy,” Constance said, more loudly than she meant to.
“He likes mail-order catalogs—undergarment catalogs, the ones advertising bras and girdles. He especially likes the women wearing nursing bras,” Esther whispered to the Winslows.
“Nursing bras!” Thomas tried to say quietly, but they were all on the station platform now. The stationmaster had heard him.
“You’re taking her—you’re taking the Jewish one?” the disapproving stationmaster asked the Winslows. Everyone could hear the train coming, but no one looked up the track.
“We’re taking the best one—she’s the best,” Constance told the stationmaster.
“The Jewish one is the best one,” Thomas said to him.
“ ‘I care for myself,’ ” Esther recited to herself, as if Jane Eyre’s words were already tattooed on her torso.
Then Esther and the Winslows got on the train—not looking back at the unmoving stationmaster, who was standing like a sentinel on the platform.
The stationmaster might have been imagining those women in nursing bras.
Yet in his uniform, with its glinting hardware, he appeared to be eternally disapproving.
Once onboard, Esther found four seats together—one for her rucksack.
They were the only passengers who got on in St. Cloud’s; they sat on the opposite side of the train from the station platform.
They couldn’t see the stationmaster, but everyone in their passenger car could hear him.
“She’s Jewish—they took the Jewish one!” the disapproving stationmaster shouted as the train pulled away from the platform.
Only the Winslows looked at Esther. Their fellow passengers focused their scrutiny on the Winslows.
Anyone could see the orphan was a young woman, merely a girl.
As everyone knows, orphans don’t get to choose who they are or where they come from.
But who would choose to adopt a Jew? That was the way the Winslows’ fellow passengers looked them over.
The stationmaster’s shouting was farther away, but it was not out of hearing. Esther and the Winslows heard him clearly. “She’s a Jew—they took the Jew!”
“Don’t be afraid—this is just how it is,” Esther said softly to the Winslows, as if they were children.
“The hatred isn’t usually this overt, but the covert kind of hatred is still hatred, isn’t it?
” Esther asked them. The Winslows nodded their assent.
They realized Esther was an adult; the Winslows knew they would learn a lot from her.
The tall girl must have been tired—given all the books she packed, and all the goodbyes.
Esther slept so soundly that she didn’t wake up at the stops along the way.
She somehow managed to sleep in two seats with her long arms hugging her rucksack.
Once, in her sleep, the Winslows heard Esther reciting (like a prayer) the passage she loved in Jane Eyre.
“ ‘The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am,’ ” Esther murmured, “ ‘the more I will respect myself.’ ”
“The tattoo she wants won’t work with a bra, Tommy,” was all Constance said.
“Right you are, Connie,” Thomas told her.
Thus, before they brought their tallest orphan home, those Winslows knew there wouldn’t be a bra for Esther.