Read Online Electric City: A Novel by Elizabeth Rosner - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Elizabeth Rosner
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Electric City was flickering and dimming, right in front of her eyes.
T HE PORTABLE TV was on in the kitchen, and Walter Cronkite was reporting on Vietnam in his courteous grim voice. Sophie had to swivel around to see the small screen on the kitchen counter near the telephone, but the words came at her even if she didn’t turn to listen.
There was a jungle war being fought on the other side of the world, and increasing signs of a war at home too, not just in her country but in her own household. A week earlier, Simon came very close to being arrested at an antiwar demonstration in front of City Hall, and his parents were pleading with him to stay out of it. They were genuinely afraid, Sophie could tell.
“War is about dying—if not you, then everyone you love,” Miriam said.
“That’s exactly my point,” Simon replied.
Sophie chewed her chicken and realized this was the first time all four of them were having dinner together since Simon had been home from college.
When she rehearsed the sentences for telling her family about the date with Henry, knowing the way she had said yes to him without hesitating, she almost choked on her food. There was no question about her parents’ ideas on the subject; they were both absolutely clear aboutwanting her to date only Jewish boys. Did Simon have a girlfriend hidden away somewhere, possibly even in California?
Maybe, Sophie thought, it would count in his favor to mention Henry was Dutch and leave out the rest.
Before Sophie was born, when they first came to Electric City, her parents had lived in a one-bedroom apartment in a cluster of identical brownstone buildings called Sheridan Village. Miriam and David joked that it could have been a fairytale version of Holland, with its miniature pretend windmill on the front lawn.
There was an L-shaped shopping area within walking distance, providing a druggist and grocery store and dry cleaner and shoe repairman, just enough conveniences to allow them to manage with one car. Sometimes Miriam drove her husband to work in their moss-green Chevy station wagon, dropping him off at the research lab with his briefcase and thermos to join a parade of men just like him in matching overcoats and hats. Then, like all the other housewives temporarily in the driver’s seat, she turned the car around and headed back home.
The Levines had arrived in America in late April 1939, both sent as twenty-one-year-old emissaries to the New World by families with foresight. Leaving behind their extended family in the Netherlands, the newlyweds embarked to cross the Atlantic with one trunk apiece, carrying only the basics for beginning an American life. They stood waving from the deck of the ship called Nieuw Amsterdam , which turned out to be one of the last passenger ships to make it out of Europe before the Nazi occupation.
Sophie used to imagine her young parents holding hands and locking their knees, hopeful and terrified and of course unaware that nearly every single one of their beloved relatives and friends would—within a few short years—be deported, gassed, and turned to ashes. An ocean would stretch between themselves and everything left behind, and the newspapers would bury most of the terrible news in the fine print on page seventeen. There would be dwindling letters, cables, cryptic postcards, until finally, they were left with desperate, permanent silences. Her parents waited in vain for death certificates with black satin edges, though none ever arrived.
“When we left, we just had to hope for the best,” David said to his children, on the rare occasions he spoke about the past. “I wasn’t even the smartest of my brothers, not even the healthiest.” He would pull a handkerchief from his back pocket and blow his nose, remarking on the persistence of his allergies, shaking his head.
“Life isn’t fair,” he said. It was a statement he repeated often, much more often than Sophie liked. Sometimes she tried to figure out
T HE PORTABLE TV was on in the kitchen, and Walter Cronkite was reporting on Vietnam in his courteous grim voice. Sophie had to swivel around to see the small screen on the kitchen counter near the telephone, but the words came at her even if she didn’t turn to listen.
There was a jungle war being fought on the other side of the world, and increasing signs of a war at home too, not just in her country but in her own household. A week earlier, Simon came very close to being arrested at an antiwar demonstration in front of City Hall, and his parents were pleading with him to stay out of it. They were genuinely afraid, Sophie could tell.
“War is about dying—if not you, then everyone you love,” Miriam said.
“That’s exactly my point,” Simon replied.
Sophie chewed her chicken and realized this was the first time all four of them were having dinner together since Simon had been home from college.
When she rehearsed the sentences for telling her family about the date with Henry, knowing the way she had said yes to him without hesitating, she almost choked on her food. There was no question about her parents’ ideas on the subject; they were both absolutely clear aboutwanting her to date only Jewish boys. Did Simon have a girlfriend hidden away somewhere, possibly even in California?
Maybe, Sophie thought, it would count in his favor to mention Henry was Dutch and leave out the rest.
Before Sophie was born, when they first came to Electric City, her parents had lived in a one-bedroom apartment in a cluster of identical brownstone buildings called Sheridan Village. Miriam and David joked that it could have been a fairytale version of Holland, with its miniature pretend windmill on the front lawn.
There was an L-shaped shopping area within walking distance, providing a druggist and grocery store and dry cleaner and shoe repairman, just enough conveniences to allow them to manage with one car. Sometimes Miriam drove her husband to work in their moss-green Chevy station wagon, dropping him off at the research lab with his briefcase and thermos to join a parade of men just like him in matching overcoats and hats. Then, like all the other housewives temporarily in the driver’s seat, she turned the car around and headed back home.
The Levines had arrived in America in late April 1939, both sent as twenty-one-year-old emissaries to the New World by families with foresight. Leaving behind their extended family in the Netherlands, the newlyweds embarked to cross the Atlantic with one trunk apiece, carrying only the basics for beginning an American life. They stood waving from the deck of the ship called Nieuw Amsterdam , which turned out to be one of the last passenger ships to make it out of Europe before the Nazi occupation.
Sophie used to imagine her young parents holding hands and locking their knees, hopeful and terrified and of course unaware that nearly every single one of their beloved relatives and friends would—within a few short years—be deported, gassed, and turned to ashes. An ocean would stretch between themselves and everything left behind, and the newspapers would bury most of the terrible news in the fine print on page seventeen. There would be dwindling letters, cables, cryptic postcards, until finally, they were left with desperate, permanent silences. Her parents waited in vain for death certificates with black satin edges, though none ever arrived.
“When we left, we just had to hope for the best,” David said to his children, on the rare occasions he spoke about the past. “I wasn’t even the smartest of my brothers, not even the healthiest.” He would pull a handkerchief from his back pocket and blow his nose, remarking on the persistence of his allergies, shaking his head.
“Life isn’t fair,” he said. It was a statement he repeated often, much more often than Sophie liked. Sometimes she tried to figure out
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