' Mama' by Judy Hall

She was a short woman, my mother,
six inches shorter than me now
And I am short
She looked like me
If you can imagine my face
With a big Jewish nose
Several large brown moles
Twenty five years of nicotine induced wrinkles
And dark circles around eyes that knew fear
If you can imagine
Me like That.

She was always sick, my mother,
Tucked in the safety of home, away from the Nazi’s of her day
She graduated High School early
Polio, whooping cough, a weak disposition left her to
Work at her own pace which seemed to be
Faster than the pace expected of a girl on the lower east side
Her mother, my grandmother, while reading the Daily Worker ¹
Told her she was too ugly to get a man so
She’d better get a job and not working as a factory worker.

With a dissertation under her belt and
Living on Long Island now
She met a man, a goy ²,
Who found her beautiful.

He was a brilliant, funny, lazy, witty, charming, mean man.

He was a sweet, loving, abusive, violent, handsome man.

They had seven children.

Four died in infancy, unable to live life on this earth.

Three remained.

I am the middle, whichever way you cut it.

This is the story:
I am three years old. I have committed a transgression. I have taken Daddy’s pen and now Daddy can’t find his pen. I am terrified. His belt is already off. The buckle gleams a silvery light into my eyes. The pattern on this buckle is of beautiful flowers but I know what that buckle means. I begin to run on chubby legs, looking for salvation. I can see my feet, bare beneath my bare legs, my diaper drooping low. I run from the dining room, through the living room down the long, long hallway, long enough, it seems for him to catch me. He isn’t even running. He is a giant, a big mean Santa Claus taking giant strides behind me. He is a man in black with a Meinkampf look ³. Even in the darkness of the hallway, the silver gleam of the flowered belt buckle lights my way to the last door on the right. My door, to my room where my mother is sitting on my bed. I run to her, my arms stretched, calling out “Mama” because I know she likes that more than mommy. Her pregnant belly takes up half her lap, the baby within will die in the hospital. Lucky baby. I wrap my arms around the fecund belly, my place of hope and of respite. I am shaking but I am in the safety zone now. In my youth, I fail to see the bruises that stain her arms and legs, pinches and pokes, never really hit a pregnant woman, she holds the hope for the future. My father comes up behind me, and says something, something in Yiddish I can’t understand. She picks me up. I see her face, her eyes, resigned hazel eyes that know what has to be done. I am turned over, as the law states. I am turned upside down. I am tattooed with the sign on of my crime: flowers. With each metallic thump I cry out “Mama” to no avail. When I am put back down on my bed, when the enemy has left, having exacted his punishment, my mother, my tired mother, rubs my feet and sings about a poor Russian girl who wants to get married, while I cry. Even though she has betrayed me, I still want her.

¹ The Daily Worker is the organ of the Communist Party USA.
² A goy is a non Jewish person.
³ From “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath.

 

Judy Hall: Judy Hall is an unwilling English teacher in New Jersey (it pays the bills) and a life long writer. She has three kids, a husband, a golden retriever and lives in Montclair, New Jersey -- which sounds much more idyllic than it really is. She received both her BA and Masters in English from Rutgers University. She wishes she could still be a student because she had a lot more time to write then. Her work has previously been published in Ostraka, a very small literary magazine.