Read Online Bridal Chair by Gloria Goldreich - Free Book Online Page B

was a small girl, they had dressed her in a ruffled white dress, lace fringed white socks, and white patent leather pumps. She had posed in that costume for a studio photograph they had packaged carefully and sent to their families in Russia, never knowing if it would reach them. That very daguerreotype held pride of place on the mantelpiece of their salon. He glanced at it and turned away.
    He had always thought of his Ida as a vibrant and virginal child, her beauty and precocity a hard-earned legacy, a validation of the lives he and Bella had lived. She was their pride and their comfort. They had given her everything, protected her from all danger and darkness. And now that love, that indulgence, that devotion, had been betrayed. How could she so willfully, so carelessly, make a mockery of their dreams, their hopes? Their Ida, pregnant and unmarried! How could she have shamed them? He stared at her, seeking out the daughter he had coddled, the playful child, the vibrant young girl whom he had painted year after year, and then turned away, ablaze with anger.
    He subdued a wild desire to tear the soft white woolen dress from her body and paint it as he had painted the costumes of the actors of the Moscow Jewish Theater. He would choose the scarlet of spilled blood, the acid yellow of disappointment and disgust. He remembered those long-ago days in Moscow, shivering in the freezing theater as he frantically moved his brush against coarse fabric scavenged by the wardrobe mistress. As he worked, Ida, then so small and innocent, had played at his feet, his Idotchka, now grown into the defiant young woman who sat opposite him, her head held high, her eyes that matched his own, staring at him unflinchingly. And unapologetically. Had she no remorse? Didn’t she understand what she had done to him, to her mother? He looked at her as though she had suddenly become a stranger, an unwelcome alien at his table. But oh, how beautiful she was! Rage and love tore at his heart.
    “I’m sorry,” she said at last.
    “Sorry. Of course you are sorry.” Bella’s voice broke.
    Marc rose, paced the room. “And who is the father?” he asked harshly.
    The question startled Ida. She had not thought of herself as a mother, much less had she thought of Michel as a father.
    “Michel,” she said softly. “Michel Rapaport.”
    “The law student?”
    She nodded.
    “You’re certain that it was he?”
    Her heart sank at the iciness of his tone, at the punishing implication of his question. Had she been transformed, during these last painful moments, from his adored daughter into a promiscuous whore with multiple lovers?
    “Of course I’m certain,” she said. “How could you think otherwise?”
    “Perhaps because I don’t know what to think. Perhaps because I no longer know who you are.”
    “How many monthlies have you missed?” Bella asked quietly.
    “One. Perhaps two.”
    “Then perhaps you are only late.”
    “No. There are other symptoms. My friend Elsa Liebowitz, the doctor whom I visited last night, examined me. She is in training to become a gynecologist. She understands a woman’s body.”
    “It is a pity she did not share her knowledge with you earlier,” Marc said bitterly.
    Bella and Ida ignored him.
    “Have you told Michel, Michel Rapaport?” Bella asked.
    “No.”
    “He must be told,” she said firmly.
    “I know. I will tell him this afternoon. We are meeting at a café.” She shook her hair loose, toyed with the pins that had held the coil in place. “As we often do,” she added. She was done with deception.
    “Change your dress before you see him.” Marc’s voice was harsh. He did not want Ida to wear white today, not today, perhaps never again. He turned on his heel. “I am going to my studio,” he said. “I have work to do.” He slammed the door.
    Ida’s eyes burned, and her hands trembled. The optimism of early morning had faded, and she felt herself sinking into the quicksand of despair. She