Garden of Lies

Prologue

A poor widow once lived in a little cottage with a garden in front of it in which grew two rose trees, one bearing white roses, the other red. She had two daughters, who were just like the two rose trees; one was called Snow-white and the other Rose-red. …

Grimm’s Fairy Tales

NEW YORK CITY, JULY 3, 1943

Sylvie Rosenthal stood before the tall gilt-framed mirror in the millinery department at Bergdorf’s.

I don’t know, she said to the saleswoman hovering behind her. Sylvie straightened the brim of the green straw cartwheel. You don’t think perhaps it’s a bit too much?

I saw Eleanor Roosevelt wearing one just like it, in a newsreel just last week, the plump saleswoman offered. "Of course, she wasn’t … ah, expecting." She dropped her voice to a funereal hush.

Sylvie felt a flash of irritation. Why was everyone always reminding her? Dear God, couldn’t they let her forget just once?

She fingered the brim with its ruching of apple-green tulle, her annoyance at the woman lost in a wave of self-doubt. Oh dear, if only Gerald were here. I never know what to choose. And I’ll feel so awful if he doesn’t like it.

She took the hat off, and peered at her reflection, feeling, as she had so many times in the eight years since her marriage, puzzled, unworthy even. When he says I’m beautiful, God knows what he sees.

She saw a long, thin face, ordinary except for the eyes. They were wide, a champagne-bottle green, and her lashes and eyebrows were so pale, they were almost invisible. Her eyes seemed somehow to look perpetually astonished.

Sylvie remembered Gerald once telling her she reminded him of a Tenniel engraving of Alice. She smiled to herself. Yes, perhaps he’s right about that. I do think I’m in Wonderland sometimes.

She glanced around her. Shopping here at Bergdorf’s was incredible, a secret paradise seemingly untouched by the war. The stone urns erupting in sprays of tiger lilies and orchids. The delicate French tables and bow-front vitrines filled with lovely hand-blown perfume bottles—even if these days the perfume itself was ersatz. The enormous crystal chandelier suspended from the marble rotunda. How far she’d come from the days she’d picked over the sale table at Ohrbachs, when paying more than five dollars for a hat would have been unthinkable. Yes, she thought, I have tumbled right down the hole into Wonderland.

Tomorrow, the Golds’ annual Fourth of July lawn party, and pregnant or not, she was looking forward to it. The red-white-and-blue striped tents; the smoky mouth-watering barbecue smells; then dancing to Lester Lanin on an enormous platform ringed with Japanese lanterns. Except no Japanese lanterns this year, Evelyn had told her. Evelyn’s kid brother, shot down near Okinawa. Japanese lanterns were the last thing in the world she wanted at her party.

Sylvie carefully took off the green hat, and surrendered it to the saleswoman.

Perhaps the navy Lilly Daché with its red ribbon would be more appropriate, Sylvie pondered. And with its military brim, more in keeping with the times. She so wanted Evelyn to—

Sylvie froze.

Low in her abdomen, she felt a sudden heaviness, as if inside her the baby had plunged downward. No, was actually pushing down. A hot pressure. And, oh God, it wasn’t letting up. The ache in her lower back that had been bothering her all morning now became a fistful of needles jamming into the base of her spine.

It’s not happening, she thought. It can’t be. I won’t let it.

But she knew it was.

Deep inside her she felt a snap, like a piece of elastic giving way. Warm liquid, what felt like a river of it, gushed between her thighs.

Sylvie staggered as if someone had struck her. She felt her heart bump up into her throat. Then she stared down, horrified at the spreading, darkening stain on the beige carpet. Her water had broken. Dear God! She felt as ashamed as when she’d wet herself as a child in school.

Icy dread sluiced through her.

This was it, no more pretending to be delighted, overjoyed even, reassuring herself the baby was Gerald’s, had to be Gerald’s. Now the truth. Fear closed about her heart like a cold fist. It might not be Gerald’s. And, oh God in heaven, if it wasn’t …if it looked like Nikos? Eyes black, with his coffee skin and springy black hair …

No, she had to shut that out, slam the door on it.

Sylvie, struggling to calm herself, peered into the mirror. This time she saw not Alice, but a puffy, blurred face floating above a grossly misshapen body. She felt strangely detached, as if she were gazing at some exotic specimen of marine life in an aquarium. Or a drowned woman, her face a watery gray-green, filaments of red-blond hair drifting about her pale neck like seaweed.

Madame … are you all right? An anxious voice reached through the green depths to her.

Sylvie turned to find the henna-haired salesclerk gaping at her, eyes boggling behind cat’s-eye glasses, the clown spots of orange rouge on her sagging cheeks now a dark blood red.

Yes, that’s where she was. Bergdorf’s. Hats. The green or the blue? She lifted the blue hat from its stand on the glass countertop, fingering its veil. Cunning, the way little beads of jet had been sewn into the netting to make it sparkle. …

Madame? Plump fingers gripped her arm.

Sylvie, forcing herself, managed to resist the current that kept pulling at her.

She opened her mouth to say she was fine, please don’t make a fuss.

Then in the pit of her stomach she felt a thump that spiraled up into a wave of dizziness. No, she was not all right. No, definitely not.

Her knees began to buckle. She clutched the edge of the counter, steadying herself, and was confronted by a row of dummy heads, each sporting a different hat. Their smooth eyeless faces sent a chill through her. They seemed to be accusing her, a jury rendering a verdict: guilty.

If only Gerald were here! He would know what to do. He could summon a maître d’ just by raising his eyebrow. A flick of his finger and like magic a taxi would materialize from snarling traffic. A single look from Gerald at the bank could bring clerks, cashiers, loan officers scurrying.

But no, wrong, Gerald must not know. Thank God he’d still be in Boston until tomorrow … bank business … about war bonds or something.

Sylvie covered her mouth, one hand clapped over the other as hysterical laughter bubbled to her lips. The one person she needed, depended on … now, when she needed him most, she dared not turn to him.

How could she have done this to him? How?

Gerald was so good. Always. Her headaches—when she had one, even the slightest little noise set off an avalanche inside her skull and, God bless him, Gerald made sure that he and the help moved about the house silent as shadows.

Sylvie thought of the days when not just her head, but her feet, her whole body had constantly ached, when a cab ride seemed the most heavenly luxury. Standing all day passing money through the grille of her teller’s cage, stampeded in the subway, and then home, climbing the cabbage-smelling stairs, six never-ending flights, every blessed night.

Exhausted, wondering how much longer she could manage to stand on her feet, Sylvie felt as if she’d just now climbed those stairs. She shivered. Why was it so cold? The hottest day of the year, the radio had said, and yet the store felt like an icebox.

Should I call a doctor? The salesclerk’s shrill voice broke in on her.

No, I …

The ache in the small of her back was spreading, like a tight band wrapping about her middle, as if she were wearing a girdle that was too small. Pain slammed through her in icy waves.

God, God, get me to the hospital. Any minute, they’d have to carry me out of here on my back, in my stained dress. Everybody staring. God, no, I’d rather die.

She shook free and pushed past the perfume counters, their mixture of fragrances cloying, making her stomach heave. Somehow she made it outside, through the heavy glass exit door, wrenching her way to the curb through air so thick it was like syrup.

Lenox Hill Hospital, she gasped, sagging into the back of a cab.

She cranked the window down, letting in a blast of hot air, a soup of exhaust fumes and baking sidewalks. Still, she couldn’t stop shivering.

The elderly cabbie began humming While We’re Young. Sylvie wanted him to stop, but felt too wretched to speak, and too guilty.

Wadda ya say, now that we got those Nazi bastards pushed outta Egypt, ya think Ike’ll invade Italy?

Plainly, he was the talkative type. She stared at the little roll of fat bulging over the back of his collar. It was an angry boiled-red color, scribbled with wiry black hairs.

Sylvie wanted to be polite and answer, but just then she felt nausea rolling up her middle in a slow greasy wave.

As the taxi lurched up Park Avenue, she got that tight feeling again, starting in her lower back and spreading around her abdomen like pincers. Tighter and tighter, until it became a red-hot shaft driving straight through her. God! Sylvie stiffened, arching her back, feeling the springs of the caved-in seat digging into her buttocks. To keep from screaming, she bit the inside of her mouth.

Sylvie longed for her mother so intensely that for a minute she could feel Mama’s firm plump arms about her, smell the sharp eucalyptus scent of the Vick’s VapoRub she always massaged into Sylvie’s chest when her asthma was bad. Don’t cry, shainenke, Mama’s voice soothed inside her head. I’m here. I won’t leave you.

She could see her mama’s sleep-puffy face, the frayed gray rope of her braid twisting down one shoulder of her worn flannel wrapper. And in her watery blue eyes, the ghost of the little girl who had played croquet on the lawn of her papa’s great house in Leipzig before she’d had to flee to America.

Mama, abandoned by her weak husband, selling postcards and catalogues in the Frick Museum for twenty-eight dollars a week, foolishly dreaming of that better life she had left behind.

It had embarrassed Sylvie to hear how she spoke of the museum, as if she owned it, as if every painting were theirs.

Tomorrow after school you’ll visit me at the museum, and I’ll show you the new Rembrandt. Think of it, Sylvie. Such beauty, to own such beauty!

We owned nothing! Sylvie cried out to herself, struggling against the claws of pain that drove into her now. Only a few sticks of furniture. And the hand-me-downs that Mama’s sister, Aunt Willie, whose husband had built up a big business in fox collars and stoles, sent over in the gold-colored boxes meant for his merchandise.

Mama always said we had something better than Aunt Willie’s big house on Ditmas Avenue. We had each other.

But that wasn’t true, Sylvie thought with a pang. Mama left me, didn’t she?

The pain in Sylvie’s belly seemed to snake up into her throat. Mama … oh Mama, why did you have to die?

She closed her eyes, felt tears burning behind her lids slip out the corners, slide down her cheeks. She thought of that day, prissy Mr. Harmon calling her from her teller’s cage into his office. Your mother … I’m sorry … a stroke. Everything had gone fuzzy and gray, then black. And then, waking up, she was riding in a limousine. Leather seats smooth as melted butter, deep cushions and carpeting under her feet, a window separating the back seat from the front, with a gray-capped driver. How strange, a whole other world!

Beside her, an arm around her shoulders giving her support, was a man. Why, it was Mr. Rosenthal himself, the boss of the whole bank! She felt alternately hot and cold, alarmed and thrilled. She thought she’d seen him looking at her, though he’d never actually spoken to her.

The other girls gossiped about him over coffee and sandwiches at the luncheonette—his wife had died more than twenty years ago, leaving no children, and they all wondered why he hadn’t married again. She’d thought perhaps other women were too much in awe of him to get close. Sylvie recalled how intimidating he always looked, striding through to his office, his suits always perfectly pressed, gold cuff links winking at monogrammed cuffs, issuing orders in a quiet but commanding tone.

But here he didn’t seem at all frightening. She saw kind blue eyes caught in a fine net of wrinkles, older than she would have guessed, at least fifty, silver-blond hair so fine the white ridge of his scalp gleamed through it. He was taking her to the hospital, he’d told her. To her mother. Hearing him, Sylvie could feel the calm strength radiating from him, flowing into her.

Then, afterwards, taking care of Mama’s hospital bill, making all the funeral arrangements, then looking after her when she was so sick she couldn’t get out of bed. Never once, not once, being forward, trying to take advantage, until he’d asked her to marry him. Him wanting to marry her, oh the miracle of it! She’d done nothing to deserve it.

And, oh God, look how she had repaid him.

The memory of Nikos chafed like a pebble in a shoe. For a whole year, each morning when she woke up, it was there, sometimes more irritating and sometimes less, but always there. It lodged in her throat when she tried to eat. It tormented her sleep. It mocked her fierce yearning that the baby growing inside her would look like Gerald.

Sylvie laced her fingers over the hard mound of her belly. The tightness was beginning to subside, and the pain. If only, she cried to herself, I could have gotten pregnant before Nikos, then I would be sure.

It wasn’t for lack of trying, God knew. Taking her temperature every morning and marking it on the chart Gerald kept by the bed—three years of that! And those visits to the doctor! Lying there spread out like a chicken to be gutted. Cold steel probing inside her until she’d wanted to scream. And then being told there was nothing wrong. Give it time. What did doctors know?

She’d wept seeing the disappointment in Gerald’s face each month when her period came.

Why couldn’t she give him just this one thing? Look at the glorious new life he’d given her. Not her fault, three different Park Avenue specialists had told her; but Sylvie knew better.

She felt sure she could get pregnant if only she could find a way not to hate having sex with him.

How could she feel this way? Why? What husband in the whole world was ever more kind and generous?

Yet the memory of their wedding night, seeing him naked for the first time, still made her cringe. In his crisp, hand-tailored suits he’d looked large, prosperous. Naked, his belly a sagging pouch, he looked old, grotesque almost. And he had breasts, breasts like a girl’s! To this day, Sylvie felt revulsion when he lowered himself on her, no matter how many million times she told herself she loved him and he loved her. His doughy belly pressing against her, making her gasp for breath, his thing inching its way into her. Then such grunting and heaving, as if he were in pain. It’ll get better, she’d told herself over and over, it has to. It’s only because we’re not used to each other.

But when he announced his desire by taking off his pajamas and folding them at the foot of the bed, after eight years her flesh still shrank.

And then Nikos …

A flare of pain in her abdomen jerked Sylvie from her reverie. She twisted in the back seat of the cab, as if that somehow would let her escape its hot punishing grip.

As the taxi jerked right and left, weaving its way through the clotted traffic, she leaned forward against the front seat, gasping, cradling her huge belly as gingerly as if it were a bomb about to explode.

I’ve changed my mind, she told the driver. Please take me to St. Pius instead. She gave him the address and in the rearview mirror saw him roll his eyes. He’d never get a fare back downtown from that part of the Bronx, but up there in her old neighborhood she would feel, well, safer somehow.

Just in case Gerald called, she’d leave word with Bridget that she was visiting her old friend Betty Kronsky. Later she could say that the pains had become so bad there hadn’t been time to get back downtown or to call that stuffy Doctor Handler, who was Gerald’s college roommate.

She knew this was crazy, hopeless really. Eventually Gerald would have to find out. But for now at least it felt easier. Back in the old neighborhood, she would feel closer to Mama, almost as if Mama were soothing her, protecting her. And maybe, well, she’d have a miracle—a baby that looked just like Gerald, or her.

Out of midtown now, the taxi picked up speed, gliding past the stately apartment houses that lined Park Avenue. Sylvie glanced at the diamond-studded Patek Philippe watch Gerald had given her last Chanukah. Past two. God, would they get there in time?

Abruptly, it seemed, the elegance of Park Avenue became the sordidness of Harlem, and they were rattling over cracked pavement, potholes, debris littering the streets. And worse. Old drunks crumpled on the sidewalks. She shut her eyes. But she couldn’t shut out the stink. The smells from mounds of uncollected, rotting garbage.

Then the humming vibration of the taxi’s wheels crossing the Third Avenue Bridge into the Bronx. Sylvie opened her eyes. Turning off Bruckner Boulevard, she saw the streets were filled with children—children of all sizes and colors, splashing in the gush flowing from uncapped fire hydrants, darting in and out, oblivious to the traffic, so heedless of danger. She saw a nappy-haired boy with smooth chocolate skin chasing a little girl, her long black braids whipsawing wildly at her back. Sylvie shuddered, imagining her child here, a wild brown thing playing hide-and-seek behind garbage cans.

The cab lurched to a halt. Sylvie paid and maneuvered her bulk out the door, her legs threatening to buckle as she stood.

She stared up at St. Pius Hospital. Its brick and granite facade was so blackened with grime it made her think of an oven, one that hadn’t been cleaned in years. She felt her stomach knot in dismay. It would be like an oven inside, no air-conditioning, probably no fans either.

The street noises assaulted her, children shrieking, radios blaring, voices yelling in Spanish from open windows. Fighting back waves of dizziness, she trudged up the hospital’s front steps.

A deafening crack caused her to reel, her heart smashing against her rib cage. She was so startled she stumbled against the top step, and only barely kept from falling by catching the iron rail. Then she saw. Kids. They were setting off firecrackers on the sidewalk. Of course, tomorrow was the Fourth of July. She’d forgotten.

Glancing up past the kids to the tenement window above, Sylvie saw a pregnant woman in a faded print duster, her enormous stomach sagging over the sill, following Sylvie’s progress with an impassive stare while a plump brown baby squirmed at her breast. Sylvie turned back and pushed her way inside, feeling unsteady. Gray spots skated across her field of vision.

She could feel the contraction beginning to tighten. Sylvie was suddenly so dizzy she didn’t trust herself to let go of the doorknob. The floor tilted sharply.

Please … someone … help me …, she opened her mouth to say as a hood of gray gauze slipped over her eyes, but no words came.

The black and white floor tiles swam toward her. Something cool and hard smacked her cheekbone. Pain rolled through her like distant thunder.

Then darkness.

Opening her eyes, Sylvie found herself in an iron bed with rails on either side. A green curtain surrounded it. Through the slit where the two ends didn’t quite meet, she could see the opposite wall. A framed picture of Jesus hung between two tall windows, His eyes raised heavenward, palms extended to show puncture wounds dripping blood.

Sylvie hoisted herself onto her elbows. The effort sent hammers of pain smashing into her temples, causing her to cry out. Her face felt stiff. She touched her nose, her fingers meeting coarse adhesive.

With a clattering of metal rings, the curtain was yanked back. A woman in a white uniform, with a short white wimple covering her head, stood over her. The overhead fluorescent light reflected off her eyeglasses, giving her an odd expressionless look. Her face was as white and rubbery-smooth as a boiled egg.

You’re lucky, she said. It’s not broken.

Sylvie groaned. I think I’m going to throw up.

No, you’re not.

The stern reply so startled her Sylvie forgot how sick she felt.

It only feels that way, she kindly assured Sylvie. You’ll be fine.

Then the nun-nurse began rolling a tight rubber glove over her hand. From the tray she’d carried in with her, she selected a tube and smeared something white and creamy over her gloved fingers.

I’m going to examine you to see how far you’re dilated, she said. My name is Sister Ignatious, by the way, she added as she pulled back the sheet and roughly inserted two greased rubber fingers into Sylvie’s vagina.

Sylvie arched backward, her whole being shriveling from the invasion. A cold crampy feeling spread throughout her lower half as the fingers probed and prodded.

Sister Ignatious withdrew, and clumsily patted her arm. Six centimeters, she announced. You’ve a while to go yet. Your first?

Sylvie nodded, feeling suddenly like a very small child, scared, helpless, and so alone. Tears gathered on her lower lashes.

Sister Ignatious disappeared, returning a few minutes later carrying a basin of soapy water and a razor.

Sylvie, alarmed, asked, What are you going to do?

Now, now, let’s not make a fuss, clucked the sister. I’m only going to shave you. It’s for your own good.

Eyes squeezed shut, Sylvie submitted to having her gown raised once again. A rough wet washcloth scraped over her abdomen, moving lower. Water dribbled uncomfortably between her legs. An icy hand was placed across her stomach. How could anyone’s hand be so cold in this heat?

Sylvie was ordered to hold still. Never mind your contraction, dear. While the razor scraped over her pubis like a small animal, pinching and clawing, the rest of her body rippled with great thundering waves of pain. She struggled not to cry out or move. She wanted to be good, to do what she was told.

And what else could she do?

Finally Sister Ignatious straightened up, removing the basin and lowering Sylvie’s gown. Dr. Phillips will be in to see you shortly, she said. With a clatter of metal curtain rings, she was gone.

The next hours were agony beyond anything Sylvie would ever have thought possible. In her torture, she forgot about Gerald, and Nikos, even the baby inside her struggling to be born.

There was only the pain.

It no longer was coming in waves, with lulls in between, but had become a never-ending surge.

White-gowned figures flitted in and out of her vision. A gum-smacking girl with a clipboard took her name and asked questions about insurance. Then a tall gray-haired man wearing a green smock who introduced himself as Dr. Phillips and asked her to open her knees so he could examine her. She felt no embarrassment, as normally she would have. Only discomfort. She cried out. Sweat dribbled down her face. Her skin prickled as if it were on fire. Gentle hands placed a cool wet cloth over her forehead.

Sylvie heard a scream, which seemed an echo of her own. She realized dimly that there was a bed beyond her curtain that must be occupied by another woman who was also in labor.

She could feel the baby moving lower, becoming a fiery pressure. Sylvie instinctively bore down against it, grunting and heaving. It seemed to shift. Could this horrible pain inside her be dislodged? Could she push it out?

Don’t push yet, a voice commanded.

Through the red veil of her pain, she forced herself to focus on the face hovering above her. Sister Ignatious. I have to, Sylvie whimpered in protest.

Wait until we get you into Delivery, the nun said.

Sylvie was resisting the urge to push, but it felt unbearable. She felt as helpless as if she were being strangled, and could do nothing to save herself. But it wasn’t only her neck being squeezed to death, it was her whole body. She’d never survive this without being torn in half.

How in God’s name did women get through this, and live? And not once, but several times. How could anyone choose to go through this again once they knew what it was like?

She wouldn’t. Never. Not for Gerald. Not for any man.

Strong hands lifted her from the bed onto a gurney. Sylvie shivered, even though it was so hot she was gasping for breath. Her body was drenched with sweat, her hospital gown twisted underneath her like a wrung-out rag. She tried to clamp her knees together, to keep the pressure from tearing her apart, but her knees would not stay together. She clutched herself between her legs, humiliated at being seen doing this, yet desperate to relieve the horrible burning pressure.

She was dimly aware of being rolled down a corridor, rubber wheels bumping over uneven linoleum. A new room. Sudden, blinding brightness. Light from a huge lamp in the center bouncing off shiny green tiles. Stainless steel everywhere.

Sylvie groaned, twisting helplessly. Panic inched its way up her throat, blocking her air, causing her to fear she might choke to death. This cold awful place, like a public bathroom—nothing could be brought to life in this place.

She was hoisted onto a table. Her legs spread apart, feet strapped into high metal stirrups.

Relax, Sylvia. It’s going to be all right. You’re doing just fine. Dr. Phillips’s voice behind that mask. Kind blue eyes, and a shaggy gray hedge of eyebrows.

But who was Sylvia? Then she remembered. She was. The girl with the clipboard hadn’t gotten her name right.

She began to push. It was terrible. Pushing was almost as bad as not pushing, but she couldn’t stop herself. She heard gobbling animal sounds escape her. She couldn’t stop those, either. She no longer had any control of her body. It was controlling her.

Voices filtered through the roaring of blood in her ears, telling her push. PUSH.

A black rubber mask was clamped over her nose and mouth. Sylvie fought it, trying to push it away in panic, afraid she would be suffocated, but the hand holding it only pressed down harder. A sweetish aroma enveloped her, followed by a spiraling light-headed sensation.

I’m giving you a little gas, Sister Ignatious said. Breathe in. It’ll help.

Just when she could feel her body about to split open, Sylvie felt the pressure abruptly ease. Something small and wet—far smaller than the gigantic thing inside that had caused her so much pain—slithered free.

She heard a tiny gurgled cry.

Sylvie sobbed, this time from relief. She felt as if a crushing boulder had been rolled off her. She seemed to float, weightless, at least a foot above the table.

A girl! she heard someone shout.

A moment later a tightly wrapped bundle was thrust into her arms.

Sylvie blinked as she stared at the tiny face peeking out from the white folds of the blanket. The vast relief she’d felt turned to crashing despair.

It’s so dark! A mass of glistening black hair framed a tiny squashed-looking face the color of an old penny. Its eyes opened, and Sylvie saw with a shock two gleaming jet buttons. Weren’t all babies’ eyes supposed to be blue?