Part Two: Change
Chapter One: Deborah: Autumn, 1975
For Deborah Davidson, that moment started on November 10, 1975.
Well, it didn't actually start then. She wasn't really aware of the ramifications of that day until her friend, Susan Ross, came home from Mexico City.
Susan was in fact her boss. Deborah was 23 years old, barely a year out of college, and was working as an aid in a shelter for battered women. The pay wasn't great, but the work was important and she made enough money to be able to afford an apartment, which she shared with her old friend, Nancy Cross. They went about their separate business, content to be bound by the convenience of not having to go home and face their parents. Deborah could deal with that, calmed down since those days in high school when she'd tried influencing her friend's views by quoting her Betty Friedan or Mary Wollstonecraft. She knew now that to change the world, you had to do so quietly, discreetly, in such slow steps that the world would barely notice.
The power of those small, insignificant moments simply fascinated Deborah Davidson. She had spent her college career—pried from the grudging hands of her father—trying to find out how to control them. Or at least, predict them. But ultimately, she found much to her own chagrin, she could do neither. But she never gave up hope that perhaps something big enough, something well documented enough, could end up changing history.
This was what was on her mind when Susan came into work Monday morning. An International Decade for Women seemed like a huge moment, a huge way to change things. It was the event, which Deborah had been hoping for her entire life—the biggest of the big—when women, from around the world, would come together under UN sanction, and proclaim that their voices mattered too. The very notion set Deb tingling. And—best of all—her own dear friend, Susan, would be traveling to Mexico City where this historic event would be kicking off in autumn, 1975.
Susan looked decidedly kicked about when she entered the office, however.
She hung her coat on the coat rack, she poured herself a cup of coffee, and she picked up some reports. She made no noise when she walked, nor removed her eyes from the carpet. Deborah was stunned.
"Sus?"
Susan jumped slightly, adding a somewhat frazzled edge to her appearance. "Oh hello, Deb, didn't see you there," she said, not looking her friend in the eye.
Deborah pursed her lips in concern. "Are you all right?"
Susan sighed. "I'm fine. Just tired. Don't you worry about me." She attempted a reassuring smile, which did not reach her eyes.
Deborah took two strides forward, gripping her friend by the arm. "You look ill. Why don't you go home?" She started steering her towards the door.
Susan surprised her by pulling forcefully out of her grasp. "I'm fine," she insisted, her voice steely. "Besides. I want to do something productive this week."
Deborah stared at her, floored. "What do you mean? Has—did something go wrong at the conference?" She gripped at the table behind her, somewhat disbelieving that her beloved Women's Decade could spur this sort of reaction in her friend. Susan had been looking forward to this as much as she had.
But her friend had stilled, slumping back into her lethargy. "Resolution 3379," she said blankly. "Decided on November 10, 1975, 20 years after the Holocaust. Zionism is racism. Guess the fucking wonderful UN can't grant a favor to one oppressed group without being complete dickheads to the other."
Deborah said nothing. She had twitched when the Holocaust was mentioned but other than that, her mind was drawing a blank.
"And the Women's Caucus?" Susan snorted, smacking her paperwork onto her desk. "Fucking backed them up on that one, they did. Never heard such political propaganda in my life." She ran a hand through her hair. "Funny. I thought the purpose of this—Decade for Women was to empower all of us, not just come of us at the expense of others."
Deborah bit back her objective reaction. Though not an avid follower of Israeli issues, she could sympathize easily enough with the Palestinians. "So… the Jewish women felt ostracized?" she asked quietly.
Susan buried her head in her hands before answering. "Hell, even I felt ostracized and I haven't entered a synagogue in… 15 years."
Deborah's jaw dropped without her noticing. "You're Jewish?" she asked, mystified. She'd never actually known a Jew before. In her mindset, Judaism was like ancient philosophy—something her forbears had shirked off so long ago that not a trace remained.
Susan's cheeks flushed and Deborah was relieved to hear a chuckle at least. "Yeah," she said. "Guess religion is one of those things that can never fully leave you."
Deborah nodded, turning away from her. Outside, she could hear the faint sounds of normalcy, cars swishing by the road, the ceiling fan’s persistent hum. The coffee still assaulted her nostrils, making her more alert than she would have liked to be. She cleared her throat.
“Right,” she answered her friend, feeling removed. I suppose I could understand that feeling well enough.”
That Saturday, Deborah had the strange compunction to visit her mother. She waited until mid-morning, taking a slow drive through the city (never too hard to accomplish, considering the traffic,) and arrived at her childhood home at a time when she knew her father would be out at a country club or such. She couldn't quite place why she felt such an urge. Usually, she stayed as far away from that damnable house as possible, with its damnable memories. It was something beyond the memories, which drove her here today, though, something in that one word Susan had said—Holocaust—which left Deborah unhinged, confused, and therefore seeking out the closest association to Holocaust she knew.
Gerdie was in the kitchen, baking, when Deb padded into the house. Five-year old Kathleen looked up at her from where she was playing with paper dolls on the floor. The look on her face was mousy, shy, perhaps even scared, but for once, Deborah did not let irritation assuage her; she simply patted her sister on the head, smiling softly.
"Kathleen?" Gerdie called, stepping into the room. "What—Deborah!"
Deborah smiled guiltily, knowing how pleased her mother was those rare times she deigned to visit. "Hello, Mom." She was saved the obligation of hugging due to Gerdie's sticky hands.
"How are you, sweetheart? How's Nancy? Susan?" Gerdie smiled hopefully as she tried to impress her daughter by rattling off the names of her friends.
Deborah glanced once at Kathleen, then made her way into the kitchen. She spoke in a low voice. "Mother… have you been following the news?"
Gerdie sucked in her breath. News wasn't something openly discussed in the Davidson home. Growing up, the only access Deb had to it was what her father watched at 6 pm—and she knew he only did it to appear informed in front of his buddies the next day. Deborah stayed as far away from the news as she possibly could; one thing for which she had her parents' blessing. Until, of course, high school, and the Civil Right's Movement took her over.
"No," Gerdie said lightly, returning to the stove. "I suppose I haven't."
Deborah watched her a moment. "The UN passed a—controversial resolution last week," she finally said.
"Oh?"
"Yes." She took a deep breath. "Resolution 3379. Declaring Zionism as Racism."
Gerdie actually stilled. After nearly 30 years of being an around-the-clock housewife, a thick silence enveloped the kitchen. Deborah's heart pounded as she bit her lip, knowing that whatever came next would be a shock.
"Well," her mother finally said. "It seems the UN has been—misinformed at the very least."
Deborah blanched at the moderation of her tone, tinged with the tension of her body. "Is that all you can think of to say, Mother?" she asked.
Gerdie turned to face her, looking mildly incredulous. "What is it that you'd like to hear, Deb?"
Deborah bit her tongue, looking down. She was unable to mention the Holocaust, to piece this—once familial secret—into the monstrosity of world politics.
"It is something," Gerdie murmured quietly. "To think—a liberation movement, founded so that oppressed Jews could have a home."
Deborah's head shot up quizzically. "I didn't know you knew anything about it."
But Gerdie simply shook her head, returning to dinner, and that was the end of it.
Of course, that wasn’t really the case. Nothing really ended in the Davidson family. Ideas were introduced, experiences were had, and then they were either repressed or obsessed over.
Deborah was used to obsessing. After her 13th birthday, she made it her goal—her first life’s goal—to discover all of the sordid details of Jack Davidson’s extra-marital affair. She followed him on his weekend excursions, pedaling silently on her 10-speed, glaring through the trees at every woman he talked to at storefronts or outside of his usual hangouts. She listened carefully to her parents’ after-dinner conversations, hidden behind a door and making discreet markings in a composition notebook, entitled in red “The Schmuck.” She even called his office once or twice, cringing at the sound of his secretary’s overly feminine voice.
Ten years had elapsed where no concrete evidence of such a liaison came to light. Although Deb’s—career goals—had changed considerably, she never officially rescinded that belief. To obsess was to be alive… one who repressed ended up like her mother—in a thankless and powerless relationship with the world. She had never intended to end up that way.
But after the events of Mexico City, she did not know how else to respond. She was used to fighting for the rights of women, and the rights of women had supposedly been served. The strange sensation, which had opened within her at the word Holocaust was just a fluke. A deviation from her hard-pressed beliefs, an abnormal reaction to a distant, familial event. Deborah did her best to put it out of mind.
The second International Women’s Conference rolled around in Copenhagen, July of 1980, and Deborah planned to focus on its direct initiatives—to enact the general governances of the 1975 World Plan of Action. Susan had no plans of attending again, giving Deb ample time to build up the utopian women’s conference to a wholly successful enterprise.
The rumors of further anti-Semitism did not stick out in Deborah’s mind until a controversial piece on that subject matter infiltrated one of her favorite magazines in the fall of 1982. In retrospect, it would take her a long while before she could recall all of the accounts of Jewish women, Jewish American women, portrayed in Letty Cottin Pogrebin’s “Ms” article. She closed her eyes, as if to wash away all of the bigotry she finally found within the one philosophy, which was supposed to be her salvation, the place where no societal bigotry was supposed to enter.
When Deborah went home for a second time to confront her mother on this, she found her family in disarray. “It was just last week that we were at the doctor’s.” Gerdie said quietly, glancing back at the closed bedroom door, behind which her husband resided. “We were going to call you and Donna, but—you know us.” She gave a hollow, unconvincing laugh. “We’re not always the most—open of people.”
Deborah sucked in her breath. The house was thick with a silence she had never heard before. Eleven-year-old Kathleen was outside, swinging slowly on a tire, obscured by foliage on the lawn. Her mother looked more frazzled than Deb had ever seen her, skin blotchy from lack of sleep, housedress faded. Her hair, Deborah noticed with a squint, was beginning to turn gray.
Her father, Deborah found out, had prostate cancer. She stood in the darkened dining room of her childhood house, the only place she could remember spending great lengths of time with the man. She was trying to suss out some emotion. Hell, even—a sense of justice or giddy relief. She had hated her father and what he stood for all of her life.
Instead, her mind traveled to an interview given in Pogrebin’s article.
The oppression of Jews is not economic oppression, it is the dynamic of anti-Semitism. It is when anti-Semitism exists and people do not admit it exists and accuse the victim of paranoia.
The end of the International Women’s Decade was marked by a decline for Deborah—both officially and personally. Though attending far fewer rallies and meetings Jewish feminists, she had noted, seemed to be strengthening. Every now and again, she caught wind of a “counter-lecture” on their new double-heritage, as if tentatively prodding the idea into their ethnic consciousness. Deborah was astounded at how many well-known feminists—as well as her own friends—turned out to be Jewish including her childhood hero, Betty Friedan, author of the famed text Deborah Davidson had once referred to as “her Bible.”
She knew, though she had long ago lost constant contact with her old boss, that Susan had come out of hiding, and was joining her new Jewish allies for the final conference of the Women’s Decade—1985, in Nairobi. Deborah sucked in her breath when talking to Sus on the phone, and it occurred to her that she no longer felt a part of anything anymore.
She was now well over 30 years old. Nancy Cross and she had finally abandoned their strings of childhood friendship; Deborah lived alone in an apartment in Queens. Her dreams of turning into a successful, self-confident and female adult seemed turned on it’s head. Gone was her ardent conviction; the strains of memory from her teenage and young adult striving still seeming more real to her than this mellow reality she had ultimately seeded into.
It had been a year since her father had succumb to cancer. Deborah could still not bring herself to feel anything about Jack Davidson’s life—or his demise. She recalled standing next to her sobbing sisters at his unreal; they had to pick a rabbi out of a phone book, since none of them remembered which congregation their patriarch had last associated himself with. If it was even still in existence. Or if he had ever done such a thing at all.
Gerdie had shocked her daughters by tearing holes in all of her best clothes. It was Jewish tradition, they’d discovered, though they had never known their mother to comprehend anything about religious Judaism.
Gerdie sat down with the three of them and little two-year-old Michelle to explain. “Those months after the war,” she began in a low, hollow voice, “when the Allies had finally—won, we began to hear reports on the news.” She took a deep breath, and her daughters stilled. Deborah couldn’t recount her mother ever having paid heed to the news; it almost seemed sacrilegious. Dangerous.
“The camps were being liberated,” Gerdie continued, accepting Michelle onto her lap. “And the reports were—ghastly. Electric fences, people starved and branded like cattle, bodies—piled in ditches—” she shuddered, and Michelle whimpered in protest. “Well. One day, I came home from school and I saw my mother and father in the bedroom—ripping up heaps upon heaps of our clothes. I remember—that scratching sound, still, in my head.” She closed her eyes. “I asked them what they were doing, and they said—it was Jewish custom to do this in mourning for the dead. I was shocked,” she concluded. “I—never knew I was a Jew.”
Deborah had fallen mute. Her mind reeled easily back to 1975—that day in the office, that reference to the Holocaust. It all suddenly made sense to her, sitting in her darkened home with her family, surrounded by food and other offerings for their loss. Like her mother, she had been awoken to the truth. She was a Jew.
The final time Deborah went to visit Gerdie was two weeks after the Nairobi conference. They were officially alone for the first time in their lives. Her father was dead, her sisters at work and school, and her niece placed in a daycare. Gerdie was sick. Her room was stuffy, the curtains drawn to hide the sun, her bed sheets loose over her body. Pill bottles and empty glasses were everywhere; Deborah made a move to clean them up.
Gerdie chuckled through a cough. “My daughter… the housewife.”
Deborah froze briefly, but didn’t stop. She snatched up some trash and stuffed it into the nearest empty bag before turning to her mother. “I hate that you’re doing this to yourself,” she said.
“You hate me for getting sick?” Gerdie asked.
“You know you’re doing this for him.” Deborah flung herself down. In the back of her mind, she was almost relieved to be showing emotion at last. “You wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t for him.”
Gerdie turned her face away, shadows covering her skin. “Maybe I can’t live without him.”
“Yes, you can!” Deborah chocked out tears, grasping at her mother’s hand. “You’re finally free of him, Mother. You can finally be yourself.”
Gerdie turned back to her daughter, an indescribable look in her eyes. “Some day, Deb,” she said seriously, “someday, you’re going to have to forgive him—for being who he was.”
Deborah Davidson could find nothing suitable to reply. She simply stared at her mother, feeling hollow inside.
The International Women’s Decade came to a close. Within the year, Gerdie Schreiber Davidson had passed. And everything, as Deborah had known it, was changed.
