Photo by Amanda Mocci on Unsplash
CW: Attempted murder, suicide
I
I heard the story many times from Grandma how when I was born, she stood behind the large glass window of the hospital nursery that separated her from the newborns lying in their cribs and stared adoringly at me, talking softly and beaming as I gurgled and slept.
She was 72 years old then and travelled alone by bus every day from her apartment on 108th Street and Broadway to the mid-Manhattan hospital to see me, her first grandchild.
At that time, Grandma was a widow, having been happily married to Grandpa Harry, the love of her life, for twenty years. Born in Tiszaszalka, a little Hungarian village close to the Ukrainian border, and raised according to the strict Christian doctrine of Calvinism, she was the youngest of five children and considered the most beautiful girl in her village. All the boys and the schoolmaster tried to pursue her, but she didn’t want anything to do with them. Grandma said there was no life for her in Tiszaszalka, so at nineteen-years- old, in 1906, she left Hungary and travelled alone in steerage from Hamburg to America.
***
I remember fondly the stories Grandma told me when I was growing up. Besides the one about visiting me in the hospital nursery, my favorites were those about arriving in America and how she met my grandfather, the man I never knew. Grandma was a dramatic storyteller, and I knew her stories so well that often I’d help her tell them. Shockingly, I was to learn that Grandma would leave a lot out of her stories.
***
When she arrived in New York, Grandma worked as a live-in nanny for a wealthy Hungarian family on East 110th Street. The husband, Mr. Cziller, introduced her to Grandpa, the manager at a neighborhood restaurant. Grandma liked Grandpa, who was eleven years older than her, from the start. Quick with numbers, ambitious, and outgoing. They dated for eight months and then became engaged.
Grandpa came to New York from a Jewish shtetl in Piestany, Hungary, seven years before Grandma and lived with a brother and cousin in an apartment on Second Avenue and 117th Street. He was the fourth of nine children, and both his father and a younger brother were rabbis.
Grandpa was determined to have his own restaurant, and when this happened, a year after becoming engaged, he and Grandma began to have problems.
Grandpa’s restaurant offered a variety of Hungarian, Austrian, and German foods, and elegant dining until late in the evening. Grandma said that Grandpa entertained wealthy clients at special affairs and escorted the daughters of socially prominent women to local events, all as part of trying to establish himself in the small upper society restaurant world.
“Too many young girls working there as waitresses,” Grandma said. “I didn’t like that.”
Since Grandpa worked every day, the only time they could see each other was when she went to his restaurant at night after she put the Cziller family’s children to bed.
Grandma was twenty-one now, the prime age for marriage. She was crazy in love with
Grandpa and desperately wanted to start a family. She pestered him to marry her, but he kept putting her off and begged her to be patient, explaining he needed to devote his time to growing a successful business and reminding her that they needed to decide according to which religion they would raise their children.
A year passed, and Grandma became increasingly angry at the marriage delays and concerned that Grandpa would break his engagement promise, or worse, fall for someone more socially prominent. She didn’t want to lose him but felt she had waited long enough.
One evening, she went to Grandpa’s restaurant, walked to the back, and beckoned for him to follow. There, she looked him straight in the eyes, said she was done waiting, and if he didn’t marry her within the next month, she would leave him.
Grandpa reiterated his love for her and pleaded with Grandma to be patient. He knew she embraced her Calvinist faith and asking her to convert would not be something she would do easily. He was also unwilling to relinquish Judaism but realized there had to be some type of compromise. He knew Grandma would not be agreeable to observing the strict doctrine of Orthodox Judaism, but he hoped to persuade her that they would follow the Conservative sect that provided for a modern interpretation of the Torah.
Once, after a typical quarrel over Grandpa’s avoidance in setting a marriage date and rumors that he was frequently seen escorting a girl from a well-to do banking family around the neighborhood, Grandma confronted him.
“What’s her name?” she demanded.
“Who?”
“Your girlfriend.”
“There is no one but you, sweetheart,” Grandpa apparently said.
Grandma didn’t believe him, and one evening, she stormed into the restaurant expecting to find Grandpa with the girl. Although it was busy, she stopped each waitress and asked the same question: “Where is she?” They all shook their heads, smiled condescendingly, and went on about their business. Grandma moved swiftly and deftly around the dining room, stopping at the tables of several patrons she knew and asking if they had recently seen her Harry with another girl. No one had seen anything.
Furious and disappointed that she could not confront her alleged rival, Grandma went to the back of the restaurant to talk to the cook. There, on the rack where the employees hung their belongings, sticking out from Grandpa’s jacket pocket, she saw crimson red tissue paper, and inside the folded paper, a ring. A love knot with a green glass chip in the center. Grandma marched out to the front of the restaurant, saw Grandpa in a grey suit and striped tie standing by the door, greeting his customers. She instantly grabbed him by the lapels and dragged him to the back as if he were a disobedient child being pulled home by his mother.
“Who is this for?” she demanded, holding the ring in her open hand.
Grandpa explained that he bought it for his sister, Rosalia, and planned to mail it to Hungary for her birthday, but Grandma didn’t believe him and slapped him across his face.
“How could you do this to me?” she exclaimed and quickly slipped the ring on her own finger. “Now it’s mine.”
“If it makes you feel better, then wear it in good health,” Grandpa said, sarcastically.
***
As the end of the month approached, Grandma reminded Grandpa of what she had said about leaving him. Grandpa was still not ready to marry but was afraid of losing the young woman he loved, so he persuaded a friend to dress up as a priest, and he and Grandma were married by the imposter in Grandpa’s apartment. They consummated the marriage and after one month of living together, an acquaintance of Grandpa’s revealed the sham.
When Grandma confronted him, Grandpa admitted to the bogus marriage and insisted that she move out, claiming people must not, could not, know he was living with a woman to whom he was not married.
Grandma was outraged that the man who proclaimed his love for her would deceive her and do something this hurtful. Grandpa had wronged her, insulted her religion, and damaged her reputation, she said. She was going to make him pay. She got a young lawyer, disclosed everything, and showed him a letter in which Grandpa proclaimed his love and intent to marry her. She filed a breach of promise lawsuit in court charging that he had broken his promise of marriage, was responsible for her rejecting other men who could have been suitable prospects and was the cause of her emotional suffering and humiliation.
When Grandpa was served with the court papers, he became enraged. “What kind of girl does this? When my customers read this, what will they think?” he asked, shaking the papers in Grandma’s face.
As was customary, the newspapers reported the breach of promise suit. Wherever she walked, people pointed to the tall elegant young woman in her fashionable clothes and stylish hat and whispered about her being too forward and domineering.
When Grandpa’s business acquaintances and customers read the notice, oh how they gossiped, speculating what Grandpa had done and who was to blame.
***
Whether her lawyer was young and inexperienced, or losing interest in a case which might not pay much from a settlement or trial, Grandma didn’t say, but whatever the reason, the suit languished in court.
As time passed, Grandma became frustrated and disheartened. She didn’t understand why the court wouldn’t help her and decided to have it out with Grandpa. One afternoon, she walked into the brownstone building where he lived, told the landlady that she had an important message for him, and went directly to the room where he was sleeping.
“Wake up, Harry,” Grandma said, shaking him.
Grandpa stirred and opened his eyes, surprised to see her.
“We need to talk,” she said, bending down and trying to kiss him on the lips.
Grandpa put up his hand to block her. “There’s nothing to talk about. I told you, I’m not ready to raise a family. I can’t marry you now. Please go.”
***
Whenever Grandma told me this story, it was at this point that she momentarily looked away. When she turned back, she’d say, “His mind was made up. There was nothing more I could do, so I left. A few years later, we got back together and worked everything out.”
Whenever I heard this, I always thought something seemed off.
***
Grandma died months after my thirteenth birthday. My mother wrote to Eta, my grandmother’s paternal niece with whom Grandma had corresponded for more than twenty years. She informed her of our loss, and for several years, my mother and Eta corresponded infrequently. When my mother died ten years later, I didn’t keep up the communication.
II.
During my teenage years, I missed greatly my grandmother’s attention, companionship, unconditional love, and her stories, and I felt sad that she had never been able to return to Tiszaszalka to see the family she left behind.
***
After college, it was I who followed the paved road of Mikhaly Ut., the main thoroughfare in Tiszaszalka, and for a fleeting moment, realized I was walking on the gravel and dirt ground on which my grandmother had walked and played. There was not much to see in the small village: The Reformed Church, the remains of the one-room schoolhouse, fields of sunflowers, and orchards where apricots, pears, and plums grow.
I knocked on the door of house thirty-one, and Eta opened it. She was short and slightly hunched over and wore a sleeveless brown housedress with tiny red and yellow flowers. Her long grey hair was pulled back and held in place by a large clip. When she saw me, she hugged me tightly.
The house was stucco, all on one level, and an old walnut tree grew on the property in front of her house. In the back, tomato plants grew alongside sunflowers, garlic, blackberries, cucumbers, and hot peppers. There were also plum, apricot, and cherry trees, and as I stood in Eta’s yard, I thought of Grandma harvesting fruits from her own family’s trees and helping her mother make pies, jellies, and jams, and preserving the fruits in jars for use during the long, cold winters.
During my stay, Eta ran next door every morning to get Brigit, a high school student who spoke English. I spoke no Hungarian, and Eta didn’t know English, so Brigit was a blessing.
Eta had one photograph of Grandma that hung on a wall in her living room. In it, Grandma is sitting in an ornate high-back wooden chair, wearing an ivory Victorian blouse with a high neck collar trimmed in lace, the front yoke adorned with ruffles and satin covered buttons down the front. Her brown hair is fashioned in a Gibson Girl bouffant. I stared at the photo, unable to imagine that Grandma ever looked like this. At Eta’s direction, Brigit explained that Grandma was about nineteen or twenty when the photo was taken, and she had included it with one of the letters she sent Eta shortly after arriving in New York.
Under a clear plastic cover at the table where we ate our meals, I saw Grandma’s handwriting on envelopes sent from New York. The addresses were from the three apartments where Grandma had lived when I was growing up. Eta agreed to let me have two of the letters, and I selected those from the years when I was a toddler because it was from that period that I knew the least about Grandma’s life. I was curious about what she had told Eta about her life in New York and what Eta had written about family members in Tiszaszalka. Back in New York, a Hungarian neighbor translated them.
Looking at Grandma’s handwriting on the faces of the envelopes, I was flooded with a slew of happy memories of sitting next to her as she wrote these letters to Eta. I held the two letters in my hands and the translations I had commissioned, eager to learn what I could. It was the second one that surprised me. In it, Grandma nonchalantly mentioned that before she was married, she had shot her fiancée and then turned the gun on herself. What? I reread the sentence. This can’t be! Maybe my neighbor didn’t translate this correctly. But, if the information is true, what happened? Why did she shoot him?
***
Taken aback by what I had just learned, I googled Grandma’s name and the word “shooting”. To my surprise, her name was everywhere—in The New York Times, The Sun, The Evening World, and other newspapers. One article referred to Grandma as “a jilted girl” and said Grandpa “threw the girl over.” She despaired and started suit for breach of promise. The case “hung fire in the court.” Grandpa’s friends told her he had too much pull for her suit ever to be tried. According to the article, she replied that if the court would do nothing for her, she would take justice into her own hands.
Another article said the young girl and Harry quarreled. The landlady could hear the girl upbraiding her faithless lover. Suddenly, Harry ended the argument and started back down the hall. The girl barred his way. Had her revolver drawn. He turned to flee. She followed. Emptied the pistol into his back. Shot four times. Every bullet struck him. The young girl then turned the weapon on herself and sent a bullet into her left breast.
“What? This, Grandma never told me!” I exclaimed.
III
How my grandparents ever got back together and then married, I can only imagine. I assume Grandma’s injury was not life-threatening, and the doctors were able to cleanly remove the bullet. I imagine she recovered quickly, was released after a few weeks, and was besieged at Mr. Cziller’s apartment by visits from the police, reporters, and the District Attorney.
Mr. Cziller probably decided that given all the publicity, it would be better for his family if Grandma was no longer employed by him.
I e-mailed Brigit and told her what I had learned about the shooting. I requested she ask Eta if she would send me Grandma’s remaining letters, and it was from them I learned that Mr. Cziller had arranged for Grandma to go to Chicago and work as a companion for his elderly aunt.
I also learned that Grandpa survived the shooting and after many surgeries to remove the bullets that had miraculously bypassed all his major organs and months of recuperation in the hospital, he was released.
***
While in Chicago, Grandma gave birth to Sandor Harry, my uncle. When she learned that Grandpa had survived the shooting—probably from reading about it in the newspapers—I’m certain she immediately wrote to him and informed him that she had given birth to his son.
Certainly, most men in his situation would probably drop this hot-headed girl, grateful that they had escaped near-death and afraid that she might repeat her behavior. Grandpa probably felt blessed that they had a child whom they had conceived during a time of love, intimacy, and passion. It was a miracle that his life and that of Grandma’s had been spared, and their newborn son had also survived the trauma and was healthy was a blessing that he could not overlook. He most likely felt this marriage and birth were meant to be. Grandpa probably went to Chicago and brought his dear, but volatile love and his newborn son back to New York.
It is likely that Grandpa and Grandma spoke to the rabbi at Grandpa’s synagogue. I’m sure he explained to Grandma since Judaism passes down through the mother, it would be better for their son and future children if she converted.
IV
There is a photograph of my grandmother that I keep on the table in my dining room where I write. Grandma is wearing a faded red housedress, and she is sitting in a patio chair on the back porch of our summer house in Provincetown. Whenever I look at the photograph of this elegant, elderly lady, I experience a total dissonance that this smiling woman full of love, could have ever turned a gun on anyone, let alone her future husband and herself. She was living proof, I tell myself, that surely, love must be tied up with unfathomable desire, rage, and forgiveness. I think of how far my grandparents travelled in their lives—literally and emotionally—to finally be together. And I think there are lessons they left me, lessons of acceptance and understanding, and mistakes made and reconciled that can take a lifetime to absorb.
Carol Pierce holds a B.A. in English and M.S.Ed. in Special Education, and a Professional Certificate in Supervision and Administration from Hunter College. She was a teacher and Assistant Principal with the NYC Department of Education for more than 20 years. An emerging writer, Carol enjoys the power of words and writing short stories that transport readers to other worlds. Her stories have appeared in Drunk Monkeys, The Write Launch, Griffel.no, Twist & Twain,and in The Headlight Review.