A String of Pearls

On Saturday night in the George Washington High School gymnasium, the local Jewish Senior Center holds its summer dance. Tattered paper streamers, used too many times before, hang over basketball hoops.

The boombox in the corner of the room is switched from its setting playing a worn-out cassette of Gloria Estefan’s song, “Abriendo Puertas,” to playing a Long Island radio station’s music nostalgia radio show.

Seventy-five-year-old Mae Poss, dressed in her navy blue velvet suit and yellowed string of pearls, sits on a folding chair watching the only two couples in the room dance. Other elderly women sit in the chairs along the sides of the gymnasium in their best clothes talking about their health problems and the deaths of the people they know. They drink sugary red punch and snack on stale potato chips. They are all feeling a bit bored and depressed.

Mae used to organize these dances before it became too much for her, after having a mild heart attack. More people used to attend, and they even once had enough money to hire a Klezmer band.

Now the young social worker, Hannah, organizes the dances. There are fewer people able to attend. The Jewish population of Washington Heights, Manhattan, many of whom fled the Nazis more than fifty years ago, are dead or dying.

The relaxing voice of an older male radio disk jockey introduces the romantic big band swing music on the stereo:

“This is Jim Masters on W.L.I.A. from Plainview, Long Island with The Jim Masters Show, bringing you the best in nostalgia radio.

“This program is brought to you today by Constipace to relieve your constipation and by Dr. Ivan Makovitch, Oyster Bay’s best chiropractor. He’s the man to straighten out your problems.

“Tonight, we focus on the greatest romantic bandleaders of our time. Perhaps Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, and Harry James weren’t the handsomest men around, but they made us all fall in love.

“I want to thank all the contestants in the Miss Peggy Lee singing contest that we held last Sunday at the Green Acres Mall. The winner, Mrs. Rose Shulman, won a night on the town with Yours Truly at the Olive Garden in Hewlett.

“Now before we play the big bands, let’s listen to the real Miss Peggy Lee with the fever . . . ”

Mae used to dye her hair blonde and tie it back to try to look as sophisticated as Peggy Lee did on her album covers.

There was a time when she would wear her white, tailored shirt and tight tweed skirt at the Automat, and men would come up to her and tell her that she looked like she could be a model. She realizes now that was just a pickup line they used back then.

She had learned English, not only from her elementary school, but also from the movies. So she tried to talk to men with dialogue she thought Bette Davis or Lauren Bacall would use. Probably men thought she was fast and loose because of that.

They never stayed more than one night at her apartment, or she at theirs. Now, of course, that would be no big deal.

She went out dancing a lot back then, especially with the married men who couldn’t take her to their homes. She went to the most beautiful dance halls and supper clubs in Manhattan. In those night spots, everyone looked like a movie star.

Sylvia Klein enters the gymnasium with her cane, struggling with every step because of her osteoporosis. Mae has that condition, too.

Sylvia looks a little lost. She doesn’t know where she should sit. It’s her first time here.

Mae feels that even though she would prefer to sit by herself, it’s her duty as a regular at these dances to invite Sylvia to sit next to her. She motions Sylvia to come over. It takes Sylvia even more effort to sit down than to walk.

She knows Sylvia from running into her and her late husband Nate, in the Grand Union.

It was Sylvia who sold Mae the string of pearls. That was a year ago when Nate was dying, and they needed to sell everything they had to pay some of the medical bills. Sylvia put up fliers all over Washington Heights and ran an ad in the local newspaper advertising a tag sale in her apartment.

Sylvia and Nate had some beautiful things. Yet Mae was their only customer. All she bought were inexpensive pearls. Most of the other people in the neighborhood couldn’t afford to buy anything.

Sylvia looks so frail seated in the chair in her purple floral dress.

Mae says, “Sylvia, this is the first time I’ve seen you at a dance.”

Sylvia replies, “My daughter Renee dropped me off here on her way back home to Westchester. I didn’t want to go, but she saw a program on Oprah about agoraphobia and she thought I might have that. There are worse things to have. But she’s a good girl, so I didn’t want to argue.”

“Have you gone to many of these dances?” Sylvia asks.

Her German accent is more pronounced than Mae’s. She must have come to the United States much later than Mae did. Mae came over as an eleven-year-old girl.

“This is Jim Masters back with you this evening on W.L.I.A. Now let’s hop aboard the A-Train with the legend himself, Mr. Duke Ellington.”

 “We used to have a lot more cultural events and I was very involved with those,” Mae tells Sylvia. “We had professors from Yeshiva University speak about the Middle East. We hired Israeli folk dancers. I once taught a journalism course.”

“Writing, Mae? You wrote?”

“It was a long time ago. I was no Lillian Hellman.”

“Still. . .What happened to all those events?” Sylvia asks. “I would be interested in signing up for those.”

“Well, we don’t have as many people anymore. There are more Dominican families here now and they have their own senior center. There’s still a few of us for a dance a couple times a year, but that’s it.”

“The music is nice,” Sylvia says.

“That’s just the radio. You can get to that station at home. We once had a live Klezmer band, but we can’t afford to do that anymore,” Mae replies.

“Nate and I danced to Duke Ellington a lot. We saw him live at the Rainbow Room for our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Mr. Ellington smiled at me, and Nate pretended he was jealous.”

Mae thinks about the couple of times she had seen Sylvia’s late husband, Nate. He was a tall, elegant man who stood out in their impoverished neighborhood. However, the last time she saw him, he was dying of lung cancer.

“He got cancer a month after he retired from teaching. We had planned to move to Westchester where Renee lives.”

“You mentioned that she lives there.”

“We also thought about Florida. We didn’t have a chance to get down there. I know you won’t believe it, but we never fought. Other couples fight all the time. We never did. Maybe that made me seem a little standoffish from the other women in the neighborhood all these years. I always had Nate,” Sylvia says.

“Again, this is Jim Masters on W.L.I.A. with The Jim Masters Show. In honor of the beginning of this summer’s Olympics in Atlanta, let’s listen to Mr. Ray Charles sing Hoagy Carmichael’s ‘Georgia on My Mind.’”

“Nate and I danced to that one,” Sylvia says.

“We all danced to that one,” says Mae.

“Before Renee was born, we went out dancing almost every night. We danced at Roseland. We went to gilded gold dance halls in this neighborhood that are now fast-food restaurants. For my birthday, a long time ago, Nate bought me a white dress like Ginger Rogers wore in The Gay Divorcee. It showed all the layers of petticoats when I twirled. You’ll think I’m bragging, but Nate and I were professional ballroom dancers, back when that was popular. Truly. Now my daughter tells me that the type of dancing we did is making a comeback. She used to make fun of it because she liked her rock and roll.

“Once, we had the most incredible experience of our lives. A friend of ours who made shadow puppets with his hands was supposed to be on with Ed Sullivan, but he got pneumonia. He arranged for Nate and me to dance on The Ed Sullivan Show. We danced to ‘Moonlight Serenade.’ I wore a dress and pearls like the ones you have on. Ed Sullivan’s band played while we danced. They weren’t as wonderful as Glenn Miller, but they were still good. Afterwards we got to meet The Supremes backstage. Diana Ross danced a little with Nate. It was like a dream. And everyone on Sickles Street came out onto the streets and roofs and applauded us when we came home.”

“You two must have been wonderful dancers,” Mae says as she watches the two dismal couples stiffly dancing on the gym floor.

“I still feel that Nate’s in the apartment even though it’s been a year. I can still smell his cologne and tobacco,” Sylvia says, and she starts to cry.

Mae doesn’t know what to do. She knows she should put her arm around Sylvia, but it is not in her nature to do that.

“Nate was like Fred Astaire,” Sylvia says. “He did all the dancing for the both of us. I just did the twirling.”

“Well, you must have been good, too,” Mae insists.

She wished Sylvia didn’t talk about Nate so much. It was like a crutch.

Mae knows that she doesn’t have much in common with Sylvia except that they are from Germany, they are old, and they are Jewish.

This neighborhood seemed so great when they came here. It offered so much freedom to each one of them. There is Fort Tryon Park with its medieval museum and The Cloisters, which has large unicorn tapestries on its walls. There is the Tudor architecture of Dyckman Street which looks like the small European cities they were forced to leave. It served as their backdrop as they went to clerical or teaching jobs or did their shopping.

Now in Washington Heights, sugarcane is sold from the backs of vans. On Sundays, little Dominican girls dress in white wedding dresses; Mae has learned this is because of their communions. Old Spanish men play dominos on the street. The rules of their games are unknown to anyone but themselves.

The navy blue velvet suit that Mae wears to this dance is one of only two outfits that she owns. It hangs on a hook inside the front door of her studio apartment when she wears her black suit. Both are really too warm for these summer months, but she doesn’t have anything else to wear.

She has lived in her apartment for fifty-five years, when she had only thought she would be living there for just a short time. It’s not much bigger than a closet.

“This is Jim Masters on W.L.I. A. with Benny Goodman’s ‘Sing Sing Sing.’ It’s been used in movies and Broadway musicals. Here is the original. Imagine what it would have been like hearing this for the first time at Carnegie Hall? This is the King of Swing, Benny Goodman.”

 The music on The Jim Masters Show is beautiful. It must have boosted the morale of the Allied troops and helped them win World War II.

In Mae’s neighborhood, during the summer, Latin salsa music plays outside on boom boxes. The music’s drumming vibrates like the beat of a heart.

“Are you having a good time, ladies?” Hannah, the young social worker, asks while Mae and Sylvia drink red punch from plastic cups.

“It’s a lovely dance, dear,” says Sylvia.

“It’s probably our last one. We don’t have as many people able to attend anymore,” Hannah says.

“Oh, that’s a shame. And this was my first time here,” Sylvia says.

“Are you going to be planning anything else for us in the future, Hannah? Maybe a smaller activity like a movie or theater excursion?” Mae asks. “I’d be willing to volunteer again.”

“Why Mae, that’s so nice of you to offer. I’m afraid I won’t be having a job here much longer. I’ve applied to Columbia Law School. I hope to work with seniors in this neighborhood again someday,” Hannah says.

“We need you,” Sylvia says.

Mae knows that they won’t see this young sweet girl, Hannah, again. Few people are interested in helping the elderly Jews in this neighborhood anymore. Hannah only works here because her grandmother once lived here.

There are still only two couples dancing on the gym floor. Mae and Sylvia sit watching other elderly women who are also sitting around the edges of the gymnasium. They all wear their best dresses. They clutch their cups of the punch that Hannah has made. Their dialects, which are German, Polish, Yiddish, and Brooklynese, sound frantic to Mae, as they all try to speak over The Jim Masters Show on the radio.

“Did you hear that Ruth died in her apartment? A brisket was cooking in her oven for two weeks before they found her.”

“My daughter wants me to move to Staten Island, but I could never live in the country.”

“I couldn’t get the flu shot and I’ve got emphysema.”

Even though it is a dance, most of the women aren’t dancing.

“Where are the men?” Sylvia asks. “Not that it matters to me. It just looks funny.”

“There aren’t any men here. Just those two,” Mae says, pointing out the two men in the room who are each dancing with partners on the gym floor.

“That’s Abe Rosoff,” Mae says to Sylvia, pointing to a heavy man with gray hair and mustache. “He’s dancing with Barbara Levy.”

Barbara has the blondest hair in the room.

Abe rubs against her instead of dancing. His arms are around her fanny instead of her waist.

“I always see Abe when I pass the Off Track Betting office. He picks up tickets off the floor. He seems like he always loses,” Mae says.

Abe comes over to Mae and Sylvia after he finishes dancing to “Stardust Memories” with Barbara Levy. He is dressed more for a cruise than a dance. He wears a Hawaiian shirt, light blue pants, a white patent leather belt, and white shoes.

“And how are you doing, ladies?” he asks, out of breath. He drinks lots of punch. He smells of a cigar even though he hasn’t been smoking one for the last few hours.

“Mae, have you heard this one?” Abe asks. “This man’s wife is a prostitute. So one night she comes home from work and puts all the money she earned that day on the table: twenty-three dollars and twenty-five cents. ‘Who gave you twenty-five cents?’ the man asks. ‘Everyone,’ she says.”

Abe roars at his joke.

Sylvia looks horrified. Mae first heard the joke decades ago. It might have been in some issue of Playboy Magazine that was in one of her lovers’ apartments. It was so long ago that Jayne Mansfield was on the cover.

“I may not be young anymore, but it’s nice to always be wanted on the dance floor,” Abe says, looking ready to dance again.

Mae expects him to ask her or Sylvia to dance. But he seems to be uninterested in either of them and returns to the gym floor to dance again with Barbara.

Marty Winestock and Harriet Needlemann are the only other couple on the gymnasium floor. Harriet’s late husband owned a lot of real estate in Washington Heights. She wears diamonds against her black dress. Her black and gray hair is pinned up to show diamond earrings. Marty is a bald man who can barely dance.

Mae tells Sylvia that Marty was a former assemblyman for the district. He once was imprisoned on corruption charges for putting a former mistress on his payroll for one hundred thousand dollars a year, which was at least ten times the average salary of a voter in his district.

Mae once stood behind Marty at Rite Aid, when he started to scream at the young girl who couldn’t find his prescription right away.

Prison seemed to leave him with too much anger and moodiness. His body is rigid and angry as he dances with Harriet Needlemann.

“I’m sure the two couples dancing can’t compare to you and Nate,” Mae says to Sylvia.

“They don’t really dance, you know. They just lean on each other,” Sylvia says.

“That’s the way they danced in that movie about the marathon dancers, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? It was on television last night,” Mae says.

Mae is immediately sorry that she mentioned it because she can tell from her baffled reaction that Sylvia doesn’t know of that movie.

Mae and Sylvia watch the dance like a party they aren’t invited to join. The other women are still sitting around the perimeters of the gymnasium floor looking as if they are bored and depressed. One of them takes out knitting from her handbag.

“You are listening to The Jim Masters Show on W.L.I.A. Now, let’s continue our journey back in time, and sway to the melody of Glenn Miller’s ‘A String of Pearls.’ It’s a pearl in itself.”

“That was our favorite. ‘A String of Pearls,’” Sylvia says. We did the Lindy Hop to that one. Nate practically lifted me up in his arms like the male skaters hold up the women in the Olympics. I don’t know how he was ever able to do it. Even in those days, I was no feather.”

Sylvia starts to say Nate’s name again and Mae taps her on the shoulders to stop her.

Mae slowly gets up from the chair she has sat in for the last two hours. She herself had danced to “A String of Pearls” many times, but never here in this gym. She thinks she could still do it. In the last few years, she has taken classes in yoga and tai chi. She knows she can move. Yet she hasn’t danced for years. In all her years of going to the dances at the Jewish Senior Citizens Association of Washington Heights, she made the punch herself, but no one asked her to dance.

Mae puts her arm on Sylvia’s shoulder.

“Sylvia, would you like to dance?” Mae asks.

“With who?”

“With me.”

“Oh no, you’re crazy,” Sylvia replies.

“But you said you wanted to dance,” Mae says.

“With my husband,” Sylvia exclaims.

Mae and Sylvia watch the two dancing couples rub against each other. Even though it is a dance, no one is really dancing. The other ladies huddle along the walls reciting the names of friends who have died. Very few of them have families nearby anymore. Their families either died at home, in the hospital, in the nursing home, or in the Holocaust. Their children live in suburbs or on the West Coast. Their children have worked hard to make sure they themselves would not have to live in this neighborhood anymore.

The pearls Mae bought from Sylvia and Nate’s tag sale aren’t real. They are costume jewelry. She couldn’t afford any real pearls.

Why have they all worn their best dresses to the dance? The decorations in the gym are ripping. And as Hannah just told them, there will be no more dances after tonight.

Still, the music sounds good even if it isn’t live and they aren’t at Roseland.

“We can still dance. It would be fun,” Mae says.

“I don’t know if I can. It’s been a long time,” Sylvia says.

Mae gently helps Sylvia up off her chair. She notices that Sylvia’s purple flowered dress has the only pretty colors in the dull beige gymnasium.

Mae and Sylvia hold each other. They waltz in time to “A String of Pearls,” and the back-and-forth beat of the wind instruments in Glenn Miller’s orchestra.

“Let me teach you the English Waltz,” Sylvia says as she moves into Mae’s arms. “See, it’s slower than the others. Watch me.”

Mae holds this short woman as Sylvia dips her back against the gym floor and returns with a sudden agility that stuns Mae.

The room feels weightless as if Mae and Sylvia are dancing in the clouds.

The other women get up off the folding chairs and join them on the dance floor. Abe Rosoff and Marty Winestock, both exhausted, sit down. Hannah offers the two men some punch. The three of them watch dozens of elderly women dancing together in pairs.

Women who can barely walk up the small hills that make up Washington Heights to buy groceries at Grand Union. Yet they all can still dance.

For until this Glenn Miller number is over, everything else is forgotten.

“This is Jim Masters of The Jim Masters Show, W.L.I.A. Plainview. Having been on the air for more than forty years, I want to wish all my listeners peace in this time of war, health in the time of disease, wealth in the time of poverty. I’ll be signing off for the very last time tonight to make room for new types of shows our radio station will be broadcasting. The station will change to a new format of political programming. They are for radio audiences who are somewhat younger than us and spend a lot more money. I wish the new programming folks well. Sadly, they’ll miss out on knowing the memories we shared together.

“Goodnight, my friends. Goodnight.”