I had less than most of the girls in my class–certainly fewer clothes. My spare wardrobe in grammar school consisted of one or two jumpers and blouses for school, and one best dress. The only discussions I do remember relating to wealth had to do with being told that you couldn’t just be a rich kid, that you had to do something, to be engaged in useful, productive work; you couldn’t and shouldn’t do nothing. Working was always a part of my life. I remember one Christmas vacation, when I was probably about fifteen, spent at the Federal Reserve Board learning to draw graphs.
Remarkably, the fact that we were half Jewish was never mentioned any more than money was discussed. I was totally–incredibly–unaware of anti-Semitism, let alone of my father’s being Jewish. I don’t think this was deliberate; I am sure my parents were not denying or hiding my father’s Jewishness from us, nor were they ashamed of it. But there was enough sensitivity so that it was never explained or taken pride in. One of the few memories I have of any reference to my being Jewish is of an incident that took place when I was ten or eleven. At school we were casting for reading aloud ““The Merchant of Venice,’’ and one classmate suggested I should be Shylock because I was Jewish. In the same way I had once innocently asked my mother whether we were millionaires–after someone at school accused my father of being one–I asked if I was Jewish and what that meant. She must have avoided the subject, because I don’t remember the answer. This confusion about religion was not limited to me: [my sister] Bis recalls that at lunch in our apartment in New York once, with guests present, she blurted out, ““Say, who is this guy Jesus everyone is talking about?''
My identity as Jewish did not become an issue until I reached college and a discussion arose with a girl from Chicago who was leaving Vassar. She had been asked if she would see another acquaintance, a Jewish girl, also from Chicago. ““Oh, no,’’ she replied, ““you can’t have a Jew in your house in Chicago.’’ My best friend later told me how horrified she was to have this said in front of me. Only then did I ““get it’’–and this was 1935, with Hitler already a factor in the world.
About the third thing that was never discussed in our family, sex, I knew nothing for a surprisingly long time. I had no idea what sex was or how babies were conceived. In fact, it was as if our rigorous schedules and athletic program were constructed to keep us from thinking too much about it. I once asked my mother what really happened during sex, telling her I’d read about the sperm and the ova but wondered how it all worked. She responded, ““Haven’t you seen dogs in the street?’’ Although unfortunately I hadn’t, I naturally said, ““Of course,’’ and that was the end of the conversation.
BECAUSE THESE MATTERS WERE never discussed, I was almost totally unaware of all of them–money, religion, and sex. It’s peculiar: I realized, of course, that the houses were big and that we had a lot of servants, but I didn’t know we were rich any more than I knew we were Jewish. In some ways it was quite bizarre; in others, quite healthy. Equally odd was how little we were taught about the practical aspects of life. I didn’t know how to manage the simplest tasks. I didn’t know how to dress, sew, cook, shop, and, rather more important, relate to people of any kind, let alone young men. My governess and I did some minor shopping, but as I grew up I mostly inherited party dresses, until, when I was eighteen, Mother took me to Bergdorf Goodman for French clothes of staggering beauty and sophistication, which were well beyond my years and whose quali- ty was wasted on young people who dressed appropriately. There was nothing in between for everyday.
I was always well fed and cared for, of course. In fact, my mother was constantly reminding us of how lucky we were, how much we owed our parents, how far-seeing and wonderful my father was to have taken care of us all. And we were indeed lucky. We had vast privileges. We had parents with solid values. Our interests were aroused in art and politics and books. But to all of this I brought my own feelings of inability and inferiority–not only to my mother, but to my older sisters and brother. I was, I thought, realistic about my own assets and abilities as I grew older. I was not very pretty. I grew tall early, and therefore seemed ungainly to myself. I didn’t think I could excel, and was sure I’d never attract a man whom I would like and who would not be viewed with condescension by my parents and siblings.
IN ALL THE TURMOIL OF THE FAMI- ly and our strange isolation both from our parents and from the outside world, we children were left to bring ourselves up emotionally and intellectually. We were leading lives fraught with ambivalence. It was hard to have an identity. An early example of this came one day when the telephone rang in the playroom and there was no grown-up present. Bis very fearfully picked up the phone and said hello. A male voice impatiently asked, ““Who is this? Who is this?’’ to which Bis replied, ““This is the little girl that Mademoiselle takes care of.’’ That was the only way she could think of to describe herself to a strange grown-up.
So the question of who we really were and what our aspirations were, intellectual or social, was always disquieting. The more subtle inheritance of my strange childhood was the feeling, which we all shared to some extent, of believing we were never quite going about things correctly. Had I said the right thing? Had I worn the right clothes? Was I attractive? These questions were unsettling and self-absorbing, even overwhelming at times, and remained so throughout much of my adult life, until, at least, I grew impatient with dwelling on the past.
