Synopsis

In the insulated Hasidic community of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, tradition and cultural norms are as sacred as religion. Childhood friendships are cultivated to climb social ladders, matchmakers dictate futures, and young girls are primed for marriage and motherhood. So, when Etty Greenberger, a headstrong redhead and the only child of Holocaust survivors, commits one ugly and thoughtless act, she believes she has sabotaged her opportunity to secure a desirable match. Reluctantly, she agrees to marry Benji Bloom, a fishmonger’s son far below her marital aspirations, becoming Mrs. Etty Bloom. With each passing year, Etty grows further from the life she had hoped for, filled with disappointment and delusions of grandeur. As she grapples with loss, grief, and the challenges of motherhood, she also discovers friendship, love, and joy in the most unexpected places. It may take a lifetime, but Etty Bloom finally learns that an unremarkable life can be remarkable after all.

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Excerpt

Royt

(Red)

It was red — the blood of delivery. Bright and glorious; the pulsating, messy production of new life. A magnificent contrast against the stark white of the room. It seemed to be everywhere. On the floor. On the soft pale parts of Shaindel’s inner thighs. On the large, gloved hands of the doctor. On the floor tile. The color palpable. Seeping and spreading, rooted more deeply than even the labored breathing mother yet knew. Permeating the baby’s very physical being. Red. A hue so intriguing, so noticeable it had been forever taboo amongst the more pious. Warned against by the sages. A color to be avoided. The color of women of the night. The color of bold immorality. And here it was, in Brooklyn, New York, at Maimonides hospital, on October 31, 1949 — expelled violently in the birth of seven-pound, two-ounce Etta Hindel Malka Greenberger, born just as the sun was setting. The skies were lit in orange and dark shades of pink as day shifted to night in a stupendous blending of color. Darkening clouds striated across the sky’s ocean of fleeting hues. It was everywhere. Red. Shooting from the roots of the scalp like untamed weeds in a garden. And like the crimson Nile, life was split. Before the birth of Ettel Greenberger, and after.

This fleeting event, meaningless, insignificant, and unremarkable to just about everyone but the Greenbergers and most especially remarkable to Etty herself.

The young, American doctor delivering her offered a large smile.

“It’s a girl! Got a full head of red hair on this one,” he said.

Shaindel collapsed her head on a thin pillow, exhausted, and exhilarated after nineteen hours of grueling labor. She had endured the entire delivery without any sedatives. She instructed her husband to stand right outside the doors, blatantly ignoring all imploring medical staff to clear the hallway, so she could hear him reciting the Psalms aloud, enabling her to labor and deliver through the spiritually uplifting chanting of King David’s ancient poetry.

Too many barren years; years of life taken, and life never born. Shaindel wasn’t going to take any chances. She was awake and paying attention. She wanted to be sure G-d knew she wasn’t taking another loss. He owed her this much. This baby. Hence, her insistence to forgo any pain management. She was going to be alert through it all.

As she caught her breath, equalizing all of her, she wrinkled her nose. She thought the doctor said red, but sometimes she mixed up her English words. She had only been in America for four years, having left Romania, the camps and every relative she ever knew, dead one way or another. Still though, she called out “mama!” repeatedly during active delivery, desperate to conjure her murdered mother as she tore open. A defining change took place as she expelled the baby, she also expelled a pain she carried with her across oceans, a pain entrenched in death. With the first cries of her baby, she finally decided she had her last. Letting go of an old life and welcoming a new one.

“Red?” she asked, lifting her flushed face from the hospital bed, trying to glimpse the infant she had not yet been handed.

“Fire hot! You better watch out. This one’s gonna be a pistol,” the doctor said, his New York accent thick, foreign-sounding to Shaindel.

“A pistol?” Shaindel repeated, wondering why the crazy American doctor was talking about guns in a delivery room

About the Author

Talya Jankovits is the author of the novel, The Very Unremarkable Life of Mrs. Etty Bloom (Running Wild Press), and the poetry collection, girl woman wife mother (Kelsay Books), which received First Place in Contemporary Poetry in the 2024 Bookfest Awards.

Her essays, fiction, and poetry have been widely published. She is a multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She holds her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University and resides in Chicago with her husband and four daughters.

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