The Hotel on St. James Place: Growing up in Atlantic City between the Boardwalk and the Holocaust by Molly Golubcow

Author:Molly Golubcow [Golubcow, Molly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bartleby Press
Published: 2020-12-11T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Wendy

Wendy was white as in Caucasian, but just a slightly pinker version of the gauze-colored shmattas, as my mother would call it, that she wore around her head––a bland white caftan that wrapped her hair like one of the nuns in the Sound of Music. Her eyes were a once-upon-a-time pale blue, but more gray, faded, and tired.

Malik was always dressed in white with a round cap on head. His name was William Jefferson Brown, but he took the name Malik to make himself more Muslim sounding. Next to Wendy, his very dark skin seemed to make her look even more ghost-like. They lived in Apt #2––one of two small apartments on the street level of the hotel. Although the hotel rooms could be rented on a daily basis, the two apartments required a lease and monthly payments. Malik always paid on time, but what exactly he did to earn that money was never clear. Wendy had to stay home and was not allowed to work, Malik was the man of the house and his words were to be respected.

Wendy had a daughter from a previous relationship. Amy was about five and very sweet. She looked a lot like her mother only her eyes were bluer and her life had not yet been robbed and beaten into unhappiness. She had very long dirty blonde wavy hair. I guess that’s what Wendy’s hair looked like too. Who could know what was under the head covering and long caftan?

Almost immediately after they moved in, I could hear Malik yelling, presumably at Wendy. Often, I could not make out the words from the lobby area, but his deep, angry tone clearly conveyed rage. As the summer went on, I would hear the yelling more and more often. A symphony of one-sided sobbing sounds from a female and then a sobbing duet from mother and child. The occasional door slamming to add to the cacophony.

As the yelling increased, so did the visits from Wendy’s mother. Usually on a Sunday morning, she would drive from her small rancher in rural Bridgeton, NJ where she worked at a glass factory ever since Wendy was born. Louise, always dressed in a very polyester, haus frua outfit. She always seemed uncomfortable with her almost son-in-law and his Muslim attire. They barely made eye contact with each other, but when they did, their faces would grimace. Louise would fake a cough just to have an excuse to look away from Malik.

Jews, Catholics, and Christians had already been fighting for years for rights and equality in Atlantic City. The groups would set aside their beliefs to fight for a more important need for social and racial justice. Despite all of this, Muslims were excluded and rarely discussed, adding to the taboo notions surrounding them. A white and black Muslim couple was seldom ever heard of, let alone seen.

Louise seemed to take to my mother immediately with a “don’t let this happen to your daughter” warning in her pale blue eyes.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.