Jean Le Bec - The Women of Lee Avenue

 

I am walking up Lee Avenue in Brooklyn. It is a really cold, windy day. But still, Lee Avenue is crowded and it is busy. Men wearing large fur hats and black coats to their ankles. They walk in groups, holding prayer books. Eyes down as I pass them, they ignore me. Women wearing turbans or hats placed carefully on coiffed wigs, black coats, mid-calf beige stockings and flat shoes. They walk very, very quickly, pushing baby carriages. A trail of five or six kids running to keep up with them. All dressed exactly alike. 

 

Shops line both sides of Lee Avenue. In the two years that I have lived in this Hasidic community of East Williamsburg, I have never shopped in these stores. Not even the bakery with the smell of sweet bread baking, and the black and white cookies in the window. I feel like a foreigner here. I am Jewish, but I do not feel a connection here. The language is Yiddish. I walk past words I do not understand and signs I cannot read. 

 

I am on my way to the Metropolitan Recreation Center on Bedford Avenue. It is an all-woman swim this morning, and I am really excited, looking forward to it. I have made a promise to myself that even though it is really cold out, today is the day I start my exercise routine. And a woman swim is the best. [audience laughter] I walk into the locker room. It is empty. I quickly squeeze. I have to squeeze, because I gained a lot of weight, into my black Speedo bathing suit, stuff myself in. I pull on my pink Speedo bathing cap, pink and green goggles on my head. I take a quick shower. I am ready. 

 

I open the door to the pool. There are women everywhere. They are walking around the pool. They are sitting on the edge of the pool. They are laughing and they are talking. They are in the pool, wall to wall in the pool, floating and singing and bobbing. There are women with arms extended, floating pregnant women back and forth. Suddenly, there are no lanes. Nobody is in lanes. They are not wearing bathing suits. They are wearing turbans and they are wearing dresses zipped to their collarbone, down to their knees. I am so naked in my black Speedo bathing suit with my pink cap. So, I think, I could be invisible. I could be invisible. I am just going to scurry over to this little corner that I saw and slip myself in. And so, I slip myself in. I am hovering there, thinking what to do, what to do. Lap swimming is out of the question. [audience laughter] 

 

I will just be invisible. Maybe I will hoist myself out. Hoist seems too hard. [audience laughter] There is a woman swimming right towards me. She is coming. I am like, “Don’t come to me, don’t come to me.” [audience laughter] She comes to me and she goes, “Hi, I am Lily.” She has the most beautiful blue eyes I have ever seen. I say, “I am Jean.” She says, "Welcome. This is your first time." I go, "Yeah." She takes me in. She takes in my goggles and my hat. She looks just, "You want to swim? You want a lap swim?" I go, "Yeah." She goes, "Well, swim. You can swim. Yeah, right?" I look out at all these women in the pool like, "Really?" She goes, "Yes. You go. Just go. [audience laughter] We're going to let you swim. Go, bubla, go." [audience laughter] So, I went and I swam.

 

All these women, they got out of my way with their dresses billowing like parachutes in the water. And then, I did another lap and another lap. Each time, these women got out of my way. And so, finally, I did 15 laps and I stopped. Lily made her way towards me, and she said, "How was your swim?" And I said, "It was wonderful." She said, "You must come back." And I said, "I wasn't going to come. It was so cold." And she goes, "Oh." She holds out her arms, and I go, "No. No" She goes, "Come, come, come." So, I'm laying on her arms. [audience laughter] At first, I'm really, really stiff, and then I just relax. And she goes, "See how warm the water is? And look."

 

And I look. For the first time, I see this skylight that covered the entire length of the pool. And she says, "See, the light always comes in." And later, in the locker room, I catch the eye of a woman across from me and we both start laughing. I think I wonder if she was one of the women that kept swimming out of my way. I really wanted to talk to her. I know she really wanted to talk to me, but I don't speak Yiddish and she doesn't speak English. But she pointed to herself and she said, "Tova." I pointed to myself and I said, "Jean." 

 

And then, as we're leaving the locker room, she found me. She grabbed my hand and mustering up all her courage. I just could see her mustering up all the courage to say the only English words she knew to me. She looked at me and she said, "Jean, if you see something, say something." [audience laughter] And I said, "Tova.” “Yes?” “If you see something, say something." [audience laughter] I knew. I knew. I knew that I wasn't going to take the train home, that I was going to walk back down Lee Avenue, and I was going to go into the bakery, and I was going to buy some black and white cookies. Thank you.