The Baptist Swim Club (a story)
Leiter, Robert
THE BAPTIST SWIM CLUB ROBERT LETTER My parents, in their lackadaisical way, raised me as a Jew. Their thinking on the matter was political; religions bred pride and hatred, nationalism and war,...
...It'll help you forget about the baby...
...So it's not one hundred percent true...
...It's an expression—in some circles a very common one...
...During our first month there, the weather was glorious and we rarely missed a day...
...But most of the time they sat in lounge chairs, drinking beer, close to radios or portable TVs tuned to the ball game...
...A flight of steps led to a small enclosed walkway and then out into a garden that stretched behind the main building...
...we drank and ate and swam late into the night...
...What suprised me was Kate's manner...
...You're not being serious at all...
...The girls spoke of babies, of fears and pain, about whether we wanted a boy or a girl...
...How would you like me to react, anyway...
...She said she'd never do it again...
...Once over the city line we turned onto a gravel road that led to a small parking lot...
...But Frankie's good spirits soon attracted them...
...And the guy with the paunch is a fireman...
...She had concluded that most of the families were large...
...It's nothing really...
...We left for the pool as early as possible...
...She was very understanding...
...Others, more conservative in viewpoint, chose dates closer to Labor Day...
...Beyond the pool was a grassy knoll where people had already begun to encamp...
...At the edge of the lawn was a stone wall, below that a sun deck and a step below that the pool, long and blue, like a reflection of the sky...
...They gave their money and time to the best causes and looked to the future when a blend of the races would end differences...
...We were happy though to be part of the festivities...
...His non-fiction appeared in The Nation, The New Republic and Commonwealth...
...You're like the professor in his lovely house...
...in fact, it sounded like the perfect alternative to those last months before labor...
...Oh, yes I am...
...Kate had miscarried and the tension about our conceiving again had become a deadly burden...
...That bit of news won't make me sleep any sounder...
...I'm not surprised, that's all...
...And she threw a penny into the pool...
...One of the cousins was a Robert but he was Robby, never Bobby...
...We have them every year, too...
...I kept to a schedule as well and on some weekends, giving in to temptation, I swam for hours, dragging myself out at last to dry in the afternoon sun...
...And there was one guy, a bright guy, who was making some really good point about the book we'd just read...
...Well, what do you expect...
...We can talk about it later...
...Over the weeks Kate built up a social register...
...Did I do the right thing...
...I don't know...
...The proposition was not surprising...
...I would join her after work, arriving close to five when the other families were packing up or already home preparing dinner...
...I'll give it to you...
...They raced one another without malice, as if it were not a competition but a learning experience...
...His first story, "Certain Light," was published by Redbook last fall...
...I'm no Jew," one of them said...
...Swimming races...
...And I did...
...For a time none of the other members introduced himself to us...
...In her meandering way, Frankie had given Kate a complete history of the pool members...
...We had seen enough to make us happy, but we were not prepared for our first sight of the pool on opening day...
...On weekends Kate and I would lie on the grass beneath the trees or out on the warm tiles by the pool, easing back into the early calm we'd known...
...The brother closest to Frankie, a year and a half older, was Jamie, short for James...
...Her sisters and brothers and cousins seemed happy to be free of Frankie, who was often their responsibility...
...And just before we slept that night Kate and I decided we would join the pool again the following season and bring our child with us...
...She talked about her day, how she'd done her laps and sunbathed...
...Of course, I waited until Liam had his turn before I took her aside...
...At first one of them waved to Kate: then a few days later came a greeting from a distance: then a greeting from much closer...
...We were all students in this professor's literature class...
...I had never seen any of the children fight and it was odd, disquieting...
...As we drove home, then ate hamburgers grilled on the bar-beque, Kate's mood seemed to brighten...
...Don't worry...
...Most of them knew one another and when they finally got into the water they joked like schoolboys...
...I was startled by something like this only one time in my life...
...The house was old, well-preserved, the furnishings were impeccable...
...Often I had the pool to myself, which was a great luxury...
...She's got the sweetest lisp...
...But it had not been too successful, and whenever possible Kate and I peeked through open doors and windows, seeing long hallways and curving staircases, and once, a massive crystal chandelier in the old dining room...
...An idyllic setting...
...Their last name is McHugh...
...religions bred pride and hatred, nationalism and war, and they would have none of it...
...Her compact body was perfectly athletic but she had the soft beauty of a child...
...We had no idea where the pool might be...
...We checked in at the desk, unfolded our beach chairs and deposited our towels...
...Sometimes they called him Franny but that was dangerously close to Frankie, so he was stuck with Francis, and he didn't like it...
...O.K...
...I would normally have stopped a moment to look around but I dove right into the water...
...Some of the children we had taken to be Frankie's sisters and brothers were in fact cousins...
...That we were Jewish...
...On the weekends the girls challenged me to races and breath-holding contests...
...Frankie's family swept most of the other races...
...4) Wouldn't swimming be the best possible preparation for labor...
...But then she said, without blinking an eye, 'Don't worry...
...I don't know...
...And when I surfaced, feeling the air rush into my lungs, no one could have convinced me that I hadn't somehow been cleansed...
...I'm no Jew.' I was officially introduced to Frankie the following Saturday and we became friends instantly...
...3) Since she'd spent every other summer teaching swimming, how could she possibly spend so much time away from a pool...
...We can start a tradition," Kate said, "before the baby even comes...
...Oh, and wait until you hear this...
...They were Jews only when another Jew was struck down, when Jews were yet again an oppressed minority...
...The summer was a glorious one...
...In each family there was a John and to keep them straight Frankie's brother was never called John but J.B...
...In college...
...She spent an afternoon with Kate, assuring her she would go early...
...And so we had many things to look forward to...
...The people at the pool are all neighbors...
...Don't worry...
...The child obviously doesn't know what she's saying...
...But Frankie looked at me and her face implored me to forgive them...
...But now, as if coaxed by the summer sun, her belly's growth was curative...
...In one she'd identified at least five boys and three girls, all of them fine athletes...
...I couldn't get her to agree and we didn't discuss the issue after that...
...On the weekdays Kate would go to the pool after she'd shopped or cleaned...
...This too seemed in the order of things...
...Kate would swim her laps, starting with the crawl but giving way to the breast stroke, which better accommodated her size...
...Her name's Francine," Kate said, "but they call her Frankie...
...The professor's face turned white...
...She swam now at a slow pace and dragged herself from the pool like a beached whale...
...But Kate rushed to explain and enumerated her points: 1) This would be the first summer since college that she wouldn't be working...
...But Frankie surfaced, the penny clutched in her hand, shouting, "Wasn't that great, Ben...
...He's a phys ed teacher in one of the city schools...
...Frankie's group was first and she won by a wide margin over Liam, her closest rival...
...And we privately speculated about the people, trying to match children to parents, husbands to wives, brothers to sisters...
...We had received a small pamphlet about the seminary's rules and regulations and this time we parked on an upper level beside a white chapel, approaching the pool from the other end...
...Kate and I had weathered a difficult period over the past year...
...My family saw it as a sound move, a gift to them, and they welcomed Kate with great Robert Leiter is a freelance writer in Philadelphia...
...And while he was talking he referred to one character jewing down another...
...She had other arguments as well: there was the price (which was reasonable), the location (which was convenient), and the atmosphere (which the brochure assurred us was "family oriented...
...Frankie joined in, hoping the baby would be born on her birthday, which was December 2. Even Frankie's mother offered her opinion...
...Yes...
...Joseph, her brother, had wanted to be named John, so they compromised and called him Jack...
...Today I threw a penny to the bottom of the pool and she dove in and got it...
...She would swim her fifteen laps—her labor prep—then relax and work on her tan...
...There were three large buildings— classrooms and dorms, we imagined—off in the distance...
...Then came the day when Kate told me she had made a friend...
...During those first weeks we had also decided that the main building must once have been a grand hotel and that the seminary had bought it and added buildings, trying its best to tone down the more obvious touches of luxury...
...Franlae's sister had chosen the earliest date and when it came and Kate was still at the pool, the children were crestfallen...
...And she's the most wonderful gossip...
...For the first time in our marriage, I felt she was uncertain, as if she had overstepped the bounds of decorum...
...Liam...
...There were benches under the trees and flower beds filled with marigolds...
...This was a Sunday and it was very hot...
...I was reminded of the previous summer when, by another pool, she had first begun to bleed...
...Kate asked...
...They live around the corner from one another, close to the seminary, and sometimes all thirteen of them eat meals together...
...On Saturday we got to the pool early and there was Frankie, by the deep end, waiting...
...I'm fine...
...The races started after twelve and they were divided according to age...
...We struck out across a small field, heading for an area surrounded by a chain link fence...
...Not for myself, but for him...
...Never in my house...
...2) Taking that into consideration, how would she manage the heat and boredom...
...I wasn't even certain who it was...
...Remember the thin guy with the DA who never goes near the water...
...One day in mid-summer I came to the pool after work and what I saw in Kate's face frightened me...
...And I couldn't bring myself to confess what was actually bothering me, that I dreaded seeing Frankie again, that I was in fact my parents' child and that I thought it best when nothing was said about such things...
...It's something she's heard other people say and she's only repeating it...
...He started saying he wanted a turn and he started bullying her...
...Of the two oldest girls, one was a sister, JoAnne, whom they called Joey and the other a cousin, Barbara, whom they called Bobbie...
...And it was not unusual to me when Kate, the summer before our first child was born, asked if we might join a swim club run by a large Baptist seminary...
...Frankie was really very good about it, very calm...
...The remaining cousin was Francis...
...She was outgoing and intelligent, begging for attention, and I was susceptible to her every whim...
...She's what's been bothering me," Kate finally said...
...I was stunned...
...They dove off the board with grace and control and shared the secrets of tucking and maximum spring...
...We have one every year right back there under the trees after the races...
...Kate had been talking to Frankie's mother about the woman's numerous deliveries and was totally absorbed...
...Can you imagine getting all this through a lisp...
...I'll give it to you...
...The boys, if they spoke of babies at all, insisted we make it a boy...
...within a week most of the others had spent time talking with Kate...
...Perhaps she imagined me leaping off the diving board and, once immersed, surfacing again cleansed and Christian...
...The races...
...An abundance of food—potato salad, macaroni salad, baked beans, potato chips— was passed at a speed faster than light and at one point there was a tussle over the mustard...
...Frankie was our favorite and we lavished our attention upon her...
...On the weekends the husbands came...
...Kate taught me," and in her smiling face I saw the light of innocence...
...I've gotten into the habit, just like you, of thinking up new tricks for her...
...Her mother and aunt were always off under the trees talking...
...Not in your house...
...All the winners were awarded key chains advertising a club member's plumbing company...
...Frankie's oldest sister and cousin, slim-hipped and thin as boys, began blossoming...
...Frankie's father started the charcoal fire right after the races and by the time we'd had several beers the coals were glowing...
...You go and swim...
...I came in second, which wasn't too bad...
...I touched bottom and stopped, suspended, staring at the diamond patterns the sunlight made through the layers of water...
...Ben, Ben," she cried, "watch this...
...There was a roaring fire and it may even have been snowing...
...And when I asked if she felt well, she knew exactly what I was referring to...
...These things happen...
...No matter what her energy level, her lisp made her seem vulnerable, and I forever wanted to take her in my arms...
...I felt as if I'd been attacked...
...I'm no Jew.' I froze...
...Kate assured me that the rest of the week at the pool had gone well and that Frankie hadn't mentioned the incident again...
...And what did Frankie say...
...In us, perhaps, they saw the future close at hand...
...But they were independent children and soon drifted off to other things...
...Two of the girls were in their teens and had spry, slim bodies...
...And for a moment I saw, carved into one wall, the face of a gargoyle that fed the wading pool...
...The boys were all younger but just as agile, and the youngest of them all, a girl, who could have been no more than five, swam and dove as fearlessly as her siblings...
...warmth...
...And we both felt better when, one early summer night before the pool officially opened, we drove out to the seminary...
...They did not deny their heritage...
...But do you really think she understood...
...Frankie's father stepped in and got the mustard moving again...
...At one point he tried grabbing it out of her hand...
...He's in the seminary...
...Then the wind died away and the trees eased back into place...
...How can you be so calm...
...All the kids go to the parish school...
...She loved it...
...Under the circumstances it was no surprise when I married a gentile girl...
...She stopped for a moment...
...Should I call B'nai B'rith and report poor Frankie...
...I felt terrible for the poor man...
...Informal, cozy, civilized...
...But that's not true...
...I didn't try to show her anger, because that's not what I felt...
...I was at a professor's house on a Sunday afternoon, having wine and cheese...
...But if you don't, Frank (her husband) and I want you and Ben to join us for a Labor Day barbeque...
...Her father and uncle, like the other fathers, were weekend visitors...
...Of the remaining boys, three were Frankie's brothers and three were cousins...
...But that doesn't mean it's never said anywhere else...
...And what did you say...
...I was dressed in a T-shirt and swim trunks and still felt oppressed...
...nor did they proclaim or practice it...
...But when her mother's date came and then her father's, Frankie insisted it still could be December 2. And Kate was in no mood to disagree...
...but no one else noticed...
...The fathers are brothers and they're all very close...
...All the children had pale skin and freckles all over their bodies, and clear blue eyes...
...Frankie was fine company for Kate, whose sedentary periods increased with time...
...I wasn't there...
...They too challenged me to races and diving contests and sometimes we all got together for relays...
...But I was the first to mention Frankie, which was unusual...
...I tried to show her how hurt I was...
...Frankie told me about them, too...
...She watched it flip and twirl away and before she dove she made certain it was resting on the bottom of the pool...
...He liked being called Frank but that was out of the question...
...And none of these adults was quite as avid a swimmer as their children...
...I didn't know what to do...
...To make her happy, I wrote out a check to the seminary immediately and posted it the next day...
...August was steady heat and it affected us all...
...Our membership card arrived a few days later and Kate seemed more assured...
...And this student just kept on talking, still making interesting points, but totally unaware of the effect he'd had...
...When we sat down to eat—adults at one end of the table, children at the other— the air was filled with the smell of cooking meat...
...Kate's stomach continued to grow but she was less frolicsome...
...Here there were signs marking our way...
...Oh, now those are fun...
...I became the physical one, spending my weekends matching Frankie trick for trick, trying with my deepest reserves of creativity to devise new challenges for her...
...Even by Labor Day there hadn't been a twinge in Kate's belly...
...You know our Saturday afternoon Romeo...
...Frankie had been our faithful friend, had kept the secret to herself and all was as it should have been...
...Kate was due to deliver just before Labor Day—Mother Nature's joke—and by mid-August the people at the pool began taking bets about when she would deliver...
...No one else in Frankie's family was introduced to us...
...Their breasts rose like small yeast cakes and their hips took on a definite roundness...
...The youngest member of that large family, the girl who was as fearless as her sisters and brothers, had talked to Kate, had smiled and asked about the baby...
...With time I realized that none of the other children or adults treated us differently...
...You went to college in the boondocks...
...We had a wonderful time...
...Our view was blocked by trees, but then a breeze lifted a branch and we saw the empty pool, its sides painted a deep blue, the whole area surrounded by tall sculptured columns...
...I'll give it to you...
...But then that boy, the one she doesn't like...
...The more experienced women, judging by her size, were certain she would go early...
Vol. 3 • June 1978 • No. 7
