#66 Deborah

Pushkin. Yeah. Oh, wait, one second. Chicken liver. Oh, did you hear that in the background? Yeah. Jackie Cohen. Oh, did you hear that? Jackie Cohen. She hung up on you. I know she did, imaginary parrot. From Pushkin Industries, I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and this is Heavyweight. Today's episode, Deborah. Right after the break. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human I'm Drew Broussard, host of the Lit Hub podcast Every Friday, I take you behind the scenes at Literary Hub chatting with staff, writers, and other literary figures about everything going on in the literary world Find us now, anywhere you get your podcasts Hello? Hello, is this Barbara? No, this is Deborah. Uh, how are you related to Barbara? I don't know who Barbara is. Although this might sound like a classic Cheech and Chong routine, It's actually me phoning Debra. Debra, you should know, is 102 years old. Yet, it is I who is having the senior moment. Oh my, I'm so sorry. For some reason, I think I thought your name was Barbara. It's okay. I've lived long enough I could take any name. I'm phoning Debra. Her name is Debra. Because she made a discovery recently that has turned her life on its head. It all began with a phone call from her daughter, Lee. She called me several months ago, and she said, Mom, given your age, I'd like to help you clear out your storage room. So I said, fine, when are you coming? She said, now. The storage room is a room in Deborah's Bronx apartment. She affectionately calls it the snake pit. It's where expired vitamins and broken kitchen appliances collect. While cleaning it out, her daughter Lee saw something that caught her eye. And she walked out of the storage room with a cardboard box. Written across the top of the box were Deborah's initials. And beside those initials, underlined in black ink, were the words, go through. When Debra lifted the lid, she uncovered something she'd stashed away long ago and had never gone through. Two hundred fifty-six letters written to me when I was 21. The letters, tied up in ribboned bundles, were from Debra's first love, a man named Jerry Robbins. We were engaged to be married. Wow. He... Okay, I'm sorry. Jerry was killed in World War II on Christmas Eve, 1944. My future was shredded as well as the man that I loved. And had you forgotten about these letters? I didn't forget. I just found his death so disturbing, I couldn't take it. So I sequestered that aspect of my prior life away and never looked at it again. She has a really powerful ability to flip the switches. as she calls it. This is Debra's daughter, Lee. Put it away, not think about it. And that's just what Debra did. To escape the grief of Jerry's death, she threw herself into graduate school, got a master's degree in social work, and from there, life just kept on spooling. She married a man named Irving, who was an attorney and a good provider, and together they raised three kids. But all the while, through 64 years of marriage, through every move, every new chapter, Debra kept the box with its lid closed shut. Until recently. Nearly 80 years after Jerry's death and over a decade after the death of her husband Irving, Debra was finally ready to open the box and start reading. Every letter, every postcard, and every V-mail. E-mail? V-mail. The letter V as in victory. Right. Right. Will you listen to me? V-mail, as I only later learned, was a method the government used to get soldiers' letters to their families. And as Deborah read these letters, something began to happen. I fell in love with Jerry again. Not only did the box contain Jerry's handwritten letters, but also a number of his poems and short stories. Jerry, Deborah tells me, was an aspiring writer with big dreams. His absolute motivation was to write, write, and compose. If he had a pencil or a pen in hand, he'd seek out paper to write on. The sheer volume of letters, their depth and detail, attest to this. And each day, sometimes all through the day, Deborah would read and reread Jerry's words. And as she did, she felt him return to her. It was like time had collapsed. How can a 101-year-old woman whose hormones have long since shriveled fall in love again. Debra's daughter, Lee, noticed the change that came over her mother, how re-energized she'd become. And Lee thought that was wonderful, to a point. There's a thin line because she started slipping into what we would call gerry land. Oh, what is that? That is, not to label it too much, but a kind of overarching obsession with all things Jerry. All she did was live in Jerry land. This is Debra's other daughter, Lauren. And every time I called her up or would see her, it would be, Jerry said this and Jerry said that. She would spend all my conversations with her just talking about Jerry. It sounds a little bit, the way you describe it is like, you know, like when a teenager's in love, you know? Yeah. They're just drawing like the person's name and hearts, you know, in their notebook or something. Yeah. You just can't help but talk about it all the time. Lauren says their mother stopped watching movies, reading books, attending the classes she took online. I was concerned about it. Lee was concerned about it. We all kept saying, here, Mom, here's a great book. Read this. Watch this. Why don't you invite people over? And it was truly like she was in a bubble. Also concerning to Lauren is how, since the discovery of the letters, Jerry has threatened to eclipse her late father, Irving. For proof, you need look no further than Debra's living room. On an entry table by the door is a photograph of Irving. But beside her favorite chair is one of Jerry. Sitting right next to her and my father is off to the side. What the hell? How does that make you feel? Weird. Strange. Debra, for her part, insists her feelings for Jerry have no bearing on the love she feels for her late husband. But this passionate side of Debra is new to Lauren. They always say we become more of ourselves the older we get. Do you think so? I think so. Don't you? I'd like to think so, yeah. I mean, it certainly seems like with your mother, I mean, she continues to grow, you know. She does. There's a great line I love to quote, and it's from Metallica. Metallica? The heavy metal bands. And one of the lines is, my lifestyle determines my death style. and i think it's a great line like not she's not dying but you know i i think we just keep becoming more yeah and oh there i sorry for all these texts my husband just got nominated for two Emmys Oh my goodness That fantastic Yeah. As it happens, Lauren's husband is the award-winning documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger. Among his work, Some Kind of Monster, an exploration of Metallica's experience in group therapy. He just got nominated and my whole family is like, yay, that's great, congrats. Good for him. But you know what's also good? As good, if not better than being nominated for TV's most prestigious award? Helping people. And right now, I'm going to help Debra with something she's taken to calling her mandate. When I was a daughter, I had an obligation to my parents, as a student to my teacher in my school, as a wife and a mother to my family. But now that I've lived this long, my mandate is to do something with these amazing letters. Deborah hopes to honor Jerry by giving his writing an audience. It occurs to me that I have an audience. And perhaps if Deborah and I read through the letters together, it would fulfill her mandate and allow her to move on. I put the idea to Lee. Do you think, like, getting something out there into the world would allow her to leave Jerryland? Yeah, I do. because he'll always be 21. He'll always be a writer who never got to live his potential. So there's this quality of stuckness or stasis getting his work out there. It's almost like she gets to the end. Can you come to my apartment? Well, I'm in Minnesota. I wouldn't fly out where you are, but if you can come to my home, I would be eternally grateful for as long as I last. Well, I mean, I would love to see the letters, and it would be really nice to meet you in person. Okay, Mr. Goldstein, so come look. Yeah. Said the old lady to the young man. And so, it looks like this 56-year-old young man is heading off to New York. Because like the writing on the box says, maybe the only way out is to go through. And speaking of going through, it's time for you to grease up the wheels on your shopping cart and go through some ads. I'm Drew Broussard, host of the Lit Hub podcast. Every Friday, I take you behind the scenes at Literary Hub, chatting with staff, writers, and other literary figures about everything going on in the literary world. Find us now, anywhere you get your podcasts. 256 letters. It took several weeks for my producer Phoebe and me to read them all. Many of the letters were missing dates and locations, but we puzzled our way through, doing our best to bring chronological order. And as we did, a life emerged, and a portrait of the young man who lived it. We went through all 256 of the letters. Oh, boy. So you know Jerry. Oh, yeah. So let's, why don't we just start off by reading the first letter. Here goes. Dear Deb, finding myself with a few spare moments. Jerry's first letters are from the spring of 1940, nearly four years before he enlisted. My mother advised me that she doesn't mind my staying in your house till all hours of the night. She likes you quite a bit, which practically makes it unanimous. Deborah and Jerry had been friends since their elementary school days in Brooklyn, but their friendship was beginning to blossom into something more. What were you guys doing until all hours of the night? Talking. As passionate as it was, it was never consummated, which is my regret. It is a regret. Oh, intensely so. Debra says she was waiting for marriage. But we would have had a hot time together. I forgot that I'm being recorded. Jerry lived over an hour away by subway, and before texting, emails, and the prevalence of phone calls, weekend rendezvous were planned out over letters. Jerry's writing is clever. In one missive, he invites Deborah out to a show for New Year's Eve. When she doesn't give him a straight answer, he sends a follow-up. To help you make a decision and for your convenience, you will find on page four of this letter a ballot. Just check one and mail within the next week. The ballot shows two options, yes and yes. Be it in his letters or his short stories, Jerry had a way with a closing line. His fiction often showcased an ironic reveal in the final sentence. In one story, the peacenik babbling in the mental institution turns out to be a former war commissioner. In another, the motorist who stops to help a stranded woman turns out to be an executioner on his way to put the woman's son to death. They were like Twilight Zone episodes, almost 20 years before the show went on the air. Jerry shared drafts of these stories along with poems. Deborah appreciated his lyrical turns of phrase. I call them Jerry-isms. Instead of war, he says, man made madness. Instead of bullet, hot sperm of death. How is that? Hot sperm of death. I'm no poet, but it strikes me that the mighty Metallica itself would be proud to name an album something so in one's face. As a student at Columbia studying to be a writer, Jerry was exempt from the draft. But in the winter of 1943, he decided to leave school and enlist. Aside from his parents, Debra was the first person he told. Since one of my guiding rules, he wrote, has always been, to thine own self be true, I feel I can't stay out any longer, just paying lip service to my beliefs. From boot camp, Jerry's letters arrived in Debra's mailbox every day. His clever short stories with the tidy Twilight Zone endings gave way to reportage. Jerry detailed the eccentric characters he met, the sergeant with a jaw like a rock, the chaplain who was a secret lush. But he also shared his feelings. In one letter, he described the first time he stood before a mirror and saw himself in uniform, how it gave him chills. As training became more grueling and the thought of war more present and real, Jerry sought refuge in Deborah, summoning her presence during lonely evenings at camp or long marches in the heat. I didn't mind walking because I wasn't alone. You were with me, walking by my side and keeping me company all the time. We spoke about a thousand things, my furlough, the invasion, what we're going to do together when I come back. I recited poetry to you, and when no one was watching, I put my arms around you, held you close to me, and whispered, I love you, into your ears. Jerry and Deborah created a ritual which they enacted at 10 o'clock each evening. Jerry called it their nightly meeting. When the hour struck, they dropped whatever they were doing, and in the absence of a telephone, each would simply think of the other. I close my eyes, Jerry wrote. The world fades away, and then it's now. Now was one of our secret words. The only thing that was real was here and now. Through the ebony of night, I reach out for you. And from across the wide expanse of sea, you come. Your eyes flashing, your body warm and curved. This is the only place. This is the only time. Here and now. Do you want to read another letter This one will be a special one Sure So here I go again doing things crudely and probably very badly Honey, I want to get engaged on my furlough. I needn't add that I'm anxiously and eagerly awaiting your reply. Just say yes. And here, Deborah recites from memory her reply from over 80 years ago. My answer to you is yes, yes, yes. Back at boot camp, time marched on. And in the fall of 1944, Jerry received notice. He was going to be deployed. But before his deployment, he was granted a final furlough. So he went home to see Deborah, where he gave her a ring. Together they made plans for the future, talked about everything that lay ahead once he was home for good. Then, standing on the subway platform in Washington Heights, they said their last goodbye. I can almost feel it. I remember kissing him and saying, this isn't good, I don't know what's happening. And I went into the train, and I cried hysterically all the way till the last stop on that train. Jerry's company was shipped off to England, where American soldiers were preparing to join the fight in mainland Europe. Unbeknownst to them, they were destined for one of the deadliest campaigns of World War II, the Battle of the Bulge. But they never made it there. Jerry was among more than 2,200 men loaded onto a troop ship on Christmas Eve. The ship was bound for Cherbourg, France, just a short trip across the English Channel. But hours later, just five miles from the entrance to the harbor, a torpedo struck. A survivor described the slender silver missile cutting through the water and colliding with the ship as having shaken the vessel from stern to stern. Hundreds of men in the lower decks were killed instantly as the sea rushed into the massive gash. Those who made it to the upper decks weren't much better off. They'd not been briefed on how to lower the lifeboats or free the rafts that might have carried them to safety. That, they were told, was the job of the crew. But the crew, a Belgian outfit, spoke little English and had little loyalty to the American troops aboard. And so it happened that many crew members abandoned ship while the Americans aboard still had no idea they were slowly sinking. Many soldiers were presumed to have gone down with the ship. Others were lost to injuries and hypothermia. In the end, 763 men died. Jerry was one of them. After six months of training, he saw one day of war. The scale of death was so needless, the failed emergency response so poor, that for decades, the U.S. government covered up the details. Survivors risked losing their veteran benefits if they talked. And so, when a family was notified that they'd lost a loved one, Only the barest details were shared. I was in Jerry's parents' home. His mother and father were in the room. They handed me the telegram. In the months before he died, looking towards the war he was about to enter, Jerry wrote a poem. All I ask for, God, in the brief second before eternity swallows me up, A glimpse of the world that is to be, where no man need make a prayer like mine. Then will I know there is meaning amidst this man-made madness. In a certain way, I've never verbalized this, But in certain way, the discovery of those letters have turned my life upside down because I don't feel as happy as I used to feel. I really don't. It's the first time I've heard Debra say this. I thought for Debra, Jerryland was a happy escape. And it seems it can be. But there's sadness there, too. After discovering the box, Deborah found herself having nightmares. The letters abruptly end in 1944. So in place of an actual ending, Deborah's mind crafted its own. She dreamt of Jerry in the water. She dreamt of him frozen in the English Channel. And it was like a piece of Deborah was stuck there with him. Recently, though, I learned something that might help Deborah to work herself free. A few months ago, a genealogist friend of the family was doing some digging and turned up something surprising, something that Deborah never knew. Jerry's body wasn't in the English Channel, nor was it buried somewhere in Europe. Jerry's body had actually been repatriated back to America and interred in a Jewish cemetery called Mount Lebanon. And it turns out the cemetery is not an hour's drive from Debra's apartment. To move on from Jerryland, maybe Debra needs more than just to revisit the past or honor the past. Maybe she needs to grieve it. Leaving the house at 102 is not so easily done, and Debra has yet to visit Jerry's grave. I ask if it might be something we can do together. Anything that brings me closer to him, I'm game. After the break, Jerry. I'm Drew Broussard, host of the Lit Hub podcast. Every Friday, I take you behind the scenes at Literary Hub, chatting with staff, writers, and other literary figures about everything going on in the literary world. Find us now, anywhere you get your podcasts. Just as I'm about to book a minivan for our visit to the cemetery, I receive an invitation to a video conference. Hello? Hey, sorry, I had to, I guess, log in. Debra's Emmy Award-winning son-in-law, Joe Berlinger, also wants to come to the cemetery to film for his own project about Debra. I mean, we're all such huge fans of heavyweight that we're so excited that you're engaged. Yeah, I mean, right back at you. We, you know, we love what you do, so. We? Have I a pet hamster in my fanny pack? Allow me to explain my lack of enthusiasm about Joe's participation. You know, when I go out and I do something for Netflix or whatever, it's a little bit... The world of documentary is a hierarchy that breaks down thusly. Netflix documentaries, the top floor penthouse suite. Audio documentaries, the underground parking garage where audio documentarians park their used Ford Fiestas. So as much as I love Joe's work, let's just say Metallica doesn't have two lead guitarists. Let's just say it only has one. And according to the internet, his name is Kirkley Hammett. And on this documentary shoot, I'm the Kirk. It's not like we're going to be dueling interviewers or anything like that. I want to assure you of that. I just want to be a fly on the wall and observe what's happening. Canadian etiquette dictates my not saying no. But I will be documenting you, Joe Berlinger. Documenting me. As I document Debra. On a sunny morning in October, we all meet at Debra's. Hello. Hi. Hi. Hi, Jonathan. Hi, hi. How are you? Debra is seated by the window wearing a colorful kerchief around her neck. The sunlight illuminates her shoulder-length white hair in a puffy halo. I'd like to say a few words, if that's okay. Of course. Debra has prepared a speech about Jerry that she'd like to recite at his gravesite. In fact, a few days earlier, she left a phone message saying it would be four minutes long, suggesting she'd already timed it and practiced it just to get it all right. My worry is that with a speech already committed to memory, Debra might have already decided how and how much she wants to feel. Yep, thank you. We load into the van. Deborah, her aide Javi, her daughter Lee, and my producer Phoebe. Joe seats himself up front, the papa. Ostensibly, it's so he can silently record Deborah and me in the seats behind him. Silently. Jonathan, what are we doing today? Well, uh... Being questioned on one's own podcast is not unlike being strapped into a baby seat in one's own 14-seater van, which, might I add, one paid for. Rather than demanding that everyone in the van pause their various recording devices so I can throw a full-on Kirkley-Hammett-level artistic tantrum, I instead do this. We are heading off to the Queen Cemetery I obey my master master That's a Metallica reference. We ride through Washington Heights, where Jerry grew up, past the grounds of the World's Fair, where he and Deborah spent many a summer's afternoon. That was the greatest dates we ever had. Together, they marveled over futuristic architecture, the debut of the first television, portraits of a hopeful future. When we arrive at the cemetery, we consult the map. The cemetery is so large that it has streets, and the streets have names. Jerry's not on Paradise Avenue, is he? He actually is just off of the area. He is? How about that? Okay. Okay. We're ready to go. Oh. Fix face, Mom. Okay. I got this down. We all get out of the car. According to the map, Jerry's grave isn't far. Debra Zade wheels her towards the Isle of Tombstones. Okay. What's going through my mind now is a letter from Jerry saying there's so many things I want to do with you. Oh, my. Oh, there. Oh. And suddenly, there it is, the headstone. Beloved son and dear brother, Private Jerome Robbins, Jerry. Oh, God. Do you want to do this? Yeah. Okay. I can get a cherry. We brought along the Kaddish, if you wanted to say it. You don't have to bring it to me. I know it. You know it. Okay. Yeah. When she's finished with the prayer for the dead, Deborah remains quiet. But then something happens, something she hadn't planned for or prepared for. Taking in the sight of all those tombstones, she just starts talking. Ugh, what a waste. This one, 19. This beloved one, 22. The other one, 20. No more, no more wars. Please, please, no more wars. There are too many beautiful, healthy young veterans who are lined up here and probably never had a chance to live. what thieves warmongers are. Warmongers are thieves of life that was never lived. Man-made madness. Man-made madness. Okay, I said enough, Sarah. Deborah will later tell me that she surprised herself. For all the words she'd prepared, these words, she said, came from the guts. To get through her long life, Deborah learned to box up the pain and store it neatly away. But maybe, if you live long enough, everything, even those buried things, rise to the surface again, searching for light. Ready? One, two, three. One more step, Mom. I know. We all load into the van and settle back in for the journey back to the Bronx. How are you feeling? I thought it would be painful. And it wasn't painful. I got a refill of energy. It was a little bit of stealing from his strength. And that really came from being with Jerry. A young man, at a time when he needed love most, conjured a spectral companion to journey by his side. And now, almost a century later, an old woman does the same. It's the sort of ironic twist that could have flowed from Jerry's pen. Hey, Joe, you want some nuts? Or a banana? What about a banana? Back in the van, Joe reminds Debra that it's his daughter, Debra's granddaughter's 31st birthday. Oh, that's right. Should we call her? Huh? Yes. When she gets home, Debra will return some phone calls, maybe take a nap. All the little things that make up a life. All the little things that make up the here and now. Happy birthday. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, Sarah. Off key. guitar solo The last month's rant is scheming with the damaged deposit. Take this moment to decide. If we meant it, if we tried. Or felt around for far too much. From things that accidentally touched. This episode of Heavyweight was produced by Phoebe Flanagan and me, Jonathan Goldstein. Our senior producer is Kalila Holt. Our supervising producer is Stevie Lane. Editorial guidance from Emily Condon. Special thanks to Chris Neary, Lucy Sullivan, Ben Nadeff-Haffrey, and Greta Cohn. Special thanks also to Daria O'Connor, Jack Eiferman, and Alan Andrade, the author of the book Leopoldville, A Tragedy Too Long Secret, which is a great read if you want to learn more about the sinking of Jerry's ship. Debra is publishing a collection of Jerry's writing that will soon be available on Amazon. You can find more information about the book at waitformeworld.com. Her daughter, Lee, has been working on a screenplay about Debra and Jerry. She's hosting a live read of the script on January 20th at Jazz Forum in Tarrytown, New York. As for Joe, he has two Netflix documentaries coming out early next year. Emma Munger mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson, Blue Dot Sessions, Bobby Lord, and Emma Munger. Additional scoring by Chris Zabriskie. Our theme song is by The Weaker Thans, courtesy of Epitaph Records. This is the end of our season, the final episode, but we'll be back in the spring with some more fun stuff, so keep an ear out. And we've got a new season coming your way next fall, so if you have a story for us, don't be withholding, okay? Email us at heavyweight at pushkin.fm. happy holidays to all and thank you for your continued support and listenership I'm Jonathan Goldstein ta-ta, ciao for now adieu don't use that stuff at the end but you could put that part in you could put in the part of me saying don't use that stuff at the end and then you could put in the part where I'm saying don't use this stuff okay, it'll be fun I'm Drew Broussard, host of the Lit Hub podcast. Every Friday, I take you behind the scenes at Literary Hub, chatting with staff, writers, and other literary figures about everything going on in the literary world. Find us now, anywhere you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.