In the Catskills: A Century of Jewish Experience in "The Mountains" by Phil Brown Page B

the numbers dropped from the cage, Rosa was busy blotting her card, checking up and down the rows, hands moving methodically like a spirited conductor.
    Several games passed and Rosa gathered her fortune: the bagel slicer, the blender, a summer umbrella, a walking cane, a straw hat, two ashtrays—one made into the shape of a flamingo, the other a fish.
    Someone in the front row screamed “Fix!” which drew a wave a laughter from the good-natured folk.
    “Who is that lady back there?”
    “Check her cards! Read me back her numbers again, will yah?”
    “Go back to your own bungalow colony, lady!”
    Rosa smiled shyly, but paid little mind to their teasings. With each call of the numbers, her eyes—fixed and hypnotic—would light up like the brightest of moons. Adam concentrated on the pageantry of his mother’s luck, the lettering on her forearm raced by him, the branded marks blurred in streaks before his eyes.
    His attention faltered. A disapproving Rosa leaned over and blotted in a few of the numbers that her son had missed. “Adam, you are not watching. I cannot depend on you.” He, meanwhile, checked his cards once more, trying to see if the hand dealt his mother—the one on her forearm—in any way equaled a winning card. Chasing her movements, he grew sleepy. All that kept him awake was the sound of his mother’s calming refrain, the lullaby of his summers:
    “Bingo!”
    “Bingo!”
    “Bingo!”
    As the night wore on, Adam dropped off to sleep, stretched out over the bench, beside Rosa. A half-eaten hamburger remained at the table. His cards failed him. So did his stamina. “Bingo!” unaccountably soothed his slumber.

     
    Years earlier, just a few months before Morris’s death, a five iron glistened in the sun. Artie was lofting golf balls out into the open blue sky. A scuff of grass, burnished on the blade, mixed with the first moisture of the day. The flight of the ball came into view against the tall green trees that surrounded the colony. On the other side of the forest were other crazies, with their own accents.
    “Fore!” he yelled.
    The refugees didn’t have a whole lot of experience with golf in Poland and Russia, so it took a number of summers for them to realize that the avalanche of dimpled white balls—preceded by the number “four”—was not an air raid, just conspicuous recreation.
    The other half of the field was occupied by Abe. He was wearing a pair of white tennis shorts and a white undershirt. At first glance, the features of his face seemed to be getting away from him. He had a fleshy nose, prominent ears, and heavy eyelids.
    Abe was holding fast to a spool of cord. A kite flew above him, scattering in the wind, looping in the airy currents.
    “Get that kite out of here!” Artie yelled. “I’ll punch a hole right through it! Fore!”
    The launching of a retaliatory golf ball did not deter Abe.
    “How much of the field do you need for that stupid game?” he asked.
    Artie paused and contemplated just how valuable breathing room was to everyone at Cohen’s Summer Cottages. Once imprisoned, they all now longed for space. Before coming to any conclusions on the matter, Adam, wearing blue short pants with matching suspenders and a striped blue polo shirt, circled up to him. He was pedaling a bright red fire engine, and pulling on a string that sounded a bell.
    “Hey kid, come here,” Artie said, his tanned face taking on a soft and tender glow.
    Adam wore a red helmet that was much too large for his head. It tipped over his face like a catcher’s mask.
    “How’s your dad?”
    “He’s on the porch,” he replied, removing the helmet.
    Artie strained his eyes and caught sight of Morris sitting on the porch of the bungalow. Artie liked Morris, considered him a real scholar, a refined and decent man, but emotionally tortured—worse even than the rest. Adam’s father had survived two camps, fought in the forest as a partisan, almost died of typhus. And now a heart