The Fortune Teller’s Kiss, by Brenda Serotte, tells the story of the author's 1950's childhood in the Bronx, where she lived in a world ruled by mysticism and magic. It also tells the less-magical story of how Serotte was stricken with polio at the age of seven. The Fortune Teller’s Kiss
by Brenda Serotte
University of Nebraska Press
$26.95 | 220 Pages
There are two very separate forces at work in this book – first came Serrotte’s home life with a family of Sephardic Jews, including fortune tellers, evil eyes and hundreds of superstitious actions and phrases that taught a girl to believe in magic. Then, as she fought to overcome polio, she entered the gruff, sterile, and all-too-un-magical world of hospitals, where nurses didn’t look their patients in the eye for fear of getting attached to children who would likely die, children maimed by disease and disasters. The reality of both worlds was difficult for a tiny girl to navigate, as she struggled to understand the events surrounding her.
Before reading this memior, I knew very little about Sephardic Jews. In fact, I first heard that term, Sephardic, when my mother pointed out a few boys at a Holocaust memorial earlier this year. They are a sect of Jews that were pushed out of Spain during the Inquisition, emigrated to areas of the Middle East for many years, and then were pushed out again in the early twentieth century. They blend Middle Eastern customs, their own version of the Spanish language and Jewish holidays and ceremonies, creating a culture unlike any other. Reading about fortune-tellers who were also religious leaders felt like an oxymoron – mysticism did not exist in my religious upbringing. However, the culture described by Serotte is so rich in colors, smells, sounds and textures that I find myself a bit sad that I never had a link to the mystics.
I also knew very little about polio; to me, it was synonymous with FDR and wheelchairs. I didn’t know there were deadly epidemics of polio in the United States, and that since we are such a cleanly country, our children grew up without natural immunities to this virus, and when outbreaks began, prior to the development of a vaccine, thousands of children died or were crippled for life. During the 40s and 50s, entire hospital wings were devoted to isolation chambers for those afflicted with this disease – different types of polio attacked different parts of the body, necessitating treatments like the “iron lung,” a machine that facilitated breathing in patients whose paralysis halted their lungs and diaphragms. The hospitals of Serotte’s childhood were filled with over-worked, sometimes-vicious nurses, lonely children, and extremely painful treatments. A chapter devoted to her illness details the Sister Kenny treatments for paralyzed limbs – woolen blankets soaked in boiling water were placed on her poor arms and legs to prevent muscle deterioration and to stimulate nerve endings. Children endured the burning of their skin every day for weeks, sometimes with no results. Luckily, in the case of our author, it helped, and she was able to regain use of her legs.
Serrotte’s narrative is simple, effective and elegant; I was not surprised to learn she is a poet. She wrote, describing her time in isolation, “Even with an experience so scary, one surpasses a point in Fear when, because it floods you entirely, you’re wrapped in it and are therefore numb.” Her words are powerful and concise. Her tone is sometimes wistful, sometimes regretful, and occasionally angry. Many of her family members alternate between being glorified and demonized – particularly her mother, who never visited Serrotte during her time in the isolation ward of the hospital. Serrotte seems willing at times to make excuses for this behavior – her mother was busy blaming herself for her daughter’s condition – but she also portrays her mother as a brutal, intensely vicious creature. The varying tone is indicative of the complex nature of the relationship between mothers and daughters.
If nothing else (and really, it is many things else), Serrotte’s memoir is open and honest. I learned a lot from this book – about Polio, about the social structure of Jews in the 1950s (European Jews were higher up on the social scale than Sephardic Jews, and they all looked down on gypsies), and about tradition. Serrotte poetic prose allowed me to appreciate her childhood, her disease, and, most importantly, the unique and interesting culture that shaped her life.
