A Day of Small Beginnings (22 page)

Nathan hesitated before answering. How could a man so immersed in his religion as Rafael understand him? “I just don’t need
to put a God in the picture to explain life, much less to thank Him for it.”

“The rabbis say a man who takes the fruits of the world but offers no thanks is a thief.”

“The rabbis have a vested interest in making sure people keep believing in God.”

Rafael laughed. “You sound like your father.”

“I learned from a master.” Nathan smiled back.

“A master of forgetfulness.”

Nathan stopped smiling. “What does forgetfulness have to do with believing in God?”

“Your father had the right kavonah that night he was here. It had nothing to do with those rabbis he hated so much. I’ll tell
you something you don’t know. Your father loved God—he’d felt His breath. He knew how to pray. But praying from the heart
takes a lot out of a man, especially when his heart is heavy. When Itzik found an excuse not to pray, he stopped.”

“What excuse?”

“Socialism.”

Nathan knew in his gut there was something to what Rafael was saying. After all, Pop had used socialism as an excuse not to
do a lot of things. “I can’t change what my father did,” he said dejectedly.

“Yes, you can. It is almost enough for us that you returned here, after so many years. Now, be a Jew and learn to pray.”

Nathan’s ears burned at being put on the spot. But the thought of praying excited him in a way. What had he lost, he wondered,
when the chain of generations had been broken, the yarmulkes and the identifying Jewish names removed, all so that he and
his family could hide like chameleons among the Gentiles? Was that really all his father’s socialist Utopia had been for,
to hide from a demanding God because the enlightened world had allowed it? Or were he and Pop just trying to buy a little
peace from the boots of the bullies and the butts of their guns? What kind of people hand their legacy over to their enemies
for a fairy tale? Socialism. He was depressed by his questions. He was becoming tired, and the crows were getting on his nerves.

“We’ll stand by Freidl’s grave,” Rafael said. “You can pray for her soul. We can say a special blessing to thank God for saving
Itzik from imminent danger in this place. There is a special prayer for this.” Rafael took a few steps. The heel of his shoe
caught on a root and he stumbled. Nathan sprang forward and caught him in his arms. He’d had a similar incident with Pop losing
his balance once, at the Adirondacks cabin. “You need some fresh air in your lungs,” he’d told Pop, trying to persuade him
to leave his newspaper and take a walk.

“What do I need with fresh air?” Pop had said. “I got all the air I need in here.”

The road outside the cabin, rutted and lined with pine needles, was one of the things Nathan liked best about the Adirondacks
property. But he and Pop hadn’t gone twenty feet when Pop twisted his ankle. Nathan couldn’t catch him in time to break the
fall.

“What kind of place is this where they don’t know how to put cement on a road? Feh, it’s like Poland!” Pop had spat, his soft,
doughy body defying all Nathan’s efforts to lift him.

Nathan released Rafael and helped steady him.

“Thanks, Leiber.” He chuckled. “The roots here. I got caught in your
roots.
Heh!”

Nathan smiled. He was moved enough by what had passed between them to follow Rafael to Freidl’s grave. All right, he thought,
I’ll try to do what he wants, for his sake. Their coats swayed gently in tandem as they walked the short distance, hands clasped
behind their backs. “Shouldn’t we be wearing prayer shawls?” he asked.

“Not here. We don’t wear them, out of respect for the dead, who can no longer join us in prayer.”

When they reached the foot-high pile of small stones, Nathan felt a bit sheepish. “What was the name again of that prayer
you recite?”

“El Molei Rachamim.”

“Can I say it for all the Leibers that are buried here?”

“One person at a time, Leiber. This isn’t a party.”

“But I told you, I don’t know their names.”

Perhaps the upset in Nathan’s voice persuaded Rafael to back down. “All right, so if you don’t know the names, then say it
for the family. God will survive it, I’m sure.” He did his customary shrug. “But if you’re going to say El Molei, you should
at least understand what you’re saying.”

Nathan nodded gratefully.

“It means,
God of mercy, You who dwell on high, may the souls of our loved ones find perfect rest beneath the wings of Your divine presence.
And we say, Amen.
”

“It’s only the God part I have trouble with,” Nathan said.

“That’s not trouble, that’s a beginning. Say the words with me, Leiber. Bring them into your heart.” He closed his eyes.

This is craziness, Nathan thought, even though he’d always secretly admired the elder statesmen of the faith, the way they
proudly recited the anthems of their nation. They were men of undeniable power. Lou Gersh, Pop’s card partner, was one of
them. Who could forget him at Pop’s funeral as he’d stepped forward, without warning, and broken the awkward vacuum by saying
Kaddish. The mourners had gazed at Lou with gratitude they had not shown Nathan when he’d delivered his eulogy. He had stared
at the memorial booklet, embarrassed that he was unable to follow even the transliteration of a prayer he knew was knit into
his father’s heart.

After the service, Lou had put his arms around him and patted him on the back. “Don’t worry about it, Nathan,” he’d said.
“You made your father proud when it mattered, when he was alive.” But Nathan was not convinced. He’d felt more distanced from
Pop than ever.

A crow cawed directly above. Nathan and Rafael stood shoulder to shoulder, their heads bowed before the jumble of unremarkable
stones that marked Freidl’s grave. Nathan rubbed his eyes under his glasses. As a younger man, he’d held on to the hope that
one day he could become someone who experienced life more fully. God knows, he’d never had a talent for letting go of himself.
Every time he’d tried, it had ended badly. There was that time he’d jumped off the rock ledge at the Adirondacks lake, hoping
against hope that he’d fall harmlessly into the water below. He’d gotten seventeen stitches in the back of the head for his
trouble, and the keloid would always remind him that he was a bound man, a man who toppled over into undignified states whenever
he tried to break free.

He ran his fingers once again over the keloid scar, ashamed and disgusted at himself. But before he could work himself over
with further self recrimination, he remembered Rafael’s admonition not to sacrifice to the idols. He commanded himself to
stop worrying what the whole damn world would think of him if he prayed out loud for the boy who’d once crawled on all fours
in this cemetery—his father, Itzik the Faithless One. He’d pray, damn it, not to let go for himself, but for his family buried
here, because he’d never done it for Pop.

“El Molei Rachamim,”
Rafael said. He signaled Nathan to repeat after him.

“El Molei Rachamim,
” Nathan whispered, praying for brevity and the strength to go the distance.

“Shochain ba’m’romim, hamtzai m’nucha n’chona tachas canfai Ha’Sh’cheenah.”
Nathan repeated the Hebrew, phrase by painful phrase, methodically forcing himself to ignore his skepticism about what he
was doing. The tactic proved successful. After four or five repetitions, he began to feel oddly enfolded by the rhythm of
the words, immersed, carried away by them.

“...sh’ha-lach l’o lo mo...”
A wave of images came to him. Pop reading Hebrew at the Seder table, Ellen and her cousins listening to him, entranced. His
mother in the kitchen serving the matzo ball soup, her ankles and feet puffed up like a souffl?. There they were. The Leibers.

“...b’Gan Edan t’heh m’nu-cho-so...”
With each repetition, his voice grew more steady and his eyes met Rafael’s less often, until he realized that Rafael had
closed his eyes and begun to sway, returning to correct Nathan only when he stumbled, repeating and repeating the phrases
patiently until he got it right, nodding, moving on, guiding him gently aloft.

“...v’yitz-ror bitz-ror ha’cha-yim es nish-mo-so...,”
Rafael chanted. Something about the phrase sounded familiar to Nathan, reawoke images of his Bar Mitzvah, his childhood,
of that long ago time of stoops and stickball.

“...v’ya-nu-ach b’sholem al mish-ka-vo...”
Nathan’s voice caught. For the first time in years, he felt that heat behind the eyes that precedes tears. They came, slowly
at first, then spilled over the rims of his lower lids, blurring his vision, washing down over his cheeks and emptying into
his mouth, salty as seawater. Like Pop at the Seder table, he realized at once. And in that moment, he understood the power
of prayer, that it linked the man with his community and tunneled deep into his hidden self. He understood how even a Jewish
socialist could not resist it, could not forget that despite everything he was a Jew first, even if he could not admit it
to his son. So there in the Zokof Cemetery, standing over the unmarked bones of his ancestors, Nathan acknowledged it for
them both, at last.
“...v’nomar, amen.”

From your lips to God’s ear, Nathan, son of Itzik. Amen.

18

A
FTERWARD,
N
ATHAN’S STOMACH GROWLED.
H
E STAMPED HIS
feet to disguise the sound and brushed away the tears that remained on his cheeks. His sense of otherworldliness fell away,
and he now felt exposed and embarrassed at the passion with which he had recited El Molei Rachamim.

What had he been thinking, praying like a primitive to a God he knew did not exist, suspending his powers of reason and critical
judgment? He stamped his feet again and fought the sudden desire to flee.

A cloud obliterated the pools of sunlight that had filtered through the forest only minutes before. He sneaked a glance at
his watch. It was after two o’clock. Time seemed to have looped itself in circles around this day, slowing its progress with
all these detailed observations of the past.

When his stomach growled again, he realized he hadn’t eaten since early that morning. He cleared his throat to announce it
was time to go, but Rafael suddenly knelt and seized two pebbles from the underbrush. “We put stones on graves as a sign that
we were here, that we remember.” Rafael laid one pebble on top of the pile and rose with difficulty as he handed the other
to Nathan.

No harm in that, Nathan thought, hoping this would be the last rite he would be expected to perform before returning to the
car. As he leaned over and balanced his pebble next to Rafael’s, he was already thinking about what he would say to Tadeusz.

“It’s not enough,” Rafael said, “but it’s all I can do. I had to do something for her. She deserves a monument, but if I made
one, God knows what they might do to it. Better it should be like this.”

It sickened Nathan that even now a gravestone wasn’t safe in this cemetery. He wondered how long it had taken Rafael to build
his memorial, pebble by pebble, prayer by prayer. He wondered if it had been built out of respect for the memory of a real
woman or if Freidl was just a folktale, buoyantly carried through time by the stream of stories that flowed from this town.
Several crows cawed high above him. Their claws crackled the thin branches of the birch tree where they alighted. “How do
you know if this woman Freidl ever existed?” he asked. “There’s no gravestone to prove it. Have you checked the municipal
records?”

Rafael did not lift his eyes from the pile of stones. “I know almost everything about her.”

“How?”

“She told me.”

Nathan became alarmed. “How could she tell you anything? She died before you were born.”

“Freidl has her ways. The dead often do. We understand each other, Freidl and me.” Rafael sighed. “Sometimes she speaks. Sometimes
she sings me a
niggun,
a tune, you know?” Closing his eyes again, he swayed back and forth, as if listening to music.