Evergreen (56 page)

“I remember,” Eric said.

The table was set with a lace cloth and the silver candlesticks which always flanked the bowl of flowers in the center. Tonight were added the holiday objects which Eric
would be seeing for the third time, not counting the dinner, long ago, at the house of that boy David, the dinner which then had seemed so queer and foreign, but which now seemed very natural. It was a festival of freedom, as Grandpa had thoroughly explained. He recognized the matzoh under its embroidered cover, the plate of horseradish, symbol of the bitterness of slavery, and the green parsley that celebrated the first fresh growth of spring. He knew that the silver goblet, already filled with wine, had been prepared for the prophet Elijah who was to announce the coming of the Messiah, and it was there “just in case he might be coming tonight,” Grandpa would say with a wink.

There were twelve places at the table this year, places for friends who had no family to go to, and a place for a young man at Grandpa’s office who had just tragically lost his wife. Two of the places were for Steve and Jimmy, old enough this year to be present for the first time.

Everyone was dressed up; the clothes looked new and the women had just come from the beauty parlor. Everyone babbled. Aunt Iris was worried about the baby, Laura, who had been left at home. She was worried that the little boys wouldn’t behave. “So what’s the difference?” someone said, “it’s family!” Grandpa picked the boys up and squeezed them. It was Jimmy who would ask the four questions, Eric knew, because he was the youngest male at the table. Yes, by this time Eric knew exactly what would happen, the order of the evening. “‘Seder’ means ‘order,’” Grandpa had told him. He knew that the food would be delicious. Nana had been working in the kitchen over soup, fish and chicken; there would be cake and strawberries and macaroons for dessert. But it would be a long time until dessert, a long time even before they had the first mouthful of food, and Eric was prepared to be restless.

Grandpa took his place in the armchair and waited for Nana to bless the candles. His eyes were shining. This was one of the greatest hours of the year for him. His eyes rested in turn on everybody up and down the table. Then he turned back to the illustrated Haggadah which lay open
beside his plate. He lifted his cup and said the blessing over the wine. The men at the table—except for Eric and Uncle Theo—joined him in the old words that they must first have heard when they were the ages of Steve and Jimmy, who were sitting surprisingly still, with big, round eyes.

“Now, what does Passover mean? It commemorates the night when the Angel of Death spared the homes of our forefathers in Egypt and we were led out of slavery.”

Eric watched and listened. It was all bright and beautiful, like poetry. But it would be artificial for him to learn this ritual. It was not his. Aunt Iris told him once (they had had many talks together; she was frank and honest to talk to) that his father hadn’t really liked being Jewish.

“He wanted to be more American,” she had said. “But I never saw any conflict. We have a four-thousand-year-old tradition and it’s a part of the American tradition, woven into it. The Puritans were Old Testament people, you know.”

“It’s strange,” Eric had observed, “that he and you lived in the same house and this means so much to you. Why do you suppose—”

“I don’t know,” she had answered.

And Eric had told her, “I don’t especially want to be Jewish either. I don’t
not
want to be; it’s just that I don’t care one way or the other. Can you understand?”

And she had said, “You don’t have to be. You have a choice either way. Or no way, although I don’t think that’s so good.”

Then he had cautioned, “Aunt Iris, don’t tell Grandpa or Nana, please.”

“No, I certainly won’t,” she had promised.

He had added, “I feel guilty about it, do you know? To have thoughts like those and keep them hidden?”

And she had told him not to feel guilty, that guilt was a crippling thing, that you could get sick because of it. “All young people keep things hidden from their elders. It’s quite normal, Eric.”

He always found it so easy to talk to her. “And you? Did you keep anything hidden?”

She had looked at him steadily. “For years I suffered because I knew they thought I was a homely girl whom nobody would ever want.”

“I don’t think you’re homely,” he had told her. “You don’t look like most other people. I think you’re even sort of pretty. Doesn’t Uncle Theo think you are?”

And she had laughed and said, “I guess he must. If he doesn’t he’s cheated himself.”

When she laughed, which wasn’t often, Aunt Iris really did look pretty, Eric thought. And she was smart. Sometimes when he had to do a history project or something and didn’t know how to go about it, she’d give him ideas. She could make things so direct and clear.

They were both smart, she and Uncle Theo; their kids would learn a lot from them. Uncle Theo’s name had been in the paper last month in an article about some doctors in New York who were reconstructing the faces of Japanese war victims. “An international gesture,” the paper said. He had a plastic surgery service at the hospital here where they’d built a new wing—Grandpa had made a big donation for the wing; there’d been a dinner and speeches and Grandpa’s name had been in the paper too.

Now Eric was starved. They were still going through the ritual, eating the matzoh, “symbol of the bread of affliction,” Grandpa said.

Jimmy was prompted. He had been rehearsed by his mother all week, and he spoke up in a pure chirp, asking the first of the four questions: “Why is this night different from all other nights?”

Aunt Iris reached around Jimmy’s chair and took Uncle Theo’s hand. She was really crazy about Uncle Theo. Once, when Eric had been at their house and they hadn’t known he was coming through the door, he’d seen her run up to Uncle Theo and throw her arms around him and kiss him so—so
violently
. It had made Eric feel all strange, embarrassed and strange.

Now everyone started to sing. The song was in Hebrew. Naturally Eric had no idea what it was about, but it sounded merry. Nana had a thin, sweet voice, not loud, but you could hear it clearly alongside all the other voices.

She liked to sing. Often when she worked in the kitchen he heard her singing as far away as his room upstairs.

“My mother used to sing in the kitchen,” she’d say, and he’d try to imagine what it must be like to remember your mother singing.

Once he asked her, “What was my mother like?” and waited, almost holding his breath. What would she answer? He had an idea, although no one ever told him so, that she hadn’t liked his mother.

She hesitated, as if she were trying to recollect, and then she told him, “Your mother was a gentle girl. She was quite small and graceful. She was intelligent and quick-witted. She loved you and your father very, very much.”

Nana had been making buns that day, pouring the yellow batter into the pans, and she said, “These were your father’s favorites. He could eat a half a dozen at a time.”

She spoke almost shyly. Eric had already learned that she never mentioned his father in Grandpa’s presence. He had felt bold enough to ask her why that was so.

“Gran used to talk about my mother. Why doesn’t Grandpa like to talk about my father?”

“Because it hurts him too much,” Nana answered.

“Doesn’t it hurt you?”

“Yes, but people are different,” she said quietly.

He still sensed something heavy and unsolved in the air, and thought he knew it was because his grandfather was sorry about something he must have said or done. He was grateful for the little things that Nana told him at unexpected times.

“Your father used to say your eyes were like opals,” she had told him once, and he had felt a smile creep about his mouth. She had a way, with these remarks, of making his parents, especially his father, seem real. Up to now they had been cut-outs, silhouettes; even his mother, who was talked
about so much in the Brewerstown time, always seemed like a doll to him, too sweet to be true. His first knowledge of his father, coming to him through Chris, had been no knowledge at all. What is it to say, Your father was a great guy, a great student? He got much better grades than I ever did? He played a great game of tennis, too?

That was only a caricature of the manly man at Yale.
Who was he?
It helped more to learn from Nana that he liked buns.

Still, it wasn’t enough. Eric began to understand that it never would be enough, that his quest for knowledge of his father and mother would be a journey without end, a passage through rooms and doors, each one leading, after he opened it, to another room with another door. Doors going nowhere. Or else not opening at all.

Grandpa spoke now in a grave, impressive tone.
“Ani ma’ amin:
I believe. I believe in the coming of the Messiah, and though he tarry, yet will I believe.”

(Christ said, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” The Egyptians put food and clothing in their tombs to be ready for the next life. They, too, were sure they were right.)

For the moment the ceremony came to a halt. The fish was being served. With enormous appetite and relief Eric took up his fork.

That ache in the throat and behind the eyes was what Iris called her “brimming” feeling. It was not so much that the cup of joy would overflow; it was rather that the cup would break from the pressure. How could life sustain so much?

The little boys in their twin suits were staring at Papa in his carved armchair. To a child, Iris thought, remembering how it had been when she was the age of her sons, that tall, dark chair stands like a throne on another level. The voice that issues from the throne is transformed, not Papa’s everyday voice at all. It is kind but serious and, if anyone dares
to interrupt while that voice is speaking, he is immediately, sternly silenced.

She smiled now at her boys, shaping silently with her lips, “Good boys.” They looked awestruck; they looked almost as if they understood what their grandfather had said, although that was impossible. Yet it was true that they would never forget all this.

Eric looked remote except when he was eating. Even then he was only concentrating on the food. She doubted that he even heard what was being said. Suddenly Iris remembered sitting in the kitchen with Maury and Aggie when Eric was born. They were talking about him and one of them said, “Let him be free, he can choose what he wants to be when he grows up.” Iris had made no comment. She had been a schoolgirl; what could she have known? But when they asked her, “What do you think?” she had told them: “A child should know who he is.” And Maury had answered, “A good and decent human being, that’s who. Isn’t that enough? Does a person need a label, like a can of soup?”

They had seen it so simply but she remembered having thought even then that they were wrong. It wasn’t that simple.

Papa was laughing with Mr. Brenner at the other end of the table. Probably it was a joke that he considered risqué. Yes, they were saying something behind their hands and Papa was glancing at the women to make sure they didn’t hear. Papa’s idea of a risqué joke was something that would bore the average boy in junior high today. Papa must be the last of the Victorians. Not the hypocritical Victorians (Iris had read enough about the period to know the subtleties of it), but one of that high-minded breed who lived what they believed and believed what they lived.

That steady optimism, that certainty that anything can be straightened out; what would we all do without it? Only once did it fail him, when Maury died. And even so he managed. I don’t know what we shall do when Papa is
gone. Sometimes I feel that he holds us all in his strong hands.

“Iris, Mrs. Brenner is talking to you,” Mama chided.

“What? Excuse me. I’m daydreaming. It’s all that wine,” she apologized.

“That’s all right,” Mrs. Brenner said. “I only said something about your mother’s new crystal bowl. I love Lalique, don’t you? And your mother says she’s bought one just like it for you.”

“You didn’t tell me,” Iris protested. She didn’t want the bowl. It didn’t fit in their house. Mama persisted in bringing presents of her own taste, which was too fussy and flowery for Iris.

“I forgot to tell you,” Mama said. “I meant to give it to you today.”

Iris caught Theo’s look and his message. He sometimes told her she was sharp with Mama. She supposed she might be when Mama annoyed her, yet she knew she had no right to be. Why was it often so difficult for her and her mother to say the simplest things to each other?

“Thank you, Mama, it’s handsome,” Theo said now. “You’re always too good to us.”

“Yes, thank you, Mama,” Iris said. “It’s beautiful.”

Mama smiled as if it were she who had been given the present.

The wine stirred in Anna’s head, too, along with the rising heat of the room and the spice of carnations. Her thoughts rushed from the strawberries, which weren’t as good as they should have been, to what Joseph was saying about how free we were here in this glorious America, and how we mustn’t forget those places in the world where men were still in chains.

He spoke well. His ideas were organized and clear. A man like him, unread, with so little education! He had been called upon to talk fairly often of late, at the county real estate board, at the Community Chest dinner last month. She was always so proud to see him on the platform, honored
and tall. He really wasn’t tall, but he looked it, and she always felt herself sitting taller as she watched him.

Hard to think he was the man who went to work carrying his painter’s brushes and overalls! Yet he hadn’t changed. He was still plain and direct. He had no airs like some who pretended they’d never been down on the East Side, that they’d never heard of Ludlow Street and couldn’t understand Yiddish.

Of course, he did have a quicker temper than he used to have. He got irritable over trivial things. Yet he was so quick to say he was sorry; one mustn’t forget that. He worked too hard and too long, but try and stop him.

“I have a tiger by the tail,” he said. “I can’t stop.”