Everyday Jews: Scenes From a Vanished Life (15 page)

There was no further response from Hodl. Hurling that stone seemed to have calmed her down.

The house grew quiet, too. Mother’s hands, however, never stopped trembling all day long. She dipped them in cold water and applied grated horseradish to her forehead. She said nothing to Father about the matter when he returned home at night and noticed the empty space where Hodl’s bed and trunk had stood. He broke into a smile.

“Moved out, did she, that witch?”

“Yes, she moved out.”

“Good riddance!”

For several days afterward the kitchen seemed empty. If someone spoke up, the sound bounced oddly off the walls. Something was missing, but better that, I thought, than having to look at Hodl’s fat face.

Nobody new would be lodging in our kitchen during the week of Passover. Father was pleased. Where was it written that you had to have a stranger sleeping in your kitchen? Mother, on the other hand, didn’t look too happy. In the aftermath of Hodl’s assault, she went about her business, but with the pack of grated horseradish constantly pressed to her forehead. She sighed quietly and said that before the holiday came, she would, God willing, see a doctor. But she never did, she must have forgotten.

And then, just in time for the holiday, who should show up but unexpected guests, close relatives as it happened, and welcome ones, too.

In the same corner where Hodl’s iron bedstead had stood, another, similar one, now took its place, but unlike Hodl’s rumpled cot, this bed was freshly made up, with new clean linen.

This all came about with the arrival of Ite, Father’s youngest daughter from his first wife, may she rest in peace. Ite had come straight from Warsaw. She was swarthy, full-bosomed, with a pair of sparkling eyes, a short, thickset figure, and broad hips. Her hands were cracked, so work-roughened that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t pull on the chamois gloves she had brought with her from Warsaw.

In Warsaw, this youngest daughter of Father’s spent the winter months in wealthy, well-appointed kitchens with polished, brass fittings. There she cooked and baked, in white enamel pots and copper pans, for big-bellied Jews wearing silk skullcaps and for their refined, big-breasted wives. In Warsaw, so Ite maintained, there were only “Sirs” and “Madams.” From time to time, one might come across a “lady” or a “gentleman.” But apart from these, there seemed to be no other people living in Warsaw. In Warsaw, too, Ite slept in a kitchen, but a large and spacious one. Water came from a tap fixed to the wall and there was even a toilet in the room. Ite didn’t light kerosene lamps, but a greenish-blue flame called “gas.”

I couldn’t understand how lamps could burn without kerosene, so Ite explained to me that there was a factory in Warsaw where they burned coal, thousands of loads of coal. This coal gave off a kind of vapor that then flowed through underground pipes into all the houses, and was then lit. Mother said that Ite wasn’t making this up, because Aunt Gitl-Hodes had the same “gas” in her house. Nevertheless, none of this made any sense to me, and Father said that there must be another reason.

“It just isn’t possible that from coal burning in a factory you could pipe lighting into all the houses,” he said.

From cooking and baking in her fancy kitchen, Ite was able to open a savings account at a bank. In Warsaw, so she told Mother, she always wore pressed blouses with white, embroidered edges. And every Saturday night she went to the Yiddish theater, where she saw such plays as Baba Yaga, about an old witch,
Treyfnyak
, whose hero breaks the dietary laws, and other uplifting fare.

Ite had now been away in Warsaw for many a winter and summer, though she had always meant to come home to Father on holidays, to see how things were going, as well as to have some pleasure. In Warsaw, she said, she was as lonely as a stone. She missed Father, Aunt Frimet, and even me, whom she hadn’t seen in a long time. Indeed, she looked at me with her large, warm eyes and her face broke into a smile.

“My, how you’ve grown!” she said. “I would hardly have recognized you. Look, I’ve brought you a penknife, a little prayer book, and a pair of phylacteries, real Warsaw phylacteries. Use them in good health, when you become bar mitzvah.”

That’s what my sister Ite said to me. And the next day, seeing how much there was still to do, she set to work, helping Mother ready the house for Passover.

She stood at the open window, looking as wide as a door. Her arms bared to her elbows, her clothes somewhat disheveled, she moved back and forth, polishing the glass with wet chalk. She worked with a fierce concentration. The narrow courtyard, still reeking of pigs, rang out with the sound of a Jewish melody, a song that Ite had brought back with her from Warsaw:

I loved a lad who came from Vienna,

I loved a lad who came from Vienna.

He went back to his folks, to see how they were,

He went back to his folks, to see how they were.

From the middle of the room, Mother turned her grimy face to Ite.

“Hey, Ite,” she said, “is it good living in Warsaw?”

“It’s as good as it can be,” Ite replied, as she continued scrubbing the window, “but if you have nobody in Warsaw, you get lonesome.”

“Who is there here you get lonesome for?”

“What do you mean who? There’s …”

She never finished her thought. She reached over to the far corner of the window, leaving one foot hanging in the air, and began to sing anew:

He went back to his folks, to see how they were.

Could that have been the reason why Ite herself had come home, to see how her folks were doing? But whom did she have here apart from her Father? Mother could hardly be considered a proper aunt. Yet Ite, polishing the window or scrubbing the floor, kept on singing about the lad who went home to Vienna.

Sometimes she would stop in the middle of a verse, absorbed in thought. The lad from Vienna was left standing on a streaked windowpane or on the half-washed floor. It was then, while Mother was busy in the kitchen, that Ite asked me if I knew how to write in Yiddish and would I be willing to write a letter for her to someone in Warsaw.

“Yes, I know how,” I answered. “If you dictate the letter to me, I can write it down.”

But right away Ite seemed to have forgotten all about it, and even stopped singing that song about the lad who went home to Vienna.

It was the morning of Passover eve. Two pigeons had settled on the opposite roof, one white, its breast puffed up with self-importance, the other blue, with golden eyes. The blue pigeon cooed angrily, the white one strutted about.

Ite stood in the room, her red legs wide apart, stirring the contents of the round water barrel, into which Mother had earlier dropped a large, heated rock, over which she then poured a pail full of boiling water. The barrel held all our silverware, which was being cleansed and made fit for Passover use.

The boiling water, when it hit the scorching stone, sent a cloud of steam straight into Ite’s sweating face. She gasped, wiped the corners of her mouth, and for a moment stopped stirring. She looked up at the pigeons, smiled at them with her full lips, and, pointing at them, said, “The blue one is the ‘he,’ the white one the ‘she.’ He’s calling her ‘my love,’ and she ignores him.”

“Ite,” Mother pulled a face. “The barrel will burn! Don’t you have anything better to talk about?”

Ite blushed. Her features dropped, she looked flustered. Her face even more flushed, she began to shove the steaming stone around the bottom of the barrel with greater concentration.

I had no time for dillydallying, not even for a quick look at the pigeons on the roof. After all, it was Passover eve and I had my duties. All night long, a wooden spoon had lain on the tin eave over the kitchen window, holding the crumbs of leavened bread, the
khomets
, which Father had swept up with a goose feather from all the corners of the house. It was my job to take the spoon, now wrapped in a cloth and looking like a battered house-slipper, to the synagogue, where it would be symbolically burned. I had only to get back in time to partake of the last leavened meal before the breadless week of Passover would begin.

I never liked this whole business of the
khomets
-burning. It was always embarrassing, maybe because of the wretched spoon, or maybe because I just didn’t want to leave the freshly cleaned, holiday-ready house. In short, my khomets chore brought me nothing but anguish and pain.

I, therefore, never took the spoon to the synagogue. Instead, I ran through side alleys to the central market, flanked on one side by the town hall, with its large clock, and on the other, by the Polish castle, with its old-fashioned arched windows. In the middle of the market was a tiny park with sparse patches of grass. People would toss their plum pits there, and maidservants, discarded pots and pans. A lost dog might sometimes spend the night there. So, who would care if my wooden spoon also found a resting place in this spot? To tell the truth, I didn’t do this with a light heart. I felt that I shouldn’t be doing this, that I was committing a sin. Nevertheless, I didn’t take the
khomets
to the synagogue to be burned.

This Passover eve, I arrived at my destination rather early. There was a blue light everywhere, tinting everything with its cool hue, from the clock on the town hall to the old-style French windows of the castle. A peasant loomed into view, driving a cartload of hay, also tinged blue, into the market.

I looked around in all directions. A guard was standing in front of the town hall. Surely he must be aware of what I was up to. But why should he care? After all, I wasn’t planning to rob anyone. But what about those Jews and their wives who were hurrying past every now and then, what would they think?

Just then, pasty-faced Berl, with his foolish yellow beard, happened by and looked me straight in the eye. With a pounding heart, I waited for him to pass, for the guard to turn blind, just for a moment, for the peasant with his cartload of hay to disappear into the distance. Once everybody was finally out of sight, I pulled out the spoon from my sleeve, turned around, inclined my face toward the town hall, as if looking up at the clock, and then quickly tossed the spoon over my shoulder, across the spiked iron fence of the park.

I didn’t run off, but instead walked away slowly and stiffly, as if I’d just swallowed that very same spoon. I had no doubt that at any moment someone would grab me by the collar and say, “Hey there, you, stop! Whose kid are you? And what did you just throw away?”

But God is merciful, and so far nobody had ever caught me red-handed. My only worry all Passover-week was that, because of my failure to carry out the injunction to burn the
khomets
, our house wasn’t properly rid of leaven and therefore unfit for Passover. I said nothing, but it kept nagging away at me, and I decided that, God willing, next year I would definitely make sure that the
khomets
was burned as prescribed. But the following year, for all my good intentions, my resolve was forgotten.

I hurried home. Who knew if I’d still be on time for the last pre-Passover meal? Mother would grumble that I couldn’t be relied upon to do anything. And if Father happened to be at home, he’d lay a heavy hand on my shoulder and ask in a severe tone of voice, “Where have you been all this time, you rascal?”

Then, just as I got to our house, still racking my brains as to what excuse I would give Father, I saw, standing before me, a young man with a bluish, clean-shaven face, carrying a small, unlocked suitcase. He was looking around at all the houses, like a stranger.

“Hey, kid, can you tell me where Frimet’s house is, Dovid-Froyke’s daughter?”

“What do you need her for?” I asked, sizing him up from head to foot.

“It’s none of your business what I need her for!”

“It
is
my business,” I said. “Frimet, Dovid-Froyke’s daughter, happens to be my mother.”

“If that’s the case,” the young man smiled, “then I’m your brother.”

He must be crazy.

“What do you mean, you’re my brother?”

“Yes, your brother, Yoyne from Lodz. You never heard of me?”

“Are you joking? Who says I never heard of you! Your picture’s on our dresser! I just didn’t recognize you.”

“Mameshi!” I burst through the door, paying no heed to Yoyne calling me back. “Mameshi! Yoyne from Lodz is here!”

Mother was outside in the courtyard. She was momentarily taken aback and turned red in the face, probably thinking I’d lost my mind. But she recovered instantly, wiped her hands on a towel, quickly pulled off the apron she always wore tucked into her waist, and with outstretched arms rushed out into the street.

“Yoyne, my crown! My child! I wasn’t expecting you at all … Dear God … just look … what a wonderful guest!”

She took her dear Yoyne’s face into both her hands. She wiped her nose, spun herself around, and looked around the courtyard to see if there was anyone there to witness her joy. After all, it was Yoyne, her youngest son by her first husband!

Yoyne was short and thin, with an Adam’s apple that bobbed up and down like a live mouse. His cheeks were deep hollows.

“Yoyneshi,” Mother’s voice broke, “you don’t look too well.”

“I’m working hard, Mother.”

“Are they, at least, treating you well? Are they satisfied with you?”

“Why shouldn’t they be?”

Mother wiped her eyes on her apron. Yoyne put down his suitcase. Only now could one see the cuffs on his shirt peeking out from the short sleeves of his jacket. His shoes were highly polished and his necktie very smart, with silver stripes and a mother-of-pearl pin stuck into it.

But where had Ite disappeared to?

“Ite! Where are you?” Mother called out shrilly.

Ite came down from the porch, from all those little cubicles up there, her clothing loosened, her arms covered, her hair tied back. Her face was flushed and she smiled awkwardly. Only her eyes blinked warmly, openly.

“Welcome to your guest, Auntie!” Ite showed two rows of white teeth.

“Thank you very much. It’s my Yoyne. Don’t you know him?”

“Where should I know him from?” Ite said to Mother, casting a sideways glance in Yoyne’s direction.