Everyday Jews: Scenes From a Vanished Life (16 page)

Yoyne stood there, small and skinny, his Adam’s apple bobbing, as though he were swallowing something. Ite’s full mouth was agape. Yoyne made a scraping motion with his foot, the kind they might make in the big city. He rocked his small figure on a pair of higher-than-usual heels. Ite’s little double chin acknowledged the gesture and, drawing in her heavy bosom, she extended her work-coarsened hand to Yoyne.

They were introduced to each other—Father’s youngest daughter and Mother’s youngest son.

If Ite brought with her from Warsaw a vision of groaning sideboards and of the carefree behavior of the well-to-do, then Yoyne, arriving from Lodz, came with a look of poverty hidden in his small, darting eyes, as well as a fine sprinkling of dark, greenish dust on his face, residue from the velvet sofas that were his livelihood. While Ite stood with flushed face presiding over the pots of the rich, Yoyne had to bow and scrape before would-be customers, flatter them, talk them into making a purchase, and cheat them to boot.

That must have been the reason why Yoyne was so thin, so restless in his movements. When he spoke, however, it seemed as though half his mouth was closed. He actually talked slowly, with pursed lips, in a singsong drone. Occasionally, he would throw in some flowery Polish phrases, even saying to Mother, “
Proze, łaskawa pani
… If you please, honored lady.”

You could tell that Yoyne was from the big city. His walking stick was supple, his hat tilted jauntily to one side, his shirt was tucked in at the waist. He didn’t so much walk as prance, with a skip and a hop, a hop and a skip.

Ite, who was scraping a large, gnarled parsnip, watched Yoyne out of the corner of her eye. She jiggled her tiny double chin coquettishly and smiled. When Yoyne was out of earshot, she remarked in an aside, “That Yoyne, he’s certainly well turned out.”

Mother’s face broke into a broad smile. She gave a little snort and nodded her head to convey her pride.

“He is handsome, isn’t he,” she said, “like gold, hah, Ite?”

“I should have it so good!” said Ite, as she chopped the parsnip into four long pieces and dropped them into the holiday pot of water.

Thanks to Yoyne, our household acquired another bed, an iron one, that Mother borrowed from a neighbor and that Ite dragged into the house. It was set down in the very spot where Hodl’s trunk once stood. I was told that from now on I was to share this bed with Yoyne.

Ite covered the bed with a blanket that she had stitched herself. She straightened the corners and, with her big hands, smoothed out every crease and wrinkle. She then stepped back to admire her handiwork and was pleased with what she saw.

“The Tsar could sleep in such a bed!” she said with a tone of satisfaction.

Indeed, it was a bed fit for a king.

This new orderliness settled not only on Yoyne’s bed, but also came to rest on Father’s and Mother’s beds, as well as on the entire house. Never, not in any of our previous dwellings, had there been such clear windowpanes, such white curtains covering the little cabinet that held our dishes. By the time night fell and the hour had come to sit down for the seder, the house was scarcely recognizable, not the meager furnishings, nor the people.

In honor of the holiday, Mother took down an old wig and gave it new life, fashioning a black forelock that resembled a bird. Her blue, wide-open eyes sparkled like blue diamonds specially polished for the occasion. The soft, rich lady’s double chin which she had brought back from Warsaw, and which had consequently shrunk, was now, for the seder night, restored to its former amplitude. The black silk blouse with the white piping on the sleeves, the jabot under her throat, the knotted, gilded brooch—all added to Mother’s charm and beauty.

On Father, the holiday was not so apparent. He couldn’t afford to have a new cloth
kapote
made and so he wore his old, shabby garment, which Ite had spruced up and pressed. However, in honor of the holiday, he did allow his beard to be trimmed. Still, his face looked tired and weather-beaten. His heavy gaze rested now on his daughter, now on Mother’s son. He looked me over, from head to toe, and sighed deeply.

I sensed that Father felt bad over the fact that he hadn’t bought me anything new to wear for Passover. He was also uneasy about his new
kitl
, the white linen robe worn on festivals, which he pulled over his old
kapote
.

This new
kitl
, with its blue silk collar and striped sleeves, was a present from Ite. Father knew how poor his children were, that they worked hard for their money in the employ of strangers. So why did they feel they had to bring gifts? He could have bought a
kitl
himself. But Ite’s smile, when she looked at him, robed in the new
kitl
, removed any doubts.

“Wear it in good health, Father,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.

Ite herself literally glowed that seder night. Her face was red, her ears were red, as were her hands, which she hid in her lap under the table. Had her blouse too not been red but, say, black, her hands would have shot out like two flames. Her black hair was washed clean, brushed and curled, glinting with blue shadows. She smelled good, and when she walked there was a rustling sound, probably from the silk petticoat she was wearing. And why shouldn’t she indulge herself? Indeed, she had brought with her from Warsaw a suitcase bulging with clothes.

There was Yoyne, sitting at the table with the others. Ite kept brushing past him, trying to catch his eye. Yoyne, for his part, had come to the seder not dressed for the holiday, his hair not properly combed. Thin and small, his Adam’s apple bobbing, with dark hollows in his cheeks, wearing a threadbare shirt, Yoyne sat himself down, and so he remained.

Father was reciting from the Haggadah, recounting the story of the Exodus from Egypt, in a loud voice. I was reading along, even louder.

Yoyne just grunted, stiffly turning the pages with one finger.

“Yoyne!” Mother called out, “You’re grunting into the Haggadah like that bear!”

“What bear?”

Mother then launched into a tale about a certain Jew who tried to teach a bear to pray, so he took a prayer book and put poppy-seed cookies between the pages. Wherever there was a cookie, the bear snatched it up and gulped it down. Where there was no cookie, the bear grunted. And that’s how the bear learned to pray.

Yoyne’s Adam’s apple shook with his laughter. Father didn’t seem to have heard anything, and I knew the tale about the bear from way back. Ite smiled broadly and looked at Yoyne from the opposite side of the table. She was the only one present who was unable to recite with the company. She merely moved her lips, like a fish gasping for air.

Mother, too, kept pace with the reading, and how she regaled us! Sharp and clear, with rounded tones, Mother enunciated every word, chanting in Grandpa’s distinctive intonation but adding expressive sighs of her own. The words poured from her mouth like beautiful, warmed pearls. She kept pace with Father, word for word.

From previous seders I knew that we were approaching that point in the text when Father would begin to rock back and forth and raise his voice even louder and that, just then, Mother would interrupt with a stern admonition, “No!”

Every year I waited with trepidation for this moment to pass quickly, to get the matter over with so that we could continue with the orderly reading. But year after year the same thing occurred. Father forgot about the year before, and Mother couldn’t restrain herself.

Now Father began his rocking. The blue collar of his
kitl
gleamed. The glasses of red wine shone with the silvery reflections of the lighted candles. Father’s voice rose in volume as he began to enumerate the Ten Plagues and proceeded to the ancient Rabbis’ elaborations on the afflictions. He launched into the recital, mistakenly exchanging the words
maka
—“plague”—and
kama
—“how much,” with their similar sounds.

Mother immediately jumped in. “No, Leyzer! That’s not what it says!”

Father’s rocking came to a sudden stop, like a turbulence that has spent its force. He looked up at his wife’s pointing finger with his hard-of-hearing stare, and mumbled softly, “Yes, yes, you’re right.”

All was quiet for a moment, dead silence. Then Father resumed the reading, faster and louder than before. But soon there was another hurdle to be cleared, a recurrence of the same troublesome words. Once again Father stumbled and once again Mother corrected him.

“Oy, oy, Leyzer! Can’t you see what’s written there?”

I couldn’t bear to look Mother in the face. Had I been older, Yoyne’s age, I would have told her that she shouldn’t be pointing fingers, that she should just let it be, that Father knew full well what’s written in the Haggadah, and that it was merely a lapse, of no importance whatsoever.

Yoyne had been quiet. However, when Mother had voiced her reproof of Father, his hollow cheeks filled out and he gave a little grin with one side of his face. That’s when I saw in Yoyne’s mouth no more than a single tooth, a gold tooth, big and prominent. All his other teeth seemed to have disappeared, leaving only that lone gold tooth.

I can’t say for certain, but that may have been the precise moment when I began to dislike my brother Yoyne, when I caught sight of his gold tooth just as Father was stumbling over
maka
and
kama
. I thought to myself that Yoyne’s sin, smirking at Father’s innocent mistake, was greater than my own sin of not having burned the
khomets
that morning.

I wasn’t the only one who didn’t like Yoyne. It seemed that Ite, too, had developed a distaste for him. I could see her large, black pupils flitting restlessly from Father to Mother and back again, making a longer stop at Yoyne’s gold tooth, and finally coming to rest on my face. I felt Ite’s hot cheek next to mine, indeed the warmth of her entire body.

“Mendlshi,” she bent over my Haggadah, “where are they up to now? Show me where.”

I pointed to the passage where Father had stumbled. She looked at it intently. Somehow I sensed that, at that moment, Yoyne had just made another enemy.

Ite remained silent throughout the meal. She helped with the food, serving Yoyne last. No one had the slightest inkling as to why she behaved as she did. Only I was privy to the secrets of her heart. Wasn’t Ite my sister? From the same father!

My dislike of Yoyne lasted throughout the whole week of Passover. However, Ite, it turned out, was unable to sustain her distaste.

The two seder nights were concluded. Yoyne now put on a new suit and a new tie, a tiny one, like a butterfly. In the daytime, he spoke up more loudly than he did at night, whistled little tunes, and pranced about with a skip and a hop.

“Do you know how to dance?” he once asked Ite, showing off his lone gold tooth.

“Why shouldn’t I?” Ite smiled down into her double chin.

“Well, let’s see what you know.” Yoyne held out his hand to her.

Ite said nothing, and Yoyne asked no more questions. Silently, lips pursed, he put his arms, bent at the elbow, around Ite’s ample waist. He twirled her around the room several times, whistling all the while to set the beat, and, although Ite carried a few extra pounds on her, Yoyne nevertheless said that when she danced, she was light as a feather.

“That’s what everyone says,” Ite replied.

She pulled down her blouse, which had crept up in the course of the twirling. Now it was Yoyne’s turn to smile. This time he did so, not only displaying the lone gold tooth but an entire mouthful of teeth, and bringing into play, as well, the two round hollows of his sunken cheeks.

Yoyne’s broad smile seemed to please Ite. She must have forgotten what had happened at the seder. He began holding regular conversations with her. He borrowed her scented soap. Mealtimes, Ite served him larger portions.

These were the intermediate days of the week-long festival, between the first two and last two synagogue-going days of the holiday, when some of the stricter rules that governed festival conduct were relaxed. It was a time when one hired buggies and drove into the nearby woods. It was also a time when interested parties would come from near and far to inspect prospective brides. It was a season for the drawing up of betrothal contracts …

It so happened that on one of these intermediate days, Ite dressed up in a starched dress printed with flowers, perfumed herself with the scented soap, pulled on a pair of soft chamois gloves over her work-coarsened hands, and set out. She told no one where she was going and returned only late that night.

She came into the house a little too hurriedly, tore off her dress, and threw the gloves onto her bed. She didn’t take anything to eat, but immediately set about washing the dishes that had piled up during the day.

When Mother asked her where she had been all day, she said she had been visiting Aunt Naomi. There was nothing unusual about that. Aunt Naomi was Father’s full sister. Why shouldn’t Ite have gone to pay her respects? But it was all a bit puzzling. Why was Ite’s face so flushed? Why did she keep walking so restlessly about the kitchen? Why did she answer Mother’s questions with such curt replies?

Yoyne returned even later, some time past midnight. The lamp in the kitchen had been extinguished long ago. How Yoyne was able to get into the house was a mystery, since Ite always locked the door before she turned in. This time, did she leave the door unlocked?

I lay on the iron bed, waiting for my brother Yoyne to join me. Mother was sitting on her own bed, half-undressed, sleepily reciting the bedtime prayer. Father was asleep in the next bed, and the sound of his heavy breathing rose to the ceiling.

It was at that moment that Yoyne came prancing in, somewhat furtively, his collar turned up. Mother immediately sensed his presence. She was now fully awake.

“Yoyne?” she asked in a loud voice. “Is that you?”

“Yes, Mother, it’s me.”

“Where are you coming from so late?”

“From Aunt Miriam’s.”

“Have you eaten anything?”

“Yes, Mother.”

Mother’s head drooped sideways again. The house lay half in dim light, half in shadow. A round patch of shadow, like an upturned bowl, spread over Yoyne’s head.