Here I Am (48 page)

HOW TO PLAY SADNESS

It doesn't exist, so hide it like a tumor.

HOW TO PLAY FEAR

For a laugh.

HOW TO PLAY CRYING

At my grandfather's funeral, the rabbi told the story of Moses being discovered by Pharaoh's daughter. “Look!” she said after opening the basket. “A crying Hebrew baby.” He asked the kids to try to explain what Pharaoh's daughter said. Benjy suggested that Moses was “crying in Jewish.”

The rabbi asked, “What would it sound like to cry in Jewish?”

Max took a step forward, toward the unfilled grave, and said, “Maybe like laughing?”

I took a step back.

HOW TO PLAY LATE LAUGHTER

Use humor as aggressively as chemo. Laugh until your hair falls out. There is nothing that can't be played for a laugh. When Julia says, “It's just the two of us. Just you and me on the phone,” laugh and say, “And God. And the NSA.”

HOW TO PLAY THE DEATH OF HAIR

No one has any idea how much hair he has—both because our hair can't be fully seen with our eyes (not even with multiple mirrors, believe me) and because our eyes are our own.

Sometimes, when they were still young enough not to question the question—and could be trusted not to mention it to others—I would ask the boys how bald I was. I'd bow to them, adjust my hair to reveal where I thought it was thinning, and ask them to describe me to me.

“Looks normal,” they'd usually say.

“What about here?”

“Pretty much the same as everyone else.”

“But it doesn't seem like there's less right here?”

“Not really.”

“Not really? Or no?”

“No?”

“I'm asking for your help here. Could you give it a real look and then give me a real answer?”

What there was of my hair was a prop, the product of pharmaceutical intervention—the tiny hands of Aaron and Hur clutching my roots from inside my skull. I blamed my balding on genetics, and I blamed it on stress. In that way, it was no different from anything else.

The Propecia worked by suppressing testosterone. One of the well-documented and widely experienced side effects is decreased libido. That's a fact, not an opinion or defense. I wish I could have shared it with Julia. But I couldn't, because I couldn't let her know about the Propecia, because I couldn't admit that I cared how I looked. Better to let her think she couldn't make me hard.

I was taking a bath with Benjy a few months after the kids had started spending time at my house. We were talking about
The Odyssey
, a children's version of which we had recently finished, and how painful it must have been for Odysseus to keep his identity secret after finally making it home, but why it was necessary.

“It's not enough just to get home,” he said. “You have to be able to stay there.”

I said, “You're so right, Benjy.” I always used his name when I was proud of him.

“You actually are kind of bald,” he said.

“What?”

“You're kind of bald.”

“I am?”

“Kind of, yeah.”

“Have you been trying to protect my feelings all this time?”

“I don't know.”

“Where am I bald?”

“I don't know.”

“Touch the parts that are bald.”

I bowed to him, but felt no touch.

“Benjy?” I asked, facing the water.

“You're not bald.”

I lifted my head. “Then why'd you say it?”

“Because I wanted to make you feel good.”

HOW TO PLAY TRUE BALDNESS

We used to go to Great Wall Szechuan House every Christmas, the five of us. We held the kids up to the aquarium until our arms trembled, and ordered every hot appetizer that didn't involve pork. The last such Christmas, my fortune was “You are not a ghost.” When we read them aloud, as was the ritual, I looked at “You are not a ghost” and said, “There is always a way.”

A dozen years later, I lost all my hair in the course of a month. Benjy showed up unexpectedly that Christmas Eve with enough Chinese food for a family of five.

“You got one of everything?” I asked, laughing out my love of the wonderfully ridiculous abundance.

“One of everything treyf,” he said.

“Are you worried that I'm lonely?”

“Are you worried that I'm worried?”

We ate on the sofa, plates on our laps, the coffee table covered with steaming white boxes. Before refilling, Benjy put his empty plate on the crowded table, took my head between his hands, and angled it down. If it had been any less unexpected, I would have found a way out. But once it was happening, I gave myself over: rested my hands on my knees, closed my eyes.

“You don't have enough hands, right?”

“I don't need any.”

“Ah, Benjy.”

“I'm serious,” he said. “Full head of hair.”

“The doctor warned me, however many years ago, that this would happen: as soon as you stop taking the pill, you lose it all at once. I didn't believe him. Or I thought I'd be the exception.”

“How does it feel?”

“Being able to slice bread with an erection?”

“I'm
eating
, Dad.”

“Being able to do push-ups with my hands behind my back?”

“Sorry I expressed interest,” he said, unable to pin the corners of his mouth.

“You know, I needed an egg once.”

“Did you?” he asked, playing along.

“Yeah. I was doing some baking—”

“You often bake.”

“All the time. I'm surprised I'm not baking as I tell this joke. Anyway, I was doing some baking, and found that I was one egg short. Isn't that the worst?”

“There is literally nothing worse.”

“Right?” We were both starting to simmer in anticipation. “So rather than schlep to the store through the snow to buy eleven eggs I didn't want, I thought I'd see if I could borrow one.”

“And that, right there, is why the 1998 National Jewish Book Award hangs in your office.”

“
Yiddishe kop
,” I said, tapping my forehead.

“I wish you were my real dad,” Benjy said, his eyes moistening with suppressed laughter.

“So I opened the window—” I wasn't sure I'd make it to the punch line that was still forming as I approached it. “So I opened the window, wrote, directed, and starred in a five-second fantasy for which there aren't enough
X
s, and my tumescent glans rang the doorbell of the neighbor across the street.”

Almost convulsing with restraint, Benjy asked, “Did she have an egg?”

“He.”

“He!”

“And no, he didn't.”

“What an asshole.”

“And I accidentally blinded him.”

“Injury to the insult.”

“No, wait. Wait. Do it again. Ask me if she had an egg.”

“I have a question.”

“Let me try to answer it.”

“Did she have an egg?”

“Your mom? She did.”

“Wonder of wonders!”

“And I accidentally fertilized it.”

The laughter we'd been containing never came. We sighed, smiled, sat back, and nodded for no reason. Benjy said, “It must be a relief.”

“What must?”

“Finally looking like yourself.”

I looked at “You will travel to many places” and said, “I am not a ghost.”

Benjy was five when we started
Tales from the Odyssey
. I'd read it to Sam and Max, and both times, the further we got in, the slower we read, until we were making it through only a page a night. Benjy and I got all the way through the Cyclops that first bedtime. I had a rare instance of recognizing what was happening as it happened—he was my final child, and this was my final reading of the passage. It would not last. “ ‘Why?' ” I read. “ ‘Why do you break the stillness of the night with your cries?' ” I gave space to each pause, opening the sentences as far as they would go. “ ‘Who harms you?' ‘NO ONE!' Polyphemus shouted, writhing on the floor of his cave. ‘No One tried to kill me! No One blinded me!' ”

HOW TO PLAY NO ONE

I told Julia I didn't want her to go with us to the airport. I would tuck in the children, like any other night, no overly dramatic goodbyes, let them know I'd FaceTime as often as possible and be back in a week or two with a suitcase of tchotchkes. And then I'd leave while they slept.

“You can do it however you want,” she said. “But can I ask you—or can you ask yourself—what it is you're waiting for?”

“What do you mean?”

“Everything is no big deal. You've raised your voice once in your entire life, to tell me I was your enemy.”

“I didn't mean that.”

“I know. But you don't mean the silence, either. If this isn't a big deal—saying goodbye to your children before going to war—what is? What is the big deal you're waiting for?”

My father drove us to MacArthur Airport in Islip, Long Island. I sat in the passenger seat, and Barak moved in and out of sleep against Tamir's chest in the back. Five hours. On the radio, there was coverage of the first day of Operation Arms of Moses. Reporters were stationed at the designated airfields around the world, but as it was still early, most of the reporting was just speculation about how many would heed the call. It was the opposite of the ride we'd made only a few weeks earlier, from Washington National to the house.

What conversations there were in the car were segregated front and back; I could hear little of what passed between Tamir and Barak, and my father, who lacked an indoor voice, found his whisper.

“Gabe Perelman will be there,” he said. “I spoke to Hersch last night. We're going to see a lot of people we know.”

“Probably.”

“Glenn Mechling. Larry Moverman.”

“Mom's OK, right? She was worryingly nonchalant this morning.”

“She's a mother. But she'll be fine.”

“And you?”

“What can I say? The price of speaking unpopular truths. I turned the ringer off on the home phone. And D.C.'s finest put a car on the corner. I told them not to. They insisted, told me it wasn't my choice. It'll pass.”

“Not that. I mean with me going.”

“You read what I wrote. Every part of me wishes you didn't have to go, but I know you do.”

“I can't believe this is happening.”

“That's because you haven't been listening to me for the past twenty years.”

“Longer than that.”

Eyes on the road, he rested his right hand on my thigh and said, “I can't believe it, either.”

We stopped curbside. The airport was closed, save for flights to Israel. There were about two dozen cars unloading men, and no one waving a stumpy lightsaber and saying, “Keep it moving, keep it moving,” but there were two men in army green with machine guns pressed to their chests.

We took our duffels from the trunk and stood by the car.

“Barak's not going to get out?” I asked.

“He's asleep,” Tamir said. “We said goodbye in the car. It's better this way.”

My father put his hand on Tamir's shoulder and told him, “You're brave.”

Tamir said, “This doesn't count as bravery.”

“I loved your father.”

“He loved you.”

My father nodded. He put his other hand on Tamir's other shoulder and said, “Since he's no longer here—” and that was all that was needed. As if the knowledge of what to do at that moment had been coiled into him at birth, Tamir put down his duffel, let his arms rest at his sides, and bowed slightly. My father placed his hands atop Tamir's head and said,
“Y'varech'cha Adonai v'yishm'recha
. May God bless you and guard you.
Ya'ar Adonai panav ay'lecha viy'hunecha
. May God make His face shine upon you and be gracious unto you.
Yisa Adonai panav ay'lecha v'yasaym l'cha shalom
. May God turn His face unto you and grant you peace.”

Tamir thanked my father and told me he'd go for a walk, then meet me inside.

Once it was just the two of us, my father laughed.

“What?”

He said, “You know what Lou Gehrig's final words were, right?”

“ ‘I don't want to die'?”

“ ‘Damn, Lou Gehrig's disease, I should have seen that coming.' ”

“Funny.”

“We should have seen this coming,” he said.

“You did.”

“No, I just said I did.”

Barak rose from his sleep, calmly looked around, and then, perhaps assuming he was in a dream, closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the window.

“You'll go to the house every day, right?”

“Of course,” my father said.

“And take the kids out. Give Julia a break every now and then.”

“Of course, Jacob.”

“Make sure Mom eats.”

“You've traded places.”

“A friend at the
Times
said it's nowhere near as bad as it sounds. Israel is intentionally making the situation appear worse than it is with the hopes of getting more American support. He said they're drawing it out to achieve the most propitious peace.”

“The
Times
is an anti-Semitic pap smear.”

“I'm just saying don't be scared.”

As if the knowledge of what to do at that moment had been coiled into me at birth, I bowed. My father put his hands atop my head. I waited. As if the knowledge of what to do at that moment had been coiled into him at my birth, his palms began to close, taking my hair into the grip of his fingers, holding me in place. I waited for a blessing that would never come.

HOW TO PLAY SILENCE

First ask, “What kind of silence is this?”
EMBARRASSED SILENCE
is not
ASHAMED SILENCE. WORDLESS SILENCE
is not
SPEECHLESS SILENCE
, is not
SILENCE OF SUBTLE WITHHOLDING
. And so on. And on and on.