Hush (16 page)

I didn’t understand. “But how do we know that?”

Devory waved her hand dismissively. “I have to write the book first, and then you’ll know.”

When my mother heard that Devory ran away, she asked me why she had done so, and I told her I didn’t know. I looked at her as she looked at me, her eyes demanding an explanation. I said, “I don’t know why. She just did.”

“That poor mother is going out of her mind,” my mother muttered to Surela. “That girl is driving her crazy.”

My mother had brought back wonderful presents when she came home from Israel. When she placed a beautiful gold necklace with a Star of David pendant around my neck, I was so excited that I quickly promised to behave myself for the rest of my life. That meant of course that I had to be like Surela for at least a month, and that was besides the promise to Hashem at Devory’s house that I needed to keep and keep and keep because one could not break promises to heaven. But after an entire week of jumping out of bed on time and washing the dishes after supper, I was tired. Being good was exhausting and it drained me of all my energy. So that
Shabbos
, with great relief, I returned to my own self-reassuring heaven just for one day, to gather more strength so I could be good again on Sunday. I forgot to add hot water to the coffeepot, I fought with Sruli over chores, I broke a glass, and worst of all, I leaned against the wall and shut off the kitchen light.

My mother stared at me with that expression reserved for times she had all intentions of giving me up for adoption.

“I didn’t do it on purpose!” I cried. “I’ll go get Kathy.”

Kathy was our
Shabbos
goy. On
Shabbos
, the day of Hashem’s rest, it was forbidden to deal with electricity or do anything that resembled the daily grind of work. So anytime we forgot to turn on the air conditioner or the light, Kathy would come down to do it for us.

Kathy enjoyed coming down to help us out, but sometimes she forgot to go back up. My mother would blink nervously and snap her fingers the way she did when she was impatient, while my father listened calmly to Kathy’s long speeches.

“Oh, Shimon,” she began after she turned the light back on, “you wouldn’t believe the miracle that Kootchie Mootchie is. He chased all the mice out of my apartment. Remember those mice I was always complainin’ about? They’d run aroun’ my apartment as if they owned it, and Leo got tired of puttin’ those sticky traps all over. But since Kootchie Mootchie came into my life, the mice stay so far away, they forgot they were ever there at all.”

She stood in front of my father and gestured animatedly. “And you know what I do to keep him fit and in shape? I got
Your Cat
magazine, and it says in there that exercise is very important for cats, or they get lazy. ’Specially if they live in the inner city. So besides taking him out ever’ day for a little walk, every mornin’ Kootchie Mootchie and me, we do exercises together. He’s one lazy cat, and at first he would stare at me like that, and he even tried to scratch me when I pushed him off the couch, but now he just goes right along and he’s really keepin’ fit. It’s a very important exercise. In the magazine it shows all kinds of things you could do, but I just do this.”

And she began to sing and dance, her red curls bouncing, as she demonstrated the entire routine to my
shtreimel
-wearing, blushing father.

“Kootchie Mootchie, up! Kootchie Mootchie, down, now Kootch Kootch Kootch, turn around! Oh, Kootch, oh, Kootch, come on, let’s go! Oh, Kootchie Mootchie, get into the flow!”

Just then the guest, my father’s friend from Israel, walked into the house. My mother thanked Kathy profusely and apologized for the interruption, and I walked her back up to her apartment.

The guest was an important man. I knew that because my mother prepared the kind of dishes she made only when special guests arrived. I didn’t like those fancy dishes. They were spicy and Polish-tasting, as my father proudly described it. But more than the spicy dishes, I certainly didn’t like the presence of a guest because that meant I couldn’t sing
zemiros
with my father. A woman’s voice was forbidden in front of a stranger—it was immodest—and so whenever we had guests only my father and brothers sang. Besides being unable to sing, Surela wasn’t feeling well and was in bed so I had to pitch in with two full hands, or else. I didn’t do a good job, and my father tried to help. He came into the kitchen after the fish course, carrying a tall pile of dirty plates. My mother was fuming.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered angrily. “Get back to the table, sit where you belong, and don’t move from there. What, are you trying to embarrass me? A man helping in the kitchen on
Shabbos
? And why aren’t you singing
zemiros
? What do you think, this is a hotel?”

My father placed the pile in the sink, mumbled an apology, and did not dare move from the head of the table for the rest of the meal.

I was relieved when the meal was over and the guest, who gave a “short” Torah sermon that was longer than my teacher’s and principal’s combined, finally left. We then cleaned up the table and my mother gave each child a bag filled with nosh, which meant that we were to keep quiet while my parents napped for the next two hours.

I did keep quiet for the next two hours. I was waiting for Devory to arrive, but she didn’t come, so I sat on the couch and read the
Bais Yaakov
Times, my favorite book series. Leiby was outside playing, Avrum and Sruli went to a neighbor’s house, and my parents and Surela were sleeping, so only I was in the dining room when the doorbell rang.

I jumped off the couch. Who rang the doorbell on
Shabbos
? It was probably Sruli. He always forgot that it was forbidden to touch the doorbell on
Shabbos
. I ran to the door. There was no one there. I ran to the other door, the one rarely used at our front entrance, and angrily swung it open. And there stood…There stood…There stood…

A priest.

A real, live, white-collared priest.

My mouth dropped open.

“Hello,” he said in a friendly voice. “I am looking for Kathy Prouks.”

My mouth opened wider.

“Hi,” he repeated himself loudly. “I’m Father Frank. Is Kathy Prouks in?”

I closed my mouth. “Um…um…”

He stared at me curiously.

“Um…um…one minute.” And I turned around and ran—and I mean ran—upstairs to tell Kathy that there’s a PRIEST STANDING AT OUR DOOR! He had come to the wrong entrance.

“Oh, good,” she said, clumping down after me, breathing hard. “Kootchie Mootchie stopped breathin’ last night, and I called 911 but they said they weren’t coming for no cat, and I don’t know when he’s gonna suddenly die on me, he’s old already, so I said I would call a priest to say the last rites on him. That should cover his death whenever God wills it to come.”

I ran ahead of her so I could get another good look at the priest. The priest stared at me, laughed, then stuck his hand into his pants pocket and handed me a candy.

I grabbed the candy and stared at it. A candy from a priest. It could only be poison. In the stories, the evil priest always gave poison to the Jewish children who wouldn’t convert. I held up the candy and peered into it suspiciously. It looked good.

“Oh, Father.” Kathy smiled happily at him. “Come on upstairs, this way. This is my landlord’s house.”

And in complete horror I watched as the priest himself, poison candies and all, Walked. Across. Our. Dining. Room. Floor.

What
would I tell my mother?

My mother would kill me. I pushed the candy into my underwear. Then I had an idea. I ran upstairs to the third floor and into the living room, where Kootchie Mootchie was relaxing while the priest talked to Kathy in the kitchen. I scanned the area. All was clear. I hurriedly removed the candy’s wrapping and placed it on the couch in front of Kootchie Mootchie. With one swift flick of his pink tongue the poison candy was gone. I then sat on the couch across from him, folded my legs, and stared at the cat—waiting for him to die.

Forever passed. At least nine minutes. I simply could not believe it. The cat was as alive as ever, staring at me with the same bored expression, twitching his whiskers as if asking for another one. The candy was not poison, and now I wanted it back! I folded my arms across my chest angrily. But the candy, I knew, was long gone, deep inside the soft, overfed Kootchie Mootchie’s stomach.

Life just wasn’t fair. I thought of pushing the cat off the couch and out the window, but I was afraid he would scratch me. So I stuck out my tongue at him and stomped back downstairs, leaving him to the priest and his evil last rites, without saying good-bye.

That night, after
Shabbos
was over, my father, wearing his black
Shabbos
coat and tall
shtreimel
, made
Havdalah
over a flame and a cup of wine.
Havdalah
is the prayer that separates the holy from the mundane, the
Shabbos
from the workweek. My father, his eyes closed, his strong voice pronouncing every word, swayed slowly to the rhythm.

“Oomayn!”
we all answered when he finished.

Nearly every week, after
Havdalah,
my parents and Surela would sit on the couch discussing all sorts of interesting things, such as how Mrs. Yuskavitch could afford to buy a new house, what the
Yushive Rebbe
told my third cousin three weeks ago when he went in for a blessing, and
shidduchim
.

Shidduchim
was an important subject. In fact, it was the single most important subject in the community and was a traditional and passionate part of our weekly family conference.

“You wouldn’t believe what Chavie Goldberg told me before
Shabbos
,” my mother said as she settled down on the couch. “I’m telling you, you have no idea how angry she is with Mrs. Cohen. She told me that that lady thinks just because she is a
shadchanta
for thirty years, she could offer her the most ridiculous
shidduchim
.”

Surela leaned closer to my mother. “Who did she suggest this time?”

My mother shook her head indignantly. “You know the Mandlbaums from Fifty-seventh Street—her sister
davens
in the Fifty-sixth Street
shul
? So Mrs. Cohen thinks that Mrs. Mandlbaum’s daughter would be perfect for Chavie Goldberg’s son! Could you imagine? Chavie was fuming and, boy, did she give it to her. She told me that she told her, ‘Would you take a girl whose grandmother was divorced? I don’t care what kind of girl this is! You have no right to suggest my son for a girl whose grandmother was once divorced!’ ”

My mother pressed the button that released the leg rest and leaned back.

“And she is absolutely right. I mean, if there had been a problem in the family, then I’d understand. Mrs. Teitlebaum made a
shidduch
with—what’s his name,
nebech
, that poor boy who doesn’t have a father—oh, yes, Bloom, because her daughter stuttered. So she figured, the boy is a top one, he’s smart, he’s a top learner, so fine. She didn’t have a choice and she took an orphan. But a prestigious family like the Goldbergs with money and good background
yichus
—good family—why would they ever take a family like that, whose grandmother was once divorced? I just don’t understand that
shadchanta
.”

“Wasn’t Mrs. Cohen the one who suggested that adopted boy to my sister?” my father asked.

“Yes!” my mother exclaimed. “That was her! Only she could go and think that any family would take an adopted boy for a son-in-law!”

“She doesn’t talk with Mrs. Cohen to this day,” my father mused. “And they used to be good friends.”

“Well,” said my mother. “If someone would offer you someone who’s adopted, Hashem forbid, you wouldn’t talk with them either.”

“Hey, Surela,” my father said with a teasing grin. “So are you all ready to get married?”

“Totty!” Surela turned red. “I’m only seventeen.”

“And three-quarters,” my mother retorted. She then laughed. “But all right. We’ll leave you alone until you graduate.”

“Don’t worry,” my father said, ruffling Surie’s hair. “We’ll find you the best catch in all of Borough Park, with the best
yichus
, and a little money won’t hurt either.…”

“But I have to finish seminary even if I’m married.” Surela giggled nervously. “Or I won’t be able to get a teaching job.”

“What about the rest of your class? What are they all doing?” asked my mother.