Hush (21 page)

“From now until the end of Pesach,” she explained to me. “Only to sleep, because my brother is coming home tonight.”

“Yes, yes,” I said happily. “We’ll have so much fun. But how did you get your mother’s permission?”

Devory shrugged. “I’m coming to sleep in your house for the whole Pesach,” she repeated matter-of-factly.

When I told my mother about Devory sleeping by us for Pesach, she said, “Huh? What in the world is the girl talking about? Why would she come sleep by us for Pesach? She has her own home.
Oy
, I feel bad for those parents when it comes time to marry her off.”

But sure enough, at promptly six o’clock, Devory appeared again at our house with a small bag that held her nightgown and toothbrush. She walked upstairs, settled herself down in my room on my bed with a book, and said that I shouldn’t bother her. She wanted to read. I went downstairs to my mother and told her that Devory was sitting on my bed and that she had brought her nightgown and toothbrush, so could she sleep in our house after all?

My mother looked at me strangely and went straight to the phone. She dialed the number, waited, and then rather impatiently said, “You might want to know that your daughter is upstairs in Gittel’s bedroom. She brought her nightgown and informed us that she is sleeping here tonight. Is that all right with you? It doesn’t seem like you know.”

I could hear the exasperation clearly in the faraway voice through the phone. “What? Sometimes that girl is crazy!”

My mother listened for a few moments, said, “Yes, yes, no problem,” and hung up.

She climbed the stairs determinedly, opened the door to my room, and said, “Devory?”

Devory did not even hear her.

“Devory?” My mother moved toward my bed.

She did not look up.

“Your mother said that you should go home right now. I don’t mind if you sleep here, but you need your mother’s permission and she is waiting for you.” Devory shrugged and went back to her book.

My mother looked at her, blinked her eyes in annoyance, and repeated, “Devory, you have to go home now. Your mother is waiting for you. You cannot sleep in this house tonight. I am waiting.”

Devory did not move.

My mother strode over to her, grabbed the book, put it in the little black bag with her nightgown, and handed it to her. “Take this bag,” she said firmly, “and go home now. Your mother is waiting for you.”

Devory stood up, took the bag, and walked out of the room. My mother followed her straight to the bathroom, where Devory quickly slammed the door and locked it from inside. My mother sighed.

“Oy,
Hashem,” she groaned, and she went to the phone again.

A long time passed and I stood by the bathroom door waiting for Devory to come out. I knocked on the door and told her that no one was there anymore except me. Finally she opened the door a crack and her freckled nose and twinkling eyes peeked through. “You wanna play ghosts?” she asked with a mischievous smile.

“No way,” I said. “My mother would kill us.”

Devory came back to my room and we sat down on my bed. “I think my mother called your mother again,” I said.

“I don’t care,” she replied, opening up the book again. “I’m sleeping here tonight.”

“Maybe you could sleep on the dining room couch in your house,” I suggested.

“No,” she said. “My mother doesn’t let me. And anyway, I don’t want to sleep at home at all.”

“Why not?”

“Because.”

“But your brother is only here for two weeks. Then he’s going back to
yeshiva
.”

“No. I’m not going home.”

I did not know what to tell Devory. She was bothering me, lying like that, saying things she knew our parents would refuse. Her stillness scared me. I wanted to tell her something so badly, but I didn’t know what it was. I wanted to shake her hard and then she would scream out loud and everyone would get scared and ask what had happened. But she wasn’t there anymore. Her small, narrow face was burrowed in the book, her blue eyes scanning smoothly over the lines, and she was already in some other world.

I stood up to leave. I had just reached the door to my bedroom when I heard Mr. Goldblatt’s voice downstairs. “Upstairs? I’m so sorry for this bother. I’ll go get her right away.” And his strong footsteps were on the stairs.

I turned to Devory. She jumped off my bed, threw the book on the floor, and stared at me, her face pale and drawn.

“No, I’m not sleeping at home. I’m not sleeping at home.”

Her father had reached the landing when Devory rushed past me and into the bathroom. She slammed the door and locked it. Then there was silence. Her father looked at me and pointed to the closed door.

“Is she in there, Gittel?” he asked.

I nodded.

He walked to the slammed door and knocked sharply.

“Devory?” he said sternly. “It’s Totty. Open the door.”

Silence.

“Devory, open the door immediately. I am very angry with you. Open the door now.”

It took half an hour to get the door open. At seven o’clock, her father pried the door using a knife. Devory screamed when she saw him, and he carried her out of our house kicking and crying that she didn’t want to sleep at home.

My mother was very upset. I could hear her talking to my father on the phone at work about Devory, and when she saw me she demanded that I go to sleep now. I went upstairs and found Devory’s book lying on the floor near my bed. I tried to read it, but I got bored and fell asleep instead.

It was a beautiful sunny day the next morning. I came down to breakfast planning to play with my new purple jump rope outside, but my mother told me that I was cleaning my drawers for Pesach today, and that was all I could do.

Sulking, I left my rope in my bedroom and sat down at the kitchen table for breakfast. I was slurping loudly from a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles when Devory walked into our house. She didn’t even knock, just opened the door and walked in. She didn’t even say hello. I only glimpsed her through the kitchen door, going upstairs, still in her nightgown. My mother barely noticed, being busy on the phone.

“Hello, Devory!” I yelled.

She didn’t answer, and I could see my mother’s annoyance with her nonchalant stroll into our house.

I finished my bowl of Cocoa Pebbles, licking the bottom until it shone. I wanted more, but my mother said no way, she couldn’t believe she was letting me have this junk altogether. She then went back to talking on the phone and motioned for me to wait. She finally finished arguing with my grandmother, and then, still annoyed about something, hurriedly told me to take the basket of laundry downstairs to the basement, put it in the washing machine, and turn it on. Then I should go upstairs and start cleaning. Maybe Devory would help me.

I ran downstairs with the laundry basket, dumped everything into the machine, pressed some buttons, the big one twice, and waited for it to start groaning. I stared at the swirling colors for a while and then ran upstairs to my bedroom, calling Devory’s name. I looked in my room, but it was empty. I looked in my sister’s bedroom, expecting to find her there. She liked to sit near the shelves filled with books and browse through them until she finally found a book that she hadn’t read yet. But she wasn’t in there either.

I walked down the hallway calling her name, but she didn’t answer. I passed the bathroom and knocked on the closed door. When there was no answer, I pushed it open. I noticed the open toilet seat and I was thinking that I had better close it—my mother hated when it was left open—when I saw Devory hanging like a broken rag doll from the curtain rod.

The chipped wooden chair from my sister’s room stood near her small limp body. My purple jump rope was wound tightly around her neck like a snake, and her head fell sideways over her shoulder, twisted, unmoving, the white, white skin stretched over her face like plastic. Her eyes stared straight at me, cold, ice blue, dead eyes with a straight line of dark lifeless red where her mouth used to be.

I screamed. And screamed and screamed and screamed.

Totty came first. I felt him come up from behind me, heard him shout, and collapsed onto him as he grabbed me, pushing my face hard against his chest, crushing out everything else. He ran with me, carried me to my room, where he lay me on my bed, holding my arms tightly, yelling for my mother, “
Hatzalah!
Mommy,
Hatzalah!
Call for emergency help!”

His voice sounded like thunder. I heard my mother’s rushing footsteps, her terrified voice, vaguely, from so far away. She was shrieking now, shrieking, saying words, our address, her name.

My father was holding me tightly so I could not look, could not see, only screamed and screamed until suddenly I could not breathe. Everything was white, and my throat was closed shut, choking so that no air came in, and I thrashed about wildly. I felt my father’s clutching hands shake me. He slapped me hard; I could hear the sound of it but could not feel anything at all. He thumped my back again and again, and then my face was deeply in his hands and I saw him looking at me, heard him say somewhere, “Breathe deeply, breathe deeply, breathe deeply, like that, yes, breathe deeply.…”

I wet my skirt. I could feel the warm water moving down my thighs, my skirt, my legs—and then two
Hatzalah
men were leaning over me and everything went black.

When I opened my eyes I was lying in a small white room on a hospital bed. My father was sitting near me and talking to a lady who didn’t look Jewish. When my father saw that I was awake, he jumped up and called the nurse, who came in immediately and asked me what my name was, how old I was, and what today was, until I whimpered that I didn’t want to answer any more stupid questions. I sat up in the bed, and the nurse brought me orange juice and a doughnut, but I didn’t want them. My father turned on the small television hanging from the ceiling, and while I watched a funny show, he spoke quietly with the lady. When the show was over, and the doctor had poked me all over and said I was just fine, my father told me that the lady wanted to talk with me. He said that she needed to ask me a few questions, and that if I didn’t want to answer I didn’t have to.

The lady standing near my father wore long navy pants and a light blue shirt. She smiled and nodded at me while my father spoke. Her face looked nice, so I kept quiet as she told me that she didn’t want to hurt me or make me cry but it was very important that she know a few things. She then asked me if I was good friends with Devory. And then I remembered and could only nod my head.

She told me quietly that she knew Devory wanted to sleep in my house very badly and maybe I knew why. I felt a little dizzy and leaned on my father’s chest. I didn’t want to answer but I wanted her to leave, so I said, “Because she didn’t want to sleep with her brother.”

“Why didn’t she want to sleep with her brother?”

“Because he came into her bed and she just didn’t want to sleep with him.”

“Is this the first time she told you that she didn’t want to sleep with her brother in the same room?”

“No, she never wanted to. She also ran away the last time when her brother was sleeping in her room.”

“Did she tell you that her brother came into her bed? How do you know about this?”

“I don’t know, she just didn’t want to sleep with her brother,” I whined. There was silence for a few seconds. I buried my face in my father’s chest. “Totty, tell the lady to go away.” I sobbed softly.

My father stroked my hair and spoke quietly to the lady, and they decided to continue “a different time.”

When I arrived home that night the house was hushed. Everyone tiptoed around my bedroom, and even Surela’s usual babble on the phone couldn’t be heard. I was put straight to bed, and my mother brought up a small tray with a big cup of sweet hot chocolate milk and my favorite cheesecake. My father sat near me while I nibbled and read me two chapters of the
Bais Yaakov
Times book until I fell asleep. I woke up sometime later in the dark of my room and I was scared. I plugged in the little night-light near my bed and was staring at the full yellow moon through the open window shade when I heard my mother crying from her bedroom. At first it sounded like a mumble of confused voices, but then my mother’s voice rose.

“My daughter will not be involved in this!”

“
Shah
, quiet.”

“My daughter will not be involved in this, you hear? Enough! Everyone will know! No one will come near us in
shidduchim
. Our lives will be ruined!”

I could hear my father’s low voice trying, persuading, and then lagging. “I am obviously not going to advertise in the
New York Times
.”

“Do you realize what you are saying? They’ve been our neighbors forever! They are an important family,
chashuva
descendants of the
Rebbe
! No one will believe it anyway.… Yes, I spoke with
Reb
Speigel. He said that you’re just assuming things, you have no idea what really happened! The child was always a bit strange.… He said we should do everything to help them now. It’s too late.”