Under a Red Sky (23 page)

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Authors: Haya Leah Molnar

BOOK: Under a Red Sky
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“Show me which costume you'd like, Eva,” Mimi says, opening the Native Costumes of the World book on her coffee table.
I am about to sit down when she yells, “Don't! You'll get makeup all over my white couch.”
Mama takes me into Mimi's bathroom, where I shower and watch the colors run off my face and body. When I get back into my clothes, we rejoin Aunt Puica and Mimi, who are huddled over the costume book.
“Let's give Eva a chance to look at some costumes by herself,” Mama suggests, to which they both quickly reply, “Of course.”
There are costumes from the various regions of France, Romania, Russia, Germany, Italy, and many other countries, but they don't interest me. I keep looking for a Jewish one, but I can't find any listed. Then a picture of a man wearing a magnificent crown of feathers catches my eye. I point. “What's that?”
“That's an American Indian chief!” Mimi is thrilled. “See, it says here, ‘Navajo chief headdress.'”
“I love that,” I say.
“Where on earth are we going to find all those feathers for the headdress?” Aunt Puica asks.
Grandpa Yosef makes a special trip to the farmers' market at dawn and enlists Ion's help. “Anything for Miss Eva,” Ion tells Grandpa, and shows up the next day with close to fifty turkey feathers from the farm. He even brings some duck feathers and one eagle feather. Mimi picks the best ones and dips several of their tips in red oil paint, leaving the bases either brown or white, but she does not touch the eagle feather. “I'm using that one for the center of the headdress,” she says.
Mama makes leggings from a light beige felt that looks like suede, and Aunt Puica decorates them with fringe and beads. Mama then sews a light blue silk tunic and embroiders its collar with blue and white triangles. Aunt Puica finds several strings of tiny multicolored beads in Mimi's treasure chest and makes rosettes that she sews into the headdress and down my tunic arms for decoration. The three of them continue to consult Mimi's book for reference, but the costume is really their unique creation.
The day before Purim, we get together for a final fitting at Mimi's house. I stand in front of the mirror in full Native American regalia, with the three women oohing and aahing at their creation.
“Stop smiling for a second so that I can paint your face properly,” Mama says, adding several bold strokes of color to my cheekbones. I stand still and watch the American Indian chief in the mirror make a face at me. He looks ready for anything, even a Jewish girl's first Purimspiel.
UNCLE MAX AND I
are ready, but we cannot go out on the street in our Purim costumes. “Don't worry,” Uncle Max, says adjusting his blond wig. “My sister Tirtza will be sending a car for us.”
“I didn't know you had a sister, Uncle Max,” I tell him, touching the pink tulle of his tutu.
“There are a lot of things about me that you don't know,” he answers. “Tell me if my mascara is running.” He bats his eyes at me, and I crack up. “Eva, you're laughing at me, and it's premature,” Uncle Max says, taking my hand. “Save it for the Purimspiel.”
 
MY HANDS ARE CLAMMY as we enter Tirtza's apartment. There's so much noise that I wonder if Aunt Puica was right about my staying home. I don't know anyone here, but they're all laughing and talking at the same time. The lights in the rooms are dim, silhouetting the guests against the dying sun from the terrace.
“Oh my God, look who's here,” a woman screeches, flapping her ears in Uncle Max's face and planting a kiss that leaves lipstick
marks on his cheek. She is dressed as a white bunny rabbit. “It's Max as a pink ballerina!”
Heads turn. Everyone approaches until we are surrounded by masked people. Seeing that he has an audience, Uncle Max opens his makeup bag with a flourish.
“Ladies and gentlemen, mademoiselles and messieurs, comrades and esteemed members of the Proletariat, you are about to witness an act of ingenuity that will demonstrate how our revered Party courageously strikes a delicate economic balance.” The crowd quiets down. Uncle Max retrieves the ball of string from his bag as if he is pulling a rabbit out of a hat and holds it up for everyone to see.
“Voilà, my tightrope,” he continues as people chuckle in anticipation. “Not since Houdini came to Bucharest has anyone witnessed a feat like this.” He lays the string on the parquet floor, sits next to it, and slips on his toe shoes. Then he gracefully crisscrosses the pink satin laces up his thick calf muscles. “Madame,” he asks Miss Bunny Rabbit, “would you be kind enough to give me a hand? I am a little unsteady on my toes.” Everyone roars as he gets up and brushes off his tutu. Uncle Max tucks in his belly and turns to introduce me. “My lovely assistant here, Chief Eva of the American Bird Feathers, will stand on one end in order to ensure that I will not fall as I walk on the Party's budgetary tightrope.”
I stand on the end of the string just as he asks, but Miss Bunny Rabbit won't let go of my arm. “Isn't Max hilarious?” she gushes. “And you look like a turkey has just spread its tail on top of your head. What a marvelous costume!”
“I am a Native American Navajo chief,” I inform her politely.
“Oh.” She laughs. “Are you an American turkey?” She pinches both of my cheeks. I pull my face away without losing my footing. “You're smudging my paint,” I tell her.
“Max, your niece is adorable! I'm so glad you brought her.” Miss Bunny Rabbit's breath reeks of vi
inat
—homemade Romanian cherry liqueur.
“Kiki, my little bunny rabbit,” Uncle Max teases, “stop torturing the Child. You're breaking my concentration. Tirtza, let the music begin!” Uncle Max's sister hurries to a turntable and places the needle on the record. The voices of a Russian choir singing the Internationale fill the room as Uncle Max demurely puts one toe in front of the other and dances across the tightrope on the floor. As he makes his way past someone he recognizes, he stops to curtsy. When he reaches the other side of the room, he does a headstand to the crowd's thunderous applause. With his legs in the air and his tutu hanging upside down, he quickly lifts his right hand off the floor and scratches his rear end. I am so embarrassed, I wish I had stayed home. Everyone's applause is drowned out by laughter.
The rest of the night is a whirlwind of people laughing, talking, eating mititei, and drinking beer,
uic
, and vi
inat
. A man dressed as a clown reads the Megillah in Hebrew, which no one seems to understand. We are given glasses and spoons and told to make as much noise as possible every time he utters Haman's name. The chanter lets us know when to make noise by shaking his head and ringing the bells on his clown hat.
Uncle Max circulates through the apartment. I lose track of him but eventually find him in the bedroom engaged in heated conversation with a heavy man who is sprawled on Tirtza's bed.
“I heard that the Securitate is beginning to visit houses about two to three months before issuing exit visas,” Uncle Max says. The man slides his mask on top of his bald, sweaty head.
“Yes, I heard that too.” The man nods. “But why?”
“Why?” Uncle Max echoes.
“I can't figure it out,” Mr. Sweathead answers.
“You can always speculate that they want something. The Securitate always wants something,” Uncle Max tells him.
“Like what? The skin off our backs?”
“That too. But maybe they'll start with our homes,” Uncle Max murmurs.
“Our homes?”
“Yeah, our homes. We can't sell them, and we can't transport them on our backs to the West.”
Mr. Sweathead whistles softly. “You're a genius, Max. If what you're saying is true, they'll start with those of us who have the largest apartments so they can get their grubby hands on them.”
Max nods in silence.
“And if you don't happen to have a two-bedroom apartment with a terrace—”
Uncle Max finishes the man's thought. “Let's just say you will enjoy Bucharest's ambience a little longer.”
“Ce porc
rie—what a disgusting mess!” Mr. Sweathead cries.
I tug at Uncle Max's tutu.
“What is it, sweetheart?”
“I want to go home.”
“What? You're tired already? It's only eleven o'clock. I haven't even gotten drunk yet.” Uncle Max smiles, looking naked without
his mustache. “Why don't you lie down here on Tirtza's bed and have a nap? We'll go home soon enough. Come on, Puiu, let's go talk in the other room. The Child needs her rest.”
I take off my headdress and place it on the bed next to me. I curl up with my nose touching the feathers. Uncle Max covers me with his overcoat, and the two men leave the room.
When I wake up, Tirtza's house feels as if it is swaddled in a blanket of hushed whispers. I put my headdress back on and tiptoe into the living room. It is empty. I walk toward a voice that comes from the dining room. It is Uncle Max's. “Jews should never spend Purim alone,” he says. “I've had so much to drink that the liquor has kicked me in the butt. This coffee is good. Tirtza, please make me another cup, and make it strong.”

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