Davita's Harp

by Chaim Potok

  “Don’t you want a better world? The revolution will make a better world. I don’t like this world, Aunt Sarah. I think Baba Yaga is everywhere in this world. How will it ever become better?”

  “Dear child—”

  “Is Jesus Christ going to make it a better world?” “Yes! Our Lord is the Way and the Truth and the Life!” “Will Jesus Christ bring a revolution?” “He will come again and everything will be changed.” “He will bring a revolution!”

  “Dear child, it will be our Lord’s doing, not man’s. Our Lord will bring a new world of the spirit.”

  “Aunt Sarah, if you don’t believe in what Papa and Mama believe in, why did you go to Spain?”

  “I am a nurse, Davita. I have a religious duty to go wherever there is suffering. I despise both communism and fascism. But I despise fascism more.”

  “Did you meet Jakob Daw in Spain?”

  “Yes. In a hotel in Madrid. He was surrounded by friends and admirers.”

  “Did he look all right?” “He was ill.”

  “He wrote to us and said that he won’t write any more stories. I don’t like his stories, but he shouldn’t stop writing. My mother knew Jakob Daw in Vienna when she was very young. Did you know that? Do you hear my mother singing at night sometimes? She frightens me when she sings like that.”

  “Take good care of your mother, dear child. Special care. Your father is not the only one in this family who has been wounded.”

  “Jakob Daw was wounded in the big war in Europe. Mama says he was gassed.”

  Aunt Sarah was quiet.

  “I don’t understand what that means.”

  She turned her head to the door of the room. “Was that your father?”

  “I didn’t hear anything.” “It’s your father.”

  She got up and went from the room, leaving the door open. I listened to her walking through the long hallway in her house slippers. The door harp sounded. I sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the partly open door. My mother was away in Manhattan. The apartment was silent now, its corners filled with shadows. I went to the window in Aunt Sarah’s room and peered through the darkness and the snow at the cellarway. The narrow cement walk was lit by a dim bulb; it reminded me of the driveways between many of the cottages in Sea Gate. The dunes the beach the castles the surf the ocean. David Dinn and Kaddish. The two of us together in the waves. The sun and the warm wind and the water. What had Jakob Daw called the years in Vienna with my mother? The dream time. Yes. The dream time.

  I said to my mother one night in late January, “Will Papa ever write again?”

  She had come into my room while I was reading at my desk and had sat down on the edge of my bed.

  “Yes,” she said. “Of course. He has to get well first. What are you reading?”

  I showed her the book: A Christian Child’s Bible.

  “Aunt Sarah gave it to me. I like the stories. Abraham and Joseph and Moses. And Sarah and Rebekah and Rachel. I like Rachel. And Mary and the child Jesus.”

  “I don’t care for religious books.”

  “It’s only stories,” I said.

  There was a brief silence.

  “Mama, will Uncle Jakob ever write stories again?” “I don’t know.”

  “Are you going away again tomorrow to Manhattan?” “Yes.”

  “I miss the meetings we used to have. I miss the songs. Where are all the people?”

  “The people in Manhattan can’t come here for meetings.”

  “Why not?”

  “I meet with people in Brooklyn now, Ilana.”

  “I don’t understand why—”

  “Is this the first book Aunt Sarah has given you?”

  “No. There were two others. One was about Christmas in Maine. I liked that one. The other was about Jesus and King Herod and a massacre of little babies when King Herod was told the messiah was born.”

  “A massacre?”

  “All the Jewish babies were killed. Did you know that? And King Herod was Jewish.”

  “So was Jesus.”

  “Jesus was Jewish? Aunt Sarah never told me that.”

  We were silent a moment. The door harp sounded softly through the hallway. I heard Aunt Sarah’s footsteps. She entered the kitchen. The radio came on to the sounds of laughter. It was the Jack Benny program.

  “I don’t like to see you reading Christian books,” my mother said quietly. “Christians once hurt me. I don’t—” She stopped and looked at the window. Falling sleet tapped lightly on the panes.

  I stared at her. “Christians hurt you?”

  “During the big war. Cossacks and Poles. Christians.” She seemed to shrink into herself, to grow smaller and smaller before my eyes.

  “Mama.”

  She was silent, lost in her darkness. “Mama.”

  She stirred. “It’s a frozen rain,” she said as if to herself, but clearly. “Must we go out in this frozen rain?” “Mama!”

  She looked at me. “I’m all right, Ilana.” “It’s only stories, Mama.”

  “Yes? All right. Read whatever you want, Ilana. You’ll find your own way. Isn’t your room too warm?”

  “I like it this way. All my other rooms were cold. I miss the meetings in the other places, but I don’t miss the cold.”

  “The Helfmans keep the house warm. This is their house.” She rose from the bed. “Good night, darling. I have some work to do. Listen to that rain! How nice it is to be in a warm room.”

  She kissed me on the forehead and went from the room. I continued reading the book of Bible stories my Aunt Sarah had given me.

  On the parkway the next afternoon on my way home from school I met Mrs. Helfman. She was carrying a copy of The New York Times. In her heavy dark-brown winter coat and her woolen hat with its long scarf, which she wrapped around her neck and tucked into the beaver collar of her coat, she looked a little like a short round bear. It had snowed briefly in the morning and cars now moved cautiously along the wide parkway, trailing plumes of smoke. Mrs. Helfman, her face red with cold, greeted me cheerily.

  “Hello, Ilana. Isn’t this weather terrible? Worse than I ever remember in Poland. You are coming home from school? This isn’t out of your way? How is your father?”

  “Better, thank you. He’s beginning to walk around.”

  We went past the yeshiva named after David Dinn’s greatgrandfather. A few boys and girls milled around outside, their breath vaporizing in the freezing air. I did not see David Dinn.

  “You walk this way all the time?” Mrs. Helfman asked. “It adds at least two blocks. You look frozen, poor child.”

  We turned off the parkway into the side street and walked beneath trees that glistened with ice. The wind gusted fiercely between the tall apartment houses that made a tunnel of the street. It cut through my leggings, touched icily the insides of my thighs, and moved between my legs. I needed to go to the bathroom. The briefcase I carried was very heavy. There was our street with its brownstones and sycamores and the sky open and dull gray through the naked swaying trees. The houses looked shrunken and cold in the wind. We walked along quickly, skirting patches of frozen snow that lay upon the sidewalk.

  Mrs. Helfman was talking to me but I had barely heard her.

  “I asked if your mother is home.”

  “No. Mama is in Manhattan. She helps refugees from the war in Spain. She’s not paid for that. But tomorrow she works on a job as a social worker. She says that’s to help pay our rent. My father can’t write now. Can I see the headline in the paper?”

  She unfolded the newspaper, holding it against the wind. The headline read REBELS CLOSE ON MALAGA AFTER HARD 2-DAY BATTLE. A smaller headline read HEART OF MADRID SHELLED. She tucked the paper back under her arm.

  “My father says he’s going back to Spain as soon as he gets well.”

  Mrs. Helfman did not respond.

  We stepped carefully around a hillock of grime-encrusted ice that had collected around the exposed roots of a sycamore. There was our house
up ahead with its front stoop and glass and metal double door and the turrets on the sides that gave it the appearance of a castle. And there was my room in the turret, the window shade raised, the curtain drawn aside as I had left it that morning when I had stood there looking out at the street.

  We came into the vestibule.

  “Mrs. Helfman?”

  “Yes, Ilana.”

  “Is David Dinn’s father a relative of yours?” “Yes. I’m his aunt.”

  “I see you talking to him when you come out of synagogue on Saturday morning.”

  “Yes,” she said. “He is my nephew and a very good and decent person. Well, here we are.” We had come into the downstairs hallway. The door closed behind us with its loud clicking. “Go upstairs and drink something hot right away, Ilana.”

  “Mrs. Helfman, do you have a book I could read that would help me with the words? I can’t read the words. The Hebrew words in the synagogue, I mean.”

  She looked a little surprised. “Yes, we have many such books. I will ask Mr. Helfman to find a good one for you. Ruthie will bring it up. Now go and get something hot to drink.”

  Inside our apartment my father was asleep and Aunt Sarah sat dozing on a soft chair in the living room. I went to the bathroom and then made myself a cup of hot chocolate. I walked very quietly through the hallway to my room and sat at my desk. How silent the apartment was. My room was very warm. The wind blew against my window. I sat at my desk a long time, listening to the wind.

  One night that week I found my father in the living room gazing out the bay window at the snowstorm blowing through the city. He wore a robe and slippers and his crutches stood near him leaning against the wall. The ruddiness had begun to return to his face, but his weight was not yet back and his flesh hung loosely beneath his chin. He saw me in the doorway to the living room.

  “Hello, my love. Where do you keep yourself these days? Yes, a little hug. That’s fine. Why do you look so sad? Sure, I’m getting better. Can’t you tell? Tell me about school. Tell me what you’re reading.”

  We talked for a while about my schoolwork, which I found boring, and about my classmates, who seemed to go out of their way to avoid me. The work was too easy, I said. The questions the teacher asked were always so simple, I said. No one seemed to like it when I knew all the answers, I said; not even the teacher. I was reading a book of Christian Bible stories, I said. And another book that was teaching me how to pronounce Hebrew letters and words. I wished the winter would be over, I said. I wanted to go back to the cottage on the beach. Was the door harp going to stay always on the bedroom door? I missed it when I went in and out of the apartment now, I said.

  “I didn’t know it meant so much to you, Davita,” my father said. “I’ll ask your mother to put it back.”

  “I like the music. I like the way the balls bounce up and down and music comes from the wires.”

  “Do you? That’s what I like about it, my love. It was a gift from my brother to me. He brought it back with him from Europe after the big war. I’ll ask your mother to put it back up on the front door as soon as she comes home.”

  “Did your brother bring the photograph of the horses on the beach?”

  “No. My grandfather gave me that. He owned a farm near a beach on an island in Canada. He lived there a long time and when he became old and sick he came back home and gave me that picture before he died. That was just before the war. I was about thirteen or fourteen. He was a strange old man. Loved to be by himself. Very religious man. Went to church, read the Bible. Loved being alone. He left the farm to me and your Aunt Sarah.”

  “Was your brother a soldier?”

  “Yes. He came home badly wounded.”

  “Did he get well?”

  “No. He died. He was my older brother and he died. We were two brothers and one sister. We’ll certainly put that harp back on the front door, my love. Can’t abide seeing you so sad. Did your aunt give you the book of Bible stories?”

  “Yes.”

  “She keeps trying. Where is your Aunt Sarah, anyway?” “She’s asleep in her room. Papa, what happened to you in Centralia?”

  He looked startled. “What? Where did you hear about Centralia?”

  “Aunt Sarah said something happened to you in Centralia. Where is Centralia, Papa?”

  “It’s a town in the state of Washington, on the other side of the country. My love, we won’t talk about Centralia tonight, if you don’t mind. As a matter of fact, we won’t talk about Centralia until you’re really grown up. All right? Do you like the Bible stories?”

  “Yes.”

  “My mother used to read Bible stories to us every Sunday afternoon in our living room. My father would start a big fire going in the fireplace and we’d all sit there and my mother would read to us from the Bible.”

  “Why don’t your mother and father come to see you? All your friends come, but not your mother and father.”

  He was silent and sat gazing out the window at the snow. “They don’t want to have anything to do with us, Davita. Let’s not talk about it. All right?” He turned to me again. “Why are you reading a book about Hebrew?”

  “So I can read and understand the words when I go to the synagogue on Saturday mornings.”

  That startled him to the point of astonishment. “What?” he said, staring at me. “What are you talking about, Davita?”

  “Sometimes I like to go to the synagogue on Eastern Parkway where Ruthie Helfman goes. It’s nice there and I like listening to the songs. I don’t like the curtain though. But I found some openings and I can see through it. The synagogue is in the school where Ruthie goes. And David Dinn goes there too. Do you remember David Dinn?”

  “Of course I remember David Dinn. Ezra Dinn’s boy.”

  “Mrs. Helfman told me Mr. Dinn is her nephew and he’s a nice man.”

  “He’s a fine man,” my father said, a strange tightness entering his voice. “A decent person. Very helpful. And very religious. So you go to a synagogue. Christ, what happens here when I’m away? Listen, how about a cup of tea and some cookies for your tired father?”

  “Did Mama know Mr. Dinn when you met her?”

  “She knew him. They’re cousins. Didn’t she tell you? She lived with his mother when she first got to America.”

  “Uncle Jakob knew Mama in Vienna, and Mr. Dinn knew Mama in New York.”

  “That’s right,” my father said. “The three of us were in love with your mother, and she married me. How about the tea and cookies, my love?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “We’ll put that harp back up on the front door right away. I don’t need it anymore now. Your old dad is going back to his writing. My brother used to call it a magic harp. Got it from some old European family. The magic didn’t work for him, though. Now go and get me my tea. And for Jesus’ sake, stop looking so sad. Come on, Davita, give me a smile. A real smile. That’s right. Yes. Now that’s a smile!”

  We were eating supper in the kitchen on a Friday night in February when I heard through the walls and floor of the house the faint sounds of singing from the apartment below. The Helfmans were singing their zemiros together. Like the Dinn family in the cottage on the beach. I sat in my chair, listening to the singing, and heard my mother say, “You’re not well enough, Michael. You’re not. Is he well enough yet, Sarah?”

  “We’ll let the doctor decide,” my father said.

  “That commissar?” Aunt Sarah said. “He’ll send you back too soon, Michael.”

  The melody came distantly through the walls and floor, sweet and slow and joyous. And Ruthie’s high voice and the deep nasal voice of her father, softly singing the Shabbos songs.

  “Sarah, did you read the piece I finished last week? The New Republic bought it. John called me today. I’ve got my strength back. We’ll see what the doc says. It’ll be another two or three weeks, at the most.”

  “You’ll go back when the doctor says you can,” my mother said.

  “Agreed
,” my father said.

  “I don’t trust that commissar,” Aunt Sarah said, “Ilana,” my mother said. “What on earth are you doing? You’ll tip the chair.”

  I was leaning back to be closer to the wall and the music. I brought the chair forward. The music was now barely audible.

  “If I can get off those crutches and onto a cane, I’ll be all set,” my father said.

  “Michael, why don’t you come up to the farmhouse for a few weeks?” Aunt Sarah said. “You’ve been wanting to write a book. You can start it there.”

  “Now is not a time for writing books, Sarah. We’ll have Hitler on our front lawns one day soon if he’s not stopped in Europe. You were there. You know what’s going on.”

  I tipped my chair back again and listened at the wall.

  “Michael,” Aunt Sarah said, an imploring tone in her voice. “You’re the only brother I have, the only relative I can really talk to. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “We’ll see what the doctor says,” my father said.

  “Ilana, please sit straight,” my mother said. “What’s the matter with you tonight?”

  “Talk to him, Anne,” Aunt Sarah said. “He listens to you.”

  “But I want Michael to go back,” my mother said. “He ought to go back. People trust his stories about the war. He went there at my urging. It’s the right thing for him to do.”

  “Absolutely the decent thing,” my father said.

  “We will go by what the doctor tells us,” my mother said.

  “I don’t like that doctor,” Aunt Sarah said. “I don’t trust him.”

  “Ilana, what are you doing?” my mother said. “I asked you not to tip your chair.”

  “I was listening to the music, Mama.”

  “What music?”

  “From the Helfmans downstairs.” The three of them looked at me.

  “Mama, if Papa goes back to Spain, can we have Friday night dinner sometimes with the Helfmans?”

  “We’ll talk about it another time, Ilana. Are we done? Can I bring dessert?”

  They went on talking about Spain. After a while the music downstairs came to an end. My father went to his desk in the bedroom to work on another article. My mother sat in the living room, reading and listening to the phonograph. Aunt Sarah went to bed.