STORY ORIGIN: JEWISH, UKRAINE
Hershel’s Last Laugh
The great jester, Hershel of Ostropol, died as he lived, with a joke on his lips.
As the end neared, the people of the village gathered around the bed, where he lay weak and almost too tired to speak.
“Hershel,” said the rabbi. “You are dying. Now, will you at last be serious?’”
“Why start now?’” asked Hershel.
“But Hershel!” said the rabbi. “In a few minutes, the Angel of Death will come to you. He will ask your name—and what will you say?”
“I’ll tell him it’s Moses.”
“But he’ll know it’s not Moses—it’s Hershel!”
“So if he knew, why did he ask?”
“But he’ll ask what you’ve done with your life, how you’ve mended your ways, how you’ve mended the world. What will you say?”
“I’ll tell him,” said Hershel, “that I’ve mended my socks.”
Hershel began to fade. “I have but one last request,” he said, faintly. “Come closer.” They all leaned forward. “I ask simply this—when you place me in my coffin, I beg of you—please do not carry me under my arms.”
And with these words, he closed his eyes and died.
Silence filled the room. Such a strange request. Then, all at once, they began to ask—“Why? Hershel—tell us why!”
After a moment, Hershel opened his eyes and spoke to them from the world beyond. “I’ve always been a little ticklish there.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Hershel’s Last Laugh
I TOLD THAT STORY at my mother’s funeral, just as I had told it twelve years before, at my father’s. It was at her request; she wanted there to be laughter.
“I want it to be a celebration,” she said. The ambulance had taken her back to her condominium to await death. “I’ve been blessed to live the life I’ve lived. I want to wear my red-and-orange party dress—remember the one I bought for my seventieth birthday?
“You know, I’ve been to enough funerals with nothing but tears, and so have all my friends. They can cry, but I want them to sing, too, that song from The Sound of Music, as loudly as they can, loud enough so I can hear it. And I want them to laugh, too. Joel, will you tell stories?”
The request caught me off guard. I shrugged.
“Like you did when your father died. The same stories—the one about Hershel, and stories of Chelm. Will you?”
I nodded, though I had no idea how I would do it. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You can whisper. They’ll hear you.”
I SPENT THOSE last afternoons with my mother planning out the funeral and listening to her stories. In the evenings, when she drifted off to sleep, I wandered outside, on the streets around her condominium. They were streets I’d always avoided—strip malls in all directions, fast-food restaurants, square cement buildings on square blocks. Around the corner stood a supermarket that sprawled over five acres, and across the street was a shopping center so vast that people would routinely drive to get from one end to the other. I walked alone; there were no other people on the street, just an unending stream of cars.
Yet my mother loved it all—her condominium, the neighbors, and the little stores hidden in the concrete jungle. As I walked I remembered something that had happened many years before, back when my father was dying. I had given my mother a ride somewhere, east along the 10 freeway, halfway to San Bernardino, to pick something up. I don’t remember what it was—a form of some sort, something bureaucratic. All I knew was that I resented being there, in the middle of nowhere. We finally came to the place, an adult school, made entirely of concrete blocks, where they told us that whatever she was waiting for was not yet ready, and we would have to wait almost an hour. We sat in a courtyard so hot that we could see vapor lines rising from the ground. Nearby stood a rickety structure that looked like a huge, poorly made shack, surrounded by chicken wire. We waited, her smiling and me stewing, before she finally said, “Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Beautiful? What’s beautiful?”
She pointed to the chicken-wire structure.
“What is it?”
“It’s a birdhouse. See?” I squinted and saw that she was right. “It was built by a class of learning-disabled adults. They haven’t put birds in it, but someday they will. Won’t that be beautiful?”
Thinking of that birdhouse, then again of my mother, I began to see two pictures. One was of the most ordinary of women, who had lived the life of quiet disappointment that comes when your dreams slip through your fingers. The other was of a woman with a gift for enjoying the meager portions she had been given, for finding the beauty in life where it seemed like there was none to be seen, even at the end of her life, where she had managed to face her own death with a valor I had never seen.
I found myself switching back and forth between the two pictures in my mind, as if it were up to me to choose between them. Then I thought of Lenny and what he might say, were he there.
“Another riddle,” he’d say. “And you’ve got to love the riddle. Like the case of the two men having a dispute that they take to the Chelm rabbi. After listening carefully, the rabbi strokes his beard and says to one of the men, ‘On one hand, you’re right . . .’ And to the other he says, ‘. . . and on the other hand, you’re right.’
“‘But rabbi,’ says a third. ‘They can’t both be right.’ To which the rabbi nods and says, ‘You’re right, too.’
Of course, Lenny would be right. It was not up to me to pass judgment upon her; she was my mother, and I was lucky to have found her after so many years. What mattered was that she loved me and I loved her. And as I realized this, the two pictures became one.
MY MOTHER FADED FAST. Breathing became increasingly wet and difficult, and she could no longer eat. Taly and the kids flew down to say good-bye to her. It was Passover, and because she could not go to a seder, we made an abridged one for her. We did it without food, just songs and stories. Michaela sang the songs she had learned in preschool, about Moses in the river, about Pharaoh and frogs. Elijah sang the Four Questions. Then he told her the story of Passover. It was a beautiful telling, just as I had told it to him the year before. But when he got to the part about Moses being slow of speech, he stopped and added, “Like my daddy.”
As my mother listened, no longer able to speak, I could see the pride in her eyes, first as she watched Elijah, then as she looked at me. I knew well that sense of having her look at me with pride, as she had in so many performances. Those were the looks I had worked so hard all my life to get, that I had responded to with pride of my own. But the look that passed between us was quite different; it was simply a look of recognition.
That night the Angel of Death came for her. The moment she died I awoke from sleep, knowing she was gone. I felt the way anyone feels when their second parent dies, no matter what age they are, and though I didn’t say it, Taly knew. “My little orphan,” she said, holding me.
EVERY CULTURE HAS its own way of bidding farewell to its dead. In Nepal they place the body on a mountaintop and let the vultures feast upon it, as a reminder that it is merely a soul-less vessel. Inuit tribes will lay the body in a canoe and send it out to sea.
Judaism has ways to remind the mourners that the person really is dead, thereby jump-starting the grieving process. One way to do this is through humor, as sorrow and joy are an inseparable couple, and a little laughter can tickle out the grief. Maybe that is why my mother wanted me to tell stories.
The prospect, though, terrified me. I had not told stories in public since the bar mitzvah in San Francisco, six months before. I was a different person now; I was no longer a performer.
I watched the chapel fill, the faces all familiar. They had watched me do magic shows when I was young, and I knew my mother had told them about my storytelling, yet I’d not seen most of them in years, since my father’s funeral, in this same room.
The rabbi came in, a kindly young man who had known my
mother well. He hugged me and my brothers, then turned to me, sensing my fear.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.
I nodded.
“I know it’s what she wanted,” he said.
When the time came, I stood before the crowd, scanning the faces. Though I knew what stories to tell, I no longer knew how to tell them.
I looked at the rabbi, who nodded, and at my brothers and my aunt. Then I looked again at the faces in the room, faces I had known all my life but had somehow not seen until now. Each one emanated a warmth, a kindness, a decency I had never appreciated. As I looked at them, it was as if a burden were lifted. I thought of Lenny’s words—“Let the story flow through your heart.” I leaned up close to the microphone and whispered, “Let me tell . . . about my mother’s . . . courage.”
THE TRADITION AT a Jewish funeral is for the mourners to bury the coffin. “But,” the rabbi explained, “we hold the shovel in a special way.” He demonstrated, lifting the first shovelful with the shovel facedown. “This reminds us,” he said, “that this is not business as usual. We are doing sacred work.”
We gathered around the grave and began shoveling, holding umbrellas for one another as a light rain began to fall. One of my mother’s oldest friends brought out a letter that my mother had written some thirty-five years before, when my brothers and I were children. Another friend remembered the first time she had met my parents, with all three of us boys jumping on top of the roof of the car.
It’s the beauty of stories; whatever you give, you get back more—if you listen. We stood there, around her grave, the tales flowing from them as the rain fell harder.
From time to time I looked at Elijah, who was fascinated with this new digging technique. He showed Michaela, and then two of my mother’s friends took turns burying Grandma Gladys, stopping every few shovelsful to wave at the coffin.
“Good-bye, Grandma Gladys. We love you. Have a good time in heaven.”
STORY ORIGIN: ITALY
The Happy Man’s Shirt
Long ago in the north of Italy there lived a king who had everything, including a son whom he loved dearly. Yet, for some reason, this son was not happy.
“What can I do?” asked the king. “If there is something that will make you happy, you have only to say it, and it shall be done.”
“I do not know,” said the son.
“Is there someone you would marry? Whether the richest princess or the poorest peasant, you may do so!”
“I do not know, father,” was all the son would say.
The king consulted philosophers, doctors, professors, and priests, asking what might be done to make his son happy. After much discussion, they announced that there was a simple solution. The king must find a man who is completely and truly happy. “Once you find him,” they said, “you have only to exchange his shirt for your son’s, and thereafter, your son will be happy.”
With some relief, the king sent messengers to find a truly happy man. Although they found many who professed to be happy, on closer questioning each proved to be unhappy in some way.
After months of looking, the king began to despair. But one cold day, while out hunting, he heard someone singing in the fields. So sweet and light was the voice that it seemed the singer must be happy. The king looked and saw a young man, bundled against the cold, sitting under a tree.
“Tell me,” asked the king. “Are you happy?”
“As happy as can be,” said the young man.
“What if you were to come live in the palace? Would you like that?”
“No, thank you, I’m content to be right here.”
“What if I was to offer you riches?”
“That’s kind of you,” said the man, “but I’m happy with what I have.”
These words thrilled the king, for he realized that he had, at last, found a truly happy man.
“I must ask you a favor,” pleaded the king.
“Anything at all!” replied the youth.
Trembling, the king said, “Come here! Only you can save my son!”
With shaking fingers, the king unbuttoned the man’s jacket—and then he stopped.
For the happy man wore no shirt.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Happy Man’s Shirt
WHEN I SAW LENNY, three weeks later, he looked like he’d aged twenty years, but he was sober.
“I’ve spoken the dreaded words,” he said. I waited for him to explain. He turned, as though speaking to an imaginary audience. “I said, ‘Hi! I’m Lenny!’ And right on cue they said, ‘Hi, Lenny.’ That was twenty-three days ago. I’ve been going to meetings three times a week and I haven’t touched a drop since.”
We sat on the porch. I took out the sandwiches I’d brought, not wanting to rely on Lenny’s hospitality. “And you? Where on earth have you been?” he asked.
“I have . . . a story.”
“A story?” He squinted at me. “You have a story?”
I nodded.
“Let’s hear it,” he said, biting into the turkey sandwich. “Because I’ve been waiting.”
So I told him all that had happened since I had last seen him. As he listened he looked away, his eyes glazing over, as if he were there with me, in the hospital, in my mother’s condominium, and at the cemetery.
I told him of the stories I told at the funeral, of the suitcase and the birdhouse, of Chelm and Hershel. I also told him about what happened afterward. I had wanted to take Taly and the kids to see the house where I’d grown up. Though I’d heard the place had been bought and sold several times, it was a shock to see it. The house looked terrible, no longer the cream color I remembered, but a sickly shade of green, with chunks of stucco coming loose. Bodies of old cars lined the driveway. The two huge elm trees in the front yard had been cut down, leaving only stumps. The flowers that my mother had planted and my father had loved—birds-of-paradise—had died out, leaving only weeds. I had planned to knock on the door, to explain how I had once lived there, and ask if I might look around. But instead we sat in the car, rain splattering the windshield, and I realized I no longer wanted to see it.
It was a mistake going back, I told myself, as I drove us back to the freeway. Then something caught my eye. There was a man on a bicycle, wearing a red sweater, riding around in circles. I slowed down to see him, and he looked up at me, a happy but puzzled look on his face. A moment later I saw a smile, then a wave, and I waved back.
When I finished my story I could see that Lenny was smiling, too. He began to speak, then stopped himself. Again he started, and again he stopped. For the first time since I’d known him, Lenny had nothing to say.
We waited silently for a long time before I asked the question that had been on my mind. “How can . . . I thank . . . you?”
He shook his head. “It is for me to thank you for letting me in. You have given me exactly what I wanted—a story, and a damn good one at that. Thank you.”
GRIEF HAS A WAY of bringing out the sweetness in life, and the days of that late spring were ones that I will always remember. The rains that had drenched Northern California, well beyond winter, ended abruptly. Within a week the cherry trees, which had been struggling to blossom for months, burst into bloom.
With my mother gone, I found myself drawn to things that reminded me of her—the teal-blue Hoover upright vacuum cleaner I had inherited, her electric typewriter, and a forest-green mahjongg set that had belonged to her mother. In the back room of my office I sorted through her letters to me, stacks of them. Some of them, I’m ashamed to say, were still unopened. Knowing that she would never write me again, I opened them slowly. Most contained brief chatty notes, written on her typewriter, which punched holes where the lowercase e’s should have been. In addition to the notes, I found numerous clippings—articles that mentioned names of my old high-school teachers, some comic strips, and several of Erma Bombeck’s columns. Among the clippings, one stood out. It was an account of a concert by Itzhak Perlman, written by Jack
Riemer of the Houston Chronicle. She had written a note to me at the top: “Joel—thought you would enjoy this story.”
On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came onstage for a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City.
If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting onstage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child and so he has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches.
To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, very deliberately, and slowly, is an event. He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play.
By now, the audience is used to the ritual. They sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his chair, they remain reverently silent while he undoes his clasps on his legs. They wait until he is ready to play.
But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap—it went off like gunfire across the room.
There was no mistaking what that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do. People who were there that night thought to themselves: “We figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and amble his way offstage—to either find another violin or else find another string for this one.”
But he didn’t. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again. The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such purity as they had never heard before. Of course anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that. You could see him modulating, changing, recomposing the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never made before.
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