“Take it. I’ve already read it.” When I didn’t say okay right away, Scott said, “Look, it could be just the two of us, if someone pushes the button. What’s mine is yours.”
I hesitated—it felt as if this was sealing the deal, that I was agreeing not to talk about Hector or families anymore.
I took the book and crossed my fingers.
Because of the Hanukkah wreath, Granny M, I mean Safta, made what was the equivalent of a 911 call to the rabbi. I didn’t actually see her make the call, but at the beginning of our next meeting, Rabbi Doug asked me if I knew what “assimilation” meant.
“This is about the wreath, isn’t it?” I said.
He smiled. “Look, I know what it’s like to feel left out, David,” he said. He pronounced it the Hebrew way, which is more like Dah-veed. “I’m just saying we can appreciate someone else’s traditions without adopting them for our own.”
“I know.”
“We don’t need a Hanukkah bush or a Dreidel Man in order to fit in.”
“I know,” I said again.
“We have a long and proud tradition of our own.”
“I know.”
“If you’re ever in doubt, think about the food,” he said. “We have them beat on the food. I’d take rugelach over a fruit cake any day. Or babka. Babka beats fruitcake.”
But what about Chinese Jews? I wanted to ask him. What is their long and proud tradition? I didn’t ask, though, because I was pretty sure he wouldn’t know.
He winked and turned back to the Torah. Rabbi Doug was still trying to teach me the trope, which is the melody you use when you’re chanting your haftorah or Torah portion. I always thought it was random, but there were actually little marks to tell you when your voice goes up and when it goes down. Usually, I went down when I should be going up, even though the rabbi put the whole thing on a cassette tape so I could practice at home.
“Closer,” said Rabbi Doug. I couldn’t tell if I was really getting closer or if he was just saying that. I didn’t think rabbis were supposed to lie, though. “Do you mind if I take off my shoes?” he said.
“No, it’s okay. We do it at my house all the time,” I said, because who is going to tell a rabbi he can’t take his shoes off in his own office? Besides, maybe it would make him think I was doing a better job, if he was comfortable.
“Again,” he said.
My reading was going pretty badly when there was a knock on the door of the study. The rabbi padded over to the door in his socks. I didn’t mind the interruption, until I saw who it was.
“Granny M?”
“Hello, Rabbi,” said Grandma Marjorie. “We spoke on the phone earlier. David’s safta?” Argh, I’d forgotten to use safta again. “I would never interrupt, but this is important—I want to talk about David’s bar mitzvah. Something I saw when I was in New York.”
“They do things differently in New York,” said Rabbi Doug. He gave me a smile that said he liked the way we did things here a little better. And he winked again. “Besides, I don’t have anything to do with the reception.”
“This isn’t about the reception,” Safta said. “Why should I trouble a rabbi about the reception? This is about the service. It’s about finding David’s Russian twin.”
My spine went cold. I had a Russian twin? Was there someone who looked just like me in Russia? Maybe we all had twins in Russia as part of some bizarre genetic program.
“I’ve heard about this,” said Rabbi Doug.
“I haven’t,” I said. “I haven’t heard anything about this.”
“The rabbi can explain,” Safta said.
Rabbi Doug nodded again. “In Russia, children are not free to celebrate a bar or bat mitzvah, so in some countries where the children are free, they may decide to celebrate for a ‘twin’ back in the Soviet Union.” He looked at my grandmother. “Did you attend a bar mitzvah like this?”
“It was Jacob’s bar mitzvah,” said my grandmother. “My sister, Seal’s, grandson. He had a Russian twin.”
Ah, that explained it. My great-aunt Seal. Again.
“I don’t have an actual twin?” I said.
“What?” said my grandmother. “What are you talking about?”
“A twi—” the rabbi began. “No. A ‘Russian twin’ is someone whose birthday is near the birthday of the bar mitzvah boy. You’re bonded by birthdays, not blood. And you’re bound by a spirit of helping another human being. I’ve heard about synagogues doing this but we haven’t tried it here. You could be the first. Sharing your bar mitzvah with someone who can’t have one? I could get behind a trend like that.”
“To top it off, Seal’s grandson gave half his bar mitzvah money to his twin,” my grandmother continued. “To help him emigrate to Israel. He’s a mensch, my nephew. Not that Seal had anything to do with it.”
Not that she’d know, since they still weren’t talking. This made me not want to talk to my grandmother, either. Giving away half my money to someone I’d never even met? What kind of idea was that? You’d think that with money so tight because of the bar mitzvah my parents would at least want me to keep it for college, instead of giving it away to a stranger.
“It sounds wonderful,” Rabbi Doug said. “Do you know the organization that does the matches?”
I hoped my grandmother hadn’t gone too far into her research, but she reached into her purse and pulled out a folded slip of paper. She waved it at the rabbi.
“If you approve, we will take care of it,” Safta said. “I’ll wait outside.”
“Maybe you’d like your grandmother to stay and listen,” Rabbi Doug said to me. His eyes twinkled. “After all, it looks like you’re learning for two now.” He made it sound like I was pregnant.
“No,” I said. My grandmother looked a little offended, so I added, “I want it to be a surprise.” Rabbi Doug smiled and changed the subject.
“I know some Russian,” said Rabbi Doug. “Spasibo means ‘thank you.’”
I imagined my Russian twin saying spasibo for half of the bar mitzvah money.
“I’ll just wait in the front hall until your lesson is over,” my grandmother told me. To the rabbi, she said, “Let me know if I can do anything else to help.”
You’ve already done enough, I thought. I wondered how to say mind your own business in Russian. Or Hebrew. But the only language I knew it in was English, and I didn’t have the guts to say it out loud.
Of course Rabbi Doug was a big fan of my grandmother’s idea. So were my parents.
“This is what it’s all about,” my dad said.
“I thought that was the hokey pokey,” I said. I put my right foot out in case nobody got my joke, but either they didn’t hear me or they didn’t laugh.
“We should put a little note in the invitation about the Russian twin,” said Mom. “Maybe we can get a picture of him.”
“You’re not putting in a picture of David,” Lauren pointed out, which was what I had been thinking. Lauren was so lucky. She wasn’t going to get any weird surprises for her bat mitzvah; she’d be prepared because I was going first, like the first wave of soldiers into battle. I hoped that she might say something about the money, since she would definitely get the same treatment, but she didn’t.
“I do not know about this Russian twin,” Wai Po said. At least she was on my side. Then she said: “Why doesn’t he have a twin who is Chinese?”
“Because a twin from China wouldn’t be Jewish,” said Safta. “A twin from China wouldn’t want a bar mitzvah.”
“Do these Russians know that David is Chinese? The Russians and Chinese, they do not always get along,” said Wai Po.
“They’re both Communist countries,” I pointed out.
Wai Po shook her head. “There’s a longer history than that.”
It’s not like the Russians and Americans are best friends, either, I thought, just as Safta said: “David is American and any boy would be grateful to have him as a twin. This is an official program. Seal’s grandson did
it.”
“Seal?” asked Wai Po. “The one who says David doesn’t look Jewish? But he’s having a bar mitzvah. I think David should think about helping the Chinese. He is Chinese, too, after all.” She paused a minute, then added, “Even if he doesn’t look totally Chinese.”
This had been going on since I was born: Each side of my family thought I looked like I belonged to the other. But when I looked in the mirror, all I saw was me.
Then my mother said the words of doom:
It is up to David to decide who he wants to help.
“Um,” I said.
“But we have to decide quickly,” said Safta.
“That’s true,” my mother said. She looked at me. “I do think it would be a lovely thing to do.”
Safta nodded. Wai Po looked away.
I’d already lost half of my bar mitzvah money, which I hadn’t even gotten yet, and now Wai Po wanted the other half. Sure, I was probably better off than kids in either of those countries, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want my bar mitzvah money, even if I was supposed to put most of it in a savings account.
My father said, “A bar mitzvah is a celebration of the Jewish part of David’s life.” It was like he was leading me right to the answer instead of making me decide. It didn’t feel like I had much of a choice anyway.
“I guess I could share my bar mitzvah with a Russian twin,” I said finally. “But do you think he could be the only one?” I thought about Lauren’s button, the one that said, EXPERIENCE IS WHAT YOU GET WHEN YOU DON’T GET WHAT YOU WANT. I was getting a lot of experience.
Wai Po squeezed her lips together and I was afraid she was mad that I didn’t want a twin from China, too. Then she gave me a little smile and I realized: She didn’t need me to have a twin back in China. She just wanted to get under Granny M’s skin.
“Well, I think Da-Wei,” she began, saying my Chinese name extra loud. “I think Da-Wei should have his Chinese side represented at the bar mitzvah, too.” She folded her arms. “I think there should be Chinese food at the bar mitzvah.”
It was going to be Thanksgiving all over again, only this time with a bigger audience. Maybe we should add a note to the invitation. Please come very hungry. Starving, really. Also, it would help if we invited a lot of people who knew the Heimlich maneuver.
Safta turned to my parents. “Are you going to allow this?” she asked.
“I don’t see why not,” said Dad. “It’s a nice idea.”
Mom put her hands over her eyes, but I knew what she was doing. She was thinking about the money, adding up the dollars in her head. More food = more money.
If I said no to Chinese food, I would hurt Wai Po’s feelings, and if I agreed to it, my parents would think I didn’t care about the money. So I said nothing.
“No pork,” Granny M—Safta—warned Wai Po. “Or shellfish.” Even though we didn’t keep kosher at home, I had to agree, a pork-fried bar mitzvah did not seem the way to go.
Wai Po turned her chin up. “I know the owner at Bamboo Palace. We can work out something. Chinese food can accommodate many tastes.”
Everyone but Safta’s, I thought.
I went to my room to finish my math homework before they could figure out more ways to ruin my bar mitzvah. I put my Hebrew tape on in the background, and hoped some of it would sink in.
The next day, while I was at school, my father called the same organization that helped my cousin Jacob find a twin.
“It’s a boy!” he announced at dinner. “His name is Alexi. And he’s just three weeks older than you are.”
“I wanted a sister,” Lauren said. “Not another brother.” She fiddled with the button on her shirt. It said, SOUNDS LIKE A PERSONAL PROBLEM TO ME.
“Thanks a lot,” I said.
“You should write him a letter,” my mother said, ignoring Lauren. “Introduce yourself. Explain what we’re doing. Get to know each other.”
Wasn’t it enough that this kid was getting half my money? “Why?” I said.
“Because it will be more meaningful if you have a real connection,” my mother said.
“It’s like homework,” I said.
“It’s a letter,” said Dad.
I stomped back upstairs without even asking if I could watch TV because I knew what the answer would be. I turned on my Hebrew tape and pulled out a pencil and a piece of paper.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
I thought about what to write.
Well, that part was easy enough. The name didn’t sound Jewish-Russian, just Russia-Russian, like a spy. I touched the tip of my pencil to my tongue.
It did sound weird, like I was a vessel or something. It didn’t sound very Jewish. But erasing and starting over meant more work, so I kept writing.
I added a “ha” so he would know I was joking, but I kind of wasn’t. He could at least do some of the work. My parents had said he couldn’t do that, given that he wasn’t really allowed to practice his religion in Russia and it was already hard enough for him to go to regular school there. Still.
I felt like it was important to add the Chinese part. I thought about telling him about the hole we were digging, but that seemed weird, too. I’m digging a hole in the woods in case your country drops a bomb on mine. I wondered if they showed The Day After in the Soviet Union. I didn’t think so. I wasn’t even sure they had TV.
I didn’t write anything at all for a full five minutes and then I remembered the pen pal trick from when we were writing those kids in Minnesota (the state where both masking and Scotch tape were invented): ask questions.
There. That filled a few more lines.
If he wrote back, maybe I’d tell him more about me. But for the moment, that seemed to be all there was to tell. Hopefully my parents wouldn’t ask to see the letter before they mailed it. If they did ask, I’d just tell them it was private.
On Thursday at lunch, Hector, Scott, and I practiced for the tournament. Scott had brought in an old TV Guide and we were using it to ask Hector questions. The funny thing about Hector was that he knew that John Wayne’s last movie was The Shootist, but then he didn’t know who Captain Kirk was. “Wouldn’t that be a history question or something?” Hector said. “Why is this in the TV Guide? What branch of the military was he in?”
Scott had asked Hector this question as a joke, not knowing that Hector didn’t like science fiction. Scott turned his head slightly, so Hector couldn’t see his expression, and rolled his eyes at me.
“You know,” I said. “Captain Kirk. From Star Trek?”
“Okay, so you would have gotten that one,” said Hector.
“You still need to practice,” said Scott. I noticed that he said you and not we. “You’re in charge of all these TV and movie questions. You just got to cram all this stuff in your head.”
“Fine. Give me another one.” Hector clenched his eyes shut and braced his hands against the lunch table.
“Okay,” said Scott. He ran his finger down the page. “What movie made in 1957 starred Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire?” Right after Scott read the question, Heather Roberts walked up to our table.
“That’s not the kind of question they’re going to ask,” I said. I wasn’t sure whether I should say hi or not to Heather. Heather was one of Scott’s popular-people friends. She dressed totally preppie. She was wearing two polos with both collars popped.
“If Hector doesn’t know it, he doesn’t know it,” said Scott. Then he turned around. “Heather,” said Scott. He leaned back, relaxed. “How’s it going?”
“I think I’ve got this,” cried Hector. “It would have to be a musical since Astaire was in it.” His eyes were still closed.
Heather looked over at Hector and raised her eyebrows. “Is he okay?”
“He’s fine,” said Scott. “What’s up?”
Heather put her hand on the back of Scott’s chair and tilted her head to one side. “I’m mad at you, Scott Dursky. You said you’d let me know what happened in French, remember? I had an ortho ap
pointment.” Although Heather said she was mad, she sounded anything but.
“It’s coming to me!” said Hector. I nudged him so he would shut up. What Scott did was like magic, talking to a girl and being so cool about it. I wanted to hear what he was going to say.
“I’ll fill you in later, okay?” said Scott. “I’m busy.”
“You’d better,” said Heather, and walked away. She never said hi to me or Hector, which was probably a good thing, because about three seconds after she left, Hector screeched, “FUNNY FACE!”
Heather spun around. “Excuse me?”
“It’s a movie,” I blurted. “He didn’t mean you; you don’t have a funny face. You have an average face.” Maybe that wasn’t the right thing to say. Now Heather’s face looked like it belonged in a different kind of movie, one with a body count.
She tossed her head and stalked back to her table.
“Funny Face is correct,” said Scott.
“But quit shouting,” I added. I checked to make sure Kelli Ann wasn’t staring at us, along with the rest of the cafeteria.
“Yeah, you’re such a weirdo, Hector,” said Scott.
Hector took a long sip from his milk carton. “Do you guys want to come over on Friday?” he asked. “We could play some Trivial Pursuit and and my dad rented First Blood again. It’s rated R, but he says we can watch.”
“You mean Rambo?” Scott said.
The film starred Sylvester Stallone as a guy who’d served in Vietnam and had PTSD but wasn’t fitting back into society because the sheriff in the town he was travelling through was a jerk. There was lots of running and shooting. Also, swearing. Hector’s dad had a thing about Vietnam, because he actually fought in Vietnam, which was weird because other people I knew who fought in Vietnam didn’t want any sort of reminder. Because Hector had that thing for old movies, it was kind of a big deal, wanting to see a movie made in this half of the twentieth century.
“Friday is the first night of Hanukkah, so I can’t,” I said.
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