Big League Dreams (Small Worlds)

by Allen Hoffman

  His father didn’t tell him very much but always expected him to understand things. Sammy often knew what his mother was thinking, rarely what his father had in mind. Sammy sensed something strange about the world: fathers treated eldest sons as if they were small replicas of themselves, but the sons seemed to inherit more from the mothers. His bullying and brutish cousins, Aunt Malka’s sons, were just like her, although Uncle Barasch didn’t seem to care at all. Maybe that was why both Sammy’s mother and father didn’t like them. Sammy had heard his father complain that Aunt Malka wasn’t at all like their wonderful mother, Sammy’s grandmother, may she rest in peace. Although his father didn’t say so in so many words, Boruch Levi was the perfect son precisely because he was just like his sainted mother. When Sammy fell and cried or shuddered over a bird run over in the street, his father admonished him, “Stop acting like your mother.”

  Sammy wondered why his father wanted him to wait. He normally insisted that Sammy arrive at the synagogue early, before the service. Embarrassed and self-conscious, Sammy often had to thread his way alone to their seats on the eastern wall, facing the entire congregation. Everyone shuffled uneasily when Sammy took his place; after the services they praised him too ecstatically to his father for being a “good boy,” which Sammy hoped was true, and for being “just like his father,” which Sammy forlornly knew was certainly untrue and hopelessly beyond him.

  Sammy also knew that for all their sycophantic respect, they didn’t like his father any more than Rabbi Max did. The boy thought that Rabbi Max liked him, even though when Sammy entered the synagogue, the irreverent rabbi was apt to make some joke about the “degeneration of generations. Moses sent twelve spies into the Holy Land, but wealthy Boruch Levi can afford only one.” The boy would blush and open a book to hide his eyes. Or he would stare up at the eternal light flickering red inside the glass globe that hung in front of the ark.

  The thought of the small globe riding inside the supportive filigree crown reminded Sammy that earlier, when he was out on the balcony, he thought he had spotted a bird’s nest in the hedge bordering the yard. Now he wandered across the narrow lawn to the hedge, which was at least twice his own height, and peered up through the leaves to see if he could identify the silhouette against the sky. The darkening dusk no longer provided the proper contrast, but the multitude of bugs that had come alive with the waning light held his attention. They swarmed within the interwoven, sheltering branches in seeming chaos, but Sammy understood that they knew when to move and when to rest and how to find their food and how to do all the things that bugs had to do. This alone was miraculous and wonderful. That they didn’t have to scrub behind their ears for the Sabbath, clean their rooms, or have interminable Hebrew lessons after public school only increased his respect for the frail whirring creatures.

  “Sammy, get over here now!” his father’s gruff voice called.

  “Yes, Pa.” Sammy scampered back onto the sidewalk.

  “What were you doing over there in your Sabbath suit?”

  “I was looking for a bird’s nest that I saw from the porch,” Sammy answered quietly.

  “That’s how you prepare for the Sabbath? Looking for birds’ nests?”

  Sammy didn’t respond; his father’s questions often had no acceptable answer. He had prepared for the Sabbath, and he was waiting for his father without getting dirty, but his father’s truth, to which Sammy was never privy, always seemed to be greater than Sammy’s. Because he lacked it, he was forever doing everything wrong, angering his father.

  “Is that how you prepare for the Sabbath?” his father demanded.

  “I guess so,” said Sammy.

  “You guess so? What kind of fool are you?”

  Sammy didn’t answer. He wanted to take his father’s hand—walking to or from the synagogue were the rare occasions when his father permitted him to do so—but he hesitated after this latest rebuke.

  “I’m sorry,” Sammy said appeasingly. For reasons unclear to the son, his father found apologies absolutely necessary; it didn’t matter whether they were sincere or even whether a person understood why he was apologizing.

  As they reached the sidewalk, Sammy instinctively turned left toward Rabbi Max’s synagogue.

  “No,” his father said, calling him back. “We’re going somewhere else this Sabbath.”

  The bewildered boy automatically came back to his father. To Sammy’s surprise, his father reached out to take his hand and held it in his hard, muscular one with a tenderness that made Sammy hope the new synagogue was far, far away.

  Although the walk was not so long as Sammy would have liked, it was more pleasant than the route to Rabbi Max’s; they strolled through their residential neighborhood of two-family dwellings and apartment houses without crossing any busy streets. As they approached their destination, his father looked down at Sammy and asked, “Do you know where we are going?”

  “No.”

  “We are going to the Krimsker Rebbe’s beis midrash. I used to pray in his beis midrash in Krimsk when I was a boy. You must be very well behaved.”

  Boruch Levi didn’t look at his son as he spoke. He was busy intently examining the Krimsker Rebbe’s three-story building, trying to discern whether there were any similarities to the rickety wooden one with all the windows in Krimsk. He hoped that there would be one very important similarity: a place for him now as there once had been.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CRIES OF “A MINYAN!” GREETED BORUCH LEVI’S ENTRY into the beis midrash. Now that a quorum was present, the cantor plunged into the afternoon prayer. Hebrew words spewed forth in a great rush like that of a bursting dam, suggesting that it was very, very late, probably too late for the afternoon prayer, even by the lax hasidic sense of time. Sucked into the temporal-spiritual rush, Boruch Levi and Sammy hurriedly took seats behind the nine other congregants, and Boruch Levi began praying from one of the many prayer books scattered about the tables. Reading hurriedly without much concentration, he was among the first to finish the silent devotion.

  Continuing to stand, he surveyed the small beis midrash, which might be able to seat thirty or forty with everyone crowded together for the High Holidays. An adjacent alcove was closed off by a movable partition. At first Boruch Levi thought that might be the women’s section, but it was completely dark, and he remembered that in Krimsk there had been no place at all for women. Probably Reb Zelig’s small but successful remnants/seconds business was conducted behind the enshrouding screen.

  Originally Reb Zelig’s commercial activity had surprised Boruch Levi; in Krimsk the rebbe had always refused to permit even talk of money in his beis midrash. In St. Louis, however, things were different. Almost everyone worked on Saturday, and since the rebbe could not accept donations that might have been earned in violation of the Sabbath, Reb Zelig, although no youngster, had reluctantly gone into business to assure the purity of the rebbe’s funds. How unlike Rabbi Max’s foolish bootlegging, thought Boruch Levi, but what smug satisfaction he felt dissolved with the realization that he, Boruch Levi, who now did observe the Sabbath, had never supported the Krimsker Rebbe in America. He felt like a deserting officer who returns to find that his troops have barely managed to survive without him, while with him they might have triumphed. In spite of having made the minyan, Boruch Levi didn’t feel needed.

  He looked around, hoping to discover some physical similarity to the beis midrash in Krimsk, but whereas there the room had been large, almost square, and filled with windows, here it was small and narrow, only a few windows gracing the walls, and those above head level. Boruch Levi examined the prayer hall for some glorious ritual object that hinted at the Krimsker Rebbe’s greatness, but again he found nothing. Neither as large nor as grand as the synagogue he had presented to Rabbi Max, the St. Louis Krimsker beis midrash seemed inappropriate for such a great man as the rebbe. Then Boruch Levi suddenly realized that the two worlds of America and Krimsk were playing tricks on him again. The Krimsker Rebbe’s
beis midrash in Krimsk had been the most ordinary place in the world. Since the rebbe remained a constant in both worlds, this plain beis midrash in St. Louis was perfectly appropriate. The rebbe didn’t need a grand, ornate converted theater, even if all the rest of America did.

  Reb Zelig finished the silent devotion and turned to nod in appreciative greeting to the man who had made the minyan. Smiling in return, Boruch Levi marveled at how Reb Zelig had aged. His all-white beard and hair showed the wispy thinning that comes with age. But the vigor remained; the tough sinews in the sexton’s neck were tight when he prayed. How old was he now? Reb Zelig had been no youngster back in Krimsk. Had his beard already been white when he left for America? Despite his excellent memory, Boruch Levi could not recall.

  The Krimsker Rebbe suddenly finished the silent prayer and turned around. A startled Boruch Levi put his hand on his son’s slight shoulder to steady himself. Unused to supporting his powerful father, Sammy twisted uneasily under the weight and looked up in apprehensive curiosity at his father, who was blinking in amazement at the man who had just sat down.

  “It can’t be,” Boruch Levi whispered in astonishment. After seventeen years in America, the rebbe had not changed at all.

  “The same. Absolutely the same. Like magic,” he murmured.

  He leaned down to his son and whispered hoarsely, “The rebbe. The holy Krimsker Rebbe. Do you see?”

  Sammy saw the Krimsker Rebbe sitting hunched slightly forward with his hands on his knees.

  “Do you see, Sammy?”

  Sammy saw what generations of children had seen before him.

  “Just like a frog,” the boy whispered under his breath, but incredulous that the holy man resembled a frog, he had said it a trifle too loud.

  “What?” his father asked.

  Sammy was afraid to answer.

  “A frog?” his father repeated, softly questioning his own memory. “Yes, a frog.” The answer came from his very own youth so many years before, in a place so far away as to be in a different world. “Yes, that’s what we all thought.

  “The Krimsker Rebbe hasn’t changed, has he?” Boruch Levi said to his son, his voice thick with remembrance and thanksgiving. He bent over and kissed his son’s forehead.

  “You’re a good boy, Sammy.”

  Sammy felt his father’s warm lips and blushed. He wasn’t so sure that he was a good boy. After all, he had been preparing for the Sabbath with birds’ nests and bugs. But he was sure that because of the holy rebbe, his father had kissed him.

  For a long time Boruch Levi could not take his eyes off the Krimsker Rebbe. He didn’t feel at all self-conscious about staring, since the rebbe seemed in another world (perhaps Krimsk?)—just as Boruch Levi remembered him.

  When he finally switched his attention to the other congregants he recognized a few familiar faces. The cantor, melodically chanting his way through the afternoon service, sounded familiar, but was far too young to have conducted services in Krimsk. Boruch Levi realized that he must be Reb Muni’s son, and when the congregation rose and turned toward the door to symbolically greet the Sabbath bride, Boruch Levi saw that he had guessed correctly, as an aged Reb Muni faced him. He recognized Nachman Leib Katzman and his younger son Shraga, but he was already familiar with them from using their shoe repair service. Nachman, always polite and hardworking, nodded to Boruch Levi.

  “Pa, turn around,” Sammy whispered urgently. Boruch Levi ceased examining the small minyan for old acquaintances and turned, facing across the quiet emptiness of the Krimsker Rebbe’s ordinary beis midrash toward the door to welcome the Sabbath Queen. As he chanted the refrain into the evening darkness, “Come my beloved, to greet the bride—to welcome the arrival of the Sabbath,” he felt as if he were welcoming a being no less personal and intimate than the rebbe and those old friends that he had not seen for so long in the secular, weekday world of America.

  Sammy liked the Krimsker Rebbe’s beis midrash much better than Rabbi Max’s synagogue. No one stared at him. A quiet intimacy pervaded the smaller room. And above all, he leaned in delicious comfort on his father, who seemed more relaxed than ever before. Sammy hoped that this would last at least as long as the service in the synagogue, which dragged on interminably as his young stomach rumbled with hunger. All too soon, however, the final kaddish had been recited.

  The few regular congregants rose and stepped forward to bow respectfully and murmur “good Sabbath” toward the Krimsker Rebbe, who remained seated next to the ark and acknowledged the greetings with ever so faint a nod. The hasidim then wished each other and Boruch Levi, too, a good Sabbath as they drifted slowly toward the exit.

  Boruch Levi took Sammy’s hand and stepped forward. Reb Zelig intercepted them with a Sabbath greeting, then Boruch Levi continued until he stood facing the Krimsker Rebbe directly across the table.

  “Gut Shabbos, rebbe,” Boruch Levi said quietly but very clearly.

  The rebbe nodded. Reb Zelig rushed to the table.

  “Boruch Levi, son of Naftali from Krimsk, made our minyan this Sabbath,” the sexton announced.

  Without any expression of recognition, the rebbe looked silently at Boruch Levi.

  “Boruch Levi, the son—” Reb Zelig repeated, but the rebbe cut him short.

  “What color is the river?” the rebbe asked Boruch Levi.

  Fearing an embarrassing encounter, Reb Zelig stared at the floor. The rebbe knew that Boruch Levi’s business was on the levee overlooking the Mississippi River. Although he had not been there himself, he had sent Reb Zelig years ago for some reason or other. The sexton could no longer recall whether or not he had gone inside, but the rebbe certainly remembered his report, for the rebbe never forgot anything.

  Boruch Levi, however, answered without hesitation.

  “Late this afternoon, on the eve of the Sabbath, it was a pale pink.”

  As he had left his office, he had glanced at the river, which reflected clouds floating in a late afternoon sky tinged slightly pink. Recalling how late it must be, he had driven quickly to police headquarters.

  The rebbe sat up straight.

  “Are you certain?” the rebbe asked eagerly.

  “I’m certain that is how it appeared to me,” Boruch Levi responded.

  “Is something wrong with your eyes?”

  “No, thank God. My eyes are fine.” Boruch Levi paused.

  “Then why aren’t you completely certain?”

  “Rebbe, I am completely certain that is what I saw, but since my visit to Krimsk this summer, I no longer trust the appearance of things here in America.” Boruch Levi’s voice quickened as he blurted out his strange, discomforting confession.

  “I understand,” the rebbe said.

  “You do?” Boruch Levi asked, both relieved and surprised.

  “Come. We’ll discuss it upstairs,” the rebbe said, rising from his chair.

  The rebbe walked quickly to the interior side door and waited for Reb Zelig, but the sexton, thoroughly perplexed, was rooted to the floor. The rebbe had never invited any hasid, much less a former one, upstairs to sanctify the Sabbath with him.

  “Nu?” the rebbe said, and Reb Zelig rushed over to open the door.

  “Yes, yes,” the sexton stammered in consternation as he motioned to Boruch Levi and his son to follow the rebbe up the back steps to the rebbetzin’s kitchen.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  SITTING ALONE IN THE KITCHEN, SHAYNA BASYA WAS surprised when a very powerfully built man and a slender young boy followed her husband into the room. She had heard only the rebbe and Reb Zelig climbing the creaky wooden steps. For a brief moment, she wondered if her husband knew that there were strangers following him, but when she saw that the sexton was behind them, she realized that was preposterous. The young boy, whose delicate face flushed with a quiet excitement, reminded Shayna Basya of her daughter Rachel Leah as a child. The bulky, powerful man did not appeal to her at all. She smiled at the boy, who, although pleased at the attention, shyly stepped
behind his father.

  The rebbe continued through the kitchen and on into the hall. Confused at what he should do with the guests, Reb Zelig stared wistfully after his rebbe.

  “Some special prayers,” he mumbled by way of explanation.

  “Please sit down,” Shayna Basya said to her guests.

  “Oh yes, of course,” agreed Reb Zelig. He looked at the rebbetzin in mild curiosity. Usually she fled into her room even at the mention of strangers.

  Smiling at Sammy, the rebbetzin pointed to the chair next to her. The boy stepped from his father’s shadow and shyly slid into the adjacent seat.

  “Reb Zelig, aren’t you going to introduce us to our guests?” the rebbetzin asked.

  “Oh yes, of course,” Reb Zelig stammered. “This is Reb Boruch Levi Rudman and his son. Reb Boruch Levi made our minyan this Shabbos.”

  Boruch Levi nodded, and Shayna Basya acknowledged him with a regal glance. Boruch Levi did not remember the rebbetzin’s formal dignity. Under her dark brown wig, the color of ancient pianos and old, heavy desks, her face, although very much alive, had been creased with a myriad of fine, intersecting lines. At least, Boruch Levi thought, she has aged. Her pale eyebrows hinted that under her stiff, matronly wig, her hair was mostly white. Boruch Levi remembered the fidgety, disheveled rebbetzin rushing into the Krimsk market and then retreating in awkward, haughty arrogance to her house next to the beis midrash. In St. Louis, where Jews drove themselves crazy with memorial tea parties in manicured rose gardens, she was calmer and lacked pretense.

  “What’s your name?” the rebbetzin asked the boy.

  “Sammy Rudman,” he answered forthrightly.

  The rebbetzin placed two caramels, one dark and one light, in front of him. “Eat them. They’re very good.”