We are so full and happy that my family usually needs little else to eat until Sunday, but sometimes, on Saturday night, some of us go into the kitchen for a little cake and tea, but not all of us and not together. The food at our house is always plentiful, fresh, and delicious. But most of all on Shabbos.
Mama
A woman of valor who can find? For her price is far above rubies.
The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, and he hath no lack of gain …
She looks well to the ways of her household, and eats not the bread of idleness.
Her children rise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her.
—Proverbs 31:10–11, 27–28
1922–1924
Even though I had to beg and plead and fight to be admitted to first grade, or maybe because of that, from the very first day I have loved going to school, a real school. It is nothing like the kindergarten where my parents sent me when I was four, after Josek was born.
I hated it from the minute I walked in the door. I suppose they sent me there to distract me, because at that time there was turmoil in our home.
Soon after Josek’s birth, Mama changed. I knew that something was different and not right. The apartment just wasn’t the same. I had clear memories of my mother singing and smiling while she nursed Idek when I was two. Now a woman I’d never seen before came into the house to nurse Josek. Mama meantime had become wild in a way, walking up and down, up and down, mumbling and wringing her hands. Her once-sparkling eyes were glazed. When she looked at me, she seemed to look through me, as if she didn’t see me at all. She didn’t sing or laugh or hug me and she no longer brushed her beautiful golden hair one hundred strokes in the morning and one hundred strokes in the evening. Now when Mama went to open the butcher shop in the morning, she didn’t seem to care about what she was wearing. Always before, she had been so stylishly dressed and had been extremely particular about her appearance. I was especially shocked to see my strong and loving mother scream at my father and say she hated him.
Unlike most Jewish couples, Mama and Tatte had not had an arranged marriage, a shidduch, but instead had met and fallen in love. Mama was smart and beautiful and lively and many young men had tried to win her. But she found all their showing off silly and instead was attracted to Tatte for his strong, calm, mature character and his dark good looks. They were always kind to each other, and though we could usually tell when there was trouble between them, they rarely argued in front of us.
Now she blamed all her unhappiness on Srul, the new employee who cut the meat at the butcher shop. From the first day since my parents had opened the store, Mama managed it, cut the meat for the customers, and took the money at the cash register, while Tatte had Wojcek drive him into the countryside to buy meat from the farmers and to help him load the horse cart. When Mama became pregnant with Josek, Tatte hired Srul out of concern for her health.
Mama wasn’t so young anymore and she seemed more tired from this fifth pregnancy. Tatte saw how hard she worked—on her feet all day, lifting and cutting those heavy pieces of meat and running our household—and he knew she would cut her tongue out before she ever admitted anything was too much for her. So even though she told him she didn’t need any help, he hired Srul against her wishes. Over the next few months of Mama’s pregnancy, Srul got to acting like he was in charge, taking over and telling her what to do. She complained to Tatte that instead of a helper she had gotten a boss.
After she had Josek, it got worse. She came home angrier and angrier after spending all day in the shop with Srul. She said he was rude to the customers and disrespectful to her, and she begged my father to fire him. But Tatte said no. Tatte had an accommodating nature and had always admired Mama’s ambition and gift for business, but on this he was accommodating to Srul at her expense and held firm.
Mama—suffering from what would one day be called postpartum depression—had become consumed by her hatred of their employee and her anger at my father. She felt Tatte didn’t respect her judgment, and she was outraged at not being in control. She felt dishonored and helpless, and she broke.
I was frightened and bewildered that Mama had turned into such a stranger. And I was furious that I had to go to that stupid kindergarten every day. To me, that place was not a real school. It was just a silly waste of time—nothing but wild noisy little children running all over the place and playing meaningless games. The teacher was always screaming, and some of the children were not even toilet trained.
It was obvious that there would be no teaching or learning in this kindergarten. Since it was not a real school, I decided there was no reason to keep going. So, after about two months there, I simply got up one day and left. I came back home and because of the turmoil in our house, no one seemed to notice that I had stopped going to school. Chana and Krysia never mentioned that I wasn’t in kindergarten. I guess they liked having me around.
After several months of this terrible chaos, Mama woke up one morning, washed and combed her luxuriant golden hair, and covered it with her beautiful custom-made sheitel, the wig Jewish women wore to cover their heads in public. (It was only in the privacy of our home that we could admire and brush Mama’s wavy golden hair.)
Then Mama put on her nicest and newest tailored emerald-green dress and went to the stable and told Wojcek to ready the horse and wagon. She rode out to visit the Radoshitz Rebbe, who was famous for his healing powers (a rebbe is a rabbi who is considered especially important and holy). She told the rabbi of her troubles and complained about Srul. She said, “Rebbe, I have five children, four at home and little Chanusck in the cemetery. I have to be a mother to my children, but I am so very sick.”
The Radoshitz Rebbe put his hands on Mama’s head and said, “Go home, you will be a mother to your children, and you will be blessed with many more.”
Overnight, Mama was Mama again. Tatte fired Srul the next day. Mama handed Josek to Chana as she walked out the door to open up the store. By herself, she cut all the meat and sold it. She was again my mama, a confident, beautiful, loving woman: a powerhouse and a real mensch.
* * *
Now, two years later, there is peace at home and I am in a real school. I finally have a place on the bench with the other students. My seat is in the front row and on the right side of the classroom, which is my good luck because I am deaf in my right ear.
Mama told me that when I was two, while she was out, I had been fascinated by a dust pile Chana made as she was sweeping the kitchen. We had no toys and I had to play with whatever was handy, and that dust pile apparently looked interesting to me.
When Chana went into the dining room, I started playing in the dust and found a small shiny brown coffee bean. I must have thought it was fun to put the bean in my ear, take it out, put it in, take it out, put it in, but then I couldn’t get it out. It was stuck, and it hurt. I cried and Chana came running. She was so frightened. Mama wasn’t home and Chana had to decide what to do.
She took me to a feldsher, a kind of healer, and when he tried to remove the bean, by mistake he pushed it in even farther. When Chana brought me home to my mother, Chana was distraught over what had happened and how hard I was crying. She told Mama how sorry she was; she was only trying to save money by not going to a doctor. Of course Mama understood completely and wasn’t angry with Chana. She was just upset for me.
Mama said that the feldsher was a quack and immediately took me to a real doctor in Piotrków, but he pushed the coffee bean in so far it punctured my eardrum.
After that my ear would often get infected and pus would ooze out. It must have been painful but I don’t remember suffering from it. What I do remember is how happy it made me to get so much attention from Mama. She took me to many doctors, once even to Warsaw, the biggest city in the country, when I was three. We stayed with her cousin. I was excited to be in the capital, and I went outside by myself to go exploring. There was a huge commotion when I got back, as if I would have wand
ered off and never returned, and I felt so loved in that moment because of the attention. Over those years I blossomed because of all the special love and concern I received from my mother.
As I got older, I became self-conscious about my deafness and decided never to tell anyone about it.
* * *
In school, I am a sponge and absorb everything that we are taught and more. I am never without a book in my bag, in my bed, in the apple tree. After the triumph of finally being registered and then getting my own seat and place at the table, I am the happiest child in the world. I am sure that I will always be able to overcome any future obstacle.
But then only a week later, after getting my own seat on the bench, I learn that happiness doesn’t last for long. On a snowy Thursday, Rozia’s father asks me to walk with her to school the next day. She is always late and he thought if she walked with me she would be on time. I enjoy walking by myself, singing and daydreaming, but of course I say yes.
As usual Rozia is late coming out of her apartment, and on the next block she slips and falls in some slush. After we brush the wet snow off her clothes, she walks very slowly, complaining that her ankle hurts. By the time we get to school, we are both late and the teacher is angry and punishes us. She makes us stand in opposite corners in the front, with our backs to the blackboard, facing the class.
Rozia laughs, her dark eyes sparkling, her black curls dancing on her shoulders, while I break down in tears. It is Rozia’s fault but I am the one who suffers. I am extremely embarrassed, humiliated, and angry. After all those difficult weeks of begging and pleading to be admitted to the school, and then being stared at as I sat on my little stool, I lose control and cry in front of my classmates. This makes me feel even more ashamed.
Later, sitting on a limb of my apple tree, I vow I will never let myself cry in front of people again.
After that terrible day I am never late again.
* * *
Over the rest of these first three years of grade school, I come to feel even more at home in school than with my own family. By the end of first grade, Beniek is toddling all over the house. Unlike those awful weeks after Josek was born, this time life at home doesn’t change very much, except now Mama has even less time to pay attention to me. So all my attention goes to school. Maybe if I had gotten the sister I have been secretly wishing for, my life at home would have felt more interesting. Even at school, while I do well and get good grades, I never feel like I am anything special, just me, until a life-changing event at the end of the third grade.
We are having an arithmetic lesson and the teacher asks us, “If a Polish worker makes two hundred and ten new Polish zlotys per week, how many does he make each day?”
Many students quickly raise their hands to shout out, “Thirty zlotys!” But I say loudly, “No, the right answer is thirty-five zlotys.”
The teacher says, “Dobra, Gucia! In my twenty years of teaching you are the first student to answer that question correctly! What a bright thinker you are!” And she turns to the class and says, “Learn to use your mind like Gucia. Figure things out. Polish workers don’t work seven days a week, you know. On Sunday they go to church and rest. You should have divided by six and not seven!”
I am glowing. I feel for the first time a sense of being special and a confidence that I can trust myself to figure out what is true, what makes sense, and how to solve a problem even if no one else agrees.
Fourth Grade
Happy the pupil whose teacher approves his words.
—Jewish proverb
1925–1926
The new year starts out bittersweet for our family.
First, in January, our Jewish maid, Chana Chojnacka, gets married and moves away to Belgium. Although we are very happy for Chana, we are sad for ourselves. She has been our maid since before Hela was born and she is like family to us. In fact, Mama holds the wedding in our front parlor and pays for Pan Heska Szwartz to cater the dinner.
It is a very small wedding because Chana has no family in Piotrków, nor does her husband, Herschel. Papa and Uncle Josef are two of the four honor attendants who hold up the chuppa, the ritual canopy held over the bride and groom to represent the new home they will create. Then Chana walks around Herschel seven times, symbolizing the seven days of creation. The rabbi recites the marriage blessings over a silver cup of red wine, and then Chana and Herschel each drink from that cup. Herschel puts a simple gold wedding ring on the forefinger of Chana’s right hand and recites his vows. My mama cries when the rabbi wraps his blue-and-white-striped prayer shawl, his tallis, around Chana and Herschel, as he pronounces them man and wife. Then Herschel crushes a glass wine goblet, wrapped in a white linen napkin, under his right foot, to remind us of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the sadness that we sometimes have in life, and then we all cry out, “Mazel Tov!” Congratulations!
Mama hugs Chana awkwardly, because Mama is very pregnant. Again!
* * *
In February, soon after Chana and Herschel leave, Mama has her seventh baby and I am happy that it is a little girl. Now at last I will have a sister I can play with. My other sister, Hela, is four years older than I and we have always been worlds apart. All we have in common is that we have shared the same bed since I was a baby. Hela is so stylish, with a taste for fine things, and she feels free to ask for whatever she wants.
Mama, who is generous by nature and especially with us, never says no to her children. I’ve heard some grownups say we are spoiled, so I deny myself things to prove them wrong. Mama is always wanting to buy me my own new clothes, but I would feel selfish to let her waste money like that when the clothes Hela has outgrown are so beautiful and still look good as new. So I find an inexpensive seamstress in the neighborhood, not like the expensive one who comes to our house, and she alters Hela’s hand-me-downs to fit like they were made for me! Even though I was saving her money, I think Mama was a little disappointed because she has fun dressing us up. But when she told me how proud she was that I am so resourceful, I felt a secret glow inside that gave me so much more pleasure than I ever could have gotten from a new dress.
And now I have a little sister, someone I can cuddle and take care of and play with. They name her Rifka after my father’s mother, who has just died. My little sister is very cute. She has Mama’s beautiful green eyes and little wisps of strawberry-blond hair, like Hela. Mama lets me hold her as a reward when I finish all my homework early.
But then comes a shocking tragedy. Three months after Rifka is born, the new Polish maid, Anya, lets Rifka roll off the table as she is changing her diaper, and my little baby sister is dead.
The grief I feel is overwhelming. Everyone is devastated. Following our Jewish tradition, the day after little Rifka dies, we bury her in the Jewish cemetery in a plain pine box, next to Chanusck, the sister I never knew, who got sick and died a year after I was born, when she was three. All I am aware of are the prescribed rituals called shiva that get us through that first week of mourning. It is comforting having those procedures to follow when we are too numb to think. Uncle Josef, Mama’s favorite brother, and Tanta Sura come right over. They cover all the mirrors and windows in the house with white cloths. The religious reason for this is to remind us that death is a time to contemplate the deep mysteries of life and not be distracted by vanity. The superstitious reason is that the Angel of Death is so ugly that if he sees himself in the mirror when he comes into the house he will get angry and take someone else, too.
Throughout that week of sitting shiva, those of us in mourning sit on low wooden stools as friends come to visit and comfort us in our grief. And each day a minyan of ten men, including Uncle Josef and Rozia’s and Sala’s fathers, come to say prayers. Tatte says the Kaddish, the mourners’ prayer.
Going back to school, to my other life, gives me comfort in the face of this tragedy.
* * *
In September, I enter the fourth grade at a public school called Maria Konopricka. It is so con
venient for me. The city had rented the ground floor of the apartment building next to mine, the one that Sala Grinzspan’s father owns and where they live. This is where the school is, so close that even Rozia won’t be late for classes.
My school days all seem to run into each other. We have to memorize, memorize, memorize, and so often I am bored. But one big event stands out.
Sometimes a teacher will choose a favorite student to carry her books to school. It is always considered a great honor. It is near my birthday in May when my teacher, Pani Grabowska, asks me to come to her house to carry her books. I think I will fall off my chair I am so struck with shock and pride.
She gives me the directions to her house on the outskirts of the city. I get up two hours earlier than usual because I know it will take almost an hour to walk there and another hour back to school. Fortunately it is May and not cold and the blossoming trees and flowers, the cheerful songs of the birds, make me very happy along the way.
Pani Grabowska meets me at her front door and when she goes to get the books, I peek inside. All I can see is the large front room but I take everything in immediately. Instead of fancy gold-embossed wallpaper and shellacked wooden floors painted a shiny cinnamon color, like at our house, she has plain white walls and a dark wood floor with a small Oriental carpet in the middle. Unlike our heavy mahogany furniture, she has lots of wicker furniture painted a nice shade of forest green. There is a comfortable armchair, a rocking chair, a round table with glass on the top, and a big curvy couch. On the seats and backs of all the furniture are matching light green fluffy pillows, embroidered with large red and pink roses. On the sparkling glass top of the round table is a simply framed photograph of a handsome young blond man in a Polish soldier’s uniform. Lying next to the photo is a single red rose and a small glass jar with a lighted religious candle. I remember hearing that Pani Grabowska had a boyfriend who was killed during World War I. It all seems very romantic to me. Although she lives on the outskirts of the city in a little cottage, I think her house is much more beautiful and elegant than mine.
Claiming My Place Page 3
