Pixie Lehar, whom I could never get used to calling Paulette Goldberg, had invited us for Passover, but the thought of it filled me with despair. I wanted my own.
And so I had taken Leo’s advice and had begun a reading project. I read books with titles such as What It Means to Be a jew, How to Live a Jewish Life, The Jewish Holidays Observed, The Jewish Household, Jewish Festival Cooking, The Passover Seder, Jewish Ritual in Modern Life.
Watching me read these night after night, Johnny gave me a funny look. “From Catholic nuns to Jewish life,” he said. “What next? Chinese temple structure?”
“This is your son’s true heritage,” I told him. “At Passover the father of the household goes through the house with a candle and a goose feather looking for chametz.”
“Oh, yeah?” said my heathen husband. “Does he get to wear a funny hat? And when he finds this stuff, what is it?”
“Leaven,” I said. “Any bread or flour hanging around. The woman does the cleaning and the guy does the inspecting.”
“How like life,” Johnny said. “As you would say.”
Like people plunging into swimming pools, I held my nose and plunged. Books were written about such subjects as breast-feeding, gardening and sustained prayer. Other people read them and found them useful. Now that I had done my reading project, was it a terrible presumption for me to have my own Seder?
It would be only the three of us. This was my trial run and I needed privacy. I wanted to have Passover alone in my own house.
I cleaned my kitchen, and since I was not about to sell my flour to our upstairs neighbor for a symbolic penny, I wrapped it in a cloth. Johnny found this oddly touching. While Little Franklin and Amos played with blocks at the kitchen table, I chopped up the charoses and gave each boy a taste.
“Yuk” said Franklin. “What’s that?”
How was I supposed to tell this innocent creature, for whom the sight of a dead fly on the windowsill was unnerving, about slavery, pestilence, the slaughter of the firstborn?
“What’s that stuff?” said Amos, pointing to the box of matzoh.
“It’s called matzoh,” I said. “It’s like bread.”
“It’s a Saltine with no salt,” Amos said.
In the fridge was a nasty-looking shank bone the butcher had given me. Obtaining this bone gave me a thrill. Here I was, a grown-up, making a Passover meal in my own house. The Italian butcher, since he only had call for shank bones once a year, wished me a happy Pesach.
I roasted a boiled egg over the burner.
“Smells,” said Franklin.
The morning of Passover, I set the table with a white cloth. The matzoh was wrapped in a clean white napkin. I roasted a chicken and made eggplant caviar, since I did not think I was going to get anyone to eat gefilte fish. At Little Franklin’s place I put a cordial glass and a tiny bottle of grape juice for his wine. “Oh, baby wine!” he exclaimed. All over the world people were congregating to celebrate Passover in large groups. What a pathetic table, I thought—three places set by a person who barely knew what she was doing.
I lit the candles and we sat down. It wouldn’t be a proper Seder, but at least it would be an attempt at a Seder.
“Once upon a time,” Johnny said to Franklin, “the Jewish people were slaves.” I had made Johnny read the entire Haggadah the night before.
“What are slaves?” Franklin said.
“Slaves,” I said helpfully, “are people who have to work all the time.”
“Like Daddy,” Franklin said.
“No, sweetie,” Johnny said. “A slave is someone who is owned by someone else. We don’t have that anymore. All men are free.”
“I think this is a little over his head,” I said.
Johnny was all in favor of this Seder. He liked history and he felt it gave Little Franklin a taste of ancient civilization.
“Slaves work for no money,” Johnny said.
“When we do pickup at school we don’t get money,” Franklin said.
“It isn’t the same,” I said. “Many thousands of years ago these people had to work for a wicked king called Pharaoh.”
This was more up Franklin’s street, since he liked the idea of wicked kings.
“And then they didn’t work for this guy anymore?” said Franklin.
“That’s right,” I said. “They had to build bricks—the stuff with the apples in it is supposed to remind us of cement, but it’s really delicious. We eat the matzoh because when the Jewish people fled from slavery they didn’t have time to bake real bread, so they baked flat bread. All these foods are to remind people of the story.”
“Pass over a little of that eggplant, will you, Hon?” said Johnny.
“What’s the chicken remind us of?” said Franklin.
“That we are now happy and free and can have a good meal,” said Johnny.
“Is this because people aren’t mean to each other anymore?” said Franklin.
“Yes, my darling,” I said. “That’s exactly it.”
“Were you Jewish when this bad king made people build bricks?” Franklin asked me.
“That was thousands of years ago,” I said. “Now eat your dinner.”
55
Like a good former graduate student, I read up on monastic life. This project got a little out of hand since, like many Jewish girls, I seemed fascinated with nuns.
“It’s because it was the first and only alternative to wifedom and motherhood,” Mary said.
“I think it has more to do with clothes,” I said. We were driving upstate in Mary’s car. The awful day had come. I had left Franklin and Johnny eating breakfast. Later Amos Potts was coming to play. It was Saturday, and pouring rain. The rain on the roof sounded like drumming on a tin can. Mary had sold her car to William Hammerklever and used the money as her dowry.
“Dowry?” I said.
“Lots of orders have them,” she said. “It’s refundable if a person wants to leave.”
We drove a little while in silence.
“How was it at your parents’?” I asked. She had spent a week with her family in Connecticut.
“Weird,” she said. “I mean, they never expected my upbringing to backfire on them this way. They brought me up Catholic. They sent me to Catholic grammar school. They were very taken with modern intellectual Catholicism. My mother used to go down to the city to hear Dorothy Day speak. They never expected this, but they really can’t say anything bad about it because it’s the logical extension of everything they taught me to believe. Basically they’re very bummed out. They get to come and visit in a month.”
“And I don’t?”
“Come on, Gerry. They’re my family.”
“I hate family,” I said. “They’re never the people you want to be connected to. When I was having Franklin I wanted to see you. And of course William gets to see you because his brother or something is the chaplain up there.”
Mary was silent.
“Admit it,” I said. “When the chips are down, I don’t count.”
“Please, Geraldine,” Mary said. Sheets of rain fell all around us. “Watch out. That huge truck is creating a tidal wave.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Your faithful servant will not get you killed, and I won’t write unless I’m supposed to and I’ll bring Little Franklin up to see you when I’m allowed, if I can figure out how to explain all this to him.”
“Just tell him I’m a nun.”
“He doesn’t know anything about nuns,” I said. “He doesn’t know anything about God. At his age, it’s a frightening concept. I know you knew all about this stuff when you were three, but he doesn’t. We don’t have any context for it.”
“That’s modern life,” Mary said. “Believe me, going into a monastery can be seen as one colossal dodge.”
“How interesting,” I said. “Is it?”
“Sure,” said Mary. “It’s like a collapse or surrender. Context all the way. All the kinds of real struggles you have, I won’t have. The
kind of struggles you get in monasteries are like luxuries. I mean, interior stuff. I don’t ever have to make up my life again, and you do.”
“Great for me,” I said.
“It’s a noble struggle.”
“Fuck it,” I said. “What about my sweet little baby? I’m supposed to provide all this context for him. I can’t even get a decent Seder together.”
“You’ll get it together,” Mary said. “You always do. You’ll figure it out. You’re good at that.”
“I’m not,” I said.
“You are,” Mary said. “Believe me. You second-guess and complain, but you only do what you think is right. That’s a fine context for Franklin.”
“I think it’s much nicer when everything’s laid out for you, generation after generation,” I said.
We drove in silence. The rain beat furiously on the top of the car. I felt a welling desire to tell Mary everything in the world: what had I forgotten? Each inch of the road brought me closer to the fact that we would never have this sort of time together again. We would visit in the monastery parlor for an hour or so, separated by a railing. We would keep each other up to date by letter. Never again would we be two old friends in a car.
“‘I gave my heart to you, the one that I trusted,’” Mary sang.
“‘You gave it back to me all broken and busted,’” I sang. “‘I sold my heart to the junkman and I’ll never fall in love again.’”
“You want to stay to the right,” Mary said. “It’s the next exit.”
We turned off the highway and onto a winding blacktop.
“There’s a sign that says St. Scholastica’s Abbey,” Mary said. ‘Take this right and then the next left.”
We drove down a pleasantly curving road, past an Arabian horse farm on the left and a swamp on the right. Finally we saw the beginning of a fence. The rain had let up slightly.
“That’s where the Abbey land begins,” Mary said. “It’s big. They grow their own food and spin their own wool. Self-sufficient, just like in The Rule of St. Benedict.”
“How relaxing,” I said.
“I haven’t knitted since I was a child,” Mary said. “Soon I’ll be sitting around knitting scarves for the Summer Fair. You’ll come, won’t you?”
“Oh, sure,” I said. “Me and nine hundred other people.”
The fence gave way to an ornate brick wall, and the wall, finally, to an elaborate set of iron gates pulled back to let cars through. We drove down a lane of poplars, past a wide lawn on which sheep grazed, and there, around the curve, lay the monastery—a large farmhouse with wings added on, enclosed by a high wooden wall. At the top of the hill was a small chapel with a steeple.
“That’s the enclosure door,” Mary said, pointing to a large wooden gate. “When I get out of the car I go into the chapel. Then Mother Veronica takes me to the enclosure door. I knock and the abbess says, ‘My child, what do you want?’ And I say, ‘The grace of God and the holy habit.’ And the door opens and in I go.”
I had read about this a number of times but it seemed eerie and unsettling that it was happening to someone I loved.
I stopped the car next to the chapel.
“Listen, Gerry,” Mary said. “You’ll always be my true friend. I’ve always loved you best. I’ll think of you all the time, and Franklin and Johnny and the Man from Western Civ.”
“The Man from Western Civ,” I repeated.
“Leo,” said Mary. “Now listen. After I meet all the nuns, I go to the novitiate and I’m shown my cell, and I put on that denim jumper you helped me sew and my black turtleneck. By the way, thank you for the cotton tights. I would never have found them myself.” She seemed slightly out of breath. “Go find a synagogue. When you do, pray for me. I’ll pray for you. Believe me, you’re the best person I’ve ever known. You’re forthright and true. I’ll write in three months. Don’t forget to call William about the car. He’ll come and pick it up. Call my parents and tell them I’m safe.”
She leaned over and got her suitcase from the back. It had begun to rain hard again. When she opened the door, the rain positively roared at us.
“Okay, goodbye,” Mary said. “Be true to your school. Pray for me. Kiss Little Franklin.” She swung her legs over the side. She was half out of the car. “And leave him,” she said.
“Which one?” I shouted after her, but she had already dashed through the rain and into the chapel.
56
I drove straight home where my son and husband were sitting around playing with blocks. I expected my little darling to fly into my arms. Instead, he gave me a smack and told me that his truck was broken.
“He missed you,” Johnny said.
I scooped Little Franklin up into my arms. “Are you angry at me because I was away all day?” I said.
“I hate you,” said Little Franklin. “You’re not my friend.”
“I don’t hate you,” I said. “Come and help me cook dinner.”
“Daddy and I cooked dinner,” he said. “Daddy let me cut up the carrots. How come you don’t?”
I called William Hammerklever and arranged for him to pick up the car. I called Mary’s parents and told them all was well.
By dinnertime Little Franklin was sitting on my lap. “Amos came,” he said. “Winnie came. We played Dog in the Bakery.”
“You did?” I said. “What’s that?”
“A game,” said Little Franklin. “Can we eat now?”
We sat down to dinner. Because I could not come home empty-handed, I had stopped at our local bakery and picked up an apple pie—Little Franklin’s favorite. He liked the apples and I ate the crust.
Johnny and Franklin had made beef stew from The Joy of Cooking.
“Mom,” Franklin said. “Do you know what’s in this stew?”
“I don’t,” I said.
He leaned over to me confidentially. “Ingredients,” he said. “Tell where you went with Mary, Mama.”
“Well,” I said, looking at Johnny beseechingly. “There is a place called a monastery. They have a big farm and sheep grazing on the lawn.”
“Can we go there?”
“We can go and visit,” I said. “Mary is going to be something called a nun. Next time you see her she’ll have on a long black dress.”
“Why will she wear a dress if she lives on a farm? Will she be a farmer?”
“Well, sort of. It’s a very special kind of life. The ladies live in a big building and they sing and pray.”
“What’s pray?”
“It’s when you ask God for something,” I said.
“What’s God?”
“You know, Pankie,” said Johnny. “Remember we read that book about Indians and the Great Spirit? Manatu?”
Franklin did remember, and then he wanted to know if Mary would have a sheep of her very own. This will only get worse, I said to myself as I straightened up the kitchen.
Johnny gave Franklin his bath, but it was my turn to read to him. I lay down next to him and he curled up against me.
“Read,” he commanded. Franklin was very fond of the Just So Stories. He had a long attention span for a little boy. He wanted me to read “The Cat That Walked by Himself.”
“‘Hear and attend and listen,’” I began. “‘For this befell and behappened and became and was, O my Best Beloved, when the tame animals were wild.’”
“What’s wild?” said Little Franklin.
“It means they live in the forest or the wilderness and are not pets or farm animals.”
My son snuggled up closer and put his head on my shoulder. He smelled of soap. I could barely contain my feelings. My little boy was very tired. His eyes kept closing, and then he opened them, turned his pillow over and changed position. When he turned on his side, I believed he was almost asleep. I stopped reading.
“Read,” his little voice commanded.
I read and read, and still my boy was not asleep. I kissed him and hugged him.
“No kissing,” he said sleepily. “
Read.”
He turned over his pillow again and curled up on his side.
“Read,” he said.
I read very slowly, remembering what one of the nursery teachers had said: that if we did things at a child’s true pace, the world would move with incredible slowness.
“‘Out in the Wet Wild Woods all the wild animals wondered what had happened to Wild Dog,’” I continued. “‘And at last Wild Horse stamped with his wild foot and said: I will go and see and say why Wild Dog has not returned. Cat, come with me.
“‘“Nenni!” said the Cat. “I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.”’”
My voice wavered and the words swam on the page, but it did not matter: my little boy had finally gone to sleep.
PART FIVE
Underwater
57
The man who swam next to me—I believed he was called Mr. Jacobowitz—lumbered in the water, a heavy, hulking walruslike presence. He was large, old, barrel-chested, and swam a steady breaststroke. I found him the perfect person to pace myself with. Three mornings a week I swam in a pool near work, courtesy of Mrs. Hornung, for whom I had done a couple of favors. I had cheerfully photocopied a whole sheaf of her tax papers, and after a conversation about hot chocolate, I had found the very brand of cocoa she remembered from her youth—unavailable in her neighborhood—and had given her two tins of it.
When I presented them to her she was as delighted as if I had retrieved her great-grandmother’s long lost jewels. She was the widow of Caspar Hornung, the biographer of Moses Mendelssohn, and an old friend of Bernard and Gertje’s: she had known Bernard’s mother, the sainted Sophie Regenstein. Mrs. Hornung was small, with glowing cheeks, and white hair pulled back in a bun. One day I asked her why her hair was wet and she told me about her pool.
Goodbye Without Leaving Page 19
