Miriam's Secret

by Debby Waldman

Miriam’s eyes widened as she sat down at the kitchen table and unfolded three pieces of heavy white notepaper. “It’s a long letter!” she said.

  “It’s not all words,” Bubby said, but Miriam had already discovered that only the first piece of paper was a letter. The other two were pictures, drawn in precise, confident pencil strokes.

  One showed two babies sleeping shoulder to shoulder in a crib. Both had dark, curly hair and pudgy hands and feet. Even though they were asleep, or perhaps because of it, their faces looked peaceful and sweet. In the other picture, they didn’t look quite so peaceful. The artist had captioned the picture Rifke and Gabriel and Zvi and Rafael. Mama was holding Gabriel. His eyes were bright and cheerful, and his mouth was wide open. Papa was holding Rafael, whose face was wrinkled into an expression between angry and sad. The picture was so lifelike that Miriam half expected to hear Gabriel laughing and Rafael wailing.

  “Who drew these?” she asked.

  “Your uncle Avram,” Bubby answered, pointing to the sentence in the letter where Mama had described the “portrait sessions,” as she called them.

  “I thought he was a shopkeeper,” Miriam said.

  Bubby nodded. “That’s how he earns a living,” she said. “But he’s an artist too.”

  “Can I keep them in my room?” Miriam asked. She was already looking forward to taking the pictures to the barn to show Cissy.

  “If you’d like,” Bubby said. “But let’s wait until after dinner. I think your zayde would like to see them first.”

  Miriam ran her fingers over the picture of her parents and the twins. This was the first time she had really considered what it would mean to share her home with two babies. She did not know any babies. Her other cousins were the same age as she was, or older.

  “Do you think they will cry a lot?” she asked Bubby.

  Bubby looked at the pictures again before she answered. “Babies do cry,” she said finally. “But mostly because they can’t use words. When they learn to talk, they don’t cry as much. And sometimes if they’re crying, all you have to do is hold them close and give them comfort, and they’ll stop.”

  Miriam pointed to the picture of the crying Rafael. “That doesn’t seem to be working for Papa,” she said.

  “I’m sure it will for you,” Bubby said.

  “I hope so,” Miriam said. “They’re going to be my brothers. They will be my cousins and my brothers.”

  Bubby nodded.

  “Can we come here, to visit you?” Miriam said.

  “You must and you should!” Bubby said. “I’m getting used to having a little girl around here. I don’t know what I’m going to do when you’re gone. I certainly do hope you will come back and bring the twins.”

  “Will you be their bubby too?”

  “Of course I will,” Bubby said. “You bring them here, and we’ll put them to work. You can teach them to milk a cow.”

  “I don’t even know how to milk a cow,” Miriam reminded her.

  “Then we had better teach you soon,” Bubby said.

  When Miriam went out to the barn the next day, Cissy shimmied down the ladder to greet her. “I think we’d best stay in the stall today,” she said.

  Miriam was worried. “Did anyone come into the loft after I left yesterday? Or this morning?”

  “Just Joe,” Cissy said. “But we haven’t played down here in a while anyhow.”

  When they reached the stall, Miriam pushed open the door and stepped aside to let Cissy in first. Moses came padding over. Cissy bent over and scooped him up. “Look how big he’s getting,” she said, holding him up in the air.

  Miriam pulled Uncle Avram’s pictures out from one pocket and two of Bubby’s donuts from the other. As she plopped down on the hay-bale bench next to Cissy, she handed her the donuts Bubby had fried up early that morning. Miriam had rolled them in cinnamon sugar after Bubby removed them from the pan. They were light and fluffy and filling at the same time.

  “These are for you,” she said. “We had stew for lunch, so this is the best I could do.”

  Cissy’s face brightened. “These the ones your granny made for breakfast?”

  Miriam felt bad. “Joe brought you some too, didn’t he?”

  “Don’t matter,” Cissy replied, her mouth full. “Your granny makes the best donuts.”

  “I helped,” Miriam said.

  “Well, then you and your granny make the best donuts.” Cissy swallowed and looked down at the papers in Miriam’s hands. “Whatcha got there?”

  “They’re pictures,” Miriam said.

  Cissy finished the rest of the first donut. “You made donuts and pictures? You had a busy morning.”

  Miriam laughed. “Mama sent them. My uncle drew them.” She unfolded the picture of the babies in their crib and held it up for Cissy to see.

  “Those are your cousins?” Cissy asked, her voice full of wonder.

  Miriam nodded. Cissy reached for the picture.

  “Wipe your hands first, please,” Miriam said, polite but firm. Cissy nodded and wiped her hands on her shirt. Then Miriam passed her the first picture so she could look more closely. Moses jumped off Cissy’s lap, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “What’s the name of the place they live again?”

  “Borisov.”

  “That is a right strange name.”

  “What’s the name of the place you’re from?” Miriam asked.

  A smile broke out on Cissy’s face. “Whiskey Corner,” she said, laughing.

  “Whiskey Corner? What kind of name is that for a town?”

  “It isn’t much of a town,” Cissy said. “More like a collection of little shacks and houses. Long time ago it was the part of the county where people made whiskey, and when it turned into a town, nobody thought to give it a new name ’cause by then they all knew it as Whiskey Corner. So that’s what it stayed.” She returned the picture to Miriam. “What’s the other picture?”

  Miriam handed it to her, then folded up the first one and carefully placed it back into her pocket.

  Cissy smoothed out the picture. “That’s your mama and daddy?”

  Miriam nodded.

  Cissy chewed on her lip. Then she ran her fingers over the picture, just as Miriam had done. “I wish I had a picture of mine. Everything burned in the fire.”

  “I’m sorry,” Miriam said.

  “Ain’t nothing you can do about it,” she said. She looked up at Miriam, down at the picture and then back at Miriam. “Your mama’s awful pretty. You look like her. And those babies, they have the same hair as you. They’re going to look like you, I bet.”

  She studied the picture again. “That baby your daddy’s holding—he doesn’t look too happy. I hope he don’t cry like that all the time when he comes to live with you.”

  “Me too!” Miriam said.

  “When are they going to get here anyway?”

  Miriam shrugged her shoulders. “Bubby thinks in a little more than a month. After Passover.”

  “That’s that holiday with Elijah, the one you told me about yesterday?” Cissy patted the spot beside her. “Sit down already and tell me some more.”

  EIGHTEEN

  “Did I tell you why we celebrate Passover?”

  “So you can invite Elijah to dinner,” Cissy said.

  “That’s only part of it,” Miriam said. “A long time ago, the Israelites were slaves in Egypt. They had to build cities for the pharaoh. He was like the king.”

  “I know that,” Cissy said.

  “Because it’s in the Bible?”

  “And because there’s songs about it. You know ‘Go Down, Moses’?”

  “No,” Miriam said.

  “Go down, Moses

  Way down in Egypt land

  Tell old Pharaoh to

  Let my people go.”

  Today Cissy’s voice sounded smoky and deep. It was strangely beautiful, and it sent shivers through Miriam.

  “You cold or something?”

  “Your v
oice,” Miriam said. “I could listen to you all day long.”

  Cissy waved her hands. “I told you it ain’t nothing special. Now keep talking. What do you eat on this holiday? Anybody’s pockets?”

  “We eat matzah,” Miriam said.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s like a giant cracker. Because when the Israelites left Egypt, they were in such a hurry they didn’t have time to let their bread rise, so the bread wasn’t big and soft, it was thin and crispy.”

  “Okay, so crackers. What else?”

  “We also make little sandwiches.”

  “You eat sandwiches for dinner?”

  Miriam shook her head. “The sandwiches are just for the first part of the seder. That’s when we tell the story about how the Israelites escaped, and we talk about the special food we’re supposed to eat.”

  “What kind of sandwiches?” Cissy asked, her eyes bright.

  “Horseradish and charoses,” Miriam said.

  Cissy put her hand over her mouth. She looked horrified. Then, shaking her head, she said, “Horseradish? You’re pulling my leg. That sounds awful! I’d rather stay in here and eat hay than sit at a table and eat horseradish.”

  “You only have to eat a little,” Miriam said. “And then you get as much charoses as you want.”

  “Ha-roses?” Cissy asked.

  “Charoses,” Miriam said, making a growly sound in the back of her throat when she said the ch.

  “What is that?” Cissy asked. She wrinkled her nose.

  “It’s good!” Miriam assured her. “Mama makes it. She chops up apples and nuts and mixes them with cinnamon and sugar and wine. It tastes almost like candy.”

  “Well, it does sound a lot better than horseradish,” Cissy said. “What else do you eat?”

  “Chicken soup with matzah balls,” Miriam said.

  “I thought matzah was a cracker. It’s a ball?”

  “To make matzah balls you use matzah meal,” Miriam explained. “It’s like flour. And you mix it with eggs and water, so it’s soft. Then you shape the dough into balls and boil them. When they’re done you add them to the soup.”

  Cissy nodded. “Then what?”

  “Gefilte fish. It’s almost as good as charoses.”

  “Filtered fish?”

  “Ge-FILT-uh fish,” Miriam said.

  “I heard of trout and rainbow fish, but what in the name of creation is a gefilte fish?”

  Miriam giggled. “It’s not just one fish,” she said. “You mix different kinds of fish together. And then you add in onions and carrots, and you make it into balls, and—”

  “You make everything into balls!” Cissy laughed. “Matzah balls. Fish balls. Do you eat baseballs? Don’t you eat anything normal? Like, I don’t know, grits? Or ham hocks?”

  “What’s grits?”

  “It’s sort of a corn mush,” Cissy said. “My mama made the best grits. We’d eat them for breakfast, in a bowl, and sometimes, if we had sugar syrup, we’d put that on top.”

  A dreamy expression spread across Cissy’s face. Miriam imagined Cissy must be remembering breakfast in Mississippi with her mama and papa.

  “Okay, but isn’t a hammock something you sit in?” Miriam asked.

  “Not a hammock,” Cissy said, laughing again. “Ham hocks. Bottom part of a pig leg. Mama stewed ’em with beans or greens. Best thing I ever ate. That and Hoppin’ John.”

  “Hopping John?”

  “Hoppin’,” Cissy said. “No g at the end.”

  “Well, what in the name of creation is Hoppin’ John?” Miriam asked. Her imitation made Cissy smile.

  “Well,” Cissy said seriously, sounding like a schoolteacher again, “Hoppin’ John is something we eat on the special occasion of the new year. It is made with black-eyed peas and rice, and my mama made it with ham hocks ’cause that made it extra special. And you don’t need to make any snorting noises to pronounce it neither. So there.”

  “What’s a black-eyed pea?” Miriam asked. “I didn’t even know peas had eyes.” She was laughing now, right along with Cissy.

  “It’s special food—I don’t think you have ’em up here. Least, nobody’s ever brought me any from your granny’s kitchen.”

  “No ham hocks either,” Miriam said. “Ham isn’t kosher.”

  “Kosher?”

  “Jewish people don’t eat any meat that comes from a pig,” Miriam explained. “And we don’t eat milk and meat together.”

  “So you have never had fatback? Or meatloaf with cheese melted on top?”

  “Never. What’s fatback?” To Miriam, the name made it sound very unappealing, but she didn’t want to make Cissy feel bad by saying so.

  “Kind of like bacon,” Cissy said. The dreamy look came over her face again. “I sure do miss eating fatback.”

  “I wish I could make something you like,” Miriam said.

  “Don’t you worry about that, Miri,” Cissy assured her. “You’ve already done that.”

  Miriam didn’t understand. None of the food she had brought for Cissy from Bubby’s kitchen was anything she had asked for. And it was Bubby, not Miriam, who had made most of it. “How?” Miriam asked.

  “You made me a friend.”

  NINETEEN

  Every night before Miriam fell asleep, Bubby and Zayde came to her room and sat at the edge of her bed and listened as she recited the Sh’ma. The Sh’ma came from the Torah, and Miriam said it in Hebrew. After the Sh’ma, Miriam said a few more prayers, but these were in English, and they were her own words.

  When she first arrived at the farm, Miriam used those prayers to give thanks for being blessed with a nice family and a warm place to sleep. She asked God to watch over those she loved, which included everyone from Mama and Papa to her cousins in Brooklyn and Borisov. Now, though, after Bubby and Zayde left her room she prayed that Cissy and Joe would find their uncle so that Cissy, too, would have a safe, warm place to live—but not until after Mama and Papa returned.

  Miriam couldn’t imagine life on the farm without Cissy. She didn’t like to miss one day in the barn with her. The first time Bubby planned an activity that kept them in the house all day, Miriam spent almost the entire time worrying that Cissy would think she was never coming back. And indeed, the next day when Miriam came to the barn, Cissy confessed that she had been a little bit concerned.

  “I kept hoping you’d come back,” Cissy said. “But I’ve been through worse than losing a friend, you know. And you did come back! I bet you was more worried than me. I know you got your granny and grandpa in there to keep you busy. When you come out here, you come. When you don’t, I know you will again.”

  One morning, the week before Passover, Bubby announced that there would be no lessons after breakfast. Miriam was so excited that her voice came out somewhere between a squeak and a shout. “I can go out to the barn right now?” she asked.

  Bubby shook her head. “Miri, don’t you remember? We’re going to Utica today, to do our Passover shopping. I thought you were looking forward to a visit to the city. You can go back to the barn tomorrow. The kittens will survive one day without you.”

  A frown spread across Miriam’s face before she could stop it. “I forgot,” she admitted.

  “And isn’t it about time you decided which kitten you want to keep?” Bubby said. “Next week they will be eight weeks old. That’s old enough to leave their mama. And then you won’t have to go to the cold barn every day. Won’t that be nice?”

  No, Miriam thought, that will not be nice at all. “I like going to the barn,” she replied, hoping she sounded less concerned than she was. “It’s not that cold. And I don’t know which kitten to pick yet.”

  Now Miriam felt ashamed. Two falsehoods in one sentence! The barn was always cold, and she was pretty sure which kitten she was going to keep.

  “I know they’re big enough,” Miriam said. “But I don’t want to take one away from all its brothers and sisters. It might be lonely.” And I’ll be lonely too, and s
o will Cissy, if we don’t get to visit each other every day.

  “I suppose so,” Bubby said. “But cats can get used to lots of things. I don’t think you need to concern yourself with that.”

  Zayde filled the truck with gasoline from the pump near the barn. Then he parked the truck in front of the house and boosted Miriam to sit in the middle of the front bench. Bubby climbed in, and soon they were on the road. Sometimes, when they went over a bump, Miriam’s leg brushed against the long narrow gearshift sticking out of the floor.

  They passed gentle rolling hills with farms whose fields were still covered with snow. Miriam wondered if there was as much mud on these fields as there was at Bubby and Zayde’s. It was hard to tell from so far away.

  The road that led into Utica was so long and steep that Miriam’s ears popped all the way down. The streets in the city were much wider and more crowded than they were in Waterville. Zayde parked between the meat market and the grocery store. At the market, he started up a long conversation with the butcher, Sam. Miriam had seen Sam at the farm before. He came every few months to pick up a cow and bring it into his shop. The two men were still making plans for Sam’s next visit when Bubby took Miriam by the hand and led her to the grocery store.

  “What will Mama and Papa do for Passover?” Miriam asked as they entered the store. “Can you have Passover in the Old Country?”

  “Of course you can,” Bubby assured her. She picked up two baskets and handed one to Miriam. “Your mama and papa will have a seder with Uncle Avram’s and Tante Chaya’s family, may she rest in peace. And next year, you’ll all be together in New York for the seder. Imagine that.”

  Miriam tried, but she was wondering what Mama and Papa’s seder would be like this year. How big would the table be? How many people would sit around it? Would Mama and Papa be able to find whitefish and pike for their gefilte fish? And did the stores in Borisov have the same kind of matzah as in America? She wondered if her parents missed her as much as she missed them right now.

  “You’re looking sad,” Bubby said. She stopped in front of a display of matzah and began loading boxes into her basket and Miriam’s. “I thought you liked Passover. Didn’t you tell me it’s your favorite holiday?”