One American Dream

by Bernard Beck

  Somewhere, deep inside me, that same old familiar feeling was bubbling. I knew what it was, and I tried to suppress it. But I knew it was there. This would never happen in the home of an authentic American. Irrational, but, nevertheless, it was there, and it felt uncomfortable. Once again I felt like a foreigner. It was them against me, and I was still the outsider. Even in my own home.

  I would just have to wait.

  __________

  When I came home, my father stopped me on my way to my room and led me into his office. He seated himself in his oak office chair, tilted it back, and motioned to me to sit in the side chair. This, in itself, was unusual, and I was uncomfortable and suspicious. I had surreptitiously peeked into the room many times in the past, but I had never sat in it.

  “I received a call today,” my father began in his self-important voice, “from a man named Jacobson. Herman Jacobson.” At this point my father picked up a paper from his desk and studied it for a long time.

  I had no idea who this Herman Jacobson was or why my father was being so obnoxious.

  “This Mr. Jacobson,” my father went on, “said he wanted to speak to Zelda Mahler, the writer.” I caught my breath, and my heart stopped beating. My father was speaking so slowly.

  “I told him,” he said, intently watching my face, “that there was no one here by that name, and that there are no writers here, but he insisted. We had a long talk during which he told me that Zelda Mahler was obviously a pen name and that he suspected that it might be you.”

  He leaned back in his chair and took time to relight his cigar. Only then, after the cigar lighting ritual had ended, did he focus his attention, once again, on me.

  “So?” he asked with a faint smile.

  I didn’t know what to say, to deny it would be a lie and besides, they would find out eventually, so I admitted it hoping that it would end there. But just as I had feared, my father asked to see the magazine and to show him some of my stories. He said he was so proud that his daughter was an author, and he wanted to show the stories off to his friends. But he sounded belligerent and a little angry.

  “You wouldn’t like them,” I said quietly, “and besides, they’re not very good.”

  “Don’t be so modest,” he said with a strange smile. “They must be good if they were published in a magazine. Go on, get one. I want to read it and show it to your mother and to my friends.”

  I knew that if he ever read any of my stories with all the sex that was in them, he would get very angry. But what could I do? He was my father, and I had to obey.

  Reluctantly, I went into my room and got one of the magazines that had published my stories out of my desk. Even to this day I remember the cover. It showed a woman, with long blond hair, tied to a tree, her dress torn with one strap falling over her shoulder, her breast nearly exposed, with terror in her eyes. In the lower left hand corner of the cover, in big bold letters was written: “Zelda Mahler’s Latest Story.”

  My father never read the story. He glanced at the cover and handed the magazine back to me, obviously shocked and embarrassed. He was quiet for a very long time, and I was prepared for the expected storm to break. But instead, he sat back down at his desk and motioned for me to sit back down in the chair.

  He sat there, chewing on a nail, staring off into the distance. Quietly, sadly, and without looking at me, he said, more to himself it seemed than to me, “It’s a new world, this America, and I still don’t know how to live in it. Is this normal? Is this what modern times are all about? I wish I knew. I wish I knew.”

  I didn’t know what to say. He spoke so softly that I wasn’t even sure that he was talking to me so I just sat there foolishly, waiting to be excused.

  Finally, he looked up at me. “Ruthie,” he said quietly, “I have not been a proper father for you. I work too much. How could this be? My daughter writing trash like this! I feel so terrible. I work too many hours. I don’t spend enough time with you. I don’t watch you; I don’t tell you what to do. I have not been a proper father. Now I have to make a change. Now I must be a father. Now I have to take control. Ruthie, from this time on, I will be your father. I will make a change right now. This will not go on.”

  He stood in front of me, staring down. I had never seen him so angry. “I cannot have my daughter writing such stories in my house!’ he shouted. “Is this what they teach you in school? Is this why I work so hard to give you everything you want?

  “Don’t you worry,” he snarled, now only inches from my face, “I will tell your Mr. Jacobson a thing or two. Paying a young, innocent girl to do this? What kind of a man is he? Are there no longer morals in this world? Modern times, HA!

  “And you, Ruthie,” he continued as he ripped off his glasses, “you will never write another story. NEVER! You will study and learn a skill and get a job and be someone, but you will not write another story! Not good stories, not bad stories, not any stories. I will watch you very closely. Listen to me, Ruthie. You will not write any more stories. Promise me that!”

  I sat silently, cowering, not sure what to say. “Promise me!” he shouted, slamming his hand on his desk.

  “I promise,” I said meekly.

  “What?” he shouted, “I didn’t hear you. What do you promise?”

  “I promise I won’t write any more stories.”

  “Now go to your room!”

  __________

  I sat at my desk shaking, my heart pounding rapidly. I had never spoken to Ruthie like that. I had lost control. They had told me when she was born and I was so frightened, that being a father would come naturally. But it hadn’t been natural for me. Was I justified? Had I been too harsh? I was her father, after all, and a father must speak up when it is necessary.

  But how could I know how a father should behave when I had no father to learn from? My father had disappeared. Disappeared. I don’t even remember him. Nothing. And my mother? She had hardly been able to keep her head above water. She certainly had never spoken to me like that; she had never prohibited me from doing anything. And believe me, I did many things that I’m sure were not acceptable to her.

  “A father,” I said out loud to myself. “A father. Everyone had a father. Everyone! But not me.”

  Sure, there had been Judge Heimlich—he was the closest thing I ever had to a father, but he wasn’t my father, and it’s not the same thing.

  I sat there for some time thinking about how Judge Heimlich had saved me. What was that all about? I wondered. Why had the judge been so nice? Why had he saved my ass? And, more to the point, what’s my end of the deal?

  The judge had told me that first day, “Don’t fuck up, you might not get a second chance.” But I had fucked up, lots of times, and I had always gotten a second chance and sometimes even a third.

  “This is America,” I said to myself, “getting a second chance is what it’s all about.

  “Second chances,” I snarled at myself, “the judge gave me a second chance, but I didn’t give Ruthie a second chance.

  “I gave her everything a girl could want,” I said aloud to the empty room. “A nice home, a warm bed, beautiful clothing, whatever she wanted I gave her—I never said no to anything. And yet, when push came to shove, when it really mattered, I didn’t give her a second chance.”

  The gnawing insecurity that had been a part of my life for so long, and that I had been able to bury somewhere deep in my unconscious, returned. I had thought—hoped—that it was gone, that I was finally free of it, but now it was back. I knew who I wanted to be, but I wasn’t sure who I was. Once again, one step forward, two steps back.

  I had done the wrong thing: acted impulsively. Now I would have to find a way to undo the damage. “Don’t fuck up,” the judge had said.

  But I had.

  Chapter 8

  My grandfather was waiting for me in the hallway as I ran to my bedroom.

&nbs
p; “Not now, Zayde,” I said through my tears, “leave me alone.”

  “You remember what Hillel said?” he asked as he caught me by the arm. “‘If not now, when?’”

  I tried to spin out of his grasp, but he was holding me tight—forcefully, perhaps too forcefully—it hurt. Reluctantly, I followed him into his room.

  “Sit,” he commanded.

  I sat, tentatively, on the edge of the chair that I had sat on so many times, listening to my grandfather’s stories. This time it didn’t feel the same. I was no longer a child; my father had taken care of that with his punishment. My fantasies were gone. Instantly. But now I sensed a new urgency in my grandfather’s voice. He must have heard what my father had said.

  He went to his usual chair, took off his glasses, cleaned them, and squinted through them at me. “I want to tell you about Rabbi Nachman of Bratislava,” he began. “He was the grandson, you know, of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Chasidism.”

  I sighed a sad, lonely sigh. “I’m very upset now, Zayde,” I said, hoping he’d understand, “I can’t talk or even listen. My father said that I am not allowed to write any more stories, and, if I don’t write my stories, I will just go crazy!”

  “Yes, I heard,” he said gravely. “That is both unfortunate and unfair, but you are his daughter, and you must obey. That’s why what I am about to tell you about Rabbi Nachman is so important. So take a deep breath, wipe your eyes, and listen.”

  “Rabbi Nachman of Bratislava,” he continued, “preached a religious philosophy called Hisbodedus which encouraged people to speak to God in normal conversation. He said that you could speak with God in an intimate, informal manner as you would with a best friend, and that you should do it while you’re in a private setting like a closed room.

  “The thing about hisbodedus, is that you can pour out your heart to God in your own language, in your own words. You can tell Him all your thoughts, feelings, problems, and frustrations. Nothing, according to Rabbi Nachman, is too mundane or unacceptable for discussion, so you, Ruthie, can definitely tell God about your stories, and you don’t have to promise anything in return. And if you are angry, you can use Rabbi Nachman’s silent scream. You shout loudly in a ‘small, still voice.’ Anyone can do this. Just imagine the sound of such a scream in your mind. Depict the shout in your imagination exactly as it would sound. Keep this up until you are literally screaming with this soundless ‘small, still voice.’ This is actually a scream and not mere imagination. Rabbi Nachman said that just as your lungs bring the sound to your lips, your emotions bring it to the brain. When you do this, you are actually shouting inside your brain.

  “So now, right here, while you feel so strongly about your situation, you should talk to God. Shout, scream, curse, whatever you need to do. I’m going to go for my walk before dinner. You sit here and talk to God.”

  “But I feel stupid talking to God,” I replied.

  “You know, that’s exactly what Rabbi Nachman’s students said too, so he told them a story.”

  Ruthie smiled to herself in spite of her sadness. With her grandfather, there was always a story.

  “Once there was a prince who imagined that he was a turkey. He undressed, sat naked under the table, and refused all food, allowing nothing to pass his lips except a few oats. His father, the king, brought all the physicians to cure him, but they were of no use.

  “Finally, a wise man came to the king and said, ‘I pledge to cure him.’ The wise man promptly proceeded to undress and sat under the table next to the prince, pecking at oats, which he gobbled up. The prince asked him, ‘Who are you and what are you doing here?’ The wise man said, ‘Who are YOU and what are YOU doing here?’ The prince replied, ‘I am a turkey.’ To which the wise man responded, ‘I am a turkey, too.’ So the two turkeys sat together until they became accustomed to one another.

  “Seeing this, the wise man signaled to the king to fetch him a shirt. Putting on the shirt, he said to the prince, ‘Do you really think that a turkey may not wear a shirt? Indeed, he may, and that does not make him any less of a turkey.’ The prince was much taken by these words and also agreed to wear a shirt. At length, the wise man signaled to be brought a pair of trousers. Putting them on, he said to the prince, ‘Do you really think that a turkey is forbidden to wear trousers? Even with his trousers on, he is perfectly capable of being a proper turkey.’ The prince acknowledged this as well, and he too put on a pair of trousers, and it was not long before he had put on the rest of his clothes at the wise man’s direction.

  “Following this, the wise man asked to be served human food from the table. He took and ate, and said to the prince, ‘Do you really think that a turkey is forbidden to eat good food? One may eat all manner of good things and still be a proper turkey.’ The prince listened to him on this too, and began eating like a human being.

  “Seeing this, the wise man addressed the prince, ‘Do you really think that a turkey is condemned to sit under the table? That isn’t necessarily so—a turkey also walks around any place it wants and no one objects.’ And the prince thought this through and accepted the wise man’s opinion. Once he got up and walked about like a human being, he also began behaving like a complete human being.”

  My grandfather looked over the top of his glasses at me. “That’s the end of the story,” he said gently. “See, it wasn’t that long. So now, Ruthie, let me ask you a question. Do you think the prince really thought that he was a turkey?”

  I looked blankly at him. “I, I think so.”

  “What if being different wasn’t so bad and that the problem wasn’t with the prince, but it was with the father instead? Look at the story like this: the prince was doing things that his father didn’t understand. In order to convince the father that his son wasn’t crazy, the wise man had to behave just like the son. And once the father was convinced that his son was indeed a complete human being, just like the wise man, he was able to accept his son’s unusual behavior. The wise man had to convince the father that his son wasn’t so crazy, not the other way around.”

  We sat quietly for a moment longer, as my grandfather hoped that his oblique message would sink in.

  “It’s OK to be different,” he said gently, “just like the turkey prince and just like Rabbi Nachman’s disciples who spoke to God. So now, as I said, you speak to God, and I’m going for my walk. Talk to Him. He’ll give you good advice, or maybe He won’t. But you will feel better. When I come back, we’ll see what we should do.”

  I sat in the semi-dark of my grandfather’s room reasoning about what had just happened. It wasn’t the fact that I was being punished that bothered me; I had been punished lots of times. But this was worse, much worse. My stories were my life, and my father had made me promise him that I would never, ever write another story.

  I felt that I had reached the end of my world—the end of my dreams. I was not yet sixteen. I had been filled with ebullient optimism only an hour earlier, and now I was stopped, and I was angry. But what could I do? There was only darkness ahead; my dreams were dead. I took a deep breath, and in my head I screamed the loudest, angriest, brightest-red scream I could imagine. And then I did it again.

  And then there was quiet.

  And then I knew, somewhere deep in my psyche, that my life wasn’t over, and that there would be new and even better opportunities. Was that God talking to me? Or my own rationality? I now knew that I would find a way to continue writing my stories. It wasn’t just faith, it was confidence. We would find a way, God and me. The future wasn’t as dark as it had seemed just a few moments earlier. We would find a way!

  And I knew that my stories would get better and better, and eventually they and I would make my father proud. If only I had a place to start—some sort of opening. Suddenly I understood the challenge: I had to write better stories. Stories that would not just entertain but would actually change people’s lives. Was that God still tal
king to me?

  And then I knew: this wasn’t the end of my world at all—it was the dawn of maturity. A gift from God?

  Who knows.

  __________

  Mein Liebe Rivka,

  Ruthie was asleep in the chair when I returned. I stood for some time, in the stillness of my room, looking at her, reluctant to disturb her. I was reminded once again how much she looks like you. I had loved to look at you while you were asleep. Sometimes, I would wake in the night and light the lamp and just watch you breathe. She smiles in her sleep, just like you.

  In those days we never spoke about love, but I loved you, and I am sorry now that I never told you, even when you were dying.

  I wish you were here to help me, but now I am here alone, and now I must do what must be done. That Jack is no better than I am. If Rose hadn’t married him she would have found someone else—someone with some brains, someone with some sense of Yiddishkeit. But he is like Napoleon, and I have to live in his house and obey his rules, and listen to his childish attempts at pretending to be a scholar.

  This is now my chance to show them. This is my chance to help Ruthie separate herself from Jack’s pretentious, smothering materialism. Rivka, I promise you now, just like I promised your father, I am going to make Ruthie into a scholar, just like me. She is going to be my scholar—trained by me, and filled with my knowledge. So what if she is a woman? The world will soon recognize her contribution to Jewish learning, and all the students in all the yeshivas will study her books, her pronouncements, and her treatises. And they will say that she is the granddaughter of Rivka and Ben-Zion Perlman.

  May God protect you and bless you.

  __________

  They had lived an enchanted life in Lomza. My grandfather, Ben-Zion’s father, had been an estate manager with enough money to send my father to the High Yeshiva. If my father had been chosen to be the next Chief Rabbi they would have happily stayed in Lomza. But he hadn’t, and they had to leave because other than studying Torah, my father had no marketable skills. His older brother had been trained almost from birth to take over their family business, but my father had been trained to be the next Chief Rabbi. And he would have been, if things had worked out the way they had planned. But they hadn’t.