The Poison Tree

by Henry I. Schvey

  After losing the set, Dad turned to me with clenched teeth and said, “You make me sick. Absolutely sick.”

  I smiled, a combination of defiance and shame, and took my tennis racket with two hands like a baseball bat and slammed a tennis ball as far as I could, far over the fence.

  “Now get both balls you hit over the fence, go to the car, and don't ever show your face on this court again. You’re finished, mister.”

  Before he said it, however, I’d already decided never to play tennis again.

  Not long after that, it was time to begin preparation for that sober and inevitable rite of passage nearly every Jewish child must undergo on his thirteenth birthday: the bar mitzvah. For my parents, as for most of their contemporaries, the bar mitzvah itself did not involve either intellectual demands or religious observance. I was to celebrate my special day with little effort at Rodeph Sholem, the gorgeous, austere synagogue on 83rd and Central Park West where we “belonged.” With a minimum effort, my coming of age would be celebrated with a lavish party, primarily for all my father’s business associates. In return, a substantial amount of cash and U.S. Savings Bonds would be deposited in a savings account in the Chase Manhattan Bank. I wouldn’t be able to spend any of the money, however; although it would be “mine” in the sense that it would be put in the bank accruing interest for college.

  On Saturday mornings for the past several years at Rodeph Sholem, I had been instructed in the art of sculpting dreidels out of clay and learning to fry latkes without getting scalded by spattering oil. I had been spared learning Hebrew or anything much about the Old Testament, other than a few Bible stories and the memorization of five of the Ten Commandments for Mr. Brilliant. We memorized five, and then at the next class, we were told a quiet, shy boy named Eisenberg (who sat by himself at the back of the classroom) had died of leukemia. The previous class, I had seen Eisenberg sitting by himself, quietly sobbing, and wondered why. That very next week, we were informed of his death. The week after that, Mr. Brilliant suffered a nervous breakdown and never returned to the class.

  My mother ordered expensive invitations from Tiffany’s, booked the Sherry-Netherlands Hotel for the party, hired an exclusive caterer—and then, out of the blue, I decided to spoil everything.

  I had learned from Ephraim (whose parents were deeply religious) that there was another kind of bar mitzvah; it involved learning Hebrew, singing, and chanting something called a Haftarah portion. I told my parents that I wanted to learn Hebrew, and that I wanted to be bar mitzvahed as a Conservative Jew, not according to Reform Judaism, which was less onerous, assimilated to American traditions, and (in those days) didn’t involve learning Hebrew. This, however, would mean having my ceremony at a different synagogue.

  “I have absolutely no idea where he got this crap,” my father shouted when I floated the idea. “You can be damn sure it wasn’t from me.”

  “Why are you accusing me?” my mother shot back. “My brothers weren’t even bar mitzvahed since there wasn’t even a temple in Philipsburg where we grew up. And anyone can see how they turned out!”

  Her statement floated in the air for a moment like a rather large bubble waiting to be pricked. “Yes … they can,” my father said, deftly inserting a pin.

  “Very funny, Norman,” Mom said, but there was even a hint of a smile. I almost thought she enjoyed my father’s joke at her brothers’ expense, since for once it was delivered without excessive malice.

  However incomprehensible it might be, it was difficult for my parents to refuse a whim as harmless and idiotic as my insistence on a more rigorous training in Hebrew. Until that time, my only exposure to Jewish ritual were the High Holy Days at Rodoph Sholem with my father and the bleak, humorless Passover Seder conducted annually by Grandpa Schvey, punctuated by cruel sarcasm (and in a perfectly exaggerated accent) on the weight and density of Grandma’s matzoh balls.

  “Knives and forks ve’ll need for dis soup, Birdie. Spoons you better can save for de tziken,” provided the only brief moments of levity at the dark, gloomy Seder held annually at my grandparents’.

  Perversely, I imagined bar mitzvah lessons as a form of escape from the dreaded High Holy Days with my father, where, imprisoned in my uniform of navy blue suit, starched white shirt, and silver tie, I sat immobilized for hours wearing a tallis and yarmulke. The incomprehensible letters on the Hebrew side of the page transformed themselves into weird Jewish devils with heads of rams, cloven hooves, and pointy tails. I sat beside my father, who never opened his mouth, refusing to join in reciting prayers with the rest of the congregation, let alone sing the traditional songs, but jabbed me repeatedly, insisting I do both.

  I decided that my father was present for only one reason: to ensure I never moved for an entire day. I rose when bidden, muttered meaningless prayers in stilted verse, sat, stood, sat, and stood again. If I so much as adjusted the fringe on my tallis, I received a withering glance. Thankfully, this only occurred a few times each year. But the anticipation, especially knowing my every movement would be monitored, filled me with dread.

  Since I was prohibited movement of any kind, sitting in the sanctuary did force a kind of communion with things divine, and I prayed fervently for the end of services, either by unlikely natural disaster, or for the Rabbi to be stricken down, a regrettable but necessary means of liberation. As the congregation rose as one, I imagined Rabbi Plotnick with his neatly groomed salt-and-pepper beard and fixed, benign smile, clutching at his breast and collapsing on the Bimah. I imagined I heard the majestic sound of the shofar, with hundreds rushing to his aid, and I would sneak out the back and spend the rest of the day playing ball with my friends. In the midst of this pleasant reverie, however, my father would give me a stare which reminded me that he would certainly not rush to Rabbi Plotnick’s aid, and would make sure I kept my seat while a yarmulke and tallis-clad EMS team arrived on the scene.

  Each year, these visits to temple were filled with anxiety, beginning with the inspection of my shoes, suit, and hair. The friction of my tie being yanked back and forth under my collar, the button-down shirt so tightly buttoned against my throat that I gagged, the veins in my neck throbbing like tiny beating hearts—these were the sounds and images I associated with the High Holy Days. So, it was odd that I chose a more rigorous form of observance that might actually force me to learn something. However, I was inspired by a naïve but genuine sense of rebellion against what I considered a meaningless, stupid ritual, which neither of my parents actually believed in, but forced me to undertake for my own good. Plus, it was something I thought I could get away with.

  After months of trying to teach me the meaning of the words I was required to chant at my bar mitzvah, Cantor Vogel gave up on me. Realizing I would never progress fast enough to actually comprehend my Torah portion in Hebrew, he decided to make a phonograph recording of my Haftarah, so I could simply memorize the words and melodies, instead of having to learn what they meant. This shortcut was necessitated because of the self-destructive turn my childish rebellion had taken.

  At our first tutoring session, I noticed that Cantor Vogel’s mouth came to a small but definitive point in the middle of his upper lip, and somehow this led me to the conclusion that the secret behind his beautiful voice was that the old man actually was a bird. He fluttered his liquid blue eyes, opened his mouth, and warbled ancient melodies that left us both transported. Sadly, after we had drifted back to earth, he returned to face a young man with a poor voice and no aptitude whatsoever for learning Hebrew.

  “Boychick,” the Cantor mused one day, “if we make it by June for your bar mitzvah, this will be my masterpiece; more likely though, my Masada. What’s that—you got ants in your pants, Hennik Itzhak? Never before in all my life have I seen a youngster so restless. Never.”

  Cantor Vogel called me by my Hebrew name as a motivational tool; however, except for the times when his lips parted and he began to sing the blessings to me, my concentration was non-existent. When the Cantor
sang, his tiny apartment, filled with plastic lawn furniture, dissolved into a world of ancient tapestries and Torahs decorated with silver. But when he stopped singing, the boiled cabbage smell returned, and I was back on 118th Street and Riverside Drive, sitting on mismatched chairs at a table of grasshopper-green Formica.

  When I woke on the ill-fated Saturday of my bar mitzvah, I felt my gorge rise from nervousness and swamp me immediately. I put on my navy suit and silver tie, but my father insisted on “inspection” before leaving for the synagogue. I had chosen the wrong shoes and was returned to my room. Holding one of the offending shoes aloft like Mr. Wizard conducting a science experiment, my father observed, “Only someone from your mother’s side of the family could have chosen these shoes to wear to his own bar mitzvah.”

  I think my father may have been secretly pleased about my decision to follow a more onerous path to getting bar mitzvahed. He showed his support that day by announcing that he was going to prepare breakfast for the family, something unprecedented. Oatmeal with heavy cream, brown sugar and raisins, orange juice, toast and butter were all brought out to the table in steady waves. I, of course, felt so nervous I could not imagine opening my mouth, let alone swallowing. Nevertheless, we sat down to breakfast as a family for the only time I can ever remember. As we ate, I spotted a cockroach in the corner. Although my parents fought about nearly everything, their most violent arguments were about the cleanliness of the house.

  The cockroach was a particularly ominous sign. I decided that he was merely waiting for us to finish breakfast so he could take over and have his own meal. I prayed my father wouldn’t see it, as it would have instantaneously begun another fight between my parents. Bobby had made his bed and dressed himself. He was importunately calling to Dad to come in and acknowledge that he had mastered knotting his own tie. He knew he had, but he needed my father’s approval.

  “Shaddup, you brat!” Dad shouted as he brought out another plate of curled Wonder Bread toast, soggy with butter. Bobby, who by now had given up waiting for Dad to come to him to supervise the tying of his tie, stuffed his shirt into his pants and ran into the kitchen to show Dad, stumbling headlong onto the kitchen floor.

  “Get up and eat your toast, Bobby,” I said yanking him off the ground. Since he loved to eat, I was trying to fob off as much of my food as possible on him. The more he ate, the less I was responsible for.

  “Why, what’s wrong with it?” he asked suspiciously. Since my story about the Fuzzie family living in the wall above his bed, he understood the depths of my deviousness and cruelty. I was well on my way to becoming my father’s son.

  “Nothing. Dad made a lot. Just eat as much as you can.”

  “Mom, did Henry spit on the toast again?”

  “What a terrible thought! Besides, it’s his bar mitzvah.” I supposed she meant that on a normal day, spitting on the toast would have been at least plausible.

  “Wow!” Bobby observed, now distracted by something else.

  “Yes, isn’t it wonderful?” Mom said, observing the platter of toast my father produced from the kitchen with apparently more on the way.

  “No—not that. That!”

  “What is it, dear?” said Mom in her happy sing-song voice.

  “I’ve never seen one that big before, have you, Henry?”

  “What?”

  “That cock-a-roach—it’s huge!”

  “Shut up, you stupid idiot!” I said between tightly shut teeth.

  Dad entered with yet another plate of toast, raising his orange juice in a toast. “Look, Henry has become a man!”

  “Not yet! He still has to recite his Haftarah,” Bobby said. “He won’t be a man for a few hours yet, and maybe someth—”

  “Shaddup,” Dad shouted, before adding, “All right, everybody eat up, we have to leave soon. Bobby, that’s enough toast for you.” Then turning to my mother without lowering his voice, he continued, “Jesus, that kid’s a fresser; the spitting image of Leon.”

  “That was quite uncalled for, Norman. The child heard you. Look—now he’s crying! Is that what you want? Besides, Dr. Anfanger said it’s baby fat, and he’ll grow out of it. You know that.” Bobby was whimpering in a corner, now compulsively devouring buttered toast in between sobs.

  “Aw, just kidding, Bob,” Dad said to mollify the situation. “How about some Cream of Wheat? We still have time, I think.”

  “I only eat Cream of Wheat when I’m sick! Everybody knows that!” Bobby clumped heavily back to his room and slammed the door.

  “Jesus Christ, Robert. Stop that crying, Robert or … I’ll give you a real reason to cry.”

  As I chewed yet another piece of the toast, I felt a rush of something hot in my neck, surging up into my glands. I was about to throw up. I knew the risks involved, and I had to act decisively. I also couldn’t allow myself to ruin my new Best & Co. suit on the way to the synagogue. With everyone else momentarily out of the room, I took the soggy, masticated ball of toast from my mouth and tossed a thick wad behind the radiator. I imagined the roach scurrying under the radiator to get the toast, thus killing off two problems with one wad of toast. Then I threw another piece over the radiator. And another.

  Rabbi Epstein conducted the beginning of the service with terse formality. I sat in a pew with my family, desperately wanting to peek over my shoulder to see who had decided to come to witness my disgrace, but Epstein’s rabbinical scowl made that impossible. Finally, it was time for me to rise and step up to the bimah to recite my Haftarah. The synagogue was now full. Besides my grandparents and Uncle Lee, all my high school friends were nudging one another, making jokes, pointing and laughing. Cantor Vogel was there, too, obviously terrified and chewing his bottom lip.

  I sang the short prayers without difficulty, having memorized them with the help of Cantor Vogel’s record. I then realized that since no one was actually listening, it didn’t matter what I sang. If I performed with confidence, I could have been singing my favorite hit, Del Shannon’s “Runaway,” in my patented falsetto to the congregation. People seemed to believe I knew what I was chanting. I scanned the sanctuary from the bimah, and realized that perhaps only a dozen or so temple “lifers” realized how inept I was. Armed with this revelation, I sang as never before, although I noticed Rabbi Epstein tearing at his tallis with his thumb and forefinger like a gunslinger preparing to spring a gun from his holster.

  At the end of the service my Grandma and Grandpa Schvey came forward. Grandpa, who never seemed to know precisely who I was or acknowledge that I might actually be related to him, stood up. He gave me the most painful pinch on both cheeks I have, or ever expect to receive; a pinch so hard it made my eyes water. I can almost feel the pain of that pinch today.

  I caught Cantor Vogel’s eye as he left the synagogue and ran up to him.

  “Well, boychick, you sure pulled one over on me. Who knew you could sing so good?”

  “Not me, Cantor Vogel. But I was taught by a master,” I said. “But do you think they noticed all the mistakes I made in my Haftarah?”

  “Only Rabbi Epstein, boychickel, only the Rabbi,” he said, licking his pointy upper lip with his tongue. “But that might be enough for Epstein to scratch at my hemorrhoids for the next 120 years.” I didn’t understand this, but it was delivered with great earnestness, and I nodded.

  Cantor Vogel smiled at Rabbi Epstein, who glared back at us as though he was considering litigation for perpetrating this hoax upon the congregation.

  “Don’t worry, Hennik Itzhak,” he said. “He’ll get over it someday. I hope. Now go, have a good time. You earned it, and I earned at least a month in Miami Beach.”

  “But you’re coming to the reception, aren’t you?”

  “Well, boychick, I can’t ride on Shabbat, so maybe I’d better take a skip. The synagogue is way up here on 87th, and your party at the Sherry-Netherlands is all the way down on 59th. That’s a long way to walk.” Then he kissed me on the top of the head, and covered my right hand with bot
h of his. “Mazel Tov, Hennik Itzhak, I’m very happy. Who knew you’d teach me something?”

  “I taught you?”

  “Of course, you taught me never to judge by first impressions.” Then he paused and continued. “Today I learned even a schlimazel once in a Purim can get lucky and shoot his peepee straight into the toilet. This I learned from you today, young man.”

  I allowed this praise to wash over me, and then said, “Thank you, Cantor Vogel. But I do hope you can come to the reception.”

  In the car, I celebrated becoming a man by announcing I was not attending my own reception at the Sherry-Netherlands. After a brief but meaningful silence, my father pulled the Oldsmobile 88 against the curb.

  “Let me get this straight,” he said, shifting his weight against the vinyl front seat and turning ominously, “What exactly did you say?”

  “The boy’s tired, Norman,” Mom said, anxiously. “And don’t forget how well he did. All that Hebrew!”

  “I don’t give a shit about Hebrew or his bar mitzvah; I always said he was a Lerner through and through, and this proves it. You’re going to the party, and you’re going to have a good time, you goddam son of a bitch!”

  “But Cantor Vogel told me he can’t come; he can’t ride in a car on the Sabbath, and—”

  “Why can’t he ride in a car?” asked Bobby, puzzled. “Everyone can ride in a car; maybe he’s too old to drive, but he can ride in one.”

  “It’s against his religion, Bobby dear,” Mom answered sympathetically.

  “I thought Cantor Vogel was Jewish? Isn’t he Jewish?” Bobby asked solemnly.

  “Yes dear, he is. But there are different kinds of Jews, and some of them have strange practices. There are Reform Jews like us, Conservative ones like your brother, and even Orth—”