The Ninth Day

by Ruth Tenzer Feldman

  I looked up at her. “W-what w-worthy cause?”

  ”You,” she said, giving me the wide-eyed Bambi look. “We’re supporting your future singing career.”

  I couldn’t help but grin.

  We worked the crowd, as Josh would say, with Dagmar doing the talking, while I smiled, the mute but talented artist. Six dollars later, we stopped when Joan Baez stepped up to the microphone, strummed a chord on her guitar, and began to sing. She stood in front of an American flag, in a thicket of reporters. Her long straight hair, as dark as Dagmar’s, fell across her turtleneck and sweater. She looked stunning in her dark skirt, black high boots, and fishnet stockings. She treated us to “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and “All My Trials,” and “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” sunlight glinting off the large cross hanging from her neck, and her glorious voice vibrating across Sproul Plaza. Joan Baez was twenty-three, but I bet she had been great at sixteen, too. If I sang half as well as Baez, every music conservatory in the country would want me.

  Josh was right about one thing. When Mario spoke, it would take a stutterer like me to detect the slight hesitation in his voice. Maybe Mario could manage public speaking like I could manage singing. Maybe he didn’t have a brother who used to make him do stuttering interpretations of Porky Pig in front of his friends.

  ”There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part,” Mario said. “You can’t even tacitly take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machines will be prevented from working at all.”

  I wondered if Leona’s father thought he was a gear in the university machinery. Mr. Nash, Number One Cog. After the cheers died down, Mario headed for the front doors of Sproul Hall. Then everyone started to follow him. He could have been the Pied Piper of Hamlin.

  No. That wasn’t it. I felt somehow that what Mario said rang true. Talking wasn’t enough. For me, talking was hardly worth the effort. Sometimes you just have to act. Hundreds and hundreds of people—even some professors—walked toward Sproul Hall. They seemed to be in an almost festive mood, as if they were joining a party inside.

  Baez sang “We Shall Overcome.” She said something about going in with love in our hearts and how we would succeed. Succeed? Was this my fight? I hadn’t thought so when I’d cut school after Choral Music. Now I wasn’t sure. Dagmar and I were swept up in the crowd. And then I was inside the building, and the “we” who were overcoming included me.

  The crush of bodies nearly smothered me. It was impossible to turn around and go out—too many people—but I needed breathing space. “L-let’s f-find Mr. Nash,” I told Dagmar. I unbuttoned my coat. “H-he’s on the third fuh-loor.”

  ”Chatty Cathy’s dad works here? Yeah, right, I forgot.”

  I should have defended Leona, not that Dagmar would have listened. Instead I pictured my friend with a pull-string in her back, and a smiley doll face, and I laughed. “M-maybe he’ll b-buy a duh-reidel.”

  ”Sure, what the hell. I’ll snag a chair in his office and rest awhile.”

  By the time we got upstairs, the third-floor hallway was filled with students sitting on both sides. Most of the offices seemed to be closed and dark, but there was a light coming from under the door for financial aid.

  The older woman behind the front desk glared at Dagmar. “This office is off-limits to protestors. If you don’t leave immediately, I will call campus security.”

  It was my turn to take charge, because Dagmar’s sense of propriety has been on vacation since President Kennedy’s assassination. “W-we c-came to s-see Mr. N-Nash,” I managed to say. “I-I’m fuh-riends w-with his d-daughter.”

  The woman pursed her lips and patted the bun at the base of her neck. “Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? Mr. Nash is through the first door on your left.”

  Mr. Nash came around from behind his desk. “Hope, I see you had the good sense to check in with me. Leona said you might come.” He glanced at my sister. “You two girls aren’t planning to stay much longer, are you?”

  ”As long as it takes,” Dagmar answered before I could get a word in edgewise.

  Mr. Nash gave me the earnest, worried look that Leona inherited. “The Chancellor and the Dean of Students are prepared to call in the police to stop this occupation. Perhaps even the highway patrol. They are consulting with Governor Brown. You really should leave.”

  ”We’re we’re j-just here to s-sell duh-reidels,” I managed, pointing to the bag.

  Mr. Nash arched an eyebrow. “That’s what Leona told me. For the music festival in Portland?”

  ”You’ll buy a dreidel, won’t you…sir?” Dagmar’s voice dripped with sweetness. “They’re only a dollar.”

  Twice the price? Unfair. I bit my lip.

  Before I mustered up the nerve to contradict Dagmar, Mr. Nash handed me a ten-dollar bill. “I’ll take ten,” he told me. “That’s probably all you’d get from the students here this afternoon. I’d leave the building now, before the situation gets out of hand.”

  I mangled two whole sentences thanking him.

  ”Take your sister home,” Mr. Nash told Dagmar. “She’s not even a student here.”

  ”Of course,” Dagmar said in that tone she uses with our parents when she’s about to do the opposite.

  After we left Mr. Nash’s office, I grabbed Dagmar’s arm. “A-a d-dollar each?”

  She beamed. “Why not? He can afford it. The Nashes have two cars and a poodle.”

  I shook my head. There was no winning this argument. “L-let’s go,” I said.

  ”In a little while. Captive audience, remember? Mr. Nash is so wrong about how many kids in Sproul will buy our liberty tops. And he’s in the finance office, can you believe it? Mario’s right. The people running Cal are totally screwed up.”

  Dagmar wanted to drag me up to the fourth floor, but we compromised on selling dreidels from the third floor down, and then leaving. I got four more dollars—less Dagmar’s twenty percent—on the way to the stairs.

  The second floor was just as crowded as the first. There wasn’t an empty space on either side of the hall, except the entrance to the bathrooms. Dagmar waved to a cute guy sitting by a window at our end of the hall. He was eating an apple and reading a textbook on organic chemistry.

  ”Hey, Gabriel,” she shouted. “Look who I have here.”

  He looked up, his eyes an intense blue, his curly brown hair cut short on the sides but left long across his forehead, a scar running from his full, wide mouth to the base of his nose.

  ”Hope!”

  Gabriel’s deep baritone voice gouged a hole in my brain. No! Desperate to stay in control, I forced my eyelids to stay open. As I turned to Dagmar, her head shrank to the size of a tennis ball.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ”What’s wrong? You look like death.” Dagmar’s voice was alarmingly loud coming from such a tiny mouth.

  My own mouth refused to open. Impossibly heavy, my eyelids thunked shut. Red lights flashed. Sirens screamed. That deep baritone voice thrummed in my head. His mouth unzipped, and words flew out. HANG. ON. MIME. GIRL.

  ”No!” My eyes jerked open. I tripped over something. Dagmar caught me in mid-fall. Her head was its regular size.

  ”H-he…I-I…I-I….”

  ”See, I knew you’d recognize him. Gabey-Baby got us to Alta Bates Hospital. He stayed in the emergency room the whole time, I think. Not that I remember all that much, but he was there when Mom and Dad came.”

  I shivered, despite the heat from all those bodies, and shook my head.

  ”Come on. He’s been asking about you for ages. The least you can do is thank him.
He won’t bite.”

  ”Y-your h-head shuh-rank…and then…and…and….”

  ”Just now?”

  I nodded.

  ”Oh, Hopey-Dope, were you scared? Yes?” Dagmar hugged me, a sisterly comfort that felt sincere this time. “They’ll come and go. Relax. Let them happen. If you get uptight, they’ll get worse. Sometimes they’re awesome. Like Alice in Wonderland. Take a deep breath, and let’s go see the man himself and later I’ll take you home, okay?”

  I rubbed the back of my neck.

  Gabriel waved to us and spoke to two guys sitting next to him. They got up and wound their way toward us. “Gabe’s saving those spots for you,” one of them said. “Prime location. Snag them now.”

  Dagmar guided me to him. He closed his organic chemistry book, stuffed his apple core into a brown paper bag, and held out his hand. “Gabriel Altman,” he said. “Pleased to meet you now that your mind is no longer blown. You look great.”

  ”She’s just had a flashback,” Dagmar announced for half of Sproul Hall to hear.

  I covered my burning cheeks with my hands and looked away, but I didn’t dare close my eyes.

  ”Ouch. Hey, I’m really sorry, Hope. Are you okay?”

  I shrugged.

  Dagmar’s voice pierced the air again. “Don’t you give me that look, Mr. Holier than Thou. Acid isn’t any different than pot.”

  I uncovered my face and managed a smile. No need to make a scene. That zigzag scar pulled at his upper lip and flattened one nostril slightly. When my bandages came off, people would gape at my face, too.

  “Cleft palate,” he said. “You should have seen me before surgery.”

  ”I-I d-d-didn’t m-m-mean to stare”.

  ”No worries. It happens all the time. People are curious, that’s all. I’m surprised you’re here. Dagmar didn’t tell me you were into civil rights.”

  ”She’s not.” Dagmar wedged past me to sit next to Gabriel. I thought I saw him frown, but I could have been wrong. Dagmar gets every guy she wants—at least that’s what she tells me.

  ”We’re selling her hand-crafted, miracle-of-freedom, liberty tops to the assorted assembly,” she said. “She’s desperate for money to go to a music festival in Portland where she’ll become famous, win a scholarship to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and live happily ever after.”

  Gabriel leaned across Dagmar, “How much are the tops, Hope?”

  ”Fifty cents each.” Dagmar thrust the bag of dreidels under his nose. “For you, forty.”

  I reached into the bag and gave him one. “F-Free,” I said. It was the least I could do for getting me to the hospital on Halloween. I slipped another dreidel into my skirt pocket to keep for Grandpa. Then I gave Dagmar the let’s-leave look.

  She ignored me. “So, Gabey-Baby, I’ve got selling to do. Hope should stay here with you for a few minutes. I want her to be safe. She might need minding.”

  I gritted my teeth. This wasn’t part of our deal, but I didn’t feel strong enough to go up against Dagmar.

  ”Sure,” he said. He took a deck of cards from the back pocket of his chinos. “I figured the occupation would last a while. Do you play gin rummy?”

  At least I won’t have to talk much. I nodded.

  ”What nice Jewish kid hasn’t learned gin from his—or her—grandparents?” He raised his eyebrows with that I’m-a-member-of-the-tribe look. “A penny a point?”

  I dipped my chin in the affirmative.

  Two games later, I led by thirty-nine cents. Gabriel didn’t say much, and I said even less. His hands were large, with long fingers, perfect for the piano. We used his organic chemistry book as a card table. He didn’t seem like someone who would have been at the Halloween party—he was too straight-looking. Too nice. And clearly he wasn’t into LSD. Finally I got up the nerve to ask, “D-do you…um…are are you p-part of D-Dagmar’s cuh-rowd?”

  Gabriel picked up the ten of spades and put down a five of clubs. “I don’t do drugs, if that’s what you mean,” he said, rearranging his cards. “Except for marijuana, and not much of that. A couple friends from CORE were at the party, and I stopped by to see if they wanted to come to the midnight showing of Psycho. That’s when I found you on the kitchen floor. Someone told me you were Dagmar’s sister, so I took Dagmar with me in the ambulance.”

  I willed myself to focus on the cards and on how my new pantyhose itched. Here and now and nothing else. “c-core?” I knew what it meant, but I had to switch the subject away from Halloween.

  ”Congress of Racial Equality.” Gabriel waved his cards as he spoke. He had two jacks. “The frat boys say it stands for Commune of Radical Eggheads. You know, we’re all communists, right? Standing up for civil rights is un-American—that sort of garbage. You’d think Senator McCarthy was still alive and blacklisting loyal citizens who believe in justice for all. It stinks.”

  His eyebrows crinkled. I gave him my tell-me-more look, my head cocked slightly, my eyes welcoming and lips in a soft smile.

  ”CORE belongs on campus. Jack Weinberg was manning a CORE table on Sproul Plaza when the police arrested him in October. Do you remember that?”

  I nodded. Who could forget the newspaper picture of that lone police car surrounded by hundreds of students? “D-did you speak thuh-en?”

  ”Yup. I took off my shoes and stood on the car roof and had my three minutes to talk to the crowd. Dozens of us did. I lost count after the first twelve hours.”

  I wondered what I would have said if I had the nerve. Here were all these kids speaking up about the right to express their views on campus, and I could barely get a sentence out without feeling ridiculous. Any way you looked at it, it didn’t seem fair. I put down the jack of clubs I was saving and let Gabriel win the game.

  ”Jeez, it’s hot.” Gabriel pulled off his V-neck sweater. Dampness stained the underarms of his shirtsleeves, but he didn’t smell bad. No, not at all. His shirt could have used ironing. He rolled his sweater into a pillow and offered it to me as a backrest. “Want to play another game?”

  ”Okay,” I said. No stutter for a change. I imagined Serakh standing next to me, working her magic on my speech, making it easier to get to know this guy who was sitting so close that I could see the tiny shaving nick on the underside of his chin.

  ”I-I’m not l-like D-Dagmar,” I said, arranging the cards he dealt me.

  ”I see that.”

  I bit my lip. Under-endowed me with my mini-breasts. Is that what he meant?

  ”So was that stuff about the music conservatory true?”

  ”S-sorta.” I waded through that awkward moment when someone expects you to say more, and you don’t. Gabriel didn’t seem to mind. He didn’t talk over me or around me. He didn’t rush to kill the silence.

  A few minutes later, I put my ace of hearts facedown on his book. “G-gin.”

  ”You’re bankrupting me!”

  We shared a Baby Ruth that Gabriel pulled from his bag. I liked the way his hair fell over his forehead when he looked down. His shoes were scuffed. He had tiny ears.

  Dagmar came back with five dollars and fifty cents in dreidel money—so I forgave her for breaking our deal. Not that I felt deserted. She was right. Gabriel made me feel safe. And a little unsafe. Which felt good, too. Very good.

  Someone announced that the FSM kids were sending out for food. Probably pizza. I thought of my dull tuna casseroles and hoped that Grandpa wasn’t upset that I was away. Dagmar had told Dad we’d be out past dinner.

  Gabriel asked us to keep his place while he went to the bathroom.

  ”I gotta pee, too, Hopeless,” Dagmar announced. “Can you hold the fort?”

  She didn’t expect an answer. I put Gabriel’s organic chemistry book on my lap and stretched out next to his book bag. No one bothered me, and the constant noise was almost soothing. I relaxed against my own
book bag, which was filled with my prayer shawl, and finally dared to let my eyes close. What floated in front of my eyelids this time was Mon Trésor, his tiny fist on Dolcette’s breast.

  I looked at my watch. Too late to go to Prof. Cavanaugh’s office. She’d have to be first on my list tomorrow after school.

  Gabriel’s baritone woke me with, “I’ll mind your stuff, if you need to use the ladies’ room. Dagmar’s wandered off again.”

  I brushed my hair in the bathroom, smoothed my blouse, and put on lipstick. As the sky darkened and we played another game of gin, Gabriel told me about his sit-in last March at the Sheraton-Palace Hotel. “There were hundreds of us, like in here, only more comfortable, because we are in the lobby. Eventually the hotel owners agreed to hire blacks on the same basis as whites.”

  He touched my bare arm, just below where I’d rolled up my sleeves. “I figure they’ll arrest us here, too, like they did at the hotel, but it’s not the end of the world, Hope. Don’t let them drag you down the stairs, though. Your rear end will ache for weeks.” His fingers slid along my skin, setting the little hairs there into a frenzy. “I’ll make sure you’re okay.”

  The Fourth Day

  Paris

  28 Kislev 4860

  Anno Domini 1099, festival eve and feast day for Saint Nicasius of Rheims

  Sunset, Tuesday, December 13–Sunset, Wednesday, December 14

  Berkeley

  28 Kislev 5725

  Sunset, Wednesday, December 2, 1964–Sunset, Thursday, December 3, 1964

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  We ate peanut butter sandwiches—no pizza after all—while Gabriel studied his organic chemistry book and highlighted parts of it with these funny, new yellow markers. I looked at the illustrations in his biology book and wondered whether he was in pre-med. Dagmar went on selling sprees—at least that’s what she told us—and always returned with more money.

  I cat-napped against Gabriel’s shoulder and listened to him turn the pages in his book and mumble to himself. At one point I thought I heard him say, “Oh, my, such good apple pie, sweet as sugar.”