The Ninth Day

by Ruth Tenzer Feldman

  I sat up and stretched. “A-apple pie?”

  Gabriel took a strand of hair that had plastered itself to my cheek and guided it back behind my unbandaged ear. “Oh, my, such good apple pie, sweet as sugar. It’s a mnemonic for the dicarboxylic acids. A memory aid.”

  “Eh-every g-good boy duh-serves f-fudge.” I smiled.

  “Yup. Lines on the treble clef. My parents wanted me to play the trumpet—Gabriel blow your horn—they have a weird sense of humor. I took up the cello instead. I still play sometimes.”

  I imagined singing while he bowed the strings. “A-Are you puh-re m-med?”

  “Pharmaceutical research. Like the cure for cancer. I’m a chem major with a minor in biology.”

  We were silent together. He cleared his throat and caressed the front of his organic chemistry book. “My favorite mnemonic is the one for remembering the orbital names for electrons: ‘Sober people don’t find good in killing.’ It sounds like it has to do with politics.”

  “S-sober…what?”

  “Sober people don’t find good in killing. It’s a great line, don’t you think? I wish it were true. Look at Vietnam. Or Mississippi. Or even California. When I…hey, did I say something wrong?”

  Thoughts clunked into place inside my head. Maybe whatever happened at Mainz wasn’t the only reason Avram vowed to kill his son. Maybe he wasn’t sober. Not drunk, but high. Accidentally high. Maybe I’d been playing gin rummy on top of the book that held the answer.

  I shifted toward Gabriel, my hand accidentally landing on his chest. “T-tell m-me about r-rotten r-rye. D-Dagmar s-says eh-LSD is…I m-mean…” What do I mean?

  Gabriel frowned. “You’re not listening to Dagmar, are you? Hope, that night at the party you missed doing some very serious damage to yourself by a few centimeters. LSD can drive you around the bend.”

  Exactly. “Yes! I m-mean, n-n-no. It’s it’s n-not about m-me. C-Can rye m-make you cuh-razy?”

  I put my hand back in my lap and waited. Six beats of silence, while he seemed to be thinking. Then he said, “Have you heard of ergot?”

  I bobbed my chin. Thank you, World Book Encyclopedia.

  “I’m no expert, but the ergot fungus contains a chemical compound that’s linked to lysergic acid.” Gabriel thumped his organic chemistry book. “Comes in handy sometimes. Do you know about Saint Anthony’s fire?”

  “G-gangrene.”

  “Well, yes, that’s the blood vessel part. But I think there is a neurological component. And, um…” Gabriel looked up at a guy who was now standing in front of us. “Hey, Ken. How’s it going?”

  “It’s good. All good. The free speech kids are meeting with CORE at command central. You ought to be there, man.”

  “Now?”

  “Now. We’ve been looking for you.”

  “Ken, this is Hope Friis,” Gabriel said. “Dagmar’s sister.”

  Ken’s eyes widened.

  Gabriel coughed. “But not like Dagmar.”

  The two guys exchanged a look that made me feel embarrassed for my sister, and instantly uneasy sitting so close to Gabriel.

  Ken smiled. “Kenneth Collingswood. Nice to meet you.”

  Go away, Ken. I smiled back and shook his hand.

  As Gabriel got up, Ken said, “You’d better bring your things. It’s gonna be a long meeting.”

  Much as I wanted him to, Gabriel didn’t argue. “Hope, it was great seeing you. Let’s meet again. If you can’t find Dagmar soon, just leave, okay?”

  “Okay.” I watched the two of them navigate their way through the crowd lining the hall. So this is Gabriel, the Hallmark card guy, the kind, sweet guy who is…what? Sleeping with my sister? Sharing her with Ken? No. I stared at the ceiling and imagined Gabriel in the lineup on an episode of “To Tell the Truth.” I was on the celebrity panel, and the TV announcer was saying, “Will the real Gabriel Altman please stand up.”

  And that’s when I could have kicked myself for not asking Gabriel to borrow his organic chemistry book. Crossing my arms over my chest, I tried to remember everything the encyclopedia had said about Saint Anthony’s fire. Which wasn’t much. I needed Gabriel’s book.

  Then a group of kids started to sing:

  Announcements, announcements, announcements.

  A horrible way to die, a horrible way to die,

  A horrible death, to be talked to death

  A horrible way to die.

  Two official-looking kids with FSM armbands had stationed themselves in the middle of the hall. I stopped thinking about the organic chemistry book for a minute. The boy wore a jacket and tie, and the girl had on an A-line skirt and crisp white blouse. Except for their black armbands, they looked exactly like my group of friends.

  The FSM girl held up her hands and asked us to quiet down. She waited until the song was over and the laughter petered out. Then she said, “All members of the administration have left the building and the police have locked all the doors. They are letting people out now, but no one can enter the building.”

  The hall erupted in grumbling and chatter. Dagmar was coming out of the ladies’ room with two other girls. Excellent timing.

  The girl next to me put her hand on my shoulder. “Hey, don’t worry. It’s not like the police are charging up the stairs. We can leave whenever we want to.”

  The FSM leaders held their hands up for silence again. When there was barely a buzz left in the hallway, the FSM guy took off his glasses and rubbed the lenses with his handkerchief. He cleared his throat, rolled his shoulders back, and cleared his throat a second time. “We have it on good authority now that Governor Brown will be taking repressive measures,” he said.

  The hallway splintered into catcalls, boos, and mini-conversations.

  A guy across the corridor from me said, “Repressive? What the hell for? We’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “Idiot,” the girl next to me muttered. “We’re occupying the friggin’ building. We’ve practically stopped the university from functioning. We’re trespassing and damaging property, and violating who knows what else. Of course, the friggin’ governor is pissed. We’re totally out of control.”

  Dagmar was climbing over legs and book bags on her way to me.

  “I need your attention!” The noise level petered to mezzo-piano so the FSM guy could speak. “In light of these developments, the FSM Steering Committee has decided on the following action,” he said. “We urge everyone under the age of eighteen and every non-citizen to leave this building immediately. We urge individuals on probation or parole to leave. We urge women with young children to leave. Those of us who remain should expect to be arrested and sent to prison.”

  “Holy shit,” the girl next to me muttered again. We were in perfect harmony.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Enough. I collected my things and threaded my way to Dagmar. “Let’s g-go! I-I h-have to l-leave.”

  She put her arm around me. “Don’t worry, Hope Springs Eternal. The night is young. Nobody’s going to arrest anybody. Trust me. There’s totally good karma happening.”

  My sister’s karma detection system missed the knot in my stomach. “B-but G-Gabriel s-said….”

  “He’s a sweetie, don’t you think? Too repressed, but I’m working on him. Tell you what. Let’s sit by the stairs. At the first sign of trouble, we’ll go.”

  I rubbed my forehead. If I left Sproul Hall, the police wouldn’t let me back inside. I’d lose any chance of finding Gabriel, his organic chemistry book, and maybe more about Saint Anthony’s fire. But if I stayed in Sproul and the police arrested me, Mr. Zegarelli was bound to find out. Even if the police didn’t come, how could I reach Serakh to tell her about the rotten rye? No way would she appear in a blue flash in front of hundreds of kids in a crowded building. Or would she?

  By
the time we got to the stairs, Dagmar had sold dreidels to a history professor and two of his teaching assistants. We settled in a place I imagined had been recently vacated by a seventeen-year-old, pot-smoking, paroled non-citizen with young children. The guy next to Dagmar offered us a couple of Tootsie rolls. He and Dagmar got to talking—no surprise—while I leaned against the wall, sucked on the gooey chocolate caramel, and weighed my options. Maybe this was where I was supposed to be. Maybe the knowledge I’d get from Gabriel was precisely what we needed for Avram.

  Plus the longer I stayed, the more money we made. Did I have enough for the music festival to leave now? Maybe I could stay with my cousins in Portland instead of at the hotel with the rest of the chorus. But then I’d have to get involved with family stuff, and they’d ask me a ton of questions. I’d have to talk. A lot.

  I felt a tap on my shoulder.

  “We missed the Charlie Chaplin movie,” Dagmar said. “But there’s going to be a Hanukkah service downstairs. The perfect sales opportunity.”

  She had a point. The police wouldn’t raid a religious service, would they? And Gabriel might be there, since he was Jewish. One last activity and then I was leaving. Definitely. With or without Dagmar.

  The service had already started. No Gabriel. Dozens of kids were gathered around a guy somebody said was a teaching assistant named Michael. He lit the candles on the kind of simple rectangular menorah that Mom sold to parents to send to their kids in college. I imagined Dad lighting the lion menorah for Grandpa. He would have, if Grandpa wanted him to, just like the way he took Grandpa to services so Grandpa could hear me sing.

  Michael chanted the blessings on key and retold the Hanukkah story, making it sound like the Maccabees would have occupied Sproul Hall, too, in the name of liberty and justice.

  “Hanukkah is the affirmation of the struggle for freedom,” he said.

  And that made sense. Gabriel would have approved.

  Someone belted out the first measures of “Artza Alinu,” an Israeli song I barely understood, but with a dynamite beat. Dagmar grabbed my hand and reached for another girl with the other. We sang and danced down the hall and clapped and stomped our feet, until my palms were sweaty and the room felt like a sauna. After being cooped up for hours, the exercise felt great.

  The dance line finally broke apart, and kids started singing “HaTikvah,” Israel’s unofficial national anthem.

  Dagmar draped her arm over my shoulder. “They’re playing your song,” she said, way louder than she should. A guy looked at us.

  “HaTikvah is my sister’s song.” Dagmar told him. “HaTikvah means ‘the hope,’ and my sister’s real name is Tikvah. She calls herself Hope.” Dagmar conveniently didn’t mention the Miriam part, or that Tikvah was only my Hebrew name. “She was born on the very same day Israel became a state. Think of the karma!”

  The guy looked at me like I was a piece of living history. “That’s wild. Do you go to Cal?”

  I bit my lip.

  “Tikvah is a junior at Berkeley High, but I’m a freshman here.” Dagmar pressed the palm of her hand into her cleavage by way of formal introduction. “Dagmar Friis. Our father teaches in the physics department. We’re half Danish. You know the Danes saved tons of Jews from the concentration camps. That’s why our mother fell in love with him, even though he’s Lutheran.”

  She made it sound like we were part Holocaust survivors, part pastry. I was looking for an escape route, when a girl with an FSM armband interrupted us.

  “We have more snacks on the second and fourth floors,” she announced. “There’s a lecture in Room 410 on Gandhi and nonviolence, and a fresh supply of toilet paper in the bathrooms.”

  Dagmar stood on a chair and waved to the group. “We still have a few of our special, hand-painted freedom dreidels left. Make this a Hanukkah to remember. It’s for a worthy cause.”

  Warmth flooded my cheeks. Still, we made six more sales in the next three minutes.

  “I-I’m g-going home,” I told Dagmar.

  “Oh, it’s much too late for that,” she said, reneging on her promise not to argue when I said I wanted to leave. Nothing new there. “Dad wouldn’t want us wandering around this late. Besides, it’s a long walk home. Relax. We’re perfectly safe here. It’s like a pajama party.” She held up the bag of money. “Plus we’re making a mint. And you can go to school right from here. The nurse’s room has toothpaste and you can brush with your fingers.”

  Dagmar would know.

  “Tell you what,” she continued, drowning me in words. “You take a nap here while I check out what’s happening. I’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Oh, and here’s a key to Mr. Nash’s office.”

  “What!”

  “I borrowed a key from the secretary’s desk. No big deal. In case there was trouble. Which is why I’m giving it to you, because I dragged you here, right?”

  She beamed. “I watch out for you, Hopey-Dope. Always have. Always will.”

  And she walked away.

  I clutched the key and watched Dagmar sidle up to the guy she’d told the Tikvah story to. She slid her arm around his waist, and she didn’t look back.

  I stood there, feeling like an idiot, deciding what to do. There’d be scads of people outside Sproul, including the police and reporters. What if someone took a picture of me, and Mr. Zegarelli saw it? But then, I had a quiet office to myself right here in Sproul. A safe place?

  I started up the stairs. Just as I reached the third floor, someone yelled, “The cops are inside! They’re starting on the fourth floor.”

  The hall exploded with noise. Shouts, songs, curses, prayers. Kids scrambling to leave, kids linking arms, determined to stay. I shoved and bumped my way to Mr. Nash’s office. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Heart pounding, I stood in front of Mr. Nash’s door. Nobody seemed to notice me. I put the key in the lock, leaned against the door, and then I was in. I locked the door behind me.

  I walked to the window, the light from campus guiding my steps along the carpeting. I had to act fast, before the police found me. I flung my coat and purse on a chair, pulled my prayer shawl from my book bag, and whispered Serakh’s name.

  Nothing.

  “C-come,” I commanded.

  Nothing.

  “Puh-lease.”

  I paced in front of the window. She’d always popped up out of nowhere before. How was I supposed to reach her? What was I doing wrong?

  Someone knocked. The doorknob turned slightly and caught in the lock. I heard a man say, “I’m tellin’ you I heard voices, Charlie. Get somebody up here with a master key. If these wackos get into the business files, there’s gonna be hell to pay.”

  My shoulders twitched. My neck throbbed. If they opened the door, should I hide behind my prayer shawl and mumble in Hebrew? I could pretend I was praying. Would they let me go?

  Someone pounded on the door. “Open up. Police.”

  I pulled the prayer shawl over my head and grabbed all four corners and closed my eyes. “For the baby’s sake, come,” I whispered.

  I heard the man say, “No, I swear I heard something inside. Have you got a shiv? I’m gonna jimmy the lock….So? We’ll tell ‘em the wackos did it.”

  And then a familiar voice behind me. “How wise that you have brought your garment of fringes.”

  Relief nearly bowled me over. I flung the shawl over my shoulders and reached for the blue thread. Serakh rushed to my side. As I closed my eyes again, I heard the lock click and a man’s voice. “Holy Mother of God, Charlie! Did you see that?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “I have to see Avram,” I told Serakh, as soon as my head cleared and I could stand on my own. Muddy slush seeped through my penny loafers. Paris slush. I shivered in what felt like early morning air.

  I took the dreidel I’d saved for Grandpa out of my pocket. “There’s this guy I
know who’s studying organic chemistry, and he told me a mnemonic for orbital something-or-others. ‘Sober people don’t find good in killing.’ So I thought, Bingo! That’s it. Avram thought he saw a vision, but he was really sick from a rye fungus. The kind of sick where your brain gets scrambled. Maybe I’m totally wrong, but if I show him this dreidel and talk to him I might be able to find out.”

  Serakh cocked her head and cleared her throat.

  I must have sounded like Chatty Cathy. “What I mean is, I think I know what’s wrong with Avram.”

  “You wish to go to the bakery?”

  “Absolutely. And spend as much time with Avram there as we can.”

  “Then we shall get dough from Dolcette’s kitchen.”

  The door was open. Serakh didn’t bother to knock. The kitchen smell of oatmeal and yeast. Celeste was stirring something in the cauldron.

  “Good morning,” Serakh said.

  Celeste nearly dropped the wooden ladle in the fire. “Good morning,” she replied, polite but wary. “Tante Rose is at the market, buying a goose for Rav Judah and Madame Miriam.”

  “Is Dolcette’s mother here?” I asked.

  “She is expected on the morrow. May I serve you a goblet of cider?”

  “You are indeed kind,” Serakh said, walking toward the wooden table. She looked at me and then at the table. I followed her focus. A large ball of dough peeked out from under a damp cloth. “But we are on our way to the market as well. May we ease your tasks by bringing this loaf to the master’s oven?”

  Serakh didn’t have to ask again. Celeste, it seemed, trusted us that much. Or she wanted us out of the house. Either way, we left for the bakery with the bread-to-be.

  Shmuel presided over the oven, but I could see Avram bent over a book of leather-bound parchment in the back of the bakery. He seemed to be stroking the parchment, studying it with an intensity that reminded me of Dagmar when she’d come home still out of it, rubbing a square of velvet. A flashback?