The Ninth Day

by Ruth Tenzer Feldman

  Dad met me there, his face haggard, his eyes dull. “Thank the Lord you found her.”

  I nodded and stepped out of the way to let Gabriel and Dagmar come in together. “This is unacceptable behavior,” Dad told Dagmar. “Where have you been?”

  Gabriel cleared his throat. “Let me explain, Professor Friis.”

  I hurried away. I’d done one more item on the list. Bring home sister? Check. That hollow feeling continued to eat at me. I wandered downstairs.

  Serakh was sitting on my bed.

  I leaned against the doorway and shook my head. “I don’t have any answers. I’m sorry. I can’t. Today isn’t a good day.”

  In three beats she was by my side. I buried my face in her neck. Sobs erupted from all that nothingness. Tears. Finally.

  ”Oh, my sweet Hope. Oh, my dear friend. Ephraim was a good soul, and he loved you with his whole heart.” Serakh stroked my hair and let me cry and cry until my insides felt scraped out, empty, and raw.

  When I was done, she took both my hands in hers. “You can do no more for him now,” she said softly. “But there are others who need your help. There is a baby whose life depends on you.”

  I shuddered. “Yes, I know.”

  ”Whenever you are ready, I will meet you in Ephraim’s room. In an hour or a day. No longer than a day. I wish I could leave you to grieve in peace and to come again as you are healing. But I cannot.”

  I thought about telling Serakh that my grandfather had forbidden me from wearing my grandmother’s prayer shawl. I thought about asking her what she did with my grandmother that so frightened him. Instead I said, “I understand.”

  She kissed my forehead, and I turned away from the flash.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Dad and Dagmar were still arguing, their muffled voices raining down through the stairwell. I wasn’t surprised when the front door slammed and I peeked through the window to see Dagmar running down our walk. The car we came home in was gone, so Gabriel and his friend must have left.

  With Serakh gone, Sylvester reappeared and butted his head against my hand. I gave him a half-hearted scratch behind his ears. Not even he could ease the icy ache inside. Finally I managed to change out of my school clothes and into my good white blouse and black slacks. That felt right. Then I remembered Grandma Miriam’s album. I stretched out on my bed with a box of tissues.

  The maroon leather binding was worn around the edges, but I could still see “Double-J Printers” embossed in silver in the lower right hand corner of the cover. A faintly sweet smell rose from the first page, a luncheon invitation for March 4, 1917, to celebrate the inauguration of Jeannette Rankin as the first woman elected to Congress. A couple of pages later, I found the 1920 program for a “Ratification Ragtime Ball,” when the Nineteenth Amendment went into effect and women got the right to vote.

  I turned page after page, pieces of other people’s lives. My favorite, the one I wanted to show Gabriel and his friends at CORE, was an invitation to a barbecue in 1947 to honor Jackie Robinson for taking the field with the Brooklyn Dodgers and breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball.

  My family history was there, too. Birth announcements and wedding announcements for my mom and her two brothers. Birth announcements for Josh and Dagmar, and my cousins. Nothing about me, since I didn’t come into this world until after Grandma Miriam left it.

  I ran my finger over a pale blue ribbon on the yellowed birth announcement for my Uncle Paul, Grandma’s firstborn. She must have loved him so much—and Grandpa, too. They were a family. What would Grandma have done if she were in Dolcette’s place? Or in mine? Suppose she knew about the link between ergot and LSD? And she had doses? How far would she go to keep a loving family together?

  No! Don’t even think that! I snapped the album shut and hugged it to my chest. The lilies on my Monet poster sparkled and danced. I blinked. The lilies went back to normal. Muted and still. A trick of the light, I told myself. Or a warning about tricking someone into blowing their mind.

  Later, Dad and I shared the cheese omelet he’d made. “Josh is flying up from LA tonight after class,” Dad said, his hand reaching for a legal-sized yellow notepad and a ballpoint pen he’d brought to the kitchen table. “He’ll find his own way home. Your mom will be home tomorrow evening. Rabbi Cohen is available for funeral services Sunday morning at the temple.” A weary sigh escaped. He folded his napkin in quarters. “I wish Jews weren’t so set on burying their dead as quickly as possible.”

  What did Lutherans do? I didn’t bother to ask.

  ”The rabbi called with his condolences,” Dad continued. “He’d like us to go to Friday night services tonight. I told him maybe. Mrs. Nash is organizing food and whatever else needs doing.”

  Dad’s whole face seemed to sag. “There’s your grandfather’s family from Portland. Five of them are coming so far, maybe more. And your mother’s great-uncle Albert.” He shook his head. “I don’t know where we are going to put everyone. Maybe some of them will stay at your Uncle Paul’s house in San Francisco.”

  Honesty bubbled up inside me. “I w-w-wish they wouldn’t c-c-come.”

  ”Me too,” he admitted, taking off his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry to put the burden on you, but would you mind cleaning up Grandpa’s room in case someone stays there? After the company leaves, his room will be yours if you want it. Dagmar can keep the room downstairs. You’ve put up with your sister long enough.”

  My room? I rubbed my forehead. I’d never had a room to myself.

  The damn phone rang again.

  ”Friis residence,” Dad said. Then, “Yes, operator, I’ll accept the call.” He closed his eyes. “Rachel, honey, where are you?”

  I left my parents to their private conversation.

  Focus on the linens, I told myself, as I stripped Grandpa’s bed. It’s just a bed. I opened the window, letting in fresh air. How long would this room smell like my grandfather?

  I managed to clear off the papers on his desk and put his slippers back in the closet. No way could I disturb the bits of his life he’d left on the top of his dresser: a saucer of coins, a pill bottle of digitalis for his heart, a nail clipper, last Sunday’s crossword puzzle—nearly finished—and a small framed picture of my grandmother.

  I opened the top drawer of his dresser and touched two of Grandpa’s treasures—Grandma’s faded yellow suffrage bow and the VOTE FOR JUSTICE postcard he’d helped Grandma print in Portland. I wondered what my outspoken grandmother would have thought of having me as her namesake. Inspoken me.

  Making space for someone else’s clothes in my grandfather’s dresser was completely out of the question. It was too soon to admit I could shuffle his things without asking him first.

  Leona’s mother showed up at about 4:30 with a chicken and rice casserole, her twelve-cup coffeemaker, a pint of half-and-half, and three dozen butter cookies. Dad was in the den on the phone, so I had to answer the door. She held me and murmured all the right things about my grandfather. I nodded in appropriate places. “Leona has ballet class,” she said. “Otherwise she’d be over here with me. She’s so terribly sorry, you know that.”

  I nodded again.

  Dad appeared. “Sheila,” he said, extending his hand, “thank you for coming.”

  Mrs. Nash took Dad’s hand in both of hers. “It’s the least I can do, Henry. Harvey and I offer our deepest condolences. May Ephraim’s memory be a blessing. Have you been in touch with Rachel?”

  ”She’s coming home tomorrow. The funeral is Sunday at ten o’clock at the temple. Then we’ll sit shivah on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, possibly the whole seven days. I’ll see what Rachel wants.”

  Seven nights of people and prayers. Crap.

  Mrs. Nash dipped her chin several times in sympathy. “You’ll be at services tonight?”

  I bit my lip and w
illed my father to make an excuse for us. If Mom were here, we’d go to support her, but under the circumstances, couldn’t we be alone for one night?

  ”It’s the right thing to do,” he said. “Miriam Hope and I will be there.”

  I went downstairs. And threw up.

  The Sixth Day

  Paris

  1 Tevet 4860

  Anno Domini 1099, festival eve and feast day for Saint Adélaïde of Burgundy

  Sunset, Thursday, December 15–Sunset, Friday, December 16

  Berkeley

  30 Kislev 5725

  Sunset, Friday, December 4, 1964–Sunset, Saturday, December 5, 1964

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Everyone but Rabbi Cohen’s son, Matthew, looked at Dad and me when the rabbi announced, “Ephraim Jacobowitz was called to his eternal rest today.” Murmurs of sympathy filled the sanctuary.

  I focused on eight-year-old Matthew. He sat on the side of the sanctuary in a world of his own, clutching some sort of solider doll and silently mouthing, “Bam! Bam!”

  The rabbi droned on about the week’s Torah portion—how Joseph told Pharaoh that Pharaoh’s dream was about good and bad harvests, and how Joseph acted to save the people from famine. He connected that story to James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner.

  ”Like Joseph and these young men, brutally killed in Mississippi last summer, we must act for a better society. It is not for us to finish the work, but neither can we turn away. The prophet Zechariah reminds us in his dream about a golden candelabra, ‘Not by might, not by power, but by My spirit,’ says the Lord of Hosts. As you look upon your Hanukkah lights, remember that when you seek justice you walk in the spirit of the Lord. And let us say…”

  ”Amen,” I said.

  Matthew mouthed, “Zap! Bang!”

  After services, I left Dad to deal with the brunt of condolences and I joined Matthew in the corner with a slice of challah and a glass of grape juice. He showed me his doll, which he called G.I. Joe. “My uncle had to order him from New York City,” Matthew explained. “He’s not a doll like Barbie. He’s America’s first movable fighting man. See, he has a big scar on his face.”

  I nodded. G.I. Joe and I had something in common.

  The light was on in the living room when Dad drove up to the house. Josh? Uncle Paul and his brood? I had an urge to sleep in the car. Not one more person. My mouth felt dry, and a lump of lead grew in my chest.

  The lump melted when I saw Gabriel open the front door. He smiled at me, a soft, sympathetic smile, with no sparkle to his eyes, and he shook hands with Dad. We three stood together on the front porch.

  ”Dagmar is downstairs sleeping,” Gabriel said. “She’s had a hard day. I know you all have. I didn’t want to leave her alone, in case…well, she’s sleeping it off actually. But she should be fine in the morning.”

  Dad’s shoulders slumped. “I see you make a habit of rescuing my daughters.”

  I bit my lip. No way was I one of a pair. I wasn’t anything like Dagmar.

  ”Just trying to help out. Your son Josh called with his flight information. Under the circumstances, Dagmar volunteered me to go pick him up from Oakland later, if that makes sense to you.”

  Dad looked relieved. He thanked Gabriel, invited him to stay a while, announced he still had arrangements to make, and headed inside for the den.

  Gabriel put his hand on my shoulder as we walked to the living room. “How were services?”

  I shrugged.

  He waited.

  ”Awful,” I whispered.

  Seven candles waited in the menorah. I’d forgotten to light them earlier.

  ”There’s leftover fudge in the kitchen,” Gabriel said. “Dagmar got a sudden craving for fudge, and I bought a pound. It was the only way I could get her to come home. How about we light the candles and eat some?”

  ”N-no. It’s too l-late.”

  ”Every good boy deserves fudge, Hope,” he said, reminding me of the hours we’d spent together at Sproul.

  I shrugged. His voice was gentle, comforting, the kind of voice that made me wish he’d never leave. “Hey, maybe it’ll make you feel better. Give yourself a break. I’ll sing the Hanukkah blessings with you, if you don’t mind listening to me squawk.”

  ”B-baritones d-don’t squawk,” I informed him.

  ”You haven’t heard this one.”

  Gabriel was pretty much on target about his singing ability—and in awe of mine. We shared a cube of pistachio chocolate fudge and watched colored wax decorate the lion’s back. I said even less than usual, but Gabriel didn’t seem to mind. He didn’t say much either.

  When he got ready to go, I mangled a thank you. “It gets easier,” he said, his face only inches from mine. “But not for a long time. Don’t rush it. I lost my mother four years ago, and I still get a cramp in my gut whenever I meet a woman wearing Mom’s Shalimar perfume.”

  I started to say something, but he touched his finger to my lips and shook his head. “Hey, let’s not talk about it,” he said, his voice husky. He took a breath. “Go easy on yourself, Miriam Hope Friis.”

  Still, as I watched Gabriel walk away, I counted my failures. I shouldn’t have trusted Dagmar with money I needed for the music festival. I shouldn’t have refused to sing Psalm 150 when Grandpa asked me. As much as I wanted Gabriel, I didn’t have the guts to compete with Dagmar. And, worst of all, I couldn’t keep Grandpa alive until Mom came home.

  But when Dagmar’s snores woke me about 4:15 Saturday morning, I felt strangely calm. I felt that I had work to do before Mom came home and the world of 1964 smothered me. I put on my slippers, took my prayer shawl to Grandpa’s room and locked the door.

  ”I learned more about Mainz from a history professor,” I told Serakh as I paced, energy seeping into the hollow places. “I understand everything better now.”

  Serakh sat in Grandpa’s chair. “So you have found the answer.”

  ”Wait. No, don’t go that far. Have you heard of Saint Anthony’s fire?”

  Serakh winced. “A terrible affliction. It blackens the hand and foot, and causes terrible pain.”

  ”Remember when I tried that dreidel experiment with Avram in the bakery, and I told you that he probably ate rye bread containing a fungus called ergot? Well, Saint Anthony’s fire is really ergotism, the disease you get from eating this rotten rye. Mostly ergot causes gangrene, but sometimes it affects the nerves in your brain. You get visions. That strain of rye fungus is more common in Germany, north of the Rhine.”

  Serakh arched her eyebrows. “This is why Avram had his vision during his travels?”

  ”Exactly. Remember I told you that the ergot that caused Avram’s hallucination is linked to the chemicals in LSD that blows people’s minds these days.”

  ”Blows the mind?”

  ”It makes people crazy, temporarily anyway.” I touched the bandages by my right ear.

  Sadness spread across her face. “This you know.”

  My face grew hot. “Oh, yes, this I definitely know. You can’t undo LSD once you’ve taken it. I took LSD once by mistake and wound up with forty-seven stitches in my face. There’s no cure, remember I said that? And the doctors told me there’s no way to get it out of your system.”

  Serakh tapped her fingertips and seemed to stare into nothingness. Finally she said, “Perhaps you can cure by adding more.”

  ”What?”

  The finger tapping stopped. “At the time of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, there was a Greek by the name of Hippocrates. He sought to cure an affliction by giving a tiny dose of the poison that caused the affliction.”

  Homeopathy? I shook my head. “There is no way I’m giving Avram a dose of LSD. I thought of that already, and I’m totally against it. It’s wrong. It might make matters worse. It couldn’t undo the first hallucination, and who kn
ows what kind of vision he would have the second time. Plus LSD is totally unpredictable. You can have flashbacks afterward—the visions return, or other ones do. We can’t control what he’d see or how he’d think afterward.”

  Serakh cleared her throat. I waited.

  Finally she said, “But surely you are intertwined with Dolcette because of your knowledge of this potion. Do others use it in this time and place?”

  ”Others beside me?”

  She nodded.

  ”Yes, lots of people do. My sister for instance.”

  I stopped pacing and faced Serakh. “I wouldn’t know what dose to use. Or how long this would take. Avram might have flashbacks later and…and…and I don’t know what. Go crazy. Kill everyone in his family. Walk into the Seine and drown, thinking it’s his bathtub. I could list a gazillion reasons why giving Avram a dose of LSD isn’t a good idea.”

  ”Have you another?”

  ”Another what?”

  ”Another good idea.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “You haven’t heard a word I said. Using LSD on Avram to change his vision is way too risky.”

  Serakh’s hazel eyes sparked with determination. I had to look away.

  “What you mean is that you are frightened of this potion,” she said. “You are more frightened of this potion than Dolcette is about losing her child. She is willing to give up her baby to save his life. What are you willing to do?”

  I shook my head. “Dosing Avram is out of the question.”

  ”Look to your garment of fringes,” Serakh said. ”Tzedek tzedek tirdof. Justice, justice you shall pursue. Dolcette’s mother embroidered those words. She would tell you to take the risk. Your grandmother Miriam wore this garment before you. She would tell you to take the risk. There is justice in showing a man a better way to walk in righteousness, do you not agree? And so you must do this.”

  ”I can’t,” I whispered, managing to face her again.