When Mom prepared her Romanian chorba soup, she made a point of inviting the Syrian girls from upstairs, Sima, Rocha, and Yaffa, because she knew how much they loved it. Besides, it’s not expensive to make, only vegetables. Sima was a very pretty girl, but she thought she was ugly because of the large burn scar on her neck from a Primus stove that had been thrown on her by mistake when she was crying too much as a baby. The burning Primus did not calm down the crying baby, but it did leave her with a large, meaty scar on her neck. Sima believed that no one would ever want to marry her when she grew up because of that scar on her neck, and Yosefa used to reassure her by saying that it’s all nonsense, and it’s not beauty that matters, but character. I asked my sister if she really believed that someone would marry Sima, and she said no.
“So why do you lie to her?” I asked, angry. “You know how Dad hates it when we lie.”
“I’m not lying. I just don’t want her to be sad,” my sister replied.
I went and snitched to my father that Fila was lying to Sima and telling her that someone was certainly going to want to marry her although she knows that it wasn’t true, and my dad told me that there are lies that can be told to make people feel good.
That week, our school principal, Dror, who used to beat all the kids, even those who didn’t deserve to be beaten, painful, ringing slaps to the face, caught me and two boys and called us to his room to interrogate us as to whether we had been keeping watch by the classroom door when Itzik was peeing into the teacher’s desk drawer. One of the boys said he knew nothing about it and straight away got two ringing clouts around the head. The second boy owned up to standing watch and received four ringing clouts, and his parents were called for a hearing. I stood before the cruel principal’s florid face, knowing that my dad got very angry at adults who beat little children, even when they are school principals or teachers; besides, that teacher deserved to have Itzik pee in her drawer because she was forever insulting him and telling him that in his house “they’re a bunch of primitives who eat with their hands.” And when the principal asked me if I had stood watch at the door, I said that I was playing catch outside with Braha, Ahuva, and Adina at the time. I lied so as to do myself good, just as Dad had explained to me, and I knew that Braha, Ahuva, and Adina would never tell on me because they were more afraid of me than of Principal Dror.
“Are you sure?” asked Principal Dror.
“I’m sure,” I answered him in a firm voice, and lowered my eyes as I had been taught by my sister, since grown-ups don’t like children looking them straight in the eye. It undermines their self-confidence. “The teacher can ask them himself.” I was careful to use the right grammar, so as not to be on the receiving end of a slap on the face for not speaking correctly. He didn’t hit me. I expect his hand was sore from already having dealt six clouts.
I rushed home and told Dad that I had lied to Principal Dror so as to avoid a beating and he kissed my cheek and said, “Good girl.”
On Saturday evening when Yosefa went with Sima to Baruch’s falafel stand, she shared her half portion with her friend; one bite for her, one bite for Sima, a bite for her, a bite for Sima, until they came home, when she lied to Mom in Romanian and promised that she had eaten the entire half portion by herself, no sharing.
Since Dad allowed me to lie in order to do people good, I also lied to Shmuel, my sister’s friend Shoshi’s brother. My sister had a lot of friends, and I had my sister; that was enough for me. Following her friend Chaya’s departure to America with all her dolls, and after we had moved to downtown Haifa next to the Turkish market, Yosefa had made friends with Shoshi and visited her at home whenever she wasn’t reading, because at Shoshi’s place she was allowed to sew purses.
Shoshi’s mother sewed bridal gowns, and since they lived in a tiny one-room apartment that housed four people and a table that served as Shoshi’s workshop and took up half the room, Shoshi and my sister played under the table. They took the remnants of the white fabric and used them to sew purses. She didn’t let me come with her to Shoshi’s because there wasn’t enough room under the table; but as compensation, she brought me one of the white purses she had made, which I filled with buttons, because I had no money.
But Mom and Dad forced my sister to take me with her to her class evenings, because I was little, and Shoshi’s parents forced Shoshi to take Shmuel, her older brother, to her class evenings because he was retarded.
And so Shmuel and I would sit on the fence alone on class evenings that weren’t even ours, while my sister and her friends whispered among themselves, each choosing the boy she wanted, and we discussed the meaning of life, which we painted in all sorts of colors.
“Swear you won’t tell anyone,” Shmuel would say to me.
“I swear.” I always swore on my sister, my mother, and my dead grandmother. I refused to swear on my father because I could never be sure I wouldn’t break my vow.
“I know you’re not going to believe me, but when I grow up I want to get married and have two children, a boy and a girl.”
“Why shouldn’t I believe you?” I asked.
“Because I’m retarded,” Shmuel replied.
“You’re not retarded. You’re just a bit slow,” I told him, because that is what Dad had said about Shmuel, that he was slow. My dad also told me that Shoshi’s parents had been in a forced labor camp in Romania and had managed to escape, but the Germans shot at them and hit Shoshi’s mother in the leg; she was pregnant with Shmuel and fell down in a pool of blood. Her husband was able to drag her away, and that is why Shmuel was born a little slow. When the time came for Shmuel to go to school—my dad told me, and I always remembered all his stories—the authorities told them he could only be admitted to a religious boarding school. Shmuel’s parents loved him very much, but they didn’t love God very much, so they sent him to a school for retarded children for half a day, and Shoshi had to watch over him in the afternoons.
“Do you ever want to get married?” Shmuel asked me, and I told him that I had to because I had a dowry.
“What kind of a dowry do you have?” Shmuel asked, and I told him that I didn’t know, sheets, maybe, and towels.
“My sister’s friend Tova already has a refrigerator,” I added.
“And what do you want to be when you grow up?” Shmuel asked me.
“I want to be wise, like my sister,” I replied.
“Is being wise a profession?” he asked.
“It’s a lot of professions. Wisdom gives you the chance to choose.” I told him. “And what do you want to be when you grow up?”
“I want to be a gardener,” Shmuel told me, and I said that gardening is a lovely job, being responsible for the earth.
“Rina, stop swinging your legs on the fence,” my sister shouted at me, “you’ll fall off and then they’ll have to sew up your bum.”
“Is Rina a name from the Bible?” Shmuel asked.
“Sure. In the Bible it means ‘joy,’ but in Ladino it means ‘queen.’ That’s why my dad called me Rina. Because I’m his queen.”
“And I am their prophet,” said Shmuel, who may have been slow, but he knew that he was named for the biblical prophet Samuel.
“I am certain you’ll get married and have two children,” I lied to Shmuel, to do him good. Because he was slow, I wasn’t sure he’d be able to get married, but I was certain that he could be a gardener, so I didn’t really feel that I was lying to him.