ON MONDAY, I HAD to get dressed up in a shirt and tie, my good blue slacks, and a sports jacket. My grandfather inspected me, making me walk around the room twice. Finally he removed one tiny piece of lint from the jacket, and we went downstairs.
Grace was sitting at the table, eating a slice of toast in fast angry bites. “Hiya, Gracie old girl,” I said, patting her head, acting a lot cooler than I felt. The night before, I’d stayed awake for a long time, staring at the snowflakes that never fell, and imagining how it would be to have an extra name.
Now Grace shrugged my hand off. “Amanda Belinda Smith,” she reminded me.
“Oh, right, right,” I said. “I forgot.” I shook some cereal into my bowl, and Grandpa’s. A petal from a vase of daisies on the table fell into my orange juice. Celia’s flowers were all over the house. Celia herself was leaning against the wall in a kind of coma. She’d spent most of Sunday that way, when she wasn’t on the phone with her friends.
I went to the refrigerator for the milk, and there were even flowers in there, drooping over the shelves. I put a rose behind one of my ears, and another between my teeth, and I danced to the table with the milk. I didn’t know why I was horsing around like that.
“Infant,” Celia said, coming back to life. She picked up her books and turned to Ma, who was standing at the sink, drinking coffee. Ma was wearing a hat, but she didn’t have her shoes on yet. Celia said, “Why can’t Grace and I go to the synagogue with you?”
“I’ve told you that we’re not making a big production out of this, Celia,” Ma said. “And I don’t want you or Grace to lose any more time from school.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s fair that he gets another day off,” Celia said. But when I sat down to eat, she leaned over me and whispered, “I’m really glad you’re doing it, bonehead,” and left.
After Grace was gone, too, Ma put her shoes on, and she and Grandpa and I drove to the synagogue. It was a gray, cloudy day. Ma parked the car, and we went into the building through a side entrance. We passed the office, where someone was typing. Down the hall, the nursery school was in session, and I could hear a piano, and the high voices of the children singing.
Grandpa knocked on the door to the library, and Rabbi Stein opened it. “Shalom,” he said, and we all answered “Shalom” and went in. He told us to sit down while he rounded up a few witnesses.
It was a pretty ordinary room, and the lousy weather didn’t improve it any. I thought of the main sanctuary with its high, carved ceilings and its stained-glass windows, and how the sun had poured in on my bar-mitzvah day. I stood and looked at some books on the shelves, and then out a window. “It’s starting to rain,” I said.
“That’s good luck,” Ma said. She’d probably say the same thing if it was sunny, or if we were having a tornado. She was just trying to make me feel good.
Rabbi Stein came back in with a gang of people. He’d brought his secretary, Mrs. Spalter; one of the nursery-school teachers; three old men I didn’t know; and Mr. Werth, the custodian. Rabbi Stein asked everybody to face east. There was a desk in front of us, with an open book on it, and a tall silver goblet. Even with the door shut, I could still hear the typing, and the children singing.
“Today,” Rabbi Stein said, “we are honoring the memory of our beloved relative and friend Martin Segal in a unique way. His son, Bernard, will accept his father’s name, in Hebrew and in English, as part of his own. Martin Segal’s Hebrew name was Menachem, which means ‘comfort,’ something I hope this small ceremony will impart to all of us.”
Then he raised his hand and held it over my head. “May the One who blessed our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, bless this young man with life and health. May he live to bring honor to the House of Israel, blessing to humanity, and glory to the name of God. Now, in the presence of loved ones, we give to Baruch, known also as Bernard, the additional name of Menachem—Martin. Let it become a name honored and respected for wisdom and good deeds. May God’s blessing rest upon this young man, now and always.”
Rabbi Stein picked up the silver goblet and said a blessing in Hebrew over it, to which everyone responded “Amen.” Then Grandpa, Ma, and I each took a sip from the goblet. The wine was sweet and thick, and yet my throat burned a little when I swallowed it.
“Mazel tov,” Rabbi Stein said, smiling for the first time since we’d arrived.
“Mazel tov, good luck to you,” the others murmured on their way out.
Grandpa squeezed my arm, my mother kissed me, and it was over.
Outside in the parking lot, I realized that I didn’t feel any different. Although I hadn’t exactly expected a miracle, I was disappointed. Maybe it was a dumb idea, after all. Going to the synagogue for the naming didn’t make it more official, either, in spite of what Ma said. And I didn’t even get to take the whole day off. We stopped at home for a snack, and so I could change my clothes, and then Ma drove me to school on her way to work.
I had missed homeroom, math, and phys ed. I bumped into Pete in the corridor, and he said, “Hey, where were you? Jacobs sprung a quickie on us. Can you believe it, so soon after midterms?”
Maybe I should have told Pete about my name. Maybe that would have made it seem more real. But he was gone before I could say anything, and I was headed for science, in the opposite direction.
Mary Ellen was there, wearing a fuzzy yellow sweater. Had I really kissed her on Saturday night?
There were a few minutes left before class started, and I quickly told her where I’d been that morning, and what happened.
She listened the way my grandfather did, with all her attention. When I was finished, she said, “I think it’s great, Bernie. You must feel closer to your dad.”
Did I? And did he know somehow that I had his name? I wished I really believed that, or felt as happy and special as I did the day of my bar mitzvah. “I guess,” I said.
Then Hornberg came in and we took our seats. He began a lecture on nature vs. nurture, about what has the most influence—genes or environment. When he was at the blackboard, with his back to the class, the guy next to me passed me a note from Mary Ellen. It was folded several times, and it took me a few seconds to get it open. All it said was, “Hello, Bernard Martin Segal.”
Seeing it written down like that was a shock that went all through my body. Maybe it was crazy, but at that moment I began to feel changed, to feel the name belonged to me. I remembered the prayers said in the synagogue, and Rabbi Stein’s hand over my head during the blessing. The ceremony seemed more religious to me now, and more important. It was almost as if it was all taking place again, there in the science room with its pink plaster models of human guts, and its stuffed animals and birds, with Hornberg’s chalk squeaking on the board. Maybe it was because my father had been a science teacher that I felt him right there, still loving me, and glad that I had become Martin, too.
I opened my notebook and practiced writing my whole name, the way Ma said she used to practice her married name after she and Daddy got engaged. I wrote, “Bernard Martin Segal. B. Martin Segal. Bernard M. Segal.” And I added a fancy loop at the end, like my father did when he signed my report cards.