Chapter 4

“Is Shmuel here?” Papa, his beard still matted from sweating over a pressing machine at the dress factory, didn’t say hello to me or give my mother the customary Shabbas kiss.

My mother held the lid of the soup pot in mid-air. “He wasn’t with you in shul?”

My father brushed past her to the sink and turned on the rusty faucets full force. He performed the evening’s ceremonial hand-washing, only instead of gently pouring the water over his palms, he hurriedly splashed them and snatched the towel out of my mother’s hands. Still agitated, he swiped the black kippot from his head and took from her the white one, embroidered in blue silk. Through the bedroom door, I saw him change from the tzitzit he wore under his shirt to the matching white and blue tallit, which he wore over it in honour of Shabbas. Unlike Shmuel, Papa didn’t wear payess, but he was meticulous about his ritual garments. Mama washed and ironed them on Thursday night. I think she enjoyed the peace that enveloped Papa when he put them on as much as he did.

Tonight, however, he twisted and churned beneath them. “It’s a shanda! The only reason a future rabbi is permitted to miss services is on account of a grave medical emergency.”

“Were Yaakov and Bernie there? Dev, run and ask if they know where Shmuel is.”

“No! It’s after sundown,” my father said. “We don’t interrupt another family’s Shabbas meal to ask after a boy who’s too forgetful or sinful, God forbid, to honour the commandments.”

A flush spread across Mama’s cheeks. “He could be hurt or lying sick somewhere. I knew he didn’t look well earlier this week.” Knowing my mother, I figured she was imagining the worst.

“Maybe he got locked inside cheder,” I said. My brother was studying to go to yeshiva and sometimes stayed late at religious school. “You know how addlebrained Reb Stern can be.”

“This matter is not your concern, Dev.” My father sat down at the table. “Addlebrained? Where does she get these words?” He frowned at my mother, who remained standing.

“Can’t we wait a minute? Maybe Shmuel’s on his way, God willing, all in one piece and with a good reason.” My mother wrung the towel she’d given my father to dry his hands.

Papa jabbed his finger at her chair, then mine. I sat down right away but she went into the bedroom. When he followed and closed the door behind them, I ran to the window, hoping to see Shmuel hurrying down the block. All I saw was Mr. Geary stumbling out of Paddy’s, where the electric sign flashed “Pure lager, beer, ales, and porter.” Every Friday, while Jews celebrated the arrival of the Shabbas bride, our Catholic neighbours sat in the saloon drinking.

I wondered if Shmuel really could be sick someplace. He’d been acting strange lately. We used to whisper well into the night after our parents went to bed. I slept on the foldout couch and he spread a pallet next to the stove, which he fed during the winter to keep the apartment warm. He never failed to ask about Mrs. O’Brien’s special words, but a few days ago he just crawled under his blankets and turned away from me. I had to start the conversation myself.

“How’s tricks?” I asked, showing off my latest lingo.

Shmuel pretended to snore.

“Guess what today’s word was.”

“I’m sure I’ll hear you use it eventually.”

“Contrarian. Do you know what it means?”

“Yes.”

“Why are you being it?”

“I’m tired, Dev. We did two study sessions on the Mishnah today and my brain has no room for English vocabulary.”

“You’re being chiselly!” That was another new slang word. A fast eighth-grade boy had said it to Bridget when she refused to smile at him. I was betting that my brother hadn’t heard it before. “It means unpleasant or disagreeable.”

Shmuel sat up and flicked his right payess over his shoulder, a gesture that meant I was annoying him. Now we were getting somewhere.

“Want to know what I did today? I made Leah hide with me behind St. Anne’s until a nun brought out the garbage. Then I scooped out a wad of bacon grease. I heard that if you smear it on roller skates, they go faster.”

“If Papa ever found out ...”

“I didn’t eat it, ignoramus. It was a justifiable experiment in search of a scientific truth.” Again my brother didn’t ask. So I told him. “You should have seen me flying down Delancey. I almost knocked over the potatoes outside Kestlebaum’s produce stand. It was out of sight!”

“Stop acting like a lunachick, Dev. Don’t you know there’s a war going on?” My brother lay back down, rolled over, and soon he was snoring for real.

After staring at the empty street for a couple of minutes, I tiptoed across the kitchen and put my ear against the bedroom door. My father had stopped ranting about Shmuel and my mother was murmuring. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but Papa chuckled and then they were quiet. I pictured my father giving my mother the kiss he’d failed to deliver when he got home.

Before they came out, I laid a patch to the stove and pretended I’d been stirring the soup the whole time. Papa looked at me funny. Quizzically was a good word to describe it. The three of us took our places at the table. My mother, preparing to light the candles, draped a scarf over her head, then took it off, looked to my father for approval, and offered it to me. I put it on, lit the candles, circled my hands three times over the flames, and covered my eyes before reciting the brucha. My father nodded at me, raised his cup of wine to make kiddush and then said motzie over the challah.

It was time for the blessing. Shmuel’s empty chair sat there like a child’s missing tooth. My father stretched his right hand across his chest and placed it on the dark curls I inherited from his family. I bowed my head, but the words he said, while ancient, were not those given to Shmuel each week. He was told he would have strength of character and be a leader highly regarded by our people. I was told, “Now you are a woman like Sarah, Rivka, Ruchel, and Leah. Marry well and may your children be as numerous as the stars in the heavens and the sands on the shore.”

So that’s what my mother had said to divert his rage from my brother. I was embarrassed and angry, yet my father’s words were sweeter than wine. I wondered if getting my period would have been enough to earn his attention, or if he’d blessed me only because Shmuel wasn’t there. Maybe becoming a woman wasn’t so bad. For a moment, I was glad my brother was missing.

“Dear God,” I silently prayed, “forgive me for not worrying about Shmuel, but is it sinful to want the same blessing our ancient forefather, the first Avram, passed down from You?”

I swallowed a spoonful of the steaming chicken soup as though tasting something new and strange. The golden liquid satisfied a multitude of hungers. How could I ever think I needed more?