Chapter 12

My mother sent me to fetch my father. I was almost never alone with him, but now that I had a chance to command his full attention, he was too upset or angry to talk.

“I think Shmuel ran off to the Navy,” I said, waiting for Papa to ask how I knew. He didn’t even look at me, just ploughed ahead toward home. “The poster says you have to be seventeen to join up. Do you think he lied?”

“I think you should leave this to me and your mother,” he said.

When we got back to the house, Onkel Gershon was waiting with Mama, sitting in Papa’s chair. Shmuel’s place setting had finally been cleared away. I wondered which of them had done it.

“You didn’t need to pull your brother away from his work,” my father said to my mother as soon as we walked in. The apartment was still chilly but sweat poured from his brow.

“I’m an accountant,” my uncle said. “Unlike you, I don’t have to work on Sunday.” He leaned back and pointed my father toward Shmuel’s empty chair. My father remained standing.

“He hasn’t shipped out to sea yet. Gershon says they need to train them first.” My mother, hand on her throat, swallowed twice. “All we have to do is find out where they sent him to boot camp and tell the Navy our son is only sixteen. Then they’ll have to let him go.”

“Or lock him up for lying to the government.” My father’s hands had burn marks from the pressing machine that I could have sworn weren’t there when he blessed me two nights ago.

My uncle, seeing the alarm on Mama’s face, patted her wrist. “No one’s going to arrest the boy for wanting to serve his country, Avram.”

My father crossed his arms. “You’re going to stop them, big shot?”

“I have connections.”

“No one cares about a Jewish boy or his patriotism. This country can manage fine without our fighting skills. Better we should study, keep to ourselves, and stay out of trouble.”

“Sometimes we have to make noise outside the community to help ourselves back inside it. Obviously, studying Torah and living in peace with his own kind wasn’t enough for Shmuel.”

“It’s not enough for you Gershon, but it was fine for Shmuel. He would have made a good rabbi.”

“He’ll still make one. We just have to bring him home.” My mother gripped my father’s powerful forearm. “Please, Avram. My brother is a friend of Alderman Samuel Dickstein. If the authorities refuse to look for Shmuel, he’ll slip him a bribe. Gershon says that’s how it’s done.”

My father gritted his teeth. “We don’t have the money to bribe an alderman.”

“I do.” My uncle beckoned my mother back to the table. She stepped halfway there.

“Shmuel is dead,” my father declared. “There’s no one to look for.”

Mama gasped, but Papa commenced to sit shiva, the seven days of mourning. He ripped the lapel on his jacket, took off his shoes, and set them outside the door. Next he went into the bedroom and hung a cloth over the mirror. Mama followed to stop him, but when he told her to leave it, she retreated to the kitchen and stared at the stove. I heard Papa rummaging in the closet, toppling boxes and ripping the butcher paper he and Mama used to wrap precious possessions. When he emerged, he was swathed in a large tallit I’d never before seen. The blue embroidery on the yellowed silk was faded, but the fragile cloth was shot through with pure gold thread.

“Your grandfather’s prayer shawl! I didn’t know you brought it here.” Mama reached out to touch the tightly-wound fringes.

“I was saving it to give to Shmuel on his ordination,” Papa said, brushing past her as he drew the old tallit around him. He sat on a stool, not a chair, to signify that his son’s death had brought him low, and prayed silently. If I’d been permitted to join him, I would have prayed for Shmuel’s safe return, but Papa considered his son dead. The Catholic kids at school talked about their souls in the afterlife, but Jews didn’t believe in that. So what was my father asking of God?

“You need ten men to make a minyan,” my uncle reminded Papa. “You can’t pray alone.”

“God allows exceptions in case of emergencies.” My father turned toward the wall.

“Then you’ll sit shiva alone too. I won’t organize the shul’s chevra kadisha to bring you meals. A burial society serves families of the dead, not the living. Yetta and I won’t visit either until this nonsense stops.” Onkel Gershon looked at my mother. “Meanwhile, you’ll carry on as usual.” Last he stared at me, buttoned his fur-lined coat, and shut the door firmly behind him.

My mother watched him go, her usually busy hands hanging powerless at her sides. I felt powerless too, caught between my parents, my father and my uncle, the changes in my body and the loss of my brother. For the first time since my period began, I felt a gush of blood between my legs. If this was the power of womanhood, I didn’t see what good it could possibly serve.